In the constant mutation of all the conditions which surround human existence, we find another most potent limitation to life. How few of these vital conditions, from a physical standpoint, are under our control? And yet how important some of the even trivial ones really are? The extent to which we are dependent upon health, comeliness, wealth, location, the physical aspects in the lives of our friends, and all of those complex details which go to make up our routine of life, can hardly be over-estimated. Starting, as the individual does, with a complete lack of experience from which to judge, and without even the power to exercise his reason, as this develops within him after years of mistakes, until his fund of recollection of these errors constitutes a basis of experimental knowledge, he is at best upon most dangerous ground in early life. He is handicapped just in proportion as he has not some guardian who pilots him until he is able to judge for himself of the character of his actions. It is the most pathetic thought which the human mind is capable of comprehending, that nature cannot be imprecated, bribed, or frightened out of her relentless rule of exacting full and complete consequence of our every action. Ignorance is no plea for mercy before her court, and her penalties are exacted without either fear or favor. Nor is her tribunal cognizant of any plan of vicarious atonement, but in many cases partially are we visited with the penalties of our progenitors' disobedience to her immutable laws. In view of these truths, let us not falsely be inflated with pride, because of any ephemeral successes. Let us in the moments of aggrandizement remember Massillon, as he stood at the bier of "Le Grand Monarch," and when we consider the truth in his opening statement, in that magnificent funeral oration, "God only is Great," we must feel our sense of importance leave us. Whoever stood erect with egotism over the corpse of a friend, even though he be as mad as Lear, raving, "O that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life, and thou no breath!"? Our control over our physical condition is worthy of mention only on account of its paucity, and we can never appreciate our true position on earth, until at times we are filled with the sentiment, so well expressed by Bryant: "In sadness then I ponder, how quickly fleets the hour, Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power."