ey searched with telescopic eye. And yet
neither of them lived less than seventy-eight years. As for the men of
natural science, it looks as though they were spared by some
Providential provision, in order that they might observe and report for
long epochs the changes of this old earth of ours. Cuvier dying at
seventy-five, Sir Joseph Banks at seventy-seven, Buffon at eighty-one,
Blumenbach at eighty-eight, and Humboldt at fourscore and ten, are some
of the cases which make such a supposition altogether reasonable.

Cross the ocean, and you will find the same testimony, that mental
culture is absolutely favorable to physical endurance. The greatest men
in our nation's history, whether in walks of statesmanship, science, or
literature, almost without exception, have lived long. Franklin,
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the elder Adams, and Patrick Henry, in
earlier periods,--the younger Adams, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Choate, and
Everett, Irving, Prescott, Cooper, and Hawthorne, in later times,--are
cases in point. These men did not die prematurely. They grew strong by
the toil of the brain. And to-day the quartette of our truest
poets--Bryant, Whittier, Longfellow, and Holmes--are with us in the hale
years of a green age, never singing sweeter songs, never harping more
inspiring strains. Long may our ears hear their melodies!

* * * * *

If now we could enter the walks of private life, and study widely the
experience of individual men, we should have an interesting record
indeed, and a manifold and wellnigh irresistible testimony. Consider a
few remarkable, yet widely differing cases.

Who can read attentively the life of John Wesley, and not exclaim, if
varied and exhausting labor, if perpetual excitement and constant drafts
upon the brain, would ever wear a man out, he would have worn out? It
was his creative energy that called into existence a denomination, his
ardent piety that inspired it, his clear mind that legislated for it,
his heroic industry that did no mean part of the incessant daily toil
needful for its establishment. Yet this man of many labors, who through
a long life never knew practically the meaning of the word _leisure_,
says, at seventy-two, "How is it that I find the same strength that I
did thirty years ago, that my nerves are firmer, that I have none of the
infirmities of old age, and have lost several that I had in youth." And
ten years later, he devoutly records