40 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
the state of the profession, and to present to our readers 
proofs of its onward progress, and likewise to aid in this. 
On the other hand, should we perceive the existence of 
aught that may militate against our continuance in well¬ 
doing, it will be equally our duty immediately to point it 
out and endeavour to check the growing evil, assenting to 
the truth of the poet— 
“ I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano— 
A stage where every man must play his part.” 
Frequently during the past year have we had to record 
the departure of those who have gone before us to that 
undiscovered country by revelation only made known, 
although by reason conjectured to exist. The mournful 
list may not have been so long as some in antecedent years, 
yet it contains the names of many with whom we once held 
converse, and time is fast hurrying us down the stream 
which debouches in the ocean of eternity. Well wdll it be 
for us if we can with confident assurance say— 
“ Happy day that breaks our chain: 
That manumits, that calls from exile home.” 
We close our annual address with the following quotation : 
Death has hovered near you—the death of the body. 
The shape, W'hich shape hath none, has lurked in the treache¬ 
rous element, or crept in the slow disease, or breathed its 
poison in the air. Perhaps it has been sometimes nearer 
than you dared to think. The dart was caught and blunted 
by the ministry of loving watchfulness ere it reached the 
heart at which it was all too surely aimed. The year with 
all its vicissitudes of season has passed over you, and you 
have been screened from the summer’s smiting, and from the 
winter’s cold. The last harvest-man has reaped thick sheaves 
all around you, and housed them in his eternal garner, but 
you live—many among your fellows are missed from their 
accustomed haunts, but you live. It maybe that the shadow 
has fallen upon your own pathw’ay, and that there are hatch¬ 
ments in your memory for the lost and mourned among 
your friends, but you live; and through the vista of the 
opening year you catch a glimpse of the promised blessing, 
and gaze forward w ith a sense of lordship and of pow er.” 
May the last clause be fully realised by all our readers. 
