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Cornell University Library 
 
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 The habit of health; how to gain and l<eep 
 
 3 1924 003 482 654 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003482654 
 
THE 
 
 HABIT OF HEALTH 
 
THE 
 
 HABIT OF HEALTH 
 
 HOW TO GAIN AND KEEP IT 
 
 BY 
 OLIVER HUCKEL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
CoFmcHi, 1909, 
 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 Published, igaa 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE 
 
 ^OME twelve years ago a series of 
 conferences was held at the Johns 
 Hopkins Medical School, led by Dr. 
 Oliver Huckel, then pastor of a 
 leading church in Baltimore, and having for 
 their purpose the closer cooperation between 
 physicians and ministers in the work of heal- 
 ing. It was felt that there was a common 
 meeting ground where religion and medicine 
 working conjointly could accomplish vastly 
 more than by following separate paths. 
 
 These talks were highly valued by the stu- 
 dents who were privileged to listen to them. 
 They were brought together in book form 
 under the title of "Mental Medicine," with 
 an introduction by Dr. Lewellys F. Barker, 
 the successor to Dr. Osier in the Hopkins 
 School, and the book has since attained a 
 wide circulation. 
 
 Answering the many demands from read- 
 ers for a book which would embody these 
 invaluable suggestions in briefer form, the 
 author has consented to issue this smaller 
 
PubUsker's Preface 
 
 volume, containing nine of its most vital 
 studies. They will be found to present — not 
 a criticism of any other creed or movement 
 —but a broad-gauge plan for the unity of 
 mind and body; the preservation of health 
 by drawing upon those vast, untold reser- 
 voirs of spiritual power. The book is rightly 
 called, "The Habit of Health." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CBAFTES PAGE 
 
 I The SpiRiTuAt Mastery of the Bodv . i 
 
 II Fatth as a Vital Force 13 
 
 ni The Healing Value of Prayer ... 36 
 
 IV The Casting Out of Fear 41 
 
 V The Control of the Imagination • . S3 
 
 VI The Cause and Cure of the Worry 
 
 Habit 62 
 
 Vn The Gospel of Relaxation .... 83 
 
 Vin Work as a Factor in Health ... 92 
 
 IX The Inspiration of the Mental Out- 
 look 105 
 
I. THE SPIRITUAL MASTERY OF 
 THE BODY 
 
 ^J^^^^HE spiritual mastery of the body, 
 m (r*\ the force we call self-control, is 
 ^ I not merely equipoise and men- 
 
 ^^^^^r tal equilibrium, but the dominance 
 of the whole life by its highest 
 power. It is not a discussion of theories, but 
 a vital, practical fight, an earnest everyday 
 striving for results. It is the mastery of the 
 body for health and happiness. 
 
 How we love to see the dominance of mind 
 in the world! How we love an invincible 
 and dauntless spirit! How we admire even 
 that pagan but courageous cry of the poet 
 Henley : 
 
 " I am the master of my fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul ! " 
 
 We recognize the right of mind over body. 
 It is both fundamental and natural. It is 
 both reasonable and divine. Perhaps we 
 ought to say, most divinely reasonable. For 
 it is the right of the spiritual over the nat- 
 I 
 
2 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 ural; the right of the eternal over the tran- 
 sitory. This body in a few years will crumble 
 into dust, but mind is immortal, — the spirit 
 will live on forever. 
 
 We need not discuss the definitions of mind 
 or spirit, nor revive the old contentions 
 between dichotomy and trichotomy, that is, 
 whether we are body and mind merely, or 
 body, mind and spirit. It will suffice for our 
 present discussion to recognize the great dis- 
 tinction between body and that incorporeal 
 part of us, which is the seat of intelligence, 
 emotions and will — call it what we may — 
 mind, spirit, soul. 
 
 When God said to man in the beginning, 
 " Have dominion ! " he said it to man as the 
 highest of all his creations. And when, in 
 this highest creation, the command again goes 
 forth, " Have dominion ! " it is surely to the 
 highest part in man, — his mind, his soul, his 
 divine spirit. 
 
 We acknowledge the supremacy among 
 human things of the human reason, the 
 divine soul. We see constantly the great 
 achievements of intelligence in the world. 
 We see the marvelous products of mental 
 efforts, — in works of invention, the accom- 
 plishments of great purposes and construe- 
 
SPIRITUAL MASTERY _3 
 
 tions, the achievements in literature, in 
 science and art. We see the superb creations 
 of human genius, — ^mind touched by the di- 
 vine to its highest. 
 
 It has been taken generally for granted that 
 while the wondrous powers of mind worked 
 through the body and that the body must be 
 kept in good condition for their working, — 
 yet the body itself was largely independent 
 of these powers and was not amenable to 
 them in its own special workings. So that if 
 the body was sick, it must be treated from 
 without by external remedies, or by extra- 
 neous substances taken into the system. 
 
 The conclusion, however, in these days is 
 irresistible, that the mind has great influence 
 over the body, both in health and sickness, 
 in more wonderful ways than we have some- 
 times dreamed. Some of this marvelous in- 
 fluence we have already noted. 
 
 Even more subtle than the mental influence 
 on the bodily functions is the moral. This 
 fact is coming into greater recognition as a 
 scientific truth: the direct and intimate rela- 
 tions between sin and sickness, and between 
 sickness and sin. Sometimes, in hereditary 
 and other cases, it is sickness that is the 
 cause of sin. But in most cases, and either 
 
4 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 personally or by heredity, it is sin that pro- 
 duces sickness. " Disorders of the body often 
 flow from moral disorders; sickness may be 
 sometimes the direct precipitation of sin ; dis- 
 ease is sometimes merely the dregs of deprav- 
 ity." Every case, of course, demands 
 separate and careful diagnosis. Often it is 
 the sins of the father or the grandfather 
 visited upon the children. Sometimes it is sin 
 against the laws of health in former genera- 
 tions. But nearly always, in its last analysis, 
 ill-health has a very close relation to sin. 
 
 There is truth in what Matthew Arnold 
 says in his book, " Literature and Dogma " : 
 " Medical science has never gauged, — ^never, 
 perhaps, enough set itself to gauge, the inti- 
 mate connection between moral fault and dis- 
 ease. To what extent, or in how many cases, 
 what is called illness is due to moral springs 
 having been used amiss, whether by being 
 over-used, or by not being used sufficiently, 
 we hardly know at all and we too little in- 
 quire. Certainly, it is due to this very much 
 more than we commonly think ; and the more 
 it is due to this, the more do moral thera- 
 peutics rise in possibility and importance. 
 The bringer of light and happiness, the 
 calmer and pacifier and stimulator, is one of 
 
SPIRITUAL MASTERY S 
 
 the chiefest of doctors. Such a doctor was 
 Jesus. Indications enough remain to show 
 the line of the Master, His perceptions of the 
 large part of moral cause in many kinds of 
 disease and His method of addressing to this 
 part His cure." 
 
 A thoughtful young physician said not long 
 ago to a Christian minister : " I am some- 
 times disgusted with my work. I am ex- 
 pected to cure a man of disorders and dis- 
 eases which may be largely the result of his 
 evil appetites and passions, and then, with- 
 out touching his soul, leave him to return 
 again to wallow in his evil. All that I am 
 doing, as I see it, is to undo the stern les- 
 sons whereby a man is taught, through suf- 
 fering in the body, that he has sinned in the 
 soul. I wish I could deliver him from the 
 sin in his soul while I am delivering him 
 from the suffering in his body." 
 
 Perhaps he puts the case too strongly; and 
 yet, is there not a real truth in the feeling 
 back of his words? Ought not even the 
 ordinary physician be so familiar with the 
 laws of mind and soul that he could suggest 
 the secret causes and prescribe rational 
 methods for their treatment? Many phy- 
 sicians are already doing this very thing with 
 
6 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 most helpful results. The inculcation, the 
 inoculation of spiritual life, is a step higher 
 than mental faith, and can be made most 
 fruitful in therapeutic results. 
 
 And we ministers, if I may speak a word 
 for my own profession, hail every real 
 student in science, and especially every well- 
 educated medical man, as our ally and fellow- 
 worker in bringing in the kingdom of spirit- 
 ual sanity and wholeness. As one thinker 
 has well put it: "The healing of the body 
 and the healing of the soul are different as- 
 pects of one and the same mystery of re- 
 generation." 
 
 The chief value and strength of this new 
 thought is the emphasis that it places upon 
 cheerfulness, hopefulness and a perpetual and 
 persistent optimism. It believes in God, it 
 believes in Christ the active ideal in all things 
 divinest; it believes in the Holy Spirit of en- 
 compassing love — ^and these are the great 
 truths of life. It joyously emphasizes the 
 health of God's countenance and what that 
 belief may effect in the personal life. Many 
 of us are persuaded that such a view will help 
 to bring us all to a better frame of mind, to 
 a healthier tone in religious life, to a more 
 vigorous, a more militant faith in God and a 
 
SPIRITUAL MASTERY 7 
 
 less passive acquiescence in sickness and sin. 
 And, therefore, for our everyday and ordi- 
 nary life, whether we are sick or well, we 
 call upon you to consider such specific 
 things as these that follow, for such things 
 as these make better conditions, both mental 
 and physical. They tone up the system, help 
 to give Nature a chance, cordially co-operate 
 with all the medical care and treatment that 
 may be given to you. 
 
 Thought-life is real life. "As a man 
 thinketh in his heart, so is he." Thoughts 
 are deeds. Thought is potential in both spirit 
 and body. 
 
 What is referred to is the thinking that is 
 the usual and habitual atmosphere of your 
 mind. It means the thoughts which you con- 
 stantly entertain, the thoughts in which you 
 dwell, your habit of thought, your spirit of 
 life, your views, your secret convictions and 
 ambitions, your controlling ideals. These 
 thoughts that take hold of a man's inmost 
 life, and are the things that represent his own 
 secret inner world — known only to himself 
 and God. Such thoughts are you — ^your real 
 vital self — ^the self that has the influence on 
 your life and other lives. 
 
 This is the tremendous truth — ^being is 
 
8 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 more important than doing. What you are is 
 vastly more important than what you say or 
 do. What you are is your thought, your 
 affections — that whole inner, vital, palpitating 
 life that is dominated by your mind. 
 
 Therefore, you have the duty and respon- 
 sibility of right mental habits. Many of the 
 ills of life are due to wrong thinking, to evil 
 mental habits, and to the careless allowance 
 of unwholesome mental moods. Sometimes 
 you may imagine that you may think what 
 you please if you do not allow the thoughts 
 to escape into words or crystallize into deeds. 
 But have you full liberty within the brain? 
 Can you indulge yourself with impunity 
 there? You do so at great peril. You can. 
 no more be careless of the inner life than 
 of the outer. More careful must you be of 
 the inner, for it is the source and fountain 
 of the outer life. Therefore, be careful what 
 sort of books you read, be careful as to your 
 companions and associations. Beware of 
 anything that breeds doubt, evil thoughts, 
 ignoble desires and false ambitions. Cul- 
 tivate everything that breeds nobleness in the 
 soul. The Master holds us responsible in the 
 spirit of our lives. These thoughts of ours 
 are innocent or guilty before God. Your 
 
SPIRITUAL MASTERY 9 
 
 thought counts, and counts vastly. Your 
 thought is you. 
 
 This is not merely important in a spiritual 
 way — it is also vastly important in a physical 
 way that we should be pure-minded and 
 healthy-minded in our thinking. 
 
 We are fully responsible for the thoughts 
 we entertain. We are not responsible for the 
 random thoughts that come flitting in and out, 
 but the thoughts that we hold and dwell on. 
 We are not always responsible for random 
 thoughts, but we are for the thoughts we 
 cherish. As a quaint old writer once said: 
 " We cannot help the birds flying over our 
 heads, but we can prevent them building nests 
 in our hair." 
 
 Paul recognized that we could control our 
 thought. This is what that sacred teaching 
 to the Philippians meant when it said: 
 " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
 whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
 things are of good report: if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, think on these 
 things." 
 
 Further, you have the duty of asserting 
 your potentialities. You are made for health 
 and happiness. Never forget it. You were 
 
lo MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 created as a child of God. Live up to your 
 birthright. You are in God's thought and love 
 a nobler being than you are living at present — 
 you have a greater power than you are exer- 
 cising, you can render a fuller service to 
 yourself and humanity and God than you have 
 as yet dreamed. The thoughts of your heart 
 make the deeds of your life. Our thoughts 
 do not end with the thinking. Thought is 
 power, and has its issue in reality. Every 
 thought leaves its impress within as without. 
 Every thought leaves its indelible record 
 within. " I am a part of all that I have 
 met," Tennyson wrote in his Ulysses. And 
 all that we have thought also becomes a part 
 of us. Every evil thought degrades us and 
 stains and scars the fiber of our soul. But 
 every good thought is a new strength and 
 blessing to the soul. A noble soul is built up 
 of noble thoughts. 
 
 There is no limit to the effect of good 
 thinking, when it is backed by your will and 
 crowned by the grace of God. Can it restore 
 to health? It can, in many instances, and it 
 can do greater things. 
 
 You have the duty and responsibility of 
 realizing that your spirit is made for con- 
 quest, because it is in loving fellowship with 
 
SPIRITUAL MASTERY ii 
 
 the divine spirit. We do not half realize our 
 powers. When we are leagued with God, all 
 things are possible. We can be more than 
 conquerors, when we are leagued with God. 
 By a covenant of consecration and faith, we 
 are taking hold of the sources of omnipo- 
 tence. 
 
 Most marvelous work has been accom- 
 plished in this world by those who in the 
 power of God have lived their lives and have 
 done their deeds. The supreme mind in this 
 world is the mind of Christ. And yet — listen 
 to this appeal : " Let this mind be in you 
 which was also in Christ Jesus." These are 
 audacious words, but they express a great 
 truth and a living possibility. Something of 
 that mind which was in Christ Jesus, you may 
 have, if you ask God for it — so that you may 
 think some of His great thoughts after Him. 
 The mind of Jesus was purity, humility, 
 nobility, divinity. The mind of Jesus was 
 wise with a heavenly wisdom and warm with 
 a divine love. 
 
 Let a man think in the spirit of Jesus, let 
 a man speak in the spirit of Jesus, let a man 
 live in the spirit of Jesus and that man is a 
 victor over the body. 
 
 A man who has the ideal of Jesus dwelling 
 
12 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 in his thoughts continually, will have there 
 the inspiration of the noblest living. His 
 thoughts cannot dwell in that atmosphere of 
 goodness, without, by very contagion, becom- 
 ing infected with divine ambition. His love 
 can transform the heart; His ideals can in- 
 spire the mind and life until we, beholding 
 as in a glass the glory of the Lord, shall be 
 gradually transformed into the same image, 
 even from glory to glory. 
 
 Such a mind, divine and dominant in us, 
 will accomplish God's purpose in us and by 
 us. It will undoubtedly help us in our fight 
 for physical health and it will be a conquering 
 power in our fight for spiritual health. This 
 gives the invincible spirit, this gives the note 
 of absolute conquest in all things — the sense 
 of eternal union with the love of God from 
 which nothing can separate us. 
 
II. FAITH AS A VITAL FORCE 
 
 EAITH and prayer are often con- 
 sidered merely as spiritual factors. 
 We want to show in this address 
 that they have also physical and 
 therapeutic value. 
 There is a great deal in that phrase that 
 Tolstoi uses in one of his books — " Faith is 
 the force of life." For, in fact, faith is more 
 than spiritual imagination or spiritual com- 
 prehension. It is a vital energy. It is not 
 merely the power that relates the finite to the 
 infinite, that bridges the gulf between the seen 
 and the unseen, but it is a stimuli^ to all the 
 latent faculties of life. It is as large and 
 as real a factor in our lives as reason, or will, 
 or the affections. It is a basal principle of 
 life, and we ought to recognize it as such. 
 
 Every modem physician uses more or less 
 of faith in his practice. It is a necessary 
 part of his work — as important as his drugs. 
 He must inspire faith and confidence, in his 
 patients; otherwise his service is not effect- 
 13 
 
14 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 ive. If a patient have faith in his doctor, 
 the medicine does more good ; in truth, if the 
 patient have strong faith in the doctor, the 
 cure is sometimes effected without medicine. 
 Some medicines and treatment, as given by 
 great physicians in whom people have faith, 
 may have no effect when administered in the 
 identical way by another physician who has 
 no faith in himself and in whom his patient 
 has no faith. 
 
 All the various modem cults of healing — 
 faith cure, mental healing, so-called Chris- 
 tian Science, and the more recent Emmanuel 
 Movement, emphasize faith, and rightly 
 so, as a prime necessity in their work. 
 Some, however, depend on faith entirely and 
 in most illogical and undiscriminating ways; 
 others, such as the Emmanuel Movement, in 
 a more sensible and rational way. 
 
 We may recall the historical fact that the 
 early church continued for some time the 
 apostolic work of healing, and its practice 
 consisted largely of faith and prayer. It is 
 an interesting chapter in the history of the 
 church as recorded in fragmentary pages of 
 early Christian literature. 
 
 It is refreshing to find the modern church 
 coming back again to a realization that it has 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE i5 
 
 a certain part, at least, in helping both the 
 souls and bodies of men, and in understanding 
 that its mission is not to disembodied spirits, 
 but to the whole life in the body. 
 
 We recognize that in material affairs, as in 
 spiritual, the man with faith is the man who 
 brings about results. " Faith," as one says, 
 " is behind the great achievements of our 
 modern life. Faith is the keystone of suc- 
 cess. Without faith we do the work of life 
 with lagging hearts. With it our powers are 
 at their best. Chronic doubt kills effort and 
 cripples its powers. But faith — ^not credulity, 
 not rashness — ^but honest, constructive faith 
 which realizes by action that ' assurance of 
 things hoped for,' — such a force will carry us 
 over mountains of difficulty and leave us fresh 
 for the next climb." 
 
 Faith is thus a daily principle in busi- 
 ness and in social life. We must have 
 faith in our fellows to some large extent, or 
 business stops, and social life becomes a 
 mockery. Faith is also a principle which is 
 used in science. We think of science as 
 based on knowledge. So it is. It goes 
 usually only as far as the five senses take it, 
 and yet it believes further than it sees. It has 
 never actually seen the essence of life, only 
 
i6 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 its manifestations in electricity or the other 
 energies. But it has faith in these, so that the 
 whole universe becomes intelligent and under- 
 standable. 
 
 Faith is, of course, a chief principle in re- 
 ligion and it gives the basis of action there. 
 Doubt paralyzes, but faith gives the vital 
 touch of reality and is the means of progress 
 toward all higher things. 
 
 Now extend this same principle into the 
 therapeutic field. As a matter of fact, it is 
 being more and more recognized that in all 
 mental and spiritual methods of dealing with 
 disease, faith is a powerful factor. " After 
 all," as Dr. Osier says, " faith is a great 
 leveler of life. Without it, man can do noth- 
 ing ; -with it, even with a fragment, as a grain 
 of mustard seed, all things are possible to 
 him. Faith in us, faith in our drugs and 
 methods, is the great stock in trade of the 
 profession. ... It is the aurum potabile^ the 
 touchstone of success in medicine. As Galen 
 says, ' Confidence and hope do more good 
 than physic' He cures most in whom most 
 are confident." 
 
 But in this special work it may be asked: 
 What kind of faith is needed for the thera- 
 peutic work? And we may answer that it is 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 17 
 
 not a superstitious faith that is needed, noth- 
 ing blind, arbitrary or unreasoning ; nor a 
 theological faith or creed. Indeed, people of 
 widely different creeds, and of no creed, are 
 equally helped in this movement. Nor is it 
 a stultifying faith, believing without evidence 
 and affirming belief of what, in your inmost 
 soul, you are not persuaded. Instead it is a 
 simple, reasonable, fundamental faith — an at- 
 titude of life and soul which means rever- 
 ence, willingness, obedience. That is enough 
 to begin with, and it will increase. It means 
 such a faith as this : 
 
 1. Faith in God's love and His loving pur- 
 pose towards us. For God is love, life, 
 health. He wills health for us. He helps 
 us to health, as far as we allow Him. He is 
 opposed to pain and disease and abnormality, 
 as He is opposed to vice and sin. 
 
 2. Faith in the healing power of Nature 
 (which is another name for God). Nature is 
 always seeking to heal us. Take away the 
 barriers ; give Nature a chance and she will 
 heal. 
 
 3. Faith in ourselves when our wills and 
 energies are stimulated, strengthened, and 
 energized by God's grace. We must stir up 
 the gift that is in us. The power is often 
 
i8 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 latent. It needs the stimulus of new exer- 
 tion ; it needs re-education. 
 
 Such a faith is deeper and larger than be- 
 lief. Belief is accepting a thing by our rea- 
 son. Faith is accepting by our whole life — 
 involving consecration and obedience. Belief 
 only needs the mind ; faith needs mind, affec- 
 tions, will, — the whole being. 
 
 As a matter of fact, we do not need many 
 definite beliefs for therapeutic help; but we 
 do need this firm and abiding faith in God and 
 His love, and His gracious purposes, and our 
 own power of response to Him. 
 
 A recent writer has said: "A great deal 
 of alleged physical suffering is primarily men- 
 tal. A great many people have ' fixed ideas ' 
 of disease, pain, debility, fatigue, dread, in- 
 efficiency, and inexpressible woes. Much 
 oftener than we realize, these can be trans- 
 planted without surgery or medication. I do 
 not mean that they are not real suffering. 
 They are as real as the grave. But they are 
 not grounded in physical infirmity, and they 
 are not to be cured by physic. The mind be- 
 comes possessed of a conviction that a certain 
 part of the body is infirm, and imputes pain 
 to that part in spite of all the medicine in the 
 world. Hundreds of people refuse to get 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 19 
 
 well after the physician has cured them. It 
 is not his fault, and it is not their fault ; they 
 have simply had disease suggested to them 
 until they cannot think at all except upon that 
 assumption." * 
 
 And for such conditions, the stimulus of 
 a new faith, and the re-education of the whole 
 mental outlook are needed. As Dr. Lewellys 
 F. Barker says : " The patient afflicted with 
 a so-called ' functional ' nervous disorder 
 must, it is true, believe in his physician, but 
 the physician's task is to re-educate the pa- 
 tient to believe in himself. More than half 
 the ills of one class of nervous patients de- 
 pend upon a loss of confidence in their own 
 ability, upon a sense of past failure and 
 of future impotency. They have tried to 
 do things outside their powers, and, hav- 
 ing failed, have become convinced that they 
 cannot in any way be efficient. Their minds 
 are concentrated upon their failures and their 
 disabilities instead of upon their successes. It 
 is necessary to teach them how again to be- 
 come confident and self-reliant; by assigning 
 to them small tasks, well within their powers, 
 and proving to them that they are capable of 
 overcoming difficulty after difficulty. Many 
 
 * Max Eastman in Atlantic Monthly, May, igoC 
 
20 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 may soon be taught to count victories where 
 formerly every effort spelled defeat."* 
 
 This is the interesting point. Modern 
 science, as expressed in the fullest studies in 
 physiology and psychology, also emphasizes 
 this same need of faith. Physiology shows 
 the wonderful power of faith in its action on 
 the bodily functions and organs. Fear, for 
 example, can distort and retard nerves and 
 functions and upset the whole life. Faith 
 can steady and stimulate and harmonize the 
 whole life — the nerves and all the bodily func- 
 tions. Psychology similarly in all its studies 
 shows how faith can stimulate and transform 
 mental moods and awaken latent energies. 
 
 We see, therefore, that the principle that 
 the Master used in His work, both in healing 
 the body and in healing the soul — the funda- 
 mental principle of faith as a prime necessity 
 of healing, is the very one that it has been 
 found necessary to use all through the cen- 
 turies, whenever healing work has been done. 
 The same thing holds true to-day. 
 
 We see also the reason for it. The Master 
 was using no arbitrary methods, but spiritual 
 laws, divinely written by God in our very 
 
 * Introd. to Prof. Oppenheim's Letters on Psycho- 
 therapeutics. 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 21 
 
 being. In order to accomplish similar results, 
 we also must use these same laws, so far as 
 we can, and come back to the very first prin- 
 ciples of the method of the Master, We are 
 getting to fundamental ground as we follow 
 Him, who was and is the Great Physician 
 of the Body and Soul. 
 
 "Faith," as Bishop Fallows says, "is a 
 dynamic power within the soul itself. It 
 springs from the innermost nature. It can be 
 reinforced and strengthened from without, 
 but must ever originate from within. In the 
 healing of the mind or body, the energy 
 exerted by the patient himself upon himself 
 is of the utmost importance. It must begin 
 with the belief that he can be helped. He 
 may say, ' I have no faith,' when he seeks 
 relief, but the very fact that he seeks it is the 
 clear indication that he has some faith. Ac- 
 cording to the measure of his faith will be 
 the corresponding good." 
 
 Faith is essential. The patient cannot merely 
 sit down and wait and be healed. In mental 
 medicine, he has something to do, and a great 
 deal. He must exert himself; he must have 
 faith and obey. If a man would have 
 help along these lines, he must give up the 
 doubting mood, and come in the eager and 
 
33 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 expectant mood, hoping for good. He must 
 give up the critical mood, captious of every- 
 thing that is said or done, and come in the 
 hospitable mood, keeping mind and heart 
 open. He must give up the selfish mood, 
 thinking only of self and his troubles, and let 
 his thoughts go out to others, sympathizing 
 with them, and hoping and praying for them. 
 He must stop thinking merely of the body, 
 and come into thoughts of the soul, of the 
 divine life, of God and His loving purposes. 
 
 Christianity in the largest sense is health, 
 spiritual, mental, physical. Holiness and 
 wholesomeness are from the same roots in 
 et3rmology and in divine sources. The words 
 that John writes in his third epistle are sug- 
 gestive : " Brethren, I desire above all things 
 that thou shalt prosper, and be in health, 
 even as thy soul prospereth." 
 
 Men must be taught to exorcise and cast 
 out the demons of fear, fret, weakness and 
 worry. Such things are altogether evil and 
 antagonistic to the best Christian life. Peo- 
 ple must be taught not to give up to sickness 
 but to resist it, just as they resist sin, and 
 they must avoid temptations to sickness, as 
 they would avoid temptations to sin. 
 
 The church is beginning to protest against 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 23 
 
 ailments forming the btilk of conversation 
 when the subject of the weather gives out. 
 The church ought to protest against the 
 luxury of grief in which some indulge with 
 loss of interest in life and neglect of duties. 
 
 The church ought to protest against worry 
 and fret. John Wesley wrote in one of his 
 journals : " I would as soon curse and swear 
 as worry. It is doubting God." We ought 
 to have more of pure, strong, simple, brave 
 Christianity, with apostolic joyousness and 
 apostolic power ! We ought to have the joy- 
 ous early Christian mood of the disciples with 
 our faces perpetually to the sunshine! 
 
 What we need in our churches is a more 
 virile belief and practice. There is a place 
 for the passive virtues and for quiescent 
 faith and for gentle acquiescence, but it must 
 not predominate nor monopolize. Religion 
 is in danger of being emasculated by resig- 
 nation. We need more of the spirit of re- 
 sistance, — resistance unto blood. We need 
 a manlier type of thought. We need a 
 sturdier emphasis on the stronger, more vig- 
 orous, and healthier elements. The gos- 
 pel is not weakness, but power; not sick- 
 ness, but health; not weeping, but laughter 
 and shoutings. We need to feel with Sidney 
 
24 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Lanier: "My Lord is large; my Lord is 
 strong." 
 
 What is called "religious experience" has 
 very close relations with the whole life, — 
 spiritual, mental and physical. It is the pro- 
 gressive awakening to the consciousness of 
 God with us, of His wondrous power encom- 
 passing us and uplifting us. There is a pro- 
 found philosophy in it. It is the process by 
 which a man gets a new point of view, new 
 ideals, a new allegiance for the life. It takes 
 us away from self, from doubts, from 
 s)rmptoms. It puts before us an image of 
 purity and power, of holiness and health. It 
 calls us with all the love of our heart and all 
 the strength of our soul to be like the Master 
 in His life and spirit. It gives us a living 
 ideal — God's own perfect ideal for us. The 
 ideals that we create in our own minds may 
 be weak, wrong, imperfect, inadequate. But 
 here is the finest and noblest that human 
 heart can conceive, and that divine love can 
 offer. 
 
 Here we are at the fountain head. We are 
 at the source of life and strength. God 
 created ; God can renew. We can become in- 
 creasingly one with Him and it will mean 
 infinitely to us, both in holiness and health. 
 
FAITH AS VITAL FORCE 25 
 
 A serene spirit, a quiet lieart, and a confident 
 faith in God, are substantial helps to the 
 preservation or restoration of that mental 
 equipoise which must always come before 
 physical equilibrium is assured. 
 
III. THE HEALING VALUE OF 
 PRAYER 
 
 ^^^^HESE thoughts on faith, as a 
 ^ C\ vital force, lead naturally to a 
 B^ I consideration of an allied sub- 
 
 ^^^^^r ject, — ^the therapeutic value of 
 prayer. In his " Varieties of Re- 
 ligious Experience," Professor James says: 
 " As regards prayer for the sick, if any medi- 
 cal fact can be considered to stand firm, it 
 is that in certain environments, prayer may 
 contribute to recovery, and should be encour- 
 aged as a therapeutic measure." 
 
 There are many to whom prayer in these 
 days is a perplexity, rather than a joy and a 
 strength. It is so often kept down on a low 
 level as a mere business transaction between 
 God and us, that all its deeper philosophy is 
 left to seem unreasonable and its divinest 
 meaning is made obscure. Yet prayer is the 
 supreme experience in human life. We are 
 indebted to science for clearing away much 
 that is unreasonable in the modern thought of 
 prayer, and also for reassuring us of the 
 a6 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 27 
 
 scientific facts and analogies of the seeming 
 miracles that can be wrought by intelligence 
 in ordinary life, and which point, as we shall 
 show later, to a Supreme Intelligence that 
 works in His universe, and gives us by a 
 thousand manifestations the assurance that 
 " more things are wrought by prayer, than 
 this world dreams of." 
 
 The greatest power of prayer, however, is 
 not in its possible answers in the material 
 realm, nor in awful times of special emergency. 
 Its greatest power is in bringing us continu- 
 ally into soothing and strengthening contact 
 with the divine, that our wills may be brought 
 into harmony with God, and that there may 
 come into our souls new strength for accom- 
 plishing God's work by our own heart and 
 hands. Prayer is communion, privilege, com- 
 panionship. 
 
 There are many speculative difficulties in 
 the subject of prayer, if we chose to consider 
 them, and especially when we view prayer 
 on its material side. It would seem as if the 
 acceptance of natural law were full of ques- 
 tionings and invincible arguments against the 
 material response to prayer. But the phi- 
 losophy of prayer cannot be discussed by mere 
 logic-chopping. Prayer is the supremest ex- 
 
28 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 perience in the human life ; it is " the stoop of 
 the soul that upraises it, too"; and its deep- 
 est philosophy has never been fathomed, nor 
 ever can be, by the scientific method or the 
 logic of pure reason. 
 
 We cannot restrict the possible power of 
 prayer, even in the way of material response. 
 It may help us on this point to remember 
 tliat this universe is not a machine, set in 
 motion under fixed laws and left to itself. 
 There is a supreme living personality in this 
 world, — God in His world, working out His 
 purposes toward " one far-off divine event 
 to which the whole creation moves," — and 
 what we call natural laws, are merely His 
 customary modes of action. He is not a 
 prisoner in the chains of His own laws; He 
 is supreme even in natural laws. And a 
 supreme intelligence, if it will, can so use 
 these laws as to bring about results that of 
 themselves would not occur. And He does. 
 
 You have noticed sometimes what effect 
 mere human intelligence has in so using 
 natural laws to bring about new results. 
 Electricity, for instance, is a natural agent 
 under natural laws, and in itself is useless, 
 or means lightning and destruction. But man 
 modifies these natural forces, he adapts them 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 29 
 
 to a purpose, and the electricity serves him 
 and does his bidding over land and under 
 seas. It runs to the farthest parts of earth 
 with his messages. " In forty minutes, it 
 circles the globe." It lights his streets, it 
 drives his engines, it even cures his diseases. 
 Man has not changed a single natural law, 
 but by adapting these forces under these laws, 
 he has made them serve a new purpose. Can- 
 not God do this, as man has done, and even 
 on a larger scale? 
 
 Ordinary sunlight, to give another illus- 
 tration, has its natural laws, and man cannot 
 change them. But he can so modify and use 
 them, that what sunlight would not do with- 
 out the cunning mind of man, now it will doj 
 and will paint for him lifelike pictures in 
 black and white, and even in colors. Has 
 a miracle been wrought by the process 
 of photography? No natural law has been 
 changed, but intelligence has so controlled 
 natural law that a new purpose has been 
 wrought and a new thing accomplished. 
 
 Perchance you may wake in the morn- 
 ing with a sore throat. You have been care- 
 less or negligent, and have caught cold, and 
 natural law is at work. If nothing is done, 
 natural law may take its course, and the 
 
30 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 cold may develop into something worse. But 
 immediately you set about to modify the nat- 
 ural process of law by bringing into opera- 
 tion other natural laws. You apply counter- 
 irritants or other remedies, and before the 
 day is over intelligent action has conquered 
 and the disease has been averted. Natural 
 law has been used in new ways by other nat- 
 ural laws through human intelligence and 
 action. Cannot Divine Intelligence do the 
 same and greater? And in these ways, God 
 does work. 
 
 If we did not understand these everyday 
 things that we mention, we might call them 
 miraculous, but since we understand them, we 
 say it is intelligence at work. May it not 
 be that results which we may call miraculous 
 are wrought for us by God merely through 
 the infinite and all-wise action of a Supreme 
 Intelligence, — and results that, without prayer, 
 might not have come to pass ? 
 
 In all these things, let us remember that no 
 prayer is answered unless the man who prays 
 works with God toward its answer. That 
 petition that we pray every day, " Give us 
 this day our daily bread," amounts to nothing 
 if the man prays it and sits down to eat with 
 folded arms. If the prayer means anything, 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 31 
 
 it means that the man is willing to work with 
 God to eif act the answer. 
 
 Prayer must not in the least be allowed to 
 take the place of human efifort and respon- 
 sibility. If a great battle is at stake, we must 
 pray earnestly to the God of Battles, but keep 
 our powder dry. If our house is on fire, we 
 must not kneel down and pray, but pray as 
 we run with the water-buckets. If we want 
 a good harvest, we must pray, but be sure of 
 our grain and the right sowing-time. If we 
 want business success, we must pray, but also 
 work with all our might. God has not given 
 us the privilege of prayer in order to cut the 
 nerve of effort or to put a premium on in- 
 dolence. Therefore, in the same way, if we 
 pray for health, we must use every sensible 
 and legitimate method to secure it, and we 
 must be willing to fulfill the conditions and 
 laws of health, so far as we know, or our 
 prayer is not a true prayer. 
 
 Another thing must be considered. No 
 prayer is answered by what we call miracle, 
 where natural means and natural laws are 
 sufficient for the answer. God respects the 
 eternal laws that He has made — His own 
 best ways — and He will not controvert them. 
 It is futile to expect it. But times may occur 
 
3« MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 in the divine economy of the ages, 
 when prayer is answered by what seems to 
 us a miracle, although it is but the natural law 
 of God. But the notion in some minds that 
 God is all the time playing fast and loose 
 with His own laws in order to gratify the 
 prayers of His children seems presumptuous 
 and preposterous. 
 
 Would we have it, forsooth, that, for our 
 own wish or convenience or the working 
 out of our plans, God should reverse His 
 laws ? True it is, as we said, that God knows 
 His own laws — ^that He can modify at His( 
 wisdom everything but the essential ethical 
 laws of His own being. But is it not the 
 more reasonable to suppose that in most 
 cases prayer merely brings about new results 
 through these same laws of God, and leads 
 us unto fuller harmony with God, fuller 
 obedience to His laws, and hence conquest 
 in them. No natural law is controverted 
 under ordinary circumstances in answer to 
 prayer. But natural law is used by divine 
 intelligence, or we are so inspired, as to effect 
 new results. 
 
 In a word, then, while we may hold that 
 no prayer changes any law of God, or nat- 
 ural law, nor alters God's will — we also hold 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 33 
 
 that every honest prayer is answered, and 
 that every honest prayer has in it not only 
 longing and desire, but a willingness to 
 work with God toward the answer of the 
 prayer. 
 
 Thus far, however, we have been consider- 
 ing what we may call the ordinary or the 
 lower aspects of prayer. They are important, 
 and we have dwelt on them in some measure 
 in order to bring into contrast the higher 
 meaning of prayer. This greatest power of 
 prayer is the power that it has of bringing us 
 continually into such soothing and strengthen- 
 ing contact with the divine that our wills are 
 brought into harmony with God, and there 
 comes into our souls new strength for accom- 
 plishing God's work by our own hearts and 
 hands. In this fact is also found the special 
 and greatest therapeutic value of prayer, as 
 we come into this higher meaning — ^beyond 
 petition into communion. 
 
 As an eminent writer has put it : " Prayer 
 has a regenerating and uplifting effect on 
 character; but in affecting character it must 
 also affect the nervous system. It does not 
 seem irrational to believe that prayer opens 
 the inner consciousness to the absorption of 
 spiritual energy. This attitude of receptivity 
 
34 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 toward the higher things in turn affects life 
 and character and the calmed and purified 
 spirit acts on the nervous organization, re- 
 storing its tone and rhythm." 
 
 Now in all our thought of prayer, remem- 
 ber that we stand to God, not externally, 
 not as distantly calling some far-off Being. 
 " It is not," as one says, " like calling up a 
 person by a long-distance 'phone and then 
 waiting for material gifts." But we must re- 
 member that in God we live and move and 
 have our being — " we are organically related 
 to God, we exist in Him spiritually as 
 thoughts exist in our minds." And when we 
 pray sincerely and earnestly, our prayer arises 
 to God as a thought arises in our minds. 
 Such a thought sometimes takes possession 
 of us. So real prayer may take possession 
 of us. A real prayer may also take possession 
 of God and bring blessing. 
 
 Tennyson saw this higher meaning of 
 prayer when he said : " Prayer is like open- 
 ing a sluice between the great ocean and our 
 little channels when the great sea gathers it- 
 self together and flows in at full tide." 
 
 It is often the case that those nervously 
 afflicted cannot put their prayer into words. 
 They cannot command their thoughts or 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 35 
 
 words as they wish. For these, it is most 
 helpful oftentimes, if they follow a form of 
 prayer, — simple, definite, uplifting. 
 
 But it is not always necessary that prayer 
 should be iff words. Just the attitude of 
 communion and trust is often the most help- 
 ful and uplifting. It is the prayer of silence 
 and trust. It is just going into a quiet spot 
 and waiting on God. It is the way of the 
 Mystics, the Quietists, the Friends. But it is 
 a good way. As the Scriptures say : " Be 
 still and know that I am God." 
 
 " One of the most beautiful forms of auto- 
 suggestion," as Bishop Fallows points out, " is 
 prayer. Not that auto-suggestion is the 
 whole of prayer. It is rather our prepara- 
 tion for the effects of prayer. Through its 
 use we push away for a time from our- 
 selves the engrossing preoccupation that shuts 
 out higher interests, we open, as it were, a 
 hidden door in our consciousness through 
 which come new life and power and energy 
 from God." 
 
 Such a practice as this — silent waiting be- 
 for God for half an hour a day in the quiet — 
 relaxed, passive, but with the windows of 
 the soul open, will be oftentimes most help- 
 ful to the nervous sufferer. It helps to pro- 
 
36 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 duc.e that quiet and serenity of spirit that is 
 most desired. It opens in some mystic but 
 real way, an actual connection between the 
 soul and uplifting spiritual forces. Prayer, 
 in this way, passively and without words, but 
 full of thanksgiving and trust in God, brings 
 new strength and help. 
 
 Prayer before sleep has distinct therapeu- 
 tic value. The mechanism of sleep is un- 
 known, but it is more than the cessation 
 of consciousness. Many beneficial physical 
 changes take place during sleep. Waste is 
 repaired ; functions reorganized. Often a ten 
 minute nap is a tonic and a medicine, better 
 than food or drink; renewing the mental and 
 physical life. Sleep is largely a matter of 
 suggestion, inhibition and control. Very im- 
 portant upon sleep and dreams and the deep- 
 est life are the last thoughts before going 
 to sleep at night. Here is the value of 
 prayer, when used just before sleeping. It 
 is a scientific, physical help as well as spirit- 
 ual. 
 
 " The fundamental religious point," as a 
 noted psychologist says, " is that in prayer 
 spiritual energy, which would otherwise 
 slumber, does become active, and spiritual 
 work of some kind is really effected. This 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER Z7 
 
 means, not only that prayer makes us better 
 men and women, but that the spiritual energy 
 which it brings may be translated into acts 
 which give us more force as working beings, 
 more power of achievement, more influence 
 in the social order." 
 
 The therapeutic value of prayer may thus 
 be considered as resting fundamentally in 
 these facts: 
 
 1. Prayer brings the mind into a quiet and 
 trustful attitude, and this reacts on the body. 
 
 2. Prayer is the continually hopeful spirit 
 and this helps physical condition. 
 
 3. Prayer stimulates us to help ourselves 
 to co-operate in the answer to prayer. 
 
 4. Prayer is sometimes directly answered 
 in physical healing. 
 
 5. Prayer unites the human forces to the 
 divine forces. 
 
 6. Prayer is the opening of the sluices of 
 the soul for the divine inflowing. 
 
 7. Prayer is the atmosphere in which the 
 divine Spirit of life lives and works. 
 
 In view of all this, it were folly to tell 
 people that it is their duty to pray. Duty 
 is too cold a word. Privilege and glory are 
 the only words to connect with prayer. It 
 is possible, however, that, through the first 
 
38 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 impulse of duty, a way may be made into the 
 sanctuary of privilege. 
 
 Those who know what prayer means find 
 in it joyous companionship in solitude; it 
 means genial sympathy in the recoil from the 
 coldness of life; it means the delicious satis- 
 faction of thought and feeling in the loving 
 closeness of a living presence. More than 
 that, prayer means the uplifting of the heart 
 and mind into a higher atmosphere, into the 
 living communion with the divine life and 
 love. 
 
 A remarkable declaration and confirmation 
 of this position concerning the value of 
 prayer as a means to mental health, is that of 
 Dr. Murray Hyslop, physician superintendent 
 of the Royal Hospitals, Bridewell and 
 Bethlehem, in London: "As an alienist and 
 one whose whole life has been concerned with 
 the suiferings of the human mind," he says, 
 " I would state that of all the hygienic meas- 
 ures to counteract disturbed sleep, depression 
 of spirits, and all the miserable sequels of a 
 distressed mind, I would undoubtedly give 
 the first place to the simple habit of prayer. 
 Let there be but a habit of nightly com- 
 munion, not as a mendicant, nor repeater of 
 words, but as an humble individual who sub- 
 
VALUE OF PRAYER 39 
 
 merges or asserts his individuality as an in- 
 tegral part of a greater whole. Such a 
 habit does more to cleanse the spirit and 
 strengthen the soul to overcome mere inci- 
 dental emotionalism than any other therapeu- 
 tic agent known to me." 
 
 One who has found the secret of prayer, 
 one who has learned its solace, its richness of 
 joy, its hidden fountains of strength — ^be- 
 lieves in prayer, rejoices in prayer, al- 
 though he cannot see that a single one of his 
 prayers ever receives an answer in a tan- 
 gible form. He has risen far above 
 that aspect of prayer. He does tiot limit or 
 measure the divine by his own human desires 
 or expectations. He believes and knows 
 that every one of his prayers is answered, be- 
 cause he believes in God and knows an in- 
 finitely loving, wise Good Heart, even the 
 Heart of God. That Heart, he is sure, hears 
 him and loves him and will do whatsoever is 
 best for him. 
 
 One has aptly put it : " Perhaps we are 
 like wireless stations, each tuned to the vi- 
 brations that individualize us, with God the 
 Almighty Center holding the key for every 
 human being. . . . Our connection with God, 
 the source of all life, is never broken, it is 
 
40 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 true; but prayer is the live current which 
 makes that connection efficient. Without 
 prayer, we are isolated, as it were, at the end 
 of a dead wire. The universe itself is, to 
 the devout mind, founded upon prayer, that 
 is, on the principle of dependence, which is 
 the fundamental note of prayer. Science and 
 psychology concur in such a view. The 
 world we live in, great as it seems to us, is 
 as a grain of sand to the bulk of a vast 
 mountain when compared to the numberless 
 orbs that revolve through the million miles 
 of space. But law and order govern the 
 whole. Part is dependent upon part. We 
 seem to ourselves, perhaps, isolated and self- 
 contained. Yet I lift my hand, I make the 
 slightest motion, and the clearest-headed 
 thinker in the world of science tells me that 
 the very movement of my fingers sends its 
 vibrations to the farthest star, for hundreds 
 of millions, or billions or quadrillions or sex- 
 tillions of miles. Distance makes no differ- 
 ence. There can be no motion in one part 
 without motion being in some way felt in 
 another." * 
 
 Such is the power of prayer, — a real thing 
 in life, a real force in this universe. 
 
 * Bishop Samuel Fallows, in Health and Happi- 
 ness, 1908. 
 
IV. THE CASTING OUT OF FEAR 
 
 ^1_ J j^ HAT are the morbid moods as 
 ^ ■ ^^ ordinarily considered ? Are they 
 ■ II not too much self-retrospection; 
 ^^t^^^ an over-conscientiousness; an 
 ultra-sensitiveness, or mistrust of 
 self, or suspicion of oneself, or of others; a 
 sense of inferiority, or constant self-deprecia- 
 tion and depression ; the pathological state of 
 mind — a morbid curiosity and interest in dis- 
 ease and diseased condition; or a constant 
 bondage to fear, such as fear of failure, fear 
 of sickness, fear of death? The perpetually 
 discouraged life is a form of morbidity. The 
 moods of cynicism and pessimism are essen- 
 tially morbid moods; for they do not look at 
 life healthily; nor do they give out healthful 
 influences. These, in general, are the chief 
 forms of the morbid moods, and some of the 
 forms at least that we consider in this ad- 
 dress. 
 
 Morbid moods are no new ailments. The 
 patriarch Job was in one when he was so de- 
 pressed that he bewailed the day of his birth. 
 41 
 
42 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Elijah under the juniper tree is another in- 
 stance ; David, when he cried " Why art thou 
 cast down, O my soul ? " ; Solomon, when he 
 felt — "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." 
 And the same infection has come at times 
 to modern spirits — even to tht gifted ones of 
 earth. Let me quote from several: 
 
 Goethe says : " I will say nothing against 
 the course of my existence. But at bottom it 
 has been nothing but pain and burden, and I 
 can affirm that during the whole of my 
 seventy-five years I have not had four weeks 
 of genuine well-being. It is but the per- 
 petual rolling of a rock that must be raised 
 up again forever." 
 
 Luther wrote: "I am utterly weary of 
 life." The Electress Dowager one day when 
 Luther was dining with her, said to him: 
 " Doctor, I hope you may live forty years to 
 come." " Madam," he replied, " rather than 
 live forty years more, I would give up my 
 chance of Paradise." 
 
 Bunyan's experience, as he wrote it, was 
 this : " I was both a burthen and a terror 
 to myself; nor did I ever so know as, now, 
 what it was to be weary of my life, and yet 
 afraid to die. How gladly would I have been 
 anything but myself ! " 
 
CASTING OUT FEAR 43 
 
 Concerning one period of his life, Tolstoi 
 wrote : " I felt that something had broken 
 within me on which my life had always rested ; 
 that I had nothing left to hold on to, and that 
 morally my life had stopped. ... I did not 
 know what I wanted. I was afraid of life. 
 I was driven to leave it: and in spite of that 
 I still hoped something from it. My 
 state of mind was as if some wicked and 
 stupid jest was being played on me by some 
 one. One can live only so long as one is 
 intoxicated, drunk with life; but when one 
 grows sober, one cannot fail to see that it is 
 all a stupid cheat. What is truest about it 
 is that there is nothing funny or silly in it; it 
 is cruel and stupid, purely and simply. . . . 
 But perhaps (I often said to myself) 'there 
 may be something I have failed to notice or 
 to comprehend.' It is not possible that this 
 condition of despair should be natural to man- 
 kind. And I sought for an explanation in all 
 the branches of knowledge acquired by man. 
 I questioned painfully and protractedly and 
 with no idle curiosity. I sought, not with 
 indolence, but laboriously and obstinately for 
 days and nights together. I sought like a man 
 who is lost and seeks to save himself — and I 
 found nothing. I became convinced, more- 
 
44 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 over, that all those who before me had sought 
 for an answer in the sciences have also found 
 nothing. And not only this, but that they 
 have recognized that the very thing which 
 was leading me to despair — ^the meaningless 
 absurdity of life — is the only incontestable 
 knowledge accessible to man." 
 
 To those who are interested in a very de- 
 tailed history and description of these moodsy 
 I would recommend Prof. James' most in- 
 teresting book on " The Varieties of Religious 
 Experience," and especially the chapters on 
 "The Sick Soul," and "The Religion of 
 Healthy-mindedness." 
 
 At this time, however, let us consider three 
 chief classes of morbid moods which are es- 
 pecially prevalent. 
 
 The first group are the morbid moods of 
 fear. 
 
 From childhood on, many are afflicted with 
 morbid fears. There is a long series of mor- 
 bid anticipations, as Horatio W. Dresser 
 points out in his " Voices of Freedom," 
 namely, " that we shall suffer certain chil- 
 dren's diseases, diseases of middle life and 
 of old age; the thought that we shall grow 
 old, lose our faculties, and again become 
 childish; while crowning all, is the fear of 
 
CASTING OUT FEAR 45 
 
 death. Then there is a long line of particu- 
 lar fears and trouble-bearing expectations, 
 such, for example, as ideas associated with 
 certain articles of food, the dread of the east 
 wind, the terrors of hot weather, the aches 
 and pains associated with cold weather, the 
 fear of catching cold if one sits in a draught, 
 the coming of hay-fever upon the 14th of 
 August in the middle of the day, or some 
 similar date, and so on, through a long list 
 of fears, dreads, worriments, anxieties, an- 
 ticipations expectations, pessimisms, morbid- 
 ities, and the whole ghostly train of fateful 
 shapes, worthy to rank with Bradley's ' un- 
 earthly ballet of bloodless categories.' 
 
 " Yet this is not all. This vast array is 
 swelled by innumerable volunteers from daily 
 life, the fear of accident, the possibility of 
 calamity, the loss of property, the chance of 
 robbery, of fire, or the outbreak of war. 
 And it is not deemed sufficient to fear for our- 
 selves. When a friend is taken ill, we must 
 forthwith fear the worst and apprehend death. 
 If one meets with sorrow . . . sympathy 
 seems to enter into and increase the suffer- 
 ing." 
 
 So also Horace Fletcher says in one of his 
 books — " Happiness as Found in Forethought, 
 
46 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Versus Fearthought," — " Fear has had its uses 
 in the evolutionary process, and seems to con- 
 stitute the whole of forethought in most ani- 
 mals; but that it should remain any part of 
 the mental equipment of human civilized life 
 is an absurdity. I find that the fear element 
 of forethought is not stimulating to those 
 more civilized persons to whom duty and at- 
 traction are the natural motives, but is weak- 
 ening and deterrent. As soon as it becomes 
 unnecessary, fear becomes a positive deterrent, 
 and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh 
 is removed from' living tissue." 
 
 " Man often has fear stamped upon him be- 
 fore his entrance into the outer world," adds 
 Mr. Henry Wood in one of his treatises. 
 " He is reared in fear ; all his life is passed in 
 bondage to fear of disease and death, and 
 thus his whole mentality becomes cramped, 
 limited, and depressed, and his body follows 
 its shrunken pattern and specification. . . . 
 Think of the millions of sensitive and re- 
 sponsible souls among our ancestors who have 
 been under the dominion of such perpetual 
 nightmare! Is it not surprising that health 
 exists at all? Nothing but the boundless di- 
 vine love, exuberance, and vitality, constantly 
 poured in, even though unconsciously to us. 
 
CASTING OUT FEAR 47 
 
 could in some degree neutralize such an ocean 
 of morbidity." 
 
 Now what are the causes of these morbid 
 moods? They are various, but we may men- 
 tion the principal ones. The cause of course 
 may be physical — some organic trouble — 
 some diseased condition, or possibly only a 
 slight derangement. It may be a climacteric 
 condition, when the internal system of our life 
 is undergoing a serious readjustment, such as 
 oftenest happens at the age of puberty, or 
 at twenty, forty or sixty years of age. Or, 
 it may be nervous exhaustion, overwork, or 
 over-worry, or wrong habits of life. Or bad 
 hygiene — such as results in indigestion, a 
 torpid liver and other derangements. Another 
 cause may be a too delicate constitution. Some 
 may be too sensitively built. The tough-fibered 
 do not usually have these moods or troubles. 
 Still another cause may be the inability 
 to meet the real troubles of life — ^the actual 
 failures, sickness and losses of property or 
 loved ones. Or the cause may be wrong 
 mental habits — the point of view mentally 
 false or inadequate. Or the cause may be 
 the unregenerate nature. The need of a new 
 birth spiritually — a new frontage toward man, 
 the universe and God. 
 
48 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 What is the cure of morbid moods? I 
 need not remind you that there is no one cure. 
 But there are various cures, according to the 
 nature and cause of the disease, and the treat- 
 ment needed is often a combination of both 
 physical and mental and spiritual. 
 
 Mental treatment may help to make better 
 conditions for further workj although when 
 an organic trouble is the cause, the initial 
 and necessary treatment must be conducted by 
 regular medical or surgical care. The phys- 
 ical trouble must be righted first of all. You 
 all know that if the cause is nervous exhaus- 
 tion, as it is in many cases, the first thing is 
 to build up the nervous system again by rest- 
 cure, by frequent feeding, and by psychic 
 treatment. If the cause is climacteric condi- 
 tion, the best cure is to be as patient as one 
 can — a. change of scenery when possible, and 
 as much light and wise amusement as can be 
 given. When the cause is bad digestion, the 
 best cure probably is to learn to eat whole- 
 some food and to masticate thoroughly. 
 When the cause is the liver, more outdoor ex- 
 ercise is needed, more fresh air. It is true 
 that bad hygiene, bad air, and lack of ex- 
 ercise are responsible for many morbid moods. 
 If the cause of the morbid moods be a deli- 
 
CASTING OUT FEAR 49 
 
 cate constitution and a sensitive nature, we 
 must use all reasonable means to build up 
 physical strength and to harden ultra-sensi- 
 tiveness. And when wrong mental habits are 
 the cause, there must come a re-education of 
 the mind into right thinking and a persistent 
 exercise of the will-power along right lines. 
 
 These directions may be suggestive and 
 helpful. We may say to these afflicted ones : 
 Seek cheerful society. There is nothing bet- 
 ter than the company of little children and of 
 cheerful, healthy people. Take up some 
 wholesome reading — ^avoid all else. Read a 
 funny paper. Keep to the cheerful side of the 
 Bible, If the cause is lack of spiritual vision, 
 the sense of sin and the oppression of fate, 
 then what is needed is a new spiritual ex- 
 perience in the life, biinging a new vision 
 and trust in God, 
 
 We may say, in a word, that fear is the 
 negative and abnormal condition of the inner 
 life. Love is the normal, the divine equipoise. 
 The process of the casting out of fear is the 
 process of expelling an intruder and of bring- 
 ing the life again into its natural, right, and 
 wholesome condition. It is the very law of 
 physics : " Two bodies cannot occupy the 
 same space at the same time," As one comes 
 
so MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 in, the other must go out. The heart at the 
 start may be full of fear. Trust or love be- 
 gins to come in. Fear is pushed out. And 
 when the heart is full of trust, there is no 
 place left for fear. For these are mutually 
 exclusive. Perfect love means the heart full 
 of love, the heart in which fear has no place. 
 
 Some of you can remember, as I do for 
 myself, when your life was lived con- 
 tinually under fear. You feared ghosts 
 and evil spirits; you feared disease; 
 you feared failure; you dreaded God. You 
 feared death ; a thousand fears had possession 
 of your life. But many of these fears you 
 have conquered. It is a gradual process, but 
 it may go on. 
 
 We can drive out fear by a new mental 
 and spiritual outlook — a supreme confidence 
 in God. We must say to ourselves — " We 
 must not fear; we will not fear." 
 
 As Dr. Richard Cabot says : " What such 
 persons need above all is to cultivate 
 their inner resources, to strengthen their 
 powers of defense against the discourage- 
 ment, the anxiety, the depression which 
 may flow into them as the result of whatever 
 disagreeable or threatening events they meet. 
 Nervous people are prone to take the color 
 
CASTING OUT FEAR 51 
 
 of their surroundings; they are oversensitive 
 to the buffets and shocks of life. They need, 
 above all, the power to resist, to shut out, to 
 turn away from the compelling assertions of 
 their environment, whether that environment 
 be a commanding person, or a murky day, or 
 a pain." * 
 
 The surgeon must be fearless ; his hand must 
 not tremble in the operation. That would be 
 fatal. He must have confidence in himself 
 and his work. The artist must not fear, else 
 his trembling strokes will damage all his 
 work. He must work only in faith and con- 
 fidence in his skill. 
 
 So we in our life and work must not fear. 
 We must go forward confidently with faith 
 in ourselves and God. We are put here for 
 work. No cringing, no trembling, but earnest 
 and brave service. Perfect trust is that full, 
 and frank communion by which we realize 
 that the Father is with us. Perfect trust is 
 the day's bravery in the fellowship of the di- 
 vine. Perfect trust is the conquest of fear 
 through the absorbing consciousness of God. 
 
 There is something splendid when a man 
 walks the ways of life and does strong deeds, 
 without the least particle of fear in his soul, 
 
 * Psychotherapy magazine, Vol. I., No. r. 
 
S2 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 serene and strong in his faith in God; daunt- 
 less and deathless in his grasp on life and 
 eternity; free and fearless in all his spiritual 
 doings and explorations; standing up in the 
 dignity of the spiritual manhood that God 
 has given him. 
 
V. THE CONTROL OF THE IMAGI- 
 NATION 
 
 ^^^^^^ HE second class of morbid moods 
 M ^"^ which we are to consider at this 
 ^^ I time, are the morbid moods of a 
 
 ^^^^^F diseased imagination. 
 
 Imagination is a real factor in 
 every one of our lives. We may not have the 
 genius of imagination, but we have imagina- 
 tion. We dream of the future, and imagine 
 what will be. We are constantly using im- 
 agination. We may use it prosaically or 
 poetically; we may use it ignobly or beauti- 
 fully; we may use it wholesomely or disas- 
 trously. 
 
 Do we often enough consider this fact : the 
 world of imagination in every one of us has 
 its sins and its sanctities ? " The sins of the 
 imagination " is a subject not often treated and 
 yet it is a most important and vital one. The 
 imagination has a close relation to deeds. 
 Every sin in the life is first committed in the 
 imagination. 
 
 53 
 
54 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 / 
 
 We hear of some one gone wrong. We 
 cannot think how it happened. For that per- 
 son had been well-brought up, always ap- 
 peared respectable, always seemed most nor- 
 mal. But the secret is here. It was, in a 
 sense, a double life. Outwardly it was moral, 
 as far as deeds go; but inwardly, and in 
 the imagination, it was immoral. A great 
 tree in the forest sometimes seems perfectly 
 sound. But a blow at its trunk pulverizes it. 
 It is rotten within. An insect has eaten out 
 its heart and strength. The same thing may 
 happen in a life. 
 
 A physician recently called attention to this 
 matter in the following words : " Books are 
 mainly silent on the subject of the diseased 
 imagination. Fathers and mothers shrink 
 from talking to their children about these 
 things. Yet an impure word, a doubtful jest, 
 a tale of wickedness is drunk in by these 
 children, and excites the imagination and often 
 does untold injury. In the realm of the im- 
 agination there is an enchanted middle ground 
 between virtue and vice in which many a soul 
 lives and feeds in secret. To them it seems 
 to be harmless and without the pale of actual 
 sin. There is no intention to sin, but only to 
 filch the pleasure of imagination. But it is a 
 
CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 55 
 
 sin. The willing secret indulgence of the im- 
 agination is a gross evil, and one of the most 
 dangerous of practices." * 
 
 There is more ignoble use of the imagina- 
 tion than we sometimes think or confess. 
 Many who would scorn the actual sin, indulge 
 their imaginations viciously; they think in 
 the freest, most irresponsible way; they talk 
 about things which they have no right even 
 to think about; they read about things that 
 are salacious and that remain in the imagina- 
 tion as an unwholesome and disastrous in- 
 fluence. 
 
 What excuses do they give themselves in 
 these matters? They seem to consider that 
 the world of imagination is a free world, in 
 which they can do whatsoever they will, with- 
 out law or restriction. What is imagination, 
 they say, except something unreal and un- 
 substantial? Some souls, whose actual lives 
 afford few real pleasures, think that they 
 can indulge as they please in the pleasures 
 of imagination. 
 
 Do we say that it is impossible to control 
 the imagination? Perhaps it is impossible 
 to control it absolutely; but we can hold it 
 in check, and it is surely possible not to 
 
 *J. D. Plunket, M. D., Nashville, Ky. 
 
56 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 stimulate and feed imagination with unwhole- 
 some nourishment. 
 
 Do any say that they have immunity in the 
 field of imagination, since if it harms anybody, 
 it will be nobody but themselves? But they 
 must remember, they never harm themselves 
 without harming others. " We are members 
 one of another." Do we say that as long as 
 thoughts do not issue in deeds, our thoughts 
 are guiltless ? We would scorn to do wrong ; 
 scorn to steal, scorn to murder, but yet do 
 our thoughts circle sometimes round the 
 whole compass of the commandments, and 
 we think unworthy thoughts against God and 
 man. 
 
 This is the great truth. It needs iteration 
 and reiteration. Our thought is real — it is an 
 actual and substantial part of us. Our im- 
 agination does count; our thought is a deed! 
 It makes our life. God's word saith : " As 
 a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
 
 These sins of imagination are dangerous in 
 two ways. First they make temptation easier 
 to us, by accustoming us to the thought of 
 the sin. Some love to play with fire. Some 
 love to walk along the edge of the precipice 
 of temptation. It is most perilous ; it is dally- 
 ing with sin; it is inviting, even welcoming 
 
CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 57 
 
 temptation. It is the first step to the overt 
 act. Never comes the deed, unless it is first 
 committed in the imagination. 
 
 These imaginations also actually stain and 
 weaken the fiber of the soul. An evil sugges- 
 tion makes a strong impress upon the mem- 
 ory. It brushes off the bloom from the soul, 
 and almost inevitably spoils something of the 
 nobler life. An evil and unwholesome im- 
 agination may contaminate the very springs of 
 life. It may create a subtle poison in the at- 
 mosphere. It may make the imagination per- 
 manently diseased, and thus a chronic curse 
 in the life. 
 
 Moreover, these vicious or unwholesome im- 
 aginations, often become in themselves actual 
 sin. If the evil thought come suddenly, and 
 is resisted and scorned and flouted, no harm 
 may be done. But if it come, and is nour- 
 ished and cherished, and rolled as a sweet 
 morsel under the tongue, then real sin is com- 
 mitted in the soul. It is the willing harboring 
 and indulging of unworthy and ignoble im- 
 aginations that is the fatal thing. 
 
 This subtle peril begins in the earliest years, 
 and some phases of it are life-long. Imagina- 
 tion is fresh and strong in childhood and 
 youth. Children are wonderfully full of im- 
 
58 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 agination and of an insatiate curiosity, al- 
 though they are at first absolutely pure-minded. 
 There has been many a case of evil imagina- 
 tion in childhood made and fostered by un- 
 wholesome surroundings or companions or 
 habits. Parents should exercise wisdom in 
 training the children, and teaching them so 
 that the imagination may be directed into 
 right channels. They should give the chil- 
 dren plenty of good reading, and fill their 
 lives with good wholesome friends and recrea- 
 tions, leaving no room for the evil influences. 
 
 There is so much yellow journalism in our 
 day which panders to a vicious and morbid 
 imagination, there is so much in modern lit- 
 erature that is unsavory, so much in modem 
 theaters and their bill-board advertisements 
 that is vicious and depraving. There are so 
 many low places of amusement, frequented by 
 children and young people, which are con- 
 stant incitements to vicious imagination and 
 actual vice. These things are the real men- 
 ace in our present-day life. 
 
 Parents complain that their children are get- 
 ting away from them — that they are losing a 
 taste for solid reading and serious things, and 
 that they constantly crave excitement. 
 In youth they are already burning the can- 
 
CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 59 
 
 die at both ends, living at the pace that kills, 
 wasting their reserves, and becoming reckless 
 and morbid in their moods. 
 
 Much of the trouble comes from the con- 
 stant stimulation of imagination along un- 
 wholesome and morbid lines. 
 
 Fathers and mothers are largely responsible 
 for these things. They ought to know what 
 their boys and girls are reading, and what 
 they are seeing. Perhaps a little more real 
 companionship with their children, a little 
 more careful and wholesome guidance, would 
 mean much for them, and for the future 
 years. 
 
 There comes the practical question: How 
 can we definitely control the imagination, how 
 can we purify our thought, how can we get 
 rid of the morbidities and iniquities of the 
 imagination and restore the sanctities of the 
 inner life? 
 
 The process consists of three steps. First 
 of all, we must have purification. We can 
 have this only through the prayer : " Create 
 in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit 
 within me." This is the beginning, the essen- 
 tial way. It is the work of God in the soul, 
 purifying and renewing the life. It is the 
 cleansing of the fountain. Nothing can come 
 
6o MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 before this; nothing is so important. Other 
 methods are palliative. This goes to the root. 
 This is the divine work, essential and funda- 
 mental. 
 
 But the second step is also exceedingly im- 
 portant : preoccupation. This is our part. That 
 is, we are to fill our mind with noble pictures 
 and noble images. We are to read noble 
 books, think high thoughts, keep in a whole- 
 some atmosphere. The mind must have some- 
 thing to work with. It will work with either 
 good or bad material. Let it have the best 
 material, and only this. 
 
 The third step of the process for the con- 
 trol of the imagination and the restoration 
 of the sanctities of the inner life is this : Pro- 
 tection. We must use insistent, eternal vigi- 
 lance in keeping out evil. Some evil can be 
 seen and fought against. Books, pictures, 
 songs, companions that are evil and vulgar, 
 we must be resolute against. We must avoid 
 people and places that tear down the veils of 
 delicacy and purity in the inner life. We must 
 set our faces resolutely against these things. 
 We cannot play with fire without being 
 burned. We cannot touch pitch without be- 
 ing defiled. 
 
 We were speaking of these visible evils. 
 
CONTROL OF IMAGINATION 6i 
 
 Invisible suggestions of evil are as thick as 
 germs in the air. We are none of us immune, 
 except in one way; and that is, by keeping 
 the spiritual health in good trim. If we neg- 
 lect prayer and spiritual exercise and the good 
 food of God's word, we will grow weak and 
 liable to disease. The spiritual health is kept 
 up by living in the light, and close to the 
 heart of the Master. 
 
VI. THE CAUSE AND CURE OF THE 
 WORRY-HABIT. 
 
 ^'jt^^itf HE third class of morbid moods 
 M^ C"^ which we have to consider are 
 R I those bred by the worry-habit. 
 
 ^^^X What is "worry"? We all 
 recognize it as a mental habit and 
 a mental condition. It may be temporary or 
 chronic. It is fret, anxiety, undue solicitude, 
 the habit of borrowing care or trouble, the 
 mood of apprehension, living in past regrets, 
 present doubts and future forebodings. 
 
 It has, as you know, various technical names 
 in medical science. It may be hypochondria 
 — undue solicitude and worry over one's 
 health and a morbid attention to those things. 
 It may be unhealthy obsession along certain 
 insistent and compulsive lines of thought. It 
 may be neurasthenia in one of the many 
 forms of nervous disturbance characterized 
 by exhaustion or irritability. It may be called 
 a phobia, any one of the many engrossing 
 fears without an adequate cause, that seem to 
 afflict mankind. 
 
 62 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 63 
 
 Says a discriminating thinker : " Worry 
 is not to be confounded with fore- 
 thought, which is the general director of our 
 mental forces. Forethought borrows wisdom 
 from past failures and successes, with which 
 to lay plans for the future. True, it con- 
 siders obstacles and difficulties, as a good 
 general should, but only as hindrances whicH 
 may be overcome. Forethought progresses; 
 worry, like a squirrel in a revolving wheel, 
 is always at the same point. . . . Worry 
 might be defined as thought plus apprehen- 
 sion, moving always in a circle." * 
 
 Another puts the matter in this way: 
 " Worry is always one of two things ; it 
 is idiocy or insanity. You may take your 
 choice, there is no third. Worry depresses 
 the physical vitality, destroys courage, dims 
 the vision of the ideal, weakens the will, stands 
 in the way of realizing anything worth while ; 
 and the human being who hopes to accom- 
 plish anything will get worry under his feet 
 at the earliest possible moment. Work, on 
 the other hand, good, honest, hardj work, 
 when in right relation, builds vitality and 
 gives increased power." f 
 
 * Bishop Samuel Fallows. 
 t Edward Howard Griggs. 
 
64 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 A clever magazine writer defines it well in 
 the words : " Worry is discounting possible 
 future sorrows so that the individual may 
 have present misery. Worry is the father of 
 insomnia. Worry is the traitor in our camp 
 that dampens our powder, weakens our aim. 
 Under the guise of helping us to bear the 
 present and to be ready for the future, worry 
 multiplies enemies within our own mind to 
 sap our strength." 
 
 What are the facts about the worry habit? 
 We know that it is gaining among Americans. 
 It grows easily and it becomes serious. Nerv- 
 ous worry is now the great American disease. 
 
 Some people worry over things that have 
 happened; their lives are filled with vain re- 
 grets. Others worry over things that are go- 
 ing to happen. Some people worry over ac- 
 tual things; others are constantly worrying 
 over imaginary things. 
 
 But we are awakening to the seriousness of 
 the modern conditions of overwrought life. 
 The steady increase of sanataria and nerv- 
 ous hospitals, and rest-retreats are significant 
 signs of the times. The forming in recent 
 years of sunshine societies, of " don't worry " 
 circles, and " hundred year " or century clubs 
 for rational living, show that people are real- 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 6S 
 
 izing the need of new helps to meet the new 
 and perilous conditions. 
 
 It is not, however, the occasional and mo- 
 mentary times of worrying that are so perni- 
 cious. It is the continual and persistent -vvorry- 
 ing habit that is the trouble — ^the chronic 
 worrying over everything — ^that is the mor- 
 bid mood that must be cured. 
 
 This is the prevailing disease of our 
 modern life. There is so much of it — women 
 who are perpetually full of anxious cares, men 
 who are full of restless nervous haste — that it 
 seems as if St. Martha, nervous, solicitous 
 St. Martha, were the patron saint of mod- 
 ern womanhood, and as if St. Vitus, quick, 
 jerky, restless St. Vitus, were the patron saint 
 of the business men of to-day. 
 
 Most people who are worried, worry over 
 trifles. Some worry over the weather, and 
 over temperature. Others worry over a spot 
 of dirt. Some over-scrupulous housekeepers 
 carry their house on their back wherever they 
 go. Here one worries if a picture does not 
 hang straight ; another worries over foods, and 
 this one over dress. Some worry over every 
 shooting pain they have. They are always 
 looking at their sensations through a micro- 
 scope, and seeing them a thousand tdmes 
 
66 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 greater than they actually are. Many worry 
 over their work, over their failures; others 
 worry over criticism or lack of appreciation. 
 A few worry over their spiritual condition — 
 would there were more of these. Others 
 worry over their financial condition. Many 
 worry over themselves; some worry over 
 others. 
 
 Now, as to the causes of the worry habit. 
 Many are they and various. The cause may 
 be physical. It may be some organic trouble 
 (possibly a slight cause but an irritating one) 
 for which the patient ought to consult some 
 wise physician. It may be eye strain, produc- 
 ing nervous tension and irritability ; or it may 
 be teeth or throat trouble. It may be physi- 
 cal disturbance of the liver or stomach, often 
 responsible for a good deal. Or the worry 
 habit may be the result of overwork and gen- 
 eral physical and nervous exhaustion. Again, 
 the worry habit may be temperamental. Or, 
 the worry habit may be the result of indul- 
 gence in a wrong mental attitude toward life. 
 It may be carping thoughts and anxious 
 thoughts run wild. This is doubtless the most 
 prolific cause of the worry habit. The malady 
 is most prevalent among thoughtful people, 
 conscientious people, good workers, among 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 67 
 
 those whom we want to save from such things 
 for the sake of themselves and the world. 
 
 True it is that the high nervous tension of 
 our modern life is responsible for much of the 
 worry condition. It is a restless life that many 
 of us live — an unnatural fever. There is so 
 much love of excitement, so great a struggle to 
 keep up appearances, so feverish a desire to 
 be something that we are not, such a nervous 
 apprehension that we will be just what we 
 actually are. There is such a living on 
 nerves — such an unwillingness to be quiet, 
 serene, passive and genuine — that the modern 
 generation seems to be discovering a thou- 
 sand more nerves than its ancestors, and is 
 putting itself into condition to be irritated by 
 trifles and to worry a mole-hill into a moun- 
 tain. 
 
 How can the worry habit be cured? How 
 can people attain to peace of mind and a 
 cheerful philosophy of life? So that they 
 shall be like him of whom Wordsworth speaks, 
 in the line — 
 
 " A man of cheerful yesterdays and confi- 
 dent to-morrows." 
 
 It is not sufficient to say, " Don't worry," or 
 even to ask "Why worry?" These phases 
 themselves may grow irritating however well 
 
68 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 intended they are ; nor do many find sufficient 
 such advice as " Eliminate worry ! " We want 
 something more tangible. Unaided resolution 
 is not sufficient. What we want is to find 
 the simple elements out of which worry is con- 
 structed and eliminate them. We aim to take 
 the keen edge off worry, and finally — ^to cure 
 it entirely. In this way, we shall help our 
 health, and also make better workers, worthier 
 citizens and more agreeable companions. 
 
 This is the encouraging fact. The worry 
 habit can be overcome. If it is temperamen- 
 tal — a real inheritance — even then it can be 
 overcome, although it will be harder work. 
 But we must understand — one cannot sum- 
 marily stop worrying and be done with it. 
 There will have to be a re-education of the 
 mental habits. One can learn, by persistent 
 will-power, how automatically to dismiss 
 worry. But it may take some time. To cure 
 the habit, one must be patient, persistent, 
 determined to conquer. The worry habit can- 
 not be conquered in one treatment, nor in 
 one week. It is usually of long and gradual 
 growth, and it will need rigorous and per- 
 sistent treatment. But it can be overcome. 
 That is the great fact ! Step by step it can be 
 conquered until the habit has disappeared, 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 69 
 
 and a new mental and spiritual atmosphere 
 has come into the life. 
 
 This is the most vital and important part 
 of the cure, and we put it into this single 
 sentence: Replace the worrying thought by 
 some other thought that will keenly interest 
 and stimulate the life. This is the substitute 
 cure. It can be made effective by persistent 
 will. It can cure. It is capable of wonder- 
 ful results. 
 
 This is what it means. Deliberately choose 
 some thought, some interest, directly opposite 
 to that which is worrying, and interesting 
 enough to engross attention for a time, and 
 then concentrate attention by will power upon 
 it. Dwell on it. Get absorbed in it. Keep 
 steadfastly away from the worry-thought 
 Do not allow yourself to come back to it. 
 Think away from it. You can do it, if you try. 
 
 This is the substance of Horace Fletcher's 
 popular pamphlets on " Menticulture " in its 
 different phases. This is the chief method 
 used by Dr. Walton of Boston, in his timely 
 and suggestive little book called, "Why 
 Worry?" 
 
 So also Dr. Achorn says in explaining this 
 substitute cure: "The mind can be dis- 
 charged from the consideration of any vex- 
 
70 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 atious subject and the attention given to the 
 enjoyment of any other. Mind cure is sim- 
 ply the acquiring of control over impulses, 
 emotions, or habits that demoralize. It sub- 
 stitutes other habits, if necessary. The person 
 gains mental poise, and leans toward opti- 
 mism. The mind liberates the nervous mechan- 
 ism and vital fluids of the body so that all 
 the functions, both physical and mental, are 
 performed normally. Whether the condition 
 recognized as a chronic disorder or disease is 
 due to mental or physical causes, one can- 
 not always easily determine. If the person 
 suffering is willing to cultivate one or two 
 new habits for the old ones he suspects, al- 
 though he may not be able to see that they are 
 the cause of his trouble, he will often be sur- 
 prised at the outcome." * 
 
 This definite method, simple as it is, rests 
 on sound psychology and physiology. The 
 greatest things after all are often the sim- 
 plest, and commend themselves to our com- 
 mon-sense. Psychology teaches us that ob- 
 session (and worry is a form of obsession) 
 can only be cured by replacement. The abil- 
 ity to forget, to inhibit one thing and to sub- 
 
 * J. Warren Achom, M. D., in Religion and Medi- 
 cine. 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 71 
 
 stitute another, is one of our finest mental 
 abilities. Physiology also shows us con- 
 clusively that we stimulate whatever we reso- 
 lutely fix our attention upon. If we think 
 unduly about our ills, our health is affected. 
 If we forget them we get along better. 
 Chronic introspection is a disease. Worry 
 causes a disturbance and derangement of the 
 entire vital system. 
 
 Let us remember, therefore: The best cure 
 for worry is substitution. Replace the worry 
 thought by a better thought. Choose a whole- 
 some, stimulating thought and keep to it. De- 
 liberately do this, and use your will-power to 
 enforce it. 
 
 Whether there is a microbe of worry we 
 do not know. Perhaps some enterprising doc- 
 tor will discover one after awhile, and teach 
 us also its antidote. But we do know that 
 worry is singularly contagious and infectious. 
 Just one person in a household with a bad 
 case of worry is enough to demoralize the 
 whole house, to put everybody on edge and 
 to cast a gloom over the atmosphere of the en- 
 tire family. 
 
 But the microbe of worry, whether it is 
 in the blood or the nerves, the heart, or the 
 soul, or the air, can often be successfully 
 
72 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 fought and conquered by a persistent will, 
 working along the lines of substitution. Will 
 is a marvelous antidote for a great many 
 things, but in this matter of the worry-habit 
 it often works almost a miracle. 
 
 Does this one method seem too general a di- 
 rection ? Here then, are some minor but defi- 
 nite matters which will help in accomplish- 
 ing the substitution cure, and persons afflicted 
 with the worry-habit might well be advised 
 in such lines as these: 
 
 I. First, keep your physical system in 
 tone. For, in all this work, the physical and 
 mental must act together and help each other. 
 Look well after your daily hygiene. If possi- 
 ble, take a sponge bath every morning, not 
 necessarily cold, but with the chill just taken 
 off. Then a rub-down with a rough towel, 
 and a few exercises and a few minutes of 
 deep breathing. Not too much clothing, day or 
 night; heavy clothing irritates. A walk at 
 least of two miles daily in the open air, — 
 perhaps to and from the office, or better, in 
 the country. 
 
 Arrange your life so that you can have a 
 little vacation every day. The best time for 
 a vacation is a little every day, and for a 
 long vacation, just before, and not after you 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 73 
 
 are exhausted. Eat regxilarly, slowly and 
 masticate thoroughly. Get your hours of 
 sleep or rest. These things will help in keep- 
 ing you in fine physical trim and tone. 
 
 2. Neglect your sensations and stop that 
 habit of introspection. Leave your mind 
 alone, your morals alone, your conscience 
 alone. You have paid enough attention to 
 them. Leave your body at peace for a while. 
 A little neglect of your internal organs will 
 be wholesome for them and for you. You 
 stir them up too much by thinking about 
 them. Direct your attention voluntarily away 
 from yourself. Get up and do something. 
 Go out and see something. Your trouble may 
 not be 90 much nervous as misdirected energy 
 and acquiescence in inertia and despondency. 
 
 3. Take up a fad. We need diversity of 
 interests. Fads are blessings in disguise. 
 Take up something in which you are in- 
 terested and devote some time and thought 
 to it, even if only half an hour a day. 
 You will think of it oftener. Photography, 
 astronomy, music, history, old books, old 
 prints, old furniture, a foreign language, col- 
 lecting coins, studying birds or trees, pic- 
 tures, golf, tennis or other things; carpenter 
 work, wood carving, cabinetmaking, would 
 
74 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 be good fads. One of the best is working 
 in a garden. Such side pursuits give an in- 
 terest to life, and should be encouraged. 
 
 4. Another point — ^pin your worries down 
 to definite facts. Most of your worries are 
 vague and indefinite. Many of them are 
 imaginary. Write down in black and white 
 what you are worrying about, and often- 
 times you will see how absurd it is. The 
 process of putting it down will clarify your 
 vision. Sometimes at night, if you worry, 
 promise yourself to clear it up in the morn- 
 ing; often that will be sufficient. 
 
 5. Learn to see the humor of the situation. 
 Parents were worrying over their little child 
 one night, who was fretting as they do some- 
 times. The situation was growing tense when 
 the wife said — " Aren't you thankful that we 
 do not live in the polar regions where the 
 nights are six months long? " 
 
 A Chinese philosopher wrote ages ago: 
 "The legs of the stork are long, the legs 
 of the duck are short: you cannot make the 
 legs of the stork short, neither can you 
 make the legs of the duck long. Why 
 worry?" 
 
 6. Be philosophical. When you miss a car, 
 do not say, "There goes my car!" but 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 75 
 
 rather, " The next car is mine ! " When you 
 miss an engagement now and then, after try- 
 ing hard to meet it, why worry over it ? Such 
 things happen to everyone now and then. 
 Such is Hfe. When you are traveling, do 
 not worry because the train doea not go 
 faster, or think continually of the journey's 
 end. Enjoy things as you go along. The 
 speed of the train and arrival are not as vital 
 as you think. It is vital to enjoy life now. 
 If you fret about the weather it is futile. It 
 will not change for you. Better make friends 
 with the weather in all its moods. Learn to 
 enjoy it in all its phases. Someone says: 
 "Anyone can stand what he likes: it takes 
 a philosopher to stand what he does not 
 like." It is said that Canon Beadon, who 
 lived to be very old, told a friend that the se- 
 cret of long life in his own case was that he 
 never thought of anything unpleasant after 
 ten o'clock at night. 
 
 "You may learn," as Dr. William Osier 
 says, " to consume your own smoke. The 
 atmosphere is darkened by the murmurings 
 and whimperings of men and women over 
 the non-essentials, the trifles that are inevi- 
 tably incident to the hurly-burly of the day's 
 routine. Things cannot always go yt)UF way. 
 
76 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Learn to accept in silence the minor aggrava- 
 tions, cultivate the gift of taciturnity, and 
 consume your own smoke with an extra 
 draught of hard work, so that those about 
 you may not be annoyed with the dust and 
 soot of your complaints." 
 
 7. Live only one day at a time. You need 
 not live your whole past through every day. 
 You need not borrow the future years. Live 
 this one day. It is enough. And sometimes 
 more than enough. But we can at least get 
 through one day bravely. Michael Angelo 
 used to say — " To-day I endure." Prof. Pal- 
 mer put it: "We can always stand it for 
 twenty-four hours." President Lincoln had 
 his favorite phrase for trouble : " And this too 
 will pass." There is a quaint proverb that 
 has a great deal of wisdom in it. It runs: 
 " Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles 
 you." A certain father on his death-bed said 
 to his children : " My children, don't worry: 
 I have had many heavy troubles in my life, 
 but most of them have been imaginary ones. 
 Don't worry. It doesn't pay. Don't cross 
 the bridge till you come to it." 
 
 But now we come to the third and most 
 vital point — the spiritual factor in the cure of 
 the worry habit. 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 77 
 
 Worry is no more amenable to mere phys- 
 ical treatment, than swearing or drunken- 
 ness. But in the treatment for a real cure 
 must come both physical, mental and spirit- 
 ual elements. We have considered the phys- 
 ical treatment and the mental. We have 
 y*t a few words to say about the spiritual 
 treatment of the worry-habit. 
 
 Dr. Saleeby has pointed out that the two 
 greatest religions the world has ever seen. 
 Buddhism and Christianity, are essentially 
 anti-worrying religions, though reaching the 
 goal by very different routes. Buddhism says, 
 " Worry is an inevitable accompaniment of 
 life. In order to get rid of it you must 
 destroy the desire to live, and the goal of all 
 being is Nirvana. It means absolute acquies- 
 cence; the end of worry, because the end of 
 life." Christianity, on the contrary says, 
 " The great need is not less, but more abun- 
 dant life. Worry is something that rftay be 
 transcended, and the power by which you 
 transcend it is trust in God and the service 
 of man." 
 
 Another confirmation is the witness of one 
 of our leading psychologists, Professor James, 
 who says, " The sovereign cure for worry 
 is religious faith. The turbulent billows of 
 
78 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 the fretful surface leave the deep parts of the 
 ocean undisturbed, and to him who has a hold 
 of vaster and more permanent realities, the 
 hourly vicissitudes of his personal destiny seem 
 relatively insignificant things." * 
 
 It is still the substitution cure that we ad- 
 vocate, even by spiritual treatment. Replace 
 your doubting, restless, distrustful, faithless 
 attitude to God, by a trustful and confident 
 faith in God. Take God at His word. Ac- 
 cept and believe His promises and your wor- 
 ries will gradually disappear, and all life will 
 become new. 
 
 There is one cause of worry in many lives 
 which might well be considered in connec- 
 tion with spiritual treatment, and that is the 
 fact of actual transgression in the life. This 
 is a rightful and sufficient cause for worry- 
 ing. A man should not expect peace if he 
 lives in deliberate sin. Conscience will tor- 
 ment him and it ought to. Such an one is 
 never really happy. He may seem so out- 
 wardly, but down deep in his heart there is a 
 root of bitterness. Sin cannot be happy. The 
 pleasures of sin have in them the sting of re- 
 morse. Anybody living in sin ought to worry 
 and worry a great deal. For the life is wrong. 
 
 * Talks with Teachers on Psychology. 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 79 
 
 But such ought to do more than worry. They 
 ought to put themselves right. There is help 
 for them if they will, and a better life — a 
 clean leaf for beginning a new record, and 
 a new strength for the new life. 
 
 And yet, even among religious people we 
 oftentimes find worry, and here it is often 
 a want of faith in the heart. This is a very 
 real and widely prevalent cause. 
 
 Why not trust God? Why not take Him 
 at His word? Why not believe Him when 
 He says that He is with us and that " all 
 things work together for good?" 
 
 It is not unfair to say that persistent 
 worrying is persistent unbelief — it is a subtle 
 form of atheism. We may not intend it to be 
 so, but so it is in its practical effects. A 
 worrying Christian is a poor product of 
 Christian faith — ^where does the faith come 
 in at all? A Christian has no right to worry. 
 It is doubting God's care and goodness. 
 John Wesley used to say, " I would as soon 
 curse and steal as worry. It is doubting 
 God." 
 
 Learn to look on the bright side, on the 
 divine side. Cultivate the habit. Here is a 
 practical way of doing it. Have one of your 
 visiting cards with such words as these writ- 
 
8o MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 ten on the back — " God is love. — Count your 
 mercies. — ^Worry never does any good. — 
 Things might be worse. — All things work to- 
 gether for good. — Be of good cheer, says 
 Christ. — Have faith in God." Whenever you 
 are disposed to worry, take this card and read 
 it, and it will change the current of your 
 thoughts. Use this card faithfully for a while 
 and soon you will not need it. 
 
 Napoleon, it is said, owed much of his 
 energy, daring, prowess and success to his 
 belief that he bore a charmed life, that he 
 might do and dare anything, that disaster 
 and death could not overtake him until his 
 fate was accomplished. 
 
 But we have a deeper and truer assurance. 
 We are in God's hands, and nothing can 
 really or permanently harm us and there is 
 no death for us. " All things work together 
 for good." We can absolutetly rest in the as- 
 surance, if we will, that it is not our duty to 
 worry about ourselves or the universe. We 
 are not responsible for the universe. It is 
 God's doing and He is working out His 
 plans. So with our lives. They are God's 
 creation and He is working out His plan in 
 them. All that we have to do is to try our 
 best to work with Him. Take no anxious 
 
THE WORRY-HABIT 8i 
 
 thought for the morrow, but take thought 
 of God. 
 
 We must remember that we cannot grow in 
 stature by straining ourselves upward, by 
 taking anxious thought, nor can we grow in 
 soul by strain, introspection and agonizing. 
 We can only grow in nature or grace by 
 putting ourselves in the natural ways of 
 growth, by getting into the rhythmic mood 
 of Nature, into the deeper ways of the spirit, 
 into fuller and fuller harmony with God's 
 will as it is revealed to us. 
 
 We will find a deeper and richer spiritual 
 experience as we learn to meditate often on 
 the greatest facts of spiritual life, and come 
 more continually to realize them in our lives. 
 Such a habit cannot fail to bring a more 
 joyous and confident mind and spirit, and re- 
 act most helpfully and hopefully on the whole 
 life, spiritually, mentally, even physically. 
 
 Such a trust and faith means resting, ab- 
 solutely resting the heart continually in the 
 promises of God. It is taking God at His 
 word. And His word is an impregnable 
 rock. It is like a great Gibraltar in the midst 
 of the changing sea of human life. Times 
 may change, friends may change, all things 
 change, but the Gibraltar of God — a strong- 
 
82 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 hold and fortress — standeth forever. We 
 plant our feet upon the Rock of God's word. 
 We may tremble at times. But the Rock be- 
 neath is strong as adamant, and immovable 
 as the everlasting hills. 
 
 These are some of the mental and spirit- 
 ual factors in the cure of the morbid 
 moods of persistent fears, and of diseased 
 imagination, and of the chronic worry-habit. 
 Of course, they are merely suggestions of 
 rational persuasion along these lines. Each 
 case is a separate experiment, and the special 
 ways of reasoning, and the mental and spirit- 
 ual stimulus to be suggested, must be dictated 
 by the circumstances involved, but in some- 
 thing of this method of giving a new outlook 
 on life, may come, in many cases, the very 
 help that is needed. 
 
yil. THE GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 
 
 S we have previously said, we 
 must remember that nervous dis- 
 eases are real diseases, just as 
 real as a fever or a broken bone. 
 They are not imaginary; they 
 cannot be laughed away. We must compre- 
 hend the actual conditions. We must 
 sincerely sympathize with the sufferers. But 
 we must also be firm and confident in meet- 
 ing such conditions, for in these new days 
 nervous diseases can be treated effectively and 
 successfully. 
 
 The first and wisest thing in any case of 
 neurasthenia is for the patient to consult a 
 good physician who is a specialist along these 
 lines — and who is sympathetic to new thought 
 and methods, and who is broad enough and 
 wise enough to use psychology when neces- 
 sary ; then to follow his advice as faithfully as 
 possible. 
 
 You know, of course, about the rest-cure, 
 technically so-called, as used by Dr. Weir 
 Mitchell, Dr. Playfair, Dr. Paul DuBois, and 
 
 83 
 
84 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 others, for twenty or thirty years past — the 
 usual features being, first, complete rest in 
 bed for a term of weeks; secondly, complete 
 isolation, without letters or visits, although 
 this has been modified in later years; and 
 thirdly, overfeeding as frequently as possible 
 to give increase of bodily weight. But Dr. 
 DuBois tells us that his experience completely 
 demonstrated that this course of treatment 
 was rarely sufficient in itself. He found that 
 the most effective factor in it all was the 
 moral factor, and therefore, in .all cases he 
 advises constant use of rational psycho- 
 therapy, which he illustrates very definitely 
 and fascinatingly in his record of twenty 
 years' experience as given in his book " The 
 Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders." 
 
 Do we know as much as we ought of that 
 rest-cure which consists in teaching how to 
 meet life by the doctrine of non-resistance? 
 This is worth keeping to the fore in rational 
 psychotherapy. 
 
 First of all, therefore, let us consider the 
 philosophy of the rest-cure, and the new 
 gospel of relaxation. There is much in daily 
 life, especially with nervousness, that can be 
 accomplished by accepting the doctrine of 
 non-resistance a little more fully. It is a 
 
GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 85 
 
 preliminary step for healing many of the ills 
 that flesh is heir to. 
 
 Some of you perchance have read that 
 suggestive book by Annie Payson Call, en- 
 titled, " Power through Repose," and her 
 other book, " The Freedom of Life." These 
 books have many chapters on this doctrine 
 of the passive mood. They preach a veritable 
 gospel of relaxation. Some things in the 
 books may not perchance appeal to all of us, 
 but yet there is plenty of good suggestion 
 and an inspiring spirit. 
 
 Certain people work and quickly become 
 fatigued. What is the trouble ? Not the work, 
 but the way they work. They attack 
 their work with too much nervous tension 
 and strain. They ought not to get fagged 
 out by work, only wholesomely tired. When 
 we get fatigued, we are working with too 
 much tension at the back of the neck. We 
 had better learn the art of the passive mood 
 in work, that we may do the task easily and 
 make even drudgery a pleasure. We had 
 better get a new attitude to our work. 
 
 Many people sleep and get no rest. They 
 have the resistance habit. They are almost 
 as tired in the morning as when they went 
 to rest Perhaps they sleep in a cramped 
 
86 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 position, all doubled up, or with insufficient 
 ventilation, or witjiout relaxing the mind. 
 They work all night in their sleep, if they 
 sleep at all. They had better learn the pas- 
 sive mood. It can cure all this. 
 
 Many people eat regularly, three times a 
 day — ^in an attitude of resistance to life. 
 They do not get the full benefit of their food. 
 They eat too much, or not enough, or too fast, 
 under a strain and tension. They had better 
 relax mind and body, eat slowly and in the 
 attitude of the passive mood. Thqr will find 
 better digestion. 
 
 Some people allow even their amusements 
 to wear them out — ^all strain, tension, excite- 
 ment, emotions rampant, nerves on the 
 stretch. They had better learn the art of re- 
 laxation and make amusements a real recrea- 
 tion. 
 
 There are those who let their sympathies 
 wear them out in resisting the sorrows of suf- 
 fering and calamity. Such sympathy is weak 
 and sentimental. A true, large sympathy is 
 strengthening. They need to get their sym- 
 pathies on a higher plane, where they can 
 relax in the larger vision of the blessing that 
 suffering and calamity may bring. 
 
 A man has some hard problem to solve. 
 
GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 87 
 
 He gets into a highly wrought nervous con- 
 dition over it, and it becomes more and more 
 difficult and no nearer solution. In despair 
 he leaves it ; he relaxes ; he goes about some- 
 thing else. And when after a time he comes 
 back, the problem seems to solve itself. In 
 reality, it is because he has allowed subcon- 
 sciousness to work, and also has come back 
 to it with clearer brain and rested nerves. 
 
 Many mothers wear themselves out resist- 
 ing their children. Their whole idea of train- 
 ing seems to be resistance. They had better 
 learn the art of acceptance and guidance. 
 Aill vehemence is weak; all nagging is 
 wrong. 
 
 Some patients are constantly resisting. The 
 doctor has to say — "Now just relax. Just 
 be passive and let Nature have a chance to 
 do her work. Don't worry about the office. 
 Make up your mind to take a rest while you 
 are here. Don't resist. Accept. And you will 
 get well twice as soon." 
 
 What does all this mean? Does it not 
 indicate that we ought to use and to teach the 
 doctrine of the passive mood a great deal 
 more than we do? We are too much on the 
 strain, on high tension in life. We get into 
 the chronic condition of excited nerves, of 
 
88 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 muscles contracted, taunt, tense, and we for- 
 get how to relax. 
 
 We get so into the habit of persistent re- 
 sistance that we wear ourselves out. The 
 habit of resistance is at the root of worry, 
 hurry, strain and irritability. Continual men- 
 tal resistance gives brain fag; continual phys- 
 ical resistance gives nervous exhaustion. 
 
 Therefore, it is a part of wisdom to learn 
 to relax mind and body. The gospel of re- 
 laxation has a great lesson for daily life, 
 even on the physical side. Notice people on 
 the street. Most of them are sad looking. 
 They are absorbed, intent on themselves 
 or their troubles. Look at people in a street 
 car. Most of them have a drawn look in 
 their features — faces grown hard with the 
 constant habit of resistance against the world, 
 and feeling that the world is against them. 
 Chronic resistance has become fixed habit. 
 It is all wrong. 
 
 All methods of mental healing inculcate 
 the value of passivi^ in their treatment. 
 The first thing is to place the patient in a 
 comfortable position in an easy chair, and to 
 command him : " Relax, now, relax every 
 muscle! Be as passive as you can." This 
 is the necessary condition before help can be 
 
GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 89 
 
 given. It is a complete surrender. It is 
 giving up to a higher wisdom for a time. 
 But relaxation is not an end in itself. It is 
 only a preliminary condition to something 
 better — something positive, stimulating, and 
 inspiring, and that something better is the 
 strengthening and helpful truth persistently 
 affirmed and reaffirmed in right mental sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 Moreover, the doctrine of the passive mood 
 has its wisdom on the moral side, and this 
 will also help in controlling the nerves. As 
 an attitude to life, it is the triumphant way. 
 If we are continually resisting and worrying 
 over circumstances, life is a hard fight. But 
 if we are willing to fail, willing to be poor, 
 willing to suffer if needs be, willing to die 
 when our time comes — as Stevenson says, 
 
 " Glad have I lived and glad will I die, 
 And I lay me down with a will," — 
 
 then we have lost the fear of all these things 
 and can live life comfortably and bravely. 
 If we realize that Ufe's circumstances, what- 
 ever they may be, are not limitations or pun- 
 ishments, but opportunities for a nobler 
 triumph, then will come the power of new 
 conquest in life. 
 
90 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 As a method of meeting antagonists in the 
 ordinary ways of life, the passive mood has 
 its advantages. When a man shows fight, it 
 stirs up fight. Resistance excites counter- 
 resistance. Force arouses all the antagonism. 
 Systematic opposition, even to a child, de- 
 velops all the wrong nature in him. When 
 you meet a blatant fighter, he does not im- 
 press you nearly so much as one who does 
 not fight at all, but just holds the truth 
 strongly and asserts it calmly. 
 
 There is a modem as well as ancient wis- 
 dom in the words — "A soft answer tumeth 
 away wrath; but grievous words stir up 
 anger." When we allow ourselves to lose 
 our temper, we always lose more than we 
 gain. When we cultivate the fighting spirit, 
 we are arousing the passions in us which 
 secrete a poison in our system, and disorder 
 all our inner life. The spirit of calmness; 
 the taking of insult, or even of injustice, with 
 equanimity is an attitude worth cultivating. 
 
 The Japanese art of self-defense called 
 Jiu-jutsu is a most suggestive illustration as 
 Lafcadio Heam explains it. Jiu-jutsu means 
 literally conquering by yielding, and this is 
 really the essential feature of the defense. 
 It looks something like wrestling to our mod- 
 
GOSPEL OF RELAXATION 91 
 
 em eyes, but the fine art of it is the gentle 
 art of non-resistance. The purpose is to en- 
 courage the antagonist to deal his heaviest 
 blows and gracefully escape them. So skill- 
 fully is it learned and practiced that, in his 
 defense, an adept can make one who is un- 
 skillful unloose a joint or break his arm by 
 a mere wrench at a vulnerable point. The 
 stronger the opponent the worse his discom- 
 fiture. It is intelligence and skill against 
 brute force. This is all suggestive. 
 
 In the physical way and for psychical 
 healing, the doctrine of the passive mood is 
 a preliminary to the further work. It is a 
 clearing away of the barriers. It is making 
 the right conditions for a positive work. It 
 is the attitude of receiving. Atid that work, 
 as we said, is largely the instilling into the 
 passive mind and into the subconsciousness 
 of the relaxed muscles, the positive affirma- 
 tions of truth, of purity, of health, of the 
 divine life. 
 
VIII. WORK AS A FACTOR IN 
 HEALTH 
 
 ^^^^^^HESE few suggestions as to the 
 M ^^\ value of relaxation, and especi- 
 ^^ I ally as it is carried out under 
 
 ^^^^^^ careful direction in a rest-cure, 
 lead us to consider a further step 
 in the re-education of the nerves — ^and that 
 is the work-cure. 
 
 It is healthful to work. But it must be 
 reasonable work to be healthful. A most 
 excellent rule for the division of the day is 
 the ancient one, ascribed to Alfred the Great : 
 — " Eight hours for work, eight hours for 
 play, eight hours for sleep." That seems nat- 
 ural and sensible. None of us should do 
 more than eight good hours of hard work 
 and even less, if it is continuous intellectual 
 work. Eight hours of play means the time 
 for meals, recreation and social life. Every 
 life should have some recreation every day. 
 And then eight hours for sleep — genuine 
 sleep or at least the absolute rest in the quiet. 
 Now it is an exceptional individual who cafl 
 do with less than this amount of rest It 
 92 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR 93 
 
 is not wise to cut off any of these hours of 
 rest. It is suicidal to burn the candle at both 
 ends. 
 
 The old but divine command: "Six days 
 for work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
 of the Lord your God," must not be for- 
 gotten. One day in seven is not yours ; it be- 
 longs to God. God would make it for you a 
 day of real refreshment of soul and body — 
 no physical labor; none of the occupations of 
 the week — ^no blanket newspapers, full of sec- 
 ular matter; but a new day — a day of op- 
 portunity, a day of new vision; a time of 
 worship with God in the sanctuary; a new 
 glimpse into God's Word ; a walk in the fields 
 with God; a visit of kindness or sympathy to 
 some of God's children ; a day of divine rest 
 and recreation and love. 
 
 Many people are spoiling their lives by 
 making all seven days alike. They break the 
 divine law. Some devote sijf days to selfish 
 competition and the seventh day brings no 
 vision — how can such people see life as it 
 ought to be, or do their work with any heart ? 
 Six days devoted to hard and reasonable work 
 and the seventh day devoted to the things of 
 the higher life — will make work a blessing 
 and a health in the life. 
 
94 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Now work is not merely a necessary factor 
 in every day's good health — a part of the nat- 
 ural law for the preservation of health^ 
 but work may also become a means of restora- 
 tion to health. 
 
 The value of enjoyment on the physical 
 side gained by self-forgetful work is well 
 brought out by Forel, in his " Hygiene of 
 Nerves and Mind." He says : " We must 
 banish pleasure-seeking (but not pleasure it- 
 self) from our lives. Every pleasure culti- 
 vated for its own sake leads to ennui and 
 disgust and injures the nervous health. 
 Every healthy enjoyment must be earned by 
 an harmonious mode of life. It is a pleasure 
 to sleep, even on a hard bench, if you are 
 tired; or to eat crude dishes, if you are 
 hungry. To drink pure water is a healthy 
 enjoyment, if you have a natural thirst, and 
 it does not injure one like the satisfaction 
 of the artificial thirst for alcohol that results 
 in poisoning. Mental work is a healthy pleas- 
 ure, if the need for muscular exercise and 
 activity beside it is also satisfied. Muscu- 
 lar work is a pleasure when alternated with 
 activity of thought and feeling, but not 
 when carried on purely mechanically and 
 automatically without any active attention; 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR 95 
 
 for then it does not replace either abstract 
 thought or emotional excitement, which can 
 both be present to lead us astray in spite of 
 such work." 
 
 There may be a very interesting compari- 
 son instituted between Omar Khayyam and 
 Ecclesiastes. Both emphasize this present 
 life ; both seem rather pessimistic ; both say — 
 " do your best to enjoy life." But how dif- 
 ferent are the ways that they suggest. 
 
 Omar's ideal of enjoyment is: 
 
 " A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and 
 
 Thou 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 O Wilderness were Paradise enow ! " 
 
 It is careless, easy, lazy ideal. The useless 
 life expressed in the Italian — " dolce far 
 niente " — ^the sweet pleasure of doing nothing. 
 
 But in Ecclesiastes the ideal of enjoyment 
 is this, thrice repeated and emphasized as 
 the ke)mote of the book: " I know that there 
 is no good but for a man to rejoice, and 
 to do good in his life . . . and to enjoy the 
 good of all his labor, it is the gift of God." 
 
 Again: "There is nothing better for a 
 
96 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 man than that ... he should maJse his soul 
 enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw that 
 it was from the hand of God," 
 
 And still again : " Wherefore I perceive 
 that there is nothing better than that a man 
 should rejoice in his own works; for that is 
 his portion." That is, it is the life of use- 
 fulness that is the best life and the happiest. 
 
 In a word, this is the difference between 
 Omar Khayyam and Ecclesiastes. Omar's 
 chief figure is an idler, a loafer, a dilettante. 
 But Ecclesiastes' is a worker, rejoicing in his 
 work, loving his work and enjoying it, full 
 of practical thrift and wholesome service. 
 
 However the present popularity of Omar 
 Khayyam is a sign of reaction against absorp- 
 tion in theological subtleties and speculations. 
 It is real appreciation of this life. Its attrac- 
 tive theme is — " Let's make the most out of 
 this life." 
 
 But this is also the equally attractive theme 
 of Ecclesiastes, treated in a much wiser way. 
 Ecclesiastes is a much greater book. It is 
 not morbid, but wholesome, when looked at 
 rightly. It is not melancholy, but inspiring. 
 It is an exposition of the best that was then 
 known. Its chief theme is. Do not worry 
 about the future, but work in the present 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR 97 
 
 with all your strength, and it will be your 
 joy! 
 
 It is not work that kills, not even hard 
 work. We may work hard every day until 
 we are physically tired, but if we have good 
 food and sufficient sleep, we may be able to 
 stand it for a long stretch. But put iiard 
 work and worry together and there the mis- 
 chief is done. It is not hard work, but worry 
 that kills. We have instances of this every 
 day. 
 
 "This world," as one says truly, "was 
 given us to work in and to play in. It is 
 a pretty place ; but thousands of people under 
 existing conditions seem to make a nightmare 
 out of ordinary work and living. . . . 
 Under the stress of modern competition one- 
 half of mankind overpowers the other half 
 and then has them to take care of as in- 
 valids. Women compete with men under the 
 laws made for men, although women are 
 rated half as strong physically as men." All 
 these things make hard working conditions. 
 
 It is most pitiable to see many people, who 
 know better, wearing themselves out even 
 in social settlements and philanthropic work 
 because they will not stop a minute. Some 
 excellent school teachers are on the strain 
 
98 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 from one week's end to another and at the 
 end of the term are nervous and physical 
 wrecks. One splendid teacher, however, told 
 me once when I asked her how she kept in 
 such exceptional and prime physical condition, 
 " I take a little vacation every day and I 
 do not worry." She was a fine worker, a 
 hard worker, but she did not worry. 
 
 Oh for the gift of knowing when to stop 
 work! Work does become fascinating and 
 absorbing. We think we must do it; or we 
 have the passion for finishing it. We say, 
 " just an hour or two more and it is finished." 
 We work even when the warning has been 
 given, and we know we should not continue. 
 
 This I contend. We know when we ought 
 to stop. The instinct, God-given, is within. 
 Often it has been emphasized in our lives by 
 bitter and costly experience. If we are sen- 
 sible, we will obey the inherent laws of God, 
 live in a cheery wholesome mental atmosphere 
 and use our common sense and we can do 
 good work and full work. 
 
 For many people, work is salvation — the 
 occupation-cure is the very thing that is 
 needed. Some people are afflicted with 
 worry, nervous fears, abnormal restlessness 
 or melancholia; and then,, oftentimes, th^ 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR 99 
 
 very best thing is to get them to do some- 
 thing; to get them interested in work, thus 
 taking their thoughts as far as possible from 
 themselves and their condition. Many sani- 
 tariums use these methods very effectively. 
 
 It is thoroughly proved by many experi- 
 ences. Physical exercises requiring fixed at- 
 tention often exert a most beneficial influence 
 on certain classes of nervous sufferers. Such 
 pleasant work as cataloging, clay-modeling, 
 gymnastic exercises are frequently of the 
 greatest value. 
 
 Most of us know that it is a great deal 
 more tiresome to have nothing to do than to 
 be full of work. The happiest people in this 
 world are not the idlers; they are those who 
 are busy all the time, those who work and 
 work hard. If work was ever a curse, now 
 it is a blessing. It is only when it becomes 
 overwork that it is a curse. 
 
 Do you remember that paragraph in 
 Lecky's " Map of Life ? " He is quoting 
 from a famous physician, Dr. Mortimer 
 Granville : " The best way to live well, is to 
 work well. Good work is the daily test and 
 safeguard of personal health. . . . The prac- 
 tical aim should be to live an orderly and 
 natural life. We were not intended to pick 
 
100 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 our way through the world, trembling at 
 every step. ... It is worse than vain, for it 
 encourages and increases the evil it attempts 
 to relieve. ... I firmly believe," he con- 
 tinues, "that one-half of the confirmed in- 
 valids of the day could be cured of their 
 maladies if they were compelled to live busy 
 and active lives and had no time to fret over 
 their miseries. . . . One of the most seduc- 
 tive and mischievous of errors in self-man- 
 agement is the practice of giving way to in- 
 ertia, weakness and depression. . . . Those 
 who desire to live should settle this well in 
 their minds, that nerve power is the force of 
 life and that the will has a wondrously 
 strong and direct influence over the body and 
 nervous system." 
 
 But another helpful thought we would em- 
 phasize — not only is work a part of the divine 
 law of our being for possessing health; 
 not only is work often the best means for the 
 restoration of health — ^but this thought: We 
 ought to have as a constant mental back- 
 ground and spiritual stimulus the conviction 
 that God has given us work to become the 
 greatest joy of our lives. 
 
 We must realize that when we work, we 
 are working with Him. We must rejoice in 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR loi 
 
 our work, because in doing it, we are in 
 fellowship with the divine creative power. 
 Here we come to the most inspirational and 
 tonic part of the philosophy of work. We 
 need this spiritual stimulus. We are to re- 
 joice in our work, for it is a blessing to 
 humanity. The world needs all kinds of 
 workers. Hand workers are just as much 
 needed as brain workers. The farmer in the 
 field is just as much needed as the statesman 
 in the cabinet. 
 
 Go into a carpenter's shop. The song of 
 the plane takes one back to the carpenter 
 shop at Nazareth. Go into a great machine 
 shop and see them working in the solid iron 
 and steel, and see the great machines run- 
 ning so majestically, unerringly, inevitably in 
 their work. Such a visit puts tonic into our 
 blood. What an interesting place is one of 
 our great merchant stores! A great hive 
 of industry, where each has his special 
 field! 
 
 Stand in a colossal city like New York, 
 and wonder how such an immense city with 
 its millions would ever find its food — a mil- 
 lion loaves of bread every day, rivers of 
 milk, a hundred head of cattle every day. 
 But the problem is solved by that unique 
 
I02 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 law of supply and demand, and the busy 
 activities of thousands and tens of thousands 
 of workers, each doing his useful part. 
 
 The whole world is as busy as a bee. 
 Upon this incessant toil of the multitudes 
 depends the life and happiness of existence. 
 Each one fits somewhere, each one has his 
 niche in the order of existence, each one 
 must bring his contribution toward the gen- 
 eral welfare. Whatever our work may be, 
 by brain or hand, humble or conspicuous, at 
 home or in public, whatever it is, if it be 
 honest work, it is a blessing to humanity, 
 and if we do it faithfully, we are benefactors 
 of the race. 
 
 Blessed is that man who sees deeply into 
 his work. There is no work but what is 
 pleasurable, and intensely interesting, if the 
 worker takes the trouble to get below the 
 surface of his task. The strength and 
 variety of materials, the miracle of natural 
 action, the marvel of mechanics, the dexter- 
 ity or ingenuity of hand or mind, the pos- 
 sibilities of improvement, the satisfaction of 
 achievement — ^these are all full of an ever- 
 growing interest and surprise, to one who 
 sees deeply. If our work is commonplace or 
 tedious in our chosen field or profession, de- 
 
WORK AS A FACTOR 103 
 
 pend upon it, it is because we ourselves are 
 growing commonplace or tedious. 
 
 No honest work ought to be beneath us. 
 No useful or beautiful thing is unworthy of 
 our best efforts in the making. There is 
 nothing in Nature, however trifling or 
 obscure, but the divine wisdom and strength 
 wrought in its making. God's work is not 
 merely religious work. We have strange 
 notions, and limit God's work most curiously. 
 God's work is also material work — physical 
 and artistic. Everything that man has done, 
 God has done before him. Every invention 
 of man, God had previously invented in His 
 brain. So all good work is work with God. 
 Deuteronomy says expressly — " Say not in 
 thine heart, my power and the might of my 
 hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou 
 shalt remember the Lord, thy God; for it is 
 He that giveth thee power to get wealth." 
 It is also said expressly that all artificers of 
 the temple worked under the inspiration of 
 the Almighty. 
 
 The inspiration of the Almighty! What is 
 the ultimate purpose of this man's making 
 shoes, and that one selling grain, and that 
 one doing farming, and the other weaving 
 shawls? Is it to the end of physical wealth 
 
I04 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 or comfort ? Mark you I The purpose of all 
 work is that we may enter into true life, and 
 feel sympathy with the divine purpose. In 
 a word, it is to enter into closer fellowship 
 with the divine. Work ought not to be a 
 mere bread and butter strife, not a mere pot- 
 boiling business. It is a divine fellowship in 
 the art of a divine creation. AH work 
 and all labor are hints of God's continual 
 work. Every work is, to a greater or less ex- 
 tent, a similitude of the work of creation. It 
 is a transformation by will power and in- 
 telligence of forces and materials. This is 
 the mental attitude that can make work a 
 joy, a strength and an inspiring factor of 
 health. We must learn to see the divine 
 quality of work. Such a view of work as 
 this, if we can bring it home to those who 
 most need it, will be a real help in making 
 work interesting, and will be profitable in 
 the re-education of the nerves. 
 
IX. THE INSPIRATION OF THE 
 MENTAL OUTLOOK 
 
 ^, ^ ^^E come more definitely to the 
 ^ ■ ^^ mind-cure in this same process 
 V I ■ of restoration of the nerves to 
 ^lA^^ equilibrium. And the first ques- 
 tion which confronts us is, Can 
 the nerves be helped by a larger and truer 
 mental outlook? 
 
 For the slighter degrees of nervous exhaus- 
 tion, and especially for the preservation of 
 our nervous system in good health, some of 
 the following mental and spiritual sugges- 
 tions may prove helpful to many. They are 
 founded on sound psychology and physiology, 
 although they may seem simplicity itself. 
 
 I. We do not begin to value at its full 
 worth such a mental factor as cheerfulness, 
 both in the maintenance of health and the 
 cure of the slighter forms of nerve disorders. 
 
 Here is the testimony of a physician : " In 
 the maintenance of health and the • cure of 
 disease, cheerfulness is a most important fac- 
 tor. Its power to do good like a medicine 
 105 
 
io6 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 is not an artificial stimulation of the tissues 
 to be followed by reaction and greater waste, 
 as is the case with many drugs ; but the effect 
 of cheerfulness is an actual life-giving in- 
 fluence through a normal channel, the results 
 of which reach every part of the system. It 
 brightens the eye, makes ruddy the counte- 
 nance, brings elasticity to the step, and pro- 
 motes all the inner force by which life is 
 sustained. The blood circulates more freely, 
 the oxygen comes to its home in the tissues, 
 health is promoted and disease is banished." * 
 Nor is it all merely therapeutic. Cheerful- 
 ness has its practical everyday value in the 
 business world. "A sunny, cheerful, gra- 
 cious soul," as one says, " is like an ocean 
 breeze in sultry August, like the coming of 
 a vacation. We welcome it because it gives 
 us at least temporary relief from the 
 strenuous strain of life. Country store-keep- 
 ers look forward for months to the visits of 
 jolly, breezy traveling men, and their whole- 
 sale houses profit by their good-nature. 
 Cheerful-faced and pleasant-voiced clerks 
 can sell more goods and attract more cus- 
 tomers than disagreeable ones. Promoters, 
 organizers of great enterprises, must make a, 
 
 *Dr. A. J. Sanderson. 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 107 
 
 business of being agreeable, of harmonizing 
 hostile interests, of winning men's good opin- 
 ion. Newspaper men, likewise, depend on 
 making friends to gain entree, to get inter- 
 views, to discover facts, and to find news. 
 All doors fly open to the sunny man, and ha 
 is invited to enter, when the disagreeable, 
 sarcastic, gloomy man has to break open the 
 door to force his way in. Many a business 
 success is founded on courtesy, cheerfulness 
 and good humor." * 
 
 2. Besides cheerfulness, there is real 
 worth in the cultivation of courage. Cour- 
 age is a mental condition that can be culti- 
 vated and it is of distinct therapeutic value. 
 
 So Dr. Harden, editor of the " Success " 
 Magazine writes : " If young people only 
 knew the power of affirmation, of the habit 
 of holding in the mind persistently and af- 
 firming that they are what they wish to be, 
 that they can do what they attempt, it would 
 revolutionize their whole lives, it would 
 exempt them from most of their ills and 
 troubles, and carry them to heights of which 
 they scarcely dream," 
 
 3. A serene and sunshiny life is food and 
 tonic for the nerves. It is no small or un- 
 
 * Dr. Harden in Every Man a King. 
 
io8 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 important task to cultivate sunshine in the 
 life. A sunny serene outlook makes Jjetter 
 work. 
 
 Recall the mental balance and equipoise of 
 spirit in the great poets, such as Shake- 
 speare, Tennyson and Browning. They are 
 serene and optimistic, because of their large 
 vision. Undoubtedly it is true, as one says: 
 " The work turned out by a calm balanced 
 mind is healthy and strong. There is a vigor 
 and naturalness about it that is not found in 
 the work done by a one-sided man, a mind 
 out of balance. Serenity neVer dwells with 
 discontent, with anxiety, with over-ambition. 
 It never lives with the guilty, but dwells only 
 with a clear conscience; it is never found 
 apart from honesty and square dealing, or 
 with the idle or vicious." 
 
 4. Good sleep is food and strength to the 
 nerves and a serene and sunny mental out- 
 look gives better sleep. One physician says: 
 " I know a few people who have learned the 
 supreme art of preparing for a sweet, peace- 
 ful, restful, refreshing sleep by reversing the 
 brain processes which have perplexed them 
 and bothered them during the day. They 
 have learned the secret of shutting out all 
 their troubles, trials and perplexities, of lock- 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 109 
 
 ing them in the store or office or factory 
 when they turn thd key at night. They never 
 drag their business troubles home. They 
 consider themselves at play from the moment 
 they leave work until they get back again. 
 Nothing can induce them to be bothered or 
 bored with anything relating to business. 
 They have learned the secret and power of 
 harmonious thought, the happy thought, the 
 optimistic thought. They prepare their 
 minds for a serene, harmonious night's sleep 
 by summoning thoughts of joy, youth, peace, 
 and love, to be their mind's guests for the 
 night, and will entertain no others. They 
 will not allow the old worry-thought and 
 anxious thought to drag their hideous 
 images through the brain to spoil their rest 
 and leave ugly autographs in the face. The 
 result is that they get up in the morning re- 
 freshed, rejuvenated, with all the spontaneity 
 of their youth." 
 
 5. A hospitable mental outlook helps the 
 nerves to get out of ruts and makes your life 
 longer. Do we realize that in this phi- 
 losophy of life and in this cultivation of an 
 alert mental atmosphere is something of the 
 power of the very fountain of youth ? When 
 Solon, the Athenian sage, was asked the 
 
110 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 secret of his strength and youth, he replied 
 that it was " learning something new every 
 day." This belief was general among the 
 ancient Greeks — that the secret of eternal 
 youth was " to be always learning something 
 new." There is a basis of truth in the idea. 
 Says a well known physician : " It is healthful 
 activity that strengthens and preserves the 
 mind as well as the body, and gives it youth- 
 ful quickness and activity. So, if you would 
 be young, in spite of the years, you must re- 
 main receptive to new thought, and must 
 grow broader in spirit, wider in sympathy 
 and more and more open to fresh revelations 
 of truth as you travel further on the road of 
 life." 
 
 6. It is worth while to cultivate calm- 
 ness and serenity as a fine art. " It is 
 a great aid to the preservation of youth 
 and vigor," says Prentice Mulford, " to 
 be able to sit still and keep still in mind as 
 well as in body when there is really nothing 
 to do, because in such condition, mind and 
 body are recuperating and filling up with new 
 force. Do you realize that the body is not 
 fed with material food -alone? There are 
 other elements, often unrecognized, which 
 act upon it and give it strength, and the 
 grand source and means of receiving these 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK iii 
 
 lie partly in that mental and physical quietude 
 of mind which acts only when it has full 
 power to act. If wisdom guides action, either 
 by brain or hand, a great deal more is accom- 
 plished and a balance of life's forces is kept 
 in reserve." Do you remember what the 
 genial doctor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said' 
 was the secret of his marvelous youthfulness 
 in his eightieth year ? " It is due chiefly to 
 a cheerful disposition and invariable content- 
 ment in every period of my life, with what 
 I was. I never felt the pangs of ambition, 
 discontent, and disquietude that makes us 
 grow old prematurely by carving wrinkles 
 on our faces. Wrinkles do not appear on 
 faces that have constantly smiled. Smiling 
 is the best possible massage. Contentment 
 is the fountain of youth." 
 
 This trained mental outlook, therefore, 
 is a part of the suggestion for the re-educa- 
 tion of the nerves. In serious cases, seek a 
 wise physician who uses both physical and 
 psychic treatment. In milder cases, try for 
 yourself the deliberate cultivation of cheer- 
 fulness, courage, and the great affirmations 
 of confidence and optimism. These things 
 will have their reaction on body — on sleep, on 
 nerves, and on length of years. 
 
 Forel gives two excellent suggestions for 
 
112 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 mental hygiene equally applicable to a patient 
 passing through any nervous disorder, or to 
 anyone desiring to keep good nervous poise. 
 He says : " Then -let the steady compass of 
 our unswerving optimism be: Ever forward 
 to a large-hearted ideal ; never look back ! " 
 His second suggestion is " to pay as little at- 
 tention as possible to functional nervous 
 troubles and disturbances so as not to culti- 
 vate them by habit." 
 
 7. Nor must we neglect this great fact. 
 The therapeutic value of love cannot be over- 
 estimated. As one says : " Evil thought and 
 hateful feeling is banished by it from the 
 mind. It tranquillizes, calms, and yet ener- 
 gizes the entire nature. It kindles the en- 
 thusiasm of all healthy affection and emo- 
 tions. It gives a secret power that brings 
 back and helps to maintain abounding health 
 and unalloyed happiness. Every nerve, every 
 muscle, every organ, feels its life-giving in- 
 fluence. The God of love fills His earthly 
 temple with His hallowed presence as surely 
 as He will fill the temple of humanity 
 with His glory when love shall reign 
 supreme." 
 
 Attention may be called to the fact that Rus- 
 kin dwells upon love as " the source of unity 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 113 
 
 in Art, and as intimately connected with vital 
 beauty. Through it the loveliest things are 
 wrought. The ideal form can be reached by 
 it alone." Leo Tblstoi strikes a fundamental 
 note when he says : " One may deal with 
 things without love, one may cut down trees, 
 make bricks, and hammer iron without love, 
 but you cannot deal with men without 
 love." 
 
 Bishop Fallows notes that " Thomas a 
 Kempis derived all good from love, and all 
 evil from the opposite. He declares in his 
 Pauline eulogy on love, ' It gives all for all, 
 possesses all in all, because it reposes in the 
 One Supreme Good, from which every good 
 originates and flows.' Love is not opposed to 
 knowledge; it is blended with it, even as it 
 is united with faith. Reason and love ought 
 never to come into conflict, for it would be like 
 a house divided against itself. Let love be 
 guided by reason and penetrated with knowl- 
 edge, then will come the reconciliation of all 
 the contradictions of life, and the harmony 
 of mankind." 
 
 There is the remarkable case of Helen Kel- 
 ler, bound by physical limitations that seemed 
 at first utterly hopeless, shut in to a world 
 where no light nor sound ever penetrates, 
 
114 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 who has yet made such a magnificent triumph 
 of her life that her words about joy, whose 
 handmaid is cheerfulness, carry peculiar 
 conviction. "Join the great company," she 
 says, " of those who make the barren places 
 of life fruitful with kindness. Carry a vision 
 of heaven in your souls, and you shall make 
 your home, your college, the world, correspond 
 to that vision. Your success and happiness 
 lie in you. External conditions are the ac- 
 cidents of life, its outer trappings. The 
 great enduring realities are love and serv- 
 ice. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our pur- 
 pose warm and our intelligence aglow. Re- 
 solve to keep happy, and your joy and you 
 shall form an invincible host against difficul- 
 ties." 
 
 Now in all this, mental factors count 
 for a great deal. But a more important fac- 
 tor than the merely mental is needed. The 
 situation demands the fullest help, the divine 
 and infinite background of the spiritual fel- 
 lowship and power. Our chief work, if we 
 are able, is to create a spiritual atmosphere. 
 For this will have emphatic reaction on the 
 physical. 
 
 I. We may remember that there is a dis- 
 tinct therapeutic value in a simple faith in 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 115 
 
 God. Perfect confidence in God, the rest of 
 faith, the peace that passeth understanding, 
 are the old phrases, which are coming to have 
 a fuller meaning in these days. 
 
 Do you remember the word that kept the 
 great Gladstone serene in the midst of his 
 wearing life and heavy responsibilities? 
 When the great burdens of his office as prime 
 minister of England were heaviest upon him, 
 and someone spoke to him, wondering how 
 he could stand the terrific strain, he told the 
 secret when he said that at the foot of his 
 bed where he could see it when he retired, 
 and when he rose up in the morning, were the 
 words, " Thoii wilt keep him in perfect peace 
 whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he 
 trusteth in Thee." Many people ought to 
 have that verse in letters of gold where they 
 could see it night and morning. It would 
 put a new spirit into their lives. 
 
 As Phillips Brooks says: "Quiet has 
 come in place of the noise; repose instead of 
 action. . . . Some day the headlong current 
 of your life was stopped. The river ceased 
 to flow. The waves stood still, and then the 
 ocean, which the flowing of the river had 
 kept out, poured up and in, and there were 
 sacreder emotions in the old channels, and 
 
Ii6 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 deeper hopes and fears were beaten upon the 
 well-worn banks. The day when your deep 
 bereavement came, , . . the day when joy, 
 with that subtle possibility of deep pain which 
 is always in her eyes, came to your door and 
 knocked, . . . the day when, being weak and 
 ill, you did not go to your business, . . . 
 these were the days when God was feeding 
 you. . . . No life is complete which does not 
 sometimes sit trustfully waiting to be fed of 
 God." 
 
 Let me quote a letter recently received 
 which gives a fine illustration of this process 
 of mental and spiritual education. 
 
 It reads in part : " There came a time, after 
 three serious illnesses, when family sorrow 
 and responsibilities completely overtaxed me 
 physically and mentally. I not only felt un- 
 able to go on living, but I really think my 
 wise physician felt that I might not live if 
 something were not done. It was then I 
 began to seek, by God's aid, for that diviner 
 self, which I had lost, the true and eternal 
 ' I,' which not only could lay hold of truth, 
 but which could detach itself utterly from the 
 sad, weary and over-burdened individual who 
 could not see her way to go on living. 
 Gradually, after many failures, my conscious- 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 117 
 
 ness of this diviner self grew stronger, recol- 
 lections of old symptoms of illness became ef- 
 faced from my brain and nerves, daily cares 
 and trials ceased to aiTect me; my mind felt 
 free and eager for the first time in a year to 
 seek new truth and enjoy new beauty. And 
 strangest of all, my strength, digestion and 
 sleep are returning steadily. Of course I 
 give full credit to the doctor who cured me 
 of serious illnesses, but it was he also who 
 urged me to a total change of thought to 
 complete the cure." 
 
 2. Do you know that ancient but effective 
 method, called " the practice of the presence 
 of God ? " It also has therapeutic value and 
 is a distinct nerve tonic, as well as a life 
 tonic. 
 
 This fine phrase of Jeremy Taylor's that 
 haunts the soul with a continual surprise and 
 delight is the heart of his book on " Holy 
 Living." The book itself is an astonishment. 
 It is so opulent in its learning, so brilliant in 
 its phrasing, so spiritual in its feeling, and 
 so absolutely practical in its definite counsel- 
 ings. It is wise in worldly wisdom, it has 
 a flavor of colleges and king's courts and 
 yet there is heavenly light on every page, and 
 the pervading benediction of a splendid relig- 
 
ii8 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 lous sanity. Jeremy Taylor is rightly called 
 the Shakespeare of divines and the Chrysos- 
 tom of the English Church, and his book is, 
 "a part of that larger Bible which is the 
 record of the deepest experiences of the most 
 spiritual, and, therefore, the most Christian, 
 souls of all the ages." 
 
 Says the good bishop : " We may imagine 
 God to be in the air and the sea, and we all 
 enclosed in His circle, wrapt up in the lap of 
 this infinite nature. We can no more be re- 
 moved from the presence of God than from 
 our own being." 
 
 This is the general proposition which is but 
 a phrasing of the great 139th Psalm. 
 "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit or 
 whither shall I flee from Thy Presence ? " 
 Or of Paul to the Athenians : " In Him we 
 live and move and have our being." 
 
 All of us readily admit the theory of the 
 presence of God, It is all true, we say, and 
 the next moment we forget it, and act as if 
 God were far off in the infinitudes. How can 
 we make theory into practice, how can we 
 have God's presence so vivid and real to us 
 as shall make it a perpetual and transform- 
 ing power? 
 
 This realization of God is our own per- 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 119 
 
 sonal problem. It is the key to the art of 
 living well, and being well. As one has rightly 
 said, " He who realizes God will use his time 
 aright, will have purity of motive, will be 
 clean in thought and act, and will make his 
 body and mind fit to be the sanctuary of the 
 divine. . . . He who realizes God will be 
 afraid of nothing on the earth except failing 
 to do His will and of nothing beyond the 
 earth except the hiding of His face." 
 
 We remember God at times and all of us 
 realize in some measure the presence of God, 
 but only at rare times and moments. How 
 can we continually remember and realize 
 God so that we shall always rejoice in Him 
 and that He shall be continually our life and 
 health? 
 
 If it is possible, are there any rules to com- 
 pass it? Or can it be accomplished only by 
 a great, overmastering love for God? 
 Jeremy Taylor believed in rules as well as in 
 love, and he gives us ten definite rules for 
 accomplishing it in the book that we have 
 mentioned. 
 
 Shall we venture to remind ourselves of 
 these rules in the briefest way. 
 
 I. His first rule: Let this actual thought 
 often return: God is omnipotent, filling 
 
120 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 every place. " God is here." The frequent 
 repetition of this thought will help to bring 
 to the soul the sense of God's presence. We 
 want the spiritual consciousness saturated 
 with the divine reality. 
 
 2. Second rule: Solemnly worship God, 
 place thyself in God's presence, behold Him 
 with the eye of faith, let thy desires actually 
 fix on Him. It is not only, " Thou God, 
 seest me," but also " O God ! I see Thee ! " 
 
 3. Third rule : Let everything you see rep- 
 resent to you God's presence. ... In the 
 face of the sun you may see God's beauty; 
 in the fire you may feel His heart warming; 
 in the water. His gentleness to refresh you; 
 it is the dew of heaven that makes your field 
 give you bread and ministers drink to your 
 necessities. This is antique imagery, but 
 singularly suggestive. It is the spirit of the 
 higher pantheism to which Saint Francis of 
 Assisi gives utterance in his childlike yet 
 majestic " Hymn of the Creatures." 
 
 4. Fourth rule: Make frequent sit©¥t"dis- 
 coursings between God and thy own soul. 
 This will make Him present to thy spirit and 
 to thy necessity. This was long since called 
 by a spiritual person " A building to God a 
 chapel in our breast." For thus in the midst 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 121 
 
 of your work, you may retire into your 
 chapel — your heart — and converse with God. 
 
 5. Fifth rule : " Express thyself con- 
 stantly, sensible of God by a spirit of love 
 and reverence toward Him." God is present 
 by His power. He calls for reverence; He is 
 present to Thee in Thy needs and relieves 
 them; He deseryes Thy love. 
 
 6. Sixth rule : " Remember God is in us, 
 we are in Him." We are in His actual pres- 
 ence by His indwelling within us, and by 
 our partaking of His divine nature. Let this 
 thought make Him real to us. It is the 
 spirit of Novalis, " Whoso toucheth my flesh, 
 toucheth God." 
 
 7. Seventh rule : " God is in thy brother. 
 Refresh Him when he needs it." Thou giv- 
 est to thy brother, thou givest to God, for He 
 is thy brother. This is the ancient word of 
 Christ and this the modern parable of Sir 
 Launfal. 
 
 8. Eighth rule: "Everywhere let your 
 deportment be as if in a holy place," or on 
 holy ground, for God is there. God is in 
 this place though I may know it not . . . 
 this is a gate of heaven. 
 
 9. Ninth rule: "Remember that God is 
 in every creature. Be cruel toward none." 
 
122 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 Be kind toward all, for it is God who is in 
 all by His presence. Almost there seems here 
 the exquisite sense of sanctity of the Bud- 
 dhists, and the closing lesson of the rhyme 
 of the Ancient Mariner. 
 
 10. Tenth rule: "Companion thyself 
 with God. . . . Converse with Him, run 
 to Him in all thy necessities; ask counsel 
 of Him in all thy doubtings; weep before 
 Him for thy sins; fear Him as a judge, rev- 
 erence Him as a lord, obey Him as a father, 
 love Him . . . as the espoused loves his 
 betrothed." 
 
 These are the Ten Rules for the practice 
 of the presence of God, and the rules are 
 supplemented by a number of excellent 
 prayers to be used in furtherance of the prac- 
 tice. 
 
 Notice in all these rules that the way of 
 realization is not when we minimize self; 
 not in the ascetic sense of effacing person- 
 ality and nullifying will, but in the sense of 
 finding the larger life, by forgetting self 
 and remembering God. 
 
 Tolstoi is correct, as Dr. MacDonald re- 
 marks, when he said the cause of all our ills 
 is that men have lost their sense of God. 
 That is why we rush at our brother's throat ; 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 123 
 
 that is why we struggle and compete, and 
 claw and cheat, and lose our life more and 
 more with every futile attempt to save it. 
 Yes, and that is the cause of our sorrows, 
 our sicknesses and our despair. We have re- 
 fused to believe that God is with us and 
 that we are spirits as infinite as is He; 
 and that because spirit with spirit can meet, 
 the very joy of heaven is at our door wait- 
 ing to be brought up into our consciousness 
 and made the working principle of existence. 
 
 Such great truths — when we meditate upon 
 them often, repeat them over and over 
 again until we live with them and they be- 
 come a part of us — cannot fail to bring a 
 more joyous and confident mind and spirit, 
 and react most helpfully and hopefully on 
 the whole life — spiritually, mentally, even 
 physically. 
 
 Such things we must emphasize. 
 
 We need to make it our habit to realize 
 the presence of God, of the omnipresence of 
 His goodness. His wisdom. His love and His 
 power with us. We need to keep constantly 
 before us in all our daily life, the remem- 
 brance that it is in God that we live and 
 move and have our being. We need to speak 
 frequently to all the troubles, disturbances 
 
124 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 and worries of life, " In the name of Christ, 
 peace, be still!" 
 
 Then from words we can go to facts. 
 For it is actual fact that God is within us; 
 we can be one with Him. We can possess 
 the divine presence; it possesses us. We can 
 come into fuller and fuller realization that 
 the transcendent God is also an immanent 
 God in the depths of the life. We can learn 
 in prayer and communion to withdraw from 
 the consciousness of the morbid and pain- 
 ful, at least for some quiet hours in the 
 midst of the day — ^withdraw into the con- 
 sciousness of the divine and eternal. Just 
 as one can forget pain in a great joy, or for- 
 get time and place in an absorbing story, or 
 forget all as the eyes close and sleep comes 
 — so can we sink into God in restfulness 
 and peace, and awake to new strength and 
 health. 
 
 Is this mysticism? It is also practicality. 
 It is not a life of mere passivity and ac- 
 quiescence, but of positiveness and action. 
 It means incitement toward strongest person- 
 ality. It is letting God work through you 
 to the fullest. It is asserting independence 
 in spiritual things under the leadership of 
 the Spirit. It is standing on one's feet with 
 
INSPIRATION OF OUTLOOK 125 
 
 God and emphasizing the reality and suprem- 
 acy of the spiritual m life. It is facing 
 all the circumstances of life with the cry, 
 " I conquer in Christ. I can do all things 
 through Him." It is being grateful for the 
 stimulus of hardness and attack. It is meet- 
 ing trials, troubles, suffering and sadness — 
 and searching their very depths until the 
 heart of blessing in them is found. It is 
 living in the turmoils and struggles and bat- 
 tles of life with the deep hidden serenity of 
 God at the heart, like the calm in the deep 
 ocean caves though the upper suf^face bei 
 storm. It is making the very best of life. 
 The conditions of life may be hard, hostile 
 and harassing. But what of it? We can 
 never reach our ideal conditions. We must 
 realize that where we are and in our present 
 conditions, life's discipline must be endured 
 and conquered and life's divinest lessons 
 learned. 
 
 Such things as these we must emphasize. 
 God is near us now and here, as if we were 
 with Him in Heaven. 
 
 The Almighty is right here — in us — 
 abounding, infinite in His wisdom and love 
 and power for us. The power of the Al- 
 mighty is for us and for our using. Just 
 
126 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 as much as we can use worthily and we!!, 
 not for ecstasy, not for display, but for spir- 
 itual service — so much is God eager and 
 willing to give us. It is ours if we will 
 be filled with all the fullness of God. 
 
 We must emphasize above all, what is the 
 vital center of life. Shall we dwell in the 
 trivialities of self, of fears and doubts and 
 weakness, and frailties and sickness, of 
 things that are accidental, temporary, that 
 perish with the using — shall we make these 
 the all-important things of life? Or shall 
 we dwell on the eternal things — of truth, of 
 character, of God and His love, and His 
 promises, and holiness and health? Once 
 it was thought that this earth was the center 
 of the universe and all things else revolved 
 around it. The universe was geo-centric. 
 That was Ptolamaic astronomy. But we have 
 learned better since Copernicus, and it is 
 seen that some distant sun is the center and all 
 revolves around it. The universe, as we know 
 it, is helio-centric. 
 
 Perchance we have been making our own 
 little selves too much the center of our 
 thought, care, interest, religion. We have 
 lost power and peace. God calls us to let 
 our lives be not self-centered. He wants 
 
INSPIRATION OP OUTLOOK 127 
 
 our thought, love, interests, hopes, all to 
 revolve around the Son of God. In Him is 
 holiness and health. 
 
 Do we understand, and are we helping 
 others to understand, what it means to live in 
 an atmosphere of large inspiration? It 
 comes by dwelling in the great affirmations 
 of divine truth, the eternal verities of ex- 
 istence. And do we realize how such a di- 
 vine atmosphere can remake the whole life, 
 physical, as well as mental and moral? 
 
 The Master said, eighteen hundred years 
 ago, " Have faith in God " ; the Psalmist 
 said a thousand years or more before that, 
 " Hope thou in God." Implicit trust in God 
 — ^believing love — is the true philosopher's 
 stone that transmutes everything that it 
 touches into gold, that takes these rough, 
 bitter experiences of life and sees them full 
 of the golden goodness of God. " Believing 
 love ! " It is the fabled maiden who goes 
 forth weaving with a magic web. She 
 snatches here and there the scattered skeins 
 of this tangled universe and weaves them 
 together as silken threads, into one glorious, 
 harmonious garment of the goodness of God. 
 
 The only thing that makes serious and in- 
 telligent men live content and hopeful in the 
 
128 MENTAL MEDICINE 
 
 midst of the mysterious and oftentimes bit- 
 ter and perplexing providences of life, is 
 this firm assurance, that behind this world 
 and its mysteries there is One whose name 
 is love. One who loves us heart to heart. 
 One who is manifesting His love to us in a 
 thousand ways. He is the clew of the maze ; 
 He is the center and heart of the world's life 
 and purposes; His is the plan and consum- 
 mation of that 
 
 ". . . one far-off divine event. 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
■ttiiiiiiiii.