"Ten thousand applications are possible. I take one only-cures of all sorts of disease attributed to all sorts of remedies. We need not deny the cures; there are millions of cures, blessed be Nature! But is the agency of cure in any given case precisely what it is said to be? Is this the ghost fact of Christian Science, Mental Healing, drugs, or prayer? All the things named contain values for us. I simply suggest that when you attribute your cure to one agency or another, you strip all claims down to naked fact. That is the one sane test of the question whether a thing is a ghost or a fact.

"Illustration No. 2. Witchcraft had its facts, its supposed truth, and - its real truth. When men insisted on seeing the real facts, many of the fictitious facts disappeared, the supposed truth vanished, and the real truthawaited discovery. After science had adopted the above methods, instead of the old shout, 'superstition'-contentment in which has hurt science more than it has hurt any other department of our life—the backlying facts began to emerge, and the truths, clairvoyance, clairaudience, hypnotism, fear, imagination, etc., etc., came slowly into light. We are now trying to find out why science should say, 'all bosh' to 'mesmerism,' 'occultism,' spiritualism, religion, or any other thing under the heavens."

The conclusion is this: Make sure of the facts; get at the real truth; keep open house to every proposition claiming to be real, but accept nothing not clearly demonstrated to sane but inspired reason.

In every part of the work of this chapter, keep in mind the sentence: "I am conscious of the sense of Will." You will not be distracted, but rather helped by that recollection.

ONLY WILL! ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT WILLS.

REMEMBERED.

In ancient days, when hearts were bold,
And courage burned to meet the foe,
The wandering bard his story told
To eager listeners, young and old,
Of deeds heroic, life sublime,
And gods and humans mighty_all,
Till, swept by passion's fiery flow
His soul was lost to space or time
And theirs in valor's clarion call.

We wonder not the leaping words -
The syllables that lilted sweet-
Or the fierce breath that red blood curds ---
Or the one Name dark awe engirds,
Should bind men to the singer's will,
Resounding through the windy hall,
Or answered from the wolf's retreat:·
The singer lost in passion's skill,
The listeners swept by valor's call.

The song was like to gold a-melt;
The voice a diamond pen to write;
And souls were wax: the story, felt,
It burned, and left, then, scar and welt
For love and aliar, home and friend.
Oh, long the singer's woven thrall!
And high the story's growing might!
His heart in Iliad or in Zend,
And theirs alost in valor's call.

This is the Tale of Memory,

The living scroll of timeless earth.
Sung to the air; writ facilely
In spirits eager thrilled to be

By love and battle, home and Book;-
Responsive ever to the worth

Of Life, our Bard. All hail his thrall!
For in his passion's voice and look

We learn high valor's clarion call.

66

CHAPTER XXI.

EXERCISES IN MEMORY.

RETAIN a clear impression or image of everything at which I have looked, although the coloring of that impression is necessarily vivid in proportion to the degree of interest with which the object was regarded. I find this faculty of much use and solace to me. By its aid I can live again at will in the midst of any scene or circumstance by which I have been surrounded. By a voluntary act of mind I can in a moment conjure up the whole of any one out of the innumerable scenes in which the slightest interest has at any time been felt by me." - Dr. John Kitto.

THEORY OF CHAPTER.

Review deepens mental impressions;

Storing of mind enlarges it, and gives it immense momentum ;

The effort to secure mental force multiplies Will-energy.

It was John Ruskin who said, "There are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture." But Ruskin had the far outlook in mind. There is but one strong conqueror of the personal forgetfulness, and that is the determined Will. The poem and the cathedral preserve their age in the world's memory; the resolute Will preserves the individual's mind from becoming a sieve. The Rev. Dwight Hillis once remarked in a lecture, that he forgot with his memory. This was

an old pleasantry. Men forget at times because of the rush of thought forbidding the quick grasp of mind necessary to the thing desired. But the real secret of forgetting lies in a vaporous condition of Will.

PRELIMINARY.

There is therefore but one "golden rule" for improvement of the memory. The "golden rule" is the iron rule of persistent and intelligent exercise. The first requisite of memory-cultivation is attention; the second is found in the laws of memory. Memory depends upon mental impressions, and these upon attention, understanding, similarity and contrast, and Will. All elements of success here call primarily upon the latter.

"Whether

Professor James has formulated the law: or no there be anything else in the mind at the moment when we consciously will a certain act, a mental conception made up of memory-images of these sensations, defining which special act it is, must be there."

The secret of the Will is anticipation based on memory.

Not to refine unduly, it may be said that the power to remember is measured by the ability to attend. Joy, pain, and the like are easily recalled because they greatly impress the mind; to secure an equally adequate degree of attention in regard to other matters demands that the soul set itself about the task of deepening its own impressions. Hence we may say, speaking broadly, to attend is to will; to will is to attend.

"All determinate recollection," as remarked by Dr. Carpenter, "involves the exercise of volitional control over the direction of the thoughts."

RÉGIMES.

Exercise No. 1. Select the best specimen of condensed and simple English that you can find. Read a

paragraph carefully. Begin to read again, defining to yourself every word. If you are in the slightest doubt, consult a dictionary. Go hungry a month to possess a first-class dictionary. After satisfying yourself that you understand every word in the first sentence, make sure that you understand the sentence as a whole. Now proceed, attentively and with strong Will, to repeat the first few words, keeping words and thought in mind. Do not repeat like a parrot, but think, resolving to rememberthe words and what they say. Continue until you have memorized this part of the sentence. Then go on in the same manner with the next few words. Fix these firmly in mind. Now recall all words and thought thus far committed, and repeat, again and again, thinking the thought as you do so with the utmost attention and energy. ceed in this way until the entire sentence is mastered.

Pro

It will be better not to try too many words at a time; you will easily ascertain the number most convenient to your mind.

In this method, never for a moment forget to keep in mind the ideas presented by the language. As words often represent different shades of meaning, will attention to the shade here used. Let the work be done with the utmost concentrated energy.

If you will repeat that sentence frequently during the day, wherever you chance to be, always thoughtfully and determinedly, you will fasten it firmly in mind.

If you will repeat the same exercise with another sentence the following day, and frequently repeat both sentences, the first will become more deeply impressed upon memory, and the second will be acquired as fully as was the first.

The value of repetition is not new. But the point of this exercise lies not so much in repetition of words as