Year: 1859

WneO the 0ust OF tnOSe VINO nave gone Oe-
fore us into the land of spirits shall rise,
and assume the forms they are to wear in
the celestial city, there springs up always a
vision of their youth. We expect to meet
the tottering father whose eyes we closed
and whose wasted and feeble limbs we com.
posed, as young and fresh and strong as
when he bore us to the baptsmal font
There are to be no thin, silvery curlS upon
the brow Of the mother. but in some sweet
way, all the hallOwed graces of maternity
and the unfathomahle tenderness Of q soul
disciplined by sorrow are to he associated
interfused-with the beauty and the youth
Of the bride. Immortality -twiu.sister of
E,ernity-is always young, and brings no
thought of age and decay. An angel with
a wrinkle A cherub with feeble or
weary wing2 We cannot imagine such
beings. Heaven and everlasting youth are
inseparahle thoughts.


So it is that the first consciousness we
have of growing old comes to us with a
pang. There seems to be something un-
natural in it. We feel the soul within us
expanding, and know that its vision is clear
er, its power greater, and its capacity for
happiness diviner, yet the body in which
this soul lives shows signs of decay. There
is an increasing incompatihiity between
the tenant and the tenement. Some peo-
pie feel SO badly about it that they under
take to repair the old tahernacle-to put
in porcelain teeth, and dye their hair, and
don artificial curls, and put on feathers and
finery. 1t is all pretty little device, and
harmless, because it cheats nobody, and
really makes the world better looking
And this brings me to what desire to say
tonching the duty Of growing old grace
fully and happily.


! There is a homely kind of philosophy
that will help those who are not up to any
thing higher. The alternative of growing
old is dying youug The only way to keep
hair from becoming gray is to have i: clipp.
: ed off as q mementO of departed man, or
laid away TO decay with him Wrinkles
are either TO bemade ont in Gods sunlight,
among living things, by the hand Of Time,
or by worms working in the dark. take
it that there is an easy choice between these
two evils, and that whatever the evidences
may be that God has answered our wishes
whether gray hairs, or feeble knees, or
dull sight-we should regard them with
gratitude.


Again, keeping alive our sympathy with
the race to which we belong, and manfully
willing to take our chance with the rest,
we should remember that when we per-
ceiVe the signs of age upon ourselves, we
have enjoyed our own single term of youth,
like all men who have gone before us, and
that those who come after us will have no
more Every dog has his day. Those who
are young to-day. and who are doubtless
the subjects of envy to some of US will be
old tomorrow. They are enjoying the
day we have already enjoyed, and will soon
reach the point where we are standing
1t is an even thing and it compromises
all that is unselfiSh and chivarous within
ms to wish for better lot in this respect
than is meted ont to the rest of the great
brotherhood of men. Still again, if we
find the evidences of age creeping upon us,
we cannot avoid their further encroach'
ment except by committing suicide and
this would he a very had alternative What
we cannot help, we must bear and it is
for our interest to bear il cheerfully. 1t is
very pleasant to be young, but as the body
can only be young once, the next best thing
is TO have the privilege of growing DID,
We are to remember that if we look back
with regret to the period we have passed,
the young are looking forward with hope
that they may reach the period at which
we have arrived. They may not like to be
called old, but they all wish to live long.


But there is better point than this from
which to regard this matter To go back
to our theory that everything immortal in
its nature is, by necessity of that nature,
young, | make the proposition that the sc
cret of growing old gracefully and happily
resides IN the comprehension of this fact,
and in the institution of such measures as
may be necessary 10 keep decaying body
from injecting or injuring in any way the
sOnl's health while attached TO it. No man
Oh Gods footstool feels old, or realizes that
he is old, whose soul has not been improper
ly affected by his body. The feeling of age
in the mind is like the effect upon life OF
being in an old, damp house, dingy with
dirt and reeking with rottenness, more
perhaps like the effect of the close, bed.fel-
low association of age and infancy-the
former drawing off the vital forces Of the
latter and imparting to it the taint of its





d seases. There is no such thing as on old
so1 in the universe but there are great
many diseased or depressed souls-dseased
or depressed by great variety Of causes,
prominent among which is the decay of the
bodies whehthey inhabit.


The natural idolutry exercised by the ole
for the young, though owing greatly to the
unpleasant associations of age, has deeper
meaning in it than we have generally com
pretended. God turns our hearts toward
the young that the influence of youth upoI
them may be power conservative of thei
, health, and preventive of the depressing in
, fluence of bodily age. 1t is part of the
beautiful ministry of children to preserve
uninju"ed by the passage of time the soul'
of those with whom they are associated


and in the general rule of life the Coco
Father provides children for those who live
to middle age, and when those are growT
up, he gives them grandchildren, so thai
they shall never I've without this beniicen
i influence. Those who remain unmarried
or are not blest with children, grow old il
feeling as they grow old in years, from tn,
lack Of this influence upon them, thOugl
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