The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-29
A SERMON FOR THE AGED.
Rev, 0. G. NcCullOehs Interesting Discourse
Notes of Other Services

-NOIeS Ol UGHer ptINlCes'
Rev. Oscar c. McCulloch yesterday supple
mented his last Sundays sermon to children by
service for the aged, taking his text from
Psalms xcii, IA; "They shall still bring forth
fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourish
ing" Mr.. McCulloch said he should never have
thought of such a service except that as came by
request, for he found the oldest in years in his
| church and congregation young in spirit, and re-
captivity. Continuing he said:
There is an old age of the body, when the
keepers of the house tremble, and the strong
men bow themselves, and the grinders cease be-
cause they are few, and those that look out Of
the windows be darkened, but the spirit only
ripens, and an old person in the house should
be like achild-perpetual joy-a constant Messiah
for if the morning is beautiful. so also should
be the setting of the day of life. But such q
happy old age only comes by preparation, and
so sermons to the aged really become sermons
to the young and middle aged Life is not as
Goethe says in Faust-a passage from hell across
the earth to heaven, but rather from heaven to
heaven again, for the eternal years of God belong
to the SOUL it knows no age, but cometh from
afar, and hath had elsewhere its setting.
The pastor then called attention to the difficult
ties in the way of growing old naturally and
happily, saying, we do not have charge of our
early lives; the education that goes before con-
both physically and morally are We born
into life halt and MANNED. If the
laws of nature and of God We're
kept inviolate we should pass lit
orally into second childhood, babbling, like
FalstaH, of green fields and early days or like
President Knott, who at a hundred years
passed peacefully away to rest, murmuring the
cradle songs of his first childhood, and the Nov
lay me down to sleep" that he had learned at
his mothers knee. But not all can pass thus
llV iy,c Of ba
elements are not kindly mixed; temperament,
the color of the SOUL depends upon the mixture
of the oil of joy and the tears of our ancestors,
and we do not inherit alike
The speaker then showed an old diagram,
representing the stages of life. Until twenty we
are sharpening our TOOLS acquiring growth and
discipline; from twenty to thirty much
good work is done, but it is still
preparatory to the level plateau, from thirty to
fifty, when we nave full power in possession,
waste and repair are equal from fifty to sixty
the silver mixes with the gold but still much
good work is done; from sixty to eighty we pass
rapidly down the hill, but we do not disappear
we 20 down the slopes of sunset into the sight of
of old age; he thought it came with temper
ate life again he attributed it to the non use of
tobacco. But men attain old age in spite of
these vices and so Mr. Beecher concluded one
must sleep well and long to live well and long.
We need abundant sleep-not as Franklin
said, six hours for philosophers, seven
for ordinary intellects, and eight for
purely animal natures, but each according to
his needs. Simplicity of life-a few high princi-
pies and simple rules-conduce to old age, as with
Bronson Alcott who never could have recovered
from his paralysis except that he had a constitu-
ton unbroken by any vice of habit or life. To
attain old age each must have a mission, must
do something we'll Peter Cooper made good
glue; another good clocks; a third the best wire.
One must fight good fight, like ST. Paul, and
let their works speak for them.
The thing to dread is fiXedness of mind. The
mind must be receptive in old age, so that, like
Sir Charles Lyell, evolution may be recognized
as law even in old age and in the eleventh
ted in earlier editions. Preachers rarely learn
anything after fifty; this is usually the deadline
of their lives, and past that age they are not
wanted, although lawyers are still good at sixty,
and physicians to even three score and ten.
1t is mistake to give up work too soon. Mr.
Helps thinks it mistake to retire judges at
seventy for after that they are still good private
counselors, and why not good public judgesi 1t
is not too late
'"Ti the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophoces
Wrote his grand Edipus and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers
When each had numbered more than fourscore years.
Chaucer at sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales,
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past
These are, indeed exceptions, but they show
How far the gulfstream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives,
When little else than life itself survives"
To avoid growing old one should not only have
a business, but hobby. Peter Cooper not only
made glue but he founded Cooper Institute.
We must do our work. and then have some occu-
patton that is a recreation, as Charles V made
clocks. Then, with body and mind busy in our
life-work, and in sympathy with our fellows, we
may pass peacefully down into second childhood
and old age