The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-09-29
DR.. Marden's
Uplift Talks
By ORRIsoN SWEET MARDEN
DESTRUCTIVE SUGGESTION.

tOME time ago the mayor of one OF
-, our western cities requested the
editors of the daily papers to re-
frain from publishing the details Of sui
cides, because their publication had
caused an alarming epidemic of sui
cides in that community.
The human mind may be attuned to
any key, high or low, base or noble, by
the power of suggestion The sugges-
ton may be in word spoken by one
self or by another; it may come from
a newspaper, a book, a play or a pic
ture; it may emanate from the pres
ence of friend or of an enemy, from
grand, heroic character, or mean,
cowardly one. From hundreds Of
sources it may come, from within or
without, but from wherever it comes,
1t leaves its mark on the life for good
or Ill. Our characters are largely made
up from various kinds of suggestion.
Many people scatter suggestions of
fear, doubt and failure wherever they
go, and these take root in minds that
might otherwise be free from them
and therefore happy, confident and
successful
Who can picture the havoc which
the suspicious suggestion has wrought
in innocent lives? Think OF the in
fiuence of employers holding the
thought of suspicion regarding their
servants or other employees.
Servants have actually been made
dishonest by other persons perpetually
holding the suspicion that they were
dishonest. This thought suggests dis
honesty to the suspected perhaps for
the first time, and bring constantly
held takes root and grows, and bears
the fruit of theft.
Is 1t not cruel to hold suspicious
thought of another until you have
positive proof? That other persons
mind is sacred; have you any right
to invade it with your miserable
thoughts and pictures of suspicion?
Many a being has been made
wretched and miserable for years;
has been depressed and borne down
by the uncharitable, wicked thoughts
Of others. There is no doubt that
many man is serving sentence
which ought to be served by those who
have Influenced him to commit the
crime for which he is being punished.
The time will come when we shall
have more sympathy for those who go
wrong, and even for criminals, because
we shall know how powerfully human
minds are Influenced by the vicious
thoughts of others.
We are the creatures of suggestion.
We get them from newspapers, books,
from everyone with whom we come
in contact. The atmosphere is full of
them. We are constantly giving them
to ourselves.
Many a criminals acts could be
traced to the graphic suggestions Of
criminal novels, the exciting stories
of murder and plumber which he be-
gan to read when a child.
It is a dangerous thing to hold in
the mind a wrong suggestion, for it
tends to become part Of US, and be-
fore we realize it we are like our
thought.
II young people only realized what
terrible thing 1t is to get even a
suggestion Of impurity into the mind
they would never read an author
whose lines drip with the very gall of
death. They would not look at those
dangerous books which lead their
readers as near the edge Of indecency
as possible without stepping over. To
describe impurity In rosy, glowing, Sc
ductive, suggestive language is but the
refinement of the house of death.
The suggestion of impurity in
trashy literature is responsible for a
great deal Of dissipation; for blasted
hopes and blighted lives. The same
is true of suggestive1ess in art and
the drama.
We have all had the exalted expert
ence, the marvellous tonic, the uplift,
that has come from the suggestion In
play or a book depicting a great
hero. How heroic and noble and self
sacrificing we feel for long time, and
how resolved we are to become like
the hero in the play or the story. This
is a good illustration of the power sug-
gestion is constantly playing in our
experience all through life.
HABIT-THE SERVANT, THE