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LIBRARY Brigham Young University GIFT OF LaRue Phillins / / / *tf) to ^ro^jpetitf .. -sin of Evil BY RS AT j A T in ^hhth,' ' Out Ft rom R. FENNO & COMPANY 18 East Seventeenth St., New York ; Copyright, 1907 By R. Fbnno & Company Ths Path to Prosperity HAROLD B.

LEE LIB^AR* BfllGHAM YOiJt^S UMVMlTY PROVO. UTAH CONTENTS The Lesson of Evil . . . .11 The World a Reflex of Mental States 19 The Way Out of Undersirable Condi- tions 28 The Silent Power of Thought : Control- ling and Directing One's Forces . 46 The Secret of Health, Success, and Power 59 The Secret of Abounding Happiness . 75 The Realization of Prosperity . .85 FOREWORD I looked around upon the world, and saw that it was shadowed by sorrow and scorched by the fierce fires of suffering.

And I looked for the cause. I looked around, but could not find it ; I looked in books, but could not find it ; I looked within, and found there both the cause and the self-made nature of that cause. I looked again, and deeper, and found the remedy.

I found one Law, the Law of Love ; one Life, the Life of adjustment to that Law; one Truth, the Truth of a conquered mind and a quiet and obedient heart. And I dreamed of writing a book which should help men and women, whether rich or poor, learned or un- learned, worldly or unworldly, to find within themselves the source of all success, all happiness, all accomplishment, all truth.

And the dream remained with me, and at last became substantial ; and now I send it forth into the world on its mission of healing and blessedness, knowing that it cannot fail to reach the homes and hearts of those who are waiting and ready to receive it.

THE PATH OF PROSPERITY THE LESSON OF EVIL Unrest and pain and sorrow are the sh of life. There is no heart in all the world tha$ has not felt the sting of pain, no mind that not been tossed upon the dark waters of trouble, no eye that has not wept the hot, blinding tears of unspeakable anguish.

There is no house- hold where the Great Destroyers, disease an death, have not entered, severing heart from heart, and casting over all the dark pall of sorrow. In the strong, and apparently inde- structible meshes of evil all are more or le: fast caught, and pain, unhappiness, and misfo tune wait upon mankind.

With the object of escaping, or in some w< mitigating this overshadowing gloom, men and women rush blindly into innumerable devices, pathways by which they fondly hope to enter into a happiness which will not pass away. Such are the drunkard and the harlot, who revel in sensual excitements ; such is the exclusive aesthete, who shuts himself out from the sorrows of the world, and surrounds himself with ener- vating luxuries ; such is he who thirsts for wealth or fame, and subordinates all things to'dftyte ii v e Path Prosperity <&: achievement of that object ; and such are they who seek consolation in the performance of religious iit&> ' * ^OW^i: And to all the happine^Hsolignfc seems to come, and the soul, for a time, is lulled into a sweet security, and an intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil ; but the day of disease comes at last, or some great sorrow, temptation, or misfortune breaks suddenly in on the unforti- fied soul, and the fabric of its fancied happiness is torn to shreds. o over the head of every personal joy hangs fie Damocletian sword of pain, ready, at any moment, to fall and crush the soul of him who is unprotected by knowledge.

The child cries to be a man or woman ; the an and woman sigh for the lost felicity of child- od. The poor man chafes under the chains of poverty by which he is bound, and the rich man often lives in fear of poverty, or scours the world in search of an elusive shadow he calls happiness.

Sometimes the soul feels that it has found a secure peaceand happiness in adopting a certain religion, in embracing an intellectual philosophy, or in building up an intellectual or artistic ideal ; but some overpowering temptation proves the religion j^ to be inadequate or insufficient ; the theoretical %\ v. philosophy is found to be a useless prop ; or in a moment, the idealistic statue upon which the Tu The Lesson of E4i&J% devotee has for years been laborin -6- into fragments at his feet.