annot grow old. But a nation may grow old, may decay, and die. And
the youth of a nation--its young people--carry with them its
destinies. If there is in these more of wilfulness, of selfishness, of
slothful and luxurious bias--less of energy, of gentleness, of
kindness, of manliness, of purity--than there was in those who were
young twenty--thirty years ago, then decrepitude is growing upon the
nation. It is sinking. The sap of its life is drying up.

But the young are not likely to think much of what they do or of what
they are, as it concerns the nation. Let them think of it as it
concerns themselves. My younger brethren, shall the life that you are
living be a blessing to you and not a curse? Shall it be to those
around you a blessing and not a curse? Then hold fast your faith in
the Living God. Is it drooping in some minds? Do they ask where they
shall find Him? The Jews of old time wore fringes on the borders of
their garments, and upon these were written some words of the law. It
was an ordained thing. "And ye shall look upon this fringe," it is
said in a noble passage of the book of Numbers, "it shall be to you
for a fringe, and ye shall look upon it, and ye shall remember the
commandments of the Lord your God, and do them, that ye seek not after
your own heart and your own eyes, but that ye may remember, and do all
my commandments and be holy unto your God."

We wear no fringes on the borders of our garments. But the law is
written in every heart. Look upon it, young men and young women, and
remember--_That is God_: not a stream of tendency or any such vague
and fantastic shadow. But, _That is God_--the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and in Him your Father.

Are you astray from Him? not fulfilling His word? We are all astray.
But is your eye towards Him, and your heart and your foot moving that
way? We see no messengers running with tidings in their mouth, one
over the hills and the other over the plain. The father of the son who
is astray waiteth not in the chamber between the walls until he may
ask of the messengers who come, Is my son safe? But the Father _runs
Himself_: "when he was yet a great way off his father ... _ran_." The
distance between these two is lessening hour by hour. Let the son who
was and is still astray, bend his steps with earnest will on the track
by which the Father comes; and--it is not my word--it is the greatest
of all words which has been spoken upon this earth, the Father shall