OLD AGE AND ITS JOYS

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 33, 24 January 1929, Page 6

OLD AGE AND ITS JOYS

Answers to the query | ■'' Is old age to be regretted?" which he had received from well-known men, were read from the pulpit of Wesley Hall, Newcastle, England, last month by the " Rev A. Stanley Parker. Many prominent personages —full of years and of honours —wrote in optimistic strain of the joys and compensations of old age. ,

Sir James Crichton-Browne, the well-known physician, aged 88 writes: —' f I am inclined to regard human life

,as a Triology, with., a formative or growth, period of about 33 years, • a consolidative and executive period of ripening also of about 33 years the three together bringing up the span of life to 100 years. This is probably its appointed-measure, abbreviated, except in a few mare instances,. by the ignorance, folly and vices of mankind, but still occasionally attained. '' We should *all aim at an old age in which, although natural force is abated and the physical powers "flag , the moral nature ,disentangled from sordid ties and freed from thraldom to passion, rises to serene heights where love drives out fear, and faith strength, ened by suffering reigns supreme. Sadness and bereavement there must be but there may be also be a sweet expectancy. The way to make old. age peevish and repulsive is to rob it of the hopes by which it is sustained and tranquillised. The best preservative against senile decay is an active interest in human .affairs. Those keep young longest who love most."

Sir Donald Macalister, Principal of Glasgow University and President of the General Medical Council, said:-— "Approaching my 75th birthday I can say from -a full experience,—'Grow old along with me^ the best is yet to be. ' But the great point to keep steadily in mind is that this is not home only a lodging, a stage on the road that leads to home. If I am /tempted at times to think of all that I liave to leave behind or to say that I shall soon be f OTgptten and hardly missed ,on earth in the course of a year or two—then I have to remember that the real home the real work, the real life, the real joy arc all before me. So each day that passes is a day's march nearer home. 7'

Bishop Charles Gore, late Bishop of Oxford, aged 75 wrote:—"l quite agree with your estimate of old age— see Browning's Flight of the Duchess— but I don't feel it to be within my province to send messages to your ,flock. That would be too episcopal."

Sir Johnston Forbes-Bobertson, the celebrated Shakespearean actor, whose age is 75, said "Pray greet all your old folk for me. Tell them that I am an old fogey myself, as I shall be 76 in a few weeks and I still take joy in life for there are many compensations in old age. In looking back it is well to cling to the memories of happy hours and* not to dwell on the sad ones. I think that" the cheerful disposition does this instinctively does it not?" Mr Parker also read a brief note from the Rev. Matthew Gold, a Baptist minister of Tauton, who expressed his gratitude that at the age of, 93 he could still preach, and was able to cycle to his appointments.

Honesty is the best policy, hut in some cases it often makes us wonder if there is any logic in'the saying. This week a young man on entering the telephone booth at Lower Hutt discovered a lady's purse containing valuables and silver amounting to thirty ( shillings. He immediately handed it to an official in the Post Office,who took the purse and put it in safe keeping on receipt of the young man 's name and address. A few hours later an •elderly lady entered the office and inquired if the purse had been found and after answering a few questions was handed her possessions. With a smiling glance she tucked thfe purse under her arm at the same time rolled the piece of paper containing the finder's name and. threw it into the waste paper bag, not even taking the trouble to look at it/ and took her departure from the office ■without extending any thanks to her honest benefactor.

*fI don't suppose there has been a time in the past 40 years, when . the timber trade has been so bad as in the past year or two," said a creditor at a 'bankruptcy meeting at - Christchurch. "He's been a smart man during the last 18 months wh» has" been able to clear his way on timber, let alone make a profit on it." AJnothef creditoT "remarked that it had been his experience that about 50 fper cent, of those in the building trade were working on their creditors' money-