Prevalent as this idea is, it's a wild fancy, a mocking and baseless delusion. For various reasons: At no time is change of heart more difficult than in old age. Not as if God's grace were less powerful then, but because the difficulties of conversion increase with years; the heart grows more callous, the sinful habits stronger. Take a sapling, for instance; it bends to your hand, turning this way or that, as you will. When seventy springs have clothed it with leaves and the sun of seventy summers has added to its breadth and height, it scorns, not yours only, but a giant's strength. Every year of the seventy, adding fiber to its body and firmness to the fibers, has increased the difficulty of bending it. In the matter of our everlasting welfare it is much the same. Advancing time hardens the fibers of man's heart. Of all tasks we know, there is none so difficult as to touch the feelings and rouse the conscience of godless old age. Moreover, it is an extremely doubtful matter whether we shall ever reach old age. Few do, and the probability is that we shall not. Of all our race, nearly half die in infancy. Another large proportion sinks into the grave ere the summer of life is past. Ask that aged man with stooping form and slow gait, where the playmates are of his childhood; where the boys that sat by him at the desk in school; where the youths, flushed with health and full of hope, with whom he started in the race of life; where his fellow-workmen or partners in business. With one blow of His hand, one sentence of His lips, God may dash all our expectations of threescore years and ten to pieces. This night thy soul shall be required of thee, and then think of the folly that suggests that old age is the best for getting an interest in Christ, peace with God, and a meetness for the kingdom of heaven. Do men act with such infatuation in other and far less important matters? Here is a man who insures his life,--why? Because, he will tell you, life is uncertain, because nothing is more uncertain, because the chances are he may not live to be old; "and if I would be cut off suddenly, what is to become of my family?" Men regard this worldly prudence. But, oh, that man would reason as soundly and act as wisely where high interests are at stake! Let me change but a little the terms of that question: If you should be cut off suddenly and early, what is to become of your family, and ask: If you should die suddenly and early, what is to become of your soul? Let me this morning, prompted by the Gospel-lesson of this Sunday, which presents to us the youthful Savior in the temple, ask you, especially my young hearers, to ponder with me the words of our text: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." We shall consider, _I. that youth is the most favorable season in which to begin a religious course_; _II. point out some of the beneficial results of early piety_; _III. conclude with a word of general application_.