Wisdom Mind: Mindfulness for

Cognitively Healthy Older Adults and

Those with Subjective Cognitive
Decline, Facilitator Guide Colette M
Smart
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Advance praise for Wisdom Mind: Mindfulness for Cognitively

Healthy Older Adults and Those With Subjective Cognitive
Decline, Facilitator Guide

“Many of us experience subtle decline in cognitive functioning in the second half of

life. While in most this is a sign of normal aging, in some it may progress onward to
dementia. However, we know today that we actively support our brain health by mind-
fulness training. Dr. Smart’s manual is an excellent example of how this knowledge
from science can serve individual people in maintaining brain function and improving
quality of life.”
—Frank Jessen, MD, University of Cologne

“Wisdom Mind is a wonderful tool for clinicians and patients alike! It is based in evi-
dence and specifically designed to support those facing or fearful of cognitive decline.
The step-by-step suggestions and practices in the program offer ways to support cogni-
tive wellness as well as cultivate the attitudes of mindfulness that can help all of us face
ageing. Thank you Dr. Smart for providing us with a wonderful resource which serves
both as intervention and prevention!”
—Fraser Black, MD, CCFP(PC), FCFP, Physician/Clinical
Professor/Assistant Dean – University of British Columbia,
Faculty of Medicine, Art of Living Mindfully (BCALM)
Mindfulness Facilitator

“A warmhearted and accessible resource for skillfully meeting the cognitive changes as-
sociated with aging. With the practice of mindfulness at its core, Wisdom Mind reminds
us that along with whatever contractions in mental abilities we may notice, there is also
scope for expansion and vibrant cognitive engagement. This book is the perfect guide
for learning how to balance the two.”
—Zindel Segal, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology
in Mood Disorders, University of Toronto Scarborough, co-author
The Mindful Way Through Depression
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T R E AT M E N T S T H AT W O R K ™

Editor-​In-​Chief

David H. Barlow, PhD

Scientific Advisory Board

Anne Marie Albano, PhD

Gillian Butler, PhD

David M. Clark, PhD

Edna B. Foa, PhD

Paul J. Frick, PhD

Jack M. Gorman, MD

Kirk Heilbrun, PhD

Robert J. McMahon, PhD

Peter E. Nathan, PhD

Christine Maguth Nezu, PhD

Matthew K. Nock, PhD

Paul Salkovskis, PhD

Bonnie Spring, PhD

Gail Steketee, PhD

John R. Weisz, PhD

G. Terence Wilson, PhD

iii

T R E A T M E N T S T H AT W O R K

Wisdom Mind
Mindfulness for Cognitively Healthy Older Adults and
Those With Subjective Cognitive Decline

FA C I L I TAT O R G U I D E

COLETTE M. SMART
With yoga by
K R I S T E N S I LV E I R A

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1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data
Names: Smart, Colette M., author.
Title: Wisdom mind : mindfulness for cognitively healthy older adults and
those with subjective cognitive decline, facilitator guide /
Colette M. Smart ; with yoga by Kristen Silveira.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Series: Treatments that work | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020052905 (print) | LCCN 2020052906 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197510001 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197510025 (epub) | ISBN 9780197510032
Subjects: LCSH: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. | Cognition in old age. |
Cognition disorders in old age—Prevention. | Mindfulness (Psychology)
Classification: LCC RC489.M55 S636 2021 (print) | LCC RC489.M55 (ebook) |
DDC 155.67/13—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052905
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052906
DOI: 10.1093/med/9780197510001.001.0001
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Marquis, Canada
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About T R E AT M E N T S T H AT W O R K ™

Stunning developments in health care have taken place over the last
several years, but many of our widely accepted interventions and
strategies in mental health and behavioral medicine have been brought
into question by research evidence as not only lacking benefit but per-
haps inducing harm (Barlow, 2010). Other strategies have been proven
effective using the best current standards of evidence, resulting in
broad-based recommendations to make these practices more available
to the public (McHugh & Barlow, 2010). Several recent developments
are behind this revolution. First, we have arrived at a much deeper un-
derstanding of pathology, both psychological and physical, which has
led to the development of new, more precisely targeted interventions.
Second, our research methodologies have improved substantially,
such that we have reduced threats to internal and external validity,
making the outcomes more directly applicable to clinical situations.
Third, governments around the world and health care systems and
policymakers have decided that the quality of care should improve,
that it should be evidence based, and that it is in the public’s interest to
ensure that this happens (Barlow, 2004; Institute of Medicine, 2001,
2015; McHugh & Barlow, 2010).

Of course, the major stumbling block for clinicians everywhere is

the accessibility of newly developed evidence-based psychological
interventions. Workshops and books can go only so far in acquainting
responsible and conscientious practitioners with the latest behavioral
health care practices and their applicability to individual patients.
This series, Treatments ThatWork™, is devoted to communicating
these exciting new interventions to clinicians on the frontlines of
practice.

The manuals and workbooks in this series contain step-by-step detailed

procedures for assessing and treating specific problems and diagnoses.
But this series also goes beyond the books and manuals by providing

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ancillary materials that will approximate the supervisory process in

assisting practitioners in the implementation of these procedures in
their practice.

In our emerging health care system, the growing consensus is that evi-
dence-based practice offers the most responsible course of action for the
mental health professional. All behavioral health care clinicians deeply
desire to provide the best possible care for their patients. In this series,
our aim is to close the dissemination and information gap and make
that possible.

This Facilitator Guide provides an 8-week mindfulness training pro-

tocol specifically tailored to cognitively healthy older adults, as well as
those older adults experiencing subjective cognitive decline (SCD), and
is intended to be delivered in an outpatient setting. Cognitive aging
is a normal experience in late life, yet it can cause substantial distress,
particularly in persons with SCD who perceive a significant decre-
ment in their cognitive functioning. It is estimated that approximately
75 million people will be experiencing dementia worldwide by 2030,
and as of yet there is no known cure. As such, there is a move in the
field toward primary prevention programming, particularly as a signif-
icant proportion of persons with SCD are known to go on to develop
Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. This protocol was explicitly
designed as one form of primary prevention.

The guide is intended to be used by clinicians who are familiar with

mindfulness training programs generally (i.e., mindfulness-based stress
reduction and/or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) and ideally those
who have some experience or at least interest in working with older
adults. The program is extensively tailored for older adults based on
theories of lifespan development. Moreover, the program was designed
in the tradition of cognitive rehabilitation, providing opportunities for
restitution (i.e., direct improvement in cognitive function through the
practice of mindfulness) as well as compensation (i.e., cultivating the
attitudes of mindfulness as a way to accept the changes and losses we ex-
perience in late life). Contextual information is provided in each chapter
in terms of why certain techniques or practices are employed or how the
discussion can be facilitated to be maximally inclusive of older adults.
For those clinicians less familiar with cognitive aging, a supplementary

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chapter is provided, giving information on some of the common cogni-

tive complaints older adults may bring into the session.

Wisdom Mind will be an indispensable resource for practitioners who

are eager to bring mindfulness training to older adults and to support
them in finding ways to not only navigate the challenges of aging but
also embrace its many gifts.

David H. Barlow, Editor-in-Chief

Treatments ThatWork™
Boston, Massachusetts

References

Barlow, D. H. (2004). Psychological treatments. American Psychologist, 59,

869– 878.
Barlow, D. H. (2010). Negative effects from psychological treatments:
A perspective. American Psychologist, 65(2), 13–20.
Institute of Medicine. (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health
system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Institute of Medicine. (2015). Psychosocial interventions for mental and
sub­stance use disorders: A framework for establishing evidence-based
standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
McHugh, R. K., & Barlow, D. H. (2010). Dissemination and implementa­
tion of evidence- based psychological interventions: A review of current
efforts. American Psychologist, 65(2), 73–84.

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Contents

Wisdom Mind : Conceptual Foundations and Preparing to

Deliver the Program 1
Chapter 1 Session 1: Introduction to the Program 19
Chapter 2 Session 2: Noticing Slip-​Ups 39
Chapter 3 Session 3: Noticing Slips and Falls 55
Chapter 4 Session 4: Paying Attention to the
Commentator 81
Chapter 5 Session 5: Reacting Versus Responding 99
Chapter 6 Session 6: Bringing Mindfulness to Our
Relationships 115
Chapter 7 Session 7: Be Your Own Meditation
Instructor and Daylong Retreat 131
Chapter 8 Session 8: Final Session: Taking the Practice
Forward 147
Chapter 9 Session 9: Booster Session 155
Chapter 10 Common Cognitive Slip-​Ups 157

Appendix Meditation Practice Scripts for Audio

Recordings 167

References 217

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1

Wisdom Mind: Conceptual

Foundations and
Preparing to Deliver the
Program

Background to the Development of Wisdom Mind: Words From the Author

The idea for Wisdom Mind was born out of my clinical experiences
and also my personal background in mindfulness meditation. While
working as a full-​time clinical neuropsychologist in a major suburban
hospital, I held many roles. One included running a memory disorders
clinic one day a week, assessing older adults and diagnosing them with
dementia and various forms of late-​life cognitive impairment. Another
role I had was working in the outpatient neurorehabilitation depart-
ment, where other clinical neuropsychologists and I were running
mindfulness-​ based stress reduction (MBSR) groups for adults with
persistent postconcussive syndrome (PCS). Through running several
iterations of these groups, we learned valuable information about how
to tailor Jon Kabat-​Zinn’s (1990) protocol specifically to accommodate
the cognitive challenges faced by persons with PCS. This tailoring was
influenced by our knowledge of cognitive rehabilitation, specifically how
to support adaptation to cognitive impairment through both restitution
(i.e., improving function through repeated training) and compensation
(i.e., finding strategies or “work-​arounds” for cognitive difficulties). This
tailoring not only supported individuals’ full participation in the pro-
gram but also led to positive changes in their cognitive and psycholog-
ical functioning, even after many of them had participated in several
previous therapies and were considered “plateaued” in their treatment
progress (Azulay et al., 2013).

It was a pivotal conversation with a behavioral neurologist at the

memory disorders clinic that finally pushed me to figure out how to
bring together these two different sets of experiences—​diagnosing older
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adults with cognitive impairment and providing treatment in the form

of MBSR for persons with PCS. Frustrated with having limited treat-
ment options beyond medications with uncertain efficacy, this neu-
rologist implored me: “You’re a psychologist; surely you have other
treatment options for our patients that you can come up with?” And
I thought, you know, you are right—​we should be able to do better for
these older adults. Cognitive rehabilitation, still a developing field, had
been primarily focused on younger and middle-​aged adults with various
forms of acquired brain injury. While there was an existing literature on
cognitive interventions for older adults, at the time this tended to focus
on cognitive training (which typically focuses more on “drill and prac-
tice” of lower-​level cognitive skills) as distinct from cognitive rehabili-
tation (which is more holistic and integrates a variety of strategies and
supports and also includes emotional functioning). I questioned why we
could not offer cognitive rehabilitation to older adults—​and whether
mindfulness training was one way to achieve this end.

The reason I chose to focus this work on subjective cognitive decline

(described in more detail later in this chapter) was twofold. First, from
co-​leading the brain injury groups, I knew that trying to teach mind-
fulness to persons with full-​blown dementia could be very difficult, and
I thought that there would be more immediate traction by focusing
on older adults in the earliest stages of cognitive decline. Second, I saw
some interesting parallels between persons with subjective cognitive de-
cline and those with PCS. Both of these are (and to some extent con-
tinue to be) “controversial” diagnoses—​controversial because often the
complaints or concerns of the affected individual are not detectable
on standardized clinical testing. This failure to detect what the indi-
vidual knows to be true in their experience can create further anxiety
and distress and feelings of being invalidated. It also struck me that, in
both cases, regardless of whether any objective evidence could be found
for cognitive impairment, both groups of individuals were living with
these symptoms that were adversely affecting their functioning and their
quality of life. It seemed that mindfulness—​with its focus on acceptance
and self-​compassion—​could be beneficial in both of these populations.
Moreover, mindfulness had the potential to help individuals learn to reg-
ulate their attention in a way that might help them not to overfocus on
symptoms but to allow a wider scope of experiences into their everyday
awareness. It had also been shown to enhance cognitive functioning,

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particularly attention, in healthy individuals, yet there was virtually

no literature at that point to show whether it could improve cogni-
tive functioning in individuals who were actually living with cognitive
impairment.

And so it was my commitment to supporting older adults, as well as

the positive experiences I had had teaching mindfulness to persons with
PCS, that led me to develop this protocol. In fact, it was the impetus for
me to leave full-​time clinical practice and move to an academic-​clinical
position where I could devote significant time and resources to devel-
oping this work and researching its impact.

Background on Late-​Life Cognitive Decline

Current research indicates that, with the rapid aging of the global pop-
ulation and with the coming of age of the “baby boomer” generation,
there will be an exponential increase in the number of older adults at
risk for significant cognitive decline and dementia. More specifically,
in 2015, an estimated 46.8 million people were living with dementia
worldwide, with the total estimated cost of care being $818 billion.
The number of affected persons is anticipated to double every 20 years,
with a projected increase to 74.7 million by 2030 (Alzheimer’s Disease
International, 2015). Although the field of dementia science has fo-
cused heavily on pharmacological treatments, as of yet there is no cure
and no single agent has been shown to reliably slow or prevent patho-
logical cognitive decline (Tuokko & Smart, 2018). As such, there has
been a recent movement toward greater focus on primary prevention
(Imtiaz et al., 2014; Smart et al., 2017). Primary prevention includes
promoting cognitive wellness in healthy older adults; for the purposes
of this program, this includes older adults who are experiencing the
effects of normal aging as well as those who may be at the very earliest
stages of risk for decline.

This latter group—​those at risk—​has recently been discussed in the lit-

erature under the classification label of subjective cognitive decline, or
SCD. SCD refers to a state whereby older adults complain of changes
in their cognitive abilities yet appear normal on standardized clinical
assessment (Jessen et al., 2014). Although these older adults may have

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been previously considered to be “worried well,” longitudinal evidence

suggests that SCD is a risk factor for the later development of cognitive
decline and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (Rabin, Smart, &
Amariglio, 2017). More specifically, a recent meta-​analysis estimated
the risk of developing dementia in persons with SCD to be 2.07, with
an annual conversion rate of 2.66%. In studies that had follow-​up
periods greater than 4 years, 14.1% of participants with SCD developed
dementia and 26.6% declined to mild cognitive impairment (MCI;
Mitchell et al., 2014). These figures indicate that persons with SCD
represent a key target population for primary prevention interventions
that can enhance current well-​being as well as potentially reduce or slow
the rate of future cognitive decline. Even for older adults who are not
experiencing preclinical dementia, SCD may be related to comorbid
conditions such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and other medical
comorbidities (Rabin et al., 2017). Each of these are conditions that
can adversely affect cognition and emotional well-​being in older adults,
and therefore they warrant clinical attention. A recent systematic review
and meta-​analysis indicated that persons with SCD may benefit from
cognitively focused non-​pharmacological interventions, although larger
trials with longer-​term follow-​up are needed to fully appreciate the true
preventive benefits against cognitive decline (Smart et al., 2017).

Mindfulness training could serve as a promising non-​pharmacological

prevention intervention in older adults, with some studies suggesting
that long-​ term practitioners of meditation show less age-​ related
neurodegeneration than non-​meditating peers (Luders, 2014). There is
some preliminary evidence that mindfulness training may be of benefit
to older adults, although this field is in its relative infancy compared
to the application of mindfulness in younger and middle-​aged samples
(e.g., Gard, Hölzel, & Lazar, 2014; Luders, 2014). The potential benefits
of mindfulness training for older adults are several; for one, the dis-
semination of the intervention—​and its maintenance thereafter—​likely
incurs lower costs than cognitive-​enhancing medications. Moreover,
studies on healthy individuals demonstrate that the practice of mind-
fulness can positively impact cognition and emotion (Sedlmeier et al.,
2012) as well as brain structure and function (Fox et al., 2014, 2016) in
healthy populations. Mindfulness meditation has been studied in a wide
variety of clinical populations with different symptoms and concerns.
A recent review that specifically focused on persons with neurological

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disorders suggested that mindfulness shows promise in various neu-

rological samples, although interventions seem to be more efficacious
when tailored to the particular needs and symptoms of the population
rather than taking a one-​size-​fits-​all approach (Smart, 2019).

The Current Protocol

This Facilitator Guide provides a mindfulness treatment protocol

designed specifically for cognitively healthy older adults with and
without SCD. The protocol, Wisdom Mind, is based broadly on Kabat-​
Zinn’s (1990) MBSR program, but with specific tailoring for older
adults, including both developmental and cognitive tailoring. The over-
arching structure of the program is similar to MBSR, in terms of the
8-​week format with weekly groups and a daylong retreat. However,
as the author had learned from her experiences teaching the brain in-
jury groups, presenting MBSR “as is” to individuals with cognitive is-
sues was not going to be maximally effective without considering the
participants’ cognitive difficulties. Moreover, most of the existing liter-
ature on MBSR at that time (and still at the current time) was focused
on younger or middle-​aged adults. As someone who had worked exten-
sively with older adults, the author knew that a deep understanding and
appreciation for this particular period of lifespan development was a
necessary ingredient in making mindfulness effective in this population.
As such, while the current protocol is heavily influenced by MBSR from
a structural point of view, it clearly stands alone as a unique protocol,
with additional practices and material specific to the older adult pop-
ulation. This is similar to the many other MBSR or other mindfulness
protocols that have been specifically tailored to different populations
and stand alone as their own programs. That said, the author would like
to extend her very sincere appreciation to Jon Kabat-​Zinn and his trail-
blazing efforts in bringing mindfulness to the health care setting—​this
tailored protocol truly would not be possible without those efforts. His
influence looms large and continues to permeate the various forms of
mindfulness programming that we see for various patient populations
and age groups being made available today.

Through generous funding from the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada,

the author and her colleagues conducted a single-​blind, randomized

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controlled trial (n = 36), including healthy older adults with and without
SCD, comparing the impact of Wisdom Mind with an existing program
of psychoeducation on cognitive aging (Troyer, 2001; Wiegand et al.,
2013). Outcomes were evaluated via self-​report, cognitive electrophysi-
ology with computerized cognitive testing, and structural magnetic res-
onance imaging (sMRI).

In one set of analyses, all participants receiving Wisdom Mind showed an

increase in percent brain volume on sMRI following the intervention,
as well as greater stability in moment-​to-​moment regulation of atten-
tion based on a cognitive task. Persons with SCD specifically showed a
concomitant enhancement in the P300, an event-​related potential asso-
ciated with attention capacity. Both Wisdom Mind and the control con-
dition of psychoeducation were associated with a decrease in cognitive
complaints and an increase in memory self-​efficacy (Smart et al., 2016).

In another set of analyses, the investigators looked at cognitive elec-

trophysiology indices of performance monitoring, specifically the ERN
event-​related potential. This allowed the researchers to test the mind-
fulness principle of learning to respond, not react. Participants receiving
Wisdom Mind showed enhanced performance monitoring as measured
by an increase in the ERN, as well as a trend toward faster reaction times
on the task used to generate the ERN, confirming the investigators’
hypotheses. Similar to the first set of analyses, all participants, regardless
of intervention condition, showed a reduction in self-​report of anxiety
and self-​judgment of one’s own mental function as measured by a self-​
report mindfulness questionnaire (Smart & Segalowitz, 2017).

In a recent review of the literature focused specifically on the application

of mindfulness in neurological populations, a majority of studies fo-
cused on psychosocial and emotional outcomes, to the relative exclusion
of cognitive variables (Smart, 2019). This is striking, given the literature
in healthy individuals showing that mindfulness meditation can posi-
tively impact performance on cognitive and direct neural measurements.
Moreover, the approach of cognitive rehabilitation broadly refers to a ho-
listic treatment approach that simultaneously attends to a client’s mood,
cognitive function, and psychosocial function, with treatment goals
that are grounded in real-​world experiences (Tuokko & Smart, 2018).
What makes Wisdom Mind distinctive is that it was explicitly designed

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as a form of cognitive rehabilitation, addressing mood and cognitive

variables, as well as the broader developmental context of older adults.
The findings from the initial validation studies of Wisdom Mind indicate
that while both mindfulness and psychoeducation can lead to subjective
improvements in psychological functioning in older adults, only mind-
fulness training was associated with objective improvements in brain
and behavior. More detail is provided later in this chapter in terms of
how Wisdom Mind draws on the practices and principles of cognitive
rehabilitation, particularly within an older adult context.

Who Is This Treatment For?

Wisdom Mind is a group-​based protocol that was designed for—​and

validated with—​cognitively healthy older adults (i.e., those 65 years and
older) with and without significant cognitive concerns or SCD. Wisdom
Mind is not validated for persons with documented, clinically significant
levels of cognitive impairment, and such individuals should be screened
out prior to group enrollment. In other words, it is not recommended
that persons with MCI or dementia be intermixed with healthy older
adults in Wisdom Mind. On one hand, those with greater cognitive im-
pairment may struggle to keep up; conversely, healthy older adults may
become fearful to see the level of cognitive impairment exhibited by
these other group members. Providing mindfulness training to persons
with more pronounced cognitive impairment will require a different
approach in terms of which practices are presented and when. Other
published work has examined the application of mindfulness to persons
with MCI (e.g., Larouche et al., 2015; Wells et al., 2013) and dementia
(Chan et al., 2017), and you are directed to these works for guidance on
how to serve such individuals.

Cognitive Screening

Ideally, a thorough neuropsychological screen of each participant should

be conducted to determine eligibility prior to group enrollment. The
original assessment battery we used is detailed in Smart and Krawitz
(2015) and was fairly extensive. If time and resources preclude such an

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assessment, then at least one, preferably two, norm-​referenced tests of

verbal memory will ensure that all participants can learn and retain new
information and will reduce the likelihood of including persons with
amnestic MCI. The Dementia Rating Scale-​2 (Jurica, Leitten, & Mattis,
2001) also provides a broad-​based screen of cognitive functions and can
be used to rule out persons with MCI and dementia (i.e., those who
show decreased performance in one or more domains at the level of 1.5
standard deviations below norms).

Clinical neuropsychological screening may not be feasible for all clinical

settings, particularly those that do not have access to a clinical neuro-
psychologist to conduct such testing. At a minimum, a screen of instru-
mental activities of daily living and overall cognitive status will help to
rule out dementia. For example, the Mini-​Mental State Examination
(MMSE) is a paper-​and-​pencil test that is scored out of 30 (Folstein,
Folstein, & McHugh, 1975). A cut-​score of 24 is often set for dementia
(Creavin et al., 2016), although some authors have suggested this cut-​
score needs to be higher (e.g., 27) in more highly educated individuals
(O’Bryant et al., 2008; Spering et al., 2012).

Needless to say, all participants should be able to speak and compre-

hend the dominant language of the group. Wisdom Mind has only been
validated in English-​ speaking individuals, but other clinicians may
wish to translate and adapt this program for participants whose pri-
mary language is not English. For example, this Guide contains scripts
for all of the guided meditations (see Appendix); if the groups are not
being conducted in English, then these scripts could be translated to
the dominant language of the group and then the guided meditations
re-​recorded in that language.

Mental Health Screening

In terms of mental health functioning, a screen of participants (e.g.,

assessing symptoms of depression and anxiety) will provide further infor-
mation on participant characteristics, as well as providing a way to track
outcomes after treatment. It is not necessary to rule out persons with
depression and anxiety, as mindfulness training is known to positively
impact symptoms of such disorders. Additionally, SCD can often occur

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in the context of depression or anxiety. That said, it may be prudent for

group facilitators to employ some other exclusion criteria, ruling out
persons with conditions such as active psychosis, mania, or substance
use, or those who are unwilling or unable to participate in a structured
group. Group facilitators should also be aware that participants with co-
morbid mental health concerns such as depression or anxiety may take
longer to learn practices (e.g., due to slowed processing speed) or require
additional support as compared to participants without such concerns.

In choosing symptom measures, it is important to choose those that are

validated specifically with older adult populations, such as the Geriatric
Depression Scale (Yesavage et al., 1983) and the Adult Manifest Anxiety
Scale-​Elderly Version (Lowe & Reynolds, 2006). More detailed infor-
mation on neuropsychological and psychological screening of older
adults is provided in Tuokko and Smart (2018).

Outcome Measures

In terms of outcome measures, it is ultimately up to the particular group

facilitators what they want to track for their particular participants.
Considering what has already been published on mindfulness, in-
cluding the original Wisdom Mind validation studies (Smart et al., 2016;
Smart & Segalowitz, 2017), constructs to consider include mindful-
ness, depression, anxiety, and memory self-​efficacy. It should be noted
that, given this group is designed for cognitively intact older adults, it
is unlikely that change would be detected on standardized neuropsy-
chological testing. That said, if group facilitators are in a position to do
longer-​term tracking of their participants, they may wish to repeat some
of the cognitive screening measures to show stability (or lack of decline)
following the intervention.

Overview of the Program

In presenting the program, it is useful to begin with the title of the

program itself—​ Wisdom Mind. Cognitively healthy older adults—​
and particularly those with SCD—​are often quite concerned about
declines in their cognitive abilities, leading them to judge and compare

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themselves to who they once were or to their same-​aged peers. One of

the anticipated outcomes of this program is to enhance current cogni-
tive abilities; however, rather than focusing on this directly as a goal,
the emphasis is placed on tapping into the wisdom that is inherent
within all of us, which often increases naturally as we age (Jeste &
Oswald, 2014). Encouraging participants to cultivate what is already
within them immediately communicates a message of acceptance and
loving-​kindness, which is a central “attitude” of mindfulness (Kabat-​
Zinn, 1990). Moreover, this approach of non-​striving and letting go
of outcomes—​another attitude of mindfulness—​paradoxically allows
participants to work on their cognitive ability without increasing stress
and anxiety (Smart & Segalowitz, 2017).

Facilitator Qualifications

Facilitators administering this program should be familiar with the dis-

semination of mindfulness training programs. As the program is broadly
based on MBSR (Kabat-​Zinn, 1990), ideally individuals would be
trained in this modality, although those trained in mindfulness-​based
cognitive therapy (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2012) could also deliver
the program. Most important is that facilitators must have their own
regular mindfulness practice; this will allow them to be able to authen-
tically respond to participants’ questions about meditation and to know
when modifications to the practice instructions may be necessary.

Ideally, group facilitators should also have some background and ex-
perience working with older adults. This includes familiarity with the
developmental concerns of older adults (e.g., changes in physical func-
tion, grief and loss) as well as a basic working knowledge of the types of
cognitive changes that occur in normal aging. Having this knowledge is
essential to being able to respond to questions about mindfulness that
may be unique to this population and will also allow group facilitators
to situate and contextualize mindfulness within the lives of older adults.
Some of this material will be presented in the relevant chapters of this
Facilitator Guide. Chapter 10, “Common Cognitive Slip-​Ups,” details
some of the typical cognitive concerns or “slip-​ups” that participants
might bring to the group. For those seeking a more comprehensive

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overview of this material, Tuokko and Smart (2018) contains specific

chapters on cognitive and emotional changes in healthy aging and SCD.

Finally, as part of the tailoring of standard MBSR for this population,

this Guide highlights specific considerations in how to make mindfulness
training accessible for individuals with age-​related cognitive challenges,
including presenting information in multiple modalities. This will be
particularly useful for group facilitators who do not have prior experi-
ence in leading groups for persons with cognitive difficulties.

Tailoring

Wisdom Mind was devised by the author, a clinical neuropsychologist

with now over 20 years of personal meditation practice (primarily in
the Zen and Tibetan Buddhist traditions) and well over 15 years’ ex-
perience teaching and mentoring students of mindfulness-​based med-
itation practices in both healthy and clinical contexts. The author also
has extensive experience working clinically with older adults, as well as
a strong background in cognitive rehabilitation. This experience and
training allowed for the specific tailoring of the program to meet the
developmental needs and cognitive concerns of older adults. In the dis-
cussion of tailoring that follows, specific examples are provided.

Developmental Tailoring

Wisdom Mind presents many of the usual concepts of mindfulness

training, but with particular respect to the developmental concerns
of older adults. For example, it is common for older adults to notice
subtle declines in their thinking abilities as they age, and for persons
with SCD, these declines can become a significant source of concern
or worry (Jessen et al., 2014). Moreover, in a modern, youth-​obsessed
culture that prioritizes speed and efficiency, these normative cognitive
declines can seem even more pronounced to older adults. The con-
cept of Wisdom Mind is to place emphasis on cultivating something
that is already believed to be inherent in the aging process—​that is,
wisdom. This message is presented as a developmentally relevant way

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of contextualizing the message of acceptance and non-​judgment, a core

component of the MBSR program (Kabat-​Zinn, 1990).

According to Erikson’s developmental theory, the task of older adulthood

is to navigate the conflict of ego integrity versus despair (Erikson, 1968).
Commensurate with this, Wisdom Mind participants are introduced to
mindfulness practice as a way to make space for feelings of grief, loss, or
regret in the final phase of life; to cultivate self-​compassion for one’s life
choices; and to propagate wisdom to younger generations.

The practices are also presented in a framework that addresses concerns

about cognitive aging, and this is done in two ways:

■ First, participants are provided with psychoeducation about the

relationship between attention and memory, as memory concerns
are perhaps the most commonly reported concerns in older adults.
Participants learn that lapses in attention (which can be normative)
can make it more difficult to encode new information and remember
it later. Therefore, by practicing mindfulness, participants should
be able to pay better attention and thereby take in and remember
more information. This connection between memory complaints
and attention was previously illustrated by the work of Sohlberg and
Mateer (2001), whereby attention training was found to decrease
memory complaints in persons with acquired brain injury. The effi-
cacy of this approach in the current context was further supported
by outcome data indicating that older adults participating in Wisdom
Mind showed a decrease in self-​reported cognitive complaints and an
increase in memory self-​efficacy (Smart et al., 2016).
■ Second, the incidence of cognitive slip-​ups is normalized as part
of the aging process; later in the program, the practice of loving-​
kindness is contextualized in terms of having self-​compassion to-
ward these slip-​ups. More information is provided in Chapter 10.
“Common Cognitive Slip-​Ups.”

Developmental psychology literature indicates that older adults tend to

have a bias toward the experience of positive emotions, the so-​called
positivity bias (Reed, Chan, & Mikels, 2014). That said, regulating one’s
emotions to maintain a positive mood requires cognitive resources, re-
sources that may be limited in older adulthood. In other words,
expending cognitive resources to regulate one’s mood can take a toll on

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the completion of other cognitive tasks for older adults (Peters et al.,
2007). A practice called “Emotional Weather” is introduced later in the
program (see Chapter 5), whereby participants are invited to simply be
with a challenging emotional experience without reacting to it or trying
to change it. The rationale behind this is to provide an emotion regu-
lation practice that can also decrease cognitive load in contexts where
participants face both a cognitive and an emotional challenge.

Finally, participants are provided with psychoeducation on the concept

of cognitive reserve (Stern, 2012), or the “mental bank account,” and
given information on how one can enhance cognitive reserve as a buffer
against cognitive decline through taking up novel and challenging activ-
ities or increasing socialization. This is connected to mindfulness prac-
tice, such that participants might experience greater enjoyment from
such activities by bringing a “beginner’s mind” of curiosity, openness,
and non-​judgment.

Cognitive Tailoring

Judd (1999) has coined the term “neuropsychotherapy” to refer to the

need to adapt psychotherapeutic interventions to persons with cogni-
tive impairment. In the case of cognitively healthy older adults with
and without SCD, this means tailoring with respect to normal cognitive
aging. This includes (but is not limited to) slowed processing speed,
difficulties with working memory, new learning and episodic memory
retrieval, and prospective memory (Tuokko & Smart, 2018). In prac-
tical terms, this translated to the following adaptations in Wisdom Mind:

■ Slowed processing speed and working memory difficulties—​Care is

taken to pace the material; to offer ideas in simple, straightforward
language; and to provide frequent check-​ins to ensure that the mate-
rial has been processed and understood.
■ New learning and episodic memory retrieval difficulties—​Significant
repetition is used in the program. Each session begins with a recap
of the previous session. Likewise, each session concludes with an
inquiry into the “take-​ home points” of that particular session,
which the group facilitator writes as bullet points on a whiteboard.
Participants are encouraged to write these bullet points down in their

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Workbook as an easy summary, as well as any bullet points that are

personally salient to them in terms of the content discussed during
that session. Attention is also drawn to the fact that participants will
receive information in multiple modalities (i.e., group discussion,
Workbook, audio recordings) in order to facilitate new learning of
information.
■ Prospective memory—​ Prospective memory is described as
“remembering to remember.” This means working proactively with
participants in the session to derive a specific plan for how they will
schedule and remember to do their daily home practice. Participants
are encouraged to bring their day planner, calendar, etc., to each
session. Time is spent at the end of the first three sessions helping
participants to schedule their practice, as well as finding ways to cue
a reminder for practice (e.g., alarm on cellphone).

Tailoring With Respect to Practices

As noted earlier, Wisdom Mind was explicitly designed to be in align-

ment with forms of cognitive rehabilitation. This means that while the
program is broadly based on the same format as MBSR, intentional
decisions were made about the sequence of practices with respect to
the cognitive status of older adults as well as neuropsychological theory.
For example, hierarchical theories of attention suggest that sustained
attention is a foundational skill on which is built selective attention
(i.e., freedom from distractibility), divided attention, and working
memory (Sohlberg & Mateer, 2001). As such, Sitting Practice is
presented whereby participants train first in Focused Attention (FA; i.e.,
concentrating on the breath with a narrow placement of attention, on
the breath in the abdomen). In later sessions, this is followed by training
in Open Monitoring (OM; i.e., an open state where one is receptive to
whatever arises in one’s sphere of awareness) (Lutz et al., 2008).

Based on prior experience teaching mindfulness to persons with ac-

quired brain injury (Azulay et al., 2013), the author observed that per-
sons with cognitive impairment often found sitting meditation practice
to be more challenging than other practices. This is due not only to
cognitive factors but also to physical limitations associated with the in-
jury (e.g., chronic pain). Older age increases the likelihood of chronic

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illness, which may likewise make it challenging to sit for long periods
of time, at least in the beginning when practices are introduced. In light
of this, the Sitting Practice is incrementally increased over the weeks of
the program, from 10 minutes to 20 minutes to 40 minutes. In order
to ensure that a sufficient “dose” of mindfulness training is being en-
gaged, shorter Sitting Practices are augmented with other practices such
as the Body Scan or Mindful Yoga. Participants are also presented with
basic information on neuroplasticity, particularly the maxim “use it or
lose it,” reinforcing the notion that the more they practice mindfulness
skills, the more benefit they are likely to get from the training. Given
older adults’ focus on positive emotions previously described, group
facilitators should explore ways to make the practice intrinsically or even
extrinsically reinforcing for participants so that they are more likely to
engage in the at-​home practice.

Also of note with regard to sequencing of practices is the fact that

participants are trained in both FA and OM before explicit instructions
are given in practices that involve an emotional component (i.e., loving-​
kindness and Emotional Weather). As previously discussed, cognition
and emotion can compete for limited resources in older adulthood, and
all things being equal, older adults will tend to use available resources
to regulate their emotions toward a positive state rather than focus on
completing a cognitive task (Peters et al., 2007). Training participants in
FA and OM as “cold cognitive” tasks first means that they develop some
proficiency in these practices before the added challenge of emotionally
charged practices is introduced.

When the Wisdom Mind program was originally conducted, the au-
thor led participants through Mindful Yoga as outlined in Kabat-​Zinn’s
(1990) book, as she is not a yoga teacher and did not feel comfort-
able modifying these teachings. However, one update that has been
made to the current iteration of Wisdom Mind is that instead of using
Kabat-​Zinn’s (1990) yoga sequences, two unique Mindful Yoga series
have been created specifically for this program. These sequences were
created by Kristen Silveira, MSc, a doctoral student in clinical neuro-
psychology and a registered yoga teacher who has experience tailoring
yoga to populations with different cognitive and physical needs. In the
Wisdom Mind yoga series, explicit modifications are made for individuals
who may have physical limitations (e.g., options to use a chair when

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appropriate), and the pacing is appropriate for older adults who may
have challenges in processing speed. Photographs of the poses are pro-
vided in this Facilitator Guide and also in the corresponding Participant
Workbook, which augment the instruction given in guided audios. These
audio files can be accessed on the Treatments ThatWork website at www.
oxfordclinicalpsych.com/​WisdomMind.

Intervention Structure and Format

Session Structure

Wisdom Mind is an 8-​ week program consisting of weekly group

meetings that can be held in a community setting, with 8 to 10
participants per group to allow for a manageable discussion. The group
sessions are 2 hours long, with a break offered around the midway
point (i.e., at 1 hour) for participants to visit the bathroom, stretch, or
move to alleviate any discomfort from prolonged sitting, and to take
a break in focusing their attention. Each group session begins with a
brief guided practice (about 10 minutes) to mark the transition from
daily life to the more contemplative space of the group. This is followed
by a check-​in about the previous week’s practice and review of any
questions or observations on the prior week’s material. Participants are
then presented with the particular didactic material for that week; this
is followed by a demonstration of the current week’s practice, and an
opportunity for questions about the practice to be answered. The final
minutes of the group are spent reviewing the take-​home points of the
session, and participants are asked to share out loud their recollections
of the group and to take notes in their Workbook, reflecting the take-​
home points in their own words.

Participants are encouraged to review their Workbook over the course of

the week, including making note about any questions that arise from
the practice as well as tracking practice frequency. If a question arises
that participants want addressed sooner than the following session, in-
vite them to email the group facilitator directly. In keeping with the
MBSR format, a full-​day retreat is held between weeks 7 and 8, again in
a community setting, where participants are invited to bring their own
lunch to engage in a mindful meal.

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Materials

Each group session is held in a quiet space, preferably during the day
in a place with natural lighting. Provide straight-​backed chairs, com-
fortable enough for participants to sit in for 2 hours and supportive
enough so they can sit in a meditative posture. (Invite participants to
sit with cushions at home if they prefer.) Ask participants to obtain and
bring a yoga mat to each session for the various floor-​based practices,
such as Body Scan or Mindful Yoga. We recommend that you have a
whiteboard or flip chart to take notes from the session in real time and
summarize key points of discussion and learning.

Participants should purchase or be given the separate Participant

Workbook for this program so they can take notes during the session,

Table I.1 List of Meditation Practices

Program session Practice

1 1a: Body Scan—​Introduction

1b: Body Scan—​Practice Instruction
1c: Mindful Eating

2 2a: Ordinary Magic

2b: Short Sitting (Focused Attention I)

3 3a: Slips and Falls

3b: Mindful Yoga—​Introduction
3c: Mindful Yoga I—​Practice Instruction
3d: Longer Sitting (Focused Attention II)

4 4a: Mindful Yoga II—​Practice Instruction

5/​6 5a: Long Open Monitoring (Sitting Practice Extended)

5b: Aimless Wandering
5c: Emotional Weather—​Introduction
5d: Emotional Weather—​Practice Instruction

7 7a: Loving-​Kindness—​Introduction
7b: Loving-​Kindness—​Practice Instruction

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review the notes between sessions, and track their daily practice. In the
first several sessions, encourage participants to bring their calendar or
day planner to schedule in time for daily practice while in the session,
as daily home practice is a core part of the program. As an accompa-
niment to this Facilitator Guide, all MP3 audio files of the meditation
practices can be accessed on the Treatments ThatWork website at www.
oxfordclinicalpsych.com/​WisdomMind. Although all of the meditation
practices are recorded and available for download to facilitators and
participants, you may wish to record the meditation practices in your
own voice; for this purpose, the scripts for these meditation practices are
included in Appendix at the end of this Facilitator Guide. Table I.1 lists
the practices and the session of this program where they are introduced.

Finally, as noted earlier, while this program is broadly based on MBSR,

it has enough unique elements to have it stand alone as its own mind-
fulness training program. That said, when the original Wisdom Mind
intervention was delivered, participants were assigned certain chapters
of Kabat-​Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living (1990) as supplemental reading,
as that book is a highly accessible resource on the basic principles of
mindfulness. It is up to group facilitators to decide whether they wish
to assign those chapters. A reference to the optional purchase of Full
Catastrophe Living is made in the Participant Workbook.

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CHAPTER 1
Session 1: Introduction
to the Program

Materials Needed

■ Whiteboard and pens

■ Participant Workbook
■ Chairs
■ Yoga mats (for participants who are comfortable lying on the floor)
■ Blankets (for floor practice)
■ Raisins (for raisin exercise)
■ An email sent the day before the session should remind participants
to bring their Workbook and also their calendar/​day planner; this
reminder email should also include pertinent information about
the location/​time of the group, perhaps including a map or relevant
transportation information (e.g., buses, subways).

Session Outline

■ Welcome and introductions; general group guidelines

■ Brief background on the issue of cognitive aging
■ Brief overview of the Wisdom Mind program and prior empirical
evidence
■ Introduction to and discussion of Foundations of Mindfulness—​
“raisin exercise”
■ Introduction of Body Scan practice
■ Introduction of “auto-​pilot”
■ Importance of regular daily practice
■ Review of upcoming week’s homework
20

Welcome and Introductions

Begin the first session with a welcome to the group, introducing your-
self as the facilitator and inviting the other participants to share a little
about themselves, including why they have decided to attend this group.
You may wish to add a little information about your experience with
mindfulness practice, as this lends credibility as a facilitator. It should be
noted that participants are often nervous about stepping into the realm
of meditation practice if they are brand new. Bear in mind, though, that
while it is helpful to share information that establishes your credibility
as a mindfulness instructor, we wish to avoid intimidating people with
our “meditation résumé.”

As anyone who has run a group or participated in one knows, group

cohesion can make or break the experience. This is no less true in
any mindfulness training program, including Wisdom Mind. Because
there can be fear, stigma, or shame around the topic of aging in ge-
neral and cognitive aging in particular, we observed that the group as-
pect of this training program provides a low-​risk environment to share
fears and concerns about what it is like to age in our society. These
discussions are incredibly rich; not only do they provide a safe place
to raise these topics, but they also provide real-​life material to con-
textualize the practice of mindfulness. These real-​life discussions are
at the heart of the ecological validity of mindfulness practice (Smart,
2019), meaning that, from the ground up, the practice translates
directly to daily life. This is, I believe, what separates mindfulness
from “cognitive training” based purely on drill and practice, where
the transfer of training remains under debate (e.g., Melby-​Lervåg,
Redick, & Hulme, 2016).

Aside from the aging-​and mindfulness-​specific aspects of the introduc-

tion, this is also an important time to discuss basic ground rules for
the group, including the time of the group meeting, the importance of
coming on time, and what to do in the case of absences. Also emphasize
confidentiality and respectful, inclusive speech, particularly given that
there is no one “right” way to experience mindfulness, and it is useful
to emphasize to participants that they should speak from their own ex-
perience and not on behalf of a group of people (e.g., “all women” or
“all older people”). Once the introduction is complete and a basic group

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rapport has been established, then you may move into the material for
the first session.

Brief Background on the Issue of Cognitive Aging

Next, talk briefly about the issue of cognitive aging as a context for
the development and provision of this program. The following points
should be covered, in your own words:

■ There are increasing numbers of older adults in our society who are
living longer, due to advances in medicine/​technology as well as the
“baby boomer” generation coming of age.
■ A normal part of getting older is experiencing some degree of cogni-
tive decline. While some degree of cognitive decline is a normal part
and parcel of the aging process, it can be frustrating or concerning if
a person does not know how to manage it effectively. Over time, this
could lead a person to experience sad or anxious mood, for example.
■ Although dementia is by no means inevitable, some forms of cogni-
tive decline are outside the realms of what is considered typical and
can progress to dementia. Dementia is basically a condition whereby
cognitive decline occurs that is beyond what is expected for one’s age
and educational background and that impairs daily function. There
is yet no medical cure for dementia, although some medications are
prescribed to try to slow the rate of progression, with mixed results.
■ Given the large numbers of individuals who are aging, and the prev-
alence of both normal cognitive decline and dementia, researchers
and clinicians have been striving to find interventions that can slow
the progression of cognitive decline, delay its onset, or minimize its
impact on daily function. This program is one such effort in that di-
rection and was specifically designed for older adults who are cogni-
tively healthy and are not experiencing any cognitive difficulties, or
those who are still relatively healthy yet are experiencing complaints
and concerns about their thinking abilities (i.e., persons with subjec-
tive cognitive decline [SCD]).

Spend a few moments reflecting on the content provided and inviting

discussion, as participants may wish to share some of their experiences
with (perceived) cognitive decline. Depending on the locale in which

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the program is provided, participants may be more or less well educated

on the topic of cognitive aging. Being able to recognize, normalize, and
validate typical age-​related cognitive slip-​ups will be a theme throughout
the program, particularly from Session 2 onward. As discussed in the
Introduction to this Facilitator Guide, it is important that facilitators
have a basic education in cognitive aging and conditions of older adult-
hood so they can address questions and validate concerns that may come
up on this topic in the context of the program. The material in the
Introduction and the separate chapter on Cognitive Slip-​Ups can serve
as a good starting point, as well as a review of other relevant literature
(e.g., Tuokko & Smart, 2018) and websites (e.g., the UCSF Memory
and Aging Clinic’s website is a great resource for participants, caregivers,
and care providers—​http://​memory.ucsf.edu).

Note that the word “dementia” can be frightening and confusing

for many members of the lay public; therefore, it is important to be
careful in your use of this word and to be clear on its meaning, also
clarifying for participants (if relevant) that Alzheimer’s disease is not
the only type of dementia, although it currently is the most preva-
lent. Any participants with significant cognitive impairment should
have already been screened out for participation, but dementia may
still bring up fear in some individuals, particularly those with SCD
who are, by definition, significantly concerned about their thinking
abilities. While we do not wish to minimize those concerns, it is im-
portant to gently underscore that dementia is not inevitable, and that
by actively engaging in the program, participants will be learning tools
and skills to empower themselves to manage any perceived cognitive
difficulties they are currently having, and also to care for their overall
psychological well-​being.

Brief Overview of the Wisdom Mind Program and Prior Empirical Evidence

Acknowledging the prevalence of cognitive aging and dementia provides

a context for you to provide some basic information to introduce the
development and empirical validation of the Wisdom Mind program.
You can take the following information and put it in your own words to
convey the basic premise of the program to the participants:

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Wisdom Mind was born out of the clinical and research experiences
of the author, a clinical neuropsychologist working with older
adults. With the rapidly aging population and greater numbers of
individuals at risk for cognitive decline, she understood the pressing
need for interventions for older adults with cognitive and emotional
concerns. Yet she was frustrated by the lack of empirically supported
treatment options available beyond medications. Conversely, she
had seen firsthand as a clinician and meditation teacher how mind-
fulness training could help individuals with a wide variety of mental
health and medical concerns. This included a clinical program she
co-​led for persons with chronic mild traumatic brain injury (Azulay
et al., 2013). This was one of very few studies at the time that in-
dicated that persons with identifiable cognitive impairment and/​or
histories of neurological disorders could benefit from mindfulness
training. The author also understood that it could be particularly
effective to bring mindfulness training to older adults who either
were cognitively healthy or had cognitive concerns but were still
functioning independently. In this way, mindfulness could be used
in a preventive manner, to slow or delay cognitive decline early in
the process.

In 2012, the author conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT)

to test the premise that mindfulness training specifically tailored to
older adults with and without cognitive concerns could positively
impact cognitive and brain function as well as psychological well-​
being. This program was generously funded by the Alzheimer Society
of Canada. She titled the program Wisdom Mind as a counterpoint
to the participants’ concerns about cognitive functioning, drawing
attention to the increasing wisdom that is often associated with
advancing age, as well as mindfulness practice.

Half the participants were randomized to Wisdom Mind and half to

a control condition where participants learned information about
how the mind and brain change as we age. While all participants
reported psychological benefits such as feeling better about their
cognitive function, the participants in the Wisdom Mind group
showed improved attention as well as positive changes in their brain
function. An RCT is considered a gold standard for demonstrating

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the efficacy (impact) of a clinical program, and the results were

published in 2016 and 2017. (Note: References for these articles
are provided in the Participant Workbook if interested participants
wish to see the original studies.) The author’s main goal of creating
Wisdom Mind was so that participants like you could benefit from
this type of training.

Make sure to monitor the time and, if close to the 1-​hour mark, ascer-
tain whether this would be a good time to take a break, which will allow
participants to come back fresh for the first guided practice and the
second half of the class.

Introduction to and Discussion of Foundations of Mindfulness

At this point, participants are probably still wondering, “What is mind-

fulness?” As the facilitator, next go into further detail about how mind-
fulness is both a practice and a set of attitudes or a particular way of
looking at the world and our experience. Jon Kabat-​Zinn’s (1994) def-
inition of mindfulness may be helpful to set up this discussion: specifi-
cally, mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose,
in the present moment, and non-​judgmentally” (p. 4). In other words,
there is the practice of learning how to actually pay attention, and then
the cultivation of the attitudes to learn how to pay attention with a par-
ticular mindset.

Raisin Exercise: The way mindfulness is typically introduced in

mindfulness-​based stress reduction (MBSR) is through the “raisin ex-
ercise,” and it works equally well with older adults. Even if participants
have sensory impairments that impact their sense of taste or smell, this
can still be used as a way to elicit judgments, frustration with the experi-
ence, etc. In brief, hand out two raisins to each participant (confirming
that no participants have issues with blood sugar, are allergic to raisins,
etc.). Instruct participants to eat one raisin mindfully, taking time to
savor the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the raisin, feeling it in
their mouth before chewing and finally swallowing it. This should be
guided slowly and should take at least 2 to 3 minutes. Then instruct
participants to eat the second raisin exactly as they normally would—​in
a less mindful way.

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Facilitator Note

Material for participants appears in two places: It appears in

the Participant Workbook, and much of it is also repeated in this
Facilitator Guide. Participant-​ facing content is called “For the
Participant” and is double-​numbered by chapter. For example, the
first such item in Chapter 1 is identified as “For the Participant 1.1,”
and this material appears both in Chapter 1 of the Workbook and
also later in Chapter 1 of this Guide.

This experience of the raisin exercise can then segue directly into a dis-
cussion of the attitudes of mindfulness, and participants’ reflection of the
experience should be solicited. During this discussion, direct participants
to follow along by reading “For the Participant 1.1: Foundations of
Mindfulness—​Attitudes and Commitment,” located in Chapter 1 of
their Participant Workbook. (This material is also repeated later in this
chapter of the Facilitator Guide.) Allow time for discussion of these dif-
ferent attitudes, as participants will likely have comments, observations,
or questions to share. In particular, you should make an effort to situate
these attitudes within the context of cognitive aging as a way to make
this particularly relevant to older adults. Some examples are as follows:

1. Non-​judging: As we age, our cognitive resources become more lim-

ited. It can seem easy to quickly jump to conclusions and judgments
in an effort to save cognitive resources. To the extent that we get
stuck on these judgments and are not receptive to new information
coming in, this can cause us suffering.
2. Patience: Modern culture is extremely fast-​moving, particularly with
technology and social media, creating a “cultural impatience” with
other people. As we age, our processing speed naturally slows down
and we need more time to think and formulate our thoughts and
actions. This can mean that others become more impatient with us,
or we become impatient with ourselves.
3. Beginner’s mind: As we age, we have seen a lot and done a lot, and
therefore it is easy to think that we know the “right” way of going
about things. Cognitive rigidity refers to how we can tend to get
stuck in our ways as we age. Sometimes having relevant life expe-
rience can be helpful, but to the extent that we do not allow our-
selves to be flexible and open to the situation, we can get trapped

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in cognitive rigidity. This thinking style means we could be missing

opportunities to connect with our environment, other people, and
even ourselves.
4. Trust: Getting older is a vulnerable situation, and this could range
from needing practical assistance from others all the way up to the
awareness of our own mortality. This means that as we age, we may
have to navigate times when we can trust our own experience and in-
tuition, as compared to those other times when we may need to trust
valued others.
5. Non-​striving: We live in a culture that is very action-​and achievement-​
oriented—​having the right job, the right body, the right possessions,
for example. The dominant culture is also very youth-​oriented,
which can put further pressure on us to “keep up” with standards of
appearance and activity. Having goals to work toward can be useful
and motivating, particularly when we are younger. However, goals
naturally have a future focus, and such a future focus may not mean
the same as we age and we realize we have less time available than
we did when we were younger. Striving for particular outcomes may
cause us suffering when we realize we do not have the time or the
means to achieve those outcomes, or we regret missing out on cer-
tain opportunities, and can reinforce the message that we are not
OK as we are. This is also related to acceptance, the next attitude of
mindfulness.
6. Acceptance: As we age, we may have to deal with a lot of changes
that we did not want or did not ask for—​changes to our physical
appearance, the health of our body, our mental and emotional state,
our relationships, even where we live. Often these changes are hap-
pening in quick succession, and our ability to accept them can im-
pact our emotional well-​being and quality of life.
7. Letting go: In the context of aging, we might be letting go of hopes
and dreams we once had that we realize we will never achieve. We
might have to let go of relationships, due to relocations, separations,
or bereavement. And as our bodies and minds change with age, we
are invited to let go of who we thought we were and make peace with
who we are becoming in each moment. Erik Erikson, the famed de-
velopmental theorist, proposed that the primary task of older adult-
hood is mastering ego integrity versus despair—​achieving ego integrity

26
27

means making peace with the events of our lives, a significant aspect
of which likely involves letting go.

Connecting these attitudes to older adults’ lives will make the attitudes
more salient, as opposed to being abstract ideas or affirmations that
participants are supposed to use to railroad their mind into a certain
way of thinking. You can draw attention to the connection between
the attitudes and the actual practice of mindfulness—​the attitudes can
provide support for how we approach the practice, but the attitudes can
also spontaneously emerge as ways of seeing the world that arise as a
fruition of the practice itself.

Introduction of Body Scan Practice

This chapter of the Body Scan will be participants’ first formal exposure
to mindfulness practice in this program. Each subsequent session will
commence with a brief guided practice to reinforce the homework that
participants have engaged in over the prior week, and also to facilitate a
transition into the mindful space of the group. Invite participants to po-
sition themselves on the floor with their yoga mats and blankets, either
as a head support or to cover them if they are cold.

Beginning with a 30-​minute Body Scan is typical of many MBSR

programs and works well with older adults as well, although there
are some particular considerations to bear in mind with this practice.
While working with discomfort is part of the practice, you should be
attentive to particular concerns of participants with significant physical
impairments, and you may need to make minor modifications in those
circumstances (e.g., those with hip/​back problems or in wheelchairs
who cannot readily lie on the floor may be invited to do the Body
Scan seated in a chair). Likewise, older adults may be prone to cold
temperatures while lying down; you should monitor the temperature in
the room and have some extra blankets handy for participants who did
not bring one to class. Finally, because some participants may be hard of
hearing, the person leading the practice should take care to speak loudly
enough so that participants can hear. It may be useful to work with a

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28

lapel microphone, and/​or stay in a seated position while guiding the

practice, to increase the likelihood that participants will be able to hear.

Facilitator Note

■ All MP3 audio files of the meditation practices can be accessed on

the Treatments ThatWork website at www.oxfordclinicalpsych.
com/​WisdomMind.
■ That said, while in the session, ideally you will be leading the
meditation practices yourself rather than playing a prerecorded
audio.
■ Meditation practice scripts (transcriptions of the audio files) are
available in Appendix of this Facilitator Guide.
■ As noted, although all of the meditation practices are prerecorded
and available for download to facilitators and participants, you
may wish to record the meditation practices in your own voice.
■ Note that a few of the audio files (such as 1c: Mindful Eating
and 2a: Ordinary Magic) are general guidelines for participants
on how to self-​lead through the exercises rather than actual
meditation scripts.

Meditation Practice Scripts 1a: Body Scan—​Introduction (3 minutes)

and 1b: Body Scan—​Practice Instruction (28 minutes) are provided in
case you would like to record them in your own voice.

After the guided meditation practice, you should take a few moments
to allow for discussion of the current practice experience and any
observations that participants may have. This is an important time not
only to acknowledge and validate participants’ experience but also to
clarify any misconceptions or concerns and set participants up for suc-
cess in their first week of practice.

■ One of the most common misconceptions is that the Body Scan is

primarily a relaxation practice and that, if one did not experience
relaxation, then one has “failed.” Clarify that although the practice
might be relaxing at times, that is not the goal—​rather, the goal is to
develop awareness of our present-​moment experience and to observe
our tendency to judge our experience and how this relates directly to
the experience of suffering.

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29

■ Although, as noted in the Introduction to this Guide, older adults are

generally prone to a positivity bias, those individuals higher in neu-
roticism, anxiety, or depression may be more likely to attend to those
aspects of their experience associated with discomfort. Particularly
for individuals with medical/​health concerns, the Body Scan can be
a powerful way to appreciate the granular texture of one’s experience,
and to tune in to aspects of one’s experience that are beyond the ex-
perience of discomfort or suffering.
■ Participants may also be concerned about falling asleep during the
practice. While falling asleep at times, particularly in the beginning,
is to be expected—​and can even be helpful with certain individuals
with sleep difficulties—​ideally one wants to arrive at a place where
one can stay awake through the entire practice to be able to cultivate
mindful awareness.

“For the Participant 1.2: Body Scan Practice Log” (located both in
the Participant Workbook and later in this Facilitator Guide) contains
the practice log for the Body Scan. At this point in the session, direct
participants to review this material in the Workbook, and encourage
them to ask questions about completing the tracking log for homework
over the coming week.

As noted earlier, in addition to the meditation practice scripts provided

at the end of this book, there are downloadable audio files recorded
by the author, available on the Treatments ThatWork website at www.
oxfordclinicalpsych.com/​WisdomMind. If you do not have time to
make your own recordings, and particularly if this is the first time you
are leading Wisdom Mind, you are welcome to provide participants
with a copy of the audio downloads for home practice. That said, it has
been observed by the author many times over that participants prefer
to hear the voice of their own facilitator, particularly when there are
regional variations in accent, language, etc. It is also acknowledged
that the author does not have a standard North American accent,
despite living in North America for 20 years, and some individuals
find accents different from their own to be distracting or even aver-
sive. Creating your own audios, then, can be a way to build rapport
and therapeutic connection, as participants internalize your kind
and supportive voice through the practice. Thus, if you plan to run
Wisdom Mind on more than one occasion, it may be a worthwhile

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30

time investment to use the meditation practice scripts to make audio

recordings for your particular group.

Introduction of “Auto-​Pilot”

Pay attention to the content of conversation following the Body Scan

for opportunities to bring up the topic of “auto-​pilot.” As those familiar
with mindfulness practice will know, auto-​pilot refers to the state of
mind when we disengage from the present-​moment experience, often
referred to mind-​wandering. Participants will often comment that they
had a hard time attending to the instructions and found themselves
daydreaming or thinking about other topics. Actually becoming aware
of how much the mind wanders can be one reason participants believe
they are not doing the practice right or that the practice is too hard.

While this phenomenon is common in teaching mindfulness to adults of

all ages, it may have particular relevance to older adults. Mind-​wandering
as a subjective experience is often thought to be related to the default
mode network (DMN), a network of brain regions that seems to be ac-
tivated when we are not willfully engaged in a particular task (Mittner
et al., 2016). The DMN has been shown to be affected by both healthy
aging and non-​normative conditions of aging such as Alzheimer’s di-
sease. This suggests that mind-​wandering might be a more salient and
challenging issue for older adults learning to meditate. This topic will
be discussed in more detail in Session 4; for now, it is useful for you
to have this context in mind as you support participants new to med-
itation in navigating the challenges associated with mind-​wandering.
Furthermore, this initial discussion of auto-​pilot and mind-​wandering
provides an important foundation for the discussion of cognitive slip-​
ups, which begins in Session 2 and continues throughout the program.

Importance of Regular Daily Practice

Coming to the close of the first session is the time to bring up the im-
portance of regular daily practice in effecting the positive changes often
seen from this type of program. It is important to normalize that doing
anything new will be challenging. This is when you should encourage

30
31

participants to bring their challenges to the group discussion, as well as

to reflect on the attitudes of mindfulness as an additional support for
when things become challenging.

As presented in the Introduction, developmental research indicates that

older adults are prone to a positivity bias (Reed et al., 2014)—​that is,
they are more likely to attend to information that is in some way pos-
itively reinforcing or motivating. As such, it is important to focus on
the potential benefits of actually practicing mindfulness rather than
the negative effects of not doing the practice. Moreover, reinforcement
learning research indicates that when individuals are highly motivated
to perform a task, dopamine is released in the brain, which not only feels
good but also boosts the consolidation of any learning (Hamid et al.,
2016). Both of these factors underscore the importance of emphasizing
a positive, encouraging approach to taking up a meditation practice. It
may be useful to have participants acknowledge their willingness to try
something new and do something good for themselves, and ask them to
reflect how they faced other challenges in the past and what they learned
about how to take on a challenge and what they got out of it. Listening
to the types of comments participants make can be another opportu-
nity for you to reinforce the attitudes of mindfulness. In this discus-
sion about motivation, facilitators should try to motivate engagement
in the practice per se, without reinforcing attachment to any particular
outcome of the practice (e.g., “I will have a better memory”), which
runs counter to the attitudes of mindfulness. Rather, through mind-
fulness, participants might not necessarily change the activities in their
daily lives, but they may experience such activities as more satisfying by
learning to attend to the present moment in a mindful way.

Literature from the field of cognitive rehabilitation for brain injury

indicates that one of the most important predictors of treatment success
is self-​efficacy, or the belief that one can engage in a task to effect pos-
itive change in one’s life (Cicerone & Azulay, 2007). Specific to older
adults, other literature suggests that memory self-​efficacy can have an
independent effect on memory function over and above actual memory
ability (Beaudoin & Desrichards, 2011). Because of this, it is important
to acknowledge that there will be challenges in taking up a new skill, but
that challenges are to be expected and troubleshooting those challenges
is part of the purpose of the group meetings. You can invite participants

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to make a note of any challenges they have in doing the practice during
the week, and bring those to the discussion at the next session.

In order to further enhance motivation, it may be useful for you to share

some background information with participants as a context for regular
daily practice, including the following:

■ One can present mindfulness practice using a medical model—​that

is, much like a medication, one needs a minimum “dose” to experi-
ence a therapeutic effect. As many older adults suffer from at least one
chronic medical condition, this analogy will likely hold resonance.
■ Research on humans and animals shows that the brain can change
in response to regular training (i.e., experience-​dependent plasticity;
Kleim & Jones, 2008). For neuroplasticity to take hold, a certain
minimum amount of consistent practice is needed when acquiring a
new skill—​this is the premise of “use it or lose it.”
■ There have been many studies on mindfulness at this point, and
there is no definitive answer to the question of dose. A variety
factors could affect the impact of mindfulness training, such as age,
gender, education, and motivation, to name just a few. However,
many published studies have used the standard 8-​week MBSR
format we are using in this program, and those studies indicate
that, across a variety of different populations, positive changes can
occur in cognitive, emotional, and brain function after 8 weeks of
regular practice.
■ Research suggests that while neuroplasticity can occur in the aging
brain, it may occur on a different timescale from children or younger
adults (Jellinger & Attems, 2013). That being said, in the case of this
current program, it was again found that an 8-​week training pro-
gram resulted in positive cognitive, emotional, and brain changes.

Facilitator Note

If participants are eager to receive more specific information, you

can direct them to the author’s publications, as referenced at the end
of the Introduction in their Workbook.

Finally, in order to have a regular practice, one has to be able to find

time reliably each day. Participants are apt to raise questions about the

32
3

“right” time to practice. You can reinforce that there is no right or wrong
time and each participant should follow what works best for them. In
this first week, invite participants to try different times of day in order to
find out when the practice best fits into their schedule. This relates not
only to having enough time to practice but also to one’s basic state of
arousal/​wakefulness. Arousal can be affected by a wide variety of things,
such as caffeine, sleep, time of day, and basic circadian cycles. One first
act of mindfulness can be to pay attention to when one is most awake
and able to stay with the practice. We take the path of least resistance—​
if you are most awake in the evening, then practice in the evening. There
is no rule that you must practice in the morning—​even though many
participants seem to have the implicit idea that this is the case.

Through this discussion, the main point to emphasize is that the more
one practices mindfulness—​and particularly daily practice—​the greater
the likelihood that one will get something out of the program.

Review of Upcoming Week’s Homework

Bring the session to a close by drawing participants’ attention to the rel-

evant section in the Workbook, where the homework (called “Between-​
Session Practice”) for this week is provided. Address questions regarding
the homework, which includes (1) daily Body Scan, (2) at least two
or three instances of Mindful Eating, and (3) the Nine Dots exercise.
Mindful Eating is a self-​led exercise, as it would be too artificial for
someone on an audio to arbitrarily tell participants exactly how to
eat. That said, there is an audio track that introduces the principles of
Mindful Eating (along with corresponding Meditation Practice Script
2c, located in Appendix of this Guide), and this is included in the audio
downloads. Facilitators are advised to listen to this brief track and famil-
iarize themselves with the basic tenets of Mindful Eating, so that they
can introduce this to the group. Participants should also be told to listen
to the audio track before trying the exercise at home.

The Nine Dots exercise is often used in MBSR and is a way to illustrate
how we get stuck in limited ways of thinking. Do not give much of a
preamble for this practice, as you want to elicit genuine reactions to this,
which will be explored at the next session.

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Participants may still have questions about the “right time” to practice,
and they still may lack a good sense of when they are most alert to en-
gage in the practice. Work with participants to strike a balance between
exploring a good time to practice and making sure that a practice session
happens every day. One way to achieve this is to have participants spend
2 days on each practice at a different time, and schedule this in their cal-
endar or planner. This way, they can experience different practice times
while also making sure they are engaging in the practice every day and
will not forget.

As will be the case for every week, cue participants to take a few
moments to recount what the “take-​home points” are from the current
session. These should be written on a whiteboard for the whole group
to see. Encourage participants to write these bullet points down in their
Workbook as an easy summary, as well as any bullet points that are per-
sonally salient to them in terms of the content discussed during the
session.

Another important issue to consider in assigning homework is the like-

lihood that the participants will be able to remember to actually do
it. While this can be challenging for anyone with a busy life, in older
adults this may be related to age-​ related decrements in prospective
memory (Kliegel et al., 2016). Prospective memory is otherwise known
as “remembering to remember” or “memory for intentions.” After the
first week of attempting the new practices, some participants will likely
come to the second session reporting difficulties in remembering to
practice, even if it is written on their schedule. While this does not nec-
essarily have to be addressed in the very first session, you should be
aware that this may come up at the second session, at which point it
can be addressed more proactively. Further information on prospective
memory and homework is therefore provided in Session 2.

34
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
that made a song in her heart despite all the trials—so much of a song that
occasionally it flowed into words, and Dorothy's untrained voice was sweet
and clear. She rarely used it over her work, but on this Monday twice she sang
clear and loud,—

"Mine is an unchanging love;

Higher than the heights above."

Mrs. Morgan heard it—heard the tune; caught no words—wanted to hear

none. The spirit of song was not in her heart that morning. All she said was,—

"Don't, for pity's sake, go to singing over the dish-pan. I always thought that
was a miserable, shiftless habit. There is a time for all things."

And Dorothy, wondering much when was her time to sing, hushed her voice
and finished the melody in her heart. So it seemed to her, when the day was
done, that really it had been an unusually hard one. Many steps added to the
usual routine. A dish broken; a leaking pail sending water all over the clean
floor; John's muddy feet tracking through the kitchen just after the mopping
was done; John's hands—traces of them on the clean towel; and then, by
reason of trying to do two things at once at the mother's bidding, she actually
allowed the starch to scorch. So that, in truth, when she sat down in the
wooden-seated chair of her own room for a moment's breathing space, before
it was time to set the table for tea, she looked back over the day with a little
wondering sigh. What had she done this day for the glory of God? How could
he possibly get any glory out of her honest efforts to do her whole duty that
day? True, she had resisted the temptation to slam the door hard, to set down
the tea-kettle with a bang, to say, in an undertone, "I don't care whether it is
clean or dirty," when her attention was called to some undone task. Yet what
had been the result? Mother certainly had never been so hard to please.

"She has found more to blame to-day than she ever did in the days when I
only half tried," said poor Dorothy to herself.

So where was there any glory for the Master to be found in the day? Even
then came the mother's voice calling,—

"Well, are we to have any supper to-night? or must I get it, with all the rest?"

Then Dorothy went down, and I am afraid that she set the cups and saucers
on the table with more force than was needed. Life looked full of pin-pricks
that hurt for the time being as much, or at least she thought they did, as
though they had been made with lancets.

What was the trouble with Mother Morgan?

I do want you to understand her. She did not understand herself, to be sure;
but that is no reason why you should not show more discrimination. It had
been an unusually trying day to her. Apart from the pressure of domestic
cares, which she, in common with many other housekeepers, made always
twice as heavy as they should be, her nerves, or her heart, or her conscience,
or all these combined, had been stirred within her by the words of prayer in
the twilight of the Sabbath. Memory took her back to an old hillside farmhouse,
surrounded by fields less rich and fruitful than those near which she dwelt; to
an old arm-chair, in which an old man sat night and morning, by his side
another chair, in which an old woman sat night and morning; and together
they read out of the same Bible, together they knelt and prayed, and this cold-
faced mother had heard herself prayed for many a time, not only by that old
man, but by the gray-haired woman. And they were her father and her mother,
both sleeping now, side by side, under the snow; and being dead, yet
speaking—speaking loudly to her on that very Monday. As she looked at
Dorothy she felt as though she were wronging her of a birthright. Dorothy had
never heard her mother pray as she had heard her old mother many a time.
Dorothy's mother had never said to her,—

"Dorothy, I want you to be a servant of God more than I want anything else."

That was what leer mother had said to her when she was Dorothy's age, and
many a time afterward; and she was not a servant of God yet, and her
conscience reproached her; and her child had never heard such words, and
her heart reproached her. As truly as I write it, she pitied Dorothy. Yet, can you
understand that this very feeling actually made her voice sharper and her
words more impatient when she spoke to her? The human heart unchanged is
a very strange and contradictory thing.

But I want to tell you what Dorothy Morgan does not know.

Her mother did discover the immaculate condition of the pudding-kettle, and
said aloud—

"I declare, for once this is clean!"

 CHAPTER XX.
CLOUDS.

I HAVE been tempted to linger over these first weeks connected with Louise
Morgan's home-coming in order that you might get a clear view of the
surroundings and a true idea of the family life. Now, however, I shall have to
take you away into the spring. The long, cold, busy winter, with its cares and
opportunities, had passed away, and the buds and blossoms, foretelling of the
coming summer, had begun to appear on every hand.

Many changes, subtle and sweet and strong, had been going on in the
Morgan household. Dorothy had held steadily on her course; the first lesson in
her Christian experience being ever present with her, that in the very smallest
matters of life her light might shine for Christ. She was learning the important
lesson to be "faithful over a few things." Little realized she the importance of
this faithfulness. Not an idea had she of the number of times in which the
mother had regarded her curiously, as she looked in vain for careless ways or
forgotten duties, and admitted to herself that "something had come over
Dorothy, and she only hoped it would last." Oh yes, it would last. Dorothy
believed that. She had anchored her soul after the first hours of unrest on the
sure promise of His "sufficient grace," and had no idea of doubting him. Not
much outside work had she been able to take up. Yet, little by little, came
changes. Carey Martyn was full of schemes.

"See here, let us do thus and so," was a favourite phrase of his, and he was
growing more and more fond of saying it to Dorothy.

The bright curtains in the parlour had not been taken down again; the old-
fashioned sofa still held its place in the coziest corner; and now that the sun
was getting around the corner, peeping in at the pleasantest window, the room
took a still more cheery look, and Dorothy had fallen into the habit of touching
a match to the carefully laid fire almost every evening just after tea, and one
by one the different members of the family dropped in.
The long-neglected old-fashioned brass knocker often sounded during these
days. People who had never called on the Morgans, chiefly because of the
fear that they would be coldly received, began to discover that Mrs. Lewis
Morgan was a very pleasant woman, very glad to see her friends; and the
mother was not so disagreeable as they had supposed; and, "really, that shy,
silent Dorothy had improved wonderfully."

Thus it was when the spring opened, only a few months since the new-
comer's first entrance; and nothing very remarkable, so far as outward eyes
could see, had transpired, and yet in a hundred little ways things were
different.

But on this particular May morning when I bring you into the family circle the
prevailing atmosphere was gloom.

In the first place it rained—a soft, sweet spring rain, when the buds swell, and
leaves almost seem to increase in size while you watch, and the spring
flowers nod at one another, and the world, though in tears, seems to the
happy heart to be keeping holiday. Yet, as Louise Morgan stood at her window
and watched the dripping eaves, and listened to the patter on the roof, and
saw the low gray clouds sail by, a rainy day seemed to her a dreary thing.

The truth was, the Morgan family were in trouble. During these passing
months Louise and her husband, reinforced by Dorothy, and afterward by
Carey Martyn, had carried John Morgan about on their hearts as special
subject of constant prayer. Louise had been often eager, persistent, steadfast
for a soul before; yet it seemed to her that the desire had never been so
intense as in this instance; and as she looked over the past, it seemed to her
that she had never had so little encouragement. From the time when she took
that walk home with him in the moonlight, and tried to speak earnest words,
John Morgan had seemed to withdraw more utterly into himself. He carefully
avoided Louise; he refused, positively, all invitations to attend church on the
Sabbath. He plainly informed Lewis that he was wasting words in trying to talk
religion at him, and might consider himself honourably excused from any such
attempts; and to Dorothy, who, with tearful eyes and trembling lips, said simply
to him one night in the darkness, "O John, won't you give yourself to Jesus?"
he unceremoniously and roughly answered, "Shut up."

In every respect John had seemed, during the last few months, to travel
rapidly backward. The corner grocery now saw him more frequently than ever
before; indeed, almost every evening, late into the night, was passed there.
The smell of tobacco and of liquor lingered more constantly now about his
clothing, and pervaded the atmosphere of his room. In vain did Louise
struggle to keep that room pure. Gradually it had changed its outward
appearance. Christmas and Now Year, and then John's birthday, had been
helpful anniversaries to her plans. The bed was spread in spotless white; the
twisted-leg stand had its scratched and pointless top concealed under a white
and delicately crocheted tidy; a little rocker occupied the corner by the
window, with a bright-coloured tidy fastened securely to its back. The space
between the hall door and the clothes-press was occupied by a neat toilet-
stand, with all the convenient accessories of the toilet carefully disposed on it;
the walls were hung with two or three choice engravings and an illuminated
text; and on the white-covered stand there daily blossomed, in a small pure
vase, a rose, or a bunch of lilies of the valley, or a spray of delicate wild flower
—some sweet-breathed treasure from the woods or garden, which struggled
with the tobacco-scented air—placed there by Louise's tasteful fingers.

Once she ventured on a gift in the shape of a nicely-bound Bible, containing

John's name and her own on the fly-leaf, and she made a place for it on the
white-covered stand; but found that the very next morning it had been placed
on the highest shelf in the clothes-press along with a pile of old agricultural
papers that reposed there from one house-cleaning to another. All of these
patient little efforts had been greeted hitherto with nothing but frowns or
sneers or total indifference.

John Morgan seemed to have deliberately determined to ruin his prospects for
this life and the next, and to forbid any one to hold him back. Yet they did not
give him up, these four. The more hopeless the case seemed to grow, the
more steadily did they try to hold their grasp on the arm of power.

But on this rainy morning of which I write, not one of the four but had been
plunged into more or less anxiety and gloom. Apparently, not only had all their
efforts failed, but the subject of them had resolved to remove himself from all
further influence or molestation from them. The threat that he had often and
often made, to leave his home and go where he pleased, he had now
determined to put into execution. A week before he had suddenly and fiercely
announced his decision, and no amount of persuasion had effected the least
change. He was indifferent alike to his father's advice or threats.

"You needn't give me a copper if you haven't a mind to," he had said sullenly
during one of the stormy talks. "I'll risk but that I can take care of myself. I can
beg or can drown myself, if I feel like it. Anyhow, I'm going, and there's no kind
of use in talking."

"But where are you going?" pleaded the mother.

One less indifferent than John could not have failed to notice that her face was
pale and her voice husky with pent-up feeling.

"Just exactly where I like, and nowhere else. If I knew where that was I might
tell you, but I don't. I never did as I pleased an hour since I was born, and I
mean to do it now."

What was the use of talking to one in such a mood? Yet they talked, and
argued, and threatened, and used sharp words, and bitter words, and words
that were calculated to leave life-long scars on hearts; and the talks were
frequently renewed, and lasted away into the midnight; and at last John had
declared that he would not stand this sort of thing another hour, and he would
not take any money—not a copper of it, even if it was offered; and he would
not take his clothes along—not a rag.

"You can sell them to the first rag-man that comes along, and build another
barn with their value, for all I care," he said to his father, in a pitiful attempt at
sarcasm.

And then, without another word or a glance at his mother or a pretence at

good-bye, he strode out of the room, closing the door after him with a bang.
That was the evening before, just at supper-time, and though his mother did
that night what she had never done before in her life—put some of the supper
down, carefully covered to keep warm for John—he came not. The next
morning's milking was done without him, and as the long rainy day waned it
became evident to each heart that John was gone.

Now I have not told you the worst of this. For the past week the mother's heart
had been wrung with such anxiety that she had humbled herself in a manner
that she, a few days before, would not have imagined possible. She had
followed Louise one morning up to her room, coming with slow and doubtful
tread, closing the door after her, and looking behind her in a half-frightened
way, as if to be sure that there were no other listeners to her humiliation than
this one, and had said to Louise, catching her breath while she spoke,—

"You know how I feel about John. I have heard you talk about praying over
everything; if you believe that it does any good, why don't you pray to have
him kept at home?"

"Mother," said Louise, coming close to her, taking the hard old hand in hers, "I
do pray for him, every hour in the day, almost every minute it seems to me,
and I believe it will do good; I believe He will hear our prayer. But there is no
one who could pray for John as his mother could. I do so desire to have his
mother's prayers infold him like a garment. Won't you pray for him?"

"I'm not a praying woman," said Mrs. Morgan, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Still, if I believed in it as you do, I would pray now if I never did again."

Then she turned and went swiftly away. She had actually humbled her proud
heart to ask her daughter-in-law to pray for John! She could not get away from
the feeling that Louise's prayers would be likely to avail if any would. More
than that—but this at the time was known only to her own heart, and to the
One who reads the heart—in the silence and darkness of her own room, after
Nellie was asleep, and before Farmer Morgan had drawn the last bolt
preparatory to coming to his bed, she had got down on her knees and had
offered what, in her ignorance, she thought was prayer. "O God," she said, "if
thou hearest human beings in their need, hear me, and keep John from going
away." There was no submission in her heart to the divine will, no reference to
the name which is the only name by which we can approach God, no
realization of anything save John's peril and a blind reaching out after some
hand that had power. Yet it was a nearer approach to prayer than that mother
had made for fifty years!

Neither could she help a feeling, which she told herself was probably
superstition, that something somehow would prevent John from carrying out
his designs. Yet the days went by, and no unseen arm stretched out its hand
of power to arrest John. Instead, the rainy day wore on with the feeling settling
down hopelessly on the mother's heart that her son had gone from her with
hard words on his lips, and with the echo of hard words from her sounding in
his heart. For, so strange a thing is this human heart, Mrs. Morgan had
actually never seemed more hard or cold to her son than she did during the
week that her heart was torn with anxiety for him.

But I have not told you the worst of this. The days moved on, and it became
evident to all that John had carried out his threat and was gone. Then the
mother's grief and dismay found vent in hard and cruel words. She turned in
bitterness from Louise, yes, and from Dorothy, indeed from every one. To
Louise she said plainly it was not strange that John had wanted to get away;
she had given him no peace since she had been there; always tormenting him
to go to church or to prayer-meeting, or to do something that he did not want
to do. For her part, she did not see but he was quite as good as those who
were always running off to meeting. He could not even have any peace in his
own room; it must be cluttered up with rubbish that any man hated—vases to
tip over, and tidies to torment him!
And she flung the tidies on a chair in Louise's room, and folded and packed
away the cover which she said she had been "fooled into buying," and
restored every corner of that little hall chamber to its original dreariness. And,
worse than all, she declared that she hoped and trusted she would hear no
more cant about prayers in that house. She had not been able to see for many
a year that the kind of praying that was being done in these days
accomplished any good.

To Dorothy she declared that if she had had the spirit of a mouse she might
have exerted herself, as other girls did, to make a pleasant spot for her
brother; that she had never tried to please him in anything, not even the
mending of his mittens when he wanted them; she would rather dawdle over
the fire roasting apples with Carey Martyn than give any thought to her own
brother.

Now all this was bitterness itself to poor Dorothy, whose own heart reproached
her for having been so many years indifferent to her brother's welfare, but who
had honestly tried with all the force of her heart to be pleasant and helpful to
John ever since she had been doing anything from a right motive.

Neither did Mrs. Morgan spare her husband. She would not have let a boy like
that go off without a penny in his pocket, she said,—no, not if she had to sell
all the stock to get him ready money. He had as good a right to money as
Lewis ever had, and he had been tied down to the five barns all his life. No
wonder he ran away. He showed some spirit, and she was glad he had.

Do you suppose Farmer Morgan endured this in silence? Not he. And sharp
words grow sharper, and bitter feelings ran high, until the once quiet kitchen
was transformed into a Babel of angry words, and poor Louise could only go
away and weep.

But I have not told you the worst of this: actually the worst was in this Christian
woman's own sore heart. The awful question, "Why?" had crept in and was
tormenting her soul. She had been sincere in her prayers; she had been
honest in her desires; she had been unwavering in her petitions. Why had
God permitted this disastrous thing to come? Had she not tried—oh had she
not tried with sincere desire ever since she came into this home to live Christ
in it? Why, then, had she been allowed to so utterly fail? Would it not be to
God's glory to save John Morgan's soul? Was it not evident that through him
the mother might possibly be reached? Was it not perfectly evident that John,
at home, under her influence and Lewis's and Dorothy's, would be in less
danger than away among strangers, wandering whither he would? Was it not
perfectly evident that this conclusion to their prayers had caused Mrs. Morgan
to lose faith in prayer—to grow harder and harder in her feelings toward God
and toward Christians? Why was all this allowed?

She had prayed in faith—or, at least, she had supposed she had; she had felt
almost sure that God would answer her prayer. She had said to Dorothy, only
the night before John went away—said it with steady voice and a smile in her
eye—"I don't believe John will go away; I don't think God will let him go."

And Dorothy, half-startled, had answered: "O Louise, I don't mean to be

irreverent, but I don't understand. How can God keep him from going, if he will
go?"

And Louise, smiling outright now, so sure was she of her trust, had answered:
"I don't know, dear; he has infinite resources; I only know that I believe he will
do it."

Now what had become of her faith? It grieves my heart to have to confess to
you that this young servant of Christ, who had felt his "sufficient grace" in her
own experience again and again, allowed Satan to stand at her elbow and
push before her that persistent and faithless "Why?"

It was that word in all its changes which was crowding into her heart, on that
May morning, as she looked out at the dripping eaves and the leaden clouds.

CHAPTER XXI.
HEDGED IN.

As for John, perhaps he was quite as much astonished at the turn of events
as was any of the family. It is true he had been threatening for many weeks to
turn his back on the old homestead, but it is doubtful if he had really, during
that time, a well-defined intention of doing any such thing.

No plans as to where he should go or what he should do had taken shape;

only a vague unrest, and a more or less settled determination to some time
get away from it all.

Therefore, as he turned his back on the familiar barns and long-stretching

fields, and went out from them in the darkness of that May evening, not one of
the family was more in fog as to what he would do next than was John
himself. Instinctively he turned his steps to the village, spending the evening in
his old haunt, showing only by a more reckless manner than usual that there
had been any change in his life. In fact he realized no change; he never
turned toward the family road leading homeward as he came out from that
corner grocery at a later hour than usual; but he stopped abruptly before he
reached the top of the hill, considered a moment, then turned and retraced his
steps, and presently struck out boldly on the road leading cityward. The great
city, only sixty miles away, was of course the first point for an enterprising
young man about to start out in life for himself.

About midnight he reached the station where the express train stopped. By
the station lamps he discovered that the eastern-bound train would be due in
five minutes. He drew from his pocket the handful of silver and copper that
constituted his available means, slowly counted them, lounged into the
station, and inquired the price of a ticket to the city, then smiled grimly to
himself to discover that after purchasing one he should have just fivepence
left. "I guess I can live on that for a week or so," he muttered; "father could. If I
can't I can starve. I'm going to the city anyhow." And the ticket was bought.
Presently came the train, and our reckless young traveller sauntered into it,
selected the best seat he could find, settled himself comfortably, and went to
sleep, apparently indifferent to the fact that his mother was at that moment
shedding bitter tears for him. No, he was not indifferent; would not have been,
at least, had he known the fact. Nothing in all his young life's experience
would have amazed him more. He did not understand his mother, which is not
strange, perhaps, when one considers that she had spent years in learning
how to hide her heart away from the sight of those she loved best. John
Morgan actually did not believe that he had ever caused his mother to shed
one tear; he did not believe that she loved him. What did he know about
mother love, save as she revealed it to him?

It is not my purpose to take you wandering with John Morgan. Even if we had
time for it, the experience would be anything but pleasant. He went into many
places where you would not like to follow; he did many things that were better
left undone, and are much better left untold. Yet I will be just to poor, silly,
wicked John. He held back, or rather was held back by a force which he did
not in the least understand, from many a place that otherwise he would have
entered. There were depths of sin and folly into which he had abundant
chance to sink, and from which nothing in his own depraved heart kept him
from sinking, and yet into which he did not sink. He would have smiled in
superior scorn over the thought that the incense of prayer, which had been
rising day and night concerning him during the passing weeks, had anything
to do with the unseen force that held him when he would have plunged
headlong. Still he was held. He is not the first one who has been saved from
self-shipwreck by a power outside of himself, unrecognized and unthanked.

Still it must be confessed that John Morgan took long enough strides in the
road to shipwreck, and did what he could for his own overthrow, goaded
meantime by an exasperating and ever-increasing sense of failure. Here was
he at last, his own master, able to work, if he could find anything to do, or to
let it alone, just as he pleased; no one to direct, or, as he had always phrased
it, to "order." No one to complain, no one to question—a life of freedom at last.
Was it not for this he had pined? It was humiliating to discover that it did not
satisfy him. He could not, even for an hour, cheat himself into believing that he
was happy in the life that he had chosen. A very vagabond of a life he led. He
tried working and lounging and starving, and the time hung heavily. It was
more than humiliating, it was exasperating; but the fact remained that he could
no more get away from the memory of that clean, sweet-smelling, sweetly
kept room, in which he had lately passed his nights, than he could get away
from his own miserable self. Nay, the very smell of the wild-wood violets which
had nodded on him from the tiny vase that last morning at home, and which
he had affected to despise, seemed to follow and haunt him. How perfectly
absurd it was in him here, in the very centre of this great centre of life, to
actually long for a whiff of those wild violets! He sneered at himself, and swore
at himself, and longed for them all the same.

So passed the days, each one bearing him steadily downward, and yet each
one holding him back from the downward depths into which he might have
plunged. And the summer heats came in all their fierceness and wilted him
with their city-polluted breath; he had been used all his life to the free, pure air
of the country. At times it was hard for him to believe that this crowded, ill-
smelling city could belong to the same earth on which the wide-stretching
harvest-fields lay and smiled. And the summer waned, and the rich, rare
October days, so beautiful in the country, so barren of all interest to the
homeless in a great city, came to him, and John Morgan had actually become
a tramp! The work which he had at first despised and hated he now could not
find; and if he would not carry his early threat into execution and literally
starve, he must tramp and beg. Now starving had lost its charms somewhere
among the parchings of those summer months; he had so nearly tried that
way as to shudder over it; to ask for a bite at the back door of country-looking
houses was more to his mind.

One never-to-be-forgotten October day he shook himself out from the shelter
of a wrecked car, near which he had passed the night, and resolved upon a
breakfast of some sort. I wish I could give you a picture of him. His own
mother would not have recognized him. His clothing in the old days had been
none of the finest, but whatever passed through Mother Morgan's hands was
clean, and carefully mended. Now this bundle of rags and dirt would have
been in danger of being spurned from her door without a second glance.
"There is no excuse for filth!" she was wont to say grimly. Her son John had
heard her say it many a time. He thought of it this morning as he shook
himself; yet how could he help the filth? He had no clothes, he had no place in
which to wash, he had nothing with which to brush, and very little left to brush!
True, he had brought himself into this very position, but of that he did not
choose to think; and besides, everybody knows it is easier to get into certain
positions than to get out of them. I wish I could tell you how he felt. He did not
understand his own mood. He was not repentant, not in the least; if anything,
he was more bitter and defiant than ever. But he was disappointed: assuming
control of one's own actions was by no means so comfortable or desirable a
lot as he had imagined. There were days in which he believed that to have
milked the gentle cows, and cared for the fine horses, would have been a
positive relief. It was not work that John had shirked. Yet he had no idea of
going home; his proud spirit and defiant nature would not let him even suggest
that thought to himself.

On this particular morning he had resolved to try again for work. He managed
to get on the last car of an outgoing goods train, and was thus whirled a few
miles into the country. At the first station he jumped off, and began his search
for work. He found a farmer who was compassionate, and gave him wood to
carry into the already well-stocked shed by way of earning his breakfast.
Presently the farmer came to the door and called:

"We are about ready for breakfast now. You can come in while we have
prayers and then have breakfast."

"I don't want prayers," said John, stopping short midway between the door
and the wood-pile, his arms full. "I asked for something to eat, not for praying."

"I know that, and you shall have the something to eat; but a little praying won't
hurt you. Why, man, you can afford to be thankful that you have found a
chance to eat again!"
"No, I can't," said John fiercely. "If I can't have the breakfast without the
praying, I'll go without the breakfast."

"Very well," said the sturdy farmer, "I'm bound you shall then. I declare, if a
fellow has got so far that he can't even listen to a word of prayer, he doesn't
deserve to eat."

"Then I'll starve," said John in anger, and he threw the wood on the floor and
strode away.

"Oh, I don't know about that, father," said a motherly voice, and a motherly
face looking out after angry John. "Seems to me I'd have given him some
breakfast if he didn't want to come to prayers. Maybe he was ashamed to, he
looks so much like a rag-bag."

"Why didn't he say so then!" said the disturbed farmer. "Who expected him to
fly off in a passion at the mention of a prayer? He's a hard case, I'm afraid."

That was true enough; and yet the incident was not so much against John as
it sounds. Poor John! he was angry at his own heart for remembering, with a
certain lingering touch of tenderness, that prayer in the kitchen at home in the
Sabbath evening twilight; he wanted no experience that would call it up more
plainly. Breakfastless, and supperless last night, John Morgan! There had
always been plenty to eat in his father's house. What a bitterness it was to
think that, now he was independent, he was actually a dependent on the
chance charities of the world!

He tramped on; he was growing hungrier; he felt that he really could not work
now until he had a chance to eat; it was actual pauperism this time. A neat-
looking house, a neat kitchen door; he knocked at it and asked for a bit of
bread. A trim old lady answered it,—

"Yes, to be sure. Come in. And so you're hungry? Poor fellow! It must be hard
to be hungry. No home, I suppose?"

John shook his head.

"Poor fellow! You look young too. Is your mother dead, did you say?"

All the while she bustled about, getting a savoury breakfast ready for him—a
cup of steaming coffee, and a bit of meat, and generous slices of bread and
butter—bread that looked and butter that smelled like his mother's. And this
was a farmhouse, and a neat, clean kitchen, and a yellow painted floor.
At that last question a strange feeling came over John Morgan. Was his
mother dead? "No," he almost said. He would not have liked to nod his head
to that. And yet, here he was among the October days, and it had been early
May when he left her. How many funeral processions he had passed on the
streets since, and he had had no word from his mother. Down in the pasture
meadow one day his father had said to him, "Don't plough that bit up; I've
never made up my mind to it. In spite of me, it looks as if it was meant for a
kind of family burying-ground." There was a great tree there and a grassy
hillside, and a small clear stream purled along very near. How did he know but
a grave had been dug on that hillside since he went away? His heart gave a
few sudden thuds, and then for a minute almost seemed to stop beating.
Could it be possible that John Morgan really loved his mother! He was eating
his breakfast now—a good breakfast it was, and the trim old lady talked on.

"Well, there are a good many homeless people in the world. It must be hard;
but then, you know, the Master himself gave up his home, and had not where
to lay his head—did it for our sakes too. Wasn't that strange? Seems to me I
couldn't give up my home. But he made a home by it for every one of us. I
hope you've looked after the title to yours, young man."

No answer from John. The old lady sighed, and said to herself, as she trotted
away for a biscuit for him,—

"He doesn't understand, poor fellow. I suppose he never has had any good
thoughts put into his mind. Dear me! I wish I could do something for him
besides feeding his poor, perishing body."

But John did understand perfectly. What was the matter with all the people this
morning? Why were they so persistently forcing that subject at him? He had
been wandering almost six months, and had never met so many
straightforward words concerning it in all the months as he had this morning.
Is not it possible, John Morgan, that God's watching Spirit knows when to
reach even your heart? The little old lady trotted back, a plate of biscuits in
one hand and a little card in the other.

"Put these biscuits in your pocket; maybe they'll come good when you are
hungry again. And here is a little card; you can read, I suppose?"

The faintest suspicion of a smile gleamed in John Morgan's eyes as he

nodded assent.

"Well, then, you read it once in a while just to please me. Those are true
words on it; and Jesus is here yet trying to save, just the same as he always
was. He wants to save you, young man, and you had better let him do it now.
If I were you I wouldn't wait another day."

As he tramped down the street, his inner man so wonderfully refreshed by the
good coffee and bread and butter, he could not help looking at the card,
which, also, after that breakfast, he could not help taking, although he wanted
to put it into the cheery fire. It was a simple enough card, and printed on it in
plain letters were these words, "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Then
underneath, "I am the bread of life. He that believeth on me shall never
hunger." Still lower on the card, in ornamented letters, the words, "The Master
is come, and calleth for thee." Then a hand pointing to an italicized line, "I that
speak unto thee am he."

"Queer mess that," said John, and he thrust the card into his pocket and
strode toward the village depot. He meant to board the next train and get a
little farther into the country, and continue his search for work. The train
arrived, and he succeeded in slipping into it. But it was hardly fairly under way
when he discovered that he had miscalculated, and was being borne back
toward the great city, instead of farther into the country.

"I don't care," he said. "I don't know what I want of the country. On the whole, I
may as well try my chances in the city. I'll go up Greenwich Street and try my
luck in the warehouses. I can roll boxes about now since I've had another
breakfast."

But the train presently switched off and ran into another station, into another
part of the city, wherein John was as total a stranger as though he had just
dropped from the clouds.

"Where on earth am I?" he said bewildered, swinging himself down from the
top of the car and looking around. "Just my luck. I'm nowhere. East, west,
north, south,—which way shall I go? I'll go north. Which is north? Or no, I
won't; it's coming winter. I guess I'll go south, and walk as long as it looks
interesting, and see where I'll bring up. What difference does it make which
way I go?"

All the difference in the world, John Morgan. It is a link in the chain which is
narrowing around you. It is one of the apparently trivial movements which will
have its silent, unnoticed, unthought-of part in helping you to decide which
way you will go during all your future, and at what station you will finally land.
 CHAPTER XXII.
CORDS UNSEEN.

THE morning service was just over in the great church on Lexington Avenue.
A large company of men and women lingered in the broad aisles, shaking
hands with each other, saying a word here and there in subdued happy tones.
A looker-on, who was familiar with religious meetings, and who yet had not
been present at this one, would have known by the atmosphere lingering in
the church that the worshippers had been having a happy time. They were
loath to leave; they gathered in little knots, at convenient standing-places, and
discussed the events of the hour and the prospects of the evening. Large
numbers of the ladies had packages of white cards in their hands—not unlike
calling-cards in size and texture, and quite as carefully written on as ever
calling-cards were. The handwriting was peculiar—delicate, gracefully
rounded letters, skilful flourishes. Somebody had considered the work
important, and had bestowed time and skill.

"Estelle dear, won't you go forward and get some of the cards? I see very few
here who will go up Fairmount Street, and you may be able to reach some
who will be otherwise neglected."

So spoke one of the lingerers, a fair-faced woman, with silver-tinted hair, to a

very graceful young woman, who was evidently her daughter, and who
evidently lingered, not so much from personal interest in the scene as
because her mother did. She turned full, wondering, and yet deprecating eyes
on her mother at the question.

"O mamma! I cannot offer those cards to people. I am not one of the workers,
you know; it isn't expected of me. You have some, and that will be sufficient
for our family."

"I am not going up Fairmount Street," the mother answered quietly. "I have
only enough cards to meet my own opportunities, daughter. If Louise were
here, dear, can't you think how she would scatter those little white
messengers?"
"Louise is good, mamma, and I am not, you know; you mustn't expect me to
be Louise. I can no more take her place in that way than I can in a hundred
others."

"Oh yes, you can, my child; it doesn't require any special skill to hand a card
of invitation to a passer-by, or even to speak a word of encouragement to the
half persuaded."

"But, mamma, how would it look for me to invite people to the meetings? I am
not one of the church members. It wouldn't be very consistent, I think."

The mother's eyes were sorrowful and questioning as they rested on the face
of her fair young daughter. She seemed not to know just what would be well to
answer to this. At last she said,—

"Estelle dear, even though you refuse Christ yourself, don't you wish that
many others might come to him? Poor, sad hearts who have not your
opportunities, nor know the way as you do—shouldn't they have their chance
to choose, and aren't you willing to extend the invitation?"

The young girl's cheeks flushed a deeper pink, and her eyes drooped, but she
answered steadily,—

"Certainly I am, mamma."

Then she went forward and received from the pastor a package of the
beautiful cards, turning them over curiously in her hand, wondering much how
it would seem to pass them out to people, and whether the cards would be
accepted or refused.

Simple little cards they were; nothing pretentious or formidable about them;
just an announcement of daily religious services, giving the hours of meetings
and the name of the preacher; then, on the reverse side, in the most exquisite
penmanship, this simple quotation, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee."
Estelle read it, and the glow on her cheeks did not lessen. There was certainly
something very solemn in the suggestion. Estelle could hardly help giving a
moment's attention to the inquiry whether the Master really were calling for
her. Could she have brought her heart to the point of believing that such was
the case, it would have been well with Estelle, for she could not have said the
Master nay. The sin in her case was that she would not study the subject long
enough to be able to believe that she was personally included in the call.
Nevertheless she went her way up Fairmount Street on her unusual errand, a
little touch of vexation in her face over the thought that Louise would have
done all this so well, and would so have delighted in it, while she must
bunglingly try to supply her place. It was about this time that John Morgan
turned into Fairmount Street, much wondering where he was and what he
could be expected to do next.

"Will you have a card, please?" And a vision of loveliness fell on his
astonished gaze, and a delicately-gloved hand was stretched forth with the
fair bit of pasteboard. "It is just an invitation to the meetings; we hope you will
come." And still the card was outstretched, and still John stood and stared.
What was there about that face and voice that seemed familiar to him as one
whom he had met in a dream or in the far-away unreality of some other
existence? It bewildered him to the extent that he forgot either to decline or
accept the card, but stood looking and wondering. Estelle felt the importance
of saying something further to this silent starer. "They have very good singing,
and great crowds come every evening. I think you will like it. Will you take the
card?"

Thus petitioned, John, roused from his bewilderment, put forth his hand for the
proffered card, because for the moment he could not decide what else to do.

Then Estelle, her mission accomplished and her embarrassment great, flitted
away from him around the corner. "What a strange-acting fellow!" was her
comment. "How he did stare! One would suppose he had never seen a lady
before. Dear me! He looks as though he needed a friend. Somehow I can't
help feeling sorry for him. I really hope he will go to the meeting; but of course
he won't." And Estelle Barrows actually realized that for such a dreary,
friendless-looking person as he the love of Christ would be a great
transformation. She did not mean that she, Estelle Barrows, in her beauty and
purity, surrounded by the safeguards of her high position, had no need of
Christ; neither did she realize that this was the logical conclusion of her
reasoning.

"What in the name of common sense has got into all the people to-day? They
are running wild on cards." This was John Morgan's comment. He was
ashamed and vexed to think he had so forgotten his sullenness and
indifference as to stare at the fair young face. He read the card carefully, more
to get away from his present thoughts than from any interest in it; but the
verse on the reverse side held his attention for a few minutes, from the fact
that the words were the very same as those on the card given him by the old
lady who had supplied his breakfast. It struck him as a strange coincidence.
Presently he thrust the bit of pasteboard into his pocket, and dismissed the
incident from his mind.
Not again did it recur to him until he was passing, during that same evening, a
brightly-lighted building, from whence there issued sounds of music.
Something in the strains recalled, he knew not how or why, the incident of the
morning and the card of invitation. "I wonder if this is the place?" he queried.
"It would be rather queer if I had blundered on the very building, without the
least notion of doing any such thing." He paused before the door, listening to
the roll of the organ as it sounded on the quiet air. "That organ doesn't squeak,
anyhow," he said grimly, recalling the organ scene in the old church at home,
and Louise's pleasure in its improved condition after he had taken hold of it.
Thoughts of her suggested the card again, and he brought it forth from his
pocket, and by the light of a friendly lamp compared the name on the card
with the name on the building before him. Yes, they agreed; chance or
Providence, according as you are accustomed to view these matters, had led
him to the very spot. Still he had no intention of going in. "Pretty-looking object
I am to go to church," he said, surveying himself critically, something between
a smile and a sneer on his face. "I would create a sensation, I fancy. I wonder
if the bit of silk and lace that gave me the card is in there? And I wonder if she
expects to see me? And I wonder where I have seen her before, and why her
face haunts me?"

The organ had been silent for some minutes; now it rolled forth its notes
again, and voices, that to John seemed of unearthly sweetness, rang out on
the quiet:—

"Come home! Come home! You are weary at heart;

And the way has been long,
And so lonely and wild!
Oh, prodigal child, come home! Oh, come home!"

Was John Morgan homesick? He would have scorned the thought. Yet at the
sound of these tender words a strange choking sensation came over him, and
something very like a mist filled his eyes. He felt, rather than realized, how
long and lonely and wild the way had been; still he had no intention of going
in. He would step nearer and listen to that music; those voices were unlike
anything he had ever heard before. He drew nearer under the light of the hall
lamp. He could see into the church. The doors stood invitingly open; the aisles
even were full. Some were standing, not well-dressed people all of them, by
any means; but some were so roughly clad that even he would not attract
attention by the contrast. A young man, well-dressed, with an open hymn-
book in his hand, stood by the door, almost in the hall. He turned suddenly,
and his eyes rested on John; he beckoned him forward, then stepped toward
him.

"Come right in, my friend; we can find standing-room for you, and the sermon
is just about to commence."

"I'm not dressed for such places," said John, imagining that he spoke firmly.

"Oh, never mind the dress; that is not of the least consequence; there are
plenty of men in here in their rough working-clothes. Come right in."

"Come home, come home," sang out the wonderful voices. And John Morgan,
still with no intention of going in, yet impelled by a force which he no more
understood than he understood his own soul, stepped forward and followed
the young man into the crowded church. The singing ceased, and the minister
arose and immediately announced his text, "Friend, how camest thou in hither,
not having on a wedding garment?"

The sentence was spoken so like a personal question that John looked about
him, startled. Could it be possible that the man was addressing him—actually
referring to his uncouth dress? This only for an instant; then he discovered
that no one was paying the least attention to him, and that his dress, rough
enough, was not worse than that of some by whom he was surrounded. But
the preacher's manner was so new and strange, so unlike anything that John
Morgan had ever met before, that, despite his own half-formed determination
to get out of this, he stayed, and looked, and listened.

If I could I would tell you about that sermon; but sermons on paper, reported
by a second party, are so very different from the words that come burning hot
from the heart of the preacher, that on second thought I have deemed it
unwise to make the attempt.

To John Morgan the entire service was like a revelation of mysteries. That
which had seemed to him bewildering and contradictory, and finally actually
exasperating in the plan of salvation, was made as clear as the sunlight, and
one by one his own daring subterfuges were swept from him, so that before
the sermon closed he felt that he indeed stood unclothed and speechless
before the King. What next? Where should he go now? Whither flee? Was he
not sufficiently wretched before? Had he need to feel these truths in order to
make his condition less endurable?

The sermon closed, the few words of solemn prayer followed, and the choir
took up the service. Strangely clear, at least to John's ears, were the voices