Many prayers, grateful words, and speeches have been voiced about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving since that historic event in the “new world” almost four hundred years ago.
“…let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles… through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments… in full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.” (Daniel Webster, 1851)
“Let us, in the midst of these reflections, have our hearts enlarged in thanksgiving to God for his merciful favor to our fathers and to us…. Let us piously acknowledge the hand of God in all that has been done for them and us and to the whole, cry grace, grace…. Let our gratitude be to our father’s God and ours. And out of gratitude to God, let us improve the blessings of life with sobriety and maintain our liberties with an honorable Christian firmness.” (Charles Turner, 1773)
“Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many. Yea, in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise.” (Pilgrim leader William Bradford, 1600’s)
This hope and laboring in Christianity as expressed through the years are at the root of this nation’s origin. Unfortunately these beliefs are not as widely held today as they were in previous centuries. It is that foundation that made us strong, and without it our strength diminishes.
Some fear we have reached a point of no return. I hope and pray that we haven’t and that we will return to the attitude of the first Thanksgiving participants. It is, after all, our choice. Every day we have a choice to be humbly grateful — or grumbly hateful. I believe history proves which is the better choice.
