The Freedom of Life

ist

cried out with pain, held on to the poker. His friend called out

it with pain like this? I tell you when a man is suff

tighter he held on to the poker,

it is startlingly true as an illustrat

of unnecessary disagreeable sensation as soon as possible, if we had not lost that wholesome instinct through want

but very interesting, if we are in earnest; and when, after wandering in the bypaths, we finally strike the true

long in blind helplessness. A man will drop a hot poker as soon as he feels it burn, but he will tighten his muscles and hold on to a col

rculation throughout the whole body. The more the circulation is impeded, the longer the cold will last. To begin with, the cold itself impedes the circulation; and if, in addition, we offer resistance to the very idea of having a cold, we tighten our ner

to people who do no

I must relax and le

ur bodies, and so allow the cold to be carried off. In addition to the relaxing, long

of devoting it to the best means of getting relief. They double themselves up tight, and hold on to the place that hurts. Then all the nervous force tends toward the sore

way from the elbow that hurt, and so stopped its hurting sooner. The use of a counterirritant is not uncommon with good physicians, but the counter-irritant

relieved, because the fainting would relax the muscles of the throat, and the only trouble with it was contraction. Singularly, it did not seem to occur to the doctor that the man might be taught to relax his throat by the use of his own will, ins

et relaxing on the part of the patient, so as to allow n

s healing forces. The contraction of the nerves and muscles of the body is caused by resistance in the mind, and resistance in the mind is unwillingness: unwillingness to endure the

of business requiring attention. In many eases the strain and anxiety, which causes resis

cur to him that he might as well turn his illness to account by getting a good rest out of it. In this frame of mind his chances of early recovery will be increased, and he may even get up from his illness with so much new life and with his mind so much refreshed as to make up, in part, for his temporary absence

for recovery, and so prevents either a possible relapse, or our feeling only half well for a long time, when we might have felt wholly well from the time we first bega

with regard to them, because for generations the desire for having our own way has held us in bondage, and confused our standard of freedom; more than that, it has befogged our sense of natural law, and the result is that we painfully fight

of illness. Every disease, though it is abnormal in itself, may frequently be kept within bounds by a certain normal course of conduct, and, if our suffering from the disease itself is unavoi

ch non-resistance, will find it difficult to practise

ngers; the man who is taken ill only needs to be willing with his

uth to yourself over and over, quietly and without emotion, and steadily and firmly contradict every temptation to think that it is impossible not to resist. If men could once be convinced of th

in cases of strong, perverted natures and fixed habits, because in such cases our resistances are harder and more interior, but if we keep steadily on, aiming in the right direction,-if we persist in the practice of keeping ourselves separate from our unproductive turbulenc

ty to begin our training in non-resis