Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has
244:24 neither birth nor death. He is not a beast, a vegetable,
nor a migratory mind. He does not pass from
matter to Mind, from the mortal to the im-
244:27 mortal, from evil to good, or from good to evil. Such
admissions cast us headlong into darkness and dogma.
Even Shakespeare's poetry pictures age as infancy, as
244:30 helplessness and decadence, instead of assigning to man
the everlasting grandeur and immortality of development,
power, and prestige.
245:1 The error of thinking that we are growing old, and the
benefits of destroying that illusion, are illustrated in a
245:3 sketch from the history of an English woman, published
in the London medical magazine called The Lancet.
Perpetual youth
Disappointed in love in her early years, she became
245:6 insane and lost all account of time. Believing that she
was still living in the same hour which parted
her from her lover, taking no note of years,
245:9 she stood daily before the window watching for her
lover's coming. In this mental state she remained young.
Having no consciousness of time, she literally grew no
245:12 older. Some American travellers saw her when she was
seventy-four, and supposed her to be a young woman.
She had no care-lined face, no wrinkles nor gray hair, but
245:15 youth sat gently on cheek and brow. Asked to guess her
age, those unacquainted with her history conjectured that
she must be under twenty.
245:18 This instance of youth preserved furnishes a useful
hint, upon which a Franklin might work with more cer-
tainty than when he coaxed the enamoured lightning
245:21 from the clouds. Years had not made her old, because
she had taken no cognizance of passing time nor thought
of herself as growing old. The bodily results of her belief
245:24 that she was young manifested the influence of such a be-
lief. She could not age while believing herself young, for
the mental state governed the physical.
245:27 Impossibilities never occur. One instance like the
foregoing proves it possible to be young at seventy-four;
and the primary of that illustration makes it plain that
245:30 decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity of
nature, but an illusion.
Man reflects God
The infinite never began nor will it ever end. Mind
246:1 and its formations can never be annihilated. Man is not
a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and
246:3 sorrow, sickness and health, life and death.
Life and its faculties are not measured by
calendars. The perfect and immortal are the eternal
246:6 likeness of their Maker. Man is by no means a material
germ rising from the imperfect and endeavoring to reach
Spirit above his origin. The stream rises no higher than
246:9 its source.
The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and
gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth
246:12 coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, un-
dimmed by a declining sun. As the physical and mate-
rial, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of
246:15 Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with bright
and imperishable glories.
Undesirable records