Shortly before the distinguished minister, lecturer, and reformer, Theodore Parker, passed away in Rome in 1860, he uttered this lament: "Oh, that I had known the art of life, or found some book or some man to tell me how to live, to study, to take exercise. But I found none, and so here I am." His body, which was never strong, had broken down about mid-way of what should have been his length of useful days. He was a month or so past fifty, and his life's work was done.

In some regards Mr. Parker's habits of life were reasonably simple. But his portrait, taken at forty-eight, makes him look like an old man. Something was wrong. His biographers say that he indulged in "vigorous exercise," which, considering his weak frame, was almost suicidal. Then, again, his mental work was out of proportion to his physical capacity. In one year he read three hundred and twenty volumes, and his plans for further reading, writing, lecturing, and preaching, were so extraordinary as to be dizzying to any ordinary mind. It is no wonder that his life went out at the early age of fifty. It was a most tragic waste of faculty. What he gained in intensity of labor he lost in time.

Theodore Parker did not make the most of his opportunities. He worked the wrong way. There was a great life before him. But there was too much of the unhealthy sentiment in it that "man is born to a few days and full of trouble." He drove himself to an early death. Many others do the same thing but in different ways. They do not take into account the penalty of intemperance - not in over-feeding and careless drinking - but in improper exercise, and in too much mental strain in unfavorable conditions. It was Montaigne who said "there is nothing so handsome and lawful as well and truly to play the man; nor science so hard as to know how to live this life."

A man is said to be rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. This thought brought from an old philosopher the remark when passing a crowded bazaar in which everything attractive and costly was for sale: "How many things there are in this world that I do not want!"

It is one of the many great pities that there is so much truth in the saying of Montaigne concerning the living of this life. It is as surprising as it is deplorable that the mastery of the appetites, the cultivation of good temper, the exercise of careful judgment, should be catalogued among the great difficulties of life. What men and women need most is "life more abundantly," but how few, comparatively, succeed in obtaining it. Too many come short of grasping the remedial and vitalizing agencies which spur them on to make the highest development and render the best service in this world. The question not only involves righteousness from a spiritual view-point, but skill and prudence in all matters pertaining to hygiene.

In one of Thomas Starr King's sermons is a story of an Eastern monarch who was a noble ruler, but who received a message from an oracle that he was to live only twelve years more. He instantly resolved that he would turn these to the most account, and double his life in spite of destiny. He fitted up his palace gorgeously.

He denied himself no form of pleasure. His magnificent gardens were brilliantly lighted from sunset to sunrise, so that darkness was never experienced within the circuit of his estate; so that, whenever he was awake the stream of pleasure was ever flowing, and even the sound of revelry was never still. Thus he determined to outwit the oracle by living nearly twenty-four years in twelve. But at the end of six years he died. The oracle foreknew and made allowance for his cunning scheme. "No doubt the monarch on his death-bed saw the vigor and despotism of the laws of life with which it is vain for infinite art and will to wrestle."

The story is a fable in form, but true in spirit. The monarch was wrong. No man can crowd twenty-four years in twelve. It is solidly and scientifically true that a man cannot transgress the laws of nature and live an active life of three-score years and ten. It is by doing only rational things that the more abundant life can be obtained.

Nowadays we read many theories about how to live long. But the simple lapse of years is not life. There is more to life than eating and drinking, "pacing around the mill of habit, and turning thought into an implement of trade."

William Dean Howells says: "As you get on in the forties you will understand that life is chiefly what life has been." But this cannot be regarded as the rule. The real life - "life more abundantly" - comes many times after one has reached advanced years. It is the result of daily duties well performed. One of the best evidences we have of a life lived according to the highest art, is the soul of the man reflected in the face - in his conduct Rufus Choate and Daniel Webster were once opposing counsels in an important case in which the size of certain wheels was involved. Mr. Choate was a man of rare eloquence, and "filled the air with the rockets of rhetoric and dazzled the jury." But Mr. Webster was the wiser man. He caused the wheels to be brought into court and placed behind a screen. When he rose to make his plea, the screen was removed, and his only reply to Mr. Choate's powerful eloquence was, "Gentlemen of the jury, here are the wheels!" The wheels themselves had a greater influence over the jury than Mr. Choate's argument. So the man whose life is large, whose heart is the receptacle for some elements of good, whose daily living is a prayer for power to meet every task, stands for more in relation to old age and practical service than all the theories concerning how to grow old which are being constantly preached from a mere physical point of view.

Had Theodore Parker clearly understood the larger, calmer, and healthier life, it is safe to say that no physical breakdown would have taken him to Rome to die. He once said that he was many times asked to preach a sermon on old age, and when he was forty-four he responded to the request, and the sermon was delivered in Music Hall, Boston. But he could not preach from experience, for he was not old. He could speak only from observation. He could see what a beautiful thing is the old age which crowns a noble life, of rich or poor. He could refer to Franklin, whose careful living carried him to the age of eighty-four; and to Alexander Von Humboldt, who accomplished more at eighty than most men of genius could achieve at forty. But as to himself, Parker could say nothing. The sap of life was out of him before the thought of studying how to live impressed itself upon his mind. During all the years of his wonderful mental activity he forgot that a man cannot keep young, nor long maintain his usefulness, by over-taxing his strength.