The age-herald., 1901-12-08

in the morning will come over the Beryshire hills; ask all the plantations of the South which have adopted the New England custom of setting apart day of thanksgiving. Oh, 1t is a great day of national festivity! Clap your hands ye people. and shout aloud for joy! Through the organ pipes let there come down the thunder of nations re- joicing! Blow the cornet! Wave the palm branches! "Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men!'
 Victories of Peace.
 For two years and half this nation has been celebrating the triumph of swords and gun and battery. We have sung martal airs and cheered return ing heroes and sounded the requiem for the slain in battle Methinks it will be a healthful change if on this years Thanksgiving in church and homestead we celebrate the victories of the blow, the hammer and the pen, for nothing was done at Santiago or Manila that was of more importance than that which in the last year has been done in farmers field and mechanc's shop and authors study by those who never wore an epaulet or shot a Spaniard or went hundred miles from their own doorsill. Come up, farmers and mechanics and lit- erary men, and get your dues as far as I can pay them
 Things have marvelously changed. Time was when the stern edict of gov ernments forbade religious assemblages. Those who dared to be so unloyal to their king as to acknowledge loyalty to the Head of the universe were punished. | Churches awfully silent in worship sud- denly heard their doors swung open, and l down upon the church aisle a score of | muskets thumped as the leaders bade | them Ground arms!' This custom of having the fathers, the husbands, the sons and brothers at entrance of the pew Is custom which came down from olden time when it was absolutely necessary that the father or brother should sit at the end of the church pew fully armed to defend the helpless portion of the family. But now how changed! Severe penalties are threatened against any one who shall interrupt religious services, and annually, at the command of the high est official in the United States we gather together for thanksgiving and holy wor- ship. Today I would stir your souls to joyful thanksgiving while speak of the mercies of God and in unconventional way recount the conquests of the blow, the hammer and the pen.
 Most of the implements of husbandry have been superseded by modern inven- tions, but the blow has never lost it's reign It has furrowed its way through all the ages. Its victories have been waved by the barley of Palestine the wheat of Persia, the flax of Germany, the ricestatks of China. the rich grasses of Italy It has turned up the m mammoth of Siberia. the mastodon of Egypt and the pine groves of Thessaly. Its iron foot hath marched where Homer wrote and Homer sang and Aristotle taught and, Alexander mounted his war charger It hath wrung It's colter on Norwegian wilds and ripped out the stumps of the Ameri- can forest, pushing It's way through the sayannas of the Caroinas and trembling in the grasp of the New Hampshire yeo- marry. American civilization hath kept step with the rattle of its clevises, and on its beam hath ridden thrift and na- tional plenty
 l do not wonder that the Japanese and the Chinese and the Phoenicians so par ticularly extolled husbandry or that Gin cinnatus went from the consulship to the blow or that Noah was a farmer before he became shipbuilder or that Elisha was in the field blowing with twelve yoke of oxen when the mantle fell on him or that the Egyptians in their organism worshiped the OK as a tiiler of their lands.
 To get an appreciation of what the American blow has accomplished I take you into the western wilderness. Here in the dense forest I find collection of Indian wigwams. With belts of wampun the men lazily sit on the skins of deer. smoking their feathered calumets. or. driven forth by hunger, I track their moccasins far away as they make the forest echoes crazy with their wild halloo or fish in the waters of the still lake. Now tribes challenge, and council fires blaze. and warwhoops ring, and chiefs lift the tomahawks for battle. After awhile wagons from the Atlantic coast come to those forests. By day trees are felled. and by night bonfires keen off the wolves. Log cabins rise, and the great trees begin to throw their branches in the path of the conquering white man. Farms are cleared Stumps. the monu- ments of slain forests. crumble and are burned. Villages appear. with smiths at the bellows. masons on the wall, carpen- ters on the housetop. Churches rise in honor of the Great Spirit whom the red men ignorantly worship. Steamers on the lake convey merchandise to her wharf and carry east the uncounted bushels that nave come to the market. Bring hither wreaths of wheat and crowns of rye and let the mills and the machinery Of barn and field unite their voices to celebrate the triumph. for the wilderness hath retreated and the blow hath con- quered.
 Triumph of Husbandry.
 Within our time the Presidential Cabf- net mas added a Secretaryship of Agri- culture. Societies are constantly being established for the education of the blow. Journals devoted to this department are circulated through all the country. Far mers through such culture have learned the attributes of soils and found out that almost every field has it's peculiar prefer ences. Lands have their choice as to which product they will bear. Marshv lowlands touched by the blow rise and wiring out their wet locks in the trenches. Islands born down on tha coaat- af I,a-,,