This di to an end a trail which hi start twelve months since. The trail was thought to lead to days with more in them of hope and light. Now, when it shows the end, the men who came by it grow fierce in their wrath. Yet are they. right? Has not the trail ted them just by that route for which their own needs knit} them? If it his thrown them into much toil and moil, has it not brought to them some meed of grace? No; to a year that dies few will hand out crowns.
The ruts, the hills, the sloughs, are fresh in the mind of the men who now look to the next trait with clear hope. They give no thanks to a year which they hold has ill paid them for their pains. But it may be that the New Year, now drest for the part, wilt hate to see that so scant a bow, so black a glance are all the Old Year gets as its dues. There will be ruth for this void in the Old Year's score, There will also'be the thought—grim and terse—that at the end of the next twelve months, the draught which is found tobe meet for One Nine Three Nought may be held to be the full due of One Nine Three One, So as the New Year will soon be a guest—the clock is all keen to bring it in—it should needy be the care of all to meet ity whims, to soothe its fears. With, this in view let the last whisk of the skirt of the Old Year fade in the gloom to the kiss of some thought for the past twelve months, They have not been all bane. They have had their bright days, hours, gleams, The fringe which lines the cloudg has been not, in good sooth, that pale ore which by the crime of the Old Year his been made near to dross, but the vague hints of a dawn, which holds, in some day yet to come, a fair hope of new things, girt' with more strength of plan, That imp of an Old Year has had its tricks, has, in fact, a tale of crime to leave on the book. Still it did at times deign to laugh, to smirk. to woo with swift flash, here and there, of joy. Let it go to its place in the Shades with as good a heart as can be, When the end of the trail has come the part of them who have made it is to pause for just one trice to think, to look back, On the Hill to which the trail has led or, be it, in the depth of the vale, where its track is cut short by the firm hand of the Time 'Man, they can see what were the risks which, for all its sad faults, the trail' took them past, In short the Old might have been far worse; had it not made much of all tropes which, it could see, would help in the safe and sure trudge on the road, the death knell of hope of the New Year might have well rung. Nor can it be let go in doubt of the truth that, by its dire as well as by its good days—few, grant it, though the last were—much good for health mind, of frame, of soul, has been taught. On the top of the hill or in the deep shade of the vale, they who have won through can at least point with pride to the strength which they had to call to their aid to bring them thus far. They can feel in their limbs the glow of a force well spent. They can look on to the next hill as it tops the cliack vale or up to the height which calls them, with calm hope for their trust in their own Fate has by the test of the Old Year been made more firm; their sight has been made more clear by the stress of the strain and storms through which the Old Year has led them, So, when all is said and done, when the hands of the clock, with their dour pace, creep slow but grim to the hour of the End which means, of course the howe of the Start, let a kind glance, soft word and a bland thought be cast on the dim form of One Nine Three Nought, before the hands are held out tin glee, hope and trust to the new berm One Nine Three One.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.