cause you to fail.

Thought Force

our spirit and mine are both part of the stupendous cause. We have always been, and always will be. First in one form, then in another.

Every thought, word and deed is helping decide your next place in the Creator's magnificent universe. You will be beautiful or ugly, wise or ignorant, fortunate or unfortunate, according to what use you make of yourself here and now.

Unselfish thoughts, training your mind to desire only universal good, the cultivation of the highest attributes, such as love, honesty, gratitude, faith, reverence and good will, all mean a life of usefulness and happiness in another incarnation, as well as satisfaction and self-respect in this sphere.

Even if you escape the immediate results of the opposite course of action here, you must face the law of cause and effect in the next state. It is inevitable. God, the maker of all things, does not change His laws. "As you sow you reap." "As a man thinketh so is he." There is no "revenge" in God's mind. He simply makes His laws, and we work our destinies for good or ill according to our adherence to them or violation of them.

Each one of us is a needed part of His great plan. Let each soul say: "He has need of me or I would not be. I am here to strengthen the plan." Remember that always in your most discouraged hours.

The Creator makes no mistakes.

There is a divine purpose in your being on earth. Think of yourself as necessary to the great design. It is an inspiring thought. And then consider the immensity of the universe and how accurately the Maker planned it all.

Do not associate with pessimists. If you are unfortunate enough to be the son or daughter, husband or wife of one, put cotton (either real or spiritual) in your ears, and shut out the poison words of discouragement and despondency.

No tie of blood or law should compel you to listen to what means discomfort and disaster to you.

Get out and away, into the society of optimistic people.

Before you go, insist on saying cheerful, hopeful and bright things, sowing the seed, as it were, in the mental ground behind you. But do not sit down to see it grow.

Never feel that it is your duty to stay closely and continuously in the atmosphere of the despondent.

You might as well think it your duty to stay in deep water with one who would not make the least effort to swim.

Get on shore and throw out a life-line, but do not remain and be dragged under.

If you find any one determined to talk failure and sickness and misfortune and disaster, walk away.

You would not permit the dearest person on earth to administer slow poison to you if you knew it. Then why think it your duty to take mental potions which paralyze your courage and kill your ambition?

Despondency is one phase of immorality. It is blasphemous and an insult to the Creator.

You are justified in avoiding the people who send you from their presence with less hope and force and strength to cope with life's problems than when you met them.

Do what you can to change their current of thought. But do not associate intimately with them until they have learned to keep silent—at least, if they cannot speak hopefully.

Learn how to walk, how to poise your body, how to breathe, how to hold your head, how to focus your mind on things of universal importance. Believe your tender, loving thoughts and wishes for good to all humanity have power to help the struggling souls of earth to rise to higher and better conditions. No matter how limited your sphere of action may seem to you and how small your town appears on the map, if you develop your mental and spiritual forces through love thoughts you can be a power to move the world along. Rise up and realize your strength. Not only will you be more useful and happy, but you will grow more beautiful and keep your youth.

Opulence

o not go through the world talking poverty and asking every one you deal with to show you special consideration because you are "poor" and "unfortunate."

If you do this with an idea of saving a few dollars here and there, you will always have to do it, because you are creating poverty conditions by your constant assertions.

It is a curious fact that the people who are always demanding consideration in money matters demand the best that is going at the same time.

I have known a woman to make a plea for cut prices in a boarding house because she was so poor, yet she wanted the sunniest room and the best location the house afforded.

It is the charity patients who make the most complaint of a physician's skill or a nurse's attention.

If you cannot afford to do certain things, or buy certain objects, don't. But when you decide you must, decide, too, that you will pay the price, and make no whining plea of poverty.

There are two extremes of people in the world, one as distasteful as the other. One is represented by the man who boasts of the costliness of every possession, and invites the whole world to behold his opulence and expenditure.

His clothes, his house, his servants, his habits, seem no different to the observer from his neighbor's, yet, according to his story, they cost ten times the amount.

The other extreme is the man who dresses well, lives well, enjoys all the comforts and pleasures of his associates, yet talks poverty continually, and expects the entire community to show him consideration in consequence.

Another thing to avoid is the role of the chronically injured person.

We all know him.

He has a continual grievance. He has been cheated, abused, wronged, insulted, disappointed and deceived. We wonder how or why he has managed to exist, as we listen to the story of his troubles.

No one ever treats him fairly, either in business or social life. Everybody is ungrateful, unkind, selfish, and he could not be made to believe that these experiences were of his own making.

All of us meet with occasional blows from fate, in the form of insults, or ingratitude, or trickery from an unexpected source.

But if we get nothing else but those disappointing experiences from life, we may rest assured the fault lies somewhere in ourselves.

We are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff, or we would get better returns.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do
In bringing you hate or love,
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
Are swift as a carrier dove.
They follow the law of the universe—
Each thing must create its kind,
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
Whatever went out from your mind.

In the main, we must of necessity get from humanity what we give to it. If we question our ability to win friends or love, people will also question it.

If we doubt our own judgment and discretion in business, others will doubt it, and the shrewd and unprincipled will take the opportunity given by our doubts of ourselves, to spring upon us.

If in consequence we distrust every person we meet, we create an unwholesome and unfortunate atmosphere about ourselves, which will bring to us the unworthy and deceitful. Stand firm in the universe. Believe in yourself. Believe in others.

If you make a mistake, consider it only an incident.

If some one wrongs you, cheats, misuses or insults you, let it pass as