If a farmer neglects to plant in the springtime, he can never recover
the lost opportunity; no more can you, if you neglect yours. Youth is
a seed-time, and if it is allowed to pass without good seed being
sown, weeds will spring up and choke the soil. It will take bitter
toil to uproot them.
An old divine said that when a good farmer sees a weed in his field he
has it pulled up. If it is taken early enough, the blank is soon
filled in, and the crop waves over the whole field. But if allowed to
run too late, the bald patch remains. It would have been better if the
weed had never been allowed to get root.