THE MYSTERY OF OLD AGE
Why do we get old? If the Law of Life is continuous progression, why do signs of age appear to us? How shall we account for the decrepitude that seems to accompany the later years of life? These appear to be mysteries, but there is a solution of any mystery in the contemplation of the life process from the basis of Omnipresence. Life is eternal progression in the thought of those who are keeping the faith. In the real there is no stagnation, neither is there retrogression. There is change in the process in the visible, but nothing is lost. Years are dreaded and feared by many because age, as we call it, has usually been accompanied by loss of power and joy; we are learning to live now, however, so that the signs that follow the passing of years are being done away with.
It is difficult to understand the experience of old age as we see it, unless we consider for a moment the fixed habit of thought in relation to the burden of time upon men. The race has thought [51] for ages in terms of time; we have emphasized a past and a future, instead of a present. Why not live in the eternal present? In it we do not get old. He who lives in his thought in a living present begins to see the place of what we call age in the unfoldment of man. I am glad for every year; a birthday is a landmark in progress, not in deterioration. It is worthwhile to have lived three hundred
