"Contentment fosters health. Much ill health is due to depressed spirit. The jolly physician has the most cures, the happy minister the most converts. Worry undermines the health and crowds graveyards.

"Contentment fosters temporal prosperity. It discourages grasping, greed and avarice, because it puts a higher value on the thoughts and deeds than upon things. "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind.' When contentment is in the saddle humanity goes on to success.

"Contentment fosters happiness because it helps us to arrive at the proper law of values, to discover God's masterpieces of men and mercies, to solve life's vexatious problems, and keeps us well poised for victory.

"Contentment points the way to heaven. It brings heaven into earth and helps the heart rapturously to anticipate the glad day 'when I shall awake in His likeness.'"-Rev. Dr. Locke.

They were speaking of the pessimistic member. "He never looks on the bright side," said one. "No," added another. "Moreover, if there's any way for him to shift the blame for his misfortunes on others, rest assured he'll do it."

"Quite so," concluded a third. "Why the other day they told me of his wife's devoted nursing of him during his recent attack of rheumatism. In spite of his faultfinding, his spouse did everything she could to alleviate his pain. Often his sufferings would cause the poor thing to burst into tears as she sat by his bedside. Well, one day a friend dropped into see how the invalid was getting on.

'Badly, badly,' wailed the pessimistic one. 'And do you know, it's all my wife's fault.'

"Impossible! gasped the friend, in surprise. 'Quite true, I assure you,' murmured the sick 'It's this way. Damp places are bad for me; yet there that woman sits and cries just to make the air moist.'

man.

Men of science, your faculties are weakened by the very exactitude which is your pride. You measure and weigh, and you are surrounded and overwhelmed by the limitations imposed by the experiences of your senses. You seek causes upon observing effects, or determine the effects resulting from given causes; but such analyses do not lead you into the realm of imagination. You are too material. If you had been Newton, upon observing the apple fall, you would have thought, "The reason why it fell was because its stem became too weak to hold it." Newton, however, had an imagination and thereby he discovered the law of gravitation. Columbus did not care to prove simply that the earth was round. His imagination fired him with a knowledge of benefits to mankind resulting from a possible (and, as it turned out, chimerical) northwest passage due to such roundness. His imagination inspired the discovery of a continent. And so it is with name after name in history, and so it will be with you and me. We may achieve some small measure of success by doing what our fathers did before us, but our really big deeds will be offspring of our imaginations. Sometimes we see inventions accomplished by chance or a benefit opened to mankind by a stumbling footstep. Such are rare, and shiftless we should be did we count upon circumstances for success.-Julian Chase Smallwood in Cassier's Magazine for January.

NAPOLEON'S ESTIMATE OF CHRIST

Some curious discoveries recently have been made regarding Napoleon's religious views. Perhaps the queerest part of the discovery is that he had any religion at all. It reminds one of the chapter in the natural history headed, Concerning the Owls of Iceland, the first sentence of which began, "There are no owls in Iceland."

However, religion of a certain kind Napoleon evidently had, and J. T. Herbert Baily writes that his cynical remark that "God is on the side of the big battalions," seems to have been one of those little pessimistic utterances for which the Emperor displayed a liking during his last days at St. Helena.

To prove Napoleon's religious leanings, Dr. Barry O'Meara, his surgeon at St. Helena, narrates having come upon Napoleon one day seated in his bath, reading a little volume which turned out to be a Bible. Questioned about his fondness for the Scriptures, Napoleon got off another one of his cynicisms: "Man has need of something supernatural," he said, "and it is better to seek it in religion than in Mlle. de Normand," this lady being a celebrated fortune teller of Paris.

Furthermore, Napoleon's own Bible recently has come to light. It is full of marked passages, comments and notes in the Emperor's own hand, and most of these commentaries are in a deeply religious strain.

me.

Napoleon's views on the character of Christ are interesting. He said: "Everything in Him astonishes Between Him and whoever else in the world there is no possible term of comparison. His birth and the history of His life; the profundity of his doctrine, which grapples with the mightiest difficulties, and which is of those difficulties the most admirable solution. His gospel, His apparition, His empire, His march across the ages and realms-everything to me is prodigy and insoluble mystery which I can never deny, nor explain. Here I see nothing human."

It looks as if the years of seclusion from the world on the barren rock turned the Emporer's thoughts in a different direction from conquest and empire building. His neighbor was certainly conspicuous for its absence during his campaigns in northern Italy.

Love not the world, neither the things of the world.

CHARLES FILLMORE

Lesson 4. January 23.

TRUE BLESSEDNESS.-Matt. 5:1-16.

1. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain: and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: 2. and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,

3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.

10. Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.

13. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. 14. Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.

15. Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house.

16. Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.

GOLDEN TEXT-Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.-Matt. 5:8.

What is meant by "He went up into the mountain"?

Going into a state of elevated spirituality.

What is it to be poor in spirit?

To make oneself a mental vacuum that we may be filled with Divine Mind.

What is the kingdom of heaven?

A state of consciousness in which man rules his sub

jective nature in harmony and order.

How can we get a blessing out of mourning?

By taking all our griefs to God. Then the Holy Spirit, "the Comforter," will take away the desolation and deepen our souls in sympathy and love.

How shall the meek inherit the earth?

The "earth" is the body. These who are meek without are usually meditative within, and through introspection and concentration become unified with the bodysubstance in its Principle.

How do the pure in heart see God?

The God-Spirit is absolutely pure and undefiled. God does not see evil. "God is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity." Those who put away all thoughts of evil and dwell consciously in the realization that all is good, come face to face with the Original Mind of Being.

What is a peace-maker?

One who reduces to peace and harmony all the thoughts of strife, anger and retaliation in his own mind. Why does Jesus pour out blessings upon the persecuted?

Those who meet with opposition to spiritual development, both within and without, and are true to the highest, grow strong through the combat. Thus perse