LITMIR.BIZ

      A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

      Words repeated by how many myriads, in how many zones—tropic, temperate, frigid, wherever the English tongue is spoken! Words said commonly with more of meaning and sincerity than fall to the lot of many almost-of-course salutations. Words in which there is a shade of melancholy, and a gleam of gladness; a lingering of regret, with the very new birth of anticipation. “A Happy New Year.”

      Ah, but it is not unlike parting with an old friend, the saying good-bye to the Old Year. And it seems unkind to turn from him who has so long dwelt with us, and to take up too jauntily with a new friend.

       He had his faults: but, at any rate, we know them; and those of the new-comer have yet to be discovered. And his virtues seem to stand out in bolder relief, now that we feel that we shall never see him again. Such experiences, too, we have had together! we have been sad and merry in company, and the days of our past society come with a warm rush to our heart:—

      “Though his eyes are waxing dim,

       And though his foes speak ill of him,

       He was a friend to me.”

      And so we keep hold still of his hand, loth, very loth indeed to part—as we sit in silence by the flickering fire, and listen to the sudden bursts and sinking of the bells.

      It is our habit—(I speak in the name of myself, and of many of my readers)—it is an immemorial custom with us, to assemble, all that can do so, in the old home, from which we have at different times taken wing—to gather together there again, on the last night of the Old Year. I have heard the plan objected to, but I never heard any objections that to my mind seemed weighty ones. True, the gaps that must come from time to time, are perhaps most of all brought prominently, sadly before us, at such a gathering as this. We miss the husband, the brother, the sweet girl-daughter, the little one’s pattering feet—ah, sorely, sorely then! Last year the familiar face was here, and now, now, far away, under the white sheet of snow. This is sad, but it is not a mere unstarlit night of gloom. Nay, I maintain that, to those who look at it rightly, more and brighter stars of comfort shine out then than at other times to compensate for the deepening dark. There is the comfort of sympathy, and of seeing in all surrounding faces how the lost one was loved. But, especially, it seems as though, when all are met again, he may not be far away from the circle that was so unbroken upon earth:—

      “Nor count me all to blame if I

       Conjecture of a stiller guest,

       Perchance, perchance, among the rest,

       And, though in silence, wishing joy.”

      And most of all, there is the old-fashioned, but ever new comfort—balm, indeed, of Gilead, for every bereaved heart.

      “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

      “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”

      And these home gatherings, yearly growing more incomplete, and yearly increasing, lead the heart to glad thought of that reunion hereafter, in that House of our Father in which the mansions are many, the Home, one.

      Well, you are gathered, my friend and reader, you and your dear ones, about your father’s fireside on this last night of the Old Year. The hours have stolen on: at ten o’clock the servants came in, and the last family prayers have been offered up, and the last thanksgiving of the assembled household for this year; and the chamber candlesticks have been set out, and the father has drawn his chair near the fire, and another log cast upon it crackles and flashes; and each and all announce the intention of seeing the Old Year out and the New Year in.

      Cheery talk, reminiscent talk, pensive talk, thankful talk; a little silence. The wind flaps against the window, and throws against it a handful of the Old Year’s cast-off leaves. The clock on the mantelpiece gives eleven sharp, clear tings. The year has but an hour to live. And now the wind brings up a clear ring of bells; and then sinks, that the Old Year may die in peace, and his requiem be well heard over the waking land.

      But an hour to live! And the burden of depression that ever comes with the exceeding sweetness of bells, loads, grain after grain, the descending scale of your spirits. It is a solemn time, a time for quiet: a time in which it is well to leave even the dear faces, and to get you apart alone with God.

      So you steal away from the fireside blaze; and ascend the creaking stairs, and enter your own room; and close the door, even as a dear Friend long ago advised; and offer the last worship of the year—confessions, supplications, intercessions, praises. You go over the dear names, sweet beads of the heart’s rosary, telling them one by one to God, with their several wants and needs. You mention once more the special blessings to them and to yourself of the past year. You put, once more, all the future for them and for you into that kind, wise Father’s hand; and you feel rested then, and at peace. A few words read, for the last time this year, in the Book of books; and now there is yet a little space for quiet thought about the dying year, before his successor enters at the door.

      And it is then, as you sit pensively before the dancing fire, alone in your silent room—while the bell music now comes in bursts, and now dies in whispers—that a sort of abstract of many thoughts that have hovered about you all day is summoned up before your mind. It is the hour of soft regret, helped, I say, by those merry, melancholy bells, which

      “Swell up and fail, as though a door

       Were shut between you and the sound.”

      You have had your sad times in the year that is so nearly dead; you have shed your bitter tears; you have had your lonely

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