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Lucerne. 
“Life’s truest emblem; for, when gone, ’tis gone forever.” 
— Anon. 
This is a leguminous plant of the genus Medicago (M. sativa), culti¬ 
vated for fodder. 
Shortness of Human Life. 
11 EN pass away/ 5 says a great French writer, “like the flowers which 
-L-L open in the morning and in the evening are withered and trodden 
under foot. Nothing can arrest the flight of time, which carries with it 
all that appears the most immutable. Thyself, dear reader, who perhaps 
rejoicest now in a youth so full of life and so fruitful in pleasures, remem¬ 
ber that this beautiful period is but a flower which will be withered almost 
as soon as blown; strength, health, joy, wilt vanish away like a beautiful 
dream, and nothing will remain to thee but their sad remembrance. That 
time appears to be distant, alas! thou deceivest thyself; it hastens; soon 
it will be near; that time which approaches with such rapidity is not far 
from thee, while the present, which flies away from thee, is already far, 
because it annihilates itself even in this very moment and can never more 
return.” 
Do not count, then, my dear reader, on the present, but strengthen 
thyself in the rough and thorny path of virtue by the contemplation of 
the future. 
Prepare for thyself, by purity of life and by love of justice, an abode 
in the happy resting-place of peace. 
Do not, therefore, I repeat, count on the present; for at any moment 
death may come not only to overthrow all your plans, to disturb all your 
pleasures, to tear from you all your goods, but, what is infinitely more ter¬ 
rible, to lead you to the judgment-seat of Almighty God ! 
