tonis-stimulant, a toning up vibration that will thrill through, and lift up the mind, (and the bowed head will lift up with it), until all through consciousness rings a song of gladness and triumph. When one becomes persuaded in one's own mind that he is not deserted by fortune, and is not the hunted and defenseless prey of a host of remorseless evils, he begins to feel his shackles crumbling into dust, and dropping, one by one, from his hands and feet.

He begins to feel the strength that is in him assert itself; and the aspect of things to change. I AM the embodiment of strength! I AM the heir of Fortune! The joy of life is mine! The power of these, and kindred thoughts, lies not in vain repetition, but in the self-consciousness and conviction of their truth. The spirit of them then radiates through one's life; and into one's environment.

"Laughing is catching." That is, the humor of laughter is communicated, sympathetically, from one to another. So, when one gets into "good humor,” with the world, as an effect of such buoyant thoughts, the humor communicates itself to the world, and "the world is mine" it surrenders, favors instead of frowns. The wise one who cares to succeed, in a worldly sense, will cultivate, with tact, discernment and foresight, the favor gained; and will apply it in channels compatible with one's adaptabilities, talents and sympathies. It is both wonderful and true, that an active stimulating and inspiring force, under favorable conditions, can be projected from mind to mind.

Do you ask what was the great principle in the depth of Christ's character, that on which his wonderderful sympathy was founded and which endeared him to his high office of universal Saviour? I answer, it was his conviction of the greatness of the human soul.-Channing.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Could you not send to your foreign subscribers the Class Thought one month in advance? Is it not necessary to keep the exact hours of Silence with you?

It is not convenient for us to send the Class Thought a month in advance.

To have a certain time appointed and to keep it in Spirit, aids in establishing a spiritual unity. But there is a mortal idea of time which tends to bondage. When we speak of a uniform hour for holding the daily Silence, we speak of it not in the letter but in the Spirit. Students of Truth are called upon daily to exercise discernment of the Spirit in all things, that they may not fall in bondage to the letter. This is good discipline.

While we think it helpful for members to keep the hour of nine, no one should feel that he is out of the Unity thought-current because he observes another hour. The thought goes out from here continually, and at all hours, there are people in various parts of the world who are joining with us. Therefore, at any time, you can make connection with us and with others in the thought.

Several ask why Jesus gave his disciples and the multitude fish if it is wrong to eat flesh.

Reading the Scripture in the letter brings confusion in many instances. All occurrences in the life of Jesus are symbolical, and when read in this light all inconsistencies are reconciled. Fish represent ideas of abundance and when Jesus showed how praise and thankfulness multiplied, he followed up the lesson by having his students eat or appropriate the substance.

If people who read the Bible in the letter ask you why Jesus ate fish, you can, like a genuine Yankee, ask them why he made wine. Why did he go into the fields on Sunday and pluck and eat the grain, and

openly proclaim man's freedom to do as he liked on the Sabbath day. Why did he reprimand the Pharisees for reading the Scriptures? "Ye read the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life." The facts are that Jesus set at naught nearly every religious observance of the Hebrews. He was an iconoclast and overturned sacerdotalism as he did the tables of the money changers in the temple. He did not accept the authority of any man-made law, or man-made interpretation of God's law, but read out of the Law for himself, and demonstrated its Truth.

I am now studying your New Thought Catechism in which I find the statement "There is no life, substance, or intelligence in matter; there is no sensation in matter." If God is omnipresent, how can this be? Again, "Is God in hell? What is hell? Any and all suffering is hell?" I ask, How can God be in any and all suffering?

The catechism referred to in these questions does not receive our full indorsement. All life, substance, and intelligence, and all sensation must have foundation in the One Mind, and there is no absence of life, substance and intelligence anywhere. But there is a mortal concept of these that postulates them as originating in so-called matter. This is evidently the object of the denial to do away with this erroneous thought.

Man takes the life and substance of being, and moulds them into a state of consciousness after his own limited, ignorant thought. Discord follows, and the discord is another name for hell. This is the only aspect in which God may be said to be in hell. When man strives to carry out the Divine Intelligence, heaven appears in what seems to be its opposite. This earth, and the people inhabiting it, do not yet manifest the heavenly condition which is being established, and which will eventually be set up in our midst in fulfillment of the Scripture.

How do you reconcile the idea of growth with the idea that death must be done away with? Do not all things grow by dying? It would seem to me like inducing the worm to check its growth and development and remain indefinitely a crawling, earth-bound creature, rather than submit to a formal death involving the casting off of its vermiform embodiment and become a soaring, honey-sipping butterfly of the unbounded heavens.-*

**

An understanding of the spiritual Substance out of which all that is formed is made, does away with all idea of matter. Corruption and decay are wholly the result of mortal thought. We cannot think of them as having place in Divine Mind.

Growth and development in the consciousness of the Infinite will continue, but unaccompanied with corruption and decay. This corruption must put on incorruption. It must become incorruptible. This is possible in the understanding that man, being the image and likeness of God, must be like the Father.

Paul said, "I die daily." That is, the "old man" was crucified daily. But also daily there is the resurrection in Christ. By the daily renewing of the mind, the body is transformed. If the mind is not renewed, but follows the old line of thought - belief in materiality and material conditions, and belief in corruption and decay- the body will manifest just what the mind patterns, for as a man thinketh so is he.

When he makes a new pattern for his thought, even the ideas of the Christ mind which are eternal changeless Life, pure spiritual Substance, etc., then the body is formed after these ideas, and begins to put on the incorruptibility and immortality of the Christ.

As to the worm and the butterfly, we have always felt that this illustration fell far short of the point it is supposed to make. In the first place, man with his divinity to demonstrate, is so far removed from the worm in possibilities that any comparison must necessarily be open to question. Furthermore, the worm

does not die to become a butterfly.

On the contrary,

he transforms his body. That is exactly what we teach. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." It is found that thoughts of life appropriated in their fulness here and now, quicken the vital forces of the organism and bring it into such perfect ideals as health, youth, beauty, etc., and these become permanent. This is putting on immortality. Thus the mortal shall put on immortality and the corruptible shall put on incorruptibility.

Changes must take place in man until he shows forth the Christ perfection in mind and body, but the changes will come, not through the separation and sorrow, and corruption and decay of death of the body, but by its glorification through a daily lifting up in the idea of its perfection in God. And the glorified body will not be a short butterfly existence, but an eternal joy in eternal life.

The death and resurrection which goes on daily is a denial of everything of the mortal, and an affirmation of the Truth of Being. This establishes in consciousness Divine Ideas which work out through true thinking unto complete redemption of the whole man.

The letters asking what we think of the " prayer chain are so many that we do not find time to answer them individually. Have no fear of disaster if you break the chain. The threat of evil results is nonsense. All such letters that have come to this office, and there have been a plenty, were dumped into the willow "merry widow," and we do not remember a single calamity following.

A shrewd old doctor once said: "If I wanted to torture an enemy I would tell him he had an incurable disease. His life would be miserable, and he would be almost certain to die before his time."