NEW YEAR'S NIGHT.
On the New Year's night of 1797, a man, over whose head had passedsixty winters, was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyestowards the azure vault of heaven, where floated countless stars, asfloat the white blossoms of the water-lily on the bosom of a tranquillake; then he looked down upon the earth, where there was no one sodestitute of happiness and peace as himself, for his tomb was notfar distant. He had already descended sixty of the steps that led toit, and bore with him from the bright days of his youth nothing saveerrors and remorse. His health was destroyed; his mind a blank, andweighed down with sorrow; his heart torn with repentance, and hisold age full of grief. The days of his youth rose up before him, andbrought back to his memory that solemn moment when his father placedhim at the entrance of those two paths, of which the one leads to apeaceful and happy country, re-echoing with sweet song, and cheeredby an ever-cloudless sun, whilst the other leads to the abodes ofdarkness--to a chasm without issue, peopled by serpents, and filledwith poison.
Alas! the serpents had coiled around his heart; the poison had pollutedhis lips, and he now awoke to the reality of his condition.
He again raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, with inexpressibleanguish, "Return, oh, Youth! Return, oh, Father! place me once moreat the entrance of life, that I may make a different choice." But hisyouth had passed away, and his father slept with the dead. He behelda marsh-fire arise, dance over the morass, and disappear; and he said,"Such were my days of folly!" He beheld a falling star shoot along thesky, tremble, and then vanish; and he exclaimed, "Such am I;" and thesharp arrows of repentance sank deeper into his heart.
Then his thoughts turned upon all those men who had attained to hisyears, who had been young when he was young, and who now, in differentparts of the world, were spending, in peace and tranquillity, thisfirst night of the year, as good fathers of families and friends oftruth and virtue. The pealing of the bell which celebrated the newstep of time, vibrated on the air from the turret of the neighbouringchurch, sounding to his ear like a pious song. This sound re-awakenedthe memory of his parents,--the wishes they had breathed for him onthat solemn day,--the lessons they had inculcated:--wishes which theirunhappy son had never fulfilled,--lessons from which he had neverprofited. Overwhelmed with grief and shame, he could no longer gazeinto that heaven where his father dwelt: he turned his grief-worn eyestowards the earth; tears flowed from them, and fell upon the snowwhich covered the ground; and finding nothing to console him in anydirection, he again cried, "Return, oh, Youth! Return!"
And his youth did return; for all this was but a troubled dream, whichhad disturbed the slumbers of this first night of the year. He wasstill young,--his faults alone were real. He thanked God that hisyouth was not passed, that he had still the power to leave the path ofvice--to regain that of virtue; to return into that happy land coveredwith abundant harvests.
Return with him, my young readers, if, like him, you have strayed;this terrible dream will henceforward be your judge. If, one day,overwhelmed with grief, you should be found to exclaim, "Return, oh,happy Youth!" the prayer will be vain, for youth will not return.