The mirror., 1921-12-15

thoughts vanish from the mind as they do
in sleep, the man lives on and like
spectator in theater when the curtain
drops and there is nothing more to see,
returns to himself and quietly waits for
new act to begin.
Every day we have proof that man and
his mind are two different things. Every
day we turn our minds from one train of
thought and apply it to some study, or
duty, showing that we have the power, to
some extent at least, to control its activi-
ties. If our lives are to be worth any
thing at all we must certainly wake up
and make start in this matter of self
control, for to make no effort to control
our thoughts, is to give up the battle of
life and to miss the chief lesson we came
here to learn.
One of the greatest powers of the human
mind is the Imagination, and yet you some
times hear people talking about mere
imagination as though imagination was
just a puff of air and absolutely unpro-
ductive of results in this substantial, solid
world in which they live. But magma
ton, backed by will, is in fact the master
faculty in man and if correctly used may
act for good or evil with tremendous
power.
1t is said that two rival doctors in Per-
sia agreed to settle their quarrels by
duel in which poison should take the place
of the usual weapons of destruction. The
doctor who was to make the first attempt
handed drink to his opponent, which
was Immediately swallowed, but his know
ledge of drugs was so extensive and his
sense of taste so keen, that he recognized
the drugs employed and he at once COM
pounded an antidote which neutralized its
effect. He then offered his rival a rose
over which he had first muttered a mys-
terious incarnation and made some magic
passes. The other took the flower with
shaking hand and-fell dead on the spot
He had been slain by his terror of poi
SON which had no existence outside his
vivid imagination!
Doctors have cured their patients by
bread pills, or to speak more correctly,
patients have cured themselves by the
healing power with which their imagina-
tion endowed the remedies. Everyone
knows of cases in which new and lively
hope or some fresh interest in living has
dragged a sick person from the very jaws
of death. Let us no more speak of mere
imagination. any more than we would
speak of mere dynamite; for imagination,
energized by will, and perseveringly ap-
piled could utterly transform this crime
stained planet and in its place create a
very garden for the gods.
1t is by his imagination and will that
man differs from the animals; by imagi-
nation that he can recreate himself with
the power to overcome all his weaknesses.
By his Imagination he can create peace
and goodwill in himself when. there was
turmoil and hatred. At night he can look
back at the day that has passed, note
where he failed, and with his imagi-
nation gradually create in himself the
power to surmount all such occasions of
failure. And it is by Imagination that he
can realize, little by little, that he is an
immortal self in the body, not of it, and
that he can recover his rightful divinity
by the mastery of body and mind.
AS we persevere in our attempts at
thought-control we discover that it is the
passing moment which counts. Special oc-
casions may be left to take care of them
selves if we will only look after the COM
mon moments as they fit by at the rate of
sixty to the minute during every waking
hour. 1t is the sum of these passing
moments-or rather of the kind of thoughts
we fill them with,-that goes to make up