Part 8

To-day is ours. Live freely, fully to-day. Be unafraid, unhurried, and undisturbed.

We are building character, and the way we build it is by mental attitude, by our acts, and by the way we employ the precious moments of to-day.

Put yourself in harmony with nature--realize the wonderful power of the will--and you will be strong, a veritable king among men.

The calamity howler is found everywhere. In times of peace or war he is with us. This pessimist sows seeds of discord, plants envy, generates the anarchist spirit, and is an all-around nuisance.

A man may spend years erecting a building; a fiend can demolish it in a minute with a stick of dynamite.

The calamity howler is a destroyer; he doesn't think, he spurts out words. His words and arguments are simply parrot mimicry and void of intellectual impulse, as are the movements of an angle worm.

These gloom merchants talk of their rights, and they expect and demand the same privileges and benefits that are earned by the man who uses his head.

The pessimist sees good in nobody. Human nature to him is a cesspool of villainy and corruption. He will not tolerate a word of praise for a thing well done. Disparagement is his favorite weapon. He ascribes mean and selfish motives to public-spirited men. Every deed of kindness, every act of generosity, is given a sinister meaning when seen in the light of his own base soul.

At home he is a grumbler and a grouch. His presence depresses, and happiness fades away at his approach.

In the community, he never reaches high office because he lacks civic spirit and the forward-looking view. He obstructs progress instead of promoting it.

At his work, he lags behind where others achieve. He rails at conditions instead of changing them, and eventually he finds himself shelfed and shunned as a back number.

These purveyors of panic eat into the vitals of the nation. They breed discontent, undermine morale, and sow suspicion and distrust where previously there had been friendliness, co-operation and the pull-together spirit.

Wherever men gather, you will find these ghoulish spirits. They are in evidence in times of peace and plenty, as well as in times of war and peril.

It matters not that our farmers are seeing to it that our granaries are filled to-day as never before, and that every man has a job. These prophets of disaster have only one string to their harp, and they will twang on that and no other.

In times of war, the pessimist is doubly dangerous, for he spreads his iniquitous propaganda among people who are already under a great emotional strain. Always a menace, when a people are in the throes of a great life-and-death struggle, it is doubly necessary to stamp out this destroyer of morale, with his insidious campaign of gloom and despair and his veiled innuendos of panic and destruction.

It is up to you and to me to denounce these breeders of discord; to hold them up to the scorn of intelligent, thinking people. They are neither doers nor thinkers, and the world has no need of them in these trying times.

10.

This evening I rode home in a crowded street car. What an interesting study it was to watch the faces in that car.

Discontent, discomfort, worry, gloominess on nearly every face. Tired faces, tired bodies drooped over from a hard day's work, mouth corners depressed. Hopelessness stamped on the countenances.

As the people came in the car, some of them had smiles or at least passable expressions, but when they got crowded together and saw the gloomy faces, the gloom spread to their faces, too. At a picnic, all are smiling and laughing. In the street car at six o'clock, the long procession of workers is a stream of solemn faces. Contagion, example, surroundings, yes, that's it--contagion and example.

At six o'clock in the cars, all is gloom, blueness and sorrow faces. At eight o'clock many of these faces will be changed; there will be joy, smiles, rosiness, singing and dancing. Yet the actual conditions of finance, health, hope or prospects haven't changed since these people were in the car at six o'clock.

Why, then, such a change in two hours?

It is this: At seven o'clock these workers sat down to supper; they were out of that gloom-reflected street car atmosphere. Now they are talking; they are rounding-up the day's activities; they are HOME with mother, sister, brother and the kiddies. The home ones greet them with smiles, the appetizing supper pleases the palate, good cheer permeates, and all around them is smiles and joy.

Gloom spreads gloom. Joy spreads joy. Gloom is black; joy is white. One darkens, the other brightens.

Well, then, where's the moral? What's the benefit from this little study of the street car passengers?

The lesson is plain: It is that you and I are ferments of joy, or acids of gloom. We are influences to help or to hurt. To hurt others by our example hurts us. To help others by our example helps us. We become happier than ever.

In the street car, life was not worth living if you judged by the pained faces. In two hours, by changed thought, the example of life was worth while.

What changes mental attitude makes!