lives we shall know this, because we shall know for an absolute certainty that when we concentrate our mental force or thought on any plan or pursuit or undertaking, we are setting at work the attractive force of thought-substance to draw to us the means or agencies or forces or individuals to carry out that plan, as certainly as the force of muscle applied to a line draws the ship to its pier. You worry very little now as to your telegram reaching its destination, because, while you know next to nothing as to what electricity is, you do know that when it is applied in a certain way it will carry your message; and you will have the same confidence that when your thought is regulated and directed by a certain method, it will do for you what you wish. Before men knew how to use electricity there was as much of it as to-day, and with the same power as to-day; but so far as our convenience was concerned, it was quite useless as a message-bearer, for lack of knowledge to direct it. The tremendous power of human thought is with us all to-day very much in a similar condition. It is wasted, because we do not know how to concentrate and direct it. It is worse than wasted, because, through ignorance and life-long habit, we work our mental batteries in the wrong direction, and send from us bolt after bolt of ill-will toward others, or enviousness or snarls or sneers or some form of ugliness,—all this being real element wrongly and ignorantly applied, which may strike and hurt others, and will certainly hurt us.
Here is the corner-stone of all successful effort in this existence or any other. Never in thought acknowledge an impossibility. Never in mind reject what to you may seem the wildest idea with scorn; because, in so doing, you may not know what you are closing the door against. To say any thing is impossible because it seems impossible to you, is just so much training in the dangerous habit of calling out “Impossible!” to every new idea. Your mind is then a prison full of doors, barred to all outside, and you the only inmate. “All things” are possible with God. God works in and through you. To say “Impossible!” as to what you may do or become is a sin. It is denying God’s power to work through you. It is denying the power of the Infinite Spirit to do through you far more than what you are now capable of conceiving in mind. To say “Impossible!” is to set up your relatively weak limit of comprehension as the standard of the universe. It is as audacious as to attempt the measurement of endless space with a yard-stick.
When you say, “Impossible!” and “I can’t,” you make a present impossibility for yourself. This thought of yours is the greatest hindrance to the possible. It cannot stop it. You will be pushed on, hang back as much as you may. There can be no successful resistance to the eternal and constant betterment of all things (including yourself).
You should say, “It is possible for me to become any thing which I admire.” You should say, “It is possible for me to become a writer, an orator, an actor, an artist.” You have then thrown open the door to your own temple of art within you. So long as you said, “Impossible!” you kept it closed. Your “I can’t” was the iron bolt locking that door against you. Your “I can” is the power shoving back that bolt.
Christ’s spirit or thought had power to command the elements, and quiet the storm. Your spirit as a part of the great whole has in the germ, and waiting for fruition, the same power. Christ, through power of concentrating the unseen element of his thought, could turn that unseen element into the seen, and materialize food,—loaves and fishes. That is a power inherent in every spirit, and every spirit is growing to such power. You see to-day a healthy baby-boy. It cannot lift a pound; but you know there lies in that feeble child the powers and possibilities which, twenty years hence, may enable it to lift with ease two hundred pounds. So the greater power, the coming spiritual power, can be foretold for us, who are now relatively babes spiritually. The reason for life’s being so unhappy here in this region of being is, that as we do not know the law, we go against it, and get thereby its pains instead of its pleasures.
This law cannot be entirely learned by us out of past record or the past experience of any one, no matter to what power they might have attained. Such records or lives may be very useful to us as suggestors. But while there are general principles that apply to all, there are also individual laws that apply to every separate and individualized person. You cannot follow directly in my track in making yourself happier and better, nor can I in yours; because every one of us is made up of a different combination of element, as element has entered into and formed our spirits (our real selves) through the growth and evolution of ages. You must study and find out for yourself what your nature requires to bring it permanent happiness. You are a book for yourself. You must open this book page after page, and chapter after chapter, as they come to you with the experience of each day, each month, each year, and read them. No one else can read them for you as you can for yourself. No one else can think exactly as you think, or feel just as you feel, or be affected just as you are affected by other forces or persons about you; and for this reason no other person can judge what you really need to make your life more complete, more perfect, more happy so well as yourself.
You must find out for yourself what association is best for you, what food is best for you, and what method in any business, any art, any profession brings you the best results. You can be helped very much by conferring with others who are similarly interested. You can be very much helped by those who may have more knowledge than you of general laws. You can be greatly helped to get force or courage or new ideas to carry out your undertakings, by meeting at regular intervals with earnest, sincere, and honest people who have also some definite purpose to accomplish, and talking yourself out to them, and they to you. But when you accept any man or any woman as an infallible guide or authority, and do exactly as they say, you are off the main track; because then you are making the experiments of another person, formed of a certain combination of elements or chemicals, and the result of that person’s experiments, the rule for your own individual combination of element, when your combination may be very different, and differently acted on by the elements outside of it.
You have iron and copper and magnesia and phosphorus, and more of other minerals and chemicals, and combination and re combination of mineral and chemical, in your physical body than earthly science has yet thought of. You have in your spirit or thought the unseen or spiritual correspondences of these minerals still finer and more subtle; and all these are differently combined, and in different proportions, from any other physical or spiritual body. How, then, can anyone find out the peculiar action of this your individual combination, save yourself?
There are certain general laws; but every individual must apply the general law to him or her self. It is a general law that the wind will propel a ship. But every vessel does not use the air in exactly the same fashion. It is a general law that thought is force, and can effect, and is constantly effecting, results to others far from our bodies; and the quality of our thought and its power to affect results depends very much on our associations. But for that reason, if yours is the superior thought or power, and I see that through its use you are moving ahead in the world, I should not choose your character of associates or your manner of life. I can try your methods as experiments; but I must remember they are only experiments. I must avoid that so common error,—the error of slavish copy and idolatry of another.
The Christ of Nazareth once bade certain of his followers not to worship him. “Call me not good,” said he. “There is none good save God alone.” Christ said, “I am the way and the life,” meaning, as the text interprets itself to me, that as to certain general laws of which he was aware, and by which he also as a spirit was governed, he knew and could give certain information. But he never did assert that his individual life, with all the human infirmity or defect that he had “taken upon him,” was to be strictly copied. He did pray to the Infinite Spirit of Good for more strength, and deliverance from the sin of fear when his spirit quailed at the prospect of his crucifixion; and in so doing, he conceded that he, as a spirit (powerful as he was), needed help as much as any other spirit; and knowing this, he refused to pose himself before his followers as God, or the Infinite, but told them that when they desired to bow before that almighty and never-to-be-comprehended power, out of which comes every good at the prayer or demand of human mind, to worship God alone,—God, the eternal and unfathomable moving power of boundless universe; the power that no man has ever seen or ever will see, save as
