Grow old sweetly and beautifully

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(J. R. Miller, "Devotional Hours with the Bible" 1908)

It takes a great deal of grace to grow old sweetly and beautifully. It is not possible to carry the alertness and energy of young manhood, into advanced years. Yet if we live wisely and rightly all our lives--old age ought to be the best of life. We certainly ought to make it beautiful and godly, for our life is not finished until we come to its very last day.

We ought to be wiser when we are old--than ever we have been in any former years. We ought to have learned by experience. We ought to be better in every way--with more of God's peace in our hearts, with more gentleness and patience. We ought to have learned self-control, and to be better able to rule our own spirit. We ought to have more love, more joy, more thoughtfulness, to be more considerate, to have more humility.

Old age never should be the dregs of the years, the mere cinder of a burnt-out life. One may not have the vigor and strenuousness of the mid-years--but one should be every way truer, richer-hearted, holier. If the outward man has grown weaker and feebler--the inner man should have grown stronger and Christlier.

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