DECEMBER 31 If January I is an ideal time for renewed consecration, December 31 is an ideal time for thankful reminiscence. The year has not brought us everything we might have hoped, but neither has it involved us in everything we might have feared. Many are the perils, the failures, the miseries we have escaped, and life to us is still gracious and wholesome and filled to the brim with satisfaction. BEST day of all the year, since I May see thee pass and know That if thou dost not leave me high With them that keep the upward way. Best day of all the year to me, Or might have ended at Disgrace- Best day of all days of the year, S. E. Kiser. Permission of RING OUT, WILD BELLS This great New Year's piece belongs almost as well to every day in the year, since it expresses a social ideal of justice and happiness. R ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: Ring out the grief that saps the mind, Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring out the want, the care, the sin, Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring in the valiant man and free, Alfred Tennyson. WORK The dog that dropped his bone to snap at its reflection in the water went dinnerless. So do we often lose the substance-the joy-of our work by longing for tasks we think better fitted to our capabilities. ET me but do my work from day to day, LE In field or forest, at the desk or loom, Then shall I see it not too great, nor small, Henry Van Dyke. From "Collected Poems," |