St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1897-12-31
Some Rambling Thoughts.

[copyrighted by Dave & rabor.l

copyrighted by Dave & Tabor.1
1t seems strange that Time should ever
be represented as an in6rm old man
Rather, he is a youth, sprightly and hur-
rying beyond all imaginines. Time never
grows old. When childish plans are as
many as our minutes and our whims in
Vulnerable then he does indeed lag lit.
tie and our violent hands come near muir.
dering him sometimes; but as soon as
we get definite purposes in life, the rascal
takes to his heels, and eager though we
may be to catch up with him, we never
more see anything but his twinkling feet
in the distance. And at last as our feet
begin to drag and talter, he circles round
and round so fast that we are sick with
dizziness and eager for rest. Old Father
Time forsooth Those who call him
"old" know not that Time is ever young.
What we call the olden days were the
new days to those who lived in them !;
and our day is in advance of theirs, and
theirs was in advance of those who pre-
coded them for progress in some form
has been the order since the beginning
All who pine with backward looking
eyes miss the present; for each new mo-
ment is as bright as any that have gone
before. 1t is full of new opportunities,
struggles, ppointments, triunphs.
A charm fingers around the new; new
chances have not been spoiled, new toys
have not been broken, new knowledge
has not become trite, new hopes are still
full OF buoyancy.
A
Here once rfiore is the end Of an old
year and the beginning Of the new and
though | am far from approving New
Years resolutions, lean quite understand
how they seem to help those who do not
yet regard every day as equally sacred
against waste.
Now do many of us, like the boy who
is puzzled in arithmetic, wipe our states
clean and start again? Admittedly the
problem still remains to be solved, but
the very idea OF clean slate helps the
mind by taking out of sight the confus-
ing figures that have misled. Our prob
lem, however, is more difficult than that
of any boy; it is to take one short life,
so divide it that results shall be multi
piled, and nothing be left over save good
ness. The terms are confusing enough,
particularly when each one must cipher
out the matter for himself. Alasl what
sorry lot of scrawlings some of us have
made. We have taken life as our divi-
dend, irresoution as our divisor, and the
quotient is nothing and much over in
the form OF frazzled wasted hours.
Happy
Happy indeed is he who has no mis-
takes to look back at, but his happiness
is merely the happiness of an animal;
for to have really lived, and worked, and
strained is inevitably to have made mis-
takes. Happy also is he of unreAecting
spirit whose memory is short for the
past and whose hope carries him ever
onward toward some future imagined
good without stopping to estimate how
that good is to be reached. His is the
happiness of child. But thrice happy
is he who has lived and erred and risen
again; who looks backward with eyes
not suffused with tears but alive with
questioning as to how to avoid such
mistakes in the future, getting wisdom
from the experiences of the past, from
mistakes plucking courage, and from dis
appointments wrenching free; who looks
onward with calm gaze believing that
what the spirit of man has done, it can
again do and more also, since the present
is based on the deeds of the past and the
deeds of the future will be possible by
reason Of the deeds of the present-all
ever cumulative.
New
Some Of you have wasted much time
the past year. You spendthrifts Re-
solve and act against this for the year to
come. Wake up to the fact that time
spent is time recoverable. How much
of it do you think you have? Not more
than thirty years, probably. And if by
reason of strength some remain effective
Tor fifty years, what petty span of time
even that is. Too often definite lines are
not decided on until after we are thirty,
and failing powers weaken us before we
are fifty. Thus all the products of all
the ages, as far as they influence us, are
crowded into twenty or thirty years.
We should be misers Of time rather than
MASTERS. Thus would even rest and
recreation have purpose and dignity.
And some of you have tried to do but
have failed to accomplish and you envy
the many great and the many good who
have excelled in efforts. Cease repining
and turn once more to the task; for the
greatest have never had more than your
own measure OF time-twenty-fo hours
to the day. And some of you have sor.
rowed and buried the heart right out of
your work. God pity you! and show
you way out into some measure of sun
light during the year to come. Remem.
Der that as long as you live, YOU have
duties to Others and that the awaken
ing OF your social conscience has in it the
power to gather up broken threads of
lille. Effort for others is a wondrous
salve.
Turn away from the noisy, thought