ople may not
perceive the contrary.

Growing! Growth! It is only a question of that, after all. No man can
ultimately fail who has kept himself alive, and therefore kept himself
growing. If you find that you have ceased to grow, start up the
process again. Make yourself take an interest in large and
constructive things of the present moment in your city, county, state,
and country, and in the world.

The mind and character of man are the two great exceptions to the
entire constitution of the universe. Decay is the law that controls
everything else except these; but thought and character need never
decay. They may be kept growing as long as life endures. Who shall
deny that the philosophers of India are right, and that mind and
character may continue to grow throughout illimitable series of
existences?

Only two classes of men are hopeless: those who think to prevail by
fraud and the contrivances of indirection, and those whose minds and
characters have begun to disintegrate, or degenerate, if you like the
latter word better. There is every reason why character should each
day get a truer bearing, why the mind each day should become more
luminous, elevated, and accurate.

The Stoics said that even temperament might be given steadiness and
poise by an exercise of philosophy and will, and the lives of many of
them seemed to prove it. And if all this is true, your fifty years
have given you an arsenal of power that is a considerable advantage
over younger men, if you will but use it; and it is to point out some
of the methods for its use, and some of the mistakes which I have
observed men in your condition make, that this paper is written.

A great and natural desire of men such as those to whom this paper is
addressed is to move from the places in which they have achieved no
success to new locations, where, as they put it, they "can start life
afresh." Do not do it. Such a course is, ordinarily, as fatal as it is
alluring.

If you have been an upright man--and without this there can be no
permanent success of any kind--your long residence in your community
has put you to no disadvantage, but precisely the contrary. You have,
during these years, secured the confidence of your community. They
know you to be loyal, truthful, sober, steadfast, industrious. This
popular faith in the elemental qualities of your character is the
foundation of success, and usually it requires years to establish
that.

You are at no disa