Shall it forget the all of time,
When time's with all her uses gone,
And be a babe in that new clime?
Then death is but oblivion.
Youth's happiness is half of hope; all that of age is memory--and yet
these memories more frequently sadden than gladden the heart. Then what
is life to age? Garrulity, and to be in the way. Our household gods
grow weary of our worship, and the empty stool we have filled in gray
and trembling age in the temple we have built, when we are gone is
kicked away, and we are forgotten; our very children regret (though
they sometimes assume a painful apprehension) we do not make haste to
die--if we have that they crave, and inherit when we shall have passed
to eternity. But if the gift of raiment and food is imposed by poverty
on those who gave them birth, they complain, and not unfrequently turn
from their door the aged, palsied parent, to die, or live on strangers'
charity. Sad picture, but very true, very true; poor human nature! And
man, so capable in his nature of this ungodliness, boasts himself made
after God's own image. Vanity of vanities!
Nature's harmony, nature's loveliness, nature's expansive greatness and
grandeur teaches of God, and godliness.
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