p. 381 | Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · December 8, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 48

Thanksgiving.

ONE of the leading papers of this city has this to say about Thanksgiving:—

No one cares to-day for the ceremonial Thanksgiving of the Fathers. The Puritan has gone and with him as he went he took his fasts and feasts, his rigid customs and observances.

Thanksgiving is no longer a religious day. Its churchly connection is lost. The Thanksgiving of to-day resembles no more that of the past than the airy splendor of the butterfly resembles the dull, worm-like chrysalis from which it has burst and risen.

It is because of this transformation, this enlarging and ennobling change, that the local has become universal, and what once was a sectional custom is to-day a festival of national observance. As a religious expression it no longer exists, but as a popular holiday—as a symbol of home and of the loves, the joys, the memories that cluster around the heartstone—it not only retains but tightens its hold on the regard and affections of the people.

It is a day for memory, for meetings after long partings, for clasping of hands in happiest reunion. It is a day for sports and games and children's glee, for laughter and rejoicing, for tables loaded with plenty, for liveliest music and the merry movement of dancing feet.

Thanksgiving is the people's day, the day which stands for home and happiness, for gratitude and benevolence, for plenty and peace. The old Puritans builded better than they knew. Their grim and solemn ceremonial has become a feast and festival of gladness.

Everybody knows that this is true, and being true it is high time that the mockery of setting apart a day, professedly for the worship of God, which is in reality to be devoted to gluttony should end. It is generally conceded, we believe, that above all things the Almighty hates hypocrisy.