The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1908-01-02
NEW YEAR.

en- before the grass mas DtSuu W XIV"
over the grave Of the old year, and OF
sober reflections about the life beyond,
immortality and other serious subjects
which soon yield to lighter things and
are laid away in strong box to remain
mill another New Year comes, when
they are taken out, rubbed mp, and put
TO precisely the same uses that they are
before.
But while the New Ysars may not
come often enough for the young and
too often for the old, youth and age
alike should draw suggestions from
their arrival, which are not wholly nm
comfortable, and which even contain
much solace for those who feel that they
are leaving behind that rose. tinted
world in which young hope dwells and
reads golden promises in the far off
clouds that are bright to them but show
somber and threatening when near by.
The death of the old year and its resur-
rection in the New Year which Is only
the renewed form Of its predecessor is
but an exempliiCation of that belief
taught by religion, and upon which all
the wisest and the best of the human
race have rested their faith, trusting in
one form or another that death is not
the end of life but merely the transition
into a new and brighter youth, and "A
better land
1t il the custom, and the solemn and
striking analogies which il suggests al
low of no other, to paint the old year rs
decrepit and senile man, who stands
with one foot in the grave and the other
trembling on the edge. Springtime and
the buds and the blossoms and the
flowers, and the odor of honeysuckle,
can bring youth no more to him. The
vision il bIeared and weak; the face Is
wan and withered; the form is bent; the
muscles are relaxed and powerless, and
strength has departed. The old eyes
see only the dim past or the doubtful
future, and are closed to the present,
which is so real and distinct to other
men. For the worn.out frame there
can be no youth again save in new
birth The old metal must be broken
up and nodded afresh for the resurrec.
ton The clock strikes midnight, and
from the grave Of the old year, the
sepulcher of mortality. rises the New
Year, youth, beauty and JOY coming
from the dark passage, fifty represented
az boy, bright and smiling in the vigor
Of young life and unclouded aspirations
His eyes sparkle with the freshness of
early years his step il firm and elastic;
his hearing il high and confident, and
he drinks in the sunshine which floods
the world around him,
With such an example teaching it,
lesson and furnishing t4 moral the
New Year should not be melancholy,
even though it is but another tap on the
drum that il beating the funeral march
to the grave The whole scheme of
creation points to another lite. Were
each New Year to bring rs nearer to-
humiliation, the passage Of time would
be but a funeral procession, with black
plumes nodding over the hearse, and the
black gloved mouIners behind, and a
head the grave, the end Of all. But we
draw from it, even if deprived Of all
other sources, which we are not a bet.
ter inspiration, that sweetena life and
gives joys of its own to the journey
down hill.
Thus, if one can read the New Yeara
right, il should have no sorrow for him |
though he may have reached the period |
of life when the New Years set deep
their mark. The eternal stars that shine |
in the heavens above him are not more
immortal than he, and the beautiful
line, 90 death, where il thy sting; OF
grave, where is thy victory" has been
rightly chosen to express the hope and
belief Of which the New Year is the
illustration and the emblem
Thus fortified a man may defy time
The New Years may come and the old |
years may 20, and his hair may turn
white and his friends may precede him
in the journey across the dark riyer, bnt
he sits serene and happy knowing that |
death is only one stage Of Immortality |
and that in the endless future which |
stretchrs before him there are ,i.tag d.