The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-01-09
NEW YEAR SERMON.
SOME THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE
SEASON.

SOME THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY THE
SEASON.
Emotions That Control Us as We
Stand Upon The Threshold of New
Year-AngeIs Who Have Lived
With Us in the Homestead of the
Heart.-A Beautiful Ideal.
Maj. Charles w. Hubner. in Atlanta Con.
stitution.T
When we are about to undertake a
voyage to some distant country, whose
shores we have never seen before, but
which fancy pictures in a way more
flattering to our wishes than true to
the reality, we linger on the threshold
of our home in order to impress more
| deeply upon the heart sweet memories
of 'days that are no more," and to
each pleasant occasion associated with
them, and out of which they grew as
flowers grow out of the heart of May.
Thus meditating we turn sad but hope
full eyes upon the future, whose horizon
stretches before US but whose scenes
are hidden by an impenetrable veil
which the hand of God alone can lift.
With feelings whose best expression
is silence, and with thoughts too holy
to be clothed in the common garb of
speech, we finally turn away and with
| tagging steps leave the loved and ia
miliar scenes and pursue a path whose
| end no one but God can see and
know.
Emotions somewhat similar to these,
but deeper and more solemn, control
us as we stand upon the threshold of a
new year. The angels who have lived
with US in the homestead of the heart,
stretch forth their hands to us in eter-
nal farewell, for time flies and they
cannot tarry longer with their mortal
host, no matter how earnestly he may
plead tor them to continue the COM
fort and happiness which their heav-
enly presence conferred.
Time-what is time? We think of
it in the abstract; we use the word
metaphorically. With the help OF
fancy we invest the conception with
wings or we personify it as a reaper,
who with dea,h-dealing scythe cuts
down the glory, the beauty, the warm
and radiant life of the world, as ruth
lessly as the scythe of the husbandman
cuts down the golden wheat ears in the
harvest field, or the fragrant grass in
the meadow. But in our rhetorical
toying with this impalpable thing do
we fully appreciate the fact that time
rs the most real, the most solemn, the
most sublimely impressive and impor-
1ant element of human life.
Time is visible eternity. The low,
monotonous click of the clocks pendu-
lam is the audible pulse throb of crea-
tion. The everlasting gives token and
emblem of its existence in the passing
hours; they come and 60, and go and
come in that ceaseless regularity which
the Divine Will has ordained as the
physical expression of its own ever
lasting harmony. The hours are the
appreciable atoms of a cycle within
whose circumference exists all that was,
-,r is, or ever will be; all that is hu-
manly conceivable OF the physical,
moral and spiritua! creations of Jeho-
yah.
From this point of view only can
This subject l.: properly contemplated
by creatures endowed with reason.
Time, therefore, assuredly IS entitled
to the great Importance which we have
given it. 1t is, in virtue of It's ndis-
putable pre-em;nence, the subllmest
theme upon which the powers of
thought can be employed. No better
occasion can be selected than the death
of the old and the birth OF the new
year to impress upon the heart the ir-
resistihle value of time, and to color
the meditations of the soul with the
divine hues of truth.
AT such time the soul seems to be
transported into a sphere of thought
far beyond the reach of her ordinary
flights. Some mysterious ETHEREAL
power is the propelling force. Having
attained that supremest height, the
wistful eyes of the soul behold larger
and more distant regions of the dream
veiled land of the future. O, then,
how busy is Memory See, how
eagerly she grasps her pilgrim staff to
retrace the paths over which the twi-
light of time is slowly settling. But
on which of them should she go back?
All, there are jewels to be recovered,
which she dropped, unnoticed, from
the heart's-crown in the heat and tur-
moil of life's battle; she remembers
them now, and wants them reset in
their places. Then the graves of dead
hopes are to be visited and tenderly
adorned with lilies and forget-me-
nots, for loves sake. Shady bowers
are to be explored again, where we,
way-worn and weary, time and again
stopped for rest and refreshment; where
Pleasure, with the sweetness and
beauty Of her roses, transformed the
common air into Z-phyrs Of Paradise;
where the harps OF Peace lulled her
into slunber, with music such as the
angels nigh, charm from the sacred
lutes Of Heaven. There il was that
dreams dropr-'- into our soul from
the stars, as sct|v i, dewirops from
the resplep'ien. skies OF June, into the
silver Chalices Of the lilies
Yes, through all this enchanted re-
gion, over which the sunset of the
dying year throws its werd glamour,
Memory wanuers, te' STOP. at last, at
one spot in the solitude where the