"Among the promptings of what may be called, in the truest sense of the term, Natural Religion, none surely is more instructive than that which leads men to observe with peculiar solemnity the entrance upon a new year of life. It is, if nothing else, the making a step in the dark. It is the entrance upon a new epoch in existence, of which the manifold "changes and chances" prevent our forecasting the issue. True, the line of demarcation is purely arbitrary; yet there are few, even of the most thoughtless, who can set foot across the line which separates one year from another without feeling in some degree the significance of the act. It would seem that this passing season of thoughtfulness was one of those opportunities which no form of religion could afford to miss. And yet, for a long time, that which may perhaps without offence be termed Ecclesiasticism sternly refused to recognize this occasion. The line was rigidly drawn between the Civil New Year and the Church's New Year. We were told that Advent was the beginning of our Sacred Year, and that the evening before the First Sunday in Advent was the time for those serious thoughts and good resolutions which rightly accompany a New Year." Yes-so we were taught; and there was a great deal to be said, ecclesiastically, for the teaching. Only, unfortunately, no one believed it. We went to bed quite unmoved on Saturday evening, December 1, 1906. No era seemed to have closed for us, no era to have opened: there was nothing to remember, nothing to anticipate; nothing to repent and nothing to resolve. It is otherwise to-night.[11] The "church-going bell" does not tingle in vain. Old men and maidens, young men and children are crowding in. I involve myself in an ulster and a comforter, and join the pilgrim-throng. [11] December 31, 1906. XXXVIII PETS My suggestive friend has taken to postcards, and his style, never diffuse, has become as curt as that of Mr. Alfred Jingle. "Why not Pets?" he writes; and the suggestion gives pause. When Mrs. Topham-Sawyer accepted the invitation to the Little Dinner at Timmins's, she concluded her letter to Rosa Timmins: "With a hundred kisses to your dear little _pet_." She said _pet_, we are told, "because she did not know whether Rosa's child was a girl or a boy; and Mrs. Timmins was very much pleased with the kind and gracious nature of the reply to her invitation." My mind misgave me that my friend might be using the word _pet_ in the same sense as Mrs. Topham-Sawyer, and inviting me to a discussion of the Crêche or the Nursery. As my views of childhood are formed on those of Herod and Solomon, I hastened to decline so unsuitable a task, whereupon my friend, for all reply, sent me the following excerpt from an evening paper:--