He began with some reminiscences of the first time he saw Uncle Capen, some thirty years before, and spoke of having viewed him even then as an aged man, and of having remarked to him that he was walking down the valley of life with one foot in the grave. He called attention to Uncle Capen's virtues, and pointed out their connection with his longevity. He had not smoked for some forty years; therefore, if the youth who were present desired to attain his age, let them not smoke. He had been a total abstainer, moreover, from his seventieth year; let them, if they would rival his longevity, follow his example. The good man closed with a feeling allusion to the relatives, in the front pew, mourning like the disciples of John the Baptist after his “beheadment” Another hymn was sung,—
“A vapor brief and swiftly gone.”
Then there was deep silence as the minister rose and gave out his text: “I have been young, and now I am old.”
“At the time of the grand review in Washington,” he said, “that mighty pageant that fittingly closed the drama of the war, I was a spectator, crippled then by a gun-shot wound, and unable to march. From an upper window I saw that host file by, about to record its greatest triumph by melting quietly into the general citizenship,—a mighty, resistless army about to fade and leave no trace, except here and there a one-armed man, or a blue flannel jacket behind a plough. Often now, when I close my eyes, that picture rises: that gallant host, those tattered flags; and I hear the shouts that rose when my brigade, with their flaming scarfs, went trooping by. Little as I may have done, as a humble member of that army, no earthly treasure could buy from me the thought of my fellowship with it, or even the memory of that great review.
“But that display was mere tinsel show compared with the great pageant that has moved before those few men who have lived through the whole length of the past hundred years.
“Before me lies the form of a man who, though he has passed his days with no distinction but that of an honest man, has lived through some of the most remarkable events of all the ages. For a hundred years a mighty pageant has been passing before him. I would rather have lived that hundred years than any other. I am deeply touched to reflect that he who lately inhabited this cold tenement of clay connects our generation with that of Washington. And it is impossible to speak of one whose great age draws together this assembly, without recalling events through which he lived.
“Our friend was born in this village. This town then included the adjoining towns to the north and south. The region was then more sparsely settled, although many houses standing then have disappeared. While he was sleeping peacefully in the cradle, while he was opening on the world childhood's wide, wondering eyes, those great men whose names are our perpetual benediction were planning for freedom from a foreign yoke. While he was passing through the happy years of early-childhood, the fierce clash of arms resounded through the little strip of territory which then made up the United States. I can hardly realize that, as a child, he heard as a fresh, new, real story, of the deeds of Lexington, from the lips of men then young who had been in the fight, or listened as one of an eager group gathered about the fireside, or in the old, now deserted tavern on the turnpike, to the story of Bunker Hill.
“And when, the yoke of tyranny thrown off, in our country and in France, Lafayette, the mere mention of whose name brings tears to the eyes of every true American, came to see the America that he loved and that loved him, he on whose cold, rigid face I now look down, joined in one of those enthusiastic throngs that made the visit like a Roman Triumph.
“But turn to the world of Nature, and think of the panoramic scenes that have passed before those now impassive eyes. In our friend's boyhood there was no practical mode of swift communication of news. In great emergencies, to be sure, some patriot hand might flash the beacon-light from a lofty tower; but news crept slowly over our hand-breath nation, and it was months after a presidential election before the result was generally known. He lived to see the telegraph flashing swiftly about the globe, annihilating time and space and bringing the scattered nations into greater unity.
“And think, my hearers, for one moment, of the wonders of electricity. Here is a power which we name but do not know; which flashes through the sky, shatters great trees, burns buildings, strikes men dead in the fields; and we have learned to lead it, all unseen, from our house-tops to the earth; we tame this mighty, secret, unknown power into serving us as a a daily messenger; and no man sets the limits now to the servitude that we shall yet bind it down to.