Signs of the Times
[From the New Outlook, Toronto, Ontario, Canada]
There is a story, whether legend or fact we cannot say, which tells us that in certain German communities in days gone by it was the custom of the people to make New Year's Day into a kind of day of reconciliation. If there had been any quarrels or estrangements during the year between friends or relatives, mutual visits were interchanged on the first day of the year, kindly greetings were given and received and, in the warm glow of a day of rejoicing and good will, the effort was at least earnestly made that everything disagreeable and divisive should be forgiven and forgotten. The story is certainly good enough to be true, and if the custom ever really did prevail it is a thousand pities that it should fall into disuse. And Germany is not the only place in the world where such a good custom might be followed with very great profit.
A grudge of any sort is one of the very poorest and meanest sort of things that anyone can carry around with him, and to think of taking it over into the freshness of a new year does seem so utterly foolish and shortsighted. For its possibilities for destroying peace and comfort and satisfaction are just about beyond reckoning. And the pride or stupidity or whatever it is that might prevent our initiating this good old custom and exorcising from our hearts and lives the last and least remains of ill will and unkindliness toward any fellow being, could not be called anything but the least worthy and seemly thing about us.
There is no doubt about it, the observance of New Year's time as a time of kindly reconciliation to the whole world would be a means of grace to many of us of inestimable value. Suppose, if there is any occasion, that we try it!
[From the Church Visitor, Dallas, Wisconsin]
The coming year will be one of the great years of God. Great problems have to be settled. New reforms must be instituted. Old evils should be uprooted. The church ought to be awakened to greater service and sacrifice. To do this, you should take three choice companions with you to help you.
Take faith with you. You will need it. Things will go against you. Like Elijah of old, you may be flat on your back under the juniper tree before the year is over; but faith will put you on your feet again. Faith is a great life-power. It brings you into vital union with God through Christ. It enlarges a man's life and increases his capacity to do things.
Usually the men of great faith are the men of large achievement. The man who has faith will fight on when other men get tired and quit. Have faith in yourself. Give out the best that is in you this year. Have faith in others. Help the other fellow to do better this year. Have faith in the power of God. He can change things in a day. Have faith in the wisdom of God; He will explain things by and by. Shortly before Tennyson died he said, "The most passionate desire of my life is to have a clearer and fuller faith in God." This is the need of the hour.
Take hope with you. Faith will start you, hope will keep you going. You cannot get along without hope. Despair is the great enemy of life, but hope is the great friend of life. Hope is at the bottom of nearly all the great things done for God or man. If you are doing anything worth while now the lamp of hope is burning on the horizon of your life. The God of hope is one of the most beautiful descriptions of God found in the Bible. In spite of all the faults and failures of the past year, God still has hope in us and bids us have hope. Very likely before the year is past you will get stuck in the mud, or the way will be so dark you will not know which way to turn. Have hope. It will help you wait until the mud dries or the clouds roll by.
Take love with you. Love is a victorious grace. It is the greatest of all the three spiritual companions. It believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. It kills selfishness, heals broken hearts, casteth out all fear. What heavy loads love will help you carry; what hardships to bear; what sorrows to endure. Love has had a hard time the last few years. Give extra measure this year. Men and women everywhere are dying for a word of cheer, and hungry for a bit of love. When the poet Whittier was dying he was heard to say, "Give my love to the world." There are bushels of love in your heart that you have never given to anyone. Give it while you are living, give it to-day, give it to-morrow, give it all through this year.
[Editorial in the Volunteer's Gazette, New York]
It has been said that a picture without any sky in it is defective; and what is the life and experience of any man or woman without a vision of God widening the horizon of our view? The sky line, the far blue limit of the ocean, the peak of distant mountains call for heads held high, shoulders squared, and, above all, a good far-sight. Alas! many are spiritually shortsighted, and with sagging shoulders and bowed heads they walk the path of life seeing only those temporal things that surround them, and are oblivious to the glorious things that would call "Excelsior" to their efforts, hopes, and ambitions.
Let us grow those wings of the sou!—prayer and faith—that we may rise above the entangling and hampering pursuits of time, and breathe largely of the inspiring atmosphere of divine aspirations.
[Editorial in the Evening Democrat, Fort Madison, Iowa]
With the new year ... there will be the usual indulgence in New Year resolutions. It may be argued that the practice is a harmless one and should not be discouraged. It may be said with almost as much truth that very little of a worth-while nature results from the practice.
Making resolutions to be better and to do good is a practice always to be commended and encouraged. Why one has to wait until the beginning of a new year in order to being being better is difficult to comprehend.
Mortals are too much inclined to take the element of time into consideration as they make their plans. They are either regretting the mistakes of yesterday or making plans concerning to-morrow. Instead, they should be engaged in working out the problems of to-day.
To-day, the ever present now, is the only time anything is ever done. Right now is the time to start doing worthwhile things. "Behold, now is the day of salvation," the Scriptures tell us. The man who enjoys the privileges of a present salvation is the man who takes advantage of the ever present now.
It may be argued that mortals have not reached the point where they can ignore the element of time entirely, all of which is true enough. But it is likewise true that mortals devote entirely too much consideration to time as an element of their activities. Forgetting yesterday, giving no thought to the morrow, and taking advantage of every opportunity to-day offers will mean much to us, and do much for us. Then the new year will see us as any other period sees us—exerting every intelligent effort to take full advantage of every opportunity.
[From a sermon in St. Andrew's Monthly Calendar and Letter, West Kirby, Cheshire, England]
I am going to make a resolution this morning to try to be kinder in what I say, and I ask you to make the same resolution. I have made this resolution a good many times before but, after all, resolutions of this kind are only what the New Testament calls repentance, and that is something which we have got to be doing constantly. So let us all resolve that during the coming week, the coming month, we will try our very best never to say anything unkind. This need not really make our conversation dull....
Our love then consists in an attitude of mind towards our neighbor; and our attitude of mind towards our neighbor, whether we love him or no, displays itself, more than anything, in what we say to him and about him. Whenever we say anything cruel to or about anybody else, we deny our Christianity. If we are constantly doing this, we really have no right to call ourselves Christians, for love is the hall mark of a Christian, the quality by which he is to be known. I think that we ought to be far more disturbed that Christians so often say unkind things about one another than that everybody does not come to church.
For Jesus never suggested that everybody would rush into Christianity. Rather he suggested exactly the opposite. But he did say that Christians were to be the salt of the earth and "if the salt have lost his savour, where-with shall it be salted?" What is this savor of the salt? I suppose that is love. And the quality of the salt is no less important than the quantity. Indeed, I imagine it to be the more important.
Let us then prove ourselves Christians in the ordinary affairs of life; for the Christian quality of love reveals itself not in grand but in quite simple ways, in our courtesy, in our reasonableness, in our kindness. And let us be specially careful about our conversation, about those unkind things which we blurt out on the spur of the moment, about the unkind things which we say in cold blood, because we think them rather clever. Such unkind remarks are destructive of Christianity. At such moments we deny that we are disciples of Christ. For, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another;" and our tongues are the members with which more often than any other we betray the absence of this all-important quality.
[Editorial in the Weekly Times, London, England]
The man who longs for newness of spirit is inclined to look for some spectacular moment of conversion, some sign that will be proof to himself and others of the change which he desires. Instead of losing heart because the sign is not given him, he may take comfort from the familiar difficulty. He need not despair if, in spite of renewed resolve, he seems to himself no other at the end of the first day, week, or month of the new year than he was on the last day of the old. If only his eye is steadfast on the new course that he has set, the slowly growing gap between old and new will yet be there to be seen of all.
