"My candles are all beginning to burn low now. For as we advance far on into
life, one by one our duties end, one by one the lights go out. Not much
ahead of me now must lurk the great mortal changes, coming always nearer,
always faster. As they approach, I look less to my candles, more toward my
candles, more toward my lighthouses--those distant unfailing beacons that
cast their rays over the stormy sea of this life from the calm ocean of the
Infinate. I know this: that if I should live to be an old man, my duties
ended and my candles gone, it is these that will shine in upon me in that
vacant darkness. And I have this belief: that if we did but recognize them
aright, these ideals at the close of life would become one with the ideals
of youth. We lost them as we left mortal youth behind; we regain them as we
enter upon youth immortal.
"If I have kept unbroken faith with any of mine, thank you. And thank God!"