and shape to circumstances about them. They possess an energy that controls impossibilities.

Men will be more self-contained when better cultivated. It is the undisciplined will that is controlled by bad thoughts and bad fortunes. Finally, we are domineered over by passions, because domineered over by thoughts; it is only by the force or mastery of counteracting thoughts that the spell is broken; or through the intellectual medium that the moral atmosphere is renovated. We should rise above the plane of ungovernable attractions and repulsions; above the sphere of antipathies and unwise sympathies.

The worst of all tyrannies is a bad organization. Unquestionably, our organizations determine the grooves in which we move, and no thought, act or deed but is the only possible result of the combined gale of influences that blows upon us from the cradle to the grave. Although organic faults are stubborn, we can, in a measure, control our thoughts and so do more toward a better state of things for our posterity. Dishonest thoughts in one generation may give rise to dishonest action in the next. This intimate relation between our very thoughts and their consequences is a very serious consideration, as wrong thoughts will not end with ourselves, but may transmit terrible consequences for our posterity.

THE PROFOUNDEST WONDER OF OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE IS

MEMORY.

Memory is an undying thinking power, gathering its education from all the faculties. Self-hood is a compound of countless personal recollections. The spirit remembers everything; but intellect cannot always recall the picture. The internal memory, on the part of the inner life, can

never be extinguished. Memory is the line which divides existence from annihilation. Whatever objects are taken up into the mind, or to whatever the mind imparts its own living power, cannot entirely be forgotten or obliterated.

Concentration is the opponent of chaos, and sets the mind in order; consequently, it favors self-control. Only through that constant exertion by which energy is acquired, can the will gain command of the thoughts and mastery of the impulses.

It is repetition that

Acquisition is not spontaneous. twists the fiber of our existence into something permanent. Repetition will effect more than the occasional use of great talents. By continual practice, the organism grows into subordination, and the voluntary powers become habitually predominant. In committing to memory a poem, or in learning a piece of music, voluntary effort wears a path of association, so that each word or sound automatically suggests the next.

The power of memory weaves and winds every impression up snugger. The same thing is seen in the higher region of ideas and beliefs. Long-established associations and opinions survive their rejection by reason. Convince a

man of his life-long errors to-day, and he re-asserts them to-morrow, so strong is the tendency of thought to move in its long-accustomed cerebral tracks. A man's desire

may be good, but, when habits are to be corrected, he too often finds the will dethroned and paralyzed in grooves of

habit.

What affects our time and thoughts affects our character. The human spirit must express itself through form, which is character. Truth is the first and indispensable condition of character, and genuine, lasting success. There is nothing complicated in truth, neither is it susceptible of any

limitation. The truth-seeking mind goes forward with reservation, modest candor and dignity.

Habit grows by compliance. When we lose the habit, we lose the ability. The chief means of improving our rational powers is the vigorous use of them in various ways. Men of universal memory are those who combine most happily the ready memory of facts with the tenacious memory of truths.

Through mental attraction and appropriation the soul becomes individualized. We learn but little when we only read. The soul can recall no more than it can make its own. To remember well, read while holding the breath, pause when it is finished, and take another breath to review it; this practice, if observed, will detain the mind long enough to receive a permanent impression.

Repetition is the only specific for inattention. If a person's attention be wanting, then study mathematics, for in demonstration, if the attention is diverted ever so little, it will be necessary to begin again. A resolute will overcomes obstacles. Perseverance, sometimes, equals genius

in its results.

THOUGHTS RESEMBLE TEXTURE AND TEMPERAMENT.

Each man's thoughts are individualized, and will precisely resemble those of no other mind. In the elements of language there is nowhere any egotism or discord. The study of arranging and expressing our thoughts with propriety, teaches us to think and speak correctly. To get at the niceties of thought, and elegancies of language, one should love good books and good company. Poets are the best expounders of language, using the most appropriate words in their truest sense.

Language began in the spirit fountain; man found the key of sound, which led to the invention of words. The

general mechanism of language is everywhere the same, for that is dependent upon the anatomical structure of the brain which originates it. It grows by rules established in the constitution of the mind, and has been built up by the conjoint labors of all men, laboring unknowingly, as bees in a hive, building in harmony a beautiful and mathematically constructed comb. Language involves the world's history; and, like everything else about man, bears at once the stamp of his greatness and his degradation.

Language is invariably musical when heard truly in its place. Thoughts shape words, and words shape thoughts. The influence of pure thoughts is like the breath of Heaven upon flowers; while low thoughts fall like the noxious vapor of pestilence. The presence or absence of certain feelings stands connected with the presence or absence of certain thoughts. The affections flow from sensations, and should be developed by culture.

It is by keeping up a remembrance of kindness that we keep up the emotion of gratitude. It is by forgetting the provocation that we cease from the emotion of anger. It is by reflecting on the misery of our fellow-creatures in its vividness and affecting detail that pity is called forth. It is by meditating on the perfection of God that we cherish and keep alive our love for the highest good.

Thought is at once the harbinger and sustainer of feeling. We can no more break up the connection between the thought of any object that is viewed mentally, and the feelings which it impresses upon the heart, than we can break up the connection between the sight of any object that is viewed materially and the sensation which it impresses upon the retina.

Long and intense thought will communicate to the spirit a force in the direction of that thought. Mental movement

can only become strong and steady in continuous ranges of effort.

GENIUS IS CENTRALIZED PERSONAL CAPABILITIES.

Genius is conditioned by an excess of nervous power, and therefore of nervous sensibility; and may arise from these causes: It may be the culmination of an education, or culture of a single set of faculties for a long time. Or it may be caused by the persistent exercise by the mother, during gestation, of her mind in a given direction. It may result from nervous excitability, sadness and a bias imparted to the unborn child; turning the whole current of the mind into particular channels; the voluntary or involuntary culture of special faculties; which advantages are purchased at enormous cost-a short, brilliant, erratic career.

Every genius is ticketed for misery in this life; for genius is but a one-sided, angular, painful development. The transmission of morbid tendencies often brings into the world a feeling of melancholy strangeness, if not estrangement, a mysterious home-sickness of soul. Life, to the meditative, is that mysterious consciousness which envelops the unknown; a magnificent scheme of infinite sadness; the only natural sequence to pre-existent sorrow unutterable.

Genius is the higher self, and possible to all men. Talent manufactures; genius creates. It feels the electric fire of delight in the admiration of what is admirable, creating innumerable vivid pleasures, and pure sources of enjoyment. It is the prerogative of genius to see universal truth in the most trivial incidents, and to unfold a world of meaning from everything. It performs trifles with an air which makes them seem great, and performs wonders with an air which makes them trifles. With equal hand it dispenses thunderbolt and thistle-down.