Article August 3, 1912 Issue

NO OLD AGE IN TRUTH

IRVING C. TOMLINSON, M. A.

Universal testimony concerning Christian Science is summed up in a remark recently made by an old friend who is not a Scientist to one who is: "You look younger than you did twenty years ago." And why not, since we have these words of the psalmist respecting God's power to heal and bless: "Who healeth all thy diseases; ... who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." Mrs. Eddy assures us by well-authenticated example and proof that "decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it necessity of nature, but an illusion" (Science and Health, p. 245). Before the realization of the truth of this teaching, old age is retreating into the background, and eternal Life is in some measure finding visible manifestation. This is vastly different from the way of the world, for mortals expect to grow old, plan to grow old, are entirely content with it, and as a result they bear upon themselves the marks of age and decrepitude, forgetting that though material things change and are put off, that which God creates is forever perfect and enduring.

The message which Christian Science bears is a clarion call to abandon the false position of the world, and to take the ground of Christ Jesus when he said: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly;" and again, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Christian Science teaches that God is Life, without beginning and without end; that man is Life's idea, and since Life is unchanging, the idea or expression of that Life must of necessity be unchanging too. In Science and Health we read: "Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate" (p. 258).

Because God is Life, and man the eternal reflection of that Life, those rightly instructed do not in their thought dwell upon difference in ages. One idea of God is no older than another, and when we are abiding in Truth and Love we have everything that is real in common, conscious that time and its limitations are not real and that eternity is. It is therefore no more scientific to dwell upon difference in ages, than it is to think of discord or suffering as something real. This of course does not mean that children are to be treated like "grown-ups," but it does mean that those whose consciousness is awakened have a common basis in Life, in God. Truth makes them one in being, and Love knows only the divine image and likeness untouched by times and seasons, and manifested in friendship, kindliness, purity, gentleness, and affection. We find help for these inspiring thoughts even in the world about us, where the signs and thoughts of age are gradually disappearing, being replaced by a happy tendency to break away from a sense of being compressed within the narrow limits of something we call time. Those who are "along in years" do not think it necessary to parade the fact in garments or practises which would proclaim the falsehood of old age; and this is a very helpful sign.

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NO OLD AGE IN TRUTH

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