f a
life.

HOW FORTUNATE FOR THE RACE OF MAN

that when the mind is least prejudiced with set beliefs and when the
heart is kindliest, it lies in the power of those who have the young
near them to bear them frequent counsel, and to strengthen the natural
nobility of their natures!

A great deal can be accomplished in the early years of life. Many men
have made all their fame in the morning, and enjoyed it through the rest
of their lives. Alexander, Pompey, Hannibal, Scipio, Napoleon, Charles
XII., Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, Keats, Bryant--hundreds of examples
readily come to the recollection, showing how thoroughly the mind can
be trusted even in its immaturity. Youth is beautiful. It is "the gay
and pleasant spring of life, when joy is stirring in the dancing blood,
and nature calls us with a thousand songs to share her general feast."
"Keep true to the dreams of thy youth," sings Schiller. We love the
young. "The girls we love for what they are," says Goethe, "young men,
for what they promise to be." "The lovely time of youth," says Jean Paul
Richter, "is

OUR ITALY AND GREECE,

full of gods and temples." Let not the Vandals and Goths of after-life
swoop down upon this sunny region in our lives; yet if they do, may we
not look upon our noble ruins, our Coliseum and our Parthenon, in a kind
of classic love that shall endear and sanctify the rights of the young
about us and lengthen out their "golden age." Youth should be young.
Says Shakspeare: "Youth no less becomes

THE LIGHT AND CARELESS LIVERY THAT IT WEARS,

than settled age its sables and its weeds, importing health and
graveness." Youth is like Adam's early walk in the Garden of Paradise.
"The senses," says Edmund Burke, "are unworn and tender, and the
whole frame is awake in every part." The dew lies upon the grass. No
smoke of busy life has darkened or stained the morning of our day. The
pure light shines about us. "If any little mist happen to rise," says
Willmott, "the sunbeam of hope catches and glorifies it."

[Illustration: "Youth is our Italy and Greece, full of Gods and
Temples." Page 64.]

Youth is rash. It "skips like the hare over the meshes of good counsel,"
says Shakspeare. "Then let our nets and snares of benevolence be laid
with the more cunning. Youth is a continual intoxication," says
Rochefoucauld; "it is the fever of reason." We must cool this fever,
spread around it cheering flowers of truth, bathe it in the water-brooks