Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/72

68 will succeed where many another may fail. In this there will often be surprisingly exemplified the fact that it is the inner, emotional and intellectual life, rather than the outer physical life, which pulls men and women down, as well as keeps them up; and that in connection with a decided change in the character and direction of these there may always he expected, whenever possible, a corresponding constructive response to whatever change in environmental conditions may be considered useful, in addition.

Having thus made a right beginning and got well on the road to practical success, it is simply wonderful what a capable, intelligent, wholesome "minister to a mind diseased" can thus do, for many of these cases, where there is such a malign and persisting interference with the life of all the affective as well as effective faculties of the sicksoul, as is here to be found. Like the gentle dew from heaven is his mere coming and presence often; often, too, like a strong tower of defense and offense, is the "presence" he leaves behind; like a veritable "new birth," does it soon amount to; like a complete regeneration in the end, in many instances.

Of course, it might be naturally supposed that the first and surest step toward securing recovery, especially from the woes peculiar to the misfit, would be simply to get them out of their inappropriate environment and wrong calling into a place and work more suitable for their endowment and preparation. And so it would be and is, in a comparatively few or perhaps many cases. But with the rest it is almost universally the fact that for so long a time have they been bred and trained in the midst of unrealization and unsatisfaction and consequently of rebellion and despair, and not less important in the direction of atrophy and negation of powers, that even when their outward circumstances have once been most wisely mended they do not respond nearly so constructively as might naturally be expected. Mostly, such people need a change of life within before they can satisfactorily appreciate and constructively respond to a change of life without. Until this change is accomplished—until the intellect and emotions and expectancies have been given at least a new direction—outer changes are much more likely, particularly in adults, to result in some or all of the unexpected disappointments which every other kind of unwise experimentation is everywhere so apt to see.

Having, then, as thoroughly cleared the sufferer's mind of every affecting and destructive idea and feeling as possible, and skillfully filled it with certain other ideas and feelings, which should be selected entirely for their own constructive, curative and inspiring qualities, it follows with equal necessity that the good work should not stop here, by any means, but rather should be supplemented unremittingly by most persistent use of every such well-selected, strong, wholesome,