tice.
Learning was not then loved for luxury, like a lady for her gold,
But testing her worshippers by trial, knew who sought her for herself.

* * * * *

Not given to frequent feasting was the home-bred farmer of New England,
Parties, and the popular lectures swelled not his code of enjoyments.
One banquet, climax of his convivial delight, was the yearly
thanksgiving,
Substituted by puritan settlers for the Christmas of the Mother-Clime,
Keeping in memory the feast of ingathering, of the Ancient Covenant
People;
Drear November was its appointed season, when earth's bounty being
garnered,
Man might rest from his labors, and praise the Lord of the Harvest.
Such was its original design, but the tendencies of Saxonism,
Turn'd it more to eating and drinking, than devotional remembrance.
Yet blessed was the time, summoning homeward every wanderer:
Back came the city apprentice, and from her service place the damsel,
Back came the married daughter to the father's quiet hearth-stone,
Wrapped warmly in her cloak is a babe, its eyes full of wonder,--
Hand in hand, walked the little ones, bowing low before the
grandparents,
Meekly craving their blessing, for so had they been piously taught.
Back to the birth-spot, to the shadow of their trees ancestral,
Came they like joyous streams, to their first untroubled fountain,
Knowing better how to prize it, from the rocks that had barred their
course.
In primitive guise, journeyed homeward those dispersed ones.
Rare, in these days, was the carriage, or stage-coach for the
traveller;
Roads, unmacadamized, making rude havoc of delicate springs.
Around the door, horses gather with the antique side-saddle and
pillion,
Led thence to the full barn, while their riders find heartfelt welcome.

Then all whom culinary cares release, hasten to the House of Worship,
Religion being invoked to sanction the rejoicing of the fathers.
Plain was the village-church, a structure of darkened wood,
Having doors on three sides, and flanked by sheds for the horses,
Guiltless of blackening stove-pipe, or the smouldering fires of the
furnace.
Assaulted oft were its windows, by the sonorous North-Western,
Making organ-pipes in the forest, for its shrill improvisations
Patient of cold, sate the people, each household in its own square pew,
Palisaded above the heads of the children, imprisoning their roving
eyes.
Patiently sate the people, while from