The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-11-25
Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving
Our peculiar New England Home festival
peculiar to New England for long, long years
lis again at hand; day when scattered
households are re-gathered, when the old
homestead fires burn brightly upon the clean
swept hearth, and when the golden links of
friendship dazzle with unwonted lustre. -
Thanksgiving day was born of pietY and graf
itude, and is lasting memorial of the cheerful
nature of that religion which took deep hold
of the hearts of its early founders. Surround
ed by almost unbroken forests, menaced by
hostile tribes of savages, subjected to all the
hardships of wild adventurous life, deprived
of luxuries, cut off from the Establishments of
refined society, with small educational priv-
leges, with a grudging, cold, finty soil, with
frosts and SHOWS and verdureess landscape
before them for nearly half the year, without
newspapers, with few books, with small wealth,
with stinted advantages eyeryway, our stall
wart sires found abundant cause for Thanks
giving and Gratitude in the great fact that
they had successfully escaped the hand of
oppression, and had laid deep and broad the
foundations of nation in which man could
enjoy freedom-the freedom to worship God
without any mediation of Priest or Bishop
with no Mediator before God save the "Man
Christ Jesus, who gave himself ransom for
all to be testified in due time.'
Whether the religion which prompted the
institution of our Thanksgiving festival was
of kind to meet and satisfy all the cravings
Of the human soul or not, one thing is certain :
the institution itself has found a warm place
in human affection, insomuch that it would
require bold man-especially of Pilgrim de-
scent-to ignore the day and to blot it from
the calender.
1t Is admitted that Thanksgiving day has
lost much Of that deep religious element which
was concerned in its original adoption and
observance; it does not, as it once did, wit
ness the almost universal assembling of the
people in the houses of God for prayer, graft
tude and praise; it is no longer day on which
churches are crowded, and places Of revelry
and dissipated frivolity are empty; it is not
day scarcely inferior in sanctity-even in
the estimation of religious people : to the
Sabbath itself, but never more than at present
was the day observed as social and domestic
festival. This is we'll. The scattered mem
bers Of families come together, and re-kindle
old flames of love and friendship, and life with
all its blessed memories is lived over again.
So will Thanksgiving be observed this year,
not in Maine alone, not in New England ouly,
but in every loyal State, and in all parts of all
the States where the authority of our national
rulers is recognized, and rebellion and treason
do not bear sway.
But there will be drawbacks to the social
festivity of the day, which may mar all its en-
loyment, or which may, by wise use of our
privileges, be made sources of sacred though
sad pleasure to all to whom such drawbacks
make appeal. The poor we have always with
us. While sitting around our full boards how
sad and painful must be the reflection that,
perhaps at our very doors are those whose
hearts are fainting with hunger, and upon
whom the pinchings of poverty are bearing
with hopeless force But If, with conscious
ness that the poor are around US, we can also
feel that their wants have been provided for,
and that we have not failed in our duty to-
wards them; that they have been enabled,
through the active kindness of the more
highly favored, to thank God for the rich pro-
vision made for them, how will it give zest to
our own enjoyment, and add buoyancy to our
own Thanksgiving which 60 up to the Gver
of all blessings for the diffusion of his favors,
alike to the evil and the good, the grateful and
the unthankful.
But there will be sad memories in many
households at our thanksgiving feast. The
vacant chair, made vacant by the departure
of loved ones for scene where festivities are
exclusively spiritual, will unseal the fountains
Of many soul, and cause many an eye to be-
come dim with unbidden tears The ycissi-
tudes of ordinary peaceful life are not barren
OF the quckeners OF painful memory, and no
Thanksgiving day is expected to pass without
finding many window which, during the
year has been darkened by the shadow Of the
death angels wing; but at the present time
such households are fearfully multiplied. This
"cruel war; has scattered the land with graves
upon which the SHOWS of the approaching
winter will spread the first white mantle. In
every city, town, parish, and school district
the habilsments of mourning are found =
caused by the casualties of war--and but few
households are to be met with, which have
not been touched either in the fall of an in
mate or friend, and it is natural, 1t is un-
avoidable, 1t is right that all these sad memo
ries should be revived when the broken family
circles gather around the festive board to give
practical expression to their gratitude for the
multitude Of blessings enjoyed by our people
Yet these memories, though they must sadden,
need not destroy our enjoyment. True, they
would overwhelm Is were we obliged to con-
Tess that our loved ones had labored suffered
and fallen in an unholy cause,-in a cause dis.
honorable to man and disowned by God. But
no such reflection need embitter memory's
cup. We can rejoice that our friends have
suffered, and died If so be death has overtaken
them, In noble, In just, in holy struggle
lin struggle to uphold the right, to preserve
the birthright of liberty bequeathed to us by
our fathers, and to perpetuate and perfect il
for transmission to posterity. Our thanksgiv-
ing joys may be deepened and receive juster
and holier significance from the fact that our
blood, coursing in the veins of loved and cher
ished ones, has been shed for the good of hui
mainly; that the great tree of Liberty and OF
constitutional Freadoo In ,yhnso chad A.