OLD AGE.

"Old age is honorable; the spirit seems
Already on its flight to brighter worlds;
And that strange change which men míscal decay,
Is renovated life. The feeble voice

With which the soul attempts to speak its meanings,
Is like the sky-lark's note, heard faintest, when
Its wing soars highest; and those hoary signs,
Those white and reverend locks, seem like the snow
Upon an Alpine summit-only proving
How near it is to Heaven."

I HAVE just returned from a visit to one whose feet are on the last step in the descent of life. Eighty-three years have brought their good and evil to her, and memory can recall with distinctness the varied scenes of the past. Trial, deep and stern trial, she has known. Death has time after time taken away the beloved, till she has more in heaven, as she trusts, than on earth. She has not been fortune's favorite, but called to buffet with difficulty, and to labor with all the strength that could be summoned to her aid. And what has she learned from it all? To murmur and distrust? No, no; far from it. She has found her strength so proportioned to her day, and blessings springing up in the path of trial, that she has learned nothing but the lesson of christian trust. "He orders all things right for us," is her heart's tribute to God; and hers is the Psalmist's assurance, "Surely, mercy and goodness shall follow me all the days of my life."

She spake of a friend's efforts to obtain for her a pension from the general government, as her husband was in the service of his country during the revolutionary war, but has but little hope of obtaining it, "If I get it, I shall be glad," said she; "but if not, I shall be contented, for I can get along. It matters not much if I can only have enough to get home with." O what a pathos was in the last remark to me!

A little longer and I shall be home, where I shall have no more wants! seemed to me to be her thoughts; and so calm, so unaffectedly resigned was her manner, that I felt I was conversing with a true christian. Her meditations on eternal things are sweet indeed, for her heart has reposed a confident trust in the truth of the universality of the Redemption these many years. She waits her release in calmness, with no desire to hasten the event, or wish to defer it to a distant time. Few, very few of her youth's associates remain, and the company of heaven is more desirable than earth's, and yet to her it would be a murmuring against God to desire to dictate herself the time of transfer from this to the other home. That, when the time shall come, she may depart in peace, is the sum of her desires. God grant it-as doubtless he will, for precious in his sight is the death of his saints!

Does the eye of an aged one rest on this page? Let me speak to thee of what I have learned from the aged, and be assured that however feeble thou art, thou canst yet be useful. I bow to the wisdom of age, for I know experience is teaching me, and not speculation. And here is the source of much usefulness; the aged can

teach of the satisfaction attendant on obedience and the disquietude of sinfulness, and the great lessons of their experience will afford the best teachings in behalf of prudence, uprightness, and devotion to life's best ends; thus the aged may be venerable for the experience and knowledge they have acquired, and pleasing and useful for what they can impart; impressing their hearers with the conviction that life's best happiness is intimately connected with fidelity to the highest endowments of our nature according to the gospel rule.

The aged may be useful in drawing out the gentle charities of the human heart, in developing the finer sensibilities of our nature, and the kindness and indulgence fostered towards them will better fit the hearts that exercise those feelings and sympathies to improve and enjoy life's blessings. When the days of active usefulness have passed, great may be the moral benefit bestowed on those with whom the disabled may have intercourse. Wordsworth has a beautiful poem on this subject, and shows the moral usefulness of one who had outlived all ties of consanguinity and was reduced to beggary. He describes him as known to all the region round, receiving from the villagers necessary provisions, and retiring in solitude to eat his food:

"And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff."

The sauntering horseman does not throw his alms on the ground, but stops to safely lodge them in the old man's hat; and watches him with thoughtful glance after he has given rein to his horse. The tender at the toll-gate leaves her spinning wheel as she sees him coming, and lifts the latch for him to pass. The post-boy shouts to him as he drives along, and if thus warned the old man does not turn aside, the boy changes his course and gently passes him. Old, palsied, and feeble he is ;

"But deem not this man useless.

Deem him not
A burthen of the earth. 'Tis nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. While thus he creeps
From door to door, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts."

The aged may also be useful in exemplifying the power of religion to subdue impatience and make the soul content with its lot. This was the feeling of the Psalmist when he said—“ O God, thou hast taught me from my youth; and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God forsake me not, until I have showed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to every one that is to come." He knew he could thus be greatly useful, and he has been even to our day, through the songs of his old age. Thus may

his declaration concerning some, be the case with all-"They shall bring forth fruit in old age." How much it is so with such as with one of whom it is said-" that as fruit grows mellow in ripening for the taste, so his old age grew kinder as it ripened for heaven;" or with those who verify the remark of an aged divine, when he himself was in "the sere and yellow leaf" of life" Age has the same effect on a devout and benevolent heart, which time has on a beautiful painting; it softens every color, and mellows every tint."

Old age without religion, how sad and melancholy! I have seen it, and the perishing ruins of the classic fabrics of the lands of song and poetry could not wake such deep emotion; for what ruin is there like the ruin of all hope! How great the contrast with what is promised to those faithful to the monitions of the spiritual!— "Thine age shall be clearer than the noon-day; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.' Give thy heart, thou_aged one, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the God of a happy old age. Like Simeon, rejoice to embrace the Savior, and welcome the salvation of the great Israel. Search the scriptures, and thou shalt feel as did Sir Walter Scott in his last days, that "there is but one book "-and what a blessed one is that! Let decay come; and thine will be the poet's language

"I feel that in my great weakness-Earth
Takes nothing from the armament within,
With which Faith girds us like a fortress. Here
The soul sits in its Kremlin-while the sound
And sight of human conflict dull and swim