In the early stages, during the hours of the ascent, the imperative thing is that a man shall not over-tax his strength, that he shall not overstrain his powers in the initial stages of the journey, that he shall not attempt too much, that he shall not travel at too wearying a pace. As man nears the summit of the mountain, it becomes needful for him to conform to other rules. He must not lose the stride, he must know how to go on, he must climb and climb without succumbing to the heat of the day. Once the descent is begun, yet other rules apply, if one is with safety to reach the end of the long journey. The glory of the morning no longer upbears him, the splendor of the noonday sun no longer maintains his strength. But as he leaves youth’s vigor and the power of maturity behind him, the glow of the passing day may irradiate his vision and reveal to him the distant horizon. Middle age seems too often a painful reluctance to leave youth behind and to be a more painful hesitancy in the matter of facing the oncoming of age. Unhappily for itself, middle age oft combines the childishness of immaturity with the senescence of post-maturity so that it lacks alike the charm of youth and the grace of age. Old age that is not worthy of reverence is contemptible. Not less worthy of contempt is middle age, if it have brought from youth nothing save youth’s foibles and frailties. We not unseldom see—and it is always a pitiful spectacle,—men and women whose bark of life is unballasted by the poise that comes with strength and unsteadied by the serenity which ought to be the mark of the maturer period. While men speak of the dignity of old age, it is in truth the middle age which is in need of dignity, which alas it too often lacks. Men frequently refer to the emptiness and the barrenness of old age, when it is oftenest middle age that is empty and meaningless, for it is the time when life’s emptiness is disclosed. It is in middle age that men are made to face the bitter truth that theirs is not to achieve and to serve because they have not set up any standards worthy of the name, because their goal, such as it is, is too immediately accessible, and they cannot serve because self, having been their very deity, has not suffered them to will to serve or to learn how to serve.