DEEDS OF OLD MEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1306, 4 August 1886, Page 2

DEEDS OF OLD MEN.

Thera are some old men who are not to be despised. Some are apt to think that none but young men can do much. shoot up like a rocket, and go out like one. Others rise slowly, like fixed stars, and as they are slow to rise they are slow to set. Wiokiiffa, the morning star of the Reformation, was moat active and useful from 48 to 60 years of age Latimer in King Edward’s days, was a hard student ; he was at his studies at two o’clock in the morning, euramer and winter, though he had been bruised from the fall of a tree, and ho was G 7 years c,f age. Cromwell was only a captain when ha was 41, and his greatest deeds were performed between 48 and 56, when he died. Young was an oid man when he wrote some of hia best poetry, and was 60 when he began hi t “ Night Thoughts r Thomas Sc tt wrote as much at 70 as at any other period of his life. Talleyrand at the aga of 80 stood at *he head of affairs in Prance under Napoleon, and then under the Bourbons. When the Russians were determined to make a stanc, and fight the French before the walla at Moscow, they put old Kutuaof at the head of the army in fplace of Bacclay-de Tolly. Old Blucber was 70 when he was defeated at Licny and fell under his horse, and the French civalry rode ever him ; yet a day or two after ho led on the Prussians against Napoleon at Waterloo. After manv years of warfare, (hose old men, Wellington and Soult, stood at the head of their respective c abinets, one in England and the other in France, preserving by (heir talents the peace of Europe and the world.