Are We Old at Fifty? by Adelaide D. Wellman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 3, 1914

Are We Old at Fifty?

By Adelaide D. Wellman

Much Depends on the Way We Take Hold of Life—The Best Part of Life Should Be from Fifty Onward

By ADELAIDE D. WELLMAN

IN many a junk heap may be found dry electric batteries that have been discarded as beyond any usefulness, whereas a jar of water, a cent's worth of sal ammoniac, and a few knife thrusts would make of almost any one of them a good wet battery.

Likewise many men and women are assigned to the industrial junk heap, because of being incapacitated for their former work, though with the energy and application that are demanded of young people, they could surpass them in numerous lines.

Almost to weariness we hear elderly persons tell of the opportunities of youth, but to very young persons mature life seems the time of opportunity. It would be well if the order were reversed—if, while young people realized that their early years hold special advantages, men and women of advanced age would comprehend the advantages that they possess over their juniors.

A progressive person of fifty years is to the one of twenty what a full-bearing orchard is to a nursery row. Let us list some of the gains of middle life:

More wisdom in health conservation, which frequently offsets any constitutional ailments that may have come with the years.
More enlightened judgment in all one's affairs.
Greater concentration and perseverance.
A calmer philosophy in meeting reverses.

Almost more pitiable than a wasted youth is the spiritless resignation of the middle-aged or the aged to mere retrogression, when they should be energetically advancing. Doubtless a man of threescore could hardly compete with one of half or a third his age, in athletics. Nor would he be wise to attempt it. But the feats for which the young are better adapted are not the whole of human attainment.

Sojourner Truth once exclaimed to me, referring to a group of women seventy or eighty years old: "O, no, honey, they're not old! But I am beginning to get old." She was then about a hundred and five.

True, there are men and women who are old at fifty—and at forty—and at thirty— I would almost say, at twenty—yes, old people hardly out of their teens.

None grow old quicker than those who shun responsibility or exertion, and resign themselves to uselessness. They need to be charged with the vitalizing power of genuine Christian zeal and courage and hopefulness. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."

Fie, you who would be classed as superannuated at fifty or sixty! "Broken in health," do you say? Yet think of the numerous persons who, despite ill health, and age, and mayhap lack of early training, are yet blessing the world by their efforts.

All despise the slovenly tenant who allows the premises he occupies to become "run down" near the end of his lease. Let us not permit ourselves to become "run down" in mind, in speech, in bearing, or in any sense. We can not always withstand death, but we can withstand degeneration.