THANKSGIVING DAY. 
391 
tiful sky for a festival. Pleasant walk. As we came back to the 
village the bells Avere ringing, and the good people, in tlieir Sunday 
attire, were going in different directions to attend public worship. 
Many shop-windows were half open, however ; one eye closed in 
devotion as it were, the other looking to the main chance. 
This is a great day for gatherings of kith and kin, throughout 
the country ; and many a table stands at this moment loaded with 
good things, for family guests and old family friends to make 
merry, and partake of the good cheer together. Few households 
where something especially nice is not provided for Thanksgiving 
dinner ; for even the very poor, if known to be in want, generally 
receive something good from larders better filled than their own. 
It was one of the good deeds of the old Puritans, this revival 
of a Thanksgiving festival ; it is true, they are suspected of favor- 
ing the custom all the more from their opposition to Christmas ; 
but we ought not to quarrel with any one Thanksgiving-day, much 
less with those who have been the means of adding another 
pleasant, pious festival to our calendar ; so we will, if you please, 
place the pumpkin-pie at the head of the table to-day. 
Surely no people have greater cause than ourselves for public 
thanksgivings, of the nature of that we celebrate to-day. We 
have literally, from generation to generation, " eaten our bread 
without scarceness." Famine, to us, has been an unknown evil ; 
that fearful scourge — one of the heaviest that can fall upon a na- 
tion, accompanied, as it is, by a long train of ghastly woes — that 
scourge has never yet been laid upon us ; the gloomy anxiet}^ of 
its first approaches, the enfeebled body, the wasting energies, the 
bitterness of spirit, the anguish of heart which attend its course, 
these have caused us to weep for our fellow-beings, but never yet 
