Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1898-01-01
THE NEW YEARS PROMISES.
BY WILLIAM RossER CoBBE.

The years are ushered in one by one,
and they GO out again, each in success
sion, in obedience TO laws the interpre-
tation of which we ill-understand, al.
though savants write with assumed
sageness concerning the reign OF order
in the universe and the forces back of
these potencies. OF m thing, however,
man is fully assured, and that in h a
back of written history, back Of all the
evidences of the alleged Everlasting
hills and the rocks that form the base
of earth's strength-back of universal
terrestrial flame and gases, and far and
awav into the endless sea of star-dust,
time was, just as time is. So in all
these eons there have been revolutions
of planets and satellites and suns, which
give in their order the periods that are
termed seasons and years. 1t is as easy
TO comprehend the beginning as the end
of things, for ahead of us is the i'm
penetrable and back of us the illimit-
able. Still men go on counting the
coming and the going of the years,
touched with the chastened hand of re-
greet at the dying of the old and stirred
to gladness at the birth of the new
year. The without beginning and
without end" so far as the comprehen-
zion Of man can grasp, might suggest
that the times and the seasons all count
for nothing, save as they point the
very grave moral that humanity, at
least, ages and hat each recurring
date brings the living nearer by so much
to the shadows of the valley, entering
which no man may retrace his steps.
The dawn of the new year, however,
suggests, and in some way oman seems
unable TO efface the memory, with the
matin prayer Of the new there sound
the vesper plants Of the old, blending
TO produce a petition for absolution
from the sins that were and deliverancc
from the temptations that may be. And
NOT the shades ne the planning only az
the just dead year troop up before the
mental vision, but all the deeds, the
scenes and the incidents of the long day
that formed that year. The might-have-
beens come up with their painful sug-
gestiveness. aggravating the shame
that arises over the has-beens, each
serving as a scourge TO mar the back
and the visage of all those whose con-
sciences are quickened TO discernment
between what is good and what is evil.
Still, after all, man finds his solace in
the happy song of the bird of hope,
which, despite the storm that RACES,
perches in the windows of the heart
and gives forth notes of promise Of
good things TO be. In the pledge Of re-
deeming the days TO come men find for
giveness for the evil they have done
and the blunders they have made. Bless
God for the hrd-hope-and for the
songs it sings to all troubled spirits,
whether at the dawn of the New Year
or at any period of their sorrowing.
All! would that the good resolves of
the New Year day might be as lasting
as the entire year and all the years that
form the sun of each individual life.
The comfort that is found in a promise
n makes to himself Ito turn over a
new leaf" is temptation to hasty pur-
posing, and, alas, but too frequently,
to just as quick recession from the
high ground that has been climbed.
No year can be free from the storm
that fells the oak or the pestilence that
stalks at monday, or the shadows that
darken the soul of man. He is wise who
learns well the lesson from the past
year TO void the pitfalls that surely lie
in the path that is ahead of him and who
takes courage in the fact that, il he
wills it SO, as his days may demand SO
shall his strength ever be.