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Herbert W. Armstrong Post Office Box 431, Tucson, Arizona 85702
May 15, 1979
Dear Brethren and Co-Workers in Christ,
For some twenty months, due to total heart failure in August, 1977, I was
prevented
from proclaiming Christ's Gospel in person in the far-flung nations around the
world.
But God has been with me. There has been NO diminishing of the vital
faculties,
especially of mind. And while I was having, for the time, to defer the ORDEAL
of
physically demanding worldwide travel, I have been able to WRITE almost faster
than
you brethren can read, and to continue FULL LEADERSHIP of God's Work here on
earth.
I want to mention a point we were discussing here in the hotel suite
yesterday
afternoon. I have not realized it before, probably you have not realized it.
The United
States is the only nation on earth that retires people at age 60 or 65. In the
United
States most have come to suppose that people naturally begin to lose their
mental
faculties even as early as 55.
WHY?
This general national assumption is NOT TRUE! Many large corporations have
adopted
a RETIREMENT POLICY that all employees, and even executives, must retire at age
65--and
some at age 60. The same is true of school teachers. I even retired one man at
age 55
on his urgent request, although in a manner that did not increase the Work's
expenses,
even though we had to hire another to take his place. He had worked for us for
25 years.
I remember he wanted to travel--not to other parts of the world, but to see
other parts
of the United States, as he phrased it, "before I have to meet my Maker." In
other
words, even at age 55 this man was THINKING, in his mind, that he was
approaching "the
age of death."
WHY do Americans think that way? Here in Japan a man of 65 is just coming
into
the age of the BEGINNING of wisdom! A man in his 80's is not regarded as "old"
or
"senile," but as more mature--of higher stature--as having a BETTER mind, of
attaining