Self-Control by Sel

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 11, 1871

Self-Control.

By Sel

IT seems to me that all times are alike adapted for happiness, and if we grow old, as one should grow old, the last days of life must be the happiest of all. Every stage of life is but the preparation for the next one. It is the treasure-house in which are collected all the pleasures that are to make the future time happy. The child has indeed but few troubles, but they are to him as larger ones prove to his parents. I asked a friend once, speaking of the happy, cloudless days of his childhood, if he would like to be always a child. He stopped for a moment, and then said, “No.” I think he was right. There is progress in everything—in our means of happiness, and in our capacity for enjoyment. Then let us look back upon the time-wrinkled face of the past only with feelings of regret. Give me the present, glowing and full of life, and the future, glorious with its bright visions. I would rather look forward than look back; rather spend the golden hours in working out present happiness, than in vain regrets for the past. It is but the helm with which to steer her onward course. It is the steep and rugged mountain up which lies our way. [It is not genius nor fortune that paves the way to eminence, but earnestness, self-control, wisdom. These are in our hands; let us use them, and when at the sunset of life we turn to look back on our path, and see it stretching far down before us peacefully, happily, we may lay ourselves down to rest.—Sel.]