The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-11-30

unpleasant, there being drizzling ram nearly
AL daV, though it was pretty mild. As usual,
the day was observed as a grand feast day.
The religious services and entertainments were
fairly attended and generally interesting,
RELIGIOUS SERVICES.
| large praise meeting was held at the CITY
Hall in the morning. at which a nice pro-
| gramme was finely rendered. The Chorus
choir. under the lead of Mr.. W. L. Fitch, led
the singing A collection in aid of the Witows'
Wood Society and Provident Association,
| amounting to $35, was taken.
High street, State street, Free street, and
Willlston churches united in a service at thu
latter church. at IL a. m. at which the pastor.
Rev. Frank E. Clark, delivered an excellent
discourse from Isaiah, xii, s.: ''Sing unto the
Lord; for he hath done excellent things"
The discourse was aimed against the croakers.
We give brief abstract:
The frog elements enters more largely into
our nature than the bird element. Even on
Thanksgiving day the voice of the croaker is
not seldom heard in our land, especially in the
sermon, whose office apparently is often consid-
cred to serve as bitter tonic before the
Thanksgiving dinner. The Thanksgiving day
has yet to arrive when the body polite can bs
pronounced entirely whole and sound What
dreary picture even to-day might be painted
to wbet by way of contrast our appetite for the
cheerful Thanksgiving scene that awaits uS at
bone. III such task be attempte in one
corner of our canvass will be the barren Sand
lot with it's vulgar orator intiaming with incen-
diary and blasphemous speeches, the unkempt
thrOng that gathers around him. We turn to
another part OF our picture and see over wide
sections of our country the pestilepce fieud do
ing his work, and sad year with little of
Thanksgiving in it, we may believe it has been
| for these States. We look at the same section
| Of our country and see moral evil no less
| alarming, disclosed in intimidation of voters
| and ballot box stufiing. Hard times have
been causir g the poor man to know what pow
| erty really means and the rich that there is
| limit to their wealth.
Such picture might be drawn. But yet if
| the cuors were put on 10 just proportion In
| national picture, the glowing would exceed the
| sombre. When we consider the country aud
| the year as whole, the croakers have very lit
| tie to do this year. But even could we not see
unmistakable signs of prosperity to-day this is
not the time or the place to recount aught but
the mercies of the year The Pilgrim Fathers
had apparently little to be thankful for, but
| yet they were Thankful Isaiah lived in the
midst of the sins CT his people, but yet he
occasionally had his THANKSGIVING day. 10
accordance with the spirit of the day let us re-
count the national merces Of the year and cou-
| slider the sure grounds for hopefnlness for our
/ HOpuUAC III tuc luluTcs LII lilo uESb pidC6, tuH
year past has been one of marked and signal
! prosperity in material affairs. Unless the
newspapers are in secret combination to fall
sify the returns from the agricultural and
mining districts. unless business men
are too sanguine when their own pocket books
are affected or lesgued together to mislead the
| unsuspecting man of sermons there has never
been time since the dark days of the panic Of
1878, when with such hopefulness of the future
ID regard to our material prosperity We could
enjoy our Thanksgiving festivities Mr.. Clark
| quoted at length from Mr.. Glsdstone's article
N the recent number of the Northern Ameri-
can Review to show how our material condi-
| ton is regarded across the sea.
Another reason why this should be true
and hearty national thanksgiving day is the
mental activity and progress of the year.
Edison is the outgrowth of tho age and the
| representative OF the year. The fourteenth
sixteenth could not, perhaps no other century
| could save the 10Th and only the latter part Of
that could have given him the tools aad stores
| OF knowledge and accumulation of data
necessary to accomplish his work. The
many inventions AMI Improvements which
enlarge on knowledge, increase our usefulness
| and add to our comforts are legitm ate
objects of coDgratulation and Thanksgiving.
Mr.. Clark also cited the progress made in
| literature as reason for thanksgiving A
still greater cause of oougratulstion lies in our
| moral progress. Never were contributions for
philantbropic purposes greater The danger of
| the last five years was that the p0oc would rise
| in DESPERATION, or the rich Continue in reckless
| extravaganza. Both classes have been
| moderate, aud both dangers have been escaped.
Hard times came, stayed, and are going away.
| A year and half ago the shadow of the
Commune rested on a part of our land, bat
| only its shadow. OF all the nations we have
| least to fear from the Commune. Our national
future rests secure in the common sense of this
people, in the memory OF the stock from which
| we spring, and in the fact that there is no
Il nado in tntn hau
/ every reason to be thankful for the past and
| hopeful for the future.
At the same hour the usual Thanksgiving
| service occurred at tue First Parish church, at
| which Rev. DR.. Hill, the pastor, preached an
l able sermon. The text was taken from
Proverbs, XXX, 80: "Bsauty is vain." The
preacher did not intend to contradiss king
Lemuel's mother or any author of the He
brew proverb, but he did emphaticaly deny
| that this English translation would hold in its
general form. The literal meaning of the
Hebrew was splendor is a vapor, but the COZ
nection and the usage Of the Hebrew tongue
showed that it is the beauty of a woman's face
| that is spoken of, and that the only point in
which it is compared to a vapor is its
| transient duration. 1t is not worthless, it was
| valuable to the woman and to all who saw her,
| but it was perishable value. Still less could
it be said of beauty in general, that it is vain in
| the sense of being worthless. There had been
| much written concerning beauty, in the at
| tempt to distinguish 1t from goodness and
tru.hiulness; and the preacher wonld not at
tempt to give his own theoretical views. which
of course he considered the soundest; but
would only utter his earnest protest against
1 ~ 40 nh; hal Ia hoa, bolJ h,o
| writer's, and were now threatening to become
| popular.
| The first of these false theories which he
mentioned, resolved the sense of beauty into
| the association of ideas, connecting certain
sights and sounds with the early pleasures of
sense The second resolved the sense of beauty
into peculiarly refined pleasure of sense In
opposition to both these the preacher maintain
| ed that whatever the peculiar CHARACTERISTIC of
beauty might be, tbs sense Of beauty was an
Intellectual perception and spiritual spprecia-
| ton of something really existing in the beauti
| full object And this beauty in the obj-ct of
sight or Of hearing was expressive OF different
| shades of emotion, 80 that the genuine artist
i could reproduce through forms, through colors
and through tones, in the souls Of other men.
| the emotions which swelled his own. This fact
DR.. Hill thought he had settled, by hundreds of
| carefully devised experiments, upon scores Ct
1 people. Anu 10 HUI IL WAS al lupOrJauJ l3CI,
If the artist could thus, by reproduction and
combination of natural forms, colors and
sound, express his feelings, utter his heart;
then nature herself is an expression of the feel
! ings of its Creator; and as the world is full of
beauty, it is full of the utterance that God is
| love.
The Hebrew word for beauty, was literally
splpndor, refulgence; and God is light; the
perfection Of beauty. The Greek word for
beauty was literally order; it is the word by
which they express the Universe, Kosmos; the
Universe is the result of light it is order,it is
the incarnation of thought. Our own word
beauty had long lineage, but it was originally
identical with bounty, goodness; and the uni
verse is the gift of Gods bounty. The denial
of beauty, the degradation of it to mere sensual
pleasure, however refined, or to the association
| of ideas with mere sense, was the denial of
God and degradation of man.
In the course of the sermon DR.. Hill illus
trated certain points BY a description of the
| Halleluj al Chorus from Beethoven's Mount of
Olives, and after he had gone into the pulpit
learned that, by happy coincidence, Kotzsch.
| mar had prepared that chorus for closing ar
them, 1t was admirably sung, and gave (as
we'll as four voices and an organ can express
the volume and variety of great choir and
l Orchastra) rnanv VIM wara nraaant their first