Man's Age | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 27, 1879

Man's Age.

Few men die of old age. Almost all die of disappointment, passion, mental or bodily toil, or accident. The common expression, "choked with passion," has little exaggeration in it, for even though not suddenly fatal, strong passions shorten life. Strong-bodied men often die young; weak men often live longer than the strong, for the strong use their strength, and the weak have none to use. The latter take care of themselves, and the former do not. As it is with the body so it is with the mind and temper. The strong are apt to break, or, like a candle, to run; the weak to run out.

The inferior animals that live temperate lives have generally their prescribed number of years. The horse lives 25; the ox 15 or 20; the dog 10 or 12; the rabbit 8; the guinea-pig 6 or 7 years. These numbers all bear a similar proportion to the time the animal takes to grow to its full size.

But man, of all the animals, is one that seldom lives this average. He ought to live 100 years, according to physical law, for five times 20 is 100; but instead of that he scarcely reaches on an average four times his growing period; the cat 6 times, and the rabbit even 8 times the standard of measurement. The reason is obvious, man is not only the most irregular and intemperate, but the most laborious and hard-worked of all animals. He is also the most irritable, and there is reason to believe, though we cannot tell what an animal secretly feels, that more than any other animal, man cherishes wrath to keep it warm, and consumes himself with the fire of his own secret reflections.—Sel.