“THERE was an old woman who lived in a shoe, She had so many children she didn’t know what to do. Some she gave water, and some she gave bread, Then she spanked them all soundly, and put them to bed. “Now this little old woman is me and is you! Our thoughts are the children, our mind is the shoe; The feelings we give them are the Thought-Children’s bread; But to really find GOD we must put them to bed!!”

Thus sang Colombe, as she busied herself with her little carpet sweeper cleaning up her room. Then, as usual, she began to ask questions.

“Why does the rhyme say that the little old woman is me and you, Mother? We’re not old!”

“Just who do you mean by we, Colombe? Our bodies? But surely you remember the Magic Auto story, and the Live Doll stories which showed us that our bodies are autos, or gloves which we are wearing.”

“That’s right, I forgot!” exclaimed the girl. “The little old lady must be our soul which has lived a long time!”

“Yes,” smiled her mother, “and we certainly do have so many Thought-Children that we don’t know what to do.”

“Some of them are goblins,” laughed Colombe, “that pester a person all the time. It’s hard not to feed them, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” agreed Mother, “it is, because such negative thoughts or ‘goblins,’ as you call them, clamor around us, until we become weary and feed them with our feelings—just like the old mothersow feeds her squealing little pigs. Sometimes, though, as the pigs get older, if the sow keeps on feeding them, they get so big and so strong that they just knock her over anytime they want to—and she can’t do a thing about it. Then they suckle so often and so much that they almost wear her out!”

“Why the greedy things! To do such a thing to their own mother!” cried the child in horror.

“Greedy is right. But our Thought-goblin-children are just as greedy,” answered Mother; “for if we feed them too long, they puff up so big, that they fill our whole mind and draw our very life force into themselves—for you know that our feeling is our LIFE, and when we put feeling into a thing we put our very life into it. So isn’t it foolish to put our life into something that will make us very unhappy?”

“How do Thought-goblins get started, Mother?” was the next question.

“They begin when we leave the radio part of our mind open to anything which wants to come in, instead of always standing guard over it to make sure that nothing but God Thoughts enter. It is because we are tuning on the ‘programs’ from other minds outside in the material world, instead of keeping the ‘radio’ turned in to the ‘programs’ God is sending forth from within us. But let me tell you what really happened to a nice young lady whom we will call Anne.”

“Anne read in the papers a story about people who were bothered with big lumps growing larger and larger in their bodies.

“Oh, isn’t that horrible!” she cried. “How I would hate to have that happen to me!” And the slight feeling of horror she gave to this tiny new Thought-goblin gave it a small amount of life. Of course it was too weak at first to bother her much, and it might soon have died of starvation, had not Anne heard a friend telling about someone she knew with lumps on his body. Again a feeling of horror went through Anne, which was welcome food to the halfalive goblin. Being a little stronger he began to pop into Anne’s mind now and then and urged her to find out more about these queer lumps and how to ‘prevent’ them. And so Anne began to read everything she could about such lumps, until she had formed a very clear vivid picture in her mind, of every detail of the disease. Then a friend who lived in the apartment above her, suddenly became sick with this strange disease and Anne visited her often. The sight of her friend’s suffering and her swollen unhappy body so impressed Anne, that she lay awake nights thinking about it, and during the day, a very clear goblin-picture, a strong feeling of fear—fear that she might someday have those terrible lumps in her body! Of course Anne’s strong fear-feeling was rich food for the goblin, and he grew fat, and strong, and so powerful, that he almost entirely filled her mind. Although Anne would try to push him away, from her everyday-thinking, he was nevertheless always floating about like the Thought-Balloon-People in the back of her mind. So what do you think happened. You finish story—(Note! Pause here and allow child to express his or her ideas as to just what occurred.)

After thinking a moment Colombe answered, “Why, I suppose the goblin got in front of the moviemachine part of Anne’s mind and was outpictured in Anne’s body.”

“Yes,” answered her mother sadly, “that’s exactly what happened. Anne’s body suddenly became full of lumps, and no doctor could help her. Everyone was so unhappy about it and they all wondered why such a good fine woman should have such a terrible thing come to her—for none of them knew or understood the cause! So you see what those horrid goblins can do, if we ever let them in or feed them.”

“But, Mother, couldn’t she have got rid of the lumps if she had stopped feeding the goblin?”

“Of course, Colombe, but it is a great deal easier never to give a goblin food in the first place than to try to stop it after he becomes so big that he almost ‘knocks a person over’ and helps himself like the pigs with the sow.”

“Do you mean that if we let a goblin get way big that he can do anything he wants to us, and that we just have to feed him when we do not want to? Isn’t there any way Anne could have been cured?”

“Yes,” answered Mother, “but not by herself, any more than the sow could get away from the pigs by herself. If someone took the pigs away from her she was helpless. Only Anne’s Christ Self could have helped her then if she could only have turned to Him and would really TRUST Him. Like the ‘Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe,’ she would have had to ‘put every one of her Thought-Children to bed and turn her whole interest and attention to the Christ deep within herself. Then He would have shown her that the lumps were just a horrid picture in her mind—and He would have helped her to take that goblin-film out of her Movie-Mind. Would you like to hear another true story about the growth of another goblin—and his death?”

“I sure would!” responded the child enthusiastically.

“Well, this is the story of Anne’s little Girl Agnes. About the time that Agnes was starting to school her little two year old brother was discovered to have very weak eyes and he was required to wear glasses. These bright goldrimmed glasses seemed very wonderful to Agnes and set her little brother apart as someone different and important. He was very proud of them and Agnes became Oh, so envious, and wished that her eyes would become weak, too, so that she could also have some. Why! The foolish little girl actually prayed for weak eyes, but, being rather ashamed of her strong desire, she told no one.

Naturally, she soon got her wish, for she put much feeling into her goblin-picture. As Agnes grew older, however, she began to hate the glasses and wanted to be rid of them, so she went to many eye-doctors who carefully examined her eyes and who all told her the same thing—that she must wear strong glasses all of her life or she would injure her eyes terribly and would have dreadful headaches, etc. They warned her not to go without glasses for even an hour or two. She often would remember bitterly how she used to actually wish for the wretched things as a child—but of course didn’t realize that her very wish and strong feelings of desire had created ‘Mr. Weak-Eye.’ No, she thought that this goblin was real because he had become so strong in almost twenty years that he just made her feed him with her feeling of BELIEF in him. And then one day Agnes began to learn a little about how thoughts make things, and read a long book which gave many stories about people who cast off their glasses to prove that no one needed to wear glasses if they had faith. This gave Agnes great hope, and for the first time she began to lose her belief in ‘Mr. Weak-Eye.’ “I’ll take my glasses off and keep them off for three weeks,” she determined, “no matter what happens!”

“At first everything was a blur and Agnes could hardly see, but gradually as she came more and more to believe that her eyes were perfect, ‘Mr. Weak-Eye,’ the goblin, lost more and more of his strength and power over her, and as his ‘film’ became weaker her vision cleared up so that she finally could see as well as anyone to sew, read, or do anything she wished, with never a headache or eyestrain! And she never again had to wear glasses!”

“Didn’t her goblin try to bother her when she first took the glasses off, Mother?” asked Colombe.

“Yes, indeed he did,” was the answer, “but by this time Agnes had come to pay more attention to what the Christ Self was saying than to what a silly old goblin-picture tried to show. You see, she put all such Thought-Children quietly to bed and then went deep within herself, way to her heart, and talked to the Christ there. After that she knew that such a goblin was not her real Thought-Child at all. He was just a bad thought-picture she had created. So she paid no more attention to him and he finally faded away for lack of food.

Questions.

1. Have we not so many Thought-Children that we don’t know what to do?

2. Name some of them. (Fear, doubt, anger, self-pity, hatred, unkindness, etc.)

3. Have you any special Thought-goblin?

4. Let’s try to find out what started him and upon what he is now feeding.

5. Name some of the feelings upon which goblins love to feed. Will belief in something also feed it? Why?

6. What should Anne have done when she first heard about the lumps. Why didn’t she?

7. If Anne had been standing guard over her mind, could any such thought have stayed in?

8. Name feelings upon which good, beautiful thoughts grow.

9. Can we make beautiful things come into our lives as well as ugly things? How?

10. Do we sometimes wish for foolish things as did Agnes?

11. Why will things we do not want and fear come to us as well as things which we do want and strongly desire?

12. How can we get rid of foolish things when we find we no longer want them?