Los Cerrillos rustler., 1888-11-30
THANKSGIVING DAY.

Peculiarly womRn's Tcstivai-A Day
Celebrated within the waits Of Home.
II may not be- generally recognized. but
il Is none the less true. that Thanksgiving
is reculiarlva woman's festival
In the first place. unlike our other chief
National festival. the Fourth OF July-!or
Christmas aud Now Years have never
been made the subject Of National enact
ment or proclamation by the heads OF the
Govcrnmcnt-Thanksgviug is dag cele-
brated within the walls of home: for oven
the church service In the morning, when
one Is attended, Is "A part of tho
home surroundings, the various mem
bcrs Of the family gathering in
the pew as in another sort of
home, and all the rest OF the day Is a eel
obration Of the idea of homo aud its en-
vronmcnt. II is toward home that every
one who Is away from it looks on
the approach Of the day; 1t is home to
which every one comes who has any home
to come 10. II IL home and the things of
home that are remembered aftcrward in
recalling the way the day was passed. Aud
home is the woman's throno--a platitude
very possibly, but one nevertheless of deep
$ rnificance. Whatever other sphere she
fills abroad and In the world, STILL as where
Macgregor sat was the head of the
table, wherever woman is is the frcside
and the altar; she is tho peculiar genius of
home, and the festival Of Thanksgiving is
the festival Of the home--is the festival of
woman
Woman is, then, entirely the priestess OF
this altar; and 1t is an altar, this Thanks
giving one, TO which Dclphos could have
offered but feeble rivalry For the
keeping Of Thanksgiving Day intends not
only th Offering of thanks to Heaven for
all blessings received, all msfortunes
withheld, but II is with all that a cclebra-
ton of the fact and existence Of home.
Aud who so 1T and natural to make that
| celebration, TO ofliciate as priestess nj that
shrine as women are. Long, long ago, in
proianc records, we have the thanksgiv-
ing before meat, and far back in sacred
records the thanksgiving was made before
the bread was broken; but never till
in thee times OF ours and Of our grand
mothers has an entire day of thanksgiving
been organized in which women were the
chief actors, Us circumstances have made
them In the celebration of our Thanksgiv-
ing Day, ard in which women, owing to
that fact alone, can Join with more hearth
ness than in any other. The red Indian
| has his wigwam the rude savage his hut
or cave, sometimes his associated hut or
cave; and the woman Of that wigwam or
that hut or cave has vast journey 10 make
before she reaches tho EN- ncnce of the
simplest woman in our homes when
| Thanksgiving Day is kopt II is this home
and its opportunities and possibilities.
which was separated from the associated
| hut improved on the wigwam, differenti-
ated at last from q place where slave
served into place whore q woman rules
supreme in aifectiou--it is this home, we
say, which has given woman much of the
enlightenment and uplifting she has re.
ceved, and which continues to help her
by means of advantages increasing from
generation to generation.
II becomes women. then, TO keep this fes
tival of Thanksgiving as something pc
culiarly their own; TO spare themselves no
pains in the preparations Of the feast, and
| to curtail no pleasure that can belong TO IL
or be added to 1t, to ma lie point of max
| ing IL desirable to those who are away To
| come back TO the central hearth, and of
giving great cheer to those that are at
hand, recognizing that while the custom Of
Thanksgiving pays reverence to the Dis.
pensing Powers and Heavenly Bounty. IL
also acknowledges the value of home and
the sovereignty of women at the freside.-
HdTpor's Bdadr