CHAPTER 5SUCCESS FOR TWO
A YOUNG woman was married to a young man at a time when all was going well with him, and, as is natural with people when the world is bright, he was cheerful and happy, and the woman took it for granted that he was spiritually 'built that way,' whereas he was merely assuming the soul attitudes that were most comfortable at the time.
"The woman had an understanding of the law which governs conditions and environment, and as the man hadn't, she soon found he hung as a dead weight upon her hands. Reverses came — business grew dull, and the husband became despondent. He liked to talk of himself as 'unfortunate' and to get the sympathy of his friends because of his 'ill-luck.' He seemed to enjoy pitying himself. Now, if he had drawn the wife down to his own pessimistic, negative level they might have stayed in the slough of despond and bankruptcy to the end.
"But she would not be drawn down. When he talked bad luck she talked good luck. When he pitied himself she pointed out to him the unmanly position he was taking, and tried to show him that what he was had more to do with what he had or didn't have than all the external conditions combined.
Sometimes she would find him with his face in his hands, thinking of suicide. She would not tear her hair and beg him to desist, but she would at these times sit down and discuss the matter after this fashion: 'Don't you know, my dear, that it is weak to feel as you do? That it only makes matters worse for everybody? Don't you know that the financial wheel is always on the turn, and that the man who gives up hope because the wheel is on the downward dip is not worthy the name of man? Don't you know that you, yourself, have the control of the wheel through your mental power? And don't you know that, by talking on the wrong side, the side of failure, ill-luck, etc., you weaken your power, whereas by talking on the right side — the side of success, good fortune, etc., you increase your power to turn that wheel?'
“And then she would sit in the silence and tell him mentally that he was full of hope, full of courage, full of assurance.
“Finally the man began to believe she was right. He had felt his courage rising with her suggestions. One day he said to her, just as he started for his business: 'Keep your thought on me all day, will you?' And so she made an appointment with him to meet her, mentally, at each hour through the day. And he kept the appointment. Wherever he was, as the hour struck he centered his thoughts upon his wife, knowing that at the same time she would give him a mental treatment. And she did — not only one day, but for many days, as the hour chimed, she dropped all work, and for a brief space, with the image of her husband before her mind's eye she asserted: 'You are a magnet of success.'
After awhile the leaven worked, and the man began to feel his own power, and better still, to assert it. If business seemed dull, instead of wasting time as he had once done in going over the ground looking for failure and deploring it, he would go into his office and talk to himself. He would center his whole thought upon the innate power in man to draw what he wanted — taking for his Logos tie word 'Success'; and to use his own words, when he started out again 'everything came his way.'
“This man never undertakes any new venture without first consulting his wife, to be sure, he says, of her mental support as well as approval.
"If you think I'll succeed I know I shall,' he often says to her.
“Now this couple are what the world would call successful. The husband earns more money in one week than he did in, three or four weeks a few years ago. Nobody left him a fortune, nobody set him up in business. But his wife, by her persistent mental suggestions aroused his courage and finally his own belief in himself, and then he easily did the rest.
"How much better, dear troubled women, to take the right stand than the wrong.
"And it is no harder surely. For instance, when your husband comes home discouraged, instead of stroking his head and saying in that deathly cheerful resignation tone of voice, 'It's too bad, dear,’ and possibly dropping a few pearly tears upon his curly locks, how much better it would be to use the cheerful, assertive, can't-be-crushed tone of voice, and say: 'Never mind, my dear, you are greater than the obstacle — you are a living soul — an unconquerable soul — and the obstacle is only a straw man.'
And then it wouldn't hurt your husband a bit if you spent the evening telling him how clever he is, and how well he can do everything. And a few looks of admiration would go farther toward lifting him up to his full mental stature than a thousand sympathetic, sad glances. Indeed, the latter would hold him down like a stone on a kite string. Don't be a stone. Be the string to the kite, and guide."
The above was written to me by a woman whose name is blessed in hundreds of households. It is the story of her own experience, so clearly told that I asked permission to publish it for the benefit of other wives and husbands. It would not do to give you her name, so we will call her Mary.
If Mary were the traditional kind of clinging vine woman I believe Mr. Mary would never have pulled out of his despondency and failure. There are some things that cannot be done alone. Of course a strong, self-reliant man could have done it without help. But a man of Mr. Mary's temperament needed heartening.
"Where two are agreed as touching anything it shall be done unto them." This is the key to every great success.
"The believing wife shall sanctify the husband," is no metaphor. The believing wife shall transmute his fear to faith, his blues to roses, his inertia to positive power.
Of every married couple, no matter whether happily or unhappily married, This statement is the living abiding truth: What neither one can accomplish alone can be easily done if they will sink their differences and pull together.
It is differing, criticizing, bickering between husband and wife which disheartens each and makes them "failures."
The lack of a united purpose is the rock upon which marriage shipwrecks. Look farther afield too — it is lack of united purpose upon which the world wrecks itself.
Truly, "in union there is strength." No man, however great or strong he is, can do his best without some woman's love and thought. Whatever height man has achieved alone, with her beside him he would have achieved a greater.
No woman, however great or strong she is, can do her best without some man's love and thought. Whatever height she attains alone would have been greater and more glorious with him beside her. It is not good for man, nor woman, to work alone. The individual is but an atom unless he unites with others.
Life is a school in which the individual is learning to unite with others for the common good. And marriage is the most important class in the school.
See you use marriage to the best advantage for the common good. For specific methods, concentrate on Mary's letter.
But what if your husband won't listen and cooperate as Mary's did? Follow the same tactics but DO THE TALKING ALL IN THE SILENCE. You may depend upon it, your husband will receive your every statement of truth by way of the invisible love filaments which hold you together.
Oh, but there are no love filaments between you and your husband? Don't you believe it. Without these filaments you would fly apart like two positively charged bits of steel, and all the marriage ceremonies and Mrs. Grundys and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put you together again. Just sink your differences and criticisms and you will grow in consciousness of the universal and personal love filaments which are holding you together and through which you are exchanging the soul blood which is the life of you both.
You know who your real mate is, and he is not your husband? Don't you be too sure, dearie. Let time prove you all. And in the meantime sink the soul mate, too, and work with your husband. You will be all the better able to enjoy the soul mate when, or if, you get him. And you will get into his class (if you continue to want to) all the more quickly for having put your whole might into doing your best in this one.
Yes, no man or woman can do his best work without his soul mate, but to get his soul mate before he is otherwise ready to do his best work would be a calamity, a disappointment to both. So don't be in too much of a hurry to get through your present class, or you may find yourself and your soul mate under "conditions" that may take a lifetime of disappointment to work off.
"Make haste slowly" and "do with thy might whatsoever thy hand findeth to do."
Better the "well done" of thine own soul than the caresses of thy soul mate.
ON PULLING TOGETHER >
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