The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1893-01-05

ed! What graves opening wide enough
to take down beauty and strt ..5h
and usefulness! What octogenarlans
putting down the staff of earthly pill
grimage and taking the crown OF heav,
enlyreward! What children, as in Bible
time, crying, MY head, my head!
And they carried him to his mother
and he sat on her knees until noon,
and then died." This year went the
chief poet of England and the chief
poet Of America. Our John G.. Whit
tier-great in literature and simple as
child --for. did | not spend an after
mood with him in a barn in the Adj
rondacks, and in the evening we play
ed blind-man's buff. he tying over my
eyes the handkerchief, while the hotel
parlors rang with the merrymaking.
And Tennyson, this year gone; he,
who, for this particular season Of the
year wrote.
Ring out wild bells TO the wild sky,
r The flying cloud, the frosty light;
h The year is dying in the night;
Ring out wild bells. and let him die
What mingling OF emotions in this
closing year. What orange Bios
SONS for the marriage altar and
what myrtle for the tombs of the dead.
Hosannas and lamentations in col
]ision. Anthem and Dead March
mounting from the same ivory keys.
Before this year quite leaves the
earth, let it hear our repentance for
opportunities that can never return.
Kind words spoken too late or not
spoken at all. Means OF getting good
or doing good so completely gone by
that the archangel's voice could not
recall them. Can it be that this year
is closing and our sins are unforgiven
and we have no certainty that when
our last December the 3lst has sped
away we shall enter a blissful eternity?
The most overwhelmingly solemn
week of all the year is the last week of
December.
. Thus in three chapters have coun-
seled that the holidays be grouped.
May nothing interfere with their telic-
tiles. May they be so spent that
they will be food for pleasant rcmin-
iscence 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 rehearsed, 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
a tear OF the eye to strike the smile of
the lip. For a few years the grand
children make the holidays merry.
One of the many uses OF grandchildren
is to keep old folks young. Then,
after a few years, the annual gather
ing at the old homestead is half broken
up, for father or mother is gone.
About two years after, for there are
generally about twoy years between the
time of their going the other half Of
the holiday season is broken up,
Then the old house goes in possession
OF strangers and the sons and daugh-
tiers by that time have homes of their
own. They plant their own Christmas
trees, and hang up their own chill
dren's stockings, and Irvine their own
holly and mistletoe, and have their
own good times. They, will perhaps
be riding out on some fof those holt
days either in sleigh or carriage twenty
or thirty years from, now along the
places where weslumber the last sleep.
and may we have been so considerable.
and sympathetic in our demeanor to-:
ward them now, that they will then
say one to another, as they pass the
silent mounds of the village graveyard
or city cemetery: tThere rest as kind
assfather and as kind a mother as ever
wished their children a. Merry Christ.
mas or a Happy New Year"
Meanwhile we, their parents and
grandparents, will hope through the
atonement of our blessed Lord be
keeping holidays livelier and higher
up; in the presence OF the very Christ
whose birth the earthly Christmas
common CRATES, and of the Ancient
of Days" who saw the first year open,
and will see the last year close; in
companionship with theever- widening
circle of heavenly kindred, many al
ready there and many soon to come;
and the tables of that festivities will
purple with the grapes of Eschol, and
redden with "the new wine OF the king
DOM" and glow 'ttwelve manners 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. ooh,
that these delightful holidays of earth
may fit us for those more delightful
HOLIDAYS of heaven.