fork. It does not strike the keynote of a harmony. It only spreads the discord.

Trouble is infectious and discordant.

Nothing can correct it but'strong, wholesome confidence in life and self and one another. To pule and whine in sympathy at the demand of a sick mind is not the office of a friend.

A little mind always thinks its own trials are peculiar and demand a special recognition. This is nothing else than egotism. When one looks abroad he is sure to discover that he is not the only pupil in the class who has found difficult problems on his slate. It makes no difference that some of our classmates are dressed in better clothes and have richer bindings on their school books. Their problems are just as hard as ours, and often very much the same. We will not envy them.

Let us work faithfully at our tasks. Give all the cheerful stimulus and help to others that they will accept, but firmly refuse to listen to the talk of trouble when we cannot aid. Let us decline correspondence with such friends as fill their letters with their sicknesses. Let us never write a line or word that needlessly suggests unhappy thought. Let us take the black borders from our stationery, and gild our thoughts and words with love and confidence and knowledge in the realms of ETERNAL GOOD in which we have our being.

We will not then mistake the vice of so-called sympathy for the virtue of encouragement, which always brings health and gladness as a welcome guest.

God appears in the best thought, in the truest speech, in the sincerest action. Through His pure Spirit He giveth health, prosperity, devotion and eternity to the universe. He is the Father of all Truth.-Zoroaster.

"A sound heart is the life of the body."

BY LEO VIRGO,

Lesson 8. August 19.

The Man Born Blind, John 9:1-17.

GOLDEN TEXT-One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. John 9:25.

The beggar born blind represents one who has developed no spiritual perception from within but depends entirely upon others for that word "proceeding out of the mouth of God." Such an one is not spiritually obtuse through heredity, the sin of his parents, nor through his own sin in some former incarnation he has simply failed to express the powers of Being innate in him. He has let matter and material beliefs dominate him until his mentality is so clouded that he makes no effort to understand spiritual things for himself.

"The works of God should be made manifest in him." Such an one must awaken to action the God within him and do the works of the Spirit, one of which is the spiritualization of material states of consciousness.

Matter is not evil. it is the outward reflection of an idea in mind of inertia, inability. Man's work is to bring out and make active all the ideas possible to mind and put them in right relation.

"We must work the works of him that sent me while it is day: the night cometh when no man can work." "Day" represents the Now. "The night cometh" represents the future, which is always darkness to the present. I am is the light of the world right now. "When I am in the world, I am

light to the world''(R.V.).

"When he had thus spoken (that is, speak thes words), he anointed the eyes of the blind man with

clay." This is to symbolize the specific idea which stands in the way of clear spiritual vision. "Clay" represents a belief in the reality of matter; that it is a substance having certain inherent powers and qualities This is a false idea and puts the soul in bondage. This condition must be denied away-"Go wash in the pool of Siloam." "Siloam" means sent, sending or putting away. We are to deny the universal race belief in the reality and power of matter, and affirm the spirituality of all substance. This unreality of

matter is not a metaphysical flight of fancy, as many think, but the advanced school of modern physicists have arrived at a like conclusion. Lord Kelvin, Prof. Draper, and others of this school, say that there is a universal ether, or energy, whose form of motion throws into visibility that which we call matter, but that matter of itself has no entity. What causes this universal energy to take these multitudinous shapes they do not say, but we know that it is intelligence, and that in man is the highest concentration of that Infinite Intelligence-"I am light to the world."

Jesus, the I AM, knows neither time nor condition as a dominating factor. But those who are attached to conditions, like the Pharisees, who were sticklers for the letter, object to specific denials in that day or degree in which they rest. It is their "Sabbath," and they do not want to see any work done in it. These say, "God is all and in all, therefore the body and its material conditions are in Being don't deny or disturb that which is manifesting God." They hold that it is only necessary to rest in the consciousness that all is good. This is their Sabbath, or day of rest, and they don't want it disturbed.

But those who have tried the efficacy of denial of matter "come seeing as they never saw before,” and thay say that I am "is a prophet "; that is, one who brings the future into the now and makes plain that which was vague and obscure in metaphysical logic.

Lesson 9. August 26.

Jesus the Good Shepherd. John 10:1-16.

GOLDEN TEXT- The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. John 10:11.

The "door" of your mind is your

the door of the sheep."

66

I AM. "I am

Sheep" are your thoughts.

The "thief and robber" is mortal thought. The "porter" is the will. The "good shepherd "is also the I AM.

All forces that come into your consciousness in any other way than through your own I AM are thieves and robbers. No man can be saved from the limitations and mistakes of ignorance except through his own I AM volition.

There is a widespread belief that we can turn over to those who have better understanding the straightening out of our tangled thoughts, and thousands are in this age getting financially fat through the credulity of those who are laboring under this delusion. Such help may be extended temporarily, but it always proves a "thief and a robber" in the end. The true healer is always teacher, and instructs his patients how to open the door to the "good shepherd," the Divine I AM.

"The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep." This means that the high spiritual I AM lets itself become identified with the limitations of selfconsciousness that it may lift all up to the spiritual plane. "I lay down my life that I may take it again."

When we open the door of the mind through consciously affirming the presence and power of the Divine I AM in our midst, there is a marriage or union of higher forces in Being with lower; and we find that we are quickened in every part-the life of the I AM has been poured out for us. Thus Christ becomes the Savior of the whole world, by pouring this higher spiritual energy into human consciousness. But we must each for himself take it and identify ourselve

with it. The individual I AM is the only door through which it can get into our thoughts in a legitimate way. If it comes through mediumship, or hypnotism, of mental suggestion, without our willing co-operation, it is a "thief and a robber."

There is but one life-giver, one savior, the Christ; and the only door through which that Divine Essence can come to us is through our own I AM. Jesus of Nazareth points the way, but everyone must take up his cross and follow him; must "overcome

overcame.

as he

Lesson 10. September 2.

The Seventy Sent Forth. Luke 10:1-11, 17-20. GOLDEN TEXT-The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Luke 10: 2.

Nearly all our lessons have referred to the more interior planes of consciousness. This one goes into the exterior and shows the power of the I AM thought in its diversified aspect.

Seven is the number representing fullness in the world of phenomena. There are seven senses, although we usually count but five; the two additional are thinking and perceiving. The brain is the thinking organ, and the solar-plexus the perceiving organ. By this we refer to their outer function. We know that the eye and ear, in fact all the senses, have an inner field of action, but only the few have as yet quickened the within, and the phenomenal world seems to be their only place of action. So the brain and solar-plexus are in touch with mighty spiritual forces, but the few only have discovered it. In fact, it is not generally accepted that these latter have a distinct function in the sense consciousness. But they have, and much of the thought and feeling which metaphyscians take to be spiritual have their origin in the vibrations of the outer brain and the emotions of the sense soul. It is only when the head and heart are moved to action by the Spirit