merit to acknowledge strong roots of carnal weakness and to then
succeed in hiding any outward expression of them. In others, equally
well-meaning, the aggressive and consumptive passions are nursed
and exhibited as evidences of unusual sensitiveness and virility
appertaining to fineness, goodness and greatness. It is not long
since it was the custom of clergymen in some denominations to assume
unworthiness for themselves in order to glorify the redeeming power
of the Saviour, notwithstanding all of Christ's teachings inculcated
that true forgiveness consisted in the simple process of _ceasing
to have_--ceasing to admit, or import. When, in former times,
priesthood was degraded to a business--an occupation for a living, or
for convenience or power--it was natural that the difficulty of the
service rendered the laity by the priests should be exaggerated so as
to command the highest respect, the greatest power and the largest
compensation. Sin was made to seem powerful and ever-present in order
that the service rendered in keeping it in check might seem important
and everlasting. Under such circumstances, and especially when the one
great unpardonable sin against the church was that of doubting the
teachings of these teachers, how almost impossible must it have been
for the laity to rise superior to evil, when those whose profession it
was to combat it, found it so potent an enemy, and who, thereby, filled
the atmosphere of thought with dense clouds of evil suggestion.
It is fortunate for the present generation that such shadows of
suggestion do not hopelessly oppress it. There are many churches
now where appreciation, and love, and purity, and the delights of
unselfishness are offered as the attractions towards religion, and
where the teachers in them stand for examples of pure thinking, pure
living, and spontaneous altruism, practiced as a result of natural
impulses that are both agreeable and profitable, and not to save from
hell or to fit for a remote heaven. But the shadow of the old method,
that so long hid the Christ-method of true thinking and living, still
has an influence in giving strength to evil to afflict the weaker
sons of our civilization. This shadow, however, cannot long remain.
The light of the present awakening is too strong--too electric and too
penetrating--to permit it to remain.
It is even looked upon now as a curiosity--a relic of antiquity--to
hear the old fears given expression from the pulpit, but root
eradication of them is not yet insisted upon as the first and most
important teaching, as it should be. It is a common thing now, also,
to hear altruistic teaching and optimistic preaching from the pulpits
of all denominations, and to hear from the teachers and preachers the
assurance that "it is easier than not and more profitable in every way
to be unselfish and not to tolerate evil," the new good suggestion of
which, is the inspiring assertion that, "_it is easier than not_."
It would be a rare thing now to find a religious teacher of
intelligence who would not agree with the assertion that, when a
person is angry, he cannot be, at the moment, a Christian, for being
angry is as unchristian as profanity. The same condemnation applies to
worry, which is especially commanded against, and which, in the light
of the observed promises of God as expressed by the preponderance of
the prevalence of good, is not less than blasphemous in its exhibition
of lack of confidence in, and appreciation of, the Giver of All Good.
A most helpful thought in connection with the easy subjugation of the
_animalesque_ expressions of fearthought is, that they are not inherent
things, and that they are imported whenever suffered. The tendency to
import is inherent, and the _tendency_ to entertain evil is the shadow
of past error in the race which is called race-habit-of-thought, and it
is that which has to be replaced by right-habit-of-thought before one
is entirely free, but tendency is easily overcome when its parents are
discredited and made not-respectable thereby.
The spiritual awakening of the present era that is reclaiming
Christianity from the supernatural, or unnatural, and applying it to
everyday affairs, may be called practical or business Christianity.
A business man who has an occupation wherein it is possible for him
to be altruistic, after reading the theory that is the contention of
_Menticulture_, wrote a commentary in which he said: "On these precepts
not only 'hang all of the law and the prophets,' but, also, common
business sense and _all of the profits_."
As an illustration of the difference between eradication (or
filtration) and repression (or gradual dilution or reform) I will cite
a common example: Suppose a vessel to be filled with muddy water which
we wish to make clear, so that it will perfectly reflect the ether
above, which we call the sky; the easy and effective method is first
to pass the water through a filter and thereafter to protect it from
contamination. On the contrary, the difficult, expensive, endless and,
therefore ineffective method is to pour unlimited clear water into the
vessel, in order to gradually replace the muddy water with the excess
of pure water.
While it is true that "perfect love casteth out fear," it also is
true that there can be no perfect love until there is first perfect
freedom from fear, so that the right way to approach the problem of
creating the harmonious condition in the human mind wherein growth
ripens in happiness, is to take the mind when it is returned to us at
the moment of awaking from sleep, when it has been purified by contact
with Spiritual Cerebration, and protect it from that time forth through
each day, by refusing _to import_ suspicion, anger or worry into it, a
process that is _easier than not_, and pleasanter and more profitable
than any.
Each day, the tendency to import, which is the only part of the process
of eradication that is in any way real, will become less strong,
and, with even the weakest attempts to discourage it; but if you are
sufficiently in earnest to say, "Begone, you tempter," and thereby slam
the door in his face, you will accomplish freedom at once.
The self-infliction of fearthought is a shoveling-in process--all
that you have to do to become free from it is to stop shoveling. It
is easier to stop importing fearthought, and anger, and worry, and
suspicion, than it is to import them; therefore,
_Stop importing!_
THE IMPOTENCE OF PAIN.
During the Japanese-Chinese war, two Japanese students were arrested
in Shanghai on the charge of espionage, and were taken to Ningpo and
tortured to death.
The method of torture was the most cruel known, and included a slow
crushing of the most sensitive parts of their anatomy.
The young patriots displayed such heroism under the torture that the
incident gave rise to considerable discussion as to the relative
sensitiveness of the Mongolian and the Caucasian races to pain. The
consensus of the opinion that I saw expressed, which was, by the way,
Caucasian opinion only, was that the Oriental was less sensitive, and
therefore was not entitled to as much credit for withstanding pain as
the self-adjudged, more-sensitive Westerner.
The truth of the matter is, that there is a limit to actual
pain within the power of any one to endure, if the element of
fearthought-of-more-pain is eliminated, so that the absorbing
heroism of the patriot--almost courting torture for the honor of his
cause--puts the element of fearthought out of the case, and leaves only
the actual sensation to be suffered. Pain is undoubtedly intended as a
warning of disordered conditions, and not as a punishment, and, having
performed its mission, is relieved by a kind paralysis before the shock
is too severe for human endurance.
This is the beneficent provision of the natural law, but when it comes
to the exercise of unnatural fearthought, there is no limit to the
torture a victim may impose upon himself, and, on a basis of a very
little real pain, build up most terrible suffering.
The author has tested the truth of this assertion personally.
Being condemned to submit to a dental operation of unusual severity,
the opportunity to experiment was gladly availed of, even at the
expense of comfort.
One special aggravation of the operation was the prying open of the
mouth, in order to build up from the root one of the teeth located
farthest back in the mouth. The mouth was not large enough to suit
the facile convenience of the dentist, and hence he made use of
all the skill and power he possessed to enlarge the cavity, and
having stretched it to the utmost, firm wedges held it open, without
possibility of protest, for three hours on a stretch; and on these
instruments and conditions of torture I had ample opportunity to
experiment; so sufficient--for all practical purposes--that I do not
feel it necessary to repeat the experiment, even in the interest of
scientific investigation.
The experiment proved, however, my contention, that even the greatest
possible pain is of itself not very severe, and that it requires but a
slight diversion to make one forget it, for the time being, entirely. I
was able, at any moment of the combined irritation, to concentrate my
mind upon some subject or object, and to lose the sense of pain out of
my consciousness altogether--and at will.
Major General O. O. Howard, U. S. A. (retired) has recently
corroborated, to the author, out of his own experience, the possibility
of forgetting pain through slight diversion. He lost an arm during
the Civil War, and in the process of recovery some of the nerve-ends
were not properly cicatrized, so that ever since the wound healed the
General has not been free from the sensation of pain, whenever his mind
has reverted to it, and yet he is able at any time to forget it by
change of thought.
In like manner, fear-of-trouble is the major part of all the so-called
trouble that is experienced. As intimated in the "definitions,"
under the caption of "Trouble," there are few real conditions that
are very uncomfortable, if apprehension of still more uncomfortable
conditions is not imported to exaggerate the existing discomfort. Fear
of freezing to death or of drowning may be made very terrible, for
instance, whereas the end in freezing and in drowning is known to be
so comfortable, and even blissful, that those who are on the point of
passing out of life by those means dislike to be called back to life
again.
The heroism of mothers in the event of child-birth is too well known to
call for reference, but there is the greatest difference in the ease
or in the discomfort of the condition attending the process, which
is largely influenced by the feeling of welcome or the attitude of
aversion with which the new-comer is greeted by the mother.
The point-of-view has much to do with the sting of pain. Whoever has
suffered that severest of all spankings, the water spanking incident to
a clumsy dive, or a wrongly-calculated somersault into the water from
a wharf, or from a natatorium springboard, will remember that the pain
of it is not half so hard to bear as the form of parental correction
called by the same name, that in itself is not nearly so severe.
Sensitiveness to pain is largely due to the fear of pain, and a
reversal of the accustomed attitude towards fear will have an immediate
effect upon the severity of pain by mitigating much of its sting.
Christian scientists, mental scientists, spiritual scientists, faith
curists, and all others who practice mental therapeutics in physical
diseases, escape much suffering in this way, and the happy result of
this attitude towards pain serves to strengthen their faith.
Whatever the cause of the relief, it is good, for it teaches, in a most
practical way, the potency of thought in overcoming, or, dismissing,
real pain as well as all imaginary evil, and also the possibility
of eliminating fearthought from the mental equipment, by showing
how impotent to harm are the realities that inspire it, when it is
prevented from exaggerating them.
UNHAPPY UNLESS MISERABLE.
There are some persons, in fact, a great many persons, who are not
happy unless they have real or fancied cause for complaint. Martyrdom
is the recreation of such people and they are liable to be more greedy
for recreation than those whose recreation is of a joyous sort.
It is certainly a misplaced kindness to impose unwelcome attentions on
any one. In the category of nuisances unwelcome attentions are perhaps
the most disagreeable, and to cram joy down the maw of one who has no
taste for it, is as rude, and even vulgar, as insisting that he shall
eat something that is nauseating to him.
It is true that persons who gloat over misery; who love to mope about
in grave-yards; and are forever telling grewsome tales for the
supposed delectation of their victims, are not as agreeable to others
as they seem to be to themselves, and their presence at festivals and
other ostensibly joyous occasions may be looked on as discordant, and,
as such, out of place.
In these times of license, which are sometime mistaken for times of
unusual liberty, it is not for anyone to define what is altogether
bad, nor to confine good, nor good taste, within too narrow limits;
neither is it generous to prescribe anything that shall be universally
eaten or worn; and, above all liberties, the liberty to wear a smile
or a frown should prevail; but it is within the province of organized
society to put its stamp of approval or disapproval on the time and
place for appropriate use of them. Certain costumes are suitable in
certain places and not suitable in others. For example, the bathing
suit and the night-robe have uses that are appropriate for their
special purposes, but they would not be tolerated on the street by the
police, and it would be no greater curtailment of liberty to order that
frowns shall be worn only in dark places and not be permitted to cloud
the sunlight, than that undue levity should be tabooed on occasions
considered to be serious. If such prescription were to be imposed, it
would be necessary, of course, to furnish dark places at appropriate,
or, rather, convenient intervals, for the use of the miserably
inclined, in the same way that spittoons are provided for the use of
those who must expectorate sputum.
Liberty is so precious a thing that it must be protected as the holiest
of our possessions, and even if it lap over into the debatable ground
sometimes called license, it should yet be protected, and therefore
the permission to wear frowns in appropriate places and to enjoy being
miserable in the privacy of one's own chamber should be respected;
on the street, or anywhere in public, however, they should not be
tolerated, for they are harmful generally, and particularly injurious
to children.
As individuals, those of us who accept God's promises as truths, who
prefer to live in the sunlight rather than in a cave, who glorify
Appreciation as the first and best suggestion in the language, who
believe that growth is the object of life, that its fallow field is
harmony, and that its fruit is happiness, and also those of us who, by
comparison of conditions have learned to believe that our pessimistic
friends can be happier than they are, and can become better companions
and citizens by a change of attitude towards life, although we may
not pass laws of restriction against the frown-habit or against the
misery-habit, can use the gentle method of counter-suggestion to good
effect, and even go so far as to laugh at and otherwise ridicule the
misery-habit, if by thus doing we may possibly correct that which logic
has failed to cure.
From long observation it has become evident that the misery-habit feeds
on sympathy. Children, who are the best examples of honest expression
that we have, whereby to see ourselves in an unartificial light, will
not continue a mad or a surly crying spell if they are sure it is not
producing a sympathetic effect. If they think they are not heard they
will at once cease crying. In the same way, grown persons who practice
the misery-habit in public take a rest when they are unobserved.
They try to hide it, but they are frequently caught in the act of
unbuttoning their pouts, and thereby allowing their faces a rest, as
soon as they have thought themselves out of sight. We must believe,
if this observation be correct, that the object of pessimism, or, the
misery-habit, is generally to secure, by dishonest means, selfish
attentions that are not earned, and for which no value is given. There
are cases no doubt where the misery-habit has been acquired by contact
with respected ones who have been the cause of perverse suggestions too
strong to be resisted, and for such there can only be pity, and in the
cure of whom gentle and loving suggestion should be used, but to the
perverse and the chronic practicers of the misery-habit, no toleration
is good, for it is on that, and unmerited sympathy, that they live and
thrive. On such, all of the misery possible to be scraped up from the
discords of life should be dumped, and they should be condemned to herd
together, and if it were possible, they should be isolated, as lepers
are isolated, from healthy society.
Sometimes the victim of the misery-habit practices the habit only
within the family. This is especially severe on the family, and is
much more difficult to treat. The family is at once the seat of the
greatest liberty, and the home and breeding-ground of the greatest
tyranny. The family is supposed to be under the holy protection of the
divine principle of love, but if that principle is not a possession
of the family, there is no protection whatever from most inhuman
practices, but instead a license to the cultivation of most discordant
passions. It is in the family that mollygrubs are grown and tolerated.
It is in the family that one cannot get rid of them by running away,
for the family, like the poor, you have with you always. And who would
have it otherwise? The whole tendency of civilization is to appreciate
the family more and more, and to cultivate respect for the family model
as the basis of good government. But it is the very security of the
natural, and therefore indissoluble, bonds that gives the selfishly
inclined opportunity to practice the misery-habit without fear of being
thrown out, left behind, cremated or otherwise gotten rid of, as dead
and disagreeable matter is usually treated, in civilized communities.
The symptoms of the misery-habit, or martyr-habit, are easy to
detect, for while they may be cultivated and laboriously practiced
in private, they are intended to be seen, and are displayed at times
when they are calculated to be most conspicuous. The victim of the
martyr-habit is usually an industrious person. He, or possibly she,
will perform any amount of necessary, and even unnecessary, manual
labor, in order to exhibit martyr-like fatigue; is always hanging
behind in order to be slighted; condemns attentions honestly intended
as perfunctory politeness; interprets praise as being patronage;
finds any part of a chicken served him at the family table the worst
piece, and at the same time assures the carver that he has been unduly
partial or over-generous--but, with a tone of voice or an expression
of countenance that belies the utterance. A common phrase of the
afflicted martyrite is, "Don't mind me," and hysterics is the favorite
amusement, while pain and trouble are the chief stock in trade. And is
there a remedy? Yes.
If Christianity were to be measured by the optimism of the Master,
if the gauge of optimism prescribed by the Master were to be used
to measure professing Christians for the name; if cause and effect
were to be placed in their true relation to each other, and the
ills we cultivate were to be classed as self-imposed causes and not
effects; and if the unnecessary and unprofitable were to be ranked
as not-respectable; the misery-habit or martyr-habit would cease
to be fashionable, mollygrubs would disappear, and the principal
breeding-ground of pessimism--the family--would be purified, as
becoming to its holy office.
THOU SHALT NOT STRIKE A WOMAN.
If a queer sort of human being, dressed in a costume we had never
seen before, and hailing from some island we had never heard of, were
to land on our shores and ask our protection and the privilege of
teaching the religion of his people; if he were to learn our language
sufficiently to convey his ideas to us; if he were to have printed the
formulas of his religion, and, among them, his deity's commandments
to men; if the first of these commandments were to read, "Thou shalt
not strike a woman," what would we say to such a commandment? and
what would we think of a people who found it necessary to have such a
formula?
Our question would naturally be, "Do the people of your country _ever_
strike women?"
In our particular state of chivalric civilization, striking women
is one of the things so entirely out of the question that we do not
consider it even a possibility, except in cases of insanity or of
drunkenness, where the brute of the moment is not responsible for his
action.
The very fact of its being an impossible, and therefore unmentionable,
crime is the strongest suggestion against it.
If "Thou shalt not strike a woman" were listed in the category of
commandments, and were constantly repeated as something hard to resist,
and hence commanded against, I believe the crime would become common in
circles where it is not thought of as possible now.
The best thing to do with a condemned thing is to cover it up, seal
it up, and relegate it to the custody of the awful, unwritten law of
unanimous disapproval.
It is said that when the Jesuit fathers went to Japan at the end of
the sixteenth century they were warmly welcomed, and not only were
permitted but invited to teach their religion.
One of the first things they did was to have the ten commandments of
the old Mosaic law printed in Japanese, in the form of what we call a
tract, and distributed among the people.
Reading was then, as now, a common accomplishment with the Japanese,
and they were interested in the tract. They did not quite understand
its purport, however, and one of their number was delegated to ask for
an explanation.
Japan is the land, above all others, where poetry and flowers and
idealism and art and other refinements are cherished and appreciated.
Poetry, in Japan, is sometimes so idealistic that it is somewhat vague
to any but the poet. It is the custom, therefore, to consider that
anything not quite comprehensible must be poetry; and not understanding
the tract of the fathers, the Japanese naturally thought it to be a
specimen of Portuguese poetry.
Approaching one of the fathers, the spokesman of the people bowed with
accustomed politeness and said: "I trust you will pardon the wretched
ignorance and dullness of my humble self, but the great interest of my
companions, as well of myself, in your poem, impels us to ask you to
interpret to us the great depth of its beauteous crystalline sweetness,
in order that we may enjoy it as it is worthy of being enjoyed."
The father was shocked to hear his sacred commandments classed as
worldly poetry, and, drawing himself up to the full impressiveness of
holy indignation, replied, "That is not poetry; that is what our God
commands that we _must not_ do."
"Sayo de go zarimasu, gomen na sai," answered the spokesman in the
polite idiom of his country; "but--_do the people of your country ever
do these things?_"
Whether the Japanese are, or were three hundred years ago, as exempt
from evil as the enquiry about the ten commandments would imply,
matters not. The rebuke was well merited and taught a great, good
lesson. We are the sum of our impressions, and the suggestions we
receive from experience are the source of our impressions. Some
suggestions are so respected that they make deep impressions, notably
the suggestions given us by our parents at our most impressionable age;
but all suggestions have some weight, and to such purpose that a thing
we know to be untrue becomes a reality to us by constant repetition,
as attested by the common expression, "He has told that story so many
times that he has come to believe it himself."
There is scarcely any difference of opinion about the justice of the
ten commandments; but the constant repetition of "_you must not_" is
like shaking a red rag before a wild bull, to many self-assertive
children; whereas, if the things to be commanded against were
understood to be _impossible_, and therefore _unmentionable_, the
commandments would come to fit crimes that had become as much out of
date to us now as is the crime of striking women.
We have constant evidence of the fact that beliefs, or, rather,
habits-of-belief, follow persistent assertion, and that character is
largely molded by existing formulas as well as other influences of our
environment.