Only a generation ago it was the custom for men and women to begin to grow old at about forty-five. A person of fifty was always called “old,” and a man was expected to be decrepit at sixty, a woman much earlier. It is not wonderful that such men begrudged the time spent in sleep.

When I was a boy, we used shamelessly to print books in big type, indorsed “For the Aged,” on the theory that everyone must be nearly blind at maturity. Even now Dr. George F. Stevens thinks that everyone “ought” to wear glasses after forty, notwithstanding that many Christian Scientists and Mental Scientists discard them long after that age.

There is as much truth as wit in the saying that “A man is as old as he feels, a woman as old as she says she is.” We used to insist upon every year being counted and noted, too, in dress, occupation, and general demeanor. But we have changed all this—even natty dress now common to older people shows it—but the change has come about slowly, and there are still many who think that people of sixty should give up all active life and prepare to “grow old gracefully,” that is, to drop willingly into senility. Those who are willing so to slip into uselessness quietly, need much sleep; but even for them the sleep is not a waste of time, but an aid to length of days.

There has been a great deal too much willingness to let go of active life, because of the idea that “threescore years and ten” was the natural limit of man’s life, and that to live beyond seventy-five was to live upon “borrowed time.” There is a sort of tickle for the mental palate in that expression “borrowed time,” but there is no substance in it, if we will but examine it. How can there be “borrowed” time and from whom is it borrowed?

Life is not a thing that begins to-day and ends to-morrow. So far as we know, it has neither beginning nor end. It is beyond our power to picture a limit to all life. Well, if life has neither beginning nor end, if it has no limits, and if time is merely the unit by which we measure seasons, why should there be a limit to what we can use of it, and how could a continued use of it be called “borrowing”?

In the earlier days of the race, when all progress was made through might, and war settled every question, when a man’s “work” meant chasing over the hills, when men fared hard, and knew little of Nature; when fear was the supreme emotion—it is probable that seventy years represented a long life. To escape all the chances of death from accident and ignorance for so long a time was an achievement, and, in this way, doubtless, seventy years came to be regarded as the natural period of man’s physical existence.

But with our increasing knowledge, with the extension of means for making life easier, with our conquest of Nature, there is no excuse for limiting ourselves or our fellows to the same short span. Consequently man’s life began to extend over a longer and longer period as the risks of living were diminished by civilization. War became a less common condition; the very inventions for making war more destructive of life helped to make people consider whether disputes could not be more wisely settled. The next step was a natural outcome of that reasoning. The latest wars have had more casualties and less fatalities; partly because the effort has been to incapacitate the fighting-men rather than to kill them off. We have begun to see dimly, at least, that the taking of life does not settle any question. This leads to a greater respect for life, and from respect to preservation is an easy step.

The intelligent man to-day does not make his whole life a mere struggle to exist for his “allotted span.” Rather, he aims to preserve and prolong his life by exertion and, even more, by repose. He has learned that, while it is true that “not enjoyment and not sorrow is our destined end or way,” yet to enjoy, in the sense of understanding life and living, is to live so that “each to-morrow find us farther than to-day.” To enjoy life is to use it wisely; to get the most out of it that will make for happiness and development. It will not help to that end to worry or lose sleep, because man’s span of life is short. Love with your whole heart, and live according to reason, and you will win the prize of sleep, and happiness and length of days shall be added thereunto.