Behold, a new year looks down upon the earth!

It is a new life awakening in our hidden selves, setting us on our feet in its wake in a spiritual endeavor, that we may wash ourselves in the new ray of light and become as pure as that ray.

And what could this new year be, if not a serious attempt to make man truly human — a being in whom the virtues grow, and knowledge grows, and goodness grows?

What meaning is there in a year that passes and a year that comes, if man among us remains a slave to hateful appetites that make him a slave to money, a slave to war, and a slave to himself and to the darkness within him?

And what is the meaning of years passing and going, while man's heart is a black forest, man's conscience is darkness upon darkness, and man's hand is a slaughtering knife?

A new year coming is a new humanity born upon the earth, and with it goodness, blessing, and truth must be born... It is a new self, casting off its old garments to put on the new splendor, insofar as it can find a way to do so. And it is a day of reckoning for man — great or small, ruler or ruled, rich or poor — for what he has rendered to himself, to his neighbor, and to his homeland!

Each of us on this day has his share of the reckoning.

O ruler! Have you governed your people justly and in truth, dispensing justice equally among all your subjects? If you have done this, you are a new man in this new year!

O rich man! Has a neighbor of yours gone hungry while you were glutted, aching from surfeit? Have you usurped the right of a weak man who dared not stand against you, while you dared against him? If you have done this, you do not deserve to stand among the processions of those who celebrate the new year!

O woman! Have you done your duty as wife and as mother, giving of yourself generously and offering sacrifices without count, to sow happiness among the members of your family? Have you fulfilled your first mission in life, in the most splendid manner this sacred mission can be fulfilled? If you have done so, then you are worthy to keep the feast with those who keep it on this day!

Each of us on this day has his share of the reckoning. Why, then, does not each of us withdraw alone with his soul and call it to account: what has it done with the precious, costly talents that life gave it?

Was he faithful to the talent of honor?

Was he faithful to the talent of love?

Was he faithful to the talent of knowledge?

Was he faithful to the talent of peace?

Was he faithful to the talent of justice?

Was woman faithful to the talent of motherhood?

And after all this — was man faithful to the whole of his humanity... and was he at one with his conscience???!