Article May 27, 1916 Issue

Safeguarding the Home of Thought

IRVING C. TOMLINSON, M.A.

Two would-be visitors are ever awaiting admission to the home of consciousness, and the kind of reception which we extend to them, strange as it may seem, determines our peace, health, and comfort. Giving access to one, we bring discord, discontent, and distress upon ourselves. If we receive the other, we have in our mental home the light, the peace, and the comfort of Love. It is an axiom that true or false thinking determines the coming or going of our guests, whether welcome or unwelcome. If the homekeeper's thoughts are full of self, ignorance, or sin, one of these two will be absent, while the other will become an ever-usurping tenant. On the other hand, if the good host is cherishing unselfishness, charity, and meekness, then the honored guest makes frequent calls and is a welcome member of the family, while his dishonored counterfeit fails to find the latch-string out at his approach.

Each of these visitors brings with him a goodly supply of apparel in which he seeks to clothe his host. The one has new raiment of the finest texture, free from soil or rent. The other coaxes the owner of the house to garb himself in tattered garments, stained and bedraggled. The curious situation is, that once having admitted these guests and thereby given them dominion, he can but robe himself in the clothing which they provide. If the entertainer is cordial toward the agent of discord and disease, he will find himself garbed in the soiled, torn rags of impurity and hypocrisy; but if he extends a glad reception to the representative of Truth and Love, he will be clad in "the robe of righteousness" and "the garment of praise."

The thoughtful reader has already guessed that these two visitants who ask the hospitality of the fireside are spoken of in the Bible as "the Son of man" and "the prince of this world." Of the first it is said, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith [receptivity] on the earth?" Of the other it is written, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." The Son of man is "The Prince of Peace." The prince of this world is the false god of discord and disruption. The dwelling-place of the former is the kingdom of heaven, the regnancy of wide-flung harmony. The abode of the other is the realm of fear and hate, the domain of warring human will-power.

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