a moment from the tyrannous power of the present, do we turn to these
words now; but that we may together consider how much they contain of
cheer and encouragement, of stimulus to our duty, and of calming for
our hearts in the prospect of a New Year. They teach us the limits of
our care for the future, as they give us the limits of our knowledge
of it. They teach us the best remedies for all anxiety, the great
thoughts that tranquillise us in our ignorance, viz. that all is in
God's merciful hand, and that whatever may come, we have a divine
power which will fit us for it; and they bid us anticipate our work
and do it, as the best counterpoise for all vain curiosity about what
may be coming on the earth.

I. The narrow limits of our knowledge of the future.

We are quite sure that we shall die. We are sure that a mingled web
of joy and sorrow, light shot with dark, will be unrolled before us--
but of anything more we are really ignorant. We know that certainly
the great majority of us will be alive at the close of this New Year;
but who will be the exceptions? A great many of us, especially those
of us who are in the monotonous stretch of middle life, will go on
substantially as we have been going on for years past, with our
ordinary duties, joys, sorrows, cares; but to some of us, in all
probability, this year holds some great change which may darken all
our days or brighten them. In all our forward-looking there ever
remains an element of uncertainty. The future fronts us like some
statue beneath its canvas covering. Rolling mists hide it all, except
here and there a peak.

I need not remind you how merciful and good it is that it is so.
Therefore coming sorrows do not diffuse anticipatory bitterness as of