Greeting the New Year with Joy. THE passing of old years, and the coming of new, will stir deep feeling in human hearts to all generations; and, probably, that feeling will be intensified rather than diminished, at all events for some time to come. For the nineteenth century grows aged, and multitudes expect to witness its end; and the Millennium to which it belongs is already so hoary that grandchildren of some now living will see it give place to the third from the Birth of Christ, or, if not, the end of mortal history is very near indeed. Of course those living persons are amongst the latest comers to our globe. This approximative completion of a great period of time, emboldens a number of prophets, of the uninspired order, to assert the termination of humanity's ordinary career at, or very near, the end of the next 116 years; say, making allowance for slight errors in our chronology, late in 1999, or early in 2000. The said prophets profess to have somehow discovered that the millennium of millenniums cannot be postponed beyond that time. Their notion is that the six working days of the week are an exact numerical type of six thousand years of toil and strife, after which last, and in correspondence with the day of rest, will come the promised thousand years of peace. They think they know the precise duration of the great week of time, and almost exactly when its long sabbath is to dawn. They also point to the accelerating speed with which population is now overtaking the habitable spaces of the earth, and would persuade all men that in little more than another century it will be necessary for the Almighty to arrest the influx of life to this planet, and, that therefore, the tremendous transition is certainly about to burst upon mankind. Real prophets were very reticent with regard to dates, but the uninspired treat them with a freedom enough to rouse the envy of angels, could they feel that passion, for the time of the end is concealed even from heavenly minds. However while wise men neither perpetrate nor accept unauthorized predicting, they are fully conscious of the increasing significance of the ages. They will not help to set up a huge conclusion on its unstable apex of a small assumption, and yet, not the less, to them the new time brings with it a quickened sense of the growing yearfulness of the past, and of the oncoming of a majestic climax hidden in the future. Thus the interest with which the progress of time is watched is going to strengthen year by year, quite independently of the unwarranted excitement which may be roused in credulous minds by audacious modern prophets. But perhaps the most remarkable fact in human relationship to the lapse of time is the general agreement that a special cheerfulness befits the advent of the years. What then is the highest meaning of that instinctive gladness with which men greet the birth of a New Year? It would be easy to account for any solemnity, or even sadness in beings who are so much nearer to compulsory separation from those they love, and all that interests them here; but is there any authority for the common joy? Well, the deep instincts of man are never wholly wrong, and whoever welcomes the New Year with a gladness for which he can find no sufficient reason, is so far right that if he seek, he will find absolute sanction for an exultation as much better than instinctive gladness as noon is brighter than night. Too many are content to wear a look of gladness, not because they possess real joy, but because instinct suggests (truly enough) that they ought to possess it. The quaint and gentle "Elia" makes himself an example of this capital error, in his touching essay on "New Year's Eve." "Every man," he says, "has two birthdays," one especially his own, which is frequently allowed to pass without notice. "But the birth of a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. From that all date their time, and count upon what is left." Above that mournful minor tone of "counting upon what is left," he never really rises, not even when he professes to be absolutely jovial. Whoever reads his essay gets a melancholy impression. There is a palpitation as of the raven wing of fear; and the very gaiety with which it ends is like the forced cheerfulness of one who whistles in the gloom only because he is afraid, a mere merriment upon the lip that is not in the heart. It is utter sadness not to have a better joy than that comfortless laugh, the poor let-us-be-happy-while-we-may, with which Charles Lamb dismissed his "prophetic fear of things" to welcome 1821. It is not by cheating our fears that we can step bravely into the future, joyfully growing older; but only by having no fears to cheat. Nothing can make us fearless while exalting our consciousness, except the voice and touch of infinite unchanging love. Apart from that, the awful history of our race is the despair of reason, and the perfect secrecy of the future is the burial of hope. Infinite Love is calm; He lived and reigned before sin and death existed: He is joyful; He will live and reign, when sin and death shall be no more and it is His firm kind will that human hearts should share His calm, and participate in His joy. What can terrify men who are in such a partnership? To them, the footstep of Eternal Power is upon this roaring sea of time; His voice comes through the storm commanding them to be not afraid, and they know that the whole tempest of sin and sorrow must subside when he shall say " Peace be still." "Such men have positive authority for being of good cheer. True, they cannot grasp His stupendous plan, for within its amazing magnitude years are momentary, centuries mere hours, and millenniums but short watches of an æonial night; yet they are joyful because the plan of all-wise Goodness must be worthy of Himself. Who by searching can find out God? Perchance He would have barred the genesis of evil, but that He intends its issue to be permanent good infinitely transcending its temporary harm. It may be that He wanted one dark world to be a monitor to all His myriad worlds of light, and that its sad phenomena confirm them forevermore in their happy loyalty to Him; such confirmation to be an effect surviving its cause. It is certain that on behalf of children who have rebelled against Him, He is unfolding compassions and self-sacrifice which could not apply to sinless beings, and which but for the cross He has borne from the foundation of the world they might never have been able to imagine. Whether He could be fully known without His cross or not, He is so revealing the royalties of His nature, and building up mercy for ever GREETING the new YEAR WITH JOY. 7 that He will be more loved and honoured as the Redeemer of His lost world than as the Creator of His universe. Those who have discovered the hold that man has upon Him through His love, are content to trust Him, rejoicing that His thoughts are higher than ours. We have no question of His goodness that He did not create us in some unfallen sphere; Eternal Love has not forsaken us, and He will know how to justify His ways with all His creatures. We have known and believed the love which God hath for us, therefore we are glad to serve Him here. Our utmost need has found a fulness in His delight to pardon, our helplessness has felt the succour of His mighty Spirit. In our unexplained sorrows; in all our struggle with self for a nobler life; in every ministration of good to others; in each attempt to bear true witness to His glorious Name, we are answering the purpose with which Love placed us here, and we have no fear that any loss will result to us at last, from those adverse conditions under which we must strive to do His will. Love has taught us that our brightest mercies are the promise of some better thing; our bitterest sorrows the shadows of some great coming joy; and our hardest conflicts the prophecy of a long and splendid triumph. Therefore are we joyful even while the tears are in our eyes, blessing Him that He will have us smile as well as weep, and that He comforts us when we bear His cross of self-sacrifice, so immeasurably better than self-seeking. Thus we hail the New Year with all that it can bring, for good is the outcome of all things to them that love Him. We enter it with prayer born of our weakness and our trust in His power; seeking clearer understanding of His nature and His work, more love of all He is, more valour in His cause, more steadfast hope in His Word, and a constant ascent towards fitness for service in His sinless realms. The crown of joy in the New Year is that we are nearer to the New Creation, to the festival of the ages and of man, when sorrow and sighing shall flee away, and death shall be swallowed up victoriously. Our hearts beat high with anticipation of that undated, but resistlessly approaching triumph of Love; our whole being thrills with presentiment of the acceptable happy New Year of the Lord, when all nations shall call Him blessed, and the earth shall be filled with His glory. EDWARD HALL JACKSON. The power of choosing right or wrong makes man a moral agent; his actually choosing wrong makes him a sinner.-Lyman Beecher, D.D. The morning mist floats upwards from some still mountain tarn, and rests for awhile in embodied glory in the sunlight, and is lost in the pure infinity of noon.-Edwin Hatch. There is no philosophy that can be compared to, or can supplant, that which says, "This is life eternal: to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."-Lavater. Somebody has said that there are four grand divisions in the church: the destroyers, the obstructors, the idlers, and the workers. To one of these classes every church member belongs. To which one does the reader belong? To be a worker is the duty of each. It is a high privilege; it is to co-operate with God and Christ and the Holy Ghost in the Divine gracious purposes towards the children of men. AFTER quoting Emerson to the effect "that the virtue of books is to be readable, and of orators to be interesting," and after reminding the Yale students that a once popular Birmingham preacher said to him, "When I speak I make up my mind that the people shall listen to me, if they don't listen it doesn't matter what you say," Dr. Dale said: "Gentlemen, I decline to believe that dulness is necessary to dignity." To me, those utterances are admirable, and if the legacy left me by the Past Worthy Editor-the remaining threads of his editorial mantle-(last vol. p. 427) have any virtue left in them, I hope they will mercifully prevent this article from being dull, and at the same time make it readable. Whether it will be understandable in all particulars is more than I can say, for a poet, now deceased, has said "They speak in riddles north, beyond the Tweed, Ignorance of this last line sorely puzzled an English lady on one occasion. It was her first visit to Scotland, and the night was cold. "Shall I put a pig in your bed to keep you warm ?" asked the chambermaid. The lady indignantly told her to "leave the room," and threatened to inform the mistress of her insolence. She could not understand that it was the custom of both ladies and gentlemen to have a pig in bed with them. Nor was she reconciled when told that the pig would be put in a poke, with its mouth tied up, and placed between the sheets. It seemed worse than sleeping in an Irish cabin. But the good lady's horror was turned to laughter when she found that the dreaded pig was nothing worse than an earthenware vessel full of hot water. SCOTTISH HUMOUR is as peculiar as the Scottish dialect. Although we are indebted to Scotland for many a joke, and for an abundance of good stories, there is truth in Sydney Smith's saying, that "a surgical operation was needed in order to put a joke into a Scotchman's head. Plenty of jokes come out, but singularly enough, in many cases, those who utter them don't see the fun. They say the queerest, quaintest, and most laughable things without knowing it. What they say affords amusement to others, but it is amusement like that which is created when For the anecdotes in this paper I am largely indebted to "Scottish Characteristics," by Paxton Hood, and to "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character," by Dean Ramsay. BANNOCKS FROM THE LAND Ơ CAKES. 9 you see a man walking through the street with a piece of paper pinned to his back. You laugh, but he walks on without a thought that he is ministering to your amusement; and, indeed, it is the fact that he so gravely and unconsciously carries with him the ludicrous, that makes you laugh the more. 66 It is humour of that kind which appears in the story of a shepherd who went to the minister for baptism. Said the minister, "I hope you are prepared, Thomas, for so important an occasion." Weel," answered Thomas, "I am not padly prepared for my condition in life. I've a kist fou o' bannocks, and twa stane of good cheese, and a braxy ham." "Ah! Thomas," said the minister, "you are indeed carnallyminded; it's the letter and no' the speerit o' the ordinance ye've been keeping in mind." "Ah, weel," replied Thomas, "I didn't forget that neither, for I've a jar of rael good stuff from Duncan the innkeeper." It is not to be wondered at, if, in a Sabbath-loving and a God-fearing country, very much of the Scottish humour plays about the pulpit and the kirk, and about religious subjects. THE SIN OF WHISTLING ON A SUNDAY. A Highlander proved the God-fearing character of his neighbours by the following incident:-"Last Sabbath, just as the kirk was skailin', there was a drover chield frae Dumfries comin' along the road and whistlin', an' lookin' as happy as if it was ta muddle o' the week: weel, sir, oor laads is a God-fearing set o' laads, an' they were just comin' oot o' the kirk-'od they yokit upon him, an' a'most killed him!" In another case when Dr. Guthrie wanted hot water for shaving on a Sunday morning, his Sabbatarian host replied, "Speak of shaving on the Lord's-day in Ross-shire, and you never need preach here more.' An old henwife went farther than this, for she expressed disappointment at the manifest disregard of the Sabbath which was exhibited by Dorking fowls. On her mistress, Lady Macneil, inquiring if the fowls were laying well, she answered with no little earnestness and emphasis, "Indeed, my leddy, they lay every day, no' excepting the blessed Sabbath." We are not to suppose, however, that the people who reverenced the Sabbath to this extent did it out of superstitious ignorance. One of them, at any rate, a servant girl, proved herself a good casuist. She would milk the cows on the Sabbath, but she wouldn't feed them, saying in her defence, "The cows canna milk themselves, so to milk them is a clear work of necessity and mercy; but let them out to the fields, and they'll feed themselves." THE OLD SCOTCH MINISTER. One could find enough to say of him, and of his people, to fill far more than the space allotted me. Take a specimen of his Psalter, from "The Psalms: frae Hebrew until Scottis, by P. H. Waddell, LL.D." ENGLISH. "Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke." "He delighteth not in the strength of the horse; He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man." SCOTCH. "Tang but the heights, an' they'll reek." "He cares nane for the strength o' the aiver; likes as little the shanks o' the carl." |