Publisher's Synopsis
"My hearers, we grow old," said the preacher. "Be it summer or be it spring with us now, autumn will soon settle down into winter, that winter whose snow melts only in the grave.The wind of the world sets for the tomb. Some of us rejoice to be swept along on its swiftwings, and hear it bellowing in the hollows of earth and sky; but it will grow a terror to theman of trembling limb and withered brain, until at length he will long for the shelter of thetomb to escape its roaring and buffeting. Happy the man who shall then be able to believethat old age itself, with its pitiable decays and sad dreams of youth, is the chastening of theLord, a sure sign of his love and his fatherhood."It was the first Sunday in Advent; but "the chastening of the Lord" came into almostevery sermon that man preached."Eloquent! But after all, can this kind of thing be true?" said to himself a man of aboutthirty, who sat decorously listening. For many years he had thought he believed this kind ofthing-but of late he was not so sure.Beside him sat his wife, in her new winter bonnet, her pretty face turned up toward thepreacher; but her eyes-nothing else-revealed that she was not listening. She was muchyounger than her husband-hardly twenty, indeed.In the upper corner of the pew sat a pale-faced child about five, sucking her thumb, andstaring at the preacher.The sermon over, they walked home in proximity. The husband looked gloomy, and hiseyes sought the ground. The wife looked more smiling than cheerful, and her pretty eyeswent hither and thither. Behind them walked the child-steadily, "with level-frontingeyelids."It was a late-built region of large, common-place houses, and at one of them they stoppedand entered. The door of the dining-room was open, showing the table laid for their Sundaydinner. The gentleman passed on to the library behind it, the lady went up to her bedroom, and the child a stage higher to the nurser