The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-12-30
The Passing Year

| Nothing which has interested living
men and women can wholly lose it's
vitality. no language they have spok-
en-. nor oracle beside which they have
| hushed their voices. no dream hich
| has once been entertained by actual
human minds nothing about which
| they have ever been passionate or ex-
/ pended time and zeal. Within us are
blended the hopes and aspirations. the
| sentiments and convictions of every
nation on the globe. They have COM
| forted us In affl' ction. cheered us in
adversely, inspired with noble ideas of
| living. Give us new heart and cour-
age to face the battle of life, and
brighten the gloomy pathway as the
years go by.
| Time to most Of us is mystery, ar
bitrarily divided into a past and pres
| emit. 1t Is only by gl'mmerings, by
! casual and passing inf1ltrations that
future years Of which we are full, OF
| the realities which surround us on ev-
cry hand AS the years go by man
| kind will grow old and decrepit, I'M
| til the earth has entered the last stage
| of its existence when it will be re-
duced to a cold, dead world. Until
then. love. home and friends will re-
ma n the heart-words of life.
If indeed there be any profit in the
past, or any joy in the thought of be-
ing remembered hereafter which can
give strength to present endurance
| it is that every new truth which af-
fects life must pass through period
| in which 1t is loved. When the imag-
nation brings up all the incidents
| which impress us in life. and condense
them, we are impressed with the
fact that human beings are better
constituted to endure trouble than
they know. Hopes outposts are not
abandoned so readily as the dispair-
ing think. Until the eye is shot out
and the heart no longer beats, always
beyond there is a sentry.
We cannot so far belittle the mir
acle of our own existence as to be-
iieve that in all the centuries Of the
human race. our faith has been I'M
wisely directed to certain sources Of
| interest, and which are given to us
around the homes to which we are
restrained the greater part Of our
lives. at once the exposures Of the
py memory and the winters tale Of
age. Gradually the old conditional
life fades into the half-rememhrance
of dream. We may live without
memory. worship. without her: but
we cannot remember without her
1t is some objective form that leads
us to visit old places, where in imag-
ination we can people those walks
! and lanes with friends of another gem
Grafton. and associate in memory GER
| tan distinct and ideal images that
are no more. They are lost to us and
we to them. Shall we in some of the
pleasant pastures and perpetual sum-
| mers of eternity once more be unit
ed and resume our earliest compan-
! ionsiip from which we We're called
away by a voice that said: thou art
now too old? Happier so than to con-
| tinue the affairs of which our hand are
| full when laid upon the breast O, the
| irresponsible years. We may imag-
| inc ourselves extremely we'll pleased
| with the world and it's pleasant pla-
| ces wherein our lives have been cast
| The world may challenge us from
afar weave it's spell of Wayerjng
fights and shadows. and all its myriad
| voices promising strange JOYS and
| strange griefs; crying come and drink
| of the wild waters while the approv-
ing world looks silent on. This in
SEPARATION Of man knows no sect, no re-
| Hgion no creed, but is broad as hui
| manity itself IT is the ledeerdemain
| of life. and finds it's echo in all the
| legislation of the world. God has
! made nothing worthy of contempt The
/ law Of heaven is love, and while
stands still and we view with closed
| eyes the receding years we find they
have not been Indian summers with
| ambered colored pathways strewn
broken shrines where thousands Of
/ homes have wasted into ashes, foot
/ prints under the drifting dust, green
mounds where the grass is vet fresh
with the watering of tears and shad-
ows VIII 'ch we would not forget.
The passing of the years is as re-
! sistless and inevitable az the move
rent Of time. We have learned that
life with most of us is gradual IL
fusion, and only by the threads Of
faith and under the strain of exper-
| fence man is left alone superior in
science. Standing upon the planets