MENTAL SCIENCE AND HEALING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 59

MENTAL SCIENCE AND HEALING.

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WOREY. Worry is just about the most expensive and Xißeless thing in which a man or woman can indulge. It takes more "out" of them and uses up the life forces quicker than any other negative condition. If the mental scientists did nothing else than teach, people not to worcy they would do well, and deserve the heartfelt thanks of the present generation.

Worry is absolutely useless. Never yet liave adverse conditions been overcome or even delayed by it. Worry is expensive. More people have been slain by it than by all the armies in. the world, for there are a whole host of diseases such as heart disease, influenza, pnuemonia, hysteria, etc., which take their rise solely or chiefly in worry, and others that are so much augmented by it that it may truly be said to be their chief Cause.

We overcome worry by Faith and Experierce. Faith, like other things, can be cultivated. Some people think that it is the same as "blind credulity." Not co. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen.". But the things are there all tho same, and we know and feel 'that they are there. It is therefore evidence carried to a higher plane, and may be defined aB tho evidence of experience. The familiar proverb tells us that " experience makes even fools wise," but I fear that this is _ one of the many proverbs that point to thing? as they should be, rather than as they are. Experience should make us all wise, but as a rule it does. Man is a reasoning animal, but for some cause or other he has come to think that reason and faith are antagonistic, and that to enjoy faith ho must cease to exercise reason. This leads people to say "Faith is out of the question for me, because I cannot believe anything that is against my reason." To a certain extent they are right. No man can havo a faith that his reason forbids. But reason can act on the unseen as well as the seen. From the effects it can formulate the causes ; and to a certain extent it does so, but it does not go far enough — it does' not push this argument from experience to the ultimate.

To explain what is meant here, let the student look back on his past life. Let him conoider tho different paths, crooked or straight, light or dark, along which ho has come, and pee how they have led him to tho present stand-point — tho absolute best for him. You dispute this? Yet is it not true? Where is the man who would chaugo in eveiy particular with any other man? Many would take one thing and leavo another. Many would like to take the property, position, influence of another, grafting "them on that which he already possesses Who would dare to ehango all? Is not this a proof that each of us knows that what ho has is the absolute best for him hero and now. This does not prevent our desiring-and obtaining better things in the present and in the future, but it does show that what wo have received up to tho present has been not only good, but i he best possible under the circumstance?. Life is, or should be, an upward climb. As wo motint higher and look back over tho trodden path, wo sco -that many of tho inequalities which once seemed such formidable obstacles have disappeared altogether, while others have assumed very inferior proportions, and we think, "How could T have let so slight a thing trouble mo so much?" This is an argument from experience. Again, a little more study shows us that even in the darkeFt hour;* some light always shono on the path, though often not until the last moment ; and some most trivial, most natural event lilted the cloud or pointed the way. It all came about so naturally that v.-c did not notice it at tho time or observe how exactly tho leading came at the right moment and no other.

Life, while we are living it, 13 like a drawing out of a perspective, a photograph out of fecus. The perspective and tho focus can only be obtained by receding a little way. We then ceo their relativo values nnd proportions, and perceive that in evolution the words " small " and "great" ao wo now understand them have no moaning. This is another argument from experience. But tho third and greatest has to come: "The worst and heaviest of our troubles ne\er happened at all." We thought and we worried over them incessantly ; wo could not slrep at night or work quietly in the dny; we could not enjoy our present comforts or our past blessings because of that terriLle misfortune that was bo close at hand, and which wo expected to overwhelm us at every moment. And then after all our ivorr}-, all our anxiety, all our caro it never came. These experiences, properly understood, givo us a just groundwork of faith. Nothing has come to us hitherto but what was good ; nothing has tome but what' was needed for our development. Let us' put ourselves on better lines ; let us deserve better things, and better things will come.

Tho man who expects evil, misfortune, and trouble, who describes himself as "unlucky." and says of himself that ho " never succeeds in anything," can scarcely complain if thp<=e conditions are actualised, though as a rule he seems highly indignant and protests against the injustice of fate. But ho whc&o faith is based upon experience knows better. He' knows that " To him that hath shall be given." Ho knows that the more we have and tho more we demand the more we shall get. He sees by past experience that we attract to ourselves that which we require, nnd which is necessary for our evolution, and his faith, based on reason and experience, is very i far removed from blind credulity. To reach this stage is to face a future which has no terrors. Tt is to see the absoluto useleseneFs of worry. It is to see that worry is not only useless but harmful. It is to have faith — faith in the absolute goodness of God, faith in the Divine evolution of man. We can help or we can hinder this evolution ; we cannot prevent it- The law of growth is inexorable. But the seed only grows when the conditions are favourable. Grains of wheat Ho in the hands of the mummy for thousands of years, and are but grains of wheat still. Plant them in suitable soil, with sun. air, and moisture, and they develop rapidly into perfect plants. So with ourselves. Our past evolution may have been slov, hindered by negative conditions — fear, worry, and many others, largely arising from ignorance, indifference, and even sloth. Let us ariae from them ; let us realise that as we sow so shall we reap, that the man who dwells on low negative conditions of fear and worry prepares for himself the very thing that he dreads, and makes for himself an environment from which lie can hardly escape ; while he who has faith In God and in himself "can remove mountains "—i.e., chaugo a seeming insuperable difficulty into % stepping stone of progress. Such i&ith. in nob blind credulity— ifc w

strictly scientific, it is absolutely true. To obtain and to develop it we must retire into. " the silence " — that is to say, we must take counsel with our own souls rather than with tho people who live around us, and whose lives are not yet ordered on these lines. All wise men, prophets and seers of old, have cultivated this power of introspection. Of cpurse like all other good things it may be carried too far, and may lead to asceticism and monasticism ; but there is little fear of that in the present conditions of daily life. To hold oneself in a serene atmosphere, above worry and the petty annoyances of daily life it. is necessary to go from time to time into " the silence " and bar them out, making oneself positive to good and negative to evil. To do this it is not necessary to go to the top of a mountain or to shut one's self up in a monastery, but a short walk 'in the country, a saunter in the garden, even a " quite pipe" will do. Only beware of letting tho mind drift, thinking about nothing, and so on. Think good thoughts, consciously, positively ; think of the socdness o f God, and of tho fact that you yourrelf are good and immortal; draw all good things to yourself with the conscious 'intention of passing them on to others who like yourself are good and immortal, though perhaps in a lower stage of evolution; realise the fact that what you will to be you can be ; hold to it with great and insistent firmness ; and in a wonderfully short space of time you will find, not only that you havo freed yourself from worry "in all" its forms, but that you have found the true theory of living — that you will ever be filled with great content and grow every day stronger in mind and body ; becoming a fount of healing and help to others, uho will absorb health from you, as in lower conditions people absorb diseape. "Heal -thyself *' is the first command of Mental Science.