Weekly hawk-eye and telegraph. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1855-1857, 1857-01-07
The New Yenr.

une new AedRs
The Cincinnati Gazette, of Jan. LIST, has the
following:
The date of the Year has world of meaning.
Our date this morning is January l, Ammo Dom.
mi 1857. The change from the figure to Z,
which is made this morning in every letter, ev.
cry ledger, every newspaper and every book,
nay more, in every friendly salutation, not mere
ly suggests q commonplace fact, but really q
solemn and momentous epoch in history. We
cannot get rid of the fact that entire year has
passed away since we last fixed our date. Pass
ing by the common routine of annual changes,
of veal or woe, of life or death, ofseed time and
harvest, OF growth or decay-there is, beyond
all this, a solemn land mark planted in the path
of human history. Yesterday VIC wrote eighteen
hundred and ifty.sir years from the birth of
Christ, to-day we write eighteen hundred and
ifty.sEvEN. But what means this Anmo Domi-
nj ? 1t is for the year of our Lord. For seven
hundred and fifty years before the birth of
Christ the only date for the civilization of man
kind was urbe condita-from the building of the
city This was the date of Imperial Rome, which
dated the years of her Consulates and her En-
perors from s.rbe condita-the foundation of the
great city.
The Greek Olympiad had preceded the Impe-
rial city, dating from some high festival, under
the auspices of her Olympian Gods. But Olym.
piad passed away beneath the conquering feet OF
Rome; and Rome, the naughty, proud, usurp-
ing city of the Pagan Ages, was trodden under
feet, and cast into ruins by the northern Goths.
Henceiorth, the worlds dates are changed. A
grand epoch came. The Gods of the Pagans,
the city of their kingdom, the empires of their
classic history, are all crushed; and on the
worlds great Book of Records it is written ERoM
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD. Who is our Lord? He
it is whose advent prophets foretold-whose
coming the angels sung-and whose birth we
celebrated on Christmas Day. His name has
changed the date of all human history. Hence
forth it is written all over the world-"from the
year of our Lord" Where Roman foot never
trod, on the swift rolling Mississippi, dark st.
Lawrence, on the Andes towering cliff, on In
da's coral sand, on Africa's burning plains, and
on the Isles of the seat is everywhere written
for the Year of our Lord. This simple date de-
notes the greatest revolution in the worlds his
tory. No more the world dates its history for
Pagan Gods, or Roman glory, but from the Re-
deemer of man. And now eighteen hundred and
ftiy-sir years have gone by since this great
epoch Rome lasted but seven hundred and if
ty years. Greece scarcely more; and the world
knows no historical date half as long as that of
the Christian Era. The dates of India and Chi
ma are now known to be fabulous, and nothing
of either history is credited beyond the days OF
Confucius. But the Kingdom OF Christ belongs
not to Cities empires or nations. Its date is uni.
versal and eternal. The date from the year OF
our Lord is not only eighteen hundred and fifty
seven, not only written all over the earth, but it
is recorded in Heaven, will survive the ruins Of
nations and continue through eternity.