WAYSIDE GLEANINGS FOR LEISURE MOMENTS. OLD AGE. IT is seldom, says the "Friend's Intelligencer," we see as beautiful a tribute to the worth of "old age" as is contained in the following, which recently appeared in one of our city periodicals, and is now offered for republication in our columns. 66 SHE HAS OUTLIVED HER USEFULNESS." Not long since a good-looking man, in middle life, came to our door asking for "the minister." When informed that he was out of town he seemed disappointed and anxious. On being questioned as to his business, he replied, “I have lost my mother, and as this place used to be her home, and my father lies here, we have come to lay her beside him." Our hearts rose in sympathy, and we said, "You have met with a great loss." "Well, yes,” replied the strong man with hesitancy: "a mother is a great loss in gen eral; but our mother had outlived her usefulness; she was in her second childhood, and her mind had grown as weak as her body, so that she was no comfort to herself and a burden to everybody. There were seven of us, sons and daughters, and as we could not find anybody who was willing to board her, we agreed to keep her among us a year about. But I've had more than my share of her, for she was too feeble to be moved when my time was out, and that was three months before her death. But then she was a good mother in her day, and toiled very hard to bring us all up." Without looking at the face of the heartless man, we directed him to the house of a neighboring pastor, and returned to our nursery. We gazed on the merry little faces which smiled or grew sad in imitation of ours, those little ones to whose ear no word in our language is half so sweet as "mother, "-and we wondered if that day could ever come when they could say of us, "She has outlived her usefulness; she is no comfort to herself, and a burden to everybody!" and we hoped before such a day would dawn we might be taken to our rest. God forbid that we should outlive the love of our children! Rather let us die while their hearts are a part of our own, that our grave may be watered with their tears, and our love linked with their hopes of heaven. When the bell tolled for the mother's burial, we went to the sanctuary to pay our token of respect for the aged stranger, for we felt that we could give her memory a tear, even though her own children had none to shed. "She was a good mother in her day, and toiled hard to bring us all up; she was no comfort to herself, and a burden to everybody else.” These cruel, heartless words rang in our ears as we saw the coffin borne up the aisle. The bell tolled long and loud, until its iron tongue had chronicled the years of the toilworn mother. One two three-four seven - soft words, no tender little offices. A look of patient endurance, we fancied also an expression of grief for unrequited love, sat on her marble features. Her children were there, clad in weeds of woe, and in irony we remembered the strong man's words, "She was a good mother in her day." five. How clearly and almost merrily each stroke told of her once peaceful slumber in her mother's bosom, and of her seat at nightfall on her weary father's knee. Six eight — nine ten, rang out the tale of her sports upon the greensward in the meadow, and by the brook. Eleven twelve thirteen - fourteen- fifteen, spoke When the bell ceased tolling, the strange more gravely of school-days, and little house- minister rose in the pulpit. His form was hold joys and cares. Sixteen seventeen very erect, and his voice strong, but his hair -eighteen, sounded out the enraptured vis- silvery white. He read several passages of ions of maidenhood and the dream of early Scripture expressive of God's compassion to love. Nineteen brought us the happy bride. feeble man, and especially of his tenderness Twenty spoke of the young mother, whose when gray hairs are on him, and his strength heart was full to bursting with the new- faileth. He then made some touching resprung love which God had awakened in her marks on human frailty and of dependence on bosom. And then stroke after stroke told God, urging all present to make their peace of her early womanhood, — of the love, and with their Master while in health, that they cares, and hopes, and fears, and toils through might claim his promise when heart and which she passed during these long years, flesh should fail them. Then, he said, "The till fifty rang out harsh and loud. From that eternal God shall be thy refuge, and beneath to sixty each stroke told of the warm-hearted thee shall be the everlasting arms." Leanmother and grandmother, living over again ing over the desk, and gazing intently on the her own joys and sorrows in those of her coffined form before him, he then said reverchildren and children's children. Every ently, "From a little child I honored the family of all the group wanted grandmother aged, but never till gray hairs covered my then, and the only strife was who should own head did I know truly how much love secure the prize; but hark! the bell tolls on! and sympathy this class has a right to deSeventy-one two three-four. She mand of their fellow creatures. Now I feel begins to grow feeble, requires some care, it. Our mother," he added, most tenderly, is not always perfectly patient or satisfied: "who now lies in death before us, was a she goes from one child's house to another, stranger to me, as are all her descendants. so that no one place seems like home. She All I know of her is what her son has told murmurs in plaintive tones, and after all her me to-day, - that she was brought to this toil and weariness it is hard she cannot be town from afar, sixty-nine years ago, a happy allowed a home to die in; that she must be bride; that she passed most of her life toilsent, rather than invited, from house to ing, as only mothers ever have strength to house. Eighty-eighty-one-two-three toil, until she had reared a large family of - four- ah! now she is a second child - sons and daughters; that she left her home now "she has outlived her usefulness, she here, clad in weeds of widowhood, to dwell has ceased to be a comfort to herself or any- among her children, and that, till health and body;" that is, she has ceased to be profit- vigor left her, she lived for you, her deable to her earth-craving and money-grasping scendants. children. Now sounds out, reverberating through our lonely forest, and echoing back from the hill of the dead," eighty-nine! There she now lies in the coffin, cold and still; she makes no trouble now, demands no love, no "You, who together have shared her love and care, know how well you have requited her. God forbid that conscience should accuse any of you of ingratitude or murmuring on account of the care she has been to you of late. When you go back to your homes be careful of your words and your example before your own children, for the fruit of your own doing you will surely reap from them when you yourselves totter on the brink of the grave. I entreat you as a friend, as one who has himself entered the 'evening of life,' that you may never say in the presence of your families nor of Heaven, 'Our mother has outlived her usefulness; she was a burden to us.' Never, never, never; a mother cannot live so long as that! No; when she can no longer labor for her children, nor yet care for herself, she can fall like a precious weight on their bosom, and call forth by her helplessness all the noble, generous feelings of their nature." THE FLOWER GIRL BY THE CROSSING. BY LORD LYTTON. By the muddy crossing in the crowded streets, Stands a little maid with her basket full of posies, Proffering all who pass her choice of knitted The warmth of regard to be found in this, This man has his hothouse, that man not a penny; Flowers, too, are common in the month of For when wounded I lay on the outer slope, EX-PRESIDENT JAMES WALKER. [From the New York Evening Post, Aug. 15, 1874.] REV. DR. JAMES WALKER, ex-President of Harvard University, reaches the venerable age of eighty years to-morrow, August 16. He was born in Burlington, Massachusetts, in 1794, was graduated at Harvard in 1814, was ordained pastor over the Harvard Congregational (Unitarian) Church, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1818, became assistant professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge in 1839, and President of Harvard University in 1853. Since his retirement in 1860 he has lived quietly at Cambridge, a constant and earnest student, and occasionally appearing as a writer and a preacher. Recently his bodily infirmity has kept him much at home, but his mind has never been clearer, and his conversation never more full of life. He and Rev. Dr. Dewey, who was eighty years old March 14, are the patriarchs of the Unitarian denomination in America. The following poem, by Rev. Charles T. Brooks, of Newport, is to be sent to-morrow, with a rich work of Christian art in silver and gold, to Rev. Dr. James Walker, of Cambridge, ex-President of Harvard College, in honor of his eightieth birthday. The old parishioners and friends who send the gift have requested Rev. Dr. Osgood, of this city, one of the members of Dr. Walker's old parish, to write the letter in their name. TO JAMES WALKER, D. d. O full of years and of the stores O full of years, yet fuller still Of what no earthly years can give But he alone, whose mercies fill Pure hearts with love to all that live! |