And Joseph asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well? The old man of whom ye spake, is he yet who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?-Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, 198 212 224 238 SERMON I. ON THE BEGINNING OF THE CENTURY. PSALM CII. 27. "Thou art the same: and thy years shall not fail." HE Commencement of a new year is an event which leads even the most thoughtless to some degree of reflection. There is something always solemn in the return of these stated memorials of time. They call upon us to some review of our conduct in the years that are past, and to some estimate of what we have gained or have lost in our commerce with the world. They remind us of the progress of time, and of our own progress to eternity. But, far more than all, they remind us of our dependence upon him, who is "the Ancient of "Days;" who, while we change, "is still the same," and "whose years alone shall never fail." Life, while it thus is passing from us all, leaves us the sense of its importance. It was given us for the greatest and most magnificent purpose. It was given us by Him who alone is good, that we might advance in knowledge, in virtue, and in happiness; that we might rise in the system of being to some unknown ends of moral and intellectual |