The New York herald., 1873-11-27
Tha nlxsgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Day.
1t is Thanksgiving Day--the appointed day
for the people of the city. the State and of
the United States, ''for renewed thanksgiving
and acknowledgment to the Almighty Ruler
of the universe Of the unnumbered mercies
which He has bestowed upon u.s." The insti-
tuition was first proclaimed in the constitution
given to the children of Israel by their
divinely appointed leader and teacher, Moses
1t was brought over to Plymouth Rock by the
Puritans of the MayAower, from whom it be-
came firmly rooted in New England. 1t was,
down to our late civil war, limited to the New
England States and few others of the North;
for south of Mason and Dixons line and in all
the slave States it was studiously avoided as
an invention of the Yankee abolitionist, be-
tween whom and the Southern stakeholder
there could be no fraternization in thanks
giving. 1t was reserved for President
Lincoln to enlarge the New England
Thanksgiving Day to the dignity of a
national festival s'with all the modern
improvements - and, as thus established. a
day of family reunions, social enjoyments and
acts of charity to the poor, the destitute and
the suffering, it is, we hope, through the
length and breadth of the land, destined to be
transmitted from generation to generation for
thousand years. Was rsH~q
The President in his proclamation recon-
mending the 9th of November for this year 8
Thanksgiving Day, speaking of the country
lor hot ha xa,l,; ;ob 10
away has been marked by abundant harvests |;
that, with local exceptions, health has been
among the blessings enjoyed; that tranquility
at home and peace with other nations have
prevailed; that industry is regaining its
merited recognition and rewards that gradu-
ally the nation is recovering from the linger-
ing results of q dreadful civil strife, and that
for these and all the other mercies vouch-
safed us as people it becomes us to be CRATE
tu. and with our thenksgiving to unite in
prayers for the cessation Of local and tempo
rary suffering The general state Of things
with us, as thus officially set forth
on the 14th of October last, has been in
some important particulars materially changed
since that day. The cholera and the yellow
fever. which in the cities of Shreveport and
Memphis, and in many other communities in
the Southwest, have left such fearful evidences
of their deadly ravages, have wholly disap-
peared. On the other hand, from the fnan-
cial pressure which, beginning with few
great failures in New York, has extended over
the whole country, thousands Of our industrial
classes, East and West, have been thrown out
OF employment. For large numbers of these
mfortunates, with all that can be done in the
charities Of the day, there will be no Thanks
giving dinner. And again, our late universal
relations of peace with foreign Powers have
been rudely disturbed by provocations and
preparations for war, and we know not what
will be the consequences. Nevertheless, in
our abundant harvests and substantial ele-
ments of prosperity, and in our inexhaustible
resources for peace or war, we have abundant
causes for especial gratitude to the Almighty
Ruler Of the universe on this appointed day
for thanksgiving.
We are gratifed to note the general prepara-
tions and arrangements which have been made
by public officers and private citizens for q
Thanksgiving dinner to the poor and the
destitute of this densely peopled metropolis;
we are gratifed that these arrangements ex-
tend not only to our charitable institutions
and our prisons, but to the naked and the
hungry, the sick and the despairing, in our
streets and pestilential holes and corners.
And here is a field Of duty for our churches
this day, in which it will be more in ac-
cordance with their Divine Masters examples
to labor faithfully than to preach or attend
the preaching Of long sermons from morning
till night. 1t is great thing that our national
Thanksgiving has assumed this beautiful shape
of universal active sympathy for our suffering
fellow men; for it is thus calculated to prove
bond of fellowship and harmony between
classes, sects, parties, races, communities,
States and sections, stronger than the bands
of iron or any merely material interests which
bind these elements to the Union.