There is only one way to change the past, and that is to change it before it becomes the past. To-morrow the present will be a part of the past. The day after to-morrow a part of what is now the future will have gone forever. Only that part of the eternal duration which is yet unspent still lies within our control. Very swiftly it flies by us, but not so swiftly but that we can tinge it with the very color of our souls as it passes. Thus, after all, we are the architects of human destiny. The very trend of the ages is entrusted to our hands. As we mould the present we are moulding history, and as we work out our own little lives we are affecting all time to come. Men must always remember the things we are doing as history. None will have power to change them when they are past. Make this day what you desire through all eternity to remember it as having been. It must dwell in your thoughts forever as a piercing thorn or a blooming flower. Your hand is on its gate for the last time. It is a day of judgment. The Fountain of Youth (1917) The past ages had a remarkable story about a fountain of youth, the waters of which possessed the power to keep one young forever. Some of the early explorers of America were lured on their way by the hope of finding that spring of unfailing vitality somewhere in the Western World. But they died without having realized their dream. They failed to realize it because they had supposed the fountain of youth to be a localized thing. As a matter of fact, location has little to do with it. There is a fountain of youth. Its place, however, is limited neither by the balmy waters of the southern seas nor by the icy fastnesses of arctic regions. Such as it is, it exists everywhere. The healing of its waters is not denied to any seeker. Like most priceless things, it is as well within the reach of the poor as of the rich. It is the privilege and opportunity of high and lowly alike. One of the paths to the fountain of youth is a right attitude of mind and right habits of thought. While many have been seeking vainly through the world for the desired fountain, they were all the while unconsciously carrying it about within their own inner lives. One is as old as the spirit within him. The outer life simply takes the mould of the inner thought. The marks of age take possession of one’s frame in approximate proportion to the degree of his surrender to them. A landscape bears the color of the spectacles of the beholder. The whole world has for a norm the attitude of the individual toward it. When the mind grows sluggish and purposeless, the spirit of age has laid hold upon its possessor. While the mind remains clear and fresh, with its vigor unabated, the individual still shares in the saving waters of the immortal fountain. The date of one’s birth may be misleading, but the spirit of his soul never is.