The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-12-27
BELLEVUE, La,
THURSDAY. DECEMBER ~, 1888.
Another Cycle Completed.

The old year will soon be gone, |
and another year Of labor and rest,
duty and responsibility, will have
completed its record.
It has not been year of unusual
duties or responsibilities; but it has
made irresponsible men and women
a record of duty discharged or duty
neglected which they must some day
meet. In it's moral phases it has
been just what they have made it.
It has been year of trump over
appetite and passion, or of defeat by
them, just as each individual has
cared to make it; for men and women
are just what they choose to be-
good, bad or indifferent. In all the
world of free agency there is no such
thing as irresistible impulse either to
that which is good or that which is
evil. The PROV of human action
answers obediently to every demand
Of the helm, and men and women do
their own steering.
But good or bad, the records of
the year could have been made bet
ter by us all. We could all have
been more patient, more pains-taking,
more laborious, more trustful, more
unselfsh. There could have been
more generous consideration of others
on the part of all, and people could
have been drawn closer to each other
by more gracious recognition of
common hope, common heritage
and a common destiny. People
might have been better friends, bet
ter fathers, better mothers, better
husbands, better wives, better chill
dren, better citizens. How very,
very few in any of these varied and
hopeful relationships have done their
best! But the record is complete,
audit is just what they have made it.
In matters material, there has been
some progress, in spite of defects in
methods, mistaken judgments and
artificial hindrances. Through grind
ing toll and enduring hardships many
will witness the close of the old year,
surrounded by scant comforts.
Thousands will look out from their
cherries surroundings into the blend.
ing lights and shadows of the van
ishing year, and await the coming Of
the new with a sense of wearriness
and dread. There have been mis-
takes in their methods, defects in
their judgments, and artificial hin.
derances, not of their own providing,
to carry an impress Of gloom and
dependency into the opening sun.
light of the new year. But it may
not and it should not endure. The
new year will perhaps reuew the du-
ties and responsibilities of the old,
and there will be opportunities to
cure the defects and to remove the
obstacles through which the old year
was crowded with regrets and humil
iation. To those who choose to profit
BY experience the future must needs
be an improvement on the past.
But there are those who, by wise
methods in business, by patient and
painstaking economy, have added to
their earthly goods and prepared
themselves to enter upon the opening
possibilities of the New Year from
the vantage ground of success. 1t
viii be easy for them to turn their
backs upon the Vanishing dispense
tion Of 1883 and stretch forth their
hands to welcome the coming dis
pensation of 1889. But even they
viii have learned something by which
to profit whom they have made an
unsparing retrospection Of the Old
Year The best that has been done
could have been done better.
These and many other lessons,
similar and dissimulsr. are taught us