Men are equally oblivious of any knowledge regarding the matter, and consequently make no special effort to keep the expectant mother of their offspring happy, hopeful, or free of anxiety and worry during this period. Often they do not strive to aid them in their own attempts to bestow a desirable temperament upon the unborn child, but heedlessly and needlessly aggravate or grieve the mind which is stamping its impress upon an unborn soul.
It is just here that the "New Thought" can perform its greatest miracles of good.
Even the woman who has not been enlightened upon the law of ante-birth-influence will, if a true disciple of the Religion of Right-living, bring healthy and helpful children into the world, because her normal state of mind will be inclusive of those three qualities; and her continued and repeated a.s.sertions of her own divine nature will shape the brain of her child in optimistic and reverential mould.
There is the old law of the continual falling of the drop of water upon the stone to be verified in the spiritual plane. Continual a.s.sertions of a mother that her child will be all that she desires it to be, will wear away the stone of inherited tendencies, and bring into physical being a malleable nature wholly amenable to the after influences and efforts she may bring to bear upon it.
It is a tremendous responsibility which rests upon the woman who knows she is to be a mother of a human being.
A hundred ancestors may have contributed certain qualities to that invisible and formless atom which contains an immortal soul, yet the mother"s mind has the power to remake and rebuild all those characteristics, and to place over them her own dominating impulse, whether for good or ill.
Surely, if success in the arts or the sciences is worthy of years of devoted attention and interested effort, the moulding of a n.o.ble human being is worth eight or nine months of concentrated thought and unflagging zeal of purpose.
Every expectant mother should set herself about the important business G.o.d has entrusted her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine mission. She should direct her mind into wholesome and optimistic channels; she should read inspiring books and think loving and large thoughts. She should pray and aspire! and always should she carry in her mind the ideal of the child she would mother, and command from the great Source of all Opulence the qualities she would desire to perpetuate.
And they will be given.
Balance
Avoid all strained and abstruse language, when conversing with people who may not have entered this realm of thought.
Do not allow anyone to think of you as a lunatic, or a crank, unnecessarily. Of course there are people in the world who consider everyone a lunatic who holds an opinion differing from their own.
But it can do you, or your philosophy, no good to thrust its most difficult phases before the minds of the unawakened, by vague and high flown expressions.
I once chanced to call upon a lady who had, quite unknown to me, entered upon the study of Christian Science.
She remarked to me, almost as soon as the greetings were exchanged, "I had a claim to meet for three days this week, but I have come through it and am victorious."
I supposed the lady referred to some business matter, perhaps a legal affair, and waited an explanation.
After considerable rambling conversation, I managed to grasp the fact that the woman had been sick in the house three days, but now was well.
She considered her illness a mere "claim" her "mortal mind" had made which she had to meet and combat.
All this sort of talk is very ridiculous. We need not talk about every ailment which attacks us as we move along toward the condition of perfect health which belongs to us! But if we do speak of indisposition, let us use common sense language.
What we want to realize is, that we are in the body, but that the spirit can control bodily conditions, if we give it the ascendency, to the extent of keeping us well, moral, useful, and comfortable even in the midst of sickness, vice, indolence and poverty.
We can rise above these false elements, and subjugate them.
Meanwhile we cannot live without food, clothes and money.
Despise and ignore these vulgar things as we may a.s.sume to do, we yet must have them.
It brings only ridicule upon ourselves and our ideas to make this pretense of despising the necessities of life.
To make them secondary in our thoughts to spiritual knowledge is right and wise, but this is better ill.u.s.trated by our lives and conduct than by our words.