Religion as a Comfort in Old Age and Adversity

RELIGION AS A COMFORT IN OLD AGE AND ADVERSITY, BY WILBERFORCE.

[William Wilberforce, one of those men who by virtue and energy impress their character on the age in which they live, was born in Hull, England, 1759, and closed his long and illustrious life on the 29th of July, 1833. He labored in Parliament for many years, where he pursued an independent course, devoting his labors to the abolition of the slave- trade, a question with which his name is inseparably entwined. It is

said that his time, talents, influence and prayers, were directed towards the consummation of this object. At length, in 1807, he had the grati- fication of seeing it accomplished. To counteract the infidel principles which abounded at the period of the French Revolution, and continued to agitate both France and England for some years, and long afterwards inducing a disregard of vital piety in the higher circles of British society, he published, in 1797, a work entitled, "A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." Five editions of this work were sold in the course of a few months, and it still continues to form a popular treatise on religion, in various lan- guages. The religion of Wilberforce was mild and cheerful, unmixed with the usual austerity and gloom, and his daily life, it is recorded, attested the sincerity of his opinions. He realized, in the closing years of his life, his own beautiful description of religion as a comfort in old age and adversity. Editors.]

When the pulse beats high, and we are flushed with youth, and health, and vigor; when all goes on prosperously, and success seems almost to anticipate our wishes, then we feel not the want of the consolations of religion; but when fortune frowns, or-

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friends forsake us— when sorrow, or sickness or old age comes upon us— then it is that the superiority of the pleasures of religion is established over those of dissipation and vanity, which are ever apt to fly from us when we are most in want of their aid. There is scarcely a more melancholy sight to a considerate mind than that of an old man who is a stranger to those only true sources of satisfaction. How affecting, and at the same time how disgusting, is it to see such a one awkwardly catching at the pleasures of his younger years, which are now beyond his reach; or feebly attempting to retain them, while they mock his endeav- ors or elude his grasp! To such a one, gloomily, indeed, does the evening of life set in! He can neither All is sour and cheerless. look backward with complacency nor forward with hope; while the aged Christian, relying on the assured mercy of his Redeemer, can calmly reflect that his dismission is at hand; that his redemption draweth nigh. While his strength declines, and his faculties de- cay, he can quietly repose himself on the fidelity of God; and at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, he can lift up an eye, dim perhaps and feeble, yet occasionally sparkling with hope, and confidently looking forward to the possession of his heavenly inheritance, "to those joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to con- ceive." What striking lessons have we had of the precarious tenure of all sublunary possessions! Wealth and power and prosperity, how peculiarly transitory and uncertain! But religion dispenses her choicest cordials in the seasons of exigence, in poverty, in exile, in sickness and in death. The essential superiority of that support which is derived from religion is less felt, at least it is

less apparent, when the Christian is in full possession of riches and splendor, and rank, and all the gifts of nature and fortune. But when all these are swept away by the rude hand of time or the rough blasts of adversity, the true Christian stands, like the glory of the forest, erect and vigorous, stripped, indeed, of his summer foliage, but more than ever discovering to the observing eye the solid strength of his substantial texture.

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THE HISTORY OF THE OLD SCHOOL- MASTER. BY BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON.

[A pretty story, full of tender pathos, and breathing the author's "profound knowledge of the intricate motives and workings of human nature," is related in Bjornson's "A Happy Boy/' The name of the hero in this work of the prince of Norwegian writers, is Oeyvind, and it was to him that his mother told the story one evening as they sat by the chimney corner. It made a great impression upon him, inspired him with obedience and reverence, and became a source of great wisdom for him. In the hope that similar virtues may be brought to life in others, "The