Year: 1875




The New Year.


Again the New Year is upon us, and
we pause to review the twelvemouth
Just passed. One hour, one day, one
week, one month ut time it has cone.
Just as the year now in will go. The
grand sum total of the past year is made
up of ten thousand little items, and thus
Will the sum total of our lives be made
up. We cannot go back to mend what
Is broken in the past, to correct errors
committed, to improve opportunities
wasted, to repair injuries done. But
seeing wherein we have failed, we nav
In the future avoid what is wrong in the
past. Only so far as repentance and re-
gret lead us to mend our lives and slim
ulate us to more vigorous efforts in we'll
doing in the future, are they ut oil profit
able. We are to "forget the things
that are behind and press forward to
those that are before"


This Is good time to mark out and
enter upon general courses of action in
life that upon calm reflection seem wise
and Just; enter upon them with nniet
dellberation to live Just one day at a
time and let each day, so to speak, take
care OF itself. The resolutions formed
on New Years, says the New York Iri-
0unc, will not sustain us during the
entire year in right action any more than
the New Years dinner we eat will last
us twelvemonth. The moral nature re-
quires daily moral aliment to keep it in
healthful condition just as does the
| physical. Herein is the error many
young people make in trying to lead a
new life. They fancy that if they start
right the moral machine will run itself
without much attention; so when Mt the
end of the year they look back and see
how lamentably their good resolutions
have failed them, how little of what they
intended has been accomplished, dis
couragement paralyzes them. We all
need to remember that the petition.
"Give us this day our daily bread" ap-
plies with as much force to our moral
and spiritual natures rs to our physical
So in the plans we arrange for our con-
duct we must provide means whereby
this daily moral food shall be supplied
just as we allow ourselves time to eat
and to sleep in order that our physical
strength may not waste, so we must
| give ourselves time and means to tone
up and recuperate our intellectual and
moral natures if we wish really to lead
constantly higher life.


! In new temperance story are four
notices that should be engraven on the
| hearts of all those who in familiar phrase
are " turning over q new leaf" They
nre these "Look up and not down 3
! Look out and not in ;" "Look for
ward and not back - "Lend hand. "
These notices rest upon the fundamen-
tai principle that growth is from within
out that we shall Judge the tree by its
fruits, and not by digging it up to see
how far the roots penetrate the soil, or
by splitting it open to find if it is sound
| ut the heart.


! In the retrospect of the past year every
noble heart must admit that his highest
| joys and satisfactions have come from a
sense of duty faithfully done, of burdens
patiently borne, of temptations to evil
steadfastly resisted, of opportunities for
doing good gladly embraced Is there
one OF US who would not, if we could,
recall the ungenerous act of which we
have been guilty, the unkind word, the
selfish feelings The only thing which
we can do to atone for the past is to
avoid all these errors in the future, and
make the year to come one of sunshine
and JOY to all around us.


Not few look wearily forward to
months of anxiety, of want, of toll ana
pain that must come to them as the year
wears away. 1t is enough to live one
day mt time, and not mako its burden
intolerable by aiding to it the burden of
tomorrow or of yesterday. "As thy
day so shall thy strength be-" How
often do we pass even with checrfulii"ss
the most dreaded ordeal, and find our
fears and apprchensions infinitely more
painful than the reality. In this sense
we are to take no anxious thought for
the morrow sufficient unto the day is
| the evil thereof.


SO trusting, hopeful, patient, let us
enter upon the new year, looking up and
not down, out and not i'll, forward and
not back, and lending n helping hand t.
| all who ask and all who need.