The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-12-26
BELLEVUE, La.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER rs, 1889.
Another Leaf Turned.

Banner another leaf will have turned
IA tbs Book of Time-another year
counted with the Past. The ghost
Of lost opportunities, of broken
pledges, of unful6lled promises,
throng the busy haunts of men.
a year is added to the centuries of
the past. Its possibilities have been
tried and in many cases brought
forth naught. Retrospection tells
wherein mistakes have been made
and opportunities wasted. But, re
trospection cannot bring back the
dead past. That is gone, never to
return. At this time retrospectiOn is
good for the soul. It bears promise
Of future usefulness for good. When
man sits down and solemnly com
munes with himself, confesses to
himself his manifold sins of omission
and commission, there is hope for
him. His future is bright if his in
ward communing should bear legiti-
mate fruit; if the problems of virtue
which he has cast into the scale are
properly weighed and balance
struck which can be carried in the
mind and referred to in time of need.
As this is the season for balancing
business accounts, taking inventory
of stock and perfecting plans for the
work of another year-so it is the
season for self-communing on better
things foI the year.
For brief time the old year will
be missed. It will not at first be
easy to accustom ourselves to the
new order of time, but soon 1890
will hold the same place in our re
gard that was held by 1889. No,
not the same place. The young
have grown in stature and in knowl-
edge, and the year that is yet in the
future means more to them than the
year that soon will be counted with
the past; those in middle life find
more gray hairs on heads that will
soon be frosted with age-more
wrinkles on the faces that not long
since were fresh and bright; those
on the shady side of life find infrmi-
ties growing upon them and realize
with greater distinctness than ever
in the past that they are growing old
that the revolving wheels of Time
are bearing them swiftly to ''that
bourne whence no traveller returns.
For the young people, no doubt,
it is the case now as ever that old
Father Time is very sluggard in
his travels, and the years do not
come one after another, half fast
enough. Their sorrow for the yeal
that is gone is quickly Bupplauted by
Joy in the one that is born. But
how different with the older folks
For them, the more they enjoy life
the more startling and significant
the rapidity of these revolutions
When it happens with an individual
that more Old Years have gone out
than New Years can again by any
possibility recur, the celebration o.
the festival is apt to be tinged by {
SOlemnity of thought which invests
the departing Old Year as with
serious and picturesque personality
--one OF the last OF numbered pro
cession which moves only too swiftly
and seems ever suggestive of thu
comparative fewness of those tha
are to follow. Yet, this mood. too
has its high compensation, undoubt
edly the highest of all, when it in
spires . purpose to make the most
and best Of what time remains.
Let the dead past bury its dead
Much remains that is bright. Win
ter's chill is not for long. Soon will
come the blooming Springtime when
the bright green robes Nature always
wears in her ivsliest moods will take
the place Of the barren desolation SC
indicative Of the dying year. When
that Glad TINA o0mas man NAV arai =