The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-01-06


chronology. why" you ask "Have
you any foreboding or premonitions?
"No" "Are you expecting the millen-
MUM this year?" "No" ''Why, then,
say this about the coming year?' For
the simple reason that l find as the
years go by they become more and more
eventfuL Compare the nineteenth GEN.
fury with the eighteenth century. Com
pare the first half of this century with
the last half. The surges of this ocean
of time are rolling higher and higher.
The forces of right and wrong are
rapidly multiplying and their struggles
must be intensified 1t is chronology
cal fact that we are all the time coming
nearer to the worlds Edenization first
and then to its incarceration, to its re-
demption and its demolition. And so /
expect that 1898 will be greater year
than 1892 It's wedding bells will be
merrier Its obsequies will be sadder.
Its scientific discoveries more brilliant.
Its properties more significant Its
opening more grand Its termination
more stupendous Look out for 1898.
Let printers have in their cases of type
plenty of exclamation points to set up
a sudden paragraph. Let the conserva-
tories have profusion of flowers that can
be twisted into garlands. Let churches
have plenty of room for increased as
semblages. Let men and women have
more religion to meet the vacillations
and exigencies and the demands and the
raptures and the woes of this coming
1898. In what mood shall we open the
door of the New Year? With faith,
strong faith, buoyant faith, trium-
plant faith. God will see you through.
His grace will be sufficient if you trust
him. You can go to him at any time
and find sympathy. My little child got
hurt one morning during her mothers
absence We looked after the case as
well as we could. Toward night her
mother returned, and for the first
time the child cried and cried
vociferously. Some one said to her,
"What do you cry for? You did
not cry all day." Her reply
was: There was no one to cry
to-" And so you sometimes suppress
your trouble because there is no full re-
source of earthly sympathy But | re-
ioice to tell you that in God you always
have some one TO cry to. He will con-
dole and help in every crisis. Come
now, let me unstrap that knapsack of
care from your shoulders. Come pros
perity or adversely, come wedding or
burial, come health or sickness, come
life or death, come time or eternity.
Ais we'll, Ais WE'LL Keep your heart
right and all else will be right
Thus in three chapters / have coun-
seled that the holidays be grouped.
May nothing interfere with their felic-
tiles. May they be SO spent that they
will be food for pleasant Renaissance
further on. You know that after a
while the old homestead will be broken
up. For years and years the children
come home to spend the holidays. and
the house is rummaged from garnet to
cellar, and the scenes of childhood are
and we laugh till the tears
come as we talk over some boyish
or girlish freak, or cry over some old
trouble ended: but the heart swings
back again to mirth, for it does not take
a half second for tear of the eye to
strike the smile of the lip For a few
years the grandchildren make the holt
days merry. One of the many uses of |
is to keep old folks |
young. Then. after a few years, the |
annual gathering at the old homestead |
is half broken up, for father or mother
is gone About two years after (fof
there are generally about two years be-
tween the time of their going) the other
half of the holiday season is broken up
Then the old house goes into the possess !
sion of strangers and the sons and
by that time have homes
of their own. They plant their own
Christmas trees, and hang up their own
children's stockings, and Irvine their
own holly and mistletoe, and have their
own good times They will perhaps be
riding out on some of those holidays
either in sleigh or carriage twenty or
thirty years from now along the places
where we slumber the last sleep, and
may we have been so considerate and
sympathetic in our demeanor toward
them now, that they will then say one
to another, as they pass the silent
mounds of the village graveyard or city
cemetery: There rest rs kind "a father
and as kind mother as ever wished
their children Merry Christmas or a
Happy New Year
Meanwhile we, their parents and
grandparents, will hope through the
atonement of our blessed Lord be keep
ing holidays livelier and higher up; in
the presence of the very Christ whose
birth the earthly Christmas commence
rates. and of the Ancient of Days"
who saw the first year open, and will
see the last year close, in COM
panionship with the ever-widen-
ing circle of heavenly kindred,
many already there and many soon
to come; and the tables of that festivity
will purple with the grapes of Eschol,
and redden with the new wine of the
kingdom" and glow with twelve man.
ner of fruits from the trees of life; and
the gifts of those holidays will be man
sions and thrones, and crowns of glory
that never fade away. Oh, that these
delightful holidays of earth may fit us
for those more delightful holidays of
Heaven!