MIDDLE LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 50, 28 February 1934, Page 3

MIDDLE LIFE

SPECIAL TEMPTATIONS i ~■■ ■ ■ i (Fnm "The Post's" Representative.) < LONDON, January 12. ; "The Temptations of Middlo Age" i was the title of an address by Dean ' Inge at Christ Church, Victoria, yester- ] day. . . : In middle life, he said, or about the ' age of .fifty, 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, J and became more and more inclined to i 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 ho might allow himself certain liberties; and so he bcgaii to play a double life—one life in the sight of men and another that he tried to keep for himself. To lead a i double life was always a terrible mis- ' take. Then, occasionally, he gave way ' to some sudden temptation against which he had not protected himself; and so .they heard of exposures and dis- ' grace falling on a man from whom they would not have expected it. In reality there was no necessity for this misfor- i tune to fall upon them. Everyone had ' known some of the most delightful , people -who had reached old ago without losing the heart of a child, who had not become cynical, uncharitable, or selfishly absorbed. • They should mix as much as possible i among the young and try to understand their point of view and sympathise with them. It was very'importnnt 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