Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-12-30
PASSING AWAY.
A Few Thoughts Mt the Close of the
Year.

Year.
The year is dying in the night. 1t was but
a little while ago that we took a stranger by
the hand and gave him hearty welcome at
the threshold, a parting guest left us who
should not return our way again. And now
the sometime stranger has become
familiar, and he, too, passes out, and we
shall see him no more 1t carries with 1t
nothing of sentimentality. but of true and
lofty sentiment instead that we should take
account of these years they pass, and
consider where they found us, and where
they have left us. Astronomy would not
perhaps be thought to hold close relation to
the moral or to the religious life; but it Is
the astronomical feature of the year that
gives it its most marked characteristic, and
enables us to appropriate a wholesome
lesson For as it is to the position which
the Creator has given this whiriing world
of ours in its orbit that we owe the charms
and the changes of the seasons which serve
to mark the movement of the hands on the
dial face of the year-now from sunlight tc
shadow and again from withered leaves and
cold and snow to the bloom, the radiance
and warmth of summer-so it is, by these
ever-varying changes we mark the progress
of the year; and it is by the recurrence of a
particular one, as that of the winter
solstice, that we note the completion of an
other cycle. We look out during the day
and we see snow and sleet and barrenness
on wood and field, which but a few weeks
ago were clothed in verdure OF decked with
the beauty of the lilies. We look up to the
heavens at night, and we miss the familiar
consultations that greeted our eyes but
little while ago, and instead we see Orion.
who comes with the cold and goes with it
puncturing the west with his spear, while
Sirius flashes upon the glistening earth the
light of blazing sun thousandfold brighter
than our own. As note these and Other
changes we are also to realize, as otherwise
we should not, that another year has passed
and that we are brought much nearer the
gates of eternity. 1t is but natural, too, at
this time that tender memories of other
days should come before us, and that we
should think how one by one our friends
have passed AWAIT seems so long ago.
and left us desolate. But to those of adj
vanced years there is great compensation in
the thought that every recurring year brings
US nearer to them, brings nearer the end
of our journey. The way has been hard and
weary at times, and as the loved ones have
fallen by the way it has become lonely
travelling. But it will not be long now:
some day not distant the gate will swing
open for us, and then what meeting that
will be. Nor should we lament the swift
flying years. Well has the poet said:
Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying feetness.
And those of youth a seeming length
Proportional to their sweetness"
The young may we'll rejoice at the pass
ing away of the old year and the ushering in
of the new with all its possibilities; but the
Christian of maturer years is content, if he
does not as spontaneously rejoice, that it
brings him out of the storm into the calm,
from out the shadows of earth into the
radiance of eternity.-Christian Work.