Sleep is the sweet soother of our labours, and the restorer of our exhausted strength. But the loss of appetite, and disgust to our food, generally robs us of this comfort. Hence subjoining this evil of old-age to the foregoing, he says: _he shall rise up at the voice of the bird_; that is, the old man is awaked at the cock's first crowing. Wherefore his sleep is short and interrupted, tho' his weakness would require longer rest.
But he returns to the senses, among which he gives the third place to _hearing_; for receiving the benefits of which the Creator gave us the use of ears. Now this is frequently diminished, and sometimes entirely taken away in old-age; which the royal author seems to indicate in the following words: _The daughters of music shall be of no avail_. For thus he thought proper to express the ears, to which at this time of life, not only the pleasure of harmonious sounds is sought in vain; but, what is much more disagreeable, the words in conversation are not easily understood: whereby the enjoyment, and one of the greatest conveniencies of life, are gradually lost. Hence in the jewish history, Barzillai, at eighty years of age, complains that he could no longer _hear the voice of the singing men and singing women_.[79]
[79] _Samuel, (al. Kings) ii. Chap. xix. Verse 35._
These defects of the organs of hearing, are immediately followed by those of the sense of feeling. Now _the touch_, as Cicero says, _is uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and appulses of things_.[80] Wherefore this sense, besides its other uses, contributes vastly to the safety of the body, and the removal of many evils, to which it is perpetually exposed. And this the sagacious author seems to have principally in view, when he says: _They shall be afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way_. For as old folks are unsure of foot, even in a plain smooth way, by reason of the weakness of their limbs; so when they come to a rugged uneven road, thro' the dulness of this sense, they do not soon enough perceive the depressions or elevations of the ground whereby they run the hazard of stumbling and hurting their feet. Therefore they are not unjustly represented as being _afraid_.