It has been a custom with many great characters, both of ancient and modern times, to devote the latter part of their lives to this moral preparation. It seems as if a kind Providence had conceived old age on purpose for this process. If we have lived properly, our minds will then have become cultivated in proportion as the body, that great tempter, has been weakened; and we are called upon to retire from the active world just when we are become unfit for it. Yet how many old men do we see clinging to its gilded toys, empty hopes, and frivolous amusements, without a thought of any thing beyond; or, how many a grey head is at this moment working schemes which might better become the imagination of the thoughtless school-boy, or the grovelling nature of the brute. In how many a heart, which should be the altar only for the pure, silent, undying flame of piety, do we see the unholy passions of earth burning beneath a hand which ever feeds with the impurest food their vain fires. How few are there among aged men who have thought of letting loose their hold on earth, of slackening their pursuit after wealth or vain distinctions, of turning their minds to the period (which to-morrow may bring) when all things not connected with their future career shall seem to them like infant toys. I often think of that poor ghost’s touching lament, and hope that death may not find me thus unprepared. I take a profound lesson from this profoundest of mortal teachers, and learn to go through the earth like a passing traveller, paying but a brief visit of curiosity and instruction to its beautiful wonders, but who does not mean to build, even in the fairest of its bowers, or by the most tempting of its streams—because his home is in another country, to which all that he has and all that he loves is either gone or going. How deeply Shakspeare—even the laughter-loving, etherial, sunshiny Shakspeare, was impressed with the same thought, you may gather from his works. It is not the night-walking spirit alone who utters to mankind this sublime truth, but the most high climbing and successful of his living personages also proclaim it. _Prospero_, among others, in a solemn and touching remark, betrays how full he is of the nothingness of mere human life. After having given utterance to that most magnificent of all the sublime breathings of a thoughtful mind— “And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.” He invites his companions to his cell: