O PAINTER OF THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS.
103
LITERARY.
O PAINTER OF THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS!
O Painter of the fruits and flowers! We thank thee for thy wise design, Whereby these human hands of ours In Nature's garden work with thine.
And thanks that from our daily need The joy of simple faith is born; That he who smites the summer weed May trust thee for the autumn corn.
Give fools their gold and knaves their power, Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all.
For he who pleases most is blest;
And God and man shall own its worth.
Who toils to leave at his bequest,
An added beauty to the earth.
And soon or late to all that sow
The time of harvest shall be given;
The flowers shall bloom, the fruit shall grow,
If not on earth at last in heaven,
J. G. WHITTIER
THANKSGIVING.
Once more the revolving year has reached in its course the last days of autumn. Indian summer, with its soft hazy days, has fled at the approach of winter. The nuts have all been gathered and the yellow light has gone from the woods. The last red leaf is whirling in the gusty air. The harvest is gathered; the granaries are filled; the land is garrisoned with abundance.
Now draws on that most genial and kindly of all our festivals. Thanksgiving is wholly American, purely Puritan, a triumph of Puritan humanity and christianity over strict creeds and observances. Now comes the wonderful dinner, for which preparations have so long been making, led by thanksgiving turkey, "of higher gifts a quaint reminder."
Vacant places make sad some of these gatherings. From the old home some have gone to try the fortune of this world, some
the fortune of an unknown world. But in the main, cheerfulness, even jollity, reigns. Thanksgiving is not the day for morbid sadness or repining, although mirth may be sobered by thoughts of the absent.
"Nay, repine not. Let our laughter Leap like firelight up again. Soon we touch the wide hereafter Snow-field yet untrod of men."
Our fathers are thankful for life, food, shelter, and religious liberty. And what are the causes of our thankfulness? Harvest of fruits and flowers and golden grain, a land free from war or pestilence, civil and religious liberty, opportunities to learn and profit by the thought and experience of past ages, opportunities to find out truth for ourselves.
Rich in blessings and reverend in years may good old Thanksgiving last with the continent, an ever-recurring proof of American peace and prosperity.