Chapter 2

If we doubt our own judgment and discretion in business, others will doubt it, and the shrewd and unprincipled will take the opportunity given by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us.

If in consequence we distrust every person we meet, we create an unwholesome and unfortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will bring to us the unworthy and deceitful. Stand firm in the universe. Believe in yourself. Believe in others.

If you make a mistake, consider it only an incident.

If some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or insults you, let it pass as one of the lessons you had to learn, but do not imagine that you are selected by fate for only such lessons. Keep wholesome, hopeful and sympathetic with the world at large, whatever individuals may do. Expect life to use you better every year, and it will not disappoint you in the long run. For life is what we make it.

Eternity

Do you know what a wonderfully complicated thing a human being is? Every feature, every portion of your body, every motion you make, reflects your mental organization.

I know a woman past middle life who has always been on the opposite side of every question discussed in her presence.

She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential with atheists, liberal with the narrow, bigoted with the liberal.

Whatever belief any one expressed on any subject, she invariably took the other extreme. She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It was her pastime.

Now, to walk with that woman in silence is merely to carry on a wordless argument.

You cannot regulate your steps so they will harmonize with hers. She will be just ahead or just behind you, and if you want to turn to the left, she pulls to the right. A promenade with her is more exhausting than a day's labor.

She is not conscious of it, and would think anyone very unreasonable and unjust who told her of her peculiarities.

I know a woman who all her life has been looking afar for happiness and peace and content, and has never found any of them, because she did not look in her own soul.

She was a restless girl, and she married, believing in domestic life lay the goal of her dreams. But she was not happy there, and sighed for freedom. She wanted to move, and did move, once, twice, thrice, to different points of the United States. She was discontented with each change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts and luxuries which life can afford, yet she is the same restless soul. She likes to read, but it is always the book which she does not possess which she craves. If she is in the library with shelves book-filled, she goes into the garret and hunts in old boxes for a book or a paper which has been cast aside.

If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go to the window and look out on the street, but when she is on the street it bores her, and she longs to go in the house.

If a member of the family is absent, she gets no enjoyment out of the society of those at home; yet when that absent one returns her mind strays elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not found here.

I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the spirit realm, or if they go on there seeking and always seeking something just beyond. It is a great gift to learn to enjoy the present--to get all there is out of it, and to think of to-day as a piece of eternity. Begin now to teach yourself this great art if you have not thought of it before. To be able to enjoy heaven, one must learn first to enjoy earth.

Morning Influences

What do you think about the very first thing in the morning?

Your thoughts during the first half-hour of the morning will greatly influence the entire day. You may not realize this, but it is nevertheless a fact.

If you set out with worry, and depression, and bitterness of soul toward fate or man, you are giving the key note to a day of discords and misfortunes.

If you think peace, hope and happiness, you are sounding a note of harmony and success.

The result may not be felt at once, but it will not fail to make itself evident eventually.

Control your morning thoughts. You can do it.

The first moment on waking, no matter what your mood, say to yourself: "I will get all the comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, and I will do something to add to the measure of the world's happiness or well-being. I will control myself when tempted to be irritable or unhappy, I will look for the bright side of every event."

Once you say these things over to yourself in a calm, earnest way, you will begin to feel more cheerful. The worries and troubles of the coming day will seem less colossal.

Then say: "I shall be given help to meet anything that comes to-day. Everything will be for the best. I shall succeed in whatever I undertake. I cannot fail."

Do not let it discourage you if the moment you leave your room you encounter a trouble or a disaster. This usually happens. When we make any boasts, spiritually or physically, we are put to the test. The occult forces about us are not unlike human beings. When a school-boy boasts of his strength, and says he can "lick any boy in school," he generally gets a chance to prove it.

When we declare we are brave enough to overcome any fate, we find our strength put to the test at once.

But that is all right. Prove your words to be true. Regard the troubles and cares you encounter as the "punching bags" of fate, given you to develop your spiritual muscle.

Go at them with courage and keep to your morning resolve.

By and by the troubles will lessen, and you will find yourself master of Circumstances.

The Philosophy of Happiness

There are natures born to happiness just as there are born musicians, mechanics and mathematicians.

They are usually children who came into life under right pre-natal conditions. That is, children conceived and born in love.

The mother who thanks God for the little life she is about to bring to earth, gives her child a more blessed endowment than if it were heir to a kingdom or a fortune.

As the majority of people, however, born under "civilized" conditions, are unwelcome to their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who has a birthright of happiness.

Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for happiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself with the passing of time.

Good health and strong vitality are great aids to happiness; yet that they, wealth and honors added, do not produce that much desired state of mind we have but to look about us to observe.

One who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to acquire skill in the art, however strong his desire or great his taste, than the natural genius.

So the man not endowed with joyous impulses needs to set himself the task of acquiring the habit of happiness. I believe it can be done. To the sad or restless or discontented being I would say: Begin each morning by resolving to find something in the day to enjoy. Look in each experience which comes to you for some grain of happiness. You will be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side.

There is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty when you stop to realize that you are getting it out of the way.

If it is one of those duties which has the uncomfortable habit of repeating itself continually, you can at least say you are learning patience and perseverance, which are two great virtues and essential to any permanent happiness in life.

Do not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, but discover it in to-day. Unless you are in the profound depths of some great sorrow, you will find it if you look for it.

Think of yourself each morning as an explorer in a new realm. I know a man whose time is gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take three hours for a certain pleasure. He lost his way and missed his pleasure, but was full of exuberant delight over his "new experience." "I saw places and met with adventures I might have missed my whole life." He was a true philosopher and optimist and such a man gets the very kernel out of the nut of life.

I know a woman who had since her birth every material blessing, health, wealth, position, travel and a luxurious home. She was forever complaining of the cares and responsibilities of the latter. Finally she prevailed upon the family to rent the home for a series of years and to live in hotels. Now she goes about posing as a martyr, "a homeless woman." It is impossible for such a selfishly perverted nature to know happiness.

A child should be taught from its earliest life to find entertainment in every kind of condition or weather. If it hears its elders cursing and bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind is quick to receive the impression that a rainy day is a disaster.

How much better to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which other young animals feel.

Happiness must come from within in order to respond to that which comes from without, just as there must be a musical ear and temperament to enjoy music.

Cultivate happiness as an art or science.

A Worn Out Creed

I have a letter from an "orthodox Christian," who says the only hope for humanity lies in the "old-fashioned religion."

Then he proceeds to tell me how carefully he has studied human nature, "in business, in social life, and in himself," and that he finds it all vile--selfish--sinful.

Of course he does, because he studies it from a false and harmful standpoint, and looks for "the worm of earth" and "the poor, miserable sinner," instead of the _divine_ man.

We find what we look for in this world.

I have always been looking for the noble qualities in human beings, and I have found them.

There are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are great qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us ordinarily.

One of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison for sins committed while in drink.

He was not "born bad", he simply drifted into bad company and formed bad habits.

He paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the divine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I feel prouder to call that name.

Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of Chicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts:

According to my experience with a number of men of this class during the last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the most cordial support and assistance.

If this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is not so vile as my "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe.

A "Christian" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not allowed to associate with mankind.

He carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air.

He suggests evil to minds which have not thought it.

He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending to be a disciple of Christ.

The man who believes that all men are vicious, selfish and immoral is _projecting pernicious mind stuff_ into space, which is as dangerous to the peace of the community as dynamite bombs.

The world has been kept back too long by this false, unholy and blasphemous "religion."

It is not the religion of Christ--it is the religion of ignorant translators, ignorant readers.

Thank God, its supremacy is past. A wholesome and holy religion has taken its place with the intelligent progressive minds of the day, a religion which says: "I am all goodness, love, truth, mercy, health. I am a necessary part of God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only good can come through me or to me. God made me, and He could make nothing but goodness and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all His qualities."

This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than the universe. It is God's own thought put into practical form.

Common Sense

If you are suffering from physical ills, ask yourself if it is not your own fault.

There is scarcely one person in one hundred who does not over eat or drink.

I know an entire family who complain of gastric troubles, yet who keep the coffee pot continually on the range and drink large quantities of that beverage at least twice a day.

No one can be well who does that. Almost every human ailment can be traced to foolish diet.

Eat only two meals in twenty-four hours. If you are not engaged in active physical labor, make it one meal. Drink two or three or four quarts of milk at intervals during the day to supply good blood to the system.

You will thrive upon it, and you will not miss the other two meals after the first week.

And your ailments will gradually disappear.

Meantime, if you are self-supporting, your bank account will increase.

Think of the waste of money which goes into indigestible food! It is appalling when you consider it. Heaven speed the time when men and women find out how little money it requires to sustain the body in good health and keep the brain clear and the eye bright!

The heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with pity and scorn. The time will come when the heavy eater will be similarly regarded.

Once find the delight of a simple diet, the benefit to body and mind and purse, and life will assume new interest, and toil will be robbed of its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere matter of toiling for a bare existence.

Again, are you unhappy? Stop and ask yourself why. If you have a great sorrow, time will be your consoler. And there is an ennobling and enriching effect of sorrow well borne.

It is the education of the soul. But if you are unhappy over petty worries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you are allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the beautiful days for you, take yourself in hand and change your ways.

You can do it if you choose. It is pitiful to observe what sort of troubles most unhappy people are afflicted with. I have seen a beautiful young woman grow care lined and faded just from imagining she was being "slighted" or neglected by her acquaintances.

Some one nodded coldly to her, another one spoke superciliously, a third failed to invite her, a fourth did not pay her a call, and so on--always a grievance to relate until one is prepared to look sympathetic at sight of her.

And such petty, petty grievances for this great, good life to be marred by!

And all the result of her own disposition. Had she chosen to look for appreciation and attention and good will she would have found it everywhere.

Then, about your temper? Is it flying loose over a trifle? Are you making yourself and every one else wretched if a chair is out of place, or a meal a moment late, or some member of the family is tardy at dinner, or your shoe string is in a tangle or your collar button mislaid?

Do you go to pieces nervously if you are obliged to repeat a remark to some one who did not understand you? I have known a home to be ruined by just such infinitesimal annoyances. It is a habit, like the drug or alcohol habit--this irritability.

All you need do is to stop it. Keep your voice from rising, and speak slowly and calmly when you feel yourself giving way to it. Realize how ridiculous and disagreeable you will be if you continue, what an unlovely and hideous old age you are preparing for yourself. And realize that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and lack of culture.

Think of the value of each day of life, how much it means and what possibilities of happiness and usefulness it contains if well spent.

But if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, dwell on the small worries and grow angry at the least trifle, you are committing as great and inexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture and garments and food and fuel into the sea in a spirit of wanton cruelty. You are wasting life for nothing. Every sick, gloomy day you pass is a sin against life. Get health, be cheerful, keep calm.

Clear your mind of every gloomy, selfish angry or revengeful thought. Allow no resentment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in your heart over night.

Wake in the morning with a blessing for every living thing on your lips and in your soul. Say to yourself: "Health, luck, usefulness, success, are mine. I claim them." Keep thinking that thought, no matter what happens, just as you would put one foot before another if you had a mountain to climb. Keep on, keep on, and suddenly you will find you are on the heights, luck beside you.

Whoever follows this recipe _cannot fail_ of happiness, good fortune and a useful life. But saying the words over _once_ and then drifting back to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good.

The words must be said over and over, and _thought_ and _lived_ when not said.

Literature

The world is full of "New Thought" Literature. It is helpful and inspiring to read.

It is worth many dollars to any one who will _live_ its philosophy.

I talked to a man who has been studying along these lines for some years.

"Oh, I know all that philosophy," he said; "it is nothing new. I am perfectly familiar with it."

Yet this man was continually allowing himself to grow angry over the least trifle; he was quick to see and speak of the faults in others; he was demanding more of those he associated with in the way of consideration and justice than he was willing to give, and he was untidy in his person and improvident in his use of money.

Now it is the merest waste of time for this man to read "New Thought" literature or practice "deep breathing", since he will not put into daily and hourly practice what is taught by the New Religion.

He is like the orthodox Christian who mumbles through the Lord's Prayer and then goes forth to do exactly as he would not be done by in business, social and domestic life.

_Man is what he thinks_. Not what he says, reads or hears. By persistent thinking you can undo any condition which exists. You can free yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, ill health or unhappiness. If you have been thinking these thoughts half a lifetime you must not expect to batter down the walls you have built, in a week, or a month, or a year. You must work and wait, and grow discouraged and stumble and pick yourself up and go on again.

You cannot in an hour gain control over a temper which you have let fly loose for twenty years. But you can control it eventually, and learn to think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity like drunkenness or profanity, something you could not descend to.

If you have allowed yourself to think despondent thoughts and believe that poverty and sickness were your portion for years, it will take time to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful ideas; but you can do it by repeated assertions and by reading and thinking and living the beautiful New Thought Philosophy.

Optimism

Not long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen of a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria of the world. He said:

Life is a hopeless battle in which we are foredoomed to defeat. And the prize for which we strive "to have and to hold"--what is it? A thing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor missed when lost. So worthless it is, so unsatisfying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to hope and at its best so brief, that for consolation and compensation we set up fantastic faiths of an aftertime in a better world from which no confirming whisper has ever reached us out of the void. Heaven is a prophecy uttered by the lips of despair, but Hell is an inference from history.

This is morbid and unwholesome talk which can do no human being any good to utter, or listen to.

But it can depress and discourage the weak and struggling souls, who are striving to make the best of circumstances, and it can nerve to suicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who needed only a word of encouragement and cheer to brace up and win the race.

This is the unpardonable sin--to talk discouragingly to human souls, hungering for hope.

When the man without brains does it, he can be pardoned for knowing no better.

When the man with brains does it, he should be ashamed to look his fellow mortals in the eyes.

It is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving a stone to those who ask for bread.

It is giving poison to those who plead for a cup of cold water.

Fortunately the remarks above quoted contain not one atom of truth!

The writer may speak for himself, but he has no right to speak for others.

It is all very well for a man who is marked with smallpox to say his face has not one unscarred inch on the surface of it. But he has no premises to stand upon when he says there is not a face in the world which is free from smallpox scars.

Life is not "a hopeless battle in which we are doomed to defeat."

Life is a glorious privilege, and we can make anything we choose of it, if we begin early and are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine powers.

Nothing can hinder us or stay us. We can do and be whatsoever we will.

The prize of life is not "a thing which is neither enjoyed while had nor missed when lost."

It is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day--this great prize of life. I for one declare that for every day of misery in my existence I have had a week of joy and happiness. For every hour of pain, I have had a day of pleasure. For every moment of worry, an hour of content.

I cannot be the only soul so endowed with the appreciation of life! I know scores of happy people who enjoy the many delights of earth, and there are thousands whom I do not know.

Of course "life is not missed when lost"--because it is never lost. It is indestructible.

Life ever was, and ever will be. It is a continuous performance.

It is not "worthless" to the wholesome, normal mind. It is full of interest, and rich with opportunities for usefulness.

When any man says his life is worthless, it is because he has eyes and sees not, and ears and hears not.

It is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate or accident.

If every life seems at times "unsatisfactory" and "inadequate" it is only due to the cry of the immortal soul longing for larger opportunities and fewer limitations.

Neither is life "false to hope." He who trusts the divine Source of Life, shall find his hopes more than realized here upon earth. I but voice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when I make this assertion. I know whereof I speak.

All that our dearest hopes desire will come to us, if we believe in ourselves as rightful heirs to Divine Opulence, and work and think always on those lines.

If "no whisper has ever reached us out of the void" confirming our faith in immortality, then one-third of the seemingly intelligent and sane beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars. For we have the assertion of fully this number that such whispers have come, besides the Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the other realm. "As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be ever more, world without end, Amen."

Preparation

Every day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were not given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an education in early youth.

They believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful had an education been obtained.

Scarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the schooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is being missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable knowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age endurable.

Youth is the season to acquire knowledge, middle life is the time to acquire wisdom.

Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more important of the two.