People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1894 — The New Year. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The New Year.

UNTRIED, unknown and fair. With deep, mysterious eyes and star wreathed hair, Untouched by any breath of sin or shame. Undimmed by care the brow's white flame. The New Year meets us. face to face. Laden with gifts of grace: Die wealthy hears, with unknown blessings fraught, Fult space for earnest toll and fruitful thought. For kindly word and generous deed. For binding up the hearts that bleed. For conquering self and sin. For waxing strong within. Alas! all pale and cold, Slid drifting snows, withered and shrunk and old. We see the Old Year's sad, accusing ghost. Laden with treasures we have lost: The wasted hours, the deeds unwrought. The Idle word and thought, The waiting good wherein we weakly failed, Bharp tests of life, where strength or oourage quailed; The gracious toil we might have shared. The lost for whom we might have oared— Sweet Heaven, how can wo brook The Old Year’s ghostly look? Ah, let us gaze no more On loss and failure that have gone before: The future still hath space for truer life, For generous deeds and noble strife; The soul that cannot rise with wings May climb to higher things. And Thou, Almighty One in whom we trust, Who still rememberest wo are but dtist, Whose mercies all our sins outlast, Lift from our hearts the heavy past, That we may go with cheer To meet the glad New Year. —Samantha W. Shoup, in N. Y. Independent.