Mental Vigor in Old Age.
By H. W. B.
Of a celebrated writer, whose age was 67, it is said: “He now lives in retirement, having given up all labors, literary and otherwise.” How often is this record made of men whose powers are unimpaired and whose labors, if continued, might bless the world to the end of time. It is related of Arnauld, the Jansenist, that he wished his friend Nicole to assist him in a new work. Nicole replied: “We are now old; is it not time to rest?” “Rest!” exclaimed Arnauld, “have we not all eternity to rest in?” Dr. Samuel Miller says: “There is no doubt that the premature dotage of many distinguished men has arisen from their ceasing, in advanced life, to exert their faculties, under the impression that they were too old to engage in any new enterprise.” When John Adams was 90 years of age he was asked how he kept the vigor of his faculties up to that great age. He replied, “By constantly employing them; the mind of an old man is like an old horse; if you would get any work out of it, you must work it all the time.” We have many remarkable instances of earnest and successful workers, after they had passed into the period known as old age. Ecclesiastical history tells the story of Cassiodorus, who, at the age of 70, retired to a monastery, and devoted the remaining twenty years of his life to literature and religion; and of Epiphanius, who became an author at 64, and wrote several large works before his death. Between the age of 58 and 67, Baxter wrote forty works; after the age of 66, some of his most valuable works were written. When an old man, Baxter was brought before the notorious Judge Jeffries on a charge of sedition. During the trial, Baxter ventured to put in a word for himself. “Richard, Richard,” roared the Judge, “dost thou think we will hear thee poison the Court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart; every one as full of sedition—I might say treason—as an egg is full of meat. Hadst thou been whipped out of the writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy.” “The only remarkable thing,” says Hannah More, “which belonged to me as an authoress, was that I had written eleven books after the age of 60.” Says Lord Brougham, at the conclusion of his autobiography, “If many statements have been feebly and some inaccurately rendered, let it be remembered that I began this attempt after I was 83 years of age, with enfeebled intellect, failing memory, and but slight materials by me to assist it.” Plato died at the age of 81, it is said, with pen in hand; and an account is given of another who wrote a history of his times, at the age of 115.—H. W. B., in N. Y. Observer.