As summer is the season in which the industrious laborious husbandman
lays up his supplies for the winter, so youth and manhood are the
times of life which we should employ in laying in such a stock as may
suffice for helpless old age; yet there are many whom we call rational
creatures, who squander away in a profuse prodigality, whatever they
get in their younger days, as if the infirmity of age would require no
supplies to support it, or at least would find them administered to it
in some miraculous way. From this Fable we learn this admirable lesson,
never to lose the present opportunity of fairly and honestly providing
against the future evils and accidents of life; and while health and
the vigour of our faculties remain firm and entire, to lay them out
to the best advantage; so that when age and infirmities despoil us of
our strength and abilities, we may not have to bewail that we have
neglected to provide for the wants of our latter days: for it should
always be remembered, that “a youth of revels breeds an age of care,”
and that temperance in youth lays the foundation of health and comfort
for old age.
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