News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1916-12-13
OLD HOME WEEK AT STOWE
Prof. Reynolds Address


G. Reynolds at the Sunday service
Old Home Week, 1916.
My friends
May / first of all express to you m.
gratitude that you, on this, the frs
day of your cold Home Week" hav
asked me to, come back to you, bacl
home, to those who hold place a
home folks in my heart, to take m.
small part in this, unique festival il
community which has never lost thu
ideal of cold Home Week." and which
is, to my knowledge, the only communi
ty which has chung fast to this holiday
of the heart, the celebration of Yer
mont's greatest institution, yes, tha
institution upon which all civilization
is builded, the home! 1t is privilege
an honor, a Joy to come back.
The sentiment which prompts this
week of festivity is as old as the his
tory of the human race, in whatever
place men love their children, in what.
ever age the prodigal son has heard the
heart-pulling call Ever have the
sentiments which cluster around the
Preside, ever have the memories of the
family circle aroused in mankind the
finest and best of which he has been
capable.
Man has translated this sentiment
into his religion and whatever be his
'creed, he expresses his most lofty con-
ception of what deity means to him
when he says, "Our Father who are
in heaven"
He pays to his country his deepest
love when it is to him '"The Home
Land" He even unconsciously lays
his tribute on the altar of home when
in his daily walks of life he lifts his
hat in reverence to woman, without
whom home would be impossible.
Indeed all mans loftiest conceptions,
love, faith, duty, friendship, patrio-
tism and sacrifice, center around the
ideal of home.
Home, man slaves for it, he lives
for it, he gladly dies for it. What
could be more fitting than that he
should set apart a portion of each year
to think about and celebrate it.
You who have wandered from the
if such there be here to-
day, how often to you in lands afar
have the pictures flashed across the
screen of your memory.
Old Mansfield, the sleeping giant,
what dreams he must have had as he
has laid there through the centuries,
with face upturned to the heavens,
MS rugged forehead touched with the
white of winters SHOWS, his mark of
age, his nose rugged and fur
owed with the mad tempests of the
dement's, his chin strong and firm.
Father Mansfield keeping watch DER
is, ever looking upward and onward,
dreaming dreams which those who nes-
lie within his shade shall bring to
PASS, the personifcation, the epitome
# all the struggle of mankind for bet
er things, an age old example of hope
or us, his children, an inspirer of bet
er things for all who shall come after
Is.
"The Rock of Terror" "The Lake
f the Clouds" "The Cave of the
Winds" one time, perhaps, the play
Kings of the gods, but now the won
er-spot for you and me. The crooked
road, shimmering, giant
erpent, wriggling its way upward
trough a vernal forest. That cash of
ONE monstrous axe. The Notch,
aunted by the spirits of those adj
enturous smugglers, who sought to
scape the excise man, and who gave
D this wild spot its name. What an
proar there must have been, when,
18th a mighty groan, Father Mans
ED met the blow Perchance it was
is death blow, and it is because of
his that he now lies prone, his face
pturned to heaven, pouring forth
ON the wound cool, refreshing,
blood from a crystal spring
lat it may carry life to us, his chill
rem down below.
And the day you climbed the heights
, tread with almost profane feet the
pturned face of the beloved. What
vision met your eye, what a picture
} carry with you. Billow upon billow
deep green-clad upland, dotted with
most indistinguishable splotches of
which you knew by the
'wering needle of white to be the
tie home-folds of your kinsman, :
,otected by the heaven-turned spire, !
Ie blots of silvery radiance, cool ponds i,
Id lakes, and then afar the long thin .
ne of old Champlain with its back J
ound of misty, hazy purple. Ali =
hat scene, never twice alike, a
cam to carry to the noisy, grimy ,
ty, to breathe into ones heart that !,
1t all the world is rush and roar,