"Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
"In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth....
"For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told.
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away....
"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom....
"O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
"Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
"Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it."
Aunt Jane removed her glasses and folded her withered hands over the sacred pages. "You know, child," she said, "the Bible's the word of God. I ain't questionin' that. But it looks like to me there's some o' the words of man in it, too. Now this psalm I've jest read is the very one to read at a watch-meetin' on New-year's eve because it's all about time and life and the passin' o' the years, but there's some o' the verses I'd like to leave out. There's that tenth one about 'the days of our years' and the strength of our years. I reckon we all feel like sayin' such things when we git tired and it looks like we haven't done the work we set out to do, but that's the sort o' feelin' to keep to ourselves. It don't do any good to tell such feelin's. And when a man can say that the Lord has been his dwellin' place in all generations, he oughtn't to turn right around and say that the strength of his years is jest labor and sorrow. The trouble with some folks is that they're always lookin' back and countin' the years wherein they have seen evil, but they don't ricollect that the Lord's promise is to make us glad accordin' to the evil years. Trouble has got to come to us, child, but whenever it comes we ought to know there's happiness comin' to make up for it jest like this psalm says, 'Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.' I've lived pretty near eighty years, and I've had my share o' trouble, but I'm far from sayin' that the strength of my years is nothin' but labor and sorrow. I never had a sorrow that I didn't know there was a happiness comin' to make up for it. I've spent my life 'as a tale that is told,' and I'm nearly to the end of it, but I'd be right glad, child, if I could go back to the beginnin' and have it told all over again."