32 THANKSGIVING SERMON. to trust in the Lord than to have confidence in princes.” It is his own declaration,11 Them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” With all the profusion of the divine bounty scattered over the land, this year 1861 has been, and is, a year of unparalleled severity to the American people. We are now amid the calamities of civil war. Portions of the land are the theatre of violence and blood: carnage and desolation have swept over their fields and their villages, and humanity weeps. Though we ourselves are at a distance from this work of death, we sympathize in its paralyzing influence through all the departments of life and business, converting, as it does, seats of industry and joyous homes into boding silence, restless anxiety, and bitter tears. Nor may we predict what will be on the morrow. No mortal eye can see what reverses we may meet with, nor under what strokes, of a righteous and chastening Providence we may be called to bleed. When the first indications of this conflict made their appearance, all my prepossessions, as is well known, were with the Southern States. If their leading statesmen had con
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