Old age

 Continual remembrance of God encourages the growth of the spirit. Man does not ripen naturally—that is, according to the course of his earthly nature—for eternity. He is the child of spiritual culture. By spiritual toil and effort only, by patience, by pain, by tears, can this crown of a good old age be won. It comes at the end of a good life-course, a course that has been aspiring and tending to God. It is the fruit of a continual renewing, the strengthening and unfolding of the inner man, which is not born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of “the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,” and “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” And that nature needs close and constant culture; the weeds in its fields need to be cut down, and their very roots torn up, no matter what sensitive fibres may be lacerated in the process; while the seeds of the Kingdom, the germs which the good Sower has planted, have to be nurtured with many toils and tears, if in our old age we are to wear the look and bearing of men whose harvest has been reaped and is ready for gathering home into the garners of eternity. J Bryce

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