“What becomes of babies who die at birth?”
“They have undeveloped personalities and are developed here. We have strong forces of Light and Truth devoted to their teaching.”
“When a man is consciously determined to construct, is he ever overcome by disintegrating forces?”
“Sure thing he is, if he doesn’t fight. Sometimes he sways and recovers. Read the Lessons. They’ll tell you more every time you read them. They come from General Headquarters.... The arousing force of this message is to be measured by conviction manifested in action. Again you are respectfully referred to the Lessons.”
“It doesn’t seem fair that physical and nervous conditions should affect one’s ability to resist or receive the forces,” Lois mentioned.
“It doesn’t. You just think it does. The forces of construction are always eager to come in. The thing you call nervous exhaustion generally comes from yielding to forces of disintegration. A person yields to one or more of them, and then is sorry for himself because some doctor doesn’t rout them. What he needs is to buck up and kick them out himself.” Evidently he referred here to the nervous disorders arising from mental disturbances, for the next day he emphasized the government of physical forces by physical laws.
It was suggested that while many nervous disorders might be controlled in their incipiency by the person suffering from them, they eventually get beyond his control, and Frederick replied: “You think so; but there’s always force where there’s personality, and if it can just be put up to you, by yourself or another, that the choice in the end is yours and nobody’s else, you can help yourself. In the end, you help yourself, anyhow, unless you slide back to protoplasm of purpose. Get busy and buck up, or backslide and slump. It’s up to every fellow for himself, and every one who slips back impedes the way for somebody else.”
In the talk following this, some one spoke of the constant teaching of brotherhood and regard for one’s neighbor as a vicarious gospel.
“Not vicarious,” Frederick corrected. “It is not vicarious to give the other fellow a chance. No man is his brother’s keeper. No man has a right to impede construction, unless he’s destructive. But it’s every personality developed to its highest that makes the strong constructive army. The weak should have a chance to develop, but no strong force should yield its purpose. Nothing vicarious about that. Just common sense and good organization.”
Mr. Gaylord—the successful head of a large manufacturing concern—asked, with a twinkle: “Can you successfully run a business in accordance with the principles laid down in these Lessons? Before you answer, I want to say that I believe it can be done.”