Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-12-26
Sht esssS County ajeraia,
1884.

time by the change from one year
TO another than IN any other way.
When we alter the figure that stands
for the year We feel that we have
passed another milestone on life's
journey, we feel that something has
TNcoVerably gone from us; and, if
we are wise, we shall try to take
aNme to ourselves the lessons that
the fleeting seasons would teach us.
Time is vulgarly said to be money;
but no-time is everything, time is
all that is embraced in time. Time
is Joy, and time is sorrow; time is
every form of experience and every
kind of opportunity. Our own per-
1sonality is stamped upon every mo-
meHt we employ. 1t Is ourselves, or
that which has been ourselves, that
time is now sealing as in book and
ranging upon the shelf with innum-
cradle other volumes full of the lives
of men. We live on, but not just
what we were. Friends may tell us
we have not changed a jot since
such and such a time, but many
changes take place that are not viSi-
BILE TO the outward eye. As we live
we learn, we form habits, we under
20 structural changes of which per-
haps we are not conscious ourselves.
In what direction our natures devel-
OPP, whether the good that is in us
progressively masters the evil, OF the
evil progressively masters the good,
depends upon the use we make of
time. The freedom of human will
in a world governed so far as we
can see, 80 far at least, as science
can inform us, by strict physical
causation, is a great mystery; but it
as mystery the denial, or even the
questioning of which throws all our
thoughts respecting human life into
confusion. DR.. Johnson's assertion
that he krae,c his will was free-that
is to say, that he knew he had a free
choice between different courses of
action-is still the last word of COM
mon sense philosophy on the subject.
Assuming the truth of this great
principle, we see that, from moment
to moment, we make our own lives.
True it is that what we make holds
good, and influences more or less
all our future decisions; each day
builds something into our natures of
which we may never wholly divest
ourselves. At the same time every
new day, every new moment, brings
its own opportunities, summoning
us again to choice, to spontaneous
activity. Anchored we may be to
our past, yet is some play afforded
to our wills. There is a better we
may choose, there is a worse we
may avoid some good habit or i'm
pulse there is that we may strength
en- some fault there is that we may
attack. This is the significance of
life-the continual presentment of
opportunity, the continual success
sion of moments fixed in their char
acter, considered as products of the
past, but plastic in their relation to
the future.
This view of the matter will guard
us, as we think, from the two oppo-
site evils of levity and fatalism or
des pair. Such is the human con-
seriousness of freedom, that men are
apt to forget, that after all it has
bounds. Some, indeed, do not know
it; they think that at any moment
a man can do anything that is not
rendered impossible by obvious phys
zeal conditions. Life may be reform
ed at moment y notice faults may
be eradicated by simple effort of
the will ; lost time may be made up
by special application in word
to use the historical expression of
Napoleon III, after a serious defeat
tout pe,@ etre retaJe. But all this
is a great mistake. You who think
this are, without knowing it, weav-
ing invisible bands about yourself.
These faults that you think can be
thrown off so lightly, arc eating into
your moral nature. Do your best
TO conquer them 4; they will leave
1heir mark you may be sure. In
wasting your time upon frivolities
you are weakening your power of
applying yourself to serious things,
end when you come to make the
trial you will find it out. No, there
are limits to what can be done by
mere exertion of will, for the will of
to-day is itself the product of all the