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Show MYS OF H FDR GOD'S MERCY ENGL1SHGUSTQM Ours by Adoption Made a Stated Instead of Special Day Is Only Change That Has Taken Place. Thanksgiving lny, like most of what we have. Is not our own, hpin. English in its origin and rpreivinp merely new sienih'rjince from its adoption. adop-tion. Englishmen hnve alwnys followed fol-lowed the custom of setting nsidr f- (lays to oommemiirate pnlilic hless-incs. hless-incs. The discovery of thp Ounpnw-der Ounpnw-der plot was marked so and. similarly, similar-ly, special events hsve hern marked. We have made it a stated instead of a special day and that is all of the American character that it has. and It was not until New Knsland had been settled eicrhty years that It he-came he-came a stated day, and there it was a stated, annual day for a Ions. Ions time hefore It obtained national adoption adop-tion in any shape. The first public thanksgiving observed ob-served hy the Plymouth colony was in the autumn of 102". A lona drought was met hy a day of fasting and prayer. The drought ended, abundant rains came. ;;ood crops followed and the Puritans remembered the event in a thanksgiving day. Oliver Cromwell's Crom-well's victories rhey similarly marked. From that time until the union with the Massachusetts Bay colony in lCIO-l seven thanksgiving days were observed. ob-served. First Thanksgiving. The Massachusetts I'ay colony kept Its first thanksgiving day as soon as the last of Governor Winthron's ships arrived In Boston harbor. "So now," says the chronicler, "ail the whole fleet being safely come to their port they kept a public day of thanksgiving. thanksgiv-ing. .Inly 8. Ifinit. to give thanks to Almighty find for all His goodness and wonderful works whiWl they had soon on the voyage." Here was the old English custo'.-i of thanksgiving for a special thing. Nearly every year after that a similar public day of thanks was nliscrved In this cohaiv for some special thing. in If"" It was for "bountiful harvests and a great arrival of persons of special use ond rpia'.My." Since 1TOO the annual th 'iiksgiving las boon ihsrrvd m all New Eur land, and the clergy with commend "hie zeal have improved 'he occasion 1 "get in their work" on lop:s which the Sunday sermon would not admit f- It is said a collection of Nw England Thanksgiving day sermons arranged chronologically would be a complete hide:; and rnnot:i'i"n of life S'M'lal ami political rpiestims that have engaged ntten'h.n for. the last two centuries. When Dutch Gav Thanks But New England did not momco Use the custom. Toe Perch in New Trk gave public thanks on exlraor (Hnary occasions and the journals of the Continental congress show eight appointments by that body of thanksgiving thanks-giving days, recommending to the ex ecuUves of the various colonies the observance, and with one exception the congress suspended on the thanksgiving days that it had appointed. ap-pointed. The Protestant Episcopal prayer book, ratified in 17S9, appoints the first Thursduj of November as a thanksgiving day unless another day shall be appointed by the civil authorities, au-thorities, and it was frequently observed ob-served in New York before the civil authorities fell into the custom of appointing ap-pointing similar days. On several occasions bishops of the Episcopal and of tli e Itoman Catholic church have issued letters recommending the observance of such a day and prescribing pre-scribing forms. The plenary council of the latter church at Baltimore, in 1SS5, recommended that the observance observ-ance of the day be regarded as a church feast, but nothing further has since been done concerning it and it stands here simply as a civil observance. observ-ance. Thomas Jefferson's Attituds. George Washington issued thanksgiving thanks-giving proclamations twice and during dur-ing John Adams' administration two also were issued. Jeh'erson would have none of them. In a letter to Rev. Mr. Miller, in 1S0S, after setting out that the national government was interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions institu-tions not only because of the provision provi-sion for the free exercise of religion but aiso because of the powers reserved re-served to the states, with which, if with any human authority, must rest religious discipline, he says: "But is is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of fasting and prayer. This is. that I should indirectly assume to 'he I'nitcd States ::n authority over religious re-ligious fxi'I'i ises which the Cons-iitn lion has directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too. that this recommend:!; ion is to carry some cuthority. and to be RtncSh-wd by -otne penalty on ll:o-e who dN-egard il : not in. Iced of liars ,,no imprison m, ni. but of some d. ::n e of persecution, pei-hrps. in pul'ic opinion. opin-ion. And docs the change in the nature of the penally make ;., rv'-omn.it-i.ihit'en less a law of ,p:, f for IroM- to vl oai it is ,i;,-c, led? I do t:.,; h licve it is for the interest of rcl'-ion to invi-c ;he civil magistrate to direct its exer. rises, its disciplines or its doctrines, nor of the religious societies that the general government should be Invested Invest-ed with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious reli-gious exercises, the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right fo determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper, for them according ac-cording to their particular tenets, and the right can never be safer In their own hands, where the Constitution Constitu-tion has placed it." Colonial Heritage. But the observance of the day came as an old New England and New York custom, a Colonial heritage. Lincoln appointed November 26, 1S63, as a day of national thanksgiving. That was at a time when Gettysburg had been won and Vicksburg had fallen. Before the appointed day came the Southern forces had been flanked on Lookout mountain and Mis: sionary ridge, and Bragg's army was retreating. So with the North that year the thanks of the day had the fervor of praise to the God of battles as well as to the Giver of good. We have kept pace with the custom since and it has become a day of feasting and less of fast; a day of devotion to pleasure and rest, though withal a day of thanksgiving marked by scant church attendance and more I or less quiet hours. |