And therefore we ought to see to it that the direction in which our life runs is one that conscience and God can approve.  And, since the rapidity with which a body falls increases as it falls, the more needful that we give the right direction and impulses to the life.  It will be a dreadful thing if our downward course acquires strength as it travels, and being slow at first, gains in celerity, and accrues to itself mass and weight, like an avalanche started from an Alpine summit, which is but one or two bits of snow and ice at first, and falls at last into the ravine, tons of white destruction.  The lives of many of us are like it.

Further, the metaphor suggests that no life takes its fitting course unless there is continuous effort.  There will be crises when we have to run with panting breath and strained muscles.  There will be long stretches of level commonplace where speed is not needed, but ’pegging away’ is, and the one duty is persistent continuousness in a course.  But whether the task of the moment is to ‘run and not be weary,’ or to ‘walk and not faint,’ crises and commonplace stretches of land alike require continuous effort, if we are to ’run with patience the race that is set before us.’

Mark the emphasis of my text, ‘Go thy way till the end.’  You, my contemporaries, you older men! do not fancy that in the deepest aspect any life has ever a period in it in which a man may ‘take it easy.’  You may do that in regard to outward things, and it is the hope and the reward of faithfulness in youth and middle age that, when the grey hairs come to be upon us, we may slack off a little in regard to outward activity.  But in regard to all the deepest things of life, no man may ever lessen his diligence until he has attained the goal.

Some of you will remember how, in a stormy October night, many years ago, the Royal Charter went down when three hours from Liverpool, and the passengers had met in the saloon and voted a testimonial to the captain because he had brought them across the ocean in safety.  Until the anchor is down and we are inside the harbour, we may be shipwrecked, if we are careless in our navigation.  ‘Go thou thy way until the end.’  And remember, you older people, that until that end is reached you have to use all your power, and to labour as earnestly, and guard yourself as carefully, as at any period before.

And not only ‘till the end,’ but ‘go thou thy way to the end.’  That is to say, let the thought that the road has a termination be ever present with us all.  Now, there is a great deal of the so-called devout contemplation of death which is anything but wholesome.  People were never meant to be always looking forward to that close.  Men may think of ‘the end’ in a hundred different connections.  One man may say, ’Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.’  Another man may say, ’I have only a little while to master this science, to make