a safer guide than the promptings of human nature. [1] To know that a deception dark as it is base has been practised upon thee,—by those deemed at least indebted friends whose welfare thou hast promoted,—and yet not to avenge thyself, is to do good to thyself; is to take [5] a new standpoint whence to look upward; is to be calm amid excitement, just amid lawlessness, and pure amid corruption. To be a great man or woman, to have a name whose odor fills the world with its fragrance, is to bear with [10] patience the buffetings of envy or malice—even while seeking to raise those barren natures to a capacity for a higher life. We should look with pitying eye on the momentary success of all villainies, on mad ambition and low revenge. This will bring us also to look on a [15] kind, true, and just person, faithful to conscience and honest beyond reproach, as the only suitable fabric out of which to weave an existence fit for earth and heaven. Contagion Whatever man sees, feels, or in any way takes cog- nizance of, must be caught through mind; inasmuch as perception, sensation, and consciousness belong to mind and not to matter. Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the re- [25] liability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say. Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching. People believe in infectious and contagious diseases, [30] [Page 229.] and that any one is liable to have them under certain [1] predisposing or exciting causes. This mental state pre- pares one to have any disease whenever there appear the circumstances which he believes produce it. If he believed as sincerely that health is catching when exposed to con- [5] tact with healthy people, he would catch their state of feeling quite as surely and with better effect than he does the sick man’s. If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence, how [10] much more certain would be the doctor’s success, and the clergyman’s conversion of sinners. And if only the pulpit would encourage faith in God in this direction, and faith in Mind over all other influences governing the receptivity of the body, theology would teach man [15] as David taught: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” The confidence of mankind in contagious disease would [20] thus become beautifully less; and in the same propor- tion would faith in the power of God to heal and to save mankind increase, until the whole human race would become healthier, holier, happier, and longer lived. A calm, Christian state of mind is a better preventive of [25] contagion than a drug, or than any other possible sana- tive method; and the “perfect Love” that “casteth out fear” is a sure defense. [Page 230.] Improve Your Time