THANKSGIVING SERMON.
Oxford Observer, Rōrahi IX, 2 Paengawhāwhā 1898, Page 3
Mō tēnei niupepa
THANKSGIVING SERMON.
By Colonel Ingersoll.
The Liberator.
'-xxy''" X s v sQ ~*%y What have the worldly done ?'XT*
They have investigated Jhe facts of nature. They have inventedrways to use the forces of the world, the weight of falling water, the forces of moving air. They have changed water to steam; they have invented engines— the tireless giants that work for man. They haye made lightning a messenger and slave. They have invented movable type; taught us the art of printing made it possible to save and transmit the intellectual wealth of the world. They connected continents with cables, cities and towns with the telegraph they have brought! the world into one family they haye made intelligence independent of distance. They taught us how to build homes, how to obtain food, how to weave cloth. They covered the seas with iron ships, the lands with roads and steads of steel. They gave us the tools of all trades— the implements of all
labour. They chiselledstatues; painted pictures, and "witched the world with form and colour. .They haye found the cause of, and the cure foi, many maladies that afflict tt.e flesh and minds of men. They have given us the instruments of music, and the great composers and performers have changed the common air to nones and harmonies that intoxicate, exalt, purify, and refine the soul.
They have rescued us from the prison of fear; they have snatched our souls from the fangs and claws of superstition's loathsome, crawling, flying beasts. They have given us the liberty to think, the courage to express Our thoughts. They have changed the frightened, the enslaved, the kneeling, the prostrate into men and womenclothed them m their right minds and made them truly free. They have uncrowned the phantoms, wrested the sceptres from the ghosts, and given this worid to the children of men. They have driven from our hearts the fiends of fear they' have extinguished the flames of hell.
They have read a few leaves of the great volume of Nature, decipred some of the records written on stone by the tireless hands of time m the dim and distant past. They toid us something of what hu3 been done by wind and wave, by fire and frost, by life and death, the ceaseless workers, the pauseless forces of the world.
They have enlarged the horizon of the known, changed the glittering specks that shine above us to wheeling worlds, and filled all space with constellations and countless suns.
They have found the qualities of substances, the nature of things. They have shown us how to analyze, separate and combine, and have enabled us to use the good and avoid the hurtful.
They havj given us mathematics m its higher forms, by means of. which
we measure astronomical spaces, the distances to stars, the velocity with which the heavenly bodies move, their density and weight, by which the mariner navigates v/ide and waste seas. They baveX given us all we hay of knowledge, all we have of literature and ari. They have made life worth living. They have filled the world with conveniences, with comforts, .with luxuries. And al,! this has been done by the worldly, by those who were not called, nor set apart, nor filled with the Holy Ghost, who had no claim to apostolic succession." The men who have accomplished these things had no revelation, no supernatural aid. They were hot clad m sacred vestments tiares *ere npt upon their heads. They were not even ordained. They used their senses they observed and recorded facts. They had confidence m reason. They were patient searchers after the truth. They turned their attention to the affairs of this world. They were not saints. They were sensible men. They Wero not holy. They were honest. They worked for themselves they worked for wife and child, and for the banefit of all.
