When they realize that they are being imposed upon, people generally act promptly and with vigor to stop these impositions. Yet these same people may supinely submit to the deceptions of oncoming age. A dictionary defines "imposition" as "an excessive, unwarranted, or uncalled-for requirement or burden" and as "a trick or deception." We might add also that age is a robber. Mary Baker Eddy has stated it this way in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 246): "The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun."

Sometimes these growing signs of age are open and apparent. Shall we disregard them with the easy excuse, "Well, there are John and Jane whom we know; they are younger than we are, and we are not nearly so decrepit or ailing"? Shall we console ourselves with the anodyne that these are natural tendencies and that we all have to undergo them? At other times the false claims of age are serpentine and subtle, discernible only through continual watchfulness and prayer for their uncovering and elimination. But whether the advance of age is open or subtle, and whether its pace is as undiscernible as the imperceptible movement of a glacier, we must recognize the signs and annul their claims with the truth of being as taught in Christian Science.

The man of God's creating exists at the standpoint of perfection and immortality. He was never born in the flesh; thus he cannot die out of it. Because this is so, we must be alert to see that every symptom of oncoming age is but evil's lying argument that we are born in a material body, that we are inevitably subject to decadence through the processes of disease and decrepitude, and that the grave is our sure destiny.

The Bible refutes these deceptive arguments. In the first chapter of Genesis we read, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;" and, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." If we couple these authoritative Bible statements with the one from Ecclesiastes (3:14), "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it," we see that life and its faculties are as immortal and indestructible as God, as ageless as their eternal creator. There is not one single element of destruction in real being; life is not subject to a disintegrating process, and death is not inevitable.

Erring mortal sense would argue that we must submit to certain forms of disease which it associates with added years. But we do not need to submit to any such prognostication, because it does not conform to the truth of being. Through the study and practice of Christian Science we have the ability to prove unreal and thus destroy the signs of aging.

We must decide early in life for ourselves whether we shall take advantage of the years or allow the years to take advantage of us. For in this point lies the decision whether we can feel with added years that we have increased life's sweetness, or whether we must admit that erring mortal sense has tricked us into age and decrepitude, ugliness and uselessness.

The Bible is replete with promises of length of days and a fuller and freer life for those who seek life at its eternal source and find it through understanding God as Life, or Spirit. It tells us (Deut. 34:7), "Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Other examples of longevity with complete retention of normal faculties can be found by anyone searching the Scriptures for his solution of the problems of old age.

The writer has obtained much consolation through many years from the Scriptural promise contained in Joel (2:25), "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten." These words have been angel thoughts uplifting and inspiring him to carry on with renewed courage and strength. To him the locusts are the months and years that have been wasted and to mortal sense lost; the bitter disappointments, dire deprivations, and unfulfilled hopes, the sufferings, losses, and so on. These fruitless years, according to God's promise, are to be restored, and he is grateful to say that this promise is being richly fulfilled in his life.

To cite a specific instance, the writer, who in younger years had always loved sports of all kinds and usually excelled in them, joined a pistol club. The requirements were very exacting and competition was strong, for most of the other members were younger and many of them master pistol shots and professional law enforcement officers. The writer did not progress as he felt that he should, and soon he realized that the other members, none of them students of Christian Science, were virtually counting him out along with those who usually drop out along the way.

Though he had always applied his understanding of Christian Science in this activity, he realized that he must renew his prayerful work of establishing his freedom from the beliefs of age. He had to see that because God never loses anything, man's ability and keenness can never fade or be lost, since man is God's reflection. He took up the work with greater consecration, but instead of getting better the problem grew worse, for a lameness appeared in his right wrist, elbow, and shoulder. His pistol score dropped lower than ever, and the argument was that perhaps he had better call it quits and choose another sport. But he turned on these arguments and was the more determined to prove his divine Principle and its rules. He knew that the answer to the problem lay in more persistent and prayerful work to uncover the error and destroy it. Then the thought came to him, "Use your left hand in shooting."

Although it was the prevailing belief among the old-time shooters that if one were normally right-handed, he should shoot with his right hand, the writer obeyed and changed to his left hand, first in practice and later in matches. He was at once surprised and over-joyed at the natural suppleness of his left hand and index finger, which is the one needed for the delicate trigger pull in good marksmanship. With very little effort he raised his pistol score.

In looking into the reason for the temporary failure of his right hand in shooting, despite the good mental work which had been done for the correction of the error, he found that without realizing it he had been thinking that he should be able to shoot well because from his youth he had always counted on a tremendous amount of muscular strength in his right hand and arm. In the time of need this idolatrous belief had failed him, for the claims of age had found and taken root in the only place they can ever find root, in faith in and dependence on matter rather than in the eternal and spiritual.

With the uncovering and casting out of his thinking of this material belief of age the usefulness of the right hand and arm was restored for shooting. During this time the left hand was proved to be as apt and useful as the right. Thus the limitation of material sense was broken down. Being able to use either hand in shooting is of great advantage in some of the tests which the target shooter is put to during strenuous matches.

This experience showed the writer that continued spiritual growth uncovers the latent errors of creeping age and clearly discloses them to be impositions of mortal mind. It gave him a fuller appreciation and understanding of Mrs. Eddy's words in Science and Health (p. 425): "God is more to a man than his belief, and the less we acknowledge matter or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew."