Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-01-08
FACING THE YEARS.
BY Henry F. Cope.

has IOr MIN Before us all it stretches
dark and mysteriously. Yet only the
craven hearted regard it with fear.
Something within us bids us take up
its days even with rejoicing, though it
be no other than the joy Of him who
tackles some new task, who grapples
with some worthy foe.
Why should men thus face their
days? Why do we feel that he who
thinks Of life as thing to be endured
Is an unworthy being, a coward among
MS kind, and traitor to life's oppor-
tunities? Is it not because we set the
present in the light of the eternal and
think of life in terms of the infinite
reaches of our Immortality?
They who live only from day to day,
like driven cattle, who set the years in
separation as weary miles to be taken
one at a time, to be forgotten when
trodden, and feared when lying before,
to such life is indeed a tale of bitter
ness which cannot too soon find it's fin
ish. Only the fear of the darker mys-
terry Of death binds such beings to the
udFkucSS OF lie.
No life can be measured in any al
lotted span. Seventy years or a hun
dred cannot tell its tale. It reaches it's
roots far back through many centuries;
1t sends forth Its fruits no man knows
through how many ages. Even life
drinks deep Of Immortality And it is
this sense of the reach Of our selves
to the past, and to the future, that
makes possible our living in the pres
ent.
This sense Of belonging to an endless
life is found in man everywhere. While
the man of science writes of it and the
Intelligent civilized man talks it over
with his neighbor, the bushmen Of Aus
tralia is sitting by his fire under the
stars and, far into the night, as the
embers glow down, he talks with his
fellows on the whence and the whittier
OF being; he dreams of life before and
pictures life beyond.
This day and this new year, these
are but part of eternity. The life that
l must live through them belongs as
much to the long past and the infinite
future as it belongs to this passing day.
No day is complete in itself; it bears
the fruitage of eternity; it sows the
seeds Of the unknown future. The
wcndrous living in eternity does not
wait until after death for it's begin
nings; it is our now.
So 1 take up these new days with
joyous anticipation, for are they not
to bring to me the accumulated wealth
of days gone by? This new year must
of necessity be richer year than last,
because it possesses all the eternal, IN
dying elements Of the last And more
than this, In increasing measure it
brings down to me all the treasures of
the centuries before.
Each year in a true life goes little
higher on livings long ascent, and so
brings before it a farther vista,
grander view. If l truly live this
year, shall 1 not know more Of the
wonder of life, see more Of the mystic
ries of great souls, and read a little
farther into the secrets of the universe?
He who does not hunger for more
life does not know the life he has. The
coming days always promise this, the
chance to live little more, not simply
to live longer, but to live larger, to
touch life on yet more sides, and to
taste Of more of it's delights and Won.
ders. In youth we long for manhood
simply because it promises more life,
in manhood for maturity.
So, too, this sense Of the infinite
stretches Of our lives, Of their unity
with all eternity, gives us a brave fore
looking in the new days. We would
live these days we'll and nobly because
they are without end, they go on down
through all the days. The new year is
a chance to play our part and to give
something of ourselves to all the years.
Surely we can take these new days
with the uplifted hearts, the hope filed
faces of the children of heaven. We
are not dull slaves being driven to
daily drudgery; we are free men rejoic-
ING to live to the full the life that now
is for the sake of the life that is to be
ours and by the garnered strength Of
all the lives that have been.