112 A NEW year's colloquy WITH TIME. 
the heads of the aged, but the aged good man 
fears not Time. He who has spent his whole life 
in deeds of active benevolence and kindness, ben- 
efiting his fellow-men, knows that his gray hairs 
are a crown of honor, and that it becomes him, 
even as the crown which he shall wear in paradise 
as a reward for a life of righteousness here. True, 
I have cut down beauty in its bloom ; but for 
what, think you ? to gratify a malignant spirit ? O, 
no ! there are mortals here who_seem all too good 
to be the inhabitants of such a dwelling-place as 
this earth, and I have but translated th^m to a 
brighter land, where the spirits of the pure and 
good the just made perfect will forever dwell. 
" I have blasted the loveliest flowers, say you ? 
Not so. In the gardens of paradise they bloom 
again with more than their earthly freshness and 
beauty. Purity and goodness should not be scat- 
tered upon the cold winds of ingratitude and 
wrong, without a shelter, and without a fitting 
home : of such is composed the kingdom of 
heaven ; and nurtured by its dews, and warmed 
by the smiles which beam from the throne of mer- 
cy, they grow and expand until they become like 
the angelic beings they so much resemble. 
" I have brought poverty into the dwellings of 
affluence, but to serve a good end. To the rich 
man, who loved his gold better than his God, I 
have taught a lesson ; I have shown him the 
frailty of human hopes, and the instability of 

