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12 THE PRESBYTERIAN
Young People's Societies
A YEAR WITH GOD.
Topic for Sunday, January 2: Through this year with God.
Numbers 9:15-23; 10:10.
DAILY READINGS.
Mondav: In his work. John 9:1-17
Tuesday: In my labor. Ephesians 6:5-20.
Wednesday: In my home. Joshua 24:14-24.
Thursday: In my church. Hebrews 10:19-25.
Friday: With my Bible. Psalm 1.
Saturday: With his spirit. Galatians 5:16-26.
With hearts given to Christ at Christmastide, when we were
giving presents to those we love, it ought not to be hard for us
to give our lives to God this year.
A sincere gift of the heart will make a consecrated life easy
to render. It will be no task to serve if we love. Duty and
delight, spelled with the same letters, will settle all the difficulties.
"A year with God" means twelve months, fifty-two weeks,
three hundred and sixty-five days?not a single month or a
single week of a good resolution impulsively made and gradually
forgotten or neglected.
If the resolutions of the beeinnine of the vear are not to be
"resolutely" kept, it were better not to make them. "Better
is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest
vow and not pay." All hasty resolutions are unkept vows.
Yet all things must have a start. There is nothing wrong
in making large promises as long as one does it with full determination
to keep them. It is .unpaid vows, not unmade
vows, that are to be avoided and condemned.
The year is before us. But one day of it has passed. We
are in the full flush of its beginning, and this is its first Sabbath
day. It is a suitable time to determine whose it shall be,
ours or God's, the world's or the Saviour's. The choice ought
to be made promptly.
The first week may be made a type of the remaining fiftyone.
In it our lives may strike the note that shall ring
through all. If that note be in harmony with God, it will
make a year of music like that of Heaven. The conditions all
favor a start which will not augur, but insure, success through
the year.
While we contemplate the whole year, however, let us not
forget that it is to come one day at a time. Its duties, if
looked at altogether, will appall us. Taken one at a time, or
a day at a time, they will be easily possible and comfortable.
God suggests as much and promises as much. Listen to his
words: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
The year is therefore to be begun with entire confidence.
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loving presence. His hand will be stretched out to help at
every difficult place. His strength will be made perfect in
our weakness. Each act of grace, from the first, will be succeeded
by another, and with increasing assurance of his companionship.
The year may have in store for you providences which you
would not like to face Just now. God is wise to draw a curtain
across the scene. But along with this fact is a better
and sweeter fact. It is that present duty performed and
present trust reposed will be the best preparation for the coming
of events which may cause our. hearts to faint within us.
JUBt as iiiucn, uuwbvit, iub year may mv? iu mure ior us
surprises In prosperity or advancement or success. It is wise
again in God to hide these from our view, for else we would
become too soon elated and forget present duty, or we would
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UCVVLUC iuiv atiu |/icouuJiH.uvug. *-?u V *? ? MWU |/I V|/uiuvtvu ?v?
successes as well as adversity or grief. It can be had through
faithfulness now and on each day following as it conies in the
year.
We learn gradually that the Creator made no mistakes In
the ordering of the physical universe. Why should we fear
that there is something wrong in the present ordering of his
providence?
OF THE SOUTH. December 22, 1909.
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Prayer Meeting
TOPIC?GOING OUT AND P.OMTMn TM
Psalm 121.
Week Beginning December 26.
It is altogether probable that those who selected the prayer
meeting topics for the year intended that our meditations
should at this time be directed to the going out of the present
year and the coming in of the next. The Psalm which is
assigned as a text does not bear especially upon this topic,
but rather is intended to teach the safetv of those who nnt
their trust in God, and the ground upon which that security
rests. The theme is a delightful one, and this is a beautiful
Psalm. The promise is that "The Lord shall preserve thy
going out and thy coming in," or, as elsewhere expressed,
"He shall keep thee in all thy ways." We may treasure at all
times the teaching of the Psalm. For the present let us address
our thoughts to the blessings of the closing year and
the proportionate responsibilities of the new year that is to
follow.
The Secretary of Agriculture informs us that the value of
the products of the soil this year is greater than that of anyother
year in our history as a people. It is, therefore, greater
than that of any nation in any age of the world. Agriculture
is the basis of our national wealth. In certain other departments
of industry this nation leads the world. The products
of our mines and forests are immense. Manufacturing industries
are varied and numerous, and many of them are
projected on an enormous scale. Systems of transportation
are the wonder of the modern world, but none of these compare
in their contribution to the national wealth with the
response of soil and atmosphere to the skill and industry of
our people wno are engaged in agricultural pursuits.
The figures that are presented by the Secretary are so vast
as to almost baffle our comprehension. The total valuation of
farm products for the year Is $8,760,000,000, which represents
a gain of $869,000,000 over the year preceding. Of this amount
the value of the corn crop is first, being $1,720,000,000. This
is equal in value to all the gold and silver coin and bullion of
the United States. Considering the time the crop is growing,
these figures indicate an increase of wealth at the rate of
$15,000,000 per day for the corn crop alone. Next to corn
comes cotton, our exclusive Southern product, valued at $850,000,000.
The next is wheat, whose value is estimated at $725,000,000.
The hay crop is placed at $665,000,000; oats,
$400,000,000; potatoes, $212,000,000; tobacco, nearly $100,000,000.
The value of farm products has doubled in the last
eleven years, the total for that period reaching the enormous
Bum of seventy billions of dollars. When it is remembered
that this wealth is the product of soil and atmosDhere. and
not the hoarded wealth of speculation In values already
created, what a revelation It Is of the advancing prosperity of
our people under the providential favor of him who gives
"rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with
food and gladness!"
Looking to the future, it becomes us seriously to Inquire
whether God's bounty to us, as a people, shall be utilized to
the enrichment of our people in character, and especially in
receiving and cultivating the fruits of divine grace. Shall we
be a more generous, sympathetic, self-denying, spirituallyminded
people because of God's manifest bounty, or shall we
yield to the tendency to become more sordid, more grasping,
more materialistic and therefore more groes and degraded in
our character as citizens of the great modem commonwealth
of the world? Unless our possessions are wisely used, they
will become to us a calamity rather than a blessing. If only
native tendencies prevail in'the hearts of the people. . this
result will most certainly ensue. There must be moral and
spiritual forces proportionate to the material, which will effectually
direct and dignify these else the blessings of our Qod
will be perverted by the people who receive them into a curse.
The analogies of history are against us. The empires that
have grown strong in wealth and eminent in art and letters
and diplomacy in the past have had their foundations de