p. 11 | THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 22, 1902

THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME.

If you are so fortunate as to have the “old people” in the house, see to it that they have the warmest and sunniest corner, and a goodly portion of the best that can be afforded of comfort, convenience, and beauty; that aged blood may be kept warm and cheerful; that failing limbs may have restful repose, and that the dim eyes that have watched over you and yours through so many toilsome years, may see around them the ever-present evidences of faithful and grateful care.

There is nothing in the world more pathetic than the meek, timorous, shrinking ways of certain old people—we have all seen them—who have given up their old home into younger hands and subsided into some out-of-the-way corner of it, to sit by fireside and table henceforth as if they were mere pensioners—afraid of “making trouble,” afraid of being “in the way,” afraid of accepting half that is their due, and going down to their graves with a pitiful, depreciating air, as if constantly apologizing for staying so long. There is no scorn too deep and sharp for the sons and daughters who will accept this attitude on the part of those to whom they owe so much.

Sometimes, to be sure, people grow old with a bad grace. They become embittered by misfortune or affliction; or are peevish and unreasonable under the goadings of ill health. All the more do they appeal to great gentleness and faithfulness. Let it be borne in mind that we, too, are hastening on toward the sunset of life, and that it is possible that we may ripen into very uncomfortable old people, to demand much more of patience and devotion than we, as children, yield.—Woman’s World.