Article December 25, 1920 Issue

Age

KATHERYN STITES BROOKS

At some period in the experience of each one, there comes the suggestion that it is necessary to save for a time when he shall have passed maturity, or the prime of life, and settled into inaction, or limitation, known as old age. A man is taught to hoard his wealth, in order that he may have sufficient means to keep him until the end, the suggestion being that death will change whatever seems discordant. The subtlety of the belief in old age is shown in a very common practice, one held as almost a sacred rite in some families, that of remembering or acknowledging birthdays by an exchange of gifts, and so mesmeric is this belief that the discontinuance of such a practice, after a glimpse of enlightenment, is often misconstrued as unloving.

On page 246 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "Never record ages." It is impossible to recall a birthday without thinking that the one so limited is that much older, and according to mortal mind calculation, that much nearer the inevitable end. We rejoice that the realization of the truth is eliminating to a great extent this phase of mortal belief. Early in the experience of one not then a student of Christian Science, this picture of a man, decadent, sick, feeble, and dying brought untold fear and unhappiness. The belief that parents were growing old and inactive, and that the time would ultimately come in his own life when disease and suffering were unavoidable, frequently brought questionings as to the reason for it all. It was not until an understanding of the truth as taught in Christian Science was apprehended that his fear was overcome and man's indestructibility as the reflection of God appeared. The understanding that because God is, and, as stated in the first chapter of Genesis, man is His image and likeness, therefore man can express nothing that is unlike God or Mind, brought out the fact very clearly that the eternality and indestructibility of God, or Truth, is reflected by His likeness, man.

With this reasoning came the light that, as our Leader tells us on page 318 of Science and Health, "the material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased," and, quoting from the same page, "We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense." Here, then, was the problem and its solution, and a consistent, persistent denial of the claims of the senses expressed as decrepitude and decay brought an ever increasing recognition of man, unimpeded or unimpelled by belief, spontaneously expressing liberation, the vigor and endurance of Soul, apparent always as maturity, perfection. Mrs. Eddy says on page 246 of Science and Health: "Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight."

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