The Penn's Grove record., 1915-03-12
HABIT OF THOUGHT
Mans win Controls, For Good or
Evil, the Direction of
His Mind.


suppose there are few prerogatives
which men would be less inclined to
part with than the absolute secrecy
and independence of their thoughts.
The tyrant may fetter my limbs and
seal my lips; but there is one thing
which he cannot do by the utmost
stretch of his power. He cannot him
der me from thinking as / please;
neither can he know what think, un-
less / please to tell him.
But this very fact, as it shows that
neither the law o public opinion can
take co~gnizance of our thoughts, only
make it the more indispensable that
we should take the proper regulation
and government of them into our own
hands. What others cannot do for us.
or even help us to do, each one should
feel the more bound to do for himself
taking care to keep himself inwardly
as well as outwardly pure, bringing
into captivity every thought to the
obedience of. Christ"
Here, however, an objection is some
times raised, which, if allowed to
stand, must make the incubation in
the text of nc effect. Our thoughts, it
is said, succeed each other according
to fixed and unalterable laws, one
thought bringing up another in a con-
slant train or current, over which the
will has no more power than over the
current of blood in our veins.
Freedom of Thought.
All those who concede anything to
human freedom must allow that we
are free to make any particular
thought which comes up in one of these
trains an object of special attention.
We can arrest it and hold it before the
mind for this purpose, which will have
the effect not, indeed, to stop our
thinking, but to give a new direction to
our thoughts.
Obviously, therefore, the turn which
Dur thinking takes depends, for the
most part, or ourselves. Suppose, for
example, that am thinking of a sinful
Indulgence. am free to think of that
side of it which invites or of that side
of it which repels. l can think of
it as an indulgence merely, or as a sin
full indulgence; and the train of
thought to which the whole will give
rise will vary accordingly.
When | say l can do either one or
he other, as / choose, it is no objec-
ton to reply that l cannot do it with
out some reason or motive. Certain
ly not. But the question is whether.
having a reason or motive to give my
thoughts a particular direction-that
is to say, believing it to be expedient
and right-it is not within my power
to do SO.
Controlled by the Will.
There is also another way in which
a mans will exerts an indirect but yet
an important and decisive control ola
the tenor of his thoughts. AS has
been said, we are competent at any
moment freely and deliberately to Sc
lect out of a train of thoughts that
one to which we will attend. But we
will suppose this selection made. not
freely and deliberately, but spontane-
ously, or from the impulse of the mo-
ment, as is probably the fact in most
cases.
Still, what we do spontaneously, or
from the impulse of the moment, de-
ponds Oh the state of our minds: and
this, again, depends, for the most part,
on What we have chosen to make it or
allow it to become. What we call act
ing impulsively or spontaneously origi-
mates, in nine cases out of ten, not in
our nature properly SO called, but in
some habit which has been superin-
duced, not in our nature as it came
from the hand of God, but as it has
been developed and shaped by a long
series of our own voluntary acts.
Hence it is, for the most part. that
different persons are affected so very
differently by the same objects; what
will suggest vicious and impure
thoughts to one, having no such eff
feet, perhaps the opposite effect, on
another. The same book, for example,
which will do ~incalculable injury to a
man of bad principles, or OF no prin.
ciples, may be read with much less
danger, perhaps with perfect safety, by
n whose innocence is guarded at
every point by discretion, a pure taste
and the fear of God.-Rev. James
Walker, d. D.