We are told in glaring head-lines and accurate photographic reproductions of a conference held by leaders in society to settle a matter of grave import.  Was it to build technical schools and provide a means for practical and useful education?  Was it a plan of building modern tenement houses along scientific and sanitary lines?  Was it called to provide funds for scientific research of various kinds that would add to human knowledge and prove a benefit to mankind?  No, it was none of these.  This body met to determine whether the crook in a certain bulldog’s tail was natural or had been produced artificially.

Should the Savior come to-day and preach the same gospel that He taught before, society would see that His experience was repeated.  Now and then it blinks stupidly and cries, “Away with Him!” or it stops its game long enough to pass gall and vinegar on a spear to One it has thrust beyond the pale.

For the woman who has loved much society has but one verdict:  crucify her!  The best and the worst are hanged on one tree.

In the abandon of a great love there exists a godlike quality which places a woman very close to the holy of holies, yet such a one, not having complied with the edicts of society, is thrust unceremoniously forth, and society, Pilate-like, washes its hands in innocency.

Preparing for Old Age

Socrates was once asked by a pupil, this question:  “What kind of people shall we be when we reach Elysium?”

And the answer was this:  “We shall be the same kind of people that we were here.”

If there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as I am to-day preparing for my life to-morrow.

What kind of a man shall I be to-morrow?  Oh, about the same kind of a man that I am now.  The kind of a man that I shall be next month depends upon the kind of a man that I have been this month.

If I am miserable to-day, it is not within the round of probabilities that I shall be supremely happy to-morrow.  Heaven is a habit.  And if we are going to Heaven we would better be getting used to it.

Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.

We are preparing all the time for old age.  The two things that make old age beautiful are resignation and a just consideration for the rights of others.

In the play of Ivan the Terrible, the interest centers around one man, the Czar Ivan.  If anybody but Richard Mansfield played the part, there would be nothing in it.  We simply get a glimpse into the life of a tyrant who has run the full gamut of goosedom, grumpiness, selfishness and grouch.  Incidentally this man had the power to put other men to death, and this he does and has done as his whim and temper might dictate.  He has been vindictive, cruel, quarrelsome, tyrannical and terrible.  Now that he feels the approach of death, he would make his peace with God.  But he has delayed that matter too long.  He didn’t realize in youth and middle life that he was then preparing for old age.