Year: 1861

Life has often been called way, journey,
pilgrimage, and all mortals are pilgrims. To-
day the Wandering Jew (who in our Nineteenth
Century may be q pedder with pack or pat
ent on his shoulders) after all, stands by the
wayside and reads upon the outworn face OF
some stone image-an old man with chlld
dreaming eyes resting under the snow veil OF his
bosom "The Great Milestone-I am the Past
Weep" But there seems q soul blossoming
into smile on the marble lips of the dreaming
child dreaming in marbe-and whisper grows
into the heart of the pilgrim "l am the future
Smile" Then the stone image of the old man
aud the dreaming child vanishes and there isa
lonely heart beating in solitude, and it Whispers
Regret not-the old years takes the mortal,
Memory, but the new year gives the angel,
Hope"


Al of us are that pilgrim humanity is tho
homeless one ever on u threshold but never
passing over It, We all stand at the great mile
stone of time we the marble imogc-ot the
old man with the child nestled In the snow OF his
dead bosom asleep we all read the traceries OF
the wrnked face. IL am the Past-Weep" aud
translate the marble dreamer's soul al am tho
Future-Smllc." And soon the great highway
of the world we pass the old llie OF the dead
time and begin the new life Of the living time
always the Present lighted with the soul of the
Future.


Are there tolling bells---arc there funeral
trains--are there open graves when we come I"



type of great death The air is full of tolling
beils-the darkness IL thronged with funeral
trains of the vanished hour--the open grave OF
the year shows that coiIins in the vault of our
lives where the holy dead lie beautiful. And
from them arise-for the beautiful faces are only
dust-like exhalations, phantom like and ghostly,
the soul of the Past When we pause at the
Great Milestone and read the inscription, " am
the Past-Weep,' these are the sounds we hear,
or rather the ghosts of sounds, for they echoes OF
bells


That distance Of recognizancc bercavos
these spirits of the vanished hours some with
asphodels aud some with amaranth blooms the
forms that follow the year whose memory is an
old man with a child's head In the drfted snow
of his bosom the open graves we see In our
lives, and from them the silent companions OF
thought arise on the hushed stalrways of our
hearts


Death bears the Angel Life in his arms asleep
the marble Memory OF the old bears the marble
Hope Of the new In its bosom. And Memory and
Hope are the figures that make the pilgrim linger
at the Great Milestone. lie pauses and fingers
and listen he


Looks before and after,


And pines for what IL not


lie asks stern questlons-but the angels will
not answer and the grave only echoes them.
Behind him in the way he has come before him
Is the way his footsteps were going. And he
bends down and kisses the marble child and





child seems waking from its marble dream and
smiling. And this Ia all; but this is the assur-
ance-"I am the Future-Smle" Then tho
restless world goes on, "tolling, rejoicing sor-
rowing"


We have passed this Great Milestone before.
All of us have seen the outworn face with
snow fall of Time upon his bosom and the child
that dreams of Spring under tho nowfalI OF
Winter he whose voice Is silence am the
Past--W -Weep''-and he whose smile Is language
al am the Future-Smile."


In the Roman Forum there was golden pillar
called the Miiiarium Aure,ma from which every
distance was measured in all drectio from tho
heart of the Empire, And, sometimes, looking
back, we see the Great Milestones transfgured In
some holy light


The light that never sea or shore,


The consecratlons and the poets dream
and the marble image has a halo about its brow
and il q divine form Of immortal youth and glo-
~ these are golden Mlestones in our lives,
and all our dusty paths lead backward to them,
and from them the distances are marked upon
our brows aud hearts they are crowned with
the transfgured Past-the angel and not the
mortal Memory.


Bat when we leave the Great Milestones with
their stone images OF age and WEAKNESS and de-
cay, the child that we leave, sleeping aud smiling
marble in the snow of the old mans bosom, steals
from the arms Of each and leaps before us. aud
presently we see far off, where the sun touches
some hight whence the breath Of morning brings
us the souls of dviner flowers, the true Golden
Milestone of our lives standing and the marble
child, cleaning with glory and crowned with
a sun wreath and lifted with wings, smiles from
the Great Milestone that marks "the better
years"


All, the better years We pass the Milestones
of The mortal ebb and flow of Time-we "let
the dead Past bury It's dad" we put our own
dead beautiful and loved in that dead Past's
hearses, and still we move on and trust the smile
aud forget the tears and still


son the soul


Bright from the hill tops of the beautiful


Bnrsts the attained goal"


the Golden Mestones OF our longing. And we
learn the lesson that between Here ana lhere Is
life, and that the Great Milestones are Out de-
vices of the way-L Louisville Journal