*v 
 
 fc . ■■ ■ ■ ■ ■ i 
 
 heNevThought 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 STEWART HENRY BURNHAM 
 1943 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BF639 .W66 
 
 Heart of the new thought, written by Ell 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 029 174 055 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis bool< 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/cu31924029174055 
 
THE HEART 
 
 OF 
 
 The New Thought 
 
 WRITTEN BY 
 
 ELLA WHEELER WILCOX 
 
 as- 
 Associate Editor of "New Thought," Chicago 
 
 TENTH THOUSAND 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 The Psychic Research Company 
 
 THE COLONNADES, VINCENNES AVENUE 
 
 Chicago, III., U. S. A. 
 December, 1902 
 
Copyright 1902 by 
 
 Thh Psychic Rbbeaboh Company, 
 
 Chicaqo, ill. 
 
 All Bights Reserved. 
 
 NOTIOB : This work Is protected by Copyright, and simultaneous initial 
 publication in United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France, 
 Germany, Russia and other countries. All rights reserved. 
 
Publishers' Preface 
 
 This book is noteworthy as an interpretation 
 of "New Thought." 
 
 That which was vague, mystic, unreal, has be- 
 come, in the hands of Mrs. Wilcox, a lovable 
 philosophy of simplest construction. 
 
 The backbone of this philosophy is The Power 
 of Right Thought. 
 
 Startling as are some of the tenets expressed, 
 they are provably true here and now. 
 
 It is possible that the very simplicity of this 
 book will encourage careless criticism from those 
 who believe that genius and ambiguity are twin. 
 
 But Mrs. Wilcox is ever the voice of the 
 people: what she says is practical; what she 
 thinks is clear; what she feels is plain. 
 
 Let the people judge this book. 
 
 Chicago, November, '02. 
 
 / 
 
Contents : 
 
 Page 
 
 Let the Past Go 5 
 
 The Sowing of the Seed ■ , . , 8 
 
 OldClothes 11 
 
 High Noon 14 
 
 Obstacles 17 
 
 Thought Force 20 
 
 Opulence 23 
 
 Eternity 26 
 
 Morning Influences 28 
 
 The Philosophy of Happiness 30 
 
 A Worn Out Creed 33 
 
 Common Sense 36 
 
 Literature 40 
 
 Optimism 42 
 
 Preparation 46 
 
 Dividends 49 
 
 Royalty 53 
 
 Heredity 55 
 
 Invincibility 57 
 
 Faces 58 
 
 The Object of Life 63 
 
 Wisdom - 66 
 
 Self-Conquest 69 
 
 The Important Trifles 72 
 
 Concentration , 74 
 
 Destiny 76 
 
 Sympathy 79 
 
 ' The Breath 82 
 
 Generosity 85 
 
 Woman's Opportunity 88 
 
 Balance 91 
 
THE HEART OF 
 THE NEW THOUGHT 
 
 Let the Past Go 
 
 not begin the new year by recount- 
 ing to yourself or others all your 
 losses and sorrows. 
 Let the past go. 
 
 Should some good friend pre- 
 sent you with material for a lovely 
 garment, would you insult her by throwing it 
 aside and describing the beautiful garments you 
 had worn out in past times ? 
 
 The new year has given you the fabric for 
 a fresh start in life, why dwell upon the events 
 which have gone, the joys, blessings and ad- 
 vantages of the past ! 
 
 Do not tell me it is too late to be successful 
 or happy. Do not tell me you are sick or broken 
 in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or broken, 
 because it is of God. 
 
 It is your mind which makes your body sick. 
 Let the spirit assert itself and demand health 
 and hope and happiness in this new year. 
 
 Forget the money you have lost, the mis- 
 takes you have made, the injuries you have 
 received, the disappointments you have 
 experienced. 
 
 Real sorrow the sorrow which comes from 
 
THE HEART OF 
 
 the death of dear ones, or some great cross well 
 borne, you need not forget. But think of these 
 things as sent to enrich your nature, and to 
 make you more human and sympathetic. You 
 are missing them if you permit yourself instead 
 to grow melancholy and irritable. 
 
 It is weak and unreasonable to imagine 
 destiny has selected you for special suffering. 
 
 Sorrow is no respecter of persons. Say to 
 yourself with the beginning of this year that 
 you are going to consider all your troubles as an 
 education for your mind and soul; and that out 
 of the experiences which you have passed 
 through you are going to build a noble and 
 splendid character, and a successful career. 
 
 Do not tell me you are too old. 
 
 Age is all imagination. Ignore years and 
 they will ignore you. 
 
 Eat moderately, and bathe freely in water as 
 cold as nature's rainfall. Exercise thoroughly 
 and regularly. 
 
 Be alive, from crown to toe. Breathe deeply, 
 filling every cell of the lungs for at least five 
 minutes, morning and night, and when you 
 draw in long, full breaths, believe you are in- 
 haling health, wisdom and success. 
 
 Anticipate good health. If it does not come 
 at once, consider it a mere temporary delay, 
 and continue to expect it. 
 
 Regard any physical ailment as a passing in- 
 convenience, no more. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 
 
 Never for an instant believe you are per- 
 manently ill or disabled. 
 
 The young men of France are studying 
 alchemy, hoping to learn the" secret of the trans- 
 mutation of gold. 
 
 If you will study your own spirit and its 
 limitless powers, you will gain a greater secret 
 than any alchemist ever held ; a secret which 
 shall give you whatever you desire. 
 
 Think of your body as the silver jewel box, 
 your mind as the silk lining, your spirit as the 
 gem. Keep the box burnished and clear of dust, 
 but remember always that the jewel within is 
 the precious part of it. 
 
 Think of yourself as on the threshold of un- 
 paralleled success. A whole, clear, glorious year 
 lies before you! In a year you can regain 
 health, fortune, restfulness, happiness! 
 
 Push on! Achieve, achieve! 
 
8 THE HEART OF 
 
 The Sowing of the Seed 
 
 ^HEN you start in the "New Thought" 
 do not expect sudden illumination. 
 Do not imagine that you are to 
 become perfectly well, perfectly 
 cheerful, successful, and a healer, 
 in a few days. 
 Remember all growth is slow. 
 
 Mushrooms spring up in a night, but oaks 
 grow with deliberation and endure for centuries. 
 
 Mental and spiritual power must be gained 
 by degrees. 
 
 If you attained maturity before you entered 
 this field of "Few Thought" it is folly to suppose 
 a complete transformation of your whole being 
 will take place in a week — a month — or a year. 
 
 All you can reasonably look for is a gradual 
 improvement, just as you might do if you were 
 attempting to take up music or a science. 
 
 The New Thought Is a science, the Science 
 of Right Thinking. But the brain cells which 
 have been shaped by the old thoughts of despond- 
 ency and fear, cannot all at once be reformed. 
 
 It will be a case of "Try, try again." 
 
 Make your daily assertions, "I am love, Health, 
 wisdom, cheerfulness, power for good, prosperity 
 success, usefulness, opulence." 
 
 Never fail to assert these things at least twice 
 a day; twenty times is better. But if you do not 
 attain to all immediately, if your life does not 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 
 
 at once exemplify your words, let it not discour- 
 age you. 
 
 The saying of the words is the watering of 
 the seeds. 
 
 After a time they will begin to sprout, after 
 a longer time to cover the barren earth with 
 grain, after a still longer time to yield a harvest. 
 
 If you have been accustomed to feeling prej- 
 udices and dislikes easily, you will not all at 
 once find it -easy to illustrate your assertion, "I 
 am love." If you have indulged yourself in 
 thoughts of disease, the old aches and pains will 
 intrude even while you say "I am health! " 
 
 If you have groveled in fear and a belief that 
 you were born to poverty and failure, courage 
 and success and opulence will be of slow growth. 
 Yet they will grow and materialize, as surely as 
 you insist and persist. 
 
 Declare they are yours, right in the face of 
 the worst disasters. There is nothing so confuses 
 and flustrates misfortune as to stare it down with 
 hopeful unflinching eyes. 
 
 If you waken some morning in the depths of 
 despondency and gloom, do not say to yourself: 
 "I may as well give up this effort to adopt the 
 New Thought — I have made a failure of it evi- 
 dently ." Instead sit down quietly, and as- 
 sert calmly that you are cheerfulness, hope, cour- 
 age, faith and success. 
 
 Eealize that your despondency is only tem- 
 porary ; an old habit, which is reasserting it- 
 
10 THE HEART OF 
 
 self, but over which you will gradually gain 
 the ascendency. Then go forth into the world 
 and busy yourself in some useful occupation, and 
 before you know it is on the way,hope will creep 
 into your heart, and the gray cloud will lift from 
 your mind. Physical pains will loosen their hold, 
 and conditions of poverty will change to pros- 
 perity. 
 
 Your mind is your own to educate and direct. 
 
 You can do it by the aid of the Spirit, but 
 you must be satisfied to work slowly. 
 
 Be patient and persistent. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 11 
 
 Old Clothes 
 
 S you go over your wardrobe in the 
 spring or fall, do not keep any old, 
 useless, or even questionable, gar- 
 ments, for "fear you might need 
 them another year." 
 
 Give them to the ragman, or 
 send them to the county or city poor house. 
 There is nothing that will keep you in a rut of 
 shabbiness more than clinging to old clothes. 
 
 It is useless to say that you cannot afford 
 new garments. 
 
 It is because you have harped upon this idea 
 that you are still in straitened circumstances. 
 Tou believe neither in God or yourself. 
 Possibly you were brought up to think your- 
 self a mere worm of earth, born to poverty and 
 sorrow. 
 
 If you were, it will of course require a con- 
 tinued effort to train your mind to the new 
 thought, the thought of your divine inheritance 
 of all God's vast universe of wealth. 
 But you can do it. 
 
 Begin by giving away your old clothes. There 
 niay be people, poor relations, or some struggling 
 mother of half-clad children, to whom your old 
 garments will seem like new raiment, and to 
 whom they will bring hope and happiness. 
 
 As a rule, it is not well to give people your 
 discarded clothing. 
 
12 THE HEART OF 
 
 It has a tendency to lower their self-respect 
 and to make them look to yon, instead of to 
 themselves, for support. 
 
 It all depends upon whom the people are and 
 how you do it. 
 
 If you can find employment for them, and 
 arouse their hope and self-confidence and ambi- 
 tion, it is better than carloads of clothing or 
 furniture or provisions. 
 
 But little children, suffering from cold, or 
 hard-working, over-taxed men and women, will 
 not be harmed, and may be temporarily cheered 
 and encouraged by your gifts. 
 
 No matter if you still need your frayed-out 
 garments — do" not keep them. 
 
 Your thoughts of poverty and trouble have 
 impregnated them so that you will continue to 
 produce the same despondent mind stuff while 
 you wear these garments. 
 
 Get rid of them, and believe that you are to 
 soon procure fresh, becoming raiment. 
 
 Rouse all your energies, and go straight ahead 
 with that purpose in mind. 
 
 You will be surprised to find how soon the 
 opportunity presents itself for you to obtain what 
 you need. 
 
 There is new strength, repose of mind and 
 inspiration in fresh apparel. 
 
 God gives Nature new garments every season. 
 We are a part of Nature. 
 
 He gives us the qualities and the opportunities 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 13 
 
 to obtain suitable covering for our changing 
 needs, if we believe in the one, and use the other. 
 
 When I read of a wealthy man who boasts 
 that he has worn one hat seven years, or a woman 
 in afl&uent circumstances who has worn one bon- 
 net for various seasons, I feel sorry for their ignor- 
 ance and ashamed of their penuriousness. 
 
 Look at the apple-tree, with its delicate spring 
 drapery, its luxurious summer foliage, its autumn 
 richness of coloring, its winter draperies of white! 
 Surely the Creator did not intend the tree to have 
 more variety than man! 
 
 The tree trusts, and grows, and takes storm 
 and sun as divinely sent, and believes in its right 
 to new apparel, and it comes. 
 
 It will come to you if you do the same. 
 
14 THE HEART OF 
 
 High Noon 
 
 ^ VERY woman who passes thirty ought 
 to keep her brain, heart and mind 
 alive and warm with human sym- 
 pathy and emotion. She ought to 
 interest herself in the lives of others, 
 and make her friendship valuable 
 to the young. 
 
 She should keep her body supple, and avoid los- 
 ing the lines of grace: and she should select some 
 study or work to occupy her spare hours and to 
 lend a zest to the coming years. Every woman 
 in the comfortable walks in life can find time for 
 such a study. No woman of tact, charm, refine- 
 ment and feeling need ever let her husband, unless 
 she has married a clod, become indifferent or com- 
 monplace in his treatment of her. Man refiects 
 to an astonishing degree woman's sentiments for 
 him. 
 
 Keep sentiment alive in your own heart, 
 madam, and in the heart of your husband. If he 
 sees that other men admire you he will be more 
 alert to the necessity of remaining your lover. 
 
 Take the happy, safe, medium path between 
 a gray and a gay life by keeping it radiant and 
 bright. Read and think and talk of cheerful, 
 hopeful, interesting subj ects. Avoid small gossip, 
 and be careful in your criticism of neighbors- 
 Sometimes we must criticise, but speak to people 
 whose faults you feel a word of counsel may 
 amend, not of them to others. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 15 
 
 Make your life after it reaches its noon,glorious 
 with sunlight, rich with harvests, and bright with 
 color. Be alive in mind, heart and body. Be 
 joyous without giddiness, loving without silliness, 
 attractive without being flirtatious, attentive to 
 others' needs without being officious, and instruc- 
 tive without too great a display of erudition. 
 
 Be a noble, loving, lovable woman. 
 
 It is never too late in life to make a new start. 
 No matter how small a beginning may be, it is 
 so much begun for a new incarnation if it is cut 
 off here by death. 
 
 If I were one hundred years old, and in pos- 
 session of my faculties, I would not hesitate to 
 undertake a new enterprise which offered a hope 
 of bettering my condition. 
 
 Thought is eternal in its effects, and every 
 hopeful thought which enters the mind sets 
 vibrations in motion, which shall help minds 
 millions of miles distant and lives yet unborn. 
 
 It is folly to mourn over a failure to provide 
 opportunities and luxuries for children. We have 
 only to look at the children of the rich, to see 
 how little enduring happiness money gives, and 
 how seldom great advantages result in great 
 characters. The majority of the really great 
 people of the world, in all lines of achievement, 
 have sprung from poverty. I do not mean from 
 pauper homes, but from the homes where only the 
 mere necessities of life could be obtained, and 
 where early in their youth the children felt it 
 
16 THE HEART OF 
 
 necessary to go into the world and make their 
 own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, energy, 
 ambition, were all. developed in this way. 
 
 How rarely do we find these qualities in the 
 children of wealth. How rarely do great phil- 
 osophers, great statesman, great thinkers and 
 great characters develop from the wealthy classes. 
 
 Pauperism — infant labor — the wage-earning 
 women — are all evils which ought to be abolished. 
 But next to that evil I believe the worst thing 
 possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth. 
 It is an obstacle to greatness which few are strong 
 enough to surmount, and it rarely results in 
 happiness to the recipient. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 17 
 
 Obstacles 
 
 ^ IgfOWEVER great the obstacles between 
 you and your goal may be or have 
 been, do not lay the blame of your 
 failure upon them. 
 
 Other people have succeeded in 
 
 overcoming just as great obstacles. 
 
 Remove such hindrances from the path for 
 
 others, if you can, or tell them a way to go 
 
 around. Even lead them a little distance and 
 
 cheer them on. 
 
 But so far as you yourself are concerned, do 
 not stop to excuse, any delinquency or half- 
 heartedness or defeat by the plea of circumstance 
 or environment. 
 
 The great nature makes its own environ- 
 ment, and dominates circumstance. 
 
 It all depends upon the amount of force in 
 your own soul. 
 
 While you apply this rule to yourself and 
 make no scapegoat of " fate," you must have 
 consideration for the weakness of others, and 
 you must try and better the conditions of the 
 world as you go along. 
 
 You are robust and possessed of all your 
 limbs. Tou can mount over the great boulder 
 which has fallen in the road to success, and go 
 on your way to your goal all the stronger for 
 the experience. 
 
 But behind you comes a one-legged man — 
 
18 THE HEART OF 
 
 a blind man — a man bowed to the earth with 
 a heavy burden, which he cannot lay down. 
 
 It will require weeks, months, years of effort 
 on their part to climb over that rock which you 
 surmounted in a few hours. 
 
 So it is right and just for you to call other 
 strong ones to your aid and roll the boulder 
 away or blast it out of the path. 
 
 That is just exactly the way you should think 
 of the present industrial conditions. 
 
 In spite of them, the strong, well-poised, 
 earnest and determined soul can reach any 
 desired success. 
 
 But there are boulders in the road which do 
 not belong there, boulders which cause hun- 
 dreds of the pilgrims who are lame or blind or 
 burdened, to fall by the wayside and perish. 
 
 It is your duty to aid in removing these 
 obstacles and in making the road a safe and clear 
 thoroughfare for all who journey. 
 
 Do not sit down by the roadside and say you 
 have been hindered by these difficulties, that is 
 to confess yourself weak. 
 
 Do not mount over them and rush to your 
 goal and say coldly to the throngs behind you, 
 "Oh, everybody can climb over that rock who 
 really tries — didn't I?" That is to announce 
 yourself selfish and unsympathetic. 
 
 No doubt the lame, the .blind and the 
 burdened could attain the goal despite the rocks 
 if they were fired by a consciousness of the 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 19 
 
 divine force within them; that consciousness 
 can achieve all things under all circumstances. 
 
 But there will always be thousands of pil- 
 grims toiling wearily toward the goal who have 
 not come to this realization. 
 
 If there are unjust, unfair and unkind re- 
 strictions placed about them, see to it that you 
 do all in your power to right what is wrong. 
 
 But never wait to attain your own success 
 because of these restrictions or obstacles. 
 
 Believe absolutely in your own God-given 
 power to overcome anything and everything. 
 
 Think of yourself as performing miracles 
 with God's aid. 
 
 Desire success so intensely that you attract 
 it as the magnet attracts the steel. 
 
 Help to adjust things as you go along, but 
 never for a moment believe that the lack of 
 adjustment can cause you to fail. 
 
20 THE HEART OF 
 
 Thought Force 
 
 'OUR spirit and mine are both part 
 of the stupendous cause. We have 
 always been, and always will be. 
 First in one form, then in another. 
 Every thought, word and deed 
 is helping decide your next place 
 in the Creator's magnificent universe. You will 
 be beautiful or ugly, wise or ignorant, fortunate 
 or unfortunate, according to what use you make 
 of yourself here and now. 
 
 Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to de- 
 sire only universal good, the cultivation of the 
 highest attributes, such as love, honesty, grati- 
 tude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a 
 life of usefulness and happiness in another incar- 
 nation, as well as satisfaction and self-respect in 
 this sphere. 
 
 Even if you escape the immediate results of 
 the opposite course of action here, you must face 
 the law of cause and effect in the next state. It 
 is inevitable. God, the maker of all things, does 
 not change His laws. "As you sow you reap." 
 "As a man thinketh so is he." There is no "re- 
 venge" in God's mind. He simply makes His 
 laws, and we work our destinies for good or ill 
 according to our adherence to them or violation 
 of them. 
 
 Each one of us is a needed part of His great 
 plan. Let each soul say: "He has need of me or 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 21 
 
 I would not be. I am here to strengthen the 
 plan." Remember that always in your most dis- 
 couraged hours. 
 
 The Creator makes no mistakes. 
 
 There is a divine purpose in your being on 
 earth. Think of yourself as necessary to the 
 great design. It is an inspiring thought. And 
 then consider the immensity of the universe and 
 how accurately the Maker planned it all. 
 
 Do not associate with pessimists. If you are 
 unfortunate enough to be the son or daughter 
 husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real 
 or spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poi- 
 son words of discouragement and despondency. 
 
 No tie of blood or law should compel you to 
 listen to what means discomfort and disaster to 
 you. 
 
 Get out and away, into the society of optim- 
 istic people. 
 
 Before you go, insist on saying cheerful, hope- 
 ful and bright things, sowing the seed, as it were, 
 in the mental ground behind you. But do not sit 
 down to see it grow. 
 
 Never feel that it is your duty to stay closely 
 and continuously in the atmosphere of the 
 despondent. 
 
 You might as well think it your duty to stay 
 in deep water with one who would not make the 
 least effort to swim. 
 
 Get on shore and throw out a life-line, but do 
 not remain and be dragged under. 
 
 If you find any one determined to talk failure 
 
22 THE HEART OF 
 
 and sickness and misfortune and disaster, walk 
 away. 
 
 You would not permit the dearest person on 
 earth to administer slow poison to you if you 
 knew it. Then why think it your duty to take 
 mental potions which paralyze your courage and 
 kill your ambition? 
 
 Despondency is one phase of immorality. It 
 is blasphemous and an insult to the Creator. 
 
 You are justified in avoiding the people who 
 send you from their presence with less hope and 
 force and strength to cope with life's problems 
 than when you met them. 
 
 Do what, you can to change their current of 
 thought. But do not associate intimately with 
 them until they have learned to keep silent — at 
 least, if they cannot speak hopefully. 
 
 Learn how to walk, how to poise your body, 
 how to breathe, how to hold your head, how to 
 focus your mind on things of universal import- 
 ance. Believe your tender, loving thoughts and 
 wishes for good to all humanity have power 
 to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to 
 higher and better conditions. No matter how 
 limited your sphere of action may seem to you 
 and how small your town appears on the map, 
 if you develop your mental and spiritual forces 
 through love thoughts you can be a power to move 
 the world along. Eise up and realize your strength. 
 Not only will you be more useful and happy, but 
 you will grow more beautiful and keep your 
 youth. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 23 
 
 Opulence 
 
 not go through the world talking 
 poverty and asking every one you 
 deal with to show you special con- 
 sideration because you are "poor" 
 and "unfortunate." 
 
 If you do this with an idea of 
 saving a few dollars here and there, you will 
 always /have to do it, because you are creating 
 poverty conditions by your constant assertions. 
 It is a curious fact that the people who are 
 always demanding consideration in money mat- 
 ters demand the best that is going at the same 
 time. 
 
 I have known a woman to make a plea for 
 cut prices in a boarding house because she was so 
 poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the 
 best location the house afforded. 
 
 It is the charity patients who make the most 
 complaint of a physician's skill or a nurse's 
 attention. 
 
 If you cannot afford to do certain things, or 
 buy certain objects, don't. But when you decide 
 you must, decide, too, that you will pay the price, 
 and make no whining plea of poverty. 
 
 There are two extremes of people in the world, 
 one as distasteful as the other. One is represent- 
 ed by the man who boasts of the costliness of 
 every possession, and invites the whole world to 
 behold his opulence and expenditure. 
 
24 THE HEART OF 
 
 His clotlies, his house, his servants, his habits, 
 seem no different to the observer from his neigh- 
 bor's, yet, according to his story, they cost ten 
 times the amount. 
 
 The other extreme is the man who dresses 
 well, lives well, enjoys all the comforts and 
 pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty con- 
 tinually, and expects the entire community to 
 show him consideration in consequence. 
 
 Another thing to avoid is the role of the chron- 
 ically injured person. 
 
 We all know him. 
 
 He has a continual grievance. He has been 
 cheated, abused, wronged, insulted, disappointed 
 and deceived. We wonder how or why he has 
 managed to exist, as we listen to the story of his 
 troubles. 
 
 No one ever treats him fairly, either in busi- 
 ness or social life. Everybody is ungrateful, un- 
 kind, selfish, and he could not be made to believe 
 that these experiences were of his own making. 
 
 All of us meet with occasional blows from 
 fate, in the form of insults, or ingratitude, or 
 trickery from an unexpected source. 
 
 But if we get nothing else but those disappoint- 
 ing experiences from life, we may rest assured 
 the fault lies somewhere in ourselves. 
 
 We are not sending out the right kind of 
 mental stuff, or we would get better returns. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 25 
 
 You never can tell what your thoughts will do 
 
 In bringing you hate or love, 
 For thoughts are things, and their airy wings 
 
 Are swift as a carrier dove. 
 They follow the law of the universe — 
 
 Each thing must create its kind, 
 And they speed o'er the track to bring you back 
 
 Whatever went out from your mind. 
 
 In the main, we must of necessity get from 
 humanity what we give to it. If we question our 
 ability to win friends or love, people will also 
 question it. 
 
 If we doubt our own judgment and discretion 
 in business, others will doubt it, and the shrewd 
 and unprincipled will take the opportunity given 
 by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us. 
 
 If in consequence we distrust every person 
 we meet, we create an unwholesome and un- 
 fortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will 
 bring to us the unworthy and deceitful. Stand 
 firm in the universe. Believe in yourself. Be- 
 lieve in others. 
 
 If you make a mistake, consider it only an 
 incident. 
 
 If some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or 
 insults you, let it pass as one of the lessons you 
 had to learn, but do not imagine that you are 
 selected by fate for only such lessons. Keep 
 wholesome, hopeful and sympathetic with the 
 world at large, whatever individuals may do. 
 Expect life to use you better every year, and it 
 will not disappoint you in the long run. For life 
 is what we make it. 
 
26 THE HEART OF 
 
 Eternity 
 
 you know what a wonderfully com- 
 plicated thing a human being is ? 
 Every feature, every portion of your 
 body, every motion you make, 
 reflects your mental organization. 
 I know a woman past middle 
 life who has always been on the opposite side of 
 every question discussed in her presence. 
 
 She was agnostic with the orthodox, reverential 
 with atheists, liberal with the narrow, bigoted 
 with the liberal. 
 
 Whatever belief any one expressed on any 
 subject, she invariably took the other extreme. 
 She loved to disagree with her fellow-men. It 
 was her pastime. 
 
 Now, to walk with that woman in silence is 
 merely to carry on a wordless argument. 
 
 You cannot regulate your steps so they will 
 harmonize with hers. She will be just ahead 
 or just behind you, and if you want to turn to 
 the left, she pulls to the right. A promenade 
 vnth her is more exhausting than a day's labor. 
 
 She is not conscious of it, and would think 
 anyone very unreasonable and unjust who told 
 her of her peculiarities. 
 
 I know a woman who all her life has been 
 looking afar for happiness and peace and content, 
 and has never found any of them, because she did 
 not look in her own soul. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 27 
 
 She was a restless girl, and she married, believ- 
 ing in domestic life lay the goal of her dreams. 
 But she was not happy there, and sighed for 
 freedom. She wanted to move, and did move, 
 once, twice, thrice, to different points of the 
 United States. She was discontented with each 
 change. She is to-day possessed of all comforts 
 and luxuries which life can afford, yet she is the 
 same restless soul. She likes to read, but it is 
 always the book which she does not possess which 
 she craves. If she is in the library with shelves 
 book-filled, she goes into the garret and hunts in 
 old boxes for a book or a paper which has been 
 cast aside. 
 
 If she is in a picture gallery, she wants to go 
 to the window and look out on the street, but 
 when she is on the street it bores her, and she 
 longs to go in the house. 
 
 If a member of the family is absent, she gets 
 no enjoyment out of the society of those at home; 
 yet when that absent one returns her mind strays 
 elsewhere, seeking some imagined happiness not 
 found here. 
 
 I wonder if such souls ever find it, even in the 
 spirit realm, or if they go on there seeking and 
 always seeking something just beyond. It is a 
 great gift to learn to enjoy the present — to get 
 all there is out of it, and to think of to-day as a 
 piece of eternity. Begin now to teach yourself 
 this great art if you have not thoujsrht of it 
 before. To be able to enjoy heaven, one must 
 learn first to enjoy earth. 
 
28 THE HEART OF 
 
 Morning Influences 
 
 ''HAT do you think about the very 
 
 first thing in the morning ? 
 
 Tour thoughts during the first 
 
 half -hour of the morning will 
 
 greatly influence the entire day. 
 
 You may not realize this, but it is 
 nevertheless a fact. 
 
 If you set out with worry, and depression, 
 and bitterness of soul toward fate or man, you 
 are giving the key note to a day of discords and 
 misfortunes. 
 
 If you think peace, hope and happiness, you 
 are sounding a note of harmony and success. 
 
 The result may not be felt at once, but it 
 will not fail to make itself evident eventually. 
 
 Control your morning thoughts. You can 
 do it. 
 
 The first moment on waking, no matter what 
 your mood, say to yourself: " I will get all the 
 comfort and pleasure possible out of this day, 
 and I will do something to add to the measure of 
 ' the world's happiness or well-being, I will con- 
 trol myself when tempted to be irritable or un- 
 happy, I will look for the bright side of every 
 event." 
 
 Once you say these things over to yourself in 
 a calm, earnest way, you will begin to feel more 
 cheerful. The worries and troubles of the com- 
 ing day will seem less colossal. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 29 
 
 Then say: " I shall be given help to meet 
 anything that comes to-day. Everything will be 
 for the best. I shall succeed in whatever I 
 undertake. I cannot fail." 
 
 Do not let it discourage you if the moment 
 you leave your room you encounter a trouble or 
 a disaster. This usually happens. When we 
 make any boasts, spiritually or physically, we 
 are put to the test. The occult forces about us 
 are not unlike human beings. When a school- 
 boy boasts of his strength, and says he can " lick 
 any boy in school," he generally gets a chance 
 to prove it. 
 
 When we declare we are brave enough to 
 overcome any fate, we find our strength put to 
 the test at once. 
 
 But that is all right. Prove your words to 
 be true. Regard the troubles and cares you en- 
 counter as the " punching bags " of fate, given 
 you to develop your spiritual muscle. 
 
 Go at them with courage and keep to your 
 morning resolve. 
 
 By and by the troubles will lessen, and you 
 will find yourself master of Circumstances. 
 
30 THE HEART OF 
 
 The Philosophy of Happiness 
 
 I HERE are natures born to happiness 
 just as there are born musicians, 
 mechanics and mathematicians. 
 
 They are usually children who 
 came into life under right pre-natal 
 conditions. That is, children con- 
 ceived and born in love. 
 
 The mother who thanks God for the little life 
 she is about to bring to earth, gives her child a 
 more blessed endowment than if it were heir to 
 a kingdom or a fortune. 
 
 As the majority of people, however, born 
 under " civilized " conditions, are unwelcome to 
 their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who 
 has a birthright of happiness. 
 
 Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and ex- 
 hilaration which passes for happiness, until the 
 real disposition of the individual asserts itself 
 with the passing of time. 
 
 Good health and strong vitality are great aids 
 to happiness ; yet that they, wealth and honors 
 added, do not produce that much desired state 
 of mind we have but to look about us to observe. 
 One who is not born a musician needs to toil 
 more assiduously to acquire skill in the art, how- 
 ever strong his desire or great his taste, than the 
 natural genius. 
 
 So the man not endowed with joyous im- 
 pulses needs to set himself the task of acquiring 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 31 
 
 the habit of happiness. I believe it can be done. 
 To the sad or restless or discontented being I 
 would say: Begin each morning by resolving to 
 find something in the day to enjoy. Look in each 
 experience which comes to you for some grain of 
 happiness. You will be surprised to find how 
 much that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable 
 possesses either an instructive or an amusing 
 side. 
 
 There is a certain happiness to be found in 
 the most disagreeable duty when you stop to 
 realize that you are getting it out of the way. 
 
 If it is one of those duties which has the un- 
 comfortable habit of repeating itself continually, 
 you can at least say you are learning patience 
 and perseverance, which are two great virtues 
 and essential to any permanent happiness in life. 
 
 Do not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, 
 but discover it in to-day. Unless you are in the 
 profound depths of some great sorrow, you will 
 find it if you look for it. 
 
 Think of yourself each morning as an explorer 
 in a new realm. I know a man whose time is 
 gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take 
 three hours for a certain pleasure. He lost his 
 way and missed his pleasure, but was full of exu- 
 berant delight over his "new experience." "I 
 saw places and met with adventures I might have 
 missed my whole life." He was a true philos- 
 opher and optimist and such a man gets the very 
 kernel out of the nut of life. 
 
32 THE HEART OF 
 
 I know a woman who had since her birth 
 every material blessing, health, wealth, position, 
 travel and a luxurious home. She was forever 
 complaining of the cares and responsibilities of 
 the latter. Finally she prevailed upon the family 
 to rent the home for a series of years and to live 
 in hotels. Now she goes about posing as a mar- 
 tyr, "a homeless woman." It is impossible for 
 such a selfishly perverted nature to know happi- 
 ness. 
 
 A child should be taught from its earliest life 
 to find entertainment in every kind of condition 
 or weather. If it hears its elders cursing and 
 bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind 
 is quick to receive the impression that a rainy 
 day is a disaster. 
 
 How much better to expatiate in its presence 
 on the blessing of rain, and to teach it the 
 enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which 
 other young animals feel. 
 
 Happiness must come from within in order to 
 
 respond to that which comes from without, just 
 
 as there must be a musical ear and temperament 
 
 to enjoy music. 
 
 Cultivate happiness as an art or science. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 33 
 
 A Worn Out Creed 
 
 have a letter from an "orthodox 
 Christian," who says the only' hope 
 for humanity lies in the "old- 
 fashioned religion." 
 
 Then he proceeds to tell me 
 how carefully he has studied hu- 
 man nature, "in business, in social life, and in 
 himself," and that he finds it all vile — selfish — 
 sinful. 
 
 Of course he does, because he studies it from 
 a false and harmful standpoint, and looks for 
 "the worm of earth" and "the poor, miserable 
 sinner," instead of the divine man. 
 
 We find what we look for in this world. 
 I have always been looking for the noble 
 qualities in human beings, and I have found them. 
 There are great souls all along the highway 
 of life, and there are great qualities even in 
 the people who seem common and weak to us 
 ordinarily. 
 
 One of the grandest souls I know is a man 
 who served his term in prison for sins committed 
 while in drink. 
 
 He was not "bom bad", he simply drifted 
 into bad company and formed bad habits. 
 
 He paid the awful penalty of five years behind 
 prison bars, but the divine man w^ithin him 
 asserted itself, and today I have no friend I feel 
 prouder to call that name. 
 
34 THE HEART OF 
 
 Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central 
 Howard Association, of Chicago, writes me regard- 
 ing his knowledge of ex-convicts: 
 
 According to my experience with a number of 
 men of this class during the last two years, more 
 than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the most 
 cordial support and assistance. 
 
 If this can be said of men who have been 
 criminals, surely humanity is not so vile as my 
 "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe. 
 
 A "Christian" of that order ought to be put 
 under restraint, and not allowed to associate with 
 mankind. 
 
 He carries a moral malaria with him, which 
 poisons the air. 
 
 He suggests evil to minds which have not 
 thought it. 
 
 He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending 
 to be a disciple of Christ. 
 
 The man who believes that all men are 
 vicious, selfish and immoral is projecting perni- 
 cious mind stuff into space, which is as dangerous 
 to the peace of the community as dynamite bombs- 
 
 The world has been kept back too long-by this 
 false, unholy and blasphemous "religion." 
 
 It is not the religion of Christ — it is the 
 religion of ignorant translators, ignorant readers. 
 
 Thank God, its supremacy is past. A whole- 
 some and holy religion has taken its place with 
 the intelligent progressive minds of the day, 
 a religion which says: "I am all goodness, love, 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 35 
 
 truth, mercy, health. I am a necessary part of 
 God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only 
 good can come through me or to me. God made 
 me, and He could make nothing but goodness 
 and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all 
 His qualities." 
 
 This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than 
 the universe. It is God's own thought put into 
 practical form. 
 
36 THE HEART OF 
 
 Common Sense 
 
 F you are suffering from physical 
 ills, ask yourself if it is not your 
 own fault. 
 
 There is scarcely one person in 
 one hundred who does not over 
 eat or drink. 
 I know an entire family who complain of 
 gastric troubles, yet who keep the coffee pot con- 
 tinually on the range and drink large quantities 
 of that beverage at least twice a day. 
 
 No one can be well who does that. Almost 
 every human ailment can be traced to foolish 
 diet. 
 
 Eat only two meals in twenty-four hours. If 
 you are not engaged in active physical labor, 
 make it one meal. Drink two or three or four 
 quarts of milk at intervals during the day to 
 supply good blood to. the system. 
 
 You will thrive upon it, and you will not 
 miss the other two meals after the first. week. 
 And your ailments will gradually disappear. 
 Meantime, if you are self-supporting, your 
 bank account will increase. 
 
 Think of the waste of money which goes into 
 indigestible food ! It is appalling when you con- 
 sider it. Heaven speed the time when men and 
 women find out how little money it requires to 
 sustain the body in good health and keep the 
 brain clear and the eye bright ! 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 37 
 
 The heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with 
 pity and scorn. The time will come when the 
 heavy eater will be similarly regarded. 
 
 Once find the delight of a simple diet, the 
 benefit to body and mind and purse, and life will 
 assume new interest, and toil will be robbed of 
 its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere 
 matter of toiling for a bare existence. 
 
 Again, are you unhappy ? Stop and ask 
 yourself why. If you have a great sorrow, time 
 will be your consoler. And there is an ennobl- 
 ing and enriching effect of sorrow well borne. 
 
 It is the education of the soul. But if you 
 are unhappy over petty worries and trials, you 
 are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you are 
 allowing small things to irritate and harass you 
 and to spoil the beautiful days for you, take 
 yourself in hand and change your ways. 
 
 You can do it if you choose. It is pitiful to 
 observe what sort of troubles most unhappy 
 people are afflicted with. I have seen a beauti- 
 ful young woman grow care lined and faded just 
 from imagining she was being "slighted" or 
 neglected by her acquaintances. 
 
 Some one nodded coldly to her, another one 
 spoke superciliously, a third failed to invite her, 
 a fourth did not pay her a call, and so on — 
 always a grievance to relate until one is pre- 
 pared to look sympathetic at sight of her. 
 
 And such petty, petty grievances for this 
 great, good life to be marred by ! 
 
38 THE HEART OF 
 
 And all the result of her own disposition. 
 Had she chosen to look for appreciation and 
 attention and good will she would have found it 
 everywhere. 
 
 Then, about your temper ? Is it flyiug loose 
 over a trifle ? Are you making yourself and 
 every one else wretched if a chair is out of 
 place, or a meal a moment late, or some mem- 
 ber of the family is tardy at dinner, or your shoe 
 string is in a tangle or your collar button mis- 
 laid? 
 
 Do you go to pieces nervously if you are 
 obliged to repeat a remark to some one who did 
 not understand you? I have known a home to 
 be ruined by just such infinitesimal annoyances. 
 It is a habit, like the drug or alcohol habit — 
 this irritability. 
 
 All you need do is to stop it. Keep your 
 voice from rising, and speak slowly and calmly 
 when you feel yourself giving way to it. Realize 
 how ridiculous and disagreeable you will be if 
 you continue, what an unlovely and hideous old 
 age you are preparing for yourself. And realize 
 that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and 
 lack of culture. 
 
 Think of the value of each day of life, how 
 much it means and what possibilities of happi- 
 ness and usefulness it contains if well spent. 
 
 But if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, 
 dwell on the small worries and grow angry at 
 the least trifle, you are committing as great and 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 39 
 
 inexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture 
 and garments and food and fuel into the sea in a 
 spirit of wanton cruelty. You are wasting life 
 for nothing. Every sick, gloomy day you pass is 
 a sin against life. Get health, be cheerful, keep 
 calm. 
 
 Clear your mind of every gloomy, selfish 
 angry or revengeful thought. Allow no resent- 
 ment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in 
 your heart over night. 
 
 Wake in the morning with a blessing for 
 every living thing on your lips and in your soul. 
 Say to yourself : " Health, luck, usefulness, suc- 
 cess, are mine. I claim them." Keep thinking 
 that thought, no matter what happens, just as 
 you would put one foot before another if you had 
 a mountain to climb. Keep on, keep on, and 
 suddenly you will find you are on the heights" 
 luck beside you. 
 
 Whoever follows this recipe cannot fail of 
 happiness, good fortune and a useful life. But 
 saying the words over once and then drifting back 
 to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do 
 no good. 
 
 The words must be said over and over, and 
 thought and lived when not said. 
 
40 THE HEART OF 
 
 Literature 
 
 I HE world is full of "New Thought" 
 Literature. It is helpful and in- 
 spiring to read. 
 
 It is worth many dollars to any 
 
 one who will live its philosophy. 
 
 I talked to a man who has 
 
 been studying along these lines for some years. 
 
 "Oh, I know all that philosophy," he said; 
 
 "it is nothing new. I am perfectly familiar 
 
 with it." 
 
 Yet this man was continually allowing himself 
 to grow angry over the least trifle; he was quick 
 to see and speak of the faults in others ; he was 
 demanding more of those he associated with in 
 the way of consideration and justice than he was 
 willing to give, and he was untidy in his person 
 and improvident in his use of money. 
 
 Now it is the merest waste of time for this man 
 to read "New Thought" literature or practice 
 "deep breathing", since he will not put into 
 daily and hourly practice what is taught by the 
 New Religion. 
 
 He is like the orthodox Christian who mum- 
 bles through the Lord's Prayer and then goes 
 forth to do exactly as he would not be done by 
 in business, social and domestic life. 
 
 Man is what he thinks. Not what he says, 
 reads or hears. By persistent thinking you can 
 undo any condition which exists. You can free 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 41 
 
 yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, 
 ill health or unhappiness. If you have been 
 thinking these thoughts half a lifetime you must 
 not expect to hatter down the walls you have built, 
 in a week, or a month, or a year. You must 
 work and wait, and grow discouraged and stumble 
 and pick yourself up and go on again. 
 
 ■ You cannot in an hour 'gain control over a 
 temper which you have let fly loose for twenty 
 years. But you can control it eventually, and 
 learn to think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity 
 like drunkenness or profanity, something you 
 could not descend to. 
 
 If you have allowed yourself to think despond- 
 ent thoughts and believe that poverty and sick- 
 ness were your portion for years, it will take time 
 to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful 
 ideas; but you can do it by repeated assertions 
 and by reading and thinking-and living the beau- 
 tiful New Thought Philosophy. 
 
42 THE HEART OF 
 
 Optimism 
 
 OT long ago I read the following 
 gloomy bit of pessimism from the 
 pen of a man bright enough to 
 know better than to add to the 
 mental malaria of the world. He 
 said: 
 
 Life is a hopeless battle in which we are fore- 
 doomed to defeat. And the prize for which we 
 strive " to have and to hold " — what is it ? A 
 thing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor 
 missed when lost. So worthless it is, so unsatis- 
 fying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to hope 
 and at its best so brief, that for consolation and 
 compensation we set up fantastic faiths of an 
 af tertime in a better world from which no con- 
 firming whisper has ever reached us out of the 
 void. Heaven is a prophecy uttered by the lips 
 of despair, but Hell is an inference from history. 
 
 This is morbid and unwholesome talk which 
 can do no human being any good to utter, or 
 listen to. 
 
 But it can depress and discourage the weak 
 and struggling souls, who are striving to make 
 thB best of circumstances, and it can nerve to 
 suicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who 
 needed only a word of encouragement and cheer 
 to brace up and win the race. 
 
 This is the unpardonable sin — to talk dis- 
 couragingly to human souls, hungering for hope. 
 
 When the man without brains does it, he can 
 be pardoned for knowing no better. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 43 
 
 When the man with brains does it, he should 
 be ashamed to look his fellow mortals in the 
 eyes. 
 
 It is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving 
 a stone to those who ask for bread. 
 
 It is giving poison to those who plead for a 
 cup of cold water. 
 
 Fortunately the remarks above quoted con- 
 tain not one atom of truth ! 
 
 The writer may speak for himself, but he has 
 no right to speak for others. 
 
 It is all very well for a man who is marked 
 with smallpox to say his face has not one 
 unscarred inch on the surface of it. But he has 
 no premises to stand upon when he says there is 
 not a face in the world which is free from small- 
 pox scars. 
 
 Life is not " a hopeless battle in which we 
 are doomed to defeat." 
 
 Life is a glorious privilege, and we can make 
 anything we choose of it, if we begin early and 
 are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine 
 powers. ' 
 
 Nothing can hinder us or stay us. We can 
 do and be whatsoever we will. 
 
 The prize of life is not "a thing which is 
 neither enjoyed while had nor missed when lost." 
 
 It is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day — this 
 great prize of life. I for one declare that for 
 every day of misery in my existence I have had a 
 week of joy and happiness. For every hour of 
 
44 . THE HEART OF 
 
 pain, I have had a day of pleasure. For every 
 moment of worry, an hour of content. 
 
 I cannot be the only soul so endowed with the 
 appreciation of life! I know scores of happy 
 people who enjoy the many delights of earth, 
 and there are thousands whom I do not know. 
 
 Of course "life is not missed when lost" — 
 because it is never lost. It is indestructible. 
 
 Life ever was, and ever will be. It is a 
 continuous performance. 
 
 It is not "worthless" to the wholesome, normal 
 mind. It is full of interest, and rich with oppor- 
 tunities for usefulness. 
 
 When any man says his life is worthless, it is 
 because he has eyes and sees not, and ears and 
 hears not. 
 
 It is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate 
 or accident. 
 
 If every life seems at times "unsatisfactory " 
 and "inadequate" it is only due to the cry of the 
 immortal soul longing for larger opportunities 
 and fewer limitations. 
 
 Neither is life "false to hope." "He who 
 
 .trusts the divine Source of Life, shall find his 
 
 hopes more than realized here upon earth. I but 
 
 voice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when 
 
 I make this assertion. I know whereof I speak. 
 
 All that our dearest hopes desire will come to 
 us, if we believe in ourselves as rightful heirs to 
 Divine Opulence, and work and think always on 
 those lines. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 45 
 
 If "no whisper has ever reached us out of the 
 void" confirming our faith in immortality, then 
 one-third of the seemingly intelligent and sane 
 beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars. 
 For we have the assertion of fully this number 
 that such whispers have come, besides the 
 Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the 
 other realm, "As it was in the beginning, is now 
 and shall be evermore, world without end. Amen." 
 
46 THE HEART OF 
 
 Preparation 
 
 ^ VEEY day I hear middle-aged people 
 bemoaning the fact that they were 
 not given advantages or did not 
 seize the opportunities for an edu- 
 cation in early youth. 
 
 They believe that their lives 
 ■would be happier, better and more useful had an 
 education been obtained. 
 
 Scarcely one of these people realizes that 
 middle life is the schooltime for old age, and that 
 just as important an opportunity is being missed 
 or ignored day by day for the storing up of valu- 
 able knowledge which will be of great import- 
 ance in rendering old age endurable. 
 
 Youth is the season to acquirek nowledge, 
 middle life is the time to acquire wisdom. 
 
 Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wis- 
 dom is far the more important of the two. 
 
 By wisdom I mean the philosophy which 
 enables us to control our tempers, curb our 
 tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our 
 'Sympathies. 
 
 The majority of people after thirty-five con- 
 sidei themselves privileged to be cross, irritable, 
 critical and severe, because they have lived long- 
 er than the young, because they have had more 
 trials and disappointments, and because they 
 believe they understand the world better. 
 
 Those are excellent reasons why they should 
 be patient, kind, broad and sympathetic. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 47 
 
 The longer we live the more we should real- 
 ize the folly and vulgarity of ill-temper, the 
 cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for 
 a broad-minded view of life, manners, morals 
 and customs. 
 
 Unless we adapt ourselves to the changing 
 habits of the world, unless we adopt some of the 
 new ideas that are constantly coming to the 
 front, we will find ourselves carping, disagree- 
 able and lonely old people as the years go by. 
 
 The world will not stand still for us. Society 
 will not wear the same clothes or follow the 
 same pleasures, or think the same thoughts 
 when we are eighty that were prevalent when 
 we were thirty. We must keep moving with 
 the world or stand still and solitary. 
 
 After thirty we must seize every hour and 
 educate ourselves to grow into agreeable old age. 
 
 It requires at least twenty years to become 
 well educated in book and college lore. If we 
 begin to study at seven we are rarely through 
 with all our common schools, seminaries, high 
 schools and colleges have to offer under a score 
 of years. 
 
 The education for old age needs fully as 
 many years. We need to begin at thirty to be 
 tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic 
 and liberal. Then, at fifty, we may hope to have 
 "graduated with honors" from life's school of 
 wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or 
 two of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the 
 practice of these qualities. 
 
48 THE HEART OF 
 
 Instead of wasting our time in bemoaning 
 the loss of early opportunities for obtaining an 
 education, let us devote ourselves to the cultiva- 
 tion of wisdom, since that is free to all who pos- 
 sess self-control, will power, faith and persever- 
 ance. 
 
 Begin to-day, at home. Be more tolerant 
 of the faults of the other members of your house- 
 hold. Restrain your criticisms on the conduct 
 of your neighbors. 
 
 Try and realize the causes which led some 
 people who have gone wrong to err. Look for 
 the admirable qualities in every one you meet. 
 Sympathize with the world. Be interested in 
 progress, be interested in the young. Keep in 
 touch with each new generation, and do not 
 allow yourself to grow old in thought or feeling. 
 
 Educate yourself for a charming old age. 
 There is no time to lose. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 
 
 49 
 
 Dividends 
 
 UR thoughts are shaping unmade 
 spheres, 
 And, like a blessing or a curse. 
 They thunder down the formless 
 
 years 
 And ring throughout the universe. 
 
 The more we realize the tremendous responsi- 
 bility of our mental emanations the better for the 
 world and ourselves. The sooner we teach little 
 children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible 
 phrase "As a man thinketh, so is he," the better 
 for future generations. 
 
 If a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfor- 
 tune, he will meet them and claim them all 
 eventually as his own. But he will not acknowl- 
 edge the close relationship, he will deny his 
 own children and declare they were sent to him 
 by an evil fate. 
 
 Walter Atkinson tells us that "he who hates' 
 is an assassin." 
 
 Every kindergarten and public school teacher 
 ought to embody this idea in the daily lessons for 
 children. 
 
 It may not be possible to teach a child to 
 "love every neighbor as himself," for that is the 
 most difficult of Commandments to follow to the 
 letter ; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from 
 a nature if we awaken sympathy for the object 
 of dislike. 
 
50 THE HEART OP 
 
 That which we pity we cannot hate. The 
 wonderful Intelligence which set this superb 
 system of worlds in action must have been inspired 
 by love for all it created. 
 
 So much grandeur and magnificence, so 
 much perfection of detail, could only spring 
 from Love. 
 
 Whatever is out of harmony in our little 
 world has been caused by man's substituting hate 
 and fear for love and faith. 
 
 Every time we allow either hate or fear to 
 dominate our minds we disarrange the order of 
 the universe and make trouble for humanity, 
 and ourselves. 
 
 It may be a little late in reaching us, but it 
 is sure to come back to the Mind which sent 
 forth the cause. 
 
 Every time we entertain thoughts of love, 
 sympathy, forgiveness and faith we add to the 
 well-being of the world, and create fortunate 
 and successful conditions for ourselves. 
 
 Those, too, may be late in coming to us — 
 BUT THEY WILL COME. 
 
 Right thinking is not attained in a day or a 
 week. 
 
 We must train the mind to reject the brood 
 of despondent, resentful, fearful and prejudiced 
 thoughts which approach it, and to invite 
 and entertain cheerful, broad and wholesome 
 thoughts instead, just as we overcome false tones 
 and cultivate musical ones in educating the 
 voice for singing. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 61 
 
 When we once realize that by driving away 
 pessimistic, angry and bitter thoughts we drive 
 away sickness and misfortune to a great extent, 
 and that by seeking the kinder and happier 
 frame of mind we seek at the same time success 
 and health and good luck, we will find a new 
 impetus in the control of our mental forces. 
 
 For we all love to be paid for our worthy 
 deeds, even while we believe in being good for 
 good's sake only. And nothing in life is surer 
 than this: 
 
 RIGHT THINKING PATS LARGE DIVI- 
 DENDS. 
 
 Think success, prosperity, usefulness. It is 
 much more profitable than thinking self-destruc- 
 tion or the effort at self - destruction for 
 that is an act which aims at an impossibility. 
 You can destroy the body, but the you who suffers 
 in mind and spirit will suffer still, and live still. 
 You will only change your location from one 
 state to another. You did not make yourself, 
 you cannot unmake yourself. You can merely 
 put yourself among the spiritual tramps who 
 hang about the earth's borders, because they 
 have not prepared a better place for themselves. 
 
 Suicide is cheap, vulgar and cowardly. 
 Because you have made a wreck of a portion of 
 this life, do not make a wreck of the next. 
 
 Mend up your broken life here, go along 
 bravely and with sympathy and love in your heart, 
 determined to help everybody you can, and to 
 
52 THE HEART OF 
 
 better your condition as soon as possible. Men 
 have done this after fifty, and lived thirty good 
 years to enjoy the results. 
 
 Do not feel hurt by the people who slight you, 
 or who refer to your erring past. Be sorry for 
 them. I would rather be a tender-hearted 
 reformed sinner than a hard-hearted model of 
 good behavior. 
 
 I would rather learn sympathy through sin 
 than never learn it at all. 
 
 There is nothing we cannot live down, and 
 rise above, and overcome. There is nothing we 
 cannot be in the way of nobility and worth. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 53 
 
 Royalty 
 
 ''E get what we give. I have never 
 known this rule to fail in the 
 long run. If we give sympathy, 
 appreciation, goodwill, charitable 
 thoughts, admiration and love — 
 we receive all these back from 
 humanity in time. 
 
 We may bestow them unworthily, as the 
 sower of good seed may cast it on a rocky surface; 
 but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast, 
 and, while the rock remains barren, the fields 
 shall yield a golden harvest. 
 
 The seed must he good, however. 
 If I say to myself without any real regard for 
 another in my heart, " I want that person to like 
 me, I will do all in my power to please him," 
 I need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove 
 of only temporary efl&cacy. 
 
 Neither need I feel surprised or pained if I find 
 by-and-by that other people are bestowing policy 
 friendship upon me, actions with no feeling for 
 a foundation. i 
 
 No matter how kind and useful I make my 
 conduct toward an individual, if in my secret 
 heart I am criticising him severely and condemn- 
 ing him, I must expect criticism and condem- 
 nation from others as my portion. 
 
 We reap what we sow. Some harvests are 
 longer in growing than others, but they all grow 
 in time. 
 
54 THE HEART OF 
 
 Servility in love, or friendship, or duty, is 
 never commendable. I do not believe God Him- 
 self feels complimented when the beings He 
 created as the highest type of His workmanship 
 declare themselves worthless worms, unworthy 
 of His regard ! 
 
 "We are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful 
 inheritors of happiness, and health, and success. 
 What monarch would feel pleasure in having his 
 children crawl in the dust, saying, " We are less 
 than nothing, miserable, unworthy creatures ? " 
 
 Would he not prefer to hear them say, 
 proudly: " We are of royal blood" ? 
 
 We ought always to believe in our best selves, 
 in our right to love and be loved, to give and 
 receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded. 
 And then we should bestow our love, our gifts 
 and our toil with no anxious thought about the 
 returns. If we chance to love a loveless indi- 
 vidual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, 
 to toil for the unappreciative, it is but a tem- 
 porary deprivation for us. The love, the 
 gratitude and the recompense will all come to 
 us in time from some source, or many sources. 
 It cannot fail. 
 
THE NEW THOUaHT 55 
 
 Heredity 
 
 MERICAN parents, as a rule, can be 
 put in two extreme classes, those 
 who render the children insuffer- 
 ably conceited and unbearable by 
 overestimating their abilities and 
 overpraising their achievements, 
 and those who render them morbid and self -de- 
 preciating by a lack of wholesome praise. 
 
 It is rare indeed, when we find parents wise 
 and sensible enough to strengthen the best that 
 is in their children by discreet praise, and at the 
 same time to control the undesirable qualities by 
 judicious and kind criticism. 
 
 I heard a grandmother not long ago telling 
 callers in the presence of a small boy what a 
 naughty, bad child he was, and how impossible 
 it seemed to make him mind. Wretched seed to 
 sow in the little mind, and the harvest is sure 
 to be sorrow. 
 
 I have heard parents and older children 
 expatiate on the one stupid trait and the one 
 plain feature of a bright and handsome child, 
 intending to keep it from forming too good an 
 opinion of itself. 
 
 To all young people I would say, cultivate 
 a belief in yourself. Base it on self-respect and 
 confidence in God's love for his own handiwork. 
 Say to yourself, " I will be what I will to be." 
 Not because your human will is all-powerful. 
 
56 THE HEART OF 
 
 but because the Divine will is back of you. 
 Analyze your own abilities and find what you 
 are best fitted to do. 
 
 Then set aboub the task of doing your chosen 
 work to the very best of your ability, and do not 
 for an instant doubt your own capabilities. 
 Perhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by 
 years of morbid thought; but if you persist in a 
 self-respecting and self-reliant and God-trusting 
 course of thinking your powers will increase and 
 your capabilities strengthen. 
 
 It is no easy matter to overcome a habit of 
 self -depreciation. 
 
 It is like straightening out a limb which has 
 been twisted by a false attitude or correcting a 
 habit of sitting round-shouldered. 
 
 It requires a steady and persistent effort. 
 When the depressing and doubtful thoughts 
 come drive them away like malaria-breeding 
 insects. Say, " This is not complimentary to my 
 Maker. I am His work. I must be worthy of 
 my own respect and of that of others. I must 
 and will succeed." 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 57 
 
 Invincibility 
 
 F we persistently desire good things 
 to come to us for unselfish pur- 
 poses, and at the same time faith- 
 fully perform the duties which 
 lie nearest, we will eventually find 
 our desires being realized in the 
 most unexpected manner. 
 
 Our thought force has proved to be a wedge, 
 opening the seemingly inaccessible Wall of Cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 To read good books, to think and ponder on 
 what you read, to cultivate every agreeable 
 quality you observe in others, and to weed from 
 your nature every unworthy and disagreeable 
 trait, to study humanity with an idea of being 
 helpful and sympathetic, all these efforts will help 
 you to the ultimate attainment of your wishes. 
 
 It is a proven fact that if we devote a few 
 moments each day to reaching exercises, stand- 
 ing with loose garments and stretching the body 
 muscles to reach some point above us, we 
 increase our stature. 
 
 Just so if we mentally and spiritually are 
 continually reaching to a higher plane we are 
 growing. 
 
 Every least thought of the brain is a chisel, 
 chipping away at our characters, and our char- 
 acters are building our destinies. 
 
 The incessant and persistent demand of our 
 hearts and minds MUST be granted, 
 
58 THE HEART OF 
 
 That Mental Chisel 
 
 URING a trolley ride through a thrifty 
 New England locality, where church 
 spires were almost as plentiful as 
 trees, I studied the faces of the 
 people who came into the car dur- 
 ing my two hours' journey. 
 The day was beautiful, and all along the route 
 our numbers were recruited by bevies of women, 
 young, middle aged and old, who were bent on 
 shopping expeditions or setting forth to make 
 social calls. 
 
 They went and came at each village through 
 which our coach of democracy passed, and they 
 represented all classes. 
 
 The young girls were lovely, as young girls 
 are the world over: their complexion possessed 
 that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore 
 localities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune 
 is the greatest of cosmetics. Many of the young 
 faces were formed in classic mould, their features 
 clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the 
 thoughts and principles of their ancestors. 
 
 Often I observed a mother and some female 
 relative, presumably an aunt, in company with 
 a young relative; and always the sharpening 
 and withering process of the years of set and 
 unelastic thought was discernible upon their 
 faces, which had once been young, and classic 
 and attractive. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 59 
 
 In the entire two hours I saw but three 
 lovely faces which were matured by time. 
 
 I saw scores of well-dressed and evidently 
 well-cared-for women of middle, age, whose 
 countenances were furrowed, drawn, pinched, 
 sallow, and worn, beyond excuse; for time, sor- 
 row, and sickness are not plausible excuses for 
 such ravages upon a face God drew in lines of 
 beauty. 
 
 Time should mature a woman's beauty as it 
 does that of a tree. Sorrow should glorify it as 
 does the frost the tree, and sickness should not 
 be allowed to lay a lingering touch upon it, until 
 death calls the spirit away. 
 
 Without question the great majority of the 
 women I saw were earnest orthodox Christians. 
 
 I heard snatches of conversation regarding 
 Church and Charities and I have no doubt that 
 each woman among them believed herself to be 
 a disciple of Christ. 
 
 Yet where was the result of the loving, tender, 
 sweet spirit of Christ's teaching ? 
 
 It surely was not visible upon those pinched 
 and worried faces ? and those faces were certain 
 and truthful chronicles of the work done by 
 the minds within. 
 
 One face said to me in every line, "I talk 
 about God's goodness and loving-kindness, but I 
 worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret 
 about _our expenses, I am troubled about my 
 lungs, and I fear my husband has an unregener- 
 ate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for 
 
60 THE HEART OF 
 
 even in my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of 
 course I know I will be saved by the blood of 
 Christ!" 
 
 Another said, "I am in Grod's fold, well and 
 safe, but I hate and despise my nearest neighbor, 
 for she wears clothes that I am sure she cannot 
 pay for, and her children are always dressed 
 better than mine. I quarrel with my domestics, 
 and am always in trouble of some kind, just 
 because human beings are so full of sin and no 
 one but myself is ever right. I shall be so glad 
 to leave this world of woe and go to heaven, but 
 I hope I will not meet many of my present 
 acquaintances 1;Jiere ! " 
 
 Another said, " If I only had good health — 
 but I was born to sickness and suffering, and it 
 is God's will that I should suffer ! " 
 
 Oh the pity of it, and to imagine this is 
 religion ! 
 
 Thank God the wave of "New Thought" is 
 sweeping over the land, and washing away those 
 old blasphemous errors of mistaken creeds. 
 
 The "New Thought" is to give us a new 
 race of beautiful middle-aged and old people. 
 
 To-day in any part of the land among rich, 
 poor, ignorant or intellectual, orthodox or mater- 
 ialists the beautiful mature face is rarer than a 
 white blackbird in the woods. 
 
 It is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninter- 
 esting in late life, if the mind keeps itself occu- 
 pied with right thinking. 
 
 The withered and drawn face of fifty indi- 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 61 
 
 cates withered emotions and drawn and perverted 
 ambitions. 
 
 The dried and sallow face tells its story of 
 dried up sympathies and hopes. 
 
 The furrowed face tells of acid cares eating 
 into the heart. 
 
 All this is irreligious ! yet all this prevails 
 extensively in our most conservative and churchy 
 communities. 
 
 He who in truth trusts God cannot worry. 
 
 He who loves God and mankind, cannot 
 become dried and withered at fifty, for love will 
 re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his 
 eye. 
 
 He who understands his own divine nature 
 will grow more beautiful with the passing of 
 time, for the God within will become each year 
 more visible. 
 
 The really reverent soul accepts its sorrows 
 as blessings in disguise, and he who so accepts 
 them is beautified and glorified by them, within 
 and without. 
 
 Are you growing more attractive as you 
 advance in life? Is your eye softer and deeper, 
 is your mouth kinder, your expression more 
 sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face 
 in tense knots of worry? Are your eyes growing 
 hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the 
 corners, and becoming a set thin line in the 
 centre, and is your skin dry, and sallow, and 
 parched? 
 
62 THE HEART OF 
 
 Study yourself and answer these questions to 
 your own soul, for in the answer depends the 
 decision whether you really love and trust God, 
 and believe in your own immortal spirit, or 
 whether you are a mere impostor in the court of 
 faith. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 63 
 
 The Object of Life 
 
 ''hat do you believe to be the object 
 of your life? 
 
 To be happy and successful, per- 
 haps you are thinking, even if you 
 do not answ^er in those v^ords. 
 That is the idea of the many. 
 Meanv^rhile others, who have been educated in the 
 melancholy faith of their ancestors, believe the 
 object of this life is to be miserable, poor, and 
 full of sorrow, that they may wear a crown of 
 glory hereafter. 
 
 But the clear thinker and careful observer 
 must realize that there is one and only one main 
 object in life — the building of character. 
 
 He who sets out in early youth with that 
 ambition and purpose, and keeps to it, will not 
 only attain his object, but he will, too, attain 
 happiness and true success — for there is no such 
 thing as failure for the man or woman of char- 
 acter. 
 
 We often apply the two words character and 
 success, unworthily. 
 
 We speak of a man of "much character" 
 when he is merely self-assertive and stubborn, 
 and we call a man successful, who has accumu- 
 lated a fortune, or achieved fame and a position, 
 by doubtful methods. 
 
 Then what is character, and what is success? 
 Character is the result of the cultivation of 
 
64 THE HEART OF 
 
 the highest and noblest qualities in human 
 nature, and putting those qualities to practical 
 use. 
 
 Success is the conquest of the lower and baser 
 self, and the ability to be useful to one's fellow 
 men. 
 
 There are men of brain, wealth and position 
 who are failures, and there are men of limited 
 abilities and in humble places who are yet suc- 
 cessful, inasmuch as they make the utmost of 
 themselves, and their opportunities. 
 
 It makes no difference how lowly your sphere 
 in life may be, and no matter how limited your 
 environment, you can build your character if 
 you will. You need no outlay of money, no 
 assistance from those in power, no influence. 
 
 Character Building must be done alone, and 
 by yourself. The ground must be cleansed of 
 debris, and the structure must be erected stone 
 by stone. 
 
 It is dull, slow, hard work, especially the 
 preparation. 
 
 All preparation is drudgery, 
 • When this little whirling globe of ours began 
 to cool in space think what a task lay before it! 
 Think of the mass of chaos, which had to slowly 
 shape itself into mighty, green, glad and snow- 
 capped mountains, fertile vales, and noble forests. 
 
 Each one of us is a little world, whirling 
 alone on an individual orbit, but the divine 
 power is within us, to grow into symmetry, 
 beauty, and perfection if we only realize it. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 65 
 
 And the happiness of the work, once we begin 
 it, is beyond the power of description. 
 
 There is no other satisfaction can compare 
 with that of looking back across the years and 
 finding that you have grown in self-control, in 
 charity of judgment, in a sense of justice, in gen- 
 erosity, and in unselfishness. 
 
 If you are conscious of this growth, let no lack 
 of material success for one moment disturb you. 
 That will come, enough for your need, in time. 
 
 The man of symmetrically developed charac- 
 ter is never a pauper. 
 
 He is never dependent for more than a tem- 
 porary period. 
 
 To possess character is to be useful, and to 
 be useful is to be independent, and to be useful 
 and independent, is to be happy, even in the 
 midst of sorrow; for sorrow is not necessarily 
 unhappiness. 
 
 The man who has made the development of 
 a noble and harmonious character the business 
 of his life, accepts his sorrows as means of greater 
 growth, and finds in them an exaltation of spirit 
 which is closely allied to happiness. 
 
 To such a nature, absolute wretchedness 
 would only be possible through the loss of self- 
 respect; the lowering of an ideal or the failure 
 of a principle. 
 
 Would you be happy and successful? Then 
 set yourself to build character. 
 
 Seek to be worthy of your own highest com- 
 mendation. 
 
66 THE HEART OF 
 
 Wisdom 
 
 GREAT many people are attracted to 
 the New Thought of the day, by 
 its declaration of our right to ma- 
 terial wealth, and by its claim that 
 the mind of man can create, com- 
 mand, and control conditions which 
 produce wealth. 
 
 There is no question concerning the truth of 
 this claim. 
 
 But woe unto him who cultivates his mental 
 and spiritual powers only for this putpose. 
 
 His gold shall turn to dross, his pleasure to 
 Dead Sea fruit! 
 
 He shall be as one who drags a beautiful gar- 
 ment through the mud of the streets, and while 
 clothed in purple and fine linen is yet a repulsive 
 object. 
 
 Into the Great Scheme of Existence, as first 
 
 conceived by the Creator, money did not enter. 
 
 He made this beautiful Universe, and all that 
 
 it contains was meant for the enjoyment of His 
 
 , creatures. 
 
 There was no millionaire and no pauper soul 
 created by God. 
 
 Each soul contains the spark of the divine 
 spirit, and by the realization of that spark, and all 
 it means, whatever is desired by mortal man 
 may come to him. 
 
 But wise is he who remembers the injunction, 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 67 
 
 " Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all other 
 things shall be added unto you." 
 
 Wise is he who understands the meaning of 
 the words, " Unto him that hath, more shall be 
 given." 
 
 Not until you obtain the faculty of being 
 happy through your spiritual and mental facul- 
 ties, independent of material conditions, not until 
 you learn to value wealth only as a means of. 
 helpfulness, can you safely turn your powers of 
 concentration upon the idea of opulence. 
 
 To demand, assert, and command wealth for| 
 its mere sensual benefits, to focus your mind 
 upon it because you desire to shine, lead, and 
 triumph, is to play spiritual football with spirit- 
 ual dynamite. 
 
 You may obtain what you seek, you may 
 accumulate riches, but at the cost of all that is 
 worth living for. 
 
 The merely ignorant, or stupid, or wholly 
 material man who stumbles into a fortune,' 
 through inheritance, dogged persistent industry, 
 or chance, may enjoy it in his own fashion, and 
 do no harm in the world. 
 
 But the man who knows and who has devel- 
 oped his spiritual powers only for the purpose of 
 commanding material gain, might better have a 
 millstone tied about his neck. For he makes 
 himself a spiritual outcast, and his money shall 
 never bring him happiness. 
 
 Make, therefore, your assertion of opulence 
 the last in your list, as you make Love first. 
 
68 THE HEART OF 
 
 Call unto yourself spiritual insight, absolute 
 unselfishness, desire for universal good, wisdom, 
 justice, and usefulness, and last of all opulence. 
 
 Think of yourself as possessed of all these 
 qualities before you picture financial independ- 
 ence. 
 
 For without love for your kind, without the 
 desire for usefulness and the spiritual insight and 
 the wisdom to be just before being generous, 
 your money would bring you only temporary 
 pleasure, and would do the world no good. 
 
 Neither should you labor under the impres- 
 sion that God's work is lying undone because you 
 have no fortune to command and wisely dis- 
 tribute where most needed. Rest assured if you 
 do the work which lies nearest to you, relieve 
 such distress as is possible to you, and keep your 
 faith in the ultimate justice of God's ways, that 
 the world will move on, and humanity will 
 slowly attain its destined goal, even if you never 
 become a millionaire. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 69 
 
 Self Conquest 
 
 ^ VERT New Idea, or supposed New 
 Idea, is a light which attracts the 
 moths. 
 
 The " New Thought " is no ex- 
 ception. 
 
 About it flutter hysterical wo- 
 men, unbalanced men: the erratic and the irre- 
 sponsible. 
 
 The possibilities of performing miracles, of 
 healing the sick, hypnotizing the well, trans- 
 forming poverty into wealth, and changing age 
 to youth, are the rays of light which flicker 
 through the darkness and draw them into the 
 circle of radiance. 
 
 The self-indulgent fat woman subscribes to 
 New Thought literature, pays for a course of 
 lectures, and goes forth into the ranks of the 
 unbelievers, proclaiming her power to become a 
 sylph, and to cause others to become sylphs. 
 
 The extravagant and inconsiderate rush forth 
 after having heard a discourse upon the power 
 of mind over matter, and declare that they 
 possess the secret of accumulating a fortune by 
 occult means. 
 
 The lovers of the marvelous believe that they 
 
 will become great healers in a brief space of time. 
 
 Not one of these moth converts realizes that 
 
 the very first step to take in the direction of 
 
 " New Thought " is self -conquest. 
 
70 THE HEART OF 
 
 The gourmand does not know that self-indul- 
 gence and a gross appetite are incompatible with 
 mental or spiritual growth, and will be insur- 
 mountable obstacles in her path toward symmetry. 
 
 The spendthrift does not take into considera- 
 tion the fact that good sense, thrift and industry, 
 must aid his mental assertion of wealth, and the 
 miracle lover does not understand that some- 
 thing greater and more difficult is required than 
 a mere wish to heal before healing powers can 
 be obtained. 
 
 That the physical body and material condi- 
 tions can be dominated by the divine spirit in 
 man, is an incontrovertible fact. . 
 
 But first, last and always, the lesser self must 
 be subjugated, and the weak and unworthy 
 qualities overcome. 
 
 The woman who desires to reduce her flesh 
 cannot do so by reading occult literature, or 
 joining mystic circles, or attending lectures,^ 
 unless she permeates herself so thoroughly with 
 spiritual truths that she no longer craves six 
 courses at dinner, and three meals a day, and 
 unless she overcomes her dislike for exercise. 
 
 The man who wishes to control circum- 
 stances must love better things than money 
 before he can succeed. He must love, and 
 respect, and believe in his Creator, and trust the 
 Divine Man within himself, and he must illust- 
 rate this love and trust by his daily conduct, and 
 in his home circle, and in his business relations. 
 
THE NEW THOUaHT 71 
 
 Once in a century, perhaps, is a man born with 
 great powers already developed to heal the sick, 
 or to do other seeming miracles. Such beings 
 are old souls, who have obtained diplomas in 
 former lives; but the majority of us are still in 
 school, and we cannot become "seniors" uutil we 
 pass through the lower grades. 
 
 We must change ourselves before we can 
 change material conditions: we must heal our 
 own thoughts and make them sane and normal, 
 before we can heal bodily disease in others. 
 
 It is not an immediate process. I have heard 
 an old lady declare that she "got religion" in 
 the twinkling of an eye, and she believed all 
 people would be damned and burn in hell fire, 
 who did not pass through this sudden illumina- 
 tion. 
 
 It is possible that the religion which can wor- 
 ship a God cruel enough to burn his children in 
 fire, can only be obtained in the twinkliug of an 
 eye; but the reverent, wholesome, and beautiful 
 religion of "New Thought" must be grown into 
 little by little, through patience, faith, and 
 practice. 
 
 All that it claims to do it can do, but not 
 instantaneously, not rapidly. We must first 
 make ourselves over; after absolute control of 
 our minds has been obtained, then, and only then, 
 may we hope to influence circumstances and 
 health. 
 
72 THE HEAET OF 
 
 The Important Trifles 
 
 OU will find, in the effort to reach a 
 higher spirituality in your daily 
 life, that the small things try your 
 patience and your strength more 
 than the greater ones. 
 
 Home life, like business life, is 
 composed of an accumulation of trifles. 
 
 There are people who bear great sorrows with 
 resignation, and seem to gain a certain dignity 
 and force of character through trouble, but who 
 are utterly vanquished by trivial annoyances. 
 
 The old-fashioned orthodox "Christian" was 
 frequently of this order. 
 
 Death, poverty, and misfortune he bore with- 
 out complaining, and became ofttimes a more 
 agreeable companion in times of deepest sorrow. 
 He regarded all such experiences as the will 
 of God, and bowed to them. 
 
 Yet, if his dinner was late, his coffee below the 
 standard, if his eye-glasses were misplaced, or his 
 .toe trodden upon, he became a raging lion, and 
 his roar drove his affrighted household into dark 
 corners. 
 
 There have been neighborhood Angels, who 
 watched beside the dying sinner, sustained or- 
 phans and widows, and endured great troubles 
 sublimely like martyrs. But if a dasty shoe trod 
 upon a freshly washed floor, or husband or child 
 came tardily to the breakfast-table, or lingered 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 73 
 
 outside the door after regulation hour for retir- 
 ing — lo, the Angel became a virago, or a droning 
 mosquito with persistent sting. 
 
 The New Philosophy demands serenity and 
 patience through small trials, as well as forti- 
 tude in meeting life's larger ills. 
 
 It demands, too, that we seek to avoid giving 
 others unnecessary irritation by a thoughtless 
 disregard of the importance of trifles. 
 
 A man is more likely to keep calm if he 
 wakes in the night and discovers that the house 
 is on fire, than he is if, on being fully prepared to 
 retire, he finds the only mug on the third story 
 is missing from his wash-stand, or the cake of 
 toilet-soap he asked for the day before has been 
 forgotten. 
 
 A mother bears the afiBiction of a crippled 
 child with more equanimity than she is able to 
 bring to bear upon the continual thoughtlessness 
 of a strong one. 
 
 To be kind, means to be thoughtful. 
 
 The kindest and most loving heart will some- 
 times forget and be careless; but it cannot be 
 perpetually forgetful and careless of another's 
 wishes and needs, even in the merest trifles. 
 
74 THE HEART OF 
 
 Concentration 
 
 I HE New Thought includes concentra- 
 tion of thought, in its teaching; and 
 he who learns that important art is 
 not liable to frequently forget small 
 or large duties. 
 
 It is he who scatters, instead of 
 concentrates his mind powers, who keeps him- 
 self and others in a state of continual irritation 
 by forgetting, mislaying, and losing, three 
 petty vices which do much to mar domestic or 
 business life. 
 
 Concentration is a most difficult acquirement 
 for the mature mind which has been allowed to 
 grow in the habit of thought scattering. 
 
 Wise is the mother, and as sure as wise, 
 who teaches her child to finish each task begun 
 before attempting another, for that is the first 
 step in concentration. 
 
 Prentice Mulford, that great and good pioneer 
 in the field of practical New Thought, tells us to 
 apply our whole mental powers to whatever we 
 do, even if it is merely the tying of a shoe, and 
 to think of nothing else until that shoe is tied, 
 then to utte y forget the shoe string, when we 
 turn to another duty or employment. The next 
 lesson in concentration he gives us, is to repeat 
 the word often, to impress it upon the mind. 
 
 And then to declare each day %at " Concen- 
 tration is mine" will aid still farther in the 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 75 
 
 acquisition of this great and important quality. 
 
 Meanwhile, since we can be so fortunate as 
 to always surround ourselves with others who 
 have acquired it, the student of the Higher Phil- 
 osophy must learn to be serene and self-poised 
 when he encounters life's pigmy worries. 
 
 He must carry his religion into his bedroom 
 and his office, and not forget it utterly when he 
 loses his collar-button, or misses his car, or finds 
 his office boy has taken a parcel to the wrong 
 address. 
 
 To build character necessitates a constant 
 watch upon ourselves. The New Thought is not 
 a. religion of Sundays, but of every day. 
 
76 THE HEART OF 
 
 Destiny 
 
 EVER say that you wish your situa- 
 tion were different! Never wish 
 you had some other person's life or 
 troubles or worries. 
 
 Accept your own as a working 
 basis, the best for you. 
 Then go ahead and change whatever displeases 
 you. 
 
 Remember you are the maker and moulder of 
 your own destiny. You do not recall the fact, 
 but you brought about the present conditions of 
 your destiny in former incarnations. 
 
 Even if you do not believe this, you must 
 acknowledge that you are here, and that the situ- 
 ation in which you find yourself seems to be 
 inevitable for the present. 
 
 But it is not inevitable for the future, unless 
 you lie down in the furrow and whine, and wish 
 you were a millionaire, or a genius, and rail at 
 the partiality of Providence. 
 
 There is no partiality in the Universe. 
 The whole scheme is well balanced. If you 
 were allowed to change lots with anyone on the 
 face of the earth, you would complain and find 
 fault in a short time. 
 
 One of our best known millionaires, born to 
 opulence, complains that he has been robbed of 
 the privilege of making his own fortune. 
 
 He is no happier than you. His confession 
 
THE NEW THOUaHT 77 
 
 betrays his weakness of character just as your 
 repining and fault-finding betrays yours. 
 
 The real worth-while character thanks God 
 for its destiny and says, " I will show the world 
 what I can do with my life." 
 
 Not long ago there was a great trotting-race 
 at Brighton Beach. The blind conquerer "Ryth- 
 mic" won five consecutive races. 
 
 Think of it! He did not, like a mortal man, 
 shrink back and say " I am blind — that is a ter- 
 rible destiny — I am cursed of God — I will not 
 try to win the race." He just trusted the 
 hand of the Master at the reins, did his best, and 
 won the honors of the seasou. 
 
 We are all blind racers on the track of earth. 
 The king, the millionaire, the statesman, the law- 
 maker, the beggar, the laborer, the cripple, we 
 are all in the dark. The only thing is to trust 
 the hand of the Master, and do our best. 
 
 Believe your position is the right starting 
 point for you, merely the starting point. 
 
 It is the shapeless block of stone from which 
 you are to fashion the perfect statue. 
 
 Or it is the mere mud from which you are to 
 mould the clay image, and later that is to be put 
 into enduring marble. 
 
 What is uglier or more unattractive than 
 mud? 
 
 Yet think of the glorious conceptions which 
 it imprisons. 
 
 Take the mud of your present environment 
 
78 THE HEART OF 
 
 and thank God for it, and make the image of the 
 future you desire. 
 
 You can do it — you must do it — you will do 
 it. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 79 
 
 Sympathy 
 
 RE you of a sympathetic nature ? 
 If so, do not let your sympathies 
 help to add to the world's miseries. 
 That may seem a strange ex- 
 pression, but it can be explained if 
 you will listen. 
 Much of the misery in the world is the result 
 of imagination. 
 
 All of it is the result of selfishness and ignor- 
 ance. 
 
 But hundreds and thousands of people believe 
 themselves sick, sorrowful and poverty stricken, 
 who would be well, glad and prosperous, if they 
 only thought themselves so. 
 
 Every time you pour out your sympathy upon 
 these self-made sufferers, you add to their burden 
 of wrong thought, and make it just so much 
 more difficult for them to rise out of their 
 troubles. 
 
 I do not believe all the misfortune in the 
 world is caused by wrong thinking in this life, or 
 can be done away with by right thinking. The 
 three-year-old child who toddles in front of a 
 trolley car and loses a leg, while the tired mother 
 is bending over the washtub to keep the wolf of 
 hunger at bay, cannot be blamed for wrong 
 thinking as the cause of its trouble. Neither can 
 the deaf mute or the child born blind or 
 deformed. We must go farther back, to former 
 lives, to find the first cause of such misfortunes. 
 
80 THE HEART OF 
 
 No " New Thouglit," no amount of optimistic 
 theology or philosophy can restore the child's 
 leg, or ears, or eyes. It is utter nonsense to say 
 that miracles like these can be performed. 
 
 There are scores of individuals whom we 
 meet handicapped in life's race by such dire 
 calamities that we spontaneously pour forth our 
 sympathy. 
 
 But, even to these, it were kinder and wiser 
 to give diverting thoughts, and a new outlook, 
 and to open up avenues for pleasure, and enter- 
 tainment, and profit, in place of tears and con- 
 dolence. 
 
 Sympathy, without alleviating actions to a 
 sufferer, is like a cloud without rain to the 
 parched earth. 
 
 But the great majority of people whom we 
 encounter are making their own crosses, and we 
 who offer them sympathy, and condolence, are 
 but adding to the burden's weight. 
 
 I do not recommend coldness, indifference, or 
 ridicule as a substitute for sympathy. But 
 instead of leading the sick man on to tell you 
 the details of his illness, and to describe all his 
 symptoms, while your own body responds with 
 sympathetic aches and pains as you listen, it is 
 kinder to divert his attention to some cheerful 
 and merry topic, or to refer to some case like his 
 own which resulted in perfect restoration to 
 health. Instead of going down into his under- 
 ground cave of depression, bring him out into 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 81 
 
 the wholesome sunlight of your own healthful 
 state, even if for a moment only, and impress 
 upon his mind that health belongs to him, and 
 must return to him. 
 
 To the man in business trouble the same 
 advice applies. 
 
 Tell him you are sorry for him, but do not 
 take on his despondency to prove it. 
 
 Talk of the future and all the possibilities it 
 holds for a determined man or woman. 
 
 Make him laugh. Speak of trouble as the 
 gymnasium where our moral muscles are devel- 
 oped. Answer him that everything he desires is 
 his if he will be persistent and determined in 
 demanding his own. If you put force in your 
 words you will leave an impression. 
 
 Do not go away from the house of trouble in 
 tears, but leave the troubled ones you called upon 
 smiling as you depart. 
 
 That is true sympathy. 
 
82 THE HEART OF 
 
 The Breath 
 
 MAN reproved me for my interest in 
 New Thought creeds. 
 
 "The old religion I learned at 
 my mother's knee is good enough 
 for me!" he said. "It is good 
 enough for anybody !" 
 Yet this man's mother had always "enjoyed 
 poor health," as the old lady expressed it, and 
 the man himself was forever talking of his dis- 
 eases, his ill luck, his poverty, which he said he 
 had been enabled to endure only through the 
 sustaining power of the religion "learned at his 
 mother's knee." 
 
 It would be difficult to convince the man 
 that had his mother taught him the creed of the 
 "New Religion" he coald have changed all these 
 unfortunate conditions. 
 
 Life-long ill health would have been impos- 
 sible for his mother, or for him. 
 
 The old fashioned religion allowed and still al- 
 lows a human being to breathe like a canary bird. 
 Little children go to Sunday-School all their 
 young lives, and grow up to be devout church 
 members, and never hear one word about the 
 importance of deep breathing. 
 
 Possibly you may think breathing lessons 
 belong to physical culture, and have no place in 
 religious teachings. 
 
 There is where you err. 
 
THE NEW THOTJUHT 83 
 
 In order to develop your whole being, you 
 must learn how to control body and mind 
 through the spirit. 
 
 Thousands of years ago, men who gave their 
 entire lives to the study of these things learned 
 the great importance of deep breathing' as an aid 
 to religious meditation. 
 
 By this practice, systematically observed, the 
 body is calmed, the mind is brought into subjec- 
 tion, and the spirit rises into control. 
 
 And in addition, absolute health is achieved. 
 
 A large portion of our physical ailments 
 result from unused lung cells, and consequent 
 imperfect circulation of the blood.' 
 
 Fill the lungs full — every cell — with fresh 
 air, two or three times daily, and do not over- 
 load the digestive organs, and sickness will fly 
 away to the dark regions where it belongs. 
 
 At least ten minutes morning and night 
 should be given to the breathing exercises. 
 
 Sit upright in a comfortable chair, alone, fac- 
 ing the east in the morning and the west at 
 night, because great magnetic force comes from 
 the direction of the sun. 
 
 Have a window or a door opening to the 
 outer air. 
 
 Place your hands lightly on your knees, and 
 close your eyes and mouth. Leave your spine 
 free, not touching the chair. Wear no compress- 
 ing garments or bands. 
 
 Inflate the chest and abdominal regions as 
 
84 THE HEART OF 
 
 you inhale deep breaths through the nostrils, 
 while counting seven slowly. 
 
 Exhale while you count seven. Repeat this 
 exercise seven times. 
 
 Think as you inhale of whatever qualities you 
 would like to possess, and believe that you are 
 inhaling them. Select seven qualities — Love, 
 Health, Wisdom, Usefulness, Power to Do Good, 
 Success, Opulence — will cover the average human 
 desires. The very unworldly will substitute 
 spiritual knowledge for opulence. Fill your 
 mind with the idea that you are drawing in these 
 qualities with your breaths, and exhaling all 
 that is weak or, unworthy. After a few moments 
 you will be conscious of a security and peace 
 new and uplifting. 
 
 And after a few weeks of steady, persistent 
 practice of these exercises, you will find life 
 growing more beautiful to you, and your strength 
 will be increased tenfold, both physically and 
 spiritually. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 85 
 
 Generosity 
 
 ^ W AVE you ever observed how invari- 
 ably your " last dollar " is restored 
 to you, with additions, when you 
 have given it for some worthy pur- 
 pose? 
 
 Even if the purpose, did not 
 prove to be a worthy one, yet if you thought it 
 so, and gave your last dollar with spontaneous 
 sympathy and good will, you were not long left 
 penniless. 
 
 Money is much like a man. If you do not 
 hold it too jealously it returns to you the more 
 readily. 
 
 Never hesitate to give aid where you feel 
 there is sore and pressing need, for fear you will 
 be left in want yourself. You will not be. 
 
 This does not mean that indiscriminate char- 
 ity is commendable. It does not mean that you 
 should lend money to everyone who asks, or lift 
 and carry the burdens of everyone who is ready 
 to lean upon you. 
 
 It is as wrong to encourage the man addicted 
 to the vice of borrowing, as the one with the 
 vice of alcohol or drugs. 
 
 One depends upon his acquaintances to tide 
 him over hard places, instead of upon his own 
 strength of character, and the other depends 
 upon stimulants for the same purpose. The too 
 ready lender is almost as great an evil to human- 
 
86 THE HEART OF 
 
 ity as rum or opium, since lie too helps a man to 
 kill his own better nature and destroy his self- 
 respect. 
 
 If you were able and willing to pay rents of 
 all the poor people you know, and clothe their 
 children, you would soon produce a condition of 
 settled pauperism among them. Large and fre- 
 quent favors of a financial nature are an injury 
 to anyone, even if it is your son or brother. 
 
 Let no man lean on anyone save God and his 
 own divine self. 
 
 But little helps, when they are unexpected, 
 arouse hope and awaken new faith and new 
 ambition in a discouraged soul. 
 
 Look about you for such souls, the worn and 
 weary father of a brood of hungry children, the 
 widow struggling with adverse fate in an effort 
 to clothe and educate a child, the tired shop girl 
 who uses all her earnings to sustain her parents, 
 the ambitious boy or girl eager for a chance in 
 life, and the poor cripple or invalid seeking 
 health. You will find them all about you. Do 
 not be afraid to use a dollar here or there to 
 give these worthy ones a happy surprise, no 
 matter how poor you are. 
 
 It is an insult to the Opulent Creator to sup- 
 pose you will suffer want and poverty if you help 
 those who are in temporary misfortune. 
 
 You will not. 
 
 Ofttimes we read and hear of the open-handed 
 generous man who " helped everybody," and who 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 87 
 
 " never refused to aid a needy brother," and who 
 ended his life in penury because of his generosity. 
 
 Never believe these tales until you investigate 
 them. Invariably you will find not generosity 
 but extravagance and utter lack of forethought, 
 caused the man's financial ruin. 
 
 I recall a gifted young woman who gave freely 
 to all who asked her assistance and who died a 
 lingering death as a charity patient in a hospital. 
 
 Tet this young woman had expended ten dol- 
 lars on foolish and rapid living where she gave 
 one in charity; it was her wasteful extravagance, 
 not her open heart of sympathy, which made her 
 a pauper. 
 
 It has been my observation that dollars 
 planted in the soil of benevolence grow into har- 
 vests of prosperity. The man who is not afraid 
 to use his small means to assist others need not 
 fear poverty. 
 
88 THE HEART OF 
 
 Woman's Opportunity 
 
 H HE greatest opportunity to better the 
 world which can come to any wo- 
 man is through the experience of 
 maternity. 
 
 The power of prenatal influence 
 which a mother possesses is awe- 
 inspiring to realize. 
 
 It has been said upon excellent authority that 
 Napoleon's mother read Roman history with 
 absorbing interest during the months preceding 
 his birth. 
 
 . Think of the nations and the centuries influ- 
 enced by that one woman's mental concentration! 
 The geography of the world was changed by her 
 power of focused thought. 
 
 In all probability Napoleon's mother did not 
 know what she was doing; she was not conscious 
 of the destiny her mind was shaping for her 
 unborn child, nor of the law governing such 
 conditions. 
 
 Women have been strangely ignorant of this 
 vital truth; until recent years it has not been 
 considered a " proper " theme for tongue or pen, 
 and to-day the great majority of young women 
 marry absolutely uninformed upon the subject of 
 prenatal influence. 
 
 Men are equally oblivious of any knowledge 
 regarding the matter, and consequently make no 
 special effort to keep the expectant mother of 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 89 
 
 their offspring happy, hopeful, or free of anxiety 
 and worry during this period. Often they do not 
 strive to aid them in their own attempts to 
 bestow a desirable temperament upon the unborn 
 child, but heedlessly and needlessly aggravate or 
 grieve the mind which is stamping its impress 
 upon an unborn soul. 
 
 It is just here that the " New Thought " can 
 perform its greatest miracles of good. 
 
 Even the woman who has not been enlight- 
 ened upon the law of ante-birth-influence will, 
 if a true disciple of the Religion of Right-living, 
 bring healthy and helpful children into the 
 world, because her normal state of mind will be 
 inclusive of those three qualities; and her contin- 
 ued and repeated assertions of her own divine 
 nature will shape the brain of her child in opti- 
 mistic and reverential mould. 
 
 There is the old law of the continual falling 
 of the drop of water upon the stone to be verified 
 in the spiritual plane. Continual assertions of a 
 mother that her child will be all that she desires 
 it to be, will wear away the stone of inherited 
 tendencies, and bring into physical being a mal- 
 leable nature wholly amenable to the after influ- 
 ences and efforts she may bring to bear upon it. 
 
 It is a tremendous responsibility which rests 
 upon the woman who knows she is to be a mother 
 of a human being. 
 
 A hundred ancestors may have contributed 
 certain qualities to that invisible and formless 
 
90 THE HEART OF 
 
 atom which contains an immortal soul, yet the 
 mother's mind has the power to remake and 
 rebuild all those characteristics, and to place over 
 them her own dominating impulse, whether for 
 good or ill. 
 
 Surely, if success in the arts or the sciences is 
 worthy of years of devoted attention and inter- 
 ested effort, the moulding of a noble human 
 being is worth eight or nine months of concen- 
 trated thought and unflagging zeal of purpose. 
 
 Every expectant mother should set herself 
 aoout the important business God has entrusted 
 her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine 
 mission. She should direct her mind into whole- 
 some and optimistic channels; she should read 
 inspiring books and think loving and large 
 thoughts. She should pray and aspire! and 
 always should she carry in her mind the ideal of 
 the child she would mother, and command from 
 the great Source of all Opulence the qualities 
 she would desire to perpetuate. 
 
 And they will be given. 
 
THE NEW THOUGHT 91 
 
 Balance 
 
 VOID all strained and abstruse lan- 
 guage, when conversing with peo- 
 ple who may not have entered this 
 realm of thought. 
 
 Do not allow anyone to think of 
 you as a lunatic, or a crank, un- 
 necessarily. Of course there are people in the 
 world who consider everyone a lunatic who holds 
 an opinion differing from their own. 
 
 But it can do you, or your philosophy, no good 
 to thrust its most difficult phases before the 
 minds of the unawakened, by vague and high 
 flown expressions. 
 
 I once chanced to call upon a lady who had, 
 quite unknown to me, entered upon the study of 
 Christian Science. 
 
 She remarked to me, almost as soon as the 
 greetings were exchanged, "I had a claim to meet 
 for three days this week, but I have come through 
 it and am victorious. 
 
 I supposed the lady referred to some business 
 matter, perhaps a legal affair, and waited an 
 explanation. 
 
 After considerable rambling conversation, I 
 managed to grasp the fact that the woman had 
 been sick in the house three days, but now was 
 well. She considered her illness a mere "claim" 
 her "mortal mind" had made which she had to 
 meet and combat. 
 
92 THE HEART OF 
 
 All this sort of talk is very ridiculous. We 
 need not talk about every ailment which attacks 
 us as we move along toward the condition of per- 
 fect health which belongs to us ! But if we do 
 speak of indisposition, let us use common sense 
 language. 
 
 What we want to realize is, that we are in 
 the body, but that the spirit can control bodily 
 conditions, if we give it the ascendency, to the 
 extent of keeping us well, moral, useful, and 
 comfortable even in the midst of sickness, vice, 
 indolence and poverty. 
 
 We can rise above these false elements, and 
 subjugate them. 
 
 Meanwhile we cannot live without food, 
 clothes and money. 
 
 Despise and ignore these vulgar things as we 
 may assume to do, we yet must have them. 
 
 It brings only ridicule upon ourselves and our 
 ideas to make this pretense of despising the 
 necessities of life. 
 
 To make them secondary in our thoughts to • 
 spiritual knowledge is right and wise, but this is 
 better illustrated by our lives and conduct than 
 by our words. 
 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 Undertakes New Work 
 
 FAVORITE AUTHOR BECOMES ASSOCIATE EDI- 
 TOR OF THE NEW THOUGHT MAGAZINE. 
 BEST WRITING SHE HAS EVER DONE NOW 
 APPEARING IN THAT BRIGHT PUBLICATION. 
 
 The many friends and admirers of Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 will be interested to learn that this gifted author and thinker 
 has connected herself, in the capacity of associate editor, 
 with the New Thought magazine, and that hereafter her 
 writings will appear regularly in that bright publication. 
 Of which the aim is to aid its readers in the cultivation of 
 those powers of the mind which bring success in life. 
 Mrs. Wilcox's writings have been the inspiration of many 
 young men and women. Her hopeful, practical, master- 
 ful views of life give the reader new courage in the very 
 reading, and are a wholesome spur to flagging effort. 
 She is in perfect sympathy with the purpose of the New 
 Thought magazine. The magazine is having a wonder- 
 ful success, and the writings of Mrs. Wilcox for it, along 
 the line of the new movement, are among her best. 
 Words of truth, so vital that they live in the memory of 
 every reader and cause him to think — to his own better- 
 ment and the lasting improvement of his own work in the 
 world, in whatever line it lies — flow from this talented 
 woman's pen. 
 
 The magazine is being sold on all news stands for 
 five cents. It is the brightest, cleanest and best publica- 
 tion in its class, and its editors have hit the keynote of all 
 sound success. The spirit of every bit of print from 
 cover to cover of the magazine is the spirit of progress 
 and upbuilding — of courage, persistence and success. 
 Virile strength and energy, self-confidence, the mastery of 
 self and circumstances are its life and soul, and even the 
 casual reader feels the contagion of its vigor and its 
 optimism. 
 
 Free. — The publishers will be pleased to send a 
 handsome portrait of Mrs. Wilcox, with extracts from her 
 recent writings on the New Thought, free. Address, 
 The New Thought, 100, The Colonnades, Vincennes 
 Ave., Chicago. 
 
A FULL LIST 
 
 .OF.. 
 
 Important Books 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 The Psychic Research Company 
 
 3835 VINCENNES AVENUE 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
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 ^■Address all orders to Book Department THE PSYCHIC RESEARCH COM- 
 PANY to insure prompt attention. Remit by Postai, Order, or Express 
 Order. If currency or stamps is sent, register the letter. If personal check is 
 used, add 10c. for exchangee fee. Orders Fii,i:,ed the Day They are Received. 
 
 Thought-Force (m Business and Every-Day Life.) 
 
 By William Walker Atkinson. 
 
 < A WONDERFULLY vivid book answering the questions: Can I make my 
 ■^^ life more happy and successful through mental control? How can I 
 affect my circumstances by my mental effort? Just how shall I go about it to 
 free myself from my depression, failure, timidity, weakness and care? How 
 can I influence those more powerful ones from whom I desire favor? How am 
 I to recognize the causes of my failure and thus avoid them? 
 
 Can I make my disposition into one which is active, positive, high strung 
 and masterful? How can I draw vitality of mind and body from an invisible 
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 "Thought-Force" gives an answer to questions like these. The book has 
 been universally commended for its clearness and simplicity. 
 
 Bound in Purple Silk Cloth, Cold Lettering. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With One Year's Subscription to New Thought, both for $1.35. 
 
 Nuggets of the New Thought 
 
 By William Walker Atkinson, 
 
 A SERIES OF ESSAYS by this forceful writer, constituting the cream of Uo 
 magazine articles upon New Thought topics. The famous ' ' I Can and 
 I Will" essay forms the opening chapter. "The Secret of the I AM," of which 
 40,000 copies have been sold, is also contained in this volume. We heartily 
 commend this book as interpretative of the higher teaching. A most valuable 
 gift book. Silk cloth, purple and gold. Price $1.00, pos^aid. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, both, S1.35. 
 
rne Law ot rue JNew i nought 
 
 By William Walker Atkinson 
 
 "yms is a plain answer to the oft repeated questions. "What ia The New 
 ■*■ Thought?" "What does it mean?" "What principles does it stand for?" 
 "Is it different from what is called Mental Science, or Christian Science?" 
 The New Thought is guite different. It is so broad and comprehensive in its 
 bearing upon human life and human happiness that it can only be defined by 
 its name, New Thought. Mr. Atkinson's new book not only explains what 
 the law is upon which New Thought is based, but teaches how it may be used 
 to the greatest good of men. 
 
 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, $1.35, 
 
 The Heart of The New Thought 
 
 By Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 A^ NEW book of original essays by this gifted woman dealing with The 
 ■^^ New Thought in practice. This book is just off the press and the 
 demand is enormous. A first edition of 50,000 copies has oeen ordered. 
 It deals with the practice of New Thought in our daily lives. A helpful and 
 inspiring book, fully eoual to the very best work this author has done. 
 
 SilK Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, $1.35. 
 
 Mesmerism in India 
 
 By James Esdaile, M. D. 
 
 A CLASSIC from the pen of a surgeon in the British Army, stationed in 
 "^^ India fifty years ago. A most fascinating work for the student of prac- 
 tical psychology, containing the plainest description of the methods then in 
 vogue of inducing the artificial coma for the performance of painless surgical 
 operations. 
 
 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 with New Thought, One Year, $1.35. 
 
 The Home Course in Osteopathy 
 
 A CLEAR and practical work, fully illustrated, for home use, explaining 
 ■^~*- the Theory and Practice of Osteopathy, Massage and Manual Therapeu- 
 tics, and illustrating all the different movements. The only complete work of 
 the kind ever published. 
 
 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 Formerly sold at Is.oo in paper covers. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, $1.35. 
 
 Series "A" 
 
 A MASTERLY work dealing with two phases of development: the mental 
 showing forth in self-control and force of character: and the spiritual 
 as taught through Zoism, the new mental science. This book makes plain 
 that which is known as the Law of Mental Currents, and teaches much that is 
 new to the student of metaphysics. It is clearly and simply written and has 
 been warmly endorsed by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, $1.35. 
 
 Series «B" 
 
 THIS is a book for physicians, dentists, osteopaths and professional nurses 
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 gives the clearest directions how to proceed to induce the state of passivity 
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 ever put out. It is well i'lustrated. 
 
 Silk Cloth. Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid* 
 
 with New Thought, One Year, $i.3S' 
 
Series «C" 
 
 'T'HIS is a compilation of new, copyright works deaKfig with the practice of ' 
 ■•• clairvoyance or crystal-gazing, human magnetism, auto-suggestion, con- 
 centration, and mind reading in its two aspects of muscle reading and true 
 telepathy. This book really tells how to perform mind-reading. In this it is 
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 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With Mew Thought, One Year, $i.35> 
 
 Series "D" 
 
 A LTHOUGH this is the last of this series of books it is in some respects 
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 exhaust its stores of knowledge. It deals with Psychometry, Phrenology,) 
 Palmistry, Astrology, Mediumship and Somnopathy. This last is a new word, ! 
 coined by the author, Sydney Flower, to define his discovery of a new method 
 of educating the young, i. e., during natural sleep. Of this method, a lady 
 writing in The V^ashington Post, of recent date, said: "I never punish my 
 little ones, I simply wait till they are asleep, and then I talk to them, not 
 loud enough, you understand, to wake them, but in a low voice. I tell them 
 over and over that they must be good, I suggest goodness to them, for I think, 
 the mind is jast as susceptible to suggestion during the natural sleep as during 
 the working state. I concentrate my mind on it, and I am confident that 
 before long all mothers will adopt my method. It is the best way I know of to 
 bring up children." This method is fully described by its discoverer in this 
 work, and the endorsements of prominent physicians are given in full. 
 
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 The Mail-Order Business i 
 
 By Sydney Flower • 
 
 T^HIS little book, if we are to judge by the testimony of those who have paid 
 ■*■ for and read it, exactly fills the need of the many men and women who 
 are now looking to the mail-order field as a means of starting in business for 
 themselves in a small way. This book is very practical, very simple, very 
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 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 with New Thought, One Year, $1.35. ' 
 
 The Mind's Attainment 
 
 By Uriel Buchanan , 
 
 pVERY reader of New Thought literature is familiar with the charming 
 ■*-' literary style of Mr. Buchanan. This book, which is now rea^y and 
 selling fast, expresses more nearly the high ideals of the author than 
 anything he has hitherto published. It gives the essence of a beautiful and 
 oplifting philosophy that cannot fail to benefit and instruct humanity. 
 
 Silk Cloth, Purple and Gold. Price, $1.00, postpaid. 
 
 With New Thought, One Year, $i.35t 
 
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