Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste, Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced, Oh, the wild joys of living!... How good is man's life, the mere living, how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
Grow old along with me! The best [of life] is yet to be.
And why should not old age be the best part of life? Does experience count for nothing? Can we not learn as the years roll along? Do we grow more foolish as we grow old? If so it might be advisable to let the facetious suggestion of the celebrated Dr. Osier be carried out in order that all men might be chloroformed at the age of fifty. If, however, history and experience teach us that the intellectual faculties and reasoning powers of a man in normal health do not decrease with age, let us protest vigorously against the false and injurious statement that youth is the best part of life, and let us advocate that we should all possess greater mental and spiritual ability at ninety than at thirty, with physical powers of endurance ample for every need.
It is recorded in the Bible that many of the ancients lived to be several hundred years old, and some of them were vigorously active at great age. We are told that Cornaro lived many years more than a century, and I have personally known Indians of great physical power and keen mentality who were over one hundred years old. Doubtless all are familiar with instances of great mental and physical ability at an advanced age, and this is an encouragement for us to believe that health and happiness and usefulness are not confined to the early decades of human life. My words, therefore, are not addressed merely to the young, but to those of all ages, for it is never too late to gain more of that mental health which strengthens body, mind, and soul--the real life which is manifested in love, joy, and all goodness, and constantly radiates life-giving qualities. Radiancy is a condition of all life, as I use the term in these pages. No person can rightly live and retain within himself that which he possesses in abundance. We must give out in order to live. Christ never spake a truer word than when He declared: "He that loveth his life shall lose it." Those who are so careful to keep all of their lives for themselves, who never give of themselves to others, who know nothing of the joy of self-sacrifice, of service, of helpfulness--these people defeat the very object of their selfishness by losing that which they are so determined to retain. On the other hand, "he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Or, as Joaquin Miller exquisitely and forcefully puts it in his unequaled couplet: