UC-NRLF 
 
 SB Efi 7MM 
 
 THE HEART 
 OF THINGS 
 
 CO 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 BY 
 EM.WALKER 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 BY 
 
 H. M. WALKER 
 
 c - 
 
 UNn : 
 
 THE SEGNOGRAM PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CAL. 
 
 1906 
 
COPYRIGHT 1906 
 
 BY 
 H. M. WALKER 
 
We grow through expression and if you know things, there is a strong 
 desire to express them. It is Nature's way of deepening our impressions 
 this thing of recounting them. And, happy, indeed, are you if you know a 
 soul with whom you can converse at your best. Elbert Hubbard. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "All is eligible to All, 
 All is for individuals, all is for you, 
 No condition is prohibited, not God's or any." 
 
 Walt Whitman. 
 
 
 HEN Greek meets Greek" look out! 
 When Love meets Love, look in! 
 The human being does not live who 
 is not susceptible to the touch of 
 Love. It makes no difference who 
 the man or woman, nor how cal- 
 loused the heart has grown in this 
 fight for bread, and the mad rush 
 for place, and pelf and power, if 
 Love will place her hand upon the 
 arm, and whisper the word of sym- 
 pathy into the hardened ear, and to 
 the heart-sick soul, the whole com- 
 plexion of life will change and a 
 responsive chord, long dead, shall be 
 awakened. Sympathy, the world 
 needs more than salvation. The 
 man whose life has been unprofit- 
 able; whose hopes have not been 
 realized; whose faith in his fellows 
 has been shaken, and who feels that 
 emptiness of life which brings a 
 longing to the heart for fellowship; 
 to him Love can go and he will 
 listen. 
 
 fl There are times in the experience 
 of us all when we labor seemingly 
 in vain ; when companions desert us 
 7 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and sympathy flows ever in the opposite direction. 
 At such times we grope as in the dark for a beam of 
 light to lighten our way, and it does not come. We 
 do not know which way to turn, and the cry of the 
 heart is for sympathy ! Sympathy ! Love ! 
 In writing this book the writer has sought to avoid 
 all superfluity of expression and has given in the 
 simplest words at his command the thoughts that have 
 come in those quiet moments with Hank. With no 
 thought of creating a sensation, and no desire to ad- 
 vance some fine theory, but just to get close to your 
 heart, and, as brother to brother, reason with you 
 about those little things that cling to us and cause us 
 pain and sometimes joy. 
 
 fl I introduce to you my closest friend, to whom the 
 book is dedicated. A quaint character is he; so sober 
 and subdued, and yet as real to me as the physical 
 presence of any reader of these lines. He lives as you 
 and I live; feeling with us the oozing of life's wine, 
 and noting the falling of life's leaves from the tree we 
 call Ourselves. And yet, never a frown upon his brow, 
 nor a ruffle in his spirits. To my friend, Hank Reklaw, 
 I introduce you. And Hank is as much your friend as 
 mine; he lives his life as near you as to me. He is 
 that Other Self. 
 
 No incident in my life is too insignificant for him to 
 note; no sorrow comes that he is not present to give 
 comfort, and no joy that he does not share. To him 
 this work is dedicated, because it is his by right of 
 authorship, ff I give back to him his own. 
 What inspiration you draw from it, if any, credit to 
 
 8 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 his account. And if, perchance, expression is given to 
 thoughts that conflict with those of every-day, draw 
 your chair closer to his, and reason it out with him. 
 Speaking from personal experience, I always have 
 found Hank a reasonable fellow. He will give way to 
 you many times, just to tease. Oft in my life he has 
 borne me "glad tidings" wrapped closely in deep folds 
 of crepe, and much agony has been mine while he 
 calmly stood without, thumping heavily at my soul's 
 door with an idea that I did not like. 
 Hank is the other half of me, as he is the other half 
 of you. I know him well so well that he can say 
 many things to me I would not bear from another. 
 Sometimes he speaks to me I know not why and 
 were it not for the love I know he has for me, the 
 sting of his words would break the heart. He speaks 
 on, and all the while my soul is resentful; but as he 
 reasons to me of Life and Light and Love, and carries 
 me away in the silent hours of my life's night, I feel 
 the very impulses that you feel; my thoughts become 
 your thoughts, my love your love. We are One in all 
 but the temple of flesh with which the soul is clothed, 
 and behind which we hide that Other Self. 
 And so, in drawing close to Hank's heart, I draw close 
 to yours. Arm-in-arm we see things together, if not 
 alike. There is but one Real Self. To me that Real 
 Self is Hank Reklaw. You may know him by an- 
 other name, but his thoughts will be the same, for he 
 is the same. This temporal body of flesh and blood 
 and bone and tissue may be scattered to the winds 
 like the bursting of a soap bubble, but Hank shall live 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 on because he is the Real. In him is the essence of 
 
 Truth. We are but pigmies in his hands shadows 
 
 of the Real. 
 
 When he talks to me he tells me what the world has 
 
 ever known what you know what others know. His 
 
 character is more real than the transitory person the 
 
 world knows as you and I here today, gone tomorrow 
 
 but that Other Self the One Real Self of all, of 
 
 which we reflect only a part lives on and on, and 
 
 shall ever live. 
 
 To that Other Self of You, I dedicate this book. 
 
 H. M. W. 
 Los Angeles, Cal., April 22, 1906. 
 
 I BELIEVE that All came from God, All is God, 
 and All will return to God. What our position 
 is before death, it will be after death. If we are given 
 over to greed, avarice and hatred in this city, our 
 companions will be companions of greed, avarice and 
 hatred in that city. We get what we give here, and 
 we will get what we give there. Hate, and hate will 
 return to you; love, and love will come back to you; 
 trust others, and others will trust you; mistrust 
 others, and you will be mistrusted; see none of God 
 in your fellow men, and your fellow men will see none 
 of God in you. 
 
 10 
 
SOUL STARVATION 
 
 "Walk while ye have the light, lest dark- 
 ness come upon you." 
 
 T was in the early morning; the sun 
 was just climbing the eastern hills 
 and its bright, warm rays shot over 
 the rugged mountain peaks down 
 into the valley. Out in the meadow 
 the birds sang their morning praise, 
 anthem-wise; the dew sparkled on 
 the green leaves, and all was happi- 
 ness in Nature's home. 
 As I sat dreaming, a man came 
 along the road and sat in the shade 
 near me. He was an old man sore 
 tried. He did not hear the singing 
 birds, because he did not have them 
 in his heart ; did not feel the warmth 
 of the sunshine, although he was 
 hot; did not see the sparkling dew- 
 drop, the azure sky, the green 
 meadows, nor the grand, rugged 
 hills standing, sentinel-like, over all. 
 He only saw what was reflected 
 from within his own sore heart, and 
 as he looked he lamented, fl Life to 
 him was incessant hardship. He had 
 toiled as few men had ever toiled; 
 he had saved, and skimped and 
 squeezed, and by this means had 
 amassed a fortune. He no longer 
 ii 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 had to watch the pennies he did not want to see 
 them, fl He wanted wealth in his earlier days. Now 
 he had it. fl But there was something he did not have, 
 which he would give the world to possess. He could 
 not give expression to his soul. It had shrivelled up. 
 fl The saucy birds could sing they were happy 
 while he, with wealth untold, was miserable. So bent 
 on getting riches he had been that he did not take 
 time to develop the ability to be happy. Now, with 
 all his wealth he could not buy it. He had wealth 
 without the capacity to enjoy it. He tried to have a 
 good time, but he did not know how. He spent his 
 money upon himself. He did not know another on 
 whom to lavish it. He did not love and could not serve. 
 fl You see, dear heart, the happiness that lasts the joy 
 that stays with you is not for sale; nor can it be 
 acquired in an atmosphere of luxury and plenty. The 
 old man could buy temporal comforts and indul- 
 gences, but content and peace could not be purchased. 
 |f With wealth, as with poverty, there must come wis- 
 dom, else there can be no happiness. And Wisdom 
 had not come to the old man because he had not 
 sought her. Satisfied with wealth, he got no more. 
 Now he searched the wide world for a touch from the 
 hand of Love, fl He turned away, and as he plodded 
 on, I heard him say : "Not here, not here." 
 
 HELL! I don't want to be "educated." Just a 
 friend or two who will love me for what I am. 
 
 12 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 FOLLOWING NATURE'S LEAD 
 
 "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, 
 Than one of these same meter ballad-mongers." Shakespeare. 
 
 NATURE always follows the line of least resist- 
 ance. Herein lies the secret of all success. The 
 man who wants to succeed in any calling of life would 
 be very foolish if he made himself obnoxious to all he 
 came in contact with. He would meet with resist- 
 ance at once, and in doing so would challenge Nature 
 to enter the arena against him. And when a man 
 does that, he may as well give up, for Nature will not 
 be antagonized : and she never loses a contest. Get on 
 the side of Nature and more than half the fight is won. 
 Study with what ease she does things. How care- 
 fully it all is planned, and how quietly and surely 
 every plan is carried out. 
 
 When a person desires to overcome some evil habit, or 
 to get away from a debilitating influence, if he is wise, 
 he will not place himself where the temptation will get 
 hold of him. He will adopt the rational way, and 
 withdraw to a place where temptation is less power- 
 ful. He will seek the line of least resistance. Or he 
 will overcome temptation by giving way to it. 
 In seeking the best for himself and other, the wise 
 man will do as Nature does. He will not strive 
 where the point of resistance is greatest, but will find 
 the weaker point and camp there. If he be weak, 
 he will again follow the example of Nature, and 
 
 13 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 let the good things come to him, instead of sacrificing 
 his life by striving against the more powerful elements 
 for them. 
 
 If a man desires the greatest success, he will not seek 
 the companionship of the unsuccessful, but will get in 
 touch with the successful. In so doing, he will work 
 in harmony with Nature, and thereby find what he 
 most needs. 
 
 It used to be the popular belief that "competition is 
 the life of trade," and every man thought his only 
 chance of success rested in his ability to cope with and 
 overcome his neighbor. If We are just closing a very 
 competitive period in the world's history perhaps the 
 greatest known. "As individuals we stand, united we 
 fall," has been the watchword. But a period of greater 
 success is dawning the period of co-operation. The 
 great trusts have shown what can be done in the com- 
 mercial world. fl Greater things are yet to be de- 
 veloped in the social world. 
 
 The power of thought is so mighty when properly 
 understood and applied, that men are uniting as never 
 before in a fraternal way in their efforts to better their 
 own condition and the condition of humanity, fl Long, 
 long ago, when the Man of Nazareth attempted to 
 point the Jewish church away from its attitude 
 of holiness to one of Simple Truth and Brotherly 
 Love, it turned upon him and he was crucified for his 
 pains. Since those days the church has changed some 
 for the better, because the people have grown more 
 enlightened, but even yet, it is far away from the 
 Simple Life. And while it remains away the demand 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 for co-operation among men will continue to grow, and 
 there will be the harmonizing of thought and action 
 for man's soul betterment outside of what we know as 
 religious lines. Men will draw closer together, and 
 will work out their own salvation and the salvation 
 of the world, in a natural way. 
 
 The church has failed to accomplish its prime object 
 because it would approach man at the point of great- 
 est resistance. The man Jesus pointed out this de- 
 fect, and was accusedof eating with publicans and sin- 
 ners; breaking the laws of the Sabbath; blasphemy, 
 and all manner of heresy. But, what Christ attempted 
 to show the church was this : that there is a better way 
 to approach a man than to say to him : "Here, sir, you 
 are damned : if you would be saved, you must believe 
 so-and-so." He saw the man from within and knew he 
 was not so black as orthodoxy painted him, and he 
 went to that man on the common footing of Brotherly 
 Love and showed him wherein custom and vice had 
 led him wrong. That was a long time ago, but it was 
 only yesterday that man realized the purpose of his 
 mission. 
 
 Our fraternal societies and our Success clubs are doing 
 their work in a similar way. They teach men co- 
 operation in thought and action, and point them to 
 the highest ideals of Harmony and Health, Happi- 
 ness and Love. 
 
 "Divided we stand ; united we fall" was the old motto. 
 "United we stand; divided we fall" is the new. And 
 so says Nature. 
 
SOUL, UNFOLDMENT 
 
 "Man makes a death, which Nature never 
 made." Edward Young. 
 
 HAT is there back of this physical 
 death that causes men to so fear it? 
 Death, when understood, is the most 
 natural thing in the universe quite 
 as natural as life itself, and as nec- 
 essary, if there is to be growth. In 
 our present state of mind and body, 
 the soul is so bound to a narrow, 
 misshapen life that, at best, it can- 
 not reach far beyond the confines of 
 Avarice, against the walls of which 
 it beats its wings like an imprisoned 
 eagle, which, looking high unto the 
 scraggy peaks, longs to soar above 
 them, amid the clouds. 
 Some day, when the sting of Death 
 is drawn, and all religious societies 
 become more concerned about the 
 now than the afterwhile, the world 
 will forget all about what might be 
 on the other side, and when the time 
 comes for man to make the dip into 
 the unknown, he will think as little 
 about it as he does of changing his 
 clothing. And what is now an oc- 
 casion for weeping, will have been 
 changed into one of laughing. As 
 Omar puts it: 
 16 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside 
 And, naked on the Air of Heaven ride; 
 
 Were it not a shame were it not a shame for him 
 In this clay carcase crippled to abide? 
 
 Where does man get his present conception of Death? 
 It is so hateful, and so unworthy the highest type of 
 animal! The fowls of the air; the beasts of the field 
 and those inhabiting the ocean deep, have no such 
 fear of Nature's most necessary function. Only man 
 fears it, and he does not fear the thing itself so much 
 as what he has taught himself to believe shall be his 
 experience after death. Conscious of a life beyond 
 the tomb knowing that Death does not end all 
 he feels his own unfitness for the place or condition 
 which centuries of false teaching has shapened in his 
 imagination, fl He has trained his mind to look upon 
 heaven and hell as an after state, neither of which he 
 is quite sure of. He has built Heaven so high that, 
 knowing his own failings and weaknesses, and con- 
 scious of his breaches of the moral laws with which 
 tradition has surrounded him, he fears to meet the 
 God he has made for himself, in his own image, and 
 draws away from the unknowable in fear and trem- 
 bling. 
 
 All this is natural enough for man, since from the be- 
 ginning he has been taught that he was born fore- 
 ordained to be damned, but it is not the mental con- 
 dition of Nature. 
 
 Before man had any knowledge of good and evil, he 
 was as indifferent to his future state as any other ani- 
 mal, and therefore was not pestered with any ques- 
 tion about the whence and whither and why of it all. 
 But as soon as he partook of the fruit that made him 
 
 17 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 like the Being in whose image he was made, he felt 
 his unworthiness and tried to hide himself. He has 
 been doing so ever since. 
 
 The "lower animal" the dog, for instance does not 
 have any fear of death, because he has no knowledge 
 of right and wrong. To him death means we do not 
 know. But how much better for him that he has not 
 set laws for himself, or allowed other dogs to do it, 
 that are unnatural for him to follow. The dog lives 
 his life as a dog of his breed should, and when death 
 comes he takes it as naturally as he would a bone 
 from his master's hand. 
 
 I do not know. Man may have a higher nature than 
 the dog. But, if he has, why does he live his life so 
 unnaturally that he is ever on bad terms with Nature, 
 and unworthy of the best the Universe has to bestow 
 on him? Why wasn't he endowed with qualities that 
 would enable him to live his life as true to Nature as 
 the dog, or the cat, or the bird, or the beast, or the 
 plant lives his? Is it possible that the highest Ex- 
 pression of Nature in animal form is more imperfect 
 than the lowest Expression of Nature? Is it possible? 
 Or is it just man's misconception of things ? Is it not 
 just possible that man, in his hankering after knowl- 
 edge, has sought to build about himself restraints that 
 Nature and Nature's God never intended him to have? 
 And isn't it just possible, too, that, should these re- 
 straints be torn away and cast aside, and man return 
 to the natural God-animal that he is, there would be no 
 thought of right and wrong, but all his actions and 
 
 18 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 thoughts would be in absolute harmony with Nature, 
 and therefore with the Being we call God? 
 Why expect more of man than he is capable of ren- 
 dering? Does it seem reasonable for an All- Wise 
 Being to make something after his own image and 
 not endow it with sense enough to know what it ought 
 to do? To say it were so, is to deny the wisdom of 
 the Master. And to go still farther and declare that 
 after the All Wise created the man after His Own 
 Image, and, knowing him to be without knowledge 
 and reason, He left him at the mercy of the evil one, 
 and, then, because the man gave way to the wiles of 
 the evil one, to say that God turned upon him and 
 damned him, and all that came after him, is the most 
 unreasonable proposition human or divine mind could 
 imagine. 
 
 No human father could conceive such a diabolical 
 plan. When a son is born endowed with the parents' 
 evil propensities and passions, this fact is taken in 
 palliation of any offense he might commit. Cruel 
 cruel, indeed would be that father who would damn 
 the son or daughter of his loins for expressing the 
 natural bent of his or her Nature Self, fl And to allow 
 ourselves to be carried away by the mythical belief 
 that God All Wise All Powerful All Loving did 
 make man in His own image and bestow upon him 
 all knowledge but the knowledge of good and evil, and 
 then did set before him the tree of knowledge and 
 demand him to restrain from eating of its fruit on the 
 penalty of knowing right from wrong to believe that 
 God did this, I say, and, too, before the man Adam 
 
 19 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 knew right from wrong, is the most preposterous 
 proposition with which the human mind ever had to 
 deal. It is inconceivable how a Being All Wise could 
 expect a being without knowledge of right and wrong 
 to follow the dictates of any other passion than that 
 of Desire. And it is hideous to teach that this All- 
 Wise Being did damn the Being who knew not what 
 was wrong until he had committed it; and not only 
 this being, Adam, but all beings made like him from 
 the dawn of creation until its night. 
 The teaching, I say, is hideous. And yet, upon this 
 teaching hinges the truth or falsity of Society's posi- 
 tion with regard to man's destiny. 
 If It is not the writer's desire to bring into question 
 beliefs that have stood for so much that has been dear 
 to the heart of humanity all the ages that are past, 
 but he feels that all of man's fear of death is based 
 upon this remarkable story of man's downfall, and 
 back of it, and in it, and from it, springs the great 
 cause of man's inhuman treatment of the spirit within 
 him called God, and his unnatural expression of Life 
 as it flows through him. 
 
 Take away this abominable, unnatural, inhuman be- 
 lief about God and man and the devil, and the relation 
 of these three in the crime of man's downfall, and you 
 take away all fear, and place an entirely different com- 
 plexion on man, his privileges and his responsibilities. 
 Instead of making him a cringing criminal unworthy 
 the love of his God, you make him a creation of the 
 Power Divine, made in God's image, and placed on 
 earth as His representative, fit to do His will and 
 
 20 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 made for that purpose. You make him feel, not only 
 his privilege, but also his responsibility, and he will 
 not think of doing what is contrary to the will of Na- 
 ture and Nature's God. On the other hand ; teach him 
 that he is here, conceived in sin, damned before he 
 knows what life is, and impress upon him day after 
 day, week after week, year after year, century upon 
 century,~that he is a weakling prone to do evil sin- 
 ful and mean; that all his fathers before him were no 
 better than he all damned before birth, and what 
 kind of manhood flowers? 
 
 "But," I hear you say, "you take out of life God's 
 plan of salvation. You would do away with the need 
 of a Savior." Well, what of it? But I do not. I 
 would acknowledge, if you please, the supremacy of 
 Christ as the Son of God. I believe He is. And as a 
 Savior? Yes. The life He spent upon earth, judging 
 from what we know of it, made Him a Savior just as 
 the life of any man who lives so Nature can speak and 
 act through him makes him a savior to others. 
 When we forget that we are we, and feel that the I, 
 the ego, the It-All of the universe (call it God, Na- 
 ture, Spirit, what you will), when we feel that It is 
 ourselves, and that this body this thing we call man 
 is only the instrument through which Life flows then 
 do we realize what was meant by Christ's words : "My 
 Father and I are one He in me I in you." 
 f["But man is a free agent," you say. Yes, he is. Free 
 to accept defeat and condemnation by closing his life 
 to the inflow and outflow of humanity's love, thus re- 
 tarding the natural unfoldment of Nature through 
 
 21 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 him ; or free to accept all, and allow himself to be made 
 a motor through which life is generated and made to 
 serve the It-All of the universe, which ever is striving 
 for more perfect expression, whether through man or 
 beast, fowl, fish or plant life. 
 
 fl My God is a Being of Truth and Love. He is Truth 
 and Love. My God is not a Being of jealousy and 
 revenge. I grow into my God, as I allow Nature ex- 
 pression through me ; I do not grow from him. To be 
 like my God, I am my God: i. e., my God is in me. 
 And when my God is in me, I will not dishonor him 
 by whining about my weaknesses. 
 ft My mind recalls the impressions I had, when, a 
 straight-haired lad of seven years, I sat by mother's 
 side in the old home church, and, parrot-like, repeated 
 the service of an established religious society. Sun- 
 day after Sunday, I watched others come and go, and 
 heard them recite by rote as I did, the stereotyped ex- 
 pressions, "have mercy upon us, miserable sinners," 
 "spare us, Good Lord," "Good Lord, deliver us," etc., 
 and my boy's heart recoiled at the thought that God 
 was such a Being as would delight to have his chil- 
 dren come before him with such a shameful wail upon 
 their lips. I knew many kind and loving people in 
 those congregations, and I did not believe they were 
 poor miserable sinners. In fact, I knew they were 
 not. And the logic of my boyish mind would not per- 
 mit me to think that they themselves believed they 
 were so bad as their wail of woe made it appear. 
 I did not know then the names of the men who pre- 
 pared that bemeaning service of supplication. Nor do 
 
 22 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 I care now. This is the truth that came to me then, 
 and has grown upon me since: No man or body of 
 men can frame words for me that will express my love 
 for the God of Nature; and no man or body of men 
 can prepare a prayer that will tell my heart's wish for 
 my fellows or express my heart's praise of its fulness 
 of the Divine in all. Nor could any man, or body of 
 men, prepare a stock letter that would convey to God 
 my confession of sin if such were necessary. 
 fl I cannot imagine a Supreme Being so hideous as to 
 take pleasure out of having me run to Him every Sun- 
 day and mumble in his ear a stereotyped indictment 
 against myself, written by men, perhaps two or three 
 hundred years before I was born. One tiny thought 
 of love from my heart to His is worth all the buzzy- 
 wuzzy prayers, sung do-see-do, that ever clogged the 
 flow of Nature's love and repressed the expression of 
 the Divine in me. 
 
 The writer is quite sure that Man's Divinity should 
 make more of him than a talking machine, fl I was 
 reading the other day the story of a young, sweet 
 singer, who sang into a phonograph, and a few weeks 
 later sickness robbed Life of a vessel of expression 
 through her here. At the grave, while her body was 
 being lowered into the earth, her voice was heard from 
 the talking machine singing, "Nearer, My God, to 
 Thee." And I thought it was all very nice, fl There 
 is something Divine in the work of men and women 
 who find themselves before death robs Nature of ex- 
 pression through them here. For then they leave the 
 world something it did not have before their indi- 
 
 23 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 viduality. Ofttimes, centuries after their bodies are 
 broken and their faces forgotten, the world listens to 
 words expressing that individuality, though it refused 
 to hear them when Life animated the mortal machine. 
 To find himself, man must search. He must refuse 
 to be content to accept what is. fl The thought that 
 wiggled its way into me and became part of my life 
 when a boy, as I heard the same cry of guilt and 
 shame repeated week after week, was this: If so 
 much has been done that ought not to have been done, 
 and so much left undone that ought to have been done, 
 why don't you good people do what you ought to do, 
 and leave undone what you ought not do? My in- 
 quiries then and since have elicited no answer. 
 I know a lot of good people who still continue to say 
 what they used to say when I was a boy, and yet I am 
 sure they do not believe what they have been telling 
 God all these years ; and if anybody else were to say of 
 them what they have said of themselves they would 
 complain mightily and I would not blame them. 
 All this is written in simple love, and with no desire 
 to cast a ray of doubt or cynicism upon the estab- 
 lished order of things. However, men will think. 
 And if we take down the bars and let the light into 
 the mind, Nature shows us many things we did not 
 know before. It is a psychological fact, that man will 
 be what he thinks he is. Let him repeat the thought 
 as the days go by that he is miserable, sinful and 
 worthy only to be damned, and he will be damned, be- 
 cause he ought to be. As one has expressed it : "He 
 will be hypnotized by his own thoughts," and what, 
 
 24 
 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 by repeated suggestion, he has been taught to think 
 he is, he will be. A deadening of soul growth will be 
 the result, ft And while we are speaking on the ques- 
 tion of Soul Growth, let me say what you already 
 know. 
 
 |f "Soul Growth'* is generally understood to mean 
 something apart from man's daily routine. It has a 
 churchy sound, and man associates it somewhat un- 
 consciously with his Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes. 
 Never did he make a greater mistake. In days of old, 
 when knights were bold or they weren't the priests 
 claimed to hold the fate of the souls of men in their 
 hands. Some believe so yet. With them I have no 
 quarrel. If an individual is so blind to his privileges 
 as to place in the hands of another the care of his 
 Soul (Life) it is for him to obey the one to whom he 
 enslaves himself. 
 
 But let us take away from "Soul Growth" all thought 
 of priest-craft, churchism and sacrifice, fl Place man in 
 the light of what he is : A God in the chrysalis. "My 
 Father and I are one: He in me; I in you." There 
 is no mistaking the meaning of these words. They 
 are simple and direct. Where in them do we find the 
 thought of the priest intruded? If, then, man is God 
 in the chrysalis, there must be an unfoldment of the 
 soul if there is to be Soul Growth. The word unfold- 
 ment conveys the right idea. It means continuous 
 action perpetual unfolding a gradual, steady un- 
 doing. Like the rose bud, we retain Life as we unfold 
 it, for in the unfolding we express the Universal Life 
 that flows through us. If the bud does not unfold it 
 
 25 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 never becomes the rose, and all of Nature (and what 
 is Nature is God) is robbed thereby of so much Life 
 Expression, fl Man's soul is like the rose. Ordinarily 
 it buds. But how often it dies only a soulbud. And 
 because it is only a soulbud, Nature is deprived of so 
 much Life Expression, and this heaven of ours is 
 thereby made the meaner. 
 
 fl The Soul's unfoldment comes as all things of Nature 
 come. Man is a reasoning being, and must unfold in 
 a reasonable way. First, then, he must recognize that 
 he is a Soul that through him Nature is expressing 
 herself in a different way than she ever expressed her- 
 self before, or can express herself through another, 
 and yet in a perfectly natural way. To do this she 
 must not be hampered by man in his false notions 
 about Goodness. Custom and the priest have com- 
 bined to so mystify man about his moral downfall that 
 his whole life is spent in whining about his unworthi- 
 ness. As a result he does not unfold. He never gets 
 beyond a soulbud condition. Let him live the Life 
 of Love, day by day, and Nature will not ask more. 
 Soul unfoldment will come as naturally as the sunshine 
 makes the rosebud unfold into the rose. 
 Perhaps I am wrong. But may not we treat our souls 
 with the same consideration that we do our stomachs, 
 for after all is said, one is not far separated from the 
 other. Feed the stomach the proper nourishment; 
 give it work, and rest, and quiet, when it needs it, and 
 it never will cause any uneasiness. You will not 
 know you have a stomach but for the pleasure it 
 brings you. 
 
 26 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 fl The rose does not stop to question the fragrance of 
 its perfume. Neither does the skunk cabbage. Each 
 seeks to express Nature one as faithfully as the 
 other. 
 
 J[ When we speak about Soul Growth the listener or 
 reader usually falls at once into the mistake of be- 
 lieving that it has reference to the individual's welfare 
 in the after life. Soul Growth to the writer means 
 much more than this. While it does have bearing 
 upon the individual's future state as well as his pres- 
 ent, its chief bearing is upon what we know as Life, 
 whether here or there. And by Life, I mean Uni- 
 versal Life not Individual Life. There is that long- 
 ing in you and me which prompts us to do and dare 
 things that bring us much unpleasantness, and some- 
 times remorse. We do not know why we do it, and 
 while we labor under the load of remorse we fain 
 would retrace our steps if it were possible. But slowly 
 the remorse wears off, and we find as we emerge from 
 the shadow that Life is more abundantly ours than 
 before we passed into the shadow, fl We developed in 
 the shadow what we could not have developed in the 
 bright sunshine, and we find that Nature flows into uS 
 and through us more freely now than before, fl For 
 days and perhaps weeks after one of these shadow 
 spells, we feel free as the birds of the air, and can 
 see how good life is. We see back of the cloud 
 back of the action that brought remorse back back 
 of the thing that brought us happiness before, and it 
 seems so commonplace so insignificant that we 
 wonder we ever could have taken pleasure out of it. 
 
 27 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Not until then do we realize that we have grown 
 not till then do we see how necessary the cloud was. 
 Thus we learn by easy stages that this Individual Life 
 is only an atom in the Universal Life, and that as we 
 pass through experience after experience we grow into 
 a being which becomes ever more capable of giving 
 expression to the Life that Is the Life Universal. 
 Could man realize more perfectly the limitlessness 01 
 Life, and feel the indestructibility of it could he feel 
 the immensity of his capacity to give expression to it, 
 if he could but live above his conception of the Indi- 
 vidual Life then the beauty of it all, and the gran- 
 deur, would blind him to the incongruities of what we 
 are taught to look upon as human existence. 
 We speak of Soul, and Life, and Spirit, as if we knew 
 these things to be individual Somethings distinct and 
 apart from each other and then we say that in this 
 body of matter these Somethings dwell. We speak of 
 "the Spirit of Man," "the Soul of Man," "the Life of 
 Man," as if we believed man consisted of this poor 
 vessel we dress up and give a distinguishing name 
 as if man were something superior to and distinct 
 from all other forms of Life. And then, as a natural 
 sequence we indulge the thought that this superior 
 being called man is removed from any accountability 
 to any other form of life. He can kill the "lower ani- 
 mals" with impunity, destroy at pleasure, and is ac- 
 countable to no one for thus expressing the brute in 
 him. 
 
 This is the natural outcome of the unnatural concep- 
 tion we have of Life. We are prone to individualize 
 
 28 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 things. We speak of the animal, the tree, the plant, 
 the bird, man, God, devil, priest, saint and sinner, as 
 if each were a distinct life and had no relation to the 
 Life that Is the Universal Life. We speak of Nature 
 and of God of natural things and spiritual things as 
 if the Being called God had no relation to Nature and 
 was, in fact, opposed to it. Thus we build up in the 
 Life of the Universe, of which the life of man is only 
 one form of expression, a life of antagonism, in which 
 we teach the doctrine of "every man for himself and 
 the devil take the hindmost." 
 
 Such a teaching, which man stubbornly holds to, ap- 
 peals to the negative side of him. He is taught to ex- 
 press as little as possible of Nature Life, and so, be- 
 cause he expresses little gives little he gets little 
 does not grow. Growth Soul Growth, like all other 
 forms of growth, is experienced by man just in propor- 
 tion to his capacity to give expression to Life as it 
 comes to him. 
 
 |f If we cultivate the selfish temperament we shall not 
 desire to give any more of Life than we have to ; and 
 Nature will not thrust upon us a task we do not care 
 to do, but will find another vessel through which to 
 give Life. 
 
 |f All men have a desire to live abundantly. There is 
 a sort of mechanical existence that we call life, which 
 is most attractive to man, but which is so artificial 
 and baubleized that Nature finds no expression 
 through it. In such a life we find no Soul Growth, be- 
 cause the Soul of Nature has been crowded out. 
 |f Soul-Growth is man's natural unfoldment into God. 
 
 29 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 When we can go into the forest and feel the warm 
 heartbeat of the It-All in the trees in response to the 
 heartbeats of the It- All in us ; when we can commune 
 with the It-All, as It speaks through the flower, the 
 bird, the beast, the rolling heavens, the mourning seas, 
 the pastoral landscape, the scraggy peaks and the rum- 
 ble of the city's marts when we can feel with It, and 
 think with It, and know that we are part of It, then 
 we know the possibilities of man and learn what Life 
 is, for then we die to live the individual man is lost 
 in the Expression of the Whole. 
 
 We are man-shaped atoms through which the Uni- 
 verse works; we are the bowls from which is poured 
 the Spirit of the Eternal God. 
 
 T^TEVER try to stop an ambitious man. In the first 
 f ^1 place, you cannot do it; that's the work of the 
 Omnipotent. In the second place, it will not do you 
 nor him any good if you succeed. Stop him today, 
 and tomorrow he will break out in a new place. God 
 bless him; that's what we like about him. He never 
 is stilled. Forge ahead he will! If you find his pace 
 too fast for you, better drop out than be a drag. Give 
 him rein. If he is right he will succeed whether or 
 no; if he is not right, the quickest way to stop him is 
 to let him stop himself. 
 
 30 
 
SIMPLICITY OF NATURE 
 
 "We are all children of the kingdom of 
 God! and it doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be." Hubbard. 
 
 -it 
 
 WARM summer wind blows toward 
 me over the sweet-smelling clover 
 field. With each breath I see visions 
 of childhood days, when life was 
 all so happy because it was so sim- 
 ple. Yonder in the corner of the old 
 rail fence I see frisky, rollicking 
 Maud, and around her Tommy, Dick 
 and Harry; Alice, Annie and Kate. 
 Their sunburnt faces are hid in the 
 clover. I cannot see the glow of 
 their ruddy cheeks, but their child- 
 like prattle and merry laugh tells 
 me so many things about Goodness 
 that I did not know before. I see 
 the tops of their flaxen heads just 
 even with the red clover balls, some 
 of them sun-bonneted, and some 
 glistening golden in the sunlight. 
 Now and then one will bob up and 
 down, so joyous, and careless, and 
 gay. How indifferent they are to 
 life so happy in each other's love. 
 They are healthy, rollicking boys 
 and girls; full of what Nature put 
 into them no better, no worse 
 than any other children. They do 
 not know they have a stomach until 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 they abuse it do not know what Goodness is until 
 they misuse it content and happy glad to be just 
 what they are because their minds have not been 
 warped into believing that there is something better 
 for them in the meadow beyond. 
 
 Would I be a child again? No; not in pinafore. But 
 this I would be now and always a child in spirit. 
 I know we are not any older than we feel. I would 
 make all this world a clover field : red-topped, shower- 
 bedewed, and kissed by the glowing sun. In my 
 corner of it, I would be a child forever, and with those 
 I love about me I would be what God by nature made 
 me no better, no worse, than you, my brother. And 
 as I became childlike I would become Christlike. Not 
 a whining, whimpering baby would I be, continually 
 bemoaning my sinfulness. My stomach would not 
 ache because I would not eat green apples. My soul 
 would not cry out in anguish, because it would not 
 be in anguish. I would be a child in spirit. And, do 
 you know, sister; children do not know what a pain is 
 if they are healthy. Neither do souls, if they are let 
 alone, and are healthy. 
 
 SEEKING THE IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 "I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made 
 men, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so 
 abominably." Hamlet, 
 
 THE old man's head was white with years, and he 
 walked with feeble and uncertain step, leaning 
 upon a stick. The granddaughter was just closing 
 
 32 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 her teens and soon would step off into the twenties. 
 She was graceful as a fawn; lithe and pretty. They 
 sauntered along the path crossing the meadow where 
 the morning sun tips the green and makes the dew- 
 drops sparkle like jewels upon the neck of a Venus 
 waiting the coming of Adonis. 
 
 fl "I do so want to be good, Grandpa," she said. "But 
 it is almost impossible, sometimes." 
 jf "Want to be good, did you say, girlie? Ah, no; 
 don't 'want to be good/ Be what you are, that is 
 enough just what you are. Everybody 'wants to be 
 good/ The mortal does not live who has not felt with 
 you that unsatisfied longing. What does it mean, this 
 desire 'to be good?' Perhaps the working of the Di- 
 vine in us; perhaps a consciousness that we are not 
 living up to our Ideal? I do not know. Somebody 
 has said, that if we do not live up to our Ideal, it will 
 come down to us. Haven't you, time and again, felt 
 a Divine impulse to go forward and upward to grasp 
 the opportunity that would lift you nearer your Ideal? 
 And you failed failed because because oh, dear! 
 What shall I say? Then will come that longing 'to 
 be good.' 
 
 "Listen, daughter; is there any merit in such a long- 
 ing when we know it is the result of our own lack of 
 will to do the thing? Had we done it, the longing 
 would not be in the heart, but we would feel the com- 
 fort of having done that which would bring us nearer 
 what we ought to be. Having failed, we try to patch 
 things up with ourselves our conscience and long 
 'to be good.' 
 
 33 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 "The fact is, little girl: this 'be good* business is 
 worked to tatters. There isn't anything in it. It is 
 all a false alarm, arising out of a false belief. When 
 we do our duty, we do not think of 'being good/ We 
 simply are, and that is all of it." 
 
 And with this May and December walked hand in 
 hand out of hearing. 
 
 MOULTING OUR IDEAS 
 
 "Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 
 But looks through Nature up to Nature's God." Pope, 
 
 ALL men seek to know the Truth. The reason 
 some men know more of it than others is because 
 they are prepared to step farther in advance of "the 
 accepted order of things" than others. They seek 
 diligently for it, and do not stop even when they run 
 in conflict with what has been accepted as Truth by 
 their fellows for years, and, perhaps, ages past. 
 The man seeking to know the Truth does not stop to 
 question what others think of it when he finds it. He 
 accepts it, no matter where he finds it, and however 
 unorthodox it may appear. It matters little to him 
 if others cannot see it as he does. He knows it is 
 Truth, and all the powers that be cannot turn him 
 from it. Men may laugh and quibble, but the Truth- 
 seeker does not mind them. He knows intuitively 
 what is sound and what unsound, and, though all the 
 known world may flout his testimony, he holds fast 
 to what he has discovered, knowing some day others 
 
 34 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 will see it. The men who have done most to 
 shake the world have been men who, like Pericles, 
 Socrates, Jesus, Paul, John, Darwin and Hubbard, 
 have been brave enough to stem the current of popu- 
 lar belief, and big enough to state the Truth as they 
 saw it, when they saw it, no matter if it required that 
 they go contrary to the previous belief of the whole 
 world, themselves included. The man who is not 
 prepared to relinquish his ideas of yesterday for newer 
 ideas today, cannot hope to make head in the way of 
 Truth. "Consistency," said Emerson, "is the hobgob- 
 lin of little minds," and this is never more strikingly 
 exemplified than in the matter of ideas. The small 
 man is he who refuses to accept new ideas because 
 they conflict with those of yesterday. The smallest 
 man is he, who, refusing to accept today's ideas, con- 
 demns and damns the man who does. It may be true, 
 it no doubt is, that the man who refuses to accept 
 today's ideas is honest in his effort to be consistent. 
 But no man because he is honest, or thinks he is, can 
 claim the right to bind another down to his ideas of 
 Truth. What I know of Truth today may not be 
 will not be all that I shall know of Truth tomorrow 
 if I am advancing. Each day I must become better 
 acquainted with Truth than I was the day before. If 
 I do not my ideas will become stale, and bigotry, like 
 gangrene, will eat into my soul. 
 
 Over in Canada they have a colony of Dukhobors. As 
 members of society they are a quiet, sober and hard- 
 working people. They are the offshoot of a Russian 
 religious sect founded in Kharkov about 1750-75. Th 
 
 35 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 rapid growth of the sect brought upon its members 
 governmental persecution as early as 1797 to 1800. 
 Then the government thought better of the Dukho- 
 bortsi and settled them upon a tract of fertile land on 
 the banks of the river Molochnaya in Taurida. Re- 
 lieved from official annoyances the colony soon ex- 
 perienced a period of thrift and prosperity. Then 
 again, about 1819, the government resumed hostile 
 measures, the result of a policy of the church to bring 
 all religious elements of the Russian empire into con- 
 formity with Greek Catholicism. So severe were the 
 measures, and so cruel the treatment of these honest 
 people by the Russian church, that early in the nine- 
 ties, if you remember, the attention of the outside 
 world was attracted to them, and after long petition- 
 ing many thousands were allowed to leave for Cyprees 
 and Canada. 
 
 The religious views of these people are simple in the 
 extreme, and are handed down by oral tradition. 
 Christ was only a man of superior godlike intellect, 
 and his soul has migrated into many mortals. All peo- 
 ple are equal, and, being children of God, do what is 
 right; hence there is no need of rulers. They do not 
 visit churches, considering that wherever two or three 
 persons endowed with intellect, even if Jews or Mo- 
 hammedans, gather for worship, there is a church. 
 They accept the Ten Commandments, and of the 
 Bible "only the useful portions," interpreting the rest 
 allegorically. They have no icons, confessions or 
 ceremonies at marriages, which they contract by the 
 heart's inclination only. In private life, wives and 
 
 36 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 husbands are sisters and brothers; the parents "old 
 man" and "old woman." The plenary power of a 
 Dukhobor community is vested in the assembly of 
 elders, presided over by a bishop. 
 My purpose in thus going into detail about the Dukho- 
 bors is twofold. First, all men must concede that the 
 Dukhobor gets nearer to Nature than the most of 
 us, and therefore has much in his religious life that 
 is superior to much to be found in the life of any 
 modern denominational sect. But, to offset his good 
 qualities, the Dukhobor has much in him that is bad. 
 It is a way Nature has. When you see a man with 
 marked qualities in one direction he will be found 
 deficient in another. It has to be this way to preserve 
 a balance, fl The creed of the Dukhobor teaches that 
 it is sinful to eat any kind of animal substance, and 
 they strictly adhere to that belief by refusing to use 
 anything that has come in contact with any animal. 
 When the Canadian government brought that colony 
 of Dukhobors from Russia, each head of a Dukhobor 
 family was given 160 acres of land; houses were built 
 for them and their farms stocked with horses, cows 
 and poultry. Farming implements were given them, 
 and a number of men were employed to show them 
 how to work. Of course, no government could be ex- 
 pected to show as much consideration for the poor 
 and hungry of its own native-born. In matters of 
 charity we often rob our own of the needful to give 
 to those infinitely better off if let alone, fl And so the 
 Canadian government refused assistance to its own 
 native-born, and spent several hundred thousand dol- 
 
 37 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 lars for the Dukhobor. This, of course, is nothing 
 against the Dukhobor. What I am getting at is this: 
 While the Dukhobor is intensely religious, and po- 
 litically he is theocratic, he is also stubbornly foolish 
 and distressingly lazy. His bishop's word is his law. 
 But he won't work if he can get the Lord to keep him 
 from hunger without it. Instead of staying home and 
 tending to his knitting, he goes a-swarming periodic- 
 ally in search of the Christ. When he is induced to 
 work he hitches his wife to the plow along with the 
 oxen and makes her hold up her end with the ox. 
 Perhaps the best we can say of him is that he is re- 
 ligious. 
 
 It is this parallel that we are arriving at : The Dukho- 
 bor's soul is bound up in his bishop! The Soul of 
 the man who dukhobors life, is bound up in the world's 
 ideas of yesterday. While each may be honest, he is 
 not wise. No man can have wisdom who limits his 
 thoughts to those of others, and confines his ideas to 
 those of yesterday. History is full of proof. Where 
 such a condition exists, Truth is buried beneath the 
 gangrene of bigotry. Nations and men are made great 
 by mothers and wives of thoughtfulness and love. 
 Hitch a woman to a plow with the ox and we have a 
 priest-ridden people. And a priest-ridden people 
 never has stood ace high in either intelligence or 
 morals. Now, what is a priest-ridden people? I'll 
 tell you what: A priest-ridden people is a people 
 which never has risen above its ideas of yesterday. 
 
THE MYSTERYOr MAN 
 
 'Man never is, but always to be blest." Pope. 
 
 -J^ 
 
 HE remarkable thing about it is that 
 man will persist in building up an 
 unfathomable mystery about him- 
 self, and his future, and then pay 
 another man to give him peace of 
 mind by offering a solution that does 
 not solve. It seems to be a weak- 
 ness of human nature that impels 
 men to take the way that appears 
 most mysterious to accomplish the 
 ordinary. In his efforts to discover 
 some new way to perform life's du- 
 ties, man has formulated a thousand 
 and one creeds and beliefs, each of 
 which adds more mystery to the 
 things he desires light upon. 
 When the priests heard Christ's 
 simple doctrine of Love and Service 
 he was swept away in a whirlwind 
 of abuse. Up to the time of his com- 
 ing "sacrifice" was the keynote of 
 the established church, and the word 
 was set to the jingle of silver and 
 gold. Then came the teaching that 
 service is more acceptable than sac- 
 rifice, and forthwith the priest saw 
 his doom. One of two things had to 
 happen : The holy synod had to put 
 
 39 
 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Christ out of existence or get out of existence itself. 
 Naturally the church chose its priestly privilege and 
 sacrificed Christ, that it might live in his name. 
 |f Man is a peculiar animal, fl There is just one thing 
 more strange, and that is his mate, woman. 
 "You gaze at a star for two motives, because it is 
 luminous and because it is impenetrable. You have 
 by your side a sweeter radiance and greater mystery 
 woman," said Hugo. 
 
 In his business life man is as reasonable and sensible 
 as can be, but in matters affecting soul growth 
 really the higher and better part of his nature he is 
 most unreasonable. Go to the ordinary business man 
 with a proposition affecting his business and he will 
 take it up and weigh it carefully. If you can show 
 him that it means greater success and greater oppor- 
 tunity for him, he will put his money into it and set 
 the machinery in motion. He will make it operative 
 as soon as possible, and keep it busy. Nor will he 
 delegate to another the power to dictate the proposi- 
 tion. In all his methods he uses simple, honest, logical 
 reason and energy, fl Contrast this with his method 
 of advancing his Soul Growth. Indeed, most of us 
 have no method. No thought is taken of developing 
 the divine in us, and to the priest is delegated the 
 power to act for us. Our business with the Divine is 
 done by proxy, if at all. fl As well say that I may send 
 you to school to study mathematics for me, or to 
 the gymnasium to develop my muscular power, or to 
 the table and to bed to do my eating and sleeping. 
 When we delegate to another that which we alone can 
 
 40 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 do, we deprive ourselves of the only means by which 
 we may assist our growth, fl We evolve into better 
 men and women by doing well the common things 
 of life. 
 
 When we exercise the physical and digestive ap- 
 paratus, and allow the mental or the spiritual to stand 
 still, we become one-sided, unsymmetrical beings, un- 
 fit for advancement, fl This is the condition of society 
 today. It shows abnormal development along selfish 
 lines. The church, moving with the crowd, has taken 
 on the spirit of the day. It will evolve into something 
 better when the people do. It never leads the way. 
 All down the ages the way to progress has been 
 opened by men who were ostracised by the church, and 
 condemned by the priest. It was so when Jesus, the 
 man Christ came. It was his simplicity and humility 
 that upset the rutified formality so perniciously ad- 
 hered to by the priests. He pointed to the absurdity 
 of flowing gowns, long prayers, majestic church build- 
 ings, and a superfluity of altars of sacrifice. All of 
 these things were as nothing to him if from the heart 
 of man there did not flow the simple love that 
 made the life radiate the Goodness of God. History 
 is full of the names of men who, growing tired of the 
 "religious" moaning for the "lost and sinful world," 
 stood up boldly and declared the divine right of man 
 to be as God. The priest never has been pleased to 
 accept this teaching. He believes, or pretends to be- 
 lieve, that man is made good absolved from sin by 
 his priestly prayers. As if Nature were going to 
 teach a man goodness without compelling him to 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 practice it! It is an absurd thought to pretend that 
 we are damned until some man in a flowing gown 
 condescends to absolve us and put within us good for 
 evil. 
 
 Would to God men would stop long enough in their 
 mad creed worship to get a right good hold upon 
 themselves. Think, you! Are we to deny the God 
 of the Universe expression through us for the sake of 
 adhering to a narrow creed that depicts us as miser- 
 able sinners? Are we to blind ourselves to the living 
 Spirit of Goodness within us that we might adhere to 
 a doctrine of self-abasement? Are we to continue to 
 refuse to receive that which by nature we are heirs 
 to, simply to make room for and foster an organiza- 
 tion of blind guides? 
 
 I like the writings of that grand old Apostle, Paul. 
 When he tells us that the kingdom of heaven is within 
 us, he does not talk in riddles. Custom has a way of 
 rolling 1 the eyes upward when the word heaven is 
 mentioned, and the priest points away off yonder into 
 space. But men of all ages big enough to stand true 
 to their convictions, and bold enough to give expres- 
 sion to the Alpha and Omega in them -call it Nature, 
 Truth, or what you will have at all times declared 
 with the Apostle, "the kingdom of heaven is within 
 you." Absurd, indeed, is the idea that heaven is a 
 place where there will not be any useful work per- 
 formed, flln our present state of development and 
 we are as yet but poor expressions of Nature we 
 know how essential to our evolution into more perfect 
 vessels is honest, useful labor. Let a man be kept 
 
 42 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 busy in a useful calling and he grows steadily into 
 something better ; but give him nothing to do, and he 
 at once begins to drift into decay. 
 When we see a man spend millions on his home, pro- 
 viding for himself luxuries that create a demand for 
 laziness that he may enjoy them, we feel the pity of 
 it, and the words uttered so long ago ring in our ears, 
 "Fool, this night thy soul shall be demanded of thee." 
 We know that such a life can lead only to oblivion 
 spiritual forgetfulness in which there can be no Soul 
 Growth; and we know that death of soul must fol- 
 low. The strenuous life the life that accomplishes 
 something is the life we point to with pride. Where 
 is the honest man who does not hate a lazy man? 
 If And yet, the heaven these false prophets point us 
 to is to provide us a place of rest, where we can sit 
 and just sing for God's sake. 
 
 If the streets of the far away heaven are paved with 
 gold, and the gates studded with pearls, then gold 
 and pearls are as common there as concrete and cob- 
 ble stones are here. And one is no more serviceable 
 than the other, fl Of course, we know this is all a 
 fairy tale, told as we sometimes hear stories told to 
 children today, to make them be good a promise, 
 that if we don't do what we want to now we may, 
 after a while, do as we please. The tendency of it 
 all, while it may cause us to sacrifice things here in 
 the hope of having something better than our neigh- 
 bor there, the tendency of it all is to cause us to look 
 away from ourselves for what we should find within, 
 
 43 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and to forget the real of life in blindly yearning for 
 something that does not exist outside of story lore. 
 How much better it would be to turn our gaze from 
 the heaven far away, and center it upon the heaven 
 within the human soul. What nonsense to carry men 
 away into realms of thought they can know nothing 
 about, and blind them to their own Godlikeness by 
 telling them that God is somewhere outside of them- 
 selves ! 
 
 HAT is this passion we call jealousy? The babe 
 Ignorance, nursed in the lap of Lust, fl None 
 but a fool would allow it to grow in the heart. It 
 unfits a man for business for society for anything 
 but the felon's cell or the padded chamber of a lunatic 
 asylum. It burns out the heart and consumes reason. 
 What consummate idiocy to attempt to pardon, con- 
 done, excuse this consuming passion! Someone has 
 gone so far even to say that where there is no 
 jealousy there is no love. The proof of the plum duff 
 is in the eating: if you want to try it, get jealous, 
 and you will find that love and jealousy cannot live 
 in the same heart. I know: they do say that God is 
 a jealous God, but I would as soon believe that God 
 had a soul of clabber, a heart of green cheese and a 
 head of sour dough. 
 
 44 
 
NOT HOWMUCHBUT HOW WELL 
 
 "To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 O your thoughts "knock the persim- 
 mons?" In all of life's duties and 
 privileges; in every phase and posi- 
 tion and condition of society, man 
 must answer for what he thinks as 
 well as for what he does. No man 
 can go back of his thoughts. He 
 may lay the blame for his misdeeds 
 upon another, and complain that 
 environment and temptation forced 
 him to do this, or to leave undone 
 that, but his thoughts are his own 
 children and it is for him to say 
 what those thoughts shall be. It 
 seems as though the power to think 
 is the God in man, for as we de- 
 velop the capacity to think we see 
 more of good in the world and less 
 of evil. And every thought of good, 
 passing through the mind, leaves a 
 trace upon our character. The more 
 we think, the greater will be our 
 capacity to think. Like Love, 
 Thought grows as we exercise it. 
 Our growth in character depends 
 upon our growth in thought, not 
 thought in a collective sense, but 
 each individual thought, separate 
 45 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and apart from every other thought: not so much on 
 how much we think, as how well. 
 The ability to think to originate ideas to give a 
 personality to one's mental children is not given at 
 birth to one man and withheld from another; it is 
 every man's for the taking. But thought is not a 
 bastard child : it is the offspring of Concentration and 
 Adaptation, born on the hard bed of Isolation. Soli- 
 tude is a good berth in which to lay the child, fl But 
 Solitude does not lead always to good thinking. Once 
 I had a friend who lived a solitary life, and he allowed 
 his thoughts to pull him into oblivion through the 
 door opening into a suicide's grave. He was an 
 exemplary young man; way above the average in 
 intellect and training: manly in all things but his 
 conduct toward himself. But he was not master of 
 Inclination. Today was spent in brooding over yes- 
 terday's misdoings, instead of using today in develop- 
 ing today's blessings and privileges. 
 "By their fruits ye shall know them," applies to 
 thoughts as well as to actions secular and spiritual. 
 It is not difficult to tell what a man's thoughts are 
 when we can look into his eye, or can see his daily 
 life. How many times we see men who can think and 
 work all around a thing and never touch it? Their 
 thoughts don't "knock the persimmons." Just like 
 yours and mine, sometimes. 
 
 IVE me health and a tin whistle and you can take 
 the gilded palace and the band wagon. 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE SAW-FLY. 
 
 "For time will teach thee soon the truth, 
 There are no birds in last year's nest!" 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 ' I ^ HE best way to learn to do a thing is to keep 
 * right on doing something. Just as sure as a 
 man proves himself faithful in something small, some- 
 thing a deal bigger will come up for him to do. 
 In childhood we were sent to school and made to 
 learn, day by day, the lessons set before us. We did 
 not know what it would lead to; we just surmised 
 that we were learning something and so persisted 
 week after week to master the studies that were 
 given us. 
 
 Year by year we found ourselves more capable of 
 doing the things we wanted to do, yet we could not 
 tell just how the knowledge came to us. We only 
 knew that we were compelled to study the lessons of 
 the day one lesson at a time, and just so many each 
 day. It was not hard. It was natural this process 
 of education always a gradual growth. There was 
 never a mighty spurt and then a killing season of in- 
 activity. All true education is thus a slow unfoldment. 
 Today we see things more clearly than we did yester- 
 day. Tomorrow we shall see them more clearly than 
 we do today. We grow, step by step, into harmony 
 with the Divine in Nature. This is no theory. Men in- 
 tuitively accept it as a positive thing they know that 
 all unfoldment must be by easy stages, fl We can illus- 
 trate this by alluding to the life of the common saw- 
 
 47 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 fiy. The female deposits the egg into a pocket in the 
 leaf of a tree. By absorbing the plant juices the egg 
 enlarges, and finally the young larva comes forth on 
 the upper surface of the leaf. Full size is reached in 
 less than a month, but in that time the larva casts its 
 skin four times, and usually eats its cast skin for its 
 first rneal after each molt. When full grown it molts a 
 fifth time. Up to this stage a slimy, olive-colored liquid 
 exudes over the whole body after each molting. Now 
 it appears as a light orange-yellow worm, perfectly 
 clean and dry, with no slime. In this shape it crawls 
 down the tree and penetrates into the earth for half 
 an inch or more and there it hibernates in a kind of 
 cocoon made by its own saliva until the following 
 spring. Up to this time it is known as the pear slug. 
 When it emerges from the cocoon in the spring it is 
 the saw-fly. Step by step it evolves into what nature 
 intended it to be. 
 
 This is a crude illustration, but it shows the natural 
 working of the law of evolution. In every condition 
 of life man evolves by easy stages into a more perfect 
 being. He molts his ideas, and about the first thing 
 he does after each molting is to figuratively eat the 
 skin that previously clothed him. 
 Recognizing this as the principle controlling all nat- 
 ural life, it is strange that man should expect anything 
 different in the higher order of being. And, yet, in 
 matters affecting the higher attributes of his being 
 what we recognize as the spiritual side man expects 
 the divine gift of God to be handed out to him like a 
 prize package at a church fair. Men seek to know the 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 depths, and breadths and heights of God's mercy and 
 wisdom and love, who never have taken the pains to 
 learn the alphabet in Spiritual things. Again, we 
 sometimes see our splendid orthodox brethren praying 
 for God's sake for some rich blessing to fall upon 
 themselves or their church. They forget that the rich- 
 est blessing that can come to one was given to the 
 Man Jesus and that blessing was the privilege that 
 is yours and mine as much as it was His the privi- 
 lege of working for man's salvation and finally to die 
 for him. 
 
 We save man not by preaching at him, but by work- 
 ing with him the work that is ours today to do. 
 Preaching never saved a soul from hell. The most it 
 ever did was to waken a soul to its responsibilities. 
 A life of quiet, unpretentious, uncomplaining, satisfy- 
 ing labor doing things because they ought to be done 
 not for praise and glory is a deal more worthy. 
 We should ask no blessing from God that we are not 
 prepared to work for, then we shall not be disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 6 
 
 >OD does not need our help so much as His chil- 
 dren do; and the saints and martyrs long dead 
 do not need our fellowship so much as our fellows do. 
 God can take care of Himself: our duty is in doing 
 for those about us. 
 
 49 
 
THAT IKIEND OF MINE 
 
 "Know how sublime a thing it is 
 To suffer and be strong." Longfellow. 
 
 EAR Friend: You explained the text, 
 "Unto him who hath," etc., so satis- 
 factorily to me that I want to ask 
 you to tell us some time about an- 
 other thing I have been thinking of. 
 I have a sister living with me who 
 is a member of an orthodox church 
 and in a discussion the other day 
 she said no one could be really good 
 who had not been to God and 
 humbled himself and asked forgive- 
 ness for past sins. I said I did not 
 think God wanted us to spend our 
 time in useless regrets over what 
 was past but to start now on the 
 way to do our best each day in the 
 right direction. And my sister 
 quoted the Lord's prayer that we 
 both learned to say at our mother's 
 knee. And she said that Christ said, 
 "When ye pray, say 'Our Father 
 who art in heaven,' etc., and when 
 she reached the 'forgive us our tres- 
 passes as we forgive those who 
 trespass against us,' she laid great 
 stress upon that. Now I want to 
 know just what you think of this, 
 and thought perhaps you would 
 50 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 write something for us in our Best Magazine that 
 would settle the point. She thinks we ought to ac- 
 knowledge ourselves to be poor, miserable sinners, 
 and falling on our knees acknowledge ourselves to be 
 such to God. But somehow I could not think it neces- 
 sary for us to do that. Do you? B. C. H. 
 
 "The man of perfect virtue, wishing to establish himself, 
 seeks also to establish others; wishing to enlarge himself, 
 he seeks to enlarge others." Confucius. 
 
 There is as great a knack in putting a question as in 
 answering one, and this friend has that knack. If our 
 answer to the question will open to the questioner as 
 broad a field of thought as her asking the question has 
 opened to the writer, we all shall have gained by it. 
 First, then, what is the meaning of being good? One 
 man's standard of Goodness is quite different from 
 another's. No two standards are alike. I have my 
 standard, you have yours, but neither you nor I have 
 any right to compel another to come up to that 
 standard. My standard is for me; your standard for 
 you. fl Christ's standard of Goodness was for him. It 
 was so different from the then orthodox standard of 
 Goodness that he was crucified for teaching it. 
 And, again, what is meant by the expression "been to 
 God?" One child has its way of going to its father 
 and telling him what it believes he will be interested 
 in knowing; another child has another way. There 
 may be a vast difference in the way they do it, but 
 who shall say one way is wrong and the other right? 
 fl And then, too, dear heart, isn't Goodness Goodness, 
 wherever you find it? If so, and you spend your days 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 in doing what you believe to be good, are you to be 
 damned in spite of it all because you do not comply 
 with what another has set as his standard of Good- 
 ness? If Christ met the same rebuke at the hands of 
 the priests of long ago. He neglected to fulfill the 
 requirements of the orthodox church and, instead, 
 spent his days comforting the widows and fatherless, 
 healing the sick, and feeding the poor. He even went 
 so far as to desecrate the Sabbath in the very face of 
 a hostile priesthood. 
 
 No amount of law observance would have put the 
 spirit of love into Christ. And with all the sackcloth 
 and ashes business demanded of him by the priests, 
 the Son of God never could have accomplished his 
 mission on earth had he done that, and that only, thus 
 fulfilling the law. 
 
 I am not going to say what is essential to Goodness 
 in you. I only know what is essential to goodness in 
 myself. But of this I am sure: if I should hear a 
 child go to its earthly parent day after day, week in 
 and week out, and whine about being so miserably 
 sinful, I should feel that that parent was not fulfilling 
 his duty to that child did he not lay the youngster 
 across his knee and spank some goodness into it. I do 
 not want to say anything unorthodox, but really, now, 
 don't you think God gets very tired hearing this 
 melancholy wail that goes up day after day about 
 man's sinful and wormy condition? 
 I would not say that man should refuse to humble 
 himself before God and ask His forgiveness. If we 
 feel we have done wrong to anybody we ought to be 
 
 52 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 ready at all times to make matters right by seeking 
 forgiveness. But, goodness, me ! Are we to be "weak 
 and unworthy, miserable offenders" forever? And if 
 not forever, then how long? Until we have "been to 
 God?" And who is to say when that is? When we 
 have joined some orthodox church? Perhaps, for 
 some. But I am sure the worst complainers I ever 
 heard have been the best followers of orthodoxy. Sun- 
 day after Sunday, year after year, they carry the same 
 story to God about their unworthiness and miserable 
 sinfulness. Mind you, I am not saying they are not 
 unworthy. For I do not think any man is worthy of 
 another's love who believes that he is not. I would 
 not give my love to anyone who was ever whining 
 about his unworthiness. Would you? And I am posi- 
 tive, from what I have seen, that God does not. 
 The man or woman who is worthy of God's love gets 
 it. And the best evidence we can have that a man has 
 "been to God" is when we see him engaged in acts of 
 kindness to his fellows, and standing upright before 
 the world as a man, made in the image of God, un- 
 abashed and not afraid. God does not want man made 
 in his image to go groveling in the earth like a worm. 
 I have very little respect for the man who can go to 
 church Sabbath after Sabbath and, falling upon his 
 knees, cry, "Good Lord, deliver us; forgive us, Good 
 Lord; miserable offenders; we have left undone what 
 we ought to have done, and have done what we ought 
 not to have done, and there is no help in us." This is 
 not humility. It is downright shamefulness. fl The 
 best indication we can have that a man has repented 
 
 53 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 of his sins is when he leaves off sinning. A business 
 man does not mind a mistake now and then, but he 
 detests having an employe about him who is everlast- 
 ingly making mistakes, and coming whiningly to him 
 confessing them. It is impossible for that man to 
 grow into a more useful person while he persists in 
 making mistakes, and is content to live in the false 
 belief that confession of guilt is an excuse for wrong. 
 Confession of guilt is nothing repentance is nothing 
 if it does not lead a man to determine to quit the 
 offense. And what is true in this respect of business 
 is true in matters pertaining to man's spiritual condi- 
 tion. It is psychologically impossible for a man to 
 become anything but a miserable sinner while he car- 
 ries that thought in his mind, fl We become like our 
 thoughts. If the mind is occupied with thoughts of 
 our importance as messengers or mediums through 
 which the Divine Power is working his own purpose, 
 we forget all about the matter of sin and become ready 
 instruments in the hands of the Power that is in and 
 through and behind all. And as we hold the thought 
 that we are Gods in the chrysalis we molt the idea 
 that we are miserable sinners, and grow into God's 
 handiwork in that we become like Him. And we 
 never worry our heads about so small a matter as that 
 of "being good," and "meeting God." When God 
 wants us to meet Him, He will call us to Him. Until 
 he does, it is enough for us to mind our own business 
 and let Him use us as He sees best, in prosecuting the 
 work of bringing all Nature into a more perfect ex- 
 pression of the Divine Love and beauty and power. 
 
 54 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 You are right, dear heart; God does not want us to 
 spend our time in useless regrets. And as for this 
 good old orthodox custom of daubing one's self a 
 "miserable sinner," and living so as to make the appel- 
 lation stick; well, if that is the highest ambition one 
 has, Nature will boost him that way. She is, however, 
 just as ready to boost him the other way. 
 When our good brother, the Nazarene, said, "Forgive 
 us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass 
 against us," he simply gave expression to a law that is 
 absolutely just; a law that God himself could not 
 reverse. It is that immutable law of Compensation. 
 "Forgive us as we forgive." That is it: As we for- 
 give. In the measure we forgive, we shall be forgiven. 
 And so, dear heart, if we hold no malice against an- 
 other if we forget his weaknesses by focussing our 
 gaze and our love upon his virtues, God will do like- 
 wise with us, and if we see no sin in others, God will 
 see no sin in us. Jesus in his abundant love tried so 
 hard to teach this. But he could not because the 
 world was not ready for it. He gave his life because 
 the law demanded it in compensation for the privilege 
 of teaching his gospel of love, and in the giving gained 
 immortality, a worthy recompense. 
 |f "She thinks we ought to acknowledge ourselves to 
 be poor, miserable sinners." How often? Every day? 
 All the time? Who gains by such an acknowledg- 
 ment? God, or we? Do you think God wants to have 
 a lot of "poor, miserable sinners" working for Him? 
 I would not. Would you? I like to have as associates 
 in business and social life, men and women who 
 
 55 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 haven't any time to quarrel with themselves, with God 
 or with anyone else about their poor, miserable state. 
 Men are poor and miserable, and sinful, too, only 
 when they think they are. God does not want them to 
 be, and nobody else wants them to be. But, when a 
 man insists that he is, why, then, he is. That is his 
 privilege, and we must acknowledge his right. Still 
 he would be a much finer specimen of manhood were 
 he to break away from that accursed belief and come 
 out strong in the Sunlight of the Universal Love. 
 Why, bless your soul, brother, sister; what good rea- 
 son can we have for loading our minds down with 
 such distressing thoughts of sinfulness? Are we made 
 any better by it? Be honest with yourself, now: do 
 you feel you are making yourself or the world any 
 better by confessing oft and sorrowfully that you are 
 such a poor specimen of Nature's handiwork that you 
 have got to keep up a continual quarrel with yourself 
 about what you have done and left undone? Don't 
 you think it would be more elevating for you, and 
 therefore for the world, if you and I would cast off 
 this puny attitude of weakness for sinfulness is weak- 
 ness and get the thought firmly implanted in the 
 mind that we amount to something, and are really 
 instruments in the Divine Expression of the grandest 
 and noblest and best in Nature? 
 
 How much love and cheer and happiness can a miser- 
 able workman in any calling bring or give to the 
 world? How much of purity and faith and fellowship 
 can a miserable sinner radiate on the path of life? 
 fl No, no ; it cannot be ! We must look higher than 
 
 56 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 this plane of thought of man's unworthiness, if we are 
 to develop into something more useful to the world 
 than a sin besmirched animal, self-appointed to be 
 damned. 
 
 So long as man holds to this unworthy belief about 
 himself, and what he knows as his God, he will not 
 reach the plane he should, fl Let us abstain from doc- 
 trinizing and criticising. No man can doubt the sin- 
 cerity of the men of all ages who have drummed this 
 doctrine of sin into the heads of all peoples. It has 
 continued until the world stinks to high heaven with a 
 sinfulness self-inflicted, and foolish as it is unmerited. 
 But, really, brother, do you believe that man is lower 
 in the scale of animal life than the plant by my side or 
 the pig across the way? The plant is not a "miserable 
 sinner." It lives its life pure and holy in the hands of 
 Nature. Its purpose in life is to express the Divine 
 in Nature. The hog may wallow in filth, but that is 
 his nature and, in spite of it, he is as pure and unde- 
 filed an expression of Nature as the rose in the garden 
 or the new born babe at the mother's breast. Because 
 one is lower in the scale of life than the other, it does 
 not follow that it is less true in its expression of the 
 Divine; and if not less true, then it is as holy as the 
 other; whatever this word "holy" may mean. 
 Man develops by easy stages. The time he spends in 
 his present form is not long. What he shall next be 
 we cannot know. But this is sure: if he strives ear- 
 nestly and seeks diligently to express from day to day 
 more of the Divine in Nature, he shall develop into a 
 
 57 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 more perfect medium through which more of what we 
 call God shall find expression. 
 
 The fact that this is the way Nature does all things 
 should cause us to stop in our foolish efforts to reach 
 heaven by any other road. Nature will not be balked. 
 She is Divine, and through her we see God. Nature 
 puts as much of what we call God in every man as is 
 necessary to make him radiate the life of Goodness. 
 ft False teaching from away back down the ages has 
 caused humanity to lose heart in itself. Hence the 
 "miserable sinner" cry. But Nature is not so fickle 
 as man. She ever stands ready to express through the 
 individual as much of the Divine as the individual is 
 capable of giving expression to. And his capacity is 
 all a matter of the man's willingness to serve and his 
 susceptibility of growth, coupled with his readiness to 
 truthfully express the note that sounds in his heart. 
 ft I say heart, because we understand the expression, 
 but, as a matter of fact, we do not know where that 
 little monitor we call Conscience lives; nor do we 
 know that it is anything but the Divine in us. We 
 feel it, but cannot tell whence it came nor whither 
 bound. It is omnipresent but inexplainable. May it 
 not be the God in us? 
 
 I have said that Nature puts enough of God in every 
 man to make this world a paradise if man would give 
 expression to it. Study it out and see if it isn't true. 
 ft Instead of expressing his goodness, man has assumed 
 the "miserable sinner" attitude, and the cry of the age 
 is, "Good Lord, deliver us from ourselves." The 
 assumption of sin has been handed down from father 
 
 58 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 to child, until man, instead of being true to Nature, 
 and allowing her perfect unfoldment through him, 
 makes a felon of himself and his fellows. 
 And millions and millions of dollars are spent annually 
 to erect churches wherein men make a show of good- 
 ness and sing praises to a God, who would, if per- 
 mitted, find infinitely better expression through them 
 in the every day work they do. 
 
 E laugh at the old lady, and the young one, who 
 expects to discover some sign of a favorable 
 future in her teacup, and yet, we men do sometimes 
 look for as foolish things in what we call luck, and 
 chance. We believe we must wait for the oppor- 
 tunity before we can strike out for Success. If there 
 is any one opportunity of a life time, when a man may 
 look for results of his labors, it is when he decides 
 definitely and forever to throw off all dependence on 
 luck and chance, and centers his efforts on achieve- 
 ment through character, enterprise, and self-education. 
 You are not prepared for another job until you can 
 unselfishly love the job you have got. When push is 
 applied to patience, and plod to purpose, no power on 
 earth can cut you off from the paychute of Success. 
 
 59 
 
JUST A THOUGHT 
 
 "I preached as never sure to preach again, 
 And as a dying man to dying men." Baxter. 
 
 ET us go back tonight in memory to 
 the old home far away, and take a 
 peep in at Mother. She's waiting 
 there to greet us, as only Mother 
 can. Supper is over; the dishes are 
 washed, and Mother has picked up 
 the piece of work laid down when 
 supper was announced. Adjusting 
 her glasses she bends low to see the 
 stitches are right, and proceeds in 
 silence. Brother and sister are in 
 the room. They have taken up their 
 books to read, and are laying back 
 for a lazy evening. A busy day at 
 the office makes the quiet rest need- 
 ful, and they do not want to be dis- 
 turbed. Mother has been alone all 
 day, with nobody about to talk to. 
 She wants to talk now. A question 
 or two is asked, but, receiving only 
 a disinterested yawn for an answer, 
 she concludes not to say any more, 
 and silently works on. 
 A sigh from the heart tells of a load 
 there, but she chokes it back and 
 bends closer to her work. Her 
 thoughts turn to the son and daugh- 
 ter out East no matter where you 
 60 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and I. Green fields are always away over there. 
 Angelic daughters, and affectionate sons are, too. If 
 you and I were only home there by her side. The 
 word of love, of confidence, that her dear ears have so 
 long wanted to hear, would in love be spoken, and the 
 tears of anguish now suppressed would give place to 
 tears of joy. 
 
 Her Mother love ignores distance and starts out upon 
 the sea of space like a Marconi "tick" to be picked up 
 by the sympathetic heart tuned in harmony with hers. 
 Into the hills of the lumber camps, up and down the 
 village streets, and into the heights and depths of the 
 city's dives of manlessness, the vibrant love from the 
 signal tower of Mother's heart flits here and there. 
 She calls and signals for the love of the boy and girl 
 away from home; she longs to get in touch with the 
 one who can bring joy to her lonely heart, fl Perhaps 
 that one is you! See! Do you not see her, sitting 
 lonely there, listening with the ears of the heart ears 
 so delicately attuned that the faintest wave of love 
 flowing from you will be picked up by that heart of 
 hearts! There is something so tender in Mother's 
 love, something almost divine. There isn't a manly 
 man that breathes who does not feel it and honor it. 
 Get in touch then, brother! Every thought of her 
 flies home. It brings joy to her and ennobles you. 
 And, think of it! All it costs is a thought just a 
 thought ! 
 
 ISN'T it unfortunate that we are not somebody 
 else! 
 
 61 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 THE HARVEST OF OUR HEARTACHES. 
 
 "The hell of waters', where they howl and hiss." Byron. 
 
 NATURE is as much pleased at our heartaches as 
 at our joys. She is served as much by one as 
 the other. And so, when life's trials bear heavily upon 
 you when the storms of criticism and sorrow roll 
 over you when the Valley of Defeat encompasses 
 you ; then, of all times, be brave ! 
 11 Oh, the good of a robust heartache ! What growth 
 we experience in it if we take it rightly! What love 
 has been planted; what joy has sprouted; what faith 
 has bloomed! When stricken as from above by the 
 hand of fate, or of a friend; when the light that has 
 shone about us has been snuffed, and we are left, as it 
 were, in darkness, and the shadow of gloom ; when our 
 very heartstrings seem almost to break, how prone 
 we are to give up ! how easy then to be conquered ! 
 And yet, when we relax, when we cease to struggle, 
 we find the phantom of sorrow disappears and we have 
 nothing left to fight. Then, bless you, what a flood of 
 joy comes into the heart, and how strong our love has 
 grown ! I have seen faces, and so have you, which told 
 of hearts nigh bursting with grief : dazed, stunned, be- 
 reft ; seen them in the street, in the home in the glass, 
 alone in the solitude of the bed-chamber. The look of 
 anguish wrung our hearts. We tried to smile, and 
 the face tried to smile back at us, but the lines tight- 
 ened about the lips and great tears welled to the eyes. 
 Something much prized has gone out of the life; per- 
 
 62 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 haps someone has ceased to live, and there is such a 
 hunger for love, such a capacity for affection! How 
 we long to give the word that will give cheer and 
 comfort; if we could but tell the sorrowing one that 
 there is no tragedy except for those who believe it; 
 that the hammering of Fate is but to put the soul into 
 better trim for the work to be demanded of it that 
 every tear-drop carries from the heart some expression 
 of the Divine personality; that the pains we feel are 
 but the growing-pains of Nature giving birth to some 
 new attribute in our cosmos. What "though some 
 loved form is lying cold and rigid in death will not 
 we, too, some day fold our hands, just so, across our 
 breasts and sleep! Or if love has gone to another, 
 why should we desire to compel it; would we not 
 make those free we love?" And, too, is not death as 
 much the fulfillment of life as living? When the rose 
 bush is dropping its leaves, and stands thorny and 
 crooked and bare, is it fulfilling less the requirements 
 of Nature than when it stands beautiful and green 
 with foliage, and rich in fragrant bloom? 
 
 SUNSHINE OUT. 
 
 "Ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength." Scott, 
 
 FLEE the patronizing, superior man and woman. 
 The world has little need of him or her. Such per- 
 sons do exist, 'tis unfortunately true, and occasionally 
 we see them thrust into positions they should not oc- 
 
 63 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 cupy, but they are not needed. The community is 
 better off without them. I have in mind an incident 
 in life which I once saw portrayed. There was a dear 
 old lady, surprisingly clever, kind, motherly, and con- 
 siderate. And she was the plainest person that ever 
 smoothed the troubled brow of sorrow's waif. Simple ! 
 why, bless you, she was simple as Mother so simple 
 she was misunderstood. There came before the grand, 
 womanly soul a young, talkative thing with patron- 
 izing air, who knew so little she did not have to think 
 when she talked. At a little social event the young 
 woman brushed rudely by the old lady, with proud 
 head thrown back and lips set in disdainful mockery. 
 As she drew near the second time, leaning on the arm 
 of her escort and with an air of superiority betokening 
 ignorance, the dear lady leaned forward and smiled. 
 That was all she did. But there was such simple 
 kindness such mother love such nobility of char- 
 acter, behind that smile that the proud vixen was 
 brought low, and for the moment she was a child 
 again. 
 
 It is such simplicity this old world needs. It wants 
 men and women who can rise above jealousy, malice, 
 hate, whim, envy and fear whose lives are pure as 
 the atmosphere of the snow-capped hills who live, 
 and want others to live, their lives up to their highest 
 and best. Men and women who will say the word of 
 encouragement to the heart-sick soul, and will turn 
 every sorrow bright side out who will meet every 
 disappointment, every difficulty, thoughtfully, and 
 without fear and unabashed. Men and women who 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 believe that the man who follows the plow is as good 
 as the man who sits at the desk of the ruler of the 
 nation provided the man behind the plow is as simple 
 and honest and kind; as frank and natural and God- 
 loving, as the man at the head of the nation. 
 
 person who readily perceives faults, will never 
 see anything else, for the eye is not trained to 
 catch the good. Why? Why, because Goodness or 
 Godness is not a part of their make-up. We attract 
 the thoughts we hold. All Nature is in harmony. 
 God's earth is as it should be. If it does not har- 
 monize with our moods, we should change them. For, 
 look here, brother ; if we are suspicious of our fellows 
 here we shall be suspicious of our fellows there: if 
 we do not take heaven with us into the next world, it 
 will be hell to be in heaven. 
 
 STAND for something! Don't be a putty man. 
 Make your individuality felt, whatever your 
 sphere of life. No circumstance, or combination of 
 circumstances, can be set up as an excuse for your 
 being a cipher. The greatest hindrance to success 
 is self-distrust, and a lack of the initiative. Men were 
 not created in the mass. God's best gift to you is 
 your originality. Cherish it. It is yours. No one can 
 take it from you if you refuse to let them. 
 
 65 
 
THE SNAKE THAT GOD MADE 
 
 "Dost thou think, because thou art vir- 
 tuous, there shall be no more cakes and 
 ale ? ' ' Shakespeare. 
 
 DO not know what happens to you 
 when you tread ruthlessly upon an 
 ant, and beat the life out of a snake 
 with a club; but when I hear of 
 your doing it, my heart tells me 
 there is so much less of God in the 
 world and more of evil, for God is 
 as much in the snake as in the ant, 
 and as much in either as in you." 
 This thought has astounded some. 
 Others it has set thinking. One dear 
 heart tells me : "Oh, no ! my friend ; 
 God fills all space; he is not in us 
 nor in animals, but everything re- 
 flects God in degree. The moon re- 
 flects the sun, but the sun is not in 
 the moon, nor is the moon in the 
 sun." 
 
 Without going into any discussion 
 of theology, let us draw close to 
 that heart within and see what it 
 tells us. It is true, as far as we 
 know, that the sun is not in the 
 moon. This, however, has nothing 
 to do with God in man. According 
 to scientists the moon is a dead 
 world. What it was before it be- 
 came a dead world we have no way 
 66 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 of knowing. It reflects the sunshine ; it does not reflect 
 the sun. To reflect the sun it would have to be alive 
 and give forth the heat of the sun as well as the 
 sunshine. 
 
 Jesus had the right conception of life perhaps the 
 most natural and truest that ever came to man. And 
 when he said: "My father and I are one; my father 
 in me, I in you," he touched the source of all life, but 
 did not go into it, for the world was not ready for it 
 then. The same condition has stood in the way of 
 many men since Christ, and deterred them in making 
 known a fuller conception of man's relationship to the 
 Power we call God. 
 
 Man is not a dead thing like the moon. The con- 
 sciousness and subconsciousness of man ; the impulses 
 to do good that are in us all, no matter what our 
 faith, our calling or creed, is an absolute assurance to 
 my mind that the power or being we call God is not 
 only in, and working through, but is actually a part 
 of man. Our conception of the Being we know as God 
 depends on our conception of the being we know as 
 man. If our conception of one is erroneous, unnatural 
 and weak, our conception of the other will be erron- 
 eous, unnatural and weak. 
 
 We know life only in the measure that we live it. If 
 my mind has been confined to a narrow channel of 
 thought in relation to my soul and the soul of my 
 fellows; if I have been reared in the belief of man's 
 eternal damnation, and his absolute unworthiness 
 before the God Father who knows all and is in all 
 space and therefore must be in all living things that 
 
 67 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 fill all space then it will be unnatural for me to real- 
 ize that God is in all. It will be extremely difficult, 
 too, for me to see more than the animal in the man 
 beside me. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if my mind thinks only those 
 things of my fellows that brings man closer in har- 
 mony with nature and therefore with God, then it 
 were easy for me to see God in my fellowman as well 
 as in the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and 
 the green grass that carpets the rolling hills. 
 To know all is to love all, and to love all is to know 
 God. We cannot know Him in any other way than by 
 knowing him in and through the men and women by 
 our side. If we live close enough to the Universal 
 Heart we shall know in a natural way the God in 
 Nature and what heaven is. If we have allowed man 
 to detract our thoughts from the God Man in Man, 
 then we shall pass clean out of harmony with the deep 
 underlying principle that is in all Nature, and our 
 thoughts will be restricted to the narrow line where 
 Nature's shallows lay bare the weaknesses of the man 
 animal. 
 
 To say that we know God while there is a particle of 
 doubt in our minds about the inherent Godhead in 
 man, is to deceive ourselves. If God is not in man 
 then he is not anywhere; and if man does not make 
 heaven in his heart he will not experience it anywhere. 
 This is a pessimistic view, say you? No. For me it 
 is the essence of Optimism, fl I waste no time dream- 
 ing about the heaven to come. I do not care if I 
 never see another heaven than this. ]f I waste no time 
 
 68 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 trying "to be good," so as to get to heaven when I 
 die. I want to do my duty to my fellows, that is all. 
 Not that I may have their praise, but that I may know 
 I have given expression truthfully and naturally to 
 the voice of Nature speaking in and through me. Bet- 
 ter that my physical body were dead than that I 
 should harness my thoughts to a foolish belief that 
 God is in all space and yet not in the live, pulsating 
 hearts of the creatures of His handiwork. Sad, indeed, 
 the thought that the Infinite should fill all space, and 
 ignore the Being created in his own image. Every 
 atom of the universe is God in the atom. 
 This thing we call sin is the result of man's abuse and 
 misuse of the God in all. To teach that man is full of 
 sin is an absurdity. He is no more sinful than the 
 Creator, if he follows the course of Nature and lives 
 true to the God within. When I am true to myself 
 and express the Truth as it seeks expression through 
 me, then I am in harmony with the Divine in Nature, 
 for then I have suppressed nothing. Suppression is 
 the one great evil. There is none other like it, in that 
 growth is stifled by it, and when we stop growing, we 
 die (though we may not be buried), and are no longer 
 fit instruments through which Life may speak. 
 As I sit in the sunshine on the green hillside, with a 
 scene of beauty before me, I know my God is here. 
 In the grass at my feet ; in the flowering weed by my 
 side; in the cricket singing under the stone to my 
 right, and the cow bellowing for supper to my left ; in 
 the barking dog, the cackling hen, and the croaking 
 frogs over there in it all I see God as much as in 
 
 69 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 myself, fl All is at peace, and there is harmony every- 
 where. 
 
 It were shameful heresy to accuse God by Nature of 
 thrusting into Being human forms of life capable of 
 Divinity, with all the attributes of God, and then 
 brand them as unworthy of anything but eternal dam- 
 nation. 
 
 With this teaching coming to us from the dark ages 
 of the past, and with the thought hammered into man 
 by self-appointed saint and priest, is it any wonder 
 is it at all strange that man should throw up his 
 hands and go laughingly to hell in his dissoluteness? 
 This may sound harsh. It may be bad orthodoxy. But 
 it is the untarnished Truth as I feel Nature expresses 
 it through me. And my cry is one of joy, for Nature 
 has unfolded another bud of expression, thus serving 
 herself and bringing to greater perfection the great 
 plan of the universe. 
 
 If A good Presbyterian pastor once asked me : "If you 
 were to teach a child of spiritual things, how would 
 you do it: would you recognize that child and teach 
 it as a sinless being, or would you teach it as if it 
 were a sinful being?" My reply was simple : "I would 
 teach it as if speaking to a sinless being." 
 jf All men and women who have had anything to do 
 with training boys and girls will bear me out in this : 
 if you would bring out the best in a child treat it as 
 if it were good and capable of better things. Treat a 
 child as a sinful thing and he will be sinful. What is 
 true of the child is true of the man. Let any school 
 or society call it church or what you will drill into 
 
 70 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 the mind of man the impression that he is totally 
 unworthy; that he, in contradistinction to all other 
 forms of life, is so untrue to Nature, or to the Uni- 
 versal Life, that the Supreme Being the Power Over 
 All has foreordained his damnation, and what do we 
 have? Why, man, believing himself to be lower in 
 the scale of life than the beasts of the field, the insects, 
 the birds, the creeping and swimming things, and even 
 the flowering and fruit-bearing plant life for none of 
 these has a standing quarrel with God man deliber- 
 ately accepts the judgment passed upon him without a 
 hearing and makes the most of it. 
 We are taught from the cradle to the grave to look 
 upon our Brother Christ as one whose infinite love 
 prompted him to give his life for sins he never did 
 commit. Why, my dear brother, what greater sacri- 
 fice did Jesus Christ make than that made by hun- 
 dreds of men who have incurred the displeasure of 
 the church since his day? What did he more than 
 they? He was nailed to the cross, while in the dark 
 days of the Inquisition men as faithful and as heroic 
 as he were burned alive at the stake, turning their 
 faces away from the crucifix held to their lips by the 
 priests who prayed for them and fired the fagots in the 
 name of God. 
 
 Oh, no; let us not load our minds with thoughts of 
 man's inferiority to other mediums of Nature, or- 
 dained by the Being or Power we call God, to express 
 more perfectly His infinite mind, and for the larger 
 unfoldment of his great love. 
 Get close to yourself, brother, sister; see the great 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 possibilities that lie within you. You are not poor, 
 and miserable! You are the divinest thing made! 
 Not to be ever awhining at, and quarreling with, 
 Nature and with God! He will not quarrel with you. 
 Why should you quarrel with him? 
 Why should we form ourselves into a society to incul- 
 cate that foolish notion that God is a something far, 
 far away, and yet everywhere, filling all space, and 
 yet not in man? Why should we leave to the trees, 
 the plants, the birds, the insects, the animals and the 
 reptiles the unfoldment of Nature, while we, the 
 higher mediums for the expression of Nature's handi- 
 work, debase ourselves and go about with the cry, 
 "Unclean! Unclean!" upon our lips. 
 Think sinfulness of yourself and you will be sinful. 
 Think Godliness of yourself and you will act Godly. 
 
 HEN you hear another spoken of disparagingly 
 by a crowd of men or women you may put it 
 down as a sure thing that the absent one has much 
 merit; for when people are courageous enough to 
 bunch their opinions of him in the other fellow's 
 absence, he must have many good qualities. 
 
 IF it were not for the little jealousies and petty 
 strifes that pester life in a small community, we 
 might ask Jesus to come over and visit us. 
 
 72 
 
DONT MJESE"* BABY WRONG 
 
 "What! would'st thou have a serpent 
 sting thee twice?" 
 
 T IS mighty dangerous business to 
 nurse a wrong dangerous, because 
 if we allow our minds to dwell on 
 the evils our neighbor has done us, 
 we become like him. It is im- 
 possible to rise higher than our 
 thoughts. No man is perfect, God 
 knows; all have faults. And yet, 
 knowing this, it is none the less 
 difficult to think as much of a man 
 after we have discovered in him 
 some hidden weakness as we did 
 before. But our true nobility is 
 shown, not in calling attention to 
 that weakness, but, rather, in draw- 
 ing the curtain on the scene of 
 weakness, and, looking deeper, dis- 
 covering the good lying beneath: 
 for as sure as God made man, there 
 is goodness in every one. It is our 
 fault if we fail to discover it. Isn't 
 it better for us to seek diligently to 
 find what we know ought to be 
 there, though we may not know at 
 the time just where, than to jump at 
 the fault that everybody can see and 
 repeat what everybody knows? 
 When I was spending some years in 
 73 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 the northern mining country, I was impressed deeply 
 by the incessant, hopeful work of the prospector. He 
 rolls his blankets, and with a skillet, a tin pail, a piece 
 of bacon, some beans, flour, salt and pepper on his 
 back starts for the hills. He never knows how long 
 he will be gone, nor what hardships he will encounter 
 before he returns. He only knows that he is going to 
 prospect a mineral zone for a ledge that carries pre- 
 cious metal gold, silver, copper, or galena. He knows 
 the formation is right ; knows the metal is there some- 
 where, and starts in to find it. Others have been over 
 the ground and found nothing. Perhaps a piece of 
 float has been discovered, but, after weeks of search- 
 ing and finding nothing, they have concluded that the 
 good piece was carried there from some other locality 
 by a glacier or landslide, and give up the search. But 
 the man who knows will not give up. The prospector 
 finds the wash deep, and the float comes only now and 
 then. For days he digs about without finding any- 
 thing to give him encouragement. But he keeps dig- 
 ging. Over and over the ground he goes. He knows 
 it ought to be there : the formation is true. But, alas ; 
 for weeks and months and sometimes years he seeks 
 on. Then one day when all but discouraged he strikes 
 his pick into the ledge that opens in an ore-body, 
 which has been hidden from the critical eye of man 
 for decades by only a few inches of surface wash 
 and he is rich rich, indeed! 
 
 We can afford to take a lesson from the life of the 
 prospector, in our search for the good in our fellow- 
 man. I think the heart of every man has a pay-shoot 
 
 74 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 of rich ore that would be a blessing to humanity, and 
 to himself, if discovered and developed. The wash 
 may not be so deep as the surface indicates. Perhaps 
 you have missed it in your brother by only a few 
 inches. I have known rich shoots of ore to be lost by 
 the thickness of a layer of talc, and mines have been 
 abandoned as worthless, when only a few inches to 
 right or left of the wall of the workings a rich body of 
 ore was lying, waiting to be uncovered, fl Look more 
 diligently; perhaps it will be necessary for you to 
 drill deeper. 
 
 jf Know this : the formation is right the ore ought to 
 be there ! 
 
 AGE AND DEPENDENCE. 
 
 "Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown." 
 Byron, 
 
 WHEN grandpa gets old, and the fringe of gray 
 circling his bowed head grows thinner and ever 
 thinner; when the eyes become dim, the hearing faint, 
 and his step faltering; when the mind cannot grasp 
 the new or hold fast to the old ; when ambition, faith, 
 hope and love are running low, and the spark of Life 
 becomes ever more faint; then we realize as never 
 before that without these virtues in a word, without 
 youth man is, after all, only a small piece of misery 
 of few years and little worth. Only a vitalized clod 
 a whimsical, selfish thing without the instinct of the 
 
 75 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 animal and yet with insatiable habits of greed and 
 grouch. 
 
 With old age man falls back again to the infant stage, 
 but cannot carry with him the charms of babyhood. 
 Instead, having added to his peevish nature the pas- 
 sions and weaknesses of an indulgent life, he bears 
 upon his shoulders the cross of having lived, fl We 
 coo and coddle the child, but the old man goes to and 
 fro, unhappy, unnoticed, unmourned. He is treated 
 scornfully by the son, and the aged mother, who all 
 but gave her life for the boy, receives scant love. Oh, 
 yes; I know. In youth we forget that the day will 
 come when we, too, shall become old and feeble, and 
 in the way and perhaps alone. Then shall we, too, 
 ask the bread of sympathy, and receive a stone; then 
 shall we seek the companionship of those we would 
 love, and, alas, find the fountain of love closed to us. 
 Our passions, our whims, our fancies, shall refuse to 
 down, because all these years we have failed to exer- 
 cise love toward those who needed our tenderest 
 thought and consideration. Then shall we sorrow as 
 the old folks sorrow now. 
 
 IT is a common error to accuse another of incon- 
 sistence, or worse, when he has the boldness to 
 do things not in harmony with our own way of think- 
 ing and doing. Every man has his own way of look- 
 
 76 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 ing at things or should have independent of what 
 others may have. And our attitude toward any 
 accepted form of worship, or the indulgence of any 
 passion, depends on our state of health and the nature 
 of our early training. The man whose digestive 
 apparatus works without causing pain and uneasiness, 
 seldom troubles himself about the inconsistencies to 
 be found in his own life, or in the lives of others. But 
 to the man or woman whose love is a problem in 
 mathematics, and whose soul a problem in meta- 
 physics, no person will appear consistent who ven- 
 tures beyond the narrow confines in which the holy 
 one stews. But to the man of Universal Love; whose 
 heart, and soul are attuned to the God in Nature, in 
 man, in life, in death, in things present, and things to 
 come to him, all is consistency. There isn't any 
 inconsistency when we know all. To know all is to 
 forgive all, for then there is nothing to forgive. It is 
 a distressing thing when one can see only inconsist- 
 ency and sin in another's contrary opinion. The man 
 who does things has no time to waste in thinking 
 about consistency, in himself or his neighbor. The 
 trouble with most people who complain of another's 
 inconsistency is that they never have experienced a 
 healthy, full-lunged inhalation of the Spirit of Love. 
 Like the Jews the holy Jews of long ago, they 
 brand a man a blasphemer and an evil-doer because 
 he will not stop in his development until they catch 
 up. |f Nothing is totally bad that God has made and 
 allows to live. 
 
 77 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 PLAYING AT VIRTUE. 
 
 "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." Horace. 
 
 WHEN a man confesses that he is a thief and is 
 convicted of a crime, there is no logical reason 
 why he should be ostracised from society. The mere 
 fact of his being a thief should not preclude the con- 
 sideration of his other qualities. When we know a 
 man as a doctor, or a minister, or a carpenter, or an 
 artist we do not stop at that. We admit that he may 
 also be a violinist, or a singer, or a poet, and we credit 
 him accordingly. And so, if the world condemns you 
 for being a thief it should at the same time admire you 
 for being a genius. If it fails to admire you for one 
 thing it has no right to condemn you for another. 
 We hear the man or woman condemned for some small 
 act of indiscretion that amounts to very little. In a 
 moment of weakness he or she of our acquaintance 
 commits an act against the established laws of 
 society, or what we consider to be right and wrong, 
 and at once we are prepared to shy a stone and cry, 
 begone! Blinded by prejudice, we will not consider 
 his or her many good qualities, but center our whole 
 gaze upon the one act of folly or weakness and mag- 
 nify it many times. Then we take the brush from the 
 pot of passion and paint in letters of red the judgment 
 of the damned over the humble cottage door. And 
 think, ye Gods ! that we have done our duty ! 
 
 78 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Who gave to us to be judge of another? Who gave 
 to us to say what is sin in anyone but ourselves? All 
 men and all women are more or less of a sham. As we 
 look upon them we do not see the real person. We 
 see them as we think they are. At heart all are sin- 
 cere; we cannot escape that fact. And yet, I play at 
 virtue just as you do, and all the while entertain lust- 
 ful desires. Fain would I lift my soul into the Realm 
 of Day, but prone am I to nestle in the passionate 
 embrace of Indulgent Night. We condemn readily, 
 not that we feel any real injury because of the offense, 
 or that condemnation is necessary, but because it is 
 fashionable. And we do it as if we had a right ! 
 We do not seek to see the goodness in others as we 
 ought. Nor do we show to others the goodness that 
 is in ourselves. Our Inner Life seldom is brought in 
 contact with the Inner Life of the man by our side. 
 Beneath this life of sham we hide the Real, and, I do 
 not know, but I believe, that that Real is God. 
 
 1 WOULD rather know that I have the confidence 
 of one friend who understands me, than be pes- 
 tered by the applause of the multitude, who are 
 tickled today, plucked tomorrow, and damned the 
 next day. 
 
 79 
 
"The fools who came to scoff remained to 
 pray. ' ' Goldsmith. 
 
 HIS world is full of incongruities. 
 When we think we have found the 
 correct thing and begin to pride our- 
 selves on having at last made a dis- 
 covery, we soon are disappointed on 
 finding that what we believed was 
 new and nearly perfect has many 
 unsatisfying features about it, and 
 is really not new at all, but quite 
 old. We find real satisfaction in 
 one thing only, and that one thing 
 is in Being Natural living as 
 though there were nothing new 
 under the sun, and in the knowledge 
 that to know one's self is to know 
 mankind. 
 
 The all important thing for a man 
 is, first, to make sure of growth. 
 This is not so easy, for it is natural 
 for us to be somewhat anxious to 
 know that our conduct is in correct 
 keeping with the common verdict of 
 what is just proper. We are slow 
 to perceive that advancement means 
 initiative, and are prone to cling to 
 the old order of things, because in 
 this there is less friction. We are 
 much concerned lest Sarah Jane or 
 80 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Father Church should think we are inconsistent 
 should we follow the dictates of the heart, and go 
 contrary to what Sarah Jane or Father Church has 
 considered the proper thing for us to do. Thus we 
 leave many things undone that we ought to have done, 
 and oft-times go contrary to the heart's desire for fear 
 of what Sarah Jane or Father Church might think of 
 us. And in so doing we please them greatly and 
 remain quite orthodox. And that is all. 
 If Orthodoxy is defined as "soundness in opinion and 
 doctrine." But to be orthodox does not mean to be 
 sound in opinion and doctrine. It means to be sound 
 on what is at the time considered to be sound opinion 
 and doctrine. But yesterday's heresy is today's ortho- 
 doxy. 
 
 When Bruno went contrary to the established beliefs 
 in his astronomical findings, orthodoxy came forward 
 and burned him alive. When Capernicus advanced 
 his views about the movement of the earth and stars 
 around the sun, he delayed publishing his findings for 
 twelve years owing to his fear of the unpopularity 
 which the work threatened to bring him, it being so 
 unorthodox. Owing to the heretical nature of Galileo's 
 scientific discoveries he was imprisoned and perse- 
 cuted by orthodoxy, fl Thus it ever has been and ever 
 will be. The man who is courageous enough to step 
 out and away from the orthodox way of thinking must 
 ever run the gauntlet of abuse from those who insist 
 that he is heretical. Galileo said, "I am inclined to 
 believe that the intention of the Sacred Scriptures is 
 to give to mankind the information necessary for their 
 
 81 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 salvation. But I do not hold it necessary to believe 
 that the same God who has endowed us with senses, 
 with speech, with intellect, intended that we should 
 neglect the use of these, and seek by other means for 
 knowledge which these are sufficient to procure for 
 us." ft And because he said things like this he was 
 denounced as "atheist" and "infidel," epithets, by the 
 way, "which do not frighten us much now, since they 
 have been applied to most of the really great and good 
 men who have ever lived." Pope Paul V. had Galileo 
 thrown into a dungeon because he would not disavow 
 that the earth revolved around the sun. 
 When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of evolu- 
 tion, he was reviled by bigots, and ridiculed by all the 
 world; but he lived to see it irrefragably established 
 in science and inseparably incorporated into the com- 
 mon thoughts of men. When his "Origin of Species" 
 was published, and the tongue of orthodoxy had been 
 set wagging, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, 
 in the course of a speech on another subject in Lon- 
 don, denounced "those enemies of the Church and 
 Society who make covert attacks upon the Bible in 
 the name of Science." Toward the close of his re- 
 marks he happened to spy Huxley, the deep thinker of 
 England, seated in the audience, and, pointing his 
 finger at him "begged to be informed if the learned 
 gentleman was really willing to be regarded as the 
 descendant of a monkey?" ft The audience insisted on 
 hearing Huxley when the Bishop ceased to speak, and 
 the greatest scientist of the age came forward. Huxley 
 lacked the exuberance that characterized the florid 
 
 82 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 speech of the Bishop, but he knew his theme and the 
 Bishop did not. He demolished the Bishop's card 
 house point by point, correcting his gross misstate- 
 ments, and ending by saying that "since a question of 
 personal preferences had been brought into the dis- 
 cussion of a great scientific theme, he would confess 
 that if the alternative were a descent on the one hand 
 from a respectable monkey, or on the other hand from 
 a Bishop of the Church of England who could stoop 
 to misrepresentation and sophistry, and who had 
 attempted in that presence to throw discredit upon a 
 man who had given his life to the cause of science, 
 then if forced to decide he would declare in favor of 
 the monkey." In so saying Sir Thomas H. Huxley 
 was unorthodox, but he was right, fl Whatever we 
 may think of Charles Darwin's theory of the "Origin 
 of Species," we may know this, that he was a man 
 infinitely superior in intellect and learning, and also 
 in heart, to the exponents of bigotry who, like the 
 Bishop of Oxford, reviled and abused him. Charles 
 Darwin was big enough to say this: "I feel most 
 deeply that this whole question of creation is too pro- 
 found for human intellect. A dog might as well specu- 
 late on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and 
 believe what he can." 
 
 All things are pure and consistent to the man who is 
 big enough to break away from the confines of what 
 we term orthodoxy, and is not shackled by prudery 
 and bigotry. But let a man adopt this principle in 
 his daily social and business life, that he will walk 
 with no other guide than his God, and he will find 
 
 83 
 
 s^P 1 
 '4?oH*trt 
 
 -AL.F 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 that his conduct will not be in accord with orthodoxy. 
 The first stone that is thrown at him will come from 
 the Amen corner. Let a man take God into his busi- 
 ness as familiarly as he takes the hand of a friend ; let 
 him feel that his bedchamber is as holy as the pulpit, 
 and that the most menial service is as important as 
 preaching the gospel, and his bishop, like the Bishop 
 of Oxford, will fling at him his shaft of ridicule. 
 
 HEN we feel that our's is a hard lot, it is well 
 to remember this: If the man Jesus had been 
 given a fine home, where he would be pampered and 
 waited upon, he would not have got close enough to 
 the heart of the world to have become its savior. 
 
 IT is easier to damn than to forgive; and since 
 "man makes God in his own image," he teaches, 
 and is more ready to believe, that God has chosen the 
 lesser virtue rather than exercise the greater. 
 
 7ft HEN we move close to nature, we throw off the 
 ^^^ frills and foibles that man has added as neces- 
 sities to life, and become kings of that simple life that 
 the world thinks is greatness. 
 
THE EMPTINESS"* SACRIFICE 
 
 "I have not loved the world, nor the 
 world me." Byron. 
 
 T always gives me a pang of sorrow 
 when I hear good men tell of the 
 "sacrifice" this one made for that 
 one, but much more when I hear 
 from pulpit and press the wail about 
 the "sacrifice" made by Jesus Christ 
 for his brother man. To think that 
 man should be so blinded by custom 
 as to delude himself into believing 
 that service means sacrifice, is to me 
 the most sorrowful thing. I once 
 heard an eminent Presbyterian di- 
 vine preach a sermon on the terrors 
 of a Christian life. He went on to 
 say that from the cradle of what he 
 characterized as man's second birth, 
 to the grave, the Christian's life was 
 one continuous line of trial and trib- 
 ulation, sacrifice and disappoint- 
 ment, and in the end, the faithful 
 scarcely are saved! In the face of 
 an optimism that makes man in the 
 image of his God, we have this pes- 
 simism that makes him a slave not 
 worth saving. And we cannot but 
 wonder that two sincere men can 
 hold such divergent views. But they 
 do. And one is as honest and ear- 
 85 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 nest in seeking to know the Truth as the other. 
 But let us see for ourselves. What has your expe- 
 rience been? What has been the experience of those 
 faithful souls we all have met whose lives have been, 
 and are being spent practically in the service of hu- 
 manity? "My yoke is easy, my burden light," said 
 He, the Prince of Saviors ; and thus other saviors com- 
 ing after Him have also spoken. Why, then, do we 
 insist on making the yoke grievous and the burden 
 heavy? All is gain; all is joy; when we live a natural 
 life amongst our fellows. To act justly and with 
 mercy, doing our duty daily because it is our duty, is 
 better than sacrifice. 
 
 Take the testimony of those men and women the world 
 over, whose lives have been a practical exemplifica- 
 tion of the principles of brotherly love, and whose 
 object in life is to serve mankind; do they tell of la- 
 borious days of sacrifice and sorrow? Do they com- 
 plain of what it has cost them? Not at all. Theirs 
 is one long, happy experience of service, and there- 
 fore of unfoldment and love. They never know the 
 meaning of the word sacrifice those manly men and 
 womanly women. Every moment, every hour, every 
 day, they live quietly, joyfully, sincerely, always 
 ready to act in the service of their fellows, no pining 
 for something better; no room, no desire, for more 
 joy; no thought of reward, here or hereafter. They 
 seek to serve, that is all. And their reward is in hav- 
 ing done something for another, fl The teaching that 
 service means sacrifice is a curse that came with the 
 law about the time of Moses, and which mankind has 
 
 86 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 not yet outgrown. To grow we must serve. When 
 we feel that we are sacrificing something in order to 
 serve another, it is time we sought to get the devil 
 selfishness out of us. The Man Jesus sacrificed noth- 
 ing when he gave his life upon the tree! It was the 
 only way left for him to demonstrate his love for man- 
 kind, and He gained as much as we in the exercise of 
 that love. The lover always is the winner, whether 
 his love is reciprocated or not. If I love you, I gain 
 more by giving expression to my love than you do in 
 being loved by me. We never can love another while 
 we hold within us anything of Self-ish-ness. A heart 
 big enough to push the oceans out of their beds would 
 not be big enough to hold love of self and love for 
 another at the same time. And so, when we have self 
 love we shall not have the desire to serve, therefore, 
 what we do for our fellows will be done with the hand 
 out behind. 
 
 But how differently the thought of service comes to 
 the man who can forget himself in the transaction, 
 whatever it be, and does the thing because it helps 
 others to get it done. U I do not know of a more 
 striking example of the indwelling of this Universal 
 Love, than that which was found in the life of Henry 
 Clay Trumble, who was known for many brilliant 
 achievements : in the field of letters, of exploration, of 
 research; as an army chaplain, as a public speaker of 
 national prominence ; thirty years an editor and writer, 
 whose name is a household word in three continents. 
 In a personal letter written two years before his death 
 to a friend whom he had helped by his kind counsel 
 
 87 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and penetrating inquiries, he said: "You know I am 
 just now, and for about two years have been a 'Shut- 
 in/ unable to move without assistance; but it is good 
 to feel that God enables me still to do something in 
 his service for others. I have published two little 
 books from this room, and I have two or three more 
 that I hope will be of service. I could not have done 
 this, had I been able to do my usual work in my 
 office." 
 
 The friend did not know up to the time of the receipt 
 of that letter that Mr. Trumble was a "shut-in," un- 
 able to move without assistance, although he had been 
 favored by Mr. Trumble with his earnest, thoughtful 
 personal letters once or twice a month for more than 
 two years. In all his letters there was that charm 
 of unselfishness, coupled with a deep, abiding faith in 
 his fellows, and a burning desire to serve; but never 
 one word about his own condition, and not the inkling 
 of a thought about sacrifice. It was all joyous service 
 because his heart was in his work. 
 
 DON'T be a skimmer ! Get into the heart of things. 
 It's the digging and delving that develops a man. 
 Ease has killed more men than effort. 
 
 rHERE won't be any shadows to frighten you, 
 Sweetheart, if your face is toward the Sun. 
 
 88 
 
AS AMAN THINKETH 
 
 "There is no man suddenly either excel- 
 lently good, or extremely evil." Sir Philip 
 Sidney. 
 
 HE suspicious man is a slave of what 
 we call the devil. He suspects every 
 man of entertaining an evil motive ; 
 believes no man is sincere ; and con- 
 siders that every man has his price. 
 Such a person is to be pitied. For- 
 tunately he is greatly in the minor- 
 ity. He is one that has narrowed life 
 down to the four walls of a hog's 
 pen. Manhood to him is an un- 
 known quantity. He believes that 
 trickery and deceit are the stock and 
 trade of all men, and in order to 
 protect himself against the duplicity 
 of his fellows, he thinks he must 
 keep himself in that attitude of sus- 
 picion that holds him away from the 
 blessings that come through enter- 
 taining thoughts of fellowship and 
 trustfulness towards others. 
 I believe there is much of God in 
 every man and some of the devil, 
 too. But I believe the God in man 
 has the supremacy, for all the world 
 is God, and God is therefore all 
 powerful; whereas, the devil gets 
 there by growth of our indulgences, 
 which may be overcome by chang- 
 89 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 ing one's Ideal, and by switching from evil practices to 
 helpful practices. 
 
 There is no trait of the devil so subtile and so sure of 
 results as that to be found in the suspicious man or 
 woman. "We awaken in others the same attitude of 
 mind we hold towards them." We see ourselves re- 
 flected in them. If our eye is evil we will see evil in 
 all things. No matter how innocent the action of an- 
 other may be; no matter how honest and sincere the 
 motive ; if we have occasion to rub up against the sus- 
 picious man, either in business or social life, we will 
 find our veracity doubted and our sincerity questioned. 
 Pity it is that it is so. Not that Truth is ever injured 
 by the conduct of the suspicious man, for that cannot 
 be. Truth will live in spite of every suspicion, no mat- 
 ter in whom it is found; the utterances of 
 any Jackanape or society of Jackanapes cannot disturb 
 it. "The wild thyme is itself, nor asks consent of rose 
 nor reed." But what I hold true is this : When Truth 
 is doubted; when it is reviled; there is occasion for 
 pity, for then she turns away, and bestows upon an- 
 other the blessing she had for you and me. In the 
 transaction we lose ; Truth does not. 
 The man who is least suspicious of others, and I 
 think this holds true of woman also, will be found the 
 most worthy himself. He has been through the dark- 
 ness ; he has lived ; he knows. He has learned to trust 
 others by being taught to trust himself. f[ He has had 
 faith; that is it. He has exercised it in himself, and 
 in others. Faith is at the bottom of all friendship, all 
 learning, all wisdom, and all success. When we lose 
 
 90 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 faith in a friend, we suffer, for in our exercise of faith 
 we gain more than the one in whom the faith is exer- 
 cised. When a man loses his faith in learning and 
 wisdom; in his fellows and in himself; he is the great 
 loser. Faith is the outgrowth of the noblest that is 
 in us. Without faith man is not a whit higher than 
 the hog. With it in abundance he is only a step 
 below God. Thus we see, how great the privilege that 
 is ours, and how great the responsibility. 
 The fault-finding individual may be absolutely sincere 
 and of kind disposition. He simply exhibits a lack of 
 faith. If it isn't in the town he lives in it is in the 
 house. If not in the house then in the neighbors. If 
 not in the neighbors, then in the government. If not 
 in the government, then in himself. He sees things 
 through an evil eye. 
 
 WHAT BUZZ-SAWS DO 
 
 "Let us do, or die." Burns* 
 
 WHAT a pity; and yet how natural that it is so! 
 The man who bumps into a buzz-saw, blames 
 the buzz-saw for cutting him. 
 
 |f Here is a thought for you to carry home : If you 
 don't like to be torn to pieces by a buzz-saw, keep out 
 of the buzz-saw's way. It is not an original thought, 
 but how slow you and I are to take it to ourselves. 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 The buzz-saw has its business, which is to cut things. 
 If it is strong, and sharp and slick and clean it makes 
 a clean cut. If it is dull and rusty and wabbles in its 
 center, it makes trouble, and men curse it. fl True, 
 men curse it, too, when they get hit by it, though it do 
 good work, but only those who have got in its way. 
 Note this: the buzz-saw does not reach out after 
 trouble. It simply is, and because it is, men, when 
 they get tired quarreling with themselves, quarrel with 
 it. No buzz-saw can be a buzz-saw and not cut. 
 When it fails to cut, it is thrown into the scrap pile and 
 sold for old iron. This is what we get out of it : Each 
 man is born to go through life and carry with him his 
 own personality. He may be "peculiar," as others see 
 him, but let him be true to himself his character 
 and everything about him will be symmetrical, har- 
 monious. Whatever he is engaged in will bear the 
 stamp of his personality the very man himself 
 breathes in and through his work. His joys, his sor- 
 rows, his aims and ambitions ; his heart, his soul, will 
 speak to you in what he does. He lives one moment 
 at a time ; whether you find him in light or in shadow, 
 in toil or at ease, he is the same man. Thus are all 
 men when they are filling the Divine purpose. 
 fl But take that man of strong personality, and let him 
 hide himself under the cloak of popular custom; let 
 him suppress his "peculiarities," and think, and say, 
 and do, and be, just what would most please his 
 friends; and, presto! What is it now! Why, just a 
 hand-me-down a piece of man for the scrap pile 
 something to be discarded because it has failed to do 
 
 92 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 its work. The personality is gone, leaving only the 
 man animal remaining the God is out of him. 
 I do not know : I may be mistaken. According to the 
 orthodox way of thinking, I am mistaken: but it al- 
 ways has seemed to me, even from early childhood, 
 that the wrong conception has been placed upon man's 
 privilege in relation to what we call his religion. The 
 tendency of orthodoxy is to shape all men in the same 
 mould: to make them think alike, pray alike, praise 
 alike, and, so far as possible, appear alike. Men con- 
 duct themselves about as they please during "busi- 
 ness" hours, but so long as they are regular attendants 
 at "Divine" service they are considered "solid" on re- 
 ligious matters. We hear men talk of their business 
 and their work as if their occupation were something 
 separate and apart, and altogether distinct from their 
 religion. Yes, and do you know, I have heard some 
 surprisingly good people say of this one or that : "Mr. 
 So-and-So is so engrossed in his business that he never 
 can find time to do this, that or the other thing" 
 some "religious service," for instance. As if his re- 
 ligion and his work were two distinct things, demand- 
 ing the exercise of different qualities of his nature! 
 Now, listen, dear heart, I would not say a word to 
 cause a brother or sister to lose ever so small a par- 
 ticle of faith in any belief that has given comfort to 
 the soul, but did you never think how absurd it is to 
 suppose that a man is going to win his paradise in 
 some way distinct and apart from the service he ren- 
 ders to humanity. And that service must be in giving 
 expression to his Divine personality. 
 
 93 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT 
 
 "Here Skugg lies, 
 
 as a bug in a rug." Franklin. 
 
 OING home to die!" How blessed the thought, 
 and yet with it there comes a tinge of sorrow, 
 even to the happiest of us. But why the sorrow? fl Oh, 
 the peace that will come to the heart, so tattered and 
 torn by the storms of life, and the body racked with 
 pain ; the shoulders stooped from carrying the burdens 
 of this dear old work-a-day world ! 
 Going home to die, did you say? God speed you! 
 The doors are open to receive you, and there in a shady 
 nook the old arm chair awaits you, pillowed with in- 
 numerable cushions, soft and rose-scented; and by its 
 side a little chair for mother. Going home! Ah, who 
 would stay away? And die! Why not? 'Tis but a step 
 forward out into the valley where all titles are 
 snuffed, and we travel on the passport of life's deeds ; 
 wending our way to the New Jerusalem. A tear! 
 What's that for? At parting! Who said we would part? 
 Yes, yes ; we may never meet again in these old hulks 
 of ours : I may not hear your voice, and look into those 
 weary eyes ; I may not feel the pressure of your hand ; 
 but what does that matter? I know you will be there, 
 somewhere, and where you are, there shall I be also. 
 We can be closer then e'en than now; yes, much 
 closer. 
 
 Then why those tears? 'Tis harder, and the responsi- 
 bility is greater, to live today as I ought to live than 
 die. To die is nothing ; to live is all. I go to my bed 
 
 94 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and sleep: a dream comes over me, and I am trans- 
 ported from this world to fairy land. I walk and 
 talk to others they talk and walk with me. My body 
 and senses are dead ; perhaps as dead as they ever shall 
 be who knows ? There is no pain ; I do not have any 
 fear. After a time I go back into this old hulk; con- 
 sciousness returns, and I awake to begin anew the 
 duties of life. 
 
 Some day I shall steal away from this body of mine 
 and will walk and talk to others; they will talk and 
 walk with me ; and I shall be so happy I will not come 
 back. Then they will say, "He's dead." And friends 
 will be mournful and sad, and enemies cheerful and 
 glad; and just over there where the flowers are most 
 beautiful and fragrant, and the birds sing sweetest, I 
 will be doing the thing I ought to do, and praising 
 God! 
 
 F 
 
 THE CARPENTER'S SON 
 
 "There was a laughing devil in his sneer." The Corsair. 
 
 IND a man who thinks alone who forgets him- 
 self and strives only to do the thing as nearly 
 right as it can be done who is ready to sacrifice him- 
 self and all that he has, or is to have, in order to do 
 it find him, I say, and you have found a genius. Look 
 him over carefully. Perhaps he is a very good fellow ; 
 perhaps genial; but surely just an ordinary man. He 
 may wear a blue rough shirt, with sleeves rolled up to 
 
 95 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 the elbows. It little matters. When you have found 
 him, and satisfied yourself that you have seen many a 
 man finer looking than he ; that he isn't such an extraor- 
 dinary individual after all; just shut your eyes a 
 minute. Now open them again ! The man is gone, and 
 in his stead before you stand his defamers. They al- 
 ways follow close at his heels. They, like yourself, 
 have also been disappointed in his appearance. They 
 expected to see a show, not the genius ; forgetting that 
 to see a genius one must be a genius. They, like you, 
 again, are struck with wonder that a genius could look 
 so common, and the cry goes up : "Isn't this the car- 
 penter's son?" and at once the crown of thorns is cut 
 for him. 
 
 IF you have made up your mind that you are not 
 going to reach heaven until Death calls, you will 
 search a long while for it. 
 
 HEN we condemn a man unheard we do our- 
 selves a great injustice, in that we blind our- 
 selves to his virtues. 
 
 M 
 
 ANY a man has got a hard fall from standing on 
 so thin a thing as his dignity. 
 
 )T is no sin to worship at the shrine of female love- 
 liness if you do not make it so. 
 
CROWDING^ETOTEM POLE 
 
 "He was a man 
 
 Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven 
 To serve the devil in." Pollock. 
 
 HAVE said before, and I will here 
 repeat, that it is psychologically im- 
 possible for a person to grow in 
 knowledge so long as he clings to 
 the false notion that he is too stupid 
 to learn. The boy and girl who leads 
 the class in school is not the one 
 who comes regularly before the 
 teacher with the plea, "I can't." No 
 man ever accomplished anything 
 worthy in business, learning or art, 
 with the stamp of inability upon 
 him. No progress can be made until 
 we lose sight of our defects and 
 come into the knowledge that we 
 can do things. Confidence, whether 
 in the school room or the counting 
 room, is the power that makes for 
 progress and development. I CAN 
 bottoms all physical and mental 
 growth. It is, indeed, the secret of 
 all growth, whether moral, physical, 
 mental or spiritual. 
 To teach the child at its mother's 
 knee that it is sinful, and to follow 
 this thought on through life, is the 
 greatest curse that humanity has af- 
 flicted upon itself. The belief be- 
 97 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 comes a habit, and all through life harasses the man- 
 hood of the race. Impressing upon the plastic child 
 mind that it is a miserable object of God's mercy ; that 
 it is habitually doing the things it ought not to have 
 done, and leaving undone the things it ought to have 
 done, and that there is no help in it, is downright 
 cruelty. Such a crude notion about man's soul un- 
 foldment is painful to witness. 
 
 I remember one day at a little Sunday-school service 
 in a mining camp, a minister of the Established Church 
 was present, and the simple-hearted superintendent 
 called upon him to lead the school in prayer. The 
 unfortunate man did not have his prayer book with 
 him, and was lost to know what to pray for. He 
 mumbled a jumble of words, and closed with a loud 
 "A-h-men." At the close of the service the parson 
 warned the superintendent never to ask him to offer 
 prayer again when he did not have his prayer-book 
 along. The warning was quite unnecessary, for there 
 was not a ten-year-old boy or girl in the school that 
 could not have spoken the feelings of the heart more 
 freely to the worshipful God than did that priest, who 
 was supposed to "lead" the flock. 
 
 |f When men are brought up in the belief that service 
 is a matter of sound and symbols, rather than of feel- 
 ing and doing, and are taught from early childhood 
 that spiritual growth is measured by one's glibness 
 in mumbling the prayers prepared by priests of 
 rhetorical tongue and steel heart, they are drawing 
 dangerously near the fig leaf period and crowding 
 close the totem pole. 
 
 98 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 AT THE BECK OF FASHION 
 
 "And the Devil did grin, for his darling Bin 
 Is pride that apes humility." Coleridge. 
 
 HOW prone men are and women too to do 
 things it is considered "proper." Dame Fashion 
 decrees that the waist shall assume a wasplike slen- 
 derness, and on goes the corset. Custom tells man it 
 is quite the thing to sip the booze and suck the amber 
 and up goes the whisky and tobacco bill. 
 If allowed freedom of thought and action I was go- 
 ing to say that but it is hazardous to say what 
 woman would do. She might and she might not. I do 
 not know. But, giving her the benefit of the doubt, it is 
 probable she would not go to the extreme that fashion 
 demands. She does not do so because she enjoys it. 
 She does so to be like others. Men do not saturate 
 themselves with alcohol and nicotine because their 
 bodies need it. They do not throw into themselves 
 stuff that a hog would grunt at and turn tail to be- 
 cause they like it. They do so because others do it. 
 Man and his mate are the only creatures under heaven 
 that will do what they know will injure their bodies 
 and brains and impair the health of their offspring. 
 Any other animal, fowl, insect or reptile will observe 
 instinctively the thing wherein safety lies, and will not 
 depart from the law that nature has made. Not so with 
 man and woman. Those things that all sane men 
 know will steal away their brains and deaden ambi- 
 tion, are taken with a certain bravado, as if there were 
 a spark of manliness in making of oneself a fool. 
 
 99 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 I do not know, but I am led to believe that when men 
 and women learn to appreciate their unlimited possi- 
 bilities, and realize fully that they are gods in the 
 chrysalis, they will quit this aping servility, this slav- 
 ish bowing of the knee to fashion's foibles, and strive 
 to make each life real and absolutely true. We but 
 show our weaknesses when we confess by our acts 
 that we cannot rise above the prevailing wills and 
 customs of our day. Any woman can be a Tittering 
 Jennie where all the rest are Tittering Jennies, but 
 it takes the real virtues of strong womanhood to make 
 of oneself a Florence Nightingale. Anything that 
 wears pantaloons and a whisker can acquire the cigar- 
 ette habit, with cocktail and red curtain attachments; 
 Nature is as ready to help a fool be a fool, as she is 
 to assist a Solomon to be a greater than Solomon. 
 
 100 
 
ENTHUSIASM $Sg GENIUS 
 
 "I awoke one morning and found myself 
 famous . ' ' Byron. 
 
 
 HE conformist is a man who will not 
 grow. The non-conformist is a man 
 who will not stop growing. The en- 
 thusiast is a non-conformist, 
 with vitality plus. The enthusi- 
 astic boy is the pride of his 
 father, and his mother's joy. Every- 
 body else likes him, too. His en- 
 thusiasm is recognized as vigorous, 
 open-hearted honesty. It is intensi- 
 fied gladness : life plus, with bubbles 
 on the side. But enthusiasm in Little 
 Bill and enthusiasm in Big Bill are 
 two distinct commodities: one com- 
 mands the applause of all men, and 
 the other the haw-haws of the gal- 
 lery, and the snickers of the parquet. 
 Men who do not understand have a 
 peculiar dislike for the enthusiastic 
 individual. |f He is too blamed 
 anxious to be a-doing things to 
 please the man satisfied to let well 
 enough alone. There are some men 
 so dried up by jealousy and jaundice 
 as not to understand the connecting 
 link between the enthusiast and the 
 genius. And some men are quite 
 101 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 alarmed when their friends hint at enthusiasm in con- 
 nection with their name and work. 
 The fact is, there is just a step between the enthusiast 
 and the genius. The enthusiast is laughed at for his 
 earnestness ; while the genius is applauded for his en- 
 thusiasm. The only real difference between them is 
 that one has caught the world's applause, while the 
 other is honored by its sneers. It is just a question of 
 one's viewpoint to discover where the enthusiast leaves 
 off and the genius begins. Today's sneers are quite 
 often tomorrow's cheers. The enthusiast who is 
 winked at today, may tomorrow be the genius on 
 whose neck the world falls with eclat. 
 fl To be an enthusiast, a man must exercise the zeal of 
 a genius. He must have that intensity of earnestness ; 
 that strength and clearness of imagination; that hon- 
 esty and boldness of heart, to stand unmoved amid all 
 the jeers and cheers for what he holds to be true. A 
 man must be morally and physically strong to be an 
 enthusiast. He must be himself at whatever cost, and 
 will cheerfully lose his life to save it. He throws not 
 only his strength into his work, but also his person- 
 ality, thus making his work a live thing to sing the 
 praises of the man who made it, long after he is dead 
 and buried. His body and his mentality are only the 
 seed; the fruit of his life may not come until long 
 years afterward. 
 
 The man who is afraid to be winked at afraid to 
 brave the rules of conformity will never have occa- 
 sion to alarm himself or his friends about the perils 
 of greatness. An enthusiast finds himself everlast- 
 
 102 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 ingly a knocker of dead men's idols. That means a 
 life of trial, of hard work and fainting not. From the 
 man Jesus all down the ages it has been the enthusiast 
 who has kept the world in growing pains. He has 
 put Life abundant into business, into society, into 
 home, into community. The sum of all faith, all hope, 
 all work, is enthusiasm. It has covered the earth with 
 its accomplishments, while lack of it has brought ruin 
 to a vast army of good men. 
 
 OUR THOUGHTS MAKE US 
 
 "Learn the luxury of doing good," Goldsmith, 
 
 WHERE is the man who does not know that it is 
 impossible to make oneself physically stronger, 
 mentally clearer or spiritually deeper without exercise 
 of the physical, mental and spiritual faculties. I saw 
 an article in a magazine of recent issue which at- 
 tempted to disprove the brain-food qualities of fish, 
 and cited the mental condition of the Esquimaux and 
 other fish-eating peoples, to show how absurd the be- 
 lief. Without attempting to prove the brain-food 
 qualities of fish meat, or meat of any kind, the writer 
 would call attention to this fact, that brain develop- 
 ment, like physical development, or soul development, 
 depends entirely on the amount of exercise that is 
 given to these faculties, and not on the character of 
 
 103 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 food eaten. Anything tending to force the faculties 
 into disuse retards their growth. To make life easy 
 is to set it back. Through inactivity we lose our divine 
 individuality, the only thing Godlike in us. 
 
 JOY OF EXPRESSING LIFE 
 
 "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's 
 teeth are set on edge." Ezekiel. 
 
 WHEN man reaches the atmosphere of the Divine, 
 he will be Divine. And man may reach the 
 atmosphere of the Divine just in proportion to the 
 amount of unrestricted expression he permits Nature 
 through him. Whether that will be in his present form 
 and in this world, or in the future state, it matters 
 little. He must grow into the Divine if he ever is to 
 reach it. 
 
 There is one natural state. That is the Divine State 
 of Nature. Any other state is as unnatural as it is 
 fictitious, artificial. The trees and plants and flowers 
 all forms of life, vegetable, animal and mineral are 
 a part of that natural state ; all are good, though none 
 are perfect or can be perfect in this life; that is, ev- 
 erything is susceptible to further growth. 
 In the plant kingdom, was ever a bush budded and 
 nursed to fruitage that bore the best that could be 
 borne by that particular variety of bush or tree? And 
 in the animal kingdom, was ever an animal man 
 
 104 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 or beast born that achieved perfection, beyond which 
 point none other could go ? fl It is true that no 
 standard of perfection may be set for man or beast 
 or any other creeping or breathing thing. The human 
 mind cannot grasp the meaning of perfection. And, 
 since perfection cannot be grasped by the human 
 mind, man cannot hope to reach it in his present 
 condition. But he may ever grow into nearer perfec- 
 tion and eventually Nature must reach perfection 
 through him. 
 
 I sometimes think that man, in his efforts to be what 
 Nature did not intend him, is missing the joy of a 
 life of expression. The height of all orthodox teach- 
 ing is that man shall be good. But no two minds will 
 agree as to what constitutes being good, or being bad ; 
 hence the man who wastes his time trying to "be 
 good," fails to express the life that Nature intends 
 for him. I do not believe that Nature ever demands 
 of man, animal or any living thing, something he is 
 incapable of doing or being. Man himself has set the 
 standard, and as a result it is one that restricts him 
 and makes him untrue to the natural tendencies in 
 him. All of Nature is not "good" in the sense that man 
 is taught to be good. We have to take the storm with 
 the sunshine; the evil with the good; the happy with 
 the sad; the bitter with the sweet. Without "bad" 
 there could not be any good ; without sorrow no hap- 
 piness ; without rain no harvest, fl Had there been no 
 crucifixion there would have been no salvation; with- 
 out persecution, no Savior. 
 We cannot always understand; often we are gravely 
 
 105 
 
TETET HEART OF THINGS 
 
 mistaken. We are mistaken because we think that 
 God and Nature are perfect. Nature makes nothing 
 perfect. Neither does God. The highest thing credited 
 to Him in fact, the thing made in His own image, 
 proved imperfect before it learned to know right from 
 wrong. 
 
 And yet, everything was made to attain perfection. 
 Everything must grow into perfection, and by a nat- 
 ural order of things. 
 
 The flower is taken in its wild state and by a succes- 
 sion of plantings and buddings is slowly brought to a 
 higher state of beauty and usefulness. A similar 
 process characterizes the growth of every other form 
 of life. The dross is taken with the gold and by a 
 succession of burnings and siftings the pure metal is 
 brought forth. 
 
 Why should there be this continual striving by Nature, 
 with man and without man, through him and inde- 
 pendent of him, towards the goal of perfection? Is it 
 because the Power we call God is made happier by 
 seeing it done, or is it because Nature is the Power 
 Itself and that we as men, and our brothers, the trees, 
 the plants, the birds, the beasts and the things that 
 crawl and creep and swim, all are expressions of the 
 same Life through which He or It, or whatever it be- 
 God is striving for greater perfection? If All Na- 
 ture is the seen the tangible expression of the Power 
 That Is, and man is but a part or phase of that ex- 
 pression, then man is as near God today as he will 
 be in any future state, and heaven then will be what 
 heaven is today now and here. 
 
 106 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Life presents this law of compensation that we can- 
 not escape. Nor should we want to. We draw down 
 in exact proportion to the amount we put up. Nature 
 never gives something for nothing. The price is asked 
 and must be paid. All she asks, and all she gives, 
 is a Square Deal. And so, when we are content to 
 live our little day in weakness and folly, Nature con- 
 cludes that we haven't much desire to do anything 
 else and leaves us alone. But our refusal to act does 
 not impair Nature's progress. She strives for greater 
 expression and reaches greater perfection without 
 us if we will not allow it with us. fl We lose in the 
 refusal. Nature does not. 
 
 I think the animals and insects and the plants and 
 birds are happier than we because they act simply and 
 without thought, and, therefore, give a truer expres- 
 sion of the Life that animates them. 
 While man is calling aloud to God for forgivenness, 
 and trying to be good, the animals just feel that they 
 never did quarrel with God and go right on living 
 true to the Expression of Life in them. And it does 
 seem to me, that Life so expressed true to the Na- 
 ture of the vessel through which it comes, is the life 
 that counts in the long run, whether it be in man or 
 beast, or the tiniest molecule in the One Great Whole. 
 
 107 
 
A1HOTJGHT ON HILL COMBING 
 
 "But on and up, where Nature's heart 
 Beats strong amid the hills." Milnes. 
 
 FRIEND writes for information. He 
 says: "The position that I have se- 
 lected to fill is not above me. I think 
 I have chosen one that will indeed 
 be an honor to me if success will 
 crown my wishes, which I have per- 
 fect confidence that it will. What is 
 it that I must do to prepare myself?" 
 jf Keep hustling ! 
 
 |f In these two words we have the 
 gist of it all. Keep hustling ! Today 
 tomorrow the next day always ! 
 We have never done enough so long 
 as there is more to do. It is not 
 enough to choose a calling and wish 
 for success. Plod on! Keep plod- 
 ding ! Don't stop to let someone pat 
 you on the back for having decided 
 what you want to be. It is well 
 to have made a choice; yes, it is 
 very well. But, dear Goodness ! that 
 isn't enough! Mercy, no! 
 Whatever your decision, look sharp 
 that you do not spoil it by dwelling 
 too long upon it. fl Nothing counts 
 so much for community advance- 
 ment as individual advancement: 
 and nothing aids in the individual's 
 1 08 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 advancement so much as the forgetfulness of self in 
 the effort to advance the aim and object of the indi- 
 vidual. All advancement is gradual. And at every 
 step effort is required. Every effort requires strength, 
 either of character or of mind and body, and with 
 every exertion there is growth sufficient to prepare one 
 for the next step. 
 
 It is always pleasing to hear an individual express a 
 desire to run ahead of the pack. It is pleasing, be- 
 cause before there came that desire in the man's heart 
 there was the awakening of the individual. And an 
 awakened individual means one that is prepared to 
 grow. But have a care! After the awakening there 
 comes, first the testing time; then the waiting time; 
 then the dark ; then the light ; and after this, wealth 
 not of soul, but of pocket. And herein is the test of 
 endurance! All other trials are as nothing beside it. 
 |f Oh, yes ; that is true. When wealth of pocket comes, 
 the common thought has it that therein comes Success, 
 but poor, indeed, were Success if the accumulation of 
 wealth were the acme of it all ! 
 
 About the first thing that confronts a man who starts 
 out on the road to Success is a disappointment. This 
 is followed by disappointment number two, and num- 
 ber three, and four and perhaps more. Things do 
 not go the way you want them to. Then the weakling 
 drops out and joins the croaking chorus. Complaints 
 are laid at the head office, and all the while the fault 
 is our own. We forget that somebody else is pleased 
 if we are not ; and that the world is quite as happy at 
 
 109 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 their pleasure as it would be at our own; and so, in 
 that broad, universal sense, it is just as well. 
 If you would win Success, leave croaking to the frogs ; 
 they can do it much better than you. If your doorway 
 is dark, and your foresight poor; if you cannot see the 
 bright side of the clouds overshadowing your path, go 
 and immerse yourself in a bath tub; then go to bed. 
 Tomorrow you will awake filled with radiating cheer, 
 and prosperity will be budding on every bush, fl Boost 
 yourself higher. No doubt the world can get along 
 without you; but not so well as with you. If things 
 are not coming your way, catch on, and get the most 
 out of them as they fly by some other way. fl Think 
 how lop-sided your life would be if all that is were 
 yours, and came to you without any effort on your 
 part. And if you would be one-sided with all, you 
 would be one-sided with part if it came to you with- 
 out your putting forth any effort to get it. If you 
 have to make no effort for what you have you lose the 
 source of preparation for the next accomplishment, and 
 without preparation you are sure to fail. To neglect 
 preparation is to reject Success, fl There isn't anything 
 else for it. 
 
 The man who is careless about keeping his appoint- 
 ments, lavish in his promises, and negligent in keeping 
 them, whether he be preacher, teacher, banker, mer- 
 chant or roustabout and one calling is as honorable 
 as the other, provided the man who fills it is as faith- 
 ful to his trust as the other I say the man who prom- 
 ises much and fails to come up with the goods, is 
 doomed to stay a mediocre man and he will deserve 
 
 no 
 

 THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 it. The sooner we realize this and wake up or stand 
 aside and make room for another, the better will it be 
 for us and everybody else. 
 
 Men are usually more ready to blame others for their 
 failures than to acknowledge their own weakness. 
 ft Adam started his sons off wrong in this respect 
 what did I tell you ! fl They believe if they could just 
 have things to their liking, they would do wonders! 
 But, really, no man ever succeeded who was able to 
 travel all the distance from start to finish in an auto- 
 mobile. No man could get up ambition enough to 
 succeed in anything but a failure on a bed of roses. 
 No doubt there be roses bordering the path of Success, 
 but it is the thorns that spur a man on. fl Success is 
 not easily won. |f It doesn't grow on low-hanging 
 bushes. 
 
 The man who is always grumbling is always fumbling. 
 While he is complaining of this difficulty and that, 
 and bemoaning his lot, somebody else by his side is 
 working out problems and surmounting difficulties 
 greater far than his. And without a whimper ! fl Why, 
 bless you, friend; it never was intended that man 
 should live without having obstacles to overcome. 
 That story about Adam and Eve, and the "fall" of 
 man, as we understand it, is a bit of moonshine. Life 
 wouldn't be worth living if there were no trials to test 
 us and give us more strength and courage. Every 
 trial is a blessing, fl We plead for more grace, more 
 faith, more love: and neglect to use what we have! 
 Ask a professional gymnast what course to pursue that 
 you may increase your muscular power, your agility 
 
 in 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and bodily grace. Will he tell you to go home and 
 he will send the "how" by special delivery? Not much ! 
 He lays out a course for you to follow that compels 
 you to exercise what strength you have. And you can 
 get no more until you do. Thus we find it in all the 
 faculties of the brain and heart. We grow strong in 
 the things we exercise. That is why obstacles make 
 for Success if we overcome them. Each gives us 
 more strength for the next. 
 
 The aim of every man is to succeed in achieving his 
 standard of Success. What this standard is each man 
 knows for himself, and keeps it to himself or should. 
 We talk about Success as if it were a mysterious 
 Something always at the other end of a long-distance 
 telephone. We feel that we can talk to it and about 
 it, but cannot get in direct touch with it. This is a 
 tremendous error. To succeed now this moment 
 that is Success the only Success worth striving for. 
 Succeed in what? Why, in Service. In the measure 
 we serve others, we succeed, fl In the words of Geo. 
 Knox: "The more you give, the more you have left. 
 Talent begets talent." 
 
 There are certain fundamental principles that every 
 man must adhere to to be successful, no matter what 
 legitimate business he is engaged in. First, there 
 must be faith in God and Man. Many very pious 
 people that I have known have had much faith in God, 
 but treat their fellows as if every man were a rogue. 
 Naturally they fail in everything they undertake. 
 Then, to be successful it goes without saying that we 
 must be honest: it is no secret that strict integrity is 
 
 112 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 the foundation of every legitimate business success. 
 Honesty begets honesty, just like love begets love. 
 Then, too, we must not limit our ambition : work, not 
 drudgery, but healthful, honest work is the price of all 
 Success. In this, as in all things, if we "pay as we 
 go" the price is not excessive. And then, too, we 
 must depend on ourselves; exert our own ability; be 
 economical, but not penurious; courteous, careful and 
 thoughtful; and must never be defeated by defeat. 
 The man who is always apologizing; who shrinks 
 from responsibility; who shirks, and sluffs and lops; 
 who never dares to act independently, but waits to be 
 shoved along, never will stand deuce high in anything. 
 He is humanity's curse. The lazy man, and the man 
 who is a living apology, needs no after punishment. 
 They are already damned. God wants men who dare 
 look him in the face; who can stand upright before 
 the world and defy defeat. 
 
 To Succeed, then, let us be honest : own up like a man 
 that you are the cause of what you apologetically call 
 your "ill-luck." We fritter away valuable time each 
 day. Failing to look sharp, we do not see the oppor- 
 tunities that are around us and they pass us by. 
 
 SIMPLICITY AND GREATNESS. 
 
 "The world knows nothing of its greatest men." Henry 
 Taylor. 
 
 WHEN I was somewhat younger than I am today, 
 and therefore less liable to discriminate, I was 
 asked by a companion: "Hank, do you think you 
 
 "3 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 ever will be a great man?" The idea amused me, and 
 I smiled audibly. Couldn't help it. fl It was so funny. 
 |f Did you ever try to define greatness? You would 
 'fail if you did. If you could touch elbows with the 
 men who have been known as great men, what char- 
 acter of man do you think you would find? Would 
 you find greatness, as we understand it, personified? 
 Indeed, you would not. You would find simplicity 
 incarnate. |f The great man is he who does what lies 
 before him now better than anyone else could do it, 
 and he does it without thought of greatness, fl He 
 does it to get it done. No man was made great in the 
 twinkle of an eye. He may come into prominence sud- 
 denly. His name may never have been heard before, 
 but all the while since boyhood he has been preparing 
 for just the thing which is to bring him into promi- 
 nence like a meteor. He was a great boy before he be- 
 came a great man great because he was wise enough 
 to be content to be faithful in the duties devolving upon 
 him as a boy. When a child, he was simply and truly 
 himself. He acted for himself; he spoke for himself; 
 he thought for himself; he was none other than him- 
 self and did not want to be. He lived his own life 
 as he understood it, regardless of the jeers of his 
 enemies, and in spite of the applause of his friends. 
 When misunderstood, he did not stop to complain nor 
 to explain. He did what was next at hand. Thus he 
 was as great in childhood as in his manhood, and as 
 humble in one as the other. Doing what was before 
 him as a child, however disagreeable it may have 
 been, he grew into manhood in the spirit of duty 
 
 114 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 doing. Preparation for the greater responsibilities 
 came with the execution of the lesser. 
 
 The silly world applauds him as a man, because he 
 has caught the public's fancy, but the time of his true 
 greatness was when, as a boy, unknown to anyone 
 but his schoolmates, and perhaps by them dubbed 
 "Shortie," he used to do things just a little bit better 
 than any of the other boys could do them. 
 Man wins greatness because he does not run after it. 
 He does not think anything about it. All that he must 
 care to know is, what is his duty, and, knowing it, he 
 must do it. |f And he never can afford to think much 
 about what the world is saying either of him or his 
 duty. "Socrates won immortality because he did not 
 want it," says Hubbard, "and the Sophists secured 
 oblivion because they deserved it." 
 The man who thinks about being great, never is. "I 
 am a man of some importance," said a caller at the 
 Segnogram home one day. He may have been, I do 
 not know; but it would have been an easy matter to 
 mistake him for a common thing about the size of 
 nuisance, fl If you and I are not great enough to 
 luminate the drudgery of life in the simplicity of 
 child-like faith, we never shall be great enough to 
 draw the fire of the God of Genius, fl And if we are 
 great enough, we shall not need to advertise the fact. 
 And so, dear heart, be simple be simple. 
 
AND NATURE SMITES 
 
 "What a gloomy thing it is not to know 
 where to find one T s soul." Hugo. 
 
 HY should there be so much that is 
 contrary to nature in what man has 
 created in his religious life? We 
 are lost in wonder sometimes when 
 we see with what ease Nature does 
 things, and compare with it the pol- 
 icy of man in his aspirations to 
 reach a plane beyond himself. 
 Nature never will give something 
 for nothing. To reach a given point 
 in life we must pass through cer- 
 tain stages of growth certain disci- 
 pline certain training. jfWe reach 
 heaven through hell. 
 We do not expect in the child the 
 understanding of the man. Nor do 
 we look for a natural understanding 
 in the man whose head has been 
 turned in the direction of life's 
 veneer. Therefore, when we see a 
 man endeavoring to harmonize Na- 
 ture Thoughts with those of the 
 Unnatural, and striving to twist 
 Nature into his poor, misshapen 
 ideal of man, we pity him for his 
 blindness, but we do not condemn 
 him. Nature lets him go ahead; 
 she does not become excited at his 
 116 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 strenuous efforts, nor does she create a disturbance 
 in her efforts to teach him a better way. She just 
 allows him to go his way and do the best he can, 
 without ever changing in ever so minute a degree her 
 system. She knows that no effort can be entirely lost, 
 and, while man may bring upon himself an ungodly 
 amount of misery and woe, she is content to feel that 
 all of it is required to bring him into a more natural 
 state of being. And so she sits calmly enthroned 
 behind the veil and looks on, knowing that one day 
 man will recognize his folly and come to her for a 
 clearer conception of life. She knows that man is 
 doing the best he can with the light he has. She 
 would help him do more but may not, owing to the 
 man's unpreparedness, and his inability to perceive 
 things in a natural way. She throws out this guard 
 and that, to prevent him drifting away, often holding 
 him in a prison cell, on a bed of sickness, or banishing 
 him to the Isle of Patmos, where she might talk with 
 him of the things he seeks so diligently to know, and 
 yet which are too simple for him to learn in the 
 superficiality of his position. 
 
 I sometimes think that Nature is what we know as 
 the All Love. She is so big, so Infinite, so Divine, 
 that every tiny particle of the What-Appears-to-Be- 
 but-Is-Not is out of her, and she sits in all the majesty 
 of her simplicity, the Queen of the Universe of the 
 All Wise. She is so pure she never has known the 
 absurdity of what man pictures within himself and 
 calls sin; and so wise that she knows there isn't any 
 right and wrong of things, but that all is right and 
 
 117 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 good did we but have the heart and scope to under- 
 stand. She would teach man the harmony of doing; 
 that in service only is Life and that what man calls 
 Death is nothing more than a transition from a lower 
 to a higher form of expression. 
 
 I uncover the head to Nature. She is divinely good 
 in that she does not interfere with man. She permits 
 him to do as he will, knowing that in the doing, 
 whether it be what we call good or bad, he grows into 
 the Being Back of All. 
 
 She would assist him would he but let her. But 
 Nature is not blind. She knows man better than he 
 knows himself, and witnessing his efforts, and realiz- 
 ing how he has reversed the natural law of the uni- 
 verse in his efforts to accomplish her purpose, she 
 hides her face in darkness and waits. 
 How long, oh God ! how long ! And all the while man 
 continues to strive against Nature in the belief that he 
 is fighting sin! Dear me! dear me! What a tre- 
 mendous amount of energy is wasted in this old, old 
 fight against the devil! What millions are spent in 
 trying to swamp him! And all the while, Nature the 
 Eternal, for whom all the fight is said to be made, 
 utters never a word. While man and priest fling their 
 voices loose on the desert air, Nature quietly, myste- 
 riously works goodness up into life by giving expres- 
 sion to the Power Back of All. ff The sorrow of it is 
 that while she is thus engaged, man is so engrossed 
 in the fight against Expression so determined to 
 suppress the flow of the Abundant Life that he fails 
 
 iz8 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 to see beyond the insignificant, and wastes his sub- 
 stance on earth's stony places. 
 
 Why do some men get so much more out of life than 
 others? The answer is simple: because they see so 
 much more in life than others. They are in touch 
 with Nature feel the pulsation of Nature's heart; 
 know her purpose; recognize her infinity and on top 
 of this and this is the great point they feel their 
 kinship with her in all other forms of expression, and 
 realize that they are the Infinite today and will be the 
 Infinite tomorrow, wherever tomorrow is spent. 
 When we rise to a higher plane and look beyond the 
 narrow valley in which orthodoxy has placed us; 
 when we mount the peaks and see below the hills and 
 valleys heretofore trodden by us; we lose ourselves in 
 wonderment, for we see with new eyes the landscape 
 of Nature Life. And those things that loomed so 
 large; those weaknesses that caused us such pain and 
 sorrow; those false notions about the Power Back of 
 Us, they disappear one by one, and we learn to pray a 
 new prayer: "Thy Kingdom has come." 
 
 119 
 
MADE HIS OWN HELL 
 
 "None has understood you, but I understand you; 
 None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself; 
 None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in 
 you." Walt Whitman. 
 
 ALSE teaching, and a mistaken idea 
 of modesty, has given life many 
 distressing vagaries that damn men's 
 souls here, and carry them to their 
 graves half done. I do not know 
 that I ever witnessed a sadder sight 
 than that of the life of a young man 
 of sterling training in the science of 
 metallurgy, a general favorite in so- 
 cial and what the world calls re- 
 ligious circles, and a master in the 
 art of knowing how to do hard 
 work. He was one of these "honor- 
 bright" fellows a man whose word 
 was better than his bond in whom 
 everybody had confidence, for so far 
 as any one knew, he did not have a 
 vicious habit. But beneath the coat 
 of the faithful church worker be- 
 hind the life of the man we knew as 
 the acme of religious perfection 
 there stalked a hidden devil more 
 vile than that of the libertine, and 
 more thirsty for the man's life-blood 
 than would have been the god of a 
 thousand thousand leeches. 
 I knew the young man several years 
 before the incident I am about to 
 120 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 record for the first time. In all that time I never 
 knew him to act anything but the gentleman. Faithful 
 in the least and the greatest duties that were thrust 
 upon him, he never wanted for an opportunity to do 
 good unto others. 
 
 Imagine my horror when, one bright Monday morn- 
 ing, in the little mining camp where we were living, 
 the newspaper gave this account of the young man's 
 death: "This morning the camp was startled by the 
 sad intelligence that T C had been drowned in 
 the lake. The report was based upon the fact that a 
 boat had been picked up on the beach containing the 
 clothing of C , together with bath towel, etc. The 
 general supposition is that he was taking a swim in 
 the lake late at night, as was his custom, using the 
 boat as his dressing raft, and that he was taken with 
 cramps in the chilly water. Thus will be explained 
 the tragic ending of one of the noblest characters that 
 ever has hit the camp. Honorable in all things, ever 
 thoughtful and earnest in his conduct toward others; 
 mindful always of their good, he sought relaxation in 
 the cooling waters and did not return. How the end 
 came where he took his last dive will never be 
 known, for he was alone, and it was late at night." 
 That was all. fl People do not express their sorrow or 
 their sympathy in words, in one of these mining 
 camps. They have a better way. And they went 
 about their work after a few hours as if the sun had 
 ever shone bright and warm. And there T C 
 sleeps today. The lake is as deep as the mountains 
 surrounding it are high. Below the surface of the 
 
 121 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 water there is a current so strong as to draw the 
 strongest swimmer down, and once a body gets into 
 its icy grasp there is no escape. Down, down it is 
 carried; how far nobody shall ever know, but far 
 enough to be buried for ever and aye, for these waters 
 never give up their dead. A mighty tomb, whose 
 surface is as capricious as a woman's love, soothing as 
 a mother's prayer; in calm not dead, in storm not 
 mournful; ever majestic and beautiful a fit resting 
 place for a character like his. 
 
 |f But there was one in that mining camp who knew 
 something of the life of the young man that the young 
 man did not dare tell and live. And yet he was mighty 
 brave. A hero was he. He was a savior, but was not 
 nailed upon the cross. 
 
 |f Before taking his last swim in the cold waters of the 
 lake, T C wrote briefly what he dared not make 
 known and live, |f And he told it with his pen 
 dipped in his life's blood. It was his last wish that 
 the story of his life be made known. He gave his life 
 that it might be published, and to me has fallen the 
 painful duty of carrying out the wish of the man who 
 counted it joy to lay down his life for his brethren. 
 I give the story as it was given me. It is the wail of 
 a soul lost in the darkness of night, yet brave enough 
 to speak the word of warning and sound the danger 
 signal, and when this is done to stand face to face with 
 his God and say: "Father, I did the best I could." 
 |f He addressed himself to the "Church authorities, 
 medical men, schoolmasters, parents, and those having 
 the training of children throughout the world: 
 
 122 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 "A lost, despairing soul, on the way to hell and 
 destruction, wants a word with you ere he goes. Have 
 you done your duty to the young under your charge, 
 in instructing them about themselves? Have you told 
 them of the horrors and dangers of self-abuse? And 
 if not, why have you neglected your duty to those 
 whom God has placed under your care? 
 "Let me tell you my history. My father died when 
 I was only six years of age, and at eight I was placed 
 in a large school near London, Eng., where this vice 
 flourished unchecked all the time I was there, for over 
 five years. Not a word of instruction ever came to 
 those fatherless boys except from one gentleman, a 
 man over fifty years of age, dressed in a silk hat and 
 frock coat, who used to take great interest in the 
 swimming performances. This villain, although pos- 
 sessed of a grown-up family of his own, used to secure 
 the good wishes of the boys by his generosity and 
 then, under the guise of his interest in swimming, 
 used to teach them the awful practice which I dare 
 not name again. As he was allowed to preach in the 
 school chapel on some occasions, and was looked up 
 to by everybody connected with the institution, what 
 blame to the poor children that many have fallen 
 under this terrible evil, fl A fine swimmer myself, I 
 came directly under his notice, and his baneful in- 
 fluence has cost me not only my own life, but has 
 wrecked and ruined many others, including the purest, 
 sweetest girl that ever lived. I left the school a bril- 
 liant scholar at the head of the science classes, and 
 winning a scholarship at the Government School of 
 
 123 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 Mines at South Kensington. For three years I re- 
 mained there, living at home meanwhile, where I had 
 not the instruction of a single man resident. Since 
 then I have always attended Divine services regularly 
 and have been a Sunday-School and Bible Class 
 attendant almost all the time, yet this subject, more 
 important to the young even than the evils of the 
 liquor traffic, has never been brought home to me by 
 those whose duty I consider it was. My life has been 
 moral in every other respect, for I have always 
 guarded against the evils which have been pointed out 
 to me, such as drinking, gambling and loose living, 
 but how was I to know the awful fate that was in 
 store for me? 
 
 "Oh, rouse to your duties in this matter! Ye churches, 
 ye doctors, ye schoolmasters, ye Bible-class teachers, 
 ye parents! The vice is hidden, and so all the more 
 dangerous. It is thought to be natural by nearly all, 
 though the voice of conscience tells them feebly that 
 it is not right, fl Speak out ! for the demons of hell 
 are laughing at my helplessness! Away with false 
 modesty: tell the young man of his danger ere it is 
 too late; ere he is confronted with the insane asylum 
 or the suicide's grave. 
 
 "Just twenty-six years of age; in fine robust health, 
 with every advantage that a young man could desire 
 in business, social and religious circles, I find myself 
 going to hell without anyone being the wiser; loved 
 ones, and the girl I have won, soon to be filled with 
 anguish and misery unspeakable because someone 
 neglected his duty in the past. 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 "On two occasions only I might have had the instruc- 
 tion which would have saved my body and soul, but 
 on each I just missed it; my misfortune. 
 "For Christ's sake, speak out boldly. Don't hide the 
 truth under a bushel. Let not the cry be from thou- 
 sands of ruined boys and girls, 'Nobody ever has told 
 me before.' 
 
 "I shall not die in vain if only one other be saved the 
 awful agonies through which I have passed to my 
 death, to be damned for ever, fl Shame forbids me to 
 tell my name, so let me rest where the devil has placed 
 me." 
 
 A sad story this. And yet, many might be told that 
 are no more joyful. So bound up in the idea of 
 "saving souls" for the imaginary heaven far away 
 that they have not time to teach the boys and girls 
 that to maintain a clean, moral life, and a shining 
 countenance here and now is heaven, as much as it 
 ever will be, and that to see God and be like Him it is 
 only necessary for us to express Him in a natural way, 
 in and through the work we do. 
 
 MAN'S INHUMANITY TO GOD. 
 
 "Man makes God in his own image," Fra Elbertus. 
 
 LAST night the citizens of San Francisco went to 
 their beds happy and contented with life and with 
 themselves. This morning they were rudely awakened 
 by an earthquake shock that tumbled them from their 
 beds. Great massive buildings of cement and brick 
 
 12$ 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 and steel and stone were twisted and torn, and their 
 towers toppled and fell into the streets. The devasta- 
 tion was terrible enough, but it was nothing compared 
 with the horrors of the fire that followed. Today the 
 city of the Argonauts is in flames, and tomorrow will 
 be in ashes. Three hundred thousand souls are made 
 homeless, and the loss of property will amount to half 
 a billion dollars. The awful experiences of those brave 
 people will never be known. Hundreds were killed 
 beneath falling walls; thousands were injured, and 
 other thousands lost all they had but what they could 
 save in a pillow-case. Their loss and their suffering 
 was appalling. 
 
 America never witnessed anything like it in all her 
 history, and the world few catastrophies that have 
 compared with it in their devastation. Already we 
 hear talk about "the hand of God," and He is blamed 
 for all of it. 
 j[ Poor God ! 
 
 When Mount Pelee belched lava, and wrought such 
 destruction in the fertile valley over which it looks, 
 and thousands of lives were lost, and millions of dol- 
 lars' worth of property left in ruins, there was more 
 talk about "the hand of God." 
 If Poor God ! 
 
 When Vesuvius renewed her activities recently and 
 wrought more havoc to the good people living near, 
 when thousands were driven from their homes and 
 left destitute, there was more talk about "the hand of 
 God." U Poor God ! Aye, poor God ! 
 It was ever thus! 
 
 126 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 When we do not understand the cause of things we 
 lay it to God. fl Every war, every great catastrophe, 
 every horror that leaves the world in tears, and brings 
 pain to the heart of humanity, is credited to God. 
 "He knows about it all ; He knows ; He knows !" Yes, 
 dear heart; He knows. 
 
 But volcanic eruptions are as natural as sunshiny 
 days, though not so frequent. They are like boils on 
 the neck of mother earth, through which exudes that 
 which she must throw off. The cause, according to 
 the accessible facts, may be placed to the accumula- 
 tion of steam or vapor deep down in the earth, and 
 the throwing of lava and ashes is accounted for by 
 the displacement of millions of tons of rock miles 
 below the earth's surface. 
 
 And earthquakes, as is well known, are due to natural 
 subterranean concussion. While the more violent, 
 destructive shocks are not of frequent occurrence, 
 except in localities where the earth's formation seems 
 to be more easily affected, yet slight tremors are of 
 surprising frequency, as is shown by the delicate 
 instruments now in use. We speak of the earth as a 
 terra firma, because we do not know any better. But 
 the fact is, the earth is anything but a terra firma. 
 Why man should seek to lay all these horrible catas- 
 trophies up against God is beyond comprehension. 
 Perhaps because man still believes that "God is a 
 jealous God, and visits the sins of the fathers upon 
 the children." And so when man creates sin for him- 
 self, and looks for God to get jealous, he expects Him 
 to send punishment upon him. 
 
 127 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 I wonder if God coaxed those people of Pompeii to 
 build their city under the crater's mouth so He could 
 run rivers of lava over them and bury them in hot 
 ashes ? fl I wonder if God decoyed the people up 
 under the brow of Mount Pelee so they could be 
 caught like rats in a trap and buried under tons of 
 ashy sand? ft I wonder if God put greed into the 
 hearts of men and induced them to erect these sky- 
 scraping buildings that they might topple over with 
 the first heavy quake of the earth and start fires to 
 wreak vengeance upon the thousands of poor unfor- 
 tunates who never drew a cent of the immense profits. 
 1f I wonder but what is the use? fl "It is God's will/' 
 says man, and God does not deny the accusation. 
 But oh, dear me! What a shame! What a shame, 
 that man will blindly go to the limit of reason in his 
 mad groping for wealth and place and power, bring- 
 ing destruction upon himself, and then blame God for 
 the coming of the devastation, fl When we hear of 
 such a horror as that which has befallen San Fran- 
 cisco, we feel sad, and tears of sympathy flow, but 
 when we can take ourselves out of the hearing of the 
 tolling church bells, the moans of the distressed, the 
 cry of the hungry, and the sound of the praying 
 priests, who thank God they are not as other men 
 since they have been spared the destruction that has 
 come to others ; I say, when we can get out of hearing 
 of these things, and draw close to Nature's heart in 
 the quiet of the forest of our own thoughts, we may 
 hear the sweet lullaby of Her Mother Love as She 
 draws the curtain upon all of it; and can feel the 
 
 128 
 
THE HEART OF THINGS 
 
 sorrow that is Hers because her children will bring 
 
 pain upon themselves. 
 
 Poor children. 
 
 Poor God. 
 
 Poor Earth. 
 
 Poor Devil. 
 
 Next to the woman who does not gossip, the noblest 
 work of God is the man who does not grouch. 
 
 You will find soft spots in this hard old world if you 
 carry a cushion for your neighbor to sit upon. 
 
 The trouble with most men who have troubles, is that 
 they look for an outward transformation without an 
 inward illumination. 
 
 When we forget ourselves and speak the word fresh 
 from the heart, we are liable to tell more of Truth 
 than we knew we knew or could have imagined. 
 
 It is not fair to judge a man by his achievements. We 
 can measure only his ability that way. The man the 
 world thinks a failure often has in his heart grander 
 motives than the man of wealth even could imagine. 
 
 129 
 
THE SEGNOGRAM 
 
 Is the largest and best magazine devoted to the develop- 
 ment of the mental and physical and the acquirement of 
 success and health through correct living. It contains 
 more useful information than the average magazine sold 
 for one dollar, but the price of The Segnogram will re- 
 main at 50 cents a year. (Foreign countries 3s-ld.) 
 
 The Segnogram Publishing Co, 
 
 Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
 ARE YOU A BOOK LOVER? 
 
 Following is a list of Books we are handling for our peo- 
 ple. They are intensely interesting and contain In- 
 formation you will find of immense value : 
 
 The Secret of Memory The Heart of Things 
 
 By A. VIOTOB SEGNO, One Dol- By H. M. WALKER, One Dollar 
 
 lar by mail. by mail. 
 
 Dynamic Thought Self-Diagnosis and Self- 
 
 Or the Law of Vibrant Energy. Healing 
 
 M h^?i KB ATKIN80N ' By means of the Diagnosis from 
 
 the Eye By H E f ANK( M D f 
 
 , . _ - One Dollar by mail. 
 
 Foundation of All Reform 
 
 A Treatise on the Diet Question. Vols. 1 , 2 and 3 of The 
 By OTTO CARQUE, Twenty-Fire Sp?no?ram 
 Cents by mail. 
 
 Bound in one book, $1.60 by mail. 
 
 TheFo " yof MealEalins te 
 
 , A. VICTOR SEGNO, Fifty By OTTO CARQUE, Ten Cents by 
 
 Cents by mail. mail. 
 
 The Segnogram Publishing Co. 
 Los Angeles, Cal. 
 
cot-! 
 
 
 <p 
 
 
 YC 15603