and that, except at the ballot-box, "Old roosters are not wanted." If
a congregation loses its pastor and commences looking around for a
successor, the first thing it does is to print in large letters across
the pulpit, "Old roosters not wanted." Across the door of every new
enterprise is the same inscription. What, I desire to know, is to
become of us old roosters? Not fit for broiling, too tough for roasting,
too old for congressmen, for preachers--what are you going to do with
us? Ah, the very question shows where we stand. It used to be a few
years ago, what we were going to do with you, but the tables have been
turned and now it seems to me that the cemetery gate is the only place
not decorated with the legend, "Old roosters not wanted." There they
are more than welcome; indeed, if it were not for their patronage that
institution would do an amount of business very unsatisfactory to its
stockholders. Having then this refuge, brethren, let us take courage!
Let us take consolation in the thought that we have gotten over so
much of the rough road over which those following us have yet to travel,
and that having once passed that portal we shall have reached perfect
peace. Let us find a spiteful satisfaction in the fact that long after
we have entered the silent gates, the young roosters will still have
to rise early and crow hungrily for corn, still will have to skirmish
with other roosters for bread, and the highest pole in the roost, and
that as they show up in the race of life, they will have to read, in
their turn, the fatal sign-board along the track--"Old roosters not
wanted."




OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN III