p.

Then we see, at the close of the day, the little girl, unconscious of
her share in the life of others, come back to her room and fall asleep
murmuring her New Year's hymn which, in spite of appearances, she still
trusts. We are left with the hope that she will awaken next day to
realize who she is and come into her own.

Thus journey we all through life often forgetting that there is nothing
small, that "there is no last nor first." We are conscious of noble
aims, but oblivious of the real work we are doing and of our own
identity.

What, do you ask, has such a poetic drama to do with such a commonplace
subject as health or the prolonging of life?

The question implies a misconception. Human development is not a
material thing but is poetic and exalted. It has to do not merely with
physical conditions but primarily with spiritual ideals. Let us observe
more closely how Browning wakes Pippa up. When she comes to
consciousness she utters a cry of joy and thanksgiving;

"Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last."

The joyous thanksgiving of this first moment is the key to Pippa's life
and to her influence through the whole day. Such was the right
beginning to her day and such is the right beginning for us all to every
day of our lives. Her faith and her hymn revealed the true ideals of
this strange journey we call life.

There is an old proverb: "Guard beginnings." If a stream is poisoned at
its head it will carry the deadly taint through its whole course.

The most significant moment of life is the moment of awakening.

The importance of morning has been more or less realized in the instinct
of the human heart in every age.

Many of the myths of the early Greeks refer to the miracle of the
morning. Aurora mirrors to us in a mystic way the significance of this
hour to the Greeks. Athene was born by the stroke of the hammer of
Hephaestus on the forehead of Zeus, and thus the stroke of fire upon the
sky became the symbol or myth of all civilization. Even Daphne, pursued
by Apollo, and turned into a tree, is doubtless the darkness fleeing
before dawn until the trees stand out clearly defined in the morning
light.

The dawn of day has always been considered a prophecy of the time when
all ignorance will vanish before the light of truth.

When we remember that men of the early ages had no other light but that
of the sun, we can see how naturally the coming of morning impres