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MONTHLY REPOSITORY, FOR 1836.
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Untitled Article
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Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Monthly Repository, For 1836.
MONTHLY REPOSITORY , FOR 1836 .
Untitled Article
NEW YEAR .
A Happy new year to all our readers ! "Why , that is the conclusion of the Bellman ' s Christmas ditty . " Well , and be it so ; what then ? The objection is a silly one , nor shall the standing of a kindly wish at the bottom of the bellman ' s verse , hinder its standing at the top of our prose . There it is , —as homely , and not less hearty . It is a good old familiar phrase ;
and betokens a good old feeling too , which should not become unfamiliar . We care not much about family birthdays ; at least , as they are commonly celebrated . There is often something of little personality , —something selfish , conventional , and merely complimentary , in their observances ; they are made ministrations of vanity to each in rotation ; but a year ' s birthday is quite a different matter . That is a common festival , an
anniversary of universal interest , which sinks the individual in the social being . The year is born for all of us . It is a gift to gods , men , and beasts ; to all things that creep or fly ; and the sun , moon , and stars , rejoice in its nativity .
They echo the chorus of angels at that other nativity which just precedes ; for what is a week in the harmonic intervals of the music of the spheres ' ? and they respond , tc Unto us a child is born ; unto us a son is given . " How happened it in all the changes of the calendar , that the two days were not united , and the new year made to begin on Christmas-day ?
That should have been the Christian date , and the memorial of Time ' s regeneration . Or was it meant—and if not , it were well it should be meant—that the . whole intervening week should be a golden and joyous link binding its day boundaries into identity , and making one entire uiisetting * sabbath-festival ? There was something like this in heathenism ; and worse transcripts have been made from the antique mythology ! So might there have been a holiday for humanity , during which
Time could relieve guard unnoticed at the door ; and the satisfied guests would simply perceive that there was a new sentinel , with one more number on his cap , who had quietly taken his predecessor ' post , they knew not exactly when or how , while they were lapped in Klysium . It were better than the harsh transition , the jolt out of one year into another , we have now to endure , and which inflicts it shaking like that
Untitled Article
No , 109 . B
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1836, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2653/page/1/
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