41 
THE VETERINARIAN, JANUARY 1, 1855. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeajfc, ne quid veri non audeat. — C icero. 
The commencement of a New Year is a period perhaps 
above all others conducive to the awakening of the higher and 
nobler feelings. We pause, and as from an eminence survey 
the past, and look towards the distant but obscure future. And 
although the retrospect may not always be pleasing, never- 
theless it will be sure to prove more or less profitable. Here 
and there spots may remind us of those whose course has 
been ended before our own. They may have been the 
counsellors and the guides of our youth, veterans in the 
common cause ; or those with whom we had set out in early 
life; whose expectations were more bright and cheering 
than our own, and with buoyant spirits they entered on their 
career, flushed with the confidence of success, never, alas ! to 
be realised. Others, we have since known, who had scarcely 
began the race when they faltered in the course and fell. 
Such is the uncertainty of life. And it cannot be long ere 
we too must say to “ corruption, thou art my father ; and to 
the worm thou art my mother and my sister.” And is this 
all ? Is this the whole of being ? Both Reason and Revela- 
tion emphatically answer — No. ? Tis well, then, for us to be 
up and doing, for each has his duties to perform, and no one 
liveth for himself alone. Beautifully has this been thus 
expressed : ee God has written upon the flowers that sweeten 
the air — upon the breeze that rocks the blossom on its stem — 
upon the raindrop that refreshes the sprig of moss that lifts 
its head in the desert — upon the ocean that rocks every 
swimmer in its deep chambers — upon every pencilled shell 
that sleeps in the caverns of the deep, no less than upon the 
mighty sun which warms and cheers millions of creatures 
that live in its light — upon all his works He has written, 
* None of us liveth for himself.’ ” 
May we venture to express a hope that during the eventful 
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