is working through a hard state, in gaining his freedom from nervous fears, these imps seem to hold councils of war, and to devise new plans of attack in order to take him by surprise and overwhelm him in an emergency.  But every sharp attack, if met with quiet “willingness,” brings a defeat for the assailants, until finally the resistant imps are conquered and disappear.  Occasionally a stray imp will return, and try to arouse resistance on what he feels is old familiar ground, but he is quickly driven off, and the experience only makes a man more quietly vigilant and more persistently “willing.”

Perhaps one of the most prevalent and one of the hardest fears to meet, is that of insanity,—­especially when it is known to be a probable or possible inheritance.  When such fear is oppressing a man,—­to tell him that he not only can get free from the fear, but free from any possibility of insanity, through a perfect willingness to be insane, must seem to him at first a monstrous mockery; and, if you cannot persuade him of the truth, but find that you are only frightening him more, there is nothing to do then but to be willing that he should not be persuaded, and to wait for a better opportunity.  You can show him that no such inheritance can become an actuality, unless we permit it, and that the very knowledge of an hereditary tendency, when wholesomely used, makes it possible for us to take every precaution and to use every true safeguard against it.  The presence of danger is a source of strength to the brave; and the source of abiding courage is not in the nerves, but in the spirit and the will behind them.  It is the clear statement of this fact that will persuade him The fact may have to be stated many times, but it should never be argued.  And the more quietly and gently and earnestly it is stated, the sooner it will convince, for it is the truth that makes us free.

Fear keeps the brain in a state of excitement.  Even when it is not consciously felt, it is felt sub-consciously, and we ought to be glad to have it aroused, in order that we may see it and free ourselves, not only from the particular fear for the time being, but from the subconscious impression of fear in general.

Is seems curious to speak of grappling with the fear of insanity, and conquering it by being perfectly willing to be insane, but it is no more curious than the relation of the centrifugal and the centripetal forces to each other.  We need our utmost power of concentration to enable us to yield truly, and to be fully willing to submit to whatever the law of our being may require.  Fear contracts the brain and the nerves, and interrupts the circulation, and want of free circulation is a breeder of disease.  Dropping resistance relaxes the tension of the brain and nerves, and opens the channels for free circulation, and free circulation helps to carry off the tendency to disease.  If a man is wholesomely willing to be insane, should such an affliction overtake him,