While there is no healing power in the repetition of strings of words, yet it is a very convenient thing to have the central thoughts so formulated that you can repeat them readily, so that you can use them as affirmations whenever you are surrounded by an environment which gives you adverse suggestions. When those around you begin to talk of sickness and death, close your ears and mentally assert something like the following:-- _There is One Substance, and I am that Substance._ _That Substance is eternal, and it is Life; I am that Substance, and I am Eternal Life._ _That Substance knows no disease; I am that Substance, and I am Health._ Exercise your will power in choosing only those thoughts which are thoughts of health, and arrange your environment so that it shall suggest thoughts of health. Do not have about you books, pictures, or other things which suggest death, disease, deformity, weakness, or age; have only those which convey the ideas of health, power, joy, vitality, and youth. When you are confronted with a book, or anything else which suggests disease, do not give it your attention. Think of your conception of health, and your gratitude, and affirm as above; use your will power to fix your attention upon thoughts of health. In a future chapter I shall touch upon this point again; what I wish to make plain here is that you must think only health, recognize only health, and give your attention only to health; and that you must control thought, recognition, and attention by the use of your will. Do not try to use your will to compel the healthy performance of function within you. The Principle of Health will attend to that, if you give your attention only to thoughts of health. Do not try to exert your will upon the Formless to compel It to give you more vitality or power; it is already placing all the power there is at your service. You do not have to use your will to conquer adverse conditions, or to subdue unfriendly forces; there are no unfriendly forces; there is only One Force, and that force is friendly to you; it is a force which makes for health. Everything in the universe wants you to be well; you have absolutely nothing to overcome but your own habit of thinking in a certain way about disease, and you can do this only by forming a habit of thinking in another Certain Way about health. Man can cause all the internal functions of his body to be performed in a perfectly healthy manner by continuously thinking in a Certain Way, and by performing the external functions in a certain way. He can think in this Certain Way by controlling his attention, and he can control his attention by the use of his will. He can decide what things he will think about. CHAPTER VII. HEALTH FROM GOD.