The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1901-03-22

years,
| And Theophrastes at four score and ten,
Had but begun his characters of men:
Chaucer. at Woodstock with the nightingale:
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were .gasi
These. indeed, are exceptions but they show
| How far the gulf stream of our youth may fov
Into the Arctic regions of our lives,
; Where little else than life itself survives
When a mans head like mine i!
frosted DER by Old Father Time the
old idea was that be should prepare
for the tomb.
a number of good people still cling
to that belief.
He was told that he should read the
"Bible," the Lives of the Saints"
Zimmerman on Solitude" Bicker-
steth on Prayer" Harvey among
the Tombs, YOung's Night
Thoughts" and Baxter's saints
| Rest"
Why should we spend the best part
OF our years-years in which We are
best fitted by experience and observa-
ton to benefit our felIows-in paving
the way to the grave with gloom and
melancholy?
God rested from his labors when
his works were finished.
Why should We rest from ours until
our course is fully run?
Why should we because our heads
are little frosted, sit idly down and
say:
The night hath come it Is no longer day "'
Yea, rather let US say:
The night hath not yet come we are not quite
Cut of from labor by the failing light
Something remains for Us to do OF dare
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear,
For age Is opportunity no less
Than youth itself though in another dress.
And, as the evening twilight fades away.
The sky is filed with stars invisible by day
Let Us grid up our loins, put on our
buckler, consecrate ourselves with new
courage to the living, letting, in the
language of the scriptures, the dead
bury their dead"'
Irejoice that the world is growing
away from the belief that 10 scOurge
the soul, torture the brain and mortify
he body is pleasing to God.
Ia late issue Of the Atlanta Jour
nal minister in that city said that
he believed IN progress in religion
Progress not away from Christ but
Owards Christ, 1t was the old belief.
le said, that the dim past was away
Up alongside Of Christ and the world .
las been sloping downward ever since {
o the awful conditions Of to-day. :
his new century preacher believes il [
: JUS the other way. He believes {
hat the past is away down in the r
epths Of barbarism and the slope all y
he time has been upward toward.
believe that the slope is still up
ard. I believe that the world an &
reaches nearer 70 the kingdom of Il
od to-day than II has ever done. Ct
/ believe that men and women are u
-ifer to-day than they ever were e
fore. re
/ believe there is less cruelty, less "a
easement and debaurherv. less i'm
Ierauce. more Intelligence, more II
suIe, more refinement. more ufafv. II
~weeter sense Of existence, a heller b'
Inception IF God, and mans duty To- "a
7n, Than in any other age. ir
l believe that "a free. uushackIp8 o.,
ess bl3zed the way and il at le... es
r,ly responsible for this state or ot
in-s. q
believe that we today are living
the golden era Of the ages. a..
believe that men are hjgoer io -+r
ain power, bigger in their moral Ma
and more physically p.r- DO
{ than in any other are. al
contrary to the lev of opfir-. hi- 49,
luff,v no. . ,,,.l.....- -.