The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-02-01
GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY.

Now and then we meet man woman who has
passed the scriptural allotment of years and yet
goes on living, taking enjoyment and shedding the
light of example upon younger generations. Why
one should attain great age and feel young while
another should feel old yet be still under fifty can
be explained only upon the hypothesis that the laws
of health have been better understood by the one and
his forbears or have been more sedhOusly observed
bv one than the other. Old age is as natural as
Youth and one who has grown old and retained that
indefnabe feeling which call well certainly can
look back over the vista of years with few days
darkened by sickness or sins of reckless disregard of
the laws of health which everybody knows or ought
to know.
That old age in many cases is accompanied by
many inRrmites which are hard to bear is lnds+
putable But ailments are not peculiar to age. The
babe in arms the youth, the mddleaged, all classes
and conditions of men, are likewise at times subject
to ills which are tax on the vitality and which,
though seemingly thrown off completely, must affect
the hardest constitution. People who are never
sick who suffered none of the ills of childhood and
youth, who learned early in life to guard against
excuses and to live as God has ordained, have
every chance in the world to attain a ripe old age
and remain healthy until the machinery Of the body
is worn out These people grow old gracefully. The
years bring their gray hairs and furrowed brow but
the days bring happiness for health is their por-
ton.
The Russell Sage Institute of Pathology, found
ed in New York by the fnancer whose name 1t
bears it is reported, is to inaugurate investga-
ton into the ills of old age with the purpose OF
mitigating the suffering that sometimes goes with
it, Laboratories will be maintained, and research
will be on purely scientific basis. While the phi
lanthropic spirit of the founder will be generally
commended it seems that the study of the pre-
venton of senile disabilities must go back, back to
the days when the victim was young-perhaps to
generations passed away whose sins have long since
been forgotten. Health is natural for the aged
as for the young, and if infrmities come with age
that are beyond the natural decline of powers the
origin of those infrmities may be traced to car
lier time and remedial agencies, to be effective,
must be applied before the constitution has been
weakened with many years of work.
The founder of this research institution after
he had come to be known old man, used to
make the proud boast that he was never sick in all
his life We believe if the records could be found
that about the thing could be said of his father
and grandfather. Longevity runs in families. The
requisites to longevity are to be born right, and
then, after careful nursing, to enter into healthy
pursuits, with not too much ambition, and
slant regard for that moderation in all things
which affect the mind and body. Most old people
are healthy enough; if they were not they could
never have lived beyond middle age. But they know
they would be healthier if their lives could have
been just little more in accord with the laws of
God. Each little violation must be recognized
cause for some slight defect in the human
gansm.
On the other hand, it is fact seemingly we'll
established that the people who grow old have been
too busy generally to pay much attention to the
aches and pains they had when they were young,
too busy to dose themselves too busy to do more
than take ordinary care of their body. True,
body will ever know how many have died as a result
of not taking account of slight ailments and not
paying attention to little aches and pains; so no
rule may be drawn from such fact. If the Rus
sell Sage Institute of Pathology should establish
rule for the guidance of young people, should teach
them first of all how to attain old age no doubt the
rule would be vigorously followed By everybody
hat is, everybody who has already reached the scrip
tural limit of three score and ten.
-~-0-s--
oc.o,,- ,a,,, bo;,rs o,i,,s JaroJ bv-