Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-01-06
OBSER ATOMS OF Il RETIRED
YEIERAN

Well. we have gotten you into new
year Life and Fate and Time, all, have
managed to get you here. With many of
you they lad a hard pull to get you here.
Some of you have been near to death;
some of you SO miserable you hardly
wanted to try another year here, and the
majority of you have not shown the least
interest about getting here. I doE't re-
proach you; you are only following the
perverse example Of Human Nature. Did
it ever strike you that the globe and the
people who live on its surface, are always
marching different ways? While all the
restless tide of humanity moves to the
West, the Cube turns itself to the East.
On its surface. Man is very much like the
acrobat we see at the theatres, who,
mounted on his parti-colored ball, faces
one way while it moves the other. 1t must
be queer spectacle to those who,
from the planetary dress circle Of the
Universe are watching us through theiI
opera glasses. 1t must be still queerer to
them, when they hear us chanting a
Miserere at the approach of an invisible
line across the face of Time, as imaginary
as the Equator, and whsn tits passed, filling
the air with a Jubilate- tie songs of the
dying and Che coming year. 1t is rather
comfort to us that we DOM believe in this
dress circle of gaZers; that we have the
comfortable belief that we are the only
people in the Universe, and that beyond
the questionable discovery of canal
across one of the planets, the wisest of
astronomers have found no evidence of
human life elsewhere. And so, with
Crusoe-like sense of solitude, we live on our
traditions, on our religions, and On OUT
ideas of Man to the exclusion of the rest
Of the Universe.
With an impartial judgment therefore,
and not Influenced by the approval or
disapproval of this vast dress circle, in
whose existence we have no faith, let us
take up these imaginary lines for mo-
ment. 1t is unquestionabie that, whether
for good or evil, they have descended to US
by tradition and custom as legacy. They
are sufficiently real to be of practical use.
and they are used. 1t is by them that we
set tlme-alas that we should have the
necessity of doing ito discard some
vice, some sin, some weakness, We use
them in the interest of procrastination-
that we may put off the parting day
with something our conscience or our
taste, or both. disapprove. By them we
appoint time when we shall say to the
divine spark within our breasts, you may
fame out into our daily life. By them we
give bad trait respite which alas, ottec
ends in communication of sentence into
other failings, and oftener still IN a full
pardon and restoration to place.
So, you see, do not think great deal of
old year remorse or New Year resolutions.
think they are just that much better
than none at all. and this has to be quail
fed by the the damage they do IN having
US put off reformation. That man should
fix day to reform in this or that partic
ular, is at least an evideLce that he is
aware of his need of tia great point
gained. These years are but little STEP
ping stones across the narrow brook of
Time that pours into the vast ocean of
Eternity, and it is good sign when
man approaches the next, and the next,
and the next, with Increasing reverence
and sense of the responsibility of his pro-
gress. 1t is good sign when man be-
gins to discover in the impedimenta OF
life, what is necessary and what is abso-
lutely hurtful to him in the journey of
life, and When with the discovery he
summons up enough resolution to fix
nR.to throw away the bad. 1t is hard for
i2s to get our load rightly picked
e failed to start right
IRIy hard after get