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here are natures born to happiness just as there are born musicians, mechanics and mathematicians.
They are usually children who came into life under right pre-natal conditions. That is, children conceived and born in love.
The mother who thanks God for the little life she is about to bring to earth, gives her child a more blessed endowment than if it were heir to a kingdom or a fortune.
As the majority of people, however, born under "civilized" conditions, are unwelcome to their mothers, it is rarely we encounter one who has a birthright of happiness.
Youth possesses a certain buoyancy and exhilaration which passes for happiness, until the real disposition of the individual asserts itself with the passing of time.
Good health and strong vitality are great aids to happiness; yet that they, wealth and honors added, do not produce that much desired state of mind we have but to look about us to observe.
One who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to acquire skill in the art, however strong his desire or great his taste, than the natural genius.
So the man not endowed with joyous impulses needs to set himself the task of acquiring the habit of happiness. I believe it can be done. To the sad or restless or discontented being I would say: Begin each morning by resolving to find something in the day to enjoy. Look in each experience which comes to you for some grain of happiness. You will be surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable possesses either an instructive or an amusing side.
There is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty when you stop to realize that you are getting it out of the way.
If it is one of those duties which has the uncomfortable habit of repeating itself continually, you can at least say you are learning patience and perseverance, which are two great virtues and essential to any permanent happiness in life.
Do not anticipate the happiness of to-morrow, but discover it in to-day. Unless you are in the profound depths of some great sorrow, you will find it if you look for it.
Think of yourself each morning as an explorer in a new realm. I know a man whose time is gold, and he carefully arranged his plans to take three hours for a certain pleasure. He lost his way and missed his pleasure, but was full of exuberant delight over his "new experience." "I saw places and met with adventures I might have missed my whole life." He was a true philosopher and optimist and such a man gets the very kernel out of the nut of life.
I know a woman who had since her birth every material blessing, health, wealth, position, travel and a luxurious home. She was forever complaining of the cares and responsibilities of the latter. Finally she prevailed upon the family to rent the home for a series of years and to live in hotels. Now she goes about posing as a martyr, "a homeless woman." It is impossible for such a selfishly perverted nature to know happiness.
A child should be taught from its earliest life to find entertainment in every kind of condition or weather. If it hears its elders cursing and bemoaning a rainy day the child's plastic mind is quick to receive the impression that a rainy day is a disaster.
How much better to expatiate in its presence on the blessing of rain, and to teach it the enjoyment of all nature's varying moods, which other young animals feel.
Happiness must come from within in order to respond to that which comes from without, just as there must be a musical ear and temperament to enjoy music.
Cultivate happiness as an art or science.
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have a letter from an "orthodox Christian," who says the only hope for humanity lies in the "old-fashioned religion."
Then he proceeds to tell me how carefully he has studied human nature, "in business, in social life, and in himself," and that he finds it all vile—selfish—sinful.
Of course he does, because he studies it from a false and harmful standpoint, and looks for "the worm of earth" and "the poor, miserable sinner," instead of thedivineman.
We find what we look for in this world.
I have always been looking for the noble qualities in human beings, and I have found them.
There are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are great qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us ordinarily.
One of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison for sins committed while in drink.
He was not "born bad", he simply drifted into bad company and formed bad habits.
He paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the divine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I feel prouder to call that name.
Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of Chicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts:
According to my experience with a number of men of this class during the last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the most cordial support and assistance.
If this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is not so vile as my "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe.
A "Christian" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not allowed to associate with mankind.
He carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air.
He suggests evil to minds which have not thought it.
He is a dangerous hypnotist, while pretending to be a disciple of Christ.
The man who believes that all men are vicious, selfish and immoral isprojecting pernicious mind stuffinto space, which is as dangerous to the peace of the community as dynamite bombs.
The world has been kept back too long by this false, unholy and blasphemous "religion."
It is not the religion of Christ—it is the religion of ignorant translators, ignorant readers.
Thank God, its supremacy is past. A wholesome and holy religion has taken its place with the intelligent progressive minds of the day, a religion which says: "I am all goodness, love, truth, mercy, health. I am a necessary part of God's universe. I am a divine soul, and only good can come through me or to me. God made me, and He could make nothing but goodness and purity and worth. I am the reflection of all His qualities."
This is the "new" religion; yet it is older than the universe. It is God's own thought put into practical form.
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f you are suffering from physical ills, ask yourself if it is not your own fault.
There is scarcely one person in one hundred who does not over eat or drink.
I know an entire family who complain of gastric troubles, yet who keep the coffee pot continually on the range and drink large quantities of that beverage at least twice a day.
No one can be well who does that. Almost every human ailment can be traced to foolish diet.
Eat only two meals in twenty-four hours. If you are not engaged in active physical labor, make it one meal. Drink two or three or four quarts of milk at intervals during the day to supply good blood to the system.
You will thrive upon it, and you will not miss the other two meals after the first week.
And your ailments will gradually disappear.
Meantime, if you are self-supporting, your bank account will increase.
Think of the waste of money which goes into indigestible food! It is appalling when you consider it. Heaven speed the time when men and women find out how little money it requires to sustain the body in good health and keep the brain clear and the eye bright!
The heavy drinker is to-day looked upon with pity and scorn. The time will come when the heavy eater will be similarly regarded.
Once find the delight of a simple diet, the benefit to body and mind and purse, and life will assume new interest, and toil will be robbed of its drudgery, for it will cease to be a mere matter of toiling for a bare existence.
Again, are you unhappy? Stop and ask yourself why. If you have a great sorrow, time will be your consoler. And there is an ennobling and enriching effect of sorrow well borne.
It is the education of the soul. But if you are unhappy over petty worries and trials, you are wearing yourself to no avail; and if you are allowing small things to irritate and harass you and to spoil the beautiful days for you, take yourself in hand and change your ways.
You can do it if you choose. It is pitiful to observe what sort of troubles most unhappy people are afflicted with. I have seen a beautiful young woman grow care lined and faded just from imagining she was being "slighted" or neglected by her acquaintances.
Some one nodded coldly to her, another one spoke superciliously, a third failed to invite her, a fourth did not pay her a call, and so on—always a grievance to relate until one is prepared to look sympathetic at sight of her.
And such petty, petty grievances for this great, good life to be marred by!
And all the result of her own disposition. Had she chosen to look for appreciation and attention and good will she would have found it everywhere.
Then, about your temper? Is it flying loose over a trifle? Are you making yourself and every one else wretched if a chair is out of place, or a meal a moment late, or some member of the family is tardy at dinner, or your shoe string is in a tangle or your collar button mislaid?
Do you go to pieces nervously if you are obliged to repeat a remark to some one who did not understand you? I have known a home to be ruined by just such infinitesimal annoyances. It is a habit, like the drug or alcohol habit—this irritability.
All you need do is to stop it. Keep your voice from rising, and speak slowly and calmly when you feel yourself giving way to it. Realize how ridiculous and disagreeable you will be if you continue, what an unlovely and hideous old age you are preparing for yourself. And realize that a loose temper is a sign of vulgarity and lack of culture.
Think of the value of each day of life, how much it means and what possibilities of happiness and usefulness it contains if well spent.
But if you stuff yourself like an anaconda, dwell on the small worries and grow angry at the least trifle, you are committing as great and inexcusable a folly as if you flung your furniture and garments and food and fuel into the sea in a spirit of wanton cruelty. You are wasting life for nothing. Every sick, gloomy day you pass is a sin against life. Get health, be cheerful, keep calm.
Clear your mind of every gloomy, selfish angry or revengeful thought. Allow no resentment or grudge toward man or fate to stay in your heart over night.
Wake in the morning with a blessing for every living thing on your lips and in your soul. Say to yourself: "Health, luck, usefulness, success, are mine. I claim them." Keep thinking that thought, no matter what happens, just as you would put one foot before another if you had a mountain to climb. Keep on, keep on, and suddenly you will find you are on the heights, luck beside you.
Whoever follows this recipecannot failof happiness, good fortune and a useful life. But saying the words overonceand then drifting back to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good.
The words must be said over and over, andthoughtandlivedwhen not said.
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he world is full of "New Thought" Literature. It is helpful and inspiring to read.
It is worth many dollars to any one who willliveits philosophy.
I talked to a man who has been studying along these lines for some years.
"Oh, I know all that philosophy," he said; "it is nothing new. I am perfectly familiar with it."
Yet this man was continually allowing himself to grow angry over the least trifle; he was quick to see and speak of the faults in others; he was demanding more of those he associated with in the way of consideration and justice than he was willing to give, and he was untidy in his person and improvident in his use of money.
Now it is the merest waste of time for this man to read "New Thought" literature or practice "deep breathing", since he will not put into daily and hourly practice what is taught by the New Religion.
He is like the orthodox Christian who mumbles through the Lord's Prayer and then goes forth to do exactly as he would not be done by in business, social and domestic life.
Man is what he thinks. Not what he says, reads or hears. By persistent thinking you can undo any condition which exists. You can free yourself from any chains, whether of poverty, sin, ill health or unhappiness. If you have been thinking these thoughts half a lifetime you must not expect to batter down the walls you have built, in a week, or a month, or a year. You must work and wait, and grow discouraged and stumble and pick yourself up and go on again.
You cannot in an hour gain control over a temper which you have let fly loose for twenty years. But you can control it eventually, and learn to think of a burst of anger as a vulgarity like drunkenness or profanity, something you could not descend to.
If you have allowed yourself to think despondent thoughts and believe that poverty and sickness were your portion for years, it will take time to train your mind to more cheerful and hopeful ideas; but you can do it by repeated assertions and by reading and thinking and living the beautiful New Thought Philosophy.
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ot long ago I read the following gloomy bit of pessimism from the pen of a man bright enough to know better than to add to the mental malaria of the world. He said:
Life is a hopeless battle in which we are foredoomed to defeat. And the prize for which we strive "to have and to hold"—what is it? A thing that is neither enjoyed while had, nor missed when lost. So worthless it is, so unsatisfying, so inadequate to purpose, so false to hope and at its best so brief, that for consolation and compensation we set up fantastic faiths of an aftertime in a better world from which no confirming whisper has ever reached us out of the void. Heaven is a prophecy uttered by the lips of despair, but Hell is an inference from history.
This is morbid and unwholesome talk which can do no human being any good to utter, or listen to.
But it can depress and discourage the weak and struggling souls, who are striving to make the best of circumstances, and it can nerve to suicide the hand of some half-crazed being, who needed only a word of encouragement and cheer to brace up and win the race.
This is the unpardonable sin—to talk discouragingly to human souls, hungering for hope.
When the man without brains does it, he can be pardoned for knowing no better.
When the man with brains does it, he should be ashamed to look his fellow mortals in the eyes.
It is a sin ten times deeper dyed than giving a stone to those who ask for bread.
It is giving poison to those who plead for a cup of cold water.
Fortunately the remarks above quoted contain not one atom of truth!
The writer may speak for himself, but he has no right to speak for others.
It is all very well for a man who is marked with smallpox to say his face has not one unscarred inch on the surface of it. But he has no premises to stand upon when he says there is not a face in the world which is free from smallpox scars.
Life is not "a hopeless battle in which we are doomed to defeat."
Life is a glorious privilege, and we can make anything we choose of it, if we begin early and are in deep earnest, and realize our own divine powers.
Nothing can hinder us or stay us. We can do and be whatsoever we will.
The prize of life is not "a thing which is neither enjoyed while had nor missed when lost."
It is enjoyed by millions of souls to-day—this great prize of life. I for one declare that for every day of misery in my existence I have had a week of joy and happiness. For every hour of pain, I have had a day of pleasure. For every moment of worry, an hour of content.
I cannot be the only soul so endowed with the appreciation of life! I know scores of happy people who enjoy the many delights of earth, and there are thousands whom I do not know.
Of course "life is not missed when lost"—because it is never lost. It is indestructible.
Life ever was, and ever will be. It is a continuous performance.
It is not "worthless" to the wholesome, normal mind. It is full of interest, and rich with opportunities for usefulness.
When any man says his life is worthless, it is because he has eyes and sees not, and ears and hears not.
It is his own fault, not the fault of God, fate or accident.
If every life seems at times "unsatisfactory" and "inadequate" it is only due to the cry of the immortal soul longing for larger opportunities and fewer limitations.
Neither is life "false to hope." He who trusts the divine Source of Life, shall find his hopes more than realized here upon earth. I but voice the knowledge of thousands of souls, when I make this assertion. I know whereof I speak.
All that our dearest hopes desire will come to us, if we believe in ourselves as rightful heirs to Divine Opulence, and work and think always on those lines.
If "no whisper has ever reached us out of the void" confirming our faith in immortality, then one-third of the seemingly intelligent and sane beings of our acquaintance must be fools or liars. For we have the assertion of fully this number that such whispers have come, besides the Biblical statistics of numerous messages from the other realm. "As it was in the beginning, is now and shall be ever more, world without end, Amen."
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very day I hear middle-aged people bemoaning the fact that they were not given advantages or did not seize the opportunities for an education in early youth.
They believe that their lives would be happier, better and more useful had an education been obtained.
Scarcely one of these people realizes that middle life is the schooltime for old age, and that just as important an opportunity is being missed or ignored day by day for the storing up of valuable knowledge which will be of great importance in rendering old age endurable.
Youth is the season to acquire knowledge, middle life is the time to acquire wisdom.
Old age is the season to enjoy both, but wisdom is far the more important of the two.
By wisdom I mean the philosophy which enables us to control our tempers, curb our tendency to severe criticism, and cultivate our sympathies.
The majority of people after thirty-five consider themselves privileged to be cross, irritable, critical and severe, because they have lived longer than the young, because they have had more trials and disappointments, and because they believe they understand the world better.
Those are excellent reasons why they should be patient, kind, broad and sympathetic.
The longer we live the more we should realize the folly and vulgarity of ill-temper, the cruelty of severe criticism and the necessity for a broad-minded view of life, manners, morals and customs.
Unless we adapt ourselves to the changing habits of the world, unless we adopt some of the new ideas that are constantly coming to the front, we will find ourselves carping, disagreeable and lonely old people as the years go by.
The world will not stand still for us. Society will not wear the same clothes or follow the same pleasures, or think the same thoughts when we are eighty that were prevalent when we were thirty. We must keep moving with the world or stand still and solitary.
After thirty we must seize every hour and educate ourselves to grow into agreeable old age.
It requires at least twenty years to become well educated in book and college lore. If we begin to study at seven we are rarely through with all our common schools, seminaries, high schools and colleges have to offer under a score of years.
The education for old age needs fully as many years. We need to begin at thirty to be tolerant, patient, serene, trustful, sympathetic and liberal. Then, at fifty, we may hope to have "graduated with honors" from life's school of wisdom, and to be prepared for another score or two of years of usefulness and enjoyment in the practice of these qualities.
Instead of wasting our time in bemoaning the loss of early opportunities for obtaining an education, let us devote ourselves to the cultivation of wisdom, since that is free to all who possess self-control, will power, faith and perseverance.
Begin to-day, at home. Be more tolerant of the faults of the other members of your household. Restrain your criticisms on the conduct of your neighbors.
Try and realize the causes which led some people who have gone wrong to err. Look for the admirable qualities in every one you meet. Sympathize with the world. Be interested in progress, be interested in the young. Keep in touch with each new generation, and do not allow yourself to grow old in thought or feeling.
Educate yourself for a charming old age. There is no time to lose.
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ur thoughts are shaping unmade spheres,And, like a blessing or a curse,They thunder down the formless yearsAnd ring throughout the universe.
The more we realize the tremendous responsibility of our mental emanations the better for the world and ourselves. The sooner we teach little children what a mighty truth lies in the Bible phrase "As a man thinketh, so is he," the better for future generations.
If a man thinks sickness, poverty and misfortune, he will meet them and claim them all eventually as his own. But he will not acknowledge the close relationship, he will deny his own children and declare they were sent to him by an evil fate.
Walter Atkinson tells us that "he who hates is an assassin."
Every kindergarten and public school teacher ought to embody this idea in the daily lessons for children.
It may not be possible to teach a child to "love every neighbor as himself," for that is the most difficult of Commandments to follow to the letter; but it is possible to eliminate hatred from a nature if we awaken sympathy for the object of dislike.
That which we pity we cannot hate. The wonderful Intelligence which set this superb system of worlds in action must have been inspired by love for all it created.
So much grandeur and magnificence, so much perfection of detail, could only spring from Love.
Whatever is out of harmony in our little world has been caused by man's substituting hate and fear for love and faith.
Every time we allow either hate or fear to dominate our minds we disarrange the order of the universe and make trouble for humanity, and ourselves.
It may be a little late in reaching us, but it is sure to come back to the Mind which sent forth the cause.
Every time we entertain thoughts of love, sympathy, forgiveness and faith we add to the well-being of the world, and create fortunate and successful conditions for ourselves.
Those, too, may be late in coming to us—BUT THEY WILL COME.
Right thinking is not attained in a day or a week.
We must train the mind to reject the brood of despondent, resentful, fearful and prejudiced thoughts which approach it, and to invite and entertain cheerful, broad and wholesome thoughts instead, just as we overcome false tones and cultivate musical ones in educating the voice for singing.
When we once realize that by driving away pessimistic, angry and bitter thoughts we drive away sickness and misfortune to a great extent, and that by seeking the kinder and happier frame of mind we seek at the same time success and health and good luck, we will find a new impetus in the control of our mental forces.
For we all love to be paid for our worthy deeds, even while we believe in being good for good's sake only. And nothing in life is surer than this:
RIGHT THINKING PAYS LARGE DIVIDENDS.
Thinksuccess, prosperity, usefulness. It is much more profitable than thinking self-destruction or the effort at self-destruction for that is an act which aims at an impossibility. You can destroy the body, but theyouwho suffers in mind and spirit will suffer still, and live still. You will only change your location from one state to another. You did not make yourself, you cannot unmake yourself. You can merely put yourself among the spiritual tramps who hang about the earth's borders, because they have not prepared a better place for themselves.
Suicide is cheap, vulgar and cowardly. Because you have made a wreck of a portion of this life, do not make a wreck of the next.
Mend up your broken life here, go along bravely and with sympathy and love in your heart, determined to help everybody you can, and to better your condition as soon as possible. Men have done this after fifty, and lived thirty good years to enjoy the results.
Do not feel hurt by the people who slight you, or who refer to your erring past. Be sorry for them. I would rather be a tender-hearted reformed sinner than a hard-hearted model of good behavior.
I would rather learn sympathy through sin than never learn it at all.
There is nothing we cannot live down, and rise above, and overcome. There is nothing we cannot be in the way of nobility and worth.
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e get what we give. I have never known this rule to fail in the long run. If we give sympathy, appreciation, goodwill, charitable thoughts, admiration and love—we receive all these back from humanity in time.
We may bestow them unworthily, as the sower of good seed may cast it on a rocky surface, but the winds of heaven will scatter it broadcast, and, while the rock remains barren, the fields shall yield a golden harvest.
The seed must be good, however.
If I say to myself without any real regard for another in my heart, "I want that person to like me, I will do all in my power to please him," I need not be surprised if my efforts fail or prove of only temporary efficacy.
Neither need I feel surprised or pained if I find by-and-by that other people are bestowing policy friendship upon me, actions with no feeling for a foundation.
No matter how kind and useful I make my conduct toward an individual, if in my secret heart I am criticising him severely and condemning him, I must expect criticism and condemnation from others as my portion.
We reap what we sow. Some harvests are longer in growing than others, but they all grow in time.
Servility in love, or friendship, or duty, is never commendable. I do not believe God Himself feels complimented when the beings He created as the highest type of His workmanship declare themselves worthless worms, unworthy of His regard!
We are heirs of God's kingdom, and rightful inheritors of happiness, and health, and success. What monarch would feel pleasure in having his children crawl in the dust, saying, "We are less than nothing, miserable, unworthy creatures?"
Would he not prefer to hear them say, proudly: "We are of royal blood"?
We ought always to believe in our best selves, in our right to love and be loved, to give and receive happiness, and to toil and be rewarded. And then we should bestow our love, our gifts and our toil with no anxious thought about the returns. If we chance to love a loveless individual, to give to one bankrupt in gratitude, to toil for the unappreciative, it is but a temporary deprivation for us. The love, the gratitude and the recompense will all come to us in time from some source, or many sources. It cannot fail.
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merican parents, as a rule, can be put in two extreme classes, those who render the children insufferably conceited and unbearable by overestimating their abilities and overpraising their achievements, and those who render them morbid and self-depreciating by a lack of wholesome praise.
It is rare indeed, when we find parents wise and sensible enough to strengthen the best that is in their children by discreet praise, and at the same time to control the undesirable qualities by judicious and kind criticism.
I heard a grandmother not long ago telling callers in the presence of a small boy what a naughty, bad child he was, and how impossible it seemed to make him mind. Wretched seed to sow in the little mind, and the harvest is sure to be sorrow.
I have heard parents and older children, expatiate on the one stupid trait and the one plain feature of a bright and handsome child, intending to keep it from forming too good an opinion of itself.
To all young people I would say, cultivate a belief in yourself. Base it on self-respect and confidence in God's love for his own handiwork. Say to yourself, "I will be what I will to be." Not because your human will is all-powerful, but because the Divine will is back of you. Analyze your own abilities and find what you are best fitted to do.
Then get about the task of doing your chosen work to the very best of your ability, and do not for an instant doubt your own capabilities. Perhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by years of morbid thought; but if you persist in a self-respecting and self-reliant and God-trusting course of thinking your powers will increase and your capabilities strengthen.
It is no easy matter to overcome a habit of self-depreciation.
It is like straightening out a limb which has been twisted by a false attitude or correcting a habit of sitting round-shouldered.
It requires a steady and persistent effort. When the depressing and doubtful thoughts come drive them away like malaria-breeding insects. Say, "This is not complimentary to my Maker. I am His work. I must be worthy of my own respect and of that of others. I must and will succeed."
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f we persistently desire good things to come to us for unselfish purposes, and at the same time faithfully perform the duties which lie nearest, we will eventually find our desires being realized in the most unexpected manner.
Our thought force has proved to be a wedge, opening the seemingly inaccessible Wall of Circumstance.
To read good books, to think and ponder on what you read, to cultivate every agreeable quality you observe in others, and to weed from your nature every unworthy and disagreeable trait, to study humanity with an idea of being helpful and sympathetic, all these efforts will help you to the ultimate attainment of your wishes.
It is a proven fact that if we devote a few moments each day to reaching exercises, standing with loose garments and stretching the body muscles to reach some point above us, we increase our stature.
Just so if we mentally and spiritually are continually reaching to a higher plane we are growing.
Every least thought of the brain is a chisel, chipping away at our characters, and our characters are building our destinies.
The incessant and persistent demand of our hearts and minds MUST be granted.
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uring a trolley ride through a thrifty New England locality, where church spires were almost as plentiful as trees, I studied the faces of the people who came into the car during my two hours' journey.
The day was beautiful, and all along the route our numbers were recruited by bevies of women, young, middle aged and old, who were bent on shopping expeditions or setting forth to make social calls.
They went and came at each village through which our coach of democracy passed, and they represented all classes.
The young girls were lovely, as young girls are the world over: their complexion possessed that soft tender luster, peculiar to seashore localities, for the salty breath of Father Neptune is the greatest of cosmetics. Many of the young faces were formed in classic mould, their features clearly cut and refined, and severe, like the thoughts and principles of their ancestors.
Often I observed a mother and some female relative, presumably an aunt, in company with a young relative; and always the sharpening and withering process of the years of set and unelastic thought was discernible upon their faces, which had once been young, and classic and attractive.
In the entire two hours I saw but three lovely faces which were matured by time.
I saw scores of well-dressed and evidently well-cared-for women of middle age, whose countenances were furrowed, drawn, pinched, sallow, and worn, beyond excuse; for time, sorrow, and sickness are not plausible excuses for such ravages upon a face God drew in lines of beauty.
Time should mature a woman's beauty as it does that of a tree. Sorrow should glorify it as does the frost the tree, and sickness should not be allowed to lay a lingering touch upon it, until death calls the spirit away.
Without question the great majority of the women I saw were earnest orthodox Christians.
I heard snatches of conversation regarding Church and Charities and I have no doubt that each woman among them believed herself to be a disciple of Christ.
Yet where was the result of the loving, tender, sweet spirit of Christ's teaching?
It surely was not visible upon those pinched and worried faces? and those faces were certain and truthful chronicles of the work done by the minds within.
One face said to me in every line, "I talk about God's goodness and loving-kindness, but I worry over the dust in the spare room, I fret about our expenses, I am troubled about my lungs, and I fear my husband has an unregenerate heart. I never know an hour's peace, for even in my sleep, I worry, worry, worry, but of course I know I will be saved by the blood of Christ!"
Another said, "I am in God's fold, well and safe, but I hate and despise my nearest neighbor, for she wears clothes that I am sure she cannot pay for, and her children are always dressed better than mine. I quarrel with my domestics, and am always in trouble of some kind, just because human beings are so full of sin and no one but myself is ever right. I shall be so glad to leave this world of woe and go to heaven, but I hope I will not meet many of my present acquaintances there!"
Another said, "If I only had good health—but I was born to sickness and suffering, and it is God's will that I should suffer!"
Oh the pity of it, and to imagine this is religion!
Thank God the wave of "New Thought" is sweeping over the land, and washing away those old blasphemous errors of mistaken creeds.
The "New Thought" is to give us a new race of beautiful middle-aged and old people.
To-day in any part of the land among rich, poor, ignorant or intellectual, orthodox or materialists the beautiful mature face is rarer than a white blackbird in the woods.
It is impossible to be plain, ugly, or uninteresting in late life, if the mind keeps itself occupied with right thinking.
The withered and drawn face of fifty indicates withered emotions and drawn and perverted ambitions.
The dried and sallow face tells its story of dried up sympathies and hopes.
The furrowed face tells of acid cares eating into the heart.
All this is irreligious! yet all this prevails extensively in our most conservative and churchy communities.
He who in truth trusts God cannot worry.
He who loves God and mankind, cannot become dried and withered at fifty, for love will re-create his blood, and renew the fires of his eye.
He who understands his own divine nature will grow more beautiful with the passing of time, for the God within will become each year more visible.
The really reverent soul accepts its sorrows as blessings in disguise, and he who so accepts them is beautified and glorified by them, within and without.
Are you growing more attractive as you advance in life? Is your eye softer and deeper, is your mouth kinder, your expression more sympathetic, or are you screwing up your face in tense knots of worry? Are your eyes growing hopeless and dull, is your mouth drooping at the corners, and becoming a set thin line in the centre, and is your skin dry, and sallow, and parched?
Study yourself and answer these questions to your own soul, for in the answer depends the decision whether you really love and trust God, and believe in your own immortal spirit, or whether you are a mere impostor in the court of faith.