To-day in any part of the land among rich, poor, ignorant or intellectual, orthodox or materialists the beautiful mature face is rarer than a white blackbird in the woods. It is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninteresting in late life, if the mind keeps itself occupied with right thinking. The withered and drawn face of fifty indicates withered emotions and drawn and perverted ambitions. The dried and sallow face tells its story of dried up sympathies and hopes. The furrowed face tells of acid cares eating into the heart. All this is irreligious! yet all this prevails extensively in our most conservative and churchy communities. He who in truth trusts God cannot worry. He who loves God and mankind, cannot become dried and withered at fifty, for love will re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his eye. He who understands his own divine nature will grow more beautiful with the passing of time, for the God within will become each year more visible. The really reverent soul accepts its sorrows as blessings in disguise, and he who so accepts them is beautified and glorified by them, within and without. Are you growing more attractive as you advance in life? Is your eye softer and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry? Are your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the corners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin dry, and sallow, and parched? Study yourself and answer these questions to your own soul, for in the answer depends the decision whether you really love and trust God, and believe in your own immortal spirit, or whether you are a mere impostor in the court of faith. The Object of Life What do you believe to be the object of your life? To be happy and successful, perhaps you are thinking, even if you do not answer in those words. That is the idea of the many. Meanwhile others, who have been educated in the melancholy faith of their ancestors, believe the object of this life is to be miserable, poor, and full of sorrow, that they may wear a crown of glory hereafter. But the clear thinker and careful observer must realize that there is one and only one main object in life--_the building of character_. He who sets out in early youth with that ambition and purpose, and keeps to it, will not only attain his object, but he will, too, attain happiness and true success--for there is no such thing as failure for the man or woman of character. We often apply the two words character and success, unworthily. We speak of a man of "much character" when he is merely self-assertive and stubborn, and we call a man successful, who has accumulated a fortune, or achieved fame and a position, by doubtful methods. Then what is character, and what is success? Character is the result of the cultivation of the highest and noblest qualities in human nature, and putting those qualities to practical use.