So often we look toward old age with dread, forgetting God's promise: at evening time, there will be light. For many saints, old age becomes the choicest season of their lives. A gentler breeze touches the mariner's face as he nears the shore of immortality. The waves grow calm. A deep, holy quiet settles in.

The blazing fire of youth may be gone from the altar of age, but something more real remains: the steady flame of earnest feeling. These pilgrims have reached their own Beulah Land, that blessed country where days are as the days of heaven upon earth. Angels visit there. Paradise winds blow through it. Flowers from another world bloom in its soil, and the air itself rings with seraphic music. Some believers dwell in this state for years. Others taste it only in their final hours. But make no mistake: it is Eden on earth.

How we should long for those days when we will rest in its shady groves, satisfied with hope until the time of fruition comes! Have you noticed how the setting sun looks larger than when it rides high in the sky? How splendor tinges every cloud around it as it descends? Even pain cannot shatter the calm of life's sweet twilight, for strength made perfect in weakness bears up with patience under it all. The ripe fruits of choice experience are gathered as the rare feast of life's evening, and the soul prepares itself for rest.

And when death itself comes? The Lord's people will have light even then. Unbelief laments: "The shadows fall! The night is coming! Existence is ending!" Ah no, cries faith, "The night is far spent! The true day is at hand! Light has come!" The light of immortality. The light of a Father's countenance.

Gather up your feet in the bed. See the waiting bands of spirits! Angels carry you away. Farewell, beloved one. You are gone. You wave your hand. Ah, now it is light! The pearly gates are open. The golden streets shine in the jasper light. We cover our eyes down here, but you—you behold the unseen. Adieu, brother. You have light at evening time, such light as we have not yet.