* AS A MAN THINKETH IN HIS HEART ..*           The human mind is complex. From the earliest ages its workings have excited interest. In recent years, psychology has come to occupy a very prominent place among the world's studies. It is becoming more and more evident every day that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he".           Author Tennyson's expression that we are, "part of all we have thought and felt and seen" is more confirmed by human experience. Our thought determines and controls our activities and molds our character.           If you know what people are thinking about, what constitutes their thought life, what makes up their meditations and reflections, the kind of sentiments they cherish, you know the kind of people they are.           It is the things we give our attention to that create the atmosphere of our lives and absorbs our attention.A great many people have no religious experience because they give no thought to religion. They make no provision in their lives for its exercise and they direct no intelligent effort to its cultivation.           The fact of the matter is religion, like everything else, if one is to posess it and benefit by it, they must cultivate it.           Nothing yields so large a return, nothing is so productive of a genuine and enduring happiness, nothing to great an extent makes for a beautiful home life and good citizenship, nothing so spendidly builds fine character and fits people for useful service as does so surely as does religion. The wonder is that so few people give it the careful attention it requires for its highest development.           A great Scottish clergyman once found a lad seriously engrossed in thought and asked him what he was thinking about. The lad replies, "I am thinking about how God can be finite and and eternal".           The minister placed his hand on the boy's head and said to him, "many a man has become great by thinking about God". Sarasota Herald Tribune Pub 1975......author unknown

* VALLEY OF THE SHADOW *           According to Job, "man born of woman is of few years and full of trouble". There is no life into which some sorrows do not intrude. When we get under the surface with almost any person, you will find threre are burdens of the heart. Sooner or later all of us suffer. For there are deep rivers to cross and the "Valley of the shadow of death to pass through".          There is a legend among Buddhists that tells of a woman that had lost her child. She came to the great Buddha and asked him to restore her child to life. He told her to bring him a carraway seed from the home into which death had never entered and he would restore her child. Of course, the home could not be found.           The sorrows of life are not meted out to us in a manner or a measure which we can understand. Certainly, they do not fall on us because of our ill deserts. Affliction is not an expression of the displeasure of Providence. The best people often are called upon to bear the most poignant sorrows.           There is no human wisdom that can penetrate the darkened process of nature or nature's God. We know only that the deep furrows left by sore trials bear the choicest fruit in fine qualities of character and that very often the afflictions, thru which good people pass, prepare them for larger and better service.           God alone knows what lies in and works thru the the great sorrows which come into the lives of us humans. That He knows and has a purpose in it all is, however, a comfort and a joy to His people in their hour of deepest sorrow.           How we humans need God to illumine our pathway thru life! We need Him to comfort us in our sorrows and to translate them by the alchemy of faith into blessings. "Affliction is the good man's shining scene" "Prosperity conceals his brightest ray" As night to stars, woe, luster gives to Man Author unknown.......JH