CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
A NEW PHILOSOPHY 
 OF LIFE 
 
WORKS BY JOHN HERMAN RANDALL 
 
 The Philosophy of Power 
 or What To Live For 
 
 The demand of the 20th century is not so much (or 
 nevr beliefs as for actual knowledge. It may be regarded 
 as the Creed of the practical man vrho cares little about 
 theology or dogma, and yet who is conscious of a need 
 of some practical working philosophy for life. 
 
 Humamity at the Cross-Roads 
 
 These are days freighted with profound significance 
 for the future of humanity. The solemn responsibility 
 rests upon this generation to determine what direction 
 the civilization of the future shall take. 
 
 The Culture of PersonsJity 
 
 This inspiring work is divided into fourteen thought- 
 ful chapters on various aspects of personality, on the 
 training of the mind, the mastery of the affections^ the 
 education of the will, and kindred themes. 
 
 A New Philosophy of Life 
 
 We are living to-day in the midst of a profound 
 thought movement, which has found expression in many 
 different forms. The writer believes that the principles 
 underlying all these should be clearly set forth, and 
 their truth applied to human life. 
 
 The Life of Reality 
 
 Dr. Randall firmly believes that a r«d li/« is possible 
 to every man, and in the chapters of this book he seeks 
 to point out the sources and nature of that Reality for 
 which, since the world began, every soul has been 
 searching either consciously or unconsciously. 
 
 Size: 5X ^ 7>^ inches. Cloth binding, $1.50 Net; 
 
 DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
A NEW PHILOSOPHY 
 OF LIFE 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN HERMAN RANDALL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE CULTURE 
 OF PERSONALITY," "HUMANITY 
 AT THE CROSS-ROADS," ETC, 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 33d St.— Eigbtli Avenue-~34tk St. 
 
Copyright, igog-igii 
 Bt H. M. Caldwell Company 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 foheword. 
 
 The Univeesal Mind. 
 The Divinitt of Man. 
 The Powers and Possibilities of the Sub- 
 conscious Mind. 
 Faith as a Vital Force. 
 The Law of Suggestion. 
 Auto - Suggestion. 
 Mind and Medicine. 
 Physical Wholeness. 
 Awakening Latent Mental Powers. 
 The Achievement of Character. 
 The Conquest of Fear and Worry. 
 The Psychology of Prayer. 
 Spiritual Consciousness. 
 The Rediscovery of Jesus. 
 
a Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029173874 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 We are living to-day in the midst of 
 a great religious movement that is the 
 more interesting because it seems to 
 have been so spontaneous. It is not 
 to be confused with the New Theo- 
 logical Movement. This latter has 
 proceeded from the schools, from the 
 scholars and the theologians. The 
 movement to which I refer has come 
 from the laity, from the rank and file 
 of the people; it is not a product of the 
 schools. Wherever you go to-day you 
 will find groups of people who are read- 
 ing and talking 'of the spiritual life, 
 people that you are surprised to find 
 interested in the subject. Sometimes 
 the books they are reading and the 
 5 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 language they use seem rather fan- 
 tastic, and to the critic even absurd; 
 but, nevertheless, it must be honestly 
 admitted that this Uterature which is 
 in the hands of so many people to-day, 
 and these conversations which may be 
 heard in so many different quarters, 
 are essentially idealistic and optimistic. 
 We are told that the nineteenth cen- 
 tury was materiaUstic; if that be so, 
 then certainly the dawning of this 
 twentieth century gives promise of be- 
 ing a spiritual, perhaps even a mystical 
 age. Men like Renan and Paulsen, 
 who stood as prophets in their genera- 
 tion, predicted the time not far dis- 
 tant when there should be a new form 
 of religion, and it would almost seem 
 as if these predictions were being 
 reahzed in this great popular move- 
 ment of our time. This movement 
 presents various phases, and has foimd 
 expression in many different organiza- 
 6 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 tions. There is the Christian Science 
 Church, now a full fledged organiza- 
 tion with its magnificent church edifices 
 scattered throughout the country, and 
 its hundreds of thousands of adherents. 
 There is Mental Science, with its multi- 
 tude of students to be found every- 
 where. There are many " Meta- 
 physical HeaUng " organizations also 
 coming vmder this same head. There 
 is the phenomenon of Faith Cure which 
 is constantly expressing itself anew 
 from generation to generation. There 
 is the New Thought Movement, the 
 phrase which I have selected to stand 
 for the general movement of thought 
 in this direction, and there are New 
 Thought study classes in every com- 
 munity of any size. And then there is, 
 latest of all, the Emmanuel Church 
 Movement with headquarters in Bos- 
 ton and numerous branches springing 
 up all over the country. No one is 
 7 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 in a position to rightly interpret the 
 significance of these modem cults, 
 until he recognizes that New Thought, 
 Metaphysical Healing, Mental Science, 
 Christian Science, Faith Cure, the 
 Emmanuel Movement, are all varying 
 phases of a deep underlying movement 
 of our age. 
 
 When one investigates this subject, 
 he is surprised to find how rapidly its 
 literature has grown. The writers in 
 this field are legion, — people like 
 Ralph Waldo Trine, Charles Brodie 
 Patterson, Henry Wood, Horace 
 Fletcher, Horatio Dresser, Edward Car- 
 penter, Ursula Gesterf eld and a hteral - 
 host of other writers less well known, 
 men and women whose books or pam- 
 phlets, all deal with some phase of this 
 New Thought Movement. In many 
 of our bookstores I have been told in 
 each instance that the " best seller " 
 next to the latest novel was the New 
 8 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Thought literature; and I know of 
 several cases where religious book- 
 stores, very much against their in- 
 clination, have been obliged to clear 
 off two or three sections of their 
 shelves and replace the older theologi- 
 cal books with New Thought hterature; 
 because, as they say, " The people 
 demand it, and if we do not have this 
 literature for which they inquire, we 
 simply lose their patronage." This 
 literature has found its way into multi- 
 tudes of homes of those who are out- 
 side of all churches and into homes of 
 multitudes who are active members of 
 the established churches of the land. 
 Then there are various monthly pub- 
 lications, of greater or lesser import, 
 each with its own circle of readers. 
 The amount of literature on the sub- 
 ject is tremendously significant, when 
 one stops to think of how young this 
 movement really is, and of how it has 
 9 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 proceeded not from the schools or the 
 scholars, but from the laity. 
 
 The number of followers of this 
 movement, is also a most significant 
 fact. I do not refer alone to the people 
 who have withdrawn from the churches 
 where they have been members for 
 many years, and have joined another 
 organization such as a Christian Sci- 
 ence Church, but I mean the people 
 ;"who read this literature, who have 
 accepted more or less of its teachings, 
 who are practising in their daily lives 
 many of its principles; the people 
 whose conversation betrays the fact 
 that they are famihar with the line of 
 thought, with the ideals, with the con- 
 victions that underlie this New 
 Thought Movement. I have been sur- 
 prised to find travelling salesmen in 
 the Pullman sleeping cars talking about 
 this matter among themselves and 
 reading books along this line. I have 
 10 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 been amazed, in offices of certain busi- 
 ness men whom I thought forever 
 immune against religious literature of 
 any kind, to see lying upon their 
 desks little booklets bearing unmis- 
 takably the ear marks of the New 
 Thought philosophy. I have known 
 practical business men more than once, 
 who have foimd their greatest pleasure 
 in buying in large quantities and send- 
 ing to various friends, books of this 
 class which have been extremely help- 
 ful in their own lives, and they simply 
 desire to pass the good word along. 
 
 Now it would seem high time that 
 a movement that has created so volu- 
 minous a literature, that has attracted 
 to itself so numerous a following, that 
 has already formed its organizations' 
 and has its study classes all over the 
 country, should be regarded as worthy 
 of serious and thoughtful consideration. 
 The time has gone by when the pulpit 
 11 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 or the press should be content to in- 
 dulge in mere criticism or ridicule, 
 least of all, in wholesale condemnation. 
 How bitter has been the criticism 
 which Christian Science has received; 
 how preachers and physicians and 
 journalists and humorists and writers 
 of every class have simply vied with 
 one another in finding fault with, or 
 making fun of this modern cult! I 
 confess frankly, for myself, that 1 find 
 it utterly impossible to accept the 
 metaphysics or the philosophy so- 
 called, of Mrs. Eddy's teachings; but 
 here is the fact, that in all honesty 
 we are bound to admit; — that in this 
 movement with all its strange philo- 
 sophical contradictions, with its faulty 
 metaphysics and often unscientific sci- 
 ence, there is a power, a life, a vital 
 faith, and men and women are blessed 
 and made happier by it. No honest 
 or intelligent person can deny the fact 
 12 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 to-day. When we see a hard-headed, 
 prosaic business man who has appar- 
 ently never been influenced at all by 
 the sentiments of reUgion, undergoing 
 a sort of new conversion and becoming 
 a fervent and ardent Christian; when 
 we see an ailing wife whom physicians 
 have not been able to help, finally 
 restored, apparently to perfect health 
 and physical comfort; when we find 
 a victim of some evil habit enabled to 
 cast off the shackles that have bound 
 him and become once more a free man; 
 when we find the home which was hell- 
 ish in its atmosphere, taking into its 
 midst this belief and becoming trans- 
 formed literally into a heavenly place, 
 we should be frank and glad to admit 
 that there is some truth and power in 
 the movement. It is not strange that 
 new truths should first appear under 
 the form of crudity or extravagance, 
 or sometimes even of absurdity. As 
 13 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 a matter of fact this is just the way 
 that all new ideas first made their 
 appearance in the world. This is the 
 history of the beginnings of all the 
 sciences, and then as time went on 
 that which was true persisted and the 
 absurdity or the crudity, the extrava- 
 gance or the error, has gradually fallen 
 away and disappeared. 
 
 If we are wise we will not be so swift 
 in our condemnation, because a truth 
 is expressed in a crude, or even in an 
 absurd form. Our chief endeavor 
 should be, not to find fault with a 
 movement that has gained such magni- 
 tude and influence, but if possible, to 
 find out the truth that it contains, sift 
 the error from the truth, and thus 
 make ourselves the possessors of the 
 living principle that lies at its heart. 
 
 This is the aim, however imper- 
 fectly realized, of the chapters that 
 follow. I leave to others the task of 
 14 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 criticising or condemning Christian 
 Science or Mental Science or Meta- 
 physical Healing or the Emmanuel 
 Movement. I am endeavoring, as far 
 as possible, to get at the principles 
 imderlying all these kindred phases of 
 thought, from which their real truth 
 and vitality proceed. There is a 
 great difference between a fact, and 
 the theory that explains that fact. The 
 history of thought is full of the ex- 
 periences of men who have attempted 
 to explain by their theories certain 
 facts, and yet as time has elapsed their 
 first theories have been exchanged for 
 truer and more accurate explanations. 
 As we seek to comprehend these various 
 phases of the New Thought Move- 
 ment, while we admit the fact of the 
 great good that is done, the lives that 
 are transformed, the homes that are 
 made happier, the pain that is relieved, 
 the diseases — at least of a certain 
 15 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 type — that are cured, at the same 
 time we may not be quite satisfied 
 with the theories which have been put 
 forth to explain these facts. As we 
 begin to study seriously the New 
 Thought Movement we have as an aid 
 to a better understanding of its phe- 
 nomena, all the wealth of the newer 
 Psychology with its wonderful dis- 
 closures. We understand to-day as 
 we could not have understood a genera- 
 tion ago, the wondrous operations of 
 .the sub-conscious or the subjective 
 mind; the new meaning and the pos- 
 sible workings of the law of Suggestion 
 from without, or of Auto-Suggestion 
 from within; and we know the im- 
 mense influence that mental environ- 
 ment has upon the individual. This 
 g^eat religious movement, as I have 
 phrased it, is on another side just as 
 truly a great scientific movement. The 
 religious spirit which lies at the heart 
 16 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 of the movement, is at last grasping 
 hands with the true scientific spirit, 
 as it is making clear and plain, the 
 possibilities of mind and its power 
 over the individual. I recraitly cut 
 from the columns of the " New York 
 Times " this little clipping, which only 
 emphasizes the great need which clearly 
 exists, of helping to make clear and 
 meaningful the underlying truth or 
 principle of these various phases of 
 thought. It is headed "To Explain 
 Mind Cures." 
 
 " ' A scientific exposition of mind 
 cure, or psychotherapy, is about to be 
 given to the American public along 
 university extension lines in treatises 
 which will set forth the underlying 
 truth of Christian Science, Mental 
 Healing, Faith cm-e. New Thought, 
 and the Emmanuel Movement,' W. B. 
 Parker of 30 Church Street announced 
 yesterday. ' These will be by the most 
 17 
 
FOREWORD 
 prominent scientists and physicians 
 making investigations along these lines 
 in this country and abroad. Of the at- 
 titude in this coimtry to mental science 
 Dr. Richard C, Cabot of Harvard Uni- 
 versity, who is to be one of the 
 writers, says: 
 
 " 'Scientific, rational mind cure (mind 
 cure is the English for psychotherapy) 
 has been used in America in a system- 
 atic way only within the last decade; 
 American physicians fought shy of it 
 for a long time. They had reasons for 
 this, but not, in my opinion, good rea- 
 sons., Ohe of the most important of 
 these reasons lay in the fact that Chris- 
 tian Scientists and other imorthodox 
 schools of healing were already in the 
 field and in competition with medical 
 men. 
 
 " ' To suggest in any way that there 
 might be truth in these foolish and 
 unreasonable systems has seemed im- 
 18 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 possible to the American physician. 
 In Europe, on the other hand, where 
 there has been no movement among the 
 laity, where psychotherapy has been 
 wholly in the hands of the physicians, 
 its scientific and reasonable sides have 
 been developed, while we in America 
 have sat by and watched the antics 
 and extravagances of Mrs. Eddy and 
 her school with disgust or with horror, 
 but without any steady or consistent 
 attempt to find out the truth be- 
 hind their fallacies and absurdities, 
 or to apply this truth in our own 
 way.' " 
 
 This is simply indicative of the 
 general tendency to-day on the part 
 of scientific men, not only to recognize 
 the truths that there may be in the 
 New Thought Movement, but to sepa- 
 rate them from the extravagances and 
 absurdities with which they have been 
 heretofore so largely associated in this 
 19 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 country. In my work I am con- 
 stantly meeting men and women who 
 have come into contact, through an 
 experience, personal or otherwise, with 
 the workings of New Thought in 
 some one of its various phases; they 
 have been impressed with the power 
 of the truth expressed, and yet 
 they have not been able to explain 
 it; they do not see just how this 
 New Thought fits into their sys- 
 tem of religious beliefs; they are 
 confused and uncertain, and so are 
 turning here and there to find, if pos- 
 sible, some light upon the subject. 
 It is for the sake of furnishing to all. 
 such whatever of light may have 
 come to me in the search for truth, 
 that this book is given to the public. 
 In most general terms, what seem 
 to be the essential elements of this 
 movement? I am dealing now not 
 with its separate phases, but with the 
 20 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 principle which underHes the Move- 
 ment as a whole. The chapters which 
 follow take up the separate principles 
 and show their application to the 
 curing of disease, to the transforma- 
 tion of moral character, to the develop- 
 ment of latent mental possibilities, 
 and to the enlargement of one's own 
 spiritual life. 
 
 On its religious side, the New 
 Thought Movement finds its key- 
 note in the words of the Apostle Paul, 
 " For in Him we live and move and 
 have our being." ) Its teachings in- 
 volve the honest, earnest and per- 
 sistent endeavor to realize the truth 
 of these words, the application of this 
 principle in a more determined way 
 than it ever has been applied, to every 
 day experience and to every condition 
 of human life, in order that men and 
 women may realize not on Sundays or 
 in moments of especial religious fer- 
 21/ 
 
FOREWORD 
 vour only, but in every moment of 
 life that " In Him we live and move 
 and have our being." This is the 
 religious significance of the New 
 Thought Movement. What does the 
 Emmanuel Movement mean.? What 
 are they trying to do in that old 
 Church in Boston? They are just re- 
 minding people of God, in an age when 
 men have well nigh forgotten Him 
 in any real or vital sense. This is not 
 a new truth, but it is a new applica- 
 tion of the old truth.. It is an attempt 
 to make men see what is involved in 
 the fact. If the Apostle was right when 
 he said, " In Him we live and move and 
 have our being," then what follows for 
 my physical life, for my mental life, for 
 my moral life, for my spiritual being? 
 It is a new realization of what has 
 always been true, and a pressing of this 
 truth home upon the hearts and lives 
 of men. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 On the scientific side the New 
 Thought Movement accepts the dis- 
 closures of the wonderful power of 
 mind over matter, of mind over the 
 body, of mind over physical condi- 
 tions. It is not implied that the 
 psychologist of to-day draws the line 
 hard and fast, and states in just so 
 many words what mind is able to do 
 with body and what it is not able to 
 do, but the psychologists and our 
 leading physicians are recognizing that 
 very many, if not most of the ills to 
 which flesh is heir, proceed from dis- 
 ordered mental states or are due to 
 abnormal mental conditions, and that 
 instead of doctoring from outside, the 
 thing needed is to get down to the 
 root of the trouble, to get back to the 
 source'^of the disorder, to set right the 
 mental conditions, to create a different 
 mental atmosphere, and that only 
 thus can harmony be brought out of the 
 23 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 existing discord. This is the scientific 
 side of it. Few realize how volumi- 
 nous the literature is upon simply 
 this phase of the subject. I have 
 upon my desk a score of books, most 
 of them published within the last five 
 years, dealing with this subject strictly 
 from the scientific standpoint; books 
 written by professors in German imi- 
 versities, by leading physicians in Eng- 
 land and in this coimtryj^all recognizing 
 the tremendous part played by the 
 mind in the cure of at least certain 
 kinds of diseases and in the transforma- 
 tion of moral character. It is a mistake _ 
 to think that the New Thought Move- 
 ment confines itself to the cure of 
 bodily ills. While it lays emphasis 
 upon the power of the mind to accom- 
 plish wonders in the physical body, it 
 goes much deeper than that and shows 
 man how mental powers can be de-. 
 veloped and moral weaknesses over- 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 come, how conditions in the home, 
 which have produced a suspicious 
 or embittered atmosphere, can be 
 changed, and how a man's relations 
 in his business can be so altered that 
 things will run more smoothly and he 
 himself be more successful. It has to 
 do with the whole range of a man's 
 life. It aflfects him in all the domain of 
 his wonderfully complex nature. If it 
 has the actual influence upon the man, 
 that these leaders claim it may have, it 
 may transform him from center to 
 circumference. The curing of bodily 
 ills is one phase of the working of the 
 principle; but the ciiring of the mind, 
 the awakening of the soul, the en- 
 larging of the horizon and making 
 strong and symmetrical the moral and 
 spiritual nature, — these are things 
 which are just as possible in the 
 domain of the working of this truth. 
 The New Thought Movement stands 
 25 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 in the clearest sense for an applied 
 Christianity. It is in no sense anti- 
 Christian. It certainly is not un- 
 christian. It takes the fundamental 
 teachings of Jesus Christ as they apply 
 to practical life, to daily conduct, to 
 actual Uving, and sets them forth with 
 an emphasis that, unfortunately, the 
 pulpit has not always given to them. 
 The prevailing tendency in the pul- 
 pit, has been to spend too much time 
 upon the discussion of theological 
 subjects, dogmas and creeds, and 
 altogether too little time upon the 
 practical questions of daily living that 
 make up the actual conduct of man. 
 The idea that fear, worry and anxiety 
 are sins and can be overcome, is as 
 old as the teaching of Jesus when He 
 said, " Consider the lilies of the field, 
 how they grow, they toil not neither 
 do they spin, yet your Heavenly Father 
 cares for them. Why take ye thought 
 26.' 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 for the morrow? Why are ye anxious 
 about meat and drink and raiment? " 
 Jesus is seeking to have man see that 
 he can and ought to cast out of his Kfe 
 forever these dread feelings, fear and 
 worry and anxiety, the arch-enemies 
 of happiness, peace and power. But 
 the pulpit has been discussing the 
 Inspiration of the Bible or the Trinity, 
 the Incarnation, or the Atonement, 
 while the practical needs of men's 
 lives have too often been left imsatis- 
 fied. Why have so many people been 
 attracted to Christian Science or other 
 similar organizations? It has not been 
 because of the metaphysics of Mrs. 
 Eddy; it has not been because of the 
 philosophy that is put forth to explain 
 the phenomena or the facts as wit- 
 nessed in these various organizations. 
 The last thing that anybody accepts 
 in a religion is its dogmas. The meta- 
 physics of Buddhism, for example, are 
 27 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 an absolute negation of everything 
 that we suppose goes to make religion 
 — <ienial of God, denial of the soul, 
 denial of immortality, denial of the 
 worth-whileness of life, — and yet in 
 spite of the metaphysics, Buddha still 
 receives the adoration of multitudes of 
 people, who find inspiration and power 
 in his life and in his example. People 
 do not embrace religion because of its 
 theology or because of its metaphysics* 
 That is the last thing they embrace. 
 People accept a religion when they see 
 it doing something practical, when it 
 yields visible fruits in life and char- 
 acter. In the long run that reUgion 
 has the largest following which is 
 doing the most practical good, regard- 
 less of its metaphysics; and that re- 
 ligion has the smallest following which 
 is doing the least practical good, re- 
 gardless of its theology. There is an 
 increasing number who admit, whether 
 28 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 they can explain it satisfactorily or not, 
 a power that is getting results, that is 
 doing for them what the conventional 
 religion of the Church has failed to do; 
 working transformations in their lives 
 and in their homes, that the teachings 
 of the Pulpit have failed to accomplish 
 thus far. Eventually men believe the 
 things which are most useful, most 
 practical and most beneficial. This 
 is what man really wants to believe, 
 and this surely is one of the chief tests 
 of Truth, viz. : — whether it does do 
 good, whether it can accomplish re- 
 sults, whether it does bring things to 
 pass. " By their fruits," said Jesus, 
 " ye shall know them." 
 
 A man who has been bom and 
 brought up in the atmosphere of the 
 Church and who has been a professing 
 Christian all his life, said to me recently, 
 " You are telling us to accept Jesus 
 Christ, to have faith in Christ, and we 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 do come to Him, and as best we know 
 how we try to have faith in Him; and 
 then you say, in the words of Paul, 
 ' Now work out your own salvation.' 
 But it is a great task that you impose; 
 I may have faith in Jesus Christ but I 
 am conscious of turmoil, of struggle and 
 conflict within; I am conscious that 
 there is little or none of ' the peace of 
 God that passeth all understanding ' 
 filling my soul; I am conscious that I 
 have a temper that gets the best of me, 
 or an appetite that I find it hard to 
 handle; I have faith in Jesus Christ, 
 but you tell me, ' Work out your own 
 salvation, build yourself up into the 
 Christ-like character.' And I ask you 
 very naturally, ' How am I to do it? ' 
 That is what you ministers do not tell 
 us. How are we going to become 
 Christ-like, when we know ourselves 
 to be what we are to-day? " I think it 
 is a just criticism on much of the 
 30 
 
FOREWORD 
 preaching and teaching of the Church, 
 and reveals one reason for the wide- 
 spread influence of the New Thought 
 Movement. It does try to tell people 
 how they can conquer this weakness 
 and overcome that fault, and how 
 they can apply the law so as to insure 
 progress toward the Christ-like char- 
 acter. This is really what we want to 
 know; this is what we go to church 
 for; this ought to be the prime busi- 
 ness of the preacher everywhere, to 
 help men and women see hbw they 
 can build within themselves and others 
 the perfect character. 
 
 This New Thought Movement is 
 also surcharged with the spirit that 
 looks for the good in everybody and in 
 everything; it minimizes the bad and 
 the evil; it seeks to forget all that is 
 ugly and hateful, all that is selfish or 
 sinful, and it is constantly striving to 
 look beyond and behind these things 
 SI 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 for the better elements, for the nobler 
 part that is to be found in every human 
 life; and so it is full of the spirit of 
 encouragement and hope. In other 
 words, its constant method is positive 
 and constructive rather than negative 
 and destructive. Would that all men 
 might catch this spirit, so that we could 
 look beyond the bad in other people 
 and see only the good, so that we could 
 forget to criticise and seek only to en- 
 courage, so that we could put away the 
 ugly and the unbeautiful things of life 
 and not parade them in our homes or 
 before our children, but let only the 
 good, the beautiful and the true things 
 of life be their constant inspiration! 
 
 The New Thought spirit inculcates 
 only the broadest charity and the ut- 
 most sympathy. Again you say that 
 this is not new. No, it is not new. 
 It is just as old as the sayings of Jesus. 
 But it is newly apphed. It teaches us, 
 32 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 for example, that when we cherish the 
 feelings of anger or hatred, or envy, or 
 jealousy, we are not only hurting the 
 person towards whom we cherish these 
 feelings, but we are hurting ourselves. 
 It tells us that thoughts are living 
 things, and that when we think these 
 evil or imkind thoughts of other people, 
 we are digging a great gulf between 
 ourselves and these other lives, which 
 never can be bridged. It teaches men 
 that it is wrong for them to judge 
 harshly and unkindly. It tells men 
 constantly and all the time, " Your 
 own will come to you, as sure as God is 
 God." If you send out good cheer, 
 good cheer comes back; if you send 
 out sympathy and love, sympathy and 
 love will come back to you. What you 
 think, what your will creates within 
 you goes forth unseen but most surely 
 on its errand, and evokes in other lives 
 the similar thing. We all know this to 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 be true; but because of the explana- 
 tion given, a new emphasis is placed 
 on the reasons for being sympathetic 
 and charitable, kind and brotherly 
 always; and so we begin to enter 
 more deeply into the real spirit of 
 human brotherhood and the genuine 
 spirit of kindly helpfulness one toward 
 another. 
 
 In the last place, the spirit of this 
 movement emphasizes the fact that the 
 truest way to aid the body, the surest 
 method by which abnormal physical 
 or moral conditions can be overcome, is 
 through Spiritual development, by get- 
 ting the mind right, by creating the 
 right atmosphere within, by enlarging 
 the spiritual horizon of one's life. In 
 this way only can the highest results 
 be attained, both within and without. 
 
 In a single sentence, the essential 
 truth in the New Thought Movement 
 is, that the real home of man-'is ioithin. 
 34 
 
FOREWORD 
 This is where he really lives. Here is 
 the source of the atmosphere that 
 makes the home beautiful or helpful — 
 not the rugs or pictures or furniture — 
 but the inner life. This is the source 
 of the power in your life that makes 
 you a strong and influential personality. 
 It does not depend upon external con- 
 ditions, but upon what you are within. 
 The New Thought emphasizes the 
 profound truth, which has been the 
 teaching of idealism in every day and 
 generation, that in. the inner conscious- 
 ness, in the will, in the actual thought 
 of the individual, lie the real sources 
 of power, of health, .of true progress. 
 The teaching of the New Thought 
 Movement, in its essentials, is simply 
 the realization, the carrying out, the 
 deeper and more detailed application of 
 Jesus' words when He said, " The 
 kingdom of God is within you." 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 OR. THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 ^T was Tolstoi who said some 
 time ago, that the trouble 
 with this age of ours is that 
 it has lost the sense of God. 
 Multitudes of people believe in God 
 to-day, in fact nearly every intelligent 
 man and woman believes in God; but 
 belief in God is vastly different from 
 reaUzing God; and whether a man's 
 belief in God is of any vital value, 
 depends, of course, upon what his 
 belief in God really is. As history re- 
 veals, progress in religion has always 
 gone hand in hand with the improve- 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 ment that has taken place in man's 
 notions of God. As one by one the 
 crude, narrow, and superstitious ideas 
 concerning God have fallen away, we 
 find that the religious life of man has 
 been making true and actual progress. 
 But to-day it would seem, almost 
 more than at any other time in the 
 past history of the race, men are crying 
 out for a real God, — not a god of 
 theology, not a god of dogmas or doc- 
 trines, not a god of theory, — but a 
 God who can be realized, who there- 
 fore becomes an actual power in every- 
 day life. 
 
 The prevailing temper of the minds 
 of men and women to-day, both in- 
 side the Church and out, is one of 
 unrest and dissatisfaction; they are 
 more or less conscious that they are 
 not getting out of religion all that they 
 might. Many of us have that feeling; 
 and not a few clergymen often go home 
 
 4 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 Sunday nights, with the same unrest 
 uppermost. We wonder if we are 
 getting from our religion — and that is 
 only another way of asking, if we are 
 getting out of our supposed relations 
 with God — as much as we have the 
 right to expect. If religion simply 
 means attending church services, lis- 
 tening to the choir and the preacher, 
 or taking part in some of the various 
 activities of Church life; if religion 
 brings to daily experience only the 
 instruction as to life's programme but 
 not the divine strength to carry out that 
 programme, only the description of 
 life's ideals but not the dynamic power 
 by which these ideals may be realized 
 in character, then we are justified in 
 asking whether we are getting out of 
 our religion, whether our beliefs -in 
 God are yielding us, all we have the 
 right to expect. To-day, as in every 
 age, earnest men are crying out, just 
 5 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 as the old Frencli iconoclast Diderot 
 cried out to the Church of his day, 
 that was stifling truth and binding it 
 fast with fetters, " Release your God," 
 or in other words, " Enlarge your con- 
 ception of God." This is the great 
 demand that the thinking world is 
 making of religion to-day. 
 
 The key-note on the religious side 
 of the New Thought movement, — 
 and I use this title to describe the 
 underlying principles, of which Chris- 
 tian Science, Mental Healing, Em- 
 manuel Church movement, and vari- 
 ous New Thought centres, are but dif- 
 ferent expressions, — the foundation 
 truth underlying this great religious 
 as well as psychological movement 
 of our day, is found in the words 
 of Paul, " For in Him we live and 
 move and have our being." In other 
 words, the religious inspiration of 
 the New Thought movement is 
 6 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 found in its enlarged conception of 
 God. 
 
 We are all familiar with the tradi- 
 tional notion of God that has generally 
 held sway throughout Christian his- 
 tory. We owe it in part to Judea, in 
 part to Greek philosophy, in part to 
 art and poetry, and to the philosophizing 
 of the early Church fathers. All these 
 different streams have contributed to- 
 wards this traditional notion of God. 
 In a single word, it was the idea of a 
 God, who was a sort of " magnified 
 man," who sat somewhere afar off, 
 outside and apart from the universe, 
 on a stupendous throne. This God 
 in some far distant past had created 
 the universe out of nothing instanter, 
 by direct fiat, much as a man would 
 make a machine. And then, having 
 set " the machine " going, He turned 
 EQs back upon it, in " sublime indif- 
 ference." Whenever this God might 
 
 7 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 choose, He reached down, and in some 
 miraculous way, arbitrarily or capri- 
 ciously, made changes in His machinery, 
 or manifested His power in startling, 
 spectacular ways to the children of 
 men. His whole relation to men was a 
 relation of mediation. He could never 
 come into direct contact with the human 
 soul. To quote: " God is a being of 
 an essentially different nature from man, 
 between whom and Him there is no 
 kinship; so that we may not argue 
 concerning Him from our notions of 
 goodness; so that we may not really 
 know Him by the study of nature; so 
 that we are absolutely dependent for 
 any and all knowledge of Him upon an 
 external, miraculous revelation." Some- 
 thing like this has been the traditional 
 notion of God. This is just where 
 the great conflict between theology 
 and science has come in. The argu- 
 ment of science with theology has been 
 8 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 against this idea of God, a conception 
 which has long been, to the scientific 
 mind, absolutely unthinkable. 
 
 But in this wonderful new century, 
 we have been gradually enlarging our 
 conception of the Deity. We do not 
 think of God in the terms our fathers 
 employed. He is no longer this Mag- 
 nified Being apart from the universe, 
 sitting on the great white throne, who 
 only occasionally and then arbitrarily 
 or capriciously, expresses His life or 
 reveals His will, in the universe which 
 He has created. Our thought of God 
 to-day is of a Supreme Power, back of, 
 underlying, and in all things. God is 
 the Infinite, the Illimitable, the Eter- 
 nal, the Unchangeable Being. He is. 
 He always was, and He always shall 
 be. He is Omnipotent; that is, the 
 Being of all Power. He is Omniscient; 
 that is, the All-knowing and All-seeing 
 Being. He is Omnipresent; that is, 
 9 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 the Being everywhere present. He is 
 Omni -good; that is, the absolutely 
 Righteous and All-loving Father. These 
 are not new terms used to describe 
 God. They are old terms. But what 
 we need to see is, that the revelations 
 of the newer thinking of the last gen- 
 eration, have put into these old terms 
 a new content, which has made them 
 tremendously vital, whereas for most 
 of us they have been merely abstrac- 
 tions, containing little or no real mean- 
 ing. So we may think of God to-day 
 in terms prevalent in the scientifia 
 or philosophical world, as the Uni- 
 versal Mind, the Universal Substance, 
 the Ultimate Reality, or the Soul oi 
 the Universe. The name is nothing, 
 if only we are conscious of the Reality. 
 I imagine most of us will prefer to use 
 the old familiar name of God, putting 
 into it the new content and deeper 
 meaning which is coming to us through 
 10 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 the various channels of present-day 
 thought. 
 
 As one of the results of the investi- 
 gations and discoveries of modern sci- 
 ence, we have come to see, as the pre- 
 vious generations never could have un- 
 derstood, that this universe in which 
 we live is, in point of time, an eternal 
 universe. The old idea, that four 
 thousand and four years before Christ, 
 God created the worlds, has disap- 
 peared from the thinking of intelligent 
 people. As we study geology, and 
 examine the strata in which are found 
 fossil remains of living organisms, — 
 strata in some parts of the world twenty 
 miles in thickness, — we do not wonder 
 that the geologists infer a period of 
 time approximating a hundred million 
 years, during which such deposits have 
 been slowly made. Our later knowl- 
 edge discloses the fact, that the still 
 lower Azoic strata, which were sup- 
 11 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 posed to be absolutely devoid of any 
 remains of life, are filled with micro- 
 scopic fossils. As fresh discoveries 
 constantly reveal new stretches of time, 
 the geologist comes back from his 
 investigations with the stupendous state- 
 ment, that not four thousand or a 
 hundred thousand or a million or a 
 hundred milUon, but as near as the 
 imagination of the scientist can figure 
 it out at all, this world of ours has had 
 an existence of at least a thousand 
 million years. Can we realize what 
 that means ? A thousand milUon years 
 during which our planet has been in 
 existence, not to mention other planets 
 known to be vastly older! It practi- 
 cally means for us an Eternal universe. 
 But not only in point of time, but of 
 space as well, the idea of the universe 
 has been immeasurably enlarged by 
 the discoveries of man. We are told 
 that with the naked eye we are able 
 
 n 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 to discern about two thousand stars 
 in the heavens ; with an opera glass we 
 can see, perhaps, one hundred times 
 as many; but with the latest and best 
 improved telescope we are enabled 
 to look leagues beyond, into depths of 
 space that fairly baffle the imagination. 
 Our American astronomers, like Pro- 
 fessors Dolbear and Newcombe, tell us, 
 as the result of astronomical observa- 
 tion, that unquestionably there are in 
 the universe one hundred million worlds. 
 The late Royal Astronomer of Ireland, 
 in a book published just before his 
 death, gives it as his opinion, that there 
 are at least thirty million stars or suns, 
 each one the centre of a planetary 
 system, averaging perhaps ten planets 
 apiece; which means, according to his 
 estimate, that there are three hundred 
 million worlds in this universe, the 
 majority of them vastly larger than the 
 planet upon which we live. Can we 
 13 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 realize what tliis means, as to our 
 conception of the universe in its 
 extent in space? Any number of 
 illustrations might be given mathe- 
 matically, to illustrate the greatness 
 of the universe. "If you let the ring 
 upon a woman's finger represent the 
 orbit of the earth, the nearest fixed 
 star would be a* mile and a half away, 
 and the great body of the starry world 
 scores of hundreds of miles beyond 
 that." The brain fairly reels, and the 
 imagination totters. It is impossible 
 for the mind of man to conceive at all 
 of such infinite stretches of space. 
 Can one conceive of any boundary to 
 such a universe, of any line that marks 
 its limits in space.? As ex-President 
 Hill used to say, the revelations in a 
 single drop of water under the micro- 
 scope are just as wonderful as is this 
 infinite universe over our heads. He 
 tells us we can rightly conceive the 
 14 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 atoms in a drop of water, as the stars 
 and suns of a universe like unto that 
 above, — as those stars and suns are 
 the atoms of a larger universe. To all 
 practical purposes then, our universe 
 So-day is an Infinite universe., 
 
 This is not all. We are coming to 
 realize that the universe in which we 
 live is practically Omnipotent. You 
 have stood perhaps by some great 
 mountain range, you have climbed 
 the Catskills, and looked down those 
 precipitous cliffs, and then you have 
 tried to realize how infinite the force 
 that must have been expended in the 
 travail throes of earth, in order to 
 produce such mountain peaks. I am 
 indebted to Doctor Savage for an il- 
 lustration which he somewhere gives. 
 If you take a bar of steel, one mile 
 square, and place it alongside of the 
 Catskills, it would out-tower every one 
 of the Catskill peaks ; and yet it would 
 15 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 take 87,000 of these bars of steel one 
 mile square, to represent the power of 
 gravitation that holds the moon in its 
 orbit as it revolves around the earth. 
 And what is the moon but just a little 
 worn-out asteroid of our planetary 
 system? The electricity that plays in 
 the thunder-cloud over our heads — 
 how little we know or understand its 
 power! How little it would take of that 
 seemingly infinite power to destroy an 
 entire planet! The universe in which 
 we live is Omnipotent, surcharged with 
 power, a power so stupendously great 
 that we cannot conceive it. 
 
 But this is not all. Our enlarged 
 conception of the universe has brought 
 to us a conception, unknown to our 
 fathers, of Law and Order. We know 
 to-day that everything in this universe 
 of God is under the reign of Law; that 
 every crystal is always formed exactly 
 and invariably according to the same 
 16 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 geometrical pattern; that every seed 
 always blossoms out invariably into 
 the same flower; that the tiny violet 
 droops on its stem, not by accident, 
 but according to law. As Tyndall 
 says, " the same law that forms the 
 tear-drop moulds a planet." It is all 
 law. There is no longer any room in 
 this universe for caprice, or arbitrary 
 will; it is law, it is order throughout, 
 from centre to circumference. 
 
 Another thing, still more remarkable, 
 to be said about this enlarged idea 
 of the universe is that everywhere we 
 go we find the clear indications of Life. 
 There was a time, when the scientist 
 talked a great deal about " dead mat- 
 ter." There is no such thing in scien- 
 tific thinking to-day as dead matter. 
 It is all living matter, absolutely. If 
 you hold in your hand certain sub- 
 stances, carbon, sulphur, and saltpetre, 
 there is nothing especially expressive 
 17 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 of energy or force. They are inert. 
 If you bring them together you have 
 gunpowder. "Whence has come the 
 power that now exists in this explosive ? 
 Did ypu put it in as you mixed them 
 together? Not at all. Where did it 
 come from ? You ask the scientist, and 
 he says it is due to " inherent energy." 
 What does he mean by that ? Perhaps 
 he, himself, does not altogether under- 
 stand. The dead matter of former 
 times is alive with what is called " points 
 of force." I read only recently of 
 some German chemists who have bteen 
 experimenting with inorganic matter, 
 and have publicly made the announce- 
 ment, that they have been able to pro- 
 duce living matter out of what seemed 
 to be dead matter. They mix oil and 
 potash in certain proportions, and the 
 result is a substance that resembles, 
 in all its movements, the amoeba, one 
 of the lowest forms of animal life. I^ 
 18 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 moves about, changes its form, and 
 absorbs into itself certain objects, 
 rejecting others. The old line of de- 
 marcation between organic and in- 
 organic, between the living world and 
 the dead world, has vanished, and we 
 are confronted by the stupendous 
 thought, that what we call dead matter 
 is alive throughout, not to the thinking 
 of the religionist, remember, but to 
 that of the scientist as well. Professor 
 Dolbear declares that we always find 
 life associated with matter, and there 
 appears to be good reason for holding 
 that every atom is alive. It was Her- 
 bert Spencer who said before he died, 
 that the conception toward which Nat- 
 ural Science is tending, was not a dead 
 world of matter, but rather of a uni- 
 verse everywhere alive. 
 
 There is something else to be said 
 about this new universe into which we 
 have been ushered, which is still more 
 19 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 wonderful and startling, and that is, 
 that this universe of ours is not only 
 living in all its tiniest atoms, but that 
 Mind is present everywhere through- 
 out the universe. Professor Paulsen, 
 of Berlin University, one of the leading 
 philosophical and scientific writers of 
 the Continent, in one of his recent 
 books, argues at great length to show 
 that every physical process is always 
 accompanied by a psychic process. 
 He means that wherever you find 
 physical matter, there you will find 
 mind present in some form. One of 
 the leading scientists in Washington, 
 who has studied the subject for years, 
 declares that the tiny cell, which is the 
 unit of all organisms, is an embodied 
 bit of mind ; that what used to be called 
 vital, or physiological processes of the 
 cell, are now recognized as psychic 
 processes; and he goes on to prove, by 
 the behaviour of this physical cell, 
 «0 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 that all functions of the tiny cell must 
 proceed from mind. " In short, that 
 the life of a cell must consist solely of 
 its mental activities. What has hitherto 
 been called the vital and physiological 
 processes are in reality psychological 
 processes ; and the life of a cell is noth- 
 ing more than its mind." We are 
 living in a world which is full of life and 
 energy, in which there is-no such thing 
 as dead or lifeless matter, and in which 
 we are forced to recognize everywhere 
 mental powers and activities. 
 
 Still another fact must be noted 
 about this enlarged universe into which 
 we have come, — it is a Unity. The 
 ancients could not construe the universe 
 in terms of unity. They did not dream 
 of the unity that we know to exist. 
 With the spectroscope we can examine 
 the elements of the sun, the moon, and 
 stars, and we find that the same ele- 
 ments are there that are here. We 
 21 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 study the forces of these heavenly bod- 
 ies millions of miles removed from us, 
 and discover that the same forces, — 
 gravitation, heat, light and electricity, 
 — operate there just as they do here. 
 The same laws prevail there that pre- 
 vail here; and wherever man can go, 
 wherever he may search, wherever 
 his wonderful instruments have been 
 able to penetrate, everywhere he finds 
 not only law, but the same law; , there 
 is unity throughout. Water runs down- 
 hill here, and it runs down-hill on the 
 planet farthest removed. 
 
 There is one more step in our fas- 
 cinating journey. As we ponder upon 
 the marvellous facts which modern 
 science predicates of the universe, grad- 
 ually there emerges from our thinking 
 the luminous, yet at first startling 
 thought: " Then there is no other way 
 to think of this universe except as being 
 a living Organism." Can we grasp 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 the conception ? The old materialistic 
 idea of the universe, as a machine made 
 up of physical matter, and run simply 
 in accordance with certain physical 
 laws, is no longer possible to the re- 
 flecting mind, and we are thinking 
 to-day of the universe as an Organism, 
 alive throughout, surcharged with vital 
 energy, throbbing and pulsating with 
 the powers of mind from its very centre 
 to its farthest circumference; not a 
 dead world, not a mechanical world, 
 not a world once made by a God who 
 sits afar off, but an Organism which 
 is living, breathing, and pulsating 
 constantly, with this infinite energy, 
 this infinite life, this infinite power. 
 This is the light that the newer 
 thinking of science has thrown upon 
 the problem of man's age-long search 
 after a real God. No truly religious 
 man can fail to be profoundly grateful 
 for these divine revelations of science. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 which are helping immeasurably to 
 make God real to countless human 
 lives. 
 
 No longer do we look to some dis- 
 tant throne to find God. No longer 
 do we journey afar through the uni- 
 verse to ascertain His dwelling-place. 
 We know that if there is a God at all, 
 He is this Infinite Spirit th^t fills the 
 universe full of His life. His mind, and 
 His energy constantly. The scientist 
 and the philosopher to-day, when 
 asked for their conception of God, will 
 answer, " There is only one concep- 
 tion that we can entertain of God, 
 viz., He is this Universal Mind, He 
 is this Supreme Power that fills the 
 universe. He not only once created, 
 but He is continually creating; He is 
 not only here, but He is everywhere." 
 This Infinite Life, this Universal Mind, 
 this Soul of the Universe, this God who 
 is really pervading and sustaining all 
 
OB, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 that goes to make up this wondrous 
 universe, this is what the new theolo- 
 gian calls the Immanent God; this 
 is what the New Thought movement 
 calls the Universal Mind. It is the 
 God who is conceived of as dwelling 
 in His world. According to the old 
 German proverb, it is " God sleeping 
 in the stone, dreaming in the animal, 
 coming to consciousness in man." You 
 recall how Wordsworth, in these very 
 beautiful lines, gives expression to the 
 same thought: 
 
 " I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused; 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns 
 And the round ocean and the living air 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts. 
 And rolls, through all things." 
 
 25 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 In other words, then, the universe 
 is God clothed. The universe is " the 
 living garment of God;" or, as James 
 Martineau declared, " The universe 
 which includes and enfolds us round 
 is the life dwelHng of an Eternal Mind." 
 (pan we state in still simpler terms this 
 tremendous truth.'' Let us make the 
 attempt. The relation of this Infinite 
 Power, or God, to the universe, is the 
 same as the relation of man's soul to 
 his body. The universe as we see it is 
 God's body ; then God is the soul of the 
 universe, just as you are the soul of 
 your body. Can you lay your finger 
 on yourself ? Is your hand, you ? Is 
 your foot, you ? Is your brain, you ? 
 Where are you? Can any one localize 
 you in your body ? You pervade your 
 body through and through. When you 
 are looking intently at some object, 
 to all practical purposes you are in 
 your eyes. When you are consciously 
 26 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 working with your hands, to all in- 
 tents and purposes you are in your 
 hands. You are immanent in your 
 body. There is not one atom of your 
 body where you are not — but still, you 
 are not your body. The time is com- 
 ing when you will surrender your body 
 to the forces of dissolution, but you 
 will not perish. Now God is the soul 
 of the universe, just as your soul is 
 immanent in the body. If it makes it 
 any clearer, take the conception of 
 Swedenborg. Imagine this universe, 
 shaped like a gigantic humaii body; 
 then God is to this infinite form, or 
 universe, what you are to your physical 
 form, or body. This does not mean that 
 God is identical with the universe, but 
 that He is in every part of it, thrilling, 
 pulsating, living in it all, just as you 
 live and thrill and pulsate throughout 
 your body. And just as you, who dwell 
 within the body, also transcend tht* 
 27 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 body, so does God transcend the uni- 
 verse, whose soul He is. 
 
 This has been the conception of a 
 philosopher here and there, it has been 
 the thought of a poet Uke Wordsworth 
 now and then, it has been the idea 
 entertained by certain so-called free 
 thinkers in the past history of reUgious 
 thought; but never until to-day has it 
 come to be the great vital conception of 
 God that has dawned on men's hearts, 
 that has made possible such new vistas 
 of truth, and opened up before every 
 individual life, so glorious an outlook 
 and such great sources of power. How 
 stupendous the thought, that God is 
 not outside but within; that I cannot 
 escape Him, however I may try, for 
 He is here! The God of infinite power, 
 whose greatness I see manifested every- 
 where in nature about me, is the same 
 God who is waiting to manifest Himself 
 within me. Even as I write these 
 28 
 
OR, THE IMMANENT GOD 
 
 words I am conscious that they open 
 up undreamed of possibilities, in the 
 attainment of character and of develop- 
 ment along spiritual lines. Oh, that 
 we might profoundly realize that we 
 are not the men and women we 
 might be; we are not as strong, we 
 are not as pure, we are not as effective 
 in our work, we are not as helpful in 
 our relations with others ! We catch 
 glimpses now and then of what it 
 means to be a real man or a real woman, 
 and then the clouds gather and we lose 
 the vision; but the fact that the glimpse 
 has once come, that we once caught 
 the vision of the meaning of manhood 
 and womanhood, ought to be the 
 surest sign to us that the selfish and 
 materialistic lives we are living, do not 
 begin to represent what we can be, and 
 what we may attain, if we but come to 
 understand ourselves and the infinite 
 resources of power at our command. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL MIND 
 
 This is the New Thought of God 
 that is finding its way into so many 
 lives, that is helping men and women 
 in so many different places, and under 
 so many various names, to live the 
 life of strength, of self-control, of peace, 
 and of power. 
 
 Emmanuel — " God with us." This 
 is what men want, what men hunger 
 for, and what men are searching 
 after to-day, — a real God, — not 
 a god who once was, but a God who 
 now is ; not a god who once spake, but 
 a God who now speaks; not a god who 
 once wrought, but a God who works 
 to-day; and that God is here, and that 
 God is within us. It is for us to realize 
 the consciousness of our oneness with 
 Him. 
 
 " Speak to Him thou, for He Lean, and 
 Spirit with spirit can meet; 
 Closer is He than breathing 
 And nearer than hands and feet" 
 30 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 [VERY new thought of God 
 must involve new thoughts of 
 man. It is upon a man's 
 idea of God that his idea of 
 himself really depends. If his con- 
 ception of God is narrow and unworthy, 
 so must be his conception of himself; 
 if, on the other hand, his thought of 
 God is lofty and noble, his thoughts of 
 himself must inevitably become lofty 
 and noble. 
 
 If the new thought of God, which 
 has been influencing countless minds, 
 and has brought new peace and power 
 into so many lives, is essentially, the 
 idea of a Supreme Power, back of, 
 underlying, and in all things, then, 
 33 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 what is man ? What is the normal ^ 3- 
 lation between God and man? Can 
 there be any distinct boundary line 
 between them? Is there a divine side 
 to man, which opens out into the un- 
 fathomable depths of the Infinite ? 
 
 History is largely made up of the 
 attempts of humanity to build walls 
 of separation. Men have been con- 
 tinually putting up bars around them- 
 selves, shutting out God and nature 
 and their fellow-men. They have 
 drawn sharp Unes between their own 
 souls and the Universal Soul. In the 
 early life of the race, there seems to 
 have been a divine nearness and in- 
 timacy, which has been gradually lost, 
 as civilization has advanced. Man 
 has never lacked a so-called religion, 
 but it has usually become formal and 
 lifeless. To the patriarchs of simple 
 and devout life, God was a present, dll- 
 important factor. While their con- 
 34 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 ception of the divine character was 
 limited and low, nevertheless, it was 
 near and real. To the North American 
 Indian, before he became " civilized," 
 nature was the great revelator, and he 
 lived in the immediate presence of the 
 " Great Spirit." Even the pantheism 
 and paganism of the Greeks contained 
 so much of the intuitive element that 
 Paul declared that " God was not far 
 from every one of them." " As certain 
 even of your own poets have said, For 
 we are also His offspring." But as a 
 material and artificial civilization grew 
 up, and formal systems and institutions 
 began to multiply, more and more men 
 grew out of touch with the divine and 
 unseen. The intellectual faculty be- 
 came more highly developed, until it 
 overshadowed the earlier perception. 
 The primitive Church, pure and spirit- 
 ual at first, gradually became theologi- 
 cal, institutional, and polemic. From 
 35 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 time to time, great souls have sought to 
 tear down the walls of separation, as did 
 George Fox, in the Quaker movenaent 
 in England, but the great majority 
 have failed to catch the vision. To- 
 day, however, the ancient walls are 
 slowly crumbling. Men are " feeling 
 after God," and finding Him; and in 
 finding Him, they are discovering them- 
 selves. 
 
 If we were to ask the pid theologian, 
 " What is Man ? " he might reply in 
 words something like this : " Man is 
 a fallen creature. In the sin of Adam 
 he fell. He then became totally and 
 absolutely depraved, and as a result he 
 has been ever since, but a ' poor, weak 
 worm of the dust.' " Yet as we quote 
 these familiar words, we feel keenly 
 that this answer no longer satisfies the- 
 intelligent man. If we were to ask the 
 rather overconfident medical student, 
 he might reply : " Man is the most 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAJST 
 
 highly developed vertebrate, who has 
 worsted all competitors in the struggle 
 for existence, and to-day stands in the 
 forefront of living creatures." Yet this 
 does not satisfy. If we put the same 
 question to the cynical pessimist, he 
 would tell us: " Life is but a vapour; 
 a breath, that passes away; a mere 
 bubble upon the ocean of causation, 
 here to-day and gone to-morrow, and 
 gone for ever." The words of the old 
 pessimist, Omar Khayyam, are even 
 yet the fit expression of such a philos- 
 ophy: 
 
 " The worldly Hope, men set their hearts upon. 
 Turns ashes — or it prospers; and anon 
 Like snow upon the Desert's dusty face 
 Lighting a little hour or two, — is gone." 
 
 Or, if we ask the man who h^s 
 wasted his substance in riotous living, 
 he might most fittingly reply, in the sad 
 lament of Lord Byron: 
 37 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 " My days are in the sere and yellow leaf. 
 The flowers and fruit of love are gone; 
 The worm, the canker and the grief. 
 Are mine alone." 
 
 If we should put tlus question to the 
 average busy city man or woman, I 
 presume we would receive from mul- 
 titudes the answer, " My time is al- 
 together taken up with just living. 
 My horizon is narrow and contracted. 
 I do not have time to think, or, if I do 
 ask the meaning of my life, I find my- 
 self unable to make any progress toward 
 the solution of the mystery." 
 
 And yet I venture to beUeve that in 
 all men, there lies beneath these answers 
 which might be given to our question, a 
 vague consciousness that life is vastly 
 more than such words would indicate. 
 Whether we can formulate it in speech 
 or not, whether we have any experience 
 or knowledge to warrant us in the faith, 
 there is a deep instinctive feeUng in 
 38 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 every man, that life is something more 
 than a breath or a vapour, it is more 
 than this superficial existence, man is not 
 merely a " weak worm of the dust," it 
 it is not enough to call him an insoluble 
 mystery! My life has a reality, it pos- 
 sesses meaning, it contains a deep 
 significance, if only I can discover the 
 truth about myself. 
 
 Where shall we find the truer and 
 more satisfying answer to our question, 
 " What is man ? " If we turn back to 
 the words of the ancient prophet, we 
 find him saying, " God created man in 
 His own image." As we turn to the 
 New Testament we find that Jesus 
 Christ utters the same truth when He 
 teaches men to say " Our Father," and 
 when He tries to help them understand 
 that the relation of God to man is the 
 relation of fatherhood, and that there- 
 fore the relation of man to God should 
 be the fihal relation. This is the clear 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 teaching of the Bible, and yet how vari- 
 ous have been the interpretations put 
 upon these familiar words, " Made in 
 the image of God," and " Qiildren of 
 God." After all these centuries, how 
 little we perceive of their profounder 
 meaning. To most of us, I imagine, 
 these phrases have been but poetry, 
 simply beautiful figures of speech. We 
 have seldom inquired deeply into their 
 actual truth and asked, " What is their 
 real significance for me as an individual 
 man or woman ? " Now, it is the chief 
 glory of the newer thinking of our day, 
 that we are coming to interpret the 
 poetry or the figure of speech suggested 
 by tlxese words, in terms that are 
 freighted with profound meaning for 
 every human soul. 
 
 What truth can the words, " Made in 
 God's image," contain, if not this: 
 That when God created man He im- 
 parted His very life to him, so that in 
 40 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 man, simply as man, the divine char- 
 acteristics are resident. Speaking re- 
 ligiously, we say that in man God 
 implanted a soul. But what is the soul 
 but an emanation from God, an actual 
 part of God Himself? What else can 
 we mean, when we say, " Man is made 
 in the image of God," unless we recog- 
 nize that there is created in man, at the 
 outset, a receptivity to the life, the 
 mind, the love of the infinite God ? The 
 old gulf that has existed so long in 
 human thinking, between God and 
 man, is being bridged at last, and we are 
 coining to realize that man, by virtue 
 of his being, is akin to God. God's life, 
 to use a figure of speech, flows in man's 
 veins. So that it is no longer poetry, 
 but literal fact, to say that our lives 
 are essentially the same as God's life; 
 the only difference is one of degree. 
 
 This is the only construction that 
 can be put on the teaching of Jesus, ^ 
 41 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 as to the Fatherhood of God. He cer- 
 tainly does not mean that God is our 
 father, only in the sense that he sus- 
 tains a fatherly attitude towards us. 
 Fatherhood, if it means anything, im- 
 pUes that the actual hfe of the father 
 has been imparted. If we are children 
 of God, we are such, only because in 
 some real sense we possess within our- 
 selves the very life of God. It can 
 mean nothing less than that. Men talk 
 of escaping from God, or of living their 
 lives apart from Him. Can you not 
 see, with the newer thought of God 
 before us, how utterly impossible that 
 is, when God's life is my Ufe and I am 
 a part of God ? God is not locaUzed 
 somewhere in space, a Being from 
 whom I can escape, or upon whom I 
 can turn my back if I choose. God 
 dwells within me, and I can no more 
 escape from God than I can get away 
 from myself. If this were not true. 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 there would be no such thing as life 
 for me, I could lay no claim to the 
 possession of mind, there would be none 
 of the powers or abilities within me, of 
 which I am becoming daily more and 
 more conscious. 
 
 We all know the wonderful and fas- 
 cinating story of the evolution of man 
 upon the earth. But the deeper signifi- 
 cance of that story is nothing less than 
 this : That from the very moment man 
 first awoke to being, he has been slowly 
 unfolding in consciousness, and that 
 many have now reached the stage of 
 spiritual development where they have 
 become conscious of the existence and 
 immanence of God, and thus Tcnow, 
 rather than merely hold a belief, based 
 upon the real or assumed authority of 
 other men. This God-consciousness 
 to which the race is rapidly tending is 
 the result of the unfoidment and evo- 
 lution of man for ages, and wheu fully^ 
 43 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 possessed by the race will completely 
 revolutionize our present conceptions of 
 life, our ethics, customs, economics, and 
 religion. 
 
 Not always with the same degree of 
 rapidity has man developed. There 
 have been periods in his life when he 
 has apparently been bUnd to the fact 
 of his oneness with God; but, however 
 slowly, yet most surely, he has been 
 progressing toward the goal, where he 
 sees and realizes that his Ufe, in its 
 essence, is one with the Divine Life, that 
 in his deeper consciousness he is akin 
 to God. The great seers, the great 
 poets, the great prophets, the great 
 sages in every age and clime, have 
 simply been those more deeply con- 
 scious of their oneness with God, who 
 have learned how to open their lives 
 more fully to the incoming of the 
 Divine Spirit, than have the rank and 
 
 file of men about them. 
 
 44 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 It is most interesting and also pro- 
 foundly significant, to note how science 
 to-day is throwing tremendous light 
 upon this idea of man in his relation 
 to the Infinite God. When a student 
 in college, our professor in psychology 
 told his classes frankly that there was 
 no text-book on the subject worthy 
 or adequate. " The older psycholo- 
 gies," he said, " are out of date, and we 
 are waiting now for the new psychology 
 to be written." Since then, new dis- 
 coveries have steadily been made in 
 the psychological field, and yet the new 
 psychology has not been written; and 
 in our great universities they are still 
 using James*, Baldwin's, or Dewey's 
 Psychology, but everywhere with the 
 understanding that these books are no 
 longer entirely satisfactory and must be 
 supplemented by lectures, and collateral 
 reading of more recent books or articles, 
 that deal with the newer discoveries 
 45 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 and conceptions of the psychology of our 
 day. The time will come when some 
 great mind will take this immense 
 amount of new data that has been gath- 
 ered, and generaUzing from these facts, 
 deduce the true laws and principles. 
 Not until then will the new psychology 
 be written. Perhaps it is just as well 
 that as yet no such written psychology 
 exists, for it leaves the mind of man 
 more free and open to investigate truth 
 wheresoever he may choose. 
 
 However, there are some things 
 which we do know, as to the rev- 
 elations of the newer psychology. 
 Professor James of Harvard admits 
 frankly, in one of his recent books, 
 that the phenomena of hypnotism, 
 thought-transference, telepathy, mind 
 reading, clairvoyancy, and clairaudi- 
 ence, have been scientifically demon- 
 strated. I do not refer to these 
 phenomena as we see them employed 
 46 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 so many times by quacks, charlatans, 
 or unscrupulous persons. I am speak- 
 ing now from the standpoint of science. 
 The psychologists of to-day recognize 
 and admit the scientific basis for these 
 and many other facts formerly ignored 
 or denied. The statement is made 
 in the Edinburgh Review that thirty- 
 nine living scientists of acknowledged 
 standing, have openly avowed their 
 belief in spiritual existences, and even, 
 under certain conditions, in spirit-re- 
 turn. 
 
 Most of us are aware that the newer 
 psychology teaches that man has two 
 minds; or, as seems to me a better 
 way of putting it, that there are two 
 different forms of expression, or two 
 different planes, upon which the one 
 underlying unity, which we call the 
 mind of man, is able to function. The 
 subjective, the subconscious, or the 
 subliminal mind, are all terms used to 
 47 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 describe one of these expressions of 
 mind, and that the most wonderful. 
 On the other hand, there is the objective 
 mind, with whose operations we are 
 most familiar. This is not the place 
 to discuss the powers and possibilities 
 of the subconscious mind in man. Just 
 now I want you to see that the newer 
 psychology which recognizes the sub- 
 conscious mind, and admits its powers, 
 undreamed of heretofore, is proving 
 to us most clearly that this subconscious 
 mind, resident in all, is of the same 
 essence as the Universal Mind. Re- 
 member, this is from science, not re- 
 ligion. We are no longer obliged to 
 rest content with the statement of the 
 Bible, that man is " made in the image 
 of God," or that he is " the child of 
 God." Science to-day has come for- 
 ward to affirm that in his deeper self, 
 in his subconscious or subliminal being, 
 man possesses the qualities that re- 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 late him vitally and essentially to the 
 Infinite Mind of the Universe. Can 
 we understand what this means, when 
 scarce a quarter of a century ago the 
 leading scientists were telling us, that 
 mind was to be construed in terms 
 of matter, and that the brain secreted 
 thought just as the liver secretes bile ? 
 Do we realize the sweeping change in 
 the attitude of the scientific world, 
 when we recall that twenty-five years 
 ago Mr. Tyndall, in an address in 
 London, made the statement that " the 
 prornise and potency of all life is to be 
 found in matter;" and that scarcely 
 a quarter of a century afterwards, Sir 
 William Crookes, speaking on the same 
 platform, and holding as prominent 
 and influential a position in scientific 
 circles, made the statement that " the 
 promise and potency, not only of mat- 
 ter, but of the entire universe, is found 
 in life," — an exact reversal of posi- 
 49 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 tion ? Twenty-five years ago it was 
 believed that life, mind, and soul could 
 only be construed in terms of matter; 
 and to-day we are told just as emphat- 
 ically, that there is no explanation for 
 the universe or for man, save in terms 
 of Infinite Life. Truly the new light 
 is breaking when the scientist of to-day 
 takes the position that in man's deeper 
 self, in his subconscious mind, he is akin 
 to the Universal Soul, the Infinite Mind 
 of God. 
 
 But some one may ask, " What then 
 is the mission of Jesus Christ in the 
 world and what is His relation to man ? " 
 The unique thing about Jesus Christ, 
 as compared with all other characters 
 who have appeared in history, was His 
 profound consciousness of God. This 
 was what constituted His divinity. As 
 He went up and down through Judea 
 and GaUlee, mingKng with men of all 
 classes. He never seemed to lose sight 
 50 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 of the fact that He was one with God. 
 He said, " I have come to show you 
 the Father; he that hath seen Me hath 
 seen the Father." As we study His 
 Hfe, His teachings, and His personaUty, 
 this is the one thing that leaves its final 
 impress upon our minds. Here is 
 One possessing, as no other man in 
 history, the God-consciousness. We 
 call Him the Perfect One, the IdeaJ 
 Man; what do we mean by these 
 phrases ? If it is true that man was 
 originally created with this divine life 
 in him, and if the evolution of man has 
 meant the unfolding of the conscious- 
 ness of the divine within, then Jesus 
 stands at the highest goal toward which 
 this development, taking place always 
 and everywhere in the life of humanity, 
 has been tending from the beginning ? 
 Jesus Christ is the One in whose life 
 exists this perfect consciousness of one- 
 ness with God. The difference there- 
 51 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 fore between Jesus and every other 
 man, is not a difference in kind, but 
 rather a difference in degree. There 
 are not two kinds of divinity. The same 
 God is in you and in me that was in 
 Jesus Christ; only in Him there was 
 the fulness of consciousness of the 
 divine life, while we are groping our 
 way, and more or less imperfectly, seek- 
 ing to realize our oneness with God. 
 
 Did you ever notice in your reading 
 of the Gospels, that Jesus- never does 
 anything for man that He does not ask 
 man to do for himself ? Jesus always 
 identifies BKs life with man's life, and 
 man's life with His. He says, " As I 
 am one with My Father, I pray that ye 
 also may be one; " " As the Father 
 hath sent Me into the world, just so 
 I am sending you into the world." He 
 called Himself " the Light of the 
 world "; but He also said " Ye are the 
 light of the world." And again, in tha^ 
 52 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 sublimest prophecy ever made to falter- 
 ing humanity, " Ye therefore shall be 
 perfect, even as your Father who is in 
 heaven is perfect." Could there be any 
 higher demand ? Could He .ask any- 
 thing more of man ? Could He in any 
 way show a greater confidence in man's 
 powers to realize the divine in himself, 
 than when He says, " Ye therefore shall 
 be perfect, even as God is perfect " ? 
 And can you conceive of Jesus, mocking 
 the aspiring spirit of man, by asking 
 him to achieve in himself the impos- 
 sible ? 
 
 The trouble all down through the 
 ages has been, that we have set Jesus 
 Christ over and apart from humanity, 
 as if He were a sort of being different 
 in hind from the rest of humanity, as if 
 He were a magical creation, neither 
 altogether human nor altogether di- 
 vine, and therefore occupying a position 
 somewhere midway between heaven and 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 earth. We have preached about His 
 teachings, His ideals, and His com- 
 mands. We have said to man, again 
 and again, " Such was the beautiful, 
 symmetrical, divine life He lived. But 
 we are different, we are not Uke Him, 
 we can never attain to His likeness." 
 But such a view is to destroy for us the 
 reality of His life, to miss the actual 
 meaning of His teachings, and to cru- 
 cify Him afresh. 
 
 Let me repeat, a careful study of the 
 Gospels reveals the fact that Jesus 
 never does anything for man that He 
 does not ask him to do for himself. 
 His great purpose was to bring man 
 to the same plane of God-consciousness 
 that He occupied. He sought to show 
 men constantly, that just as He lived 
 the life of oneness with the Father, so 
 they might, and should, enter into 
 the realization of their oneness with the 
 Father. How else will you interpret 
 
 54 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 those many passages in Paul's writings, 
 which we have regarded as rather 
 mystical, where he spestks of " being 
 crucified with Christ," and " dying with 
 Christ;" "being buried with Christ," 
 and " being raised again with Christ; " 
 where he says, " Let this mind be 
 in you. which was also in Christ 
 Jesus " ? What does Paul intend, 
 but to identify every life with Jesus 
 Christ and say to every man, " This 
 God-consciousness was the supreme 
 fact in His hfe, and so it ought 
 to be in yours; you have the power, 
 you have the capacity, you have the 
 ability within yourself to realize your 
 oneness with God, as Jesus Christ 
 realized it in Himself " ? Our mistake 
 has been in putting Jesus Christ so far 
 away from us, and admitting this wide 
 gulf of difference between His life and 
 ours. His mission in the world was to 
 teach men how to live His kind of a 
 55 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 life. He said, " I am the Way and the 
 Truth and the Life;" or, as President 
 Harper used to love to put it, " I am the 
 way to Truth and Life;" I am the way 
 to live. 
 
 We say that Jesus Qirist came to 
 save men from their sins. But how ? 
 Once again, by developing within them 
 the consciousness of their oneness with 
 God. That is the only way that any 
 one is saved from sin. For sin is selfish- 
 ness, and selfishness means separate- 
 ness, exclusiveness, aloofness from God 
 and humanity. The only true way by 
 which you can put selfishness out of 
 your life — the only way you can get 
 down to the source of all sins, and erad- 
 icate the root sin — is by coming into 
 oneness with the Universal Life, by 
 forgetting your little claims, your petty 
 ambitions, your individual desires, in 
 the overwhelming desire and purpose 
 of becoming one with Him and one 
 56 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 with humanity. That is just how Jesus 
 Christ saves men. It is by pointing 
 out the way in His own life, and then 
 by helping men to walk out along the 
 line of this realization of their oneness 
 with God; helping them to see that 
 the kind of life He lived, which in its 
 essence was a life filled with the God- 
 •consciousness, is the kind of life that 
 every man and woman everywhere can 
 live, if they choose. Not merely by 
 believing things about Christ, but by 
 catching His viewpoint, by sharing His 
 spirit, by holding His thoughts, by 
 living His life, will man be saved, now 
 and in eternity. 
 
 I said at the outset that it was a 
 man's thought about himself that de- 
 termined the kind of man he really was. 
 If you think of yourself as weak and 
 helpless, like a chip tossed to and fro 
 on the waves of life's sea; if you think 
 of yourself in terms of matter merely, 
 57 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 soon to crumble into dust ; if you think 
 of yourself as utterly unable to realize 
 in yourself, here and now, the ideals 
 you cherish, it is no wonder you do not 
 progress very far toward the attainment 
 of the highest and best things in char- 
 acter. But let a man once take into 
 his deepest thought and life this vital 
 realization, that he is not weak and 
 helpless; that he is not a poor and 
 pitiable object, buffeted by circum- 
 stances and change; that he never was 
 a " weakjworm of the dust; " that he 
 never is totally and absolutely depraved; 
 that while ignorance and selfishness 
 have kept him often from reaching 
 the highest and best of which he is 
 capable, still he is an actual part of 
 God, his life is one with the Father's 
 life, and that it only rests with him to 
 enter more deeply and more continu- 
 ally into the realization of this oneness 
 between himself and the Infinite God, 
 58 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 — then his life takes on a new meaning 
 and dignity, a new grandeur and power, 
 such as it has never before pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 I have somewhere seen a painting 
 of two faces by an idealist, a young 
 woman of nineteen. The first one 
 was rarely beautiful in form and fea- 
 ture; but as you looked into the eyes, 
 you discerned an indescribable sadness, 
 a sense of dissatisfaction with self and 
 hunger for the unattainable. And you 
 turned away, sad at heart, because of 
 the soul's unrest depicted on the coun- 
 tenance. The other face, cheek almost 
 touching cheek, was the same, and 
 yet, not the same; a face out of which 
 the hunger and unrest and dissatisfac- 
 tion had fled, a face radiant with 
 serenity and sdf-poise and peace. What 
 a graphic outline of the oft-repeated 
 story, of the human being not yet awake 
 to its divine Self, — hungry, anxious, 
 59 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 sad, yearning for it knows not what, 
 and all the time the divine Self, the real 
 Self, the true Being, is close at hand, 
 only waiting for recognition. Oh, the 
 sad and restless and anxious faces all 
 about us, betokening the deeper hunger 
 and unrest of the soul! How close to 
 us is the divine Self, few yet realize. 
 But it is vnthin every one of us, waiting 
 only for recognition, waiting only to be 
 awakened, when it may reveal its won- 
 drous powers. 
 
 And when any individual once comes 
 to a realization of that deeper or divine 
 Self, it brings the permanent conscious- 
 ness of the Source whence our life 
 comes and whither it flows. It means 
 for such souls, as step by step they con- 
 tinue to walk in the light, the constant 
 increase of peace, of power, and of joy. 
 God help us to be so deeply earnest 
 in the search for our diviner Self, that 
 we shall not rest content until we have 
 60 
 
THE DIVINITY OF MAN 
 
 discovered the secret of living the life, 
 that is life, indeed! 
 
 " I go to prove my soul ! 
 I see my way as birds their trackless way. 
 I shall arrive ! What time, what circuit first, 
 I ask not: but unless God send His hail. 
 Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow. 
 In some time. His good time, I shall arrive; 
 He guides me and the bird. In His good time ! " 
 
 61 
 
THE rOWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
THE 
 
 POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES OF 
 
 THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 JO rightly estimate and correctly 
 interpret the new Religious 
 movement of our day, one 
 must approach it with a clear 
 understanding of the psychological 
 principles which constitute its scien- 
 tific basis. Our Age has been witness- 
 ing a most interesting and significant 
 development in the ancient science 
 of Psychology. Many years ago Pro- 
 fessor James of Harvard University 
 prefaced a lecture upon Psychology 
 with these words: " Perhaps there 
 are some of you who would like to 
 3 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 inquire what practical benefits this 
 science of Psychology has for the 
 world. I reply, absolutely none." And 
 yet to-day, as Dr. Worcester has said. 
 Professor James might, if he chose, be 
 one of the most successful Neurol- 
 ogists of the age, with his consummate 
 skill as a physiological psychologist. 
 
 James defines Psychology as " The 
 Science of mental processes." Halleck 
 calls it " The science of the mind." 
 Baldwin, in a still more comprehensive 
 statement, defines it as " The science 
 of the Self." It has been my privilege 
 for a number of years to study along 
 these lines, to come into personal con- 
 tact with some of the men who are 
 recognized as authorities in this field, 
 and I am merely employing the results 
 of their work, the conclusions, final 
 or not, as the case may be, to which 
 they have come. One other word needs 
 to be said : it behooves no man to-day, 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 in this sphere of thought, to be over- 
 dogmatic. The field of inquiry is too 
 vast, and the possible explanations of 
 the phenomena observed too varied, 
 to admit of unanimity of opinion. The 
 psychologists who have given their 
 lives to the study of the problems in- 
 volved, are not agreed as to many 
 things. Not a few of the leaders, how- 
 ever, are practically unanimous as 
 respects certain fundamental princi- 
 ples. Opinions are varied, from that 
 of Janet who held that the phenomena 
 of the sub-conscioUs mind were merely 
 the concomitant of hysteria, to the 
 view of those who claim that such 
 phenomena furnish nothing less than 
 the positive proof of man's divine 
 origin, of his spiritual nature, and of 
 his Eternal Destiny. As the result of 
 my own study and experience, I am 
 quite ready to agree with Professor 
 James and other recognized authorities 
 6 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 in this field, as to the reality of the sub- 
 conscious mind. And if the discussion 
 of this subject seems to be leading us far 
 afield, let us keep in mind that it is not 
 merely for the sake of the Psychology, 
 but rather that in the end we may see 
 its vital bearings upon man's life and 
 the meaning of religion. 
 
 We have already seen that the most 
 important contributions of the newer 
 Psychology are involved in the idea 
 of the dval mind of man. Thomas J. 
 Hudson in his " Laws of Psychic Phe- 
 nomena " claims that man has two 
 minds, the objective and subjective. 
 Psychologists, however, because of the 
 greater simplicity and for the sake of 
 unity, prefer to think of one mind, 
 though functioning on two diflPerent 
 planes. " The sub-conscious mind is 
 not a' second mind; to think so is to 
 place an artificial barrier between the 
 outer person and the limitless within. 
 6 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 There is but one mind ; the outer phase 
 is the conscious, the inner phase is the 
 sub-conscious." For the sake of con- 
 venience, we may speak of the conscious 
 or objective mind, and the sub-con- 
 scious or subjective mind. The mind 
 of man then, according to this view, is 
 conscious and sub-conscious, external 
 and internal, objective and subjective. 
 The conscious mind acts, the sub- 
 conscious re-acts; the conscious mind 
 produces the impression, the sub-con- 
 scious produces the expression; the con- 
 scious mind determines what is to be 
 done; the sub-conscious furnishes the 
 mental material and the power with 
 which to do it. The conscious mind 
 takes cognizance of the objective world. 
 Its means of observation are the five 
 physical senses. It is the outgrowth of 
 man's physical necessities. It is his 
 guide in his struggle with his material 
 environment. Its highest function is 
 7 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 that of reasoning. The sub-conscious 
 mind, on the other hand, takes cogni- 
 zance of its environment, by means 
 independent of the physical senses. It 
 perceives Jby intuition. It is the seat 
 of the emotions and storehouse of 
 memory. It performs its highest func- 
 tions when the objective senses are in 
 abeyance. Dr. Hudson adds to this 
 view the two propositions: " That 
 the subjective mind is constantly ame- 
 nable to control by suggestion," and 
 " That it is incapable of inductive 
 reasoning." The sub-conscious mind 
 is intuitively the source of the deepest 
 desires, the deepest impulses, the deep- 
 est sentiments, the deepest convictions 
 that become potent in shaping life and 
 character. If this be true, the sub- 
 conscious mind is the power behind the 
 throne; it is the source of dynamic 
 energy in a man's life; it receives the 
 impression of the thoughts and desires 
 8 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 produced by the conscious mind, and 
 expresses them inevitably, in the phys- 
 ical organism, in the personality, in 
 the character of the individual. The 
 sub-conscious mind is " the great 
 within," — an inner mental world from 
 which all things proceed, that appear 
 in the being of man. 
 
 There are many, doubtless, who are 
 curious to know the facts which have 
 convinced the modern Psychologist 
 that there is such a thing as the sub- 
 conscious mind. Let me briefly call 
 your attention to some of the phe- 
 nomena which have led to this conclu- 
 sion. Students of life in its lower forms 
 have long been convinced, that here are 
 expressed many activities, which can- 
 not be satisfactorily explained merely 
 in terms of matter. Sir William Daw- 
 son tells of wa:tching with his magni- 
 fying glass the operations of an amoeba, 
 one of the lowest forms of animal life, 
 9 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 as it was trying to swallow a one-celled 
 plant; of how it lengthened itself out 
 and went through prodigious eflForts 
 in its attempt to absorb this morsel of 
 food; and when it found itself unequal 
 to the task, threw it aside and moved 
 off in another direction. George Henry 
 Lewes, one of the early investigators 
 in the field of physiological Psychology, 
 proved by unmistakable evidence that 
 in animals possessing no brain what- 
 ever, there are activities revealing pur- 
 pose, showing adaptation of means to 
 end, which can only be accounted for 
 by some kind of mind. Every scientist 
 has recognized the presence of this 
 something in the lower animals. They 
 have called it " instinct." But what has 
 that word meant ? It has only been 
 a term to veil our ignorance. Wherever 
 we perceive purposive actions, or the 
 adaptation of means to end, we must 
 recognize some form of mental activity. 
 10 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 Mere matter will not account for it. 
 Only mind explains ; but a mind below 
 the plane of consciousness. 
 
 As we come higher up the scale we 
 find the ant, with its wonderfully com- 
 plex life, its marvelous " instinct," its 
 social organization. If you have read 
 Maeterlinck's " Life of the Bee," you 
 know the wonderful story he tells of the 
 activities carried on with consummate 
 skill by the different classes of bees, 
 and of the perfectly articulated society 
 that exists within the hive. The modern 
 psychologist tells us that the instinct 
 of the ant and the bee is simply another 
 name for mind; a mind not as individ- 
 ual or as progressive as that of which 
 we are conscious in ourselves, but mind 
 none the less, operating on the sub- 
 conscious plane. Coming still higher, 
 we find the beaver constructing his 
 ingenious hut with an almost human 
 skill. The intelligent dog or horse 
 11 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 will reason, will remember, will cherish 
 feelings of aflfection or hatred, will be 
 suspicious or confiding. Here, at least. 
 We recognize a mind, closely similar to 
 the mind of man. This is one class of 
 facts that has led psychologists to 
 feel that there is much more of mind 
 in the animal world than expresses 
 itself in the conscious life of man. 
 There is a great unconscious realm 
 where mind is present, where mind 
 operates, where mind controls activi- 
 ties. 
 
 If we turn our attention to man, we 
 are met again by numerous expressions 
 of mental activity which lie in a realm 
 outside of man's consciousness. We 
 will all fall asleep to-night. The con- 
 scious mind will, apparently, be dead. 
 The five avenues through which it re- 
 ceives knowledge will be closed ; yet the 
 heart will go on beating, the lungs will 
 continue to expand and contract, all 
 12 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 the digestive processes will go on, as 
 normally; just the right amount of 
 blood needed by each organ of the 
 body will be furnished; in short, the 
 entire complex life of the physical 
 organism goes on unaltered and undis- 
 turbed. What is the explanation ? We 
 have said in the past, "It is due to the 
 response of each organ to its mechan- 
 ical stimultis." But what power con- 
 trols and co-ordinates all these various 
 organs ? What is it that holds them 
 together so that to-morrow morning 
 you awaken from unconsciousness, the 
 same personality as when you went 
 to sleep? We call the human body 
 a perfect machine, and we speak of it 
 m terms of wonder and admiration; 
 but it is surely a curious kind of " ma- 
 chine," that can regulate its own actions, 
 that can repair its oWn waste, that can 
 substitute a perfect organ for one that 
 has become defective. We do not 
 13 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 generally use the word " machine " 
 in this sense. Any machine made by 
 man requires the machinist or the 
 engineer to regulate it and see that it 
 runs smoothly. No machine runs on 
 indefinitely without requiring careful 
 adjustment and skillful attention. What 
 constitutes the " machinist " in man ? 
 What is the power that controls and 
 regulates his activities, whether sleeping 
 or waking? Psychology affirms that 
 the only power capable of such marvel- 
 ous activities is the power of mind, 
 functioning, however, on the sub-con- 
 scious plane. The somnambulist arises 
 from his bed in sleep, walks long dis- 
 tances, perform^ all manner of absurd 
 and even perilous feats, impossible in 
 his waking moments, carries on a 
 more or less intelligent conversation, 
 and in the morning remembers nothing 
 of the night's experiences. It is the 
 same intelligence that manifests itself 
 14 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 in the hypnotic subject who obeys 
 blindly the will of the one exercising 
 control. 
 
 Another class of facts relates to the 
 wonderful way in which the physical 
 organism constantly tends to recover 
 equilibrium when attacked by injury 
 or disease. Among reptiles, if a foot 
 or leg is lost, immediately the new 
 member begins to grow. If a worm is 
 cut in two, at once the part destroyed 
 begins to form again, with all its 
 organs properly adjusted. For cen- 
 turies, the profession of medicine has 
 been familiar Vith the phrase, " Vis 
 medicatrix naturae," or, " The healing 
 power of nature ; " and from the very 
 beginning of medicine, this force has 
 been recognized. Ambroise Pare wrote 
 on the wall of his hospital, " I dress 
 the wound, and God heals it ; " or, as 
 another famous doctor once said, " We 
 amuse our patients, while nature cures 
 15 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 them." Every physician recognizes that 
 there is in nature a force capable of 
 repairing the damage done, and of 
 bringing harmony out of discordant 
 conditions. So that the statement has 
 been made, that of all sick persons, 
 probably two-thirds could recover of 
 their own accord, without any medical 
 assistance. What this curative power 
 is, and the laws of its operation, are 
 questions to be considered elsewhere. 
 It is sufficient for our argument to say 
 that the remedial powers of nature 
 must proceed from the mind, operating 
 in the sub-conscious. These are some 
 of the facts that lead the modern 
 Psychologist to affirm so confidently 
 the reality of the sub-conscious mind. 
 Let us now define more in detail the 
 distinctive powers of the sub-conscious 
 as compared with those of the conscious 
 mind. In the first place, we are told 
 that the sub-conscious mind perceives 
 16 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 truth intuitively and immediately. Our 
 conscious minds arrive at truth through 
 the process of induction. We begin 
 with the simple fact ; slowly and with 
 painstaking care we gather our data, 
 and at length, by the laborious method 
 of inductive reasoning, we reach the 
 general Jaw or principle or truth. The 
 sub-conscious mind, by the power of 
 intuition, is enabled to apprehend essen- 
 tial truth, antecedent to, and independ- 
 ent of reason, experience or instruc- 
 tion. Many of the great minds in the 
 past have stood forth above their 
 fellows, because they seemed to be 
 gifted in some wonderful way with 
 this intuitive power. Jesus of Nazareth, 
 nineteen hundred years ago, possessed 
 the intuitive mind. Read His words 
 as they have come down to us. His 
 profound yet simple statements of truth 
 regarding God and man, the meaning 
 of man's life and his Eternal Destiny. 
 17 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 Nowhere will you find an indication 
 of any reasoning process. Jesus does 
 not argue from isolated facts up to 
 general laws and principles'. He is 
 not a logician. But He utters some 
 great Truth, by a flash of intuitive 
 insight, as when He said to the woman 
 of ^amaria, " God is a Spirit, they 
 that Worship Him, must worship in 
 spirit and in truth." He grasped truth 
 intuitively, without going through the 
 laborious methods which characterize 
 our mental processes. It is by the 
 exercise of this faculty that the Prophet, 
 ancient or modern, is enabled to grasp 
 fundamental truths. We call it " in- 
 spiration," and certainly it is the basis 
 of all we know of inspiration. One of 
 the most striking illustrations of the 
 intuitive mind is found in our own 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. As has been 
 said, "One might just as well begin 
 at the end of any of his essays, and 
 18 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 read backwards, for all the difference 
 that is made in the sense." In Emer- 
 son's writings, each sentence stands 
 alone by itself. He does not begin with 
 a few facts, and then work out an 
 elaborate argument; he never starts 
 with a premise, and draws from that a 
 logical conclusion. But one sentence 
 follows another, clean cut and lumi- 
 nous, many of them revealing marvel- 
 ous insight. We call him a great 
 philosopher, but not in the ordinary 
 sense in which we apply that term to 
 Kant, or Hegel or Spencer. He is only 
 entitled to the name because of his rare 
 ability to perceive truth intuitively. We 
 regard the feminine mind to a greater 
 or less degree as an intuitive mind, 
 by which we mean that the average 
 woman does not reason logically as man 
 usually reasons, and yet she arrives 
 at conclusions, scarce knowing how. 
 There are many of us, when we come 
 19 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 to a crisis where help is needed on some 
 problem, who instinctively turn to our 
 wives or mothers for their judgment 
 on the matter. We have learned from 
 experience, that their judgment, while 
 not the result of long reasoning proc- 
 esses, is usually correct. The feminine 
 mind perceives intuitively, as the mascu- 
 line mind does not. The same power 
 is observed in children, who often 
 amaze us by their unexpected knowl- 
 edge and original statements of truth. 
 This power of intuition is the funda- 
 mental faculty of the sub-conscious 
 mind that dwells in every one of us. 
 
 The next faculty is that of deductive 
 reasoning. It is the inseparable con- 
 comitant of intuition. " The latter 
 grasps the law by instantaneous per- 
 ception, and th« former, with the same 
 inconceivable rapidity of mentation, 
 deduces all legitimate conclusions and 
 consequences, near and remote. 
 20 
 
 5» 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 Another power possessed by the sub- 
 conscious mind is that of a potentially 
 •perfect inemory. Ninety-nine one-hun- 
 dredths of what we see, or hear, or 
 experience, passes out of our conscious 
 life and is forgotten. If you have never 
 tried the experiment, it might be worth 
 while to sit down some quiet evening 
 with pencil and paper, and write all 
 that you know, all that you can remem- 
 ber to have learned, all your past experi- 
 ences. You will be surprised to find 
 how soon your powers of memory will 
 be exhausted. Our^ conscious memory 
 is decidedly limited. It does not begin 
 to contain the smallest fractional part 
 of what we have seen and read and 
 learned and experienced. 
 
 Now what becomes of all these facts 
 and experiences that once existed in 
 our conscious life ? Are they absolutely 
 lost to us? Not at all; they have 
 simply dropped below the plane of the 
 21 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 conscious and lie in the sub-conscious 
 mind, to be evoked again into being 
 under certain conditions. The psy- 
 chologists tell us that in all probability 
 the sub-conscious mind possesses the per- 
 fect memory, that it never forgets any- 
 thing; that everything you have seen, 
 everything you have heard, everything 
 you have read, every fleeting impression 
 made upon your life, every experience 
 through which you have passed, is 
 lodged in the sub-conscious mind. But 
 you ask, " How do they know this ? " 
 Take the experience of delirium, in 
 which people will describe experiences, 
 recall scenes, dates and faces that had 
 long since faded out of conscious 
 memory. There is the not uncommon 
 experience, of tremendous mental lucid- 
 ity just before death, when, in drown- 
 ing or sudden accident, all the past 
 life seems to rise before one, and the 
 things long forgotten are brought once 
 23 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 more into consciousness. From whence 
 does this forgotten life spring thus 
 suddenly into being? From the sub- 
 conscious mind. The fragrance of a 
 flower will recall scenes and events that 
 had been entirely obliterated from 
 memory. The revisiting of childhood's 
 home, or the meeting with some old 
 friend, will bring before us events 
 and experiences of which we had not 
 thought for years. Bring them from 
 where .'' From the sub-conscious, where 
 they have lain all unsuspected, these 
 many years. 
 
 The classic story told by Coleridge 
 describes a girl, so ignorant that she 
 could not even read or write her 
 name, who in her early life had worked 
 as a servant in the house of an old 
 scholar, whom she often overheard 
 reading aloud passages from the He- 
 brew, Greek and Latin classics. What 
 she heard had absolutely no meaning 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 whatever for her conscious mind. But 
 years afterward, during her delirium, 
 while sick in a hospital, she repeated 
 page after page of the classic litera- 
 ture as perfectly as the scholar had 
 originally repeated them in her hearing. 
 These sounds, meaningless to her ob- 
 jective mind, were registered in the 
 sub-conscious, and in the hour of de- 
 lirium years later, were given back 
 again. 
 
 One of the leading clergymen of New 
 York City tells in a recent book the 
 following experience: He was giving 
 an address on some important occasion 
 to a crowded house; friends and offi- 
 cials of the organization were seated 
 behind him on the platform. As he 
 came to a particular place in his ad- 
 dress, he entirely lost the line of thought, 
 and could not recall the next sentence, 
 as written in his manuscript. While 
 confronting this dilemma, not knowing 
 
OP THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 what to do, to his immense relief, a 
 friend who sat just behind spoke the 
 two or three words that came next in 
 his address as written. He caught the 
 words, took up the line of thought and 
 continued his address to the end. After- 
 wards he turned to the friend and said, 
 " I don't know how to thank you for 
 helping me, as you did." His friend 
 replied, " I did not help you." " Why," 
 he said, " you gave me just the words 
 I was trying to remember. But how 
 did you know them ? " His friend 
 replied: "You are mistaken; I did 
 not say anything. I did not open my 
 lips during the entire evening." Where 
 did the needed words come from ? His 
 own explanation is, that in the moment 
 of stress, in his intense desire, they 
 were given him out of the sub-conscious. 
 We have all had the experience of 
 ransacking our brains, to find some 
 name we have forgotten, until finally 
 25 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 we give up the effort to recall; and 
 then suddenly, as we are thinking 
 about something entirely different, the 
 name rises into our consciousness. Be- 
 cause of these and many other similar 
 facts, the psychologist predicates of 
 the sub-conscious mind a potentially 
 perfect memory. 
 
 The next power of the sub-conscious, 
 is what has been designated as tele- 
 kindic energy. It is simply the power 
 by which ponderable bodies are moved 
 without physical contact or mechan- 
 ical appliances. It is the power, genu- 
 inely exercised, though not always, by 
 so-called " spirit-mediums." In mak- 
 ing this statement, I am aware that I 
 shall run counter to the prejudices of 
 some, and transcend the sphere of 
 observation of many. But if you have 
 read the book entitled " Shadow World " 
 by Hamlin Garland, or if you are 
 familiar with the writings of Sir William 
 26 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge, of 
 England, or if you have given any time 
 to the study of psychic phenomena, 
 you know that in many cases such 
 phenomena have been demonstrated 
 to be genuine. The explanation is that 
 the sub-conscious mind, embodied or 
 disembodied, is able under certain 
 conditions to exert a force sufficient to 
 lift a table, move chairs and perform 
 all sorts of feats, with physical bodies, 
 without recourse to mechanical means 
 or physical force. 
 
 Another striking characteristic of 
 the sub-conscious mind is its telepathic 
 faculty, or the power possessed by the 
 sub-conscious minds of men, of com- 
 municating intelligence from one to 
 another, independently of all ordinary 
 sensory channels of transmission. If 
 you are familiar with the Proceedings 
 of the London Society for Psychical 
 Research, you know how numerous are 
 27 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 the instances given of verified cases of 
 telepathic influence. Men like Pro- 
 fessors James, Hyslop, Elmer T. Gates, 
 and many others, are telling us that 
 mind can communicate with mind, not 
 only in the same locality, but across 
 miles and miles of space. Upon the 
 evidences of the Scientist to-day, tel- 
 epathy is as indubitably proved as is 
 telegraphy. Many of the phenomena 
 of mediumship can be explained by 
 telepathy. A good medium is usually 
 a good telepathist. Telepathy is a 
 scientific fact that we are coming to 
 understand more and more, as we dis- 
 cover the laws that control the opera- 
 tion of this tremendous mental force. 
 Psychologists say it is the sub-conscious 
 mind ' that possesses the telepathic 
 power, which explains many of the 
 mysteries and enigmas about which 
 we are now reading and hearing so 
 much. 
 
 28 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 We are also coming to understand 
 how large a part the sub-conscious 
 plays in many of the conscious experi- 
 ences of human life. Thilik of the 
 geniuses of the race^ in literature, in 
 art, or in music. Balzac would go for 
 days and even months without any 
 sign of the creative power; then there 
 would come upon him a perfect frenzy 
 of thought; he would shut himself in 
 his room away from his friends, and 
 write for thirty-six or even forty-eight 
 hours at a stretch, without taking food 
 or rest, under the inspiration of the 
 thoughts struggling for expression. 
 George Eliot tells us that, her best 
 writing came, she knew not from what 
 source. These moments of up-lift and 
 inspiration, in which genius does its 
 greatest and best work, would indicate 
 that one has been able, in some way^ to 
 command the sub-conscious mind, and 
 make himself, for the time being, the 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 master of its wondrous powers. These 
 are the great creative moments in 
 literature, in music and in art. 
 
 There are other experiences through 
 which we ourselves may have passed, 
 or which are familiar to us in other 
 lives. Take thejnstance of the frail 
 mother, with only enough strength to 
 do each day's work, who in the presence 
 of some special emergency, where sev- 
 eral of the children are taken seriously 
 ill, will throw herself into the work of 
 caring for them day and night, tasting 
 food only irregularly, going without 
 her sleep for days and even weeks. 
 ' Friends marvel why she doesn't break 
 down, and collapse utterly. But when 
 the emergency is over, this same frail 
 woman seems to be stronger than ever. 
 What power is it, in this critical experi- 
 ence, that enables her to do things she 
 never could have done ordinarily? 
 The powers of the sub-conscious mind 
 
 30 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 called into operation by her need, says 
 Psychology. 
 
 Let me call attention to but one 
 other class of experiences, where a 
 person confronts conditions calling 
 for heroism or self-sacrifice. It may 
 be some one, who iii the sudden crisis 
 exhibits a depth of feeling, reveaJs a 
 heroism, and manifests a spirit of self- 
 effacement, that we never deemed him 
 capable of, and that he himself never 
 thought he possessed. The stress of 
 the emergency has simply awakened 
 and called into consciousness powers 
 heretofore unrecognized and unknown. 
 
 Perhaps it is unnecessary in this 
 connection to mention additional il- 
 lustrations of the workings of these 
 wondrous powers, resident in the sub- 
 conscious mind. Let me suggest, very 
 briefly, the deeper significance for 
 man's higher spiritual nature, of this 
 sub-conscious realm, whose threshold 
 31 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 we are just beginning to cross, and 
 whose powers and laws we do not yet 
 fully understand. 
 
 It is apparent to all that there is no 
 conscious mind in the helpless babe; 
 it lives its animal life, performing the 
 various functions of -the body, solely 
 by means of its sub-conscious mind. 
 Gradually, as it learns how to use its 
 physical senses, knowledge comes from 
 the external world, and a conscious 
 mind begins to emerge. This is evolved 
 very slowly by the physical necessities 
 of the material environment. It de- 
 pends upon the brain as its organ. It 
 is thus an accompaniment of our phys- 
 ical life. It is limited in its powers. It 
 is apparently intended for temporary 
 use, so long as we inhabit the physical 
 body. With the destruction of the 
 brain, as far as we can see, it ceases to 
 exist. 
 
 It is not so, however, with the sub- 
 32 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 conscious mind. Every living being, 
 even down to the tiny cell, exhibits the 
 presence of this manifestation of mind. 
 It is the power that controls and co- 
 ordinates all the various organs of the 
 body in the animal and in the babe, 
 long before the conscious mind appears. 
 It controls and regulates the functions 
 of the body, after the brain has become 
 diseased and reason has fled. It does 
 not depend on the brain as its organ 
 of expression. Then it need not dis- 
 appear when the brain has ceased to 
 exist. Indeed it may only begin its 
 true functioning when the soul has 
 left the body. Whence comes this mind, 
 what is its nature, what is its destiny ? 
 Think for a moment of our modern 
 thought of God as the Universal 
 Mind, immanent in all things. 
 
 How can we describe the Infinite 
 Mind of the Universe ? Certainly God 
 must think intuitively. He must per- 
 33 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 ceive truth immediately. He needs 
 not to employ the long laborious in- 
 ductive process, through which we have 
 to pass, in our search for truth. He 
 would not be God if He did. The 
 Infinite Mind is the intuitive mind. 
 God's mind then, which perceives in- 
 tuitively all laws, all principles, all 
 truths, must inevitably deduce the 
 infinite applications and the universal 
 consequences, of these laws or princi- 
 ples or truths. This follows naturally 
 as a concomitant of intuition. God's 
 mind also is one in which memory is 
 absolute and perfect. With Him there 
 is no past, or present, or future. It is 
 all the Eternal Now, wherein is no 
 place for forgetting or remembering. 
 
 Now if it is true, as we have tried to 
 show, that the sub-conscious mind in 
 man is the intuitive mind, that it 
 reasons deductively, and possesses, po- 
 tentially at least, the perfect memory, 
 34 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIQUS MIND 
 
 do you not see that the sub-conscious 
 mind in your life and mine is absolutely 
 akin to the mind of God, part and 
 parcel of the Infinite Mind of the Uni- 
 verse ? You cannot escape the con- 
 clusion, that at last man has discovered 
 vyiihin himself, the scientific basis for 
 the faith that we are all made in His 
 image, and are in very truth children 
 of God. We do not need to go back 
 to the 014 Testament or even to the 
 words of Jesus for that truth, in the 
 light of the revelations of modern 
 Psychology as to the meaning and 
 powers of the sub-conscious mind in 
 man. Do you realize what that may 
 mean for your life and mine ? We are 
 no longer employing poetry or figure 
 of speech or beautiful sentiment, when 
 we say that God's life is in us, and we 
 are a part of the Infinite; indeed, we 
 are stating literal, scientific truth; and 
 therefore, all that is necessary, if we 
 
THE POWERS AND POSSIBILITIES 
 
 are to attain the beauty of soul, the 
 symmetry of character, the nobility of 
 life, as we see it in Jesus Christ, is 
 to enter into the realization of our 
 oneness with God. 
 
 We shall consider elsewhere the Law 
 of Suggestion, that great instrument by 
 which we reach this sub-conscious mind 
 and command it to do our bidding. I 
 wonder if I have made clear the possi- 
 ble bearing of all these marvelous dis- 
 closures of Psychology, which have 
 been so inadequately described, upon 
 our higher moral and spiritual lives. 
 Listen, then, to the word of Science, 
 which is none the less the word of God : 
 Every thought you think, every im- 
 pulse you feel, every desire you formu- 
 late, every ambition you cherish, — 
 whether you express them to the world 
 or not, — are all ineffaceably registered 
 in your deep inner life. By means of 
 these wonderful powers at its command, 
 36 
 
OF THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND 
 the sub-conscious mind takes your 
 thought, your impulse, your desire and 
 your ambition, be they high or low, be 
 they right or wrong, be they selfish or 
 unselfish, be they noble or ignoble, and 
 translates them, not possibly, but most 
 surely, into your physical organism, 
 your personality, your character, for 
 time and eternity. 
 
 Oh, that we might come to see what 
 it means, to record these thoughts and 
 desires upon " the great within " of our 
 beings! We may be able to put un- 
 worthy thoughts and low desires out 
 of our conscious minds; but, if they 
 have ever had a real existence there, the 
 solemn truth remains, that they have 
 gone deeper down into the sub-con- 
 scious self, there to work themselves 
 out inevitably, in life and personality, 
 in manhood and womanhood, in charac- 
 ter and in Destiny. 
 
 37 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FOKCB 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 I HE master-key to success, in 
 every realm of human life, 
 is Faith. Faith has inspired 
 every truly great career that 
 has blessed the World. Faith has 
 made possible every great Institution 
 that has enriched the life of humanity. 
 Faith is the scarlet thread running 
 through all the religions of the world, 
 and revealing their essential unity. It 
 is Faith that lifts man above the level 
 of the brute, and makes him master 
 over the physical world. We speak of 
 Love as the crowning summit toward 
 which man has been steadily climbing 
 from the beginning; we think of the 
 perfected man, or the fully developed 
 41 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 man, or the saved man, as one in whom 
 the principle of Love reigns supreme; 
 but faith is the pathway to love, and 
 there can be no love whatsoever that 
 does not contain the implicit faith. 
 When Jesus proclaimed the potency of 
 Faith on the hilltops of Palestine nine- 
 teen hundred years ago. He revealed 
 for all time the true secret of man's 
 ultimate triumph over things of time 
 and sense. 
 
 But what is Faith.? As a positive 
 vital force in life, faith has been as yet 
 but little understood. There has been 
 so much confusion of thought as to 
 the real meaning of faith; it is con- 
 founded with so many things which 
 it is not, that most of us find it difficult 
 to define just what it is, what power it 
 exerts, or according to what laws it 
 operates. 
 
 Faith certainly is not credulity. We 
 admire the unquestioning faith of the 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 child and in the child it is beautiful; 
 but it is credulity born of inexperience 
 and ignorance, unworthy of our respect 
 in the man. The credulous faith of the 
 child, is the prophecy of the intelligent 
 faith of manhood. But the man of 
 " blind faith," who accepts truth or 
 conducts his life simply on the au- 
 thority of another, without personal 
 knowledge or experience, has not yet 
 emerged from the childhood of faith. 
 The child accepts the statements of 
 parents and teachers without a ques- 
 tion. Such a mental attitude belongs 
 to the child's stage of development, but 
 a man's faith must be his own, born 
 out of his personal struggle for truth. 
 
 Nor is faith merely an hypothesis. 
 Many a person who says, " I believe," 
 really means " I suppose it is true." 
 Such a belief has never penetrated the 
 outer surface of life. Persons of this 
 mind have really never given enough 
 43 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 attention to the subject to be able to 
 say intelligently whether they believe 
 or not. Many who recite the creeds in 
 our churches to-day only say the words, 
 without any actual experience to justify 
 their truth. Others are saying the same 
 creed, and it has been repeated by 
 multitudes for centuries, and so they 
 suppose it must be true. Faith is no 
 mere hypothesis, the only substitute for 
 knowledge not yet attained. 
 
 We must rule out also the definition 
 given by the young theological student, 
 that " faith is the faculty by which one 
 is enabled to believe what he knows is 
 not true," although many good people 
 still seem to think that this is the chief 
 function of faith. 
 
 But our greatest error arises from 
 the common tendency of confounding 
 faith with belief. Belief is the intellec- 
 tual body, while faith is the inner soul. 
 Beliefs are variable, they are constantly 
 44 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 changing, they are but symbols of 
 reality; whereas faith is the inner, 
 eternal, permanent reality, underlying 
 all the various forms of belief. Beliefs 
 pass, faith remains. It is a great mis- 
 fortune, when belief becomes so crystal- 
 lized as to lose the flexibility which per- 
 mits it to interpret faith, conformably 
 to the changing mental states of suc- 
 cessive epochs. It is faith, not doubt, 
 that creates the new theologies from age 
 to age. 
 
 Belief, in the strict definition of the 
 word, is the intellectual acceptance of 
 a certain stp-tement of truth, or the 
 acceptance by the mind of an intellec- 
 tual proposition about certain facts or 
 principles. A man may accept these 
 intellectual statements, he may give 
 intellectual allegiance to these proposi- 
 tions, and yet his life may be in no wise 
 influenced by them; just as a man can 
 accept certain intellectual statements 
 45 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 about business or politics or science, 
 and yet in no sense be a business man^ 
 nor a politician, nor a scientist. Such 
 beliefs are purely theoretical, they exist 
 in the intellect alone; they have not 
 touched the heart, or conscience, or 
 will. It is only when we come to feel 
 this distinction between faith and belief, 
 that we are in a position to discern the 
 meaning of vital faith, and its real 
 power in our lives. 
 
 If one studies the Gospels^ he will 
 find that Jesus almost invariably uses 
 the wordi " Faith," as meaning some- 
 thing distinct from mere intellectual 
 belief. When the sick came to Him for 
 healing, Jesus never asked them, " What 
 are your religious beliefs, what do you 
 think about God, what are your beliefs 
 about my person or my mission in the 
 world ? " He said to the blind men 
 who sought Him, "Believe ye that I 
 am able to do this ? They said unto 
 46 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 Him, 'Yea, Lord.'" This is His 
 typical method with all who come to 
 Him for help. He does not ask assent 
 to a mere intellectual proposition, but 
 rather, " Have you enough faith, or 
 courage, or confidence in my power to 
 help, to trust yourselves to me ? " Ap- 
 parently Jesus was not concerned as to 
 their intellectual conceptions of religion. 
 His insistent demand was for faith, as 
 an inner, co-operating force. He is 
 always trying to help men see that 
 faith is not believing an intellectual 
 statement of truth, — the scribes and 
 pharisees, whose religious attitude he 
 constantly condemns, do that — but 
 rather, an inner, dynamic, spiritual 
 force, that translates the truth under- 
 lying beliefs into daily life and character, 
 and thus leads one to trust himself 
 utterly to the object of his faith, what- 
 ever it may be. This is the psycho- 
 logical conception of Faith, — as a 
 47 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 faculty of the mind, nay, better still, 
 as the sum total of a man's whole atti- 
 tude, whereby he has the courage to 
 trust himself absolutely to the object 
 of his faith. 
 
 Faith is never passive; it must be 
 active. It is not simply theoretical 
 acquiescence; it is positive co-opera- 
 tion. It is not asking; it is believing 
 that .we have that for which we ask, 
 and living as if we had already received. 
 It involves the launching of conscience 
 and heart and will in the direction of 
 the object of one's faith. You say you 
 believe in God, but does your life 
 reveal the God-power ? If it does, you 
 have faith. You believe that Jesus 
 reveals the true way of Life, but are 
 you living that kind of a life ? If you 
 are, you have faith. You believe that 
 death is not the end of life, but have 
 you realized your own immortality 
 here and now, and banished all fear 
 48 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 of the future ? If you h^ve, you know 
 the meaning of faith. Perhaps I can 
 make the distinction still clearer, by 
 the homely illustration of the boy 
 walking along the country road after 
 dark who sees in the distance a formi- 
 dable looking object. He stops, un- 
 certain as to its nature; it may be a 
 man lying in wait for him, it may be 
 some strange animal, or it may be a 
 harmless old stump. As he hesitates 
 and wonders, he finally comes to the 
 conclusion that it is only a stump. Now 
 he believes something; but his faith 
 only appears when he walks boldly 
 over to the dark object and proves his 
 belief to be correct. So I may believe 
 that God is Infinite Goodness, that 
 His life is my life, for " in Him I live, 
 move and have my being," that all the 
 resources of the Infinite are therefore 
 at my command; but I only begin to 
 exercise faith when I rest back con- 
 49 . 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 fidently in His goodness, when I let 
 His life flow through me, when I appro- 
 priate and make His power my own. 
 Most of us are in the attitude of the 
 boy who believes it is only a stump, but 
 lacks the faith to walk courageously 
 forward and put his belief to the actual 
 test of experience, out of which alone, 
 can knowledge be born. 
 
 Faith, in the sense that we have de- 
 fined it, is an absolutely normal, natural 
 thing, and common to every life. We 
 all live by faith, whether we realize it 
 or not. It is this power which has 
 made possible every successful career, 
 which underlies nine-tenths of all our 
 daily experiences, and without which 
 we should simply cease to live. 
 The popular mind has had the feeling 
 that faith was something belonging 
 exclusively to religion; and the com- 
 mon impression prevails that the so- 
 called conflict of Science and Religion 
 50 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 grows out of the fact that Religion is 
 based on faith, while Science is not. 
 But as a matter of fact, the conflict of 
 Science with Religion has never been 
 between Science and Faith, as I am 
 defining it. It has always been between 
 Science and beliefs, between Science 
 and certain intellectual statements about 
 truth, made by the Church or the creed, 
 with which the conclusions of Science 
 have not agreed. But Science has 
 never denied the fact of faith, as a vital 
 force in human life. Science itself 
 rests on such faith, and in the nature 
 of things cannot do otherwise, just as 
 truly as does Religion. As Professor 
 Royce has abundantly shown, the 
 whole structure of Science rests upon 
 a body of great faiths, which must 
 be trusted if Science is to make 
 any advance, but which have not yet 
 been proved. For example, the one 
 great faith to which every scientist is 
 SI 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 passionately attached, and in devotion 
 to which he does all his work, is the 
 faith that Nature is intelligible, that 
 in spite of all appearances to the con- 
 trary, Nature can be understood. Such 
 a faith lies back of all scientific ad- 
 vances and discoveries. .If you should 
 ask the scientist, " What right have 
 you to affirm that Nature always acts 
 uniformly according to certain fixed 
 laws, that the law of cause and effect 
 operates eveiywhere throughout the 
 Universe ? " He would probably look 
 you blankly in the face and reply, 
 " Well, if you do not accept these first 
 principles as axiomatic, you know noth- 
 ing of the scientific spirit, for the uni- 
 formity of Nature's laws is the under- 
 lying faith of the scientist." Hence, 
 faith is not something peculiar to the 
 realm of Religion. The religious man 
 employs as his foundation premise in 
 the realm of the spirit, the same faith 
 52 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 from which the scientist- must proceed 
 in the realm of matter. 
 
 But what of the ordinary life; is it 
 also lived by faith ? ^ By far the major 
 part of your experiences every day 
 are based on faith. The clothes you 
 wear, the food you eat, the medicine 
 you take, the car you board on your 
 way down-town, the deposits you make 
 in the bank, the articles you buy, the 
 letters you mail, the journey you take, 
 the falling asleep after your busy day 
 is over — are all acts involving the 
 element of faith — this inner power by 
 which you trust yourself absolutely to 
 people and things, where full and posi- 
 tive knowledge is impossible in advance. 
 Life at every step means taking risks; 
 it is walking not by sight but by faith. 
 Do you know that the car will land 
 you safely at your office? Do you 
 know positively that your letter con- 
 taining the draft will reach its desti- 
 
 53 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 nation? Do you know that the train 
 you take is going to escape all possible 
 accidents? You act by faith in the 
 majority of things you do, not the faith 
 that is merely an intellectual belief, 
 but the faith that carries with it your 
 entire self, and leads you to trust your- 
 self absolutely to the object of your 
 faith. 
 
 A man, who may be an agnostic in 
 his religious thinking, is taken sick. 
 He calls his physician up on the phone 
 and describes his symptoms. In a 
 little while the messenger delivers the 
 medicine, and without a question the 
 sick man takes it according to direc- 
 tions. Is there no faith here — faith 
 in the voice heard over the phone, in 
 the physician's judgment, in the ac- 
 curacy of the drug clerk who put up 
 the prescription, in the directions for 
 taking, in the power of the medicine 
 to help his condition? He may not 
 54 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 know what the medicine is, nor the 
 laws by which it affects his body, but 
 he trusts himself — his very life, to the 
 judgment of the physician and the 
 power of the drug. Or, he may be in 
 some business crisis, where much money 
 is involved. He needs counsel and 
 advice. He calls up his lawyer, and 
 follows his advice implicitly. Is there 
 no faith expressed in such an act ? He 
 may believe something about the repu- 
 tation of this lawyer, he jmay know him 
 well enough personally to feel pretty 
 confident that his judgment is good, 
 and that he will advise him honestly as 
 well as wisely; and yet, when all is 
 said and done, he must exercise faith. 
 By following the advice given^ he 
 reveals his faith, and trusts himself to 
 the lawyer, the object of his faith. Or, 
 he wants to make an investment, and 
 after careful scrutiny of various possi- 
 ble forms of investment, he finally 
 55 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 decides to put his money in a certain 
 institution or enterprise. Does he ex- 
 ercise no faith ? He may think he has 
 examined all the facts thoroughly, and 
 so knows just what he is doing, and yet, 
 judging from human experience, does 
 he ever know positively ? In the crown- 
 ing experience of life for the young man 
 and woman, as they plight their troth 
 before the altar, and declare in God's 
 presence that they are taking one 
 another for better or for worse, till 
 death do them part — is there no faith 
 in this supremest enterprise of human 
 life? It matters not lapw long they 
 have been acquainted, do they ever 
 know all, and can they have the posi- 
 tive knowledge that this union upon 
 which they are now entering, will yield 
 the love and happiness for which they 
 yearn ? 
 
 In the little as well as in the great 
 experiences of life, we all walk by faith, 
 56 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 and not by sight. To destroy faith 
 is to destroy life itself. Humanity, 
 without this eternal inner principle of 
 faith, would be like a body, out of 
 which the soul had for ever fled, and 
 man would lack all initiative, all 
 courage, ^11 hope, all love; no longer 
 would there be any aggressive activity, 
 no new enterprises would be launched, 
 no new reforms inaugurated, no new 
 institutions founded, no further ad- 
 vance made in science or philosophy or 
 art or music or literature or politics or 
 invention; the death-knell of progress 
 would be sounded, for it is faith that 
 moves the world. 
 
 Who are the great ones of earth, but 
 the men and women possessed of such 
 a vital faith ? What cared Wendell 
 Phillips when they pelted him with 
 rotten eggs and met his arguments with 
 hisses and derision, as he went through 
 this country in the interests of the slave ? 
 57 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 He had faith in his enterprise. Multi- 
 tudes of people in the North believed 
 that slavery was wrong, many could 
 have made as effective an appeal, but 
 they lacked the faith which made 
 Phillips the Prophet of God to his 
 generation. What cared William Lloyd 
 Garrison, when they dragged him 
 through the streets of Boston at the 
 heels of' the howling mob; how dared 
 he face the muskets levelled at his head, 
 and even the scaffold itself.'' He had 
 faith in the principles of righteousness. 
 When Beecher stood in England be- 
 fore those rude and disorderly crowds, 
 which were bent upon silencing his 
 message, what made him the master of 
 that critical situation ? He had faith 
 in the great Cause which had taken him 
 to England, to make plain the truth to 
 our Anglo-Saxon kinsmen. What was 
 it that caused Abraham Lincoln to 
 tower head and shoulders above his 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 counsellors ? It was his faith in his 
 divinely appointed mission. I do not 
 know what Lincoln believed theo- 
 logically, and I do not care; I only 
 know that his life was the noblest, sub- 
 limest expression of faith, that this 
 country has ever seen. 
 
 Now faith is the same, whether we 
 exercise it in things, in enterprises, in 
 our fellowmen or in God. The dif- 
 ference does not lie in the quality of 
 the faith, but in the object toward which 
 it is directed. But whatever its object, 
 faith is not credulity, it is not intellec- 
 tual belief — it is ever and always this 
 inner vital force, to whose leading we 
 trust ourselves utterly. 
 
 With this conception of faith clearly 
 in mind, let us seek its illustration first, 
 in the realm of physical healing. In 
 every healing cult from the time of the 
 ancient Egyptians down to the present, 
 faith has been an indispensable factor 
 59 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 making for recovery. Whether it has 
 been the sacred relics of the mediaeval 
 saints, or the modern Roman Catholic 
 shrine; the mesmerism of the Eight- 
 eenth Century or the " metaphysics " 
 of Mrs. Eddy ; the insistent prayer of a 
 Dr. Dowie, or the treatment by a mental 
 healer; the intelligent suggestion of 
 the modern Psychologist, or the auto- 
 suggestion of the individual himself — 
 the faith of the patient has been, if not 
 the chief, as least one of the deciding, 
 influences. Every physician will admit 
 that the drug, without the faith of the 
 sufferer in his own recovery, is well- 
 nigh useless. In the sphere of the 
 physical, results are obtained, — no 
 matter what the cause, — if only it 
 succeeds in evoking faith. It may be a 
 sensible or an absurd object, it may be 
 a true or superstitious doctrine, it may 
 be a sound or a false philosophy, it may 
 be an honest or a fraudulent person, 
 60 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 but whatever be the cause, if it only 
 succeeds in awakening faith, physical 
 benefits are obtained. 
 
 How is it that faith has this power 
 over bodily conditions? Modern Psy- 
 chology gives the explanation. It tells 
 us " tJiat the processes of the body are 
 controlled by the two great nerve sys- 
 tems, the cerebro-spinal, and the sym- 
 pathetic. Our conscious acts are per- 
 formed through the mechanism of the 
 brain; but the involuntary physical 
 processes, such as the circulation of the 
 blood, the assimilation of food, in fact, 
 all the vital chemistries of the body, are 
 carried on by means of the sympathetic 
 nerve system." Fear, doubt, worry, 
 disorganize and paralyze the delicate 
 machinery of the nervous organism, 
 and as a result its various activities are 
 disturbed. On the other hand, faith 
 stimulates and harmonizes them. It 
 has been well said, " there is no tonic 
 61 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 so uplifting and renewing as joy and 
 confidence, which set in active exer- 
 cise every constructive power of the 
 body. Faith is a confident and joyous 
 emotion. Any object which excites it 
 profoundly affects the unconscious 
 bodily functions. It sets the body at 
 ease and enables its functions to be 
 carried on calmly and normally." Such 
 is the power of even a blind or credu- 
 lous faith in the realm of the physical. 
 Such a faith cannot, however, re- 
 construct character. " A superstitious 
 faith may and does work physiological 
 blessing; ethically and spiritually it 
 can achieve only harm." 
 
 In the higher realm of the ethical 
 and spiritual life, the thing of first 
 importance is that one's faith should 
 be directed only toward objects ot 
 supremest worth — the loftiest ideals, . 
 the noblest purposes, the truest con- 
 ceptions of God and Life. This is 
 62 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 why, from the time of Jesus Christ, 
 man's faith has been turning more and 
 more generally towards Him, His ideals. 
 His spirit. His purposes in life. His 
 ideas of God and man. It may be 
 that some are asking " What is the 
 value and meaning of faith in Jesus 
 Christ ? " If we say the supreme object 
 of faith is the realization of God who 
 dwells within as well as without, what 
 is accomplished by faith in Jesus ? 
 The New Testament apparently teaches 
 it, and the Church has been preaching 
 its necessity for centuries, but what is 
 the reason for faith in Him? Let me 
 attempt an answer. 
 
 The greatest influence in all the 
 world, for calling out in human life this 
 power of faith, is the influence of per- 
 sonality. Sermons do not often accom- 
 plish it; reading abstract books seldom 
 produces it. The person whose faith 
 faculty is aroused and active, so that 
 63 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 it is possible for him to advance toward 
 ever enlarging success, is generally the 
 one who somewhere, somehow, has 
 caught the inspiration from another 
 personality. It is Carlyle who says, 
 that it is never the age that leads in 
 progress, but always the individual; 
 and he means by that, that the great 
 movements of history, making for hu- 
 man betterment, centre around great 
 personalities. It is her great person- 
 alities that give to England's history 
 its chief glory. It is the great per- 
 sonalities in our own life, past and 
 present, that give America her proud 
 place among the nations of the world. 
 The idea of the supreme power of great 
 personalities is the key-thought that 
 runs through all of Browning's poetry. 
 He perceives, as few of the great poets, 
 that life's inspiration comes through its 
 great personalities, because they have 
 the power of calling out in human lives 
 64 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 the faculty of faith, by which men are 
 enabled to attain similar heights. 
 
 Your boy, careless and without am- 
 bition, reads for the first time the life 
 of Garfield, Lincoln or Washington, 
 and you begin to see a change in him. 
 You say, "At last my boy has awak- 
 ened to the meaning and possibilities 
 of life." He may not be able to explain 
 it himself, but he has come in contact, 
 through biography, with a great per- 
 sonality, and his faith in his own powers 
 and capabilities is called into being. 
 
 Or, you are a young man in business. 
 You have been fairly successful, but 
 there has been nothing startling, and 
 you sometimes wonder whether you 
 have really found the right place for 
 your abilities. Then, one day, you 
 come into personal contact with some 
 great personality in the commercial or 
 industrial world, and from that meet- 
 ing you have gone back to your work 
 65 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 with a new vision of your opportunity, 
 and a new faith in your power to 
 achieve. The influence of another per- 
 sonality has awakened within you that 
 which was dormant; it has evoked 
 the faith by which you climb towards 
 success. 
 
 It is not sermons that make people 
 good; it is not reading the Bible merely 
 that transforms character. But when 
 We come face to face with some life so 
 strong, so pure, so self-poised and so 
 unselfish, that it puts our meagre attain- 
 ments to shame, and yet fires the heart 
 with the purpose to reach such beauty 
 and symmetry in our own characters, 
 then the new faith is bom in us, that 
 makes all things possible. 
 
 When we realize this truth, I think 
 we must see the value of faith in Jesus 
 Christ. If Lincoln's personality has 
 exerted a wondrous influence in count- 
 less lives; if Washington, Gladstone, 
 66 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 John Bright, John Howard, Garibaldi, 
 David Livingston, Florence Nightin- 
 gale and scores of other truly great men 
 and women, have been the means of 
 awakening in others the same faith 
 by which they made life glorious, then 
 how much greater must be the power 
 of a personality like Jesus Christ, who 
 towers head and shoulders above them 
 all. 
 
 Let us keep clear the distinction, — 
 faith in Jesus Christ is not synony- 
 mous with belief in certain things about 
 Him. One can believe all the ortho- 
 dox doctrines about Jesus Christ, and 
 be in no respect influenced by Him. 
 What one believes intellectually does 
 not necessarily signify nor save. But 
 when you come face to face with His 
 personality, and feel the constraining 
 influence of His life upon you; when 
 you stand in reverence before His 
 courage. His purity, His unselfishness, 
 67 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 His disinterested love. His God-like 
 manliness; when what He was, and 
 what He did, calls out in you so intense 
 a faith, that you can say : " I may not 
 understand all the theology, I cannot 
 frame all the definitions, I am not able 
 to explain the atonement or the incar- 
 nation or the trinity, but I know that 
 here is a character worthy of my fol- 
 lowing, worthy of my faith, worthy of 
 my best, and I yield myself to His 
 leadership," — then the real life of 
 faith begins for you. Your faith in 
 Him is not credulity, it is not hypoth- 
 esis, it is no mere intellectual belief; 
 it is this inner vital force by which you 
 launch your life in the direction He 
 points out. We must all believe some- 
 thing about Him, if we think at all, 
 and if we seek to solve the problem 
 which His life presents in history; but 
 what I want you to see, is that back 
 of all our theology about Jesus Christ 
 68 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 lies the one essential need, viz. the 
 faith that makes us faithful to Him. 
 
 "What can faith in Him mean, but 
 faith in His message, faith in His ideals, 
 faith in His thoughts concerning God 
 and man, and man's relations to his 
 fellows ? Merely for a man to say, " I 
 have faith in Jesus," would mean no 
 more than if one had said, " I have 
 faith in Lincoln," without knowing 
 or caring about the great principles for 
 which Lincoln stood. But when one 
 can say, " I have enough faith in Him 
 to study His methods, to try to catch 
 His viewpoint as He looked out upon 
 life and men, to seek to undel-stand His 
 thought of God and the future, to 
 cherish His ideaFs and express His 
 spirit," then, and not till then, does 
 one begin to be saved. 
 
 The real difference between men 
 religiously is not, as we commonly 
 suppose, the difference in their beliefs; 
 69 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 it is rather the difference in the degree 
 of faith they possess. Men are not 
 separated, from the viewpoint of Eter- 
 nity, because they are Catholics or 
 Protestants, Jews or Gentiles; because 
 they are living in the Occident, where 
 Christianity is the prevailing form of 
 religion, or living in the Orient, where 
 other beliefs prevail; the thing that 
 really divides people, is not that some 
 believe in the Nicene Creed and some 
 in the Westminster Catechism, and 
 some in the Thirty-nine Articles. The 
 only real distinction between men, in 
 this world, or in the world to come, 
 depends upon the degree of this inner, 
 vital faith which they possess. 
 
 All men have faith, for all must live 
 by faith, but some are exercising their 
 faith in the direction of these objects 
 of supremest worth, while others are 
 content to exercise their faith exclu- 
 sively in all that pertains to their 
 70 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 material existence, forgetting that life 
 is vastly more than meat and drink 
 and raiment. When Jesus said to the 
 disciples of old, "If you had faith as 
 a grain of mustard seed, you could say to 
 this mountain, be thou removed and cast 
 into the depths of the sea, and it would 
 obey you," He was evidently speaking 
 of a power about which most of us 
 know little or nothing; and after 
 nineteen hundred years, we are as 
 blind to His real meaning as were the 
 disciples of old. 
 
 How much real religious faith do we 
 possess ? We believe in our heredity 
 both physical and spiritual. But our 
 real faith is in our physical heredity, 
 for scarcely a day passes that we do 
 not hear someone say " My weakness, 
 physical or moral, is due to inherited 
 tendencies, and I must suffer the 
 penalty." We have so much faith in 
 the power of heredity that we yield 
 71 
 
FAITH AS A Vital force 
 
 ourselves to such thoughts constantly, 
 and allow them to control our lives. 
 But this is only half the story. Why 
 not have faith in your Divine, as well 
 as your physical heredity ? You are the 
 child of your parents and grandparents, 
 but you say you believe you are the 
 child of God. Then, exercise faith in 
 your inheritance from God, and re- 
 member that as God's child, with His 
 life flowing through you, you can over- 
 come all tendencies to weakness in 
 any form. We believe in the power of 
 environment, good and bad, but we 
 have more faMh in the evils of our 
 environment, than in its good. We 
 think more about the evil, grumble at 
 the hardships under which we live 
 and rebel against the obstacles in our 
 path. Why not have at least as strong 
 a faith in the good existing in every 
 environment? Why not look for the 
 beautiful, the true, the noble and the 
 78 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 encouraging, in our conditions and our 
 associates? We all have faith in the 
 contagion of certain diseases. If the 
 epidemic conies, or sickness manifests 
 itself, we take precautions or send for 
 the doctor, and rightly so. Why can 
 we not have just as much faith in the 
 contagion of good health, good spirits 
 and good cheer.? We believe that 
 thoughts are living things, and that 
 discordant mental moods must inevi- 
 tably poison the body, but why not 
 show our real faith in these facts, by 
 banishing all fear and worry, and living 
 constantly in the mental atmosphere 
 of harmony and trust and love ? We 
 really believe that men have more good 
 in them than evil, but our active faith 
 is in their dishonesty rather than their 
 honesty, in their impurity rather than 
 their purity, in their meanness and 
 selfishness, rather than in their unself- 
 ishness and nobility. ' In spite of our 
 73 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 beliefs, our actual faith is in the evil 
 of men's natures, rather than the good; 
 and our distrust and suspicion only 
 help to bring out their worst side, 
 while discouraging their better selves. 
 
 The fact is, that we are all using the 
 power of faith every day we live, but 
 alas! not along the lines which might 
 yield us the most glorious results. The 
 newer thinking of to-day is seeking to 
 show us how, by the power of sug- 
 gestion and autosuggestion, we can 
 vitalize, with strong, intense faith, the 
 thoughts and desires and ideals that 
 we want to realize in ourselves; for 
 faith is the soul of every suggestion, 
 and alone makes it effective in its 
 influence on the deeper self within. 
 
 If you really want to see results 
 accomplished in yourself; if you are 
 bent upon driving out fear and worry; 
 if you want to cure the tendency to- 
 wards discouragement and despair; if 
 74 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 you truly desire to rid yourself of the 
 besettiug sin, or inherited weakness; 
 if you want to make your home a para- 
 dise upon earth, and banish for ever 
 all the bitter and hateful and unkind 
 thoughts; if you want to create about 
 yourself such an atmosphere of kindli- 
 ness, good cheer and hopefulness, as 
 will be an inspiration to others; if you 
 aspire towards the constant unfolding 
 of the spiritual consciousness within, 
 bringing its vision of God, and its 
 realization of the life eternal, — then 
 think these lofty ideals, and think them 
 constantly, and think them in faith, 
 believing they are yours, and you shall 
 know the victory " that overcometh the 
 world." 
 
 We all know enough, we all believe 
 enough, we are all doing enough, — 
 the reason our lives are so disappoint- 
 ing, is because we realize so little of 
 faith's vital meaning and power. AU 
 75 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 the rich resources of the Infinite God 
 are at our disposal now and always, if 
 by faith we can but appropriate them 
 and make them our own, for " in Him 
 we live and move and have our being." 
 We are like the child, whose father, 
 blessed with wealth and overflowing 
 with love, builds the magnificent home 
 and furnishes it with everything that 
 beauty and comfort might suggest, 
 and then says to his child, " It is all 
 yours, to use and enjoy, and my great- 
 est joy is found in your perfect happi- 
 ness." But the child goes up to some 
 meagrely furnished attic chamber, and 
 refuses to come down and enjoy all the 
 beauty and comfort provided by the 
 father's love, — living in the father's 
 house of plenty and yet, holding aloof, 
 and through blindness or wilfulness, 
 depriving itself of its rightful posses- 
 sions. 
 Oh! that we might see that God is 
 76 
 
FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 never to blame, only we ourselves, if 
 our lives are lived in the barren attic 
 of loneliness, or the dark cellar of 
 despair. God has placed at our dis- 
 poi^al all this splendid equipment for 
 physical, mental, moral and spiritual 
 symmetry and perfection, which we 
 have only to appropriate and make our 
 own forever. 
 
 " According to your faith be it unto 
 you," is as true to-deiy as it was when 
 Jesus uttered these words. It is as true 
 for us as it was for the disciples of old. 
 Faith is the master-key that discloses 
 the secret of the life of victory over 
 things of time and sense. May God 
 help us to enter into its deeper mean- 
 ing, and realize its power! 
 
 77 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 I HE Ancient Philosopher, who 
 said, " As a man thinketh in his 
 heart, so is he," was probably 
 not familiar with the principles 
 of the newer Psychology. Nevertheless, 
 this old Hebrew thinker has stated most 
 clearly the fundamental thought of Psy- 
 chology as applied both to man's body 
 and soul. The most important fact 
 which has yet been discovered in regard 
 to the sub-conscious mind, is the fact that 
 it is suggestible, or in other words, that it 
 is subject to influence and direction. In 
 this, it does not differ from the conscious, 
 mind, except that under certain condi- 
 tions, it is more amenable to external 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 control, and seems to lie in closer con- 
 tact with the physical organism. The 
 thought once lodged in the . sub-con- 
 scious, seems to be more influential 
 both in our physical and moral life 
 than when it simply holds a place in 
 the conscious mind. 
 
 At the very outset, let us free our 
 minds of the idea so prevalent, that this 
 influence of suggestion is something 
 strange or uncanny or even super- 
 natural. As a matter of fact, the 
 power of suggestion is something 
 that we are all using, consciously 
 or unconsciously, in the every day 
 experiences of life. Your child falls 
 and hurts herself, and begins to cry. 
 Instantly you help her up and kissing 
 the bruised place, you say, " Mother 
 has kissed it, and made it well again; " 
 and under the influence of your sug- 
 gestion, she ceases to cry. If we are 
 wise we do not constantly talk to our 
 4 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 children about their innocent wrong- 
 doings, but we seek to divert their 
 minds from that which we feel is 
 wrong or harmful, by suggesting some- 
 thing better. You find yourself unable 
 to sleep, your mind is filled with dis- 
 turbing or anxious thoughts; finally 
 you realize that this " does not pay," 
 and dismiss from your mind such 
 thoughts, and in a few moments are 
 asleep. You have diverted your mind 
 from the troublesome things, and by 
 the power of suggestion have induced 
 the sleep needed. In the home there 
 is some annoying experience. It may 
 be very petty and yet it disturbs. 
 You lose your equilibrium for the 
 moment, and as you seek to recover 
 your self-poise, you say to yourself, 
 " It is very foolish to become worried 
 or troubled over this thing. I am going 
 to forget it." You turn your attention 
 to some other task, or you take up a 
 5 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 book — anything to divert your thought 
 from the annoyance. It is the power of 
 suggestion that you use to recover 
 mental poise. 
 
 Speaking generally, anything we 
 really sense; that is, — see, hear, taste, 
 smell or feel — is a suggestion. In the 
 psychological sense, suggestion means 
 much more than this. It stands for a 
 clear, definite perception, thought or 
 mental image, of sufficient force to 
 make an impression on the sub-con- 
 scious mind. In other words, mental 
 perceptions, thoughts and desires be- 
 come " suggestions " in the technical 
 sense, only when lodged in this inner 
 self. 
 
 Let me illustrate the difference be- 
 tween suggestion, speaking generally, 
 and suggestion in this technical sense. 
 You have attended a church service. 
 Everything in the place of worship 
 has furnished suggestions — the decora- 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 tions, the stained glass windows, the 
 character of the woodwork, the music 
 of the choir. Then comes the sermon. 
 Suppose the preacher takes some clear- 
 cut, definite statement from the Bible, 
 such as the words, " The wages of sin 
 is death." As he unfolds the meaning 
 of the text, suppose that he reiterates 
 the text over and over again, illustra- 
 ting it first in one way, then in another. 
 The service closes, and as you go back 
 to your home, gradually the suggestions 
 furnished by the music, the decorations, 
 the woodwork, or the stained glass 
 windows, fade out of your mind. But 
 the next day you face some temptation, 
 and there comes into your mind, you 
 know not just how, the words of the 
 text, " The wages of sin is death." It 
 causes you to hesitate, and after the 
 momentary struggle you turn your 
 back upon the temptation. The thought 
 of the text has furnished a suggestion 
 7 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 so strong, that it has become a control- 
 ling factor in your conduct, and it may 
 be, influences your life for ever. Of all 
 the various suggestions made upon you 
 that Sunday morning, the text alone 
 has become a suggestion in the tech- 
 nical sense, because it was strong enough 
 to lodge itself deep down in your sub- 
 conscious self. 
 
 Let a man take a retrospect of his 
 past, and if he reflects carefully, he 
 will find that every serious act of his 
 life may be traced back ultimately to 
 a suggestion. It may have come as you 
 talked with some friend; it may have 
 come from some sermon or lecture to 
 which you have listened; it may have 
 come from the pages of some book that 
 impressed you profoundly; it may have 
 come out of some deep experience of 
 your life. Every effect has its cause, 
 and if it were always possible for us to 
 trace back these serious acts of our 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 lives to their ultimate causes, we should 
 find in the last analysis a suggestion, 
 whatever its source. Every act of our 
 lives, whether for weal or for woe, began 
 in the little germ of suggestion. It may 
 have unfolded very gradually; in the 
 beginning, the germ planted may have 
 been so faintly impressed upon you, that 
 memory cannot recall the time' when 
 it was first lodged in the mind; but 
 nevertheless, the source of the whole 
 range of human conduct, may be traced 
 back to these first suggestions. 
 
 So you see Mental Suggestion is not 
 a radically new or startling thing. It 
 is simply the deeper understanding, and 
 the -persistent and consistent applica- 
 tion of a law of mind, which is as 
 old as the human race. Let us turn 
 our attention first to the power of sug- 
 gestion as we see it operative in our 
 general life as human beings. 
 
 There is the suggestive power of 
 9 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 Heredity. We are all carrying in our 
 bodies, in our moral characters, in our 
 temperaments, in our personalities, ele- 
 ments which have come to us from the 
 past. But in what sense do they come 
 from the past ? There is much errone- 
 ous thinking about heredity. The in- 
 telligent physician will tell you that the 
 actual disease is not transmitted, but 
 only the tendency toward the disease. 
 A weakened nerve condition, or possi- 
 bly a defective organism may be trans- 
 mitted, but not the disease itself. Let 
 it be the tendency to tuberculosis, or 
 insanity, or cancer; only under certain 
 conditions, by no means invariably, 
 does the actual disease manifest itself. 
 It is just as true that bad habits are not 
 transmitted. There may be handed 
 down a weakened will, or an immoral 
 tendency, but the actual evil habit is 
 not transmitted. That the tendency, 
 rather than the. thing itself, is trans- 
 10 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 mitted, seems to be the general theory 
 of Heredity accepted by modern 
 scholars. How do the scientists explain, 
 then, the appearance in generation 
 after generation of certain forms of 
 disease ? How can we accou^at for the 
 fact that in successive generations we 
 see the same immoral tendencies mani- 
 festing themselves, as in the famous 
 Juke family ? We are convinced today 
 thiat these tragic facts are best explained 
 by the power of suggestion. A man 
 looks back and says, " My father died 
 of tuberculosis," or " My mother died 
 of cancer," or, " There is insanity in 
 my family." The mental picture of 
 the dread disease is in his mind, and 
 furnishes the suggestion. Under cer- 
 tain conditions, such as a low state of 
 vitality, or when in a mood of depres- 
 sion, he broods over the fact of the 
 family taint, the suggestion becomes so 
 strong as to produce conditions that 
 11 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 bring about the actual disease. So with 
 evil habits. The immoral tendency 
 which may be transmitted is developed 
 into actual wrong conduct by sugges- 
 tion. The child of criminal parents 
 who becomes a criminal is not in any 
 sense born a criminal, except through 
 the power of suggestion. If you have 
 studied the subject, you know how tre- 
 mendously startling are the facts dis- 
 closed as to the power of pre-natal sug- 
 gestion in the life of the unborn child. 
 Boys and girls, immortal souls, are 
 started wrong from infancy, physically, 
 morally and spiritually, by the pre- 
 natal suggestions of the mother. The 
 biographer of Lord Byron tells us that 
 the only way to understand his brilliant 
 and yet strangely tragic and immoral 
 life, is by a careful study of the pre- 
 natal suggestions furnished by his 
 mother. We take greater pains in 
 breeding cattle, than we do in bringing 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 children into the world — to our shame 
 be it said. 
 
 Then there is the suggestive power 
 of Environment, to which we are all 
 more or less susceptible. The furnish- 
 ings of the home give to the child un- 
 consciously some of the strongest sug- 
 gestions. The child, fortunate enough 
 to be reared in a home where good 
 taste and the love for the truly beautiful 
 is expressed, is constantly influenced, 
 during these impressionable years, by 
 powerful suggestions of beauty and 
 good taste. A child reared in other 
 surroundings, is influenced by the oppo- 
 site suggestions. We know how much 
 the mental and spiritual atmosphere of 
 the home means to the growing child. 
 Let the atmosphere be discordant, 
 " like sweet bells out of tune : " where 
 there is a clashing of wills, manifesting 
 itself in petty quarrels, impatient speech 
 or angry gestures, and the child is con- 
 13 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 stantly receiving suggestions, which 
 almost inevitably flower forth in ignoble 
 traits of character. The home, on the 
 other hand, whose habitual atmosphere 
 is one of harmony and peace, where 
 misunderstandings, if they arise, are 
 always settled " behind the scenes," 
 where parents are wise enough and self- 
 controlled, enough, never to give way 
 to impatience or anger in the presence 
 of their children — silch a home at- 
 mosphere, and there are many such 
 " heavenly homes," is silently and yet 
 constantly lodging in the child's mind, 
 suggestions that must translate them- 
 selves into beautiful, noble character 
 in after years. 
 
 We recognize certain national traits 
 of character as due to the physical 
 environment of a people. Some his- 
 torians explain the great differences in 
 temperament between nations, chiefly 
 by the difference in physical conditions. 
 14 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 Cloudy skies or prevailing stormy 
 weather, sooner or later make their 
 impress upon the life of a people; 
 while a country in which the skies are 
 generally bright, and where the air is 
 clear and bracing, furnishes a mental 
 and moral, as well as physical tonic to 
 its inhabitants. 
 
 Who can estimate the influence of 
 the atmosphere of the school-room upon 
 its pupils ? How anxious we are that 
 the environment of our children, during 
 these school days, shall be right. The 
 personality of the teacher, her spiritual 
 and mental attitude, can poison irrep- 
 arably the atmosphere of the school- 
 room, so that we see its injurious effect 
 in our children. The teacher who is 
 self-controlled, cheerful, hopeful, good- 
 natured and sympathetic, can make the 
 atmosphere one of the most tremen- 
 dously educative factors in the child's 
 experience. The deepest lessons of 
 15 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 life for young or old, are not the result 
 of direct, deliberate instruction; they 
 are the lessons we learn indirectly, that 
 are taught us by suggestion. 
 
 Our age has gone to the extreme in 
 the matter of advertising. It makes no 
 difference as to the thing, if only 
 advertised properly, it sells. No matter 
 how foul or poisonous the ingredients 
 in the patent medicine, if only it is 
 advertised long enough and " big " 
 enough, it succeeds. We all fall under 
 the influence of the big department 
 store today through its extensive adver- 
 tising. Everywhere, in the daily papers, 
 on the board fence, in the cars, and 
 worst of all on the face of Nature, we 
 are met by the picture or the rhyme or 
 the big letters ; and the man who keeps 
 up that sort of advertising, by and by 
 wins the public. As Barnum said," We 
 all like to be humbugged," and the 
 success of advertising is simply due to 
 16 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 suggestion. The cheapness of ^any 
 particular article, or its unusual value, 
 makes its impression; and most of us 
 will follow the lure of the advertisement, 
 if it be only persuasive enough, and 
 spend our money again and again for 
 things we really do not need, and that 
 we had no idea of buying at the outset. 
 One of the most potent suggestions 
 in the history of humanity has been that 
 furnished by Superstition. It is Less- 
 ing who says, " we are all swayed by 
 our superstitions, even after we have 
 come to understand them." If you 
 have read Zola's masterpiece, 
 " Lourdes," you will recall the tragic- 
 ally vivid picture which he draws of 
 the Roman Catholic shrine in the little 
 French town of Lourdes, and of the 
 annual pilgrimage of thousands of 
 ailing people from all over Europe. 
 He describes with wonderful acuteness 
 the psychological influences which are 
 17 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 brought to bear upon these invalids, 
 and how in many eases genuine cures 
 are wrought. How will you explain the 
 healing by the Sacred relics or bones in 
 China, in India and in Africa? How 
 can you explain the curative powers 
 which are experienced by many who 
 have touched the holy coat at Treves ? 
 It is said that the sick pilgrims at 
 Lourdes spend every year from a 
 million and a half to two million dollars. 
 What is the explanation? The power 
 of suggestion. You say it is super- 
 stition, and you are right, so far as the 
 explanation of the cure is concerned; 
 but the Sacred shrine or the bones or 
 the relics or the coat or what not, 
 furnish the mental suggestion, which 
 in many cases undoubtedly is effective 
 in ' working the cure. We need not 
 flatter ourselves that we are free from 
 all superstition; there may be one of 
 my readers who is carrying a chestnut 
 18 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 in his pocket or wearing a metal ring 
 on some particular finger; or who 
 hesitates to sit down to a dinner with 
 thirteen, or to make a journey on Friday. 
 Superstition in some form persists, 
 through the power of suggestion, in 
 every civilization and in every religion. 
 There is no suggestion in all the world 
 so powerful as that furnished by some 
 hoary superstition. The new Psychol- 
 ogy is the sworn enemy of Superstition. 
 It furnishes a scientific explanation of 
 many phenomena that in the past have 
 been the food upon which superstition 
 has flourished. It explodes the super- 
 stition of Witchcraft, thus assisting in 
 the destruction of a delusion that has 
 caused, within the Christian Era, the 
 butchery by legal process of fourteen 
 millions of hapless and innocent vic- 
 tims. 
 
 Visit the famous Continental Spas, 
 with their mineral baths, their sulphur 
 19 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 and iron springs, where invalids who 
 can pay the price, journey every year 
 for their health. Ask any of the physi- 
 cians at these places whether they really 
 think that the benefits, when obtained, 
 are due to the mineral water, or to the 
 power of suggestion. 
 
 How many times does the doctor 
 say to his wealthy patient, " You need 
 a sea voyage; if you will only travel 
 you will be cured." Do you really 
 think there is anything particular help- 
 ful in the sea voyage itself, or the travel- 
 ling? These things may be beneficial, 
 nevertheless the real fact is, that in this 
 way the patient is taken out of the old 
 atmosphere, and his., mind diverted; in 
 other words, a new line of suggestions 
 is furnished that in many cases work 
 the cure. The sea voyage, or the jour- 
 ney, is the excuse for the suggestion, or 
 the mechanical means by which the 
 stiggestion is made to the mind. The 
 20 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 chief thing needed, in all such cases, is 
 to change the mental atmosphere of 
 the patient. 
 
 Suggestive therapeutics or Psycho- 
 therapy is claiming more and more of 
 our attention today. Its principles 
 underlie all these various healing cults, 
 and play a tremendous part in the 
 regular practice of medicine; and as 
 we shall see, the great truth upon which 
 Psychotherapy depends, is the power of 
 suggestion. 
 
 The Professor of Healing, what- 
 ever may be his special school, who 
 claims that all means are to be dis- 
 regarded, is absolutely wrong. I can- 
 not believe that any intelligent man has 
 a right to ignore any of the great means 
 by which human suffering and disease 
 can be alleviated or cured; but for a 
 man to deny that there are mental 
 and spiritual healing powers, is just as 
 absurd and wrong. We must admit 
 21 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 frankly that drugs do have a chemical 
 effect ; we cannot pronounce worthless, 
 the rubbing of the masseur or the 
 manipulations of the osteopath; the 
 hydropath deserves some credit; diet, 
 exercise and recreation all play their 
 part. All these means are beneficial, 
 they are factors in making for all-round 
 physical well-being. But in the light 
 of today's knowledge, we must recognize 
 that along with all these agencies, there 
 is always present the power of sugges- 
 tion, in the influence of the mind over 
 the body. Just how great that power 
 is, no one perhaps can dogmatically 
 assert today. That it is greater than 
 we have ever dreamed, is without 
 question. The future alone will reveal 
 the extent of its power. 
 
 Another way in which we witness 
 this power of suggestion, is in the forma- 
 tion of piiblic opinion. Public opinion 
 is the concensus of the opinions of a 
 22 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 community, a city, a nation, or an age; 
 but what creates public opinion on any 
 question? We know how the strong, 
 positive, vigorous thinking of a few 
 minds, is able to create public sentiment 
 in any community, or age. Public 
 opinion is created not by the rank and 
 file of men, but rather by the positive 
 thinking of the few, who hold places of 
 influence or positions of leadership. 
 The times in the life of a people, when 
 some great wave of feeling sweeps over 
 a community, are due to mental influ- 
 ences affecting the mass of men. This 
 is why the financial panic of 1907-08 
 was described, and rightly, as a " psy- 
 chological panic." 
 
 How often, in a political campaign, 
 do we witness a complete change of 
 sentiment as respects different candi- 
 dates. In the recent New York State 
 election, there was such a complete 
 reversal of sentiment within two weeks, 
 23 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 that New York State saved itself from 
 lasting disgrace by sending Governor 
 Hughes back to Albany. What caused 
 the change of sentiment? My own 
 opinion is that it was due to nothing 
 less than the fact that here and there, 
 throughout the State and the country, 
 there was the strong thinking, the 
 positive vigorous desire, on the part of 
 high-minded men and women. 
 
 In the recent play, called "The 
 Witching Hour," the author illustrates 
 the same power of the thinking of peo- 
 ple, even to the extent of influencing 
 the decision of a jury in a criminal case. 
 Whether such power is possible may 
 be questioned; but nevertheless, we 
 understand today that public feeling 
 and sentiment, social, political and 
 religious, is due primarily to the fact 
 that a number of individuals are holding 
 certain thoughts, have taken a certain 
 mental attitude towards the questions 
 24 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 involved, and their thoughts go forth 
 in great thought vibrations, to influence 
 and even to radically change the think- 
 ing of multitudes of other minds. 
 
 The same phenomena are to be ob- 
 served in times of religious revival, 
 especially among ignorant or highly 
 emotional people, such as the coloured 
 race in the South. The psychologist 
 explains rationally many of the phe- 
 nomena which are witnessed at such 
 a time. The muscular trance, the 
 experience of ecstasy which the negro 
 often reaches in religious meetings, par- 
 ticularly if they are protracted long 
 enough, is nothing more than the result 
 of suggestion. We have attributed, 
 even in our more settled communities, 
 many of the experiences of religious 
 revivals to the spirit of God, when they 
 are really due to the power of mental 
 suggestion. A very interesting book 
 has been published recently by Pro- 
 25 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 fessor Davenport on " The Psycho- 
 logical Element in Religious Revivals." 
 It is immensely revealing along this 
 line, and shows what a tremendous 
 part suggestion plays, when people are 
 brought together in large companies 
 under emotional stress. 
 
 Enough has been said, as respects 
 suggestion in its general aspect. It is 
 nothing new or startling. It is a power 
 which we all, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, employ every day and almost 
 every hour. We are all susceptible to 
 it, to a greater or less degree. Let me 
 rfefer briefly to the workings of the Law 
 of Suggestion, in its more technical 
 sense. ' We have already seen that in 
 the psychological sense, suggestion is a 
 thought or mental image, held so 
 definitely and intensely in the conscious 
 mind, that it becomes lodged in the 
 sub-conscious self. There are three 
 essentials to the successful lodging of a 
 26 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 suggestion. (1) There must be a clear 
 and definite idea of what you want to 
 do. If you are the parent or the teacher, 
 you must clearly formulate in your own 
 mind a mental picture of the end you 
 desire to attain. Suppose the child 
 shows a tendency towards dishonesty, 
 which you desire to overcome. Clearly, 
 in your own mind, you must make the 
 mental picture of the honest boy. 
 Exclude from your mind every other 
 thought about your child, for the time 
 being. (2) There must be a series of 
 suggestions or mental pictures given 
 the child, adapted to the end which 
 you have in view. (3) There must 
 be the regular daily repetition of 
 the mental picture or the suggestion. 
 Let me illustrate by a concrete case 
 the workings of these principles. Pro- 
 fessor N. N. Riddell, one of the pioneers 
 in the practical 'application of these 
 psychological principles to child training, 
 27 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 tells of his experience in a California 
 town several years ago, where he was 
 delivering a course of lectures. He 
 wanted a boy to distribute hand-bills. 
 He finally found one, but as he was 
 about to employ him, he was told that 
 the boy was notoriously dishonest. 
 His reputation was so fixed in the 
 community that the storekeepers always 
 kept their eyes on him when he went 
 by, and if he came inside they watched 
 him every moment. The boy's own 
 mother told the Professor that he was 
 incorrigible, and that she had been 
 obliged to send him away from home 
 when he was only nine years of age. 
 Professor Riddell hired the boy and 
 then talked frankly with him. He said, 
 " Now I am going to be honest with 
 you, and you are going to be honest with 
 me and we are going to be honest with 
 everybody else." In the course of the 
 conversation, he asked him, if he had 
 28 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 ever been tempted to do anything dis- 
 honest. The boy confessed he had. 
 Little by little the boy told of how he 
 had stolen repeatedly. Then the Pro- 
 fessor, without attempting to rebuke 
 him harshly, said, " In your heart you 
 are an honest boy, you really want to 
 do the right thirig, and I am going to 
 trust you implicitly and we are going 
 to get along all right together; you are 
 not going to steal from me, any more 
 than I am going to steal from you, and 
 you are not going to steal from any one 
 else." As he talked the little fellow 
 burst into tears, and then, while in the 
 tender, sympathetic mood, the Pro- 
 fessor said, " Now you are an honest 
 boy, you do not do dishonest things, 
 you will never steal again." Several 
 times during the day, he talked with 
 him quietly in the same strain, that is, 
 repeated the suggestion of honesty. 
 Within forty-eight hours he sent him 
 29 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 to the bank with a ten-dollar bill, to 
 get the change. His mother had said 
 that formerly he could not be trusted 
 with a dime. He worked with the Pro- 
 fessor for three weeks, and there was 
 not a single sign of any dishonest or 
 thieving tendency, and the Professor 
 says in his published lecture, that the 
 last he heard the boy was absolutely 
 cured of his dishonesty. This illus- 
 trates the workings of these three 
 essential principles: there must be 
 first the clear-cut idea of what you want 
 to do; then there must be the series 
 of mental pictures or images adapted 
 to the end you have in view; lastly 
 there must be the constant repetition 
 of the suggestion. 
 
 Practical experiments have demon- 
 strated beyond question, the eflSciency 
 of suggestion. The mind of the dull- 
 ard may be gradually awakened, vi- 
 cious and cruel tendencies can be over- 
 do 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 come, the elements of virtue, purity, 
 honesty or kindness may be so estab- 
 lished in the sub-conscious mind, as 
 to make them the controlling factors in 
 character. Some lives are much more 
 susceptible and responsive to the in- 
 fluence of suggestion than others, but 
 all can be affected. Some can be 
 changed much more rapidly than others, 
 but patient, persistent effort, wisely 
 directed, is sure to bring results in all. 
 
 There is another form of suggestion, 
 known as auto-suggestion, where the 
 suggestion does not come from outside, 
 but rather from one's own conscious 
 mind. This is the highest form of the 
 operation of this wonderful Law of 
 Suggestion, for when we can clearly 
 understand the law and its method of 
 operation within ourselves, then we can 
 create the thought, we can produce the 
 impression, we can lodge in the sub- 
 coiisciQUS mind the suggestion that will 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 work out within ourselves, physical 
 health, mental power and moral 
 strength. 
 
 How mighty the force that is resident 
 in all our thoughts! We are only begin- 
 ning to understand the potentiality of 
 thoughts, — the thoughts We carry with 
 us, and the thoughts of those about us. 
 I am not referring now to the power of 
 one mind, to deliberately convey 
 thought to another mind, according 
 to the established laws of telepathy. I 
 am speaking rather of the*influence of 
 the thoughts that we unconsciously 
 carry with us and their power over 
 other lives. There are some people, 
 who, at first meeting, attract us, and 
 others who repel us. Every person 
 carries about himself a thought aura, 
 which is made up of the essence of the 
 thoughts of his mind. The psychic 
 tells us that the thought aura is apparent 
 to his clairvoyant vision, and can de- 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 scribe the various shades of colour 
 discernible. Here are fifty or more 
 men and women at a reception, or 
 social gathering. Have you ever noticed 
 how, after an hour or so, these people 
 will be broken up into little groups ? 
 And if you have walked among the sev- 
 eral groups and listened to the conversa- 
 tion, you know how each group has a 
 distinct individuality of its own. Over 
 here, a company of men absorbed in 
 business conversation; yonder, a group 
 of men interested especially in political 
 topics; in another corner a company 
 of ladies discussing perhaps some social 
 gossip. What is it that divides a 
 company of people into these several 
 groups, and gives to each group a dis- 
 tinctive character of its own ? It is the 
 law that " like attracts like," It is be- 
 cause every one of us carries with him 
 a mental atmosphere, from which are 
 constantly going forth vibrations, the 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 character of which depends upon the 
 thoughts we cherish. We may keep 
 our lips sealed tight, we may never 
 whisper even in the still hour of the 
 night, the character of our thought to 
 others; but, nevertheless, the tremen- 
 dous power of just our thoughts, for 
 good or for evil, cannot longer be 
 questioned. It is true beyond contra- 
 diction, that our thinking makes us 
 the men and women that we are, creates 
 not only in us, but about us, a certain 
 atmosphere; so that as we move among 
 men, whether we deliberately intend it 
 or not, by virtue of the mental atmos- 
 phere we carry with us, we are either 
 making them better and nobler, or else 
 injuring them irreparably. 
 
 The one who holds the positive, 
 hopeful, confident, good-natured, 
 kindly, courageous mental attitude, is 
 the person who inevitably radiates 
 sunshine and gladness, good health 
 
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION 
 
 and cheer, confidence and happiness, 
 wherever he may go. The one who 
 holds the negative, despondent, fearful, 
 timorous, anxious or sorrowful mental 
 attitude, whether he intends it or not, 
 is, by the law of suggestion, creating 
 forces that make people sad and dis- 
 couraged, fearful and anxious. We 
 may never utter a word, but, " As a 
 man thinketh in his heart so is he." 
 Every thought you think possesses this 
 suggestive power. It sows its seed in 
 every life you touch. It makes the 
 atmosphere of the home a blessing or 
 curse. How earnestly desirous we 
 should be of understanding the poten- 
 tiality of oxu- thinking, and these laws 
 by which it operates for the upbuild- 
 ing, the transforming and the ennobling 
 of other lives, as well as our own! 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 jO the one who has arrived at a 
 true understanding of his own 
 being and the laws of his own 
 nature, is reserved the proud 
 distinction of consciously making him- 
 self what he will. In the lower animals, 
 and even among the majority of men, the 
 work of developing the mind and build- 
 ing up the character, is largely performed 
 by outside forces — environment, asso- 
 ciation, and suggestions of various kinds. 
 But the developed man knows that he 
 himself has a hand in his own up- 
 building. Man is coming to his own 
 at last. No longer in theory, but in 
 actual fact, man is becoming the Master 
 39 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 of his Fate. Man is his own educator; 
 man is his own moral and religious 
 teacher; man is his own physician. 
 We need to keep in mind constantly 
 that the wonderful power of which 
 man has become conscious today, be- 
 comes eflEective only as the right 
 thoughts, the right impulses and the 
 right desires are transmitted from his 
 conscious mind to the hidden depths 
 of the life within. 
 
 As we have already seen, there are 
 three general forms of suggestion. There 
 are the innumerable suggestions from 
 without, to which we are all more or 
 less subject: heredity and environ- 
 ment, physical and mental, the country 
 in which we live, the Spirit of the Age 
 into which we are born, the friends 
 with whom we associate, the books 
 we read, all the varied experiences 
 through which we pass, are constantly 
 furnishing us with suggestions, which 
 40 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 have a greater or lesser influence upon 
 our lives and characters. 
 
 A second form of suggestion to be 
 briefly mentioned is Hypnotic Sugges- 
 tion. We are all familiar with the mar- 
 velous power of Hypnotism and have 
 doubtless witnessed many illustrations 
 of its working. Professor John Duncan 
 Quackenbos in his book entitled " Hyp- 
 notism in Mental and Moral Culture " 
 defines Hypnotism as follows: " Hyp- 
 notism, or hypnotic sleep, implies a 
 mind condition in which the mental" 
 action and the will-power of a sensitive 
 subject are under' the control of an 
 operator who has induced the state." 
 The Scientist and the physician have 
 been investigating for some years in 
 this interesting field. Hypnosis has 
 been found most efficacious in the so- 
 called functional nervous diseases. All 
 forms of hysteria are amenable to 
 hypnotic treatment. Chronic alcohol- 
 41 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 ism has also been overcome by hyp- 
 notism. In spite of what has been 
 accomplished in this field, however, I 
 cannot refrain from uttering in this 
 connection a word of solemn warning. 
 There seems to be a great confusion in 
 the average mind, as to Hypnotism and 
 its results, beneficial or otherwise. In 
 the hands of the skilled scientist or the 
 conscientious physician, hypnotism may 
 exert, for the time being, a beneficial 
 influence; yet even then it presents 
 grave dangers. Among my friends is 
 a man who has gained eminence in the 
 field of hypnotic suggestion. He is a 
 skilled physician, who has been un- 
 usually successful in the treatment of 
 nervous and mental disorders by hyp- 
 notism. After about three years of 
 successful practising, he abandoned 
 entirely the use of hypnotism in his 
 work and absolutely refuses today to 
 employ its power. In conversation 
 
 42 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 with him I asked the question " why ? " 
 He replied — and I know no man more 
 conscientious — "I simply came to 
 understand that it did more harm than 
 good to the individual whom I hypno- 
 tized." I think you will see in a mo- 
 ment just why. Hypnotic suggestion 
 implies that some will-power outside, 
 steps in and takes possession of your 
 own will, and dethrones ^or the time 
 being your reason. While under the 
 influence of this external control, you 
 are the helpless subject. We may have 
 confidence in the scientist or the physi- 
 cian, but I want to remind you that the 
 great citadel of man's soul lies in his 
 own self-control, and when we surren- 
 der that control to another person, I 
 care not who it is, we are surrendering 
 our God-given and inalienable birth- 
 right, — the will, — and are by just that 
 much weakening our power to control 
 ourselves. Every time the patient 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 comes back to the Hypnotist he falls 
 more easily under his control, until, 
 as I have witnessed myself, in the case 
 of this professional friend, he simply 
 had to look at some of his patients, 
 and they would instantly pass into the 
 hypnotic state. No wonder he said 
 " Any power which gets possession of 
 another soul to the degree that I have 
 gained control of some of my patients, 
 is a dangerous power, and I dare not 
 continue to employ it." 
 
 If this is the experience of the con- 
 scientious Physician, what shall we say 
 of that large class, who use this power 
 for the purposes of revenue only? 
 Hypnotism has been " popularized " 
 in recent years and made the basis of 
 entertainments of various kinds. There 
 is a class of magazines that are full of 
 advertisements to the effect that some 
 self-styled " Professor " offers a Course 
 of Lessons, in the " Art of Hypnotism." 
 44 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 From inquiries made, it has been 
 discovered that these " Professors " 
 are doing a thriving business. Simply 
 to read through any such advertise- 
 ments with a knowledge of what is 
 involved in hypnotism, is enough to 
 make one tremble at the possibilities 
 presented for injury and even crime. 
 There is no language strong enough to 
 denounce such dastardly criminals and 
 charlatans. But the ruined lives and 
 shattered reasons of those who have 
 been subjects of hypnotic suggestion 
 in all innocence, should keep us from 
 ever consenting to surrender one iota 
 of our self-control to another will. 
 
 The third form of suggestion, and 
 the one that chiefly concerns us now, is 
 Auto-suggestion. This is the highest 
 form of suggestion, because it proceeds 
 from within, from one's own conscious 
 mind. To understand and operate the 
 law of auto-suggestion, means to attain 
 
 45 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 the highest degree of self-control and 
 self-mastery. This power is resident 
 within every one of us. The sub-con- 
 scious mind may be likened to a vast 
 warehouse which we, wisely or foolishly, 
 are constantly filling with material of 
 various kinds. We are continually 
 storing up thoughts, desires, and am- 
 bitions, in this " great within," and 
 they are being transformed constantly 
 into life and character, whether we will 
 or no. The great responsibility rests 
 upon us, — we, the individual egos, 
 who stand back of both conscious and 
 sub-conscious minds, — to see to it 
 that only the right material goes into 
 the storehouse, that only the right 
 thoughts and desires and impulses are 
 allowed to make their deep impression 
 on the hidden sources of our lives. It 
 is for the sake of making every man and 
 woman independent of other influences, 
 and teaching each individual how to 
 46 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 use the law, and employ these forces 
 for himself, that we are interested 
 in obtaining a right understanding of 
 what is meant by auto-suggestion. 
 
 The psychological principle underly- 
 ing auto-suggestion is precisely the 
 same that underlies suggestion in gen- 
 eral. It simply means that for the time 
 being we disassociate in our minds cer- 
 tain thoughts from other thoughts. We 
 deliberately narrow, by our own will- 
 power, the range of our consciousness, 
 so that certain ideas are retained, and 
 a great mass of other ideas are excluded. 
 This is the principle upon which sug- 
 gestion everywhere works. By shutting 
 out certain ideas, we are enabled to 
 concentrate the mind's attention upon 
 the ideas which we choose to retain in 
 the field of consciousness. 
 
 The range of illustrations of the work- 
 ings of auto-suggestion, is wide indeed. 
 The power and the value of the old 
 47 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 amulets and charms worn by the primi- 
 tive savage, lay simply in this: They 
 furnished the auto-suggestion, they were 
 the symbols -of an inner mental state, 
 the objects to which the yearning or 
 desire could attach itself. The same 
 is true of the Christian Crucifix or the 
 Roman Catholic beads. Religion in 
 all its forms is filled with the same 
 power of auto-suggestion. During the 
 Middle Ages, you know how marvelous 
 are the well-authenticated stories of 
 miracles and wonders which history 
 has not until recently been able to 
 explain. Many of these, which have 
 been rejected by the scientific mind as 
 incredible, and accepted by the religious 
 mind as miraculous, are now seen to be 
 neither one nor the other, but realities 
 to be explained by psychical processes, 
 not understood at the time. Perhaps 
 the most striking of these phenomena is 
 that of Stigmatization. St. Francis of 
 
 48 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 Assisi furnishes the earliest historical 
 case. His contemplation of the wounds 
 of Jesus was of such an intense charac- 
 ter, and so long continued, that his 
 own body finally presented appearances 
 similar to the mental picture, which 
 he had so long entertained. Not only 
 were there similar wounds in his hands 
 and feet, and side, but the appearance 
 of nails in the wounds was so realistic 
 that we are told, after his death, the 
 attempt was made to draw them out. 
 There have been something like ninety 
 or a hundred cases of a similar charac- 
 ter since his day, and the same experi- 
 ence is paralleled in our own time in 
 the case of certain hysterical patients. 
 In Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, " The 
 Scarlet Letter," we have a description 
 of a phenomenon, in the scarlet letter 
 emblazoned on the breast of Arthur 
 Dimmesdale, which modern psychology 
 is perfectly able to accept as credible, 
 49 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 During the recent Spanish-American 
 War the fpUowing story is told, by a 
 prominent physician who served at the 
 time in one of the hospitals in the South. 
 In passing through the typhoid fever 
 ward, he came to the bedside of a 
 soldier who had been very low, and after 
 examining him, said to the nurse, " He 
 cannot live another hour." The sick 
 man heard the words. As the doctor 
 turned away, he raised himself up in 
 bed and fairly shouted out, " I will 
 live," — and he did. What was it but 
 the antagonism aroused in this dying 
 man by iJie assertion of the doctor that 
 he was doomed to die, which started 
 such a strong counter auto-suggestion 
 that the man was able to recover.? 
 Every physician can tell you of cases 
 in his own experience, of those who have 
 been on the border land between this 
 world and the next, where there seemed 
 no possible chance for recovery; and 
 50 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 then, in that critical hour, something 
 has occurred, — perhaps the arrival of 
 some dear one from a distance, or the 
 receiving of some letter or telegram of 
 hopeful assurance and encouragement, 
 that has turned the tide of the ebbing 
 life; and the person who the doctor 
 felt could not be saved by any human 
 means, has slowly returned to health. 
 It is the power of auto-suggestion work- 
 ing through the sub-conscious mind 
 upon the body and bringing back the 
 stream of health and vitality. 
 
 The strongest auto-suggestions that 
 the conscious mind is constantly fur- 
 nishing, are those that proceed from 
 our habitual or prevalent thoughts and 
 desires. We can divide man's thinking 
 iato two general classes, harmonious 
 thinking and discordant thinking. By 
 harmonious thinking, we mean all 
 thoughts of peace and quietness, good 
 cheer, and hopefulness, courage, kind- 
 51 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 Hness, sjnnpathy, confidence and trust. 
 These are all harmonious thoughts and 
 make directly for the harmonious life, 
 physical, mental, moral and spiritual. 
 .Among discordant thoughts, we must put 
 first of all, anger, hatred, envy, jealousy, 
 lust, greed, cruelty and all malevolent 
 thoughts. To these must be added 
 thoughts of extreme grief and sorrow 
 with their attendants, regrets and dis- 
 appointments. Here belong also fear, 
 doubt and uncertainty, all worry and 
 anxiety, depression and despair. We 
 must also include in this class all self- 
 condemnatory thoughts, disparage- 
 ment, self-belittling, with their accom- 
 panying self-consciousness. All sinful 
 or erroneous thoughts are discordant 
 in their nature, and must inevitably, 
 by the law of auto-suggestion, work 
 discord in the whole range of man's 
 being. 
 
 The world has long been interested 
 52 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 in right and wrong actions. We are 
 at last discovering that all our actions 
 go back for their sources to right and 
 wrong thinking. Prof. Elmer T. Gates, 
 of Washington, has made a number of 
 experiments running through a period 
 of many years, with people while under 
 the influence of harmonious thoughts, 
 and again with the same persons under 
 the influence of some of these discordant 
 thoughts, with strikingly significant re- 
 sults. He has shown unquestionably 
 that the man thinking discordant 
 thoughts is affected throughout his 
 entire organism. His conclusions are 
 very definite: " Every mental activity 
 creates a definite chemical change and 
 a definite anatomical structure in the 
 being who exercises the mental activity ;" 
 and again, " The mind of man can by 
 an effort of the will, properly directed, 
 produce measurable changes in the 
 chemistry of the secretions and ex- 
 53 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 cretions of the body." Experiments 
 comparing agreeable exercises with 
 those not so agreeable, prove that the 
 activities in which men take pleasure, 
 set in motion a richer supply of blood 
 than those attendant upon discordant 
 thinking. We have all had personal 
 experience with some of these discord- 
 ant types of mind. In business you 
 may be associated with one whose 
 habitual thinking is suspicious or dis- 
 trustful, and you know how uncertain, 
 or depressed or even angry you feel, 
 especially if your nature is quite the 
 opposite. Or when we go into the 
 presence of great sorrow or grief, we 
 feel how these discordant thoughts have 
 for the time being, at least, changed 
 by their suggestions, the characters 
 and even the countenances of our 
 friends, and we seek to shake from our- 
 selves the heavy pall of sorrow. In the 
 same way, the person whose thinking 
 54 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 is lustful, is gradually transformed into 
 the sensual character, who repels us 
 the moment we come into his presence. 
 The important thing to remember 
 is this: That by the power of auto- 
 suggestion, we are enabled to hold 
 whatever quality of thought we choose. 
 We can banish from our minds the 
 anger, the hatred, the jealousy — 
 thoughts that we know to be so harm- 
 ful; we can banish from our minds 
 these thoughts of sorrow, and regret 
 and disappointment, which are so de- 
 pressing to ourselves and to all who 
 come near us : we can banish, if we will, 
 the thoughts of worry and anxiety, that 
 are the direct cause of so much nervous 
 breakdown in this hurrying, bustling 
 age of ours. We must never forget that 
 in the crafts which we are sailing over 
 Life's sea, you and I are the steersmen, 
 not someone else, unless we ignorantly 
 or foolishly surrender the helm to other 
 55 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 hands. This sub-conscious self within 
 us is no navigator; it does not under- 
 stand seamanship; it cannot see the 
 headlands or the reefs jutting out be- 
 yond. It may be likened to the brave 
 men down in the hold of the battleship 
 who keep the engines going, but who 
 have no eyes or ears for what is going 
 on above. So this sub-conscious self, 
 without eyes or ears or the power of 
 inductive reasoning, down there at the 
 centre of our being, takes what we are 
 constantly sending, and with these 
 materials does faithfully its appointed 
 task. We are the steersmen, we stand 
 on deck where we can scan the horizon, 
 and descry the dangerous reefs and 
 treacherous shoals. We can, with steady 
 hand and strong nerve, keep our 
 vessel headed right if we will, for we 
 are the helmsmen. God has placed the 
 conscious mind in every life as the great 
 guardian of the inner self, and says to 
 56 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 it, "Your duty is to watch zealously 
 the entrance into your life. It is for 
 you, and you alone, to say what in- 
 fluences and forces shall go into the 
 secret depths of your being." Environ- 
 ment, heredity, the suggestions from 
 - association, all the influences that come 
 from these various sources into our 
 lives, we are to meet at the entrance to 
 the conscious mind, and we must say 
 to some, " You may enter," and to 
 others, " You may not enter." As we 
 value our Eternal Selves, we must 
 stand there on guard, ceaselessly vigi- 
 lant, always alert and ever ready to 
 decide that only the right thought, the 
 right impulse and the right desire, 
 shall be allowed a place within the 
 mind. 
 
 But you say, " Aye, there's the rub; 
 
 how can I control my thinking ? I have 
 
 learned enough about the operations 
 
 of the mind, to know that discordant 
 
 57 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 thinking, through the power of auto- 
 suggestion, is absolutely dangerous to 
 life at every point; I have gone far 
 enough to know that if my life is to 
 realize the highest and best, it must be 
 a life in which harmonious thinking 
 prevails. But how can I command my 
 thoughts ? " As a young man said to 
 me recently, " I go along all right for 
 a few days and then I find myself 
 plunged into the deepest kind of de- 
 pression." I asked him if he had ever 
 tried to locate the cause of these moods. 
 He replied, " It has been that way with 
 our family always, my mother was just 
 like that, as was her mother before her." 
 I said to him, " On your own admission 
 then, it is due to suggestion; you are 
 constantly saying to yourself, ' This 
 moody depression is in my family, my 
 mother and grandmother experienced 
 it, and of course, I have to suffer from 
 it in the same way.' Did you eyer think 
 68 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 that it was possible for you, by auto- 
 suggestion, to neutralize that suggestion 
 of heredity in your life and change those 
 conditions ? " He replied, " I never 
 thought of it before, but I believe you 
 are right and I am going to try." An- 
 other man said to me recently, " I am 
 the slave of an appetite. When the 
 impulse comes upon me to drink liquor, 
 I am obliged to yield. How am I going 
 to control such thoughts and impulses 
 so that they shall not control me ? " 
 This is the really pertinent question for 
 every one of us. 
 
 There are two ways by which it is 
 possible to control our thoughts and so 
 make sure that the thinking of our 
 minds shall be harmonious rather than 
 discordant. The first is the direct and 
 simple method. It is this, stop thinking 
 discordant thoughts. When we have 
 come clearly to see that the real wrong 
 resides potentially in the thought; that 
 59 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 we suffer physically, morally and 
 spiritually because of the character of 
 our thinking, then nobody but an 
 ignoramus or a fool would do anj^thing 
 else but stop thinking that kind of 
 thought. If it is hatred, stop thinking 
 hate; if it is jealousy, stop thinking 
 jealousy; if it is lust, stop thinking 
 lustful thoughts; if it is grief or worry 
 or fear, banish such thoughts from the 
 mind. When we know that such 
 thoughts tend to check the respiration, 
 to change the character of the blood, 
 to manifest themselves chemically in 
 the secretions or excretions of the body 
 — if they have such an actual physical 
 effect as that, to say nothing of their 
 effect on character, then in God's name, 
 stop thinking these thoughts. But you 
 say, " That sounds very simple, but it 
 is not quite so easy to practise it." I 
 grant you that while it may be an easy 
 thing for the man who has the strongly 
 60 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 developed will, the difficulty is that 
 most of us have been thinking wrongly 
 for so long, and know so little about 
 will-power, that we do not find it an 
 easy thing to stop thinking the dis- 
 cordant thoughts even when we have 
 learned that they are harmful in the 
 extreme. So for most people, as yet, 
 this method usually meets with appar- 
 ent failure. 
 
 The second method is that of sub- 
 stitution. There are two ways of empty- 
 ing a glass of water. You can turn it 
 bottom side up, when the water of 
 course will flow otit; or you can drop 
 shot into it, one by one, until gradually 
 the shot expel the water. It is the 
 method of substituting something else. 
 So, as you seek to change the character 
 of your thinking, if you do not succeed 
 at first by sheer will-power, then try 
 the substitution method, and put some- 
 thing else into your mind at once. 
 61 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 Divert your mind from the discordant 
 thought by thinking in other channels. 
 Do not wait a moment, when the wrong 
 thought gets into your mind, but turn 
 to the magazine or the book, and read 
 until your mind is filled with other 
 thoughts. Or, take up some task that 
 calls for all your energy, and forces 
 you to concentrate your mental activi- 
 ties along other lines. It may be a 
 little difficult at first, but I want 
 to tell you, on the experience of multi- 
 tudes of men and women, one of these 
 two methods, if persevered in, will 
 succeed in every life. The trouble is, 
 we all dally with thoughts that we 
 know should not be entertained by the 
 mind a moment, and sometimes, I fear, 
 we rather enjoy them than not, for- 
 getting the tremendous power they 
 wield in our lives. 
 
 I grow so weary of the way men and 
 women often excuse themselves, as I 
 62 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 remember how these same people talk 
 to their children. If your child, in 
 the presence of something that you 
 know he ought to do, says " I can't," 
 you reply, " There is no such word as 
 ' can't ' in the dictionary, my child." 
 You do not let him live in the realm of 
 " I can't." You tell him over and 
 over again that what must be done, 
 can be done, and that he has the power 
 to go ahead and do it. But when we 
 pass o.ut of childhood, and as mature 
 beings, face these great fundamental 
 problems of our natures, we are worse 
 than the children. I talked with a 
 man recently, who is trying to break 
 an evil habit. Over and over again he 
 wailed out, " I have tried, but I can't." 
 I care not how strong the habit, or of 
 how long standing, I care not how 
 tightly the chains of discordant think- 
 ing are fastened upon us, — the first 
 thing we must recognize, is the fact 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 that within our deep essential selves, 
 we are one with the Infinite God; that 
 no sin on our part, no wrong thinking 
 of ours, has ever wholly separated us 
 from Him; that we are essentially 
 divine, and that therefore we can, we 
 can do the thing that we want to 
 do, and that we know we ought to 
 do. I wish sometimes that these chil- 
 dren of ours who have heard our in- 
 structions so often along this line, could 
 just turn about and give us a little of 
 the same advice. This is how Chris- 
 tian Science, Metaphysical teachings, 
 theosophical doctrines, and other so- 
 called modern cults, which many people 
 have been studying more or less care- 
 fully in the last few years, have brought 
 new power into many lives ; they have 
 furnished a method by which the 
 will-power has been cultivated, and 
 people who once said, " I can't do this 
 thing," have learned that they can do 
 64 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 it, and have thereby attained the de- 
 sired end. 
 
 Let me make just one or two practi- 
 cal suggestions as to the method of 
 using this power of auto-suggestion in 
 our daily lives. In the writings of 
 Henry Wood, one of the sanest thinkers 
 along new thought lines, a most prac- 
 tical method is described under what 
 he calls " The Power of Ideal Sug- 
 gestion." If a man is seriously con- 
 cerned in the matter of developing 
 himself physically, mentally, morally 
 and spiritually, he certainly ought to 
 be willing to give a little time to it. 
 Let one set aside half an hour or 
 even fifteen minutes every day. Let 
 him go into some room by himself, 
 where he can be undisturbed, quiet 
 and alone ; let him get just as far away 
 from the sights and sounds of ordinary 
 life as possible. Then let him take 
 some simple statement of truth, for 
 65 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 example, " God is here," or " I am 
 God's child ; " or if he is the victim of 
 some habit, just the statement, "I am 
 free," or "I can and I will;" and 
 as he sits alone in the silence, let him 
 fill his mind full of this one thought. 
 You might say^ " Intellectually, this 
 sounds very foolish; these are trite 
 statements, which we may believe or 
 not, but after all what good is to be 
 gained by just repeating over to one's 
 self these words ? " The conscious mind 
 sees no use in it whatsoever, but I want 
 to tell you it is truly scientific, for it is 
 the practical application of the great 
 law of auto-suggestion, it is the true 
 method by which we reach the sub- 
 conscious self. Remember, this sub- 
 conscious mind is deep in the centre 
 of our complex life; it does not see 
 what we see, or hear what we hear, it 
 is waiting to receive the material that 
 we send down, and every time you 
 66 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 say "God is here," "God is here," 
 " God is here," filling your mind with 
 the thought implied in these words, 
 you are sending down the suggestion 
 that must take rootage, because of the 
 constant reiteration, in the very depths 
 of your being. Do this not once but 
 every day, and after a time, note the 
 result. 
 
 But you say that seems absurd. 
 Stop a moment. Do we really want 
 to rid ourselves of these discordant 
 thoughts.? Are we in dead earnest 
 about it ? You may have been a pro- 
 fessing Christian, a follower of that 
 Matchless Life, for many years, and 
 yet you are conscious that there is 
 precious little in your life to remind 
 others of Him; how earnest is your 
 desire to become " perfect even as He 
 is perfect ?" I am not thinking now of 
 coarse or flagrant sins, but are we always 
 self -poised, are we as kindly and sympa- 
 67 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 thetic, are we as cheerful and hopeful, 
 are we as patient and trustful, as we 
 ought to be, if we are seeking to follow 
 Him in daily life ? If you are going 
 along a country road and a pebble gets 
 into your shoe, you take the shoe off 
 and toss the pebble aside; in other 
 words, you remove the cause of the dis- 
 comfort at any cost. When we know 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt, that our 
 thoughts are injuring our lives, for 
 time and eternity, and that through 
 us they are hurting all other lives about 
 us, ought we not to be just as willing 
 to pay any price, to get rid of the 
 discordant and harmful thought ? Let 
 a man take the fifteen minutes, as many 
 a busy man today is doing, and get 
 away somewhere from the noise and 
 turmoil of it all, and just say to himself, 
 " I am God's child, I am God's child, 
 I am God's child." No man can do 
 this very many days, without carrying 
 68 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 into all of life, — the life of the home, the 
 life of business, the social life, — a sense 
 of dignity and confidence and power 
 such as he has never experienced before. 
 Another hint as to the best time for 
 lodging an auto-suggestion, so that it 
 may become effective. It is during 
 sleep, when the conscious mind is 
 thoroughly quiescent, that the sub- 
 conscious mind is most thoroughly 
 awake. When you lie down to sleep 
 at night, suppose you spend the last 
 waking moments in picturing to your- 
 self clearly and definitely the man or 
 woman you want to be. You know 
 what these last thoughts at night con- 
 tain for most of us, — the worries, the 
 anxieties, the perplexities, the problems 
 of the day just gone, or else, the anxious 
 anticipation of the day that is to come. 
 Now just banish them all, and picture 
 to yourself clearly the ideal man or 
 woman you long to be. Think back 
 69 
 
AUTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 over the past day and see where you 
 failed to be patient with the children, 
 or where you lost your temper in busi- 
 ness. The many mistakes and little 
 failures, of which no one of us is very 
 proud, rise before us, as sad reminders 
 of what we might have been. In these 
 last waking moments picture clearly 
 and intensely to yourself the opposites. 
 K you have been impatient, create the 
 mental image of yourself as calmly 
 patient. As you fall asleep, say to 
 yourself, " God helping me I will be 
 patient, I can be patient in the pres- 
 ence of the things that vex me so often, 
 and tomorrow I will not lose my self- 
 control." As you fall asleep, that last 
 thought in your conscious mind is 
 lodged in the sub-conscious, and your 
 sub-conscious takes it up and does the 
 work while you sleep; and you rise in 
 the morning to find yourself calm and 
 self-poised, as you have not been, per- 
 70 
 
AtlTO-SUGGESTION 
 
 haps for days. I am not describing a 
 beautiful theory merely. I am telling 
 you what has been demonstrated to be 
 true in countless lives. 
 
 Are you really in earnest in this matter 
 of making yourself, not in name only 
 but in very truth, God's Child ? If 
 you are, you can do it. I am simply 
 bringing you the, scientific method for 
 the operation of these wonderful powers, 
 with which God has endowed every 
 soul. All that is required of us, is the 
 patient, persistent and systematic ap- 
 plication of the new knowledge that 
 has come; and in your life and mine 
 there will shine forth the beauty, the' 
 purity, the nobility, and the divineness 
 of character revealed in the Master, 
 Always and everywhere, by the power 
 of auto-suggestion, we are building the 
 spiritual manhood and womanhood 
 within. What kind of material are we 
 using? 
 
 71 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 iO the most casual observer, 
 religious thought in America 
 is just now very much ab- 
 sorbed in the Gospel of Heal- 
 ing. It would almost seem in reading 
 the daily papers, not to speak of the 
 more exhaustive literature on the sub- 
 ject, as if Religion, Medicine and 
 Psychology had joined hands in form- 
 ing a New Religion, that is apparently 
 sweeping this country from end to end. 
 Many writers have referred to this 
 striking movement as a " new faith; " 
 and yet, in the minds of its leaders it is 
 not so much a new Faith, as it is a 
 return to the original Faith of Jesus of 
 S 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 Nazareth. As we read the Gospels, we 
 cannot escape the conviction that Jesus 
 regarded His work in the world as two- 
 fold: It was (1) to preach the Gospel 
 of the Kingdom, and (2) to heal the 
 sick. It is certainly significant, when 
 one stops to reflect upon the Gospel 
 narrative, how much of His tirrie and 
 energy was spent in caring for the 
 bodies of men. The Founder of Chris- 
 tianity, in whom we see the revelation 
 of a 'truly spiritual religion, spent con- 
 siderably more time in looking after 
 people's physical welfare than He did 
 in preaching sermons. When He sends 
 forth His Apostles, to continue the 
 work which He had begun. He entrusts 
 to them the same two-fold Commis- 
 sion: they are to preach the Gospel 
 of the Ejngdom, and they are to heal 
 the sick. And then, in His final 
 words of instruction and encouragement 
 He says, " And greater works than 
 4 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 these, will ye do." The view of the 
 Church ia these later centuries has 
 been, that the power which Jesus 
 exercised in healing the sick was super- 
 natural, a power with which He was 
 endowed, as being peculiarly the Son 
 of God, a power that has not been 
 vouchsafed to others, a power that the 
 Church does not possess to-day. The 
 age of such " miracles," at least so says 
 the Protestant world, ended with the 
 Apostles. 
 
 And yet if we admit that these won- 
 ders were wrought, if we accept as 
 historical these stories, telling of how 
 Jesus went about healing the sick, or 
 how they brought their sick to be healed 
 by Him, certainly we are bound to 
 admit that it must have been due to 
 powers that were not contrary to law, 
 but rather that proceeded from the 
 knowledge of higher laws. Few intel- 
 ligent persons to-day would care to 
 5 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 claim that these healing works of Jesus 
 were miracles in the old sense, of being 
 exceptions to the great universal work- 
 ing of God's laws. If He did these 
 things which the Gospels record, it 
 must have been because of a knowl- 
 edge of some power perfectly natural 
 which He understood, and of which we, 
 at least until recently, have been igno- 
 rant. The meaning of the word 
 " miracle," as used in the Gospels, is 
 " wonder," or " marvel," — something 
 so extraordinary that it was not un- 
 derstood by those who witnessed it. It 
 by no means implies an act contrary to 
 law. 
 
 Many of the leaders of the present 
 movement to unite Religion and Medi- 
 cine are telling us that the Church 
 has been shorn of its powers very 
 largely, because it has neglected one- 
 half of the work ; entrusted to it viz., 
 the healing of the sick. One of the 
 6 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 strongest arguments for Christian Sci- 
 ence lies in the fact that it has en- 
 deavoured, however faulty its philos- 
 ophy, or whatever failures it may have 
 made in individual cases, to not only 
 preach the Gospel as interpreted by 
 Mrs. Eddy, but to heal the sick as 
 well. And in the face of undisputed 
 cures accomplished, the churches have 
 had nothing to say, except to make 
 the old excuse that the age when the 
 Church should care for the bodies of 
 men has gone by, and all healing of 
 the sick should now be left to skilled 
 and trained physicians. 
 
 Whatever may be our personal opin- 
 ions as to the efficacy of Mental Heal- 
 ing, or as to the function of the Church 
 in healing the sick, certainly no person 
 of intelligence to-day, within the Church 
 or outside, can fail to be respectful in 
 the presence of a movement which has 
 already assumed such proportions. 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 created so large a literature, and en- 
 rolled so many illustrious names among 
 its leaders. The time has arrived when 
 ridicule and condemnation should give 
 place to a frank and sympathetic 
 endeavour to sift the truth from error, 
 and discover the facts. 
 
 With all due credit to the Christian 
 Science movement for the way in 
 which it has called the attention of the 
 Church in general to this phase of 
 work, nevertheless the modern scientific 
 interest in the cure of the body through 
 the aid of the mind antedates by several 
 years the organization of Christian 
 Science. Psychotherapy, or in plain 
 English, Mind Healing, received its 
 latter-day momentum about twenty- 
 five years ago, when Charcot, Freud 
 and Janet gave it new impulse by 
 their researches and teachings. The 
 present popular interest, outside of 
 Christian Science circles, may be said to 
 8 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 date from the institution of what is now 
 known as the Emmanuel Movement, 
 in connection with the old Episcopal 
 Church of that name in Boston. Most 
 people by this time are familiar with 
 the story. Dr. Worcester of Emipanuel 
 Church had formerly been rector of one 
 of the leading Episcopal Churches in 
 Philadelphia. In his congregation was 
 Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the Dean of the 
 Medical Profession in America. In 
 frequent conversations, Dr. Mitchell 
 expressed the desire that the twd Pro- 
 fessions of Medicine and the Ministry 
 might be brought into closer and more 
 vital relationship. Dr. Mitchell ex- 
 plained fully his views as to the way in 
 which the ministry, rightly trained, 
 could tremendously supplement the 
 work of the physician, and vice versa, 
 how the physician could supplement 
 and aid the work of the minister. With 
 this idea in mind. Dr. Worcester re- 
 9 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 signed his Philadelphia church, an<f 
 went abroad, where he spent several 
 years in special studies in Psychology. 
 Finally he returned to the Emmanuel 
 Church in 'Boston, and with the assist- 
 ance of Dr. McComb, also a specially 
 trained man, instituted what is now 
 known throughout the country as the 
 Emmanuel Movement. Before this 
 movement really assumed proportions, 
 Emmanuel Church had been doing con- 
 siderable work for the poor who were 
 afflicted with tuberculosis. It em- 
 ployed only the latest and most sci- 
 entific methods for the treatment. of 
 this disease. The hospital was adapted 
 to out-of-door treatment, and tents 
 were rented to those who could afford 
 to pay — and all under the auspices of 
 the Church. Dr. Worcester has made 
 the statement that this work with 
 tubercular patients has resulted in 
 eighty per cent, of cures. About three 
 10 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 years ago, a clinic was established in 
 connection with the church. Physi- 
 cians of standing were added to the staff, 
 giving their services gratuitously. Every 
 person who applied for help was turned 
 over to these scientifically trained men. 
 Each individual case was diagnosed. 
 If it was discovered that the trouble 
 was organic, the case was turned over 
 to the proper physician or surgeon. If 
 the disease was diagnosed as func- 
 tional, it was given to one of these 
 specially trained men for mental treat- 
 ment. 
 
 There may be some who do not 
 clearly understand the distinction be- 
 tween organic and functional disorders. 
 Stating it generally, organic diseases 
 are those which have their origin in the 
 physical organism ; functional disorders 
 are those whose cause is mental or 
 nervous. This distinction is constantly 
 made by the Emmanuel Church workers, 
 n 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 and has called out much criticism, 
 especially from the Christian Scientists, 
 who have said, " Why draw any line 
 at all ? If the sub-conscious mind, by 
 which you claim to be able to reach 
 these various functional disorders, is 
 in reality a part of the Infinite Mind, 
 why can you not cure all diseases ? 
 Why have any staff of physicians or 
 surgeons ? Why not do all the work, 
 as we are striving to do in Christian 
 Science ? " Nevertheless, this distinc- 
 tion has been made, and I think very 
 wisely, for as a matter of fact, while 
 Christian Science claims to be able to 
 cure all manner of diseases, organic 
 as well as functional, still as we know, 
 it does not always meet with success. 
 One of the leading Christian Sci- 
 ence healers in Chicago, an admirable 
 woman in every way, and one who has 
 done a tremendous amount of good in 
 the world, and has been unquestionably 
 1« 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 instrumental in effecting many cures, 
 died only a few weeks ago after a linger- 
 ing illness from cancer. Another Chris- 
 tian Science teacher who conducted 
 many classes in my old home city, and 
 was thoroughly beloved and respected 
 by all who knew her, was suddenly 
 stricken with blindness a few years 
 ago. 
 
 This is by no means to cast dis- 
 paragement upon any genuine cure ac- 
 complished through Christian Science. 
 Medicine does not always cure. I refer 
 to these cases simply to show that in 
 this field of Suggestive Therapeutics 
 there is need for caution and common- 
 sense. We gain nothing by exaggera- 
 tion. We do not need to claim every- 
 thing, as did an osteopathic friend of 
 mine, who, when asked what oste- 
 opathy could do, replied, " We can cure 
 everything now but snake bite, and in 
 a very little while we expect to control 
 13 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 even that." We are still on the thresh- 
 old of the whole subject of the sub- 
 conscious mind and its power over the 
 physical body. We are feeling our 
 way, by many different paths, and 
 one day we shall arrive at the whole 
 truth. The time may come when, as 
 we become more conversant with these 
 laws and their operation, we shall be 
 able to control not only functional dis- 
 orders but organic as well; but at the 
 present stage of human development, 
 with our present knowledgie of the sub- 
 conscious mind and its powers, the 
 leaders in this field are saying. Let 
 us confine for the present, at least, our 
 application of these principles to func- 
 tional disorders, springing not from 
 broken down physical tissue, but rather 
 from the mind, or the " nervous sys- 
 tem." There is a tremendous field here; 
 for, as every doctor knows, about two- 
 thirds or one-half of all human mala- 
 14 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 dies are functional in their character 
 rather than organic. It must be re- 
 membered, however, that the authori- 
 ties in Suggestive Therapeutics frankly 
 admit the tremendous influence of the 
 mind even in organic diseases. 
 
 Since the beginning of the Emmanuel 
 Movement, various branches have 
 sprung up in different parts of the 
 country. In Chicago, Bishop Fallows, 
 of the Reformed Episcopal Church, 
 has established a clinic in connection 
 with his church. In New York City, 
 Dr. Loring W. Batten, rector of St. 
 Mark's Church, has recently instituted 
 a similar clinic. Dr. Birckhead, suc- 
 cessor of Dr. Rainsford, has said that 
 St. George's Church is about to in- 
 stitute some such work, the exact 
 nature of which is not yet announced; 
 but he feels that the Church must in 
 some way begin to show a vital interest 
 iii the work of healing the sick and 
 15 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 caring for the bodies of men. Dr. 
 MacDonald, of Washington Avenue 
 Baptist Church, Brooklyn, has been 
 devoting considerable attention to this 
 work. Dr. Lyman Powell, rector of 
 St. John's Church, in Northampton, 
 Massachusetts, has established a clinic. 
 Besides these, there are a large number 
 of other churches, more or less promi- 
 nent throughout the country, that have 
 either already established or are pre- 
 paring to establish branches of the 
 Emmanuel Movement. 
 
 Men like Bishop Fallows and Dr. 
 Worcester go so far as to say that it is 
 only a question of a very little time 
 before all the churches will add to 
 their many functions the work of heal- 
 ing the sick. This may be an open 
 question in the minds of many. There 
 can be no doubt in the case of the 
 Emmanuel Church, Boston, where the 
 leaders are specially trained for such 
 16 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 work; but we can see how great injury 
 might be done and much harm arise 
 if all churches, regardless of whether 
 their pastors have any fitness or have 
 received special training in Psychology 
 or the methods of Suggestive Thera- 
 peutics, should rush pelhnell into this 
 movement. In my judgment this work 
 must be done, if done rightly and effec- 
 tively, by those who are specially fitted 
 and trained. It may be that the time 
 will come when in our theological semi- 
 naries students will be required to take 
 a course in Suggestive Therapeutics. 
 Just now, however, it would seem to 
 be the part of Wisdom for us to respect- 
 fully help in every possible way these 
 churches that are especially equipped 
 for this work and whose pastors are 
 trained for such service, and meantime, 
 to further study and carefully ob- 
 serve this movement before we decide 
 that all churches ought to add the 
 17 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 work of healing to their other activi- 
 ties. 
 
 We sometimes speak as if the subject 
 of Mental Healing was purely modern, 
 and had only existed for the last 
 generation or so; but I would remind 
 you that as far back as history goes, we 
 find that mental healing under various 
 names and different forms has been 
 practised and apparently with success. 
 In the oldest civilization with which 
 we are acquainted, that of Egypt, hun- 
 dreds of years before the Christian era, 
 it had a prominent place. The histo- 
 rian Glidden remarks: " Their priests 
 evidently appear to have perfectly com- 
 prehended the method of exciting that 
 internal sanative instinct in the human 
 organism, which in general is a pro- 
 found mystery, even to the individual 
 who excites it; and which was naturally 
 enough, in those remote ages, repre- 
 sented as the immediate gift of the 
 18 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 gods. Nowhere else was this internal 
 faculty so generally cultivated for the 
 cure of the sick." The excavations at 
 Cawadias furnish much interesting 
 material, showing that the miraculous 
 cures of Epidaurus were effected at 
 this ancient Greek shrine, 500 years 
 before our era, by suggestion, and pre- 
 cisely in the same manner as to-day at 
 Lourdes. Livy tells us that the temples 
 of the gods of Rome were rich in the 
 number of offerings which the people 
 used to make in return for the cures 
 received from them; and Pliny tells of 
 Etruscan spells used by Theophrastus 
 for sciatica, by Cato for the cure of 
 dislocated limbs, and by Varro for 
 gout. Our own Druid ancestors, using 
 similar methods, were consulted by the 
 Emperor Aurelius. 
 
 In these early days the power was 
 attributed directly to the gods. It was 
 supposed to be an arbitrary answer to 
 19 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 prayer, or else a supernatural bestowal 
 from Heaven of some divine gift. Yet 
 psychologists, because of the various 
 forms of healing which take place in 
 modem times — whether at some sa- 
 cred shrine, or by touching some holy 
 relic, through the faith cure of Dowieism 
 or the denial of disease by Christian 
 Science, — believe that all are to be 
 explained, by the power of the mind 
 over the body through the law of 
 suggestion. 
 
 During the Middle Ages there were 
 occasional priests who seemed to be 
 vested with a " gift of healing." Such 
 powers were attributed directly to the 
 agencies of Heaven, merely because 
 such marvels were not understood, 
 Roman Catholic history as well as 
 Protestant, has a great deal to say 
 about the miraculous healing power of 
 certain priests or other saintly indi- 
 viduals. We know how saintship was 
 SO 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 often won, among the Catholics of the 
 Middle Ages, because of the wonderful 
 "miracles" or, as we understand to-day, 
 the psychological cures accomplished. 
 
 But coming down to modern times, 
 I want to bring you a few brief extracts 
 from leading physicians to-day, who 
 stand in the fore-front of their profes- 
 sion and are recognized authorities in 
 England and America. 
 
 Sir Andrew Clark says: "It is im- 
 possible for us to deal knowingly and 
 wisely with various disorders of the 
 body without distinctly recognizing the 
 agency of states and conditions of 
 mind, often in producing and always in 
 modifying them." 
 
 Dr^ Maudsley says : " Perhaps we 
 do not as physicians consider suffi- 
 ciently the influence of mental states in 
 the production of disease, their im- 
 portance as symptoms, or take all the 
 advantages which we might get from 
 21 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 them in our effort to cure disease. 
 Quackery seems^to have got hold of a 
 truth which legitimate medicine fails 
 to appreciate." 
 
 Dr. Robertson says: " While the 
 influence of the mind over the body 
 is universally recognized, its enrploy- 
 ment as a therapeutic agent is purposely 
 used by but a few in the regular ranks 
 of the profession." 
 
 Sir S. Wilks remarks: " The doctor 
 soon finds that in treating his patient 
 the practice of medicine is not only one 
 of physic, but of psychology; and that 
 the effect of his drugs depends as much 
 upon the constitution of the patient's 
 mirid as that of his body." 
 
 Dr. Shoemaker of Philadelphia says: 
 " Psychotherapism plays a most im- 
 portant part in the ordinary every-day 
 practice of medicine. The influence of 
 the mind upon the bodily functions is 
 so great that every experienced, intelli- 
 ii 
 
MIND AND MEDICESIE 
 
 gent physician is glad to enlist so potent 
 an auxiliary." 
 
 We read in "The Lancet:" 
 " Though the therapeutic effect of 
 faith and hope is not detailed in our 
 text-books, they are enough to turn the 
 scale in favour of recovery; and yet 
 they are but two of the many mental 
 medicines which a judicious physician 
 may use in the management of disease." 
 
 Dr. Affleck says: " The power of 
 suggestion as a factor in therapeutics 
 has gained wide recognition in recent 
 times." 
 
 " A day will come," .says De Fleury, 
 " when there shall arise an upright 
 and intelligent physician, strong enough 
 to defy ridicule, and authorized by a 
 noble life and the merit of his labours 
 to lay claim to the superior dignity of 
 a moralist. If he knows the human 
 heart well he can draw the sick of soul 
 to him," 
 
 23 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 Dr. A. Morrison, President of the 
 ^sculapian Society, says: " We often 
 do less than half of our duty in not 
 exploring the mental life of the patient. 
 A good deal has been written on pro- 
 longed vascular tension due to physical 
 causes. Is there no such state as pro- 
 longed mental tension due to moral 
 causes ? ... In such cases, if the phy- 
 sician is to be of any service to his 
 patient, it must be by the algency of 
 mind on mind; and this takes us out 
 of the vestibule littered with micro- 
 scopes, crucibles, and retorts into that 
 inner chamber — the holy of holies, in 
 the life of a physician and his patients — 
 where heart and mind are laid bare to 
 the sympathetic gaze of a fellow-man, 
 whose discretion may be relied upon, 
 and who may, from his training in the 
 knowledge of the hmnan soul as well 
 as the human body, be able to cure his 
 brother of a disturbing factor in his life 
 94 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 beyond the reach of the most advanced 
 therapeutics of a purely physical kind." 
 
 One of the last words of Henry 
 Gawen Sutton, teacher of pathology 
 at the London Hospital, was: " Don't 
 underrate the influence of your own 
 personality. Learn to give confidence 
 to your patients." 
 
 Dr. A. T. Schofield says: " To con- 
 strain a feeble mind to be governed by 
 a good one is not a superhmnau 
 labour for one who goes about it 
 adroitly. The moment the eye of the 
 patient meets the eye of the physician, 
 psychological action, influencing the 
 course of the disease, at once takes 
 place through the patient's unconscious 
 mind." 
 
 To these names should be added the 
 following, all of whom are enlisted in 
 the cause of Suggestive Therapeutics: 
 Forel, Bernheim, Dubois, Liebcault, 
 Tuckey and Vogt of Europe; Prof. 
 25 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 Jastrow of Wisconsin University, Jack- 
 son, Royce, and Southard of Harvard, 
 Woodworth and Peterson of Columbia, 
 Coriat of Boston City Hospital ; and of 
 American physicians, Morton Prince, 
 Boris Sidis, Jas. J. Putnam, Richard 
 C. Cabot, Lewelys F. Barker and many 
 others. 
 
 I make these quotations for the sake 
 of proving that the whole method of the 
 modern physician is changed, whether 
 he has admitted it publicly or not. I 
 imagine there is no intelligent physician 
 in active practice to-day, who is not 
 using psychotherapy every day of his 
 life. It may be through the conscious 
 power of his own personality, it may be 
 by a clear understanding of the law of 
 Suggestion, it may be by recourse to 
 some harmless deception, such as the 
 bread pill — but every intelligent doc- 
 tor is recognizing the truth of what 
 these men of prominence here express; 
 26 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 and while many of them are not saying 
 anything about it to their patients or 
 the world outside, they are coming 
 more and more to realize the large part 
 which mind plays in disease. 
 
 A few months ago I met at the 
 steamer a physician and surgeon who 
 stands in the front rank of his profes- 
 sion in the Middle West; a man whose 
 ear is always close to the ground, and 
 who is unusually alert and eager to obtain 
 the very latest discoveries in his pro- 
 fession. He was just retuijning from a 
 year's trip around the world. He had 
 spent much time in the hospitals of 
 Japan, China, India, also at Vienna, 
 Berlin and London. I asked him what 
 he had brought back to enrich his 
 professional life. His reply was very 
 significant: " There is a world-wide 
 movement on in the medical profession, 
 tending more and more toward the 
 prevention of disease . ' ' Then he added : 
 27 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 " In your lifetime, and perhaps in mine, 
 we will see the use of drugs reduced to 
 the minimum." Another physician 
 said to' me recently: " Th6 chief 
 trouble is that the whole business of 
 drugs has been so tremendously com- 
 mercialized. The great drug manu- 
 facturing companies are continually 
 bringing out some new combination of 
 drugs and forcing them on the physician 
 and the helpless public, until we are 
 simply swamped with innumerable 
 ' remedies.' " There are a hundred 
 different remedies for every known 
 disease, each one, naturally, claiming to 
 be the best. Dr. Osier, formerly of 
 Johns Hopkins University, wrote back 
 to this country from Europe, that 
 " within a few years we shall see nine- 
 tenths of all the drugs with which the 
 American people now dope themselves 
 dumped into the bottom of the sea." 
 One of the greatest crimes, committed 
 28 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 by the people against themselves, is their 
 startling use of patent medicines. If 
 . the advertiser is only an artist in his 
 line, most of us are susceptible enough 
 to his Suggestion. But as every doctor 
 knows, the patent medicines which are 
 annually sold in this country, literally 
 by the hundreds of carloads, have done 
 and are doing an inestimable amount of 
 harm to the physical life of the people. 
 And the reaction against their use has 
 already begun. 
 
 Let me say a word about the physi- 
 cian in his relation to this movement of 
 mental healing. From my own experi- 
 ence I believe there is no nobler class 
 of men on the face of the earth than 
 physicians and surgeons. They are for 
 the most part heroic, self-sacrificing, 
 untiring men, whose services to suffer- 
 ing humanity have never yet been 
 worthily appreciated. I have no sym- 
 pathy whatever with the general tirade 
 29 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 which is heard in certain quarters 
 against the medical profession. I want 
 to remind you of one or two things 
 which we should always remember, 
 before we criticize the doctors unduly. 
 Take one single illustration. Have you 
 stopped to realize what the discovery of 
 chloroform has meant to the world.? 
 Can any one estimate the amount of 
 human suffering and pain that has been 
 relieved, and from which poor humanity 
 has been saved, simply because of the 
 discovery of chloroform ? 
 
 Do you realize what preventative 
 measures have been brought about by 
 the doctor.? There was a time a few 
 years ago when the Panama Canal 
 region was known as the Death Zone, 
 but to-day the death rate is lower there 
 than in the City of New York. Who 
 changed the conditions ? The doctor, 
 the trained scientific man who went 
 down there and instituted sanitary laws 
 30 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 and regulations. Many will remember 
 when it was not an uncommon thing 
 for cholera or smallpox to sweep over 
 certain portions of our large cities, and 
 we are all familiar with the frightful 
 ravages wrought by the yellow fever in 
 our Southern cities. Why do we no 
 longer fear these plagues .'' It is due 
 to the scientific and self-sacrificing work 
 of the doctor. Why is the death rate 
 to-day so extremely low in New York 
 City, even with its slum quarters — only 
 seventeen or eighteen, and even drop- 
 ping one month this last summer to as 
 low as thirteen per thousand.'* It is 
 chiefly due to the doctor, the trained 
 scientific man, working with the Board 
 of Health. It is these heroic and 
 courageous men who are locating the 
 dark rooms, and condemning the tene- 
 ment houses where conditions are such 
 as to foster disease in all its various 
 forms, who are insisting that the streets 
 31 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 be kept clean and who are placing all 
 possible restrictions about contagious 
 diseases. We have by no means done 
 all we rhight in this regard, but we must 
 never forget that whatever has been 
 accomplished in the direction of a 
 more healthful city has been due 
 chiefly to the physician. We need to 
 remember when we are tempted to 
 criticize the doctor, that the greatest 
 part of his work is not in curing 
 disease, but in preventing it, and thus 
 making impossible these awful scourges 
 which have rav&ged nations or cities 
 from the beginning of tirne. 
 
 Think of the accomplishments in 
 the field of surgery. Even Mrs. Eddy 
 admits that in the case of a fractured 
 bone or a dislocated limb the surgeon 
 must be called in. I think nobody 
 would be foolish enough to claim that 
 when a man breaks his leg he can sit 
 down and by concentrating his thoughts 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 upon it, mend the fracture. Surgery 
 is an exact science, as medicine is not 
 and perhaps never can be. Who can 
 estimate the amount of good accom- 
 plished by modern surgery, the suffer- 
 ing that has been relieved, the indi- 
 viduals who have been saved to their 
 homes and families and to society.'' 
 We should bow our heads in reverence 
 in the presence of the skilled and con- 
 scientious physician or surgeon. But 
 what is extremely significant is this, 
 that the intelligent physician to-day 
 everywhere, is changing his method, 
 is depending less on drugs and more on 
 the remedial powers of the mind. Ian 
 MacClaren, in his story " A Doctor of 
 the Old School," tells of Dr. MacClure, 
 who had been called to a farm, where 
 a boy had been badly crushed in a 
 machine. A neighbour in telling the 
 experience afterwards says: " It was 
 michty tae see him come intae the 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 yaird that day; the verra look o' him 
 wes victory." And our modem doctor 
 is learning how to carry victory in his 
 face, in the tone of his voice, in his 
 every action, as he goes into the sick 
 room. He has become more and more 
 skillful in the art of Suggestion. As I 
 have stood by his side many a time, I 
 have marveled at the skill, with which 
 he used all the knowledge of modern 
 psychology, in seeking to effect the cure. 
 The greatest present need is that the 
 true mental healer should always have 
 the profoundest respect for the true 
 and conscientious physician; and also, 
 that the true physician should have a 
 genuine respect for the trained, con- 
 scientious and honest mental healer. 
 
 If this present movement continues 
 to grow in extent and power, it must 
 mean that the Church, Medicine and 
 Psychology will come into even closer 
 fellowship and work together in a more 
 34 
 
MIND AND MEDICINE 
 
 vital sympathy. Does not such a 
 vision presage a great and glorious 
 future? We have come to see in all 
 these wonderful movements of thought, 
 that man is not a being to be separated 
 into different compartments, so that we 
 can turn his body over to some doctor, 
 his soul over to some minister, and his 
 mind over to some educator. Man is a 
 unit, — body, soul and mind, — and if 
 we are going to train men, who shall be 
 in every sense symmetrical characters, 
 our educators and our ministers and 
 our doctors must work in harmony, 
 with man and for man. This is the goal 
 to which all our thought to-day is 
 tending. When that day dawns we 
 shall at last attain to a'truly scientific 
 religion, and a truly sacred science. 
 
 35 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 [MONG all peoples and in 
 every age, nothing has been 
 so persistently sought as bodily 
 health. The Elixir of Life 
 has been the dream not only of the early 
 alchemists but even of some modern 
 chemists and yet we seem to be no 
 nearer the consummation of that age- 
 old desire than were the Ancients. On 
 the contrary, we find that physical 
 disorders are steadily growing more 
 subtile and complex. Physicians are 
 increasing in number in a much larger 
 proportion than the population, while 
 diseases and remedies of every kind 
 multiply constantly. Insanity, insom- 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 nia and all forms of nervous disorders 
 are increasingly prevalent. 
 
 Professor Paul DuBoise, of Berne 
 University, has recently written a book 
 on " The Psychic Treatment of Nerv- 
 ous Disorders," consisting of thirty- 
 five chapters devoted to more than that 
 number of different manifestations of 
 nervous disease. Specialists grow more 
 nvunerous, and each finds what he is 
 looking for. Some years ago a friend 
 of mine was taken sick, and after seek- 
 ing in vain for relief through his family 
 physician, consulted one of the leading 
 specialists in the city where he lived. 
 He told him the trouble was with his 
 heart; that was his specialty. A little 
 later he consulted another specialist. 
 This man told him he had diabetes; 
 that was his specialty. Another diag- 
 nosed his case as due to uric acid in the 
 blood; that was his specialty. Still 
 another told him that the cause of his 
 40 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 difficulty lay in his digestive organs; 
 that was his specialty. Finally the man 
 died of a malady which none of these 
 specialists had discovered. 
 
 We need not question the honesty or 
 intelligence of any of these men. It 
 only shows the natural tendency, unless 
 the case is very clear and simple as few 
 cases are, for each specialist to discover 
 symptoms of his own special disease, 
 and treat the case accordingly. Yet in 
 spite of these discouraging facts, the 
 time is fast approaching when it will be 
 much easier for people to possess health 
 and strength than to be without 
 them, for both these blessings come 
 through conformity to Law both outer 
 and inner. For centuries men have 
 sought health in the outer realm of 
 sanitation, hygiene and drugs. " These 
 ought ye to have done " — with the 
 exception of a greatly superfluous 
 amount of drugs — " but not to have 
 41 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 left the others undone." It is no 
 disparagement of sanitary or hygienic 
 laws when I affirm that at last man is 
 beginning to realize that the laws which 
 pertain to the inner life are far more 
 important even than these external laws. 
 In a previous essay I sought to de- 
 scribe the background of the Movement 
 for Health which is just now attracting 
 so much interest, and pointed out the 
 distinguished men who have already 
 given it their support, thus showing 
 that it is not a Movement to be treated 
 with anything less than respect. The 
 average man certainly has a right to 
 know the facts; our only desire is for 
 the truth. Even if there is but a 
 modicum of virtue in mental thera- 
 peutics making for the alleviation of 
 human suffering, surely the world needs 
 sadly its reinforcement; and if it con- 
 tains no truth, if it proceeds from a 
 baseless idealism, then by all means let 
 42 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 us admit frankly the hoUowness of its 
 claims. 
 
 Have we to-day in mental thera- 
 peutics a great principle, capable of 
 wide application, that lies so near 
 every one of us that we have hitherto 
 looked through it or beyond it? Are 
 there certain orderly forces in the mind, 
 far more potent for good in the life 
 of hinnanity than are these great 
 forces recently harnessed in the realm 
 of electricity ? These are some of the 
 questions that naturally arise in the 
 mind of every earnest seeker after truth. 
 
 At the beginning of our discussion 
 it is necessary that we should do some 
 accurate defining. Mental therapeu- 
 tics is not to be confused with Christian 
 Science, or Faith Cure, nor is it to be 
 regarded simply as a new competitor 
 of the other healing agencies already 
 in the field. Although we often use 
 the words " Christian Science " in a 
 43 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 rather loose and general sense, neverthe- 
 less, in the strict sense, Christian Sci- 
 ence should be identified with a dis- 
 tinct school which takes for its exclusive 
 text-book a work entitled " Science and 
 Health," by Mrs. Mary B. G. Eddy, 
 and the Bible as interpreted through it. 
 This is said in an impartial spirit, as 
 a matter of definition and simple justice 
 to all concerned. 
 
 The process of Mrs. Eddy begins 
 with the denial of everything evU. It 
 depends for its basis upon the assump- 
 tion of the unreality of the body and of 
 so-called material things. Matter is 
 unreal; pain is a fiction; disease is 
 imaginary. For myself I do not believe 
 we gain anything by denying facts which 
 are clearly patent to all. It is true we 
 are souls, but souls living on the physi- 
 cal plane, and. the body is a reality on 
 its own plane and in the degree in which 
 the real unity of life is expressed 
 44 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 through it. Hence, to deny the reality 
 of the physical body, of pain and 
 disease, is only a juggling with words. 
 If we say, in good faith, there is no sin, 
 sickness or disease, we have simply 
 succeeded in hypnotizing ourselves into 
 a belief that is an error. All these con- 
 ditions do exist. They are not " real " 
 in the sense of being permanent; they 
 are but transitory conditions through 
 which the soul passes, but they cannot 
 be overcome through mere denial. The 
 system of denial, which really lies at 
 the basis of Christian Science, resultsj 
 in fact, in emphasizing the reality of 
 the very conditions from which we 
 seek deliverance. The way to escape 
 from darkness is not to deny that dark- 
 ness exists. The only way to dispel 
 darkness is to let in the light. Error 
 of any kind is to be overcome not by 
 the denial that error exists, but by 
 aflfirming the existence and powrr of the 
 45 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 truth. There is another form of denial 
 which is, both true and rational. This 
 is the affirmation of the superiority of 
 the mind over the body, involving the 
 denial that body can, of and for itself, 
 do anything or feel anything. This is 
 no mere denial or negation; it rather 
 arises from the positive assertion of 
 the higher law. There is a great 
 difference between an imaginary disease 
 and a disease of the imagination. The 
 tendency in the past has been to regard 
 many mental and nervous disorders 
 as purely imaginary, and so unworthy 
 of serious attention. Suggestive Thera- 
 peutics recognizes that such so-called 
 " imaginary disorders " are really dis- 
 eases of the jnind, causing the individ- 
 ual oftentimes more pain and suffering 
 by far, than would be produced by 
 organic diseases. 
 
 Faith Cure, in the proper sense, 
 presumes upon special divine inter- 
 46 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 position in answer to prayer. It im- 
 plies a suspension and violation of the 
 orderly laws of the universe. Owing 
 to the working of mental forces, many 
 remarkable cures do take place under 
 the administration of both Christian 
 Science and Faith Cure, only the 
 modus operandi is misunderstood. 
 
 Nor are we to think of Mental 
 Healing as merely another competitor 
 in the field of the " pathies," seeking 
 to relieve human suffering. This 
 broader science of Mental Healing 
 recognizes no external authority as 
 located in a single person or text-book. 
 " It is a development from within, 
 rather than a system from without. It 
 is a life rather than a doctrine. It is a 
 new consciousness, rather than a new 
 philosophy. It is a spiritual optimism, 
 rather than a material or pessimistic 
 realism. Its business is to bring inner 
 ideals into outward actualized expres- 
 47 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 sion. It has to do with the intuition 
 as well as with the intellect. It recog- 
 nizes that the inner and real nature of 
 man is in most intimate relation with 
 the Universal Mind of God." 
 
 Its underlying principle consists in 
 a recognition of mental causation for 
 all outward phenomena. But the idea 
 of mental causation for physical con- 
 ditions is in substantial harmony with 
 the highest and best thought of the seers 
 and philosophers, from Plato down to 
 the present time. " If primary causes 
 for physical ills are resident in the 
 clay of the body, there is no warrant 
 whatever for healing through mind. If, 
 however, causative forces are located 
 in the mental realm, there is no logical 
 basis, per se, for anything else." 
 
 We are all in bondage to the seen, and 
 
 constantly speak of mere occasions as 
 
 causes. In popular language, we say 
 
 that the draught caused the cold, the 
 
 48 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 contagion caused the fever, or the 
 unfriendly microbe the disease. As a 
 matter of fact, these are occasions 
 but not causes. The cause in every 
 case, is in the subjective conditions 
 which we usually call the susceptibility 
 of the individual. Occasions are always 
 without; causes within. Ten people 
 sit in the same draught, are exposed to 
 the same contagion, or swallow the 
 same microbes. Some will suffer, and 
 perhaps die, while the others go scot 
 free. The doctor and nurse can breathe 
 the atmosphere of contagious disease 
 continually, but they rarely succumb 
 themselves. 
 
 The people during an epidemic who 
 are most fearful, are usually, on the 
 testimony of physicians, the first ones 
 to succumb to the disease. All this 
 shows that occasions are only oppor- 
 tunities. Owing to general low develop- 
 ment, such opportunities must often 
 49 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 be avoided, but even then they never 
 become causes. The true method is 
 to so fortify our inner mental and phys- 
 ical life that we shall no longer be sus- 
 ceptible to external influences, so that 
 the contagion we all breathe and the 
 microbes we all swallow shall have no 
 power over us. The time may come — 
 it has not arrived yet — when the 
 scientist will be able to locate the mental 
 cause for every known disease; will 
 be able to state just why at such a time 
 a particular person took cold or came 
 down with fever. Remember, we are 
 but standing on the threshold of the 
 great realm of mental dynamics; but 
 dimly conscious as yet that mental 
 and moral conditions are the most 
 potent forces that make for health and 
 happiness. 
 
 It is not necessary in this connection 
 to discuss the different diseases which 
 experience has demonstrated can be 
 50 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 successfully treated by the mind. My 
 purpose is to present as clearly as 
 possible the general principles which, 
 if followed out systematically and per- 
 sistently, must result in physical health, 
 strength and happiness. 
 
 If we are to understand and effect- 
 ively apply in our lives the laws of 
 mental healing, we must realize' at the 
 outset the unity of our life. We speak 
 of the individual as consisting of soul, 
 mind and body. We know that mind 
 and body are not two separate entities. 
 Mind expresses itself through the body 
 and directly influences the body, and 
 in turn, the body influences the mind. 
 Mind and body are constantly acting 
 and reacting on one another. Then 
 we speak of the soul as if that were 
 another distinct entity, something sepa- 
 rate from mind and body. But wljat 
 we mean by soul or spirit is simply 
 the spiritual ego, the individual who 
 61 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 stands back of mind and body, and uses 
 both as instruments of expression. Soul, 
 the term used to describe the highest 
 expression of individual entity, is not 
 different from or independent of the 
 Universal Soul of all things. Soul, 
 mind and body are, then, bound to- 
 gether in the closest kind of unity. 
 These thoughts once fairly grasped, it 
 becomes comparatively easy to under- 
 stand the absolute oneness of Life, 
 and yet, the One Life manifesting 
 itself in many ways and through many 
 degrees. We must not pick these 
 different expressions of life apart and 
 think of them as though they were 
 entirely distinct. We must realize that 
 they are, in the last analysis, all one, 
 that the life which flows through this 
 grand Universe is all one — One Life, 
 One Intelligence. Still further, man 
 must recognize his oneness with all 
 humanity; that the life which flows in 
 52 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 his veins is the same life that flows in 
 the veins of every human being. He 
 must be lifted out of his sense of little- 
 ness, his sense of isolation, his sense of 
 being merely a personal entity, into the 
 sense of his oneness with the Whole, 
 of his life as part and parcel of all life, 
 inextricably bound up with the life of 
 humanity. This consciousness of life's 
 unity doe^ not come to one suddenly. 
 It is developed as one dwells upon the 
 thought of life, as one seeks to realize 
 the deeper meaning of life, as one 
 endeavours to get back to causes and 
 tries to interpret relationships. In 
 other Words, it is as a man thinks. The 
 trouble with most of us is that we spend 
 very little time in actual thinking; but 
 when one begins to seriously think 
 upon such subjects, he finds, in com- 
 pany with the great philosophers of 
 all times, that there is no other way to 
 interpret human life except in terms of 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 its oneness with, the Infinite Life of the 
 Universe. 
 
 The next essential is to cultivate 
 within our mental life the elements of 
 faith, hope and love. Faith is the 
 opposite of distrust or suspicion. Hope 
 is the opposite of discouragement and 
 melancholy. Love is the opposite of 
 selfishness. There is a profound phil- 
 osophy underlying the statement of the 
 Apostle Paul, " Now abideth these 
 three, faith, hope and love." To 
 cultivate faith and hope and love means 
 to Foster harmonious thinking, for the 
 opposite of these things constitutes the 
 very essence of discordant thought. 
 But faith in what ? Faith in your own 
 power to live the life of freedom and 
 self-control, the life full of composure 
 and cheerfulness, the life that is de- 
 livered from all fear of sickness and 
 disease. Is the phrase your own power 
 a correct one? That depends upon 
 54 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 how it is understood. The power acts 
 through you. In that sense, it is your 
 own, because it is expressed through 
 you. In the narrower sense, it is not 
 your own. " Of myseK I can do noth- 
 ing," said the Master. " The Father 
 working in me. He doeth the works." 
 What we call faith in our own powers is 
 really just the recognition of the power 
 that God has given us to use. Faith, 
 as the New Testament uses the word, 
 is not to be confused with belief in 
 certain dogmas of religion; it is a 
 dynamic faith in one's own power to 
 realize health, happiness and peace 
 within. 
 
 The element of Hope is the only true 
 solvent of despair, discouragement, 
 melancholy, fear and dread. Every 
 doctor knows that these mental 
 moods constitute the deadUest foes to 
 physical health and strength. Hope 
 means confidence, cheerfulness and 
 55 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 brightness. To cultivate Hope means 
 to look on the bright side, not only of 
 things but of people, and to believe in 
 the bright side of things and of people. 
 It is an easy thing to unconsciously 
 form the habit of always seeing the 
 darker side, of always anticipating what 
 may happen in the future to cloud the 
 sky. If We are going to live in the 
 atmosphere of Hope, — one of the 
 strongest allies of strength and health, 
 — we must cultivate the opposite of 
 all these tendencies of our nature. If 
 we desire, we can make brightness, 
 cheerfulness, composure, hope for the 
 future, faith in ourselves and con- 
 fidence in our fellows, the great domi- 
 nant forces of our daily lives. 
 
 Then cultivate most earnestly the 
 spirit of Love. The root of all discord 
 in thinking, that plays such havoc with 
 our bodies as well as om* souls, is selfish- 
 ness, in the form of greed, avarice, 
 56 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 pride, jealousy, envy, or any other of 
 these malign influences. Foster within 
 yourself the opposite of selfishness. 
 When Paul concludes with the words, 
 " The greatest of these is Love," and 
 when Jesus sums up all the Law and 
 the Prophets in the one great com- 
 mandment — love to God and love to 
 man — they understood how the life 
 lived in the atmosphere of love, the life 
 whose attitude was habitually one of 
 loving thoughts and loving desires, 
 must inevitably be the life possessed of 
 fulness of strength and health, both 
 of body and soul. We all believe in 
 love, we all approve the sermon that 
 treats of love, and we are all quick to 
 say that what we need in our lives is 
 more of the spirit of love. But, ask 
 yourself the question, " How earnestly, 
 how persistently, how systematically in 
 my every-day life, am I seeking to hold 
 and cultivate in my mind only loving 
 57 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 thoughts ? " How often do you take 
 mental inventory and say, " This is an 
 envious thought, and that is a jealous 
 thought, and that is a melancholy 
 thought; and I am allowing such 
 thoughts to lodge in my mind, and so 
 control my life ? " Read the wonderful 
 thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, 
 and then compare the ideal it presents 
 with your daily life, " Love sufifereth 
 long and is kind; love envieth not; 
 love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
 up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
 seeketh not her own, is not easily 
 provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth 
 not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the 
 truth; beareth all things, believeth all 
 things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
 things. Love never faileth." If we 
 should determine to live in the at- 
 mosphere of that single chapter of 
 the Bible for six months, we should 
 marvel at the transformation in our- 
 58 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 selves and in those about us. Culti- 
 vate the spirit of faith and hope 
 and love in this systematic way, just 
 as earne^ly as you would cultivate 
 your muscles by exercise, or the powers 
 of your mind by study — and see the 
 result. 
 
 Another fundamental need is to 
 change our negative thoughts to positive. 
 I wonder if any one realizes how much 
 of his thinking is on the plane of the 
 negative. ^ An old proverb says that a 
 man is either his own physician at 
 forty or else he is a fool. But however 
 much we know at forty, we are all of us 
 fools, in this respect at least, that in our 
 conversation we pay altogether too much 
 attention to sickness and physical condi- 
 tions. Dr. Heber Newton tells of once 
 spending a month in a sanitarium. The 
 sanitary regulations and the hygiene 
 were correct; but he says the mental 
 atmosphere was harmful in the extreme. 
 59 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 Attending a concert given one evening 
 for the patients, there came a sudden 
 lull in the music, and in the comparative 
 silence the only words that fell upon his 
 ears were these, " Rheumatism, in- 
 fluenza, pneumonia, nervous prostra- 
 tion, etc." What kind of a place was 
 that in which to find health? The 
 whole atmosphere was surcharged with 
 the thoughts of people who dwelt con- 
 stantly on their physical disorders and 
 sufferings. "When we come together 
 how much of the time is spent in con- 
 versing about our own physical con- 
 ditions or else those of our friends. 
 Our talking is by no means an idle or 
 meaningless thing. Every time we 
 dwell upon such things in conversation 
 we are giving potent suggestions of ill- 
 health to ourselves and others. What 
 we talk about habitually, is simply an 
 indication of what we think habitually, 
 and what we think habitually is what 
 60 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 we, sooner or later, become in our- 
 selves. Cease thinking thoughts of 
 sickness, and you will soon stop talking 
 along lines which only create the 
 atmosphere that makes for ill-health 
 and disease. Did you ever wonder why 
 the children of the rich, petted and 
 coddled from the cradle, with a nurse 
 to dog their every footstep, who are 
 bundled up with the greatest care every 
 time they step outside the door, and 
 are constantly warned against eating 
 this or drinking that — why such chil- 
 dren, protected and safeguarded by 
 all these influences, turn out so often 
 weak, puny and sickly ? The children 
 of the street, on the other hand, about 
 whom nobody seems to care, who have 
 never had the guardianship of a nurse, 
 whose parents know nothing and care 
 less about the laws of diet, often grow 
 up to be strong, robust and hearty. 
 One of the causes unquestionably lies in 
 61 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 the fact that in the homes of the rich, 
 an iatmosphere is created by the over- 
 fond parent or the too-careful nurse, 
 in which the child is made to fear 
 and dread countless ills, of which the 
 street gamin never dreams ; and what is 
 feared is invited. I have a friend who 
 believes so strongly in the power of 
 words, even casually spoken, that when 
 she meets a friend she never says, " I 
 hope you are well to-day." She has 
 changed her greeting, and always says, 
 " I hope you are good to-day; " and if 
 we are good in the broad sense of the 
 word, we will be well. What we need in 
 all the range of our conversation at home 
 and elsewhere, is to transfer our think- 
 ing from the negative to the positive 
 plane. Think only healthful thoughts 
 and speak only healthful words. 
 Let the thoughts that are uppermost in 
 your mind, whether you are alone or 
 with others, be always those thoughts 
 62 I 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 that make for health aud strength and 
 power. If we could cultivate the habit 
 of living our lives on the plane of the 
 positive, not in the realm of what we 
 fear or dread, or doubt, or distrust, 
 our " susceptibility " to sickness of all 
 kinds would largely disappear. 
 
 Once again, we need to cultivate 
 the imaging faculty. We must take 
 pains to outline in our minds definitely, 
 clearly and intensely what we mean by 
 Health. Picture in your mind the 
 perfect man — image and likeness of his 
 Creator, without spot or blemish. It 
 is not enough to repeat formulas, par- 
 rot fashion. If you discover the root 
 trouble to be hatred, anger or jealousy, 
 then picture to yourself the idea of 
 love as the great reality; if selfishness 
 is the cause, replace it by the thought 
 that We are all members of one body, 
 etc. In this connection, there is tre- 
 mendous need of the power of Concen- 
 63 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 tration. The great weakness in most 
 of our lives is traceable to the fact that 
 we have so little command over our 
 mental forces; our minds fly from one 
 thing to another. We no sooner begin 
 to think about one subject than im- 
 mediately our attention is diverted, 
 and we find ourselves thinking about 
 something else. What makes the suc- 
 cessful scientist.'* His power of con- 
 centration in one field of investigation. 
 What makes the great inventor like 
 Edison? His power to concentrate all 
 his energies in one direction. What 
 constitutes the true student? His 
 ability to take, his book in hand and sit 
 down for hours together and concen- 
 trate his attention on the problems in 
 which he is interested. Here is where 
 most of us fail. Our weakness men- 
 tally and therefore physically, nine 
 times out of ten, is due to the fact that 
 we do not command our mental forces. 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 that we do not know how to concen- 
 trate our mental powers; that we no 
 sooner touch one subject than we are 
 drawn away to something else. Yet I 
 want to affirm that if any man or woman 
 is really in earnest in this matter, they 
 can cultivate their powers of mental 
 concentration just as truly as any other 
 power. The first thing is to recognize 
 its real need in your life. Then realizing 
 that you cannot be any better, mentally 
 or physically, until you cultivate these 
 powers, set yourself to the task. Let 
 it be by the systematic and persistent 
 practice of holding your mind steadily 
 to the subject in hand. With a book 
 before you, or in the quiet hour as you 
 sit alone, take some uplifting thought 
 into your mind and resolve to shut out 
 every other thought for the time being. 
 Suppose you take the thought, " I am 
 God's child." Approach it from one 
 direction then from another. " Who 
 65 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS ' 
 
 is God ? " and " What does it mean to 
 be God's child? " or, " If I am God's 
 child, what is my relation to Him ? " 
 " K I am God's child, what part of 
 God is it that I possess, that I can 
 appropriate and use to my own up- 
 building ? " Think all around the 
 thought suggested, and then think 
 back again. Look at its truths from 
 this standpoint and from that, but 
 concentrate your mind on the one 
 central thought, to the exclusion of 
 everything else. Exercise your mind 
 in this way daily, and note the results. 
 You will come forth from such an 
 experience with a sense of power that 
 you have never felt before, with your 
 mind renewed, your strength quickened 
 and your confidence in God and your- 
 self wonderfully increased. 
 
 Then there is needed the cultivation 
 of peace and restfulness. A few years 
 ago a Well-known German physician 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 visited this country. On his return he 
 Wrote that he had discovered in the 
 increasingly prevalent nervous break- 
 down of the American people a new 
 disease, which he called " Americani- 
 tis." Every doctor knows that nervous 
 breakdown, in the last analysis, is due 
 to mental conditions. It is the nervous 
 hurry, the waste of nervous energy 
 due to lack of self-control, that results 
 in so many different forms of nervous 
 disorders. All this could be checked 
 and controlled and cured, if we would 
 simply take pains to cultivate in our- 
 selves peace, restfulness and quiet- 
 ness. 
 
 I know a woman who found herself 
 getting into a very nervous condition, 
 and in consequence giving way to an 
 impatient spirit in her speech, until 
 the habit seemed fixed. She finally 
 realized that the fault was altogether 
 with herself, that it lay in her own lack 
 67 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 of mental poise, and she said, " I am 
 going to conquer this thing." She 
 pictured clearly to herself the ideal of 
 self-control and patience, and finally 
 resolved not to utter one impatient 
 word for a week. At the end of that 
 time the habit was broken. Practise 
 self-control and self-poise as you would 
 practise your music at the piano or 
 your problems in the school room or 
 your exercises in the gymnasium. Be 
 dead in earnest in winning the victory 
 over yourself by developing your powers 
 to the full. It will take time to reach 
 perfection, but that is what we are 
 here for, and it can be done. 
 
 One last essential is the cultivation 
 of silence. If men, and women would 
 simply stop in the midst of their busy 
 life for a few moments every day, and 
 be still, and in the silence think upon 
 the great realities of life, they would be 
 amazed at the result. I have a friend, 
 68 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 who is a manager of a street railway 
 system in one of the Western cities, 
 who told me a few years ago that, in the 
 multiplicity of his duties, he found he 
 was losing all control of himself and 
 was unable to do his required work. 
 He made it a rule every day after lunch, 
 to go upstairs to a room by himself, in 
 the building where he worked, and 
 spend a half hour alone. I asked him 
 if he prayed. He said, " No, I do not 
 believe you would call it prayer. I 
 close my eyes and just stop and think 
 carefully and slowly and clearly about 
 the things which are really worth while 
 in life; and I have found I cannot do 
 without it now." If we could but 
 realize the necessity of taking time to 
 go away into the Silence, and just let 
 our feverish lives sink down to some of 
 these deep, eternal principles of life 
 and religion, there is nothing in the 
 world that would send us back to our 
 69 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 work with greater physical vitality, 
 greater buoyancy and greater strength. 
 Do not misconstrue my meaning. 
 Do not imagine me as saying that when 
 you are sick or weak all you have to 
 do is to think you are well, and you 
 are well. This is a caricature on mental 
 healing. I have not said that. What 
 I have said is that when you are sick, 
 your mental condition and your 
 thoughts are far more important than 
 the physical effects from which you 
 suffer. Exactly as you take care of 
 the nourishment of the body, just as 
 you see to it that three times a day you 
 eat the proper food in the proper 
 quantities, so the mind, which lies back 
 of all physical conditions, must receive 
 its proper nourishment in the form of 
 health-producing thoughts, if you are 
 to eradicate the primary cause of your 
 disorder; and it is in your power to 
 give the right food to your mind. 
 70 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 Nourish yoiir mind with these thoughts 
 of faith, hope and love, these thoughts 
 of confidence and composure, cheer- 
 fulness and hope, and you will begin to 
 see changes taking place in your ab- 
 normal or disordered physical con- 
 dition. 
 
 There are four ways in which mental 
 therapeutics can be applied in one's 
 own personal life. First of all, by the 
 direct power of the sub-conscious mind 
 inherent in itself. This is what the 
 doctor would call the vis medicatrix 
 naturoB. It is what the doctor means 
 when he says in certain cases, " We 
 have done all we can. Now we must 
 let nature do the rest." All intelligent 
 physicians know that this " power of 
 nature " is the power of the sub- 
 conscious mind. In the case where the 
 doctor says, " We can do no more, 
 there is no hope," and yet the patient 
 slowly comes back to life, the recovery 
 71 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 is due to the remedial powers of nature, 
 or the power of the sub-conscious mind. 
 In the second place, there is the power 
 of the sub-conscious mind influenced 
 directly by external suggestion; where 
 the trained and skillful practitioner 
 by his own suggestion, or the wise 
 parent in the case of the child, calls 
 into activity these remedial and cura- 
 tive powers of the mind. In the third 
 place, there is the power of the sub- 
 conscious mind influenced indirectly 
 by the conscious mind, because of fa.ith 
 in persons, systems, places, 6tc. And 
 lastly, there is the power of the auto- 
 suggestion which the sick person sends 
 to liie sub-conscious mind himself, by 
 his determination to get well, shake off 
 illness, ignore pain, etc. 
 
 Perhaps you are thinking, " This is 
 a beautiful theory, but will these prin- 
 ciples work ? " They have worked in 
 multitudes of cases. I could tell you 
 72 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 of a man, of whom I know, bound hand 
 and foot by the appetite for strong drink 
 for twenty years. He came into the 
 realization of his own powers through 
 this method, and to-day is free and 
 doing a man's work in the world. I 
 could tell in detail of a man who 
 has had a bitter up-hill struggle for 
 forty years, who came to the verge of 
 suicide because he felt there was noth- 
 ing left for him in life — a complete 
 nervous breakdown. That man to-day, 
 after having practised these principles 
 for only three weeks, is back again at 
 his occupation, earning his livelihood, 
 happy and strong. Or I could tell 
 you of a case described to me within 
 a fortnight, of a woman who came from 
 a Western city. For thirty long years 
 she had been the victim of fears of 
 every kind, and had developed into a 
 complete nervous wreck. The skilled 
 physician who examined her said, 
 73 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 " There is no use trying to do anything 
 for her by mental suggestion; her 
 case is extreme; it is perfectly hope- 
 less; nobody can help her." That 
 woman, after four weeks' treatment, has 
 gone back to her home again, per- 
 fectly strong and in her right mind. 
 These are a few results about which I 
 happen to know personally. However 
 it may seem to you, the individuals who 
 will take these principles and incor- 
 porate them in their lives, making them 
 the basis of daily experience, will reap 
 the same results that have come to 
 many others. 
 
 The timid and fearful child who has 
 lost sight of his father in the crowded 
 street, cries out with joy and reassur- 
 ance, as he comes again into his father's 
 presence and grasps his hand. The 
 crowd may jostle him, but he is no 
 longer afraid. The darkness may be 
 intense, but it does not frighten him 
 74 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 now. His father is there, and he holds 
 his father's hand; and as they walk 
 together through the night the child 
 knows naught save the perfect con- 
 fidence and love, that cast out all fear. 
 In setting forth the psychological side 
 of mental healing and while believing 
 that Suggestive Therapeutics must be 
 put upon a scientific and rational 
 basis, nevertheless I would not have 
 you miss its religious significance. In 
 addition to the scientific principles in- 
 volved, the deep need of our lives, the 
 great need of the age in which we live, 
 is to catch afresh the vision of God. 
 It is possible for me to realize, 
 like the little child, that God's hand 
 clasps mine; that, in spite of the dark- 
 ness and the storm, in spite of the 
 struggle and the crowd, in spite of all 
 the phantoms of fear and dread, I am 
 in His presence now and always; 
 nothing in the whole universe of space, 
 >5 
 
PHYSICAL WHOLENESS 
 
 nothing in the whole eternity of time 
 can ever harm me, can ever utterly 
 discourage me, for I am God's child and 
 His life is my life. As we grow into 
 such a consciousness of the divine 
 power resident within us, the hardest 
 problems will be solved, darkness and 
 dread, doubt, and uncertainty, with all 
 the malign diseases of soul and body, 
 will gradually but surely disappear. 
 
 *8 
 
AWAKENING LATENT MENTAL 
 POWERS 
 
AWAKENING LATENT MENTAL 
 POWERS 
 
 jHE task set every individual 
 life, — clear, insistent, final — 
 is this : " Work out your own 
 salvation," physically, men- 
 tally, morally and spiritually. The 
 assurance of ultimate victory is found 
 in the truth, "For it is God who 
 worketh in you." In all reverence, God 
 cannot accomplish man's salvation 
 alone; man cannot accomplish his 
 salvation apart from God. The great 
 goal toward which humanity has been 
 tending from the beginning, man's 
 complete, all-around salvation, in all 
 parts of his complex nature, is to be 
 3 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 accomplished only through the co- 
 operation of God and man; or better 
 still, God in man. " Work out your 
 own salvation, for it is God who work- 
 eth in you." 
 
 We have suggested some of the ways 
 by which any individual, through the 
 aid of the powers resident within, might 
 learn to control his physical conditions 
 and to a very large degree prevent 
 sickness or disease from finding a 
 lodging place in his life. Let us now 
 go a step further and consider the 
 wondrous powers of the sub-conscious 
 mind over man's mental life, in the 
 development of his latent possibilities. 
 
 In an article entitled, " The Energies 
 of Men," published recently in the 
 Philosophical Review, Professor James 
 uses these words : " Most of us feel as 
 if we lived habitually with a sort of 
 cloud weighing upon us, below our 
 highest notch of clearness in discern- 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 ment, sureness in reasoning anci firm- 
 ness in deciding." Further on in the 
 article, he describes how men from 
 time to time, through various experi- 
 ences, and chiefly by the aid of Sugges- 
 tion, are enabled to " tap new levels of 
 energy," and thus disclose in themselves 
 forces of which they had been hitherto 
 ignorant. 
 
 Professor James is here describing a 
 common experience. We are all more 
 or less conscious that we are not living 
 up to our highest mental capacity; in 
 our daily work we are not expressing 
 our very best ability; when we under- 
 take some enterprise we do not see it 
 through with that measure of power, of 
 which we believe ourselves truly ca- 
 pable. How many times we come to the 
 end of the week, or reach the comple- 
 tion of some task with the regretful 
 feeling, that if we could only retrace 
 our steps and try it over again, we 
 B 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 should succeed much better. Then, 
 there do come times to everyone of us, 
 when we seem to break through this 
 " cloud that rests upon us so habitu- 
 ally," when we are lifted to higher 
 planes of mental activity, when we can 
 command our mental resources as we 
 do not ordinarily. Then it is that we 
 are able to do our work with a facility, 
 an ease, a precision, an effectiveness, 
 that causes us to marvel at our own 
 skill and power. After such an experi- 
 ence we naturally ask the question, 
 " Why have I been able to do so easily 
 and successfully what, at another time, 
 I would have done laboriously and 
 most unsatisfactorily ? If at some times 
 I am conscious of possessing such 
 powers, why not at all times ? " The 
 answer lies in our ignorance of our- 
 selves and the laws of our mental being. 
 We all do " tap levels of new energy " 
 at times, and that we cannot do so 
 
 6 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 habitually, is due to our ignorance of 
 the powers and capacities with which 
 we are all endowed, and which need 
 only to be called forth and developed. 
 
 A young man called recently and told 
 me of his past life. He had lacked the 
 advantages of an education in his early 
 youth and had gone to work while 
 quite a lad. In the course of the con- 
 versation, he said, " In these last few 
 years I have awakened, and come 
 to 4see why I have failed, why I don't 
 get along faster, why I am not more 
 successful in my daily work." And 
 then touching his head, he said, " The 
 trouble is here; it is with my mind. I 
 did not have the chance to study. I 
 am not educated. I do not know how 
 to use my mental powers; and as I 
 compare myself with other men I feel 
 the handicap of my mental limitations." 
 How often we experience the same 
 feeling as we come into the presence of 
 
 7 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 the trained mind, with all its faculties 
 at command, exhibiting in its work a 
 power and skill that calls forth our 
 greatest admiration. There is no more 
 laudable ambition in life, than the 
 ambition for personal power. Every 
 earnest person pauses now and then, 
 to ask the vital question: " How can 
 / become more powerful and effective; 
 how command supplies of available 
 energy adequate to my need ? " 
 
 I might bring you specific instances' 
 of the way in which different individuals 
 throughout the world have employed 
 the power of the sub-conscious mind 
 to develop themselves intellectually, 
 and thus made po^ible a more effec- 
 tive and successful life. Dr. Coste 
 de La Grange, a prominent French 
 physician, who has been working in 
 this field of investigation for years, 
 tells of the way in which he experi- 
 mented upon himself with auto-sug- 
 8 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 gestion. He was called upon frequently 
 to attend social functions. Such affairs 
 were to him as unattractive as they are 
 to most men. He was a ready enough 
 conversationalist in his office or with 
 men of his own profession, but else- 
 where he was a dismal failure. So he 
 tried the power of auto-suggestion, 
 and found, as he states in an address 
 before scientific men in Paris, that the 
 conversational powers which seemed to 
 be denied him in the social atmosphere, 
 were given him in an unusual degree, 
 and he attained a fluency and ease 
 that he had never deemed possible. 
 He had an ambition to write, but when 
 he attempted to put his thoughts on 
 paper, he found it impossible to write 
 more than a dozen lines, and even these 
 were far from satisfactory. Once again 
 he tried, suggesting to himself that he 
 should have an abundance of ideas and 
 that he should be able to express them 
 
 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 in an attractive form. To his surprise 
 after practising in this way, he found 
 he could Write for hours at a stretch 
 with the greatest ease. I might reinind 
 you of Voltaire, who tells us that more 
 than once when confronted by problems 
 in his literary or philosophical work, 
 which he found himself incapable of 
 solving, he had gone to sleep only to 
 awaken in the morning to find the 
 difficulty removed, or his problem 
 solved. 
 
 Coleridge tells us fiow again and 
 again, some of his most beautiful verses 
 came to him during the hours of sleep, 
 after he had striven laboriously in his 
 waking hours, but to no effect. All the 
 great writers bear witness to the same 
 experience. The mathematicians tell 
 us that in solving mathematical prob- 
 lems, that which could not be done in 
 the waking hours has often been accom- 
 plished while asleep. 
 
 10 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 But it is not my purpose to dwell 
 upon such specific cases, or describe 
 the way in which the sub-conscious 
 mind has operated to make mental 
 effort more successful. I desire rather, 
 to point out some of the general prin- 
 ciples, by conforming to which every 
 individual, no matter who he is or 
 where he stands, may be able to call 
 upon these inner forces for his own 
 larger mental development. Once 
 again, the first thing for us to realize, 
 is the fact of om* close relation to the 
 Infinite and Universal energy from 
 whence all power proceeds. We may 
 think of energy or force, as being 
 absolute and universal. It is the same 
 energy that manifests itself in all the 
 myriad forms of life; that expresses 
 itself in various and wonderful or- 
 ganisms; that is manifested in the life 
 of the trees, the flowers and the grass; 
 in the life of the animals, the birds, the 
 
 n 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 fishes, and the reptiles; that finally 
 reveals itself in man's complex being — 
 a being so wonderful, that as we study 
 him, we are fairly amazed at the ease 
 and power with which he is able to 
 direct this stream of energy that flows 
 through his being. 
 
 We are all naturally proud. We like 
 to think of ourselves as the originators 
 of power; we like to believe that we 
 create energy of various kinds. But 
 as a matter of fact, no man, strictly 
 speaking, creates energy. He is simply 
 a specialized transmitter of the Univer- 
 sal Energy, of God's powers. Let me 
 bring an illustration from the field of 
 electricity. No scientist can tell what 
 electricity is. Various definitions have 
 been attempted, but they all fall short 
 of the reality. If you were to talk with 
 the electrician , in his laboratory, you 
 might say, " It is marvelous how you 
 have been able to harness electricity 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 and make it serve your commands," 
 and he would reply, " You mistake 
 the facts entirely. Electricity does not 
 serve me. I am not the master of 
 electricity. I am its servant. Elec- 
 tricity is the master. All that I have 
 done or can do, is simply to observe the 
 phenomena, to study the laws, and then 
 to create certain conditions by means of 
 which it may please electricity to ex- 
 press itself. I construct this piece of 
 machinery, and then if it pleases, elec- 
 tricity may manifest itself and I obtain 
 the current in my machine. But I am 
 simply electricity's servant." In much 
 the same relation do we stand to the 
 Infinite Energy of the universe. We 
 do not originate or create any energy 
 whatsoever; we are but the servants, 
 the instruments which this energy uses ; 
 we are the channels through which this 
 energy is transmitted. We may, be- 
 cause of our individualized powers, our 
 
 IS 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 personalities, our own wills, turn it into 
 this or that channel; we may apply it 
 wisely or misdirect it foolishly, but thie 
 source of all energy is ever the same. 
 Infinite energy is in us and streams 
 through us, while we seek to give it 
 adequate expression through the various 
 functions of mind and body. Our chief 
 concern, then, should be to perfect the 
 mechanism, and keep the organism in 
 good working order, with soul, mind 
 and body so skillfully attuned, as 
 to provide a free channel for the 
 noblest expression of this Eternal 
 Energy. If we are to realize to the 
 full our inner resources of power, we 
 must learn to think more and more 
 continually of our intimate relation' to 
 the Infinite Energy. Realizing this, 
 no one is limited in any absolute sense, 
 and the possibility of " tapping new 
 levels of power," is always ours, for the 
 supply is inexhaustible. 
 
 14 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 We need also to recognize that each 
 of us is capable of the highest and best 
 in the range of mental activity. Think 
 for a moment, of the wonderful way in 
 which man is being revealed to himself 
 to-day. We talk about the new knowl- 
 edge of nature that has been disclosed 
 to us in the last century of scientific 
 investigation; but the newest of the 
 New Knowledge and by far the greatest, 
 is the New Knowledge of Man. And 
 this new land of Man is being explored 
 by the daring Columbuses of our own 
 time, as it never has been explored in 
 the past. Think of what man has 
 accomplished. When he first came into 
 existence upon this planet he found 
 only a wild, trackless, undeveloped 
 wilderness. All the arts and industries, 
 all tools and machinery, have been 
 developed by man. Every institution 
 that exists in the world to-day, — 
 educational, political, religious, — has 
 
 15 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 been thought out and then wrought out 
 by man. All sciences, all philosophies, 
 all literature — yea, the very language 
 which he speaks, are the result of man's 
 creative thought. Compare the life 
 as it is lived in a city like New York 
 with the life in the old Colonial days of 
 this country. Picture the private houses 
 and the public buildings, the multitude 
 of conveniences and comforts, the trans- 
 portation, lighting and heating facili- 
 ties, the telegraph and the telephone, — 
 the things which we are all using to-day 
 with scarcely a thought, and then 
 remember that they were all unknown 
 and undreamed of, one hundred years 
 ago. It is man who has wrought these 
 Wonders. As the old astronomer said, 
 when he turned his telescope towards 
 the starry heavens, " the greatest won- 
 der of all is the being at the small end 
 of the telescope, — the man who has 
 invented the telescope and brought 
 
 16 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 these unseen worlds into our range of 
 vision; who weighs them, explores 
 their substances and measures their 
 distances. 
 
 When we turn to man's achievements 
 in special fields of human activity, we 
 find in the realm of music such names 
 as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, 
 Liszt, Rubenstein and Paderewski; 
 in art, Phidias, Raphael, Angelo, Rem- 
 brandt, Corot and Millet; in inven- 
 tion, Watt, Morse, Stephenson, Fulton, 
 and Edison; in the realm of poetry. 
 Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, 
 Tennyson and Browning; in the realm 
 of discovery and exploration, Columbus, 
 Cook, Livingston and Peary ; in science, 
 Newton, Galileo,^ Copernicus, Hum- 
 boldt and Darwin; the renowned ora- 
 tors, Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, 
 Gladstone and our own Phillips. Think 
 of the deep wisdom of the prophets, 
 philosophers and seers, Plato, Isaiah, 
 
 17 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 Kant, Hegel and Emerson; of the 
 illustrious leaders of mankind, Moses, 
 Luther, Cromwell, Washington, Lin- 
 coln; yes, of the religious leaders and 
 saviours of the world, Buddha, Con- 
 fucius, Zoroaster, and, greatest of all, 
 because He leads them all, both by 
 what He was in Himself and by what 
 He taught, Jesus of Nazareth. How 
 sublime these lives, how glorious their 
 achievements! It ought to lift our 
 hearts to the highest pitch of enthusias- 
 tic gratitude, just to think what men 
 have accomplished in the world. 
 
 But what shall we think of the other 
 lives ? Are these we have mentioned, 
 these geniuses of humanity, composed 
 of exceptional clay? Do they belong 
 to an exclusive class that the rank and 
 file of men and women need never 
 expect to enter ? The old saying that 
 we generally use in a disparaging sense, 
 " Human nature is about the same the 
 
 18 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 world over," can be applied in a vastly 
 higher sense, " Human nature is the 
 same the world over." All men have 
 like faculties, like powers, differing 
 only in degree but not in kind. In 
 every soul there is the germ, the inborn 
 capacity, the latent ability, that might, 
 if opportunity and time were afforded, 
 unfold into the philosopher, the poet, 
 the artist or the musician. Every man 
 is, in embryo, a possible hero, or prophet, 
 or seer, or saint; all that is needed is 
 the opportimity and the time for de- 
 velopment. Human nature is the same. 
 What one man can do, or has done, 
 reveals an open door th^t all other men 
 may enter. Whatever any man pos- 
 sesses must be potential in all others. 
 This is the great significance of the Life 
 Beyond. We shall not be translated 
 through the experience of Death to 
 " seats of everlasting bliss," but we 
 shall enter spheres of existence, where 
 
 19 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 we must continue to unfold our latent 
 powers, continue our growth and de- 
 velopment, as perhaps we never had 
 opportunity in this world, or else were 
 too indifferent or ignorant to seize, 
 when it came. And that will be Heaven 
 for you and for me. Nothing less than 
 that could ever satisfy the awakened 
 ^oul of man. 
 
 When one begins to think of himself 
 in this way, as essentially one with 
 these greatest and noblest of earth; 
 when he begins to recognize that he is 
 himself capable of the highest and best 
 attainments, he is taking a long stride 
 towards the realization of power in 
 his own life. We need no one else to 
 tell us why we fail and come short of 
 the highest. We have not confidence 
 in our own selves, in our own ability 
 and powers. We belittle ourselves and 
 constantly underrate our abilities. If 
 we are given a task, at once we say, 
 no 
 
AWAKENESTG LATENT POWERS 
 
 " Well, I am afraid I can't do that." 
 We attempt to solve some problem, 
 with the thought at the very outset, 
 that perhaps we shall fail. We enter 
 some new employment, with the fear 
 or misgiving that we shall not be 
 able to give satisfiaction. We are 
 failing a dozen times every week, 
 because we have not enough faith in 
 our power to do the thing, and to do it 
 better than anybody else in God's 
 world. But with the new light gained, 
 We can no longer honestly tarry in the 
 atmosphere of disparagement and self- 
 belittling; we can no longer complain 
 because we have not been born as 
 others, or endowed with different 
 powers and faculties. 
 
 Read the lives of the great geniuses — 
 follow them from the cradle to the 
 glorious heights of success, and then 
 take to . your own heart the lesson. 
 Most of these great ones of earth have 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 come out of poverty, through hard- 
 ships, trials and privations ^of every 
 kind. The greatness they attained was 
 not won easily, or suddenly, but by 
 dint of hard, prodigious labours, through 
 the greatest sacrifices, by most persistent 
 efforts, centered in one direction. The 
 men and women whose names we 
 reverence in literature, carried their 
 manuscripts from publisher to pub- 
 lisher, only to meet rebuff or refusal. 
 Over and over again did they re-write 
 and re-polish their material; and only 
 at last, oftentimes not until after 
 their death in direst poverty, was their 
 greatness recognized. Greatness is al- 
 ways arrived at slowly, — through strug- 
 gle and toil, through pain and sacrifice, 
 in loneliness and grief. I am not so 
 sure but that the only genius is the 
 genius for hard and unremitting work. 
 Few of the geniuses were born with the 
 golden spoon in their mouths, or with 
 m 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 some great faculty already developed. 
 It is not the precocious child that turns 
 out the man of genius; usually, he is 
 forgotten, ere he emerges from his teens. 
 Thank God! that these great lives are 
 of the same mould as ours ; and 
 if they have attained heights and de- 
 veloped powers that we know nothing 
 about, it is not because the same powers 
 do not exist in us; it is rather because 
 they have worked as we have not, they 
 have come to understand themselves 
 and learned how to call forth their 
 powers, while we have only skimmed 
 life's surface; they have not been con- 
 tent with anything but the highest and 
 best, while we are satisfied with the 
 paltry mediocre. If we are going to 
 be saved mentally, — :■ for God is seek- 
 ing to save men mentally, as well as 
 morally and spiritually, — it will be 
 because we wilt to work out our own 
 salvation througji confidence in our- 
 
 S3 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 selves, because we believe in our power 
 and ability to achieve only the highest. 
 The next necessity, if we are to realize 
 an increase of power in our lives, is 
 that we shall do some clear, definite 
 and accurate thinking about ourselves. 
 The old Greek philosopher was right, 
 when he said that the most important 
 knowledge was the knowledge of one- 
 self, and yet it seems as if this is the 
 branch of knowledge in which we are 
 most deficient. We must know our- 
 selvesi if we are to grow along the 
 lines of power. We need to analyze 
 ourselves; to sit down and confront 
 ourselves as we might another individ- 
 ual. We must discover whether the 
 intellectual or the emotional or the vo- 
 litional temperament predominates in us. 
 We need to ask the question, " As I go 
 through life do I see things, or do I think 
 things ? " Most of us only see things, 
 and do little or no real thinking. John 
 
 9A 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 Ruskin says somewhere, that the reason 
 we all cannot sit down with pencil and 
 paper, and draw a horse, is because we 
 have never really thought a horse; 
 we have seen thousands of horses, but 
 the man who can draw a horse and put 
 the curves where they ought to be, and 
 make the picture look like the living 
 animal, is the man who not only sees, 
 but thinks the horse. 
 
 Ask the question, " Am I merely 
 looking with everybody else, or am I 
 perceiving clearly and definitely the 
 actual conditions, facts and experi- 
 ences in my every-day life ? " Discover 
 whether you are strong or weak in 
 translating your thoughts into action. 
 It may be that you belong to the class 
 of Amiel and Joubert, wonderfully 
 talented and cultivated men, and yet, 
 to the amazement of all their friends, 
 they never accomplished anything 
 Worthy their powers. As Saint Beuve 
 
 26 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 said of Joubert, he lived in the region 
 between " The Time-has-not-come-yet" 
 and '* The Time-has-passed." His 
 friends repeatedly asked him, " When 
 are you going to write the great book ? " 
 His reply invariably was, " The time 
 has not arrived yet." The years rolled 
 on and at last his pathetic answer to 
 their questionings was, " The time has 
 passed." Multitudes of men are in the 
 same tragic class. We have talents 
 enough and time enough and ability 
 enough, God knows, but we fail in the 
 actual doing. Find out whether your 
 mental life is simply expending itself 
 in the thin air of desires and plans and 
 hopes, while you dawdle and procrasti- 
 nate till at last you, too, will be obliged 
 to sadly say, " The time is passed. I 
 have lost the opportunity for accom- 
 plishing what I might have done." 
 Take an exact inventory of your attain- 
 ments, and thus come to know yourself. 
 
 26 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 Draw the line about your strong points 
 and underline your weak points. Find 
 out what your limitations are. Be glad of 
 the things that you can do and do well, 
 and then face honestly the things where 
 you fail, the work you bungle. When 
 you come to such clear knowledge of 
 yourself, you are in a position to begin 
 effective work in self-development and 
 in overcoming failings or weaknesses. 
 The first requirement is that one 
 should possess the maximum of mental 
 control, I have emphasized the need 
 of mental concentration in all of life, 
 if we would achieve results. It is 
 especially true in this realm of our 
 intellectual powers. We have taken the 
 burning glass and placed a piece of 
 paper on the table and let the sun's 
 rays fall directly upon it, with the result 
 that the paper is merely warmed ; then 
 by focusing the sun's rays on one defi- 
 nite spot, we can so concentrate them 
 
 27 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 that the intense heat burns a hole in 
 the paper. The power of concentra- 
 tion is as true of man's intellectual life 
 as it is of the sun's rays. Most of us 
 have never learned how to focus our 
 mental powers on one thing for any 
 length of time. If you were to walk 
 down the street, and ask the first thou- 
 sand people you met to concentrate 
 their minds to the exclusion of every- 
 thing else on some one idea for a single 
 minute, you would not find twenty- 
 five who could do it. That is why we 
 fail in the development of our latent 
 mental powers. We do not know how 
 to control our thoughts. The result is 
 that they gander here and there, like 
 the will-o'-the-wisp, darting first in one 
 direction and then in another. If you 
 are discussing with a friend some 
 religious or political- topic, by and by 
 you say, " Well, I don't know; it may 
 be that you are right," and there you 
 
 28 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 drop the conversation. This is where 
 most of us leave any serious train of 
 thought, — in the air. Did you ever 
 think what a confession of mental weak- 
 ness it is ? No man ought to stop short 
 of conclusions in his thinking. Think 
 the subject out to some end. It makes 
 no difference whether you arrive at 
 the conclusiong'of others, but, at any rate 
 reach some conclusions of your own. 
 What would become of the workman, 
 who began a piece of work, and in a 
 few moments took up something else, 
 and then something else, etc. ? His 
 services would not be required very 
 long. And yet in our mental life we 
 keep wandering from subject to sub- 
 ject, from jfield to field; and even after 
 we have analyzed ourselves, and see 
 clearly the strong and weak places in 
 our mental life, we lack the power to 
 concentrate on the things so sadly 
 needed. 
 
 39 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 There are three men in history, well 
 worth studying for their remarkable 
 powers of mental control. Napoleon 
 was one of the greatest men intellectu- 
 ally, of whom history speaks. His 
 biographers tell us that naturally he 
 was of a very sympathetic, humane and 
 generous natiire, and yet, if that be 
 true, there were many times when he 
 could absolutely exclude every such 
 thought, and become as cold and hard 
 as steel. He tells us himself that he used 
 to keep every subject in a separate 
 compartment of his mind, and he said, 
 " I never let them get mixed; when I 
 am working on one particular subject 
 I am working with the contents of that 
 particular compartment, and not of 
 any other." After he had prepared for 
 a campaign,- he could throw the matter 
 off his mind complietely. At Jena he 
 slept on the ground while the battle 
 was raging. At Austerlitz, after he had 
 
 30 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 made the final preparations for battle, 
 he lay down on the straw in a little 
 hut and fell asleep as peacefully as a 
 child. Therein lies the secret of the 
 greatness of Napoleon. Mr. Smalley, 
 one of the recent biographers of Glad- 
 stone, tells us that the mental char- 
 acteristic which lay at the foundation of 
 Gladstone's great career, was his ability 
 to exclude from his mind everythiug 
 but the subject immediately in hand. 
 Jacob Riis in his Story of President 
 Roosevelt states that in his judgment 
 the secret of Roosevelt's success or 
 greatness as a man lies in his power to 
 shut everything out of his mind except 
 the one thing he is considering. Mr. 
 Roosevelt himself tells us that he is 
 not a great man, that he is possessed 
 of no special intellectual ability, that 
 he has no exceptional knowledge. In 
 view of these statements, it would seem 
 that the secret of Mr. Roosevelt's 
 31 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 power to do things, to bring things to 
 pass while other men theorize and talk, 
 is found in his powers of mental control. 
 Amid the wild excitement, at the close 
 of the Convention which placed him 
 in the Vice-President's chair, Albert 
 Shaw says that Mr. Roosevelt sat in 
 an inner room quietly reading Thu- 
 eydides. 
 
 There is nothing in all the world that 
 would mean more to our lives mentally, 
 physically and morally than to per- 
 sistently practice, with all the strength 
 we possess, the power of control- 
 ling our minds, by excluding all 
 other things, and concentrating our 
 thoughts and desires upon those ele- 
 ments of strength which we wish to 
 attain. 
 
 This is the key to the whole problem of 
 mental development, — that we shall 
 learn how to live continually in the 
 presence of the thoughts or faculties 
 
 32 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 which we earnestly desire to see de- 
 veloped in ourselves. If a person 
 aspires to become an artist and is dead 
 in earnest, he seeks out the living 
 artists, and gets as close to them as he 
 can; he reads the biographies, and 
 studies the pictures of the great art- 
 ists of the past — in a word, he lives 
 in the realm of Art. If a man 
 wants to attain success in the com- 
 mercial world he observes the lives 
 of successful merchants; he touches 
 as many of these lives personally as 
 he can, studies their methods and 
 tries to discover the secret of their 
 power. He lives, in his thinking, in 
 the realm of business or commerce. If 
 a man desires to develop himself along 
 any line whatsoever, the secret of his 
 ultimate success will be found in this, 
 that he has the determination and per- 
 sistency to live constantly in the pres- 
 ence of his Supreme Ambition. When 
 
 33 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 the conscious mind can see clearly the 
 kind of power and mental force re- 
 quired, and impresses that idea upon 
 the sub-conscious, with the deepest 
 and strongest desire for its realization, 
 the impression thus made will call 
 forth, in time, the power and intelli- 
 gence required. 
 
 The law is this : " The sub-conscious 
 will respond with the exact quantity 
 and quality, that you were conscious 
 of, or that you mentally discerned, at 
 the time the impression was made." 
 It is, therefore, extremely important to 
 elevate the conscious mind into the 
 lai^est and most superior states of 
 thought and feeling possible, before 
 the effort is made to impress the sub- 
 conscious. Thus to live constantly in 
 the deep interior feeling of greater 
 power, greater intelligence, greater per- 
 sonal Worth and greater mental bril- 
 liancy, is to constantly call upon the 
 
 34 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 sub-conscious to produce these things 
 in ever larger measure. 
 
 We have gone far enough in human 
 development, and have explored suflB- 
 ciently in this " new country " of man, 
 to say without exaggeration, that the 
 possibilities for human development 
 here on this planet, not to speak of the 
 future, are practically limitless. Any 
 individual can be, in time, what he 
 earnestly desires to be, if he but set 
 his face steadfastly in the direction of 
 that one thing and bring all his powers 
 to bear upon its attainment. 
 
 The power of auto-suggestion in the 
 matter of solving special problems, or 
 making critical choices, in the desire to 
 obtain unusual brilliancy for some 
 special task, or in developing the 
 faculty of memory, has been demon- 
 strated again and again. There is 
 nothing so ordinary, so trivial in every- 
 day life concerning which you cannot 
 
 35 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 or should not Call upon your inner 
 powers for help. Above all things let 
 us remember that whatever special 
 end we may have in view, our daily, 
 yes, hourly motto must be, to aim 
 higher. As we fall asleep each night 
 let it be in the thought, " It matters 
 not how well or how poorly I did my 
 work to-day, I will be more successful, 
 I am going to do more effective work 
 to-morrow." Let your thoughts of 
 power always lead your actual expres- 
 sion of power. Never allow yourself 
 to be satisfied with what you are doing. 
 The complete salvation which God 
 has planned for every man is a salvation 
 of his all-around nature. God is seek- 
 ing to save man physically and men- 
 tally, as well as morally and spiritually, 
 by teaching him that it is God who 
 works in, as man works out. Every 
 vision of truth we catch, every particle 
 of power we gain, all the light that 
 
 36 
 
AWAKENING LATENT POWERS 
 
 shines on our pathway, is to be em- 
 ployed by us in attaining this perfect 
 symmetry of life and character. Let 
 us ever remember, that into the Life 
 Beyond we must carry ourselves, noth- 
 ing else but ourselves. The external 
 gains we make here, of wealth and 
 position and fame, must all be left 
 behind when we pass the portals of 
 Death. Shall we carry a Self just 
 emerging from its infancy, mentally, 
 morally and spiritually, or shall we go 
 ' into that clearer light of the Eternal 
 Day having developed to the full the 
 powers resident within us, there to con- 
 tinue our growth and development, 
 forever and ever? Let us be so in 
 earnest with ourselves, let us realize 
 so clearly that " all things are ours," 
 because we are God's, eternally His, 
 that every step we take shall be a step 
 forward into ever-increasing power, 
 " till the clouds break and the shadows 
 forever flee away." 
 
 87 
 
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
THE 
 ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 jHE words of Jesus, "If any 
 man will do His will, he shall 
 know of the teaching," might 
 be translated so as to read, 
 " Whoever really and earnestly chooses 
 to do right and perseveres in that atti- 
 tude, shall learn how." The problem 
 of problems in moral development is 
 this problem of the how. All of us 
 are familiar with the ideals of moral 
 character, but how to realize these 
 lofty ideals in ourselves and in Society 
 is the supreme question. The inner 
 life of every individual presents a 
 battle ground for opposing forces. No 
 41 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 one of us is either wholly good cv 
 wholly bad. We are all sometimes 
 good, and sometimes bad. We know 
 that we are possessed of impulses 
 good, and impulses evil, of tendencies 
 upward and tendencies downward. 
 There are times when we carry our- 
 selves with a pride and arrogance that 
 is an offence and injury to our friends; 
 there are other times when we live the 
 quiet, humble and unobtrusive life. 
 We are sometimes selfish and at other 
 times unselfish. There are days when 
 we are able to live serenely in the higher 
 reaches of our nature, when our think- 
 ing and our actions find beautiful 
 expression on the high plane of the 
 Spirit; and then there are other days 
 when we seem to drop to lower planes 
 where thoughts, words and deeds are 
 unworthy our manhood and woman- 
 hood. How often we say in wonder and 
 sad regret, with the Apostle Paul, 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHABACTER 
 
 " The good that I would do, I do not; 
 but the evil which I would not, that I 
 do." This experience, common to every 
 life, only reveals the fact that here on 
 this earthly plane we are souls in-the- 
 making; our characters are not yet 
 fuUy formed; we are in the process of 
 character-building. No one has yet 
 realized all the wondrous possibilities 
 of human character, save Him we call 
 Perfect. We are all making more or 
 less rapid progress toward the shining 
 heights beyond. 
 
 Doubtless all my readers regard 
 themselves as moral characters, and as 
 such they are regarded by their friends. 
 In a general sense this is true — we 
 are moral men and women. And yet 
 in the strict and absolute sense, is it 
 true of any one of us? Besides the 
 actual moral convictions we possess, 
 there are a thousand ties that bind us 
 to right conduct, — the reputation we 
 
 4S 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 bear among men and upon which we 
 pride ourselves, the ties of home and 
 family, our personal pride, the ideals 
 and sentiments of the community in 
 which we Uve, the fear lest we lose our 
 self-respect, or even the baser fear 
 lest shame and disgrace may come 
 upon us. All these and inany other 
 considerations are tremendous influ- 
 ences in the life of every individual, in 
 preventing wrong actions. 
 
 But the truly moral man, in the 
 absolute sense, is the man who at all 
 times and under all circumstances in- 
 variably does the right. Can you say 
 that this definition is true of your life ? 
 It is a question that only you yourself 
 can answer. Try to imagine yourself 
 with all restrictions removed, what 
 would you do then, what kind of a 
 life would yours be under such cir- 
 cumstances? Were there not a repu- 
 tation to sustain, were there no ties of 
 
 44 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 home and friends to bind me, were 
 there no fear of detection and conse- 
 quent disgrace, — were all these re- 
 strictions swept away, how would I 
 act, what would my conduct be ? This 
 is the supreme test of moral character. 
 To put the question in another form, 
 think of yourself in some foreign land 
 or strange community where not a 
 soul knows you, where nobody about 
 whom you care can see or hear, — 
 under these conditions what would 
 you do and what would you be ? Per- 
 haps no one of us can answer such a 
 hypothetical question with any degree 
 of certainty. Our reputation is what 
 men think us to be, our character is 
 what God knows us to be, and un- 
 fortunately these do not often agree. 
 We only know that we are to-day 
 what we actually are, not always what 
 men think we are. This is why a 
 man's reputation in the outside world 
 45 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 is sometimes very diflEerent from the 
 opinion held of him in his own 
 home, or by his intimate friends. 
 Heredity, environment, and the use 
 that we have made of all the influences 
 proceeding from these two sources, 
 have brought us to our present stage of 
 moral development, but we are still in 
 the process of character-building. We 
 have not attained as yet. Under certain 
 conditions and facing other circum- 
 stances we might do very differently 
 from what we now do. There cannot 
 be the slightest question if these are the 
 facts about human life, that the main 
 business of every man and woman is 
 to go on steadily, persistently and ear- 
 nestly towards the perfection of moral 
 character, the completion of the work 
 that is now in progress in every human 
 life. In this inner struggle, where 
 opposing forces are constantly contend- 
 ing, no one can doubt that our supreme 
 
 46 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 duty is daily and hourly to fight the 
 battle with all forms of moral weak- 
 ness, never yielding to the tendencies 
 which are downward and degrading, 
 but always and only to those influences 
 which are upward and ennobling. 
 
 As a matter of fact, is it not true 
 that since the restraining hand of 
 parent or teacher has been removed, 
 we have remained in our moral lives 
 pretty much what we were at that 
 time ? Parents and teachers play a 
 tremendous part in shaping moral char- 
 acter, fashioning moral ideals, and de- 
 veloping right habits within us. But 
 after youth has passed, after we leave 
 home and schoolroom, and begin to 
 live our own lives as men and women 
 in the world, frankly, — have we made 
 much real progress in moral character 
 since then? Character, we are told, 
 is practically fixed for most people 
 when they reach the age of 25. How 
 
 47 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHABACTER 
 
 many of us are rigorously and system- 
 atically taking ourselves in hand every 
 day in this matter of overcoming moral 
 imperfections and weaknesses? We 
 excuse and attempt to justify ourselves 
 on various pretexts. We say, " It is 
 my temperament," or " It was char- 
 acteristic of my parents," or else, " I 
 am what I am; " and so we go on 
 spending our time in the search for 
 wealth or happiness, discharging more 
 or less faithfully the duties of daily life, 
 and yet, how little real, earnest and 
 intelligent effort do we give each day to 
 the eradication of these moral weak- 
 nesses, to _the completion within our- 
 selves of the truly moral character! 
 
 We may divide wrongdoing in man's 
 moral life into two general classes, (1) 
 sins and (2) faults. This may seem to 
 some a distinction without a difference, 
 and yet by common agreement we seem 
 to be justified in making such a dis- 
 
 48 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 tinction. Moral weakness, then, may- 
 consist in actual sin, or serious fault; 
 and yet whether it be a sin or fault, it 
 is a moral weakness; and as such it 
 should be recognized and banished from 
 life for ever. Upon that we must stand 
 agreed. We all know what is meant 
 by sin. There are the grosser sins 
 of the appetites and of the passions; 
 there are the heiaous sins which Society 
 recognizes as such, against which its 
 laws are directed, to the infringe- 
 ment of which various penalties are 
 attached; there are the sins of pride, 
 which go beyond mere human faults, 
 in the harm wrought; there are the 
 many sins of selfishness, such as avarice, 
 greed, jealousy, envy, hate, cruelty, 
 etc., which the laws of Society do not 
 reach, but which are none the less sins. 
 Such are the more flagrant sins, the 
 more heinous wrongs, the more deadly 
 weaknesses in hmnan life, and we are 
 
 49 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 familiar with them all. They confront 
 us constantly in the colvmins of the 
 daily papers, in the lives of those about 
 us, oftentimes even in our own lives. 
 They are the black sins, if you will, 
 that bring greatest suffering and dep- 
 rivation into human hearts and homes. 
 Yet while we assume that we are not 
 guilty of any of these sins, there may 
 be a tendency in our lives — God only 
 knows — leading in any one of these 
 various directions, a tendency of which 
 we may be conscious, which must 
 needs be overcome before character is 
 attained. All the criminals are not 
 behind the bars. There are multi- 
 tudes of men and women in the world, 
 whom Society does not regard as crimi- 
 nals, whose sins have never been 
 detected by the eye of the law, who 
 imagine that they have safely covered 
 their tracks and hidden deep away the 
 sins which have been and are still 
 
 50 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 being committed. But whether they 
 are detected by Society, whether their 
 friends ever come to see them in their 
 true light or not, the influence on 
 character is just as deadly, -— often 
 far more so, — for the undetected crimi- 
 nal, as for the one in prison cell. 
 
 It is, however, to this second class 
 of moral weaknesses that I want to 
 especially direct your thought, because 
 here is where we are most apt to be 
 blind and indifferent, — the faults of 
 life, the infinitesimal wrongs, the petty 
 sins, the temperamental weaknesses, 
 the personal foibles and failings of 
 men, the ten thousand different im- 
 perfections with which the daily life 
 of every one abounds. They are not 
 so flagrant that we can call them actual 
 sins, but they are harmful; they are 
 working m.ischief in ourselves and others 
 continually; they are keeping us back 
 from the highest attainments; and yet 
 
 SI 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 we have grown so used to their presence 
 in our lives that we scarcely give them 
 a serious thought. 
 
 These faults with which human lives 
 abound are associated with every part 
 of man's life. There are faults of the 
 tongue, of the hand, of the reason, of 
 the conscience, of the affections, of the 
 sentiments, — there is no part of man's 
 complex nature that is free from these 
 failings. Sometimes they are due to 
 a lack of activity, and sometimes to an 
 excess of energy. The fault exists be- 
 cause there is too much or too little of 
 what, in proper proportions, is not bad 
 in itself. 
 
 I would it were possible for us to see 
 the danger, the mischief and the harm 
 of these minor moral defects, if allowed 
 to continue unchecked in our lives, and 
 first, because these faults are the step- 
 ping stones to actual sins. They go 
 before, they prepare the way, they tend 
 Bi 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 to dull the moral sensibilities, and blur 
 the moral vision; so that at last we 
 find om-selves no longer able to dis- 
 criminate clearly between right and 
 wrong, to draw the line sharply between 
 the high or the low ideal. Carelessness 
 in speech may not be sin at first, but 
 let it be continued, and by degrees it 
 almost inevitably leads to falsehood. 
 The habit of exaggeration in conversa- 
 tion seems trivial, and yet, if unwatched, 
 creates the mental confusion where one 
 does not know whether he is telling 
 the actual truth or not. It may be 
 imintentional, for I am not speaking of 
 conscious dishonesty which is always 
 sin, but unconsciously these little faults 
 of carelessness and exaggeration in 
 speech lead to falsehood and misrepre- 
 sentation that work actual injury to 
 the lives of others. There is a wide 
 margin, I grant you, between honesty 
 and dishonesty, where it is difficult to 
 
 OS 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 draw the line and say just when one 
 becomes actually dishonest. There is 
 carelessness and irregularity and often- 
 times a low sense of honour, yet we do 
 not feel like callii^ these things dis- 
 honest in themselves. I have heard a 
 business man, speaking of an associate, 
 use language like this: " I do not like 
 to say he is dishonest. I do not think 
 that he means to be dishonest, but his 
 sense of honour permits him to do things 
 that I could never do;" and yet, this 
 low sense of honour, this carelessness 
 and irregularity which may not be 
 intentional dishonesty, inevitably tends 
 towards the dishonest act and becomes 
 at last the veritable sin. These faults 
 which seem so trivial, which we often- 
 times regard of not suflBcient importance 
 to grapple with and put out of our 
 lives, are the stepping stones to serious 
 things, to graver faults, to more heinous 
 wrongs, to actual sin itself. They are 
 
 54 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 the influences which undermine char- 
 acter, weakening its structure at the 
 very basis of manhood and woman- 
 hood. 
 
 Another reason why these faults work 
 such havoc in moral life, is because of 
 their cumidative tendency.^ If we could 
 separate the little faults committed 
 to-day from the same faults committed 
 to-morrow, and so on through the 
 week, and keep them separate, perhaps 
 no great harm would be done; but as 
 the fault is repeated over and over, it 
 seems to grow in its intensity and 
 cvmiulative power. To illustrate, a 
 little sharpness in the voice now and 
 then may not be altogether an un- 
 pleasant thing. It may furnish some 
 of the spice of life, as we say. We tire of 
 people erf the " patient Griselda " type, 
 so passive that they scarcely speak 
 above a whisper, who never dare call 
 their souls their own. There are 
 
 55 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 occasions when we like to see the spirit 
 flash out, the temper of a man assert 
 itself, as in the case of standing up for 
 one's rights. But add to that manifes- 
 tation of temper a little more temper, 
 and then a little more, and then still 
 a little more, and by and by you have 
 the shrew, the scold, the nagging wife 
 or husband, who poisons the atmos- 
 phere and makes life miserable for all 
 around.^ Such faults multiply them- 
 selves, they gain in intensity and power 
 as they go on unwatched and un- 
 checked, and by and by the thing which 
 at the outset was trivial, becomes a 
 serious fault, a grave flaw, a great 
 weakness in one's moral life. These 
 faults are also harmful and mischievous 
 in the extreme, because they silently 
 propagate themselves and work injury 
 in directions that were never dreamed 
 of. There is the pinhole of rust in 
 the roof. You do not call a painter, 
 
 56 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 it seems so slight a thing; it only lets 
 a small drop of water through, and that 
 very slowly; surely not much harm 
 will be done before spring. But leaks 
 go on working day and night, and the 
 dampness finds its way into the attic, 
 and by and by through the wall, into 
 the next story, behind the bookcases; 
 and still down to the lower story where 
 the costly pictures and engravings hang; 
 the servants come down-stairs sneezing, 
 the children are coughing, the books are 
 mildewed, the pictures dam.aged, and 
 at last the little leak in the roof, if 
 neglected, becomes a potent force to 
 work harm and injury, not only to the 
 house itself but to all its inmates. The 
 power of even the smallest fault, allowed 
 to go on unchecked in human life, 
 works its injury through a thousand 
 different avenues and carries its mis- 
 chief in directions of which we may 
 have never dreamed. 
 
 57 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 But perhaps the greatest injury 
 Wrought by these faults of moral life 
 lies in the fact that they destroy inevv- 
 iably the beauty, symmetry and nobility 
 of character. There is something in the 
 very word character that implies har- 
 monious combination, fineness and the 
 proper sense of proportion. There is 
 no nobler word in the English language. 
 Character means symmetry; it means 
 all-around nobility; it means well- 
 balanced proportion of all faculties 
 and virtues. When we speak of one 
 as being " a strong character," this is 
 essentially what we have in mind — 
 a well-balanced, a symmetrical, a beau- 
 tifully proportioned man or woman. 
 Now the little fault overlays the beauty, 
 mars the symmetry, or destroys the 
 beautiful proportion of virtues inhuman 
 life. There are different ways of 
 destroying the beauty of a picture. 
 You can cut and slash it from its 
 
 58 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 frame, or, as in times of war, the 
 cannon ball may come crashing through 
 the wall and destroy it at once, where it 
 hangs. Or some masterpiece of art 
 may hang neglected in a convent 
 kitchen, where the steam from the 
 range, and the smoke from the chimney, 
 and the dust of ages gather upon it; 
 these incrustations of time may wrap 
 themselves about it, and by and by 
 the beauty of the picture has vanished 
 as effectually as if it had been dragged 
 from its frame and burned in the fire. 
 This is what these faults, these moral 
 weaknesses and f ailiiSgs and defects do 
 for human character. They mar, they 
 overlay, they become like unsightly 
 incrustations that wrap themselves 
 about us; and so inevitably, as time 
 goes on, instead of being the noble 
 man and the beautiful woman we might 
 have been, the beauty or symmetry of 
 our characters has Well-nigh vanished. 
 
 59 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 We all love precious stones, but no one 
 wants to own an imperfect jewel. The 
 dealer in precious stones says, " This 
 Would be a very valuable diamond, but 
 you see that flaw — it is not worth a 
 quarter of its seeming value." And 
 no man wants a diamond with a flaw. 
 Or he says, " Your emerald is large 
 and beautiful, but it is feathered;" 
 and when you hear that about the stone, 
 how it instantly sinks in your estima- 
 tion. Or your opal may give forth 
 beautiful reflections, but it is imperfect 
 because there is a scratch across its 
 face, and you lose all pride in wearing 
 it. It is just the same with character. 
 These faults destroy the beauty and 
 the perfection of life, that God waits to 
 reveal in every one of us; and by 
 indulging such faults we limit our- 
 selves and diminish our influence for 
 good. How many there are all about 
 us, in whom we see splendid qualities 
 
 60 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 and noble virtues — yes, but side by 
 side with these excellencies are grave 
 faults, great weakness^, many failing. 
 There is no tree in all nature so gor- 
 geous as the red maple, whether in its 
 spring blossoming or autumn colouring. 
 But it usually grows in a swamp, and 
 to reach it you have to pick your way 
 carefully from bog to bog, generally 
 soiling your clothes and wetting your 
 feet, and you come back from the 
 expedition wondering why in the world 
 red maples have to grow in swamps. 
 So there is many a life, beautiful to 
 look upon from a distance, noble in 
 its virtues, strong in many qualities, — 
 but it is surrounded by a swamp of 
 faults; and the life which might be 
 the source of inspiration and strength 
 has limited itself, has diminished its 
 powers, has weakened tremendously 
 its influence. 
 
 Oh! that we might see how these 
 
 61 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 faults which we are content to tolerate 
 in ourselves, which we go on indulging 
 day after day, which we justify or con- 
 done on the flimsiest pretext, are really 
 moral weaknesses and defects, things 
 that mar our lives and keep us from 
 the highest attainments, and may, if 
 unchecked, undermine and destroy char- 
 acter ! 
 
 What is the true method of over- 
 coming these moral defects? Here is 
 where the new Psychology comes in 
 to throw tremendous light on this 
 problem of the How. As religious 
 teachers we have been altogether too 
 prone to spend our time in dealing 
 with abstract questions of theology, 
 or else we have been content to hold 
 up the ideal of the perfect life, — all 
 of which is right and necessary; but 
 where we have failed has been in our 
 answers to the question, " How can I 
 attain the perfection of life and char- 
 es 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 acter revealed in Jesus Christ ? " Per- 
 haps we have not known just how our- 
 selves, and we ought to be profoundly 
 grateful to God that through the in- 
 vestigations of the newer psychologists 
 we have received so large a measure of 
 light on this great problem of how the 
 moral life within us is to be developed 
 towards the highest and divinest ideals. 
 
 According to Psychology, there is a 
 physical basis for every virtue and for 
 every vice. Back in the brain there is 
 the centre from which proceed all 
 manifestations and expressions, both 
 of good or evil. Prof. De Mott, in his 
 famous lecture on " The Building of 
 Character," uses these significant 
 words : 
 
 " The physical basis of a vicious life 
 is a net-work of trunk lines in which 
 the incarrying waves of stimulation 
 waken in the soul a host of accustomed 
 «»ctivities, sijch as vile memories, allur- 
 es 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 ing imaginations, craving appetites and 
 their like, having well-worn routes 
 through the out-carrying nerves to 
 whatever lines of conduct have been 
 followed in their development. The 
 physical basis of a virtuous life is a 
 network of trunk lines where the in- 
 coming waves of stimulatidn on reach- 
 ing the cerebral hemispheres of the 
 brain find their well- Worn tracks, with 
 switches already set, leading to the God- 
 giVen higher possessions of the soul — 
 holy memories, pure imaginations, con- 
 centrated ambitions, righteous judg- 
 ments and a will, whose nerve connec- 
 tions with these higher faculties is so 
 perfect that at once the commands for 
 right conduct are flashed forth through 
 the out-going nerve tracks, and instantly 
 obeyed. Here we stand face to face 
 with a tremendous fact. Every volun- 
 tary act, whether good or evil, beats 
 its own path a little smoother, so to 
 64 
 
ACHJEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 speak, for anotlier of like character. 
 Every day we live, deciding against 
 the right, we are voluntarily strength- 
 ening with our own blood the meshes 
 of our physical orgajaism which at last 
 bind us body and soul, wretched slaves 
 to passioiis and appetites of our own 
 nurturing." 
 
 Here is the statement for the physical 
 basis of the moral life, or its opposite, 
 from a scientific authority . Every noble 
 and every ignoble act may be traced 
 back to its own brain centre. The law 
 of bram building is exactly the same in 
 this respect, as the law of muscle 
 building. Every time we exercise the 
 physical muscles we are strengthening 
 them and their power to accomplish 
 results. Every time we excite or exer- 
 cise a feeling or sentiment or train of 
 thought, whether it is high or low, we 
 are strengtheuing the brain centre, 
 whence that feeling or sentiment or 
 65 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 activity proceeds. Every time we live 
 in the realm of pure thoughts, we are 
 strengthening by the law of suggestion 
 the brain centre from which pure action 
 proceeds. Every moment we spend in 
 the atmosphere of impure thinking we 
 are strengthening the brain centre from 
 which all impure action proceeds. This 
 is the physical basis for all our thinking 
 and for all our actions. But, and this 
 is the vital thing to remember, by our 
 thinking, we can diminish the activity 
 of certain brain centres, and immeas- 
 urably increase the activity of others, 
 through the potency of suggestion. 
 
 We have been taught that it is 
 possible for a person who has pursued 
 a certain course of life for a long period 
 of time to be suddenly transformed, 
 and from thenceforth live absolutely 
 and wholly the opposite kind of life; 
 and yet this idea belongs more to fiction 
 than to fact, more to religious teaching 
 
 66 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 than to religious experience. Character 
 is a thing of slow growth, as are most 
 things of great worth. There is no 
 question that a man who has lived a 
 vicious or criminal life, may, by sound 
 conversion, be transformed so that his 
 face is set in an entirely new direction, 
 so that he henceforth espouses a new 
 set of ideals and purposes, so that he 
 " becomes a new creature; " and yet 
 the becoming a new creature is a slow 
 j»ocess. John B. Gough, the drunkard, 
 was saved wonderfully by divine power, 
 and yet Mr. Gough tells us himself 
 that ahnost to the day of his death he 
 fought a constant battle with his appe- 
 tite for drink. The actions which have 
 worn their paths in the gray matter of 
 the brain tend to repeat themselves, 
 until the power of their particular 
 brain centres is weakened or dimin- 
 ished; and in some cases, as in Mr. 
 Gough's, seemingly, that power is never 
 
 67 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 eniirefy overcome in this life. Such is 
 the awful power of habit. Gen. Joe 
 Wheeler at the Battle of Santiago, as 
 the Spaniards were fleeing, called out, 
 "Forward, men, the Yankees are run- 
 ning ! " In the excitement of the hour he 
 had been carried back to the scenes of 
 the early days of '60, when he was 
 fighting on the Confederate side, and 
 the old brain centre, established a 
 generation before, became once again 
 active. It is the same in the moral life. 
 Sudden conversions, where th^ are 
 genume, mean that the new life has 
 been begun, but only begun; and the 
 transformation of character is a life- 
 long process. That is why we find so 
 often that men and women who have 
 prc^essed conversion, more or less 
 quickly drop back into their old habits 
 of life. It is because they are not per- 
 sistent and patient enough in forming 
 the new brain centres from whence 
 
 68 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 must be permanently expressed the new 
 life, that may in very truth be born in 
 them, and yet which is soon stifled by 
 the power of these habits of the past. 
 We ought to have all charity for such 
 men and women. We must " forgive 
 seventy times seven," and more if 
 need be, as we think of the shackles and 
 chains which these habits of years' 
 standing have fastened upon their 
 lives. 
 
 The great educational reformers and 
 oiu" leading criminologists are coming 
 to see and understand these principles 
 as they never did in the past, before 
 the newer Psychology threw its light 
 on the way in which moral character 
 grows and habits are formed. The prin- 
 ciple in moral development is exactly 
 the same as in mental development. 
 We must recognize that it is for us to 
 furnish the mental suggestions of those 
 virtues or traits of character, which we 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 are desirous of realizing in our lives. 
 Right thinking, right desires, right re- 
 solves patiently and faithfully persisted 
 in, must inevitably strengthen the brain 
 centres whence all right action proceeds ; 
 and at the same time, simply by being 
 let alone, the brain centres producing 
 wrong actions will gradually diminish 
 in strength. 
 
 The three rules apply here as else- 
 where. The first thing necessary is a 
 clear conception of what you want to 
 accomplish in your life. Do not be 
 afraid to face frankly your weaknesses 
 just as they exist. Be honest with 
 yourself and with God, whether you are 
 with yom- fellow man or not. And when 
 you have faced fearlessly your own 
 faults and weaknesses, get clearly in 
 mind the image of the opposite of the 
 things you have found to be hurtful 
 in your life. If it is a tendency to hasty 
 speech, hold the ideal of self-control 
 7q 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 and kindness in speech, and think that 
 ideal intensely until it lodges itself 
 deep in your sub-conscious self. If it 
 is a tendency towards insincerity or 
 exaggeration, or perhaps dishonesty in 
 some of its many forms, then hold the 
 opposite ideal. Say to yourself, " I 
 -realize the need of speaking the truth 
 always and everywhere; I will be 
 strictly accurate in my speech; I will 
 not exaggerate, I will be absolutely 
 honest with myself and others." Day 
 by day keep that ideal enshrined in 
 your mental life. If it be the tendency 
 to any of the grosser sins of the passions 
 or appetites, let the method be exactly 
 the same. Say to yourself, " I will 
 conquer, and the appetite or passion 
 that may be strong within can never 
 control me, for I am the master of my 
 fate." Carry that thought with you 
 day and night. Then by a 'series of 
 suggestions adapted to the desired end, 
 
 71 
 
ACmEVEMENT OP CHARACTER 
 
 by the regular and persistent following 
 up of these suggestions, not all at once, 
 but gradually — you will establish the 
 new brain centres out of which these 
 noble activities proceed. And as youp 
 fcought and attention is turned from 
 the old habits and practices, the brain 
 centres that started those activities 
 gradually diminish in strength and 
 power. This is inexorable law. This 
 is true psychology. This is based upon 
 scientific as well as religious experi- 
 ence. The hardest part comes at the 
 beginning, when we are first trying to 
 break old habits and form new ones, 
 but faithfulness and patience will win 
 the day. There is no virtue that 
 cannot be established. There is no 
 vice or weakness that cannot be eradi- 
 cated through this method. What 
 has been accomplished in multitudes 
 of lives can be accomplished in our- 
 selves, if we will. It all depends upon 
 
 72 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 how dead in earnest we are in this 
 matter of building the moral character, 
 of living the truly moral life that at 
 all times and under all circumstances 
 invariably does the right. 
 
 It may be that some will ask, " Are 
 you not leaving God out of it ? " By 
 no means. These laws of psychology 
 are God's laws. The power that we 
 use when we employ any of these 
 powers of mind, is God's power. God 
 is not a Being who dwells afar, whom I 
 must beseech and with whom I must 
 plead, in order to have Him grant my 
 cry for help. The God in whom we 
 believe and in whom Jesus trusted, is 
 " the God in whom I live and move 
 and have my being." All these law's 
 of nature and of psychology are truly 
 His laws, and the power that you and 
 I use as we conform to these laws, is 
 all God-given power; and so once 
 again we discover that it is God working 
 
 7fc 
 
ACHIEVEMENT OF CHARACTER 
 
 in us, as we work out, in obedience 
 to His great laws. 
 
 Only let us remember that we are 
 not in this earthly life, primarily to gain 
 riches; we are not here first of all to 
 be happy; we are not here to seek 
 pleasure only; we are not here to attain 
 the applause of the world; if we can 
 get these things legitimately, let us get 
 them by all means, but let us never 
 forget that they are always the inci- 
 dentals of our life here, never the end 
 of life. The great end and purpose of 
 our being here at all, is that we shall 
 grow a soul, that we shall build a 
 character, that we shall fashion, under 
 God, the manhood and womanhood 
 that shall outlast all influences of Time. 
 
 7* 
 
THE CONQUEST OF FEAR 
 AND WORRY 
 
THE CONQUEST OF FEAR 
 AND WORRY 
 
 ?NE of the most practical re- 
 sults of the Newer Thinking, 
 has been to point out the in- 
 jurious effect of all Fear and 
 its kindred thoughts ; and also to prove 
 the possibility of overcoming sncb. dis- 
 cordant mental states. We all come into 
 life bringing with us a heritage of fears. 
 According to the biologists, fear is 
 one of the primary forms of the emo- 
 tional life, and is awakened along with 
 the element of surprise. Fear is prac- 
 tically universal in the anunal realm, 
 where apparently there are no forms 
 so low as not to exhibit at times this 
 8 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAB AND WORRY 
 
 instinctive tendency. Darwin says that 
 even the earthworm will become fright- 
 ened and turn and dart into its hole, 
 when alarmed, as readily as the rabbit. 
 Fear exists thus universally among 
 animals because of the working of the 
 law of natural selection, which pre- 
 scribes that any organism may survive 
 in just the degree that it adjusts itself to 
 its environment. Without the element 
 of fear no animal organism would be 
 able to long survive a hostile environ- 
 ment. But while fear seems to be a 
 device of Nature for the protection 
 of the animal organism, this is only 
 half the story, for even among the 
 lower animals fear creates tremendous 
 disadvantages. There are many times 
 when the animal falls short of accom- 
 plishing its purpose and fails to survive 
 solely because of its fear. Still, we 
 are bound to admit that within certain 
 limits, in the lower animal realm, the 
 
 4 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 element of fear has played and does 
 play an eminently useful part. 
 
 In the hmnan family from the time 
 of birth, the child exhibits this same 
 instinctive fear. It is what Mosso 
 calls " hereditary fear." Every mother 
 knows the instinctive • fear of falling, 
 shown by the babe on her knee. " The 
 fear of children for dogs and cats, 
 before they have learned why they are 
 to be feared, is a consequence of hered- 
 ity," the inheritance, according to 
 Mosso, of man's sub-hviman ancestry. 
 We are all born to an heritage of fears, 
 many of which we outgrow, while by 
 others we are held in life-long bondage. 
 
 President Stanley Hall in his " Study 
 of Fears" remarks: "There is no 
 one without fear, and the psychologists 
 who calculate the percentage of fearless 
 people are thinking of shock or panic 
 or acute fright, but not of the subtler 
 forms, like fear of God, of dishonour, 
 5 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 or failure of their highest purpose. Not 
 only does every one fear, but all should 
 fear." And yet I submit that " fear 
 of God, dishonour, etc.," as President 
 Hall uses the word, is something vastly 
 different from what we ordinarily mean 
 by fear, and because of the confusion 
 in thought should not be used in such 
 connections. It is always " Ignorance 
 that is the mother of fear," and the 
 education of the child consists in freeii^ 
 it from its fears, at every stage of its 
 progress. " Ye shall know the truth," 
 said Jesus, " and the truth shall make 
 you free." Every advance into knowl- 
 edge but narrows the field in which 
 fear operates. This has been the his- 
 tory of the race, as it is of the individual. 
 Freedom from fear does not neces- 
 sarily mean blind recklessness. It may 
 be the ripe result of that wisdom which, 
 while reverent and cautious., has never- 
 theless banished all fear thoughts for 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR ANB WORRY 
 
 ever. It is to this ultimate goal that 
 humanity is surely tendjing in its higher 
 development. The man who does 
 right simpfy because he is afraid to do 
 wrong is still in his moral childhood; 
 while the man who is " religious " 
 because he fears God, is still in the 
 Kindergarten of religious experience. 
 It is self-evident that God intends us, 
 as spiritual beings, to gradually over- 
 come and forever conquer this heritage 
 from the past, this vestige of our animal- 
 hood, just as we have overcome so many 
 other inherited tendencies. The spirit- 
 ual man must outgrow his animal na- 
 ture, and fear, as we use the word, in 
 any of its many forms, belongs to the 
 ignorance of the past. When we know 
 the truth, we no longer fear, and where 
 we do not yet know, we have learned 
 to trust and not be afraid. The process 
 of our inner development into the 
 divine coaseiousness, in other words, 
 
 7 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 our salvation, means nothing less than 
 the slow but sure conquering of all 
 fear. 
 
 There has been no slave holder in 
 all the world so tyrannical as fear; 
 monarch and peasant, learned and 
 unlearned, old and young, have all, 
 to a greater or less degree, yielded obedi- 
 ence temporarily to this most harsh 
 of all cruel taskmasters. Fear has 
 darkened the sky, has warped the 
 mind, has weakened the will, has 
 poisoned the heart, has blinded the 
 eyes to the real God, has destroyed 
 happiness both for oneself and others, 
 has quenched the fever of ambition 
 and hope, — in short, has done more 
 to defeat the real purpose of life and 
 dim its glory, than all the other forces 
 which have cursed mankind and kept 
 the human race in bondage. But the 
 light has begun to break and man is 
 fast learning that there is nothing to 
 8 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 fear, but his own fear. The only devil 
 is the devil of Fear, and every man's 
 personal devil is his leading Fear, to 
 which he bows in abject slavery. 
 
 The fears that beset human lives 
 are legion, and no attempt can be made 
 to enumerate them. Let me only sug- 
 gest some of their most common forms. 
 Most of the fears of childhood are out- 
 grown, and yet many of them persist 
 into later life. The child's fear of the 
 dark is one of the commonest. One of 
 our leading novelists describes in most 
 vivid language, the actual agony he 
 suffered as a child from the terror that 
 filled his mind at night, when the light 
 was put out. One of the first conscious 
 fears which I recall, was the fear of 
 the cemetery. I cannot account for 
 its origin; it may have been hereditary, 
 it may have been due to some story 
 heard, or some book read, as a child. 
 After becoming a high-school student 
 9 
 
CONQUEST OF PEAR AND WORRY 
 
 I remember more than onee, in the 
 effort to conquer this fear, going out of 
 my way in the evening for the sake of 
 walking around a certain cemetery; 
 and yet every time it was with a clinch- 
 ing of fists and gritting of teeth; such 
 potent suggestions are these fears of 
 early life! The fear of thunder storms, 
 of fire, of elevators, of tunnels, of goii^ 
 on the water, of high places, etc. — 
 who has not es^erienced some such 
 fear, in the past if not in the present? 
 Such fears are most real to the one who 
 experiences them, and not by ridicule 
 or punishment can they be overcome, 
 but rather by patient, sympathetic 
 re-education of the victim. 
 
 The business or professional man 
 confronts tihe fear of failure. Presi- 
 dent Hall would say that such a fear, 
 up to a certain point, is an incentive 
 to success; a man who fears failure 
 is the one who does his best to avoid 
 
 10 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 faUure. And yet this is to take a 
 negative attitude toward success. A 
 man who fears failure in the sense 
 that the possibility of failure is conr 
 stantly before his mind, is, in the 
 nature of things, prevented txovx doing 
 his best work, and hindered in ac^ 
 complishing the largest success. He 
 needs to be left free to aciiieve the best 
 results. Much of his energy, physical 
 and mental, is necessarily consumed in 
 fear of failure. The artist does his 
 best work when he is absolutely free 
 from self -consciousness; in his truly 
 creative moments, he simply puts brush 
 to canvas without any fear of failure 
 or distrust of his powers. Then only 
 is he working in the " inspired mood." 
 The public singer never accomplishes 
 her greatest triimiph, unless there is 
 the absence of self-eonseiousness. If 
 she goes before the audience with the 
 feeling of fear, or i^e dread of failure, 
 11 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 inevitably the strength needed for suc- 
 cess has vanished. Multitudes of 
 people are deprived of their real power 
 in business, or are handicapped in 
 the race for professional success, simply 
 by this fear of possible failure which 
 haunts them like a hideous spectre. 
 
 Then there is the fear that comes 
 to so many in middle life, of poverty 
 and financial dependency. How many 
 liveiS are harassed and anxious over- 
 much, because of this too-common fear. 
 I do not agree with those writers who 
 would have us believe that poverty 
 is no evil, though I am perfectly con- 
 scious that there are many worse evils 
 in life. A man may be poor in this 
 world's goods and yet dwell in the 
 midst of happiness, within and with- 
 out. Luxuries, mere things, are not 
 necessary to happiness, for a man's 
 life consists not in the number of things 
 he possesses. But the poverty that 
 IS 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 leads to dependency on others, that 
 means helplessness in old age, that 
 perhaps points unmistakably towards 
 the poor house, — that is a different 
 thing. There should be in every life 
 such a healthy forethought as shall 
 lead to prudence, industry and thrift. 
 But having done our honest work, 
 making such wise provision as is pos- 
 sible for old age or sickness or for those 
 dependent upon us, let us in faith leave 
 the future to God, before whom a 
 sparrow's fall is not without regard. 
 The anxious fear for the needs of to- 
 morrow only takes the sunshine out of 
 to-day, and embitters the present 
 hour. 
 
 Another common form of fear, is 
 that of sickness or disease. How many 
 there are who say: " I have had this fear 
 hanging over me ever since I was a 
 child; my father died of such a disease 
 and my grandfather before him, and 
 13 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 I do not know any day but that I may 
 be likewiise afflicted." Here, as in the 
 case of one's failure in business, it is 
 the fear that creates the predisposition 
 towards the thing feared. There may 
 be some slight palpitation of the heart, 
 and one begins to fear serious trouble. 
 The mental attitude both aggravates 
 the actual condition and is the cause 
 of new symptoms. 
 
 The fear of disease is the thing that 
 invites disease just as the fear of failure 
 in business is the thing that invites 
 failure, because it handicaps and unfits 
 one, physically and mentally, for over- 
 coming the conditions that lead to 
 failure or disease. As a result many 
 of us go through life, if not actually 
 diseased, in the constant fear that this 
 form of sickness or that will come 
 upon us, until we become a constant 
 burden to ourselves and others. As 
 an old' Oriental provevb puts it: " The 
 
 14 
 
CONQUEST PF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 plague killed five thousand people. 
 Fifty thousand died of fear." 
 
 Then there is the fear of old age. 
 None of us want to grow old. We do 
 not like to see the gray hairs. We do 
 not enjoy the consciousness that we 
 cannot do the day's work with the 
 same energy and facility as formerly. 
 We do not like to count the years off, 
 as the birthdays come around, and 
 realize that we are beginning the de- 
 scent of life's hillside, that we have 
 passed life's meridian, and that now' 
 the work must be done, the burdens 
 borne and the problems solved by the 
 younger men and women, while we 
 step aside and are forgotten. No, we 
 do not want to grow old. But we for- 
 get that it is the great onward move- 
 ment of Life that carries every one at 
 length into the period of old age. To 
 fear old age is as foolish as it would be 
 for the child to fear the time when it 
 
 15 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 must leave the toys of the nursery for 
 the lessons of the schoolroom. There 
 is nothing disgraceful about it. It 
 ought to be the glorious harvest time 
 for every man and woman, if the heart 
 keeps young and the mind retains its 
 grasp upon the realities. It is the time 
 for retrospection, and also for hopeful 
 forward looking. There is really noth- 
 ing in the period of old age that should 
 cause dread. And yet we allow this 
 fear to haunt us and cloud our sl^. 
 
 There is also the fear which is even 
 more universal — the fear of death. 
 There are many elements that enter 
 into the fear of death. This is not the 
 place to consider them all, only let me 
 say that I think the great surprise to 
 every man and woman who passes 
 through the experience of death, will 
 be to find how absolutely groundless 
 all their fears have been. Professor 
 Osier, in his Harvard lecture upon 
 16 
 
CONQXJEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 Immortality, tells of his experience at 
 five hundred deathbeds. He says that 
 of this number, only ninety experienced 
 any unpleasant sensations or suffered 
 any pain during the hour of death. 
 He goes on to generalize from his ex- 
 perience and that of all physicians, and 
 concludes that death, in the great ma- 
 jority of instances, is nouhing more 
 than falling asleep. We are not afraid 
 to pass from the state of consciousness 
 to the state of slumber, and that is all 
 that death means, for by far the great 
 majority. There are cases where suf- 
 fering continues to the moment of 
 death, but it should be remembered 
 that such suffering belongs to the pre- 
 vious illness and is not a part of death. 
 Death only comes as a release from 
 pain. The hard part is not for the 
 one who dies, but for those who re- 
 main. 
 
 Let us go a step further and think 
 ir 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 of the experience of death as we thiiik 
 of old age, asbedonging to the divine 
 plan, juat as much a part of God^s 
 gmcions purpose for us as is life itself; 
 then death is never the end of life but 
 only one of the incidents in life; and 
 the Life moves on surely and steadily 
 through all the shadows that cluster 
 about the earthward side of death, 
 into a larger and better existence. If 
 we could rest down in confidence in 
 this divine plan for life, — a plan tiiat 
 includes death, only as one of its many 
 experiences, I am sure we would find 
 ourselves relieved of much of the fear 
 and anxiety thalt haunt this finail 
 experience of eaxthly life for so many. 
 Finally there is the religious fear, 
 which has wrought incalculable injury 
 in the history of mankind. There have 
 been pmods in the past When fear in 
 religion, has beien more monstrous and 
 terrible \iiaa. in any other realm of 
 18 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 human thought. There have been 
 political tyrants, who have employed 
 the weapon of fear and caused men to 
 crouch abjectly at their feet. So there 
 have been religious tyrants who have 
 wielded the same weapon and made 
 mental and moral cowards of their fol- 
 lowers. If you are familiar with Church 
 History you know how tremendous 
 the Wrongs done humanity in the name 
 of Religion, through the power of 
 fear as wielded by both Protestants 
 and Catholics. Men in whose minds 
 God has kindled a great light, have 
 been afraid to do their own thinking 
 for fear that the Church would pro- 
 nounce its anathema against them. 
 Great minds like that of Copernicus, 
 and great moral leaders like Savona- 
 rola, have stultified themselves and 
 denied their honest thought, because 
 the Church threatened ex-communica- 
 tion. We cannot denounce too strongly 
 
 19 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 these dark chapters in the histoty of 
 religion, when fear has dictated and 
 controlled the thoughts and actions 
 of men. Fear is not an essential part 
 of true religion, aitd when the Church, 
 through blindness or selfishness, has 
 employed feair as a weapon or appealed 
 to fear as a motive, it has always had to 
 pay the penalty sooner or later, in 
 the loss of faith and teSp^^ct on the part 
 of those it has atteftipted to coerce. 
 
 I am glad that we are fast coming 
 to the tiine when men can no longer be 
 frightened into obeying God, when men 
 are no longer afraid nbt to go to Chui*dH, 
 when men no longer fear that if they 
 do not accept som^ particular dreed' or 
 the dogthas of some special institution 
 they will be sent to hell. God has no 
 desire to coerce any single individual. 
 God*s great work in the worfd is edu- 
 cative and redemptive, and He is 
 constantly seeking to bring men to the 
 so 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 point where Ihey will voluntarily and 
 cheerfully accept His laWs and follow 
 His guidance, not through fear or 
 cowardice, but because they have come 
 to understand that His way is best and 
 that life in Him leads to the highest. 
 I know that the old Hebrew writer 
 says, " The fear of the Lord is the 
 beginning of wisdom," but I cannot 
 forget that the God in whom he be- 
 lieved was a tyrannical character who 
 ruled in anger and Was desirolis of 
 taking vengeance upon His disobedient 
 children. When I compare the chairac- 
 ter of the God he worshipped, With 
 the God of the New Testament, I am 
 content to let his God go, arid accept 
 the God whom Jesus revealed. For 
 Jesus said " God is Love," and His 
 summation of the law is to love God 
 and man. If I love my father I do not 
 fear him, and if I fear him I do not 
 love him; and when I read these 
 ii 
 
CONQUEST OBP PEAR AND WORRY 
 
 words of John: " Perfect love casteth 
 out fear," and " He that dwelleth in 
 love, dwelleth in God, and God dwell- 
 eth in him," and " He that dwelleth 
 in fear is not yet perfected in love," I 
 begin to understand the great ideal 
 which Jesus set forth, that man through 
 love should absolutely conquer every 
 tendency of fear in his nature, — until 
 at last, " perfected in love " he learns 
 to live victoriously, the life of perfect 
 copfidence and trust in his Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 The worst thing about fear is that it 
 constitutes nothing less than atheism. 
 If religion involves belief in the God 
 of love whom Jesus revealed, and con- 
 sists in entering into vital relations with 
 that God as One who is present here 
 and now, then to fear such a God is 
 an actual form of unfaith; it is sham 
 and hollow mockery. So I repudiate 
 forever every statement of religious 
 
 «2 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 doctrine, every form of religious be- 
 lief, every interpretation of the Bible, 
 which would in any sense lead men 
 to do other than trust and love God 
 with a perfect confidence, in which 
 is no room for fear. 
 
 The element of fear in human life is 
 parent to all such mentally debilitating 
 moods as apprehension, timidity, cow- 
 ardice, depression, superstition, self -de- 
 preciation, doubting and worry. This 
 last is probably the most prevalent form 
 of the Fear thought, and the worry 
 habii has become the great American 
 vice. We must all plead guilty to this 
 vice. We are all familiar with it. We 
 can worry aboiit anything, and I sup- 
 pose that sometime or other we have all 
 worried about pretty much everything. 
 As the chief American vice, it is due 
 in large part to the strenuous condi- 
 tions under which we have been living 
 for the last generation or two. It lies 
 
 «3 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAK AND WORRY 
 
 baok of what is called the great dis- 
 ease of modern times — nervousness 
 or nervous prostration, for which neu- 
 rasthenia is the technical term. We 
 are told of cprebral neurasthenia, spinal 
 neurasthenia, visceral neurasthenia, and 
 cardiac neurasthenia, but wherever lo- 
 cated, it means nerve fatigjie, or nerve 
 exhaustion. The niraiber of nerve 
 specialists is steadily increasii^^ and 
 so prevalent is the disorder, that many 
 a doctor when the patient comes to 
 him for the first time, immediately asks 
 the question, " What is on your mind, 
 what are you worrying about ? " The 
 woman who said that she spent half of 
 her time doing things, and the other 
 half worrying about what she had done, 
 represents a great multitude; and yet 
 on reflection, what is more foolish than 
 worry ? As a Chinese proverb states 
 it: " "Rie legs of the stork are long, the 
 legs of the duck are short; you cannot 
 
 24 
 
CQNQIPEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 mal^ the legs of the stork short, neither 
 can you make the legs of the duck loijg. 
 Why worry ? " 
 
 There are two things that it is ab- 
 solutely useless for us to worry about. 
 First, the things that we cannot help. 
 How utterly useless is worry when we 
 cannot help the thing. And second, 
 the thing that we can help. Worry 
 only hinders us from helping. If you 
 cannot help conditions, worry only 
 makes it impos^ible for you to bear 
 them; if you can help them, then by 
 all means change the conditions and 
 so banish the cause of your worry. We 
 all go through the days carrying the 
 worry, which in the beginning was a 
 very small thing causing personal anx- 
 ieiy or solicitude; but it has steadily 
 grown, until the whole mind is dark- 
 ened and the heart embittered; slowly 
 but surely it becomes contagious, until 
 it has darkened the lives of others in 
 as 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 the same household; and by and by 
 we awake to the realization that we 
 are confirmed in the worry habit, of 
 all habits the most injurious to human 
 happiness and the highest development 
 of character. 
 
 These worries of life may proceed 
 from various primary conditions. There 
 are worries that may be traced back to 
 a state of excessive self-consciousness. 
 We are hyper-sensitive about ourselves; 
 whatever is said or not said, whatever 
 is done or not done, we always con- 
 strue as having reference to ourselves ; 
 with the result that we are always 
 imagining that we have been in- 
 sulted or slighted or criticized by 
 people who never dreamed of hurt- 
 ing us. Without realizing it such 
 people actually regard themselves as 
 the centre of the world. If people 
 are talking, they must be talking about 
 them; if others are passing criticism, 
 
 S6 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 it must be a criticism upon them; if 
 people do not see them, depend upon 
 it, it was meant as an intentional snub. 
 This conceit does us no harm when 
 we remember that there are as many 
 centres of the universe as there are 
 people and other thinking animals. 
 When we forget this, our troubles be- 
 gin. If such is our tendency we need 
 to modify our over-sensitive self-con- 
 sciousness by externalizing our thoughts 
 and broadening our interests; in other 
 words we need to practise the art of 
 forgetting self. 
 
 Another cause from whence worry 
 proceeds, is the tendency to obsession, 
 which psychology defines as an unduly 
 insistent and compulsive thought, habit 
 of mind, or tendency to action. Most 
 children are obsessed by various ideas. 
 It is shown in the boy who has to kick 
 every post he passes, or who must step 
 across every other board in the walk, 
 «7 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 or wlio is impelled to count the win- 
 doyra as he goes along th,© block, or who 
 cannot help biting his nails. He is 
 the legitiinate father of the man who 
 cannot eat an egg if it is boiled less or 
 more than four minutes, or the man 
 who cannot work unless there is ab- 
 solute silence in the room, or the person 
 who can never sleep if the steam pipes 
 are cracking, etc., ad infinitum. These 
 are simple illustrations of obsession 
 where the mind is posses^sed by a cer- 
 tain idea and becomes its slave. Such 
 impelling ideas are the prolific source 
 of petty worries and anxieties of all 
 kinds. 
 
 The natural histojy of every worry 
 may be illustrated by the common 
 ejqperience of having g, friend start on 
 a journey. There steals into the mind 
 a thought of uncertaiii.ty whether he 
 will T^^'Gh his destination in safety. 
 B^ht here in this initial doubt is the 
 99 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 parting of the ways. The first dis- 
 cordant thought, no matter how small, 
 should be instantly dropped out of the 
 mind as unreservedly as a stone is 
 dropped from the hand. Unless this is 
 done, the worry increases; thoughts 
 of accidents fill the mind, a huiidred 
 possible but altogether improbable dan- 
 gers seem to be threatening your friend, 
 until at last the first feeling of uncer- 
 tainty has become an anxious, fore- 
 boding mental mood, destroying peace, 
 preventing sleep, and poisojaiog all of 
 life.. This is typical of all worries. 
 They begin in the little doubt or uncer- 
 tainty, they end in poison for the body, 
 depression for the mind, and bitterness 
 for the heart, not to mention the gloom 
 and unhappiness for the home. 
 
 If we could but realize that not one 
 in a hundred of the things about which 
 we worry ever take place; if we could 
 only sit down calmly and with common 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 sense, analyze our worries, and get back 
 to the basis of fact that lies beneath the 
 worry, we should smile at our folly and 
 be ashamed of our weakness in allow- 
 ing such trivial things, usually of our 
 own imagining, to create such havoc 
 in our lives. In Frances Hodgson 
 Burnett's beautiful story, " The Dawn 
 of a To-morrow," we listen to the little 
 old variety actress talking to the blase 
 Londoner, who has worried himself 
 into thinking that life is no longer 
 worth living. She says to him, " The 
 trouble with you, my friend, is that 
 you think things is worse than they are." 
 Is not that the chief trouble with us 
 all ? We are all prone to " think things 
 is worse than they are," and so we 
 become addicted to the worry habit, 
 forgetting that the worry is in the mind 
 and therefore can be controlled, whether 
 we can control the object of our worry 
 or not. 
 
 30 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 Booker T. Washington, in his book, 
 " Up from Slavery," in commenting 
 upon his own experience, uses these 
 sensible words, " I think I am learning 
 more and more each year, that all 
 worry consumes, and to no purpose, 
 just so much physical and mental 
 strength that otherwise might be given 
 to eflfective work." It is not hard work 
 that kills. Anybody can stand hard 
 work if the mind is peaceful and har- 
 monious and free from anxiety; it 
 is the work into which the anxious 
 element enters, the work which is ac- 
 companied by worry, the work done 
 in the atmosphere of discordant think- 
 ing, that leads to the almost inevitable 
 breakdown, physical or mental. 
 
 What practical suggestions can be 
 made as to the method of overcoming 
 this great enemy of himian happiness, 
 — fear and its offspring, worry ? First 
 we must recognize frankly that fear and 
 
 31 
 
CO^QtEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 worry are sins. We need to look them 
 straight in the face, and give them 
 their real name — sin, jdst as truly 
 sin as gettiftg drunk or robbing a bank. 
 Did you ever stop to think that the 
 command of Jesus, not to worry, is 
 as explicit and insistent a command 
 as any He ever gaVe ? If the pulpit 
 had been preaching against the sin 
 of worry, as vigorously as it has been 
 thundering against the sins of unbelief, 
 there would be more vital faith in the 
 world to-day. Worry is sin. Thefe 
 is no place in the ti'uly religious life 
 for this worry habit, which takes happi- 
 ness out of the heart and sweetness out 
 of the home; which so depresses the 
 mind and poisons the body. When We 
 allow ourselves to treat worry or fear 
 lightly, as if they were things We would 
 be better off Without, perhaps, but 
 which we need not make any serious 
 effort to overconie, we have not yet 
 38 
 
COiSrCitJESl" of" FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 awakened to their fatal influence upon 
 human character and spiritual devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Then, make up your liiind that you 
 can be free from the bdlidage of WOfty. 
 I am satisfied that a great many of us 
 are living in the a;tiitt6sphiete of anxiety 
 and worry because we have no very 
 strong inclination to get out of it. This 
 may not be a kind thiilg to say, but I 
 have known a good many troubled 
 people, who really knew how gronnd- 
 less were their worfifes, how iiijtiriotis 
 to themselves, and hbw Iduch unhappi- 
 ness they brought to others, who still 
 per^ted in their worrying, as if they 
 could not giife it up, aild kept " rolling 
 it like a sweet morsel under the tongue." 
 People say, " I cannot helji worrying," 
 — well, if you cannot h^lp it, nobody 
 can help it for you; but afly one can 
 help it if he will. 
 
 O for some pov^er to rouse the 
 
 33 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 mind, the will and the conscience of 
 those who say, " I would like to stop, 
 but I can't; you know it is my temper- 
 ament ! " It is within the range of pos- 
 sibilities for any one to break the 
 shackles of worry if he will. We have 
 not regarded it as anything very dan- 
 gerous, but merely as something rather 
 annoying. Learn to look upon it as a 
 vice, to be put out of your life at any 
 cost; and then make up your mind 
 that you yourself are to blame, that 
 no conditions or circumstances can 
 make you worry unless you want to. 
 Remember, the two things you need 
 never worry about are the thing you 
 cannot help and the thing you can 
 help, and these cover just about the 
 whole range of human experience. 
 When one looks at it in this light and 
 realizes the uselessness, the folly and 
 the sin of worrying about anything 
 whatever, only then has he assumed the 
 
 S4 
 
CONQUEST OF PEAK AND WORRY 
 
 mental attitude where worry can no 
 longer tyrannize over him. 
 
 If you are really in earnest in 
 freeing your life from the useless wor- 
 ries, sit down and calmly analyze your 
 worry, get down to its root cause, find 
 out just what lies beneath this mood 
 that has grown to be habitual; and 
 when you discover the root cause, push 
 everything else aside, except the one 
 thing from whence your worry pro- 
 ceeds. Then say to yourself: " I have 
 analyzed my worry, I know what its 
 source really is, now can I change this 
 thii^ ? If I cannot, then it is my duty 
 to make friends with it, to fall in line 
 with the inevitable, and to live as hero- 
 ically, as patiently and trustfully as I 
 can in its presence; if I can change it, 
 then by the help of the God who dwells 
 within me, I will change it." When 
 you lake your worries one by one and 
 tr-jat them in this systematic fashion, 
 
 35 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 you will . find, yourself making real 
 headway, — but just to bemoan the fact 
 that you are anxious and worried, 
 without stopping to analyze your mental 
 conditio];!, will accomplish nothing. 
 
 Our thinking must be turned into 
 other channels than those which we 
 know will lead to the worrisooae 
 thoughts. When trying to go to sleep, 
 if you think of the clanging of the street 
 cars, it gets on your nerves, and by and 
 by it is impossible to sleep because of 
 the noise. What do you dp ? You be- 
 gin to think of something else, and 
 before you know it you have forgotten 
 all about the noise. You have sub- 
 stituted another thought for that which 
 a moment ago seemed the only thought 
 possible to your consciousness. In just 
 the same way treat these worrisome 
 thoughts. Stop thinking them. If 
 you cannot do it by sheer will power, 
 then substitute some new line, of 
 
 36 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 thought. Therein lies the value of the 
 fad, for the busy, overworked man or 
 woman, who finds that things are get- 
 ting on the nerves, and who is con- 
 scious that the tendency to worry is 
 growing. Let it be the long daily walk, 
 or golf, or gymnasium exercise, or rid- 
 ing; some special study of flowers 
 or trees or mushrooms, or' history; or 
 if the taste inclines, tools and the work- 
 bench. It makes little difference what 
 it is, only let there be something outside 
 the routine of your life, to which you 
 give your thought and energy, at least 
 for a little while every day or every 
 week. Most of the inmates of our 
 asylums are people whose lives were 
 lived in narrow restricted grooves. 
 What most of us need, especially 
 in this busy age, is greater va^ 
 riety, some time when we can get 
 out of the rut, where we can think 
 thoughts and do things outside the 
 
 37 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 range of the ordinary thoughts and 
 duties of life. 
 
 The last suggestion is in the words 
 of none other than Professor William 
 James, who says in his " Talks to 
 Teachers," " The great sovereign, cure 
 for Worry is religious faith. The turbu- 
 lent billows of the fretful surface leave 
 the deep parts of the ocean undisturbed, 
 and to him who has a hold of vaster 
 and more permanent realities, the hourly 
 vicissitudes of his personal destiny, 
 seem relatively insignificant things." 
 Have you ever had such an experience ? 
 It may have come in some time of 
 business calamity, when riches were 
 swept away ; it may have been in great 
 sorrow when all that seemed worth 
 while in life was taken from you; it 
 may have been some deep experience 
 in the life of another near and dear 
 to you, to whom your heart has gone 
 out in truest sympathy; but in such a 
 
 38 
 
CONQUEST OP FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 revealing hour of life, have you never 
 felt the paltriness and insignificance 
 of all these things about which we grow 
 so anxious and fearful ? No man ever 
 ascends to the heights or goes down 
 to the depths without realizing that, 
 after all, there is nothing much that 
 really counts, but God and his own 
 soul. In the final analysis it will be 
 found that all fear comes from belief 
 in separation from God. But actual 
 separation from God is impossible, be- 
 cause we live, move and have our being 
 in Him. Hence the groundlessness of 
 all fears, to the one of religious faith. 
 I am not arguing for any particular 
 creed, I am not speaking of any special 
 system of religious doctrines, but I do 
 affirm on the testimony of multitudes, 
 that the greatest aid in curing the 
 worry and anxiety of human life is a 
 deep and abiding religious faith; a 
 faith that enables one to know his one- 
 
 39 
 
CONQUEST OF PEAR AND WORRY 
 
 ness with God, that helps one realize 
 the infinite goodness of the Eternal 
 Father, that makes it possible for one 
 to begin each day in the glad confidence 
 that nothing can come to really hurt 
 one, that there is nothing to be feared 
 except one's own fear, that a man can 
 face each duty and enter upon every 
 task in the perfect confidence that as 
 he does his best, he can safely leave 
 the rest with God. A man can live 
 here and now, so humbly, so trust- 
 fully, so earnestly and so lovii^ly, that 
 whether the day is dark overhead or 
 the path is rough to his feet, he is un- 
 disturbed and unaiffrighted, for he bears 
 within himself the deep and abiding 
 faith of one who has realized the pres-- 
 ence of God. 
 
 I do not refer to an experience pos- 
 sible only to the few, but to avel-age 
 men and women whom it has been 
 my privilege to know; whose lives, 
 
 40 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAB AND WORRY 
 
 lived aijciidst the trials and disappoint- 
 ments of our common experience, are 
 nevertheless serene and calm, whose 
 very faces bespeak the inner peace that 
 pasSeth all understanding, for they 
 have gained the victbiy over fiear 
 and worry. I would rather reach that 
 height of spiritual development, and 
 live the confident, trustful life of faith 
 in the unseen, than possess the wealth 
 of a Croesus. It may be yours and 
 mine. The religious faith that does 
 not steadily lead toward that goal, is 
 a spurious article. 
 
 It makes no difference how long 
 we have been members of the church, 
 nor how much we know of the Bible, 
 nor what creed we profess, if we have 
 not learned how to trust God and not 
 be afraid, how to live through our days, 
 taking no anxious thought for the mor- 
 row, if we are still troubled about meat 
 and drink and raiment, if we are still 
 
 41 
 
CONQUEST OF FEAR AND WORRY 
 
 worried about things or people, if we 
 dread the future of possible sickness 
 or old age, if we cannot see beyond 
 the shadows of death, " the light that 
 never was on land or sea " — then, 
 whatever faith may be to others, it 
 is quite meaningless for us; for the 
 faith that saves is the faith that de- 
 velops in us the consciousness of God, 
 and when we know that, we know 
 peace. 
 
 «e 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 [OTHING more dearly reveab 
 the long journey man has come 
 in his religious development, 
 than the history of Prayer. 
 Men have always prayed. However we 
 may be distracted by the superficial- 
 ities of life, however diflScult we may 
 find it to commune in any constant way 
 with the Infinite, nevertheless great mo- 
 ments come in all our lives, whenpro- 
 foimder thoughts are stirred and the 
 heart's frozen depths are melted, and 
 we must pray. It may be some expe- 
 rience of great joy, when the heart goes 
 out naturally in thanksgiving; it may 
 be a time of great sorrow, when one 
 
 45 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 confronts bitter loneliness in the sepa- 
 ration from all that is dearest in life, 
 and the heart instinctively reaches out 
 after God; or, sudden death may come 
 upon one whose life has been careless 
 or indifferent, and in the quick awak- 
 ening to the consciousness that he must 
 cross the boundary line between the 
 present and the unknown future, a 
 man will commit his soul to God. 
 
 In the early. childhood of the race 
 prayer was a simple and natural thing. 
 The savage beat his fetish when it was 
 not complacent enough. Rites and 
 ceremonies were followed; mysterious 
 syllables, when uttered by the voice 
 in a certain way were supposed to have 
 an irresistible effect; gestures, menac- 
 ing or wheedling, were also employed. 
 The chief object of prayer, in its earliest 
 forms, was to move the god to carry 
 out man's wishes, and bend his will 
 to that of man. Primitive man be- 
 
 46 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 lieved himself to be surrounded by un- 
 seen gods, who were to him very much 
 like his neighbours, to be dealt with 
 by the self -same means employed in 
 dealing with his fellows. Ruse, vio- 
 lence, seduction, bribes or threats were 
 common methods by which the god 
 was approached. " It was human 
 selfishness addressing itself naively to 
 the selfishness of the gods." The god 
 who failed to grant the heart's desire, 
 deserved to be chastised for his ob- 
 stinacy. 
 
 Sacrifice, at first, was merely a form 
 of prayer. The gods to whom sacri- 
 fices were made stood higher and were 
 regarded as possessing greater power 
 than man, but as yet there was no 
 Supreme God. These gods were jeal- 
 ous of one another, some having the 
 power to thwart the will and purpose 
 of others, and man approached his 
 god as he would his superior anywhere, 
 
 47 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 — with something in his hands. To 
 secure his favour or appease his wrath, 
 he brought the offerings he believed 
 to be most acceptable. Like mortals, 
 the gods had need of nourishment, 
 and so were brought the finest fruits 
 of the human repast; libations, pres- 
 ents of honey, and fine flour, the first- 
 lings of the flock, etc. How hard it 
 has been for man to believe in the good- 
 ness of his gods! He saw their anger 
 expressed in the evils that befell him. 
 Was a god supposed to have been of- 
 fended.? Men trembled for years be- 
 neath the strokes of his wrath; they 
 offered expia,tory sacrifices, invented 
 penances, humiliations, tortures, with- 
 out ever being sui-e that the divine 
 vengeance was appeased. 
 
 As men began to perceive the idea 
 
 of the unity of God, and polytheism 
 
 gradually gave place to monotheism, 
 
 stffl there was not much essential 
 
 48 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 change in prayer. Until the last four 
 hundred years in the scientific mind, 
 and until at least the last one hundred 
 yeaxs in the popular mind, the Universe 
 was a very small affair. It was no 
 laj^er than our solar system as we 
 know it. It consisted of the earth with 
 its satellite, the moon, and just a little 
 way beyond was the blue vault, with 
 its twinkling stars. Just above the 
 sky God was seated upon a throne, 
 surrounded by His court and attended 
 by^ angels, waitii^ to do His bidding. 
 The average mii^d regarded player 
 as the means by which this God, sitting 
 yonder on His thTone outside of this 
 little Universe which He had made 
 much as the mechanic makes his ma- 
 chine, might be approached and His 
 will won over to harmony with the 
 will of the one who prayed. 
 
 Within our own generation, men have 
 practiQally held the same idea of prayer* 
 
 49 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 I can remember in my boyhood when 
 people came together in time of drought 
 to pray for rain. Many will recall, 
 in times of epidemics, how Christians 
 would assemble for special services of 
 fasting and prayer, in order that the 
 plague might be averted; — the under- 
 lying thought being, that God might 
 send the rain if He chose; that He had 
 sent sickness, and therefore might abate 
 its scourge; that if men only prayed 
 persistently enough, God might be 
 induced to change His will, and arbi- 
 trarily grant their petition from His 
 distant throne. 
 
 I think you will admit that while 
 many people have been gradually 
 thinking their way out of the older con- 
 ceptions of man's relation to God and 
 of the meaning of prayer, nevertheless, 
 until quite recently the popular mind 
 has held ideas which, in their essence, 
 are akin to the notions of the primi- 
 £0 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 live savage, viz. : that God was a being 
 to be approached in a certain way, ac-, 
 cording to certain prescribed rules, 
 and that if one only prayed earnestly 
 and persistently enough, God might 
 possibly be induced to hear the appeal 
 and grant the boon desired. 
 
 Within the last half century, many 
 new difficulties have presented them- 
 selves to this conception of prayer. 
 In the first place, we are living in a new 
 Universe, unknown to our fathers. 
 The Copernican System of Astronomy 
 has displaced the old Ptolemaic System, 
 and we now know that our solar sys- 
 tem is only one of millions. When 
 Kepler announced his laws of planetary 
 motion, when Newton discovered the 
 law of gravitation, and fifty years ago, 
 when Darwin gave to the world " The 
 Origin of Species " and " The Descent 
 of Man," and the law of Evolution be- 
 came the key to the study of the 
 61 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 sciences, including man and his his- 
 tory upon the earth, multitudes of 
 people felt as if God were being shut 
 out of the universe and His place taken 
 by impersonal law. The old notion 
 of God has been unquestionably de- 
 throned, and yet, as Professor Knox of 
 Union Theological Seminary recently 
 stated, there is no field of thought that 
 has profited more by the great work 
 of Charles Darwin than the field of 
 religion. 
 
 The leading thinkers in all parts of 
 the civilized world have abandoned 
 entirely the mechanical notion of the 
 universe: that God is a great Personage 
 who sits outside of and apart from the 
 universe, governing the machine which 
 he has made from outside. We no 
 longer think of God as occasionally 
 expressing His will or manifesting His 
 power in such a mechanical universe 
 — we cannot believe that if somebody 
 5it 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 prays, or because of His own arbitrary 
 will or caprice. He changes His pur- 
 pose and interferes with the workings 
 of things on the earth. We know that 
 there is no tiniest corner in any part 
 of this universe where law does not 
 control. The scientists have proven 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt, that 
 the law of cause and effect is, from 
 centre to circumference, the law of the 
 universe. 
 
 Let us keep clearly in mind the neWer 
 thought of God, as being in the uni- 
 verse, not outside; of the universe, as 
 being a great living organism, whose 
 living soul is God. Then what we 
 call the " Reign of Law " — this 
 changeless order by which things are 
 brought to pass — is simply God's 
 orderly method of expressing His life 
 and of accomplishing His gracious 
 purposes. This is the conception which 
 we entertain to-day of God's relation 
 
 53 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 to the universe. He is not outside, 
 but within. He is the soul. He is the 
 mind. He is the heart, He is the will 
 of the universe, manifesting Himself 
 everywhere, present everywhere; and 
 what we call laws — the law of gravi- 
 tation, the law of planetary motion, the 
 law of evolution — are but the divine 
 methods by which the infinite life 
 and mind and goodness of God are 
 constantly expressing themselves. 
 
 Standing in such a wondrous uni- 
 verse, pulsating and thrilling through- 
 out with the Infinite Presence, what 
 becomes of prayer ? Is it something 
 that has been outgrown? Should it 
 rightfully disappear with the disap- 
 pearance of the old crude science and 
 theology of other days ? In this age of 
 modern science, is there any longer a 
 place for the exercise of prayer ? These 
 are questions that trouble many minds. 
 
 Underlying all its various forms, 
 
 54 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP PRAYER 
 
 what is the real essence of prayer ? Let 
 me borrow an illustration from Dr. 
 Savage. Suppose my earthly father had 
 built for me a wonderful house, and 
 then hidden himself in some one room of 
 the house, inaccessible to me. Suppose 
 he had so arranged it that if I fulfill 
 certain conditions I might have my 
 every desire granted. By pressing 
 one electric button, food might be 
 furnished me; by pressing another 
 button, clothing might be brought; 
 touching another button, I would have 
 books; another, music would greet 
 iny ears; whatever I desire I have by 
 complying with this pre-established and 
 changeless order of things. Do you 
 not see that all my desires would be 
 granted by my father, just as truly when 
 I fulfilled the conditions of pressing 
 these buttons, as if he were actually 
 visible and with his own hands gave 
 me what I wished? We all pray as 
 
 BS 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 much as primitive man, though we 
 have outgrown his forms. Every man 
 prays every day and every hour when 
 he is conscious. He can not escape 
 praying, if he would; for what is 
 prayer but earnest, intense desire? 
 
 If I wish a thing, I am praying. If 
 I aspire toward something higher and 
 better, if I reach out my hand to grasp 
 what I want, no matter how long my 
 search or by what methods, I am pray- 
 ing. Anything that I strive to attain, 
 I pray for, and consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, I pray to God for it; for God 
 is the one centre and source of all the 
 riches both material and spiritual that 
 this universe contains, and I am His 
 child. 
 
 Let us keep this clearly in mind; 
 the real essence of prayer is true desire. 
 Prayer does not consist in the words 
 one may use, but rather in the secret 
 desire of the heart, with which our 
 
 56 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 words may often be in direct conflict. 
 How often it is true of our verbal 
 prayers, that we have said words over 
 and over again, and yet our prayers 
 have apparently yielded us nothing; 
 simply because we have not really 
 desired the things asked for. The 
 thing actually desired is the thing we 
 pray for, not the petition that may be 
 expressed in words. This is the trouble 
 with so much of our public praying; it 
 consists in words rather than intense 
 inner desire. While there may be a 
 place for public prayer, yet I cannot 
 but feel that it is a very imperfect form 
 of prayer. As a matter of fact, public 
 prayers are seldom real prayers. Con- 
 sciously, or unconsciously, they are 
 usually addressed to the audience rather 
 than to God. They consist of rhetoric 
 rather than of intense desire or aspira- 
 tion. Few men are able to forget the 
 audience and surroundings and really 
 St 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 commuue witii God, in public. The 
 deepest prayers cannot be put into 
 words. True prayer is this intense 
 inner desire of the heart, deeper than 
 any human speech to express; so 
 profound, so vital and so spiritual, that 
 it must wing its way silently to the 
 Eternal. 
 
 A second thing to be recognized, is 
 that the earnest desire, or true prayer, 
 must comply with the conditions which 
 God has laid down in His pre-estab- 
 lished order, and these conditions differ 
 on different planes of life. We have 
 learned what these conditions are on 
 the material plane. If I am an intel- 
 ligent farmer and pray for a bountiful 
 harvest, I know that my prayer or 
 desire for a successful season must be 
 coupled with the fulfillment of the 
 conditions whereby crops grow success- 
 fully. There must be the proper soil, 
 the right seed, the skillful care of the 
 
 68 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 tender shoots, the proper amount of 
 moisture and sunshine, if my crop is 
 to be all I hope. And if I sit back and 
 content myself with the mere desire 
 or prayer for a harvest without obeying 
 God's laws, I know in the nature of 
 things, it must be a failure. 
 
 To go back to the illustration of the 
 wonderful house built for me: my 
 father says, " All things are yours by 
 simply touching the right button." It 
 is my father who satisfies my desires, 
 or answers my prayers, although I have 
 to fulfill the intermediate conditions. 
 So with my desires as a farmer: it is 
 God who gives the harvest, for He is 
 the great source of all life, but I have 
 to fulfill the conditioas, I must touch 
 the right button ; I have to do more than 
 earnestly desire I must supplement 
 my desire with; active obedience to 
 these plain conditions whereby a har- 
 vest is brought to perfection. 
 
 59 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP PRAYER 
 
 If I am desirous of securing an edu- 
 cation, I pray, that is, I have the in- 
 tense desire for knowledge; and yet 
 this alone will not suffice! There are 
 certain conditions in accordance with 
 which knowledge is obtained, and only 
 as my desire or prayer couples itself 
 with these conditions can I ever expect 
 to gain knowledge. I must secure books, 
 I must attend school. I must read, I 
 must study, I must observe, I must 
 reflect upon what I learn; and only 
 as I fulfill these conditions, is my 
 prayer answered. 
 
 A yoimg man asked me recently if I 
 thought that prayer would help him 
 to be successful in his business life. 
 By all means, if his prayer or his earnest 
 desire for success leads him to fulfill 
 the conditions bv which business sue- 
 cess is obtained; if, in other words, he 
 not only has the desire for success, but 
 goes forth each day with the determina- 
 
 60 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 tion to be alert, to be persistent, to be 
 conscientious, to be faithful in his 
 tasks, to give satisfaction to his em- 
 ployers, in short, to obey the laws mak- 
 ing for business success. Simply to 
 carry about with me the wish for suc- 
 cess in business, or to kneel at my bed 
 at night and put that wish into words, 
 will not make me successful. My desire 
 must be projected into the fulfillment 
 of the conditions whereby success 
 comes. 
 
 We dare not ask God to work a 
 miracle, that is, to violate one of the 
 general laws by which He rules the 
 physical world, but there are cases on 
 the physical plane, where the Divine 
 Will has not been unalterably ex- 
 pressed. The law of death, for ex- 
 ample, is not as clear and definite as 
 the laws of physics. In any given case, 
 no matter what the disease, no physi- 
 cian can state positively, " This man 
 
 61 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 is bound to die." While there is life 
 there is hope, we say, and up to almost 
 the last moment, there is the chance 
 that the patient may rally; something 
 may happen within or without, that 
 will tend to rouse the vital forces, and 
 bring recovery. 
 
 Have we a right, then, to pray in the 
 case of sickness, and is such prayer ever 
 answered? At this point the new 
 psychology has revealed how powerful 
 a factor prayer may be in the recovery 
 from disease. Professor James, in 
 speaking of the value of prayer, uses 
 these words : " As regards prayer for 
 the sick, if any medical fact can be con- 
 sidered to stand firm, it is that under 
 certain conditions prayer may con- 
 tribute to recovery, and should be 
 encouraged as a therapeutic measure." 
 Psychology recognizes the unity of 
 mind and body, and the mutual action 
 and reaction of mind upon body. We 
 
 62 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 have seen how the physical is affected 
 by the spiritual. Speaking from the 
 scientific standpoint, the modus oper- 
 andi of prayer in the case of sick- 
 ness is this: Prayer offered by the 
 sick person or by his friends tends to 
 soothe the mind, dispel fears, encour- 
 age confidence and hope, and lifts the 
 soul into a higher region than the 
 earthly. This renewed mental atmos- 
 phere is conducive to recovery, for 
 through the nervous system it tends 
 to act as a tonic and revitalizing force 
 upon the whole physical organism. 
 I do not think any intelligent physician 
 to-day would object to prayer, if the 
 sick man so desired, as an aid to re- 
 covery. Religiously explained, answers 
 to prayers in times of sickness imply 
 no miracle. God violates no one of 
 His laws, but rather expresses His 
 life-giving power through the psycho- 
 logical laws, which we are just begin- 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 rung to perceive, in the wondrous 
 power of mind over matter, operating 
 in the realm of the sub-conscious. But 
 it is God none the less, though psychol- 
 ogy explains His workings. Prayer is 
 the means by which we are brought 
 into such relations with Him that His 
 power flows through us. 
 
 In this view of prayer, it is not sup- 
 posed that some absentee God, apart 
 from and outside of the universe, hears 
 the prayer offered by the bedside and 
 sends down in some miraculous way 
 His divine power. Our view of prayer 
 depends on our conception of the rela- 
 tion in which we stand to God. Ac- 
 cording to the modern conception, the 
 God whom prayer reaches, is the God 
 vnihin. We are organically related 
 to Him, in some such way as thoughts 
 exist in the mind. Prayer is not like 
 sitting down at a long-distance 'phone 
 and calling up a friend, miles away, 
 64 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 expressing one's desires, and then wait- 
 ing for the answer to be returned. How 
 crude are all such notions ! But we are 
 in Him and He in us; and when we 
 realize that in this deeper self, in the 
 inner life of every one there dwells the 
 Divine life, and that prayer does not 
 have to ascend to some distant throne, 
 but through one's own mind reaches 
 this deeper, this inner, this Divine self, 
 this God in man, then prayer becomes 
 for us a practical and vital power. 
 
 In this way the difficulties which 
 have perplexed so many minds, in regard 
 to praying for the sick or afflicted, are 
 largely removed. We can understand 
 psychologically the operation of the 
 power of prayer when we recognize 
 that the God who is reached aiid who 
 responds, is the God who dwells in 
 every one of us, and who answers oui 
 prayers through the laws of psychol- 
 ogy, — His prescribed conditions, — 
 
 65 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 whereby we receive blessings in our 
 physical bodies. 
 
 On the higher plane of the moral and 
 spiritual life, here again the essence 
 of prayer is the intense, earnest desire 
 coupled with the fulfillment of the con- 
 ditions that prevail on this higher plane. 
 We have already seen that there are 
 fixed conditions which the laws of 
 nature determine for us in the realm 
 of the material and the physical, and 
 no desire or prayer can be granted 
 unless it is brought into harmony with 
 the workings of these so-called natural 
 laws, which are the laws of God. No 
 intelligent man would dare ask that 
 God should violate His own laws. For 
 one to ask that God should chai^ 
 these laws for him, for his friends or for 
 his community, would simply mean 
 asking God to put the whole universe 
 out of adjustment, and plunge order 
 into chaos. 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 Many of the laws which obtain in the 
 realm of the moral and spiritual life 
 we have already come to understand; 
 there are many toward which we are 
 still groping our way. The new psy- 
 chology has thrown tremendous light 
 upon the spiritual laws announced 
 by Jesus, by complying with which we 
 are able to receive the answer to our 
 intense and earnest desires for moral 
 and spiritual quickening. Here is one 
 who desires to conquer some evil habit. 
 He has been taught as a boy to pray 
 to God and that God will help him; 
 but his thought is of the God who is 
 far-distant, who, if He chooses, will 
 issue an edict for the power needed 
 to be granted him. But he finds it 
 hard to believe in such a God, and his 
 faith in the power of prayer is well-nigh 
 gone. Under the newer view what 
 does prayer for such a man mean ? He 
 recognizes that God is not without any 
 
 67 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 more than He is within, that all that 
 is necessary for him to do, is to hold in 
 his own heart and mind this intense, 
 earnest desire to overcome the moral 
 weakness; and this earnest desire or 
 prayer of his makes itself felt in his 
 deeper inmost Self. As we have al- 
 ready seen, the sub-conscious mind 
 which is nothing less than the power 
 of God itself, takes up the thoughts and 
 desires we send down to it, and trans- 
 lates them into life and character. 
 
 We have had a good deal to say of 
 the power of Suggestion, whether com- 
 ing from without or in the form of Auto- 
 suggestion, I wonder if you will be 
 surprised when I say that the law of 
 Suggestion gives us the scientific ex- 
 planation for prayer. As we come to 
 realize our true relation to God, that 
 we are in Him and He in us; that in 
 this deeper self, in this sub-conscious 
 realm of our natures, we possess that 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 which links us to the Infinite Mind, 
 and makes us akin to the Universal 
 Soul of God, then, when we send down 
 to that deeper Self this earnest desire, 
 when we earnestly hold in our minds 
 these ideal thoughts of what we want 
 to achieve in our moral and spiritual 
 life, psychologically, we are employing 
 the power of suggestion; religiously 
 we are laying hold of the power of 
 prayer, and in either case we are reach- 
 ing the sources of infinite power, in the 
 God who dwells within us. 
 
 I wonder if you see that instead of 
 outgrowing prayer we have been grow- 
 ing into a profoimder and more spirit- 
 ual conception of what prayer is, and 
 its possibilities in our daily lives. Every 
 invention is a prayer, every discovery 
 is a prayer, every bit of honest work 
 done in the desire for success is a 
 prayer, every expression of love is 
 prayer. We need to banish forever 
 
 69 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 the false distinction between things 
 religious and secular. From centre to 
 circumference of this universe all is 
 sacred, for God is everywhere, reveal- 
 ing Himself in everything. Instead of 
 prayer consisting of a particular form 
 of words, offered in a certain physical 
 attitude of the body, prayer is the de- 
 sire, the aspiration, the secret ambition 
 going forth from every man's heart 
 every hour of his life. 
 
 Do we receive answers to our pray- 
 ers? Jesus said: "And when thou 
 prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypo- 
 crites; for they love to pray standing 
 in the synagogues, that they may be 
 seen of men. Verily, they have their 
 reward." We have interpreted these 
 words as words of condemnation. I 
 do not think that Jesus means them 
 in that sense at all. He says, in the 
 case of one who prays to be seen of 
 men, that his prayer is answered, for 
 
 70 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 his real prayer is to be seen of men, 
 not the words he may utter. The man 
 who cherishes the desire for wealth 
 and personal fame, if it is strong and 
 intense enough, and he fulfills the 
 conditions whereby wealth and fame 
 are attained, may reach his goal; and 
 yet every night he may pray that God 
 will make him pure and unselfish and 
 kindly and hmnble. The real prayer 
 of your life is that secret, intense desire 
 that is with you day and night, not the 
 words which pass your lips when in the 
 attitude of prayer. Every thought you 
 cherish, every ideal you hold, every 
 ambition that is a real and vital part 
 of yourself, is the real prayer of your 
 life; and these real prayers, sooner 
 or later, are answered. It does not 
 need the Bible to prove it. Psychology 
 gives us the reasons why, and human 
 experience bears witness every day to 
 its truth. 
 
 71 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 What can be said as to the value of 
 prayer for others ? We know how large 
 a part such prayer has played in the 
 religious life of the past. With our 
 newer thought of God, is there any 
 need of praying for others? Think 
 a moment! According to the scientist, 
 the fact of telepathy has been clearly 
 proven. Thought-transference is no 
 longer an hypothesis. When we read 
 in the papers recently the thrilling ex- 
 perience on board the steamer " Re- 
 public," as that wonderful machine 
 sent forth its wireless messages into 
 the darkness of the night, calling to its 
 aid numerous vessels hundreds of 
 miles distant, what did it mean? I 
 talked with a gentleman recently who 
 is helping to perfect an organization 
 to put upon the market the wireless 
 telephone. He is in personal touch 
 with the leading men in the electrical 
 field to-day, and he said: " The world 
 
 7« 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP PRAYER 
 
 is going to be startled as it never has 
 been, by the new discoveries which we 
 are preparing to make public." 
 
 VSHiat do such inventions reveal, if 
 not that this universe is in reality a 
 great whispering gallery in which the 
 law of vibrations governs throughout, 
 where not only physical but mental 
 forces travel with the rapidity of light- 
 ning? In an age when telepathy is 
 admitted, when wireless telegraphy is 
 in constant use, and the wireless tele- 
 phone is soon to appear, how can any 
 one longer question the fact that our 
 thoughts travel from us to other lives, 
 and influence other characters for 
 weal or for woe? 
 
 Shall a mother, then, pray for her 
 wayward son? Why not? Under 
 the old view she prayed to a God who 
 was in some distant heaven, for her 
 boy who was struggling on earth with 
 evil. She did not understand just how, 
 
 73 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP PRAYER 
 
 but she believed that if she prayed long 
 enough and earnestly enough, some 
 power from God might reach and save 
 her boy. The fact remains the same, 
 but what is the explanation to-day? 
 She knows that as God is in her, so 
 He is in her wayward boy; and she 
 knows that her thoughts and desires, 
 the strongest forces in her mother's 
 heart, can travel through miles of 
 space if need be, and influence the 
 boy — becoming, not all at once, per- 
 haps, but eventually, the great factor 
 in bringing him to himself. But, you 
 say, would you explain the influence 
 of a mother's prayer merely by telep- 
 athy? What is telepathy but God's 
 divine law whereby one soul may 
 reach and transform another soul? 
 Our prayers to God, when they consist 
 of these earnest, intense desires that 
 others may be blessed, are not prayers 
 to some distant throne; they are but 
 
 74 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 the means whereby spiritual forces 
 from the God in us reach the indwell- 
 ing God in those for whom we pray. 
 
 But we have not yet spoken of prayer 
 in its highest manifestations — the 
 prayer that consists of communion 
 with the Infinite. We have been think- 
 ing of prayer as petition, as asking for 
 blessings, material or spiritual, either 
 for ourselves or for others. I have 
 tried to help you see that there is a 
 scientific basis for prayer as petition, 
 on both the material and spiritual 
 planes. And yet if this is all we know 
 of prayer, we have missed the highest. 
 
 One of the most wonderful tilings 
 about Jesus Christ is His teaching 
 in regard to prayer. We never read 
 of His having made a public prayer, 
 but we read often of His going apart 
 alone to pray. Is there need of many 
 words, for a child to make its father 
 understand? It is the heathen, says 
 
 75 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 Jesus, who make many prayers. The 
 Father knows your need before you 
 ask Him. It is a mark of unbelief to 
 be anxious about food and drink and 
 raiment; your Heavenly Father takes 
 care of the sparrows and the flowers, 
 and will He not take care of you? 
 Jesus' whole thought is this: The 
 essential thing, is not to multiply peti- 
 tions, but to live near Him, and feel 
 Him ever near. In a man's spiritual 
 development, as the history of prayer 
 is unfolded in his own personal life, 
 this is the inevitable trend : from asking 
 for things on the material plane we 
 move to a higher plane and are content 
 to ask for things spiritual, alid from 
 asking for things spiritual we move on 
 still further, until we cease to ask for 
 anything at .all, until prayer reaches 
 its highest form, of communion of the 
 soul with God's soul. I sit down by 
 the side of my friend, I take his hand 
 
 76 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 and look into his eyes; there exists 
 the bond of sympathy, and we ex- 
 change ideas. I rise at length encour- 
 aged and uplifted, as does he. I have 
 not asked him for anything; he has not 
 asked me for anything. I have not 
 expected to change him, and he has 
 not tried to change me. As two true 
 friends we have spent the hour in com- 
 mimion. This is prayer at its highest 
 and best. What would the father think 
 if his boy should beg and plead over 
 and over again for him to do some- 
 thing that was good and right? It 
 would sadden the father's heart inex- 
 pressibly, and whether he said it to the 
 boy or not, he would say to himself, 
 " Does not my child understand that 
 everything that is best for him he is 
 going to get from me, and that he does 
 not need to beg and plead for it ? " 
 I heard a man in prayer-meeting once 
 Bay, " Oh, Lord, it is high time that 
 
 TO 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OP PRAYER 
 
 Thou shouldest begin to work. Why 
 dost Thou leave the multitude to per- 
 ish ? " Could anything he more blas- 
 phemous ? As if God were not always 
 working, as if God were not a great 
 deal more concerned that men and 
 women should be saved than you and 
 I; as if we had to beg and plead with 
 God to " come down and manifest His 
 power in saving men." 
 
 Can you not see how childish all 
 such prayer actually is, and how it is 
 really prompted by unfaith in God's 
 goodness ? He is your Father. Is He 
 not almighty and all-good? Does He 
 not love you better than you love your- 
 selves ? Does He not make all tilings 
 work together for the good of His 
 children? If trials come or dangers 
 threaten, can you not trust God, and 
 believe that these experiences are per- 
 mitted for your own highest develop- 
 ment? 
 
 78 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 It is a long journey from the prayer 
 of selfishness that seeks to bend God's 
 will to ours, to the prayer of Jesus in 
 the garden, " Nevertheless, not my 
 will but Thine be done." And yet 
 this is the pathway over which we all 
 at length must come. He only prays 
 truly who is conscious that God's will 
 is best, His way right. I would never 
 dare to ask God to change His will, K 
 I thought for a moment that my prayer 
 would effect any change in God, I 
 would ask to be stricken dumb before 
 the prayer left my lips. Who am I, 
 to say what God's will should be ? If 
 I trust Him and believe that He is the 
 God whom Jesus came to reveal, 
 the God of infinite love, the all-wise 
 Father of the human race, then be it 
 mine only to trust Him and seek to live 
 in communion with Him. 
 
 Tlie reason that our prayers or de- 
 sires have failed so often of fruition 
 
 79 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 is simply because we lack the vital 
 force of faith which alone assures the 
 answer. If we could but realize that 
 the reason why we are still in the lower 
 stages of development, why we have 
 not yet emerged from the kindergarten 
 room of spiritual experience, why our 
 lives are lived on low levels instead of 
 high, is not that we do not pray enough, 
 but because we do not know how to 
 pray aright and put so little faith into 
 our prayers or desires. Jesus said: 
 " All things whatsoever ye ask and 
 pray for, believe that ye have them and 
 ye shall receive them." Let the young 
 man who goes forth to business be- 
 lieve firmly that he is going to be suc- 
 cessful, and nothing can defeat him in 
 the attainment of his end. Let the 
 student but feel that he cannot fail of 
 reaching the heights of knowledge, and 
 there is no power that can prevent him 
 from attaining his ideals. 
 
 80 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 The things you ask for, the things 
 you desire, " Believe that ye have them 
 and ye shall receive them." This is 
 the principle of Jesus, corroborated by 
 the psychology which explains the real 
 significance of the law of suggestion. 
 It is when you believe that you have 
 the desire of your heart that your 
 prayer is answered, for when the de- 
 sire is so intense and strong that noth- 
 ing can thwart its power, it cannot 
 fail of accomplishing its transforming 
 work within. 
 
 The opportunity of communion with 
 the Infinite is the daily opportunity of 
 our lives, the priceless privilege of the 
 soul. How quick we should be to 
 recognize its meaning! Jesus said, 
 " When ye pray, enter into thy inner 
 chamber " — that is, enter into the 
 chamber of your inner soul and shut 
 the door, and in silence *' pray to thy 
 Father." If we should resolve to test 
 
 81 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 the privilege of prayer by going into 
 the silence, shutting the door upon the 
 outer world, and there in communion 
 alone with God come into vital relation 
 with the great Divine resources within, 
 our lives would tell the story; men 
 would know that we had been with 
 Him, and learned of Him. 
 
 Let me quote in closing a few words 
 from Sir Oliver Lodge, Principal of 
 the Ufdversity of Birmingham, one of 
 the foremost scientists, and perhaps 
 the leading physicist in the world to- 
 day, a thorough-going evolutionist who 
 accepts and believes in all that is 
 called modern science, but whose faith 
 in prayer is strong and vital. It is not 
 the old form of prayer of which he is 
 speaking; it is prayer revitalized by 
 our newer thinking. He says: 
 
 " In prayer we come into close com- 
 munion with a Higher than we know, 
 and seek to contemplate divine per- 
 
 82 
 
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PRAYER 
 
 fection. Its climax and consummation 
 is attained when we realize the per- 
 manence, the entire goodness, and the 
 fatherly love of the Divine Being. 
 The highest type of prayer has for its 
 object not any material benefits, beyond 
 those necessary for our activity and 
 usefulness, but the enlightenment and 
 amendment of our wills, the elevation 
 of all himianity and the coming of 
 Grod's kingdom." 
 
 We have not yet outgrown prayer; 
 rather are we coming to understand 
 what the Apostle means by " praying 
 without ceasing," when every desire, 
 every aspiration, all honest work done, 
 all love expressed, shall constitute the 
 habitual prayer of the inner life, binding 
 us ever more closely to the Eternal, 
 and finding its realization in our union 
 with God. 
 
 83 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSi^ESS 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 HAT am I ? Whence came I ? 
 Whither am I going ? What 
 is the object of my exist- 
 ence here ? These questions 
 have been asked by man, in all ages 
 and in every clime. If the countless 
 worlds surrounding the millions of suns 
 in our Universe are inhabited by con- 
 scious beings, these same questions 
 are asked there. For most of us 
 these questions still remain unan- 
 swered. We have sought, we have 
 studied, we have believed, we have 
 puzzled, we have theorized, we have 
 guessed, and yet how much do we 
 really know, how many of these deeper 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 problems of man's being have we 
 actually solved in personal experience ? 
 As Tennyson pathetically expressed it, 
 
 " For what am I ? 
 
 An infant ctying in the night. 
 An infant crying for the light. 
 And with no language but a ciy." 
 
 We are like the caged squirrel, who 
 chases around his wheel until at last 
 exhausted, he finds himself just where 
 he started. Many of us have eagerly 
 begun to climb the mountain of Knowl- 
 edge. We have read books, have 
 studied earnestly, have listened to lec- 
 tures and addresses and sermons of 
 every kind, and finally, weary in body 
 and mind, we have reached the top 
 of the mountain, only to find that om* 
 mountain is a mere tableland, and high 
 above us stretch lofty peaks yet un- 
 sealed. Or we have set out in the quest 
 for spiritual truth; we have turned to 
 
 4 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 first one authority, and then another. 
 We have most earnestly sought for 
 spiritual bread, and we have been 
 given the cold stones of dogma or 
 creed, of church ordinance or ecclesias- 
 tical authority, and we have turned 
 from our search well-nigh in despair. 
 But even in our despair we cannot for- 
 get that this hunger of the soul is the 
 surest sign that somewhere there must 
 be found the spiritual bread. Just as 
 there is physical food to meet the needs 
 of the body; just as there is nourish- 
 ment for the hunger of the mind, so 
 the presence within us of this spiritual 
 thirst, this soul-hunger for reality, is 
 the positive proof of the ultimate satis- 
 faction of our deepest longings and 
 noblest aspirations. Most of us have 
 failed in our search — we are still 
 restless, anxious, troubled, doubting 
 and fearful, because we have been 
 looking outside, for that which can 
 
 5 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 only be found within. Happiness, 
 peace, power, satisfaction, can never 
 be found in externals. If discovered 
 at all, it will only be as they are 
 realized in one's inner spiritual con- 
 sciousness, " For the kingdom of God 
 is within you." 
 
 We have commonly associated spirit- 
 ual life mainly with some future ex- 
 istence. Much of the preaching of 
 the church has tended to give the im- 
 pression that we would .one day become 
 ' spiritual beings, but that now the 
 spiritual life was an ideal to be cher- 
 ished, rather than a fact to be realized 
 in daily experience; or else, if this has 
 not been our idea, we have heard so 
 many strange and abnormal types of 
 character called " spiritual," that we 
 have said to ourselves, " If the ' spirit- 
 ual ' life leads to such results, I prefer 
 to turn my quest in other directions," 
 The first question to be faced frankly 
 
 6 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 and if possible, honestly answered, is 
 this: " Is there such a thing as a nor- 
 mal spiritual life possible to all men — 
 to be lived not in some distant sphere 
 but here and now in this present world ? 
 And if so, in what does it consist, and 
 how is it to be attained ? " 
 
 Will you think with me briefly, of 
 the deeper meaning of life as we know 
 it and observe its development ? The 
 most wonderful and altogether the 
 most significant thing to be said about 
 life, is this: That as we trace it from 
 its earliest beginnings up to the present 
 time, we find a gradual unfolding of 
 consciousness. You may never have 
 thought of it in just this way, but a 
 little reflection will prove that life, 
 from its lowest to its highest forms, has 
 always consisted in the slow but sure 
 unfoldment of consciousness. Until 
 recently scientists have divided matter 
 into organic and inorganic, and they 
 7 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 have regarded a large part of the uni- 
 verse as consisting of dead, or non- 
 living matter. But the more advanced 
 scientists, as we have seen, are telling 
 us that there is no longer any such 
 thing as "dead matter;" that vital 
 and even psychic processes are to be 
 found in the lowest kingdom. If there 
 is life, there must be the first fajnt hints 
 of sensation, and sensation is the be- 
 ginning of consciousness. Intelligence 
 is merely a matter of degree, and even 
 the mineral has its law of life which it 
 obeys. As we enter the organic world, 
 the signs of a low form of consciousness 
 become more apparent. Among the 
 lower forms of life, where it is difficult 
 to distinguish between the plant and 
 animal, there are wants which the 
 organism has power to satisfy, reveal- 
 ing a simple form of mental effort, 
 which appears to be wholly along sub- 
 conscious lines. It is this which is 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 often spoken of as the " life force " 
 in plants. In some of the higher forms 
 of plant life, however, there appears 
 a hint of independent " life action," 
 — a faint indication of the beginning 
 of consciousness. Among animals 
 further up the scalp, we discern a much 
 higher grade of consciousness, varying 
 in degree in the different species. The 
 degree of consciousness in the highest 
 animals, such as the horse and dog, 
 almost approaches that of the lowest 
 forms of the hiunan race, and certainly 
 reaches that of the young child. What 
 we need to observe in the evolution 
 of plants and animals, is the slow de- 
 velopment of this something, that in 
 man we finally call " consciousness." 
 The plants and animals highest in the 
 scale approach most nearly to what 
 we mean bv " the state of conscious- 
 ness ; " those lowest down are the least 
 conscious, — though the hints and sug- 
 
 9 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 gestions of a consciousness yet to be, 
 are discernible even in these lowest 
 fonns. 
 
 In the human family, the little child 
 lives its first two or three years, in a 
 state of simple consciousness, which is 
 a condition of awareness of outward 
 things — i. e. things other than the 
 inner self. The child's consciousness 
 consists wholly of physical sensations, 
 hunger, thirst, heat, cold, painful and 
 pleasurable feelings. By and by there 
 dawns a great day in the life of the 
 child, when the " ego " emerges into 
 consciousness, and the child becomes a 
 self-conscious being. Self-conscious- 
 ness is an awareness of the inner self — • 
 the result of turning the mental gaze 
 inward. Little by little is unfolded 
 gradually the more clearly defined 
 consciousness of the " ego." The child 
 compares itself with other children, 
 contrasts itself with other members 
 
 10 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 of the family, sets itself over against 
 brother and sister or parent, the " ego " 
 asserting itself more definitely as the 
 child grows into the deeper conscious- 
 ness of its selfhood. This is what we 
 mean by growth in the child; not 
 physical or mental development merely, 
 but the deepening or unfolding of self- 
 consciousness. If this is lacking, the 
 child is abnormal, and we are justly 
 concerned. There are many people 
 who know very little about the deeper 
 possibilities of self -consciousness ; they 
 take themselves as a matter of course, 
 they rarely turn their gaze inward; 
 they do not stop to analyze their mental 
 faculties or become conversant with 
 their mental powers and possibilities; 
 they simply live in this outward objec- 
 tive world like thoughtless children. 
 Then there are others who become 
 morbidly self-conscious, who direct their 
 gaze inward so constantly, that they 
 11 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 lose vital contact with the objective 
 world and become abnormal in their 
 living and thinking. 
 
 As we observe those who have ar- 
 rived at self-consciousness, here again 
 we find all degrees of development, for 
 the self-conscious life may be lived 
 on different planes. Multitudes of 
 people about us, neither very good or 
 very bad, are living on the' physical 
 plane, in the sense that the physical 
 life or the life of the body is the dom- 
 inating life. I do not mean that there 
 is no mental or moral life, but what- 
 ever exists of the higher life is plainly 
 subordinated to the physical. Such a 
 person thinks of himself, when he 
 thinks at all, as being a body; if he 
 speaks of his mind or soul, it is in the 
 same way that he would speak of his 
 hat or his coiat, — something that he 
 has, instead of what he is; but he has 
 no deep realizing consciousness of the 
 
 12 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 meaning of mind and soul. He eats, 
 drinks, sleeps and performs many tasks 
 every day. He uses his mind just 
 enough to discharge the duties of daily 
 life. He may sink to the plane of the 
 sensual life, or he may simply . live on 
 the surface, this sensuous life. You 
 cannot call him an intellectual man. 
 You cannot call him in the deep sense 
 a moral man, though he may break no 
 law of society. You cannot call him 
 in any true sense a spiritual man, for 
 he knows not the meaning of spirit. 
 It is the physical life which predomi- 
 nates in him. Such a man does not 
 suffer, except as pain attacks the body. 
 He does not worry about mental prob- 
 lems. He does not vex his soul with 
 the deeper questions of life. These 
 things do not concern him, for he is not 
 conscious of them. He wonders that 
 anybody in the world should be con- 
 cerned about such matters. It is 
 
 13 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 enough for him to eat and sleep and do 
 his work and go the routine round year 
 after year. He enjoys a sort of animal 
 happiness, and it seems rather a pity 
 that he has to be awakened and face 
 the pain of the next stage of develop- 
 ment — but life is inexorable — the 
 child must grow in spite of pain, 
 even by means of pain; and he has only 
 reached as yet the child's plane of 
 physical consciousness. 
 
 Then there are many who have 
 passed out of the physical plane of con- 
 sciousness, into the mental. They are 
 living on the intellectual plane. They 
 have come to understand something 
 of the power of the Intellect. They 
 enjoy reading, music, art, travel; they 
 find pleasure in conversation with other 
 intellectual friends. The body is a 
 part of them, but it is held in abeyance; 
 it no longer controls. It is an instru- 
 ment to be used by them, and the 
 
 14 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 dominating " ego " is the intellectual. 
 We all know people who find their 
 greatest joy and satisfaction in the 
 pleasures of the intellectual life, to 
 whom the physical temptations make 
 little or no appeal, who live day after 
 day in the higher atmosphere of thought 
 or study. This plane represents a dis- 
 tinct unfoldment of consciousness, a 
 decided advance on the consciousness 
 of the physical plane. Here we find 
 the moral life more or less highly de- 
 veloped, though the intellectual life 
 is by no means free from its peculiar 
 besetting sins. 
 
 Is there a still higher plane of con- 
 sciousness, above the moral and in- 
 tellectual? Unquestionably there is, 
 and the consciousness of man must 
 still contiuue to unfold, until it reaches 
 the spiritual plane. There can be no 
 question that the higher, or " spiritual 
 man," must be the moral man, but 
 
 15 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 I think we must all agree that the 
 moral man may not be the spiritual 
 man, in the sense that he has not yet 
 reached this higher plane of conscious- 
 ness. It is impossible to draw any hard 
 and fast line. The physical blends into 
 the intellectual, and the intellectual 
 blends into the spiritual. You will 
 never find a man who is altogether 
 physical, or one who is altogether in- 
 tellectual, any more than you will find 
 one who is altogether spiritual. These 
 ' different planes of consciousness im- 
 pinge on one another. But the real 
 question is this: After we have grown 
 out of the simple consciousness of the 
 child, into self -consciousness ; after we 
 have passed through the physical stage 
 to the moral and intellectual, is there 
 still a higher plane of consciousness for 
 man? We have heard the preacher 
 talk about the spiritual life since child- 
 hood, but has it any reality? Has it 
 
 16 
 
spmrruAL consciousness 
 
 any basis in fact ? Is there any actual 
 ground in human experience for think- 
 ing that man's consciousness may un- 
 fold into the life of the Spirit ? 
 
 I firmly believe there is, and these 
 are some of the reasons for my con- 
 viction. First, because the Intellectual 
 life does not satisfy. Tolstoi somewhere 
 says, " As soon as the Intellect has 
 taken control of a person, new worlds 
 are opened and desires are multiplied 
 a thousand-fold. They become as 
 numerous as the radii of a circle; and 
 the mind with care and anxiety sets itself 
 first to cultivate and then to gratify 
 these desires, thinking that happiness 
 is to be attained in that way." There 
 are rare pleasures in the intellectual 
 life, known only to those who have 
 experienced them ; but there are poign- 
 ant pains as well. The more one 
 thinks, the greater the capacity for 
 suffering. One may start out ever so 
 17 
 
SPmiTUAl, CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 ambitiously in the solution of life's 
 problems, but before long, if he follows 
 the guidance of Intellect solely, he 
 finds himself back at the place where 
 he began. At the end of every intel- 
 lectual journey, stands the old question, 
 " Why ? " There is a weariness in the 
 life of the Intellect merely, which all 
 great thinkers have experienced. The 
 intellect can achieve wondrous results 
 and answer many questions within its 
 own field, but its field is circumscribed, 
 and in the end man is still unsatisfied. 
 The deeper problems of existence are 
 not solved by the intellect. You can- 
 not demonstrate the Being of God by 
 the reason; you cannot prove the 
 existence of a future life by the reason; 
 you cannot demonstrate by intellectual 
 processes alone that you are a Soul. 
 These deeper truths of life elude us on 
 the intellectual plane. 
 Another reason for the belief that 
 
 18 
 
spmrruAL consciousness 
 
 there is a higher plane of conscious- 
 ness beyond the Intellectual, is found 
 in the fact that there is no one who does 
 not live at times on that higher plane. 
 Whether he be a professing Christian 
 or not, every one lives on this higher 
 plane of spiritual consciousness in some 
 experiences of life. Justice, kindness, 
 mercy, sympathy and disinterested love 
 — are these the product of cold intel- 
 lect? From the standpoint of logic 
 merely, is there any reason why you 
 should not trample your brother in 
 the mire and take his belongings if 
 you choose? From the coldly intel- 
 lectual standpoint is there any reason 
 why you should forget yourself and 
 make sacrifices and go forth on errands 
 of mercy? The coldly intellectual 
 man or woman, as we use the expres- 
 sion, stands to us as the type of the ex- 
 treme of selfishness, of brutality and 
 inhumanity. There is no one quite 
 18 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 so repellent as the intellectual person 
 who is without human sympathy, kind- 
 ness and love. And these qualities 
 which are expressed to a greater or less 
 degree in every life, are not dictated 
 by the Intellect; we do not reason 
 about these things — we listen to the 
 voice within and obey. At such times, 
 one is living in the spiritual conscious- 
 ness. I do not care what the act may 
 be or how trivial it may seem, if it is 
 done unselfishly, one is living, for the 
 moment at least, the spiritual life; 
 for unselfish love in any of its forms is 
 the fruit of the Spirit. If you could 
 find a person so depraved, that he never 
 had a kindly thought, or spoke a loving 
 word, or did an unselfish deed, then 
 you would have discovered a life abso- 
 lutely unspiritual, in which there was 
 no spiritual life. But even in the lowest 
 criminals and outcasts of society, there 
 are at times outbursts of unselfishness. 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 Bashes of kindness, that prove the ex- 
 istence in them of the Divine Sparky 
 even yet — in spite of all our theologies. 
 The trouble lies here, that with most of 
 us, the spiritual life is an occasional 
 or spasmodic thing ; we live on the plane 
 of the spirit for this little while, and 
 then we drop to the intellectual or 
 physical plane. The spiritual con- 
 sciousness is but faintly developed in 
 us, and we are not yet confirmed and 
 habitual in our life on the spiritual plane. 
 Psychology furnishes still further evi- 
 dence of the spiritual stage of con- 
 sciousness. Professors Starbuck and 
 Coe, who have made an exhaustive 
 study of the development of conscious- 
 ness in human life, tell us, as the result 
 of generalizations from a multitude 
 of carefully observed facts, that there 
 is a time in every normal life, some- 
 where between the ages of fifteen to 
 twenty, when there takes place a moral 
 
 81 
 
spmrruAL consciousness 
 
 and spiritual awakening. It is at this 
 time that the boy or girl begins to ask, 
 " What is my relation to the universe 
 or to God, what should be my rela- 
 tions to others ? " It is then that the 
 altruistic sentiments are aroused and 
 earnest life-purposes formed. It is 
 the natural time for religious conversion 
 to take place; and if parents and 
 teachers are only wise and sympathetic, 
 the boy or girl enters naturally upon 
 the next stage in the unfolding of con- 
 sciousness — viz. the spiritual. 
 
 The law of Evolution written deep 
 in our own natures, — this law of 
 " going on," this instinct deep as life 
 itself, that makes us feel we are here 
 to grow constantly into higher and 
 richer experiences, is another evidence 
 for the spiritual life. No matter how 
 far we have come physically, morally 
 or intellectually, we know we cannot 
 stand still; for the law of growth is 
 ftst 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 the law of life, as it is the law of the 
 universe. Every stage in life hereto- 
 fore has been preparatory to some- 
 thing higher, and the man who attains 
 the greatest heights intellectually is 
 conscious that he has not reached the 
 final summit. It may seem vague, we 
 may not understand just what that 
 h^her state is to be, but in all of us 
 there is a power urging us on, leading us 
 forward, forcing us to believe that we 
 have not yet exhausted life's meaning 
 or drained to its dregs life's cup of 
 possibilities. 
 
 If further reason were needed to 
 show that there is something beyond 
 the life on the Intellectual and Moral 
 plane, there is the testimony of count- 
 less lives in all ages, who have lived 
 at least to a degree this higher life and 
 have become more or less deeply con- 
 scious of their spiritual natures. 
 
 Spiritual life, then, is the life lived 
 
 23 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 by those in whom consciousness has 
 unfolded beyond the intellectual and 
 moral stage, disclosing to view the 
 possibilities on the spiritual plane. It 
 is perfectly normal. It is part of God's 
 plan for the development of every life. 
 We are all in the process of unfolding; 
 the only difference is that some are 
 farther on than others. Can we at- 
 tempt to characterize in words, the life 
 of one whose soul has awakened, whose 
 consciousness has unfolded into the 
 spiritual? In describing the meaning 
 of the Spiritual life, I realize that I am 
 attempting the impossible. I can only 
 offer hints and suggestions as to its 
 deeper significance. My words will 
 doubtless be full of meaning for some, 
 and have little or no meaning for others. 
 There are experiences of the spiritual 
 consciousness of which we dare not 
 speak, for fear they would not be 
 understood. 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 The one who has awakened, here 
 ai^d now, to his spiritual consciousness, 
 realizes for the first time what the 
 " ego " actually is. Henceforth he 
 regards body and mind solely as in- 
 struments to be used. He knows that 
 he is not dependent upon the physical 
 body, but is conscious of having always 
 existed, and of being destined for an 
 eternal existence. The past does not 
 worry him; the future causes no anx- 
 iety; he has attained to the conscious- 
 ness of his spiritual selfhood which he 
 knows to be imperishable and eternal. 
 He goes through the days in the glad 
 consciousness that nothing can hurt, 
 nothii^ can injure, nothing can destroy 
 him; that he is not the body, he is not 
 the intellect; he is the somZ, the spiritual 
 " ego " who stands back of and em- 
 ploys both for great and glorious ends. 
 
 Such an awakened soul is keenly 
 joyous in the presence of the Now. 
 «5 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 He regards himself as a vital part of 
 the whole. He feels himself as evei-y- 
 where at home in the universe. He 
 knows that he is an emanation of the 
 Divine, a particle of God, if you will, 
 housed for a little while in this mechan- 
 ism we call the body. He may not be 
 able to solve all the problems, but he 
 does not demand their instant explana- 
 tion, knowing that in God's good time, 
 as he continues to unfold in spiritual 
 consciousness, the light will break and 
 thfe meaning of life's mystery will be 
 more fully revealed. He is daily con- 
 scious of the nearness of the Universal 
 presence. His faith consists no longer 
 in beliefs about God, for his faith has be- 
 come knowledge, and he lives day after 
 day in the glad consciousness of his onc'^ 
 ness with the Eternal Father. He be- 
 lieves not only that God created him 
 sometime in the past, but that God is in 
 Jim now, sustaining and keeping, nour- 
 »6 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 ishing and leading, teaching and de- 
 veloping him at every step he takes in 
 life's journey. Not only is he conscious 
 of his oneness with God, but he realizes 
 just as truly his oneness with man. 
 He no longer draws any distinction, 
 between himself and his fellows. As 
 he looks out upon society, he sees all 
 men as his brothers and all women as his 
 sisters. Hate, envy, jealousy, rancour, 
 cruelty, selfishness, greed and avarice 
 — these things fall away from him, be- 
 cause he sees himself as a part of all 
 other lives. He knows that whatever 
 is good for one is good for all, and 
 that whatever hurts one, hurts all. 
 He knows full well that he can never 
 injure another without injuring himself, 
 that his life is knit up inextricably with 
 all humanity; and so his heart inevit- 
 ably goes out in disinterested love to all 
 men and women. He loves the vilest 
 man, he loves the most degraded 
 
 27 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 woman, because he sees the possibility 
 of the spiritual consciousness one day 
 being developed in thena; he under- 
 stands that they are journeying as he 
 has journeyed, and while he has gone 
 far beyond them, still he knows that 
 they too must travel the same pathway 
 — that no life can ever be left out when 
 the gracious purposes of God are 
 made complete. What men call sin, 
 he translates into terms of ignorance 
 and selfishness. He no longer despises 
 and condemns others. He pities them 
 and he tries to help them with all the 
 strength of his loving manhood. The 
 spiritual man not only realizes his one- 
 ness with God, but he never fails to 
 realize his oneness with all humanity. 
 
 The awakened Soul is sure that while 
 all is law yet all is love; that God is 
 infinite Love — He always has been 
 and always must be. All the lurking 
 fear in his heart vanishes entirely, for 
 
 28 
 
spmrruAL consciousness 
 
 he knows now that his fear of God in 
 days gone by was due to his ignorance 
 of God. As he looks upon men and 
 women, struggling and striving, grop- 
 ing their way, slipping backward, rising 
 and falling again and again, he knows 
 that God looks down upon them all 
 with infinite tenderness and compassion 
 simply because He understands; and 
 that some day, as sure as God is God, 
 these erring, sinning, struggling, falling 
 men and women will reach up their 
 hands to the outstretched hand of the 
 Eternal, and forevermore follow where 
 He leads. The spiritual man is no 
 longer fearful in the presence of death, 
 for he has learned at last that life and 
 death, the twin mysteries, are but one 
 after all; that death is never the end 
 of life but only an incident in life ; that 
 whenever death may come, it is simply 
 a rebirth; that as these earthly gar- 
 ments fall away, the real Self continues 
 
 99 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 to unfold into ever more abounding 
 Life. 
 
 These and other experiences, too 
 lofty' for words to express, are born in 
 the soul when it awakens to life on the 
 plane of spiritual coilsciousness. All 
 about us men and women are attaining 
 to it, some slowly, some more rapidly; 
 we are all spiritual to a degree, very 
 few of us have yet learned how to live 
 habitually on the spiritual plane. 
 Sometimes the, soul awakens to this 
 new consciousness suddenly. It may 
 be through some startling experience, 
 such as sorrow, or calamity, or great 
 disappointment. But for most men, the 
 development into this next stage of 
 consciousness is slow and gradual. 
 Most of us are slowly awakening. We 
 are like the man roused from a deep 
 sleep, who rubs his eyes and wonders 
 where he is; his sleep has gone, but 
 he is not yet thoroughly awake. This 
 so 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 is where most of us stand. We are 
 not satisfied with the intellectual or 
 moral or physical life which we have 
 been living, and we have begun to 
 yield ourselves to the Spirit and live 
 upon this higher plane, at least occa- 
 sionally; but we are rubbing our eyes, 
 we do not see clearly, we have not yet 
 learned how to live the spiritual life 
 continuously. 
 
 A few years ago it was my privilege 
 to know a prominent physician, who 
 held a place of wide influence in his 
 home city, because of his exceptional 
 ability — thoroughly upright and re- 
 spected for his fearless honesty, and 
 yet, a man who despised religion, and 
 had nothing good to say for the 
 churches. He always spoke of himself 
 as a materialist; he did not believe in 
 God, the soul, or a future life; he be- 
 lieved that religion was merely a sur- 
 vival of old superstitions, and should 
 
 31 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 have no place in the intellectual life 
 of our day. He used to spend his 
 Sunday evenings with a little group 
 of friends, reading the works of ma- 
 terialistic writers. One day he was 
 taken sick with typhoid fever. He was 
 only sick a week. The fever was low. 
 The doctors and nurses all agreed that 
 during this week's illness he was never 
 delirious. He died at the end of the 
 seventh day, not from the typhoid 
 fever, but as the result of other com- 
 plications. They had no idea that he 
 would die up to the last twelve hours 
 of his life. On the night before the 
 day on which he died, two doctors who 
 were his closest friends, his wife, — 
 an extremely intellectual woman, — 
 and the nurse, all of whom shared his 
 materialistic views, were present in 
 the room. About ten o'clock he called 
 his wife to the bedside and motioned 
 for the others to come near. Remem- 
 
 3» 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 ber, he had not been a very sick man, 
 nobody anticipated that death was 
 near, the complications had not set 
 in as yet, and he was in the full control 
 of his mental faculties. What he said 
 was Written down by his wife after- 
 wards and I read his words which Were 
 in substance these: *' You know what 
 my life has been. You know me to 
 be an honest man, you know I am not 
 afraid to face either the present or the 
 future. You know how honestly I 
 have disbelieved in all religion. I tell 
 you now and I want you to believe that 
 I am speaking out of what I know, 
 that I have been all wrong. I know 
 there is a God. I know there is a 
 future life. I know I have a soul." 
 And then turning to one of the doctors 
 present, he said, " After I am dead 
 I want you to go to the Academy of 
 Medicine and tell the other doctors 
 what I have just told you." After his 
 ss 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 death these four people tacitly agreed 
 to make no mention, of this startling 
 experience for a month. Each one 
 was left free to think the experience 
 over by himself, and come to his awn 
 conclusions. At the end of the month 
 they came together and after talking 
 the matter over, they all agreed that 
 he was perfectly rational, that it was 
 the honest conviction of his own mind, 
 that whatever may have led him to such 
 a complete change of attitude, it was 
 an honest and intelligent change on his 
 part; and they believed it to such a 
 degree that his friend went to the next 
 meeting of the Academy of Medicine, 
 and gave the message from their former 
 member. I do not know what this man 
 saw or experienced in those few days 
 of sickness, but knowing the individuals 
 and all the circumstances as I do, I 
 am convinced beyond the shadow of a 
 doubt that certain experiences did 
 
 34 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 come to him, that actual knowledge, 
 — I do not know just how, — was given 
 him, because of which he was justified 
 in saying, " I know there is a God and a 
 futvne life." It has been to me a 
 striking illustration of the fact that it 
 is possible for men and women to 
 become aware of these great realities 
 of the spiritual world, here in this life, 
 before the portals of death have been 
 passed. This man had lived on the 
 intellectual plane, an intense intellec- 
 tual life, but there came the time before 
 death, when he learned the truth, when 
 his soul awakened as his spiritual con- 
 sciousness began to unfold. 
 
 I have stated what seems to me 
 strong evidence for the spiritual life, 
 not by quoting passages of Scripture, 
 as might have been done, but by pre- 
 sentii^ the evidence of human expe- 
 rience to-day. The Bible is but the 
 record of human experience in an age 
 35 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 long since gone; I have sought to 
 brmg you that experience in terms 
 of to-day's life, as we see and know it. 
 Nothing can be clearer than that 
 Hunoianity is being prepared for the 
 next stage in its development; that we 
 are standing on the threshold of a new 
 era — the era of the Spiritual Man. 
 The race has evolved through simple 
 consciousness, through physical, in*- 
 tellectual and moral consciousness, and 
 To-morrow will usher in the new age 
 of the spiritual consciousness of the 
 race. The time is coming, not very 
 far off, when we will look back upon 
 these records of warfare, bloodshed, 
 killing, extermination, just as to-day 
 we look back upon the old gladiatorial 
 combats in the Colosseum of Ancient 
 Rome. The time is coming in the 
 evolution of the race, when men will 
 regard our, economic and social in- 
 humarnity to our brothers and sisters 
 
 S6 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 as horrible and incredible in an age 
 of our intellectual development, ex- 
 actly as we now look back upon the 
 barbarities and cruelties practised in 
 the primitive life of man. The race 
 is surely growing, and when the spirit- 
 ual consciou^iess of humanity is once 
 attained, the brotherhood of man will 
 be no idle dream, but an every-day 
 truth translated into actual life. 
 
 The message of Jesus in its simplest 
 terms, was the same truth reiterated 
 and emphasized, — that men are spirit- 
 ual beings, that all they need is to 
 realize their oneness with God and their 
 oneness with their fellows. To accept 
 Jesus Christ means not merely believing 
 certain things about the historical Jesus, 
 who lived in Palestine 1900 years ago; 
 it involves vastly more than that; it 
 means that a man shall surrender him- 
 self, in loyalty to the Christ who dwells 
 in every one of us, to the Christ waiting 
 
 37 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 to be revealed in every one of us, to the 
 Christ Spirit which we all possess, in 
 some measure, or at some time; only 
 then does our acceptance of Him, our 
 faith in Him, our belief in Him — 
 I care not what terms you use, — be- 
 come a saving power, because this is 
 the only way that we become like Him. 
 It may be that you are standing at 
 the foot of the hill that leads to the 
 spiritual heights above; as you think 
 of your life it may seem that you have 
 never awakened to your spiritual con- 
 sciousness, as if your life had been 
 altogether lived on the physical or in- 
 tellectual, or moral plane. Perhaps 
 you can see only one step ahead. Take 
 the one step. Make up your mind to 
 persevere in your quest for Truth and 
 Life, no matter what your disappoint- 
 ments have been. Live in the great 
 thought that you are a Spiritual Being, 
 that the body and intellect are only 
 
 38 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 instruments for you to use, that death 
 can never touch you at all, that you 
 are one with God and one with your 
 fellows. It may be that you will find 
 many things that must be cast aside, 
 
 — prejudices, narrowness, bigotry, 
 meannesses of various kinds, self-com- 
 placency, pride and self-righteousness 
 
 — you will have to get rid of all these 
 encumbrances as you climb the heights, 
 but rest assured, it is worth while. 
 The true solution of the supreme prob- 
 lem of every life is found in spiritual 
 development, as we enter this higher 
 state of consciousness and the soul 
 begins to manifest its life and express 
 its powers. What others have achieved, 
 you may achieve; what others can do, 
 you can do. If you hold to these 
 thoughts, and shut your eyes to every- 
 thing that is not spiritual, by the 
 wondrous power of suggestion the 
 spiritual consciousness will gradually 
 
SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 unfold within you, for " As a man 
 thinketh in his heart so is he." 
 
 Thus as we enter into this spiritual 
 consciousness, gradually the fruit of 
 the Spirit will be apparent in us. How 
 often we struggle, and agonize, and 
 pray for the realization of those ideal 
 qualities of character, such as peace, 
 joy, love, meekness, gentleness, etc., 
 and sadly wonder why our lives fail to 
 reveal them. It is simply because 
 we begin at the wrong end. The fruit 
 will appear if the sources of life are pure. 
 B^n with the inner life, whence all 
 outward manifestations must proceed. 
 As day by day we enter more deeply 
 into the spiritual consciousness of our 
 divine self-hood, — love, joy, peace, 
 long-sufifering, meekness, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, temperance, against 
 which there is no law, will become the 
 dominant and abiding qualities of our 
 characters. 
 
 40 
 
THE KEDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 I HERE can be no question as 
 to the greatness of the century 
 just closed. If you have read 
 Alfred Russell Wallace's book 
 entitled " The Wonderful Century," yoti 
 have in mind a most clear and vivid 
 picture of its astonishing character. 
 In one chapter the author compares 
 the progress made during the past 
 century with that made by all the 
 preceding centuries of history. Up 
 until the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century, there were only five great prac- 
 tical discoveries and inventions, which, 
 according to Mr. Wallace, deserve 
 to rank in the first-class. During the 
 
 43 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 last hundred years there have been 
 thirteen. Of theoretical discoveries, 
 the number made in the last century 
 have been just about equal to those 
 made during the entire lifetime of the 
 race. In all past history he finds only 
 eight great principles, or fundamental 
 theories antecedent to the nineteenth 
 century, as compared with twelve dur- 
 ing this century; so that his conclusion 
 seems justified, that " to get any ade- 
 quate comparison with the nineteenth 
 century, we must take, not any one 
 preceding century or group of centu- 
 ries, but rather the whole preceding 
 epoch of human history." One cannot 
 read Mr. Wallace's summing up of the 
 work of the century, without feeling 
 that it is in very truth a " wonderful 
 century," out of which we have just 
 come. And yet, wonderful as its 
 achievements have been, its true great- 
 ness lies in the achievements to which 
 
 44 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 it has opened up the way. Every dis- 
 covery simply points the way for new 
 and further discoveries. During the 
 last century man has been learning the 
 secrets of nature and gaining ever in- 
 creasing dominion over physical forces. 
 At last the time has arrived, when man 
 is beginning to learn the secrets of his 
 own being, and is about to attain the 
 mastery over himself. Oiu: century is 
 preparing the way for a century still 
 more wonderful — beyond the dream 
 of imagination. 
 
 The new physical order is plainly 
 preparing the way for a new social 
 order; and yet nothing is clearer to 
 the leading students of our social prob- 
 lems, than the fact that before the new 
 social order can be ushered in there 
 must appear the new Man, with a new 
 spirit, a new mind, a new conscience, 
 — in short, the man in whom lives 
 the awakened soul. The new century 
 
 45 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 upon which we have just entered will 
 see this new man standing upon the 
 earth, radiant in his new intelligence, 
 master of himself, mentally and phys- 
 ically, glorious in the consciousness of 
 his divine sonship. Unless we misread 
 altogether the signs of the times, the 
 work of the new century is to be psy- 
 chic, rather than political or economic. 
 It is to be more moral than intellectual. 
 It is to be more spiritual than moral. 
 It will consist primarily in leading man 
 into the holy of holies of his inner Self, 
 and revealing to him the wondrous 
 possibilities of his life as a child of 
 God. 
 
 The newer thinking of our age 
 along all lines is but helping to prepare 
 the way for the coming of the new, the 
 truly spiritual man who is yet to be 
 upon the earth. I have tried to help 
 you see that the New Thought Move- 
 ment) in its essentials, consists of 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 the blendii^ of two thought-streams, 
 one psychological, and one religious. 
 Rightly understood it is not, in any 
 sense, something apart from the essen- 
 tials of Christianity. It is not hostile 
 to the churches; neither does it an- 
 tagonize the true spiritual activities of 
 the Church. In its great essentials — ' 
 and that is all that concerns us just 
 now — it is part and parcel of the 
 central truths of Christianity, and is 
 in closest sympathy with the funda- 
 mental purpose, the life and work of the 
 Church. No one will question that 
 Jesus stands in history, as the true 
 exponent of the essentials of Christian- 
 ity. If we desired to teach a person 
 who knew nothing whatever about 
 Christianity its real truth and meaning, 
 we would not send him to any particu- 
 lar church, or to any historic statement 
 of theological belief; we would pre- 
 siunably put the Gospels into his hands, 
 
 47 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 and let him learu directly from the 
 words of Jesus. If the teachings of the 
 New Thought Movement are contra- 
 dictory to the fundamental teachings 
 of Jesus, if they are in opposition to 
 the principles that lay at the founda- 
 tion of His life and constituted the 
 essence of His message, then certainly, 
 as Christians, we might well pause 
 and consider. But if it should be foimd 
 that there is a close and vital relation 
 between the New Thought teaching, 
 so-called, and the fundamental teach- 
 ings of Jesus ; if this modern movement, 
 which is in accord with scientific teach- 
 ings, should also prove to be in the 
 closest sympathy with the message of 
 Jesus, then certainly our faith and 
 confidence in the authority of Jesus 
 could not , fail to be tremendously 
 strengthened. 
 
 We have not been accustomed to 
 think of Jesus as a philosopher or a 
 
 48 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 scientist. The world has regarded him 
 for these many centuries, regardless of 
 its theology about Him, as its greatest 
 moral and religious Teacher. It is 
 assuredly true that Jesus did not elab- 
 orate any philosophic theory. He 
 made no pretence to a systematic or 
 scientific arrangement of His subjects. 
 Nor is it recorded that He appealed to 
 the reasoning faculties of BKs hearers 
 by the use of logical formulas. It is 
 strikingly characteristic of Jesus as a 
 teacher that, in most instances, He 
 merely cast His statements in the axio- 
 matic form, leaving their accuracy and 
 truth to be perceived by the intuition 
 of His hearers. While this is true, 
 nevertheless, that there is some basic 
 system, whether of science or philos- 
 ophy, imderlying the teachings of Jesus, 
 I think no intelligent follower of Him 
 would dare deny; for the God who 
 reveals Himself in Jesus must be the 
 
 49 
 
THE REDISCOVERY O^ JEStJS 
 
 same God who is revealed in nature 
 and the mind of man. Science and 
 philosophy represent the attempts of the 
 human mind to get at the ultimate facts 
 of existetice, and theU to reasonably 
 explain these facts. If Jesus is divine, 
 then certainly His utterances must in the 
 last analysis accord with the absolute 
 basic truths of existence. Otherwise 
 His authority Would mean nothing for 
 the intelligeut man. If His axiomatic 
 statements recorded in the Gospels 
 do not harmonize with man's best and 
 deepest thinking on these problems of 
 the moral and spiritual life, then the 
 authority of Jesus as a teacher of truth 
 must vanish. 
 
 I firmly believe that the time will 
 yet come when that which is imperfect 
 in the conclusions of science and phi- 
 losophy, and that which is still imperfect 
 in the conclusions of theology, will so 
 far approximate accuracy in the stfttfr* 
 50 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 ment of truth, that each will be seen 
 to be in perfect harmony with all the 
 others. Then it will be possible to give 
 the whole human race the most con- 
 vincing reasons for the existence of 
 Jesus' precepts, and the supreme reason 
 why they should be obeyed. " When 
 that time comes, the value of these 
 teachings will be immensely enhanced 
 for those who look to reason rather 
 than to authority, while it will not de- 
 tract in the slightest from the alle- 
 giance of those who accept Him, chiefly 
 on the basis of His divinity ; and it will 
 furnish both classes with abundant 
 reasons why His teachings should be 
 accepted as, in very truth, the message 
 of God to man." 
 
 Let us consider first, some of these 
 fundamental teachings of Jesus, in 
 comparison with what we have found 
 to be the essential teachings of the New 
 Thought movement, both in its relig- 
 
 51 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 ious and psychological aspects. Jesus 
 taught that religion is first and fore- 
 most a thing of the inner life, rather 
 than of outward observances. He 
 lived and taught in an age when re- 
 ligion was a thoroughly established 
 system. The temple with its priest- 
 hood and sacrificial ritual, the syna- 
 gogue with its regular worship, the 
 traditions of the elders, the binding 
 authority of innumerable petty rules 
 — these constituted the religious sys- 
 tem of His day. Apparently Jesus 
 paid no attention to the sacrifices car- 
 ried on in the temple. He was not at 
 all particular about attending the syna- 
 gogue services. He utterly disregarded 
 the religious restrictions of His time. 
 Judging from His words, He regarded 
 the religion of the leaders of that day as 
 superficial, mechanical and insincere. 
 He said to His followers : " Unless 
 your righteousness shall exceed the 
 
 52 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 righteousness," or " go far deeper than 
 the righteousness of these scribes and 
 Pharisees," these religious leaders, these 
 chiu-ch members of that day, " ye shall 
 in no wise enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven." We know that the " right- 
 eousness " of the scribes and Pharisees 
 was legal and formal, a thing of the 
 head and not of the heart. It consisted 
 in outward obedience to conventional 
 religious customs, in conformance to 
 established rituals, in the intellectual 
 acceptance of orthodox creeds; in a 
 word, it was external rather than in- 
 ternal, it was mechanical rather than 
 vital, it was hypocritical rather than 
 genuine. No one has ever spoken more 
 earnestly and emphatically against this 
 whole conception of religion than did 
 Jesus. Nowhere does He say that 
 religion consists in Church attendance, 
 in believing creeds or in conforming 
 to rituals. These things upon which 
 
 S3 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 we have laid so much stress during 
 the intervening centuries apparently 
 had little significance for Him, All the 
 time He was trying to help men see 
 that religion consists not in outward 
 observances, but in the inward life and 
 disposition. 
 
 What is this but the real starting 
 point of the modern movement, which 
 puts life before theology, which believes 
 in the God who is within, as well as 
 without, and which recognizes so fully 
 the possibilities for development of the 
 inner life of man ? 
 
 Then you will recall that the first 
 message of Jesus to men was, " Re- 
 pent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven 
 is at hand ; " and when He sent His 
 apostles out He instructed them to say, 
 into whatever place they came, " Re- 
 pent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven 
 is at hand." This was also the mes- 
 sage of John the Baptist, who pre- 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 ced^d Jesus. The meaning of the 
 Greek word for " repent " is actually 
 this: " Change your mind, or change 
 your thinking." This first message 
 of Jesus to His age and entrusted by 
 Him to His apostles, was evidently, 
 in His mind, the key-note to the whole 
 moral and religious situation. What 
 men needed first, in His judgment, was 
 a change of mind, a transformation 
 in their thinking. This is exactly 
 where the New Thought movement 
 places its emphasis to-day. 
 
 Let me be a little more specific in the 
 application of this thought of Jesus. 
 All New Testament scholars, of what- 
 ever school, are agreed that in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, as it is recorded 
 in Matthew's ' Gospel, we have the 
 fundamental ethical and spiritual prin- 
 ciples enunciated by Jesus, the real 
 heart of His message to man. The 
 New Testament student is also pretty 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 well satisfied that in the essentials of 
 this Sennon on the Mount we have the 
 " final residuum " which Biblical criti- 
 cism cannot touch. In other words, 
 whatever else in the Gospel narratives 
 may be open to doubt or uncertainty, in 
 the Sermon on the Mount we approach 
 as near the genuine thought and actual 
 principles of Jesus as is possible after 
 the lapse of these centuries. Since this 
 is the opinion of those competent to 
 judge, let us consider briefly the main 
 thought which underlies all the teaching 
 of the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 Here we read, " Moses of old said 
 to you, ye shall not kill, but I say to 
 you that eveiy one who is angry with 
 his brother shall be in danger of the 
 judgment." Jesus had said, " I am 
 come not to destroy but to fulfil " the 
 old law — to interpret its deeper truth, 
 to trace it back to its real spiritual 
 meaning. The sin of murder, he says, 
 £6 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OP JESUS 
 
 lies not in the overt act, but in the dis- 
 cordant thought of anger, from which 
 all murder proceeds. He that is angry 
 with his brother has already committed 
 the sin. Once again, " Ye have heard 
 that it was said. Thou shalt not com- 
 mit adidtery, but I say unto you that 
 every man that looketh on a woman to 
 lust after her hath committed sin." 
 The act itself, according to Moses, was 
 the crime; Jesus presses the impure act 
 back to its real source in impure think- 
 ing. The sin lies in the mind that 
 harbours adulterous thoughts. Banish 
 all such thoughts, and you have abol- 
 ished the cause of the sin. 
 
 Again He says, " Ye have been 
 taught, an eye for an eye and a tooth 
 for a tooth, but I say unto you, resist 
 not evil." This passage has been the 
 cornerstone of the religious philosophy 
 of Count Leo Tolstoi, and Christian 
 men have called him a visionary, or 
 fi7 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OP JESUS 
 
 insane, for taking these words literally. 
 "What does Jesus mean by " Resist not 
 evil," except this: that merely to con- 
 tend against evil is to accentuate that 
 evil; the method is negative; it is 
 useless. We are to " overcome evil 
 with good," to fill the heart with a new 
 affection, to inspire the bad indiAddual 
 or the evil society with a new spirit. 
 This method is positive; it will suc- 
 ceed. It is just as absurd to contend 
 against evil as it would be to struggle 
 against the darkness in the room; 
 throw open the curtains and let in the 
 light, and the darkness disappears of 
 itself. We are learning from the con- 
 sideration of the newer psychological 
 principles the same truth; that every 
 time we fight against evil, we are only 
 emphasizing that evil. Let a niinister 
 preach against some immoral book, and 
 everybody rushes off post haste to buy 
 the book; or let him denounce a lewd 
 «8 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 play and the theatre is crowded for 
 weeks to come. If you have a boy with 
 a tendency to prevarication, just keep 
 telling him over and over again that he 
 cannot tell the truth, that he does not 
 know the truth when he sees it, and 
 you are making him a more pronounced 
 liar than ever. 
 
 Jesus and the New Psychology are 
 at one in telling us that the true method 
 of eradicating evil is to forget all about 
 the evil, whether in the child, in the 
 book, or in society, and earnestly seek 
 to foster the opposite of the evil. Do 
 not denounce vices, but preach the 
 virtues. Emphasize in the child's life 
 the beauty and nobility of truth and 
 sincerity. Forget, as far as he is con- 
 cerned, all his weaknesses, and keep 
 constantly before him the great ideals. 
 For nineteen hundred years the worJd, 
 and for the most part the Church, have 
 been following the negative method 
 
 59 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 of dealing with evil. We have said that 
 Jesus was an idealist, and His words 
 impractical. In the light of modern 
 psychology we are coming to realize the 
 profound philosophy underlying these 
 words. But the time is coming when 
 we will be wise enough to follow the 
 positive method of Jesus, both in deal- 
 ing with evil in ourselves and in so- 
 ciety, and when that day dawns, evil 
 will disappear. " Resist not evil; but 
 overcome evil with good." 
 
 Here is another of the axioms of 
 Jesus, " Judge not, that ye be not 
 judged; " or, literally translated, " Con- 
 demn not." The word is much stronger 
 than our word to " judge," or to pass 
 judgment upon; it means to condenm 
 harshly or bitterly. " Condemn not, 
 that ye be not condemned, for with 
 what condemnation ye condemn, ye 
 shall be condemned." Do not these 
 words take on a new meaning in the 
 40 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 light of modern thought? Shall a 
 man carry in his mind the discordant 
 thoughts of condemnation or harsh 
 criticism? The condemjiatory spirit 
 has been back of all wars between 
 nations ; it has been the cause of every 
 quarrel and misunderstanding; when 
 men have held condemnatory thoughts 
 towards others and gone forth in that 
 spirit, inevitably such discordant think- 
 ing has yielded its brood of pesti- 
 lential results. Whether it be in the 
 form of violence, inflicting bodily in- 
 jury, or in the form of malicious slander, 
 unkind criticism or petty gossip, never- 
 theless the sin committed and the injury 
 wrought to others must be traced back 
 to the condemnatory thoughts, 
 
 " Do not condemn people harshly," 
 says Jesus, " because when you do, the 
 same condemnation you make on 
 others, will in turn be made upon you." 
 What is this but His way of stating the 
 
 61 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 psychologidal law, " Your own will 
 come to you?" Just as sure as the 
 sun will rise to-morrow morning, if 
 you hold bitter and hateful thoughts 
 of others, they will hold bitter and hate- 
 ful thoughts of you; and if you hold 
 kind and helpful thoughts of others, 
 they will inevitably hold kind and help- 
 ful thoughts of you. " Like breeds 
 like," is a law of mind as well as body. 
 If others do not love you, it is because 
 you do not love them. Psychology 
 e^lains through telepathic principles 
 the profound meaning of this axiomatic 
 statement of Jesus. 
 
 " Take no anxious thought for the 
 morrow," says Jesiis. Men have said 
 many times that it is impossible to 
 obey this plain command. How can 
 We live in the midst of this busy life 
 of ours, beset by cares of every kind, 
 and yet take no anxious thought for 
 the morrow ? And yet Jesus does not 
 
 62 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OP JESUS 
 
 stand alone, but the scientific physician 
 is telling us that the great cause of 
 physical and nervous breakdown so 
 prevalent in our age, a large if not the 
 chief factor in disease of every kind, 
 is found in these twin evils, — fear and 
 worry, — and unless we can learn to 
 master our worries we will become a 
 race of weaklings. Jesus does not 
 state the psychology underlying His 
 words. It has been left for modern 
 thought to discover their scientific basis, 
 in the inevitable influence of mental 
 conditions on the body. 
 
 In the Beatitudes which occur at 
 the beginning of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, — Blessed are the poor in Spirit, 
 Blessed are the meek, Blessed are they 
 that hunger and thirst. Blessed are the 
 merciful. Blessed is the peacemaker, 
 — Jesus is again pointing out that the 
 way to true happiness lies in the inner 
 mental disposition or mental attitude 
 
 08 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 of the individual. He says, upon your 
 real thoughts depends your blessedness ; 
 if you are humble in mind, if you are 
 meek and merciful and a peacemaker, 
 if in your mental disposition you are 
 hungry and thirsty for righteousness, 
 then you shall know the meaning of 
 " blessedness." 
 
 The climax of the Beatitudes is 
 reached when He says, " Blessed are 
 the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God." What is it to be " pure in 
 heart " but to exclude every impure or 
 discordant thought? And they who 
 have attained to this have abeady 
 the Kingdom within them, and perceive 
 God immediately and intuitively. 
 
 Jesus' teaching in regard to for- 
 giveness illustrates the same truth. The 
 woj*d " forgive " really means to let go, 
 to cast away, to put out of the mind 
 absolutely. Jesus would have us " for- 
 give as we would be forgiven." There 
 64 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 is no one who seeks forgiveness for 
 some wrong done but desires the person 
 wronged to forgive, in this sense of 
 putting it out of mind and forgetting 
 it absolutely. This is what we seek in 
 forgiveness. And Jesus said. If you 
 want to be forgiven in this way, you 
 must forgive in the same way. Forgive- 
 ness is not an external tangible thing; 
 it is purely a mental act. It belongs to 
 the inner life; to forgive another in ^ 
 any true sense means to east out the 
 unforgiving or discordant thought from 
 the mind forever. If we seek that kind 
 of forgiveness from others, -r— and who 
 of us does not.? — the only way to 
 obtain it is by cleansing the mind of all 
 save thoughts of love. 
 
 In tte Golden Rule is summed up 
 all the ethical and spiritual teachings 
 of Jesus. " As ye would that men 
 should do unto you, do ye also to them 
 likewise." This does not refer merely 
 65 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JijSUS 
 
 to physical injury that we hope to 
 escape at the hands of our fellows. 
 That is to apply it merely to the lower 
 physical plane. But in the whole range 
 of human relationship, said Jesus, if 
 ^ you want other people to think kindly, 
 and respectfully, and lovingly and help- 
 fully of you, then hold the same 
 thoughts of them. In our deeper 
 selves we all desire to be well thought 
 of, we want people to think kindly of 
 us, We want to be regarded as incapable 
 of mean or low actions. This is the 
 deep instinctive craving of every one. 
 If each one should avoid discordant 
 thinking about all others, as he would 
 have others avoid it about himself, it 
 would terminate all discordant or er- 
 roneous thinking of every kind, and as 
 a result all discordant conduct would 
 be ended. 
 
 In these teachings of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, which is admitted to be 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OP JESUS 
 
 the declaration by Jesus of His funda- 
 mental ethical and spiritual teachings. 
 He has selected certain sins which are 
 typical of all forms of sin or selfishness, 
 and in every instance he traces the 
 wrong back to the thought, to the men- 
 tal attitude of the individual. Could 
 any teaching be more modern or more 
 truly scientific? 
 
 These truths have always been in 
 the Bible, but what we need to see 
 is that the newer thinking of to-day 
 has helped us immensely in the inter- 
 pretation of the teachings of Jesus, 
 and in their application to life and 
 character. Jesus uttered these words 
 nineteen hundred years ago, but it 
 has remained for the newer thought, 
 both scientific and religious, of our own 
 day, to reveal to us their profounder 
 meaning. In His teaching 'He is in 
 exact accord with the best and latest 
 teaching of science on the whole sub- 
 
 67 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 ject of character-building. In a word, 
 science tells us to-day that character, 
 happiness, success, in the truest sense, 
 depend upon two things — right think- 
 ing and right living, and this is the 
 essential message of Jesus in the Sermon 
 on the Mount. 
 
 A lawyer asked Him the tremen- 
 dously pertinent question, " Master, 
 what shall I do to inhferit eternal life? " 
 It is not a speculative question; it 
 is intensely personal and practical, 
 dealing with the supreme thing in re- 
 ligion; and Jesus replied, " Thou shall 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, with all thy soul, with all thy 
 mind and with all thy strength, and 
 thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 In this reply of Jesus is contained the 
 secret of the religious life. God is ab- 
 solute Good, God is Truth, God is 
 Love. When a man loves Goodness 
 with all his being; when he loves Truth 
 
 68 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 until he is willing to make any sacrifice 
 for the sake of Truth; when he loves 
 liove, until Love becomes the control- 
 ling principle of life, there will be no 
 room left in the mind for inharmonious 
 thoughts, from whence proceed all 
 forms of evil. 
 
 If you can conceive of one filling 
 his mind full of love for God and his 
 fellow-men, have you not reached the 
 only possible conception of a perfect 
 life ? There can be no place in such a 
 life for wrong doing. If every wrong 
 act must proceed from its parent- 
 thought back in the mind, then when the 
 mind is full of this love, neither im- 
 perfection nor discord can enter; then 
 and not until then shall we be wholly 
 saved. This is as sound psychology 
 as it is true Christianity. 
 
 Jesus reached the great climax of 
 His doctrine of Love when He said, 
 " It has been said, Thou shalt love thy 
 
 69 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 neighbour and hate thine enemy, but 
 I say unto you, love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them 
 that hate you, and pray for them that 
 despitefuUy use you and persecute 
 you; that ye may be the children of 
 your Father which is in Heaven." 
 
 Here is the real test and the hardest 
 of all, as to the degree of love in our 
 lives. K we can forgive our enemies, 
 we can love everybody. That is why 
 Jesus places the ideal so high. He 
 knows that when a man reaches the 
 point where he can love even his ene- 
 mies, then his life will be completely 
 under the domination of love. All 
 forms of hate are discord. Love is 
 perfect harmony. Love and hate can- 
 not both occupy the same mind at the 
 same time, llie exclusion of hate is 
 the preparation for love, and the enter- 
 tainment of love means the exclusion 
 of hate. This supreme demand of 
 70 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 Jesus also stands on a distinctly scien- 
 tific basis. 
 
 Let me leave out the intervening 
 clauses, and read the argument and 
 conclusion which Jesus draws, " Love 
 your enemies, that ye may be the chil- 
 dren of your Father who is in heaven; 
 ye therefore shall be perfect, even as 
 your Heavenly Father is perfect." I 
 wonder if we realize the tremendous 
 significance of these words. " Love 
 your enemies in order that you may 
 become the children of your Father 
 in Heaven." Then notice. He does 
 not command us to be perfect as God 
 is perfect; He puts it in the form of a 
 prediction: " Ye therefore, because 
 love is supreme in your lives, shall 
 be perfect even as your Father who is 
 in Heaven is perfect." This is the 
 sublimest utterance that ever fell on 
 human ears. Men have always turned 
 their yearning gaze towards perfection, 
 71 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 But perfection has been a dizzy height 
 for man to contemplate. No scientist, 
 no philosopher, no ethical teacher has 
 ever dared to more than hint at the 
 possibility of man's attaining to per- 
 fection. Jesus taught it. He does not 
 command it; He promises it, if only 
 man fills his mind and heart with love. 
 There is no external devil forever 
 seeking to keep us down and drive us 
 back; that theory belongs to the 
 superstition of childhood. There is 
 no Prince of Evil roaming through the 
 earth, invisible in form, seeking to pre- 
 vent us from attaining the completion 
 and perfection of our manhood and 
 womanhood. Jesus points out the 
 way, and modern thought explains 
 the philosophy of it, whereby any man 
 may make sure and steady progress 
 towards perfection. Drive out the 
 discordant thoughts, says Jesus, and 
 fill the mind with love, — love for God 
 
 7it 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OP JESUS 
 
 and love for man, — and then the only 
 causes of all evil will be banished from 
 your life, " Then ye shall be children 
 of yoiu" Father in Heaven, and ye shall 
 be perfect, even as your Heavenly 
 Father is perfect." 
 
 We have not yet begun to understand 
 how vital and practical — yes, and 
 simple, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 It does not consist in metaphysical 
 subtleties, in theological abstractions, 
 or in ecclesiastical requirements. I 
 have brought you face to face with 
 Jesus, and in the presence of His teach- 
 ings corroborated by science, I dare 
 to ajBSrm that we can become like Him, 
 and that our likeness to Him will ap- 
 pear in just the degree that we learn 
 how to substitute for all discordant 
 thinking the God-like thoughts of love. 
 
 It is a common-place truism to say 
 that religion is in a state of transition. 
 We have been told that many times. 
 
 73 < 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 There are many who feel that religion 
 is decaying, th^t faith is on the wane. 
 In reality, religion is but disintegrating 
 many of the old forms of faith, in prep- 
 aration for a new and higher form of 
 integration. If you compare the close 
 of the eighteenth century with the close 
 of the nineteenth, you will see the tre- 
 mendous gain for faith. The old 
 shallow scepticism, the cheap and vul- 
 gar infidelity which characterized the 
 close of the eighteenth century, is no 
 longer possible for man, and we do not 
 find it expressed to-day either from 
 platform or in literature. All the de- 
 structive work of the last century, — 
 Biblical criticism, the historical study 
 of Christian institutions, the conflict 
 of modern science with theology, the 
 study of comparative religions, the 
 tremendous revealing power of the 
 new social movements, — all of these, 
 while destroying many traditional forms 
 
 74 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 of faith, have but cleared away much 
 that has been outgrown, and have been 
 preparing the way for a renaissance 
 — a new birth of faith and hope and 
 love, which constitute the abiding es- 
 sentials of religion. Within the Church 
 and without, the living spiritual life is 
 demanding some new form of expres- 
 sion; and it will find it, yea, it is finding 
 it. The deep consciousness of the in- 
 dwelling God is being recognized and 
 realized as it never has been in the 
 past. A rebirth of religion is taking 
 place in our midst. You cannot inter- 
 pret present movements of thought and 
 activity in any other way. "When we 
 think of the spiritual power and the 
 moral earnestness existing outside the 
 Church to-day, when we remember 
 the ever increasing literature, dealing 
 specifically with spiritual problems, and 
 furnishing spiritual nourishment and 
 inspiration to multitudes, wb&t is the 
 
 75 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 significance of it all, unless as Tenny- 
 son explains it: 
 
 " Our little systems have their day. 
 
 They have their day and cease to be; 
 They 'are but broken lights of Thee, 
 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than th^." 
 
 Witliin the Church and without, 
 this renewal of religion consists in a 
 return to the Founder of Christianity, 
 a setting aside of traditional creeds, 
 and an honest, earnest attempt to 
 find out what He taught and the things 
 for which He stood. 
 
 A new discovery of Jesus is taking 
 place in our age, whether we realize 
 it or not. The old theological Christ 
 may be disappearing, but the divinely 
 human Jesus is re-appearing. It is 
 not that we regard Jesus as being any 
 less the Son of God, but we regard Him 
 as being vastly more the Son of Man. 
 We think of His life as the norm, the 
 
 76 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 type, the example, the real inspiration 
 for the life of every individual. What 
 He did, we believe through the in- 
 dwelling God we can accomplish; we 
 cannot read His message without com- 
 ing to feel that He expected that we 
 should become like Him, and live His 
 kind of life, and complete His work 
 in the world. 
 
 It is this rediscovery of Jesus that is 
 preparing the way for the new birth 
 of Christianity. It is no new religion 
 that is coming; it is rather a new and 
 more spiritual conception of the pro- 
 found religion of Jesus, as He taught 
 and lived it. 
 
 Let us rejoice in every ray of light 
 that has come from the new thinking 
 of our age, in all its phases; let us 
 be glad for the revelations made by the 
 newer psychology, if for nothing else, 
 because they have helped us to more 
 truly interpret Him, and more practi- 
 77 
 
THE REDISCOVERY OF JESUS 
 
 cally apply His teachings. As we walk 
 in the light that has come, and in the 
 new light still to shine; as we who pro- 
 fess to be followers of Him, and we who 
 at least are interested in hearing about 
 Him, and learning what He taught — 
 as we all earnestly and honestly strive 
 to know the truth in order that we may 
 live the truth, we shall be led out into 
 the life of the Spirit ; and if His proph- 
 ecy means anything at all, we shall at 
 length become " perfect even as He is 
 perfect," 
 
 78 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BF639 .R18 1911 
 
 New philosophy of life by John Herman R 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 173 874