Edwards, Tryon. Reasons for Thankfulness: A Discourse delivered in the First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N. Y. on the day of the Annual Thanksgiving, December 15, 1836. Rochester: Published by the Trustees | Bumphrey, Cook & Tinkham, Printers, 1837. First Edition. [12143]
Removed, newly sewn, no wrapper, 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches. Wood engraving of the church as frontispiece. 39 pp. Good. Pamphlet.
The text is Psalm 117: 1-2, "O praise the Lord, all ye people - for his merciful kindness is great toward us. Praise ye the Lord."
Compares the children of Israel with the United States, and gives reasons for praising God.
The author's desire is to promote "a knowledge of the History and Character of the Founders of our Nation, and to aid them justly to appreciate and rightly to improve the blessings by which, both as a nation and a city, we are so highly distinguished."
Presents the Puritans as proper examples of Christian living. Reviews "the origin, and growth, and present prosperity of our own beloved city."
Points out the sins of the United States, "of deep and dreadful dye": ambition, worldliness, pride, profaneness, intemperance, Sabbath breaking, infidelity, licentiousness, party abuse and feeling, and "the bondage of 2,000,000 of our fellow-men, which rests upon our country as a dark and dreadful sin, and threatens us with a still deeper and a darker curse."
The appendix gives statistics for the Rochester churches.
Rev. Tyron Edwards (1809-1894), b. Hartford, Connecticut; d. Detroit, Michigan. Edwards was the great-grandson of the famous Rev. Jonathan Edwards of colonial times, and the grandson of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards (the younger). He was pastor at different times of the First Presbyterian Church of Rochester, New York, and of the Second Congregational Church in New London, Connecticut. Tyron Edwards edited and republished works of both his great grandfather and grandfather, and is perhaps best remembered for his "A Dictionary of Thoughts," a book of quotations.
