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But some may think this is not the time of year for a Feast of Tabernacles, since the summer is gone, and even the fiery of autumn has disappeared. The forests are stripped of their foliage, and the mountains around our valley are bleak and bare. But our Thanksgiving, being more than a month later than the Feast of Tabernacles as kept by the Jews, cannot be observed, as that was, out of doors, in tents and booths that were pitched on all the hills round about Jerusalem. Our festival is not out of doors, but indoors, where we laugh at the winds that blow and the storms that rage without, which do but add to our sense of comfort and security. If some city-bred stranger, whose blood is thin and whose face is pale, should come up among these hills at this season or the year, and straightway begin to shiver as he muffles himself up in his overcoat lined with furs, and chatters between his teeth, "How the wind howls!" we answer, "Let it howl! Little harm can it do us, as we sit before the great open fireplace, and pile on the logs, and hear the flames roar up the chimney!" Indeed, it is the contrast between the wintry scene without and the warmth and glow within that gives a peculiar charm to a Thanksgiving in the country, as it does to Christmas also. And so let us gather round the fire to-night. Do not light the lamp, for there is nothing to stir up old memories like the fire on the hearth, that flashes up in the faces of those we love. - [Thanksgiving Day] Mankind worships success, but thinks too little of the means by which it is attained,--what days and nights of watching and weariness; how year after year has dragged on, and seen the end still far off: all that counts for little, if the long struggle do not close in victory. - [Success]
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