It is Here Now, with All Its Beauty and Its Harmony EAVEN is here with all its ence. beauty and its harmony, and the way of its opening and revelation to all is through the desire that not one but shall return to the Eden whence they came. In seeing that God's world is the only one that has ever been made, one knows that where thorns appear, roses really are; and as justification for thorns passes away the thorns themselves will finally disappear. It is because evil has been believed in as a reality, that ascetics and other good people have felt that the thorns were a necessity to keep them true, or to punish them for their past errors. This is shown very plainly in the history of the early Christians, who, in order to overcome their carnal desires, often put themselves through severe experiences, even feeling that the miseries and the punishment saved them from worse conditions. Thus, Benedict is said to have rolled himself in a bed of thorns, trying to overcome the carnal nature which beset him so severely, and years afterward another saintly character came to the cave where Benedict had lived, and gazing upon the thorny bushes just outside in which Benedict had often rolled himself, stretched forth his hands and blessed them, and thereupon every thorn turned into a rose. Thus it is that we may bless the thorns that have goaded our sides and no longer resist them, and also we can realize that they are not a necessity for our spiritual ongoing; and while we bless them they will be transformed before passing out of our experi Then our pathway is the way of roses in which there are no thorns. "All the way to Heaven is Heaven," declares Canon Farrar, and "Wisdom's way is peace, and all her paths are pleasantness," therefore there are no thorns with the Christ of the Resurrection. Our crown of thorns becomes a diadem and we "forget our miseries and remember them as waters that pass away," believing that the Truth is quite sufficient to save us from all further mistakes and from reaping the consequences of those of the past. The Truth is, that God's grace fills our whole being now, and there is no presence or power working in and through us, and our lives, but Heaven's own goodness and sweetness; that there is nothing in any one else that can approach us but the purest and highest; that the oil of peace smoothes all our way and friction has utterly passed, because there is nothing but God; there is nothing but love and life, health and happiness, peace and purity and blessing in every form. now. We live in the Kingdom of Heaven We are not making it. It is here, and all its laws are harmonious, and all its fruits are divinely pleasant, without any bitterness or even memory of wrong in them. We have turned from the bitter fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to the fruit of the immortal tree of God's presence and power; and, ceasing to eat of the forbidden experiences in the realm of opposites, our life is a joy, full of the care-free blessings of youth, the conscious fullness of God's beauty and holiness. All our world bursts forth into bloom, and where thorns were thickest, there joys now abound. And with this outlook, all fear and resistance toward the hard experiences of mortality pass from us, and free in mind, we are forever free in the outer expression. The Master Mind. THE WALKING HABIT Two young women are reported to have walked home from a vacation resort up state "as a joke." The distance was eighteen miles, and the pedestrians reported at their homes "tired but feeling fine." The incident is valuable particularly as calling fresh attention to the advantages of walking as a means of exercise. What these young women did as a joke, to a limited extent might be done profitably by nine-tenths of city dwellers with great good and enlarged degree of health and physical soundness. It is only repeating what has been said often before that people who live and work in the city walk too little, and that many of the ills of life grow out of a disinclination to exercise this helpful method of locomotion. With increasing invention in the field of transportation walking is growing less and less popular. Street cars, automobiles, motorcycles and even the strenuous bicycle may be found at one's convenience as a daily substitute for the homely, natural old method of walking. Physicians tell us that as a result the atrophying process in man's organic structure has gained wonderful headway in all our cities. There is really no substitute for walking as a means of helpful exercise. No other system of physical culture calls into play under such stimu lating conditions the various organs and muscles of the human body. Persons whose daily duties require them to remain seated or standing indoors all day should profit by the example of the returning vacationists alluded to. Get out and walk a little every day! If only for a few miles, the results will be quickly beneficial. Of course, walking in the open country is preferable, and the early morning and evening hours are best, but if these things cannot be combined, walk in the city and give the cramped limbs and muscles a chance to expand and allow the blood circulation to become uniform! I F there's one thing the busy woman ought to know better than another it's how to take her mind off her work, says a writer in the Kansas City Star. No one can go on treading the same round day and night without suffering for it. You can't treat your mind as though it were a captive squirrel and set. it to twirling a wheel for exercise, no matter how important it may be to turn that wheel. What is good for the squirrel will be madness for you. The more your mind has to carry, the less you can afford to keep it constantly. at it. com win. If, when you turn homeward you find yourself milling along over the past hours and fretting at this or that obstacle, re-writing letters, worrying over that uncompleted task, or kicking at the way you did another, why, stop it. Take your mind off, as you might take a naughty child by the hand and lead it away. Lead it wherever you choose, so long as the environment is new and has nothing to do with what worries you. Plan a new dress, study out your vacation schemes, think up a party you mean to give, turn to a book or go to a play or talk over with a friend some of her There is an old story to the effect that affairs; do any of a thousand things, but simply refuse to allow your mind. to fret and fume and work over the day's happenings. certain mathematician, when pletely stumped by some problem, would lay the whole thing aside and go calmly to sleep. In the morning he would awaken to find that the subconscious part of his brain had been working on at the problem and had solved it while he slept. We want to realize that the brain has laws of its own, laws we should respect, and that will help us if we give them a chance. If something has bothered you all day at the office, there's no manner of use in running over and over the same ground when you get away. You just tire yourself out to no purpose. When the time comes for you to quit work quit it entirely. Don't leave part of yourself still on the job. It's all a matter of training, and it is difficult at first. You will have to take yourself in hand sternly, but you will You will soon get better control of your mind, and be able, when you close your desk after your day's labor, to turn with a fresh, free mind to other things in life. If, as will and should occasionally happen, certain problems arise in your working hours that require careful thinking out, give up a definite time in your off hours to settling them. But refuse to waste yourself and your time in mere muddling over things without, as the farmer said, getting any "forrader." For that is what tires you out and your mind. Good, straight forward thinking never hurt anybody. But teach yourself, as soon as you begin work, to take your mind off. Make it heed the word of command-and you'll keep for long your freshness of mind and body. A TWO-HORSE STORY I was standing near the curbing of a street in one of our neighboring towns some time ago, when an automobile stopped close to the sidewalk. In a few moments I saw a horse approaching, harnessed to a large dray. Seated high above the body of the vehicle was the colored driver. The horse showed signs of uneasiness, and when very near the automobile it became quite fearful, so much so that the driver came down from the high seat, walked up to the horse's head and turned it toward the machine. He then patte the animal and talked to it in a way that had the effect of calming its fears, and soon it followed him a few steps, after which he climbed again to his seat and the horse went on as if nothing had happened. Soon another horse came along with a white driver, a strong, muscular man, with a whip and an enormous amount of human will power to use it with. This horse, a fine looking animal, also balked when it neared the machine. The driver, instead of trying to help the horse overcome the fear by talking sensibly and patting it kindly, just whipped the horse severely, turning, it seemed, much of his angry will power into using the whip. Finally, after much time had been lost in beating the horse, he turned it around and, driving it again to the machine several times, the animal, almost desperate, dashed by the machine and went on up the street by no means in a very good humor. Both horses were frightened and were unwilling to go too near a thing that seemed dangerous and that they did not understand. Of course, it was natural that they should try to avoid the machine. Both men had a problem to solve— how to get the horse by the automobile. Each man got the answer to his problem, and each man was a different man and each horse a different horse afterwards. The first man used his intelligence as kindly and as patiently as he could to make the dumb animal understand there was no danger in passing. The animal seemed to understand, and horse and driver went by, each better for the experience; the man was kinder and had more faith in kind intelligence even when used upon the animal world, and the horse had overcome another fear and was hence a better and more useful horse with a better feeling toward his driver. This man solved his problem by thoughtful action. The second man used his unintelligent human will power, and beat his horse by the automobile, without trying to strengthen by patience and kindness the intelligence which the animal had already shown in being afraid of the strange looking object. This horse and driver went by also, but each worse off for his experience; the man was less kind and had even more faith in unintelligent brute force, while the horse still had fear of automobiles and a stronger fear at that, because he would expect a whipping whenever he would see one, and those fears made him a less reliable and less useful horse.-Our Dumb Animals. The greatest center of attraction in the world is life. All things tend to gravitate towards those places or institutions that contain the most life. The same law holds true with the individual. The moment a man becomes thoroughly alive, everything begins to come his way. NEW THOUGHT New Thought does not come to supersede or to destroy the Christian faith as presented to the world by its Founder. It is not in any way at variance with the spirit of Christianity, but simply seeks to fulfill the vital truths that Jesus taught 1900 years ago. New Thought comes rather to re-present the great fundamental truths that Jesus not only taught but lived, and to show that what is most needed today is not so much a theoretical as an applied Christianity. Living the Christ life is not a mere conformity to creed or form, but being animated by the same Spirit, and the giving of loving service to one's fellowmen, we thus demonstrate in an outer way the truth of the inner Spirit. New Thought recognizes that all people and all religions are in different stages of growth and evolution, and that every stage in human development being a necessary stage, should be recognized as such; therefore, New Thought does not make war against anyone's religion. It recognizes the absolute right not only of religious bodies but of individuals to work out their plan of Life according to the knowledge of which they may be possessed. There can, therefore, be no spirit of judgment, controversy or condemnation of any other body of people, even though they are in apparent opposition to what New Thought teaches. The truest teaching is living; and the primary philanthropy is to live a good life.-Edward Howard Griggs. There is enough good in even the worst man to reform the world.-Lincoln Steffens. IMMENSE HARM DONE BY FEVERKILLERS The immense amount of harm and mischief done by only three of the anti-pyretics or fever-killers, acetanilid, antipyrin, and phenacetin, may be surmised from the information obtained by the United States Bureau of Chemistry, according to which the cases recorded in medical literature, during the years 1884 to 1907, and data reported by 925 physicians, amounted to 1,669 cases of poisoning, 54 cases of death, and 169 cases of habitual use. "How many such cases have in all probability been observed by the 125,000 physicians scattered throughout the United States?" adds the report, speaking of these drugs as "poisons in the true sense of the word." Think of the appalling dangers of these drug poisons, and imagine the poor, suffering patient expecting to get a remedy, instead of which he is endangering his life! It is preposterous to think that such practice of wholesale-poisoning is not only tolerated, but protected by law in any civilized country. For these reports "show that in more than one-half of the cases of poisoning the drugs were taken by direction of a physician," who is licensed to administer poison, while the other half of these cases were simply the result of this medical practice of prescribing poisons as remedies! Look within your own soul and see the face of God; but yet, better than that, look within the soul of your brother and see God there first.-Frank Harrison. Not until we are pricked and stung and sorely shot at, awakens the indignation which arms itself with secret forces. -Emerson. |