The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-09-19 00:00:00

~,Siourbribqe Chserinr,

ifATURIAT SEPirEMBER 19th, 1885.

HARVEST THANKSGIVING
PESTIVALS.

•

Ws are just now in the midst of onr Har-
vest rhanksgiviug Festivals. Eve ry chnrch
and chapel in the three kingdoms has its
special service of praise and thanksgiving at .
the completion of the ingathering of the
crops. This calmer and more reasoning re-
joicing seems to have almost altogether
taken up the place of the old Harvest-home
feasts which characterised the merry Eng-
lima of po,my and song. The same spirit of
gefidiende to the Author of every blessing,
more of less perfectly understood and appre-
cia:tedi SeeTFIS i.t alt times to have had ebul-
lition at 11.1fvest-tide through successive
c'enturies. The regonant praise was not
always, it may be, rendered to the true
Giver of Good, but the thankoffering and
Cue song of joy ascended according to the
knowledge and: the light of the happy liar-
sesteys. A round of rejoicings, the historians
has marked the conclusion of harvest
*ort, ever since the story of the world and
was written. We read of the feast
6( the kirieest in the records of inspired
lfas's;, 'The peoples of classic Greece and
RoM`e hid their annual harvestide celebra-

timid. Eugene Aram, pcholar and felon,
pints out 'how these old world offerings
were intended as a grateful acknowledg-
ment to the sun whose genial warmth had
caused the corn to ripen. In these festal
institutions, dating back to the morning
datirti of history, we recognise the origin of
the peculiarly English °harvest-home, an
annual merrymakinci ft which the rustics of
years of yore looked ° forvvivi "60+ !lager ex-
pectation. What this rural 1;4h-holiday
was all who have felt any sort of intevest in
English, folk-customs well know. The
labourctp of the favoured age which kinim
naught Of land-nationalisation and card
little fox politics'of any sort loved their har-
vest-home, and old agriculturists, wise in
their day and generation, knew the value of
the autumnal merrymaking as a sweetenur
of toil,..a,nd never failed to furnish a bounti-
ful board on the occasion. As a charming
songStpess of rural life in our land pic-
turesqftely ,put it, then it was that there
'Merry latighfer hi the field,
And-harmless jest and frolic rout,
And the last harvest wain went by
With it's rustling load 11 o pleAsautty.
To the glad and clamorous harvest shout,'
Heaven was thanked in this antique feast,
in no spirit of serious or puritanical gloom,
but by a glad outpouring of grateful joy
and sparkling mirth. Though manifested
in a less refined form than is our observance
within some sacred fane, our grandsire's
ceremonial sprang from the same source.
It was a festival of joy and of thanksgiving,
jby fer the garnered treasures of the field,
gratitude . for the Divine goodness which
Mid sustained the exquisite equilibrium of
heat atid 0141,f tam-shine and rain, which had
its resultant in eifohttless sheavesof full-eared
Mid well-ripened grain, No wonder that
ierankind in every age, sbould at this season
lit tithe moved. When wo remember that
even a trig change in the temperature,
an alteration sa Neemingly insignificant at
tin time that the variation of a few degrees
in the thermometer's reading would suffice
for its indication, would have wrought
famine and desolation in the earth, Pringing
naivety W millions of now happy homes, then
we can ict some eitent appreciate the grati-
tude due t tho benevolent Creator and
Governor of the tinit'erse far the mainten-
ance of these wonderful natural laws, with-
out 'which there could be no budding spring,
no blossoming summer, and no crowning
glory of fruitful autumn. We have now no
Lord or Lady of the Harvest, as our fore-
fathers had ;. iio Mell Doll, or Corn Baby;
no laachney-load ; even the harvest home
supper has assumed a more matter-of-fact,
less !oystering aspect. The romance of the
festival has fled before the sound of the steam
•-
reaper, just as the pagan associations of the
ctiemony, as exemplified in sun wor-
ship, have long since given place to reveren-
tial thanksgiving to Him who alone can give
the increase. It is well so. We should not
lament that advancing enlightment and
wider knowledge, in sweeping away the
anomalies and abuses of the "bad old times," I
sthave also wrought a radical change in the
harmless harvest-home of earlier days. It
could not be otherwise than that with the
decline of ignorance and decay of legend-
born custom, a more logical if less romantic
form of festival should fill the place of the
time-honoured holiday. The erst-elaborate
harvest-tide ceremonials of which Brand
..and Bloomfield and Maser have told are now
nothing more than a poetic memory, and
_even the village virgins have ceased to vie
with each other in qualifying for the coveted
honour of election to the distinguishing
dignity of Harvest Queen. But, as has been
said, in place of these old-word customs, we
have to-day that viell-established and excel-
lent institution, the Harvest Thanksgiving
Service of the Church, an appropriate re-
. ligions ceremony celebrated by Episcopalians
AO Nonconformist bodies in all parts of
Afrltain. Thus we still sustain the usage of
Ancient time, though with us, happily, the
thault-offerirrg of praise has a deeper mean-
ing and more truthful significance than it
t possessed in the classic countries centuries
ago. Instead of celebrating costly services
and offering ignorant sacrifices to the sun,
we hymn our grateful adnlations to the
Most High, who, to employ the inimitable
language of the Psalmist, “causeth the grass
to grow for the cattle, and herb for the ser-
vice of man, that he may bring forth food
out of the earth; and wine that maketh
glad the heart of man, and oil to make his
lace to shine, and bread which strengthen-
eth man's heart."

. . SPORTING NOTES.
- IBy our -Sporting Correspondent.)
The result of the ttrp principal races at Donerst)r
this past wok Must have been very watifying to
uty resiere of these notes as Melton my long se..
tOok the t. Leget wit't t'le greatest tai,
and Lonely, whom I predicted would obtain a place,
sueseeded in running tWrd. Regarding the oth.u-
-elli4l6yvat, fur the Great Yorkshire Handicap, King
Monmouth- telly aromered my anticipations, thus
pu:ling off a nice little double event. The accept.
: daces for IS tea big Autumn Hlndicaps—the
emegirowitek and Cambridgeshire Stuces—this year
!.s, not only -nutaericallv strong, but "claim" is also
will represented. For the long eirtance race—the
Cosarswitch—Eurasian and Aithorp were well be-
fiiended at 10 to 1 each and Paradox, Ur the Cam
weet installed first taT.,usite at 9 to 1,
N. wook will bl what termed ..oir „ea.. the
principal Astute being the Ayrshire Handicap, of
500 Sore. distance one mile slid thrto furl mg, for
whisk raw

BONAPARTE and LADY ADELAIDE
sheald go very Close. The other events will be
sol. dealt with on the day (.f race, for which you
should send 12 stamps for my "Overnight Selec-
time," oda:based to Travelling Correapondent, Care
Tieese One,, HalL Fiala Telegrams from the
Coorso, s.

IllseastAlS.s Rosa OAP.—The best fir th Toilet.
IT VOLT AR IZ laTERNSTID in the search for • cure fo
Itkesamatisin and Neuralgia Pains you are hereby directed
to obtain (duty shersist Powsta's Raautfiric Ibtasock-
•ses. Its eitraord.nary efticacy hu been attested by Earl
Lsdr Waldsorave. the Countess of Radnor,