Eternity

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

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 have not thought of it enjoy heaven, one must

this great art if you

before. To be able to learn first to enjoy earth.

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Morning Influences

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

Your thoughts during the first balf-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 schoolboy 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

HERE 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 con

ceived 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