We cannot recover our treasures.

The gleams only mock us.

The past will not give again its gold and pearls to any frantic appealing of ours.
There is something truly startling in this irreparableness of the past, this irrevocableness of the losses which we have suffered through our follies or our sins.

About two centuries ago a great sun-dial was erected in All Souls' College, Oxford, England, the largest and noblest dial, it is said, in the whole kingdom.

Over the long pointer were written, in large letters of gold, the Latin words, referring to the hours, "_Pereunt et imputantur_." Literally, the meaning is, "They perish, and are set down to our account"; or, as they have been rendered in terser phrase, "They are wasted, and are added to our debt." It is said that these words on the dial have exerted a wonderful influence on the boyhood of many of the distinguished men who have received their training at Oxford, stimulating them to the most conscientious use of the golden hours as they passed, and bearing fruit in long lives of earnestness and faithfulness.