Preparation

VERY day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were not given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an education in early youth.

They believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful had an education been obtained.

Scarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the schooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is being missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable knowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age endurable.

Youth is the season to acquirek nowledge, middle life is the time to acquire wisdom.

Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more important of the two.

By wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our tempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our sympathies.

The majority of people after thirty-five consider themselves privileged to be cross, irritable, critical and severe, because they have lived longer than the young, because they have had more trials and disappointments, and because they believe they understand the world better.

Those are excellent reasons why they should be patient, kind, broad and sympathetic.

The longer we live the more we should realize the folly and vulgarity of ill-temper, the cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for a broad-minded view of life, manners, morals and customs.

Unless we adapt ourselves to the changing habits of the world, unless we adopt some of the new ideas that are constantly coming to the front, we will find ourselves carping, disagreeable and lonely old people as the years go by.

The world will not stand still for us. Society will not wear the same clothes or follow the same pleasures, or think the same thoughts when we are eighty that were prevalent when we were thirty. We must keep moving with the world or stand still and solitary.

After thirty we must seize every hour and educate ourselves to grow into agreeable old age.

It requires at least twenty years to become well educated in book and college lore. If we begin to study at seven we are rarely through with all our common schools, seminaries, high schools and colleges have to offer under a score of years.

The education for old age needs fully as many years. We need to begin at thirty to be tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic and liberal. Then, at fifty, we may hope to have "graduated with honors" from life's school of wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or two of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the practice of these qualities.

Instead of wasting our time in bemoaning the loss of early opportunities for obtaining an education, let us devote ourselves to the cultivation of wisdom, since that is free to all who possess self-control, will power, faith and persever

ance.

Begin to-day, at home.

Be more tolerant of the faults of the other members of your household. Restrain your criticisms on the conduct of your neighbors.

Try and realize the causes which led some people who have gone wrong to err. Look for the admirable qualities in every one you meet. Sympathize with the world. Be interested in progress, be interested in the young. Keep in touch with each new generation, and do not allow yourself to grow old in thought or feeling.

Educate yourself for a charming old age. There is no time to lose.

Dividends

UR thoughts are shaping unmade
spheres,

And, like a blessing or a curse,
They thunder down the formless

years

And ring throughout the universe.

The more we realize the tremendous responsibility of our mental emanations the better for the world and ourselves. The sooner we teach little children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible phrase "As a man thinketh, so is he," the better for future generations.

If a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfortune, he will meet them and claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the close relationship, he will deny his own children and declare they were sent to him by an evil fate.

Walter Atkinson tells us that "he who hates is an assassin."

Every kindergarten and public school teacher ought to embody this idea in the daily lessons for children.

It may not be possible to teach a child to "love every neighbor as himself," for that is the most difficult of Commandments to follow to the letter; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from a nature if we awaken sympathy for the object of dislike.

That which we pity we cannot hate. The wonderful Intelligence which set this superb system of worlds in action must have been inspired by love for all it created.

So much grandeur and magnificence, so much perfection of detail, could only spring from Love.

Whatever is out of harmony in our little world has been caused by man's substituting hate and fear for love and faith.

Every time we allow either hate or fear to dominate our minds we disarrange the order of the universe and make trouble for humanity, and ourselves.

It may be a little late in reaching us, but it is sure to come back to the Mind which sent forth the cause.

Every time we entertain thoughts of love, sympathy, forgiveness and faith we add to the well-being of the world, and create fortunate and successful conditions for ourselves.

Those, too, may be late in coming to us— BUT THEY WILL COME.

Right thinking is not attained in a day or a week.

We must train the mind to reject the brood of despondent, resentful, fearful and prejudiced thoughts which approach it, and to invite and entertain cheerful, broad and wholesome thoughts instead, just as we overcome false tones and cultivate musical ones in educating the voice for singing.