Article March 7, 1931 Issue

"Thou shalt be as the morning"

KNOWLTON MIXER

Lack of suppleness and adaptability has been identified with old age in the popular thought, and this has given rise to a prejudice on the part of employers toward the mature applicant. That this prejudice is gradually disappearing, however, as age justifies its capacity to render efficient service, is a testimony to the fact that those of maturer years are becoming convinced that they have valuable service to render.

Mankind is learning that each has his place and his service to perform, neither of which is limited by or dependent on years. Has it not been that state of mind which has clung to the old and refused to accept the new, has yielded to the common thought of age and relegated activity to others, which has itself been somewhat responsible for the popular attitude toward maturity? When the man of riper years recognizes that he, as well as his more youthful contemporaries, has his place, his opportunity, and his capacity to contribute a soundness of judgment, a mellowness of approach, a fineness of loyalty to the world of affairs, he will find the demand and the occasion through which he can express the qualities and power for good which are his "reasonable service."

Youth and age, we must understand, are primarily states of consciousness. Through renewed energy of thought and openness of mind those of any age present a youthful attitude. We have all known men and women who were young at eighty and many who were old at forty. Some physicians now assert that old age is a disease to be regarded as any other disease. This removes the burden of inevitability, as we have been taught to accept it in the past, and tends to bring general thought into line with Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 245), "Decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity of nature, but an illusion." Then, in the words of a well-known hymn:

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