Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-11-30
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that we last welcomed Thanksgiving. Aswe
ook upon the face of this day, cold, bleak,
nowy, and cherries, we feel as if we had
only glided through dream of sunshine and
of flowers, and had returned to the day we
left behind us year ago. The Spring, with
its opening buds and jocund birds,-the sum-
mor, with its gorgeous flowers and golden
sunshine-and autumn, with her generous
fruits and waving corn-appear to have float
ed past us like a poetic vision, evanishing
amidst the storm that heralds back Old
Thanksgiving.
But we have not been dreaming ; we have
been steadily marching over the path of time,
and now, find ourselves once more, face to
face, with another Thanksgiving.
Let us gather round our household boards,
then. and give God thanks that we have been
again permitted to meet each other, and to
commune upon the changes and vicissitudes
of the year that's now away. What SPLEEN
did poem is our New England Thanksgiving,
as, rising from out Of the dim day of our FORE
fathers trihulation, it spans two centuries,
and illumines with its glorious memories, the
darkness of their years. Far back in the be-
ginning of our history, Thanksgiving was a
day of solemn service, rendered almost awful
by the character Of the men who observed it,
and the circumstances under which it was
observed; now, the sweeter affections of the
heart mingle witt its religious element, and
modify and beautify it with the rainbow glo-
ries of love. In the Thanksgiving of the dis
tant past, our country's gray fathers gathered
together in the house of prayer, and with 81
lent, thoughtful, SOBER solemn faces, poured
out their grateful services to the benevolent
God. The wintry clouds, resting on their lit
tie meeting house, and filing it with the shad-
ows of the sycamores, which twined their
arms over its porch, added to the deep ,elig-
ious feeling which pervaded the assembly,
There, too, sat the mothers of our nation,
beautiful, as types of noble womanhood; but
more than beautiful, from the blending of re-
ligious and maternal love that lighted up their
eyes, as they turned them upon the grave,
golden haired children, whose blue, innocent
eyes were bent upon the preacher, while their
heads reclined upon their mothers laps. And
the young men and the maidens were there,
with their looks upon their Bibles and their
thoughts upon their God. Worldly thoughts
might steal across their hearts for moment
like the shadows of clouds over summary
hills, but they drove them away as"sinfal in.
truders, and gave themselves with deeper
devotion to the solemn service of Thanksgiv-
ing.
But Time, which has modified the stern
Puritanism of New England worship, has also
modified the festival of Thanksgiving. With
its theological services are now mingled, in
graceful union, the sweeter, dearer, better af
fechons of social life 1t is the day above all
others on which we express the cardinal ideas
of our Christianity, love to God, and love to
our neighbor. 10 God we express our graft
tude in grateful worship; to our neighbor we
express our love in sympathetic reunions at
home.
Then, sons and daughters of New England,
throw down the implements of labor I; close
the shutters of your stores away with pranc-
ing steeds and railroad cars to the dear old
homesteads in the country. Back, again, to
the spots where you spent your early days,
and where fond hearts are bea ting you a
thousand welcomes home. There was a time
when you longed to leave the rural spots
where you were born but now they consti-
tute the sweetest visions of your future. Like
birds that seek their mothers nests, you back
ward haste to their quiet breasts, and live over
in them, the happy days of youth, which have
returned for day in the dreams of Thanks
giving. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers,
all are meeting with kind greetings-some
with whispers and with tears. God bless all
who SO meet; and as their sympathies flow
out towards each other may they also get out
to the suffering poor. God bless our beloved
Commonwealth and may all her sons and
daughters-and every body else-have this
day glorious Thanksgiving.