There is a beauty in age. The morning of life may be glowing with the expectations of youth; the noon may be fruitful in endeavors and works; but the evening of life is the time of calm repose and holy meditation. When young and standing where the glow of youthful hopes irradiates the future how natural to lay out brilliant plans! to form ambitious resolves! How easy it seems to achieve any wished-for thing! Wealth, fame, or any temporal good—surely we can attain them! Experience soon shows us the futility of these hopes and plans. Before many milestones are passed in the journey of life we learn that God, in his wisdom, has so apportioned trial and suffering that it matters little the external surroundings; to all it is full of work and anxieties and painful scenes, and that it is in struggling against these that the best development of power is acquired.
Engraved & Printed by Illman Brothers.
"THE EVENING OF LIFE."
"Man's portion is to die"
It is no wonder that when once confronted by the stern realities of life we should lose sight of the dreams of youth. Manhood's days are the days of reflection, of judgment, a wise adaptation of means to the end desired, and, if but used aright, we need have little occasion for regret that childhood's days are passed. We are no longer children; we are men and women. We are no longer engaged in childish dreams; we are up and doing what God has assigned to us. This is the period of life that we would most willingly see prolonged. But time stops not in his rapid flight. In vain our protests. The sun as swiftly descends to its setting as it rose to its noon. The form that so rapidly matured into one of grace, strength, and manly attributes of character, is bowed by the weight of years. The elasticity of youth gives way to the measured step and careful tread of age, and on the head time sprinkles his snow.
It is now that the thoughts of man should assume their most valued characteristics. They can muse over the events of past years. They can contemplate the mysteries of the future. The most momentous period of life is about at hand—that time when they will exchange this life for another. What age can there be more important than this? It is natural for youth to regard old age as a dreary season—one that admits of nothing that can be called pleasure, and very little that deserves the name even of comfort. They look forward to it as in Autumn we anticipate the approach of Winter, forgetting that Winter, when it arrives, brings with it much of pleasure. Its enjoyments are of different kinds, but we find it not less pleasant than any other season of the year.
In like manner age has no terror to those who see it near; but experience proves that it abounds with consolations, and even with delights. The world in general bows down to age, gives it preference, and listens with deference to its opinions. Such reverence must be soothing to age, and compensate it for the loss of many of the enjoyments of youth. "The true man does not wish to be a child again." In individual experience how many have wished to live again the past? Could we return, and carry with us our present experience, all would wish to do so, but to go over the same old round we are afraid that the number of those whose life has been so happy that they would wish to live it over again is exceedingly small. Your present experience will remain with you through life. And hence, old age, as devoid of pleasure as it may appear to us now, we will find that when the passage of years brings us to that point we will not willingly exchange it for any of the stages of life gone by.
As there is nothing unlovely in age, when once at its threshold, so death, when viewed in the right spirit, is found to be but the pleasant transition stage to a more glorious and perfect life. From the days of Plato to the present men have doubted and wondered as to the questions of immortality and its nature. But none have approached the question in the right spirit but what always the result has been the same. Revelation and analogical reasoning both point to the same glorious hope. What, then, shall we view it with terror? Ought we not to look forward to it longingly as the final triumph of a well-lived life? Though success and fortune may have been ours here, are they any thing more or less than the accidental circumstances surrounding an ephemeral existence? In the light of eternity does it make any great difference whether that existence was passed surrounded with the comforts of wealth or struggling for the necessities of life?