[From the Country Gentleman, New York, New York]

The physicians have begun paying more attention to those things that have their effect within. As a result they are making known facts that should interest those who desire to live well.

Speaking of diet and health, Dr. Robert Hutchinson of London said recently: "What we need for the attainment of health as individuals is not so much more knowledge as a change of heart. A country's greatest asset is character. Let us therefore cultivate character and let health look after itself, being assured that to a nation made up of men and women of character all things-health included-will be added."

In somewhat the same vein, Dr. E. Payne Palmer told the American College of Surgeons at San Francisco: "The positive qualities of human character, for example charity, hope, kindness, and love, help to promote good health."

All this is in line with the counsel given in I Peter 3:10,11: "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good."

[G. E. Terry, in the Farmer's Weekly, Cohuna, Victoria, Australia]

Since I wrote in this column last week I have spent several very busy days in Melbourne. Although supplied with complimentary press tickets, I did not attend any of the big theater or other evening shows, from sheer tiredness. I stumbled, however, across one great public meeting by accident. I was passing the Town Hall on my way home to my hotel one evening, when I noticed a crowd of well-dressed people making their way up the wide flight of steps to the entrance. Glancing at the display poster beneath, I saw that a lecture on Christian Science was announced. Curious, I joined the ascending throng. The hall was already more than two thirds filled, although it was but a quarter past seven o'clock, and the lecture was not to be delivered till eight. Long before that time the building was thronged from floor to ceiling....

What was there in Christian Science to draw audiences like that night after night to hear lectures an hour and tenminutes long, gracefully delivered indeed, and entirely without notes, but in the plainest language and devoid of all those rhetorical arts and that appeal to the emotions which make up the stock-in-trade of so many popular orators?

I turned to neatly dressed man who took the seat next to me. "This is a magnificent audience," I remarked. "Yes," he replied, "Christian Science is making great strides all over Melbourne." "Indeed, and are you interested in it?" "Yes, very much." "Why so, if I may be permitted to ask?" "Well, it's like this," said the man, who might have been a clerk at a warehouse: "Four years ago my wife was prostrated with rheumatoid arthritis, and had also a chronic disease in one of her eyes. She was under the leading doctors in Collins Street. At last they told us they could do no more, and advised us not to waste our money further. Her case, they said, was quite incurable."

"That must have been very distressing to you." "It was. But about that time we got to hear of Christian Science and of the wonderful work it was doing in the healing of diseases. We decided to call in one of their lady 'practitioners.' My wife was a member of the Church of England. As for me, I was nothing at all. My wife had first to be brought into a right condition of mind, and made receptive of the healing power. It wasn't long before we began to notice a decided change for the better. The improvement steadily continued till my wife was able to get up and walk about, and eventually to work again. The eye trouble also disappeared. From beginning to end no medicines were used, and no surgical operations. Of course, we are both great believers in Christian Science now," added the man with quiet enthusiasm.

There was no charge for admission and no collection, though the rent of the hall for the night must have amounted to twenty ponds or more; and at the retiring door we were all given specimen copies of Christian Science magazines, which are models of literary and typographical superiority.

I hold no brief for Christian Science, and what I am writing is not intended as propaganda; but Christian Science literature abounds in cases of spiritual healing similar to that mentioned above.

[From the Daily News, Santa Barbara, California]

The first duty of every one of us is to begin, if we have not already begun, to watch our thoughts, to watch our feelings, to put a bridle upon our desires, to see to it that they are not tending downward and away from God, but toward that which is pure and godly; away from the world and toward those things which are everlasting and holy. And if we do, God will come into our hearts, His sunlight will shine in our souls and from our very countenances, and life will be one long blessing to us day by day.

[Barnard R. H. Spaull, M. A., in the Christian World Pulpit, London, England]

I suppose we are all of us familiar with the story that is told of the late Dr. Temple, when he was headmaster of Rugby, that one day a boy brought him a problem in geometry of which the boy had made a hopeless muddle; and the head said to him, "My boy, you must think." "I did think, sir." "Well, think again, and think differently." We are accustomed to think of this passage, "Repent and believe the gospel," as being a challenge to men and women to be sorry for their sins, and there is no doubt whatever that that was part of the meaning of Jesus; but it has also a wider significance than that. Change your mind! "Think again, and think differently." Adopt a new outlook! That is the keynote of the teaching of Jesus.

Take, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount. What is its essential message? Take it more or less in detail: "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill must come up for judgment, whoever maligns his brother must come before the Sanhedrin, whoever curses his brother must go to the fire of Gehenna." All that had been accepted and taken for granted for years. "But I say unto you–" What? "Change your mind, think again and think differently, and realize that it is the bitter feeling against your brother that counts and is sentenced in the sight of God."

Or again, "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old thou shalt not commit adultery." Well? What else can you say about it? It is wrong, and there is an end of it. "But I say unto you: Think again and think differently; a lustful look is a violation,... and that is scarcely less harmful to your soul and in the sight of God."

Again, "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"–your vengeance must not exceed that. "But I say unto you, think again and think differently; do not resist an injury but go one better; overcome the other man by showing an infinitely finer spirit than his, and turn your enemy into a friend." ...

Was not Dr. Fosdick that once said that "one way of being a sinner in the eyes of Jesus was to live in the new day as though the old day were still here." That is the eternal challenge of Christ [Jesus]: "Think again and think differently." ...

That has always been true throughout the history of mankind; the leaders of religion have always been challenging men to ... "think again and think differently;" to "change your mind."

[Thomas Hastwell, in the Ardsley Sun, New York]

How often have we seen men and women who are going through life and getting very little from it. They merely skim the surface and never experience the finer and better things it might give them. They move about in a narrow little circle or walk back and forth in a beaten track from morning until night, from one week's end to the other, year after year. How often we find these same people haunted by fears that this or that will happen. Life holds little promise and no adventure to them. Instead of fearing that their life would end, they should be deeply concerned that it has never really begun. The life that merely lives as the animals live, sustaining itself from day to day, supplying its physical and material wants and at night seeking its repose, has not begun to live. It takes high courage to venture out in untried depths, to open the mind and heart and soul to new experiences, new contacts, new scenes. It takes courage to be a pioneer. It takes courage to keep an open mind. It takes courage to live one's convictions. But nowhere is courage so richly rewarded as in living. Life can be little and drab and dull and narrow and contracted and uninteresting, or it can be full and complete and challenging.

[From the Herald, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada]

Have we ever troubled to analyze Christianity and to discover ... what there is in it which makes such an appeal to all true believers? What is it that has caused Christianity to spread as it has during the last two thousand years? What is the virtue which has brought men and women to abandon old beliefs and to take to what was new? If we seek to find out these things we shall esteem and prize our Christianity a great deal more than we do, and learn to look upon it as a precious possession, nationally and individually ....

Does not Christianity sanctify the home? Is it not the religion which, through its Founder, has exalted the status of little children? Did he not show us how we ca best profess the Christianity to which we subscribe, removing it from being a mere nameless thing by those wonderful words: "He went about doing good"? Here is the power of Christianity, making doing good that which clothes it with ... beauty.... This is the lodestar of a religion which has all in it that commends itself to the individual who takes his and her Christianity seriously. It is well that we should perceive this.

[Rev. J. Buchanan Bernardin, as quoted in the New York Times, New York]

We should strive at eternity, which lies before us. God has given us in Christ a plan. His faith reveals God's love and what man's lot should be. Any other faith will be wobbly. In construction of buildings, foundations are tested; in lives, virtues are tested. If we overcome temptations, then we have built a part of our lives.