The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-07-22
Growing Old.

Growing Old.
4 HARD time this to many, when all the
sins they ever committed against their
bodies-and you may sin against your
| body just as fatally as you sin against
your soul-rise up in judgment against
| them-the season when We begin TO feel
that we are really growing old, and that
everybody sees it but is too polite TO say
so, or tries to gloss it under the unmean-
| ing remark: How young you look"'
| indicating that We cannot reasonably be
| expected to look young any longer. This
| is as painful a phase as any our life goes
through-more painful, think, than alb
solute old age, which gradually becomes
as conccited over its many years as youth
| is over its few ones.
Still, l cannot believe but that it is pos
| sible by extra care at the beginning of de-
cay to avoid its saddeSt intirmities, and
to make senility a comparatively painless
thing-free from many of those weakness
es and unpleasantnesses which cause so
many unselfish people to say honestly
| they never wish to live to be old.
For instance, how few recognize the
very simple and obvious truth that as the
machinery of digestion begins to wear out
it is advisable 10 give il little less work
TO do. 4 meal from which young man
would rise up hungry is quite sufficient
| for the needs of man of seventy, and bet
Ii tlar hn hna
most active and most happy minded of old
people | have always found to be those
who were exceedingly moderate in their
food, eating less and less every year, in
stead of, according 10 the common fallacy,
more and more. And they who have
longest retained their hold on life and its
enjCyments have been those who in all
their habits have gradually gone back to
the simplicity of childhood. Indeed, it
seems as if nature, when We do not fool
ishly resist her or interfere with her, would
fain bring us back quietly to all the tastes,
pleasures and wants of our earliest youth
its innocent interests. its entire but not
necessarily painful or humiliating depend
| encc; would give US. in short, little ten
der rock in our second cradle before she
lays US in the grave.
| 1t is we'll for the younger generation to
see how contentedly we can loose our hold
upon that world which is slowly sliding
| from us. Though, unlike them, we can
no longer work all day and dance all
nj ght: though we require every year more
care, more regularity of hours and meals,
more sleep-at all events more rest; can
by no means play tricks with ourselves for
any excuse either of amusement or labor
are perhaps obliged to spend onehalf the
day in peaceful seclusion, or equally
peaceful endurance of pain, in order to
qualify ourselves for being cheerful with
those we love for the other half-still, life
is not yet burden to us, and we try to be
as little of burden as possible to those
about US We have had our day; we will
not grudge them theirs.
l cannot imagine an old age like this to
be sad or undesirable thing. Infirmities
it may have, must have, but they need not
be overwhelming if the failing body has
been treated, and is still treated, with that
amount of respect which is its due. And
at worst perhaps, bodily sutferings are not
harder to bear than the horrible mental
struggles of youth, with its selfish agony
of passion and pain, or than the vicarious
sufferings of middle age, when he groaned
under the weight of other peoples cares,
mourned over sorrows that we We're utter
" pOwerless to cure. and looked forward
with endless anxiety into an uncertain
future, not considering how soon it would
become the harmless past.
| Now all that is over. The old never
| grieve much: at least, not overmuch.
| Why should they? 1t is strange to notice
how even after loss by death that a few
years before would have utterly crushed
them they seem to rise up and go on their
way-only few steps more-quietly, even
cheerfully: troubling no one, complaining
to no one, probably because it is only a
| few steps more. Suffering itself grows
calm in the near view of rest.
Thus it is with people of restful and pa
tent mind. For others there is still some
| thing left a have had all wanted, -
! said to me one of the most unquiet spirits
I ever knew, keenly alive still, even under
the deafness of seyenty-odd years. Life
has been long puzzle to me, but am
coming to the end of it now. There is
one thing more-I want to find out the
! great secret, and shall, before long"
One can quite we'll imagine some peo-
pie, to whom the after-life was neither a
certainty nor even hope, looking for
ward to death as matter of at least curl
| osity. But for us who believe that death
! is the gate of life it is quite a different
| feeling. Putting it on the very lowest
ground-to have all our curiosity gratifed,
to know even as we are known, to feel
nearer and nearer to our hands the kew of
the eternal mystery, the satisfying of the
| infinite desire-this alone is consolation.
in degree. for our own failing powers and
| tagging spirits; nay, even for the slowly
emptying world around us-emptying Of
the wise and the good, che pleasant and the
dear, whom one by one we see passing
1
dd naajores-"
! "1f could only get rid of my body I
should be all right sighed once a great
sufferer And there are times when even
the most patient of us feel rather glad that
we do not live forever. Respect our NOR
tai tabernacle as we may, and treat it ten
derby as we ought to do, We may one day
be not so very sorry to lay it down, not
only with all its sins, but with its often in
ties.-Auttor Of John Hdtfdr, Gen
taen'0a," IN Hdrper's Boar.
Methodist discipline is well illustrated
by the statement OF Bishop james that out
of the 10000 preachers stationed by the
Bishop the past year only three have de-
clined to accept their appointments, and
] not single church rejected its preacher