But I am afraid I am sermonising, and I do not want to sermonise, though if
ever a man may be allowed to sermonise it is when he is completing his
half-century. Let me as an antidote recall a little story which the present
Bishop of Chester once told me over the dinner table, for it contains a
practical recipe for keeping the heart young. He was in his earlier days
associated with Archdeacon Jones of Liverpool. The Archdeacon, then over
eighty, had been tutor to Gladstone, and one day the future Bishop turned
the conversation into a reminiscent channel, and sought to evoke the
Archdeacon's memories of the long past. Presently the Archdeacon abruptly
changed the subject by asking, "What was the concert of the Philharmonic
like last night?" And then, in answer to the obvious surprise which the
question had aroused, he added, "Although I am an old man, I want to keep
my heart young, and the best way of doing that is not to let one's thoughts
live in the past, but to keep them in tune with the life around one.
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