AMONG civilized peoples the advent of the New Year is almost universally celebrated with joy and gladness. Whether the beginning be in accordance with the Gregorian calendar or that of any other system of measuring time, the significance of the New Year is much the same to all mankind. Its coming is hailed with gladness and good-will, with hopefulness and rejoicing. It is the season of festival and gayety, when, temporarily at least, something of the heaviness which is so commonly associated with human existence is laid aside and lagging strength finds renewal in the spirit of joyous and happy welcome to the New Year.
With many, the thought uppermost at this season seems to be that the New Year offers a fitting time to begin anew, to purify one's mental household, to set right one's affairs, to settle, as it were, the unpaid scores of the twelvemonth,—an opportunity firmly to resolve to meet more faithfully one's obligations to the world, of whatsoever character. Many, likewise, seize upon the New Year as affording occasion for leaving behind sordid and unsatisfactory modes and habits of life, hoping to find in the dawn of a New Year new opportunity for bringing into expression in greater degree one's nobler aspirations and ideals.
Through however joyless and discordant an existence a mortal may seem to be passing, it is doubtless true that even the most unworthy yearns for something higher. He desires to realize his ideals, to attain to something better and nobler than his present state. In this yearning toward a higher idealism, which has been called the "will to be," lies the impulse which drives mankind ever forward—toward what? A mortal may be little able to define the goal toward which he aims, but, nevertheless, in the irresistible impulsion of right desire lies the possibility of progress. This desire finds its opportunity in the coming of a New Year, which, as commonly conceived, offers a favorable occasion to depart from the old unsatisfactory ways, and to embark upon what may lead to the realm of true blessedness.
