Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-11-29
THANKSGIVING DAY,

Peculiarly a Woman's FestivaI-A Day
Celebrated Within the Walls OF Home.
1t may not Oe generally recognized. bu'
It Is none the less true. that Thanksgivin
is peculiarly woman's festival
In the first place, unlike our other chiei
National festival, the Fourth of July-foS
Christmas and New Years have never
been made the subject of National enact
ment or proclamation by the leads of tho
Government-Thanksgiving is day cele-
brated within the walls of home; for even
the church service in the morning, when
one is attended, is part of the
home surroundings the various mem
bers of the family gathering in
the pew as in another sort OF
home, and all the rest Of the day is a eel.
ebration of the idea of home and its en-
vironment 1t is toward home that every
one who is away from 1t looks on
the approach of the day; it Is home to
which every one comes who has any home
TO come to. 1t is home and the things Of
home that are remembered afterward in
recalling the way the day was passed. rAnd
home is the woman's thrones platitude
very possibly, but one nevertheless Of deep
significance. 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 f1reside
and the altar; she is the peculiar genius of
home, and the festival IF Thanksgiving is
the festival OF the hOme-is the festival of
woman.
y
Woman is, then, entirely the priestess Of
this altar; and it is an altar, this Thanks
giving one, to which Delphos could have
offered but a feeble rivalry. For the
keeping of Thanksgiving Day intends not
only tn Offering of thanks to Heaven for
all blessings received, all misfortunes
withheld, but it is with all that celebra-
ton of the fact and existence of home.
And who so fit and natural to make that
celebration, to officiate as priestess at that
shrine, as women are! Long, long ago, in
profane 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 these times of ours and of our grand
mothers has an entire day of thanksgivin,
been organized in which women were the
chief actors, as 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 to make
before she reaches the en- hence OF the
simplest woman in our homes when
Thanksgiving Day is kept 1t is this home
and its opportunities and possibilities.
which was separated from the associated
hut, improved on the wigwam, Different
ated at last from a place where a slave
served into place where a woman rules
supreme in atfection-it is this home, we
say, which has given woman much Of the
enlightenment and uplifting she has re-
ceived, and which continues to help her
by means of advantages increasing from
generation 70 generation
1t 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 it. to male point Of max |
ing it desirable to those who are away z
come back to the central hearth, and 6
giving great cheer to those that are al |
hand. recognizing that while the custom o.
Thanksgiving pays reverence to the d. |
ponsing Powers and Hesvenly Bounty. IL |
also acknowledges the value Of home and |
the sovereignty Of vomsa q - aresida.-
HaspGs Bozr