There is a deep melancholy in the thought that the nation begins its first year of the Twentieth Century clad in “the trappings and the suits of woe.” The sombre black under which the Ship of State sets sail again upon the uncertain ocean of life strikes a dismal hue against the arching azure of the sky, and many there are of us who deem it un-Christian to wear mourning robes if truly we believe in Heaven. Unfortunately, however, at this time of day thousands of us do not believe in Heaven--will not believe, no, not for all our preachers and teachers, and would not, if an angel brought us the assurance straight from God! We believe in the dark grave because we see it with our finite eyes, and we put on the sable colour of the earth to match the dimness of our sight. What we see, or what we think we see with our limited and doubtful vision we accept as actual; but what we feel in the innermost recesses of our souls, when we are alone to think, alone to realize in the deep silence that we are _not_ alone, this we put aside hastily, sometimes with a careless laugh or nervous shudder calling it “imagination,” “fancy,” or “morbidness.” It is “morbid” some people will tell us to believe that there is a Divine Intelligence from whose observation no smallest thing escapes; and yet if the conscience be clear how far from “morbid,” how healthy, how reasonable, how comforting is such belief!--for, no matter how evilly we are spoken of, how vilely we are slandered,--no matter what sorrows we suffer or what losses we endure, all will be righted by that Eternal Justice at the end, when, “through the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.”