SERMON XXI.

RESPECT DUE TO OLD AGE.

TO inspire man with regard for his fellow man, was unquestionably one of the principal purposes, which the coming of Jesus upon earth, the whole tenour of his life, and his death for all men, were designed to accomplish:—regard between man and man, one of the most natural and necessary consequences of genuine Christianity. God sent him, whom we reverence as his Son, for whom, to whom? for all, and to all, that bear the name of man. His birth was a joy, a benefit, which should be unto all people. Jesus lived, not in partial affection for his nation and country, but in affection for the whole race of his brethren. “Go ye into all the world,” teach all the heathen, invite all to share in the enjoyment of my blessings. His blood flowed at Golgotha for the sins of the whole world. He saw that the Jew despised the Heathen and held him to be unclean. To him he was not unclean. The belief of the Centurion at Capernaum, or of the 406Samaritan woman, received his approbation, as well as the belief of the Jew. He saw that the Jew despised the Heathen: but he caused light to be spread abroad from Judah over the globe; Jews became benefactors to the heathen, and are therefore honoured unto this day by all Christendom, which has been instructed by Jews. He saw that the high despised the low: but he preached the gospel to the poor, that they too might be enlightened, and participate in the universal benefit. He places a child in the midst of his disciples, and recommends to them the warmest regard for the rising generation. The true Christian must feel regard towards all mankind. To him all are brothers, children of his Father, the redeemed of his Redeemer, companions in his conflict, fellow heirs of his heaven. The unchristian man only can despise Lazarus because he is poor, or Peter, because be fell. The Christian sees in the heathen, in the beggar, in the deeply fallen sinner, the image of his God. He sees it more developed in one than in another, but he sees in all the image of his God. And when I respect all those, whom God has raised with me to the dignity of man, can I then overlook you, must I not especially distinguish you above all who are worthy of my respect, ye, whose weakness deserves my forbearance, whose experience my attention, whose services my gratitude, and whose near impending exaltation merits my most serious regards; 407ye aged men, who have numbered many years, and undergone many sorrows, who have performed much, and have drawn near to the accomplishment of the best hopes? regard, my brethren, for every man, especially for every old man, in a greater degree for the good, in a less for the bad; but, regard for every one. May the meditation of this hour awaken it in us all! May we not in vain promise attention to God in silent prayer!

Proverbs xvi. 31.

The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.

THESE words do not require a minute explanation. They demand our reverence for the aged members of our kind, particularly for those who walk in the way of righteousness; those, who by their integrity, their wisdom in life, and the sum of their well-employed powers soar high above the levity and inexperience of youth. Our text for this day will remind us that we owe respect to old age. We owe it on account of its infirmities, its experience, its services, and the near fulfilment. of its hopes.

There is evidently a twofold respect,—a respect for that strength and dignity, before which we bow in reverence, and a respect for that weakness, which we approach with caution and wariness, for fear of 408doing it an injury. This careful regard we owe to children. Their frame is tender, their health a fragile, vessel, their innocence, alas! so easily misled, their yet open heart so easily ruined by pernicious impressions. Old age has much resemblance to childhood. Man declines as gradually as he grew up, till he becomes helpless in body, perhaps in mind also, as he was in the first days of life. The old man has just as little power to protect himself. His body is so susceptible, that the slightest assault can throw him to the ground. Should not that induce me to treat the aged with forbearing regard? If I offend a man of middle age, he will take care that I do not go too far: he has courage, he has strength, he resists me. But the old man has only his tears to oppose to the youth that grieves him. None but a villain attacks such an one, who is not able to defend himself. And who amongst us would be the villain to injure defenceless age? The mind also of the old man is more irritable, more sensitive: bodily weakness and the feeling of increasing infirmities may be the cause of this. Every offensive word, every little slight, every invasion of his property and rights, grieves the old twice as much as the youth and the active man. He looks upon it as an attack, which is the more boldly made upon him, on account of his presumed weakness. The youth has his pleasures, the man his business, which soon divert his thoughts. The 409old man, the more he is withdrawn from both, the longer he ponders on every offence. The more he feels his inability to add to his possessions, so much the more every loss afflicts him. To the younger and stronger man an injury is a summons to protect himself and to exert his strength. It causes an excitement in him which is often agreeable: it teaches him, at least, to feel his powers. But to the old man every affront is a painful remembrance of his impotency. What, therefore, is in the younger man scarcely a slight hurt to the skin, pierces cuttingly, in the old man, through bone and marrow. And wouldest thou be one of those who mock at his years? That be far from thee. Dost thou think an old man has done thee some ill which he ought not to have done? Treat him not as the youth, who at all events makes some resistance. Remind him of his faults with forbearance, assert thy rights against him with forbearance; he will not be able to vex thee much more. Age has indeed its own weaknesses. It often makes a person capricious and ill-humoured, like a distemper: in a certain sense it is a kind of distemper. The old man has experienced many unpleasant things, he has been deceived by those whom he trusted, he is, therefore, suspicious. He feels that he can no longer acquire, he is, therefore, so much the more anxious to keep what he has acquired, and verges often on parsimony. Every thing is firmer in his sight, he is, 410therefore, less easy to persuade; years make him obstinate. Thinkest thou, thou wilt be less so, when thou art old?

It must be of consequence to us all, that an indulgent treatment of old age should universally prevail; the days will come when we shall wish it to be so. Happy we, if our weakness at that time is not our own fault; for it is natural to esteem a man less, who has debilitated himself by youthful dissipation, or idleness, or by any other means, than one whom nature itself has deprived of his strength. In the former case a tender regard must be somewhat forced, and maintained by principle; in the latter it comes as it were of itself; it lies in the nature of a feeling heart. We owe then, my hearers, this kind of forbearing regard to every aged person, as well to an Eli, who dreamt away his days in slothful indolence, and never once troubled himself about the wickedness of his sons, as to a Simeon, who, in enlightened knowledge, in piety, in directing his views to heaven, was a pattern of good old men. But there is another and deeper respect. It springs from the sense of the qualities which are peculiar to old age, and first from the acknowledgment of its abundant experience. The old man has seen long ago what we have yet to see; he has long since measured out the ways which we have yet to travel through. He drank the cup of pleasure and 411tasted its vanity; he drank the cup of sorrow, and experienced its beneficial power. He discerned the truth in the promises of virtue, and learnt the deceits of vice; learnt the high power of the religion of Jesus, which strengthens the weak unto good actions, and leads the ignorant through the devious paths of life, and is his light and his solace in the dark valleys of misfortune. That which the youth knows from the mouth of the teacher, or learns from books, the old man knows more impressively from himself, from the agreeable or painful experience of his own life. He has long observed mankind. He esteemed them good, and he found that they were evil, and often worse than he thought them in the dreams of happy hours. He held them to be evil, and he found such numbers of good persons, even more than Elijah once did, who esteemed all Israel corrupt, and learnt that there were more than seven thousand of a better character remaining. Thus his judgments became grave and mild, more cautious, but more certain than the premature judgments of youth. In the long management of his household he has made experiments, and learnt what is practicable or not. He has gone through wars, and weathered tempests in the midst of wars; he has buried brothers and sisters, parents and children, perhaps wives also; and when the young man talks much, wisely or unwisely, of that 412which shall be, the experienced old man speaks with more discretion of that which has been.

Youth, my friends, is great, when it rests on the shoulders of experience, which age has gained, and often dearly enough purchased. Do you feel that Solomon is right, when he says, “The hoary head is a crown of glory?” Would you lightly esteem. a man who has acquired so much experience? You must advance far before you can come up to him. How much might you learn from him! How much cause have you to attend to him, when he relates how God has led him, with a father’s care, from his youth up, how he stretched forth his hand to him in the hour, when he thought he must perish; how he has seen the end of the wicked and of the good, and has witnessed the illusions of fortune, the fall of the high and the rising of the low! When, by his superior judgment he would come to the relief of your imprudence, so that you need not attempt on an uncertainty, what he has already attempted with good or bad success, could you then despise him? Will he,. who has a journey to take, not willingly listen to him, who has already performed this journey? Will he not gladly learn of him, what he has to do and what to avoid, in order to gain his end in safety? It may be, that the man advanced in years has not been free from follies: Are we then free? And did he not, perhaps, become 413more discreet through errors, wiser through follies, more circumspect through faults? Ah! we are but too ready to think of the youthful errors of the old amongst us, that we may have a pretext for withholding from them our respect. Are we willing that our children should one day treat us thus? In the mean time, that we may hereafter the more deserve a high degree of that respect which is due to age, let us walk through-life with reflection. Let us be mindful of God and his ways, mindful of ourselves and the bent of our hearts, and of that which improves or impairs, strengthens or weakens, comforts or disturbs. Let us be attentive to men around us, that we may warn where warning is needful, and inspire confidence, where suspicion ought to be eradicated. Let us preside over our household with care, and acquire knowledge and attainments of all kinds, which will remain to us, when we can no longer be useful to the world by our physical strength. Youth will honour our age, when we can be serviceable to it by our advice and our wisdom. If on the contrary it can point to us and say, ‘He went through life without any aim or object, he saw and heard not, he noticed and observed not,’ then the utmost regard which will be paid to us will be that which consists in forbearance towards our weakness; the higher respect due to superior judgment cannot be ours. Grey hairs are a crown of glory, 414glory which is most surely acquired in the way of righteousness. Righteousness, distinguished integrity, and universal love proceed from purity of heart; and blessed effects result from universal love. The highest honour is due to old age, that has deserved well of mankind. Now the old man’s hand rests powerless; but it was not always so; it has rendered services to his family and to his country. How much produce did he elicit from the soil, which was the food of men, and of animals which were again useful to men! How did he embellish nature around him, by his industry!

How has another profited mankind in his apparently unimportant employment! At first an honest servant, a blessing to every household in which he lived: then a conscientious workman, who attended to the business of others with a zeal which could not be exceeded in his own affairs. How many has he served, and for how many years! What a neighbour was this old man! what a friend! and I will add, what an enemy! His household was a pattern of piety and order. How many did his example encourage or shame! What relief he administered to the necessitous in his community and neighbourhood! How he hastened to help where help was necessary! How many tears has he dried up how many widows and orphans has he comforted!—He had an enemy, a man who sought to embitter his life; he defended himself with vigour, 415but he injured not, even when he might. His enemy felt the hand of misfortune fall heavily upon him, and he, the offended, was the first to succour him. He was not faultless, but he strove against the weaknesses of his heart, and was victorious, and ascended from year to year to higher perfection. How often has he reconciled enemies! how much good has he promoted by his counsel and his influence! When this can be said of an old man, O then, who is there that can refuse him his esteem? And if, moreover, this old man were thy father? when to the services he has rendered to the community are added those he has rendered to thee, must thou still be admonished to honour him? to honour her, who for thy sake underwent much tribulation, and passed many sleepless nights and still more disturbed days, who cherished thee in sicknesses with unwearied love, and saved thee, when the cold hand of death was extended towards thy cradle? to honour him, whose advice guided thy childhood and thy inexperienced youth; who gave thee much good instruction and yet better example; who laid the foundation of thy advancement amongst men; to whom thou owest thy health, possessions, information, and, in part, even thy virtue? Reverently bow thy head before every aged person, whose earlier years were marked by good deeds, and by services done to mankind and to thee. When thou despisest an old man who is a stranger 416to thee, thou art ungrateful: mankind is much indebted to him. But when thy father or thy mother experiences thy neglect, what shall be said of thee thou art then amongst the infamous, one of the most infamous.—‘Yes, if the old were all such as they have been just described to me.’ But how many such are there! Judge not, that thou mayest not be judged. The old man may have effected much good, not a little perhaps that is so much the more meritorious, because it was unnoticed. And his faults—thou ratest them high, and yet the tear of contrition long since blotted them out of the book in which they stood written before his God, and the exertions of amendment have supplied their place by more praiseworthy actions. But indeed that the respect of the young may one day be willingly paid and abundantly offered to us when grown old, we must now in the years of our strength seek to deserve well of our wives and children, of servants and others under our roof, of the poor and unfortunate, of our family and community, of friends and foes, of all whom our God brings near to us. The flower of esteem thrives only in the sunny warmth of disinterested virtue: it fades in the shade of idleness and vice. “The hoary head is a crown of glory” to him, who by his merits has proved himself worthy of honour.

And how highly shall we honour age, when we consider the exalted hopes, to the near fulfilment of which 417it looks forward. In every man, O my brethren, we behold the future angel, in the old man one that will speedily become an angel. Thou who with grey head and trembling hands standest before me, soon, soon will thy course be finished. Thou art already bent to the earth, which probably in a few days or weeks will receive thee. Receive thee? God forbid! It will but possess thy outward frame, the habitation of thy immortal spirit. Thou thyself soarest then on high to see sublime things, to collect sublime knowledge, and to be perfected in purity, and I, then I shall look up to thee with a longing eye. The weaker thou art, the more must I honour thee. The inhabitant of heaven prepares to quit the earth, where, sent by God, he learnt and performed much and did good, and from whence he now, after his work is finished, returns to his Father. O! I would not be angry with thee for a single hour, thou who standest at the gate of heaven. Thou mightest die I and shouldest thou take with thee these last impressions of bitterness into another world? Shouldest thou complain against me there? That cannot be—the flame of revenge is quenched at the throne of God. But should thy entrance into a better life be attended by any but a happy recollection of me? I will cherish thy age, thou beloved! it is the hour of parting. Thy first song of praise before God shall not be thanksgiving, that he has at length delivered thee from me; if it be possible, it shall be thanksgiving, 418that he has connected us together. Thou mayest have the weaknesses of age: but what are they? They are the forgetfulness of one falling asleep, who is but half conscious, and half lost in a delightful dream sees the future smile to him. Soon wilt thou be above, and there behold in a clearer light the wonderful ways of thy God. Then thou wilt no longer feel the affections of sensuality and sin, then thou wilt dwell amongst those, who have long dwelt there. Honour and respect to him, who will soon inhabit a better world! The school-boy will soon leave the school, to enter into the graver occupations of life; the scholars who remain respect him that is so near the end of his time, and look upon him as almost grown up to manhood; and we already view the old man as one of the elect at the fountain of light. If I offend a younger man, I can probably make it good again; if I trespass against an old one,—to-morrow, perhaps, he is no more here, and I cannot requite him! No, aged friend, the close of thy life shall be, as far as lies in my power, a foretaste of heaven for which thou longest. Thou goest before the judge: and shall I by inconsiderate conduct or by ill-treatment provoke thee to sin, before thou goest thither? I will not, I dare not do this. I owe respect not merely to thy weakness, but to thy experience, thy merits, and thy hopes so nearly accomplished.

Perhaps my house may become the quiet abode 419of age; perhaps the rising generation will see and learn of me, how old age should be honoured, and will one day practise the same towards myself. At all events I will so live, that my old age, when it comes, shall be truly honourable. I will not make myself old before nature makes me so: I will not desire rest, until nature requires it. I will be useful and live in charity, before old age comes; and when it arrives, I shall reap what I sowed. Then will youth attend to the voice of my experience, and be grateful for my honest exertions for the good of my brethren. Then it will spare my weakness—my strength will be exhausted, but not lost—and when I have long mouldered in the dust, some one of my posterity will stand by my grave, and say, He was a good man. Amen.

THE END.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY R. GILBERT, 5T. JOHN'S SQUARE