"Has Old Age a special Ministry? Yes, I realized joyfully, it certainly has. It is no longer the Ministry of DOING, but the Ministry of BEING -" Hannah Hurnard with her special gift of story telling in this book Shining Hour Of Departure has given us the facts about aging and coming to grips with our usefulness in the Kingdom of God up to the very end. A great encouragement for any elderly person that finds themselves questioning their usefulness near the end of their life. This book abolishes the fear of death by focusing on the joy of life. Hurnard's early writings, Hinds' Feet on High Places and the sequel Mountain of Spices have been embraced by the Christian community for decades, still ranking as Christian classics. This special letter, The Shinning Hour of Departure written in her later years says this: "For several years I had been conscious that more and more of my rather older friends, and even some younger ones, had been taking their departure from this world, and, not infrequently, amongst those who remained, I had heard such wistful remarks as these: "Well, of course one can't expect to do as much now as when one was younger." "One doesn't want to have to lay everything down, you know, and to have nothing left." "Its difficult to find oneself laid aside and put on the shelf." "Its lonely when the friends of your own generation have all gone and the children are grown up and living lives of their own." Her answer to them brought them hope and purpose. She goes on to say. "Being an example and inspiration and strengthener of the weak simply by being a demonstration of the grace and love of the Lord who call us to follow the way that He went."