The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-11-29
THANKSGIVING DAY.
Programme Altered BY the Storm
Sermon BY Rev. Oscar r. Stafford

Programme Altered BY the Storm
Sermon By Rev. Oscar r. Stafford.
Yesterdays storm materially interfered
with church attendance and amusements'
Most of the churches abandoned their
THANKSGIVING exercises owing to the storm.
The football game, hare and hounds, and
gun-club shoot had to be given up yesterday
on account of the storm.
The theatre drew fair audiences, the At
lantic Associates and Gilbert's dances were
well attended and st. Dominic's fair was
crowded in the evening.
CONGRESS SQUARE CHURCH.
Rev. DR.. Oscar f. Stafford, of Deering,
preached to a congregation composed
of the members of the Universalist
churches in this city and Deering on
''Reasons for Thanksgiving" taking
for his text: 20 give thanks unto
the Lord" Thankfulness is good for its
own sake it is also a state of the heart well
pleasing to God.
We should be grateful for the material
blessings common to all. What gifts are re-
ceived every wakeful hour through the eyes.
as they behold faces of friends, books, me-
mentoes of the past, scenes of nature.
What gifts come through the sense of hear
ing, in the words of friends, the csdences of
music, the hustle Of life, and natures va
ried voice. A prosperous merchant, when
he sees his neighbor getting ahead of him.
may yield himself to discomfort and envy !;
but some reminder of the past, greeting of
an old friend it may be, will carry him back
to the time when he was in the little store
and struggled so hard for start on his ca
reer Of successful enterprise; he sees him, in
all his ups and downs. Good fortune has in
the main been given him, and he will go
home with little of the old cheerful light
In his eyes. Our common material blessings,
more In number than the sands ON the sea-
shore, will, if we equally appreciate them,
keep us to the inward fortune of grateful
heart.
We should be thankful also for our natural
achievements and prospects. 1t will do any
discontinued American good, once eve ry
year, to attentively read DIR. f. E. Hale's
pathetic story, "a Man Without Country"
On the surface of our material affairs we
may see many causes for solicitude. What
Is to come of the irrepressible labor agita-
WIN (o thV SkCdt 1OltuuOos WulCu dI6 Ut
implied up in corporations and trusts, dan
gerously obsorb the common fundsP What
mean the ominous mutterings of the Com
munists and Anarchists? In the dark tide
of social impurity to flow on unchecked I?
Is imtemperance still to irritate our politics
and blight our homes? Nevertheless, it
V rs wen to i0r u.s. least s1.no once
past, and behold the condition of things we
have left. In the interest of the patriotism,
which is religion, remember today that you
Ben Franklin's that he would like to be bar
relied up and kept dormant 100 years, and
then unho0ped and revived, that he might
see what by that time his country had be-
come: To have Ben Franklin come out of a
Darrell in our day would seem no more i'm
possible than the presidency or even a sena-
t0rship to come ont of barrel. But what a
spectacle would the unho0ped Franklin be-
hold. The area of our country is now so ex-
tended that its geographical center east aud
west Is some hundreds of miles west of San
Francisco, so far is the western stretch of
our northern new territory of Alaska The
United States has now larger domain than
the Roman eagles covered when Rome was
virtually the known world. Our increase in
population. our mineral resources, our meth
DDS OF warfare, our agriculture, our
railroads encircling the continent like
spiders web, our Appliances Of electricity,
tuc IOICt VI WHICH rEdukklu Qf6W through
his kite from the thunder cloud, stagger
ones power of comprehension And no
other people on the earth are looking with
such confidence as the Americans toward
the future. We may not fulfill the Utopian
vision of Bellamy's Looking Backward"
but We may rest in the assurance that the
light which shines from our past makes the
coming years luminous with promise. There
mas also been corresponding moral
progress. Be of good cheer The progress
In population, mechanics, science, home an
niversaries and social graces, is not the best
Of our gains. We have grown in the appre-
henson of liberty. Low as we sometimes
think the public tone. it has never.--save in
the stress of war-been in the average
higher than to-day. We are slowly working
out the problem of the rights of man. In
the days of Roman glory to be Roman was
more than to be a king, now to be an Ameri-
can Is more than 1t would ever have been to
be Roman.
Again, for blessings yet pure, personal
and essential, which are ours as children CT
God. we should be thankful.
This is time when many are having their
ancestral faith in certain creed-s tatements
shaken: 1t Is not strange that it is so, nor
is the fact to be deprecated. But In the
midst of the general uncertainty do you,
friend, believe in God, In his fatherhood,
and in Christ as the Revelator of life and
Immortality? If you have SO much faith be
thankful. Having so much you have in
substance all. And these are the truths
which the siftings of criticism leave to our
more secure possession. Ii you have kept
such a personal faith, and if yoar faith keeps
you. give thanks for this best of all fortunes
inward riches toward God.
Thanksgiving has become the American
nome festival. 1t should also be feast like
your own. In our giving God will be best
pleased to receive the expression of our
thanks. In giving we become in some far
away fashion like Him.