Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-01-18
The old YearandThe new !.


The CID Yearand The New.
Thefollowing extract from a ser
mon delivered on January 1st, 1871,
by Rev. w. f. Munsey, is not sur
passed in beauty or sublimity by
anything in the language. With
the exception of an occasional
change of date, the extract is repro
duced without change from the
original copy as written by the
grandest divine of the century.
Last night the old year died. Did
you see that old man, so pale, frail
and ghostIy, who stood out upon
the bleak and icy hills last night,
leaning in his decrepitude upon the
arm of his last surviving but dying
child, the depaI ting December?
The chaplet of buds, flowers and
fruits wreathed around his brow
by spring, summer and autumn,
were frosted by winter; his sandals
were old, and covered with snow.
and mud; his garments were tat
tered, and glistening with sleet
were fastened around his wasted
form his grey locks were frosty,
his breath was cold, and his pulse
quivered like an icy thread in his
chilled sunken arm.
Who is he? He was the child Of
remorseless Time. He was one of
a numerous family that presents Us
no two contemporaries. The birth
of one has always been preceded by
the the death of the solitary other.
The wailing Tequiems over the
death of the one have always end
ed in lullabies over the cradle of his
successor.
Who is he? He was the Old
Year. Last night, eternity's hOro-
logue tOlled out low twelve upon its
sounding bell. 1t was his death
knell, and at that lonely hour while
we slept, when cadaverOuS ghosts
are tabled to creep amid the ivied
ruins of castles old, and shrink
through the creVices of tOttering
church belfries, and dry old bones
shake and CHATTER in churchyards,
| he died, and the spirits of winter
passed him in cold cloud drawn
| by bOreal winds, and drove him
out to sepulchral oblivion and
| buried him in a grave whose cere-
ments are eternal. He will return
no more-foTeVer. Farewell old
year! Let thy cold ghost mingle
with the shades of thy predecessor,
but let it come not back to haunt us
/ when we die.
| Gone, but he has left his foot
| prints. The lovely babe the moth
/ er so fondly kissed last New Year
! is not here this morning. 1t simply
came. smiled, then Wept and de-
parted. 1t seemed to come from
heaven and to stay just long enough
/ to make us love it, and then to re-
turn. Its mission appears to have
been TO gather up our affections and
carry them back to heaven with ii,
to make US love heaven more and
| earth less.
Some beautiful girls and noble
| boys, whose laugh and shout en-
! liVened our homes during the last
| Christmas and New Year holidays,
are not with us to-day. Dreamless
they sleep beneath the SHOWS of the
winter in our neighboring ceme-
teries, and foul decay has married
their lovely forms.
In placing the house in order in
these holidays we have found Il toy,
a shoe, a hat, a book, unclaimed
and ownerless, which made us weep
anew. O, shall they ever live again
The old armchair that sat in the
! corner, and was tenanted by smiling
old age, one year ago, is empty
now-its occupant is gone and some
of us are fatherIess. The head OF
the table is also vacated. The dust
lies heavily upon the mantle-piece,
and disorder has crept into the fam
lily chamber, for with some Of Us
! mother is gone too; some familiar
football is missed, some well-knOWn
voice is hushed. The receding year
has touched us somewhere. We
are a year older, year nearer the
grave. This year may land US in
heaven or sink us to hell. Are you
ready to die? If die we must, this
| wear we may ascend to heaven.
But the misty spirit of the Old
. Year, wTeathed away into the dark,
dim past, the angels of God sang the
birth hymn of the New Year. AND
still YOU NAV hear the touches of the
dying wind still lingering in the
mountain tops, and quiVerins
gently in the happy air, and cOurs
ing sWeetly the nerve corridors lead
ing to the minds sensorium to gree
the human soul. The New Year il
here. How many years since th'
world was made know not, neithe
does any man. How many year
, since man was made | know not
: our chronOlogies cannot be abst
Iutely relied upon. But it is eigh
teen hundred and seventy-eigh
: wears since the infant Savior wa
born, wrapt in swaddling cloths ant
, laid to sleep in manager; eighteel
| hundred and forty-fiVe years sine
l his crucihXiOn, burial, resurrection
I and ascension to heaven.
The New Year is here, and witt
+, him his children. He came crowned
with glittering frost and robes O
trailing snow; two with tempest
i'm their fists, and stray sunbeams OF
their brOws four clothed i'm green
4 enamelled with buds, flowers ant
J fruits, and straitened with colder
ripeness; three with robes of yellow
; red and purple; one in freezing nu
! dity with a sceptre of ice. Befor
the first may pass we may lie dead
and the remaining eleven ma.
dance their rounds upon our graves
No year has ever passed withou
: some. one dying whom we knew
5 and loved. Every succeeding yea
Y marks its number and name upol
r some tombstone in our cemetery
], Our burial-grOunds keep up tn,
4 record Of the ages. This year will
2 be the date of the death of some on,
z present. Eighteen hundred am