THE THANKSGIVING DAY. [From the Times, Nov. 16.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VI, Issue 495, 1 May 1850, Page 3

THE THANKSGIVING DAY. [From the Times, Nov. 16.]

Yesterday the clergy of the metropolis, with scarcely an exception, gave that practical turn to their discourses which the Bishop had opportunely advised.. We have the satisfaction of knowing that almost every churchman, and we believe we might add the members of every other community, was urged to assist in delivering his fellow citizens from the bondage .of dirt. While the recent visitation was legarded, in common with all other calamities, as a call to greater sincerity of faith and seriousness of life, it was more especially urged, in its simple and natural character, as warning that we should take better care of the public health. Every plague has its natural remedy, and, therefore, its peculiar duties. In the case of a national famine we purchase food from abroad, and distribute it among the distressed. If a hurricane sweeps a distant isle, we help to rebuild its ruined edifices. We arm ourselves to resist the invaders of our country. All this is so obvious that we should regret to hear a pious preacher treat calamities of this sort in no other light than as mementos of death and the judgment, Heaveu and hell. There exists no reason why cholera should be considered, even in the pulpit, simply as a scourge. It is, indeed, a scourge. It has scourged the unclean, the reckless, the drunken, and the idle. It has scourged those who huddled together amid all kinds of physical and moral abominations. It has scourged those who deform God's image, and the temple of His Spirit with squalor and vice. It has scourged the dogs and swine of humanity. In a less degree it has also scourged those who, surrounded by personal comfort and cleanliness, have taken little pains to communicate these blessings to their less fortunate fellow creatures. But the way to avert such 3* scourge for the future is to renounce the vices to which it has been particularly applied. Such occasions as this have the happy tendency of drawing the whole nation together as it were into one family. Availing ourselves of the privilege of the season we invade the privacy of distress and unveil the horrors of despair. A thousand personal groups of misery are presented to our eyes. The grief of parents, of children, and each other relation, find an echo. is our domestic affections. It is our too usual custom to regard poverty and labour in the mass as something beyond or below our control, and as a vast unmanageable ill. A pestilence, then, which strikes here and there like a thunderbolt, which fells the pauper one hour and the gentleman the next, and suddenly turns an obscure chamber into the theatre of an awful catastrophe, breaks up this huge mass into parts, brings its details before us in easy proportions, and impresses on us that the state is only an aggregation of households such as our own. But what redoubled pairs have we all taken for the health of our own families during the last half-year ! What an inquisition after nuisances and suspicion of drains ! What purgations and ventilations! What scrupulous diet and store of preventives ! How have parents watched for premonitory symptoms! The constitution of our nature and the order of Providence have not permitted these alarms to stay within the circle of the family. We have learnt to care for our neighbour^- as well as ourselves. Our apprehensions, once quickened at home, have taken a wider range. Interest conspires with kindness in this expanse of social policy, for we find that every victim to the pestilence increases the circle of infection. It is this that gives a dignity and a religion to details that would otherwise be secular and disgusting. Meat and raiment are sacred af- | fairs when they are bestowed in charity. A cup of cold water given to one disciple in the name of Christ, we are told, has a sacred character, and shall not lose its reward ; much more an abundant supply of pure water given .to the community at large. They who " have washed the saints' feet," have praise in the Gospel ; and why not also they who shall

provide for the washing of a metropolis and its inhabitants ? The Bible has incurred a thousand scoffs for the minuteness with which it descends into the particulars of order and cleanliness, and the antagonist vices ; unhappily, human nature, while we are forced to believe and respect — for we cannot help knowing it — is liable to the very same opprobium ; but under the shelter of those sacred examples we claim a sacred rank for the details of sanitary ecience. On proper occasions* and within just bounds, let them be urged from the pulpit, as they are from the reading-desk* They are part of those good offices the interchange of which is the bond of Christian fellowship. Pure air is as Christian a gift as food. Our Sovereign and our Bishops no longer observe the apostolical custom of wash* ing the feet of a dozen poor men. They could hardly have been censured had they retained the usage, bat how much better its spirit than its letter? With London well cleansed we could afford to smile at the Pontifical ablutions. Happily the foul scourge of leprosy, with its ceremonial purgations bas now passed away ; but the leprosy of dirt still remains amongst us, and, unfortunately, has proved hitherto as incurable as the old malady. If any further warrant is required for investigating public health and cleanliness with a sacred character and sanction, we may as well observe that, in the Bible, one of the chief names and images of hell is borrowed from the valley whither the inhabitants of Jerusalem disposed of tbeir refuse ; that the powers of hell are always called " unclean" spirits ; that living water is a frequent emblem of the Messiah in His own mouth, and is also one of the few ideas we are permitted to realize cf Heaven.