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THE NEW YEAR.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT.

To get the most out of the coming year, we must put the most into it. And we put the most into it by living in a spirit of earnestness, doing with our might what our hand finds to do, not trifling with the golden hours, but receiving each as a precious gift from God. Only such earnest purpose makes the day a blessing, ensures progress from good to better, and causes us to live in eternity while we are in time. They are the happiest who value every hour, who do not procrastinate, who do everything now, and do it as well as it can be done.-James Freeman Clarke. OLD DUTCH PROVERBS.

We must row with the oars we have; and as we cannot order the wind, we are obliged to sail with the wind that God gives.

Patience and attention will bring us far. If a cat watches long enough at the mouse nest, the mouse shall not escape.

Fools always will ask what time it is, but the wise know their time.

Grind while the wind is fair, and if you neglect do not complain of God's providence.

He that lags behind in a road where many are driving always will be in a cloud of dust.

BEECHER'S LAST WATCH NIGHT.

Henry Ward Beecher's last watch night in Plymouth Church was largely attended, a goodly number of his Methodist friends and acquaintances being in the audience. Prayers were offered and hymns sung, and several in the congregation told their experiences. At five minutes to 12 Mr. Beecher rose, and advancing to the edge of the plat

form, said in a solemn voice:

"The time is coming when the old year will lie dead on our hands. There are only a few minutes more. This is the moment when two ships meet on the ocean. One has been a faithful and stanch vessel; it has carried us safely along, but it is old and worn, and its time has come. The other is new and sound, and we step gladly aboard and

watch in silence the destruction of the
old one.
We watch it as it sinks out of
sight; watch the waters close plainly
over it, and then begin to look about
and examine our new craft.

"How many sins will you bury this New Year's night? What will you do for your fellow-man? and what kindness and charity will you show to your inferiors? The year is dead. As you abandon it throw off your old sins; take off your filthy rags; take off your infested rags, and pray God to make this a happier, more Christian and more sunshiny_year than you have ever known. Let us pray."

As the prayer ended the clock struck 12, the hand-shaking began, and the air rang with "Happy New Years."

POEMS FOR THE NEW YEAR.
A NEW YEAR'S WISH.

I ask one little boon

Of the New Year:
May I through all its days
Carry some cheer

To those who sit in gloom,
Weeping for loss;

To hearts that slowly break
Under a cross.

I who have left my dead,
With none to care;

I who have wept alone,
Facing despair,—
Would gladly sweeten lives,
And make them dear,-
This little boon I ask

Of the New Year.

They best can serve the gods,
Their errands run,

Who call no love their own
Under the sun.

Let me bear help to want,

And hope to fear;

I ask no other boon
Of the New Year.

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How bent, how feeble, and how weak was he!

Twelve months agone the bells rang merrily
To usher in, with laughter and with joy,
His coming as a gay and happy boy.
A blessed gift his life to all the land;
Long-severed brethren clasped each other's
hand,

War's latest shadow love had cleared away,
And peace with plenty held benignant sway.
Back mused he through the days, and
thought, ""Tis well,

But for how long, alas! I cannot tell.
So ere I die some lasting gift I'd bring;
Unto the end the Old Year will be king."
Through many homes the spirit flitted past;
Through homes of wealth and power and
pride he passed;

Through dim abodes of darkness and of sin;
To chambers sad with pain he entered in;
Then to bright halls where marriage robes

were gay;

To lowly homes where new-born infants lay, Close-nestling on their mother's tender breast,

While whispering angels guarded all their rest;

By boards well-filled with bounteous cheer he went,

Where poverty had little but content; Longest he lingered near the humbler door, To breathe the promise of a fuller store; Again, where, struggling with the parting

breath,

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Alone could help their weakness and their sin,

And, silent, watched the New Year's coming in.

On all these scenes he pondered, and awoke From his long revery only when the stroke Of the eleventh hour tolled slow and clear A parting knell upon his startled ear. "So many souls, and each a separate need, "Tis God alone can give them separate heed; To beings such as I, it is not given

To ease the pains of earth, or promise heaven;

Naught save Time's latest messenger am I, Yet I would something leave before I die. It shall be this: that to all souls that wait, And, watching, stand at the mysterious gate

Through which the dying years must pass, and meet

Each New Year as it comes with flying feet, Shall come deep sorrow for the good undone,

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EDITORIAL NOTES.

A correspondent who writes from Germany, about Dr. Hedge, in the Unitarian Review, says: "I wish some clever writer would give the world a biography of the man,—now, before it is too late; for Dr. Hedge was a man altogether unique. He will always remain a commanding figure in American literature. I believe that his writing will last: there is the Indestructible in his thought." We are very glad to see coming from over the sea this deserved tribute, and this call for a biography of one of the greatest minds and ripest scholars that our country has produced. It would not be hard to name men in our ranks who are fitted

to give us a life of Dr. Hedge of the very first order. It is to be hoped that arrangements will be made for some one to undertake the task at once.

Says Dr. Crowe with regard to the

Liberal Christian Alliance movementand it is a weighty word: "So long as we recognize no basis of religion except the intellectual, we shall never stand together in multitudes. When we find a Christian endeavor basis, and a worship basis, we can tolerate many differences of opinion. I am more and more impressed with the absurdity of the fact that the various schools of Liberalism have not found a way to work together even as harmoniously as the different orthodox churches. If Bap tists and Methodists and Presbyterians can unite in an Evangelical Alliance and in a Young Men's Christian Association to emphasize their agreements, and to do good without regard to sectarian lines, surely Unitarians and Universalists and Independents ought to be able to find a common field of thought and labor! We should no longer belie the word 'liberal' by our practice of exclusiveness."

Rabbi Hirsch of Chicago is urging the erection in that city of a statue to Lessing, as an offset to the proposed statue to Queen Isabella. In the very year (1492) which witnessed the dis

covery of America, Isabella committed one of the greatest atrocities of history by expelling all Jews from Spain. Says Dr. Hirsch: "While we have no power honor of one who violated all instincts to prevent the erection of a statue in of humanity in that decree of expulsion, we propose to honor the genius of toleration in its ablest advocate, Lessing." Lessing was not a Jew, but he was a great and broad minded man, to whom the Jews owe much. Indeed the whole modern world owes, perhaps, as much to him as to any other man for such religious breadth and freedom as it posIt is thought that the Jews of Chicago may take up the movement of erecting the suggested statue. If they do the work will be well done; and in honoring Lessing they will honor Chi

sesses.

cago and themselves.

It

Mr. Gladstone has just written a book which he calls "The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture." Its object is to maintain, as against the scientists, the more advanced biblical critics and the "sceptics," the reliability of the Bible as a supernatural and infallible revelation from God. The Christian Union in reviewing the book calls his attention to the fact that he goes considerably farther than the Bible presumes to go. nowhere represents itself as the Rock; according to its teachings God is the Rock-"My strong Rock," " my Rock and my Fortress,' higher than I," "the Rock of my Salvation." As the Christian Union well urges, this is not an unimportant difference. To orthodox Protestantism the Bible is the Rock; to Roman Catholicism the Church is the Rock; to Liberal Christianity God, revealed not only in Bibles and Churches, but in Nature and Human Nature, and in all Truth attained and yet to be attained, is the Rock, Impregnable and Eternal.

99 "the Rock that is

Let no one who is interested in Japan fail to read Mr. MacCauley's masterly address on "Japan's Present Dangers and Needs," in this number of the Unitarian. We have seen no other so comprehensive and thorough presenta

tion of the great problems that confront the Japanese people. The Japan Daily Mail has printed the address in full.

A circular just received from Japan brings announcement of four courses of lectures which are being delivered in the Unitarian Hall, Tokio, by four of our Unitarian representatives. Rev. Clay MacCauley lectures upon "Unitarian Principles," Prof. Liscomb on "Outlines of Christian History," Prof. Wigmore on "Problems of Conscience," and Prof. Droppers on "Ethical Applications of Certain Economic Prin ciples."

5. It is chiefly a mission to the educated, to the student class, and therefore peculiarly congenial to our traditions and capacities as a denomination.

6. Japan is now in a crisis. In two generations the course of her history will be determined for centuries to come. Shall she be Christian?

We have given her the body of Western civilization. Can we breathe into it the breath of life?

No event of greater interest for Liberal Christians has occurred in England for many a year than that of the meeting held at the Portman Rooms, Baker St., London, on Nov. 29th, to put formally and adequately before the public the University Hall scheme of Mrs. HumRev. Theodore C. Williams of New phry Ward and her co-laborers. Rev. York, who, with his wife, made a visit Stopford Brooke presided, and made the to Japan during the past summer, opening speech. Mrs. Ward read an largely for the purpose of studying the extended paper; and further addresses religious situation there, has published were made by Dr. Martineau, Dr. two extended articles in the Christian Drummond of Oxford, and Rev. Philip Register (dates Dec. 4 and 11) giving H. Wicksteed, the newly-elected Warthe results of his observations. We den of the Hall. should be glad to reproduce the articles if our space permitted. In his second article he considers particularly the prospects of Unitarianism among the Japanese people, and closes with the following summary of his conclusions: The only doubtful element in the situation seems to be the nature and amount of the support which the movement is to receive from the Unitarian body in America. Even if the prospects were far less hopeful, we are pledged to the work; and it would be disgraceful to abandon it or give inadequate support.

I know how large and urgent are our missionary enterprises at home. But it seems to me no exaggeration to say that all our home missions combined are less momentous, less pregnant with immediate results than the field of Japan. I will now state briefly some of the striking advantages offered by Japan as a field for Unita

rian labor:

1. Japan will give a quick-maturing har

vest, with large returns in a short time.

2. It is a cheap mission, requiring comparatively few agents in the field.

3. It will soon be an independent movement. The Japanese require almost no financial aid for any churches or societies once established, and even resent foreign help.

4. It is not necessary to send out workers for a lifetime. A few years suffice for any

a

one man to do a lasting work there; and change of workers is said to be rather beneficial than otherwise.

Mr. Brooke explained that the movement to create the new Settlement had grown directly out of Mrs. Ward's book, "Robert Elsmere," which had had such an extraordinarily wide reading, and had struck so deep a chord in the public mind. A vast multitude of persons found that book portraying to them essentially their own religious conditions. The scientific thought of the time had overthrown their belief in miracles. They had discovered that the Bible contains a legendary element; the story of the Fall is mythical; so are the miraculous birth stories of Jesus. What then is left? They had been taught to regard these as lying at the foundation of Christianity. With these giving way they felt that everything was gone or going. It was the correspondence that rolled in upon Mrs. Ward like a flood from this multitude of persons whose hearts had been touched by her book, who had lost their hold upon the faith of their childhood and saw nowhere the dawning of another, that awoke in her mind a desire to do something tangible and permanent to remedy the trouble. "What can I do to help men and women out of all this ?" was the

question. The founding of this Hall was cessful launching of the enterprise. the answer. Mr. Wicksteed, the Warden, will be at his post almost immediately, and he is already making arrangements for lect

The main object of each of the speeches, as well as of Mrs. Ward's paper, was to show the need of rationalistic constructive work in religion, and the ways in which it was hoped to meet this need. The aim of the new scheme would be two-fold - theological and social-the diffusion of truth and the practical elevation of life. The work undertaken would to some extent run along parallel lines with that so successfully carried out at Toynbee Hall, only the aim here would be more distinctly religious. Twenty or thirty rooms had been provided for the residence of workers. Provision had been made for the use of a great library close at hand. A district had been chosen where there was much poverty, vice, and misery, so that the workers might at once begin efforts for the practical regeneration of society at points where its need is greatest. There would be classes all the while going on at the Hall, in the study of various religions, philanthropic and social subjects, but especially the Bible. It was hoped to make the Hall a center at once for enlightened philanthropic work and for the diffusion of such views of religion as could alone meet the need of a think ing age like ours. Said Mrs. Ward: "Social and practical effort is an essential part of our scheme, yet not its most vital part. It is in the bringing back of faith-not the faith which confuses legend with history, or puts authority in the place of knowledge, but the faith which springs from moral and spiritual fact, and may be day after day and hour after hour again verified by fact that the great task of our generation lies. It is to participation in that task that our own small and imperfect effort is consecrated, and it is in sight of that great ideal we ask for help and sympathy."

The London Inquirer says: 66 Full reports of the University Hall inauguration meeting have appeared in the daily papers. Every one concerned was immensely pleased with the suc

ure courses."

WOMAN'S WORD AND WORK.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN'S LEAGUE, On Dec. 5th the second meeting of our League took place at the Second Unitarian after Miss Low's report of the last meeting, Church, Brooklyn (Mr. Chadwick's), when, Mrs. Slicer's appeal on behalf of the Meadville Seminary took the place of the customary philanthropic and religious news which a small town offers students, and of reports. She spoke of the advantages the small cost of these advantages at Meadville. She urged our women to aid in procuring the $115,000 needed as an additional endowment. Mrs. Theodore Williams spoke of the influence of Meadville training in foreign countries promised by the fact that in the past year a Dane, a Swede, a Russian, a Japanese, as well as men of instruction there. other nationalities, had received theological So far, Harvard has made no provision for training women in the ministry, but Meadville has given such training for several years. Mrs. Williams read a most interesting letter from a woman now studying at Meadville, and a collection was promptly taken up which will enable her to go on with her studies there during the coming year.

Giving," was next read by Mrs. Catlin. She The leading paper, on the "Ethics of wrote on all except the fourth division of the subject, and the paper was listened to with the warmest interest. The heads were as follows: 1. Ancient "alms-giving." Modern "Lend a Hand." 2. Blessedness of giving. Generosity in receiving. 3. Indiscriminate giving. Vicarious beneficence. 4. Christmas and anniversary gifts. 5. The greatest of all gifts - ourselves. paper was in part as follows:

The

The progress of civilization may be measured by the extent to which in any country or race the moral dominates over the physical nature; and, further, by the extent in which the moral itself passes beyond the domain of impulse into the domain of reason - not a cold intellectuality, but reason whose foundation is knowledge of the laws of love. It is only in modern times that the expression, "ethics of giving," would have been used. Who, until lately, would have questioned the morality of giv ing? But the sentiment of philanthropy has evolved into the science of philanthroру, the former being of heart alone, the latter a combination of heart and brain. Paula, Roman matron, giving all for "love and Christ and in his name," and Octavia Hill, English gentlewoman, animated by the same spirit of love to God and man,

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