The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-01-07
Unitarian Church.

Masters, pastor Of the Unitarian church:
Days should speak, and multitude of
years should teacn wisdom job 80, Z.
To-day is the first Sunday of the New
Year 1t is a fit occasion to ask some
questions regarding the use and the mean
ing of these years that are forever coming
and going in our lives, and are folded
over, one upon another, like the leaves of
hook when it is read 84jt .s'it
There are many advantages to be de
rived from this dividing of time and life
into years and seasons, with a beginning
and an end, aside from the reckoning OF
accounts and the keeping of dates. At
such time we stand on middle ground in
our lives, where we can lock before and
after, and things are seen in prospect and
retrospect. On the one side life is accom-
plished and laid away; on the other, it is
] still uuwrought and waiting to be formed
Life is here judged from two distinct
fstandpoints-at its beginning and at its
close. The day furnishes the spectacle of
an opening life and q judgment scene.
The past lies there calm, quiet, unds-
turbed by any passion, any heat or am
bition. There is neither personal motive,
nor hope nor fear, to disturb and bias the
Judgment You can pronounce on it just
| ly, impartially. Your judgments are the
judgments of God. The good can be APP
proved and preserved the bad cor
demned and cast out. Those pages where
in you made too many plumbers and I'M
slightly scrawls you can fold over and lay
out Of sight The fair characters can be
reformed again In the future, and with
more graceful outline, Life looked at in
the past is seen as fate, destiny, and it's
law is necessity You cannot change it
if you would, As it is, so it must remain.
! Looked at in the future it is seen as free
choice It's law is Freedom. Everything
Is to be shaped and moulded as we will
The present is the point Of solid ground
between these two-the spot whereon the
exchange between past and future takes
place; where the good is passed over and
the bad rejected 1t is therefore the inn
lportant factor in this transaction of life
the middle term, and without which the
others could hot be-
+ The i'm portant thing, then, is to have
as many of these FIRST days as possible-to
make all days the beginning of new
year and a new life; all Judgment days
wherein the good is approved, and The
bad rejected !; all birth days and opening
doors into new future and career. The
wish of the day is for happy New. Y ear.
1t is the wish of the human heart for the
New Year,and for all years. Happiness
is the one quest which the soul ever goes
in search OF. But happiness Is plant of
i delicate growth, and does not always come
j when we seek it. 1t requires wise fond
| ling, or rather, should say it will not
bear too much fondling of any sort IT
we make a business of it, and go IN search
thereof, it sometimes recedes faster than
we approach. The way to be happy is to
! forget that you want to be. A little hint
of wisdom with reference to the matter
might be obtained by looking wisely at
the past. We find that the happiest mo-
ments therein were those when we thought
least about the matter-when we were
! too much engaged or absorbed in some
occupation to ask whether we were happy
or not. We look back at those moments
now, and see how full of blessing they
were, but at the time we hardly knew it,
and that was the greatest blessing of ALL
The past year and the years that have
gone-we cannot change them. Whether
they were we'll or i'll, it is the same.
They are Gods, and not ours" Let us
take their lessons and their warnings too,
If they have any, but let us not burthen
ourselves with these dead years, neither
with their joys nor sorrows, Tor it is posi-
I,ble to do SO 18th both.
II Is easy enough TO see how we can
burden ourselves with the sorrows there
OF, with It's regrets and remorse, breeding
with such constant care over its mishaps
ana failures, as never to get on in the
present. TrNe repentance doesn't stand
loo kSng over its shoulder, 50 spell bound
by the evil deed that it cannot get away
therefrom, It filings away the evil deed
and the memory thereof and goes on
: about It's work. 1t has no time for una
vailing regrets, or remorse, even, because
tpresent duties fill and absorb all the time.