Page 33 - AAMT-2019 Workbook

AS A MAN THINKETH JAMES ALLEN
146 The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner
147 world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external
148 conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of
149 the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns
150 both by suffering and bliss.
151 Following the inmost desires, aspirations, thoughts, by which
152 he allows himself to be dominated (pursuing the will-o'-the-
153 wisp of impure imagining or steadfastly walking the highway
154 of strong and high endeavor), a man at last arrives at their
155 fruition and fulfillment in the outer condition of his life. The
156 laws of growth and adjustment everywhere obtain.
157 A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the
158 tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of
159 groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded
160 man fall suddenly into crime by stress of any mere external
161 force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in
162 the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered
163 power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him
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