WHY GROW OLD?

W. R. RATHVON.

The ancient Italian city of Ravenna, situated some miles from the Adriatic sea, was protected from invasion by a long stretch of shallow water, through which a channel was marked by posts projecting above the surface. When an enemy threatened from the sea, these posts were pulled out, and the city was thus saved from its foes, who could find no safe channel for approach.

Along the course of the human experiences of all of us are set the mile-posts of events and anniversaries whose recurrence marks the flight of time. These posts are not planted by time, but set by ourselves, ignorant or heedless of the fact that we are thus marking an open channel for the enemy we call age-limitation to enter from the sea of human beliefs. The passing of time is a mortal belief which lies wholly outside the realm of infinite Mind, wherein one day is as a thousand years. The trend of habit and custom is to admit and expect certain changes in physique and mentality with the passing of years. Up to a certain or uncertain point these changes are declared to be for the betterment of the individual, bringing strength and development of body and mind; but after maturity is reached, this laudable belief gradually gives way to the baneful one of deterioration and impairment.

The Christian Scientist can find no warrant in his religion for granting legitimacy or credence to any such beliefs. He knows that man, made in God's image and likeness, has no part in either accretion or decadence; that he has always stood at the point of perfection, and will always there remain. He knows that man, having all good, lacks nothing, and his heritage of good being eternal, he can never be deprived of any part of it, either by age or any other invention of the adversary. Man, in Christian Science, need therefore have no apprehension over advancing years, for while they should bring to him wisdom, they can take from him nothing that he would not voluntarily relinquish. But, because of the heedlessness or indifference of mortals to man's real relationship with God, they are continually driving new posts to mark the line of ingress for the enemy. They tick off each recurring birthday with more and more solemnity, and might often catch themselves looking backward and comparing what they think they cannot do now with what they once could do so well, and in other ways implanting marks of age where none belong.

It does not take much understanding of Christian Science to carry a man beyond the point of boasting of these things, or of mildly glorying in the empty distinction which seniority brings. Most of us have taken out of our vocabulary such mossgrown expressions as, "When I was younger I could do so and so," or, "Just wait until you are as old as I am and then see," and other similar impeditive expressions arising from self-justification and the like; but apart from these, we have a long line of posts to pull out if we would obliterate the channel marked out in our own consciousness in the days of our bondage to mortal belief. It is not enough that we no longer speak of our age, or talk of the profitless past, or openly bewail our lack of physical agility. It is of slight consequence to the individual how tightly he may muzzle his lips, if he gives free rein to his thought. The man who never speaks of age and its accompaniments, but neglects to rise above it in his thought, is much in the predicament of the amateur architect we read about, who built his house without a staircase. It looked all right from the outside, but when he wanted to go up higher he found he had neglected an absolute necessity.

There is one sure method of rising above the aggressive suggestions of age, and that is by keeping ever in consciousness man's true relationship with God. The psalmist says, after speaking of the mutations of mortal sense, "But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." To this he adds, "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee." Man as God's reflection manifests only the qualities and attributes that are God-given. He has unfailing strength, permanent activity, unvarying sagacity. Our revered Leader says, "Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death ... Even Shakespeare's poetry pictures age as infancy, as helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development, power, and prestige" (Science and Health, p. 244). The Christian Scientist finds it essential to his well-being to keep this continually in his thought and to assert incisively his heritage of man's spiritual faculties whenever contrary arguments and suggestions intrude themselves. Whatever sensible aids he may employ to this end are commendable. Hence he should cultivate cheerfulness in thought and expression, juvenescence in demeanor and vigor, sociability in association and inclination.

No one need retire to the chimney corner, no matter how many years may seemingly have passed over his head, for he is still God's image and likeness. Years should always bring sapience, but never decrepitude. Unresisting submission to the universal belief about the inevitable approach of senescence should never be regarded as a necessity, much less a virtue. The getting ready for it by withdrawal from usual occupations, changing one's customary attire, adopting the cane habit, retirement from blithesome fellowship, has been in times past regarded as a natural if not an admirable procedure; but such courses are to be shunned as the allies of age, the accessories of senility.

The achievements of so many of the world's greatest minds and keenest intellects after the riper seasons of longevity have been reached by them, should be a rebuke to those who interpret all changes after a certain age as sure evidence of decadence. Longfellow delivering his "De Senectute" on his seventieth birthday, Tennyson composing his immortal lines "Crossing the Bar" at eighty; Plato with pen in hand at eighty-one, Cato learning Greek at the same age, Humboldt completing his "Cosmos" in his ninetieth year, John Wesley at eighty-two in the midst of his activities saying, "It is twelve years now since I have felt any such sensation as fatigue," and our own Holmes lecturing in foreign lands in his eighties, are all familiar instances which show clearly that age beliefs are neither compulsory nor legitimate. Such instances could be multiplied indefinitely, but the student in Christian Science may find them all overshadowed in the eventful record of the revered Founder of his religion, Mary Baker Eddy, who in her eighty-ninth year, with spiritual insight and bodily vigor, directed the policy and supervised the affairs of the most remarkable religious movement of modern times. Did not Christ Jesus say, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever"?

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