Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/105



often been asked to preach a Sermon of Old Age; and hitherto have declined, on the ground that I could not speak exactly from internal experience, but only from outward observation ; and I hope to be able at some future time to speak on the theme : certainly, if I live, I may correct this present infirmity. To-day, I will try,—only asking all old persons to forgive the imperfections of this discourse ; for they know what I only see. But as I was born into the arms of a father then one-and-fifty years old, who lived to add yet another quarter of a century thereunto; and as my cradle was rocked by a grandmother who had more than fourscore years at my birth, and nearly a hundred when she ceased to be mortal; and as my first "Christian ministry" was attending upon old age,—I think I know something about the character of men and women whom time makes venerable.

There is a period when the apple-tree blossoms with its fellows of the wood and field. How fair a time it is! All nature is woosome and winning; the material world celebrates its vegetable loves; and the flower-bells, touched by the winds of Spring, usher in the universal marriage of Nature. Beast, bird, insect, reptile, fish, plant, lichen, with their prophetic colours spread, all float forward on the tide of new life. Then comes the Summer. Many a blossom falls fruitless to the ground, littering the earth