PERILS OF MIDDLE AGE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21088, 13 February 1934, Page 10

PERILS OF MIDDLE AGE

ADDRESS BY DEAN INGE "FATTY DEGENERATION OF THE CONSCIENCE" (m>'.\i oitr nwK roKßEsro.vßfMr.) LONDON. January 12. "The Temptations of Middle Age" was the title of an address by Dean Inge at Christ Church, Victoria, yesterday. In middle life, he said, or about the age of 50, there often came on a sort of fatty degeneration of the conscience, a cirrhosis of the moral sense. A man went on living not heroically, and became more and more inclined to play for safety. If they wanted any initiative that 'required courage and risk and new and bold lines of thinking, it was not from him that they would find it. Then, sometimes, he began to think that he had perhaps been too strict with himself, and that he might allow himself certain liberties; and so he began to play a double life—one life in the sight of men and another that he tried to keep for himself. To lead a double hie was always a terrible mistake. Then, occasionally, he gave way to seme sudden temptation against which he had not protected himself: and so they heard of exposures and Disgrace falling on a man from whom they would not have expected it. In reality there was no nccessitv for this misfortune to fall upon them. Everyone had known some of the most delightful people who had reached old age without losing the heart of a child, who had not become cynical, uncharitable, or selfishly absorbed. They should mix as much as possible among the young and try to understand their point of view and sympathise with them.. It was very important not only for themselves but for their country that those who were getting on in life should not be selfish and absorbed in their own interests—that ihey should Keep their minds open.