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

oh"s
A 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 lookn'
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, l think, than alb
solute old age, which gradually becomes
as conccited over its many years as youth
is over its few ones.
Still, cannot believe but that it is pos
sible by extra care at the beginning of de-
cav to avoid its saddest intirmitieS, and
to make senility 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 to give it a little less work
to do. A meal from which ayoung man
would rise up hungry is quite sufficient
for the needs of man of seventy, and bet
ter for him than more. The healthiest,
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 to the common tallacy,
more and more. And they who have
longest retained their hold on life and its
enjoyments have been those who i'll 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 humilating depend
ence; would give us, in short, little ten
der rock in our second cradle before she
| lays us in the grave.
1t is well 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
night: 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 one-half 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 u.s. We have had our day; we will
not grudge them theirs.
| cannot imagine an old age like this to
be sad Or undesirable thing. Infrmities
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 were utter.
ly 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.
tient mind For others there is still some.
thing left. 81 have had all wanted, y
said to me one of the most unquiet spirits
l ever knew, keenly alive still, even under
the deafness of seventy-odd years. Life
has been a long puzzle to me, but 1 am
coming to the end of it now. There is
one thing more-I want to find out the
great secret, and l shall, before long"
One can quite well imagine some peo
pie, to whom the tter-life was neither
kcertainty nor even hope, looking for
ward to death as a matter of at least curl
osity But for us who believe that dealt
is the gate of life it is quite differen
feeling. Putting it on the very loves
ground-to have all our curiosity gratified
to know even as we are known, to fee
nearer and nearer to our hands the key O
the eternal mystery, the satisfying of tn,
infinite desire-this alone is consolation
in degree, for our own failing powers ant
tagging spirits; nay, even for the SLOWLY
emptying world around us-emptying O
the wise and the good, the pleasant and tn,
dear, whom one by one we see passing
ad mGjores."
eff could only get rid of my body
should be all right" sighed once grea
sufferer And there are times when ever
the most patient of us feel rather glad tina
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, no
only with all its sins, but with its often in
firmities.-Auttor Of "Joln Halifax, Gen
tlenaan," in Haaper's Basar.
Methodist discipline is well illustrated
by the statement of Bishop James that on
of the 10000 preachers stationed by tn,
Bishop the past year only three have de
clined to accept their appointments, an(