The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1877-12-27
Happy New Year.

"Gone! gone fo~rever-like q rushing wave
Another year has burst upon the shore
ofearthly ~being-and its low tones,
Wondering in broken accents on he air,
Are dying to an echo"
On next Monday night as the clock
tolls the hour Of twelve a glad New
Year will be born unto the nations of
the earth, and the year 1877 will cease
to exist. The old will make its final
bow to the sleeping world, and ere its
attenuated old frame has disappeared
into the domain of our silent Past, the
New Year will seat itself upon the
throne of Time, aud hour glass in hand,
begin to make a new record. Isn't it
astonishing, reader, how the days, the
weeks, the months and the years roll
around, carrying with them the life,
the beauty, and the hopes of this world
into the great shadowy past. We seem
to be moving on in a never ending pro-
cession-before us we see the aged
leaning upon their slaves and lettering
along in their feebleness-behind Us is
the youth flushed with promise and the
infant prattling in its mothers arms.
That circle from the cradle to the grave
has been kept up unbroken since the
morning of the creation, and it will
continue to be kept up unbroken until
time is lost in eternity.
The old year is going, going. Its his
tory is almost written. The new, with
page untarnished, is just before us.
Dear reader, as we stand on this mar
row divide which separates the old
from the new, it may not he u%nrrofta-
BILE to recall our experience of the past
year, and to ask ourselves the question,
have we been striving to fill up the
span of life with deeds of charity and
words of kindness? Have we been do
ing good as we have opportunity, and
is the world better because we have
lived in it? As we contemplate the
past, on this eve of the old year, ere we
not all made to feel how little we have
accomplished in the past, and how in
significant we are? During the year
now closing, death has taken away
many no occupied positions of honor
and trust among Us, yet, as they have
been laid away in the narrow house,
their pres nee has scarcely been miss
ed; the world has moved on just as it
did when they were with us-as active
and as anxious as those who crowd cur
thoroughfares to-day. Let us then,
above everything else, learn how little
we are, but a drop in the great ocean of
humanity, and try to understand that
the few talents God has given us, if
rightly employed, may accomplish a
world of good, if exerted in the proper
dir ection. Few of US can be great, but
we al all bend our energies to the
work before us, whatever that may be
and do it to the best of our ability,
making it for the time being the repre-
eclftdtlfC VI OlTSclfcS anu lHO CftuCtlCC
of our honesty and integrity CT pur-
pose. Let us then enter upon the New
Year with the determination to cast our
influence, whatever it may be, on the
side of right, trying to benefit the race
and to make the world happier and
brighter by our presence. As the DEM
ocRAT makes its weekly visits to our
patrons, we shall endeavor to so con-
duct it that it shall contribute its full
in c%ultivating fraternal feeling,
and in e~levating the tone and senti-
ment of III people; ~endeavoring to
profit by the mistakes that we feel, as
editor of the paper, we have made in
the past, we shall, ifspared, strive with
all the energies of u being, to make
the DEMOCRAT deserving of the good
words so freely spoken in its behalf,
and more worthy of that liberal sup
port We have had extended to us in the
past. We close, wishing n ard all a
sGH .pDv Nrw Yr.pv