OUR FIRST PAGE ILLUSTRATION.
Our New Year's number greets our readers with a first page which is a sermon in itself. It will bear much study. The design is by Mr. W. H. B. Miller, and its execution by Mr. Pedro Lemos, both connected with this office. Its story is thrice told. In the four corners of the picture—upper left and right, and lower left and right, in order—are scenes typical of the four seasons of the year. Opening spring, with her wealth of bloom; summer, with her fields of grass and grain; autumn, with its falling leaves and store of fruit; winter, with its silent forests, its covering of pure white snow, old age and death of the year. Within the circle of the season-sketches are four typical scenes in the life of man: bouyant childhood, filled with brimming life, engaged in vigorous sport; strong young manhood, launched upon the business sea of commerce, trade, and manufactures; middle manhood in his house, surrounded by family, bound by home ties; and ripe old age, drinking from the Guide and Fountain of life cheer and comfort and strength for the rest of life's journey. The sunrise above, the night scene below, the hour glasses, one just beginning to empty its sands, and the other with the sands almost spent, are also typical of life's brief day and its fleetness. In the center are the words of life from the Book of God, teaching the lesson which the picture, as well as all life, ever suggests to the thoughtful heart, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” May the words of Moses, the man of God, be the prayer of every one of our readers, together with the closing petition of the beautiful psalm: “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.”