Attitude is the principal thing in life. It is not the conditions in life which change life for us, but mostly it is our attitude toward life and its conditions upon which depends our happiness or unhappiness. With a sympathetic attitude one is able to sympathize with those who deserve sympathy and even with those who do not deserve sympathy; it is not the deserving or undeserving persons, but mostly it is the attitude with which they are seen. A person who is impressed by wrong, to him there is much wrong in the world and less right. The more he looks at life with this attitude the more wrong he sees; in the end to him everything becomes wrong.

It is a kind of mental agitation against one thing a person met with in life which was wrong, which makes him see wrong in everything. A person who has once burnt his lips drinking hot milk blows the buttermilk to cool it before he drinks. The human mind is like a compass; if it is once made to point out wrong, whatever way you may take it, it will seek its own point all the time. So it is with the doubting person. A person who begins to doubt his enemy next doubts his friend, then he comes to doubt his nearest and dearest friends in life, he cannot make his mind trust anybody in the world. With the best motive one may approach him, in every way one may show him sympathy, he will still think, "perhaps in this sympathy there is hidden an enmity." It is generally the case with human beings that their attitude becomes fixed; it is not a rare thing, seldom met with. But the one who trusts will trust everyone and under all conditions, and who idealizes and sees good will see good in, and will idealize, even undeserving ones.

No doubt a better attitude fixed is preferable to the bad one, but the most desirable thing is to have the attitude unfixed, moveable. One must be free to form an opinion about a person and to adopt a method of working under certain conditions, without having to subject one's attitude to some preconceived ideas one has in the subconscious mind; to be able to approve or disapprove, to be able to like or dislike, to be able to choose or give up. Goodness is better than wickedness, but freedom is higher than goodness. By freedom is meant not only freedom from outer influences but freedom from certain inner influences which obsess one's life, often making it wretched and miserable through all conditions.

The attitude becomes high and broad when one looks at life from a higher point of view. When the point of view is not high the range of man's sight becomes limited; man becomes narrow in his outlook on life, and in his feelings, thought, speech and action the same is expressed. Why is God pointed out on high, toward the sky? Why not toward the earth, for God is everywhere? The reason is that within the range of God's sight the whole universe stands as a little grain of corn, as to one who flies in the balloon and looks down from high the whole city comes within the range of his sight, when he stands on earth he sees no further than the four walls which keep the whole world covered from his sight.

What does it mean to become spiritual, or godly? It means to have a higher view of life, to look at life from a higher point of view. It is the high point of view in life which ennobles the soul, it is by a broad outlook on life that spiritual aristocracy is realized.