I feel that I should be wanting to hearers such as those who are assembled here, that I should fail in that purpose which has been, more or less, present to me even in dealing with the lighter portions of my subject, if I did not earnestly remind you of the many of these sayings that there are, which, while they have their lesson for all, yet seem more directly addressed to those standing, as not a few of us here, at the threshold of the more serious and earnest portion of their lives. Lecturing to a _Young Men’s Society_, I shall not unfitly press these upon your notice. Take this Italian one, for instance: _When you grind your corn, give not the flour to the devil, and the bran to God_;—in the distribution, that is, of your lives, apportion not your best years, your strength and your vigour to the service of sin and of the world, and only the refuse and rejected to your Maker, the wine to others, and the lees only to Him. Not so; for there is another ancient proverb,[177] which we have made very well our own, and which in English runs thus: _It is too late to spare, when all is spent_. The words have obviously a primary application to the goods of this present life; it is ill saving here, when nothing or next to nothing is left to save. But they are applied well by a heathen moralist, (and the application lies very near,) to those who begin to husband precious time, and to live for life’s true ends, when life is nearly gone, is now at its dregs; for, as he well urges, it is not the least only which remains at the bottom, but the worst.[178] On the other hand, _The morning hour has gold in its mouth_;[179] and this, true in respect of each of our days, in which the earlier hours given to toil will yield larger and more genial returns than the later, is true in a yet higher sense, of that great life-day, whereof all the lesser days of our life make up the moments, is true in respect of moral no less than mental acquisition. The _evening_ hours have often only _silver_ in their mouths at the best. Nor is this Arabic proverb, as it appears to me, other than a very solemn one, being far deeper than at first sight it might seem: _Every day in thy life is a leaf in thy history_; a leaf which shall once be turned back to again, that it may be seen what was written there; and that whatever _was_ written may be read out in the hearing of all.