, doing the best he can, your
comment is sure to be somewhat after this fashion:

"This is truly a wonderful horse! He is just as good as on the day I
bought him, fifteen years ago!"

Let us determine to face the situation, when it is necessary, calmly
and sensibly. For, unlike the aforesaid horse, we do not expect to be
knocked on the head with a club, or quietly chloroformed out of
existence at a stated period. We would do well to follow our
optimistic principles, and look at the many benefits which, in the
words of the old catechism, "do accompany and flow from" this state.
If you have lived well, fifty is better than thirty, as the
sun-and-frost-kissed (not bitten) Catawba grape is better than the
tiny green sphere of June, and as maturity is nearer perfection than
crude youth. The tedious routine of the life-school, the hours spent
in acquiring knowledge for which you had no immediate use, are past.
The wisdom that must come with time and experience is yours.

Another of the great advantages in being near the top of the mountain
is that you can speak from superior knowledge words of comfort and
encouragement to those beneath you, who are still toiling over the
path you have trod. Such help from you who have "been there," and have
now successfully passed the most trying places, will do more to keep
up others' hearts than many sermons preached by one who knows it all
only in theory.

Since old age is inevitable, do not let us try to pretend that it is
not, and let us never act as if there were any hope of shunning it.
On the other hand, neither should we wish that it were possible for us
to evade it. It is just as much of a God-ordained period as youth, and
we ought to grow old in the manner in which God meant we should. He
meant us to keep heart and soul young by constant occupation and by
unselfish interest in the affairs of others.

I know one woman, past the fifties, who is, the young people declare,
"much more fun than any girl." Their enjoyments are hers, and she
laughs as heartily over their fun, sympathizes as sincerely in their
disappointments, as if she were thirty years younger than she is. In
fact, her sympathy is more genuine, for her age puts her completely
beyond the faintest suspicion of rivalry, and it is easier to tell of
one's defeats and triumphs when the listener is too far along in years
to be jealous or envious.

It should not be necessary for us to call courage into use to
reconcile us