The Bossier banner., 1910-12-29
1911.

1911.
Long ago the Romans gave to the first
month, the door of the year, the name
Janarius, in honor of their god, Janus.
T'.s god was supposed to hold the keys to
the system of the world and it was he who
opened and closed all things. He was
represented as two-headed, one of his faces
being that of youth and the other that OF
an old man; one representing the begin
ming, the other the ending. It was emf
nently fitting, therefore, that he should be
enthroned at the threshold of the year,
with the one face looking backward over
the experiences of the year that was gone
while the other, the face of youth, looked
out with hope and confidence upon the
days that were to come.
We have inherited the name of the
month, but without the mythical idea of the
two-headed god who once was believed to
preside at the annual opening of the doors
Of time. And yet we have inherited the
spirit which gave to the ancient people first
of all the notion of the "bi-frons" deity,
and afterwards set him up as janitor at the
door of the year. AS the New Year draws
near every thoughtful man among US sits
for season, like Janus, looking out over
the course of the year that has slipped
away, considering with thoughtful face the
successes and failures, the joys and sor-
rows. which it brought; and then turning
with the glad face of expectant youth to
welcome the incoming New Year.
Pity the man of imagination so dull or
of interest so low who let's these unseen
boundaries of time slip beneath him un-
noted, with the poor excuse that one hour
is like another! Why, even the stolid sea-
captain thinks it worth while to post for the
benefit of passengers and crew every
morning bulletin, stating that so many
miles of the monotonous way have been
laid behind. And is it not worth while to
pause when the clock has struck the last
midnight hour of the year, and reflect for
moment at least that 365 full-fraught
days Of this wonderful life of ours have
been consigned to the irrevocable records
of the past? True that one hour is much
like another as it is measured by the hour
glass. But will any man who has really
lived, not simply existed, through the days
that are numbered, say that the hours, as
they were counted off by the varying index
of experience, have been alike?
"We live in deeds not years,
In thoughts not breaths,
In feelings not in figures on dial"
And the man to whom the vanishing
year has been record of deeds and
thoughts and feelings will welcome this
arbitrary division of time as an opportunity
for reckoning up the accounts of span
of his life. The prudent man who is max
ing life, like the prudent man who is
making living, will pause from time tc
time, casting up his transactions to see
where he stands. It is not the busy man
who fails to pause at the birth of the year
but the man in whom the current of life
runs so low that all days and hours are
alike to him.
Perhaps there is significance in the
fact that man is SO constituted physically
that he cannot look back without pausing
We do not need to have our eyes constantly
upon the things that are gone-they are
irrevocable. The notion is couched in many
aproverb of "by -gones" and "spilt milk. ~
1t is best that we forget these things as We
go about our work. A great man, whose
career had been anything but satisfactory
to himself, spoke once of forgetting the
things which were behind while he pushed
forward to the goal which was set before
him. He knew that it took steadfast eye
oreach the end. And yet no man reckoned
more accurately the measure of success
and failure which lay behind him. We
may be sure he paused by the unseen mile
stones of the way, gathering for the future
mingled encouragement and warning.
Janus was both old and young. What
happier combination of qualities could be
imagined! We are never so old but we
may be young: young in plans; young in
hopes; young in enthusiasm; young in the
wonderment with which we may look out
upon each newborn day as a new crea-
ton, new land to be explored ere the sun
is set. 1t was DR.. Oliver Wendell Holmes
who replied with genial humor to the ques-
ton how old he was, 81 am seventy years
young" May no one of US ever reach that