At the gateway of every Eden from which one has gone forth fallen and
disgraced, there hangs a sword of flame to keep the way of a misspent
past. We control the present. The future will be what we choose to make
it. But there is no hand strong enough to lay hold upon the gate of the
day that is gone. The past is what we have made it, and such it must
forever remain.
The most fruitless of all wishes is that one might go back and retrace the
way he has come, that he might travel with surer feet. There are points
all along the way where we would prize an opportunity to undo some wrong,
unsay some word, or perform some omitted deed of helpfulness. We feel that
we could do infinitely better if we had another chance. Heaven may be
willing to grant most of our wishes to do better, but this is one which
has never yet been granted to a child of earth. The voice with which we
cry into the past is echoless, and ineffectual are the hands with which
we beat against its closed portals.
There is only one way to change the past, and that is to change it before
it becomes the past. To-morrow the present will be a part of the past. The
day after to-morrow a part of what is now the future will have gone
forever. Only that part of the eternal duration which is yet unspent still
lies within our control. Very swiftly it flies by us, but not so swiftly
but that we can tinge it with the very color of our souls as it passes.
Thus, after all, we are the architects of human destiny. The very trend of
the ages is entrusted to our hands. As we mould the present we are
moulding history, and as we work out our own little lives we are affecting
all time to come. Men must always remember the things we are doing as
history. None will have power to change them when they are past.
Make this day what you desire through all eternity to remember it as
having been. It must dwell in your thoughts forever as a piercing thorn or
a blooming flower. Your hand is on its gate for the last time.
It is a day of judgment.