New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-11-28
THANKSGIVING.

To-day will be q domestic festival in
thousands Of American homes, from Maine to
California and from the Great Lakes to the
Gulf of Mexico. Scattered families will be re-
united for q few happy hours; sons and daugh-
ters viii gather from distant homes around the
maternal board the home circle Will resOund
with CALCULATIONS; old feuds will cease; rank
ling wounds will be healed heartburnings, and
iealousies, and petty Quarres will be forgotten;
friends long parted will grasp each others
hands, and brothers who have walked in diverg-
ing paths will come together again aud renew
the fraternal bond. There is none of our popu-
lar festivals so beautiful and benefcent as this,
no social custom bequeatbed to us by our Puritan
ancestors which has colored so ageeably our
national life, and modified in such peculiar
way our national character. With the restless,
enteiprising, emigratiDg spirit Of the Amer
leans, the domestic sentiment would have been
almost destroyed but for this annual holiday
which we have dedicated 10 its honor. Fam
lilies are broken up as rapidly as the younger
members arrive at adult years Sons stray
away into distant States to seek their fortunes
daughters follow wandering husbands to the re-
mote ends of the earth. il is not as in the old
kingdoms whence our fOrefathers came, where
generations live and die under the same roof, and
the children many and settle within sight of
the cradle Of their race. The home attachment,
so far as IT is attachment to locality, we
hardly know and we should have lost also, in
the course of Our migratiOns, the very instinct
of family affection, had not some such festival
IA the annual Thanksgiving reminded us Of
the tie which ought to unite the descendants OF
a common ancestry, and enabled us to renew
at intervals the kindly impulses which we ought
to feel for those Of our own blood.
This is the sense in which Thanksgiving
most commonly presents itself to our minds !;
but it is something more than family feast
The gathering of relatives and friends is only
an incident of a day dedicated to gratitude, AS
Cromwell called his Puritan soldiers together
after every victory TO praise God, who had
strengthened their AIMS so the old Pilgrim set
tiers Of New England babe their descendants
assemble every twelve months, after the labors
of the fields were over and the harvests were
gathered, to thank heaven for its bounty and
protection during the past years strife with the
world and the devil. And if ever we have had
good cause amid the pleasant social customs
Of the day to keep its religious observance in
mind, we have surely had it during the last
ak or seven years, when we have been fight
ing harder fight with the world and the
devil than Cromwell OF the Pilgrims
ever fought, and have been sustained in
hours OF fear and danger by that divine sup
polt which is never lacking 20 a good cause
The battle for freedom and equal rights has
been long and terrible one but at every
recurrence of Thanksgiving Day, from the
dark beginning of the war, through all the
years Of bloodshed and disaster, we hare been
able to look back With gratitude to
signal iaeiai5s in Che preceding year,
and bright CLEANS Of the favor of
heaven breaking through the clouds Of
sorrow Now the contest is nearly over.
There has been trouble in the last season ;
there has been defeats there has been many
a grievous loss there will probably be trouble.
and defeat and losses ia the wear to come ;