It is not so bad a thing to grow old; it is only getting a little nearer home; a little nearer to immortal youth.
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
My God! my time is in Thine hands. Should it please Thee to lengthen my life, and complete, as Thou hast begun, the work of blanching my locks, grant me grace to wear them as a crown of unsullied honor.
An aged Christian with the snow of time on his head may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven.
Nobler than a ship safely ending a long voyage, and sublimer than the setting sun, is the old age of a just and kind and useful life.
The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen" at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.
Lonely and old, in the dusk I am waiting,
Till the dark boatman with soft muffled oar
Glides o'er the waves, and I hear the keel grating,—
See the dim beckoning hand on the shore,
Wafting me over the welcoming river
To gardens and homes that are shining forever!
