{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30256/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30256","id":"gutenberg_30256","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30256","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","New Thought"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEART\n\nOF\n\nThe New Thought\n\n\n\nWRITTEN BY\n\nELLA WHEELER WILCOX\n\n\nAssociate Editor of \"NEW THOUGHT.\"\n\n\n\nELEVENTH THOUSAND\n\n\n\nPUBLISHED BY\n\nTHE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY\n\nTEMPLE CHAMBERS\n\nTEMPLE AVE., E.C.,\n\nLONDON, ENG.\n\n\n1903\n\n\n\n\nCopyright\n\nTHE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COMPANY.\n\n\nAll Rights Reserved.\n\n\n\nNOTICE: This work is protected by Copyright, and simultaneous initial\npublication in United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France,\nGermany, Russia and other countries.  All rights reserved.\n\n\n\n\nPublishers' Preface\n\nThis book is noteworthy as an interpretation of \"New Thought.\"\n\nThat which was vague, mystic, unreal, has become, in the hands of Mrs.\nWilcox, a lovable philosophy of simplest construction.\n\nThe backbone of this philosophy is The Power of Right Thought.\n\nStartling as are some of the tenets expressed, they are provably true\nhere and now.\n\nIt is possible that the very simplicity of this book will encourage\ncareless criticism from those who believe that genius and ambiguity are\ntwin.\n\nBut Mrs. Wilcox is ever the voice of the people: what she says is\npractical; what she thinks is clear; what she feels is plain.\n\nLet the people judge this book.\n\n\n\n\n  Contents:\n\n\n  Let the Past Go\n  The Sowing of the Seed\n  Old Clothes\n  High Noon\n  Obstacles\n  Thought Force\n  Opulence\n  Eternity\n  Morning Influences\n  The Philosophy of Happiness\n  A Worn Out Creed\n  Common Sense\n  Literature\n  Optimism\n  Preparation\n  Dividends\n  Royalty\n  Heredity\n  Invincibility\n  Faces\n  The Object of Life\n  Wisdom\n  Self-Conquest\n  The Important Trifles\n  Concentration\n  Destiny\n  Sympathy\n  The Breath\n  Generosity\n  Woman's Opportunity\n  Balance\n\n\n\n\nTHE HEART OF\n\nTHE NEW THOUGHT\n\n\nLet the Past Go\n\nDo not begin the new year by recounting to yourself or others all your\nlosses and sorrows.\n\nLet the past go.\n\nShould some good friend present you with material for a lovely garment,\nwould you insult her by throwing it aside and describing the beautiful\ngarments you had worn out in past times?\n\nThe new year has given you the fabric for a fresh start in life, why\ndwell upon the events which have gone, the joys, blessings and\nadvantages of the past!\n\nDo not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy.  Do not tell\nme you are sick or broken in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or\nbroken, because it is of God.\n\nIt is your mind which makes your body sick.  Let the spirit assert\nitself and demand health and hope and happiness in this new year.\n\nForget the money you have lost, the mistakes you have made, the\ninjuries you have received, the disappointments you have experienced.\n\nReal sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear ones, or\nsome great cross well borne, you need not forget.  But think of these\nthings as sent to enrich your nature, and to make you more human and\nsympathetic.  You are missing them if you permit yourself instead to\ngrow melancholy and irritable.\n\nIt is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has selected you for\nspecial suffering.\n\nSorrow is no respecter of persons.  Say to yourself with the beginning\nof this year that you are going to consider all your troubles as an\neducation for your mind and soul; and that out of the experiences which\nyou have passed through you are going to build a noble and splendid\ncharacter, and a successful career.\n\nDo not tell me you are too old.\n\nAge is all imagination.  Ignore years and they will ignore you.\n\nEat moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as nature's rainfall.\nExercise thoroughly and regularly.\n\nBe alive, from crown to toe.  Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the\nlungs for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when you draw\nin long, full breaths, believe you are inhaling health, wisdom and\nsuccess.\n\nAnticipate good health.  If it does not come at once, consider it a\nmere temporary delay, and continue to expect it.\n\nRegard any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no more.\n\nNever for an instant believe you are permanently ill or disabled.\n\nThe young men of France are studying alchemy, hoping to learn the\nsecret of the transmutation of gold.\n\nIf you will study your own spirit and its limitless powers, you will\ngain a greater secret than any alchemist ever held; a secret which\nshall give you whatever you desire.\n\nThink of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the silk\nlining, your spirit as the gem.  Keep the box burnished and clear of\ndust, but remember always that the jewel within is the precious part of\nit.\n\nThink of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success.  A\nwhole, clear, glorious year lies before you!  In a year you can regain\nhealth, fortune, restfulness, happiness!\n\nPush on!  Achieve, achieve!\n\n\n\n\nThe Sowing of the Seed\n\nWhen you start in the \"New Thought\" do not expect sudden illumination.\nDo not imagine that you are to become perfectly well, perfectly\ncheerful, successful, and a healer, in a few days.\n\nRemember all growth is slow.\n\nMushrooms spring up in a night, but oaks grow with deliberation and\nendure for centuries.\n\nMental and spiritual power must be gained by degrees.\n\nIf you attained maturity before you entered this field of \"New Thought\"\nit is folly to suppose a complete transformation of your whole being\nwill take place in a week--a month--or a year.\n\nAll you can reasonably look for is a gradual improvement, just as you\nmight do if you were attempting to take up music or a science.\n\nThe New Thought is a science, the Science of Right Thinking.  But the\nbrain cells which have been shaped by the old thoughts of despondency\nand fear, cannot all at once be reformed.\n\nIt will be a case of \"Try, try again.\"\n\nMake your daily assertions, \"I am love, health, wisdom, cheerfulness,\npower for good, prosperity, success, usefulness, opulence.\"\n\nNever fail to assert these things at least twice a day; twenty times is\nbetter.  But if you do not attain to all immediately, if your life does\nnot at once exemplify your words, let it not discourage you.\n\nThe saying of the words is the watering of the seeds.\n\nAfter a time they will begin to sprout, after a longer time to cover\nthe barren earth with grain, after a still longer time to yield a\nharvest.\n\nIf you have been accustomed to feeling prejudices and dislikes easily,\nyou will not all at once find it easy to illustrate your assertion, \"I\nam love.\"  If you have indulged yourself in thoughts of disease, the\nold aches and pains will intrude even while you say \"I am health!\"\n\nIf you have groveled in fear and a belief that you were born to poverty\nand failure, courage and success and opulence will be of slow growth.\nYet they will grow and materialize, as surely as you insist and persist.\n\nDeclare they are yours, right in the face of the worst disasters.\nThere is nothing so confuses and flustrates misfortune as to stare it\ndown with hopeful unflinching eyes.\n\nIf you waken some morning in the depths of despondency and gloom, do\nnot say to yourself:\n\n\"I may as well give up this effort to adopt the New Thought--I have\nmade a failure of it evidently----.\"  Instead sit down quietly, and\nassert calmly that you are cheerfulness, hope, courage, faith and\nsuccess.\n\nRealize that your despondency is only temporary; an old habit, which is\nreasserting itself, but over which you will gradually gain the\nascendency.  Then go forth into the world and busy yourself in some\nuseful occupation, and before you know it is on the way, hope will\ncreep into your heart, and the gray cloud will lift from your mind.\nPhysical pains will loosen their hold, and conditions of poverty will\nchange to prosperity.\n\nYour mind is your own to educate and direct.\n\nYou can do it by the aid of the Spirit, but you must be satisfied to\nwork slowly.\n\nBe patient and persistent.\n\n\n\n\nOld Clothes\n\nAs you go over your wardrobe in the spring or fall, do not keep any\nold, useless, or even questionable, garments, for \"fear you might need\nthem another year.\"\n\nGive them to the ragman, or send them to the county or city poor house.\nThere is nothing that will keep you in a rut of shabbiness more than\nclinging to old clothes.\n\nIt is useless to say that you cannot afford new garments.\n\nIt is because you have harped upon this idea that you are still in\nstraitened circumstances.\n\nYou believe neither in God or yourself.\n\nPossibly you were brought up to think yourself a mere worm of earth,\nborn to poverty and sorrow.\n\nIf you were, it will of course require a continued effort to train your\nmind to the new thought, the thought of your divine inheritance of all\nGod's vast universe of wealth.\n\nBut you can do it.\n\nBegin by giving away your old clothes.  There may be people, poor\nrelations, or some struggling mother of half-clad children, to whom\nyour old garments will seem like new raiment, and to whom they will\nbring hope and happiness.\n\nAs a rule, it is not well to give people your discarded clothing.\n\nIt has a tendency to lower their self-respect and to make them look to\nyou, instead of to themselves, for support.\n\nIt all depends upon whom the people are and how you do it.\n\nIf you can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and\nself-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of clothing or\nfurniture or provisions.\n\nBut little children, suffering from cold, or hard-working, over-taxed\nmen and women, will not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered and\nencouraged by your gifts.\n\nNo matter if you still need your frayed-out garments--do not keep them.\n\nYour thoughts of poverty and trouble have impregnated them so that you\nwill continue to produce the same despondent mind stuff while you wear\nthese garments.\n\nGet rid of them, and believe that you are to soon procure fresh,\nbecoming raiment.\n\nRouse all your energies, and go straight ahead with that purpose in\nmind.\n\nYou will be surprised to find how soon the opportunity presents itself\nfor you to obtain what you need.\n\nThere is new strength, repose of mind and inspiration in fresh apparel.\n\nGod gives Nature new garments every season.  We are a part of Nature.\n\nHe gives us the qualities and the opportunities to obtain suitable\ncovering for our changing needs, if we believe in the one, and use the\nother.\n\nWhen I read of a wealthy man who boasts that he has worn one hat seven\nyears, or a woman in affluent circumstances who has worn one bonnet for\nvarious seasons, I feel sorry for their ignorance and ashamed of their\npenuriousness.\n\nLook at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring drapery, its luxurious\nsummer foliage, its autumn richness of coloring, its winter draperies\nof white!  Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have more\nvariety than man!\n\nThe tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm and sun as divinely sent,\nand believes in its right to new apparel, and it comes.\n\nIt will come to you if you do the same.\n\n\n\n\nHigh Noon\n\nEvery woman who passes thirty ought to keep her brain, heart and mind\nalive and warm with human sympathy and emotion.  She ought to interest\nherself in the lives of others, and make her friendship valuable to the\nyoung.\n\nShe should keep her body supple, and avoid losing the lines of grace:\nand she should select some study or work to occupy her spare hours and\nto lend a zest to the coming years.  Every woman in the comfortable\nwalks in life can find time for such a study.  No woman of tact, charm,\nrefinement and feeling need ever let her husband, unless she has\nmarried a clod, become indifferent or commonplace in his treatment of\nher.  Man reflects to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for him.\n\nKeep sentiment alive in your own heart, madam, and in the heart of your\nhusband.  If he sees that other men admire you he will be more alert to\nthe necessity of remaining your lover.\n\nTake the happy, safe, medium path between a gray and a gay life by\nkeeping it radiant and bright.  Read and think and talk of cheerful,\nhopeful, interesting subjects.  Avoid small gossip, and be careful in\nyour criticism of neighbors.  Sometimes we must criticise, but speak\n_to_ people whose faults you feel a word of counsel may amend, not _of_\nthem to others.\n\nMake your life after it reaches its noon, glorious with sunlight, rich\nwith harvests, and bright with color.  Be alive in mind, heart and\nbody.  Be joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness,\nattractive without being flirtatious, attentive to others' needs\nwithout being officious, and instructive without too great a display of\nerudition.\n\nBe a noble, loving, lovable woman.\n\nIt is never too late in life to make anew start.  No matter how small a\nbeginning may be, it is so much begun for a new incarnation if it is\ncut off here by death.\n\nIf I were one hundred years old, and in possession of my faculties, I\nwould not hesitate to undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope\nof bettering my condition.\n\nThought is eternal in its effects, and every hopeful thought which\nenters the mind sets vibrations in motion, which shall help minds\nmillions of miles distant and lives yet unborn.\n\nIt is folly to mourn over a failure to provide opportunities and\nluxuries for children.  We have only to look at the children of the\nrich, to see how little enduring happiness money gives, and how seldom\ngreat advantages result in great characters.  The majority of the\nreally great people of the world, in all lines of achievement, have\nsprung from poverty.  I do not mean from pauper homes, but from the\nhomes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and\nwhere early in their youth the children felt it necessary to go into\nthe world and make their own way.  Self-dependence, self-reliance,\nenergy, ambition, were all developed in this way.\n\nHow rarely do we find these qualities in the children of wealth.  How\nrarely do great philosophers, great statesman, great thinkers and great\n_characters_ develop from the wealthy classes.\n\nPauperism--infant labor--the wage-earning women--are all evils which\nought to be abolished.  But next to that evil I believe the worst thing\npossible for a human soul is to be born to wealth.  It is an obstacle\nto greatness which few are strong enough to surmount, and it rarely\nresults in happiness to the recipient.\n\n\n\n\nObstacles\n\nHowever great the obstacles between you and your goal may be or have\nbeen, do not lay the blame of your failure upon them.\n\nOther people have succeeded in overcoming just as great obstacles.\n\nRemove such hindrances from the path for others, if you can, or tell\nthem a way to go around.  Even lead them a little distance and cheer\nthem on.\n\nBut so far as you yourself are concerned, do not stop to excuse any\ndelinquency or half-heartedness or defeat by the plea of circumstance\nor environment.\n\nThe great nature makes its own environment, and dominates circumstance.\n\nIt all depends upon the amount of force in your own soul.\n\nWhile you apply this rule to yourself and make no scapegoat of \"fate,\"\nyou must have consideration for the weakness of others, and you must\ntry and better the conditions of the world as you go along.\n\nYou are robust and possessed of all your limbs.  You can mount over the\ngreat boulder which has fallen in the road to success, and go on your\nway to your goal all the stronger for the experience.\n\nBut behind you comes a one-legged man--a blind man--a man bowed to the\nearth with a heavy burden, which he cannot lay down.\n\nIt will require weeks, months, years of effort on their part to climb\nover that rock which you surmounted in a few hours.\n\nSo it is right and just for you to call other strong ones to your aid\nand roll the boulder away or blast it out of the path.\n\nThat is just exactly the way you should think of the present industrial\nconditions.\n\nIn spite of them, the strong, well-poised, earnest and determined soul\ncan reach any desired success.\n\nBut there are boulders in the road which do not belong there, boulders\nwhich cause hundreds of the pilgrims who are lame or blind or burdened,\nto fall by the wayside and perish.\n\nIt is your duty to aid in removing these obstacles and in making the\nroad a safe and clear thoroughfare for all who journey.\n\nDo not sit down by the roadside and say you have been hindered by these\ndifficulties, that is to confess yourself weak.\n\nDo not mount over them and rush to your goal and say coldly to the\nthrongs behind you, \"Oh, everybody can climb over that rock who really\ntries--didn't I?\"  That is to announce yourself selfish and\nunsympathetic.\n\nNo doubt the lame, the blind and the burdened _could_ attain the goal\ndespite the rocks if they were fired by a consciousness of the divine\nforce within them; that consciousness can achieve _all things under all\ncircumstances_.\n\nBut there will always be thousands of pilgrims toiling wearily toward\nthe goal who have not come to this realization.\n\nIf there are unjust, unfair and unkind restrictions placed about them,\nsee to it that you do all in your power to right what is wrong.\n\nBut never wait to attain your own success because of these restrictions\nor obstacles.\n\nBelieve absolutely in your own God-given power to overcome anything and\neverything.\n\nThink of yourself as performing miracles with God's aid.\n\nDesire success so intensely that you attract if as the magnet attracts\nthe steel.\n\nHelp to adjust things as you go along, but never for a moment believe\nthat the lack of adjustment can cause you to fail.\n\n\n\n\nThought Force\n\nYour spirit and mine are both part of the stupendous cause.  We have\nalways been, and always will be.  First in one form, then in another.\n\nEvery thought, word and deed is helping decide your next place in the\nCreator's magnificent universe.  You will be beautiful or ugly, wise or\nignorant, fortunate or unfortunate, according to what use you make of\nyourself here and now.\n\nUnselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good,\nthe cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty,\ngratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of\nusefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as\nsatisfaction and self-respect in this sphere.\n\nEven if you escape the immediate results of the opposite course of\naction here, you must face the law of _cause and effect_ in the next\nstate.  It is inevitable.  God, the maker of all things, does not\nchange His laws.  \"As you sow you reap.\"  \"As a man thinketh so is he.\"\nThere is no \"revenge\" in God's mind.  He simply makes His laws, and we\nwork our destinies for good or ill according to our adherence to them\nor violation of them.\n\nEach one of us is a needed part of His great plan.  Let each soul say:\n\"He has need of me or I would not be.  I am here to strengthen the\nplan.\"  Remember that always in your most discouraged hours.\n\nThe Creator makes no mistakes.\n\nThere is a divine purpose in your being on earth.  Think of yourself as\nnecessary to the great design.  It is an inspiring thought.  And then\nconsider the immensity of the universe and how accurately the Maker\nplanned it all.\n\nDo not associate with pessimists.  If you are unfortunate enough to be\nthe son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or\nspiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of\ndiscouragement and despondency.\n\nNo tie of blood or law should compel you to listen to what means\ndiscomfort and disaster to you.\n\nGet out and away, into the society of optimistic people.\n\nBefore you go, insist on saying cheerful, hopeful and bright things,\nsowing the seed, as it were, in the mental ground behind you.  But do\nnot sit down to see it grow.\n\nNever feel that it is your duty to stay closely and continuously in the\natmosphere of the despondent.\n\nYou might as well think it your duty to stay in deep water with one who\nwould not make the least effort to swim.\n\nGet on shore and throw out a life-line, but do not remain and be\ndragged under.\n\nIf you find any one determined to talk failure and sickness and\nmisfortune and disaster, walk away.\n\nYou would not permit the dearest person on earth to administer slow\npoison to you if you knew it.  Then why think it your duty to take\nmental potions which paralyze your courage and kill your ambition?\n\nDespondency is one phase of immorality.  It is blasphemous and an\ninsult to the Creator.\n\nYou are justified in avoiding the people who send you from their\npresence with less hope and force and strength to cope with life's\nproblems than when you met them.\n\nDo what you can to change their current of thought.  But do not\nassociate intimately with them until they have learned to keep\nsilent--at least, if they cannot speak hopefully.\n\nLearn how to walk, how to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold\nyour head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance.\nBelieve your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all\nhumanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to\nhigher and better conditions.  No matter how limited your sphere of\naction may seem to you and how small your town appears on the map, if\nyou develop your mental and spiritual forces through _love thoughts_\nyou can be a power to move the world along.  Rise up and realize your\nstrength.  Not only will you be more useful and happy, but you will\ngrow more beautiful and keep your youth.\n\n\n\n\nOpulence\n\nDo not go through the world talking poverty and asking every one you\ndeal with to show you special consideration because you are \"poor\" and\n\"unfortunate.\"\n\nIf you do this with an idea of saving a few dollars here and there, you\nwill always have to do it, because you are creating poverty conditions\nby your constant assertions.\n\nIt is a curious fact that the people who are always demanding\nconsideration in money matters demand the best that is going at the\nsame time.\n\nI have known a woman to make a plea for cut prices in a boarding house\nbecause she was so poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the best\nlocation the house afforded.\n\nIt is the charity patients who make the most complaint of a physician's\nskill or a nurse's attention.\n\nIf you cannot afford to do certain things, or buy certain objects,\ndon't.  But when you decide you must, decide, too, that you will pay\nthe price, and make no whining plea of poverty.\n\nThere are two extremes of people in the world, one as distasteful as\nthe other.  One is represented by the man who boasts of the costliness\nof every possession, and invites the whole world to behold his opulence\nand expenditure.\n\nHis clothes, his house, his servants, his habits, seem no different to\nthe observer from his neighbor's, yet, according to his story, they\ncost ten times the amount.\n\nThe other extreme is the man who dresses well, lives well, enjoys all\nthe comforts and pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty\ncontinually, and expects the entire community to show him consideration\nin consequence.\n\nAnother thing to avoid is the role of the chronically injured person.\n\nWe all know him.\n\nHe has a continual grievance.  He has been cheated, abused, wronged,\ninsulted, disappointed and deceived.  We wonder how or why he has\nmanaged to exist, as we listen to the story of his troubles.\n\nNo one ever treats him fairly, either in business or social life.\nEverybody is ungrateful, unkind, selfish, and he could not be made to\nbelieve that these experiences were of his own making.\n\nAll of us meet with occasional blows from fate, in the form of insults,\nor ingratitude, or trickery from an unexpected source.\n\nBut if we get nothing else but those disappointing experiences from\nlife, we may rest assured the fault lies somewhere in ourselves.\n\nWe are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff, or we would get\nbetter returns.\n\n  You never can tell what your thoughts will do\n    In bringing you hate or love,\n  For thoughts are things, and their airy wings\n    Are swift as a carrier dove.\n  They follow the law of the universe--\n    Each thing must create its kind,\n  And they speed o'er the track to bring you back\n    Whatever went out from your mind.\n\n\nIn the main, we must of necessity get from humanity what we give to it.\nIf we question our ability to win friends or love, people will also\nquestion it.\n\nIf we doubt our own judgment and discretion in business, others will\ndoubt it, and the shrewd and unprincipled will take the opportunity\ngiven by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us.\n\nIf in consequence we distrust every person we meet, we create an\nunwholesome and unfortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will\nbring to us the unworthy and deceitful.  Stand firm in the universe.\nBelieve in yourself.  Believe in others.\n\nIf you make a mistake, consider it only an incident.\n\nIf some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or insults you, let it pass as\none of the lessons you had to learn, but do not imagine that you are\nselected by fate for only such lessons.  Keep wholesome, hopeful and\nsympathetic with the world at large, whatever individuals may do.\nExpect life to use you better every year, and it will not disappoint\nyou in the long run.  For life is what we make it.\n\n\n\n\nEternity\n\nDo you know what a wonderfully complicated thing a human being is?\nEvery feature, every portion of your body, every motion you make,\nreflects your mental organization.\n\nI know a woman past middle life who has always been on the opposite\nside of every question discussed in her presence.\n\nShe was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential with atheists, liberal\nwith the narrow, bigoted with the liberal.\n\nWhatever belief any one expressed on any subject, she invariably took\nthe other extreme.  She loved to disagree with her fellow-men.  It was\nher pastime.\n\nNow, to walk with that woman in silence is merely to carry on a\nwordless argument.\n\nYou cannot regulate your steps so they will harmonize with hers.  She\nwill be just ahead or just behind you, and if you want to turn to the\nleft, she pulls to the right.  A promenade with her is more exhausting\nthan a day's labor.\n\nShe is not conscious of it, and would think anyone very unreasonable\nand unjust who told her of her peculiarities.\n\nI know a woman who all her life has been looking afar for happiness and\npeace and content, and has never found any of them, because she did not\nlook in her own soul.\n\nShe was a restless girl, and she married, believing in domestic life\nlay the goal of her dreams.  But she was not happy there, and sighed\nfor freedom.  She wanted to move, and did move, once, twice, thrice, to\ndifferent points of the United States.  She was discontented with each\nchange.  She is to-day possessed of all comforts and luxuries which\nlife can afford, yet she is the same restless soul.  She likes to read,\nbut it is always the book which she does not possess which she craves.\nIf she is in the library with shelves book-filled, she goes into the\ngarret and hunts in old boxes for a book or a paper which has been cast\naside.\n\nIf she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go to the window and look\nout on the street, but when she is on the street it bores her, and she\nlongs to go in the house.\n\nIf a member of the family is absent, she gets no enjoyment out of the\nsociety of those at home; yet when that absent one returns her mind\nstrays elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not found here.\n\nI wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the spirit realm, or if\nthey go on there seeking and always seeking something just beyond.  It\nis a great gift to learn to enjoy the present--to get all there is out\nof it, and to think of to-day as a piece of eternity.  Begin now to\nteach yourself this great art if you have not thought of it before.  To\nbe able to enjoy heaven, one must learn first to enjoy earth.\n\n\n\n\nMorning Influences\n\nWhat do you think about the very first thing in the morning?\n\nYour thoughts during the first half-hour of the morning will greatly\ninfluence the entire day.  You may not realize this, but it is\nnevertheless a fact.\n\nIf you set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul\ntoward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a day of discords\nand misfortunes.\n\nIf you think peace, hope and happiness, you are sounding a note of\nharmony and success.\n\nThe result may not be felt at once, but it will not fail to make itself\nevident eventually.\n\nControl your morning thoughts.  You can do it.\n\nThe first moment on waking, no matter what your mood, say to yourself:\n\"I will get all the comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, and\nI will do something to add to the measure of the world's happiness or\nwell-being.  I will control myself when tempted to be irritable or\nunhappy, I will look for the bright side of every event.\"\n\nOnce you say these things over to yourself in a calm, earnest way, you\nwill begin to feel more cheerful.  The worries and troubles of the\ncoming day will seem less colossal.\n\nThen say: \"I shall be given help to meet anything that comes to-day.\nEverything will be for the best.  I shall succeed in whatever I\nundertake.  I cannot fail.\"\n\nDo not let it discourage you if the moment you leave your room you\nencounter a trouble or a disaster.  This usually happens.  When we make\nany boasts, spiritually or physically, we are put to the test.  The\noccult forces about us are not unlike human beings.  When a school-boy\nboasts of his strength, and says he can \"lick any boy in school,\" he\ngenerally gets a chance to prove it.\n\nWhen we declare we are brave enough to overcome any fate, we find our\nstrength put to the test at once.\n\nBut that is all right.  Prove your words to be true.  Regard the\ntroubles and cares you encounter as the \"punching bags\" of fate, given\nyou to develop your spiritual muscle.\n\nGo at them with courage and keep to your morning resolve.\n\nBy and by the troubles will lessen, and you will find yourself master\nof Circumstances.\n\n\n\n\nThe Philosophy of Happiness\n\nThere are natures born to happiness just as there are born musicians,\nmechanics and mathematicians.\n\nThey are usually children who came into life under right pre-natal\nconditions.  That is, children conceived and born in love.\n\nThe mother who thanks God for the little life she is about to bring to\nearth, gives her child a more blessed endowment than if it were heir to\na kingdom or a fortune.\n\nAs the majority of people, however, born under \"civilized\" conditions,\nare unwelcome to their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who has a\nbirthright of happiness.\n\nYouth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for\nhappiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself\nwith the passing of time.\n\nGood health and strong vitality are great aids to happiness; yet that\nthey, wealth and honors added, do not produce that much desired state\nof mind we have but to look about us to observe.\n\nOne who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to\nacquire skill in the art, however strong his desire or great his taste,\nthan the natural genius.\n\nSo the man not endowed with joyous impulses needs to set himself the\ntask of acquiring the habit of happiness.  I believe it can be done.\nTo the sad or restless or discontented being I would say: Begin each\nmorning by resolving to find something in the day to enjoy.  Look in\neach experience which comes to you for some grain of happiness.  You\nwill be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly\ndisagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side.\n\nThere is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty\nwhen you stop to realize that you are getting it out of the way.\n\nIf it is one of those duties which has the uncomfortable habit of\nrepeating itself continually, you can at least say you are learning\npatience and perseverance, which are two great virtues and essential to\nany permanent happiness in life.\n\nDo not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, but discover it in\nto-day.  Unless you are in the profound depths of some great sorrow,\nyou will find it if you look for it.\n\nThink of yourself each morning as an explorer in a new realm.  I know a\nman whose time is gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take\nthree hours for a certain pleasure.  He lost his way and missed his\npleasure, but was full of exuberant delight over his \"new experience.\"\n\"I saw places and met with adventures I might have missed my whole\nlife.\"  He was a true philosopher and optimist and such a man gets the\nvery kernel out of the nut of life.\n\nI know a woman who had since her birth every material blessing, health,\nwealth, position, travel and a luxurious home.  She was forever\ncomplaining of the cares and responsibilities of the latter.  Finally\nshe prevailed upon the family to rent the home for a series of years\nand to live in hotels.  Now she goes about posing as a martyr, \"a\nhomeless woman.\"  It is impossible for such a selfishly perverted\nnature to know happiness.\n\nA child should be taught from its earliest life to find entertainment\nin every kind of condition or weather.  If it hears its elders cursing\nand bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind is quick to receive\nthe impression that a rainy day is a disaster.\n\nHow much better to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain,\nand to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which\nother young animals feel.\n\nHappiness must come from within in order to respond to that which comes\nfrom without, just as there must be a musical ear and temperament to\nenjoy music.\n\nCultivate happiness as an art or science.\n\n\n\n\nA Worn Out Creed\n\nI have a letter from an \"orthodox Christian,\" who says the only hope\nfor humanity lies in the \"old-fashioned religion.\"\n\nThen he proceeds to tell me how carefully he has studied human nature,\n\"in business, in social life, and in himself,\" and that he finds it all\nvile--selfish--sinful.\n\nOf course he does, because he studies it from a false and harmful\nstandpoint, and looks for \"the worm of earth\" and \"the poor, miserable\nsinner,\" instead of the _divine_ man.\n\nWe find what we look for in this world.\n\nI have always been looking for the noble qualities in human beings, and\nI have found them.\n\nThere are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are\ngreat qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us\nordinarily.\n\nOne of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison\nfor sins committed while in drink.\n\nHe was not \"born bad\", he simply drifted into bad company and formed\nbad habits.\n\nHe paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the\ndivine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I\nfeel prouder to call that name.\n\nMr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of\nChicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts:\n\n\nAccording to my experience with a number of men of this class during\nthe last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the\nmost cordial support and assistance.\n\n\nIf this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is\nnot so vile as my \"orthodox\" correspondent would have me believe.\n\nA \"Christian\" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not\nallowed to associate with mankind.\n\nHe carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air.\n\nHe suggests evil to minds which have not thought it.\n\nHe is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending to be a disciple of\nChrist.\n\nThe man who believes that all men are vicious, selfish and immoral is\n_projecting pernicious mind stuff_ into space, which is as dangerous to\nthe peace of the community as dynamite bombs.\n\nThe world has been kept back too long by this false, unholy and\nblasphemous \"religion.\"\n\nIt is not the religion of Christ--it is the religion of ignorant\ntranslators, ignorant readers.\n\nThank God, its supremacy is past.  A wholesome and holy religion has\ntaken its place with the intelligent progressive minds of the day, a\nreligion which says: \"I am all goodness, love, truth, mercy, health.  I\nam a necessary part of God's universe.  I am a divine soul, and only\ngood can come through me or to me.  God made me, and He could make\nnothing but goodness and purity and worth.  I am the reflection of all\nHis qualities.\"\n\nThis is the \"new\" religion; yet it is older than the universe.  It is\nGod's own thought put into practical form.\n\n\n\n\nCommon Sense\n\nIf you are suffering from physical ills, ask yourself if it is not your\nown fault.\n\nThere is scarcely one person in one hundred who does not over eat or\ndrink.\n\nI know an entire family who complain of gastric troubles, yet who keep\nthe coffee pot continually on the range and drink large quantities of\nthat beverage at least twice a day.\n\nNo one can be well who does that.  Almost every human ailment can be\ntraced to foolish diet.\n\nEat only two meals in twenty-four hours.  If you are not engaged in\nactive physical labor, make it one meal.  Drink two or three or four\nquarts of milk at intervals during the day to supply good blood to the\nsystem.\n\nYou will thrive upon it, and you will not miss the other two meals\nafter the first week.\n\nAnd your ailments will gradually disappear.\n\nMeantime, if you are self-supporting, your bank account will increase.\n\nThink of the waste of money which goes into indigestible food!  It is\nappalling when you consider it.  Heaven speed the time when men and\nwomen find out how little money it requires to sustain the body in good\nhealth and keep the brain clear and the eye bright!\n\nThe heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with pity and scorn.  The time\nwill come when the heavy eater will be similarly regarded.\n\nOnce find the delight of a simple diet, the benefit to body and mind\nand purse, and life will assume new interest, and toil will be robbed\nof its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere matter of toiling for a\nbare existence.\n\nAgain, are you unhappy?  Stop and ask yourself why.  If you have a\ngreat sorrow, time will be your consoler.  And there is an ennobling\nand enriching effect of sorrow well borne.\n\nIt is the education of the soul.  But if you are unhappy over petty\nworries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you\nare allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the\nbeautiful days for you, take yourself in hand and change your ways.\n\nYou can do it if you choose.  It is pitiful to observe what sort of\ntroubles most unhappy people are afflicted with.  I have seen a\nbeautiful young woman grow care lined and faded just from imagining she\nwas being \"slighted\" or neglected by her acquaintances.\n\nSome one nodded coldly to her, another one spoke superciliously, a\nthird failed to invite her, a fourth did not pay her a call, and so\non--always a grievance to relate until one is prepared to look\nsympathetic at sight of her.\n\nAnd such petty, petty grievances for this great, good life to be marred\nby!\n\nAnd all the result of her own disposition.  Had she chosen to look for\nappreciation and attention and good will she would have found it\neverywhere.\n\nThen, about your temper?  Is it flying loose over a trifle?  Are you\nmaking yourself and every one else wretched if a chair is out of place,\nor a meal a moment late, or some member of the family is tardy at\ndinner, or your shoe string is in a tangle or your collar button\nmislaid?\n\nDo you go to pieces nervously if you are obliged to repeat a remark to\nsome one who did not understand you?  I have known a home to be ruined\nby just such infinitesimal annoyances.  It is a habit, like the drug or\nalcohol habit--this irritability.\n\nAll you need do is to stop it.  Keep your voice from rising, and speak\nslowly and calmly when you feel yourself giving way to it.  Realize how\nridiculous and disagreeable you will be if you continue, what an\nunlovely and hideous old age you are preparing for yourself.  And\nrealize that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and lack of culture.\n\nThink of the value of each day of life, how much it means and what\npossibilities of happiness and usefulness it contains if well spent.\n\nBut if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, dwell on the small worries\nand grow angry at the least trifle, you are committing as great and\ninexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture and garments and\nfood and fuel into the sea in a spirit of wanton cruelty.  You are\nwasting life for nothing.  Every sick, gloomy day you pass is a sin\nagainst life.  Get health, be cheerful, keep calm.\n\nClear your mind of every gloomy, selfish angry or revengeful thought.\nAllow no resentment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in your heart\nover night.\n\nWake in the morning with a blessing for every living thing on your lips\nand in your soul.  Say to yourself: \"Health, luck, usefulness, success,\nare mine.  I claim them.\"  Keep thinking that thought, no matter what\nhappens, just as you would put one foot before another if you had a\nmountain to climb.  Keep on, keep on, and suddenly you will find you\nare on the heights, luck beside you.\n\nWhoever follows this recipe _cannot fail_ of happiness, good fortune\nand a useful life.  But saying the words over _once_ and then drifting\nback to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good.\n\nThe words must be said over and over, and _thought_ and _lived_ when\nnot said.\n\n\n\n\nLiterature\n\nThe world is full of \"New Thought\" Literature.  It is helpful and\ninspiring to read.\n\nIt is worth many dollars to any one who will _live_ its philosophy.\n\nI talked to a man who has been studying along these lines for some\nyears.\n\n\"Oh, I know all that philosophy,\" he said; \"it is nothing new.  I am\nperfectly familiar with it.\"\n\nYet this man was continually allowing himself to grow angry over the\nleast trifle; he was quick to see and speak of the faults in others; he\nwas demanding more of those he associated with in the way of\nconsideration and justice than he was willing to give, and he was\nuntidy in his person and improvident in his use of money.\n\nNow it is the merest waste of time for this man to read \"New Thought\"\nliterature or practice \"deep breathing\", since he will not put into\ndaily and hourly practice what is taught by the New Religion.\n\nHe is like the orthodox Christian who mumbles through the Lord's Prayer\nand then goes forth to do exactly as he would not be done by in\nbusiness, social and domestic life.\n\n_Man is what he thinks_.  Not what he says, reads or hears.  By\npersistent thinking you can undo any condition which exists.  You can\nfree yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, ill health or\nunhappiness.  If you have been thinking these thoughts half a lifetime\nyou must not expect to batter down the walls you have built, in a week,\nor a month, or a year.  You must work and wait, and grow discouraged\nand stumble and pick yourself up and go on again.\n\nYou cannot in an hour gain control over a temper which you have let fly\nloose for twenty years.  But you can control it eventually, and learn\nto think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity like drunkenness or\nprofanity, something you could not descend to.\n\nIf you have allowed yourself to think despondent thoughts and believe\nthat poverty and sickness were your portion for years, it will take\ntime to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful ideas; but you can\ndo it by repeated assertions and by reading and thinking and living the\nbeautiful New Thought Philosophy.\n\n\n\n\nOptimism\n\nNot long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen\nof a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria\nof the world.  He said:\n\n\nLife is a hopeless battle in which we are foredoomed to defeat.  And\nthe prize for which we strive \"to have and to hold\"--what is it?  A\nthing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor missed when lost.  So\nworthless it is, so unsatisfying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to\nhope and at its best so brief, that for consolation and compensation we\nset up fantastic faiths of an aftertime in a better world from which no\nconfirming whisper has ever reached us out of the void.  Heaven is a\nprophecy uttered by the lips of despair, but Hell is an inference from\nhistory.\n\n\nThis is morbid and unwholesome talk which can do no human being any\ngood to utter, or listen to.\n\nBut it can depress and discourage the weak and struggling souls, who\nare striving to make the best of circumstances, and it can nerve to\nsuicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who needed only a word of\nencouragement and cheer to brace up and win the race.\n\nThis is the unpardonable sin--to talk discouragingly to human souls,\nhungering for hope.\n\nWhen the man without brains does it, he can be pardoned for knowing no\nbetter.\n\nWhen the man with brains does it, he should be ashamed to look his\nfellow mortals in the eyes.\n\nIt is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving a stone to those who ask\nfor bread.\n\nIt is giving poison to those who plead for a cup of cold water.\n\nFortunately the remarks above quoted contain not one atom of truth!\n\nThe writer may speak for himself, but he has no right to speak for\nothers.\n\nIt is all very well for a man who is marked with smallpox to say his\nface has not one unscarred inch on the surface of it.  But he has no\npremises to stand upon when he says there is not a face in the world\nwhich is free from smallpox scars.\n\nLife is not \"a hopeless battle in which we are doomed to defeat.\"\n\nLife is a glorious privilege, and we can make anything we choose of it,\nif we begin early and are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine\npowers.\n\nNothing can hinder us or stay us.  We can do and be whatsoever we will.\n\nThe prize of life is not \"a thing which is neither enjoyed while had\nnor missed when lost.\"\n\nIt is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day--this great prize of life.  I\nfor one declare that for every day of misery in my existence I have had\na week of joy and happiness.  For every hour of pain, I have had a day\nof pleasure.  For every moment of worry, an hour of content.\n\nI cannot be the only soul so endowed with the appreciation of life!  I\nknow scores of happy people who enjoy the many delights of earth, and\nthere are thousands whom I do not know.\n\nOf course \"life is not missed when lost\"--because it is never lost.  It\nis indestructible.\n\nLife ever was, and ever will be.  It is a continuous performance.\n\nIt is not \"worthless\" to the wholesome, normal mind.  It is full of\ninterest, and rich with opportunities for usefulness.\n\nWhen any man says his life is worthless, it is because he has eyes and\nsees not, and ears and hears not.\n\nIt is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate or accident.\n\nIf every life seems at times \"unsatisfactory\" and \"inadequate\" it is\nonly due to the cry of the immortal soul longing for larger\nopportunities and fewer limitations.\n\nNeither is life \"false to hope.\"  He who trusts the divine Source of\nLife, shall find his hopes more than realized here upon earth.  I but\nvoice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when I make this assertion.\nI know whereof I speak.\n\nAll that our dearest hopes desire will come to us, if we believe in\nourselves as rightful heirs to Divine Opulence, and work and think\nalways on those lines.\n\nIf \"no whisper has ever reached us out of the void\" confirming our\nfaith in immortality, then one-third of the seemingly intelligent and\nsane beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars.  For we have\nthe assertion of fully this number that such whispers have come,\nbesides the Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the other\nrealm.  \"As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be ever more,\nworld without end, Amen.\"\n\n\n\n\nPreparation\n\nEvery day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were\nnot given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an\neducation in early youth.\n\nThey believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful\nhad an education been obtained.\n\nScarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the\nschooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is\nbeing missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable\nknowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age\nendurable.\n\nYouth is the season to acquire knowledge, middle life is the time to\nacquire wisdom.\n\nOld age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more\nimportant of the two.\n\nBy wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our\ntempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our\nsympathies.\n\nThe majority of people after thirty-five consider themselves privileged\nto be cross, irritable, critical and severe, because they have lived\nlonger than the young, because they have had more trials and\ndisappointments, and because they believe they understand the world\nbetter.\n\nThose are excellent reasons why they should be patient, kind, broad and\nsympathetic.\n\nThe longer we live the more we should realize the folly and vulgarity\nof ill-temper, the cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for a\nbroad-minded view of life, manners, morals and customs.\n\nUnless we adapt ourselves to the changing habits of the world, unless\nwe adopt some of the new ideas that are constantly coming to the front,\nwe will find ourselves carping, disagreeable and lonely old people as\nthe years go by.\n\nThe world will not stand still for us.  Society will not wear the same\nclothes or follow the same pleasures, or think the same thoughts when\nwe are eighty that were prevalent when we were thirty.  We must keep\nmoving with the world or stand still and solitary.\n\nAfter thirty we must seize every hour and educate ourselves to grow\ninto agreeable old age.\n\nIt requires at least twenty years to become well educated in book and\ncollege lore.  If we begin to study at seven we are rarely through with\nall our common schools, seminaries, high schools and colleges have to\noffer under a score of years.\n\nThe education for old age needs fully as many years.  We need to begin\nat thirty to be tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic and\nliberal.  Then, at fifty, we may hope to have \"graduated with honors\"\nfrom life's school of wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or\ntwo of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the practice of these\nqualities.\n\nInstead of wasting our time in bemoaning the loss of early\nopportunities for obtaining an education, let us devote ourselves to\nthe cultivation of wisdom, since that is free to all who possess\nself-control, will power, faith and perseverance.\n\nBegin to-day, at home.  Be more tolerant of the faults of the other\nmembers of your household.  Restrain your criticisms on the conduct of\nyour neighbors.\n\nTry and realize the causes which led some people who have gone wrong to\nerr.  Look for the admirable qualities in every one you meet.\nSympathize with the world.  Be interested in progress, be interested in\nthe young.  Keep in touch with each new generation, and do not allow\nyourself to grow old in thought or feeling.\n\nEducate yourself for a charming old age.  There is no time to lose.\n\n\n\n\nDividends\n\n  Our thoughts are shaping unmade spheres,\n    And, like a blessing or a curse,\n  They thunder down the formless years\n    And ring throughout the universe.\n\n\nThe more we realize the tremendous responsibility of our mental\nemanations the better for the world and ourselves.  The sooner we teach\nlittle children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible phrase \"As a man\nthinketh, so is he,\" the better for future generations.\n\nIf a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfortune, he will meet them and\nclaim them all eventually as his own.  But he will not acknowledge the\nclose relationship, he will deny his own children and declare they were\nsent to him by an evil fate.\n\nWalter Atkinson tells us that \"he who hates is an assassin.\"\n\nEvery kindergarten and public school teacher ought to embody this idea\nin the daily lessons for children.\n\nIt may not be possible to teach a child to \"love every neighbor as\nhimself,\" for that is the most difficult of Commandments to follow to\nthe letter; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from a nature if we\nawaken sympathy for the object of dislike.\n\nThat which we pity we cannot hate.  The wonderful Intelligence which\nset this superb system of worlds in action must have been inspired by\nlove for all it created.\n\nSo much grandeur and magnificence, so much perfection of detail, could\nonly spring from Love.\n\nWhatever is out of harmony in our little world has been caused by man's\nsubstituting hate and fear for love and faith.\n\nEvery time we allow either hate or fear to dominate our minds we\ndisarrange the order of the universe and make trouble for humanity, and\nourselves.\n\nIt may be a little late in reaching us, but it is sure to come back to\nthe Mind which sent forth the cause.\n\nEvery time we entertain thoughts of love, sympathy, forgiveness and\nfaith we add to the well-being of the world, and create fortunate and\nsuccessful conditions for ourselves.\n\nThose, too, may be late in coming to us--BUT THEY WILL COME.\n\nRight thinking is not attained in a day or a week.\n\nWe must train the mind to reject the brood of despondent, resentful,\nfearful and prejudiced thoughts which approach it, and to invite and\nentertain cheerful, broad and wholesome thoughts instead, just as we\novercome false tones and cultivate musical ones in educating the voice\nfor singing.\n\nWhen we once realize that by driving away pessimistic, angry and bitter\nthoughts we drive away sickness and misfortune to a great extent, and\nthat by seeking the kinder and happier frame of mind we seek at the\nsame time success and health and good luck, we will find a new impetus\nin the control of our mental forces.\n\nFor we all love to be paid for our worthy deeds, even while we believe\nin being good for good's sake only.  And nothing in life is surer than\nthis:\n\nRIGHT THINKING PAYS LARGE DIVIDENDS.\n\n_Think_ success, prosperity, usefulness.  It is much more profitable\nthan thinking self-destruction or the effort at self-destruction for\nthat is an act which aims at an impossibility.  You can destroy the\nbody, but the _you_ who suffers in mind and spirit will suffer still,\nand live still.  You will only change your location from one state to\nanother.  You did not make yourself, you cannot unmake yourself.  You\ncan merely put yourself among the spiritual tramps who hang about the\nearth's borders, because they have not prepared a better place for\nthemselves.\n\nSuicide is cheap, vulgar and cowardly.  Because you have made a wreck\nof a portion of this life, do not make a wreck of the next.\n\nMend up your broken life here, go along bravely and with sympathy and\nlove in your heart, determined to help everybody you can, and to better\nyour condition as soon as possible.  Men have done this after fifty,\nand lived thirty good years to enjoy the results.\n\nDo not feel hurt by the people who slight you, or who refer to your\nerring past.  Be sorry for them.  I would rather be a tender-hearted\nreformed sinner than a hard-hearted model of good behavior.\n\nI would rather learn sympathy through sin than never learn it at all.\n\nThere is nothing we cannot live down, and rise above, and overcome.\nThere is nothing we cannot be in the way of nobility and worth.\n\n\n\n\nRoyalty\n\nWe get what we give.  I have never known this rule to fail in the long\nrun.  If we give sympathy, appreciation, goodwill, charitable thoughts,\nadmiration and love--we receive all these back from humanity in time.\n\nWe may bestow them unworthily, as the sower of good seed may cast it on\na rocky surface, but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast,\nand, while the rock remains barren, the fields shall yield a golden\nharvest.\n\n_The seed must be good_, however.\n\nIf I say to myself without any real regard for another in my heart, \"I\nwant that person to like me, I will do all in my power to please him,\"\nI need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove of only temporary\nefficacy.\n\nNeither need I feel surprised or pained if I find by-and-by that other\npeople are bestowing policy friendship upon me, actions with no feeling\nfor a foundation.\n\nNo matter how kind and useful I make my conduct toward an individual,\nif in my secret heart I am criticising him severely and condemning him,\nI must expect criticism and condemnation from others as my portion.\n\nWe reap what we sow.  Some harvests are longer in growing than others,\nbut they all grow in time.\n\nServility in love, or friendship, or duty, is never commendable.  I do\nnot believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created\nas the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless\nworms, unworthy of His regard!\n\nWe are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful inheritors of happiness,\nand health, and success.  What monarch would feel pleasure in having\nhis children crawl in the dust, saying, \"We are less than nothing,\nmiserable, unworthy creatures?\"\n\nWould he not prefer to hear them say, proudly: \"We are of royal blood\"?\n\nWe ought always to believe in our best selves, in our right to love and\nbe loved, to give and receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded.\nAnd then we should bestow our love, our gifts and our toil with no\nanxious thought about the returns.  If we chance to love a loveless\nindividual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, to toil for the\nunappreciative, it is but a temporary deprivation for us.  The love,\nthe gratitude and the recompense will all come to us in time from some\nsource, or many sources.  It cannot fail.\n\n\n\n\nHeredity\n\nAmerican parents, as a rule, can be put in two extreme classes, those\nwho render the children insufferably conceited and unbearable by\noverestimating their abilities and overpraising their achievements, and\nthose who render them morbid and self-depreciating by a lack of\nwholesome praise.\n\nIt is rare indeed, when we find parents wise and sensible enough to\nstrengthen the best that is in their children by discreet praise, and\nat the same time to control the undesirable qualities by judicious and\nkind criticism.\n\nI heard a grandmother not long ago telling callers in the presence of a\nsmall boy what a naughty, bad child he was, and how impossible it\nseemed to make him mind.  Wretched seed to sow in the little mind, and\nthe harvest is sure to be sorrow.\n\nI have heard parents and older children, expatiate on the one stupid\ntrait and the one plain feature of a bright and handsome child,\nintending to keep it from forming too good an opinion of itself.\n\nTo all young people I would say, cultivate a belief in yourself.  Base\nit on self-respect and confidence in God's love for his own handiwork.\nSay to yourself, \"I will be what I will to be.\"  Not because your human\nwill is all-powerful, but because the Divine will is back of you.\nAnalyze your own abilities and find what you are best fitted to do.\n\nThen get about the task of doing your chosen work to the very best of\nyour ability, and do not for an instant doubt your own capabilities.\nPerhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by years of morbid thought;\nbut if you persist in a self-respecting and self-reliant and\nGod-trusting course of thinking your powers will increase and your\ncapabilities strengthen.\n\nIt is no easy matter to overcome a habit of self-depreciation.\n\nIt is like straightening out a limb which has been twisted by a false\nattitude or correcting a habit of sitting round-shouldered.\n\nIt requires a steady and persistent effort.  When the depressing and\ndoubtful thoughts come drive them away like malaria-breeding insects.\nSay, \"This is not complimentary to my Maker.  I am His work.  I must be\nworthy of my own respect and of that of others.  I must and will\nsucceed.\"\n\n\n\n\nInvincibility\n\nIf we persistently desire good things to come to us for unselfish\npurposes, and at the same time faithfully perform the duties which lie\nnearest, we will eventually find our desires being realized in the most\nunexpected manner.\n\nOur thought force has proved to be a wedge, opening the seemingly\ninaccessible Wall of Circumstance.\n\nTo read good books, to think and ponder on what you read, to cultivate\nevery agreeable quality you observe in others, and to weed from your\nnature every unworthy and disagreeable trait, to study humanity with an\nidea of being helpful and sympathetic, all these efforts will help you\nto the ultimate attainment of your wishes.\n\nIt is a proven fact that if we devote a few moments each day to\nreaching exercises, standing with loose garments and stretching the\nbody muscles to reach some point above us, we increase our stature.\n\nJust so if we mentally and spiritually are continually reaching to a\nhigher plane we are growing.\n\nEvery least thought of the brain is a chisel, chipping away at our\ncharacters, and our characters are building our destinies.\n\nThe incessant and persistent demand of our hearts and minds MUST be\ngranted.\n\n\n\n\nThat Mental Chisel\n\nDuring a trolley ride through a thrifty New England locality, where\nchurch spires were almost as plentiful as trees, I studied the faces of\nthe people who came into the car during my two hours' journey.\n\nThe day was beautiful, and all along the route our numbers were\nrecruited by bevies of women, young, middle aged and old, who were bent\non shopping expeditions or setting forth to make social calls.\n\nThey went and came at each village through which our coach of democracy\npassed, and they represented all classes.\n\nThe young girls were lovely, as young girls are the world over: their\ncomplexion possessed that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore\nlocalities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune is the greatest of\ncosmetics.  Many of the young faces were formed in classic mould, their\nfeatures clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the thoughts and\nprinciples of their ancestors.\n\nOften I observed a mother and some female relative, presumably an aunt,\nin company with a young relative; and always the sharpening and\nwithering process of the years of set and unelastic thought was\ndiscernible upon their faces, which had once been young, and classic\nand attractive.\n\nIn the entire two hours I saw but three lovely faces which were matured\nby time.\n\nI saw scores of well-dressed and evidently well-cared-for women of\nmiddle age, whose countenances were furrowed, drawn, pinched, sallow,\nand worn, beyond excuse; for time, sorrow, and sickness are not\nplausible excuses for such ravages upon a face God drew in lines of\nbeauty.\n\nTime should mature a woman's beauty as it does that of a tree.  Sorrow\nshould glorify it as does the frost the tree, and sickness should not\nbe allowed to lay a lingering touch upon it, until death calls the\nspirit away.\n\nWithout question the great majority of the women I saw were earnest\northodox Christians.\n\nI heard snatches of conversation regarding Church and Charities and I\nhave no doubt that each woman among them believed herself to be a\ndisciple of Christ.\n\nYet where was the result of the loving, tender, sweet spirit of\nChrist's teaching?\n\nIt surely was not visible upon those pinched and worried faces? and\nthose faces were certain and truthful chronicles of the work done by\nthe minds within.\n\nOne face said to me in every line, \"I talk about God's goodness and\nloving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret\nabout our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband\nhas an unregenerate heart.  I never know an hour's peace, for even in\nmy sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved\nby the blood of Christ!\"\n\nAnother said, \"I am in God's fold, well and safe, but I hate and\ndespise my nearest neighbor, for she wears clothes that I am sure she\ncannot pay for, and her children are always dressed better than mine.\nI quarrel with my domestics, and am always in trouble of some kind,\njust because human beings are so full of sin and no one but myself is\never right.  I shall be so glad to leave this world of woe and go to\nheaven, but I hope I will not meet many of my present acquaintances\nthere!\"\n\nAnother said, \"If I only had good health--but I was born to sickness\nand suffering, and it is God's will that I should suffer!\"\n\nOh the pity of it, and to imagine this is religion!\n\nThank God the wave of \"New Thought\" is sweeping over the land, and\nwashing away those old blasphemous errors of mistaken creeds.\n\nThe \"New Thought\" is to give us a new race of beautiful middle-aged and\nold people.\n\nTo-day in any part of the land among rich, poor, ignorant or\nintellectual, orthodox or materialists the beautiful mature face is\nrarer than a white blackbird in the woods.\n\nIt is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninteresting in late life, if\nthe mind keeps itself occupied with right thinking.\n\nThe withered and drawn face of fifty indicates withered emotions and\ndrawn and perverted ambitions.\n\nThe dried and sallow face tells its story of dried up sympathies and\nhopes.\n\nThe furrowed face tells of acid cares eating into the heart.\n\nAll this is irreligious! yet all this prevails extensively in our most\nconservative and churchy communities.\n\nHe who in truth trusts God cannot worry.\n\nHe who loves God and mankind, cannot become dried and withered at\nfifty, for love will re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his\neye.\n\nHe who understands his own divine nature will grow more beautiful with\nthe passing of time, for the God within will become each year more\nvisible.\n\nThe really reverent soul accepts its sorrows as blessings in disguise,\nand he who so accepts them is beautified and glorified by them, within\nand without.\n\nAre you growing more attractive as you advance in life?  Is your eye\nsofter and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more\nsympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry?\nAre your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the\ncorners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin\ndry, and sallow, and parched?\n\nStudy yourself and answer these questions to your own soul, for in the\nanswer depends the decision whether you really love and trust God, and\nbelieve in your own immortal spirit, or whether you are a mere impostor\nin the court of faith.\n\n\n\n\nThe Object of Life\n\nWhat do you believe to be the object of your life?\n\nTo be happy and successful, perhaps you are thinking, even if you do\nnot answer in those words.\n\nThat is the idea of the many.  Meanwhile others, who have been educated\nin the melancholy faith of their ancestors, believe the object of this\nlife is to be miserable, poor, and full of sorrow, that they may wear a\ncrown of glory hereafter.\n\nBut the clear thinker and careful observer must realize that there is\none and only one main object in life--_the building of character_.\n\nHe who sets out in early youth with that ambition and purpose, and\nkeeps to it, will not only attain his object, but he will, too, attain\nhappiness and true success--for there is no such thing as failure for\nthe man or woman of character.\n\nWe often apply the two words character and success, unworthily.\n\nWe speak of a man of \"much character\" when he is merely self-assertive\nand stubborn, and we call a man successful, who has accumulated a\nfortune, or achieved fame and a position, by doubtful methods.\n\nThen what is character, and what is success?\n\nCharacter is the result of the cultivation of the highest and noblest\nqualities in human nature, and putting those qualities to practical use.\n\nSuccess is the conquest of the lower and baser self, and the ability to\nbe useful to one's fellow men.\n\nThere are men of brain, wealth and position who are failures, and there\nare men of limited abilities and in humble places who are yet\nsuccessful, inasmuch as they make the utmost of themselves, and their\nopportunities.\n\nIt makes no difference how lowly your sphere in life may be, and no\nmatter how limited your environment, you can build your character if\nyou will.  You need no outlay of money, no assistance from those in\npower, no influence.\n\nCharacter Building must be done alone, and by yourself.  The ground\nmust be cleansed of debris, and the structure must be erected stone by\nstone.\n\nIt is dull, slow, hard work, especially the preparation.\n\nAll preparation is drudgery.\n\nWhen this little whirling globe of ours began to cool in space think\nwhat a task lay before it!  Think of the mass of chaos, which had to\nslowly shape itself into mighty, green, glad and snow-capped mountains,\nfertile vales, and noble forests.\n\nEach one of us is a little world, whirling alone on an individual\norbit, but the divine power is within us, to grow into symmetry,\nbeauty, and perfection if we only realize it.\n\nAnd the happiness of the work, once we begin it, is beyond the power of\ndescription.\n\nThere is no other satisfaction can compare with that of looking back\nacross the years and finding that you have grown in self-control, in\ncharity of judgment, in a sense of justice, in generosity, and in\nunselfishness.\n\nIf you are conscious of this growth, let no lack of material success\nfor one moment disturb you.  That will come, enough for your need, in\ntime.\n\nThe man of symmetrically developed character is never a pauper.\n\nHe is never dependent for more than a temporary period.\n\nTo possess character is to be useful, and to be useful is to be\nindependent, and to be useful and independent, is to be happy, even in\nthe midst of sorrow; for sorrow is not necessarily unhappiness.\n\nThe man who has made the development of a noble and harmonious\ncharacter the business of his life, accepts his sorrows as means of\ngreater growth, and finds in them an exaltation of spirit which is\nclosely allied to happiness.\n\nTo such a nature, absolute wretchedness would only be possible through\nthe loss of self-respect; the lowering of an ideal or the failure of a\nprinciple.\n\nWould you be happy and successful?  Then set yourself to _build\ncharacter_.\n\nSeek to be worthy of your own highest commendation.\n\n\n\n\nWisdom\n\nA great many people are attracted to the New Thought of the day, by its\ndeclaration of our right to material wealth, and by its claim that the\nmind of man can create, command, and control conditions which produce\nwealth.\n\nThere is no question concerning the truth of this claim.\n\nBut woe unto him who cultivates his mental and spiritual powers only\nfor this purpose.\n\nHis gold shall turn to dross, his pleasure to Dead Sea fruit.\n\nHe shall be as one who drags a beautiful garment through the mud of the\nstreets, and while clothed in purple and fine linen is yet a repulsive\nobject.\n\nInto the Great Scheme of Existence, as first conceived by the Creator,\nmoney did not enter.\n\nHe made this beautiful Universe, and all that it contains was meant for\nthe enjoyment of His creatures.\n\nThere was no millionaire and no pauper soul created by God.\n\nEach soul contains the spark of the divine spirit, and by the\nrealization of that spark, and all it means, whatever is desired by\nmortal man may come to him.\n\nBut wise is he who remembers the injunction, \"Seek first the kingdom of\nheaven and all other things shall be added unto you.\"\n\nWise is he who understands the meaning of the words, \"Unto him that\nhath, more shall be given.\"\n\nNot until you obtain the faculty of being happy through your spiritual\nand mental faculties, independent of material conditions, not until you\nlearn to value wealth only as a means of helpfulness, can you safely\nturn your powers of concentration upon the idea of opulence.\n\nTo demand, assert, and command wealth for its mere sensual benefits, to\nfocus your mind upon it because you desire to shine, lead, and triumph,\nis to play spiritual football with spiritual dynamite.\n\nYou may obtain what you seek, you may accumulate riches, but at the\ncost of all that is worth living for.\n\nThe merely ignorant, or stupid, or wholly material man who stumbles\ninto a fortune, through inheritance, dogged persistent industry, or\nchance, may enjoy it in his own fashion, and do no harm in the world.\n\nBut the man who knows and who has developed his spiritual powers only\nfor the purpose of commanding material gain, might better have a\nmillstone tied about his neck.  For he makes himself a spiritual\noutcast, and his money shall never bring him happiness.\n\nMake, therefore, your assertion of opulence the last in your list, as\nyou make Love first.\n\nCall unto yourself spiritual insight, absolute unselfishness, desire\nfor universal good, wisdom, justice, and usefulness, and last of all\nopulence.\n\nThink of yourself as possessed of all these qualities before you\npicture financial independence.\n\nFor without love for your kind, without the desire for usefulness and\nthe spiritual insight and the wisdom to be just before being generous,\nyour money would bring you only temporary pleasure, and would do the\nworld no good.\n\nNeither should you labor under the impression that God's work is lying\nundone because you have no fortune to command and wisely distribute\nwhere most needed.  Rest assured if you do the work which lies nearest\nto you, relieve such distress as is possible to you, and keep your\nfaith in the ultimate justice of God's ways, that the world will move\non, and humanity will slowly attain its destined goal, even if you\nnever become a millionaire.\n\n\n\n\nSelf Conquest\n\nEvery New Idea, or supposed New Idea, is a light which attracts the\nmoths.\n\nThe \"New Thought\" is no exception.\n\nAbout it flutter hysterical women, unbalanced men: the erratic and the\nirresponsible.\n\nThe possibilities of performing miracles, of healing the sick,\nhypnotizing the well, transforming poverty into wealth, and changing\nage to youth, are the rays of light which flicker through the darkness\nand draw them into the circle of radiance.\n\nThe self-indulgent fat woman subscribes to New Thought literature, pays\nfor a course of lectures, and goes forth into the ranks of the\nunbelievers, proclaiming her power to become a sylph, and to cause\nothers to become sylphs.\n\nThe extravagant and inconsiderate rush forth after having heard a\ndiscourse upon the power of mind over matter, and declare that they\npossess the secret of accumulating a fortune by occult means.\n\nThe lovers of the marvelous believe that they will become great healers\nin a brief space of time.\n\nNot one of these moth converts realizes that the very first step to\ntake in the direction of \"New Thought\" is self-conquest.\n\nThe gourmand does not know that self-indulgence and a gross appetite\nare incompatible with mental or spiritual growth, and will be\ninsurmountable obstacles in her path toward symmetry.\n\nThe spendthrift does not take into consideration the fact that good\nsense, thrift and industry, must aid his mental assertion of wealth,\nand the miracle lover does not understand that something greater and\nmore difficult is required than a mere wish to heal before healing\npowers can be obtained.\n\nThat the physical body and material conditions can be dominated by the\ndivine spirit in man, is an incontrovertible fact.\n\nBut first, last and always, the lesser self must be subjugated, and the\nweak and unworthy qualities overcome.\n\nThe woman who desires to reduce her flesh cannot do so by reading\noccult literature, or joining mystic circles, or attending lectures,\nunless she permeates herself so thoroughly with spiritual truths that\nshe no longer craves six courses at dinner, and three meals a day, and\nunless she overcomes her dislike for exercise.\n\nThe man who wishes to control circumstances must love better things\nthan money before he can succeed.  He must love, and respect, and\nbelieve in his Creator, and trust the Divine Man within himself, and he\nmust illustrate this love and trust by his daily conduct, and in his\nhome circle, and in his business relations.\n\nOnce in a century, perhaps, is a man born with great powers already\ndeveloped to heal the sick, or to do other seeming miracles.  Such\nbeings are old souls, who have obtained diplomas in former lives; but\nthe majority of us are still in school, and we cannot become \"seniors\"\nuntil we pass through the lower grades.\n\nWe must change ourselves before we can change material conditions: we\nmust heal our own thoughts and make them sane and normal, before we can\nheal bodily disease in others.\n\nIt is not an immediate process.  I have heard an old lady declare that\nshe \"got religion\" in the twinkling of an eye, and she believed all\npeople would be damned and burn in hell fire, who did not pass through\nthis sudden illumination.\n\nIt is possible that the religion which can worship a God cruel enough\nto burn his children in fire, can only be obtained in the twinkling of\nan eye; but the reverent, wholesome, and beautiful religion of \"New\nThought\" must be grown into little by little, through patience, faith,\nand practice.\n\nAll that it claims to do it can do, but not instantaneously, not\nrapidly.  We must first make ourselves over; after absolute control of\nour minds has been obtained, then, and only then, may we hope to\ninfluence circumstances and health.\n\n\n\n\nThe Important Trifles\n\nYou will find, in the effort to reach a higher spirituality in your\ndaily life, that the small things try your patience and your strength\nmore than the greater ones.\n\nHome life, like business life, is composed of an accumulation of\ntrifles.\n\nThere are people who bear great sorrows with resignation, and seem to\ngain a certain dignity and force of character through trouble, but who\nare utterly vanquished by trivial annoyances.\n\nThe old-fashioned orthodox \"Christian\" was frequently of this order.\n\nDeath, poverty, and misfortune he bore without complaining, and became\nofttimes a more agreeable companion in times of deepest sorrow.\n\nHe regarded all such experiences as the will of God, and bowed to them.\n\nYet, if his dinner was late, his coffee below the standard, if his\neye-glasses were misplaced, or his toe trodden upon, he become a raging\nlion, and his roar drove his affrighted household into dark corners.\n\nThere have been neighborhood Angels, who watched beside the dying\nsinner, sustained orphans and widows, and endured great troubles\nsublimely like martyrs.  But if a dusty shoe trod upon a freshly washed\nfloor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or\nlingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring--lo, the\nAngel became a virago, or a droning mosquito with persistent sting.\n\nThe New Philosophy demands serenity and patience through small trials,\nas well as fortitude in meeting life's larger ills.\n\nIt demands, too, that we seek to avoid giving others unnecessary\nirritation by a thoughtless disregard of the importance of trifles.\n\nA man is more likely to keep calm if he wakes in the night and\ndiscovers that the house is on fire, than he is if, on being fully\nprepared to retire, he finds the only mug on the third story is missing\nfrom his wash-stand, or the cake of toilet-soap he asked for the day\nbefore has been forgotten.\n\nA mother bears the affliction of a crippled child with more equanimity\nthan she is able to bring to bear upon the continual thoughtlessness of\na strong one.\n\nTo be kind, means to be thoughtful.\n\nThe kindest and most loving heart will sometimes forget and be\ncareless; but it cannot be perpetually forgetful and careless of\nanother's wishes and needs, even in the merest trifles.\n\n\n\n\nConcentration\n\nThe New Thought includes _concentration of thought_, in its teaching;\nand he who learns that important art is not liable to frequently forget\nsmall or large duties.\n\nIt is he who scatters, instead of concentrates his mind powers, who\nkeeps himself and others in a state of continual irritation by\nforgetting, mislaying, and losing, three petty vices which do much to\nmar domestic or business life.\n\nConcentration is a most difficult acquirement for the mature mind which\nhas been allowed to grow in the habit of thought scattering.\n\nWise is the mother, and as sure as wise, who teaches her child to\nfinish each task begun before attempting another, for that is the first\nstep in concentration.\n\nPrentice Mulford, that great and good pioneer in the field of practical\nNew Thought, tells us to apply our whole mental powers to whatever we\ndo, even if it is merely the tying of a shoe, and to think of nothing\nelse until that shoe is tied, then to utterly forget the shoe string,\nwhen we turn to another duty or employment.  The next lesson in\nconcentration he gives us, is to repeat the word often, to impress it\nupon the mind.\n\nAnd then to declare each day that \"Concentration is mine\" will aid\nstill farther in the acquisition of this great and important quality.\n\nMeanwhile, since we can be so fortunate as to always surround ourselves\nwith others who have acquired it, the student of the Higher Philosophy\nmust learn to be serene and self-poised when he encounters life's pigmy\nworries.\n\nHe must carry his religion into his bedroom and his office, and not\nforget it utterly when he loses his collar-button, or misses his car,\nor finds his office boy has taken a parcel to the wrong address.\n\nTo build character necessitates a constant watch upon ourselves.  The\nNew Thought is not a religion of Sundays, but of every day.\n\n\n\n\nDestiny\n\nNever say that you wish your situation were different!  Never wish you\nhad some other person's life or troubles or worries.\n\nAccept your own as a _working basis_, the best for you.\n\nThen go ahead and _change whatever_ displeases you.\n\nRemember you are the maker and moulder of your own destiny.  You do not\nrecall the fact, but you brought about the present conditions of your\ndestiny in former incarnations.\n\nEven if you do not believe this, you must acknowledge that _you are\nhere_, and that the situation in which you find yourself seems to be\ninevitable for the present.\n\nBut it is not inevitable for the future, unless you lie down in the\nfurrow and whine, and wish you were a millionaire, or a genius, and\nrail at the partiality of Providence.\n\nThere is no partiality in the Universe.\n\nThe whole scheme is well balanced.  If you were allowed to change lots\nwith anyone on the face of the earth, you would complain and find fault\nin a short time.\n\nOne of our best known millionaires, born to opulence, complains that he\nhas been robbed of the privilege of making his own fortune.\n\nHe is no happier than you.  His confession betrays his weakness of\ncharacter just as your repining and fault-finding betrays yours.\n\nThe real worth-while character thanks God for its destiny and says, \"I\nwill show the world what I can do with my life.\"\n\nNot long ago there was a great trotting-race at Brighton Beach.  The\nblind conqueror \"Rythmic\" won five consecutive races.\n\nThink of it!  He did not, like a mortal man, shrink back and say \"I am\nblind--that is a terrible destiny--I am cursed of God--I will not try\nto win the race.\"  He just trusted the hand of the _Master at the\nreins_, did his best, and won the honors of the season.\n\nWe are all blind racers on the track of earth.  The king, the\nmillionaire, the statesman, the lawmaker, the beggar, the laborer, the\ncripple, we are all in the dark.  The only thing is to trust the hand\nof the Master, and _do our best_.\n\nBelieve your position is the right starting point for _you_, merely the\nstarting point.\n\nIt is the shapeless block of stone from which you are to fashion the\nperfect statue.\n\nOr it is the mere mud from which you are to mould the clay image, and\nlater that is to be put into enduring marble.\n\nWhat is uglier or more unattractive than mud?\n\nYet think of the glorious conceptions which it imprisons.\n\nTake the mud of your present environment and thank God for it, and make\nthe image of the future you desire.\n\nYou can do it--you must do it--you will do it.\n\n\n\n\nSympathy\n\nAre you of a sympathetic nature?\n\nIf so, do not let your sympathies help to add to the world's miseries.\n\nThat may seem a strange expression, but it can be explained if you will\nlisten.\n\nMuch of the misery in the world is the result of imagination.\n\nAll of it is the result of selfishness and ignorance.\n\nBut hundreds and thousands of people believe themselves sick, sorrowful\nand poverty stricken, who would be well, glad and prosperous, if they\nonly thought themselves so.\n\nEvery time you pour out your sympathy upon these self-made sufferers,\nyou add to their burden of wrong thought, and make it just so much more\ndifficult for them to rise out of their troubles.\n\nI do not believe all the misfortune in the world is caused by wrong\nthinking in this life, or can be done away with by right thinking.  The\nthree-year-old child who toddles in front of a trolley car and loses a\nleg, while the tired mother is bending over the washtub to keep the\nwolf of hunger at bay, cannot be blamed for wrong thinking as the cause\nof its trouble.  Neither can the deaf mute or the child born blind or\ndeformed.  We must go farther back, to former lives, to find the first\ncause of such misfortunes.\n\nNo \"New Thought,\" no amount of optimistic theology or philosophy can\nrestore the child's leg, or ears, or eyes.  It is utter nonsense to say\nthat miracles like these can be performed.\n\nThere are scores of individuals whom we meet handicapped in life's race\nby such dire calamities that we spontaneously pour forth our sympathy.\n\nBut, even to these, it were kinder and wiser to give diverting\nthoughts, and a new outlook, and to open up avenues for pleasure, and\nentertainment, and profit, in place of tears and condolence.\n\nSympathy, without alleviating actions to a sufferer, is like a cloud\nwithout rain to the parched earth.\n\nBut the great majority of people whom we encounter are making their own\ncrosses, and we who offer them sympathy, and condolence, are but adding\nto the burden's weight.\n\nI do not recommend coldness, indifference, or ridicule as a substitute\nfor sympathy.  But instead of leading the sick man on to tell you the\ndetails of his illness, and to describe all his symptoms, while your\nown body responds with sympathetic aches and pains as you listen, it is\nkinder to divert his attention to some cheerful and merry topic, or to\nrefer to some case like his own which resulted in perfect restoration\nto health.  Instead of going down into his underground cave of\ndepression, bring him out into the wholesome sunlight of your own\nhealthful state, even if for a moment only, and impress upon his mind\nthat health belongs to him, and must return to him.\n\nTo the man in business trouble the same advice applies.\n\nTell him you are sorry for him, but do not take on his despondency to\nprove it.\n\nTalk of the future and all the possibilities it holds for a determined\nman or woman.\n\nMake him laugh.  Speak of trouble as the gymnasium where our moral\nmuscles are developed.  Answer him that everything he desires is his if\nhe will be persistent and determined in demanding his own.  If you put\nforce in your words you will leave an impression.\n\nDo not go away from the house of trouble in tears, but leave the\ntroubled ones you called upon smiling as you depart.\n\nThat is true sympathy.\n\n\n\n\nThe Breath\n\nA man reproved me for my interest in New Thought creeds.\n\n\"The old religion I learned at my mother's knee is good enough for me!\"\nhe said.  \"It is good enough for anybody!\"\n\nYet this man's mother had always \"enjoyed poor health,\" as the old lady\nexpressed it, and the man himself was forever talking of his diseases,\nhis ill luck, his poverty, which he said he had been enabled to endure\nonly through the sustaining power of the religion \"learned at his\nmother's knee.\"\n\nIt would be difficult to convince the man that had his mother taught\nhim the creed of the \"New Religion\" he could have changed all these\nunfortunate conditions.\n\nLife-long ill health would have been impossible for his mother, or for\nhim.\n\nThe old fashioned religion allowed and still allows a human being to\nbreathe like a canary bird.\n\nLittle children go to Sunday-School all their young lives, and grow up\nto be devout church members, and never hear one word about the\nimportance of _deep breathing_.\n\nPossibly you may think breathing lessons belong to physical culture,\nand have no place in religious teachings.\n\nThere is where you err.\n\nIn order to develop your whole being, you must learn how to control\nbody and mind through the spirit.\n\nThousands of years ago, men who gave their entire lives to the study of\nthese things learned the great importance of deep breathing as an aid\nto religious meditation.\n\nBy this practice, systematically observed, the body is calmed, the mind\nis brought into subjection, and the spirit rises into control.\n\nAnd in addition, absolute health is achieved.\n\nA large portion of our physical ailments result from unused lung cells,\nand consequent imperfect circulation of the blood.\n\nFill the lungs full--every cell--with fresh air, two or three times\ndaily, and do not overload the digestive organs, and sickness will fly\naway to the dark regions where it belongs.\n\nAt least ten minutes morning and night should be given to the breathing\nexercises.\n\nSit upright in a comfortable chair, alone, facing the east in the\nmorning and the west at night, because great magnetic force comes from\nthe direction of the sun.\n\nHave a window or a door opening to the outer air.\n\nPlace your hands lightly on your knees, and close your eyes and mouth.\nLeave your spine free, not touching the chair.  Wear no compressing\ngarments or bands.\n\nInflate the chest and abdominal regions as you inhale deep breaths\nthrough the nostrils, while counting seven slowly.\n\nExhale while you count seven.  Repeat this exercise seven times.\n\nThink as you inhale of whatever qualities you would like to possess,\nand believe that you are inhaling them.  Select seven qualities--Love,\nHealth, Wisdom, Usefulness, Power to Do Good, Success, Opulence--will\ncover the average human desires.  The very unworldly will substitute\nspiritual knowledge for opulence.  Fill your mind with the idea that\nyou are drawing in these qualities with your breaths, and exhaling all\nthat is weak or unworthy.  After a few moments you will be conscious of\na security and peace new and uplifting.\n\nAnd after a few weeks of steady, persistent practice of these\nexercises, you will find life growing more beautiful to you, and your\nstrength will be increased tenfold, both physically and spiritually.\n\n\n\n\nGenerosity\n\nHave you ever observed how invariably your \"last dollar\" is restored to\nyou, with additions, when you have given it for some worthy purpose?\n\nEven if the purpose did not prove to be a worthy one, yet if you\nthought it so, and gave your last dollar with spontaneous sympathy and\ngood will, you were not long left penniless.\n\nMoney is much like a man.  If you do not hold it too jealously it\nreturns to you the more readily.\n\nNever hesitate to give aid where you feel there is sore and pressing\nneed, for fear you will be left in want yourself.  You will not be.\n\nThis does not mean that indiscriminate charity is commendable.  It does\nnot mean that you should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift and\ncarry the burdens of everyone who is ready to lean upon you.\n\nIt is as wrong to encourage the man addicted to the vice of borrowing,\nas the one with the vice of alcohol or drugs.\n\nOne depends upon his acquaintances to tide him over hard places,\ninstead of upon his own strength of character, and the other depends\nupon stimulants for the same purpose.  The too ready lender is almost\nas great an evil to humanity as rum or opium, since he too helps a man\nto kill his own better nature and destroy his self-respect.\n\nIf you were able and willing to pay rents of all the poor people you\nknow, and clothe their children, you would soon produce a condition of\nsettled pauperism among them.  Large and frequent favors of a financial\nnature are an injury to anyone, even if it is your son or brother.\n\nLet no man lean on anyone save God and his own divine self.\n\nBut little helps, when they are unexpected, arouse hope and awaken new\nfaith and new ambition in a discouraged soul.\n\nLook about you for such souls, the worn and weary father of a brood of\nhungry children, the widow struggling with adverse fate in an effort to\nclothe and educate a child, the tired shop girl who uses all her\nearnings to sustain her parents, the ambitious boy or girl eager for a\nchance in life, and the poor cripple or invalid seeking health.  You\nwill find them all about you.  Do not be afraid to use a dollar here or\nthere to give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no matter how poor\nyou are.\n\nIt is an insult to the Opulent Creator to suppose you will suffer want\nand poverty if you help those who are in temporary misfortune.\n\nYou will not.\n\nOfttimes we read and hear of the open-handed generous man who \"helped\neverybody,\" and who \"never refused to aid a needy brother,\" and who\nended his life in penury because of his generosity.\n\nNever believe these tales until you investigate them.  Invariably you\nwill find not generosity but extravagance and utter lack of\nforethought, caused the man's financial ruin.\n\nI recall a gifted young woman who gave freely to all who asked her\nassistance and who died a lingering death as a charity patient in a\nhospital.\n\nYet this young woman had expended ten dollars on foolish and rapid\nliving where she gave one in charity; it was her wasteful extravagance,\nnot her open heart of sympathy, which made her a pauper.\n\nIt has been my observation that dollars planted in the soil of\nbenevolence grow into harvests of prosperity.  The man who is not\nafraid to use his small means to assist others need not fear poverty.\n\n\n\n\nWoman's Opportunity\n\nThe greatest opportunity to better the world which can come to any\nwoman is through the experience of maternity.\n\nThe power of prenatal influence which a mother possesses is\nawe-inspiring to realize.\n\nIt has been said upon excellent authority that Napoleon's mother read\nRoman history with absorbing interest during the months preceding his\nbirth.\n\nThink of the nations and the centuries influenced by that one woman's\nmental concentration!  The geography of the world was changed by her\npower of focused thought.\n\nIn all probability Napoleon's mother did not know what she was doing;\nshe was not conscious of the destiny her mind was shaping for her\nunborn child, nor of the law governing such conditions.\n\nWomen have been strangely ignorant of this vital truth; until recent\nyears it has not been considered a \"proper\" theme for tongue or pen,\nand to-day the great majority of young women marry absolutely\nuninformed upon the subject of prenatal influence.\n\nMen are equally oblivious of any knowledge regarding the matter, and\nconsequently make no special effort to keep the expectant mother of\ntheir offspring happy, hopeful, or free of anxiety and worry during\nthis period.  Often they do not strive to aid them in their own\nattempts to bestow a desirable temperament upon the unborn child, but\nheedlessly and needlessly aggravate or grieve the mind which is\nstamping its impress upon an unborn soul.\n\nIt is just here that the \"New Thought\" can perform its greatest\nmiracles of good.\n\nEven the woman who has not been enlightened upon the law of\nante-birth-influence will, if a true disciple of the Religion of\nRight-living, bring healthy and helpful children into the world,\nbecause her normal state of mind will be inclusive of those three\nqualities; and her continued and repeated assertions of her own divine\nnature will shape the brain of her child in optimistic and reverential\nmould.\n\nThere is the old law of the continual falling of the drop of water upon\nthe stone to be verified in the spiritual plane.  Continual assertions\nof a mother that her child will be all that she desires it to be, will\nwear away the stone of inherited tendencies, and bring into physical\nbeing a malleable nature wholly amenable to the after influences and\nefforts she may bring to bear upon it.\n\nIt is a tremendous responsibility which rests upon the woman who knows\nshe is to be a mother of a human being.\n\nA hundred ancestors may have contributed certain qualities to that\ninvisible and formless atom which contains an immortal soul, yet the\nmother's mind has the power to remake and rebuild all those\ncharacteristics, and to place over them her own dominating impulse,\nwhether for good or ill.\n\nSurely, if success in the arts or the sciences is worthy of years of\ndevoted attention and interested effort, the moulding of a noble human\nbeing is worth eight or nine months of concentrated thought and\nunflagging zeal of purpose.\n\nEvery expectant mother should set herself about the important business\nGod has entrusted her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine\nmission.  She should direct her mind into wholesome and optimistic\nchannels; she should read inspiring books and think loving and large\nthoughts.  She should pray and aspire! and always should she carry in\nher mind the ideal of the child she would mother, and command from the\ngreat Source of all Opulence the qualities she would desire to\nperpetuate.\n\nAnd they will be given.\n\n\n\n\nBalance\n\nAvoid all strained and abstruse language, when conversing with people\nwho may not have entered this realm of thought.\n\nDo not allow anyone to think of you as a lunatic, or a crank,\nunnecessarily.  Of course there are people in the world who consider\neveryone a lunatic who holds an opinion differing from their own.\n\nBut it can do you, or your philosophy, no good to thrust its most\ndifficult phases before the minds of the unawakened, by vague and high\nflown expressions.\n\nI once chanced to call upon a lady who had, quite unknown to me,\nentered upon the study of Christian Science.\n\nShe remarked to me, almost as soon as the greetings were exchanged, \"I\nhad a claim to meet for three days this week, but I have come through\nit and am victorious.\"\n\nI supposed the lady referred to some business matter, perhaps a legal\naffair, and waited an explanation.\n\nAfter considerable rambling conversation, I managed to grasp the fact\nthat the woman had been sick in the house three days, but now was well.\nShe considered her illness a mere \"claim\" her \"mortal mind\" had made\nwhich she had to meet and combat.\n\nAll this sort of talk is very ridiculous.  We need not talk about every\nailment which attacks us as we move along toward the condition of\nperfect health which belongs to us!  But if we do speak of\nindisposition, let us use common sense language.\n\nWhat we want to realize is, that we are in the body, but that the\nspirit can control bodily conditions, if we give it the ascendency, to\nthe extent of keeping us well, moral, useful, and comfortable even in\nthe midst of sickness, vice, indolence and poverty.\n\nWe can rise above these false elements, and subjugate them.\n\nMeanwhile we cannot live without food, clothes and money.\n\nDespise and ignore these vulgar things as we may assume to do, we yet\nmust have them.\n\nIt brings only ridicule upon ourselves and our ideas to make this\npretense of despising the necessities of life.\n\nTo make them secondary in our thoughts to spiritual knowledge is right\nand wise, but this is better illustrated by our lives and conduct than\nby our words.","title":"The Heart of the New Thought","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":17355}