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Show B THE FIRST NEW-YEAR'S DAY. fl The first New Year's Day was that day when fl God said "Let there be Light." The New 'World B had been freighted for its long voyage; the path- fl ways for the rivers had been hewed out; the B boundaries of the oceans had been prescribed; B the coal measures were all stored In the deep hold fl of the floating world; the seeds had been scat- B tered in the ground; the Nile, the Danube, the B Mississippi and the other great rivers had begun" B their flow. Niagara had awakened its roar; the fl Gulf Stream had found its way over its bed and fl between its banks of billows; the mountains had B been upreared, the highest stoou crowned with B snow; the glacier had begun its flow to make soil B for the races that were to be to cultivate, but all fl was hidden under a thick veil of vapors when, the B time being ripe, the time planned for and pre- B pared for millions of years before, out above Bf the chaos the voice sounded: HLet there be fl light." The vapors were lifted and borne away, fl the sunbeams filled the ether," and God saw the B light that it was good." And the melody of the B rolling axles of the stars became an anthem and fl the Universe rejoiced over the birth of a world. B That was the first New Year's Day. A lit- B tie later the new world put on Its clothing of fl shrub and grass and trees; a little later the first B birds awakened their songs. It was typical of what was to be on succeeding New Year Days. B Generally the New Year in this latitude finds the B world wrapped in the cold robes of the snows; B tho skies are heavy above, the voices of the streams are muffled and Ihere are no songs of B birds. But the promise is certain; the air will B soon grow soft; bud and flower will soon appear B and the emerald garments of the trees will be B Put on. There was joy in heaven over that first B Now Year, there has been joy m earth at every 1 return of the day. There is much of mystery in I this life of ours. The youth stands on the first.. I Shore of it and asks what is to be; the aged on the" I other shore ask the same question and there is no I response in words. But in tho sign language of I jhe stars and the seasons there are answers. With juo first there is an order that could come only fl J Innite direction and control, and never B a(ng brightness. With the season every year there 'is a death and a resuirection and after each sleep in the grave of the frost and the snow, there comes a new joyous life, new flowers and a new harvest. But the "earth is really only an inanimate mass of matter while man is given a capacity to suffer and to enjoy;, to roam the universe in thought, to measure the earth, the ' air and their elements, to weigh and photograph the stars and more, to form attachments here, which -were cruel if his life's span is limited to this life which we know. Whenever a door of Nature is opened and p new secret is revealed, it is more rare than- the preceeding one. We thought the magnetic telegraph tele-graph was wonderful, but'how much more wonderful won-derful is it to converse with a friend hundreds o miles away as we talk toft the fc.un at our side. How much more wonderful still is it that messages mes-sages can be flung off from plunging ships far out at sea, and to have those messages, like carrier car-rier doves, find the ones to whom they are addressed. ad-dressed. "Every new discoveryis a reminder of that first command "Let there be light!" That was on the first New YearJs Day and the greatest great-est comfort that comes now with" the day is the increasing assurance that hen the light in its absolute fullness shall be revealed to us, it will for us reveal Immortal life. |