Thanksgiving 11/21/40

Scripture: Phillipians 4: 1-7

The first day of special thanksgiving to God in this country was proclaimed more than three hundred years ago. It was not set for the last Thursday or the next to the last Thursday in November, but for the eleventh day of June. Perhaps it is easier for the American people of today to be especially thankful in the autumn for blessings received. The harvests are well gathered in and preparations made, as well as possible, for the winter. But those Pilgrims felt the need and desire to give thanks when they had nothing but opportunity as yet before them. They had landed late in the preceding season and had first of all to build shelter for themselves. Then they had had to hold out, as well as they could, against bitter winter (no stores, no supplies beyond what they brought, no communication). Many of them perished by the time spring came bringing relief and an opportunity to plant crops. Those who remained were thankful to have survived at all.

If they could give thanks for what they had, how much more surely should we give thanks for the abundance which we enjoy! We could enumerate countless blessings which are ours and for which we are thankful. But let us first of all render thanks for the blessing of our national heritage.

As citizens of this country, our spiritual forefathers are the Pilgrims and those other Puritans who first colonized these shores. We sometimes think of them as sanctimonious, strict, sometimes hypocritical sermon-makers. Perhaps some of them were that kind of people to a degree. But we must also remember that they were among the most heroic people in the world. And we could do with more of certain Puritan traits than we have today. The Puritans believed in a sober life, a righteous life, and a godly life. They believed, as a matter of course and conviction, in the home and in family love and in personal integrity. They believed firmly in God and in their ability to reach Him through their own prayer without the necessity of any priest or mediator. Some of the elements of their religious expression seem too somber and severe to us, but we have no indication that they seemed somber to them. Their religion made them feel that they meant something in the presence of God and that their lives were counting for good, even though they were isolated in an American wilderness away from their friends in the mother country. They did not spend so much time analyzing life as in mastering it.

As we think of them at this Thanksgiving season, let us think of the inheritance they have given to us. Let us mention some of the special contributions that they made to the welfare of our country and its people.

First. These Puritans of Massachusetts brought with them to our shores the beginnings of civil liberty. It came about in this way. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, meeting in London, voted that the company charter should go with the colonists and that when they landed, the settlers should organize and administer their own affairs. That was a bold and significant experiment. Before that time all colonies had been governed by king’s decree, or by someone responsible solely to the king, or by some commercial company with its board of directors in the old country.

But the new colony in Massachusetts was to have a governor, councilors and representatives all chosen by the settlers themselves. The settlers were to run their own affairs. Our American ideas about "government of the people, by the people, for the people" all date back to that noble experiment.

Second. The Puritans made the first attempt to found a colony on a family basis. Now we see that that was the only way to form a permanent and successful colony anywhere. For a century before the Pilgrims, the French, the British and the Spaniards had been trying to secure a foothold on the North American Continent. Most of their attempts to found colonies failed because the colonies were of men only and they didn’t stay permanently. The Pilgrims and the Puritans, however, brought their wives and children with them. They intended to stay. They built permanent homes and improved them and defended them. They would be horrified to have had it hinted to them that some day in this country there might be those who would hold the sacredness of family ties but lightly.

Third. The Puritans had a passion for education and laid the foundations for our program of universal education for all. They differed from other colonists in their exceptional love of learning. They apparently believed that the welfare of a state depends upon the right education of all the people. It has been said that no community in the world, either at that time or since, has had so high a percentage of well educated people. I was considerably surprised to learn that, of the first comers to Massachusetts, there were 117 university graduates. Their magistrates and other civil and lay leaders were men of high standing and large experience. Their ministers were learned scholars and eloquent preachers.

Within a few months they established free schools in the settlement. And in 1636 their general court passed a vote that has not been paralleled in history. The representatives of the people voted an appropriation of money equal to the entire tax income of the colony for a college. This means that in order to establish a college the magistrates went without pay that year and there were no appropriations for the ordinary functions of government. All of the tax money that year went to start the college. It seemed that important to our Puritan forefathers that their children should have the benefits of higher education.

Later on, when the Rev. John Harvard left his library and $800.00 to the college, it was decided to name the college after him, and that is how Harvard University had its beginning. The Puritans knew that the country could never remain free and fine and prosperous unless there were trained, intelligent, educated men to be both leaders and supporters of the government and of the churches.

A few years after founding their college at such sacrifice, their general court passed another memorable vote. By this vote the people decreed that every village and town in Massachusetts which had a population of fifty or more people, must start a free school for the children and pay for a competent teacher to teach them. No other colony in history ever did a thing like that.

We are directly indebted, therefore, to the Puritans for (1) the beginnings of our civil liberty, (2) for the transmission to us of the ideal of family integrity, and for (3) our national passion and provision for education. We can only repay the Puritans in the way that we can repay any ancestor for any good inheritance --by recognizing it with wholehearted gratitude, and by making good use of the inheritance, and by passing it on in as good form as we received it, or better.

In addition to the three things I have mentioned as a heritage from our Puritan ancestors, there is another thing that should be mentioned. Perhaps the others could be included in it. That thing is the spirit of the Puritan. We may well give thanks for it and admire it and try to develop some of it ourselves. Does the way of good living sometimes seem steep and hard to us? It was certainly hard to the Puritans! They had to leave home land and old friends and family ties in order to follow their consciences; to worship God and serve Him as they felt they ought to do. Yet they found glory, triumph and peace of mind in doing it. Surely life does not make such hard demands on us (although it may and possibly will.) We need not fear physical death at the hand of unfriendly natives, or freezing in the winter for lack of proper shelter, or starvation because of inadequate food supply. Instead of taking such freedom as we have for granted we ought to be consciously and intelligently grateful for it. Surely we can face squarely the question of living honest, hardy, God-fearing lives, if the Puritans could, under their hardships.

Do we tire of self-denial and self-restraint? Do we whimper in our hearts when there are difficulties to be met? Are we losing courage and faith? If such be true, we need to take another look at our Puritan forefathers, for they were made of sterner stuff! We need to look at the great source of their strength.

I think that one of the things that ought to go with our blessings is the determination to use those blessings rightly. We give thanks for the heritage of freedom and we determine to use our freedom for constructive ends. The Puritans would be justifiably disappointed in the thought that their hardships and life-blood might bring only the kind of freedom in which people grab everything for their own selfish ends. We are free for the purpose of helping our brother citizens maintain a righteous state for the constructive benefit of all. Everyone who falls short of the practice of this ideal blights the possibilities of his own life, and makes it unjustifiably hard for others.

We give thanks for our educational heritage. And we must remember that our education is not to be used toward the perverted ends of selfish greed, oppression, and vice which can served by trained intelligence, but that we must use our learning for purposes of advancement and community uplift. We must remember that the only Christian justification for personal advantage is the increased possibility for usefulness which comes with it.

We are thankful for our heritage. And we do give thanks to God for the advantages and the living examples passed on by our forefathers of the flesh and of the spirit. At the same time that we pray "O God, we thank Thee," let us pray "O God help us -- help us to be inwardly and outwardly righteous. Help us to have courage for any task or any emergency. Help us to have faith in the ultimate goodness of Thyself and in the inherent goodness of our fellow men. Help us to believe in ourselves, our best selves, and in all the possibilities that Thou has placed within us. We thank Thee that Thou canst help us. And since we cannot find that help sufficiently within ourselves, we will give Thee the glory for whatever real success we may attain in life."

So may our prayers be uttered, with grateful hearts, at this Thanksgiving season.

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dates and places delivered:

Kahului Union Church, November 23, 1930

Wailuku Union Church, June 21, 1931

Huelo Hawaiian Church, November 22, 1931

Maunaolu Seminary, November 25, 1931

Paia Hawaiian Church, November 26, 1933

Pilgrim Church, Honolulu, November 21, 1937

Wisconsin Rapids, November 21, 1940

Lincoln High School, Wisconsin Rapids, November 24, 1943