The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

of the Gods? Was I to work the rest of my life without gaining my desires, without happiness and success? All of these questions were jumbled in my mind and I had not an answer. Indeed, I was sorely confused. “Several days later when it seemed that I was at the end of my endurance and my questions still unanswered, Sasi sent for me. A messenger had come from my master to take me back to Babylon. I dug up my precious wallet, wrapped myself in the tattered remnants of my robe and was on my way.

      “As we rode, the same thoughts of a hurricane whirling me hither and thither kept racing through my feverish brain. I seemed to be living the weird words of a chant from my native town of Harroun:

      Besetting a man like a whirlwind,

      Driving him like a storm,

      Whose course no one can foliate,

      Whose destiny no one can foretell.

      “Was I destined to be ever thus punished for I knew not what? What new miseries and disappointments awaited me?

      “When we rode to the courtyard of my master’s house, imagine my surprise when I saw Arad Gula awaiting me. He helped me down and hugged me like a long lost brother.

      “As we went our way I would have followed him as a slave should follow his master, but he would not permit me. He put his arm about me, saying, ‘I hunted everywhere for thee. When I had almost given up hope, I did meet Swasti who told me of the money lender, who directed me to thy noble owner. A hard bargain he did drive and made me pay an outrageous price, but thou art worth it. Thy philosophy and thy enterprise have been my inspiration to this new success.”

      “‘Megiddo’s philosophy, not mine,’ I interrupted.

      “‘Megiddo’s and thine. Thanks to thee both, we are going to Damascus and I need thee for my partner. ‘See,’ he exclaimed, ‘in one moment thou will be a free man!’ So saying he drew from beneath his robe the clay tablet carrying my title. This he raised above his head and hurled it to break in a hundred pieces upon the cobble stones. With glee he stamped upon the fragments until they were but dust.

      “Tears of gratitude filled my eyes. I knew I was the luckiest man in Babylon.

      “Work, thou see, by this, in the time of my greatest distress, didst prove to be my best friend. My willingness to work enabled me to escape from being sold to join the slave gangs upon the walls. It also so impressed thy grandfather, he selected me for his partner.”

      Then Hadan Gula questioned, “Was work my grandfather’s secret key to the golden shekels?”

      “It was the only key he had when I first knew him,” Sharru Nada replied. “Thy grandfather enjoyed working. The Gods appreciated his efforts and rewarded him liberally.”

      “I begin to see,” Hadan Gula was speaking thoughtfully. “Work attracted his many friends who admired his industry and the success it brought. Work brought him the honors he enjoyed so much in Damascus. Work brought him all those things I have approved. And I thought work was fit only for slaves.”

      “Life is rich with many pleasures for men to enjoy,” Sharru Nada commented. “Each has its place. I am glad that work is not reserved for slaves. Were that the case I would be deprived of my greatest pleasure. Many things do I enjoy but nothing takes the place of work.”

      Sharru Nada and Hadan Gula rode in the shadows of the towering walls up to the massive, bronze gates of Babylon. At their approach the gate guards jumped to attention and respectfully saluted an honored citizen. With head held high Sharru Nada led the long caravan through the gates and up the streets of the city.

      “I have always hoped to be a man like my grandfather,” Hadan Gula confided to him. “Never before did I realize just what kind of man he was. This thou hast shown me. Now that I understand, I do admire him all the more and feel more determined to be like him. I fear I can never repay thee for giving me the true key to his success. From this day forth, I shall use his key. I shall start humbly as he started, which befits my true station far better than jewels and fine robes.”

      So saying Hadan Gula pulled the jeweled baubles from his ears and the rings from his fingers. Then reining his horse, He dropped back and rode with deep respect behind the Leader of the caravan.

THE SECRET OF THE AGES, by Robert Collier

      Chapter 1 — The World’s Greatest Discovery

      What, in your opinion, is the most significant discovery of this modern age?

      The finding of dinosaur eggs on the plains of Mongolia, laid — so scientists assert — some 10,000,000 years ago?

      The unearthing of the Tomb of Tutankh-Amen, with its matchless specimens of a bygone civilization?

      The radioactive time clock by which Professor Lane of Tufts College estimates the age of the earth at 1,250,000,000 years?

      Wireless? The Aeroplane? Man-made thunderbolts?

      No — not any of these. The really significant thing about them is that from all this vast research, from the study of all these bygone ages, men are for the first time beginning to get an understanding of that “Life Principle” which — somehow, some way — was brought to this earth thousands or millions of years ago. They are beginning to get an inkling of the infinite power it puts in their hands — to glimpse the untold possibilities it opens up.

      This is the greatest discovery of modern times — that every man can call upon this “Life Principle” at will, that it is as much the servant of his mind as was ever Aladdin’s fabled “genie-of-the-lamp” of old; that he has but to understand it and work in harmony with it to get from it anything he may need — health or happiness, riches or success.

      To realize the truth of this, you have but to go back for a moment to the beginning of things.

      In the Beginning

      It matters not whether you believe that mankind dates back to the primitive ape-man of 500,000 years ago, or sprang full-grown from the mind of the creator. In either event, there had to be a first cause — a creator. Some power had to bring to this earth the first germ of life, and the creation is no less wonderful if it started with the lowliest form of plant life and worked up through countless ages into the highest product of today’s civilization, than if the whole were created in six days.

      In the beginning, this earth was just a fire mist — six thousand or a billion years ago — what does it matter which?

      The one thing that does matter is that some time, some way, there came to this planet the germ of life — the life principle that animates all nature — plant, animal, and man. If we accept the scientists’ version of it, the first form in which life appeared upon earth was the humble algae — a jelly-like mass that floated upon the waters. This, according to the scientists, was the beginning, the dawn of life upon the earth.

      Next came the first bit of animal life — the lowly amoeba, a sort of jelly fish, consisting of a single cell, without vertebrae, and with very little else to distinguish it from the water round about. But it had life — the first bit of animal life — and from that life, according to the scientists, we could trace everything we have and are today.

      All the millions of forms and shapes and varieties of plants and animals that have since appeared are but different manifestations of life —— formed to meet differing conditions. For millions of years this “Life Germ” was threatened by every kind of danger — from floods, from earthquakes, from droughts, from desert heat, from glacial cold, from volcanic eruptions — but to it each new danger was merely an incentive to finding a new resource, to putting forth Life in some new shape.

      To meet one set of needs, it formed the dinosaur — to meet another, the butterfly. Long before it worked up to man, we see its unlimited resourcefulness shown in a thousand ways. To escape danger in the water, it sought land. Pursued on land, it took to the air. To breathe in the sea, it developed gills. Stranded