The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1889-12-31
NEW YEARS REVOLUTIONS

New Years resolutions generally
are spoken Of 10 decisive manner,
and most people believe that they do
not amount to much. But is 1t GER
tain that they are properly TO be re-
garded as mere passiog spasms OF self
accusation and repentance which
count for nothing and leave us no
better than they find us ? We rare
y, If eyer, live up to them, it must
be confessed. The conclusion does
not necessarily follow, however, that
they are wholly deceptive and un.
profitable. They serve certain use
fol purpose, We may reasonably be-
iieve, even though they ale not faith
fully enforced or long distinctly re.
membered. The simple act Of max
ing them !. something on the side of
general goodness. We can not i'm
med,ately lose the bene6eent effect of
. feeling which implies consciousness
of our faults and of he necessity of
moral amendment perhaps it is
never entirely lost out of our lives and
our relations to society. The cold
and uncompromising philosophy
which teaches that it is worse to make
creditable promises and pledges to
ourselves and then fail to redeem
them than it is to 60 On in our trans
gressions without thus admitting our
guilt and our duty of reformation can
not easily be justified. 1t clashes too
violently with our sense of spiritual
fitness, and mocks us where We can
not help thinking that We should
have sympathy and Encouragement.
The true maxim that Hell is rav-
ed with good intention can not fairly
be taken to mean just what it says.
Like most maxims, it will not bear
close analysis, according to the best
rules of moral judgement and inter
probation. If it were true that all
good intentions which from one cause
or suother miss ful6llment, must be
regarded only as 30 many tIumphs of
evil, then our whole scheme of civil,
cation would be fraud and a reproacb
and the moral progress of the world a
hopeless and miserable dream. 1t is
far easier to see what is right than to
do what is right. however earnestly
we may strive to make the two Pro-
cesses equal. Uuder the most favor
able conditions as to sincerity and
ability, the ways of our lives must be
more or less unwise. We may resolve
and re-resolve and still remain the
same in many respects from the caus-
es which we cannot control and for
which We are not truly responsible.
1t can not be, therefore, that all our
failures to keep faith with ourselves
and to carry out our sound and whole
some intentions deserve only to be
CHASED with the wicked deeds which
furnish paving material to the infer
nal regions. On the contrary, reason
authorizes us to believe that though
we come short 10 the matter of excu-
ting our intentions, those intentions
are of themselves in some degree a
gain for Righteousness.
It is to be said of us all that we are
tower.builders like the man of the
parable in the fourteenth chapter of
Luke. We lay foundations of re-
form without counting the cost of the
completed structure. The tower is
asnged for, but we cannot, or do not.
compass it. "This man began to
build, and was not able to fnish," the
psrable says to each of us. But
surely the foundation remains, and
the tower must forever be that much
nearer realization than it would be il
such beginning had not been made,
We know, indeed, that these good
intentions are effective as influences
of moral progress, Notwithstanding
our many failures to bring them to
perfect fruition. They do unques
tionably linger in the economy Of