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 CHRISTIAN PANTHEISM: 
 
 AN ADDRESS ON THANKSGIVING DAY, 1865 
 
 BT 
 
 THE REV. DR. SCADDING. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 aOIiLO * ADAM, 61, EIN6 STBKIT. 
 
 1866. 
 
' f 
 
 3^/9 
 
 CnRISTIAN PANTHEISM. 
 
 AN ADDRESS ON TIIANKSaiVINO DAY, 1865. 
 
 t / 
 
 How often in the affairs of a nation 
 or a people do we see unexpected 
 changes, unexpected turns na we speak, 
 which, as iu a moment, alter the whole 
 aspect of tliin^is! What was but 
 just now an unmitigated chaos, over- 
 shadowed with the blackness of dark- 
 ness, suggestive only of despair, be- 
 comes of a sudden a widespread scene 
 of the most felicitous composition, its 
 groups of objects combined harmoni- 
 ously, and radiantly coloured under an 
 exhilarat ing sunlight, filling tlie heart 
 instantly with cheerfulness and hope. 
 Such transformations in the panorama 
 of events ever unrolling before our eyes 
 we instinctively feel to be above and 
 beyond the powers of man to produce. 
 We therefore ascribe tliem to God. It 
 is well that we should do so. For it is 
 thus that we realise that over us and 
 our doings there are in operation, 
 eternal, unchanging laws, which, as 
 instituted by the Supreme Ruler of all 
 alone in the beginning, the Supreme 
 Ruler of all, alone, to this day controls. 
 
 We have been summoned together on 
 the present occasion by the voice of 
 Public Authority, to recognize one of 
 these marked admonitions from on 
 high. By agencies irrespective and 
 independent of ourselves, we have just 
 been made to pass from a condition of 
 doubt and perplexity to one of animat- 
 ing promise and hope ; and the Civil 
 Power has called upon all thoughtful 
 and reflecting persons to meditate in 
 an express and formal manner on what 
 has thus befallen us ; to meditate upon 
 it as on an act of God : to realize the 
 fact while the fact is recent, and then 
 to render unto God the intelligent 
 homage of thankful and understanding 
 minds. 
 
 It is true that, day by day and week 
 by week, we, as Christian men and 
 Christian women, reckon over here in 
 general terms the bounties and bless- 
 ings which we are constantly receiving 
 at the bands of the great Creator of 
 all, stirring up our hearts thereby, if 
 
 so we may, to real thankfulness and 
 love. As on the one liaud we pray to 
 be kept from lightning and tempest, 
 from ]>lapue, pestilence and famine, 
 from battle, from murder, from sudden 
 death, from sedition, from privy con- 
 spiracy and relitUion, and supplicate 
 ever for unity, peace and concord 
 among all nations, and that the kindly 
 fruits of tlie e.-irth may be granted to 
 us and preserved to our use so that in 
 due time we may enjjy them — so on 
 the other hand we ofl'oi- daily prayers 
 and thanksgiving for our creation, pre- 
 servation and all the blessings of this 
 life. 
 
 Whenever in fact we come together 
 before the special presence of God, a 
 very large portion of our religious 
 service is tilled with a spirit of joyous 
 thankfulness. " come let us sing 
 unto the Lord, let us heartily rejoice 
 in the strength of our salvation. We 
 prsise Thee, God, we acknowledge 
 Thee to be the Lord. O all ye worka 
 of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise 
 Him and magnify Him for ever. be 
 joyful in the Lord all ye lands, serve 
 the Lord with gladness and come 
 before His presence with a song." 
 These words give us the key note, so to 
 speak, of our usual liturgical service. 
 
 But these are all general praises and 
 acknowledgements and petitions. And 
 being general, they are apt to be 
 breathed forth by us with less intensity 
 of meaning than their terms intrin- 
 sically have. It is well therefore that 
 there should be some special occasions 
 for the special realization of the put- 
 ting forth of the Divine hand. 
 
 Before however enumerating at large 
 the special causes which have this day 
 brought us together, I desire to take 
 as the subject of the bulk of my 
 addiess this thesis — suggested by the 
 observance of the day and appropriate 
 to it — namely : The intelligent and 
 30 really Christian recognition of God 
 in common objects — in the familiar 
 things and beings of earth and water 
 
^C'^C 
 
 4 
 
 Chriatian Fantheism : 
 
 and sky around us. This intelliuent 
 and so Cliristian recognition of God 
 iu sucli directions is tlie princiiilo 
 brouglit out hy tlie appointment of a 
 day of thanksgiving for an abundant 
 hnrvest , and it is a principle of human 
 thought and life of wide application. 
 There is the more propriety too in 
 treating of such a subject on a day 
 like the present, because on ordinary 
 ecclesiastical occasions such a subject 
 is seldom touched on in a tangible, 
 specific way, there being in the com- 
 mon mind an impression that the con- 
 sideration of such subjects in anything 
 like detail belongs to the department 
 of science. Now the dissociation of 
 the certain truths of science and the 
 distinctive truths of religious faith 
 has, without doubt, occasioned much 
 harm in the world, by giving rise to 
 an appearance of antagonism between 
 the two sets of truths ; whereas it 
 would be better if a clear view were 
 popularly established of the mutual 
 light and help which the one can 
 atford to the other. 
 
 Moreover, there is a lurking ima- 
 gination in the thoughts of many that 
 topics connected in any way with what 
 we call physical science — even when 
 not held to be directly antagonistic to 
 matters of laith, have yet nothing to 
 do with Christianity. But here is a 
 point, I think, on which we have much 
 to learn. There are passages in the 
 writings of apostles and evangelists, 
 which lead us to believe that nothing 
 in creation can be disconnected from 
 Christianity; nothing at least that 
 can be observed or deduced even phys- 
 ically on the planet which we inhabit. 
 The evangelist who leaned on the 
 bosom of our Lord says " without him, 
 i.e. Christ, was not anything made 
 that at the beginning was mauc ; that 
 prior to creation he was ; and that by 
 him and through him all things con- 
 nected with our earth were made." 
 And the apostle who next after this 
 writer sounded the most completely 
 the depths of theologic knowledge, de- 
 clares that ''by him, i.e. by Christ, all 
 tnings were created ; that he is before 
 all things ; and by him all things con- 
 sist." 
 
 And with such words how well did 
 the declarations of our Saviour himself 
 correspond. As for example when he 
 said — "My Father worketh hitherto 
 
 without interruption, and I in a co- 
 ordinate matter work likewise, without 
 stop or break or rest." With such 
 words too how well did his deeds 
 accord, converting vessels of water 
 into reser.voirs of wine; evoking out 
 of a scant supply of bread and lish food 
 for four tliousand and for five ; evoking 
 it, not by a power referred to as dele- 
 gated, but by h's own fiat, by the 
 exertion of his own will at the moment. 
 Here are great mysteries ; but mys- 
 teries, I think, which will more and 
 more interest men as they become 
 more enlightened ; as they advance 
 more and more in a real knowledge of 
 even the common things of earth and 
 sea and sky ; mysteries, the gradual 
 insight into which will probably con- 
 stitute a portion of that divine know- 
 ledge, that real theology, which is 
 one day to cover the earth. 
 
 The primitive families of our race, 
 ere yet there had been time for the 
 complex errors of latter periods to 
 accumulate and interfere seriously 
 with primeval revelations and prim- 
 eval intuitions, acknowledged God 
 according to the as yet simple ideas 
 of things which informed their minda 
 and actuated their lives, 
 
 The heathen tribes scattered far and 
 wide away from their primitive home, 
 over the surface of the globe, groped 
 as they best could after God ; endeav- 
 oured to express in some way, accord- 
 ing to their lights, their sense of the 
 divine. In the existing sculptures of 
 Egypt, of India, of China, of Japan, of 
 Central America, and of Mexico, we 
 see this. In the written literature of 
 nations more cultivated — more akin 
 and ancestral, so to speak, to ourselves, 
 — we have copious records of this. The 
 Hebrew people, even in debased peri- 
 ods of their history, when trampled 
 under foot by foreign conquerors, when 
 mingled with the heathen by inroads 
 of immigrants from without, or by 
 being themselves planted among them 
 in masses during their exile in the far 
 East, yet never ceased in some manner 
 to recognize and acknowledge the 
 action of the divine hand in their 
 midst. The nations of Christendom, 
 even in periods of darkness, when im- 
 mersed in the gloom and superstition 
 which sprung naturally from the 
 systems of physics and general science 
 inherited by them from the equally 
 
 T 
 
 4 
 
A Tlmnksginng Adiress. 
 
 T 
 
 * 
 
 ignorant past, yet recoffnized God in 
 their way, liowovor mistakenly and 
 8ometimP3 cruelly, and, aa it seems to 
 «s, irrationtilly. 
 
 How much more now should wr, ac- 
 cordinfj to our liplits, acknowledge 
 God, intellipently and so in the Iiif:^li- 
 est sense religiously, \vk, who have 
 been permitted to live in times when a 
 wonderful illuminiition in respect to 
 natural things, has taken jilace, when 
 a wide view of tiio universe of God 
 has been granted to human research, 
 and the true relations of tiie globe 
 ■which we inliabit to the system of 
 which it is a part, and the relation 
 again of that system to the whole, liuve 
 been, at least in some degree, dis- 
 covered ? 
 
 If thouuhtful, religioug-minded men 
 in past ages, taking tliis bull of enrth 
 on which we >tand, to be tiie centre of 
 thiniis, and the sun and stars and plan- 
 ets to be luminariea revolving round 
 it simply for its uj^e and convenience, 
 if they, by special reasonings and 
 ingenious imaginings, piling awk- 
 wardly cycle on epicycle, sphere on 
 sphere, contrived to see an order 
 amidst it all, and to see God in all, 
 how much more should we do so ? — 
 we who are enabled to rise above this 
 selfish, egotistic, human view of our 
 earth and its surroundings — we who 
 are enabled to see in each planet a 
 globe as likely as our own to be the 
 abode of myriads of beings, suitably to 
 whose condition God, without doubt, 
 hath made himself known, as certainly 
 as he hath done so here suitably to ours 
 — we who are enabled to see in each 
 star a sun, and this sun, like our own, 
 possibly a world, clothed with light as 
 with a garment, enveloped in a photo- 
 sphere beneath the shadowless canopy 
 of which revolves, as though it were 
 one of the many mansions of the blest, a 
 mighty globe in everlasting day ? Has 
 it not been granted to us thus at least in 
 some degree, to see what the universe 
 is — vast, illimitable, incomprehensible, 
 and what our place in it is ? Has it not 
 been granted to us, to grasp an idea 
 of its ineffable grandeur and com- 
 plexity, and at tbe same time to dis- 
 cern the simplicity of principle, by 
 means of which it is all made to cohere 
 in unity, and to ivork without let or 
 hindrance, answering all its many 
 purposes, and especially that of sup- 
 
 plying the precise wants of us, and 
 myriads of varied existences, through- 
 out all apes? How siiould avk then, 
 bc'ond tlie men ol'ail past generations, 
 see God in his works, and be tilled 
 with awe and love and praise 1 
 
 It is certain that as a real intelli- 
 gence spreads, as it is siireadiiig slowly, 
 among tiie multitudes wiiicii coi,stitute 
 the mass of each nation, and as a real 
 insight into Ciinstianity, freed from 
 the narrownesr^es contractcil in piist 
 ages, and seen as it all'i'ds even the 
 visil)le creation, is acquired, it is cer- 
 tain that men will more and more 
 recogni/.e Goil in all things, simply, 
 naturally, with earnest and real feel- 
 ing, witliout allVctation, without con- 
 ventionality, without what is justly 
 reprobated as emit. 
 
 It is certain also that henceforward 
 the systems of education, the courses 
 of study for the ])urpose of training, 
 strengthening and inforniitig the])lns- 
 lic mind of youth, will, in the English- 
 speaking portion^' of the earth, bo 
 deemed incomplete and insiillicient, 
 that do not embrace an intelligent 
 insight into the elements of the physi- 
 cal sciences — th.* sciences vvhich not 
 only lie at the root of the necessary 
 and useful arts of our practical modern 
 life, but whidi, as we see, unfold before 
 the eye of man boundless fields in 
 which the providence, the love, the 
 power, the glory of God our heavenly 
 Father are displayed and can be read 
 by all. 
 
 The British Islands, and Europe gen- 
 erally, have inherited from the past, 
 a system of public education which 
 originpt^^'d in times when what we of 
 thisd- .all science scarcely existed. 
 The cloi tered students of the early 
 and middle centuries of our era were 
 necessarily confined to tlic narrowest 
 circle of knowledge, to the most 
 cramped views of things. All matters 
 that harmonized with the tastes and 
 ideas likely to be prevalent within the 
 walls of monasteries were magnified 
 into a monstrous importance. Those 
 matters that related only to the sym- 
 pathies, the tastes, the wants of the 
 people at large, were ignored, or else 
 set down as suited to the consideration 
 only of the lewd layman and serf. 
 No written vernaculars, or what we 
 term modern languages, then existed. 
 For all the nations of Europe there 
 
4a 
 
 6 
 
 Christian Pantheism : 
 
 wag but one litcraturn and that for 
 tlio moat part blurred and mialntcr- 
 prefed in a tliousaud ways, and con- 
 veyed in a tongue understood only by 
 a caste. Men trained and moulded 
 and taught under conditions such as 
 tiieso were tho constructers of tlio 
 system of j)iiblic education, which 
 essentially has been inherited by the 
 mother-country and some other parts 
 of Euroiie. 
 
 In the old historic institutions for 
 the training of the adult niiud modili- 
 cations have been admitted from the 
 necessity of tho case. But in the 
 ancient foundations for the education 
 of the very young, and in later institu- 
 tions for the same ]iurpose formed on 
 the antiijue model, it is only now that 
 the public voice in the purent-state, is 
 succeeding in obtiiining tho needed 
 changes and improvements, 
 
 In the great republic to tho south of 
 us, in our own country, and in the 
 vast domains of Great IJritain, in Aus- 
 tralia and India, the required modifi- 
 cations in the inherited system of 
 public education have for many years 
 been admitted, have for many years 
 been maturing and advancing in ac- 
 cordance with the wants of the era 
 and of the new regions which our race 
 is filling. The reclamations against 
 change in this direction heard 
 through the instrumentality of a 
 lately published Report, have conse- 
 quently filled with amazement the 
 English-speaking world, outside the 
 limits of the old island-home itself. 
 The advance made by ourselves in 
 respect to this matter, and the advance 
 made by the common mind of the 
 British isles on the same subject, 
 beyond the point attained by many in 
 possession of power and office in influ- 
 ential foundations of learning were not 
 before realized. 
 
 It is a matter of congratulation then 
 which it is legitimate on the present 
 occasion to notice, that henceforward 
 in the home as well as colonial empire 
 of Britain, the system of general in- 
 struction for each young generation as 
 it springs up will embrace, as necessary 
 instruments of training and just human 
 development, departments of science 
 which, while they are indispensable 
 for the due understanding and effec- 
 tive use of earth and the things of 
 earth, lead likewise, under wise direc- 
 
 tion, to a real acquaintance with Ood. 
 
 Gradually thus will well-disposed 
 men, tho obscuro as well aa the con- 
 spicuous, the artizan in his workshop, 
 the labourer in the field, the employe 
 of humblest grade in tho manufac- 
 turing, engineering, commercial and 
 other undertakings of modern times, 
 be guided, even from childhood, to 
 views of the round world and of all 
 that therein is, surpasdng the imagi- 
 nations of the wisest sages of old. 
 Habitually will men, lowly men, bo 
 thus led to behold in the heavens the 
 handy-work of God in a sense and 
 with an insight which never entered 
 into the heart of enraptured seer to 
 conceive. 
 
 From a study, even slight, of the 
 physical structure of the globe, the 
 ideas of progression und gradation, of 
 order and law divine, will be ingrained 
 with tho earliest impressions. Chem- 
 istry, though known only in its ele- 
 ments, will furnish a standing proof 
 that over nothing does chance preside ; 
 that in the composition of even the 
 impalpable and invisible, number and 
 rrensure are observed with a precision 
 and accuracy which wholly transcend 
 all conceivable skill of man. 
 
 In the frame-work of ordinary ani- 
 mals and of man, internal, external, the 
 mind will be trained from the time of 
 its first young awakening, to see that 
 which tells of God. God will be seen 
 in the discoveries there of preadapta- 
 tions of organism to sphere of action, 
 of means to ends ; in the discoveries 
 there of contrivances for the discharge 
 of function, of provision for duration, 
 of an apparatus of admonition, deli- 
 cate and sensitive, instantly warning 
 against whatever is opposed to health 
 and length of days. 
 
 The petal of the flower, the leaf of 
 the forest-jilant, the feather of the 
 bird, the insect's wing, the scale of the 
 fish, the coating of the shell — reveal- 
 ing their several latent glories by the 
 aid of art — will be demonstrations of 
 Him who hath so clothed, so perfectly 
 finished, even the minutest, the most 
 imperceptible of his works. 
 
 Now let not him that heareth say 
 that it is beneath us here to entertain 
 such thoughts aa those which have 
 been suggested. Let not him that 
 heareth say that such matters are out- 
 side the circle of Christian teaehing. 
 
 I 
 
^o S 
 
 A Thanfi'fif/lving AiUress, 
 
 'I 
 
 of 
 
 ■the 
 
 Itbe 
 
 ial- 
 
 Ithe 
 
 of 
 
 jtiy 
 
 03t 
 
 
 But let him that hoareih roniember 
 thiit, as has already heoii hinted, the 
 spt'clal blc's^'ins of roili'iiiptioii wuh fur 
 from beiiiK inl* ..ded to nirrow dowa 
 tlio minds of men, as si'diis nftmi vir- 
 tually to bo tausrlit, niiil imiko tlicm 
 blind to tin; blcssinps and bountiis of 
 Creation ; but that tiio wliolo (Jrcntion, 
 as replaced now iijion the l)().^om of God 
 by Ihn grand art of rt'domplion, wn^i 
 destined to be regarded by those who 
 bavo the eye to see, ns agtiiri very pood ; 
 as the germ and bud of the new Crea- 
 tion, of the new heavens, and of the 
 new earth, iu the midst of which re- 
 generate buniau spirits ore to live and 
 move. 
 
 If we are really the ofTspring of God, 
 habitual recognition of (xod in all nat- 
 ural phenomena is without doubt a 
 thing due to him, and by withholding 
 it we rob him. We defraud also our- 
 selves. 
 
 " I have often been asked,'' wrote a 
 distinguished artist, lately deceased, 
 " the secret of the life which has been, 
 it is said, noticed in my landscapes. 
 It is very simple. The Creator is to 
 me a Living One, and as all is inti- 
 mately connected in our natures, my 
 work participates in the worship ren- 
 dered by my soul to the author of all 
 beauty and truth.'* Thus, in a great 
 degree, it might be with ourselves. 
 More full of grace do the fruit of the 
 lips and the operation of the hands 
 become, as we more habitually discern 
 and unfeignedly enjoy, wherever we 
 look — 
 
 "The light that never was, on sea or land, 
 The consecration and the poet's dream," 
 
 That man loses much of the zest of 
 life who has not learned to gaze upon 
 the common objects and products a- 
 lound him, as the work of his heavenly 
 
 Fatlu'r's hand. JIo th kt is wi«o and 
 duly injtriicled in the iliin;»3 of God'i 
 kingdom, discerns there divitio laws 
 written, wliieli, like the code more tor- 
 mally revi'ale(l, hu de.-iires to apineeiiito 
 and obey ; aivd more liiau tiiis, to h:ivo 
 them taui^ht, and himself ililiiif'ntly to 
 teach them, to hU childreti, and literal- 
 ly to talk of tliem when lie sitteth in 
 the house, when ho walkelli by the 
 way, when ho lieth down, and when 
 ho riselh up | 
 
 How completely in harmony with 
 the lino of thought suggested, is tlie 
 JJknkdicite, or hyuin, "(J all yo works 
 of the Lord,'' which for so many hun- 
 dreds of years has been i»art of our 
 iMorning Service. During the lirst 
 ipuirter or half of the present century, 
 this hymn was seldom said or sun;--, 
 probably from some narrow notion of 
 the time that it was unspiritual, inas- 
 much as it busied itself only with tho 
 visible phenomena of earth and sea 
 and sky, and sought motives there for 
 blessing and praise to the name of the 
 ^lost High. Biuce the beginning of 
 the cen'ury, however, the phenomena 
 of earth and sea and sky have been 
 studied with very great minuteness 
 and accuracy, with very great intelli- 
 gence, and that by large numbers of 
 persons. More vividly and truly, than 
 perhaps in any previous age, has it 
 consequently been seen, that in all 
 these things there is nothing common 
 or unclean, but rather a series of man- 
 ifestations of the glory, the wisdom, 
 the love, the marvellous power, the 
 almighiiness of God. It is (ittiug 
 therefore, and in harmony with the age 
 in which we live, that this hymn 
 should again be sung. Its freiiuent 
 use derogates nothing from the spirit- 
 uality of our worship ; it, on the con- 
 
 • The same artist. Calame, late of Menlon, ni France, ugain writes: •' I should he happy if I 
 thought my portraits of the Giiaxd Alps could cause the public to Ray that * tlie hcasons declare 
 the glory of God.' In painting the Harvest, I sung in my sduI tho words of my old psalm — 
 
 Et cette riehesse chanipetre, 
 Par de inuets accords, 
 Celehrer I'auteur de sou etre 
 Qui repand ses trcsors." 
 
 $ The following characteristic sentences are from a recont letter of Thomas Cnrlyle's : " For 
 many years it has heeii one of my constant ref,'rl;ls that no schoolmaster of mine had a knowiiidfje 
 of natural history, so far at least, as to have taught me the grasses that grow hy the wayside, and the 
 little winged or wingless neighbours that are continually meeting mc with a salutation which I 
 cannot answer, as things are. Why didn't someboily loach me the constellations, too. and make 
 me at home in the starry heaveus whidi are always overhead, and which I don't half.knuw to thi-i 
 day ! I love to prdphesy thai thero wdl come a time when, not in Kdinburgh only, hut iii all Scot- 
 tish and I'iuropeaa town.s aud villages, the schoolmasttr will licBtriutly reipiircd to pos.-rss these 
 two capalv.liiies ( neither Gretk nor Latin mjre strict! ) and that no ingenuous di-nizen of this uni- 
 veraa be thenceforward debarred from his right of liberty in these two departments, and doomed to 
 look oa them as if across grated fences all his Ufa." 
 
4±£<L 
 
 8 
 
 Chnttian I\intheUm 
 
 trftry, aiipplios the elr^ment which 
 Mould oilit-rwisf lit' wiitiiiii^'. iiti fila- 
 ment whicli otijrht. to (irittir into the 
 I)raist'S and tlirmks^ivinj; ati<l worship 
 of iiiU'llincnl nn'ii, MJimi'ly, rt'coKiiiiion 
 of tlio visible woika of God the Crea- 
 tor of all, 
 
 At ono nioniont or nnothor through' 
 out ilio }far, all tlio vcrsiclcs and 
 parti) of tliiB grand hymn como into 
 nso with force and touching power ; 
 but especially in our winter months, 
 when outspread on every hand around 
 us are to be seen the beautiful, often 
 the sublime phenomena of that season, 
 I have often thoufjht the invocations 
 *' O ye dews and frosts, O ye frost 
 and cold, O ye ice and snow, bless yo 
 the Lord, praise liim and magnify Him 
 for ever," to bo uttered by us with 
 peculiar i)oint ; and to answer well 
 the end of religiously associating in 
 the minds of young and old, the 
 thought of our Heavenly Father with 
 the familiar, but ever wonderful phen- 
 omena of winter. 
 
 So again in view of the splendours 
 of our local heavens by day and night, 
 at morn, at noon, at set of sun, when 
 the evening star is blazing on liigh — 
 or the auroral arch in the mysterious 
 north is darting forth its capricious 
 beams — do not the exclamations " O 
 ye nights and days, ye light and 
 darkness, ye lightnings and clouds," 
 jiossess a force and a reality, which 
 are instructive, which tend religiously 
 to elevate and to subdue ? 
 
 And what forbids when we say " 
 ye mountains and hills," that we should 
 not associate with the words our own 
 mountains and hills — our Laurentian 
 range, the precipices of our Saguenay, 
 the abrupt escarpments of our historic 
 heights at Queenston or Burlington ? 
 What forbids, when we sing " ye 
 seas and floods," to make concrete the 
 abstract, by thinking of our own in- 
 land seas, of our Superior with its 
 32,000 square miles of surface, with 
 its wealth of iron, and " out of whose 
 hills thou mayest dig brass ;" or of our 
 Ontario studded round with cities and 
 towns, its " margent green " in the 
 intervals, a succession of fruitful farm- 
 lands to the water's edge ; of our Nia- 
 gara thundering in its place for ever ; 
 or of our St. Lawrence, now serenely 
 flowing on by its thousand isles, now, 
 with pceaa-like tossings on its rifted 
 
 dlnpes, ru!ibing Impatiently to the sea? 
 Nay, it cannot but bo well for the ver- 
 siclei of this hymn tlius to be a.HMuci- 
 ated in the mind with the familiar 
 Bceucs and sights of the land in which 
 we li\ i", and so to give rise, in (Minnec- 
 tion with i^uch associations, to freipient 
 thoughts of reverence, love and devo- 
 tion, to our Father who is in heaven. 
 
 And whatever has been said in ref- 
 erence to the ancient BENEi)n;rTR, may 
 be said with like truth and force of 
 the sublime composition now well 
 known among us as T/ie Strain up- 
 raise, a hymn breathing in the fullest 
 degree the spirit of duteous praise and 
 adoration, as suggested by the things 
 that are seen, which it has been the 
 object of this address to ([uicken and 
 jerpetuate. 
 
 The special blessing for which our 
 Land this day offers uj) before God a 
 special sacrifice of praise and thanks- 
 giving is, as we know, a plenteous 
 harvest, fllling the hearts of our hus- 
 bandmen with food and gladness, 
 causing their garners to burst out 
 with all manner of store. 
 
 The creation of wealth from the 
 bosom of the earth by the co-operation 
 of man is one of the standing mira- 
 cles annually occurring before our 
 eyes which from their very familiarity 
 excite, generally speaking, no especial 
 wonder, no especial acts of reverence, 
 love and adoration towards God. 
 Before our Tery eyes, bare grain, it 
 may chance of wheat, or of some 
 other grain, scattered abroad in the 
 furrows of the field, apparently to 
 decay and perish, springs up with a 
 visible, tangible increase, sometimes 
 thirty, sometimes sixty, sometimes a 
 hundred fold. 
 
 It is this phenomenon occurring 
 once more for our benefit and relief, in 
 its highest degree of noteworthiness, 
 that now brings us together. The pros- 
 perity which in this manner befals the 
 great producing class of a country 
 always speedily re-acts upon the com- 
 munity at large and establishes in 
 due time, a solid prosperity for all. 
 
 In addition we commemorate also 
 the restoration of peace upon our 
 borders. How suddenly has the hori- 
 zon cleared. How marvellously, 
 throughout the length and breadth of 
 this northern continent have the views 
 and prospects of men been changed 
 
 I 
 
^ d70' 
 
 A Thnnktjivhiff Adihrnt. 
 
 niira- 
 
 ';• 
 
 *• 
 
 viewa 
 inged 
 
 within the compass of a twolremonth. 
 This hath God clone, wVn ovcrnileth 
 according to his will tliu action or 
 nations, and niakcth cvon tiie wratli 
 of man to praiso Ilim, by hrin^^ing 
 good out of evil. Among our neigh* 
 boura, so lately arrayed against each 
 other in deadly strife, wo sec a happy 
 unity returning; a yoeial reconfltruc- 
 tion guiiiK on, witli iho fatal element 
 oliminated which wan the oiiuae of 
 all tlieir woe. It has now been seen 
 and felt throughout both sections of 
 the great republic, in a manner never 
 before realized, wluit the arbitration 
 of (piestionH by the sword meancth ; 
 and their bitter experience is a pledge 
 that the appeal to that mode of decid- 
 ing (juarrels will be infre<|Uont. 
 
 We see also harmony returnin^j be- 
 tween the people of that re-united 
 nation and their and our parent Statu 
 beyond the seas, a harmony that had 
 been jarred by miatalten words and 
 deeds on both sides, chiefly by the 
 unfair attribution to the whole of what 
 was the animus of only a part in each 
 community. 
 
 At a great international festival, in 
 which by invitation I was lately privi- 
 leged totalie a part, in a populous and 
 influential city of the United States, on 
 our frontier, on the occasion of the 
 visit there of a number of distinguished 
 Bnglishmen, I bailed with deep thank- 
 fulness the manifest return of the old, 
 kindly, and natural good-feeling. 
 " Were I a statesman " exclaimed one 
 venerable orator on that festive occas- 
 ion, " I would say to Great Jlritain, I 
 adjure you by our common blood, by 
 our common language, by the old 
 memories of our common glory, give 
 us your friendship, not a cold, calcu- 
 lating, commercial friendship, not a 
 romantic friendship, but a practical, 
 genuine friendship, such as should 
 exist between two wise and experi- 
 enced nations, imbued with the spirit 
 of the common law, and sensible that 
 God has imposed on them the common 
 duty of advancing the progress of 
 humanity, and defending the liberties 
 of mankind." Now there is not a 
 doubt but that this is exactly what 
 the bulk of the real English people 
 desire V> do. 
 
 Do we not well, on a day like the 
 present, while passing under review 
 0]ur various reasons for thankfulness. 
 
 to take notice of such utterances as 
 these, and to regard them na cheerful 
 auguries of that perpetuity of amity 
 which It especially befits u.t to desire 
 between nations so bound together 
 by intere.st and nature ? 
 
 Again : in respect to our prospects 
 as a people, how marvellously have 
 the thick clouds which a few niontiis 
 since hung so heavily over our future, 
 been lifted off! Instead of hosts of 
 armed men ready, with an irritation 
 just or unjust, to rush at many a point 
 across our frontier, there to be mut by 
 the flower of our country suddenly 
 trained and hastily despatched to brave 
 tiie threatened on-set, instead of a sec- 
 ond fratricidal strife, thus to be initiat- 
 ed, with its hateful accompaniments of 
 mutual destruction and devastation — 
 what have we seen, what do wo see ? 
 Only embassies passing and repassing 
 over the dividing line, from city to 
 city, on errands of peace and good 
 will ; relations of hospitality estab- 
 lished between city and city, remind- 
 ing the student of history of those 
 which existed between kindred Greek 
 States of old ; an unparalleled series 
 of visits, reciprocally made by del&- 
 giitions of thouglitful and provident 
 men desirous of increased facility of 
 intercourse, increased interchange 
 of commodities. 
 
 Instead of conquest by force, or 
 absorption and extinction by circum- 
 stances, we behold ourselves suddenly 
 become part and parcel of a new- 
 born nationality, consolidated, in 
 company with our brethren hitherto 
 disunitedly settled over the vast 
 breadth of the British Northland of 
 this continent, from Vancouvers to 
 the Gulf, into a people; encouraged 
 to have faith in ourselves, to respect 
 ourselves, to cultivate the individ- 
 uality which our circumstances have 
 already led us to develop. By agencies 
 iu which we have had little part, we 
 see ourselves this day advanced on- 
 wards a stage in our historic career ; 
 carried forward, let us believe, by 
 the providence of God, to a position, 
 the novel duties of which it will be 
 well speedily to realize and fit our- 
 selves to discharge. 
 
 Thanksgiving days, like the present 
 in the land of our fathers, would 
 be ushered in by joyous peals from 
 the gray towers of Cathedrals and 
 
^ ^ 
 
 10 
 
 Christian Pantheism. 
 
 other grand old Churches, within the 
 walls of its cities and towns, peala 
 responded to by many a village belfry 
 far and near around the whole circle 
 of the wide horii'.on, rendering the air 
 vocal with measured chimings, now 
 heard clearly, now caught faintly, as 
 though again in the high empyrean the 
 morning stars were singing, and the 
 sons of God, the choirs of heaven, were 
 joining together in musical acclaim as 
 when the foundations of the earth 
 were laid. 
 
 Bell-music, such as this, coming 
 forth on festive occasions from in- 
 numerable towers in rhythmic and 
 often highly scientific permutation, is 
 peculiar to the island-homes of our 
 fathers and to the lands peopled from 
 thence. Elsewhere there are to be 
 heard, generally speaking, only iso- 
 lated unseasonable knoUings, funereal 
 and sad, or else, barbaric clangours, 
 vexing to the refined ear and weari- 
 some, destitute of poetry or any 
 rational significance, interesting only 
 to the inmates of monasteries and 
 minds trained under monastic influ- 
 ence. 
 
 Bell-music, of the joyous, heart- 
 stirring English kind, we do not this 
 day hear in this place. But on the 
 occasion of our next public thanksgiv- 
 ing, and on many another festive day 
 hereafter we shall, it is probable, be 
 saluted with the old familiar sounds 
 from the Cathedral tower of Toronto, 
 now growing slowly before our eyes. 
 The goodly peal there to be set up, 
 handled in a kindly, genial, liberal 
 spirit, regulated bygood taste and relig- 
 ious feeling, will, in thousands of 
 hearts, awaken happy thoughts and be 
 associated with happy memories, — 
 adding a ze:'t to life, and tending to 
 make the immigrant content with his 
 adopted home, and to attach the native 
 born by an additional tie to the land 
 of his birth. 
 
 Tlie tower itself of St. .Tames' rising 
 in our midst, massive and conspicuous, 
 will serve ia future times, as a stimding 
 memorial to us of the present memorable 
 year, this turning point in our history, 
 this birth year of o«r new existence as 
 well as of the moment when the tide 
 of our prosperity, after having been for 
 some ton years at the ebb, began to 
 come back again to the flood ; and on 
 future occasions iu the generations 
 
 following us, its peal of bells will lend 
 expression t<* public feeling, whether 
 that feeling be one of joy, as wo pray 
 it may often be ; or of sorrow, as we 
 know it must sometimes be. 
 
 On occasions of general rejoicing, as 
 at the visit of one destined to bo a 
 king, at the announcement of a victory 
 or a peace, at the proclamation of a 
 day of general relaxation, or at the 
 commemoration of an abundant har- 
 vest ; and on occasions of general sor- 
 row, as when so sadly fell widowhood 
 on a queen, or when there departs from 
 among ourselves some great and good 
 man, whom the whole immediate com- 
 munity had learned to love and vener- 
 ate — on emergencies such as these we 
 have long wanted something which, 
 like a song without words, or a dirge 
 without words, might give a voice to 
 the otherwise pent-up and dumb com- 
 mon heart. 
 
 This address which I now close, has 
 hpil for its object the burnishing of a link 
 iu the chain of religious thought, a link 
 that with some had perhaps grown 
 dim. 
 
 Its aim has been to help you to a 
 wide view of the topics of human grati- 
 tude ; to induce you to see, and to have 
 your children taught to see, that re- 
 demption does not exclude a minute 
 consideration of the secular and terres- 
 tial blessings with which you are every- 
 where surrounded, nay, that your re- 
 demption imparts a sacred character 
 to all the surroundings of the scene of 
 its accomplishment. The spiritual man 
 judgeth all things; that is to say, he 
 that is enlightened in the spirit of his 
 mind hath, or might have, a special 
 power of discernment, even a degree 
 of insight into the inner principle and 
 divine moaning of all things. We aro 
 regarded in the teaching of evangelists 
 and apostles as having this power. 
 We should regard ourselves as capabl e 
 of exercising it. We are not to gaze 
 at a beautiful landscape like the horse 
 or the mule. But we are to see God 
 there, the heavenly Father whose we 
 are in a twofold manner, by redemp- 
 tion and creation. We are to be dis- 
 ciples of a PANTHEISM in a good sense, 
 in the sense of panta en pasi Theot, 
 GOD, ALL IN ALL. Wc are to have con- 
 victions in our minds of a theocracy, 
 of the reign of an over omnipresent God 
 transcending the Jewish idea ; a theoc- 
 racy, Christian, illimitable, real, sub- 
 
 H # 
 
 ► 4 
 
 r 
 
t> 
 
 4'^r 
 
 A Thanhfgiving Addreu, 
 
 11 
 
 lime, beyond the power of words to ex- 
 press. Having eyes purged from the 
 nlmg of ignorance and superstition we 
 are to accustom them to behold in com- 
 mon things of earth and sea and sky, 
 angels ascending and descending on 
 ministries of blessing and delight to tha 
 human race. 
 
 In all places of His dominion, in the 
 physical as well as in the moral world, 
 we are intelligently to praise His 
 name, appreciating all things, enjoying 
 all things, using without abusing, not 
 neglecting nor despising, for all things 
 are ours, and we are Chri»t'a and 
 Christ is God's. 
 
 
 <• 4 
 
 DND. 
 
 ^ 
 
 il