Just as a wet match, when struck, does not produce fire, so a mind saturated with restlessness is unable to produce the fire of concentration, even when prodigious efforts are made to strike the cosmic spark.

The bells have pealed the opening of the portals of all hope in the New Year. The ever-marching pall bearers of the time have carried the depression, disease, and failure-stricken deceased old year to be delightfully buried in the cemetery of happy oblivion. Do not again conjure up the specter of the trialsome past year to stalk silently on the fields of your Soul forces and scare your determination, enthusiasm, and perseverance away.

Jesus was an Oriental, by birth and blood and training. The Wise Men of the East, or East India, came to confer about Him when He was born, knowing Him to be one of the greatest message-bearers of Truth.

Through tests we learn life's lessons. Tests are not meant to crush us: They are to develop our powers. They come through the natural law of progress and are necessary for us to advance from lower to higher steps.

A room may be in darkness for thousands of years, but if a light is brought into it, in that very instant the darkness vanishes. So is it with sin. You cannot drive sin out of the mind any more than you can beat darkness out of a room with a stick. By concentration on delusion, indeed, you may only increase its hold on your mind. Bring in the light of God, however, through deep meditation and devotion, and the darkness will vanish as though it had never been.

Invoke God as power in the temple of consciousness during the day. Let every action and every word that you utter be tinged and tipsy with God-love intoxication. Talk and act sensibly as a man who keeps his senses awake and in command. Be drunk with God and let every action of your daily life be a temple of God's memory. Perform every action to please Him; and in the indestructible shrine of your devotion God will listen in every thought.