The Chief Factor In The Enjoyment Of Our Old Age

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 29, 3 February 1945, Page 4

The Chief Factor In The Enjoyment Of Our Old Age

By REV. CANON C. W. CHANDLER

TT WAS Alexander Pope, who said, "Presume not then the gods to scan, the proper study for Mankind is Man." A book-learned man is largely "theoretical." It isn't until we start reading 'living volumes" that our education truly begins. Because we can only live our lives in association with others, it behoves us to study those around us in an effort to approach those hidden sanctuaries wherein the true selves take refuge.

I was recently thrown into the company of a racehorse owner, a doctor and a barman. We sat in the lounge of a tourist hotel until past midnight, discussing sex determination and old age, with special reference to the known fact that women live longer than men and that there are more of them—that is, more than enough to go round from a monogamic point of view. The barman had travelled extensively. He used to sing in a church choir as a lad and he came to church last Sunday night for the first time for a quarter of a century. He said that "O Paradise, O Paradise" was his favourite hymn, and a casual glance iu his direction during the service convinced me of the fact that he knew his prayer book quite well. He had sailed in windjammers and was apprenticed by a rich uncle to the Merchant Navy when in his late 'teens for two pounds a year and a flash uniform. He had "bummed" it on the Bowery in New York, scrounged for a bed in Seattle, drank "schooners" of beer when he couldn't buy food, and had all his teeth extracted in Auckland over thirty years ago without an anaesthetic. A Keen Observer The racehorse owner was a selfmade man, in the best sense of the term, although I am fully aware that in the last analysis none of us is self-made. What I mean is that he had graduated in a hard school, was a shrewd observer and a man of wealth. He, too, had travelled extensively. He was in Europe in 1938 and went round with his eyes wide open and his mouth well shut in order to learn at first hand as, much as could be learned. He took his time and what little talking he did do was by way of interrogation. He lately flew across the Tasman to the quiet hotel wherein I met him in order to sort out in quietude some of the kaleidoscopic impressions gained through constant travel.

As for the doctor, he was not so easy to discover from behind his professional shell. He spoke briefly and to the point. Perhaps it was because he knew most that he said least.

Anyhow, the subject was old age, and why do men die younger than women? The racing man thought that the fact that more male infants died than female ones accounted largely for the higher rate of mortality in males. The doctor agreed with me that men are less protected from the blasts of misfortune. They have to struggle and strive and shove and push more, and their passions are more unbridled. The barman thought that another factor is that women in old age still live in the familiar environment of home and retain their interest in domestic affairs. Men, on the other hand, after retirement are' removed from the familiar setting of workshop and office wherein they have laboured for most of their lives. Bits of cotton on the carpet, crooked pictures and dust on thf piano are unnoticed by them, and shelling peas and stringing beans have little interest for them, and to have a consuming interest in something is, according to the barman, one of the principal factors in longevity.

"We are corning more and more to the conclusion," said the doctor, "that many, if not all, the diseases from which men suffer are closely related to what might be called the thought process, that is, to the influence of the mind, and the time is fast approaching when psychoanalysis will play as important a part in the diagnosis and cure of disease as scalpels and stethoscopes." He thought that contented mindedness was one of the secrets of old age, although due account had to be taken of the influence of heredity.

The True Foundation

Then it was that I had my chance to point out that the Bible contained supreme wisdom on this matter of contentment, old age, happiness and all that constitutes healthy and successful living. I quoted the 34th Psalm, "What maa is he that lusteth to live, and would fain see good days? Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good; let him seek peace and ensue it, for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and His ears are open unto their prayers." "I've always contended," said the barman, laughing from the depths of his genial rotundity, "that the good old English beer our fathers drank contained something essential to life, but I suppose it was what was at the back o' the beer that counted. The law of God was in their hearts and their goings did not slide."

Doctor and racehorse owner quickly agreed that it was the spiritual factor that really counted. That as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, and that if the peace of God dwelleth in that hidden sanctuary of the self, then all that flows therefrom will be sweetened. He "Who in His strength setteth fast the mountains" is man's only bulwark against the destructive power of efil.

It was finally agreed, therefore, that the principal factor, although not by any means the only factor in the real enjoyment of old age, is a spiritual one, and that it is closely bound up with what constitutes the inner meaning of all religion, namely, at-one-ment with God. "Nevertheless," said the doctor, by way of conclusion, "let not youth despise age, or age despise youth, but let all be contented in that phase of life through which each is passing, for each phase has its own compensating factors. As flosh recedes, the soul advances."