The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-09-19
FEAsTs AND FAsTs.


The Unaceountabge Scarcity Of Feast Days
in the United States Compared With the
Days of Rejoicing Observed by Other Ma
lions.
There is an inherent love Of festivals
and fessts in human nature, desire to
express joy. and that not in solitude, but
surrounded by sympathetic friends; a
desire to experience pleasure, and to
experience it unselfshly. shared by
everyone within reach; a desire, posi-
bly,, to make ourselves one in our Joy
with all the surrounding human race.
1t is certain, at any rate, that public
| festivals do that work for the time be-
ing; for as long ago as the period of the
celebration of the Greek games, which
really had their origin far back in myth
| ical times, the Olympic games kept alive
common interest between all the
Greek States, and had much to do with
the existence and preservation of ma
tional feeling, while so important were
they deemed in this regard that the year
of their revival, some eight hundred
years before our era, was used as a
chronological period from which to
date.
The Romans had fixed. movable and
occasional feasts; the Egyptians made
them of such moment that It is recorded
of one that nearly three-quarters of a
million of men and women we're present;
while tho East Indians still make their
festivals quite beyond the usual range
of our imaginations with numbers aud
with treasure. The Jews had an i'm
mense variety of feasts, all of sacred
nature, among them being the Sabbath,
the Passover, the Pentecost, the Feast
of Trumpets-marking a day on which
every ones doom for eternity was sup
posed to be set down. although with
mitigating possibilities, in the case of
disastrous doom, should repentance
take place before death-the Feast of
Tabernacles. the Purim and the Dedica-
ton; while the Christian Church has,
with others, its Advent Christmas,
Epiphany, Easter and Whitsuntide, all
joyous spiritual feasts.
But just as strong a tendency with
humanity as that to festivals is that to
fasts. Indeed. with many, there may
be preference as to the latter, owing
to feeling that after duly keeping fast
one can enjoy more freely the riotous
living of feasts. The Jews had at first
but one fast, that of the Atonement,
which they kept with great severity.
although later the Pharisees were wont
to fast every Monday and Thursday.
The Egyptians, Ph9nicians and Assy-
rians all kept their fasts and the No
hammedans keep the whole of the
ninth month, Ramadan, most strictly,
neither eating nor drinking. however
great their suffering, from sunrise till
starshine. The Sibylline books ordered
fast to be kept every fifth year in
honor of Ceres. And with the Holy
Orthodox Church of the East, the Fast
of the Mother of God begins the 1st of
August and lasts fourteen days, that
Church in especial keeping two hum
dred and sixty-six days of the year as
days of fast Every one, meanwhile, is
familiar with the customs of the re-
ligious sects about us. and with our own
national feasts and fasts.
1t is certainly astonishing how very
few national feasts we have. on the
whole-the more astonishing that in
our great pleasure of business, and
rapid deed and thought, we need rest
and relaxation more than most. Christ
mas is not universally kept among us,
nor is New Years; we make nothing of
the Sth of January or of the 22d of Feb
ruary, little bell-ringing or few guns
comprising the most of our observance
of those days; we forget the April day
of the battle of Lexington till after it
has passed; and we content ourselves
with sorry and solemn parade that
can not be called feast. if it can not
be called fast, on Decoration Dav.
The anniversary of the battle of Bunker
Hill has sometimes good send Of in
New England and sometimes not
seldom anywhere else; and in truth we
lie back and reserve all our strength
for the Fourth of July. and now we eel
citrate that and now we don't. And
when we do celebrate, we have not
much idea of doing so other than with
cannons and with flags. fire-crackers
and torpedoes, by day, and the blue
lights and their kind by night-music,
flowers, and the gentler arts seeming to
us of insufficient import to turn to ex-
terror use.
1t is rather pity that we rest so con-
tentedly, as people, with so few OPP
portunities of general merry making
and acquaintanceship. 1t would not be
amiss. at all events. if in the sweet
spring and early summer season we
made the most of the chance that comes
to us in pleasant weather and turned ii
to account in general social ways. II
the 10Th of April, that initial day of our
independence of Kings and Crowns, can
not be made of much practical outdoor
use on account of the inclemency of that
part of the year, yet the 18th Of June,
when we first discovered that farmers
with their rusty weapons could hold the
trained regulars of the King in check,
can not claim any such immunity, for
winds are soft and skies are blue and
roses are in blossom then, and all things
invite to joy and its expression. Yet
however it be with those days, the heart
that does not beat more quickly on the
Fourth of July, and does not wish to
celebrate it even when it is impossible
to do so, if by no more than doing rev.
erence to the flag, ought to beat in some
more ignoble bosom than an Amer.