Marden was an interesting character. One of the great popularisers of the New Thought movement, Marden was in his day an extraordinarily well-known and successful author, though he's largely forgotten today.
Born of humble stock, Marden was something of a child prodigy, and at an early age had managed to earn himself a slew of higher-educaion degress, including Masters Degrees in both medicine and law. Having written a bestselling book based on the principles of New Thought - principles that had helped turn Marden into such an extraordinary achiever - he promptly gave up the professional careers he'd spent so long studying for and concentrated on being a wildly successful author of self-help books.
At present I am reading his The Miracle of Right Thought, an edition printed in Australia in 1935, which is a clue as to his popularity even here.
It is a charming book, filled with the old-fashioned kind of exhortations to positive thinking and trust in God that are so common in the New Thought books of the period. Marden urges us never to complain, as our complaints shape our lives as much as our praises. "Right thinking will produce right living" he reminds us.
Marden was a monumental figure in the history of self-help publishing, and I think I will enjoy reading his old books. I'm not sure I will be able to cover them all, however. He was enormously prolific, and his titles run into the dozens.
He calls God "The Great Dispenser of All Good" - a truly worthy title, and one I'd like to steal, were it not such a mouthful.
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