<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></SPAN>CHAPTER V<br/> <small>A NEW ROSARY</small></h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>There is a great significance in that passage in St. Mark:
"All the things whatsoever ye pray and ask for believe ye
<i>have</i> received them and ye have." We are bidden to believe
that what we wish <i>has already been fulfilled</i>; that if we take
this attitude we shall obtain our desire.</p>
<p>The benefit we derive from prayer is the harmonizing poising,
balancing of our own mind, putting ourselves into closer
communion into a more vital connection with the Divine Mind,
through which we receive a larger supply of our Father's
blessings.</p>
<p>Prayer is the opening up of the pinched supply pipes of the
mind which shut out the divine inflow; it is the letting into
our lives greater abundance from the unlimited supply which
continually flows from the Source of all sources.</p>
</div>
<p>"Mary," said a young girl to a Catholic
friend, "why do you carry that rosary everywhere,
and what possible good does it do you
to count those beads over and over?"</p>
<p>"Oh," answered Mary, "I never could make
you understand what a comfort this rosary is
to me. When I am tired out, or blue or discouraged
about anything; or when I long very<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</SPAN></span>
much for something that it seems impossible
I should ever get, I take my rosary and begin
to pray. Before I have gone over half of its
beads, everything is changed. The tired, discouraged
feeling is gone, or if I have been asking
for something I long to have, it doesn't
seem nearly so far away as before; and I know
that if I don't get just what I ask for, I'll get
something better."</p>
<p>Those who are too narrow-minded or too
prejudiced to see anything good in a creed
which is not their own, often sneer at the Catholic
custom of "saying the rosary." To them
it is only "superstition," "nonsense," to repeat
the same prayer over and over. These people
do not understand the philosophy as well
as the religion underlying this beautiful old
custom. They do not know the power that
inheres in the repetition of the spoken word,
and in the influence of the thought expressed.</p>
<p>Any one can prove this for himself or herself.
It isn't necessary to get a rosary made
of beads. You can make your own, an intangible
but very real rosary, and if you say it
over, not once, or twice a day, but over and
over many times, and especially before retir<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</SPAN></span>ing
at night, you will be surprised at the
wonderful results.</p>
<p>Is it a fault you wish to correct; is it a talent
or gift you desire to develop and improve;
is it money, or friends, an education, success
in any enterprise; is it contentment, peace of
mind, happiness, power to serve, power in
your work,—whatever it is you desire, make
it a bead in your rosary, pray for its accomplishment,
think of it, work for its fulfillment
and your desire will materialize.</p>
<p>There are many ways of praying. All our
prayers are not vocalized petitions to the Almighty.
They are also our inspirations, the
aspirations of the soul to be and to do. Desire
is prayer. The sincerest prayer may be
the longing of the heart to cultivate a talent or
talents, or the intense desire to get an education
so that one may be of greater service in
the world. That which we dream of and
struggle to attain, our efforts to make good;
these are genuine prayers.</p>
<p>When Jane Addams, as a little girl, longed
for the power to lift up other little girls and
make them happy; when she dreamed of a
time when she should be grown up and doing<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</SPAN></span>
a great work in the service of humanity, she
was praying. She was even then laying the
foundations of Hull House, and the Hull
House of to-day is an answered prayer. Her
whole life from childhood up was a prayer,
because it was a preparation for a great and
noble work.</p>
<p>When the child, Frances Willard, longed
and dreamed in her remote Wisconsin home,
she was praying and building as surely as in
her later years when she was the moving power
of the great organization she had brought into
being. "I always wanted to react on the
world about me to my utmost ounce of power,"
she said in telling of her early life and aspirations.
"Lying on the prairie grass and lifting
my hand toward the sky, I used to say in my
inmost spirit, 'What is it? What is the aim
to be, O God?'"</p>
<p>Such noble heart yearnings are, in the truest
sense, prayers. The uttered prayer clothed
in beautiful language, that which is delivered
in the pulpit to be heard of men, may not be a
real prayer at all. The collective prayer of
the congregation may be a mockery. I have
often been in churches where people were re<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</SPAN></span>peating
prayers automatically, while looking
all about the auditorium watching other people,
mentally occupied, while their lips moved in a
so-called prayer, in noticing what they wore
and how they looked. There is no real praying
in such a performance as this. It is not
soul expression, not heart talking. It is
mere parrot talking. All mechanical mumbling
of prayers in our church services is an
insult to the Creator, who does not hear
prayers which do not come from the heart.</p>
<p>"Prayer is the heart's sincere desire."
What we long for and hope for we pray for
by our very longing and hope. The real
prayer may be struggling in the heart without
words, it may be a noble desire, a heart
longing which no language can express. It
may be voiceless or it may not, but the true
prayer always comes from the heart, and it is
always answered.</p>
<p>A remarkable illustration of this is afforded
in a story told by John Wesley. He was once
riding through a dark wood, carrying with
him a large sum of money intrusted to his safe
keeping. All at once a sense of fear came
over him, and dismounting from his horse, he<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</SPAN></span>
offered up a prayer for protection. Years
afterward Wesley was called to see a dying
man. This man told the preacher that at the
time he had passed through the wood, so many
years before, he, the robber, had been lying
in wait to rob him of the money he carried.
He told Wesley that he had noticed him dismounting
and how, on his remounting and
resuming his journey, the appearance of an
armed attendant riding beside him had so filled
him with awe and a great fear that he had
abandoned his purpose.</p>
<p>Balzac said truly: "When we are enabled
to pray without weariness, with love, with certainty,
with intelligence, we will find ourselves
in instant accord with power, and like a
mighty roaring wind, like a thunderbolt, our
will will cut its way through all things and
share the power of God."</p>
<p>Everybody prays, because everybody hopes
and desires, has longings and yearnings which
he hopes will be realized. In a sense the atheist,
the agnostic, the unbeliever, although they
may not know it, pray just as much as do believers,
for every longing of the heart, every
noble aspiration, is a prayer. We pray as nat<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</SPAN></span>urally
as we breathe, for the desire for a better,
nobler life, for grander and higher attainment,
is an unconscious prayer. Prayer is really
our heart hunger for oneness with the Divine,
with the Eternal. It is the union of the soul
with its Maker. It is literally what Phillips
Brooks described it to be, the sluice gate between
God and the soul.</p>
<p>Many people mistake the very nature of
prayer, and complain that it is no use to pray,
because their prayers are never answered.</p>
<p>The reason is clear, and is admirably expressed
in Irving Bacheller's pithy verses on
"Faith."</p>
<p class="poem">
"Now, don't expect too much o' God, it wouldn't be quite fair<br/>
If fer anything ye wanted ye could only swap a prayer;<br/>
I'd pray fer yours, an' you fer mine, an' Deacon Henry Hospur<br/>
He wouldn't hev a thing t' do but lay abed an' prosper.<br/></p>
<p class="poem">
"If all things come so easy, Bill, they'd hev but little worth,<br/>
An' some one with a gift o' prayer 'u'd mebbe own the earth.<br/>
It's the toil ye give t' git a thing—the sweat an' blood an' care—<br/>
That makes the kind o' argument that ought to back yer prayer."<br/></p>
<p>If your prayers come back to you unanswered
it is because they are not backed by the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</SPAN></span>
conditions on which the answer to prayer depends,—faith
and work. You don't get the
thing you pray for either because you don't
really believe you will get it, or you don't back
your prayer with the necessary effort, or because
you fail in both requisites.</p>
<p>To pray for a thing and not work for it,
not strive and do our level best to obtain it,
is a mockery. To ask God to give us that
which we long for, but are too lazy to help
get ourselves, is begging. In answer to our
prayers and longings and efforts we get that
which we call out of the universal supply,
which is everywhere. Every day some prayer
is made visible, something is wrought out of
the invisible, manifested in the actual by those
two mighty instruments—prayer and work.
But if you think your stumbling block will be
removed, or your desire realized without raising
a finger to help yourself, you may pray
until doomsday without ever getting an answer.
Prayer without faith is of no avail.
And faith without work is a barren virtue.</p>
<p>In the second stanza of a little poem entitled
"God's Answer," Ella Wheeler Wilcox gives
us the answer to the plaint of the discouraged,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</SPAN></span>
unsuccessful soul, who cries that his prayers
are not heard, and that no hand is stretched
out to lead him to the heights he would attain.</p>
<p class="poem">
"Then answered God: 'Three things I gave to thee—<br/>
Clear brain, brave will and strength of mind and heart,<br/>
All implements divine to shape the way;<br/>
Why shift the burden of the toil on Me?<br/>
Till to the utmost he has done his part<br/>
With all his might, let no man <i>dare</i> to pray.'"<br/></p>
<p>The answer to your prayers is right inside
of yourself. They are answered by your
obeying the natural as well as the spiritual
law of all supply. If you don't do your part
in the actual working world down to the
minutest detail your prayer is bound to come
back to you unanswered.</p>
<p>Everything in the universe has its price, a
perfectly legitimate one. You can realize
what you desire if you are willing to pay the
price, and that is honest, earnest, persistent
effort to make it yours. The Creator answers
your prayer by fitting you to answer it yourself,
by enabling you to put into practice the
law of demand and supply, the fundamental
principle on which answer to prayer is based.
You must put yourself in absolute harmony
with the thing you pray for. It cannot be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</SPAN></span>
forced. You must attract it. Answer to
prayer comes only to a receptive mind in a
positive condition, that is, in a condition to
create, to achieve.</p>
<p>The law of affirmation and the law of prayer
are one and the same. "Affirm that which
you wish, work for it, and it will be manifest
in your life." Affirm it confidently, with the
utmost faith, without any doubt of what you
affirm. Say to yourself, "I am that which I
think I am—and I can be nothing else." But
if you affirm, "I am health; I am prosperity;
I am this or that," and do not believe it, you
will not be helped by affirmation. You must
believe what you affirm; you must constantly
strive to be what you assert you are, or your
affirmations are but idle breath.</p>
<p>Make yourself a New Thought rosary, not
of set formal prayers, but an original one
whose beads shall be your heart's aspirations,
your desires to e-volve the strong, radiant, successful
happy man or woman the Creator has
in-volved in you.</p>
<p>If you are unhappy, crushed by repeated
failures and disappointment, suffering the
pangs of thwarted ambition, put this bead in<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</SPAN></span>
your rosary and say it over to yourself frequently:
"The being God made was never
intended for this sort of life. Mary (or
John)," addressing yourself by name, "God
made you for success, not failure. He never
made any one to be a failure. You are perverting
the great object of your existence by
giving way to discouragement, going about
among your fellows with a long, sad, dejected
face, as though you were a misfit, as though
there were no place for you in this great glad
world of abundance. You were made to express
gladness, to go through life with a victorious
attitude, like a conqueror. The image
of God is in you; you must bring it out and
exhibit it to the world. Don't disgrace your
Maker by violating His image, by being anything
but the magnificent man or woman He
intended you to be."</p>
<p>Back up every "bead," or prayer you put
in your rosary by action during the day, otherwise
you might as well save yourself the trouble
of stringing your beads, for</p>
<p class="poem">
"It's the toil ye give t' get a thing—the sweat an' blood an' care—<br/>
That makes the kind o' argument that ought to back yer prayer."<br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Don't be afraid of thinking too highly of
yourself, not in the egotistical sense, but because
(the Creator having made you in His
image) you must have inherited divine qualities,
omnipotent possibilities. It is an insult
to God to depreciate what He has made and
has pronounced good.</p>
<p>If you are a victim of timidity and self-depreciation,
afraid to say your soul is your own;
if you creep about the world as though you
thought you were taking up room which belonged
to somebody else; if you shrink from
responsibility, from everything which draws
attention to yourself; if you are bashful, timid,
confused, tongue-tied, when you ought to assert
yourself, turn to your rosary and add
another bead.</p>
<p>Say to yourself, "I am a child of the King
of kings. I will no longer suffer this cowardly
timidity to rule me,—a prince of
heaven. I am made by the same Creator
who has made all other human beings. They
are my brothers and sisters. There is no more
reason why I should be afraid to express what
I feel or think before them than if they were
in my own family. I have just as much right<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</SPAN></span>
on this earth as any potentate, as much right
to hold up my head and assert myself as any
monarch. I am my Father's heir, and have all
the rights of a prince. I have inherited the
wealth of the universe. The earth and the
stars and the sun are mine. I will quit this
everlasting self-depreciation, this self-effacement,
this cringing habit of forever appearing
to apologize for being alive. It is a crime
against my Maker and myself. Henceforth
I shall carry myself like a prince. I will act
like one, and will walk the earth as a conqueror.
I will let no opportunity pass to-day
for assuming any responsibility which will
enlarge me, for expressing my opinion, for
asserting myself whenever and wherever necessary.</p>
<p>"This specter, this shadow of self-depreciation
which has held me back so long, which
has darkened my path in life must go, for
I shall walk henceforth with my face toward
the sun so that the shadows of life will fall
behind me, and not across my path as before.
I am going to face life with a self-respecting,
victorious attitude, with a hopeful outlook, for
I know that I am victory organized. Here<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</SPAN></span>after
I am going to think more of myself. I
am not going to put myself on the bargain
counter any longer by going around as though
I had a skim milk opinion of myself. No
more of the poorhouse attitude of inferiority
for me. I know that I was born for victory,
born to conquer. I am going to win out in
this great inspiring game of life."</p>
<p>If you feel that you lack initiative, if you
are not a self-starter, boldly assert the opposite
and add the assertion to your rosary.
Stoutly affirm your ability to begin things,
to do them as well as they can be done, and
to push them through to a complete finish.
Learn to trust the God in you. This trust is
a divine force which will carry you through.
Never again allow yourself to harbor thoughts
of your inferiority or deficiency. Say to
yourself, "I am going to assert my manhood
or womanhood and stand for something. I
am going to be a force in the world and not a
weakling. I was made to make my life a
masterpiece and not a botch; I was created
for a great end, and I am going to realize that
end. There are forces inside of me which if
aroused and put into action would revolution<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</SPAN></span>ize
my life, and I am going to get control of
them, to use them. I am going to find myself
and use a hundred per cent. instead of a miserable
little fraction of my ability."</p>
<p>If you are obsessed with the idea that you
are not as bright, that you have not as much
ability as most other people; if you have been
called dull, dense, stupid by your parents and
teachers, until you have lost confidence in
yourself; if you have been dwarfed by the
suggestion of inferiority, either through what
others have said of you, or the thought you
have held of yourself, you must change all
this. You must assert your ability and hold
tenaciously the ideal of the able, efficient man
or woman you long to be and that it is in you
to become. You must not only affirm your
power to be that which you wish, but you must
replace the picture of your inferiority with
the ideal of wholeness, of completeness, of the
man or woman the Creator intended you to
be. Cling to this ideal of yourself, assert your
superiority, and you will soon drive out the
dwarfed, inferior, defective image which others,
or your own false thoughts, have established
in your subconsciousness. Holding the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</SPAN></span>
truth, the perfect ideal, in mind will give you
confidence, assurance to do the thing you are
capable of doing.</p>
<p>Thousands of students have failed to pass
examinations not because of inability to answer
test questions, but because of fear, loss
of self-confidence engendered by the blighting
suggestion of inferiority. This is especially
true of highstrung, sensitive natures.</p>
<p>If you brood over the failure suggestion, if
you visualize an inferior picture of yourself,
you will become obsessed with the failure idea,
with the thought of your inefficiency, and make
it wellnigh impossible for you to succeed in
any undertaking. If for any reason you have
dropped into the failure habit, you will have
to make a very determined effort to break
away from it, or your life will indeed be a
failure.</p>
<p>I know a young man who is both efficient
and ambitious, but when the opportunity for
which, perhaps, he has been working a long
time comes, he wilts. His courage fails and
he does not feel equal to it. He can see how
somebody else can do the thing required, but
he fears it is too much for him. He has never<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</SPAN></span>
done anything like it before; and he is afraid
to make the attempt because he might fail.</p>
<p>Now, if you feel this way about yourself,
just add another bead to your rosary. Cut
"I can't" out of your vocabulary and substitute
"I can,"—for he can who thinks he can.
Napoleon, one of the greatest achievers the
world has ever seen, hated the word "can't"
and would never use it if it could be avoided.
He did not believe in the "impossible."
When he was praised for his daring and genius
in crossing the Alps in the dead of winter, he
said, "I deserve no credit except for refusing
to believe those who said it could not be done."</p>
<p>Did you ever think that every time you say
"I can't" you weaken your confidence in yourself
and your power to do things? Did you
ever know a person who has a great many "I
cant's," and excuses in his vocabulary to accomplish
very much? Some people are always
using the words, "Oh, I can't do that;"
"I can't afford this;" "I can't afford to go
there;" "I can't undertake such a hard task,
let somebody else do that." These negative
assertions undermine power. Have nothing
to do with them. In all questions of achieve<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</SPAN></span>ment,
let your rosary deal in affirmations.
Instead of "I can't," say "<i>I can</i>," "<i>I must</i>,"
"<i>I will</i>." Begin what you fear to undertake,
and half its difficulties will vanish.</p>
<p>If you are vexed, worried, and like Martha,
"troubled about many things;" if you are suffering
from all sorts of discord; if you are not
feeling well, you will get great comfort from
turning to your rosary and repeating some of
the blessed Biblical promises. "Neither shall
any plagues (discord or harm) come nigh thy
dwelling. This is the promise to him that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High.
I will restore health into thinking and I will
heal thee of thy wounds." "He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty," "The
Lord is my refuge, my fortress. In Him will
I trust." "Thou shalt not be afraid of the
terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth
by day," "Surely He shall deliver thee from
the snare of the fowler, from the pestilence
that walketh in darkness," "He shall cover thee
with his feathers, and under his wings shalt
thou trust."</p>
<p>The contemplation of God and the frequent<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</SPAN></span>
repetition of these beautiful Bible passages
will increase your faith and your consciousness
of oneness with the Infinite.</p>
<p>Make it a rule never to affirm of your health,
your success, or yourself what you do not wish
to be true. Don't say that you feel "rocky,"
that you are used up, played out, that you
feel miserable, that you don't feel like doing
anything. Never tell people of your aches
and pains, for every repetition means etching
the black pictures of these conditions deeper
and deeper into your consciousness. Instead
of thus intensifying them, say to yourself,
"The Power that created, and that sustains
me every instant of my life, repairs, renews, restores,
cures me. I am health, I am vigor, I
am power, I am that which I think I am."
Refuse to see or to hold for an instant an imperfect,
discordant sin or disease-marred image
of yourself. Do not harbor a suggestion
of your inferiority, physically or mentally.
Always picture yourself as a great, strong,
splendid man or woman, clean, true, beautiful—a
sublime specimen of humanity. Do not
allow yourself to harbor a thought of physical
or mental weakness. Think health, power,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</SPAN></span>
perfection at every breath. Persist in holding
the thought of yourself as you long to be, the
ideal which your Creator saw ahead of you
when he fashioned you. Cling to your vision
of health without taint, weakness or defect.</p>
<p>Have you a hair-trigger temper, and do you
fly all to pieces over the least provocation,
starting raging fires in your brain that are as
destructive to your mental and physical forces
as are the great forest fires to the vast tracts
of territory over which they sweep? If you
have you are minimizing all your powers and
seriously endangering your success, your happiness,
your life itself. Ask Sing Sing what
the hot tempers, the fires of uncontrolled anger,
of jealous rage, of revenge, of hate, of
all the explosive passions have done. Ask the
poorhouses, the insane asylums, the morgues,
ask the records of human wreckage everywhere,
what the fruits of uncontrolled passions
of every sort are.</p>
<p>Anger, whatever its cause, is temporary insanity.
Are you in the habit of losing your
temper, of flying into a rage over trifles? If
you could only see what a miserable spectacle,
what a fool exhibition, you make of yourself<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</SPAN></span>
on such occasions, when you go all to pieces
and rave like a madman because you miss your
train, or because you think some one insults
you, when you step down from the throne of
your reason and let the brute sit there and rule
in your place, you would be so chagrined and
mortified that you would leave nothing undone
to rid yourself of your fault. Why,
nothing could hire you, when in your right
mind, to make such a ludicrous and contemptible
exhibition of yourself. You only do it
when under the stress of angry passion, when
shorn of your power by this temporary insanity.</p>
<p>To retain self-control, mental poise, equanimity,
under all provocations, great or small,
is an index of a fine strong character. It is a
triumph of strength over weakness, of greatness
over littleness. The habit of conquering
ourselves is the habit of victory; it strengthens
all the faculties.</p>
<p>You can bring this great force of control to
your aid, by calling on the divinity within you,
by asserting your oneness with the Divine who
is eternal calmness. Say to yourself, "God's
image is in me. I am of divine lineage. I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</SPAN></span>
was not intended to be passion's slave. It is
unworthy of a real man, of a real woman, to
be the plaything of temper, or any sort of explosive
tearing down passion. There is something
divine in me and I will not allow my
lower nature to get control."</p>
<p>The constant affirmation of your oneness
with your Creator, with <i>the</i> One, will give you
a wonderful sense of power, and will help you
to overcome every handicap. But you must
be very positive, very insistent and persistent
in your affirmations. No matter what fault
you are trying to overcome or what good quality
you are anxious to acquire there must be no
weakness, indecision or vacillation in your affirmations
or your efforts.</p>
<p>If you are cursed with the fatal habit of indecision;
if you are a weak vacillator, always
taking things up for reconsideration because
you are not quite sure that you have done the
right thing; if you allow yourself to waver, to
doubt the wisdom of your decision, you will be
incapable of ever under any circumstances
arriving at an intelligent conclusion.</p>
<p>You can cure the curse of indecision by asserting
your power to see clearly, think quickly<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</SPAN></span>
and act decisively. If you are in doubt as to
what career to choose; if you hesitate in regard
to what course you should take in any difficulty,
which of two or three paths you should
follow, whatever your problem may be, ask for
light and the divine power within will come to
your aid and guide you aright. Repeat the
"I am" in every instance. "I am positive."
"I can decide vigorously, firmly, finally."
Resolve every morning that you will, during
that day, decide things without possibility of
recall or reconsideration. First go over the
matter to be decided very thoroughly and
carefully. In making your decision use the
best judgment at your command and then
close the incident. You will secure yourself
against vacillation by refusing, after it is thus
closed, to wonder whether you have done the
wisest thing, by resisting every temptation to
open the matter for reconsideration.</p>
<p>If you feel that you are a coward somewhere
in your nature, you can strengthen this
deficient faculty wonderfully by holding the
courageous ideal, by thinking and reading
about heroic people and things, holding the
thought of fearlessness, that you are God's<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</SPAN></span>
child, that you are not afraid of anything on
the earth. Study the stories of heroic lives;
think, act, live, the heroic thought. Say, "I
am a son of God, and I was never made to
cower, to slink, to be afraid. Fear is not
an attribute of divinity. I am brave, courageous;
I am a conqueror."</p>
<p>If you are suffering with the poverty disease,
if your whole life has been stunted by
poverty, saturated with poverty-stricken
thoughts and convictions, if you have been
heading towards the poverty goal, just turn
about face, and put the law of abundance into
operation. Face towards prosperity and success
instead of poverty and failure. All the
good things you need are yours by inheritance.
Claim them, expect them, work for them, pray
for them, and you will realize them in your
life. Make this last stanza of Ella Wheeler
Wilcox's splendid little poem "Assertion" a
new bead on your rosary. Repeat it frequently,
and work cheerfully, confidently,
courageously toward its fulfillment.</p>
<p class="poem">
"I am success. Though hungry, cold, ill-clad,<br/>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I wander for a while. I smile and say,</span><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'It is but for a time—I shall be glad</span><br/>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</SPAN></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">To-morrow, for good fortune comes my way.</span><br/>
God is my father, He has wealth untold,<br/>
His wealth is mine, health, happiness and gold.'"<br/></p>
<p>If you have made fatal mistakes for which
you have been ostracized from society; if you
are morbidly worrying over some unfortunate
experience, thus making it bigger, blacker and
more hideous, just thrust it out of your mind,
bury it, forget it, say to it, "You have no
power over me; I will not allow you to destroy
my peace and thwart my career; you are
not the truth of my being; the reality of me is
divine, and you cannot touch that. I can and
I will rise above all my troubles, make good all
my mistakes and errors. From now on I will
work with the God in me. I will not be overcome.
I will overcome."</p>
<p>If you are the slave of a demon habit which
has blasted your hopes, blighted your happiness,
thwarted your ambition, cast its black
shadow across your whole life, say to yourself:
"I will break away from this vile habit. I will
be free and not a slave."</p>
<p>If it is impurity, say, "I was not made to be
dominated by such a monstrous vice. God's
image in me was not intended to wallow in this
filth. I have suffered long enough from this<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</SPAN></span>
damnable habit, which is undermining my
health, killing my chances of success in life,
and lowering me below the level of the beast.
I am a child of the Infinite, sent here to make
a worthy contribution to humanity, to make
good. I am going to make good. I am going
to free myself from this base habit and
recover my self-respect, my manhood, at any
cost. I am going to be a <span class="smcap">MAN</span>, not a <span class="smcap">THING</span>,
a son of God, not of the devil."</p>
<p>Continually flood your mind with purity
thoughts and affirmations which will neutralize
your sensual desires. Repeat again and
again your determination not to allow your
life to be spoiled by unrestrained passion.
Make such an emphatic and vigorous call upon
your better self, make the demand so appealing
that your higher nature will be aroused
and will dominate your acts. Say, "The
Creator has bidden me look up, not down. He
made me to climb, not to descend and wallow
in the mire of animalism."</p>
<p>If it is drink, opium, excessive smoking, or
any other vicious habit that is robbing you of
manhood and holding you back in life, string
this bead on your rosary, "I was not made to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</SPAN></span>
be dominated by you, a mere weed, an extract
of grain, a habit which I forged. I am done
with you once and forever. The appetite for
you is destroyed. There is something divine
within me which makes me perfectly able to
overcome you. You are a vile thing, and have
disgraced me for the last time. Never again
can you humiliate me and make me despise
myself. There can be only one ruler in my
mental kingdom and I propose to be that
one. I don't propose to allow you Whiskey,
Cigarette, Opium, or other Drug or Devil, to
ruin my life, to force me to carry in my face
the signs of my defeat, the scarlet letter of my
degradation, my failure. You have humiliated,
insulted me, tyrannized over me long
enough, making me confess that I hadn't
enough strength of mind to stand up against
a single vicious, degrading habit. Now I
defy you. Your power over me is at an end.
The spell is broken. Hereafter I am going
to walk the earth as a conqueror, a victor, not
as a slave. I am going to front the world
with my head up and face forward. God and
one make a majority. I am in the majority
<span class="smcap">NOW</span>."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</SPAN></span></p>
<p><i>There is no inferiority or depravity about
the man God made.</i> No matter how low you
may have fallen, the God image in you never
can be smirched or depraved. It is as perfect
in the worst criminal in the penitentiary as it
is in the greatest saint. There is something
in every human being that is incontaminable,
something which is never sick, never diseased,
and which never sins. This is the God in us,
and herein lies the hope of the most brutal
human being on the earth. There is something
in him that is divine, sinless, immortal,
the God in him which when called will instantly
rush to his aid.</p>
<p>If you feel that you have wandered very far
from your God, that you had gotten out of
the current which runs Heavenward, just repeat
to yourself such things as this, "Nearer
My God to Thee, Nearer to Thee." This will
help you to put up your trolley pole, to make
your connection with the Divine wire which
carries omnipotent power. The sense of separateness
will disappear and the load under
which you staggered before will grow light,
will be lifted from you.</p>
<p>The secret of all health, prosperity, happi<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</SPAN></span>ness,
power, love, of victorious living, is a consciousness
of union, of oneness with the Divine.
This is the secret of all human blessedness.
When you are in this Godward current
you are "nearer to God," and you cannot fear,
for you know that no harm can come to infinite
power.</p>
<p>The closer we are to divinity, the greater
our strength and efficiency. What makes us
weak and inefficient is that we have shut off
this power by our wrong thinking, vicious living.
Your life will take on a new meaning,
a diviner dignity, when you consciously realize
your at-one-ment with the great creative, sustaining
Principle of the universe.</p>
<p>Nothing will be of more help to you in
achieving this great result than the constant
daily use of your New Thought rosary. It
will help you to put further and further away
the things that make you weak, that make you
think you are a mere puppet, at the mercy of
a cruel Fate, which tosses you about in the
world regardless of your own birthright, desires,
and volition. You can make each bead
a prayer, an affirmation, to lead you closer and
closer to the Source of all things. Whether<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</SPAN></span>
it be the overcoming of a vicious habit, the
strengthening of some defect or deficiency,
the getting away from poverty and despair,
whatever you desire, you can repeat your affirmation
concerning it, silently, if with others,
audibly when you are alone, until it becomes
a part of you. Especially repeat the beads of
your rosary which fit your greatest needs before
retiring to sleep.</p>
<p>If you have been demagnetizing yourself,
neutralizing your hopes, your ambition and
your efforts by your black, vicious outlook
upon life, by your doubts, and worries, your
fear of poverty, of sickness, of misfortune, of
death, put these things out of your mind, and
say, "God is my helper. God is my supply,
I cannot want. God is my shepherd, I cannot
lack. I must live in full realization of my
oneness with Infinite Life."</p>
<p>Each one of us is a part of the living God
and we are powerful, victorious and happy
just in proportion as we realize our oneness
with Him, and weak, abject and miserable
just in the degree we separate ourselves from
Him, the All-Source, the All-Supply.</p>
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