Norwich bulletin., 1914-10-31
SUNDAY MORNING TALK
ALL SAINTS DAY.


 One feast of holy days the crest l. though no chnrchman, love to keep, AH-Salnts, the unknown good that rest In Gods still memory folded deep; The brareiy dumb that did their deed, And scorned to blot it with a name. Men of the plain heroic breed,
 That loved Heavens silence more
 than fame.
 So sings James Russell Lowell and his words find echo in countless hearts. It is pus the eommonest in- stinct of love that holds in reverent memory the vanished faces and forms of those who but lately walked with us the ways of earth. And imagina- ton gives to our remembrance only Q wider sweep. To go back in thought Ito the great hosts Of unknown dead paying to them our tribute of greti- tude and honor, this. too, is fitting and right. Herein lies the permanent sig nificance of All Saints Day,
 | Of the weird and supsrstitious fea- lures Of the season you and are be- ginning to see the end. Superstition and "Old wives fables" die hard, but they are dying nearly everywhere The monday glare of science in which we moderns are called to live our lives gives small place to the signs and
  witching hour Of nidnight'' appalled, even stout hearts a couple of genera tions ago. Halloween has Become a time of laughter and reyeiry When lads and lassies play all sorts of pranks with manufactured fantoms and appariEons that scare nobody.
 There is something wholesome in the reaction from the old terror that op- pressed the minds of former genera tions. What night was Halloween in the experience of your grandfather, some part of the British Isles. IL fs probable that he sat with tense nerves and bated breath in the chimney cer- ner as the hour of midnight approached waiting for the appearance of thoss Isupernatural beings supposed to hold revel at this season within the sphere Of humanity. Better the harmless fom- fooiery, the ducking for apples and roasting of chestnpts of the presenj than the old-time sonaber and feaIsoma antieipations.
 spocks and fantoms at ali, Out a sea son of remembrance Of the good anf true who have overcome and er,terec into the larger life AS such 1t has ( clear right to survive. We do not ex- lpect to behold the departed in shad. Iowy. spectral presence, We ars content to think of those who have lived and labcred here, into whose labors we have entered, as being somewhere beyond our mortal ken alive forever more They dwell ir light forever, the glorious company O; apostles, the goodfy fellowship of tn, prophets, the noble army of martyr. in ancient and modern times, wfost names even we may not know. b1i whose lives and works have made ou, world what it is, in whose debt ", must always be. -, l One must thank them for fhe ma, terfal good they bequeathsd, for th. truths they discovered and handed Or, for the moral impulses and noble era, } thusiasms they put into the world ent } to which our spirits are every da, responsive Through them we have become heirs Of all the ages. Ffoa1 tits very cradle the race has been resi- , duary legatee of faithful and forgot ten millions whose gifts make LID in, total of your wealth and mine
 Let Us remember them in gratit1,d 5 and love. Let us strive to be worth, [ of their struggles and their sacrifices f o may thy soldiers faithful true an, 9 bold : Fight as the saints who nobly fough : of old
 And win with them the victor's crow,
 of gold. Alleluia! s' THE PARsoN.