Among the men whose patience, fortitude, and well-planned work during the last years of a long life should be a keen incentive to those who have arrived at a period called "remnant" of their days, Henry Clay Trumbull is conspicuous. He was born in Stonington, Connecticut, in 1830. His education, which was thorough, was not obtained in a college, and yet he received a Master's degree from Yale, and his Divinity degrees from Lafayette College and from the University of New York. In the Civil War, Dr. Trumbull was chaplain of the Tenth Connecticut Infantry, and was graduated from three Confederate prisons - Libby, Charleston, and Columbia.

Some incidents in the life of this remarkable man are well worth repeating here. After the war, a life insurance company offered Dr. Trumbull twenty-five thousand dollars a year for his services, which was declined. He preferred to receive one-tenth of that salary as Missionary Superintendent of the New England branch of the American Sunday School Union. This prompt refusal to abandon the Christian educational work in which he was engaged, for a salary as large as that which the President of the United States was then receiving, was a perfect measurement of the soul-standard of the man. He was living to do Christian work, not to make money.

In 1875, when John Wanamaker of Philadelphia - the leader of American merchants - wanted an editor for the Sunday School Times, a publication he owned, he found out Henry Clay Trumbull, and offered him the position which was accepted. For twenty-five years the doctor performed distinguished service on that journal.

Dr. Trumbull died in December 1903, and shortly afterwards a correspondent, who believed in faith cure, sent to the Sunday School Times a communication in which he emphasized the belief that people ought never to be sick.

He furthermore criticised the Times because it did not support the theory of "divine healing." Under the headline, "Ought We Never to be Sick?" the Times printed an editorial in answer to the correspondent, which revealed the wonderful mind and heart of Dr. Trumbull when he was an old man and in a condition of hopeless invalidism. I can quote only two paragraphs:

"The editor of the Sunday School Times has more confidence in the heavenly Father's planning for his life than his own planning. The editor has seen so many of the blessings of ill-health that he would not be willing to ask the Father to change what, in His love and wisdom, that Father thinks best to provide.

"To take an illustration close at hand, it is evident to those who knew the late Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, as it was evident to Dr. Trumbull himself long before his death, that one of God's greatest blessings to him was the sending into his system of the disease which, during the last three years of his life deprived him of the power of walking, and made him a 'shut-in.' Because of that plan of God, Dr. Trumbull was freed from the ordinary office duties of editorial work, and was enabled to devote his consecrated powers and accumulated spiritual resources of his lifetime exclusively to writing. In this way he was permitted to send God's message in greater fulness and to many more souls than could possibly have been the case in the ordinary course of life had he been in his customary good health. Six books, written in that shut-in period, have extended and preserved his influence for future generations. One alone of those six, Individual Work for Individuals, has made a profounder impression for good upon the Christian workers of the world than any other book written by Dr. Trumbull during his long lifetime. Does it look as though the Ohio reader could have planned better than God in this matter?"

No person should be discouraged from entertaining an ambition for length of days. One of the plainest duties of life is to live in harmony with the laws of hygiene that we may enjoy the luxury of a fruitful old age. But if by any cause we become sick, or crippled in body, or sorely bereaved, the best remedy is that prescribed by St. Paul: "To take our part in suffering hardship as good soldiers of Christ Jesus."

The aspect of suffering is always hard; but the old saying is eternally true that, no one is good for much till he has passed through a great sorrow. To make the glaring head-light of a railway train of any use there must be darkness. Electricity can be of service as a motive power only when it meets with resistance. Gail Hamilton says that it is the suffering soul that breathes the sweetest melodies. The masterpieces of the world's greatest artists are but transmutations of cheap pigments. And Hugh Macmillan reminds us that the most brilliant colors of plants and flowers are to be seen on the highest mountains in spots which are most exposed to the storms. "There, in the frowning desolation, subjected to the fiercest tempest of the sky, the lichen exhibits a glory of colors such as it never shows in the sheltered valley."

These facts are analogous to certain conditions of human life. The baptism of pain is one of the instrumentalities which God uses for purging away the dross of our natures. And how true it is that adversities are often angels in disguise. Job was a thousand times richer in his understanding of the love of his Maker after he had passed through deep waters. "Explain it as we may," says Dr. Hillis, "the darkness has its discipline and suffering its sanctity. No city has ever built a monument to a man who has lived in uniform prosperity, perpetual sunshine, and untempted goodness."

There is a mystery about the distribution of sorrow. It is a matter which any attempt to explain would be idle. The Prince of Peace and Infinite Love could not escape Gethsemane. Neither can we escape it. The reason why the bitter cup comes to everyone is not for us to understand. Nor do we know why a good many lazy and stupid people with an aimless existence, living on little, knowing but little, and doing but little, reach a very old age while the active and intelligent perish untimely, not living long enough to come within sight of being octogenarians. These phases of human life are constantly confronting us, and, as Lyman Abbott says: "Bolt the doors as we may, sorrow and death knock at them, and the immortal strength of love itself cannot keep them shut."

But, paradoxical as it may appear, sickness and sorrow have brought many blessings to the world. I can give but one illustration. At the beginning of the last century, Margaret Haughery, a devoted Catholic, was born in Baltimore. After removing to New Orleans some seventy years ago, death took away her husband and all her children, leaving her in poverty. She ac cepted a position as servant in an orphan asylum, and there she learned to love orphan children. At the close of the Civil War she opened a bakery in that city, and for years drove the bread wagon herself. Business prospered with her, and she became known as the orphan's faithful friend. No poor woman or child ever left her bakery empty-handed. She never wore a pair of gloves in all her life, never owned a silk dress, and could neither read nor write.

Mrs. Haughery was one of the homeliest women in New Orleans, but everybody loved her for her beautiful soul. She grew rich, and all her wealth was used to gladden the lives of the homeless children of poverty. She founded and endowed an asylum for orphans; and when she died in 1882, governors and senators, Catholic priests and Protestant ministers, and the rich and the poor walked side by side in following her body to the tomb. A public squarè in that city is named after her in which stands a great bronze statue of Margaret Haughery, clad in a simple dress, a plain shawl over her shoulders, and a little child standing by her side with her strong, loving arms around it.

No true soldier is ever anxious to get into a fight, but when a battle is inevitable, he cour ageously faces the storm of shot and shell, and if perchance he escapes with his life, though he may be wounded, and crippled for the rest of his days, he never regrets that he did his duty; and the story of the hardships and dangers of war he never tires of telling.

It is thus with a brave, true man engaged in the business affairs of life. He may wish never to be sick, and may dread old age; but if sickness comes, and his life is full of years, he yields not to discouragement nor complaint, but is imbued with the spirit of the stalwart, faith-filled Paul whose three prayers for the removal of his thorn in the flesh were not answered, yet exclaimed, exultingly: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

It was this spirit of submission, hope, and a purpose to turn to good account an affliction which the world would call a misfortune, that made the last years of Dr. Trumbull his best. Neither illness nor old age prevented him from making himself master of his fate. His life teaches the lesson found many times repeated in these articles that advanced years afford frequent opportunities for effective service.

The patience and endurance of Dr. Trumbull suggest a beautiful sentiment once uttered by Phillips Brooks, which elderly people, particularly, should memorize: "Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God."