Lest our subject should be rendered useless by being too general, I will proceed, without further delay, to apply our text and this by addressing the various classes of persons among you, so that all, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, may derive some spiritual benefit. That our text refers not to one class, but to every, is evident from the word "all,"--"We all do fade as a leaf." It applies itself, then, first to the young. Not only in autumn and winter, but even in the spring and early months of the year, leaves are seen to fall. And similarly, as the inscriptions upon the many tombstones in our last resting-places will testify, so many of the human family disappear in infancy and youth. It is a mournful sight to see them thus carried off in the vigor and tenderness of opening bloom, but it's one that ought to convey solemn teaching to those of youthful years. And what teaching? Wise King Solomon has expressed it in these words: "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth." And why? Because it is the most favorable time, the most God-honoring time, the most profitable. At no other time is the soul so capable of deep and abiding impressions, are the affections more easily touched and moved, are we more accessible to the influences of emotions and truth. It is preeminently the choosing time, the valley of decision, in which at almost every step we do or leave undone something which has its effect, for good or ill, upon one's future habits and character and eternity; and you can only be prepared to determine matters that call for decision when you have made the great decision; you can choose and act safely and wisely in all the other departments of life, the social, the intellectual, the moral, only when you have taken a decisive stand upon the subject of religion. Hence, our Savior urgently entreats young people: "Seek ye first," first in point of importance and first in point of years, "the kingdom of heaven." Ah, my young members, if the sun does not dispel the mists pretty early in the morning, you may look with reasonable certainty for a foggy day, and so if the Sun of Righteousness, Christ Jesus, does not early in the day of your lives dispel the mists of unbelief and sin, the chances are that it will be more or less gloomy obstruction the rest of your lives. You will never be such Christians as you would have been; there will not be the development of character as if you had started at the right time, and there will always be a feeling of regret in your heart. Note, then, that this is the time to begin to serve God; now is the time to put the yoke of Christ upon your necks and to break yourselves in for lives of usefulness. And what is more God-honoring? Religion is always an ornament, it decorates the silvery locks and the wrinkled brow, but it looks exquisitely attractive and suitable when worn by youth. God accepts the sinner at all times, even when he comes with tottering footsteps and with stooped back; but is it right to do service to another and make Him suspend His claim as your rightful Lord to satisfy the world and the flesh, His degrading rivals, to sow wild oats in the springtime of your years and send Him forth to gather among the stubbles the gleanings of life, after the enemy has secured the harvest? Nay, to Him belong the first-born of your days, the first-fruits of your season, the price of your love and devotion,--give them. You will never regret it. Incalculable are the benefits of early piety, beneficial for body and business, for character and connections, for mind and morals, for after-life and life after death; for, as our text inculcates, your earthly existence hangs but on a slender, frail, and feeble fiber. Do you know of none in your circle of acquaintances swept low by the grim reaper whom we call death? And what assurance have you, my youthful hearers, that you may not be among his victims in the succeeding year? Glory not, then, in your health and strength. Pride yourself not on anything which is so feeble and frail, but seek those solid blessings which are to be found in Christ Jesus, and make true preparation against the time when you shall go hence and be no more. "Remember thy Creator," thy Redeemer, thy Sanctifier, "in the days of thy youth."