EXCELSIOR. HELPS TO PROGRESS IN THOUGHT AND ACTION. YOUR OWN NEIGHBOURHOOD. HE advent of a New Year is sure to send forward the thoughts of hopeful youth to the coming summer, and the annual holiday bound up with it. The only drawback to the mental picture is that when realised it so soon passes away. A fortnight or three weeks, perhaps only ten days, or even less, constitutes the yearly "outing," and some of us cannot reckon upon that with any certainty. Yes; so it is, and so it will be. In spite of cheap trains and steamboats, tourists' tickets and "personally conducted" excursions, the privilege of frequent or extensive travel must of necessity be confined to the few. An all-wise Providence has not only fixed the bounds of our habitations, but also placed limits to our wanderings. And it is better to philosophise than to fret about it. The question is well worth asking, Is there nothing to be found of real and abiding interest except what is hundreds of miles away? May not equally pleasing and instructive, if somewhat less thrilling, scenes and objects be discovered even in our own neighbourhood? It would be a grand success if such should turn out to be the case; and proofs are not wanting that it is indeed so. Without a tinge of exaggeration it may be affirmed, that to any intelligent young person, and still more to a family of such young persons, there is scarcely an inhabited district, "From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay," which will not, if diligently explored, become as rich a mine of January, 1882. |