SAN 14 WW * CRISES IN LIFE. .* And & How to Meet Them* & A Contribution to Optimistic Literature* <£ By J* A, O. COSSAR, f kA^jfc- cder^ir^ her**-. Crises in Life, Or How t<> AXa^tet* Diificmltiee;, Escape Desspoml- encjr and. Keep on the Cheerful Pi'Ogre-ssive Side oiLiie. t # * ^ 1 , AfOTCOSSAR. ***■*• ' 'It is more brave to live than to die." — BULWER LYTTON. "That which is best in me comes from within. "— Leland. Springfield, Missouri, Roberts Printing Co,, Publishers. 1900. 1 ONE COPY RECflVEB. L.i brary ot" CongroG.\«; 14 1301 Copyright entry *V 0**3, if &0 « t SECOND COPY # x *S* Copyrighted 1900. By A. O. COSSAR. All Rights Reserved. j» CONTENTS. j» CHAPTER f. Worn Out Paths - - - - \2. Exhausted States - - - 12—14 Development of New Desires - - 15 — 17 Christ's Experience ... 17 — 20 The Latent Resources and Indestructability of the Human Mind - 20—24 Perennial Youth of the Soul - - - 24—25 Concentrative Thinking and the Super-conscious Mind 25—29 CHAPTER 2, Paths that Lead to Daylight . - - 3h Benevolent Feeling - 34 Thinking Ahead 35 Practical Thinking - 39 Potency of Belief - 40 Thoughts to Shun - 42 Own Achievements 44 Faith and Self-reliance - 45 The Sphere of Ideals - 47 Subjective and Objective - 48 CHAPTER 3. Long Trodden Paths - 52, Sleeping ----- 57 Drinking - 60 Eating - - - - 64 Sexual Desire _ - _ _ D g Intellectual Activity 72 Religion - 76 Natural Affections 82 DEDICATION. This book is dedicated to all men and women, who expe- rience in any measure, collapse of the interest and happiness of life. Its object is, to suggest to you, pleasant states of mind and pleasant experiences, that lie beyond the limits of inher- ited and popular beliefs. To you it will prove a welcome messenger and friend, because it will awaken hope, arouse self-confidence and stim- ulate to high endeavor. THE AUTHOR. •** PREFACE. & The book of Ecclesiastes, supposed to have been written by King Solomon, discusses the same question as this little book. The author begins by asking "what profit a man hath in all his labor wherein he laboreth under the sun?" Then answers, "All things are full of weariness, and all is vanity!" and proceeds through the whole course of the work to sus- tain his assertions by evidence gathered from universal experience. He asserts that he himself exhausted all the intellectual and physical resources of human pleasure, grati- fied every desire, satisfied every wish, and in the end found his opening generalization cor- rect. He confesses again and again that the search for happines of some extraordinary kind or from some extraordinary source can 9 CRISES IN LIFE. never be realized, and concludes that there is nothing better for a man than that he should "eat and drink and rejoice in his works all the days of his life." Which being interpreted in the light of the context, means that a man should find his happiness in the normal gratification of his desires, in the creations of his mind, in the fulfillment of or- dinary obligations and the recognition of God in it all. This conclusion is variously stated at different stages of the argument, but the author's mind remains steadfast to his pri- mary verdict. Not only the vanity of things acquired, but the thought of the unattained and unattainable was a perplexity and vexa- tion to his mind. Though wise, he fretted under the burden of ignorance, a negative prohpet of the knowledge yet to be revealed. I have been led by personal experience and observation of the lives of others, to be- lieve that a disenchanted state of mind is all too common. Weary, disheartened people are CRISES IN LIFE. 10 found everywhere. The fashion has been to exhort them to look away from themselves for consolation and joy, but I believe that this advice is drawn from an erroneous theory of the human mind. The power resides with- in that must create the conditions of relief. There can be little enduring happiness with- out self esteem, and to possess that in exhil- arating quantity, I must believe in the im- mense wealth of possibility locked up in the treasury of my own soul; a latent wealth which is awakened to life by affirmation, faith and appeal. I purpose that this book shall be found not only intelligent but helpful to all in every stage of life, but particularly to those who have used up the motives and aims with which they started out, and have not been able to find othersof sufficient vitality tore-in- spire the mind. With many, their life's work is done sooner than they anticipated; they have not grown old as rapidly as they expected; they 11 CRISES IN LIFE. find that they will have ample time to begin and live life over again; but how and where to begin they known not. It is not only knowl- edge at such times that is lacking but some- times faith and courage as well. This book will keep such persons from dropping down disheartened among the discomforts and in- utilties of old age. I have treated this subject in a theoretic rather than an historic manner, because this method seems best suited to the purpose. Sufficient facts, however, will be found scattered throughout to unite experi- ence with theory and history with philoso- phy. Some of the ideas and arguments are based on a new psychology which recognizes the duality of the human mind. Ideas will also be found which may not be accounted philosophically or theoretically orthodox, but no one will deny me the right of liberty of thought. A. O. Cossar. Springfield, Mo., Oct, 1, 1900. CHAPTER L Worn Out Paths* There is no human life which has not in time become exhausted of interest. The ob- jects of affection may have perished, ambi- tions may have been fulfilled or disappointed, the ordinary resources of human nature may have all been fathomed. When this ex- hausted stage has been reached, the mind casts about for other means of sustaining interest. Passion soon runs its course, and all the surface possibilities of human life are soon used up. In turn, ail our natural affec- tions expand and find gratification, our intel- lectual and moral faculties develop and are exercised, our physical powers mature and their uses and limits are ascertained. When all constitutional powers have been successfully unfolded and all the more ob- trusive needs and desires gratified; what remains to engage the interest of the mind? 13 CRISES IN LIFE. The pleasures attending exercise, home, friends, religion, business, property, honor and pursuit, are all in turn realized, but in the end they all become fatiguing, a longer or shorter pause may ensue when body and mind revel in their own riches and in the things which delight and gratify, but the day continues to creep nearer and nearer when weariness at length overtakes both body and mind. At such a juncture, "when all the bland- ishments of life are gone, " what can be done to re-enchant the mind? How has this pro- saic condition to be treated ? When the inter- est of life is worn out, how has it to be renewed? It is of no use saying that we should not lose our interest in religion, that our home ought to become increasingly dear to us, that business should be a perpetual source of enjoyment, that friendships, knowledge, etc, should furnish unfailing delight. The fact is, our nature seems incapable -of extracting happiness from monotony, pleasure from routine, or contentment from stagnation. CRISES IN LIFE. 14 Continual use puts the mark of commonplace on all things, and even the dearest and sweet- est become insipid and ultimately stale. In this disenchanted state of life many resort to excess, hoping to further develop the capacity of their natural appetites, though these may have already been un- wound to the very hub. Excess leads only to pain. Development can never be backwards. This sense of mental surrender and weari- ness often yields a settled assumption that life's resources have all been spent; that leaf and blossom and bulb have all been consum- ed. A too hasty conclusion and an error that retards the development and progress of many a life; nay, but it is the error that leads to many a suicidal end.. That it is an error is undeniable, from the fact that we all know of minds that grow brighter and lives that grow larger as years increase. Man cannot de- mand more than the universe can supply; neither does the universe contain less than man shall need. Goldsmith speaks of those "who are born for the universe, but narrow their minds." 15 CRISES IN LIFE. There is only one way of re-inspiring life after interest has begun to decline, and that is, by searching in your mental conscious- ness for some modest, unobtrusive, unde- veloped desire, seizing it and bringing it to the front. The mind is full of germinal de- sires which mature in procession, unless pur- posely suppressed. It is only the more ob- vious that first attract our attention and receive unfoldment. The finer and nobler remain to be developed later. All happiness consists in the unfoldment and exercise of our desires. In childhood, the physical; in youth^ the affectional; in adulthood, the intellect- ual. The spiritual and intuitional unfold at all periods of life, but chiefly, during years of maturity. On the intellectual and spiritual we must finally depend for true and perennial happiness. Exalted in their activity, these suggest immortality and divinity. Again I affirm that the only hope for the prolongation of happiness and the perpetua- tion of a complacent and felicitous state of mind, is to be found in giving external ex- pression to some latent, unborn desire. The CRISES IN LIFE. 10 soul is packed full of these desires as a cap sule is of seeds. The Creator did not intend that human life should empty itself of inter- est. Select one of these latent desires, be a kindly nurse to it for awhile, and ere long it will fill your whole life with pleasure. You may first recognize it in the form of a thought, a feeling, a wish, a fancy, an ambi- tion, or it may be a long suspressed hope or purpose. It may be so large that you over- look it, or so vast that you ignore it as impracticable. The older it is, and the longer it has struggled for recognition the more pregnant with happiness it will be. I con- gratulate the reader who possesses among the embryonic contents of his soul, one or more long-pent-ujD desires. If they belong to the vulgar and brutish past keep them pent up still, but if they are of intellectual or moral origin, hasten to develop the bud into in- lioresence, fruition and beauty. Fear not, universal bounty shall respond to every appeal, and no courageous effort shall fail. Each time a new desire is permitted to mature in the mind and unfold in the life, in 17 CRISES IN LIFE. New Testament language, you have been born again. This experience is a regeneration, for a new desire brings with it new thoughts, new feelings, new actions, and as a sure result, new external conditions. The Divine Teacher said: "Ye must be born anew." The reference here is to the necessity of spiritual regeneration, but the "must" is just as imperative in respect to man's intellectual necessity. He must be born anew many times during the course of his life, if he would escape the gloom and despondency that invade the mind when he arrives at those places where his spirit exclaims: "How stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. " Christ himself was born anew. When weary with the labor of building limestone dwellings he yielded to a masterful desire and went forth from Nazareth to serve his fellow countrymen and mankind at large in a higher and grander way. Building houses was a useful occupation and necessary to the economic wehfare of Galilee n society, but there came a day when this industry lost CRISES IN LIFE. 18 interest for him; when laying stone walls, cutting sapling poles from the mountain side and gathering brush and sod from the valley, did not employ his entire capabilities. He was conscious of a residium of energy and intelligence; a power within, which was idle and could not be employed in his present call- ing. He felt that while he was earning bread his soul was famishing; and while he was erecting shelter for the bodies of men their souls, too, were famishing. Visions of uni- versal truth sweeping across his mind, and great impulses of love inundating his soul, he longed to shed the light of freedom on the world of Mankind. After many a silent com- fiict between the decaying old self and the expanding new self, under the influence of the Baptists' example, he finally arose and abandoned the rudimentary self forever. Every new birth is atttended with a strug- gle and conflict of soul; so it was with Christ. In the wilderness of Judea he wrestled with the evil one. The conflict was between the selfish and altruistic elements of the soul. His spirit strove within him for a clear and 19 CRISES IN LIFE. triumphant conception of his new and exalted calling, a conception so high and clear that all the rising ambitions of his human nature would pale before it. The new desire at length conquered the old habit, and he enter- ed the larger sphere of service, prospered in it and became the matchless teacher, the gra- cious healer and glorious Savior. By and by even this sphere became too limited for his ideas and endowments. He was again greater than his calling. The body imposed too much restriction on the ac- tivity of his mind, geographic limits re- strained the expanding impulses of his love. Blind and unsympathetic men fiercely assail- ed him; he laid the body and natural condi- tions aside and assumed the freer spiritual state. On the morning of resurrection he was born again, and entered a realm beyond the range of human vision, to carry forward without impediment, the work of ever- lasting grace. This new resurrection birth was not attained without the agony of Gethsemane and the pangs of the cross. Here, in the experience of Christ, we have CRISES IN LIFE. 20 a prophecy of the life of all men who would escape from their rudimentary selves and enter a new and ample sphere. Life amongst our present surroundings will in time cease to be interesting, or even tolerable, and that even in defiance of our wish that it should not be so; but Ave need not accept our disenchanted mental states as signs of approaching age and decay, or as a token that the time has come to withdraw from active life and surrender place and office for the purpose of creating opportunity for others. There are other unoccupied worlds to conquor lying all around us, and these weary, jaded states of mini are signs that we have outgrown the little world we are now in and must seek or create a new en- vironment. Advance to live, retreat to die. Merely to change the old surroundings and make a few local re-adjustments will not avail. "Ye must be born anew/' is the Cre- ator's will and the law of our mental consti- tution. The mrdady as well as the remedy lie in the mind. The summer flower blooms in the decaying stump of the forest tree. 21 CRISES IN LIFE. Search your mind for a ripening desire, obey it, and it will bring you to glory, honor and immortality. Herbert Spencer in his first principles says: "Of all the bodily organ, the brain re- tains its youth and plasticity longest; contin- uing capable of renewing its tissue until the end of life. " This is scientific testimony which should have the effect of overthrowing all our inherited fancies and superstitions about mental decrepitude and decay. Mind itself defies the fingers of decay, and if the brain, which we regard as the organ of the mind, does also, uninterrupted development is not only possible to every one, but it is the eternal heritage of every one. The doctrine of continuous mental evolution must be the first in our creed and philosophy of life. No attempt to live will be successful without it. Progress must be conceived to be possible for ever and ever. There can be no terminus to psychical development. It is the one sub- lime and re-inspiring fact in all the bulk of human interests. Like shadows our desires must lengthen as our day declines. CRISES IN LIFE. 22 All persons will not feel life exhausted of interest in the same degree. Those with the physical temperament preponderating, will always derive sufficient pleasure from ani- mal existence to render life both agreeable and desirable; but those with the mental tem- perament predominating, will at intervals feel the pressing need of having life renewed with the stimulus of novelty and accession. The happiness of the former is chiefly depen- dent on pleasurable sensations, that of the latter on ideas and emotions. The former will be more apt to look to the external world for the addition of new interest to life, and will be likely to find it there; while the latter, if following the example of the former, will find only disappointment, and turn sadly back on themselves. For them, new houses, new clothes, new carriages, new scenes, con- tribute little to scatter the gloom and clear the sky of clouds and dreariness. The ultimate hope, however, and the only hope of happiness for all persons of whatever temperament, is to be found in the elabora- tion of the spiritual soul. 23 CRISES IN LIFE. No being endowed with a spiritual nature need for a moment despair. The spirit of man never grows old and never can. It is of God, and like God, endowed with perennial youth. The idea of the mind becoming aged is a fossil of the dead past, an unchristian and an unenlightened suggestion that has taken deep root in many minds. Before development can go on, before uninterrupted joy can be ours, we must free ourselves from this false and crippling thought. An intelli- gent conscious soul characterizes man, and we cannot think of it as destructible. It may deteriorate through sin, but it can never decay through age. Soul or mind dissolved, is and unthinkable proposition. The ancients believed the gods of their distinguished favorites to be immortal; sacred scripture addresses man on the assumption of his immortality; in our highest states of mind we perceive that we are immortal. We are the offspring of God, made in the image and likeness of God, immortal. In this truth reposes the hope of never-failing consolation. The human mind CRISES IN LIFE. 24 articulating with the infinite mind, can never become totally bankrupt. It is happy only in the process of growing and sad only when growth is arrested. Youth is the ideal state of man; all shrink from age. In the ever-expanding soul, the beneficent Creator has secured to man the endless dream of youth. Strength and beau- ty, activity and grace, joy and loveliness, exuberance of life and freedom from care, are youth's secure possessions. The Hebrews said of Jehovah: "All things decay, but thou remainest the same, and of thy years there is no end;" and the Christians said of Christ, "The dew of thy youth is upon thee;" "Thou art the same yes- terday, to-day and forever." Man's highest conception of being is attributed to the God he adores; but he cannot attribute to his Deity what he does not perceive to be ideally possible to himself. If eternal youth is an attribute of God, it likewise is of man. Fun- dementally the two natures are one. Springtime is the youth of seasons, poetry the youth of intellect, love the youth of 25 CRISES IN LIFE. affections, music of the arts, and divinity of humanity. We cannot demonstrate that per- petual youth is the immortal gift of God to man; we know it intuitionally. No one living in harmony with law and in communion with God ever feels old. The superconscious mind never grows old, for it never fails to be- hold in dreams and ecstatic visions the im- ages of youth and loveliness. Its companion- ships are among the immortals. Four hun- dred and seventy years before Christ, Euripides wrote: "Youth hath no fellow- ships with grief;" and 2,160 years afterwards Rochefoucauld wrote: "Youth is a prolonged intoxication." The first gives negative and the second positive testimony to the jocund quality of youth, and the silent intervening years pro- claim the attributes of youth unchanging. Youth never thinks of suicide, and if adults kept new desires before them they never would. Is there any faculty of the mind that can aid us in perpetuating the joys and trans- ports of the juvenile years of life? Is there CRISES IN LIFE. 26 any use of the mind that can? Yes, there are two things can: First, intensive or concen- trative thinking; second, the recognition of the superconscious mind as distinct from the brain and the conscious mind. No one who reads this for the first time will understand it. It is a concept which must have time to ripen in the soul. Intensive or concentrative thinking gave you all the knowledge you now have and greater concentration will give you more. Increasing knowledge is increasing power and increasing power is the element in life that charms and infatuates us with it. It is the growing intensity of thinking that keeps the world young. Minds that have penetrated deeper than the rind of things, say that we are only yet investigat-- ing the marginal part of truth. Whether you approach the sacred script- ures or the book of nature, greater concentra- tion will open to you, new, larger and grander realms. They may seem vague and delusive at first, but will grow real as you find that others have knoweldge of them too. You will 27 CRISES IN LIFE. learn by and by to classify and also make practical use of these deeper observations, and as you begin to do this, you will also be- gin to renew your youth. The super-con- scious mind is revealed in every successful effort of mental concentration. It is an all knowing and creative power of the mind. For- mal and superficial life is trivial to it. It looks out over the top and far beyond the range of the common place. With a keen moral in- sight it sees the impalpable kingdom of God ruling in the interior of things. It sees divine intelligence infusing all, and divine being, the hidden mystery, involving all. With the ordinary gaze we view a field, a forest, a village, a mountain, a lake, a green plain, and see nothing but human property, the products of human labor, market values and the like, and feel only a dreary interest in it all; but let us gaze on the same scene with a steadfast, facinated attention, gaze with the thought of God in the mind, and soon the material will fade into the spirit- ual and the natural into the preternatural. The air becomes radiant, objects become CRISES IN LIFE. 1:8 transformed and the etherial world enfolds us round. With our objective vision we look upon a human community and see nothing but ener- gy manifesting in production, distribution, educational and governmental activity; or we see the individual members of society, some eagerly and some languidly, following their different inclinations and ambitions; but let us view society with the subjective vision and we behold an entirely different set of phe- nomena. The spiritual advances and the physical recedes; men's souls shine through their bodies; the secret promptings and stimulants to activity are clearly visible; the cumulative effect of vanished ages, the prophetic long- ing of ages yet to come, and the toil of universal laws is seen impressed on every object. An invisible intelligence is perceived to determine the evolution of events and a beneficent moral government to maintain order. Inanimate things around us appear as companionable souls in dress, with person- 29 CRISES IN LIFE. al attributes of faces and fingers, senses, desires and speech. Human beings are seen to be great beyond their proudest thoughts. Blessed with powers and riches and oppor- tunities far in excess of their highest con- ception. Faith and knowledge alone seem to be wanting to enable man to realize his divinest dreams. When the spirit or thought or word of God has quickened into activity the unused powers of the superconscious mind, and dis- closed to our objective intelligence the wealth and grandeur of our inner being, we have entered the kingdom of God, the kingdom within, a realm where morbidity is unknown. When we cease to reason and draw con- clusions and shape the purposes of our lives on the false and discouraging assumption of our own weakness and worthlessness, a new epoch will have dawned upon our lives; and when we cease to believe that age and infirm- ity are necessary concomitants of human existence the dawn will begin to broaden and brighten into day. This is a theme which sooner or later com- CRISES IN LIFE. 30 pels the attention of every mind. No writer omits the discussion of it; no generation fails to wrestle with it. and every age attempts to solve its problem anew. CHAPTER IL Paths that Lead to Daylight* The elixir of life is not contained in the waters of some hidden fountain, in the fruit of some mystic tree, in the air of some undiscovered clime, or in the subtile ingred- ients of some magical compound, but in the thoughts and suggestions of this book. Keep in mind the fact that there is a ten- dency to weariness in every human life, due to exhaustion of interest of both internal and external conditions, and that it is this weari- ness that I am by suggestion to cure. It is a wide-spread and dire affliction of the mind and calls for earnest treatment. The mind, like the body, has its attitudes and becomes fatigued when occupying one position for a prolonged period. Any one CRISES IN LIFE. 62 who has long sustained an active state of mind and finds life growing monotonous, will experience relief and enjoyment from assum- ing a passive or receptive attitude. His relations being changed, fresh thoughts and experiences will occupy his mind, novel images crowd his imagination, unaccustomed sensations thrill his brain, a new color and complexion will be given to ail his surroundings, and his life, which had be- come barren of happiness, will become re-in- vested with genuine interest. To remain in either the active or passive state of mind too long, results in uneasiness, which at times augments to pain. In domestic affairs, if you have been the positive quality for years, resign for a while in favor of others. In church relations if you have hitherto been passive, become active. In business if you have been accustomed to assume all responsibility, shift a share of the burden to the shoulders of capable and trust- ed employes. They will enjoy it and you will enjoy it more. By this quiet and easy method of changing from the passive to the 33 CRISES IN LIFE. active, and again from the active to the pas- sive, a person can be constantly varying or increasing the interest and enjoyment of his life. All relations of life can be treated in this way. The elixir of human life traced to its source is contained in the wealth and versa- tility of the soul itself. The riches of the human mind are immense, and articulated as it is with the infinite mind, its resources are inexhaustible. When from your life all pleasure has departed and even the little remaining inter- est is being drained away, consider this as a sign that you have capacity for a wider sphere of activity. Your mind would not be discontented with existing conditions unless it had the secret perception of other condi- tions, and it would not have the perceptive wish of other conditions, unless it had also the capacity to create them. Life cannot pos- sibly be exhausted of its opportunities. Every state of disenchantment leads directly, for him who has knowledge, to a state of re- enchantment. The soul, knowing her union CRISES IN LIFE. 34 with the infinite, "smiles at the drawn dagger and defies its point." To him who knows the wealth of his own being, all the threats of worn-out circumstances are but playthings. To change your position in space and sur- round yourself with unfamiliar objects, will avail nothing to import new interest into your life, unless there is also a change in your mental states and outlook. Forward and not backward, motion and not stagnation, are watchwords of happiness. Benevolent Feeling. If you have hitherto been governed in your life by selfish motives, exchange them for kindly benevolent motives and observe what a large addition to your happiness this will make. While at work you will think of the comfort and happiness of those who partake of the results of your labor, and not alone of profit or pay. You will think of the economic welfare of society; and yourself as a contributor thereto. Whatever your occupa- tion in life, mercantile, industrial, profession- al, the benevolent motive can be introduced with transforming and enlivening effect. All 35 CRISES IN LIFE. your faculties will experience its stimulating influence, your friends will multiply, and the interest of your life will reach a point never attained before. A generous instinct en- larges the life as well as the mind, and it is this enlarging and growing of the personal and circumstantial self that ensures pro- gressive happiness. There is no permanent escape from melancholy, but by way of psychical development, accompanied by in- creasing facility in the production of benefi- cent effects. To retain in life the flavor of true felicity, self must grow, and the only way in which self can mulitply self is along the line of sympathetic aggregation. "The human mind finds nowhere shelter, but in human kind/' Thinking Ahead* Many from whose life the charm of existence is slowly evaporating are in the habit of dwelling on the past — past exper- iences, past acquaintances, past situations, past exploits, claim their thoughts. Their mental activity is retrospective rather than prospective. CRISES IN LIFE. 36 This is a waste of time and a waste of cereberal energy; but more, and worse, it is inviting and actually promoting a stagnation of the mental powers. It may be pleasant to sit in an easy chair or lie in bed and let the thoughts, like a pack of ill-handled hounds, run along on the back track. The game will never be started much less bagged by such easy indulgence. Call the thoughts in and set them resolutely to face the future, and keep them always forward bent. The human mind delights in exploration; its chief functions, indeed, is to move on ahead and open up the unbroken path of the future. In its essential character it is crea- tive. It is the pathfinder disclosing the countless opportunities and resources that lie before us. There is no perplexing situa- tion, no dense blockade, no threatening com- bination of adverse circumstances, but what the mind, if kept steadily and concentratedly bent on with the purpose of discovering a way out, wih triumphantly overcome. The failure to keep the mind directed towards the future is almost sure to result in Si CRISES IN LJFE. the growth of some species of unhappiness; for left to itself, it is liable to brood over past wrongs, past failures, past sins or past mis- fortunes, and of such ruminating habits there can only be one consequence. It is in this way that morbid dispositions are developed, that enmity and ill-will become rooted in the heart, that disappointment grows into dis- couragement, and discouragement terminates in collapse. It requires some attention and effort to keep the mind from reverting to its former habits, for motion having been once set up in a given direction, is sure to continue in that direction until diverted by some more potent force. The more potent force is the human will which turns the current of thought and com- pels it to flow onward instead of backward. Such a revolution in your thinking will immediately work a change in your life. In every department of your life a transforma- tion will take place. Your spirits will be more cheerful, your health and morals will improve, and your business will prosper. You will become more magnetic and attrac- CRISES IN LIFE. 38 tive to others and enjoy life a hundred fold more. Such a change in the habit of your think- ing is certain, in the very nature of things, to work a favorable change in your experience. You will be so full of plans and enterprises that you will have no more wasted time. All you undertake will succeed, because you have carefully thought it out in advance. Your thoughts running on ahead will keep your body moving and give you the air of a very busy man. Looking on everything from a new point of view you will see ail objects and circumstances at fresh angles and in new classifications. To you the world henceforth will be divided into those who are looking backward and those who are looking forward, and you will soon find yourself forg- ing out ahead and tending away from your retrospective neighbors. Progress begins in the mind and is based on the adoption and practice of sound ideas. The future always stands smiling and stretch- ing out bountiful and inviting hands to ambition. 89 CRISES I1S T LIFE. Practical Thinking, You will attain much the same results as those just stated if you adopt the simple rule of thinking only practical thoughts, enter- taining only practical desires, musing only on practical themes, and employing your time solely for practical ends. This will im- part the element of unity to all the activities of your mind and body, and there is no abstract force more effective than unity. If you are in great earnest, you will combine with the habit of practical thinking the kindred habit of knowing no leisure. It was a distinguished American who said: " Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for time is the stuff that life is made of. ,% And it was a gifted Englishman who said: "Time is money. " Much time squandered brings regrets, much time spent alone brings melancholy, but time divided between solitude and society brings tranquility. A worthy object and a circuit of calls will w banish the gloomiest mood. There are three things one can muse too much of, indoors, loneliness and idleness. CRISES IN LIFE. 40 These are the incubators of unhappiness. In this chapter I prefer to bring into prominence only those principles promotive of success, for all despondent and unhappy states of mind flee before success. Potency of Belief* Whatever your circumstances and out- ward state and condition, it is your belief that fixes you there and holds you there. If your belief were different your situation would be different. If you occupy an humble stationary place in society, it is because you believe yourself fitted for that, and for no other. Change your belief with regard to your- self and you will very soon find yourself changing your course of procedure too. Your plans, your undertakings, your feelings, will all be different. Life will take on a new aspect, and you will be delighted with the fresh interest im- ported into your experience. Believe your- self capable of greater things, of a higher station, of a larger sphere, of grander achievements. 41 CRISES IN LIFE. The elevation and expansion of one's belief in regard to one's self is not an unjustifiable exaggeration of personal importance. Look around and see how others have stepped beyond the ranks of the lowly; they have steadily advanced because they have steadily believed themselves capable of advancing. There is no chance or luck or fortune about it; it is merely the result of the law by which external things shape them- selves in harmony with our thoughts. Thetree continues to grow because it cannot doubt, and when you cease to doubt yourself, you will continue to grow, too. Doubt and un- belief arrest growth, and arrested growth is always related to unhappiness, as cause to effect. Development, not stagnation, is our destiny. Cowper say s : ' 'Variety 's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor ;" but it is uninterrupted development that can insure variety. Each one has a latent self of infinite possibilities underlying his conscious self, and it is this latent self which permits of his endless evolution. Man is a child of infinity and a nursling of the ages. CRISES IN LIFE. 42 Our belief in regard to abstract questions and external causes also produce correspond- ing effects in our lives. Thoughts to Shun, There is nothing that will produce a more gloomy and unhappy state of mind than inde- cision and inaction, when due to distrust or fear. Pear in all its forms nullifies the life of the soul. He who shrinks from enterprise through fear is ail his life long doomed to lit- leness, and littleness from this cause means profound disappointment with self. Very few will be so undiscriminating as to con- found fear with a reasonable caution and thoughtful prudence. Fear must be seen to be a mean and unmanly thing and then erad- icated by rule. Do what you fear to do must be your rule, if you would prosper. Go where your fears point, there lies the path to fortune. Beyond the boundry line of fear lies your future kingdom. Pear points to opportunity, an open door without, and talent within. Pear denotes the intuitional perception of good beyond. It is the way out of darkness into 48 CRISES IN LIFE. light. There is no fear of presumption in fear. It is the negative prophecy of hidden possibilities. The positive of fear is courage. Dare to pierce the future with thought then cleave it with action. Resolutely think out the details of your plan, then resolutely work them out. Gloomy thoughts are the hobgoblins of fear, and fear is the shadow of tomorrow. Still, I can but congratulate him who has fears; they are the tokens of a latent, but rich and fertile brain. " Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts. " A man should know that there is an objective world corres- ponding in quality to the subjective world of his emotions, equally bright or equally dull, equally rich or equally poor. Let him know this and fear will vanish with the knowing of it. He will then see that all things are condi- tioned by his states of mind; that fears are relative and not actual. Let a man read aright the testimony of his fears and they will become to him books of prophecy and oracles of wisdom. All the lower forces of CRISES IN LIFE. 44 his nature he v/ill find transformable into higher. They are full of the potency and prom- ise of great things. "Fear, " says the sage of Concord, "always springs from ignorance." Own Achievements. Dependence on others is another negative state of mind which may be classed among the non-producers of interest and happiness. This is a subject condition of life and mind with which very many are afflicted, and is the direct occasion of much secret discom- fort. Very much has lately been written on the virtue of self-reliance, but the negative side of the question, or the misery of intellec- tual and other kinds of dependence, has been overlooked. Interest is inseparable from the creations of our own mind. If we were for- ever doomed to gaze only on the achieve- ments of others, a humiliating sense of our own inferiority would be sure to involve the soul. It is very rarely the case that our identity with others is so intimate that we can feel the pride of a personal interest in their performances. To create an interest in my own life, I CRISES IN LIFE. • must first create. A fine house and plenty of money, all desires gratified and wants anticipated (ever y one knows who has had these things) are incapable of yielding happiness apart from creative activity. All idleness is voluntary. There is no such thing as enforced idleness. Every one, therefore, holds in his own hands a cure for melancholy. The rich may work, and the poor would work, but both must work to escape despondency. There is nothing makes a man so unhappy as to see all others busy and himself idle. Occupation to be stimulating and satisfying to the mind must be both creative and remunerative. Self- reliance will make a man his own employer when he can find no employment from others. He who employs himself has a double source of pleasure. Faith and Self-reliance* I have sometimes thought thatthereisacer- tain exposition of Bible doctrines which is out of harmony with the growth of self- reliance in the individual. The teaching which I refer to, is that CRISES IN LIFE. 46 which emphasizes dependence on One ex- ternal to self for all things included within the compass of human needs. It is impossible for those who take this seriously and sincerely, to develop a high degree of self-assertion. We may trust God in the performance of duty but not in a state of inaction. Christ advances the crow to illustrate His lesson on divine providence, saying: i% It has neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds it." Observe the crow! How early it rises, what an active day it spends. It is on the wing much of the time exploring the woods, the fields, the valleys, the water courses and mountain sides. It acts as if possessing an instinctive belief that there is food provid- ed for it somewhere, but to be obtained only on the condition of diligent search. In the morning it flies east to meet the sun, and in the evening it flies west to prolong the day. In it faith and self-reliance combine. It liter- ally seeks first the realm of heaven, and all things are added unto it. Wherever in the Scriptures faith is taught 47 CRISES IN LIFE. self-reliance must be assumed or we must think of God, not as external to us, but as identified with us. Man is the efficient cause but God is the power within which makes the causal agency of man effective, therefore, all things are possible to him that believes. Self-reliance in its highest conception is reliance on God, working in us and with us. Inactive dependence is faith misunderstood, and the gateway to sorrow and superstition. If we conceive aright our relation to God, despondency will flee away and life will thrill with cheerful action. Human endeavor is but the act of embracing standing off ers and opportunities. The Sphere of Ideals. The idea of exertion may have been kept very prominently before the mind of the reader throughout this chapter, but exertion alone will not accomplish development, or revive the jaded soul. There must be a men- tal ideal to which the soul is lovingly attach- ed. This should be a clear and definite concep- tion of the object to be attained. Moreover, CRISES IN LIFE. 48 all other mental desires and pictures must give way to this one. It must be the only begotten son, and it must be stimulating and something worthy of your noblest powers. When an old ideal fails of interest, a new ideal must be sought. An ideal is psycho- logically necessary. It is the architectural design after which the structure of life is formed. It is necessary to order and neces- sary to success, for thought is the creator that guides the constructive hand. Every- thing is primarily a thought. It requires the inspiration of an ideal to rescue life from the pangs of the haphazard. The noblest struct- ure in the universe, and one that is to stand forever, cannot be built without thoughtful design. To the eagerly ambitious it is a cheerful reflection, that a mental ideal per- sistently held, can never fail of actualization. Every event and circumstance will contribute to its realization. It tends to fulfillment of its own peculiar efficacy. Ideals are desires illuminated. Subjective and Objective* If a man would know the superlative good, the highest good thing, the summum bonum, 49 CRISES IN LIFE. he will find it in his subjective self. He will find it there and nowhere else. This is the original source, the ultimate source and the only source of abiding peace and joy. This is the Father's house to which the vagrant soul gone out in search of rest shall return. Here is where God and humanity meet. Here is the beginning and here the ending of the circuit of our thoughts and desires. All things have their primal and real existence here, but inexperience knows it not. With the idealistic philosophy, think of all sensible and external things as illusionary, and of the images of your mind as the only realities. Become contemplative and intro- spective. Explore the kingdom which is hid- den in the mind. Determine to discover Marlow's infinite riches in a little room." Write out your passive thoughts; arrest and give literal expression to the fleeting phan- tasms of the brain. Think of the universe and God and religion as within. Dwell on this conception, modify and balance it by the objective reason and you will find it always CRISES IN LIFE. 50 refreshing and always satisfying to the soul. It is practical as well as possible. Read the Scriptures and find ample evi- dence of it and ample justification for it. Pursue the quest until you begin to realize that this is the spiritual kingdom which never cloys, the source of health and healing, the rendezvous of all intelligent being, the divine life replete with joy. It will require time and persistence to reverse the mental consciousness, but when achieved the result will be most satisfactory. It is to the interior and not to the exterior that we must address our thoughts in hope of strength and development. The exterior is but a creation of the interior. It must now be quite clear to the reader that there is no need of tolerating weariness. Both capacity and provision for enjoyment are limitless. The enchantment consists in progression. To "screw your courage up to the sticking place" — the starting place — you must treat yourself by affirmation. All good literature 51 CRISES IN LIFE. and great souls are full of it. In the script- ure you have read: "Why art thou cast down oh my soul! why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in the Lord for I shall yet praise Him, who is the strength of my counte- nance and my God." In Shakespeare you have read many most eloquent soliloquies, as: "I can smile and cry content to that which grieves my heart, and wet my cheeks with artificial tears and frame my face to all occa- sions. Can I do this and can not get a crown? Tut, were it further off, I'd pluck it down." Let the subjective self cheer and encourage the objective self, and stimulate to heroic deeds by heroic speech. Affirmation is a devotional and not a boast- ful mental act; an act partaking of the genius of prayer. Treat your mind to courage and endeavor, to a clear and steadfast adherence to your highest ideal, and summon into activ- ity the latent potentialities of your soul. From the infinite reserve within treat your- self to attempt and attain great things. Like the Christ, retire at times to the wilderness or mountain side to clarify your mental CRISES IN LIFE. 52 vision, overcome subordinate desire, gen- erate spiritual power, gain a fresh hold on the salient purpose of your life, and in the full master of yourself return to noble service. I have not mentioned the accession of happiness that comes into life through the higher development and culture of the bodily organs; nor the increase of pleasure derived from the keener and profound er use of the live senses: nor the complacency that com- forts the soul by the conquest of some humil- iating appetite (natural or artificial); nor the sense of power that delights the mind on application of some long-neglected or newly- discovered law. Some have always been sick and have never tried the pleasures of health; some ignorant and have never tasted the pleasure of knowledge; some immoral and have never known the joy of virtue; some secularized and have never realized the transports of spiritual mindedness. All is available. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the king- dom." You may have outgrown your creed. 53 CRISES IN LIFE. your philosophy, your circumstances, your business, your learning or your books, and if sadness has settled down on your soul you certainly have; but sadness is out of place while there are other sciences to study, other languages to learn, other fields of thought to enter, other virtues to attain and other worlds to subdue. He who has not educated his natural senses untilhe.can perceive the spiritual in the material, the subjective in the objective, the infinite in the finite, the etherial in the terres- trial, eternity in time, and immortality in death, has no occasion to say: "Life is void of interest." These are all paths that lead to freedom and daylight; all thoughts and facts wrung out of a human experience. Do your own thinking and incline to the finer and better promptings of your nature, and you will avoid a life shattered by sorrows and disappointments. CHAPTER III. Long; Trodden Paths. It is one of the teachings of evolution that the human individual evolves mental and physical traits in the order in which they were originally acquired by the race. The order of succession, observable in the development of the vital and intellectual pro- cesses of the civilized human being are approximately the following: breathing, sleep- ing, drinking, sensibility, voluntary motion, individual consciousness, recognition, pre- hension, discrimination, choice, speech, loco- motion, reason, sympathy and sentiment, moral discrimination, sexual appetite, ab- stract thinking, religious feeling. Seven or eight of these can be regarded as constitutional sources of happiness, sources of happiness on which man has always depended for the maintenance of DO CRISES IN LIFE. interest throughout life. These are: sleeping mg, drinking, eating, physical exercise, sexual desire, natural affection, intellectual activity, religion. These are the long-trodden paths, which, when moderately and wisely used, furnish pleasure of sufficient variety and intensity to render life not only agree- able but to sweeten it with true happiness. These eight sources of human enjoyment mentioned are either physical, intellectual or affectional. The most elementary conception of human happiness consists in bringing into exercise these three classes of natural capac- ities simultaneously or successively. There are many means by which all three can find varied and pleasant gratification. If human beings knew but the wealth of their internal and external resources, and how to diversify the exercise of their powers, they need never spend one unhappy hour. While writing this there comes to my minda young man. who, for a time, was a constant attendant on my services in St. Johns, Michigan. He was well endow- ed both physically and mentally, and CRISES IN LIFE. 56 also well educated, and I thought him a fine young fellow. One evening he lingered after service and I came in contact with him near the doorway. Shaking hands with him I asked how he was. He replied that he was not happy, and looked as if some personal advice would be welcomed. I was really sur- prised to hear him say that he was not happy. I said to him: There is some part of your hereditary nature that is being neglected. You have intellectual and physical exercise enough, and your religious nature is not in- active. I suspect therefore, that you have con- scientiously neglected the social and affection- al nature. Did you observe, I said, how these other young men obeyed the social instinct as they left the church to-night, and how happy they appeared? The truth of it was, his affectional nature was being starved. He was too intellectual to be trifling, too religious to be frivolous, and no great compensating ambition had yet fired his soul. Life is sure to become dull and wearisome unless in turn we bring into play all the various resources of our nature. 57 CRISES IN LIFE. I. "Tired natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep. M — Young. Sleep is one of the gentlest and kindliest of all sources of human pleasure. So refined a pleasure do some persons derive from sleep that they experience a mild disappointment on awaking to the resumption of life in the objective world. To them '-heaven's gate opens when the world's is shut." Men- tal activity goes on all through the sleeping hours, and being then of a free and spontan- eous character it furnishes pure enjoyment to persons of cultured minds, especially to those who know the language and signifi- cance of dreams. Even when the soul's activity has been all beneath the threshold of consciousness, or hovering near it, on awak- ing we are aware of an indefinable sense of mental satisfaction. Many persons possess what may be termed a sleeping conscious- ness, realizing that what is going on in sleep is pure psychical experience, yet believing in it as the highest kind of reality; and hav- ing the power to perpetuate it in some CRISES IN LIFE. 58 degree, and relish it keenly. This sleeping consciousness may be described as a reflect- ing self, engaged in observing the operations of the intuitional self, yet taking no part except that of an interested spectator. Sleep is a condition affording an opportunity of unrestricted liberty to the play of the mind. Therefore our dreams have been called re- flections and pictures of our true selves. They are at least mental phenomena, profit- able as well as interesting to study. Before sleep involves the senses there is much enjoyment in bodily relaxation and rest, and when awaking out of sleep there is also pleasure derived from the sense of refreshment and rest. It is the enjoyment found in the approaches to sleep that makes a state of inactivity so pleasant and inviting to some. There are persons to whom the highest conception of vital pleasure is a condition of partial repose. To them a dreamy life in which the senses become semi-oblivious to the reality of the objective world is ever dear. The external world to such means only care, anxiety, 59 CRISES IN LIFE. responsibility and other unwelcome states of mind, and a dull indifference, a sleepy intoxi- cation is a partial escape from it. Persons of active temperament derive pleasure from the anticipation of rest and sleep, for to them it is always accompanied by release from intellectual and physical strain, and never fails to re-fit the system for the resumption of ambition's endeavor. "He giveth his beloved sleep. " During sleep the conscious mind is inactive and the super-conscious mind (the author of dreams, the superintendent of the vital processes, and the source of intuition) is in the ascendency. In a state of health, the reign of the super- conscious mind is always one of placidity if not of pleasure. Reflecting on this fact, per- sons of advanced intelligence have adopted the habit of inviting the powers of the super- conscious mind to share with the objective mind in the responsibilities of conscious existence, thereby escaping the vulgar wor- ries of life. A well-balanced life is the result of an active well-proportioned union of the two minds. CRISES IN LIFE. 60 The conscious mind serves to keep us awake to the external world, to draw con- clusions from the facts and experiences of life, and supply us with provisional faculties, useful, until the control of life is handed over to the never-slumbering soul. He, who in his waking hours endeavors to maintain life on the super-conscious plane, which is the plane of faith, enjoys continually a share of the advantages of sleep — sleep that "knits up the raveird sleave of care." The conscious mind represents the human element of the soul, and the super-conscious mind the divine. To preserve health and good humor and keep ourselves fit for the duties and joys of life, we must often consort with gentle sleep and "steep the senses in forget fulness." II. "Thou shalt make them to drink of the river of tJnj pleasures." — David. This suggests another of the long-trodden paths of pleasure, and one of the three bodily appetites. Drinking is one of the first of infant pleasures and one of the last of human com- 61 CRISES IN LIFE. forts. The desire for drink, wisely satisfied, furnishes unmixed enjoyment through the whole term of life. The soldier on the weary march, the mari- ner adrift on the briny sea, and the traveler lost in the arid desert, emphasize the joy, the exquisite joy of quenching thirst. Pure water filtered through the sands and subsoils, and gushing from the well springs of the earth, is nature's universal provision for human thirst. It is sweet to drink from the crystal fountain, and sweet also to drink from the flavored cups of the yellow orange or the milk white cocoanut. The clustering grape, the mellow peach, the luscious strawberry, the purple plum, and the red-cheeked apple, are bottle foun- tains filled from the earth and sky. Flavored with the summer's sunshine and fragrant with the odors of paradise; how delicious to mankind are the fruits of the orchard and garden. Whether expressed from the sum- mer's fruits, drawn from the clouds, or lifted from the earth, water is precious to the thirsty soul. CRISES IN LIFE. 62 It is the vehicle which conveys all the nutritive elements of food throughout the labyrinth of our physical structure, and returning drains away the waste. It is the element which decorates the heaven with clouds, the landscape with streams and cas- cades, and the grass with spangled dew. It thrills the soul with beauty and refreshes the body without and within. How spiritual a thing pure water seems. Little wonder that it should have been em- ployed by prophet and poet to illustrate immortality, joy and truth. It is an easy transition for the mind to make from the drinking of pure water to the drinking of divine knowledge. In the desire for pleasure this appetite of the body need not and should not" be car- ried to excess. Elevated into the desire of the regenerated mind, two diverse streams of pleasure would then flow to quench the infinite thirst of the infinite soul. The highly enlighted mind perceives the appetite of the body and the desire of the soul to be fundamentally one. All our efforts bo CRISES IN LIFE. for the refinement of eating and drinking testify to the depth and universality of this belief. "Our bodies are but our conscious intelligencies. " The appetite of the drunkard is desire misapplied. Change the direction of the drunkard's desire and turn it to the pursuit of knowledge and truth, the acquisition of personal attainments, or the generous thirst for public good, and there is no mightier force in the world than his. Give him the suggestion that the desire in itself is not wrong, but perverted in its use, and if he has ambition, the perception of this fact will heal him. He will proceed to apply this mis-directed energy to the achievement of noble ends. How almighty the desire that sells the clothes from the body, that pawns the household goods and even barters the wretched corpse for the means of gratifica- tion. It is a passion to be envied. The reader will recall the occasion when Christ speaking of the use and abuse of our desires, said: "If the light that is within thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. " CRISES IN LIFE. 64 Assuming that men have the power to give right direction to perverted energy, Christ exclaims: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. " III. "Now good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both.'' — Macbeth. From the earliest to the latest years of life, eating is a never-failing source of pleas - ure. Not only the act of consuming food gives pleasure, but also the task of obtaining, preparing and presenting it. We eat solids for the purpose of extracting the nutritive juices they contain and securing the benefits and sensations of flavor, distention and bulk. There is a fine, almost spiritual quality about the flavor of food, which redeems it and the act of eating from unmitigated grossness. Much of the possible pleasure that attends the gratification of this appetite is lost to persons who paralize the nerves of taste by alcohol, tobacco and pungent accessories of the table. When the delicate nerves are destroyed which transmit to the brain im- 65 CRISES IN LIFE. pressions of taste, then eating becomes hur- ried or mechanical, and one of the staple pleasures of life is gone. To thoroughly enjoy eating, one must have wholesome food, retaining its proper flavor when cooked, presented attractively and eaten leisurely, with thoughts of the good- ness of Him who giveth all. Public dinners are never conducive to good digestion. Eat where you have uninter- rupted opportunity to enjoy your meal, unmolested by foreign topics and alien minds. " Unquiet meals make ill digestions." It is false etiquette that forbids one delight in the food he eats. Indeed, the pro- cess of eating should be accompanied by a distinct intention on the part of the conscious mind, that the food consumed give health and vigor to the body or that it agree with you and do you good. This will act as a suggestion to the super- conscious mind, which beyond the point of mastication, carries on all the processes of digestion and nutrition. If the conscious mind performs its duty CRISES IN LIFE. 66 faithfully and selects wholesome food, masti- cates and salivates it thoroughly, and trans- mits it to the stomach charged with intelli- gent intention, the super-conscious mind can be trusted to perform its part to the point of infallability. It is not the stomach, the liver, the intestines and cognate organs, that need be treated for the ills of a faulty alimentation, but the mind that selects, prepares, and transmits the food. The responsibility lies outside the province of the super-conscious mind. Better judgment, better cooking, bet- ter self-control and better mastication would obviate a very large percentage of the miser- ies connected with the nutritive functions of the body. A degree of hunger is necessary to the highest enjoyment of eating, for as the Scotch i say: "hunger is the best ketchen"(appetitizer). Custom prescribes three meals per day, and • many people with limited powers of digestion by attempting to conform to this custom, not & only deprive themselves of the relish of hun- ger, but invite dyspepsia, constipation, and liver complaint, with all their gloomy hor- 67 CRISES IN LIFE. rors. With some people it will not mend matters even to eat lightly three times a day. Two substantial meals daily are all that most persons can eat with enjoyment. Those who cannot should apply for therapeutic treat- ment. It may be very inconvenient, neverthe- less, persons who cannot conform to the dietary habits of those about them with impunity, should adopt habits of eating suited to the peculiarities of their taste and constitution. It is worth while, for not only is eating one of the cardinal enjoyments of life, but when this enjoyment is gone, enjoyment from all other sources is greatly impaired. Whenever any organ, as the stomach for example, controlled by the sympathetic ner- vous system, becomes affected, all other organs responsive to the sympathetic system simultaneously suffer with it. When the stomach is out of order, the entire digestive economy is demoralized, and what was meant by nature for a continual source of pleasure has become through abuse a chronic source of pain. This evil usually results from one of three CRISES IN LIFE. 68 causes: First, a failure to distinguish be- tween hunger and craving; second, extreme politeness in sacrificing yourself to the dietary habits of those about you; third, determination to satisfy hunger and appetite by food alone. Appetite is a psycho-physical condition and can be mentally satisfied. There are still a few who have to learn the truth of the proverb: "Man shall not live by bread alone." Intellectual occupation appeases hunger. The body is but the mind material- ized, and all our bodily appetites are semi- mental states. If these appetites are going to remain with us forever as imperishable sources of pleasure, it might be prudent to educate them in a relish for things immaterial. IV. "Endless torments dwell about thee, yet who would live and live xoithout thee. " — Addison. Suspending for a moment all excessive modesty, I come in the order of logical suc- cession to treat of the sexual appetite. 69 CRISES IN LIFE. Whether it be regarded as an emotion native to the mind, or an impulse originating in the body, no one will deny that the feelings attendant on the exercise of this appetite are of a pleasurable nature, and contribute much to the sum total of human enjoyment. The sexual appetite is, in fact, the strong- est and most demonstrative of all human desires. All the energies of the body and faculties of the mind are tributary to it. It yields enjoyment whether repressed or ex- pressed. Anticipation, restraint, fulfillment are all alike states of pleasure. The highest degree of both mental and physical vigor is attained when its tension is the greatest, and the lowest w T hen its activity approaches the unappreciable. The uses of this desire are manifold. It may be converted into the ecstacy of a luxur- ious moment, or expended in long-sustained endeavor in any field of human industry whatever. It may beget offspring, create literature, invent appliances, conquer obsta- cles, achieve fame, originate plans, cure dis- ease, govern states, control armies, etc. CRISES IN LIFE. 70 There is no limit to the utility and adaptabili- ty of this most transformable of all desires. It is one with life itself and throbs with the impetuosity of creative power. It has its seat in the regenerative centers of both the. mental and physical life, and the entire organism is dominated by it. Few have found out that this desire has such universal adaptability, and fewer, still, have utilized this knowledge. Its ordained function is to beget, to produce and repro- duce. Through it man can beget his species, his noblest thoughts and his highest en- deavors. It is a fund and fountain of life from which issue, intellectual triumph and industrial achievement, the riches of success, and the fruits of benevolence. Through the potency of this desire the wisdom and power of man reach their high- est splendor, but through it also the weak- ness and folly of man reach their lowest depths. Expressed in unrestrained indul- gence it leads to the cancellation of the ines- timable pleasures of health and disqualifies for participation in all the milder joys of 71 CRISES IN LIFE. life. It is a perennial source of pleasure only when not gratified exclusively in sexual ways. Those who have the sexual desire in tu- multuous force, possess a power, which if prudently employed, would gain for theni in the eager competition of life, the rank and superiority which human ambition craves. No one will accomplish much until he learns to transmit his surplus vitality into cereberal energy, and no one will do aught but smile at this proposition, from whose life the element of earnest intensity is absent. Life must be taken with something like religious seriousness before its best and noblest ends are attained. The method of accomplishing the com- plete results above alluded to, is by an act of mental intention in harmony with ascertained laws of the mind. This may be obscure to many, but the reader knows where to obtain instruction. The sexual desire is the fountain of love, love is the life of woman and woman is the joy of man. If, as the poet says: "There's noth- CRISES IN LIFE. 72 ing half so sweet in life as love's young dream," then let ' 'those love now who never loved before, and let those who always loved, now love the more." If every capacity of human nature for pleasure should perish save love, life would be pleasant still. Love is a long-trodden path which leads winding among all the brightest and tender- est scenes of life. It has rendered sacred many a charming spot, and hallowed many a summer's day. It is a path which winds through the green fields, along the margin of the upland stream, and lingers with sing- ing birds in the seclusion of the shady grove. It is the quiet lane between the sweet-scented hedgerows, the flower-bordered alley that leads to the vine-clad arbor in the garden. The path of love leads everywhere and everywhere makes dear. " Until I truly lov- ed I was alone." V. "My mind to me a kingdom is. " — Sir Edward Dyer. Intellectual activity is a constitutional source of pleasure which affords no small 73 CRISES IN LIFE. measure of the total amount of enjoyment falling to the lot of an individual. To many, indeed, it furnishes by far the larger propor- tion. The study of some intricate problem, the mastery of some profound philosophy, the designing and executing of some difficult undertaking, are to persons of intellectual temperament a source of greater enjoyment than all other things. There are few persons, though they may not delight in purely intellectual effort of their own, who cannot find pleasure in the mental creations of others. A story, a paint- ing, a musical composition, a piece of statu- ary, a poem, a song, a speech, a display of architecture, elicit from almost everyone some degree of admiration, and admiration is always a token of intellectual enjoyment. It is the recognition of personal authorship in the works of nature that occasions our high- est enjoyment in the contemplation of them. There are none who are engaged in mechanical and constructive pursuits but take genuine pleasure in the productions of their own ingenuity and skill. If it were not CRISES IN LIFE. 74 for this source of enjoyment, the housekeep- er, the artisan, the farmer, the teacher, the designer, the manufacturer, and a hundred other classes, would find very little satisfac- tion in their industrial pursuits. It is ques- tionable, indeed, whether without this incen- tive to industry and production, progress or even civilization would be possible. When the great Creator had formed the world, he beheld all things and pronounced them good. Next to enjoyment obtained from intel- lectual activity is that obtained from intel- lectual growth. Intellectual growth means increase of intellectual power, and there is no pleasure so sweet and gratifying, and none more divine than soul power. It is this that we must cultivate in the present state of existence if we would make a fair beginning in a disembodied state, and this also that we must cultivate if we would even comprehend what a pure psychic existence is. "Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed." Mental philosophers enumerate five active powers of the mind which inay be classed among intellectual sources of enjoyment. 75 CRISES IN LIFE. These are: The desire for knowledge, the desire for society, the desire for superiority, the desire to excel and the desire for power. The youth attending school or college, and the scientist in his researches, taste the pleasure of the first desire. The happiness obtained from the fulfill- ment of the desire for society is so universal- ly sought and acknowledged, that I may pass it without further remark except to say that often when all joy seems exhausted and life is stripped bare, a revival of interest is almost sure to attend a resort to appreciative and congenial society. The desire for superiority affords pleasure to those who delight in external grandeur. Handsome dwellings, fine carriages, rich attire, costly and beautiful surroundings, like mercy are twice blessed, blessed in the artis- tic pleasure they afford and blessed in the admiration they evoke from others. It is not the owner's fault that instead of evoking admiration they sometimes provoke envy. The desire to excel is more personal and expresses itself in competitive strife. It CRISES IN LIFE. 76 yields pleasure in every manly contest, in all generous and good-natured rivalry in busi- ness, politics, society, intellect. This is the main source of human ambition, and the spur to half the activity of life. The desire for power exhibits itself in everyone, and is the mightiest factor of all in forwarding national and individual develop- ment. When attained there is no possession delights the owner more. The desire for power explains the eager struggle for riches, office and authority. "We love and live in power. " Man is a candidate for the absolute. VI. " The soul has this proof of its divinity, that divine things delight it." — Seneca. There is an element of pleasure in religion which cannot be catalogued among the joys of mere intellectual activity, an element of pleasure peculiar to the spiritual nature and the exalted life of the soul. Religion occupies a unique place among the resources of human happiness. When all other means fail, and the sensible world appears to the soul but a vanishing delusion. 77 CRISES IN LIFE. 'tis religion alone that can cheer and sustain the mind. To have been thrilled by the power of religious emotion, is an experience that can never be forgotten, an impression that can never be totally erased. Religion comforts the mind amid all the changing scenes of earthly life and rejoices the heart with the prospect of everlasting bliss. It secures to the soul the inestimable joys of righteous- ness, virtue, piety and peace. It multiplies the blessings of those who are already bless- ed and compensates the loss of worldly com- fort to the afflicted. It is a never-failing source of happiness to the human mind and without it, as the Scriptures say: Man is lost. It might be claimed that Christianity is a divine remedy for all melancholic and suicidal tendencies, and why not, therefore, close the discussion of the question at this point and dismiss it as finally and satisfactorily set- tled. I answer: That the current interpreta- tion given to Christianity does not prevent gloomy and desolate states of mind. Many of the teachings of the Church have a positively CRISES IN LIFE. 78 depressing influence. One only needs to observe the heavy countenances of the peo- ple as they pass out of the Church to be con- vinced of this fact. If there is any other proof required, it is to have been a minister one's self and have felt the sinking, painful impression left after preaching doctrines of dejection. God is held too far off, Christ is swathed in too much dogma, the gospel is made too systematic, faith too theoretic and prayer too hypothetic. We are taught to trust providence though providence should fail to respond; objective results are assured though subjective are only obtained; faith in a super-natural cause is emphasized to the discouragement of per- sonal endeavor; the cultivation of self-reliance is neglected for trust in an external power; thinking and acting on the basis of reason is abandoned for emotional direction; illogical teachings and teachings contrary to experience baffle and disconcert the mind. These could all be avoided and yet Christianity be left in- tact. The identity of man with the universal 79 CRISES IN LIFE. intelligence and of all life with universal life, is the only view which will impart a happy and harmonious transformation to the creeds of the Christian Church. Though it will render antiquated some of the cherished doctrines of the Church, and retire to oblivion tons of theological litera- ture, ministers will in time give up preach- ing the weakness and worthlessness of man and proclaim the greatness and diviness of his nature. The debasive style of preaching is a relic of the days of ecclesiastical domina- tion, when the clergy, ambitious of power, preached such doctrines as would serve to abase and subdue the people and keep them submissive to their control. It is better to tell men that they are the offspring of God than that they are worms of the dust, and under the curse and condemna- tion of God. Though a man be a prodigal, he is still a son and an object of the Father's love. Tell men of the nobility of their origin and of the grandeur of their slumber- ing selves, and tell them, too, how Christ knowing the inherent greatness of human CRISES IN LIFE. 80 nature, calls on men to "awake" and to ''rise from the dead," and believing in their own latent powers and possibilities, possess the kingdom. E'er long the influence of the facts of scientific evolution will compel Christian teachers to discover in the Scriptures more cheerful ideas and give a happier construc- tion to truth. The history of the future, as concerns the relations of religion and science will be a repetition of the past; the dogmas of Church will yield to the revelations and conclusions of science. When the evolution of a right- eous character and spiritual nature are seen to be from within; when it is taught that the voice of Scripture appeals to man on the assumption of the latent riches and resources of his nature; when God and heaven and all the dress and circumstance of religion are located with the soul, the deathblow will have been given to human sorrow and despair, as well as to the imaginary conflict between science and religion. It is the didactic habit of externalizing God and truth and love and mercy and joy, 81 CRISES IN LIFE. and all the gracious agencies and elements of religion, that keeps it out of reach, and makes it disappointing and distracting when its joys and consolations are [most required. It is the externality of other things that makes them vain and disappointing. Religion to be an unfailing source of happiness and a sure dependence in the time of need must be con- ceived to be, and held to be, and delighted in, as subjective, as it is in fact. I repeat as my firm conviction, that relig- ion to be a source of real happiness to man must disclose to him the inherent ability resident within him, and this can only be done by recognizing and teaching the com- munity and identity of all being. This is the kingdom of God within, out of which the evolution of the higher life goes on. The whole discussion terminates in the bold logical extravagance, that as God knows no mood of disconsolation and no emotion of fear, so neither can man, when he properly understands his lineal and necessary relation to God. CRISES IN LIFE. 82 VII. " Affection is the broadest basis of a good life.'' ■ — George Elliot. The presentation of the natural and spirit- ual affections follows very fittingly in the train of religion and still more fittingly ends the catalogue and the discussion. The love of home and country and friends; the love of children and wife and parents; the love of the true, the beautiful and the good; the love of God and the works of God, are all affections inate to man, and what oceans of pleasure they suggest. Love is the tender bond that unites us to all persons, places and objects; it is the warm glow that invests the image of all we admire. Man is born of love and born to love; love is the very principle of existence. " Not to know love is not to live." Whether expended on us or expended by us, love is pleasant. Love is possession; we own all we love. We are most divine when we love most. "Affection never was wast- ed." "The test of affection is a tear. " Love 83 CRISES IN LIFE. is beauty enveloped in emotion. Love is in- telligence linked to feeling. Love is God and God is love. With so many to love us and so many to love, how can we ever be sad, unless too much love make us sad? Joy is in love and while lovable or capable of love, we need not want for joy. Faith and hope are the sister allies of love, and the heart must love to have the three. Cherish love, for if love could die the soul would expire. Who has not heard of love for country, child or friend or God, inviting death in hope of immortality of love; but in despair of love, alas, how many a hand in- flicts on self the mortal blow. "It is the greatest woe of life to feel all feeling die. " Love self and love self much, for the love of self is the gospel measure of love for others. Love self still more, do not be afraid to love self too much, for the ample love of self is love of God; God is thy greater self. Vanity, you need not fear, pride has no place where God is recognized. Love is nature's balm for the soul's dis- CRISES IN LIFE. 84 tress. That heart can never be unhappy that drinks ' 'sweet water from affection's spring/' One by one. the affections expand, like the fragrant blossoms on the raceme, until beau- tiful with form and glorious with perfection of color. Love of mother and father is suc- ceeded by love of brother and sister, followed by love of home and friends, love of country and kindred, love of God and humanity. Amid these stars of the first magnitude, appear constellations of the lesser affections, which sparkle and glow in the interspaces until the sky of the soul is all on fire with points of love. The earth blossoms and the firmament shines with images of love. Whether love looks up or down, it sees noth- ing but stars and flowers. Myself, my en- vironment, my horizon and zenith, love alone makes fair. The greatest contribution made to litera- ture on this theme, is contained in the con- summate saying: ' -Love never faileth." One at rare intervals catches a passing glimpse of this unfailing love in some devoted mother, wife or friend, or in the radiance of some 85 CRISES IN LIFE. highly cultured soul. How fine the emotion it awakens. How beautiful the image it creates. There is only one thing more grateful to the human soul than to be trusted, and that is, to be loved. Trust prepares the way for the advent and occupation of love. As I review the riches of human nature and think of the many wellsprings of happi- ness within the soul, I marvel at four things: First, that unhappiness for a single day should be the experience of one human be- ing; second, that any one should need to carry one capacity for pleasure to excess; third, that any one should appeal exclusively to the lower propensities for pleasure; fourth, that man should have ever thought of cultivating artificial appetites. There being so many exquisite joys among the sunny tree tops where the crimson bees roam and the kinglets build their nests, why should the soul stay in the gloomy depths of the forest. When an individual of the race is in a CRISES IN LIFE. 86 normal and healthy condition all the opera- tions of his body and mind and all the activi- ties and processes of his life are attended by pleasurable feelings; his entire organism is an instrument of pleasure. Happiness is the offspring of a body in all its functions unim- paired and a mind sound and uncorrupted. To one endowed with physical health and intellectual sanity, life can never be exhaust- ed of interest or the mind reach a state of gloomy disenchantment. It is never necessary to get intoxicated, to file a bill for divorce, to buy a pistol with suicidal intent, to join a gambling club, to violate the marriage contract, to swallow narcotic drugs, to sell out or burn out, to desert home and family, to take to vile litera- ture, etc., to make life interesting. A person must not be so unobserving as to confound physical weariness with loss of capacity for pleasure, or mental exhaustion with failure and discouragement, or hunger with a degenerate disposition, or loneliness with a morbid temperament, or postpone- ment with defeat. 87 CRISES IN LIFE. It is almost humorous to think of some of the trivial causes of despondency. The mind can always be assumed to be whole though the brain be weary and distressed. Impor- tant opinions must never be formed, nor important action taken in a state of fatigue or melancholy. Negative conditions of the body and mind are but signs of capacity for pleasure in rest or recreation. In extreme negative* states, when all affection seems to have dried up and all enjoyment withered, never conclude that you have exhausted the resources of your nature. You are but ripening for a larger and grander experience. The winter of dis- content precedes the summer of delight. When you become tired of indulgence appeal to virtue, for "virtue though in rags will keep you warm." and "virtue alone is happi- ness below." Few, if any, of the staple pleasures of life depend on riches, and certainly none of the finest and purest and best do. The pleasures of religion and art and intellect and society and health and exercise are free to all. CRISES IN LIFE. 88 The secret of happiness is always in the state and contents of the mind and never in external circumstances. Our circumstances correspond to our thoughts and beliefs. He that thinketh health and happiness and pros- perity, shall have these as the heritage of his life; and he that thinketh goodness, virtue, truth and love, shall have these, also, to beautify his days and crown his years. The belief which more than all else saves a man from lapsing into despondency, is belief in his own ability to overcome or accomplish anything he desires. Let him get rid of the idea that he is weak and worthless, and his days, not only of misery, but of care and anxiety are passed forever. If some unexpected and appalling death or disaster overtakes you and the brain and nerves heave and tremble with a tumult of jarring vibrations, wait! The mind is intact though the brain is bruised. Wait! The soul is self-restorative, and will again, when the organ of utterance is healed, assert its inher- ent nobility and joy. What pathetic tragedies have resulted through mistaking the commotion of the LofC. 89 CRISES IN LIFE. ' brain for the misery of the soul. The soul is a placid deep. There is an element of pre- tense in all human sorrow. The brain may be " wedded to calamity" but the mind never. With what Christian equanimity a man can endure the calamities and sorrows of others. In his own health and freedom he beholds the good that must ensue, for "sweet are the uses of adversity. " Self possessed he recalls the fact that day always follows night. When the plow-share of sorrow breaks up and obliterates some long-trodden path of pleasure, it transforms the hardened soil of a monotonous life into a green and fertile field. Calamity is but blind nature's way of interposing to save humanity from the pain of stagnation, or the melancholy of routine. Calamities are but events misunderstood. " Noble souls through dust and heat, Rise from disaster and defeat." There is many a better thing to do than to die. FINIS. Jan - 17 1901" LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 021 899 043 5 ;