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Show Tho dodlcss Old Man. Thoro is hardly a sadder spectacle on earth than that furnished by a godless and graceless old man, who has lived In this Christian land perhaps three-quarters three-quarters of a eeutury, and all of whose days havo been spent without any effort ef-fort to lay up for himself a treasure In heaven. His childhood and youth tvere thus spent; his manhood nnd middle age wore thus spent; and now thcro he Is In old ago, with life on earth almost gone, and on tho very margin of tlio, grave, with eternity ju st before, and with not the first thing yet done In the wny of preparlug to meet Ood In judgment, jud-gment, Death frowns upon him. lie finds nopleasuro in thinking of the past, none iu the present, nnd none In the future. Meditation brings him do joy; memory and conscience nilord him no comfort. Ha is without the bless. Ing of Christian hope when he inot needs it. The disabilities und pains of his body makes life a burden to him, the activities of the business that once employe d his thoughts he can no longer lon-ger bear. He must, for sheer uecess't f, lay down the earthly tasks of life. In a short timo ho will bo dead, and ho knows It. Tho Book Dlvlno Is no source sou-rce of comtort to him: he is not sufficiently familiar with it to be comforted by it, and not In a moral condition to rccleve Its comforts or be entitled to them. Alas, for that man! thore are no prospects beforo him that sweetly invite his thoughts to the srlrit world. Tho simple truth Is, he has laid up for himself no treasure lu heaven. This ono thing he hus not dono. Many things ho has done, but this one noror. Ho may loavo millions to his children, but thoro are no millions for htm In titu skies. His whole record on oarth is wrong, fundamentally and awfully wrong; and now therq Is, In his feebleness feeble-ness and decay nenr tho end of a wasted wast-ed and misspent existence a soro aflllO' tion to himself and a solemn warning to every passer-by. Who will envy him his lot? Who would Imitate his example? ex-ample? nisllfo lu this world, as 'to tho great purpose for which It was given, is slmplo a prodigious failure. It ends with hope herojiind In eternal darkness hereafter. The Independent. Indepen-dent. ' ' ' "Tjfgr, i j . |