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THERE is a golden thread that runs through every religion in the world. There is a golden thread that runs through the lives and the teachings to all the prophets, seers, sages, and saviors in the world’s history, through the lives of all men of truly great and lasting power. All that they have ever done or attained to has been done in full accordance with law.

What one has done, all may do. This same golden thread must enter into the lives of all who today, in this busy work-a-day world of ours, would exchange impotence for power, weakness and suffering for abounding health and strength pain and unrest for perfect peace, poverty of whatever nature for fullness and plenty.

Each is building their own world. We both build from within and we attract from without. Thought is the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces. Like builds like and like attracts like. In the degree that thought is spiritualized does it become more subtle and powerful in its workings. This spiritualizing is in accordance with law and is within the power of all.

Everything is first worked out in the unseen before it is manifested in the seen, in the ideal before it is realized in the real, in the spiritual before it shows forth in the material. The realm of the unseen is the realm of cause. The realm of the seen is the realm of effect. The nature of effect is always determined and conditioned by the nature of its cause.

To point out the great facts in connection with, and the great laws underlying the workings of the interior, spiritual, thought forces, to point them out so simply and so clearly that even a child can understand, is the author’s aim. To point them out so simply and so clearly that all can grasp them, that all can take them and infuse them into everyday life, so as to mold it in all its details in accordance with what they would have it, is his purpose That life can be thus molded by them is not a matter of mere speculation or theory with him, but a matter of positive knowledge

There is a divine sequence running throughout the universe. Within and above and below the human will incessantly works the Divine will. To come into harmony with it and thereby with all the higher laws and forces, to come then into league and to work in conjunction with them, in order that they can work in league and in conjunction with us, is to come into the chain of this wonderful sequence. This is the secret of all success. This is to come into the possession of unknown riches, into the realization of undreamed-of powers.

Ralph Waldo Trine

Within yourself lies the cause of whatever enters into your life. To come into the full realization of your own awakened inner powers is to be able to condition your life in exact accord with what you would have it.

WE are born into a strange time – a time that tries men’s souls. Bewilderment and fear hold many; change and uncertainty stalk through the land – all lands.

Those who keep their courage up and go serenely on are coming through in a way that those who weaken or lie down cannot know. But to do this many lives need help—real concrete help. A remark by an old college friend some years ago has come to my mind every now and then of late. ‘After all,’ said he, ‘it is well for one to have a little philosophy in ones life. A farm boy, eager for a better education and to get ahead pushing his way through college in the face of great odds, he has been doing a splendid work in a great city, and for his country, and yet has always remained humble. His own character indicates to me he has in goodly measure the philosophy which he commended.

‘Yes’ I replied ‘if it has the element of use.’ For I had even then read much in the philosophies of the present and of earlier times, and was forced to the conclusion that very large parts of them are of little real value—interesting, but of little real value—because of their lack of the element of use; use in the everyday problems of life.

Each of us has their problems of one sort or another, and no life is free from them. We all need help. This is particularly true at present because of the peculiar time we have been born into.

I have often said to friend and acquaintance during the last two or three years that there is perhaps no one quality men need so much, and right down in their hearts long for so much, as the quality of courage. For courage to me is nothing more or less than a positive, creative type of thought. It not only keeps us going, but all the time works out effects on the course of our journeying. Thoughts are forces, subtle, vital, creative, continually building and shaping our lives according to their nature. It is in this way that the life always and inevitably follows the thought.

Thoughts of strength engender strength from within and attract it from without. Thoughts of weakness actualize weakness within and attract it from without. Courage therefore begets success, as fear begets failure.

There is something in the universe that responds to intrepid thinking. The POWER that holds and that moves the stars in their courses sustains, illumines and fights for the brave and the upright. Courage has power and magic in it. Faith and hope and courage are great producers—we cannot fail if we live always in the brave and cheerful attitude of mind and heart. He alone fails who gives up and lies down.

To open ourselves to this sustaining POWER, to live continually under its guidance, this is our part. Those of us who do our part will keep free from fear, and therefore from a weakening, corroding worry, the two black twins that carry the germs of despair and defeat, costly for ourselves, unfair for our families, our friends and as our neighbors, costly even for our country.

Years ago, shortly after this book was written, I used on the title page of a little book, as a sort of keynote, the sentence: ‘The moment we fully and vitally realize who and what we are, we then begin to build our own world even as God builds His.’