National Character | Page 8

delivery of the foregoing discourse, the following remarks were interjected near the commencement:
"Permit me to state to you my conviction, that desirable as it is that days of religious observance be appointed by our civil authorities, the regular appointment of annual fast-days or thanksgivings, will not secure for any long period a general and hearty observance. I should much prefer the appointment by our civil authorities of a fast-day, in view of any public calamity impending or experienced, or of a day of thanksgiving, in view of deliverence or exemption from such calamity. In such case we might hope that the day would secure a suitable and profitable observance."
It is the writer's apprehension that days of special religious observance occurring at regular intervals, and hence occurring, oftentimes, when there is no special providential call for a religious service, and being destitute of the binding obligation a divine appointment, will degenerate into mere holidays; and in his opinion, the providential call ought to guide our rulers in the designation of times of special religious observance; so that when we fast, we do so in direct view of special calamity, and when we render thanks, we do so for special mercies actually experienced. The thanksgiving of last year occurred at a time of most trying financial embarrassment, at the close of a season remarkable for its drought and meagre harvests, and for the prevalence of disease and the destruction of property by land and sea. Surely, God called us then to humble ourselves and fast, rather than to rejoice and give thanks, and a thanksgiving service was appropriate only for the reason that God always deals with us better than we deserve. We need the evident appropriateness of the service to secure its continued and suitable observance. Who does not remember the appointment by our national Executive, some years since, of a day of national humiliation, when a visitation of the cholera was threatened? And now solemn and affecting the service of that day throughout the land! In New England, the regular, annual thanksgiving preserves its sacredness through customs and associations, which were established in the very infancy of the country, and which have grown up with it,--customs and associations, which cannot elsewhere be created.

FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: See Dr. Arnold's "Lectures on Modern History." The above statement is correct, so long as we take a merely natural view of mankind--so long as we view men merely in their moral relations. Viewing men by the light of revelation and in relations more strictly religious, Church-biography would still better deserve the name of history. But for some reason, these religious relations are not commonly recognized in their importance. Like the historian, the moral philosopher commonly ignores man's lapsed condition, and all the great truths which distinguish supernatural religion. See Wardlaw's "Christian Ethics."
It ought also to be observed that human governments, at the best, are obliged to leave many interests of their citizens uncared for, or to be cared for by other agents than their own; also, that human governments are often corrupt and fail to discharge their proper functions. Hence, the historian needs the supplement of individual biographies, and transactions of voluntary societies, and pictures of domestic and social life, in order to a full representation of his subject. Who would dispense with the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament history, or with Macaulay's picture of England in 1685 in his English history?]
[Footnote B: See Congressional Reports--Col. E. M. Johnson on Sunday Mails, and Mr. Petit on Chaplains to Congress. Of course, in practically meeting and adjusting the two claims upon the government, first to respect the conscience of its citizens, and secondly, to promote the interests of religion, great diversity of opinion may exist even among those who hold to the same principles. There is room for a variety of prudential considerations. Yet the principles above expressed are discarded in the documents referred to, as they very often are elsewhere.]
[Footnote C: A volume entitled "The Position of Christianity in the United States," by Stephen Colwell, Esq. of Philadelphia, deserves the attentive and serious perusal of every American citizen.]

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