The view of life that man has on leaving it is the final test of his philosophy of life. These are my thoughts: It is time to detach thyself from this earth. The shadows are lengthening. Look around you and note the strange changes that have taken place in the men and women of your acquaintance. Those that you once knew in their prime are now old and wrinkled,—and how many already dead! As you survey the procession of life, how many vacant places are there in it! How many true and loyal comrades have been swept away! Or go into the busy streets of the city, and look at the multitude passing through them. You are still one of this multitude. Presently you will drop out. There will perhaps be a little ripple on the surface, and then the stream will flow on as before. How curious is it to think that this frame of life which sustains such high faculties should crumble into a little heap of dust at the touch of the wand of death! Detach thyself, therefore, relax thy hold by anticipation as thou shalt soon relax it actually. But detachment does not mean cold inattention or unnatural shrinking from the earthly scene, like that of the monk in his cell. Relax thy hold on what is earthly in the earthly scene, and fix thy loving attention all the more on what is _spiritually significant_ in it. Regard with a friendly eye the beauty of the natural landscape around thee—yonder lake and yonder noble mountain summit. They are earthly, yet are they also hieroglyphs and symbols. Still more is this true of thy social relations. Detach thyself means relax thy hold on what is transient in those relations. Cling all the more firmly to what is spiritual in them. The earth is thy foundation, thou art Antæus as long as thou remainest in contact with the earth. Until the very last thou must lean for strength upon the earthly bases and substrata. Consider the drive of the human race through the time and space world, and its net result. Thou standest now on a high tower. Lean over the parapet and peer as far out into the future as thou canst. Thou standest as did Moses on Mount Pisgah. Strain thy eyes to catch sight of the Promised Land. But remember that the Promised Land turned out to be a land still of promise, not of fulfilment,—a land in which the prophetic soul of Israel matured its visions of a fulfilment never on earth to be attained.