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We owe a great debt to the Puritans of the New England colonies who started the tradition of Thanksgiving. I remember when as a kid in grade school we colored pictures of the Puritans for this season. Now-a-days the Turkey is substituted for the Puritans. That is a shame because along with forgetting the Puritans, much of America has forgotten the religious aspects of the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
America was once very much a Christian nation. As a student of history I know this to be true. But I think it is no longer true. Those who attend church regularly are, even in our own community, in the minority today. And the true meaning of Thanksgiving has been lost to many Americans. That was not the case during the first years of our nation’s history.
The tradition of our annual day of Thanksgiving originated in the New England colonies many years before the formal organization of the United States. Later, during the early years of the Republic, the tradition spread throughout the land. Let us go back to this earlier time. I would like for us to examine the roots of the Thanksgiving holiday as it was first celebrated in New England, and in so doing it is my hope that we will rediscover our Christian heritage, and rededicate ourselves to its preservation.
I begin this evening by quoting from a typical address given at a typical celebration of Thanksgiving in early American New England. The speaker began, “In the services of our national holiday of Thanksgiving, we seem to be led by a natural law, to acknowledge and consider our position and our privileges. Gratitude and a sense of obligation are both appropriate responses to what we have been afforded by Divine Providence.”
Such words are typical of the many Thanksgiving Day addresses in New England during the years that forged our national character and gave birth to the Republic. A common understanding of words such as these was shared by nearly citizen. Sadly today, the majority of our citizens do not understand the concept of natural law mentioned by that speaker. They know only man-made law, and, the majority of our people today feel little if any obligation to express gratitude toward God for His divine providence.
It is appropriate that we remember what it meant to celebrate Thanksgiving in colonial and early America. It is not appropriate to denigrate this day by calling it “Turkey Day”.
As President of these United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide Thanksgiving celebration marking November 26, 1789, as “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many… favors of Almighty God.” How foreign, how obscene it would have seemed to Washington for the focus of news coverage of his proclamation of Thanksgiving to be focused instead upon the issuing of a presidential pardon for a turkey. Maybe, if he had a sense of humor, he might smile at such a thing. But I think he would be greatly disturbed that we as a nation have forgotten to acknowledge with grateful hearts the many favors of Almighty God
Our nation is no longer a Christian nation, though it once was. During the early formative years of our nation, all citizens would have attended a Thanksgiving Service. Tonight we who honor the Lord have been reduced to a minority. Why is this? Has God offended the people of America? Has God abandoned us? Has God let us down? What more could God have done for us than he has already done?
God entrusted the formation of our government and the framing of our Constitution to men of great intellectual and moral strength. The educated of the colonies became the first leaders in America. And the educated were, by virtue of their education, familiar with and in harmonious agreement with the concept of God’s natural law. To be educated in colonial America meant having gained an understanding of and appreciation for the Bible.
The early settlers of New England were a people who possessed a rare combination of profound biblical learning, deep piety, and practical energy. They were not mere adventurers fortunate to have succeeded in their efforts, but rather people of healthy of character, possessing a faith born of the Holy Spirit poured out upon this favored land. We can hardly overestimate the blessing of having had such people lay the foundations of our government and our educational institutions. Even a superficial comparison with societal institutions in many other parts of the world will show how much we, as Americans, owe to the wisdom of those who established our nation based upon biblical faith and the common law tradition of England.
Once, one of the noblest features of this land was the high character of its laws, and the dignity, incorruptness, and fidelity of its courts of justice. Religion was once so prominent, that morality was publicly prized, and immorality not tolerated. Education was once so emphasized, that intellectual and moral achievement was a goal greatly sought after by its citizens. I cannot justify all of our history. There have been grievous errors along the way. But it is clear, that the Holy Spirit was still present and working in the development of our nation.
In addition to being guided by Christian ideals, the Puritans of New England were, in general, habituated to live lives of benevolence. There is found in the early history of New England evidence of a missionary spirit which spread out its aid to every portion of the globe. The desire to evangelize the Native Americans was prominent among the Puritans of New England, and, the effort was to some extent successful.
It must be confessed that the records of the white man’s relations with Native Americans are heart-breaking; and yet, it is only fair to say that the prevailing and earnest desire of the early settlers was to teach the word of God, and to deal honestly, and fairly with their Native American neighbors. That later generations of Americans did not always do so is to a great extent to be attributed either to an ignorance of the New Testament, or a departure from its teachings. .
The concerns of the Puritans did not end with concern for Native Americans. 325 years ago a cargo of slaves landed in Boston. The ship was immediately ordered by the magistrates to be sent back. The Puritans, who founded our Thanksgiving tradition, felt it necessary to bear testimony against what they deemed this “vile and most odious (institution) justly abhorred of all good men.” It is only because of the dependence of the Massachusetts Colony upon the crown of England that an effort to outlaw slavery made eighty years before the adoption of the U. S. Constitution failed. But within three years after the adoption of the Constitution slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts.
I have put together this small tribute to the Puritans of New England because they started our tradition of an annual day of Thanksgiving. If we have today forgotten or deviated widely from the faith and morals of those early Americans who established our Thanksgiving holiday, it is because we have chosen to no longer pursue the higher and nobler aim aspired to by these early Americans, and are no longer animated by higher and purer sentiments.
The Puritans of New England succeeded in establishing the best schools, the best colleges, educated more children, and furnished more learned men for the ministry and other professions than any other part of the country. It is because God’s Word and sound learning were value and respected by them.
This being said, it is important to say that our gratitude must not be limited simply to the recital of these historical facts as I am doing this evening. This cultural and spiritual heritage must somehow be recovered. It must have the power within us to cause us to live noble lives as citizens. To babble about our privileges, and to mouth the sounds of praise, while we are leading careless undisciplined lives, would be a mockery to this heritage, and a disregard for God’s providence by which our nation was established.
If we have reason in America to be grateful, we also have an obligation to be faithful. We have obligations to God, to our country, to humanity, and to posterity. We are under obligation to support, purify and strengthen our religious institutions—to sustain them generously—to extend them widely. We ought to adhere with conscientious and intelligent firmness, to those high principles of faith and doctrine, which shape Christian character. We ought to guard against a degenerate, speculative, cold, and nonsensical religion, the religion of secularism. True religion should be spread once again throughout the land. The arms of charity should be widely extended, and the branches of our benevolence should spread their fruit, where all who are suffering may pluck and eat.
We should educate our children. Next to religion, our schools and colleges should have the first place in our affections and in our endeavors. No system of education can be efficient without the co-operation of parents. Parents should with cheerfulness do all they can to promote responsible learning and excellence within our schools and to empower all socio-economic classes of children to enjoy the fruits of knowledge of the same. We should train our children to industrious habits. Habits of industry are a safeguard to morals, as well as the necessary discipline to a Christian character. And most importantly, we must not neglect our children’s religious education. Knowledge without true religion is like power in the hands of a madman.
We must maintain a due reverence for law. Those who either corrupt or undervalue the administration of justice undermine the defense of personal security. We must watch against encroachment upon the integrity and independence of the judiciary. When the Halls of Justice are corrupted, the rights of persons and property are at an end. We need but to go back to first principles, and rouse up the sleeping spirit of the Puritans to do all that our fellow citizens require of us for the protection of the gifts of liberty and justice which the Creator has given us.
I’m not saying that we who honor the Creator by our presence here this evening are better people than those who are not in church on a regular basis. To say this would be hypocrisy because it simply isn’t true. Many who strive to be Christian make grievous mistakes and love and are enslaved by their sin. Some of our loudest preachers have been dreadful hypocrites. But let us know and claim the forgiveness of God recognizing our debt to Him who through His providence established our freedom. And let us value the ideals that have been set before by the Lord. Those who came before us understood the importance of doing so, and that has made all the difference in America as it faced past crises.
Tonight, as part of our observance of Thanksgiving, we have recounted the origins of the tradition of America’s day of national thanksgiving. We must come to understand our heritage if we are to survive the present battle for the soul of our nation.
Our Thanksgiving must be more than family around the dinner table, it must be more than kids enjoying the Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV, it must be more than a day off watching football on TV, it must be more than an excuse for a pre-Christmas sale. But it will not be more unless Christians make the effort. If the Holy Spirit were to withdrawn from the land, all would be lost, for it is the Holy Spirit and the influence of Christians which restrain evil, whether this fact is recognized or not.
May this Thanksgiving Day be the occasion for Christians and all Americans to renew our commitment and our resolve to perpetuate the Christian heritage. Failure to do so can have only one end—the loss of Christian influence in our land. America is on the verge of losing its Christian heritage. Please don’t let that happen. Remember our Christian heritage! Celebrate it! Give thanks to God for it! And protect it!
I end with a poem by Katherine Lee Bates, 1892, revised 1911, which celebrates our national aspirations. Though we have often fallen short of realizing our aspirations, we press forward in the effort to purify our land and enshrine God’s Holy Spirit in the hearts of every citizen:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
(If you found this sermon to be helpful, please visit us at www.HeritageRestorationProject.org)
