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Chapter 15 — Faith with Works: What It Has Accomplished

It is said of Tyson, the great Australian millionaire, that the suggestion to “make the desert land of Australia blossom as the rose” came to him from a modest little Australian violet while he was working as a bushman for something like three shillings a day. He used to find these friendly little violets growing in certain places in the woods, and something in the flower touched something akin to itself in the mind of Tyson, and he would sit on the side of his bunk at night and wonder how flowers and vegetable life could be given an opportunity to express itself in the desert land of Australia.

No doubt he realized that it would take a long time to save enough money to put irrigating ditches in the desert lands, but his thought and feeling were sure it could be accomplished, and if it could be done, he could do it. If there was a power within himself that was able to capture the idea, then there must be a responsive power within the idea itself that could bring itself into a practical physical manifestation. He resolutely put aside all questions as to the specific ways and means which would be employed in bringing his desire into physical manifestation, and simply kept his thought centered upon the idea of making fences and seeing flowers and grass where none existed.

Since the responsiveness of reproductive creative power is not limited to any local condition of mind, his habitual meditation and mental picture set his ideas free to roam in an infinitude, and attract to themselves other ideas of a kindred nature. Therefore, it was not necessary for Tyson to wait and see his ideas and desires fulfilled, until he had saved from his three shillings a day enough money to irrigate the land, for his ideas found other ideas in the financial world which were attuned in sympathy with themselves, and doors of finance were quickly opened.

All charitable institutions are maintained upon the principle of the responsiveness of life. If this were not true, no one would care to give, simply because another needed. The law of demand and supply, cause and effect, can never be broken. Ideas attract to themselves kindred ideas. Sometimes they come from a flower, a book or out of the invisible. You are sitting or walking, intent upon an idea not quite complete as to the ways and means of fulfillment, and behold along comes another idea, from no one can tell where, and finds friendly lodging with your idea, one idea attracting another, and so on until your desires are physical facts.

You may feel the necessity for an improvement in your finances, and wonder how this increase is to be brought about, when there seems suddenly to come from within the idea that everything had its birth in thought, even money, and your thoughts turn their course. You simply hold to the statement or affirmation that the best, and all there is, is yours. Since you are able to capture ideas from the Infinite through the instrument of your intuition, you let your mind rest upon that thought knowing full well that this very thought will respond to itself. Your inhibition of the thought of doubt and feeling of anxiety enables the reassuring ideas to establish themselves and attract to themselves “I can” and “I will” ideas, which gradually grow into physical form of the desire in mind.

In the conscious use of the universal power to reproduce your desires in physical form, three facts should be borne in mind:

First — All space is filled with a creative power.

Second — This creative power is amenable to suggestion.

Third — It can only work by deductive methods.

As Troward tells us, this last is an exceedingly important point, for it implies that the action of the ever-present creative power is in no way limited by precedent. It works according to the essence of the spirit of the principle. In other words, this universal power takes its creative direction from the word you give it. Once man realizes this great truth, it becomes the most important of all his consideration with what character this sensitive reproductive power is invested. It is the unvarying law of this creative life principle that “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” If you realize the truth that the only creative power can be to you only what you feel and think it to be, it is willing and able to meet your demands.

Troward says, “If you think your thought is Powerful, then your Thought is Powerful.” “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” is the law of life, and the creative power can no more change this law than an ordinary mirror can reflect back to you a different image than the object you hold before it. “As you think so are you” does not mean “as you tell people you think” or “as you would wish the world to believe you think.” It means your innermost thoughts, that place where no one but you knows. “None can know the Father save the son” and “No one can know the son but the Father.”

Only the reproductive creative spirit of life knows what you think until your thoughts become physical facts and manifest themselves in your body, your brain or your affairs. Then everyone with whom you come into contact may know, because the Father, the intelligent creative energy which heareth in secret, hears your most secret thoughts, rewards you openly, reproduces your thoughts in physical form. “As you think you know that is what you become” should be kept in the background of your mind constantly. This is watching and praying without ceasing, and when you are not feeling quite up to par to physically pray.