F. G by F. G. | AdventAI

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 10, 1907

F. G

By F. G.

1907

ANOTHER year has passed. The new year is before us. How rapidly the years are passing away! How rapidly have the work of God in the earth is being finished! How important that every moment be used wisely, and yet how easy for valuable time to pass unimproved!

As we look back through the year, we can all see many neglected opportunities for doing good, and many mistakes which we have made. We can also see many ways in which the sparing mercy and love of God have been shown. We can see some encouraging growth in the divine way in the lives of all of us. The past we can not change. The future is not ours, but the present is given to us in which to correct the mistakes of the past and to lay broad plans for usefulness for the future.

Our schools all over the world have, during the past year, received a great impetus. Probably never before in the history of our work have our schools been so well filled with such an earnest class of students. Our educational convention during the last summer has certainly borne good fruit, and we look for many substantial results from it yet to come. That it has been an inspiration, not only to teachers, but to our people everywhere, is witnessed by these full schools. The most important period of an individual's life is the period of childhood and youth—a period of education. As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined. If we have an earnest company of workers going into all the world every year, we must have earnest students in our schools. We can never have these thoughts impressed too fully upon us.

It is a good thing for us to form resolutions and to make plans for improvement. Naturally we form these resolutions and lay these plans at the beginning of every year. There is, perhaps, no more reason for doing this at that time than at the beginning of every day. The apostle Paul said, “I die daily.” So should we, and yet, after all, there is something about the new year and the new-year's season which begets within us a desire that we may make greater advancement than we have made in the past. But this can be done only when from day to day there is this constant improvement seen.

As teachers we should have more of the love of God in our hearts, more of the spirit which animated the unselfish life of Christ, this coming year than we have had the past year. We should be more patient with the dull and slow pupil. We should be kinder but firmer in our discipline. We should put to a greater stretch all our intellectual power, recognizing that if we would be teachers, we must be learners. We should be found alone with our God, talking with him about our work and our shortcomings more than we have been. We should hold before our minds more continually the knowledge that we and our pupils will each have to stand at the judgment bar of God shortly. We should have more cheerfulness and more courage, realizing that God ever lives, and that he is our strength and helper. In these ways there may be far greater progress in our work this coming year than there has been in the past. By walking in these ways of improvement the year 1907 will be to us not only a happy new year in its beginning, but it will be a happy old year at its close.