Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1889-01-09

BIT EMMA HOWARD WIGHT.


has gathered in another year to swell the
record of the past. Another year with its
sorrows and pleasures, its joys and woes.
its good and its evil, gone forever. Happy
or miserable, well-spent or i'll spent, thrown
into the scales of our good angel, or seized
with diabolical delight by our bad, it is reg
istered for or against us forever, to be
spread before our eyes on the last day with
all the other years which have gone to make
up our earthly existence. To the young, it
goes by almost unre Iced and unlamented,
but the old watch its dying throes with sad
hearts because so few are left them. And
yet before the sun goes down on the last
day of this New year, many OF the young
and happy who so joyously welcomed it's
coming, may see It's end only in eternity
For each year, ss.it runs its allotted oonrss,
snaps the thread of many life, not only
tho worn-0nt thread of old age, but the
strong, vigorous one of youth. Nor does
it pause to chooss the good who are ripe for
heaven, or the sad and weary who are roady
and willing to lay down their lifes' burden,
but more frequently cuts off tie wicked in
their sins and the happy to whom life il go
dear. It's winter and summer suns will rise
and set over new-made graves, it's winter
SHOWS will cover some, its spring flowers
bloom over others. Some lives it will claim
when the earth il cold, and bleak, and
droary; others when it is warm, and bright,
and fair.
"None can tell what year may bring
forth" No; for it guards its secrets care
fully. We know how it finds US when it is
born of its dark mother, midnight, but we
do not know how it will leave Us at the
datk hour of its death. 1t may find Us
4, = 1.c h~1 h., t1I,
may sse its beginning, we may pever
see its end. Ahl what poor, helpless
creatures we are when we dare not claim
week, even day of that year, when we
cannot tell what it's days and weeks and
months may do for us. Friends wish US a
"Happy New Year," but those wishes are
not always fulfilled; for the new born year
brings store Of SORROWS, as well as joys,
and large share may bs for US; and 10th
as we are to accept it, rebellions az we
may be at its irfliction, we are. neverthe.
less, powerless to avoid it. But we have
one free, untrammeled choice-that is, to
spend the new year worthily or unworthi-
ly. 1t rests with us alone whether we can
congratulate ourselves at it's close, that it
has not been wasted, but turned to good
account; that when it is laid bare, at the
last day, before the eyes of the world, we
will not blush for it, or tremble for it
before the eyes of our Judge, or to look
back over its misspent weeks ald montbs
in vain, for one redeeming action, to know
it has left US further from heaven, nearer
Co eternal mieery-that each recorded
moment of it stands for our confusion, our
condemnation. And it is goue forever;
we could not purchase with our lives one
wasted or sinful moment of it. 1t was
ours once to use for good or evil. but it is
ours no longer. Time, the greedy, the re-
lentless, has snatched it from us; its story
is told aud done, but its record stands for
ever on high.
Wes may forget the years, as they are
numbered with the past; forget the joys
aud sorrows they brought, the good and
evil we did in them; but there is Ope who
never forgsts. who holds the record of every
year of every human life; and, perhaps,
when the new year is born looks over many
record of the old with that same grief
which wruog His heatt upon the cross; for
He sees thu fulfillnent of that sad truth
which He read upon the scroll of all the
ages, when in His last agony, that His suf
fering and His death would be in vain for
many of those Ha died to save. "New
yearr lii, indeed, be new year for
those who baee wasted SO many entered up
OF with new resolutions, the beginning of
a uew lifs? For who can say it may not be
| b Q last on earth?-the last to atone for
many sinful and pro6tlass ones. Yes. pro-
fisless, though he may have won wealth,
! fame. and honor, ''for what doth it profit a
man if he gain the whole world aud lose
| his own soul?"
One year spent in simple virtue, in the
performances of duty, will profit q man
more for eternity than a dozen years spent
in the honor and applause of the world. A
long euiogy On tombstone does not prove
that the soul of him who lies beneath is in
heaven; so man may have years of honor,
of ostentatious good works to look back
upon, but not one of them may have found
favor in the sight of heaven. Few, indeed,
can say when the new year is born, that
the, have no regrets for the way the old
was spent, that with light hearts and clear
cnuscieoces they can welcome the "New
Year"