THE ALL IMPORTANCE OF RIGHT GENERATION. 187 Grand as this material universe is, with its hundred millions of blazing stars and suns, it is not to be compared to the wonderful arrangements and natural fitness, destined for the reproduction of man and the perpetuity of the race. Think of itconsider nature engaged in the semi-mysterious yet mighty work of individualizing and clothing an immortal spirit with mortal clay-a work of such delicate import, balancing so nicely between the future angel or the demon, that the very angels might pause with bated breath and reverent mien in their triumphal songs while the destiny of a soul is being shaped to beautify the earth and later to gladden the heavens or people dark Tartarean spheres. If there was right generation there would not be so much need of regeneration. The resurrection state may be attained in this life-and those in it, and those who walk in it in all sincerity and purity are as the angels of God in Heaven. "Whoever is begotten by pure love And comes desired and welcome into life CHAPTER XXIV. "The prophecy includes No sin, no pain, no cross, or death; Are passed away'; the vision saith: Whose quickened hearts the warmth receive, And here and now the word receive.' "Whoso liveth and believeth in me shall never die."-Jesus. "Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" asked an inquiring Israelite. The prompt reply was: "Keep the commandments." Obedience, quickened and intensified by a determinded will, is the leading factor in the filling in and rounding out of a long extended life. Carefully prepared statistics show that the individual ages of earth's inhabitants are continually growing longer. Among the causes are sanitation and applied knowledge. Those seeking earth's immortality and living for it, throwing off through the excretory organs and the perspiratory glands the coarser mineral accumulations, and taking on the finer and more ethereal elements, glide gradually, gracefully through wisely ordained evolutionary processes toward the goal of unending life on earth-earth refined, purified, redeemed. "Lo! I see long blissful ages, When these mammon days are done, An English writer says: "When subjected to no unreasonable treatment, but well and wisely used, the hand and arm centers retain their cunning in its highest degree long beyond the seventieth year, and although some failure in their power is among the inevitable consequences of advancing years, that failure need never be extreme. THE AGES AND FACTS OF GREAT MEN. 189 In rare instances the hand has kept its full potency at a ripe old age. Michael Angelo was drawing superb designs for St. Peter's at Rome shortly before his death in his eighty-ninth year, and I know examples now of men over seventy whose handwriting is as good as it was at thirty, and who, after testing themselves assure me that they write with as much facility and rapidity as they then did.” "Paradise Lost," a poem which, if it possessed no other merit, would be forever remarkable for its wealth of words, was completed when Milton was fifty-seven, having been written in the five previous years. The translation of Virgil, “noble and spirited," as Pope calls it, and "Alexander's Feast," of which Hallam has said, "Every one places it among the first of its class, and many allow it no rival," were written when Dryden was sixtysix, and that the "Lives of the Poets, "Jonson's greatest work, was composed when he was seventy-two years old. Now, judgment and reason, I would suggest, come to their perfection later than speech-in all likelihood between the fifty-fifth and seventy-fifth years, and may be exercised justly till a more advanced age. Wisdom does not always come with years. Heine made his good Pole say: "Ah! that was long, long ago; then I was young and foolish; now I am old and foolish; but still the counsels of graybeards, free from the ardent passions of youth, and well stored with experience, have been valued in all stages of the world's history, and it would be easy to show that a preponderance of the works pre-eminently implying the use of calm and powerful reason must be ascribed to men over fifty-five. Bacon was fifty-nine when he produced the first two books of the "Novum Organum;" Kant was fiftyseven when the "Critique of Pure Reason" appeared; Harvey was seventy-three when his great work on "Generation" was given to the world; Darwin was fifty when his "Origin of the Species" was issued, fifty-nine when his "Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication" was published, and sixty-two when his "Descent of Man" appeared. In almost all nations the decision on the most momentous affairs of state has been reserved for a senate; and it is highly noteworthy that our system of jurisprudence in this country-a fabric of which we are justly proud-has been built up by judges from fifty-five to eighty-five years of age. The late Dr. W. B. Carpenter said, when nearly seventy years old: "I am conscious of the decline of life. My perceptions are a little dull, and my memory has lost its grasp. I could not now trust to its safe keeping long strings of words as I did when learning my Latin grammar as a boy, but I am convinced that my judgment is clearer and juster than it ever was, and my feelings are not blunted.” "But besides judgment and reason there are other powers of mind in all likelihood localized in the frontal lobes. The moral sense and religious emotions have probably here the substrata necessary for their manifestation, and these, although influential in some degree throughout life, evolve most munificently last of all. The fruit is mellowest when it is ready to fall, and the old man, free from canker or blight, sometimes displays new sweetness and magnanimity when his course is all but run." Dr. Osler's statement was false. Many of the renowned men of the world did their most important work when between 70 and 100 years of age. At seventy-three Blucher turned the tide at Waterloo. In his eighty-first year Dr. J. Williamson Nevin retained the powers of his vigorous intellect. At seventy-one Bismarck was without a peer in the great complex circle of international diplomacy. In his eighty-first year Gladstone continued to "manage a kingdom whose geography knows no setting sun." He opposed compulsory vaccination and was very temperate in his diet. At eighty-seven King William rode horseback and proudly swayed the scepter over one of the world's greatest empires with an "arm unpalsied by age." It was only a few years ago that Lucretia Mott, in her eightyeighth year, passed to the better land of immortality. The year previous to her transition she delivered one of the ablest speeches of her life in Philadelphia. Her mind was clear, her voice firm, and her logic inexorable. She manifested few of ENGLISH CENTENARIANS. 191 the gathering infirmities of age. For nearly three generations this sainted woman won from the masses the warmest love and praise. She was mild, forgiving, and pleasant. She truly "grew old gracefully," retaining a most beautiful expression upon her face till the last. The Friends, often called Quakers, a quiet, temperate, plain-dressing, industrious, and thrifty people, are noted for their long lives. The Shakers, however, excel them in length of years. Elder Frederick W. Evans exhibited a masterly intellect when over eighty years of age in writing, speaking, and exhibiting the practices and principles of continence, chastity, and purity pertaining to Shakerism. Europeans are longer lived than Asiatics. The Welsh are the longest lived people in Europe; the Scotch are next, and the Irish are the shortest lived of all. The Jews, in ancient times, were much longer lived than the Gentiles or pagan nations. Enlightened Christians today are longer-lived than scoffing, pessimistic atheists. Faith in God, immortality, and angel ministries are conducive to peace of mind and long life. There are now living on the island of Sappho in the Mediterranean, three men aged respectively one hundred and fifteen, one hundred and nineteen, and one hundred and twenty-six years; and the writer of the article in which appears this statement says: "Strange as it may seem, and it is very remarkable, these men are obliged to earn their bread by manual labor." Thus they have had abundant meant of prolonging their lives. Dr. Edward Palmer, of the Smithsonian Institute, states that there is a woman in California one hundred and twenty-six years of age; and the doctor says that he has seen her carry six great watermelons on her shoulder at once. The Jesuit missionaries in California tell of an Indian one hundred and forty years old who makes his living by gathering driftwood upon the seashore and carrying it home, a distance of a number of miles; also of another, aged one hundred and fifteen, who has for his regular task to travel fifty miles on foot into the mountains one day, and bring back on his shoulders the next day a great load |