The National Register.
London, England, 1817-04-21 00:00:00

THE COMFORTS OF OLD AGE.

Closely connected with the foregoing subject, we
lave great pleasure in recommending to the perusal of
our readers Sir Thomas Bernard's recent walk, entit-
led, " On Me Comforts of Old Age, milli Biographical
Illustrations." This is a truly valuable book ; treating
of subjects of the highest interest to our present comtbrt
and fixture salvation, in a style and manner eminently
calculated to arrest the attention, inform the judgment,
affect the best passions of our nature, and warm and
invigorate the heart. The " INCONVENIENCES or
AGE," are described to be, Ist. Lraßness.for public
hflirmity of body, 3d. Loss if animal enjoyment,
and, 4th. iln.riely abort death. As a kind of set-off to
these inconveniences, are adduced illustrative anecdotes
a several eminent public characters who have, in a
great degree, counteracted their effects by a vigorous
mind, a virtuous conduct, temperance, and religion.
The Con fort: of Old Age are described as being
often found in melioration of temper, social intercourse,
amusing books, and above all, in the exercises of re-
ligion, and the bright prospects it opens to the serious
Christian.

These topics are discussed in the form of a dialogue
supposed to have taken place in the year succeeding the
hard frost of 1739, between the venerable Bishop
Hough, Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, and Mr. Lyt-
tleton, afterwards Lord Lyttleton. One or two short
extracts are all that our limits will allow. In answer
to a request from the Bishop of London, that Bishop
Bough would import to them his antidoteseto the
aches and infirmities of age, my Lord of Worcester
replies :---

" I never peruse the account of the journey of the Is-
raelites through the Wilderness, as given by Moses in the
Pentateuch or abridged by David in the lxxviii. Psalm, with-
out considering it as a type of the Christian's passage through
this probationary state. The world is the wilderness, through
which we are travelling ; and if we are asked what is our
tawdry, we may point with Anaxagoras, to Heaven.—Like
.the children of Israel we have difficulties and dangers to en-
counter, but we have the Light of Revelation to direct onr
path, and to guide us by night and by day. We also have
the living waters, are nourished with angels food, and fed
with the bread of heaven. It therefore ill becomes us, as we
approach the promised land, to murmur and be dispirited,
because we are weaker and more wearied. With the blessed
Jerusalem lo view, approaching the holy rest of God, we
weed desire na more strength, than will carry us to our jour-
as y's end. Viewing this world in its true light, as a passage
to a better, we shall find all the periods of life tinder the
same directing providence ; and we may be assured that our
Creator has not left the last stage of our corporeal existence
imperfect ; but has apportioned to each its duties and enjoy.
nests.—When every other part of the drama of life has been
so well provided for, it can hardly be supposed that the last
act should have been entirely negk cted. Every period of
our existence has its gratifications, as every season of the
year produces its peculiar enjoyments. The bloom of spring,
the gleam of summer, and the rich produce of autumn may be
passed and gone : but to those who have made due preparation,
the cheerful fireside and the social comforts of winter will
not be less acceptable. When, however, I say this, I exeept
those cases, where individuals have so applied the former
part of life, as to leave the latter blank and comfortless: I
only mean to assert, that if our youth be so employed as not
to embitter the decline of life, we shall find etijoymetits
allotted to every period of our existence."

In page 85, et seq. this good prelate, speaking of
melioration of temper, is made to say,
" When, therefore, I am in company with the young., I
endeavour, as far as my station and time of life a iil permit,
to assimilate any manners to theirs: and I find two good
Elects from it ; one, that they listen with muds more pleasure
owl attention, to any advice I may see occasion to °Wee: the
other, that I prevent, what is far more odious than any wrin-
kles of the body,—tkose wrinkles of the Iniod (as Moutaiguc
terms them) which are so destructive of the virtues of the
he:tat, and of the intellectual features.—Why should sourness
and peevishness of temper have any thing to ale with old age?
'They are the vices of the narrow and selfish. The liberal
an.' benevolent, like aids and generous wines, improve with
kerplar. What will turn acid in so short a life as ours, must
owe its sourness to poverty of spirit and meanness of Charac-
ter. Nobler dispositions soften and meliorate, and become
more and more kind and disinterested, with length of years;
acquiring a smoothness, a milkiness, and sweetness of dm_
itacter, commensurate to their period of existence, and pie-

paratery to that intellectual side which they are shortly to
enjoy. The handsomest and must elcgaideoinplintent, which
is to he found in the father of epic poetry, comes from the
aged counsellors of Priam; who, on the Night of Helen,
claim, " We cannot object to stiffer so long the calamities of
war, for a woman so like the immortals in beauty." Where
is the yo:ing Bean, who could have expressed himself with
more ell valrous gallantr ?—But in order to preserve Om
, tl.vo6ition, a regular habit of BELV-EILAMINA-