AGE AND ITS CHARM

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3210, 30 July 1932, Page 5

AGE AND ITS CHARM

I KIHIKIHI'S VENERABLE ! RESIDENTS. (By G.R.) " The good are heaven's peculiar care."—Ovid.—Met. v. 724. I think the township of Kihikihi must be unique in that it contains so many old people in proportion to its population. There are eight women whose ages average eighty years and six months, and there are ten men with an average of seventy-nine years. Then there is-another batch of "youngsters " that will average seventy; and, what is nice to relate, is that they are a J Christians. There are no atheists or Communists among them, and they are calmly waiting for the Last Post to be sounded. In_ these old folks' school days there was an element of religion among their other lessons which is not forgotten. In reading Racine's " Athalia " we come across some very fine lines. When Abner, one of the chief officers of the court,, represents to load, the high priest, that the Queen was incensed against him, the high priest, not in the least terrified at the news, returns the answer: " He who ruleth the raging of the sea knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself to His holy will. Oh Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but Him." This religious fear, when it is produced by just apprehensions of a divine power, naturally overlooks all human greatness that stands in competition with it, and extinguishes every other terror that can settle itself in the heart of man; it lessens and contracts the figure of the most exalted person; it disarms the tyrant and executioner; and represents to our minds the most enraged and the most powerful as altogether harmless and impotent. There is no true fortitude which is not founded upon this fear, as there is no other principle of so settled and fixed a nature. Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us,, acts always in an uniform, manner, and according to the dictates of right reason. What can the man fear who takes care in all his actions to please a Being that is omnipotent ?—a Being who is able to crush all His adversaries ?—a Being that can divert any misfortune from befalling him or turn any such misfortune to his advantage ? The person who lives with this constant regard to the Great Superintendent of the world is indeed sure that no real evil can come into his lot. Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses, and disappointments. But let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures, Dangers may threaten him, but he may rest satisfied that they will either not reach him, or that if they do they will be the instruments of good to him. In short, he may look upon all crosses and accidents, sufferings and afflictions as means which are made use of to bring him to happiness. But it very often happens that those which appear evils in our eyes appear also a 3 such to Him who has human nature under his care; in which case they are certainly averted from the person who has made himself by this virtue an object of divine favour. Histories are full of instances of this nature, where men of virtue have had extraordinary escapes out of such dangers as have enclosed them, and which have seemed inevitable. There is no example in pagan history more to the point than that which is recorded in the life of Timoleon. That extraordinary man was famous for referring all his successes to providence. Cornelius Nepos acquaints us that he had in his house a private chapel, in which he used to pay his devotions to the goddess who represented providence among the heathen. I think no man was ever more distingiushed by the deity whom he blindly worshipped than the great person whom I am speaking of in several occurrences of his life, but particularly in the following one, which I relate out of Plutarch. Three persons had entered into a conspiracy to assassinate Timoleon as he was offering up his devotions in a certain temple. In order to accomplish it they took their several stands in the most convenient places for their purpose. As they were waiting for an opportunity to put their design into execution, a stranger, having observed one of the conspirators, fell upon him and slew him; upon which the other two, thinking their plot had been discovered, threw themselves at Timoleon's feet, and confessed the whole matter. This stranger, upon examination, was discovered to have understood nothing of the intended assassination, but, having several years before had a brother killed by the conspirator whom he here put to death, and having until now sought in vain for an opportunity of revenge, he chanced to meet the murderer in the temple. Plutarch cannot forbear, on this occasion, speaking with a kind of rapture on the schemes of providence, which in this particular case had so contrived it that the stranger should, for so great a space of time be debarred the means of doing justice to his brother until, by the same blow that revenged the death of one innocent man, he preserved the life of another.