Part 22

By some persons it is even thought to be an accomplishment of great merit to acknowledge strong roots of carnal weakness and to then succeed in hiding any outward expression of them. In others, equally well-meaning, the aggressive and consumptive passions are nursed and exhibited as evidences of unusual sensitiveness and virility appertaining to fineness, goodness and greatness. It is not long since it was the custom of clergymen in some denominations to assume unworthiness for themselves in order to glorify the redeeming power of the Saviour, notwithstanding all of Christ's teachings inculcated that true forgiveness consisted in the simple process of ceasing to have--ceasing to admit, or import. When, in former times, priesthood was degraded to a business--an occupation for a living, or for convenience or power--it was natural that the difficulty of the service rendered the laity by the priests should be exaggerated so as to command the highest respect, the greatest power and the largest compensation. Sin was made to seem powerful and ever-present in order that the service rendered in keeping it in check might seem important and everlasting. Under such circumstances, and especially when the one great unpardonable sin against the church was that of doubting the teachings of these teachers, how almost impossible must it have been for the laity to rise superior to evil, when those whose profession it was to combat it, found it so potent an enemy, and who, thereby, filled the atmosphere of thought with dense clouds of evil suggestion.

It is fortunate for the present generation that such shadows of suggestion do not hopelessly oppress it. There are many churches now where appreciation, and love, and purity, and the delights of unselfishness are offered as the attractions towards religion, and where the teachers in them stand for examples of pure thinking, pure living, and spontaneous altruism, practiced as a result of natural impulses that are both agreeable and profitable, and not to save from hell or to fit for a remote heaven. But the shadow of the old method, that so long hid the Christ-method of true thinking and living, still has an influence in giving strength to evil to afflict the weaker sons of our civilization. This shadow, however, cannot long remain. The light of the present awakening is too strong--too electric and too penetrating--to permit it to remain.

It is even looked upon now as a curiosity--a relic of antiquity--to hear the old fears given expression from the pulpit, but root eradication of them is not yet insisted upon as the first and most important teaching, as it should be. It is a common thing now, also, to hear altruistic teaching and optimistic preaching from the pulpits of all denominations, and to hear from the teachers and preachers the assurance that "it is easier than not and more profitable in every way to be unselfish and not to tolerate evil," the new good suggestion of which, is the inspiring assertion that, "it is easier than not."

It would be a rare thing now to find a religious teacher of intelligence who would not agree with the assertion that, when a person is angry, he cannot be, at the moment, a Christian, for being angry is as unchristian as profanity. The same condemnation applies to worry, which is especially commanded against, and which, in the light of the observed promises of God as expressed by the preponderance of the prevalence of good, is not less than blasphemous in its exhibition of lack of confidence in, and appreciation of, the Giver of All Good.

A most helpful thought in connection with the easy subjugation of the animalesque expressions of fearthought is, that they are not inherent things, and that they are imported whenever suffered. The tendency to import is inherent, and the tendency to entertain evil is the shadow of past error in the race which is called race-habit-of-thought, and it is that which has to be replaced by right-habit-of-thought before one is entirely free, but tendency is easily overcome when its parents are discredited and made not-respectable thereby.

The spiritual awakening of the present era that is reclaiming Christianity from the supernatural, or unnatural, and applying it to everyday affairs, may be called practical or business Christianity. A business man who has an occupation wherein it is possible for him to be altruistic, after reading the theory that is the contention of Menticulture, wrote a commentary in which he said: "On these precepts not only 'hang all of the law and the prophets,' but, also, common business sense and all of the profits."

As an illustration of the difference between eradication (or filtration) and repression (or gradual dilution or reform) I will cite a common example: Suppose a vessel to be filled with muddy water which we wish to make clear, so that it will perfectly reflect the ether above, which we call the sky; the easy and effective method is first to pass the water through a filter and thereafter to protect it from contamination. On the contrary, the difficult, expensive, endless and, therefore ineffective method is to pour unlimited clear water into the vessel, in order to gradually replace the muddy water with the excess of pure water.

While it is true that "perfect love casteth out fear," it also is true that there can be no perfect love until there is first perfect freedom from fear, so that the right way to approach the problem of creating the harmonious condition in the human mind wherein growth ripens in happiness, is to take the mind when it is returned to us at the moment of awaking from sleep, when it has been purified by contact with Spiritual Cerebration, and protect it from that time forth through each day, by refusing to import suspicion, anger or worry into it, a process that is easier than not, and pleasanter and more profitable than any.

Each day, the tendency to import, which is the only part of the process of eradication that is in any way real, will become less strong, and, with even the weakest attempts to discourage it; but if you are sufficiently in earnest to say, "Begone, you tempter," and thereby slam the door in his face, you will accomplish freedom at once.

The self-infliction of fearthought is a shoveling-in process--all that you have to do to become free from it is to stop shoveling. It is easier to stop importing fearthought, and anger, and worry, and suspicion, than it is to import them; therefore,

Stop importing!

THE IMPOTENCE OF PAIN.

During the Japanese-Chinese war, two Japanese students were arrested in Shanghai on the charge of espionage, and were taken to Ningpo and tortured to death.

The method of torture was the most cruel known, and included a slow crushing of the most sensitive parts of their anatomy.

The young patriots displayed such heroism under the torture that the incident gave rise to considerable discussion as to the relative sensitiveness of the Mongolian and the Caucasian races to pain. The consensus of the opinion that I saw expressed, which was, by the way, Caucasian opinion only, was that the Oriental was less sensitive, and therefore was not entitled to as much credit for withstanding pain as the self-adjudged, more-sensitive Westerner.

The truth of the matter is, that there is a limit to actual pain within the power of any one to endure, if the element of fearthought-of-more-pain is eliminated, so that the absorbing heroism of the patriot--almost courting torture for the honor of his cause--puts the element of fearthought out of the case, and leaves only the actual sensation to be suffered. Pain is undoubtedly intended as a warning of disordered conditions, and not as a punishment, and, having performed its mission, is relieved by a kind paralysis before the shock is too severe for human endurance.

This is the beneficent provision of the natural law, but when it comes to the exercise of unnatural fearthought, there is no limit to the torture a victim may impose upon himself, and, on a basis of a very little real pain, build up most terrible suffering.

The author has tested the truth of this assertion personally.

Being condemned to submit to a dental operation of unusual severity, the opportunity to experiment was gladly availed of, even at the expense of comfort.

One special aggravation of the operation was the prying open of the mouth, in order to build up from the root one of the teeth located farthest back in the mouth. The mouth was not large enough to suit the facile convenience of the dentist, and hence he made use of all the skill and power he possessed to enlarge the cavity, and having stretched it to the utmost, firm wedges held it open, without possibility of protest, for three hours on a stretch; and on these instruments and conditions of torture I had ample opportunity to experiment; so sufficient--for all practical purposes--that I do not feel it necessary to repeat the experiment, even in the interest of scientific investigation.

The experiment proved, however, my contention, that even the greatest possible pain is of itself not very severe, and that it requires but a slight diversion to make one forget it, for the time being, entirely. I was able, at any moment of the combined irritation, to concentrate my mind upon some subject or object, and to lose the sense of pain out of my consciousness altogether--and at will.

Major General O. O. Howard, U. S. A. (retired) has recently corroborated, to the author, out of his own experience, the possibility of forgetting pain through slight diversion. He lost an arm during the Civil War, and in the process of recovery some of the nerve-ends were not properly cicatrized, so that ever since the wound healed the General has not been free from the sensation of pain, whenever his mind has reverted to it, and yet he is able at any time to forget it by change of thought.

In like manner, fear-of-trouble is the major part of all the so-called trouble that is experienced. As intimated in the "definitions," under the caption of "Trouble," there are few real conditions that are very uncomfortable, if apprehension of still more uncomfortable conditions is not imported to exaggerate the existing discomfort. Fear of freezing to death or of drowning may be made very terrible, for instance, whereas the end in freezing and in drowning is known to be so comfortable, and even blissful, that those who are on the point of passing out of life by those means dislike to be called back to life again.

The heroism of mothers in the event of child-birth is too well known to call for reference, but there is the greatest difference in the ease or in the discomfort of the condition attending the process, which is largely influenced by the feeling of welcome or the attitude of aversion with which the new-comer is greeted by the mother.

The point-of-view has much to do with the sting of pain. Whoever has suffered that severest of all spankings, the water spanking incident to a clumsy dive, or a wrongly-calculated somersault into the water from a wharf, or from a natatorium springboard, will remember that the pain of it is not half so hard to bear as the form of parental correction called by the same name, that in itself is not nearly so severe.

Sensitiveness to pain is largely due to the fear of pain, and a reversal of the accustomed attitude towards fear will have an immediate effect upon the severity of pain by mitigating much of its sting. Christian scientists, mental scientists, spiritual scientists, faith curists, and all others who practice mental therapeutics in physical diseases, escape much suffering in this way, and the happy result of this attitude towards pain serves to strengthen their faith.

Whatever the cause of the relief, it is good, for it teaches, in a most practical way, the potency of thought in overcoming, or, dismissing, real pain as well as all imaginary evil, and also the possibility of eliminating fearthought from the mental equipment, by showing how impotent to harm are the realities that inspire it, when it is prevented from exaggerating them.

UNHAPPY UNLESS MISERABLE.