| Show thanksgiving DAY those who give open thanks the great people are ever it is true that which comes to thern them something the good to the Power they recognize tor for thanksgiving an all instinct of forceful in the strong heart has made when mariam elariam lar iam the prophetess time since the civilization it has been so while her handmaidens hand maidens danced and the daring played upon the tini brel had bad safely passed the sea the old israelites praised god because they and tho the bearded Noise nien expressed greeks made thank offerings to their gods thor to the world don dom their clamorous gratitude to odin and of christ came the same impulse anglo saxon with his religion and it has clung to him in each vast wilderness lie he has invaded not only has ho he been a giver of thanks but lie he has dignified and glorified the duty and made it a feature of his national life that eliat there should suggest itself to it was almost a matter of course the puritans rigid and god fearing as the most ear earnest nest of cro dwells that t should be formal but it was roundheads round heads the idea of a thanksgiving from the flux of a new natures munificent influence upon their lives that there came a mellowing to the character of the d days ays observance that a certain hardness disappeared and that thai the occasion disappeared and that the little shrub of observance the occasion became ona on 3 of open joyousness planted in 1621 by the good gov bradford has grown into a mighty tree with flowers amid its fruit it was good all that happened about the time of the first thanksgiving day the pilgrim fathers were in in particularly jubilant mood for them on that occasion years of scanty crops and threatening starvation had been followed by a bountiful harvest and there was an absolute geniality in the preliminaries to the famous dinner it was to be a game dinner a dinner fit tor for any epicure who ever lived and none so mean in all the colony but should be present so opened were the hearts of those rugged worshipers that they were not content with even this but summoned old sachem massa lassa massasoit and all his swarthy retainers and when the f feast east was spread red man and white sat down together and were brothers here was Chil christian stian spirit here was an exhibition of that broad humanity andrare anI and care for the other man taught by him who walked the strand of galileo galilee here was practical christianity and who shall say that from this hour when such kindly hospitality was shown when the good things god had bestowed upon men were eaten appreciatively and joyously and when thanks were given more sonorously than in the past there was not given birth to the gerni germ of that broadness and joyousness even in worship which has become a trait of the american character |
