orshipped the planet Jupiter; and on and
on until they came to Haran, where the people worshipped--the moon! It
was not until they came to Haran, that they touched, as it were, their
first footprints, and found the old religion.

And this was the finish for the poor old father Terah. Whatever the
motives with which he had set out on this pilgrimage, whether of
conviction more or less, or parental affection entirely, he was now
weary. There had been little temptation to pause before on the score
of a people's worship. That of the sun, of Venus, of Baal, of Jupiter,
probably did not arouse in him even a passing interest. But when, worn
out in body and mind, he suddenly came upon the old religion, his
journeyings after another faith and form of worship were at an end.
This powerful appeal to his past, with its resurrection of old
memories, old prejudices, and the pathos of old associations, was too
much for the old man. No second call came to him; or if it did, he had
neither heart nor ear for it. It was Abram the younger man who
withstood the temptations of Haran and with the faithful went on to a
land they knew not of. It was the younger who had the staying power
which, when acquired early, goes through life, and rejoins it in
eternity sure as ever it came to it in time. Terah travelled some six
hundred miles--a big journey in those days--to get away from the
worship of the moon, and in the worship of the moon he ended his years.
His evening and his morning were the same day: "And Terah died in
Haran."

You see the thought underlying this bit of prosaic information. It
simply means that the years close down the possibilities of a certain
kind of moral exodus. It is in the days of your youth that you must
make the "legs of iron," as Emerson calls them, for the journey which
lies before you. If you wait until you get into years before you find
right principles, and form good resolutions--well, even then it is
better to make some start in the right direction. But why pile up the
odds, that start you never will; or that you will not go far if you do?
The enthusiasms of old men are as rare as they are short-lived, unless
they are evolved out of earlier and worthy days.

There may be exceptions. If there are, I have never known one. The
rule is practically a law, that old men, who are nothing more than old
men, cannot make mighty resolves and carry them through. They may, for
many reasons, start out from Ur