vista of years, as they stretch through boyhood and youth, manhood and
age, seems to lose itself in the far distance of its length. So, viewed
from its beginnings, life is long.

But with the approach of manhood all this begins to change. As we grow
out of childhood our self-conscious and reflective life grows; and thus
there rises in us the feeling of moral responsibility never to be shaken
off again. Not, however, that we should leave all our childhood behind
us. It hardly needs to be said that there are some characteristics of
our earliest years which every man should pray that he may retain to the
end. Unless he retains them his life becomes a deteriorating life.

And first among these is the reverential or filial habit. This deserves
our careful attention, because we sometimes see an affectation of silly
and spurious manliness, which thinks it a fine thing to cast it off. This
reverential or filial feeling, which is natural to the unspoilt and
truthful nature of the child, is preserved in every unspoilt manhood;
only with a difference.

It is raised from the unreflective, instinctive trust in a father's
guidance or a mother's love to that higher feeling which tells us that,
as is the child in a well and wisely ordered home, so is each of us in
that great household of our heavenly Father. This spirit of true piety,
which uplifts, refines, strengthens, and gives courage to manhood, as
nothing else can do, is the natural outcome and successor of a child's
trustfulness, as we rise through it to the feeling that we are
encompassed by a Divine consciousness, and that our life moves in a holy
presence. Or again, we pray that we may not lose that simplicity and
freshness of nature which is at once a special charm of childhood, and,
wherever it is preserved, the chief blessing of a man's later years.