( 214 ) 
the time of youth is most proper for instruction, the first years of our life 
being those in which we are to learn —and may the more easily acquire— 
virtue, knowledge, and Ike arts which are to occupy the remainder of our 
days. If this time he lost, or permitted to pass uselessly away, it can never 
be regained. 
Time once past never returns! 
There are gains for all our losses, 
There are balms for all our pain. 
But when youth, the dream departs, 
It takes something from our hearts, 
And it never comes again. 
—Rickard H. Stoddard. 
THE UNSOWN SEED. 
I saw a garden, in springtime, 
Prepared with greatest care, 
And I thought when comes the summer, 
Bare flowers will be blooming there. 
But summer found in the garden 
Full many a noxious weed. 
With never a flower among them, 
For none had sown the seed. 
I saw a life that gave promise 
Of harvest rich and rare, 
Had the fertile soil been tended, 
And the seed been planted there. 
Neglected and unplanted— 
O’ergrown with sin’s foul weeds— 
Oh, the flowers we might gather, 
Did we only sow the seed! 
Oh, the precious moments wasted! 
The deeds of love undone; 
The bitter thoughts we cherished 
Come back to us one by one; 
