by Daniel Clarke Eddy
originally published in 1866
paperback; 260 pages
All past experience testifies that in youth the man is molded, and the bent given to his character. As young men we are forming characters and habits which will affect our old age, and make us virtuous or vicious, happy or miserable, in life's decline. If character is formed in youth, then it follows that we are moulding our future lives, and by every act, writing out our own history. If we form correct, virtuous, and manly habits, they will follow us to our graves, they will mark us through all our earthly course, and be the ornaments which shall deck our declining years. Hence if we would form right characters ourselves, or help others to form right characters, we must begin before the middle of life. We must take the sapling ere it becomes a gnarled and tangled oak; we must take the little rivulet ere it has become swollen to a mighty river; we must take the clay ere it has been hardened into flinty rock, and rendered insensible to impressions.
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