Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 December 1879 — “Thanksgiving.” [ARTICLE]

“Thanksgiving.”

*or the Democratic Sentinel.

For many years, in this country, say on a certain Thursday in November, the President, or some Governor, proclaims that the people will be expected to meet and thank God for His great kindness in giving us health, good crops, peace, &c. The people go to church in the morning, hear a sermon, and go home or some place else to eat turkey and other good things, talk politics ahd religion, and feel that God bas been honored, and their stomachs loaded with the best the land produces. But on such days who are cue worshipers ? Mostly the rich—th» bankers, the bondholders, the officeholders in counties, States and Union —these who by sharp management have money enough ahead to buy all the good things and not feel the expense; and then in great humility oondescend to give to God all the praise. The poor can’t spare the time and have not money to buy the costly dinners, and how could they be expected to meet with these money lords to praise a God who would allow them to least and fatten on the honest labor of men made and kept poor by their extortion? Should we praise God for giving our people ,a littl more money, temporarily, it must be, when to bless us he had to curse to the same extent other nations as hoi «* est, industrious and religious as we? Why don’t they come out honestly and tell us that “Resumption” has given us a little increase in money, and fattened all the turkeys? If the God of bountiful crops is given to “special providences” it might be supposed the stormy and blustery day might be takan as an indication that he considered there was more of form and stomach than of £eai heartfelt in the whole affair. If our rulers will do a noble and unselfish act, that will benefit all classes of our people, poor as well as rich, and then appoint a day of “tdanksgiving,” they will meet in mass to praise and honor them, and if they please to hitch God on for a share, we presume there will be no objection oe holding back on that account. It would then look a liptle more as'though God were running matters alkarouud. If we consider the amount of suffering in the land, we might suppose that Jesus who ordered the poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind to feasts and big dinuers, had been superseded, and that Grant, Sherman and Hayes had been running this precinct alone

for the last few yeais.

LETUSTHINK.