THANKSGIVING SERMON. 47 of the Supreme Ruler, demand our thanks ? Does not the official and personal reverence for the God of heaven on the part of the youthful chief of our armies demand our thanks? Do not the suppression of vice, and the encouragements and facilities to Christian worship and moral virtue among our soldiery, and an increasing reverence for the Sabbath among ourselves, demand our thanks ? Do not the successes of our arms by sea and by land demand our thanks ? Does not the very period in our history in which a righteous Providence has called us to this conflict—a period which, had it been deferred for twenty years, would have seen us a ruined people, and ruined by our own corruptions — a conflict for which, in wealth and numbers, we were never so well prepared, demand our thanks? Does not the state of the world, teeming with events of religious interest, and on the tiptoe of expectation for the downfall of every form of anti-Christ, and the universal spread of the Gospel of the Son of God, demand our thanks ? And does not even our present position, arranged and decided by a wise Providence for such an age and state of the world as those we now occupy, inspire hopes and expectations that should fill our 70773
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