1881. -1st Month. 31 Days. January.

Another year with all hopes and fears,

Has sunk into the deep abyss of time;

And on the threshold of the new we stand,

Like travellers to a strange and distant time.

Hope smiling beckons, bidding us take courage;

Faith points to heaven where God and angels dwell,

Assuring us that all our untried future

Is known to him who "doeth all things well."

From the Rose of Cheriton

The autumn day was closing, cool and dry;

The sun was setting in a cloudless sky

Flinging around him as he sank to rest,

A crimson glory flushing east and west.

The quiet landscape caught his bright farewell,

Ere the deep shadows of the evening fell.

The gliding river, and the broken sedge,

The pollard willows by the waters edge

Smiled for a moment in the passing gleam

Then sighed the sedge and darker flowed the stream;

While cottage windows flashed into a blaze,

And meadow pathways lay in purple haze;

A sudden glory touched the whirling mill

More crimson glowed the heather on the hill

And starting up beneath the pinewood shade

A moment, stood a golden colonnade;

Then dropped the sun, the vision died away

And twilight followed in her sober grey.

1. Saturday. [1-364] New Years Day.-Bank Holiday

It only comes once a year and the cattle have to be fed all the same. So have we & a new year day dinner too; whither it be beef steak & plum pudding or neeps {turnips} & neep brose. Last night & this morning or last year & this year we (that is Mr W. Morrison, Elsie Annie, Belle, Willie & I ) were waiting for the last moments of 1880 and as it neared its end we bade it farewell and welcomed the new by singing together the II Praphrase. Father, Elsie & W. Morrison were at Uncle W. Henderson's. Willie took them up & I took them home. Miss Belle gave me one of E.P.Roe's works, What could she do, as xmas box So I have been enjoying it today

2. Sunday. [2-363]

Attended Divine worship in Chalmers Church Keady The Rev. Mr. Currie preached from the text Is it well with the II Kings 4 & 26"