The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-11-26
THANKSGIVING.

The conservation of one day in
the year to national recognition of
our dependence on the Great Faith
err of the universe IS q practice in
culcated by the devotion of our Pur-
itan ancestors and sanctified by the
observance Of the fathers of our re-
public. Bitterly as the dissenters
were oppose to the establishment of
a national church, they saw no
breach of holy precept in the rendi-
ton of alteration and gratitude to
the Fountain of all things by the
common consent of whole people:
But we of these latter days differ
from them in thinking that enforc-
ed praise implies no gratitude, and
we now impose no penalty on those
who spend day set apart for this
purpose by the highest earthly au-
thority in such manner as seems
good unto themselves. Therefore,
if the proclamation is relic of by
gone ages, and if the praise enjoin-
"a pei
functory manner, We should not lose
sight of the fact that both as a peo-
pie and as individuals we are in
hourly need of guidance on course
which is not only dark to the clear
est vision vouchsafed to humanity,
but along which we too often find
ourselves driven despite the strong
est unwillingness and most energet-
IT, opposition. Even as the stars
have an appointed course wherein
they cannot halt and from which
they cannot swerve, so each man
runs only in small measure the race
chosen by himself-like the stars, he
and his kind drift always blindly to
some dark goal which is family illu-
minated by any light natural to the
weary travellers themselves.
And even as the event of the in
dividual life is hidden from each of
US, so the goal toward which our ma
tion is travelling, likewise is wrap
ped in darkness impenetrable to our
wisest and best. Even as the course
of our republic has been outside of
all paths hitherto trodden by other
peoples, so henceforth we must open
for ourselves new courses-new aims,
and prepare for the enactment of
new purposes on that great stage
which has witnessed the rise, de-
cline and fall of so many empires
since the Chaldean seers first prom
ised power and dominion to their
masters in the childhood of the
world. One of our acutest thinkers
has avowed that only now are we
confronted by the great problem of
our national existence-that on
new continent where room is bound
less and the conditions Of existence
simple, we could prosper without
government. Therefore only when
the necessities of modern civilization
crowd into huge masses the unwiel-
dy wealth, frightful rapacity, fear
full ignorance and squalid poverty of
the day, are we really brought face
to face with the difficulties which
have for so long confronted the peo-
Piles of the old world.
Coverdale has already prophesied
that anarchy will be victorious when
the Hateful hours bring on the inevi-
table confliet-that the great repub-
lie will die as the great mouarchies
tr., press BIZ eX piu-
Sion OF the forces produced by the
logical consequences of its own ex-
isence. Let us at least prepare for
the dangers of the near future-let
us meet them consciously and per-
form like men the duties which will
surely devolve upon each and all,
not blindly meet fate as pigs the
butcher nor fall helpless under the
knife like the lamb.
As men we may have the supreme
consolation that even as the star
drift is guided to the unknown goal
by the wisdom of an all-wise crea-
tor, so the the shapeless life of indi-
viduals or the errative movements of