The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-23
BLESSINGS OF AGE
 SUBJECT 0F SERMON
Rev. Bransc0mb Delivers an Interesting Sermon With
 Story of Anna and
 SimiOn the Basis

Terming old age the best years of life.
 and typifed by the sunset, the most
 beautiful thing on earth. the Rev. l.. c.
 Branscomb's sermon yesterday morning
 at the First Methodist church was one
 of special significance for elderly persons.
 The subject, "A Beautiful Old Age," was
 baged on the story of Anna and Simion,
 elderly saints of the early Biblical days,
 and was developed with vivid word pie
 lures of the changes of nature and ad-
 monitions to youth to guard well it's con-
 duct to it's elders.
 pr. Branscomb said among other state-
 ments:
 Tn some lands and among some peo-
 pie, men and women look forward with
 horror to the coming of old age for it is the custom to starve their old people or get rid of them by other means. as they
 are looked upon as a burden and nui- I sance. But religion incuicuated in the | Bible teaches that we should respect and revere those who have arrived at the stage of old age. The commandment Honor they father and mother is not for children only, but for all. The law of Leviticus reads that we shall rise up before the old and honor the facs
 of the old man. We should respect the
 crown of hoary hair as much as we do
 the golden corounet of authority.
 If we could but know the aspirations of their youth, the struggles, romance.
 and business conquests of their manhood, the sustaining motives, denials and sac-i
 r6ces of their later years, we could not help but behold in the old the common experiences of a mortal life and under- stand their present. Happy is that home that. has within it a blessed old man and woman. How the children will
 gather around grandfather or grand
 mother 10 hear the stories of long ago an1 of the Bible. Let us be patient with them, for they will not be with us much longer as they watch and wait for the opening of heavens gate.
 "Simion and Anna were model old saints and possessed three traits that particularly want to recommend to every old man and woman. In the first place. they were optimistic, for they were al> ways expecting and planning for better times amid the worst conditions that could have existed for them in old Rome. It Is the temptation of old age to giv3 way to gloom, despair, fault finding and to become sour old men and women, to turn the wine of life into vinegar. "'rhen Simion and Anna despised idle- ness and inactivity. Smion kept abreast with the times and Anna was a prophet- ess in the temple. For your own hap pincss, l charge you, old men and women, to never cease to have your active interests until your body has be- come too weak with the infirmities of age U support your endeavors. An old man is a greater and a wiser worker than the young man and 30 per cent of the notable things accomplished in history have been brought about by men past a years of age.
 one cannot have a happy old aga without religion, for what is there to give
 hay piness but rest in God?. The irrelig- ious old person looks back over life with regret and remorse, he thinks of the present infirmities of the senses, and can> not dream of the future without mis- giving, for he knows that he is soon to meet the God he despised and re. jected But the faces of the Christian old man or woman seems to have halo around them and they are spending their last days in thinking of the good deeds for which they will soon receive their re- wards.
 T look forward to my old age as the happiest days of my life, as season Of rrenng} and preparation for the glory or the Kingdom to como and life severs
 9sting,'