Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1897-12-02
AFTERMATH.
The Beautiful Address of ME-. f. A. Daniels
ON Thanksgiving Day.

I
AS promised our readers last
week, we r glad to be able to
give them to-day the full text of
the beautiful address of Mr.. F.
Daniels, at the Thanksgiving
exercises IN st. Paul church last
Thursday. His theme was
'"Thanktulness for Peace, and
Freedom from the Ravages of
War and Pestilence," and he
spoke as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I have been asked to speak brief
ly, with some emphasis on the word
briefly, about the grounds of
thankfulness for our exemption as a
nation from famine and ~pestilence,
and for the peace that for mor than
thirty years has overshadowed and
blessed the land.
1t is apparent to all who have ever
thought at all on the subject that
there is some difficulty in bringing
home to the complacent, well-fed,
comfortably-housed, whole-skinned
man, in the enjoyment of moderate
health, the realization that peace and
plenty, prosperity and happiness are
not blessings to which he is entitled
as a matter of right. He has to be
taught again and again that his own
active brain and his own strong arm
have not wrought out for him this
temporal salvation. For the aver
| age man is inclined to put a high
premium on his own intelligence and
his own powers, and to forget that
without the aid of what we in our
thoughtlessness call circumstance
and environment, instead of achiey-
ing the success of which he boasts.
he would stand a self-confessed and
apt to take the good gifts of God as
a matter of course. The air we
breathe and the sunlight, without
which all life would perish, have be
come so familiar to us that they fall
to excite our special wonder or oul
gratitude, and so our freedom from
starvation and pestilence and from
| the horrors of var are quietly APP
propriated as a part of the usual ano
orderly course OF events, or, per
haps, as a passing tribute to Oul
merits, with scarcely a thought Of
that Power who provides for us oul
daily bread and preserves us from
the pestilence that wasteth at noon
day, and from the tumult. agony
and carnage of battle
If we would understand something
of the terrors of starvation, we have
only to turn SUI eyes upon afflicted
India and behold the extremity tic
which her patient and long-suffering
people have been driven; to hear the
cry that comes up from her count
less multitudes where thousands Oh
men, women, and children are dying
for want of bread, and where in a
few short months more than a million
of her inhabitants have died of sheer
starvation. And nearer home, in the
once beautiful and fertile island OF
Cuba, now reduced tOa desert by the
combined demons of war, pestilence
and famine, thousands of souls, amid
horrors of which we cannot con
ceive, have passed from the anguish
of life to the peace of death. More
than thirty years ago began the
greatest war of modern times, III
which the energies of the greatest
people on earth employed to de
stroy each other. The confictraged
for four long weary. years, and
thousands of lives were sacrificed
millions of property wasted, the
fairest portion of our continent de
wasted, homes, the abode of happi
ness and contentment, desolated
wives made widows, mothers child
less, until there was scarce a family
in all the South that did not mourn
the loss of a father, or a son, ano
never morning wore to evening but
some heart did break"
From millions of souls the prayer
went up increasingly, "Oh, God, give
us peace!' How the universal heart
of a whole people, anguish-smitten
grieving like Rachel for her chill
dren, cried out in applications thai
would take no denial that the hano
of the destroyer might be stayed.
And then peace came, not smiling
as the poets say, but tear-staineC
and sorrowing over the blight thai
had fallen on all the land, and {
brave people, thanking God with
all the strength of their souls fol-
the boon of peace, turned with man
ly courage to repair the ravages Of
war. Some of you remember the
lightness of heart, the cheerfulness
of spirit, the willingness to labor
which came out of the gratitude OF
a people weary of strife and longing
to walk the paths of peace. If we
could at this moment recall the feel
ings that animated the nation then
we should have IN US such a realiza-
ton of the blessings of peace as
would make the coolest among us
break forth into songs of thanks
giving.
And now for more than the life Of
a generation we have dwelt in quiet
ness under our own vine and fgtree
none daring to modest or make us
afraid, with food enough and te
spare, and mercifully exempt from
the stroke of pestilence.
And what return shall we make
for these blessings? Shall gratitude
find no expression save in self-com-
placent satisfaction? Shall we take
as our,,exemplar that un1ovely charac
ter in the parable and only build us
new barns in which to hide away the
overlooking beneficence of God, say