New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-11-28
THO BINDS or THANKSGIVING.

TWO HJNUS OF IH1NHObIf1Nu
If we are to keep this yearly festival of
THANKSGIVING solely for the material reasons
on which it was based at first, there is really
no need of any sermons from press and pull
pit this morning. There are few men who,
when they sit down to their turkey and plum
pudding to-day, with plethoric pocket,
heavy bank account and no doctors bill TO
pay, will be so nearly akin to the brutes as
to refuse to recognize III some way the Hand
which hath poured out these blessings upon
them. Even the grim Purltans, VINO TOOK
life as discipline, when they found, In that
first golden Indian Summer, their barns full,
their cabins dry for the Winter. and the red
skins securely out of sight, did not wait for the
Reverend Mr.. HigginsOn to stir their gloomy
souls to gratitude, but broke forth into
hearty hymn of praise, the echoes of which
we hear to-day.
The TRIBUNE need not, therefore, carry
word of exhortation into the myriads of UNI
broken households and happy homes into
which it comes this morning. Not many of
these we believe, Will be so dull as to make
of the day Il feast wholly for the stomach in
stead of for the soul. Sunshine, health, love
and laughter, surely as these make glad our
hearths and hearts to-day, it will he
easy to feel the touch of the loving
Father through them, and still easier to
believe that the Hand which has always
been kind to us will never be unkiDd.
1t is easy, too, for any of us particularly if
our own affairs are in comfortable cast), to see
that any disaster which may have fallen on
our neighbOrs is primarily their own fault.
If they have no Thanksgiving dinner, it is be-
cause they would not work for it; if they
have lost their fortune, we can see where
they have been eXtTavagant; if their children
have died, their drainage or diet was neg
lected. The miSfOrtunes of our friend"
says ROchefoucauld, care a judgment for his
"sins, but our own are discipline for our
"virtues."
There is usually q general summing up of
the events of the year i'll most families to-
day, and good deal of that sort of reason
ing will go on in them. But the man who
suffers-to whom the hymns of praise IN the
churches as he passes by will seem bit
ter mOckery-he is not so clear-sighted. With
his empty purse, or his hungry children about
him, or his dead yonder still and cold, he is
not likely to lay the blame on his own
laziness, or propensity TO gamble in stocks
pipe. He filings his misery straight mp into
Gods face. "Wbat have / DONE" he cries
with Job, "that Thou settest Tbyself against
"me7" He can look back to the petty
troubles OF bis youth and see clearly enough
their mesaings and uses he laughs now at
the disciplnes, the hurts, the hard pulls by
which he was guided and dragged up to man
hood but these great miseries now seem to
him a very different matter it is blind Fate
that is at work with him nOw-nO divine,
omniscient Friend. No Thanksgiving for him
Let THE TRIBUNE remind such a reader
how small space Thanksgiving Day, OF any
day, even tho blacklist and hardest, holds III
the great sweep OF his life. Some time, grown
into more adult life than this, he will look
back calmly on these hurts and penalties, aud
see, as God does now, Why he had need of
these things. Perhaps in that other life they
hold Thanksgiving with us now, not for the
crops and full purse and big dinner which
have fed the body, but for the circum-
stances which have helped the Man
upward The plague which has made
the year terrible to us, may yonder' be
reckoned the happy chance to lift 50
| many souls to wider life, and to show
the heroism and generosity in those who were
left behind. Our very dead that are now
for us but clods of cold, marred. decaying
flesh under the November rains, are strong
| and alive yonder. How can we know the
work, the heroic deeds set now for them to
do9 Even the faint memory of the words
which they spoke here is yet at work IN the
world. Shall we not even over the grave give
thanks to-day not only for food for the body
but for food for the soul, as do they who have
Iof1,n