Editorial May 22, 1937 Issue

"Vigor, freshness, and promise"

Duncan Sinclair

Mortals are held in subjection to traditional beliefs sometimes to an extraordinary extent. Consider for instance the prevalent belief of the comparative shortness of the span of human existence on earth. It is generally held that few may reach their hundredth year, that for most people the span will not exceed the "threescore years and ten."

What must be the effect—first the mental effect and secondly the physical effect—on those who allow themselves to be taken in by this false dictum of mortal mind? Unless it is counteracted by spiritual truth, the individual will inevitably find himself acquiescing in its demand that he shall go the traditional way of mankind. And to his mental mood his body will respond. Vigor and freshness will forsake him; feebleness will come upon him; and then—"the last enemy." It is a pathetic picture, this of human frailty, but, speaking scientifically, an utterly false one.

Now in spite of the fact that through untold generations mortals have believed in a limited span of existence on earth, and have reaped what they have entertained in their consciousness, there has always been on the part of the majority strenuous opposition to what was regarded as the inevitable. They have felt the injustice of the belief and have rebelled against it. But how to meet it, how to overcome it, that has ever been the problem! The alchemists of long ago thought that human existence might be prolonged indefinitely through the use of a material substance, and they diligently sought for what they called "the elixir of life." But they failed in their search. Sometimes in these latter days we hear of theories which would have us believe that after the material body had been sufficiently manipulated, or treated with certain chemicals, life will be greatly prolonged. But all such material theories will go the way of the theory of "the elixir of life"—into oblivion.

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The Will of God
May 22, 1937
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