The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-11-27
THANKSGIVING DAY

oNVAby III Dig OlVleS.
What have l myself seen in the past
few years. l have been Mortified Mt
the slums of New York and have seen
children scramble over the contents of
the garbage barrel. i have seen on n
great square in New York on n cold
night when the streets were covered
with snow, long line of men stamping
to keep warm, making their slow way
to a wagon there to receive n huge
sandwich. have seen troops standing
guard to protect property in strike.
And as to men in high office. who. in.
stead of being the best, have been the
most faithless and conscienceless of
their kind.
Why do | speak of these things' Be
cause they are the proofs that things
can not save men from the evils which
our ancestors beleved would never
come TO land OF free men with vast
resources. during our forty years, our
three hundred years, since Jamestown
was founded, God has led us to learn
me old lesson that man can not live
oy pread alone Never before had ma
terlansm speh a FAR field as in Amer
lea' In Europe. so those of the school
or the French Revolution -9ught, man
had been prevented by conditions from
proving what he could do if he were
free and had lands and room for ex-
pansion. Humanity did not need God,
they said, but If men would get rid of
Kings ana MOBILES ana privileged classes
ana nave plenty TO eat and drink,
abundance IN q material way that then
manklnu would be righteous, govern
mei,t just, legislators incorrupt: Here
IN America WIN virgin soll, with free
men, the SIN ana poverty and dlscon-
sent Oh tne oid worlo would not appear.
Men would be honest because they
c9uid nave work, women would be
chaste because they would not feel the
GRIND OF poverty
Teaching Of Forty Years.
Our forty years have taught us that
bread alone will not keep men clean
and righteous. They have learned
that laws and political platforms and
freedom do not prevent the coming up
of the old difficulties with which ma
tons have grappled in ages past. They
have learned that human society in
America, with all its material advan-
tages, has all the old vices of Egypt
and Greece and Rome and France and
Britain, and that plenty of bread and
abundance of possessions do not make
men good or society safe.
Our forty years have proved to us
that justice and freedom depend not
upon well-fed people, but upon peo-
pie with spiritual ideals resting upon
the Eternal God. Our national life
proves the necessity of religion for the
preservation of the country, and take
1t that it is this fact which the Pres
ident has in mind when he calls us to
give God thanks on this day.
AS we thank God for our material
blessings, let us recognize from the
depths of our hearts that these things
do not of themselves make a better
race of men or better national condi-
lions.
| am tired of this measure of prog
ress by material standards. One would
think that the only desire of many
people was to increase the number of
people in their city. That increase in
population was of itself great and
most desirable matter IF man from
Mars were to come to the ordinary city
he would be told of its rapid growth.
of the number of cattle and hogs kill
ed for its packing houses, of its high
buildings, its railroads, etc If the
stranger began to ask as to the char
acter of the people, the unselfishness of
its council, of the self-sacrifce of its
aldermen, of the purity of its govern
ment, of the chaste family life of its
people, of the absence. of greed and
graft and oppression and vice, what
story would have to be tolds Bread
and all that the term means has no
power to make men better. Feed men,
clothe them, put them in good houses,
with the best of plumbing, give
them music and art. What of ita
Unless there is religious conviction
and principle all these things may be
and are ministers to vice. Religion
alone can keep man human and society
safe The heart of humanity today,
as in all the ages past, is struggling on
with the same joys, the same sorrows,
the same heartaches, the same prob
lens; and bread alone gives them no
solution, no hope and no peace. With
out God, all is vanity of\vanities.
The Spiritual Uplift.
Look at the world as it is, at this
community as it is. On the one hand.