Year: 1859

'Ah, vaorous Knight. cried the Trifaldi having now
recovered from her aintng fit, addressing the kngh
let beseech and pray that gracious promises may
be converted into deeds!' Don QHTote'


The exigency of publication compels us to
anticipate the privilege of the Governors
Sunday, and to give our lay sermon few
hours before the time. Fortunately there are
no times when it is wholly unsuitable to give
hospitality to worthy reflection; and there is
none more suitable than the morning OF that
festival which is consecrated to the graces and
the virtues of all hospitality. Driving up,
then, to another of the resting places of the year,
let us brush off the dust, consult the guide-book,
and see how far we have gone out of that line
of heroic and sef-sacrifcing adventure, which
every man easily imagines he will follow when
he starts on his difficult journey. Selfconfi-
dent and audacious as he may be in the early
morning when the "ruddy Phoebus spreads
over half the globe the tresses of his golden
hair" ever the cry comes up to him, from
neglected maiden, and unfortunate friend,
"once again, then, illustrious errant and invinc-
ible hero let me beseech and pray that your
gracious promises be converted into deeds p


L
ory, implies that while there are some things
for which thanks are to be given, there are
Others for which mercy is to be implored; and
the first are not worth much without the last
The consciousness of rectitude is the volatile
which inspires honest exaltation; all the rest
is pretense and hypocrisy. knows
there is enough of it. Dante's vision was rep
resentative when he saw during his sad jour
ney afearfully long procession of cowled and
sobervisaged monks, going round with steps
exceeding slow, in chasms of pain quite as
far down as those of the bandits and men-steal-
ers When this moral separation and diverg-
ence began isn't a pleasant subject of inquiry
1t was before the almanac-makers measured
the time into cstimable fragments.


1t fell in the ancient periods


Which the brooding soul surveys


Or the wild Time coined itself


Into calender months and days.


1t is the undertone and refrain of all history
this eternal correlation, or rather this irrepress-
ibe conflict between gifts to excite gratitude,
and acts to provoke humiliation, ever remind
ing men of their great possibilities and their
slight performances of the wealth of their
promise, and the utter poverty of their deeds.


The vision of some men is often oblique and
sees but one side of the picture. Complacent-
ly they thrive and flourish under their sum-
mer sun, conscious, but careless of the vast
abysses of humanity on which that sun has
never shone. Regularly they yield to the
habit of church bell, and think they give God
fha rlorv o,,d ra0nlorlx- ero homo with EUbf.
ened consciences as the credulous Catholic
girl goes home of Sunday morning after she
has been shrived by her prizes They fatter
themselves that their impulses and vocations
are correct, while all others are awry and un-
reliable. They are astonished at the madness
of the man who is digging in Dungeon Rock
for the lost treasure of Captain Kidd, uncon-
scious that they are often engaged in pursuits
quite as wild and frivolous as his. They i'm
agine that they converse with nature, and
understand her, when they have scarcely
learned to pronounce the names of her huskS
and shells with an accent that can be pardon
ed. just as the school girl plumes herself on
her accomplishments when she has learned to
distinguish ''the blue vetch, the vervain and
the hawkweed" by their Latin names, though
she never dreamed of the infinite secret which
gives them kind of affinity to human intelli-
gence and life. How far are they from those
bold searchers of the old time, under the dscred-
tied and much-wronged name ofalchemists, who
read alike in the flowers swelling with the sweet
afHuence Of spring, and in the leaves wrinkled
and crushed by the relentless iconoclast of the
year, something of the mystery of life and the
wisdom of the Creator! But greatly farther
from the correct knowledge and appreciation
of duties and of right conduct, are they who
indulge the fatal mistake that in observing a
form they are establishing principle, in
wishing well for humanity they exhaust their
obligation and liquidate their promises to the
weak and the fallen,-that in talking common
place approval to the transitory clouds, they
are in some manner glorifying God.


This is not fiction In twenty-five or more
states, to-day, religious citizens will cele-
brate the festival of Thanksgiving in comnem-
Grafton of the planting of religious liberty on
this continent. And around hundred thou
sand firesides will gather their sons and daugh-
tiers, the stalwart and beautiful products of our
civilization, to complete the honor due the pious
memory of their fathers, who sacrificed all for
an idea. But there will be skeleton at their
feast. In one of our dungeons, awaiting the
fate and the shame of malefactors, are men,
to-day, whose ideal and lofty courage
should send us ashamed into the depths of the
valley of humiliation. They consent to be
sacrificed as vicarous offerings for friendless
and degraded race; and there is no power in
law or in arms to prevent the sacrifice. We
do not understand what liberty is We have
no just appreciation of human rights. We
have mouthed devotion to freedom since
God directed the sails of the Mayflower
to the inclement shore. We have preach
ed it. We have talked it in the streets.
We have stereotyped it in the laws. Valiant
and daring in promises, we have still suffered
an institution to fasten itself upon us which
insolently defies and defeats them Out of the
prison at Charlestown comes the appeal, "once
again, then, illustrious errant and invincible
hero, let us beseech and pray that your gra.
cious promises be converted into deeds p


THANKsGIvINe DAY.-Today will be OBJ
served as an occasion of special Thanksgiving in
the following states, territories and cities -


Maine, North Carolina Iowa