From DOOR AND KEEPER

We pause beside this door. Thy year, O God, how shall we enter in? The footsteps of a Child Sound close beside us. Listen! He will speak! ° 800 801 373 His birthday bells have hardly rung a week, Yet has he trod the world’s press undefiled. “Enter through me,” he said, “nor wander more; For lo!

I am the Door.” Lucy Larcom NEW YEAR Upon the threshold of another year We stand again. We know not what of gladness and good cheer, Of grief or pain May visit us while journeying to its close. In this we rest, God dealeth out in wisdom what he knows For us is best.

Thomas Wearing From THE GATE OF THE YEAR And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put thine hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to thee better than light and safer than a known Way.” So, I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

And he led me toward the hills and the breaking of the day in the lone East. So, heart, be still! What need our little life, Our human life, to know, If God hath comprehension? In all the dizzy strife Of things both high and low God hideth his intention.

Minnie Louise Haskins 374 802 803 804 A WAY TO A HAPPY NEW YEAR To leave the old with a burst of song, To recall the right and forgive the wrong, To forget the thing that binds you fast To the vain regrets of the year that’s past, To have the strength to let go your hold Of the not-worth-while of the days grown old; To dare go forth with a purpose true, To the unknown task of the year that’s new; To help your brother along the road To do his work and lift his load; To add your gift to the world’s good cheer Is to have and to give a glad New Year.

Robert Brewster Beattie TO THE NEW YEAR One song for thee, New Year, One universal prayer; Teach us—all other teachings far above— To hide dark hate beneath the wings of love; To slay all hatred, strife, And live the larger life! To bind the wounds that bleed; To lift the fallen, lead the blind As only love can lead— To live for all mankind! James Whitcomb Riley FACING THE NEW YEAR We pledge ourselves To follow through the coming year The light which God gives us: The light of Truth, wherever it may lead; The light of Freedom, revealing new opportunities for individual development and social service; The light of Faith, opening new visions of the better world to be; 375 The light of Love, daily binding brother to brother and man to God in ever closer bonds of friendship and affection.

Guided by this dight, We shall go forward to the work of another year with steadfastness and confidence.