US #U10 (U5) Stamped Envelope 3c Red Buff Entire Historical Cover May 8, 1857

Item Specifics

Country

United States

Catalog Number

U10

Stamp Type

Postal Stationery

Condition

Cover (Postal History)

Stamp Format

Single

Year of Issue

1854

Item Description

857 Letter sent to Rev. N.P. Tillinghast Rector of St. Johns in Georgetown Washington D.C. His famous Thanksgiving Day Sermon Giving in 1865 after the end of the Civil War is attached. His powerful message still rings true today.US Stamped Envelope Sc# U10 (U5) 3c Red Buff Entire 5 1/2" x 3 1/4" May 8, 1857

1857 Letter sent to Rev. N.P. Tillinghast Rector of St. Johns in Georgetown Washington D.C.His famous Thanksgiving Day Sermon Giving in 1865 after the end of the Civil War is attached. His powerful message still rings true today.

Thanksgiving Sermon,
Delivered at
Rev. N. p. TILLINGHAST,

Rector.
ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1865,

Washington, D. C.:

Correspondence.
Georgetown, D. C, Dec. 9, 1865.

Rev. N. P. TiLLINGHAST.

Dear Sik: At the regular monthly meeting of the Vestry of St. John's

church, held on the evening of the 8th instant, a resolution was unanimously

adopted, requesting that you will furnish for publication a copy of the eloquent

and appropriate discourse delivered by you on the recent Thanksgiving-day

appointed by the President.

It is with sincere pleasure that we communicate to you this action of the

Vestry ; and in doing so we venture to express the hope that you will comply

with the request at your earliest convenience.

Very truly, yours,

C. E. Rittenhouse,
H. D. Cooke,
M. Yarnall,
JOHN MARBURY, Jr.,

Committee.

Georgetown, D. C, Dec. 12, 1865.

Gentlemen: Regretting that the discourse, of which you are pleased to speak

in terms so kind, is not more worthy of those terms and of the occasion, I yet

feel bound to place it at your disposal.

Very truly, yours,

N. P. Tillinghast.
Messrs. C. E. Rittenhouse,

H. D. Cooke,

M. Yarnall,

John Marbury, Jr.,

Committee.

SERMOiN".

" The mountains shall bring peace to the people." — Psalm Ixxii: 3.

It was one of the loveliest evenings in tlie month of June

when, on a day and hour not easily forgotten, I began the

ascent of Mount Vesuvius. The mountain was in a state of

extreme agitation, and the flames that issued from its summit

gave it the effect of a vast torch suspended in mid-air over

the bay and city of Naples. During the earlier part of the

ascent, what chietiy struck the eye was the marvellous luxu-

riance with which foliage, fruits and flowers were blended,

or, rather, heaped together upon the mountain side. At

every step the vine, the fig tree and the olive entwined their

branches above, in one triumphal arch, converting the road

into an endless bower. This was due to the lava beds that

lay below, and still more to the quickening heat of the fires

that raged and roared within. These were the forces and

these the agencies that produced that teeming and luxuriant

landscape. How much that man calls destructive, both in

the natural and moral world, is really, in the highest sense,

creative. In the order of the divine Providence, " beauty "

springs from " ashes," and " the oil of joy " from " mourn-

ing."

Just above this region of marvellous fertility the gentle

slope changed suddenly to a steep and abrupt ascent. Ashes

lay piled upon the path like snow-drifts, causing the traveller

to sink knee deep at almost every step. A gloomy and arid

6

plain succeeded, lighted only by the lurid glare of the stream

of lava that rolled through it, and rugged and deformed with

dark and jagged rocks that lay heaped on every side in wild

irregularity. Across this plain sufibcating vapors blew from

time to time, which made it difficult to breathe. It was a

scene dismal and desolate beyond description. The dreary

and monotonous roar of the destroying lava; the poisonous

gases with which the very air was impregnated ; the terrific

explosions, deafening as the discharge of a hundred batteries;

the fiery, deadly showers of white-hot scoriae ; the sights and

sounds that threw an indescribable gloom over the whole

region, while night hung darkly over it, banished all thought

of enjoyment, and filled the mind with dismal and melan-

choly images. But when the day broke in beauty over the

mountain summit and the scene below, when the morning

mists began to float ofiF from the vast and unrivalled land-

scape, revealing, by slow degrees, the city with its varied

magnificence, the bay, with its flashing waters and blooming

islands, the white-walled hamlets sprinkled along the coast

amidst a sea of verdure — then the magic of that wondrous

panorama wrought an equally wondrous revulsion in the

mind of the spectator, causing him to perceive that the tri-

umphs and the splendors of that lofty vantage ground were

cheaply won by the toils and terrors, the difficulties and

perils, that attended the ascent.

In many a moral crisis, who has not met with a similar

experience ? "Wlio has not been called, at one time or an-

other, in the mysterious providence of God, to climb, as it

were, some dark and difficult steep ; to face some repulsive

duty; to breathe, as it were, a poisonous air; to turn his

reluctant steps toward some scene of gloom and trial, where

hostile and destructive elements, that seemed almost incon-

sistent with the idea of the Divine benevolence, opposed his

progress or embittered his reflections ? It does not require

a very long life to make us familiar, by our own experience,

with sickness, and sorrow, and anguish of heart. Have you

not felt, at times, just like a traveller who is compelled to

toil up some painful ascent, where his footing becomes at

every step more and more precarious, and his fatigue almost

insupportable ? Has not the result of such a trial sometimes

been to place you on a loftier vantage ground, to open to

you a wider horizon, to enable you to breathe a purer and

more healthful air ? Thus was the promise fulfilled to you,

" the mountains shall bring peace." When some strange

and unwelcome experience (whatever it was) broke in upon

the established associations of your life, and compelled you

to a new career of action or of suffering ; when some dear

tie was broken; when you held your dead child in your

arms — did you not feel that the Lord was dealing with you

as the eagle with her brood upon the mountain summit, when

she " stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over them, spreadeth

abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings,"

urging them to use their inexperienced pinions, and boldly

trust themselves to the untried element that lies around and

beneath them, confident in her watchful eye and bold in her

protecting love ? The Lord has doubtless more than one

object in view when He thus deals with us. In leading us

up by a painful ascent to some high vantage ground, where

our past life seems to lie far, far beneath us, like a dim and

faded landscape. He sometimes prepares us for that entire

change in our plans and habits of life which is often the

harbinger of a new and happier future. Or, He may some-

times intend, by leading us up to dizzy heights, where we

painfully feel our insecurity, to teach us how powerless is an

arm of flesh for our welfare or protection ; to induce us to

lean with implicit faith on His Almightiness ; to confide in

His promises, rather than in human aid; to rejoice in spirit

when we can say, from the heart, " the everlasting arms are

beneath me, and the eternal God is my refuge." Is it not

thus that the promise is fulfilled, "the mountains shall bring

peace?"

And as it is with individuals, so may it not be with na-

tions ? They, too, may be called to tread the steep and

terrible path that leads up the rugged mountain slope. That

mountain may be a volcano. The earth may rock beneath

them as they advance ; the heavens may frown with portents

8

of strange and fiery aspect ; they may be called to tread a

burning soil, and pass tbrough fire and blood, before they

reach tlieir ultimate and grander destiny. In dcfenec of its

own laws and of its own existence every government has the

reserved riyhi to appeal to force. When thai government holds

the holies and liberties of the human race in its own keeping, as

a sacred trust for future generations, it becomes a solemn duty

to guard those liberties from extinction, those hopes from disap-

pointment. Then, it is true, dark hours come on, like night

on a volcano's summit; darkness that hides the future;

darkness, lighted only by the fitful flashes that burst from

the fiery crater of war. But wherever there is a night there

is generally, in God's providence, a morning, and the thick

darkness that reigns upon the mountain top is often but the

precursor of an unrivalled sunrise.

" The mountains shall bring peace ! " What music is

there in that old Saxon *word ! " I could think of the word

tear," said an eminent divine, " till I wept for sorrow."

How many could say to-day, " I could think of the word

peace till I wept for joy?" But, ah ! it is not the sound, it

is the meaning of the word, that stirs all hearts to-day. For

what is its meaning ? It means the solemn termination of

one great epoch of tears and woe ; it means the sublime

commencement of another of life and light, prosperity and

joy. It means that the infant, in many a liamlet, will no

more cling to the mother's breast, scared by tlie stern fire

of the fiither's eye, the sound and the gleam of arms, the

hurried and distracted parting. It means that the home-

remaining bride or sister will no more lay her listening ear

to the earth, to be resolved whether the distant sound that

harrows up her soul is indeed a voice from the clouds, or

the more fatal voice of the cannon of battle. It means that

the soldier will no more l)e called to struggle in the deadly

conflict, or to pant beneath the l)laze of summer suns, or in

the night blast and the sleet of winter storms; that he will

no more mark the ground with his crimson foot-prints; make

the snow his couch and the rain his blanket ; die upon the

* Saxon, " Pais."

battle-field, or implore death as mercy in the gloomy prison-

house. It means that the interests of education will no more

be sacrificed to the cultivation of the trade of arms. It

means that the wealth which has been employed for the last

four years in waging a desolating war, will now be spent on

internal improvements, on commerce, and agriculture, and

manufactures, infusing a sudden and fresh vitality into all

the branches of national productiveness. It means that the

Government which our wise and patriotic fathers established,

and to establish which they cheerfully endured the privations

and losses and hardships of a seven years' war, will continue

to crown the lives of a united people with the blessings of

plenty, prosperity and peace.

And here our text meets us, telling us significantly that

" the mountains shall bring peace to the people ; " that is,

that the very steepness and difiiculty of the ascent contribute

to the beauty and certainty of the result. He who would

tread the mountain's topmost summit, and catch the first

ray of the morning sunrise, miist be content with a steep

and rugged path, for wdiat other could lead him to a height

so great ? Is not this, in some measure, a type of our na-

tional experience ? By any less rugged path could we have

reached such a vantage ground ? Our national troubles

have, indeed, been severe and prolonged ; but without the

severity and even the prolongation of the trial, would there

have been such blessedness in the thought and such music

in the very sound of peace ? "Would our thanksgivings for

peace have been as fervent as they are to-day ? Should we

have been inspired with such firm convictions of its import-

ance, or furnished w^ith such strong guarantees for its per-

petuity? Had the cloud of war really discharged all its

lightnings in the space of a few weeks, (as was predicted at

the outset,) and had those lightnings been far less destruc-

tive, might not our national future have been darkened by

a frequent appeal to arms ? Might we not have come at

last to resemble that neighboring empire, where for many

years the advent of every new administration has been the

signal for a renewal of civil strife ? But now we may safely

10

anticipate that centuries will roll over us before another civil

war will desolate our foir fields and fertile valleys. The

bright years of peace have begun their circuit; and as

Thanksgiving Day comes round again and again, its annual

celebration, we may hope, will be a day of unabated gladness

to our childrens' children. A disturbing element, which had

proved adverse to political repose in years gone by, is elimi-

nated from the nation's future. Whatever difterences of

opinion may prevail in different sections of the country, as

to the expediency of the measure, all will at least agree that

there loill he one le§s cause of difficulty in the future, and therefore

one more guarantee of a stable and enduring peace. Had the

war ceased with the first campaign, foreign nations would

never, perhaps, have understood our resources. Now

they indeed contemplate our national progress with dis-

pleasure ; but they are very well convinced that they have

no power to arrest it. In view of all these facts, are we not

justified in saying that the very depth and severity and pro-

longation of the difliculties, through which we have been

called to pass, form to-day our amplest and best security for

future peace — peace among ourselves and with all nations ?

Mysterious, indeed, are the divine counsels. God has led

us b}^ a rugged path to a splendid sunrise. He has taught

us that " the mountains shall bring peace to the people."

A nation that, through deep trials and painful experiences

reaches, at last,

" That difficult air of the iced mountain top

Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing

Flit o'er the herbless granite,"

occupies from that period a new position. She stands on a

conspicuous vantage-ground. The world's attention is thence-

forth concentrated upon her progress and her policy. She

takes rank above historic lands; they, indeed, have a glori-

ous Past, but what is that in comparison with such a na-

tion's Future? Below her and before her lies an untrodden

landscape, rich with the fairest promise of peace, prosperity

and plenty ; while beyond the clouds that skirt the horizon,

11

unljorn ages and generations yet to come crowd upon the

dim and aching sight, the future possessors of the same fair

heritage, the destined actors on the same great arena, inher-

itors of all the happiness and all the usefulness of the pres-

ent, with the accumulated interest of intervening years.

We are far, it is true, from having reached these cloud-

capped summits ; far from having yet attained this sublime

vantage-ground. There are steeps yet to be scaled, heights

yet to be surmounted, the wild fastnesses of the mountain-

top are yet to be explored. Not yet can we fold our arms

and quietly survey the landscape on all sides to the horizon,

with the pleasing consciousness that the hour of action is

past, and that of fruition is inaugurated. We have not

fairly and fully reached the goal of our exertions, the end

of all our hopes, our difficulties and our trials. There is a

task yet to be done. The work of reconstruction remains.

It has to be patiently prosecuted, and successfully achieved.

To its complete success the cordial concurrence of both

North and South seems indispensable. May we not hope

that this concurrence will be cheerfully rendered? Why

should it be withheld? Where are the old issues that form-

erly divided us into sectional parties? Echoanswers "where?"

They are dead, beyond a possibility of resurrection. Though

neither a politician, nor a prophet, it does seem to me that

the hour has come when the nation might say, as a unit

(if God so wills,) "let the dead Past bury its dead;" and

start to its feet for a new career of greatness, usefulness and

glory. Whenever this consummation shall arrive, be it soon

or late, all hearts will confess that "the mountains have

brought Peace to the People, " and that the roughness and

ruggedness of the ascent are richly compensated by the

beautiful and grand result. The friends of free government

throughout the world will begin to lift up their heads and

take courage; the thrones of oppressors and usurpers, no

matter how upheld by bayonets, will begin to totter to their

fall; millions of longing eyes will be directed across the

Atlantic toward this Ark of human safety and of human

freedom; and millions of voices from every clime and re-

12

gion of the habitable globe will hail America as at once

the teacher and example of the nations.

But this vision is not yet realized. It still lies in the dim

and shadowy future. lie whose calm, clear eyes dwelt upon

it more earnestly than ours; he whose wise brain and loving

heart were occupied more intensely than ours in consider-

ing how it might be brought to pass; he Avho never lost sight

of it day or night, especially during the last few months of

his mortal career; he, the language of Avhose lips and of

whose life was " charity toward all, malice toward none;"

he, to whom, at the very moment of his fall, all eyes and all

hearts were turned by a common impulse for counsel, sym-

pathy and guidance ; his lot, alas ! like Israel's leader of

old, was only to look upon the bright, untravelled land — and

die. He fell, like Epaminondas, at the very moment when

it seemed to him, no doubt, that he could do most for his

country, most for the interests of the human race. By that

over-ruling Providence that regulates the life of nations not

less than that of individuals, we see his appointed successor

standing to-day beside the helm of State, anxious, yet pa-

tient and calm, like Ulysses in the Odyssey :

"Placed at the helm he sate and marked the skies,

Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes,

Through the long night he ploughed the restless sea,

' Till land appeared with morn's returning ray.

Shadowy and dim arose the distant coast ;

The woods, the hills in morning mists were lost.

All lay before him indistinct and vast.

Like a broad shield upon the watery waste."

There are times when a nation's welfare (including the

destinies of unborn millions) seems almost to hang suspended

on a single life. But let no Christian heart indulge in this

ilhision ! In his " Proclamation for the day," (whose well-

weighed words are so worthy of a statesman and a ruler,)

the President reminds ns that "righteousness exalteth a

nation, while sin is a reproach to any pcoj^le;" and "further

recommends that on this occasion the whole people make

confession of their national sins." Among these sins idol-

13

atiy holds imdeniably a conspicuous place ; idolatry of talent,

idolatry of wealtli, idolatry of power. The popular disposi-

tion to " make flesh its arm," is a temptation to which we,

as a people, are peculiarly exposed, and which we should,

to-day especially, acknowledge and repudiate. Grod has

solemnly taught us, by one signal lesson at least, that, before

Him, all human power is but as " stubble and ashes;" and

that the nation alone is truly safe that can say "the everlast-

ing arms are beneath us, alid the eternal God is our

refuge;" the nation in whose van (as before Israel of old)

marches the guiding and protecting pillar of fire and cloud.

Oh let us, above all things, be a God-fearing people ! Let

us learn to look more to divine and less to human power ;

to lean more upon the everlasting and less upon the finite

support ; to depend more upon our God and less upon cabi-

nets and presidents. " Them that honor me I will honor "

holds true not less of nations than of individuals. What

thoughtful mind can fail to recognize a divine interposition

in the very discovery of this continent ? Who can contem-

plate the serene and steady faith of Columbus, under the

impatience of his crews, even when that impatience ripened

into mutinous opposition to the further prosecution of the

voyage; who can observe him, as the evening darkens,

taking his accustomed station on the top of the castle on the

high poop of the Santa Maria, and straining his eager eyes

along the dusky horizon in search of that great mystery of

the ocean, in regard to which the Old World of civilization

and history had no faith, no traditions and no evidence, who

can consider this and not discard the cold calculations of

chance, and not consent to see the finger of Providence in

the career of this illustrious man, and not confess that it was

no merely human impulse that directed and sustained his

unconquerable purpose? Who can reflect how long this

continent was concealed from the inhabitants of the Old

World by means of the boundless wastes which appeared to

them a mere watery desert, and consider that it was kept

thus concealed until the birth of a race of men whose ideas

14

and whose characters would fit them for the great arena ;

men who cherished so intense a devotion to the principles

of civil and religious liberty, that they did not deem their

life-blood too costly a libation to be poured out in a cause

60 sacred; who can observe this and fail to perceive

in it the direct manifestation of an over-ruling Provi-

dence ? It has been justly remarked that " our forefathers,

who laid the foundations of those colonies which are now

these populous and powerful States, were the only genera-

tion of men that had existed since the world began who

would have established such institutions." Here we behold

the agency of Him whose Eye marks out the career of

nations, who surrounds them with a felicity of circumstances

that may contribute to their progress, and accommodates

their destinies to the grandeur of the designs for which He

called them into being. Throughout the nation's brief, but

most eventful history, we may trace (not with presumption,

but with humble awe) tokens, here and there, of the same

heavenly interposition. AVhenever darkness has cast its

shadows across the bright career of our beloved country —

whenever dangers have gathered around it to threaten its

independence, its happiness, its unity, whose arm has upheld

and sheltered us but His, without whose aid the Pilgrims

had perished, without whose cloud, often and almost

obviously thrown around him, our Washington had died

upon the scaffold ? With how much justice, then, does the

President enjoin on us to-day, " with one heart and one mind

to implore his Divine guidance." Let us see in our past

history the assurance, that while we look to him for protec-

tion, and continue to clierish the principles upon which,

under his Divine approbation, (as we reverently trust and

believe,) this newly risen empire was founded. He will still

make himself known to us, and stay us with His staff and

comfort us with His countenance.

Thanks be to Him for the peace which we enjoy to-day.

It is His own inestimable gift. To Him be ascribed the

praise that the roar of the fratricidal cannon is silent at last;

15

that yonder hills no longer bristle with bayonets ; that the

effusion of fraternal blood is stopped at length, and forever.

There is peace in the land to-day. God Himself has willed

it. Let there be peace in our own hearts! Let the Prince

of Peace lay his arresting hand upon every unhallowed

thought or impulse ; every thought or impulse unworthy of

the hour; every thought or impulse not in perfect harmony

with the public tranquility that crowns and sanctifies this

day ©f national rejoicing. Let us resolve to do all that in us

lies to make the peace that reigns to-day over our country's

hills and valleys a lasting peace ; a peace not for ourselves alone

but for our remote posterity. This we may do by cherishing

in our hearts the kindly feelings, the charities, the mutual

forbearance, and the mutual encouragements to faith and

patriotic hope which this affecting occasion so emphatically

suggests. And if a relic of the bitterness of times long past

could possibly have survived in any bosom until now, who

will not agree with me in saying "now is the hour and here

is the place to bury it? " Shall I tell you one of the most

cherished wishes of my own heart? It is that we may be —

as I think I can say we once were, and as I firmly believe

we are yet to be — a united congregation, "zealous of good

works;" working all together with one pervading aim and

impulse for the prosperity of our beloved church. Whoever

shall contribute toward this great object, in any way, will

not have "run in vain, nor labored in vain," nor "lived in

vain." For my own part I regard our newly-established

church society as a most valuable auxiliary toward this vital-

ly important object. Let all to whom the cause of Chris-

tian unity is dear, all who would be glad to see this congre-

gation cemented and bound together in the sacred bonds of

Christian fellowship as in days gone by, lend their influence,

and what will be better still, their personal presence to this

association. Oh, that the blessed time may soon arrive

when each one of us will be at his post, all actuated by one

motive, and laboring for one great object, the temporal and

spiritual welfare of the church to which we belong. Its

16

prosperity is in our hands. "Wlio will labor for it, if we do

not? Let the language of every tongue be, to-day, in regard

to our beloved Zion ;

" If e'er my heart forget

Her welfare, or her woe,

Let every joy this heart forsake,

And every grief o'erflow."

" For her my tears shall fall,

For her my prayers ascend, •

To her my cares and toils be given,

'Till toils and cares shall end."

mwS.! °'' CONGRESS

013 764 ^'^77'"'^

Si
Library of Congress

Seller Information

Seller

sellinghisstamps (597)

Registered Since

11/30/2016

Feedback

100%

Store

Selling His Stamps

• Sales

Item Location

California, United States

Ships To

Worldwide

Returns Accepted

Yes