PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT 141 



shall have right of way for all future life. It is 

 the ideal time to store the mind with all kinds of 

 mental wealth in literature poetry, the Bible, 

 hymns containing the best truths of life and spirit. 

 And then, how important to store the memory 

 from the life itself with impressions that will be 

 mental wealth when recalled. Memory has to do 

 with that strange something or nothing which we 

 call time. It is a very elusive thing. We some- 

 times call it a stream ; and yet future time is non- 

 existent; past time is non-existent; present time 

 as soon as it exists becomes past time, and hence 

 vanishes. Yet with this vanishing nothingness 

 we build the most precious things of consciousness 

 or destiny. The bridge that spans the present 

 and the future from this end is called Life ; from 

 that end is called Memory. As life, it is short; 

 as memory, it is long. Its pleasure as memory 

 can only be determined by its character as life. 

 Now we can arrange it for our child to be either 

 pleasure or pain; then, it must be what it has 

 been. The pleasures of memory depend not upon 

 itself, but upon the nature of past deeds. It is 

 impartial ; it brings back all of the past, whether 

 of joy or misery. The wealth of all after-years, 

 through the channel of memory, is potentially in 

 the hands of parents now. Cares will come after 

 a while; sorrows will sink their pangs deep into 

 the nature. What an opportunity now to sow 

 deep the sunshine of life, that, come what will, 

 can not be entirely effaced! 



