The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1877-04-11
ALL SORTS.
sonnet.
BY JOHN r.. TAFT.


Have you forgotten the blest eve we safe
Awed by the tremulous murmur Of the leaves
Rustltng above us, from low beechen caves
You twining violets, with calm eyes, as Fate
Serenely weaves our wool predestinate?
Dear flowers, the symbol OF my future years
All my hearts impulses. its hopes and fears,
Heaved through my broken utterance. AS the
weight
OF fresh fallen rain drops bends some gentle
flower,
Thus dropped your fair cheek toward me,
When dixie dream the memory appears)
dared 70 Kiss you. In purple shower
Neglected fell the violets. How bright
seemed the red sunset and the moon that
night!
The best soil for most flowers, and espe-
cially for young plants, and one almost alb
solutely necessary for seed beds, is rich,
mellow loan, containing so much sand that
it will not bake" after hard showers
Wick.
The whole press of California will unite
in presenting testimonial TO General John
McComb, managing editor of the Alta. Cali
fornia, of San Francisco, in recognition of
the GOODNESS and courage he manifested the
other day in knocking down and taking to
the police station William Hayes, the man
who tried to force a retraction of an item at
the muzzle of a revolver.
IL Is SAID that there is not living a single
descendant in the male line of Chaucer
Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton. Cowley, Butler,
Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott,
Byr9nI Moore Sir Philip Sidney Sir Walter
Monk, Marlborough, Peterborough, Nelson,
STAFFORD, Ormond, Clarendon, Addison,
Swift Johnson, Walpole, Bolingbroke,
Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grattan. Can
ming, Bacon, Locke, New ton, Davy, Hume,
Gibbon, Macauley, Hogarth, Sir Joshua
Reynolds David Garrick, John Kemble or
Edmund Kean.
The customs of Easter, so popular in Eu-
rope, and so joyous amidst its festivities, is
but little celebrated in America, which at
tribute to the rigor and asperities thrown
upon everything churchly of the priesthood,
or had any connection with the holidays OF
the church as practiced in the Roman states
by the pilgrim fathers, who cut loose from
everything in the semblence of ritualistic or
other continental or holiday customs. Thus
II is only OF late years that the beautiful
custom of the Christmas tree has become
more and more popular, as its beauty is APP
preciated by all who taste of its sweets, and
makes the anniversary the most joyous of
our holidays. The customs OF Easter some
ascribe as an institution of the apostles but
the most general opinion is that it was first
observed by their immediate successors,
about A. ID. So. The council of Aries, in
30I, and the council of Mecca in 325, de-
creed that the day for keeping this festival
should be the 14th day of March.
noon. By the alienation OF the calendar
by Gregory XIII, in 1882, the first Sunday
after the full moon Immediately following
the 21ss of March was fixed as the day of
observing this festival. 1t is a movable
feast, occurring any day between March 81
and April %, and through it all other eccles-
iastical movable feasts are regulated
throughout the year. In the Church of
England its celebration is confined to
Easter eve, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in
Easter week. In the Roman church il is a
time of enjoyment because of the restric-
tons of Lent being removed, the populace
give themselves up to their tastes and liber-
ties. In Scotland they used TO go out in the
fields and by-ways and the finder of an egg
or nest OF eggs was considered lucky and
highly favored by Providence. The prac-
tice is not confined alone TO the Christians.
The Jews used eggs in the feast of the Pass
over, and we are TOLD that the Persians,
when they kept the festival OF the solar
new year lin March, mutually pre-
sented each other with colored eggs.
am sometimes asked, what does
the giving of the Easter egg mean, and why
give eggs on that day, and also how did the
custom become instituted on that dayT'
would say, THE feast of eggs is emblematic
of the resurrection and of future life; also,
it is a tribute by man to give one day to the
egg to which we are indebted so much for
the good things of this lif;, and was no doubt
originally ornamented in simple ways and
colored in lovely colors on Easter, as it was
the end of Lent, and meats being banished
during Lental fasting, the sole stay and
meat of life being the egg that had carried
them through the weeks of fasting was
glorified and made festive" AS the custom
took root in the valleys and hills of country
life before commerce hourished, and had not
the masses been able to procure fish in the
interior, also fish not being such universal
food, no doubt the fish would have been
given a share of the glory of Easter. In con-
nection we see the Easter egg associated
exclusively with the white Rabbit" the
patron saint of the Easter egg This comes
from the German legends told to all the
children in Germany that these lovely eggs
are laid by the beautiful rabbits for them;
in the same sense we use Santa Claus or
Kriss Kringle for the Christmas tree. Hence
the eggs and rabbits are part of one another
and associated in the various designs. An
other beautiful custom we can adopt from
the German and much practiced with us.
on Easter eve, the children having all gone
to bed, is to make nest in pretty basket
or otherwise somewhere in the house, In
some corner in the parlor, or other room or
closet, and place the eggs in them, and on
Easter morning il is the duty and pleasure
of all to hunt for the Easter nests to see
what the Easter rabbit has laid for them, he
surely having visited the house that night
laying them some lovely Easter presents for
all good little children.
BITS OF KNOWLEDGE.