looks forward with disgust to the old age which is to follow him, and the
old man has far more in common with other old men, his own
contemporaries, than with the youth who preceded him. How frequently do
we see the youth vicious and depraved, and the man who follows him
upright and virtuous, hating iniquity! How often, on the other hand, is a
pure and innocent girlhood succeeded by a dissolute and shameless
womanhood! In many cases age looks back upon youth with inexpressible
longing and tenderness, and quite as often with shame and remorse; but in
all cases with the same consciousness of profound contrast, and of a
great gulf fixed between.

"If the series of persons which constitutes an individual could by any
magic be brought together and these persons confronted with one another,
in how many cases would the result be mutual misunderstanding, disgust,
and even animosity? Suppose, for instance, that Saul, the persecutor of
the disciples of Jesus, who held the garments of them that stoned
Stephen, should be confronted with his later self, Paul the apostle,
would there not be reason to anticipate a stormy interview? For there is
no more ground to suppose that Saul would be converted to Paul's view
than the reverse. Each was fully persuaded in his own mind as to what he
did.

"But for the fact that each one of the persons who together constitute an
individual is well off the field before his successor comes upon it, we
should not infrequently see the man collaring his own youth, handing him
over to the authorities, and prefering charges against him as a rascally
fellow.

"Not by any means are the successive persons of an individual always thus
out of harmony with one another. In many, perhaps in a majority, of