society, is thrust unceremoniously
forth, and society, Pilate-like, washes its hands in innocency.

Preparing for Old Age

Socrates was once asked by a pupil, this question: "What kind of people
shall we be when we reach Elysium?"

And the answer was this: "We shall be the same kind of people that we
were here."

If there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as I am
to-day preparing for my life to-morrow.

What kind of a man shall I be to-morrow? Oh, about the same kind of a
man that I am now. The kind of a man that I shall be next month depends
upon the kind of a man that I have been this month.

If I am miserable to-day, it is not within the round of probabilities
that I shall be supremely happy to-morrow. Heaven is a habit. And if we
are going to Heaven we would better be getting used to it.

Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the
future is to live as if there were none.

We are preparing all the time for old age. The two things that make old
age beautiful are resignation and a just consideration for the rights
of others.

In the play of _Ivan the Terrible_, the interest centers around one man,
the Czar Ivan. If anybody but Richard Mansfield played the part, there
would be nothing in it. We simply get a glimpse into the life of a
tyrant who has run the full gamut of goosedom, grumpiness, selfishness
and grouch. Incidentally this man had the power to put other men to
death, and this he does and has done as his whim and temper might
dictate. He has been vindictive, cruel, quarrelsome, tyrannical and
terrible. Now that he feels the approach of death, he would make his
peace with God. But he has delayed that matter too long. He didn't
realize in youth and middle life that he was then preparing for old age.

Man is the result of cause and effect, and the causes are to a degree in
our hands. Life is a fluid, and well has it been called the stream of
life--we are going, flowing somewhere. Strip _Ivan_ of his robes and
crown, and he might be an old farmer and live in Ebenezer. Every town
and village has its Ivan. To be an Ivan, just turn your temper loose
and practise cruelty on any person or thing within your reach, and the
result will be a sure preparation for a querulous, quarrelsome, pickety,
snipity, fussy and foolish old age, accented with many outbursts of
wrath that are terrible in their futility and ineffectiveness.

Babyhood has no monopoly on the