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MIND OR NO MIND.

CHAPTER XVII.

MIND OR NO MIND.

WHETHER you will possess mental life is being determined during the years of your youth. Of course all persons have minds, but all persons have not active minds. Do not be frightened; I am not writing for scholars, but for young men and women of average abilities and opportunities. You will not be great scholars; for scholarship demands such an amount of time and such an absorption of energy, that, under your present circumstances, it is placed beyond your reach. The question which you have to consider is as to what amount of mental life, if any, you will cultivate with your present opportunities. Thousands slip into a routine kind of existence of alternate work and play; they have no interests beyond those which touch their immediate circle; they have no intelligent views of any subject, because they cannot bring any mental power to bear on the questions of the day; and

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life is therefore insipid to themselves, and uninteresting to any cultured companions whom they may happen to meet.

Possessing as we do an instrument of thought, it is natural that we should use it. But this instrument is peculiar. It is not a mere piece of mechanism; it is subject to growth or decay. If we exercise its powers on trivial topics, it will become little and impoverished. Men who exercise their minds on small things only, lack largeness of view and breadth. They indulge in "small talk," and cut themselves off from intercourse with the great world of intelligence around them. So that you cannot misdirect your energies with impunity. It is equally certain that you cannot allow your mind to lie idle without serious consequences. You may not be conscious of these consequences; you may know nothing of the fair garden of Eden from which you are excluded; but none the less will you suffer indescribable loss. You will at least be conscious that you are not fulfilling God's purpose in your creation. He gave you a mind- a mind capable of use, of growth, of beauty, of joy, and of influence. You may, by your abuse or neglect, maim and paralyze your faculties. Your mind may be like a clock that will not go, bearing the semblance of power, but nothing more.

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