... At the threshold of every new year, each of us awakens, as if from a slumber, glancing back at his past, fearing that his struggle with life may have failed, and that of its fruit it has brought him nothing but the leanest, meanest share.
Where are his lofty hopes? Has his soul been gladdened by their fulfillment, or has he contented himself with the part instead of the whole, with a faint glimmer instead of the blazing radiance?!
Is it out of helplessness that each of us drifts along, disappointed, falling short of broad hopes, as though all he built were a mere dream, that soon crumbles at waking and scatters as dust??
Or is it that from the very start we incline to inflate our reckonings, so that our arms fall short of the goal, and we flounder without any prior design, while opportunities and efforts are squandered before us in a manner that gives pause?
Is it the weakness of our confidence in ourselves that holds us back from the daring venture — the venture without whose hand no banner of victory is ever raised? Or is it fatalism that has seized upon our minds, so that we sit in our sloth, awaiting a good fortune to come to us out of the unseen world?
Many are our faults, it seems to me; and it lies within our power today, more than on any other day, to return to ourselves in honesty and, with our wise axe, to work at uprooting whatever impurities and illusions have clung to them, that we may resume our march into our new year better equipped and more assured of the victory we seek...
•
... What powers must be laid up, in readiness to meet the grave matters that encompass us?? What preparedness is required of us, absolutely, to overcome a vile enemy who has smeared our faces with humiliation — an enemy driven upon us by boundless human greed?
... What joining of efforts do we lack, what sincere and all-embracing unity, of hands and of hearts? What awakening from heedlessness, to ward off a danger that crouches at our doors, threatening our nation with annihilation and extinction?? Or are we still to amuse ourselves with petty quarrels and idle hairsplitting of no profit, laid in our way by base traitors to keep us busy with them, and to wreck a national union that might defeat their wicked endeavors??
Our nation — how glorious a nation! A pearl on the brow of the sun. For the safeguarding of its glory we live and we die... Let us work, then, to build and order our ranks in utter concord and love, that we may become a mighty power, one that bars the enemy's way and is the first to bring him down...
•
... Among the merits of the new year is that it is a day of reflection upon the reality of our condition, of turning back from error and straying toward goodness and truth... that it is a day of forsaking demolition for the raising of a close-knit, impregnable edifice...