"But what of the people who do not know it? Are they utterly defenseless?" "As long as they believe in the reality of sin, sickness and death, they must suffer from them," replied Grace, picking a loose hair from her blender. "Then they ought to know how to learn and understand these things, but I could not tell anybody." "We can solve any problem by going back and reasoning from the premise. If any shock of sin or sickness come over us, we have simply to remember the spiritual, which is the only real creation." "It is not so easily done though. To-day I met the most miserable looking cripple sliding along without any limbs. I held my skirts aside as he passed, and forgot to even think of him as God's child," confessed Kate, in a regretful tone. "Anything takes time, and we can't expect to leap into perfection at once, but what did you do after he had passed?" asked Grace, with some curiosity. "I pitied the poor creature and wondered what made him so." "That was the very way to keep him in the same condition," said Grace, rapidly mixing some paint. "This last lesson very clearly explains that _every_ thought has an influence, and that you help to make the body manifest whatever you think of it. If you think the real and true, you help to make that show forth, if you only think of the external or apparent trouble or defect, and regard it as the real, you are harming instead of helping." "I can readily see that we may affect ourselves, but it seems hard to believe that we affect _everybody_," protested Kate, incredulously. "It is because we cannot realize the law of thought transference. I was reading just last week about that. An instance of Stuart C. Cumberland's mind-reading was cited. It was wonderful. And then long ago I read an old book written by Cornelius Agrippa about it, but I was not very much interested, and did not understand nor believe it at the time, so my memory is not worth much concerning it." "Then you really think I added another weight to that unhappy creature's burden of trouble?" cried Kate, in sharp surprise. "It would be best for you to deny his apparent conditions and affirm his real ones, and instead of thoughts of pity, which are only weakening, you could think of happiness and contentment. I truly believe we can learn to think of people this way, if we only catch ourselves for correction every time we think wrong." "How shall I ever learn to bridle my thoughts?" was Kate's despairing wail. "By learning to bridle your tongue; I found a splendid text to-day on that very theme. It is in James iii: 2. 'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able to bridle the whole body.' "Why, it tells in those few words the substance of all we have learned in these lessons," exclaimed Kate. "Only we would never have had sense enough to understand without the lessons," added Grace, with a smile.