The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time — for this man neither is death a terrible thing.
Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]: what difference does it make to thee whether for five years [or three]? for that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the hardship then, if no tyrant nor yet an unjust judge sends the away from the state, but nature who brought thee into it? the same as if a praetor who has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage — “But I have not finished the five acts, but only three of them” — Thou sayest well, but in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution: but thou art the cause of neither. Depart then satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied.
Introduction
Purpose of the Lessons
The purpose of these lessons is to raise the mental and spiritual vibrations of the student to inspire hope, faith, courage to awaken larger thought within the mind, inspire greater plans and purposes and awaken the dormant energy in the life to fire the enthusiasm and call into active service hidden talent which the student, possibly, does not dream at his present stage of unfoldment, he possesses.
In short our purpose is to awaken men from mental slumber, show the unlimited resources in human nature, the unseen yet open doors to mental wealth first, then as a natural sequence to wealth in material conditions, and thus enlarge and ennoble the life as well as add to its material expressions.
The purpose of the true teacher who is ever the true physician as well must always be the “more abundant life” of which the Nazarene spoke and taught. To disclose that life, abounding life, in all its fullness and beauty and point out the laws by which it is gained, with wealth as a natural sequence, is the purpose of the three lessons on which we are entering.
A Prophecy of Results from These Lessons
Prophecies based on observation and experience, and knowledge of natural law, are exceedingly instructive and valuable. We predict most confidently that every student of these lessons will have after reading them and especially after their re-reading and study a larger store of information on the subject of Success in Life, brighter hopes, more enthusiasm, more “vim,” “grit” and “gumption” in business, and will attack his life work with such enlarged wisdom and such intense energy that hereafter his life will become in every way more successful and bring him into larger freedom, greater happiness and power and ampler resources financially.
In short, no one can apply the teachings of these lessons without his life becoming larger, nobler and purer, and more enjoyable in the possession of mental and material wealth. And the life that receives and applies these teachings will be like a fertilizing stream in the desert, making it bud and blossom like the rose.
The Reasons for This Prophecy
With absolute confidence I make this prophecy, because I shall give you not theories, spun from the imagination of the poet or novelist or from some dreamy philosopher in the seclusion of his study, or some penny-a-liner who is paid so much per page for his theories, but the actual results of human experience and a study of nature’s laws and especially of the laws of financial gain. I shall give you “the kernel” of the best teachings of a score of our ablest psychologists and new thought writers in concentrated form. And I shall give the personal testimony of those who have risen from poverty to wealth through discovery of the laws of financial success and their application to the life. The principles here laid down have been tested over and over again in the laboratory of life’s experiences and found correct and practicable.
Moreover I myself have proved them and I illustrate these principles and prove their value in my own life.
Another reason why we most confidently predict success to the students of , this course is the fact that the teachings are rational, being in accord with life and human experience, and based on laws that are now known and recognized as governing the accumulation of wealth. These is nothing of mystical charm, no miracle involved, nothing of the “cheap nostrum” order about them. Our method is simply reason amplified and set to work, energy awakened and employed, laws discovered and followed out with the one inevitable result: enlarged and ennobled character, mental and material wealth.
No Special Endowment Required for Money-Making
The way to competence, if not wealth, is open to every man of sound body and mind who will study and apply these laws. The fact that great riches belong to the few, and that some men seem to stumble on riches and others seek them in vain for a life time generally without knowledge of the law or application in the life has led some to suppose that a special endowment of nature is necessary to enable one to attain wealth. Doubtless a few men without a theoretical knowledge of the law have applied it in their lives, and unquestionably some few men seem to come into wealth by “chance” or “luck,” yet there is really no such thing as chance in a universe of law and the vast majority of men who have won wealth have either through their own mentality, or by the teachings of others, or by inspiration, come to know the law and apply it in their own lives.
Every man of sound mind and body, we repeat, can become master of conditions in his life in place of being enslaved, as the multitudes are, by these conditions. There is a pathway from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to fame, from weakness to strength, from the servile and pigmy condition of mind and life, to Kingship in mind and in estate. The door of opportunity is open or, at least, unlocked.
Nature Plans Abundance for All
Another introductory consideration worthy our attention is the fact that the evident plan of God as revealed in nature is abundance for all. Poverty is no part of nature’s plan but the very reverse is true: Nature designed abundance for all. Her provision for man’s wants covers not only his necessities but a super abundance is the law of Nature’s beneficence. The tracing of disease, poverty and suffering to the design of God was, indeed, a part of the Old Theology, which is now practically dead and superseded by the New Theology which traces all of these evils to ignorance and neglect of law.
As children of God we inherit not only the right to life, but to all that makes life worth living. But every life is “cabin’d, cribbed, confined” by poverty. In fact freedom, power, happiness, education, culture, travel, books, art, music, recreation the things that made life worth the living are really impossible without wealth.
Not only is our own life robbed of its full and happy expression by poverty, but man’s service of his fellowmen is limited on every hand by poverty. Men who possess in their own mentality great truths that would instruct and inspire the multitude, or great plans for reforming our deplorable social and economic system, or great purposes of charity toward the needy, or great reforms they would like to see realized find themselves hampered and hindered in all their noble work by “lack of funds.”
The world sad to state estimates a man not by his knowledge, or his character, so much as by the size of his bank account. A public lecturer said recently in my hearing and was applauded in saying it he respected no man who did not have a good bank account.
Harsh as this may appear, we shall show there is at least a small measure of justice in it by pointing out that Poverty is essentially a Mental Disease, and that from the standpoint of character itself in this age of golden opportunities it is no credit to a man to be poor.
Our Desires Are Prophecies and Show the Possibility of Wealth
All students of nature and of man recognize that the possession of a desire within the soul for any real or supposed good, is a natural prophecy proving there is somewhere in Nature’s realm a source of satisfaction for that desire. If my student, then, believes in a Personal