We have come through the mercy: of God to the beginning of a new year. Its days lie all unknown and untrodden before us. Tt cannot be an easy year. As we peer fore ward we too sce rivers to cross, dificaltics to overcome, mountains to climb and entrenched ener We do well to heed the warning of Joshua, we must be certain that we have with us, going before us, the Ark of God.
What does 1926 hold for us? Of one thing we may be quite certain: it will not be another journey over fi an old road that we have trodden many times before and can attempt in little care or preparation. We are so apt to plan and go forward expecting a more or Tess monotonous repetition of last year, failing to realize that the fature will never be, can never be the same as the past. Even in the same old rut there will be many changes. Even the same old Guties and enjoyments will not be quite the same. Could outward circumstances be exactly reduplicated, we who experience them are not the same, Perfect reproduction of any past is quite impossible.
Then there are changes of fortune, of circumstances, of surroundings.
And then there are the great and far reaching changes that come te someone every dey. That may come to anyone of us any day. That will come to everyone sooner oF Tater. Befure unciker New Year's mary theasesds of souls that the world today, men and strong and well as you ill have passed fe. The great me knows to shorn the call will verne and how close it will come to us and our Toved ones.
We face a future all unknown and mercifully hidden from us, "Ye have not passed this way heretofore."
We face to-day a world so unstable, so charged with possibilities that the most daring hesitates to prophesy what a year may bring forth in thix rapidly changing world. Changes must come, we hope and pray that the change may be from the wilderness, the chaos, into. the promised " land, though to many it seems well nigh impossible, 'We must be prepared to face new situations, to meet mew problems. 'We must' realize how new and un. charted but assuredly difficult is the year upon which we enter and bring to it every faculty alert and every ounce of energy we possess. Yes and more than that, the consciousness of our own weak-nes and our need of the guidance and help of God.
Look again ut our text. The Childven of Israel had a hard campaign before them, True they had a lender who was a strategist of the highest order, a great soldier, And the nation had been schooled for forty long years in the wilderness in discipline. They knew what Tonge ies meant. They -could move at moment's notice. The armies of Israel had a training such as none of the peoples they approached in the very nature of the case could have. They had a unie quoly trained army und wonderful leadership. But even then they faced a task in which the odds were. overwhelmingly against them,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.