God works through the instrumentality of human agency.  Then forever away with that old, shrivelling, weakening, dying, and devilish idea that we are poor worms of the dust!  We may or we may not be:  it all depends upon the self.  The moment we believe we are we become such; and as long as we hold to the belief we will be held to this identity, and will act and live as such.  The moment, however, we recognize our divinity, our higher, our God-selves, and the fact that we are the saviors of our fellow-men, we become saviors, and stand and move in the midst of a majesty and beauty and power that of itself proclaims us as such.

* * * * *

There is a prevalent idea to the effect that overcoming in this sense necessarily implies more or less of a giving up,—­that it means something possibly on the order of asceticism.  On the contrary, the highest, truest, keenest pleasures the human soul can know, it finds only after the higher is entered upon and has commenced its work of mastery; and, instead of there being a giving up of any kind, there is a great law which says that the lower always and of its own accord falls away before the higher.  And the time soon comes when, as one stands and looks back, he wonders that this or that that he at one time called pleasure ever satisfied him; for what then satisfied him, compared to what now is his hourly peace, satisfaction, and joy, was but as poor brass compared to the finest, purest, and rarest of gold.

From what has been said let it not be inferred that the body, the physical, material life is to be despised or looked down upon.  This, rather let it be said, is one of the crying errors of the times, and prolific of a vast amount of error, suffering, and shame.  On the contrary, it should be thought all the more highly of:  it should be loved and developed to its highest perfections, beauties, and powers.  God gave us the body not in vain.  It is just as holy and beautiful as the spirit itself.  It is merely the outward material manifestation of the individualized spirit; and we by our hourly thoughts and emotions are building it, are determining its conditions, its structure, and appearance.  And, if there are any conditions we are not satisfied with, we by an understanding of the laws, have it in our power to make it over and change these conditions.  Flamarion, the eminent French scientist, member of the Royal Academy of Science, and recognized as one of the most eminent scientists living, tells us that the entire human structure can be made over within a period of less than one year, some eleven months being the length of time required for the more compact and more set portions to respond; while some portions respond much more readily within a period of from two to three months, and some even within a month.

Every part, every organ, every function of the body is just as clean, just as beautiful, just as sweet, and just as holy as every other part; and it is only by virtue of man’s perverted ways of looking at some that they become otherwise, and the moment they so become, abuses, ill uses, suffering, and shame creep in.