Who Prolongs Life?
Professor Irving Fisher, professor of political economy in Yale University, once wrote to a woman who had just attained the fine old age of one hundred years, and asked her to what habits and circumstances she ascribed her longevity.
The newspapers report her indignant reply. "How foolish he is! I'm not responsible for living so long. It is God who has made me live so long."
Of course there is a measure of truth in that answer. We all live by the favoring care of the Most High. But it is fatalistic folly of the deepest dye to lean back upon God's providence and say, "I am to live as long as God wants me to live, and so I have nothing to do about it." That is the creed of the Moslem, not of the Christian.
God has placed us in a world under law. If we order our habits and our surroundings in conformity to His laws of health and long life, health and long life are quite likely to be ours. And if we violate those laws repeatedly, God will not let us live long, though otherwise He may have planned long life for us. Professor Fisher's inquiry was eminently Christian and wise.
How to Become a Century Old.
Joseph Zeitlin was certainly the oldest inhabitant of Brooklyn, and probably the oldest United Statesan. He was one hundred and six years old when he died, and was born in Poland in 1804. He had lived in this country for about a quarter of a century.
Here were Mr. Zeitlin's rules, to the observance of which, he thought, his length of life was due:
Be moderate in all things.
Do not think too much.
Never worry.
Do everything with regularity.
Play with children at least one hour every day.
Be moderate in all things. That is, do not work beyond your strength. Do not play beyond your need for recreation. Do not sleep too long. Do not eat too much. Do not grasp after more money than you really need.
Do not think too much. Cultivate, that is, the power of oblivion. Let your mind occasionally lie fallow. Every other machine has to rest often, or it will break down: rest your brain. Never worry. Worry is worse than work for your mental machinery: it is gravel in the cogs. Worry actually creates a poison in your body, and kills, in time, as surely as strychnine.
Do everything with regularity. That makes for ease and for speed and for power. Go to the same places, do the same things, at the same time, in the same way, as long as you sensibly can. Whatever in your life can be made automatic relieves by just so much the tension on your mind and spirit.
Play with children at least one hour every day. If you are doing this with the children—God bless them!—you know what good comes from it; and if you are not doing it you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Just try it, if you want to keep young.
Mr. Zeitlin was a philosopher. I mean to incorporate his philosophy in my own living. It is too late for me to expect 106 years, but perhaps I may attain to 86.