ECONOMY. 
11 
in them, for this comes after work. But it is a char¬ 
acteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. 
When we consider what, to use the words of the cate¬ 
chism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true 
necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had 
deliberately chosen the common mode of living because 
they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think 
there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures 
remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late 
to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, 
however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What 
every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day 
may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of 
opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would 
sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old peo¬ 
ple say you cannot do you try and find that you can. Old 
deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old peo¬ 
ple did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh 
fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry 
wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with 
the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the 
phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for 
an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as 
it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man 
has learned any thing of absolute value by living. 
Practically, the old have no very important advice to 
give the young, their own experience has been so par¬ 
tial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, 
for private reasons, as they must believe ; and it may be 
that they have some faith left which belies that experi¬ 
ence, and they are only less young than they were. I 
have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have 
yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest 
