The herald., 1895-11-29
A GRAND UNION SERVICE
The Spiritual Celebration of
Thanksgiving Day
AT SIMPSON TABERNACLE
The Eloquent Sermon Of the Right Rev.
Bishop Montgomery
OF All Days This Should Be for the People
Of the United States One Of
Purest Joy

| ln0 several Protestant ChurcheS oil the
city united upon divine Thanksgiving
spiritual program yesterday. the service
/ in com memoIation of the day being hello
at Simpson tabernacle at IL o'clock in the
morning. The edifce was crowded, Dr.
w. J. Chichester of Emanuel Presbyte
rian church, who hads charge, making 6
public statement that the congregation
was the largest which had ever gathered
| together under one roof for similar
purpose during his ten years residence
in Los Angeles. Rev. Warren I. Day o.
the First Congregational church delivered
| the memorial sermon, taking his text
from the fourth chapter and thirty eig nth
verse of John, as follows:
"Other men labored and We are entered
| into their labors."
DR.. Day said in part: ''This Is not a
fast day; it is more than a feast day. ii
is a day of its own kind, whose occupa-
| ton and associations are unlike thosa of
Christmas, New Years or the Fourth, a
delicious, delightful autumn anniver-
sary, enthusiastically anticipated and
| fondiy remem bered. What memories OF
| of childhood it brings to many of us, OF
the crisp. frosty air, the falling snow
without and the glowing fire ard su-
preme sense OF comfort within.
This is Thanksgiving day, whose pub.
lie services should breathe the spirit,
voice the song and present the themes
which accord with its intent. There are
times for criticism, times for the exam
| ination Ut public and private evils and
| for attention to matters which burden
and perplex. But this should be day
OF hopefulness, Kindliness, gratitude,
lightness and OF heartiness.
TOO often the disnourses to which we
| have listenet 0f which we have read in
the reports of the days have sounded as
| though composed for Grumblers day.
This should not be We do not forget the
badness and sorrow which abound. nor
should we forget the goodness and
| springs of joyfulness which also prevail
reproach and complaint.
| 1T is good to have Thanksgiving
| day, not only for its savory dinners,
| which on such a day are worth doubls
their cost, bat for the day itself, Its fam
| lily reunions: the home-gatherings, and
| not least of all for its morning hour in
| the sanctuary and the testimony which
| its social proclamation affords that a
great nation, founded in the fsar of God,
has not altogether forgotten God. On
such day it is we'll to remind ourselves
| of our mercies and OF now we came by
them. Other men labored, ana ye are
| entered into their labors.
''Our subject will be, What We Enjoy
Through the Thought and Act of Others.
Here, tor a moment, we turn back of
what comes from human hands to the
Great Worker, into whose labors we are
| entering daily. Think thankfully tina,
| without our care or effort, this earth was
provided for our use. III anticipation OF
our coming, not only was this earth
| shaped and hung IN its orbit, but the
atmosphere was cleared the light refined,
and a great variety of forces, material
and forms of beauty brought into place
| and hidden to wait our command. When
our progenitors appeared there was little
Tor them to do but to taxe possession and
open the drama of human events. And
what drama it has been, with all the
wolrd stage and all men players The
first man and woman had no past behind
them no ages OF human wrestling to
look down upon them from the TOP of
some pyramid. The temple of their be-
ing had no back windows. 1t was little
roOund IN which thye lived few things
of which they thought. With no past,
and hardly enough of the present 70 be
worth mentioning, thsy could not have
had much notion of the future.
And these bodies were neither in
vented nor constructed by us. They are
a gift IN a borrowed world, to DO held BY
us i'll trust rs the palace and throne of
the soul while in the scope and sweep of
an earthly career. Wonderful structures
marvellous combinations of the magnif-
cent, the mysterious and the matchless,
whose conception was wrought out in the
councils Of the Almighty ages before the
morning stars sang together, and kept
till we, breaking into being, should need
them. And what dignity. not OF our own,
has been impaired to them. What,
know We not that your body is the temple
which ye have of God, and "a are not
your own?'
And this thiEAing, throbbng, want
ing, accom- plishing me, came from power
an intelligence other than myself. What
production, by some antecedent wis
dom and energy! A man! An inter-
sphering of life within life; of thought
flash, emotion, Will, decision, action
With a body barely big enough to keep
from being run over in the streets unseen
or blown away By common wind, he is
an embodiment of possibilities. Through
an optic window which a pinhead m ight
cover he takes in the visible universe:
and with such brain as may be packei
into the top of frail skull, he attem pts
the almost impossible, ard succeeds Man
did not make this world, though some
times he talks as though he did; nor
would he have ever found one who did
unless the Creator had told MIN. Man
has made far different wolrd than he
found, not because the Creator made such
a poor job, but because He made the
world so we'll and man so capable.
Z But with the uttT ost that the abIest
man has dime, there s no man who has
not received in himself Infinitely more
than he has made or given. To the
towering intellect and the giant in exec.
utivenes, the remaining question comes,
Who made thee to differ from the weak
er ones? Both In the majesty and i'm
mortality OF our Geing. we are what we
are and achieved what we have. chiefly
py means of what we.have been able to
use from the hand of the Great Giver.
''But while the theme of this morning
has been drawing our thoughts God
ward, and tittingly, we mast not miss
some of its illustrative facts man-ward.
Do we need examples?
''See them In the order of things into
which we were born; an order OF things
which, with its systems and institutions,
com bined to give us place, Il career
cong email relations and work fitted to our
hands, am so glad that our ancestors
were, born first. Deep Is our indebted
ness to other mems labo's for our tools,
civilization and government; and that
whils we are busy here and there, the
world work is going on through other
hands. That if the world 8 welfare turned
upon what you and l are aDle to do or
that We had no colaborers except such as
can be found in the wiIds of Africa or
the interior OF China?
''And except from other hands, we
have no tools, mechanical eqnirme mt
for farm, factory or the mines; no rail-
road, printing press, sewing machine or
waterworks. But for the labor of others,
each newcomer into this world would
have to begin where each other person
at his birth had to begin. Whole life