The Bossier banner., 1894-12-27

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the race or the individual; neither are
all days. There are black days and
white days, weeks that are burden
some and weeks that are like q merry
chime of bells, months that rumble
with the thunder of defeat and months
that resound with the shouts of VIC
tory.
There is no monotony in time. It
varies as does the landscape. In one
period it is as level as a Western
prairie, with no special experience to
mark its passage; in another changes
come and events occur which make
the weeks resemble the Alleghanies-
mountain heights gathered together
like great company of giants whose
shining helmets are visible though
you have travelled far away and stand
on your horizon line; an still another
some day or week with its wondrous
happenings rises from the plain of
memory like veritable Mont Blanc,
and though seventy years be counted
in your calendar you still see its sum-
NIT and say, ''That was the hour when
my new life began" It may mark a
great catastrophe or an unspeakable
happiness, but there it stands, in
gloom or grandeur, and when you are
about to close your eyes in the last
sleep they will rest on that event
which made you other than you were.
In boyhood time walks, in middle
life it ambles and in old age it pants
in breathless haste to reach the goal
and have done with us. A day is q
week to the child, and week is but
a day to the aged. In our halcyon
youth, when we live on dreams, we
wish the time away, and like an i'm
petuous rider spur the days to greater
speed. We have such treasure OF
them that we are spendthrift and
long to reach the future, which beck
ons US to high achievement. But at
the other end of life, when the num-
Der of weeks in our Golfers run low
and to replenish is impossible, we
use them with increasing economy if
not with parsimony. We begrude
the expenditure of time, for there is
much to be done and only a few en-
feebled years left in which to do it.
By common consent the beginning
of the year has been regarded as
proper time for the making of good
resolutions, although there is no par
ticular reason why a man should de-
fer for several months the beginning
of any self-reform he may feel neces-
sary, so as to have it commence on
the first of January. It would have
been far better if he had begun his
reform the moment he perceived
necessity for it, SO that by this time
his new habits could have taken firm
hold of him and have assured him q
happy New Year. All reforms are
attended with some pain or discom-
fort, and people do not like to make
themselves uncomfortable on these
special holidays. However, since it
is the fashion, it is better to follow it
than not to make any good resolves
at all; so let us begin the coming year
with the resolution that its close will
find US stronger and better men and
women than we are to-day. Where
we have been wrong let us be right,
and where we have been right let us
stick to that course, going from good
to better, from better to best. The
old saying that the strongest chain is
not stronger than its weakest link has
its parallel in humaa character, and,
however fine ones traits may be,
they are liable to be marred by some
fault that by itself may look small.
Ii we are concious of our own feeble
ness at any point, let us set watch
upon that point as they guard any
place in the levees upon turbulent
river that shows signs of breaking.
for once the crevasseis made it mat
ters little how firm the embankments
are on either side of the opening, the
furious current will soon ha heh;nd