According to Aesop, an old woman found an empty jar which had lately been full of prime old wine, and which still retained the fragrant smell of its former contents.
She greedily placed it several times to her nose, and drawing it backwards and forwards said, “Oh, most delicious! How nice must the wine itself have been, when it leaves behind in the very vessel which contained it so sweet a perfume.”
Men often hug their vices when their power to enjoy them is gone. The memories of reveling and wantonness appear to be sweet to the ungodly in their old age. They sniff the empty bottles of their follies, and only wish they could again be drunken with them. Old age cures not the evil heart, but exhibits in a ridiculous but deeply painful light the indelible perversity of human nature.—SPURGEON.
