MIffflSIf, ESSE. 



THE PAST, THE PRESENT, & THE FUTURE. 



Nature, — attend ! Join every living soul, 

 Beneath the spacious temple of the sky ! 

 In adoration join ; and, ardent, raise 

 One general song ! . . . We cannot go 

 Where Universal Love smiles not around, 

 Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; 

 From seeming evil still educing good, 

 And better thence again, — and better still, 

 In infinite progression ! . . . 

 Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise! 



Thomson. 



>HILST OUR PEN IS NOW 

 writing, the Old Year — 

 one thousand, eight hun- 

 dred, and fifty - two, is, 

 though tempestuously ra- 

 ging, fast declining. Ere 

 the ink which is flowing 

 in our pen shall be thoroughly dry, the old 

 year will have sunk to his rest, and be known 

 only as among the things that have been. 

 Such is the whiter of life ! 



The year which has just closed upon us, 

 has been one of the most eventful within our 

 recollection. It will be for the historian of 

 the year, to collect the extraordinary circum- 

 stances that have occurred, both at home and 

 abroad, within the past twelve months ; and 

 to place them in array before us. We who 

 know them, and have watched them narrowly 

 in their progress, can meantime ruminate on 

 the significance of their meaning, and turn 

 them to a profitable account. It is a favor- 

 ite axiom of ours, that nothing happens by 

 chance ; and that everything that transpires 

 is "right." 



Holding such a strange doctrine as this, 

 it will be less a matter for surprise that we 

 have yet other singular ideas. For instance, 

 we cannot fall in with the usual custom of 

 seeing the Old Year out, and the New Year 

 in — amidst riot, noise, smoke, drink, and 

 debauchery. Let the wassail bowl have its 

 votaries, the bottle its unflinching compa- 

 nions — but let us have an equally free choice. 

 The results of intoxication have already met 

 our eye. Men have been transformed into 

 beasts, whilst Nature was kindly preparing 

 to set before them the glories of a New Year ! 

 Ribald jests, profanity, and obscenity, have 

 rent the air — at a season when every voice 



should be filled with love for the Maker of 

 Heaven and Earth ! Alas ! how little the 

 regard paid to either body or soul, when 

 feasting and excess are considered the main 

 points of a good life I But let us change the 

 scene. 



The seasons of the year are the topics 

 which most concern us and our readers at 

 this time. It will be remembered, that the 

 Winter of 1851-2 was a remarkable one, — 

 all sorts of changes prevailing on one and 

 the same day. It was sometimes cold, some- 

 times warm; sometimes frosty, and some- 

 times wet, — all within twenty-four hours. 

 The consequence was, — perpetual illness, 

 almost universal sickness, and a great in- 

 crease in the Bills of Mortality. Spring and 

 Winter seemed to have formed a coalition. 

 They were hardly discernible the one from 

 the other. The whole of the first half-year, 

 as a perusal of our Journal will testify, 

 was unseasonable in every respect. We 

 were deluged with rain ; and all of us worn 

 out with the . pains and sufferings insepa- 

 rable from such long-continued damp and 

 cold. 



Suddenly, Summer broke in upon us. And 

 what a Summer! We rose at once from 

 zero to boiling heat. We were all but fried 

 as we walked along the streets. This con- 

 tinued for a goodly time. Our gardens soon 

 felt the influence, and we found ourselves 

 planted on every hand in a perfect paradise 

 of flowers. The joys of this season we shall 

 never forget ; neither those connected with 

 the commencement of Autumn. Our pen 

 has already been eloquent on the subject, and 

 our thoughts will be found registered in the 

 leaves of our Journal. 



Of the concluding portion of Autumn, and 

 of the commencement of Winter, we would 

 fain be silent. We had such a constant suc- 

 cession of wet days, and wet nights — such 

 storms, and such elemental discord, that we 

 would indeed forget the remembrance of them. 

 Many who were in the enjoyment of perfectly 

 robust health in the Summer, were, ere the 

 close of Autumn, consigned to their last rest- 

 ing place. Many, with whom we held much 

 pleasing gossip upon bright future prospects 

 during the past summer, have long since been 



Vol. III. — i. 



