Excerpt from Our Union God's Gift: A Discourse Delivered in Trinity Church, Washington, D. C., On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1850

The name which this day bears indicates our theme. "Thanksgiving for National blessings" is the name of the day, and National blessings are the subject of our discourse.

National blessings! They are as large as the land we occupy. They are as varied as its climes, and soils, and products. Yet, with all their variety, they have, as a whole, the same individuality as the broad continent over which they are spread.

Since the last Thanksgiving-day, our country has stretched itself from sea to sea. An American citizen may pass, East and West, four thousand miles, and see the sun rise over and set behind no hills that are not his. The sun greets us with his morning salutation from the Atlantic, and breathes over us his farewell evening benediction from the Pacific. "It is a good land and a large."

The very extent of our land - the occupation of a country so gigantic by one race, of one origin and tongue, and their union under one system of free government and just law, like that under whose shelter we are thriving, is itself a subject for vast thanksgiving.

It is a new thing in the history of the world. Great Empires, in past times, have been composed of diverse people, whose races, histories, languages, institutions, arts, sciences, and general culture, have been most various and conflicting.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.