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112 A NEW year’s COLLOQUY WITH TIME. 
; the heads of the aged, but the aged good mail 
fears not Time. He who has spent his whole life 
in deeds of active benevolence and kindness, ben¬ 
efiting his fellow-men, knows that his gray hairs 
are a crown of honor, and that it becomes him, 
even as the crown which he shall wear in paradise 
as a reward for a life of righteousness here. True, 
I have cut down beauty in its bloom ; but for 
what, think you ? to gratify a malignant spirit ? O, 
no! there are mortals here who seem all too good 
to be the inhabitants of such a dwelling-place as 
this earth, and I have but translated them to a 
brighter land, where the spirits of the pure and 
good — the just made perfect — will forever dwell. 
“ I have blasted the loveliest flowers, say you ? 
Not so. In the gardens of paradise they bloom 
again with more than their earthly freshness and 
beauty. Purity and goodness should not be scat¬ 
tered upon the cold winds of ingratitude and 
wrong, without a shelter, and without a fitting 
home: of such is composed the kingdom of 
heaven ; and nurtured by its dews, and warmed 
by the smiles which beam from the throne of mer¬ 
cy, they grow and expand until they become like 
the angelic beings they so much resemble. 
“ I have brought poverty into the dwellings of 
affluence, but to serve a good end. To the rich • 
man, who loved his gold better than his God, I 
have taught a lesson; I have shown him the 
frailty of human hopes, and the instability of i 
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