he might yet be honored on some other field with victory, and be crowned with glory. But usually, when a man reaches the period of "threescore and ten years," all these things lie in the past. His purposes have all been formed and ended. If he sees new plans and purposes that seem to him to be desirable or important to be executed; if there are new fields of honor, wealth, science, ambition, or benevolence, they are not for him, they are for a younger and more vigorous generation. It is true that this feeling may come over a man at any period of life. In the midst of his way, in the successful prosecution of his most brilliant purposes, in the glow and ardor attending the most attractive schemes, the hand of disease or death may be laid on him, and he may be made to feel that all his plans are ended,—a thought all the more difficult to bear because he has not been prepared for it by the gradual whitening of his hairs and the infirmities of age. Most men in active life look forward, with fond anticipation, to a time when the cares of life will be over, and when they will be released from their responsibilities and burdens; if not with an absolute desire that such a time shall come, yet with a feeling that it will be a relief when it does come. Many an hour of anxiety in the countingroom; many an hour of toil in the workshop or on the farm; many an hour of weariness on the bench; many a burdened hour in the great offices of state, and many an hour of exhaustion and solicitude in professional life, is thus relieved by the prospect of rest,-of absolute rest,of entire freedom from responsibility. What merchant and professional man, what statesman, does not look forward to such a time of repose, and anticipate a seasonperhaps a long one-of calm tranquillity before life shall end? and when the time approaches, though the hope often proves fallacious, yet its approach is not unwelcome. Diocletian and Charles V. descended from their thrones to seek repose, the one in private life, the other in a cloister; and the aged judge, merchant, or pastor welcomes the time when he feels that the burden which he has so long borne may be committed to younger men. Yet when the time of absolute rest comes, it is different from what has been anticipated. There is, to the surprise, perhaps, of all such men, this new, this strange idea,—an idea which they never had before, and which did not enter their anticipations: that they have now nothing to live for; that they have no motive for effort; that they have no plan or purpose of life. They seem now to themselves, perhaps to others, to have no place in the world, no right in it. Society has no place for them, for it has nothing to confer on them, and they can no longer make a place for themselves. General Washington, when the war of Independence was over, and he had returned to Mount Vernon, is said to have felt "lost" because he had not an army to provide for daily; and Charles V., so far from finding rest in the cloister, amused himself, as has been commonly supposed, in trying to make clocks and watches run together, and, so far from actually withdrawing from the affairs of state,-miserable in his chosen place of retreat, -still busied himself with the affairs of Europe, and sought in the convent at Yuste to govern his hereditary dominions which he had professedly resigned to his son, and as far as possible still to control the empire where he had so long reigned. The retired merchant, unused to reading, and unaccustomed to agriculture or the mechanical arts, having little taste, it may be, for the fine arts or for social life, finds life a burden and sighs for his old employments and associations, for in his anticipation of this period he never allowed the idea to enter his mind that he should then have really closed all his plans of life; that as he had professedly done with the world, so the world has actually done with him. How great, therefore, is the contrast of a man of twenty and one of seventy years! To those in the former condition the words of Milton in relation to our first parents, when they went out from Eden into the wide world, may not be improperly applied: "The world was all before them where to choose those in the other case have nothing which they can choose. There is nothing before them but the one path, -that which leads to the grave,-to another world. To them the path of wealth, of fame, of learning, of ambition, is closed forever. The world has nothing more for them; they have nothing more for the world. I do not mean to say that there can be nothing for an aged man to do, or that there may not be in some cases a field of usefulness-perhaps a new and large one-for him. to occupy. I mean only that this cannot constitute a part of his plan of life; it cannot be a result of a purpose formed in his earlier years. His own plans and purposes of life are ended, and whatever there may be in reserve for him, it is usually a new field,-something which awaits him beyond the ordinary course of events; and the transition of his own finished plans to this cannot but be deeply affecting to his own mind. I do not affirm that a man may not be useful and happy as long as God shall lengthen out his days on earth, and I do not deny that there may be much in the character and services of an ancient man that should command the respect and secure the gratitude of mankind. The earlier character and the earlier plans. of every man should be such that he will be useful if his days extend beyond the ordinary period allotted to our earthly life. A calm, serene, cheerful old age is always useful. Consistent and mature piety, gentleness of spirit, kindness and benevolence, are always useful. NO USE BEING IN A HURRY. J. K. PAULDING. [One of the first of American writers to attain a reputation as a novelist was James Kirke Paulding, born in New York in 1779. In combination with Washington Irving, he published, in 1807, a series of witty and satirical papers, entitled "Salmagundi," which attracted much attention. His satire of "John Bull and Brother Jonathan" is among the most humorous of this class of works in our literature. He wrote several other works, chief among which is "The Dutchman's Fireside," a novel which was long greatly admired. It will not well bear comparison with later achievements in the novelistic field, yet it is of value as giving an interesting picture of colonial life in New York. We select from it a humorous chapter. Mr. Paulding died in 1860.] MUCH has been sung and written of the charms of the glorious Hudson,-its smiling villages, its noble cities, its magnificent banks, and its majestic waters. The inimitable Knickerbocker, the graphic Cooper, and a thousand less celebrated writers and tourists have delighted to luxuriate in descriptions of its rich fields, its flowery meadows, whispering groves, and cloud-capped mountains, until its name is become synonymous with all the beautiful and sublime of nature. Associated as are these beauties with our earliest recollections and nearest, dearest friends,entwined as they inseparably are with memorials of the past and anticipations of the future, we too would offer our humble tribute. But the theme has been exhausted by hands that snatched the pencil from Nature herself, and nothing is left for us but to expend our emotions in silent musings. Catalina, accompanied by her father, embarked on board of the good sloop Watervliet, whereof was commander Captain Baltus Van Slingerland, a most experienced, deliberative, and circumspective skipper. This vessel was noted for making quick passages, wherein she excelled the much-vaunted Liverpool packets; seldom being more than three weeks in going from Albany to New York, unless when she chanced to run on the flats, for which, like her worthy owners, she seemed to have an instinctive preference. Captain Baltus was a navigator of great sagacity and courage, having been the first man that ever undertook the dangerous voyage between the two cities without asking the prayers of the church and making his will. Moreover, he was so cautious in all his proceedings that he took nothing for granted, and would never be convinced that his vessel was near a shoal or a sand-bank until she was high and dry aground. When properly certified by ocular demonstration, he became perfectly satisfied, and set himself to smoking till it pleased the waters to rise and float him off again. His patience under an accident of this kind was exemplary; his pipe was his consolation, -more effectual than all the precepts of philosophy. It was a fine autumnal morning, calm, still, clear, and beautiful. The forests, as they nodded or slept quietly on the borders of the pure river, reflected upon its bosom a varied carpet, adorned with every shade of every color. The bright yellow poplar, the still brighter scarlet maple, the dark-brown oak, and the yet more sombre evergreen pine and hemlock, together with a thousand various trees |