Signs
of the Times
[From
the Sunday Star, Terre Haute,
Indiana]
The
secret of living happily and effectively is not in
externals; it is not in possessions and environment, in
clothes and furnishings and the tools of living. It is in
the attitude of the mind toward life. It is in what we
think. The thought life is the real life; and the most
important thing we have to do for the cultivation of
worthwhile living, in which there will be joy and content,
is to insure a thought life that is clean and healthful and
vigorous. . . . If we permit externals to breed in us
thoughts of envy and hatred, of discontent and malice, the
result is no change for the better in the outside
provocation of our thinking. . . . The mind that banishes
thoughts of envy and fear, of hate and malice, and opens its
doors to thoughts of love and courage, of unselfishness and
service, finds the soul developing in breadth and strength,
and, what is more, discovers presently that environment and
circumstances are themselves responding to the
miracle-working power of the inner life. "Let this mind be
in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," wrote Paul,
conveying in a sentence more wisdom than many books might
bring to the seeker after truth. That is a simple, immensely
practical, and unfailingly effective formula for joyful and
effective living. The man who follows it knows the delight
of complete emancipation from the bondage of things, from
the shadow of fear, from the bitterness of disappointment
and disillusion. He knows the thrill of power, the sense of
harmony, the confidence of security. He has within him that
which is mightier than anything without, and which no change
of fortune, no assault of foe or fate can take
away.
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