Gazette Of The United States

For the GAZETTE of the UNITED STATES

THE GUEST—No. I.

"IGNORANT OLD AGE, is the worst picture that Time can draw of Man."

How important is it to make provision in youth to alleviate the inevitable miseries of old age! that we may mitigate the sorrows of our declining years, by finding a substitute for those vacancies which time, accidents and death, will make in our friends and enjoyments! Though we cannot fly from our fate, yet we can meliorate its severity. Nature in a thousand directions teaches us the most useful lessons of prudence, and foresight. We anticipate winter; we provide for its approach, and its inclemency is abated. The difference between a wise man and a fool is, that the latter lives to the moment; the former always calculates for the consequences of events.

Providence hath not pointed out any expedient to relieve us under the infirmities of age, equal to knowledge, study and meditation. A taste for these must be acquired in youth; while the mind is flexile and susceptible of impressions, our stock of ideas should be laid in. These will prove our never failing friends and companions, when others desert us. With our books we can always find the best company.—The sprightliness of youth; the gravity of age; the politics of past ages, and the current history of our own times pass in review, and beguile the tediousness of confinement. With these we connect the present with the past; and while we are on the limits of existence, we can send our thoughts backwards and trace the incidents of usefulness, friendship and happiness thro' which we have passed. Cheerfulness is the offspring of knowledge and virtue, and it smooths the furrows of age—It attracts the company, love, and veneration of the young—It sooths the pillow of loneliness—It shuts the door to chagrin and fretfulness, and gilds the last moments of life with the rays of future glory.

But a vicious and ignorant old age, is the oil that produces a congregation of miseries——It adds a shade to the shadows of the long nights. and clouds the short days of the winter of life. Ignorance and weakness incapacitate from employment; and impose the most irksome sensations of idleness on the mind.—'Tis this makes old age to be dreaded; for except its infirmities are tempered by information, experience, and virtue, it will be deserted by the young and middle aged; and contemporaries in ignorance, chagrin and ennui, will add to the weight that sinks it, unpitied into dust.