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THE
PHARISEE UP-TO-DATE. As long as you
continue to hug the delusion that you are "not to blame" for the
unpleasant things in your conditions you might just as well profess the
old thought as the new. The very fundamental principle of mental science
is the statement that man is a magnet and able to attract what
he will. To repudiate this statement is to knock the props out from under
the whole philosophy. Better stay an old-thoughter and let Jesus
suffer for your sins and those of your relatives and friends. At least Jesus
took the sins of the world to bear, all of his own free will. There is
some comfort in letting Jesus do what he chose to do. But you have
turned away from Jesus as a scapegoat. You refuse to lay your burdens
on him who offered to bear them; and you refuse to bear them yourself.
Instead you distribute them around among your relations and friends
and then fret your soul because they won't accept your distributions.
Of course you excuse yourself by acknowledging "your share of
responsibility" for the unpleasantness of conditions, but if you will
examine carefully you will find that your portion of the responsibility
includes most of the good things in your conditions, whilst you
have portioned off almost all the responsibility for the bad things
among your protesting - or indifferent - relatives. You always say,
"I try so hard," but you never balance that with, "He tries so
hard," - "They try so hard." You get all the I-try-items in your own pile
and the don't-try-items in other folk's piles. "If it were not for
Tom and Dick and Harry and Fan you would do wonders - if they'd only
treat you with half the consideration other people give you, or half
they give other people! - if! - if!" I wonder why
they don't indeed! It is just because you are you, and you attract your
own particular kind of treatment. To all intents and purposes Tom,
Dick, Harry and Fan are a punch and Judy show and you pull the
strings. When other people pull the strings there's a different sort
of show. YOU are the motive power in all their treatment of you. Not a
tone or look or act of theirs in your direction but you are
responsible for; it was you and no other who drew them to you; and it is you
and no other who hold them there. Now don't say,
"I don't see how!" Of course not - you haven't wanted to see how -
you've been too intent justifying yourself. And anyway, it takes an open
mind, and some time, and much faith to enable us to see the principles
of things. We have to act as if they were so, a long time before we
see that they are. If you had acted upon the principle that you are a
magnet and that all that comes to you comes by your
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