The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-01
MINOR MENTION,

~
ALTHOUGH Halloween is the night that pre-
cedes All Saints day, and though All Saints
takes it's origin from the conversion of the Pan
theon of Rome into a Christian place of worship,
and its dedication to the Virgin Mary and all the
martyrs, little remnant of churchly or religious
rites fingers about the celebration of the night
in these times. The early superstition that it
was a time of all others given over to supernat-
ural influences, and that spirits of all sorts
walked abroad, made the night in medieval
times an occasion when the wandering powers of
good and evil were to be invoked or guarded
against by every possible method. Later, it was
a night devoted to sports and practical jokes,
and in this way it is now chiefly considered where
the progressive youth of the age remember to
celebrate it at all. Even then the police are
likely to interfere with carrying out the tricks
and the "witchcraft,' and it is only in remote
rural districts that Halloween can be celebrated
with any of it's old time formalities of cabbage
throwing, sign-changing and gate-removing.
Owing to some cause or other, too, perhaps the
extremely practical and unimaginative tendency
of the times, the repute of Halloween as a night
on which the maiden, by the exercise of charms
anu luCdutdtlOuS, may ~ L6 u6SUlQy" is DclQG
lessened. Now and then there may be a super
s%titious young woman who is ready to invoke
the aid of black spirits and white, blue spirits
and gray to her aid, and to cry:
Good even, fair moon, good even to thee;
/ pray thee. dear moon, now show to me-
The form and the features, the speech and degree,
OF the man that true lover OF mine shall be-"
But even she is ashamed of her clinging to
what seems like a remnant of paganism rather
than an outgrowth of Christian faith, and con-
ceals her weakness. Halloween will soon be
known only in history and legend.
THIS year the week of prayer for young men
and young women's Christian associations. which
has been annually observed ever since it was rec
commended lin 1861 by the international Conven-
ton, will begin on Sunday, Nov. 8. There is
something very suggestive of the real homogene-
ity and power of Professionalism in the number of
Young Mems Christian Associations and the vast
ness of the field they occupy. There are 2, 900
of these societies for Christian effort throughout
the world, of which 934 are in North America.
SOB in Great Britain, $40 in Germany, 396in Hol-
land, 26S in Switzerland, 72 in France. and they
reach into all other countries of the Eastern
hemisphere where the flag of a Christian nation
gives protection to religious liberty.
PERCY WHITING, a lumberman living at Will
Transport, Pa, a man presumably of good moral
character, recently fell from his high estate. and
all because of snakes. While on the mountains,
recently, he claims to have slipped and rolled
into a den of snakes. which he at once proceeded
to kill, dispatching all of them. to the number of
Of nine, the largest Of which measured six
feet FIVE inches. The friends of Mr.. Whiting
can but regret his fall from grace.
which is even greater than his tumble
on the mountain. Having started in to tell a