LENGTH OF DAYS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

LENGTH OF DAYS

BY ELSIE K. MORTON

ACHIEVING THE CENTURY

It is not often, even in a country as favourable to old age as New Zealand, that the deaths of two centenarians arc recorded within two days, as has just occurred with the passing of Captain Newby, at the age of 101, and Mrs. Plever, of Milton, agod 102. Tremendous ages these, an extension of the normal span of life that opens up wide avenues of thought. They had passed from babyhood before Victoria came to the throne; lived through one of the most intensely interesting periods of history the world has known; saw the most amazing changes in the course of civilised life, survived all the chances and perils of early pioneering and came gently to a ripe and honoured old age, retaining their faculties to the very end. If it were always as easy and comfortable as that there might be some real benefit, something to look forward to, in all the modern talk of new discoveries, new inventions and processes of rejuvenation designed to prolong men's lives and energies indefinitely. But old age does not lead many out into the darkness with so gentle a hand, and no matter how bright the promises of the radio-biologists, the springs of life must inevitably become exhausted, tho vital spark flicker out and the spirit of man return to the God Who gave it. Down through the centuries come the words of the Preacher, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to bo born and a time to die, a timo to plant and a timo to pluck up that which is planted." To tho Preacher it was all vanity, all tho pride of life and vaunted length of days; all ambition and joy and desire of the human heart was but vexation of spirit, and the end of life was better than the beginning. The Will to Live Nobody but the super-pessimist would subscribe to such a doctrine of defeatism as that in these wonderful days. Despite all adversities, men and women still dare to believe that life in the main is good and desirable, but at the same time there are probably not very many who would wish their days prolonged beyond the allotted span, unless assured of possession of their health and normal faculties. Most aged people will tell you they have had quite enough of life* although now and then some jolly octogenarian will declare he or she doesn't know what it is to feel old, and they want to go on living to be a hundred. These are they who achieve the century; having passed tho preliminary stages of old age, their hold on life mysteriously strengthens, and they live on and on, to the abounded amazement of their nearest and dearest. They come to a great pride in tliemselves, in the fact that they have outlived so many of their contemporaries. They skip a year or so now and again when telling their age, in their haste to reach the century, and they desire length of days at the close of life as they never desired it in the full heat of vigorous noontide.

But for most three score and ten is enough. Long before they reach the span they know well enough the labour and sorrow of tho halting years, when the eyes are dim and the uphill road long and rough to feet that are old and tired with life's long marching. i An Age of Marvels

To some, in the summer-time of life and achievement, there is tragedy in the thought that life itself must so soon be ended, the silver cord be broken, when the world is on the very edge of an age of wonder and marvels such as never before has been. Their eager spirit goes questing out into the future; they want to see over the rim of the next decade, and the next, and then the next, for it seems as though each one will be yet more wonderful than the last. Scientific discovery has opened up such marvellous avenues of conquest and achievement that it seems sometimes as though we had but touched the outer rim of that world of hidden wonders withheld through the ages from the eyes and minds of men. Then, again, we are told that we have gone as far as we ma.v yet go, that man will have to turn the bright Kearchlight toward himself, learn to achieve fuller mastery of himself, aim at higher development of his own latent powers before he can look for further conquest in the material world. Ah, but if he could—and would! — indeed do that, it would bo well worth while living to achieve the century, for life would be changed and the whole world would be changed and become an altogether different place, tiomething nearer that ideal that the Creator had •in mind when He bestowed upon it, as the earthly home of His children, such wondrous beauty and ordered serenity of natural law. Do you think for a moment that men were ever meant to fight and scream and kill each other, like a pack of ravening wolves, in a world where every returning spring-time is a pageant of glory and grace, life wakening to re-birth, every bright dawn the joyous symbol of God's unquenchable, unchanging love; every sunset, every quiet night of starry loveliness, fresh assuranco of the peace that lies within the shadows of the dark river upon which the frail barque of the departing spirit shall be carried into the dawn of a brighter morning? The End of the Journey

But, no matter how long life lasts, it is difficult to find much time for thoughts like these. There is so much to see to, so little time for dreaming, so urgent and pressing the demand of tho moment. So we plan pleasures, we* plan great careers, great enterprises; we plan wars and conquests of our fellow-men; and then wo die—still planning, or disappointed and disillusioned, because we got what we planned for —and it wasn't what we wanted after all!

Length of days is nothing; it is the use to which thoso clays are put. Into a short life, not rounded with fulfilment, but snapped like a thread, is often packed more of beauty and achievement than may be found in one that exceeds the so-called span. There are songs that are sung behind bars, deeds that shine like stars through the darkness, a faith that burns like a steady flame through days and nights of unceasing suffering. These are the things that give beauty and nobility to length of days, and the light of them is a brightness on the path long after the wayfarer has reached the end of the journey. If only we could live our lives, long or short, rounded or incomplete, so that we could go out echoing the words of victory uttered 011 the eve of martyrdom by the greatest fighter the world has known, a little, frail, old man, who wrote in a Roman prison cell the deathless message to his dearest friend: " 1 am now ready to be offered, and tho time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith." " Kept tho faith." There you have it! Life's supreme charge, its crowning triumph!