A healthy old age cannot be reached without the exercise of many virtues. There must have been prudence, self-denial, and temperance at the very least. According to the proverb, he that would be long an old man must begin early to be one, and the beginning early just means taking a great many precautions commonly neglected till it is too late. More people would be found completing their pilgrimage at a late date if it were not that, as a French writer puts it, "Men do not usually die; they kill themselves." It is carelessness about the most ordinary rules of healthy living. The enjoyment of old age may be looked on then as a reward, and the aged may pride themselves on being heirs to a rich inheritance, assigned to forethought and common sense. Many years are an honor. They are an honor even in the case of the worldly, and a great deal more so when life has been regulated by motives higher than any the world can show. "The hoary head," says Solomon, "is a crown of glory;" but he adds this qualification, "if it be found in the way of righteousness." Old people form a natural aristocracy, and to be ranked among them may be recommended to all who have an ambition to close their lives well up in the world. For a picture of an old man in this enviable state of mind take Cornaro. In his eighty-third year we find him congratulating himself that in all probability he "had still a series of years to live in health and spirits and to enjoy this beautiful world, which is indeed beautiful to those who know how to make it so." Even at ninety-five he wrote of himself as "sound and hearty, contented and cheerful." "At this age," he says, "I enjoy at once two lives: one terrestrial, which I possess in fact; the other celestial, which I possess in thought; and this thought is equal to actual enjoyment, when founded on things we are sure to attain, as I am sure to attain that celestial life, through the infinite mercy and goodness of God." Jeremy Bentham, who lived to be eighty-five, retained to the last the fresh and cheerful temperament of a boy. John Wesley, who died when he was eighty-eight, also had a happy disposition. "I feel and grieve," he says, "but by the grace of God I fret at nothing." Goethe, who reached his eighty-third year, is another good example. Then there is Boerhaave, one of the most celebrated physicians of modern times, who held that decent mirth is the salt of life. Indeed in the case of most old people, we believe it will be found that cheerfulness is one of their leading characteristics. * * * * *