Chapter IV: Part 4

The Theosophist is sincere, the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Christian, the Pagan, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Sun-worshipper, the Republican, the Democrat, the Progressive, the Prohibitionist, the Brewer, all these are sincere in their beliefs. And as these beliefs are different, it is common sense to say that no one creed, sect, belief, branch, dogma or system, is all truth.

It is true every channel or avenue we meet in life's travel has some truth, but it is not for you or me to assume that we are the sole possessors of wisdom and the real discoverers of all truth.

We must not take the conclusions we arrive at and expect to force the world to accept without protest our rules for conduct, our methods for living, our practices for morals, or our beliefs, for their guide.

Converts to new doctrines, new issues, new cults and to the old ones, too, are made largely because the ambassadors or proselyters seem so fervid and sincere in expounding what they claim is the definite truth.

The believers in a cult or code of ethics are auto hypnotized, their visions are narrowed.

By focusing their thought on their special belief they bring together sophistry, arguments, examples and so-called proof that gives them facility in arguing the case or expounding their doctrine.

You can make no gain to try to argue with a Christian Scientist. You ask for concrete rules, definite answers and other proofs than their flat statements, and you are told you have not the understanding, that your attitude is not in the right plane, and that the truth cannot be shown you.

You are told to have faith, belief, to eliminate antagonism, and to study "Science and Health" and you will receive the divine spirit and see the light.

The Scientist is sincere; he shows you "Science and Health" with a lot of testimonials in the back to prove that Christian Science cures disease. Every patent medicine, every science, every system of healing has testimonials by the hundreds.

Scientists say there is no disease, no material, that we are only spirit or soul, or thought; that we are not matter but mind. That health is truth and disease is error. They deny disease yet "Science and Health" and the midweek experience meetings have testimonials of disease cured by Christian Science.

There is much truth in Christian Science. People are helped by it, people are sincere in their belief in it, but that Christian Science is all truth, all powerful, all right, all sufficient, cannot be proven.

What about the people who have gone hence before Christian Science was ever heard of?

The theological religion today, the practices and beliefs, differ from the vogue of fifty years ago.

If the Protestant religion be all truth what became of our religious ancestors who died before Martin Luther found the truth?

I have no quarrel with the Christian Scientist, the Protestant, the Roman Catholic, the Buddhist, or the Mohammedan. I must be generous and broad enough to say others have the right to think and be sincere. All sciences have truth, but no science, sect, cult, dogma, or creed is ALL truth.

Sincerity may be satisfaction and necessary for the possessors of that sincerity, but that your sincerity in your belief must be accepted by me as proof that I should believe as you do, is, I believe, the place where I have the undoubted right to say, "I reserve the right to my own conclusions and I am unjust to myself if I force myself to accept your viewpoint without full belief myself that you are right."

So, then, because a person is sincere in a belief that is contrary to your conscientious belief, do not be disturbed or swerved from common sense analysis or convinced against your better judgment.

No one possesses all the truth. It is for you and me to do our plain duty as we see it, to do the best we can each day in act and thought and word.

We can pretty much agree on the simple essential truths which are proven. That is, being honest, truthful, kind, lovable, sympathetic, cheerful, doing good, helping one another and doing things worth while.

If we agree on these things and do useful work and think helpful thoughts, we are doing our duty.

Theories, arguments and studying too deeply on bootless systems, codes, beliefs, cults, isms, or doctrines, is a waste of time.

When we can here and now derive definite benefits from doing the simple and helpful things and acting and thinking the simple practical cheer thoughts, it is not necessary or good for us to waste time on spiritualism or theoretical beliefs that cannot be proved to our own selves satisfactorily.

We are asked to believe these strange, impractical, unnatural beliefs, because of the sincerity of others. It's better to do, and to be the thing we can ourselves measure, understand and sincerely believe.

There are hundreds of strange beliefs and spiritual systems, each claiming to be all powerful, all right. If any one is all truth then all the others are all wrong.

The bigot who assumes he is the sole possessor of truth, the cult, sect, ism, or science that claims to possess all truth, and the exact rules for the world to obey, should be classed with those other misguided men and religions which burned human beings who dared to doubt their right to the possession of all truth.

God never gave his approval to any one man-made religious sect.

God is the universal good power; man often tries to interpret God's idea to his own selfish narrow vision.

PILLS

The Man Who Has a Pill for Every Ill

How often we see the pill fiend. In his vest pocket he has a small apothecary shop, a collection of round paste-board boxes and little bottles.

Every little while he dopes himself. If his stomach is on a strike he pops in a pill. If his head aches he takes a tablet. If he sneezes he takes a cold cure pill.

When anyone around speaks of a pain or ache he hands the person a pill.

The pill eater is a hypochondriac and very likely his doctor knows it. The salvation is that the doctor probably gives him harmless stuff in pill form. The patient doesn't know this and it's like a rabbit's foot or a piece of pork rubbed on a wart; it satisfies the mind and nature makes the cure.

Often, however, the pills are not innocent; the pill fiend buys the tablets and pills direct from the druggist. The headache tablet is most likely one of the coal tar drugs like acetanilid, and that is positively harmful when taken too often.

There are times to take pills, in cases of emergency, when you can shock nature with a poison and bring a wholesome reaction.

These times are rare, and the doctor should be the sole judge as to when they are necessary.

Exercise, diet, correct habits of living will prevent congestion and illness that cause pain.

The pill habit is nothing less than a drug habit, and the drug habit positively weakens the system.

The headache tablet does not cure the headache, it only stops the pain; the evil is still there. The headache is merely nature's signal that something is out of whack.

Headaches are generally caused by the stomach, eye strain, or neuralgia; the latter in turn is caused by too much uric acid in the system.

Eat fruit, drink plenty of water, and that will flush the system and stop stomachic headache.

See the optician if it's eyes. If you have frequent headache in the forehead, very likely it's the eyes, even though you do not suspect it.

If it's neuralgia, get a corrective diet list from the doctor.

I know scores of men and women, too, who take pills enough to kill a person. Their systems have been educated up to it; they are saturated with poison.

And the worst of it is they never get well while taking the pills; it is only a temporary deadening of the pain.

Then there are many who take pills to make them sleep. That's a crime. It's murder in slow degrees for they are surely shortening their lives by this poison dope pill habit.

Mark this: Nature, and Nature alone, effects cures and it's in very, very few instances that a poison pill can be used to advantage.

You can keep well by getting good air, good water, good sunshine, good food, good exercise, good rest, good cheer and good thought. That is what I call my golden prescription, and it will do wonders for you, and every doctor will tell you so.

Pills kill, if you keep up the habit. There are no two ways about it. I say positively and knowingly, that this pill habit is absolutely life shortening.

Don't try to argue; the evidence is unshakable on this point.

If you had seen the derelicts in the hospitals I have seen, if you had seen the wretched bodies, destroyed nerve systems, the drugged, shattered, hopeless patients resulting from the baneful pill habit, you would be as positive as I am in saying pills kill if you keep up the habit.

Life is sweet and precious to us all. Do not shorten it by taking pills and tablets for every ache or pain. Try nature's way. Realize that mental suggestion and will power will drive away most pains or temporary aches.

Brace up, cheer up; chuck the pills in the garbage can.

FAKE MEDICINES

Like Whiskey, the End Is Near

Whiskey must go. It is written on the pages of the records of man's progress. Likewise must the quack doctor and the fake medicine go.

The side-whiskered advertising doctors are nothing short of criminal when they by powerful use of words magnify symptoms and feelings to be grave, serious fore-runners of awful disease, and by fright, bring in the hypochondriac to his spider-web and filch him in a manner no better than a thief uses. The thief is really more honorable, for he steals because he wants your money and makes no bones about it.

The doctor charlatan steals your money under the guise of being your benefactor.

As I have explained in "Pep," illness, feeling out of sorts, local pains and sickness, unless of the contagious or infectious kind, are largely conditions of the mind and of food habits, and surely are accentuated by fear thought.

Because people have off days, and aches and pains, the frock-coated, white lawn tie doctors and pseudo professors work on the minds and imaginations, magnify trifles into troubles, then when the victims lose courage these charlatans rob them under the guise of professional advice and treatment.

Most of the temporary ailments are caused by constipation, wrong diet or lack of exercise. The doctor gives a laxative, nature re-asserts herself, and the patient is cured.

Chronic ailments require long treatments, so as to make long bills and many visits for the quack doctor.

Read "Pep" and fool the doctors. Your health and happiness are things largely in your own control.

When you feel you must have a doctor, go to your family physician and not to a strange doctor who advertises. His advertisement is merely a spiderweb to catch and hold you while he robs you.

It is a hopeful sign of the brighter future to which man is progressing, that the respectable papers will not lend their aid to swindling doctors. The best papers will not carry these doctor or fake medicine ads.

Before long the government will pass laws on this baneful, shameful, quack advertising. Quack doctors, gambling houses, liquor selling, are all swindling methods to get money, and in the getting they are killing men, ruining homes, destroying happiness, holding back progress.

The one object of the quack doctor is to size you up and see what you "are good for." "Good for" means how much money can he get from you and how long can he keep you as a patient to contribute to his coffers.

Let every reader of this book enroll as an opponent to quack doctors and quack medicines, and by word and influence help to hasten the day when such pernicious swindlers are things of the past. You can't get health out of a bottle.

And this is true.

THE CHURCH

It Is Hampered By Too Many Sects

No two minds can see the same picture, nor can two persons with logic, on religion, come to the same definite conclusion.

The old Scripture said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The new Scripture teaches us to "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies."

Two hundred years ago they burned witches.

Thirty years ago the preacher who took exception to the universal belief of a hell of fire and brimstone was thrown out of the church. Today no preacher believes in such a hell.

Present day religion is really a Sunday religion. One and a half hours a week the members of the church join in singing "we shall know each other there." The remainder of the week they make it a point to keep from knowing each other here.

The protestant church divides itself into a lot of sects, each one built on some particular ordinance or practice and each one swallows a camel and strains at a gnat. One sect insists that baptism shall be by immersion because the disciples baptized that way. They believe in following customs literally, yet in the cities they immerse the members in a big tub under the pulpit, which practice is entirely different from the method employed by John the Baptist.

One sect insists upon having a communion every Sunday because the Bible says, "as often as you do this," etc. To be literal in the matter of communion, the Lord's Supper should be served at night as the original was, and it should be supper and not a few pieces of broken crackers.

The sect that insists on following the Scriptures in the matter of baptism by immersion fails to follow the Scriptures in the matter of washing the feet or anointing the head.

Many years ago the church considered it a sacrilege to use an organ. Today they have orchestras and hire operatic singers.

So it seems that the church is broadening out. Thinking men believe that religion should not be an auto-intoxication of self-condemnation or worry, sobs and misery. Because so much of this sort of teaching is prevalent the church is not making the gains it should. The church is largely supported by nice little women, many of them maiden ladies who have little to do, and know little of the great problems of the busy world.

I am thoroughly convinced that the church must recognize that evolution is taking place, that we are to be more charitable, more broad in our views, less technical in our tenets and more practical in our work.

We will have to cut down the fences between the sects and all get together in the great field for a common cause rather than trying to maintain little independent vineyards.

Religion must teach smiles and joy, courage and brotherly love, instead of frowns, dejection, fear and envy.

It must teach how to be and how to get good out of our today on earth. If we are good and do good here, we certainly will help our future prospects.

Certainly we are progressing from narrowness, bigotry, selfishness and envy, to broadness, reason, brotherly love and contentment, and we shall progress from the narrow confines of obstinate orthodoxy or bulldogmatics, by breaking down the sect, cult, ism, and doxy barriers until we all join in a universal church in which all can put their hearts and beliefs, in which all can find full range for their spiritual belief and expression.

That big, broad, right church will be in harmony with God's purpose.

The Creator made all men and He doesn't confine His love or His interest to any one little man-made narrow sect, or creed.

"God is love." "Love thy neighbor." "Help the weak, cheer the grief stricken." Those are the commands and purposes we find everywhere in the Scriptures.

"He that believeth in me shall be saved." That's a definite promise and it is not qualified with a lot of creed paragraphs and beliefs. That promise doesn't have any buts or ifs. It doesn't say we shall be saved whether we are Methodists or Catholics, or Baptists or Presbyterians. Those names are man-made, and creeds of those churches are man-made, too.

At the congress of religions in the World's Fair at Chicago over three hundred religions and sects were represented by delegates from all over the world, and every one there with hearty accord sang, "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow" and "Rock of Ages." Those hymns were universal; they fitted all creeds and sects.

Big men in the church are intensely interested in the get-together, universal church, and each year will mark a definite progress toward amalgamation of sects and divisions.

There should be no Methodist Church North and Methodist Church South.

There should not be churches like the Congregational and Presbyterian, whose creeds are identical, the difference being only in the officers.

The country village of 1,000 population has five churches; it should have only one. The country is full of half starved preachers and weak, struggling congregations.

The get-together movement will help religion, and it's going to happen surely.

INVENTORY

A Necessary Practice to Bring Efficiency

Every year the business man goes over his stock, tools, fixtures, and accounts, and prepares a statement of assets and liabilities so as to get a fairly accurate understanding of his profit and loss.

If he didn't take this inventory his net worth would be guess work.

This inventory deals with money and things which are mixed more or less with the human element and affected more or less by conditions or trade, crops, competition, supply and demand.

The business man takes all these conditions into consideration in preparing for the coming year. He red flags the mistakes and green flags the good plans.

The business man should carry the inventory further. Every month or so he should take a careful inventory of himself, putting down his assets of health, initiative, patience, ability to work, smiles, honesty, sincerity, and the like. So also he must put down in the debit side the pull backs, hindrances and other business killers in the list of liabilities. These items are smoothness, untruth, unfairness, grouchiness, impatience, worry, ill health, gloom, meanness, broken word, unfulfilled promises and the like.

In making up the inventory pay particular attention to your habits: smoking, drinking, over-eating, useless display, useless social functions and other useless things that pull on your nerves and your pocket book.

Then check up department A, which is your family. How have you dealt with your family and children?

Department B is friends; how do you stand in your treatment of them?

Department C, all other persons. Did you lie to, cheat, steal from or defraud any one? How much cash profit did you make? How much less a man did the act make you?

Go over your self-respect account. Does it show profit or loss.

Check up your employees' account. What has your stewardship shown? Have you drawn the employees closer, or driven them further from you?

Analyze your spiritual account. Is your religious belief a sham or conviction? Do you sing on Sunday, "we shall know each other there," or do you make it a point to know and love your brother here, seven days a week.

Be fair in your inventory. Write down the facts in the two columns "good" and "bad," then go over the list and put a red danger flag on the bad. Keep the list until next inventory and see whether you have made a gain or loss in your net moral standing.

Don't read this and say, "a good idea." Do the thing literally.

Take a clean sheet of paper and write your personal assets and liabilities down in the two columns marked "good" and "bad."

If this inventory doesn't help then you may call me a false prophet.

I know the plan is a good one. I know it will help you. If it helps you, you will thank me. There can be no harm in trying, because it's a worth-while thing to test.

The business man who never takes inventory is likely to go bump some day.

EGOTISM

Those Who Decry It Most Have It Most

The ego is in us. It is good to have, but egotism needs the soft pedal when we speak or do things.

Many people are unconscious of their egotism yet they suggest between lines in their conversation, "even I who am superior to the herd would do this or that."

For instance, two persons were arguing about the merits of an inexpensive automobile. Parenthetically I may say one belonged to the Ford class and the other to the can't afford class. A can't afford snob came to the rescue of the Ford champion by saying, "that's a good car; why, I wouldn't mind owning one of them myself," and he beamed at the party with the consciousness of having settled the matter and removed the stigma from the Ford car.

The egotism crops out often when one shows a group picture in which he appears. He doesn't wait for you to find him; he pokes his arm over your shoulder and says, "that's me."

To each of us in the manner of things the I is the center of our world. We see things always through our I's.

If we wish to get along without friction we must remember that the other fellow has his I's also, and when we try to make him see things through our I's it makes trouble.

The hall mark of education, refinement and character in the broad sense is the ability to exclude the personal so far as possible from our conversation. And be big enough to grant to others their undoubted right to see and think from their own standpoint.

Argument develops egotism more than most any other thing will.

How often have you convinced another in an argument?

How often have you been convinced in an argument?

The world is big, there are millions of others in it and our job is a big one if we 'tend pretty well to our own knittin'.

PERSEVERANCE

It Is the Last Step in the Race That Counts

Four hundred and twenty-three years ago Christopher Columbus landed on an island which he thought was India.

Chris was mighty happy as he put his foot on good old mother earth; not so much because he had discovered a new way to India, as he thought, but because his foot touched land.

Two days before he landed on San Salvador his crew pitched into him and threatened to throw him in the sea and turn about the ship to Spain.

If Chris had shown the white feather, 1492 would not be the date of the first line in the geography, announcing the "Discovery of America."

Chris had perseverance, the stuff that makes men successful.

He started to find India by sailing westward. He didn't succeed in his purpose, but his determination was rewarded just the same, for he found a new country, and that was worth while.

Before he started he was promised ten per cent of the revenue from any lands he might discover. Just imagine what that would mean today.

Columbus had perseverance and pep, and his unwavering fidelity to his cause brought him success in his efforts.

The world has improved since 1492, but the percentage of men who would keep on like Columbus did has not increased, perhaps.

Columbus sailed with three ships, the largest sixty-six feet long. He steered to the direction of the setting sun. His crew was 120 men. None of them were enthusiastic at the start; all of them disgusted, discouraged and ready to mutiny at the last.

But Christopher kept the ships pointed West, through rain, shine, through drifting breezeless days and through storms. He kept on, and on and on, and he brought home the bacon, which being interpreted means success crowned his efforts.

Perseverance and pep produce prosperity, peace and plenty.

It was the mileage made on October 12th, 1492, that counted.

It is the last step in a race that counts.

It is the last stroke on the nail that counts.

The moral is that many a prize has been lost just when it was ready to be plucked.

Perseverance--patience--pluck--pep--are particularly profitable if pursued until you ring the bell.

GEOLOGY

The Earth's Incontestable Pages of Truth

On the wall in the room where I write these lines is a fossil herring which the boys dug up in the Rockies near Frozen Dog, at an altitude of six thousand feet.

The herring is a salt water fish proving that the country around Frozen Dog was at one time under the sea.

A few weeks ago, in the Missouri River bottom near Omaha, some Harvard scientists discovered the remains of three ancient towns, one buried on top of the other.

In the Nile valley in Egypt nine towns, in one location, have been unearthed, each town in a different strata of alluvial deposit.

The ninth or top city is the ancient City of Memphis, once the largest city in the world.

Those cities and the mute eloquence of my fossil herring plainly point out the fact that the world is millions of years old.

Last summer I found some coral on Washington Island, which is off the point of land where Lake Michigan and Green Bay meet. Coral is only formed in salt water.

Geologists tell me that Washington Island and surrounding country plainly shows marks of three distinct glacial periods.

Several times the poles were in the tropical climate, and consequently the tropics or the temperate zones at least were under permanent snow and ice.

The earth changes its axis every few thousand centuries, that we know.

The rains and snows wash the earth to the sea, depositing layers of sand and sediment, which as the ages go by, turn to stone and form permanent pages that man may read in succeeding eras.

During the world's changes, vast surfaces of earth and rock are lifted to mountain heights and other places lowered and the sea covers them.

Thus the habitations of man have been buried, new earth covered them, new towns were built and again the covering process.

Scientists are deciphering the story of the earth and its people. Babylonia and Egypt left records which our learned men can read, but ages and eons before these ancients there were races who could not write even crude picture or hieroglyphic languages, and probably we shall never know much about these very old times.

Around our Mississippi Valley we know of Mound Builders before our Indians. In the Southwest the relics of the cliff dwellers are abundant.

This summer at Salt Lake City I saw seven mummies of fair-haired people that were discovered in Southern Utah.

Near Naples, in digging a well, the workmen found statuary, jewelry and cooking utensils. The Italian government began excavating and they opened up to modern gaze an old city. The town was Pompeii.

People may now walk the streets of old Pompeii as freely as the streets of Kansas City, and the old pavements are likewise worn and torn like the present streets of Kansas City.

The residents of Pompeii had fine plumbing, baths and luxuries.

They had a place called a vomitorium. The old Roman sports were gluttons; they stuffed themselves, then went to the vomitorium and threw up so they could eat more.

Near Pompeii is the ancient buried city of Herculaneum, but it is covered with lava, hard as granite, while Pompeii is covered with ashes.

Our western hemisphere is called the new world, but all parts of the world are equally old.

The Missouri River swelled up and washed out a big cul de sac and bared those three towns near Omaha. We haven't dug much in America but likely in a few years we will discover some old towns equally as ancient as Pompeii.

Verily, this earth of ours has had humans on it for more than the 6,000 years our written records give as its age.

PATRIOTISM

An Intoxicant That Often Turns Men Into Murderers

A false patriotism, an inherited acceptance of servility and obedience, makes the foreigners meek, sheep-like men.

This great war, and most every great war of the past, is possible because of a distorted understanding of patriotism.

Patriotism began away back yonder when sons and daughters were taught love and loyalty to the pater, the father. The patriarchs of old extended the patriot idea to the tribe and later as tribes banded together and formed nations. The patriotism principle was the basis for the bond that tied men together for a common cause.

Now patriotism is bounded by geographical lines and national boundary lines. The patriotism is most sincere, and most solemn, for men willingly sacrifice their lives for it.

But, really, this patriotism is one of the narrowest and most cruel forces in the world. It causes wars, waste and desolation. It makes jealousies, braggadocio and keeps up the fight spirit.

The false patriotism is an obstacle to broader human progress, brotherly love and the finer things in life.

Kings and rulers, fired by selfish egotism, know full well what a powerful force patriotism is and they nurse the babes with fatherland stuff and give them tin soldiers to play with and tin helmets to wear.

Patriotism, when it reflects love of the place of one's nativity, when it spells home and love and association, is a natural and a beautiful sentiment.

But patriotism, as fomented and fostered by governments for war spurs and goads, is a monster that lives on blood.

To keep this false patriotism alive, wars must be made, so that human blood can be secured to save the monster from perishing. Human blood fires and intoxicates this false patriotism behemoth.

And so, on slight pretexts Kings are insulted. War lords have put out chips on their shoulders on purpose to be knocked off, and when the chip is brushed off then comes the declaration of war.

The banner, patriotism, is flaunted in the air. It is the shibboleth of the red blooded, hot headed, bravest and best of the nation, the youth, who die in countless thousands--for what?

Such patriotism is failure and worse than failure. It is hindrance to civilization.

These bewildered men have let reason escape, and intoxicated false patriotism poison come in their brains to take the place of reason.

In their delirium they try to appear consistent, logical and abused. In their extremity they try to co-ordinate their acts with God's mind.

Each nation has its own interpretation of the Divine will. Each asks Divine help for his nation.

God looks at the maddened millions of insane murderers and his heart is torn as He sees the avalanche of tears shed by bereaved wives and children.

The patriotism that is responsible for starting this war is a mockery, a snare, a delusion, and deserves the profoundest contempt of every man who loves his fellow man.

Europe has certainly put riot in patriotism.

RIDICULE

A Poor Vehicle for Humor

The man who ridicules everything is on the toboggan slide and he will finish the slide as an out-and-out grouch.

You and I know men who never have a pleasant word to say of anyone, or a serious commendation of anything.

Ridicule and sarcasm are often coated with would-be humor, and try to pass for puns. By and by, however, this ridicule and sarcasm gets to be a habit, and the coat of humor becomes threadbare.

Just at this time friends depart, for the grouch phase of the disease has started.

Sarcasm and ridicule are powerful weapons when used adroitly and for good purposes. But when sarcasm and ridicule are used constantly as a means to generate fun or as vehicles for humor, then the evil commences.

People will listen to you for awhile, if you good-naturedly ridicule a thing, but when you are known to have the habit, then is when friends give you the go-by.

Sarcasm and ridicule wound deeply; they are hot pokers jabbed in quivering flesh.

Don't juggle with ridicule or sarcasm, for people look beneath the veneer nowadays. They remember and repeat the axiom, "there's many a true word spoken in jest."

There are so many beautiful things to say, so many kind expressions to utter, so many helpful hints to give, that we should be ashamed to say or do things even jokingly that may hurt another.

Safest way is to run no chances. When you ridicule a thing or a person, you may ridicule the tender heart of one you should cheer and help.

Ridicule is the negative element anyway; the only good it can be is by reflex or rebound force.

Ridicule is conceived by the humor idea. It is used because it so easily lends itself to a seeming clever way to create a laugh.

Humor of the clean sort is a rare gift. Humor may easily descend to low comedy by use of ridicule, and often the audience does not differentiate between low comedy and rare humor.

The masses will laugh when the comedian on the stage hits his friend with a club; that sort of fun-making satisfies adults who have children's brains and such brain-constructed people will also laugh at jokes which ride on ridicule. But you who read these lines are worthy of better things; that's why you are reading this book. If, in my audience there are those who have the ridicule habit, I want to arouse you to a better sense of humor than you can get by the employment of ridicule and sarcasm.

I don't want you to descend to the level of the grouch. The slide-down is so easy, the climbing back and up from the depth is so very hard.

Ridicule and sarcasm are cheap, slapstick methods to produce fun. They leave a sting many times when you are not aware of it.

When fighting whiskey, sin, corruption or evil hosts, then use burning ridicule and caustic sarcasm to sizzle and destroy the things that need to be destroyed.

Now I've told you, and next time you find yourself using ridicule or sarcasm to provoke mirth remember you are toying with a habit-forming practice that is likely to get the best of you unless you stop and stop now.

THE WIFE

She Is Your Partner, Don't Cheat Her

A wife is either a partner or an employee. If a partner, she has a right to the fifty-fifty split on profits; if an employee she is entitled to her wages.

A thrifty husband is commendable, but a show-me-what-you-did-with-that-money husband should be punished by being sentenced to attend pink teas, afternoon receptions, and to match samples at the dry goods store.

Married folks must be on the partnership basis, or there's sand in the gear box.

Give the wife the check-book; let her pay the bills; tote fair with her; show her and give her just what your income affords, and what economic and wise administration warrants; she'll cut the cloth to fit the garment.

When the husband questions every turn, every move, every cent, the wife feels like a prisoner or a slave. Wives will do good team work when they are broken to double harness with their husbands.

Women are generally raised without any requirements of economy; they are pretty birds, and used to preening and smoothing their plumage and looking pretty.

It's the female instinct in the human. In the animal world the male has the plumage and does the strutting and fascinating act; but in the human animal the female is the bird with the bright plumage.

You can't expect her to know about pennies and purses and prudent purchases the moment you slip the ring on her finger.

But she's an intelligent filly and she'll go in double harness much better if trained and coaxed and petted than she will if she is haltered, broke and a Spanish bit put in her mouth by the husband's stinginess.

She'll shop better than her husband if he takes an interest in her shopping and encourages her in her economical administration of the household budget.

She wants a word of appreciation once in a while. She chills under the surveillance and parsimony of an eagle-eyed, detective, lawyer-like husband.

She's a sweet bird and sweet birds and hawks don't nest well together.

Where the hawk and the dove are in the same cage the feathers will fly.

As I came through the park this morning I saw a pair of robins who have the right idea. They share home responsibilities and do fine team work. I think they are mighty happy, too; daddy red breast looked mighty proud as he hustled worms for the family breakfast.

Mamma robin looked down with loving eyes at her hubby, and the little baby robins sang a chorus of joy at the very privilege of living in such a home.

Worry will fly out of the window the moment the husband and wife lay their cards on the table and play the open hand. The moment one or the other keeps a few cards in the sleeve, then worry and trouble comes back.

The moral of this is: husbands and wives, live together, get together, stay together, play together, save together, grow together, share together. Travel the same road; don't take different paths.

MENTAL PLEASURES

The Rarest, Sweetest Pleasures in the World

There are two principal pleasures man seeks; one is material pleasures and that takes in about ninety-nine per cent of the human family.

The other, the one per cent, seeks mental pleasures, and this little group is the one that gets the real, lasting, satisfying and improving pleasures.

Material pleasures are eating, displaying, possessing, and society. Material pleasures generate in the human the desire for fluff, feathers, and four-flushing.

Material pleasures accentuate the desire to possess things, and in the strife for possession hearts are broken, fortunes wasted, nerves shattered and finer sentiments calloused.

The homes where material pleasures abound are the ones where worry, neurasthenia and nervous prostration abound.

Material pleasures are merely stimulants for the time being, and there always comes the intermittent reflexes of gloom and depression.

The desire to show off, to excite envy in others, is always present at the homes where material pleasures are the rule.

Material pleasures call for crowds. Mental pleasures are best enjoyed in solitude.

The material pleasure seeker lives a life of convention, engagements, routine, action, strain and high tension.

The person who is so fortunate as to appreciate and follow mental pleasures, is serene, natural, happy and content.

A cozy room, loved ones around, music, books, love and social conversation, those are mental pleasures; those are best.

He who can pick up a book, and read things worth while, gets satisfaction unknown to those whose life is banquets, theaters, dances, automobiles, parties, bridge, clubs and society doings.

The lover of books and home can enjoy the play, because he only goes to plays worth while, and he doesn't overdo it.

The confirmed theater-goer is a pessimist; he roasts nearly every play, and he is universally bored.

Get the home reading habit. Don't over-do it. Call on friends, go to a good picture show once in a while; to good concerts; to good plays, but do not make this going out in the evening plan a habit. Let it be merely a dessert, or a rarity; like candy and ice cream, proper and enjoyable when taken in moderation.

When you get started reading worth-while books on science, on history, on geography, on travel, on natural history, you will get into an inexhaustible field of pleasure and satisfaction.

Any time you can pick up your book and be happy.

Waits in railway stations will be opportunities; trips on trains will be pleasant; evenings alone will be enjoyable, if you can get into a book you like.

Mental pleasures are best.

Material pleasures are merely passing pleasures.

PANAMA

The Man Who Found It and the Man Who Used It

Four hundred years ago Jim Balboa climbed a mountain peak on the Isthmus of Panama, and looked on the boundless Pacific and said: "I have this day discovered you, and henceforth the geographies will perpetuate this great event."

Little did Jim think that by 1914 ships of twenty thousand tons would sail through the impassable mountains.

Jim knew he had discovered something great, but little did he dream of the real greatness of the world's future. Little did he dream that the vast new continent on whose neck he stood was to hold the greatest nation of the twentieth century.

Gold, new territory for kings, new fields for the church--were the magnets which drew early navigators like Balboa to the land in the West across the Atlantic.

Those early adventurers little thought of exploiting their discoveries for the benefit of mankind.

It is a long time and a far cry from Capt. Balboa to Colonel Goethals, from the discoverer to the constructor, and it is our good fortune to see and enjoy a work beyond the wildest dreams of Columbus, Balboa, Cortez and the other wanderlust adventurers.

Not only that, but the Panama Canal, now opened to the world, was for years deemed a chimerical dream and an impossibility, by the world as well as by most Americans.

Every ditch digger, including the great De Lesseps, proved a failure, so to Yankee grit in the person of Goethals belongs the credit for the completed work which is now called the "Eighth Wonder of the World."

The Pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, are wonders, but we have a Yankee contractor who can duplicate them if anyone puts up the money for the job.

We do not build pyramids or hanging gardens because they serve no useful purpose.

The Panama Canal is a greater wonder and is a most practical benefit to mankind. It doubles our navy; it enables us to move supplies of every kind from one coast to the other quickly and less expensively.

It shortens the world's highway between the oceans and helps every human being.

Balboa's name will live in geographies as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, but Goethals' name will be remembered as the man who made most use of that discovery for the benefit of mankind.

The shades of Balboa and De Lesseps likely stalk around Panama at midnight and rub their eyes in amazement.

TODAY

The One Time in Our Keeping

As I walk on the old Santa Fe Trail each morning through Penn Valley Park in Kansas City, the marks of time are plainly visible.

Erosion of water and wind have bared the sedimentary rocks and exposed the layers in well defined pages so I may study this great rock-paged geology book, and indeed it's a pleasure to me.

Back of all is the grand plan of the Universe of which this earth is an atom. That plan is ruled by a Divine law and power.

For you or me to take a fragment of truth and attempt to pass it as a definite science, a complete religion or all truth, is an assumption which these records of countless ages frown upon as a hopeless, bootless task.

All science has some truth; all creeds, sects, isms and cults likewise have truth, but no branch or group possesses all truth.

My fossil fish on the wall wiggled his tail thousands of years ago, very likely millions of years.

He lived and died in accordance with the plan of the Creator of the Universe and you are an atom and I am an atom in that Universe and governed by the power that gave life and crushed to death that fossil fish.

Verily we presume when we say, "we have all the truth; think as we do or you are lost."

The old world has not told its full story. The Universe of which this world is a part is still a deeper mystery.

We shall not know all truth until the great revealing time.

We cannot change the pages of the millions of years gone by. We can do very little to change the pages of the millions of years to come. What little we can do, we can only do TODAY.

Today is yours and mine; let's do the best we can with our possession in act and thought and word.

The sun goes down behind the sky-line on the West as it has done for millions of years. I lay aside my pen with a bigger view, a deeper appreciation of the Creator and a profounder faith in His wisdom and works than ever.

God made. God rules. God plans. And verily we are weaklings and foolish, who presume by selfish prayer to suggest to Him what He shall do.

Let us strive to be appreciative of Him and try to lift ourselves in sublime thought into the higher faith thought and realize that we are part of Him and His plan, and failure is impossible to us, if we keep up and on, doing good, speaking softly, dealing gently, showing kindness today and living in accordance with the big, broad, generous, charitable plan instead of the little, bigoted, narrow, selfish idea that we are sole possessors of truth and that the man who differs with us in belief is in error.

This chapter is about big things and in it is a big moral for all who are big enough to grasp it.

DAD

All for You, Old Man, and It's Timely

This is your inning, Dad.

There has been so many beautiful things written about Mother and all the rest of the family that it is high time we should tell you how we love you and how we appreciate you.

You've worked so hard; you've been so ambitious to do things for your loved ones, and they have accepted your sacrifices, work, and watchfulness as matter of fact.

You've had dreams of a some day when you would relax and play and enjoy, but you have set that some day too far ahead. You consider yourself after all your loved ones are more comfortable and happy, and time is passing, Dad; the marks of time are showing on your poor, tired head; the wrinkles of care are marking your face, and the roses are bleaching from your cheeks.

You are too unselfish, too much centered in that some day. Let's change things a bit, Dad. Sometimes the some day doesn't come.

You are entitled to, and it's your duty to have, happiness and pleasures and health and joys, right here now today.

Your loved ones do not want you to spend your health getting wealth. They don't want to see you worn out, tired, weary and unhappy in the evening of your life. Besides it's your duty to let them share responsibility and work out their own problems. They will be better if you let them gain knowledge by practical experience.

Come on, Dad; get in the group and enjoy things now and you will live longer and you will get more out of life and give more pleasure to your loved ones. Get in the game, Dad; let's see the old light and twinkle in your eyes; let's have the sunshine on your face; the love-light on your lips and the happiness in your heart. Come on, Dad, we all want you to do these things.

Leave your cares at the office; come on and play, and you will be so much better and stronger and so much more successful in your business.

Let's have the corners of your mouth turned up tonight at the supper table; be part of the family, Dad, not a poor, tired bread winner.

We don't want to hear any more sh--sh--or whispers when you come home. We don't want to feel that restraint and uncomfortable feeling; let's laugh and sing and love and play--let's make your home-coming a joyous event.

We all love you, Dad, but you haven't made it as comfortable as you might for us when we try to express our love. You've been too tired, too busy, too much occupied with those business thoughts.

Don't you see how we love you, and how we appreciate you? Don't you know that there is no one in the world who can take the place of Dad?

Keep your heart young, Dad; we will help if you only say "come on." We are waiting for the signal. Let's start the new schedule tonight; come on, Dad, what do you say?

CRYING BABIES

When They Cry There's a Reason; Find It

Now come the wise doctors with the injunction to let the baby cry. They tell us it's good for the baby's lungs and that the baby needs the exercise and all that sort of rot.

They augment this with the statement that if we soothe or coddle our babies they will get the habit and require our attention always before they go to sleep.

Old Mother Nature has been pretty successful in raising animals. Let the kitten, dog, pig or chicken give the sign of pain or distress and the mother will hasten to its offspring and nestle it.

When a baby cries, it's because it's hungry, or too warm or too hot or too uncomfortable, or it has pain or distress. It's just nature's instinct given by God to the helpless infant that it may call attention to its trouble. The doctor would complain if uncomfortable. The doctor or the parent can help himself, but the baby can use its only signal, a cry.

When baby cries it should be taken up and soothed. Don't pay any attention to the doctor who says the baby cries to be petted; baby can't reason in its infant days; its little brain hasn't reached the reasoning powers.

Doctors constantly protest and warn us against over exertion on the part of children and even adults; yet they tell us to let the few-weeks-old baby cry, which is the most violent and extreme exertion it can put forth.

Crying puts a strain on all the baby's vital organs and its delicate, fragile blood vessels and heart. There have been thousands of babies who have had irreparable damage done to their constitutions because of this cold-blooded, heartless fad of the doctors, to let baby cry.

Many a mother's heart is torn and wrung because of the doctor's order, "Let the baby cry."

The mother is worked up into an excited nervous condition by the doctor's inhuman order to let the baby cry, and this same doctor tells her not to become excited because it will have a bad effect on her nursing baby. Just read this paragraph over again and see if the doctor hasn't crossed his logic wires and insulted common sense.

The doctors become calloused; they are used to seeing pain and suffering. It's easy for them to endure pain in others, and easy for them to give them heartless orders.

And generally the doctor who affects most knowledge about baby rearing is the one who has no babies of his own.

Dr. Walls of Chicago is one of the most eminent child specialists in the world and he agrees with my conclusions in this matter and so does most every really great child specialist I know.

When baby cries, find the reason; change its position; see if there is a pin sticking; find out whether it's heat, cold, hunger or pain.

There's a reason why babies cry. My wife is emphatic on that point and she has reared three mighty fine babies, and I have watched and helped her.

GIRL

Be a Know Girl, Not a Show Girl

Girl, what a wonderful creature you can be. What a glorious success you can make of your life, if you get the right start, the right hands to help you, the right hearts to love you, and the right eyes to watch you, the right thoughts to make you, and the right ideals to guide you.

There are so many influences to spoil you, so much convention, so much artificiality, so much snobbery, so much caste, so much foolish frivolity.

Then there are the wrong examples, the wrong grooming, the wrong environments, the wrong influences surrounding you, that it is not to be wondered why so many girls lose their heads and make a fizzle of their young lives.

The fizzle is generally because daddy and mamma have a lot of foolish notions about bringing up the girls. Especially is this so if the parents are wealthy.

Here is the history of many a rich girl. She is born without welcome, fed on a bottle, reared by a nurse, grows up in a nursery, estranged from her mother, later on sent away to school, mixes with a lot of other rich girls, gets lots of foolish notions, false estimates, and prejudiced views. She graduates and comes home and there are a lot of "doings" which she attends, then comes the show-off which is called a debut.