p. December 29.

Blessed, thrice blessed, is it to find that hero-worship is not yet
passed away! that the heart of man still beats young and fresh; that the
old tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Socrates and
Alcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of love "passing the
love of woman," ennobled by its own humility, deeper than death and
mightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one heart
here and there, to show man still how, sooner or later, "he that loveth
knoweth God, for God is love."

_Miscellanies_. 1850.

Links in the Chain. December 30.

The heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future! Oh, dreary
present! But let us not repine. What is dreary need not be barren.
Nothing need be barren to those who view all things in their real light,
as links in the great chain of progression both for themselves and for
the Universe. To us all Time should seem so full of life: every moment
the grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs in heaven and
earth, and the mind of our God Himself--all things moving smoothly and
surely in spite of apparent checks and disappointments towards the
appointed end.

_Letters and Memories_. 1844.

Past, Present, Future. December 31.

Surely as the years pass on they ought to have made us better, more
useful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of
what ought to be done, but we may have gained more clear and practical
notions of what can be done. We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet
gained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in
charity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet
what we do may be far better done. And our very griefs and
disappointments--have they been useless to us? Surely not. We shall
have gained instead of lost by them if the Spirit of God has been working
in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience
experience, and that experience hope--hope that He who has led us thus
far will lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former days
precious lessons--not only by sore temptations but most sacred joys--will
teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations, which we shall
be more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old
times, are no less sacred, but sent as lessons to our souls by Him from
whom all good gifts come.

_Water of Life Sermons_.

Out of Go