forts of life, as the will of God, to be endured patiently and uncomplainingly, as our forefathers did (without an effort to remove the causes and end the friction and so graduate from this stage,) and stone the first man who used an umbrella, because they claimed it was an unholy protest against the will of God, and that he should endure the wetting. No longer are we satisfied to say with the gentleman living in Elizabeth's reign that some people were trying to introduce an absurd fashion of using knives and forks at meal time, but as for him he would not, for God had provided him with ten fingers and thumbs for that purpose and expected him to be satisfied with them.

CHAPTER XII

To those who are suffering, time seems in many cases endless, yet under the law of contrast they are attaining a capacity for happiness later on that will countless times over-compensate them for the pain they have endured. The child's doll in time breaks, and she grieves sadly and wishes perhaps that she had never had it, but the more experienced parents know that the doll has served a purpose in developing in the child the maternal instinct, bringing forth its love and pain and solicitude for the doll that has passed away. Remember at this time the promise given: "I will never fail thee." "If thou will diligently harken to the voice of the Lord, thy God, I will put none of these diseases upon you, for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” * "And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness." +

The unfortunate is he who has gone through life and suffered little, had no reverses but has had all that wealth could purchase, for such a one has learned but little and therefore must acquire his

*Deut. 32:39.

† Deut. 7:9-15.

knowledge in some future incarnation. And even he is never happy and ofttimes leads a far sadder life than a humbler brother especially one who is accomplishing something. Life itself is measured not by the span of years but by the experience gained, what we have thought and felt. Out of the many forms of evil to man sprang up the necessity for self-preservation, which finally took the form of co-operation, from which sprang all modern civilization. Had it not been for the existence of these so-called evils, man might still to-day be the ancient cave-dweller, the primeval cannibal of those times.

Scientists say that the music of the fields began with the fear and pain of birds. Plato said no one was fit to rule who had not learned to understand man through his own sorrow. Christ declared he had come to change nothing in the world but human desires, for nothing else needed changing. "Could we raise the veil that enshrouds eternal truth, we should see that behind Nature's cruelest works there are the sweet springs of divinest tenderness and love," says John Fiske. The brightest, sunniesthearted man Goldsmith ever met was a poor, deformed, crippled slave, wearing a chain, whom he met in Flanders.

We can only truly possess what is good, for we ourselves are good, and, as like attracts like and unlikes repel, we can only assimilate that which is like

unto ourselves.* Therefore," All things are yours means all desirable things, all that you can assimilate, and, since you are a spirit, MUST necessarily refer to things directly or indirectly affecting the spirit. Money does not answer this qualification except so far as it is necessary to properly clothe, feed, and house the body.†

Money is attracted by the man on a material plane who loves it and works for it (under the law that like attracts like), generally at the expense of his better spiritual self, for he has to concentrate deeply to the exclusion of the better things. The man who is further advanced considers it but a means to an end and therefore receives less of it. The possession of it is no criterion of success in life, which is spiritual not material. In the majority of cases it rather represents a foolish wasting of valuable time. All men of great spiritual attainments, from Christ down, have known this and one of them have ever desired or attained riches, their greatness has always consisted in doing something for others. When the present monopolization of money by the rich shall have passed away, all fear of social revolutions and much of the public discontent will have perished with it.

* The greatest of all possessions is self-possession, for it gives you power to command all other possessions.

Baron Anselm Rothschild said: "In a word, all that I get out of wealth is the duty of preserving and increasing it," nor did Nathan Rothschild get any more happiness out of the money making.

Man for ages has been controlled to a greater or less extent by his surroundings. At one stage he was entirely so controlled and is so now to a lesser extent. Is it not natural then that under the circumstances he should have gradually built up for himself limitations, the result of past experiences, that it now becomes very difficult for him to divest himself of, especially as almost up to the present time he has been taught that he is a grovelling worm, endured but despised of God?

The new uplift with the central idea of man's divinity-that he is a part of the cosmic wholemust needs take some time to do away with these conditions and release and place in command the God within. But when this is accomplished and the thought of “I can't," that great mental barrier of the ages (and the fear it conjured up, the graveyard of otherwise successful action) has been done away with, the results will be marvelous.

Fear is a negative, discordant vibration which puts you out of alignment with achievement by depriving you of faith in your powers to achieve success. It denies the power of God, and is therefore the greatest opposing force of God's-the only real devil that exists. When fear at a moment's notice can numb the mental faculties, cause the vital organs to refuse to work and culminate at times in death, what must be the effect of millions of years of fearing, and conversely what a great and beneficial reaction will