GIFT OF Class of 1900 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/creativeabundancOOruggrich Creatibe ^tiunbance Cfje Pjefpcfjologp of mHitv antr Plentp By Bernard C. Ruggles The Kennedy Company OAKLAND S?i^^<$«<$«$«»$J^t$Jt$>^#t$J?$J?$«<$J^»$«»$«^^^ Copyright 1921 By BERNARD C. RUGGLES Oakland, California G a.s,i. cr-^ i o o Co Mv ©erp jDear ifrienb t^eteran ^ales^man 862354 Jforetoorb Ten years ago a business friend gave me a typewritten copy of The Twelve Rules for a Successful Career, which Marshall Field had defined. They are simple phrases, brief, direct and dignified. Each one is a self-evident truism. At the same time they constitute a profound phil- osophy of life. I set them down herewith as they came to me. 1. The Value of Time. 2. The Success of Perseverance. 3. The Pleasure of Working. 4. The Dignity of Simplicity. 5. The Worth of Character 6. The Power of Kindness. 7. The Influence of Example 8. The Obligation of Duty. 9. The Wisdom of Economy 10. The Virtue of Patience. 11. The Improvement of Talent. 12. The Joy of Originating. These statements have been in my mind these many years. I have applied them to my own business. Still more, I have gained a deep insight into the psychology of them. Their development and use in the great field of mental science has finally created a well thought out and success- fully applied philosophy. So a book based upon these twelve rules has been the inevitable result. In the writing of this book I have purposely avoided all technical terminology. An advanced student of psy- chology, yet I have seen the wisdom of giving my knowledge in this field as it applies here, in the simple, plain, unvar- nished English. A deep student of metaphysics, I have refrained from the particular phraseology of this entrancing field. I am thinking of men and women of all shades of thought and opinion, who should enjoy and profit by a method of every day living which has opened up immeas- urable satisfaction to me. So I send this forth into the world, that it may lead men and women out of bondage into the joy and freedom of true self-expression. If the lessons herein given shall do one- tenth the good that I have gained in producing them, I shall feel that my urge to give forth this working philosophy shall not be in vain. In the new phrasing which I have given these state- ments, in the twelve chapters of the book, I have modern- ized the expression. Also the titles tend to suggest to the reader the far-reaching wisdom, the depth of philosophy which those original terms have in them. In calling this book Creative Abundance, I have named it according to the way the personal application of these twelve keys has opened up the doors of opportunity, of ability, and of plenty. In perusing the chapters of this book, I beg the reader to constantly realize that he is reading, not theory, but prac- tical and successful application. If each one who studies the book will also master the principles set forth, in his own life and expression of himself, I promise that he, too, will realize that these chapters are indeed The Psychology of Ability and Plenty. The Author. Contents CHAPTER ONE The Time Element Page 13 Its Psychology. CHAPTER TWO Successful Plodding Page 21 CHAPTER three Peptomism Page 27 What it is and how to have it. chapter four Specialism Page 33 A coined word and what it will coin for you. CHAPTER FIVE Your Biggest Asset - Page 39 How to figure in yourself. CHAPTER SIX Personal Magnetism Page 45 The one way to develop it. CHAPTER seven Unconscious Influence Page 51 A study in telepathy. CHAPTER EIGHT Duty-Plus Page 59 A clue to self-mastery. CHAPTER NINE Unearned Increment Page 65 The surplus from a Divine use of what you have. CHAPTER TEN Velvet Souls Page 75 The expression of a successful serenity. CHAPTER ELEVEN Hidden Energies Page 83 How to tap your talents. chapter twelve The Secret of Originality Page 89 The Magic Key to Ability and Plenty. CHAPTER' Or^E '" tlTfje i;ime Clement APOLEON won his battles on the turn of the quarter hours. The wisdom which he revealed in the use of a few minutes of time is the key to victory in the struggle of any individual. In ^ the accumulated power of moments of time lies the secret of all great achievement. The time element in life has a wonderful psychology. It deals with a type of mental reactions. There is a char- acter analysis which comes from observing the way in which individuals use spare moments. A history of the idle hours of average folk would be as interesting as the stories we get of the notables and how they play. The way in which they react to spare time is a great clew to their characters as you may learn. Before we can gain any ability we must know how to use our shining hours. Given the right perspective and gaining poise with relation to time and we can find the secret to any gift which man possesses. We probably credit as innate genius what has only been uncommon canniness in saving and using golden moments. It has been given some men to know how "to dream and not make dreams their master." Also how to bend their talents to the stern demands of time and not be slaves. It is in this happy adjustment of the time element that great careers have been fashioned. The first essential in life is to realize the timelessness of what we call time. Any man who goes through his days under the feeling of the Hebrew Psalmist that our years are three score and ten or if by reason of strength they be four score yet they are full of labor and sorrow, will get just that. He will whip himself through the hours like a galley slave. He will be forever borrowino; sorrow from the morrow. 14 CREApiVE ABUNDANCE Always? i)9f^>r3 birniwll b^ the feeling that life is full of pressing cares and there is scarce time to compass them. Such a man's life will be like the Irishman frantically slapping the paint on the side of a house. A friend coming along said: "Why the wild rush, Pat?" "Begorra," said Pat "and I want to get the house done before the paint runs out." Life is the house and time is the bucket of paint. A limited concept with relation to both will never finish any- thing in life with any degree of satisfaction. The first satisfaction in life is to be able to give yourself the sense of leisure. If you can feel with Emerson. "I am the owner of the sphere, of the seven stars and the solar year," you give yourself the sense of power to perfect an ability in you. Just the lazy, lengthening days of sunmier bring fruit to maturity because nature has the sense of infinite leisure, so you can mature your fruits of mind and soul only as you submit to the same spirit. It is indeed a very good thing to be like the English tourists whom a friend of mine encountered in Manitoba, Canada. There was only one train a day in that section and they were leisurely moving to take it from the hotel, although it was ready at the station. Suddenly one of them set down his grip and said, "Look, the bally thing's a moving!" Whereupon the other drawled, "Well, why should we care? We don't own it." They had all of the time there was and they did not let the mere loss of a train disturb their sense of leisure. If a day or two does slip by in which you have not lived to the schedule, what should you care; you don't own time. Neither let time own you. Know that you belong to the aeons of Infinite Being. Feel like God does, that a thousand years is but as a watch in the night. Likewise that a day is your guest, to be given the best possible expression. A guest feels the best when set most at ease. So treat your CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 15 days. The highest satisfaction is here. You will learn to link your life with the ceaseless cycles. You will know that time is just a sample of Eternity. You could never enjoy Eternity until you can encompass the moments of time with satisfaction. In short, Eternity can never be until time can express through you easily, beautifully and completely. The second essential is to fill "each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run." In other words while not under dominion to time, yet to feel some definite gain out of the moments as they pass. This simply insures us against any possible outcome such as a dyspeptic writer called the evil days, when you should say, "I have no pleasure in them." It is right here that the truest psychology of the indi- vidual unfolds. If I can know how a person regards the idle moments, whether or not they kill time or fill time, I can give you the first characteristic. Many other interesting traits will flow out of the dancing hours. Employers are now able to measure the ability of employees by these traits. There are many institutions of large affairs, where great responsibility is demanded and ultimately great prizes fall, that have a method of putting prospectives under observation. There are unique and also matter of fact experiments which come to these. All are psychologically observed. The way the individual reacts to a given moment is part of a subtle analysis now reduced to a science. It is all in the field of psycho-analysis, and yet a student of this phase of psychology does not know the details of it. It cannot be given publicity. Its power lies in its secret use. Here is one way a business expert observed two men: Two young salesmen, mere youngsters in the commercial game, were waiting for a train. One went over to a news counter and bought an evening paper. He turned straight 16 CREATIVE ABUNDANC/. to the sporting page. For the next fifteen minutes he read nothing but sports. This done, he yawned wearily, pulled his hat down over his eyes and dozed. The other fellow sat alert for a few moments — then opened his suit case and pulled out a neat little volume. It was noted and the title secured by a subterfuge. It was on Commercial Efficiency. That finished the analysis right there as far as those two fellows were concerned. It was easy to pick the winner. Analyze yourself. How do you react to the idle time which street cars or trains or ferries force upon you? It is not a matter of deliberately dividing off each moment of this unused time. Do not be tyrannized into an enforced routine of such and such reading at this spare time and such at that. I know of one man who used a certain waste time for manicuring his finger nails, another for so many pages of Emerson or some cultural channel, and so he charted his time and enslaved himself. He took no time for reflective moods — to dream and drift in the uncharted sea of beautiful imagination. The wise man will find that a schedule for unoccupied time is not essential. He will find that the philosophic attitude is vital. He will leave the business of the day on the desk or out of mind long enough to give his mind its great rebound. He will put the unemployed time to some happy, beautiful or useful end. He will vary the order. He will play some of the time. He will play purposefully but not deliberately. Queed, in Harrison's novel by that name, made a scheduled automaton of himself. One has many a laugh at this absurd, methodical little egoist. And one will become laughing stock who so Quixotically fashions time. Be human — not machine-like, but regard time as only pleasurable as it yields a definite, pleasurable satisfac- tion — cultural, physical, or spiritual. In the psychology of time — you have certain definite CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 17 elements — these compose the key to the values which it holds. I. First there is the value of patience. The fever for quick returns is in the blood. We are constantly feeding those twin imposters who masquerade as superior to time. I mean Hurry and Worry. Until we can cope with them and make them powerless in the fruition of good results, we shall be a shoddy, superficial race. In fact, we will continue to be regarded as a race of neurotics. We may glory in quantity production but never in quality pro- duction. Emerson, in his essay on English traits, says: "This highly-destined race, if it had not somewhere added the chamber of patience to its brain, would not have built London. I know not from which of the tribes and tempera- ments that went to the composition of the people this tenacity was supplied, but they clinch every nail they drive. They have no running for luck and no immoderate speed. They spend largely on their fabric, and await the slow return. Their leather lies tanning seven years in the vat. At Roger's Mills in Sheffield, where I was shown the process of making a razor and a penknife, I was told there was no luck in making good steel, that they make no mistake, every blade in the hundred and in the thousand is good. That is charac- teristic of all their work — no more is attempted than is done." There is no surer power of victory than in the patient use of time. You can figure your assets as certain. The man worth while is the man who can use the while with a smile. He will come into his own. An old Yankee said: "There are some things besides eggs that if you set on them long enough they will hatch." n. The time element must be regarded as opportunity for observation. Every idle moment is big with meaning. 18 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE There is an education for the eye at every angle. You can observe the activity of others. The way in which men do their work is in itself a course in psychology. Study the technic of efficiency. Compare action with probable motive. By watching a man take off a tire and change a tube, I learned in an idle hour the lesson of my own need when I had to change a tire. With no previous instruction except what came through observation, I was able to repeat the process with assurance. In your rest hours study the stars, catch the changing colors of sunset, note the delicate leaf traceries and picturize the shadows and the swift changing clouds. As you are upon street cars and trains, without impertinent stare, but with sly observation, note the social actions of people. See how they treat each other. Mark the true gentleman or lady. Study their use of time. Thus by example through eye training a great mass of wisdom will come. I have read of a girl without any education to speak about, who gained broad culture through observation. She studied different neighborhoods and gained social science. She went window shopping and developed aesthetic taste. She browsed in book stores and gained the first key to love of books by acquaintance with them. She found a hundred ways to a free education, and she gained it. We need not go mooning through our idle moments. We had best keep our eyes open and be entertained and educated by what we can see. The amount we can thus learn to observe in a moment is the surest test of concentrated power. You cannot possibly estimate what this ability is worth to you. III. The supreme fact is to preserve a sense of propor- tion. Into a wise diversion of time the highest skill can always go. The most efficient people are so because they know how to use time in an effective ratio. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 19 The sweet by and by spirit will never help you. The beautiful here and now is the song of achievement. Into moments of time as they arrive there must be poured the attention which they deserve. The waste of time in profit- less pleasure is the saddest word of tongue or pen. There are times to let go, but never time to be a vacuum. If this is done, you will find it increasingly easy to be empty. If you cannot enjoy time profitably, you will find eternal life an eternal torment. As one grows in appreciation of moments of time and fills them with something worth while, they will find life becoming increasingly attractive. Each hour will hold its wonder and its enjoyment as an instrument of mental and spiritual growth. There is nothing which can better or more completely express this supreme principle as this translation from the Sanskrit — The Salutation of the Dawn: Listen to the exhortation of the Dawn! Look to this Day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities And realities of your existence. The glory of action, The bliss of growth, The splendor of beauty — For yesterday is but a dream, And tomorrow is only a vision, But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness. And every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day! Such is the Salutation of the Dawn. CHAPTER TWO ESOP gave us the familiar fable of the race between a tortoise and a hare. At the finish the slow -moving tortoise was the winner. B'rer Rabbit indulged in so many side issues, as- ^ sured of his power to win, that he lost sight of his objective. Mr. Tortoise was very thick and got only one idea at a time through his shell. He knew there was a race and a goal to win, and he gave himself to the winning. He had a single track mind and he proved the power of one idea held with firmness. He is a good example of a type of persistency which is commendable. He proved the value of plodding. There is a psychology of intelligent persistency. Every- one needs to realize it, to see the elements of it and how to use these elements successfully. I do not expect to see the average man of average ability, who will not plod, succeed in even the average fashion or in a large way. The measure of his success will depend on the way he takes the plodding and makes it. Too often we submit to the routine of the same thing over and over again as an irksome necessity. We reduce a job to slavery and our life to that of a drone or a drudge. This is a com- mon failing. But no success will ever come by merely sticking to a thing with dogggedness when there is not satis- faction in the daily repetition. Rowland Sill sensed the psychology of the average man when he wrote these lines: "Forenoon and afternoon and night The weary song repeats itself — What, no more? Age, that is life." 22 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Just the repetition of the daily activity with the time element is what we all face. He couched the solution of it in these terms: to make the forenoon a song, the afternoon a psalm, the night a prayer, and you will conquer time and win your crown of life. In the letters of Gustave Flaubert, the noted French writer of an exquisite style of composition, he confesses to the power of a persistent devotion to composition. He troubled himself little about moments of inspiration, the waiting for which he felt was a cause of sterility. He believed in working along until a ray of the heavenly light came. To a friend he wrote: "Neglect nothing. Labor ! Do the thing over again, and don't leave a task until you feel convinced you have brought it to the last point of perfection possible for you. In these days genius is not rare. But what no one has now, what we should try to have, is the conscience of one's work." In these words Flaubert leads up for us to the psychology of persistency. Analyzed into its mental elements, and I find these facts will produce a plodding which will be successful and satisfactory. First, there is the element of conscience. Personally, I am sure of the value of this. I am boss of my own time. I have the right to use all of my time as I personally desire, but I have a most sensitive conscience of my work. I feel under the conviction of rendering a definite amount of service. Somehow the "Well done, good and faithful servant" only comes as a peaceful satisfaction as I feel a day well filled with activity." The same element enters into every occupation. If you can feel the conscience of your work, that your task is the thing to which you wish to be sensitively faithful, you will find the importance of it growing upon you. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 23 Magnify to yourself the importance of your work. No task is small, only the person that fills a place can be small. A task meanly done reflects not the labor, but the laborer. We forget that fact. The business to which you choose to give the routine of your best activity is a mirror reflecting to the world the sort of a body that you are. The character of an individual shines through his task. That is why Emerson spoke of the fact that a better mouse trap will catch not only mice but men. They will be drawn by the superiority which comes out of intelligent plodding and so of perfecting. Many people diff'er as to the value of inspiration or of technique. I knew two exceptional dramatic readers. One was the master of technique, the other was obedient to the inspiration. They never agreed as to presentation. One always claimed the picture in words should be given dramatic expression as the mood of the hour. After seeing them both in operation for a length of time, I found out that sometimes the mood failed, but the technique never did. And often the situation in a drama was saved because the plodder had learned a way which always got over. He was not the flashlight of genius — he was the unfailing light of patient perfecting of his art. Conscience of one's work will lift any task into ever increasing value, and that value reflects upon the worker. You will never find any mental magic which will transform your place in a moment. But as you expand, the niche you fill also expands. Or you burst it open and get out like the chick out of the shell. There is nothing which can keep a man of conscience in creative activity from his own. He has made himself in terms of sincerity, unrestrained and ungrudging service, and if he is faithful, he will find his reward as Flaubert found his. Today this Frenchman is a model of literary style in French letters. 24 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Conscience in work is the essence of divine satisfaction. It makes one feel as God felt when He fashioned this world. He looked upon it and pronounced it good. When you are a workman needing never to be ashamed, you have made good. II. The element of enjoyment is to be found in success- ful plodding. No man can have a success which he will enjoy after he gets it unless he enjoys getting it. Half of satisfaction in any achievement is reminiscence. The de- lights of a fine trip are the remembered moments of it. Every soldier fights his battles over with greater zest. Many a man of great action enjoys preparing his autobiography. Life has its chief pleasure in relating how it came to pass. So many people imagine that it is enough to turn the crank from day to day, to do the same old thing in the same old way. There is a penalty prepared for sodden and sombre work. It is the inability to enjoy the unusual when it comes along. If you cannot find joy in the routine you will never find it in the hour of greater achievement. Keep your zest for the job. If it seems stale, season it with a bit of song, a highborn dream, a noble thought. Gild the edges and frame your work as a masterpiece in God's gallery of Patient Plodders. Great is the power of enthusiasm. It glorifies every dull day. It gives the prosaic a new slant. It dresses up the commonplace and illumines it. After all, your work will reflex upon you as you reflex on it. If you can find zest in it, it becomes a place of desirable aspects to others. Read again that classic bit of humor by Mark Twain of how Tom Sawyer whitewashed the fence^a detested, fun- thwarting job, yet he put enthusiasm to the task. He made it an envious thing. The artistry that he exhibited, the superior skill he assumed finally brought all his playmates, each beseeching a hand at the brush. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 25 If you can put the enthusiasm into the plodding, it will soon prove to be a thing of joy to all who regard it. Don't petrify the feelings. Refuse to allow the dullness of duty to be ever so spoken of. Make of tomorrow an action fine, give your position the vision splendid, and put the lilt of a song into the labor. Tommy is a merry lad next door. I was manipulating the washing machine. Finally Tommy said: "My, but you get a lot of fun out of work. You sing and whistle as if you liked it. It would make me sick to have to do it." I told Tommy that any job was fun if you took it right. God gave you joy. A bird has to hustle hard in the same old way every day for food. But he sings as he begins and he twitters as he settles down to rest. Consider the birds and be wise. Give your Job the joy-cure. See what a healthy, man-sized thing it becomes. Study it as an im- provable affair. CHAPTER THREE F I should write the two words, pep and opti- mism, upon a blackboard, you would see how they can be fused into one new word, "pepto- mism." So you understand that peptomism means putting "pep" into optimism. There is no more vital word for our times than this new one which has been coined. It covers a world of possible ability and power. Optimism is a much misused word. It has lost its virility through association with the wrong sort of people. Any Sunny Jim can pass for an optimist. We only ask for a two-cent grin and we call it optimism. But the original force of the word must be retained. We redeem it when we make it mean something big, brave and hopeful. We give it vitality and lift it into dignity and worth. Better still, we add "pep" to it and let it have a new and larger use. Peptomism is a word with a wealth of meaning. It is not enough to know the derivation of a word. Its scope and its potentialities are most important. Here you will find the psychology of the right attitude to your work and the way to increase your powers of enjoyment and achievement. This will enlarge your consciousness and give you a diviner perspective. Things can no longer look small, mean or contemptible in your scope of action. What you are and do is qualified by your mental atti- tude. When you change your viewpoint, get a new slant on things which you constantly face, life takes on a more joyous aspect. When you look at a Cubist or Futurist painting, you wonder how on earth any one could see things that way. Well, they do, and artists assure us the 28 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE picture is the result of a certain angle of vision. That is what peptomism does for you — it gives you a new mental angle and a spiritual vision to meet your world and your work in a larger way. 1. A peptomist is one who not only sees a bright side but cheerfully rolls up his sleeves and gets busy helping God to bring a brighter day. Your social pessimist will tell you what a mess the world is in He is worried, learn- edly worried. But a peptomist will courageously meet the trying ordeals and work until he sees improvement come smiling through. He senses God at work in the scheme of things and so lends his best skill as a co-laborer with God. I have faith that we will wobble along. I do not believe with a University of Chicago professor that "our demented world may have no future." The world is not crazy — it is only groping in a dim mental condition. The mass mind is dazed and hazy as yet. But the world is to have a future, a nobler future. Every crisis always brings a full crop of wise pessimists. Better an inane optimism than a hopeless pessimism. Better still to feed a budding hopefulness which stirs one to get busy and better the little world in which one lives. That is the first step toward peptomism. So I am going to take the gravity of things in our world as a peptomist. I will start with faith, courage, wisdom and a soul-deep smile. I will put myself in the Divine Work- shop and be about the All-Father's business of bettering the world. Chiefly that bettering will go on inside of me. Since that is God's Workshop, I am helping Him, as I am "a workman that needeth not be ashamed, handling skill- fully the Truth of Life," which is, that good is, because God is. I shall laugh and sing as I work and plan I shall encourage and cheer as I lift and redeem. I shall keep bright and sweet as I face hard problems and grave situa- tions. Then I will be a peptomist, at work with God; CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 29 serene, hopeful and constructive, building in thought and dream, the Kingdom of The Better Day. I will become a divine asset when I do this. And he who is valuable to God is thrice so to man. So it pays to be a peptomist. It gives you a healthy-minded attitude to the world and it furnishes you with greater creative powers to bless life. A world without a goal of increasing good- ness will never give you comfort, peace or joy. Unless I knew that the world would wag on and right itself, just as it has done before, I would not dare to smile. But it will come right and I have a cheerful desire to help God to harmonize it. And just this spirit will put the sinews into me for any aspect of life. I shall not worry about the world. If there is any to be done, I will leave it to the Creator. He made it and He knows how it will end. He called it good to start with and His last word will be the same. He has the plans. Therefore I shall laugh and love and lift. And that is what peptomism means to you in any dark hour of the world's life. 2. Bring it close to your own life. What do you need most of all? Is it not that you wish to keep life fresh and your work full of zest? We do not wish to go stale. There is no agony so great as the ennui which uncongenial work can bring. Many people are in this state. A galley slave could not be more pitied. Yet the ease of escape from this condition is considered foolishness by many. If you should say, "Be a peptomist," to the average victim of a distasteful work you would be considered mentally unsound. Say it in your own way when you have tried the system. There is not an alluring job in the world which does not have its drawbacks. A hero in a novel who had a throne wished upon him came to the time when he said: "This king business isn't what it is cracked up to be." I have myself what one could term an ideal work in the world. 30 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE I have a fine range of variety. It offers so much of fresh and original expression. Yet did I so permit it, the element of staleness and ennui could creep in and I could easily envy some other evidently attractive labor. To my task in its stale hour I bring "peptomism." Then a change becomes evident and a new zest carries me forward. There is an art of enthusing yourself. That is, you must learn to sell your job to yourself, over and over again. Here is a great exercise in psychology. Detach yourself or rather divide yourself. Then let this active side of yourself put forth all the attractions of this position. In this play you will find enthusiasm growing. The horizon of the task widens. It takes on greater importance. You feel a new zest for it creeping in. Then before you know it, the love of your work will burst full upon you and you take the position as if it was a new one. Again and again I have done this. Then I have gone further. I have felt its relation to the Divine Plan. I have come to feel that the work must be expanded, and so my consciousness of its scope has brought me a new vision. Thus every time you slacken, you can picture yourself into joy and power again. In a book, The Harbor, the author gives you a great clew. He pictures himself as hating the harbor, the source of his livelihood. Then one day he goes up into a great city engineer's office, in the top of one of the tallest build- ings. From it the full panorama of the harbor is unfolded. Distance lends it enchantment. Then the vision of the great engineer comes in. He pictures the improvements to be made, so that this harbor shall be the first port of the world. He shows the ships of the world docking there, the ease with which they load and unload — the efficiency, the smoothness with which commerce will move. And when this lad goes back to the harbor, after that ideal hour, it is no CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 31 longer a dingy, foul and ugly thing. He brings the beauty of the dreamer who is a doer — the peptomist — down to the piers and docks, and begins his work there with a vision splendid in his soul. That is life. Your life is a harbor from which duties done go forth and obligations come in. Shall it become to you a sordid thing? Shall duties find execution dull and hard? Shall obligations be given scant attention? If this mood comes, or when it comes, detach yourself. Get away from it. Go up with the dreamer into a high place. See it anew, in a dim perspective. Every one comes back from a real vacation with a zest for their work. They have had a chance to see it further removed. So the aspects which had taken on distasteful outlines were blotted out. That is part of peptomism. You get a new hopefulness for your work and then you come back to it with a laugh and a song. Still further you must relate it to The Great Plan. You must see it as co-ordinated to a vast mechanism. Study a piece of very intricate machinery. You will find how very important a pin bolt can be to the whole operation. It cannot function fully until the smallest part is in working order. And you have been abusing your job! You have been giving it contempt, neglect and scant action. Then you wonder why the world is askew! Did you ever realize that Divine Intelligence has organized life through man? You have a pin bolt job? Ah, but the flywheel of high finance cannot turn without you. All the processes of pro- duction wait on you. God planned a big place in life and you only saw the size of the pin bolt. That is the way to talk to yourself. After you get through, you will go back to your position with a knowing smile. Peptomism does not jolly you into contentment with injustice or unfairness, if these are existing in your work. It simply keeps you sweet and steady and gives you the clue 32 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE to a way out. How does it do this? Simply by keeping your window bright and clean. Smoked glass is all right for looking at the sun or to soften its reflected glare. But it was not meant for your life. The pure in heart see God. The mind is a window. The clearest thinking brings God near- est. It also brings the truth of life closer. It reveals things as they are. Injustice and unfairness are found, if there. But more is found: aspects of life unusued, big enough when developed to overcome these things which rankle. When you get big enough, large minded enough, petty things cannot affect you. Instead, you affect them. You wipe them out, cheerfully and resolutely. Peptomism is just the joy that a man can put in and take out of the hardest job, the most trying situation. The measure of a man is found in the amount of joy he incor- porates and extracts. And this quality is the superiority of life. Super-men are simply superior men. Superior men are those who can smile and work along when everything goes dead wrong. It is not the work but the spirit which counts. A king can never be royal until he can be bigger in spirit than any subject. You are a peptomist when you put joyous superiority into a trying situation. And there is kingship ahead. CHAPTER FOUR pttiali^m |HERE was once a man who said: "One thing I know." That man was both very narrow and very broad. He specialized on one thing and then had sense enough to let everything else be grist for his mill. Akin to him was another man in Bible times who said: "One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see." That man was a beggar whom Jesus had healed. In answer to the Master's critics, who were trying to incriminate Him, the beggar made this answer. He had gained, not only eyesight, but also the greater gift of insight. We all have a sight, a gift. One thing we do know, but when we can add insight, we get a broad aspect of a narrow field. Specialism has its value only as this happens. It is a noble narrowness when it leads us to gain the widest possible knowledge of a particular field. You cannot master every man's business, but you can know what he does and how he does it. We get our broadest education by exchange of ideas. Everyman is your teacher. He sheds a peculiar sidelight on your own problem. He furnishes you fresh inspiration to do your work. The danger in specialism is an ignoble narrowness which comes from not listening. When you are sure you know it all, why should you give any attention to a new idea? Where ignorance is bliss, there is nothing new which can win a look. The ostrich is hidden when his head is in the sand. Why should one see who is willing to be blind. "If the light in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." The supreme ideal of specialism is to know life. No man carries his specializing too far who devotes himself to this simplest yet most profound fact in the universe: the 34 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE reach of wisdom from the simple cell to the complex human. "The proper study of mankind is man." It does not matter what is your particular field, the one source of success lies in knowing life, in its completeness of personal manifesta- tion and social expression. Or in the words of that remark- able Southern business man, Fuller E. Callaway, "You've got to understand psychology and human nature. All through there has been less horse sense in getting human beings to work than there has been in handling animals. When you have a pedigreed cow you know you have got to feed her well and treat her fairly. You can't expect four gallons of milk if you kick the cow. If you are working with cows you even have to think like cows. If you are working with men you've got to think like them. And you must never expect them to do anything that isn't human." To first specialize on human nature, then, is to know hovr to relate your work to life. Add to this a mental analysis of your relation to your labor and you will have the psychology of skill. It is the first business of every individual to know him- self. Hindu yogis, seeking for the end of all wisdom, found the secret of knowing in their dictum: "Know thy- self." This is our most difficult job. Many of us delegate it to another, to a mental analyst. But no one can dig or probe as deep as you who know all of the secret things of your inmost being. How they affect your life and relate to your work is at once the aim and end of all your living. The difficulties of knowing one's self lie in the contradic- tions and inconsistencies which crop out. There are times when we cannot account for ourselves any more than our friends can. Now the one general weakness in the attempt to know self is our temptation to always emphasize our one general weakness to ourselves. We will specialize on our failings and then wonder why we fail. No man ever can CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 35 understand his inconsistencies, but he ought to emphasize to himself his consistencies. Let me illustrate: A steamboat was at New Orleans and a man applied for the vacant post of pilot, saying he thought he could give satisfaction if they were looking for "a man about his size and build." "Your size and build will do well enough," said the owner, surveying the lank form of the applicant with some amusement, "but do you know about the river, where the snags are, and so on?" "Well, I'm pretty well acquainted with the river," drawled the Yankee, with his eyes fixed on the stick he was whittling, "but when you come to talking about snags, I don't know exactly where they are, I must say." "Don't know where the snags are!" said the owner in disgust; "then how do you expect to gel a position as a pilot on this river?" "Well, sir," said the Yankee, giving the owner a keen pair of eyes and a whim- sical smile, "I may not know where the snags are, but you can bet your bottom dollar I know where they ain't, and that's where I calculate to do my sailin'." It is no different with the life stream. If you aim to sail along where the inconsistencies don't crop up, you will have gained the first lesson in knowing self. This search for self-knowledge brings out the fact that if we cannot explain our actions sometimes, neither can we credit our abilities. There are periods when the divmest power wells forth from out of a barren stretch of effort. A writer's pen will drop heavenly wisdom, a musician will be touched by the angels of St. Cecilia and the morning stars will sing a symphony to his soul. That which is immortal in beauty and power has cropped out of the common devotion to some solitary task. Strange to many also is the fact that this divine consciousness is not retained through extended periods. We all know how we trudge through deserts of the commonplace and that these sky-born outbursts are as an oasis in the order of our ways. 36 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE But today we do know the service of these sudden out- croppings and the psychology of them adds the knowledge of skill to our special task. Back of our conscious mental life we sense a reservoir of rich powers. George McDonald has a book called Sir Gibbie, dealing with a wonderful little city waif who sought the freedom of the country. He hid in a hayrick by day for a time and in the earliest morning hours used to steal out and perform the duties of kitchen and barn to the consternation of the maid and the chore boy. They were sure that some fairy was ministering to them. And he proved even more wonderful when they had discovered him for what he was. So we have this hitherto unpublished self stealing forth by night to control our bodies in sleep and to carry forward our activities and functions. By day, it carefully stores up the incidents and impressions of our conscious life, and from out this treasure house at times delivering the expressions or interpretation of these in the form of ideas or abilities. You all know this for what we call it now, our subconscious mental life. To know how to impress this life, how to train it and how to make it serve your special gift is the secret of skill and excellence. I have personally so far trained myself that I do all my work within this formative source of ability. I here develop lectures, prepare articles, sense how to deal with individuals in the social contact of business or religion. By constant emphasis and reliance I can even let it control my actions in crisis hours, as when walking in congested places or driving a car in trying situations. It becomes the errand boy, the policeman, the author, composer and all things for the one particular thing I know and do. How to understand this self and to develop it I will deal in a later chapter, "Hidden Energies and How to Tap Them." This hints of one phase of self-knowledge which CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 37 contributes largely to your skill in your labor. When we shall know this inner self better, we shall know our abilities better. The way opens through knowledge of the conscious self. What we call the objective mind in psychology — ^the part which thinks aloud — is the source of our subconscious education. It is here that we see how we are educated by contact. A man with a highly specialized field of work will often have little by way of established knowledge to guide him. In his research and progress he must bring it out for himself. His conscious mind needs contact with the widest field of contributory information. For instance, this lesson on Specialism is restricted in my own consciousness to the fact that I am a specialist. One thing I know. How shall I furnish inspiration to the subject and give it a com- prehensive treatment? By recalling every specialist I have known and how he worked. By reading the wide range of literature upon specialization. It is thus that I consciously experience the breadth of my theme. Then I leave this mass of food to be digested and prepared subjectively. When needed it will come forth in conclusions and in logical sequence, as it is demanded. By repeated conscious demand I am able to draw out the material for a specialized field. So it is that I shall furnish new angles of approach to everyman with a problem or a position to better. Most of the important contributions to the sciences have come from men who have made original research. It has often been done by the urge, indefinable yet inescapable, which has pushed men out of beaten paths of professional procedure. The silent and insistent demand to find the thing felt or sought has opened a new world. Just now Thomas A. Edison proposes to do away with all established methods of spirit communication. He will develop an instrument or process in his own way without reference to any accepted system of seeking to contact with 38 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE those who have passed on. His method is exactly the ideal for the gaining of new knowledge. Carry this into your own work. If you feel or see possible improvement, make that a conscious assertion. Feed your mind upon every vitalizing thing which will seem of value in your direction. By this constant, conscious expression of a better way and a wider knowledge, some day you will step out, a specialist of specialists, in your field of action. m CHAPTER FIVE §our Piggesit ^gget HE Great Teacher drew a striking lesson from His story of the man who was figuring up his assets. He figured that he did not have room for all of his goods. At this juncture a divine voice said to him — probably the Angel of Death, "Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee. What are all of these goods to thee now?" And the Teacher said "So it is with all who, in figuring up their assets, leave out God and do not see that God in the soul is the biggest asset." This parable vividly reveals one of the twelve great phases of these lessons — "The Worth of Character." Upon this foundation every business in life must be built if it is to endure. It has been my privilege to know many men who could borrow all the money they needed at the banks without collateral security. Their biggest asset was their personal character. In fact, I happened to be the son of one such individual. And my father's favorite motto has been, "I have not lived to see the righteous forsaken." Always he has proved that character was the best collateral. John Milton tells us, "There is nothing that makes men rioh and strong but that which they carry inside of them. Wealth is of the heart, not of the hand." We can go a step farther and say that wealth of the heart rightly expressed will insure wealth of the hand. An analysis of the traits which will make character your oiggest asset are both essen- tial and vital. Character works with or without consent, but how it may work to definitely secure and safeguard your material well-being is the thing worth knowing. Your personal worth lists certain securities. 40 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE I. First of these are aspirations and ideals. The secret of all great and true men is found in their vision hours. Across the interval of the years they have built a pontoon bridge toward the castle of their dreams. They have selected the material with care, they have measured their spans of effort in terms of conscience. Always within themselves the superior souls find their material. From here they have drawn the patience and the skill to fashion a sure way to the higher things. Dr. Hillis portrays the great aspiration which came to John Milton — a boy of twelve, waking at midnight in his bleak garret. Before him rose the dream of writing a poem which the world would not ever allow to die. He knew whoever wrote such a poem must live a life of imperishable power. From that hour the youth followed the ideal that led him on. He studied unceasingly, leaving Cambridge beloved of all the good and without stain or spot upon his life. He went to Italy for further culture. Hearing of the civil wars in England, he put aside his ambition for the time and returned to share in the struggle for liberty. When he resisted a brutal soldier's attack, who said, "I have power to kill you," the scholar replied, "And I have power to be killed, and to forever make my murderer miserable." Age came, and with it blindness, but out of it came the immortal poem, "Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained." Dying, he held to his ideal, moving into the valley of the shadow, whispering, "Still guides the heavenly vision." Here is the secret of all achievement. In the measure that you aspire and dream and measure up to your ideals and aspirations, shall it come forth. Never yet has a worthy thing come from the unworthy. The good man will produce a good thing. The man who successfully runs himself in terms of mastery and integrity will find a sue- CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 41 cessful issue to his venture. There is a poet in my family who has said: "If you know you are great, you will do great things; Your thoughts will soar on eagle's wings; Your life will reach its destined goal, If you know the way to set your soul." It is the sort of aspirations which you possess which sort you off to your place in life. You cannot be a low-flying soul unless your aspirations are earthward. It seems hard for the average man to find time to aspire. But no man ever dreamed of greater comfort for his family, the joy of home of his own, who did not find that the dream lightened the task and added joy to his labor. Your mind is a draughting room. Upon the walls of imagination you draw the dimensions of your life. Men can sketch large or small, dim or clear. A striking picture cartoon shows that Success and Failure possess the same number of letters. If you have written failure, over it you can superimpose, with clearer, bolder letters, success. Letter for letter, it will bring the same amount of space. You can see then that success and failure are twins. Kipling calls them twin imposters, and they do become the lesser factors when one has come to a greater development. When this has been given, we see the success of failure and the failure of success. Only the aspirations and dreams that fill out life and give it divine satisfaction should express a true success. No man who has stood with integrity intact, conscience inviolate, has every tasted a defeat that was not a victory. When he has had his ideals to beckon on, each and every obstacle has been the happy intervention to test the rising power of the individual. II. The force of your character rests also upon the 42 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE habitual attitude you let your thoughts take. You have initial force to send you higher when you are headed that way. A rocket will do its duty and ascend, describe its parabola, and send forth its constellation of beauty, when it is pointed right. It has all the elements at hand with which to make its glory shine. You are sure to shed your radiance if you keep pointed right. Character has given you the qualities which shine. If you point your thought toward achievement, there is surety of arrival. The impetus here is immense. A fine, clean-spirited man equipped with the science of right think- ing is an invincible force in the world. It has been my privilege to see several men who had been in the ministry step out into business and succeed in a dazzling degree. Why was it? Because they had the char- acter capital to start on, and there was the impetus. They added to that a constructive mental attitude. Their clean life was a sure foundation. Then they built a fortune as they had been building a life, and, of course, they succeeded. And this is the sure guarantee for any man. Character is your biggest commodity. If a man will add to his merchandise the right method of selling, he can always win. And that right method is, first, the right attitude in himself. I once knew a man who wanted a striking slogan with which to sell a certain line of fine shirts. He thought the phrase "We are back of our shirts" was a telling phrase. His publicity man replied, "It is clever, to be sure, but you do not have to advertise your character, when you have one." Again and again I have heard people enquire about a merchant before his goods, or heard him recommended because of the man that he was. Knowing the impetus which personal worth gives, you can add to your life as you will, when you think as big of CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 43 your business as you wish it to become. There is no man who can fail in the world's sense, who has character and a big consciousness. Faith in what he is doing is aided by faith of others in him. His vision inspires confidence because he inspires confidence. Others will willingly see and believe in what he believes in. So each day holds its income as he lets his personal power work through his hopeful thinking. III. Then character brings the next step — ^the science of living with men. We often speak of the point of contact. It is the easiest thing to contact with a four-square man, for he can be approached from any side. It is always within our power to live easily, smoothly and successfully with each other. When we have built along the right ethical and spiritual lines, we become big enough to look beyond the follies and weaknesses of men to their possible strength and nobility. We are tall enough to overlook the prejudices and peculiarities to the agreeabilities and harmonies which are latent. And we can look through their faults and evoke good from even the meanest and wickedest of men. Character prepares a way for you of deference and respect. It opens fast closed doors. It knocks at the heart of humanity and opens up graces and arts untouched by coarser hands. It lends a subtle influence. You may know the art of hypnotism and wield a magic power. You may possess a clever knowledge of the weak side of men and know how to take the unfair advantage. But that sort of power will finally be the undoing of the one who practices it. It is when integrity walks in the market place that men are drawn together. Such a one controls and influences his fellows with mighty power, but he always leaves a blessing behind him wherever he goes. CHAPTER SIX pergonal jUagnetisfm- llotu to #et 3t 'N James Barrie's delightful play, "What Every Woman Knows," Maggie Wylie does not have good looks, but "juist charm." Of this quality it is said, "If you have it, you don't need any- thing else, and without it, everything else doesn't count." Charm is another name for magnetism. It is charm in a woman and magnetism in a man. Sometimes we speak of a pleasing personality. This is still another term which defines that almost indefinable essence which is the soul's atmosphere. It is a tribute to a plus of power in a person which proves that his speech or his learning, his culture and his polish, are but a tithe of the subtle spirit which wraps him about as in a mantle. It has been the secret of all of the leadership and achievement in life. Garibaldi sent forth a spirit of free- dom mightier than his words. He turned an Italian mob into a conquering army. Henry Ward Beecher does not read particularly well at this late day. But in his presence the dramatic power of the man drew, fascinated, conquered. Phillips Brooks was even more persuasive. Something of his atmosphere lives on in his books.In his pulpit he moulded by the manliness, the Christliness, the saintliness of a mar- velous spirit. His words were golden, his spirit set them with diamonds and rubies. And back among the ancients, Socrates. Of him the dissolute Alcibiades said: "The chains of passion which so often enthrall me melt like snow before the sun. I tear myself away by force lest I grow old 46 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE sitting by Socrates' side." Thus everywhere the powers of the inner man furnish the secrets of winsome and compel- ling personalities. All this is evidence of a magnetic quality which overtops brain, brawn, cunning, and skill. With many it is innate. With others it is necessary of cultivation. But none of us may be wholly lacking, and if we will pay the price we can possess and express this power which is the key to personal and social helpfulness. I. It first begins its development through the growth of the spirit of love. A great scientist tells us that love is not only the supreme human emotion but also the one positive force of the universe. He says it expresses itself in the physical world under the guise of adhesion, cohesion, gravitation, crystallization, magnetism. There you have it. You see that the pulling power of the magnet is born of a force we call electricity. But others call it love. As love grows in your heart, it radiates from you. a. It first shines through your face. Good nature begins to be evident. It reacts as a bright, warm day does on a fog-bound country. That is the first reaction of the thought spirit. Your genial expression invites, attracts. Then as you gain in good nature, whether you smile or not, a pleasant cast is given to your features. You send forth more and more charm from within. To feed this genial nature, you must get the habit of thinking charitably and good humoredly of people. If an irritating situation can make you smile, it will put oil on the waters. Then you must turn your clouds as they come. The habit of seeing silver linings tends to give the mind a pleasant set. Thus each dark circumstance has a redeem- ing trait for you. b. From you a kindly spirit will finally steal forth CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 47 insensibly. People will feel your friendliness. They will know your heart is full of love. To gain this spirit, you have kept it full. You have had a big, true sympathy for others. You have fed a downright, whole-souled interest in them and their lives. Wherever you go it will be of you as the Greek poet thought of a certain goddess when she came to Thebes. Passing by a tree blackened by a thun- derbolt, she stayed her step and lo! the woodbine sprang up and covered the bare branches. She lingered by a stagnant pool and it became a flowing spring. She rested upon a fallen log and there came moss, the snowdrop, the anemone, to cover the death and decay. At the crossing of the brook were her footprints, not in mud downward, but in violets that sprang up in her pathway. Thus does this kindly spirit react on all the surroundings. The test of this love power will come from little chil- dren. When it is strong enough in you, they will come to you with outstretched arms, even though you are a total stranger. As it draws children's aff"ection, it will draw grov/n-ups' attention and interest. And each gain in grace will mean a new unit of power. So mighty did it become in the Master that His very presence made bad men good. II. For complete magnetizing of your life, you must bring yourself in intimate contact with the Central Source of all power. Christ sensed it so fully that he knew his ability to draw all men would flow out of one-ness of life with God. Somehow we seek so far afield for what is ever so near. The bird seeking the glorious air, insensible to its life there; the fish crying to know the sea, while immersed there; this is a parable of our desire for the magnetic field, in which we live and move and have our being. When we were experimenting in physics with electricity, 48 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE we learned how to make a magnet by wrapping a coil of insulated wire around an iron bar. Then by passing a current of electricity through it, we were able to induce the power of attraction. This is an analogy of how every individual can wrap himself in the consciousness of an All-Pervading Love. Through this sense of Omnipresence will actually flow the current of Divine Life and of a day, a man, genial and great-hearted by his love-thoughts, will realize the magnetic power of his life. The magnet was first known as a lodestone. A black rock formation was found in Magnesia, in Asia Minor. This was discovered as possessing magnetic qualities, that is, it had power to attract certain mineral particles. From Magnesia it got the name of Magnet. Afterwards men found the secret of making magnets easily and of great power. Here again the spiritual forces parallel this scien- tific fact. There was a time when we thought the magnetic life was a peculiar possession. We credited a certain region as the possessor of it. We said it was quarried from the Rock of Ages and became the lodestar of Bethlehem. Now we know the secret of the compelling power of the Christ personality. We have discovered the way to duplicate that Divine Magnet. By bringing a small piece of iron in contact with a highly magnetized piece, you can very read- ily charge the small piece. That is also the method of magnetizing your life, by constant contact with Omnipotent Love you will be charged with power from on high. As often as your piece of iron weakens in pulling power, as often can you re-charge it. As often as your power to attract your good diminishes so often may you turn your thought and your faith unto God, the All Good, and receive fresh impulsions. This was ever the method of Jesus. Each withdrawal to desert place or mountain top was the CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 49 evidence of recharging of his life with the Invincible Energy. The supreme example of attraction and influence is the Christ. Wherever He moved He drew men as unresistingly as the Pied Piper drew the children of Hamlin. It was not the power of beauty, compelling genius or magic craft. It was a spirit like the sun, drawing the moisture from the earth, the sea, the air, and distilling it again in the refresh- ing rain. So the Son, illumined by "the Father of Lights in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," draws mind, heart and soul of man. And we as sons may in turn grow like that which we love. Fasten your mind on just and generous thoughts, thoughts of good, not of evil, to all. Fasten your heart on Love, a Love that will feel assured of goodness and mercy. Fasten your soul on Truth, the Truth that your life is inherently dynamic with power, potentially capable of drawing unto you your good. Above all, fasten your faith on Him who is the Perfection of your possible power, and know that you can also as you are uplifted, draw all men to you. CHAPTER SEVEN Wintomtioni influence |NE of the greatest sources of selling power in the business world is personality. The same power persuades in every other field of activity as well. There is a persuasion to personality which works with or without consent. By personality I mean the accepted definition of Webster, "the personal characteristic or quality of mind." Robertson, the great English preacher, defines it thus: "Personality is made up of three attributes — character, consciousness, will." The activity of these attributes, the quality of character, the intensity of consciousness and the fixity of will, make up that sweep of individuality which is immeasurable. One can take extensive courses in business phychology or can get a selling method based upon a shrewd manipula- tion of human nature. But alas! too often the quality of the method does not bear the test of time or insure the per- manent good will of the victim. But personality persuades by the force within itself. It unlocks energies, stimulates faculties and lends an irresistible appeal to the contact. History teems with these lovable souls who have "sold their idea" — as the business world puts it — by no other method than the quality of their character, their reach of high consciousness. There is an incident in the New Testament which is very valuable. Peter and John came to the tomb of Jesus. Peter stooped and looked in and saw the grave clothes lying. He went in and the unconscious influence of this impetuous Peter was so powerful that the other disciple entered also into the tomb. Horace Bushnell made a great message out of that incident, the telling power of your personal influence. By it you can sway kings, conquer 52 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE kingdoms, capture citadels of trade and open doors hard locked by iron-ribbed men. For the gaining of this you have much to develop and intensify in your inner nature. You must keep the emotional content of your life active and constant. To do this, intensify the humanities. Few men realize early enough how much of great value lies in keeping the common touch. The average man of am- bition will first rely upon his technical training, then upon his natural ability and finally upon his experience. Very often he will be far along in the game of life before he will realize that the biggest thing is sympathetic touch with humanity. Agreeability, the instinctive tendency to say a kind word or do a friendly deed — these things, easy of expression, are generators of unconscious influence. Out of them grows a radiant personality. Unknown and un- sensed by us is the kindling ray which our presence sheds. Wherever we go, without a word spoken, our personality precedes us. There is actual telepathic transference. Long before you appear you are being received. When you come in the flesh, the reception will be according to the spirit of your life. One of the most successful salesmen whom I know was so, because he was a great heart. Instinctive with him was his genuine interest in the personal life of his customers. When on his way to see and sell one of these he didn't begin "psychologizing" himself, to be sure of a good sale. Fact is, he had little technical knowledge of this sort of salesmanship. He confessed to me that he had a natural liking for his clients and somehow he was thinking lovingly of them as men rather than as prospects. And this was not a sales method, but because he couldn't help it. In later years he often wondered why he had been so successful for one who had little, if any, knowledge of psychology or modern methods of salesmanship. Let me analyze his case for you and you will see his secret. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 53 There was a telepathic power going forth from his personality. A warm, glowing wave, active and positive, was radiating from him and touching the spirit of the man he was to interview. Generally the man greeted him with a genial smile and glad hand shake of real welcome, remarking: "Fminy thing, but I have been thinking about you within the last hour or so, although I didn't know that you were in town. And out of that contact in due course came a good sale. More valuable than his training, bigger than his ability, more effective than his experience was that salesman's natural love for humanity. I grant you that he might have added somewhat to his art of selling by a wider knowledge. But innately he had the true psychologic approach, only he was not aware of it as such. He was great in his business of life because he was so true and genuine in his sympathetic oneness with men. He had the consciousness, that spiritual sense of brotherliness which makes for unity and harmony in every human relation. Before you ever come into the presence of another, you have your opportunity to do your work with or for that one. You do not need at first to definitely speak the word for adjustment or accomplishment of a desired object. You do need, however, to get yourself, your emotional content, unified by the feeling of love and good will. A com- passionate spirit must possess you, the assurance that you are in loving oneness with any and all men. Then on wings of light an influence has sped before you. Just as the sun's rays open the flower before you come to claim it, so does your spirit of life blossom the flowers of your opportunity. I want every salesman who reads this to become a clever salesman. I desire every business man and woman whom this interests to achieve a keen ability. And for 54 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE every one in any other business of life these words are written with a wish for their instruction and uplift to planes of superior advantage. But I wish to impress each and every one with the fact that life is the first and last business, the chief and sole commodity. And whoever will touch life, each and every life with sympathy, with loving thought and service, will actually charge the whole being with an unconscious influence, going forth to prepare a warm welcome and a true opportunity for you. To this you must add an awareness of your own life as supremely essential in its peculiar field of activity. It is a great thing to have it said, "He is an expert in his line." Fact is, every one is a potential expert in his own field. The one defect is our failure to recognize the latent capacity. We may not be expressing through the right channel. There are square pegs in round holes. But all are capable of change when we become more conscious of our powers. Chance or luck often drops us where we belong. Misfortune soemtimes acts as a nieans of self- discovery. Sometimes we know where we should function. This is the big problem of every boy and girl : to find their niche. It is here that a knowledge of higher psychology becomes imperative. There are men who have gone so far in their experi- ments along the lines of vocational psychology that they have developed an almost invariable accuracy in guiding boys and girls into their niches in life. But the period of change is never fixed. We are, many of us, advanced in years and we feel almost hopelessly tied to what we are doing. Unusual conditions often jar us loose and leave us without moorings. To guide us into a channel where we can successfully and happily work in line with our native talent is the great hunger and desire of countless people. To dwell upon the assurance: first, that you are capable. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 55 then to keep your mind flexible, and finally to fight the fear of a change of occupation, are first steps. Go deeper; know that the Mind which made you of Itself left in you a capacity to seek and to find that radiation or expression of being which is your superiority. Every emphasis upon your God-given powers, every reliance upon the truth — "the divine in you doeth the work" — will make you dynamic. A colored man wanted a turkey for his Christmas din- ner. He prayed to the Lord thusly: "0 Lord, send a turkey to this needy servant of Thine. But if You can't do that, then send him to a turkey." This illustrates the unconscious influence of your consciousness of capacity. There will go out from you, with or without your consent, a positive telepathic wave which will, in time, either bring the right thing to you or take you to the right thing. And this is what every one needs to know and to re-know. John Burroughs gave us the truth in his poem, "I know my own will come to me." Do you know that? Do you believe it when your own seems indefinitely delayed? With- out naming a specific need, if you will reiterate that fact actively as well as passively, you can aff^ord to rest easy as to the whence and the when. Just to sit down and wait is poor practice. To be active and yet passive, as far as trying to force "mine own to come to me," is the sure method. Activity keeps faith vigorous. Passivity keeps it controlled. And from this awareness, a light unknown by you, shines forth to guide your good to you. This is a fact of constant expression in my own experi- ence. Very often a person comes to me in a panic because a thing which must come to pass does not show signs of appearance a few days before the time when it is needed. To clear the channel so it can come is the first step. To keep it clear by active labor in some diverting field and by passive assurance in idle hours is the second step. To 56 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE rest in the fact that each thought and feeling of quiet knowledge is opening the gate of your good and preparing the way for its entrance is chiefest and best. Forth from you will flow an unseen stream, magnetic and sure in its influence. To complete the outflow of influence you must educate the will. And my meaning is that you must cultivate the affirmative attitude. The power of will may call to mind the pictures advertising a book of that title. It showed a high power automobile thundering along. There is some- thing rough and relentless in will power of this type. It represents the iron heel, the crushing determination of self-centered progress. I am asking for an education of your positives, to know how to say "Yes," to be able to think white instead of black. It means the habit of seeing happy endings and of looking for successful issues to each and every venture. The influence flowing from such a spirit is magical. Let a man possessed of such an attitude step into a negative atmosphere. Instantly, and almost unconsciously to him, there is a sudden change. Shadows fade out and hopeful- ness comes in. Faltering and timid people begin to brace up. The nerveless and supine begin to act as if a stimulant had been administered. And from the chill of the tomb one passes to the sunlight of hope. This has been the uncon- scious influence of one man without any outward eff^ort being put forth. When we begin to know of the force pent up in an atom of energy, we will begin to sense the power latent in each positive thought. Then we can see how a man who has always thought affirmatively becomes a dynamo emitting power. He breathes assurance out of every pore of his body. His presence becomes the seal of success. And the world seeks out such men and says, "You must CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 57 lead!" It believes because of the way it feels. It has come under the sway of a spirit of life which will not countenance evasion. God put the capacity of divine power in each one. If we began in the cradle to teach affirmation and to wipe out hesitation, we would rear our supermen. Meanwhile each man, aware of his divine endowment, can do no better than begin now. Let each day find you in this mathematical mood that whenever you see or feel a minus sign you will plus it. Approach each duty as a something added. Of that I will deal more in detail. Conunit yourself to the habit of seeing the best side of everybody and everything. Or, if Scripture will help, "Search all things, hold fast (positively) that which is good." And so from you the influence of powerful persuasion will surely flow. CHAPTER EIGHT OW do you tackle the task that is not to your taste? Watch yourself the next time something irksome confronts you. Your reactions to it are clues to your power of self-mastery. And it is in this mastery of what we term disagree- able that true ability lies. Few realize soon enough that every experience is a teacher. There is not a duty which is not an opportunity. Someone has counseled substituting the word privilege for duty. That is in line with our thought of plus-ing it. Duty has been made a distasteful word. We have put it under bondage. It belongs in common thought to the com- pulsory. So the freedom of expression which comes out of the right attitude must be returned to the spirit and action of it. Jesus gave the world guidance in his Gospel of the Second Mile. He said that if a man force you to go a mile with him, add a second one; if he take your coat, give the cloak also. In other words, do a little bit more than it is your duty to do. Show your superiority by a surplus. Give evidence that you have passed from compulsion to free and joyous expression. Let good will come out of a bitter experience. In this wise we would give counsel. Let me bring you a new and higher understanding. Here is a method for the distasteful which will make it delightful, a thing divine and holy: There is not a duty which confronts you that is not essentially beautiful and satisfying. Someone does that thing as a livelihood and gets joy out of it. That removes it from any inherent odium. It reflects back upon you. Someone can do this and delight in it. Therefore, it holds 60 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE a higher element. Unless you see that and extract it, you cannot approach it with anything like superiority. Super-men are rated by the ease and calm with which they go through a way beset with the distasteful. It is the pebbles which trip us. We may stub our toe on a rock, but rolling stones may cause dignity to descend. I like to see a big, strong man do the dishes for his wife. I believe that if he can whistle and sing at such a task, so endless and hopeless as some housewives conceive it, he has the elements of self-mastery. Yet even in this house- hold humdrum we have those who lift it into an art, with joy. Family washing was once the bugaboo of women. But someone knew there was a mastery of this godly yet hardly welcome task. So now we have families which actually quarrel over the privilege of running the electric washing machine. And this is a hint of superiority. When a man or woman has the God-given inspiration to give a duty a plus of pleasure, it proves the duty has that power itself. And the one who has found the new and beautiful way for that duty to function has, by that action fine, made himself more divine. God is lurking in every shadow. "Cleave the rock and you will find Me." He is your clue. Approach the thing which you irk, and peer with the Inner Eye into the meaning of it. You will find there a Divine Spirit, like the Genii in the jar, ready to rise and transform the surroundings. Train yourself to the fairy book method. Pretend there is a kind fairy lurking in the ledger. Find the genii in the pots and pans. Look for the nymph in the routine order of swinging a tool. We let our imagination get sodden because a thing is repetition. Blessed be the boy in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's "Being a Boy," who made hoeing weeds a great crusade. He was a knight in shining armor CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 61 and he mowed down his foes in marvelous fashion. Wlien he came out of his dream the garden was free from every pest. Every pest, as the gardener calls it, may be the source of a useful or beautiful creation to bless human life. Talk with Luther Burbank. Let him tell you what he has done to raise roadside weeds to a place in the gardens of princes. It is a miracle work. Every little trying duty is a weed in the common eye. But there is a spirit in Man, the Eye of Divine Understanding can see the divinity lurking there. Let that Wisdom lift your burden and plus your begrudged duty. Another angle for mastery is the way in which you anticipate the onerous task. Do you fix it in consciousness as onerous? Are you cheerful about it, or unmindful of it? Do you meet it when you come to it? Or do you send forward a blessing to it? We need this training most of all. Before ever a day is begun, you should prepare it for yourself. Learn to affirm, "This is my day to know the joy of living. Every task which comes to me was meant for me. It is my child. I shall love it, care for it tenderly and completely. I shall send it forth with blessing to serve the world." Not a hard thing to do. Quite as easy as to con- demn it or even swear at it, as men are sometimes wont to do with a thing which they consider boresome. Bless the things which have persecuted you. Do good to the thing disagreeable to you. You will pass out of persecution and dread into anticipation and joy. When you thus plus a duty, you have really plus-ed yourself. You have shown yourself bigger than the little thing which once depressed you. You are no longer an unprofitable servant, doing monotonously what comes your way. You have passed out of routine into life. The pay for this procedure is peace of mind. In the 62 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE August Thomas play, "As a Man Thinks," one of the characters refers to the parable of the workers in the vineyard which Jesus used. The men who came the last hour were paid as much as those who had toiled all day. "The eleventh hour men worked only one hour, but they worked the last hour. You get peace of mind whenever you do your duty, whenever you do something, and the splendid thing is, it is never too late to do it." There is a wonderful peace of mind which comes to you after you have accomplished a task which has been teasing or tormenting you. This is a common symptom. Now, then, let us reverse the order. Begin with peace of mind and see with what calm and superior power you will approach the task. Note the ease and celerity with which you do it. And mark the aftermath. At that end you will find the Peace Passing All Understanding. We arrive at duty-plus when we sense the divinity of duty. There is, as we indicate, no merit in the conscientious discharge of inevitable obligations. It is, only as we lift our action into that divine impulse where it is as glorious to do the prosaic and usual thing as though it were the sublime and unusual. We have come to this divinity when the arduous or irksome is met with quiet and easy confidence. So there is no merit in paying your debts. Yet with what self-congratulation many people proclaim the discharge of this unavoidable obligation! The Pharisee in business is the man who assumes great credit because he is scrupulous in the discharge of his debts. He pays a bill as if con- ferring a favor or bestowing a library. One is reminded of the man who dropped a nickel in the blind beggar's hat with great show and said in benevolent tones: "There, my poor fellow, is a quarter for you." A friend, asking him why on earth he tried to convey such benevolences. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 63 he answered: "Oh, just to cheer him up a bit." So the man who parades the payment of his debts is merely patting himself on the back and telling himself what a fine fellow he is. This isn't even a decent discharge of a common duty. Then there is no credit in a man saying he is honest. That is an arrogant assumption. It presumes that honesty is unusual. I like the character of an old shoemaker whom George McDonald portrays, resenting the reward which a lady offered him for the return of a diamond found in her shoe, by saying: "I don't have to be paid to be honest." Yet that is the negative attitude taken by the world, as if it is something which must be fostered from its lack. While there is no merit in a man asserting his honesty, it is a big thing for a man to say, "I am honest." It involves a wide responsibility. It takes in the whole world of thought and action. It covers all conduct and character. It leaves a man without refuge. In all of his thinking and acting on every plane he must never be guilty of any subter- fuge or evasion. But true honesty isn't a matter of policy; it is an inherent duty. It is a man's response to the Divine Image in which he is cast. When it becomes a matter of instinct to always act, think and speak with unvarying sincerity, and when a man does this without calculation or self-emulation, then is the duty to be honest, given its God- cast, and we go the limit in love for honesty. Some men are content if they do any of these things under compulsion. Other men are proud because they do them on their own initiative. Still others, raised in con- sciousness, never give these attiudes a thought and are not content until they are superior to all conventional standards. They are kin to a great teacher, Edward Bower, of Harrow, England, of whom it was said: "The desire to make good better and better best was, with him, an instinct." He did not wish to be known and remembered by men; but he 64 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE wished to be loved by many friends. Above all, he thought to serve; since to serve is life's divinest duty and to be loved was the unsought and unthought of reward. The divinity of duty is the evidence of a superlative soul. If you only do what is required, you give no proof that you are capable of more. Employers watch for men who do not watch their watches. Men who do the extra bit out of interest in their work reveal the extra in themselves. That is the index of their capacity for greater things. Your measure is of your own making. God has given you un- limited capacity, but its expansion rests upon your ability to give the common task the uncommon expression. Coningsby Dawson tells us that in the war men were forced into heroisms of which they did not dream them- selves capable. That is the revelation of God. He permits the eternally capable Self within us to slumber, until we put the extra into our effort, then there is a surge of soul, a surplus of power and we do beyond our dreaming. If we are to be as Gods, we must take the duty that presses out of the moment, however wearisome it may have seemed, and lend to it such an expansion of power that the sense of the task shall be a revelation of what we really are. CHAPTER NINE Wimavnth Sntrement N this chapter we connect ability with plenty more closely, and bring this psychological pair nearer perfect union. As ability is merely the plus of duty, so plenty is simply the surplus of your present status. Ruskin says, "There is no wealth but life." It is a world of truth. Conversely the only poverty is a lack of life. No one knew this better than Jesus. There is a newer and truer version of His well known words: "I am come that ye might have life and have it more abundantly." Here it is: "I am come that you might have life and that you might have abundance." So you see poverty and lack of life go together. The trend of His teaching was freedom through the Truth and the enrichment of life through realization of the Kingdom of Good within. The true source of plenty is in the surplus which the life within you holds. If I can make every man and woman who reads this see this truly and completely, they need never confess to lack again. Money, or material substance, is merely compressed force. As a medium, it represents power in expression. All the abundance which human life may know is all around us in solution, and the right reactions of mind and spirit can precipitate it. Just as a Seattle lad has learned how to take electrical energy directly from the air, we can call into active service the spiritual forces which express in substance for daily need. For no other reason did Jesus turn directly to God and say, "Give us this day our daily bread." He went directly to the Source.. There is need just now for this realization. A sense of 66 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE lack, or the pressure of inflated value, weighs heavily upon the average individual. It is the most unselfish service we can render to convert the want of the world into the wealth of the world. This is only a matter of giving existing abun- dance the right expression. As one of the unerring facts of God's universe, I believe that somewhere there is ample sufficiency for every human need. I believe it as much as I believe there is food enough in the world to keep famine or hunger from every door, if we had the right social system and proper economic distribu- tion. So I know there is a surplus possible, an increment which earns itself, when we have done our part. There is an attitude, an approach, an application of principles whereby this comes to pass. It is neither magical nor mysterious. No amount of lessons or lectures will give you a golden key. After all your lessons and lectures, it rests with the content of Ruskin's dictum, "There is no wealth but life." First and chiefly, this means a certain kind of life which you must live and use. However you may dream of plenty, the pledge of it in your case rests with a knowl- edge of life. This, in the largest sense, avails more than all else. No amount of mental jugglery can turn the trick. No path of prosperity, however magical, will get you any- where if it leads you away from the facts of life. One man with a knowledge of life, chiefly insight of human nature, uses his knowledge for purely personal gain. His way becomes one of ruthless selfishness. Jesus points out his ultimate poverty of soul. Many a man with a pas- sion for material comfort repeats the parable. Many a man with ideals leaves his idealism for a realism which, alas! becomes some day very evident to his soul. Seeking for mere material gain, he comes to learn that is all he gets, just money. Many with insight of life profit by the credulity of CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 67 the mass. So Barnum gave us the famous axiom, "The American people like to be humbugged." But this use of a large knowledge of life leads one into final disillusionment. Self is the final commodity, and of self one can become very sick and very tired. A true knowledge of life will lend you balance. It will open up the full content of life. You will see its diviner aspects, its limitless potencies. You will find the sources of permanent enrichment. Life in the sense we mean is universal life, comprehending and encompassing all things. You gain reach of understanding and are saved from perver- sion of viewpoint or loss of perspective. Lack of perspec- tive is what creates all other lack in life. It is the most common of defects. True knowledge of life means extension of conscious- ness. That means insight, grasp of the full content of life and a proper valuation of your advantages and opportuni- ties. We marvel at the deep reach of understanding which Jesus displayed. This was due to depth of divine insight. It was so extended in Him that he could anticipate the divine procedure and read the souls of men. This penetrative power can come to others as it came to Him. It will protect you from dishonesty and the designs of the unscrupulous. Just as the spectroscope analyzes the substance of planets by the radiations of light, so we can sense and analyze the feelings of our fellow-men. Thus are we guarded and guided in the realization of a larger good. This extension of our knowledge of life broadens our vision, deepens our sympathy and develops confidence and courage. It does not allow you to be cramped, limited or fearful in spirit. As the Roman was at ease, content wher- ever he saw the flash of the Roman eagle or the tramp of Roman legions, so we must find in the beneficence and bounty of the universe a sense of assurance and confidence. 68 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Out of this spirit will come the power to appropriate and develop untapped resources for our ease and well-being. An extension of consciousness is simply an enlargement of your mental attitude. You begin to think in terms of divine resource, commanding confidence, conquering cour- age, keener judgment and vaster shrewdness. So many lose sight of the main fact. They get the idea that if they gain "a wisdom above the wisdom of this world," they will immediately step into affluence. Extension of consciousness does not exclude the wisdom of this world, good common sense, but includes it. It simply expands your faculties and gives you finer weapons with which to work. It enlarges business sense and opens new eyes of advantage and oppor- tunity. This is the way to train yourself for the reign of plenty. You must be big enough in vision to desire and see abun- dance for all, not simply for self. In this is the only hope of acquiring plenty. Plenty also depends upon the expansion of sympathetic appreciation of others. We must see the economic depend- ence of all on each and of each on all. We are all in this world together. It takes all of us to make it a world. W^e cannot afford to allow any large per cent to suffer or come to the pinch of undeserved poverty. We are seeking a world where democracy is safe. Democracy means liberty and justice for all. A noted speaker raised the question, "Have we achieved liberty?" He showed how we had religious liberty. Each is free to worship God in his own way. We have passed beyond the Puritan whom Josh Billings said came to America to enjoy religious liberty and prevent everyone else from doing the same. We now have full freedom of religious faith. We have nearly achieved political liberty. The passage CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 69 of the Universal Suffrage bill by Congress brings us close to the ideal in that respect. Now we must secure industrial liberty, was the main contention of our authority. We must so organize industry that its fruits shall be accessible to all. The attempt to throttle avenues of economic opportunity must be branded as lawlessness. Liberty means a land of free people. The land must be freed as well as the people. The public domain must be further developed. Waste lands by the millions of acres can be made accessible to people crushed by the crowding and competitive life of today. Justice must also come. Justice will come when the curse of covetousness is gone. Greed breeds injustice, the spirit of insolent disregard for the poor and downtrodden. Greed has actually made a travesty of justice. Remove the greed and you bring fair playing and square dealing. This hideous nightmare of greed flies athwart our civili- zation. We are at the mercy of it as the ancient king was at the mercy of great foul birds called harpies, which flew into his banquet room and devoured the food. It has given us the mad scramble, the clutching hand, the itching palm. So we need to be purged. Purge us of covetousness and we will deal justly and love mercy. Justice ivill give to every man a square deal and a sure meal. Justice will give to every woman fair play and a rose pathway, with no fear of a primrose way. Justice will give to every child the right to joy and the reign of plenty. Toward such an industrial democracy as this, we must think, work and pray with head, heart and hand. Plenty rests upon delicacy of perception. If each was 70 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE keen and quick to discern the wayside wealth, we could pluck our good as we pick wayside flowers. The soul of man was meant to be like a seismograph, able to detect earth tremors thousands of miles away. Such delicacy of perception could redound to great good even in the market place. There is no market commodity like keenness and shrewdness. The cunning of trade, however, must be spirit- ualized, otherwise it is simply refined hoggishness. Keen- ness, as ability to see advantage, must come not as a weapon of competitive destruction, but of co-operative help- fulness. It must be ability to see the good of a brother as best for both. It must be communal, not personal. Jesus commended the practical man who was rich toward God. So our modern man must see business from the man end, rather than the money end. Then he will begin to see sources of real wealth. I would rather be Henry Ford than any man of money that I know. He has proved that there is enough for all, and the fun of creating is in making finer manhood, more comforting womanhood, and happier child- hood. He has put the light heart and free soul into thou- sands. He has been very keen, very shrewd for God. This delicacy of perception of the real road to plenty comes out of two things: 1. Love gives breadth of perception. We fail to under- stand each other in business because we fail to connect cause and eff'ect. So many do not see the man at the other end of a bargain, as Oscar Strauss said. Then we measure men wrongly. We call one rich, another poor. The reverse may be true. Life and love are ultimate sources of wealth. The love side is the winsome, winning side. Jesus pronounced the gift of a sinning woman priceless because she loved much. We must see the end of the way and know that when all things fail, that love can remain, if we have it to begin with. So place value where it belongs. See that lack of CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 71 love is the only poverty. Fullness of love is the only plenty. Love will keep us all from lack. 2. Truth gives length to perception. A reach of insight comes to the soul of integrity. To the soul of truth earth teems with bounty. With the eye of truth one surveys all the facts of life. One may see that though he never becomes affluent, yet he may be mighty rich. My work is my wealth. Labors of love are my luxuries, not because they are infre- quent, but because I have so much of one that I can always have enough of the other. Thus truth gives me perspective. It has opened my eyes to the real values. I know how to abound. I ever see my ample good. So I am stimulated on the earth side. I have no fear of want, thus I am full of confidence and have fresh initiative and enthusiasm ever at hand to win my need. My dividends grow out of this diviner insight, and so I live in the kingdom of plenty, because truth has given me a sense of values. Take these two divine qualities as the gold and silver of life. Give them a place in everyday life, in your business transactions, your industrial relations. By a strange alchemy they will change into the currency of the realm and you will have both material and spiritual plenty. Your surplus is always sure when you add to this, spir- itual mindedness. That is, you must extend your conscious- ness of God until you anticipate the divine procedure. The very best farmer in the world is the one who is most familiar with the natural processes. He anticipates the divine order in plant life. He uses insight, foresight and faith. He has knowledge of the ways of God in the vege- table kingdom. When he has evolved high enough he becomes a Burbank. He lays hold of hidden forces and brings them out. He makes two apples or plums, and superior ones at that, grow where one grew before. Men call him a wizard, when he is only divinely attuned and conscious of the higher ways of plant life. 72 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE The very best miner in the world is not your happy- go-lucky prospector, who may stumble on to a pay strsak. He is the man who has studied the strata of the earth as the pages of a Bible of God, in which are all the secrets, the gems of fairest ray serene. He applies himself to the law of the Lord in the mineral kingdom and comes to a day when he can pick up a rock and take out a gem. Then he becomes a Sir Ernest Rutherford, who solves the riddle of transmutation of metals and creates gold out of baser sub- stance by his knowledge of radio-activity. This is but parallel to a state of mind which all men must come into. The supreme laws are spiritual, and the mind to discern these shall gain a supreme consciousness, able to anticipate the divine procedure. How did Jesus multiply the five loaves and two fishes? I used to have a way of explaining that which was very pleasing to my intellectual vanity. It explained it away, but it showed no spiritual comprehension of it. Now I begin to see the truth of it. I know Jesus as the Master Mind who could anticipate the divine procedure. He could accel- erate the natural process of fish from eggs and of bread from grain. He went back of the snowy loaf, back of the wheat and the flour, back to the source of limitless abun- dance and drew directly upon the Great Giver. He par- alleled by spiritual knowledge what the boy in Seattle does by electrical knowledge. He drev/ from out the Infinite Substance that which was needed for the hour. Many may feel that nothing follows from this for them. Yet Jesus assured His disciples of what might follow if they would measure up to their possible God-hood. If we will pay the price, the secret will be given. It cannot come to one who knows not the higher law. You cannot pull elec- tricity directly from the air to run your vacuum cleaner. Your technical knowledge of electricity may be as far CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 73 removed as if you were a vacuum. But did you master the electrical law you might have been the one to do the supreme thing such as the Seattle lad accomplished. Here is the heart of divine truth. If we will give our- selves adequate spiritual knowledge, train our souls in love; love of truth, wisdom, love; if we will seek continuous, harmonious relations with all men and all conditions, we will be given an instrument of spiritual insight. How will that work for abundance? It will make you mentally aware and vitally conscious of divine opportunities for the creation of substance. It will make you more humanly keen and more spirit- ually sensitive to the ways in which bounty flows. It will make you more discerning yet more ethically thoughtful that your gains do not come at another's loss. This is more necessary than most men know. "Thou shalt not steal" applies to a thousand methods and means. The right sensitiveness of mind and spirit will give you the right hunches, endow you with superior insight — in fact, make your soul just such a spiritual machine that it can pull into substance the bounty of God, now in solution. This secret of abundance only comes in fullness by fullest surrender. You must become as delicate in fore- sight and insight as a seismograph, which can record an earthquake that is thousands of miles from you. One can really get sub-conscious penetration. You can come to where you can actually shut out conflicting human opinion or thought influence and see your way clear to your fulfilled desire. It will be as if a voice in your ear said: "Choose this thing; act that way; follow that lead." It will never go wrong, if you see to it that there is not a speck of dust on the divinely delicate bearings of your spiritual con- sciousness. 74 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Dust? Yes, the dust of Doubt, damning, deadening doubt, which clogs and corrodes. Until you can keep your mind clear of this, you will always find a grinding and effort in your operations. You can never swing into the rhythm of right action and sure achievement until all doubt is out. Fear ! This is the grit which is not sand, but soot. Fear has no sand in it. Fear never did have any sand and never will. You have never seen a fear-filled soul that had any sand or grit. A soul of fear is just a smudge upon the fair face of a possibly perfect Faith. Keep clear of fear and your soul will sing and swing out into the use of untold energies of God. Hesitation! This is a lint which gets into the gears. It is a fluff stuff, so slight that we often ignore it. But it will add to itself, will wind itself around a high geared soul and catch up dust and soot, and then soon, out of gear, out of action, out of luck, out of pocket. Truly "he who hesitates is lost." Only in doubtless, fearless action. shall you find power to pull your good out of the everywhere into the here. Just by these methods of thinking and acting your surplus will come forth. Somehow, when the Life is adjusted, it becomes capable of working and expressing in terms of its own richness and fullness in every plane. All planes are parallel and move truly along one, and you are always evenly adjusted to all others. There is everywhere ample store. There need never be any further lack if you will study and impress this chapter upon your very soul. You will have the psychology of plenty well on its way to complete expression. A personal enrichment will come, a richness of spirit and a capacity to react to every situation serenely and successfully, as we will show you in the next chapter. CHAPTER TEN ^etoet ^ouljf ^S^^^S HIS phrase, velvet souls, gives life a certain wijKJ^^ texture. It creates a kind of soul altogether too VPl^lifL ^^^^ ^" these hurly-burly times. It weaves a ^X^^ff/ character which has a grace, a smoothness, a finish at once shimmery and wholesome. The kind of folk who have it do innumerable good deeds softly. They have a moral fiber almost grim in its grip, yet refining to life. They belong to a type of whom Lafcadio Hearn speaks: "Who never did anything which was not, I will not say right, that is obvious — anything which was not beau- tiful." He illustrates by one he knew in Japan, "The sweetest little woman, not seemingly of flesh and blood, but of silk embroidery mixed with soul, slowly dying amid great poverty and pain, but never complaining, never breaking down, never ceasing to smile nor allowing her personal suf- ferings to invade her surroundings." And we call such lives by the term, velvet souls. Velvet souls simply mean the art of living smoothly. We need nothing so much either in social relations or mental attitude. But smoothness of living must not involve com- promise with evil or surrender of principles. Peace and quiet must not come through acquiescence with the wrong. Only jelly hearts cry "peace" when there is no peace. Only men of mush and moonshine try to get along with every- body, even workers of iniquity. As long as injustice and evil stalk the earth, the only people who will be undisturbed are in the graveyards. The rest of us must right the wrongs and make the rough places smooth. And the paradox of it all is that we can be velvet souls amid the 76 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE turbulence, the sordid and hideous aspects of life. In fact, the looms of life which weave such souls are placed amid such conditions, and that is the text of the texture. Velvet souls are most sensitive to suffering. Their eyes are far-seeing. They look for the unvarying beauty in human nature. They see the wrong which lies about them, but instead of bustling around, making a great hue and cry over it, or going full tilt at it, they approach it in a quiet, commanding, hidden way, and by force of their gentleness they brush the nightmare of evil away and leave the peace of God in its place. We need such souls more than we need noisy reformers or self-advertised righteous people. A velvet soul is produced by a mental atmosphere. It is possible for a person to create a calm or a storm by the bent of his mind. You can so charge your mind for good or ill that it will make itself felt wherever you are. His very presence made bad men good, was said of the Master Jesus, and it is an index to the thought force of a possessed spirit. Even wild beasts have been cowed and held back by the calm assurance of a master miind. We cannot set any limit to the compelling power of a Christ conscious life. Examples which sound like fairy tales could be cited to you to prove how potent this sense of dominion can be. "She makes such a beautiful climate for me," said a mother of her attractive daughter. That is just what a velvet soul produces — a gentle atmosphere. Such a one tempers the moral climate, warms its coldness, cools its excessive heat, soothes its sorrows, cheers its discourage- ments. And that is the function of the soul. It does not fulfill its mission nor warrant the name of soul unless it does. With the soul supreme, with a divine consciousness dominating you, you cannot help but be a peace giver, a happiness producer, a joy distributor. The soul is a process of constructive thought which is centered upon whatsoever CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 77 things are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, of good report, and by thinking on these things comes into possession of the peace of God, a spiritual climate which transforms by unconscious and conscious influence. Or to go back to the figure of velvet and think of the soul as clothed, it is woven of the silken threads of charity, peace, forbearance, control and love. Such a soul is always pleasing to the contact and has a luster which imparts a subtle grace and richness to life. Long after you live down the eff^ect of somebody who affected you like a piece of crash toweling, you keep the haunting memory of a plush-like life which brushed against you in passing. Often in families there are lives like the old-fashioned haircloth — severe, harsh, and unyielding. Such lives can never be rubbed the wrong way without producing a very evident irritation. On the contrary a velvety life yields gently without annoyance. Haircloth never was a success, either on furniture or in a family. It was tolerated, but it could not be modified or changed. Lovers never loved it on the sofa upon which they courted. And the tragedy of it all is that the quality of it was often carried into the later married life. Thomas Carlyle, great as he was, had a haircloth char- acter. Early he wooed and married one of the sweetest and m^ost brilliant girls of his day. As the years of their married life lengthened, the harshness and severity of Car- lyle's nature crept out. Irritation became the key of his voice, and all gentleness went out of his nature. She sacrificed her life to his dyspeptic humor, relieving him of all monotonous detail, correcting his notes. One day two distinguished vistors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. For an hour the philosopher poured out a tirade against the commercial spirit of the age. The good wife never opened her lips to speak. As last the author ceased and 78 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE there was silence for a moment. Suddenly Carlyle thmi- dered, "Jane! Stop breathing so loud!" Long before she had done everything except stop breathing. So, obediently, a few days later, Jane stopped breathing so loud. A few ) weeks after her death Carlyle discovered that for years she had kept life smooth for him, caring for his bodily health and mental peace. This velvet soul had starved and frozen to death for want of the affection which he might have bestowed. Too late he realized his fame was largely his wife's. He paid the penalty which he deserved. For Froude tells us he began to make those pathetic pilgrimages to his wife's grave, where he found him broken-heartedly and inconsolably murmuring, "If I had only known, if I had only known!" It is a strong hint that in the family life the velvet soul must be woven. Unless the jangling and discord of conflict- ing desires can be done away here in the most intimate circle, we cannot hope to weave it out in the world, where the forces against us are ever intruding. Out, of considerate- ness as a constant mental attitude, we come to a sense of that dear togetherness of family life, which we can extend beyond our door to the world of our daily contact. The crying need of every community is a larger con- siderateness. A whole community can be poisoned and soured by a carping, cynical spirit of a newspaper or even by one bitter, biting tongue. Our need isn't the political soft pedal, but a few souls with a velvety speed and action and a positive spirit to change the atmosphere. It is hard to remove the spirit of critcism and judgment. But it is not so hard to keep the sting out of it. We ought to try to be like the Caucasian bee. Now a non-stinging bee seems an anomaly, but experts assert that in the Caucasus Mountains there is such a species. Curiously, this bee is neighbor to the Syrian species, which bears the reputation of a par- CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 79 ticularly bad temper. The Caucasian bee is most amiable. While provided with a sting, as all bees worth anything, it is difficult to make it sting a human being. Almost nothing which a human can do will cause it to attack him. The human hive needs that sort of busybodies. Let them buzz and bustle all they wish, let them fuss over a deal of nothing, let them have their cast iron creeds and their hide-bound politics, if they will only keep the sting out of their busy-ness. Walter Pater, a classical novelist seldom read, creates that type of character which moves through a community, gentle minded and silently observant of the motley throng. He places a velvet soul, if you please, who has instant and positive influence, yet whose religion is never hurting, never denouncing and back-biting, but reticent and self- eff'acing, looking at the twilight spaces in life and adding his silence to the great soothing silence which lies beyond the bustle of life as the source of our power and possession. Wherever you find this sort of a soul in a community as a dominating personality, you find a congenial atmosphere. Somehow or other the very air is tempered. You feel a sense of hospitality, of love for the human. There are some small communities where life is posi- tively so catty that all the real felines have migrated, because they cannot stand the competition. Then again you step into hamlets that are for all the world like an old-fashioned garden, full of sweet lavender, honeysuckle and heliotrope. In such places, as radiating centers of influence, you will find gracious lives, irresistible in influence, who have suf- fused their surroundings with their own sweetness and light. It is a matter of worthy pride that often the person- ality which did this has been the product of our own religious attitude. It is inevitable. Constant dwelling upon the justice and mercy of an Infinite Father, who will bring 80 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE all men to the light and the truth; constant feelings of charity and brotherly love for all mankind, and faith in the ultimate redemption of all from their suffering and sinning induces a state of mind, a quality of soul at once winsome, positive and sure in its effect upon the world. I saw a city moulded by this type of a man, the heroism of a gentle soul. In memory I see one who is now sadly missed, where he made his light for a clean city and a peaceable, harmonious citizenship. A judge he was, keen and astute, but with a heart as tender and sweet as the heart of a girl. More than once he tasted defeat at the hands of the unscrupulous, but never once could the slimy hands of the gangsters soil the robe of honest manhood and clean life. He made his fight without bitterness, a velvet soul, adding to the finer sense of a city a spirit of life which will linger on, remembered because impressed upon the youth of the place. There are such souls moving through every city. They seldom, if ever, are widely spoken of in public print, but they are felt subtly but surely in the deeper life. The changes they make cannot be measured, but they are more potent than one can estimate. Life is transformed by personality, but back of the personality is a principle as the motive of action and source of power. It is very refreshing to know, amid all the clamor for atten- tion and publicity on the part of some people, that the real work of the world is done by quiet, unobtrusive folk. It is something to be able to gather together substance, to win out in the business game, to be aggressive enough to succeed. But there is another side, and this is the real side. There are people who gain without the bustle and the stir that most people expend, all that the strenuous gain, yet without struggle, but with a calmness of possession, a smoothness amid turbulence. They take away tenseness and give that restful confidence which this overanxious age so much needs. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 81 It all goes to show that if we wish to improve the com- munity and remove discord, we must create the atmosphere in ourselves. We can legislate till doomsday, but unless we have projected a velvet soul into the community and charged it with the power which such a soul has, we have done next to nothing. "I hope you will have a good time, son," said a mother to her boy, starting out to a party. "Thank you, mother, I always do, for I take it with me." That's the great, big, simple secret. It tells what kind of a spirit you can have in a community: the kind you carry into it. Re- member, you are a center, potent and wide in influence, beyond all possible estimate. You have thought forces resident in you able, like a Zeppelin, to spread unseen a reign of terror, or able to flood the world with sweetness and life. A velvet soul is your greatest contribution to help the cause of smooth living. There are certain personal reactions which result from velvet living. It brings composure and control to the mental faculties. "Better is he that keepeth his spirit than he that taketh a city," is not only wisdom, but it is power. It spells a clear head, a sane judgment, a sweet stomach and a good diges- tion. There is no surer way to inharmony in our members than our tendency to blow up every time we are crossed or annoyed. Nor is there anything so generally distressing as our failure to hold a mental oomSposure when we are con- fronted by thoughts and problems which spell discord. If we can sit on the throne and rule when the throne shakes beneath us, we are not easily unseated. Again the charitable view becomes the natural bent of a velvet soul. We are apt to be creatures of impulse. The tongue is a small member, but St. James made a very complete statement of its power. A bit of honey is so much more palatable to it than a touch of quinine. If 82 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE we would only plan to hold the thought that the hasty word was as quinine, which we had taken on it, and the just, the generous, the kindly was honey tipped, it might help to bring both the first fruit and the final grace of a velvet soul. It is the further privilege of such a life to have both insight and entrance into lives which have been labeled hardened or hopeless by the world. When we have come to realize an Infinite Tenderness brooding over us, and know that however hard the way, we have made it so; when we sense that we can lift the rock and find Him, cleave the stone and He is there; then we know that what we term indifference of Providence is but blindness of perception. It is evident that our hope of such a realization lies in the posesssion of a gentle, generous spirit. We see the Master Jesus walking the earth to show men the Father and revealing a soul so soothing in its touch, so soft in its blows of rebuke, so gentle and yielding, yet withal so firm and strong and sure, that even the winds obey His will. We see how by this calm and kindly spirit the atmosphere of the world of His day changed from badness to goodness, from discord to peace, and we know here is the evidence that smooth living does not spell soft- ness and decay, but vigor, progress, the Kingdom of Heaven. A velvet soul is just a citizen of the kingdom, one who has tasted the real values and has entered into a life which is at once useful and beautiful. He has laid hold of true serenity and can move successfully amid every irritation, annoyance, crisis or calamity. The reaction to such a soul is awesome. He or she has developed an asset which causes as much awe as the mention of mere money does with a certain type of niind. And the ability latent here is the power to silently but surely tap all of the hidden energies. CHAPTER ELEVEN OHN FISKE, the great scientist, saw the mental and spiritual evolution of man as a parallel to his physical growth. Just as man has come up from lower forms of bodily existence in accord- ance with the laws of nature, so he sees that day when all of the ape and tiger in man shall have dis- appeared. And he prophesies that in the evolution of Humanity the divine spark may acquire power over material conditions that man may here upon this earth survive and endure forever. We are possibly now entering the last era of the ape and tiger in man. Wars may flare forth somewhat, but it will be the dying embers. Already the race rises in deep contrition and great longing. As never before we seek a m^ental and spiritual unfoldment that shall give us control over the animal tendencies and banish them forever to their limbo of barbarism. We cannot undo what has been done, but time is kind and will lead us into a new day. Revelation has not ceased. Each day is a fresh page in God's Book of Life. So we have not the past to keep us checkmated, but we have a future beckoning us to a better and diviner day. Christ has become to us the revelation of our own pos- sible divine selves. He is the Spark which shall grow until the Light of God fully shines in every soul. Through our mental and spiritual unfoldment in terms of His spirit of life a new humanity will evolve and bring us into the new day of which our poets and prophets ever dream. But we are not here to dream or long for it, but we are here for growth. The evolutionary urge is still in us. It now 84 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE has for its labors not a better body, but a greater mind, such as was in Christ, a diviner spirit which will make us more than Masters. The primary operation of the law of unfoldment is the stern fact of capacity or ability extirpated by disuse. That is, use or lose. Everywhere in the physical evolution we have manifold illustrations of this. The strength of muscles or sinew depends upon exercise. The fish in the Mammoth Cave, having no use for their eyes, lose them. Undoubtedly our own bodies carry around remains of disused organs. Maybe that little vermiform appendix is just such a vestige, which is very fine not to have, the doctors are always ready to assure us. The same fact runs through all the phases of our lives. Faculties, arts, gifts of mind and spirit must be used or the grace and skill goes from us. The positive side of this principle is our chief concern. We must practice seeing and using the hidden energies within us. The more we discern the ability within ourselves and others, the more light of Truth shines on all our affairs and problems. To have more light we must use what we have. We develop, unfold by seeing, then by using these diviner graces of mind and spirit. A lady fluttered up to a violinist after his wonderful work. "Ah, sir, it was so wonderful! so heavenly! so divine! I would give half my life to play as you do." "That is what I have done, Madame — given half my life to play as I do." So many people who are in the primary grades of spiritual principles, of ri^t thinking, feel very much grieved that they cannot achieve great results. They forget they have not undergone great disciplines. When they have given half their lives to touching the harp-strings of the mind they can play their lives as harmonies and symphonies. If you see the Christ-power but do not use it, you are like a man looking as a spectator, and you must remain CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 85 so until you become a participator. So many people are soft and flabby in soul because they never give themselves any spiritual exercise. But we are learning today this simple fact, that we must pass from Fact-Truth to Act- Truth. That is, the mere contemplation of spiritual prin- ciples will never get you anywhere. The operation of spiritual principles is putting a backbone in your soul, where you had a wishbone. Jesus used the parable of the talents to this very end. God has given of His divine largess to us all. We can double, treble, magnify, glorify, or we can coddle, fondle, petrify and nullify the Light of Truth which is in us. The light in us can be hidden under a bushel, or it can be a beacon of blessing. There is one way to double trouble, and that is to be unprepared to meet it. There is one way to sink hardship in the ocean of experience, and that is to send a well- directed shot from a dynamic, vibrant soul. There is not a problem you face, not a difficulty you must meet, not a crisis confronting you but can be met if you daily enlarge your diviner powers. Truth, the Christ-mind of understand- ing, does not lead you into mistakes or failures. It leads you from them, knowing them for what they are. So use the spark, fan its flame, let the light shine. Gain, grow, glow and see how life will unfold in power, penetration, possession. The law of unfoldment further demands response to every higher influence. Every species of present life owes its existence to its conformity to environment. Failure to adapt itself has meant extinction. Marvelous are the ways in which nature has aided and abetted every form which would conform. It made possible fins instead of feet for seals, whales and manatees. It gave wings to others and protective colorations to many birds and animals. Every 86 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE adaptation of life to its environment has meant its per- petuation. In the spiritual evolution of man the law works in opposite direction. He is not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by renewal of mind. Renewal of mind is open-mindedness, sensitiveness to every progressive urge. It means every environment of light, revelation, growth is the means of development. The spirit of today is not that of looking backward, but peering forward. All our most vital interest is in psychic phenomena, what lies beyond death. The same spirit pos- sesses us in other directions. We are seeking a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We do not talk of the good old times, but we are ready for the better new times. Once we prized the traditional, now we cherish the evolutional. We want, not to back up or bolster up our civilization by ancient citation, but we want to bring it into the providence of a friendly future. If you would unfold higher powers you must be sus- ceptible to higher ideas. You must cease timidity in face of a truth which is unusual. If we had told Franklin to quit fooling with lightning v/e would never have had elec- tricity. If the world had told Robert Fulton to quit boiling water to make a boat go, we would never have been globe- trotters. So in the realm of mind and spirit, if you are afraid of new ideas, new ways — which are coming — you are not conforming to your world and must drop out of the pro- cession. As for me, I am going to transform by renewing my mind. With Emerson, I will change my mind every day if necessary, and dare to think a bolder, bigger thought tomorrow. Once they burned men for heresy. Now they simply blister them with cruel and unjust criticism. But boiled in oil or blistered in bitter words, it matters not; with Paul, CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 87 I am going to press on, unfold, go from glory to glory until I bring forth my divinest self, my hidden energies which give me ability and plenty. The law of unfoldment demands complete faith in the untapped reservoir of your possible powers. There is an ebb and flow of mental power in creative work, if you operate merely from the conscious side. You will often only create when the mood is just right. Much of the finest work in this fashion. But this mood is the fitful outcrop of an abiding ability in you, and if under the law of unfoldment you must seek its expressions, I advise you to continue this chapter by reading Prof. William James' "Hidden Energies of Man." You will note at greater length than I can give how you can unfold the super-powers inherent within you. Then there is reliance upon what we call the sub- conscious processes. You can develop the habit of sleeping upon matters, problems and plans. That is, you can lodge and leave a matter in your sub-conscious mind to be worked out. If you rely upon this procedure, you will marvel at your gains in creative ability. The very fact that we have had prodigies among children before their conscious minds could come into constructive power is proof of the vast innate abilities of the sub-conscious. Think of Mozart playing the piano at three years of age and composing at eight. Then there was Zerah Coburn, the mathematical expert of eight years of age. There are numerous other examples, but they all point to the obtruding of the sub- conscious power, which is the source of all ability and genius. The exceptional evidence only emphasizes a pos- sible universal procedure. Lodge and leave things in the sub-conscious and learn how to create in an unusual degree. Finally, recognize the conquering power of self-confi- dence. Never doubt that you have ability. Never suggest a lack to yourself or confess a weakness to anoljher. 88 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE Realize that you are untapped reservoirs, full of power and use. "If we choose to be no more than clods of clay, then we shall be used as clods of clay for braver feet," is the way Marie Corelli challenges your self-confi- dence. Of course this is not conscious egotism. Conceit is insufferable and its own destroyer. If we will always remember that we do much when we are put to it. We show no lack of confidence when we are challenged by an unavoid- able task. At such times we become surcharged and we marshal all of our forces for the big drive. This is a fact which we forget or ignore. That we prove what we can do when we have to must be made the basis of the usual method. We are all inclined to the line of least resistance. But knowing that you are capable of immeasurable ability, habituate yourself to a "woe me, if I fail of the divine intention!" Creative ability has three everyday aspects: the plodder, the pusher, the perfecter. CHAPTER TWELVE Ci)e Secret of d^riginalitj* HE creative faculty in the individual is the only key to open all the doors of ability and plenty. Until we trust our inherent powers and make the imperative demand for the hidden energies to deliver first-hand material, we remain mediocre. We can never create anything of lasting value or enduring satisfaction until we can uncover the streak of forgotten gold which seams our souls. The world passes through eras when it produces little, if anything, that is original. These periods are marked by clever imitators and skillful plagairists. But these copy- book ages never leave a mark in history. They pass away and are gone from the mind and memory of man. The shades of geniuses hover sad and outraged over a shoddy world. None suffer more than the musical composers, who must endure the barbaric syncopation of their classics. This is a sample of what failure to call forth the original spirit brings to our time. So long as Japan was an isolated empire, her people were great. Their art of lacquer, their remarkable natur- alism in painting, the weird reaches of their ceramics, their metal craftmanship, were all the perfect flower of their own genius. Today they have degenerated into a race of un- scrupulous imitators. All this is an appeal by the warnings of history, for the culture of originality. But to begin with, what is origin- ality? Originality is the disposition and the courage to trust your own thought, your own expression and to know as it is true for you so it is true for the world. It leaves no 90 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE place for timidity. You must believe and know that you can do a thing in a way to claim recognition and appreci- ation. The power of silent demand will bring forth your product in lines of excellence and worth. Emerson says, "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain, alienated majesty." The one v/ho uttered them merely had the faith and courage to lift up his voice. So he was given the acclaim which was also ours. Sometimes one comes along who discovers us to ourselves. He knows we have a treasure chest of noble thoughts and sweet fancies. He can cause us to bring forth the spirit-spun fabric of a lofty dream. He can extract the gems of Divine Wisdom which we have laid away. What a brilliant array they be- come in the setting of his understanding sympathy. Would that we had Christopher Columbuses enough to come to the virgin shores of all these empires of our human minds. Our self-discovery is better. The soul's Declaration of Independence, as we may call the force of originality, should arm us to win with our own inherent worth. There is a divine consciousness within which holds unfathomed resource. Relying upon it, bravely and resolutely, will bring our wares to market. The world is a hard customer but it cannot withstand the brilliance of that which is alto- gether new and original. If your demand upon yourself is big enough and your dare for your idea is indifferently bold enough, the world will beat upon your back door for a crust of your favor. So we need to believe that our thought is not too be despised or rejected simply because it may not conform to certain rhetorical standards. Genius and grammar have often been sworn enemies. At least genius spurns the petty in speech, to make its thought great. If you have on over- mastering thought, a burning idea, have confidence in it. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 91 Give it utterance. It may be the word for history. Even crude, unlettered men have changed empires by a phrase. The Hall of Fame may be any country lane where boys play and portray their inborn aptitudes. We have enough potential genius among our youth to make a new heaven and a new earth. We ourselves could be miracle workers if we called forth the gifts which slumber in the soul. But we have the disposition today to think we can only develop certain gifts by the use of props; rigid observ- ance of arbitrary forms. 1. In play writing, people believe that everything de- pends upon knowledge of dramatic structure. I have studied Freytag and the best authorities. I wrote a successful play before I did so. However my play would not be according to Freytag. People enjoy it and it has all the elements of dramatic action. Some of the truly great dramas have out- raged every rule of so called technique. The dramatist had a big, gripping theme of human interest. He knew how to portray it through characters to whom he gave form, feel- ing, speech and action. So the Indwelling Spirit alone does the work here. 2. Today we have numberless courses in short-story writing. Even our colleges have made a place for it. In these, the story is dissected and its structure is analyzed. Then the student is told how to build a story according to the rules. But where did the first great story teller get his rules? To whom did 0. Henry go for the right way to write his modern popular classics? He went within and drew from the creative power to see and feel the creatures of his fancy as real as those about him in the flesh. Stories, great stories, are created, not simply built. There is only one secret, the power to draw upon the gift within to the full. 3. Preachers are raised up for our pulpits and are pre pared and trained to write and deliver sermons. There are 92 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE extensive courses in homiletics, the art of preaching. But of what use is it all except to be boresome and wearisome, when they have nothing to say. Being to the manner born, 1 can testify that a man will throw his homiletics to the winds when mind and soul are afire with Heavenly Wisdom. An audience wants inspiration, courage, faith rather than firstly, secondly and thirdly. To give them food, not courses, to furnish the bread of life, is the one aim and end of all true preaching. All of this points to the one moral and applies to all activity, fire away with both barrels in your way. Originality rests upon certain attitudes of mind and spirit. Courage and fearless disregard for all brow beating con- ventionalisms is to be counseled. The boy is the father of the man of originality. Study a boy. See how, as Emerson says, he gives independent, genuine verdict of persons and things. He is fearless. He has faith in his own opinions. He dares to state them in his own dogmatic way. His charm is his naive scorn for standards. He is not easily squelched, nor is it fair to walk rough shod over this first flowering of his Divine Ego. God is letting the things which furnish wings to his genius have a tryout. "Be careful with the boy. You are dealing with soul stuff," aye, the soul stuff of originality. "Trust yourself," again urges Emerson. It is not original to quote but I do this to show you the way a first hand soul regards this one talisman. He made his choice early in manhood. He cast behind him all conformity. When he was back to the Source Within, then, he began to be the sage. And how did he utter his innate wisdom? He blurted it out in classic phrase and gave a Metaphysical Scripture to our own age. He becomes the clew to self-expression. His challenge to dare and his counsel to demand your own and CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 93 have faith in it, has given us the new Philosophy, the Ap- plied Psychology of this present period. Be true to yourself and trust the gift within you. There are no rules for originality, for then it ceases as such. I can, however, suggest things which you can do to help discover and develop faith in your peculiar gifts. It is well to meditate and commune deeply with yourself. Get into the silence. Draw apart from the world and a per- ception of the sensory. Peer down deep into your nature as if looking down a well. Make this a practice until you are able to see the spring of crystal originality, your own aptitude. It will happen that some day you will definitely know what you can do differently and you will dare to do it. Observe life in your own way. Get at the soul of things. Never stop with the names of things. These are merely for identification. The soul is for education. This penetrative power will help you to discover yourself. You may be the means of furnishing some invention or improvement which is valuable to industry or safety. Watts watched a tea-kettle and leaped from that to the steam engine. A lumberman in a noble forest saw so many feet of lumber for the happy homes of men and women. The artist saw there the corridors of time, the dim reaches of Eternal Mystery. He painted the picture which adorns the walls of the State Capitol at St. Paul, Minnesota. The musician saw the storm-strained pines, through which all the elemental symphonies of nature surge, as trees getting ready to be violins! And the philosopher saw the mighty lesson of the rectitude and love of God evidenced by the straight trunks and the sweet, singing branches. Thus every original gift to the world has come because some one took notice of the common things and saw in them potentialities of blessing and power. Constantly rely upon your sub-conscious powers. Within 94 CREATIVE ABUNDANCE you are all the materials out of which poets, musicians, writers, inventors and every profession, are made. Your power to objectify what is in subjective solution, is the great need. As you can visualize, materialize and express what is latent, you cause your original powers to function per- fectly. So not only trust your sub-conscious powers, but talk to them. Make silent and insistent demands. It is a good thing to place an order with your inner mind and then quietly know it will be filled. And you will learn to know just when the order is ready for delivery. This lesson is written for you in this fashion. Under pressure of a multi- tude of duties, this last chapter had to be in the hands of the linotyper at a certain time. That time was set and so the order for this in completeness was put in. And I went to bed. As I have written this on the following morning, the full lesson has come pouring out faster than my pen could take it. This is a concrete evidence of what reliance upon the sub-conscious will do for your original powers. You come to know with Emerson, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." You feed the fires of creative ability through obedience to every uplift of soul. God breaks through our coarser garments of sense with the Divine Fire. Illumined by it we behold far reaches of ability for us to ascend. And under this high-born inspiration we mount up to the unmeasured powers within. So dare to obey the high call. Let out that surge of soul in some concrete, constructive wo'k. You can become increasingly sensitive to the finer and diviner in this way and there will be no limit to your ability and hence to the sources of plenty. The last thing to observe and to conserve for creative originality, is love of Truth. Truth is the all unity of the mind. Truth is the great recognition that all men, animals. CREATIVE ABUNDANCE 95 plants, all created things are visible expressions of Invisible. Presence, God in all. Now the further you penetrate into the nature of things, the more you become absorbed in the revelations of Infinite Life in infinite expression. And you draw from this the final knowledge that you too bear the imprint of the same capacity. So you dare to think, to speak, to create. From the knowledge that I am an instrument through which Creative Intelligence can flow, has come every truly satisfying achievement in life. One no longer hesitates be- fore obstacles. The tremendous odds which timid men see no longer exist. But armed with divine assurance, one opens up the channels for the free flow of spirit. And through you the streams of Intelligence flow out into visible evidences of ability and plenty. Open wide the gates of your Being. All that God has of abundance is at hand. Reposeful assurance that it can flow to you, opens the gates. This knowledge floods your facul- ties with faith, courage and knowledge. The tides of cre- ative power raise each ability to superlative power and you begin to achieve beyond all standards of achievement. In- deed in this knowledge and method of living, I assure you there is not only unlimited originality but also super-genius. It should so thrill you that you will never halt with con- fessions of lack, limitation or impotence but armed with high resolve, call forth your powers and do differently and splendidly the work of your hands. Ability is within you. Plenty will come to you, if you will let the Creative Intel- ligence completely use you.