The State of the Nation. Considered in a Sermon for Thanksgiving Day, Preached at Melodeon, November 28, 1850 (Classic Reprint) 12+

🔖 Excerpt from The State of the Nation: Considered in a Sermon for Thanksgiving Day, Preached at Melodeon, November 28, 1850See the increase of material wealth; the buildings for trade and for homes; the shops and ships. This year Boston will add to her possessions some ten or twenty millions of dollars, honestly and earnestly got. Observe the neatness of the streets, the industry of the inhabitants, their activity of mind, 'the orderliness of the people, the signs of comfort. Then consider the charities of Boston; those limited to our own border, and those which extend farther, those beautiful charities which encompass the earth with their sweet influence. Look at the schools, a monument of which the city may well be proud, in spite of their defects.But Boston, though we proudly call it the Athens of America, is not the pleasantest thing in New England to look at; it is the part Of Massachusetts which I like the least to look at, spite of its excellence. Look farther, at the whole of Massachusetts, and you see a fairer spectacle. There is less wealth at Provincetown in proportion to the numbers, but there is less want; there is more comfort; property is more evenly and equally distributed there than here, and the welfare of a country never so much depends upon the amount of its wealth as on the mode in which its wealth is distributed. In the State there are about one hundred and fifty thousand-families - some per sons, living with a degree of comfort which, I think, is not ...