The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-02-02

was Attorney-Ge at twenty-four. Some of the mightiest things for God and eternity have been doAe in the twenties. As long as you can put the figure be- fore the ether figure that helps describe your age have high hopes about you. Look out for that figure 2 Watch its continuance with as much earnestness as you ever watched anything that prom ised you salvation or threatened demo- ltion. What a critical time-the twenties. While they continue you decide your oc- cupation and the principles by which you will be guided; you fix your habits. Lord God Almighty, for Jesus Christ's sake, have mercy on all the men and women in the twenties
 The Waiting Age
 Next I accost those in the thirties. You are at an age when you find what tough thing 1t is to get recognized and established in your occupation or protes- sion. Ten years ago you thought all that was necessary for success was to put on your shutter the sign of physician or dentist or attorney or broker or agent and you would have plenty Of business. How many hours you sat and waited for business, and waited in vain. three per- sons only know-God, your wife and your self. In commercial life you have not had the premonition and the increase in salary you anticipated. or the place you expected to occupy in the firm has not been vacated The produce of the farm with which you expected to support yourself and those depending on you and to pay the interest on the mortgage has been far less than you anticipated. or the prices were down, or special expenses for sickness made drafts on your re- sources that you could not have expected. In some respects the hardest decade or life Is the thirties. because the results are generally so far behind the anticipa- tions. It is very rare indeed that young man does as did the young man one Sun day night when he came to me and said. T have been so marvelously prospered since I came to this country that I feel as a matter of gratitude that l ought to dedicate myself to God" Nine-tenths of the poetry of life has been knocked out of you since you came into the thir- ties. Men in the different professions and occupations saw that you were rising. and they must put an estoppel on you or you might somehow stand in the way. They think you must be suppressed From thirty to forty is an especially hard time for young doctors. young law yers. young merchants, young farmers, young mechanics, young ministers. The struggle of the thirties Is for honest ana helpful and remuneratlve recoshl'loI. few old persons know now to treat young people without patronizng them on the one hand or snubbing them on the other. Oh. the thirties! Joseph stood before Pharaoh at thirty; David was thirty years old when he began to reign; the height Of Solomons temple was thirty cubits; Christ entered upon his active ministry at thirty years of age; Juda sold him for thirty pieces of silver. Oh. the thirties! What word suggestive of triumph or disaster
 Your decade is the one that will prob ably afford the greatest opportunity For victory because there Is the greatest necessity for struggle. Read the world s history and know what are the thirties for good or Tad. Alexander the Great closed his career at thirty-two: Frederick the Great made Europe tremble with his armies at thirty-Ave; Cortes conquere,t and Donelson when thirty-eight; Raph- aeI died at thirty-seven; Luther was the hero of the reformation at thirty-five; Sir Philip Sidney got through by thirty-two. The greatest leeds for God and against Him were done within the thirties and your greatest battles are now and be- tween the time when you cease express mig your age by putting first a figure and the time when you will cease eX- pressing it by putting first figure 3. As 1t is the greatest time of the struggle. a6jure you, in Gods name and by God s grace, make 1t the greatest achievement. My prayer Is for all those in che tremen- dous crisis of the thirties. The fact is that by the way you decide the present decade of your history you decide Ill the following decades.
 The Decade of Discovery.
 Next I accost the fortoes. Yours is the decade of discovery 1 jo not mean the discovery of the outside, but the discov- CT of yourself. No man knows himself until he is forty He overestimates or un- derestimatesc himself. By that time he has learned what he can do or what he cannot do. He thought he had commer- cial genius enough to become a million aire, but now he is satisfied to make a comfortable living. He thought he had rhetoric power that would bring him into the United States Senate: now he is content If he can successfully argue common case bcfo:e petit fury. 1Ta thought he had medical skin that wouI make him a Mott or a Crosse or a Wil-