The Old Year and the New.
By N. Orcutt
Our old friend A. D. 1871 reached the close of his eventful life yesterday. As an intimate acquaintance and tried friend, he will be greatly missed, and held in grateful remembrance. He brought us many blessings, and, through his kind offices, we have been permitted to enjoy many precious privileges. He has brought rich lessons of instruction—taught us the evanescent nature of earthly things, admonished us of the shortness of time, the imminence of the closing scenes of this world's history, and the importance of preparation for events before us. During the three hundred and sixty-five days he was with us, in no instance did he fail daily to bring time for the varied, active duties of life, and afford the quiet hours of night for rest. He has disappointed no reasonable expectations, and so far as it was his province to do, he has supplied every actual want. The parting hour has come—is past. If that parting has seemed to come too soon, we cannot blame him, only ourselves. If we have put off, until another year, the work that should have been done while he was with us, we may show our respect for our old friend by profiting by the lessons he has taught us, by being no more guilty of procrastination, by improving the present hour, the only period we can call our own. His brother, 1872, succeeds him. We have made his acquaintance. He comes with promise of seed time and harvest, of favors scattered with lavish hand, as the changing seasons come and go, with their vicissitudes, their cares and labors, their blessings and privileges. He proposes to afford us time to accomplish our earnest life work while he is with us, and also to bring the needed seasons of repose. But the departed year did not do our work for us. It only brought us time to work. So with the present. The golden moments, rich with blessings, if not faithfully, wisely improved, will avail us nothing in the great consummation if we heedlessly and indolently let them pass unimproved. They will surely come up as witnesses against us, and insure our condemnation. Wisdom, then, would counsel great carefulness and circumspection while the new year strews our pathway with blessings, opportunities and privileges. It would admonish to earnestness and faithfulness in the great work before us, to consecration and self-sacrifice, to fight the good fight of faith, to so run that we may obtain. May the record of the present year, if we live to write its obituary, be less marred with blots and stains, be marked with more advancement in the divine life, that we may be able to review it with less regret than the one just closed. Jamaica, Vt., Jan. 1, 1872.