CHAPTERS

1.  A Prayer

2.  Life and Expression

3.  Time and Chance

4.  Psychology of a Religious Revival

5.  One-Man Power

6.  Mental Attitude

7.  The Outsider

8.  Get Out or Get in Line

9.  The Week-Day, Keep it Holy

10.  Exclusive Friendships

11.  The Folly of Living in the Future

12.  The Spirit of Man

13.  Art and Religion

14.  Initiative

15.  The Disagreeable Girl

16.  The Neutral

17.  Reflections on Progress

18.  Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise

19.  Love and Faith

20.  Giving Something for Nothing

21.  Work and Waste

22.  The Law of Obedience

23.  Society’s Saviors

24.  Preparing for Old Age

25.  An Alliance With Nature

26.  The Ex.  Question

27.  The Sergeant

28.  The Spirit of the Age

29.  The Grammarian

30.  The Best Religion

A Prayer

The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful, or “good,” but simply to be radiant.  I desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will.  I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear.  I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected—­ready to say “I do not know,” if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality—­to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.

I wish others to live their lives, too—­up to their highest, fullest and best.  To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed.  If I can help people, I’ll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation.  That is to say, I desire to be radiant—­to radiate life.

Life and Expression

By exercise of its faculties the spirit grows, just as a muscle grows strong thru continued use.  Expression is necessary.  Life is expression, and repression is stagnation—­death.

Yet, there can be right and wrong expression.  If a man permits his life to run riot and only the animal side of his nature is allowed to express itself, he is repressing his highest and best, and the qualities not used atrophy and die.

Men are punished by their sins, not for them.  Sensuality, gluttony, and the life of license repress the life of the spirit, and the soul never blossoms; and this is what it is to lose one’s soul.  All adown the centuries thinking men have noted these truths, and again and again we find individuals forsaking in horror the life of the senses and devoting themselves to the life of the spirit.  This question of expression through the spirit, or through the senses—­through soul or body—­has been the pivotal point of all philosophy and the inspiration of all religion.