Just like your father, for all the world. I thought you would
turn out well when I used to hold you on my knee. Do you ever hear
from the old folks?"
After a while you yourself will be old, and lean quite heavily on your
cane, and take short steps, and hold the book off to the other side
of the light. And men will take off their hats in your presence. Your
body, unharmed by early indulgences, will get weaker, only as the
sleepy child gets more and more unable to hold up its head, and falls
back into its mother's lap: so you shall lay yourself down into the
arms of the Christian's tomb, and on the slab that marks the place
will be chiselled: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God."
But here is a young man who takes the other route. The voices of
uncleanness charm him away. He reads bad books. Lives in vicious
circles. Loses the glow from his cheek, the sparkle from his eye, and
the purity from his soul. The good shun him. Down he goes, little by
little. They who knew him when he came to town, while yet lingering
on his head was a pure mother's blessing, and on his lip the dew of a
pure sister's kiss, now pass him, and nay, "What an awful wreck!"
His eye bleared with frequent carousals.
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