e are intrusted with a few short years, and yet with more than we deserve. It is our misfortune to value those fleeting moments only when our stock of them is in danger of utter exhaustion. When the bright, beautiful days have vanished, and we find that, like the base Judean's pearl, those days were richer than all our tribe—our Vanderbilts, our Stanfords, and our Goulds—then we turn, in human kindness, to our younger associates, and sound our warning in their ears. According as our earnestness impresses them, they listen or they hearken not. A golden thought which the young should learn by heart, would run thus: However highly I have valued this day, I have "sold it on a rising market," and too cheaply. It would grow in value as I looked back upon it, even if I were to live to my eightieth year. This may not seem true to you, who wish for Saturday night, that you may receive your salary,—or to you, who long for Sunday, that you may gaze into a pair of eyes that have deep beauties for you—but when your mother in your babyhood, said a certain letter was "A,"
YOU HAD TO ACCEPT THE STATEMENT
without reservation, or you would not now be able to exercise the grandest of human faculties—to read, to glean the thoughts of the ages, and to receive, without toiling through the rugged regions of experience, the impressions and the inspirations which have come to man through all his labors and his pains. Sir William Hamilton has well said that implicit belief is at the foundation of all human happiness—the knowledge of the mind, as well as the certainty of the future life.
The mind is rarely broad enough in youth to survey the field of life with an impartial view. "The years creep slowly by, Lorena," was written in the true youthful, spendthrift spirit.
"COAL-OIL JOHNNY"
was left, as he supposed, inexhaustible riches. He threw away his money as many of us throw away our lives, and his money lasted him two years. Had his life been equally at his disposal, he would have been in the hands of the pale Receiver, Death, when his oil-wells passed to other owners. Having so precious a pearl, therefore, as this life, let us make its setting a thing of beauty. Let us invest our moments as
THE WISE MAN,
who, instead of buying on time and paying eight per cent. interest, saves his earnings and puts them out at eight per cent. interest, thus reaping a difference of sixteen per cent., or nearly one-sixth of his yearly surplus. Every idea put into your head is invested at interest. Every expenditure of time which is a waste is a payment of interest, a corroding, double-acting agency of evil to your welfare.
YOU WANT TO SUCCEED IN THE WORLD,—