ANOTHER year is past and gone, placed entirely beyond our control; its account is closed, and its opportunities for ever taken from us. A new year this day opens before us. I wish I could find any words with which to impress on my young readers a due sense of the importance of that TIME which is so rapidly passing.

Our life on earth is made up of years, and when a few more of them are gone, that life, with all its lessons, its opportunities, and its blessings, will be over. Each year is made up of weeks and days. Each day offers to us the possibility of doing some duties, gaining some improvement, making some mental and spiritual progress. As the beauty and value of a piece of cloth depend on the threads which compose it, so does the complexion of our life vary, according to the character of each year that passes; and so what each year is to be, is determined by what we make each of its days. If you wish to have a good, useful, happy life, you must begin by gaining knowledge, wisdom, virtue, and religion this year; and if you wish to make this year a good one, you must attend to each day as it comes and goes,not wasting, abusing, or neglecting one of the blessings God gives you.

In commencing this year, my young friends, try to have some plan on which you are about to act, some ruling thought or leading principle which may guide and direct your course. Such a one is contained in 1 Cor. ix. 24: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that ye may obtain."

The city of Corinth, of which a picture is given at the commencement of this article, was famous in ancient times for its commerce, wealth, and cultivation of the fine arts, and not less so for the games which were periodically celebrated here. All kinds of contests requiring bodily strength and activity, were eagerly engaged in at these games; and so greatly was the honour of being a conqueror in them esteemed, that persons were willing to spend a long previous period in training, and to give up everything that could possibly interfere with their

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success. They had made up their minds to win, and they used every means to accomplish their purpose. The reward was a garland of pine leaves, a tree which grew plentifully around the race-course, and groves of which are still found in that neighbourhood.

From the fact that Corinth stood on an isthmus, the games and contests were called Isthmian.

You may now see the force and meaning of Paul's comparison. People prepare themselves carefully for a race; they train before hand, they exert every energy, and yet only one can gain it, and that will be he who has prepared most carefully and striven hardest. You also ought to be engaging in a race, but not for a garland of pine leaves which will wither in a few days, but for a crown incorruptible, the approval of God, the peace of heart and strength of soul which religion gives. In this race of life, so run that you may obtain, for it is one in which you all may win the prize. You can do so only by careful preparation, by perpetual effort. It will not do to stop sometimes, to look behind you, to go out of your path; you must be, like Paul himself, forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before-ever pressing forward to gain more knowledge, more goodness, more of God's spirit.

Let this, then, be the thought with which we commence the year,—that we will try how fast we can run, how much improvement we can gain, during its days and weeks. With prayer to God, in imitation of Christ, exerting all the powers of our nature, and using well the gifts we have received from Infinite Love, we may, without presumption, hope that we shall at last reach the goal, and be more than conquerors, through our discipleship to him who loved us so well that he gave his life for us.

JANUARY SCENES AND THOUGHTS.

THE new year is come, and the sun appears to climb a higher arch every day. We will see what forms of beauty our waysides will show us. There is an elegance in every curve and bend of each tree and plant; even the straight lines harmonise with the surrounding curves, and lend an appearance of firmness and strength.

Now all are loaded with the newv-fallen snow, and the fields are white plains, and the houses are decked with

pure white coverings. The young birds of the last summer must have been very much astonished when they took their heads from under their wings this morning, and have thought they awoke in a new and strange world. How they peep about, as if wondering where all the worms, and seeds, and grass are gone. Look up to the sky; there mountains on mountains of snowy clouds are floating, though they look so heavy, in the clear blue sky; and the sun shines, as if he were laughing at what night has done in his absence, and how soon he will clear all her silent work away.

Yet how beautiful are the snow-wreaths, where the wind has forced them through the hedges in the deep lanes, and how transparent the icicles. Every object looks strange and new to us, as well as to the last summer's birds. Houses, trees, fields, woods, all have put. on an unfamiliar appearance, and we hardly recognise the landscape we so admired in its summer freshness, though compelled, in spite of aching fingers and feet, to acknowledge its present beauty. There are miniature rocks and caverns among the snow-wreaths, which fancy might people with little snow fairies, if any mythology had had such beings. Lapland, Finland, Iceland, and Norway certainly ought to have had them; but perhaps snow fairies prefer the south polar regions.

Which will conquer-sun or frost? "Frost," hopes the skater, as he looks for his long-unused skates. "Frost," hopes the boy, who contemplates gloriouslylong slides. And why may not his sister also indulge in a like hope of healthy sports? Why should she sit shivering over the fire, as if fun and frolic were not also a want of her nature; as if out-door exercise would not also help to strengthen both mind and body? "Frost," hopes the servant-girl, who has long weary miles before her, as she goes to spend her annual eagerly-yearned-for holiday with her parents. "Frost," hopes the farmer, who wants the snow as a covering for his young wheat.

The snow has fallen off that bush, and we can see how carefully nature wrapped up each little shoot-bud in a tight, weather-proof, brown great-coat, before she took her winter repose; and under the bush, where the snow is melted, see, the young fronds of the fern have