The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-04

hour that Is well employed. Ah|i e "' some of all kinds.
 First. there is the eleventh hour of | those who have not succeeded, but who, late in life, when they no longer expected 1t, see some success and en- commencement come to them. Tney have spent their days patiently, one | by one, and without result. A man | waking up in the night strikes one match after the other without result; at last only one remains, and that one | he succeeds in lighting. Thus some | times in the last period of lifetime l that has been unsuccessful and full or worry, one of those lives that make us l say (but wrongfully, for we should | never say that) that we have been un- lucky. something is left in 1t, and what is left is blessed.
 This fact, that sometimes toward the evening of life patience Is rewarded with success, has so struck human im- agination that tradition and old leg ends have perpetuated 1t in graceful pictures and poetical creations.
 Do you remember that the whole or the sacred history rests upon Abraham. who was old and had no posterity? His son, Isaac, was born to him late In life, when he no longer hoped for any children.
 In another line of thought. when Christopher Columbus set forth with his great belief in the roundness or the earth and that another route couio be found to the Indies, do you rdmem- Der that there was a terrible moment in his voyage of discovery? A com- pact was made between his conpan- ions, who had revolted against :he ad- yenturer, and Christopher Columbus, who still obstinately hoped on. Three days grace was given him. and 1t was only on the third day, when all seem. ed lost, that the cry of Land! Land! was heard
 Thus one of the greatest events In history and one of the most wide im- portance, the discovery of the new con- tinent, came as a surprise at the elev- enth hour.
 It was the same, also, with Bernard Palissy. After days and days of study and research he threw into the oven the last remaining sticks of his fur niture, the last pieces of his flooring. and he found what he was seeking at the eleventh hour.
 In a congregation like this there are certainly many people who nave read Tolstoi. You know that his thoughts that have most stirred the world, that have most struck our hearts, are those that came to him after his hftieth year.
 What a difference with those men who come to full stop in their intel lectual as we'll as moral acquisitions toward their thirty-fifth year! There are even some who have learned noth- ing more since they came out of the big schools, where their y4uIh was spent in rapidly absorbing as much science as possible. They have &C., quired this science so hastily and with such badly arranged method tnat they have come to a full stop tired out for l LAf.. M. k-E began a new life at 50 years of age.
 Fortunately, we also know many men whose beautiful old age is a re- newed youth, a youth in another form They no longer have in their heart the disturbing element of passions, tho dust of life amid which they formerly strove has been laid, and with 1t all the things that sometimes in the days
 of youth. prevent men from being en- tirely what they really are. They arc
 at peace, they are tranquil. The elev-
 enth hour has come with that clear | luminance that reminds one of d Sep l tember landscape. All things are bathed In light, the air is pure, distant views come nearer; it seems ns though
 the earth was transformed and trans l figured. In a word, there is n mans
 life, when it has been a long and &C.,
 tive one, a time that can be compared | to autumn; the fruit prepared by a | long existence has reached maturity; | the tillage of spring and the work of l summer have produced the reward and | harvest.
 A man who respects himself, who has on one hand sufficient strength and | health, and on the other sufficient | power of mind and conscience, when he reaches a certain time of life toward the eleventh hour is so rich in memo | ries and experience that he Is as a king, crowned with white hair, reigning over | vast domain of things. If he be- slows them with a generous hand with
 out envy, if he gives them with pure
 kindness, what good can he not do at | the eleventh hour? What useful work
 what fruitful labor can he not con dense in one clear-sighted counsel
 wherein is united, as in a golden ray, all the light that he has slowly and patiently gathered through the hesita- | tions, the researches and the struggles of his days?
 I know of nothing more useful to
 those in the first, in the third, in the
 sixth hour, that Is to say, to infancy
 in its morning time to youth in it's
 beautiful flower and to life in its ripe | maturity, than to have frequent Nnter- | course with those in the eleventh hour | who are still living. It is even in the | respect that we show to our dear old ones, in the affection that they inspire in us, that we find the guarantee that the beautiful gold they have amassed in their heart will not be lost in the future With pious hands the young, standing on the threshold of life, gath CT the treasure. to make of it a store of goodness.
 Now we come to the eleventh hour of those who have wasted their life. They have not noticed that they were alive. They have groped about in moral dark ness or rusted away in inaction. They have not understood that if man has a | heart it is so that he may love his neighbor. Until then they have not | been aware of the problem that is put
 before every one of us on this earth i nthis day that we live, treading those
 earthly paths in the midst of the great
 and sorrowful solidarity of the living
 They have lived as in a dream. Neither
 the starry heavens nor human con- | science has appealed to them in any | way And now they come out of thciI dream at the eleventh hour They per ! ceive with terror that their life has | been wasted. Yet they are not cast
 down. They say, If only a drop re-
 mains, let us utilize that drop" And | they give 1t with such a whole heart
 and with such generous devotion that 1 the drop becomes a river, It requires
 singular courage and that a man should pull himself together with all his en-
 ergy to be able to thus quietly utilize
 the last hour.
 have sometimes envied the calmnes' and apparent screnity--at all events
 the strength of mInd-of some wretch l ed criminals struck down by human laws. Their last hour has come; they are about to be suppressed, more by