ect from which
we wandered), that your good spirits have had much to do with your good
health?

Wiseman.--No doubt. I see no reason why, because I am advancing in years, I
should become melancholy.

One of the heartiest things I have seen of late is the letter of Rev. Dr.
Dowling as he retires from active work in the ministry. He hands over his
work to the younger brethren without sigh, or groan, or regret. He sees the
sun is quite far down in the west, and he feels like hanging up his scythe
in the first apple tree he comes to. Our opinion is that he has made a
little mistake in the time of day, and that while he thinks it is about
half-past five in the afternoon, it is only about three. I guess his watch
is out of order, and that he has been led to think it later than it really
is. But when we remember how much good he has done, we will not begrudge
him his rest either here or hereafter.

At any rate, taking the doctor's cheerful valedictory for a text, I might
preach a little bit of a sermon on the best way of getting old. Do not be
fretted because you have to come to spectacles. While glasses look
premature on a young man's nose, they are an adornment on an octogenarian's
face. Besides that, when your eyesight is poor, you miss seeing a great
many unpleasant things that youngsters are obliged to look at.

Do not be worried because your ear is becoming dull. In that way you escape
being bored with many of the foolish things that are said. If the gates of
sound keep out some of the music, they also keep out much of the discord.
If the hair be getting thin, it takes less time to comb it, and then it is
not all the time falling down over your eyes; or if it be getting white, I
think that color is quite as respectable as any other: that is the color
of the snow, and of the blossoms, and of the clouds, and of angelic
habiliments.

Do not worry because the time comes on when you must go into the next
world. It is only a better room, with finer pictures, brighter society and
sweeter music. Robert McCheyne, and John Knox, and Harriet Newell, and Mrs.
Hemans, and John Milton, and Martin Luther will be good enough company for
the most of us. The cornshocks standing in the fields to-day will not sigh
dismally when the buskers leap over the fence, and throwing their arms
around the stack, swing it to the ground. It is only to take the golden ear
from the husk. Death to the aged Christian is only husking-time, and then
the l