that, unwilling as mankind ordinarily are to leave the world and bid adieu to mortal life, none are so unwilling to die as those who are in the midst of their days: that with few exceptions the middle-aged are characterized by an intense love of life. This may be accounted for by the fact that they, more than others,

I. Have great confidence in the vitality of their physical frames.

Confidence is of slow growth. When we enter upon our earthly career, our experience is of course very limited. We know not what we can do, bear, or suffer, until we are put to the trial. We are distrustful of success, fearful of failure, and liable to be discouraged by unexpected difficulties. But, as we progress in our plans and pursuits, as we obtain more enlarged views and more accurate, too, of our own powers, and of the world without, we become less fearful and more confident. We learn that we can expose ourselves with impunity to the constantly-recurring vicissitudes of climate, or that we can guard against them. Each successive experiment gives us increased confidence in the endurance of our physical systems, and every year finds us more courageous, more venturous.

The very dangers through which we pass serve to make us more confident. In early life we were subjected, in common with others, to the numerous epidemics and diseases of childhood; but, through the kind providence of God, we passed safely through them all. A large number of our coevals were cut off, but we were spared. To us, and to our fond friends, it was an evidence of the strength of our constitutions, perhaps; of the great vigor of our bodies, and of their peculiar powers of endurance. In later years, too, death has entered our neighborhood in the form of malignant fevers, contagious disorders, and deadly pestilence, and cut off our neighbors and friends; but had no power over us. Others died, and we lived. The plague comes not nigh unto us, or, if it does, we survive its assaults. A thousand fall at our side, and ten thousand at our right hand, but we

escape.

This very fact, therefore, that we have passed through so many dangers, and overcome so many assaults of disease, increases vastly our confidence in the vitality of our physical system. We learn to laugh at danger, whether from disaster or disease. We become bold and fearless. We journey from place to place, and no harm befals us. Others are killed, but we are unharmed. The soldier who survives the battle-field; the sailor who survives the loss of his ship and its crew; the traveller who survives the wreck of a train of cars; and all, in short, who have been exposed to great peril, without damage to their own life or limbs, are apt to be hardened against the ordinary dangers to which they are subjected, and to look upon themselves as the possessors of a

charmed life. Every successive escape does but render them less apprehensive, and more confident of life. We, who have looked into the graves of a whole generation, who have outlived our juniors as well as our seniors and coevals, have become habituated to death. While the young are easily alarmed, and deeply impressed at the sudden decease of an intimate or other friend; and while the aged, tottering on the brink of the grave, lay the matter to heart, we, who are in the midst of our days, are often but slightly affected, and scarcely at all alarmed for ourselves. It is in accordance with the laws of our intellectual natures, to look with comparative indifference on familiar objects, especially of terror or of danger. Familiarity, in this respect, breeds contempt. The sailor soon accustoms himself to the reeling mast, and learns to glory in the storm and the tempest, that fill the timid landsman with indescribable terror. The soldier learns to exult in the martial array of contending armies, to shout at the sight of blood, and to riot in the flashes and thunders of the dogs of war. On the same principle, the middle-aged rise above the ordinary apprehensions of death, and learn to confide in their own vitality-their own prospect of long life and health.

Their love of life is further strengthened by reason of the very obvious fact that they

II. Are most fully occupied with the concerns of the present life.

They who are in the midst of their days are emphatically the business people of the world. Year by year they have added to their cares and occupations, until their whole time and thoughts are demanded by business. They have been constantly advancing, too, in the knowledge of their own powers, and of the world without, and increasing in the vigor both of body and mind. They have arrived at an age when they are expected to enjoy the full development of their energies. Now, if ever, they must do something.

The young are comparatively free from care and anxious thought. Life to them is all a balmy morning of the early summer. Unfettered with the galling chains of busy toil and anxious care, they give themselves, with a buoyant spirit, to the pursuits of pleasure, scarcely heeding what shall be on the morrow. They are easily directed, and ready for any and every change; from one round of amusements or recreations to another; from play to work, from work to play.

But, as we advance in years, we become more and more accustomed to business, care, perplexity, toil. We embark in various attractive enterprises; lay out numerous plans for pecuniary advancement; enter upon schemes of considerable magnitude, requiring great energy of mind, close and fixed attention, and the absorption of all our powers; occupy ourselves with fore

casting our own lot and the lot of others also; assume burdens of no inconsiderable weight, and heavy responsibilities connected with public as well as private affairs; and scarcely know how to find a moment's leisure for domestic duties, or for the concerns of religion. As years increase, our knowledge also increases. We learn what we can accomplish. We gain confidence in our own powers. Every addition to our experience fits us the better to bear our part in the bustle and noise and stir of the busy world. A thousand avenues to wealth and fame are opened before us. We become sensible that, by intense application, we may rise to the enviable distinctions of social rank, and be numbered among the favored children of fame and fortune. At least so we flatter ourselves. Our plans are laid. We set out to be rich; to be great; to be known, and read, and spoken of; to climb the ladder of ambition; to push our way through all difficulties, and over every obstacle; to distance all our competitors, and become the first in our callings, professions, and pursuits. However it may be abroad, it is so here. Whatever may be the state of the case in the obscure village, it certainly is the case in the opulent town, and in the swarming marts of trade. It is not for a day or two, a year or so, but for the long years of middle life, that we lay ourselves out. Our schemes are not bounded by any very distinct lines, but extend onward through the long vista of coming years, laying all our resources of mind and body under contribution. We expect to retire from these all-engrossing cares and occupations, only when the grasshopper shall become a burden, and desire shall fail.

As we advance into the midst of our days, we advance also in influence-in moral power. We take the place of our seniors, and become the principal pillars of the domestic, social, commercial, and political state. The young look up to us as their leaders, counsellors, guides, and exemplars. They seek our patronage, value our opinions, and respect our example. We give the tone to the coming age. The aged also, as they withdraw from the scenes of busy life, and seek in retirement the repose so long denied them, and the preparation for another world so long deferred, look back to us, their juniors of the next generation, to carry forward to completion their unaccomplished plans and enterprises. Go through these thoroughfares; enter your marketplaces, stores, shops, and counting-rooms; mingle with the crowd in the exchange, along the wharves, or in the halls of legislation and justice; join the hurrying throng that fill our steamers and railway cars, as they fly on the wings of the wind from town to town, from state to state, from the river to the sea, from continent to continent, and tell me who are they that compose these crowds, that give impulse to these quick-moving masses, that occupy the chief places in this wonderful panorama, so instinct with life? They are the middle-aged, the men and women of

mature years, of ripened thought, of fully-expanded powers. Mingled among them you will see, indeed, a more youthful class, hurrying on in the steps of their seniors; but they are only candidates for wealth and power. They are but in preparation for the posts of influence and emolument now occupied by others. A few gray heads may also be seen at the council-board, at the chief places of concourse, and along the crowded street-the relicts of a passing generation. They who are in the midst of their days are the life and soul of the world-in the courts of princes, and presidents, and governors; in the halls of legislative strife, and debate, and deliberation; in the thousand walks of business; in the innumerable resorts of enterprise, ambition, and thrift.

How intense must be the love of life with which these busy multitudes are actuated. They have so much to do; there is so much devolved upon them by others; their schemes are so vast, so far reaching, and cover so much of future life, as to make them shrink with peculiar dread from the approach of death. They cannot think of it. They have not time to be sick even: they have no time to die. Death must not come nigh them. They surely must be excused. They have but just entered, or fairly set out upon the journey of life. They have but just got ready for life. All the past has been but a preparatory course. They have but just embarked upon an enterprise of great promise, and were never in a better condition to accomplish it. They have just purchased a farm, and begun to stock and improve it. Give them time, and what a farm they will make of it! They have just started in a new branch of business; or moved into a new and advantageous location, and their prospects were never more flattering. Give them time, and they will make themselves known, and heard, and felt. They have just completed a contract for an elegant first-class house or store; or just finished the building, and are ready to occupy it. It has taken them all their life until now to get ready to live. They are just beginning to lay up for a wet day. Give them time, and see what a heapwhat a pile they will scrape together. If ever there was a time when it was vastly inconvenient to die, it is just now. Their whole souls are bound up in their projects and pursuits, and they can think of nothing else. They must live. They cannot die just now.

Their love of life is also strengthened by

III. The intenseness of their attachment to earthly objects.

In early life we learn to love. But in that forming period, though we love with great ardor and delight, the objects of our attachment are more frequently changed, and more readily give place to others than in maturer years. The roots of affection

have not struck deep, nor entwined themselves with such numerous threads and bands and cords around the heart. As years increase, and the intellect expands, and the affections acquire strength, we learn to love with an intensity of passion and purpose unknown to our earlier years.

You may see an affecting illustration of this truth in the money-maker. By reason of the concentration of his thoughts, desires, endeavors, and toils upon this one thing, it becomes to him increasingly the greatest good of life. He learns to hold it with a firmer grasp to part with it less readily and frequently; to contrive ways and means for securing what he has, and multiplying it. His passion for money becomes the ruling passionthe main spring of action. His love for gold swallows up all other affections, and subsidizes all the other passions of the soul to this one pursuit this one object of desire.

As we advance in years, we become more and more enamored with our favorite schemes and sources of pleasure. Our profession gets a stronger hold of us. We become fascinated, perchance, with some literary, or political, or commercial speculation. We find some hobby that has peculiar attractions for us, and we ride it always; and the more we ride it, the more we are delighted with it. All men have their hobbies, especially in middle life. Not that all men know it; but that such is the fact, whether they know it or not. One sets about the discovery of the philosopher's stone, that shall turn everything that he touches to gold. Another means to square the circle; another to solve the problem of perpetual motion; another to find a way of traveling among the clouds; another to discover the sources of the Nile; another to bring to light a buried city of the antediluvian world; another to find out some new uses of the great staples of commerce. All have their hobbies, with which, by the intensity of their attachment and devotion, they become at length completely identified. With the most, their business thus absorbs their affections. They become exceedingly enamored with it. They pursue it with eagerness, and devote to it their time, their strength, their reason, their souls. All the day long they are driving it, and all night dreaming of it. They supposed at one time, that, when they had pursued it to a certain point, they would relinquish it and retire from it. But they knew not the utter impossibility of tearing their hearts away from its fondest love. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" It is more to them than the Ethiop's skin or the leopard's spots. It is their heart, their soul, their life. Tell me, ye busy merchants, ye whole-souled tradesmen! ye devotees of fame and wealth! who have reached the midst of your days, in the pursuit of your chosen profession-tell me, is it not as I have said? Had ye any conception at twenty of the strength and depth of that attachment which now binds you fast to this perishable world?