COURTESY TO THE AGED by The Congregationalist

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 23, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 34.

COURTESY TO THE AGED.

By The Congregationalist

"O FATHER, don't! I have seen that all are properly helped." The old man thus reproved replaced the butter dish upon the tea-table, while a pained look settled about his silent lips. But he so wanted to be helpful that presently he laid hold of the cake plate and would have set it in circulation.

"O father, don't! no one is ready for that yet; do leave me to attend to things."

Reluctantly the trembling hand released its hold. It was very hard to find himself of no use anywhere.

"I thought they might be ready," he murmured, with a deprecatory glance toward the daughter, who sat straight and solemn, with a frown of displeasure wrinkling her brow. It annoyed her to have her father show himself so far behind the times in methods of table-service to have him, despite her oft-repeated instructions and admonitions, relapse into the simple, unconventional ways of a long outgrown age. It fretted her to have him vary in the slightest degree from the latest established modes of etiquette. She failed to realize that he was her most-deserving, heaven-sent guest; that his harmless deviations should be endured and condoned rather than sharply rebuked.

An aged tree can not be bent like a tender sapling. Its eccentricities of growth must now be tolerated. To age, with its infirmities, its loneliness, its many deprivations, should be allowed all the privileges and exemptions we would accord a most revered guest. The most comfortable seat in the coziest corner belongs to it; the softest bed in the most desirable sleeping-room should persuade slumber to its eyelids. The food the aged one most craves should oftenest coax his declining appetite. So many tempests of sorrow have racked him, so many life-battles have scarred him, that he has earned respite and repose. Turn to the aged only the sunny side of your nature. The country is yet uncivilized that does not try to pluck every possible thorn from the pathway of age; the heart is yet unregenerate that does not strive to make its rough places smooth.

—The Congregationalist.