e exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it,
must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all
pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.

"But in few of us are functions not tied up by the exercise of other
functions. Relatively few medical and scientific men, I fancy, can pray.
Few can carry on any living commerce with God. Yet many of us are well
aware of how much freer and abler our lives would be, were such
important forms of energizing not sealed up by the critical atmosphere
in which we have been reared. There are in everyone potential forms of
activity that actually are shunted out from use. Part of the imperfect
vitality under which we labor can thus be easily explained."

Have a few simple sentences full of thanksgiving, of peace and rest. The
best are found in the Bible. The words to Moses, "My presence shall go
with thee and I will give thee rest," may be given and repeated many
times with a realization of their deep meaning and a personal
application to the individual.

Not only repeat phrases, lines, and verses, full of beautiful thought,
but change these into your own words. Learn to articulate your own
convictions and apply them to your own needs,--even paraphrase, for
example, such a phrase as "He restoreth my soul" in the twenty-third
Psalm. For the word "soul" we can substitute anything according to the
specific needs of the hour. We should, however, use nothing that is not
in accordance with universal love and the highest spiritual ideals of
man and of our conceptions of the universe. We must always remember that
truth is universal.

We can change "soul" also to "health," "strength" or "life," to "joy,"
to "success," to "confidence," to the body or any part of the body which
may seem to be afflicted.

There are in this Psalm other good affirmations on going to sleep. Take
individual clauses and repeat them many times, such as "I will fear no
evil, for Thou art with me."

One of the best affirmations is found in the first of the twenty-seventh
Psalm. "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The
Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom [or of what] shall I be afraid?
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may
dwell in the house of the Lord [in a consciousness of His presence] all
the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in
his temple [to commune with Him in the sacred temple of my own s