Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/110

Rh I spoke the other day of the Dangers of early Manhood; and again of those of later Manhood; of the period of passion, and the period of calculation. This, I take it,—I say it with reverence, and under correction,—is the danger of old age:—that the man should be querulous; should slight the needful and appropriate joys of youth and manhood; that he should be timid of all things which are new, consult with his fear, and not his hope, and look backwards and not forth. These, it seems to me, are the special dangers of the old man. Pardon me, venerable persons, if I mistake! I read from only without; you can answer from within. It is said that men seldom get a new idea after five and forty. It is perhaps true; but it has also been my fortune to know men and women who in their old age had a long Indian Summer, in which the grass grew fresh again, and the landscape had a richness, a mellowness of outline and of tint; yea! and a beauty, too, which it had lacked in earlier years. What has been exceptional in my observation, may perhaps be instantial, and belong to the nature of old men.

Divers diseases invade the flesh in old age, which, most of them, it seems to me, come from our general ignorance, or the violation of Nature's laws. Childhood is unnatural. Half the human race is cradled in the arms of death. The pains we cause at birth, the pains we bear, are alike unnatural. So are many of the pains of old age. The old lion, buffalo, eagle, elephant, dies as the apple falls from the tree, with little pain. So have I seen a pine-tree in the woods, old, dry at its root, weak in its limbs, capped with age-resembling snow; it stood there, and seemed like to stand; but a little touch of wind drove it headlong, and it fell with long-resounding crash. The next morning the woodsman is astonished that the old tree lies prostrate on the ground. This is a natural death, for the old tree, and the venerable man. But our cradle and couch are haunted now with disease, which I doubt not wisdom, knowledge of Nature's laws, and the true religion of the flesh, will one day enable us to avoid. Now sickness attends our rising up and our lying down. These infirmities I pass by.

The man reaps in his old age as he sowed in his youth