ed in obscurity here at my
retired home, if I could have done so. I appreciate the good opinion of
my brethren, to the extent that I think it is merited; but to realize
that I am not what I am thought by some to be, is a great
mortification.

I am now at home enjoying the company of my family, the quiet of my
home, with every want anticipated and supplied by a devoted wife and
children, pleasantly, though in much feebleness, doing my work on the
_Guide_, and putting in my spare time in other writing. I find my
greatest pleasure in being about my Father's business. I must be
employed. I expect to thus work on till the Master says, "It is
enough."

MT. BYRD, Ky., June 13, 1885.

CHAPTER XIX.

Reflections on his Fiftieth Birthday. What a Wonderful Being is
Man! Governed, not by Instinct, but by Reason. Man Lives by Deeds, not
Years. How to Grow Old. Half of Life Spent in Satan's Service. Renewed
Consecration. Last Three Birthdays. His Trust in God.

The seventh day of March has come again. Fifty times has come this
anniversary of my natal day! Half a hundred years old to-day! What a
period through which to carry the burdens and responsibilities of life!
(What a time for which to give account to God for wasted moments and
opportunities lost!) What a period to be devoted to building a
character for the skies! What a period of time devoted to the issues of
eternity!

What a wonderful being is man! Time is but his cradle, from which he
walks forth into a world where life is parallel with the ages of God.
An intelligent, expansive being that will never cease to be--what a
thought! When the sun grows gray with age, his eye is dimmed, and
darkness reigns, man will still be drinking in the light of heaven from
the morning star of eternity. The century-living crow doubles this
period of man's probation, with life as it began. She builds her nest
the last year, as she did the first, with no improvement sought. She
rears her young the hundredth time as she did the first, by the long
experience none the wiser. This is her nature. God made her thus.
Instinct is wonderful, but it never improves. It grows not wiser with
age nor the ages. It nothing from experience learns. The sparrow builds
her nest, and the beaver his dam, just as they did in the years before
the flood. The little quails an hour from the shell, will hide at the
danger-signal of the mother bird, when they never saw a hawk, nor heard
of one's existence. H