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 recipe cannot fail of happiness, good fortune and a useful life. But saying the words over once and then drifting back to anger, selfishness, revenge and gloom will do no good.

The words must be said over and over, and thought and lived when not said.

Literature

he world is full of "New Thought" Literature. It is helpful and inspiring to read.

It is worth many dollars to any one who will live its 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.

Optimism

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