y in the nineteenth century, shows how far the muse of
evangelical protestantism in England, with her mind fixed on the idea
of danger, had at last drifted away from the original gospel freedom.
Mind-cure might be briefly called a reaction against all that religion
of chronic anxiety which marked the earlier part of our century in the
evangelical circles of England and America.

The blind have been made to see, the halt to walk; life-long invalids
have had their health restored. The moral fruits have been no less
remarkable. The deliberate adoption of a healthy-minded attitude has
proved possible to many who never supposed they had it in them;
regeneration of character has gone on on an extensive scale; and
cheerfulness has been restored to countless homes. The indirect
influence of this has been great. The mind-cure principles are
beginning so to pervade the air that one catches their spirit at
second-hand. One hears of the "Gospel of Relaxation," of the "Don't
Worry Movement," of people who repeat to themselves, "Youth, health,
vigor!" when dressing in the morning, as their motto for the day.

Complaints of the weather are getting to be forbidden in many
households; and more and more people are recognizing it to be bad form
to speak of disagreeable sensations, or to make much of the ordinary
inconveniences and ailments of life. These general tonic effects on
public opinion would be good even if the more striking results were
non-existent. But the latter abound so that we can afford to overlook
the innumerable failures and self-deceptions that are mixed in with
them (for in everything human failure is a matter of course), and we
can also overlook the verbiage of a good deal of the mind-cure
literature, some of which is so moonstruck with optimism and so vaguely
expressed that an academically trained intellect finds it almost
impossible to read it at all.

The plain fact remains that the spread of the movement has been due to
practical fruits, and the extremely practical turn of character of the
American people has never been better shown than by the fact that this,
their only decidedly original contribution to the systematic philosophy
of life, should be so intimately knit up with concrete therapeutics.
To the importance of mind-cure the medical and clerical professions in
the United States are beginning, though with much recalcitrancy and
protesting, to open their eyes. It is evidently bound to develop s