Affliction appears to be the guide to reflection; the teacher of humility; the parent of repentance; the nurse of faith; the strengthener of patience, and the promoter of charity.

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.—­Matthew Henry.

If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.—­Burgh.

Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.—­Job 5:7.

Affliction is the wholesome soul of virtue;
Where patience, honor, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish. 

                                    —­Mallet and Thomson.

Affliction’s sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! 
—­Burns.

With the wind of tribulation God separates in the floor of the soul, the chaff from the corn.—­Molinos.

No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:  nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.—­Hebrews 12:11.

Age.—­No wise man ever wished to be younger.—­Swift.

I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.—­Longfellow.

It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent.  I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.—­Goethe.

That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.—­Cicero.

We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own defects.—­Goethe.

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You’ve play’d, and lov’d, and ate, and drank your fill;
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage. 

          
                          —­Pope.

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart.  The spirit should not grow old.—­James A. Garfield.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.—­Victor Hugo.

Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may still remain for us in old age.  The last draught which a kind Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may, as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.—­W.A.  Newman.

Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.—­Shakespeare.