The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-01-01
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS.

Ii is question whether the habit of
making resolutions at the beginning of
each year ought no. to he discouraged
vigorously. 1t Is not consonant with a
well-ordered life TO have spurts of con-
duct, either exemplary or otherwise.
Philosophers are nowadays arguing
against the reckoning of ages by alma
mack years, claiming that age is matter
of life, temperament and conductrather
than by days or years, or any arbitrary
time division. Gray hairs need be no
sign of age, in the true meaning of age,
or the decay and fall of the powers.
Why should not human nature be
encouraged in constancy? Why should
there be any talk about New Year reso-
lutions, the turning of new leaf"
etcS Habitual humanity is what
counts, after all, and. the only thing that
does count. The matter of the conduct
OF life is not a thing that can be abb
ruptly changed, except under the influ-
ence of very strong emotion, such as
great fear or great awakening Of the
conscience.
The forces that work toward the bet
terment of mans nature may be stimu-
lated by the association of ideas with
the new year, and the physical fact that
a new year begins a fresh division Of
time suggests the primal quality of the
season, and that when the daily sheets
begin to be torn from the calendar
block may be as good time as any to
begin a fresh record of ethical and
moral performance.
But all the arguments for " turning
over new leaf" at New Years are
specious and wholly insufficient. They
are also unworthy. If person is ham,
pered with bad habits, why should he
wait until New Years Day to begin
shuffling them off?
There is one resolution that might
profitably be made now, but no more
proftably now than at another time.
1t is that we determine to subject our
selves more implicitly to influences that
will tend SO elevate our natures gen.
orally.
What we need to do is to purify and
renew all the life-blood in our moral
circulatory system. When that is done,
bad habits, low notions, unworthy aims.
triviality, godlessness-all the vices and
all the littleness will drop off and
disappear, even as the evidence
OF wound or sickness melts away as the
new blood, formed through proper diet
and by the advice of good physicians,
exerts its healthy influence from within.
How futile for a blasphemer to merely
quit the utterance of oaths! 1t is the
disposition to swear that must be up
rooted, and then swearing is impossible.
There is an old-fashioned treatment
for rheumatism that consists in driving
the pain from one point of attack to
another, and the pain at last clutches
the heart, in its enforced wandering,
and there it is supreme aud the heart
succumbs.
The treatment of habits by applica-
tion of New Year resolutions may
indeed not result in the moral
death of the patient, but the
sloughing off of habit because
of the refusal of an invigorated system
TO sustain the unhealthy parasite is
much more effective than the tearing of
the habit out by the roots. The ground
must be made unfit for the crop, aud
fitted for fairer harvest.
Resolved, then, to nourish your soul
with the living waters of right living,
right thinking and elevating influences,
IL you would be rid of habits
that you feel to be discreditable
or degrading. Push the unwelcome
tenants out of the back door of your
life by the crowd of welcome guests
trooping in the front door. Do not inn
agine yon can kick the devil out and
keep him out while the spaces of your
life are not tenanted by better and
nebleF and sweetefAaHa wershier things
Resolve as much as you will, results
will not follow unless there is something
more than the resolution at work; and
IL the right influences have been at work
tba raeolut;ov 10 o,,,,a,A,,or.