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Show YEARS MERELY LIFE'S CHAPTERS Offer Opportunity for Each of Us to Write Therein a Record Better Than the Preceding. THE coming year lies spread like the white plain that sweeps from the roadside to the distant forest where the gray squirrels are making tracks in the light snow. On this white sheet a little lit-tle record may be written ; not a full life story, but merely a brief chapter or two, like the chapters of squirrel life that may be read by one who today to-day ventures into the white forest. It is a great mystery that lies ahead, a treasure house of endless possibilities. possibili-ties. The span of a man's life is short ; shorter in absolute measurement measure-ment than the span of a year. For each year, when October fades into November, has wrought completeness. No human life can bring completeness. It cannot bring completeness of knowledge knowl-edge or completeness of happiness or completeness of good works. The best man can do, in his poor, limited way, Is to glean as much wisdom and win as much happiness and do as much good as the number of his days permits. per-mits. When the human October fades it may thus be rich and peaceful and without the scars of stormy days or the blight of wasted days and without undue regret that what should have been seen and known and done has not been seen and known and done. A YEAR'S completeness is but a twelvemonth. Our human incompleteness incom-pleteness covers many twelvemonths. How fortunate that each dawning year means a new opportunity to live and learn. Again and again we may take up the thread and advance toward the goal of apprehension. We may study God's works and year by year come nearer to an appreciation of them. We can never fully appreciate them, for our minds are finite, nnd they are in- finite. But each succeeding year Is a new opportunity. It offers the perfection perfec-tion of completeness, and by even a partial comprehension of its fullness we may move toward fulfillment of the measure of our lives. . . "I am not afraid," said Thoreau, "that I shall exaggerate the value and significance of life, but that I shall not be up to the occasion which it is. I shall be sorry to remember that I was there, but noticed nothing remarkable not" so much as a prince in disguise; lived in the golden age a hired man ; visited Olympus even, and fell asleep after dinner, and did not hear the conversation con-versation of the gods." ONE who loves only artificiality, who does not note the excellence of the world he has been set to rule, proves himself unworthy of his heritage, herit-age, and is punished by bitter unrest. His life lacks the boon of contentment which includes all boons. There are, or course, the few whose mental scope is too narrow for self-measurement. They do not even know that they are discontented and may enjoy life as the ox enjoys life. They are fortunate. The unfortunate man is the one who has, even dimly, an understanding that the world is good and beautiful and that he is failing to reap the richness that is rightly his. The coming year is indeed a great mystery, full of possibilities. Whoever Who-ever has not watched and studied the v- OW many of us are wait-ing wait-ing for the opportunities f B of the coming year! With si how many of us is it the unuttered hope that tomorrow, next weeK. next month, the next yearmay be as today in its privileges priv-ileges and opportunities, only far more abundant. We are told that the first day of the New Year is an appropriate time to form good resolutions. But the New Year is tomorrow, and there is a better time for such a tasK, and that time is today. to-day. For "now is the accepted time." Bishop H. C, Potter. passing years may begin today ; it is never too late. Whoever has long watched and loved the years will know that to his knowledge, however ripe, much will be added. He will advance ad-vance a step nearer to the goal of contentment, con-tentment, and in so advancing will increase in-crease his human usefulness, his helpfulness. help-fulness. , THE year dawns on an earth red with blood, an earth torn with strife. It will be for most of the people peo-ple of the earth a year of sorrow and of sacrifice. But for all this it will not be a bad year. Not half of civilized civil-ized mankind but all mankind that has not forgotten the meaning of civilization civiliza-tion has been unselfishly, heroically engaged in the needful work of ridding rid-ding the world of a noxious parasitic growth, the poisonous fungus of militarism. mili-tarism. For those who gave themselves them-selves to this essential work it will be a good year. For all who are suffering suffer-ing that the years to come may be happier and healthier the year will be a good year. rc!ru:.ry will bring its crystal brightness. April will spread hei feast of flowers. June will display hei green perfection of beauty. August will offer the ripening grains ; October the laden orchards. The year will take no heed of the crime that has been done by man or of the vengeance that marched inexorably. POETS died in the trenches of Gal-lipoli Gal-lipoli and France, watching God's sunrise or the wispy clouds in the blue. British gentlemen caked with the mud of Flanders wrote detailed reports re-ports of their observations of migratory migra-tory birds and of the effect of drumfire drum-fire on bird life. French students and scholars, bearded . and dirty, made careful notes of the' flora of the Meuse and the Somme. These men visited Olympus and did not fall asleep while the gods conversed. con-versed. Neither did they permit the roar of man's fury to drown out the divine voices. So it must be a good year that is ahead. There can be no bad years. The years are measured by God and not by the evil that men do. |