A MILLION TO ONE ON THE UNEXPECTED.

One evening, at a meeting of the "Ganglionics," in the city of New Orleans, I asked the president of the club, Dr. William Benjamin Smith, the question, "Why is it that the unexpected generally happens?" His reply, which induced the caption to this chapter, was, "Because the expected is only one thing, while the unexpected may be a million things."

This is really, as well as figuratively, true, and, being true, what idiots are we to waste our time and paralyze our energies, by thinking fearthought into the future, on a million-to-one chance of its hitting the mark.

There is one bull's-eye that we are sure to hit if we aim at it constantly and long enough. Death is the one universal bull's-eye that figures in every life. At the same time that we are sure of hitting it, we know by the experience of others that we do not realize death when it actually comes, for Nature kindly administers an anæsthetic just before death, and sometimes long before. Then why should we fear even death?

Persons who have been at the open door of the unexplored state called death say that a delightful feeling of rest comes over the emigrant, and that entry into the next state is like being in a beautiful dream.

If this be so, there is also nothing disagreeable in death—only in the fearthought about it—and hence the one only bull's-eye we have been sure of hitting—the cause of fear of death—does not exist, except in our hopes or our fears.

Many persons who are in the habit of apprehending cause for fearthought about the future, and who spend much of their time in worry, would not like to be put down in the category of false prophets, and yet their apprehension must be false in the ratio of chances of a million to one.

Thought about chance, as related to forethought, and from the point-of-view of the speculator or gambler, suggests the absurdity of wasting any good coin—calm and happiness—by "laying it on"—betting on—fear. The chances against having "coppered" the right fear are not only not even, but are ten to one against—an hundred to one against—or more—never less. Even if you should win by correctly guessing a fear, you would get back again none of the happiness that you had sacrificed—would not even get your "stake" back.

As a matter of actual experience, the following incident is a good example: A young man employed in a publishing house, where the proprietor was afflicted with the fuss-and-fret-habit, contracted the disease, and unconsciously became a victim to its toils. Robust good health began to give way to languor that induced dyspepsia and other contingent disorders, until suicide stared the young man in the face and haunted his dreams.

One day some one whispered a suspicion in the young employee's ear that was directed at worry and anger as the causes of his ill-health and unhappiness and the thought led his systematic habits-of-business to suggest "keeping tab" on at least one of the suspects, to see if it were the liar and thief, as charged. Each day, when worry made its predictions, record of them was carefully kept, and at the end of the month the reports were checked up by results. Only three per cent. of the predictions were even remotely realized!

The old proprietor of the business, through whom the contagious poison started, is dead, and the happy young menticulturist owns the business, which has become very successful by influence of the sunny optimism of its new owner, which attracts trade unconsciously to it.