APPLICATION.
As summer is the season in which the industrious laborious husbandman lays up his supplies for the winter, so youth and manhood are the times of life which we should employ in laying in such a stock as may suffice for helpless old age; yet there are many whom we call rational creatures, who squander away in a profuse prodigality, whatever they get in their younger days, as if the infirmity of age would require no supplies to support it, or at least would find them administered to it in some miraculous way. From this Fable we learn this admirable lesson, never to lose the present opportunity of fairly and honestly providing against the future evils and accidents of life; and while health and the vigour of our faculties remain firm and entire, to lay them out to the best advantage; so that when age and infirmities despoil us of our strength and abilities, we may not have to bewail that we have neglected to provide for the wants of our latter days: for it should always be remembered, that “a youth of revels breeds an age of care,” and that temperance in youth lays the foundation of health and comfort for old age.
