You have been to the Conference? So have I, but it was twelve years
ago. Still I shall never forget a scene I witnessed there. It was in
the same Methodist church that this one is being held in. For days I
had been interested in a plain, homely-faced minister, considerably
past his half century, who came in evidently with great pain on
crutches. The town bell striking the hour was not more punctual than
the sound of his crutches. His hands were distorted by rheumatism, his
limbs twisted, and his face had a patient look as of one who had
suffered for a hundred years. His face was rough, but somewhere about
its expression there was a graciousness that attracted my attention.
One other expression in it struck me; it was the air of a man who had
finished his work. Not that he hadn't frequent consultations with the
ministers who approached him, or showed any lack of interest in what
was going on, but just a look as if he was doing anything for the last
time. Once he got up and made an official report of some kind to the
Bishop. As he closed it, his eyes burned with an intense anxiety and
he opened his lips as if to say something. But it was left unsaid, and
as he painfully resumed his seat the old look returned. As the close
of the Conference approached, I saw him several times with his head
bent over the back of the pew. It was on an evening very near the
close. The rays of the westering March sun shone through the windows
with a cold, cheerless light. His name was called. He raised his head.
His face was flushed. He struggled to his feet and with his crutches
hobbled around the aisle to the front of the pulpit, where he stood,
balancing himself on his crutches. And then the story came out. It was
told to those in the seats rather than to the Bishop. He had entered
the ministry young and had hoped to give his whole life to God. But
of late years disease had overtaken him. He had struggled against it
and tried to do his duty through great suffering, but lately he had
found that he could be of no further use and he asked--here he paused
and turned from the pews to the Bishop. It seemed that he was about
to say something that he had striven for years not to say. His eyes
filled and in a thick voice he said: "I ask to be put on the
superannuated list." And then he sat down on the nearest seat and wept
like a child. What it would have broken the heart of other men to have
staid in, it broke his heart to leave. I viewed him with intense
curiosity. Five or six of his brother ministers came up one by one,
and silently took hold of his twisted hands. I don't think they said
a word; I am sure he did not. He did not look at them, for his head
was buried on one of his cheap, home-made crutches, and from his pocket
he had taken a worn and faded handkerchief, with which he was checking
his tears. After he had gotten back to his pew, some ministers here
and there over the audience got up and testified to what the man had
been and what work he had done. Some of them had seen him, crippled
as he was and suffering the agony of rheumatism, driving miles through
the falling snow to fill an appointment to preach. Somehow it seemed
to me a eulogy of the dead--and it was. When I saw him the next morning
he had the air of a man who had met a great loss, instead of a man who
had just parted with a life of labor and physical anguish, but there
was still the last time look about him. And it was the last time. In
six months from that time he was dead. What shall we say when such a
life of self-sacrifice passes on to the stars? What can we say, except
to speculate on the boundless possibilities that eternity must contain
for such a life. What must such a little minute-hand life as sixty
years, develop into on the dial plate of eternity, when it is begun
as this man's was. Such a man as this, it seems to me, must at some
time or other have touched the very hem of the Master's garment.
* * * * *
I saw in your paper this week an expression which continues to run
through my head. It is an advertisement of a poultryman for poultry,
in which he says with rough frankness, "Old roosters not wanted."
Whether it is good policy in him, while attempting to secure tender
and succulent birds for the clerical stomach, to affront that venerable
class of fowls upon which we sinners are to live long after the clergy
have left, I will not say. I do not believe, however, that it will go
unresented or unpunished. I believe that many an old rooster will so
beplume himself and take on such an extra strut, that he will at last
succeed in forcing himself as a young bird between the teeth of our
clerical visitors. This will be a sweet revenge. But with this I have
nothing to do; what I have now to do with, is the fact that over every
department of life I see the same announcement. In society where the
sweet amenities of life are monopolized by the young, the aged beau
is met by the flaming inscription, "Old roosters not wanted." In
politics we hear the cry that the favorite candidate is a representative
of the "Young Democracy" or "Young Republicans," as the case may be,
and that, except at the ballot-box, "Old roosters are not wanted." If
a congregation loses its pastor and commences looking around for a
successor, the first thing it does is to print in large letters across
the pulpit, "Old roosters not wanted." Across the door of every new
enterprise is the same inscription. What, I desire to know, is to
become of us old roosters? Not fit for broiling, too tough for roasting,
too old for congressmen, for preachers--what are you going to do with
us? Ah, the very question shows where we stand. It used to be a few
years ago, what we were going to do with you, but the tables have been
turned and now it seems to me that the cemetery gate is the only place
not decorated with the legend, "Old roosters not wanted." There they
are more than welcome; indeed, if it were not for their patronage that
institution would do an amount of business very unsatisfactory to its
stockholders. Having then this refuge, brethren, let us take courage!
Let us take consolation in the thought that we have gotten over so
much of the rough road over which those following us have yet to travel,
and that having once passed that portal we shall have reached perfect
peace. Let us find a spiteful satisfaction in the fact that long after
we have entered the silent gates, the young roosters will still have
to rise early and crow hungrily for corn, still will have to skirmish
with other roosters for bread, and the highest pole in the roost, and
that as they show up in the race of life, they will have to read, in
their turn, the fatal sign-board along the track--"Old roosters not
wanted."