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A NEW YEAR.

OTHING new can be said about a New

Year. It is the time to take account of the old, repent of our sins, carry mistakes to profit and loss, and transform their crude ore to golden wisdom. It brings little that is new beside itself, and we only exchange the irretrievable past for the hopeful future, the dead certainty for the living uncertainty. We learn as we go on, how little is secure until it is past and concluded, and that, after all our demonstrable knowledge, exact science, and accurate time-tables, there is a subtle element, swift and penetrating, or mild, slow and pervasive, that eludes our calculations. The conquests of intelligence have not perceptibly reduced the area of the unknown. The guides of life are not demonstrations, but opinions, judgments, probabilities and faith. New contingencies arise with new discoveries, and every new fixed fact has a group of new unfixed circumstances. The future event is as uncertain to-day as it

ever was.

The only certainty is principle; as new as to-day, and as old as the universe. On this

all change, all progress centers. The eternal foundations are sentiments: Honor, Shame, Patriotism, Reverence, Love of Beauty, Justice, Goodness, Conscience: these have no times or seasons, and suffer no mutations of uncertainty or doubt. To understand this is the difference between Wisdom and Knowledge, between Change and Growth. Steadied on this, change passes by us, giving us our dates, while we ourselves are firm, and we use change while change does not use us. The Greek poet had the insight of inspired genius when he said:

"Disgraceful it is to understand Divinity and dogmatic truths,

And yet be ignorant of Justice."

WHAT SHALL I DO WITH LIFE?

THAT more important question can any

by the mys

What shall

We are body

soul ask? Here we are in a whirling world, tied to it for a time terious something we call life. we do? How shall we live? and soul. We have strong tendencies to mere animal existence comfort, indulgence, enjoyment; but we are also prompted to a higher life the spiritual- wherein we forego self, deny the body, and seek good and God.

What does our Creator desire of us? what is our part in the plan and purpose of the universe? Clearly not to suppress our better nature and smother the divine spark in striving for what the world can give. If we are satisfied with its prizes, we sell our birthright, we forfeit life's opportunity, we suffer boundless loss, and die with shriveled souls. Shall we, then, give up that which is natural and seek alone the spiritual? Shall we leave the world, or, if we stay, count it common and unclean?

Not so. All things are made for man, that by them and through them, with the

grace of God, he may work out his destiny and be fitted for higher life. They are given to gratify, but not to satisfy. Man's crowning glory is that he is too great to rest in any of the gifts of life;—that a divine discontent sends him forth seeking ever higher good till he finds his home in the Eternal Good.

Man is on earth to grow. Life is his school, and he may learn its lesson if he will. Progress is man's distinction, and sluggish content cheats him of it; hence the trials and failures that keep him from that which is virtue in the ox are blessings.

What, then, shall we do with lifebear it patiently and bravely? Yes, and more. Take it up gladly, as a heritage; enjoy it rationally; trust God, not fearing to use what He gives, and go forward with all courage.

If we live truly, we shall count no duty small and no sacrifice great; we shall love strongly, aspire unceasingly, and find life's highest end in being.

CHARLES A. MURDOCK.

SELECTIONS FROM ROBERT BROWNING.

AKE all in a word: the truth in God's

ТАКИ

breast

Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed :
Though he is so bright and we so dim,
We are made in His image to witness Him.
-Christmas Eve.

All that is, at all,

Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand

sure:

What entered into thee,

That was, is, and shall be:

Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. -Rabbi Ben Ezra.

I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made

Light for me in the darkness, tempering

sorrow

So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt thy
-Paracelsus.

love.

This is the honor,-that no thing I know, Feel or conceive, but I can make my own