[9] This may seem, at first sight, to be a sweeping statement, but two homely illustrations will prove its reasonableness. First we will take the case of a man committed to prison for law-breaking. His environment is obviously due to his wrong actions, the latter being the offspring of his thoughts, for all actions spring from thoughts. Next let us take the case of a man who is the trusted head of an efficient business. Obviously his position is the result of his actions, for he has climbed to it by hard work and faithful service, all due in the first place to constructive thinking and a right attitude of mind. The Bible tells us that as a man thinketh in his heart so is he. It is equally true to say that as a man _is_, so does he _think_, and, that as he thinks, so do his outer life and circumstances become. Therefore, as a man _is_, so is his environment. This may sound rather metaphysical, but it is really quite simple, and proof meets us at every turn. Take a man from slumdom and put him in nice surroundings, and note what happens. Very soon he either drifts back to a slum or turns his new house into a slum dwelling. Take a man of a higher type, and put him in a slum, and soon he will either leave the slum or change his slum dwelling into a more decent habitation. Put a slut in a mansion, and she will turn it into a pig-sty, but put a woman of a higher type in a hovel and she will make it clean enough to entertain royalty. Therefore, before you can change a person's environment it is necessary to change inwardly the person himself. When a man becomes inwardly changed and filled with new ambitions, ideals and hopes, he, in course of time, rises above his sordid surroundings and _attracts to himself an environment that corresponds to his new state of mind_. It would be useless to tidy up the house of a slut for her, for she would soon make it like a pig-sty again, but if you could get a new ideal of neatness, cleanliness, order and spotlessness into her mind, she would not rest satisfied until her immediate environment corresponded, in some measure at least, to her mental ideal or image. Very often, the failures of a man's life, and its disharmonies and poverty, either comparative or real, are outward symbols of his weakness of character. He may have ability in plenty, but he may lack application or steadfastness, and thus he fails in all his undertakings, and has to be kept by his wife and daughters. He will assure you that his circumstances are due to ill-fortune, but the actual cause of his failure is in his character, or, rather, lack of character.