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Growing Older

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 42.

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Growing Older

By Richard L. Swain

THERE is but one way to prevent growing old, and that simple way is to grow older. The child has the true instinct, for every child wants to grow older. The thought of growing old rarely ever enters his mind, but the thought of growing older fills his heart all the day long, and even at night the boy will dream of being a man; and happy is the boy if the time never comes when he would like to turn the flight of time backward. The boy feels, in spite of all warnings and all the caution that come from his seniors, feels all through his expanding being, that there is something better ahead. We can remember how people used to say to us, “These are your best days.” The same remark is still made to the youth in high school, “You will have no more days like these;” and the college student is constantly hearing from his seniors, “Just about the second day after commencement you will strike the real thing, and then you will learn how poor and mean life is.”
The only redeeming feature of this situation is that neither children nor youth will believe it. Thank God for that! And it is a profound pity that any one should so live that he could believe it.
Browning, with his familiar lines in “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” has furnished us a most excellent outline of this theme:— “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life for which the first was made; Our times are in his hand Who saith, ‘A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid.’”
On the coast of Maine I sat talking with a friend when a passing stranger called out, “Gentlemen, excuse me, but I must ask you to share with me the glory of this sunset.” Our friends say, “You simply must enjoy the coming concert with me,” or, “Do let us climb this favorite mountain of mine.” Men and women are exclaiming, “Look at the beautiful flowers,” “Listen to the bird’s song,” “Let us enjoy together mountain and lake;” but here is a man who says, “O come along with me, and let us grow older together, and let us see something more splendid than we have ever yet seen!” Now, if men and women were generally saying to their friends who are lagging behind: “Let us get this splendid vision that lies beyond,” what fine service they might do for their fellow men, and how perfectly delightful it would be if men and women always believed what the youth believes. “I shall never be satisfied until I know the things which lie in the depths of God’s heart.”—Richard L. Swain, Ph. D., in Homiletic Review.