When Longfellow was up in years, a friend asked, "How are you able to keep so lively and write so beautifully?"

Pointing to an apple tree, he said, "That apple tree is very old. But I never saw any prettier blossoms on it. The tree grows a little new wood every year, and I suppose it's out of the new wood that those blossoms come. Like the apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood every year."

What Longfellow did, we ought to do.

Pitiful is the one who has elderliness without elegance, funds without faith, goods without goodness, power without purpose and cash without Christ.