Hope after hope dies out, and there is nothing left but the hope to
die. How beautiful the facing of it so as to become calmly familiar
with it, making it an object of hope, with bright visions of reunion!
How can such an old age so bright and beautiful be secured? Surely the
one answer is,--by faith in Jesus Christ.
Think of an old Christian resting, full of years, full of memories,
full of hopes, to whom the stir of the present is nothing, who has come
so near the place where the river falls into the great sea that the
sounds on the banks are unheard. It is calm above the cataract, and
though there be a shock when the stream plunges over the precipice, yet
a rainbow spans the fall, and the river peacefully mingles with the
shoreless, boundless ocean.
Dear young friends, 'what shall the end be'? It is for yourselves to
settle. Oh, take Christ for your Lord! Then, though so far as regards
the bodily life the 'youths shall faint and be weary,' as regards the
true self the life may be one of growing maturity, and at last you may
'come to the grave as a shock of corn that is fully ripe.'
Trust, love, and serve Jesus, that thus calm, thus beautiful, may be
your days here below, that if you die young you may die ripe enough for
heaven, and that if God spares you to 'reverence and the silver hairs,'
you may crown a holy life by a peaceful departure, and, sitting in the
antechamber of death, may not grieve for the departure of youth and
strength and buoyancy and activity, knowing that 'they also serve who
only stand and wait,' and then may shake off the clog and hindrance of
old age when you pass into the presence of God, and there, as being the
latest-born of heaven, may more than renew your youth, and may enter on
a life which weariness and decay never afflict, but with which immortal
youth, with its prerogatives of endless hope, of keenest delight, of
unwearying novelty, of boundless joy, abides for evermore.