But it is too late. The door is shut.
Take education. Many young people fail to realize what golden
opportunities come to them in their school-days. Too often they make
little of the privileges they then enjoy. They sometimes waste in
idleness the hours they ought to spend in diligent study and helpful
reading. They might, if they would, fit themselves for high and
honorable places in after years; but they let the days pass with their
opportunities. By and by they hear the school door shut. Then, all
through their years they move with halting step, with dwarfed life,
with powers undeveloped, unable to accept the higher places that might
have been theirs if they had been prepared for them, failing often in
duties and responsibilities--all because in youth they wasted their
school-days and did not seize the opportunities that then came to them
for preparation. Napoleon, when visiting his old school, said to the
pupils, "Boys, remember that every hour wasted at school means a chance
of misfortune in future life." Thousands of failures along the years
of manhood and womanhood attest the truth of this monition.
Friendship is another opportunity that offers great blessing. Before
every young person stand two kinds of friends, ever reaching out a
beckoning hand. The one class whisper of pleasures that lead to sin
and debasement. They offer the young man the wine-glass, the
gambling-table, the gratification of lust and passion.
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