The Great Victory—Its Cost and Its Value / Address delivered at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, July 4th, 1865

The Great Victory.—Its Cost and its Value. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CHESTNUT HILL, PENNSYLVANIA, JULY 4th, 1865,
BY Hon. M. RUSSELL THAYER.
PHILADELPHIA: KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 SANSOM STREET. 1865.
In ancient Rome the first solemnity which took place after a victory was a thanksgiving. The prætor suspended his judgment in the tribunal. The wretched slave was unchained from his bench in the galley. Labor forsook its accustomed task. All the ordinary occupations of daily life ceased, and the people went in processions to the temples of their gods to hang their statues with garlands of flowers, to salute them with sacred odes, and to appease them with sacrificial victims. Then followed the feast, with music, dancing and the games. To-day, in a world undreamed of by those proud and conquering Romans, prepared through silent ages for the abode of liberty, we celebrate not only the commencement of the ninetieth year of our National Independence, but our deliverance from a peril which threatened our very existence with annihilation. We celebrate the termination of a war conducted upon a scale of gigantic magnitude, and the return of blessed peace throughout all the land. On mountain and river, on forest and prairie, on the crowded marts of commerce, on the humming hives of industry, on the cultivated fields, on the unredeemed wilderness, on the palaces of the rich and the cottages of the poor, on the sea and on the land, the calm sunshine of this gracious peace pours down; blessing, rejoicing, purifying, elevating, comforting, strengthening the hearts and homes and hopes of all men. At such a time we would, indeed, incur the guilt of an immeasurable ingratitude and be rebuked by a voice from the ashes of that heathen Rome itself if our first thoughts were not those of grateful thanks to the Giver of all Good for the blessings he has bestowed, and our first words those words of humble acknowledgment and thankful praise—“Thy right hand and Thy holy arm hath gotten us the victory.”