Newport weekly independent., 1902-01-10
THE OLD YEAR GONE.
Dr. Talmage Speaks of the Arrival
 of the New.
Words of Encouragement to All the Timid and Doubting-January in History--A Time of
 SadnesS

w dSA4IS tOIls JdIl. D.
 In this, Dr. Talmage's first dis course for the new year, he speaks words of encouragement to all the timid and doubting. The text is Exo- dus 12:2: 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 midnight gate last Wednesday opened, and January entered. She deserves a better 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 it's weather, the hungry wolves came down seeking food and devour- ing human life. Tn che missals of the middle ages January was represented as attired in white, suggestive of the snow, and blowing the fingers, as though suffering from the cold, and having bundle of wood under the must be llindled.
 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 events of twelvemonth. It will, I think, be one of the greatest years of all time. It will abound with bless ing and disaster. National and inter- national controversies of momentous import will be settled. Year of cor onation and dethronement, year that will settle Cuban and Porto Rican and Philippine and South African and Chi nese destinies. The tamest year for many decade past has dug it's mill lions of graves and reared it's millions of marriage altars.
 We can expect greater events in this year than ever before, for the worlds population has so vastly in- creased there are so many more than in any other year to laugh and weep and triumph and perish. The mightier wheels of mechanism have such wider sweep. The fires are kindled in furnaces not seven times but 70 times heated. The velocities whirling through the air and sailing the seas and tunneling the noun sllns will make unprecedented dem- Dnstration. 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 confagration of home steads and the foundries that make swords be turned into blacksmith shops for making plowshares.
 The front door of a stupendous year has opened. Before many of you there will be 12 months of oppor- tunity for making the world better or worse, happier or more miserable. Let us pray that it may be year that will indicate the speedy redemp- tion 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 vangelization-the telegraph, the telephone, the phono- graph! Electricity has such potent tongue, such strong arm, such swift wing, such lightning foot, that it oc- CUTS to me that it may be the angel that St. John saw and heard in apoc- alyptlc vision when he started back and cried out: "I saw another angel flying in the midst of Heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach un- to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people," They were tongues of fire that sat on the heads of the disciples at the Pentecost, and why not the world called to God by tongue of electric fire? Prepare your batteries and make ready to put up- on the wires the world wide message of ''whosOever will.''
 Furthermore, this month of Janu ary has the greatest height and depth of cold. The rivers are bounded in crystal chains. The fountains that made highest leap in the summer parks now toss not one jet for every drop would be frozen tear. The sleds craunch through the hard snow. < I.