Connecticut western news., 1902-01-09

ment to all the timid and doubting. The text is Exodus xii, 2, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you"
 The last month of the old year has passed out of sight, and the first month of the new year has arrived. The mid night gate last Wednesday opened, and January entered. She deserves bet ter name, for she is called after Janus, the heathen deity who, they supposed, presided over doors and so might be expected to preside at the opening of the year. This month was of old called the wolf month because, through the severity of its weather, the hungry wolves came down seeking food and devouring human life. In the missals of the middle ages January was repre- scented as attired in white, suggestive of the snow. and blowing the fingers, IS though suffering from the cold, and having a bundle of wood under the arm, suggestive of the warmth that must be Eindled.
 Yes. January is the open door of the year, and through that door will come what long processions, some of them bearing palm leaves and some myrtle, others with garlands of wheat and others with cypress and mistletoe. They are coming, and nothing can keep them back-the events of a twelvemonth. 1t will. think, be one of the greatest years of all time. It will abound with blessing and disaster. National and in- ternational controversies of momentous import will be settled. Year of coro- nation and dethronement, year that will settle Cuban and Porto Rican and Philippine and South African and Chi nese destinies. The tamest year for many 8 decade past has dug its mill lions of graves and reared it's millions Af marriage altars.
 We can expect greater events in this Sear than ever before, for the worlds population has so vastly increased there are so many more than in any other year to laugh and weep and tri- umph and perish. The mightier wheels If mechanism have such wider sweep. The fires are kindled in furnaces not seven times but seventy times heated. The velocities whirling through the air md sailing the seas and tunneling the mountains will make unprecedented demonstration. Would to God that be- fore the now opening year has closed the earth might cease to tremble with the last cannonade and the heavens cease to be lighted up with any more conhagration of homesteads and the foundries that make swords be turned into blacksmith shops for making plowshares.
 Grasp Present Opportunities.
 The front door of stupendous year has opened. Before many of you there will be twelve months of opportunity for making the world better or worse, happier or more miserable. Let us pray that 1t may be a year that will Indicate the speedy redemption of the hemisphere. Would to God that this might be the year in which the three great instruments now chiefly used for secular purposes might be put to their mightiest use in the worlds evangelical tion-the telegraph, the telephone. the photograph! Electricity has such po- lent tongue. such st'ong arm, such swift wing. such lightning foot, that 1t occurs to me that 1t may be the angel that St. John saw and heard in apoc- alyptic vision when he started back and cried out, q saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred ard tongue and peopleP' They were tongues of fire 1S.1l1 Ht the Pentecost, and why not the world called to God by tongue of cleo tric fire? Prepare your batteries and make ready to put upon the wires the world wide message of "whosoever will"
 Furthermore. this month of January has the greatest height and depth of cold. The rivers are bound in crystal chains. The fountains that made high est leap in the summer parks now toss not one jet. for every drop would be frozen tear. The sleds craunch through the hard snow. Warmest attire the wardrobe can afford Is put on that we may defend ourselves against the fury of the elements. Hardest of all the months for the poor. let it be the sea- son of greatest generosity on the part of the prosperous. How much a scut- tie Of coal or pair of shoes or a coat or shawl may do in uagement of suffering between the 1st of January and the 1st of February God only knows. Seated by our warm registers or wrapped in furs which make us in- dependent of the cutting January blast, let us not forget the fireless hearth and the thin garments and the hacking cough and the rheumatic twinge of those who through Restitution find life in winter an agony. Suppose each one of us take under charge one poverty stricken household or one disabled man or one invalided woman. On our way home from such charity. though the wind may be bowling and the night tempestuous, 1 should not wonder if we could hear voice that was heard on Galilee and at inc gates of Main and by the pool of Bethesda saying. "Inasmuch as ye did it to them, ye did 1t to me-"
 Victories of the Frost.
 Oh. the might of the cold! The arc ec and antarctic invading the temper ate zone! The victories of the frost ns when the Thames In 1205 became firm as any bridge and the inhabitants crossed and recrossed on the Ice and booths and places of temporary amuse- ment were built on the hardened sur face; as when many years ago New York harbor was paved with ice so that the people passed on foot to the adjoining islands. But the full story 0: the cold will never be known. The lips which would have told 1t were frozen and the fingers that would have written 1t were benumbed. Only here and there fact appears. In 1891 the cold was so terrific that the wolves en- tered Vienna. In 1468 1t was so cold that wine was cut with hatchets and distributed among the soldiers. In 1o34 a whole forest was killed by the