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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30256-h.zip b/30256-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ddea52 --- /dev/null +++ b/30256-h.zip diff --git a/30256-h/30256-h.htm b/30256-h/30256-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..621e251 --- /dev/null +++ b/30256-h/30256-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4340 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Heart of the New Thought, +by Ella Wheeler Wilcox +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + font-size: small ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +IMG.imgleft { float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 1%; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Heart of the New Thought, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Heart of the New Thought + +Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +Release Date: October 14, 2009 [EBook #30256] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE NEW THOUGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE HEART +</H2> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +OF +</H4> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +The New Thought +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +WRITTEN BY +</H4> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +Associate Editor of "NEW THOUGHT." +</H4> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +ELEVENTH THOUSAND +</H4> + +<BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +PUBLISHED BY +<BR> +THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY +<BR> +TEMPLE CHAMBERS +<BR> +TEMPLE AVE., E.C., +<BR> +LONDON, ENG. +<BR><BR> +1903 +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright +<BR> +THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY. +<BR><BR> +All Rights Reserved. +</H5> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="font-size: 80%; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +NOTICE: This work is protected by Copyright, and simultaneous initial +publication in United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France, +Germany, Russia and other countries. All rights reserved. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Publishers' Preface +</H3> + +<P> +This book is noteworthy as an interpretation of "New Thought." +</P> + +<P> +That which was vague, mystic, unreal, has become, in the hands of Mrs. +Wilcox, a lovable philosophy of simplest construction. +</P> + +<P> +The backbone of this philosophy is The Power of Right Thought. +</P> + +<P> +Startling as are some of the tenets expressed, they are provably true +here and now. +</P> + +<P> +It is possible that the very simplicity of this book will encourage +careless criticism from those who believe that genius and ambiguity are +twin. +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Wilcox is ever the voice of the people: what she says is +practical; what she thinks is clear; what she feels is plain. +</P> + +<P> +Let the people judge this book. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +Contents:<BR> +</H2> + +<H4> +<A HREF="#chap01">Let the Past Go</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap02">The Sowing of the Seed</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap03">Old Clothes</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap04">High Noon</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap05">Obstacles</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap06">Thought Force</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap07">Opulence</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap08">Eternity</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap09">Morning Influences</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap10">The Philosophy of Happiness</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap11">A Worn Out Creed</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap12">Common Sense</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap13">Literature</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap14">Optimism</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap15">Preparation</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap16">Dividends</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap17">Royalty</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap18">Heredity</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap19">Invincibility</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap20">Faces</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap21">The Object of Life</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap22">Wisdom</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap23">Self-Conquest</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap24">The Important Trifles</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap25">Concentration</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap26">Destiny</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap27">Sympathy</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap28">The Breath</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap29">Generosity</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap30">Woman's Opportunity</A><BR> +<A HREF="#chap31">Balance</A><BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +THE HEART OF +<BR> +THE NEW THOUGHT +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Let the Past Go +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capd.jpg" ALT="dropcap-d" BORDER="0" WIDTH="83" HEIGHT="103"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +o not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or others all your +losses and sorrows. +</P> + +<P> +Let the past go. +</P> + +<P> +Should some good friend present you with material for a lovely garment, +would you insult her by throwing it aside and describing the beautiful +garments you had worn out in past times? +</P> + +<P> +The new year has given you the fabric for a fresh start in life, why +dwell upon the events which have gone, the joys, blessings and +advantages of the past! +</P> + +<P> +Do not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy. Do not tell +me you are sick or broken in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or +broken, because it is of God. +</P> + +<P> +It is your mind which makes your body sick. Let the spirit assert +itself and demand health and hope and happiness in this new year. +</P> + +<P> +Forget the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made, the +injuries you have received, the disappointments you have experienced. +</P> + +<P> +Real sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear ones, or +some great cross well borne, you need not forget. But think of these +things as sent to enrich your nature, and to make you more human and +sympathetic. You are missing them if you permit yourself instead to +grow melancholy and irritable. +</P> + +<P> +It is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has selected you for +special suffering. +</P> + +<P> +Sorrow is no respecter of persons. Say to yourself with the beginning +of this year that you are going to consider all your troubles as an +education for your mind and soul; and that out of the experiences which +you have passed through you are going to build a noble and splendid +character, and a successful career. +</P> + +<P> +Do not tell me you are too old. +</P> + +<P> +Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will ignore you. +</P> + +<P> +Eat moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as nature's rainfall. +Exercise thoroughly and regularly. +</P> + +<P> +Be alive, from crown to toe. Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the +lungs for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when you draw +in long, full breaths, believe you are inhaling health, wisdom and +success. +</P> + +<P> +Anticipate good health. If it does not come at once, consider it a +mere temporary delay, and continue to expect it. +</P> + +<P> +Regard any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no more. +</P> + +<P> +Never for an instant believe you are permanently ill or disabled. +</P> + +<P> +The young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to learn the +secret of the transmutation of gold. +</P> + +<P> +If you will study your own spirit and its limitless powers, you will +gain a greater secret than any alchemist ever held; a secret which +shall give you whatever you desire. +</P> + +<P> +Think of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the silk +lining, your spirit as the gem. Keep the box burnished and clear of +dust, but remember always that the jewel within is the precious part of +it. +</P> + +<P> +Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A +whole, clear, glorious year lies before you! In a year you can regain +health, fortune, restfulness, happiness! +</P> + +<P> +Push on! Achieve, achieve! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Sowing of the Seed +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capw.jpg" ALT="dropcap-w" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +hen you start in the "New Thought" do not expect sudden illumination. +Do not imagine that you are to become perfectly well, perfectly +cheerful, successful, and a healer, in a few days. +</P> + +<P> +Remember all growth is slow. +</P> + +<P> +Mushrooms spring up in a night, but oaks grow with deliberation and +endure for centuries. +</P> + +<P> +Mental and spiritual power must be gained by degrees. +</P> + +<P> +If you attained maturity before you entered this field of "New Thought" +it is folly to suppose a complete transformation of your whole being +will take place in a week—a month—or a year. +</P> + +<P> +All you can reasonably look for is a gradual improvement, just as you +might do if you were attempting to take up music or a science. +</P> + +<P> +The New Thought is a science, the Science of Right Thinking. But the +brain cells which have been shaped by the old thoughts of despondency +and fear, cannot all at once be reformed. +</P> + +<P> +It will be a case of "Try, try again." +</P> + +<P> +Make your daily assertions, "I am love, health, wisdom, cheerfulness, +power for good, prosperity, success, usefulness, opulence." +</P> + +<P> +Never fail to assert these things at least twice a day; twenty times is +better. But if you do not attain to all immediately, if your life does +not at once exemplify your words, let it not discourage you. +</P> + +<P> +The saying of the words is the watering of the seeds. +</P> + +<P> +After a time they will begin to sprout, after a longer time to cover +the barren earth with grain, after a still longer time to yield a +harvest. +</P> + +<P> +If you have been accustomed to feeling prejudices and dislikes easily, +you will not all at once find it easy to illustrate your assertion, "I +am love." If you have indulged yourself in thoughts of disease, the +old aches and pains will intrude even while you say "I am health!" +</P> + +<P> +If you have groveled in fear and a belief that you were born to poverty +and failure, courage and success and opulence will be of slow growth. +Yet they will grow and materialize, as surely as you insist and persist. +</P> + +<P> +Declare they are yours, right in the face of the worst disasters. +There is nothing so confuses and flustrates misfortune as to stare it +down with hopeful unflinching eyes. +</P> + +<P> +If you waken some morning in the depths of despondency and gloom, do +not say to yourself: +</P> + +<P> +"I may as well give up this effort to adopt the New Thought—I have +made a failure of it evidently——." Instead sit down quietly, and +assert calmly that you are cheerfulness, hope, courage, faith and +success. +</P> + +<P> +Realize that your despondency is only temporary; an old habit, which is +reasserting itself, but over which you will gradually gain the +ascendency. Then go forth into the world and busy yourself in some +useful occupation, and before you know it is on the way, hope will +creep into your heart, and the gray cloud will lift from your mind. +Physical pains will loosen their hold, and conditions of poverty will +change to prosperity. +</P> + +<P> +Your mind is your own to educate and direct. +</P> + +<P> +You can do it by the aid of the Spirit, but you must be satisfied to +work slowly. +</P> + +<P> +Be patient and persistent. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Old Clothes +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +s you go over your wardrobe in the spring or fall, do not keep any +old, useless, or even questionable, garments, for "fear you might need +them another year." +</P> + +<P> +Give them to the ragman, or send them to the county or city poor house. +There is nothing that will keep you in a rut of shabbiness more than +clinging to old clothes. +</P> + +<P> +It is useless to say that you cannot afford new garments. +</P> + +<P> +It is because you have harped upon this idea that you are still in +straitened circumstances. +</P> + +<P> +You believe neither in God or yourself. +</P> + +<P> +Possibly you were brought up to think yourself a mere worm of earth, +born to poverty and sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +If you were, it will of course require a continued effort to train your +mind to the new thought, the thought of your divine inheritance of all +God's vast universe of wealth. +</P> + +<P> +But you can do it. +</P> + +<P> +Begin by giving away your old clothes. There may be people, poor +relations, or some struggling mother of half-clad children, to whom +your old garments will seem like new raiment, and to whom they will +bring hope and happiness. +</P> + +<P> +As a rule, it is not well to give people your discarded clothing. +</P> + +<P> +It has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to +you, instead of to themselves, for support. +</P> + +<P> +It all depends upon whom the people are and how you do it. +</P> + +<P> +If you can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and +self-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of clothing or +furniture or provisions. +</P> + +<P> +But little children, suffering from cold, or hard-working, over-taxed +men and women, will not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered and +encouraged by your gifts. +</P> + +<P> +No matter if you still need your frayed-out garments—do not keep them. +</P> + +<P> +Your thoughts of poverty and trouble have impregnated them so that you +will continue to produce the same despondent mind stuff while you wear +these garments. +</P> + +<P> +Get rid of them, and believe that you are to soon procure fresh, +becoming raiment. +</P> + +<P> +Rouse all your energies, and go straight ahead with that purpose in +mind. +</P> + +<P> +You will be surprised to find how soon the opportunity presents itself +for you to obtain what you need. +</P> + +<P> +There is new strength, repose of mind and inspiration in fresh apparel. +</P> + +<P> +God gives Nature new garments every season. We are a part of Nature. +</P> + +<P> +He gives us the qualities and the opportunities to obtain suitable +covering for our changing needs, if we believe in the one, and use the +other. +</P> + +<P> +When I read of a wealthy man who boasts that he has worn one hat seven +years, or a woman in affluent circumstances who has worn one bonnet for +various seasons, I feel sorry for their ignorance and ashamed of their +penuriousness. +</P> + +<P> +Look at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring drapery, its luxurious +summer foliage, its autumn richness of coloring, its winter draperies +of white! Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have more +variety than man! +</P> + +<P> +The tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent, +and believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes. +</P> + +<P> +It will come to you if you do the same. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +High Noon +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-cape.jpg" ALT="dropcap-e" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="104"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +very woman who passes thirty ought to keep her brain, heart and mind +alive and warm with human sympathy and emotion. She ought to interest +herself in the lives of others, and make her friendship valuable to the +young. +</P> + +<P> +She should keep her body supple, and avoid losing the lines of grace: +and she should select some study or work to occupy her spare hours and +to lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman in the comfortable +walks in life can find time for such a study. No woman of tact, charm, +refinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has +married a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of +her. Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for him. +</P> + +<P> +Keep sentiment alive in your own heart, madam, and in the heart of your +husband. If he sees that other men admire you he will be more alert to +the necessity of remaining your lover. +</P> + +<P> +Take the happy, safe, medium path between a gray and a gay life by +keeping it radiant and bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, +hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip, and be careful in +your criticism of neighbors. Sometimes we must criticise, but speak +<I>to</I> people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not <I>of</I> +them to others. +</P> + +<P> +Make your life after it reaches its noon, glorious with sunlight, rich +with harvests, and bright with color. Be alive in mind, heart and +body. Be joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness, +attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to others' needs +without being officious, and instructive without too great a display of +erudition. +</P> + +<P> +Be a noble, loving, lovable woman. +</P> + +<P> +It is never too late in life to make anew start. No matter how small a +beginning may be, it is so much begun for a new incarnation if it is +cut off here by death. +</P> + +<P> +If I were one hundred years old, and in possession of my faculties, I +would not hesitate to undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope +of bettering my condition. +</P> + +<P> +Thought is eternal in its effects, and every hopeful thought which +enters the mind sets vibrations in motion, which shall help minds +millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn. +</P> + +<P> +It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide opportunities and +luxuries for children. We have only to look at the children of the +rich, to see how little enduring happiness money gives, and how seldom +great advantages result in great characters. The majority of the +really great people of the world, in all lines of achievement, have +sprung from poverty. I do not mean from pauper homes, but from the +homes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and +where early in their youth the children felt it necessary to go into +the world and make their own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, +energy, ambition, were all developed in this way. +</P> + +<P> +How rarely do we find these qualities in the children of wealth. How +rarely do great philosophers, great statesman, great thinkers and great +<I>characters</I> develop from the wealthy classes. +</P> + +<P> +Pauperism—infant labor—the wage-earning women—are all evils which +ought to be abolished. But next to that evil I believe the worst thing +possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth. It is an obstacle +to greatness which few are strong enough to surmount, and it rarely +results in happiness to the recipient. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Obstacles +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-caph.jpg" ALT="dropcap-h" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="99"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +owever great the obstacles between you and your goal may be or have +been, do not lay the blame of your failure upon them. +</P> + +<P> +Other people have succeeded in overcoming just as great obstacles. +</P> + +<P> +Remove such hindrances from the path for others, if you can, or tell +them a way to go around. Even lead them a little distance and cheer +them on. +</P> + +<P> +But so far as you yourself are concerned, do not stop to excuse any +delinquency or half-heartedness or defeat by the plea of circumstance +or environment. +</P> + +<P> +The great nature makes its own environment, and dominates circumstance. +</P> + +<P> +It all depends upon the amount of force in your own soul. +</P> + +<P> +While you apply this rule to yourself and make no scapegoat of "fate," +you must have consideration for the weakness of others, and you must +try and better the conditions of the world as you go along. +</P> + +<P> +You are robust and possessed of all your limbs. You can mount over the +great boulder which has fallen in the road to success, and go on your +way to your goal all the stronger for the experience. +</P> + +<P> +But behind you comes a one-legged man—a blind man—a man bowed to the +earth with a heavy burden, which he cannot lay down. +</P> + +<P> +It will require weeks, months, years of effort on their part to climb +over that rock which you surmounted in a few hours. +</P> + +<P> +So it is right and just for you to call other strong ones to your aid +and roll the boulder away or blast it out of the path. +</P> + +<P> +That is just exactly the way you should think of the present industrial +conditions. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of them, the strong, well-poised, earnest and determined soul +can reach any desired success. +</P> + +<P> +But there are boulders in the road which do not belong there, boulders +which cause hundreds of the pilgrims who are lame or blind or burdened, +to fall by the wayside and perish. +</P> + +<P> +It is your duty to aid in removing these obstacles and in making the +road a safe and clear thoroughfare for all who journey. +</P> + +<P> +Do not sit down by the roadside and say you have been hindered by these +difficulties, that is to confess yourself weak. +</P> + +<P> +Do not mount over them and rush to your goal and say coldly to the +throngs behind you, "Oh, everybody can climb over that rock who really +tries—didn't I?" That is to announce yourself selfish and +unsympathetic. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt the lame, the blind and the burdened <I>could</I> attain the goal +despite the rocks if they were fired by a consciousness of the divine +force within them; that consciousness can achieve <I>all things under all +circumstances</I>. +</P> + +<P> +But there will always be thousands of pilgrims toiling wearily toward +the goal who have not come to this realization. +</P> + +<P> +If there are unjust, unfair and unkind restrictions placed about them, +see to it that you do all in your power to right what is wrong. +</P> + +<P> +But never wait to attain your own success because of these restrictions +or obstacles. +</P> + +<P> +Believe absolutely in your own God-given power to overcome anything and +everything. +</P> + +<P> +Think of yourself as performing miracles with God's aid. +</P> + +<P> +Desire success so intensely that you attract if as the magnet attracts +the steel. +</P> + +<P> +Help to adjust things as you go along, but never for a moment believe +that the lack of adjustment can cause you to fail. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Thought Force +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capy.jpg" ALT="dropcap-y" BORDER="0" WIDTH="84" HEIGHT="104"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +our spirit and mine are both part of the stupendous cause. We have +always been, and always will be. First in one form, then in another. +</P> + +<P> +Every thought, word and deed is helping decide your next place in the +Creator's magnificent universe. You will be beautiful or ugly, wise or +ignorant, fortunate or unfortunate, according to what use you make of +yourself here and now. +</P> + +<P> +Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good, +the cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty, +gratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of +usefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as +satisfaction and self-respect in this sphere. +</P> + +<P> +Even if you escape the immediate results of the opposite course of +action here, you must face the law of <I>cause and effect</I> in the next +state. It is inevitable. God, the maker of all things, does not +change His laws. "As you sow you reap." "As a man thinketh so is he." +There is no "revenge" in God's mind. He simply makes His laws, and we +work our destinies for good or ill according to our adherence to them +or violation of them. +</P> + +<P> +Each one of us is a needed part of His great plan. Let each soul say: +"He has need of me or I would not be. I am here to strengthen the +plan." Remember that always in your most discouraged hours. +</P> + +<P> +The Creator makes no mistakes. +</P> + +<P> +There is a divine purpose in your being on earth. Think of yourself as +necessary to the great design. It is an inspiring thought. And then +consider the immensity of the universe and how accurately the Maker +planned it all. +</P> + +<P> +Do not associate with pessimists. If you are unfortunate enough to be +the son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or +spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of +discouragement and despondency. +</P> + +<P> +No tie of blood or law should compel you to listen to what means +discomfort and disaster to you. +</P> + +<P> +Get out and away, into the society of optimistic people. +</P> + +<P> +Before you go, insist on saying cheerful, hopeful and bright things, +sowing the seed, as it were, in the mental ground behind you. But do +not sit down to see it grow. +</P> + +<P> +Never feel that it is your duty to stay closely and continuously in the +atmosphere of the despondent. +</P> + +<P> +You might as well think it your duty to stay in deep water with one who +would not make the least effort to swim. +</P> + +<P> +Get on shore and throw out a life-line, but do not remain and be +dragged under. +</P> + +<P> +If you find any one determined to talk failure and sickness and +misfortune and disaster, walk away. +</P> + +<P> +You would not permit the dearest person on earth to administer slow +poison to you if you knew it. Then why think it your duty to take +mental potions which paralyze your courage and kill your ambition? +</P> + +<P> +Despondency is one phase of immorality. It is blasphemous and an +insult to the Creator. +</P> + +<P> +You are justified in avoiding the people who send you from their +presence with less hope and force and strength to cope with life's +problems than when you met them. +</P> + +<P> +Do what you can to change their current of thought. But do not +associate intimately with them until they have learned to keep +silent—at least, if they cannot speak hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +Learn how to walk, how to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold +your head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance. +Believe your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all +humanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to +higher and better conditions. No matter how limited your sphere of +action may seem to you and how small your town appears on the map, if +you develop your mental and spiritual forces through <I>love thoughts</I> +you can be a power to move the world along. Rise up and realize your +strength. Not only will you be more useful and happy, but you will +grow more beautiful and keep your youth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Opulence +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capd.jpg" ALT="dropcap-d" BORDER="0" WIDTH="83" HEIGHT="103"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +o not go through the world talking poverty and asking every one you +deal with to show you special consideration because you are "poor" and +"unfortunate." +</P> + +<P> +If you do this with an idea of saving a few dollars here and there, you +will always have to do it, because you are creating poverty conditions +by your constant assertions. +</P> + +<P> +It is a curious fact that the people who are always demanding +consideration in money matters demand the best that is going at the +same time. +</P> + +<P> +I have known a woman to make a plea for cut prices in a boarding house +because she was so poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the best +location the house afforded. +</P> + +<P> +It is the charity patients who make the most complaint of a physician's +skill or a nurse's attention. +</P> + +<P> +If you cannot afford to do certain things, or buy certain objects, +don't. But when you decide you must, decide, too, that you will pay +the price, and make no whining plea of poverty. +</P> + +<P> +There are two extremes of people in the world, one as distasteful as +the other. One is represented by the man who boasts of the costliness +of every possession, and invites the whole world to behold his opulence +and expenditure. +</P> + +<P> +His clothes, his house, his servants, his habits, seem no different to +the observer from his neighbor's, yet, according to his story, they +cost ten times the amount. +</P> + +<P> +The other extreme is the man who dresses well, lives well, enjoys all +the comforts and pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty +continually, and expects the entire community to show him consideration +in consequence. +</P> + +<P> +Another thing to avoid is the role of the chronically injured person. +</P> + +<P> +We all know him. +</P> + +<P> +He has a continual grievance. He has been cheated, abused, wronged, +insulted, disappointed and deceived. We wonder how or why he has +managed to exist, as we listen to the story of his troubles. +</P> + +<P> +No one ever treats him fairly, either in business or social life. +Everybody is ungrateful, unkind, selfish, and he could not be made to +believe that these experiences were of his own making. +</P> + +<P> +All of us meet with occasional blows from fate, in the form of insults, +or ingratitude, or trickery from an unexpected source. +</P> + +<P> +But if we get nothing else but those disappointing experiences from +life, we may rest assured the fault lies somewhere in ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +We are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff, or we would get +better returns. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +You never can tell what your thoughts will do<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In bringing you hate or love,</SPAN><BR> +For thoughts are things, and their airy wings<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Are swift as a carrier dove.</SPAN><BR> +They follow the law of the universe—<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Each thing must create its kind,</SPAN><BR> +And they speed o'er the track to bring you back<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Whatever went out from your mind.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +In the main, we must of necessity get from humanity what we give to it. +If we question our ability to win friends or love, people will also +question it. +</P> + +<P> +If we doubt our own judgment and discretion in business, others will +doubt it, and the shrewd and unprincipled will take the opportunity +given by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us. +</P> + +<P> +If in consequence we distrust every person we meet, we create an +unwholesome and unfortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will +bring to us the unworthy and deceitful. Stand firm in the universe. +Believe in yourself. Believe in others. +</P> + +<P> +If you make a mistake, consider it only an incident. +</P> + +<P> +If some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or insults you, let it pass as +one of the lessons you had to learn, but do not imagine that you are +selected by fate for only such lessons. Keep wholesome, hopeful and +sympathetic with the world at large, whatever individuals may do. +Expect life to use you better every year, and it will not disappoint +you in the long run. For life is what we make it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Eternity +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capd.jpg" ALT="dropcap-d" BORDER="0" WIDTH="83" HEIGHT="103"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +o you know what a wonderfully complicated thing a human being is? +Every feature, every portion of your body, every motion you make, +reflects your mental organization. +</P> + +<P> +I know a woman past middle life who has always been on the opposite +side of every question discussed in her presence. +</P> + +<P> +She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential with atheists, liberal +with the narrow, bigoted with the liberal. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever belief any one expressed on any subject, she invariably took +the other extreme. She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It was +her pastime. +</P> + +<P> +Now, to walk with that woman in silence is merely to carry on a +wordless argument. +</P> + +<P> +You cannot regulate your steps so they will harmonize with hers. She +will be just ahead or just behind you, and if you want to turn to the +left, she pulls to the right. A promenade with her is more exhausting +than a day's labor. +</P> + +<P> +She is not conscious of it, and would think anyone very unreasonable +and unjust who told her of her peculiarities. +</P> + +<P> +I know a woman who all her life has been looking afar for happiness and +peace and content, and has never found any of them, because she did not +look in her own soul. +</P> + +<P> +She was a restless girl, and she married, believing in domestic life +lay the goal of her dreams. But she was not happy there, and sighed +for freedom. She wanted to move, and did move, once, twice, thrice, to +different points of the United States. She was discontented with each +change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts and luxuries which +life can afford, yet she is the same restless soul. She likes to read, +but it is always the book which she does not possess which she craves. +If she is in the library with shelves book-filled, she goes into the +garret and hunts in old boxes for a book or a paper which has been cast +aside. +</P> + +<P> +If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go to the window and look +out on the street, but when she is on the street it bores her, and she +longs to go in the house. +</P> + +<P> +If a member of the family is absent, she gets no enjoyment out of the +society of those at home; yet when that absent one returns her mind +strays elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not found here. +</P> + +<P> +I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the spirit realm, or if +they go on there seeking and always seeking something just beyond. It +is a great gift to learn to enjoy the present—to get all there is out +of it, and to think of to-day as a piece of eternity. Begin now to +teach yourself this great art if you have not thought of it before. To +be able to enjoy heaven, one must learn first to enjoy earth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Morning Influences +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capw.jpg" ALT="dropcap-w" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +hat do you think about the very first thing in the morning? +</P> + +<P> +Your thoughts during the first half-hour of the morning will greatly +influence the entire day. You may not realize this, but it is +nevertheless a fact. +</P> + +<P> +If you set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul +toward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a day of discords +and misfortunes. +</P> + +<P> +If you think peace, hope and happiness, you are sounding a note of +harmony and success. +</P> + +<P> +The result may not be felt at once, but it will not fail to make itself +evident eventually. +</P> + +<P> +Control your morning thoughts. You can do it. +</P> + +<P> +The first moment on waking, no matter what your mood, say to yourself: +"I will get all the comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, and +I will do something to add to the measure of the world's happiness or +well-being. I will control myself when tempted to be irritable or +unhappy, I will look for the bright side of every event." +</P> + +<P> +Once you say these things over to yourself in a calm, earnest way, you +will begin to feel more cheerful. The worries and troubles of the +coming day will seem less colossal. +</P> + +<P> +Then say: "I shall be given help to meet anything that comes to-day. +Everything will be for the best. I shall succeed in whatever I +undertake. I cannot fail." +</P> + +<P> +Do not let it discourage you if the moment you leave your room you +encounter a trouble or a disaster. This usually happens. When we make +any boasts, spiritually or physically, we are put to the test. The +occult forces about us are not unlike human beings. When a school-boy +boasts of his strength, and says he can "lick any boy in school," he +generally gets a chance to prove it. +</P> + +<P> +When we declare we are brave enough to overcome any fate, we find our +strength put to the test at once. +</P> + +<P> +But that is all right. Prove your words to be true. Regard the +troubles and cares you encounter as the "punching bags" of fate, given +you to develop your spiritual muscle. +</P> + +<P> +Go at them with courage and keep to your morning resolve. +</P> + +<P> +By and by the troubles will lessen, and you will find yourself master +of Circumstances. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Philosophy of Happiness +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capt.jpg" ALT="dropcap-t" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +here are natures born to happiness just as there are born musicians, +mechanics and mathematicians. +</P> + +<P> +They are usually children who came into life under right pre-natal +conditions. That is, children conceived and born in love. +</P> + +<P> +The mother who thanks God for the little life she is about to bring to +earth, gives her child a more blessed endowment than if it were heir to +a kingdom or a fortune. +</P> + +<P> +As the majority of people, however, born under "civilized" conditions, +are unwelcome to their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who has a +birthright of happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for +happiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself +with the passing of time. +</P> + +<P> +Good health and strong vitality are great aids to happiness; yet that +they, wealth and honors added, do not produce that much desired state +of mind we have but to look about us to observe. +</P> + +<P> +One who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to +acquire skill in the art, however strong his desire or great his taste, +than the natural genius. +</P> + +<P> +So the man not endowed with joyous impulses needs to set himself the +task of acquiring the habit of happiness. I believe it can be done. +To the sad or restless or discontented being I would say: Begin each +morning by resolving to find something in the day to enjoy. Look in +each experience which comes to you for some grain of happiness. You +will be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly +disagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side. +</P> + +<P> +There is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty +when you stop to realize that you are getting it out of the way. +</P> + +<P> +If it is one of those duties which has the uncomfortable habit of +repeating itself continually, you can at least say you are learning +patience and perseverance, which are two great virtues and essential to +any permanent happiness in life. +</P> + +<P> +Do not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, but discover it in +to-day. Unless you are in the profound depths of some great sorrow, +you will find it if you look for it. +</P> + +<P> +Think of yourself each morning as an explorer in a new realm. I know a +man whose time is gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take +three hours for a certain pleasure. He lost his way and missed his +pleasure, but was full of exuberant delight over his "new experience." +"I saw places and met with adventures I might have missed my whole +life." He was a true philosopher and optimist and such a man gets the +very kernel out of the nut of life. +</P> + +<P> +I know a woman who had since her birth every material blessing, health, +wealth, position, travel and a luxurious home. She was forever +complaining of the cares and responsibilities of the latter. Finally +she prevailed upon the family to rent the home for a series of years +and to live in hotels. Now she goes about posing as a martyr, "a +homeless woman." It is impossible for such a selfishly perverted +nature to know happiness. +</P> + +<P> +A child should be taught from its earliest life to find entertainment +in every kind of condition or weather. If it hears its elders cursing +and bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind is quick to receive +the impression that a rainy day is a disaster. +</P> + +<P> +How much better to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, +and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which +other young animals feel. +</P> + +<P> +Happiness must come from within in order to respond to that which comes +from without, just as there must be a musical ear and temperament to +enjoy music. +</P> + +<P> +Cultivate happiness as an art or science. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Worn Out Creed +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + have a letter from an "orthodox Christian," who says the only hope +for humanity lies in the "old-fashioned religion." +</P> + +<P> +Then he proceeds to tell me how carefully he has studied human nature, +"in business, in social life, and in himself," and that he finds it all +vile—selfish—sinful. +</P> + +<P> +Of course he does, because he studies it from a false and harmful +standpoint, and looks for "the worm of earth" and "the poor, miserable +sinner," instead of the <I>divine</I> man. +</P> + +<P> +We find what we look for in this world. +</P> + +<P> +I have always been looking for the noble qualities in human beings, and +I have found them. +</P> + +<P> +There are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are +great qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us +ordinarily. +</P> + +<P> +One of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison +for sins committed while in drink. +</P> + +<P> +He was not "born bad", he simply drifted into bad company and formed +bad habits. +</P> + +<P> +He paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the +divine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I +feel prouder to call that name. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of +Chicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +According to my experience with a number of men of this class during +the last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the +most cordial support and assistance. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +If this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is +not so vile as my "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe. +</P> + +<P> +A "Christian" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not +allowed to associate with mankind. +</P> + +<P> +He carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air. +</P> + +<P> +He suggests evil to minds which have not thought it. +</P> + +<P> +He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending to be a disciple of +Christ. +</P> + +<P> +The man who believes that all men are vicious, selfish and immoral is +<I>projecting pernicious mind stuff</I> into space, which is as dangerous to +the peace of the community as dynamite bombs. +</P> + +<P> +The world has been kept back too long by this false, unholy and +blasphemous "religion." +</P> + +<P> +It is not the religion of Christ—it is the religion of ignorant +translators, ignorant readers. +</P> + +<P> +Thank God, its supremacy is past. A wholesome and holy religion has +taken its place with the intelligent progressive minds of the day, a +religion which says: "I am all goodness, love, truth, mercy, health. I +am a necessary part of God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only +good can come through me or to me. God made me, and He could make +nothing but goodness and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all +His qualities." +</P> + +<P> +This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than the universe. It is +God's own thought put into practical form. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Common Sense +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +f you are suffering from physical ills, ask yourself if it is not your +own fault. +</P> + +<P> +There is scarcely one person in one hundred who does not over eat or +drink. +</P> + +<P> +I know an entire family who complain of gastric troubles, yet who keep +the coffee pot continually on the range and drink large quantities of +that beverage at least twice a day. +</P> + +<P> +No one can be well who does that. Almost every human ailment can be +traced to foolish diet. +</P> + +<P> +Eat only two meals in twenty-four hours. If you are not engaged in +active physical labor, make it one meal. Drink two or three or four +quarts of milk at intervals during the day to supply good blood to the +system. +</P> + +<P> +You will thrive upon it, and you will not miss the other two meals +after the first week. +</P> + +<P> +And your ailments will gradually disappear. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, if you are self-supporting, your bank account will increase. +</P> + +<P> +Think of the waste of money which goes into indigestible food! It is +appalling when you consider it. Heaven speed the time when men and +women find out how little money it requires to sustain the body in good +health and keep the brain clear and the eye bright! +</P> + +<P> +The heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with pity and scorn. The time +will come when the heavy eater will be similarly regarded. +</P> + +<P> +Once find the delight of a simple diet, the benefit to body and mind +and purse, and life will assume new interest, and toil will be robbed +of its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere matter of toiling for a +bare existence. +</P> + +<P> +Again, are you unhappy? Stop and ask yourself why. If you have a +great sorrow, time will be your consoler. And there is an ennobling +and enriching effect of sorrow well borne. +</P> + +<P> +It is the education of the soul. But if you are unhappy over petty +worries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you +are allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the +beautiful days for you, take yourself in hand and change your ways. +</P> + +<P> +You can do it if you choose. It is pitiful to observe what sort of +troubles most unhappy people are afflicted with. I have seen a +beautiful young woman grow care lined and faded just from imagining she +was being "slighted" or neglected by her acquaintances. +</P> + +<P> +Some one nodded coldly to her, another one spoke superciliously, a +third failed to invite her, a fourth did not pay her a call, and so +on—always a grievance to relate until one is prepared to look +sympathetic at sight of her. +</P> + +<P> +And such petty, petty grievances for this great, good life to be marred +by! +</P> + +<P> +And all the result of her own disposition. Had she chosen to look for +appreciation and attention and good will she would have found it +everywhere. +</P> + +<P> +Then, about your temper? Is it flying loose over a trifle? Are you +making yourself and every one else wretched if a chair is out of place, +or a meal a moment late, or some member of the family is tardy at +dinner, or your shoe string is in a tangle or your collar button +mislaid? +</P> + +<P> +Do you go to pieces nervously if you are obliged to repeat a remark to +some one who did not understand you? I have known a home to be ruined +by just such infinitesimal annoyances. It is a habit, like the drug or +alcohol habit—this irritability. +</P> + +<P> +All you need do is to stop it. Keep your voice from rising, and speak +slowly and calmly when you feel yourself giving way to it. Realize how +ridiculous and disagreeable you will be if you continue, what an +unlovely and hideous old age you are preparing for yourself. And +realize that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and lack of culture. +</P> + +<P> +Think of the value of each day of life, how much it means and what +possibilities of happiness and usefulness it contains if well spent. +</P> + +<P> +But if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, dwell on the small worries +and grow angry at the least trifle, you are committing as great and +inexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture and garments and +food and fuel into the sea in a spirit of wanton cruelty. You are +wasting life for nothing. Every sick, gloomy day you pass is a sin +against life. Get health, be cheerful, keep calm. +</P> + +<P> +Clear your mind of every gloomy, selfish angry or revengeful thought. +Allow no resentment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in your heart +over night. +</P> + +<P> +Wake in the morning with a blessing for every living thing on your lips +and in your soul. Say to yourself: "Health, luck, usefulness, success, +are mine. I claim them." Keep thinking that thought, no matter what +happens, just as you would put one foot before another if you had a +mountain to climb. Keep on, keep on, and suddenly you will find you +are on the heights, luck beside you. +</P> + +<P> +Whoever follows this recipe <I>cannot fail</I> of happiness, good fortune +and a useful life. But saying the words over <I>once</I> and then drifting +back to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good. +</P> + +<P> +The words must be said over and over, and <I>thought</I> and <I>lived</I> when +not said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Literature +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capt.jpg" ALT="dropcap-t" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he world is full of "New Thought" Literature. It is helpful and +inspiring to read. +</P> + +<P> +It is worth many dollars to any one who will <I>live</I> its philosophy. +</P> + +<P> +I talked to a man who has been studying along these lines for some +years. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I know all that philosophy," he said; "it is nothing new. I am +perfectly familiar with it." +</P> + +<P> +Yet this man was continually allowing himself to grow angry over the +least trifle; he was quick to see and speak of the faults in others; he +was demanding more of those he associated with in the way of +consideration and justice than he was willing to give, and he was +untidy in his person and improvident in his use of money. +</P> + +<P> +Now it is the merest waste of time for this man to read "New Thought" +literature or practice "deep breathing", since he will not put into +daily and hourly practice what is taught by the New Religion. +</P> + +<P> +He is like the orthodox Christian who mumbles through the Lord's Prayer +and then goes forth to do exactly as he would not be done by in +business, social and domestic life. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Man is what he thinks</I>. Not what he says, reads or hears. By +persistent thinking you can undo any condition which exists. You can +free yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, ill health or +unhappiness. If you have been thinking these thoughts half a lifetime +you must not expect to batter down the walls you have built, in a week, +or a month, or a year. You must work and wait, and grow discouraged +and stumble and pick yourself up and go on again. +</P> + +<P> +You cannot in an hour gain control over a temper which you have let fly +loose for twenty years. But you can control it eventually, and learn +to think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity like drunkenness or +profanity, something you could not descend to. +</P> + +<P> +If you have allowed yourself to think despondent thoughts and believe +that poverty and sickness were your portion for years, it will take +time to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful ideas; but you can +do it by repeated assertions and by reading and thinking and living the +beautiful New Thought Philosophy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Optimism +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capn.jpg" ALT="dropcap-n" BORDER="0" WIDTH="81" HEIGHT="99"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +ot long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen +of a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria +of the world. He said: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Life is a hopeless battle in which we are foredoomed to defeat. And +the prize for which we strive "to have and to hold"—what is it? A +thing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor missed when lost. So +worthless it is, so unsatisfying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to +hope and at its best so brief, that for consolation and compensation we +set up fantastic faiths of an aftertime in a better world from which no +confirming whisper has ever reached us out of the void. Heaven is a +prophecy uttered by the lips of despair, but Hell is an inference from +history. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This is morbid and unwholesome talk which can do no human being any +good to utter, or listen to. +</P> + +<P> +But it can depress and discourage the weak and struggling souls, who +are striving to make the best of circumstances, and it can nerve to +suicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who needed only a word of +encouragement and cheer to brace up and win the race. +</P> + +<P> +This is the unpardonable sin—to talk discouragingly to human souls, +hungering for hope. +</P> + +<P> +When the man without brains does it, he can be pardoned for knowing no +better. +</P> + +<P> +When the man with brains does it, he should be ashamed to look his +fellow mortals in the eyes. +</P> + +<P> +It is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving a stone to those who ask +for bread. +</P> + +<P> +It is giving poison to those who plead for a cup of cold water. +</P> + +<P> +Fortunately the remarks above quoted contain not one atom of truth! +</P> + +<P> +The writer may speak for himself, but he has no right to speak for +others. +</P> + +<P> +It is all very well for a man who is marked with smallpox to say his +face has not one unscarred inch on the surface of it. But he has no +premises to stand upon when he says there is not a face in the world +which is free from smallpox scars. +</P> + +<P> +Life is not "a hopeless battle in which we are doomed to defeat." +</P> + +<P> +Life is a glorious privilege, and we can make anything we choose of it, +if we begin early and are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine +powers. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing can hinder us or stay us. We can do and be whatsoever we will. +</P> + +<P> +The prize of life is not "a thing which is neither enjoyed while had +nor missed when lost." +</P> + +<P> +It is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day—this great prize of life. I +for one declare that for every day of misery in my existence I have had +a week of joy and happiness. For every hour of pain, I have had a day +of pleasure. For every moment of worry, an hour of content. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot be the only soul so endowed with the appreciation of life! I +know scores of happy people who enjoy the many delights of earth, and +there are thousands whom I do not know. +</P> + +<P> +Of course "life is not missed when lost"—because it is never lost. It +is indestructible. +</P> + +<P> +Life ever was, and ever will be. It is a continuous performance. +</P> + +<P> +It is not "worthless" to the wholesome, normal mind. It is full of +interest, and rich with opportunities for usefulness. +</P> + +<P> +When any man says his life is worthless, it is because he has eyes and +sees not, and ears and hears not. +</P> + +<P> +It is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate or accident. +</P> + +<P> +If every life seems at times "unsatisfactory" and "inadequate" it is +only due to the cry of the immortal soul longing for larger +opportunities and fewer limitations. +</P> + +<P> +Neither is life "false to hope." He who trusts the divine Source of +Life, shall find his hopes more than realized here upon earth. I but +voice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when I make this assertion. +I know whereof I speak. +</P> + +<P> +All that our dearest hopes desire will come to us, if we believe in +ourselves as rightful heirs to Divine Opulence, and work and think +always on those lines. +</P> + +<P> +If "no whisper has ever reached us out of the void" confirming our +faith in immortality, then one-third of the seemingly intelligent and +sane beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars. For we have +the assertion of fully this number that such whispers have come, +besides the Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the other +realm. "As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be ever more, +world without end, Amen." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Preparation +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-cape.jpg" ALT="dropcap-e" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="104"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +very day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were +not given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an +education in early youth. +</P> + +<P> +They believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful +had an education been obtained. +</P> + +<P> +Scarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the +schooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is +being missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable +knowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age +endurable. +</P> + +<P> +Youth is the season to acquire knowledge, middle life is the time to +acquire wisdom. +</P> + +<P> +Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more +important of the two. +</P> + +<P> +By wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our +tempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our +sympathies. +</P> + +<P> +The majority of people after thirty-five consider themselves privileged +to be cross, irritable, critical and severe, because they have lived +longer than the young, because they have had more trials and +disappointments, and because they believe they understand the world +better. +</P> + +<P> +Those are excellent reasons why they should be patient, kind, broad and +sympathetic. +</P> + +<P> +The longer we live the more we should realize the folly and vulgarity +of ill-temper, the cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for a +broad-minded view of life, manners, morals and customs. +</P> + +<P> +Unless we adapt ourselves to the changing habits of the world, unless +we adopt some of the new ideas that are constantly coming to the front, +we will find ourselves carping, disagreeable and lonely old people as +the years go by. +</P> + +<P> +The world will not stand still for us. Society will not wear the same +clothes or follow the same pleasures, or think the same thoughts when +we are eighty that were prevalent when we were thirty. We must keep +moving with the world or stand still and solitary. +</P> + +<P> +After thirty we must seize every hour and educate ourselves to grow +into agreeable old age. +</P> + +<P> +It requires at least twenty years to become well educated in book and +college lore. If we begin to study at seven we are rarely through with +all our common schools, seminaries, high schools and colleges have to +offer under a score of years. +</P> + +<P> +The education for old age needs fully as many years. We need to begin +at thirty to be tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic and +liberal. Then, at fifty, we may hope to have "graduated with honors" +from life's school of wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or +two of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the practice of these +qualities. +</P> + +<P> +Instead of wasting our time in bemoaning the loss of early +opportunities for obtaining an education, let us devote ourselves to +the cultivation of wisdom, since that is free to all who possess +self-control, will power, faith and perseverance. +</P> + +<P> +Begin to-day, at home. Be more tolerant of the faults of the other +members of your household. Restrain your criticisms on the conduct of +your neighbors. +</P> + +<P> +Try and realize the causes which led some people who have gone wrong to +err. Look for the admirable qualities in every one you meet. +Sympathize with the world. Be interested in progress, be interested in +the young. Keep in touch with each new generation, and do not allow +yourself to grow old in thought or feeling. +</P> + +<P> +Educate yourself for a charming old age. There is no time to lose. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Dividends +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capo.jpg" ALT="dropcap-o" BORDER="0" WIDTH="80" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +ur thoughts are shaping unmade spheres,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And, like a blessing or a curse,</SPAN><BR> +They thunder down the formless years<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">And ring throughout the universe.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The more we realize the tremendous responsibility of our mental +emanations the better for the world and ourselves. The sooner we teach +little children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible phrase "As a man +thinketh, so is he," the better for future generations. +</P> + +<P> +If a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfortune, he will meet them and +claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the +close relationship, he will deny his own children and declare they were +sent to him by an evil fate. +</P> + +<P> +Walter Atkinson tells us that "he who hates is an assassin." +</P> + +<P> +Every kindergarten and public school teacher ought to embody this idea +in the daily lessons for children. +</P> + +<P> +It may not be possible to teach a child to "love every neighbor as +himself," for that is the most difficult of Commandments to follow to +the letter; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from a nature if we +awaken sympathy for the object of dislike. +</P> + +<P> +That which we pity we cannot hate. The wonderful Intelligence which +set this superb system of worlds in action must have been inspired by +love for all it created. +</P> + +<P> +So much grandeur and magnificence, so much perfection of detail, could +only spring from Love. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever is out of harmony in our little world has been caused by man's +substituting hate and fear for love and faith. +</P> + +<P> +Every time we allow either hate or fear to dominate our minds we +disarrange the order of the universe and make trouble for humanity, and +ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +It may be a little late in reaching us, but it is sure to come back to +the Mind which sent forth the cause. +</P> + +<P> +Every time we entertain thoughts of love, sympathy, forgiveness and +faith we add to the well-being of the world, and create fortunate and +successful conditions for ourselves. +</P> + +<P> +Those, too, may be late in coming to us—BUT THEY WILL COME. +</P> + +<P> +Right thinking is not attained in a day or a week. +</P> + +<P> +We must train the mind to reject the brood of despondent, resentful, +fearful and prejudiced thoughts which approach it, and to invite and +entertain cheerful, broad and wholesome thoughts instead, just as we +overcome false tones and cultivate musical ones in educating the voice +for singing. +</P> + +<P> +When we once realize that by driving away pessimistic, angry and bitter +thoughts we drive away sickness and misfortune to a great extent, and +that by seeking the kinder and happier frame of mind we seek at the +same time success and health and good luck, we will find a new impetus +in the control of our mental forces. +</P> + +<P> +For we all love to be paid for our worthy deeds, even while we believe +in being good for good's sake only. And nothing in life is surer than +this: +</P> + +<P> +RIGHT THINKING PAYS LARGE DIVIDENDS. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Think</I> success, prosperity, usefulness. It is much more profitable +than thinking self-destruction or the effort at self-destruction for +that is an act which aims at an impossibility. You can destroy the +body, but the <I>you</I> who suffers in mind and spirit will suffer still, +and live still. You will only change your location from one state to +another. You did not make yourself, you cannot unmake yourself. You +can merely put yourself among the spiritual tramps who hang about the +earth's borders, because they have not prepared a better place for +themselves. +</P> + +<P> +Suicide is cheap, vulgar and cowardly. Because you have made a wreck +of a portion of this life, do not make a wreck of the next. +</P> + +<P> +Mend up your broken life here, go along bravely and with sympathy and +love in your heart, determined to help everybody you can, and to better +your condition as soon as possible. Men have done this after fifty, +and lived thirty good years to enjoy the results. +</P> + +<P> +Do not feel hurt by the people who slight you, or who refer to your +erring past. Be sorry for them. I would rather be a tender-hearted +reformed sinner than a hard-hearted model of good behavior. +</P> + +<P> +I would rather learn sympathy through sin than never learn it at all. +</P> + +<P> +There is nothing we cannot live down, and rise above, and overcome. +There is nothing we cannot be in the way of nobility and worth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Royalty +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capw.jpg" ALT="dropcap-w" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +e get what we give. I have never known this rule to fail in the long +run. If we give sympathy, appreciation, goodwill, charitable thoughts, +admiration and love—we receive all these back from humanity in time. +</P> + +<P> +We may bestow them unworthily, as the sower of good seed may cast it on +a rocky surface, but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast, +and, while the rock remains barren, the fields shall yield a golden +harvest. +</P> + +<P> +<I>The seed must be good</I>, however. +</P> + +<P> +If I say to myself without any real regard for another in my heart, "I +want that person to like me, I will do all in my power to please him," +I need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove of only temporary +efficacy. +</P> + +<P> +Neither need I feel surprised or pained if I find by-and-by that other +people are bestowing policy friendship upon me, actions with no feeling +for a foundation. +</P> + +<P> +No matter how kind and useful I make my conduct toward an individual, +if in my secret heart I am criticising him severely and condemning him, +I must expect criticism and condemnation from others as my portion. +</P> + +<P> +We reap what we sow. Some harvests are longer in growing than others, +but they all grow in time. +</P> + +<P> +Servility in love, or friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do +not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created +as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless +worms, unworthy of His regard! +</P> + +<P> +We are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful inheritors of happiness, +and health, and success. What monarch would feel pleasure in having +his children crawl in the dust, saying, "We are less than nothing, +miserable, unworthy creatures?" +</P> + +<P> +Would he not prefer to hear them say, proudly: "We are of royal blood"? +</P> + +<P> +We ought always to believe in our best selves, in our right to love and +be loved, to give and receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded. +And then we should bestow our love, our gifts and our toil with no +anxious thought about the returns. If we chance to love a loveless +individual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, to toil for the +unappreciative, it is but a temporary deprivation for us. The love, +the gratitude and the recompense will all come to us in time from some +source, or many sources. It cannot fail. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Heredity +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +merican parents, as a rule, can be put in two extreme classes, those +who render the children insufferably conceited and unbearable by +overestimating their abilities and overpraising their achievements, and +those who render them morbid and self-depreciating by a lack of +wholesome praise. +</P> + +<P> +It is rare indeed, when we find parents wise and sensible enough to +strengthen the best that is in their children by discreet praise, and +at the same time to control the undesirable qualities by judicious and +kind criticism. +</P> + +<P> +I heard a grandmother not long ago telling callers in the presence of a +small boy what a naughty, bad child he was, and how impossible it +seemed to make him mind. Wretched seed to sow in the little mind, and +the harvest is sure to be sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +I have heard parents and older children, expatiate on the one stupid +trait and the one plain feature of a bright and handsome child, +intending to keep it from forming too good an opinion of itself. +</P> + +<P> +To all young people I would say, cultivate a belief in yourself. Base +it on self-respect and confidence in God's love for his own handiwork. +Say to yourself, "I will be what I will to be." Not because your human +will is all-powerful, but because the Divine will is back of you. +Analyze your own abilities and find what you are best fitted to do. +</P> + +<P> +Then get about the task of doing your chosen work to the very best of +your ability, and do not for an instant doubt your own capabilities. +Perhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by years of morbid thought; +but if you persist in a self-respecting and self-reliant and +God-trusting course of thinking your powers will increase and your +capabilities strengthen. +</P> + +<P> +It is no easy matter to overcome a habit of self-depreciation. +</P> + +<P> +It is like straightening out a limb which has been twisted by a false +attitude or correcting a habit of sitting round-shouldered. +</P> + +<P> +It requires a steady and persistent effort. When the depressing and +doubtful thoughts come drive them away like malaria-breeding insects. +Say, "This is not complimentary to my Maker. I am His work. I must be +worthy of my own respect and of that of others. I must and will +succeed." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Invincibility +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capi.jpg" ALT="dropcap-i" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +f we persistently desire good things to come to us for unselfish +purposes, and at the same time faithfully perform the duties which lie +nearest, we will eventually find our desires being realized in the most +unexpected manner. +</P> + +<P> +Our thought force has proved to be a wedge, opening the seemingly +inaccessible Wall of Circumstance. +</P> + +<P> +To read good books, to think and ponder on what you read, to cultivate +every agreeable quality you observe in others, and to weed from your +nature every unworthy and disagreeable trait, to study humanity with an +idea of being helpful and sympathetic, all these efforts will help you +to the ultimate attainment of your wishes. +</P> + +<P> +It is a proven fact that if we devote a few moments each day to +reaching exercises, standing with loose garments and stretching the +body muscles to reach some point above us, we increase our stature. +</P> + +<P> +Just so if we mentally and spiritually are continually reaching to a +higher plane we are growing. +</P> + +<P> +Every least thought of the brain is a chisel, chipping away at our +characters, and our characters are building our destinies. +</P> + +<P> +The incessant and persistent demand of our hearts and minds MUST be +granted. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +That Mental Chisel +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capd.jpg" ALT="dropcap-d" BORDER="0" WIDTH="83" HEIGHT="103"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +uring a trolley ride through a thrifty New England locality, where +church spires were almost as plentiful as trees, I studied the faces of +the people who came into the car during my two hours' journey. +</P> + +<P> +The day was beautiful, and all along the route our numbers were +recruited by bevies of women, young, middle aged and old, who were bent +on shopping expeditions or setting forth to make social calls. +</P> + +<P> +They went and came at each village through which our coach of democracy +passed, and they represented all classes. +</P> + +<P> +The young girls were lovely, as young girls are the world over: their +complexion possessed that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore +localities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune is the greatest of +cosmetics. Many of the young faces were formed in classic mould, their +features clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the thoughts and +principles of their ancestors. +</P> + +<P> +Often I observed a mother and some female relative, presumably an aunt, +in company with a young relative; and always the sharpening and +withering process of the years of set and unelastic thought was +discernible upon their faces, which had once been young, and classic +and attractive. +</P> + +<P> +In the entire two hours I saw but three lovely faces which were matured +by time. +</P> + +<P> +I saw scores of well-dressed and evidently well-cared-for women of +middle age, whose countenances were furrowed, drawn, pinched, sallow, +and worn, beyond excuse; for time, sorrow, and sickness are not +plausible excuses for such ravages upon a face God drew in lines of +beauty. +</P> + +<P> +Time should mature a woman's beauty as it does that of a tree. Sorrow +should glorify it as does the frost the tree, and sickness should not +be allowed to lay a lingering touch upon it, until death calls the +spirit away. +</P> + +<P> +Without question the great majority of the women I saw were earnest +orthodox Christians. +</P> + +<P> +I heard snatches of conversation regarding Church and Charities and I +have no doubt that each woman among them believed herself to be a +disciple of Christ. +</P> + +<P> +Yet where was the result of the loving, tender, sweet spirit of +Christ's teaching? +</P> + +<P> +It surely was not visible upon those pinched and worried faces? and +those faces were certain and truthful chronicles of the work done by +the minds within. +</P> + +<P> +One face said to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and +loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret +about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband +has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in +my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved +by the blood of Christ!" +</P> + +<P> +Another said, "I am in God's fold, well and safe, but I hate and +despise my nearest neighbor, for she wears clothes that I am sure she +cannot pay for, and her children are always dressed better than mine. +I quarrel with my domestics, and am always in trouble of some kind, +just because human beings are so full of sin and no one but myself is +ever right. I shall be so glad to leave this world of woe and go to +heaven, but I hope I will not meet many of my present acquaintances +there!" +</P> + +<P> +Another said, "If I only had good health—but I was born to sickness +and suffering, and it is God's will that I should suffer!" +</P> + +<P> +Oh the pity of it, and to imagine this is religion! +</P> + +<P> +Thank God the wave of "New Thought" is sweeping over the land, and +washing away those old blasphemous errors of mistaken creeds. +</P> + +<P> +The "New Thought" is to give us a new race of beautiful middle-aged and +old people. +</P> + +<P> +To-day in any part of the land among rich, poor, ignorant or +intellectual, orthodox or materialists the beautiful mature face is +rarer than a white blackbird in the woods. +</P> + +<P> +It is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninteresting in late life, if +the mind keeps itself occupied with right thinking. +</P> + +<P> +The withered and drawn face of fifty indicates withered emotions and +drawn and perverted ambitions. +</P> + +<P> +The dried and sallow face tells its story of dried up sympathies and +hopes. +</P> + +<P> +The furrowed face tells of acid cares eating into the heart. +</P> + +<P> +All this is irreligious! yet all this prevails extensively in our most +conservative and churchy communities. +</P> + +<P> +He who in truth trusts God cannot worry. +</P> + +<P> +He who loves God and mankind, cannot become dried and withered at +fifty, for love will re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his +eye. +</P> + +<P> +He who understands his own divine nature will grow more beautiful with +the passing of time, for the God within will become each year more +visible. +</P> + +<P> +The really reverent soul accepts its sorrows as blessings in disguise, +and he who so accepts them is beautified and glorified by them, within +and without. +</P> + +<P> +Are you growing more attractive as you advance in life? Is your eye +softer and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more +sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry? +Are your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the +corners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin +dry, and sallow, and parched? +</P> + +<P> +Study yourself and answer these questions to your own soul, for in the +answer depends the decision whether you really love and trust God, and +believe in your own immortal spirit, or whether you are a mere impostor +in the court of faith. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Object of Life +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capw.jpg" ALT="dropcap-w" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +hat do you believe to be the object of your life? +</P> + +<P> +To be happy and successful, perhaps you are thinking, even if you do +not answer in those words. +</P> + +<P> +That is the idea of the many. Meanwhile others, who have been educated +in the melancholy faith of their ancestors, believe the object of this +life is to be miserable, poor, and full of sorrow, that they may wear a +crown of glory hereafter. +</P> + +<P> +But the clear thinker and careful observer must realize that there is +one and only one main object in life—<I>the building of character</I>. +</P> + +<P> +He who sets out in early youth with that ambition and purpose, and +keeps to it, will not only attain his object, but he will, too, attain +happiness and true success—for there is no such thing as failure for +the man or woman of character. +</P> + +<P> +We often apply the two words character and success, unworthily. +</P> + +<P> +We speak of a man of "much character" when he is merely self-assertive +and stubborn, and we call a man successful, who has accumulated a +fortune, or achieved fame and a position, by doubtful methods. +</P> + +<P> +Then what is character, and what is success? +</P> + +<P> +Character is the result of the cultivation of the highest and noblest +qualities in human nature, and putting those qualities to practical use. +</P> + +<P> +Success is the conquest of the lower and baser self, and the ability to +be useful to one's fellow men. +</P> + +<P> +There are men of brain, wealth and position who are failures, and there +are men of limited abilities and in humble places who are yet +successful, inasmuch as they make the utmost of themselves, and their +opportunities. +</P> + +<P> +It makes no difference how lowly your sphere in life may be, and no +matter how limited your environment, you can build your character if +you will. You need no outlay of money, no assistance from those in +power, no influence. +</P> + +<P> +Character Building must be done alone, and by yourself. The ground +must be cleansed of debris, and the structure must be erected stone by +stone. +</P> + +<P> +It is dull, slow, hard work, especially the preparation. +</P> + +<P> +All preparation is drudgery. +</P> + +<P> +When this little whirling globe of ours began to cool in space think +what a task lay before it! Think of the mass of chaos, which had to +slowly shape itself into mighty, green, glad and snow-capped mountains, +fertile vales, and noble forests. +</P> + +<P> +Each one of us is a little world, whirling alone on an individual +orbit, but the divine power is within us, to grow into symmetry, +beauty, and perfection if we only realize it. +</P> + +<P> +And the happiness of the work, once we begin it, is beyond the power of +description. +</P> + +<P> +There is no other satisfaction can compare with that of looking back +across the years and finding that you have grown in self-control, in +charity of judgment, in a sense of justice, in generosity, and in +unselfishness. +</P> + +<P> +If you are conscious of this growth, let no lack of material success +for one moment disturb you. That will come, enough for your need, in +time. +</P> + +<P> +The man of symmetrically developed character is never a pauper. +</P> + +<P> +He is never dependent for more than a temporary period. +</P> + +<P> +To possess character is to be useful, and to be useful is to be +independent, and to be useful and independent, is to be happy, even in +the midst of sorrow; for sorrow is not necessarily unhappiness. +</P> + +<P> +The man who has made the development of a noble and harmonious +character the business of his life, accepts his sorrows as means of +greater growth, and finds in them an exaltation of spirit which is +closely allied to happiness. +</P> + +<P> +To such a nature, absolute wretchedness would only be possible through +the loss of self-respect; the lowering of an ideal or the failure of a +principle. +</P> + +<P> +Would you be happy and successful? Then set yourself to <I>build +character</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Seek to be worthy of your own highest commendation. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Wisdom +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + great many people are attracted to the New Thought of the day, by its +declaration of our right to material wealth, and by its claim that the +mind of man can create, command, and control conditions which produce +wealth. +</P> + +<P> +There is no question concerning the truth of this claim. +</P> + +<P> +But woe unto him who cultivates his mental and spiritual powers only +for this purpose. +</P> + +<P> +His gold shall turn to dross, his pleasure to Dead Sea fruit. +</P> + +<P> +He shall be as one who drags a beautiful garment through the mud of the +streets, and while clothed in purple and fine linen is yet a repulsive +object. +</P> + +<P> +Into the Great Scheme of Existence, as first conceived by the Creator, +money did not enter. +</P> + +<P> +He made this beautiful Universe, and all that it contains was meant for +the enjoyment of His creatures. +</P> + +<P> +There was no millionaire and no pauper soul created by God. +</P> + +<P> +Each soul contains the spark of the divine spirit, and by the +realization of that spark, and all it means, whatever is desired by +mortal man may come to him. +</P> + +<P> +But wise is he who remembers the injunction, "Seek first the kingdom of +heaven and all other things shall be added unto you." +</P> + +<P> +Wise is he who understands the meaning of the words, "Unto him that +hath, more shall be given." +</P> + +<P> +Not until you obtain the faculty of being happy through your spiritual +and mental faculties, independent of material conditions, not until you +learn to value wealth only as a means of helpfulness, can you safely +turn your powers of concentration upon the idea of opulence. +</P> + +<P> +To demand, assert, and command wealth for its mere sensual benefits, to +focus your mind upon it because you desire to shine, lead, and triumph, +is to play spiritual football with spiritual dynamite. +</P> + +<P> +You may obtain what you seek, you may accumulate riches, but at the +cost of all that is worth living for. +</P> + +<P> +The merely ignorant, or stupid, or wholly material man who stumbles +into a fortune, through inheritance, dogged persistent industry, or +chance, may enjoy it in his own fashion, and do no harm in the world. +</P> + +<P> +But the man who knows and who has developed his spiritual powers only +for the purpose of commanding material gain, might better have a +millstone tied about his neck. For he makes himself a spiritual +outcast, and his money shall never bring him happiness. +</P> + +<P> +Make, therefore, your assertion of opulence the last in your list, as +you make Love first. +</P> + +<P> +Call unto yourself spiritual insight, absolute unselfishness, desire +for universal good, wisdom, justice, and usefulness, and last of all +opulence. +</P> + +<P> +Think of yourself as possessed of all these qualities before you +picture financial independence. +</P> + +<P> +For without love for your kind, without the desire for usefulness and +the spiritual insight and the wisdom to be just before being generous, +your money would bring you only temporary pleasure, and would do the +world no good. +</P> + +<P> +Neither should you labor under the impression that God's work is lying +undone because you have no fortune to command and wisely distribute +where most needed. Rest assured if you do the work which lies nearest +to you, relieve such distress as is possible to you, and keep your +faith in the ultimate justice of God's ways, that the world will move +on, and humanity will slowly attain its destined goal, even if you +never become a millionaire. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Self Conquest +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-cape.jpg" ALT="dropcap-e" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="104"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +very New Idea, or supposed New Idea, is a light which attracts the +moths. +</P> + +<P> +The "New Thought" is no exception. +</P> + +<P> +About it flutter hysterical women, unbalanced men: the erratic and the +irresponsible. +</P> + +<P> +The possibilities of performing miracles, of healing the sick, +hypnotizing the well, transforming poverty into wealth, and changing +age to youth, are the rays of light which flicker through the darkness +and draw them into the circle of radiance. +</P> + +<P> +The self-indulgent fat woman subscribes to New Thought literature, pays +for a course of lectures, and goes forth into the ranks of the +unbelievers, proclaiming her power to become a sylph, and to cause +others to become sylphs. +</P> + +<P> +The extravagant and inconsiderate rush forth after having heard a +discourse upon the power of mind over matter, and declare that they +possess the secret of accumulating a fortune by occult means. +</P> + +<P> +The lovers of the marvelous believe that they will become great healers +in a brief space of time. +</P> + +<P> +Not one of these moth converts realizes that the very first step to +take in the direction of "New Thought" is self-conquest. +</P> + +<P> +The gourmand does not know that self-indulgence and a gross appetite +are incompatible with mental or spiritual growth, and will be +insurmountable obstacles in her path toward symmetry. +</P> + +<P> +The spendthrift does not take into consideration the fact that good +sense, thrift and industry, must aid his mental assertion of wealth, +and the miracle lover does not understand that something greater and +more difficult is required than a mere wish to heal before healing +powers can be obtained. +</P> + +<P> +That the physical body and material conditions can be dominated by the +divine spirit in man, is an incontrovertible fact. +</P> + +<P> +But first, last and always, the lesser self must be subjugated, and the +weak and unworthy qualities overcome. +</P> + +<P> +The woman who desires to reduce her flesh cannot do so by reading +occult literature, or joining mystic circles, or attending lectures, +unless she permeates herself so thoroughly with spiritual truths that +she no longer craves six courses at dinner, and three meals a day, and +unless she overcomes her dislike for exercise. +</P> + +<P> +The man who wishes to control circumstances must love better things +than money before he can succeed. He must love, and respect, and +believe in his Creator, and trust the Divine Man within himself, and he +must illustrate this love and trust by his daily conduct, and in his +home circle, and in his business relations. +</P> + +<P> +Once in a century, perhaps, is a man born with great powers already +developed to heal the sick, or to do other seeming miracles. Such +beings are old souls, who have obtained diplomas in former lives; but +the majority of us are still in school, and we cannot become "seniors" +until we pass through the lower grades. +</P> + +<P> +We must change ourselves before we can change material conditions: we +must heal our own thoughts and make them sane and normal, before we can +heal bodily disease in others. +</P> + +<P> +It is not an immediate process. I have heard an old lady declare that +she "got religion" in the twinkling of an eye, and she believed all +people would be damned and burn in hell fire, who did not pass through +this sudden illumination. +</P> + +<P> +It is possible that the religion which can worship a God cruel enough +to burn his children in fire, can only be obtained in the twinkling of +an eye; but the reverent, wholesome, and beautiful religion of "New +Thought" must be grown into little by little, through patience, faith, +and practice. +</P> + +<P> +All that it claims to do it can do, but not instantaneously, not +rapidly. We must first make ourselves over; after absolute control of +our minds has been obtained, then, and only then, may we hope to +influence circumstances and health. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Important Trifles +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capy.jpg" ALT="dropcap-y" BORDER="0" WIDTH="84" HEIGHT="104"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +ou will find, in the effort to reach a higher spirituality in your +daily life, that the small things try your patience and your strength +more than the greater ones. +</P> + +<P> +Home life, like business life, is composed of an accumulation of +trifles. +</P> + +<P> +There are people who bear great sorrows with resignation, and seem to +gain a certain dignity and force of character through trouble, but who +are utterly vanquished by trivial annoyances. +</P> + +<P> +The old-fashioned orthodox "Christian" was frequently of this order. +</P> + +<P> +Death, poverty, and misfortune he bore without complaining, and became +ofttimes a more agreeable companion in times of deepest sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +He regarded all such experiences as the will of God, and bowed to them. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, if his dinner was late, his coffee below the standard, if his +eye-glasses were misplaced, or his toe trodden upon, he become a raging +lion, and his roar drove his affrighted household into dark corners. +</P> + +<P> +There have been neighborhood Angels, who watched beside the dying +sinner, sustained orphans and widows, and endured great troubles +sublimely like martyrs. But if a dusty shoe trod upon a freshly washed +floor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or +lingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring—lo, the +Angel became a virago, or a droning mosquito with persistent sting. +</P> + +<P> +The New Philosophy demands serenity and patience through small trials, +as well as fortitude in meeting life's larger ills. +</P> + +<P> +It demands, too, that we seek to avoid giving others unnecessary +irritation by a thoughtless disregard of the importance of trifles. +</P> + +<P> +A man is more likely to keep calm if he wakes in the night and +discovers that the house is on fire, than he is if, on being fully +prepared to retire, he finds the only mug on the third story is missing +from his wash-stand, or the cake of toilet-soap he asked for the day +before has been forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +A mother bears the affliction of a crippled child with more equanimity +than she is able to bring to bear upon the continual thoughtlessness of +a strong one. +</P> + +<P> +To be kind, means to be thoughtful. +</P> + +<P> +The kindest and most loving heart will sometimes forget and be +careless; but it cannot be perpetually forgetful and careless of +another's wishes and needs, even in the merest trifles. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Concentration +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capt.jpg" ALT="dropcap-t" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he New Thought includes <I>concentration of thought</I>, in its teaching; +and he who learns that important art is not liable to frequently forget +small or large duties. +</P> + +<P> +It is he who scatters, instead of concentrates his mind powers, who +keeps himself and others in a state of continual irritation by +forgetting, mislaying, and losing, three petty vices which do much to +mar domestic or business life. +</P> + +<P> +Concentration is a most difficult acquirement for the mature mind which +has been allowed to grow in the habit of thought scattering. +</P> + +<P> +Wise is the mother, and as sure as wise, who teaches her child to +finish each task begun before attempting another, for that is the first +step in concentration. +</P> + +<P> +Prentice Mulford, that great and good pioneer in the field of practical +New Thought, tells us to apply our whole mental powers to whatever we +do, even if it is merely the tying of a shoe, and to think of nothing +else until that shoe is tied, then to utterly forget the shoe string, +when we turn to another duty or employment. The next lesson in +concentration he gives us, is to repeat the word often, to impress it +upon the mind. +</P> + +<P> +And then to declare each day that "Concentration is mine" will aid +still farther in the acquisition of this great and important quality. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, since we can be so fortunate as to always surround ourselves +with others who have acquired it, the student of the Higher Philosophy +must learn to be serene and self-poised when he encounters life's pigmy +worries. +</P> + +<P> +He must carry his religion into his bedroom and his office, and not +forget it utterly when he loses his collar-button, or misses his car, +or finds his office boy has taken a parcel to the wrong address. +</P> + +<P> +To build character necessitates a constant watch upon ourselves. The +New Thought is not a religion of Sundays, but of every day. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Destiny +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capn.jpg" ALT="dropcap-n" BORDER="0" WIDTH="81" HEIGHT="99"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +ever say that you wish your situation were different! Never wish you +had some other person's life or troubles or worries. +</P> + +<P> +Accept your own as a <I>working basis</I>, the best for you. +</P> + +<P> +Then go ahead and <I>change whatever</I> displeases you. +</P> + +<P> +Remember you are the maker and moulder of your own destiny. You do not +recall the fact, but you brought about the present conditions of your +destiny in former incarnations. +</P> + +<P> +Even if you do not believe this, you must acknowledge that <I>you are +here</I>, and that the situation in which you find yourself seems to be +inevitable for the present. +</P> + +<P> +But it is not inevitable for the future, unless you lie down in the +furrow and whine, and wish you were a millionaire, or a genius, and +rail at the partiality of Providence. +</P> + +<P> +There is no partiality in the Universe. +</P> + +<P> +The whole scheme is well balanced. If you were allowed to change lots +with anyone on the face of the earth, you would complain and find fault +in a short time. +</P> + +<P> +One of our best known millionaires, born to opulence, complains that he +has been robbed of the privilege of making his own fortune. +</P> + +<P> +He is no happier than you. His confession betrays his weakness of +character just as your repining and fault-finding betrays yours. +</P> + +<P> +The real worth-while character thanks God for its destiny and says, "I +will show the world what I can do with my life." +</P> + +<P> +Not long ago there was a great trotting-race at Brighton Beach. The +blind conqueror "Rythmic" won five consecutive races. +</P> + +<P> +Think of it! He did not, like a mortal man, shrink back and say "I am +blind—that is a terrible destiny—I am cursed of God—I will not try +to win the race." He just trusted the hand of the <I>Master at the +reins</I>, did his best, and won the honors of the season. +</P> + +<P> +We are all blind racers on the track of earth. The king, the +millionaire, the statesman, the lawmaker, the beggar, the laborer, the +cripple, we are all in the dark. The only thing is to trust the hand +of the Master, and <I>do our best</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Believe your position is the right starting point for <I>you</I>, merely the +starting point. +</P> + +<P> +It is the shapeless block of stone from which you are to fashion the +perfect statue. +</P> + +<P> +Or it is the mere mud from which you are to mould the clay image, and +later that is to be put into enduring marble. +</P> + +<P> +What is uglier or more unattractive than mud? +</P> + +<P> +Yet think of the glorious conceptions which it imprisons. +</P> + +<P> +Take the mud of your present environment and thank God for it, and make +the image of the future you desire. +</P> + +<P> +You can do it—you must do it—you will do it. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Sympathy +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +re you of a sympathetic nature? +</P> + +<P> +If so, do not let your sympathies help to add to the world's miseries. +</P> + +<P> +That may seem a strange expression, but it can be explained if you will +listen. +</P> + +<P> +Much of the misery in the world is the result of imagination. +</P> + +<P> +All of it is the result of selfishness and ignorance. +</P> + +<P> +But hundreds and thousands of people believe themselves sick, sorrowful +and poverty stricken, who would be well, glad and prosperous, if they +only thought themselves so. +</P> + +<P> +Every time you pour out your sympathy upon these self-made sufferers, +you add to their burden of wrong thought, and make it just so much more +difficult for them to rise out of their troubles. +</P> + +<P> +I do not believe all the misfortune in the world is caused by wrong +thinking in this life, or can be done away with by right thinking. The +three-year-old child who toddles in front of a trolley car and loses a +leg, while the tired mother is bending over the washtub to keep the +wolf of hunger at bay, cannot be blamed for wrong thinking as the cause +of its trouble. Neither can the deaf mute or the child born blind or +deformed. We must go farther back, to former lives, to find the first +cause of such misfortunes. +</P> + +<P> +No "New Thought," no amount of optimistic theology or philosophy can +restore the child's leg, or ears, or eyes. It is utter nonsense to say +that miracles like these can be performed. +</P> + +<P> +There are scores of individuals whom we meet handicapped in life's race +by such dire calamities that we spontaneously pour forth our sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +But, even to these, it were kinder and wiser to give diverting +thoughts, and a new outlook, and to open up avenues for pleasure, and +entertainment, and profit, in place of tears and condolence. +</P> + +<P> +Sympathy, without alleviating actions to a sufferer, is like a cloud +without rain to the parched earth. +</P> + +<P> +But the great majority of people whom we encounter are making their own +crosses, and we who offer them sympathy, and condolence, are but adding +to the burden's weight. +</P> + +<P> +I do not recommend coldness, indifference, or ridicule as a substitute +for sympathy. But instead of leading the sick man on to tell you the +details of his illness, and to describe all his symptoms, while your +own body responds with sympathetic aches and pains as you listen, it is +kinder to divert his attention to some cheerful and merry topic, or to +refer to some case like his own which resulted in perfect restoration +to health. Instead of going down into his underground cave of +depression, bring him out into the wholesome sunlight of your own +healthful state, even if for a moment only, and impress upon his mind +that health belongs to him, and must return to him. +</P> + +<P> +To the man in business trouble the same advice applies. +</P> + +<P> +Tell him you are sorry for him, but do not take on his despondency to +prove it. +</P> + +<P> +Talk of the future and all the possibilities it holds for a determined +man or woman. +</P> + +<P> +Make him laugh. Speak of trouble as the gymnasium where our moral +muscles are developed. Answer him that everything he desires is his if +he will be persistent and determined in demanding his own. If you put +force in your words you will leave an impression. +</P> + +<P> +Do not go away from the house of trouble in tears, but leave the +troubled ones you called upon smiling as you depart. +</P> + +<P> +That is true sympathy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap28"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +The Breath +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> + man reproved me for my interest in New Thought creeds. +</P> + +<P> +"The old religion I learned at my mother's knee is good enough for me!" +he said. "It is good enough for anybody!" +</P> + +<P> +Yet this man's mother had always "enjoyed poor health," as the old lady +expressed it, and the man himself was forever talking of his diseases, +his ill luck, his poverty, which he said he had been enabled to endure +only through the sustaining power of the religion "learned at his +mother's knee." +</P> + +<P> +It would be difficult to convince the man that had his mother taught +him the creed of the "New Religion" he could have changed all these +unfortunate conditions. +</P> + +<P> +Life-long ill health would have been impossible for his mother, or for +him. +</P> + +<P> +The old fashioned religion allowed and still allows a human being to +breathe like a canary bird. +</P> + +<P> +Little children go to Sunday-School all their young lives, and grow up +to be devout church members, and never hear one word about the +importance of <I>deep breathing</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Possibly you may think breathing lessons belong to physical culture, +and have no place in religious teachings. +</P> + +<P> +There is where you err. +</P> + +<P> +In order to develop your whole being, you must learn how to control +body and mind through the spirit. +</P> + +<P> +Thousands of years ago, men who gave their entire lives to the study of +these things learned the great importance of deep breathing as an aid +to religious meditation. +</P> + +<P> +By this practice, systematically observed, the body is calmed, the mind +is brought into subjection, and the spirit rises into control. +</P> + +<P> +And in addition, absolute health is achieved. +</P> + +<P> +A large portion of our physical ailments result from unused lung cells, +and consequent imperfect circulation of the blood. +</P> + +<P> +Fill the lungs full—every cell—with fresh air, two or three times +daily, and do not overload the digestive organs, and sickness will fly +away to the dark regions where it belongs. +</P> + +<P> +At least ten minutes morning and night should be given to the breathing +exercises. +</P> + +<P> +Sit upright in a comfortable chair, alone, facing the east in the +morning and the west at night, because great magnetic force comes from +the direction of the sun. +</P> + +<P> +Have a window or a door opening to the outer air. +</P> + +<P> +Place your hands lightly on your knees, and close your eyes and mouth. +Leave your spine free, not touching the chair. Wear no compressing +garments or bands. +</P> + +<P> +Inflate the chest and abdominal regions as you inhale deep breaths +through the nostrils, while counting seven slowly. +</P> + +<P> +Exhale while you count seven. Repeat this exercise seven times. +</P> + +<P> +Think as you inhale of whatever qualities you would like to possess, +and believe that you are inhaling them. Select seven qualities—Love, +Health, Wisdom, Usefulness, Power to Do Good, Success, Opulence—will +cover the average human desires. The very unworldly will substitute +spiritual knowledge for opulence. Fill your mind with the idea that +you are drawing in these qualities with your breaths, and exhaling all +that is weak or unworthy. After a few moments you will be conscious of +a security and peace new and uplifting. +</P> + +<P> +And after a few weeks of steady, persistent practice of these +exercises, you will find life growing more beautiful to you, and your +strength will be increased tenfold, both physically and spiritually. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap29"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Generosity +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-caph.jpg" ALT="dropcap-h" BORDER="0" WIDTH="86" HEIGHT="99"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +ave you ever observed how invariably your "last dollar" is restored to +you, with additions, when you have given it for some worthy purpose? +</P> + +<P> +Even if the purpose did not prove to be a worthy one, yet if you +thought it so, and gave your last dollar with spontaneous sympathy and +good will, you were not long left penniless. +</P> + +<P> +Money is much like a man. If you do not hold it too jealously it +returns to you the more readily. +</P> + +<P> +Never hesitate to give aid where you feel there is sore and pressing +need, for fear you will be left in want yourself. You will not be. +</P> + +<P> +This does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable. It does +not mean that you should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift and +carry the burdens of everyone who is ready to lean upon you. +</P> + +<P> +It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing, +as the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs. +</P> + +<P> +One depends upon his acquaintances to tide him over hard places, +instead of upon his own strength of character, and the other depends +upon stimulants for the same purpose. The too ready lender is almost +as great an evil to humanity as rum or opium, since he too helps a man +to kill his own better nature and destroy his self-respect. +</P> + +<P> +If you were able and willing to pay rents of all the poor people you +know, and clothe their children, you would soon produce a condition of +settled pauperism among them. Large and frequent favors of a financial +nature are an injury to anyone, even if it is your son or brother. +</P> + +<P> +Let no man lean on anyone save God and his own divine self. +</P> + +<P> +But little helps, when they are unexpected, arouse hope and awaken new +faith and new ambition in a discouraged soul. +</P> + +<P> +Look about you for such souls, the worn and weary father of a brood of +hungry children, the widow struggling with adverse fate in an effort to +clothe and educate a child, the tired shop girl who uses all her +earnings to sustain her parents, the ambitious boy or girl eager for a +chance in life, and the poor cripple or invalid seeking health. You +will find them all about you. Do not be afraid to use a dollar here or +there to give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no matter how poor +you are. +</P> + +<P> +It is an insult to the Opulent Creator to suppose you will suffer want +and poverty if you help those who are in temporary misfortune. +</P> + +<P> +You will not. +</P> + +<P> +Ofttimes we read and hear of the open-handed generous man who "helped +everybody," and who "never refused to aid a needy brother," and who +ended his life in penury because of his generosity. +</P> + +<P> +Never believe these tales until you investigate them. Invariably you +will find not generosity but extravagance and utter lack of +forethought, caused the man's financial ruin. +</P> + +<P> +I recall a gifted young woman who gave freely to all who asked her +assistance and who died a lingering death as a charity patient in a +hospital. +</P> + +<P> +Yet this young woman had expended ten dollars on foolish and rapid +living where she gave one in charity; it was her wasteful extravagance, +not her open heart of sympathy, which made her a pauper. +</P> + +<P> +It has been my observation that dollars planted in the soil of +benevolence grow into harvests of prosperity. The man who is not +afraid to use his small means to assist others need not fear poverty. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap30"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Woman's Opportunity +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capt.jpg" ALT="dropcap-t" BORDER="0" WIDTH="87" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he greatest opportunity to better the world which can come to any +woman is through the experience of maternity. +</P> + +<P> +The power of prenatal influence which a mother possesses is +awe-inspiring to realize. +</P> + +<P> +It has been said upon excellent authority that Napoleon's mother read +Roman history with absorbing interest during the months preceding his +birth. +</P> + +<P> +Think of the nations and the centuries influenced by that one woman's +mental concentration! The geography of the world was changed by her +power of focused thought. +</P> + +<P> +In all probability Napoleon's mother did not know what she was doing; +she was not conscious of the destiny her mind was shaping for her +unborn child, nor of the law governing such conditions. +</P> + +<P> +Women have been strangely ignorant of this vital truth; until recent +years it has not been considered a "proper" theme for tongue or pen, +and to-day the great majority of young women marry absolutely +uninformed upon the subject of prenatal influence. +</P> + +<P> +Men are equally oblivious of any knowledge regarding the matter, and +consequently make no special effort to keep the expectant mother of +their offspring happy, hopeful, or free of anxiety and worry during +this period. Often they do not strive to aid them in their own +attempts to bestow a desirable temperament upon the unborn child, but +heedlessly and needlessly aggravate or grieve the mind which is +stamping its impress upon an unborn soul. +</P> + +<P> +It is just here that the "New Thought" can perform its greatest +miracles of good. +</P> + +<P> +Even the woman who has not been enlightened upon the law of +ante-birth-influence will, if a true disciple of the Religion of +Right-living, bring healthy and helpful children into the world, +because her normal state of mind will be inclusive of those three +qualities; and her continued and repeated assertions of her own divine +nature will shape the brain of her child in optimistic and reverential +mould. +</P> + +<P> +There is the old law of the continual falling of the drop of water upon +the stone to be verified in the spiritual plane. Continual assertions +of a mother that her child will be all that she desires it to be, will +wear away the stone of inherited tendencies, and bring into physical +being a malleable nature wholly amenable to the after influences and +efforts she may bring to bear upon it. +</P> + +<P> +It is a tremendous responsibility which rests upon the woman who knows +she is to be a mother of a human being. +</P> + +<P> +A hundred ancestors may have contributed certain qualities to that +invisible and formless atom which contains an immortal soul, yet the +mother's mind has the power to remake and rebuild all those +characteristics, and to place over them her own dominating impulse, +whether for good or ill. +</P> + +<P> +Surely, if success in the arts or the sciences is worthy of years of +devoted attention and interested effort, the moulding of a noble human +being is worth eight or nine months of concentrated thought and +unflagging zeal of purpose. +</P> + +<P> +Every expectant mother should set herself about the important business +God has entrusted her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine +mission. She should direct her mind into wholesome and optimistic +channels; she should read inspiring books and think loving and large +thoughts. She should pray and aspire! and always should she carry in +her mind the ideal of the child she would mother, and command from the +great Source of all Opulence the qualities she would desire to +perpetuate. +</P> + +<P> +And they will be given. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap31"></A> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Balance +</H3> + +<IMG CLASS="imgleft" SRC="images/img-capa.jpg" ALT="dropcap-a" BORDER="0" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="101"> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +void all strained and abstruse language, when conversing with people +who may not have entered this realm of thought. +</P> + +<P> +Do not allow anyone to think of you as a lunatic, or a crank, +unnecessarily. Of course there are people in the world who consider +everyone a lunatic who holds an opinion differing from their own. +</P> + +<P> +But it can do you, or your philosophy, no good to thrust its most +difficult phases before the minds of the unawakened, by vague and high +flown expressions. +</P> + +<P> +I once chanced to call upon a lady who had, quite unknown to me, +entered upon the study of Christian Science. +</P> + +<P> +She remarked to me, almost as soon as the greetings were exchanged, "I +had a claim to meet for three days this week, but I have come through +it and am victorious." +</P> + +<P> +I supposed the lady referred to some business matter, perhaps a legal +affair, and waited an explanation. +</P> + +<P> +After considerable rambling conversation, I managed to grasp the fact +that the woman had been sick in the house three days, but now was well. +She considered her illness a mere "claim" her "mortal mind" had made +which she had to meet and combat. +</P> + +<P> +All this sort of talk is very ridiculous. We need not talk about every +ailment which attacks us as we move along toward the condition of +perfect health which belongs to us! But if we do speak of +indisposition, let us use common sense language. +</P> + +<P> +What we want to realize is, that we are in the body, but that the +spirit can control bodily conditions, if we give it the ascendency, to +the extent of keeping us well, moral, useful, and comfortable even in +the midst of sickness, vice, indolence and poverty. +</P> + +<P> +We can rise above these false elements, and subjugate them. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile we cannot live without food, clothes and money. +</P> + +<P> +Despise and ignore these vulgar things as we may assume to do, we yet +must have them. +</P> + +<P> +It brings only ridicule upon ourselves and our ideas to make this +pretense of despising the necessities of life. +</P> + +<P> +To make them secondary in our thoughts to spiritual knowledge is right +and wise, but this is better illustrated by our lives and conduct than +by our words. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + + +<BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heart of the New Thought, by +Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE NEW THOUGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 30256-h.htm or 30256-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/5/30256/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Heart of the New Thought + +Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +Release Date: October 14, 2009 [EBook #30256] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE NEW THOUGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +THE HEART + +OF + +The New Thought + + + +WRITTEN BY + +ELLA WHEELER WILCOX + + +Associate Editor of "NEW THOUGHT." + + + +ELEVENTH THOUSAND + + + +PUBLISHED BY + +THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY + +TEMPLE CHAMBERS + +TEMPLE AVE., E.C., + +LONDON, ENG. + + +1903 + + + + +Copyright + +THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY. + + +All Rights Reserved. + + + +NOTICE: This work is protected by Copyright, and simultaneous initial +publication in United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France, +Germany, Russia and other countries. All rights reserved. + + + + +Publishers' Preface + +This book is noteworthy as an interpretation of "New Thought." + +That which was vague, mystic, unreal, has become, in the hands of Mrs. +Wilcox, a lovable philosophy of simplest construction. + +The backbone of this philosophy is The Power of Right Thought. + +Startling as are some of the tenets expressed, they are provably true +here and now. + +It is possible that the very simplicity of this book will encourage +careless criticism from those who believe that genius and ambiguity are +twin. + +But Mrs. Wilcox is ever the voice of the people: what she says is +practical; what she thinks is clear; what she feels is plain. + +Let the people judge this book. + + + + + Contents: + + + Let the Past Go + The Sowing of the Seed + Old Clothes + High Noon + Obstacles + Thought Force + Opulence + Eternity + Morning Influences + The Philosophy of Happiness + A Worn Out Creed + Common Sense + Literature + Optimism + Preparation + Dividends + Royalty + Heredity + Invincibility + Faces + The Object of Life + Wisdom + Self-Conquest + The Important Trifles + Concentration + Destiny + Sympathy + The Breath + Generosity + Woman's Opportunity + Balance + + + + +THE HEART OF + +THE NEW THOUGHT + + +Let the Past Go + +Do not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or others all your +losses and sorrows. + +Let the past go. + +Should some good friend present you with material for a lovely garment, +would you insult her by throwing it aside and describing the beautiful +garments you had worn out in past times? + +The new year has given you the fabric for a fresh start in life, why +dwell upon the events which have gone, the joys, blessings and +advantages of the past! + +Do not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy. Do not tell +me you are sick or broken in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or +broken, because it is of God. + +It is your mind which makes your body sick. Let the spirit assert +itself and demand health and hope and happiness in this new year. + +Forget the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made, the +injuries you have received, the disappointments you have experienced. + +Real sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear ones, or +some great cross well borne, you need not forget. But think of these +things as sent to enrich your nature, and to make you more human and +sympathetic. You are missing them if you permit yourself instead to +grow melancholy and irritable. + +It is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has selected you for +special suffering. + +Sorrow is no respecter of persons. Say to yourself with the beginning +of this year that you are going to consider all your troubles as an +education for your mind and soul; and that out of the experiences which +you have passed through you are going to build a noble and splendid +character, and a successful career. + +Do not tell me you are too old. + +Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will ignore you. + +Eat moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as nature's rainfall. +Exercise thoroughly and regularly. + +Be alive, from crown to toe. Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the +lungs for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when you draw +in long, full breaths, believe you are inhaling health, wisdom and +success. + +Anticipate good health. If it does not come at once, consider it a +mere temporary delay, and continue to expect it. + +Regard any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no more. + +Never for an instant believe you are permanently ill or disabled. + +The young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to learn the +secret of the transmutation of gold. + +If you will study your own spirit and its limitless powers, you will +gain a greater secret than any alchemist ever held; a secret which +shall give you whatever you desire. + +Think of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the silk +lining, your spirit as the gem. Keep the box burnished and clear of +dust, but remember always that the jewel within is the precious part of +it. + +Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A +whole, clear, glorious year lies before you! In a year you can regain +health, fortune, restfulness, happiness! + +Push on! Achieve, achieve! + + + + +The Sowing of the Seed + +When you start in the "New Thought" do not expect sudden illumination. +Do not imagine that you are to become perfectly well, perfectly +cheerful, successful, and a healer, in a few days. + +Remember all growth is slow. + +Mushrooms spring up in a night, but oaks grow with deliberation and +endure for centuries. + +Mental and spiritual power must be gained by degrees. + +If you attained maturity before you entered this field of "New Thought" +it is folly to suppose a complete transformation of your whole being +will take place in a week--a month--or a year. + +All you can reasonably look for is a gradual improvement, just as you +might do if you were attempting to take up music or a science. + +The New Thought is a science, the Science of Right Thinking. But the +brain cells which have been shaped by the old thoughts of despondency +and fear, cannot all at once be reformed. + +It will be a case of "Try, try again." + +Make your daily assertions, "I am love, health, wisdom, cheerfulness, +power for good, prosperity, success, usefulness, opulence." + +Never fail to assert these things at least twice a day; twenty times is +better. But if you do not attain to all immediately, if your life does +not at once exemplify your words, let it not discourage you. + +The saying of the words is the watering of the seeds. + +After a time they will begin to sprout, after a longer time to cover +the barren earth with grain, after a still longer time to yield a +harvest. + +If you have been accustomed to feeling prejudices and dislikes easily, +you will not all at once find it easy to illustrate your assertion, "I +am love." If you have indulged yourself in thoughts of disease, the +old aches and pains will intrude even while you say "I am health!" + +If you have groveled in fear and a belief that you were born to poverty +and failure, courage and success and opulence will be of slow growth. +Yet they will grow and materialize, as surely as you insist and persist. + +Declare they are yours, right in the face of the worst disasters. +There is nothing so confuses and flustrates misfortune as to stare it +down with hopeful unflinching eyes. + +If you waken some morning in the depths of despondency and gloom, do +not say to yourself: + +"I may as well give up this effort to adopt the New Thought--I have +made a failure of it evidently----." Instead sit down quietly, and +assert calmly that you are cheerfulness, hope, courage, faith and +success. + +Realize that your despondency is only temporary; an old habit, which is +reasserting itself, but over which you will gradually gain the +ascendency. Then go forth into the world and busy yourself in some +useful occupation, and before you know it is on the way, hope will +creep into your heart, and the gray cloud will lift from your mind. +Physical pains will loosen their hold, and conditions of poverty will +change to prosperity. + +Your mind is your own to educate and direct. + +You can do it by the aid of the Spirit, but you must be satisfied to +work slowly. + +Be patient and persistent. + + + + +Old Clothes + +As you go over your wardrobe in the spring or fall, do not keep any +old, useless, or even questionable, garments, for "fear you might need +them another year." + +Give them to the ragman, or send them to the county or city poor house. +There is nothing that will keep you in a rut of shabbiness more than +clinging to old clothes. + +It is useless to say that you cannot afford new garments. + +It is because you have harped upon this idea that you are still in +straitened circumstances. + +You believe neither in God or yourself. + +Possibly you were brought up to think yourself a mere worm of earth, +born to poverty and sorrow. + +If you were, it will of course require a continued effort to train your +mind to the new thought, the thought of your divine inheritance of all +God's vast universe of wealth. + +But you can do it. + +Begin by giving away your old clothes. There may be people, poor +relations, or some struggling mother of half-clad children, to whom +your old garments will seem like new raiment, and to whom they will +bring hope and happiness. + +As a rule, it is not well to give people your discarded clothing. + +It has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to +you, instead of to themselves, for support. + +It all depends upon whom the people are and how you do it. + +If you can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and +self-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of clothing or +furniture or provisions. + +But little children, suffering from cold, or hard-working, over-taxed +men and women, will not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered and +encouraged by your gifts. + +No matter if you still need your frayed-out garments--do not keep them. + +Your thoughts of poverty and trouble have impregnated them so that you +will continue to produce the same despondent mind stuff while you wear +these garments. + +Get rid of them, and believe that you are to soon procure fresh, +becoming raiment. + +Rouse all your energies, and go straight ahead with that purpose in +mind. + +You will be surprised to find how soon the opportunity presents itself +for you to obtain what you need. + +There is new strength, repose of mind and inspiration in fresh apparel. + +God gives Nature new garments every season. We are a part of Nature. + +He gives us the qualities and the opportunities to obtain suitable +covering for our changing needs, if we believe in the one, and use the +other. + +When I read of a wealthy man who boasts that he has worn one hat seven +years, or a woman in affluent circumstances who has worn one bonnet for +various seasons, I feel sorry for their ignorance and ashamed of their +penuriousness. + +Look at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring drapery, its luxurious +summer foliage, its autumn richness of coloring, its winter draperies +of white! Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have more +variety than man! + +The tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent, +and believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes. + +It will come to you if you do the same. + + + + +High Noon + +Every woman who passes thirty ought to keep her brain, heart and mind +alive and warm with human sympathy and emotion. She ought to interest +herself in the lives of others, and make her friendship valuable to the +young. + +She should keep her body supple, and avoid losing the lines of grace: +and she should select some study or work to occupy her spare hours and +to lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman in the comfortable +walks in life can find time for such a study. No woman of tact, charm, +refinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has +married a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of +her. Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for him. + +Keep sentiment alive in your own heart, madam, and in the heart of your +husband. If he sees that other men admire you he will be more alert to +the necessity of remaining your lover. + +Take the happy, safe, medium path between a gray and a gay life by +keeping it radiant and bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, +hopeful, interesting subjects. Avoid small gossip, and be careful in +your criticism of neighbors. Sometimes we must criticise, but speak +_to_ people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not _of_ +them to others. + +Make your life after it reaches its noon, glorious with sunlight, rich +with harvests, and bright with color. Be alive in mind, heart and +body. Be joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness, +attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to others' needs +without being officious, and instructive without too great a display of +erudition. + +Be a noble, loving, lovable woman. + +It is never too late in life to make anew start. No matter how small a +beginning may be, it is so much begun for a new incarnation if it is +cut off here by death. + +If I were one hundred years old, and in possession of my faculties, I +would not hesitate to undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope +of bettering my condition. + +Thought is eternal in its effects, and every hopeful thought which +enters the mind sets vibrations in motion, which shall help minds +millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn. + +It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide opportunities and +luxuries for children. We have only to look at the children of the +rich, to see how little enduring happiness money gives, and how seldom +great advantages result in great characters. The majority of the +really great people of the world, in all lines of achievement, have +sprung from poverty. I do not mean from pauper homes, but from the +homes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and +where early in their youth the children felt it necessary to go into +the world and make their own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, +energy, ambition, were all developed in this way. + +How rarely do we find these qualities in the children of wealth. How +rarely do great philosophers, great statesman, great thinkers and great +_characters_ develop from the wealthy classes. + +Pauperism--infant labor--the wage-earning women--are all evils which +ought to be abolished. But next to that evil I believe the worst thing +possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth. It is an obstacle +to greatness which few are strong enough to surmount, and it rarely +results in happiness to the recipient. + + + + +Obstacles + +However great the obstacles between you and your goal may be or have +been, do not lay the blame of your failure upon them. + +Other people have succeeded in overcoming just as great obstacles. + +Remove such hindrances from the path for others, if you can, or tell +them a way to go around. Even lead them a little distance and cheer +them on. + +But so far as you yourself are concerned, do not stop to excuse any +delinquency or half-heartedness or defeat by the plea of circumstance +or environment. + +The great nature makes its own environment, and dominates circumstance. + +It all depends upon the amount of force in your own soul. + +While you apply this rule to yourself and make no scapegoat of "fate," +you must have consideration for the weakness of others, and you must +try and better the conditions of the world as you go along. + +You are robust and possessed of all your limbs. You can mount over the +great boulder which has fallen in the road to success, and go on your +way to your goal all the stronger for the experience. + +But behind you comes a one-legged man--a blind man--a man bowed to the +earth with a heavy burden, which he cannot lay down. + +It will require weeks, months, years of effort on their part to climb +over that rock which you surmounted in a few hours. + +So it is right and just for you to call other strong ones to your aid +and roll the boulder away or blast it out of the path. + +That is just exactly the way you should think of the present industrial +conditions. + +In spite of them, the strong, well-poised, earnest and determined soul +can reach any desired success. + +But there are boulders in the road which do not belong there, boulders +which cause hundreds of the pilgrims who are lame or blind or burdened, +to fall by the wayside and perish. + +It is your duty to aid in removing these obstacles and in making the +road a safe and clear thoroughfare for all who journey. + +Do not sit down by the roadside and say you have been hindered by these +difficulties, that is to confess yourself weak. + +Do not mount over them and rush to your goal and say coldly to the +throngs behind you, "Oh, everybody can climb over that rock who really +tries--didn't I?" That is to announce yourself selfish and +unsympathetic. + +No doubt the lame, the blind and the burdened _could_ attain the goal +despite the rocks if they were fired by a consciousness of the divine +force within them; that consciousness can achieve _all things under all +circumstances_. + +But there will always be thousands of pilgrims toiling wearily toward +the goal who have not come to this realization. + +If there are unjust, unfair and unkind restrictions placed about them, +see to it that you do all in your power to right what is wrong. + +But never wait to attain your own success because of these restrictions +or obstacles. + +Believe absolutely in your own God-given power to overcome anything and +everything. + +Think of yourself as performing miracles with God's aid. + +Desire success so intensely that you attract if as the magnet attracts +the steel. + +Help to adjust things as you go along, but never for a moment believe +that the lack of adjustment can cause you to fail. + + + + +Thought Force + +Your spirit and mine are both part of the stupendous cause. We have +always been, and always will be. First in one form, then in another. + +Every thought, word and deed is helping decide your next place in the +Creator's magnificent universe. You will be beautiful or ugly, wise or +ignorant, fortunate or unfortunate, according to what use you make of +yourself here and now. + +Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good, +the cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty, +gratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of +usefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as +satisfaction and self-respect in this sphere. + +Even if you escape the immediate results of the opposite course of +action here, you must face the law of _cause and effect_ in the next +state. It is inevitable. God, the maker of all things, does not +change His laws. "As you sow you reap." "As a man thinketh so is he." +There is no "revenge" in God's mind. He simply makes His laws, and we +work our destinies for good or ill according to our adherence to them +or violation of them. + +Each one of us is a needed part of His great plan. Let each soul say: +"He has need of me or I would not be. I am here to strengthen the +plan." Remember that always in your most discouraged hours. + +The Creator makes no mistakes. + +There is a divine purpose in your being on earth. Think of yourself as +necessary to the great design. It is an inspiring thought. And then +consider the immensity of the universe and how accurately the Maker +planned it all. + +Do not associate with pessimists. If you are unfortunate enough to be +the son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or +spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of +discouragement and despondency. + +No tie of blood or law should compel you to listen to what means +discomfort and disaster to you. + +Get out and away, into the society of optimistic people. + +Before you go, insist on saying cheerful, hopeful and bright things, +sowing the seed, as it were, in the mental ground behind you. But do +not sit down to see it grow. + +Never feel that it is your duty to stay closely and continuously in the +atmosphere of the despondent. + +You might as well think it your duty to stay in deep water with one who +would not make the least effort to swim. + +Get on shore and throw out a life-line, but do not remain and be +dragged under. + +If you find any one determined to talk failure and sickness and +misfortune and disaster, walk away. + +You would not permit the dearest person on earth to administer slow +poison to you if you knew it. Then why think it your duty to take +mental potions which paralyze your courage and kill your ambition? + +Despondency is one phase of immorality. It is blasphemous and an +insult to the Creator. + +You are justified in avoiding the people who send you from their +presence with less hope and force and strength to cope with life's +problems than when you met them. + +Do what you can to change their current of thought. But do not +associate intimately with them until they have learned to keep +silent--at least, if they cannot speak hopefully. + +Learn how to walk, how to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold +your head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance. +Believe your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all +humanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to +higher and better conditions. No matter how limited your sphere of +action may seem to you and how small your town appears on the map, if +you develop your mental and spiritual forces through _love thoughts_ +you can be a power to move the world along. Rise up and realize your +strength. Not only will you be more useful and happy, but you will +grow more beautiful and keep your youth. + + + + +Opulence + +Do not go through the world talking poverty and asking every one you +deal with to show you special consideration because you are "poor" and +"unfortunate." + +If you do this with an idea of saving a few dollars here and there, you +will always have to do it, because you are creating poverty conditions +by your constant assertions. + +It is a curious fact that the people who are always demanding +consideration in money matters demand the best that is going at the +same time. + +I have known a woman to make a plea for cut prices in a boarding house +because she was so poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the best +location the house afforded. + +It is the charity patients who make the most complaint of a physician's +skill or a nurse's attention. + +If you cannot afford to do certain things, or buy certain objects, +don't. But when you decide you must, decide, too, that you will pay +the price, and make no whining plea of poverty. + +There are two extremes of people in the world, one as distasteful as +the other. One is represented by the man who boasts of the costliness +of every possession, and invites the whole world to behold his opulence +and expenditure. + +His clothes, his house, his servants, his habits, seem no different to +the observer from his neighbor's, yet, according to his story, they +cost ten times the amount. + +The other extreme is the man who dresses well, lives well, enjoys all +the comforts and pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty +continually, and expects the entire community to show him consideration +in consequence. + +Another thing to avoid is the role of the chronically injured person. + +We all know him. + +He has a continual grievance. He has been cheated, abused, wronged, +insulted, disappointed and deceived. We wonder how or why he has +managed to exist, as we listen to the story of his troubles. + +No one ever treats him fairly, either in business or social life. +Everybody is ungrateful, unkind, selfish, and he could not be made to +believe that these experiences were of his own making. + +All of us meet with occasional blows from fate, in the form of insults, +or ingratitude, or trickery from an unexpected source. + +But if we get nothing else but those disappointing experiences from +life, we may rest assured the fault lies somewhere in ourselves. + +We are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff, or we would get +better returns. + + You never can tell what your thoughts will do + In bringing you hate or love, + For thoughts are things, and their airy wings + Are swift as a carrier dove. + They follow the law of the universe-- + Each thing must create its kind, + And they speed o'er the track to bring you back + Whatever went out from your mind. + + +In the main, we must of necessity get from humanity what we give to it. +If we question our ability to win friends or love, people will also +question it. + +If we doubt our own judgment and discretion in business, others will +doubt it, and the shrewd and unprincipled will take the opportunity +given by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us. + +If in consequence we distrust every person we meet, we create an +unwholesome and unfortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will +bring to us the unworthy and deceitful. Stand firm in the universe. +Believe in yourself. Believe in others. + +If you make a mistake, consider it only an incident. + +If some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or insults you, let it pass as +one of the lessons you had to learn, but do not imagine that you are +selected by fate for only such lessons. Keep wholesome, hopeful and +sympathetic with the world at large, whatever individuals may do. +Expect life to use you better every year, and it will not disappoint +you in the long run. For life is what we make it. + + + + +Eternity + +Do you know what a wonderfully complicated thing a human being is? +Every feature, every portion of your body, every motion you make, +reflects your mental organization. + +I know a woman past middle life who has always been on the opposite +side of every question discussed in her presence. + +She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential with atheists, liberal +with the narrow, bigoted with the liberal. + +Whatever belief any one expressed on any subject, she invariably took +the other extreme. She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It was +her pastime. + +Now, to walk with that woman in silence is merely to carry on a +wordless argument. + +You cannot regulate your steps so they will harmonize with hers. She +will be just ahead or just behind you, and if you want to turn to the +left, she pulls to the right. A promenade with her is more exhausting +than a day's labor. + +She is not conscious of it, and would think anyone very unreasonable +and unjust who told her of her peculiarities. + +I know a woman who all her life has been looking afar for happiness and +peace and content, and has never found any of them, because she did not +look in her own soul. + +She was a restless girl, and she married, believing in domestic life +lay the goal of her dreams. But she was not happy there, and sighed +for freedom. She wanted to move, and did move, once, twice, thrice, to +different points of the United States. She was discontented with each +change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts and luxuries which +life can afford, yet she is the same restless soul. She likes to read, +but it is always the book which she does not possess which she craves. +If she is in the library with shelves book-filled, she goes into the +garret and hunts in old boxes for a book or a paper which has been cast +aside. + +If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go to the window and look +out on the street, but when she is on the street it bores her, and she +longs to go in the house. + +If a member of the family is absent, she gets no enjoyment out of the +society of those at home; yet when that absent one returns her mind +strays elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not found here. + +I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the spirit realm, or if +they go on there seeking and always seeking something just beyond. It +is a great gift to learn to enjoy the present--to get all there is out +of it, and to think of to-day as a piece of eternity. Begin now to +teach yourself this great art if you have not thought of it before. To +be able to enjoy heaven, one must learn first to enjoy earth. + + + + +Morning Influences + +What do you think about the very first thing in the morning? + +Your thoughts during the first half-hour of the morning will greatly +influence the entire day. You may not realize this, but it is +nevertheless a fact. + +If you set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul +toward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a day of discords +and misfortunes. + +If you think peace, hope and happiness, you are sounding a note of +harmony and success. + +The result may not be felt at once, but it will not fail to make itself +evident eventually. + +Control your morning thoughts. You can do it. + +The first moment on waking, no matter what your mood, say to yourself: +"I will get all the comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, and +I will do something to add to the measure of the world's happiness or +well-being. I will control myself when tempted to be irritable or +unhappy, I will look for the bright side of every event." + +Once you say these things over to yourself in a calm, earnest way, you +will begin to feel more cheerful. The worries and troubles of the +coming day will seem less colossal. + +Then say: "I shall be given help to meet anything that comes to-day. +Everything will be for the best. I shall succeed in whatever I +undertake. I cannot fail." + +Do not let it discourage you if the moment you leave your room you +encounter a trouble or a disaster. This usually happens. When we make +any boasts, spiritually or physically, we are put to the test. The +occult forces about us are not unlike human beings. When a school-boy +boasts of his strength, and says he can "lick any boy in school," he +generally gets a chance to prove it. + +When we declare we are brave enough to overcome any fate, we find our +strength put to the test at once. + +But that is all right. Prove your words to be true. Regard the +troubles and cares you encounter as the "punching bags" of fate, given +you to develop your spiritual muscle. + +Go at them with courage and keep to your morning resolve. + +By and by the troubles will lessen, and you will find yourself master +of Circumstances. + + + + +The Philosophy of Happiness + +There are natures born to happiness just as there are born musicians, +mechanics and mathematicians. + +They are usually children who came into life under right pre-natal +conditions. That is, children conceived and born in love. + +The mother who thanks God for the little life she is about to bring to +earth, gives her child a more blessed endowment than if it were heir to +a kingdom or a fortune. + +As the majority of people, however, born under "civilized" conditions, +are unwelcome to their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who has a +birthright of happiness. + +Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for +happiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself +with the passing of time. + +Good health and strong vitality are great aids to happiness; yet that +they, wealth and honors added, do not produce that much desired state +of mind we have but to look about us to observe. + +One who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to +acquire skill in the art, however strong his desire or great his taste, +than the natural genius. + +So the man not endowed with joyous impulses needs to set himself the +task of acquiring the habit of happiness. I believe it can be done. +To the sad or restless or discontented being I would say: Begin each +morning by resolving to find something in the day to enjoy. Look in +each experience which comes to you for some grain of happiness. You +will be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly +disagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side. + +There is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty +when you stop to realize that you are getting it out of the way. + +If it is one of those duties which has the uncomfortable habit of +repeating itself continually, you can at least say you are learning +patience and perseverance, which are two great virtues and essential to +any permanent happiness in life. + +Do not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, but discover it in +to-day. Unless you are in the profound depths of some great sorrow, +you will find it if you look for it. + +Think of yourself each morning as an explorer in a new realm. I know a +man whose time is gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take +three hours for a certain pleasure. He lost his way and missed his +pleasure, but was full of exuberant delight over his "new experience." +"I saw places and met with adventures I might have missed my whole +life." He was a true philosopher and optimist and such a man gets the +very kernel out of the nut of life. + +I know a woman who had since her birth every material blessing, health, +wealth, position, travel and a luxurious home. She was forever +complaining of the cares and responsibilities of the latter. Finally +she prevailed upon the family to rent the home for a series of years +and to live in hotels. Now she goes about posing as a martyr, "a +homeless woman." It is impossible for such a selfishly perverted +nature to know happiness. + +A child should be taught from its earliest life to find entertainment +in every kind of condition or weather. If it hears its elders cursing +and bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind is quick to receive +the impression that a rainy day is a disaster. + +How much better to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, +and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which +other young animals feel. + +Happiness must come from within in order to respond to that which comes +from without, just as there must be a musical ear and temperament to +enjoy music. + +Cultivate happiness as an art or science. + + + + +A Worn Out Creed + +I have a letter from an "orthodox Christian," who says the only hope +for humanity lies in the "old-fashioned religion." + +Then he proceeds to tell me how carefully he has studied human nature, +"in business, in social life, and in himself," and that he finds it all +vile--selfish--sinful. + +Of course he does, because he studies it from a false and harmful +standpoint, and looks for "the worm of earth" and "the poor, miserable +sinner," instead of the _divine_ man. + +We find what we look for in this world. + +I have always been looking for the noble qualities in human beings, and +I have found them. + +There are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are +great qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us +ordinarily. + +One of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison +for sins committed while in drink. + +He was not "born bad", he simply drifted into bad company and formed +bad habits. + +He paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the +divine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I +feel prouder to call that name. + +Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of +Chicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts: + + +According to my experience with a number of men of this class during +the last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the +most cordial support and assistance. + + +If this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is +not so vile as my "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe. + +A "Christian" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not +allowed to associate with mankind. + +He carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air. + +He suggests evil to minds which have not thought it. + +He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending to be a disciple of +Christ. + +The man who believes that all men are vicious, selfish and immoral is +_projecting pernicious mind stuff_ into space, which is as dangerous to +the peace of the community as dynamite bombs. + +The world has been kept back too long by this false, unholy and +blasphemous "religion." + +It is not the religion of Christ--it is the religion of ignorant +translators, ignorant readers. + +Thank God, its supremacy is past. A wholesome and holy religion has +taken its place with the intelligent progressive minds of the day, a +religion which says: "I am all goodness, love, truth, mercy, health. I +am a necessary part of God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only +good can come through me or to me. God made me, and He could make +nothing but goodness and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all +His qualities." + +This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than the universe. It is +God's own thought put into practical form. + + + + +Common Sense + +If you are suffering from physical ills, ask yourself if it is not your +own fault. + +There is scarcely one person in one hundred who does not over eat or +drink. + +I know an entire family who complain of gastric troubles, yet who keep +the coffee pot continually on the range and drink large quantities of +that beverage at least twice a day. + +No one can be well who does that. Almost every human ailment can be +traced to foolish diet. + +Eat only two meals in twenty-four hours. If you are not engaged in +active physical labor, make it one meal. Drink two or three or four +quarts of milk at intervals during the day to supply good blood to the +system. + +You will thrive upon it, and you will not miss the other two meals +after the first week. + +And your ailments will gradually disappear. + +Meantime, if you are self-supporting, your bank account will increase. + +Think of the waste of money which goes into indigestible food! It is +appalling when you consider it. Heaven speed the time when men and +women find out how little money it requires to sustain the body in good +health and keep the brain clear and the eye bright! + +The heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with pity and scorn. The time +will come when the heavy eater will be similarly regarded. + +Once find the delight of a simple diet, the benefit to body and mind +and purse, and life will assume new interest, and toil will be robbed +of its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere matter of toiling for a +bare existence. + +Again, are you unhappy? Stop and ask yourself why. If you have a +great sorrow, time will be your consoler. And there is an ennobling +and enriching effect of sorrow well borne. + +It is the education of the soul. But if you are unhappy over petty +worries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you +are allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the +beautiful days for you, take yourself in hand and change your ways. + +You can do it if you choose. It is pitiful to observe what sort of +troubles most unhappy people are afflicted with. I have seen a +beautiful young woman grow care lined and faded just from imagining she +was being "slighted" or neglected by her acquaintances. + +Some one nodded coldly to her, another one spoke superciliously, a +third failed to invite her, a fourth did not pay her a call, and so +on--always a grievance to relate until one is prepared to look +sympathetic at sight of her. + +And such petty, petty grievances for this great, good life to be marred +by! + +And all the result of her own disposition. Had she chosen to look for +appreciation and attention and good will she would have found it +everywhere. + +Then, about your temper? Is it flying loose over a trifle? Are you +making yourself and every one else wretched if a chair is out of place, +or a meal a moment late, or some member of the family is tardy at +dinner, or your shoe string is in a tangle or your collar button +mislaid? + +Do you go to pieces nervously if you are obliged to repeat a remark to +some one who did not understand you? I have known a home to be ruined +by just such infinitesimal annoyances. It is a habit, like the drug or +alcohol habit--this irritability. + +All you need do is to stop it. Keep your voice from rising, and speak +slowly and calmly when you feel yourself giving way to it. Realize how +ridiculous and disagreeable you will be if you continue, what an +unlovely and hideous old age you are preparing for yourself. And +realize that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and lack of culture. + +Think of the value of each day of life, how much it means and what +possibilities of happiness and usefulness it contains if well spent. + +But if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, dwell on the small worries +and grow angry at the least trifle, you are committing as great and +inexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture and garments and +food and fuel into the sea in a spirit of wanton cruelty. You are +wasting life for nothing. Every sick, gloomy day you pass is a sin +against life. Get health, be cheerful, keep calm. + +Clear your mind of every gloomy, selfish angry or revengeful thought. +Allow no resentment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in your heart +over night. + +Wake in the morning with a blessing for every living thing on your lips +and in your soul. Say to yourself: "Health, luck, usefulness, success, +are mine. I claim them." Keep thinking that thought, no matter what +happens, just as you would put one foot before another if you had a +mountain to climb. Keep on, keep on, and suddenly you will find you +are on the heights, luck beside you. + +Whoever follows this recipe _cannot fail_ of happiness, good fortune +and a useful life. But saying the words over _once_ and then drifting +back to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good. + +The words must be said over and over, and _thought_ and _lived_ when +not said. + + + + +Literature + +The world is full of "New Thought" Literature. It is helpful and +inspiring to read. + +It is worth many dollars to any one who will _live_ its philosophy. + +I talked to a man who has been studying along these lines for some +years. + +"Oh, I know all that philosophy," he said; "it is nothing new. I am +perfectly familiar with it." + +Yet this man was continually allowing himself to grow angry over the +least trifle; he was quick to see and speak of the faults in others; he +was demanding more of those he associated with in the way of +consideration and justice than he was willing to give, and he was +untidy in his person and improvident in his use of money. + +Now it is the merest waste of time for this man to read "New Thought" +literature or practice "deep breathing", since he will not put into +daily and hourly practice what is taught by the New Religion. + +He is like the orthodox Christian who mumbles through the Lord's Prayer +and then goes forth to do exactly as he would not be done by in +business, social and domestic life. + +_Man is what he thinks_. Not what he says, reads or hears. By +persistent thinking you can undo any condition which exists. You can +free yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, ill health or +unhappiness. If you have been thinking these thoughts half a lifetime +you must not expect to batter down the walls you have built, in a week, +or a month, or a year. You must work and wait, and grow discouraged +and stumble and pick yourself up and go on again. + +You cannot in an hour gain control over a temper which you have let fly +loose for twenty years. But you can control it eventually, and learn +to think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity like drunkenness or +profanity, something you could not descend to. + +If you have allowed yourself to think despondent thoughts and believe +that poverty and sickness were your portion for years, it will take +time to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful ideas; but you can +do it by repeated assertions and by reading and thinking and living the +beautiful New Thought Philosophy. + + + + +Optimism + +Not long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen +of a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria +of the world. He said: + + +Life is a hopeless battle in which we are foredoomed to defeat. And +the prize for which we strive "to have and to hold"--what is it? A +thing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor missed when lost. So +worthless it is, so unsatisfying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to +hope and at its best so brief, that for consolation and compensation we +set up fantastic faiths of an aftertime in a better world from which no +confirming whisper has ever reached us out of the void. Heaven is a +prophecy uttered by the lips of despair, but Hell is an inference from +history. + + +This is morbid and unwholesome talk which can do no human being any +good to utter, or listen to. + +But it can depress and discourage the weak and struggling souls, who +are striving to make the best of circumstances, and it can nerve to +suicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who needed only a word of +encouragement and cheer to brace up and win the race. + +This is the unpardonable sin--to talk discouragingly to human souls, +hungering for hope. + +When the man without brains does it, he can be pardoned for knowing no +better. + +When the man with brains does it, he should be ashamed to look his +fellow mortals in the eyes. + +It is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving a stone to those who ask +for bread. + +It is giving poison to those who plead for a cup of cold water. + +Fortunately the remarks above quoted contain not one atom of truth! + +The writer may speak for himself, but he has no right to speak for +others. + +It is all very well for a man who is marked with smallpox to say his +face has not one unscarred inch on the surface of it. But he has no +premises to stand upon when he says there is not a face in the world +which is free from smallpox scars. + +Life is not "a hopeless battle in which we are doomed to defeat." + +Life is a glorious privilege, and we can make anything we choose of it, +if we begin early and are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine +powers. + +Nothing can hinder us or stay us. We can do and be whatsoever we will. + +The prize of life is not "a thing which is neither enjoyed while had +nor missed when lost." + +It is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day--this great prize of life. I +for one declare that for every day of misery in my existence I have had +a week of joy and happiness. For every hour of pain, I have had a day +of pleasure. For every moment of worry, an hour of content. + +I cannot be the only soul so endowed with the appreciation of life! I +know scores of happy people who enjoy the many delights of earth, and +there are thousands whom I do not know. + +Of course "life is not missed when lost"--because it is never lost. It +is indestructible. + +Life ever was, and ever will be. It is a continuous performance. + +It is not "worthless" to the wholesome, normal mind. It is full of +interest, and rich with opportunities for usefulness. + +When any man says his life is worthless, it is because he has eyes and +sees not, and ears and hears not. + +It is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate or accident. + +If every life seems at times "unsatisfactory" and "inadequate" it is +only due to the cry of the immortal soul longing for larger +opportunities and fewer limitations. + +Neither is life "false to hope." He who trusts the divine Source of +Life, shall find his hopes more than realized here upon earth. I but +voice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when I make this assertion. +I know whereof I speak. + +All that our dearest hopes desire will come to us, if we believe in +ourselves as rightful heirs to Divine Opulence, and work and think +always on those lines. + +If "no whisper has ever reached us out of the void" confirming our +faith in immortality, then one-third of the seemingly intelligent and +sane beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars. For we have +the assertion of fully this number that such whispers have come, +besides the Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the other +realm. "As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be ever more, +world without end, Amen." + + + + +Preparation + +Every day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were +not given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an +education in early youth. + +They believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful +had an education been obtained. + +Scarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the +schooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is +being missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable +knowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age +endurable. + +Youth is the season to acquire knowledge, middle life is the time to +acquire wisdom. + +Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more +important of the two. + +By wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our +tempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our +sympathies. + +The majority of people after thirty-five consider themselves privileged +to be cross, irritable, critical and severe, because they have lived +longer than the young, because they have had more trials and +disappointments, and because they believe they understand the world +better. + +Those are excellent reasons why they should be patient, kind, broad and +sympathetic. + +The longer we live the more we should realize the folly and vulgarity +of ill-temper, the cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for a +broad-minded view of life, manners, morals and customs. + +Unless we adapt ourselves to the changing habits of the world, unless +we adopt some of the new ideas that are constantly coming to the front, +we will find ourselves carping, disagreeable and lonely old people as +the years go by. + +The world will not stand still for us. Society will not wear the same +clothes or follow the same pleasures, or think the same thoughts when +we are eighty that were prevalent when we were thirty. We must keep +moving with the world or stand still and solitary. + +After thirty we must seize every hour and educate ourselves to grow +into agreeable old age. + +It requires at least twenty years to become well educated in book and +college lore. If we begin to study at seven we are rarely through with +all our common schools, seminaries, high schools and colleges have to +offer under a score of years. + +The education for old age needs fully as many years. We need to begin +at thirty to be tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic and +liberal. Then, at fifty, we may hope to have "graduated with honors" +from life's school of wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or +two of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the practice of these +qualities. + +Instead of wasting our time in bemoaning the loss of early +opportunities for obtaining an education, let us devote ourselves to +the cultivation of wisdom, since that is free to all who possess +self-control, will power, faith and perseverance. + +Begin to-day, at home. Be more tolerant of the faults of the other +members of your household. Restrain your criticisms on the conduct of +your neighbors. + +Try and realize the causes which led some people who have gone wrong to +err. Look for the admirable qualities in every one you meet. +Sympathize with the world. Be interested in progress, be interested in +the young. Keep in touch with each new generation, and do not allow +yourself to grow old in thought or feeling. + +Educate yourself for a charming old age. There is no time to lose. + + + + +Dividends + + Our thoughts are shaping unmade spheres, + And, like a blessing or a curse, + They thunder down the formless years + And ring throughout the universe. + + +The more we realize the tremendous responsibility of our mental +emanations the better for the world and ourselves. The sooner we teach +little children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible phrase "As a man +thinketh, so is he," the better for future generations. + +If a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfortune, he will meet them and +claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the +close relationship, he will deny his own children and declare they were +sent to him by an evil fate. + +Walter Atkinson tells us that "he who hates is an assassin." + +Every kindergarten and public school teacher ought to embody this idea +in the daily lessons for children. + +It may not be possible to teach a child to "love every neighbor as +himself," for that is the most difficult of Commandments to follow to +the letter; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from a nature if we +awaken sympathy for the object of dislike. + +That which we pity we cannot hate. The wonderful Intelligence which +set this superb system of worlds in action must have been inspired by +love for all it created. + +So much grandeur and magnificence, so much perfection of detail, could +only spring from Love. + +Whatever is out of harmony in our little world has been caused by man's +substituting hate and fear for love and faith. + +Every time we allow either hate or fear to dominate our minds we +disarrange the order of the universe and make trouble for humanity, and +ourselves. + +It may be a little late in reaching us, but it is sure to come back to +the Mind which sent forth the cause. + +Every time we entertain thoughts of love, sympathy, forgiveness and +faith we add to the well-being of the world, and create fortunate and +successful conditions for ourselves. + +Those, too, may be late in coming to us--BUT THEY WILL COME. + +Right thinking is not attained in a day or a week. + +We must train the mind to reject the brood of despondent, resentful, +fearful and prejudiced thoughts which approach it, and to invite and +entertain cheerful, broad and wholesome thoughts instead, just as we +overcome false tones and cultivate musical ones in educating the voice +for singing. + +When we once realize that by driving away pessimistic, angry and bitter +thoughts we drive away sickness and misfortune to a great extent, and +that by seeking the kinder and happier frame of mind we seek at the +same time success and health and good luck, we will find a new impetus +in the control of our mental forces. + +For we all love to be paid for our worthy deeds, even while we believe +in being good for good's sake only. And nothing in life is surer than +this: + +RIGHT THINKING PAYS LARGE DIVIDENDS. + +_Think_ success, prosperity, usefulness. It is much more profitable +than thinking self-destruction or the effort at self-destruction for +that is an act which aims at an impossibility. You can destroy the +body, but the _you_ who suffers in mind and spirit will suffer still, +and live still. You will only change your location from one state to +another. You did not make yourself, you cannot unmake yourself. You +can merely put yourself among the spiritual tramps who hang about the +earth's borders, because they have not prepared a better place for +themselves. + +Suicide is cheap, vulgar and cowardly. Because you have made a wreck +of a portion of this life, do not make a wreck of the next. + +Mend up your broken life here, go along bravely and with sympathy and +love in your heart, determined to help everybody you can, and to better +your condition as soon as possible. Men have done this after fifty, +and lived thirty good years to enjoy the results. + +Do not feel hurt by the people who slight you, or who refer to your +erring past. Be sorry for them. I would rather be a tender-hearted +reformed sinner than a hard-hearted model of good behavior. + +I would rather learn sympathy through sin than never learn it at all. + +There is nothing we cannot live down, and rise above, and overcome. +There is nothing we cannot be in the way of nobility and worth. + + + + +Royalty + +We get what we give. I have never known this rule to fail in the long +run. If we give sympathy, appreciation, goodwill, charitable thoughts, +admiration and love--we receive all these back from humanity in time. + +We may bestow them unworthily, as the sower of good seed may cast it on +a rocky surface, but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast, +and, while the rock remains barren, the fields shall yield a golden +harvest. + +_The seed must be good_, however. + +If I say to myself without any real regard for another in my heart, "I +want that person to like me, I will do all in my power to please him," +I need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove of only temporary +efficacy. + +Neither need I feel surprised or pained if I find by-and-by that other +people are bestowing policy friendship upon me, actions with no feeling +for a foundation. + +No matter how kind and useful I make my conduct toward an individual, +if in my secret heart I am criticising him severely and condemning him, +I must expect criticism and condemnation from others as my portion. + +We reap what we sow. Some harvests are longer in growing than others, +but they all grow in time. + +Servility in love, or friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do +not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created +as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless +worms, unworthy of His regard! + +We are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful inheritors of happiness, +and health, and success. What monarch would feel pleasure in having +his children crawl in the dust, saying, "We are less than nothing, +miserable, unworthy creatures?" + +Would he not prefer to hear them say, proudly: "We are of royal blood"? + +We ought always to believe in our best selves, in our right to love and +be loved, to give and receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded. +And then we should bestow our love, our gifts and our toil with no +anxious thought about the returns. If we chance to love a loveless +individual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, to toil for the +unappreciative, it is but a temporary deprivation for us. The love, +the gratitude and the recompense will all come to us in time from some +source, or many sources. It cannot fail. + + + + +Heredity + +American parents, as a rule, can be put in two extreme classes, those +who render the children insufferably conceited and unbearable by +overestimating their abilities and overpraising their achievements, and +those who render them morbid and self-depreciating by a lack of +wholesome praise. + +It is rare indeed, when we find parents wise and sensible enough to +strengthen the best that is in their children by discreet praise, and +at the same time to control the undesirable qualities by judicious and +kind criticism. + +I heard a grandmother not long ago telling callers in the presence of a +small boy what a naughty, bad child he was, and how impossible it +seemed to make him mind. Wretched seed to sow in the little mind, and +the harvest is sure to be sorrow. + +I have heard parents and older children, expatiate on the one stupid +trait and the one plain feature of a bright and handsome child, +intending to keep it from forming too good an opinion of itself. + +To all young people I would say, cultivate a belief in yourself. Base +it on self-respect and confidence in God's love for his own handiwork. +Say to yourself, "I will be what I will to be." Not because your human +will is all-powerful, but because the Divine will is back of you. +Analyze your own abilities and find what you are best fitted to do. + +Then get about the task of doing your chosen work to the very best of +your ability, and do not for an instant doubt your own capabilities. +Perhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by years of morbid thought; +but if you persist in a self-respecting and self-reliant and +God-trusting course of thinking your powers will increase and your +capabilities strengthen. + +It is no easy matter to overcome a habit of self-depreciation. + +It is like straightening out a limb which has been twisted by a false +attitude or correcting a habit of sitting round-shouldered. + +It requires a steady and persistent effort. When the depressing and +doubtful thoughts come drive them away like malaria-breeding insects. +Say, "This is not complimentary to my Maker. I am His work. I must be +worthy of my own respect and of that of others. I must and will +succeed." + + + + +Invincibility + +If we persistently desire good things to come to us for unselfish +purposes, and at the same time faithfully perform the duties which lie +nearest, we will eventually find our desires being realized in the most +unexpected manner. + +Our thought force has proved to be a wedge, opening the seemingly +inaccessible Wall of Circumstance. + +To read good books, to think and ponder on what you read, to cultivate +every agreeable quality you observe in others, and to weed from your +nature every unworthy and disagreeable trait, to study humanity with an +idea of being helpful and sympathetic, all these efforts will help you +to the ultimate attainment of your wishes. + +It is a proven fact that if we devote a few moments each day to +reaching exercises, standing with loose garments and stretching the +body muscles to reach some point above us, we increase our stature. + +Just so if we mentally and spiritually are continually reaching to a +higher plane we are growing. + +Every least thought of the brain is a chisel, chipping away at our +characters, and our characters are building our destinies. + +The incessant and persistent demand of our hearts and minds MUST be +granted. + + + + +That Mental Chisel + +During a trolley ride through a thrifty New England locality, where +church spires were almost as plentiful as trees, I studied the faces of +the people who came into the car during my two hours' journey. + +The day was beautiful, and all along the route our numbers were +recruited by bevies of women, young, middle aged and old, who were bent +on shopping expeditions or setting forth to make social calls. + +They went and came at each village through which our coach of democracy +passed, and they represented all classes. + +The young girls were lovely, as young girls are the world over: their +complexion possessed that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore +localities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune is the greatest of +cosmetics. Many of the young faces were formed in classic mould, their +features clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the thoughts and +principles of their ancestors. + +Often I observed a mother and some female relative, presumably an aunt, +in company with a young relative; and always the sharpening and +withering process of the years of set and unelastic thought was +discernible upon their faces, which had once been young, and classic +and attractive. + +In the entire two hours I saw but three lovely faces which were matured +by time. + +I saw scores of well-dressed and evidently well-cared-for women of +middle age, whose countenances were furrowed, drawn, pinched, sallow, +and worn, beyond excuse; for time, sorrow, and sickness are not +plausible excuses for such ravages upon a face God drew in lines of +beauty. + +Time should mature a woman's beauty as it does that of a tree. Sorrow +should glorify it as does the frost the tree, and sickness should not +be allowed to lay a lingering touch upon it, until death calls the +spirit away. + +Without question the great majority of the women I saw were earnest +orthodox Christians. + +I heard snatches of conversation regarding Church and Charities and I +have no doubt that each woman among them believed herself to be a +disciple of Christ. + +Yet where was the result of the loving, tender, sweet spirit of +Christ's teaching? + +It surely was not visible upon those pinched and worried faces? and +those faces were certain and truthful chronicles of the work done by +the minds within. + +One face said to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and +loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret +about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband +has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in +my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved +by the blood of Christ!" + +Another said, "I am in God's fold, well and safe, but I hate and +despise my nearest neighbor, for she wears clothes that I am sure she +cannot pay for, and her children are always dressed better than mine. +I quarrel with my domestics, and am always in trouble of some kind, +just because human beings are so full of sin and no one but myself is +ever right. I shall be so glad to leave this world of woe and go to +heaven, but I hope I will not meet many of my present acquaintances +there!" + +Another said, "If I only had good health--but I was born to sickness +and suffering, and it is God's will that I should suffer!" + +Oh the pity of it, and to imagine this is religion! + +Thank God the wave of "New Thought" is sweeping over the land, and +washing away those old blasphemous errors of mistaken creeds. + +The "New Thought" is to give us a new race of beautiful middle-aged and +old people. + +To-day in any part of the land among rich, poor, ignorant or +intellectual, orthodox or materialists the beautiful mature face is +rarer than a white blackbird in the woods. + +It is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninteresting in late life, if +the mind keeps itself occupied with right thinking. + +The withered and drawn face of fifty indicates withered emotions and +drawn and perverted ambitions. + +The dried and sallow face tells its story of dried up sympathies and +hopes. + +The furrowed face tells of acid cares eating into the heart. + +All this is irreligious! yet all this prevails extensively in our most +conservative and churchy communities. + +He who in truth trusts God cannot worry. + +He who loves God and mankind, cannot become dried and withered at +fifty, for love will re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his +eye. + +He who understands his own divine nature will grow more beautiful with +the passing of time, for the God within will become each year more +visible. + +The really reverent soul accepts its sorrows as blessings in disguise, +and he who so accepts them is beautified and glorified by them, within +and without. + +Are you growing more attractive as you advance in life? Is your eye +softer and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more +sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry? +Are your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the +corners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin +dry, and sallow, and parched? + +Study yourself and answer these questions to your own soul, for in the +answer depends the decision whether you really love and trust God, and +believe in your own immortal spirit, or whether you are a mere impostor +in the court of faith. + + + + +The Object of Life + +What do you believe to be the object of your life? + +To be happy and successful, perhaps you are thinking, even if you do +not answer in those words. + +That is the idea of the many. Meanwhile others, who have been educated +in the melancholy faith of their ancestors, believe the object of this +life is to be miserable, poor, and full of sorrow, that they may wear a +crown of glory hereafter. + +But the clear thinker and careful observer must realize that there is +one and only one main object in life--_the building of character_. + +He who sets out in early youth with that ambition and purpose, and +keeps to it, will not only attain his object, but he will, too, attain +happiness and true success--for there is no such thing as failure for +the man or woman of character. + +We often apply the two words character and success, unworthily. + +We speak of a man of "much character" when he is merely self-assertive +and stubborn, and we call a man successful, who has accumulated a +fortune, or achieved fame and a position, by doubtful methods. + +Then what is character, and what is success? + +Character is the result of the cultivation of the highest and noblest +qualities in human nature, and putting those qualities to practical use. + +Success is the conquest of the lower and baser self, and the ability to +be useful to one's fellow men. + +There are men of brain, wealth and position who are failures, and there +are men of limited abilities and in humble places who are yet +successful, inasmuch as they make the utmost of themselves, and their +opportunities. + +It makes no difference how lowly your sphere in life may be, and no +matter how limited your environment, you can build your character if +you will. You need no outlay of money, no assistance from those in +power, no influence. + +Character Building must be done alone, and by yourself. The ground +must be cleansed of debris, and the structure must be erected stone by +stone. + +It is dull, slow, hard work, especially the preparation. + +All preparation is drudgery. + +When this little whirling globe of ours began to cool in space think +what a task lay before it! Think of the mass of chaos, which had to +slowly shape itself into mighty, green, glad and snow-capped mountains, +fertile vales, and noble forests. + +Each one of us is a little world, whirling alone on an individual +orbit, but the divine power is within us, to grow into symmetry, +beauty, and perfection if we only realize it. + +And the happiness of the work, once we begin it, is beyond the power of +description. + +There is no other satisfaction can compare with that of looking back +across the years and finding that you have grown in self-control, in +charity of judgment, in a sense of justice, in generosity, and in +unselfishness. + +If you are conscious of this growth, let no lack of material success +for one moment disturb you. That will come, enough for your need, in +time. + +The man of symmetrically developed character is never a pauper. + +He is never dependent for more than a temporary period. + +To possess character is to be useful, and to be useful is to be +independent, and to be useful and independent, is to be happy, even in +the midst of sorrow; for sorrow is not necessarily unhappiness. + +The man who has made the development of a noble and harmonious +character the business of his life, accepts his sorrows as means of +greater growth, and finds in them an exaltation of spirit which is +closely allied to happiness. + +To such a nature, absolute wretchedness would only be possible through +the loss of self-respect; the lowering of an ideal or the failure of a +principle. + +Would you be happy and successful? Then set yourself to _build +character_. + +Seek to be worthy of your own highest commendation. + + + + +Wisdom + +A great many people are attracted to the New Thought of the day, by its +declaration of our right to material wealth, and by its claim that the +mind of man can create, command, and control conditions which produce +wealth. + +There is no question concerning the truth of this claim. + +But woe unto him who cultivates his mental and spiritual powers only +for this purpose. + +His gold shall turn to dross, his pleasure to Dead Sea fruit. + +He shall be as one who drags a beautiful garment through the mud of the +streets, and while clothed in purple and fine linen is yet a repulsive +object. + +Into the Great Scheme of Existence, as first conceived by the Creator, +money did not enter. + +He made this beautiful Universe, and all that it contains was meant for +the enjoyment of His creatures. + +There was no millionaire and no pauper soul created by God. + +Each soul contains the spark of the divine spirit, and by the +realization of that spark, and all it means, whatever is desired by +mortal man may come to him. + +But wise is he who remembers the injunction, "Seek first the kingdom of +heaven and all other things shall be added unto you." + +Wise is he who understands the meaning of the words, "Unto him that +hath, more shall be given." + +Not until you obtain the faculty of being happy through your spiritual +and mental faculties, independent of material conditions, not until you +learn to value wealth only as a means of helpfulness, can you safely +turn your powers of concentration upon the idea of opulence. + +To demand, assert, and command wealth for its mere sensual benefits, to +focus your mind upon it because you desire to shine, lead, and triumph, +is to play spiritual football with spiritual dynamite. + +You may obtain what you seek, you may accumulate riches, but at the +cost of all that is worth living for. + +The merely ignorant, or stupid, or wholly material man who stumbles +into a fortune, through inheritance, dogged persistent industry, or +chance, may enjoy it in his own fashion, and do no harm in the world. + +But the man who knows and who has developed his spiritual powers only +for the purpose of commanding material gain, might better have a +millstone tied about his neck. For he makes himself a spiritual +outcast, and his money shall never bring him happiness. + +Make, therefore, your assertion of opulence the last in your list, as +you make Love first. + +Call unto yourself spiritual insight, absolute unselfishness, desire +for universal good, wisdom, justice, and usefulness, and last of all +opulence. + +Think of yourself as possessed of all these qualities before you +picture financial independence. + +For without love for your kind, without the desire for usefulness and +the spiritual insight and the wisdom to be just before being generous, +your money would bring you only temporary pleasure, and would do the +world no good. + +Neither should you labor under the impression that God's work is lying +undone because you have no fortune to command and wisely distribute +where most needed. Rest assured if you do the work which lies nearest +to you, relieve such distress as is possible to you, and keep your +faith in the ultimate justice of God's ways, that the world will move +on, and humanity will slowly attain its destined goal, even if you +never become a millionaire. + + + + +Self Conquest + +Every New Idea, or supposed New Idea, is a light which attracts the +moths. + +The "New Thought" is no exception. + +About it flutter hysterical women, unbalanced men: the erratic and the +irresponsible. + +The possibilities of performing miracles, of healing the sick, +hypnotizing the well, transforming poverty into wealth, and changing +age to youth, are the rays of light which flicker through the darkness +and draw them into the circle of radiance. + +The self-indulgent fat woman subscribes to New Thought literature, pays +for a course of lectures, and goes forth into the ranks of the +unbelievers, proclaiming her power to become a sylph, and to cause +others to become sylphs. + +The extravagant and inconsiderate rush forth after having heard a +discourse upon the power of mind over matter, and declare that they +possess the secret of accumulating a fortune by occult means. + +The lovers of the marvelous believe that they will become great healers +in a brief space of time. + +Not one of these moth converts realizes that the very first step to +take in the direction of "New Thought" is self-conquest. + +The gourmand does not know that self-indulgence and a gross appetite +are incompatible with mental or spiritual growth, and will be +insurmountable obstacles in her path toward symmetry. + +The spendthrift does not take into consideration the fact that good +sense, thrift and industry, must aid his mental assertion of wealth, +and the miracle lover does not understand that something greater and +more difficult is required than a mere wish to heal before healing +powers can be obtained. + +That the physical body and material conditions can be dominated by the +divine spirit in man, is an incontrovertible fact. + +But first, last and always, the lesser self must be subjugated, and the +weak and unworthy qualities overcome. + +The woman who desires to reduce her flesh cannot do so by reading +occult literature, or joining mystic circles, or attending lectures, +unless she permeates herself so thoroughly with spiritual truths that +she no longer craves six courses at dinner, and three meals a day, and +unless she overcomes her dislike for exercise. + +The man who wishes to control circumstances must love better things +than money before he can succeed. He must love, and respect, and +believe in his Creator, and trust the Divine Man within himself, and he +must illustrate this love and trust by his daily conduct, and in his +home circle, and in his business relations. + +Once in a century, perhaps, is a man born with great powers already +developed to heal the sick, or to do other seeming miracles. Such +beings are old souls, who have obtained diplomas in former lives; but +the majority of us are still in school, and we cannot become "seniors" +until we pass through the lower grades. + +We must change ourselves before we can change material conditions: we +must heal our own thoughts and make them sane and normal, before we can +heal bodily disease in others. + +It is not an immediate process. I have heard an old lady declare that +she "got religion" in the twinkling of an eye, and she believed all +people would be damned and burn in hell fire, who did not pass through +this sudden illumination. + +It is possible that the religion which can worship a God cruel enough +to burn his children in fire, can only be obtained in the twinkling of +an eye; but the reverent, wholesome, and beautiful religion of "New +Thought" must be grown into little by little, through patience, faith, +and practice. + +All that it claims to do it can do, but not instantaneously, not +rapidly. We must first make ourselves over; after absolute control of +our minds has been obtained, then, and only then, may we hope to +influence circumstances and health. + + + + +The Important Trifles + +You will find, in the effort to reach a higher spirituality in your +daily life, that the small things try your patience and your strength +more than the greater ones. + +Home life, like business life, is composed of an accumulation of +trifles. + +There are people who bear great sorrows with resignation, and seem to +gain a certain dignity and force of character through trouble, but who +are utterly vanquished by trivial annoyances. + +The old-fashioned orthodox "Christian" was frequently of this order. + +Death, poverty, and misfortune he bore without complaining, and became +ofttimes a more agreeable companion in times of deepest sorrow. + +He regarded all such experiences as the will of God, and bowed to them. + +Yet, if his dinner was late, his coffee below the standard, if his +eye-glasses were misplaced, or his toe trodden upon, he become a raging +lion, and his roar drove his affrighted household into dark corners. + +There have been neighborhood Angels, who watched beside the dying +sinner, sustained orphans and widows, and endured great troubles +sublimely like martyrs. But if a dusty shoe trod upon a freshly washed +floor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or +lingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring--lo, the +Angel became a virago, or a droning mosquito with persistent sting. + +The New Philosophy demands serenity and patience through small trials, +as well as fortitude in meeting life's larger ills. + +It demands, too, that we seek to avoid giving others unnecessary +irritation by a thoughtless disregard of the importance of trifles. + +A man is more likely to keep calm if he wakes in the night and +discovers that the house is on fire, than he is if, on being fully +prepared to retire, he finds the only mug on the third story is missing +from his wash-stand, or the cake of toilet-soap he asked for the day +before has been forgotten. + +A mother bears the affliction of a crippled child with more equanimity +than she is able to bring to bear upon the continual thoughtlessness of +a strong one. + +To be kind, means to be thoughtful. + +The kindest and most loving heart will sometimes forget and be +careless; but it cannot be perpetually forgetful and careless of +another's wishes and needs, even in the merest trifles. + + + + +Concentration + +The New Thought includes _concentration of thought_, in its teaching; +and he who learns that important art is not liable to frequently forget +small or large duties. + +It is he who scatters, instead of concentrates his mind powers, who +keeps himself and others in a state of continual irritation by +forgetting, mislaying, and losing, three petty vices which do much to +mar domestic or business life. + +Concentration is a most difficult acquirement for the mature mind which +has been allowed to grow in the habit of thought scattering. + +Wise is the mother, and as sure as wise, who teaches her child to +finish each task begun before attempting another, for that is the first +step in concentration. + +Prentice Mulford, that great and good pioneer in the field of practical +New Thought, tells us to apply our whole mental powers to whatever we +do, even if it is merely the tying of a shoe, and to think of nothing +else until that shoe is tied, then to utterly forget the shoe string, +when we turn to another duty or employment. The next lesson in +concentration he gives us, is to repeat the word often, to impress it +upon the mind. + +And then to declare each day that "Concentration is mine" will aid +still farther in the acquisition of this great and important quality. + +Meanwhile, since we can be so fortunate as to always surround ourselves +with others who have acquired it, the student of the Higher Philosophy +must learn to be serene and self-poised when he encounters life's pigmy +worries. + +He must carry his religion into his bedroom and his office, and not +forget it utterly when he loses his collar-button, or misses his car, +or finds his office boy has taken a parcel to the wrong address. + +To build character necessitates a constant watch upon ourselves. The +New Thought is not a religion of Sundays, but of every day. + + + + +Destiny + +Never say that you wish your situation were different! Never wish you +had some other person's life or troubles or worries. + +Accept your own as a _working basis_, the best for you. + +Then go ahead and _change whatever_ displeases you. + +Remember you are the maker and moulder of your own destiny. You do not +recall the fact, but you brought about the present conditions of your +destiny in former incarnations. + +Even if you do not believe this, you must acknowledge that _you are +here_, and that the situation in which you find yourself seems to be +inevitable for the present. + +But it is not inevitable for the future, unless you lie down in the +furrow and whine, and wish you were a millionaire, or a genius, and +rail at the partiality of Providence. + +There is no partiality in the Universe. + +The whole scheme is well balanced. If you were allowed to change lots +with anyone on the face of the earth, you would complain and find fault +in a short time. + +One of our best known millionaires, born to opulence, complains that he +has been robbed of the privilege of making his own fortune. + +He is no happier than you. His confession betrays his weakness of +character just as your repining and fault-finding betrays yours. + +The real worth-while character thanks God for its destiny and says, "I +will show the world what I can do with my life." + +Not long ago there was a great trotting-race at Brighton Beach. The +blind conqueror "Rythmic" won five consecutive races. + +Think of it! He did not, like a mortal man, shrink back and say "I am +blind--that is a terrible destiny--I am cursed of God--I will not try +to win the race." He just trusted the hand of the _Master at the +reins_, did his best, and won the honors of the season. + +We are all blind racers on the track of earth. The king, the +millionaire, the statesman, the lawmaker, the beggar, the laborer, the +cripple, we are all in the dark. The only thing is to trust the hand +of the Master, and _do our best_. + +Believe your position is the right starting point for _you_, merely the +starting point. + +It is the shapeless block of stone from which you are to fashion the +perfect statue. + +Or it is the mere mud from which you are to mould the clay image, and +later that is to be put into enduring marble. + +What is uglier or more unattractive than mud? + +Yet think of the glorious conceptions which it imprisons. + +Take the mud of your present environment and thank God for it, and make +the image of the future you desire. + +You can do it--you must do it--you will do it. + + + + +Sympathy + +Are you of a sympathetic nature? + +If so, do not let your sympathies help to add to the world's miseries. + +That may seem a strange expression, but it can be explained if you will +listen. + +Much of the misery in the world is the result of imagination. + +All of it is the result of selfishness and ignorance. + +But hundreds and thousands of people believe themselves sick, sorrowful +and poverty stricken, who would be well, glad and prosperous, if they +only thought themselves so. + +Every time you pour out your sympathy upon these self-made sufferers, +you add to their burden of wrong thought, and make it just so much more +difficult for them to rise out of their troubles. + +I do not believe all the misfortune in the world is caused by wrong +thinking in this life, or can be done away with by right thinking. The +three-year-old child who toddles in front of a trolley car and loses a +leg, while the tired mother is bending over the washtub to keep the +wolf of hunger at bay, cannot be blamed for wrong thinking as the cause +of its trouble. Neither can the deaf mute or the child born blind or +deformed. We must go farther back, to former lives, to find the first +cause of such misfortunes. + +No "New Thought," no amount of optimistic theology or philosophy can +restore the child's leg, or ears, or eyes. It is utter nonsense to say +that miracles like these can be performed. + +There are scores of individuals whom we meet handicapped in life's race +by such dire calamities that we spontaneously pour forth our sympathy. + +But, even to these, it were kinder and wiser to give diverting +thoughts, and a new outlook, and to open up avenues for pleasure, and +entertainment, and profit, in place of tears and condolence. + +Sympathy, without alleviating actions to a sufferer, is like a cloud +without rain to the parched earth. + +But the great majority of people whom we encounter are making their own +crosses, and we who offer them sympathy, and condolence, are but adding +to the burden's weight. + +I do not recommend coldness, indifference, or ridicule as a substitute +for sympathy. But instead of leading the sick man on to tell you the +details of his illness, and to describe all his symptoms, while your +own body responds with sympathetic aches and pains as you listen, it is +kinder to divert his attention to some cheerful and merry topic, or to +refer to some case like his own which resulted in perfect restoration +to health. Instead of going down into his underground cave of +depression, bring him out into the wholesome sunlight of your own +healthful state, even if for a moment only, and impress upon his mind +that health belongs to him, and must return to him. + +To the man in business trouble the same advice applies. + +Tell him you are sorry for him, but do not take on his despondency to +prove it. + +Talk of the future and all the possibilities it holds for a determined +man or woman. + +Make him laugh. Speak of trouble as the gymnasium where our moral +muscles are developed. Answer him that everything he desires is his if +he will be persistent and determined in demanding his own. If you put +force in your words you will leave an impression. + +Do not go away from the house of trouble in tears, but leave the +troubled ones you called upon smiling as you depart. + +That is true sympathy. + + + + +The Breath + +A man reproved me for my interest in New Thought creeds. + +"The old religion I learned at my mother's knee is good enough for me!" +he said. "It is good enough for anybody!" + +Yet this man's mother had always "enjoyed poor health," as the old lady +expressed it, and the man himself was forever talking of his diseases, +his ill luck, his poverty, which he said he had been enabled to endure +only through the sustaining power of the religion "learned at his +mother's knee." + +It would be difficult to convince the man that had his mother taught +him the creed of the "New Religion" he could have changed all these +unfortunate conditions. + +Life-long ill health would have been impossible for his mother, or for +him. + +The old fashioned religion allowed and still allows a human being to +breathe like a canary bird. + +Little children go to Sunday-School all their young lives, and grow up +to be devout church members, and never hear one word about the +importance of _deep breathing_. + +Possibly you may think breathing lessons belong to physical culture, +and have no place in religious teachings. + +There is where you err. + +In order to develop your whole being, you must learn how to control +body and mind through the spirit. + +Thousands of years ago, men who gave their entire lives to the study of +these things learned the great importance of deep breathing as an aid +to religious meditation. + +By this practice, systematically observed, the body is calmed, the mind +is brought into subjection, and the spirit rises into control. + +And in addition, absolute health is achieved. + +A large portion of our physical ailments result from unused lung cells, +and consequent imperfect circulation of the blood. + +Fill the lungs full--every cell--with fresh air, two or three times +daily, and do not overload the digestive organs, and sickness will fly +away to the dark regions where it belongs. + +At least ten minutes morning and night should be given to the breathing +exercises. + +Sit upright in a comfortable chair, alone, facing the east in the +morning and the west at night, because great magnetic force comes from +the direction of the sun. + +Have a window or a door opening to the outer air. + +Place your hands lightly on your knees, and close your eyes and mouth. +Leave your spine free, not touching the chair. Wear no compressing +garments or bands. + +Inflate the chest and abdominal regions as you inhale deep breaths +through the nostrils, while counting seven slowly. + +Exhale while you count seven. Repeat this exercise seven times. + +Think as you inhale of whatever qualities you would like to possess, +and believe that you are inhaling them. Select seven qualities--Love, +Health, Wisdom, Usefulness, Power to Do Good, Success, Opulence--will +cover the average human desires. The very unworldly will substitute +spiritual knowledge for opulence. Fill your mind with the idea that +you are drawing in these qualities with your breaths, and exhaling all +that is weak or unworthy. After a few moments you will be conscious of +a security and peace new and uplifting. + +And after a few weeks of steady, persistent practice of these +exercises, you will find life growing more beautiful to you, and your +strength will be increased tenfold, both physically and spiritually. + + + + +Generosity + +Have you ever observed how invariably your "last dollar" is restored to +you, with additions, when you have given it for some worthy purpose? + +Even if the purpose did not prove to be a worthy one, yet if you +thought it so, and gave your last dollar with spontaneous sympathy and +good will, you were not long left penniless. + +Money is much like a man. If you do not hold it too jealously it +returns to you the more readily. + +Never hesitate to give aid where you feel there is sore and pressing +need, for fear you will be left in want yourself. You will not be. + +This does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable. It does +not mean that you should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift and +carry the burdens of everyone who is ready to lean upon you. + +It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing, +as the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs. + +One depends upon his acquaintances to tide him over hard places, +instead of upon his own strength of character, and the other depends +upon stimulants for the same purpose. The too ready lender is almost +as great an evil to humanity as rum or opium, since he too helps a man +to kill his own better nature and destroy his self-respect. + +If you were able and willing to pay rents of all the poor people you +know, and clothe their children, you would soon produce a condition of +settled pauperism among them. Large and frequent favors of a financial +nature are an injury to anyone, even if it is your son or brother. + +Let no man lean on anyone save God and his own divine self. + +But little helps, when they are unexpected, arouse hope and awaken new +faith and new ambition in a discouraged soul. + +Look about you for such souls, the worn and weary father of a brood of +hungry children, the widow struggling with adverse fate in an effort to +clothe and educate a child, the tired shop girl who uses all her +earnings to sustain her parents, the ambitious boy or girl eager for a +chance in life, and the poor cripple or invalid seeking health. You +will find them all about you. Do not be afraid to use a dollar here or +there to give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no matter how poor +you are. + +It is an insult to the Opulent Creator to suppose you will suffer want +and poverty if you help those who are in temporary misfortune. + +You will not. + +Ofttimes we read and hear of the open-handed generous man who "helped +everybody," and who "never refused to aid a needy brother," and who +ended his life in penury because of his generosity. + +Never believe these tales until you investigate them. Invariably you +will find not generosity but extravagance and utter lack of +forethought, caused the man's financial ruin. + +I recall a gifted young woman who gave freely to all who asked her +assistance and who died a lingering death as a charity patient in a +hospital. + +Yet this young woman had expended ten dollars on foolish and rapid +living where she gave one in charity; it was her wasteful extravagance, +not her open heart of sympathy, which made her a pauper. + +It has been my observation that dollars planted in the soil of +benevolence grow into harvests of prosperity. The man who is not +afraid to use his small means to assist others need not fear poverty. + + + + +Woman's Opportunity + +The greatest opportunity to better the world which can come to any +woman is through the experience of maternity. + +The power of prenatal influence which a mother possesses is +awe-inspiring to realize. + +It has been said upon excellent authority that Napoleon's mother read +Roman history with absorbing interest during the months preceding his +birth. + +Think of the nations and the centuries influenced by that one woman's +mental concentration! The geography of the world was changed by her +power of focused thought. + +In all probability Napoleon's mother did not know what she was doing; +she was not conscious of the destiny her mind was shaping for her +unborn child, nor of the law governing such conditions. + +Women have been strangely ignorant of this vital truth; until recent +years it has not been considered a "proper" theme for tongue or pen, +and to-day the great majority of young women marry absolutely +uninformed upon the subject of prenatal influence. + +Men are equally oblivious of any knowledge regarding the matter, and +consequently make no special effort to keep the expectant mother of +their offspring happy, hopeful, or free of anxiety and worry during +this period. Often they do not strive to aid them in their own +attempts to bestow a desirable temperament upon the unborn child, but +heedlessly and needlessly aggravate or grieve the mind which is +stamping its impress upon an unborn soul. + +It is just here that the "New Thought" can perform its greatest +miracles of good. + +Even the woman who has not been enlightened upon the law of +ante-birth-influence will, if a true disciple of the Religion of +Right-living, bring healthy and helpful children into the world, +because her normal state of mind will be inclusive of those three +qualities; and her continued and repeated assertions of her own divine +nature will shape the brain of her child in optimistic and reverential +mould. + +There is the old law of the continual falling of the drop of water upon +the stone to be verified in the spiritual plane. Continual assertions +of a mother that her child will be all that she desires it to be, will +wear away the stone of inherited tendencies, and bring into physical +being a malleable nature wholly amenable to the after influences and +efforts she may bring to bear upon it. + +It is a tremendous responsibility which rests upon the woman who knows +she is to be a mother of a human being. + +A hundred ancestors may have contributed certain qualities to that +invisible and formless atom which contains an immortal soul, yet the +mother's mind has the power to remake and rebuild all those +characteristics, and to place over them her own dominating impulse, +whether for good or ill. + +Surely, if success in the arts or the sciences is worthy of years of +devoted attention and interested effort, the moulding of a noble human +being is worth eight or nine months of concentrated thought and +unflagging zeal of purpose. + +Every expectant mother should set herself about the important business +God has entrusted her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine +mission. She should direct her mind into wholesome and optimistic +channels; she should read inspiring books and think loving and large +thoughts. She should pray and aspire! and always should she carry in +her mind the ideal of the child she would mother, and command from the +great Source of all Opulence the qualities she would desire to +perpetuate. + +And they will be given. + + + + +Balance + +Avoid all strained and abstruse language, when conversing with people +who may not have entered this realm of thought. + +Do not allow anyone to think of you as a lunatic, or a crank, +unnecessarily. Of course there are people in the world who consider +everyone a lunatic who holds an opinion differing from their own. + +But it can do you, or your philosophy, no good to thrust its most +difficult phases before the minds of the unawakened, by vague and high +flown expressions. + +I once chanced to call upon a lady who had, quite unknown to me, +entered upon the study of Christian Science. + +She remarked to me, almost as soon as the greetings were exchanged, "I +had a claim to meet for three days this week, but I have come through +it and am victorious." + +I supposed the lady referred to some business matter, perhaps a legal +affair, and waited an explanation. + +After considerable rambling conversation, I managed to grasp the fact +that the woman had been sick in the house three days, but now was well. +She considered her illness a mere "claim" her "mortal mind" had made +which she had to meet and combat. + +All this sort of talk is very ridiculous. We need not talk about every +ailment which attacks us as we move along toward the condition of +perfect health which belongs to us! But if we do speak of +indisposition, let us use common sense language. + +What we want to realize is, that we are in the body, but that the +spirit can control bodily conditions, if we give it the ascendency, to +the extent of keeping us well, moral, useful, and comfortable even in +the midst of sickness, vice, indolence and poverty. + +We can rise above these false elements, and subjugate them. + +Meanwhile we cannot live without food, clothes and money. + +Despise and ignore these vulgar things as we may assume to do, we yet +must have them. + +It brings only ridicule upon ourselves and our ideas to make this +pretense of despising the necessities of life. + +To make them secondary in our thoughts to spiritual knowledge is right +and wise, but this is better illustrated by our lives and conduct than +by our words. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Heart of the New Thought, by +Ella Wheeler Wilcox + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART OF THE NEW THOUGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 30256.txt or 30256.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/2/5/30256/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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