American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-10-16
GROWING OLD TOGETHER.

GROWING OLD TOGETHER.
from a Recent Lecture by Rev. Rober. Collyer
Of Chicago.
So I WANT to run story through the
rest of my discourse, in which have tried
to open this great secret of staying mar
ried in the light that comes to a man by
the time he gets round to the silver we'd
ding, to which my wife and l got round
last April.
1t is about a young man who set Quito
seek . wife, and who found one, of course,
as all young men do who set out N dead
earnest; and when they were married he
knew very little about her, and she knew
very little about him, beyond this: That
they were both born of a good, honest
stock, and raised in a good, wholesome way
and she had to go home with him and live
with that person for a while our new sat
irists are girding at so unfairly-a mother
in-law And what would come of it?
They had no idea; the whole future was
as yet in the shadow except for the light
of love that was in their hearts; and when
they came to be alone in their chamber
they knelt down and prayed this prayer
Mercifully ordain that we may grow old
together"
1t was one of those weddings for which
some people predict leisurely repent
ance-love at first sight, followed by a
very brief courtship-and then the min
lister and friends, congratulations, kisses,
tears, laughter, a supper, which they ate
no doubt looking slyly at each other, and
half wondering whether it couldbe posi-
BILE that they were really husband and
wife, as the man had said, as long as they
both should live. They were both quite
young; they did not know much OF the
world they had lived in, and nothing at
all of the world they were entering. Could
he hold his own as bread-winner, and she
as bread-maker? Could he keep house
over her head, and could she make it
bright and trim as man loves to see it
when he comes home tired and wants to
rest? Would he turn out selfish in his
home, or selfforgetful? or she frivo-
lous gossip, or a wife he could trust
like his own right hand? Would the
sunshine break out in his face as he en-
tered his own door and met the sunshine
breaking out on hers? Would she cry:
" Husband, here's your slippers, nice and
warm; little Annie has been toasting
them ever SO long"s and he cry; All,
wife, you are the woman to think of a
man Where are the children?''e Or
would he save all his snarls until he had
shut the door and sat down to supper, and
she give him back his own with usury?
There it all lay before them, the vast, un-
trodden possibility leading to heaven or to
hell by the time they came to their silver
wedding. There was but one wish In their
hearts, come what would, resting there as
the lark in the spring rests in my old
homeland among the wild thyme, and
then it SCARED as the lark scars sing
ing into heaven; and this was the burden
of their song: Mercifully ordain that
we may grow aged together
But we have TO see how this most touch
ing cry would be of no more use then
than Il is to some now if it did not stand
through all the time to come at once as
safeguard and an inspiration-a safeguard
growing old together, and an inspiration
70 some that help us. 1t was natural
longing just then voicing itself out of
their hearts, They felt sure they had been
made for each other, and while they knew
that time must turn their raven to white,
furrow-tiie brow, blench the bloom, bend
them down with its burdens and touch
all their faculties with its wintry frosts, if
they should live, still they wanted the
good God to deal them out an even meas
ure together. This seems to me to be the
binding word. Together then as now, in
the autumn as in the spring, in taking as
in giving, until the silver chord was
loosed and they were borne away not far
apart to the life to come.
But looking first at the most outward
thing of all there, there was danger, If they
did not take care, that their prayer would
not and could not be answered. They
God ordained and they might live togeth-
er while life should last-that must be as
they ordained; but this day might be, for
all that, the end of their equality in
age. If he was one of those men we
have all known whose body and soul is
given over to business, while she was one
of those women who take life easy and
run no risks, he might be a broken-dOwn
old man with great fortune while she
was still young enough to enjoy it, or if
he had a secret vice, such as keeping ice
water on the side-board and sampleroom
in the closet, or any other of those subtle
and dangerous devices that are always
watching for a chance to drag man
down while she held her life sweet and
true, then long before their silver wedding
he might be in his grave or be fit for very
little out of it, an old man in mid-age,
feeling the warning finger of paralysis in
his shoulder or the bolts of inflammatory
rheumatism in his marrow, a broken man
that she has to care for like fretful
child.
Or, IL she, poor woman, is beginning this
welded life as SO many of our girls do,
without the sturdy womanhood of the open
air, with bloom on her blessed face like |
that you see on the blossom in a hot
house, while he has the strong vitality in |
him of the hills, by the time she has |
borne those six sons she, had she will have |
aged two years for his one know if he |
has mans heart in his breast he |
will love her and cherish her all |
the more for her lost beauty
and broken health, and some blessings
may be found in the altered relation which |
might never come to their perfect equal |
ity, but beg to say this is not the ques-
ton at all. This blended being OF the
man and woman is first of all a piece of
exquisite mechanism ordained of Heaven |
for . perfect work on this earth, and it is
the very first condition that all the arms
of its power should be equal to their de-
sign; but when this power fails by our
folly on either side the thing in that
shape is past praying for. We can only
pray then for power and grace to make
the best of it, and thank God that prayer
can always be answered. So Hope when |
they cried: :" Mercifully ordain that we J