Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1892-11-24


the rest, instead of as an offering OF
thanks which we ought to be glad to
make, if only with pulse and water.
Those who have grown to have this
feeling about the day speak of it as
day of gormandizing, reproach 1t with
the manner of its observation, connect
its existence in their minds with re-
sponsibility for gluttony, and are in
danger of losing all lofty or sacred as
ISOLATION with it. As day of real
thanks to source of all beauty and
JOY and life they do not give
it any peculiar regard. They call 1t
day because that is its
name, always has been and always
will be. They do not fail to observe it,
because they are conservative and
want to break in on no established
order of things They sometimes go
to hear Il sermon in which thanks are
apt to figure but little, and politics are
apt 70 figure good deal; but on the
whole, they think of it as remarlia-
bly, good dinner day.
Yet in the relations of everyday life
with one another, if from any hand
one received such blessing as life, as
love, as freedom from want, as friends,
as family, as the roof that shelters, the
food that loads the table, to say moth
ing of more personal gifts or of the
minor myriad of blessings, it would be
a matter of the most glaring incivility
if any due rendering of thanks were
omitted, and of ingratitude if one even
desired to evadc acknowledgment.
The person who has been entertained
over night in dull country house sends
a note of thanks to the host or hostess
afterward; the beggar on the street, to
whom half-dime has been tossed,
utters a modest word or makes n gest-
into none1 of the interior reality OF
Thanksgiving day, who keep it as a
matter of form and because others do,
and because it makes one more holt
day, and who in return for sunlight,
sleep, waking joy, all the innumerable
pleasures of existence, for the early
and the latter rain, harvest. health,
happiness, see no occasion for
season of special thank offer
ing, and in observing the
day observe it rather in a Chinese com
memOration of the ancestors who ap
pointed it than from the force of an
irresistible motion of gratitude in thei,
own hearts, those people are less civil
than the chance guest, less decent thar
the sidewalk beggar, and are really
almost as much to be pitied as if they
had nothing at all to be thankful for
Yet the idea of the day is something
so beautiful, that it is shame
the day itself should not Away.
] and everywhere be kept with
such warmth and freshness of feeling
( as it would be if it were but just newly
instituted every year. 1t is day tha'
Christian and jew and Gentle, Mo
/ hammedan and heather, may observe
with tenderness: for each and all OF
( these have one great benignant source
of blessing beyond the world of the
/ senses, from whom they recognize that
! they receive all, to whom they know
| is due a worship which includes thanks
/ And how beautiful might be the offer
ing of this worship and these thanks
when compared with the offerings
of old; not smoke OF sacrifice or drip
ping affairs or curling incense, but the
viewless joyous uplifting of the hearts
rapture, of spirit seeking spirit.
And with those, and they are still &
multitude, who make real festival O.
the day, the return TO the home ant
hearth OF the family-the patriarch!
hearth from which the new familie,
have gone outs like the going up o
the tribes to be numbered at thei1
great city. All over the land wha
glad confusion they make, what jour
] neying, what hurrying eastward ant
westward, to the North, to the South
From the Pacific shores the trains ar
Fastening, laden with travellers, son
and daughters coming back to the oil,
home; from the Atlantic they go, carry
ing the older people to see the new
homes that the younger ones hav
made; from North and South on tn
crossing and interlacing lines, brother
and sisters and friends hasten to eac1
others houses this ore season in tn
year, perhaps this one year oat G
many; mothers are speeding back,
they have been away, and fathers
whose errands have taken them int
distant regions, make all haste to be a
home again. What wonderful huma
network is it thus stretched over tn