face about and go the other way, it's fourteen
miles."

Young man, which way are you going?

Does someone in my presence say: "I have started wrong; I take a glass
of beer now and then; occasionally utter an oath, and am sowing wild
oats in a few other fields; but I'll come out right in the end." Two
diverging roads keep on widening; they don't come together at the
other ends. If you would make sure of the safe side of life in the end
of the journey, then start right. Luke Howard graduated from a fine
college and went to a large city to practice his profession. He
boarded in a fine hotel and frequented fine saloons. He became
dissipated and one morning after a drunken debauch the landlord said:
"Sir, you disturbed my boarders last night and I must ask you to
leave." Young men, did Luke Howard go to a better hotel? No, but to a
grade lower; he started wrong. In this hotel a few months later, he
was asked to move on. Did he go to a better? No, still lower, until at
last he went to board in the low tavern on the river front. The
landlord said: "I remember when you graduated from college. I was
present, saw the flowers and heard the applause that greeted your
success. I feel honored to have you as a boarder." A few months later,
on Christmas night, Luke Howard lay drunk on the bar-room floor. The
landlord had borne all he could and, with a kick, he said: "Get up and
get out, you brute; I will not keep you another hour." The drunkard
with help arose and said: "Where am I? Why, this is my boarding place,
my home, and you are my landlord. You said you felt honored to have me
board here. What's the matter?"

"Luke Howard, you're not the man you once were, and I want you to
leave here at once."

The poor fellow started for the door muttering: "I am not the man I
was. I'm not the man I was." Missing the step as he went out, he fell,
striking his head against the stone curbing. A physician was summoned
and recognizing the injured man as an old friend said: "Luke, speak to
your old college chum; I'm here to help you."

The poor drunkard, looking through the blood that flowed from the
gaping wound said: "Listen to me, Tom, I'm not the man I was, I'm not
the man I was." And thus died the poor fellow.

Young man, start wrong and end right? No, start wrong and you may
expect in the autumn of life a penniless, friendless old age;
opportunity gone, health shattered, and the "long fingers of memory"
reaching out and dragging into