Cosmo had changed since first he sat behind such horses, on his way to the university; it was the change of growth, but he felt it like that of decay--as if he had been young then and was old now. Little could he yet imagine what age means! Devout youth as he was, he little understood how much more than he his father felt his dependence on, that is, his strength in God. Many years had yet to pass ere he should feel the splendour of an existence rooted in changeless Life ripening through the growing weakness of the body! It is the strength of God that informs every muscle and arture of the youth, but it is so much his own--looks so natural to him--as it well may, being God’s idea for him--that, in the glory of its possession, he does not feel it _as_ the presence of the making God. But when weakness begins to show itself,--a shadow-back-ground, against which the strength is known and outlined--when every movement begins to demand a distinct effort of the will, and the earthly house presses, a conscious weight, not upon its own parts only, but upon the spirit within, then indeed must a man _have_ God, believe in him with an entireness independent of feeling, and going beyond all theory, or be devoured by despair. In the growing feebleness of old age, a man may well come to accept life only because it is the will of God; but the weakness of such a man is the matrix of a divine strength, whence a gladness unspeakable shall ere long be born--the life which it is God’s intent to share with his children. Cosmo was on the way to know all this, but now his trouble sat sometimes heavy upon him. Indeed the young straight back, if it feels the weight less, feels the irksomeness of the burden more than the old bowed one. With strength goes the wild love of movement, and the cross that prevents the free play of a single muscle is felt grievous as the fetter that chains a man to the oar. But this day--and what man has to do with yesterday or to-morrow? --the sun shone as if he knew nothing, or as if he knew all, and knew it to be well; and Cosmo was going home, and the love of his father was a deep gladness, even in the presence of love’s lack. Seldom is it so, but between the true father, and true son it always will be so.