o the same things
day after day and wonder why you have so much 'bad luck'!"

Are You Going Up or Down?

Let me repeat, things that go downward will run themselves. Things that
go upward have to be pushed. Going upward is overcoming. Notice that
churches, schools, lyceums, chautauquas, reform movements--things that
go upward--never run themselves. They must be pushed all the time.

And so with our own lives. Real living is conscious effort to go upward
to larger life.

If you are making no effort in your life, if you are moving in the line
of least resistance, depend upon it you are going downward. Look out
for the bumps!

Look over your community. Note the handful of brave, faithful,
unselfish souls who are carrying the community burdens and pushing
upward. Note the multitude making little or no effort, and even getting
in the way of the pushers.

Majorities do not rule. Majorities never have ruled. It is the brave
minority of thinking, self-sacrificing people that decides the tomorrow
of communities that go upward. Majorities are not willing to make the
effort to rule themselves. They are content to drift and be amused and
follow false gods that promise something for nothing. They must be
led--sometimes driven--by minorities.

People are like sheep. The shepherd can lead them to heaven--or to hell.

Bumping the Prodigals

Human life is the story of the Prodigal Son. We look over the fence of
goodness into the mystery of the great unknown world beyond and in that
unknown realm we fondly imagine is happiness.

Down the great white way of the world go the million prodigals, seeking
happiness where nobody ever found happiness. Their days fill up with
disappointment, their vision becomes dulled. They become anaemic
feeding upon the husks.

They just must get their coffee-pot!

How they must be bumped to think upon their ways. Every time we do
wrong we get a Needless Knock. Every time! We may not always get bumped
on the outside, but we always get bumped on the inside. A bump on the
conscience is worse than a bump on the "noodle."

"I can do wrong and not get bumped. I have no feelings upon the
subject," somebody says, You can? You poor old sinner, you have bumped
your conscience numb. That is why you have no feelings on the subject.
You have pounded your soul into a jelly. You don't know how badly you
are hurt.

How the old devil works day and night to keep people amused and doped
so that