FOURTEENTH LESSON
Duties towards the Aged.
"Rise up before the hoary head, and honor the person of the aged man."—LEVITICUS 19:32.
If I have placed the aged amongst those whom you are to look upon as your superiors, it is, my children, because experience and wisdom, ordinary fruits of a long life, make them so to say our teachers, because age has a right to our respect, and deserves it for more than one reason.
Seldom does a human being reach old age, my children, without having passed through painful trials, without having suffered a great deal. The old have seen, one after another, all the friends of their childhood pass away; often have they even lost the beings of their dearest affection, children who were destined to survive them. Their hair has grown grey, their body is bent, as much perhaps by misfortune as by years. All aged people have been more or less unfortunate: and do we not owe respect to misfortune?
The respect shown to the aged is so natural a feeling, that you meet with it at all times and in all countries. At Sparta it was to a certain degree considered as a religion. In the early days of Rome to old age were shown higher honors than to rank and wealth: young men used to stand up when an aged man entered the Temple, the Senate, or other public assemblies, and the best and highest seat was set apart for him.
We are very far, alas! from imitating such examples, and on this head children have generally much to reproach themselves with; too often, they look upon aged persons as ridiculous, and are always ready to laugh at them: ignorant and unexperienced as children still are, they imagine they know more and better than those who, having lived longer, have necessarily, even on that account alone, learnt a great deal. I own, my children, that sometimes great age weakens our intellects and our minds, but do you know what is then said of those kind and simple good old people, who have no longer either memory or forethought, whom trifles amuse or grieve, who become entirely dependent on others for all the requirements of their daily life? We say that they are verging on second childhood, which means that, to a certain degree, they have become more like you. Dear children, these same old men, now so broken down, so weakened by age, were perhaps, in their younger days, most remarkably gifted both in mind and in body! Such as they now are, such will you become yourselves some day, if it please God to spare you to a good old age. You will do well to think of this now and then.
Honor the aged man as if he were thy father, such is the advice of Holy Scripture. This advice shows you your duty towards your grandfather, or grandmother, or any other aged member of your family whom God has allowed to live on beyond the usual number of years allotted to man. No doubt, my dear children, your hearts are full of love and affection towards them, but that is not sufficient. You must show them every attention and kind care in your power, and thus console them latter years.
Every time you meet an old man, even if he be an entire stranger to you, behave towards him with that respect he has a right to expect from your youth; you will never fail in this respect, if every aged person recalls to your memory, either a grandfather who died after giving his grandchildren his last blessing, or a kind grandmother, whose consolation and whose joy you still are.
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