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LIFE 



AT 



THREESCORE AND TEN, 



BY 



/ 
REV. ALBERx'^iARNES, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j'car 1871, by the 
A Mio :{icAN Tract Society, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress 
at Vv'u-shingtoa. 



The substance of the following dis- 
course was delivered in the First Pres- 
byterian Church, Philadelphia, Decem- 
ber 6, 1868, and was soon after published 
at the request of friends. It was revised 
by the author for the American Tract 
Society, and was going to press at the 
time of his lamented decease, December 
24, 1870. 

The favor implored by him in the lines 
at the close of this discourse, page 148, 
was kindly granted, in his peaceful and 
almost instantaneous death while on a 
visit of Christian condolence at the house 
of a friend. 



LIFE 



AT 



THREESCORE AND TEN 



THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS ARE THREE- 
SCORE YEARS AND TEN. PSA. 90 ! lO. 

All earthly life, so far as we have an 
opportunity of observing it, has an outer 
limit ; a boundary which cannot be 
passed. Death reigns, and apparently 
has always reigned, in our world, for 
there is not now in the air, on the earth, 
or in the waters, a living thing that 
existed at the creation. 

This limitation in regard to life is by 



6 LIFE AT 

no means the same in all orders of be- 
ings. Each class of animals, of birds, 
of fishes, is subject to its own law in 
this respect, as if it were entirely inde- 
pendent of all other beings, and has a 
limitation, of its own. Life may be al- 
most momentary in one class, as in the 
insect that sports in the summer sun for 
an hour and Hhen dies ; it may extend, 
as in the old trees that stand on the 
African or Pacific coast, for many thou- 
sands of years. But still, there is a 
boundary which is not to be passed. It 
is not the same in the horse, in the 
eagle, in the elephant, in the gazelle, in 
the humming-bird, in the whale, and in 
man — in the oak of Bashan, the cedar 
of Lebanon, and the hyssop that springs 
out of the wall — for each and all of 
these have their separate laws of limi- 
tation, and that which belongs to one 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 7 

cannot be transferred to another. A 
boundary has been fixed in each and 
every case beyond which no vigor of 
frame, no tenacity of life, no devices for 
restoring the wastes in the animal econ- 
omy, and no remedial or recuperative 
arrangements can carry any one. Time 
does not modify this law. Improvements 
and remedies in other thing's do not 
affect it, or produce any change. The 
age of the horse, the oak, and the lion, 
is the same as it was in the days of 
Abraham, and, so far as appears, will 
remain the same to the end of time. So 
fixed is this law that it clearly proves 
that over all this there is a Presiding 
Mind ; that the arrangement is the result 
of the will of the Great Ruler of the 
world. 

Yet though the period of life in dif- 
ferent orders of beings is so varied, it 



8 LIFE AT 

is ill each particular and separate order 
so regular, that it can be made the sub- 
ject of most accurate calculation, and 
can be laid at the foundation of some 
of the most important arrangements in 
society. At the foundation of all this 
there is an important general law, the 
knowledge of which is now exerting an 
important influence on the affairs of 
men — a law, the reason of which no one 
can explain, but he who believes in the 
existence and the superintending provi- 
dence of God. It is now established as 
certain, that of a given number of per- 
sons, almost precisely the same number 
will die in each year at the same period 
of life, and even ordinarily by the same 
forms of disease. In like manner, it 
has become the subject of most accurate 
computation that almost precisely the 
y same losses of property will occur by 



THKEESCOKE AND TEN. 9 

sea or on land — b}^ fire or by ship- 
wreck — so that the regularity of such 
losses can be made the basis of most 
important pecuniary calculations and 
responsibilities. This science, compar- 
ativelv new, is the foundation of all the 
arrangements in annuity companies, in 
marine, fire and life insurance compa- 
nies, the operations of which are founded 
on calculations made on the average 
continuance of human life, and the prob- 
ability that any given number of casual- 
ties will occur, or that any given num- 
ber of persons will die at any one period 
- of life, in any single year. So accurate 
is this science that no investments are 
more safe than those which are based 
on such calculations, and that there is 
no class of pecuniary institutions that 
are more certainly destined to become 
universal. The world is not governed 



10 LIFE AT 

by chance, but by certain laws, and the 
result of the operations of insurance com- 
panies will tend, like our study of the 
physical laws of nature, to confirm men 
more and more in the belief that there 
is a God, and that the world is governed 
> by regular laws. 

In man the usual limit of life is 
"threescore years and ten." By this 
it" is not meant, of course, that no one 
ever passes over that line, but that this 
is the ordinary and common period be- 
yond which man does not pass — as there 
is an ordinary and fixed limit in the 
age of the horse, the lion, the eagle, the 
humming-bird, the honey-bee. There 
are exceptions to most general laws, but 
there are no more in regard to the life 
of man than in other things. 

It is remarkable that this was the 
allotted period in the time of Moses, if 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 11 

the Psalm from which the text is taken 
was written, as it purports to have been, 
by him, and that the law has remained 
unchanged to the present time — ^jiist as 
the law in regard to the duration of life 
has remained the same in regard to the 
inhabitants of the air, the earth, and the 
v/aters. The. life of the lion and the 
eagle has neither been lengthened nor 
abridged during that period, nor have 
these long centuries done anything to 
extend or diminish the length of life 
anywhere in the animal or vegetable 
creation. 

This fact is especially remarkable in 
man, because the highest talent has 
been exerted to find out some method 
to lengthen his existence on the earth. 
One profession, found in all countries, 
embracing in its ranks those who have 
been among the most eminent in learning 



12 LIFE AT 

and skill, has been especially devoted 
to this subject : to the inquiry whether 
the ordinary causes which abridge human 
life could not be modified or removed, 
and whether there could not be found 
in nature some hidden power — some • 
"Elixir of Life" — by which the days 
of man might be multiplied upon the 
earth. Yet all in vain. No secret in 
nature has been discovered to check 
the ravages of death, and to make man 
immortal ; and it is equally true that 
no secret has been discovered by which 
the settled law in regard to the general 
limit of life can be changed, or by which 
man can be carried far beyond the peri- 
od of "threescore and ten." In noth- 
ing has science been more baffled and 
rebuked than in this; and, much as it 
has done to remove disease, to alleviate 
suffering, to administer comfort to the 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 13 

dying, or to increase, perhaps, the aver- 
age length of life, it has clone absolutely 
nothing to change the fixed boundary 
of human existence, nor is there now 
the slightest probability that it will do 
it in the time to come. The tables bv 
which the calculations in life annuities 
and insurances are now regulated, and 
which are so accurate, will be as certain 
a basis for such calculations in coming 
ages, and those tables will continue to 
mock, as they do now, all the boasted 
achievements and promises of science. 

In regard to man, and especially to 
man considered as a fallen and sinful 
being, and with reference to the prob- 
lem of redemption, many reasons might 
be suggested why the usual limit of his 
probation should have been fixed at 
threescore years and ten. 

The great purposes to be accom- 



14 LIFE AT 

plisliecl in the world can be thus better 
secured than they could be by one which 
would greatly protract the life of man. 
The present arrangement has all the 
advantage of bringing varied powers 
upon the earth to meet the new circum- 
stances of the world in the development 
of the divine plans ; the advantage, per- 
haps, of bringing more actors on the 
stage, and of preparing more immortal 
beings .for a future world ; the advan- 
. tage of greatly multiplying the number 
of the redeemed, and consequently of 
glorifying the Redeemer and augment- 
ing the joys of heaven; the advantage 
of preventing the evils which would 
arise from a vast accumulation of wealth 
and power in the hands of a few indi- 
viduals, and creating a permanent tyr- 
anny in the hand of a few men — it being 
far better for the liberty and happiness 



THUEESCORE AND TEN. 15 

of the mass of men that a man of accu- 
mulated or accumulating wealth should 
lose his hold on his property at the age 
of "threescore and ten," and that it 
should be distributed in society, than 
that he should be allowed to go on 
absorbing the wealth of the world for a 
thousand years — as it was of advantage 
to the world that Xerxes, Cfesar, Alex-<^ 
ander and Napoleon should die rather 
than that they should live to confirm 
and establish a tyranny for centuries. 
It is an advantao'e to the world that 
men should die ; that, having accom; 
plished the great purpose of life, they 
should give place to others ; and that 
what they have gained in any respect 
should go into the common stock for the 
good of the world at large, and for the 
benefit of coming generations, rather 
than that it should be retained by them- 



16 LIFE AT 

selves under the form of vast monopo- 
lies. 

At the same time it is to be remarked 
that a man will be more likely to attend 
to the interests of his soul when he 
knows that the affairs of the world are 
of so little importance to him, and that 
all that he can acquire must soon — very 
soon — pass into other hands, than he 
would if he felt that what he could gain 
would continue to be his, and would 
be constantly increasing for a thousand 
years. As man, therefore, is a fallen 
being ; as his great interests lie beyond 
the grave ; as this is essentially a world 
of probation; as all that any one can 
gain here is a trifle of no value com- 
pared with the great interests beyond 
the tomb ; as it is desirable that he 
should constantly feel and realize this ; 
as it is important that all the means 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 17 

possible should be used to fix his atten- 
tion on these facts, and to prevent his 
jeoparding his eternal interests by neg- 
lect and delay ; and as the period of 
seventy years furnishes ample time to 
prepare for the world bej^ond, and to 
secure the salvation of the soul, we can 
see that it is a wise and benevolent 
arrangement by which this should be 
the general limit of human life. Man 
must be content with this. He has no 
power to remove the limit. Science, 
time, experience, prudence, medicines, 
do nothing to modify this law of our 
being, or to secure to us any longer 
duration on earth than God has assigned 
us. 

If an apology were demanded of one 
who has reached the period of three- 
score and ten, for his presuming to refer 
to himself and to his views of life, it 

Threescore and Ten. 'A 



18 LIFE AT 

might be found, perhaps, in the follow- 
ing considerations : 

1. That thougli, in the aggregate, the 
number of men who reach that period 
of life is not small, yet almost none give 
utterance in any public or permanent 
form to their own views and impressions 
in regard to that period of life, or to 
the results of their own observation and 
experience in reference to human affairs, 
church or state, during the time through 
which they have lived. 

2. That the young, for the most part, 
hope to reach that period, and it may 
be presumed to be a matter not without 
interest to them, to know how life will 
seem to them when they reach it. It 
maybe supposed to be useful to them, 
in forming their own plans, to place 
themselves, as far as possible, in that 
position, and from that "standpoint" to 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 19 

inquire what is worth living for and 
what not ; what will then commend itself 
to them as wise and good and what not ; 
what the world is in reality, as com- 
pared with what it seems to be vfhen the 
colorings of a youthful imagination are 
thrown over it in anticipation. Every 
young man has a right to catechise an 
aged man as to what life is ; what the 
world is. 

3. There is often an impression that 
old men take a gloomy view of life: 
that the result of their experience is 
merely disappointment : that all vv^hich 
they have to say is that the visions of 
early years have vanished, leaving noth- 
ing substantial or worth living for ; that 
the world to them is gloomy, and that 
the effect of their experience has been 
to make them' sullen, sour, and morose; 
that they see only decay and ruin around 



20 . LIFE AT 

them ; that as age comes upon them 
they see in religion only corruption of 
doctrine, in morals only degeneracy, in 
political affairs only a weakening of the 
powers of just government, in science in 
its boasted advances only that which 
tends to sap the foundation of true reli- 
gion, and which threatens the overthrow 
of all that hitherto has commanded the 
assent of the wisest and the best of the 
race, and which is essential to the well- 
being of society. 

4. Every man who has reached that 
period of life ought to be able to say 
something which will be useful to those 
who are forming their plans, and who 
are looking out on the great world as 
the theatre of future action. He has 
indeed lived in vain who has passed 
so many years upon the earth if he has 
gained nothing that may be of use as 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 21 

counsel to these who are to come after 
him — who has laid up nothing that will 
add to the common stock of human 
knowledge, or contribute to human im- 
provement and to the progress of the 
world. 

5. As a further apology for speaking 
in the manner in which I propose to do, 
it may be added that most of the things 
which I shall say might be spoken by 
one man as well as another, at my time 
of life. It is the mere fact that one has 
reached that period which entitles him 
to the privilege of speaking to a coming 
generation, or to give utterance to the 
results of his observation and experi- 
ence, and not anything which has been 
peculiar in his own history, or because 
he has any special claim to *be heard by 
the world. There was force as well as 
obvious fitness in what the young man 



22 LIFE AT 

Elihu, as recorded in the book of Job, 
said, "Days should speak, and multi- 
tude of years should teach wisdom.-' 
Job 32 : 7. It is a common feeling 
among men that those who are about 
to leave the world should be allowed to 
speak, and that a respectful attention 
should be given to their utterances, 
whether those utterances are on the 
calm bed of death, or are the language 
of the martyr at the stake ; whether 
they are the utterances of age, or of 
the criminal about to meet the just sen- 
tence of the law. For myself, what I 
shall say, if I shall say anything that 
will be worthy of attention, will be 
derived mastly from the mere fact that 
the seventy years which have thus been 
travelled over are among the most event- 
ful that have occurred in the history of 
the world, and that those years them- 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 23 

selves utter most solemn counsels to 
those who are to fill up the next seventy 
years of the world's history. 

He who has reached this period must 
regard himself as nov,^ entering on the 
last stage of his existence on earth. 
He has reached the summit of life. He 
cannot expect or hope to rise higher. 
He has come to the top of the hill, and 
must soon pass over to -the other side. 
He may find there — or may think he 
has found, as one sometimes does when 
he ascends a mountain — a little spot 
which seems to be level ground — a 
small area of table-land — a plateau — 
that spreads out a little distance around 
him. If he is permitted to walk for a 
few years on that plateau — that table- 
land — that level spot — it is all that he 
can now hope for. He can look for no 
greater degree of vigor of body or of 



24 LIFE AT 

mind ; for no greater ability to labor. 
That little sjDot of level ground which 
he seems to have found on the summit, 
spreads out before him with much that 
is inviting. He could not deny that 
he would, on many accounts, love to 
linger there, and extend his walk far- 
ther than he can reasonably hope that 
he will be permitted to do. He cannot 
conceal it from- himself that though this 
little spot seems to be level, yet that it 
will soon begin to slope in the other 
direction, or that he may soon come to 
a precipice down which he may sud- 
denly fall, to rise no more. The ascent 
to that little level or plateau was grad- 
ual and long. While ascending, it was 
uncertain whether the summit would 
ever be reached at all, and what it 
would be found to be should it be 
reached ; whether it would be found 



THREESCOIIE AND TEN. 25 

covered with clouds and ao-itated with 
storms, or whether it would be serene 
and calm and clothed with sunshine. 

So one ascends a lofty mountain. The 
summit lies in the distance, now with 
bright sunshine settling on it, and now 
covered and obscured by clouds, and 
wholly shut out from view. In the as- 
cent, as he passes from one eminence to 
another, now he enjoys a wide and varied 
and beautiful prospect ; now he ''fears as 
he enters into a cloud ;'' now the cloud 
lifts itself and discloses a prospect of dis- 
tant woods and fields and rivers and vil- 
lages and farmhouses, so varied and so 
beautiful as -to reward him for all his 
toil thus far ; and now a cloud settles 
again on his path, and the ascent becomes 
more difficult, more rocky, more steep ; 
and then the cloud breaks away and the 
summit shows itself near, and his steps 



26 LIFE AT 

are lighter, and his heart is more buoy- 
ant, as if all the difficulties were soon to 
be overcome. The summit is at last 
reached. It may be a sharp point of 
rock ; it may be utterly barren ; it may 
be covered with perpetual snow ; it may 
be enveloped in clouds, and there may 
be a raging storm of hail and sleet ; it 
may be a place so cold, so dreary, so 
barren, that he at once turns his footsteps 
and hastens down the path that he trod 
in the ascent: or he may find there a 
level plain ; he may have a glorious sun- 
shine ; he may have wide and beautiful 
prospects — distant hills and valleys, 
streams and lakes and waterfalls, towns 
and villages and cultivated farms all 
around him, and the blue ocean in the 
distance, and he may linger there, and 
wish that he could linger longer — fully 
rewarded for all his toil and fatio;ue in 



THKEESCOEE AND TEN. 27 

the ascent. The ascent was long and 
slow and gradual. The descent must be 
precipitous, quick, sudden. The termi- 
nation is not far off — the grave. 

Of one arrived at advanced years, a 
young man would have the right to ask, 
"How does life seem now? And how 
ought such views as one takes at the age 
of threescore and ten to influence those 
who are just entering on their course, in 
regard to their own views, plans, and 
purposes ? In what way should a young 
man form his own plans if he would make 
that experience his own ? In what way 
would a man who has reached that pe- 
riod form his plans of living if he could 
now begin life anew V' 

I will tell you, in as few words as pos- 
sible, how I feel at this period of life. 
YVbat I shall say, I trust, will not make 
you gloomy, or dispirited, or sad. It 



28 LIFE AT 

will not lead you to think that there is 
nothing worth living for, though I would 
hope that it might lead those who are 
setting out on life to modify their plans 
by a contemplation of the feelings and 
views which will come over their own 
minds when the plans of life are about 
to close. 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 29 



I, 



The first thought is, that one who has 
reached this period has come to an end 
of all his plans, arrangements, and pur- 
poses, in regard to this world. The 
schemes of life, whatever they may have 
been, are ended. This is to him a new 
thought — a thought which he has never 
experienced before, and of which he has 
not been before in a situation to form a 
conception ; and this thought I would be 
glad to impress on the minds of those 
who are younger : that the time must 
soon come when all their earthly plans 
must be ended ; when there will be no 
new schemes for them to form, no new 
purposes of life to execute. 



30 LIFE AT 

It is, and must be, difficult for those 
who are yet in the vigor of life to form 
a conception of the state of mind when 
this becomes a realit}^ ; when a man feels 
as he has never felt before, that there is 
little more for him to do. But though it 
may be difficult to form a conception of 
a condition so different from what he 
has as yet experienced, it may not be 
unprofitable to advert for a moment to 
the fact, and to state, as clearly as pos- 
sible, what the feeling is, when this con- 
viction first comes over the mind. 

A man rarely forms any new plans of 
life at seventy years of age. He enters 
no new profession or calling, he embarks 
in no new business, he undertakes to 
vvrite no new book, he forms no new 
friendships, alliances, or partnerships; 
he cannot now feel, as he once could, 
that on the failure of one plan he may 



THEEESCORE AND TEN. 31 

HOW embark in another with better prom- 
ise of success. 

Hitherto all along his course of life he 
has felt that, if he became conscious that 
he had mistaken his calling, or if he was 
unsuccessful in that calling, he might em- 
brace another ; if he was disappointed or 
failed in one line of btrsiness, he might 
" resume that line, or embark in another, 
with vigor and hope : for he had youth 
on his side, and he had, or thought he 
had, many years before him. If one 
friend proved unfaithful, he might form 
other friendships ; if he failed in his cho- 
sen profession, the world was still before 
him where to choose, and there were still 
many paths that might lead to affluence 
or to honor ; if he lost one battle, the 
case was not hopeless, for he might yet 
be honored on some other field with vic- 
tory, and be crowned with glory. 



32 LIFE AT 

Bat usually, when a man readies the 
period of " threescore and ten 3^ears," all 
these thmgs lie in the past. His pur- 
poses have all been formed and ended. 
If he sees new plans and purposes that 
seem to him to be desirable or important 
to be executed ; if there are new fields 
of honor, v/ealth, science, ambition, or 
benevolence, they are not for him, they 
are for a younger and a more vigorous 
generation. It is true that this feeling 
may come over a man at any period of 
life. In the midst of his way, in the 
successful prosecution of the most bril- 
liant purposes, in the glow and ardor 
attending the most attractive schemes, 
the hand of disease or of death may be 
laid on him, and he be made to feel that 
all Ms plans are ended — a thought all 
the more difficult to bear because he has 
not been prepared for it by the gradual 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 33 

whitening of his hairs and the infirmities 
of age. 

Hezekiah, king of Israel, expressed 
the feelings of such a man, when, in the 
vigor of his years and in the midst of his 
schemes, he was suddenly smitten by 
disease, and brought apparently near the 
grave. '' 1 said in the cutting off of my 
days, I shall go to the gates of the grave : 
I am deprived of the residue of my 
years. Mine age is departed, and is 
removed from me as a shepherd's tent: 
I have cut off like a weaver my life : he 
will cut me off with pining sickness : from 
day even to night wilt thou make an end 
of me. The grave cannot praise thee ; 
death cannot celebrate thee : they that 
go down into the pit cannot hope for thy 
truth." Isa. ch. 38. 

A few remarks may illustrate this 
point. 

THrecscore and Ten. 3 



34 LIFE AT 

1. It was a great problem so to frame 
the world, and so to endow man, as to 
secure the activity of the race ; and there 
are two great laws by which that activ- 
ity is secured. The one is, that in each 
• and every generation there is enough for 
< all men to do ; the other is, that there is 
at any time talent enough to accomplish 
all that is needful to he done. In the nu- 
merous and various professions and call- 
ings of life ; in agriculture, commerce, the 
mechanic arts, the fine arts ; in the pur- 
suits of literature and science ; in the 
education of the young ; in the necessary 
attendance on the sick, and the care of 
the infirm and the helpless ; in extract- 
ing ores and the precious metals from the 
earth ; in levelling forests, and in making 
roads, bridges, and canals ; in the works 
of architecture, ship-building, and ma- 
chines for labor ; in navigating rivers and 



THREESCOKE AND TEN. 35 

oceans, there is always enough for any 
one generation to do : so much to do that 
none need be unemployed or idle. 

At the same time, there is always tal- 
ent enough on the earth to accomplish 
what is needful to be done. If, in addi- 
tion to the usual employments of man- 
kind, any great emergency arises ; if 
society has reached a point where it is 
to be raised to a higher level, and the 
ordinary measures of human endowment 
are not equal to the emergency, higher 
talent adapted to the emergency is 
brought upon the stage, and the affairs 
of the world are raised to that higher 
level, and move forward on that higher 
level till another similar emergency 
arises. Columbus, Galvani, Galileo, 
Newton, Watt, Fulton, Morse, appear at 
the proper time ; for God creates great 
intellects when he pleases, and brings 



36 LIFE AT 

them upon the world to carry out his 
own great plans, when the world is ripe 
for them. No enterprise fails for want 
<f of talent ; no created talent need be idle 
for want of employment. 

2. Within a limited range men are so 
endowed that they may succeed perhaps 
almost equally well in one, or two, or 
three, or four professions or callings.* 
It is implied in this statement that that 
range is not large. A man may be a 
farmer, or a mechanic, or a merchant, or 
a sailor, and possibly he might succeed 
in either of these vocations. He may, 
therefore, make his choice between them, 
or may, to a limited extent, change from 

* This was true of Michael Angelo. On his tomb, 
in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, are in- 
scribed the words : 
^ "Michaeli Angelo Bonavatio, 

E vetusta Simoniorum familia, 
Sculpiori, Piciori, ei ArcJiitecio, 
Fama omnibus notissimo." 



THEEESCORE AND TEN. 37 

one to another; that is, if unsuccessful 
in one, he may find success in another, 
or if any particular emergency in the 
world's affairs shall make an additional 
number necessary in one occupation, that 
emergency may be met by this adapted- 
ness to different employments — this jplay, 
or room for free action, in the wheels by 
which the affairs of the world are moved. 
But no one can succeed equally well in 
all the employments of life. A man must, 
as a general law, be a farmer, or a me- 
chanic, or a merchant, or a sailor, or a 
professional man; he must be either a 
lawyer, or a physician, or a clergyman ; 
he must be either a poet, or an orator, 
or a man of science — he cannot be all. 
There have been a few men of so di- 
versified talent that they have secured, 
in each of three or four departments of 
science, what would have made them 



38 LIFE AT 

eminent if they liaci been equally distin- 
guished in any one department; such 
men have been rare in the world. 

It was necessary, in order to secure 
the accomplishment of the great purposes 
of society, that there should be this play 
in the endowments of man ; that it should 
be so arranged that success might be 
secured in any one employment within 
this limited range ; that there might be, 
to a certain extent, room for a choice in 
a profession ; that there might be enough 
talent upon the earth at any one time to 
accomplish all the purposes of society, 
and that it might be certain that all these 
various callings and professions would be 
filled. 

3. It is further to be remarked, that 
men are so endowed with propensities 
towards a particular calling, or with such 
an inclination towards a particular call 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 39 

ing, as to make it certain that what is 
necessary to be done icill be done. This 
great matter has not been -left to chance. 
God designed that all these professions 
and callings should be filled, and hence 
he made it certain in the very constitu- 
tion of men, and in the arrangements of 
society, that that purpose should be ac- 
complished. Hence it is that there are 
alwa3^s those who are willing to cultivate 
the earth ; to engage in the mechanic 
arts ; to navigate rivers, lakes, and 
oceans ; to dig canals ; to explore un- 
known regions ; to be the pioneers in 
extending the limits of civilization ; to 
perform surgical operations ; to attend 
in the hospitals for the blind, the dumb, 
the insane ; to minister to the wants of 
the sick and the dying ; nay, to engage 
in the most humble and menial employ- 
ments. No profession or calling Ian- 



40 LIFE AT 

guishes because there are none who are 
willing to engage in it; no interest of 
society suffers because it is too laborious, 
or too perilous, or too humble, or too 
painful to be performed. 
- As an illustration of this thought, I 
may refer to the case of commerce — the 
necessity that there should be sailors in 
the world. There are few parents, if 
any, who would desire that their sons 
should be seamen ; there are few who in 
fact do not oppose it when their sons 
manifest a preference for the occupation 
of a sailor. Yet the navigation of the 
ocean, the intercourse of nations by sea, 
the pursuits of commerce, are indispen- 
sable for the advancement of the race 
and the good of mankind. God designs 
that there shall be, in every age, persons 
in large number who will be willing to 
spend their lives on the ocean, and hence 



THUEESCORE AND TEN. 41 

there is among the young, in each gen- 
eration, a sufficient number who mani- 
fest an early propensity for the life of a 
sailor; and hence, too, when this idea 
takes possession of the mind of a boy, 
nothing will ordinarily turn him from his 
purpose. No promise of ease or comfort 
or a more lucrative business on land, no 
attractions of home, no love of friends, 
no prospect of honor or of affluence in 
another calling, will turn him from his 
purpose, or drive the thought from his 
mind. God thus, in the furtherance of ^ 
his own purposes, secures what could not 
otherwise be secured, by laying this pur- 
pose and this desire in the minds of as 
many of each generation as are neces- 
sary to navigate the seas and to keep up 
the commerce of the world. 

4. In accordance with these princi- 
ples, a man may, within a very limited 



42 LIFE AT 

range, make a change in his profession. 
If he is unsuccessful in that calling which 
he has chosen ; if he finds that the pro- 
fession is already full; if he discovers 
that he is not fitted for it, and is not able 
to succeed in it, he may, in early life and 
within a limited range, exchange it for 
another, and within that range may find 
a door of usefulness or of honor still open 
to him. The young farmer may become 
a merchant or a student; he who has 
been trained to the mechanic arts may 
become a member of one of the learned 
professions ; or he who has been destined 
by his early circumstances, or by pa- 
rental purpose, to a humble occupation, 
may rise to the higher walks of life, and 
make his name known abroad in his own 
or in foreign lands. But no man can 
safely venture often on such a change. 
One such change may peril nothing ; per- 



THKEESCOEE AND TEN. 43 

liaps a second would not endanger the 
great ends of life, but beyond this no 
man is safe. Life is too short to make 
many experiments of this kind ; and be- 
yond what has now been suggested, life 
would become vacillating, and would 
pass away with no fixed purpose, and in 
the end man would have accomplished 
nothing. ' 

5. To him, however, who has reached 
the period of threescore and ten years, 
no such change is usually possible ; no 
such new plan to be entered on. The 
purpose of life is accomplished ; the 
changes have been all passed through. 
There is no new profession to be chosen ; 
there are no new plans to be formed ; 
there is no new distinction to be acquir- 
ed ; there are no books to be written, no 
houses to be built, no fields to be culti- 
vated, no forests to be levelled, no works 



44 LIFE AT 

of art that are to be entered on. Pain- 
ful as the thought may be, the business 
walks of life have no place for the aged 
man; there is no place for him in the 
social circles of the gay, in the mercan- 
tile calling, at the bar, in the medical 
profession, in the pulpit, on the bench, 
in the senate-chamber, in embassies to 
foreign courts. Distinctions and honors 
are no longer to be divided between 
him and his competitors ; and the accu- 
mulating wealth of the world is no more 
to be the subject of partnership between 
him and others. Without plan now 
except as to the future world ; his old 
companions, rivals, and friends hav- 
ing fallen by the way ,• the active pur- 
suits of life and the offices of trust and 
honor now in other hands ; the busy 
world not caring for his aid, and hoping 
nothing from him, it is his now — except 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 45 

as far as the friends of earlier years 
may have been spared to him, or as he 
may have secured the respect of the 
new generation that is comiug on the 
stage of action, or as he may do good 
by matured wisdom in counsel, or by 
the distribution of wealth accumulated 
in other years, or by an example of 
gentleness, meekness, and patience in 
the infirmities of age, illustrating the 
influence of religion and the blessedness 
of hope as he walks tremblingly on the 
verge of the tomb — to tread his solitary 
way, already more than half forgotten, 
to the grave. He has had his day, and 
the world has nothing more to give him 
or to hope from him. 

Most men in active life look forward, 
with fond anticipation, to a time when 
the cares of life will be over, and when 
they will be released from its responsi- 



46 LIFE AT 

bilities and- burdens ; if not with an 
absolute desire that such a time should 
come, yet with a feeling that it will be 
a relief when it does come. Many an 
hour of anxiety in the counting-room ; 
many an hour of toil in the workshop 
or on the farm ; many an hour of weari- 
ness on the bench ; many a burdened 
hour in the great offices of state, and 
many an hour of exhaustion and solici- 
tude in professional life, is thus relieved 
by the prospect of rest — of absolute 
rest — of entire freedom from responsi- 
bility. What merchant and professional 
man, what statesman, does not look for- 
ward to such a time of repose, and anti- 
cipate a season — perhaps a long one — 
of calm tranquillity before life shall end j 
and wdien the time approaches, though 
the hope often proves fallacious, yet its 
approach is not unwelcome. Diocletian 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 47 

and Charles Y. descended from their 
thrones to seek repose, the one in pri- 
vate life, and the other in a cloister; 
and the aged judge, merchant, or pas- 
tor, welcomes the time when he feels 
that the burden which he has long borne 
may be committed to younger men. 

Yet when the time of absolute rest 
comes, it is different from what had 
been anticipated. There is, to the sur- 
prise, perhaps, of all such men, this 
new, this strange idea ; an idea which 
they never had before, and which did 
not enter their anticipations : that tJiey 
have now nothing to live for ; that they 
have no motive for effort ; that they 
have no plan or purpose of life. They 
seem now to themselves, perhaps to 
others, to have no place in the world ; 
no right in it. Society has no place for 
them, for it has nothing to confer on 



48 LIFE AT 

them, and they can no longer make a 
place for themselves. General Wash- 
ington, when the war of Independence 
was over, and he had returned to Mount 
Yernon, is said to have felt ''lost," be- 
cause he had not an army to provide 
for daily; and Charles Y., so far from 
finding rest in his cloister, amused him- 
self, as has been commonly supposed, 
in trying to make clocks and watches 
run together, and so far from actually 
withdrawing from the affairs of state — 
miserable in his chosen place of retreat — 
still busied himself with the affairs of 
Europe, and sought in the convent at 
Yuste to govern his hereditary domin- 
ions which he had professedly resigned 
to his son, and as far as possible still 
to control the empire where he had so 
long reigned. The retired merchant, 
unused to reading, and unaccustomed 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 49 

to agriculture or the mechanical arts, 
having little taste, it may be, for the 
fine arts or for social life, finds life a 
burden, and sighs for his old emplo}^- 
ments and associations, for in his antici- 
pation of this period he never allowed 
the idea to enter his mind that he should 
then have really closed all his plans of 
life; that as he had professedly done 
with the world, so the world has actu- 
ally done with him. 

How great, therefore, is the difference 
in the condition of a man of twenty and 
one of seventy years ! To those in the 
former condition, the words of Milton in 
relation to our first parents, when they 
went out from Eden into the wide world, 
may not improperly be applied — 

" The world was all before tliem where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide ;" 

those in the other case have nothing 

Threescore aul Ten. * 



50 LIFE AT 

"whicli tliey can choose. There is noth- 
ing before them but the one path — that 
which leads to the grave — to another 
<; world. To them the path of wealth, of 
fame, of learning, of ambition, is closed 
for ever. The world has nothing more 
for them ; they have nothing more for 
the world. 

I do not mean to say that there can 
be nothing for an aged man to do, or 
that there may not be, in some cases, a 
field of usefulness — perhaps a new and a 
large one — for him to occupy. I mean 
only that this cannot constitute a part of 
his jplan of life ; it cannot be the result 
of a purpose formed in his earlier years. 
His own plans and purposes of life are 
ended, and whatever there may be in 
reserve for him, it is usually a new 
field — something which awaits him be- 
yond the ordinary course of events ; and 



THEEESCORE AND TEN. 51 

the transition from his own finished plans 
to this cannot but be deeply affecting to 
his own mind. I do not affirm that a 
man may not be useful and happy as 
long as God shall lengthen out his days 
on the earth, and I do not deny that 
there may be much in the character and 
services of an aged man that should com- 
mand the respect and secure the grati- 
tude of mankind. The earlier character 
and the earlier plans of every man should 
be such that he will be useful if his days 
extend beyond the ordinary period allot- 
ted to our earthly life. A calm, serene, 
cheerful old age is always useful. Con- 
sistent and mature piety, gentleness of 
spirit, kindness and benevolence are al- 
ways useful. It is useful to the advan- 
cing generation, to show that, even amid 
the infirmities of age, there is enough to 
make a man calm, cheerful, happy; that 



52 LIFE AT 

age is not necessarily morose or misan- 
thropic ; that though a man has practi- 
cally done with the more active enter- 
prises of life, he does not cease to feel 
an interest in what occupies the attention 
of those who bear the heat and the bur- 
dens of the day, or even in the innocent 
amusements and pastimes of childhood 
and youth. It does good, moreover, to 
the advancing generation to afford them 
an opportunity of develop<ing their own 
character, and manifesting their own 
kindness by showing proper respect for 
age, and by thus cheering those who are 
descending into the valley of years. By 
his mature counsels also, by his practi- 
cal wisdom, by the results of his long 
observation and experience, an aged man 
may do much to ^promote the welfare of 
the world ; and it may be a calamity that 
will be deeply felt by survivors, long 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 58 

after his own plans of life shall have been 
ended and he is gathered to his fathers. 
If he cannot now form new plans to be 
executed by himself, he may infuse the 
results of his own long experience and 
observation into the plans formed by 
those in the vigor of life ; thus combining 
the wisdom of years with the ardor of 
youth. He may be the patron of learn- 
ing, of science, of the useful or the orna- 
mental arts ; he may mingle with others 
in the works of Christian charity ; he may 
do good by showing to the coming gen- 
eration that there is, in his apprehen- 
sion, much that is worth living for in this 
world, and much to hope for in the world 
to come ; or perchance there may he open 
before him in old age some new field of 
usefulness, unthought of in earlier life, 
that never entered into his own designs, 
but which may, after all, be that for 



54 LIFE AT ♦ 

which he will be gratefully remembered, 
and will perpetuate his influence on the 
earth ; some field of charity to cultivate, 
some work of benevolence to perform, 
for which he has been spared to the 
world beyond the ordinary period allot- 
ted to man.* 

* As an illustration of this last remark, it cannot 
be improper to refer to the case of one, a most ven- 
erable man, not long since removed from the world, 
John Adams, LL. D. , for many years the well-known 
principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. His 
name is widely known and honored by those who 
enjoyed the benefit of his instructions. By his tal- 
ents and learning and fidelity he made that institu- 
tion what it was, and gave it the first iDlace among 
the classical schools of the land. 

He accomplished the work which he had contem- 
plated, and then, after many years' service, carried 
out another plan which he had long cherished, of 
" retiring " from the post when he should have reach- 
ed the ordinary term allotted to human life. He 
therefore resigned his position, and removed to what 
what was then the new state of Illinois. Finding 
himself in robust health, unwilling — perhaps it might 
be said finable — to spend his time without some use- 
ful occupation, he employed himself, at first as a rec- 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 55 

If an inference should be drawn from 
the above discussion, it should not be one 
of despondency and gloom. There are 
clieerful views which an aged man may 
take of life, perhaps not less cheerful than 
those which are taken in early years. If 
early life is full of hope, it is also often 
full of anxiety and uncertainty ; if in 
advanced life the world has now nothing 
to offer to a man, it may be that much is 
gained by being free from the cares, the 
burdens, and the anxieties of earlier 

reation, in tlie establisliment of Sabbath-scliools. In 
tliis benevolent work lie traversed the state, founded 
large numbers of Sabbath-schools, put the system on 
a permanent foundation during the period of nearly 
twenty years, and then, at the age of ninety-one, closed 
the second work of his life, venerated and honored by 
all. As the result of these mature labors, it is sup- 
posed that there are not less than fifty thousand chil- 
dren regularly in the Sabbath-schools in the state of 
Illinois, who would not have been there if it had not 
been for services he rendered to the church and the 
world hey mid the period of "threescore and ten." 



56 LIFE AT 

years ; if to such a one this world has 
nothing now to give, there may be much 
more than it ever gave even in antici- 
pation, and infinitely more than it has 
given in reality, in the hope of the life to 
come — in the prospective happiness of 
heaven now so near. 

But lessons of another kind may be 
drawn from this view, that may be valu- 
able to those who are entering on life. 
They are such as the following : 

They who are in early or in middle 
life should not look for happiness in that 
future period when they shall be laid 
aside by age, and prevented from en- 
gaging in the active duties and responsi- 
bilities of life. True happiness is found 
in useful employment ; in dohig our duty ; 
in improving the present — not in dreams 
and visions of the future. They who are 
anticipating happiness in the distant fu- 



THEEESCOEE AND TEN. 57 

ture on earth — when they shall reach old 
age — may not, probably will not, reach 
that period ; and they may be much dis- 
appointed in their anticipations if they 
do. 

The plans of this life should extend as 
far into the future as possible ; so far, 
that if it can be done, they should em- 
brace the whole of life : in other words, 
so that the time will never come when 
they shall feel that they have nothing 
to do. 

The young and the vigorous should 
make the most of the present. The pres- 
ent is all that they can calculate on with 
any certainty, or with any such proba- 
bility as to be the foundation of a plan 
of living. 

All classes of men should so live that 
when the period of old age shall arrive, 
if they reach that period, they may be 



58 LIFE AT 

abie to look back on a life well spent — 
not with tlic embittered feelings that 
their lives have been wasted ; not with 
the painful reflection, when they can form 
no plan of life, that the time when they 
could have formed a purpose that might 
have extended far into the future, and 
that might have benefited the world, was 
squandered and lost. 

I may add also, that that man is in- 
deed desolate who has reached the peri- 
od of "threescore and ten" with no hope 
of a future life ; with no evidence that 
he is prepared for heaven ; with nothing 
to anticipate in a coming world. I shall 
not be understood as intimating that I 
regard religion as not valuable or neces- 
sar}'' at any period of life : but in its ear- 
lier periods there are other things which 
may engage the attention ; there are 
other hopes which may be before the 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 59 

mincl ; the world, then, has much to 
promise, if not much to give ; there are 
plans that may be formed that will en- 
gross the attention, hopes that may fill 
the mind with ardor, prizes to be won 
which seem to be worth all the effort 
which they will cost ; but what is there 
of this nature for the aged man at the 
close of life ? What plan, what hope 
can he now have if it is not derived from 
religion ? What is there for him to live 
for if it is not the life to come ? What 
a blank must existence now be to him if 
he has no prospect of life and joy beyond 
the grave ! 



60 LIFE AT 



IL 



Standing at this point of life, all men 
could see, if they would reflect, that 
there has been a higher plan or purpose, 
even in their own affairs, than their own ; 
and that there has been an influence con- 
tinually bearing on themselves to carry 
out that higher plan. In other words, a 
man will often see that he has not accom- 
plished what he designed to do, but per- 
haps the very reverse, in the execution 
of some higher purpose than his own. 

If such reflections should lead one to 
recognize an overruling hand in his own 
life, and if it should lead to the convic- 
tion that there is a great comprehensive 
plan that embraces all human affairs, and 



THllEESCOP.E AND TEN. 61 

that makes all the individual purposes 
of men subordinate to that, it would be 
a result that might do much to enable 
him to form a just estimate of the real 
course of things. That there is a vast 
and comprehensive purpose, so to speak, 
above ns — a purpose that embraces all 
our individual actions, and all the affairs 
of nations, making all tributary to the 
accomplishment of a high and eternal 
plan — as each fountain of water flowing 
noiselessly from the hillside, and each 
gentle rivulet, contributes to the forma- 
tion of the great river that rolls into the 
ocean — is the clear teaching of the Bible, 
and may yet be recognized as the equally 
clear teaching of philosophy. The glory 
of that rivulet is not that it falls gently 
down the mountain side, or flows sweet- 
ly through the vale, beautiful as that 
may be, but that it does contribute to 



62 LIFE AT 

swell the great river that thus rolls into 
the ocean. So the glory of a plan or 
act of man may be, that, though in itself 
too insignificant to be remembered, it 
does contribute to carry out the great 
plans of God — the plans that embrace 
eternity and infinity. 

The point to which I am here advert- 
ing, that all human plans are made sub- 
servient to the- accomplishment of a 
higher divine purpose, is clearly stated 
in the Bible. ''A man's heart deviseth 
his way, but the Lord directeth his 
steps." Prov. 16:9. " There are many 
devices in a man's heart, nevertheless 
the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." 
Prov. 19 : 21. "The way of man is not in 
himself: it is not in man that walketh to 
direct his steps." Jer. 10 : 23. " Surely 
the wrath of man shall praise thee : the 
remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 63 

Psa. 76 : 10. "I am God, and there is 
none else : I am God, and there is none 
like me, declaring the end Jrom the be- 
ginning, and from ancient times the things 
that are not yet done, saying. My comi- 
sel shall stand, and I will do all my 
pleasure.'' Isa. 46 : 9, 10. This senti- 
ment has been beautifully expressed also 
by the great poet : 

" Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
When our deep idiots do jDall ; and that should 

teach us, 
There 's a divinity that shapes our ends. 
Rough-hew them how we will."* 

Philosophy has not been willing to 
avow this as an admitted truth, but his- 
tory is fast tending to it, and the time is 
not distant when no philosophy will be 
regarded as complete, as no history is, 
which does not recognize the idea. No 
man can furnish a correct explanation of 

* Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2. 



64 LIFE AT 

the facts of history, isolated as they seem 
to be, who does not regard them as part 
of a vast sys^tem, under the superintend- 
ence of one Presiding Mind, with one 
great plan extending over the entire 
race of man, and embracing all kingdoms, 
empires, and lands. Each one of the 
events of the world, isolated as it may 
appear, becomes thus a part of a com- 
prehensive scheme — entering into the 
development of the Divine purposes as 
really as the arrangement of the various 
separate particles in a tree or in the 
human frame is connected with its de- 
velopment in its perfect form ; or as the 
little labors of the animalculse become 
connected with the beautiful formations 
that rise above the sea in reefs or islands. 
The individual ijisect dies and is forgot- 
ten ; the plan goes steadily forward. 
It gives a new view of life in regard to 



THEEESCORE AND TEN. 65 

its value, when a man, however humble 
and obscure he may be, can recognize the 
Divine hand in his own course through 
the world, and can see that God has 
been accomplishing what he himself never 
contemplated or intended, and what he 
may himself not even now understand. 
He himself, like the insect in the forma- 
tion of the coral reef, may pass away 
and be forgotten. There may have been 
nothing in his own work to perpetuate 
the memory of his individuality; the 
stone which friendship may erect over 
his grave may fall down, and the place 
where he sleeps in death may be un- 
marked and unknown ; but he has be- 
come absorbed in a greater movement 
than his own individual plans, and a 
purpose higher than he has ever de- 
signed has been accomplished by his liv- 
ing on the earth. 

Threescore and Ten. O 



66 LIFE AT 

It may seem to be mere vanity now to 
apply these remarks in any way to my- 
self, but they are as applicable to one 
man as another, and they are now so 
applied only to illustrate this one gen- 
eral point, showing how life seems to a 
man when he approaches its close. The 
idea is, that at such a time a man will 
feel that his life has been shaped other- 
wise than he anticipated ; that he has 
rarely carried out his own plans ; that 
he has, in fact, pursued a different course 
from that which he or his parents de- 
signed ; that he has failed much in what 
he intended, and that if he has accom- 
plished anything, it has been in a great 
measure what he neither contemplated 
nor designed. \ 

I had, when a boy, a young friend — a 
playmate, a schoolmate; he, like myself,' 
being the son of a mechanic, and neither 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 67 

of US with any other advantage than our 
other playmates and schoohnates had. 
From our early prospects and occupa- 
tions we were both turned aside by the 
suggestions of a country schoolmaster, 
who persuaded us, with the somewhat 
reluctant assent of our parents, to leave 
our homes with a view to a course of 
studies preparatory to the profession of 
the law. My youthful friend, by talent 
and industry in the line thus contempla- 
ted, placed himself at the head of the 
legal profession in our native state, and 
ultimately occupied the highest judicial 
position in the state, accomplishing a 
purpose of which he never dreamed in 
early life, and illustrating the thought 
which I am endeavoring to set before 
you, that " there's a divinity that shapes 
our ends ;" that " a m.an"s heart deviseth 
his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." 



68 LIFE AT 

If it slionld be said that the ease re- 
ferred to is by no means an unusual thing ; 
that it is, in fact, a matter of common 
occurrence, I admit that tliis is so, and 
it is for this very reason that I have ad- 
verted to it. It is to show that it is so 
common, I may say so universal, as to 
prove that there is over all things, and 
embracing all things, a great plan ; that 
there is one presiding Intellect over all ; 
that there is a God who has his own 
purposes, and wdio makes those of his 
creatures subordinate to his own ; that, 
in fact, while they are free, he has the 
power to control them so as to carry out 
his ow^n designs. 

But what 1 wished particularly to ad- 
vert to as pertaining to the matter before 
us, was, to show how this a'pjpears to a 
man who has reached the outer limit of 
human life, and who from that point k)oks 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 69 

back over his own course. Few, if any, 
at that period, can look over life with- 
out recalling the fact that they have often 
been enbarrassed in their way ; that they 
have met with many disappointments in 
their cherished plans ; that obstacles from 
unforeseen quarters have been thrown in 
their path ; nay, that they may have been 
compelled more than once to change their 
plans of life. At the time when these 
things occurred they felt them keenly. 
They were saddened by disappointment, 
and wept at their want of success ; they 
felt that even " the stars in their courses 
fought against them f they were envious 
at the success of others in whose path no 
obstacles seemed to be interposed ; and 
possibly they may have been tempted to 
murmur at what seemed to them an un- 
just and a partial government of the 
world — against that superior Power that 



70 LIFE AT 

gave success to others, and frowned on 
their path. Now, in the review, how- 
ever, all this seems to be changed. Those 
reverses are seen to have been under a 
wise direction, in order that they who 
were thus disappointed might accomplish 
what they had not designed to accom- 
plish, as well as that their own spiritual 
and eternal good might be secured. So 
we now look over the history of the world, 
and see that the great changes which 
have occurred among the nations — the 
revolutions of states and empires, the 
reverses, the judgments, and the calami- 
ties which have come upon nations have 
all been necessary in the great move- 
ments of human affairs, and have all 
tended in some way to promote the ulti- 
mate welfare of man, and to contribute 
to the progress of the race. 

For myself, if it will not be regarded 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 71 

as mere vanity to refer to this, I may 
say that all this has been illustrated in 
my own life as it now seems to me in the 
review of the past. I have carried out 
none of the purposes of my early years. 
I have failed in those things which I had 
designed and which I hoped to accom- 
plish. I have done what I had never 
purposed or expected to do. I have 
known what it was to weep at discour- 
agements. I have been led along con- 
trary to my early anticipations. I can 
now see, I think, that while I have been 
conscious of entire freedom in all that I 
have done, yet that my whole life has 
been under the absolute control of a 
Higher Power, and that there has been 
a will and a plan in regard to my life 
which was not my own. Even my most 
voluntary acts, I can see, have been sub- 
servient to that higher plan, and what I 



72 LIFE AT 

have done has been clone as if I had no 
agency in the matter. 

It would not be proper to go into de- 
tails here, and if I did, they would be 
such only as occur substantially in the 
life of every man, and which any one 
could recount at the age of seventy. It 
is not because there has been anything 
peculiar in my case that I advert to this, 
but merely to illustrate a general truth — 
to show you how life will seem to you 
when you review it at its close. If I 
have done anything in the world, what I 
have done has been from no original pur- 
pose or plan of my own ; if praise is due 
anywhere, it is not to me, but to Him 
who has directed my steps ; if I have 
been useful in any respect, it is because 
there was a controlling Providence that 
directed my path. 

But if the personal reference may be 



THEEESCOBE AND TEN. 73 

allowed, I may allude to what in fact 
has proved to be the principal work of 
my life, and that in which I have been 
more successful than in any other; I 
mean the preparation of notes or com- 
mentaries on the Sacred Scriptures. For 
this AYork I had made no special prepa- 
ration, and it never entered into my 
early plans or expectations. I was led 
to it as a side-work altogether, and pur- 
sued it as a pleasurable occupation from 
day to day. I began merely with the 
design of preparing a few plain and 
simple notes on the gospels for the ben- 
efit of Sunday-school teachers. There 
was a demand for some brief explana- 
tion of the gospels for Sunday-schools, 
and it was certain that such a work 
would be furnished by some one. Three 
other gentlemen, each of the-m peculiarly 
qualified for the task, commenced the 



74 LIFE AT 

preparation of such notes at abont the 
same time, but each of them abandoned 
the design. With me the preparation 
of those notes on the gospels led to the 
habit of spending a small portion of each 
day in writing on some part of the 
Bible, at such a time as would not 
interfere with my regular duties as a 
pastor, until, to my own surprise, I 
found myself at the end of the New 
Testament, and until, to my greater 
surprise, as the result has shown, more 
than a million of volumes have been 
sold in this country and abroad, in my 
native tongue, and in languages which I 
cannot read or understand. If there 
may seem to have been some self-denial 
required in pursuing such a work for 
more than thirty years ; in doing it in 
the early morning hours when the inhab- 
itants of this great city were slumber- 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 75 

ing round about me ; iu pursuing it when 
burdened with the duties of a most re- 
sponsible charge ; in going to my stud}^ 
in the early morning in all kinds of 
weather, cold, heat, storm, rain, snow; 
if there geems to have been something 
like dogged perseverance in this — 1^ 
w^ould say that this does not appear to 
me now to be so. Nothing is plainer 
to my own apprehension, nothing more 
indelibly impressed on my mind in the 
review of the past, than that there was 
an unseen hand. that guided me in this 
w^ork from day to day, and an influence 
from above that prompted me to it; 
that there was a demand in the state 
of the church that it should be done by 
some one ; that an emergency had arisen 
in the establishment of a new institu- 
tion, the Sunday-school, for such a work ; 
that God gave me health, and strength, 



76 LIFE AT 

and a love for the work with reference 
to its accomplishment; that he awoke 
me morning by morning for the pleasant 
task ; that his hand guided my own in 
v/riting, and that, although conscious of 
being entirely voluntary, there was an 
overruling Providence, an overruling 
Poioer, that prompted to the conception 
of the task, and that led to its comple- 
tion. I am constrained now to ask you 
to forgive this personal allusion — this 
reference in this public manner to my 
own labors. As I know my own heart, 
it is not in any spirit of boasting ; it is 
only that I may now, at the end of my 
labors on earth, render the praise where 
the praise is due, and that I may illus- 
trate a great truth of value to all, that 
"a man's heart deviseth his way, but 
that the counsel of the Lord that shall 
stand ;" that there is a supreme provi- 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 77 

dence; that there is a God that rules 
over human affairs ; that there is a great 
comprehensive plan to which all our 
plans are subordinate. I have no claim 
to merit, to praise, or to honor on ac- 
count of what I have been enabled to 
do. I refer to it now with no such 
view. I am tr^'ing to show to those 
in earlier life how a man feels when 
he has reached the outer limits of his 
course ; and v\diat I wish to say is, that 
it then seems to him that there has been 
a divine hand in his course, and that 
his ovfn plans, often frustrated, and 
whether successful or not, have all been 
subordinate to a much higher plan, in 
which all his purposes are absorbed and 
lost, and in which all that he does may 
be, in view^ of that vast plan, wholly 
insignificant — though like the little labor 
of the animalcule in the coral reefs, his 



78 LIFE AT 

toil may enter into the completion of 
a much higher design. 

It is a great truth, confirmed more 
and more in the history of the world, 
that God ivill make the individual plans 
of men, and the purposes of nations, 
subservient to his own. Whether they 
design it or not, He will make all their 
schemes subordinate to that higher and 
vaster movement which is going for- 
ward in the history of the earth, as, 
also, He will make all the movements 
of the earth itself subordinate to the 
development of that vaster plan which 
embraces all worlds, making the uni- 
verse one. 

Life becomes great only when it is 
contemplated in connection with the 
purposes of an overruling Providence — 
with that scheme which comprehends 
all things. Men are great only, when, 



THEEESCOEE AND TEN. 79 

in their rise and fall, they are regarded 
as connected with such a vast and com- 
prehensive plan. Individuals and na- 
tions have their own purposes and plans. 
They are alike voluntary. They may be, 
or may not be, successful in their schemes. 
They alike pass away ; they alike may 
be forgotten ; but the great plan moves 
on. That, amidst the failures or the 
successes of other plans, is certain to 
be accomplished. "My covenant shall 
stand, and I will do all my pleasure," 
is the language of God, alike in his 
word and in the course of events. 

The individual workers pass away. 
The countless millions of the toilers on 
the earth disappear. The actors of other 
times, the builders of the pyramids, the 
hosts that composed the armies of Xer- 
xes, Cyrus, Alexander, Ccesar, have all 
vanished. The builders of Thebes, of 



80 LIFE AT 

Nineveh, of Babylon, of Rome, have 
all gone. The great orators, lawgivers, 
poets, conquerers, sages, philosophers, 
are withdrawn. The grave has closed 
over them, but the results of their con- 
flicts, their toils, their genius, have gone 
into the history of the world, with God's 
greater plan that embraces and com- 
prehends all. So the nations them- 
selves pass away. Egypt, Assyria, the 
Grecian states, the Roman empire, the 
kingdoms that Alexander founded, the 
kingdoms of the Huns, the Goths, the 
Yandals — of Attila and Tamerlane — 
have passed away ; but they were great 
in their history, because their rise and 
fall were parts of one comprehensive 
plan which embraces all people and all 
times, and which, when those parts are 
combined, will make the history of this 
world truly great 



THKEESCOKE AND TEN. 81 



III. 



I SHALL uow advert to a point which 
seems not improper to be dwelt upon 
by one who has reached the period of 
threescore and ten. It is, that it is 
a much greater thing to have lived 
through these seventy years just past 
than it was to have lived through an} 
previous seventy years in the world's 
history. A similar remark, I have no 
doubt, will be made, and with much 
more force and propriety, by one wiio 
shall live through the next seventy 
years, and with still greater force and 
propriety in advancing periods of the 
world ; but the remark has now a force 
which it could never have had before 
our time. 

Threescore and Ten. O 



82 LIFE AT 

I mean by the remark that it has been 
a greater privilege to live during these 
seventy years than it wonlcl have been 
to live any seventy years previous to 
this period ; that life has been worth 
more ; that there have been more ad- 
vantages for secnring the great ends of 
living; that there has been more that 
a man could do ; that life has been prac- 
tically mucli longer, and that the respon- 
sibilities of living have been proportion- 
ally greater. 

1. There have been times and coun- 
tries, and there are still, where seventy 
years of human existence are of very 
little value. In such times and coun- 
tries the world makes no progress. It 
is substantially the same at the begin- 
ning and the close of the period. There 
is no accumulation of wealth, of influ- 
ence, of learning. In savage life the 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 83 

same style of living prevails ; the tents, 
huts, or houses are built in the same 
manner ; the same modes of hunting, 
of fishing, or of cultivating the ground 
exist ; the same manner of dress ; the 
same modes of travel ; the same kinds of 
amusement or pastime ; the same rules 
of administering to the maladies of the 
sick ; the same methods of war, and the 
same ideas in regard to the objects of 
living. Seventy years of savage life— 
what is it worth ? The savage makes 
no progress, for his life at the beginning 
of such a period and at its close is the 
same. The same remark is also true 
in regard to nations which have emerged 
in some degree from savage life, and 
which have attained to a considerable 
degree of civilization. Seventy years 
of life in Egypt when the pyramids 
were built — what were they worth? 



84 LIFE AT 

Seventy years in the middle ages in 
Earope — what were they worth? When, 
under the best circumstances, and with 
the highest aims, whole years of patient 
toil were to be spent in transcribing a 
volume of Plato or Aristotle ; in copy- 
ing the Sacred Scriptures ; or in substi- 
tuting the legend of a saint for one of 
the obliterated books of Livy ; how much 
could be made of such a life? Seventy 
years in China now — seventy years at 
any period within three thousand years 
in China — what are they, what have 
they been worth? China, thousands of 
years ago, reached the highest point of 
civilization possible under the existing 
form of its institutions and its religion, 
and progress there is impossible until 
there shall be some great revolution, 
and life there three thousand years ago, 
for all the purposes pertaining to this 



THREESCOliE AND TEN. 85 

world or the world to come, was as 
valuable as it is now. A citizen of that 
nation can make no more of it now than 
liG could have made then, and whether 
he lived at the one period or the other 
might have been a matter of jDcrfect 
indifference, for it was in all respects, 
for learning, for travel, for science, for 
the arts, for domestic comfort, for social 
enjoyment, just as long at one time as 
at another ; the world was just as large 
at one period as at another ; the bound- 
aries between known and unknown re- 
gions v>^ere the same. 

2. But seventy years of life may be 
much more important, and may for all 
the purposes of living, be much longer 
at one period of the world than another. 
It is much more so now than it ever was 
or could be among savage tribes ; than it 
was in Ancient Egypt or Assyria ; than 



86 LIFE AT 

it was or is in India or in China ; than it 
was in Scotland, in England, in France, 
or in Germany previous to the Refor- 
mation ; nay, than it was in our own 
country during the last century — it will 
be vastly more momentous and valua- 
ble — immensely longer in respect to all 
that can be made of life — in the next 
seventy years than it is now. 

In most important respects the dis- 
coveries which have been made in our 
own times — the inventions and improve- 
ments in the arts of living — have been 
equivalent to making life twice, or thrice 
or four times as long as it once was, 
or of adding twice, or thrice, or four 
times to the duration of human exist- 
ence on earth. A man whose business 
* is to travel, who can pass over as much 
in his journey now in one hour as would 
on a camel, or on a horse, or on foot, 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 87 

have occupied twelve hours, has in this 
respect added eleven hours in such a 
journey to his life. In former times 
it required the slow labor of a monk 
two or three years to transcribe the 
Bible — a work which can now be per- 
formed by the art of printing in a few 
hours, including on an average, all the 
labor of type-setting, and stereotyping, 
of folding and of binding, and thus just 
so much has been added to the life of 
man. In the best days or Greece or of 
Rome, or in Arabia under the caliphs, 
or in the dark ages, an author might 
acquire celebrity who could send out 
a thousand copies of a work of his own, 
or secure their circulation ; in this age 
a man may send out in different lan- 
guages a million of volumes of his own 
to influence for good or for evil, the 
people of his own or foreign lands. So 



88 LIFE AT 

much may life be worth now as com- 
pared with former times.* The same is 
true with regard to the machines for 
mowing, and reaping, and thrashing — for 
carding, and spinning, and weaving — 
for the communication of intelligence by 
letters, by the telegraph, and by news- 
papers — for the purposes of travel and 
and navigation — for the transfer of the 
products of the earth to market — for 
the manufacture of raw materials into 

* Besides all that lias been done in the circula- 
tion of the same works through other sources, the 
American Tract Society has published : 

Of Baxter's Saints' Kest, nearl}' 300,000 copies. 

Of Baxter's Call 400,000 

Of Alleine's Alarm 250,000 

Of Doddridge's Else and Progress, - - 200,000 

Of James' Anxious Inquirer — 150,000 

Of their Tracts : 

No. 50 -- 1,227,000 

No. 109 612,000 

No. 357 - 1,045,500 

No. 3G8 989,000 

And of many others more than half a million of 
copies each. 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 89 

the forms that they are designed to 
assume in clothing, in coin, in structures 
of utility or ornament — in everything 
that ministers to domestic comfort or 
to public welfare. Any one may see 
the force of this remark if he will esti- 
mate the influence of the sewing-ma-^ 
chine — an invention of our own age, 
and if he will calculate how much has 
been added to female life by this most 
ingenious invention — abrido;ing more 
than one-half this portion of the labors 
of a family. 

All this is equivalent to making life 
as many times longer, for all the pur- 
poses of wealth, of happiness and of 
knowledge, as has been saved by ma- 
chinery and inventions. The uncon- 
scious powers of nature now accomplish 
a large part of what luas done by human 
muscles, and do it better than it could 



90 LIFE AT 

have been done by the unaided hand of 
man. The mere lengthening of life to 
the period of Methuselah would not in 
itself be equivalent to what has been 
gained in this manner; and for all the 
purposes of living, human life is now 
incomparably longer than it was in the 
time of the antediluvian patriarchs. The 
aggregate, so to speak, of human exist- 
ence, is thus vast — more vast by far 
than it would have been to have added 
these years now saved to life in ruder 
periods of the world — for a man can 
accomplish incomparably more now than 
he could have done in other ages by 
any mere addition of days or years. 
The addition of a hundred years to the 
life of a monk would only have enabled 
him to transcribe a few more copies of 
the Bible — which can now be done in 
a few moments ; the addition of any 



THREESCORE AlSiD TEN. 91 

number of years to the builders of the 
pyramids would have only enabled them 
to pile a few more stones on the vast 
mass ; the addition of any number of 
years to the life of a savage would have 
left him a savage still, and with nothing 
accomplished — with no advance towards 
civilization — with no accumulation of 
property or knowledge ; the addition of 
any number of years to an inhabitant of 
China would contribute little or nothing 

to the real duration of his life. .^ 

3. This is a different world from what 
it was seventy years ago. The uni- 
verse, if I may so express it, is larger 
than it was then ; the earth is more 
ancient and more grand. It is true, 
indeed, that to the eje of an Omnis- 
cient Being the universe is the same ; 
but it is more vast as it appears to man. 
Every seventy years of the earth's his- 



92 LIFE AT 

toiy, except perhaps the period of the 
dark ages, has made the world different ; 
but no period of seventy years has made 
so great a change as that to which I 
now refer. There is not a science whose 
boundaries have not been greatly en- 
larged. Many of the most important 
discoveries in science, and inventions 
in the arts, which are to be developed 
in their influence on following ages, have 
started into being in groups and clus- 
ters. Worlds and systems have been 
brought into view unknown to man be- 
fore. 

The universe ahove is greater. Dur- 
ing all that period, the astronomer has 
been pointing his telescope to the heav- 
ens, and penetrating the fields of blue 
ether, and revealing to man the wonders 
of the distant heavens ; enlarging the 
universe by all those measureless dis- 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 93 

tiuices through which the eye has been 
made to penetrate. New stars have 
been discovered and mapped on the 
great chart of the heavens ; a new planet '^^ 
as belonging to our system has been 
found from the fact of its disturbing 
influence on those before known — a 
planet on which no human eye ever 
before rested ; a vast number of aste- 
roids, fragments of a larger planet, have 
been seen to revolve between the orbit 
of Mars and Jupiter ; and distant neb- 
ulas, floating islands in the measureless/' 
distance, have been brought into view, 
and resolved into distinct and separate 
worlds. 

The world heneath is greater and more 
wonderful than it was. The microscope 
was indeed known, as was the telescope, 
seventy years ago ; but it had just 
begun to reveal the world beneath ns. 



94 LIFE AT 

It lias not fiiiislied its work, but it has 
already disclosed a universe beneath us 
as unlimited and as wonderful as that 
above us. It has peopled every leaf 
in the forest, and every drop of water 
in rivulets, lakes, and oceans, with teem- 
ing multitudes of inhabitants, amazing 
us as much by their number, and by 
the delicacy, skill, and beauty of their 
organization, as the telescope does by 
the number and the magnitudes of the 
worlds above us. We find ourselves 
standing thus in a universe extending 
inimitably above and below us, as in- 
comprehensible on the one hand as on 
the other : boundless space above filled 
up with worlds, where we thought there 
was an empty void, and beneath count- 
less myriads of beings starting into life 
and playing their little part, where all 
seemed to be blank. 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 95 

Our own earth is vaster and more 
grand than it was. Half a century ago, 
the prevailing — the almost universal be- 
lief was, that the earth Avas created six 
thousand years a2;o. in its essential struc- 
ture as it is now — rocks, and seas, and 
rivers, and hills having been called into 
existence as they now are, by the imme- 
diate command of God. It began, in- 
deed, to be whispered that it is older, 
and that important changes had occur- 
red upon the earth before man appeared 
on it; or that the earth had a history 
before the history of the human race. 
I remember in one of the earliest stages 
of my education, meeting with a remark 
by Dr. Chalmers, designed to solve some 
of the growing difficulties from the new 
science of geology, that between the 
first and second verses of the book of 
Genesis there might be supposed to 



96 LIFE AT 

have intervened an indefinite period of 
which no account was given, the pur- 
pose of inspiration having been first to 
attest the general truth that " God cre- 
ated the heavens and the earth ^''^ or to 
secure this belief in the minds of men in 
opposition to the idea that the world is 
eternal, or is the work of fate or chance, 
and then, without detailing the inter- 
mediate history of the globe, to proceed 
at once to the main purpose of the vol- 
ume, the history of the creation, the 
fall, and the redemption of man ; that 
in fact the earth itself may have existed 
through a vast number of ages, and may 
have gone through an immense number 
of revolutions, with which man in his 
history was not particularly concerned, 
or which did not bear on the main pur- 
pose of the volume — the record of the 
fall and recovery of a lost race. AVhat 



THKEESCOKE AND TEN. 97 

was then almost conjecture in regard to 
the past history of the earth, has been 
verified. The prevailing opinions re- 
specting its recent origin have been set 
aside. To all that was before regarded 
as grand in the conception of the earth, 
there is now added the belief that it 
has moved on it axis and in its orbit 
millions of ages ; that successive gener- 
ations of animals have been formed, and 
have acted out the purpose of their cre- 
ation, and have disappeared for ever; 
that vast changes have occurred in the 
waters and on the land, displacing each 
other, and peopled again with new myr- 
iads of inhabitants appropriate to each, 
and then again to pass away ; that im- 
mense deposits of minerals had been 
made by the slow progress of ages, fit- 
ted for the use of an order of beings 
that had not yet appeared ; and that at 



Threescore nnd Ten. 



98 LIFE AT 

last man, to whom all these changes had 
reference, and for whom all the pre- 
vious arrangements were designed, ap- 
peared upon the earth, a being of higher 
order — the last in the series that was to 
occupy the globe. With this view of 
the past, what a different object is the 
earth now from what it was seventy 
years ago ! 

A large part of the discoveries in sci- 
ence, the inventions in the arts, and the 
arrangements in the schemes of benevo- 
lence that are to affect future times, and 
whose bearings can now be scarcely ap- 
preciated, has been originated also in 
this period of the world. The power of 
steam was not indeed unknown before ; 
but the great changes which it is destined 
to produce in the commerce of the world 
are the results of the inventions of this 
age. The railroad and the magnetic 



THKEESCOKE AND TEN. 99 

telegraph have been orighiated in these 
times. Every science has been pushed 
forward. Elementary books of instruc- 
tion have been changed, and those which 
were adapted to the condition of the 
world seventy years ago would be use- 
less now. If I were now to begin my 
education again, a large part of the books 
which I studied when young would be 
valueless. I should, indeed, retain my 
Homer, my Yirgil, and my Euclid; but 
the books in which I sought instruction 
in, chemistry and geography and natural 
philosophy, would no longer represent 
the science of the world, or convey cor- 
rect views to my mind. The books which 
I then studied belong to another age, 
and though they will serve to mark the 
steps by which the advances of science 
have been made, they will never again 
be a proper exponent of the true state 



100 LIFE AT 

of knowledge among mankind. I see 
wonders around me which have sprung 
up anew. Every river, lake, and ocean 
is navigated by steam ; an iron road is 
laid down everywhere, connecting all 
parts of a country together, along which 
are borne, by a power unapplied when I 
was young, the productions of agricul- 
ture, manufactures, and the arts, with a 
rapidity and a precision of which no one 
then could have formed a conception. 
A mysterious and incomprehensible net- 
work, like spiders' webs, is weaving it- 
self over all lands, and making its way 
beneath deep waters, by which thought 
is transmitted simultaneously to millions 
of minds, and is diffused over distant 
lands regardless of mountains and of 
oceans. How different such a world 
from what it was seventy years ago ! 
In the same time there have sprung 



TH.REESCOEE AND TEN. 101 

also into being arrangements, then un- 
known, no less adapted to affect the moral 
and religious condition of mankind. The 
great enterprises of Christian benevo- 
lence, yet to result in the entire conver- 
sion of the world to God, have been 
originated in that time. The Bible was 
indeed in men's hands, and the gospel 
was preached, and the power of the press 
was known, but the serious thought had 
scarcely found its way into the minds of 
the friends of the Saviour, of bringing 
the combined influence of these agencies 
on the widest scale possible to bear on 
the unconverted portions of the race. 
Within the period of which I am now 
speaking, this thought has taken a firm 
possession of the Christian mind and 
heart, and the great work of the world's 
conversion has been entered on in ear- 
nest. The Bible has been translated 



102 LIFE AT 

into nearly all the languages of tlie 
world ; the strongholds of the earth have 
been occupied as missionary stations ; 
millions of children are taught the great 
truths of Christianity from week to week 
in Sabbath-schools ; and a Christian lit- 
erature is spreading its influence far and 
near over nominally Christian and Pagan 
lands. Whatever there is of power in 
these arrangements as bearing on the 
future, is the fruit of the spirit of this 
age ; and now, in reference to science, to 
the arts, to the efforts of benevolence — 
to the world above, the world below, the 
world in the past, and the world around 
us, the man of threescore years and ten 
sees a far different, a much larger world 
than it was when he began to live. 

4. If now we take into consideration 
this idea of the vast enlargement of the 
boundaries of all knowledge during the 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 103 

past period of seventy years ; if we re- 
member how different the world is from 
what it was at the commencement of that 
•period ; if we call to our recollection 
what has been done in the way of discov- 
er}^ and invention during that period ; if 
we remember how much more of the earth 
has been explored and peopled during 
that period ; if we think of the disclosures 
made by the telescope in the worlds 
above us, or by the microscope in the 
worlds beneath us ; if we think of the 
advances in the sciences, in the arts, and 
in the arrangements of the schemes of 
benevolence that are to affect future 
times, and to determine the condition of 
the world in far -distant ages; if we 
attempt to follow out the bearings of the 
use of steam in manufactures and in com- 
merce by land and by sea ; if we could 
estimate the influence of the magnetic 



104 LIFE AT 

telegraph on the affairs of nations ; if we 
could place ourselves back at the year 
eighteen hundred, and look at the world 
as it was then, in contrast with what it is- 
now, we might form some estimate of 
what it has been to have lived during 
these seventy years, and some faint con- 
ception of what are and must be the 
privileges and responsibilities of those 
who, instead of ending life, are about to 
start off from life's beginning on the more 
glorious periods of the next seventy 
years : for to all human appearance, and 
beyond all question, the next seventy 
years will be more remarkable in the 
progress of discovery, in the develop- 
ment of the human powers, in the diffu- 
sion of the principles of liberty, and in 
the spread of the true religion, than any 
past period of the world. If one about 
to leave the world might shrink from its 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 105 

responsibilities in living in such a period 
as that which is to succeed the present, 
yet he might be pardoned for being con- 
scious, as I am, of a strong desire to wit- 
ness the glory, the honor, and the prog- 
ress of my native land, of the church, 
and of the world in such a coming age. 
There has never been a period when the 
prospects of the future were so bright 
and glorious ; there has never been a 
period when, to a man on the verge of 
the grave, such a desire could have been 
so natural or so pardonable, or when 
the regret at leaving the world could 
have been so profound. 

Our own country furnishes a better 
illustration of the thought which I am 
presenting than any other portion of the 
world. The period of threescore and 
ten years to which I am now adverting, 
began at the death of Washington, and 



106 LIFE AT 

when the effects of his illustrious servi- 
ces and the principles of his policy were 
just beginning to develop themselves. 
A nevf nation was just founded. A new 
and but partially tried Constitution had 
been adopted. The experiment of self- 
government had not yet been fully tried. 
There were many doubts and many mis- 
givings about the working of the new 
government under any circumstances ; 
there were more doubts as to the ques- 
tion whether the form of government 
could be adapted to a nation of many 
millions — to vast and numerous states 
with very varied interests — to a popula- 
tion spreading over a continent. There 
were then sixteen states in the Union. 
There was a population of scarcely five 
millions. A narrow strip of territory on 
the Atlantic coast, scarcely now appre- 
ciable on a map, had been subdued and 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 107 

cultivated ; there were a few small com- 
mercial towns — what would now be call- 
ed milages — Charleston, Baltimore, Phil- 
adelphia, New York, Boston, on that 
coast ; the great West had not been ex- 
plored even by the most hardy travel- 
lers ; California, Oregon, Nevada, Ne- 
braska, Minnesota, Kansas, were as much 
unknown as is now the centre of Africa. 
If I remember right, Mr. Monroe, when 
president, recommended that the vast 
and fertile lands of what now constitutes 
the state of Iowa, should be appropria- 
ted as a reservation to the Indian tribes 
as a region so remote that it would not 
be likely to be invaded and disturbed 
by the progress of civilization. No one 
could then anticipate what seventy years 
were to produce in our country under 
any ordinary system of development then 
known ; still less could any one have an- 



108 LIFE AT 

ticipatecl the new powers which would 
be brought into existence for navigating 
our rivers and lakes, for conveying intel- 
ligence, for facilitating commerce, for the 
development of the vast unknown re- 
sources of the land. That same nation 
now — what is it as compared with what 
it was then ! What a history has been 
the history of these seventy years ! 
What a place will that history occupy in 
the general history of the world ! What 
a nation is this as compared with what 
it w^as at the end of the last century ! 
And though a man may himself have 
taken no part in these great movements , 
though he may have contributed nothing 
to make his country what it is ; though 
he will soon pass away and his name 
never be remembered ; yet, any one who 
has lived through this period may be 
pardoned for self-congratulation that the 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 109 

beginning and the close of his life em- 
brace such a period, and for finding 
satisfaction in the thought that he has 
been permitted to witness the develop- 
ments of these seventy years. He who 
loves his country may rejoice in the 
thought that he has seen it pass safely 
through the times of its greatest danger ; 
that when, as soon he must, he closes his 
eyes on human things, he will see that 
country free in every part, and in refer- 
ence to every one of its citizens ; that he 
w411 see a constitution which has been 
put to the utmost test, and which has 
been found equal to the test ; that he will 
see a government that in respect to vig- 
or and adaptedness to a vast territory 
equals the hopes of the most sanguine, 
and surpasses the expectations of most 
of its founders ; that he will see one 
great united people, destined, in all hu- 



110 LIFE AT 

man probability, to accomplish more for 
the good of man than all the nations of 
antiquity have done, or than is to be 
accomplished by any existing people on 
the globe. 



THREESCORE AND TEN. Ill 



IV. 

I HAVE spoken of the past as the past 
now appears to me. It remains that I 
should say a few words of the future from 
the same point of view, near the close of 
what is commonly regarded as a long 
life. 

It would be a proper question for any 
one to ask of a man who has reached 
that age ; who may have been for half a 
century occupied in public life ; whose 
position has given him an opportunity of 
extensive observation and of intercourse 
with the world ; who has passed that 
time in a period when the world has 
undergone more important changes, and 
made more rapid progress than at any 



112 LIFE AT 

former period ; whose professional call- 
ing has made it his duty to acquaint him- 
self with books and with the opinions 
that' prevail in his time^ on morals, phi- 
losophy, and religion — how the world 
seems in regard to the future. Is it 
dark and gloomy, or is it bright and 
hopeful ? Is it growing better or worse ? 
Is there hope for the future, or is the 
mind overwhelmed with sad forebodings? 
Has the world made progress, or is it in 
a retrograde movement ? Is there hope 
for those in earlier life--hope for their 
country, hope for the church, hope for 
the interests of religion, of humanity, of 
liberty ? Does it seem now that all that 
cheered in the days of youth, and that 
prompted to generous aspirations then, 
was illusive, false, and vain? Could a 
man, with the experience of seventy 
years, now enter on life with any bright 



THEEESCOEE AND TEN. 113 

hopes of the future — with anythhig to 
stimulate and animate in reference to the 
prospects of the race? These are fair 
questions for any one to ask. He who 
has reached the period of threescore and 
ten, ought to be able to answer them. 

It cannot be denied, as I have already 
remarked, that there are aged men who 
see nothing but darkness and gloom in 
the prospects of mankind ; who feel that 
the world is much worse than it was when 
they looked out on it in youth, full of 
hope ; who despair of any permanent ref- 
ormation of the race, and of the removal 
of existing evils by any means that man 
can employ, or by any development of 
principles already existing, and who look 
for the removal of those evils only by 
some new and miraculous Divine mani- 
festation ; who anticipate that the world 
is to become worse until the necessity of 



Threescore and Ten. 



114 LIFE AT 

such intervention shall become apparent 
to all men in the utter failure of all hu- 
man efforts at improvement and reform. 
Nor can it be denied that there are 
many in early life who suppose that these 
are the common views and feelings of old 
men ; that aged men are necessarily pee- 
vish, disappointed, soured, and melan- 
choly ; and that, wdiatever may have 
been their early hopes in regard to the 
world, their sun is setting amid thick 
clouds and darkness. Is this necessarily 
so ? Have aged men no better views or 
prospects than these to set before those 
who are to succeed them on the great 
theatre of human affairs ? 

These questions naturally divide them- 
selves into two parts, or relate to two 
subjects: First, how a man at "three- 
score and ten" regards the future pros- 
pects of this world. Second, how he him- 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 115 

self feels in regard to tlie future state, or 
what are liis hopes in reference to that 
world on which he is so soon to enter. 

For very obvious reasons there would 
be an impropriety in referring in this 
manner to thi3 latter. The remarks which 
I shall make, therefore, will pertain only 
to the former. 

The opinion which I shall express may 
have little value in itself. It will show, 
however, that an aged man may take 
cheerful views of life, of the world, of 
the certain progress of the race, of the 
destiny of man. What, then, are the 
prospects of the world in regard to the 
future ? 

I look at two things : at the predic- 
tions in the Bible, and at the course of 
events, as tending to the fulfilment of < 
those predictions. 

1. The predictions in the Bible. Be- 



116 LIFE AT 

lieviiig, as I have believed for fifty years, 
that the Bible is a revelation from God, 
and confirmed more and more, as I have 
been, in that belief by the study of that 
volume for more than forty years, I nat- 
urally turn to it alike in reference to the 
future condition of this world, and to my 
own hopes. I find there, as pertaining 
to the prospects of the world, such state- 
ments as the following: " The wilderness 
and the solitary place shall be glad, and 
the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 
the rose." Isa. 35 : 1. " The wolf shall 
dwell witli the lamb, and the leopard 
shall lie down with the kid ; and the 
calf, and the young lion, and the fatling 
together ; and a little child shall lead 
them. They shall not hurt nor destroy 
in all my holy mountain ; for the earth 
shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Isa. 



THREESCOKE AND TEN. 117 

11:6-9. "Yioleiice shall no more be 
heard in thy land, wasting nor destruc- 
tion within thy borders ; but thou shalt 
call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates 
Praise. The sun shall be no more thy 
light by day ; neither for brightness shall 
the moon give light unto thee: but the 
Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting 
light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun 
shall no more go down ; neither shall thy 
moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall 
be thine everlasting light, and the days 
of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy 
gates shall be open continually; they 
shall not be shut day nor night; that 
men may bring unto thee the forces of 
the G-entiles, and that their kings may 
be brought." Isa. ch. 60. "Unto us a 
Child is born, unto us a Son is given ; 
and the government shall be upon his 
shoulder : and his name shall be called 



118 LIFE AT 

Wonderful, Counsellor, The miglity God, 
The everlasting Father, The Prince of 
Peace. Of the increase of his govern- 
ment and peace there shall be no end, 
upon the throne of David, and upon his 
kingdom, to order it, and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice, from 
henceforth even for ever." Isa. 9 : 6, 7. 
"He shall have dominion also from sea 
to sea, and from the river unto the ends 
of the earth. In his days shall the right- 
eous flourish ; and abundance of peace 
so long as the moon endureth. His name 
shall endure for ever: his name. shall be 
continued as long as the sun ; and men 
shall be blessed in him : all nations shall 
call him blessed." Psa. 72. "I saw in 
the night visions, and, behold, one like 
the Son of man came with the clouds of 
heaven, . . . and there was given him do- 
mhiion, and glory, and a kingdom, that 



THREESCOKE AND TEN. 119 

all people, nations, and languages should 
serve him : his dominion is an everlast- 
ing dominion, which shall not pass away, 
and his kingdom that which shall not 
be destroyed. And the kingdom and 
dominion, and the greatness of the king- 
dom under the whole heaven, shall be 
given to the people of the saints of the 
Most High." Dan. ch. 7. To such a 
time, when peace and righteousness and 
prosperity and knowledge and pure reli- 
gion shall pervade the earth, all the 
prophecies in the Sacred Scriptures un- 
doubtedly tend. No one can close the 
perusal of the Bible without the feeling 
that, according to that book, the time is 
coming when universal peace will prevail 
on the earth, and when the true religion, 
with all its unspeakable blessings, will 
pervade the world. The prophetic wri- 
ters, many of whom were aged men, and 



120 LIFE AT 

many of whom had experienced much of 
the depravity of the world, and many of 
whom had lived in times of crime and 
disaster, were not gloomy, sad, dispir- 
ited, morose, and disappointed men. No 
men have ever lived who have cherished 
brighter views of the future condition of 
man; no heathen sages or philosophers 
were so cheerful and hopeful when they 
looked onward to the future state of the 
world. How can a man who believes 
that book, and who confides in those pre- 
dictions, look with dark and sad forebo- 
dings on the future ? How can he be- 
lieve that the affairs of men are destined 
constantly to grow worse ? 

2. The course of events. I believe 
that this coincides now with the predic- 
tions in the Bible in regard to the future 
in our world. I think I see indications 
that human affairs are tendins; to that 



THREESCOKE AND TEN. 121 

state when science, liberty, justice, pure 
morals, and the Christian religion will 
pervade the earth ; when all those pre- 
dictions in the sacred volume will be 
accomplished. I look at these things: 

(1.) In the progress of human affairs 
nothing is lost that is of value. We 
have all now that was valuable in Egyp- 
tian, Grrecian, Roman, Alexandrian, or 
Arabian civilization, alike in their phi- 
losophy, their science, their arts, their 
jurisprudence, their principles of free- 
dom. Nothing that was ever of value ^ 
to mankind has been lost ; there is noth- 
ing which has been lost of which the 
world would be the gainer now if it 
could be recovered ; there is nothing 
which has been dropped which has not 
been superseded by something better, 
and superseded by it because it is better. 
In like manner, nothing can hereafter 



122 LIFE AT 

destroy those great improvements and 
inventions which have contributed so 
much to the world's progress in our time. 
Combined with that which the past has 
transmitted to us, these things go into 
that vast accumulation of forces which 
are to mould and bless the world in all 
time to come. What can now destroy 
the printing-press, the telescope, the 
microscope, the railroad, the steamboat, 
the magnetic telegraph ? What can now 
obliterate from the memory of mankind 
those great principles of justice, of lib- 
erty, and of law, which enter into mod- 
ern civilization? 

(2.) The old systems that have tyran- 
nized over men have lost their power, 
and have died out, or are dying out never 
to be revived. This is true alike in reli- 
gion and in all forms of civil government. 

In religion. The systems of ancient 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 123 

Paganism have died out never to be re- 
vived. There is not now on the earth a 
worshipper of the ancient gods of Baby- 
lon, of Egypt, of Greece, or of Eome, and 
not one of the temples erected for their 
worship will be rebuilt or repaired. The 
temple of Bel in Babylon, the magnifi- 
cent structures in Thebes, the Parthenon 
at Athens, and the Pantheon at Rome, 
are desolate for ever so far as the de- 
sign for which they were raised is con- 
cerned; nor is there now, nor will there 
be hereafter, a single human being who 
will ever offer a bloody sacrifice there, 
or cast a grain of incense on their altars. 
All that there was in those religions to 
degrade mankind, or to pander to vice, 
has passed away never to be revived. 

The same is true of the existing sys- 
tems of Paganism. Whatever may be 
the power or influence of such systems 



124 LIFE AT 

on the world up to a certain period in 
society, a time comes when that power 
ceases, and when they show themselves 
not to be adapted to an advanced period 
of the world. It might be difficult to 
prove that the systems of Paganism in 
the Babylonian Empire, in Egypt, in 
Greece, or in Rome, materially inter- 
fered with the civilization of those states 
and kingdoms up to the point which they 
actually reached ; it might, in like man- 
ner, be difficult to prove that the systems 
of Brahminism or Buddhism have inter- 
fered with the civilization of India or 
China up to the point which they have 
reached, but it is clear that neither could 
be adapted to a higher civilization ; in 
other words, that if the sciences and arts 
existing in Europe should be transferred 
to India or China, those religions must 
"vanish. They cannot be adjusted to that 



THKEESCOKE AND TEN. 125 

state of higher development, but must 
retard and oppose it. They have had 
their day, and have exhausted them- 
selves, and are destined to lose their 
hold on the world, whatever may suc- 
ceed them : in other words, they are des- 
tined to die out, as have the old systems 
of Babylon and Rome. 

The same is true of the Papal power. 
It has had its day. Does any one now 
believe that the power which was wield- 
ed over the nations of Europe by Greg- 
ory yil., by Innocent III., or by Boni- 
face YIII., can be revived ? Can the 
power of dethroning kings and of laying 
kingdoms under an interdict be restored? 
Will the time come again when princes 
will turn pale on their thrones, and na- 
tions tremble, at the threatening of an 
Italian priest? Can the Inquisition be 
revived again in the world ? Is there to 



126 LIFE AT 

be another Philip II. ; another duke of 
Alva to drench whole provinces in the 
blood of martyrs ; another Mary to light, 
again the fires of Smithfield ? To ask 
these questions is to answer them.* 

In matters of civil government. 
The old dynasties that t^a'annized over 
man have likewise passed away, never 
to be reestablished. The tendency in 
civil affairs is everywhere to liberty, to 
equality, to the overthrow of the old 
systems of tyranny ; to the establishment 
of institutions founded on the rights of 
man. Can the days of Nero, of Caligu- 
la, of Philip II., of Richard III., and of 
Henry YIII. return again ? Would 
such men be permitted now to occupy 
any of the thrones of earth ? No. Those 

^ For a full illustration and proof of this point, 
compare Hallam's "View of tlie State of Europe 
during the Middle Ages," vol. 1, chap. 7, pp. 
402-496. 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 127 

days have passed. The scenes which 
occurred under their reigns are not to 
be renewed. There is a spirit abroad 
in the world — in all the world — which 
would prevent it, and the bloody scenes 
of civil tyranny, as well as of fiery reli- 
gious persecution, pertain to the past. 
Whatever may occur, the future histo- 
rian will have no such deeds to record, 
and the catalogue of monsters on thrones 
is filled up. Nations would combine 
against such monsters, and fleets and 
armies would hasten to hurl them from 
their thrones. 

(3.) I look then at the accumulation of 
the forces now in existence in favor of 
progress, of order, of law, of liberty, of 
just government, of the rights of man, of 
truth, of religion. 

Those forces consist of all the discov- 
eries and inventions of ancient and mod- 



128 LIFE AT 

ern times ; of all that has been accom- 
plished in the arts, in philosophy, in 
jurisprudence, in medicine, in law, in 
political science, in theology ; of the re- 
corded results of all the profound think- 
ing of the great intellects of the world ; 
of all that constitutes modern civiliza- 
tion ; of all that tends to progress in 
agriculture and the mechanic arts ; of all 
the arrangements for domestic comfort ; 
and of all that enters into the merchan- 
dise and commerce of the nations of the 
earth. It is to be remembered that the 
tendency of each and all these things is 
to elevate, and not to debase and de- 
grade mankind ; that each and all move 
the world forward and not backward. 
It is to be remembered, also, that all 
these things are really connected with 
the interests and happiness of mankind, 
and that the world will sooner or later 



THREESCOKE AND TEN. 129 

perceive this, and act on the idea ; for 
nothing is pldiner than that industry- 
temperance, justice, honesty, truth, char- 
ity, knowledge — that all the virtues, 
including all that there is in true reli- 
gion, realh^ coincide with the prosperity 
and happiness of nations and individuals, 
nay, that they are essential to prosperity 
and happiness. The world, slow in learn- 
ing it, is beginning to see this. It will 
ultimately perceive it clearly. Men will 
not always be blind to their own real 
interests, and all these things, therefore, 
constitute a vast accumulation oi forces — 
the gathered results of ages — bearing on 
the future welfare of the race, and ma- 
king certain the future prosperity and 
happiness of the world. 

(4.) I look, then, at the accumulation 
of these things in their relation to Chris- 
tianity, and to the probability of its prev- 

Threescore and Ten. 9 



130 LIFE AT 

alence in the world. It might be shown, 
I think, that this is the only existing form 
of religion ihsit pro7nises to be permanent 
on the earth, or that if there is to be 
ultimately a universal religion, this is the 
only one that would be adapted to such 
universality in the higher forms of prog- 
ress to which the race will rise. As I 
have already remarked, the ancient sys- 
tems will not be revived, and there is no 
one of the existing forms of heathenism 
that is making progress against Christi- 
anity ; no one, in fact, that is not silently 
melting away before it. 

But this is not precisely the idea which 
I am now submitting to your considera- 
tion. It is, that those things to which I 
have referred ^^ forces acting on society 
and the world, have a close, I believe, 
an essential connection with Christianity. 
They become incorporated with it. They 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 131 

go with it. They carry Christianity with 
themselves wherever they go. For, those 
things which now most mark the progress 
of the world, have been originated in close 
connection with Christianity ; if not di- 
rectly hy it, yet in connection with it, and 
under its fostering care. The art of print- 
ing, the mariner's needle for any practi- 
cal purposes, the labor-saving machines, 
steam, the magnetic telegraph, the im- 
provements in naval architecture, the 
comforts of domestic life, the telescope, 
the microscope — these, and similar things, 
have either been originated by Christi- 
anity, or have grown up with it, and are 
identified w^ith it, and go forth with it 
wherever it is diffused. They are to he 
connected, and not to be separated, in 
all time to come. 

It is to be borne in mind, also, that 
the commerce of the world is mainlv in 



132 LIFE AT 

the hands of Christian nations, and, for 
the most part, is conducted by Protes- 
tant nations. A Chinese or a Hindoo 
ship never crosses the ocean for pur- 
poses of commerce ; Africa sends forth 
no vessels for commercial purposes ex- 
cept those which have been built or 
bought by a Christian colony ; savage 
islands send forth none ; and few are 
those, and those not increasing, which 
sail from Roman-catholic ports — from 
Spain, or Portugal, or Italy, or Brazil, 
or Austria — from any Roman-catholic 
ports save those of France. The ten- 
dencies of trade and commerce are to 
spread the Christian religion ; to impress 
the world with the value of that religion ; 
to open the way for its diffusion ; to se- 
cure its difipQsion in the best and purest 
form in which that religion exists — in 
the form of Protestantism. No one, it 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 133 

seems to me, can doubt what is to be the 
ultimate result of these great movements 
on the destinies of man. 

(5.) From this point the world will 
not go back. Can we believe that from 
all this the world is to recede to the 
savage state ; that the experience of the 
past is to be of no value in regard to 
the future ; that the race is to relapse 
into barbarism ; that the world is delib- 
erately to prefer the state of society 
which existed before Greece and Eome 
were civilized — the civilization of the 
middle ages in Europe, or the low state 
of civilization in India or China — to that 
which exists in Germany, in France, in 
England, in the United States of Amer- 
ica? What is to become of the printing 
press ; of the telegraph ; of the machin- 
ery now driven by steam ; of obser- 
vatories ; of the telescope ; of the mi- 



134 LIFE AT 

croscope ; of the mariner's compass ; of 
the quadrant ; of reaping machines, and 
mowing machines, and sewing machines ? 
What is to become of the works of 
Bacon, and Newton, and Shakespeare, 
and Milton ? What is to become of the 
treatise of Adam Smith on the Wealth 
of Nations ? What is to become of our 
school books? What is to become of 
the Bible ? No. These things are not 
to be lost to the- world. They consti- 
tute a defence against the return of 
ignorance, of despotism, of slavery, of 
superstition, of the inquisition, of sav- 
age barbarity. All this accumulation 
of forces tends in one direction — experi- 
ence, science, the wisdom of the past, 
commerce, inventions in the arts, all 
are connected with law and order ; with 
peace and prosperity ; with liberty and 
the rights of man. They are never to be 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 135 

identified with ancient pagan systems of 
religion revived, or with modern pagan 
systems ; with universal anarchy ; with 
tyranny; with slavery; with skepticism. 
They will have their widest prevalence, 
and their most far-reaching influence 
only when the Christian religion shall 
pervade the world. 

And can a man, looking at these 
things, be gloomy, doubtful, disappoint- 
ed, sad, in reference to the future condi- 
tion of the world? Shall he close his life 
in darkness and despair in regard to the 
earth which he is about to leave ? Can 
he who has lived seventy years at such 
an eventful period as this ; who has 
marked the progress of things for that 
long course of years ; who compares the 
present with what the world was when 
he entered on life — can such a man be 
desponding, gloomy, sad? And can or 



136 LIFE AT 

should a young man who looks out on 
the world on which he is about to enter, 
can or should he look forward only to 
anticipated disorder, darkness, augment- 
ed crime, anarchy and the loss of all 
these things ? Does he enter on a field 
where there is nothing to cheer and 
animate him in honorable efforts for the 
good of mankind ? No, no. Never in 
the history of the world did young men 
enter on their career with so much to 
cheer them, to animate them, to inspire 
them with hope, to call forth their high- 
est powers for the promotion of the 
great objects which enter into the civil- 
ization, the progress, and the happiness 
of man. 

The opinions ot a man at seventy 
years of age have been long maturing, 
and he is not likely, materially, to change 
them. I shall cherish these views till 



THKEESCOEE AND TEN. 137 

I die, and I shall close my eyes in death 
with bright and glorious hopes in regard 
to my native land, to the church, and 
to the world at large ; I hope and trust, 
also, with a more bright and glorious 
hope in reference to the world to which 
I shall go. 

My work for good or for evil is done. 
I cannot" go back and repair what has 
been amiss ; I cannot now do what has 
been left undone ; I cannot do in a bet- 
ter manner what has been imperfectly 
performed ; I cannot recover the hours 
that have been wasted ; I cannot correct 
the evils which may have resulted from 
my errors ; I cannot overtake and arrest 
what I have spoken or written, as it 
has gone out into the world ; I cannot 
summon back the opportunities for use- 
fulness which have been neglected ; I 
cannot obliterate the reality or the mem- 



138 LIFE AT 

ory of wrong thoughts, or wrong mo- 
tives, or wrong words, or wrong actions. 
All that has been thought or said or 
done in these seventy years has be- 
come fixed as a reality never now to 
be changed. Past errors and follies 
ma}^ be forgiven, but they are never to 
be changed. The hope of a man at sev- 
enty years of age — at any age — is not 
that the errors, and sins, and follies of 
the past can be changed: it is only that 
they may be pardoned by a merciful 
God ; that they be covered over by the 
blood of the atonement ; that though 
they must remain for ever as fads — facts 
fully known to the Great Searcher of 
hearts — their guilt may be so taken 
away that they will not be punished; 
that by the blood shed on the cross they 
themselves may be so covered over — so 
hidden — that they will not be disclosed 



THKEESCORE AND TEN. 139 

on the final trial before assembled worlds. 
That hope the religion of Christ offers to 
all. Bat to all it is a fact that life, in all 
its thoughts, words, actions, \)Q(iom^s fixed 
and unchangeable, as it passes along — as 
if a river should h^o^omo^ petrified as its 
waters flow on towards the ocean, wheth- 
er its waters be pure or impure, clear or 
turbid — fixed with all that they bear on 
their surface, or carry forw^ard in their 
deep volume. How different would men 
try to make their lives if they felt hab- 
itually that all — literally all — that they 
do, or say, or think — even their most 
fugitive thoughts — becomes thus fixed 
and unchangeable /or ever. 

All men are imperfect ; and a man 
when so near the end feels this more 
sensibly than he does at an earlier peri- 
od. This will be now his true, his only 
real consolation — not that he has any 



140 LIFE AT 

merit of his own ; not that he has per- 
formed any works of righteousness which 
deserve the divine favor ; not that he 
has made up at one time of life, or in 
one form of duty, what he has failed to 
do in another ; not that his imperfec- 
tions have been so trivial or unimpor- 
tant that they might easily be over- 
looked by a just God, or that they 
would not in themselves exclude him 
from. the divine favor; not that he might 
hope for salvation on the ground of his 
own character, notwithstanding these 
imperfections : no, no, none of these 
things. No well-founded hope of heaven 
ever rests on these grounds. It is only 
on the ground that our sins, and imper- 
fections, and errors, have not been so 
great, as they could not be so great, as 
to make it impossible to be saved by 
the mercy of Grod through the atone- 



THUEESCOKE AND TEN. 141 

meat of Christ ; that the merits of the 
Redeemer are above all the demerits 
of our sins, and are ample to save from 
those sins ; that the provisions for par- 
don and salvation are as free as they 
are ample — as available as they are vast ; 
that Christ " tasted death for every man ;" 
that the offers of salvation are made 
to one as well as to another — made so 
freely to all, that " whosoever will,'' may 
come and " take the water of life." The 
hope of man, of any and of every man, 
in my sober judgment, and I would utter 
it with all the solemnity which can be 
derived from my time of life, and from 
the fact that I am not far from the grave, 
is found alone in "The blood of Jesus 
Christ which cleanseth from all sin." 

But the view which a man is con- 
strained to take of himself as a sinner 
as he reviews the past, need not prevent 



142 LIFE AT 

him from clierisliing grateful reflections 
ill regard to his general course of life, 
or from finding happiness in the con- 
sciousness that he has aimed to do right, 
however imperfectly his purposes have 
been carried out. It was not in a spirit 
of boasting or self-righteousness that the 
apostle Paul referred so often to his 
own upright life and aims ; it was not 
inconsistent with his deep and perma- 
nent conviction of his own entire desti- 
tution of all merit as a ground of hope, 
that he referred to his conscientious en- 
deavors to live an upright life, or that 
he commended his own course as an 
example to others. Paradoxical as it 
may seem, it was the same Paul that 
said, "I know that in me [that is, in 
my flesh] dwelleth no good thing. 
wretched man that I am ! who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death?'' 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 143 

*'Grod forbid that I sliould gloiy save 
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ '' — 
that said also, elsewhere, "I hare lived 
in all good conscience before God un- 
til this day,'' Acts 23:1; "We have 
wronged no man, we have corrupted no 
man, we have defrauded no man,'' 2 Cor. 
7:2; "Brethren, be followers together 
of me, and mark them wdiich walk so 
as ye have us for an ensample," Phil. 
3:17; "Ye know after what manner 
I have been with you at all seasons, 
serving the Lord with all humility of 
mind and with many tears. I have 
kept back nothing that was profitable 
unto you, and have taught you publicly 
and from house to house. I have not 
shunned to declare unto you all the 
counsel of God. I have coveted no 
man's silver, or gold, or apparel," Acts 
ch. 20, and that said of himself when 



144 LIFE AT 

he was about to die, ''I have fought 
a good fight; I have kept the fliith/' 
2 Tim. 4 : 7. 

Imperfect as the life of any man may 
have been, and pained as he may be in 
view of its short-comings and failures, 
yet he may have cheerful recollections, 
and may find happiness in reflecting 
that he has been engaged in a righte- 
ous cause, and that his aim has been to 
promote the welfare, temporal and eter- 
nal, of his fellow-men. 

As a man stands on the verge of the 
grave, and looks out on the eternal 
world now very near, it will not grieve 
him to reflect that he has sincerely en- 
deavored to live a life of virtue, tem- 
perance, justice, and charity ; that he 
has by example and by precept com- 
mended to the world a way of living 
which would be for the good of all j 



THREESCOEE AND TEN. 145 

that he has eucleavored to save men 
from ruin by bringing before their minds 
the way of salvation, and by warning 
the sinner of his danger ; that he has 
sought to acquaint the world with the 
doctrine of the immortality of the soul, 
and the doctrine of the atonement for 
sin, and the doctrine of the resurrection 
of the dead, and to inspire men with the 
hope of a better life ; that he has sought 
to make all men better, purer, happier, 
and to diffuse abroad over all lands, 
faith in a pure religion. . It will be a 
consolation to hiui then to reflect that 
he has not sought to destroy the faith 
of men in God, in the Saviour, in the 
Bible, in the immortality of the soul, in 
the future state ; that he has done noth- 
ing to counteract the efforts of parents 
to train up their children in the ways of 

virtue, temperance, and pure religion ; 
10 



146 LIFE AT 

that lie has endeavored to persuade men 
to love their country, to love their race, 
and to strive to promote the welfare of 
the whole world, irrespective of the lim- 
its of rank, of complexion, or of geo- 
graphical boundaries. 

There are two kinds of reflection which 
men have when they come to review 
their lives in the prospect of the eternal 
world. The one arises from the convic- 
tion of their own minds that their lives 
have been wasted ; that they have pros- 
tituted their talents for purposes of evil ; 
that they have lived to counteract the 
efforts of the friends of virtue and reli- 
gion, and to spread error and delusion 
over the world ; that they have by their 
writings or their lives unsettled the faith 
of men in God, in the Bible, in the Sav- 
iour, in the hope of a future life ; that 
they have lived to make men skeptics, 



THREESCORE AND TEN. 147 

and to fill the world with doubt and de- 
spair. The other arises from the con- 
sciousness, that, however imperfect they 
may have been, they have sought to 
make men better, purer, happier ; to hold 
before the guilty and dying the truth 
that there is a God and a Saviour ; to 
show to all that there is something 
worth living for; to light up hope, and 
peace, and jOy, in a dark world of sin 
and sorrow. 

I urge now, in conclusion, the fact 
that solemn reflections on the past must 
occur when one reaches the closing scene 
of life, and that a man will then wish to 
find evidence that he has so lived as 
not to lead others astray from the path 
of virtue, or to weaken their faith in 
God, or to destroy their hope of a bet- 
ter life, as a motive addressed to the 
young, and to all classes of persons, for 



148 THREESCORE AND TEN. 

lending their names and their influence 
to the cause of virtue, of temperance, of 
truth, of pure religion. No man regrets 
such a course when he comes to die. 

My life has been a favored life. I 
know not that I have an enemy on the 
earth — that there is one human being 
that wishes me ill. I am certain that no 
wrong has been done to me, the recol- 
lection of which I desire to cherish, or 
which it is not easy to forgive. 

"So glide my life away ! And so, at last, 
My share of duties decently fulfilled, 
May some disease, not tardy to perform 
Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke, 
Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat 
Beneath the turf that I have often trod.'* 



1 
LIFE ILLUSTEATEU SEEIE8. 



Helen Maurice. A narrative of every-day home liio. 
Hiree Engravings. 

Tlie Glen Cabin, or Away to the Hills. Exciting 
scenes among the White mountains. With Cuts. 

Dora Hamilton, The experience of a Merchant's claugh- 

tur. Three Cuts. 

Lilian. A tale of three hundred years ago. Four En- 
gravings. 

The Hng-uenots of France, or The Times of Henry TV. 
Some of the most stirring incidents of history. With Cuts. 

Evelyn Perciral. Highly interesting sketches and char- 
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Ilverton Rectory, or The Non-conformists of the Sev- 
enteenth Century. Founded on fact. Four Engravings. 

Allan Cameron. The eventful life of a Scottish clergy- 
man's son, developing a character of rare beauty and noble- 
ness under the moulding power of religion. Illustrated. 

Walter Martin, Progress through obstacles to a posi- 
tion of great usefulness. Three Cuts. 

Clayton Allyn, or Learning Life's First Lessons. With 
Engravings. 

Saye the Erring", or The Gospel Purpose. A pleasing 
and instructive Narrative. Three Cuts. 

EflSe Morrison, or The Family of Eedbraes. A niura. 
tire of truth. With Illustrations. 



Clayton AEyii, 

Or, Learning Life's First Lessons. With Engravings. 

Save the Erring", 

Or, The Gospel Purpose. A pleasing and instructive Nar- 
rative. Three Cuts. 

Effle Morrison, 

Or, The Family of Kedbraes. A narrative of truth. With 
Dlustrations. 

The Weed with an Ill-name. 

Lessons from nature impressed upon the heart. With 
Cuts. 

Our Village in War Time. 

Thrilling life-sketches, inculcating true patriotism and 
piety. Illustrated. 

The Swiss Cliildren. 

Welcome to the little exiles from abroad. Two Cuts. 

The Missing Boat. 

The perils of mischief, and safety of true repentance. 
With Cuts. 

Madeline. 
The history of a New England girl. Illustrated. 

A Little More. 

The value of contentment. Two Engravings. 

The Light-house Boy. 

A moral light-house for boys. 

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