youth” strew thick confusions of a dreary age.  Where youth garners up only such power as beauty or strength may bestow, where youth is but the revel of physical or frivolous delight, where youth aspires only with paltry and ignoble ambitions, where youth presses the wine of life into the cup of variety, there indeed Age comes, a thrice unwelcome guest.  Put him off.  Thrust him back.  Weep for the early days:  you have found no happiness to replace their joys.  Mourn for the trifles that were innocent, since the trifles of your manhood are heavy with guilt.  Fight to the last.  Retreat inch by inch.  With every step you lose.  Every day robs you of treasure.  Every hour passes you over to insignificance; and at the end stands Death.  The bare and desolate decline drops suddenly into the hopeless, dreadful grave, the black and yawning grave, the foul and loathsome grave.

But why those who are Christians and not Pagans, who believe that death is not an eternal sleep, who wrest from life its uses and gather from life its beauty,—­why they should dally along the road, and cling frantically to the old landmarks, and shrink fearfully from the approaching future, I cannot tell.  You are getting into years.  True.  But you are getting out again.  The bowed frame, the tottering step, the unsteady hand, the failing eye, the heavy ear, the tremulous voice, they will all be yours.  The grasshopper will become a burden, and desire shall fail.  The fire shall be smothered in your heart, and for passion you shall have only peace.  This is not pleasant.  It is never pleasant to feel the inevitable passing away of priceless possessions.  If this were to be the culmination of your fate, you might indeed take up the wail for your lost youth.  But this is only for a moment.  The infirmities of age come gradually.  Gently we are led down into the valley.  Slowly, and not without a soft loveliness, the shadows lengthen.  At the worst these weaknesses are but the stepping-stones in the river, passing over which you shall come to immortal vigor, immortal fire, immortal beauty.  All along the western sky flames and glows the auroral light of another life.  The banner of victory waves right over your dungeon of defeat.  By the golden gateway of the sunsetting,

  “Through the dear might of Him who walked
  the waves,”

you shall pass into the “cloud-land, gorgeous land,” whose splendor is unveiled only to the eyes of the Immortals.  Would you loiter to your inheritance?

You are “getting into years.”  Yes, but the years are getting into you,—­the ripe, rich years, the genial, mellow years, the lusty, luscious years.  One by one the crudities of your youth are falling off from you,—­the vanity, the egotism, the isolation, the bewilderment, the uncertainty.  Nearer and nearer you are approaching yourself.  You are consolidating your forces.  You are becoming master of the situation.  Every wrong road into which you have wandered has brought