Over the plum and apricot there may be seen a bloom and beauty more exquisite than the fruit itself—a soft delicate flush that overspreads its blushing cheek. Now, if you strike your hand over that, and it is once gone, it is gone forever; for it never grows but once.

The flower that hangs in the morning impearled with dew, arrayed with jewels, once shake it so that the beads roll off, and you may sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made again what it was when the dew fell lightly upon it from heaven.

On a frosty morning you may see the panes of glass covered with landscapes, mountains, lakes, and trees, blended in a beautiful fantastic picture. Now lay your hand upon the glass, and by the scratch of your fingers, or by the warmth of the palm, all the delicate tracery will be immediately obliterated.

So in youth there is a purity of character which when once touched and defiled can never be restored—a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, will never be reËmbroidered.

When a young man leaves his father’s house, with the blessing of his mother’s tears still wet upon his forehead, if he once loses that early purity of character, it is a loss he can never make whole again.