I
would not live life over." Well, I own I would, provided I could begin
the journey with the knowledge I now have of what it means to live.

While mistakes have been many there are some things I would not
change. I would be brought up in the country as I was. I would play
over the same blue-grass carpet, along the same turnpike aisle, swing
on the branches of the same old trees and listen to the concert chorus
of the same song birds.

Indeed I sympathize with the boy who exchanges the music of birds,
melody of streams, lowing of herds, driving of teams, diamond dew on
bending blade, morning sun and evening shade, with all other sweet
associations of country life for a lodging room in a city, where
church doors and home doors are closed against him in the evening
hours of the week, and all evil places wide open for his ruin. It has
been well said: "The street fair of evil associations in our large
cities begins with the night shadows and grows with the darkness." I
dare say if I could draw aside the veil that will shut in the night
scenes of this city, the revelation would make some godly fathers
tremble for their boys, and pious mothers long to gather their
children about them when the sun goes down, as moor birds gather their
helpless young when hawks are screaming in the sky.

All hail to the Young Men's Christian Association, with its open doors
for young men in the evening hours! All hail to its gymnasium, its
swimming pool, basketball and other sports that develop strength and
furnish entertainment! Away with the idea that all the pleasures of
the world belong to the devil.

A distinguished divine was brought up in New England by a staid old
aunt, who never let him go anywhere except to church, Sunday school
and prayer meeting. When quite a lad she let him go to New York City
to visit a cousin. That cousin took him to see Barnum's circus. It was
his first circus, and the wild animals, the bareback riding, trapeze
performance, clowns and chariot races bewildered the country boy. Next
morning he wrote his aunt, saying: "Dear Aunt, if you'll go to one
circus you'll never go to another prayer meeting as long as you live."
But he did go to prayer meeting and became a grand good man. There are
many innocent springs of pleasure, where youth can drink and not be
harmed.

It may surprise some for me to say, if I could live life over I would
be brought up in the same old state of Kentucky. "With all her faults
I love