The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-03-28

liant and malicious enemies makes life inter-
esting. They teach you your weak points
and develop the fight that is in you that
otherwise might have laid unsupported.
How about books? At sixty years a man
has his book list completed. lie has learned
on what lines TO read, and outside OF these
lines he Is indifferent. 1 think the majority
Of men at three score cease to read books
at all except for amusement or special In
formation. They prefer life. newspapers.
people and emergencies TO the passive act
of reading or studying. / have four thou
sand books in my library. but could Just
as we'll reduce the number to forty, which
would answer all my purposes. 1 do not
expect any more surprises for the rest OF
my life such as for ones first fifty years
constituted the spice of life. For, although
after sixty life Is the same thing over and
over again, nevertheless, the great world
FORCES grandly ahead. The last fifty years
of our history are the greatest. The col
lapse Of slavery. the magnificent growth or
the power of the people. the splendid add
vancements of science and religion, the dis
covery of the telephone. electricity and
what not are all an intoxication and n de-
light TO a gray-haired man. AS If TO pre-
pare old age for its coming. nature at three
oNOiO cOlitiS WI SSRtAANACo NAo
lenient towards one another and ourselves.
We learn at sixty the great truth that the
humblest life is divine. to condemn no one
unheard. TO abstain from acrid judgments.
and that everybody. no matter how much
censured, has his or her side of the story,
and always insists p~assionately that he or
she is in the right. At sixty we learn TO
suspend judgment of not only men but
measures. AT forty we are violent Repub-
leans or Democrats or Populists. At sixty
we learn that even the Populist may pos
sesS some of the cardinal virtues, and also
that in the division of political truths both
of the other great parties have shared
about equally. There are as good Chris
tians in the Democratic as in the Republic
an fold, although ii must be admitted that
the Christianity of both is susceptible TO
great Improvement.
Another of the experiences of a man OF
sixty is that each year the wisest as well
as the most foolish. saint as we'll as sim
ner. must pay a large quota Of fool tax.
Mine for the last forty years has been OF
very liberal proportions. 1t is amazing how
the coolest-headed and the shrewdest OF us
get fooled. and how we grow both red and
gray in striving for something, either place
or property or praise. which, when attained,
proved to be only one more thorn in the
flesh.
The man OF threescore may take In a
larger section OF the grindstone called life
than the boy of twenty, but. after all, he
doesn't comprehend it's mystery any better.
How came We here? No one consulted US
about our arrival. nor will We be asked m
questions about our exit. Our heredity and
early environments are matters prear-
ranpad for ms nv n hiOhor nuar Nhla
the terms of the game of life are always
fair, yet the inequalities that fall to the
lot of the different players are frightful to
think about. One travels life's pathway
over thick and soft carpets woven of
wealth, talent and social position; another,
equally worthy, makes the journey all the
way along through hot plowshares. No one
will ever explain this mystery. We are all
of us free and yet unfree; masters in a
sense of our destinies, and in another and
larger sense puppets in the hands of a
higher power. But for all this, life, while
often a burden to be borne, Is grandly
worth the living. The man at forty signs
for other worlds. He wants to know all
about the next life. The same man at sixty.
looking down the slope, perhaps twenty
years long TO the end, is quite contented
with one world at a time, and quite salts
fled if when he caves 1t he is no worse
than his n%eighbor. AT threescore we begin
10 think that, after all, the immortality of
the type, even though the individual with
ers. is worth living for. Suppose that ones
petty individuality is lost in the sublime
sweep of the ages, what Of IL If the race
humanity-has advanced in his day, and
If he has added his little infinitesimal mite
to such advance? Our surroundings are
largely accidental, sometimes happy, often
er otherwise, but ourselves and our part
nership in the great firm of humanity are
grand facts. And so l look forward TO old
age-twenty years of it, L hope, without
the slightest fear or regret. / am cheered
and encouraged by the grand sentiments of
our poet-prophet. as expressed in RABBI
Ben Ezra" 1t is as natural to die as TO
live. When an apple is ripe it falls. but its
sweetest days are its last days. And so
with men. The year seventy shall be far
more enjoyable than the year sixty, and
the year eighty, if that is our lot. the most
enjoyable of the whole cycle.
ID. L. BALDWIN.
L~ogansport, March %.