"Though old, he still retain'd His manly sense, and energy of mind. Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe; We cannot but wish that old age might always present itself under this genial aspect. Madame de Stael has remarked, "It is a difficult thing to grow old gracefully." Certain it is, that to grow old wisely and genially is one of the hardest tasks which a human being has to learn. Many fail to do so from their extreme unwillingness to grow old, and the bitter mortification they experience when they find all their efforts to avert the dreaded evil vain and fruitless. Their life is a perpetual struggle with Time,—a clinging foolishly to youth. "Few people," says Rochefoucault, "know how to be old." A lady, who was approaching near to threescore years and ten, once asserted in the writer's hearing, that females are only in their prime at seventy; and this assertion she endeavoured to verify in herself, by assuming in dress, and gait, and manners, the juvenility of a girl of eighteen. But despite of all her efforts, time-relentless, uncourteous timegave the lie to her assertion, as if in derision of cosmetics, false hair, false teeth, and false eyebrows. There are some men who, if you were to believe their words, seem never to get any older; they are at a perpetual stand-still. They admit having reached a certain period of life, but beyond that they never make any advance. Such men are mere impostors, an embodied falsehood; they are beneath pity, and merit only contempt. When age comes upon them, they generally excite aversion by a temper sour, irritable, and splenetic; and, what is still worse, they usually leave the world with a prospect dark and cheerless, the consequence of an unwillingness to consider their latter end, and to prepare for a future state. However such conduct may be reprobated, there is, nevertheless, a clinging to youth which is both justifiable and beneficial. You feel it, who delight to dwell in your lonely musings on the endeared remembrances of a father's care, and a mother's tender love. You feel it, who still retain, fresh and vivid, the impressions of your youthful associations, friendships, and pursuits. You feel it, whose bosom glows with gratitude in the recollection of the day of your espousals, when you cried, “My Father, Thou shalt be the guide of my youth!" You feel it, too, who, from the remembrance of your own early experiences, are led to sympathize with the young, and are actuated by a yearning desire to benefit them, and that not merely in the affairs of this world, but also in relation to the more momentous concerns of eternity. The writer admits this clinging to youth in his own case. The many happy hours which he spent in earlier days in attempting to do good to the young are among his most pleasing recollections; nor have multiplying years at all abated the sympathy or affection by which those efforts were prompted. Hence the production of the following pages, probably the last effort of his pen, which he affectionately and prayerfully dedicates to the service of every youthful reader, and especially to the youth of Wesleyan Methodism. They are sent forth under a full conviction, that the counsels which they embody will, if faithfully followed, secure the reader's well-being in this a world, and his happiness and glory in the world to come. The aim of the author has been to produce a volume which should combine interest with instruction, and thus be attractive to the youthful reader. With this view he has availed himself of his multitudinous readings, which he here generally acknowledges. The whole he commits to the Divine blessing, and the candour of his readers. THOMAS H. WALKER. Chesterfield, 1866. CONTENTS. PART I. THE DUTIES WHICH YOUNG PEOPLE OWE TO GOD. THE idea of duty universal.-God ought to be worshipped. |