Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1884-11-15
OULTIvAT1NG YOUTHFUL VIRTUES.
From the Country Gentleman.

From the Country Gentleman.
| If we would wear youth in our faces
late in life, we must carry it also late in
life in our hearts. In other words, we
must cultivate the youthful virtues,
most important among which are I'M
| wOrldliness, affcctiOnateness and purity
of heart.
Note lboughtfully those individuals
i'll whom IA predominant passion for
obtaining the good things of lie" Gas
Webster defines worldliness) prevails,
and see how hardened and unbcau-
titylng trait it is-how like with
cred leaf becomes the heart which
worldliness controls. Wrapped in the
icy atmosphere of his own ambitions
and pursuits, how elf-absorbed and
callous, how coldly unresponsive to all
demands of human sympathy or pity it
becomes! And not only does such Il
one detraud himself largely of the love
and sympathy of his kind, but he also
loses, through having lost by wordli-
ness, his capacity for enjoying the de-
! light which nature to the unworldly
yields. What to him is the freshness
of the spring time, the bloom and fra
GRANGE of summer, the glory and rich
ness of autumn, the gliltering majesty
of winter? Neither the dewy sweet
ness of the morning nor the calm gram
deur of the starry night has power TO
win his soul from its earthly throne.
For him the tender sunshine has no
balm, the murmur of the summer
breeze no voice. He walks, day after
day and year after year, amid beauti-
full sights and scenes and sounds, but
they waken no melody, they stir no
i rapture in his breast. The fountain of
youthful enthusiasm, of unwordly de-
light, is dried up.
And as the spirit little by little, from
the predominant love, takes permanent
form within, so also the lines of the
face take on the colOrs of the soul.
Pinched and sharpened features; cold
greedy, INSCRIPTIONS, yet shallow
| eyes; hardened, unsympathetic, calcu-
] lating mouth-these are the Inca
ments which such men and women
must consent to wear.
In love, we find the very fountain of
immortal youth. Yet how many miss
of it, nonrishing envy, jealously hatred,
| or at best cold indifference? How
many, whose lives love might ennoble
| and bless, barter it off for unsatisfying
dross! How many woman, marry
ing for worldly motives sells her prec-
ious birthright-the inestimable bliss
| of loving-tor a mess of pottage? Nor.
need she expect to escape the penalty.
Her heart, deprived of its needed ali
mcnt, must perish and pine, her cheek
wither and grow pale, her blood be-
come weak and sluggish, or feverish
and impure, from the unjoyfulness and
unholiness OF the bond she wears.
Turn from this picture to that home
/ l,, t,.s,x
List to the bounding step; look at the
glowing cheek, the sparkling eye!
Love nourishes; love cheers. Cares
may be heavy, but love renders them
light. Misfortunes may befall, but love
helps to endure. Sorrows may sad
den, but so long as love fingers, they
can be borne. Man also, as well as
woman, suffers from these inharmoni-
Gus relations. HIS life being less in
troverted and intense, more amid
outside influences, he does not SO NOR
bidly feel upon his own heart, yet he
also misses the bliss of loving and being
loved.
Alother-love also is great beautifi-
er. Let not the young and thoughtless
wife, cOngratulating herself on her ex-
emptiOn from the pains and cares of
maternity, hatter herself that she shall
float down the stream of time wearing
more youth and beauty on her brow
than that paler matron with the baby
at her breast. Let her be assured that
the patience, the devotion the unsel-
tishness which motherhood develops,
outweighs the cares and pains which
It entails, while an interest in those
eagar lives growing up at her side,
serves TO keep the mothers intellect
awake, her sympathies keen, and her
heart, her lip and her eye ever tender
and beautiful and young.
But most sorrowfnIIy contrasting
with the sweet loveliness Of childhood,
is that old age in which passing years
have left impurity of heart behind. This
condition of life leaves also its i'm
press upon the external form, disclos-
ing itself in the tnrbid eye, the shifting
glance, the hollow-ringing, fictitious,
lconcealing voice-worse blemishes than
furrowed cheek, gray hair or wasted
form.
TO miss the prettiness and bloom of
lyOuth may bee painful; to miss its
strength and vigor trying; to miss its
hopefulness and cheerful outlook, dis
heartening; to miss its affectionate-
ness, both in receiving and giving,
saddening, but to miss its innocence,
is to miss honor, tranquility, self.res-
Ipect, and the comfort Of the assurance:
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God"