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「好像禾捆到時收藏。」（聖經約伯記五章 26 節）
有一個人提出了關於拆卸古老海船的報告，他說舊船木料質地之所以佳良，不僅因為年代久遠，而且還因為船隻曾在海上歷受了種種的磨煉，以及它所接觸的海水，所載的各種貨品，使它發生了化學作用。
在紐約百老匯街一家舊式家具店，展出了一些橡木板料，這些板料取材於一艘具有八十年歷史的舊船的橫梁，其色澤之美，紋理之精致，吸引了許多市民的注意參觀。
還有一艘在六十年前航行海上的帆船，它那桃花心木的橫梁，也非常出色。悠長的歲月和航行的歷史，使木料氣孔緊縮，顔色變深，它堅韌的質地，古趣盎然的色澤，可與中國古瓶比美。這木料如今在紐約一位富豪的客廳裡製成了一個小小的暖閣，成為客廳中的尊貴之地。
由此看來，那些不經磨煉，悠悠忽忽，虛度一生的人們，和那些曾經滄海，載負過各種貨物，事奉神而幫助人的基督徒，在性質上具有極大的差別。後者不僅有磨煉的經驗，他們所載運的貨物中的甜蜜氣質，也滲入了他們的待人接物的美德中。
太陽雖下了地平線，其實並未消逝，它離去以後，天上仍有整整一個小時的光亮。一位偉人和義人去世之後，他的蹤跡雖逝，但他的音容宛在此世，他雖死了，他身後留下的一切對世有貢獻的事物，雖死猶生。 ── 皮邱
法國文豪雨果過了八十歲以後，他以下面的一段名言來表達他的心意說：「我感覺到未來的新生命。我像一度曾經數度砍伐的森林，而新的萌芽充滿了前所未有的活潑生機。我升向天空，陽光照在我的頭上。大地給我豐富的活力，天的光明四照，使我看清了神祕的宇宙萬象。」
「你說靈魂不過是肉體力量的延長。那麼為什麼我的體力已開始衰退，而我的靈魂變得更為光明？冬季已臨到我的頭上，永恆的春季卻在我的心頭。此刻我呼吸著紫丁香、紫羅蘭和玫瑰花，就像在二十歲的時候一樣，我愈接近人生的終點，愈能聽清楚四周歡迎我的交響樂，歡迎我前往那不朽的世界。這雖屬神奇，但道理卻十分單純。」
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"Like a shock of corn fully ripe." (Job 5:26.)
AGENTLEMAN, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fiber in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes.
Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, new York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain.
Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago. The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the color, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase. It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honor in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family.
So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives. And the fiber of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men.
Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fiber of character. --- Louis Albert Banks.
When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind him much of himself. Being dead, he speaks. --- Beecher.
When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences: "I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are livelier than ever. I am rising toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds.
"You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple."
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