and what to get rid of, perhaps at a sacrifice, and they clear the way for another year's campaign. We may imitate them. From time to time it is a sensible thing to take stock of ourselves; to look candidly over the field, see wherein we have failed and ascertain in what direction we may best improve ourselves. There may be incumbering cares that we would do well to cast aside. Just at the turn of the midnight, When the children are fast asleep, The tired Old Year slips out by himself, At the beautiful world that is waiting For the wonderful things in his peddler's pack; And many a marvellous thing. Flowers, by hosts and armies, Stars and sunshine and rain! The merry times and the sorrowful times, When the children wake in the morning, Twelve long months for his journey; At the end of it all he'll slip out by himself, At the stroke of the midnight bell. UTUMN days slip away so fast that Thanksgiving is here before one realizes the lateness of the season. We are so busy during the weeks that lead up to it that we waken with a sort of shock to the fact that standing in the doorway, with a gracious smile and a wave of the hand, is Winter, ready to rule the land for the next three months. To look at him, bland, benignant, his manner so debonair, his bearing so festal, who would suspect that at his back were furious gales and bitter cold? His to-day is the iron hand in the velvet glove. Ere many days he will throw the glove away and rule with rigour. And yet we would not for the world drop winter out of our year. Its short days, its long nights, its outdoor intensity of frost and sleet, make a beautiful setting for household joy. Home life is at its best in winter, and Thanksgiving Day begins for us a period of family intimacy and neighbourly sociability impossible at any other time in the calendar. We draw closely together and share our common interests as we share the warmth and glow of the firelit hearth. When our forefathers, grateful to Almighty God for their preservation amid the hardships and perils of a new country, after their first harvest, instituted Thanksgiving Day, the custom was both patriotic and religious. They reverently went to church, that the praises of the people to Him who had saved the commonwealth might be uplifted unitedly. Interwoven in their thought and in the stern and high simplicity of their daily lives were the twin strands-love of country and love of God. Therefore, they laid broadly on deep foundations the first stories, so to speak, of the vast superstructure of this republic. It was sometimes necessary in the early days that men should go armed to meeting, and in the menace of lurking foes, of strenuous need for vigilance, both men and women developed a high and noble courage, than which we have nothing better in the twentieth century. We have grown great and rich; we should still cherish the old ideals if we would continue so. In the old-fashioned housekeeping the men had the easier end. Minister, judge, squire, farmer, merchant, each man in his place invested himself in his Sunday clothes, and walked to pulpit or to pew, sure that a good dinner would be ready in due time when sermon and psalm were over. For dinner as well as worship belonged to the old Thanksgiving, just as it belongs now, and it was as important a function then as now. I fancy the cooking was rather better than ours, for our grandmothers and their mothers knew how to prepare a faultless meal. For weeks the turkeys had been fattening and the golden pumpkins mellowing for the feast. A great variety of articles that we have ready at our hand were then manipulated in the individual kitchen with infinite labour and pains. But when they were gathered about the board, the turkey at one end, the chicken pie at the other, and every conceivable dainty in between, for once the arduous lives of |