Norwich bulletin., 1910-01-01
Cwritton for The. BulIetin.) }

l New Years dayi The Day of the Year. as the French call itl Tine day when Janus turns his faces both ways, one with a wink of the eye upon finger ing Autumn and a grim, Depart, your day is over,' and the other forward toward impatient Spring with a Mot yet, not yet pretty lady, give old Win ter his chance
 A funny old fellow is Janus, with his two faces. Double-faced, should we call him? Hardly that, for the face that looks backward never changes place with the face that looks forward. If we see him stern and severe and in
 haste to be rid of us, severely stern he is to us always; while we that see him genial and relenting and glad to vel come us, never dream of that darker, harder face of his that turns the other
 way. Does Janus chuckle? We should
 think he might, he arrives so soon aft
 CT Santa Claus, only to find that be-
 tween Christmas and New Years ev-
 cry step of his road is paved with good
 intentions. If that stern. backward
 turning face of his ever deigns to re lax, it must be in sort of grizzly com passion for poor, grown n-up, ever child
 lSh human nature; for all of us, indeed.
 who can be cfmldlike in the good old
 Christian way at Christmas, yet turn childish to a degree and even peevish over our broken toys the day after. For you see, old Janus must needs
 wade to his post at the top of the year breastdeep through the rubbish and trash of such resolutions as are made on purpose not to be kept And 1t is just at this point that his compassion is SOrely needed for he knows that the heroic resolves so scrupulously formed during those last seven days of the old year have no real force. no enduring fibre. He can tell us that the longer the list and the more strained our en-
 1eavor, the quicker and surer will come the first break-a break that brings with it unaclxnowledged depths of hu- initiation, Encouragement, and, in cer- tain Saddest cases. despair. He knows that the only resolutions which count and wear are those that are new every morning and renewed every evening, all through every year, until they be- come the habit of our lives, not to be put on or off like garment, but to envelop us like a sheath. We may sus- pect him of hiding a tender spot in whatever 1t is tha- serves him for heart and of being touched by what he knows to lie at the root of all good in tentions, namely, an instinctive hun gering and thirsting for something better, an inborn yearning for the ideal a real reaching out after God, which, consciously or uncOnScious1y, underlies human natures passionate impulses and honest, though feeble, aspirations. It is good then. we see this inward. instinctive something that sets us all to making long lists of the things we are going to accomplish this coming year, the faults we intend to correct, the virtues and talents we have determined to develop or improve. What then, underlies the breaking :? Janus could tell us-and, we believe. in looking both ways, he has observed many generations of men and learned human nature to the core He could answer that the breaking need not bo charged to original sin nor total de- pravity and not so much to badness or weakness as to the apparent impos
 sibility of attaining the ideal, the try .,1r .1% Hn fr-1Tf less effort to force many days work into one and the incomprehension which would crowd into the one short week between Christmas and New Years the self-culture of mind and heart that in reality requires a lifetime to perfect.