A new year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy and promise clad in
white raiment, kissed--and encumbered with greetings--redolent with
grief and gratitude.

An old year is time's adult, and 1893 was a distinguished character,
notable for good and evil. Time past and time present, both, may pain
us, but time IMPROVED is eloquent in God's praise. For due refreshment
garner the memory of 1894; for if wiser by reason of its large lessons,
and records deeply engraven, great is the value thereof.

Pass on returnless year!
The path behind thee is with glory crowned;
This spot whereon thou troddest was holy ground;
Pass proudly to thy bier!

To-day being with you in spirit, what need that I should be present _in
propria persona_? Were I present, methinks I should be much like the
Queen of Sheba, when she saw the house Solomon had erected. In the
expressive language of Holy Writ, "there was no more spirit in her;" and
she said: "Behold, the half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity
exceedeth the fame which I heard." Both without and within, the spirit
of beauty dominates the Mother Church, from its mosaic flooring to the
soft shimmer of its starlit dome.

Nevertheless, there is a thought higher and deeper than the edifice.
Material light and shade are temporal, not eternal. Turning the
attention from sublunary views, however enchanting, think for a moment
with me of the house wherewith "they shall be abundantly satisfied,"
"Even the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." With the