Year: 1873

SNOW tue ulst NtahutSsec Vi dSc. AhS


part which it is natural tor him to take


il the intercourse Of the household Is


looked upon as an invasion of the rights


Of the younger members; and he is felt


to be intrudng where no privilege has


been granted him, when he makes him.


self part of the company, and enjoys


the pleasantries of the conversation with


the freedom from restraint to which his


years entitle him. When the anecdote


is told it is not meant for him and he is


rebuffed for the meek parental interest


that makes him hang inquiripgly upon


the lips Of the favorite son who relates


it. The laws of urbanity and politeness,


which they observe toward all the world,
are suspended toward him /; and in vain
does he look for one act of kindness,
sweetened by obliging gentleness of man
ner and the tenderness of filial affec-
ton.


The youth of such families, changing
the maxim of Scripture, are persuaded
that folly is bound up in the heart of age
and that, by incessant satire and dis
countenance, it is to be driven from him.
They mark his steps with inquisitorial
eye, and, if everything done and said by
him is not nodded into the most sensi-
BILE form that can be imagined, it is
marked with judicial severity, or passed
by in contemptuous silence.


The natural infrmities that insensibly
grow upon age are regarded as voluntary
weaknesses, exercised gratuitously for
the annoyance of all about him. The
beautiful simplicities, the graceful slack
ening of the mental chord, that are the
chief attraction of hoary hairs, excite
perpetual Indignation in the minds of
the young and they suppose they are
paying tribute to wisdom and to good
sense, by some mark of disapprobation
or contempt.


There is no stronger proof of shallow
ness of human nature, and the proven
bal folly of youth, than the fact that
children can discover anything in the old
age of their parents, calculated to excite
contempt and that they do not discover
in them everything we are accustomed
to cherish with fondest veneration.


There is no object about family man
sion so beautiful as hoary-headed father
or mother, though with faltering gait
showing himself at its door, descending
its steps and walking its grounds. No
pillar, no monument, could so connect
the idea of stability with the estate, or
reflect SO much glory upon those to whom
it is to descend. The wisdom he has
gathered through long experience of
years, and by means of which he acquir-
ed his present possessions, is still at the
head of affairs, and constitutes an almost
certain security to the welfare of the
family. The good fortune, too, which
has attended him through life continues
while he lives, to rest upon his house,
affording ground of confidence to its
members which no man of sense will be
ready to undervalue.


Age, further, is valuable element in
a family circle, as it is a token of the
blessing of the Eternal abiding on it, and
a kind of guarantee for its continuance
so long as that element remains. There
is in the child an instinct that gives it a
feeling of security whilst it walks near
its fathers side; and the same is found
to operate in later life, in perfect consis-
tency with the manifest fortitude. In
every right-hearted man, the surviving
life and presence of father or mother,
though in their feeblest age, is felt to be
like temple or an altar, place of sa-
cred refuge, where danger and misfortune
will scarcely approach him. What is
calculated to eli the heart with nobler
or firmer sense of strength and pride,
than to have in our bosom still, those
who were the venerable founders of our
name, whose continued existence associ-
ates us still with whatever was prosper
Gus or honorable in our history Stronger
motives than these cannot be imagined.
to cherish them with tender reverence
and by assiduous care and gentleness, to
lengthen out their lives to the utmost
that Providence will allow. A body of
the most precious advantages of life is
irretrievably lost at the moment of their
decease. All the collected wisdom, all
the charm of antiquity, all the kindness
of fortune and goodwill Of heaven that
were settled upon the common roof take
their departure with them. This part
OF the inheritance it is not in their power
behind them. Each member of the fam
lily must begin to act in a new and sepa-
rate field, where everything has to be re-
built; to revolve, as star, in new and
untried orbit, in which it will not often
happen, that he will rise to an equal
hight of hanDiness and glory with thosa