The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1867-11-30

This morning we greet again the old-fashioned
holiday. Age has not diminished the certainty
of its welcome nor has time been able to stale
its frolic freshness. 1t is still the harbinger OF
feasting and fun; it is still greeted by warm
hearts and loving natures, while around it gath.
er train of gentle deeds and tender sympa-
thies. 1t is the Festival Of Home and the fire.
side Holiday; and while the roof tree continues
to shelter the scenes of love, the seats of virtue
the nurseries Of manliness and womanhood,
Thanksgiving will be preserved, not as a mean
ingless form, nor by unworthy observances, but,
in spirit of genial decorum and chastened fes-
tivity. 1t has been protected above most ami.
versaries by the very circumstances of its foun.
dation, from vulgar associations; for although
it may afford slight opportunity for unworthy
indulgence, it would long ago have been stricken
from the limited list of New England holidays
if its perpetuation had depended upon the coarse
and sensual. That nature must indeed, have
become inordinately callous, which is proof
against the influences Of such festival that
heart must be obdurste which does not beat
more quickly to-day; to whom, through the gray
air OF this November morning, come no thick,
Infringing iucIhoTleS Oh nome, VI CnllQnOOO, OF
the loved and the lost There are periods when
we may surely be permitted to retreat from the
eager contest of the present, and to suspend for
awhile the pursuit of phantoms which gild the
still retreatng future. There are few men
whose lives have been 80 barren of enjoyment
that the past affords no solace. There are few
men who do not keep garnered and guarded in
the heart priceless Renaissance of mothers
love or fathers self sacrifice and who do not
acknowledge in their moments of reflection, q
debt of gratitude which can never be repaid.
The scenes of childhood must indeed have been
squalid if we cannot recall them with pleasure;
and although advancing life creates hundred
artificial enjoyments, it may be said to the cred
1t OF human nature, that our first joys are those
which are, to the last, most wildly remembered.
W hat can be moro beautiful or moro consonant
with our best feelings, than day consecrated
to such reflections, in which, ut the sight of we'll
beloved faces, and as we feel the grasp Of kindly
hands, the pages Of the past seem rewritten in
letters OF light? The voices OF this morning
utter spell which annihilates time, and takes
away the sting from bereavement Fields of Bit
ter experience stretch between US and the para
disc III which we were nurtured but over the
marrow graves of our kindred, and, alas! over
many buried hope and many prostrste enter
prise, the serene sunshine of life IL aiming.
With trembling eagerness we turn to the vision,
and, as it fades away, We forget that it was 10
transitory, in the rapture Of feeling which It has
awakened.
1t is perfectly natural for us, ~ we grow older,
to regard the past with tenderness proportion.
ate to the severity with which we criticise the
present. A. our frst play was most and our
mrs. lore the warnest, 20 our &rSt ThAnkagiV-