GRAINS OF GOLD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 3 January 1907, Page 3

GRAINS OF GOLD

GREETING, NEW YEAR.

Greeting, New Year,- upon the threshold standing ! You find " us quiet— in the year just fled, ' So many things -we might have dpne and said Whereby the sad world had, been comforted. You. bring us pages of unfolding days, Bound round with pain and patience, -prayer and praise — " , Some joy (we see it in your smiling eyes) Because the One Who sends you is so "\\*ise. Greeting, New Year, upon the threshold standing ! *ln God's dear Name, unworthy though I, be, I reach' my* hands for" all you bring to me, With one fixed thought, to serve- Him faithfully. Come in, New Year, and may the while- we spend, -G,o, purposeful, unto a fitting end, So when you stand where stood the vanished year, I speed you with a smile and not a tear.

The most fatal .wreck that can overtake you in. times of sorrow is the -vwreck of faith. When go against us^ when our. loved ones are .taken from us,* that is not a call to bitter weeping, hut to new duty.

Behave as at a "banquet — take with>gratitude and moderation what is -set before you, and seek for ' nothing more. ' A larger and diviner step will be to be ready and able tp forego even that which is given you.

With common diseases strength grows decrepit, youth loses all vigor, and beauty all charms ; music grows harsh, and conversation disagreeable ; palaces are prisons, or of equal confinement ; riches are useless*, honor .and attendance are cumbersome, and' crowns are burdens, but if diseases are "painful and. violent, they equal all conditions of life, make no difference between a prince and a beggar, and an attack of neuralgia puts a king on the rack, and makes him as miserable as the meanest, the worst, and the most criminal of his subjects.

In"" ancient times there stood in the citadel of Athens three statues' of Minerva. ■ The first was of^o'Ave wood, and, according to popular tradition, had fallen from Heaven. "The second was of bronze, commemorating the victory of" Marathon ; and the third of gold and ivory— a great? miracle .of art, in the days of Pericles. And . thus in the. citadel 'of time stands man Wimself.. In childhood, shaped of v soft and delicate wood, just fallen from Heaven;." in manhood a .statue of bronze, commemorating struggle and victory ; and, lastly, "•' in the maturity of - age, perfectly shaped in gold and ivory— a miracle of art ! ' ,

The Rev. J. J. Malonc, P.P., Baylesford, and the Rev. W. Ganly, P.P., St. Kilda West, leave shortly for Europe. They will probably be absent about twelve months^