A Happy Old Age 
Or, Home Beyond!

What is our life? 
Life is a Journey, that is soon ended. 
Life is a Tale, that is quickly told.
Life is a Day, whose hours roll by apace.
Life is a Vapor, which rises for a while, and then vanishes. 
Life is a Flame, that burns for a moment or two, and then flickers, and shortly goes out.
Our little lifetime — oh, how short it is!
And what are your thoughts, my aged friend, about this journey of life? Once you looked upon it as a very different thing from what it appears to you now. Once it seemed to you as if the days of your childhood would never pass away. You longed for manhood or womanhood; but it came very slowly. The early stages of your journey seemed almost endless. And if it had been possible, you would willingly have taken a jump, and sprang into middle life in one bound. But now you look back, and wonder how quickly your life has passed. It seems but yesterday, that you were a child. Old age has crept on, almost without your knowing it.
Truly the longest life is but a little while — when compared with eternity. It is but a tiny drop in the wide ocean; but as a grain of sand on the boundless shore! Life soon passes it away — and we are gone forever!