If it be to the house of Age you are returning,
my brethren, where the storms of winter are gath-
ering, and the sun is going low in your sky, thero
are yet duties which await you, though they are
tempered to the failing condition of your being, and
suited to the infirmity of your strength* You are
come to the evening of your day ; — ^^ its heat and
^^its labours^' are passed, and you are called
upon to repose in the cool shade of memory and of
meditation. It is now you are to review, with
unimpassioned eye, the transactions in which you
have borne a part, — ^to instruct the young who
surround you, by the long experience you have
acquired ; and to teach them, with the wisdom of
old, that ^^to fear God, and to keep His com-
^^mandments,'^ constitute the whole happiness, as
well as the whole duty of man. It is now, when
passion has ceased, and the illusions of. the world
8u(»side, that you are called upon to. renew that



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AFFORDED BT THE GOSPEL. ^5

mnocenee which life has impaireA, — to repent
those frailties which time may have broi^t, —
and to rekindle^ even under the shades of i^e^
that high and holy spirit^ which the inspiration
of the Almighty breathed into you with the breath
of moral life. — Though ^^ the evil days may be
^^came/' in which "you have no pleasure in
^^ them,^^ they are yet come in merey^ to wean
you from a temporary worlds to awaken higher
hopes^ and inspire more elevated feelings; — to
call you to put your trust in Him, ^^ who was, and
^^ is, and is to come ; — in whose presence there is
" the fulness of eternal joy, and at whose rigst
f^ hand there are pleasures fw evermore/'

There are, however, my brethren, other varie-
ties in the condition of human life than those of
age, and there are other lessons which we may
learn from the words we have been considering*
In the situations either of prosperity or of adversi-
ty, all men are to be found ; and every one of us,
when we return from the services of this place^
are returning -either to the house of joy, or to the
house of mourning. 