A heartfelt greeting to you, my young friends; a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year to you all. Of all the three hundred and sixty-five
days none are fraught with the same interest--there is not one on
which all mankind expect so great an amount of enjoyment, as those we
now celebrate: for all now try not only to be happy themselves, but to
make others so too. All consider themselves called on to endeavour to
add to the aggregate of human happiness. Those who have been
estranged, now forget their differences and hold out the hand of
amity; even the wretched criminal and incarcerated are not forgotten.
Yes, to both the Christian and the worlding, it is equally the season
for rejoicing. Oh yes! view them in any of their bearings, joyful are
the days that mark the anniversary of the Redeemer's Nativity, and the
commencement of the New Year. Fast as the last twelve months have sped
their circling course, yet they have, brought changes to many. Numbers
of those we so gaily greeted at their beginning, now sleep in the
silent dust, and the places they filled know them no more! And we are
spared, the monuments of God's mercy; and how have we improved that
mercy, I would ask? or how do we purpose doing it? Have such of us as
have enjoyed great and perhaps increased blessings, been taught by
them to feel more gratitude to the Giver of all good. If the sun of
prosperity has shone more brightly, has our desire to do good been in
any way proportionate. Has God in his infinite wisdom seen fit to send
us trials,--have they done their work, have they brought us nearer to
Him, have they told us this is not our abiding place, have they shown
us the instability of earthly happiness? Have you reflected for one
moment, amidst your late rejoicings, of the hundreds whose hearths
have been desolated by cruel but necessary war, and then with a full
and grateful heart humbly thanked the God who has not only spared you
these heavy inflictions, but preserved all near and dear to you.
Oh ye young and happy! have you looked around you and thought of all
this, and then knelt in thankfulness for the blessings spared you?
Remembering _all this_, have ye on bended knees prayed, and fervently,
that this day may be the epoch on which to date your resolves to be
and to do better. Oh, may the present period be eventful, greatly
eventful, for time and eternity.
Let us pause awhile ere we commence another year, and take a
retrospective glance at the past. Can we bear to do so, or will day
after day, and hour after hour, rise up in judgment against us? Can we
bear to bring them into debtor and creditor account,--what offsets can
we make against those devoted to sin and frivolity?
Has every blessing and every mercy been taken as a matter of course,
and every pleasure been enjoyed with a thankless forgetfulness of the
hand from which it flowed? If such has been the case, let it be so no
longer; but awake and rouse ye from your lethargic slumber, be true to
yourselves, and remember that you are responsible beings, and will
have to account for all the time and talents misspent and misapplied.
Reflect seriously on the true end of existence and no longer fritter
it away in vanity and folly. Think of all the good you might have
done, not only by individual exertion, but by the influence of your
example. Then reverse the picture and ask if much evil may not
actually have occurred through these omissions in you.
To many of you too, life now presents a very different aspect to what
it did in the commencement of the year. A most important day has
dawned, and momentous duties devolved on you. The ties that bound you
to the homes of your youth have been severed, and new ones formed, aye
stronger ones than even to the mother that bare you. Yes, there is one
who is now _dearer_ than the parent who cherished, or the sister who
grew up with you, and shared your father's hearth. Oh! could I now but
impress upon your minds, how much, how _very much_ of your happiness
depends on the way you begin. If I could but make you sensible how
greatly doing so might soften the trials of after life. Trials? I hear
each of you exclaim in joyous doubt, What trials? I am united to the
object of my dearest affections; friends all smile on, and approve my
choice; plenty crowns our board: have I not made a league with sorrow
that it should not come near our dwelling? I hope not; for it might
lead you to forget the things that belong to your peace. I should
tremble for you, could I fancy a life-long period without a trouble.
You are mortal and could not bear it, with safety to your eternal
well-being. This life being probationary, God has wisely ordained it a
chequered one. Happy, thoroughly happy as you may be now, you are not
invulnerable to the shafts of sorrow;--think how very many are the
inlets through which trial may enter, and pray that whenever and
however assailed, you may as a Christian, sanctify whatever befalls
you to your future good.
But while prepared to meet those ills "the flesh is heir to" as
becomes a Christian, it is well to remember that you may greatly
diminish many of the troubles of life, by forbearance and
self-command, for certain it is, that more than one half of mankind
make a great deal of what they suffer, and which they might avoid.
Yes, much of what they endure are actually self inflictions.
There is a general, and alas! too true an outcry, that trouble is the
lot of all, and that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly
upward;" but let me ask, Is there not a vast amount made by ourselves?
and do we not often take it up in anticipation, too often indulge and
give way to it, when by cheerful resignation, we might, if not wholly
avert, yet greatly nullify its power to mar our peace. Mind, I now
speak of self-created and minor troubles; not those coming immediately
from God. Are we not guilty of ingratitude in acting thus; in throwing
away, or as it were thrusting from us the blessings he has sent--merely
by indulging in, or giving way to these minor trials. It may be said
of these sort of troubles, as of difficulties, "Stare them in the
face, and you conquer them; yield to, and they overcome you, and form
unnecessary suffering."
If we could only consider a little when things annoy us, and reflect
how much worse they might be, and how differently they would affect us
even under less favourable circumstances than those in which we are
placed; but instead of making the best of every thing, we only dwell
on the annoyance, regardless of many extenuations that may attend it.
As one of the means to happiness, I would beg of you, my fair young
Brides, not to fix too high a standard by which to measure either the
perfections of your beloved partners or your own hopes of being happy.
Bear in mind that those to whom you are united are subject to the same
infirmities as yourself. Look well to what are your requirements as
wives, and then prayerfully and steadily act up to them, and if your
hopes are not built too high, you may, by acting rightly and
rationally, find a well spring of peace and enjoyment that _must_
increase. Think what very proud feelings will be yours, to find you
are appreciated and esteemed for the good qualities of the heart and
endowments of the mind, and to hear after months of trial, the _wife_
pronounced _dearer_ than the _bride_.
Look around at the many who have entered the pale of matrimony before
you, equally buoyant with hope; with the same loving hearts and the
same bright prospects as you had,--and yet the stern realities of life
have sobered down that romance of feeling with which they started; yet
they are perhaps more happy, though it is a quiet happiness, founded
on esteem. Oh, you know not the extent to which the conduct I have
urged you to pursue, may affect your well-being, and that of him to
whom you are united.
And now with the same greeting I commenced with, will I take my
leave--a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, and may each
succeeding return find you progressing in all that can give you peace
and happiness, not only here but hereafter!