St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-12-06
Ole Galedonian.
THANKSGIVING SERMON.
Preached by Rev t. II. Frost i'm St
Johnsbury, Nov. %, 1855.

And will restore thy Judges as at first and thy
councillors as at the beginning: afterward thou
shalt be called, The city OF righteousness, the
faithful city.
These words and the foregoing pas
sages, spoken to Judah in general and
Jerusalem in particular, may be re-
garded as certainly descriptive and
possibly prophetic of the United States
of America. The progress of nation
is like a march across a continent.
There are depressiOns and attitudes,
wales of circumscribed vision and sum-
mits of outlook. This Thanksgiving
day, falling as it does in an age when
science has opened to mans occupancy
realms hitherto unknown, and coming
as it does Immediately after the deci-
sive close of a presidential campaign,
is one of the SUBMITS of outlook
Standing on this summit let us survey
the present condition and future pros
poets of our country. A great theme,
a vast field indeed, but there is no pre-
sumption in looking at it. Humble
cOuntrymen may direct their vision
toward its utmost stretches. Having
eyes, let us see. Let US try to divest
ourselves of all prejudice and see things
as they are. In order to do this we
must guard against four sources of de-
ceptiOn: partisan refraction, sectarian
myOpia, the shades of pessimism and
the mirages of optimism. And if the
view from the pulpit should be distOrt-
ed or hazy, the greater would be the
need that the vision of the pew be ac-
cuTate and clear.
Looking abroad from this summit we
see land full of drOss and tin. You
object. This is Thanksgiving. This
is no time for Philippines and Jeremiads,
but for rejoicings. You want no array
of national evils set before you as a
thanksgiving feast. You prefer the
bright and happy view. Let the sun
light flash from the crowns of gold,
and simmer OH the face of the silver,
and sparkle in the eyes of diamonds !;
but let the drOss and tin be hid until
next April. You expect to look at the
dismal sights on Fast day. But the
evil is az real and potent us it was last
April. Its existence must never be
ignored. The humiliation of this view
may be the ounce of prevention neces-
sary as safeguard against excessive
feasting and hilarity. Unless we shut
our eyes we must see the estrangement
of the masses from the Sabbath and
the church. Our accomplished towns
man has clearly shown that more than
one half the people of Vermont never
cross the threshold of the house of God.
When we look on beyond the bOunda-
ries of our state we see more than
thirty millions of our cOuntrymen
walking with their backs to- the church.
es, the majority of them having no real
sympathy with the churches, and many
of them hating and cursing the church
es as their OppressOrs and foes.
Again we see that in the lives of
some church members the money god
appears to exercise more power than
the God of Sinai or Calvary. Here is
a layman, there another, and yOnder
another, either of whom has Il net year
ly income greater than the total
amount paid by his denomination for
home missions, or foreign missions, or
the amount paid yearly for the educa-
ton of theological students for the
ministry. DR.. Matlack, secretary of
the Protestant Episcopal Education
Society, declares that with a few noble
exceptions he has found "nO deep sense
of responsibility connected with the
possession of wealth no conviction or
even just conception of stewardship
among our wealthy men" Greed and
deception are the familiar spirits of
many so called Christians counting
room. In some places goddess. amuse-
ments dance and wanton before the
affairs of jehovah, the nominal bride of
Christ holds dalliance with the world,
the flesh and the devil.
Illiteracy breeds superstition and
want i'll her dwellings, and marches
her legions to the ballot box. The fig
ures of President John Eaton, late
commissioner of education for the
United States, show that at the time
of the last census the Americans
above ten years of age who could nei-
ther read nor write were more than
the entire population of the states of
New York and New Jersey, and that
if they should be gathered by them
selves in families, the number of such
families would be seventeen times as
many as the whole number of families
in the state of Vermont. OF the thr-
teen millions of voters in the republic
nearly two millions are illiterates.
Eight years ago in each of eleven states
the number of illiterate voters was
greater than the whole number of
We see hOstilities breaking out be-
tween social classes, and in some in
stances open war has been declared
LabOrers are combining against CAPT
talists, and capitalists against labor
ers. Middle men with long heads and
hard hearts, or no hearts at all, are
combining against the interests of both
producers and consumers. The grum-
III Of Il L.,
men in these years of plenty warn us
to- expect volcanoes and earthquakes
in the years of blasted ears and i'll ia
vOred kline which are sure to come at
last regardless of protective tariffs or
any possible results at the polls. Pc
RODS of financial depression cannot be
avoided so long as we have the present
moral and social conditions. BabbIing
agnOstics in open daylight launch their
bombs at the high dome of our social
system, while grim anarchists burrOw
i'll the darkness to undermine the foun-
datiOns.
We see that mercenaries and ghouls
hold carnival in politics. Mr.. TheO-
dOre Roosevelt knows something about
political methods in New York city.
He testities that political affairs in
either party are there managed by a
machine, and that the machine is Ope-
rated for the greater part in the sa-
looms. He states that of one thousand
and seven primaries held in the city
antecedent to the election of 1884, no
less than six hundred and thirty three
were held in liquor saloons. DIR. Bar
nard probably knows something of
"Republican government under the
American Constitution" and he testi-
fies that government in the United
States, whether national, state, or NUM-
cipal, in its legislative, executive, and,