Why Grow Old? Audiobook By Orison Swett Marden cover art

Why Grow Old?

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Why Grow Old?

By: Orison Swett Marden
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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About this listen

 "The face cannot betray the years until the mind has given its consent. The mind is the sculptor," "We renew our bodies by renewing our thoughts; change our bodies, our habits, by changing our thoughts." NOT long ago the former secretary to a justice of the New York Supreme Court committed suicide on his seventieth birthday. "The Statute of Limitations; a Brief Essay on the Osier Theory of Life," was found beside the dead body. It read in part: "Threescore and ten — this is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that, active work for man ceases, his time on earth has expired.... "I am seventy — threescore and ten — and I am fit only for the chimney-corner...." This man had dwelt so long on the so-called Osier theory — that a man is practically useless and only a burden to himself and the world after sixty — and the biblical limitation of life to three-score years and ten, that he made up his mind he would end it all on his seventieth birthday. Leaving aside Dr. Osier's theory, there is no doubt that the acceptance in a strictly literal sense of the biblical life limit has proved a decided injury to the race. We are powerfully influenced by our self-imposed limitations and convictions, and it is well known that many people die very near the limit they set for themselves, even though they are in good health when this conviction settles upon them. Yet there is no probability that the Psalmist had any idea of setting any limit to the life period, or that he had any authority whatever for so doing. Many of the sayings in the Bible which people take so literally and accept blindly as standards of living are merely figures of speech used to illustrate an idea. So far as the Bible is concerned, there is just as much reason for setting the life limit at one hundred and twenty or even at Methuselah's age (nine hundred and sixty-nine) as at seventy or eighty. There is no evidence in the Scriptures that even suggests the existence of an age limit beyond which man was not supposed or allowed to pass. In fact the whole spirit of the Bible is to encourage long life through sane and healthful living. It points to the duty of living a useful and noble life, of making as much of ourselves as possible, all of which tends to prolong our years on earth. It would be a reflection upon the Creator to suggest that He would limit human life to less than three times the age at which it reaches maturity (about thirty) when all the analogy of nature, especially in the animal kingdom, points to at least five times the length of the maturing period. Should not the highest manifestation of God's creation have a length of life at least equal to that of the animal? Infinite wisdom does not shake the fruit off the tree before it is ripe.
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