Out of that Golden Age all the best things can be picked up and carried along with us still. Surely this is some comfort to us wayfarers who must ‘move on!’ We cannot have life over again; but it can be made to lengthen in worth by intensity of purpose, and of working, of loving. These, and not time, are the true measure of life. We envy freedom from responsibility; the child has his tasks as we have ours; his lesson may be as hard as our duty, and harder; he is happily resigned to tasks in obedience to the will of others; our buckling down to duty will bring us our playtime too. Freshness comes next. Wordsworth, after mourning that the glory and the dream were gone, acknowledged that he could receive from the meanest flower thoughts too deep for tears; so we strongly suspect that the glory and the dream were remaining, and that he saw till the last the earth ‘apparelled in celestial light.’ The love of the open-air world of beauty is a great key to lifelong freshness of soul. Another key to freshness is the custom of being easily pleased. The smallest gift pleases a child; in later life, we look more at the love of the giver than at the gift; but why should not the manifold growth of small kindnesses refresh us? And how shall we get habitual joy? It is a precious treasure; the home is rich where there is one member of the household brimful of sunshine. A merry word at home is magic for brightening life; and it is some encouragement to know that of all social virtues, the habit of joyousness is the one that grows fastest by patient effort. It fosters another childlike treasure—the sense of delight in a home atmosphere of love. Let us not fear to express our tenderness in word and deed for those who share life’s burdens with us, and the glow of the Golden Age will be round the hearth again. As for simplicity, it is already the lifelong dower of many of the most gifted minds; it is almost a characteristic of the intellectual men of noblest life. Why should we use long words when short ones are kinder; why go roundabout ways when we only need openly do our best? Wonderful as it may seem, simplicity is the most imitable part of childhood. The absence of self-consciousness is the grand key to it. If we cease thinking about the effect produced upon others, who are supposed to have concentrated their attention upon our puny selves, we shall escape much heart-burning, and gradually begin to brighten our path with something of childhood’s brightness. As for faith and trust, if they look higher than the roof of home, why should they not be as the child’s huge trust? We should have fewer careworn looks, and the habit of joy would be easier.