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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

HE 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

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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

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OT long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen of a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria of the world.

said:

He

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. do and be whatsoever we will.

We can

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

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