ies. Our reason, too, is
fashioned out of a long heredity of action, that is to say an immemorial
discipline in an existence purely animal. So powerful is the influence
of this heredity, so real seems to us a physical world which is not
real, so infallible seem to us the senses by which we fail to live
successfully even as animals, that, as Christ said, a man must be born
again before he can enter the Kingdom of God--that is to say, before he
can behold and inhabit Reality.

At the head of this chapter I have set a quotation from a leading
article in _The Times_ on the recent lectures of M. Coue. It is now
eighteen years ago, treading in the footsteps of Frederic Myers, that I
discussed with some of the chief medical hypnotists in London and Paris
the phenomena of mental suggestion. It was known then that
auto-suggestion is a force of tremendous power. It was stated then that
"an immense hope is dawning on the world," but not then, not even now,
is it realised that this awkward term of "auto-suggestion" is merely a
synonym for the more beautiful and ancient words, meditation and prayer.

We know now that a man can radically change his character, can uproot
the toughest habits of a lifetime, by telling himself that his will is
master in his house of life[9]. And we think that we have made this
discovery, forgetting that Shakespeare said "The love of heaven makes us
heavenly," and that Christ said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and
thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled," and "All things,
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," or, as
Mark has it, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that
ye receive them, and ye shall have them," and "According to your faith
be it unto you."

[Footnote 9: At Nancy even a lesion has been cured by suggestion.]

With our present knowledge of the universe and of the human mind, it is
at last possible for us to perceive in the confused records of the New
Testament the nature of Christ's teaching. He loved the world for its
beauty, but He penetrated its delusions and breathed the air of its only
reality. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth . . . but lay
up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also." "What is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul?" "If thou canst believe, all thi