Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1875-12-08
Sea ~ usfng0.

Old age finds no keener outdoor
pleasure than to revisit the seashores
familiar to it from childhood. Then
memory and reflection summon the past
to their silent sessions, as the man,
cheered, it may be hoped, with all of
love and Difference which should accom-
pany old age, watches at evening the
fishing-boats hoist their sails to pass the
harbor-bar ere the tide falls, and so,
with their large brown spread of can
vas, sweep majestically in.o the night.
The grandchildren, it may be, play
around; their father walks up and down,
unfolding to his approving wife in the
intervals ofhis cigar the plan of his great
work On Dimorphism, which is to watt
him on to fame. All things around him,
the aged man ponders, are full of hope
and innocent enjoyment, each looking
on to some higher stage, some blessing
to blossom i'm the future. Has not this
reflection a comfortable bearing on his
own years, which are fast nearing their
earthly term? And if the inestimable
boon be further granted him of knowing
that his life has not altogether been
spent uselessly and selfishly, if he be
conscious of good fight not unfairly
fought, if not a few memories of kindly
deeds beset him, of efforts made not
wholly in vain to carry out the law of
love i'm his dealings with others, if
peaceable thoughts and pure fancies and
righteous deeds and helping words have
been the diet on which he has fed his
soul, who would not envy him this re-
Prospect of life, mellowed by the seas
freshness, and with each hard outline
softened by its gracious influences
Then, turning from the past to the pres
ent, the sea spread out before him. with
its sails mysteriOusly sinking below the
horizon to seek another world, must
needs remind him of the numberless
philosophers and poets who have loved
to view in it ''that immortal sea which
brought us hither," as well as the sea
which rounds our little life, the un-
known waters on which, when our an
chors are once weighed, we must dark
ling make our voyage. The sea is thus
the latest, as it was our earliest, instruc-
tor. Its vastness, its brightness, its
union of perpetual agitation with CEN
tral peace-all these qualities are now
but symbols of the future state, as they
served in youth for the work of fancy,
or of encouragement and solace in man
hood. From this worlds sea old age
thus insensibly passes to the 'sea of
glass like unto crystal" 5" before the
throne of God. Finally, in order that it
may strengthen the man about to suffer
this ''sea-change" in higher sense than
Shakespeare ever dreamt, the notion of
trustfully waiting is also inherent in the
sea. Lowell seldom wrote grander
words than when he thus dwells on this
aspect of the sea and the home beyond:
"The dropping sea-weed hears, in night abyssed,
Far aud more far the waves receding shocks,
Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist,
That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst,
And shoreward lead sg ain her foxm-heeced focks
And though Thy healing waters far withdraw,
l. too, can wait and feed on hope Of Thee
And Il the dear recurrence Of Thy law,
sure that the parting grace that morning saw"