Prentice, George Dennison (1802-1870) Louisville daily journal. [Vol. 34, no. 3 (November 26, 1863)]

[Draft Created by Crowdsourcing]
Thanksgiving- It is the duty of every citizen to-day, who is capable of healthy digestion, to solace his "inner man" with the best market affords, and plenty of it. We are to give thanks for the bounties of Providence, and, to do this consistently and with a realizing sense of the blessings we enjoy, it is absolutely necessary that we provide an ample and substantial basis for our gratitude. Let us glance over the bill of fare for this happy day, when it is lawful and even commendable to associate pudding with piety and repletion with religion. First on the lists of dainties stand that Sacred Fowl, second only to the national eagle in the estimation of the American people. We allude, of course, to the family bird of our country, the Turkey- a creature that invites us to festal joys by the continual iteration of the suggestive word gobble! Let us obey his own unselfish suggestion, and "gobble" him. Stuffed with bread crumbs, aromatic herbs, finely-chopped suet, and grated lemon-peel, converted into a rich compost with the yolk of eggs, and thus roasted- roasted no baked- he is a thing to thank heaven upon with amazing unction! How the nerves that terminate in the palate twitch and palpitate, as the rare exhalation steals up the olfactory passages into the chambers of the brain, and its appetizing priaciple is thence telegraphed, as it were, down the esophagus to the epigastric region. Of his meats, brown and white, that, like the blue and white currents of the Upper Nile, are one and yet separable, we know not which is best, but can say of them, as Byron said of wine and women, that,
without great wrong to either,
It were much better to have both than neither'.'
Nor is the noble bird, when boiled, and served with white sauce delicately flavored with mace and pickled mushrooms, a dish to be despised. Some epicures cram their boiled turkey full of oysters, and, by Venus, goddess of salacious shell fish! the idea is not a bad one. Benighted wretches in the dark ages stuffed their turkeys with pistachio nuts. Bah! The cooks of antiquity were idiots, and deserved nothing better than impalement on their own spits. As cooked by the moderns, the king of the gallinaceous tribes is a bonne bouche well calculated to convert infidels to a belief in a wise and beneficent Providence.
Some prefer goose- but that is a vulgar delusion, and the derisive hisses with which the bird assails those who attempt to seize him for slaughter, is its fitting comment. There never was a goose that was word its feed, except the one that laid the golden eggs, and even that, as we all know, was good for nothing after it was killed.

[2]
NATIONAL THANKSGIVING.
"Oh praise the God of Mercies."
BY PROF. E. TURNEY.
I.
Oh! I praise the God of mercies,
Whose kin and bounteous hand
His varied gifts disperses
Wid o'er our favored land!
He gives us life and reason;
He gives us food and health;
While each returning season
Renews its stores of wealth.
II.
Praise Him for social pleasures-
For pure affection's glow,
Exceeding all the treasures
Which wealth could e'er bestow.
Praise Him for freedom's blessing-
For wise and wholesome laws-
For signs of good expressing
The strength of virtue's cause.
III.
Praise Him whose boundless favor
The word of grace imparts,
With life-renewing savor
To bless and cheer our hearts.
Oh! let a chastened nation
In humble thanks draw near
To Him whose rich salvation
Has marked and crowned the year.
IV.
Though foes have pressed us sorely,
And waged the deadly strife,
His guardian hand securely
Has held the nation's life.
Our cause, by Thee defended,
O God, we trust to Thee,
That peace and freedom, blended,
May reign from sea to sea.