Afternoon.

MARGARET JUNKIN.

You say the years have sadder grown
Beneath their weight of care and duty,

That all the festive grace has flown,

That wreathed and crowned their earlier beauty.

You tell me Hope no more can daze

Your vision with her bland delusions, Nor Fancy, versed in subtle ways,

Seduce you to her

gay conclusions.

The rapturous throb, the bound, the flush,
That made all life one strong sensation,
Grow quiet now, beneath the hush
Of time's profounder revelation.

You have it still the inviolate past,
So pure, so free from gloss and glitter:

The wine runs limpid to the last—

No dregs to dash its beads with bitter.

Vixi-thus looking back you write;

The best that life can give, you've tasted; And drop by drop, translucent, bright,

You've sipped and drained-not one is wasted.

'Tis not in retrospect your eye

Alone sees pathways pranked with flowers;
You knew the while the hours flew by,
They were supremely blissful hours.

The sun slopes slowly westering still,
Behind you now your shadow lengthens;
And in the vale beneath the hill

The evening's growing purple strengthens.

The morning mists that swam your eye
Made large and luminous life's ideal :
Now, cut against your clearer sky,

You comprehend the true-the real.

Time still has joys that do not pall,
Love still has hours serene and tender:
'Tis afternoon, dear,—that is all!

And this is afternoon's calm splendour.

God grant your cloudless orb may run
Long, golden cycles ere we sever;
Or, like the Northern midnight sun,
Circle with light my heart for ever!

Old Age Anticipated.

REV. REUBEN SMITH.

You are now descending into the valley of declining years. That valley, we are persuaded, need not be dark if you but carry into it the lamp of true wisdom. To meet it aright requires reflection and experience. There is what may properly be called, perhaps, the art of growing old. But where shall it be found? or what are those precepts and appropriate considerations and practices by which we may sustain and comfort ourselves when found falling "into the sear and yellow leaf" of our earthly existence? To answer these questions is the design of the present undertaking.

Cicero, the heathen philosopher, has written something on this subject; nor do we think that his beautiful thoughts, so far as they go, are to be despised or wholly neglected. According to him, the different sources of molestation in old age are these four: 1. Our necessary withdrawing from the more active

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pursuits of life. But he tells us there are other employments more appropriate to this condition; and these are specified and recommended. Then comes, 2. The loss of our voluptuary enjoyments; but these were never worthy of man, and their loss cannot be an annoyance when they are no more desired. 3. The failure of our mental faculties comes next, but this is not necessarily or universally true. Even memory need not essentially fail in old age, when it is cultivated; and he adduces many examples to show that it may still be strong. 4. But the most formidable of all the evils of old age is, in that it compels us to contemplate a near approaching death; and it is instructive to observe here by what an unsatisfying train of thoughts heathen philosophy attempts to meet this want. The argument of the aged Cato is essentially this: that death is not an evil to be dreaded, because it either ends our being, and then it is nothing; or there is an immortality, and then it leads to eternal felicity. There is, he thinks, no third estate. For himself, he is inclined to believe in immortality, and then he solaces himself with the thought that he shall meet there the spirits of the illustrious and beloved dead, who, like him, will have escaped from this perturbed and transitory life! " O illustrious day!" he exclaims, "when this shall once be!"

Now, we are free to admit that all this, or most of it, is true and very interesting, with one exception. There are thoughts and precepts here not unworthy of a reflecting old age. But we are sure you feel their defectiveness. The last argument, in particular, is not only defective, but in part false. There is a third estate. Yes, we may live beyond time and not be happy. And then the kind of solace he seeks there is inferior, and ought not to be confined to the few things here specified. We need on every account a larger and securer instruction. In nothing, perhaps, does the superiority of the blessed gospel above the teachings of heathenism more strikingly appear than in what it teaches of future happiness and the true secret of a tranquil old age. The gospel brings life and immortality to light; the gospel does not vainly deny that old age is an evil in itself, but it admits its trials, and then provides appropriate alleviations.

I. Would we learn to bear the ills of old age so as to be happy under them? therefore, let us learn, first of all, to expect it, and submit to it when it comes as a providential event. We should learn, says the proverb, to be seasonably old, that we may be long old. By this it is not meant that we should antedate old age, or be too often dwelling upon it in our minds.