24th Nov.
Every year since America has been a nation the President has declared the last Thursday in November to be a legal holiday, enjoining all good citizens to abstain from their usual duties in order to' give thanks to Almighty God for his mercies.
Americans have become so accustomed to this annual formal announcement that it attracts little more than passing notice and the day usually goes by leaving little more than recollections of happy family re-unions, wonderful turkey-dinners or tremendous college football games. These are surely occasions for thanksgiving, of some kind at least, and so the propriety of the name Thanks-riving Day never comes in question. fo be sure the minister always' reviews his history about this time and in his Thanksgiving sermon explains the significance of the day. But it is only rarely that even Americans realise the profound spirit of gratitude that inspired the God-trusting old Puritans of Plymouth to set aside a special day for Giving Thanks. Those people then who are not so fortunate as to be Americans need not feel chagrined at having to ask "what's all the row about?"
Thanksgiving Day commemorates one of the critical period sin the history of America. Since the year1898 seems destined to be another such period, this year's thanksgiving should special significance. For unless ws are greatly mistaken, the future will find the events of this year quite As far-reaching in their effects as even the Landing of the Pilgrims, the Declaration of Independence, or the Emanciation Proclamation, We may not all so sure that future Americans will feel very grateful for the legacy of this year, but at any rate they will rebably recognise this year as the ginning of a new epoch in their history.
While watching this new phase of Brother Jonathan's " career and discussing his motives and wisdom, it will be well for us to remember who this remarkable individual is, who is elbowing his way to the front asa leader in the affairs of the world.
Those courageous East Anglian Puritans who left home and country to live in exile rather than allow James Stuart to dictate how they should worship God,—little did they think that they were to lay the foundations of a nation that in two centuries and a-half would be finding North America too small. But such is the case. Those Puritans who learned to think for themselves in England, who went to Holland as exiles in order to enjoy the privilege of doing their own thinking, and who then braved the dangers of the North American wilderness because they were too proud to be absorbed by the Dutch these are the men who have entered most largely into the makeup of "Uncle Sam." Those one hundred brave spirits whom the Mayflower set down on the bleak shore of Cape Cod that November day of 1620 were the beginning of a nation.
The hardships of that following winter or even the death of half their number could not daunt such men as these. Surrounded by an unknown wilderness full of savages, they went work to make aherne. 'They built houses, planted corn, and made all possible preparations to resist the' rigours of another such winter. When they had gathered in the abundant crops and moved into their comfortable houses under the protection of a strong fort, their leader Governor Bradford set aside a day to thank God for all His kindness. For these soldiers of Cromwell were too good men whose fathers were the pravin;
Puritans not to believe that God watches over His people.
These were the men and these the times of the first Thanksgiving:
When we remember how this handfal of liberty-loving. Englishmen and their followers, have by their Anglo-Saxon idea of government welded together into a nation the heterogeneous mixture of emigrants who flocked to America from Europe, we may still find abundant cause for giving thanks.
The thrifty Dutch and Germans, the Swedes and Huguenots, the Cavaliers and the adventurous Scotch-Trish—all are to be found in " Brother Jonathan." But none of these emigrants had the nation-making love of self-government which had been developing for so long in England. This element the Pilgrims supplied, and it has been the framework upon which the American nation has been built. Without this element it is not easy to see how such a mixture could ever have become a nation. It was this embryo ofa nation conceived in Eastern England which in a few generations has converted a savage wilderness of a continent into an American Europe. It has been essentially a triumph of the Anglo-Saxon idea. Other nations have been at work with their despotisms and paternalisms, while England and America have held steadfastly to their faith in the "common man" and his ability to govern himself To be sure, these two nations have not always been able to see that they were working toward the same end, but recent events have made apparent the really fundamental ties which bind these peoples together.
there chance to be any Englishmen who, perhaps, havea general notion that the American Thanksgiving has something or other to do with the late misunderstanding with George III, they will be glad to know that it is really in commemoration of a most important step in the progress of Anglo-Saxonism, the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.