stultifying, and we sha'n't breathe quite so freely, living in a fog. But that's of course. You must criticise me, you know, and I shall change-like a chameleon. That's woman's way. It distinctly isn't man's."

yes,

"Do you mean to tell me a man can't stand up and listen to his faults, and by Jove, be glad to listen ?"

"My lord, no! not from the creature nearest him. Perhaps it savors too much of a house divided against itself, and he dreads the roof about his ears. I've observed that, also. If somebody who is not your wife reproves you with a pretty pout, you say she's fastidious, and it makes you fain to climb. But madam! she's a shrew. Away with her to the pond!"

66

'Child, that's only an illustration. I wasn't born literary, but I hope I know where to find a metaphor at need. 'I loathe your great-grandmother's picture. I'm unspeakably nervous when you play the fife after ten o'clock. I detest your habit of plaid trousers!'"'

"And all these things could have been amended fifty years before, if you'd only spoken up, and said so!"'

"Yes, Tom, so it appears to you now, and so it would appear to me then, or I shouldn't speak at all. I should be deluded by the strange thing we call a sense of justice, that rises up in us and cries, You have no business to let me be bothered by the midges you could sweep away with a breath!' And next day, bewailing my lost bower, what do you think I should do?"

Ah, that shows how dear you are, but it makes it no more possible to do it. If I am a wise woman, I shall refrain. The soul is an awful goddess, Tom. We don't talk about her much, but she's there just the same. Stay outside the veil, and she'll whisper to you all day long; but invade her shrine, and she slips away. Worship her, and she'll follow; hunt her home, and you've lost her. It's because she's so shy and sweet that when you seem to change to me, I sha'n't say, Why?" "

"When I change! How queer it sounds !"

"When you seem to change! When I've lived near you so long that you forget whose breath it is, they mingle so. Then I shall stay beside you very softly, never once saying,

You used to do thus and so.' I shall realize you're turning, growing, stretching up, and pray the Almighty, who contains us both, that I may grow too, and that our new branches mingle. You shall be free, dear There shall be no shadow of a bond." "But I want bonds. I exult in them, when it's you. I demand them."

one.

"Ah, so do I! and the outer ones-the

Prince Consort. Don't you know that's why we're so pathetically different? It's a wonder we can speak a syllable of the same language. Our life has been all within for

"Yes; days when you, monsieur, do not appear at the rendezvous. It's woman's sneaking habit to be always there. And on those days, when you are five-sixteenths indifferent to me, I shall become—another Margaret. I shall put on doublet and hose. Do you know, I've always wanted to write an essay entitled Concerning the Art of Being a Man'? For we've that to learn of you. When you are in trouble or perplexity, and your castle falls about your ears, what do you do? Go out into the world, and try to forget. But we! we sit and mull at home, growing sodden with tears. We think it a species of disloyalty to put our grief in a precious box and hand it back to Almighty God to keep for us, while we try to beguile our minds. But I have learned the formula. I know! When you drop away from me ever SO little, I shall go out-out-anywhere; under the sky, among people. I shall try to find some joyance with my kind, and then, if I come back and we renew ours together, so much the happier I."

Margaret, you have put me miles away." "Yes; isn't it cold and dreadful-for a minute? But that doesn't last. It's the only way to be near together. If we clutch and cling, we sha'n't get anything but the air. If we reverence each other-serve each other why, some day we shall realize that, as much as two souls can be, we are fused into one." He sat looking at her in amazement. Her face was white and passionate. The hands he held had grown very cold.

She shook her head, with a very solemn look from far away.

"There's one pitfall," she said, "from which not even wisdom shall save me. Have I not learned the fallacy of wholesale betrayal? Have I not seen the woman sink and fail who throws away restraint and owns her worship? If she had kept one little fortress of reserve! If he had thought there was some inch of her he could not win! But no, poor princess! She pours her dowry down before him, and then walks beggared. If I could convince you that I should live if you deserted me! But no! I've told you I shall not, and I shall tell you yet again."

Silence fell between them, and in its hush she seemed to waken from another state-an unfamiliar one. She looked at him apprehensively; she shrank a little from his glance.

"And after all," he said, at last," I haven't known you a bit. I didn't guess you had these thoughts, half-fears, half-tremors. Why, Margaret, you make me wonder whether you really will be glad!"

She stopped him, not by a word, but a swift curling up against his breast. He forgot what he was beginning to think, and gathered the whole sweet burden of her into his arms. She laid her cheek against his, and whispered to him divinely:

"What did I say, love? Forget it. These things don't matter. Nothing does but you. I'm not myself to-night. My head aches a little, and I'm nervous.”

The formula rang familiar in his ear. It seemed to him he might have heard it, not long before; yet, when he looked down into her eyes, they were clear wells of shining light, and he found only his own image there. But as they sat thinking over the dear new world to be born to-morrow, another thrill of memory wakened in his brain. The tendency of their talk looked to him all of a piece.

"Dear!" he said. "Dear!" Then he stopped. Something was glimmering before

I

"Why, Tom," said she, “you said—you've often said I haven't any !"

He put her hands passionately to his lips. "And it's true," he vowed. It's God's truth. You haven't one."

They sat there still, knowing the unknown country was before them, and they were not afraid. At least the man was not; but the woman shivered a little, now and then. She was not adventurous, and she had chanced upon the bones of other travelers.

IN the memorial window at Stratford-onAvon the seventh and last age of man is represented by a picture of Isaac propped up in his bed, while Jacob is deceiving him. I would rather have chosen the life of Moses, his natural force not abated, his eye undimmed, although many years had passed over his head and much service he had rendered, going out alone from his people, and entering into that loneliness which is characteristic of old age when one after another of the companions of life have dropped off from him. Or I would have taken the appeal of Samuel to the people, Have I defrauded any of you? have I taken any bribes? bave I rendered any unjust judgment? and receiving the generous testimony of all the people to his faithful and undeviating service. Or I would have taken the old age of David, recounting in that memorable psalm of his the mercies of God which had accompanied him through all the years of his pilgrimage, forecasting death, and giving directions how the government should be administered after he had gone from the earth. Or I would have taken, perhaps best of all, the old age of Paul, the missionary of the Gospel, chained to a soldier in Rome, awaiting his martyrdom, gladly look ing back in memories over the pas', peaceful in his captivity and his confinement in the present, and joyously anticipating his redemption and his glorification in the future.

For youth is not the happiest time of life, but old age the happiest, if youth and man

A series of Sabbath-evening sermons preached in Plymouth Church, stenographically reported by Henry Winans, and revised by the author. For previous sermons in this series see issues for July 23 and 30, and August 6, 13, 20, and 27.

hood have been well spent. You are not to think that to-night I am addressing old men only; if I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early. He may grow old submissively, resignedly, patiently; but he cannot grow old gloriously and joyously, so that his last days are his happiest days and his best days, if his youth has been wasted and his manhood misspent.

A graceful and blessed old age must have three elements in it; a happy retrospect, a peaceful present, and an inspiring future. And old age cannot have either one of these three if the youth has been wasted and manhood has been misspent. "I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is at hand, for I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness"-a blessed retrospect, a peaceful present, an inspiring future. Let us look at them separately.

The graceful and happy old age must have a happy retrospect. A man may indeed enter into old age and in oblivion forget somewhat of the past, but not if his memory is preserved to him. The old man lives in the past, and if his past is full of was:ed hours and misspent opportunities, then those memories must be full of bitterness. It cannot be otherwise. The happy old man looks back along the path of gladness; the memories of that past gather round him and inspire his heart with rejoicings. So the old man looks at life as David looked at it and recounts the mercies of God that have accompanied him all his way;

so he looks at it as Samuel looked at it, and remembers with gladness that he has been faithful to his trust, to his people, and turns to his children and to his grandchildren, and appeals to them to bear wit ness to his fidelity; so he looks upon it as Paul looked back upon his, with the sense of a service faithfully rendered to the Father whom he loves and to the Saviour whom he follows; so he looks back upon it as Moses looks back, and, looking forward and seeing that his children and his grandchildren will enter into the inheritance into which he cannot enter, nevertheless rejoices that his service has prepared that inheritance for them.

A man may face death as the penitent thief faced it; the memories that come out of the past may come hounding him like ghosts; and still the voice of Christ may break a way through them, and give deliverance. But that is not the graceful old age. It is only an old age that can be endured. Even the old man who looks back on a faithful life will remember blunders, but he will allay regret because he will be able to say, I have learned wisdom by my mistakes; his sins will rise up against him, but he will be able to allay remorse, because he will say, Though I fell into sin, nevertheless I fought against it. So his memories of the past will make his last days rich days.

And his present will be a blessed one. He will not have wasted his substance in his youth; he will have laid up something for this time of old age, so that he will not have to toil as though he had not made provision. He will not have wasted passions and appetites, and nothing else; he will have gotten control of the appetite and the passion; so there will come the peace, not of a man whose life has died and left nothing but ashes, but of one who has become victor over his enemy and made his enemy itself his servant and friend. He will have fought a good fight. And the doubts of his youth will have flown away as the ghosts fly at the crowing of the cock. For our doubts are the product of our spiritual ignorance and unculture. He who has had many years pass over his head, and in those years has been living for the world, will have been laying up for himself a greater skepticism when age comes upon him. But he who has been living in the eternal world, he who has been making the world serve him, he who has been keeping his heart open to the Eternal and the Infinite, he who has been walking with his Father, will find

the riddle of life less a riddle, the perplexity of life less a perplexity—he will perhaps know less than he thought he knew when he was a boy, but life will be clearer and better. In the summer the leaves hang on all the boughs, and as you stand in your country home you can get but a glimpse of the river or mountain that lies beyond the river; but when the fall has come, and the leaves are withered, and the winds have come and swept them all away and the trees stand bare, the river lies shining before you and the mountains rise up clear-marked in the autumn air. So when one after another of the things in life that did shield and surround you, and that you rejoiced in, have been swept away, and the trees in which your life is lived stand skeleton-like, if you have lived a life that has given you insight and outsight, you will see all the clearer because life seems barren, and the river of life will shimmer before you and the mountain of God stand clear-cut against the sky.

And so this man who has lived this life of temperance and probity and honor and service, and has all the flocking memories ministering to him, and has in the present all the sweet consciousness of God and immortality abiding with him, he will look forward into the future without fear, nay, with hope. "I am already being offered." If one's life has been one long self-sacrifice, why not rejoice when the sacrifice comes to its consummation and we see that it has not been offered in vain? If one has been living that life of Christly consecration and self-sacrifice, then this word, "I am already being offered," will come as a celestial anthem. He will live in the future; he will live in his children and in his grandchildren; he will project himself into them, as it were. Sometimes men in middle life grow impatient of children; but good old men never. They love the little children; and the grandmothers are more indulgent to the grandchildren than as mothers they were to their own offspring, because the old men and the old women come back again into their children and live their lives over again in them. But, more than that, God will renew his old man's youth. This old man will look forward and upward, and the life that is beyond will become near, and his heart will be more exhilarated at times than ever his heart was in his childhood. Do you remember those four pictures of Coles?—the Voyage of Life? The first, the babe in the cradle coming out from the