12321	----	RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE By MARY BAKER EDDY Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy 1891, 1908 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO ALL LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING MARY BAKER EDDY CONTENTS DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERSONALITY OF GOD HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE BASIS OF MIND-HEALING MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING MEANS AND METHODS ONLY ONE SCHOOL _How would you define Christian Science?_ As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony. _What is the Principle of Christian Science?_ It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love,--these are the deific Principle. _Do you mean by this that God is a person?_ The word _person_ affords a large margin for misapprehension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent word is _personne_. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is _persona_. The Latin verb _personare_ is compounded of the prefix _per_ (through) and _sonare_ (to sound). In law, Blackstone applies the word _personal_ to _bodily presence_, in distinction from one's appearance (in court, for example) by deputy or proxy. Other definitions of _person_, as given by Webster, are "a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, or child; an individual of the human race." He adds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead. In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, and not a _person_, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining _person_ as especially a finite _human being_; but God is personal, if by _person_ is meant infinite Spirit. We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by using the phrase _an individual_ God, rather than _a personal_ God; for there is and can be but one infinite individual Spirit, whom mortals have named God. Science defines the individuality of God as supreme good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Deity, takes away the trammels assigned to God by finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions. _Is healing the sick the whole of Science?_ Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acquiescence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the flesh, from the flesh,--the material world and evil. This Life, Truth, and Love--this trinity of good--was individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models of the masters in music and painting are to artists. Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate morally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental error made manifest physically, and establishes the opposite manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony and health. _By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has a finite form?_ No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life, Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their universe is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious and eternal, of which our material universe and men are the counterfeits. _Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or Christian Science?_ Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither is it of human origin. All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force, which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit, that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and "loose the bands of Orion." There is no material science, if by that term you mean material intelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind. Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter, but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only. _Is there no matter?_ All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian Science, all is God, and there is naught beside Him. "God is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and extinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvellous light. The five material senses testify to the existence of matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence, but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let God be true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply, God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being made in the image of Spirit, or God. There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate, and sensationless,--considered apart from Mind. Lives there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is called matter, or matter without Mind. Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real consciousness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear, smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical senses. Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should believe man and the universe to be the football of chance and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as organized matter, and you must either become non-existent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to the equal inference that there is no matter. _The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assuming manifold forms and colors,--are they not tangible and material?_ As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God; but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes the place of good. Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response from Prof. S.P. Langley, the young American astronomer? He says that "color is in _us_," not "in the rose;" and he adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a fact "almost universally accepted, within the _last few years_, by physicists." _Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evidence of the material senses, and restoration of the true evidence of spiritual sense?_ It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predicate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstration. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer this question of how much you understand of Christian Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science, by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science, is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most difficult case so treated. The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and Health. _Is man material or spiritual?_ In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, perfect and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted. According to the evidence of the so-called physical senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the material evidence being wholly false. Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence. As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot originate its opposite, named matter. According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural science, so-called, or material laws, bring about alteration of species by transforming minerals into vegetables or plants into animals,--thus confusing and confounding the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple; no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk for babes. To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harmless likeness. _How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science in healing the sick?_ As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle, so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the practice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other healer. In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher condition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself a Christian Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the Truth and the Principle of Science, but opens a way whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchristian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure. By this I mean that mortal mind should not be falsely impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seemingly restored, the restoration is not lasting, and the patient is liable to a relapse,--"The last state of that man is worse than the first." The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian, in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more or less blended with error; and this error will spring up in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowledge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a poor practitioner, if not a malpractitioner. The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and this will is an outcome of what I call _mortal mind_,--a false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer of the lips from the Lord. The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If one is untruthful, his mental state weighs against his healing power; and similar effects come from pride, envy, lust, and all fleshly vices. The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases. The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good; and hence, that whatever militates against health, harmony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you have power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows, and its salutary influence on yourself and others. You must feel and know that God alone governs man; that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing evil or material; that material laws are only human beliefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise from the subjective states of thought, producing the beliefs of a mortal material universe,--so-called, and of material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors of thought,--diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter; for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease. Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body; and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true sense that God is Love,--and that Love punishes nothing but sin,--and the patient can then look up to the loving God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an error which Truth will destroy. You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God, which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the law of Spirit. Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ; first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipotent; and finally to the _understanding_ of God and man in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good, and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of goodness. Therefore good is one and All. This brings forward the next proposition in Christian Science,--namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice, and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else. In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstration is based on a true understanding of God and divine Science, which takes away every human belief, and, through the illumination of spiritual understanding, reveals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal. The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous operations of the human frame. He never talks about the structure of the material body. He never lays his hands on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body supposed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of error until they hold stronger than before the belief that they are first made sick by matter, and then restored through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is unchristian and unscientific. Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter, or that a so-called material organism controls the health or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well-being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food? Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat." The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material law, maintains human health and life. A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God, good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief, this basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to demonstrate the Principle of this Science, even in the smallest degree. A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality of man made in the divine and spiritual image of God. The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error--the human belief which saith there is more than one God,--there is more than one Life and one Mind. In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is God; there is none else beside Him." In John (iv. 24) we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, understood in their Science, elucidate my meaning. When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to what according to their own belief is diseased, is scientific; and if the _healer realizes_ the truth, it will free his patient. _What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian Scientists?_ These people should not be expected, more than others, to give all their time to Christian Science work, receiving no wages in return, but left to be fed, clothed, and sheltered by charity. Neither can they serve two masters, giving only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and "owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a suitable price for their services, and then _conscientiously earn their wages_, strictly practising Divine Science, and healing the sick. The author never sought charitable support, but gave fully seven-eighths of her time without remuneration, except the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for her labors was from classes, and often those were put off for months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take the full price of tuition only from those who were able to pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require others to pay him. No discount on tuition was made on higher classes, because their first classes furnished students with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared to enter higher classes. People are being healed by means of my instructions, both in and out of class. Many students, who have passed through a regular course of instruction from me, have been invalids and were healed in the class; but experience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though it heals the sick. It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to immediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with exuberant joy. This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tractable; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until this impulse subsides. This was the principal reason for advising diseased people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides invalids for students, until there were enough practitioners to fill in the best possible manner the department of healing. Teaching and healing should have separate departments, and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and thorough guardianship and grace. Only a very limited number of students can advantageously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and to fill anew the individual mind. If publicity and material control are the motives for teaching, then public lectures can take the place of private lessons; but the former can never give a thorough knowledge of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will never undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lectures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate to thorough class instruction in any branch of education. None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual signification of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind-healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation of the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that some novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors are committing this error. _Is there more than one school of scientific healing?_ In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is an irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and written correctly on this Science originates from the Principle and practice laid down in Science and Health, a work which I published in 1875. This was the first book, recorded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science purely mental. Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have originated with certain opposing factions, springing up among unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of aspirants which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their first-fruits, or else _post mortem_ evidence. A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress by blinding the people to the true character of Christian Science,--its moral power, and its divine efficacy to heal. The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and victories under which she needed miraculous vision to sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this Science. The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meekness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony and the footsteps of His flock. 
10437	----	Transcriber's Note: The spelling "diapson" occurs in our print copy in the article from the _American Art Journal_. PULPIT AND PRESS. Sixth Edition. BY REVEREND MARY BAKER EDDY, DISCOVERER AND FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 1897. CONTENTS DEDICATORY SERMON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXT-BOOK HYMN--_Laying the Corner Stone_ _Feed My Sheep_ _Christ My Refuge_ NOTE CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN BOSTON HERALD BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT JACKSON PATRIOT OUTLOOK AMERICAN ART JOURNAL BOSTON JOURNAL REPUBLIC, (WASHINGTON, D.C.) NEW YORK TRIBUNE KANSAS CITY JOURNAL MONTREAL HERALD BALTIMORE AMERICAN REPORTER, (LEBANON, IND.) NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER SYRACUSE POST NEW YORK HERALD TORONTO GLOBE CONCORD MONITOR PEOPLE AND PATRIOT UNION SIGNAL NEW CENTURY CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL CONCORD MONITOR PREFACE. This volume contains scintillations from press and pulpit--utterances which epitomize the story of the birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress during the ensuing thirty years. Three quarters of a century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have not only a record of the inclination given their own thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass of the world's opinion. It will then be instructive to turn backward the telescope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science as planted in the pathway of this generation; to note the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity--that the sick are healed and sinners saved, not by matter, but by Mind; and to further scan the features of the vast problem of eternal life, as expressed in the absolute power of Truth, and the actual bliss of man's existence in Science. MARY BAKER EDDY. February, 1895. TO The dear two thousand and six hundred Children, WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS _Of $4,460 were devoted to the Mother's Room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston_, THIS UNIQUE BOOK IS TENDERLY DEDICATED BY MARY BAKER EDDY. DEDICATORY SERMON. BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, First pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass., Delivered Jan. 6, 1895. TEXT--Psalms xxxvi, 8. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures." A new year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy and promise clad in white raiment, kissed--and encumbered with greetings--redolent with grief and gratitude. An old year is time's adult, and 1893 was a distinguished character, notable for good and evil. Time past and time present, both, may pain us, but time IMPROVED is eloquent in God's praise. For due refreshment garner the memory of 1894; for if wiser by reason of its large lessons, and records deeply engraven, great is the value thereof. Pass on returnless year! The path behind thee is with glory crowned; This spot whereon thou troddest was holy ground; Pass proudly to thy bier! To-day being with you in spirit, what need that I should be present _in propria persona_? Were I present, methinks I should be much like the Queen of Sheba, when she saw the house Solomon had erected. In the expressive language of Holy Writ, "there was no more spirit in her;" and she said: "Behold, the half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard." Both without and within, the spirit of beauty dominates the Mother Church, from its mosaic flooring to the soft shimmer of its starlit dome. Nevertheless, there is a thought higher and deeper than the edifice. Material light and shade are temporal, not eternal. Turning the attention from sublunary views, however enchanting, think for a moment with me of the house wherewith "they shall be abundantly satisfied," "Even the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." With the mind's eye glance at the direful scenes of the war between China and Japan. Imagine yourselves in a poorly barricaded fort, fiercely besieged by the enemy. Would you rush forth single-handed to combat the foe? Nay, would you not rather strengthen your citadel by every means in your power, and remain within the walls for its defense? Likewise should we do as metaphysicians and Christian Scientists. The real house in which "we live, move, and have our being" is Spirit, God, the eternal harmony of infinite Soul. The enemy we confront would overthrow this sublime fortress, and it behooves us to defend our heritage. How can we do this christianly scientific work? By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity end? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than boundless? Referring to this temple our Master said: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." He also said: "The kingdom of God is already within you." Know then that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly,--and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love. If you maintain this position, who or what can cause you to sin or suffer? Our surety is in our confidence that we are indeed dwellers in Truth and Love, man's eternal mansion. Such a heavenly assurance ends all warfare, and bids tumult cease, for the good fight we have waged is over, and divine Love gives us the true sense of victory. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures." No longer are we of the church militant, but of the church triumphant; and with Job of old we exclaim: "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." The river of his pleasures is a tributary of divine love, whose living waters have their source in God, and flow into everlasting Life. We drink of this river when all human desires are quenched, satisfied with what is pleasing to the divine Mind. Perchance some one of you may say, "The evidence of spiritual verity in me is so small that I am afraid. I feel so far from victory over the flesh that to reach out for a present realization of my hope savors of temerity. Because of my own unfitness for such a spiritual animus my strength is naught, and my faith fails." O thou "weak and infirm of purpose." Jesus said, "Be not afraid." "What if the little rain should say, 'So small a drop as I Can ne'er refresh a drooping earth, I'll tarry in the sky.'" Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine Source and daily demonstrate this. Then you will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillions in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop reflects the sun. Each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore is the seer's declaration true, that "one with God is a majority." A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree with blossoms. Who lives in Good, lives also in God,--lives in all Life, through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns. His existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle. Wait patiently on illimitable Love, the lord and giver of Life. _Reflect this Life_, and with it cometh the full power of Being. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house." In 1893 the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, used, in all its public sessions, my form of prayer since 1866; and one of the very clergymen who had publicly proclaimed me "the prayerless Mrs. Eddy," offered his audible adoration in the words I use, besides listening to an address on Christian Science from my pen, read by Judge S.J. Hanna, in that unique assembly. When the light of one friendship after another passes from earth to heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow of some deathless reality. Memory, faithful to goodness, holds in her secret chambers those characters of holiest sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to renounce. Such was the founder of the Concord School of Philosophy--the late A. Bronson Alcott. After the publication of SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, his athletic mind, scholarly and serene, was the first to bedew my hope with a drop of humanity. When the press and pulpit cannonaded this book, he introduced himself to its author by saying--"I have come to comfort you." Then eloquently paraphrasing it and prophesying its prosperity, his conversation with a beauty all its own reassured me. _That prophecy is fulfilled_. This book, in 1895, is in its ninety-first edition of one thousand copies. It is in the public libraries of the principal cities, colleges, and Universities of America; also the same in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Greece, Japan, India, and China, in the Oxford University and the Victoria Institute, England; in the Academy of Greece, and the Vatican at Rome. This book is the leaven fermenting religion; it is palpably working in the sermons, Sunday schools, and literature of our and other lands. This spiritual chemicalization is the upheaval produced when Truth is neutralizing error, and impurities are passing off. And it will continue till the antithesis of Christianity engendering the limited forms of a national or tyrannical religion yields to the church established by the Nazarene prophet and maintained on the spiritual foundation of Christ's healing. Good, the Anglo-Saxon term for God, unites Science to Christianity. It presents to the understanding, not matter, but Mind; not the deified drug, but the goodness of God--healing and saving mankind. The author of "Marriage of the Lamb," who made the mistake of thinking she caught her notions from my book, wrote to me in 1894, "Six months ago your book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH, was put into my hands. I had not read three pages before I realized I had found that for which I had hungered since girlhood, and was healed instantaneously of an ailment of seven years standing. I cast from me the false remedy I had vainly used and turned to the Great Physician. I went with my husband, a missionary to China, in 1884. He went out under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal church. I feel the truth is leading us to return to Japan." Another brilliant enunciator, seeker, and servant of Truth, the Rev. William R. Alger of Boston, signalled me kindly as my lone bark rose and fell and rode the rough sea. At a conversazione in Boston, he said, "You may find in Mrs. Eddy's metaphysical teachings, more than is dreamt of in your philosophy." Also that renowned apostle of anti-slavery, Wendell Phillips, the native course of whose mind never swerved from the chariot-paths of justice, speaking of my work, said: "Had I young blood in my veins I would help that woman." I love Boston, and especially the laws of the state whereof this city is the capital. To-day, as of yore, her laws have befriended progress. Yet when I recall the past,--how the gospel of healing was simultaneously praised and persecuted in Boston,--and remember also that God is just, I wonder whether, were our dear Master in our New England metropolis at this hour, he would not weep over it, as he wept over Jerusalem! Oh, ye tears! Not in vain did ye flow. Those sacred drops were but enshrined for future use, and God has now unsealed their receptacle with His outstretched arm. Those crystal globes made morals for mankind. They will rise with joy, and with power to wash away, in floods of forgiveness, every crime, even when mistakenly committed in the name of religion. An unjust, unmerciful, and oppressive priesthood must perish, for false prophets in the present as in the past stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. "God is not mocked," and "the word of our God abideth forever." I have ordained the Bible and the Christian Science text-book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, as pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,--so long as this church is satisfied with this pastor. This is my first ordination. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures." All praise to the press of America's Athens,--and throughout our land, the press has spoken out historically, impartially. Like the winds telling tales through the leaves of an ancient oak, unfallen, may our church chimes repeat my thanks to the press. Notwithstanding the perplexed condition of our nation's finances, the want and woe, with millions of dollars unemployed in our money centres, the Christian Scientists, within fourteen months, responded to the call for this church with $191,012. Not a mortgage was given nor a loan solicited, and the donors all touchingly told their privileged joy at helping to build the Mother Church. There was no urging, begging, or borrowing, only the need made known and forth came the money, or diamonds, which served to erect this "miracle in stone." Even the children vied with their parents to meet the demand. Little hands never before devoted to menial services, shoveled snow, and babes gave kisses to earn a few pence toward this consummation. Some of these lambs my prayers had christened, but Christ will rechristen them with his own new name. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast Thou perfected praise." The resident youthful workers were called BUSY BEES. Sweet society, precious children, your loving hearts and deft fingers distilled the nectar, and painted the finest flowers in the fabric of this history--even its centre-piece--Mother's Room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. The children are destined to witness results which will eclipse oriental dreams. They belong to the twentieth century. By juvenile aid, into the building fund have come $4,460. Ah, children, you are the bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of our race! Brothers of the Christian Science Board of Directors, when your tireless tasks are done--well done--no Delphian lyre could break the full chords of such a rest. May the altar you have built never be shattered in our hearts, but justice, mercy, and love kindle perpetually its fires. It was well that the brother whose appliances warm this house, warmed also our perishless hope, and nerved its grand fulfilment. Woman, true to her instinct, came to the rescue as sunshine from the clouds; so, when man quibbled over an architectural exigency, a woman climbed with feet and hands to the top of the tower, and helped settle the subject. After the loss of our late lamented pastor, Rev. D.A. Easton, the church services were maintained by excellent sermons from the editor of the _Christian Science Journal_ (who, with his better half, is a very whole man), together with the Sunday school giving this flock "drink from the river of His pleasures." Oh, glorious hope, and blessed assurance, "it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty hidden from the world. Self-forgetfulness, purity, and love are treasures untold--constant prayers, prophecies, and anointings. Practice, not profession,--goodness, not doctrines,--spiritual understanding, not mere belief, gain the ear and right hand of Omnipotence, and call down blessings infinite. Faith without works is dead. The foundation of enlightened faith is Christ's teachings and _practice_. It was our Master's self-immolation, his life-giving love, healing both mind and body, that raised the deadened conscience, paralyzed by inactive faith, to a quickened sense of mortal's necessities,--and God's power and purpose to supply them. It was, in the words of the Psalmist, He "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." Rome's fallen fanes and silent Aventine is glory's tomb; her pomp and power lie low in dust. Our land, more favored, had its Pilgrim Fathers. On shores of solitude at Plymouth Rock, they planted a nation's heart,--the rights of conscience, imperishable glory. No dream of avarice or ambition broke their exalted purpose, theirs was the wish to reign in hope's reality--the realm of Love. Christian Scientists, you have planted your standard on the Rock of Christ, the true, the spiritual idea,--the chief corner-stone in the house of our God. And our Master said: "The stone which the builders rejected the same is become the head of the corner." If you are less appreciated to-day than your forefathers, wait--for if you are as devout as they and more scientific, as progress certainly demands, your plant is immortal. Let us rejoice that chill vicissitudes have not withheld the timely shelter of this house, which descended like day spring from on high. Divine Presence, breathe Thou thy blessing on every heart in this house. Speak out, oh, soul! This is the new-born of Spirit, this is His redeemed, this, His beloved. May the Kingdom of God within you--with you alway--re-ascending, bear you outward, upward, Heavenward. May the sweet song of silver-throated singers, making melody more real, and the organ's voice as the sound of many waters, and the Word spoken in this sacred Temple dedicated to the ever-present God--mingle with the joy of angels and rehearse your heart's holy intents. May all whose means, energies, and prayers helped erect the Mother Church, find within it home, and _Heaven_. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXT-BOOK. The following selections from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, pages 560-563, were read from the platform. The impressive stillness of the audience indicated close attention. _Revelation_ xii, 10-12. And I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven: Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. For victory over a single sin we give thanks, and magnify the Lord of Hosts. Then what shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high Heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation--by which we lay down all for Christ, Truth, in our warfare against error--is a rule in Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle,--as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the mother. Every mortal, at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God. The Scripture, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many," is literally fulfilled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth, whereby the nothingness of error is seen, and we know that its nothingness is in proportion to its wickedness. He that touches the hem of Christ's robe, and masters his mortal belief, animality and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,--in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love. Alas for those who break faith with Divine Science, and fail to strangle the serpent of sin, as well as of sickness! They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief. They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift their heads above the drowning wave. What must the end be? They must eventually expiate their sin through suffering. The sin which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with accelerated force; for the evil knoweth its time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of self-torture it may take to remove all sin and its effects, must depend upon its obduracy. _Revelation_ xii, 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. The march of mind and honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,--into human indignation; for one extreme follows another. _Revelation_ xii, 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. Millions of unprejudiced minds--simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert--are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences. What if the old dragon sends forth a new flood, to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night. In this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be understood. Those ready for the blessing you impart will give thanks. The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave. When God heals the sick or the sinful, they should know the great benefit Mind has wrought. They should also know the great delusion of mortal mind, when it makes them sick or sinful. Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind; but they are not as willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose its hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity. Why this backwardness, since exposure is necessary, to ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like you better when you tell them their virtues, than when you tell them their vices. It requires the spirit of our great Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure, for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race. Who is telling mankind of their foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards, who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning. At all times, and under all circumstances, overcome evil with Good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one Divinity. HYMNS. BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY. (Set to the Church chimes and sung on this occasion.) LAYING THE CORNER STONE. _Laus Deo_, it is done. Rolled away from loving heart Is a stone,-- Joyous, risen, we depart Having one. _Laus Deo_,--on this rock (Heaven chiseled squarely good) Stands His Church-- God is Love and understood By His flock. _Laus Deo_, night starlit Slumbers not in God's embrace; Then oh, man! Like this stone be in thy place; Stand, not sit. Cold, silent, stately stone, Dirge and song and shoutings low, In thy heart Dwell serene,--and sorrow? No, It has none, _Laus Deo_! FEED MY SHEEP. Shepherd, show me how to go O'er the hillside steep, How to gather, how to sow, How to feed Thy sheep; I will listen for Thy voice, Lest my footsteps stray, I will follow and rejoice All the rugged way. Thou wilt bind the stubborn will, Wound the callous breast, Make self righteousness be still, Break earth's stupid rest; Strangers on a barren shore Lab'ring long and lone-- We would enter by the door, And Thou know'st Thine own. So when day grows dark and cold, Tear or triumph harms, Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, Take them in Thine arms; Feed the hungry, heal the heart, Till the morning's beam; White as wool, ere they depart-- Shepherd, wash them clean. CHRIST MY REFUGE. O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind There sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain And wake a white-winged angel throng Of thoughts, illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show Life's burdens light. We kiss the cross, and wait to know A world more bright. And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea We see Christ walk, And come to us, and tenderly, Divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the Rock Upon Life's shore; 'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock, Oh, nevermore! From tired joy and grief afar, And nearer Thee,-- Father, where Thine own children are, I love to be. My prayer, some daily good to do To Thine, for Thee,-- Some offering pure of Love, whereto God leadeth me. NOTE.--The land whereon stands The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was first purchased by the church and society. Owing to a heavy loss they were unable to pay the mortgage, therefore I paid it and through trustees gave back the land to the church. In 1892 I had to recover the land from the trustees, reorganize the church, and reobtain its charter--not, however, through the state commissioner, who refused to grant it, but by means of a statute of the state, and through Directors regive the land to the church. In 1895 I reconstructed my original system of ministry and church government. Thus committed to the providence of God, the prosperity of this church is unsurpassed. From first to last the Mother church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit, even that shadow, whose substance is the divine Spirit, imperatively propelling the greatest moral, physical, civil, and religious reform ever known on earth. In the words of the Prophet: "The shadow of a great Rock in a weary land." This church was dedicated on January 6, anciently one of the many dates selected and observed in the East as the day of the birth and baptism of our Master Metaphysician, Jesus of Nazareth. Christian Scientists, their children, and grandchildren to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us. A love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,--that loves only because it _is_ Love. Moreover, they love their enemies, even those that hate them. This we all must do to be Christian Scientists in spirit and in truth. I long, and live, to see this love demonstrated. I am seeking and praying for it to inhabit my own heart and to be made manifest in my life. Who will unite with me in this pure purpose, and faithfully struggle till it be accomplished? Let this be our Christian endeavor society which Christ organizes and blesses. While we entertain due respect and fellowship for what is good and doing good in all denominations of religion, and shun whatever would isolate us from a true sense of goodness in others--we cannot serve mammon. Christian Scientists are really united to only that which is Christlike, but they are not indifferent to the welfare of any one. To perpetuate a cold distance between our denomination and other sects, and close the door on church or individuals--however much this is done to us--is not Christian Science. Go not into the way of the unchristly, but wheresoever you recognize a clear expression of God's likeness, there abide in confidence and hope. Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source. Popularity, self aggrandizement, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality, must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment with unworldliness, can give peace and good will towards men. All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer,--The Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth,--"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as in Heaven." If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century, every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in His name. Christ will give to Christianity His new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists. When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are broken, and the bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual understanding and Love, there will be unity of spirit, and the healing power of Christ will prevail. Then shall Zion have put on her most beautiful garments, and her waste places budded and blossomed as the rose. CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS. (_Daily Inter-Ocean_, Chicago, December 31, 1894.) MARY BAKER EDDY. Completion of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston.--"Our Prayer in Stone."--Description of the Most Unique Structure in Any City.--A Beautiful Temple and Its Furnishings--Mrs. Eddy's Work and Her Influence. BOSTON, MASS., December 28.--_Special Correspondence_.--The "great awakening" of the time of Jonathan Edwards has been paralleled daring the last decade by a wave of idealism that has swept over the country, manifesting itself under several different aspects and under various names, but each having the common identity of spiritual demand. This movement, under the guise of Christian Science, and ingenuously calling out a closer inquiry into oriental philosophy, prefigures itself to us as one of the most potent factors in the social evolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. History shows the curious fact that the closing years of every century are years of more intense life manifested in unrest, or in aspiration, and scholars of special research, like Professor Max Muller, assert that the end of a cycle, as is the latter part of the present century, is marked by peculiar intimations of man's immortal life. The completion of the first Christian Science church erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the fashionable Back Bay between Commonwealth and Huntington avenues. It is one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, as it is officially called, is termed by its founders "our prayer in stone." It is located at the intersection of Norway and Falmouth streets on a plot of triangular ground, the design a Romanesque tower with a circular front and an octagonal form accented by stone porticos and turreted corners. On the front is a marble tablet with the following inscription carved in bold relief: The First Church of Christ, Scientist, erected Anno Domini, 1894. A testimonial to our beloved teacher, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science; author of "Science And Health, with Key to the Scriptures;" President of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and the first Pastor of this denomination. THE CHURCH EDIFICE. The church is built of Concord granite in light gray, with trimmings of the pink granite of New Hampshire, Mrs. Eddy's native State. The architecture is Romanesque throughout. The tower is 120 feet in height and 21-1/2 feet square. The entrances are of marble, with doors of antique oak richly carved. The windows of stained glass are very rich in pictorial effect. The lighting and cooling of the church--for cooling is a recognized feature as well as heating--are done by electricity, and the heat generated by two large boilers in the basement is distributed by the four systems with motor electric power. The partitions are of iron; the floors of marble in mosaic work, and the edifice is therefore as literally fireproof as is conceivable. The principal features are the auditorium, seating 1,100 people and capable of holding 1,500; the "Mother's room," designed for the exclusive use of Mrs. Eddy; the "directors' room," and the vestry. The girders are all of iron, the roof is of terra cotta tiles, the galleries are in plaster relief, the window frames are of iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron, with marble stairs of rose pink and marble approaches. The vestibule is a fitting entrance to this magnificent temple. In the ceiling is a sunburst with a seven-pointed star, which illuminates it. From this are the entrances leading to the auditorium, the "Mother's room," and the directors' room. The auditorium is seated with pews of curly birch, upholstered in old rose plush. The floor is in white Italian mosaic, with frieze of the old rose, and the wainscoting repeats the same tints. The base and cap are of pink Tennessee marble. On the walls are bracketed oxidized silver lamps of Roman design, and there are frequent illuminated texts from the Bible and from Mrs. Eddy's SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES impaneled. A sunburst in the centre of the ceiling takes the place of chandeliers. There is a disc of cut glass in decorative designs covering 144 electric lights in the form of a star, which is twenty-one inches from point to point, the centre being of pure white light, and each ray under prisms which reflect the rainbow tints. The galleries are richly paneled in relief work. The organ and choir gallery is spacious and rich beyond the power of words to depict. The platform--corresponding to the chancel of an Episcopal church--is a mosaic work, with richly carved seats following the sweep of its curve, with a lamp stand of the rennaissance period on either end, bearing six richly wrought oxidized silver lamps, eight feet in height. The great organ comes from Detroit. It is one of vast compass, with æolian attachment, and cost $11,000. It is the gift of a single individual--a votive offering of gratitude for the healing of the wife of the donor. The chime of bells includes fifteen, of fine range and perfect tone. THE "MOTHER'S ROOM." The "Mother's room" is approached by an entrance of Italian marble, and over the door in large golden letters on a marble tablet, is the word "Love." In this room the mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque border and is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The mantel is of onyx and gold. Before the great bay window hangs an Athenian lamp over two hundred years old, which will be kept always burning day and night. Leading off the "Mother's room" are toilet apartments, with full length French mirrors and every convenience. The directors' room is very beautiful in marble approaches and rich carving, and off this is a vault for the safe preservation of papers. The vestry seats 800 people, and opening from it are three large class rooms and the pastor's study. The windows are a remarkable feature of this temple. There are no "memorial" windows: the entire church is a Testimonial, not a memorial--a point that the members strongly insist upon. In the auditorium are two rose windows--one representing the heavenly city which "cometh down from God out of Heaven," with six small windows beneath, emblematic of the six water pots referred to in John xi:6. The other rose window represents the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Beneath are two small windows bearing palms of victory and others with lamps typical of Science and Health. Another great window tells its pictorial story of the four Marys--the mother of Jesus, Mary anointing the head of Jesus, Mary washing the feet of Jesus, Mary at the resurrection; and the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse, chapter 12, God-crowned. One more window in the auditorium represents the raising of Lazarus. In the gallery are windows representing John on the Isle of Patmos and others of pictorial significance. In the "Mother's room" the windows are of still more unique interest. A large bay window composed of three separate panels is designed to be wholly typical of the work of Mrs. Eddy. The central panel represents her in solitude and meditation searching the scriptures by the light of a single candle, while the Star of Bethlehem shines down from above. Above this is a panel containing the Christian Science seal, and other panels are decorated with emblematic designs with the legends, "Heal the Sick," "Raise the Dead," "Cleanse the Lepers," and "Cast Out Demons." The cross and the crown and the star are presented in appropriate decorative effect. The cost of this church is $221,000, exclusive of the land--a gift from Mrs. Eddy--which is valued at some $40,000. THE ORDER OF SERVICE. The order of service in the Christian Science Church does not differ widely from that of any other sect save that its service includes the use of Mrs. Eddy's book entitled SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES in perhaps equal measure to its use of the Bible--The reading is from the two alternately; the singing is from a compilation called the "Christian Science Hymnal," but its songs are for the most part those devotional hymns from Herbert, Faber, Robertson, Wesley, Browning, and other recognized devotional poets, with selections from Whittier and Lowell, as are found in the hymn books of the Unitarian churches. For the past year or two Judge Hanna, formerly of Chicago, has filled the office of pastor to the church in this city, which held its meetings in Chickering hall, and later in Copley hall, in the new Grundmann Studio building on Copley square. Preceding Judge Hanna were Rev. D.A. Easton and Rev. L.P. Norcross, both of whom had formerly been Congregational clergymen. The organizer and first pastor of the church here was Mrs. Eddy herself, of whose work I shall venture to speak, a little later, in this article. Last Sunday I gave myself the pleasure of attending the service held in Copley hall. The spacious apartment was thronged with a congregation whose remarkable earnestness impressed the observer. There was no straggling of late-comers. Before the appointed hour every seat in the hall was filled and a large number of chairs pressed into service for the overflowing throng. The music was spirited, and the selections from the Bible and from SCIENCE AND HEALTH were finely read by Judge Hanna. Then came his sermon, which dealt directly with the command of Christ to "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons." In his admirable discourse, Judge Hanna said that while all these injunctions could, under certain conditions, be interpreted and fulfilled literally, the special lesson was to be taken spiritually--to cleanse the leprosy of sin, to cast out the demons of evil thought. The discourse was able, and helpful in its suggestive interpretation. THE CHURCH MEMBERS. Later I was told that almost the entire congregation was composed of persons who had either been themselves, or had seen members of their own families, healed by Christian Science treatment; and I was further told that once when a Boston clergyman remonstrated with Judge Hanna for enticing a separate congregation rather than offering their strength to unite with churches already established--I was told he replied that the Christian Science church did not recruit itself from other churches, but from the graveyards! The church numbers now 4,000 members, but this estimate, as I understand, is not limited to the Boston adherents, but includes those all over the country. The ceremonial of uniting is to sign a brief "confession of faith," written by Mrs. Eddy, and to unite in communion, which is not celebrated by outward symbols of bread and wine, but by uniting in silent prayer. The "confession of faith" includes the declaration that the Scriptures are the guide to eternal life; that there is a Supreme Being, and his Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that man is made in his image. It affirms the atonement; it recognizes Jesus as the teacher and guide to salvation; the forgiveness of sin by God, and affirms the power of truth over error, and the need of living faith at the moment to realize the possibilities of the divine life. The entire membership of Christian Scientists throughout the world now exceeds 200,000 people. The church in Boston was organized by Mrs. Eddy, and the first meeting held on April 19, 1879. It opened with twenty-six members, and within fifteen years it has grown to its present impressive proportions, and has now its own magnificent church building, costing over $200,000, and entirely paid for when its consecration service on January 6 shall be celebrated. This is certainly a very remarkable retrospect. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this denomination and discoverer of Christian Science, as they term her work in affirming the present application of the principles asserted by Jesus, is a most interesting personality. At the risk of colloquialism, I am tempted to "begin at the beginning" of my own knowledge of Mrs. Eddy, and take, as the point of departure, my first meeting with her and the subsequent development of some degree of familiarity with the work of her life which that meeting inaugurated for me. MRS. EDDY. It was during some year in the early '80's that I became aware--from that close contact with public feeling resulting from editorial work in daily journalism--that the Boston atmosphere was largely thrilled and pervaded by a new and increasing interest in the dominance of mind over matter, and that the central figure in all this agitation was Mrs. Eddy. To a note which I wrote her, begging the favor of an interview for press use, she most kindly replied, naming an evening on which she would receive me. At the hour named I rang the bell at a spacious house on Columbus avenue, and I was hardly more than seated before Mrs. Eddy entered the room. She impressed me as singularly graceful and winning in bearing and manner, and with great claim to personal beauty. Her figure was tall, slender, and as flexible in movement as that of a Delsarte disciple; her face, framed in dark hair and lighted by luminous blue eyes, had the transparency and rose-flush of tint so often seen in New England, and she was magnetic, earnest, impassioned. No photographs can do the least justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? I mentally questioned this modern St. Catherine who was dominating her followers like any abbess of old. She told me the story of her life, so far as outward events may translate those inner experiences which alone are significant. Mary Baker was the daughter of Mark and Abigail (Ambrose) Baker, and was born in Concord, N.H., somewhere in the early decade of 1820-'30. At the time I met her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty, and this, she told me, was due to the principles of Christian Science. On her father's side Mrs. Eddy came from Scotch and English ancestry, and Hannah Moore was a relative of her grandmother. Deacon Ambrose, her maternal grandfather, was known as a "godly man," and her mother was a religious enthusiast, a saintly and consecrated character. One of her brothers, Albert Baker, graduated at Dartmouth and achieved eminence as a lawyer. MRS. EDDY AS A CHILD. As a child Mary Baker saw visions and dreamed dreams. When eight years of age she began, like Jeanne d'Arc, to hear "voices," and for a year she heard her name called distinctly, and would often run to her mother questioning if she were wanted. One night the mother related to her the story of Samuel, and bade her, if she heard the voice again to reply as he did: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." The call came, but the little maid was afraid and did not reply. This caused her tears of remorse and she prayed for forgiveness, and promised to reply if the call came again. It came, and she answered as her mother had bidden her, and after that it ceased. These experiences, of which Catholic biographies are full, and which history not unfrequently emphasizes, certainly offer food for meditation. Theodore Parker related that when he was a lad at work in a field one day on his father's farm at Lexington, an old man with a snowy beard suddenly appeared at his side, and walked with him as he worked, giving him high counsel and serious thought. All inquiry in the neighborhood as to whence the stranger came or whither he went was fruitless; no one else had seen him, and Mr. Parker always believed, so a friend has told me, that his visitor was a spiritual form from another world. It is certainly true that many and many persons, whose life has been destined to more than ordinary achievement, have had experiences of voices or visions in their early youth. At an early age Miss Baker was married to Colonel Glover, of Charleston, S.C., who lived only a year. She returned to her father's home--in 1844--and from that time until 1866 no special record is to be made. In 1866, while living in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) met with a severe accident and her case was pronounced hopeless by the physicians. There came a Sunday morning when her pastor came to bid her good-by before proceeding to his morning service as there was no probability that she would be alive at its close. During this time she suddenly became aware of a divine illumination and ministration. She requested those with her to withdraw, and reluctantly they did so, believing her delirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she walked into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died, and that it was my apparition," she said. THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVINE HEALING. From that hour dated her conviction of the principle of divine healing, and that it is as true to-day as it was in the days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. "I felt that the divine spirit had wrought a miracle," she said, in reference to this experience. "How, I could not tell, but later I found it to be in perfect scientific accord with the divine law." From 1866-'69, Mrs. Eddy withdrew from the world to meditate, to pray, to search the Scriptures. "During this time," she said, in reply to my questions, "the Bible was my only text-book. It answered my questions as to the process by which I was restored to health; it came to me with a new meaning, and suddenly I apprehended the spiritual meaning of the teaching of Jesus and the principle and the law involved in spiritual science and metaphysical healing--in a word--Christian science." Mrs. Eddy came to perceive that Christ's healing was not miraculous, but was simply a natural fulfilment of divine law--a law as operative in the world to-day as it was nineteen hundred years ago. "Divine science is begotten of spirituality," she says, "since only the 'pure in heart' can see God." In writing of this experience, Mrs. Eddy has said: I had learned that thought must be spiritualized in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in Divine Science. The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. I had learned that mind reconstructed the body and that nothing else could. All science is a revelation. Through homeopathy, too, Mrs. Eddy became convinced of the principle of mind healing, discovering that the more attenuated the drug, the more potent was its effects. In 1877 Mrs. Glover married Dr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, of Londonderry, Vermont, a physician who had come into sympathy with her own views, and who was the first to place "Christian Scientist," on the sign at his door. Dr. Eddy died in 1882, a year after her founding of the "Metaphysical College" in Boston, in which he taught. The work in the Metaphysical College lasted nine years, and it was closed (in 1889) in the very zenith of its prosperity as Mrs. Eddy felt it essential to the deeper foundation of her religious work to retire from active contact with the world. To this college came hundreds and hundreds of students, from Europe as well as this country. I was present at the class lectures now and then by Mrs. Eddy's kind invitation, and such earnestness of attention as was given to her morning talks by the men and women present I never saw equalled. MRS. EDDY'S PERSONALITY. On the evening that I first met Mrs. Eddy by her hospitable courtesy, I went to her peculiarly fatigued. I came away in a state of exhilaration and energy that made me feel I could have walked any conceivable distance. I have met Mrs. Eddy many times since then, and always with this experience repeated. Several years ago Mrs. Eddy removed from Columbus to Commonwealth avenue, where, just beyond Massachusetts avenue, at the entrance to the Back Bay Park, she bought one of the most beautiful residences in Boston. The interior is one of the utmost taste and luxury, and the house is now occupied by Judge and Mrs. Hanna, who are the editors of the _Christian Science Journal_, a monthly publication, and to whose courtesy I am much indebted for some of the data of this paper. "It is a pleasure to give any information for _The Inter-Ocean_," remarked Mrs. Hanna, "for it is the great daily that is so fair and so just in its attitude toward all questions." The increasing demands of the public on Mrs. Eddy have been, it may be, one factor in her removal to Concord, N.H., where she has a beautiful residence, called Pleasant View. Her health is excellent, and although her hair is white, she retains in a great degree her energy and power; she takes a daily walk and drives in the afternoon. She personally attends to a vast correspondence; superintends the church in Boston, and is engaged on further writings on Christian Science. In every sense she is the recognized head of the Christian Science Church. At the same time it is her most earnest aim to eliminate the element of personality from the faith. "On this point, Mrs. Eddy feels very strongly," said a gentleman to me on Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing room, where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the soprano for the choir of the new church, and one or two other friends were gathered. "Mother feels very strongly," he continued, "the danger and the misfortune of a church depending on any one personality. It is difficult not to centre too closely around a highly gifted personality." THE FIRST ASSOCIATION. The first Christian Scientist Association was organized on July 4, 1876, by seven persons, including Mrs. Eddy. In April, 1879, the church was founded with twenty-six members, and its charter obtained the following June. Mrs. Eddy had preached in other parishes for five years before being ordained in this church, which ceremony took place in 1881. The first edition of Mrs. Eddy's book, SCIENCE AND HEALTH, was issued in 1875. During these succeeding twenty years it has been greatly revised and enlarged, and it is now in its ninety-first edition. It consists of fourteen chapters, whose titles are as follows: "Science, Theology, Medicine," "Physiology," "Footsteps of Truth," "Creation," "Science of Being," "Christian Science and Spiritualism," "Marriage," "Animal Magnetism," "Some Objections Answered," "Prayer," "Atonement and Eucharist," "Christian Science Practice," "Teaching Christian Science," "Recapitulation." Key to the Scriptures, Genesis, Apocalypse, and Glossary. The Christian Scientists do not accept the belief we call spiritualism. They believe those who have passed the change of death are in so entirely different a plane of consciousness that between the embodied and disembodied there is no possibility of communication. They are diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Karma and of reincarnation, which are the tenets of theosophy. They hold with strict fidelity to what they believe to be the literal teachings of Christ. Yet each and all these movements, however they may differ among themselves, are phases of idealism and manifestations of a higher spirituality seeking expression. It is good that each and all shall prosper, serving those who find in one form of belief or another their best aid and guidance, and that all meet on common ground in the great essentials of love to God and love to man as a signal proof of the divine origin of humanity which finds no rest until it finds the peace of the Lord in spirituality. They all teach that one great truth that: God's greatness flows around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, his rest. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. I add on the following page a little poem that I consider superbly sweet--from my friend, Miss Whiting, the talented author of "THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL."--M.B. EDDY. AT THE WINDOW. [_Written for the Traveller_.] The sunset, burning low, Throws o'er the Charles its flood of golden light. Dimly, as in a dream, I watch the flow Of waves of light. The splendor of the sky Repeats its glory in the river's flow; And sculptured angels, on the gray church tower, Gaze on the world below. Dimly, as in a dream, I see the hurrying throng before me pass, But 'mid them all I only see _one_ face Under the meadow grass. Ah, love! I only know How thoughts of you forever cling to me: I wonder how the seasons come and go Beyond the sapphire sea? LILLIAN WHITING. April 15, 1888. (_Boston Herald_, January 7, 1895.) EXTRACT. A TEMPLE GIVEN TO GOD.--DEDICATION OF THE MOTHER CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Novel Method of Enabling Six Thousand Believers to Attend the Exercises--The Service Repeated Four Times--Sermon by Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Founder of the Denomination--Beautiful Room Which the Children Built. With simple ceremonies, four times repeated, in the presence of four different congregations, aggregating nearly 6,000 persons, the unique and costly edifice erected in Boston at Norway and Falmouth streets as a home for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a testimonial to the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, was yesterday dedicated to the worship of God. The structure came forth from the hands of the artisans with every stone paid for--with an appeal, not for more money, but for a cessation of the tide of contributions which continued to flow in after the full amount needed was received. From every state in the Union and from many lands, the love offerings of the disciples of Christian Science came to help erect this beautiful structure, and more than 4,000 of these contributors came to Boston from the far-off Pacific coast and the Gulf states and all the territory that lies between, to view the new-built temple and to listen to the message sent them by the teacher they revere. From all New England the members of the denomination gathered; New York sent its hundreds, and even from the distant states came parties of 40 and 50. The large auditorium, with its capacity for holding 1,400 or 1,500 persons, was hopelessly incapable of receiving this vast throng, to say nothing of the nearly 1,000 local believers. Hence the service was repeated until all who wished had heard and seen; and each of the four vast congregations filled the church to repletion. At 7:30 a.m. the chimes in the great stone tower, which rises 126 feet above the earth, rung out their message of "Peace on earth and good will to men." Old familiar hymns--"All Hail the Power of Jesus's Name," and others such--were chimed until the hour for the dedication service had come. At 9 a.m. the first congregation gathered. Before this service had closed the large vestry room and the spacious lobbies and the sidewalks around the church were all filled with a waiting multitude. At 10:30 o'clock another service began, and at noon still another. Then there was an intermission, and at 3 p.m. the service was repeated for the last time. There was scarcely even a minor variation in the exercises at any one of these services. At 10:30 a.m., however, the scene was rendered particularly interesting by the presence of several hundred children in the central pews. These were the little contributors to the building fund, whose money was devoted to the "Mother's room," a superb apartment intended for the sole use of Mrs. Eddy. These children are known in the church as the "Busy Bees," and each of them wore a white satin badge with a golden beehive stamped upon it, and beneath the beehive the words "Mother's Room," in gilt letters. The pulpit end of the auditorium was rich with the adornment of flowers. On the wall of the choir gallery above the platform, where the organ is to be hereafter placed, a huge seven pointed star was hung--a star of lilies resting on palms, with a centre of white immortelles, upon which in letters of red were the words: "Love-Children's Offering--1894." In the choir and the steps of the platform were potted palms and ferns and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed with ferns and pure white roses fastened with a broad ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of white carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase filled with beautiful pink roses. Two combined choirs--that of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, of New York, and the choir of the home church, numbering thirty-five singers in all--led the singing, under the direction, respectively, of Mr. Henry Lincoln Case, and Miss Elsie Lincoln. Judge S.J. Hanna, editor of the _Christian Science Journal_, presided over the exercises. On the platform with him were Messrs. Ira O. Knapp, Joseph Armstrong, Stephen A. Chase, and William B. Johnson, who compose the board of directors, and Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, a distinguished elocutionist, and a native of Concord, New Hampshire. The utmost simplicity marked the exercises. After an organ voluntary, the hymn, "Laus Deo, It Is Done," written by Mrs. Eddy for the corner-stone laying last spring, was sung by the congregation. Selections from the Scriptures and from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, were read by Judge Hanna and Dr. Eddy. A few minutes of silent prayer came next, followed by the recitation of the Lord's prayer, with its spiritual interpretation as given in the Christian Science text-book. The sermon prepared for the occasion by Mrs. Eddy, which was looked forward to as the chief feature of the dedication, was then read by Mrs. Bemis. Mrs. Eddy remained at her home in Concord, N.H., during the day, because, as heretofore stated in _The Herald_, it is her custom to discourage among her followers that sort of personal worship which religious teachers so often receive. Before presenting the sermon, Mrs. Bemis read the following letter from a former pastor of the church: _Rev. Mary Baker Eddy_--Dear Teacher, Leader, Guide: Laus Deo. It is done. At last you begin to see the fruition of that you have worked, toiled, prayed for. The prayer in stone is accomplished. Across 2,000 miles of space, as mortal sense puts it, I send my hearty congratulations. You are fully occupied, but I thought you would willingly pause for an instant to receive this brief message of congratulation. Surely it marks an era in the blessed onward work of Christian Science. It is a most auspicious hour in your eventful career. While we all rejoice, yet the mother in Israel, alone of us all, comprehends its full significance. Yours lovingly, LANSON P. NORCROSS. (_Boston Sunday Globe_, January 6, 1895.) EXTRACT. Stately Home for Believers in Gospel Healing.--A Woman of Wealth Who Devotes All to Her Church Work. Christian Science has shown its power over its students, as they are called, by building a church by voluntary contribution, the first of its kind, a church which will be dedicated to-day, with a quarter of a million dollars expended and free of debt. The money has flowed in from all parts of the United States and Canada without any special appeal, and it kept coming until the custodian of funds cried "enough" and refused to accept any further checks by mail or otherwise. Men, women, and children lent a helping hand, some giving a mite and some substantial sums. Sacrifices were made in many an instance which will never be known in this world. Christian Scientists not only say that they can effect cures of disease and erect churches, but add that they can get their buildings finished on time even when the feat seems impossible to mortal senses. Read the following from a publication of the new denomination: One of the grandest and most helpful features of this glorious consummation is this: that one month before the close of the year every evidence of material sense declared that the church's completion within the year 1894 transcended human possibility. The predictions of workman and onlooker alike were that it could not be completed before April or May of 1895. Much was the ridicule heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who declared and repeatedly asseverated to the contrary. This is indeed, then, a scientific demonstration. It has proved, in most striking manner, the oft-repeated declarations of our text-books, that the evidence of the mortal senses is unreliable. A week ago Judge Hanna withdrew from the pastorate of the church, saying he gladly laid down his responsibilities to be succeeded by the grandest of ministers--the Bible and "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES." This action it appears, was the result of rules made by Mrs. Eddy. The sermons hereafter will consist of passages read from the two books by readers, who will be elected each year by the congregation. A story has been abroad that Judge Hanna was so eloquent and magnetic that he was attracting listeners who came to hear him preach rather than in search of the truth as taught. Consequently the new rules were formulated. But at Christian Science headquarters this is denied; Mrs. Eddy says the words of the judge speak to the point, and that no such inference is to be drawn therefrom. In Mrs. Eddy's personal reminiscences, which are published under the title of "Retrospection and Introspection," much is told of herself in detail that can only be touched upon in this brief sketch. Aristocratic to the backbone, Mrs. Eddy takes delight in going back to the ancestral tree and in tracing those branches which are identified with good and great names both in Scotland and England. Her family came to this country not long before the Revolution. Among the many souvenirs that Mrs. Eddy remembers as belonging to her grandparents was a heavy sword, encased in a brass scabbard, upon which had been inscribed the name of the kinsman upon whom the sword had been bestowed by Sir William Wallace of mighty Scottish fame. Mrs. Eddy applied herself, like other girls, to her studies, though perhaps with an unusual zest, delighting in philosophy, logic, and moral science, as well as looking into the ancient languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Her last marriage was in the spring of 1877, when, at Lynn, Mass., she became the wife of Asa Gilbert Eddy. He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday-School, of which he was the superintendent, and later he attracted the attention of many clergymen of other denominations by his able lectures upon scriptural topics. He died in 1882. Mrs. Eddy is known to her circle of pupils and admirers as the editor and publisher of the first official organ of this sect. It was called the _Journal of Christian Science_, and has had great circulation with the members of this fast-increasing faith. In recounting her experiences as the pioneer of Christian Science, she states that she sought knowledge concerning the physical side in this research through the different schools of allopathy, homeopathy, and so forth, without receiving any real satisfaction. No ancient or modern philosophy gave her any distinct statement of the science of mind healing. She claims that no human reason has been equal to the question. And she also defines carefully the difference in the theories between faith cure and Christian Science, dwelling particularly upon the terms belief and understanding, which are the key words respectively used in the definitions of these two healing arts. Besides her Boston home, Mrs. Eddy has a delightful country home one mile from the state house of New Hampshire's quiet capital, an easy driving distance for her when she wishes to catch a glimpse of the world. But for the most part she lives very much retired, driving rather into the country, which is so picturesque all about Concord and its surrounding villages. The big house, so delightfully remodeled and modernized from a primitive homestead, that nothing is left excepting the angles and pitch of the roof, is remarkably well placed upon a terrace that slopes behind the buildings, while they themselves are in the midst of green stretches of lawns, dotted with beds of flowering shrubs, with here and there a fountain or summer-house. Mrs. Eddy took the writer straight to her beloved "lookout"--a broad piazza on the south side of the second story of the house, where she can sit in her swinging chair, revelling in the lights and shades of spring and summer greenness. Or, as just then, in the gorgeous October coloring of the whole landscape that lies below, across the farm, which stretches on through an intervale of beautiful meadows and pastures to the woods that skirt the valley of the little truant river, as it wanders eastward. It pleased her to point out her own birthplace. Straight as the crow flies, from her piazza, does it lie on the brow of Bow hill, and then she paused and reminded the reporter that Congressman Baker from New Hampshire, her cousin, was born and bred in that same neighborhood. The photograph of Hon. Hoke Smith, another distinguished relative, adorned the mantel. Then my eye caught her family coat of arms and the diploma given her by the Society of the Daughters of the Revolution. The natural and lawful pride that comes with a tincture of blue and brave blood, is perhaps one of her characteristics, as is many another well born woman's. She had a long list of worthy ancestors in colonial and revolutionary days, and the McNeils, and General Knox, figure largely in her genealogy, as well as the hero who killed the ill-starred Paugus. This big, sunny room which Mrs. Eddy calls her den--or sometimes "mother's room," when speaking of her many followers who consider her their spiritual leader--has the air of hospitality that marks its hostess herself. Mrs. Eddy has hung its walls with reproductions of some of Europe's masterpieces, a few of which had been the gifts of her loving pupils. Looking down from the windows upon the tree-tops on the lower terrace, the reporter exclaimed: "You have lived here only four years, and yet from a barren waste of most unpromising ground has come forth all this beauty!" "Four years!" she ejaculated; "two and a half, only two and a half years." Then, touching my sleeve and pointing, she continued: "Look at those big elms! I had them brought here in warm weather, almost as big as they are now, and not one died." Mrs. Eddy talked earnestly of her friendships.... She told something of her domestic arrangements, of how she had long wished to get away from her busy career in Boston, and return to her native granite hills, there to build a substantial home that should do honor to that precinct of Concord. She chose the stubbly, old farm on the road from Concord within one mile of the "Eton of America," St. Paul's school. Once bought, the will of the woman set at work, and to-day a strikingly well kept estate is the first impression given to the visitor as he approaches Pleasant View. She employs a number of men to keep the grounds and farm in perfect order, and it was pleasing to learn that this rich woman is using her money to promote the welfare of industrious workmen in whom she takes a vital interest. Mrs. Eddy believes that "the laborer is worthy of his hire," and, moreover, that he deserves to have a home and family of his own. Indeed, one of her motives in buying so large an estate was that she might do something for the toilers, and thus add her influence toward the advancement of better home life and citizenship. (_Boston Transcript_, December 31, 1894.) EXTRACT. The growth of Christian Science is properly marked by the erection of a visible house of worship in this city, which will be dedicated tomorrow. It has cost $200,000, and no additional sums outside of the subscriptions are asked for. This particular phase of religious belief has impressed itself upon a large and increasing number of Christian people, who have been tempted to examine its principles, and doubtless have been comforted and strengthened by them. Any new movement will awaken some sort of interest. There are many who have worn off the novelty and are thoroughly carried away with the requirements, simple and direct as they are, of Christian Science. The opposition against it from the so-called orthodox religious bodies keeps up a while, but after a little skirmishing, finally subsides. No one religious body holds the whole of truth, and whatever is likely to show even some one side of it will gain followers and live down any attempted repression. Christian Science does not strike all as a system of truth. If it did, it would be a prodigy. Neither does the Christian faith produce the same impressions upon all. Freedom to believe or to dissent is a great privilege in these days. So when a number of conscientious followers apply themselves to a matter like Christian Science, they are enjoying that liberty which is their inherent right as human beings, and though they cannot escape censure, yet they are to be numbered among the many pioneers who are searching after religious truth. There is really nothing settled. Every truth is more or less in a state of agitation. The many who have worked in the mine of knowledge are glad to welcome others who have different methods, and with them bring different ideas. It is too early to predict where this movement will go, and how greatly it will affect the well established methods. That it has produced a sensation in religious circles, and called forth the implements of theological warfare, is very well known. While it has done this, it may, on the other hand, have brought a benefit. Ere this many a new project in religious belief has stirred up feeling, but as time has gone on, compromises have been welcomed. The erection of this temple will doubtless help on the growth of its principles. Pilgrims from everywhere will go there in search of truth, and some may be satisfied and some will not. Christian Science cannot absorb the world's thought. It may get the share of attention it deserves, but it can only aspire to take its place alongside other great demonstrations of religious belief which have done something good for the sake of humanity. Wonders will never cease. Here is a church whose treasurer has to send out word that no sums except those already subscribed can be received! The Christian Scientists have a faith of the mustard-seed variety. What a pity some of our practical Christian folk have not a faith approximate to that of these "impractical" Christian Scientists. (_Jackson Patriot_, Jackson, Mich. January 20, 1895.) EXTRACT. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. The erection of a massive temple in Boston by Christian Scientists, at a cost of over $200,000, love offerings of the disciples of MARY BAKER EDDY, reviver of the ancient faith and author of the text-book from which, with the New Testament at the foundation, believers receive light, health, and strength, is evidence of the rapid growth of the new movement. We call it new. It is not. The name Christian Science alone is new. At the beginning of Christianity it was taught and practiced by Jesus and his disciples. The Master was the great healer. But the wave of materialism and bigotry that swept over the world for fifteen centuries, covering it with the blackness of the Dark Ages, nearly obliterated all vital belief in his teachings. The Bible was a sealed book. Recently a revived belief in what he taught is manifest, and Christian Science is one result. No new doctrine is proclaimed, but there is the fresh development of a principle that was put into practice by the founder of Christianity nineteen hundred years ago, though practiced in other countries at any earlier date. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun." The condition which Jesus of Nazareth, on various occasions during the three years of his ministry on earth, declared to be essential, in the mind of both healer and patient, is contained in the one word--FAITH. Can drugs suddenly cure leprosy? When the ten lepers were cleansed and one returned to give thanks in Oriental phrase, Jesus said to him: "Arise, go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole." That was Christian Science. In his "Law of Psychic Phenomena" Hudson says: "That word, more than any other, expresses the whole law of human felicity and power in this world and of salvation in the world to come." It is that attribute of mind which elevates man above the level of the brute, and gives dominion over the physical world. It is the essential element of success in every field of human endeavor. It constitutes the power of the human soul. When Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed its potency from the hilltops of Palestine he gave to mankind the key to health and heaven, and earned the title of "Savior of the World." Whittier, grandest of mystic poets, saw the truth: "That healing gift He lends to them Who use it in His name; The power that filled his garment's hem Is evermore the same." Again, in a poem entitled "The Master," he wrote: "The healing of his seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again." [Footnote: About 1868, the author of SCIENCE AND HEALTH healed Mr. Whittier with one visit, at his home in Amesbury, of incipient pulmonary consumption.--M.B. EDDY.] That Jesus operated in perfect harmony with natural law, not in defiance, suppression, or violation of it, we cannot doubt. The perfectly natural is the perfectly spiritual. Jesus enunciated and exemplified the principle; and, obviously, the conditions requisite in psychic healing to-day are the same as were necessary in apostolic times. We accept the statement of Hudson: "There was no law of nature violated or transcended. On the contrary, the whole transaction was in perfect obedience to the laws of nature. He understood the law perfectly, as no one before him understood it; and in the plentitude of his power he applied it where the greatest good could be accomplished." A careful reading of the accounts of his healings, in the light of modern science, shows that he observed, in his practice of mental therapeutics, the conditions of environment and harmonious influence that are essential to success. In the case of Jairus' daughter they are fully set forth. He kept the unbelievers away, "put them all out," and permitting only the father and mother, with his closest friends and followers, Peter, James, and John, in the chamber with him, and having thus the most perfect obtainable environment, he raised the daughter to life. "Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in Thy thought." In a previous article we have referred to cyclic changes that came during the last quarter of preceding centuries. Of our remarkable nineteenth century not the least eventful circumstance is the advent of Christian Science. That it should be the work of a woman is the natural outcome of a period notable for her emancipation from many of the thraldoms, prejudices, and oppressions of the past. We do not, therefore, regard it as a mere coincidence that the first edition of Mrs. Eddy's "SCIENCE AND HEALTH" should have been published in 1875. Since then she has revised it many times, and the ninety-first edition is announced. Her discovery was first called "the science of divine metaphysical healing." Afterward she selected the name Christian Science. It is based upon what is held to be scientific certainty, namely,--that all causation is of Mind, every effect has its origin in desire and thought. The theology--if we may use the word--of Christian Science is contained in the volume entitled "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES." The present Boston congregation was organized April 19, 1879, and has now over 4,000 members. It is regarded as the parent organization, all others being branches, though each is entirely independent in the management of its own affairs. Truth is the sole recognized authority. Of actual members of different congregations there are between 100,000 and 200,000. One or more organized societies have sprung up in New York, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Detroit, Toledo, Milwaukee, Madison, Scranton, Peoria, Atlanta, Toronto, and nearly every other centre of population, besides a large and growing number of receivers of the faith among the members of all the churches and non-church-going people. In some churches a majority of the members are Christian Scientists, and, as a rule, are the most intelligent. Space does not admit of an elaborate presentation on the occasion of the erection of the temple, in Boston, the dedication taking place on the 6th of January, of one of the most remarkable, helpful, and powerful movements of the last quarter of the century. Christian Science has brought hope and comfort to many weary souls. It makes people better and happier. Welding Christianity and Science, hitherto divorced because dogma and truth could not unite, was a happy inspiration. "And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain; We tread upon life's broken laws, And mourn our self-inflicted pain." (_The Outlook_, New York, January 19, 1895.) A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH. A great Christian Science Church was dedicated in Boston on Sunday, the 6th inst. It is located at Norway and Falmouth streets, and is intended to be a testimonial to the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The building is fireproof, and cost over $200,000. It is entirely paid for, and contributions for its erection came from every state in the Union, and from many lands. The auditorium is said to seat between fourteen and fifteen hundred, and was thronged at the four services on the day of dedication. The sermon prepared by Mrs. Eddy was read by Mrs. Bemis. It rehearsed the significance of the building, and reënunciated the truths which will find emphasis there. From the description we judge that it is one of the most beautiful buildings in Boston, and, indeed, in all New England. Whatever may be thought of the peculiar tenets of the Christian Scientists, and whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the organization of such a church, there can be no question but that the adherents of this church have proved their faith by their works. (_American Art Journal_, New York, January 26, 1895.) "OUR PRAYER IN STONE." Such is the excellent name given to a new Boston church. Few people outside its own circles, realize how extensive is the belief in Christian Science. There are several sects of mental healers, but this new edifice on Back Bay, just off Huntington avenue, not far from the big Mechanics building and the proposed site of the new Music hall, belongs to the followers of Rev. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, a lady born of an old New Hampshire family, who, after many vicissitudes, found herself in Lynn, Mass., healed by the power of Divine Mind, and thereupon devoted herself to imparting this faith to her fellow beings. Coming to Boston about 1880 she began teaching, gathered an association of students, and organized a church. For several years past she has lived in Concord, N.H., near her birthplace, owning a beautiful estate called Pleasant View; but thousands of believers throughout this country have joined the Mother Church in Boston and have now erected this edifice at a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars, every bill being paid. Its appearance is shown in the pictures we are permitted to publish. In the belfry is a set of tubular chimes. Inside is a basement room, capable of division into seven excellent class rooms, by the use of movable partitions. The main auditorium has wide galleries, and will seat over a thousand in its exceedingly comfortable pews. Scarcely any woodwork is to be found. The floors are all mosaic, the steps marble, and the walls stone. It is rather dark, often too much so for comfortable reading, as all the windows are of colored glass, with pictures symbolic of the tenets of the organization. In the ceiling is a beautiful sunburst window. Adjoining the chancel is a pastor's study; but for an indefinite time their prime instructor has ordained that the only pastor shall be the Bible, with her book called "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES." In the tower is a room devoted to her, and called Mother's Room, furnished with all conveniences for living, should she wish to make it a home by day or night. Therein is a portrait of her in stained glass; and an electric light, behind an antique lamp, kept perpetually burning in her honor; though she has not yet visited her temple, which was dedicated on New Year's Sunday, in a somewhat novel way. There was no special sentence or prayer of consecration; but continuous services were held from nine to four o'clock, every hour and a half, so long as there were attendants; and some people heard these exercises four times repeated. The printed program was for some reason not followed, certain hymns and psalms being omitted. There was singing by a choir and congregation. The _pater noster_ was repeated in the way peculiar to Christian Scientists, the congregation repeating one sentence and the leader responding with its parallel interpretation by Mrs. Eddy. Antiphonal paragraphs were read from the book of Revelation and her work respectively. The sermon, prepared by Mrs. Eddy, was well adapted for its purpose, and read by a professional elocutionist, not an adherent of the order, Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, in a clear, emphatic style. The solo singer, however, was a Scientist, Miss Elsie Lincoln; and on the platform sat Joseph Armstrong, formerly of Kansas, and now the business manager of the publication society, with the other members of the Christian Science Board of Directors--Ira C. Knapp, Edward P. Bates, Stephen A. Chase,--gentlemen officially connected with the movement. The children of believing families collected the money for the Mother Room, and seats were especially set apart for them at the second dedicatory service. Before one service was over and the auditors left by the rear doors, the front vestibule and street (despite the snowstorm) were crowded with others, waiting admission. On the next Sunday the new order of service went into operation. There was no address of any sort, no notices, no explanation of Bible or their text-book. Judge Hanna, who was a Colorado lawyer before coming into this work, presided, reading in clear, manly, and intelligent tones, the quarterly Bible lesson, which happened that day to be on Jesus' miracle of loaves and fishes. Each paragraph he supplemented first with illustrative Scripture parallels, as set down for him, and then by passages selected for him from Mrs. Eddy's book. The place was again crowded, many having remained over a week from among the thousands of adherents who had come to Boston for this auspicious occasion from all parts of the country. The organ, made by Farrand & Votey in Detroit, at a cost of eleven thousand dollars, is the gift of a wealthy Universalist gentleman, but was not ready for the opening. It is to fill the recess behind the spacious platform, and is described as containing pneumatic windchests throughout, and having an æolian attachment. It is of three-manual compass, C.C.C. to C.4, 61 notes; and pedal compass, C.C.C. to F.30. The great organ has double open diapason (stopped bass), open diapason, dulciana, viola di gambi, doppel flute, hohl flute, octave, octave quint, superoctave, and trumpet,--65 pipes each. The swell organ has bourdon, open diapason, salicional, æoline, stopped diapason, gemshorn, flute harmonique, flageolet, cornet--3 ranks, 183,--cornopean, oboe, vox humana--61 pipes each. The choir organ, enclosed in separate swell-box, has geigen principal, dolce, concert flute, quintadena, fugara, flute d'amour, piccolo harmonique, clarinet,--61 pipes each. The pedal organ has open diapson, bourden, lieblich gedeckt (from stop 10), violoncello-wood,--30 pipes each. Couplers: swell to great; choir to great; swell to choir; swell to great octaves, swell to great sub-octaves; choir to great sub-octaves; swell octaves; swell to pedal; great to pedal; choir to pedal. Mechanical accessories: swell tremulant, choir tremulant, bellows signal; wind indicator. Pedal movements: three affecting great and pedal stops, three affecting swell and pedal stops; great to pedal reversing pedal; crescendo and full organ pedal; balanced great and choir pedal; balanced swell pedal. Beautiful suggestions greet you in every part of this unique church, which is practical as well as poetic, and justifies the name given by Mrs. Eddy, which stands at the head of this sketch. J.H.W. (_Boston Journal_, January 7, 1895.) CHIMES RANG SWEETLY. Much admiration was expressed by all those fortunate enough to listen to the first peal of the chimes in the tower of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, corner of Falmouth and Norway streets, dedicated yesterday. The sweet, musical tones attracted quite a throng of people, who listened with delight. The chimes were made by the United States Tubular Bell Company, of Methuen, Mass., and are something of a novelty in this country, though for some time well and favorably known in the Old Country, especially in England. They are a substitution of tubes of drawn brass for the heavy cast bells of old-fashioned chimes. They have the advantage of great economy of space, as well as of cost, a chime of fifteen bells not occupying a space of more than five by eight feet. Where the old-fashioned chimes required a strong man to ring them, these can be rung from an electric key board, and even when rung by hand require but little muscular power to manipulate them, and call forth all the purity and sweetness of their tones. The quality of tone is something superb, being rich and mellow. The tubes are carefully tuned, so that the harmony is perfect. They have all the beauties of a great Cathedral chime, with infinitely less expense. There is practically no limit to the uses to which these bells may be put. They can be called into requisition in theatres, concert halls, and public buildings, as they range in all sizes, from those described down to little sets of silver bells that might be placed on a small centre table. (_The Republic_, Washington, D.C., February 2, 1895.) EXTRACT. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Mary Baker Eddy the "Mother" of the Idea.--She Has an Immense Following Throughout the United States, and a Church Costing $250,000 Was Recently Built in Her Honor at Boston. "My faith has the strength to nourish trees as well as souls," was the remark Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the "mother" of Christian Science, made recently as she pointed to a number of large elms that shade her delightful country home, in Concord, N.H. "I had them brought here in warm weather almost as big as they are now, and not one died." This is a remarkable statement, but it is made by a remarkable woman, who has originated a new phase of religious belief, and who numbers over 100,000 intelligent people among her devoted followers. The great hold she has upon this army was demonstrated in a very tangible and material manner recently when "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," erected at a cost of $250,000, was dedicated in Boston. This handsome edifice was paid for before it was begun, by the voluntary contributions of Christian Scientists all over the country, and a tablet imbedded in its wall declares that it was built as "a testimonial to our beloved teacher, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, discoverer and founder of Christian Science, author of its textbook, 'SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES,' president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical college and the first pastor of this denomination." There is usually considerable difficulty in securing sufficient funds for the building of a new church, but such was not the experience of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. Money came freely from all parts of the United States. Men, women, and children contributed, some giving a pittance, others donating large sums. When the necessary amount was raised the custodian of the funds was compelled to refuse further contributions in order to stop the continued inflow of money from enthusiastic Christian Scientists. Mrs. Eddy says she discovered Christian Science in 1866. She studied the Scriptures and the sciences, she declares, in a search for the great curative principle. She investigated allopathy, homeopathy, and electricity, without finding a clew; and modern philosophy gave her no distinct statement of the science of mind healing. After careful study she became convinced that the curative principle was the Deity. (_New York Tribune_, February 7, 1895.) EXTRACT. Boston has just dedicated the first church of the Christian Scientists in commemoration of the founder of that sect, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, drawing together 6,000 people to participate in the ceremonies, showing that belief in that curious creed is not confined to its original apostles and promulgators, but that it has penetrated what is called the New England mind to an unlooked-for extent, in inviting the Eastern churches and the Anglican fold to unity with Rome, the Holy Father should not overlook the Boston sect of Christian Scientists, which is rather small and new, to be sure, but is undoubtedly an interesting faith and may have a future before it, whatever attitude Rome may assume toward it. (_Journal_, Kansas City, Mo., January 10, 1895.) EXTRACT. GROWTH OF A FAITH. Attention is directed to the progress which has been made by what is called Christian Science by the dedication at Boston of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist." It is a most beautiful structure of gray granite, and its builders call it their "prayer in stone," which suggests to recollection the story of the cathedral of Amiens, whose architectural construction and arrangement of statuary and paintings made it to be called the Bible of that city. The Frankish church was reared upon the spot where, in pagan times, one bitter winter day, a Roman soldier parted his mantle with his sword and gave half of the garment to a naked beggar; and so was memorialized in art and stone what was called the divine spirit of giving, whose unbelieving exemplar afterward became a saint. The Boston church similarly expresses the faith of those who believe in what they term the divine art of healing, which, to their minds, exists as much to-day as it did when Christ healed the sick. The first church organization of this faith was founded fifteen years ago with a membership of only twenty-six, and since then the number of believers has grown with remarkable rapidity, until now, there are societies in every part of the country. This growth, it is said, proceeds more from the graveyards than from conversions from other churches, for most of those who embrace the faith claim to have been rescued from death miraculously under the injunction to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, and cast out demons." They hold with strict fidelity to what they conceive to be the literal teachings of the Bible as expressed in its poetical and highly figurative language. Altogether the belief and service are well suited to satisfy a taste for the mystical which, along many lines, has shown an uncommon development in this country during the last decade, and which is largely Oriental in its choice. Such a rapid departure from long respected views as is marked by the dedication of this church, and others of kindred meaning, may reasonably excite wonder as to how radical is to be this encroachment upon prevailing faiths, and whether some of the pre-Christian ideas of the Asiatics are eventually to supplant those in company with which our civilization has developed. (_Montreal Daily Herald_ Saturday, February 2, 1895.) EXTRACT. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Sketch of Its Origin and Growth--The Montreal Branch. "If you would found a new faith, go to Boston," has been said by a great American writer. This is no idle word, but a fact borne out by circumstances. Boston can fairly claim to be the hub of the logical universe, and an accurate census of the religious faiths which are to be found there to-day, would probably show a greater number of them than even Max O'Rells famous enumeration of John Bull's creeds. Christian Science, or the principle of divine healing, is one of those movements which seek to give expression to a higher spirituality. Founded twenty-five years ago, it was still practically unknown a decade since, but to-day it numbers over a quarter of a million of believers, the majority of whom are in the United States, and is rapidly growing. In Canada, also, there is a large number of members. Toronto and Montreal have strong churches, comparatively, while in many towns and villages single believers or little knots of them are to be found. It was exactly 100 years from the date of the Declaration of Independence, when on July 4, 1876, the first Christian Scientist Association was organized by seven persons, of whom the foremost was Mrs. Eddy. The church was founded in April. 1879, with twenty-six members, and a charter was obtained two months later. Mrs. Eddy assumed the pastorship of the church during its early years, and in 1881 was ordained, being now known as the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded by Mrs. Eddy in 1881, and here she taught the principles of the faith for nine years. Students came to it in hundreds from all parts of the world, and many are now pastors or in practice. The college was closed in 1889, as Mrs. Eddy felt it necessary for the interests of her religious work to retire from active contact with the world. She now lives in a beautiful country residence in her native state. (_The American_, Baltimore, Md., January 14, 1895.) EXTRACT. MRS. EDDY'S DISCIPLES. It is not generally known that a Christian Science congregation was organized in this city about a year ago. It now holds regular services in the parlor of the residence of the pastor, at 1414 Linden avenue. The dedication in Boston last Sunday of the Christian Science Church, called the Mother Church, which cost over $200,000, adds interest to the Baltimore organization. There are many other church edifices in the United States owned by Christian Scientists. Christian Science was founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. The Baltimore congregation was organized at a meeting held at the present location on February 27, 1894. Dr. Hammond, the pastor, came to Baltimore about three years ago to organize this movement. Miss Cross came from Syracuse, N.Y., about eighteen months ago. Both were under the instruction of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the movement. Dr. Hammond says he was converted to Christian Science by being cured by Mrs. Eddy of a physical ailment some twelve years ago, after several doctors had pronounced his case incurable. He says they use no medicines, but rely on Mind for cure, believing that disease comes from evil and sick-producing thoughts, and that, if they can so fill the mind with good thoughts as to leave no room there for the bad, they can work a cure. He distinguishes Christian Science from the faith cure and added: "This Christian Science really is a return to the ideas of primitive Christianity. It would take a small book to explain fully all about it, but I may say that the fundamental idea is that God is Mind, and we interpret the Scriptures wholly from the spiritual or metaphysical standpoint. We find in this view of the Bible the power fully developed to heal the sick. It is not faith cure, but it is an acknowledgment of certain Christian and scientific laws, and to work a cure the practitioner must understand these laws aright. The patient may gain a better understanding than the church has had in the past. All churches have prayed for the cure of disease, but they have not done so in an intelligent manner, understanding and demonstrating the Christ-healing." (_The Reporter_, Lebanon, Ind., January 18, 1895.) EXTRACT. DISCOVERED CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Remarkable Career of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Who Has Over 100,000 Followers. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, discoverer and founder of Christian Science, author of its textbook, "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES," president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical college, and first pastor of the Christian Science denomination, is without doubt one of the most remarkable women in America. She has within a few years founded a sect that has over 100,000 converts, and very recently saw completed in Boston as a testimonial to her labors, a handsome fire proof church that cost $250,000, and was paid for by Christian Scientists all over the country. Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she became certain that "all causation was mind and every effect a mental phenomenon." Taking her text from the Bible, she endeavored in vain to find the great curative principle--the Deity--in philosophy and schools of medicine, and she concluded that the way of salvation demonstrated by Jesus was the power of truth over all error, sin, sickness, and death. Thus originated the divine or spiritual science of mind healing, which she termed Christian Science. She has a palatial home in Boston and a country seat in Concord, N.H. The Christian Science church has a membership of 4,000, and 800 of the members are Bostonians. (_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser_, January 9, 1895.) The idea that Christian Science has declined in popularity is not borne out by the voluntary contribution of a quarter of a million dollars for a memorial church for Mrs. Eddy, the inventor of this cure. The money comes from Christian Science believers exclusively. (_The Post_, Syracuse, New York, February 1, 1895.) DO NOT BELIEVE SHE WAS DEIFIED. Christian Scientists of Syracuse Surprised at the News About Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, Founder of the Faith. Christian Scientists in this city, and in fact all over the country, have been startled and greatly discomfited over the announcements in New York papers that Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the acknowledged Christian Science leader, has been exalted by various dignitaries of the faith.... It is well known that Mrs. Eddy has resigned herself completely to the study and foundation of the faith to which many thousands throughout the United States are now so entirely devoted. By her followers and co-believers she is unquestionably looked upon as having a divine mission to fulfill, and as though inspired in her great task by supernatural power. For the purpose of learning the feeling of Scientists in this city toward the reported deification of Mrs. Eddy, a _Post_ reporter called upon a few of the leading members of the faith yesterday and had a number of very interesting conversations upon the subject. Mrs. D.W. Copeland of University avenue was one of the first to be seen. Mrs. Copeland is a very pleasant and agreeable lady, ready to converse, and evidently very much absorbed in the work to which she has given so much of her attention. Mrs. Copeland claims to have been healed a number of years ago by Christian Scientists, after she had practically been given up by a number of well known physicians. "And for the past eleven years," said Mrs. Copeland, "I have not taken any medicine or drugs of any kind, and yet have been perfectly well." In regard to Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Copeland said that she was the founder of the faith, but that she had never claimed, nor did she believe that Mrs. Lathrop had, that Mrs. Eddy had any power other than that which came from God and through faith in Him and His teachings. "The power of Christ has been dormant in mankind for ages," added the speaker, "and it was Mrs. Eddy's mission to revive it. In our labors we take Christ as an example, going about doing good and healing the sick. Christ has told us to do His work, naming as one great essential that we have faith in Him. "Did you ever hear of Jesus' taking medicine Himself, or giving it to others?" inquired the speaker. "Then why should we worry ourselves about sickness and disease? If we become sick God will care for us, and will send to us those who have faith, who believe in His unlimited and divine power." Mrs. Eddy was strictly an ardent follower after God. She had faith in him, and she cured herself of a deathly disease through the mediation of her God. Then she secluded herself from the world for three years and studied and meditated over His divine word. She delved deep into the Biblical passages, and at the end of the period came from her seclusion one of the greatest Biblical scholars of the age. Her mission was then the mission of a Christian to do good and heal the sick, and this duty she faithfully performed. She of herself had no power. But God has fulfilled His promises to her and to the world. "If ye have faith ye can move mountains." Mrs. Henrietta N. Cole is also a very prominent member of the church. When seen yesterday she emphasized herself as being of the same theory as Mrs. Copeland. Mrs. Cole has made a careful and searching study in the beliefs of Scientists and is perfectly versed in all their beliefs and doctrines. She stated that man of himself has no power, but that all comes from God. She placed no credit whatever in the reports from New York that Mrs. Eddy has been accredited as having been deified. She referred the reporter to the large volume which Mrs. Eddy had herself written, and said that no more complete and yet concise idea of her belief could be obtained than by a perusal of it. (_New York Herald_, February 1, 1895.) MRS. EDDY SHOCKED. [BY TELEGRAPH TO THE HERALD.] CONCORD, N.H., February 4, 1895.--The article published in the HERALD on January 29, regarding a statement made by Mrs. Laura Lathrop, pastor of the Christian Science congregation, that meets every Sunday in Hodgson Hall, New York, was shown to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian Science "discoverer," to-day. Mrs. Eddy preferred to prepare a written answer to the interrogatory, which she did in this letter, addressed to the editor of the HERALD: "A despatch is given me, calling for an interview to answer for myself, 'Am I the second Christ?' "Even the question shocks me. What I am is for God to declare in his infinite mercy. As it is I claim nothing more than what I am, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, and the blessing it has been to mankind which eternity enfolds. "I think Mrs. Lathrop was not understood. If she said aught with intention to be thus understood, it is not what I have taught her, and not at all as I have heard her talk. "My books and teachings maintain but one conclusion and statement of the Christ and the deification of mortals. "Christ is individual, and one with God, in the sense of Divine Principle and its compound divine idea. "There was, is and never can be but one God, one Christ, one Jesus of Nazareth. Whoever in any age expresses most of the spirit of Truth and Love, the Principle of God's Idea, has most of the spirit of Christ, of that Mind which was in Christ Jesus. "If Christian Scientists find in my writings, teachings, and example a greater degree of this spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. But to think or speak of me in any manner as a Christ, is sacrilegious. Such a statement would not only be false, but the absolute antipode of Christian Science, and would savor more of heathenism, than of my doctrines. "MARY BAKER EDDY." (_The Globe_, Toronto, Canada, January 12, 1895.) EXTRACT. CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS. Dedication to the Founder of the Order of a Beautiful Church at Boston.--Many Toronto Scientists Present. The Christian Scientists of Toronto to the number of thirty took part in the ceremonies at Boston last Sunday and for the day or two following, by which the members of that faith all over North America celebrated the dedication of the church constructed in the great New England capital as a Testimonial to the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The temple is believed to be the most nearly fire-proof church structure on the continent, the only combustible material used in its construction being that used in the doors and pews. A striking feature of the church is a beautiful apartment known as the "Mother's Room," which is approached through a superb archway of Italian marble set in the wall. The furnishing of the "Mother's Room" is described as "particularly beautiful, and blends harmoniously with the pale green and gold decoration of the walls. The floor is of mosaic in elegant designs, and two alcoves are separated from the apartment by rich hangings of deep green plush, which in certain lights has a shimmer of silver. The furniture frames are of white mahogany in special designs, elaborately carved, and the upholstery is in white and gold tapestry. A superb mantel of Mexican onyx with gold decoration adorns the south wall, and before the hearth is a large rug composed entirely of skins of the eider-down duck, brought from the Arctic regions. Pictures and bric-a-brac everywhere suggest the tribute of loving friends. One of the two alcoves is a retiring room, and the other a lavatory in which the plumbing is all heavily plated with gold." (_Evening Monitor_, Concord, N.H., February 27, 1895.) AN ELEGANT SOUVENIR. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy Memorialized by a Christian Science Church. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, discoverer of Christian Science, has received from the members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, an invitation to formally accept the magnificent new edifice of worship which the church has just erected. The invitation itself is one of the most chastely elegant memorials ever prepared, and is a scroll of solid gold, suitably engraved, and encased in a handsome plush casket with white silk linings. Attached to the scroll is a golden key of the church structure. The inscription reads thus: DEAR MOTHER: During the year eighteen hundred and ninety-four a church edifice was erected at the intersection of Falmouth and Norway streets in the city of Boston, by the loving hands of four thousand members. This edifice is built as a Testimonial to truth as revealed by divine Love through you to this age. You are hereby most lovingly invited to visit and formally accept this Testimonial on the twentieth day of February, eighteen hundred and ninety-five at high noon. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass. By EDWARD P. BATES, CAROLINE S. BATES. To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, Boston, January 6th, 1895. (_People and Patriot_, Concord, N.H., February 27, 1895.) MAGNIFICENT TESTIMONIAL. Members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston have forwarded to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy of this city, the founder of Christian Science, a Testimonial which is probably one of the most magnificent examples of the goldsmith's art ever wrought in this country. It is in the form of a gold scroll, twenty-six inches long, nine inches wide, and an eighth of an inch thick. It bears upon its face the following inscription cut in script letters: "Dear Mother, "During the year 1894, a church edifice was erected at the intersection of Falmouth and Norway streets in the city of Boston by the loving hands of four thousand members. This edifice is built as a Testimonial to truth as revealed by divine Love through you to this age. You are hereby most lovingly invited to visit and formally accept this testimonial on the 20th day of February, 1895, at high noon. "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass. "To the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. "By Edward P. Bates "Caroline S. Bates. "Boston, January 6, 1895." Attached by a white ribbon to the scroll is a gold key to the church door. The testimonial is encased in a white satin lined box of rich green velvet. The scroll is on exhibition in the window of J.C. Derby's jewelry store. (_The Union Signal_, Chicago.) EXTRACT. THE NEW WOMAN AND THE NEW CHURCH. The dedication, in Boston, of a Christian Science temple costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and for which the money was all paid in so that no debt had to be taken care of on dedication day, is a notable event. While we are not, and never have been, devotees of Christian Science, it becomes us as students of public questions not to ignore a movement which starting fifteen years ago has already gained to itself adherents in every part of the civilized world, for it is a significant fact that one cannot take up a daily paper in town or village--to say nothing of cities--'Without seeing notices of Christian Science meetings, and in most instances they are held at "headquarters." We believe there are two reasons for this remarkable development, which has shown a vitality so unexpected. The first is that a revolt was inevitable from the crass materialism of the cruder science that had taken possession of men's minds, for as a wicked but witty writer has said, "If there were no God we should be obliged to invent one." There is something in the constitution of man that requires the religious sentiment as much as his lungs call for breath; indeed, the breath of his soul is a belief in God. But when Christian Science arose, the thought of the world's scientific leaders had become materialistically "lopsided," and this condition can never long continue. There must be a righting-up of the mind as surely as of a ship when under stress of storm it is ready to capsize. The pendulum that has swung to one extreme will surely find the other. The religious sentiment in women is so strong that the revolt was headed by them; this was inevitable in the nature of the case. It began in the most intellectual city of the freest country in the world--that is to say, it sought the line of least resistance. Boston is emphatically the women's paradise, numerically, socially, indeed, every way. Here they have the largest individuality, the most recognition, the widest outlook. Mrs. Eddy we have never seen; her book has many a time been sent to us by interested friends and out of respect to them we have fairly broken our mental teeth over its granitic pebbles. That we could not understand it might be rather to the credit of the book than otherwise. On this subject we have no opinion to pronounce, but simply state the fact. We do not, therefore, speak of the system it sets forth, either to praise or blame, but this much is true; the spirit of Christian Science ideas has caused an army of well meaning people to believe in God and the power of faith, who did not believe in them before. It has made a myriad of women more thoughtful and devout; it has brought a hopeful spirit into the homes of unnumbered invalids. The belief that "thoughts are things," that the invisible is the only real world, that we are here to be trained into harmony with the laws of God, and that what we are here determines where we shall be hereafter--all these ideas are Christian. The chimes on the Christian Science temple in Boston played "All hail the power of Jesus' name," on the morning of the dedication. We did not attend, but we learn that the name of Christ is nowhere spoken with more reverence than it was during those services, and that He is set forth as the power of God for righteousness and the express image of God for love. (_The New Century_, Boston, February, 1885.) ONE POINT OF VIEW.--THE NEW WOMAN. We all know her--she is simply the woman of the past with an added grace--a newer charm. Some of her dearest ones call her "selfish" because she thinks so much of herself she spends her whole time helping others. She represents the composite beauty, sweetness, and nobility of all those who scorn self for the sake of Love and her handmaiden Duty--of all those who seek the brightness of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as the lark who soars and sings to the great sun. She is of those who have so much to give they want no time to take, and their name is legion. She is as full of beautiful possibilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the harmonies of the universe are in herself, while her own soul plays upon magic strings the unwritten anthems of love. She is the apostle of the true, the beautiful, the good, commissioned to complete all that the twelve have left undone. Hers is the mission of missions--the highest of all--to make the body not the prison, but the palace of the soul, with the brain for its great white throne. When she comes like the south wind into the cold haunts of sin and sorrow her words are smiles and her smiles are the sunlight which heals the stricken soul. Her hand is tender--but steel tempered with holy resolve, and as one whom her love had glorified once said--she is soft and gentle, but you could no more turn her from her course than winter could stop the coming of spring. She has long learned with patience, and to-day she knows many things dear to the soul far better than her teachers. In olden times the Jews claimed to be the conservators of the world's morals--they treated woman as a chattel, and said that because she was created after man, she was created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who never called Abraham "Father," while the Jews themselves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and Esther, but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not for their sex. To-day there are ten thousand Esthers, and Miriams by the million, who sing best by singing most for their own sex. They are demanding the right to help make the laws, or at least to help enforce the laws upon which depends the welfare of their husbands, their children, and themselves. Why should our selfish self longer remain deaf to their cry? The date is no longer B.C. Might no longer makes right, and in this fair land at least fear has ceased to kiss the iron heel of wrong. Why then should we continue to demand woman's love and woman's help while we recklessly promise as lover and candidate what we never fulfill as husband and office-holder? In our secret heart our better self is shamed and dishonored, and appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, but has not yet the moral strength and courage to prosecute the appeal. But the east is rosy and the sunlight cannot long be delayed. Woman must not and will not be disheartened by a thousand denials or a million of broken pledges. With the assurance of faith she prays, with the certainty of inspiration she works, and with the patience of genius she waits. At last she is becoming "as fair as the morn, as bright as the sun, and as terrible as an army with banners" to those who march under the black flag of oppression and wield the ruthless sword of injustice. In olden times it was the Amazons who conquered the invincibles, and we must look now to their daughters to overcome our own allied armies of evil and to save us from ourselves. She must and will succeed, for as David sang--"God shall help her and that right early." When we try to praise her later works it is as if we would pour incense upon the rose. It is the proudest boast of many of us that we are "bound to her by bonds dearer than freedom," and that we live in the reflected royalty which shines from her brow. We rejoice with her that at last we begin to know what John on Patmos meant--"And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." She brought to warring men the Prince of Peace, and He, departing, left His scepter not in her hand, but in her soul. "The time of times" is near when "the new woman" shall subdue the whole earth with the weapons of peace. Then shall wrong be robbed of her bitterness and ingratitude of her sting; revenge shall clasp hands with pity, and love shall dwell in the tents of hate, while side by side, equal partners in all that is worth living for, shall stand the new man with the new woman. (_Christian Science Journal_, January, 1895.) EXTRACT. THE MOTHER CHURCH. The Mother Church edifice--The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, is erected. The close of the year Anno Domini, 1894, witnessed the completion of "our Prayer in Stone," all predictions and prognostications to the contrary notwithstanding. Of the significance of this achievement we shall not undertake to speak in this article. It can be better felt than expressed. All who are awake thereto have some measure of understanding of what it means. But only the future will tell the story of its mighty meaning or unfold it to the comprehension of mankind. It is enough for us now to know that all obstacles to its completion have been met and overcome, and that our temple is completed as God intended it should be. This achievement is the result of long years of untiring, unselfish, and zealous effort on the part of our beloved Teacher and Leader, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, who nearly thirty years ago began to lay the foundation of this temple, and whose devotion and consecration to God and humanity during the intervening years have made its erection possible. Those who now, in part, understand her mission, turn their hearts in gratitude to her for her great work, and those who do not understand it will, in the fulness of time, see and acknowledge it. In the measure in which she has unfolded and demonstrated Divine Love and built up in human consciousness a better and higher conception of God as Life, Truth, and Love,--as the Divine Principle of all things which really exist,--and in the degree in which she has demonstrated the system of healing of Jesus and the Apostles, surely she, as the one chosen of God to this end, is entitled to the gratitude and love of all who desire a better and grander humanity, and who believe it to be possible to establish the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth in accordance with the prayer and teachings of Jesus Christ. (_Concord Evening Monitor_, March 23, 1895.) TESTIMONIAL AND GIFT. To Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, from The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy received Friday, from the Christian Science board of directors, Boston, a beautiful and unique testimonial of the appreciation of her labors and loving generosity in the cause of their common faith. It was a facsimile of the corner-stone of the new church of the Christian Scientists, just completed, being of granite, about six inches in each dimension, and contains a solid gold box, upon the cover of which is this inscription: "To our Beloved Teacher, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, from her affectionate Students, the Christian Science Board of Directors." On the under side of the cover are the facsimile signatures of the directors, Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph Armstrong, and Stephen A. Chase, with the date, "1895." The beautiful souvenir is encased in an elegant plush box. Accompanying the stone testimonial was the following address from the board of directors: BOSTON, March 20, 1895. To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, our beloved teacher and leader: We are happy to announce to you the completion of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. In behalf of your loving students and all contributors wherever they may be, we hereby present this church to you as a testimonial of love and gratitude for your labors and loving sacrifice, as the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, and the author of its text-book, "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY To THE SCRIPTURES." We therefore respectfully extend to you the invitation to become the permanent pastor of this church, in connection with the Bible, and the Book alluded to above, which you have already ordained as our pastor. And we most cordially invite you to be present and take charge of any services that may be held therein. We especially desire you to be present on the twenty-fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, to accept this offering, with our humble benediction. Lovingly yours, IRA O. KNAPP, WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG, STEPHEN A. CHASE, _The Christian Science Board of Directors_. REV. MRS. EDDY'S REPLY. BELOVED DIRECTORS AND BRETHREN:-- For your costly offering, and kind call to the pastorate of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," in Boston--accept my profound thanks. But permit me, respectfully, to decline their acceptance, while I fully appreciate your kind intentions.-If it will comfort you in the least, make me your Pastor _Emeritus_, nominally. Through my book, your text-book, I already speak to you each Sunday. You ask too much when asking me to accept your grand Church edifice. I have more of earth now, than I desire, and less of heaven; so pardon my refusal of that as a material offering. More effectual than the forum are our states of mind, to bless mankind. This wish stops not with my pen--God give you grace. As our Church's tall tower detains the sun, so, may luminous lines from your lives, linger, a legacy to our race. MARY BAKER EDDY. March 25, 1895. From Canada to New Orleans, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, the author has received leading newspapers with uniformly kind and interesting articles on the dedication of the Mother church. They were, however, too voluminous for these pages. Those were copied, and she could append only a few of the names of other prominent newspapers whose articles were reluctantly omitted. LIST OF LEADING NEWSPAPERS WHOSE ARTICLES ARE OMITTED. EASTERN STATES. _Advertiser_, Calais, Me. _Advertiser_, Boston, Mass. _Farmer_, Bridgeport, Conn. _Independent_, Rockland, Mass. _Kennebec Journal_, Augusta, Me. _News_, New Haven, Conn. _News_, Newport, R.I. _Post_, Boston, Mass. _Post_, Hartford, Conn. _Republican_, Springfield, Mass. _Sentinel_, Eastport, Me. _Sun_, Attleboro, Mass. MIDDLE STATES. _Advertiser_, New York City. _Bulletin_, Auburn, N.Y. _Daily_, York, Pa. _Enquirer_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Evening Reporter_, Lebanon, Pa. _Farmer_, Bridgeport, N.Y. _Herald_, Rochester, N.Y. _Independent_, Harrisburg, Pa. _Independent_, New York City. _Journal_, Lockport, N.Y. _Knickerbocker_, Albany, N.Y. _News_, Buffalo, N.Y. _News_, Newark, N.J. _Once A Week_, New York City. _Post_, Pittsburg, Pa. _Press_, Albany, N.Y. _Press_, New York City. _Press_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Saratogian_, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. _Sun_, New York City. _Telegram_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Telegram_, Troy, N.Y. _Times_, Trenton, N.J. SOUTHERN STATES. _Commercial_, Louisville, Ky. _Journal_, Atlanta, Ga. _Post_, Washington, D.C. _Telegram_, New Orleans, La. _Times_, New Orleans, La. _Times-Herald,_ Dallas, Tex. WESTERN STATES. _Bee_, Omaha, Neb. _Bulletin_, San Francisco, Cal. _Chronicle_, San Francisco, Cal. _Mite_, Chicago, Ill. _Enquirer_, Oakland, Cal. _Free Press_, Detroit, Mich. _Gazette_, Burlington, Iowa. _Herald_, Grand Rapids, Mich. _Herald_, St. Joseph, Mo. _Journal_, Columbus, Ohio. _Journal_, Topeka, Kans. _Leader_, Bloomington, Ill. _Leader_, Cleveland, Ohio. _News_, St. Joseph, Mo. _News-Tribune,_ Duluth, Minn. _Pioneer-Press,_ St. Paul, Minn. _Post-Intelligencer,_ Seattle, Wash. _Salt Lake Herald_, Salt Lake City, Utah. _Sentinel_, Indianapolis, Ind. _Sentinel_, Milwaukee, Wis. _Star_, Kansas City, Mo. _Telegram_, Portland, Ore. _Times_, Chicago, Ill. _Times_, Minneapolis, Minn. _Tribune_, Minneapolis, Minn. _Tribune_, Salt Lake City, Utah. _Free Press_, London, Can. 
16591	----	UNITY OF GOOD BY MARY BAKER EDDY AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES Registered U.S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST in Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1887, 1891, 1908_ BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY _Copyright renewed, 1915_ _Copyright renewed, 1919_ _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Contents Caution in the Truth _Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death?_ Seedtime and Harvest _Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?_ The Deep Things of God Ways Higher than Our Ways Rectifications A Colloquy The Ego Soul There is no Matter _Sight_ _Touch_ _Taste_ _Force_ Is There no Death? Personal Statements Credo _Do you believe in God?_ _Do you believe in man?_ _Do you believe in matter?_ _What say you of woman?_ _What say you of evil?_ Suffering from Others' Thoughts The Saviour's Mission Summary Unity of Good Caution in the Truth Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Science rouses so much natural doubt and questioning as this, that God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow-apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest ... unto their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.) Let us then reason together on this important subject, whose statement in Christian Science may justly be characterized as _wonderful_. _Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death?_ The nature and character of God is so little apprehended and demonstrated by mortals, that I counsel my students to defer this infinite inquiry, in their discussions of Christian Science. In fact, they had better leave the subject untouched, until they draw nearer to the divine character, and are practically able to testify, by their lives, that as they come closer to the true understanding of God they lose all sense of error. The Scriptures declare that God is too pure to behold iniquity (Habakkuk i. 13); but they also declare that God pitieth them who fear Him; that there is no place where His voice is not heard; that He is "a very present help in trouble." The sinner has no refuge from sin, except in God, who is his salvation. We must, however, realize God's presence, power, and love, in order to be saved from sin. This realization takes away man's fondness for sin and his pleasure in it; and, lastly, it removes the pain which accrues to him from it. Then follows this, as the _finale_ in Science: The sinner loses his sense of sin, and gains a higher sense of God, in whom there is no sin. The true man, really _saved_, is ready to testify of God in the infinite penetration of Truth, and can affirm that the Mind which is good, or God, has no knowledge of sin. In the same manner the sick lose their sense of sickness, and gain that spiritual sense of harmony which contains neither discord nor disease. According to this same rule, in divine Science, the dying--if they die in the Lord--awake from a sense of death to a sense of Life in Christ, with a knowledge of Truth and Love beyond what they possessed before; because their lives have grown so far toward the stature of manhood in Christ Jesus, that they are ready for a spiritual transfiguration, through their affections and understanding. Those who reach this transition, called _death_, without having rightly improved the lessons of this primary school of mortal existence,--and still believe in matter's reality, pleasure, and pain,--are not ready to understand immortality. Hence they awake only to another sphere of experience, and must pass through another probationary state before it can be truly said of them: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." They upon whom the second death, of which we read in the Apocalypse (Revelation xx. 6), hath no power, are those who have obeyed God's commands, and have washed their robes white through the sufferings of the flesh and the triumphs of Spirit. Thus they have reached the goal in divine Science, by knowing Him in whom they have believed. This knowledge is not the forbidden fruit of sin, sickness, and death, but it is the fruit which grows on the "tree of life." This is the understanding of God, whereby man is found in the image and likeness of good, not of evil; of health, not of sickness; of Life, not of death. God is All-in-all. Hence He is in Himself only, in His own nature and character, and is perfect being, or consciousness. He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be. Within Himself is every embodiment of Life and Mind. If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything unlike Himself; because, if He is omnipresent, there can be nothing outside of Himself. Now this self-same God is our helper. He pities us. He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our careers. He is near to them who adore Him. To understand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become like Him. Truth is God, and in God's law. This law declares that Truth is All, and there is no error. This law of Truth destroys every phase of error. To gain a temporary consciousness of God's law is to feel, in a certain finite human sense, that God comes to us and pities us; but the attainment of the understanding of His presence, through the Science of God, destroys our sense of imperfection, or of His absence, through a diviner sense that God is all true consciousness; and this convinces us that, as we get still nearer Him, we must forever lose our own consciousness of error. But how could we lose all consciousness of error, if God be conscious of it? God has not forbidden man to know Him; on the contrary, the Father bids man have the same Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus,"--which was certainly the divine Mind; but God does forbid man's acquaintance with evil. Why? Because evil is no part of the divine knowledge. John's Gospel declares (xvii. 3) that "life eternal" consists in the knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. Surely from such an understanding of Science, such knowing, the vision of sin is wholly excluded. Nevertheless, at the present crude hour, no wise men or women will rudely or prematurely agitate a theme involving the All of infinity. Rather will they rejoice in the small understanding they have already gained of the wholeness of Deity, and work gradually and gently up toward the perfect thought divine. This meekness will increase their apprehension of God, because their mental struggles and pride of opinion will proportionately diminish. Every one should be encouraged not to accept any personal opinion on so great a matter, but to seek the divine Science of this question of Truth by following upward individual convictions, undisturbed by the frightened sense of any need of attempting to solve every Life-problem in a day. "Great is the mystery of godliness," says Paul; and _mystery_ involves the unknown. No stubborn purpose to force conclusions on this subject will unfold in us a higher sense of Deity; neither will it promote the Cause of Truth or enlighten the individual thought. Let us respect the rights of conscience and the liberty of the sons of God, so letting our "moderation be known to all men." Let no enmity, no untempered controversy, spring up between Christian Science students and Christians who wholly or partially differ from them as to the nature of sin and the marvellous unity of man with God shadowed forth in scientific thought. Rather let the stately goings of this wonderful part of Truth be left to the supernal guidance. "These are but parts of Thy ways," says Job; and the whole is greater than its parts. Our present understanding is but "the seed within itself," for it is divine Science, "bearing fruit after its kind." Sooner or later the whole human race will learn that, in proportion as the spotless selfhood of God is understood, human nature will be renovated, and man will receive a higher selfhood, derived from God, and the redemption of mortals from sin, sickness, and death be established on everlasting foundations. The Science of physical harmony, as now presented to the people in divine light, is radical enough to promote as forcible collisions of thought as the age has strength to bear. Until the heavenly law of health, according to Christian Science, is firmly grounded, even the thinkers are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concerning the divine nature and character as is embraced in the theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin. No wise mother, though a graduate of Wellesley College, will talk to her babe about the problems of Euclid. Not much more than a half-century ago the assertion of universal salvation provoked discussion and horror, similar to what our declarations about sin and Deity must arouse, if hastily pushed to the front while the platoons of Christian Science are not yet thoroughly drilled in the plainer manual of their spiritual armament. "Wait patiently on the Lord;" and in less than another fifty years His name will be magnified in the apprehension of this new subject, as already He is glorified in the wide extension of belief in the impartial grace of God,--shown by the changes at Andover Seminary and in multitudes of other religious folds. Nevertheless, though I thus speak, and from my heart of hearts, it is due both to Christian Science and myself to make also the following statement: When I have most clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recognizes no disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein. In the same spiritual condition I have been able to replace dislocated joints and raise the dying to instantaneous health. People are now living who can bear witness to these cures. Herein is my evidence, from on high, that the views here promulgated on this subject are correct. Certain self-proved propositions pour into my waiting thought in connection with these experiences; and here is one such conviction: that an acknowledgment of the perfection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else can. An incontestable point in divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All-Mind. Seedtime and Harvest Let another query now be considered, which gives much trouble to many earnest thinkers before Science answers it. _Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?_ Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so. What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and can have no other reality than the sense you entertain of it. It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses, for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real, in our sense of the word. All that is beautiful and good in your individual consciousness is permanent. That which is not so is illusive and fading. My insistence upon a proper understanding of the unreality of matter and evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral, and intellectual, upon the race. All forms of error are uprooted in Science, on the same basis whereby sickness is healed,--namely, by the establishment, through reason, revelation, and Science, of the nothingness of every claim of error, even the doctrine of heredity and other physical causes. You demonstrate the process of Science, and it proves my view conclusively, that mortal mind is the cause of all disease. Destroy the mental sense of the disease, and the disease itself disappears. Destroy the sense of sin, and sin itself disappears. Material and sensual consciousness are mortal. Hence they must, some time and in some way, be reckoned unreal. That time has partially come, or my words would not have been spoken. Jesus has made the way plain,--so plain that all are without excuse who walk not in it; but this way is not the path of physical science, human philosophy, or mystic psychology. The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly reckoned. They have not based upon revelation their arguments and conclusions as to the source and resources of being,--its combinations, phenomena, and outcome,--but have built instead upon the sand of human reason. They have not accepted the simple teaching and life of Jesus as the only true solution of the perplexing problem of human existence. Sometimes it is said, by those who fail to understand me, that I _monopolize_; and this is said because ideas akin to mine have been held by a few spiritual thinkers in all ages. So they have, but in a far different form. Healing has gone on continually; yet healing, as I teach it, has not been practised since the days of Christ. What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system? This: that _by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death_, you demonstrate the allness of God. This difference wholly separates my system from all others. The reality of these so-called existences I deny, because they are not to be found in God, and this system is built on Him as the sole cause. It would be difficult to name any previous teachers, save Jesus and his apostles, who have thus taught. If there be any _monopoly_ in my teaching, it lies in this utter reliance upon the one God, to whom belong all things. Life is God, or Spirit, the supersensible eternal. The universe and man are the spiritual phenomena of this one infinite Mind. Spiritual phenomena never converge toward aught but infinite Deity. Their gradations are spiritual and divine; they cannot collapse, or lapse into their opposites, for God is their divine Principle. They live, because He lives; and they are eternally perfect, because He is perfect, and governs them in the Truth of divine Science, whereof God is the Alpha and Omega, the centre and circumference. To attempt the calculation of His mighty ways, from the evidence before the material senses, is fatuous. It is like commencing with the minus sign, to learn the principle of positive mathematics. God was not in the whirlwind. He is not the blind force of a material universe. Mortals must learn this; unless, pursued by their fears, they would endeavor to hide from His presence under their own falsities, and call in vain for the mountains of unholiness to shield them from the penalty of error. Jesus taught us to walk _over_, not _into_ or _with_, the currents of matter, or mortal mind. His teachings beard the lions in their dens. He turned the water into wine, he commanded the winds, he healed the sick,--all in direct opposition to human philosophy and so-called natural science. He annulled the laws of matter, showing them to be laws of mortal mind, not of God. He showed the need of changing this mind and its abortive laws. He demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and effected this change through the higher laws of God. The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, "That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;" but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence. If his patient was a theologian of some bigoted sect, a physician, or a professor of natural philosophy,--according to the ruder sort then prevalent,--he never thanked Jesus for restoring his senseless hand; but neither red tape nor indignity hindered the divine process. Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four months, and _then_ cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest; and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes. The laborers are few in this vineyard of Mind-sowing and reaping; but let them apply to the waiting grain the curving sickle of Mind's eternal circle, and bind it with bands of Soul. The Deep Things of God Science reverses the evidence of the senses in theology, on the same principle that it does in astronomy. Popular theology makes God tributary to man, coming at human call; whereas the reverse is true in Science. Men must approach God reverently, doing their own work in obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil the intended harmony of being. The principle of music knows nothing of discord. God is harmony's selfhood. His universal laws, His unchangeableness, are not infringed in ethics any more than in music. To Him there is no moral inharmony; as we shall learn, proportionately as we gain the true understanding of Deity. If God could be conscious of sin, His infinite power would straightway reduce the universe to chaos. If God has any real knowledge of sin, sickness, and death, they must be eternal; since He is, in the very fibre of His being, "without beginning of years or end of days." If God knows that which is not permanent, it follows that He knows something which He must learn to _unknow_, for the benefit of our race. Such a view would bring us upon an outworn theological platform, which contains such planks as the divine repentance, and the belief that God must one day do His work over again, because it was not at first done aright. Can it be seriously held, by any thinker, that long after God made the universe,--earth, man, animals, plants, the sun, the moon, and "the stars also,"--He should so gain wisdom and power from past experience that He could vastly improve upon His own previous work,--as Burgess, the boatbuilder, remedies in the Volunteer the shortcomings of the Puritan's model? Christians are commanded to _grow in grace_. Was it necessary for God to grow in grace, that He might rectify His spiritual universe? The Jehovah of limited Hebrew faith might need repentance, because His created children proved sinful; but the New Testament tells us of "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." God is not the shifting vane on the spire, but the corner-stone of living rock, firmer than everlasting hills. As God is Mind, if this Mind is familiar with evil, all cannot be good therein. Our infinite model would be taken away. What is in eternal Mind must be reflected in man, Mind's image. How then could man escape, or hope to escape, from a knowledge which is everlasting in his creator? God never said that man would become better by learning to distinguish evil from good,--but the contrary, that by this knowledge, by man's first disobedience, came "death into the world, and all our woe." "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" asks the poet-patriarch. May men rid themselves of an incubus which God never can throw off? Do mortals know more than God, that they may declare Him absolutely cognizant of sin? God created all things, and pronounced them good. Was evil among these good things? Man is God's child and image. If God knows evil, so must man, or the likeness is incomplete, the image marred. If man must be destroyed by the knowledge of evil, then his destruction comes through the very knowledge caught from God, and the creature is punished for his likeness to his creator. God is commonly called the _sinless_, and man the _sinful_; but if the thought of sin could be possible in Deity, would Deity then be sinless? Would God not of necessity take precedence as the infinite sinner, and human sin become only an echo of the divine? Such vagaries are to be found in heathen religious history. There are, or have been, devotees who worship not the good Deity, who will not harm them, but the bad deity, who seeks to do them mischief, and whom therefore they wish to bribe with prayers into quiescence, as a criminal appeases, with a money-bag, the venal officer. Surely this is no Christian worship! In Christianity man bows to the infinite perfection which he is bidden to imitate. In Truth, such terms as _divine sin_ and _infinite sinner_ are unheard-of contradictions,--absurdities; but _would_ they be sheer nonsense, if God has, or can have, a real knowledge of sin? Ways Higher than Our Ways A lie has only one chance of successful deception,--to be accounted true. Evil seeks to fasten all error upon God, and so make the lie seem part of eternal Truth. Emerson says, "Hitch your wagon to a star." I say, Be allied to the deific power, and all that is good will aid your journey, as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. (Judges v. 20.) Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a union predestined from all eternity; but evil ties its wagon-load of offal to the divine chariots,--or seeks so to do,--that its vileness may be christened purity, and its darkness get consolation from borrowed scintillations. Jesus distinctly taught the arrogant Pharisees that, from the beginning, their father, the devil, was the would-be murderer of Truth. A right apprehension of the wonderful utterances of him who "spake as never man spake," would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and transform the universe into a home of marvellous light,--"a consummation devoutly to be wished." Error says God must know evil because He knows all things; but Holy Writ declares God told our first parents that in the day when they should partake of the fruit of evil, they must surely die. Would it not absurdly follow that God must perish, if He knows evil and evil necessarily leads to extinction? Rather let us think of God as saying, I am infinite good; therefore I know not evil. Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My own glory. Error may say that God can never save man from sin, if He knows and sees it not; but God says, I am too pure to behold iniquity, and destroy everything that is unlike Myself. Many fancy that our heavenly Father reasons thus: If pain and sorrow were not in My mind, I could not remedy them, and wipe the tears from the eyes of My children. Error says you must know grief in order to console it. Truth, God, says you oftenest console others in troubles that you have not. Is not our comforter always from outside and above ourselves? God says, I show My pity through divine law, not through human. It is My sympathy with and My knowledge of harmony (not inharmony) which alone enable Me to rebuke, and eventually destroy, every supposition of discord. Error says God must know death in order to strike at its root; but God saith, I am ever-conscious Life, and thus I conquer death; for to be ever conscious of Life is to be never conscious of death. I am All. A knowledge of aught beside Myself is impossible. If such knowledge of evil were possible to God, it would lower His rank. With God, _knowledge_ is necessarily _foreknowledge_; and _foreknowledge_ and _foreordination_ must be one, in an infinite Being. What Deity _foreknows_, Deity must _foreordain_; else He is not omnipotent, and, like ourselves, He foresees events which are contrary to His creative will, yet which He cannot avert. If God knows evil at all, He must have had foreknowledge thereof; and if He foreknew it, He must virtually have intended it, or ordered it aforetime,--foreordained it; else how could it have come into the world? But this we cannot believe of God; for if the supreme good could predestine or foreknow evil, there would be sin in Deity, and this would be the end of infinite moral unity. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" On the contrary, evil is only a delusive deception, without any actuality which Truth can know. Rectifications How is a mistake to be rectified? By reversal or revision,--by seeing it in its proper light, and then turning it or turning from it. We undo the statements of error by reversing them. Through these three statements, or misstatements, evil comes into authority:-- _First:_ The Lord created it. _Second:_ The Lord knows it. _Third:_ I am afraid of it. By a reverse process of argument evil must be dethroned:-- _First:_ God never made evil. _Second:_ He knows it not. _Third:_ We therefore need not fear it. Try this process, dear inquirer, and so reach that perfect Love which "casteth out fear," and then see if this Love does not destroy in you all hate and the sense of evil. You will awake to the perception of God as All-in-all. You will find yourself losing the knowledge and the operation of sin, proportionably as you realize the divine infinitude and believe that He can see nothing outside of His own focal distance. A Colloquy In Romans (ii. 15) we read the apostle's description of mental processes wherein human thoughts are "the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." If we observe our mental processes, we shall find that we are perpetually arguing with ourselves; yet each mortal is not two personalities, but one. In like manner good and evil talk to one another; yet they are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only is reality. _Evil._ God hath said, "Ye shall eat of every tree of the garden." If you do not, your intellect will be circumscribed and the evidence of your personal senses be denied. This would antagonize individual consciousness and existence. _Good._ The Lord is God. With Him is no consciousness of evil, because there is nothing beside Him or outside of Him. Individual consciousness in man is inseparable from good. There is no sensible matter, no sense in matter; but there is a spiritual sense, a sense of Spirit, and this is the only consciousness belonging to true individuality, or a divine sense of being. _Evil._ Why is this so? _Good._ Because man is made after God's eternal likeness, and this likeness consists in a sense of harmony and immortality, in which no evil can possibly dwell. You may eat of the fruit of Godlikeness, but as to the fruit of ungodliness, which is opposed to Truth,--ye shall not touch it, lest ye die. _Evil._ But I would taste and know error for myself. _Good._ Thou shalt not admit that error is something to know or be known, to eat or be eaten, to see or be seen, to feel or be felt. To admit the existence of error would be to admit the truth of a lie. _Evil._ But there is something besides good. God knows that a knowledge of this something is essential to happiness and life. A lie is as genuine as Truth, though not so legitimate a child of God. Whatever exists must come from God, and be important to our knowledge. Error, even, is His offspring. _Good._ Whatever cometh not from the eternal Spirit, has its origin in the physical senses and material brains, called _human intellect_ and _will-power_,--_alias_ intelligent matter. In Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, it was the traitorous and cruel treatment received by old Gloster from his bastard son Edmund which makes true the lines: The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. His lawful son, Edgar, was to his father ever loyal. Now God has no bastards to turn again and rend their Maker. The divine children are born of law and order, and Truth knows only such. How well the Shakespearean tale agrees with the word of Scripture, in Hebrews xii. 7, 8: "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." The doubtful or spurious evidence of the senses is not to be admitted,--especially when they testify concerning Spirit, whereof they are confessedly incompetent to speak. _Evil._ But mortal mind and sin really exist! _Good._ How can they exist, unless God has created them? And how can He create anything so wholly unlike Himself and foreign to His nature? An evil material mind, so-called, can conceive of God only as like itself, and knowing both evil and good; but a purely good and spiritual consciousness has no sense whereby to cognize evil. Mortal mind is the opposite of immortal Mind, and sin the opposite of goodness. I am the infinite All. From me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individuality, all being. My Mind is divine good, and cannot drift into evil. To believe in minds many is to depart from the supreme sense of harmony. Your assumptions insist that there is more than the one Mind, more than the one God; but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; and you can never be outside of His oneness. _Evil._ I am a finite consciousness, a material individuality,--a mind in matter, which is both evil and good. _Good._ All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God,--an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This consciousness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose source is infinite Mind. There is no really finite mind, no finite consciousness. There is no material substance, for Spirit is all that endureth, and hence is the only substance. There is, can be, no evil mind, because Mind is God. God and His ideas--that is, God and the universe--constitute all that exists. Man, as God's offspring, must be spiritual, perfect, eternal. _Evil._ I am something separate from good or God. I am substance. My mind is more than matter. In my mortal mind, matter becomes conscious, and is able to see, taste, hear, feel, smell. Whatever matter thus affirms is mainly correct. If you, O good, deny this, then I deny your truthfulness. If you say that matter is unconscious, you stultify my intellect, insult my conscience, and dispute self-evident facts; for nothing can be clearer than the testimony of the five senses. _Good._ Spirit is the only substance. Spirit is God, and God is good; hence good is the only substance, the only Mind. Mind is not, cannot be, in matter. It sees, hears, feels, tastes, smells as Mind, and not as matter. Matter cannot talk; and hence, whatever it appears to say of itself is a lie. This lie, that Mind can be in matter,--claiming to be something beside God, denying Truth and its demonstration in Christian Science,--this lie I declare an illusion. This denial enlarges the human intellect by removing its evidence from sense to Soul, and from finiteness into infinity. It honors conscious human individuality by showing God as its source. _Evil._ I am a creator,--but upon a material, not a spiritual basis. I give life, and I can destroy life. _Good._ Evil is not a creator. God, good, is the only creator. Evil is not conscious or conscientious Mind; it is not individual, not actual. Evil is not spiritual, and therefore has no groundwork in Life, whose only source is Spirit. The elements which belong to the eternal All,--Life, Truth, Love,--evil can never take away. _Evil._ I am intelligent matter; and matter is egoistic, having its own innate selfhood and the capacity to evolve mind. God is in matter, and matter reproduces God. From Him come my forms, near or remote. This is my honor, that God is my author, authority, governor, disposer. I am proud to be in His outstretched hands, and I shirk all responsibility for myself as evil, and for my varying manifestations. _Good._ You mistake, O evil! God is not your authority and law. Neither is He the author of the material changes, the _phantasma_, a belief in which leads to such teaching as we find in the hymn-verse so often sung in church:-- Chance and change are busy ever, Man decays and ages move; But His mercy waneth never,-- God is wisdom, God is love. Now if it be true that God's power _never waneth_, how can it be also true that _chance_ and _change_ are universal factors,--that _man decays_? Many ordinary Christians protest against this stanza of Bowring's, and its sentiment is foreign to Christian Science. If God be _changeless goodness_, as sings another line of this hymn, what place has _chance_ in the divine economy? Nay, there is in God naught fantastic. All is real, all is serious. The phantasmagoria is a product of human dreams. The Ego From various friends comes inquiry as to the meaning of a word employed in the foregoing colloquy. There are two English words, often used as if they were synonyms, which really have a shade of difference between them. An _egotist_ is one who talks much of himself. _Egotism_ implies vanity and self-conceit. _Egoism_ is a more philosophical word, signifying a passionate love of self, which doubts all existence except its own. An _egoist_, therefore, is one uncertain of everything except his own existence. Applying these distinctions to evil and God, we shall find that evil is _egotistic_,--boastful, but fleeing like a shadow at daybreak; while God is _egoistic_, knowing only His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power. Soul We read in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." What is Soul? Is it a reality within the mortal body? Who can prove that? Anatomy has not descried nor described Soul. It was never touched by the scalpel nor cut with the dissecting-knife. The five physical senses do not cognize it. Who, then, dares define Soul as something within man? As well might you declare some old castle to be peopled with demons or angels, though never a light or form was discerned therein, and not a spectre had ever been seen going in or coming out. The common hypotheses about souls are even more vague than ordinary material conjectures, and have less basis; because material theories are built on the evidence of the material senses. Soul must be God; since we learn Soul only as we learn God, by spiritualization. As the five senses take no cognizance of Soul, so they take no cognizance of God. Whatever cannot be taken in by mortal mind--by human reflection, reason, or belief--must be the unfathomable Mind, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." Soul stands in this relation to every hypothesis as to its human character. If Soul sins, it is a sinner, and Jewish law condemned the sinner to death,--as does all criminal law, to a certain extent. Spirit never sins, because Spirit is God. Hence, as Spirit, Soul is sinless, and is God. Therefore there is, there can be, no spiritual death. Transcending the evidence of the material senses, Science declares God to be the Soul of all being, the only Mind and intelligence in the universe. There is but one God, one Soul, or Mind, and that one is infinite, supplying all that is absolutely immutable and eternal,--Truth, Life, Love. Science reveals Soul as that which the senses cannot define from any standpoint of their own. What the physical senses miscall soul, Christian Science defines as material sense; and herein lies the discrepancy between the true Science of Soul and that material sense of a soul which that very sense declares can never be seen or measured or weighed or touched by physicality. Often we can elucidate the deep meaning of the Scriptures by reading _sense_ instead of _soul_, as in the Forty-second Psalm: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul [sense]?... Hope thou in God [Soul]: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God [my Soul, immortality]." The Virgin-mother's sense being uplifted to behold Spirit as the sole origin of man, she exclaimed, "My soul [spiritual sense] doth magnify the Lord." Human language constantly uses the word _soul_ for _sense_. This it does under the delusion that the senses can reverse the spiritual facts of Science, whereas Science reverses the testimony of the material senses. Soul is Life, and being spiritual Life, never sins. Material sense is the so-called material life. Hence this lower sense sins and suffers, according to material belief, till divine understanding takes away this belief and restores Soul, or spiritual Life. "He restoreth my soul," says David. In his first epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 45) Paul writes: "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." The apostle refers to the second Adam as the Messiah, our blessed Master, whose interpretation of God and His creation--by restoring the spiritual sense of man as immortal instead of mortal--made humanity victorious over death and the grave. When I discovered the power of Spirit to break the cords of matter, through a change in the mortal sense of things, then I discerned the last Adam as a quickening Spirit, and understood the meaning of the declaration of Holy Writ, "The first shall be last,"--the living Soul shall be found a quickening Spirit; or, rather, shall reflect the Life of the divine Arbiter. There is no Matter "God is a Spirit" (or, more accurately translated, "God is Spirit"), declares the Scripture (John iv. 24), "and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." If God is Spirit, and God is All, surely there can be no matter; for the divine All must be Spirit. The tendency of Christianity is to spiritualize thought and action. The demonstrations of Jesus annulled the claims of matter, and overruled laws material as emphatically as they annihilated sin. According to Christian Science, the _first_ idolatrous claim of sin is, that matter exists; the _second_, that matter is substance; the _third_, that matter has intelligence; and the _fourth_, that matter, being so endowed, produces life and death. Hence my conscientious position, in the denial of matter, rests on the fact that matter usurps the authority of God, Spirit; and the nature and character of matter, the antipode of Spirit, include all that denies and defies Spirit, in quantity or quality. This subject can be enlarged. It can be shown, in detail, that evil does not obtain in Spirit, God; and that God, or good, is Spirit alone; whereas, evil _does_, according to belief, obtain in matter; and that evil is a false claim,--false to God, false to Truth and Life. Hence the claim of matter usurps the prerogative of God, saying, "I am a creator. God made me, and I make man and the material universe." Spirit is the only creator, and man, including the universe, is His spiritual concept. By matter is commonly meant mind,--not the highest Mind, but a false form of mind. This so-called mind and matter cannot be separated in origin and action. What is this mind? It is not the Mind of Spirit; for spiritualization of thought destroys all sense of matter as substance, Life, or intelligence, and enthrones God in the eternal qualities of His being. This lower, misnamed mind is a false claim, a suppositional mind, which I prefer to call _mortal mind_. True Mind is immortal. This mortal mind declares itself material, in sin, sickness, and death, virtually saying, "I am the opposite of Spirit, of holiness, harmony, and Life." To this declaration Christian Science responds, even as did our Master: "You were a murderer from the beginning. The truth abode not in you. You are a liar, and the father of it." Here it appears that a _liar_ was in the neuter gender,--neither masculine nor feminine. Hence it was not man (the image of God) who lied, but the false claim to personality, which I call _mortal mind_; a claim which Christian Science uncovers, in order to demonstrate the falsity of the claim. There are lesser arguments which prove matter to be identical with mortal mind, and this mind a lie. The physical senses (matter really having no sense) give the only pretended testimony there can be as to the existence of a substance called _matter_. Now these senses, being material, can only testify from their own evidence, and concerning themselves; yet we have it on divine authority: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." (John v. 31.) In other words: matter testifies of itself, "I am matter;" but unless matter is mind, it cannot talk or testify; and if it is mind, it is certainly not the Mind of Christ, not the Mind that is identical with Truth. Brain, thus assuming to testify, is only matter within the skull, and is believed to be mind only through error and delusion. Examine that form of matter called _brains_, and you find no mind therein. Hence the logical sequence, that there is in reality neither matter nor mortal mind, but that the self-testimony of the physical senses is false. Examine these witnesses for error, or falsity, and observe the foundations of their testimony, and you will find them divided in evidence, mocking the Scripture (Matthew xviii. 16), "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." _Sight._ Mortal mind declares that matter sees through the organizations of matter, or that mind sees by means of matter. Disorganize the so-called material structure, and then mortal mind says, "I cannot see;" and declares that matter is the master of mind, and that non-intelligence governs. Mortal mind admits that it sees only material images, pictured on the eye's retina. What then is the line of the syllogism? It must be this: That matter is not seen; that mortal mind cannot see without matter; and therefore that the whole function of material sight is an illusion, a lie. Here comes in the summary of the whole matter, wherewith we started: that God is All, and God is Spirit; therefore there is nothing but Spirit; and consequently there is no matter. _Touch_. Take another train of reasoning. Mortal mind says that matter cannot feel matter; yet put your finger on a burning coal, and the nerves, material nerves, _do_ feel matter. Again I ask: What evidence does mortal mind afford that matter is substantial, is hot or cold? Take away mortal mind, and matter could not feel what it calls _substance_. Take away matter, and mortal mind could not cognize its own so-called substance, and this so-called mind would have no identity. Nothing would remain to be seen or felt. What is substance? What is the reality of God and the universe? Immortal Mind is the real substance,--Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. _Taste._ Mortal mind says, "I taste; and this is sweet, this is sour." Let mortal mind change, and say that sour is sweet, and so it would be. If every mortal mind believed sweet to be sour, it would be so; for the qualities of matter are but qualities of mortal mind. Change the mind, and the quality changes. Destroy the belief, and the quality disappears. The so-called material senses are found, upon examination, to be mortally mental, instead of material. Reduced to its proper denomination, matter is mortal mind; yet, strictly speaking, there is no mortal mind, for Mind is immortal, and is not matter, but Spirit. _Force._ What is gravitation? Mortal mind says gravitation is a material power, or force. I ask, Which was first, matter or power? That which was first was God, immortal Mind, the Parent of _all_. But God is Truth, and the forces of Truth are moral and spiritual, not physical. They are not the merciless forces of matter. What then _are_ the so-called forces of matter? They are the phenomena of mortal mind, and matter and mortal mind are one; and this one is a misstatement of Mind, God. A molecule, as matter, is not formed by Spirit; for Spirit is _spiritual_ consciousness alone. Hence this spiritual consciousness can form nothing unlike itself, Spirit, and Spirit is the only creator. The material atom is an outlined falsity of consciousness, which can gather additional evidence of consciousness and life only as it adds lie to lie. This process it names material attraction, and endows with the double capacity of creator and creation. From the beginning this lie was the false witness against the fact that Spirit is All, beside which there is no other existence. The use of a lie is that it unwittingly confirms Truth, when handled by Christian Science, which reverses false testimony and gains a knowledge of God from opposite facts, or phenomena. This whole subject is met and solved by Christian Science according to Scripture. Thus we see that Spirit is Truth and eternal reality; that matter is the opposite of Spirit,--referred to in the New Testament as the flesh at war with Spirit; hence, that matter is erroneous, transitory, unreal. A further proof of this is the demonstration, according to Christian Science, that by the reduction and the rejection of the claims of matter (instead of acquiescence therein) man is improved physically, mentally, morally, spiritually. To deny the existence or reality of matter, and yet admit the reality of moral evil, sin, or to say that the divine Mind is conscious of evil, yet is not conscious of matter, is erroneous. This error stultifies the logic of divine Science, and must interfere with its practical demonstration. Is There no Death? Jesus not only declared himself "the way" and "the truth," but also "the life." God is Life; and as there is but one God, there can be but one Life. Must man die, then, in order to inherit eternal life and enter heaven? Our Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is not the real stepping-stone to Life and happiness. They are now and here; and a change in human consciousness, from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being. Because God is ever present, no boundary of time can separate us from Him and the heaven of His presence; and because God is Life, all Life is eternal. Is it unchristian to believe there is no death? Not unless it be a sin to believe that God is Life and All-in-all. Evil and disease do not testify of Life and God. Human beings are physically mortal, but spiritually immortal. The evil accompanying physical personality is illusive and mortal; but the good attendant upon spiritual individuality is immortal. Existing here and now, this unseen individuality is real and eternal. The so-called material senses, and the mortal mind which is misnamed _man_, take no cognizance of spiritual individuality, which manifests immortality, whose Principle is God. To God alone belong the indisputable realities of being. Death is a contradiction of Life, or God; therefore it is not in accordance with His law, but antagonistic thereto. Death, then, is error, opposed to Truth,--even the unreality of mortal mind, not the reality of that Mind which is Life. Error has no life, and is virtually without existence. Life is real; and all is real which proceeds from Life and is inseparable from it. It is unchristian to believe in the transition called _material death_, since matter has no life, and such misbelief must enthrone another power, an imaginary life, above the living and true God. A material sense of life robs God, by declaring that not He alone is Life, but that something else also is life,--thus affirming the existence and rulership of more gods than one. This idolatrous and false sense of life is all that dies, or appears to die. The opposite understanding of God brings to light Life and immortality. Death has no quality of Life; and no divine fiat commands us to believe in aught which is unlike God, or to deny that He is Life eternal. Life as God, moral and spiritual good, is not seen in the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms. Hence the inevitable conclusion that Life is not in these kingdoms, and that the popular views to this effect are not up to the Christian standard of Life, or equal to the reality of being, whose Principle is God. When "the Word" is "made flesh" among mortals, the Truth of Life is rendered practical on the body. Eternal Life is partially understood; and sickness, sin, and death yield to holiness, health, and Life,--that is, to God. The lust of the flesh and the pride of physical life must be quenched in the divine essence,--that omnipotent Love which annihilates hate, that Life which knows no death. "Who hath believed our report?" Who understands these sayings? He to whom the arm of the Lord is revealed. He loves them from whom divine Science removes human weakness by divine strength, and who unveil the Messiah, whose name is Wonderful. Man has no underived power. That selfhood is false which opposes itself to God, claims another father, and denies spiritual sonship; but as many as receive the knowledge of God in Science must reflect, in some degree, the power of Him who gave and giveth man dominion over all the earth. As soldiers of the cross we must be brave, and let Science declare the immortal status of man, and deny the evidence of the material senses, which testify that man dies. As the image of God, or Life, man forever reflects and embodies Life, not death. The material senses testify falsely. They presuppose that God is good and that man is evil, that Deity is deathless, but that man dies, losing the divine likeness. Science and material sense conflict at all points, from the revolution of the earth to the fall of a sparrow. It is mortality only that dies. To say that you and I, as mortals, will not enter this dark shadow of material sense, called _death_, is to assert what we have not proved; but man in Science never dies. Material sense, or the belief of life in matter, must perish, in order to prove man deathless. As Truth supersedes error, and bears the fruits of Love, this understanding of Truth subordinates the belief in death, and demonstrates Life as imperative in the divine order of being. Jesus declares that they who believe his sayings will never die; therefore mortals can no more receive everlasting life by believing in death, than they can become perfect by believing in imperfection and living imperfectly. Life is God, and God is good. Hence Life abides in man, if man abides in good, if he lives in God, who holds Life by a spiritual and not by a material sense of being. A sense of death is not requisite to a proper or true sense of Life, but beclouds it. Death can never alarm or even appear to him who fully understands Life. The death-penalty comes through our ignorance of Life,--of that which is without beginning and without end,--and is the punishment of this ignorance. Holding a material sense of Life, and lacking the spiritual sense of it, mortals die, in belief, and regard all things as temporal. A sense material apprehends nothing strictly belonging to the nature and office of Life. It conceives and beholds nothing but mortality, and has but a feeble concept of immortality. In order to reach the true knowledge and consciousness of Life, we must learn it of good. Of evil we can never learn it, because sin shuts out the real sense of Life, and brings in an unreal sense of suffering and death. Knowledge of evil, or belief in it, involves a loss of the true sense of good, God; and to know death, or to believe in it, involves a temporary loss of God, the infinite and only Life. Resurrection from the dead (that is, from the belief in death) must come to all sooner or later; and they who have part in this resurrection are they upon whom the second death has no power. The sweet and sacred sense of the permanence of man's unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with a continual presence and power of good, opening wide the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall appear "we shall be like Him," and we shall go to the Father, not through death, but through Life; not through error, but through Truth. All Life is Spirit, and Spirit can never dwell in its antagonist, matter. Life, therefore, is deathless, because God cannot be the opposite of Himself. In Christian Science there is no matter; hence matter neither lives nor dies. To the senses, matter appears to both live and die, and these phenomena appear to go on _ad infinitum_; but such a theory implies perpetual disagreement with Spirit. Life, God, being everywhere, it must follow that death can be nowhere; because there is no place left for it. Soul, Spirit, is deathless. Matter, sin, and death are not the outcome of Spirit, holiness, and Life. What then are matter, sin, and death? They can be nothing except the results of material consciousness; but material consciousness can have no real existence, because it is not a living--that is to say, a divine and intelligent--reality. That man must be vicious before he can be virtuous, dying before he can be deathless, material before he can be spiritual, is an error of the senses; for the very opposite of this error is the genuine Science of being. Man, in Science, is as perfect and immortal now, as when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." With Christ, Life was not merely a sense of existence, but a sense of might and ability to subdue material conditions. No wonder "people were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." As defined by Jesus, Life had no beginning; nor was it the result of organization, or of an infusion of power into matter. To him, Life was Spirit. Truth, defiant of error or matter, is Science, dispelling a false sense and leading man into the true sense of selfhood and Godhood; wherein the mortal does not develop the immortal, nor the material the spiritual, but wherein true manhood and womanhood go forth in the radiance of eternal being and its perfections, unchanged and unchangeable. This generation seems too material for any strong demonstration over death, and hence cannot bring out the infinite reality of Life,--namely, that there is no death, but only Life. The present mortal sense of being is too finite for anchorage in infinite good, God, because mortals now believe in the possibility that Life can be evil. The achievement of this ultimatum of Science, complete triumph over death, requires time and immense spiritual growth. I have by no means spoken of myself, I _cannot_ speak of myself as "sufficient for these things." I insist only upon the fact, as it exists in divine Science, that man dies not, and on the words of the Master in support of this verity,--words which can never "pass away till all be fulfilled." Because of these profound reasons I urge Christians to have more faith in living than in dying. I exhort them to accept Christ's promise, and unite the influence of their own thoughts with the power of his teachings, in the Science of being. This will interpret the divine power to human capacity, and enable us to _apprehend_, or lay hold upon, "that for which," as Paul says in the third chapter of Philippians, we are also "apprehended of [or grasped by] Christ Jesus,"--the ever-present Life which knows no death, the omnipresent Spirit which knows no matter. Personal Statements Many misrepresentations are made concerning my doctrines, some of which are as unkind and unjust as they are untrue; but I can only repeat the Master's words: "They know not what they do." The foundations of these assertions, like the structure raised thereupon, are vain shadows, repeating--if the popular couplet may be so paraphrased-- The old, old story, Of _Satan_ and his _lie_. In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false personality,--a talking snake,--according to Biblical history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth. This abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in Christian Science. Human theories call, or miscall, this evil a child of God. Philosophy would multiply and subdivide personality into everything that exists, whether expressive or not expressive of the Mind which is God. Human wisdom says of evil, "The Lord knows it!" thus carrying out the serpent's assurance: "In the day ye eat thereof [when you, lie, get the floor], then your eyes shall be opened [you shall be conscious matter], and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil [you shall believe a lie, and this lie shall seem truth]." Bruise the head of this serpent, as Truth and "the woman" are doing in Christian Science, and it stings your heel, rears its crest proudly, and goes on saying, "Am I not myself? Am I not mind and matter, person and thing?" We should answer: "Yes! you are indeed yourself, and need most of all to be rid of this self, for it is very far from God's likeness." The egotist must come down and learn, in humility, that God never made evil. An evil ego, and his assumed power, are falsities. These falsities need a denial. The falsity is the teaching that matter can be conscious; and conscious matter implies pantheism. This pantheism I unveil. I try to show its all-pervading presence in certain forms of theology and philosophy, where it becomes error's affirmative to Truth's negative. Anatomy and physiology make mind-matter a habitant of the cerebellum, whence it telegraphs and telephones over its own body, and goes forth into an imaginary sphere of its own creation and limitation, until it finally dies in order to better itself. But Truth never dies, and death is not the goal which Truth seeks. The evil ego has but the visionary substance of matter. It lacks the substance of Spirit,--Mind, Life, Soul. Mortal mind is self-creative and self-sustained, until it becomes non-existent. It has no origin or existence in Spirit, immortal Mind, or good. Matter is not truly conscious; and mortal error, called _mind_, is not Godlike. These are the shadowy and false, which neither think nor speak. All Truth is from inspiration and revelation,--from Spirit, not from flesh. We do not see much of the real man here, for he is God's man; while ours is man's man. I do not deny, I maintain, the individuality and reality of man; but I do so on a divine Principle, not based on a human conception and birth. The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to the spiritual sense and source of being. Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." He taught no selfhood as existent in matter. In his identity there is no evil. Individuality and Life were real to him only as spiritual and good, not as material or evil. This incensed the rabbins against Jesus, because it was an indignity to their personality; and this personality they regarded as both good and evil, as is still claimed by the worldly-wise. To them evil was even more the ego than was the good. Sin, sickness, and death were evil's concomitants. This evil ego they believed must extend throughout the universe, as being equally identical and self-conscious with God. This ego was in the earthquake, thunderbolt, and tempest. The Pharisees fought Jesus on this issue. It furnished the battle-ground of the past, as it does of the present. The fight was an effort to enthrone evil. Jesus assumed the burden of disproof by destroying sin, sickness, and death, to sight and sense. Nowhere in Scripture is evil connected with good, the being of God, and with every passing hour it is losing its false claim to existence or consciousness. All that can exist is God and His idea. Credo It is fair to ask of every one a reason for the faith within. Though it be but to repeat my twice-told tale,--nay, the tale already told a hundred times,--yet ask, and I will answer. _Do you believe in God?_ I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains my individuality. Nay, more--He _is_ my individuality and my Life. Because He lives, I live. He heals all my ills, destroys my iniquities, deprives death of its sting, and robs the grave of its victory. To me God is All. He is best understood as Supreme Being, as infinite and conscious Life, as the affectionate Father and Mother of all He creates; but this divine Parent no more enters into His creation than the human father enters into his child. His creation is not the Ego, but the reflection of the Ego. The Ego is God Himself, the infinite Soul. I believe that of which I am conscious through the understanding, however faintly able to demonstrate Truth and Love. _Do you believe in man?_ I believe in the individual man, for I understand that man is as definite and eternal as God, and that man is coexistent with God, as being the eternally divine idea. This is demonstrable by the simple appeal to human consciousness. But I believe less in the sinner, wrongly named _man_. The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless,--as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker. To me the reality and substance of being are _good_, and nothing else. Through the eternal reality of existence I reach, in thought, a glorified consciousness of the only living God and the genuine man. So long as I hold evil in consciousness, I cannot be wholly good. You cannot simultaneously serve the mammon of materiality and the God of spirituality. There are not two realities of being, two opposite states of existence. One should appear real to us, and the other unreal, or we lose the Science of being. Standing in no basic Truth, we make "the worse appear the better reason," and the unreal masquerades as the real, in our thought. Evil is without Principle. Being destitute of Principle, it is devoid of Science. Hence it is undemonstrable, without proof. This gives me a clearer right to call evil a negation, than to affirm it to be something which God sees and knows, but which He straightway commands mortals to shun or relinquish, lest it destroy them. This notion of the destructibility of Mind implies the possibility of its defilement; but how can infinite Mind be defiled? _Do you believe in matter_? I believe in matter only as I believe in evil, that it is something to be denied and destroyed to human consciousness, and is unknown to the Divine. We should watch and pray that we enter not into the temptation of pantheistic belief in matter as sensible mind. We should subjugate it as Jesus did, by a dominant understanding of Spirit. At best, matter is only a phenomenon of mortal mind, of which evil is the highest degree; but really there is no such thing as _mortal mind_,--though we are compelled to use the phrase in the endeavor to express the underlying thought. In reality there are no material states or stages of consciousness, and matter has neither Mind nor sensation. Like evil, it is destitute of Mind, for Mind is God. The less consciousness of evil or matter mortals have, the easier it is for them to evade sin, sickness, and death,--which are but states of false belief,--and awake from the troubled dream, a consciousness which is without Mind or Maker. Matter and evil cannot be conscious, and consciousness should not be evil. Adopt this rule of Science, and you will discover the material origin, growth, maturity, and death of sinners, as the history of man, disappears, and the everlasting facts of being appear, wherein man is the reflection of immutable good. Reasoning from false premises,--that Life is material, that immortal Soul is sinful, and hence that sin is eternal,--the reality of being is neither seen, felt, heard, nor understood. Human philosophy and human reason can never make one hair white or black, except in belief; whereas the demonstration of God, as in Christian Science, is gained through Christ as perfect manhood. In pantheism the world is bereft of its God, whose place is ill supplied by the pretentious usurpation, by matter, of the heavenly sovereignty. _What say you of woman?_ Man is the generic term for all humanity. Woman is the highest species of man, and this word is the generic term for all women; but not one of all these individualities is an Eve or an Adam. They have none of them lost their harmonious state, in the economy of God's wisdom and government. The Ego is divine consciousness, eternally radiating throughout all space in the idea of God, good, and not of His opposite, evil. The Ego is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but the full Truth is found only in divine Science, where we see God as Life, Truth, and Love. In the scientific relation of man to God, man is reflected not as human soul, but as the divine ideal, whose Soul is not in body, but is God,--the divine Principle of man. Hence Soul is sinless and immortal, in contradistinction to the supposition that there can be sinful souls or immortal sinners. This Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal harmony of both God and the universe. It is the kingdom of heaven, the ever-present reign of harmony, already with us. Hence the need that human consciousness should become divine, in the coincidence of God and man, in contradistinction to the false consciousness of both good and evil, God and devil,--of man separated from his Maker. This is the precious redemption of soul, as mortal sense, through Christ's immortal sense of Truth, which presents Truth's spiritual idea, _man_ and _woman_. _What say you of evil?_ God is not the so-called ego of evil; for evil, as a supposition, is the father of itself,--of the material world, the flesh, and the devil. From this falsehood arise the self-destroying elements of this world, its unkind forces, its tempests, lightnings, earthquakes, poisons, rabid beasts, fatal reptiles, and mortals. Why are earth and mortals so elaborate in beauty, color, and form, if God has no part in them? By the law of opposites. The most beautiful blossom is often poisonous, and the most beautiful mansion is sometimes the home of vice. The senses, not God, Soul, form the condition of beautiful evil, and the supposed modes of self-conscious matter, which make a beautiful lie. Now a lie takes its pattern from Truth, by reversing Truth. So evil and all its forms are inverted good. God never made them; but the lie must say He made them, or it would not be evil. Being a lie, it would be truthful to call itself a lie; and by calling the knowledge of evil good, and greatly to be desired, it constitutes the lie an evil. The reality and individuality of man are good and God-made, and they are here to be seen and demonstrated; it is only the evil belief that renders them obscure. Matter and evil are anti-Christian, the antipodes of Science. To say that Mind is material, or that evil is Mind, is a misapprehension of being,--a mistake which will die of its own delusion; for being self-contradictory, it is also self-destructive. The harmony of man's being is not built on such false foundations, which are no more logical, philosophical, or scientific than would be the assertion that the rule of addition is the rule of subtraction, and that sums done under both rules would have one quotient. Man's individuality is not a mortal mind or sinner; or else he has lost his true individuality as a perfect child of God. Man's Father is not a mortal mind and a sinner; or else the immortal and unerring Mind, God, is not his Father; but God _is_ man's origin and loving Father, hence that saying of Jesus, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." The bright gold of Truth is dimmed by the doctrine of mind in matter. To say there _is_ a false claim, called _sickness_, is to admit all there is of sickness; for it is nothing but a false claim. To be healed, one must lose sight of a false claim. If the claim be present to the thought, then disease becomes as tangible as any reality. To regard sickness as a false claim, is to abate the fear of it; but this does not destroy the so-called fact of the _claim_. In order to be whole, we must be insensible to every claim of error. As with sickness, so is it with sin. To admit that sin has any claim whatever, just or unjust, is to admit a dangerous fact. Hence the fact must be denied; for if sin's claim be allowed in any degree, then sin destroys the _at-one-ment_, or oneness with God,--a unity which sin recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy. If God knows sin, even as a false claimant, then acquaintance with that claimant becomes legitimate to mortals, and this knowledge would not be forbidden; but God forbade man to know evil at the very beginning, when Satan held it up before man as something desirable and a distinct addition to human wisdom, because the knowledge of evil would make man a god,--a representation that God both knew and admitted the dignity of evil. Which is right,--God, who condemned the knowledge of sin and disowned its acquaintance, or the serpent, who pushed that claim with the glittering audacity of diabolical and sinuous logic? Suffering from Others' Thoughts Jesus accepted the one fact whereby alone the rule of Life can be demonstrated,--namely, that there is no death. In his real self he bore no infirmities. Though "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as Isaiah says of him, he bore not _his_ sins, but _ours_, "in his own body on the tree." "He was bruised for _our_ iniquities; ... and with his stripes we are healed." He was the Way-shower; and Christian Scientists who would demonstrate "the way" must keep close to his path, that they may win the prize. "The way," in the flesh, is the suffering which leads out of the flesh. "The way," in Spirit, is "the way" of Life, Truth, and Love, redeeming us from the false sense of the flesh and the wounds it bears. This threefold Messiah reveals the self-destroying ways of error and the life-giving way of Truth. Job's faith and hope gained him the assurance that the so-called sufferings of the flesh are unreal. We shall learn how false are the pleasures and pains of material sense, and behold the truth of being, as expressed in his conviction, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God;" that is, Now and here shall I behold God, divine Love. The chaos of mortal mind is made the stepping-stone to the cosmos of immortal Mind. If Jesus suffered, as the Scriptures declare, it must have been from the mentality of others; since all suffering comes from mind, not from matter, and there could be no sin or suffering in the Mind which is God. Not his own sins, but the sins of the world, "crucified the Lord of glory," and "put him to an open shame." Holding a quickened sense of false environment, and suffering from mentality in opposition to Truth, are significant of that state of mind which the actual understanding of Christian Science first eliminates and then destroys. In the divine order of Science every follower of Christ shares his cup of sorrows. He also suffereth in the flesh, and from the mentality which opposes the law of Spirit; but the divine law is supreme, for it freeth him from the law of sin and death. Prophets and apostles suffered from the thoughts of others. Their conscious being was not fully exempt from physicality and the sense of sin. Until he awakes from his delusion, he suffers least from sin who is a hardened sinner. The hypocrite's affections must first be made to fret in their chains; and the pangs of hell must lay hold of him ere he can change from flesh to Spirit, become acquainted with that Love which is without dissimulation and endureth all things. Such mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, constitute the miasma of earth. More obnoxious than Chinese stenchpots are these dispositions which offend the spiritual sense. Anatomically considered, the design of the material senses is to warn mortals of the approach of danger by the pain they feel and occasion; but as this sense disappears it foresees the impending doom and foretells the pain. Man's refuge is in spirituality, "under the shadow of the Almighty." The cross is the central emblem of human history. Without it there is neither temptation nor glory. When Jesus turned and said, "Who hath touched me?" he must have felt the influence of the woman's thought; for it is written that he felt that "virtue had gone out of him." His pure consciousness was discriminating, and rendered this infallible verdict; but he neither held her error by affinity nor by infirmity, for it was detected and dismissed. This gospel of suffering brought life and bliss. This is earth's Bethel in stone,--its pillow, supporting the ladder which reaches heaven. Suffering was the confirmation of Paul's faith. Through "a thorn in the flesh" he learned that spiritual grace was sufficient for him. Peter rejoiced that he was found worthy to suffer for Christ; because to suffer with him is to reign with him. Sorrow is the harbinger of joy. Mortal throes of anguish forward the birth of immortal being; but divine Science wipes away all tears. The only conscious existence in the flesh is error of some sort,--sin, pain, death,--a false sense of life and happiness. Mortals, if at ease in so-called existence, are in their native element of error, and must become _dis-eased_, dis-quieted, before error is annihilated. Jesus walked with bleeding feet the thorny earth-road, treading "the winepress alone." His persecutors said mockingly, "Save thyself, and come down from the cross." This was the very thing he _was_ doing, coming down from the cross, saving himself after the manner that he had taught, by the law of Spirit's supremacy; and this was done through what is humanly called _agony_. Even the ice-bound hypocrite melts in fervent heat, before he apprehends Christ as "the way." The Master's sublime triumph over all mortal mentality was immortality's goal. He was too wise not to be willing to test the full compass of human woe, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Thus the absolute unreality of sin, sickness, and death was revealed,--a revelation that beams on mortal sense as the midnight sun shines over the Polar Sea. The Saviour's Mission If there is no reality in evil, why did the Messiah come to the world, and from what evils was it his purpose to save humankind? How, indeed, is he a Saviour, if the evils from which he saves are nonentities? Jesus came to earth; but the Christ (that is, the divine idea of the divine Principle which made heaven and earth) was never absent from the earth and heaven; hence the phraseology of Jesus, who spoke of the Christ as one who came down from heaven, yet as "the Son of man _which is in heaven_." (John iii. 13.) By this we understand Christ to be the divine idea brought to the flesh in the son of Mary. Salvation is as eternal as God. To mortal thought Jesus appeared as a child, and grew to manhood, to suffer before Pilate and on Calvary, because he could reach and teach mankind only through this conformity to mortal conditions; but Soul never saw the Saviour come and go, because the divine idea is always present. Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Life. From such thoughts--mortal inventions, one and all--Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present and eternal good. Mortal man is a kingdom divided against itself. With the same breath he articulates truth and error. We say that God is All, and there is none beside Him, and then talk of sin and sinners as real. We call God omnipotent and omnipresent, and then conjure up, from the dark abyss of nothingness, a powerful presence named _evil_. We say that harmony is real, and inharmony is its opposite, and therefore unreal; yet we descant upon sickness, sin, and death as realities. With the tongue "bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the similitude [human concept] of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." (James iii. 9, 10.) Mortals are free moral agents, to choose whom they would serve. If God, then let them serve Him, and He will be unto them All-in-all. If God is ever present, He is neither absent from Himself nor from the universe. Without Him, the universe would disappear, and space, substance, and immortality be lost. St. Paul says, "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." (1 Corinthians xv. 17.) Christ cannot come to mortal and material sense, which sees not God. This false sense of substance must yield to His eternal presence, and so dissolve. Rising above the false, to the true evidence of Life, is the resurrection that takes hold of eternal Truth. Coming and going belong to mortal consciousness. God is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that was--and is--neither young nor old, neither dead nor risen. The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought,--the twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward the apprehension of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit and spiritual man are unchangeable,--neither advancing, retreating, nor halting. Our highest sense of infinite good in this mortal sphere is but the sign and symbol, not the substance of good. Only faith and a feeble understanding make the earthly acme of human sense. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." (Galatians ii. 20.) Christian Science is both demonstration and fruition, but how attenuated are our demonstration and realization of this Science! Truth, in divine Science, is the stepping-stone to the understanding of God; but the broken and contrite heart soonest discerns this truth, even as the helpless sick are soonest healed by it. Invalids say, "I have recovered from sickness;" when the fact really remains, in divine Science, that they never were sick. The Christian saith, "Christ (God) died for me, and came to save me;" yet God dies not, and is the ever-presence that neither comes nor goes, and man is forever His image and likeness. "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians iv. 18.) This is the mystery of godliness--that God, good, is never absent, and there is none beside good. Mortals can understand this only as they reach the Life of good, and learn that there is no Life in evil. Then shall it appear that the true ideal of omnipotent and ever-present good is an ideal wherein and wherefor there is no evil. Sin exists only as a sense, and not as Soul. Destroy this sense of sin, and sin disappears. Sickness, sin, or death is a false sense of Life and good. Destroy this trinity of error, and you find Truth. In Science, Christ never died. In material sense Jesus died, and lived. The fleshly Jesus seemed to die, though he did not. The Truth or Life in divine Science--undisturbed by human error, sin, and death--saith forever, "I am the living God, and man is My idea, never in matter, nor resurrected from it." "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen." (Luke xxiv. 5, 6.) Mortal sense, confining itself to matter, is all that can be buried or resurrected. Mary had risen to discern faintly God's ever-presence, and that of His idea, man; but her mortal sense, reversing Science and spiritual understanding, interpreted this appearing as a risen Christ. The I AM was neither buried nor resurrected. The Way, the Truth, and the Life were never absent for a moment. This trinity of Love lives and reigns forever. Its kingdom, not apparent to material sense, never disappeared to spiritual sense, but remained forever in the Science of being. The so-called appearing, disappearing, and reappearing of ever-presence, in whom is no variableness or shadow of turning, is the false human sense of that light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. Summary All that _is_, God created. If sin has any pretense of existence, God is responsible therefor; but there is no reality in sin, for God can no more behold it, or acknowledge it, than the sun can coexist with darkness. To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of only health, holiness, and heaven, on the foundations of an eternal Mind which is conscious of sickness, sin, and death, is a moral impossibility; for "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid." (1 Corinthians iii. 11.) The nearer we approximate to such a Mind, even if it were (or could be) God, the more real those mind-pictures would become to us; until the hope of ever eluding their dread presence must yield to despair, and the haunting sense of evil forever accompany our being. Mortals may climb the smooth glaciers, leap the dark fissures, scale the treacherous ice, and stand on the summit of Mont Blanc; but they can never turn back what Deity knoweth, nor escape from identification with what dwelleth in the eternal Mind. 
16624	----	NO AND YES by MARY BAKER EDDY Author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy Boston, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts 1919 PREFACE It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favored class, but, according to the apostle's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke, exhort," and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct involuntary as well as voluntary error. By a modification of the language, the import of this edition is, we trust, transparent to the hearts of all conscientious laborers in the realm of Mind-healing. To those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a true divinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if you are babes in Christ, leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word, until you grow to apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth. MARY BAKER EDDY CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION DISEASE UNREAL SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS? IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? IS MAN A PERSON? HAS MAN A SOUL? IS SIN FORGIVEN? IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? NO AND YES INTRODUCTION To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard for the spiritual idea emanating from the infinite, is a most needful work; but this must be done gradually, for Truth is as "the still, small voice," which comes to our recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent influence. Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and babbling brooks fill the rivers till they rise in floods, demolishing bridges and overwhelming cities. So men, when thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and, when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne on by the current of feeling. They should then turn temporarily from the tumult, for the silent cultivation of the true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues. When the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and the flames die away on the mount of revelation, we can read more clearly the tablets of Truth. The theology and medicine of Jesus were one,--in the divine oneness of the trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which healed the sick and cleansed the sinful. This trinity in unity, correcting the individual thought, is the only Mind-healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned that crystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. A spurious and hydra-headed mind-healing is naturally glared at by the pulpit, ostracized by the medical faculty, and scorned by people of common sense. To aver that disease is normal, a God-bestowed and stubborn reality, but that you can heal it, leaves you to work against that which is natural and a law of being. It is scientific to rob disease of all reality; and to accomplish this, you cannot begin by admitting its reality. Our Master taught his students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross. Mental healers who admit that disease is real should be made to test the feasibility of what they say by healing one case audibly, through such an admission,--if this is possible. I have healed more disease by the spoken than the unspoken word. The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his claims and conscientious in duty, waiting and working to mature what he has been taught. Institutes furnished with such teachers are becoming beacon-lights along the shores of erudition; and many who are not teachers have large practices and some marked success in healing the most defiant forms of disease. Dishonesty destroys one's ability to heal mentally. Conceit cannot avert the effects of deceit. Taking advantage of the present ignorance in relation to Christian Science Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with conflicting theories and practice. We should not spread abroad patchwork ideas that in some vital points lack Science. How sad it is that envy will bend its bow and shoot its arrow at the idea which claims only its inheritance, is naturally modest, generous, and sincere! while the trespassing error murders either friend or foe who stands in its way. Truly it is better to fall into the hands of God, than of man. When I revised "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in 1878, some irresponsible people insisted that my manual of the practice of Christian Science Mind-healing should not be made public; but I obeyed a diviner rule. People dependent on the rules of this practice for their healing, not having lost the Spirit which sustains the genuine practice, will put that book in the hands of their patients, whom it will heal, and recommend it to their students, whom it would enlighten. Every teacher must pore over it in secret, to keep himself well informed. The Nemesis of the history of Mind-healing notes this hour. Dishonesty necessarily stultifies the spiritual sense which Mind-healers specially need; and which they must possess, in order to be safe members of the community. How good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so much thine own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-weary, and trust Love's recompense of love. Plagiarism from my writings is so common it is becoming odious to honest people; and such compilations, instead of possessing the essentials of Christian Science, are tempting and misleading. Reading Science and Health has restored the sick to health; but the task of learning thoroughly the Science of Mind-healing and demonstrating it understandingly had better be undertaken in health than sickness. DISEASE UNREAL Disease is more than _imagination_; it is a human error, a constituent part of what comprise the whole of mortal existence,--namely, material sensation and mental delusion. But an erring sense of existence, or the error of belief, named disease, never made sickness a stubborn reality. On the ground that harmony is the truth of being, the Science of Mind-healing destroys the feasibility of disease; hence error of thought becomes fable instead of fact. Science demonstrates the reality of Truth and the unreality of the error. A self-evident proposition, in the Science of Mind-healing, is that disease is unreal; and the efficacy of my system, beyond other systems of medicine, vouches for the validity of that statement. Sin and disease are not scientific, because they embody not the idea of divine Principle, and are not the phenomena of the immutable laws of God; and they do not arise from the divine consciousness and true constituency of being. The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the exclusive truth that being, to be eternal, must be harmonious. All disease must be--and can only be--healed on this basis. All true Christian Scientists are vindicating, fearlessly and honestly, the Principle of this grand verity of Mind-healing. In erring mortal thought the reality of Truth has an antipode,--the reality of error; and disease is one of the severe realities of this error. God has no opposite in Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is real, then it follows that to declare error real would be to make it Truth. Disease arises from a false and material sense, from the belief that matter has sensation. Therefore this material sense, which is untrue, is of necessity unreal. Moreover, this unreal sense substitutes for Truth an unreal belief,--namely, that life and health are independent of God, and dependent on material conditions. Material sense also avers that Spirit, or Truth, cannot restore health and perpetuate life, but that material conditions can and do destroy both human health and life. If disease is as real as health, and is itself a state of being, and yet is arrayed against being, then Mind, or God, does not meddle with it. Disease becomes indeed a stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A "kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind that attacks a normal and real condition of man, is profanely tampering with the realities of God and His laws. Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this misconception of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, in both theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, and makes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease is real it is not illusive, and it certainly would contradict the Science of Mind-healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in order to heal the sick. On the theory that God's formations are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal, and that God is the only creator, Christian Science refutes the validity of the testimony of the senses, which take cognizance of their own phenomena,--sickness, disease, and death. This refutation is indispensable to the destruction of false evidence, and the consequent cure of the sick,--as all understand who practise the true Science of Mind-healing. If, as the error indicates, the evidence of disease is not false, then disease cannot be healed by denying its validity; and this is why the mistaken healer is not successful, trying to heal on a material basis. The evidence that the earth is motionless and the sun revolves around our planet, is as sensible and real as the evidence for disease; but Science determines the evidence in both cases to be unreal. To material sense it is plain also that the error of the revolution of the sun around the earth is more apparent than the adverse but true Science of the stellar universe. Copernicus has shown that what appears real, to material sense and feeling, is absolutely unreal. Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are all at war with the testimony of the physical senses. This fact intimates that the laws of Science are mental, not material; and Christian Science demonstrates this. SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING The rule of divinity is golden; to be wise and true rejoices every heart. But evil influences waver the scales of justice and mercy. No personal considerations should allow any root of bitterness to spring up between Christian Scientists, nor cause any misapprehension as to the motives of others. We must love our enemies, and continue to do so unto the end. By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of others. Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened to see every error they possess, and the way out of it; and they will "flee as a bird to your mountain," away from the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, and every imperfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge in Truth and Love. Every loving sacrifice for the good of others is known to God, and the wrath of man cannot hide it from Him. God has appointed for Christian Scientists high tasks, and will not release them from the strict performance of each one of them. The students must now fight their own battles. I recommend that Scientists draw no lines whatever between one person and another, but think, speak, teach, and write the truth of Christian Science without reference to right or wrong personality in this field of labor. Leave the distinctions of individual character and the discriminations and guidance thereof to the Father, whose wisdom is unerring and whose love is universal. We should endeavor to be long-suffering, faithful, and charitable with all. To this small effort let us add one more privilege--namely, silence whenever it can substitute censure. Avoid voicing error; but utter the truth of God and the beauty of holiness, the joy of Love and "the peace of God, that passeth all understanding," recommending to all men fellowship in the bonds of Christ. Advise students to rebuke each other always in love, as I have rebuked them. Having discharged this duty, counsel each other to work out his own salvation, without fear or doubt, knowing that God will make the wrath of man to praise Him, and that the remainder thereof He will restrain. We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will at last struggle into freedom and greatness, and every sin will so punish itself that it will bow down to the commandments of Christ,--Truth and Love. I enjoin it upon my students to hold no controversy or enmity over doctrines and traditions, or over the misconceptions of Christian Science, but to work, watch, and pray for the amelioration of sin, sickness, and death. If one be found who is too blind for instruction, no longer cast your pearls before this state of mortal mind, lest it turn and rend you; but quietly, with benediction and hope, let the unwise pass by, while you walk on in equanimity, and with increased power, patience, and understanding, gained from your forbearance. This counsel is not new, as my Christian students can testify; and if it had been heeded in times past it would have prevented, to a great extent, the factions which have sprung up among Scientists to the hindrance of the Cause of Truth. It is true that the mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers must not be introduced or established among another class who are clearer and more conscientious in their convictions; but this one thing can be done, and should be: let your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent their legitimate action from their own standpoint of experience, knowing, as you should, that God will well regenerate and separate wisely and finally; whereas you may err in effort, and lose your fruition. Hoping to pacify repeated complaints and murmurings against too great leniency, on my part, towards some of my students who fall into error, I have opposed occasionally and strongly--especially in the first edition of this little work--existing wrongs of the nature referred to. But I now point steadfastly to the power of grace to overcome evil with good. God will "furnish a table in the wilderness" and show the power of Love. Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the cabalistic insignia of philosophy; it excludes all error and includes all Truth. More mistakes are made in its name than this period comprehends. Divinely defined, Science is the atmosphere of God; humanly construed, and according to Webster, it is "knowledge, duly arranged and referred to general truths and principles on which it is founded, and from which it is derived." I employ this awe-filled word in both a divine and human sense; but I insist that Christian Science is demonstrably as true, relative to the unseen verities of being, as any proof that can be given of the completeness of Science. The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are "Christian" and "Science." The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals and interprets God and man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses the ALL-God. The life of Christ is the predicate and postulate of all that I teach, and there is but one standard statement, one rule, and one Principle for all scientific truth. My hygienic system rests on Mind, the eternal Truth. What is termed matter, or relates to its so-called attributes, is a self-destroying error. When a so-called material sense is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense,--on the basis that all consciousness is Mind and eternal,--the former position, that sense is organic and material, is proven erroneous. The feasibility and immobility of Christian Science unveil the true idea,--namely, that earth's discords have not the reality of Mind in the Science of being; and this idea--dematerializing and spiritualizing mortals--turns like the needle to the pole all hope and faith to God, based as it is on His omnipotence and omnipresence. Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute the phenomena of being, governed by the immutable and eternal laws of God; whereas matter and human will, intellect, desire, and fear, are not the creators, controllers, nor destroyers of life or its harmonies. Man has an immortal Soul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being. Man has perpetual individuality; and God's laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul. In its literary expression, my system of Christian metaphysics is hampered by material terms, which must be used to indicate thoughts that are to be understood metaphysically. As a Science, this system is held back by the common ignorance of what it is and what it does, and (worse still) by those who come falsely in its name. To be appreciated, Science must be understood and conscientiously introduced. If the Bible and Science and Health had the place in schools of learning that physiology occupies, they would revolutionize and reform the world, through the power of Christ. It is true that it requires more study to understand and demonstrate what these works teach, than to learn theology, physiology, or physics; because they teach divine Science, with fixed Principle, given rule, and unmistakable proof. Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it. Revelation shows this Principle, and will rescue reason from the thrall of error. Revelation must subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love. Christian Science Mind-healing can only be gained by working from a purely Christian standpoint. Then it heals the sick and exalts the race. The essence of this Science is right thinking and right acting--leading us to see spirituality and to be spiritual, to understand and to demonstrate God. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, were the outgrowth of the author's religious experience. After a lifetime of orthodoxy on the platform of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, it became a sacred duty for her to impart to others this new-old knowledge of God. The same affection, desire, and motives which have stimulated true Christianity in all ages, and given impulse to goodness, in or out of the Church, have nerved her purpose to build on the new-born conception of the Christ, as Jesus declared himself,--namely, "the way, the truth, and the life." Living a true life, casting out evil, healing the sick, and preaching the gospel of Truth,--these are the ends of Christianity. This divine way impels a spiritualization of thought and method, beyond doctrine and ritual; and in nothing else has she departed from the old landmarks. The unveiled spiritual signification of the Word so enlarges our sense of God that it makes both sense and Soul, man and Life, immaterial, though still individual. It removes all limits from divine power. God must be found all instead of a part of being, and man the reflection of His power and goodness. This Science rebukes sin with its own nothingness, and thus destroys sin quickly and utterly. It makes disease unreal, and this heals it. The demonstration of moral and physical growth, and a scientific deduction from the Principle of all harmony, declare both the Principle and idea to be divine. If this be true, then death must be swallowed up in Life, and the prophecy of Jesus fulfilled, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Though centuries passed after those words were originally uttered, before this reappearing of Truth, and though the hiatus be longer still before that saying is demonstrated in Life that knows no death, the declaration is nevertheless true, and remains a clear and profound deduction from Christian Science. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY? Science is not susceptible of being held as a mere theory. It is hoary with time. It takes hold of eternity, voices the infinite, and governs the universe. No greater opposites can be conceived of, physically, morally, and spiritually, than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy. Science and Health has effected a revolution in the minds of thinkers on the subject of mediumship, and given impulse to reason and revelation, goodness and virtue. A theory may be sound in spots, and sparkle like a diamond, while other parts of it have no lustre. Christian Science is sound in every part. It is neither warped nor misconceived, when properly demonstrated. If a spiritualist medium understood the Science of Mind-healing, he would know that between those who have and those who have not passed the transition called death, there can be no interchange of consciousness, and that all sensible phenomena are merely subjective states of mortal mind. Theosophy is a corruption of Judaism. This corruption had a renewal in the Neoplatonic philosophy; but it sprang from the Oriental philosophy of Brahmanism, and blends with its magic and enchantments. Theosophy is no more allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree is to the sweet breath of springtide, or the brilliant coruscations of the northern sky are to solar heat and light. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE? Hear the words of our Master: "Go ye into all the world"! "Heal the sick, cast out devils"! Christian Scientists, perhaps more than any other religious sect, are obeying these commands; and the injunctions are not confined to Jesus' students in that age, but they extend to this age,--to as many as shall believe on him. The demand and example of Jesus were not from beneath. Are frozen dogmas, persistent persecution, and the doctrine of eternal damnation, from above? Are the dews of divine Truth, falling on the sick and sinner, to heal them, from beneath? "By their fruits ye shall know them." Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince all that their purpose is right. The comprehension of my teachings would enable any one to prove these books to be filled with blessings for the whole human family. Fatiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries are employed to explain and prop old creeds, and they have the civil and religious arms in their defense; then why should not these be equally extended to support the Christianity that heals the sick? The notions of personality to be found in creeds are far more mystic than Mind-healing. It is no easy matter to believe there are three persons in one person, and that one person is cast out of another person. These conceptions of Deity and devil presuppose an impotent God and an incredible Satan. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC? Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind. It shows that matter and mortal mind have neither origin nor existence in the eternal Mind. Thinking otherwise is what estranges mortals from divine Life and Love. God is All-in-all. He is Spirit; and in nothing is He unlike Himself. Nothing that "worketh or maketh a lie" is to be found in the divine consciousness. For God to know, is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally exist. If He knows matter, and matter can exist in Mind, then mortality and discord must be eternal. He is Mind; and whatever He knows is made manifest, and must be Truth. If God knows evil even as a false claim, this knowledge would manifest evil in Him and proceeding from Him. Christian Science shows that matter, evil, sin, sickness, and death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life, which are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective states of evil, called mortal mind or matter, are negatives destitute of time and space; for there is none beside God or Spirit and the idea of Spirit. This infinite logic is the infinite light,--uncomprehended, yet forever giving forth more light, because it has no darkness to emit. Mortals do not understand the All; hence their inference of some other existence beside God and His true likeness,--of something unlike Him. He who is All, understands all. He can have no knowledge or inference but His own consciousness, and can take in no more than all. The mists of matter--sin, sickness, and death--disappear in proportion as mortals approach Spirit, which is the reality of being. It is not enough to say that matter is the substratum of evil, and that its highest attenuation is mortal mind; for there is, strictly speaking, _no_ mortal mind. Mind is immortal. Death is the consequent of an antecedent false assumption of the realness of something unreal, material, and mortal. If God knows the antecedent, He must produce its consequences. From this logic there is no escape. Matter, or evil, is the absence of Spirit or good. Their nothingness is thus proven; for God is good, ever-present, and All. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" consequently it is impossible for the true man--who is a spiritual and individual being, created in the eternal Science of being--to be conscious of aught but good. God's image and likeness can never be less than a good man; and for man to be more than God's likeness is impossible. Man is the climax of creation; and God is not without an ever-present witness, testifying of Himself. Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor parcel of divine consciousness and God's verity. In Science there is no fallen state of being; for therein is no inverted image of God, no escape from the focal radiation of the infinite. Hence the unreality of error, and the truth of the Scripture, that there is "none beside Him." If mortals could grasp these two words _all_ and _nothing_, this mystery of a God who has no knowledge of sin would disappear, and the eternal, infinite harmony would be fathomed. If God could know a false claim, false knowledge would be a part of His consciousness. Then evil would be as real as good, sickness as real as health, death as real as Life; and sickness, sin, and death would be as eternal as God. IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS? Blasphemy has never diminished sin and sickness, nor acknowledged God in all His ways. Blasphemy rebukes not the godless lie that denies Him as All-in-all, nor does it ascribe to Him all presence, power, and glory. Christian Science does this. If Science lacked the proof of its origin in God, it would be self-destructive, for it rests alone on the demonstration of God's supremacy and omnipotence. Right thinking and right acting, physical and moral harmony, come with Science, and the secret of its presence lies in the universal need of better health and morals. Human theories, when weighed in the balance, are found unequal to the demonstration of divine Life and Love; and their highest endeavors are, to divine Science, what a child's love of pictures is to art. A child, in his ignorance, may imagine the face of Dante to be the rapt face of Jesus. Thus falsely may the human conceive of the Divine. If the schoolmaster is not Christ, the school gets things wrong, and knows it not; but the teacher is morally responsible. Good health and a more spiritual religion are the common wants; and these wants have wrought this moral result,--that the so-called mortal mind asks for what Mind alone can supply. This demand militates against the so-called demands of matter, and regulates the present high premium on Mind-healing. If the uniform moral and spiritual, as well as physical, effects of Christian Science were lacking, the premium would go down. That it continues to rise, and the demand to increase, shows its real value to the race. Even doctors will agree that infidelity, ignorance, and quackery have never met the growing wants of humanity. Christian Science is no "Boston craze;" it is the sober second thought of advancing humanity. IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY? God is infinite. He is neither a limited mind nor a limited body. God is Love; and Love is Principle, not person. What the person of the infinite is, we know not; but we are gratefully and lovingly conscious of the fatherliness of this Supreme Being. God is individual, and man is His individualized idea. While material man and the physical senses receive no spiritual idea, and feel no sensation of divine Love, spiritual man and his spiritual senses are drinking in the nature and essence of the individual infinite. A sinful sense is incompetent to understand the realities of being,--that Life is God, and that man is in His image and likeness. A sinner can take no cognizance of the noumenon or the phenomena of Spirit; but leaving sin, sense rises to the fulness of the stature of man in Christ. Person is formed after the manner of mortal man, so far as he can conceive of personality. Limitless personality is inconceivable. His person and perfection are neither self-created, nor discerned through imperfection; and of God as a person, human reason, imagination, and revelation give us no knowledge. Error would fashion Deity in a manlike mould, while Truth is moulding a Godlike man. When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity it may seem distant or cold, until better apprehended. This Principle is Mind, substance, Life, Truth, Love. When understood, Principle is found to be the only term that fully conveys the ideas of God,--one Mind, a perfect man, and divine Science. As the divine Principle is comprehended, God's omnipotence and omnipresence will dawn on mortals, and the notion of an everywhere-present body--or of an infinite Mind starting from a finite body, and returning to it--will disappear. Ever-present Love must seem ever absent to ever-present selfishness or material sense. Hence this asking amiss and receiving not, and the common idolatry of man-worship. In divine Science, God is recognized as the only power, presence, and glory. Adam's mistiness and Satan's reasoning, ever since the flood,--when specimens of every kind emerged from the ark,--have run through the veins of all human philosophy. Human reason is a blind guide, a continued series of mortal hypotheses, antagonistic to Revelation and Science. It is continually straying into forbidden by-paths of sensualism, contrary to the life and teachings of Jesus and Paul, and the vision of the Apocalypse. Human philosophy has ninety-nine parts of error to the one-hundredth part of Truth,--an unsafe decoction for the race. The Science that Jesus demonstrated, whose views of Truth Confucius and Plato but dimly discerned, Science and Health interprets. It was not a search after wisdom; it was wisdom, and it grasped in spiritual law the universe,--all time, space, immortality, thought, extension. This Science demonstrated the Principle of all phenomena, identity, individuality, law; and showed man as reflecting God and the divine capacity. Human philosophy would dethrone perfection, and substitute matter and evil for divine means and ends. Human philosophy has an undeveloped God, who unfolds Himself through material modes, wherein the human and divine mingle in the same realm and consciousness. This is rank infidelity; because by it we lose God's ways and perpetuate the supposed power and reality of evil _ad infinitum_. Christian Science rends this veil in the pantheon of many gods, and reproduces the teachings of Jesus, whose philosophy is incontestable, bears the strain of time, and brings in the glories of eternity; "for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Divine philosophy is demonstrably the true idea of the Christ, wherein Principle heals and saves. A philosophy which cannot heal the sick has little resemblance to Science, and is, to say the least, like a cloud without rain, "driven about by every wind of doctrine." Such philosophy has certainly not touched the hem of the Christ garment. Leibnitz, Descartes, Fichte, Hegel, Spinoza, Bishop Berkeley, were once clothed with a "brief authority;" but Berkeley ended his metaphysical theory with a treatise on the healing properties of tar-water, and Hegel was an inveterate snuff-taker. The circumlocution and cold categories of Kant fail to improve the conditions of mortals, morally, spiritually, or physically. Such miscalled metaphysical systems are reeds shaken by the wind. Compared with the inspired wisdom and infinite meaning of the Word of Truth, they are as moonbeams to the sun, or as Stygian night to the kindling dawn. IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each is greater than the corporeality we behold. "He cast out _devils_." This record shows that the term devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From this it follows that there is more than one devil. That Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is not stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer to the _evils_ which were cast out. Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you _is a devil_?" His definition of evil indicated his ability to cast it out. An incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruction of evil. To conceive of God as resembling--in personality, or form--the personality that Jesus condemned as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make evil omnipotent and omnipresent. Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but he to whom our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom could not have been wholly evil, and therefore was not a _devil_, after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus cast seven devils; but not one person was named among them. According to Crabtre, these devils were the diseases Jesus cast out. The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, concede that the Scriptures have both a literal and a moral meaning. Which of the two is the more important to gain,--the literal or the moral sense of the word _devil_,--in order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not an individual. As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to fight these claims, not as realities, but as illusions; but Deity can have no such warfare against Himself. Knowledge of a man's physical personality is not sufficient to inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses. Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the person of either. God is All-in-all; but He is definite and individual, the omnipresent and omniscient Mind; and man's individuality is God's own image and likeness,--even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the Science of good, evil loses all place, person, and power. According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification. He is in all things, and therefore He is in evil in human thought. He is extension, of whatever character. Also, according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable, developed through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind. All these vagaries are at variance with my system of metaphysics, which rests on God as One and All, and denies the actual existence of both matter and evil. According to false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three persons in one person. By the same token, evil is not only as real as good, but much more real, since evil subordinates good in personality. The claims of evil become both less and more in Christian Science, than in human philosophies or creeds: _more_, because the evil that is hidden by dogma and human reason is uncovered by Science; and _less_, because evil, being thus uncovered, is found out, and exposure is nine points of destruction. Then appears the grand verity of Christian Science: namely, that evil has no claims and was never a claimant; for behold evil (or devil) is, as Jesus said, "a murderer from the beginning, and the truth abode not in him." There was never a moment in which evil was real. This great fact concerning all error brings with it another and more glorious truth, that good is supreme. As there is none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be no evil. Simply uttering this great thought is not enough! We must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our being. Having won through great tribulation this cardinal point of divine Science, St. Paul said, "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." IS MAN A PERSON? Man is more than physical personality, or what we cognize through the material senses. Mind is more than matter, even as the infinite idea of Truth is beyond a finite belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself, according to a law of "the survival of the fittest." Man is the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is neither matter nor a mode of mortal mind, for he is spiritual and eternal, an immortal mode of the divine Mind. Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent and coeternal with Him. Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individual; but what this everlasting individuality is, remains to be learned. Mortals have not seen it. That which is born of the flesh is not man's eternal identity. Spiritual and immortal man alone is God's likeness, and that which is mortal is not man in a spiritually scientific sense. A material, sinful mortal is but the counterfeit of immortal man. The mind-quacks believe that mortal man is identical with immortal man, and that the immortal is inside the mortal; that good and evil blend; that matter and Spirit are one; and that Soul, or Spirit, is subdivided into spirits, or souls,--_alias_ gods. This infantile talk about Mind-healing is no more identical with Christian Science than the babe is identical with the adult, or the human belief resembles the divine idea. Hence it is impossible for those holding such material and mortal views to demonstrate my metaphysics. Theirs is the sensuous thought, which brings forth its own sensuous conception. Mine is the spiritual idea which transfigures thought. All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man's real ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality were evil, he would be annihilated, for evil is self-destroying. Man's individual being must reflect the supreme individual Being, to be His image and likeness; and this individuality never originated in molecule, corpuscle, materiality, or mortality. God holds man in the eternal bonds of Science,--in the immutable harmony of divine law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe he is forever individual and forever harmonious. "If God so clothe the grass of the field, ... shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" Sin must be obsolete,--dust returning to dust, nothingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the supposition that there is more than one Mind. It issues a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught; but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no need of the sun, for Spirit will be the light of the city, and matter will be proved a myth. Until centuries pass, and this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divine Science, this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable now as it can be then. Science, divine Science, presents the grand and eternal verities of God and man as the divine Mind and that Mind's idea. Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man, and the two should not be confounded. Bishop Foster said, in a lecture in Boston, "No man living hath yet seen man." This material sinful personality, which we misname man, is what St. Paul terms "the old man and his deeds," to be "put off." Who can say what the absolute personality of God or man is? Who living hath seen God or a perfect man? In presence of such thoughts take off thy shoes and tread lightly, for this is holy ground. Surely the probation of mortals must go on after the change called death, that they may learn the definition of immortal being; or else their present mistakes would extinguish human existence. How long this false sense remains after the transition called death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that the mists of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat of suffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and man be found perfect and eternal. Of his intermediate conditions--the purifying processes and terrible revolutions necessary to effect this end--I am ignorant. Inasmuch as these momentous facts in the Science of being must be learned some time, now is the most acceptable time for beginning the lesson. If Science is pointing the way, and is found to bring with it health, holiness, and immortality, then to-day is none too soon for entering this path. The proof that Christian Science is the way of salvation given by Christ, I consider well established. The present, as well as the future, reveals the fact that Truth is never understood too soon. Has Truth, as demonstrated by Jesus, reappeared? Study Christian Science and practise it, and you will know that Truth has reappeared. What is demonstrably true cannot be gainsaid; but getting the letter and omitting the spirit of this Science is neither the comprehension of its Principle nor the practice of its Life. HAS MAN A SOUL? The Scriptures inform us that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Here _soul_ means sense and organic life; and this passage refers to the Jewish law, that a mortal should be put to death for his own sin, but not for another's. Not Soul, but mortal sense, sins and dies. Immortal man has immortal Soul and a deathless sense of being. Mortal man has but a false sense of Soul and body. He believes that Spirit, or Soul, exists in matter. This is pantheism, and is not the Science of Soul. The mind-quacks have so slight a knowledge of Soul that they believe material and sinning sense to be soul; and then they doctor this soul as if it were not even a material sense. In Dr. Gordon's sermon on The Ministry of Healing, he said, "The forgiven soul in a sick body is not half a man." Is this pantheistic statement sound theology,--that Soul is in matter, and the immortal part of man a sinner? Is not this a disparagement of the person of man and a denial of God's power? Better far that we impute such doctrines to mortal opinion than to the divine Word. To my sense, such a statement is a shocking reflection on the divine power. A mortal pardoned by God is not sick, he is made whole. He in whom sin, disease, and death are destroyed, is more than a fraction of himself. Such sermons, though clad in soft raiment, are spiritless waifs, literary driftwood on the ocean of thought; while Truth walks triumphantly over the waves of sin, sickness, and death. The law of Life and Truth is the law of Christ, destroying all sense of sin and death. It does more than forgive the false sense named sin, for it pursues and punishes it, and will not let sin go until it is destroyed,--until nothing is left to be forgiven, to suffer, or to be punished. Forgiven thus, sickness and sin have no relapse. God's law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God. He need not know the evil He destroys, any more than the legislator need know the criminal who is punished by the law enacted. God's law is in three words, "I am All;" and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law. God pities our woes with the love of a Father for His child,--not by becoming human, and knowing sin, or naught, but by removing our knowledge of what is not. He could not destroy our woes totally if He possessed any knowledge of them. His sympathy is divine, not human. It is Truth's knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there is no darkness,--not light holding darkness within itself. The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him and nothing else. Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone God as Truth, for Truth has no sympathy for error. In Science, the cure of the sick demonstrates this grand verity of Christian Science, that you cannot eradicate disease if you admit that God sends it or sees it. Material and mortal mind-healing (so-called) has for ages been a pretender, but has not healed mortals; and they are yet sick and sinful. Disease and sin appear to-day in subtler forms than they did yesterday. They progress and will multiply into worse forms, until it is understood that disease and sin are unreal, _unknown_ to Truth, and never actual persons or real facts. Our phraseology varies. To me _divine pardon_ is that divine presence which is the sure destruction of sin; and I insist on the destruction of sin as the only full proof of its pardon. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might _destroy_ the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8). Jesus cast out evils, mediating between what is and is not, until a perfect consciousness is attained. He healed disease as he healed sin; but he treated them both, not as in or of matter, but as mortal beliefs to be exterminated. Physical and mental healing were one and the same with this master Metaphysician. If the evils called sin, sickness, and death had been forgiven in the generally accepted sense, they would have returned, to be again forgiven; but Jesus said to disease: "Come out of him, and enter no more into him." He said also: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;" and "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." The misinterpretation of such passages has retarded the progress of Christianity and the spiritualization of the race. A magistrate's pardon may encourage a criminal to repeat the offense; because _forgiveness_, in the popular sense of the word, can neither extinguish a crime nor the motives leading to it. The belief in sin--its pleasure, pain, or power--must suffer, until it is self-destroyed. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN? Frequently when I touch this subject my meaning is ignorantly or maliciously misconstrued. Christian Science Mind-healing lifts with a steady arm, and cleaves sin with a broad battle-axe. It gives the lie to sin, in the spirit of Truth; but other theories make sin true. Jesus declared that the devil was "a liar, and the father of it." A lie is negation,--_alias_ nothing, or the opposite of something. Good is great and real. Hence its opposite, named _evil_, must be small and unreal. When this sense is attained, we shall no longer be the servants of sin, and shall cease to love it. The domination of good destroys the sense of evil. To illustrate: It seems a great evil to belie and belittle Christian Science, and persecute a Cause which is healing its thousands and rapidly diminishing the percentage of sin. But reduce this evil to its lowest terms, _nothing_, and slander loses its power to harm; for even the wrath of man shall praise Him. The reduction of evil, in Science, gives the dominance to God, and must lead us to bless those who curse, that thus we may overcome evil with good. If the Bible and my work Science and Health had their rightful place in schools of learning, they would revolutionize the world by advancing the kingdom of Christ. It requires sacrifice, struggle, prayer, and watchfulness to understand and demonstrate what these volumes teach, because they involve divine Science, with fixed Principle, a given rule, and unmistakable proof. IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT? Self-sacrifice is the highway to heaven. The sacrifice of our blessed Lord is undeniable, and it was a million times greater than the brief agony of the cross; for that would have been insufficient to insure the glory his sacrifice brought and the good it wrought. The spilling of human blood was inadequate to represent the blood of Christ, the outpouring love that sustains man's at-one-ment with God; though shedding human blood brought to light the efficacy of divine Life and Love and its power over death. Jesus' sacrifice stands preeminently amidst physical suffering and human woe. The glory of human life is in overcoming sickness, sin, and death. Jesus suffered for all mortals to bring in this glory; and his purpose was to show them that the way out of the flesh, out of the delusion of all human error, must be through the baptism of suffering, leading up to health, harmony, and heaven. We shall leave the ceremonial law when we gain the truer sense of following Christ in spirit, and we shall no longer venture to materialize the spiritual and infinite meaning and efficacy of Truth and Love, and the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, by commemorating his death with a material rite. Jesus said: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." They drink the cup of Christ and are baptized in the purification of persecution who discern his true merit,--the unseen glory of suffering for others. Physical torture affords but a slight illustration of the pangs which come to one upon whom the world of sense falls with its leaden weight in the endeavor to crush out of a career its divine destiny. The blood of Christ speaketh better things than that of Abel. The real atonement--so infinitely beyond the heathen conception that God requires human blood to propitiate His justice and bring His mercy--needs to be understood. The real blood or Life of Spirit is not yet discerned. Love bruised and bleeding, yet mounting to the throne of glory in purity and peace, over the steps of uplifted humanity,--this is the deep significance of the blood of Christ. Nameless woe, everlasting victories, are the blood, the vital currents of Christ Jesus' life, purchasing the freedom of mortals from sin and death. This blood of Jesus is everything to human hope and faith. Without it, how poor the precedents of Christianity! What manner of Science were Christian Science without the power to demonstrate the Principle of such Life; and what hope have mortals but through deep humility and adoration to reach the understanding of this Principle! When human struggles cease, and mortals yield lovingly to the purpose of divine Love, there will be no more sickness, sorrow, sin, and death. He who pointed the way of Life conquered also the drear subtlety of death. It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the allness of Love and the nothingness of hate, sin, and death, that Jesus suffered. He lived that we also might live. He suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by sin, and how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible unreality of a supposed existence apart from God. He suffered because of the shocking human idolatry that presupposes Life, substance, Soul, and intelligence in matter,--which is the antipode of God, and yet governs mankind. The glorious truth of being--namely, that God is the only Mind, Life, substance, Soul--needs no reconciliation with God, for it is one with Him now and forever. Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the kingdom of God is at hand," but "the kingdom of God is within you." Hence there is no sin, for God's kingdom is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human kingdom is nowhere, and must be _unreal_. Jesus taught and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two. He did not teach that there are two deities,--one infinite and the other finite; for that would be impossible. He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all; and we shall know this truth when we awake in the divine likeness. Jesus' true and conscious being never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John iii. 13) as "the Son of man which is in heaven,"--remarkable words, as wholly opposed to the popular view of Jesus' nature. The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin, disease, and death, and was conscious only of God, of good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the human Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the Father, and there could find rest from unreal trials in the conscious reality and royalty of his being,--holding the mortal as unreal, and the divine as real. It was this retreat from material to spiritual selfhood which recuperated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death. Had he been as conscious of these evils as he was of God, wherein there is no consciousness of human error, Jesus could not have resisted them; nor could he have conquered the malice of his foes, rolled away the stone from the sepulchre, and risen from human sense to a higher concept than that in which he appeared at his birth. Mankind's concept of Jesus was a babe born in a manger, even while the divine and ideal Christ was the Son of God, spiritual and eternal. In human conception God's offspring had to grow, develop; but in Science his divine nature and manhood were forever complete, and dwelt forever in the Father. Jesus said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." Mortal thought gives the eternal God and infinite consciousness the license of a short-lived sinner, to begin and end, to know both evil and good; when evil is temporal and God is eternal,--and when, as a sphere of Mind, He cannot know beginning or end. The spiritual interpretation of the vicarious atonement of Jesus, in Christian Science, unfolds the full-orbed glory of that event; but to regard this wonder of glory, this most marvellous demonstration, as a personal and material bloodgiving--or as a proof that sin is known to the divine Mind, and that what is unlike God demands His continual presence, knowledge, and power, to meet and master it--would make the atonement to be less than the _at-one-ment_, whereby the work of Jesus would lose its efficacy and lack the "signs following." From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures teach an infinite God, and none beside Him; and on this basis Messiah and prophet saved the sinner and raised the dead,--uplifting the human understanding, buried in a false sense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever is unlike God; but he could not have done this if error and sin existed in the Mind of God. What God knows, He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus proved to perfection, so far as this could be done in that age, what Christian Science is to-day proving in a small degree,--the falsity of the evidence of the material senses that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim. He established the only true idealism on the basis that God is All, and He is good, and good is Spirit; hence there is no intelligent sin, evil _mind_ or matter: and this is the only true philosophy and realism. This divine mystery of godliness was the rock of Truth, on which he built his Church of the new-born, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. This Truth is the rock which the builders rejected; but "the same is become the head of the corner." This is the chief corner-stone, the basis and support of creation, the interpreter of one God, the infinity and unity of good. In proportion as mortals approximate the understanding of Christian Science, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears. Having one God, one Mind, one consciousness,--which includes only His own nature,--and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute Christian Science, which must demonstrate the nothingness of any other state or stage of being. IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER? All prayer that is desire is intercessory; but kindling desire loses a part of its purest spirituality if the lips try to express it. It is a truism that we can think more lucidly and profoundly than we can write or speak. The silent intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and potent prayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be offered to be heard of men, though ostensibly to catch God's ear,--after the fashion of Baal's prophets,--by speaking loud enough to be heard; but when the heart prays, and not the lips, no dishonesty or vanity influences the petition. Prophet and apostle have glorified God in secret prayer, and He has rewarded them openly. Prayer can neither change God, nor bring His designs into mortal modes; but it can and does change our modes and our false sense of Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer humiliates, purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction that is unerring. True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good. It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power. It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are; and most of all, it shows us what God is. Advancing in this light, we reflect it; and this light reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silent prayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to portray the face of pleasant thought. What but silent prayer can meet the demand, "Pray without ceasing"? The apostle James said: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it on your lusts." Because of vanity and self-righteousness, mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of approval; and they expect also what is impossible,--a material and mortal sense of spiritual and immortal Truth. It is sometimes wise to hide from dull and base ears the pure pearls of awakened consciousness, lest your pearls be trampled upon. Words may belie desire, and pour forth a hypocrite's prayer; but thoughts are our honest conviction. I have no objection to audible prayer of the right kind; but the inaudible is more effectual. I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministrations very sacredly, and never to touch the human thought save to issues of Truth; never to trespass mentally on individual rights; never to take away the rights, but only the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their ability to heal in Science. Only when sickness, sin, and fear obstruct the harmony of Mind and body, is it right for one mind to meddle with another mind, and control aright the thought struggling for freedom. It is Truth and Love that cast out fear and heal the sick, and mankind are better because of this. If a change in the religious views of the patient comes with the change to health, our Father has done this; for the human mind and body are made better only by divine influence. SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? History repeats itself. The Pharisees of old warned the people to beware of Jesus, and contemptuously called him "this fellow." Jesus said, "For which of these works do ye stone me?" as much as to ask, Is it the work most derided and envied that is most acceptable to God? Not that he would cease to do the will of his Father on account of persecution, but he would repeat his work to the best advantage for mankind and the glory of his Father. There are sinners in all societies, and it is vain to look for perfection in churches or associations. The life of Christ is the perfect example; and to compare mortal lives with this model is to subject them to severe scrutiny. Without question, the subtlest forms of sin are trying to force the doors of Science and enter in; but this white sanctuary will never admit such as come to steal and to rob. Through long ages people have slumbered over Christ's commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel;" "Heal the sick, cast out devils;" and now the Church seems almost chagrined that by new discoveries of Truth sin is losing prestige and power. The Rev. Dr. A.J. Gordon, a Boston Baptist clergyman, said in a sermon: "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and it is doing it to-day; and as the faith of the Church increases, and Christians more and more learn their duty to believe all things written in the Scriptures, will such manifestations of God's power increase among us." Such sentiments are wholesome avowals of Christian Science. God is not unable or unwilling to heal, and mortals are not compelled to have other gods before Him, and employ material forms to meet a mental want. The divine Spirit supplies all human needs. Jesus said to the sick, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; rise up and walk!" God's pardon is the destruction of all "the ills that flesh is heir to." All power belongs to God; and it is not in all the vain power of dogma and philosophy to dispossess the divine Mind of healing power, or to cast out error with error, even in the name and for the sake of Christ, and so heal the sick. While Science is engulfing error in bottomless oblivion, the material senses would enthrone error as omnipotent and omnipresent, with power to determine the fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil is the ape of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself both true and good. The path of Christian Science is beset with false claimants, aping its virtues, but cleaving to their own vices. Denial of the authorship of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make a lie the author of Truth, and so make Truth itself a lie. A distinguished clergyman came to be healed. He said: "I am suffering from nervous prostration, and have to eat beefsteak and drink strong coffee to support me through a sermon." Here a skeptic might well ask if the atonement had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to heal was not equal to the power of daily meat and drink. The power of Truth is not contingent on matter. Our Master said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Truth rebukes error; and whether stall-fed or famishing, theology needs Truth to stimulate and sustain a good sermon. A lady said: "Only He who knows all things can estimate the good your books are doing." A distinguished Doctor of Divinity said: "Your book leavens my sermons." The following extract from a letter is a specimen of those received daily: "Your book Science and Health is healing the sick, binding up the broken-hearted, preaching deliverance to the captive, convicting the infidel, alarming the hypocrite, and quickening the Christian." Christian Science Mind-healing is dishonored by those who take it up from mercenary motives, for wealth and fame, or think to build a baseless fabric of their own on another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine into old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. Such students come to my College to learn a system which they go away to disgrace. Stealing or garbling my statements of Mind-science will never prevent or reconstruct the wrecks of "_isms_" and help humanity. Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance of people, while envy and hatred bark and bite at its heels. A man's inability to heal, on the Principle of Christian Science, substantiates his ignorance of its Principle and practice, and incapacitates him for correct comment. This failure should make him modest. Christian Science involves a new language, and a higher demonstration of medicine and religion. It is the "new tongue" of Truth, having its best interpretation in the power of Christianity to heal. My system of Mind-healing swerves not from the highest ethics and from the spiritual goal. To climb up by some other way than Truth is to fall. Error has no hobby, however boldly ridden or brilliantly caparisoned, that can leap into the sanctum of Christian Science. In Queen Elizabeth's time Protestantism could sentence men to the dungeon or stake for their religion, and so abrogate the rights of conscience and choke the channels of God. Ecclesiastical tyranny muzzled the mouth lisping God's praise; and instead of healing, it palsied the weak hand outstretched to God. Progress, legitimate to the human race, pours the healing balm of Truth and Love into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror or rule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-enact, through the civil arm of government, the horrors of religious persecution. The Rev. S.E. Herrick, a Congregational clergyman of Boston, says: "Heretics of yesterday are martyrs to-day." In every age and clime, "On earth peace, good will toward men" must be the watchword of Christianity. Jesus said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." St. Paul said that without charity we are "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal;" and he added: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; ... doth not behave itself unseemly, ... thinketh no evil, ... but rejoiceth in the truth." To hinder the unfolding truth, to ostracize whatever uplifts mankind, is of course out of the question. Such an attempt indicates weakness, fear, or malice; and such efforts arise from a spiritual lack, felt, though unacknowledged. Let it not be heard in Boston that woman, "last at the cross and first at the sepulchre," has no rights which man is bound to respect. In natural law and in religion the right of woman to fill the highest measure of enlightened understanding and the highest places in government, is inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of both sexes. This is woman's hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral and religious reforms. Drifting into intellectual wrestlings, we should agree to disagree; and this harmony would anchor the Church in more spiritual latitudes, and so fulfil her destiny. Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The people clamor to leave cradle and swaddling-clothes. The spiritual status is urging its highest demands on mortals, and material history is drawing to a close. Truth cannot be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever. "One on God's side is a majority;" and "Lo, I am with you alway," is the pledge of the Master. The question now at issue is: Shall we have a practical, spiritual Christianity, with its healing power, or shall we have material medicine and superficial religion? The advancing hope of the race, craving health and holiness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whose life-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must answer the constant inquiry: "Art thou he that should come?" Woman should not be ordered to the rear, or laid on the rack, for joining the overture of angels. Theologians descant pleasantly upon free moral agency; but they should begin by admitting individual rights. The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of New Hampshire. They reared there the Puritan standard of undefiled religion. As dutiful descendants of Puritans, let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, as Paul did, that we are _free born_. Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance of this destiny has dawned on the sick-bound and sin-enslaved. For the unfolding of this upward tendency to health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue to labor and wait. 
16734	----	RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION BY MARY BAKER EDDY AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES Registered U.S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST in Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1891, 1892_ BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY Copyright renewed 1919 and 1920 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS ANCESTRAL SHADOWS AUTOBIOGRAPHIC REMINISCENCES VOICES NOT OUR OWN EARLY STUDIES GIRLHOOD COMPOSITION THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE THE COUNTRY-SEAT (POEM) MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE EMERGENCE INTO LIGHT THE GREAT DISCOVERY FOUNDATION WORK MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS FIRST PUBLICATION THE PRECIOUS VOLUME RECUPERATIVE INCIDENT A TRUE MAN COLLEGE AND CHURCH "FEED MY SHEEP" (POEM) COLLEGE CLOSED GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS AND OUR MAGAZINE FAITH-CURE FOUNDATION-STONES THE GREAT REVELATION SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM THE HUMAN CONCEPT PERSONALITY PLAGIARISM ADMONITION EXEMPLIFICATION WAYMARKS RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION ANCESTRAL SHADOWS My ancestors, according to the flesh, were from both Scotland and England, my great-grandfather, on my father's side, being John McNeil of Edinburgh. His wife, my great-grandmother, was Marion Moor, and her family is said to have been in some way related to Hannah More, the pious and popular English authoress of a century ago. I remember reading, in my childhood, certain manuscripts containing Scriptural sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas which my grandmother said were written by my great-grandmother. But because my great-grandmother wrote a stray sonnet and an occasional riddle, it was no sign that she inherited a spark from Hannah More, or was her relative. John and Marion Moor McNeil had a daughter, who perpetuated her mother's name. This second Marion McNeil in due time was married to an Englishman, named Joseph Baker, and so became my paternal grandmother, the Scotch and English elements thus mingling in her children. Mrs. Marion McNeil Baker was reared among the Scotch Covenanters, and had in her character that sturdy Calvinistic devotion to Protestant liberty which gave those religionists the poetic daring and pious picturesqueness which we find so graphically set forth in the pages of Sir Walter Scott and in John Wilson's sketches. Joseph Baker and his wife, Marion McNeil, came to America seeking "freedom to worship God;" though they could hardly have crossed the Atlantic more than a score of years prior to the Revolutionary period. With them they brought to New England a heavy sword, encased in a brass scabbard, on which was inscribed the name of a kinsman upon whom the weapon had been bestowed by Sir William Wallace, from whose patriotism and bravery comes that heart-stirring air, "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." My childhood was also gladdened by one of my Grandmother Baker's books, printed in olden type and replete with the phraseology current in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among grandmother's treasures were some newspapers, yellow with age. Some of these, however, were not very ancient, nor had they crossed the ocean; for they were American newspapers, one of which contained a full account of the death and burial of George Washington. A relative of my Grandfather Baker was General Henry Knox of Revolutionary fame. I was fond of listening, when a child, to grandmother's stories about General Knox, for whom she cherished a high regard. In the line of my Grandmother Baker's family was the late Sir John Macneill, a Scotch knight, who was prominent in British politics, and at one time held the position of ambassador to Persia. My grandparents were likewise connected with Capt. John Lovewell of Dunstable, New Hampshire, whose gallant leadership and death, in the Indian troubles of 1722-1725, caused that prolonged contest to be known historically as Lovewell's War. A cousin of my grandmother was John Macneil, the New Hampshire general who fought at Lundy's Lane, and won distinction in 1814 at the neighboring battle of Chippewa, towards the close of the War of 1812. AUTOBIOGRAPHIC REMINISCENCES This venerable grandmother had thirteen children, the youngest of whom was my father, Mark Baker, who inherited the homestead, and with his brother, James Baker, he inherited my grandfather's farm of about five hundred acres, lying in the adjoining towns of Concord and Bow, in the State of New Hampshire. One hundred acres of the old farm are still cultivated and owned by Uncle James Baker's grandson, brother of the Hon. Henry Moore Baker of Washington, D.C. The farm-house, situated on the summit of a hill, commanded a broad picturesque view of the Merrimac River and the undulating lands of three townships. But change has been busy. Where once stretched broad fields of bending grain waving gracefully in the sunlight, and orchards of apples, peaches, pears, and cherries shone richly in the mellow hues of autumn,--now the lone night-bird cries, the crow caws cautiously, and wandering winds sigh low requiems through dark pine groves. Where green pastures bright with berries, singing brooklets, beautiful wild flowers, and flecked with large flocks and herds, covered areas of rich acres,--now the scrub-oak, poplar, and fern flourish. The wife of Mark Baker was Abigail Barnard Ambrose, daughter of Deacon Nathaniel Ambrose of Pembroke, a small town situated near Concord, just across the bridge, on the left bank of the Merrimac River. Grandfather Ambrose was a very religious man, and gave the money for erecting the first Congregational Church in Pembroke. In the Baker homestead at Bow I was born, the youngest of my parents' six children and the object of their tender solicitude. During my childhood my parents removed to Tilton, eighteen miles from Concord, and there the family remained until the names of both father and mother were inscribed on the stone memorials in the Park Cemetery of that beautiful village. My father possessed a strong intellect and an iron will. Of my mother I cannot speak as I would, for memory recalls qualities to which the pen can never do justice. The following is a brief extract from the eulogy of the Rev. Richard S. Rust, D.D., who for many years had resided in Tilton and knew my sainted mother in all the walks of life. The character of Mrs. Abigail Ambrose Baker was distinguished for numerous excellences. She possessed a strong intellect, a sympathizing heart, and a placid spirit. Her presence, like the gentle dew and cheerful light, was felt by all around her. She gave an elevated character to the tone of conversation in the circles in which she moved, and directed attention to themes at once pleasing and profitable. As a mother, she was untiring in her efforts to secure the happiness of her family. She ever entertained a lively sense of the parental obligation, especially in regard to the education of her children. The oft-repeated impressions of that sainted spirit, on the hearts of those especially entrusted to her watch-care, can never be effaced, and can hardly fail to induce them to follow her to the brighter world. Her life was a living illustration of Christian faith. My childhood's home I remember as one with the open hand. The needy were ever welcome, and to the clergy were accorded special household privileges. Among the treasured reminiscences of my much respected parents, brothers, and sisters, is the memory of my second brother, Albert Baker, who was, next to my mother, the very dearest of my kindred. To speak of his beautiful character as I cherish it, would require more space than this little book can afford. My brother Albert was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1834, and was reputed one of the most talented, close, and thorough scholars ever connected with that institution. For two or three years he read law at Hillsborough, in the office of Franklin Pierce, afterwards President of the United States; but later Albert spent a year in the office of the Hon. Richard Fletcher of Boston. He was consequently admitted to the bar in two States, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In 1837 he succeeded to the law-office which Mr. Pierce had occupied, and was soon elected to the Legislature of his native State, where he served the public interests faithfully for two consecutive years. Among other important bills which were carried through the Legislature by his persistent energy was one for the abolition of imprisonment for debt. In 1841 he received further political preferment, by nomination to Congress on a majority vote of seven thousand,--it was the largest vote of the State; but he passed away at the age of thirty-one, after a short illness, before his election. His noble political antagonist, the Hon. Isaac Hill, of Concord, wrote of my brother as follows:-- Albert Baker was a young man of uncommon promise. Gifted with the highest order of intellectual powers, he trained and schooled them by intense and almost incessant study throughout his short life. He was fond of investigating abstruse and metaphysical principles, and he never forsook them until he had explored their every nook and corner, however hidden and remote. Had life and health been spared to him, he would have made himself one of the most distinguished men in the country. As a lawyer he was able and learned, and in the successful practice of a very large business. He was noted for his boldness and firmness, and for his powerful advocacy of the side he deemed right. His death will be deplored, with the most poignant grief, by a large number of friends, who expected no more than they realized from his talents and acquirements. This sad event will not be soon forgotten. It blights too many hopes; it carries with it too much of sorrow and loss. It is a public calamity. VOICES NOT OUR OWN Many peculiar circumstances and events connected with my childhood throng the chambers of memory. For some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I repeatedly heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, three times, in an ascending scale. I thought this was my mother's voice, and sometimes went to her, beseeching her to tell me what she wanted. Her answer was always, "Nothing, child! What do you mean?" Then I would say, "Mother, who _did_ call me? I heard somebody call _Mary_, three times!" This continued until I grew discouraged, and my mother was perplexed and anxious. One day, when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, was visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by her side, in the same room with grandmother,--the call again came, so loud that Mehitable heard it, though I had ceased to notice it. Greatly surprised, my cousin turned to me and said, "Your mother is calling you!" but I answered not, till again the same call was thrice repeated. Mehitable then said sharply, "Why don't you go? your mother is calling you!" I then left the room, went to my mother, and once more asked her if she had summoned me? She answered as always before. Then I earnestly declared my cousin had heard the voice, and said that mother wanted me. Accordingly she returned with me to grandmother's room, and led my cousin into an adjoining apartment. The door was ajar, and I listened with bated breath. Mother told Mehitable all about this mysterious voice, and asked if she really did hear Mary's name pronounced in audible tones. My cousin answered quickly, and emphasized her affirmation. That night, before going to rest, my mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little Samuel, and bade me, when the voice called again, to reply as he did, "Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth." The voice came; but I was afraid, and did not answer. Afterward I wept, and prayed that God would forgive me, resolving to do, next time, as my mother had bidden me. When the call came again I did answer, in the words of Samuel, but never again to the material senses was that mysterious call repeated. Is it not much that I may worship Him, With naught my spirit's breathings to control, And feel His presence in the vast and dim And whispering woods, where dying thunders roll From the far cataracts? Shall I not rejoice That I have learned at last to know His voice From man's?--I will rejoice! My soaring soul Now hath redeemed her birthright of the day, And won, through clouds, to Him, her own unfettered way! --MRS. HEMANS. EARLY STUDIES My father was taught to believe that my brain was too large for my body and so kept me much out of school, but I gained book-knowledge with far less labor than is usually requisite. At ten years of age I was as familiar with Lindley Murray's Grammar as with the Westminster Catechism; and the latter I had to repeat every Sunday. My favorite studies were natural philosophy, logic, and moral science. From my brother Albert I received lessons in the ancient tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. My brother studied Hebrew during his college vacations. After my discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream. Learning was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual order and unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no earthly or inglorious theme. GIRLHOOD COMPOSITION From childhood I was a verse-maker. Poetry suited my emotions better than prose. The following is one of my girlhood productions. ALPHABET AND BAYONET If fancy plumes aerial flight, Go fix thy restless mind On learning's lore and wisdom's might, And live to bless mankind. The sword is sheathed, 'tis freedom's hour, No despot bears misrule, Where knowledge plants the foot of power In our God-blessed free school. Forth from this fount the streamlets flow, That widen in their course. Hero and sage arise to show Science the mighty source, And laud the land whose talents rock The cradle of her power, And wreaths are twined round Plymouth Rock, From erudition's bower. Farther than feet of chamois fall, Free as the generous air, Strains nobler far than clarion call Wake freedom's welcome, where Minerva's silver sandals still Are loosed, and not effete; Where echoes still my day-dreams thrill, Woke by her fancied feet. THEOLOGICAL REMINISCENCE At the age of twelve[A] I was admitted to the Congregational (Trinitarian) Church, my parents having been members of that body for a half-century. In connection with this event, some circumstances are noteworthy. Before this step was taken, the doctrine of unconditional election, or predestination, greatly troubled me; for I was unwilling to be saved, if my brothers and sisters were to be numbered among those who were doomed to perpetual banishment from God. So perturbed was I by the thoughts aroused by this erroneous doctrine, that the family doctor was summoned, and pronounced me stricken with fever. My father's relentless theology emphasized belief in a final judgment-day, in the danger of endless punishment, and in a Jehovah merciless towards unbelievers; and of these things he now spoke, hoping to win me from dreaded heresy. My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, bade me lean on God's love, which would give me rest, if I went to Him in prayer, as I was wont to do, seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone, and I rose and dressed myself, in a normal condition of health. Mother saw this, and was glad. The physician marvelled; and the "horrible decree" of predestination--as John Calvin rightly called his own tenet--forever lost its power over me. When the meeting was held for the examination of candidates for membership, I was of course present. The pastor was an old-school expounder of the strictest Presbyterian doctrines. He was apparently as eager to have unbelievers in these dogmas lost, as he was to have elect believers converted and rescued from perdition; for both salvation and condemnation depended, according to his views, upon the good pleasure of infinite Love. However, I was ready for his doleful questions, which I answered without a tremor, declaring that never could I unite with the church, if assent to this doctrine was essential thereto. Distinctly do I recall what followed. I stoutly maintained that I was willing to trust God, and take my chance of spiritual safety with my brothers and sisters,--not one of whom had then made any profession of religion,--even if my creedal doubts left me outside the doors. The minister then wished me to tell him when I had experienced a change of heart; but tearfully I had to respond that I could not designate any precise time. Nevertheless he persisted in the assertion that I _had_ been truly regenerated, and asked me to say how I felt when the new light dawned within me. I replied that I could only answer him in the words of the Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." This was so earnestly said, that even the oldest church-members wept. After the meeting was over they came and kissed me. To the astonishment of many, the good clergyman's heart also melted, and he received me into their communion, and my protest along with me. My connection with this religious body was retained till I founded a church of my own, built on the basis of Christian Science, "Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." In confidence of faith, I could say in David's words, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only. O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works." (Psalms lxxi. 16, 17.) In the year 1878 I was called to preach in Boston at the Baptist Tabernacle of Rev. Daniel C. Eddy, D.D.,--by the pastor of this church. I accepted the invitation and commenced work. The congregation so increased in number the pews were not sufficient to seat the audience and benches were used in the aisles. At the close of my engagement we parted in Christian fellowship, if not in full unity of doctrine. Our last vestry meeting was made memorable by eloquent addresses from persons who feelingly testified to having been healed through my preaching. Among other diseases cured they specified cancers. The cases described had been treated and given over by physicians of the popular schools of medicine, but I had not heard of these cases till the persons who divulged their secret joy were healed. A prominent churchman agreeably informed the congregation that many others present had been healed under my preaching, but were too timid to testify in public. One memorable Sunday afternoon, a soprano,--clear, strong, sympathetic,--floating up from the pews, caught my ear. When the meeting was over, two ladies pushing their way through the crowd reached the platform. With tears of joy flooding her eyes--for she was a mother--one of them said, "Did you hear my daughter sing? Why, she has not sung before since she left the choir and was in consumption! When she entered this church one hour ago she could not speak a loud word, and now, oh, thank God, she is healed!" It was not an uncommon occurrence in my own church for the sick to be healed by my sermon. Many pale cripples went into the church leaning on crutches who went out carrying them on their shoulders. "And these signs shall follow them that believe." The charter for The Mother Church in Boston was obtained June, 1879,[B] and the same month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to Mary B.G. Eddy to become their pastor. She accepted the call, and was ordained A.D. 1881. THE COUNTRY-SEAT Written in youth, while visiting a family friend in the beautiful suburbs of Boston. Wild spirit of song,--midst the zephyrs at play In bowers of beauty,--I bend to thy lay, And woo, while I worship in deep sylvan spot, The Muses' soft echoes to kindle the grot. Wake chords of my lyre, with musical kiss, To vibrate and tremble with accents of bliss. Here morning peers out, from her crimson repose, On proud Prairie Queen and the modest Moss-rose; And vesper reclines--when the dewdrop is shed On the heart of the pink--in its odorous bed; But Flora has stolen the rainbow and sky, To sprinkle the flowers with exquisite dye. Here fame-honored hickory rears his bold form, And bares a brave breast to the lightning and storm, While palm, bay, and laurel, in classical glee, Chase tulip, magnolia, and fragrant fringe-tree; And sturdy horse-chestnut for centuries hath given Its feathery blossom and branches to heaven. Here is life! Here is youth! Here the poet's world-wish,-- Cool waters at play with the gold-gleaming fish; While cactus a mellower glory receives From light colored softly by blossom and leaves; And nestling alder is whispering low, In lap of the pear-tree, with musical flow.[C] Dark sentinel hedgerow is guarding repose, Midst grotto and songlet and streamlet that flows Where beauty and perfume from buds burst away, And ope their closed cells to the bright, laughing day; Yet, dwellers in Eden, earth yields you her tear,-- Oft plucked for the banquet, but laid on the bier. Earth's beauty and glory delude as the shrine Or fount of real joy and of visions divine; But hope, as the eaglet that spurneth the sod, May soar above matter, to fasten on God, And freely adore all His spirit hath made, Where rapture and radiance and glory ne'er fade. Oh, give me the spot where affection may dwell In sacred communion with home's magic spell! Where flowers of feeling are fragrant and fair, And those we most love find a happiness rare; But clouds are a presage,--they darken my lay: This life is a shadow, and hastens away. MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE In 1843 I was united to my first husband, Colonel George Washington Glover of Charleston, South Carolina, the ceremony taking place under the paternal roof in Tilton. After parting with the dear home circle I went with him to the South; but he was spared to me for only one brief year. He was in Wilmington, North Carolina, on business, when the yellow-fever raged in that city, and was suddenly attacked by this insidious disease, which in his case proved fatal. My husband was a freemason, being a member in Saint Andrew's Lodge, Number 10, and of Union Chapter, Number 3, of Royal Arch masons. He was highly esteemed and sincerely lamented by a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose kindness and sympathy helped to support me in this terrible bereavement. A month later I returned to New Hampshire, where, at the end of four months, my babe was born. Colonel Glover's tender devotion to his young bride was remarked by all observers. With his parting breath he gave pathetic directions to his brother masons about accompanying her on her sad journey to the North. Here it is but justice to record, they performed their obligations most faithfully. After returning to the paternal roof I lost all my husband's property, except what money I had brought with me; and remained with my parents until after my mother's decease. A few months before my father's second marriage, to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson of New York, my little son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and put under the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the northern part of New Hampshire. I had no training for self-support, and my home I regarded as very precious. The night before my child was taken from me, I knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this trial. The following lines are taken from my poem, "Mother's Darling," written after this separation:-- Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea, Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll! Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee,-- Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul. My second marriage was very unfortunate, and from it I was compelled to ask for a bill of divorce, which was granted me in the city of Salem, Massachusetts. My dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child, but after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should have a home with me. A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he was committed very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West. After his removal a letter was read to my little son, informing him that his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge a guardian was appointed him, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met again until he had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and two children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts. Meanwhile he had served as a volunteer throughout the war for the Union, and at its expiration was appointed United States Marshal of the Territory of Dakota. It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. It is "as a tale that is told," and "as the shadow when it declineth." The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being. The awakening from a false sense of life, substance, and mind in matter, is as yet imperfect; but for those lucid and enduring lessons of Love which tend to this result, I bless God. Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment, unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth. To this end, but only to this end, such narrations may be admissible and advisable; but if spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, the _nexus_ is lost, and the argument, with its rightful conclusions, becomes correspondingly obscure. The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged. The Gospel narratives bear brief testimony even to the life of our great Master. His spiritual noumenon and phenomenon silenced portraiture. Writers less wise than the apostles essayed in the Apocryphal New Testament a legendary and traditional history of the early life of Jesus. But St. Paul summarized the character of Jesus as the model of Christianity, in these words: "Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself." "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." It may be that the mortal life-battle still wages, and must continue till its involved errors are vanquished by victory-bringing Science; but this triumph will come! God is over all. He alone is our origin, aim, and being. The real man is not of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh; for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal good. EMERGENCE INTO LIGHT The trend of human life was too eventful to leave me undisturbed in the illusion that this so-called life could be a real and abiding rest. All things earthly must ultimately yield to the irony of fate, or else be merged into the one infinite Love. As these pungent lessons became clearer, they grew sterner. Previously the cloud of mortal mind seemed to have a silver lining; but now it was not even fringed with light. Matter was no longer spanned with its rainbow of promise. The world was dark. The oncoming hours were indicated by no floral dial. The senses could not prophesy sunrise or starlight. Thus it was when the moment arrived of the heart's bridal to more spiritual existence. When the door opened, I was waiting and watching; and, lo, the bridegroom came! The character of the Christ was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. My heart knew its Redeemer. He whom my affections had diligently sought was as the One "altogether lovely," as "the chiefest," the only, "among ten thousand." Soulless famine had fled. Agnosticism, pantheism, and theosophy were void. Being was beautiful, its substance, cause, and currents were God and His idea. I had touched the hem of Christian Science. THE GREAT DISCOVERY It was in Massachusetts, in February, 1866, and after the death of the magnetic doctor, Mr. P.P. Quimby, whom spiritualists would associate therewith, but who was in no wise connected with this event, that I discovered the Science of divine metaphysical healing which I afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon. My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself, and how to make others so. Even to the homoeopathic physician who attended me, and rejoiced in my recovery, I could not then explain the _modus_ of my relief. I could only assure him that the divine Spirit had wrought the miracle--a miracle which later I found to be in perfect scientific accord with divine law. I then withdrew from society about three years,--to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle,--Deity. The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration, and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and metaphysical healing,--in a word, Christian Science. I named it _Christian_, because it is compassionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called _immortal Mind_. That which sins, suffers, and dies, I named _mortal mind_. The physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called _error_ and _shadow_. Soul I denominated _substance_, because Soul alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual entity, but His corporeality I denied. The real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal, I described as unreal. Spirit I called the _reality_; and matter, the _unreality_. I knew the human conception of God to be that He was a physically personal being, like unto man; and that the five physical senses are so many witnesses to the physical personality of mind and the real existence of matter; but I learned that these material senses testify falsely, that matter neither sees, hears, nor feels Spirit, and is therefore inadequate to form any proper conception of the infinite Mind. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." (John v. 31.) I beheld with ineffable awe our great Master's purpose in not questioning those he healed as to their disease or its symptoms, and his marvellous skill in demanding neither obedience to hygienic laws, nor prescribing drugs to support the divine power which heals. Adoringly I discerned the Principle of his holy heroism and Christian example on the cross, when he refused to drink the "vinegar and gall," a preparation of poppy, or aconite, to allay the tortures of crucifixion. Our great Way-shower, steadfast to the end in his obedience to God's laws, demonstrated for all time and peoples the supremacy of good over evil, and the superiority of Spirit over matter. The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible; though uninspired interpreters ignorantly pronounce Christ's healing miraculous, instead of seeing therein the operation of the divine law. Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine Scientist. He was so before the material world saw him. He who antedated Abraham, and gave the world a new date in the Christian era, was a Christian Scientist, who needed no discovery of the Science of being in order to rebuke the evidence. To one "born of the flesh," however, divine Science must be a discovery. Woman must give it birth. It must be begotten of spirituality, since none but the pure in heart can see God,--the Principle of all things pure; and none but the "poor in spirit" could first state this Principle, could know yet more of the nothingness of matter and the allness of Spirit, could utilize Truth, and absolutely reduce the demonstration of being, in Science, to the apprehension of the age. I wrote also, at this period, comments on the Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual interpretation, the Science of the Bible, and so laid the foundation of my work called Science and Health, published in 1875. If these notes and comments, which have never been read by any one but myself, were published, it would show that after my discovery of the absolute Science of Mind-healing, like all great truths, this spiritual Science developed itself to me until Science and Health was written. These early comments are valuable to me as waymarks of progress, which I would not have effaced. Up to that time I had not fully voiced my discovery. Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to express in feeble diction Truth's ultimate. In Longfellow's language,-- But the feeble hands and helpless, Groping blindly in the darkness, Touch God's right hand in that darkness, And are lifted up and strengthened. As sweet music ripples in one's first thoughts of it like the brooklet in its meandering midst pebbles and rocks, before the mind can duly express it to the ear,--so the harmony of divine Science first broke upon my sense, before gathering experience and confidence to articulate it. Its natural manifestation is beautiful and euphonious, but its written expression increases in power and perfection under the guidance of the great Master. The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe--old to God, but new to His "little one." It became evident that the divine Mind alone must answer, and be found as the Life, or Principle, of all being; and that one must acquaint himself with God, if he would be at peace. He must be ours practically, guiding our every thought and action; else we cannot understand the omnipresence of good sufficiently to demonstrate, even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind and divine healing. I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science. The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of God. I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then, but I have since understood it. All Science is a revelation. Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching higher than the stars of heaven. Am I a believer in spiritualism? I believe in no _ism_. This is my endeavor, to be a Christian, to assimilate the character and practice of the anointed; and no motive can cause a surrender of this effort. As I understand it, spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science. I esteem all honest people, and love them, and hold to loving our enemies and doing good to them that "despitefully use you and persecute you." FOUNDATION WORK As the pioneer of Christian Science I stood alone in this conflict, endeavoring to smite error with the falchion of Truth. The rare bequests of Christian Science are costly, and they have won fields of battle from which the dainty borrower would have fled. Ceaseless toil, self-renunciation, and love, have cleared its pathway. The motive of my earliest labors has never changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of humanity by a sanitary system that should include all moral and religious reform. It is often asked why Christian Science was revealed to me as one intelligence, analyzing, uncovering, and annihilating the false testimony of the physical senses. Why was this conviction necessary to the right apprehension of the invincible and infinite energies of Truth and Love, as contrasted with the foibles and fables of finite mind and material existence. The answer is plain. St. Paul declared that the law was the schoolmaster, to bring him to Christ. Even so was I led into the mazes of divine metaphysics through the gospel of suffering, the providence of God, and the cross of Christ. No one else can drain the cup which I have drunk to the dregs as the Discoverer and teacher of Christian Science; neither can its inspiration be gained without tasting this cup. The loss of material objects of affection sunders the dominant ties of earth and points to heaven. Nothing can compete with Christian Science, and its demonstration, in showing this solemn certainty in growing freedom and vindicating "the ways of God" to man. The absolute proof and self-evident propositions of Truth are immeasurably paramount to rubric and dogma in proving the Christ. From my very childhood I was impelled, by a hunger and thirst after divine things,--a desire for something higher and better than matter, and apart from it,--to seek diligently for the knowledge of God as the one great and ever-present relief from human woe. The first spontaneous motion of Truth and Love, acting through Christian Science on my roused consciousness, banished at once and forever the fundamental error of faith in things material; for this trust is the unseen sin, the unknown foe,--the heart's untamed desire which breaketh the divine commandments. As says St. James: "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Into mortal mind's material obliquity I gazed, and stood abashed. Blanched was the cheek of pride. My heart bent low before the omnipotence of Spirit, and a tint of humility, soft as the heart of a moonbeam, mantled the earth. Bethlehem and Bethany, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened sense as by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains were unsealed. Erudite systems of philosophy and religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise and potency of a present spiritual _afflatus_. It was the gospel of healing, on its divinely appointed human mission, bearing on its white wings, to my apprehension, "the beauty of holiness,"--even the possibilities of spiritual insight, knowledge, and being. Early had I learned that whatever is loved materially, as mere corporeal personality, is eventually lost. "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it," said the Master. Exultant hope, if tinged with earthliness, is crushed as the moth. What is termed mortal and material existence is graphically defined by Calderon, the famous Spanish poet, who wrote,-- What is life? 'Tis but a madness. What is life? A mere illusion, Fleeting pleasure, fond delusion, Short-lived joy, that ends in sadness, Whose most constant substance seems But the dream of other dreams. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS The physical side of this research was aided by hints from homoeopathy, sustaining my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug, governed the action of material medicine. I wandered through the dim mazes of _materia medica_, till I was weary of "scientific guessing," as it has been well called. I sought knowledge from the different schools,--allopathy, homoeopathy, hydropathy, electricity, and from various humbugs,--but without receiving satisfaction. I found, in the two hundred and sixty-two remedies enumerated by Jahr, one pervading secret; namely, that the less material medicine we have, and the more Mind, the better the work is done; a fact which seems to prove the Principle of Mind-healing. One drop of the thirtieth attenuation of _Natrum muriaticum_, in a tumbler-full of water, and one teaspoonful of the water mixed with the faith of ages, would cure patients not affected by a larger dose. The drug disappears in the higher attenuations of homoeopathy, and matter is thereby rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal mind; but immortal Mind, the curative Principle, remains, and is found to be even more active. The mental virtues of the material methods of medicine, when understood, were insufficient to satisfy my doubts as to the honesty or utility of using a material curative. I must know more of the unmixed, unerring source, in order to gain the Science of Mind, the All-in-all of Spirit, in which matter is obsolete. Nothing less could solve the mental problem. If I sought an answer from the medical schools, the reply was dark and contradictory. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the clouds, or give me one distinct statement of the spiritual Science of Mind-healing. Human reason was not equal to it. I claim for healing scientifically the following advantages: _First_: It does away with all material medicines, and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, as well as sin, in the immortal Mind; and mortal mind as the source of all the ills which befall mortals. _Second_: It is more effectual than drugs, and cures when they fail, or only relieve; thus proving the superiority of metaphysics over physics. _Third_: A person healed by Christian Science is not only healed of his disease, but he is advanced morally and spiritually. The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body. FIRST PUBLICATION In 1870 I copyrighted the first publication on spiritual, scientific Mind-healing, entitled "The Science of Man." This little book is converted into the chapter on Recapitulation in Science and Health. It was so new--the basis it laid down for physical and moral health was so hopelessly original, and men were so unfamiliar with the subject--that I did not venture upon its publication until later, having learned that the merits of Christian Science must be proven before a work on this subject could be profitably published. The truths of Christian Science are not interpolations of the Scriptures, but the spiritual interpretations thereof. Science is the prism of Truth, which divides its rays and brings out the hues of Deity. Human hypotheses have darkened the glow and grandeur of evangelical religion. When speaking of his true followers in every period, Jesus said, "_They_ shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." There is no authority for querying the authenticity of this declaration, for it already was and is demonstrated as practical, and its claim is substantiated,--a claim too immanent to fall to the ground beneath the stroke of artless workmen. Though a man were girt with the Urim and Thummim of priestly office, and denied the perpetuity of Jesus' command, "Heal the sick," or its application in all time to those who understand Christ as the Truth and the Life, that man would not expound the gospel according to Jesus. Five years after taking out my first copyright, I taught the Science of Mind-healing, _alias_ Christian Science, by writing out my manuscripts for students and distributing them unsparingly. This will account for certain published and unpublished manuscripts extant, which the evil-minded would insinuate did not originate with me. THE PRECIOUS VOLUME The first edition of my most important work, Science and Health, containing the complete statement of Christian Science,--the term employed by me to express the divine, or spiritual, Science of Mind-healing, was published in 1875. When it was first printed, the critics took pleasure in saying, "This book is indeed wholly original, but it will never be read." The first edition numbered one thousand copies. In September, 1891, it had reached sixty-two editions. Those who formerly sneered at it, as foolish and eccentric, now declare Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain German philosophers, to have been the originators of the Science of Mind-healing as therein stated. Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to unlock this "mystery of godliness." My reluctance to give the public, in my first edition of Science and Health, the chapter on Animal Magnetism, and the divine purpose that this should be done, may have an interest for the reader, and will be seen in the following circumstances. I had finished that edition as far as that chapter, when the printer informed me that he could not go on with my work. I had already paid him seven hundred dollars, and yet he stopped my work. All efforts to persuade him to finish my book were in vain. After months had passed, I yielded to a constant conviction that I must insert in my last chapter a partial history of what I had already observed of mental malpractice. Accordingly, I set to work, contrary to my inclination, to fulfil this painful task, and finished my copy for the book. As it afterwards appeared, although I had not thought of such a result, my printer resumed his work at the same time, finished printing the copy he had on hand, and then started for Lynn to see me. The afternoon that he left Boston for Lynn, I started for Boston with my finished copy. We met at the Eastern depot in Lynn, and were both surprised,--I to learn that he had printed all the copy on hand, and had come to tell me he wanted more,--he to find me _en route_ for Boston, to give him the closing chapter of my first edition of Science and Health. Not a word had passed between us, audibly or mentally, while this went on. I had grown disgusted with my printer, and become silent. He had come to a standstill through motives and circumstances unknown to me. Science and Health is the textbook of Christian Science. Whosoever learns the letter of this book, must also gain its spiritual significance, in order to demonstrate Christian Science. When the demand for this book increased, and people were healed simply by reading it, the copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at law, and my copyright was protected. RECUPERATIVE INCIDENT Through four successive years I healed, preached, and taught in a general way, refusing to take any pay for my services and living on a small annuity. At one time I was called to speak before the Lyceum Club, at Westerly, Rhode Island. On my arrival my hostess told me that her next-door neighbor was dying. I asked permission to see her. It was granted, and with my hostess I went to the invalid's house. The physicians had given up the case and retired. I had stood by her side about fifteen minutes when the sick woman rose from her bed, dressed herself, and was well. Afterwards they showed me the clothes already prepared for her burial; and told me that her physicians had said the diseased condition was caused by an injury received from a surgical operation at the birth of her last babe, and that it was impossible for her to be delivered of another child. It is sufficient to add her babe was safely born, and weighed twelve pounds. The mother afterwards wrote to me, "I never before suffered so little in childbirth." This scientific demonstration so stirred the doctors and clergy that they had my notices for a second lecture pulled down, and refused me a hearing in their halls and churches. This circumstance is cited simply to show the opposition which Christian Science encountered a quarter-century ago, as contrasted with its present welcome into the sickroom. Many were the desperate cases I instantly healed, "without money and without price," and in most instances without even an acknowledgment of the benefit. A TRUE MAN My last marriage was with Asa Gilbert Eddy, and was a blessed and spiritual union, solemnized at Lynn, Massachusetts, by the Rev. Samuel Barrett Stewart, in the year 1877. Dr. Eddy was the first student publicly to announce himself a Christian Scientist, and place these symbolic words on his office sign. He forsook all to follow in this line of light. He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday School, which he superintended. He also taught a special Bible-class; and he lectured so ably on Scriptural topics that clergymen of other denominations listened to him with deep interest. He was remarkably successful in Mind-healing, and untiring in his chosen work. In 1882 he passed away, with a smile of peace and love resting on his serene countenance. "Mark the perfect _man_, and behold the upright: for the end of _that_ man _is_ peace." (Psalms xxxvii. 37.) COLLEGE AND CHURCH In 1867 I introduced the first purely metaphysical system of healing since the apostolic days. I began by teaching one student Christian Science Mind-healing. From this seed grew the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, chartered in 1881. No charter was granted for similar purposes after 1883. It is the only College, hitherto, for teaching the pathology of spiritual power, _alias_ the Science of Mind-healing. My husband, Asa G. Eddy, taught two terms in my College. After I gave up teaching, my adopted son, Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy, a graduate of the Hahneman Medical College of Philadelphia, and who also received a certificate from Dr. W.W. Keen's (allopathic) Philadelphia School of Anatomy and Surgery,--having renounced his material method of practice and embraced the teachings of Christian Science, taught the Primary, Normal, and Obstetric class one term. Gen. Erastus N. Bates taught one Primary class, in 1889, after which I judged it best to close the institution. These students of mine were the only assistant teachers in the College. The first Christian Scientist Association was organized by myself and six of my students in 1876, on the Centennial Day of our nation's freedom. At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, on April 12, 1879, it was voted to organize a church to commemorate the words and works of our Master, a Mind-healing church, without a creed, to be called the Church of Christ, Scientist, the first such church ever organized. The charter for this church was obtained in June, 1879,[D] and during the same month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to me to become their pastor. I accepted the call, and was ordained in 1881, though I had preached five years before being ordained. When I was its pastor, and in the pulpit every Sunday, my church increased in members, and its spiritual growth kept pace with its increasing popularity; but when obliged, because of accumulating work in the College, to preach only occasionally, no student, at that time, was found able to maintain the church in its previous harmony and prosperity. Examining the situation prayerfully and carefully, noting the church's need, and the predisposing and exciting cause of its condition, I saw that the crisis had come when much time and attention must be given to defend this church from the envy and molestation of other churches, and from the danger to its members which must always lie in Christian warfare. At this juncture I recommended that the church be dissolved. No sooner were my views made known, than the proper measures were adopted to carry them out, the votes passing without a dissenting voice. This measure was immediately followed by a great revival of mutual love, prosperity, and spiritual power. The history of that hour holds this true record. Adding to its ranks and influence, this spiritually organized Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, still goes on. A new light broke in upon it, and more beautiful became the garments of her who "bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace." Despite the prosperity of my church, it was learned that material organization has its value and peril, and that organization is requisite only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and should be laid off,--even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off, in order to gain spiritual freedom and supremacy. From careful observation and experience came my clue to the uses and abuses of organization. Therefore, in accord with my special request, followed that noble, unprecedented action of the Christian Scientist Association connected with my College when dissolving that organization,--in forgiving enemies, returning good for evil, in following Jesus' command, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." I saw these fruits of Spirit, long-suffering and temperance, fulfil the law of Christ in righteousness. I also saw that Christianity has withstood less the temptation of popularity than of persecution. "FEED MY SHEEP" Lines penned when I was pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. Shepherd, show me how to go O'er the hillside steep, How to gather, how to sow,-- How to feed Thy sheep; I will listen for Thy voice, Lest my footsteps stray; I will follow and rejoice All the rugged way. Thou wilt bind the stubborn will, Wound the callous breast, Make self-righteousness be still, Break earth's stupid rest. Strangers on a barren shore, Lab'ring long and lone, We would enter by the door, And Thou know'st Thine own. So, when day grows dark and cold, Tear or triumph harms, Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, Take them in Thine arms; Feed the hungry, heal the heart, Till the morning's beam; White as wool, ere they depart, Shepherd, wash them clean. COLLEGE CLOSED The apprehension of what has been, and must be, the final outcome of material organization, which wars with Love's spiritual compact, caused me to dread the unprecedented popularity of my College. Students from all over our continent, and from Europe, were flooding the school. At this time there were over three hundred applications from persons desiring to enter the College, and applicants were rapidly increasing. Example had shown the dangers arising from being placed on earthly pinnacles, and Christian Science shuns whatever involves material means for the promotion of spiritual ends. In view of all this, a meeting was called of the Board of Directors of my College, who, being informed of my intentions, unanimously voted that the school be discontinued. A Primary class student, richly imbued with the spirit of Christ, is a better healer and teacher than a Normal class student who partakes less of God's love. After having received instructions in a Primary class from me, or a loyal student, and afterwards studied thoroughly Science and Health, a student can enter upon the gospel work of teaching Christian Science, and so fulfil the command of Christ. But before entering this field of labor he must have studied the latest editions of my works, be a good Bible scholar and a consecrated Christian. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College drew its breath from me, but I was yearning for retirement. The question was, Who else could sustain this institute, under all that was aimed at its vital purpose, the establishment of _genuine_ Christian Science healing? My conscientious scruples about diplomas, the recent experience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and the growing conviction that every one should build on his own foundation, subject to the one builder and maker, God,--all these considerations moved me to close my flourishing school, and the following resolutions were passed:-- At a special meeting of the Board of the Metaphysical College Corporation, Oct. 29, 1889, the following are some of the resolutions which were presented and passed unanimously:-- WHEREAS, The Massachusetts Metaphysical College, chartered in January, 1881, for medical purposes, to give instruction in scientific methods of mental healing on a purely practical basis, to impart a thorough understanding of metaphysics, to restore health, hope, and harmony to man,--has fulfilled its high and noble destiny, and sent to all parts of our country, and into foreign lands, students instructed in Christian Science Mind-healing, to meet the demand of the age for something higher than physic or drugging; and WHEREAS, The material organization was, in the beginning in this institution, like the baptism of Jesus, of which he said, "Suffer it to be so now," though the teaching was a purely spiritual and scientific impartation of Truth, whose Christly spirit has led to higher ways, means, and understanding,--the President, the Rev. Mary B.G. Eddy, at the height of prosperity in the institution, which yields a large income, is willing to sacrifice all for the advancement of the world in Truth and Love; and WHEREAS, Other institutions for instruction in Christian Science, which are working out their periods of organization, will doubtless follow the example of the _Alma Mater_ after having accomplished the worthy purpose for which they were organized, and the hour has come wherein the great need is for more of the spirit instead of the letter, and Science and Health is adapted to work this result; and WHEREAS, The fundamental principle for growth in Christian Science is spiritual formation first, last, and always, while in human growth material organization is first; and WHEREAS, Mortals must learn to lose their estimate of the powers that are not ordained of God, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike Christ and the example he gave; therefore _Resolved_, That we thank the State for its charter, which is the only one ever granted to a _legal college_ for teaching the Science of Mind-healing; that we thank the public for its liberal patronage. And everlasting gratitude is due to the President, for her great and noble work, which we believe will prove a healing for the nations, and bring all men to a knowledge of the true God, uniting them in one common brotherhood. After due deliberation and earnest discussion it was unanimously voted: That as all debts of the corporation have been paid, it is deemed best to dissolve this corporation, and the same is hereby dissolved. C.A. FRYE, _Clerk_. When God impelled me to set a price on my instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing, I could think of no financial equivalent for an impartation of a knowledge of that divine power which heals; but I was led to name three hundred dollars as the price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my College,--a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three weeks. This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, to accept this fee. God has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision; and I beg disinterested people to ask my loyal students if they consider three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my instruction during twelve half-days, or even in half as many lessons. Nevertheless, my list of indigent charity scholars is very large, and I have had as many as seventeen in one class. Loyal students speak with delight of their pupilage, and of what it has done for them, and for others through them. By loyalty in students I mean this,--allegiance to God, subordination of the human to the divine, steadfast justice, and strict adherence to divine Truth and Love. I see clearly that students in Christian Science should, at present, continue to organize churches, schools, and associations for the furtherance and unfolding of Truth, and that my necessity is not necessarily theirs; but it was the Father's opportunity for furnishing a new rule of order in divine Science, and the blessings which arose therefrom. Students are not environed with such obstacles as were encountered in the beginning of pioneer work. In December, 1889, I gave a lot of land in Boston to my student, Mr. Ira O. Knapp of Roslindale,--valued in 1892 at about twenty thousand dollars, and rising in value,--to be appropriated for the erection, and building on the premises thereby conveyed, of a church edifice to be used as a temple for Christian Science worship. GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS, AND OUR MAGAZINE For many successive years I have endeavored to find new ways and means for the promotion and expansion of scientific Mind-healing, seeking to broaden its channels and, if possible, to build a hedge round about it that should shelter its perfections from the contaminating influences of those who have a small portion of its letter and less of its spirit. At the same time I have worked to provide a home for every true seeker and honest worker in this vineyard of Truth. To meet the broader wants of humanity, and provide folds for the sheep that were without shepherds, I suggested to my students, in 1886, the propriety of forming a National Christian Scientist Association. This was immediately done, and delegations from the Christian Scientist Association of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and from branch associations in other States, met in general convention at New York City, February 11, 1886. The first official organ of the Christian Scientist Association was called _Journal of Christian Science_. I started it, April, 1883, as editor and publisher. To the National Christian Scientist Association, at its meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, June, 1889, I sent a letter, presenting to its loyal members _The Christian Science Journal_, as it was now called, and the funds belonging thereto. This monthly magazine had been made successful and prosperous under difficult circumstances and was designed to bear aloft the standard of genuine Christian Science. FAITH-CURE It is often asked, Why are faith-cures sometimes more speedy than some of the cures wrought through Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief, and not understanding; and it is easier to believe, than to understand spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and divine Science to admit the claims of the corporeal senses and appeal to God for relief through a humanized conception of His power, than to deny these claims and learn the divine way,--drinking Jesus' cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity. Millions are believing in God, or good, without bearing the fruits of goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is virtually blindness, when it admits Truth without understanding it. Blind belief cannot say with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed." There is danger in this mental state called belief; for if Truth is admitted, but not understood, it may be lost, and error may enter through this same channel of ignorant belief. The faith-cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in advance of their theory. The work of healing, in the Science of Mind, is the most sacred and salutary power which can be wielded. My Christian students, impressed with the true sense of the great work before them, enter this strait and narrow path, and work conscientiously. Let us follow the example of Jesus, the master Metaphysician, and gain sufficient knowledge of error to destroy it with Truth. Evil is not mastered by evil; it can only be overcome with good. This brings out the nothingness of evil and the eternal somethingness, vindicates the divine Principle, and improves the race of Adam. FOUNDATION-STONES The following ideas of Deity, antagonized by finite theories, doctrines, and hypotheses, I found to be demonstrable rules in Christian Science, and that we must abide by them. Whatever diverges from the one divine Mind, or God,--or divides Mind into minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Being into beings,--is a misstatement of the unerring divine Principle of Science, which interrupts the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of Spirit, and is of human instead of divine origin. War is waged between the evidences of Spirit and the evidences of the five physical senses; and this contest must go on until peace be declared by the final triumph of Spirit in immutable harmony. Divine Science disclaims sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, or divine good. All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is God. Hence there is but one Mind; and that one is the infinite good, supplying all Mind by the reflection, not the subdivision, of God. Whatever else claims to be mind, or consciousness, is untrue. The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so God reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not subdivide Mind, or good, into minds, good and evil. Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy furnishes a scientific basis for the Science of Mind-healing. Plato believed he had a soul, which must be doctored in order to heal his body. This would be like correcting the principle of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Principle is right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh that is evil. Soul is the synonym of Spirit, God; hence there is but one Soul, and that one is infinite. If that pagan philosopher had known that physical sense, not Soul, causes all bodily ailments, his philosophy would have yielded to Science. Man shines by borrowed light. He reflects God as his Mind, and this reflection is substance,--the substance of good. Matter is substance in error, Spirit is substance in Truth. Evil, or error, is not Mind; but infinite Mind is sufficient to supply all manifestations of intelligence. The notion of more than one Mind, or Life, is as unsatisfying as it is unscientific. All must be of God, and not our own, separated from Him. Human systems of philosophy and religion are departures from Christian Science. Mistaking divine Principle for corporeal personality, ingrafting upon one First Cause such opposite effects as good and evil, health and sickness, life and death; making mortality the status and rule of divinity,--such methods can never reach the perfection and demonstration of metaphysical, or Christian Science. Stating the divine Principle, omnipotence (_omnis potens_), and then departing from this statement and taking the rule of finite matter, with which to work out the problem of infinity or Spirit,--all this is like trying to compensate for the absence of omnipotence by a physical, false, and finite substitute. With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light immortality, insomuch that the people "were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Life, as defined by Jesus, had no beginning; it was not the result of organization, or infused into matter; it was Spirit. THE GREAT REVELATION Christian Science reveals the grand verity, that to believe man has a finite and erring mind, and consequently a mortal mind and soul and life, is error. Scientific terms have no contradictory significations. In Science, Life is not temporal, but eternal, without beginning or ending. The word _Life_ never means that which is the source of death, and of good and evil. Such an inference is unscientific. It is like saying that addition means subtraction in one instance and addition in another, and then applying this rule to a demonstration of the science of numbers; even as mortals apply finite terms to God, in demonstration of infinity. _Life_ is a term used to indicate Deity; and every other name for the Supreme Being, if properly employed, has the signification of Life. Whatever errs is mortal, and is the antipodes of Life, or God, and of health and holiness, both in idea and demonstration. Christian Science reveals Mind, the only living and true God, and all that is made by Him, Mind, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual: the five material senses define Mind and matter as distinct, but mutually dependent, each on the other, for intelligence and existence. Science defines man as immortal, as coexistent and coeternal with God, as made in His own image and likeness; material sense defines life as something apart from God, beginning and ending, and man as very far from the divine likeness. Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal, self-existent Mind; material sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as something separate from God. Science reveals Spirit as All, averring that there is nothing beside God; material sense says that matter, His antipode, is something besides God. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and good. Christian Science reveals God and His idea as the All and Only. It declares that evil is the absence of good; whereas, good is God ever-present, and therefore evil is unreal and good is all that is real. Christian Science saith to the wave and storm, "Be still," and there is a great calm. Material sense asks, in its ignorance of Science, "When will the raging of the material elements cease?" Science saith to all manner of disease, "Know that God is all-power and all-presence, and there is nothing beside Him;" and the sick are healed. Material sense saith, "Oh, when will my sufferings cease? Where is God? Sickness is something besides Him, which He cannot, or does not, heal." Christian Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense contradicts Science, for matter and its so-called organizations take no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of the real man and God. Christian Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man's ignorance, from enmity to God and divine Science. Christian Science declares that sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear or disease. This fear is formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you awaken from sleep and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of Christian Science,--namely, that man's harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe,--you cannot awake in fear or suffering of any sort. Science saith to fear, "You are the cause of all sickness; but you are a self-constituted falsity,--you are darkness, nothingness. You are without 'hope, and without God in the world.' You do not exist, and have no right to exist, for 'perfect Love casteth out fear.'" God is everywhere. "There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard;" and this voice is Truth that destroys error and Love that casts out fear. Christian Science reveals the fact that, if suffering exists, it is in the mortal mind only, for matter has no sensation and cannot suffer. If you rule out every sense of disease and suffering from mortal mind, it cannot be found in the body. Posterity will have the right to demand that Christian Science be stated and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur,--that however little be taught or learned, that little shall be right. Let there be milk for babes, but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the Science of Christian healing will again be lost, and human suffering will increase. Test Christian Science by its effect on society, and you will find that the views here set forth--as to the illusion of sin, sickness, and death--bring forth better fruits of health, righteousness, and Life, than _a belief in their reality has ever done_. A demonstration of the _unreality_ of evil destroys evil. SIN, SINNER, AND ECCLESIASTICISM Why do Christian Scientists say God and His idea are the only realities, and then insist on the need of healing sickness and sin? Because Christian Science heals sin as it heals sickness, by establishing the recognition that God _is All_, and there is none beside Him,--that all is good, and there is in reality no evil, neither sickness nor sin. We attack the sinner's belief in the pleasure of sin, _alias_ the reality of sin, which makes him a sinner, in order to destroy this belief and save him from sin; and we attack the belief of the sick in the reality of sickness, in order to heal them. When we deny the authority of sin, we begin to sap it; for this denunciation must precede its destruction. God is good, hence goodness is something, for it represents God, the Life of man. Its opposite, nothing, named _evil_, is nothing but a conspiracy against man's Life and goodness. Do you not feel bound to expose this conspiracy, and so to save man from it? Whosoever covers iniquity becomes accessory to it. Sin, as a claim, is more dangerous than sickness, more subtle, more difficult to heal. St. Augustine once said, "The devil is but the ape of God." Sin is worse than sickness; but recollect that it encourages sin to say, "There is no sin," and leave the subject there. Sin ultimates in sinner, and in this sense they are one. You cannot separate sin from the sinner, nor the sinner from his sin. The sin is the sinner, and _vice versa_, for such is the unity of evil; and together both sinner and sin will be destroyed by the supremacy of good. This, however, does not annihilate man, for to efface sin, _alias_ the sinner, brings to light, makes apparent, the real man, even God's "image and likeness." Need it be said that any opposite theory is heterodox to divine Science, which teaches that good is equally _one_ and _all_, even as the opposite claim of evil is one. In Christian Science the fact is made obvious that the sinner and the sin are alike simply nothingness; and this view is supported by the Scripture, where the Psalmist saith: "He shall go to the generation of his fathers; they shall never see light. Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish." God's ways and works and thoughts have never changed, either in Principle or practice. Since there is in belief an illusion termed sin, which must be met and mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are supposititious claims of error; and error being a false claim, they are no claims at all. It is scientific to abide in conscious harmony, in health-giving, deathless Truth and Love. To do this, mortals must first open their eyes to all the illusive forms, methods, and subtlety of error, in order that the illusion, error, may be destroyed; if this is not done, mortals will become the victims of error. If evangelical churches refuse fellowship with the Church of Christ, Scientist, or with Christian Science, they must rest their opinions of Truth and Love on the evidences of the physical senses, rather than on the teaching and practice of Jesus, or the works of the Spirit. Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteousness and bigotry, which freeze out the spiritual element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth Life. The odors of persecution, tobacco, and alcohol are not the sweet-smelling savor of Truth and Love. Feasting the senses, gratification of appetite and passion, have no warrant in the gospel or the Decalogue. Mortals must take up the cross if they would follow Christ, and worship the Father "in spirit and in truth." The Jewish religion was not spiritual; hence Jesus denounced it. If the religion of to-day is constituted of such elements as of old ruled Christ out of the synagogues, it will continue to avoid whatever follows the example of our Lord and prefers Christ to creed. Christian Science is the pure evangelic truth. It accords with the trend and tenor of Christ's teaching and example, while it demonstrates the power of Christ as taught in the four Gospels. Truth, casting out evils and healing the sick; Love, fulfilling the law and keeping man unspotted from the world,--these practical manifestations of Christianity constitute the only evangelism, and they need no creed. As well expect to determine, without a telescope, the magnitude and distance of the stars, as to expect to obtain health, harmony, and holiness through an unspiritual and unhealing religion. Christianity reveals God as ever-present Truth and Love, to be utilized in healing the sick, in casting out error, in raising the dead. Christian Science gives vitality to religion, which is no longer buried in materiality. It raises men from a material sense into the spiritual understanding and scientific demonstration of God. THE HUMAN CONCEPT Sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed; hence one's concept of error is not the whole of error. The human thought does not constitute sin, but _vice versa_, sin constitutes the human or physical concept. Sin is both concrete and abstract. Sin was, and _is_, the lying supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are both material and spiritual, and yet are separate from God. The first iniquitous manifestation of sin was a finity. The finite was self-arrayed against the infinite, the mortal against immortality, and a sinner was the antipode of God. Silencing self, _alias_ rising above corporeal personality, is what reforms the sinner and destroys sin. In the ratio that the testimony of material personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is finally lost for lack of witness. The sinner created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner; that is, error made its man mortal, and this mortal was the image and likeness of evil, not of good. Therefore the lie was, and _is_, collective as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on Adam's thought, but supposititiously self-created. In the words of our Master, it, the "devil" (_alias_ evil), "was a liar, and the father of it." This mortal material concept was never a creator, although as a serpent it claimed to originate in the name of "the Lord," or good,--original evil; second, in the name of human concept, it claimed to beget the offspring of evil, _alias_ an evil offspring. However, the human concept never was, neither indeed can be, the father of man. Even the spiritual idea, or ideal man, is not a parent, though he reflects the infinity of good. The great difference between these opposites is, that the human material concept is _unreal_, and the divine concept or idea is spiritually real. One is false, while the other is true. One is temporal, but the other is eternal. Our Master instructed his students to "call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." (Matt. xxiii. 9.) Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, treats of the human concept, and the transference of thought, as follows:-- "How can matter originate or transmit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality" (p. 551). "In reality there is no _mortal_ mind, and consequently no transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being are of God. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific thoughts are true thoughts, passing from God to man" (pp. 103, 104). "Man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being" (p. 63). "The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called _serpent_, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, 'Ye shall be as gods;' that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth.... 'I will put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem to have life as much as God, Spirit, who _is_ the only Life.' This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death" (pp. 306, 307). "When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has no intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffering? God created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the necessity for recreation or procreation?" (p. 205). "Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: 'Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?'" (pp. 307, 308). "Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions. Ignorant of the origin and operations of mortal mind,--that is, ignorant of itself,--this so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and claims God as their author;... usurps the deific prerogatives and is an attempted infringement on infinity" (pp. 512, 513). We do not question the authenticity of the Scriptural narrative of the Virgin-mother and Bethlehem babe, and the Messianic mission of Christ Jesus; but in our time no Christian Scientist will give chimerical wings to his imagination, or advance speculative theories as to the recurrence of such events. No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity. The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science. And the scientific ultimate of this God-idea must be, will be, forever individual, incorporeal, and infinite, even the reflection, "image and likeness," of the infinite God. The right teacher of Christian Science lives the truth he teaches. Preeminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary, civil, moral, and religious reform. Such a post of duty, unpierced by vanity, exalts a mortal beyond human praise, or monuments which weigh dust, and humbles him with the tax it raises on calamity to open the gates of heaven. It is not the forager on others' wisdom that God thus crowns, but he who is obedient to the divine command, "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." Great temptations beset an ignorant or an unprincipled mind-practice in opposition to the straight and narrow path of Christian Science. Promiscuous mental treatment, without the consent or knowledge of the individual treated, is an error of much magnitude. People unaware of the indications of mental treatment, know not what is affecting them, and thus may be robbed of their individual rights,--freedom of choice and self-government. Who is willing to be subjected to such an influence? Ask the unbridled mind-manipulator if he would consent to this; and if not, then he is knowingly transgressing Christ's command. He who secretly manipulates mind without the permission of man or God, is not dealing justly and loving mercy, according to pure and undefiled religion. Sinister and selfish motives entering into mental practice are dangerous incentives; they proceed from false convictions and a fatal ignorance. These are the tares growing side by side with the wheat, that must be recognized, and uprooted, before the wheat can be garnered and Christian Science demonstrated. Secret mental efforts to obtain help from one who is unaware of this attempt, demoralizes the person who does this, the same as other forms of stealing, and will end in destroying health and morals. In the practice of Christian Science one cannot impart a mental influence that hazards another's happiness, nor interfere with the rights of the individual. To disregard the welfare of others is contrary to the law of God; therefore it deteriorates one's ability to do good, to benefit himself and mankind. The Psalmist vividly portrays the result of secret faults, presumptuous sins, and self-deception, in these words: "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors." PERSONALITY The immortal man being spiritual, individual, and eternal, his mortal opposite must be material, corporeal, and temporal. Physical personality is finite; but God is infinite. He is without materiality, without finiteness of form or Mind. Limitations are put off in proportion as the fleshly nature disappears and man is found in the reflection of Spirit. This great fact leads into profound depths. The material human concept grew beautifully less as I floated into more spiritual latitudes and purer realms of thought. From that hour personal corporeality became less to me than it is to people who fail to appreciate individual character. I endeavored to lift thought above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual individuality in God,--in the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in supersensible good. This is the only way whereby the false personality is laid off. He who clings to personality, or perpetually warns you of "personality," wrongs it, or terrifies people over it, and is the sure victim of his own corporeality. Constantly to scrutinize physical personality, or accuse people of being unduly personal, is like the sick talking sickness. Such errancy betrays a violent and egotistical personality, increases one's sense of corporeality, and begets a fear of the senses and a perpetually egotistical sensibility. He who does this is ignorant of the meaning of the word _personality_, and defines it by his own _corpus sine pectore_ (soulless body), and fails to distinguish the individual, or real man from the false sense of corporeality, or egotistic self. My own corporeal personality afflicteth me not wittingly; for I desire never to think of it, and it cannot think of me. PLAGIARISM The various forms of book-borrowing without credit spring from this ill-concealed question in mortal mind, Who shall be greatest? This error violates the law given by Moses, it tramples upon Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, it does violence to the ethics of Christian Science. Why withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, but give credit when citing from the works of other authors? Life and its ideals are inseparable, and one's writings on ethics, and demonstration of Truth, are not, cannot be, understood or taught by those who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the author. Jesus said, "For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me." If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the borrower from it is embraced in the author's own mental mood, and is therefore _honest_. The Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity. It is proverbial that dishonesty retards spiritual growth and strikes at the heart of Truth. If a student at Harvard College has studied a textbook written by his teacher, is he entitled, when he leaves the University, to write out as his own the substance of this textbook? There is no warrant in common law and no permission in the gospel for plagiarizing an author's ideas and their words. Christian Science is not copyrighted; nor would protection by copyright be requisite, if mortals obeyed God's law of _manright_. A student can write voluminous works on Science without trespassing, if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose _Christian Science_. The Bible is not stolen, though it is cited, and quoted deferentially. Thoughts touched with the Spirit and Word of Christian Science gravitate naturally toward Truth. Therefore the mind to which this Science was revealed must have risen to the altitude which perceived a light beyond what others saw. The spiritually minded meet on the stairs which lead up to spiritual love. This affection, so far from being personal worship, fulfils the law of Love which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of good and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to constitute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker,--as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disciples were of one accord. He who gains the God-crowned summit of Christian Science never abuses the corporeal personality, but uplifts it. He thinks of every one in his real quality, and sees each mortal in an impersonal depict. I have long remained silent on a growing evil in plagiarism; but if I do not insist upon the strictest observance of moral law and order in Christian Scientists, I become responsible, as a teacher, for laxity in discipline and lawlessness in literature. Pope was right in saying, "An honest man's the noblest work of God;" and Ingersoll's repartee has its moral: "An honest God's the noblest work of man." ADMONITION The neophyte in Christian Science acts like a diseased physique,--being too fast or too slow. He is inclined to do either too much or too little. In healing and teaching the student has not yet achieved the entire wisdom of Mind-practice. The textual explanation of this practice is complete in Science and Health; and scientific practice makes perfect, for it is governed by its Principle, and not by human opinions; but carnal and sinister motives, entering into this practice, will prevent the demonstration of Christian Science. I recommend students not to read so-called scientific works, antagonistic to Christian Science, which advocate materialistic systems; because such works and words becloud the right sense of metaphysical Science. The rules of Mind-healing are wholly Christlike and spiritual. Therefore the adoption of a worldly policy or a resort to subterfuge in the statement of the Science of Mind-healing, or any name given to it other than Christian Science, or an attempt to demonstrate the facts of this Science other than is stated in Science and Health--is a departure from the Science of Mind-healing. To becloud mortals, or for yourself to hide from God, is to conspire against the blessings otherwise conferred, against your own success and final happiness, against the progress of the human race as well as against _honest_ metaphysical theory and practice. Not by the hearing of the ear is spiritual truth learned and loved; nor cometh this apprehension from the experiences of others. We glean spiritual harvests from our own material losses. In this consuming heat false images are effaced from the canvas of mortal mind; and thus does the material pigment beneath fade into invisibility. The signs for the wayfarer in divine Science lie in meekness, in unselfish motives and acts, in shuffling off scholastic rhetoric, in ridding the thought of effete doctrines, in the purification of the affections and desires. Dishonesty, envy, and mad ambition are "lusts of the flesh," which uproot the germs of growth in Science and leave the inscrutable problem of being unsolved. Through the channels of material sense, of worldly policy, pomp, and pride, cometh no success in Truth. If beset with misguided emotions, we shall be stranded on the quicksands of worldly commotion, and practically come short of the wisdom requisite for teaching and demonstrating the victory over self and sin. Be temperate in thought, word, and deed. Meekness and temperance are the jewels of Love, set in wisdom. Restrain untempered zeal. "Learn to labor and to wait." Of old the children of Israel were saved by patient waiting. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force!" said Jesus. Therefore are its spiritual gates not captured, nor its golden streets invaded. We recognize this kingdom, the reign of harmony within us, by an unselfish affection or love, for this is the pledge of divine good and the insignia of heaven. This also is proverbial, that though eternal justice be graciously gentle, yet it may seem severe. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, And scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. As the poets in different languages have expressed it:-- Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all. Though the divine rebuke is effectual to the pulling down of sin's strongholds, it may stir the human heart to resist Truth, before this heart becomes obediently receptive of the heavenly discipline. If the Christian Scientist recognize the mingled sternness and gentleness which permeate justice and Love, he will not scorn the timely reproof, but will so absorb it that this warning will be within him a spring, welling up into unceasing spiritual rise and progress. Patience and obedience win the golden scholarship of experimental tuition. The kindly shepherd of the East carries his lambs in his arms to the sheepcot, but the older sheep pass into the fold under his compelling rod. He who sees the door and turns away from it, is guilty, while innocence strayeth yearningly. There are no greater miracles known to earth than perfection and an unbroken friendship. We love our friends, but ofttimes we lose them in proportion to our affection. The sacrifices made for others are not infrequently met by envy, ingratitude, and enmity, which smite the heart and threaten to paralyze its beneficence. The unavailing tear is shed both for the living and the dead. Nothing except sin, in the students themselves, can separate them from me. Therefore we should guard thought and action, keeping them in accord with Christ, and our friendship will surely continue. The letter of the law of God, separated from its spirit, tends to demoralize mortals, and must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty and light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting; and falsity must thus decay, ere spiritual sense, affectional consciousness, and genuine goodness become so apparent as to be well understood. After the supreme advent of Truth in the heart, there comes an overwhelming sense of error's vacuity, of the blunders which arise from wrong apprehension. The enlightened heart loathes error, and casts it aside; or else that heart is consciously untrue to the light, faithless to itself and to others, and so sinks into deeper darkness. Said Jesus: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" and Shakespeare puts this pious counsel into a father's mouth:-- This above all: To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. A realization of the shifting scenes of human happiness, and of the frailty of mortal anticipations,--such as first led me to the feet of Christian Science,--seems to be requisite at every stage of advancement. Though our first lessons are changed, modified, broadened, yet their core is constantly renewed; as the law of the chord remains unchanged, whether we are dealing with a simple Latour exercise or with the vast Wagner Trilogy. A general rule is, that my students should not allow their movements to be controlled by other students, even if they are teachers and practitioners of the same blessed faith. The exception to this rule should be very rare. The widest power and strongest growth have always been attained by those loyal students who rest on divine Principle for guidance, not on themselves; and who locate permanently in one section, and adhere to the orderly methods herein delineated. At this period my students should locate in large cities, in order to do the greatest good to the greatest number, and therein abide. The population of our principal cities is ample to supply many practitioners, teachers, and preachers with work. This fact interferes in no way with the prosperity of each worker; rather does it represent an accumulation of power on his side which promotes the ease and welfare of the workers. Their liberated capacities of mind enable Christian Scientists to consummate much good or else evil; therefore their examples either excel or fall short of other religionists; and they must be found dwelling together in harmony, if even they compete with ecclesiastical fellowship and friendship. It is often asked which revision of Science and Health is the best. The arrangement of my last revision, in 1890, makes the subject-matter clearer than any previous edition, and it is therefore better adapted to spiritualize thought and elucidate scientific healing and teaching. It has already been proven that this volume is accomplishing the divine purpose to a remarkable degree. The wise Christian Scientist will commend students and patients to the teachings of this book, and the healing efficacy thereof, rather than try to centre their interest on himself. Students whom I have taught are seldom benefited by the teachings of other students, for scientific foundations are already laid in their minds which ought not to be tampered with. Also, they are prepared to receive the infinite instructions afforded by the Bible and my books, which mislead no one and are their best guides. The student may mistake in his conception of Truth, and this error, in an honest heart, is sure to be corrected. But if he misinterprets the text to his pupils, and communicates, even unintentionally, his misconception of Truth, thereafter he will find it more difficult to rekindle his own light or to enlighten them. Hence, as a rule, the student should explain only Recapitulation, the chapter for the class-room, and leave Science and Health to God's daily interpretation. Christian Scientists should take their textbook into the schoolroom the same as other teachers; they should ask questions from it, and be answered according to it,--occasionally reading aloud from the book to corroborate what they teach. It is also highly important that their pupils study each lesson before the recitation. That these essential points are ever omitted, is anomalous, when we consider the necessity of thoroughly understanding Science, and the present liability of deviating from absolute Christian Science. Centuries will intervene before the statement of the inexhaustible topics of Science and Health is sufficiently understood to be fully demonstrated. The teacher himself should continue to study this textbook, and to spiritualize his own thoughts and human life from this open fount of Truth and Love. He who sees clearly and enlightens other minds most readily, keeps his own lamp trimmed and burning. Throughout his entire explanations he strictly adheres to the teachings in the chapter on Recapitulation. When closing the class, each member should own a copy of Science and Health, and continue to study and assimilate this inexhaustible subject--Christian Science. The opinions of men cannot be substituted for God's revelation. In times past, arrogant pride, in attempting to steady the ark of Truth, obscured even the power and glory of the Scriptures,--to which Science and Health is the Key. That teacher does most for his students who divests himself most of pride and self, and by reason thereof is able to empty his students' minds of error, that they may be filled with Truth. Thus doing, posterity will call him blessed, and the tired tongue of history be enriched. The less the teacher personally controls other minds, and the more he trusts them to the divine Truth and Love, the better it will be for both teacher and student. A teacher should take charge only of his own pupils and patients, and of those who voluntarily place themselves under his direction; he should avoid leaving his own regular institute or place of labor, or expending his labor where there are other teachers who should be specially responsible for doing their own work well. Teachers of Christian Science will find it advisable to band together their students into associations, to continue the organization of churches, and at present they can employ any other organic operative method that may commend itself as useful to the Cause and beneficial to mankind. Of this also rest assured, that books and teaching are but a ladder let down from the heaven of Truth and Love, upon which angelic thoughts ascend and descend, bearing on their pinions of light the Christ-spirit. Guard yourselves against the subtly hidden suggestion that the Son of man will be glorified, or humanity benefited, by any deviation from the order prescribed by supernal grace. Seek to occupy no position whereto you do not feel that God ordains you. Never forsake your post without due deliberation and light, but always wait for God's finger to point the way. The loyal Christian Scientist is incapable alike of abusing the practice of Mind-healing or of healing on a material basis. The tempter is vigilant, awaiting only an opportunity to divide the ranks of Christian Science and scatter the sheep abroad; but "if God be for us, who can be against us?" The Cause, _our_ Cause, is highly prosperous, rapidly spreading over the globe; and the morrow will crown the effort of to-day with a diadem of gems from the New Jerusalem. EXEMPLIFICATION To energize wholesome spiritual warfare, to rebuke vainglory, to offset boastful emptiness, to crown patient toil, and rejoice in the spirit and power of Christian Science, we must ourselves be true. There is but one way of _doing_ good, and that is to _do_ it! There is but one way of _being_ good, and that is to _be_ good! Art thou still unacquainted with thyself? Then be introduced to this self. "Know thyself!" as said the classic Grecian motto. Note well the falsity of this mortal self! Behold its vileness, and remember this poverty-stricken "stranger that is within thy gates." Cleanse every stain from this wanderer's soiled garments, wipe the dust from his feet and the tears from his eyes, that you may behold the real man, the fellow-saint of a holy household. There should be no blot on the escutcheon of our Christliness when we offer our gift upon the altar. A student desiring growth in the knowledge of Truth, can and will obtain it by taking up his cross and following Truth. If he does this not, and another one undertakes to carry his burden and do his work, the duty will _not be accomplished_. No one can save himself without God's help, and God will help each man who performs his own part. After this manner and in no other way is every man cared for and blessed. To the unwise helper our Master said, "Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead." The poet's line, "Order is heaven's first law," is so eternally true, so axiomatic, that it has become a truism; and its wisdom is as obvious in religion and scholarship as in astronomy or mathematics. Experience has taught me that the rules of Christian Science can be far more thoroughly and readily acquired by regularly settled and systematic workers, than by unsettled and spasmodic efforts. Genuine Christian Scientists are, or should be, the most systematic and law-abiding people on earth, because their religion demands implicit adherence to fixed rules, in the orderly demonstration thereof. Let some of these rules be here stated. _First_: Christian Scientists are to "heal the sick" as the Master commanded. In so doing they must follow the divine order as prescribed by Jesus,--never, in any way, to trespass upon the rights of their neighbors, but to obey the celestial injunction, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." In this orderly, scientific dispensation healers become a law unto themselves. They feel their own burdens less, and can therefore bear the weight of others' burdens, since it is only through the lens of their unselfishness that the sunshine of Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error. It is already understood that Christian Scientists will not receive a patient who is under the care of a regular physician, until he has done with the case and different aid is sought. The same courtesy should be observed in the professional intercourse of Christian Science healers with one another. _Second_: Another command of the Christ, his prime command, was that his followers should "raise the dead." He lifted his own body from the sepulchre. In him, Truth called the physical man from the tomb to health, and the so-called dead forthwith emerged into a higher manifestation of Life. The spiritual significance of this command, "Raise the dead," most concerns mankind. It implies such an elevation of the understanding as will enable thought to apprehend the living beauty of Love, its practicality, its divine energies, its health-giving and life-bestowing qualities,--yea, its power to demonstrate immortality. This end Jesus achieved, both by example and precept. _Third_: This leads inevitably to a consideration of another part of Christian Science work,--a part which concerns us intimately,--preaching the gospel. This evangelistic duty should not be so warped as to signify that we must or may go, uninvited, to work in other vineyards than our own. One would, or should, blush to enter unasked another's pulpit, and preach without the consent of the stated occupant of that pulpit. The Lord's command means this, that we should adopt the spirit of the Saviour's ministry, and abide in such a spiritual attitude as will draw men unto us. Itinerancy should not be allowed to clip the wings of divine Science. Mind demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love. The divine potency of this spiritual mode of Mind, and the hindrance opposed to it by material motion, is proven beyond a doubt in the practice of Mind-healing. In those days preaching and teaching were substantially one. There was no church preaching, in the modern sense of the term. Men assembled in the one temple (at Jerusalem) for sacrificial ceremonies, not for sermons. Into the synagogues, scattered about in cities and villages, they went for liturgical worship, and instruction in the Mosaic law. If one worshipper preached to the others, he did so informally, and because he was bidden to this privileged duty at that particular moment. It was the custom to pay this hortatory compliment to a stranger, or to a member who had been away from the neighborhood; as Jesus was once asked to exhort, when he had been some time absent from Nazareth but once again entered the synagogue which he had frequented in childhood. Jesus' method was to instruct his own students; and he watched and guarded them unto the end, even according to his promise, "Lo, I am with you alway!" Nowhere in the four Gospels will Christian Scientists find any precedent for employing another student to take charge of their students, or for neglecting their own students, in order to enlarge their sphere of action. Above all, trespass not intentionally upon other people's thoughts, by endeavoring to influence other minds to any action not first made known to them or sought by them. Corporeal and selfish influence is human, fallible, and temporary; but incorporeal impulsion is divine, infallible, and eternal. The student should be most careful not to thrust aside Science, and shade God's window which lets in light, or seek to stand in God's stead. Does the faithful shepherd forsake the lambs,--retaining his salary for tending the home flock while he is serving another fold? There is no evidence to show that Jesus ever entered the towns whither he sent his disciples; no evidence that he there taught a few hungry ones, and then left them to starve or to stray. To these selected ones (like "the elect lady" to whom St. John addressed one of his epistles) he gave personal instruction, and gave in plain words, until they were able to fulfil his behest and depart on their united pilgrimages. This he did, even though one of the twelve whom he kept near himself betrayed him, and others forsook him. The true mother never willingly neglects her children in their early and sacred hours, consigning them to the care of nurse or stranger. Who can feel and comprehend the needs of her babe like the ardent mother? What other heart yearns with her solicitude, endures with her patience, waits with her hope, and labors with her love, to promote the welfare and happiness of her children? Thus must the Mother in Israel give all her hours to those first sacred tasks, till her children can walk steadfastly in wisdom's ways. One of my students wrote to me: "I believe the proper thing for us to do is to follow, as nearly as we can, in the path you have pursued!" It is gladdening to find, in such a student, one of the children of light. It is safe to leave with God the government of man. He appoints and He anoints His Truth-bearers, and God is their sure defense and refuge. The parable of "the prodigal son" is rightly called "the pearl of parables," and our Master's greatest utterance may well be called "the diamond sermon." No purer and more exalted teachings ever fell upon human ears than those contained in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount,--though this name has been given it by compilers and translators of the Bible, and not by the Master himself or by the Scripture authors. Indeed, this title really indicates more the Master's mood, than the material locality. Where did Jesus deliver this great lesson--or, rather, this series of great lessons--on humanity and divinity? On a hillside, near the sloping shores of the Lake of Galilee, where he spake primarily to his immediate disciples. In this simplicity, and with such fidelity, we see Jesus ministering to the spiritual needs of all who placed themselves under his care, always leading them into the divine order, under the sway of his own perfect understanding. His power over others was spiritual, not corporeal. To the students whom he had chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of Life. When _he_ was with them, a fishing-boat became a sanctuary, and the solitude was peopled with holy messages from the All-Father. The grove became his class-room, and nature's haunts were the Messiah's university. What has this hillside priest, this seaside teacher, done for the human race? Ask, rather, what has he _not_ done. His holy humility, unworldliness, and self-abandonment wrought infinite results. The method of his religion was not too simple to be sublime, nor was his power so exalted as to be unavailable for the needs of suffering mortals, whose wounds he healed by Truth and Love. His order of ministration was "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." May we unloose the latchets of his Christliness, inherit his legacy of love, and reach the fruition of his promise: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." WAYMARKS In the first century of the Christian era Jesus went about doing good. The evangelists of those days wandered about. Christ, or the spiritual idea, appeared to human consciousness as the man Jesus. At the present epoch the human concept of Christ is based on the incorporeal divine Principle of man, and Science has elevated this idea and established its rules in consonance with their Principle. Hear this saying of our Master, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The ideal of God is no longer impersonated as a waif or wanderer; and Truth is not fragmentary, disconnected, unsystematic, but concentrated and immovably fixed in Principle. The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action. St. Paul said to the Athenians, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." This statement is in substance identical with my own: "There is no life, truth, substance, nor intelligence in matter." It is quite clear that as yet this grandest verity has not been fully demonstrated, but it is nevertheless true. If Christian Science reiterates St. Paul's teaching, we, as Christian Scientists, should give to the world convincing proof of the validity of this scientific statement of being. Having perceived, in advance of others, this scientific fact, we owe to ourselves and to the world a struggle for its demonstration. At some period and in some way the conclusion must be met that whatsoever seems true, and yet contradicts divine Science and St. Paul's text, must be and is false; and that whatsoever seems to be good, and yet errs, though acknowledging the true way, is really evil. As dross is separated from gold, so Christ's baptism of fire, his purification through suffering, consumes whatsoever is of sin. Therefore this purgation of divine mercy, destroying all error, leaves no flesh, no matter, to the mental consciousness. When all fleshly belief is annihilated, and every spot and blemish on the disk of consciousness is removed, then, and not till then, will immortal Truth be found true, and scientific teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially one. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth ... for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." (Romans xiv. 22, 23.) There is no "lo here! or lo there!" in divine Science; its manifestation must be "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever," since Science is eternally one, and unchanging, in Principle, rule, and demonstration. I am persuaded that only by the modesty and distinguishing affection illustrated in Jesus' career, can Christian Scientists aid the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth. In the first century of the Christian era Jesus' teachings bore much fruit, and the Father was glorified therein. In this period and the forthcoming centuries, watered by dews of divine Science, this "tree of life" will blossom into greater freedom, and its leaves will be "for the healing of the nations." Ask God to give thee skill In comfort's art: That thou may'st consecrated be And set apart Unto a life of sympathy. For heavy is the weight of ill In every heart; And comforters are needed much Of Christlike touch. --A.E. HAMILTON. THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS USA FOOTNOTES: [Footnote A: See Page 311, Lines 12 to 17, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany."] [Footnote B: This statement appears to be based upon the Annual Report of the Secretary of The Christian Scientist Association, read at its meeting, January 15, 1880, in which June is named as the month in which the charter for The Mother Church was obtained, instead of August 23, 1879, the correct date.] [Footnote C: An alder growing from the bent branch of a pear-tree.] [Footnote D: Steps were taken to promote the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April, May and June; formal organization was accomplished and the charter obtained in August, 1879] 
16778	----	PULPIT AND PRESS BY MARY BAKER EDDY DISCOVERER AND FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES Registered U.S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST in Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1895_ BY MARY BAKER EDDY _Copyright renewed, 1923_ * * * * * _All rights reserved_ * * * * * PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE DEAR TWO THOUSAND AND SIX HUNDRED CHILDREN WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS OF $4,460[A] WERE DEVOTED TO THE MOTHER'S ROOM IN THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON, THIS UNIQUE BOOK IS TENDERLY DEDICATED BY MARY BAKER EDDY PREFACE This volume contains scintillations from press and pulpit--utterances which epitomize the story of the birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress during the ensuing thirty years. Three quarters of a century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have not only a record of the inclination given their own thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass of the world's opinion. It will then be instructive to turn backward the telescope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science as planted in the pathway of this generation; to note the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity--that the sick are healed and sinners saved, not by matter, but by Mind; and to scan further the features of the vast problem of eternal life, as expressed in the absolute power of Truth and the actual bliss of man's existence in Science. MARY BAKER EDDY February, 1895 CONTENTS DEDICATORY SERMON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXTBOOK HYMNS _Laying the Corner-stone_ "_Feed My Sheep_" _Christ My Refuge_ NOTE CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN BOSTON HERALD BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT JACKSON PATRIOT OUTLOOK AMERICAN ART JOURNAL BOSTON JOURNAL REPUBLIC (WASHINGTON, D.C.) NEW YORK TRIBUNE KANSAS CITY JOURNAL MONTREAL HERALD BALTIMORE AMERICAN REPORTER (LEBANON, IND.) NEW YORK COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER SYRACUSE POST NEW YORK HERALD TORONTO GLOBE CONCORD MONITOR PEOPLE AND PATRIOT UNION SIGNAL NEW CENTURY CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL CONCORD MONITOR PULPIT AND PRESS DEDICATORY SERMON BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY First Pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass. Delivered January 6, 1895 TEXT: _They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shall make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures._--Psalms xxxvi. 8. A new year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy and promise clad in white raiment, kissed--and encumbered with greetings--redolent with grief and gratitude. An old year is time's adult, and 1893 was a distinguished character, notable for good and evil. Time past and time present, both, may pain us, but time _improved_ is eloquent in God's praise. For due refreshment garner the memory of 1894; for if wiser by reason of its large lessons, and records deeply engraven, great is the value thereof. Pass on, returnless year! The path behind thee is with glory crowned; This spot whereon thou troddest was holy ground; Pass proudly to thy bier! To-day, being with you in spirit, what need that I should be present _in propria persona?_ Were I present, methinks I should be much like the Queen of Sheba, when she saw the house Solomon had erected. In the expressive language of Holy Writ, "There was no more spirit in her;" and she said, "Behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard." Both without and within, the spirit of beauty dominates The Mother Church, from its mosaic flooring to the soft shimmer of its starlit dome. Nevertheless, there is a thought higher and deeper than the edifice. Material light and shade are temporal, not eternal. Turning the attention from sublunary views, however enchanting, think for a moment with me of the house wherewith "they shall be abundantly satisfied,"--even the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." With the mind's eye glance at the direful scenes of the war between China and Japan. Imagine yourselves in a poorly barricaded fort, fiercely besieged by the enemy. Would you rush forth single-handed to combat the foe? Nay, would you not rather strengthen your citadel by every means in your power, and remain within the walls for its defense? Likewise should we do as metaphysicians and Christian Scientists. The real house in which "we live, and move, and have our being" is Spirit, God, the eternal harmony of infinite Soul. The enemy we confront would overthrow this sublime fortress, and it behooves us to defend our heritage. How can we do this Christianly scientific work? By intrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation of Love, and pinnacled in Life. Such being its nature, how can our godly temple possibly be demolished, or even disturbed? Can eternity end? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than boundless? Referring to this temple, our Master said: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." He also said: "The kingdom of God is within you." Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love. If you maintain this position, who or what can cause you to sin or suffer? Our surety is in our confidence that we are indeed dwellers in Truth and Love, man's eternal mansion. Such a heavenly assurance ends all warfare, and bids tumult cease, for the good fight we have waged is over, and divine Love gives us the true sense of victory. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." No longer are we of the church militant, but of the church triumphant; and with Job of old we exclaim, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." The river of His pleasures is a tributary of divine Love, whose living waters have their source in God, and flow into everlasting Life. We drink of this river when all human desires are quenched, satisfied with what is pleasing to the divine Mind. Perchance some one of you may say, "The evidence of spiritual verity in me is so small that I am afraid. I feel so far from victory over the flesh that to reach out for a present realization of my hope savors of temerity. Because of my own unfitness for such a spiritual animus my strength is naught and my faith fails." O thou "weak and infirm of purpose." Jesus said, "Be not afraid"! "What if the little rain should say, 'So small a drop as I Can ne'er refresh a drooping earth, I'll tarry in the sky.'" Is not a man metaphysically and mathematically number one, a unit, and therefore whole number, governed and protected by his divine Principle, God? You have simply to preserve a scientific, positive sense of unity with your divine source, and daily demonstrate this. Then you will find that one is as important a factor as duodecillions in being and doing right, and thus demonstrating deific Principle. A dewdrop reflects the sun. Each of Christ's little ones reflects the infinite One, and therefore is the seer's declaration true, that "one on God's side is a majority." A single drop of water may help to hide the stars, or crown the tree with blossoms. Who lives in good, lives also in God,--lives in all Life, through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns. His existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle. Wait patiently on illimitable Love, the lord and giver of Life. _Reflect this Life_, and with it cometh the full power of being. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house." In 1893 the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, used, in all its public sessions, my form of prayer since 1866; and one of the very clergymen who had publicly proclaimed me "the prayerless Mrs. Eddy," offered his audible adoration in the words I use, besides listening to an address on Christian Science from my pen, read by Judge S.J. Hanna, in that unique assembly. When the light of one friendship after another passes from earth to heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow of some deathless reality. Memory, faithful to goodness, holds in her secret chambers those characters of holiest sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to renounce. Such was the founder of the Concord School of Philosophy--the late A. Bronson Alcott. After the publication of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," his athletic mind, scholarly and serene, was the first to bedew my hope with a drop of humanity. When the press and pulpit cannonaded this book, he introduced himself to its author by saying, "I have come to comfort you." Then eloquently paraphrasing it, and prophesying its prosperity, his conversation with a beauty all its own reassured me. _That prophecy is fulfilled._ This book, in 1895, is in its ninety-first edition of one thousand copies. It is in the public libraries of the principal cities, colleges, and universities of America; also the same in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Greece, Japan, India, and China; in the Oxford University and the Victoria Institute, England; in the Academy of Greece, and the Vatican at Rome. This book is the leaven fermenting religion; it is palpably working in the sermons, Sunday Schools, and literature of our and other lands. This spiritual chemicalization is the upheaval produced when Truth is neutralizing error and impurities are passing off. And it will continue till the antithesis of Christianity, engendering the limited forms of a national or tyrannical religion, yields to the church established by the Nazarene Prophet and maintained on the spiritual foundation of Christ's healing. Good, the Anglo-Saxon term for God, unites Science to Christianity. It presents to the understanding, not matter, but Mind; not the deified drug, but the goodness of God--healing and saving mankind. The author of "Marriage of the Lamb," who made the mistake of thinking she caught her notions from my book, wrote to me in 1894, "Six months ago your book, Science and Health, was put into my hands. I had not read three pages before I realized I had found that for which I had hungered since girlhood, and was healed instantaneously of an ailment of seven years' standing. I cast from me the false remedy I had vainly used, and turned to the 'great Physician.' I went with my husband, a missionary to China, in 1884. He went out under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. I feel the truth is leading us to return to Japan." Another brilliant enunciator, seeker, and servant of Truth, the Rev. William R. Alger of Boston, signalled me kindly as my lone bark rose and fell and rode the rough sea. At a _conversazione_ in Boston, he said, "You may find in Mrs. Eddy's metaphysical teachings more than is dreamt of in your philosophy." Also that renowned apostle of anti-slavery, Wendell Phillips, the native course of whose mind never swerved from the chariot-paths of justice, speaking of my work, said: "Had I young blood in my veins, I would help that woman." I love Boston, and especially the laws of the State whereof this city is the capital. To-day, as of yore, her laws have befriended progress. Yet when I recall the past,--how the gospel of healing was simultaneously praised and persecuted in Boston,--and remember also that God is just, I wonder whether, were our dear Master in our New England metropolis at this hour, he would not weep over it, as he wept over Jerusalem! O ye tears! Not in vain did ye flow. Those sacred drops were but enshrined for future use, and God has now unsealed their receptacle with His outstretched arm. Those crystal globes made morals for mankind. They will rise with joy, and with power to wash away, in floods of forgiveness, every crime, even when mistakenly committed in the name of religion. An unjust, unmerciful, and oppressive priesthood must perish, for false prophets in the present as in the past stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. "God is not mocked," and "the word of the Lord endureth forever." I have ordained the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," as pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston,--so long as this church is satisfied with this pastor. This is my first ordination. "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." All praise to the press of America's Athens,--and throughout our land the press has spoken out historically, impartially. Like the winds telling tales through the leaves of an ancient oak, unfallen, may our church chimes repeat my thanks to the press. Notwithstanding the perplexed condition of our nation's finances, the want and woe with millions of dollars unemployed in our money centres, the Christian Scientists, within fourteen months, responded to the call for this church with $191,012. Not a mortgage was given nor a loan solicited, and the donors all touchingly told their privileged joy at helping to build The Mother Church. There was no urging, begging, or borrowing; only the need made known, and forth came the money, or diamonds, which served to erect this "miracle in stone." Even the children vied with their parents to meet the demand. Little hands, never before devoted to menial services, shoveled snow, and babes gave kisses to earn a few pence toward this consummation. Some of these lambs my prayers had christened, but Christ will rechristen them with his own new name. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise." The resident youthful workers were called "Busy Bees." Sweet society, precious children, your loving hearts and deft fingers distilled the nectar and painted the finest flowers in the fabric of this history,--even its centre-piece,--Mother's Room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. The children are destined to witness results which will eclipse Oriental dreams. They belong to the twentieth century. By juvenile aid, into the building fund have come $4,460.[B] Ah, children, you are the bulwarks of freedom, the cement of society, the hope of our race! Brothers of the Christian Science Board of Directors, when your tireless tasks are done--well done--no Delphian lyre could break the full chords of such a rest. May the altar you have built never be shattered in our hearts, but justice, mercy, and love kindle perpetually its fires. It was well that the brother whose appliances warm this house, warmed also our perishless hope, and nerved its grand fulfilment. Woman, true to her instinct, came to the rescue as sunshine from the clouds; so, when man quibbled over an architectural exigency, a woman climbed with feet and hands to the top of the tower, and helped settle the subject. After the loss of our late lamented pastor, Rev. D.A. Easton, the church services were maintained by excellent sermons from the editor of _The Christian Science Journal_ (who, with his better half, is a very whole man), together with the Sunday School giving this flock "drink from the river of His pleasures." O glorious hope and blessed assurance, "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Christians rejoice in secret, they have a bounty hidden from the world. Self-forgetfulness, purity, and love are treasures untold--constant prayers, prophecies, and anointings. Practice, not profession,--goodness, not doctrines,--spiritual understanding, not mere belief, gain the ear and right hand of omnipotence, and call down blessings infinite. "Faith without works is dead." The foundation of enlightened faith is Christ's teachings and _practice_. It was our Master's self-immolation, his life-giving love, healing both mind and body, that raised the deadened conscience, paralyzed by inactive faith, to a quickened sense of mortal's necessities,--and God's power and purpose to supply them. It was, in the words of the Psalmist, He "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." Rome's fallen fanes and silent Aventine is glory's tomb; her pomp and power lie low in dust. Our land, more favored, had its Pilgrim Fathers. On shores of solitude, at Plymouth Rock, they planted a nation's heart,--the rights of conscience, imperishable glory. No dream of avarice or ambition broke their exalted purpose, theirs was the wish to reign in hope's reality--the realm of Love. Christian Scientists, you have planted your standard on the rock of Christ, the true, the spiritual idea,--the chief corner-stone in the house of our God. And our Master said: "The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner." If you are less appreciated to-day than your forefathers, wait--for if you are as devout as they, and more scientific, as progress certainly demands, your plant is immortal. Let us rejoice that chill vicissitudes have not withheld the timely shelter of this house, which descended like day-spring from on high. Divine presence, breathe Thou Thy blessing on every heart in this house. Speak out, O soul! This is the newborn of Spirit, this is His redeemed; this, His beloved. May the kingdom of God within you,--with you alway,--reascending, bear you outward, upward, heavenward. May the sweet song of silver-throated singers, making melody more real, and the organ's voice, as the sound of many waters, and the Word spoken in this sacred temple dedicated to the ever-present God--mingle with the joy of angels and rehearse your hearts' holy intents. May all whose means, energies, and prayers helped erect The Mother Church, find within it home, and _heaven_. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE TEXTBOOK The following selections from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," pages 568-571, were read from the platform. The impressive stillness of the audience indicated close attention. _Revelation_ xii. 10-12. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle,--as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the Mother. Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God. The Scripture, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many," is literally fulfilled, when we are conscious of the supremacy of Truth, by which the nothingness of error is seen; and we know that the nothingness of error is in proportion to its wickedness. He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,--in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love. Alas for those who break faith with divine Science and fail to strangle the serpent of sin as well as of sickness! They are dwellers still in the deep darkness of belief. They are in the surging sea of error, not struggling to lift their heads above the drowning wave. What must the end be? They must eventually expiate their sin through suffering. The sin, which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him at last with accelerated force, for the devil knoweth his time is short. Here the Scriptures declare that evil is temporal, not eternal. The dragon is at last stung to death by his own malice; but how many periods of torture it may take to remove all sin, must depend upon sin's obduracy. _Revelation_ xii. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. The march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period. The present apathy as to the tendency of certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be shocked into another extreme mortal mood,--into human indignation; for one extreme follows another. _Revelation_ xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. Millions of unprejudiced minds--simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert--are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences. What if the old dragon should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night. In this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be understood. Those ready for the blessing you impart will give thanks. The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave. When God heals the sick or the sinning, they should know the great benefit which Mind has wrought. They should also know the great delusion of mortal mind, when it makes them sick or sinful. Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil's hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity. Why this backwardness, since exposure is necessary to ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like you better when you tell them their virtues than when you tell them their vices. It requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race. Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning. At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity. HYMNS BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY [Set to the Church Chimes and Sung on This Occasion] LAYING THE CORNER-STONE _Laus Deo_, it is done! Rolled away from loving heart Is a stone. Joyous, risen, we depart Having one. _Laus Deo_,--on this rock (Heaven chiselled squarely good) Stands His church,-- God is Love, and understood By His flock. _Laus Deo_, night starlit Slumbers not in God's embrace; Then, O man! Like this stone, be in thy place; Stand, not sit. Cold, silent, stately stone, Dirge and song and shoutings low, In thy heart Dwell serene,--and sorrow? No, It has none, _Laus Deo!_ "FEED MY SHEEP" Shepherd, show me how to go O'er the hillside steep, How to gather, how to sow,-- How to feed Thy sheep; I will listen for Thy voice, Lest my footsteps stray; I will follow and rejoice All the rugged way. Thou wilt bind the stubborn will, Wound the callous breast, Make self-righteousness be still, Break earth's stupid rest. Strangers on a barren shore, Lab'ring long and lone-- We would enter by the door, And Thou know'st Thine own. So, when day grows dark and cold, Tear or triumph harms, Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, Take them in Thine arms; Feed the hungry, heal the heart, Till the morning's beam; White as wool, ere they depart-- Shepherd, wash them clean. CHRIST MY REFUGE O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind There sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain. And wake a white-winged angel throng Of thoughts, illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then his unveiled, sweet mercies show Life's burdens light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright. And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea I see Christ walk, And come to me, and tenderly, Divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock, Upon Life's shore; 'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock, Oh, nevermore! From tired joy and grief afar, And nearer Thee,-- Father, where Thine own children are, I love to be. My prayer, some daily good to do To Thine, for Thee; An offering pure of Love, whereto God leadeth me. NOTE BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY The land whereon stands The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was first purchased by the church and society. Owing to a heavy loss, they were unable to pay the mortgage; therefore I paid it, and through trustees gave back the land to the church. In 1892 I had to recover the land from the trustees, reorganize the church, and reobtain its charter--not, however, through the State Commissioner, who refused to grant it, but by means of a statute of the State, and through Directors regive the land to the church. In 1895 I reconstructed my original system of ministry and church government. Thus committed to the providence of God, the prosperity of this church is unsurpassed. From first to last The Mother Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit, even that shadow whose substance is the divine Spirit, imperatively propelling the greatest moral, physical, civil, and religious reform ever known on earth. In the words of the prophet: "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land." This church was dedicated on January 6, anciently one of the many dates selected and observed in the East as the day of the birth and baptism of our master Metaphysician, Jesus of Nazareth. Christian Scientists, their children and grandchildren to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us; a love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,--that loves only because it _is_ Love. Moreover, they love their enemies, even those that hate them. This we all must do to be Christian Scientists in spirit and in truth. I long, and live, to see this love demonstrated. I am seeking and praying for it to inhabit my own heart and to be made manifest in my life. Who will unite with me in this pure purpose, and faithfully struggle till it be accomplished? Let this be our Christian endeavor society, which Christ organizes and blesses. While we entertain due respect and fellowship for what is good and doing good in all denominations of religion, and shun whatever would isolate us from a true sense of goodness in others, we cannot serve mammon. Christian Scientists are really united to only that which is Christlike, but they are not indifferent to the welfare of any one. To perpetuate a cold distance between our denomination and other sects, and close the door on church or individuals--however much this is done to us--is not Christian Science. Go not into the way of the unchristly, but wheresoever you recognize a clear expression of God's likeness, there abide in confidence and hope. Our unity with churches of other denominations must rest on the spirit of Christ calling us together. It cannot come from any other source. Popularity, self-aggrandizement, aught that can darken in any degree our spirituality, must be set aside. Only what feeds and fills the sentiment with unworldliness, can give peace and good will towards men. All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer,--the Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth,--"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. Christ will give to Christianity his new name, and Christendom will be classified as Christian Scientists. When the doctrinal barriers between the churches are broken, and the bonds of peace are cemented by spiritual understanding and Love, there will be unity of spirit, and the healing power of Christ will prevail. Then shall Zion have put on her most beautiful garments, and her waste places budded and blossomed as the rose. CLIPPINGS FROM NEWSPAPERS * * * * * [_Daily Inter-Ocean_, Chicago, December 31, 1894] MARY BAKER EDDY COMPLETION OF THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, BOSTON--"OUR PRAYER IN STONE"--DESCRIPTION OF THE MOST UNIQUE STRUCTURE IN ANY CITY--A BEAUTIFUL TEMPLE AND ITS FURNISHINGS--MRS. EDDY'S WORK AND HER INFLUENCE Boston, Mass., December 28.--_Special Correspondence_.--The "great awakening" of the time of Jonathan Edwards has been paralleled during the last decade by a wave of idealism that has swept over the country, manifesting itself under several different aspects and under various names, but each having the common identity of spiritual demand. This movement, under the guise of Christian Science, and ingenuously calling out a closer inquiry into Oriental philosophy, prefigures itself to us as one of the most potent factors in the social evolution of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. History shows the curious fact that the closing years of every century are years of more intense life, manifested in unrest or in aspiration, and scholars of special research, like Prof. Max Muller, assert that the end of a cycle, as is the latter part of the present century, is marked by peculiar intimations of man's immortal life. The completion of the first Christian Science church erected in Boston strikes a keynote of definite attention. This church is in the fashionable Back Bay, between Commonwealth and Huntington Avenues. It is one of the most beautiful, and is certainly the most unique structure in any city. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, as it is officially called, is termed by its Founder, "Our prayer in stone." It is located at the intersection of Norway and Falmouth Streets, on a triangular plot of ground, the design a Romanesque tower with a circular front and an octagonal form, accented by stone porticos and turreted corners. On the front is a marble tablet, with the following inscription carved in bold relief:-- "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, erected Anno Domini 1894. A testimonial to our beloved teacher, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science; author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and the first pastor of this denomination." THE CHURCH EDIFICE The church is built of Concord granite in light gray, with trimmings of the pink granite of New Hampshire, Mrs. Eddy's native State. The architecture is Romanesque throughout. The tower is one hundred and twenty feet in height and twenty-one and one half feet square. The entrances are of marble, with doors of antique oak richly carved. The windows of stained glass are very rich in pictorial effect. The lighting and cooling of the church--for cooling is a recognized feature as well as heating--are done by electricity, and the heat generated by two large boilers in the basement is distributed by the four systems with motor electric power. The partitions are of iron; the floors of marble in mosaic work, and the edifice is therefore as literally fire-proof as is conceivable. The principal features are the auditorium, seating eleven hundred people and capable of holding fifteen hundred; the "Mother's Room," designed for the exclusive use of Mrs. Eddy; the "directors' room," and the vestry. The girders are all of iron, the roof is of terra cotta tiles, the galleries are in plaster relief, the window frames are of iron, coated with plaster; the staircases are of iron, with marble stairs of rose pink, and marble approaches. The vestibule is a fitting entrance to this magnificent temple. In the ceiling is a sunburst with a seven-pointed star, which illuminates it. From this are the entrances leading to the auditorium, the "Mother's Room," and the directors' room. The auditorium is seated with pews of curly birch, upholstered in old rose plush. The floor is in white Italian mosaic, with frieze of the old rose, and the wainscoting repeats the same tints. The base and cap are of pink Tennessee marble. On the walls are bracketed oxidized silver lamps of Roman design, and there are frequent illuminated texts from the Bible and from Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" impanelled. A sunburst in the centre of the ceiling takes the place of chandeliers. There is a disc of cut glass in decorative designs, covering one hundred and forty-four electric lights in the form of a star, which is twenty-one inches from point to point, the centre being of pure white light, and each ray under prisms which reflect the rainbow tints. The galleries are richly panelled in relief work. The organ and choir gallery is spacious and rich beyond the power of words to depict. The platform--corresponding to the chancel of an Episcopal church--is a mosaic work, with richly carved seats following the sweep of its curve, with a lamp stand of the Renaissance period on either end, bearing six richly wrought oxidized silver lamps, eight feet in height. The great organ comes from Detroit. It is one of vast compass, with �olian attachment, and cost eleven thousand dollars. It is the gift of a single individual--a votive offering of gratitude for the healing of the wife of the donor. The chime of bells includes fifteen, of fine range and perfect tone. THE "MOTHER'S ROOM" The "Mother's Room" is approached by an entrance of Italian marble, and over the door, in large golden letters on a marble tablet, is the word "Love." In this room the mosaic marble floor of white has a Romanesque border and is decorated with sprays of fig leaves bearing fruit. The room is toned in pale green with relief in old rose. The mantel is of onyx and gold. Before the great bay window hangs an Athenian lamp over two hundred years old, which will be kept always burning day and night. Leading off the "Mother's Room" are toilet apartments, with full-length French mirrors and every convenience. The directors' room is very beautiful in marble approaches and rich carving, and off this is a vault for the safe preservation of papers. The vestry seats eight hundred people, and opening from it are three large class-rooms and the pastor's study. The windows are a remarkable feature of this temple. There are no "memorial" windows; the entire church is a testimonial, not a memorial--a point that the members strongly insist upon. In the auditorium are two rose windows--one representing the heavenly city which "cometh down from God out of heaven," with six small windows beneath, emblematic of the six water-pots referred to in John ii. 6. The other rose window represents the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Beneath are two small windows bearing palms of victory, and others with lamps, typical of Science and Health. Another great window tells its pictorial story of the four Marys--the mother of Jesus, Mary anointing the head of Jesus, Mary washing the feet of Jesus, Mary at the resurrection; and the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse, chapter 12, God-crowned. One more window in the auditorium represents the raising of Lazarus. In the gallery are windows representing John on the Isle of Patmos, and others of pictorial significance. In the "Mother's Room" the windows are of still more unique interest. A large bay window, composed of three separate panels, is designed to be wholly typical of the work of Mrs. Eddy. The central panel represents her in solitude and meditation, searching the Scriptures by the light of a single candle, while the star of Bethlehem shines down from above. Above this is a panel containing the Christian Science seal, and other panels are decorated with emblematic designs, with the legends, "Heal the Sick," "Raise the Dead," "Cleanse the Lepers," and "Cast out Demons." The cross and the crown and the star are presented in appropriate decorative effect. The cost of this church is two hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars, exclusive of the land--a gift from Mrs. Eddy--which is valued at some forty thousand dollars. THE ORDER OF SERVICE The order of service in the Christian Science Church does not differ widely from that of any other sect, save that its service includes the use of Mrs. Eddy's book, entitled "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in perhaps equal measure to its use of the Bible. The reading is from the two alternately; the singing is from a compilation called the "Christian Science Hymnal," but its songs are for the most part those devotional hymns from Herbert, Faber, Robertson, Wesley, Bowring, and other recognized devotional poets, with selections from Whittier and Lowell, as are found in the hymn-books of the Unitarian churches. For the past year or two Judge Hanna, formerly of Chicago, has filled the office of pastor to the church in this city, which held its meetings in Chickering Hall, and later in Copley Hall, in the new Grundmann Studio Building on Copley Square. Preceding Judge Hanna were Rev. D.A. Easton and Rev. L.P. Norcross, both of whom had formerly been Congregational clergymen. The organizer and first pastor of the church here was Mrs. Eddy herself, of whose work I shall venture to speak, a little later, in this article. Last Sunday I gave myself the pleasure of attending the service held in Copley Hall. The spacious apartment was thronged with a congregation whose remarkable earnestness impressed the observer. There was no straggling of late-comers. Before the appointed hour every seat in the hall was filled and a large number of chairs pressed into service for the overflowing throng. The music was spirited, and the selections from the Bible and from Science and Health were finely read by Judge Hanna. Then came his sermon, which dealt directly with the command of Christ to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." In his admirable discourse Judge Hanna said that while all these injunctions could, under certain conditions, be interpreted and fulfilled literally, the special lesson was to be taken spiritually--to cleanse the leprosy of sin, to cast out the demons of evil thought. The discourse was able, and helpful in its suggestive interpretation. THE CHURCH MEMBERS Later I was told that almost the entire congregation was composed of persons who had either been themselves, or had seen members of their own families, healed by Christian Science treatment; and I was further told that once when a Boston clergyman remonstrated with Judge Hanna for enticing a separate congregation rather than offering their strength to unite with churches already established--I was told he replied that the Christian Science Church did not recruit itself from other churches, but from the graveyards! The church numbers now four thousand members; but this estimate, as I understand, is not limited to the Boston adherents, but includes those all over the country. The ceremonial of uniting is to sign a brief "confession of faith," written by Mrs. Eddy, and to unite in communion, which is not celebrated by outward symbols of bread and wine, but by uniting in silent prayer. The "confession of faith" includes the declaration that the Scriptures are the guide to eternal Life; that there is a Supreme Being, and His Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that man is made in His image. It affirms the atonement; it recognizes Jesus as the teacher and guide to salvation; the forgiveness of sin by God, and affirms the power of Truth over error, and the need of living faith at the moment to realize the possibilities of the divine Life. The entire membership of Christian Scientists throughout the world now exceeds two hundred thousand people. The church in Boston was organized by Mrs. Eddy, and the first meeting held on April 19, 1879. It opened with twenty-six members, and within fifteen years it has grown to its present impressive proportions, and has now its own magnificent church building, costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and entirely paid for when its consecration service on January 6 shall be celebrated. This is certainly a very remarkable retrospect. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of this denomination and Discoverer of Christian Science, as they term her work in affirming the present application of the principles asserted by Jesus, is a most interesting personality. At the risk of colloquialism, I am tempted to "begin at the beginning" of my own knowledge of Mrs. Eddy, and take, as the point of departure, my first meeting with her and the subsequent development of some degree of familiarity with the work of her life which that meeting inaugurated for me. MRS. EDDY It was during some year in the early '80's that I became aware--from that close contact with public feeling resulting from editorial work in daily journalism--that the Boston atmosphere was largely thrilled and pervaded by a new and increasing interest in the dominance of mind over matter, and that the central figure in all this agitation was Mrs. Eddy. To a note which I wrote her, begging the favor of an interview for press use, she most kindly replied, naming an evening on which she would receive me. At the hour named I rang the bell at a spacious house on Columbus Avenue, and I was hardly more than seated before Mrs. Eddy entered the room. She impressed me as singularly graceful and winning in bearing and manner, and with great claim to personal beauty. Her figure was tall, slender, and as flexible in movement as that of a Delsarte disciple; her face, framed in dark hair and lighted by luminous blue eyes, had the transparency and rose-flush of tint so often seen in New England, and she was magnetic, earnest, impassioned. No photographs can do the least justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? I mentally questioned this modern St. Catherine, who was dominating her followers like any abbess of old. She told me the story of her life, so far as outward events may translate those inner experiences which alone are significant. Mary Baker was the daughter of Mark and Abigail (Ambrose) Baker, and was born in Concord, N.H., somewhere in the early decade of 1820-'30. At the time I met her she must have been some sixty years of age, yet she had the coloring and the elastic bearing of a woman of thirty, and this, she told me, was due to the principles of Christian Science. On her father's side Mrs. Eddy came from Scotch and English ancestry, and Hannah More was a relative of her grandmother. Deacon Ambrose, her maternal grandfather, was known as a "godly man," and her mother was a religious enthusiast, a saintly and consecrated character. One of her brothers, Albert Baker, graduated at Dartmouth and achieved eminence as a lawyer. MRS. EDDY AS A CHILD As a child Mary Baker saw visions and dreamed dreams. When eight years of age she began, like Jeanne d'Arc, to hear "voices," and for a year she heard her name called distinctly, and would often run to her mother questioning if she were wanted. One night the mother related to her the story of Samuel, and bade her, if she heard the voice again to reply as he did: "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." The call came, but the little maid was afraid and did not reply. This caused her tears of remorse and she prayed for forgiveness, and promised to reply if the call came again. It came, and she answered as her mother had bidden her, and after that it ceased. These experiences, of which Catholic biographies are full, and which history not infrequently emphasizes, certainly offer food for meditation. Theodore Parker related that when he was a lad, at work in a field one day on his father's farm at Lexington, an old man with a snowy beard suddenly appeared at his side, and walked with him as he worked, giving him high counsel and serious thought. All inquiry in the neighborhood as to whence the stranger came or whither he went was fruitless; no one else had seen him, and Mr. Parker always believed, so a friend has told me, that his visitor was a spiritual form from another world. It is certainly true that many and many persons, whose life has been destined to more than ordinary achievement, have had experiences of voices or visions in their early youth. At an early age Miss Baker was married to Colonel Glover, of Charleston, S.C., who lived only a year. She returned to her father's home--in 1844--and from that time until 1866 no special record is to be made. In 1866, while living in Lynn, Mass., Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Glover) met with a severe accident, and her case was pronounced hopeless by the physicians. There came a Sunday morning when her pastor came to bid her good-by before proceeding to his morning service, as there was no probability that she would be alive at its close. During this time she suddenly became aware of a divine illumination and ministration. She requested those with her to withdraw, and reluctantly they did so, believing her delirious. Soon, to their bewilderment and fright, she walked into the adjoining room, "and they thought I had died, and that it was my apparition," she said. THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVINE HEALING From that hour dated her conviction of the Principle of divine healing, and that it is as true to-day as it was in the days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. "I felt that the divine Spirit had wrought a miracle," she said, in reference to this experience. "How, I could not tell, but later I found it to be in perfect scientific accord with the divine law." From 1866-'69 Mrs. Eddy withdrew from the world to meditate, to pray, to search the Scriptures. "During this time," she said, in reply to my questions, "the Bible was my only textbook. It answered my questions as to the process by which I was restored to health; it came to me with a new meaning, and suddenly I apprehended the spiritual meaning of the teaching of Jesus and the Principle and the law involved in spiritual Science and metaphysical healing--in a word--Christian Science." Mrs. Eddy came to perceive that Christ's healing was not miraculous, but was simply a natural fulfilment of divine law--a law as operative in the world to-day as it was nineteen hundred years ago. "Divine Science is begotten of spirituality," she says, "since only the 'pure in heart' can see God." In writing of this experience, Mrs. Eddy has said:-- "I had learned that thought must be spiritualized in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science. The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. All Science is a revelation." Through homoeopathy, too, Mrs. Eddy became convinced of the Principle of Mind-healing, discovering that the more attenuated the drug, the more potent was its effects. In 1877 Mrs. Glover married Dr. Asa Gilbert Eddy, of Londonderry, Vermont, a physician who had come into sympathy with her own views, and who was the first to place "Christian Scientist" on the sign at his door. Dr. Eddy died in 1882, a year after her founding of the Metaphysical College in Boston, in which he taught. The work in the Metaphysical College lasted nine years, and it was closed (in 1889) in the very zenith of its prosperity, as Mrs. Eddy felt it essential to the deeper foundation of her religious work to retire from active contact with the world. To this College came hundreds and hundreds of students, from Europe as well as this country. I was present at the class lectures now and then, by Mrs. Eddy's kind invitation, and such earnestness of attention as was given to her morning talks by the men and women present I never saw equalled. MRS. EDDY'S PERSONALITY On the evening that I first met Mrs. Eddy by her hospitable courtesy, I went to her peculiarly fatigued. I came away in a state of exhilaration and energy that made me feel I could have walked any conceivable distance. I have met Mrs. Eddy many times since then, and always with this experience repeated. Several years ago Mrs. Eddy removed from Columbus to Commonwealth Avenue, where, just beyond Massachusetts Avenue, at the entrance to the Back Bay Park, she bought one of the most beautiful residences in Boston. The interior is one of the utmost taste and luxury, and the house is now occupied by Judge and Mrs. Hanna, who are the editors of _The Christian Science Journal_, a monthly publication, and to whose courtesy I am much indebted for some of the data of this paper. "It is a pleasure to give any information for _The Inter-Ocean_," remarked Mrs. Hanna, "for it is the great daily that is so fair and so just in its attitude toward all questions." The increasing demands of the public on Mrs. Eddy have been, it may be, one factor in her removal to Concord, N.H., where she has a beautiful residence, called Pleasant View. Her health is excellent, and although her hair is white, she retains in a great degree her energy and power; she takes a daily walk and drives in the afternoon. She personally attends to a vast correspondence; superintends the church in Boston, and is engaged on further writings on Christian Science. In every sense she is the recognized head of the Christian Science Church. At the same time it is her most earnest aim to eliminate the element of personality from the faith. "On this point, Mrs. Eddy feels very strongly," said a gentleman to me on Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing-room, where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the soprano for the choir of the new church, and one or two other friends were gathered. "Mother feels very strongly," he continued, "the danger and the misfortune of a church depending on any one personality. It is difficult not to centre too closely around a highly gifted personality." THE FIRST ASSOCIATION The first Christian Scientist Association was organized on July 4, 1876, by seven persons, including Mrs. Eddy. In April, 1879, the church was founded with twenty-six members, and its charter obtained the following June.[C] Mrs. Eddy had preached in other parishes for five years before being ordained in this church, which ceremony took place in 1881. The first edition of Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and Health, was issued in 1875. During these succeeding twenty years it has been greatly revised and enlarged, and it is now in its ninety-first edition. It consists of fourteen chapters, whose titles are as follows: "Science, Theology, Medicine," "Physiology," "Footsteps of Truth," "Creation," "Science of Being," "Christian Science and Spiritualism," "Marriage," "Animal Magnetism," "Some Objections Answered," "Prayer," "Atonement and Eucharist," "Christian Science Practice," "Teaching Christian Science," "Recapitulation." Key to the Scriptures, Genesis, Apocalypse, and Glossary. The Christian Scientists do not accept the belief we call spiritualism. They believe those who have passed the change of death are in so entirely different a plane of consciousness that between the embodied and disembodied there is no possibility of communication. They are diametrically opposed to the philosophy of Karma and of reincarnation, which are the tenets of theosophy. They hold with strict fidelity to what they believe to be the literal teachings of Christ. Yet each and all these movements, however they may differ among themselves, are phases of idealism and manifestations of a higher spirituality seeking expression. It is good that each and all shall prosper, serving those who find in one form of belief or another their best aid and guidance, and that all meet on common ground in the great essentials of love to God and love to man as a signal proof of the divine origin of humanity which finds no rest until it finds the peace of the Lord in spirituality. They all teach that one great truth, that God's greatness flows around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness, His rest. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. * * * * * I add on the following page a little poem that I consider superbly sweet--from my friend, Miss Whiting, the talented author of "The World Beautiful."--M.B. EDDY. AT THE WINDOW [Written for the _Traveller_] The sunset, burning low, Throws o'er the Charles its flood of golden light. Dimly, as in a dream, I watch the flow Of waves of light. The splendor of the sky Repeats its glory in the river's flow; And sculptured angels, on the gray church tower, Gaze on the world below. Dimly, as in a dream, I see the hurrying throng before me pass, But 'mid them all I only see _one_ face, Under the meadow grass. Ah, love! I only know How thoughts of you forever cling to me: I wonder how the seasons come and go Beyond the sapphire sea? LILIAN WHITING. April 15, 1888. * * * * * [_Boston Herald_, January 7, 1895] [Extract] A TEMPLE GIVEN TO GOD--DEDICATION OF THE MOTHER CHURCH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE NOVEL METHOD OF ENABLING SIX THOUSAND BELIEVERS TO ATTEND THE EXERCISES--THE SERVICE REPEATED FOUR TIMES--SERMON BY REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, FOUNDER OF THE DENOMINATION--BEAUTIFUL ROOM WHICH THE CHILDREN BUILT With simple ceremonies, four times repeated, in the presence of four different congregations, aggregating nearly six thousand persons, the unique and costly edifice erected in Boston at Norway and Falmouth Streets as a home for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a testimonial to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, was yesterday dedicated to the worship of God. The structure came forth from the hands of the artisans with every stone paid for--with an appeal, not for more money, but for a cessation of the tide of contributions which continued to flow in after the full amount needed was received. From every State in the Union, and from many lands, the love-offerings of the disciples of Christian Science came to help erect this beautiful structure, and more than four thousand of these contributors came to Boston, from the far-off Pacific coast and the Gulf States and all the territory that lies between, to view the new-built temple and to listen to the Message sent them by the teacher they revere. From all New England the members of the denomination gathered; New York sent its hundreds, and even from the distant States came parties of forty and fifty. The large auditorium, with its capacity for holding from fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred persons, was hopelessly incapable of receiving this vast throng, to say nothing of nearly a thousand local believers. Hence the service was repeated until all who wished had heard and seen; and each of the four vast congregations filled the church to repletion. At 7:30 a.m. the chimes in the great stone tower, which rises one hundred and twenty-six feet above the earth, rung out their message of "On earth peace, good will toward men." Old familiar hymns--"All hail the power of Jesus' name," and others such--were chimed until the hour for the dedication service had come. At 9 a.m. the first congregation gathered. Before this service had closed the large vestry room and the spacious lobbies and the sidewalks around the church were all filled with a waiting multitude. At 10:30 o'clock another service began, and at noon still another. Then there was an intermission, and at 3 p.m. the service was repeated for the last time. There was scarcely even a minor variation in the exercises at any one of these services. At 10:30 a.m., however, the scene was rendered particularly interesting by the presence of several hundred children in the central pews. These were the little contributors to the building fund, whose money was devoted to the "Mother's Room," a superb apartment intended for the sole use of Mrs. Eddy. These children are known in the church as the "Busy Bees," and each of them wore a white satin badge with a golden beehive stamped upon it, and beneath the beehive the words, "Mother's Room," in gilt letters. The pulpit end of the auditorium was rich with the adornment of flowers. On the wall of the choir gallery above the platform, where the organ is to be hereafter placed, a huge seven-pointed star was hung--a star of lilies resting on palms, with a centre of white immortelles, upon which in letters of red were the words: "Love-Children's Offering--1894." In the choir and the steps of the platform were potted palms and ferns and Easter lilies. The desk was wreathed with ferns and pure white roses fastened with a broad ribbon bow. On its right was a large basket of white carnations resting on a mat of palms, and on its left a vase filled with beautiful pink roses. Two combined choirs--that of First Church of Christ, Scientist, of New York, and the choir of the home church, numbering thirty-five singers in all--led the singing, under the direction, respectively, of Mr. Henry Lincoln Case and Miss Elsie Lincoln. Judge S.J. Hanna, editor of _The Christian Science Journal_, presided over the exercises. On the platform with him were Messrs. Ira O. Knapp, Joseph Armstrong, Stephen A. Chase, and William B. Johnson, who compose the Board of Directors, and Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, a distinguished elocutionist, and a native of Concord, New Hampshire. The utmost simplicity marked the exercises. After an organ voluntary, the hymn, "_Laus Deo_, it is done!" written by Mrs. Eddy for the corner-stone laying last spring, was sung by the congregation. Selections from the Scriptures and from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," were read by Judge Hanna and Dr. Eddy. A few minutes of silent prayer came next, followed by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, with its spiritual interpretation as given in the Christian Science textbook. The sermon prepared for the occasion by Mrs. Eddy, which was looked forward to as the chief feature of the dedication, was then read by Mrs. Bemis. Mrs. Eddy remained at her home in Concord, N.H., during the day, because, as heretofore stated in _The Herald_, it is her custom to discourage among her followers that sort of personal worship which religious teachers so often receive. Before presenting the sermon, Mrs. Bemis read the following letter from a former pastor of the church:-- "To Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. "_Dear Teacher, Leader, Guide_:--'_Laus Deo_, it is done!' At last you begin to see the fruition of that you have worked, toiled, prayed for. The 'prayer in stone' is accomplished. Across two thousand miles of space, as mortal sense puts it, I send my hearty congratulations. You are fully occupied, but I thought you would willingly pause for an instant to receive this brief message of congratulation. Surely it marks an era in the blessed onward work of Christian Science. It is a most auspicious hour in your eventful career. While we all rejoice, yet the mother in Israel, alone of us all, comprehends its full significance. "Yours lovingly, "LANSON P. NORCROSS." * * * * * [_Boston Sunday Globe_, January 6, 1895] [Extract] STATELY HOME FOR BELIEVERS IN GOSPEL HEALING--A WOMAN OF WEALTH WHO DEVOTES ALL TO HER CHURCH WORK Christian Science has shown its power over its students, as they are called, by building a church by voluntary contributions, the first of its kind; a church which will be dedicated to-day with a quarter of a million dollars expended and free of debt. The money has flowed in from all parts of the United States and Canada without any special appeal, and it kept coming until the custodian of funds cried "enough" and refused to accept any further checks by mail or otherwise. Men, women, and children lent a helping hand, some giving a mite and some substantial sums. Sacrifices were made in many an instance which will never be known in this world. Christian Scientists not only say that they can effect cures of disease and erect churches, but add that they can get their buildings finished on time, even when the feat seems impossible to mortal senses. Read the following, from a publication of the new denomination:-- "One of the grandest and most helpful features of this glorious consummation is this: that one month before the close of the year every evidence of material sense declared that the church's completion within the year 1894 transcended human possibility. The predictions of workman and onlooker alike were that it could not be completed before April or May of 1895. Much was the ridicule heaped upon the hopeful, trustful ones, who declared and repeatedly asseverated to the contrary. This is indeed, then, a scientific demonstration. It has proved, in most striking manner, the oft-repeated declarations of our textbooks, that the evidence of the mortal senses is unreliable." A week ago Judge Hanna withdrew from the pastorate of the church, saying he gladly laid down his responsibilities to be succeeded by the grandest of ministers--the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." This action, it appears, was the result of rules made by Mrs. Eddy. The sermons hereafter will consist of passages read from the two books by Readers, who will be elected each year by the congregation. A story has been abroad that Judge Hanna was so eloquent and magnetic that he was attracting listeners who came to hear him preach, rather than in search of the truth as taught. Consequently the new rules were formulated. But at Christian Science headquarters this is denied; Mrs. Eddy says the words of the judge speak to the point, and that no such inference is to be drawn therefrom. In Mrs. Eddy's personal reminiscences, which are published under the title of "Retrospection and Introspection," much is told of herself in detail that can only be touched upon in this brief sketch. Aristocratic to the backbone, Mrs. Eddy takes delight in going back to the ancestral tree and in tracing those branches which are identified with good and great names both in Scotland and England. Her family came to this country not long before the Revolution. Among the many souvenirs that Mrs. Eddy remembers as belonging to her grandparents was a heavy sword, encased in a brass scabbard, upon which had been inscribed the name of the kinsman upon whom the sword had been bestowed by Sir William Wallace of mighty Scottish fame. Mrs. Eddy applied herself, like other girls, to her studies, though perhaps with an unusual zest, delighting in philosophy, logic, and moral science, as well as looking into the ancient languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Her last marriage was in the spring of 1877, when, at Lynn, Mass., she became the wife of Asa Gilbert Eddy. He was the first organizer of a Christian Science Sunday School, of which he was the superintendent, and later he attracted the attention of many clergymen of other denominations by his able lectures upon Scriptural topics. He died in 1882. Mrs. Eddy is known to her circle of pupils and admirers as the editor and publisher of the first official organ of this sect. It was called the _Journal of Christian Science_, and has had great circulation with the members of this fast-increasing faith. In recounting her experiences as the pioneer of Christian Science, she states that she sought knowledge concerning the physical side in this research through the different schools of allopathy, homoeopathy, and so forth, without receiving any real satisfaction. No ancient or modern philosophy gave her any distinct statement of the Science of Mind-healing. She claims that no human reason has been equal to the question. And she also defines carefully the difference in the theories between faith-cure and Christian Science, dwelling particularly upon the terms belief and understanding, which are the key words respectively used in the definitions of these two healing arts. Besides her Boston home, Mrs. Eddy has a delightful country home one mile from the State House of New Hampshire's quiet capital, an easy driving distance for her when she wishes to catch a glimpse of the world. But for the most part she lives very much retired, driving rather into the country, which is so picturesque all about Concord and its surrounding villages. The big house, so delightfully remodelled and modernized from a primitive homestead that nothing is left excepting the angles and pitch of the roof, is remarkably well placed upon a terrace that slopes behind the buildings, while they themselves are in the midst of green stretches of lawns, dotted with beds of flowering shrubs, with here and there a fountain or summer-house. Mrs. Eddy took the writer straight to her beloved "lookout"--a broad piazza on the south side of the second story of the house, where she can sit in her swinging chair, revelling in the lights and shades of spring and summer greenness. Or, as just then, in the gorgeous October coloring of the whole landscape that lies below, across the farm, which stretches on through an intervale of beautiful meadows and pastures to the woods that skirt the valley of the little truant river, as it wanders eastward. It pleased her to point out her own birthplace. Straight as the crow flies, from her piazza, does it lie on the brow of Bow hill, and then she paused and reminded the reporter that Congressman Baker from New Hampshire, her cousin, was born and bred in that same neighborhood. The photograph of Hon. Hoke Smith, another distinguished relative, adorned the mantel. Then my eye caught her family coat of arms and the diploma given her by the Society of the Daughters of the Revolution. The natural and lawful pride that comes with a tincture of blue and brave blood, is perhaps one of her characteristics, as is many another well-born woman's. She had a long list of worthy ancestors in Colonial and Revolutionary days, and the McNeils and General Knox figure largely in her genealogy, as well as the hero who killed the ill-starred Paugus. This big, sunny room which Mrs. Eddy calls her den--or sometimes "Mother's room," when speaking of her many followers who consider her their spiritual Leader--has the air of hospitality that marks its hostess herself. Mrs. Eddy has hung its walls with reproductions of some of Europe's masterpieces, a few of which had been the gifts of her loving pupils. Looking down from the windows upon the tree-tops on the lower terrace, the reporter exclaimed: "You have lived here only four years, and yet from a barren waste of most unpromising ground has come forth all this beauty!" "Four years!" she ejaculated; "two and a half, only two and a half years." Then, touching my sleeve and pointing, she continued: "Look at those big elms! I had them brought here in warm weather, almost as big as they are now, and not one died." Mrs. Eddy talked earnestly of her friendships.... She told something of her domestic arrangements, of how she had long wished to get away from her busy career in Boston, and return to her native granite hills, there to build a substantial home that should do honor to that precinct of Concord. She chose the stubbly old farm on the road from Concord, within one mile of the "Eton of America," St. Paul's School. Once bought, the will of the woman set at work, and to-day a strikingly well-kept estate is the first impression given to the visitor as he approaches Pleasant View. She employs a number of men to keep the grounds and farm in perfect order, and it was pleasing to learn that this rich woman is using her money to promote the welfare of industrious workmen, in whom she takes a vital interest. Mrs. Eddy believes that "the laborer is worthy of his hire," and, moreover, that he deserves to have a home and family of his own. Indeed, one of her motives in buying so large an estate was that she might do something for the toilers, and thus add her influence toward the advancement of better home life and citizenship. * * * * * [_Boston Transcript_, December 31, 1894] [Extract] The growth of Christian Science is properly marked by the erection of a visible house of worship in this city, which will be dedicated to-morrow. It has cost two hundred thousand dollars, and no additional sums outside of the subscriptions are asked for. This particular phase of religious belief has impressed itself upon a large and increasing number of Christian people, who have been tempted to examine its principles, and doubtless have been comforted and strengthened by them. Any new movement will awaken some sort of interest. There are many who have worn off the novelty and are thoroughly carried away with the requirements, simple and direct as they are, of Christian Science. The opposition against it from the so-called orthodox religious bodies keeps up a while, but after a little skirmishing, finally subsides. No one religious body holds the whole of truth, and whatever is likely to show even some one side of it will gain followers and live down any attempted repression. Christian Science does not strike all as a system of truth. If it did, it would be a prodigy. Neither does the Christian faith produce the same impressions upon all. Freedom to believe or to dissent is a great privilege in these days. So when a number of conscientious followers apply themselves to a matter like Christian Science, they are enjoying that liberty which is their inherent right as human beings, and though they cannot escape censure, yet they are to be numbered among the many pioneers who are searching after religious truth. There is really nothing settled. Every truth is more or less in a state of agitation. The many who have worked in the mine of knowledge are glad to welcome others who have different methods, and with them bring different ideas. It is too early to predict where this movement will go, and how greatly it will affect the well-established methods. That it has produced a sensation in religious circles, and called forth the implements of theological warfare, is very well known. While it has done this, it may, on the other hand, have brought a benefit. Ere this many a new project in religious belief has stirred up feeling, but as time has gone on, compromises have been welcomed. The erection of this temple will doubtless help on the growth of its principles. Pilgrims from everywhere will go there in search of truth, and some may be satisfied and some will not. Christian Science cannot absorb the world's thought. It may get the share of attention it deserves, but it can only aspire to take its place alongside other great demonstrations of religious belief which have done something good for the sake of humanity. Wonders will never cease. Here is a church whose treasurer has to send out word that no sums except those already subscribed can be received! The Christian Scientists have a faith of the mustard-seed variety. What a pity some of our practical Christian folk have not a faith approximate to that of these "impractical" Christian Scientists. * * * * * [_Jackson Patriot_, Jackson, Mich., January 20, 1895] [Extract] CHRISTIAN SCIENCE The erection of a massive temple in Boston by Christian Scientists, at a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars, love-offerings of the disciples of Mary Baker Eddy, reviver of the ancient faith and author of the textbook from which, with the New Testament at the foundation, believers receive light, health, and strength, is evidence of the rapid growth of the new movement. We call it new. It is not. The name Christian Science alone is new. At the beginning of Christianity it was taught and practised by Jesus and his disciples. The Master was the great healer. But the wave of materialism and bigotry that swept over the world for fifteen centuries, covering it with the blackness of the Dark Ages, nearly obliterated all vital belief in his teachings. The Bible was a sealed book. Recently a revived belief in what he taught is manifest, and Christian Science is one result. No new doctrine is proclaimed, but there is the fresh development of a Principle that was put into practice by the Founder of Christianity nineteen hundred years ago, though practised in other countries at an earlier date. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." The condition which Jesus of Nazareth, on various occasions during the three years of his ministry on earth, declared to be essential, in the mind of both healer and patient, is contained in the one word--_faith_. Can drugs suddenly cure leprosy? When the ten lepers were cleansed and one returned to give thanks in Oriental phrase, Jesus said to him: "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole." That was Christian Science. In his "Law of Psychic Phenomena" Hudson says: "That word, more than any other, expresses the whole law of human felicity and power in this world, and of salvation in the world to come. It is that attribute of mind which elevates man above the level of the brute, and gives dominion over the physical world. It is the essential element of success in every field of human endeavor. It constitutes the power of the human soul. When Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed its potency from the hilltops of Palestine, he gave to mankind the key to health and heaven, and earned the title of Saviour of the World." Whittier, grandest of mystic poets, saw the truth:-- That healing gift he lends to them Who use it in his name; The power that filled his garment's hem Is evermore the same. Again, in a poem entitled "The Master," he wrote:-- The healing of his seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again.[D] That Jesus operated in perfect harmony with natural law, not in defiance, suppression, or violation of it, we cannot doubt. The perfectly natural is the perfectly spiritual. Jesus enunciated and exemplified the Principle; and, obviously, the conditions requisite in psychic healing to-day are the same as were necessary in apostolic times. We accept the statement of Hudson: "There was no law of nature violated or transcended. On the contrary, the whole transaction was in perfect obedience to the laws of nature. He understood the law perfectly, as no one before him understood it; and in the plenitude of his power he applied it where the greatest good could be accomplished." A careful reading of the accounts of his healings, in the light of modern science, shows that he observed, in his practice of mental therapeutics, the conditions of environment and harmonious influence that are essential to success. In the case of Jairus' daughter they are fully set forth. He kept the unbelievers away, "put them all out," and permitting only the father and mother, with his closest friends and followers, Peter, James, and John, in the chamber with him, and having thus the most perfect obtainable environment, he raised the daughter to life. "Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in thy thought." In a previous article we have referred to cyclic changes that came during the last quarter of preceding centuries. Of our remarkable nineteenth century not the least eventful circumstance is the advent of Christian Science. That it should be the work of a woman is the natural outcome of a period notable for her emancipation from many of the thraldoms, prejudices, and oppressions of the past. We do not, therefore, regard it as a mere coincidence that the first edition of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health should have been published in 1875. Since then she has revised it many times, and the ninety-first edition is announced. Her discovery was first called, "The Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing." Afterward she selected the name Christian Science. It is based upon what is held to be scientific certainty, namely,--that all causation is of Mind, every effect has its origin in desire and thought. The theology--if we may use the word--of Christian Science is contained in the volume entitled "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The present Boston congregation was organized April 19, 1879, and has now over four thousand members. It is regarded as the parent organization, all others being branches, though each is entirely independent in the management of its own affairs. Truth is the sole recognized authority. Of actual members of different congregations there are between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. One or more organized societies have sprung up in New York, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Detroit, Toledo, Milwaukee, Madison, Scranton, Peoria, Atlanta, Toronto, and nearly every other centre of population, besides a large and growing number of receivers of the faith among the members of all the churches and non-church-going people. In some churches a majority of the members are Christian Scientists, and, as a rule, are the most intelligent. Space does not admit of an elaborate presentation on the occasion of the erection of the temple, in Boston, the dedication taking place on the 6th of January, of one of the most remarkable, helpful, and powerful movements of the last quarter of the century. Christian Science has brought hope and comfort to many weary souls. It makes people better and happier. Welding Christianity and Science, hitherto divorced because dogma and truth could not unite, was a happy inspiration. "And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain; We tread upon life's broken laws, And mourn our self-inflicted pain." * * * * * [_The Outlook_, New York, January 19, 1895] A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH A great Christian Science church was dedicated in Boston on Sunday, the 6th inst. It is located at Norway and Falmouth Streets, and is intended to be a testimonial to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The building is fire-proof, and cost over two hundred thousand dollars. It is entirely paid for, and contributions for its erection came from every State in the Union, and from many lands. The auditorium is said to seat between fourteen and fifteen hundred, and was thronged at the four services on the day of dedication. The sermon, prepared by Mrs. Eddy, was read by Mrs. Bemis. It rehearsed the significance of the building, and reenunciated the truths which will find emphasis there. From the description we judge that it is one of the most beautiful buildings in Boston, and, indeed, in all New England. Whatever may be thought of the peculiar tenets of the Christian Scientists, and whatever difference of opinion there may be concerning the organization of such a church, there can be no question but that the adherents of this church have proved their faith by their works. * * * * * [_American Art Journal_, New York, January 26, 1895] "OUR PRAYER IN STONE" Such is the excellent name given to a new Boston church. Few people outside its own circles realize how extensive is the belief in Christian Science. There are several sects of mental healers, but this new edifice on Back Bay, just off Huntington Avenue, not far from the big Mechanics Building and the proposed site of the new Music Hall, belongs to the followers of Rev. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, a lady born of an old New Hampshire family, who, after many vicissitudes, found herself in Lynn, Mass., healed by the power of divine Mind, and thereupon devoted herself to imparting this faith to her fellow-beings. Coming to Boston about 1880, she began teaching, gathered an association of students, and organized a church. For several years past she has lived in Concord, N.H., near her birthplace, owning a beautiful estate called Pleasant View; but thousands of believers throughout this country have joined The Mother Church in Boston, and have now erected this edifice at a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars, every bill being paid. Its appearance is shown in the pictures we are permitted to publish. In the belfry is a set of tubular chimes. Inside is a basement room, capable of division into seven excellent class-rooms, by the use of movable partitions. The main auditorium has wide galleries, and will seat over a thousand in its exceedingly comfortable pews. Scarcely any woodwork is to be found. The floors are all mosaic, the steps marble, and the walls stone. It is rather dark, often too much so for comfortable reading, as all the windows are of colored glass, with pictures symbolic of the tenets of the organization. In the ceiling is a beautiful sunburst window. Adjoining the chancel is a pastor's study; but for an indefinite time their prime instructor has ordained that the only pastor shall be the Bible, with her book, called "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." In the tower is a room devoted to her, and called "Mother's Room," furnished with all conveniences for living, should she wish to make it a home by day or night. Therein is a portrait of her in stained glass; and an electric light, behind an antique lamp, kept perpetually burning[E] in her honor; though she has not yet visited her temple, which was dedicated on New Year's Sunday in a somewhat novel way. There was no special sentence or prayer of consecration, but continuous services were held from nine to four o'clock, every hour and a half, so long as there were attendants; and some people heard these exercises four times repeated. The printed program was for some reason not followed, certain hymns and psalms being omitted. There was singing by a choir and congregation. The _Pater Noster_ was repeated in the way peculiar to Christian Scientists, the congregation repeating one sentence and the leader responding with its parallel interpretation by Mrs. Eddy. Antiphonal paragraphs were read from the book of Revelation and her work respectively. The sermon, prepared by Mrs. Eddy, was well adapted for its purpose, and read by a professional elocutionist, not an adherent of the order, Mrs. Henrietta Clark Bemis, in a clear emphatic style. The solo singer, however, was a Scientist, Miss Elsie Lincoln; and on the platform sat Joseph Armstrong, formerly of Kansas, and now the business manager of the Publishing Society, with the other members of the Christian Science Board of Directors--Ira O. Knapp, Edward P. Bates, Stephen A. Chase,--gentlemen officially connected with the movement. The children of believing families collected the money for the Mother's Room, and seats were especially set apart for them at the second dedicatory service. Before one service was over and the auditors left by the rear doors, the front vestibule and street (despite the snowstorm) were crowded with others, waiting for admission. On the next Sunday the new order of service went into operation. There was no address of any sort, no notices, no explanation of Bible or their textbook. Judge Hanna, who was a Colorado lawyer before coming into this work, presided, reading in clear, manly, and intelligent tones, the _Quarterly_ Bible Lesson, which happened that day to be on Jesus' miracle of loaves and fishes. Each paragraph he supplemented first with illustrative Scripture parallels, as set down for him, and then by passages selected for him from Mrs. Eddy's book. The place was again crowded, many having remained over a week from among the thousands of adherents who had come to Boston for this auspicious occasion from all parts of the country. The organ, made by Farrand & Votey in Detroit, at a cost of eleven thousand dollars, is the gift of a wealthy Universalist gentleman, but was not ready for the opening. It is to fill the recess behind the spacious platform, and is described as containing pneumatic wind-chests throughout, and having an �olian attachment. It is of three-manual compass, C.C.C. to C.4, 61 notes; and pedal compass, C.C.C. to F.30. The great organ has double open diapason (stopped bass), open diapason, dulciana, viola di gamba, doppel flute, hohl flute, octave, octave quint, superoctave, and trumpet,--61 pipes each. The swell organ has bourdon, open diapason, salicional, æoline, stopped diapason, gemshorn, flute harmonique, flageolet, cornet--3 ranks, 183,--cornopean, oboe, vox humana--61 pipes each. The choir organ, enclosed in separate swell-box, has geigen principal, dolce, concert flute, quintadena, fugara, flute d'amour, piccolo harmonique, clarinet,--61 pipes each. The pedal organ has open diapason, bourdon, lieblich gedeckt (from stop 10), violoncello-wood,--30 pipes each. Couplers: swell to great; choir to great; swell to choir; swell to great octaves, swell to great sub-octaves; choir to great sub-octaves; swell octaves; swell to pedal; great to pedal; choir to pedal. Mechanical accessories: swell tremulant, choir tremulant, bellows signal; wind indicator. Pedal movements: three affecting great and pedal stops, three affecting swell and pedal stops; great to pedal reversing pedal; crescendo and full organ pedal; balanced great and choir pedal; balanced swell pedal. Beautiful suggestions greet you in every part of this unique church, which is practical as well as poetic, and justifies the name given by Mrs. Eddy, which stands at the head of this sketch. J.H.W. * * * * * [_Boston Journal_, January 7, 1895] CHIMES RANG SWEETLY Much admiration was expressed by all those fortunate enough to listen to the first peal of the chimes in the tower of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, corner of Falmouth and Norway Streets, dedicated yesterday. The sweet, musical tones attracted quite a throng of people, who listened with delight. The chimes were made by the United States Tubular Bell Company, of Methuen, Mass., and are something of a novelty in this country, though for some time well and favorably known in the Old Country, especially in England. They are a substitution of tubes of drawn brass for the heavy cast bells of old-fashioned chimes. They have the advantage of great economy of space, as well as of cost, a chime of fifteen bells occupying a space not more than five by eight feet. Where the old-fashioned chimes required a strong man to ring them, these can be rung from an electric keyboard, and even when rung by hand require but little muscular power to manipulate them and call forth all the purity and sweetness of their tones. The quality of tone is something superb, being rich and mellow. The tubes are carefully tuned, so that the harmony is perfect. They have all the beauties of a great cathedral chime, with infinitely less expense. There is practically no limit to the uses to which these bells may be put. They can be called into requisition in theatres, concert halls, and public buildings, as they range in all sizes, from those described down to little sets of silver bells that might be placed on a small centre table. * * * * * [_The Republic_, Washington, D.C., February 2, 1895] [Extract] CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MARY BAKER EDDY THE "MOTHER" OF THE IDEA--SHE HAS AN IMMENSE FOLLOWING THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, AND A CHURCH COSTING $250,000 WAS RECENTLY BUILT IN HER HONOR AT BOSTON "My faith has the strength to nourish trees as well as souls," was the remark Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the "Mother" of Christian Science, made recently as she pointed to a number of large elms that shade her delightful country home in Concord, N.H. "I had them brought here in warm weather, almost as big as they are now, and not one died." This is a remarkable statement, but it is made by a remarkable woman, who has originated a new phase of religious belief, and who numbers over one hundred thousand intelligent people among her devoted followers. The great hold she has upon this army was demonstrated in a very tangible and material manner recently, when "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," erected at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was dedicated in Boston. This handsome edifice was paid for before it was begun, by the voluntary contributions of Christian Scientists all over the country, and a tablet imbedded in its wall declares that it was built as "a testimonial to our beloved teacher, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, author of its textbook, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,' president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and the first pastor of this denomination." There is usually considerable difficulty in securing sufficient funds for the building of a new church, but such was not the experience of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. Money came freely from all parts of the United States. Men, women, and children contributed, some giving a pittance, others donating large sums. When the necessary amount was raised, the custodian of the funds was compelled to refuse further contributions, in order to stop the continued inflow of money from enthusiastic Christian Scientists. Mrs. Eddy says she discovered Christian Science in 1866. She studied the Scriptures and the sciences, she declares, in a search for the great curative Principle. She investigated allopathy, homoeopathy, and electricity, without finding a clew; and modern philosophy gave her no distinct statement of the Science of Mind-healing. After careful study she became convinced that the curative Principle was the Deity. * * * * * [_New York Tribune_, February 7, 1895] [Extract] Boston has just dedicated the first church of the Christian Scientists, in commemoration of the Founder of that sect, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, drawing together six thousand people to participate in the ceremonies, showing that belief in that curious creed is not confined to its original apostles and promulgators, but that it has penetrated what is called the New England mind to an unlooked-for extent. In inviting the Eastern churches and the Anglican fold to unity with Rome, the Holy Father should not overlook the Boston sect of Christian Scientists, which is rather small and new, to be sure, but is undoubtedly an interesting faith and may have a future before it, whatever attitude Rome may assume toward it. * * * * * [_Journal_, Kansas City, Mo., January 10, 1895] [Extract] GROWTH OF A FAITH Attention is directed to the progress which has been made by what is called Christian Science by the dedication at Boston of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist." It is a most beautiful structure of gray granite, and its builders call it their "prayer in stone," which suggests to recollection the story of the cathedral of Amiens, whose architectural construction and arrangement of statuary and paintings made it to be called the Bible of that city. The Frankish church was reared upon the spot where, in pagan times, one bitter winter day, a Roman soldier parted his mantle with his sword and gave half of the garment to a naked beggar; and so was memorialized in art and stone what was called the divine spirit of giving, whose unbelieving exemplar afterward became a saint. The Boston church similarly expresses the faith of those who believe in what they term the divine art of healing, which, to their minds, exists as much to-day as it did when Christ healed the sick. The first church organization of this faith was founded fifteen years ago with a membership of only twenty-six, and since then the number of believers has grown with remarkable rapidity, until now there are societies in every part of the country. This growth, it is said, proceeds more from the graveyards than from conversions from other churches, for most of those who embrace the faith claim to have been rescued from death miraculously under the injunction to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons." They hold with strict fidelity to what they conceive to be the literal teachings of the Bible as expressed in its poetical and highly figurative language. Altogether the belief and service are well suited to satisfy a taste for the mystical which, along many lines, has shown an uncommon development in this country during the last decade, and which is largely Oriental in its choice. Such a rapid departure from long respected views as is marked by the dedication of this church, and others of kindred meaning, may reasonably excite wonder as to how radical is to be this encroachment upon prevailing faiths, and whether some of the pre-Christian ideas of the Asiatics are eventually to supplant those in company with which our civilization has developed. * * * * * [_Montreal Daily Herald_, Saturday, February 2, 1895] [Extract] CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SKETCH OF ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH--THE MONTREAL BRANCH "If you would found a new faith, go to Boston," has been said by a great American writer. This is no idle word, but a fact borne out by circumstances. Boston can fairly claim to be the hub of the logical universe, and an accurate census of the religious faiths which are to be found there to-day would probably show a greater number of them than even Max O'Rell's famous enumeration of John Bull's creeds. Christian Science, or the Principle of divine healing, is one of those movements which seek to give expression to a higher spirituality. Founded twenty-five years ago, it was still practically unknown a decade since, but to-day it numbers over a quarter of a million of believers, the majority of whom are in the United States, and is rapidly growing. In Canada, also, there is a large number of members. Toronto and Montreal have strong churches, comparatively, while in many towns and villages single believers or little knots of them are to be found. It was exactly one hundred years from the date of the Declaration of Independence, when on July 4, 1876, the first Christian Scientist Association was organized by seven persons, of whom the foremost was Mrs. Eddy. The church was founded in April, 1879, with twenty-six members, and a charter was obtained two months later. Mrs. Eddy assumed the pastorship of the church during its early years, and in 1881 was ordained, being now known as the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The Massachusetts Metaphysical College was founded by Mrs. Eddy in 1881, and here she taught the principles of the faith for nine years. Students came to it in hundreds from all parts of the world, and many are now pastors or in practice. The college was closed in 1889, as Mrs. Eddy felt it necessary for the interests of her religious work to retire from active contact with the world. She now lives in a beautiful country residence in her native State. * * * * * [_The American_, Baltimore, Md., January 14, 1895] [Extract] MRS. EDDY'S DISCIPLES It is not generally known that a Christian Science congregation was organized in this city about a year ago. It now holds regular services in the parlor of the residence of the pastor, at 1414 Linden Avenue. The dedication in Boston last Sunday of the Christian Science church, called The Mother Church, which cost over two hundred thousand dollars, adds interest to the Baltimore organization. There are many other church edifices in the United States owned by Christian Scientists. Christian Science was founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy. The Baltimore congregation was organized at a meeting held at the present location on February 27, 1894. Dr. Hammond, the pastor, came to Baltimore about three years ago to organize this movement. Miss Cross came from Syracuse, N.Y., about eighteen months ago. Both were under the instruction of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of the movement. Dr. Hammond says he was converted to Christian Science by being cured by Mrs. Eddy of a physical ailment some twelve years ago, after several doctors had pronounced his case incurable. He says they use no medicines, but rely on Mind for cure, believing that disease comes from evil and sick-producing thoughts, and that, if they can so fill the mind with good thoughts as to leave no room there for the bad, they can work a cure. He distinguishes Christian Science from the faith-cure, and added: "This Christian Science really is a return to the ideas of primitive Christianity. It would take a small book to explain fully all about it, but I may say that the fundamental idea is that God is Mind, and we interpret the Scriptures wholly from the spiritual or metaphysical standpoint. We find in this view of the Bible the power fully developed to heal the sick. It is not faith-cure, but it is an acknowledgment of certain Christian and scientific laws, and to work a cure the practitioner must understand these laws aright. The patient may gain a better understanding than the Church has had in the past. All churches have prayed for the cure of disease, but they have not done so in an intelligent manner, understanding and demonstrating the Christ-healing." * * * * * [_The Reporter_, Lebanon, Ind., January 18, 1895] [Extract] DISCOVERED CHRISTIAN SCIENCE REMARKABLE CAREER OF REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, WHO HAS OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FOLLOWERS Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, author of its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and first pastor of the Christian Science denomination, is without doubt one of the most remarkable women in America. She has within a few years founded a sect that has over one hundred thousand converts, and very recently saw completed in Boston, as a testimonial to her labors, a handsome fire-proof church that cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and was paid for by Christian Scientists all over the country. Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she became certain that "all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon." Taking her text from the Bible, she endeavored in vain to find the great curative Principle--the Deity--in philosophy and schools of medicine, and she concluded that the way of salvation demonstrated by Jesus was the power of Truth over all error, sin, sickness, and death. Thus originated the divine or spiritual Science of Mind-healing, which she termed Christian Science. She has a palatial home in Boston and a country-seat in Concord, N.H. The Christian Science Church has a membership of four thousand, and eight hundred of the members are Bostonians. * * * * * [_N.Y. Commercial Advertiser_, January 9, 1895] The idea that Christian Science has declined in popularity is not borne out by the voluntary contribution of a quarter of a million dollars for a memorial church for Mrs. Eddy, the inventor of this cure. The money comes from Christian Science believers exclusively. * * * * * [_The Post_, Syracuse, New York, February 1, 1895] DO NOT BELIEVE SHE WAS DEIFIED CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS OF SYRACUSE SURPRISED AT THE NEWS ABOUT MRS. MARY BAKER EDDY, FOUNDER OF THE FAITH Christian Scientists in this city, and in fact all over the country, have been startled and greatly discomfited over the announcements in New York papers that Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the acknowledged Christian Science Leader, has been exalted by various dignitaries of the faith.... It is well known that Mrs. Eddy has resigned herself completely to the study and foundation of the faith to which many thousands throughout the United States are now so entirely devoted. By her followers and cobelievers she is unquestionably looked upon as having a divine mission to fulfil, and as though inspired in her great task by supernatural power. For the purpose of learning the feeling of Scientists in this city toward the reported deification of Mrs. Eddy, a _Post_ reporter called upon a few of the leading members of the faith yesterday and had a number of very interesting conversations upon the subject. Mrs. D.W. Copeland of University Avenue was one of the first to be seen. Mrs. Copeland is a very pleasant and agreeable lady, ready to converse, and evidently very much absorbed in the work to which she has given so much of her attention. Mrs. Copeland claims to have been healed a number of years ago by Christian Scientists, after she had practically been given up by a number of well-known physicians. "And for the past eleven years," said Mrs. Copeland, "I have not taken any medicine or drugs of any kind, and yet have been perfectly well." In regard to Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. Copeland said that she was the Founder of the faith, but that she had never claimed, nor did she believe that Mrs. Lathrop had, that Mrs. Eddy had any power other than that which came from God and through faith in Him and His teachings. "The power of Christ has been dormant in mankind for ages," added the speaker, "and it was Mrs. Eddy's mission to revive it. In our labors we take Christ as an example, going about doing good and healing the sick. Christ has told us to do his work, naming as one great essential that we have faith in him. "Did you ever hear of Jesus' taking medicine himself, or giving it to others?" inquired the speaker. "Then why should we worry ourselves about sickness and disease? If we become sick, God will care for us, and will send to us those who have faith, who believe in His unlimited and divine power. Mrs. Eddy was strictly an ardent follower after God. She had faith in Him, and she cured herself of a deathly disease through the mediation of her God. Then she secluded herself from the world for three years and studied and meditated over His divine Word. She delved deep into the Biblical passages, and at the end of the period came from her seclusion one of the greatest Biblical scholars of the age. Her mission was then the mission of a Christian, to do good and heal the sick, and this duty she faithfully performed. She of herself had no power. But God has fulfilled His promises to her and to the world. If you have faith, you can move mountains." Mrs. Henrietta N. Cole is also a very prominent member of the church. When seen yesterday she emphasized herself as being of the same theory as Mrs. Copeland. Mrs. Cole has made a careful and searching study in the beliefs of Scientists, and is perfectly versed in all their beliefs and doctrines. She stated that man of himself has no power, but that all comes from God. She placed no credit whatever in the reports from New York that Mrs. Eddy has been accredited as having been deified. She referred the reporter to the large volume which Mrs. Eddy had herself written, and said that no more complete and yet concise idea of her belief could be obtained than by a perusal of it. * * * * * [_New York Herald_, February 6, 1895] MRS. EDDY SHOCKED [By Telegraph to the _Herald_] Concord, N.H., February 4, 1895.--The article published in the _Herald_ on January 29, regarding a statement made by Mrs. Laura Lathrop, pastor of the Christian Science congregation that meets every Sunday in Hodgson Hall, New York, was shown to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian Science "Discoverer," to-day. Mrs. Eddy preferred to prepare a written answer to the interrogatory, which she did in this letter, addressed to the editor of the _Herald_:-- "A despatch is given me, calling for an interview to answer for myself, 'Am I the second Christ?' "Even the question shocks me. What I am is for God to declare in His infinite mercy. As it is, I claim nothing more than what I am, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and the blessing it has been to mankind which eternity enfolds. "I think Mrs. Lathrop was not understood. If she said aught with intention to be thus understood, it is not what I have taught her, and not at all as I have heard her talk. "My books and teachings maintain but one conclusion and statement of the Christ and the deification of mortals. "Christ is individual, and one with God, in the sense of divine Love and its compound divine ideal. "There was, is, and never can be but one God, one Christ, one Jesus of Nazareth. Whoever in any age expresses most of the spirit of Truth and Love, the Principle of God's idea, has most of the spirit of Christ, of that Mind which was in Christ Jesus. "If Christian Scientists find in my writings, teachings, and example a greater degree of this spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. But to think or speak of me in any manner as a Christ, is sacrilegious. Such a statement would not only be false, but the absolute antipode of Christian Science, and would savor more of heathenism than of my doctrines. "MARY BAKER EDDY." * * * * * [_The Globe_, Toronto, Canada, January 12, 1895] [Extract] CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS DEDICATION TO THE FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF A BEAUTIFUL CHURCH AT BOSTON--MANY TORONTO SCIENTISTS PRESENT The Christian Scientists of Toronto, to the number of thirty, took part in the ceremonies at Boston last Sunday and for the day or two following, by which the members of that faith all over North America celebrated the dedication of the church constructed in the great New England capital as a testimonial to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The temple is believed to be the most nearly fire-proof church structure on the continent, the only combustible material used in its construction being that used in the doors and pews. A striking feature of the church is a beautiful apartment known as the "Mother's Room," which is approached through a superb archway of Italian marble set in the wall. The furnishing of the "Mother's Room" is described as "particularly beautiful, and blends harmoniously with the pale green and gold decoration of the walls. The floor is of mosaic in elegant designs, and two alcoves are separated from the apartment by rich hangings of deep green plush, which in certain lights has a shimmer of silver. The furniture frames are of white mahogany in special designs, elaborately carved, and the upholstery is in white and gold tapestry. A superb mantel of Mexican onyx with gold decoration adorns the south wall, and before the hearth is a large rug composed entirely of skins of the eider-down duck, brought from the Arctic regions. Pictures and bric-a-brac everywhere suggest the tribute of loving friends. One of the two alcoves is a retiring-room and the other a lavatory in which the plumbing is all heavily plated with gold." * * * * * [_Evening Monitor_, Concord, N.H., February 27, 1895] AN ELEGANT SOUVENIR REV. MARY BAKER EDDY MEMORIALIZED BY A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer of Christian Science, has received from the members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, an invitation formally to accept the magnificent new edifice of worship which the church has just erected. The invitation itself is one of the most chastely elegant memorials ever prepared, and is a scroll of solid gold, suitably engraved, and encased in a handsome plush casket with white silk linings. Attached to the scroll is a golden key of the church structure. The inscription reads thus:-- _Dear Mother_:--During the year eighteen hundred and ninety-four a church edifice was erected at the intersection of Falmouth and Norway Streets, in the city of Boston, by the loving hands of four thousand members. This edifice is built as a testimonial to Truth, as revealed by divine Love through you to this age. You are hereby most lovingly invited to visit and formally accept this testimonial on the twentieth day of February, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, at high noon. "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass. "By EDWARD P. BATES, "CAROLINE S. BATES. "To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, "Boston, January 6th, 1895." * * * * * [_People and Patriot_, Concord, N.H., February 27, 1895] MAGNIFICENT TESTIMONIAL Members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, have forwarded to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy of this city, the Founder of Christian Science, a testimonial which is probably one of the most magnificent examples of the goldsmith's art ever wrought in this country. It is in the form of a gold scroll, twenty-six inches long, nine inches wide, and an eighth of an inch thick. It bears upon its face the following inscription, cut in script letters:-- "_Dear Mother_:--During the year 1894 a church edifice was erected at the intersection of Falmouth and Norway Streets, in the city of Boston, by the loving hands of four thousand members. This edifice is built as a testimonial to Truth, as revealed by divine Love through you to this age. You are hereby most lovingly invited to visit and formally accept this testimonial on the 20th day of February, 1895, at high noon. "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, at Boston, Mass. "By EDWARD P. BATES, "CAROLINE S. BATES. "To the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, "Boston, January 6, 1895." Attached by a white ribbon to the scroll is a gold key to the church door. The testimonial is encased in a white satin-lined box of rich green velvet. The scroll is on exhibition in the window of J.C. Derby's jewelry store. * * * * * [_The Union Signal_, Chicago] [Extract] THE NEW WOMAN AND THE NEW CHURCH The dedication, in Boston, of a Christian Science temple costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and for which the money was all paid in so that no debt had to be taken care of on dedication day, is a notable event. While we are not, and never have been, devotees of Christian Science, it becomes us as students of public questions not to ignore a movement which, starting fifteen years ago, has already gained to itself adherents in every part of the civilized world, for it is a significant fact that one cannot take up a daily paper in town or village--to say nothing of cities--without seeing notices of Christian Science meetings, and in most instances they are held at "headquarters." We believe there are two reasons for this remarkable development, which has shown a vitality so unexpected. The first is that a revolt was inevitable from the crass materialism of the cruder science that had taken possession of men's minds, for as a wicked but witty writer has said, "If there were no God, we should be obliged to invent one." There is something in the constitution of man that requires the religious sentiment as much as his lungs call for breath; indeed, the breath of his soul is a belief in God. But when Christian Science arose, the thought of the world's scientific leaders had become materialistically "lopsided," and this condition can never long continue. There must be a righting-up of the mind as surely as of a ship when under stress of storm it is ready to capsize. The pendulum that has swung to one extreme will surely find the other. The religious sentiment in women is so strong that the revolt was headed by them; this was inevitable in the nature of the case. It began in the most intellectual city of the freest country in the world--that is to say, it sought the line of least resistance. Boston is emphatically the women's paradise,--numerically, socially, indeed every way. Here they have the largest individuality, the most recognition, the widest outlook. Mrs. Eddy we have never seen; her book has many a time been sent us by interested friends, and out of respect to them we have fairly broken our mental teeth over its granitic pebbles. That we could not understand it might be rather to the credit of the book than otherwise. On this subject we have no opinion to pronounce, but simply state the fact. We do not, therefore, speak of the system it sets forth, either to praise or blame, but this much is true: the spirit of Christian Science ideas has caused an army of well-meaning people to believe in God and the power of faith, who did not believe in them before. It has made a myriad of women more thoughtful and devout; it has brought a hopeful spirit into the homes of unnumbered invalids. The belief that "thoughts are things," that the invisible is the only real world, that we are here to be trained into harmony with the laws of God, and that what we are here determines where we shall be hereafter--all these ideas are Christian. The chimes on the Christian Science temple in Boston played "All hail the power of Jesus' name," on the morning of the dedication. We did not attend, but we learn that the name of Christ is nowhere spoken with more reverence than it was during those services, and that he is set forth as the power of God for righteousness and the express image of God for love. * * * * * [_The New Century_, Boston, February, 1895] ONE POINT OF VIEW--THE NEW WOMAN We all know her--she is simply the woman of the past with an added grace--a newer charm. Some of her dearest ones call her "selfish" because she thinks so much of herself she spends her whole time helping others. She represents the composite beauty, sweetness, and nobility of all those who scorn self for the sake of love and her handmaiden duty--of all those who seek the brightness of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as the lark who soars and sings to the great sun. She is of those who have so much to give they want no time to take, and their name is legion. She is as full of beautiful possibilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the harmonies of the universe are in herself, while her own soul plays upon magic strings the unwritten anthems of love. She is the apostle of the true, the beautiful, the good, commissioned to complete all that the twelve have left undone. Hers is the mission of missions--the highest of all--to make the body not the prison, but the palace of the soul, with the brain for its great white throne. When she comes like the south wind into the cold haunts of sin and sorrow, her words are smiles and her smiles are the sunlight which heals the stricken soul. Her hand is tender--but steel tempered with holy resolve, and as one whom her love had glorified once said--she is soft and gentle, but you could no more turn her from her course than winter could stop the coming of spring. She has long learned with patience, and to-day she knows many things dear to the soul far better than her teachers. In olden times the Jews claimed to be the conservators of the world's morals--they treated woman as a chattel, and said that because she was created after man, she was created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who never called Abraham "Father," while the Jews themselves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and Esther, but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not for their sex. To-day there are ten thousand Esthers, and Miriams by the million, who sing best by singing most for their own sex. They are demanding the right to help make the laws, or at least to help enforce the laws upon which depends the welfare of their husbands, their children, and themselves. Why should our selfish self longer remain deaf to their cry? The date is no longer B.C. Might no longer makes right, and in this fair land at least fear has ceased to kiss the iron heel of wrong. Why then should we continue to demand woman's love and woman's help while we recklessly promise as lover and candidate what we never fulfil as husband and office-holder? In our secret heart our better self is shamed and dishonored, and appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober, but has not yet the moral strength and courage to prosecute the appeal. But the east is rosy, and the sunlight cannot long be delayed. Woman must not and will not be disheartened by a thousand denials or a million of broken pledges. With the assurance of faith she prays, with the certainty of inspiration she works, and with the patience of genius she waits. At last she is becoming "as fair as the morn, as bright as the sun, and as terrible as an army with banners" to those who march under the black flag of oppression and wield the ruthless sword of injustice. In olden times it was the Amazons who conquered the invincibles, and we must look now to their daughters to overcome our own allied armies of evil and to save us from ourselves. She must and will succeed, for as David sang--"God shall help her, and that right early." When we try to praise her later works it is as if we would pour incense upon the rose. It is the proudest boast of many of us that we are "bound to her by bonds dearer than freedom," and that we live in the reflected royalty which shines from her brow. We rejoice with her that at last we begin to know what John on Patmos meant--"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." She brought to warring men the Prince of Peace, and he, departing, left his scepter not in her hand, but in her soul. "The time of times" is near when "the new woman" shall subdue the whole earth with the weapons of peace. Then shall wrong be robbed of her bitterness and ingratitude of her sting, revenge shall clasp hands with pity, and love shall dwell in the tents of hate; while side by side, equal partners in all that is worth living for, shall stand the new man with the new woman. * * * * * [_Christian Science Journal_, January, 1895] [Extract] THE MOTHER CHURCH The Mother Church edifice--The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, is erected. The close of the year, Anno Domini 1894, witnessed the completion of "our prayer in stone," all predictions and prognostications to the contrary notwithstanding. Of the significance of this achievement we shall not undertake to speak in this article. It can be better felt than expressed. All who are awake thereto have some measure of understanding of what it means. But only the future will tell the story of its mighty meaning or unfold it to the comprehension of mankind. It is enough for us now to know that all obstacles to its completion have been met and overcome, and that our temple is completed as God intended it should be. This achievement is the result of long years of untiring, unselfish, and zealous effort on the part of our beloved teacher and Leader, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, who nearly thirty years ago began to lay the foundation of this temple, and whose devotion and consecration to God and humanity during the intervening years have made its erection possible. Those who now, in part, understand her mission, turn their hearts in gratitude to her for her great work, and those who do not understand it will, in the fulness of time, see and acknowledge it. In the measure in which she has unfolded and demonstrated divine Love, and built up in human consciousness a better and higher conception of God as Life, Truth, and Love,--as the divine Principle of all things which really exist,--and in the degree in which she has demonstrated the system of healing of Jesus and the apostles, surely she, as the one chosen of God to this end, is entitled to the gratitude and love of all who desire a better and grander humanity, and who believe it to be possible to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth in accordance with the prayer and teachings of Jesus Christ. * * * * * [_Concord Evening Monitor_, March 23, 1895] TESTIMONIAL AND GIFT TO REV. MARY BAKER EDDY, FROM THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN BOSTON Rev. Mary Baker Eddy received Friday, from the Christian Science Board of Directors, Boston, a beautiful and unique testimonial of the appreciation of her labors and loving generosity in the Cause of their common faith. It was a facsimile of the corner-stone of the new church of the Christian Scientists, just completed, being of granite, about six inches in each dimension, and contains a solid gold box, upon the cover of which is this inscription:-- "To our Beloved Teacher, the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, from her affectionate Students, the Christian Science Board of Directors." On the under side of the cover are the facsimile signatures of the Directors,--Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph Armstrong, and Stephen A. Chase, with the date, "1895." The beautiful souvenir is encased in an elegant plush box. Accompanying the stone testimonial was the following address from the Board of Directors:-- Boston, March 20, 1895. _To the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, our Beloved Teacher and Leader_:--We are happy to announce to you the completion of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. In behalf of your loving students and all contributors wherever they may be, we hereby present this church to you as a testimonial of love and gratitude for your labors and loving sacrifice, as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and the author of its textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." We therefore respectfully extend to you the invitation to become the permanent pastor of this church, in connection with the Bible and the book alluded to above, which you have already ordained as our pastor. And we most cordially invite you to be present and take charge of any services that may be held therein. We especially desire you to be present on the twenty-fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, to accept this offering, with our humble benediction. Lovingly yours, IRA O. KNAPP, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, STEPHEN A. CHASE, _The Christian Science Board of Directors_. REV. MRS. EDDY'S REPLY _Beloved Directors and Brethren_:--For your costly offering, and kind call to the pastorate of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," in Boston--accept my profound thanks. But permit me, respectfully, to decline their acceptance, while I fully appreciate your kind intentions. If it will comfort you in the least, make me your _Pastor Emeritus_, nominally. Through my book, your textbook, I already speak to you each Sunday. You ask too much when asking me to accept your grand church edifice. I have more of earth now, than I desire, and less of heaven; so pardon my refusal of that as a material offering. More effectual than the forum are our states of mind, to bless mankind. This wish stops not with my pen--God give you grace. As our church's tall tower detains the sun, so may luminous lines from your lives linger, a legacy to our race. MARY BAKER EDDY. March 25, 1895. * * * * * LIST OF LEADING NEWSPAPERS WHOSE ARTICLES ARE OMITTED From Canada to New Orleans, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, the author has received leading newspapers with uniformly kind and interesting articles on the dedication of The Mother Church. They were, however, too voluminous for these pages. To those which are copied she can append only a few of the names of other prominent newspapers whose articles are reluctantly omitted. EASTERN STATES _Advertiser_, Calais, Me. _Advertiser_, Boston, Mass. _Farmer_, Bridgeport, Conn. _Independent_, Rockland, Mass. _Kennebec Journal_, Augusta, Me. _News_, New Haven, Conn. _News_, Newport, R.I. _Post_, Boston, Mass. _Post_, Hartford, Conn. _Republican_, Springfield, Mass. _Sentinel_, Eastport, Me. _Sun_, Attleboro, Mass. MIDDLE STATES _Advertiser_, New York City. _Bulletin_, Auburn, N.Y. _Daily_, York, Pa. _Evening Reporter_, Lebanon, Pa. _Farmer_, Bridgeport, Conn. _Herald_, Rochester, N.Y. _Independent_, Harrisburg, Pa. _Inquirer_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Independent_, New York City. _Journal_, Lockport, N.Y. _Knickerbocker_, Albany, N.Y. _News_, Buffalo, N.Y. _News_, Newark, N.J. _Once A Week_, New York City. _Post_, Pittsburgh, Pa. _Press_, Albany, N.Y. _Press_, New York City. _Press_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Saratogian_, Saratoga Springs, N.Y. _Sun_, New York City. _Telegram_, Philadelphia, Pa. _Telegram_, Troy, N.Y. _Times_, Trenton, N.J. SOUTHERN STATES _Commercial_, Louisville, Ky. _Journal_, Atlanta, Ga. _Post_, Washington, D.C. _Telegram_, New Orleans, La. _Times_, New Orleans, La. _Times-Herald_, Dallas, Tex. WESTERN STATES _Bee_, Omaha, Neb. _Bulletin_, San Francisco, Cal. _Chronicle_, San Francisco, Cal. _Elite_, Chicago, Ill. _Enquirer_, Oakland, Cal. _Free Press_, Detroit, Mich. _Gazette_, Burlington, Iowa. _Herald_, Grand Rapids, Mich. _Herald_, St. Joseph, Mo. _Journal_, Columbus, Ohio. _Journal_, Topeka, Kans. _Leader_, Bloomington, Ill. _Leader_, Cleveland, Ohio. _News_, St. Joseph, Mo. _News-Tribune_, Duluth, Minn. _Pioneer-Press_, St. Paul, Minn. _Post-Intelligencer_, Seattle, Wash. _Salt Lake Herald_, Salt Lake City, Utah. _Sentinel_, Indianapolis, Ind. _Sentinel_, Milwaukee, Wis. _Star_, Kansas City, Mo. _Telegram_, Portland, Ore. _Times_, Chicago, Ill. _Times_, Minneapolis, Minn. _Tribune_, Minneapolis, Minn. _Tribune_, Salt Lake City, Utah. _Free Press_, London, Can. THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS USA FOOTNOTES: [Footnote A: See footnote on page nine.] [Footnote B: This sum was increased to $5,568.51 by contributions which reached the Treasurer after the Dedicatory Services.] [Footnote C: Steps were taken to promote the Church of Christ Scientist in April, May and June; formal organization was accomplished and the charter obtained in August, 1879.] [Footnote D: NOTE:--About 1868, the author of Science and Health healed Mr. Whittier with one visit, at his home in Amesbury, of incipient pulmonary consumption.--M.B. EDDY.] [Footnote E: At Mrs. Eddy's request the lamp was not kept burning.] 
18039	----	Eighty-Ninth edition Manual of The Mother Church The First Church of Christ Scientist In Boston, Massachusetts BY MARY BAKER EDDY Discoverer and founder of Christian Science And author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures PUBLISHED BY THE TRUSTEES UNDER THE WILL OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized literature of The first Church of Christ, Scientist In Boston, Massachusetts COPYRIGHT, 1895 _By_ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Copyright renewed, 1923 COPYRIGHT 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1901 _By_ JAMES A. NEAL _and_ THOMAS W. HATTEN Copyright renewed, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929 COPYRIGHT, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908 _By_ MARY BAKER G. EDDY Copyright renewed, 1931, 1932, 1934, 1936 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA EXTRACT FROM A LETTER IN "MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS" _By Mary Baker Eddy_ The Rules and By-laws in the Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, originated not in solemn conclave as in ancient Sanhedrim. They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial demands, such as one person might impose on another. They were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at different dates, and as the occasion required. They sprang from necessity, the logic of events,--from the immediate demand for them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity and defense of our Cause; hence their simple, scientific basis, and detail so requisite to demonstrate genuine Christian Science, and which will do for the race what absolute doctrines destined for future generations might not accomplish. TENETS _of The Mother Church_ _The First Church of Christ, Scientist_ _To be signed by those uniting with The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass._ 1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life. 2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness. 3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts. 4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death. 5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter. 6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure. MARY BAKER EDDY HISTORICAL SKETCH In the spring of 1879, a little band of earnest seekers after Truth went into deliberations over forming a church without creeds, to be called the "CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST." They were members of evangelical churches, and students of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy in Christian Science, and were known as "Christian Scientists." At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, April 12, 1879, on motion of Mrs. Eddy, it was voted,--To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing. Mrs. Eddy was appointed on the committee to draft the Tenets of the Mother Church--the chief corner stone whereof is, that Christian Science, as taught and demonstrated by our Master, casts out error, heals the sick, and restores the lost Israel: for "the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner." The charter for the Church was obtained June, 1879,[1] and the same month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to Mary Baker Eddy to become their pastor. She accepted the call, and was ordained A. D. 1881. Although walking through deep waters, the little Church went steadily on, increasing in numbers, and at every epoch saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." On the twenty-third day of September, 1892, at the request of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, twelve of her students and Church members met and reorganized, under her jurisdiction, the Christian Science Church and named it, THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST. At this meeting twenty others of Mrs. Eddy's students and members of her former Church were elected members of this Church,--those with others that have since been elected were known as "First Members." The Church Tenets, Rules, and By-Laws, as prepared by Mrs. Eddy, were adopted. A By-Law adopted March 17, 1903, changed the title of "First Members" to "Executive Members." (On July 8, 1908, the By-Laws pertaining to "Executive Members" were repealed.) THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, IN BOSTON, MASS., is designed to be built on the Rock, Christ; even the understanding and demonstration of divine Truth, Life, and Love, healing and saving the world from sin and death; thus to reflect in some degree the Church Universal and Triumphant. [1] Steps were taken to promote the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April, May and June; formal organization was accomplished and the charter obtained in August, 1879. CHURCH OFFICERS Rev. MARY BAKER EDDY Pastor Emeritus GEORGE WENDELL ADAMS Christian Science Board of Directors CHARLES E. HEITMAN Mrs. NELVIA E. RITCHIE FRANCIS LYSTER JANDRON ALFRED PITTMAN Mrs. HELEN CHAFFEE ELWELL President THOMAS E. HURLEY First Reader Conducts services and reads from the Christian Science textbook, "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES" by Mary Baker Eddy Mrs. GEORGINA TENNANT Second Reader Reads from the SCRIPTURES GORDON V. COMER Clerk, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston, Mass. ROY GARRETT WATSON Treasurer, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston, Mass. 1947-1948 CHURCH BY-LAWS CHURCH OFFICERS Article I--NAMES, ELECTION, AND DUTIES Names. SECTION 1. The Church officers shall consist of the Pastor Emeritus, a Board of Directors, a President, a Clerk, a Treasurer, and two Readers. President. SECTION 2. The President shall be elected, subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus, by the Board of Directors[2] on Monday preceding the annual meeting of the Church. The President shall hold office for one year, and the same person is eligible for election but once in three years. [2] See under "Deed of Trust" for incorporation of the "Christian Science Board of Directors." Clerk and Treasurer. SECTION 3. The term of office for the Clerk and the Treasurer of this Church (also for the editors and the manager of The Christian Science Publishing Society, and the manager of the general Committee on Publication in Boston) is one year each, dating from the time of election to office. Incumbents who have served one year or more, may be re-elected, or new officers elected, at the annual meeting held for this purpose, by a unanimous vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors and the consent of the Pastor Emeritus given in her own handwriting. Readers. SECTION 4. Every third year Readers shall be elected in The Mother Church by the Board of Directors, which shall inform the Pastor Emeritus of the names of its candidates before they are elected; and if she objects, said candidates shall not be chosen. The Directors shall fix the salaries of the Readers. Directors. SECTION 5. The Christian Science Board of Directors shall consist of five members. They shall fill a vacancy occurring on that Board after the candidate is approved by the Pastor Emeritus. A majority vote or the request of Mrs. Eddy shall dismiss a member. Members shall neither report the discussions of this Board, nor those with Mrs. Eddy. Church Business. SECTION 6. The business of The Mother Church shall be transacted by its Christian Science Board of Directors. The manager of the general Committee on Publication in the United States shall order no special action to be taken by said Committee that is not named in the Manual of this Church without consulting with the full Board of Directors of The Mother Church and receiving the written consent of said Board. Publishing Buildings. SECTION 7. It shall be the duty of the Christian Science Board of Directors to provide a suitable building for the publication of _The Christian Science Journal_, _Christian Science Sentinel_, _Der Herold der Christian Science_, and all other Christian Science literature published by The Christian Science Publishing Society. It shall also be the duty of the Christian Science Board of Directors to provide suitable rooms, conveniently and pleasantly located in the same building, for the publication and sale of the books of which Mary Baker Eddy is, or may be, the author, and of other literature connected therewith. Trusteeships and Syndicates. SECTION 8. Boards of Trustees and Syndicates may be formed by The Mother Church, subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus. Duties of Church Officers. SECTION 9. Law constitutes government, and disobedience to the laws of The Mother Church must ultimate in annulling its Tenets and By-Laws. Without a proper system of government and form of action, nations, individuals, and religion are unprotected; hence the necessity of this By-Law and the warning of Holy Writ: "That servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." It is the duty of the Christian Science Board of Directors to watch and make sure that the officers of this Church perform the functions of their several offices promptly and well. If an officer fails to fulfil all the obligations of his office, the Board of Directors shall immediately call a meeting and notify this officer either to resign his place or to perform his office faithfully; then failing to do either, said officer shall be dismissed from this Church, and his dismissal shall be written on the Church records. It is the duty of any member of this Church, and especially of one who has been or who is the First Reader of a church, to inform the Board of Directors of the failure of the Committee on Publication or of any other officer in this Church to perform his official duties. A Director shall not make known the name of the complainant. If the Christian Science Board of Directors fails to fulfil the requirements of this By-Law, and a member of this Church or the Pastor Emeritus shall complain thereof to the Clerk and the complaint be found valid, the Directors shall resign their office or perform their functions faithfully. Failing to do thus, the Pastor Emeritus shall appoint five suitable members of this Church to fill the vacancy. The salary of the members of the Board of Directors shall be at present two thousand five hundred dollars each annually. Article II--READERS OF THE MOTHER CHURCH Election. SECTION 1. The Readers for The Mother Church shall be a man and a woman, one to read the BIBLE, and one to read SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. Eligibility. SECTION 2. The Directors shall select intelligible Readers who are exemplary Christians and good English scholars. They must be members of The Mother Church. Removal. SECTION 3. If a Reader in The Mother Church be found at any time inadequate or unworthy, he or she shall be removed from office by a majority vote of the Board of Directors and the consent of the Pastor Emeritus, and the vacancy supplied. First Reader's Residence. SECTION 4. Unless Mrs. Eddy requests otherwise, the First Reader of The Mother Church shall occupy, during his term of Readership, the house of the Pastor Emeritus, No. 385 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. The Board of Directors shall pay from the Church funds the taxes and rent on this property; the Board shall attend to the insurance before it expires, suitably furnish the house, and keep the property in good repair, so long as Mrs. Eddy does not occupy the house herself and the occupants are satisfactory to her. Article III--DUTIES OF READERS OF THE MOTHER CHURCH AND OF ITS BRANCH CHURCHES Moral Obligations. SECTION 1. The Readers of The Mother Church and of all its branch churches must devote a suitable portion of their time to preparation for the reading of the Sunday lesson,--a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends. They must keep themselves unspotted from the world,--uncontaminated with evil,--that the mental atmosphere they exhale shall promote health and holiness, even that spiritual _animus_ so universally needed. First Readers' Duties. SECTION 2. It shall be the duty of the First Readers to conduct the principal part of the Sunday services, and the Wednesday evening meetings. Suitable Selections. SECTION 3. The First Readers shall read, as a part of the Wednesday evening services, selections from the SCRIPTURES, and from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. Order of Reading. SECTION 4. The First Readers in the Christian Science churches shall read the correlative texts in SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES; and the Second Readers shall read the BIBLE texts. The readings from the SCRIPTURES shall precede the readings from SCIENCE AND HEALTH. The Readers shall not read from copies or manuscripts, but from the books. Naming Book and Author. SECTION 5. The Readers of SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, before commencing to read from this book, shall distinctly announce the full title of the book and give the author's name. Such announcement shall be made but once during the lesson. Readers in Branch Churches. SECTION 6. These Readers shall be members of The Mother Church. They shall read understandingly and be well educated. They shall make no remarks explanatory of the LESSON-SERMON at any time, but they shall read all notices and remarks that may be printed in the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE QUARTERLY. This By-Law applies to Readers in all the branch churches. Enforcement of By-Laws. SECTION 7. It shall be the duty of every member of The Mother Church, who is a First Reader in a Church of Christ, Scientist, to enforce the discipline and by-laws of the church in which he is Reader. A Reader not a Leader. SECTION 8. The Church Reader shall not be a Leader, but he shall maintain the Tenets, Rules, and discipline of the Church. A Reader shall not be a President of a church. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP Article IV--QUALIFICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP Believe in Christian Science. SECTION 1. To become a member of The Mother Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., the applicant must be a believer in the doctrines of Christian Science, according to the platform and teaching contained in the Christian Science textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. The BIBLE, together with SCIENCE AND HEALTH and other works by Mrs. Eddy, shall be his only textbooks for self-instruction in Christian Science, and for teaching and practising metaphysical healing. Free from Other Denominations. SECTION 2. This Church will receive a member of another Church of Christ, Scientist, but not a church member from a different denomination until that membership is dissolved. Children when Twelve Years Old. SECTION 3. Children who have arrived at the age of twelve years, who are approved, and whose applications are countersigned by one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, by a Director, or by a student of the Board of Education, may be admitted to membership with The Mother Church. Article V--APPLICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP Students of the College. SECTION 1. Applications for membership with The Mother Church from students of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College who studied with Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, shall be signed by the Christian Science Board of Directors as evidence of the loyalty of the applicants. Other Students. SECTION 2. Applicants for membership who have not studied Christian Science with Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, can unite with this Church only by approval from students of Mrs. Eddy, loyal to the teachings of the textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, or from members of The Mother Church, as provided in Article VI, Sect. 2, of these By-Laws. Students' Pupils. SECTION 3. Applications for membership with The Mother Church, coming from pupils of loyal students who have taken the Primary or Normal Course at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College or in the Board of Education, or from pupils of those who have passed an examination by the Board of Education, shall have the approval and signature of their teachers, except in such cases as are provided for in Sect. 4 of this Article. Exceptional Cases. SECTION 4. Loyal Christian Scientists whose teachers are deceased, absent, or disloyal, or those whose teachers, for insufficient cause, refuse to endorse their applications for membership with The Mother Church,--can apply to the Clerk of this Church, and present to him a recommendation signed by three members thereof in good standing, after which, the unanimous vote of the Board of Directors may admit said applicant to membership. Addressed to Clerk. SECTION 5. All applications for membership must be addressed to the Clerk of the Church. Endorsing Applications. SECTION 6. A member of The Mother Church shall not endorse nor countersign an application for membership therewith until after the blank has been properly filled out by an applicant. A member who violates this By-Law shall be disciplined. Notice of Rejection. SECTION 7. If an application for membership with The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is rejected, the Clerk of the Church shall send to the applicant a notice of such rejection; but neither the Clerk nor the Church shall be obliged to report the cause for rejection. Article VI--RECOMMENDATION AND ELECTION Pupils of Normal Students. SECTION 1. One Normal student cannot recommend the pupil of another Normal student, so long as both are loyal to their Leader and to the Christian Science textbook, except as provided for in Article V, Sect. 4. Members of The Mother Church. SECTION 2. Only members of The Mother Church are qualified to approve for membership individuals who are known to them to be Christians, and faithful, loyal students of the textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. If the approver is not a loyal student of Mrs. Eddy, a Director of this Church, or a student of the Board of Education who holds a degree, the application must be countersigned by one of these. Election. SECTION 3. Applicants for membership in this Church, whose applications are correctly prepared, may be elected by majority vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors at the semi-annual meetings held for this purpose. Article VII--PROBATIONARY MEMBERSHIP Members who once Withdrew. SECTION 1. Individuals who have heretofore been members of this Church, or were members of the Church of Christ, Scientist, organized in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy, but who have voluntarily withdrawn, may be received into this Church on one year's probation, provided they are willing and anxious to live according to its requirements and make application for membership according to its By-Laws. If, at the expiration of said one year, they are found worthy, they shall be received into full membership, but if not found worthy their applications shall be void. Members once Dismissed. SECTION 2. A full member or a probationary member, who has been excommunicated once, and who afterward, when sufficient time has elapsed thoroughly to test his sincerity, gives due evidence of having genuinely repented and of being radically reformed, shall be eligible to probationary membership upon a unanimous vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors. Ineligible for Probation. SECTION 3. If a member has been twice notified of his excommunication, he shall not again be received into this Church. DISCIPLINE Article VIII--GUIDANCE OF MEMBERS A Rule for Motives and Acts. SECTION 1. Neither animosity nor mere personal attachment should impel the motives or acts of the members of The Mother Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in rebuking sin, in true brotherliness, charitableness, and forgiveness. The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously. To be Read in Church. SECTION 2. The above Church Rule shall be read in The Mother Church and in the branch churches by the First Reader on the first Sunday of each month. On Communion day the Church Tenets are to be read. Christ Jesus the Ensample. SECTION 3. He who dated the Christian era is the Ensample in Christian Science. Careless comparison or irreverent reference to Christ Jesus is abnormal in a Christian Scientist, and is prohibited. When it is necessary to show the great gulf between Christian Science and theosophy, hypnotism, or spiritualism, do it, but without hard words. The wise man saith, "A soft answer turneth away wrath." However despitefully used and misrepresented by the churches or the press, in return employ no violent invective, and do good unto your enemies when the opportunity occurs. A departure from this rule disqualifies a member for office in the Church or on the Board of Lectureship, and renders this member liable to discipline and, possibly, dismissal from The Mother Church. Daily Prayer. SECTION 4. It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to pray each day: "Thy kingdom come;" let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them! Prayer in Church. SECTION 5. The prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively. Alertness to Duty. SECTION 6. It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged,--and justified or condemned. One Christ. SECTION 7. In accordance with the Christian Science textbooks,--the BIBLE, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES,--and in accord with all of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, members of this Church shall neither entertain a belief nor signify a belief in more than one Christ, even that Christ whereof the Scripture beareth testimony. No Malpractice. SECTION 8. Members will not intentionally or knowingly mentally malpractise, inasmuch as Christian Science can only be practised according to the Golden Rule: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (Matt. 7:12.) A member of The Mother Church who mentally malpractises upon or treats our Leader or her staff without her or their consent shall be disciplined, and a second offense as aforesaid shall cause the name of said member to be dropped forever from The Mother Church. Formulas Forbidden. SECTION 9. No member shall use written formulas, nor permit his patients or pupils to use them, as auxiliaries to teaching Christian Science or for healing the sick. Whatever is requisite for either is contained in the books of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Sometimes she may strengthen the faith by a written text as no one else can. No Adulterating Christian Science. SECTION 10. A member of this Church shall not publish profuse quotations from Mary Baker Eddy's copyrighted works without her permission, and shall not plagiarize her writings. This By-Law not only calls more serious attention to the commandment of the Decalogue, but tends to prevent Christian Science from being _adulterated_. No Incorrect Literature. SECTION 11. A member of this Church shall neither buy, sell, nor circulate Christian Science literature which is not correct in its statement of the divine Principle and rules and the demonstration of Christian Science. Also the spirit in which the writer has written his literature shall be definitely considered. His writings must show strict adherence to the Golden Rule, or his literature shall not be adjudged Christian Science. A departure from the spirit or letter of this By-Law involves schisms in our Church and the possible loss, for a time, of Christian Science. Obnoxious Books. SECTION 12. A member of this Church shall not patronize a publishing house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious books. Per Capita Tax. SECTION 13. Every member of The Mother Church shall pay annually a per capita tax of not less than one dollar, which shall be forwarded each year to the Church Treasurer. Church Periodicals. SECTION 14. It shall be the privilege and duty of every member, who can afford it, to subscribe for the periodicals which are the organs of this Church; and it shall be the duty of the Directors to see that these periodicals are ably edited and kept abreast of the times. Church Organizations Ample. SECTION 15. Members of this Church shall not unite with organizations which impede their progress in Christian Science. God requires our whole heart, and he supplies within the wide channels of The Mother Church dutiful and sufficient occupation for all its members. Joining Another Society. SECTION 16. It shall be the duty of the members of The Mother Church and of its branches to promote peace on earth and good will toward men; but members of The Mother Church shall not hereafter become members of other societies except those specified in the Mother Church Manual, and they shall strive to promote the welfare of all mankind by demonstrating the rules of divine Love. Forbidden Membership. SECTION 17. A member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., shall not be a member of any church whose Readers are not Christian Scientists and members of The Mother Church. Officious Members. SECTION 18. A member of The Mother Church is not entitled to hold office or read in branch churches of this denomination except by invitation. Legal Titles. SECTION 19. Students of Christian Science must drop the titles of Reverend and Doctor, except those who have received these titles under the _laws_ of the _State_. Illegal Adoption. SECTION 20. No person shall be a member of this Church who claims a spiritually adopted child or a spiritually adopted husband or wife. There must be legal adoption and legal marriage, which can be verified according to the laws of our land. Use of Initials "C.S." SECTION 21. A member of The Mother Church shall not place the initials "C.S." after his name on circulars, cards, or leaflets, which advertise his business or profession, except as a Christian Science practitioner. Practitioners and Patients. SECTION 22. Members of this Church shall hold in sacred confidence all private communications made to them by their patients; also such information as may come to them by reason of their relation of practitioner to patient. A failure to do this shall subject the offender to Church discipline. A member of The Mother Church shall not, under pardonable circumstances, sue his patient for recovery of payment for said member's practice, on penalty of discipline and liability to have his name removed from membership. Also he shall reasonably reduce his price in chronic cases of recovery, and in cases where he has not effected a cure. A Christian Scientist is a humanitarian; he is benevolent, forgiving, long-suffering, and seeks to overcome evil with good. Duty to Patients. SECTION 23. If a member of this Church has a patient whom he does not heal, and whose case he cannot fully diagnose, he may consult with an M. D. on the anatomy involved. And it shall be the privilege of a Christian Scientist to confer with an M. D. on Ontology, or the Science of being. Testimonials. SECTION 24. "Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (St. Paul). Testimony in regard to the healing of the sick is highly important. More than a mere rehearsal of blessings, it scales the pinnacle of praise and illustrates the demonstration of Christ, "who healeth all thy diseases" (Psalm 103:3). This testimony, however, shall not include a description of symptoms or of suffering, though the generic name of the disease may be indicated. This By-Law applies to testimonials which appear in the periodicals and to those which are given at the Wednesday evening meeting. Charity to All. SECTION 25. While members of this Church do not believe in the doctrines of theosophy, hypnotism, or spiritualism, they cherish no enmity toward those who do believe in such doctrines, and will not harm them. But whenever God calls a member to bear testimony to Truth and to defend the Cause of Christ, he shall do it with love and without fear. Uncharitable Publications. SECTION 26. A member of this Church shall not publish, nor cause to be published, an article that is uncharitable or impertinent towards religion, medicine, the courts, or the laws of our land. The Golden Rule. SECTION 27. A member of The Mother Church shall not haunt Mrs. Eddy's drive when she goes out, continually stroll by her house, or make a summer resort near her for such a purpose. Numbering the People. SECTION 28. Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people. Our Church Edifices. SECTION 29. The periodicals of our denomination do not publish descriptions of our church edifices, but they may quote from other periodicals or give incidental narratives. No Monopoly. SECTION 30. A Scientist shall not endeavor to monopolize the healing work in any church or locality, to the exclusion of others, but all who understand the teachings of Christian Science are privileged to enter into this holy work, and "by their fruits ye shall know them." Christian Science Nurse. SECTION 31. A member of The Mother Church who represents himself or herself as a Christian Science nurse shall be one who has a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice, who thoroughly understands the practical wisdom necessary in a sick room, and who can take proper care of the sick. The cards of such persons may be inserted in _The Christian Science Journal_ under rules established by the publishers. Article IX--MARRIAGE AND DECEASE A Legal Ceremony. SECTION 1. If a Christian Scientist is to be married, the ceremony shall be performed by a clergyman who is legally authorized. Sudden Decease. SECTION 2. If a member of The Mother Church shall decease suddenly, without previous injury or illness, and the cause thereof be unknown, an autopsy shall be made by qualified experts. When it is possible the body of a female shall be prepared for burial by _one of her own sex_. Article X--DEBATING IN PUBLIC No Unauthorized Debating. SECTION 1. A member of this Church shall not debate on Christian Science in public debating assemblies, without the consent of the Board of Directors. Article XI--COMPLAINTS Departure from Tenets. SECTION 1. If a member of this Church shall depart from the Tenets and be found having the name without the life of a Christian Scientist, and another member in good standing shall from Christian motives make this evident, a meeting of the Board of Directors shall be called, and the offender's case shall be tried and said member exonerated, put on probation, or excommunicated. Violation of By-Laws. SECTION 2. A member who is found violating any of the By-Laws or Rules herein set forth, shall be admonished in consonance with the Scriptural demand in Matthew 18:15-17; and if he neglect to accept such admonition, he shall be placed on probation, or if he repeat the offense, his name shall be dropped from the roll of Church membership. Violation of Christian Fellowship. SECTION 3. Any member who shall unjustly aggrieve or vilify the Pastor Emeritus or another member, or who does not live in Christian fellowship with members who are in good and regular standing with this Church, shall either withdraw from the Church or be excommunicated. Preliminary Requirement. SECTION 4. No church discipline shall ensue until the requirements according to the Scriptures, in Matthew 18:15-17, have been strictly obeyed, unless a By-Law governing the case provides for immediate action. Authority. SECTION 5. The Christian Science Board of Directors has power to discipline, place on probation, remove from membership, or to excommunicate members of The Mother Church. Only the members of this Board shall be present at meetings for the examination of complaints against church members; and they alone shall vote on cases involving The Mother Church discipline. Members in Mother Church Only. SECTION 6. A complaint against a member of The Mother Church, _if said member belongs to no branch church_ and if this complaint is not for _mental malpractice_, shall be laid before this Board, and within ten days thereafter, the Clerk of the Church shall address a letter of inquiry to the member complained of as to the validity of the charge. If a member is found guilty of that whereof he is accused and his previous character has been good, his confession of his error and evidence of his compliance with our Church Rules shall be deemed sufficient by the Board for forgiveness for once, and the Clerk of the Church shall immediately so inform him. But a second offense shall dismiss a member from the Church. Working Against the Cause. SECTION 7. If a member of this Church shall, mentally or otherwise, persist in working against the interests of another member, or the interests of our Pastor Emeritus and the accomplishment of what she understands is advantageous to this Church and to the Cause of Christian Science, or shall influence others thus to act, upon her complaint or the complaint of a member for her or for himself, it shall be the duty of the Board of Directors immediately to call a meeting, and drop forever the name of the member guilty of this offense from the roll of Church membership. No Unchristian Conduct. SECTION 8. If a member of this Church were to treat the author of our textbook disrespectfully and cruelly, upon her complaint that member should be excommunicated. If a member, without her having requested the information, shall trouble her on subjects unnecessarily and without her consent, it shall be considered an offense. Not to Learn Hypnotism. SECTION 9. Members of this Church shall not learn hypnotism on penalty of being excommunicated from this Church. No member shall enter a complaint of mental malpractice for a sinister purpose. If the author of SCIENCE AND HEALTH shall bear witness to the offense of mental malpractice, it shall be considered a sufficient evidence thereof. Publications Unjust. SECTION 10. If a member of The Mother Church publishes, or causes to be published, an article that is false or unjust, hence injurious, to Christian Science or to its Leader, and if, upon complaint by another member, the Board of Directors finds that the offense has been committed, the offender shall be suspended for not less than three years from his or her office in this Church and from Church membership. The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, Tenets. SECTION 11. If a member of The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, or a member of a branch of this Church break the rules of its Tenets as to unjust and unmerciful conduct--on complaint of Mrs. Eddy our Pastor Emeritus--and this complaint being found valid, his or her name shall be erased from The Mother Church and the branch church's list of membership and the offender shall not be received into The Mother Church or a branch church for twelve years. Special Offense. SECTION 12. If a member of this Church, either by word or work, represents falsely to or of the Leader and Pastor Emeritus, said member shall immediately be disciplined, and a second similar offense shall remove his or her name from membership in The Mother Church. Members of Branch Churches. SECTION 13. A member of both The Mother Church and a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, or a Reader, shall not report nor send notices to The Mother Church, or to the Pastor Emeritus, of errors of the members of their local church; but they shall strive to overcome these errors. Each church shall separately and independently discipline its own members,--if this sad necessity occurs. Article XII--TEACHERS Probation. SECTION 1. For sufficient reasons it may be decided that a teacher has so strayed as not to be fit for the work of a Reader in church or a teacher of Christian Science. Although repentant and forgiven by the Church and retaining his membership, this weak member shall not be counted loyal till after three years of exemplary character. Then the Board of Directors may decide if his loyalty has been proved by uniform maintenance of the life of a consistent, consecrated Christian Scientist. Misteaching. SECTION 2. If a member of this Church is found trying to practise or to teach Christian Science contrary to the statement thereof in its textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, it shall be the duty of the Board of Directors to admonish that member according to Article XI, Sect. 4. Then, if said member persists in this offense, his or her name shall be dropped from the roll of this Church. MEETINGS Article XIII--REGULAR AND SPECIAL MEETINGS Annual Meetings. SECTION 1. The regular meetings of The Mother Church shall be held annually, on Monday following the first Sunday in June. No other than its of officers are required to be present. These assemblies shall be for listening to the reports of Treasurer, Clerk, and Committees, and general reports from the Field. Meetings of Board of Directors. SECTION 2. The annual meeting of the Christian Science Board of Directors, for electing officers and other business, shall be held on Monday preceding the annual meeting of the Church. Regular meetings for electing candidates to membership with The Mother Church, and for the transaction of such other business as may properly come before these meetings, shall be held on the Friday preceding the first Sunday in June, and on the first Friday in November of each year. Special meetings may be held at any time upon the call of the Clerk. Called only by the Clerk. SECTION 3. Before calling a meeting of the members of this Church (excepting its regular sessions) it shall be the duty of the Clerk to inform the Board of Directors and the Pastor Emeritus of his intention, and to state definitely the purpose for which the members are to convene. The Clerk must have the consent of this Board and the Pastor Emeritus, before he can call said meeting. CHURCH SERVICES Article XIV--THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PASTOR Ordination. SECTION 1. I, Mary Baker Eddy, ordain the BIBLE, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, Pastor over The Mother Church,--The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.,--and they will continue to preach for this Church and the world. The Lesson-Sermon. SECTION 2. The subject of the Lesson-Sermon in the morning service of The Mother Church, and of the branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, shall be repeated at the other services on Sunday. The correlative Biblical texts in the Lesson-Sermon shall extend from Genesis to Revelation. Article XV--READING IN PUBLIC Announcing Author's Name. SECTION 1. To pour into the ears of listeners the sacred revelations of Christian Science indiscriminately, or without characterizing their origin and thus distinguishing them from the writings of authors who think at random on this subject, is to lose some weight in the scale of right thinking. Therefore it is the duty of every member of this Church, when publicly reading or quoting from the books or poems of our Pastor Emeritus, first to announce the name of the author. Members shall also instruct their pupils to adopt the aforenamed method for the benefit of our Cause. Article XVI--WELCOMING STRANGERS The Leader's Welcome. SECTION 1. Mrs. Eddy welcomes to her seats in the church, persons of all sects and denominations who come to listen to the Sunday sermon and are not otherwise provided with seats. The Local Members' Welcome. SECTION 2. It shall be the duty and privilege of the local members of The Mother Church to give their seats, if necessary, to strangers who may come to attend the morning services. Article XVII--SERVICES UNINTERRUPTED Continued Throughout the Year. SECTION 1. The services of The Mother Church shall be continued twelve months each year. One meeting on Sunday during the months of July and August is sufficient. A Christian Scientist is not fatigued by prayer, by reading the Scriptures or the Christian Science textbook. Amusement or idleness is weariness. Truth and Love rest the weary and heavy laden. Easter Observances. SECTION 2. In the United States there shall be no special observances, festivities, nor gifts at the Easter season by members of The Mother Church. Gratitude and love should abide in every heart each day of all the years. Those sacred words of our beloved Master, "Let the dead bury their dead," and "Follow thou me," appeal to daily Christian endeavors for the living whereby to exemplify our risen Lord. Laying a Corner Stone. SECTION 3. No large gathering of people nor display shall be allowed when laying the Corner Stone of a Church of Christ, Scientist. Let the ceremony be devout. No special trowel should be used. (See SCIENCE AND HEALTH, page 140.) Overflow Meetings. SECTION 4. A Church of Christ, Scientist, shall not hold two or more Sunday services at the same hour. Article XVIII--COMMUNION No more Communion. SECTION 1. The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall observe no more Communion seasons. Communion of Branch Churches. SECTION 2. The Communion shall be observed in the branch churches on the second Sunday in January and July of each year, and at this service the Tenets of The Mother Church are to be read. Article XIX--MUSIC IN THE CHURCH Soloist and Organist. SECTION 1. The music in The Mother Church shall not be operatic, but of an appropriate religious character and of a recognized standard of musical excellence; it shall be played in a dignified and suitable manner. Music from the organ alone should continue about eight or nine minutes for the voluntary and six or seven minutes for the postlude, the offertory conforming to the time required to take the collection. The solo singer shall not neglect to sing any special hymn selected by the Board of Directors. Article XX--SUNDAY SCHOOL The Sunday School. SECTION 1. Pupils may be received in the Sunday School classes of any Church of Christ, Scientist, up to the age of twenty years, and by transfer from another Church of Christ, Scientist, up to that age, but no pupil shall remain in the Sunday School of any Church of Christ, Scientist, after reaching the age of twenty. None except the officers, teachers, and pupils should attend the Sunday School exercises. Teaching the Children. SECTION 2. The Sabbath School children shall be taught the Scriptures, and they shall be instructed according to their understanding or ability to grasp the simpler meanings of the divine Principle that they are taught. Subject for Lessons. SECTION 3. The first lessons of the children should be the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20: 3-17), the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6: 9-13), and its Spiritual Interpretation by Mary Baker Eddy, Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 3-12). The next lessons consist of such questions and answers as are adapted to a juvenile class, and may be found in the Christian Science Quarterly Lessons, read in Church services. The instruction given by the children's teachers must not deviate from the absolute Christian Science contained in their textbook. READING ROOMS Article XXI Establishment. SECTION 1. Each church of the Christian Science denomination shall have a Reading Room, though two or more churches may unite in having Reading Rooms, provided these rooms are well located. Librarian. SECTION 2. The individuals who take charge of the Reading Rooms of The Mother Church shall be elected by the Christian Science Board of Directors, subject to the approval of Mary Baker Eddy. He or she shall have no bad habits, shall have had experience in the Field, shall be well educated, and a devout Christian Scientist.[3] Literature in Reading Rooms. SECTION 3. The literature sold or exhibited in the reading rooms of Christian Science Churches shall consist only of _Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures_, by Mary Baker Eddy, and other writings by this author; also the literature published or sold by The Christian Science Publishing Society. [3] See also Article XXV, Sect. 7. RELATION AND DUTIES OF MEMBERS TO PASTOR EMERITUS Article XXII The Title of Mother Changed. SECTION 1. In the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five, loyal Christian Scientists had given to the author of their textbook, the Founder of Christian Science, the individual, endearing term of Mother. At first Mrs. Eddy objected to being called thus, but afterward consented on the ground that this appellative in the Church meant nothing more than a tender term such as sister or brother. In the year nineteen hundred and three and after, owing to the public misunderstanding of this name, it is the duty of Christian Scientists to drop the word _mother_ and to substitute Leader, already used in our periodicals. A Member not a Leader. SECTION 2. A member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., shall not be called Leader by members of this Church, when this term is used in connection with Christian Science. Obedience Required. SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the officers of this Church, of the editors of the _Christian Science Journal_, _Sentinel_, and _Der Herold_, of the members of the Committees on Publication, of the Trustees of The Christian Science Publishing Society, and of the Board of Education promptly to comply with any written order, signed by Mary Baker Eddy, which applies to their official functions. Disobedience to this By-Law shall be sufficient cause for the removal of the offending member from office. The vacancy shall be supplied by a majority vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors, and the candidate shall be subject to the approval of Mary Baker Eddy. Understanding Communications. SECTION 4. If the Clerk of this Church shall receive a communication from the Pastor Emeritus which he does not fully understand, he shall inform her of this fact before presenting it to the Church and obtain a clear understanding of the matter,--then act in accordance therewith. Interpreting Communications. SECTION 5. If at a meeting of this Church a doubt or disagreement shall arise among the members as to the signification of the communications of the Pastor Emeritus to them, before action is taken it shall be the duty of the Clerk to report to her the vexed question and to await her explanation thereof. Reading and Attesting Letters. SECTION 6. When a letter or a message from the Pastor Emeritus is brought before a meeting of this Church, or she is referred to as authority for business, it shall be the duty of the Church to inquire if all of the letter has been read, and to require all of it to be read; also to have any authority supposed to come from her satisfactorily attested. Unauthorized Reports. SECTION 7. Members of this Church shall not report on authority an order from Mrs. Eddy that she has not sent, either to the Boards or to the executive bodies of this Church. The Pastor Emeritus is not to be consulted on cases of discipline, on the cases of candidates for admission to this Church, or on the cases of those on trial for dismissal from the Church. Private Communications. SECTION 8. A strictly private communication from the Pastor Emeritus to a member of her Church shall not be made public without her written consent. Unauthorized Legal Action. SECTION 9. A member of this Church shall not employ an attorney, nor take legal action on a case not provided for in its By-Laws--if said case relates to the person or to the property of Mary Baker Eddy--without having personally conferred with her on said subject. Duty to God. SECTION 10. Members of this Church who turn their attention from the divine Principle of being to personality, sending gifts, congratulatory despatches or letters to the Pastor Emeritus on Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, or Easter, break a rule of this Church and are amenable therefor. Opportunity for Serving the Leader. SECTION 11. At the written request of the Pastor Emeritus, Mrs. Eddy, the Board of Directors shall immediately notify a person who has been a member of this Church at least three years to go in ten days to her, and it shall be the duty of the member thus notified to remain with Mrs. Eddy three years consecutively. A member who leaves her in less time without the Directors' consent or who declines to obey this call to duty, upon Mrs. Eddy's complaint thereof shall be excommunicated from The Mother Church. Members thus serving the Leader shall be paid semi-annually at the rate of one thousand dollars yearly in addition to rent and board. Those members whom she teaches the course in Divinity, and who remain with her three consecutive years, receive the degree of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Location. SECTION 12. Rev. Mary Baker Eddy calls to her home or allows to visit or to locate therein only those individuals whom she engages through the Christian Science Board of Directors of the Mother Church. This By-Law takes effect on Dec. 15, 1908. Agreement Required. SECTION 13. When the Christian Science Board of Directors calls a student in accordance with Article XXII, Sect. 11, of our Church Manual to the home of their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, said student shall come under a signed agreement to remain with Mrs. Eddy if she so desires, during the time specified in the Church Manual. Incomplete Term of Service. SECTION 14. If a student who has been called to serve our Leader in accordance with Article XXII, Sect. 11, of the Church Manual leaves her before the expiration of the time therein mentioned such student shall pay to Mrs. Eddy whatsoever she may charge for what she has taught him or her during the time of such service. Help. SECTION 15. If the author of the Christian Science textbook call on this Board for household help or a handmaid, the Board shall immediately appoint a proper member of this Church therefor, and the appointee shall go immediately in obedience to the call. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt. 10:37.) Students with Mrs. Eddy. SECTION 16. Students employed by Mrs. Eddy at her home shall not take care of their churches or attend to other affairs outside of her house. Mrs. Eddy's Room. SECTION 17. The room in The Mother Church formerly known as "Mother's Room" shall hereafter be closed to visitors. Pastor Emeritus to be Consulted. SECTION 18. The Mother Church shall not make a church By-Law, nor enter into a business transaction with a Christian Scientist in the employ of Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, without first consulting her on said subject and adhering strictly to her advice thereon. THE MOTHER CHURCH AND BRANCH CHURCHES Article XXIII Local Self-government. SECTION 1. The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall assume no general official control of other churches, and it shall be controlled by none other. Each Church of Christ, Scientist, shall have its own form of government. No conference of churches shall be held, unless it be when our churches, located in the same State, convene to confer on a statute of said State, or to confer harmoniously on individual unity and action of the churches in said State. Titles. SECTION 2. "The First Church of Christ, Scientist," is the legal title of The Mother Church. Branch churches of The Mother Church may take the title of First Church of Christ, Scientist; Second Church of Christ, Scientist; and so on, where more than one church is established in the same place; but the article "The" must not be used before titles of branch churches, nor written on applications for membership in naming such churches. Mother Church Unique. SECTION 3. In its relation to other Christian Science churches, in its By-Laws and self-government, The Mother Church stands alone; it occupies a position that no other church can fill. Then for a branch church to assume such position would be disastrous to Christian Science. Therefore, no Church of Christ, Scientist, shall be considered loyal that has branch churches or adopts The Mother Church's form of government, except in such cases as are specially allowed and named in this Manual. Tenets Copyrighted. SECTION 4. Branch churches shall not write the Tenets of The Mother Church in their church books, except they give the name of their author and her permission to publish them as Tenets of The Mother Church, copyrighted in SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. Manual. SECTION 5. Branch churches shall not adopt, print, nor publish the Manual of The Mother Church. See Article XXXV, Sect. 1. Organizing Churches. SECTION 6. A member of this Church who obeys its By-Laws and is a loyal exemplary Christian Scientist working in the Field, is eligible to form a church in conformity with Sect. 7 of this Article, and to have church services conducted by reading the SCRIPTURES and the Christian Science textbook. This church shall be acknowledged publicly as a Church of Christ, Scientist. Upon proper application, made in accordance with the rules of The Christian Science Publishing Society, the services of such a church may be advertised in _The Christian Science Journal_. The branch churches shall be individual, and not more than two small churches shall consolidate under one church government. If the Pastor Emeritus, Mrs. Eddy, should relinquish her place as the head or Leader of The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, each branch church shall continue its present form of government in consonance with The Mother Church Manual. Requirements for Organizing Branch Churches. SECTION 7. A branch church of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass., shall not be organized with less than sixteen loyal Christian Scientists, four of whom are members of The Mother Church. This membership shall include at least one active practitioner whose card is published in the list of practitioners in _The Christian Science Journal_. Privilege of Members. SECTION 8. Members in good standing with The Mother Church, who are members of the faculty, instructors, or students organization. No Close Communion. SECTION 9. The Mother Church and the branch churches shall not confine their membership to the pupils of one teacher. No Interference. SECTION 10. A member of The Mother Church may be a member of one branch Church of Christ, Scientist, or of one Christian Science society holding public services, but he shall not be a member of both a branch church and a society; neither shall he exercise supervision or control over any other church. In Christian Science each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in its government, and no individual, and no other church shall interfere with its affairs. Teachers' and Practitioners' Offices. SECTION 11. Teachers and practitioners of Christian Science shall not have their offices or rooms in the branch churches, in the reading rooms, nor in rooms connected therewith. Recognition. SECTION 12. In order to be eligible to a card in _The Christian Science Journal_, churches and societies are required to acknowledge as such all other Christian Science churches and societies advertised in said _Journal_, and to maintain toward them an attitude of Christian fellowship. GUARDIANSHIP OF CHURCH FUNDS Article XXIV Church Edifice a Testimonial. SECTION 1. Whereas, on March 20, 1895, the Christian Science Board of Directors, in behalf of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass., presented to Rev. Mary Baker Eddy their church edifice as a Testimonial of this Church's love and gratitude, and she, with grateful acknowledgments thereof, declined to receive this munificent gift, she now understands the financial situation between the Christian Science Board of Directors and said Church to be as follows:-- Financial Situation. SECTION 2. The Christian Science Board of Directors owns the church edifices, with the land whereon they stand, legally; and the Church members own the aforesaid premises and buildings, beneficially. After the first church was built, the balance of the building funds, which remained in the hands of the Directors, belonged to the Church, and not solely to the Directors. The balance of the church building funds, which can be spared after the debts are paid, should remain on safe deposit, to be hereafter used for the benefit of this Church, as the right occasion may call for it. The following indicates the proper management of the Church funds:-- Report of Directors. SECTION 3. It shall be the duty of the Christian Science Board of Directors to have the books of the Church Treasurer audited semi-annually, and to report at the annual Church meeting the amount of funds which the Church has on hand, the amount of its indebtedness and of its expenditures for the last year. Finance Committee. SECTION 4. There shall be a Committee on Finance, which shall consist of three members of this Church in good standing. Its members shall be appointed annually by the Christian Science Board of Directors and with the consent of the Pastor Emeritus. They shall hold quarterly meetings and keep themselves thoroughly informed as to the real estate owned by this Church and the amount of funds received by the Treasurer of The Mother Church, who is individually responsible for said funds. They shall have the books of the Christian Science Board of Directors and the books of the Church Treasurer audited annually by an honest, competent accountant. The books are to be audited on May first. Prior to paying bills against the Church, the Treasurer of this Church shall submit them all to said committee for examination. This committee shall decide thereupon by a unanimous vote, and its endorsement of the bills shall render them payable. If it be found that the Church funds have not been properly managed, it shall be the duty of the Board of Directors and the Treasurer to be individually responsible for the performance of their several offices satisfactorily, and for the proper distribution of the funds of which they are the custodians. God's Requirement. SECTION 5. God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. Provision for the Future. SECTION 6. In case of any possible future deviation from duty, the Committee on Finance shall visit the Board of Directors, and, in a Christian spirit and manner, demand that each member thereof comply with the By-Laws of the Church. If any Director fails to heed this admonition, he may be dismissed from office and the vacancy supplied by the Board. Debt and Duty. SECTION 7. The Mother Church shall not be made legally responsible for the debts of individuals except such debts as are specified in its By-Laws. Donations from this Church shall not be made without the written consent of the Pastor Emeritus. Also important movements of the manager of the Committee on Publication shall be sanctioned by the Board of Directors and be subject to the approval of Mary Baker Eddy. (See Article I, Sect. 6.) Emergencies. SECTION 8. The Treasurer, personally, or through the Clerk of the Church, may pay from the funds of the Church bills of immediate necessity not exceeding $200 for any one transaction, and he may keep on deposit the sum of $500 with the Clerk, as a petty cash fund, to be used by him for the payment of such bills. Such payments shall be reported, on the first of the following month, to the Board of Directors and the Committee on Finance, for their approval. Committee on Business. SECTION 9. The Christian Science Board of Directors shall elect annually a Committee on Business, which shall consist of not less than three loyal members of The Mother Church, who shall transact promptly and efficiently such business as Mrs. Eddy, the Directors, or the Committee on Publication shall commit to it. While the members of this Committee are engaged in the transaction of the business assigned to them they shall be paid from the Church funds. Before being eligible for office the names of the persons nominated for said office shall be presented to Mrs. Eddy for her written approval. THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY Article XXV Board of Trustees. SECTION 1. The Board of Trustees, constituted by a Deed of Trust given by Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the Pastor Emeritus of this Church, on January twenty-fifth, 1898, shall hold and manage the property therein conveyed, and conduct the business of "The Christian Science Publishing Society" on a strictly Christian basis, for the promotion of the interests of Christian Science. Disposal of Funds. SECTION 2. The net profits of the business shall be paid over semi-annually to the Treasurer of The Mother Church. He shall hold this money subject to the order of the Christian Science Board of Directors, which is authorized to order its disposition only in accordance with the By-Laws contained in this Manual. Vacancies in Trusteeship. SECTION 3. The Christian Science Board of Directors shall have the power to declare vacancies in said trusteeship, for such reasons as to the Board may seem expedient. Whenever a vacancy shall occur, the Pastor Emeritus reserves the right to fill the same by appointment; but if she does not elect to exercise this right, the remaining trustees shall fill the vacancy, subject to her approval. Editors and Manager. SECTION 4. The term of office for the editors and the manager of The Christian Science Publishing Society is one year each, dating from the time of election to the office. Incumbents who have served one year or more can be re-elected, or new officers elected, by a unanimous vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors, and the consent of the Pastor Emeritus given in her own handwriting. Suitable Employees. SECTION 5. A person who is not accepted by the Pastor Emeritus and the Christian Science Board of Directors as suitable, shall in no manner be connected with publishing her books, nor with editing or publishing _The Christian Science Journal_, _Christian Science Sentinel_, _Der Herold der Christian Science_, nor with The Christian Science Publishing Society. Periodicals. SECTION 6. Periodicals which shall at any time be published by The Christian Science Publishing Society, shall be copyrighted and conducted according to the provisions in the Deed of Trust relating to _The Christian Science Journal_. Rule of Conduct. SECTION 7. No objectionable pictures shall be exhibited in the rooms where the Christian Science textbook is published or sold. No idle gossip, no slander, no mischief-making, no evil speaking shall be allowed. Books to be Published. SECTION 8. Only the Publishing Society of The Mother Church selects, approves, and publishes the books and literature it sends forth. If Mary Baker Eddy disapproves of certain books or literature, the Society will not publish them. The Committees on Publication are in no manner connected with these functions. A book or an article of which Mrs. Eddy is the author shall not be published nor republished by this Society without her knowledge or written consent. Removal of Cards. SECTION 9. No cards shall be removed from our periodicals without the request of the advertiser, except by a majority vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors at a meeting held for this purpose or for the examination of complaints. Members of this Church who practise other professions or pursue other vocations, shall not advertise as healers, excepting those members who are officially engaged in the work of Christian Science, and they must devote ample time for faithful practice. TEACHING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE Article XXVI--TEACHERS Motive in Teaching. SECTION 1. Teaching Christian Science shall not be a question of money, but of morals and religion, healing and uplifting the race. Care of Pupils. SECTION 2. Christian Scientists who are teachers shall carefully select for pupils such only as have good past records and promising proclivities toward Christian Science. A teacher shall not assume personal control of, or attempt to dominate his pupils, but he shall hold himself morally obligated to promote their progress in the understanding of divine Principle, not only during the class term but after it, and to watch well that they prove sound in sentiment and practical in Christian Science. He shall persistently and patiently counsel his pupils in conformity with the unerring laws of God, and shall enjoin them habitually to study the Scriptures and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES as a help thereto. Defense against Malpractice. SECTION 3. Teachers shall instruct their pupils how to defend themselves against mental malpractice, never to return evil for evil, but to know the truth that makes free, and thus to be a law, not unto others, but to themselves. Number of Pupils. SECTION 4. The teachers of Christian Science shall teach but one class yearly, which class shall consist of not more than thirty pupils. After 1907, the Board of Education shall have one class triennially, a Normal class not exceeding thirty pupils. Pupil's Tuition. SECTION 5. A student's price for teaching Christian Science shall not exceed $100.00 per pupil. Associations. SECTION 6. The associations of the pupils of loyal teachers shall convene annually. The pupils shall be guided by the BIBLE, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH, not by their teachers' personal views. Teachers shall not call their pupils together, or assemble a selected number of them, for more frequent meetings. A Single Field of Labor. SECTION 7. A loyal teacher of Christian Science shall not teach another loyal teacher's pupil, except it be in the Board of Education. Outside of this Board each student occupies only his own field of labor. Pupils may visit each other's churches, and by invitation attend each other's associations. Caring for Pupils of Strayed Members. SECTION 8. A loyal teacher of Christian Science may teach and receive into his association the pupils of another member of this Church who has so strayed as justly to be deemed, under the provisions of Article XII, Sect. 1, not ready to lead his pupils. Teachers must have Certificates. SECTION 9. A member of this Church shall not teach pupils Christian Science unless he has a certificate to show that he has been taught by Mrs. Eddy or has taken a Normal Course at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College or in the Board of Education. Such members who have not been continuously active and loyal Christian Scientists since receiving instruction as above, shall not teach Christian Science without the approval of The Christian Science Board of Directors. Article XXVII--PUPILS Authorized to Teach. SECTION 1. After a student's pupil has been duly authorized to be a teacher of Christian Science, or has been under the personal instruction of Mrs. Eddy, he is no longer under the jurisdiction of his former teacher. Without Teachers. SECTION 2. Those beloved brethren whose teacher has left them, can elect an experienced Christian Scientist, who is not in charge of an association of students and who is ready for this high calling, to conduct the meetings of their association. Basis for Teaching. SECTION 3. The teachers of the Normal class shall teach from the chapter Recapitulation in SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, and from the Christian Science Platform, beginning on page 330 of the revised editions since 1902, and they shall teach nothing contrary thereto. The teachers of the Primary class shall instruct their pupils from the said chapter on "Recapitulation" only. Church Membership. SECTION 4. Neither the Pastor Emeritus nor a member of this Church shall teach Roman Catholics Christian Science, except it be with the written consent of the authority of their Church. Choice of patients is left to the wisdom of the practitioner, and Mrs. Eddy is not to be consulted on this subject. Class Teaching. SECTION 5. Members of The Mother Church who are authorized by its By-Laws to teach Christian Science, shall not solicit, or cause or permit others to solicit, pupils for their classes. No member of this Church shall advise against class instruction. Teachers of Christian Science must have the necessary moral and spiritual qualifications to elucidate the Principle and rule of Christian Science, through the higher meaning of the Scriptures. "The less the teacher personally controls other minds, and the more he trusts them to the divine Truth and Love, the better it will be for both teacher and student." (Retrospection and Introspection, page 84.) BOARD OF EDUCATION Article XXVIII--ORGANIZATION Officers. SECTION 1. There shall be a Board of Education, under the auspices of Mary Baker Eddy, President of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, consisting of three members, a president, vice-president, and teacher of Christian Science. Obstetrics will not be taught. Election. SECTION 2. The vice-president shall be elected annually by the Christian Science Board of Directors. Beginning with 1907, the teacher shall be elected every third year by said Board, and the candidate shall be subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus. President not to be Consulted. SECTION 3. The President is not to be consulted by students on the question of applying for admission to this Board nor on their course or conduct. The students can confer with their teachers on subjects essential to their progress. Presidency of College. SECTION 4. Should the President resign over her own signature or vacate her office of President of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, a meeting of the Christian Science Board of Directors shall immediately be called, and the vice-president of the Board of Education being found worthy, on receiving her approval shall be elected to fill the vacancy. Article XXIX--APPLICANTS AND GRADUATES Normal Teachers. SECTION 1. Loyal students who have been taught in a Primary class by Mrs. Eddy and have practised Christian Science healing acceptably three years, and who present such credentials as are required to verify this fact, are eligible to receive the degree of C.S.D. Qualifications. SECTION 2. Loyal Christian Scientists' pupils who so desire may apply to the Board of Education for instruction; and if they have practised Christian Science healing successfully three years and will furnish evidence of their eligibility therefor, they are eligible to enter the Normal class. All members of this class must be thorough English scholars. Certificates. SECTION 3. Students are examined and given certificates by this Board if found qualified to receive them. Article XXX--ACTION OF THE BOARD Sessions. SECTION 1. The term of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College will open with the Board of Education on the first Wednesday of December. The sessions will continue not over one week. None but the teacher and members of the College class shall be present at the sessions, and no Primary classes shall be taught under the auspices of this Board. Special Instruction. SECTION 2. Not less than two thorough lessons by a well qualified teacher shall be given to each Normal class on the subject of mental practice and _malpractice_. One student in the class shall prepare a paper on said subject that shall be read to the class, thoroughly discussed, and understood; this paper shall be given to the teacher, and he shall not allow it or a copy of it to remain, but shall destroy this paper. Signatures. SECTION 3. The signature of the teacher and of the President of the College shall be on all certificates issued. Remuneration and Free Scholarship. SECTION 4. Tuition of class instruction in the Board of Education shall be $100.00. The bearer of a card of free scholarship from the President, Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, shall be entitled to a free course in this department on presentation of the card to the teacher. Only the President gives free admission to classes. Surplus Funds. SECTION 5. Any surplus funds left in the hands of the Board of Education shall be paid over annually to the Treasurer of The Mother Church. Primary Students. SECTION 6. Students of Christian Science, duly instructed therein and with good moral records, not having the certificate of C.S.D. may enter the Normal class in the Board of Education, which will be held once in three years beginning A. D. 1907; provided their diplomas are for three _consecutive_ years under Mrs. Eddy's daily conversation on Christian Science, or from the Massachusetts Meta-physical College Board of Education. Healing Better than Teaching. SECTION 7. Healing the sick and the sinner with Truth demonstrates what we affirm of Christian Science, and nothing can substitute this demonstration. I recommend that each member of this Church shall strive to demonstrate by his or her practice, that Christian Science heals the sick quickly and wholly, thus proving this Science to be all that we claim for it. If both husband and wife are found duly qualified to teach Christian Science, either one, not both, should teach yearly one class. Not Members of The Mother Church. SECTION 8. No person shall receive instructions in Christian Science in any class in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, nor receive the degree of C.S.B. or C.S.D., who is not a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass. Only those persons who are members of this Church and possessed of the qualifications named in Sect. 9 of Article XXVI of these By-Laws shall be deemed loyal teachers of Christian Science. BOARD OF LECTURESHIP Article XXXI--ORGANIZATION AND DUTIES Election. SECTION 1. This Church shall maintain a Board of Lectureship, the members of which shall be elected annually on Monday preceding the Annual Meeting, subject to the approval of the Pastor Emeritus. The lecture year shall begin July 1 of each year. Duty of Lecturers. SECTION 2. It is the duty of the Board of Lectureship to include in each lecture a true and just reply to public topics condemning Christian Science, and to bear testimony to the facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor Emeritus. Each member shall mail to the Clerk of this Church copies of his lectures before delivering them. No Disruption of Branch Churches. SECTION 3. The Board of Lectureship is not allowed in anywise to meddle with nor to disrupt the organization of branch churches. The lecturer can invite churches within the city whither he is called to unite in their attendance on his lecture, and so make for their churches a less lecture fee; but the churches shall decide their action. Receptions. SECTION 4. As a rule there should be no receptions nor festivities after a lecture on Christian Science, but there may occur exceptions. If there be an individual who goes to hear and deride truth, he should go away contemplating truth; and he who goes to seek truth should have the opportunity to depart in quiet _thought_ on that subject. Circuit Lecturer. SECTION 5. Upon the written request of Mrs. Eddy, The Mother Church shall appoint a Circuit Lecturer. His term of office, if approved, shall not be less than three years. He shall lecture in the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain and Ireland. A member shall neither resign nor transfer this sacred office. Article XXXII--CALLS FOR LECTURES The Directors. SECTION 1. When the need is apparent, the Christian Science Board of Directors of The Mother Church may call on any member of this Board of Lectureship to lecture at such places and at such times as the cause of Christian Science demands. From Branch Churches. SECTION 2. The branch Churches of Christ, Scientist, may apply through their clerks to a member of this Board of Lectureship for a speaker, and one shall be assigned them by the Board. From Societies. SECTION 3. If called for, a member of the Board may lecture for a Society. Annual Lectures. SECTION 4. The Mother Church and the branch churches shall call on the Board of Lectureship annually for one or more lectures. No Lectures by Readers. SECTION 5. No lecture shall be given by a Reader during his term of Readership. The duties alone of a Reader are ample. No Wednesday Evening Lectures. SECTION 6. The Board of Lectureship shall not appoint a lecture for Wednesday evening. Lecture Fee. SECTION 7. The lecture fee shall be left to the discretion of the lecturer. Expenses. SECTION 8. The lecturer's traveling expenses and the cost of hall shall be paid by the church that employs him. Exceptional Cases. SECTION 9. If a lecturer receive a call to lecture in a place where he sees there is special need, and the local church is unable to meet the expense, he is at liberty to supply that need and trust to contributions for his fee. COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION Article XXXIII In The Mother Church. SECTION 1. There shall be appointed by The Mother Church a Committee on Publication, which shall consist of one loyal Christian Scientist who lives in Boston, and he shall be manager of the Committees on Publication throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. He shall be elected annually by a unanimous vote of the Christian Science Board of Directors and the consent of the Pastor Emeritus given in her own handwriting, and shall receive an annual salary, paid quarterly, of not less than four thousand dollars. Duties. SECTION 2. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Publication to correct in a Christian manner impositions on the public in regard to Christian Science, injustices done Mrs. Eddy or members of this Church by the daily press, by periodicals or circulated literature of any sort. This Committee on Publication shall be responsible for correcting or having corrected a false newspaper article which has not been replied to by other Scientists, or which has been forwarded to this Committee for the purpose of having him reply to it. If the correction by the Committee on Publication is not promptly published by the periodical in which it is desirable that this correction shall appear, this Committee shall immediately apply for aid to the Committee on Business. Furthermore, the Committee on Publication shall read the _last proof sheet_ of such an article and see that it is published according to copy; he shall circulate in large quantities the papers containing such an article, sending a copy to the Clerk of the Church. It shall also be the duty of the Committee on Publication to have published each year in a leading Boston newspaper the letter sent to the Pastor Emeritus by the Church members in annual meeting assembled. The State Committees on Publication act under the direction of this Committee on Publication. In Branch Churches. SECTION 3. The Readers of the three largest branch churches in each State of the United States and in Canada shall annually and alternately appoint a Committee on Publication to serve in their localities. For the purposes of this By-Law, the State of California shall be considered as though it were two States, the dividing line being the 36th parallel of latitude. Each county of Great Britain and Ireland, except as hereinafter specified, through the Readers of its three largest branch churches, shall annually and alternately appoint a Committee on Publication to serve in its locality. Each church is not necessarily confined to its own members in selecting this Committee, but if preferred, can appoint a Committee on Publication who is in good fellowship with another Church of Christ, Scientist. This By-Law applies to all States except Massachusetts, in which the Committee on Publication is elected only by the Christian Science Board of Directors. The Committee for the counties in which London, England, is situated shall be appointed by the Christian Science Board of Directors, and he shall, in addition to his other duties, act as District Manager of the Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland. Appointment. SECTION 4. The Committees on Publication shall consist of men generally. Each State Committee shall be appointed by the First and Second Readers of the church employing said Committee. If prior to the meeting of the church for the election of officers, Mrs. Eddy shall send to the First Reader of the church the name of a candidate for its Committee on Publication, the Readers shall appoint said candidate. Or if she shall send a special request to any Committee on Publication, the request shall be carried out according to her directions. Removal from Office. SECTION 5. If the Committee on Publication neglects to fulfil the obligations of his office according to these By-Laws, and this becomes apparent to the Christian Science Board of Directors, it shall be the duty of the Directors immediately to act upon this important matter in accordance with said By-Laws. The Christian Science Board of Directors may notify any Church of Christ, Scientist, to remove its Committee on Publication and to appoint another Committee to fill the vacancy; and it shall be the duty of that church to comply with this request. In such cases it shall be the privilege of this Board to name the Committee if it so desires, and any Committee so named by the Board shall be elected by the branch church. Case of Necessity. SECTION 6. If a suitable man is not obtainable for Committee on Publication, a suitable woman shall be elected. If at any time the Christian Science Board of Directors shall determine that the manager of the general Committee on Publication needs an assistant, the Board shall, with the approval of the Pastor Emeritus, appoint an assistant manager, who shall receive an adequate salary from The Mother Church. CHURCH-BUILDING Article XXXIV Building Committee. SECTION 1. There shall be a Building Committee consisting of not less than three members, and this committee shall not be dissolved until the new church edifice is completed. This committee shall elect, dismiss, or supply a vacancy of its members by a majority vote. Designation of Deeds. SECTION 2. All deeds of further purchases of land for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., shall have named in them all the trusts mentioned in the deeds given by Albert Metcalf and E. Noyes Whitcomb in March, 1903; but this rule shall not apply to land purchased for any purpose other than the erection of a church edifice. Also there shall be incorporated in all such deeds the phrase, "Mary Baker Eddy's Church, The Mother Church or The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass." The Mother Church Building. SECTION 3. The edifice erected in 1894 for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., shall neither be demolished, nor removed from the site where it was built, without the written consent of the Pastor Emeritus, Mary Baker Eddy. CHURCH MANUAL Article XXXV For The Mother Church Only. SECTION 1. The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., written by Mary Baker Eddy and copyrighted, is adapted to The Mother Church only. It stands alone, uniquely adapted to form the budding thought and hedge it about with divine Love. This Manual shall not be revised without the written consent of its author. Seventy-third Edition the Authority. SECTION 2. The Board of Directors, the Committee on Bible Lessons, and the Board of Trustees shall each keep a copy of the Seventy-third Edition and of subsequent editions of the Church Manual; and if a discrepancy appears in any revised edition, these editions shall be cited as authority. Amendment of By-Laws. SECTION 3. No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH. Appendix Special Instructions Regarding Applications for Church Membership 1. Loyal members of The Mother Church are eligible to approve candidates to unite with this Church. 2. No persons are eligible to countersign applications except loyal students of Mrs. Eddy, Directors, and students of the Board of Education who have been given a degree, and are members of The Mother Church. 3. Those who approve applicants should have applications returned to them after being filled out by the applicants, as required by Article V, Sect. 6, and should compare them with the forms here given, and see that names are legibly written, before sending them to the Clerk of the Church. If not correct, the applicant will be notified, and new applications will be required, as none will be returned that are not correctly made out. This requirement is to prevent applications being duplicated and the confusion that might result therefrom. It is important that these seemingly strict conditions be exactly complied with, as the names of the members of The Mother Church will be recorded in the history of the Church and become a part thereof. 4. All names, whether of applicants, signers, or countersigners, must be plainly written, and one, at least, of the given names of each, written in full. Initials only of first names will not be received. Women must sign Miss or Mrs. before their names as the case may be. All names must be written the same in all places where they are required. TO APPLICANTS 1. In filling out the application blank, one of the Christian names must be written in full. Initials alone will not be received. 2. If the applicant is a married woman she must sign her own Christian name, not her husband's, and prefix her signature with "Mrs;" unmarried women must sign "Miss." 3. There are two regular forms of application. 1. For those who have studied Christian Science with an authorized teacher; 2. For those who have not studied Christian Science with a teacher. Applicants will find the chief points of these instructions illustrated in Form 1 and Form 2, on pages 114 and 118. 4. Those whose teachers are deceased, absent, or disloyal, or those whose teachers refuse, without sufficient cause, to sign applications (see Art. V, Sect. 4), will be furnished special forms on application to the Clerk. 5. When branch churches are designated by number, as First Church, Second Church, etc., the number must be written First, Second, as shown on page 118. The article "the" either capitalized (The), or small (the), must not be used before titles of branch churches. See Article XXIII, Sect. 2. 6. If the applicant is not a member of a branch church, he should fill out his application in this respect according to the form on page 114. APPLICATION FORMS Application I PROPERLY SIGNED AND ENDORSED, ACCORDING TO ARTICLE V, SECT. 2 If you have been taught by a loyal student who has taken a degree at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, or by one who has passed an examination by the Board of Education, fill this blank. FORM 1 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the rock of Christ--Truth and Life--and to reflect the Church Triumphant. One who is not a member of any church, excepting a branch church of Christ, Scientist, who loves Christian Science, and reads understandingly the Bible, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, and other works by this author, and who is Christianly qualified and can enter into full fellowship with the Tenets and Rules of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is eligible to membership. _To The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass._ Gordon V. Comer Clerk. I hereby make application for membership, and subscribe to the Tenets and the By-Laws of the Church. My teacher in Christian Science is ...............James B. Brown, C.S.D. .................. I am not a member of any church. FORM 1--(Continued) I was formerly a member of the ............................. ............ denomination, but have definitely severed my connection therewith. Name .............. Mrs. Jennie W. Field, C.S. .......... Street and Number ....... 18 Forest St., ................ Town or City ................ Chicago, .................. State ............................ Ill .................. Date ................. Jan. 2nd, 1901 ................... I cordially approve the applicant. (a) ............... James B. Brown, C.S.D. ............... Countersigned by .......................................... DO NOT DETACH. To the applicant: Name ...... Mrs. Jennie W. Field, C.S. ...... Please fill out the Street and Number ... 18 Forest St., ........ following for the use Town or City ............ Chicago, .......... of the Treasurer of State ............................ Ill ...... the Church: Application I PROPERLY SIGNED AND ENDORSED, ACCORDING TO ARTICLE V, SECT. 2 If you have been taught by a loyal student who has taken a degree at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, or by one who has passed an examination by the Board of Education, fill this blank. FORM 1 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is designed to be built on the rock of Christ--Truth and Life--and to reflect the Church Triumphant. One who is not a member of any church, excepting a branch church of Christ, Scientist, who loves Christian Science, and reads understandingly the Bible, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, and other works by this author, and who is Christianly qualified and can enter into full fellowship with the Tenets and Rules of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is eligible to membership. _To The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass._ Gordon V. Comer Clerk. I hereby make application for membership, and subscribe to the Tenets and the By-Laws of the Church. My teacher in Christian Science is ...............James B. Brown, C.S.D. .................. I am not a member of any church, excepting Church of Christ, Scientist, at ........................ FORM 1--(Continued) I was formerly a member of the ............................. ............ denomination, but have definitely severed my connection therewith. Name .............. Mrs. Jennie W. Field, C.S. .......... Street and Number ....... 18 Forest St., ................ Town or City ................ Chicago, .................. State ............................ Ill .................. Date ................. Jan. 2nd, 1901 ................... I cordially approve the applicant. (a) ............... James B. Brown, C.S.D. ............... Countersigned by .......................................... DO NOT DETACH. To the applicant: Name ...... Mrs. Jennie W. Field, C.S. ...... Please fill out the Street and Number ... 18 Forest St., ........ following for the use Town or City ............ Chicago, .......... of the Treasurer of State ............................ Ill ...... the Church: Application II SIGNED, ENDORSED, AND COUNTERSIGNED, ACCORDING TO ARTICLE VI, SECT. 2 If you have not been taught by a loyal student who has taken a degree at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, or by one who has passed an examination by the Board of Education, fill this blank. FORM 2 One who is not a member of any church, excepting a branch church of Christ, Scientist, who loves Christian Science, and reads understandingly the Bible, and SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Reverend Mary Baker Eddy, and other works by this author, and who is Christianly qualified and can enter into full fellowship with the Tenets and Rules of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., is eligible to membership. _To The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass._ Gordon V. Comer Clerk. I hereby make application for membership, and subscribe to the Tenets and the By-Laws of the Church. I have not studied Christian Science with a teacher, and am not a member of any church excepting _Second_ Church of Christ, Scientist, at _New York, N.Y._ I was formerly a member of the ............................. ............ denomination, but have definitely severed my connection therewith. FORM 2--(Continued) Name .............. Miss Emma L. French ................. Street and Number ...... 293 Emerson St., ............... Town or City ................ New York .................. State ............................ N.Y. ................. Date ................. Jan. 2nd, 1901 ................... I cordially approve the applicant. (a) ............. Miss Mary E. Grant, C.S. ............... Countersigned by .... James B. Brown, C.S.D. ............. DO NOT DETACH. To the applicant: Name ....... Miss Emma L. French ....... Please fill out the Street and Number .. 293 Emerson St. ... following for the use Town or City ............ New York ..... of the Treasurer of State ......................... N.Y. ... the Church: Present Order of Services in The Mother Church and Branch Churches _Republished from the_ Sentinel SUNDAY SERVICES 1. Hymn. 2. Reading a Scriptural Selection. 3. Silent Prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation. 4. Hymn. 5. Announcing necessary notices. 6. Solo. 7. Reading the explanatory note on first leaf of _Quarterly_. 8. Announcing the subject of the Lesson Sermon, and reading the Golden Text. 9. Reading the Scriptural selection, entitled "Responsive Reading," alternately by the First Reader and the congregation. 10. Reading the Lesson-Sermon. (After the Second Reader reads the BIBLE references of the first Section of the Lesson, the First Reader makes the following announcement: "As announced in the explanatory note, I shall now read correlative passages from the Christian Science textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy.") 11. Collection. 12. Hymn. 13. Reading the scientific statement of being, and the correlative SCRIPTURE according to I John 3:1-3. 14. Pronouncing Benediction. The services should be preceded and followed by organ or piano music of an appropriate character in all cases where this is possible. On the first Sunday of each month Article VIII, SECT. 1, _A Rule for Motives and Acts_, is to be read. WEDNESDAY MEETINGS 1. Hymn. 2. Reading from the BIBLE, and correlative passages from SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. 3. Silent Prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer, its spiritual interpretation being omitted. 4. Hymn. 5. Announcing necessary notices. 6. Experiences, testimonies, and remarks on Christian Science. 7. Closing Hymn. The services should be preceded and followed by organ or piano music of an appropriate character in all cases where this is possible. Thanksgiving Day. Order of Service for The Mother Church and Branch Churches. 1. Hymn. 2. Reading the Thanksgiving Proclamation of the President of the United States, or the Governor of the state, or both. 3. Reading a Scriptural Selection. 4. Silent Prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation. 5. Hymn. 6. Reading the Explanatory Note on the first leaf of the _Quarterly_. 7. Announcing the subject of the Lesson Sermon, and reading the Golden Text. 8. Responsive Reading by the First Reader and the congregation. 9. Reading the Lesson-Sermon prepared by the Bible Lesson Committee. 10. Solo. 11. Testimonies by Christian Scientists, appropriate for the occasion. 12. Hymn. 13. Reading the Scientific Statement of Being, and the correlative SCRIPTURE according to I John 3:1-3. 14. Pronouncing Benediction. No collection is to be taken at this service. The services should be preceded and followed by organ or piano music of an appropriate character in all cases where this is possible. Present Order of Communion Services in Branch Churches 1. Hymn. 2. Reading a Scriptural Selection. 3. Silent Prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation. 4. Hymn. 5. Announcing necessary notices. 6. Reading Tenets of The Mother Church. 7. Collection and Solo. 8. Reading the explanatory note on first leaf of _Quarterly_. 9. Announcing the subject of the Lesson Sermon, and reading the Golden Text. 10. Reading the scriptural selection entitled "Responsive Reading" alternately by the First Reader and the congregation. 11. Reading the Lesson-Sermon. (After the Second Reader reads the BIBLE references of the first Section of the Lesson, the First Reader makes the following announcement: "As announced in the explanatory note, I shall now read correlative passages from the Christian Science textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy.") 12. The First Reader briefly invites the congregation to kneel in silent Communion. This is concluded by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer (spiritual interpretation omitted). 13. Singing the Doxology: "Be Thou, O God, exalted high; And as Thy glory fills the sky, So let it be on earth displayed, Till Thou art here and now obeyed." 14. Reading the scientific statement of being and the correlative SCRIPTURE according to I John 3:1-3. 15. Pronouncing Benediction. The Church Tenets shall be read at this service. The services should be preceded and followed by organ or piano music of an appropriate character in all cases where this is possible. Order of Exercises for the Sunday School of the Mother Church.[4] 1. Call to order by the Superintendent. 2. Hymn. 3. Subject of the lesson announced; Golden Text repeated by the children; Responsive Reading. 4. Silent prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord's Prayer in unison. 5. Instruction in classes, in accordance with Sections 2 and 3 of Article XX of the Manual of The Mother Church. 6. Entire school reassembles. 7. Hymn. 8. Scientific Statement of Being read by the Superintendent. 9. School dismissed. [4] If a collection is taken, it should be taken in the classes before they reassemble. Deed of Trust _The following is a Copy of the Deed of Trust_ _Conveying Land for Church Edifice_ KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, That I Mary Baker G. Eddy of Concord in the County of Merrimack and State of New Hampshire in consideration of one dollar to me paid by Ira O. Knapp of Boston, Massachusetts, William B. Johnson of Boston, Massachusetts, Joseph S. Eastaman of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and Stephen A. Chase of Fall River, Massachusetts, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, and, also in consideration of the trusts and uses hereinafter mentioned and established, do hereby give, bargain, sell, and convey to the said Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph S. Eastaman, and Stephen A. Chase as trustees as hereinafter provided and to their legitimate successors in office forever, a certain parcel of land situate on Falmouth street in said Boston, bounded and described as follows: Beginning at the junction of Falmouth street, and a forty-foot street now called Caledonia street; thence running Southwest on said Falmouth street one hundred and sixteen and eighty-eight hundredths feet; thence Northwest at a right angle to a point where a line drawn at right angles to said forty-foot street at a point thereon one hundred and sixteen and fifty-five hundredths feet Northwest from the point of beginning meets the said boundary at right angles to Falmouth street, sixty-six and seventy-eight hundredths feet; thence at an obtuse angle on said line at right angles to said forty-foot street sixty-seven and thirty-five hundredths feet to said forty-foot street; thence Southeasterly on said forty-foot street one hundred and sixteen and fifty-five hundredths feet to the point of beginning; containing seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight square feet more or less, and subject to the agreements and restrictions mentioned in a deed recorded in Suffolk Registry of Deeds Lib. 1719, Fol 83 so far as the same are now legally operative. This deed of conveyance is made upon the following express trusts and conditions which the said grantees by accepting this deed agree and covenant for themselves and their successors in office to fully perform and fulfil. 1. Said grantees shall be known as the "Christian Science Board of Directors," and shall constitute a perpetual body or corporation under and in accordance with section one, Chapter 39 of the Public Statutes of Massachusetts.[5] Whenever a vacancy occurs in said Board the remaining members shall within thirty days fill the same by election; but no one shall be eligible to that office who is not in the opinion of the remaining members of the Board a firm and consistent believer in the doctrines of Christian Science as taught in a book entitled "SCIENCE AND HEALTH," by Mary Baker G. Eddy beginning with the seventy-first edition thereof. [5] The deacons, church wardens, or other similar officers of Churches or religious societies, and the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal churches, appointed according to the discipline and usages thereof, shall, if citizens of this commonwealth, be deemed bodies corporate for the purpose of taking and holding in succession all grants and donations, whether of real or personal estate, made either to the and their successors, or to their respective churches, or to the poor of their churches. 2. Said Board shall within five years from the date hereof build or cause to be built upon said lot of land a suitable and convenient church edifice, the cost of which shall not be less than fifty thousand dollars. 3. When said church building is completed said Board shall elect a pastor, reader or speaker to fill the pulpit who shall be a genuine Christian Scientist; they shall maintain public worship in accordance with the doctrines of Christian Science in said church, and for this purpose they are fully empowered to make any and all necessary rules and regulations. 4. Said Board of Directors shall not suffer or allow any building to be erected upon said lot except a church building or edifice, nor shall they allow said church building or any part thereof to be used for any other purpose than for the ordinary and usual uses of a church. 5. Said Board of Directors shall not allow or permit in said church building any preaching or other religious services which shall not be consonant and in strict harmony with the doctrines and practice of Christian Science as taught and explained by Mary Baker G. Eddy in the seventy-first edition of her book entitled "SCIENCE AND HEALTH," which is soon to be issued, and in any subsequent edition thereof. 6. The congregation which shall worship in said church shall be styled "The First Church of Christ, Scientist." 7. Said Directors shall not sell or mortgage the land hereby conveyed; but they shall see that all taxes and legal assessments on said property are promptly paid. 8. Said church building shall not be removed from said lot except for the purpose of rebuilding thereon a more expensive or a more convenient structure in which said doctrines of Christian Science only shall be preached and practised. If said church building is removed for either of the purposes above set forth, any and all tablets and inscriptions which are or shall be upon said church building at the time of removal shall be removed therefrom and placed upon the walls of the new edifice. If said building is burned, the Directors shall forthwith proceed to rebuild the church. 9. Said Directors shall maintain regular preaching, reading or speaking in said church on each Sabbath, and an omission to have and maintain such preaching, reading or speaking for one year in succession shall be deemed a breach of this condition. 10. Whenever said Directors shall determine that it is inexpedient to maintain preaching, reading or speaking in said church in accordance with the terms of this deed, they are authorized and required to reconvey forthwith said lot of land with the building thereon to Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns forever by a proper deed of conveyance. 11. The omission or neglect on the part of said Directors to strictly comply with any of the conditions herein contained shall constitute a breach thereof, and the title hereby conveyed shall revert to the grantor Mary Baker G. Eddy, her heirs and assigns forever, upon her entry upon said land and taking possession thereof for such breach. To Have and to Hold the above granted premises with all the privileges and appurtenances thereon belonging to said grantees and their successors in office to the uses and trusts above described forever. And the said grantor for herself and her heirs, executors and administrators covenants with the said grantees and their successors in office that she is lawfully seized in fee simple of the aforesaid premises, that they are free from all incumbrances not herein mentioned or referred to, that she has good right to sell and convey the same to the said grantees and their successors in office as aforesaid, and that she will and her heirs, executors, and administrators shall, warrant and defend the same to the said grantees and their successors in office forever against the lawful claims and demands of all persons. In witness whereof I the said Mary Baker G. Eddy have hereto set my hand and seal this 1st day of September, 1892. MARY BAKER G. EDDY. Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of LAURA E. SARGENT. R. E. WALKER. September 1st, 1892. STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, MERRIMACK. Then personally appeared the above named Mary Baker G. Eddy and acknowledged the foregoing instrument to be her free act and deed, Before me R. E. WALKER. _Notary Public._ September 2, 1892. SUFFOLK REGISTRY OF DEEDS, Lib. 2081, Fol. 257. Deed Conveying Land for Church Purposes METCALE _to_ KNAPP _et al. Trs._ Libro 2886, Fol. 521. KNOW ALL MEN, That I, Albert Metcalf, the grantor in a certain deed given to Ira O. Knapp and others dated October 23, 1896, and recorded with Suffolk Deeds, Book 2591, page 398, do hereby declare that the land conveyed by said deed was conveyed to the grantees therein, as they are the Christian Science Board of Directors, upon the trusts, but not subject to the conditions mentioned in the deed creating said Board given by Mary Baker G. Eddy to Ira O. Knapp and others, dated September 1st, 1892, and recorded with Suffolk Deeds, Book 2081, page 257. In addition to the trusts contained in said deed of September 1, 1892, from Mary Baker G. Eddy, this property is conveyed on the further trusts that no new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled by the grantees unless the written consent of said Mary Baker G. Eddy, the author of the textbook "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES," be given therefor, or unless at the written request of Mrs. Eddy the Executive Members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, (formally called the "First Members,") by a two-thirds vote of all their number, decide so to do. And that the same inscription which is on the outside of the present church edifice shall be placed on any new church erected on said lot. And in consideration of one dollar to me paid by said Ira O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph Armstrong and Stephen A. Chase, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, I do hereby confirm the deed as above mentioned, and do grant and release unto them, their heirs, successors and assigns in trust as aforesaid, the premises therein described. In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this nineteenth day of March, A. D. nineteen hundred and three. ALBERT METCALF. [Seal] COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS SUFFOLK March 20th, 1903 Then said Albert Metcalf acknowledged the foregoing instrument to be his free act and deed. Before me MALCOLM McLOUD. _Justice of the Peace._ March 20, 1903. at twelve o'clock and sixteen minutes P.M. Received, Entered and Examined. Attest: THOS. F. TEMPLE, _Reg_. A true copy from the RECORDS OF DEEDS for the COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, Lib. 2886, Fol. 521. Attest: CHAS. W. KIMBALL, _Asst. Reg_. 
19666	----	RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE BY MARY BAKER EDDY AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES [Image: Publishing Company Logo] Registered U. S. Patent Office Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST In Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1891, 1908_ BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY Copyright renewed 1919 --- All rights reserved --- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THIS LITTLE BOOK IS TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO ALL LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING MARY BAKER EDDY CONTENTS DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERSONALITY OF GOD HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE BASIS OF MIND-HEALING MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING MEANS AND METHODS ONLY ONE SCHOOL RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE _How would you define Christian Science?_ 1 AS the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of 3 universal harmony. _What is the Principle of Christian Science?_ It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal 6 Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, -- these are the deific Principle. 9 _Do you mean by this that God is a person?_ The word person affords a large margin for misappre- hension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent 12 word is _personne_. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is _persona_. The Latin verb _personare_ is compounded of the prefix _per_ (through) and _sonare_ (to sound). 15 In law, Blackstone applies the word _personal_ to _bodily presence_, in distinction from one's appearance (in court, for example) by deputy or proxy. 18 Other definitions of _person_, as give by Webster, are 1 "a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, 3 or child; an individual of the human race." He adds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead. 6 In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi- vidual and not a _person_, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining 9 _person_ as especially a finite _human being_; but God is personal, if by _person_ is meant infinite Spirit. We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him 12 as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Diety by using the phrase _an individual_ God rather than _a per- 15 sonal_ God; for there is and can be but on infinite indi- vidual spirit, who mortals have named God. Science defines the individuality of God as supreme 18 good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Diety, takes away the trammels assigned to God by finite though, and introduces us to higher definitions. 21 _Is healing the sick the whole of Science?_ Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris- tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and 24 action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the 27 cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they 1 do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acqui- escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and 3 their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the 6 flesh, from the flesh, -- the material world and evil. This Life, Truth, and Love -- this trinity of good -- was individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the 9 man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models 12 of the masters in music and painting are to artists. Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor- ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon 15 on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of 18 disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental error made manifest physically, and establishes the oppo- 21 site manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony and health. _By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has_ 24 _a finite form?_ No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including 27 in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life, 1 Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni- verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious 3 and eternal, of which our material universe and men are the counterfeits. _Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or_ 6 _Christian Science?_ Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither is it of human origin. 9 All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force, which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit, that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and 12 "loose the bands of Orion." There is no material science, if by that term you mean material intelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there 15 is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind. Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter, but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only. 18 _Is there no matter?_ All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian Science, all is God, and there is naught beside Him. "God 21 is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and ex- tinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvel- 24 lous light. The five material senses testify to the existence of matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence, 1 but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let God be 3 true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply, God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material 6 mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being made in the image of Spirit, or God. There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate, 9 and sensationless, -- considered apart from Mind. Lives there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the 12 eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is 15 called matter, or matter without Mind. Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real conscious- 18 ness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear, smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could 21 not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical senses. Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should 24 believe man and the universe to be the football of chance and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as organized matter, and you must either become non-exist- 27 ent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to 1 the equal inference that there is no matter. _The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assum-_ 3 _ing manifold forms and colors, -- are they not tangible and_ _material?_ As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty 6 and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God; but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a 9 false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes the place of good. Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response 12 from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer? He says that "color is in _us_," not "in the rose;" and he adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a 15 fact "almost universally accepted, within the _last few_ _years_, by physicists." _Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evi-_ 18 _dence of the material senses, and restoration of the true_ _evidence of spiritual sense?_ It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predi- 21 cate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstra- tion. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest 24 definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer this question of how much you understand of Christian Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science, 1 by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science, is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most 3 difficult case so treated. The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and 6 Health. _Is man material or spiritual?_ In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, per- 9 feet and immortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted. According to the evidence of the so-called physical 12 senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the 15 material evidence being wholly false. Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as 18 matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence. As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot 21 originate its opposite, named matter. According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural 24 science, so-called, or material laws, bring about altera- tion of species by transforming minerals into vegetables or plants into animals, -- thus confusing and confounding 27 the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple; 1 no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk for babes. 3 To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harm- less likeness. 6 _How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science_ _in healing the sick?_ As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle, 9 so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the prac- tice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal 12 good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other healer. In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher con- 15 dition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself a Christian 18 Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the Truth and the Principle of Science, but opens a way 21 whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchris- tian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure. 24 By this I mean that mortal mind should not be falsely impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seem- ingly restored, the restoration is not lasting, and the patient 27 is liable to a relapse, -- "The last state of that man is 1 worse than the first." The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian, 3 in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more or less blended with error; and this error will spring up 6 in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowl- edge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a poor practitioner, if not a malpractitioner. 9 The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and this will is an outcome of what I call _mortal mind_, -- a false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To 12 heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer 15 of the lips from the Lord. The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If one is untruthful, his mental state weighs against his 18 healing power; and similar effects come from pride, envy, lust, and all fleshly vices. The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, with- 21 out a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases. The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with 24 a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good; 27 and hence, that whatever militates against health, har- mony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of 1 the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you have power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows, 3 and its salutary influence on yourself and others. You must feel and know that God alone governs man; that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure 6 to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing evil or material; that material laws are only human be- liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise 9 from the subjective states of thought, producing the be- liefs of a mortal material universe, -- so-called, and of material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors 12 of thought, -- diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter; for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease, Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body; 15 and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true sense that God is Love, -- and that Love punishes nothing 18 but sin, -- and the patient can then look up to the loving God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His 21 spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an 24 error which Truth will destroy. You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God, 27 which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the 1 law of Spirit. Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ; 3 first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo- tent; and finally to the _understanding_ of God and man in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good, 6 and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of goodness. Therefore good is one and All. This brings forward the next proposition in Christian 9 Science, -- namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice, and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These 12 illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the conscious- ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else. 15 In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means 18 rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstra- tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine Science, which takes away every human belief, and, 21 through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re- veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal. 24 The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous opera- 27 tions of the human frame. He never talks about the structure of the material body. He never lays his hands 1 on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body sup- posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten 3 Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of 6 disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of error until they hold stronger than before the belief that 9 they are first made sick by matter, and then restored through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If 12 the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is unchristian and unscientific. 15 Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter, or that a so-called material organism controls the health 18 or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well- being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should 21 mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food? Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat." The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds 24 of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material law, maintains human health and life. 27 A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God, 1 good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy 3 are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief, this basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to demonstrate the Principle of this Science, even in the 6 smallest degree. A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality of man made in the divine and spiritual image of God. 9 The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error ? the human belief which saith there is more than one God, -- 12 there is more than one Life and one Mind. In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is God; there is none else beside Him." In John (iv. 24) 15 we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, un- derstood in their Science, elucidate my meaning. When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every 18 organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to what according to their own belief is diseased, is scientific; 21 and if the _healer realizes_ the truth, it will free his patient. _What are the means and, methods of trustworthy Christian_ _Scientists?_ 24 These people should not be expected, more than others, to give all their time to Christian Science work, receiving no wages in return, but left to be fed, clothed, and sheltered 27 by charity. Neither can they serve two masters, giving 1 only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and 3 "owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a suitable price for their services, and then _conscientiously_ _earn their wages_, strictly practising Divine Science, and 6 healing the sick. The author never sought charitable support, but gave fully seven-eighths of her time without remuneration, ex- 9 cept the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for her labors was from classes, and often those were put off for months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never 12 taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take the full price of tuition only from those who were able to 15 pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require others to pay him. No discount on tuition was made on 18 higher classes, because their first classes furnished students with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the 21 Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared to enter higher classes. 24 People are being healed by means of my instructions, both in and out of class. Many students, who have passed through a regular course of instruction from me, 27 have been invalids and were healed in the class; but ex- perience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though 1 it heals the sick. It is seldom that a student, if healed hi a class, has left 3 it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to im- mediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to 6 the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with exuberant joy. This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tract- 9 able; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until this impulse subsides. This was the principal reason for advising diseased 12 people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides inva- lids for students, until there were enough practitioners to fill in the best possible manner the department of healing. 15 Teaching and healing should have separate departments, and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and thorough guardianship and grace. 18 Only a very limited number of students can advanta- geously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible 21 to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected 24 more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and 27 to fill anew the individual mind. If publicity and material control are the motives for 1 teaching, then public lectures can take the place of private lessons; but the former can never give a thorough knowledge 3 of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will never undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lec- tures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate 6 to thorough class instruction in any branch of education. None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual significa- tion of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind- 9 healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation of the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that some novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors are 12 committing this error. _Is there more than one school of scientific healing?_ In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the 15 Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is an irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and written correctly on this Science originates from the Princi- 18 ple and practice laid down in Science and Health, a work which I published in 1875. This was the first book, re- corded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science 21 purely mental. Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have origi- nated with certain opposing factions, springing up among 24 unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of aspirants which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their first- fruits, or else _post mortem_ evidence. 27 A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain 1 Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these 3 so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress by blinding the people to the true character of Christian Science, -- its moral power, and its divine efficacy to 6 heal. The true understanding of Christian Science Mind- healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification 9 of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and victories under which she needed miraculous vision to 12 sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this Science. The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meek- 15 ness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony and the footsteps of His flock. WORKS ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE WRITTEN BY MARY BAKER EDDY Published by the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker Eddy --- --- SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES In one volume, 700 pages. The original, standard, and only textbook on Christian Science Mind-healing. Cloth, one to eleven copies inclusive (cloth only), each $3.00; twelve or more, each $2.75. Ooze leather, vest pocket size, single copy $8.00; twelve or more, each $2.75. 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No discount will be allowed on orders for twelve books which include both Science and Health and Miscellaneous Writings. THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, AND MISCELLANY A book of 366 pages, containing articles published in _The Christian Science Journal_ and _Sentinel_ subsequent to the compilation of Miscellaneous Writings, together with historical matter pertaining thereto. Cloth, single copy $2.25; six or more, each $2.00. Morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, Oxford India Bible paper, convenient for pocket, single copy $4.00; six or more, each $3.75. Orders for six or more may include the two styles of binding. PROSE WORKS OTHER THAN SCIENCE AND HEALTH Combined in one volume of 1312 pages Miscellaneous Writings, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, and all the published shorter writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Pocket edition, morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, Oxford India Bible paper, uniform with the pocket edition of Science and Health, single copy, $14.00; six or more, each, $13.50. CONCORDANCE TO SCIENCE AND HEALTH This work contains about eighty thousand references (more than ten thousand words being indexed), also an index to the Marginal Headings, and a list of the Scriptural Quotations in Science and Health. 611 pages, cloth cover, single copy $4.00; six or more, each $3.30. rocket size, Oxford India Bible paper, morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges; single copy $6.00; six or more, each $5.SO. Large levant Bible paper edition, gold stamped cover, limp, round corners, gilt edges; single copy $7.00; six or more, each $6.50. Orders for six or more may include any or all of the concordances in any or all styles of binding. CONCORDANCE TO MRS. 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Pebbled cloth covers, gilt top, 17 pages, single copy 32 cents; six or more, each 25 cents. PRINTED in the New York point and American Braille systems of type for the use of the blind, single copy 50 cents; six or more, each 40 cents. NO AND YES A brief statement of very important points in Christian Science. Pebbled cloth covers, 46 pages, single copy 32 cents; six or more, each 25 cents. RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE, and NO AND YES LIBRARY EDITION with numbered lines, cloth, marbled edges, single copy $1.00; six or more, each 75 cents. SMALL POCKET EDITION with numbered lines. Cloth, round corners, gray edges, single copy 60 cents; six or more, each 43 cents. Morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, single copy $1.75; six or more, each $1.60. PRINTED in Revised Braille, Grade One and a Half, system of type for the blind, 70 pages, single copy $2.00; six or more, each $1.75. TRANSLATIONS. English-French, English-German, English-Dutch, English- Danish, English-Norwegian, English-Swedish, English-Czech. In one volume, alternate pages of English and the translation; library edition, cloth, each $1.00; six or more, each 75 cents; pocket edition, leatherette, round corners, gilt edges, each $1.50; six or more, each $1.25. MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH Including in one volume, 94 pages, Christian Science _versus_ Pantheism, and the Messages of 1900, 1901, and 1902. Library edition, cloth, marbled edges, single copy $1.50; six or more, each $1.15. SMALL POCKET EDITION with numbered lines. Cloth, round corners, gray edges, single copy SO cents; six or more, each 45 cents. Morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, single copy $1.75; six or more, each $1.60. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS PANTHEISM The Pastor Emeritus' Message delivered at the Communion Season in The Mother Church in Boston, June, 1898. A clear and strong refutation of the charge that Christian Scientists are pantheists. Pebbled cloth covers, 15 pages, single copy 25 cents; six or more, each 20 cents. MESSAGE TO THE MOTHER CHURCH, June, 1900 Paper covers, deckled edges, 15 pages, single copy 25 cents; six or more, each 20 cents. MESSAGE TO THE MOTHER CHURCH, June, 1901 Paper covers, deckled edges, 35 pages, single copy 50 cents; six or more, each 38 cents. MESSAGE TO THE MOTHER CHURCH, June, 1902 Paper covers, deckled edges, 20 pages, single copy 50 cents; Six Or more, each 38 cents. CHRISTIAN HEALING A sermon delivered in Boston. Paper cover, 90 pages, single copy 20 cents; six or more, each 17 cents. THE PEOPLE'S IDEA OF GOD A sermon delivered in Boston. Paper covers! 14 pages, single copy 90 cents; six or more, each 17 cents. POEMS This volume of 79 pages includes all of Mrs. Eddy's hymns, also her earlier poems which appeared in various publications from forty to sixty years ago. Specially bound. Single copy $1.50; six or more, each $1.35. Published also in morocco, limp, round corners, gilt edges, uniform in style with the pocket edition of Science and Health. Single copy $3.00; six or more, each $2.75. SOLOS Poems by Mary Baker Eddy set to music Catalogue of solos will be sent on request. No music will be sent on approval. List of solos containing words by Mrs. Eddy, used by permission, and published by other publishers, sent on request. The foregoing prices cover all charges for express or postage on shipments either domestic or foreign. --- --- Address all orders and make all remittances payable to HARRY I. HUNT, PUBLISHERS' AGENT 107 FALMOUTH STREET, BACK BAY STATION BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. 
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35081	----	THE PEOPLE'S IDEA OF GOD ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH AND CHRISTIANITY BY MARY BAKER EDDY AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES A SERMON DELIVERED AT BOSTON Published by The Christian Science Publishing Society FOR THE TRUSTEES UNDER THE WILL OF MARY BAKER G. EDDY BOSTON, U.S.A. Authorized Literature of THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST in Boston, Massachusetts _Copyright, 1886, 1908_ BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY _Copyright renewed, 1914_ _All rights reserved_ SERMON SUBJECT THE PEOPLE'S IDEA OF GOD TEXT: _One Lord, one faith, one baptism._--EPHESIANS iv. 5. Every step of progress is a step more spiritual. The great element of reform is not born of human wisdom; it draws not its life from human organizations; rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from reason, the translation of law back to its original language,--Mind, and the final unity between man and God. The footsteps of thought, as they pass from the sensual side of existence to the reality and Soul of all things, are slow, portending a long night to the traveller; but the guardians of the gloom are the angels of His presence, that impart grandeur to the intellectual wrestling and collisions with old-time faiths, as we drift into more spiritual latitudes. The beatings of our heart can be heard; but the ceaseless throbbings and throes of thought are unheard, as it changes from material to spiritual standpoints. Even the pangs of death disappear, accordingly as the understanding that we are spiritual beings here reappears, and we learn our capabilities for good, which insures man's continuance and is the true glory of immortality. The improved theory and practice of religion and of medicine are mainly due to the people's improved views of the Supreme Being. As the finite sense of Deity, based on material conceptions of spiritual being, yields its grosser elements, we shall learn what God is, and what God does. The Hebrew term that gives another letter to the word _God_ and makes it _good_, unites Science and Christianity, whereby we learn that God, good, is universal, and the divine Principle,--Life, Truth, Love; and this Principle is learned through goodness, and of Mind instead of matter, of Soul instead of the senses, and by revelation supporting reason. It is the false conceptions of Spirit, based on the evidences gained from the material senses, that make a Christian only in theory, shockingly material in practice, and form its Deity out of the worst human qualities, else of wood or stone. Such a theory has overturned empires in demoniacal contests over religion. Proportionately as the people's belief of God, in every age, has been dematerialized and unfinited has their Deity become good; no longer a personal tyrant or a molten image, but the divine Life, Truth, and Love,--Life without beginning or ending, Truth without a lapse or error, and Love universal, infinite, eternal. This more perfect idea, held constantly before the people's mind, must have a benign and elevating influence upon the character of nations as well as individuals, and will lift man ultimately to the understanding that our ideals form our characters, that as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." The crudest ideals of speculative theology have made monsters of men; and the ideals of _materia medica_ have made helpless invalids and cripples. The eternal roasting amidst noxious vapors; the election of the minority to be saved and the majority to be eternally punished; the wrath of God, to be appeased by the sacrifice and torture of His favorite Son,--are some of the false beliefs that have produced sin, sickness, and death; and then would affirm that these are natural, and that Christianity and Christ-healing are preternatural; yea, that make a mysterious God and a natural devil. Let us rejoice that the bow of omnipotence already spans the moral heavens with light, and that the more spiritual idea of good and Truth meets the old material thought like a promise upon the cloud, while it inscribes on the thoughts of men at this period a more metaphysical religion founded upon Christian Science. A personal God is based on finite premises, where thought begins wrongly to apprehend the infinite, even the quality or the quantity of eternal good. This limited sense of God as good limits human thought and action in their goodness, and assigns them mortal fetters in the outset. It has implanted in our religions certain unspiritual shifts, such as dependence on personal pardon for salvation, rather than obedience to our Father's demands, whereby we grow out of sin in the way that our Lord has appointed; namely, by working out our own salvation. It has given to all systems of _materia medica_ nothing but materialism,--more faith in hygiene and drugs than in God. Idolatry sprang from the belief that God is a form, more than an infinite and divine Mind; sin, sickness, and death originated in the belief that Spirit materialized into a body, infinity became finity, or man, and the eternal entered the temporal. Mythology, or the myth of ologies, said that Life, which is infinite and eternal, could enter finite man through his nostrils, and matter become intelligent of good and evil, because a serpent said it. When first good, God, was named a person, and evil another person, the error that a personal God and a personal devil entered into partnership and would form a third person, called material man, obtained expression. But these unspiritual and mysterious ideas of God and man are far from correct. The glorious Godhead is Life, Truth, and Love, and these three terms for one divine Principle are the three in one that can be understood, and that find no reflection in sinning, sick, and dying mortals. No miracle of grace can make a spiritual mind out of beliefs that are as material as the heathen deities. The pagan priests appointed Apollo and Esculapius the gods of medicine, and they inquired of these heathen deities what drugs to prescribe. Systems of religion and of medicine grown out of such false ideals of the Supreme Being cannot heal the sick and cast out devils, error. Eschewing a materialistic and idolatrous theory and practice of medicine and religion, the apostle devoutly recommends the more spiritual Christianity,--"one Lord, one faith, one baptism." The prophets and apostles, whose lives are the embodiment of a living faith, have not taken away our Lord, that we know not where they have laid him; they have resurrected a deathless life of love; and into the cold materialisms of dogma and doctrine we look in vain for their more spiritual ideal, the risen Christ, whose _materia medica_ and theology were one. The ideals of primitive Christianity are nigh, even at our door. Truth is not lost in the mists of remoteness or the barbarisms of spiritless codes. The right ideal is not buried, but has risen higher to our mortal sense, and having overcome death and the grave, wrapped in a pure winding-sheet, it sitteth beside the sepulchre in angel form, saying unto us, "Life is God; and our ideal of God has risen above the sod to declare His omnipotence." This white-robed thought points away from matter and doctrine, or dogma, to the diviner sense of Life and Love,--yea, to the Principle that is God, and to the demonstration thereof in healing the sick. Let us then heed this heavenly visitant, and not entertain the angel unawares. The ego is not self-existent matter animated by mind, but in itself is mind; therefore a Truth-filled mind makes a pure Christianity and a healthy mind and body. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, in a lecture before the Harvard Medical School: "I firmly believe that if the whole _materia medica_ could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes." Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse writes: "I am sick of learned quackery." Dr. Abercrombie, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, writes: "Medicine is the science of guessing." Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon Extraordinary to the King, says: "I declare my conscientious belief, founded on long observation and reflection, that if there was not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality than now obtains." Voltaire says: "The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Believing that man is the victim of his Maker, we naturally fear God more than we love Him; whereas "perfect Love casteth out fear;" but when we learn God aright, we love Him, because He is found altogether lovely. Thus it is that a more spiritual and true ideal of Deity improves the race physically and spiritually. God is no longer a mystery to the Christian Scientist, but a divine Principle, understood in part, because the grand realities of Life and Truth are found destroying sin, sickness, and death; and it should no longer be deemed treason to understand God, when the Scriptures enjoin us to "acquaint now thyself with Him [God], and be at peace;" we should understand something of that great good for which we are to leave all else. Periods and peoples are characterized by their highest or their lowest ideals, by their God and their devil. We are all sculptors, working out our own ideals, and leaving the impress of mind on the body as well as on history and marble, chiselling to higher excellence, or leaving to rot and ruin the mind's ideals. Recognizing this as we ought, we shall turn often from marble to model, from matter to Mind, to beautify and exalt our lives. "Chisel in hand stood a sculptor-boy, With his marble block before him; And his face lit up with a smile of joy As an angel dream passed o'er him. He carved the dream on that shapeless stone With many a sharp incision. With heaven's own light the sculptor shone,-- He had caught the angel-vision. "Sculptors of life are we as we stand With our lives uncarved before us, Waiting the hour when at God's command Our life dream passes o'er us. If we carve it then on the yielding stone With many a sharp incision, Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,-- Our lives that angel-vision." To remove those objects of sense called sickness and disease, we must appeal to mind to improve its subjects and objects of thought, and give to the body those better delineations. Scientific discovery and the inspiration of Truth have taught me that the health and character of man become more or less perfect as his mind-models are more or less spiritual. Because God is Spirit, our thoughts must spiritualize to approach Him, and our methods grow more spiritual to accord with our thoughts. Religion and medicine must be dematerialized to present the right idea of Truth; then will this idea cast out error and heal the sick. If changeableness that repenteth itself; partiality that elects some to be saved and others to be lost, or that answers the prayer of one and not of another; if incompetency that cannot heal the sick, or lack of love that will not; if unmercifulness, that for the sins of a few tired years punishes man eternally,--are our conceptions of Deity, we shall bring out these qualities of character in our own lives and extend their influence to others. Judaism, enjoining the limited and definite form of a national religion, was not more the antithesis of Christianity than are our finite and material conceptions of Deity. Life is God; but we say that Life is carried on through principal processes, and speculate concerning material forces. Mind is supreme; and yet we make more of matter, and lean upon it for health and life. Mind, that governs the universe, governs every action of the body as directly as it moves a planet and controls the muscles of the arm. God grant that the trembling chords of human hope shall again be swept by the divine _Talitha cumi_, "Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." Then shall Christian Science again appear, to light our sepulchres with immortality. We thank our Father that to-day the uncremated fossils of material systems, already charred, are fast fading into ashes; and that man will ere long stop trusting where there is no trust, and gorging his faith with skill proved a million times unskilful. Christian Science has one faith, one Lord, one baptism; and this faith builds on Spirit, not matter; and this baptism is the purification of mind,--not an ablution of the body, but tears of repentance, an overflowing love, washing away the motives for sin; yea, it is love leaving self for God. The cool bath may refresh the body, or as compliance with a religious rite may declare one's belief; but it cannot purify his mind, or meet the demands of Love. It is the baptism of Spirit that washes our robes and makes them white in the blood of the Lamb; that bathes us in the life of Truth and the truth of Life. Having one Lord, we shall not be idolaters, dividing our homage and obedience between matter and Spirit; but shall work out our own salvation, after the model of our Father, who never pardons the sin that deserves to be punished and can be destroyed only through suffering. We ask and receive not, because we "ask amiss;" even dare to invoke the divine aid of Spirit to heal the sick, and then administer drugs with full confidence in their efficacy, showing our greater faith in matter, despite the authority of Jesus that "ye cannot serve two masters." Silent prayer is a desire, fervent, importunate: here metaphysics is seen to rise above physics, and rest all faith in Spirit, and remove all evidence of any other power than Mind; whereby we learn the great fact that there is no omnipotence, unless omnipotence is the _All_-power. This truth of Deity, understood, destroys discord with the higher and more potent evidences in Christian Science of man's harmony and immortality. Thought is the essence of an act, and the stronger element of action; even as steam is more powerful than water, simply because it is more ethereal. Essences are refinements that lose some materiality; and as we struggle through the cold night of physics, matter will become vague, and melt into nothing under the microscope of Mind. Massachusetts succored a fugitive slave in 1853, and put her humane foot on a tyrannical prohibitory law regulating the practice of medicine in 1880. It were well if the sister States had followed her example and sustained as nobly our constitutional Bill of Rights. Discerning the God-given rights of man, Paul said, "I was free born." Justice and truth make man free, injustice and error enslave him. Mental Science alone grasps the standard of liberty, and battles for man's whole rights, divine as well as human. It assures us, of a verity, that mortal beliefs, and not a law of nature, have made men sinning and sick,--that they alone have fettered free limbs, and marred in mind the model of man. We possess our own body, and make it harmonious or discordant according to the images that thought reflects upon it. The emancipation of our bodies from sickness will follow the mind's freedom from sin; and, as St. Paul admonishes, we should be "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The rights of man were vindicated but in a single instance when African slavery was abolished on this continent, yet that hour was a prophecy of the full liberty of the sons of God as found in Christian Science. The defenders of the rights of the colored man were scarcely done with their battles before a new abolitionist struck the keynote of higher claims, in which it was found that the feeblest mind, enlightened and spiritualized, can free its body from disease as well as sin; and this victory is achieved, not with bayonet and blood, not by inhuman warfare, but in divine peace. Above the platform of human rights let us build another staging for diviner claims,--even the supremacy of Soul over sense, wherein man cooperates with and is made subject to his Maker. The lame, the blind, the sick, the sensual, are slaves, and their fetters are gnawing away life and hope; their chains are clasped by the false teachings, false theories, false fears, that enforce new forms of oppression, and are the modern Pharaohs that hold the children of Israel still in bondage. Mortals, _alias_ mortal minds, make the laws that govern their bodies, as directly as men pass legislative acts and enact penal codes; while the body, obedient to the legislation of mind, but ignorant of the law of belief, calls its own enactments "laws of matter." The legislators who are greatly responsible for all the woes of mankind are those leaders of public thought who are mistaken in their methods of humanity. The learned quacks of this period "bind heavy burdens," that they themselves will not touch "with one of their fingers." Scientific guessing conspires unwittingly against the liberty and lives of men. Should we but hearken to the higher law of God, we should think for one moment of these divine statutes of God: Let them have "dominion over all the earth." "And if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." The only law of sickness or death is a law of mortal belief, and infringement on the merciful and just government of God. When this great fact is understood, the spurious, imaginary laws of matter--when matter is not a lawgiver--will be disputed and trampled under the feet of Truth. Deal, then, with this fabulous law as with an inhuman State law; repeal it in mind, and acknowledge only God in all thy ways,--"who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." Few there be who know what a power mind is to heal when imbued with the spiritual truth that lifts man above the demands of matter. As our ideas of Deity advance to truer conceptions, we shall take in the remaining two thirds of God's plan of redemption,--namely, man's salvation from sickness and death. Our blessed Master demonstrated this great truth of healing the sick and raising the dead as God's whole plan, and proved the application of its Principle to human wants. Having faith in drugs and hygienic drills, we lose faith in omnipotence, and give the healing power to matter instead of Spirit. As if Deity would not if He could, or could not if He would, give health to man; when our Father bestows heaven not more willingly than health; for without health there could be no heaven. The worshippers of wood and stone have a more material deity, hence a lower order of humanity, than those who believe that God is a personal Spirit. But the worshippers of a person have a lower order of Christianity than he who understands that the Divine Being is more than a person, and can demonstrate in part this great impersonal Life, Truth, and Love, casting out error and healing the sick. This all-important understanding is gained in Christian Science, revealing the one God and His all-power and ever-presence, and the brotherhood of man in unity of Mind and oneness of Principle. On the startled ear of humanity rings out the iron tread of merciless invaders, putting man to the rack for his conscience, or forcing from the lips of manhood shameful confessions,--Galileo kneeling at the feet of priestcraft, and giving the lie to science. But the lofty faith of the pious Polycarp proved the triumph of mind over the body, when they threatened to let loose the wild beasts upon him, and he replied: "Let them come; I cannot change at once from good to bad." Then they bound him to the stake, set fire to the fagots, and his pure faith went up through the baptism of fire to a higher sense of Life. The infidel was blind who said, "Christianity is fit only for women and weak-minded men." But infidels disagree; for Bonaparte said: "Since ever the history of Christianity was written, the loftiest intellects have had a practical faith in God;" and Daniel Webster said: "My heart has assured and reassured me that Christianity must be a divine reality." As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express them by objects more beautiful. To-day we clothe our thoughts of death with flowers laid upon the bier, and in our cemeteries with amaranth blossoms, evergreen leaves, fragrant recesses, cool grottos, smiling fountains, and white monuments. The dismal gray stones of church-yards have crumbled into decay, as our ideas of Life have grown more spiritual; and in place of "bat and owl on the bending stones, are wreaths of immortelles, and white fingers pointing upward." Thus it is that our ideas of divinity form our models of humanity. O Christian Scientist, thou of the church of the new-born; awake to a higher and holier love for God and man; put on the whole armor of Truth; rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation,--that ye may go to the bed of anguish, and look upon this dream of life in matter, girt with a higher sense of omnipotence; and behold once again the power of divine Life and Love to heal and reinstate man in God's own image and likeness, having "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
45481	----	provided by the Internet Archive WHAT IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE? By M. M Mangasarian London: WATTS & CO., 1922 _In this brochure the author makes an earnest endeavour to understand Christian Science and define its mission. He scrupulously verifies all his citations and references, and appeals to the judgment of those who are willing to hear both sides of the question._ "The blood, heart, lungs, brain, have nothing to do with life." "The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural than taking a fish out of water and covering it with dirt would be natural." "Christian Science is more safe and potent than any other sanitary method." "The condition of food, stomach, bowels, clothing, etc., is of no serious import to your child." "Gender is also a quality or characteristic of mind, not of matter." "Until it is learned that generation (birth) rests on no sexual basis, let marriage continue." "To abolish marriage and maintain generation is possible in (Christian) science." What is Christian Science? |You do not understand Christian Science" is the usual reply of the followers of Mrs. Eddy to any one disputing their claims, or trying to point out the many inconsistencies in their creed. If it is impossible to understand Christian Science, how does it expect to propagate itself? To answer that one must accept the doctrine before one can understand it would be like asking a man to see before he opens his eyes, or to think _after_ he has made up his mind. It is just as useless to try to understand Christian Science after it has been accepted as true as it would be for a judge to examine the evidence after a verdict has been pronounced. And if Christian Scientists can understand the beliefs which they reject, why may not other people have intelligence and honesty enough to understand Christian Science without believing in it? But can a person who is not a mathematician understand or discuss profitably the intricate problems of mathematics? No; hence no one but a Christian Scientist may discuss its doctrines and interpret its metaphysics. Neither has that defence any value. We do not have to be expert mathematicians to know that twice two make four. It is possible to detect an error in an example of addition, multiplication, or subtraction presented by the greatest mathematician without possessing equal knowledge or ability. Mrs. Eddy may be more advanced in metaphysics than any of her critics, but twice two make four in "Divine science" as well as in human science. Square your statements with the facts, and you disarm criticism. Ignore, suppress, or tamper with the facts, and you will have the universe against you. Why I Discuss Christian Science |If asked why I devote time and labour to the discussion of such seemingly foolish propositions as those propounded by Mrs. Eddy, my defence is that I am very much interested in the people who accept Christian Science, and would like to be of service to them, even though they may hold me and my motives in derision. Then, again, I feel that if we stand idly by while the Christian Scientists are concentrating all their efforts, sparing neither time nor money to spread their doctrine, we may wake up some morning to find that all our institutions--newspapers, courts, schools, etc.--have passed under the control of Mrs. Eddy's followers. That, in my opinion, would be a national menace. If the teachings of Christian Science prevail, there will come into prominence the type of mentality which will dispense with all forms of inquiry, and accept for authority the "say-so" of a book, a man, or a woman as all-sufficient and final. The passive mind easily becomes the plaything or instrument of every kind of imposture--political, economic, or religious. Non-resistance will prove the death of free institutions. I am opposed to Christian Science because I am opposed to the least departure from sanity. I have no other motive in this propaganda against the new cult. Whatever undermines the _morale_ of the nation or is hurtful to the free and rational development of humanity should be combated again and again until it ceases to be a menace. Mrs. Eddy's Mentality |The founder of Christian Science was, indeed, one of the busiest women of her day. She was preacher, writer, teacher, missionary, organizer, manager, etc. But even a superficial reading of her books will show that her activity resembled that of children at play rather than of men at work. Mrs. Eddy's mind displayed all the qualities and defects of primitive man. Though incessantly active, she followed in all her mental efforts the line of least resistance. Children are never at rest of their own will; they run and romp almost continually; but it is the activity of play, not of work, which they enjoy. To work requires concentration and effort in a definite direction, and submission to rules and regulations; while in play one is at liberty to follow one's own fancy, moving in any direction and at any speed one pleases. Again, the worker is expected to show results; the player, on the other hand, though equally busy, keeps going round and round, or back and forth, just for the pleasure of being in motion. Mrs. Eddy had the child's fondness for activity and the child's dislike for work. She rebelled against discipline. Rules and restrictions were as distasteful to her as to children who have been allowed to "grow up" without discipline, while logic and reason meant no more to her than they would to primitive man. _Science and Health_ is a book consisting largely of extraordinary claims put forth with the most provoking indifference to the universally accepted rules of evidence, and with an abandon suggesting that of the steed who has thrown his rider. If her readers ask for proofs, she points to the authority of her name. Has she not received a revelation? Is she not "the Comforter" whom Jesus promised to send into the world? And if there are obscure passages in her writings, it is not because these are really "dark," but because there is not enough light in the eyes of the readers of her books. This free-and-easy method carries her through seven hundred pages of her "masterpiece," _Science and Health_, without encountering the least obstacle or being checked for an instant by a single difficulty. Writing was like play to her, and sentences and phrases flow copiously and swell into a veritable flood in her pages, because what satisfied her was that she could say so much, and not whether what she said had any basis in fact. In the Preface to _Science and Health_, Mrs. Eddy, in order to prove the usefulness of medical knowledge, quotes the example of the antediluvians who knew nothing of drugs, and yet some of whom lived to be nearly a thousand years old. Mrs. Eddy makes this statement with as little concern as a boy tosses a ball. The reasoning that men were healthier and lived longer before the Deluge because there were then no physicians, whose presence in our times has shortened human life, may do for the "child-mind," but is it permitted to a full-grown person to make such careless use of his or her faculties? How does Mrs. Eddy know that the antediluvians would not have lived longer if they could also have had the services of trained and skilful physicians? It would be just as reasonable to assert that there would have been no Deluge had there been doctors to prevent it, as to say that the antediluvians owed their longevity to the lack of them. Without caring to make sure of her data, or to look into the truth of the statement that there was a flood, or that before this terrible downpour men lived to be a thousand years old, Mrs. Eddy accepts the rumour of the tradition as if it were a demonstrated fact, and proves by it, to her own satisfaction at least, the utter uselessness and positive menace to the human race of medical science. What an argument and what a conclusion! I am not accusing Mrs. Eddy of insincerity, but of mental indolence. Nothing, for example, but a distaste for work could account for her failure to verify her references in the following instances, or to supply to her readers the means of verifying them for themselves. She had to choose between making assertions and offering proofs, and she chose the easier of the two. "I have healed Infidels" (p. 359). * What were their names? Where did they live? Of what maladies were they healed? "One whom I rescued from seeming spiritual oblivion in which the senses had engulphed him" (p. 382). And what sort of a disease is that, and who was the person suffering from it? "A little girl who had badly wounded her finger" (p. 287); "A woman whom I cured of consumption" (p. 184); "A famous naturalist says" (p. 548); "One of our ablest naturalists has said" (p. 553); "It is related that a father" (p. 556), etc., etc. All these stories and illustrations fail completely to impress the inquiring reader, for the simple reason that Mrs. Eddy did not take the trouble to furnish the details to render her testimony admissible. In no court would such statements as "I heard a man say," or "I knew some one who heard a man say," or "It has been said by so and so," be accepted as evidence. Very likely Mrs. Eddy possessed the data, names, addresses, etc., of the patients and the naturalists she writes about, but she was too indolent to reach for her note-book, if she kept one. Again, only mental fatigue or sheer indolence can explain a statement like the following, from which all the important items which alone could give it force and effectiveness are left out:-- * The quotations, unless otherwise specified, are from Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures_. _I have seen age regain two of the elements it had lost--sight and teeth. A woman of eighty-five whom I knew had a return of sight. Another woman of ninety had new teeth, incisors, cuspids, bicuspids, and one molar. One man at sixty had retained his full set of upper and lower teeth without a decaying cavity_ (p. 247). Evidently these cases are cited to carry conviction with the reader of her book; would it not, then, have greatly enhanced their evidential value had she made it possible for her readers to verify their claims? But how can they do so when no names or addresses are given! If Christian Science does not need demonstration, why cite these cases of remarkable cures at all; if it needs demonstration, why not supply the details necessary to complete the demonstration? "I knew a person," writes again Mrs. Eddy, "who when a child adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia" (p. 221); and then she proceeds to relate how this led him to death's door and he was ready to die, "having exhausted the skill of the doctors, who kindly informed him that death was indeed his only alternative," and how "Christian Science saved him, and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the old complaint" (p. 221). Surely this fortunate person would have no objection to have his name announced and his case investigated. Why, then, suppress-his identity? Printed in italics at the foot of page xii of _Science and Health_ will be found the following notice or advertisement:--_The author (Mrs. Eddy) takes no patients, and declines medical consultation_. The above offers an excellent illustration of the distinction between work and play. Mrs. Eddy, with the mentality she possessed, found it easier to compose phrases and make vague statements about past cures than actually to grapple with "patients" or to take part in "medical consultation," whatever that may mean in Christian Science. After repeatedly asserting that the only way to demonstrate the truth of her science is by healing the sick, she herself positively declines to give this demonstration. It is really puzzling. Here is a woman who had discovered the only power that can heal the sick as nothing else can, and no other person understands the _modus operandi_ of this power better or even as well as she does, and yet she will take no patients--that is, she will under no circumstances apply her remedy, however urgent the need for it may be! Some people might be led to think that Mrs. Eddy's refusal to practise healing was due to her fear that she might not always succeed, which would greatly diminish her prestige and prejudice the public against her discovery. To claim, as we have explained elsewhere, that Mrs. Eddy's motive in refusing to heal the sick herself was that she might have more time and strength for matters of higher importance would imply that she was not strong enough to do both. But would not such an admission prove fatal to the claim that all is divine Mind, and that in divine Mind there is no sin, sickness, fatigue, or limitation of any kind? The husband of Mrs. Eddy died; that was an event calling for an explanation from the discoverer of an unfailing remedy for all maladies who happened to be the widow of the deceased. How could any one so closely related to Mrs. Eddy, and taking her treatment, succumb to sickness of any kind? Mrs. Eddy looked about for an answer to that question. "My husband died from the effects of arsenical poisoning mentally administered" was her first effort at self-defence. But Mrs. Eddy was quick to realize that she could ill afford to admit that an imaginary dose of arsenic mentally administered could deprive a Christian Scientist of his life, for she hastened to explain further that unfortunately "circumstances debarred me from taking hold of my husband's case." "Circumstances," then, killed her husband, since had she not been debarred by them she would have come to his rescue with her "divine" science and prevented his death. To further exonerate and defend herself she is inclined to blame her husband a little. "My husband declared himself perfectly capable of carrying himself through, and I was so entirely absorbed in business that I permitted him to try, and when I awakened to the danger it was too late." Now we know why Christian Science failed in this particular case. Mrs. Eddy was too busy, and she awoke to the seriousness of her husband's condition too late. Besides, the patient himself believed he was quite able to cope with the trouble without his wife's help. In short, "circumstances" proved too much for Christian Science. That is why Mrs. Eddy's husband died. The more Mrs. Eddy explained, the more she had to explain. If Mr. Eddy was murdered by means of mesmeric poison (whatever that may be), mentally administered by an absent practitioner who, Mrs. Eddy believed, was one of her own apostate disciples--that is, if some one could from a distance kill her husband--what prevented her, by the same absent treatment, and without taking any time from her other duties, from defeating the work of the mal-practitioner by a thought or two of her own? If this could not be done, and since there is a possibility of other divine healers being so entirely absorbed in business as to neglect their patients, had we not better hold on to the doctors a little longer, at least until Christian Science has become a match for "circumstances, etc."? And if a healer equipped with "divine" science can have more to do than he or she has the strength to attend to, in what sense is "divine" science more resourceful than plain, ordinary science? But there is more to come. Mrs. Eddy declares that one of her rejected students tried to kill her in the same way as her husband had been killed. But he could not, "because I instantly gave myself the same treatment that I would give in a case of arsenical poisoning (mentally administered), and so I recovered, just the same as I could have caused my husband to recover had I taken the case in time." There is no such thing as failure with Mrs. Eddy. Her husband would never have died had she given him the same treatment as she gave herself. Of course, years later Mrs. Eddy died too; but there, again, "circumstances" must have proved too formidable for Christian Science, otherwise both the Eddys might be living still. The founder of this popular cult believed that she had now explained the death of her husband to the satisfaction of her faithful flock. She certainly could have saved Mr. Eddy's life had she not been too busy with other matters, or "too late" in taking hold of his case. To prove this she goes on to give examples of her wonderful powers, as will be seen by the following: "Only a few days ago I disposed of a tumour in twenty-four hours that the doctors had said must be removed by the knife. I changed the course of the mind to counteract the effect of the disease"; and of course the malignant tumour took wings and flew away, twenty-four hours of Christian Science being all it could stand. It was really unfortunate that so powerful a healer was prevented by pressure of "business" from lending a thought to her sick husband. It was not because she did not want to help him, nor because her "divine" science was not equal to his trouble, but because of "circumstances." We hope that in the near future some advanced practitioner of Christian Science will discover a cure for that terrible malady called "circumstances," which reduced Mrs. Eddy to impotency at the bedside of a dying husband; a cure which will be as effective against "circumstances" as against tumours, cancer, etc. In comparison with such sophistry or make-believe, how refreshing is the intellectual honesty which sees true and aims straight. "Mortal Mind" |Mrs. Eddy's efforts to explain what she calls "mortal mind" give us an even better insight into her mentality. Though constantly denouncing mortal mind as the source of all human ills, the author of _Christian Science_ makes no serious attempt to account for its origin. The fundamentals of Christian Science as expounded by its author are summed up in the following statements:-- _God is All in All. God is Good, God is Mind. God Spirit, being all, nothing is matter. Life, God, omnipotent good deny death, evil, sin, disease_ (p. 113). The important deduction which the founder of Christian Science draws from these assertions is that sin, suffering, sickness, and death do not exist, since there is no room for them in God, who is All in All, or in a universe where Mind is the sole reality and "Nothing is matter." Our experience and our senses may testify to the contrary, but, replies Mrs. Eddy, "I find that God is true, and every (mortal) man a liar" (p. 113). In the opinion of Christian Scientists, that ought to end the discussion. "God is true," never mind what men may say. But what is the proof that Mrs. Eddy is speaking for the Deity? Calvin and Mohammed too claimed to speak for the Deity. If God is the All, whence comes mortal mind? The All plus mortal mind would give us more than the All. God cannot be the all unless he is immortal and mortal mind at the same time. It is true that Mrs. Eddy denies reality to mortal mind. By mortal mind she means false beliefs about God and man. But how did false beliefs originate in a universe where God or Good is the only reality? Mrs. Eddy's efforts to make room for mortal mind in her perfect world are really amusing, as will be seen by what follows. Man is defined as "God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal" (p. 115). She explains further that, while man is not God, he is nevertheless made in God's image, and is therefore God-like. The distinction between God and man, according to Mrs. Eddy, is one of quantity and not of quality. Jesus Christ was not God, she writes; he was only "the ideal of God, now and for ever, here and everywhere" (p. 361). It is true Jesus said, "I and my father are one"; but, explains Mrs. Eddy, what is meant is one in _quality_, not in _quantity_. Jesus was God in the sense that a drop of water is the ocean, or a ray of light is the sun--in essence, not in size. In that sense man too is God, or a little god. Both man and Jesus possess all the qualities of divinity, but in limited proportions. "The science of being," our prophetess goes on to say, "reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul and Mind of the spiritual man is God" (p. 302), but in quality only, since "man is in _a degree_ as perfect as the Mind that forms him" (p. 337). It follows that if man were God-like in quantity as well as in quality--that is, if he were not undersized or underweighted spiritually, there would have been no mortal mind, and therefore no sin or sickness in the world. But who clipped man's divinity, or made him an underling? In a perfect world how does man happen to be a dwarf? Forgetting her own statement, that man is not so "bulky" as God, Mrs. Eddy insists that, as there is no error or sickness in God, there can be none in man, who is "God's spiritual idea." Yet, in order to justify Christian Science healing, she is compelled to make a further distinction between God and man. God is one, but there are two kinds of men--the spiritual and the mortal, and it is the latter who need the high-priced services of healers. "God is not corporeal... mortals are corporeal" (p. 116). If we ask Mrs. Eddy how man could possess a body and yet be "the reflection of God," who is incorporeal, she replies that this body of which she speaks is only a make-believe body; the real man is all soul, as is the Deity. "The description of man as both material and spiritual... is the Pandora box from which all ills have gone forth. Matter is a fiction" (pp. 170-1). From which it follows that man is as incorporeal as God; but the former _thinks_ he has a body, and hence the sufferings from which the Deity is immune. "Mistaking his origin and nature, man believes himself to be combined matter and spirit" (p. 171). This, Mrs. Eddy considers, is as great an absurdity as to think of Christ as both God and Devil (Belial and Christ). How, then, did man come to have a body? He has none; he has only come to think he has one. And how did that happen? "The human mortal mind, by an inevitable perversion, makes all things start from the lowest." That is the way, according to the author of _Science and Health_, in which man came to believe in matter. This false belief is "mortal mind" (pp. 172-89), the Dragon which the St. George of New England offers to slay for what she considers a moderate price. Let it be observed that Mrs. Eddy attributes the existence or the belief in the existence of "mortal mind" to the "inevitable perversion" of the human mind. Mark the use of the word "inevitable." Does she mean that "mortal mind"--that is to say, sin, suffering, and death--were predestined? If she does not mean that, what made man's departure from truth, or his "perversion," _inevitable?_ Was there another power, greater than the All, who pulled man down into error? And how can Christian Science, if it could not prevent the "perversion" which called into existence the worst of all as well as the parent of all diseases--"mortal mind"--be a remedy against the innumerable ills which flow from it? In pronouncing "mortal mind" or the "perversion" which called it into existence inevitable, Mrs. Eddy has virtually created a power greater than her "All in All," since the latter could not prevent the catastrophe. Once more: the reply that man is God-like in every respect except in size, and that the body is a myth, does not help Mrs. Eddy's argument in the least. Real or unreal, the human body, or the belief in it, which causes so much suffering, should have no place in a system founded upon the dogmatic declaration that all is Mind, and all is Good, and all is God. The question remains: Why did Mrs. Eddy make room in this perfect universe for the serpent--mortal mind? As already suggested, without this false belief in materiality Christian Science would have been a useless discovery. Mrs. Eddy was debarred by her creed from admitting the existence of matter; hence she compromised on "a belief in matter," which works just as great a havoc as real matter. This arrangement has given to her army of Christian Science practitioners many (imaginary) ills to heal. Like Don Quixote, Christian Scientists to-day go forth to do battle, even though for enemies they have nothing more formidable than windmills. Physicians treat what they believe to be real maladies; Christian Scientists combat maladies which they say do not exist--that is to say, they fight phantoms. Not only does the author of _Science and Health_ utterly fail, as all metaphysicians before her have failed, to account for the origin of evil or mortal mind, in a universe created and governed by Infinite Goodness, but her doctrine that man, like the Deity, is free from sickness, etc., involves her in new contradictions. For example, on page 204 (1910 edition) Mrs. Eddy says that "in Christian Science it can never be said that man has a mind of his own, distinct from God, the ALL-Mind"; and more than once she has asserted that man "has neither birth nor death" (p. 244). Of course, this is no more than a theory; but, even as such, Mrs. Eddy makes only a limited application of it--that is to say, she does not follow her theory to its logical consequences. If man has no mind of his own, but is a replica of the Divine mind, why did the Deity make so many copies of himself? Was this self-multiplication of the Divine mind from necessity or from choice? If the former, then necessity was greater than the Deity; if the latter, then man was an accident, since the Deity could just as well not have created him at all, being free to do as he pleased. And if man is a copy of the Deity, why did He reproduce himself more freely among the inferior races--the blacks and the yellows--than among the white peoples? Again, if man has no mind distinct from the Divine, the _All-Mind_, he ought to have all the attributes of God. God is painless, sinless, deathless; and so is man, according to Mrs. Eddy. But why stop there? God is omniscient; is man omniscient too? Then why does he go to school? God is almighty; is man almighty? Then why does he have to use tools or ask for help? God is omnipresent; why is man dependent upon the means of transportation to go from place to place? How, then, does man, who is not distinct from the _All-Mind_--God, come to possess only one or two of the Divine attributes? Mrs. Eddy's Prayer |It is reported of Mrs. Eddy that every morning as she arose from her bed she repeated the following prayer: "Clad in the panoply of Divine love, human hatred cannot reach me." Her followers have expressed great admiration for this, the "Mother's daily prayer." But to be forever thinking of human hatred, and to live in constant dread of it, shows a broken-down mind. Only a person haunted by the fear of human hatred would beg daily to be delivered from it. If on getting up every morning a man were to say, "To-day my liver shall not hurt me," one would have reason to conclude that he was suffering from liver trouble. To deny human hatred every morning is also proof positive of an alarmed conscience. Macbeth saw Banquo's ghost everywhere and dared it with his "avaunt" and "hence," even as Mrs. Eddy, seeing so much of human hatred, ran under cover of "the Divine panoply" the first thing every morning. Is that the way to prove that "all is mind," and that there is nothing to fear? Is Christian Science Scientific? |Two words spell the name of this so-called "health religion"--"Christian" and "Science." Let us see if there is anything scientific about Christian Science. To begin with, men of science never try to suppress inquiry, because inquiry only helps to advance their cause, which can advance in no other way. Science is investigation. Eddyism, on the other hand, is a dogma. Science is knowledge, verified, classified, and placed within the reach of all. Eddyism is a _copyrighted_ cult. Science is free; in science we do not have to secure permission before observing, studying, inventing, or teaching. But Mrs. Eddy reads out of church the independent thinker or practitioner. Science is open to new truths. Christian Science claims to be a final revelation. For any man or woman to profess to be the custodian of the last word on religion, and then to copyright the same, is not only the negation of all science, which means increasing research and unhampered discovery, but it is also the most objectionable kind of monopoly. Science always accepts truth for authority, and never authority for truth. Christian Science, on the contrary, rests on the sole authority of Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures_. The fundamental difference between Mrs. Eddy and a scientist like Charles Darwin, for example, is that, while the latter confines himself to such statements as are investigable, Mrs. Eddy puts forth claims which defy investigation. Let me give an example. The founder of Christian Science solemnly declares that even the price she should charge for a course of instruction in metaphysics was dictated to her by the Deity himself: "When God impelled me to set a price on Christian Science--mind healing--I was led to name $300 as the price." And she adds: "This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led by a strange providence to accept this fee." It must have been a _strange_ providence, indeed! But can a claim of that nature be verified? If we desired to make sure whether the Supreme Being, with the destinies of ten thousand worlds upon His mind, found the time to fix also the dividend rate upon Mrs. Eddy's investment in Christian Science, how would he go about it? How shall we make sure that the Deity did not, on the contrary, plead with her to be satisfied with a more moderate profit? While in Salt Lake City I enjoyed the opportunity of an interview with a prominent Mormon. Finding me willing to listen, the gentleman told me how Joseph Smith had received a visit from the angels who delivered to him the originals from which were copied the articles of the Mormon belief. When I expressed a desire to see the "heavenly" documents, my informant replied that Joseph Smith had returned them to the angels. Is such a statement investigatable? And what is not investigable lies outside the province of science. Neither Mrs. Eddy nor Joseph Smith can be put in the same class with Charles Darwin, who advances no propositions which forbid verification. Is Christian Science "Christian"? |Eddyism is no more _Christian_ than it is _scientific_. Between the teachings of Jesus and those of the Boston lady there are irreconcilable differences. It is the claim of practitioners in Christian Science that they are following the example and applying the method of the founder of Christianity in the healing of the sick. This is one of the "telling" arguments used by Christian Science lecturers in their appeals for converts. But if it can be shown that the method of Jesus was in many respects radically different from that prescribed by Mrs. Eddy, the claim that her religion is founded upon the teachings and practice of Jesus falls to the ground. In a pamphlet issued by the Christian Science Publication Society and copyrighted we read as follows; "Jesus proved for all time and for all Christendom that the origin of disease was _mental_, and He healed it with _mental medicine_." Can that statement be squared with the practice of Jesus as we find it described in the Gospels? The evangelist St. John relates the cure of the man born blind as follows: "When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said unto him, 'Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.'" Is that the Christian Science way of healing the sick? Do Christian Scientists use clay or spittle? Do they "anoint" the sick with salve of any kind? Do they counsel bathing or washing for curative purposes? Moreover, Jesus, in reply to the question of His apostles as to the cause of the man's blindness, clearly states that the origin of this man's disease was not in human error or mentality:-- _And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. (John ix, 2-3.)_ The meaning of this text is that the man was born blind, not as a punishment for his or his parents' sin, nor because of mortal mind, but that through him God may be glorified. Could that text be quoted to show that blindness is a "mental" disease caused by unbelief or selfishness? or could it be quoted to prove that the man was not born blind, but only _thought_ he was blind? Where is the evidence, then, that "Jesus proved for all time and for all Christendom that 'disease was caused by mortal mind,' and that 'mental medicine' was the only remedy he used?" Was Jesus in the habit of using words to mislead his hearers, of saying things the real meaning of which would remain hidden for nearly twenty centuries--until Mrs. Eddy could place her _key_ (from three to six dollars a key) upon the market? The evangelist St. Mark gives another instance of Jesus's method of healing which is again totally different from Mrs. Eddy's:-- _And they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue._ Will the Christian Science healers explain the functions of the "hand," the "fingers," and the "spit" in "mental medicine"? If it be answered that Jesus resorted to material means to illustrate the power of the spirit, etc., it would follow that material means may be used to advantage, and that there is no such feud between matter and mind as the Eddyites proclaim. Many other texts could be quoted to show that Jesus used material means. He touched the bier, he laid his hands on the patient, which is the kind of manipulation vehemently denounced by Mrs. Eddy in her comments on mesmerism. The "touch" so frequent in the miracles performed by Jesus is downright heresy in Mrs. Eddy's system of healing. _Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them. (Luke iv, 40.)_ Again, Jesus recommends to his disciples dieting by way of abstinence from food--that is, fasting--for the healing of obstinate diseases. Evidently he believed that dieting increased one's healing power. In the same pamphlet published and copyrighted by the Christian Science Publication Society, the author, William R. Rathbon, member of the Board of Lectureship of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, writes: "He [Jesus] gave himself no concern about physical symptoms... He cared little about what the sick man had been eating, but much about what he had been thinking." In the New Testament, however, nearly every patient's symptoms are described, to which Jesus listened without a word of protest and with apparent consent. Had the evangelists believed, as the Christian Science lecturers teach, that disease is purely mental, they would not have gone into details in describing physical symptoms. "And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years" (Mark v, 25.) Does not that describe the nature and duration, as well as the physical effects, of the woman's disease? "Lord, have mercy upon my son, for he is a lunatic" (Matt, xvii, 15). "And one of the multitude said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son"; and then the father proceeds to describe the symptoms of his son's malady: "He foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away" (Mark ix, 17). In all these cases there was not a word of rebuke from the great healer because of the symptoms described. Jesus himself, on one occasion, asked for certain physical details before proceeding to heal the patient:--_And he [Jesus] asked his father [the father of the sick youth], How long is it ago since this came unto him? (Mark ix, 21.)_ What difference did it make when or how the disease was contracted if it is true that "Jesus proved for all time and for all Christendom that the origin of disease was mental, and he healed it with mental medicine"? Perhaps the motive for representing Jesus as indifferent to the physical condition of his patient is to excuse the Christian Science practitioner for his ignorance of the human body and his contempt for physical science. But the most irreconcilable difference between Jesus Christ and Mary Baker Eddy is in the spirit in which they performed their miracles. Jesus does not appear to have had any financial schemes in his head. He tells his followers to give freely the power which they have themselves freely received. The idea of taking money for a cure, or charging a large sum for the purpose of encouraging appreciation for his gifts, would have shocked the Jesus of the Gospels. The mere suggestion that some day a woman would copyright and commercialize this "divine power" would have made him indignant beyond expression. It is impossible to believe that the Jesus who said, "Get you no gold, no silver, nor brass, neither two coats, nor shoes," and also, "Freely ye received, freely give," could have the remotest sympathy with a woman who not only _sells_ what she calls "the power of God," but has also secured by legal procedure "a corner" on it. Mrs. Eddy's religion, then, is no more Christian than it is scientific. Had she been dealing in food products instead of in religion, the use of a false label would have made her liable to prosecution. Arrested Mentation |Perhaps the term which best describes the thinking which leads so many to accept Mrs. Eddy's teaching as both scientific and Christian is what the psychologists call "arrested mentation." The majority of people reason admirably up to a certain point, and then they suddenly come to a full stop. Having followed the right path to a considerable distance, they then deliberately refuse to follow it further. To speak more plainly, there are many people who reason correctly enough on some subjects, but on other subjects they manifest a credulity beyond belief. The Moslem, for instance, uses his reason against the claims of every religion but his own. The Christian Scientist argues like a trained logician against all alien cults, but when it is a question of his own faith he bids his reason to hush. For example, he observes, accurately enough, as we all do, that the mind frequently creates the conditions of the body. A man may at times think himself sick, or he may think himself into health. The will, too, is a factor to be reckoned with. The truth of the saying, "Where there's a will there's away," has more than once been demonstrated. In the same way, we all admit, since experience compels it, that the greater thoughts or sensations often crowd out of the mind the lesser ones. That is an axiom. If I am suffering from a toothache, the sudden appearance of a burglar in my room, pointing a revolver at me, will in all probability make me forget my toothache instantly. The cavity or the affected nerve which caused my pain is as real as ever, but for the time being I have a more intense sensation elsewhere in my system which renders me quite oblivious to the comparatively lesser pain. Within certain limits and in connection with certain maladies this principle--namely, the creating of a more powerful emotion in the mind than the one which is absorbing attention--could be, and is, utilized with therapeutic results. For people who worry, who imagine things, a complete diversion is usually all the medicine needed. So far, so well. But the Christian Scientists who keep their eyes open to the evidences of the mind controlling the body, and know very well how to use these as arguments, shut their eyes completely to the equally convincing proofs of the power of the body over the mind. Hunger or insomnia, if prolonged, will put the mind out of commission. Destroy the optic nerve, and all the mentality in the world cannot make the eyes see. Stop the full flow of blood into the brain, and every one of our mental faculties--memory, perception, judgment, as well as the power of speech--becomes crippled, if not totally destroyed. Will any sensible person dispute these statements? The Christian Scientist, who sees how many things the mind can do, deliberately ignores the things it cannot do. Can mind, as Herbert Spencer asks, change a field sown in wheat into a cotton field? Can it make a horse into a cow? Can it transform an African into an Anglo-Saxon? Can it convert copper or brass into gold? Can we, by thinking, make the sun go around the earth? At one time people did think that the sun moved and that the earth stood still. Did thinking make it so? It would be easier to prove that the mind would be helpless without the body than that the body would be helpless without the mind. Take away from man his erect posture or his hands, and not even the mentality of a Prometheus would prevent the decline and deterioration of the human race. What a wonderful instrument is the hand! It has no doubt contributed much towards the evolution of man. The thumb meeting each finger separately, or all four of them combined, enables one to take hold of things. The ability to feel things with the hands, to turn them over, to take them apart, to bring them nearer to the eyes for a more minute examination, started the mind into action, just as the same hands, by putting food into the mouth, started the machinery of life into going. Deprive man of his hands, and he will slowly slip to the foot of the ladder, no matter how much mind he may have. On the other hand, endow an oyster with the human frame, and in time it will develop a mind and a civilization. An oyster with the mind of a Shakespeare would still be an oyster, while a Shakespeare with the body of an oyster would have no use for his "thousand souls." Why do not the converts of Mrs. Eddy see all sides of a question? Because they think so far and no farther. Do Christian Scientists Use their Minds? |Despite the frequent use of the word "mind," there are perhaps few people who use their minds less than Mrs. Eddy's disciples. Mental development is possible only where there is freedom to think, to experiment, to differ, and to originate. Are Christian Scientists permitted to think for themselves? Are they at liberty to differ or to express original views? To repeat or imitate another very little mind is required. All the Christian Science topics, lessons, and instructions are issued from headquarters, and the official readers in the denomination merely repeat these verbatim. In their Sunday meetings no original or even individual word is allowed. Of what use, then, is mentality to a consistent Christian Scientist, who believes that the truth, the only truth, the final truth, has been discovered and brought to him once for all? In the Kentucky cave of darkness fishes and mice are found without eyes. What use could they make of sight in the darkness? Mind may become as superfluous to human beings who have nothing more to discover as eyes are to the denizens of Mammoth Cave. The following from a letter sent to Mrs. Eddy and printed in _Science and Health_ (p. 615) shows what small use some people have for their minds. The writer, whose initials alone are given, "L. C. L., Salt Lake City, Utah," writes how he fell from his bicycle while riding down a hill "at a rapid pace; and, falling on my left side with my arm under my head, the bone was broken about halfway between the shoulder and elbow. While the pain was intense, I lay in the dust declaring the truth, and denying that there could be a break or accident in the realm of Divine Love." So saying, he remounts his wheel and rides home and orders _Science and Health_ to be brought to him immediately, "which I read for about ten minutes, when all pain left." When he told his story his hearers would not believe that his arm could have been broken. To prove that it had he goes to an X-ray physician, who says: "Yes, it has been broken, but whoever set it made a perfect job of it, and you will never have any further trouble from that break." The writer concludes his letter with: "This is the first of several cases of _mental surgery_ that have come under my notice." What shall we think of the mentality which can be the parent of such contradictions! Here is a man who admits that he fell, though "there are no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." He also admits that he broke his arm while "denying that there could be a break in the realm of Divine Love." The broken bone is set by the reading of _Science and Health_, although it could not have been broken, for he did not fall, seeing that there are "no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." If he did not fall, he did not break his bone. But if the bone was not broken, it was not set; and if it was not set, there was nothing to prove the healing power of Christian Science. Therefore, he did fall and did break his bone "while denying that there could be a break or an accident in the realm of Divine Love"; and a physician, a man of material science, is called in to prove that the broken bone was admirably set by "mental surgery." Let me add that if _Science and Health_ could set a broken bone, it could also have prevented the accident. If it could not, then Christian Science is insufficient; if it could have prevented the fall and the breaking of the bone, and did not, then it was responsible for the misfortune. The further fact that the X-ray discovered that the bone had been set proves that Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ had not been able to obliterate all the marks of the fall and the break; which again shows that accidents do happen and bones do break "in the realm of Divine Love." People who make no better use of their minds than "L. C. L." of Salt Lake City does might just as well have no more mind than the cave fishes have eyes. Examples of "Reasoning." |On the fly-leaf of Mrs. Eddy's now "famous" book appears this quotation from Shakespeare: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." This is given a place of honour in her book because it is supposed to prove the truth of Christian Science. But a wee bit of clear thinking or of the power of analysis would have helped Mrs. Eddy to see that her opening quotation completely destroys all that she advocates in the rest of her book. The doctrine of Mrs. Eddy is that all is God; that God or the good alone exists, and that evil, etc., is mere illusion. According to her teaching, sickness, sin, and death do not exist except for those who believe in them. The only reality is God or goodness. But the text from Shakespeare which she so prominently displays upon her banners denies God or goodness, just as effectually as it does evil and the devil. "There is nothing--," says the great poet. Mark that, Christian Scientists! Is that any text to quote to prove that there is truth, and there is goodness, and there is God? "There is nothing either good"--Pause again: Are Mrs. Eddy's troops of voiceless followers willing to subscribe to that statement? If Shakespeare, Mrs. Eddy's authority, is right, the good is as illusory as the bad, for he says plainly that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," which should make God, goodness, health, and truth as much an unreality as sickness or sin. Moreover, the Shakespearean argument makes man the creator of both the good and the evil in the world, since it is his _thinking_ which determines the nature of things. Mrs. Eddy, on the contrary, maintains that man is merely a reflection of the Deity, who alone exists and is the only reality. It must have been the greatness of Shakespeare's name which tempted Mrs. Eddy to quote from him on the very first page of her book. But metaphysical arguments are like balloons: the bladders burst, and nothing remains. In order to prove that all disease is mental, the following argument is frequently used. I shall give it precisely as I find it in Christian Science: Its Results (p. 14; copyright, 1918, by the Christian Science Publication Society):--_If, then, it is considered that the state of mind may disturb the secretions, causing the tears to flow; or that the state of mind may quicken the action of the heart, causing the blood to rush to the face or away from it; or if the state of mind can affect the organs of the throat, causing huskiness, then it is plain that the state of mind may be held accountable for other derangements of the organs of secretion, of circulation, and of speech. And if of these, why not of other organs of the body?_ It is not denied that mental conditions often become manifest in their effects upon the body. But, first, what produces these mental conditions? The Eddyites do not seem to care to penetrate into that question at all. Is it not true that in the majority of cases it is some physical or material cause which has either depressed or exalted the mind--brought tears to the eyes or dried them? The sight of a sudden and terrible accident to a child while crossing the street will, for the moment, rob onlookers of their power of speech, blanch their cheeks and daze them beyond the ability to move or to think. In the same way, the news that a dear son has been gassed or killed in battle will change a happy home into a house of mourning, depriving its inmates of sleep and appetite. On the other hand, the unexpected discovery of a vein of gold on one's farm will exhilarate the mind and banish a hundred fears. These mental moods have physical causes. Just as heat passes into motion and motion again into heat, material events produce mental moods; and these mental moods resolve themselves once more into physical manifestations, such as laughter or tears. The Christian Scientist observes accurately enough that depression and discouragement cause sickness, but he is too impatient to learn that these mental states are often the result of bad circulation or mal-assimilation of food. Lack of fresh air, defective vision, or a dull but constant physical pain very often lowers the mental tone, proving thereby the interdependence of mind and matter. The lecturer from whose pamphlet I have quoted realizes "that salt water will flow from the eyes if he is subjected to great grief," and "that the state of mind may disturb the secretions, causing the tears to flow," and concludes therefrom that "dyspepsia and all other bodily diseases and derangements" should be treated "with truth rather than with tabloids and powders." But what if the secretions are disturbed by purely physical causes? A child cries for something to eat, and not from unbelief or fear, which are supposed to be purely mental states; and a piece of cake will relieve his hunger and dry his tears. A splinter in the eye will provoke tears, as will also a sharp, cold wind; the removal of the one, and protection from the other, will immediately dry the eyes. Peeling onions starts the secretions. Do onions come under the class of mental causes? Let me give another illustration. Wishing to prove that the material world is an illusion of the senses, Mrs. Eddy tells us that on a wet day, when there is a downpour of rain, and when mist and fog shroud land and sea, we can easily assure ourselves that our senses are not telling us the truth, that the weather is really fine, by consulting a barometer, which in the midst of cloud and rain points to clear weather. What shall we think of the mentality of a woman who appeals to a barometer to prove that matter does not exist? If Mrs. Eddy had not suddenly stopped thinking, she would have seen that if our senses betray us when they report wet weather, neither would we have any assurance that what they say about the barometer is dependable. Does she think that our senses are not trustworthy except when they refer us to the barometer? Inconsistent thinking is often also responsible for inconsistency in conduct. The Christian Scientist, for example, objects to the physician, but patronizes the dentist. Yet dental surgery is not different from medicine, but is one of its many branches. It is by the science of medicine that the trouble in the body is located, diagnosed, and remedied by the knife, if it cannot be by medication. Besides, the wound or incision is treated medicinally, which requires medical knowledge on the part of the surgeon, just as it does on the part of the regular physician. Can a dentist practise surgery without a knowledge of the human anatomy--that is to say, of how many bones and muscles there are in the body, where the nerves are located, to what sort of treatment they will respond, and to what laws of growth and decay they are subject? Does he not treat an abscess or receding gums with medicine? And does this not require a knowledge of medicine which to Christian Scientists is nothing but "error"? Why do not these people invite a novice or their cooks or barbers to work on their teeth if a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and medicine is not necessary to make a man a good dentist? The mere fact that Christian Scientists will not allow any one but a man with a diploma from a dental college to attend to their teeth proves conclusively that they regard a knowledge of medicine just as necessary as we do--only we admit it frankly, and they deny it foolishly. If the Christian Scientists have not progressed sufficiently to demonstrate against surgery, they should at least be grateful to us for taking care of their needs in the meantime, and help support the physical sciences until they are able to dispense with them. In her _Science and Health_ Mrs. Eddy ridicules those who think that vegetation or flowers can cause sickness, or that there can be such a thing as a "rose cold." "The rose," she writes, "is the smile of God," and to accuse it of producing fevers or colds is to make God the author of disease. This is strange reasoning. If the rose represents "the smile of God," what do the bugs and crawling insects on its petals represent? And whose smile are its thorns which prick x and draw blood? Further, if a rose, a material flower, can represent the "Divine" smile, why may not other equally material things have a mission in life--such as representing and imparting health? If the Deity can use the rose to reveal his smile, why may he not use herbs or minerals for curative purposes? Why may not soap and water, cleanliness, fresh air, temperance in food and drink and exercise, have as useful a purpose in the "Divine" economy of things as the rose? On p. 488 of _Science and Health_ Mrs. Eddy writes:--Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the testimony of which cannot be true. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. In the above, as also in innumerable other passages, the founder of Christian Science advises her readers to deny the testimony of their senses. They are urged to deny "that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed." Never mind the witness of our senses; "bones cannot break, nerves cannot feel, the nose cannot smell, and the eyes cannot see." But did she stop to think where such advice would carry us? I smell something burning in the kitchen or in the basement; but no, the senses lie. There is nothing burning; there is nothing to burn. I feel and see smoke filling the room. I can hardly breathe; but no, the senses are "a fraud." There is no smoke in the room, and I am not choking; for has not Mrs. Eddy demonstrated with "immortal proof" that "corporeal senses defraud and lie," and that they are "the only source of evil or error" (pp. 488 and 489)? If the infant is crying in the nursery because it has fallen from its cradle, or because it has stumbled into the fire, there is no need to rush for help, because the report of our senses that the child is in danger is a lie. "Christian Science shows them [our senses] to be false" (p. 489). Fortunate it is that not many parents are consistent Christian Scientists. It is said that Christian Science does not deal with man as he appears, but man as he is--"unborn and undying." Very well; is what Mrs. Eddy and her followers write or say about "man unborn and undying" debatable or un-debatable? If debatable, we have a right to ask the Eddyites to conform to the canons of human reason; but if Christian Science is non-debatable--that is, if it cannot be understood by such minds as we possess, then why write or talk about it at all? Do Christian Scientists Practise what they Preach? |Mrs. Eddy teaches that the material universe is an illusion. Do the Christian Scientists try to live up to this? I say, do they try, because to try is about all that any one can do, as it is an utter impossibility to really live up to such a belief. Let us see if there is any difference between the way we treat our bodies and the way Mrs. Eddy's followers treat theirs. We believe the body exists, and therefore we protect it with clothing. The Christian Scientists do the same, although they should not believe such material things as flesh and bone exist. We sleep to be refreshed; so do they. We have a roof over our heads; so have they. We close our windows in the winter and build a fire; they do the same. We are growing older; so are they. Now and then we feel unwell, and apply to a helper of some kind for treatment, when we cannot cope with the trouble ourselves; the Christian Scientists do the same. We die from some cause or other; so do they. If Christian Scientists never need any treatment, why are there so many practitioners among them? How do they make a living if no one of their circle is ever taken sick? I admit that we do not take the same treatment, or go to the same helper, or call our troubles by the same _name_; but, dear me! why make such an ado over mere names? In what respect, then, do Christian Scientists, who do not believe in the body, treat theirs differently from the way we treat ours? We have to eat to keep ourselves alive; so do they. We have to take liquids with our food; so do they. We bathe our bodies because to do so is refreshing and cleanly. Why do they bathe theirs? We need fresh air; Mrs. Eddy rode out every day for the same purpose. And does not the Eddyite, like every one else, repair his house or weed his garden? Does he not Paris Green his vegetables? Does he not screen his windows? Does he not scrub his floors? Why may he not, with equal reason, resort to certain means to protect his teeth, his eyes, or his digestive organs? If Mind is _All_, Mrs. Eddy's disciples should dispense with the use of powders and cosmetics, and their houses and gardens should be free from wear and tear, as their persons are supposed to be. Are not tree and plant, house and land, face and teeth, included in the _All_ which is _Mind?_ And do Christian Scientists use "Divine" healing also for the horse and the dog? Do they employ dressmakers to clothe their minds or their bodies? If Mind is All, why do not our trains run without engineers, or our ships sail without pilots? Are physicians the only people the Deity will not tolerate? If engineers and pilots represent Mind, why not doctors? It is admitted by leaders in Christian Science that many among their followers insure, not only their buildings against fire, but also their lives against accident, sickness, and death. Of course, death can be caused only by sickness, accident, or old age. It follows that the Christian Scientist takes thought of accident, sickness, and old age, and guards against them precisely as non-Christian Scientists do. I know also of Christian Scientists who are in the life insurance business--that is to say, while they deny sickness and accident they argue with their clients that it is the part of wisdom, as well as a duty they owe their families, to buy insurance. Is that the way to practise what one professes? Let us continue. Mrs. Eddy declares there is no matter, and then she proceeds to write a book. Why could not Mrs. Eddy communicate her revelation to her pupils without the help of a book? Would not that have been a real miracle? Why should Absolute Mind be dependent upon ink and type? Is not a book--its paper, its cloth, its ink, its glue and boards--as material as any drug which the chemist manufactures? If Mrs. Eddy is not able to reach the minds of her disciples without appealing to their senses of touch and sight, why condemn the doctors for using equally material means to influence their patients? But Mrs. Eddy goes beyond the physician in her materialism. A doctor, for example, invents an instrument to render surgical operations less painful, but he does not patent his idea to protect his profits. Mrs. Eddy discovers "Divine healing" and copyrights it. Moreover, the physician is the inventor of his own instrument. Mrs. Eddy declares that her book is from God, and then proceeds to copyright what does not belong to her. The hosts of people who proclaim Mrs. Eddy's name and bend the knee to her do not seem to reflect that to copyright God's thoughts is an attempt to copyright the Deity. A New England woman plans to secure a corner on the Divine mind for commercial purposes, else why does she charge such high prices for her book? And yet not one of her admiring followers breathes even a murmur against it. It has been said that the lady copyrighted her books and asked a big price for them, netting her nearly five hundred per cent, profit, not because she wanted the money, but to make the buyers appreciate the book. But what becomes of "Divine" science if it must count on money to make people appreciate its merits? If the Eddyites may use money to influence minds, why may not a doctor use drugs to get results? Really the metaphysical fraternity, instead of being sufficiently advanced in "Divine" science to dispense with medical help, are often compelled to employ the services of more than one doctor. The devout follower of Mrs. Eddy, if he has a tooth to be extracted or a decayed root to be removed, or an abscess in the ear to be treated, engages, besides the services of an expert physician, also some metaphysical practitioner. Thus, while the non-Christian Scientist employs only one kind of doctor, the believer in "Divine" mind employs two. When a Christian Scientist goes to a hospital for an operation, he either takes a practitioner of his own faith with him and instals him in a room near-by to give him "Divine" treatment while the surgeon is operating on him, or he goes to the phone just before going under the knife to ask his favourite practitioner for absent treatment. Two doctors instead of one--that is how Christian Science has done away with doctors. Of course, it is true that only in serious cases do Christian Scientists call upon outside help; but, then, in cases not serious anybody can get along without expert assistance. In _Science and Health_ (p. 463) Mrs. Eddy gives the following explanation of her seclusion from the world: "It has been said to the author: 'The world has been benefited by you, but it feels your influence without seeing you. Why do you not make yourself more widely known?' Could her friends know how little time the author has had in which to make herself outwardly known except through her laborious publications--and how much time and thought are still required to establish the stately operations of Christian Science--they would understand why she is so secluded." Is not this an admission of her limitations? And can a woman, claiming to be one with God, "unborn and undying," afford to confess that she has neither the time nor the ability to do all that is required of her? On p. 464 of her book Mrs. Eddy advises her followers to let a surgeon give them a hypodermic injection to relieve their pain, and a few sentences after she writes: "Adulterating Christian Science makes it void. Falsity has no foundation," She advises her followers, when "Divine" science fails, to take a hypodermic for help, and then she tells them that "adulterating Christian Science makes it void," which leaves her disciples between "the devil and the deep sea." And what if there were no hypodermics to relieve the pain which Mrs. Eddy's doctrine had failed to cope with? What if there were no surgeons to administer the drug? Under Christian Science all these material means are to be abolished, leaving the whole field to Mrs. Eddy. To whom, then, will "a Christian Scientist, seized with pain so violent that he cannot treat himself mentally," go for relief? Mrs. Eddy knows very well that physicians and not surgeons give hypodermic injections; but she has not the courage, nor, I regret to say, the honesty, to say anything good of a physician. Is not such a mind as Mrs. Eddy's a menace? Observe again that when a Christian Scientist is in intense pain he must not seek instant relief by an appeal to real science, but must first try Mrs. Eddy's remedy; only when that fails may he resort to a hypodermic injection. How long a trial should the sufferer of intense pain give to Mrs. Eddy's remedy is not stated; but this much is certain, he is to suffer the intense pain as long as he can bear it before trying any other remedy. Knowing very well that a hypodermic might give instant relief to a patient in intense agony, Mrs. Eddy nevertheless insists that the patient shall try her uncertain remedy first. But what follows is really debasing: "When the belief of pain is lulled [by the hypodermic] he, the sufferer, can handle his own case mentally. Thus it is that we 'prove all things and hold fast that which is good.'" Could there be anything more hypocritical than such reasoning? After the pain has been relieved by a physician, the Christian Scientist will treat himself mentally--for what? It is very much like saying that after a starving man has been fed let him proceed to demonstrate that food is not necessary for the relief of hunger. But the real motive for demanding that mental treatment should follow the hypodermic injection is to be able to claim that the cure, after all, was not effected by the physician, but by Mrs. Eddy's remedy. Moreover, if hypodermic injections are permitted for the relief of intense pain, why may not antiseptics be allowed for protection against germs, anæsthetics to deaden sensation, and antidotes to counteract poisons? After the antidote has killed the effects of the poison, the Christian Scientist, following Mrs. Eddy's instructions, may treat himself mentally and deny the reality of both poison and antidote. Instead of recommending the services of a surgeon, would it not have been better for Mrs. Eddy to have advised her followers to go about equipped, not only with her _Science and Health_, but also with a pocket apparatus or instrument for giving to one's self or others hypodermic injections in cases where Christian Science failed them? Really, when Mrs. Eddy says, "If from an injury, or from any cause, a Christian Scientist were seized with pain so violent that he could not treat himself mentally--and the Christian Scientist had failed to relieve him--the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would give him a hypodermic injection," she surrenders everything, and her metaphysics collapses like a bubble. It goes to prove that, despite her many bizarre somersaults in the air, she cannot avoid landing upon matter. When Christian Science fails, there is still the surgeon with his "hypodermic injection." What an anti-climax! Like all metaphysicians, Mrs. Eddy emerges from the same door wherein she entered. Again Mrs. Eddy practically overthrows the foundations of her faith when she writes: "If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient dies... does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken. In such cases a few persons believe the potion swallowed by the patient to be harmless; but the vast majority of mankind, though they know nothing of this particular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poisonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind. Consequently the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick chamber" (pp. 177-78). With that statement it may be said that Christian Science commits suicide. Only a logic-proof mind could fail to see that to admit the helplessness of Christian Science when in the minority against "the majority of opinions," as Mrs. Eddy does in the above passage, is tantamount to saying that at present, at least, no patient can be healed by Christian Science, since "the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick chamber." Not only does the statement quoted deny to Christian Science the power to cope successfully with "the majority of opinions," but it also destroys faith in the testimonials from patients who claim to have been cured by Mrs. Eddy's discovery. So long as the four hundred millions of China, the three hundred millions of India, and the hosts of Africa, to which should be added the multitudes in Europe and America, "believe the potion swallowed to be poisonous," or the sickness complained of to be real, "for it is set down as a poison," or as sickness "by mortal mind," a handful of Eddyites representing "an infinitesimal minority" can effect no cures, seeing that "_the result is controlled by the majority of opinions_." On page 162 of her book Mrs. Eddy writes: "I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs......Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it does what is called functional." She also claims to have "elongated shortened limbs," etc. But how could she perform the latter miracle against the opinion held by the majority that shortened limbs cannot be elongated, and after admitting, as she does, that in the sick chamber "the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, and not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions"? In her attempt to answer the question, why Christian Science fails to cure the patient who has accidentally swallowed a deadly drug, Mrs. Eddy strips her "discovery" of all its power to heal and makes "the majority of opinions the controlling factor." In one and the same breath she announces the supremacy of Infinite Mind, "who never endowed matter with power to disable life, or to chill harmony......since such a power without the Divine permission is inconceivable," and admits the helplessness of this "Infinite Mind" against "the majority of opinions dictated by mortal mind." And the same woman writes: "In this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements" (p. 345). Christian Science Cures |It is urged, however, that Mrs. Eddy's teachings have been demonstrated to be true by the remarkable cures they have effected. I need not question these cures. I hope all of them are genuine. I love humanity too well to wish that its ills were not cured at all rather than that they should be cured by Christian Science. But when every claim is conceded, all that will be proved is that Christian Science has cured some sick people. Of course it has. I hope the Christian Scientists will be equally generous to admit that during the past thousands of years cures have been effected also by other agencies. Mohammedanism has cured the sick; Catholic saints have cured the sick; holy places have performed cures--else why do multitudes go on pilgrimages to shrines? Patent medicines have helped the sick, otherwise the inventors and vendors of them could not have made such big fortunes; and the least tolerant Christian Scientist must admit that even physicians occasionally succeed in curing the sick. Evidently, then, Mrs. Eddy is not the _only_ healer; which, if admitted, will prove that she has not performed any cures with her "ism" which others have not performed without it. If it be said that other cures are cures only in name, the same is said by unbelievers of Christian Science cures. One objection balances the other. Christian Science would be unique if it never failed to cure. But as it fails in some cases from one cause or another, and as it limits its practice to complaints which do not require a knowledge of surgery, and, again, _as it has never accomplished what the other agencies have failed to accomplish_--restoring a lost limb, for instance--it follows without the possibility of contradiction that it is at its best no more than any other human agency. At a Sunday morning meeting in San Francisco, as the audience was leaving, a cripple in her invalid's chair was being wheeled out of the building. Stepping up to one of the ushers who seemed to possess considerable authority, I asked why the cripple had been brought to the Christian Science meeting. "To be healed, of course," was the unhesitating reply. But as she was being wheeled out in the same condition as she was in when wheeled into the meeting, would it not follow, I asked, that she was not cured? Had the occasion permitted, the Christian Science usher would have argued that one or two treatments are not always enough to effect a cure. Admitted. But if "Divine" science must have more than one chance to hit the mark, how does it differ from human science? To prove its Divine origin, Christian Science must meet the following conditions: First, it must cure diseases which all other agencies have pronounced incurable; second, it must never fail to cure; third, it must prove itself the only power that can cure. Not one of these conditions has been met by Christian Science. It has failed to cure many; it has not cured the incurables; and other agencies have cured at least as many patients as has Christian Science. In what respect, then, is Mrs. Eddy's doctrine the absolute or the only truth? Christian Science Testimonials |Mrs. Eddy devotes one hundred pages of her _Science and Health_ to testimonials from people who have used her "nostrum," very much as vendors of patent medicines are in the habit of doing. But while, as a rule, testimonials in patent medicine books are signed in full, those in _Science and Health_ give only initials. Rheumatism, hernia, fibroid tumour, insanity and epilepsy, cancer and consumption, Bright's disease, and many other diseases, according to these testimonials, have been "quickly cured," often by the mere reading of Mrs. Eddy's book. But there are equally numerous witnesses to prove that these same maladies have been cured by other equally fantastic remedies. I do not feel myself under obligation, however, to take notice of these claims, for the excellent reason that I am not bound to explain alleged facts, but only real facts. Let the healers first prove that their patients had real cancer, and that Christian Science cured them permanently, and then I will consider their claims. But some one might say: "I ought to be an authority on my own case. Every doctor had given me up; I was told nothing could save me. My disease was pronounced incurable, yet I am now in the best of health through Christian Science." If a person may be misinformed about others, he may be about himself. It is the most natural thing to imagine one's self sick or cured. It is equally a matter of experience that doctors often fail to diagnose the case of a patient correctly. Their pronouncing any one incurable is not a final or infallible judgment. Before a miracle is claimed in the case of any patient it has to be shown, by expert and disinterested testimony, that the disease in question really existed, that it was really incurable, and that Christian Science really cured it. But is such testimony forthcoming? Do healers invite investigation of their cures by outsiders? In 1898 Mrs. Eddy announced some miraculous performances. "I challenge the world to disprove," she said, "what I hereby declare! I healed malignant tubercular diphtheria and carious bones that could be dented in by the fingers. I have healed at one visit a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord." Who made the diagnosis? How could a novice tell one disease from another? If it was a physician's report Mrs. Eddy is quoting, who was the physician? Besides, for Mrs. Eddy to accept a doctor's verdict would be to put faith in medical science, which, according to her, is no science at all. Neither does this Divine practitioner give the name and the address of her patients. Who witnessed the treatment applied to the case she describes? Who pronounced the patient cured? I hope Mrs. Eddy cured all her cancer patients; but a hope is not a proof, nor is assertion an argument. The only way to demonstrate a power is to submit to all the tests. Compare Mrs. Eddy's story of how she cured an unnamed patient with the following accomplishment by a man of real science: "A remarkable case of curvature of the spine was announced at a Philadelphia hospital. The case was that of Adele Weinberg, a young girl hunchback. The surgeon removed part of one of the lumbar vertebræ, found it to be diseased, and in its place used a section of leg bone. She is as erect as though her spine had been normal from birth." That operation took place in a hospital in Philadelphia, before nurses and assisting physicians, who may be summoned as witnesses. But Mrs. Eddy mentions no witnesses whom we may interview in connection with the cancer cure she describes. Get-Well-Quick |Christian Science, instead of being either scientific or Christian, comes very near being, and in fact is, a sort of get-well-quick system, suggestive of the get-rich-quick scheme of the speculating fraternity. The gambler does not have to learn a trade or to build up a business in order to secure a footing in the commercial world, or to establish a reputation for honesty and efficiency. He does not depend upon these things for a living, since the throw of a dice, the colour of a card, or a lucky bet may bring to him in a few minutes more than patient work can offer in years. The Christian Science practitioner likewise does not have to study the human body, the properties of drugs, the nature of anæsthetics or of antiseptics, the germ theory of disease, the effect of diet and climate upon the human organism, the causes of epidemics, the means of control of contagious maladies--nothing at all of this. A few lessons in metaphysics, a copy of Mrs. Eddy's book, and a number of texts on the tip of his tongue, and he may begin practising and collecting fees from patients. Should a call come to the Christian Science healer in the middle of a cold, wintry night, he need not even rise out of bed, much less walk or ride through the storm to see and examine his patient; and if he should fall asleep while giving absent treatment, who would be the wiser for it? There is yet another close resemblance between the get-rich-quick and the get-well-quick systems. What makes gambling attractive is the wealth there is in the world. If labour did not create wealth, there would be nothing to gamble with or to gamble for. The gambler is a parasite. He thrives on the labour of others. In the same way, the get-well-quick practitioner profits from the conquests of material science. If the Eddyites really desired to give a demonstration of their "science," they should go to those Asiatic countries where sanitary measures are unknown where there are no facilities for the proper ventilation of dwellings or for personal cleanliness; where the waters are impure, the streets are foul, the food insufficient, the climate merciless; where modern hygienic precautions are unknown; where the cholera, the black death, or some other plague works unhindered, and where there are no physicians to be sent for at the last hour. Let them, I say, work in such an environment to show what Christian Science can do. But to operate in Europe and America--where science, like a watch dog, is guarding the health of the people, inventing a thousand devices for the comfort and security of life, hurrying to the aid of the injured almost with the alacrity of thought, building hospitals equipped with all the weapons which disease dreads, and training men and women to march at any moment in full phalanx and armed to the teeth against the first plague germ that lands on our shores from foreign lands--is nothing to boast of. Indeed, it is the progress of the physical sciences which has made the Christian Scientist's profession profitable. "Divine healers" eat of the golden fruits of the tree of science, and then turn round and stone the tree. Christian Science Fashionable |How, then, explain the remarkable growth of Christian Science? But the imposing edifices, the prosperous looking disciples, the number of automobiles in front of their churches, prove only that Christian Science is fashionable--that is all. The question we are discussing is not Is Christian Science fashionable, but Is it true? Does the rapid growth and wealth of Mohammedanism, for instance, with its Alhambra and Alcazar, its illustrious and extensive conquests, prove its Divine origin? Does the progress of Mormonism, which reared a great city as if by magic in the Western wilderness, prove Mormonism to be of God? The Catholic Church at one time owned everything in Europe and ruled every one. To her belonged all the wealth, the culture, the art, and the power of Christendom. Yet Christian Scientists do not consider the Catholic Church Divine. Why should the rapid spread of one creed surprise us any more than that of another? Moreover, it takes less courage to follow the crowd than to resist it. The crowd picks up the weak and carries them along. Was it not Horace Walpole who said, "The greater the imposition the greater the crowd"? What Matthew Arnold said of the multitude in England is true also of the American multitude: "Probably in no country is the multitude more unintelligent, more narrow-minded, and more passionate than in this. In no country is so much nonsense so firmly believed." Alas, that is true of the multitude in every country. Again, the faith habit is an older heredity, exerting upon us the accumulated force of thousands of years, while the inquiry habit is too recent an acquisition to have much force upon the generality of peoples. That is another explanation of the greater popularity of dogma, which requires only belief, and the comparative unpopularity of a movement which demands individual thinking. "Superstition," as Goethe says, "is so intimately and anciently associated with man that it is one of the hardest things to get rid of." The only progress most people are capable of is to part with one superstition for another. The Pope is given up for Mrs. Eddy, but the idea of an infallible teacher to tell us what to believe is not outgrown. The keys of heaven and hell placed in the hands of the Vicar of Christ provoke scepticism in a Christian Scientist, but he accepts without the shadow of a doubt the key to the Scriptures delivered to Mrs. Eddy. But how account for the presence of so many judges and lawyers among the converts of Christian Science? And how account for the judges and lawyers who are not Christian Scientists? It was not so long ago when judges condemned innocent women as witches, and sentenced them to be tortured to death. Did that make witchcraft a fact, or can it be quoted to justify the belief in witchcraft? The late Chief Justice of the United States was a Catholic. What does that prove? Christian Science and Witchcraft |Without wanting to give offence, I would say that Christian Science is, in many respects, the modern version of the witchcraft belief, which smote New England some three or four hundred years ago. If mental treatment can cure, according to Mrs. Eddy's admissions, it can also kill. Over her own signature Mrs. Eddy declares that her last husband was killed by poison "mentally administered." The devil possessed witches, too, were supposed to be able to injure and kill people mentally. Mrs. Eddy teaches that, "If the right mental practice can restore health, it is self-evident that mental malpractice can impair health." She also contends that a person may commit mental murder or "mental assassination." In the _Christian Science Journal_ of February, 1889, she demands that "mental assassins" be turned over to the executioner. On May 14, 1878, Mrs. Eddy, her attorney, and some twenty witnesses, appeared at the opening of the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem and practically accused a certain Mr. Daniel Harrison Spoffard of sorcery and witchcraft. Mrs. Eddy's bill of complaint recited the injuries which Spoffard was mentally, and of course by absent treatment, inflicting upon one of Mrs. Eddy's students, a Miss Lucretia Brown, and begged the Court to restrain him from giving malicious mental treatment to said Miss Brown. Does not that suggest darkest Africa? Let me give a few lines from Mrs. Eddy's bill of complaint:-- _By the power of his mind he (Mr. Spoffard) influences and controls the minds and bodies of other persons, and uses his said power and art for the purpose of injuring the persons and property of others. Among the injuries Mr. Spoffard has communicated to Miss Brown are severe spinal pains, neuralgia, temporary suspension of mind._ Fortunately for the reputation of our courts, Judge Gray dismissed the charges against Mr. Spoffard, declaring, with a twinkle in his eye, that it was not within the jurisdiction of the courts to control Mr. Spoffard's mind. Had the Judge been of Mrs. Eddy's persuasion, the old regrettable Salem persecutions against so-called witches might have been revived. How well has it been explained by John Fiske that "one of the most primitive shapes which the relation of cause and effect takes in the savage mind is the assumed connection between disease or death and some malevolent personal agency." Marriage and Death in Christian Science |Let us now investigate some of the other teachings of Mrs. Eddy, which are at present more or less kept in the background, or which are presented only to those who have become adepts or advanced students of the cult. A careful perusal of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous literature will show that she practically denies sex, marriage, birth, death, the home, the family, as well as education and morality. It seems a serious accusation to bring against any one posing as a reformer or as the founder of a religion, but the evidence warrants the charge. Has no one ever observed that Christian Science journals do not announce marriages, births, or deaths? Of course, like other people, Christian Scientists are born, marry, and die; but no official recognition of such events is permitted. There must be a reason for it. In Christian Science there is no room for sex relations and for children, even as there is no recognition of that other natural phenomenon, death. But do not Mrs. Eddy's disciples die? Is not her body buried in a cemetery, and marked by a monument raised over her remains by her admirers? The explanation for this apparent contradiction between the profession and the practice, from the Christian Science point of view, is as follows: Every believer in Mrs. Eddy's revelation is expected to demonstrate over death as over sickness; and just as, when a practitioner fails to demonstrate over sickness, it is because of some error or belief somewhere, and not because of the insufficiency of Divine power, likewise, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he has not applied the new doctrine rightly, and not because the doctrine is not strong enough to prevent death. This teaching really makes of death not a beneficent economy of nature, but a crime, or a miscarriage, as it were, of Christian Science. In the State of Michigan there is a religious sect called "the House of David." One of their doctrines is that a Christian cannot die. "But," I asked the man whom I was interviewing in Michigan, "do not the members of your sect die like other people?" His answer was that they die only when they fall from grace. In the same way, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he has departed from the truth as taught by Mrs. Eddy, or because some one has killed him mentally by "malicious animal magnetism" or "mortal mind." That was how, Mrs. Eddy asserts, her husband was assassinated. If one member of a family is a Christian Scientist and the treatment he receives from a practitioner does not cure him of the complaint, the blame is liable to be thrown upon the non-Christian Science members of the family, who, by resisting the operations of "Divine" power, prevent its manifestation. It is witchcraft come back. Could anything be more inhuman than to hold an unbelieving parent responsible for the failure of Christian Science to save his child from an attack of typhus or scarlet fever after the practitioner has deprived the patient of the services of medical care and treatment? But can a "Divine" healer admit failure? Rather than confess defeat, he will accuse the nearest relatives of the patient of malpractice. I am sorry to conclude that at times Christian Science is as cowardly as it is cruel. "Suffer it to Be So Now" |According to Mrs. Eddy, marriage, like death, suggests materiality, and is therefore an error. The words of Jesus, that in heaven they shall be like the angels who do not marry nor are given in marriage, are quoted to prove that sex is an illusion of mortal mind. Of course, the Eddyites marry, but only for the same reason that they die--because they are not sufficiently advanced in Christian Science to demonstrate over these errors. In the _Christian Science Sentinel_, June 16, 1906, and in the _Christian Science Journal_, July, 1906, Mrs. Eddy calls marriage "legalized lust"--this from a woman who had been three or four times married! "Suffer it to be so now" is the text quoted by Christian Scientists to defend their inconsistency. But how long a time does the word "now" cover? Jesus, in using the word "now," must have meant his own day, which was nearly two thousand years ago. But is it still "now"? A "now" that lasts so long might just as well mean "indefinitely." "Suffer it to be so _indefinitely_" would be the real meaning of the text as the Eddyites interpret it. Accordingly, when the Christian Science dispensation shall be in full swing, marriage, birth, children, the family, as also sickness and death, will be no more. That will be, I suppose, when it is no longer "now." I have already quoted Mrs. Eddy's belief in regard to sex: "Gender is also a quality characteristic of mind, and not of matter." She will wink at marriages "until it is learned that generation [birth] rests on no sexual basis." I do not know what kind of reasoning led her to say: "To abolish marriage and maintain generation is possible in Christian Science." Are not such foolish as well as mischievous doctrines a menace to the community? Can a man, can a woman, believe in such absurdities without becoming unbalanced mentally sooner or later? The New Autocracy |Mrs. Eddy has banished all freedom of thought from her Church, as Luther and Calvin did from theirs. Christian Science is as distinctly hostile to the liberty of teaching as were the dogmatists of the Reformation. In the _Christian Science Quarterly_ Bible Lessons definite instructions are given to read the following explanatory note before reciting the lesson-sermon:-- _Friends,--The Bible and the Christian Science Text-book are our only preachers... The canonical writings, together with the word of our text-book, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from Truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized._ It is absolutely necessary to repeat this at every Sunday meeting. It will be seen from the formula imposed upon her followers that only Mrs. Eddy's voice is tolerated in Christian Science churches. But does she not also permit the reading of the Bible? Only as _she_ interprets it, no other interpretation being allowed, which makes the Bible nothing more than a medium for Mrs. Eddy's thought. Outside of her book all is contamination. _Science and Health_ and the book to which it is the key are alone Divine, everything else being "human hypotheses" which enslave and corrupt. Has the intellect of man ever been subjected to a greater pinch than that? "He who does not believe my doctrine is sure to be damned," said Luther (Professor E.M. Hulme, _The Renaissance_, p. 363). Will Mrs. Eddy admit that there is any salvation outside her church, or that there is any other infallible guide than her own _Science and Health_? And just as both John Calvin and Martin Luther called upon the civil authorities to draw the sword against heretics, so Mrs. Eddy repeatedly summoned the State to punish "mental assassins." Where there is no freedom persecution is inevitable, since there is no other effective way to suppress freedom. It was the great Swiss reformer, Beza, who congratulated Calvin on the burning of Servetus: "To claim that heretics ought not to be punished is the same as saying that those who murder father and mother ought not to be punished, seeing that heretics are infinitely worse than they." Mrs. Eddy, nearly four hundred years later, appealed to the courts in the United States to punish one Richard Kennedy, a former disciple of hers, for _malicious animal magnetism_, and called upon the police to avenge the death of her husband by arresting the culprit who administered poison to him "mentally." "Oh, why does not somebody kill him?" Mrs. Eddy was heard to exclaim when she imagined herself the victim of the malpractice of one of her rivals. In _Science and Health_, chap. vi, p. 38, 1881 edition, Mrs. Eddy, writing of another of her dissenting disciples with all the theological fury of the Dark Ages, calls him the "Nero of to-day... he is robbing, committing adultery, and killing," etc. And on page 2, in the same chapter, she calls Kennedy a "moral leper," to be "shunned as the most prolific cause of sickness and sin." Listen to this language of Love:-- _Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track with the trophies of thy guilt._ Then she predicts "a hailstorm of doom upon the guilty head" of Daniel Spoffard, another of her former students (_Science and Health_, 1878 edition). Christian Science shows many of the symptoms of the early stages of the Protestant Reformation. "Justification by faith alone" was the slogan of Luther and his associates. Good works were not necessary at all. Salvation was a divine gift, and all that the sinner had to do was to accept it. Doing was a deadly thing. Mrs. Eddy, like another Martin Luther, preached the doctrine of salvation and health by faith alone. "Quit trying to get well by your own efforts and trust in Divine Mind" was her ultimatum. Mrs. Eddy had no more use for sanitary measures or for self-help than the German reformers had for good works. And just as Mrs. Eddy taught that to resort to material means destroyed the patient's chances of being healed by Christian Science, the Lutherans declared that good works were prejudicial to salvation because they made man self-confident and boastful. Another resemblance between Luther and Mrs. Eddy is to be found in their common contempt for human science. To Luther the intellect was the devil's bride. When he used stronger language he denounced reason as a whore. He had no use for the universities, and prayed to see them pulverized. More than once he boasted openly that there was not a dogma of Christianity that did not offend human reason. But what is human reason worth? What is it but, as Mrs. Eddy would reply, "mortal mind"? The founder of Christian Science showed even less respect for human intellect than did the reformers of the sixteenth century. The words of Erasmus, the distinguished scholar of Holland, "The triumph of the Lutherans is the death of good learning," could also be said of the followers of Mrs. Eddy. The cause of culture, of intellectual achievements, of discovery, of political and physical advancement, is sure to be, and is, neglected by people who are too eager to demonstrate the wonders of metaphysics. Any movement which does not include the entire field of human knowledge is bound to be both narrow and sterile. Goethe believed that the Lutheran doctrine, which confined the world to one book, upon the meaning of which no two interpreters agreed, postponed the emancipation of the human intellect for a thousand years. Luther led the world out of the Catholic darkness into the Protestant fog. Of Mrs. Eddy it could be said that she has brought her people out of the land of Egypt into a pathless wilderness. The Menace of Christian Science |Imagine again what would happen to our educational system if it were to pass under the control of Mrs. Eddy's party. The majority of studies now pursued would be eliminated from the course. No Christian Scientist would see the need of knowing anything about physiology, anatomy, chemistry, biology, botany, geology, or any of the fundamental physical sciences. To teach these would be an admission of the reality of the material universe and a denial of the doctrine that all is illusion and error except "Divine" mind. But what would become of a nation reared in ignorance of the physical world and the laws which govern it? Industrially such a nation must slip to the bottom of the line, leaving the commerce of the world in the hands of those who study and master the physical sciences. The Eddyites would not care, since they are not interested in the material life, and would be glad to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain life without food, as it is possible to maintain generation without sex. With the Christian Science dogma in force, every book out of harmony with it would be excluded from our public libraries. Think you a Christian Science librarian, if free to do as he thought best, would permit the reading of books filled with "mortal error," the cause of disease and death, and thereby postpone the coming of the kingdom of Mrs. Eddy? If to-day you can scarcely find a Christian Scientist who will read or hear anything opposed to his creed, and if at present Christian Scientists allow in their churches only two books--the Bible and the works of Mrs. Eddy--are they going to allow more than two books in our schools, libraries, and homes, should they acquire control of the government? People think that Eddyism is only a sort of drugless cure and no more; on the contrary, Eddyism, with its overemphasis on the _divine_ is the sworn foe of everything human. Huxley has well said that modern civilization rests upon physical science. "Take away her gifts, and our country's position among the civilized nations of the world is gone to-morrow. It is physical science that makes intelligence and morality stronger than brute force." How splendidly true, and how refreshing is common sense after so much nonsense! The physical sciences are not the only studies which Christian Scientists will suppress should they come into power. History, ethics, and the humanities will also be forbidden. To a Christian Scientist the history of the centuries before Mrs. Eddy's discovery is summed up in one word--error. No Christian Scientist will teach the history of error--of illusion and "mortal mind." Even the late World War was to them only an unreality. There was, according to Mrs. Eddy's followers, no war at all, for war means disharmony, and in God's universe there is room only for harmony. It is true that young men of this faith went to war, and some of them, unfortunately, were killed in battle. Nevertheless, no Christian Scientist could be conscious of anything but harmony, and therefore no Christian Scientist logically could write of the War or of any event in history which would necessitate the recognition of evil. God himself, who is perfect harmony, did not know there was a war in Europe, said the committee on Christian Science publications in explaining the attitude of their Church on the War. Christian Science and Morals |Morality, too, as a scientific study, will be banished from the schools under Eddyism. In the Infinite there is no more room for sin than there is for disease, and, since man is but the image of the Infinite, he is as free from sin as he is from disease. Mrs. Eddy practically denies the possibility of sin in Christian Science. At the age of fifty-six, on January 1, 1877, Mrs. Eddy contracted a new marriage, this time with Mr. Asa G. Eddy, giving her age as forty, as shown by her marriage licence. With a gesture Mrs. Eddy swept aside the charge that she had suppressed the truth about her age, and justified the misrepresentation on metaphysical grounds. In her _Science and Health_, pp. 245-6, she asserts that a woman could not age while believing herself to be young. Eternity, according to her, has nothing to do with chronology, and "time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood." "Never record ages," she advises. But if it makes no difference to a Christian Scientist how old or how young she is, so far as the number of years is concerned, why did Mrs. Eddy under-state her age? In pretending to be younger than she really was did she not show her fear of advancing years? Perhaps Mrs. Eddy also believed that _truth_ as well as _time_ had lost all claims upon Christian Scientists. To change a lie into a truth, all that is necessary is to deny that "time-tables and calendars" have any meaning to the believer in eternity. One could even commit murder and deny that a bullet or a knife could possibly deprive a man, who is _all mind_, of his life. Mrs. Eddy and her book, I suppose, will be about all the protection we shall have against the lightning, the storm, or the cold, or against hunger, ignorance, and crime. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of world this would be when stripped of everything but Mrs. Eddy's "inspired" metaphysics. In the State of Washington the Christian Scientists, as soon as they had acquired sufficient political power to do it, abolished the law requiring the medical inspection of children in the public schools. But who will be the greatest sufferers from this foolish ordinance? The children, of course: the pupils afflicted with defective vision or throat and nose maladies will be deprived of the benefits of human knowledge and experience. Their prayer for better sight, for freer breathing and unhampered speech, will remain unheeded, upon the plea that sight, hearing, and speech are of the Mind, and that bodily obstructions cannot interfere with them. The Washington state law abolishing the physical examination of public-school children gives us an idea of what to expect under a metaphysical government. And under Christian Science who, for example, will care for the deaf and dumb unfortunates in the community? Material science, seconded by human sympathy, has greatly helped to rob deafness and dumbness of more of their power to discourage and depress. I have met deaf people who were so well trained to read the movement of the lips as to be able to converse freely. What will Christian Science do for these unfortunates? Has it ever taken thought of them? And has Christian Science ever planned or built homes for crippled children--the poor little ones who cannot walk or move without pain? And what has metaphysics ever done in the fight against the white plague? Has it made a single discovery, or given a new weapon to man against any of the evils human flesh is heir to? With this Asiatic superstition or fatalistic belief, masquerading as Christian and scientific, in control of our institutions, all sanitary laws, such as the pure food law, the law requiring the fumigation of houses or the isolation of their inmates suffering from contagious diseases, the laws requiring the inspection of ships from plague-ridden ports, those requiring fireproof public buildings or providing for fire escapes and a hundred other safety-first measures, will receive scant attention. To see and fight evil is wiser than to shut our eyes to it. The rose is no more real than the thorns which guard it. The tear is as natural as the smile, and equally divine. To be able to suffer for those we love, and for a cause we prize, is a privilege. Christian Science robs people of the feeling of sympathy, without which man and marble become alike. But sympathy is born of the consciousness that there are pain and suffering, evil and error, in the world. Cognizance of evil is not permitted to a Christian Scientist. Being in Nirvana himself, the disciple of Mrs. Eddy neither sees nor feels, or at least he pretends not to see or feel, the sorrow that draws the tear. Are there not times when, as the poet Hood in his _Ode to Melancholy_ says, the genuine tear is nobler than the artificial smile? Oh, give her, then, her tribute just, Her sighs and tears and musings holy! There is no music in the life That sounds with idiot laughter solely. "Christian Science makes people happy" is an argument often advanced. No doubt it does. But we are not discussing "Is Christian Science Comforting?" but "Is it true?" Ignorance is bliss, it has been said; but does that prove that ignorance should be cultivated and knowledge suppressed? I met a young woman just the day before her mother's funeral who behaved as if she and the woman who had borne her, nursed her, carried her in her arms, who had watched day and night over her cradle and risked her life for her a hundred times, were total strangers. The young woman was a Christian Scientist. Eliminate the sympathy which consciousness of a struggling and suffering world inspires, and art, literature, poetry, morality, and the humanities wither like a branch deprived of the quickening sap. Jesus was called the man of sorrows. Could he have been a Christian Scientist? "Jesus wept" is written in the Gospel of John. Sorrow and tears are heresies to the perpetually smiling followers of Mrs. Eddy. Let us have men and women who fear neither the thorn nor the tear, but who use them as stepping-stones to greater strength. The way to meet evil is to grapple with it soldier-like. Man is not an ostrich, and burying one's head in the sand is a coward's policy. To live is to act, and to act is to combat. But darkness cannot be overcome with jargon. To conquer we need the weapons of Prometheus--knowledge and courage! 
16448	----	[Illustration: "YOU'VE MADE ME SOME STORIES, MOTHER!"] JEWEL'S STORY BOOK BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Made in the United States of America COPYRIGHT 1904 BY CLARA LOUISE BURNHAM ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published October, 1904_ _TO THE CHILDREN WHO LOVE JEWEL_ CONTENTS I. OVER THE 'PHONE II. THE BROKER'S OFFICE III. THE HOME-COMING IV. ON THE VERANDA V. THE LIFTED VEIL VI. THE DIE IS CAST VII. MRS. EVRINGHAM'S GIFTS VIII. THE QUEST FLOWER IX. THE QUEST FLOWER (CONTINUED) X. THE APPLE WOMAN'S STORY XI. THE GOLDEN DOG XII. THE TALKING DOLL XIII. A HEROIC OFFER XIV. ROBINSON CRUSOE XV. ST. VALENTINE XVI. A MORNING RIDE XVII. THE BIRTHDAY XVIII. TRUE DELIGHT JEWEL'S STORY BOOK CHAPTER I OVER THE 'PHONE Mrs. Forbes, Mr. Evringham's housekeeper, answered the telephone one afternoon. She was just starting to climb to the second story and did not wish to be hindered, so her "hello" had a somewhat impatient brevity. "Mrs. Forbes?" "Oh," with a total change of voice and face, "is that you, Mr. Evringham?" "Please send Jewel to the 'phone." "Yes, sir." She laid down the receiver, and moving to the foot of the stairs called loudly, "Jewel!" "Drat the little lamb!" groaned the housekeeper, "If I was only sure she was up there; I've got to go up anyway. _Jewel!_" louder. "Ye--es!" came faintly from above, then a door opened. "Is somebody calling me?" Mrs. Forbes began to climb the stairs deliberately while she spoke with energy. "Hurry down, Jewel. Mr. Evringham wants you on the 'phone." "Goody, goody!" cried the child, her feet pattering on the thick carpet as she flew down one flight and then passed the housekeeper on the next. "Perhaps he is coming out early to ride." "Nothing would surprise me less," remarked Mrs. Forbes dryly as she mounted. Jewel flitted to the telephone and picked up the receiver. "Hello, grandpa, are you coming out?" she asked. "No, I thought perhaps you would like to come in." "In where? Into New York?" "Yes." "What are we going to do?" eagerly. Mr. Evringham, sitting at the desk in his private office, his head resting on his hand, moved and smiled. His mind pictured the expression on the face addressing him quite as distinctly as if no miles divided them. "Well, we'll have dinner, for one thing. Where shall it be? At the Waldorf?" Jewel had never heard the word. "Do they have Nesselrode pudding?" she asked, with keen interest. Mrs. Forbes had taken her in town one day and given her some at a restaurant. "Perhaps so. You see I've heard from the Steamship Company, and they think that the boat will get in this evening." "Oh, grandpa! grandpa! _grandpa!_" "Softly, softly. Don't break the 'phone. I hear you through the window." "When shall I come? Oh, oh, oh!" "Wait, Jewel. Don't be excited. Listen. Tell Zeke to bring you in to my office on the three o'clock train." "Yes, grandpa. Oh, please wait a minute. Do you think it would be too extravagant for me to wear my silk dress?" "No, let's be reckless and go the whole figure." "All right," tremulously. "Good-by." "Oh, grandpa, wait. Can I bring Anna Belle?" but only silence remained. Jewel hung up the receiver with a hand that was unsteady, and then ran through the house and out of doors, leaving every door open behind her in a manner which would have brought reproof from Mrs. Forbes, who had begun to be Argus-eyed for flies. Racing out to the barn, she appeared to 'Zekiel in the harness room like a small whirlwind. "Get on your best things, Zeke," she cried, hopping up and down; "my father and mother are coming." "Is this an india rubber girl?" inquired the coachman, pausing to look at her with a smile. "What train?" "Three o'clock. You're going with me to New York. Grandpa says so; to his office, and the boat's coming to-night. Get ready quick, Zeke, please. I'm going to wear my silk dress." "Hold on, kid," for she was flying off. "I'm to go in town with you, am I? Are you sure? I don't want to fix up till I make Solomon look like thirty cents and then find out there's some misdeal." "Grandpa wants you to bring me to his office, that's what he said," returned the child earnestly. "Let's start real _soon_!" Like a sprite she was back at the house and running upstairs, calling for Mrs. Forbes. The housekeeper appeared at the door of the front room, empty now for two days of Mrs. Evringham's trunks, and Jewel with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes told her great news. Mrs. Forbes was instantly sympathetic. "Come right upstairs and let me help you get ready. Dear me, to-night! I wonder if they'll want any supper when they get here." "I don't know. I don't know!" sang Jewel to a tune of her own improvising, as she skipped ahead. "I don't believe they will," mused Mrs. Forbes. "Those customs take so much time. It seems a very queer thing to me, Jewel, Mr. Evringham letting you come in at all. Why, you'll very likely not get home till midnight." "Won't it be the most _fun_!" cried the child, dancing to her closet and getting her checked silk dress. "I guess your flannel sailor suit will be the best, Jewel." "Grandpa said I might wear my silk. You see I'm going to dinner with him, and that's just like going to a party, and I ought to be very particular, don't you think so?" "Well, don't sit down on anything dirty at the wharf. I expect you will," returned Mrs. Forbes with a resigned sigh, as she proceeded to unfasten Jewel's tight, thick little braids. "Just think what a short time we'll have to miss cousin Eloise," said the child. "Day before yesterday she went away, and now to-morrow my mother'll braid my hair." She gave an ecstatic sigh. "If that's all you wanted your cousin Eloise for--to braid your hair--I guess I could get to do it as well as she did." "Oh, I loved cousin Eloise for everything and I always shall love her," responded the child quickly. "I only meant I didn't have to trouble you long with my hair." "I think I do it pretty well." "Yes, indeed you do--just as _tight_. Do you remember how much it troubled you when I first came? and now it's so much different!" "Yes, there are a whole lot of things that are much different," replied Mrs. Forbes. "How long do you suppose you'll be staying with us now, Jewel?" The child's face grew sober. "I don't know, because I don't know how long father and mother can stay." "You'll think about this room where you've lived so many weeks, when you get back to Chicago." "Yes, I shall think about it lots of times," said the little girl. "I knew it would be a lovely visit at grandpa's, and it has been." She glanced up in the mirror toward the housekeeper's face and saw that the woman's lips were working suspiciously and her eyes brimming over. "You won't be lonely, will you, Mrs. Forbes?" she asked; "because grandpa says you want to live with Zeke in the barn this summer while he shuts up the house and goes off on his vacation." "Oh, yes; it's all right, Jewel, only it just came over me that in a week, or perhaps sooner, you'll be gone." "It's real kind of you to be glad to have me stay," said the child. "I try not to think about going away, because it does make me feel sorry every time. You know the soot blows all around in Chicago and we haven't any yard, and when I think about all the sky and trees here, and the ravine, beside grandpa and you and Zeke and Essex Maid--why I have to just say 'I _won't_ be sorry,' and then think about father and mother and Star and all the nice things! I think Star will like the park pretty well." Jewel looked into space thoughtfully, and then shook her head. "I'm sure the morning we go I shall have to say: 'Green pastures are before me' over and over." "What do you mean, child?" "Why, you know the psalm: 'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters'?" "Yes." "Well, in our hymnal there's the line of a hymn: 'Green pastures are before me,' and mother and I used to say that line every morning when we woke up, to remind us that Love was going to lead us all day." "I'd like to see your mother," said Mrs. Forbes after a pause. "You will, to-night," cried Jewel, suddenly joyous again. "Oh, Mrs. Forbes, do you think I could take Anna Belle to New York?" "What did Mr. Evringham say?" "He went away before I had a chance to ask him." Jewel looked wistfully toward the chair where the doll sat by the window, toeing in, her sweet gaze fixed on the wall-paper. "She would enjoy it so!" added the little girl. "Oh, it's a tiresome trip for children, such late hours," returned Mrs. Forbes persuasively. "Beside," with an inspiration, "you'd like your hands free to help your mother carry her bags, wouldn't you?" "That's so," responded Jewel. "Anna Belle would always give up anything for her grandma!" and as the housekeeper finished tying the hair bows, the little girl skipped over to the chair and knelt before the doll, explaining the situation to her with a joyous incoherence mingled with hugs and kisses from which the even-tempered Anna Belle emerged apparently dazed but docile. "Come here and get your shoes on, Jewel." "My best ones," returned the child. "Oh, yes, the best of everything," said Mrs. Forbes good-humoredly; and indeed, when Jewel was arrayed, she viewed herself in the mirror with satisfaction. Zeke presented himself soon, fine in a new summer suit and hat, and Mrs. Forbes watched the pair as they walked down the driveway. "Now, I can't let the grass grow under my feet," she muttered. "I expected to have till to-morrow night to get all the things done that Mr. Evringham told me to, but I guess I can get through." Jewel and Zeke had ample time for the train. Indeed, the little girl's patience was somewhat tried before the big headlight came in view. She could not do such injustice to her silk dress and daisy-wreathed leghorn hat as to hop and skip, so she stood demurely with Zeke on the station platform, and as they waited he regarded her happy expectant face. "Remember the day you got here, kid?" he asked. "Yes. Isn't it a long time since you came and met me with Dick, and he just whirled us home!" "Sure it is. And now you're glad to be leaving us." "I am not, Zeke!" "Well, you look in the glass and see for yourself." Just then the train came along and Zeke swung the child up to the high step. The fact that she found a seat by the window added a ray to her shining eyes. Her companion took the place beside her. "Yes," he went on, as the train started, "it's kind of hard on the rest of us to have you so tickled over the prospect." "I'm only happy over father and mother," returned Jewel. "Pretty nice folks, are they?" Jewel shook her head significantly. "You just wait and see," she replied with zest. "Which one do you look like?" "Like father. Mother's much prettier than father." "A beauty, is she?" "N--o, I don't believe so. She isn't so pretty as cousin Eloise, but then she's pretty." "That's probably the reason your grandfather likes to see you around--because you look like his side of the house." "Well," Jewel sighed, "I hope grandpa likes my nose. I don't." Zeke laughed. "He seems able to put up with it. I expect there's going to be ructions around here the next week." "What's ructions?" "Well, some folks might call it error. I don't know. Mr. Evringham's going to be pretty busy with his own nose. It's going to be put out of joint to-night. The green-eyed monster's going to get on the rampage, or I miss my guess." Jewel looked up doubtfully. Zeke was a joker, of course, being a man, but what was he driving at now? "What green-eyed monster?" she asked. "Oh, the one that lives in folks' hearts and lays low part of the time," replied Zeke. "Do you mean jealousy; envy, hatred, or malice?" asked Jewel so glibly that her companion stared. "Great Scott! What do you know about that outfit?" he asked. The child nodded wisely. "I know people believe in them sometimes; but you needn't think grandpa does, because he doesn't." "Mr. Evringham's all right," agreed Zeke, "but he isn't going to be the only pebble any longer. Your father and mother will be the whole thing now." The child was thoughtful a moment, then she began earnestly: "Oh, I'm sure grandpa knows how it is about loving. The more people you love, the more you can love. I can love father and mother more because I've learned to love grandpa, and he can love them more too, because he has learned to love me." "Humph! We'll see," remarked the other, smiling. "Is error talking to you, Zeke? Are you laying laws on grandpa?" "Well, if I am, I'll stop it mighty quick. You don't catch me taking any such liberties. Whoa!" drawing on imaginary reins as the engine slackened at a station. Jewel laughed, and from that time until they reached New York they chatted about her pony Star, and other less important horses, and of the child's anticipation of showing her mother the joys of Bel-Air Park. Chapter II THE BROKER'S OFFICE It was the first time Jewel had visited her grandfather's office and she was impressed anew with his importance as she entered the stone building and ascended in the elevator to mysterious heights. Arrived in an electric-lighted anteroom, Zeke's request to see Mr. Evringham was met by a sharp-eyed young man who denied it with a cold, inquiring stare. Then the glance of this factotum fell to Jewel's uplifted, rose-tinted face and her trustful gaze fixed on his own. Zeke twirled his hat slowly between his hands. "You just step into Mr. Evringham's office," he said quietly, "and tell him the young lady he invited has arrived." Jewel wondered how this person, who had the privilege of being near her grandfather all day, could look so forbidding; but in her happy excitement she could not refrain from smiling at him under the nodding hat brim. "I'm going to dinner with him," she said softly, "and I _think_ we're going to have Nesselrode pudding." The young man's eyes stared and then began to twinkle. "Oh," he returned, "in that case"--then he turned and left the visitors. When he entered the sanctum of his employer he was smiling. Mr. Evringham did not look up at once. When he did, it was with a brief, "Well?" "A young lady insists upon seeing you, sir." "Kindly stop grinning, Masterson, and tell her she must state her business." "She has done so, sir," but Masterson did not stop grinning. "She looks like a summer girl, and I guess she is one." Mr. Evringham frowned at this unprecedented levity. "What is her business, briefly?" he asked curtly. "To eat Nesselrode pudding, sir." The broker started. "Ah!" he exclaimed, and though he still frowned, he reflected his junior's smile. "Is there some one with her?" "A young man." "Send them in, please." Masterson obeyed and managed to linger until his curiosity was both appeased and heightened by seeing Jewel run across the Turkish rug and completely submerge the stately gray head beneath the brim of her hat. "Well, I'll--be--everlastingly"--thought Masterson, as he softly passed out and closed the door behind him. "Even Achilles could get it in the heel, but I'll swear I didn't believe the old man had a joint in his armor." Zeke stood twisting his hat, and when his employer was allowed to come to the surface, he spoke respectfully:-- "Mother said I was to bring word if you would like a late supper, sir." "Tell Mrs. Forbes that it will be only something light, if anything. She need not prepare." Jewel danced to the door with her escort as he went. "Good-by, Zeke," she said gayly. "Thank you for bringing me." "Good-by, Jewel," he returned in subdued accents, and stumbling on the threshold, passed out with a furtive wave of his hat. The child returned and jumped into a chair by the desk, reserved for the selected visitors who succeeded in invading this precinct. "I suppose you aren't quite through," she said, fixing her host with a blissful gaze as he worked among a scattered pile of papers. "Very nearly," he returned. He saw that she was near to bubbling over with ideas ready to pour out to him. He knew, too, that she would wait his time. It entertained him to watch her furtively as she gave herself to inspecting the furnishings of the room and the pictures on the wall, then looked down at the patent leather tips of her best shoes as they swung to and fro. At last she began to look at him more and more wistfully, and to view the furnishings of the large desk. It had a broad shelf at the top. Suddenly Jewel caught sight of a picture standing there in a square frame, and an irrepressible "Oh!" escaped from her lips. She pressed her hands together and Mr. Evringham saw a deeper rose in her cheeks. He followed her eyes, and silently taking the picture from the desk placed it in her lap. She clasped it eagerly. It was a fine photograph of Essex Maid, her grandfather's mare. In a minute he spoke:-- "Now I think I'm about through, Jewel," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Oh, grandpa, do these cost very much?" "Why? Do you want to have Star sit for his picture?" "Yes, it _would_ be nice to have a picture of Star, wouldn't it! I never thought of that. I mean to ask mother if I can." The broker winced. "What I was thinking of was, could I have a picture of Essex Maid to take with me to Chicago?" Mr. Evringham nodded. "I will get you one." He kept on nodding slightly, and Jewel noted the expression of his eyes. Her bright look began to cloud as her grandfather continued to gaze at her. "You'd like to have a picture of Star to keep, wouldn't you?" she asked softly, her head falling a little to one side in loving recognition of his sadness. "Yes," he answered, rather gruffly, "and I've been thinking for some weeks that there was a picture lacking on my desk here." "Star's?" asked Jewel. "No. Yours. Are there any pictures of you?" "No, only when I was a baby. You ought to see me. I was as _fat_!" "We'll have some photographs of you." "Oh," Jewel spoke wistfully, "I wish I was pretty." "Then you wouldn't be an Evringham." "Why not? You are," returned the child, so spontaneously that slow color mounted to the broker's face, and he smiled. "I look like my mother's family, they say. At any rate,"--after a pause and scrutiny of her,--"it's your face, it's my Jewel's face, that suits me and that I want to keep. If I can find somebody who can do it and not change you into some one else, I am going to have a little picture painted; a miniature, that I can carry in my pocket when Essex Maid and I are left alone." The brusque pain in his tone filled Jewel's eyes, and her little hands clasped tighter the frame she held in her lap. "Then you will give me one of you, too, grandpa?" "Oh, child," he returned, rather hoarsely, "it's too late to be painting my leather countenance." "No one could paint it just as I know it," said Jewel softly. "I know all the ways you look, grandpa,--when you're joking or when you're sorry, or happy, and they're all in here," she pressed one hand to her breast in a simple fervor that, with her moist eyes, compelled Mr. Evringham to swallow several times; "but I'd like one in my hand to show to people when I tell them about you." The broker looked away and fussed with an envelope. "Grandpa," continued the child after a pause, "I've been thinking that there's one secret we've got to keep from father and mother." Mr. Evringham looked back at her. This was the most cheering word he had heard for some time. "It wouldn't be loving to let them know how sorry it makes us to say good-by, would it? I get such lumps in my throat when I think about not riding with you or having breakfast together. I do work over it and think how happy it will be to have father and mother again, and how Love gives us everything we ought to have and everything like that; but I _have_--cried--twice, thinking about it! Even Anna Belle is mortified the way I act. I know you feel sorry, too, and we've got to demonstrate over it; but it'll come so soon, and I guess I didn't begin to work in time. Anyway, I was wondering if we couldn't just have a secret and manage not to say good-by to each other." The corners of the child's mouth were twitching down now, and she took out a small handkerchief and wiped her eyes. Mr. Evringham blew his nose violently, and crossing the office turned the key in the door. "I think that would be an excellent plan, Jewel," he returned, rather thickly, but with an endeavor to speak heartily. "Of course your confounded--I mean to say your--your parents will naturally expect you to follow their plans and"--he paused. "And it would be so unloving to let them think that I was sorry after they let me have such a beautiful visit, and if we can _just_--manage not to say good-by, everything will be so much easier." The broker stood looking at her while the plaintive voice made music for him. "I'm going to try to manage just that thing if it's in the books," he said, after waiting a little, and Jewel, looking up at him with an April smile, saw that his eyes were wet. "You're so good, grandpa," she returned tremulously; "and I won't even kiss Essex Maid's neck--not the last morning." He sat down with fallen gaze, and Jewel caught her lip with her teeth as she looked at him. Then suddenly the leghorn hat was on the floor, daisy side down, while she climbed into his lap and her soft cheek buried itself under Mr. Evringham's ear. "How m-many m-miles off is Chicago?" stammered the child, trying to repress her sobs, all happy considerations suddenly lost in the realization of her grandfather's lonely lot. "A good many more than it ought to be. Don't cry, Jewel." The broker's heart swelled within him as he pressed her to his breast. Her sorrow filled him with tender elation, and he winked hard. "There isn't--isn't any sorrow--in mind, grandpa. Shouldn't you--you think I'd--remember it? Divine Love always--always takes care--of us--and just because--I don't see how He's going--going to this time--I'm crying! Oh, it's so--so naughty!" Mr. Evringham swallowed fast. He never had wondered so much as he did this minute just how obstinate or how docile those inconvenient and superfluous individuals--Jewel's parents--would prove. He cleared his throat. "Come, come," he said, and he kissed the warm pink rose of the child's cheek. "Don't spoil those bright eyes just when you're going to have your picture taken. We're going to have the jolliest time you ever heard of!" Jewel's little handkerchief was wet and Mr. Evringham put his own into her hand and they went into the lavatory where she used the wet corner of a towel while he told her about the photographer who had taken Essex Maid's picture and should take Star's. Then the cherished leghorn hat was rescued from its ignominy and replaced carefully on its owner's head. "But I never thought you meant to have my picture taken this afternoon," said Jewel, her lips still somewhat tremulous. "I didn't until a minute ago, but I think we can find somebody who won't mind doing it late in the day." "Yours too, then, grandpa.--Oh, _yes_," and at last a smile beamed like the sun out of an April sky, "right on the same card with me!" "Oh, no, no, Jewel; no, no!" "Yes, _please_, grandpa," earnestly, "do let's have one nice nose in the picture!" She lifted eyes veiled again with a threatening mist. "And you'll put your arm around me--and then I'll look at it"--her lip twitched. "Yes, oh, yes, I--I think so," hastily. "We'll see, and then, after that--how much Nesselrode pudding do you think you can eat? I tell you, Jewel, we're going to have the time of our lives!" Mr. Evringham struck his hands together with such lively anticipation that the child's spirits rose. "Yes," she responded, "and then after dinner, _what_?" She gazed at him. The broker tapped his forehead as if knocking at the door of memory. "Father and mother!" she cried out, laughing and beginning to hop discreetly. "You forgot, grandpa, you forgot. Your own little boy coming home and you forgot!" "Well, that's a fact, Jewel; that I suppose I had better remember. He is my own boy--and I don't know but I owe him something after all." CHAPTER III HOME-COMING Again Jewel and her grandfather stood on the wharf where the great boats, ploughing their way through the mighty seas, come finally, each into its own place, as meekly as the horse seeks his stable. The last time they stood here they were strangers watching the departure of those whom now they waited, hand in hand, to greet. "Jewel, you made me eat too much dinner," remarked Mr. Evringham. "I feel as if my jacket was buttoned, in spite of the long drive we've taken since. I went to my tailor this morning, and what do you think he told me?" "What? That you needed some new clothes?" "Oh, he always tells me that. He told me that I was growing fat! There, young lady, what do you think of that?" "I think you are, too, grandpa," returned the child, viewing him critically. "Well, you take it coolly. Supposing I should lose my waist, and all your fault!" Jewel drew in her chin and smiled at him. "Supposing I go waddling about! Eh?" She laughed. "But how would it be my fault?" she asked. "Didn't you ever hear the saying 'laugh and grow fat'? How many times have you made me laugh since we left the office?" Jewel began to tug on his hand as she jumped up and down. "Oh, grandpa, do you think our pictures will be good?" "I think yours will." "Not yours?" the hopping ceased. "Oh, yes, excellent, probably. I haven't had one taken in so many years, how can I tell? but here's one day that they can't get away from us, Jewel. This eighth of June has been a good day, hasn't it--and mind, you're not to tell about the pictures until we see how they come out." "Yes, haven't we had _fun_? The be-_eau_tiful hotel, and the drive in the park, and the ride in the boats and"-- "Speaking of boats, there it is now. They're coming," remarked Mr. Evringham. "Who?" "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Thayer Evringham," returned the broker dryly. "Steady, Jewel, steady now. It will be quite a while before you see them." The late twilight had faded and the June night begun, the wharf was dimly lighted and there was the usual crowd of customs officers, porters, and men and women waiting to see friends. All moved and changed like figures in a kaleidoscope before Jewel's unwinking gaze; but the long minutes dragged by until at last her father and mother appeared among the passengers who came in procession down the steep incline from the boat. Mr. Evringham drew back a step as father, mother, and child clung to each other, kissing and murmuring with soft exclamations. Harry extricated himself first and shook hands with his father. "Awfully good of you to get us the courtesy of the port," he said heartily. "Don't mention it," returned the broker, and Julia released Jewel and turned upon Mr. Evringham her grateful face. "But so many things are good of you," she said feelingly, as she held out her hand. "It will take us a long time to give thanks." "Not at all, I assure you," responded the broker coldly, but his heart was hot within him. "If they have the presumption to thank me for taking care of Jewel!" he was thinking as he dropped his daughter-in-law's hand. "What a human iceberg!" she thought. "How has Jewel been able to take it so cheerfully? Ah, the blessed, loving heart of a child!" Meanwhile Mr. Evringham turned to his son and continued: "The courtesy of the port does shorten things up a bit, and I have a man from the customs waiting." Harry followed him to see about the luggage, and Mrs. Evringham and Jewel sat down on a pile of boxes to wait. The mother's arm was around the little girl, and Jewel had one of the gloved hands in both her own. "Oh," she exclaimed, suddenly starting up, "Mrs. Forbes thought I'd better wear my sailor suit instead of this, and she told me not to sit down on anything dirty." She carefully turned up the skirt of her little frock and seated herself again on a very brief petticoat. Mrs. Evringham smiled. "Mrs. Forbes is careful of you, isn't she?" she asked. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and also of curiosity as to her child's experiences in the last two months. Jewel's letters had conveyed that she was content, and joy in her pony had been freely expressed. The mother's mental picture of the stiff, cold individual to whose doubtful mercies she had confided her child at such short notice had been softened by the references to him in Jewel's letters; and it was with a shock of disappointment that she found herself repulsed now by the same unyielding personality, the same cold-eyed, unsmiling, fastidiously dressed figure, whose image had lingered in her memory. A dozen eager questions rose to her lips, but she repressed them. "Jewel must have had a glimpse of the real man," she thought. "I must not cloud her perception." It did not occur to her, however, that the child could even now feel less than awe of the stern guardian with whom she had succeeded in living at peace, and who had, from time to time, bestowed upon her gifts. One of these Mrs. Evringham noticed now. "Oh, that's your pretty watch!" she said. "Yes," returned the child, "this is Little Faithful. Isn't he a darling?" The mother smiled as she lifted the silver cherub. "You've named him?" she returned. "Why, it is a beauty, Jewel. How kind of your grandfather!" "Yes, indeed. It was so I wouldn't stay in the ravine too long." "How is Anna Belle?" "Dear Anna Belle!" exclaimed the little girl wistfully. "What a good time she would have had if I could have brought her! But you see I needed both my hands to help carry bags; and she understood about it and sent her love. She'll be sitting up waiting for you." Mrs. Evringham cast a look toward Harry and his father. "I'm not sure"--she began, "I hardly think we shall go to Bel-Air to-night. How would you like to stay in at the hotel with us, and then we could go out to the house to-morrow and pack your trunk?" Jewel looked very sober at this. "Why, it would be pretty hard to wait, mother," she replied. "Hotels are splendid. Grandpa and I had dinner at one. It's named the Waldorf and it has woods in it just like outdoors; but I thought you'd be in a hurry to see Star and the Ravine of Happiness and Zeke." "Well, we'll wait," returned Mrs. Evringham vaguely. She was more than doubtful of an invitation to Bel-Air Park even for one night; but Harry must arrange it. "We'll see what father says," she added. "What a pretty locket, my girlie!" As she spoke she lifted a gold heart that hung on a slender gold chain around Jewel's neck. "Yes. Cousin Eloise gave me that when she went away. She has had it ever since she was as little as I am, and she said she left her heart with me. I'm so sorry you won't see cousin Eloise." "So she and her mother have gone away. Were they sorry to go? Did Mr. Evringham--perhaps--think"--the speaker paused. She remembered Jewel's letter about the situation. "No, they weren't sorry. They've gone to the seashore; but cousin Eloise and I love each other very much, and her room is so empty now that I've had to keep remembering that you were coming and everything was happy. I guess cousin Eloise is the prettiest girl in the whole world; and since she stopped being sorry we've had the most _fun_." "I wish I could see her!" returned Mrs. Evringham heartily. She longed to thank Eloise for supplying the sunshine of love to her child while the grandfather was providing for her material wants. She looked at Jewel now, a picture of health and contentment, her bits of small finery in watch and locket standing as symbols of the care and affection she had received. "Divine Love has been so kind to us, dearie," she said softly, as she pressed the child closer to her. "He has brought father and mother back across the ocean and has given you such loving friends while we were gone." In a future day Mrs. Evringham was to learn something of the inner history of the progress of this little pilgrim during her first days at Bel-Air; but the shadows had so entirely faded from Jewel's consciousness that she could not have told it herself--not even such portions of it as she had once realized. "Yes, indeed, I love Bel-Air and all the people. Even aunt Madge kissed me when she went away and said 'Good-by, you queer little thing!'" "What did she mean?" asked Mrs. Evringham. "I don't know. I didn't tell grandpa, because I thought he might not like people calling me queer, but I asked Zeke." "He's Mr. Evringham's coachman, isn't he?" "Yes, and he's the nicest man, but he only told me that aunt Madge had wheels. I asked him what kind of wheels, and he said he guessed they were rubber-tired, because she was always rubbering and she made people tired. You know Zeke is such a joker, so I haven't found out yet what aunt Madge meant, and it isn't any matter because"--Jewel reached up and hugged her mother, "you've come home." Here the two men approached. "No more time for spooning," said Harry cheerfully. "We're going now, little girls." After all, there was nothing for Jewel to carry. Her father and grandfather had the dress-suit case and bags. Mrs. Evringham looked inquiringly at her husband, but he was gayly talking with Jewel as the four walked out to the street. Mr. Evringham led the way to a carriage that was standing there. "This is ours," he said, opening the door. Harry put the bags up beside the driver while his wife entered the vehicle, still in doubt as to their destination. Jewel jumped in beside her. "You'd better move over, dear," said her mother quietly. "Let Mr. Evringham ride forward." She was not surprised that Jewel was ignorant of carriage etiquette. It was seldom that either of them had seen the inside of one. The broker heard the suggestion. "_Place aux dames_," he said, briefly, and moved the child back with one hand. Then he entered, Harry jumped in beside him, slammed the door, and they rolled away. "If Anna Belle was here the whole family would be together," said Jewel joyously. "I don't care which one I sit by. I love everybody in this carriage!" "You do, eh, rascal?" returned her father, putting his hand over in her silken lap and giving her a little shake. "Where is the great and good Anna Belle?" "Waiting for us. Just think of it, all this time! Grandpa, are we going home with you?" "What do you mean?" inquired the broker, and the tone of the curt question chilled the spine of his daughter-in-law. "Were you thinking of spending the night in the ferry-house, perhaps?" "Why, no, only mother said"-- Mrs. Evringham pressed the child's arm. "That was nothing, Jewel; I simply didn't know what the plan was," she put in hastily. "Oh, of course," went on the little girl. "Mother didn't know aunt Madge and cousin Eloise were gone, and she didn't believe there'd be room. She doesn't know how big the house is, does she, grandpa?" An irresistible yawn seized the child, and in the middle of it her father leaned forward and chucked her under the chin. Her jaws came together with a snap. "There! you spoiled that nice one!" she exclaimed, jumping up and laughing as she flung herself upon her big playmate, and a small scuffle ensued in which the wide leghorn hat brim sawed against Mr. Evringham's shoulder and neck in a manner that caused Mrs. Evringham's heart to leap toward her throat. How _could_ Harry be so thoughtless! A street lamp showed the grim lines of the broker's averted face as he gazed stonily out to the street. "Come here, Jewel; sit still," said the mother, striving to pull the little girl back into her seat. Harry was laughing and holding his agile assailant off as best he might, and at his wife's voice aided her efforts with a gentle push. Jewel sank back on the cushion. "Oh, what bores he thinks us. I know he does!" reflected Julia, capturing her child in one arm and holding her close. To her surprise and even dismay, Jewel spoke cheerfully after another yawn:-- "Grandpa, how far is it to the ferry? How long, I mean?" "About fifteen minutes." "Well, that's a good while. My eyes do feel as if they had sticks in them. Don't you wish we could cross in a swan boat, grandpa?" "Humph!" he responded. Mrs. Evringham gave the child a little squeeze intended to be repressive. Jewel wriggled around a minute trying to get a comfortable position. "Tell father and mother about Central Park and the swan boats, grandpa," she continued. "You tell them to-morrow, when you're not so sleepy," he replied. Jewel took off her large hat, and nestling her head on her mother's shoulder, put an arm around her. "Mother, mother!" she sighed happily, "are you really home?" "Really, really," replied Mrs. Evringham, with a responsive squeeze. Mr. Evringham sat erect in silence, still gazing out the window with a forbidding expression. There were buttons on her mother's gown that rubbed Jewel's cheek. She tried to avoid them for a minute and then sat up. "Father, will you change places with me?" she asked sleepily. "I want to sit by grandpa." Mrs. Evringham's eyes widened, and in spite of her earnest "Dearie!" the transfer was made and Jewel crept under Mr. Evringham's arm, which closed naturally around her. She leaned against him and shut her eyes. "You mustn't go to sleep," he said. "I guess I shall," returned the child softly. "No, no. You mustn't. Think of the lights crossing the ferry. You'll lose a lot if you're asleep. They're fine to see. We can't carry you and the luggage, too. Brace up, now--Come, come! I shouldn't think you were any older than Anna Belle." Jewel laughed sleepily, and the broker held her hand in his while he pushed her upright. Mr. and Mrs. Evringham looked on, the latter marveling at the child's nonchalance. Now, for the first time, the host became talkative. "How many days have you to give us, Harry?" he asked. "A couple, perhaps," replied the young man. "Two days, father!" exclaimed Jewel, in dismay, wide awake in an instant. "Oh, that's a stingy visit," remarked Mr. Evringham. "Not half long enough," added Jewel. "There's so much for you to see." "Oh, we can see a lot in two days," returned Harry. "Think of the little girls in Chicago, Jewel. They won't forgive me if I don't bring you home pretty soon." He leaned forward and took his child's free hand. "How do you suppose father has got along without his little girl all these weeks, eh, baby?" "It _is_ a long time since you went away," she returned, "but I was right in your room every night, and daytimes I played in your ravine. Bel-Air Park is the beautifulest place in the whole world. Two days isn't any time to stay there, father." "H'm, I'm glad you've been so happy." Sincere feeling vibrated in the speaker's voice. "We don't know how to thank your grandpa, do we?" A street lamp showed Jewel, as she turned and smiled up into the impassive face Mr. Evringham turned upon her. "You can safely leave that to her," said the broker briefly, but he did not remove his eyes from the upturned ones. "It is beyond me," thought Mrs. Evringham; "but love is a miracle-worker." The glowing lights of the ferry passed, Jewel did go to sleep in the train. Her father, unaware that he was trespassing, took her in his arms, and, tired out with all the excitement of the day and the lateness of the hour, the child instantly became unconscious; but by the time they reached home, the bustle of arrival and her interest in showing her parents about, aided her in waking to the situation. Mrs. Forbes stood ready to welcome the party. Ten years had passed since Harry Evringham had stood in the home of his boyhood, and the housekeeper thought she perceived that he was moved by a contrite memory; but he spoke with bluff heartiness as he shook hands with her; and Mrs. Forbes looked with eager curiosity into the sweet face of Mrs. Evringham, as the latter greeted her and said something grateful concerning the housekeeper's kindness to Jewel. "It's very little you have to thank me for, ma'am," replied Mrs. Forbes, charmed at once by the soft gaze of the dark eyes. The little cavalcade moved upstairs to the handsome rooms so lately vacated. They were brilliant with light and fragrant with roses. "How beautiful!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham, while Jewel hopped up and down, as wide awake as any little girl in town, delighted with the gala appearance of everything. Mr. Evringham looked critically into the face of his daughter-in-law. Here was the woman to whom he owed Jewel, and all that she was and all that she had taught him. Her face was what he might have expected. It looked very charming now as the pretty eyes met his. She was well-dressed, too, and Mr. Evringham liked that. "I hope you will be very much at home here, Julia," he said; and though he did not smile, it was certain that, whether from a sense of duty or not, he had taken pains to make their welcome a pleasant one. Jewel had, evidently, no slightest fear of his cold reserve. With the child's hand in hers, Julia took courage to reply warmly: "Thank you, father, it is a joy to be here." She had called him "father," this elegant stranger, and her heart beat a little faster, but her husband's arm went around her. "America's all right, eh, Julia?" "Come in cousin Eloise's room," cried Jewel. "That's all lighted, too. Are they going to have them both, grandpa?" She danced ahead, through a spacious white-tiled bathroom and into the adjoining apartment. There an unexpected sight met the child's eyes. In the rosy depths of a large chintz chair sat Anna Belle, loyally keeping her eyes open in spite of the hour. Jewel rushed toward her. There were plenty of flowers scattered about in this room, also, and the child suddenly caught sight of her own toilet articles on the dresser. "My things are down here in cousin Eloise's room, grandpa!" she cried, so surprised that she delayed picking up her doll. "Why, why!" said Mr. Evringham, throwing open the door of the large closet and then opening a bureau drawer. Within both receptacles were Jewel's belongings, neatly arranged. "This is odd!" he added. "Grandpa, grandpa!" cried the child, rushing at him and clasping her arms around his waist. "You're going to let me sleep down here by father and mother!" Mr. Evringham regarded her unsmilingly. Jewel's parents both looked on, more than half expecting a snub to meet the energetic onslaught. "You won't object, will you?" he asked. Jewel pulled him down and whispered something in his ear. The curious on-lookers saw the sweeping mustache curve in a smile as he straightened up again. As a matter of fact they were both curious to know what she had said to him. "You're whispering in company, Jewel," remarked her father. "Oh, please excuse me!" said the child. "I forgot to remember. Here's Anna Belle, father." "My, my, my!" ejaculated Harry Evringham, coming forward. "How that child has grown!" CHAPTER IV ON THE VERANDA What a luxurious, happy, sleepy time Jewel had that night in the pretty rose-bower where her mother undressed her while her father and grandfather went back downstairs. It was very sweet to be helped and cuddled as if she were again a baby, and as she lay in bed and watched her mother setting the flowers in the bathroom and arranging everything, she tried to talk to her on some of the subjects that were uppermost in her mind. Mrs. Evringham came at last and lay down beside her. Jewel nestled into the loving arms and kissed her cheek. "I'm too happy to go to sleep," she declared, then sighed, and instantly pretty room and pretty mother had disappeared. Mrs. Evringham lay there on the luxurious bed, the sleeping child in her arms, and her thoughts were rich with gratitude. Her life had never been free from care: first as a young girl in her widowed mother's home, then as wife of the easy-going and unprincipled youth, whose desertion of her and her baby had filled her cup of bitterness, though she bravely struggled on. Her mother had died; and soon afterward the light of Christian Science had dawned upon her path. Strengthened by its support, she had grown into new health and courage, and life was beginning to blossom for her when her repentant husband returned. For a time his wayward habits were a care to her; but he was sincerely ashamed of himself, and the discovery of the development of character in the pretty girl whom he had left six years before roused his manhood. To her joy he began to take an interest in the faith which had wrought such changes in her, and after that she had no doubts of the outcome. From the moment when she obtained for him a business position, it became his ambition to take his rightful place in the world and to guard her from rough contact, and though as yet he still leaned upon her judgment, and she knew herself to be the earthly mainspring of all their business affairs, she knew, also, that his desire was right, and the knowledge sweetened her days. Here in this home which was, to her unaccustomed eyes, palatial in its appointments, with her child again in her arms, she gave thanks for the joy of the present hour. A day or two of pleasure in these surroundings, and then she and Harry would relieve Mr. Evringham of the care they had imposed upon him. He had borne it nobly, there was no doubt about that. He had even complicated existence by giving Jewel a pony. How a pony would fit into the frugal, busy life of the Chicago apartment, Julia did not know; but her child's dearest wish had been gratified, and there was nothing to do but appreciate and enjoy the fact. After all, Harry's father must have more paternal affection than her husband had ever given him credit for; for even on the most superficial acquaintance one could see that any adaptation of his life and tastes to those of a child would have to come with creaking difficulty to the stock broker, and the fact of Jewel's ease with him told an eloquent story of how far Mr. Evringham must have constrained himself for Harry's sake. Her thoughts flowed on and had passed to business and all that awaited them in Chicago, when her husband rejoined her. She rose from the bed as he came in, and hand in hand they stood and looked down at Jewel, asleep. Harry stooped and kissed the flushed cheek. "Don't wake her, dear," said Julia, smiling at the energy of the caress. "Wake her? I don't believe a clap of thunder would have that effect. Why, she and father have been painting the town; dining at the Waldorf, driving in the park, riding in the swan boats, and then hanging around that dock. Bless her little heart, I should think she'd sleep for twenty-four hours." "How wonderfully kind of him!" returned Julia. "You need never tell me again, Harry, that your father doesn't love you." "Oh, loving hasn't been much in father's line, but we hope it will be," returned the young man as he slipped an arm around his wife. "Do you remember the last time we stood watching Jewel asleep? I do. It was in that beastly hotel the night before we sailed." "Oh, Harry!" Julia buried her face a moment on his shoulder. "Shall you ever forget our relief when her first letter came, showing that she was happy? Do you remember the hornpipe you danced in our lodgings and how you shocked the landlady? Your father may not _call_ it loving, but his care and thoughtfulness have expressed that and he can't help my loving _him_ forever and forever for being kind to Jewel." Harry gave his head a quick shake. "I'll be hanged if I can see how anybody could be unkind to her," he remarked. "Oh, well, you've never been an elderly man, set in your ways and used to living alone. I'm sure it meant a great deal to him. Think of his doing all that for her this afternoon." "Oh, he had to pass the time somehow, and he couldn't very well refuse to let her come in to meet us. Besides, she's on the eve of going away, and father likes to do the handsome thing. He was doing it for other people, though, when Lawrence and I were kids. He never took us in any swan boats." "Poor little boys!" murmured Julia. "Oh, not at all," returned Harry, laughing rather sardonically. "We took ourselves in the swan boats and in a variety of other places not so picturesque. Father's purse strings were always loose, and so long as we kept out of his way he didn't care what we did. Nice old place, this, Julia?" "Oh, it's very fine. I had no idea how fine." Her tone was somewhat awestruck. "I used to know, absolutely, that father was through with me, and that therefore I was through with Bel-Air; but I'm a new man," the speaker smiled down at his wife and pressed her closer to him, "and I've been telling father why, and how." "Is that what you've been talking about?" "Yes. He seemed interested to hear of my business and prospects and asked me a lot of questions; so, as I only began to live less than a year ago, I couldn't answer them without telling him who and what had set me on my feet." "Oh, Harry! You've really been talking about Science?" "Yes, my dear, and about you; and I tell you, he wasn't bored. When I'd let up a little he'd ask me another question; and at last he said, father did, 'Well, I believe she'll make a man of you yet, Harry!' Not too complimentary, I admit, but I swallowed it and never flinched. I knew he wasn't going to see enough of you in two days to half know you, so I just thought I'd give him a few statistics, and they made an impression, I assure you. After that if he wanted to set me down a little it was no more than I deserved, and he was welcome." For a long moment the two looked into one another's eyes, then Harry spoke in a subdued tone:-- "You've done a lot for me, Julia; but the biggest thing of all, the thing that is most wonderful and that means the most to me, and for which I'd worship you through eternity if it was _all_ you'd done, is that you have taught me of Christian Science and shown me how it has guarded that child's love and respect for me, when I was forfeiting both every hour. I'll work to my last day, my girl, to show you my gratitude for that." "Darling boy!" she murmured. Next morning at rising time Jewel was still wrapped in slumber. Her parents looked at her before going downstairs. "Do you know, I can't help feeling a bit relieved," laughed Julia softly, "that she won't go down with us. The little thing is rather thoughtless with her grandfather, and though he has evidently schooled himself to endure her energetic ways, I can't help feeling a bit anxious all the time. He has borne it so well this long that I want to get her away before she breaks the camel's back. When do you think we can go, Harry?" "To-morrow or next day. You might get things packed to-day. I really ought to go, but I don't want to seem in a hurry." "Oh, yes, do let us go to-morrow," returned Julia eagerly. The Westminster clock on the stairs chimed as they passed down, and Mr. Evringham was waiting for them in the dining-room. As he said good-morning he looked beyond them, expectantly. Mrs. Forbes greeted them respectfully and indicated their seats. "Where is Jewel?" asked the host. "In dreamland. You couldn't waken her with a volley of artillery," returned Harry cheerfully. "H'm," returned his father. They all took their places at the table and Julia remarked on the charming outlook from the windows. "Yes," returned the host. "I'm sorry I can't stay at home this morning and do the honors of the park. I shall leave that to Harry and Jewel. As we were rather late last night I didn't take my canter this morning. If you wish to have a turn on the mare, Harry, Zeke knows that the stables are in your hands. No one but myself rides Essex Maid, but I'll make a shining exception of you." "I appreciate the honor," returned Harry lightly, but as a matter of fact he did not at all grasp its extent. "If you'd like to take your wife for a drive there's the Spider. The child will want to show you her pony and will probably get you off on some excursion. Tell her there is time enough and not to make you do two days' work in one." After breakfast the trio adjourned to the piazza and Julia looked out on the thick, dewy grass and spreading trees. "I believe the park improves, father," said Harry, smiling as he noted his wife's delight in the charming landscape. Deep armchairs and tables, rugs and a wicker divan furnished a portion of the piazza. "How will little Jewel like the apartment after this?" Julia could not help asking herself the question mentally. She no longer wondered at the child's content here, even without the companionship of other children. It must be an unimaginative little maid who, supported by Anna Belle, could not weave a fairy-land in this fresh paradise. "Won't you be seated?" said the broker, waving his hand toward the chairs. The others obeyed as he took his place. "Let us know a little, now, what we are doing. What did I understand you to say, Harry, is your limit for time?" "Well, I ought, really, to go west to-morrow, father." Mr. Evringham nodded and turned his incisive glance upon his daughter-in-law. "And you, Julia?" She smiled brightly at him. He observed that her complexion bore the sunlight well. "Oh, Jewel and I go with him, of course," she responded, confident that her reply would convey satisfaction. "H'm. Indeed! Now it seems to me that you would be the better for a vacation." "Why! Haven't I just had a trip to Europe?" "Yes, I should think you had. From all that Harry tells me, I judge what with hunting up fashions and fabrics and corset-makers and all the rest of it, you have done the work, daily, of about two able-bodied men." "That's right," averred Harry. "I was too much of a greenhorn to give her much assistance." "Still, you understand your own end of the business, I take it," said his father, turning suddenly upon him. "Yes, I do. I believe the firm will say I'm the square peg in the square hole." "Then why not take a vacation, Julia?" asked the broker again. "Harry is doing splendidly," she returned gently, "but we can't live on the salary he gets now. He needs my help for a while, yet. I'm going to be a lady of leisure some day." The broker caught the glance of confidence she sent his boy. "I'm screwing up my courage now to strike them for more," said Harry. "It frets me worse every day to see that girl delving away, and a great strapping, hulking chap like me not able to prevent it." His father looked gravely at the young wife. "Let him begin now," he said. "He doesn't need your apron string any longer." "What do you mean?" asked Julia, half timidly. "Stay here with me a while and let Harry go west. I will take you and Jewel to the seashore." "Hurray!" cried Harry, his face radiant. "Julia, why, you won't know yourself strolling on the sands with a parasol while your poor delicate husband is toiling and moiling away in the dingy city. Good for you, father! You lift that pretty nose of hers up from the grindstone where she's held it so many years that she doesn't know anything different. Hurray, Julia!" In his enthusiasm the speaker rose and leaned over the chair of his astonished wife. "You wake up in the morning and read a novel instead of your appointment book for a while," he went on. "The Chicago women's summer clothes are all made by this time, anyway. Play lady for once and come back to me the color of mahogany. Go ahead!" "Why, Harry, how can I? What would you do?" "I'm hanged if I don't show you what I'd do, and do it well, too," he returned. "But I ought to go home first," faltered the bewildered woman. "Not a bit of it. I'll tackle the firm and the apartment, all right; and to be plain, we can't afford the needless car fare." "But, father," Julia appealed to him, "is it right to make Harry get on still longer without Jewel?" "Perfectly right. Entirely so," rejoined the broker decidedly. "Of course he doesn't realize how we feel about Jewel," thought Julia. Here a large brown horse and brougham came around the driveway into sight. Zeke's eyes turned curiously toward the guests, but he sat stiffly immovable. The broker rose. "I must go now or I shall miss my train. Think it over. There's only one way to think about it. It is quite evidently the thing to do. The break has been made, and now is the time for Julia to take her vacation before going into harness again. Moreover, perhaps Harry will get his raise and she won't have to go into harness. Good-morning. I shall try to come out early. I hope you will make yourselves comfortable." Mrs. Evringham looked at Zeke. He was the glass of fashion and the mould of form, but there was no indication in his smooth-shaven, wooden countenance of the comrade to whom Jewel had referred in her fragmentary letters. "Well, Harry!" she exclaimed breathlessly, as the carriage rolled away. Her expression elicited a hearty laugh from her husband. "I _never_ was so surprised. How unselfish he is! Harry, is it possible that we don't know your father at _all_? Think of his proposing to keep, still longer, a disturbing element like our lively little girl!" "Oh, I've never believed he bothered himself very much about Jewel," returned Harry lightly. "You make a mountain out of that. All a child needs is a ten acre lot to let off steam in, and she's had it here. He knows you'll keep her out from under foot. Let's accept this pleasure. He probably takes a lot of stock in you after all I told him last night. It's a relief to his pride and everything else that I'm not going to disgrace the name. He wants to do something for you. That's the whole thing in a nutshell; and you let him do it, Julia." In an exuberance of spirits, aided by the fresh, inspiring morning, the speaker took his wife in his arms, as they stood there on the wide veranda, and hugged her heartily. "Do you think I shall get over my awe of him?" She half laughed, but her tone was sincere. "I'm so unused to people who never smile and seem to be enduring me. Oh, if you were only going to stay, too, Harry, then it would be a vacation indeed!" "Here, here! Where are your principles? Who's afraid now?" "But he's so stately and forbidding, and I shall feel such a responsibility of keeping Jewel from troubling him." Harry laughed again. "She seems entirely capable of paddling her own canoe. She didn't seem troubled by doubts or compunctions in the carriage last night; and up there in the bedroom when she flew at him! How was that for a case of _lèse majesté_? Gad, at her age I'd sooner have tackled a lighted fuse! What do you suppose it was she whispered to him?" "I've no idea, and I must say I was curious enough to ask her while I was putting her to bed; but do you know, she wouldn't say!" The mother laughed. "She sidled about,--you know how she does when she is reluctant to speak, and seemed so embarrassed that I have to laugh when I think of it." "Perhaps it concerned some surprise she has persuaded father to give us." "No, it couldn't be that, because she answered at last that she'd tell me when she was a young lady." They both laughed. "Well," said Harry, "she isn't afraid of him so you'd notice it; and you can give her a few pointers so she needn't get in father's way now that she has you again. He has evidently been mighty considerate of the little orphan." "How good he has been!" returned Julia fervently. "If we could only go home with you, Harry," she added wistfully, "while there's so much good feeling, and before anything happens to alter it!" "Where are your principles?" asked Harry again. "You know better than to think anything will happen to alter it." "Yes, I do, I do; but I always have to meet my shyness of strangers, and it makes my heart beat to think of your going off and leaving me here. Being tête-à-tête with your father is appalling, I must confess." "Oh, well, it wouldn't do to slight his offer, and it will do you a world of good." "You'll have to send me my summer gowns." "I will." "Dear me, am I really going to _do_ it?" asked Julia incredulously. "Certainly you are. We'd be imbecile not to accept such an opportunity." "Then," she answered resignedly, "if it is fact and not a wild fancy, we have a lot of business to talk over, Harry. Let us make the most of our time while Jewel is asleep." She led the way back to the chairs, and they were soon immersed in memoranda and discussion. CHAPTER V THE LIFTED VEIL At last their plans were reduced to order and Harry placed the papers carefully in his pocket. "Come in and let's have a look at the house, Julia," he suggested. "It won't do to go to the stables without Jewel." They entered the drawing-room and Julia moved about admiring the pictures and carvings, and paused long before the oil portrait of a beautiful woman, conspicuously placed. "That's my grandmother," remarked Harry. "Isn't she stunning? That's the side of the family I didn't take after." While they still examined the portrait and the exquisite painting of its laces, Jewel ran into the room and seized them from behind. "Well, well, all dressed!" exclaimed her father as the two stooped to kiss her. "Yes, but my hair isn't very nice," said the child, putting up her hand to her braids, "because I didn't want to be late to breakfast." Her father's hearty laugh rang out. "Lunch, do you mean?" "We're through breakfast long ago, dearie," said her mother. "No wonder you slept late. We wanted you to." "Breakfast's all through!" exclaimed the child, and they were surprised at her dismay. "Yes, but Mrs. Forbes will get you something," said her father. "But has grandpa gone?" asked the child. Before they could reply the housekeeper passed the door and Jewel ran to her. "Has grandpa gone, Mrs. Forbes?" she repeated anxiously. "Yes, indeed, it's after ten. Come into the dining-room, Jewel; Sarah will give you your breakfast." "I'm not a bit hungry--yes, I am, a little--but what is grandpa's telephone number, Mrs. Forbes." "Oh, now, you won't call him up, dear," said the housekeeper coaxingly. "Come and eat your breakfast like a good girl." "Yes, in just one minute I will. What is the number, please, Mrs. Forbes?" The housekeeper gave the number, and Harry and Julia drew nearer. "Your grandpa is coming out early, Jewel," said her father. "You'll see him in a few hours, and you can ask him whatever you wish to then." "She never has called Mr. Evringham up, sir," said the housekeeper. "He speaks to _her_ sometimes. You know, Jewel, your grandfather doesn't like to be disturbed in his business and called to the 'phone unless it is something very important." "It is," returned the child, and she ran to the part of the hall where the instrument was situated. Her mother and father followed, the former feeling that she ought to interfere, but the latter amused and curious. "My little girl," began Julia, in protest, but Harry put his hand on her arm and detained her. Jewel was evidently filled with one idea and deaf to all else. With her usual energy she took down the receiver and made her request to the central office. Harry drew his wife to where they could watch her absorbed, rosy face. Her listening expression was anxiously intent. Mrs. Forbes also lingered at a little distance, enjoying the parents' interest and sharing it. "Is that you, grandpa?" asked the sweet voice. "Oh, well, I want to see Mr. Evringham." "What? No. I'm sorry, but nobody will do but grandpa. You tell him it's Jewel, please." "What? I thought I _did_ speak plain. It's _Jewel_; his little grandchild." The little girl smiled at the next response. "Yes, I'm the very one that ate the Nesselrode pudding," she said, and chuckled into the 'phone. By this time even Julia had given up all thought of interfering, and was watching, curiously, the round head with its untidy blond hair. Jewel spoke again. "I'm sorry I can't tell you the business, but it's _very_ important." Evidently the earnestness of this declaration had an effect. After a minute more of waiting, the child's face lighted. "Oh, grandpa, is that you?" "Yes, I am. I'm _so_ sorry I slept too long!" "Yes, I know you missed me, and now I have to eat my breakfast without you. Why didn't you come and bring me downstairs?" "Oh, but I _would_ have. Did you feel very sorry when you got in the brougham, grandpa?" "I know it. Did the ride seem _very_ long, all alone?" "Yes, indeed. I felt so sorry inside when I found you'd gone, I had to hear you speak so as to get better so I could visit with mother and father." "Yes, it _is_ a comfort. Are you _sure_ you don't feel sorry now?" "Well, but are you smiling, grandpa?" Whatever the answer was to this, it made Jewel's anxious brows relax and she laughed into the 'phone. "Grandpa, you're such a joker! One smile won't make you any fatter," she protested. Another listening silence, then:-- "You know the reason I feel the worst, don't you?" "Why yes, you do. What we were talking about yesterday." The child sighed. "Well, isn't it a comfort about eternity?" "Yes, indeed, and I guess I'll kiss the 'phone now, grandpa. Can you hear me?" "Well, you do it, too, then. Yes--yes--I hear it; and you'll come home early because you know--our secret?" "What? A lot of men waiting for you? All right. You know I love you just the same, even if I _did_ sleep, don't you?" "Good-by, then, good-by." She hung up the receiver and turned a beaming face upon her dumbfounded parents. "Now I'll have breakfast," she said cheerfully. "I'll only eat a little because we must go out and see Star. You waited for me, didn't you?" pausing in sudden apprehension. "Yes, indeed," replied Harry, collecting himself. "We haven't been off the piazza." "Goody. I'm so glad. I'll hurry." Mrs. Forbes followed the child as she bounded away, and the father and mother sank upon an old settle of Flemish oak, gazing at one another. The veil having been completely lifted from their eyes, each was viewing recent circumstances in a new light. At last Harry began to laugh in repressed fashion. "Sold, and the money taken!" he ejaculated, softly smiting his knee. His wife smiled, too, but there was a mist in her eyes. "I smell a large mouse, Julia. How is it with you?" "You mean my invitation?" "I mean that we come under the head of those things that can't be cured and must be endured." She nodded. "And that's why he wants to take me to the seashore." "Yes, but all the same he's got to do it to carry his point. You get the fun just the same." The moisture that rose to Harry's eyes was forced there by the effort to repress his mirth. "By jinks, the governor kissing the 'phone! I'll never get over that, never," and he exploded again. His wife laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Harry, can't you see how touching it is?" "I'll sue him for alienating my daughter's affections. See if I don't. Why, we're not in it at all. Did you feel our insignificance when she found he'd gone? We've been blockheads, Julia, blockheads." "We're certainly figureheads," she returned, rather ruefully. "I don't like to feel that your father has to pay such a price for the sake of keeping Jewel a little longer." "'T won't hurt him a bit. It's a good joke on him. If he doesn't go ahead and take you now, I'll bring another suit against him for breach of promise." Julia was looking thoughtfully into space. "I believe," she said, at last, "that we may find out that Jewel has been a missionary here." "She's given father a brand new heart," returned Harry promptly. "That's plain." "Let us not say a word to the child about the plan for her and me to stay," said Julia. "Let us leave it all for Mr. Evringham." "All right; only he won't think you're much pleased with the idea." "I'm not," returned the other, smiling. "I'm a little dazed; but if he was the man he appeared to be the day we left Jewel with him, and she has loved him into being a happier and better man, it may be a matter of duty for us not to deprive him of her at once. I'll try to resign myself to the rôle of necessary baggage, and even try to conceal from him the fact that I know my place." "Oh, my girl, you'll have him captured in a week, and Jewel will have a rival. You have the same knack she has for making the indifferent different." At this juncture the housekeeper came back into the hall. "Well, Mrs. Forbes," said Harry, rising, "that was rather amusing important business Jewel had with my father." The housekeeper held up her hands and shook her head. "Such lovers, sir," she responded. "Such lovers! Whatever he's going to do without her is more than I know." "Why, it's a big change come over father, to be fond of children," returned the young man, openly perplexed. "_Children!_" repeated the housekeeper. "If you suppose, Mr. Harry, that Jewel is any common child, you must have had a wonderful experience." Her impressive, almost solemn manner, sobered the father's mood. "What she is, is the result of what her mother has taught her," he returned. "Not one of us wanted her when she came," said the housekeeper, looking from one to the other of the young couple standing before her. "Not one person in the house was half civil to her." Julia's hand tightened on her husband's arm. "I didn't want anybody troubling Mr. Evringham. People called him a hard, cold, selfish man; but I knew his trials, yes, Mr. Harry, you know I knew them. He was my employer and it was my business to make him comfortable, and I hated that dear little girl because I'd made up my mind that she'd upset him. Well, Jewel didn't know anything about hate, not enough to know it when she saw it. She just loved us all, through thick and thin, and you'll have to wait till you can read what the recording angel's set down, before you can have any full idea of what she's done for us. She's made a humble woman out of me, and I was the stiff-neckedest member of the congregation. There's my only child, Zeke; she's persuaded him out of habits that were breaking up our lives. There was Eloise Evringham, without hope or God in the world. She gave her both, that little Jewel did. Then, most of all, she crept into Mr. Evringham's empty heart and filled it full, and made his whole life, as you might say, blossom again. That's what she's done, single handed, in two months, and she has no more conceit of her work than a ray of God's sunshine has when it's opening a flower bud." Julia Evringham's gaze was fixed intently upon the speaker, and she was unconscious that two tears rolled down her cheeks. "You've made us very happy, telling us this," she said, rather breathlessly, as the housekeeper paused. "And I should like to add, Mrs. Evringham," said Mrs. Forbes impressively, "that you'd better turn your attention to an orphan asylum and catch them as young as you can and train them up. What this old world wants is a whole crop of Jewels." Julia's smile was very sweet. "We may all have the pure child thought," she returned. Mrs. Forbes passed on upstairs. Harry looked at his wife. He was winking fast. "Well, this isn't any laughing matter, after all, Julia." "No, it's a matter to make us very humble with joy and gratitude." As she spoke Jewel bounded back into the hall and ran into her father's open arms. "A good breakfast, eh?" he asked tenderly. "Yes, I didn't mean to be so long, but Sarah said grandpa wanted me to eat a chop. Now, _now_, we're going to see Star!" "I'd better fix your hair first," remarked her mother. "Oh, let her hair go till lunch time," said Harry. "The horses won't care, will they, Jewel?" He picked her up and set her on his shoulder and out they went to the clean, spacious stables. Zeke pulled down his shirt-sleeves as he saw them coming. "This is my father and mother, Zeke," cried the child, happily, and the coachman ducked his head with his most unprofessional grin. "Jewel's got a great pony here," he said. "Well, I should think so!" remarked Harry, as he and his wife followed where the child led, to a box stall. "Why, Jewel, he's right out of a story!" said her mother, viewing the wavy locks and sweeping tail, as the pony turned eagerly to meet his mistress. Jewel put her arms around his neck and buried her face for an instant in his mane. "I haven't anything for you, Star, this time," she said, as the pretty creature nosed about her. "Mother, do you see his star?" "Indeed I do," replied Mrs. Evringham, examining the snowflake between the full, bright eyes. "He's the prettiest pony I ever saw, Jewel. Did your grandpa have him made to order?" Zeke shrugged his gingham clad shoulders. "He would have, if he could, ma'am," he put in. Mrs. Evringham laughed. "Well, he certainly didn't need to. Oh, see that beautiful head!" for Essex Maid looked out to discover what all the disturbance was about. Harry paused in his examination of the pony, to go over to the mare's stall. "Whew, what a stunner!" he remarked. "Mr. Evringham said you were to ride her this morning, sir, if you liked. You'll be the first, beside him." Zeke paused and with a comical gesture of his head indicated the child and then the mare. "It's been nip and tuck between them, sir; but I guess Jewel's got the Maid beat by now." Harry laughed. "Two blue ribbons, she's won, sir. She'll get another this autumn if he shows her." "I should think so. She's a raving beauty." As he spoke, Harry smoothed the bright coat. "When are we going out, Jewel?" "But we couldn't leave mother," returned the child, from her slippery perch on the pony's back. She had been thinking about it. "Are you sure, Zeke, that grandpa said father might ride Essex Maid?" "He told me so, himself," said Harry, amused. Jewel shook her head, much impressed. "Then he loves you about the most of anybody," she remarked, with conviction. "Don't think of me," said her mother. "You and father do just what you like. I can be happy just looking about this beautiful place." "Oh, I know what," exclaimed Jewel, with sudden brightness. "Let's all go to the Ravine of Happiness before lunch time, and then wait for grandpa, and he can take mother in the phaeton, and father and I can ride horseback." "Oh, I'm afraid your grandpa wouldn't like that," returned Mrs. Evringham quickly. Zeke was standing near her. "He would if she said so, ma'am," he put in, in a low tone. Julia smiled kindly upon him. Harry tossed his head, amused. "It's a case, isn't it, Zeke?" he remarked. "Yes, sir," returned the coachman. "He comes when he's called, and will eat out of her hand, sir." Harry laughed and went back to the pony's stall. "Come on, then, Jewel, come to my old stamping ground, the ravine." "And if her hair frightens the birds it's your fault," smiled Julia, smoothing with both hands the little flaxen head. "The birds have seen me look a great deal worse than this, a great _deal_ worse," said Jewel cheerfully. "Perhaps they'll think her hair is a nest and sit down in it," suggested her father, as they moved away, the happy child between them, holding a hand of each. The little girl drew in her chin as she looked up at him. "Oh, father, you're such a joker!" CHAPTER VI THE DIE IS CAST "Oh, grandpa, we've had the most, _fun_!" cried Jewel that afternoon as she ran down the veranda steps to meet the broker, getting out of the brougham. Harry and Julia were standing near the wicker chairs watching the welcome. They saw Mr. Evringham stoop to receive the child's embrace, and noted the attention he paid to her chatter as, after lifting his hat to them, he slowly advanced. "Father and I played in the ravine the longest while. Wasn't it a nice time, father?" "It certainly was a nice, wet time. I am one pair of shoes short, and shall have to travel to Chicago in patent leathers." As Julia rose she regarded her father-in-law with new eyes. All sense of responsibility had vanished, and her present passive rôle seemed delightful. "I know more about this beautiful place than when you went away," she said. "I feel as if I were at some picturesque resort. It doesn't seem at all as if work-a-day people might live here all the time." "I'm glad you like it," returned the broker, and his quick, curt manner of speech no longer startled her. "Have you been driving?" "No, we preferred to have Jewel plan our campaign, and she seemed to think that the driving part had better wait for you." The broker turned and looked down at the smooth head with billowy ribbon bows behind the ears. Noting his expression, or lack of it, Julia wondered, momentarily, if she might have dreamed the episode of kissing into the telephone. "What is your plan, Jewel?" he asked. She balanced herself springily on her toes. "I thought two of us in the phaeton and two on horseback," she replied, with relish. "H'm. You in the phaeton and I on Star, perhaps." "Oh, grandpa, and your feet dragging in the road!" The child's laugh was a gush of merriment. The broker looked back at his daughter-in-law and handed her the large white package he was carrying. "With my compliments, madam." Julia flushed prettily as she unwrapped the box. "Oh, Huyler's!" she exclaimed. "How delicious. Thank you so much, father." Jewel's eyes were big with admiration. "That's just the kind Dr. Ballard used to give cousin Eloise," she said, sighing. "Sometime I'll be grown up!" Mr. Evringham lifted her into his arms with a quick movement. "That's a far day, thank God," he murmured, his mustache against her hair; then lowering her until he could look into her face: "How have you arranged us, Jewel? Who drives and who rides?" "Perhaps father would like to drive mother in the phaeton," said the child, again on her feet. Harry smiled. "Your last plan, I thought, was that I should ride the mare." "Yes," returned Jewel, with some embarrassment. "You won't look so nice as grandpa does on Essex Maid," she added, very gently, "but if it would be a _pleasure_ to you, father"-- Her companions laughed so heartily that the child bored the toe of one shoe into the piazza, and well they knew the sign. "Here," said her father hastily, "which of these delicious candies do you want, Jewel? Oh, how good they look! I tell you you'll have to be quick if you want any. I have only till to-morrow to eat them." "Really to-morrow, father!" returned the child, pausing aghast. "To-morrow!" "Yes, indeed." "To Chicago, do you mean?" "To Chicago." He nodded emphatically. Jewel turned appealing eyes on her mother. "Can't we help it?" she asked in a voice that broke. "I think not, dearie. Business must come before pleasure, you know." Her three companions looking at the child saw her swallow with an effort. She dropped the chocolate she had taken back into the box. A heroic smile came to her trembling lips as she lifted her eyes to the impassive face of the tall, handsome man beside her. "It's to-morrow, grandpa," she said softly, with a look that begged him to remember. He stooped until his gaze was on a level with hers. She did not touch him. All her forces were bent on self-control. "I have been asking your mother," said Mr. Evringham, "to stay here a while and take a vacation. Hasn't she told you?" Jewel shook her head mutely. "I think she will do it if you add your persuasion," continued the broker quietly. "She ought to have rest,--and of course you would stay too, to take care of her." A flash like sunlight illumined the child's tears. Mr. Evringham expected to feel her arms thrown around his neck. Instead, she turned suddenly, and running to her father, jumped into his lap. "Father, father," she said, "don't you want us to go with you?" Harry cleared his throat. The little scene had moistened his eyes as well. "Am I of any consequence?" he asked, with an effort at jocoseness. Jewel clasped him close. "Oh, father," earnestly, "you know you are; and the only reason I said you wouldn't look so nice on Essex Maid is that grandpa has beautiful riding clothes, and when he rides off he looks like a king in a procession. You couldn't look like a king in a procession in the clothes you wear to the store, could you, father?" "Impossible, dearie." "But I want you to ride her if you'd like to, and I want mother and me to go to Chicago with you if you're going to feel sorry." "You really do, eh?" Jewel hesitated, then turned her head and held out her hand to Mr. Evringham, who took it. "If grandpa won't feel sorry," she answered. "Oh, I don't know what I want. I wish I didn't love to be with so many people!" Her little face, drawn with its problem, precipitated the broker's plans and made him reckless. He said to his son now, that which, in his carefully prepared programme, he had intended to say about three months hence, provided a nearer acquaintance with his daughter Julia did not prove disappointing. "I suppose you are not devotedly attached to Chicago, Harry?" The young man looked up, surprised. "Not exactly. So far she has treated me like a cross between a yellow dog and a step-child; but I shall be devoted enough if I ever succeed there." "Don't succeed there," returned the broker curtly. "Succeed here." Harry shook his head. "Oh, New York's beyond me. I have a foothold in Chicago." "Yes," returned the broker, who had the born and bred New Yorker's contempt for the Windy City. "Yes, I know you've got your foot in it, but take it out." "Great Scott! You'd have me become a rolling stone again?" "No. I'll guarantee you a place where, if you don't gather moss, you'll even write your_self_ down as long-eared." Harry's eyes brightened, and he straightened up, moving Jewel to one side, the better to see his father. "Do you mean it?" he asked eagerly. The broker nodded. "Take your time to settle matters in Chicago," he said. "If you show up here in September it will be early enough." The young man turned his eyes toward his wife and she met his smile with another. Her heart was beating fast. This powerful man of whom, until this morning, she had stood in awe, was going to put a stop to the old life and lift their burdens. So much she perceived in a flash, and she knew it was for the sake of the little child whose cheeks were glowing like roses as she looked from one to another, taking in the happy promise involved in the words of the two men. "Father, will you come back here?" she asked, breathing quickly. "I'd be mighty glad to, Jewel," he replied. The child leaned toward the broker, to whose hand she still clung. Starry lights were dancing in her eyes. "Grandpa, are father and mother and I going to live with you--always?" she asked rapturously. "Always--if you will, Jewel." He certainly had not intended to say it until autumn leaves were falling, and he should have made certain that it was not putting his head into a noose; but the child's face rewarded him now a thousand-fold, and made the moment too sweet for regret. "Didn't we _know_ that Divine Love would take care of us, grandpa?" she asked, with soft triumph. "We _did_ know it--even when I was crying, we knew it. Didn't we?" The broker drank in her upturned glance and placed his other hand over the one that was clinging to him. CHAPTER VII MRS. EVRINGHAM'S GIFTS When Mrs. Evringham opened her eyes the following morning, it was with a confused sense that some great change had taken place; and quickly came the realization that it was a happy change. As the transforming facts flowed in more clearly upon her consciousness, she covered her eyes quickly with her hand. "'Green pastures are before me!'" she thought, and her heart grew warm with gratitude. Her husband was asleep, and she arose and went softly to Jewel's chamber, and carefully opened the door. To her amazement the bed was empty. Its coverings were stripped down and the sweet morning breeze was flooding the spacious room. She returned to her own, wondering how late it might be. Her husband stirred and opened his eyes, but before she could speak a ripple of distant laughter sounded on the air. She ran to the window and raised the shade. "Oh, come, Harry, quick!" she exclaimed, and, half asleep, he obeyed. There, riding down the driveway, they saw Mr. Evringham and Jewel starting off for their morning canter. "How dear they look, how dear!" exclaimed Julia. "Father is stunning, for a fact," remarked Harry, watching alertly. On yesterday's excursion he had ridden Essex Maid, after all; and he smiled with interest now, in the couple who were evidently talking to one another with the utmost zest as they finally disappeared at a canter among the trees. "It is ideal, it's perfectly ideal, Harry." Julia drew a long breath. "I was so surprised this morning, to waken and find it reality, after all." She looked with thoughtful eyes at her husband. "I wonder what my new work will be!" she added. "Not talking about that already, I hope!" he answered, laughing. "I've an idea you will find occupation enough for one while, in learning to be idle. Sit still now and look about you on the work accomplished." "What work?" "That I'm here and that you're here: that the action of Truth has brought these wonders about." After breakfast the farewells were said. "You're happy, aren't you, father?" asked Jewel doubtfully, as she clung about his neck. "Never so happy, Jewel," he answered. She turned to her grandfather. "When is father coming back again?" she asked. "As soon as he can," was the reply. "You don't want me until September, I believe," said the young man bluntly. He still retained the consciousness, half amused, half hurt, that his father considered him superfluous. "Why, September is almost next winter," said Jewel appealingly. Mr. Evringham looked his son full in the eyes and liked the direct way they met him. "The latchstring will be out from now on, Harry I want you to feel that it is your latchstring as much as mine." His son did not speak, but the way the two men suddenly clasped hands gave Jewel a very comforted sensation. "And you don't feel a bit sorry to be going alone to Chicago?" she pursued, again centring her attention and embrace upon her father. "I tell you I was never so happy in my life," he responded, kissing her and setting her on her feet. "Are you going to allow me to drive to the station in your place this morning?" "I'd let you do anything, father," returned Jewel affectionately. It touched her little heart to see him go alone away from such a happy family circle, but her mother's good cheer was reassuring. They had scarcely had a minute alone together since Mrs. Evringham's arrival, and when the last wave had been sent toward the head leaning out of the brougham window, mother and child went up the broad staircase together, pausing before the tall clock whose chime had grown so familiar to Jewel since that chilling day when Mrs. Forbes warned her not to touch it. "Everything in this house is so fine, Jewel," said the mother. "It must have seemed very strange to you at first." "It did. Anna Belle and I felt more at home out of doors, because you see God owned the woods, and He didn't care if we broke something, and Mrs. Forbes used to be so afraid; but it's all much different now," added the child. They went on up to the room where stood the small trunk which was all Mrs. Evringham had taken abroad for her personal belongings. To many children the moment of their mother's unpacking after a return from a trip is fraught with pleasant and eager anticipation of gifts. In this case it was different; for Jewel had no previous journey of her mother's to remember, and her gifts had always been so small, with the shining exception of Anna Belle, that she made no calculations now concerning the steamer trunk, as she watched her mother take out its contents. Each step Mrs. Evringham took on the rich carpet, each glance she cast at the park through the clear sheets of plate glass in the windows, each smooth-running drawer, each undreamed-of convenience in the closet with its electric light for dark days, impressed her afresh with a sense of wondering pleasure. The lady of her name who had so recently dwelt among these luxuries had accepted them fretfully, as no more than her due; the long glass which now reflected Julia's radiant dark eyes lately gave back a countenance impressed with lines of care and discontent. "Jewel, I feel like a queen here," said the happy woman softly. "I like beautiful things very much, but I never had them before in my life. Come, darling, we must read the lesson." She closed the lid of the trunk. "Yes, but wait till I get Anna Belle." The child ran into her own room and brought the doll. Then she jumped into her mother's lap, for there was room for all three in the big chair by the window. Some memory made the little girl lift her shoulders. "This was aunt Madge's chair," she said. "She used to sit here in the prettiest lace wrapper--I was never in this room before except two or three times,"--Jewel's awed tone changed,--"but now my own mother lives here! and cousin Eloise would love to know it and to know that I have her room. I mean to write her about it." "You must take me upstairs pretty soon and let me see the chamber that was yours. Oh, there is so much to see, Jewel; shall we ever get to the end?" Mrs. Evringham's tone was joyous, as she hugged the child impulsively, and rested her cheek on the flaxen head. "Darling," she went on softly, "think what Divine Love has done for mother, to bring her here! I've worked very hard, my little girl, and though Love helped me all the time, and I was happy, I've had so much care, and almost never a day when I had leisure to stop and think about something else than my work. I expected to go right back to it now, with father, and I didn't worry, because God was leading me--but, dearie, when I woke up this morning"--she paused, and as Jewel lifted her head, mother and child gazed into one another's eyes--"I said--you know what I said?" For answer the little girl smiled gladly and began to sing the familiar hymn. Her mother joined an alto to the clear voice, in the manner that had been theirs for years, and fervently, now, they sang the words:-- "Green pastures are before me, Which yet I have not seen. Bright skies will soon be o'er me, Where darkest clouds have been. My hope I cannot measure, My path in life is free, My Father has my treasure, And He will walk with me!" Jewel looked joyous. "The green pastures were in Bel-Air Park, weren't they?" she said, "and you hadn't seen them, had you?" "No," returned Mrs. Evringham gently, "and just now there is not a cloud in our bright sky." "Father's gone away," returned Jewel doubtfully. "Only to get ready to come back. It is very wonderful, Jewel." "Yes, it is. I'm sure it makes God glad to see us so happy." "I'm sure it does; and the best of it is that father knows that it is love alone that brought this happiness, just as it brings all the real happiness that ever comes in the world. He sees that it is only what knowledge we have of God that made it possible for him to come back to what ought to be his, his father's welcome home! Father sees that it is a demonstration of love, and that is more important than all; for anything that gives us a stronger grasp on the truth, and more understanding of its working, is of the greatest value to us." "Didn't grandpa love father before?" asked Jewel, in surprise. "Yes, but father disappointed him and error crept in between them, so it was only when father began to understand the truth and ask God to help him, that the discord could disappear. Isn't it beautiful that it has, Jewel?" "I don't think discord is much, mother," declared the little girl. "Of course it isn't," returned her mother. "It isn't anything." "When I first came, grandpa had so many things to make him sorry, and everybody else here was sorry--and now nobody is. Even aunt Madge was happy over the pretty clothes she had to go away with." "And she'll be happy over other things, some day," returned Mrs. Evringham, who had already gathered a tolerably clear idea of her sister-in-law. "Eloise has learned how to help her." "Oh, ye--es! _She_ isn't afraid of discord any more." "Now we'll study the lesson, darling. Think of having all the time we want for it!" After they had finished, Mrs. Evringham leaned back in the big chair and patted Jewel's knee. Opening the bag at her side she took out a small box and gave it to the child, who opened it eagerly. A bright little garnet ring reposed on the white velvet. "Oh, oh, _oh_!" cried Jewel, delighted. She put on the ring, which just fitted, and then hugged her mother before she looked at it again. "Dear little Anna Belle, when you're a big girl"--she began, turning to the doll, but Mrs. Evringham interrupted. "Wait a minute, Jewel, here is Anna Belle's." She took out another box and, ah, what a charming necklace appeared, brilliant with gems which outshone completely the three little garnets. Jewel jumped for joy when she had clasped it about the round neck. "Oh, mother, mother!" she exclaimed, patting her mother's cheek, "you kept thinking about us every day, didn't you! Kiss your grandma, dearie," which the proud and happy Anna Belle did with a fervor that threatened to damage Mrs. Evringham's front teeth. "I brought you something else, Jewel," said the mother, with her arms around the child. "I did think of you every day, and on the ship going over, it was pretty hard, because I had never been away from my little girl and I didn't know just what she was doing, and I didn't even know the people she was with; so, partly to keep my thoughts from error, I began to--to make something for you." "Oh, what was it?" asked Jewel eagerly. "I didn't finish it going over, and I had no time to do so until we were on the steamer coming home again. Then I was lighter hearted and happier, because I knew my little darling had found green pastures, but--I finished it. I don't know how much you will care for it." Jewel questioned the dark eyes and smiling lips eagerly. "What is it, mother; a bag for my skates?" "No." "A--a handkerchief?" "No." "Oh, tell me, mother, I can't wait." Mrs. Evringham put the little girl down from her lap and going to the trunk took from it the only article it still contained. It was a long, flat book with pasteboard covers tied at the back with little ribbons. As she again took her seat in the big chair, Jewel leaned against its arm. "It's a scrap-book full of pictures," she said, with interest. For answer her mother turned the cover toward her so she could read the words lettered distinctly upon it. JEWEL'S STORY BOOK Then Mrs. Evringham ran her finger along the edges of the volume and let the type-written pages flutter before its owner's delighted eyes. "You've made me some stories, mother!" cried Jewel. One of the great pleasures and treats of her life had been those rare half hours when her busy mother had time to tell her a story. Her eyes danced with delight. "Oh, you're the _kindest_ mother!" she went on, "and you'll have time to read them to me now! Anna Belle, won't it be the most _fun_? Oh, mother, we'll go to the ravine to read, won't we?" Mrs. Evringham's cheeks flushed and she laughed at the child's joy. "I hope they won't disappoint you," she said. "But you wrote them out of love. How can they?" returned the little girl quickly. "That's so, Jewel; that's so, dear." CHAPTER VIII THE QUEST FLOWER The garden in the ravine had been put into fine order to exhibit to Jewel's father and mother. Fresh ferns had been planted around the still pond where Anna Belle's china dolls went swimming, and fresh moss banks had been constructed for their repose. The brook was beginning to lose the impetuosity of spring and now gurgled more quietly between its verdant banks. It delighted Jewel that the place held as much charm for her mother as for herself, and that she listened with as hushed pleasure to the songs of birds in the treetops too high to be disturbed by the presence of dwellers on the ground. It was an ideal spot wherein to read aloud, and the early hours of that sunshiny afternoon found the three seated there by the brookside ready to begin the Story Book. "Now I'll read the titles and you shall choose what one we will take first," said Mrs. Evringham. Jewel's attention was as unwinking as Anna Belle's, as she listened to the names. "Anna Belle ought to have first choice because she's the youngest. Then I'll have next, and you next. Anna Belle chooses The Quest Flower; because she loves flowers so and she can't imagine what that means." "Very well," returned Mrs. Evringham, smiling and settling herself more comfortably against a tree trunk. "The little girl in this story loved them too;" and so saying, Jewel's mother began to read aloud:-- THE QUEST FLOWER Hazel Wright learned to love her uncle Dick Badger very much during a visit he made at her mother's home in Boston. She became well acquainted with him. He was always kind to her in his quiet way, and always had time to take her on his knee and listen to whatever she had to tell about her school or her plays, and even took an interest in her doll, Ella. Mrs. Wright used to laugh and tell her brother that he was a wonderful old bachelor, and could give lessons to many a husband and father; upon which uncle Dick responded that he had always been fond of assuming a virtue if he had it not; and Hazel wondered if "assuming-a-virtue" were a little girl. At any rate, she loved uncle Dick and wished he would live with them always; so it will be seen that when it was suddenly decided that Hazel was to go home with him to the town where he lived, she was delighted. "Father and I are called away on business, Hazel," her mother said to her one day, "and we have been wondering what to do with you. Uncle Dick says he'll take you home with him if you would like to go." "Oh, yes, I would," replied the little girl; for it was vacation and she wanted an outing. "Uncle Dick has a big yard, and Ella and I can have fun there." "I'm sure you can. Uncle Dick's housekeeper, Hannah, is a kind soul, and she knew me when I was as little as you are, and will take good care of you." The evening before Hazel and her uncle were to leave, Mrs. Wright spoke to her brother in private. "It seems too bad not to be able to write aunt Hazel that her namesake is coming," she said. "Is she as bitter as ever?" "Oh, yes. No change." "Just think of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "She lives within a stone's throw of you, and yet can remain unforgiving so many years. Let me see--it is eight; for Hazel is ten years old, and I know she was two when the trouble about the property camp up; but you did right, Dick, and some time aunt Hazel must know it." "Oh, I think she has lucid intervals when she knows it now," returned Mr. Badger; "but her pride won't let her admit it. If it amuses her, it doesn't hurt me for her to pass me on the street without a word or a look. When a thing like that has run along for years, it isn't easy to make any change." "Oh, but it is so unchristian, so wrong," returned his sister. "If you only had a loving enough feeling, Dick, it seems as if you might take her by storm." Mr. Badger smiled at some memory. "I tried once. She did the storming." He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm a man of peace. I decided to let her alone." Mrs. Wright shook her head. "Well, I haven't told Hazel anything about it. She knows she is named for my aunt; but she doesn't know where aunt Hazel lives, and I wish you would warn Hannah not to tell the child anything about her or the affair. You know we lay a great deal of stress on not voicing discord of my kind." "Yes, I know," Mr. Badger smiled and nodded. 'Your methods seem to have turned out a mighty nice little girl, and it's been a wonder to me ever since I came, to see you going about, such a different creature from what you used to be." "Yes, I'm well and happy," returned Mrs. Wright, "and I long to have this trouble between you and aunt Hazel at an end. I suppose Hazel isn't likely to come in contact with her at all." "No, indeed; no more than if aunt Hazel lived in Kamschatka. She does, if it's cold enough there." "Dear woman. She ignored the last two letters I wrote her, I suppose because I sided with you." "Oh, certainly, that would be an unpardonable offense. Hannah tells me she has a crippled child visiting her now, the daughter of some friends. Hannah persists in keeping an eye on aunt Hazel's affairs, and telling me about them. Hannah will be pleased to have little Hazel to make a pet of for a few weeks." He was right. The housekeeper was charmed. She did everything to make Hazel feel at home in her uncle's house, and discovering that the little girl had a passion for flowers, let her make a garden bed of her own. Hazel went with her uncle to buy plants for this, and she had great fun taking geraniums and pansies out of their pots and planting them in the soft brown earth of the round garden plot; and every day blue-eyed Ella, her doll, sat by and watched Hazel pick out every little green weed that had put its head up in the night. "You're only grass, dearie," she would say to one as she uprooted it, "and grass is all right most everywhere; but this is a garden, so run away." Not very far down the street was a real garden, though, that gave Hazel such joy to look at that she carried Ella there every day when it didn't rain, and would have gone every day when it did, only Hannah wouldn't let her. The owner of the garden, Miss Fletcher, at the window where she sat sewing, began to notice the little stranger at last; for the child stood outside the fence with her doll, and gazed and gazed so long each time, that the lady began to regard her with suspicion. "That young one is after my flowers, I'm afraid, Flossie," she said one day to the pale little girl in the wheeled chair that stood near another window looking on the street. "I've noticed her ever so many times," returned Flossie listlessly. "I never saw her until this week, and she's always alone." "Well, I won't have her climbing on my fence!" exclaimed Miss Fletcher, half laying down her work and watching Hazel's movements sharply through her spectacles. "There, she's grabbing hold of a picket now!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I'll see to her in quick order." She jumped up and hurried out of the room, and Flossie's tired eyes watched her spare figure as she marched down the garden path. She didn't care if Miss Fletcher did send the strange child away. What difference could it make to a girl who had the whole world to walk around in, and who could take her doll and go and play in some other pleasant place? As Hazel saw Miss Fletcher coming, she gazed at the unsmiling face looking out from hair drawn back in a tight knot; and Miss Fletcher, on her part, saw such winning eagerness in the smile that met her, that she modified the sharp reproof ready to spring forth. "Get down off the fence, little girl," she said. "You oughtn't ever to hang by the pickets; you'll break one if you do." "Oh, yes," returned Hazel, getting down quickly. "I didn't think of that. I wanted so much to see if that lily-bud had opened, that looked as if it was going to, yesterday; and it has." "Which one?" asked Miss Fletcher, looking around. "Right there behind that second rosebush," replied Hazel, holding Ella tight with one arm while she pointed eagerly. "Oh, yes." Miss Fletcher went over to the plant. "I think it is the loveliest of all," went on the little girl. "It makes me think of the quest flower." "What's that?" Miss Fletcher looked at the strange child curiously. "I never heard of it." "It's the perfect flower," returned Hazel. "Where did you ever see it?" "I never did, but I read about it." "Where is it to be bought?" Miss Fletcher was really interested now, because flowers were her hobby. "In the story it says at the Public Garden; but I've been to the Public Garden in Boston, and I never saw any I thought were as beautiful as yours." Hazel was not trying to win Miss Fletcher's heart, but she had found the road to it. The care-lined face regarded her more closely than ever. "I don't remember you. I thought I knew all the children around here." "No 'm. I'm a visitor. I live in Boston; and we have a flat and of course there isn't any yard, and I think your garden is perfectly beautiful. I come to see it every day, and it's fun to stand out here and count the smells." Miss Fletcher's face broke into a smile. It did really seem as if it cracked, because her lips had been set in such a tight line. "It ain't very often children like flowers unless they can pick them," she replied. "I can't sleep nights sometimes, wishing my garden wasn't so near the fence." The little girl smiled and pointed to a climbing rose that had strayed from its trellis, and one pink flower that was poking its pretty little face between the pickets. "See that one," she said. "I think it wanted to look up and down the street, don't you?" "And you didn't gather it," returned Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel approvingly. "Well, now, for anybody fond of flowers as you are, I think that was real heroic." "She belongs to nice folks," she decided mentally. "Oh, it was a tame flower," returned the child, "and that would have been error. If it had been a wild one I would have picked it." "Error, eh?" returned Miss Fletcher, and again her thin lips parted in a smile. "Well, I wish everybody felt that way." "Uncle Dick lets me have a garden," said Hazel. "He let me buy geraniums and pansies and lemon verbena--I love that, don't you?" "Yes. I've got a big plant of it back here. Wouldn't you like to come in and see it?" "Oh, thank you," returned Hazel, her gray eyes sparkling; and Miss Fletcher felt quite a glow of pleasure in seeing the happiness she was conferring by the invitation. Most of her friends took her garden as a matter of course; and smiled patronizingly at her devotion to it. In a minute the little girl had run to the gate in the white fence, and, entering, joined the mistress of the house, who stood beside the flourishing plants blooming in all their summer loveliness. For the next fifteen minutes neither of the two knew that time was flying. They talked and compared and smelled of this blossom and that, their unity of interest making their acquaintance grow at lightning speed. Miss Fletcher was more pleased than she had been for many a day, and as for Hazel, when her hostess went down on her knees beside a verbena bed and began taking steel hairpins from her tightly knotted hair, to pin down the luxuriant plants that they might go on rooting and spread farther, the little girl felt that the climax of interest was reached. "I'm going to ask uncle Dick," she said admiringly, "if I can't have some verbenas and a paper of hairpins." "Dear me," returned Miss Fletcher, "I wish poor Flossie took as much interest in the garden as you do." "'Flossie' sounds like a kitten, returned Hazel. "She's a little human kitten: a poor little afflicted girl who is making me a visit. You can see her sitting up there in the house, by the window." Hazel looked up and caught a glimpse of a pale face. Her eyes expressed her wonder. "Who afflicted her?" she asked softly. "Her Heavenly Father, for some wise purpose," was the response. "Oh, it couldn't have been that!" returned the child, shocked. "You know God is Love." "Yes, I know," replied Miss Fletcher, turning to her visitor in surprise at so decided an answer from such a source; "but it isn't for us to question what His love is. It's very different from our poor mortal ideas. There's something the matter with poor Flossie's back, and she can't walk. The doctors say it's nervous and perhaps she'll outgrow it; but I think she gets worse all the time." Hazel watched the speaker with eyes full of trouble and perplexity. "Dear me," she replied, "if you think God made her get that way, who do you think 's going to cure her?" "Nobody, it seems. Her people have spent more than they can afford, trying and trying. They've made themselves poor, but nobody's helped her so far." Hazel's eyes swept over the roses and lilies and then back to Miss Fletcher's face. The lady was regarding her curiously. She saw that thoughts were hurrying through the mind of the little girl standing there with her doll in her arms. "You look as if you wanted to say something," she said at last. "I don't want to be impolite," returned Hazel, hesitating. "Well," returned Miss Fletcher dryly, "if you knew the amount of impoliteness that has been given to me in my time, you wouldn't hesitate about adding a little more. Speak out and tell me what you are thinking." "I was thinking how wonderful and how nice it is that flowers will grow for everybody," said Hazel, half reluctantly. "How's that?" demanded her new friend, in fresh surprise. "Have you decided I don't deserve them?" "Oh, you deserve them, of course," replied the child quickly; "but when you have such thoughts about God, it's a wonder His flowers can grow so beautifully in your yard." Miss Fletcher felt a warmth come into her cheeks. "Well," she returned rather sharply, "I should like to know what sort of teaching you've had. You're a big enough girl to know that it's a Christian's business to be resigned to the will of God. You don't happen to have seen many, sick folks, I guess--what is your name?" "Hazel." "Why, that's queer, so is mine; and it isn't a common one." "Isn't that nice!" returned the child. "We're both named Hazel and we both love flowers so much." "Yes; that's quite a coincidence. Now, why shouldn't flowers grow for me, I should like to know?" "Why, you think God afflicted that little girl's back, and didn't let her walk. Why, Miss Fletcher," the child's voice grew more earnest, "He wouldn't do it any more than I'd kneel down and break the stem of that lovely quest flower and let it hang there and wither." Miss Fletcher pushed up her spectacles and gazed down into the clear gray eyes. "Does Flossie think He would?" added Hazel with soft amazement. "I suppose she does." "Then does she say her prayers just the same?" "Of course she does." "What a kind girl she must be!" exclaimed Hazel earnestly. "Why do you say that?" "Because _I_ wouldn't pray to anybody that I believed kept me afflicted." Miss Fletcher started back. "Why, child!" she exclaimed, "I should think you'd expect a thunderbolt. Where do your folks go to church, for pity's sake?" "To the Christian Science church." "Oh--h, that's what's the matter with you! Some of Flossie's relatives have heard about that, and they've been teasing her mother to try it. I'm sure I'd try anything that wasn't blasphemous." "What is blasphemous?" "Why--why--anything that isn't respectful to God is blasphemous." "Oh!" returned Hazel. Then she added softly, "I should think you were that, now." "What!" and Miss Fletcher seemed to tower above her visitor in her amazement. "Oh--please excuse me. I didn't mean to be impolite; but if you'll just _try_, you'll find out what a mistake you and Flossie have been making, and that God _wants_ to heal her." The two looked at one another for a silent half-minute, the little girl's heart beating faster under the grim gaze. "You might come and see her some day," suggested Miss Fletcher, at last. "She has a dull time of it, poor child. I've asked the children to come in, and they've all been very kind, but it's vacation, and a good many that I know have gone away." "I will," replied Hazel. "Doesn't she like to come out here where the flowers are?" "Yes; it's been a little too cloudy and threatening to-day, but if it's clear to-morrow I'll wheel her out under the elm-tree, and she'd like a visit from you. Are you staying far from here?" "No, uncle Dick's is right on this street." "What's his last name?" "Mr. Badger," replied Hazel, and she didn't notice the sudden stiffening that went through Miss Fletcher. "What is your last name?" asked the lady, in a changed voice. "Wright." This time any one who had eyes for something beside the flowers might have seen Miss Fletcher start. Color flew into her thin cheeks, and the eyes that stared at Hazel's straw tam-o'-shanter grew dim. This was dear Mabel Badger's child; her little namesake, her own flesh and blood. Her jaw felt rigid as she asked the next question. "Have you ever spoken to your uncle Dick about my garden?" "Yes, indeed. That's why he let me make one; and every night he asks, 'Well, how's Miss Fletcher's garden to-day,' and I tell him all about it" "And didn't he ever say anything to you about me?" "Why, no;" the child looked up wonderingly. "He doesn't know you, does he?" "We used to know one another," returned Miss Fletcher stiffly. Richard had certainly behaved very decently in this particular instance. At least he had told no lies. "Hazel is such an unusual name," she went on, after a minute. "Who were you named for?" "My mother's favorite aunt," returned the child. "Where does she live?" "I don't know," replied Hazel vaguely. "My mother was talking to me about her the evening before uncle Dick and I left Boston. She told me how much she loved aunt Hazel; but that error had crept in, and they couldn't see each other just now, but that God would bring it all right some day. I have a lovely silver spoon she gave me when I was a baby." Miss Fletcher stooped to her border and cut a bunch of mignonette with the scissors that hung from her belt. "Here's something for you to smell of as you walk home," she said, and Hazel saw her new friend's hand tremble as she held out the flowers. "Do you ever kiss strangers?" added the hostess as she rose to her feet. Hazel held up her face and took hold of Miss Fletcher's arm as she kissed her. "I think you've been so kind to me," she said warmly. "I've had the best time!" "Well, pick the climbing rose as you pass," returned Miss Fletcher. "It seems to want to see the world. Let it go along with you; and don't forget to come to-morrow. I hope it will be pleasant." She stood still, the warm breeze ruffling the thin locks about her forehead, and watched the little girl trip along the walk. The child looked back and smiled as she stopped to pick the pink rose, and when she threw a kiss to Miss Fletcher, that lady found herself responding. She went into the house with a flush remaining in her cheeks. "How long you stayed, aunt Hazel," said the little invalid fretfully as she entered. "I expect I did," returned Miss Fletcher, and there was a new life in her tone that Flossie noticed. "Who is that girl?" "Her name is Hazel Wright, and she is living at the Badgers'. She's as crazy about flowers as I am, so we had a lot to say. She gave me a lecture on religion, too;" an excited little laugh escaped between the speaker's lips. "She's a very unusual child; and she certainly has a look of the Fletchers." "What? I thought you said her name was Wright." "It is! My tongue slipped. She's coming to see you to-morrow, Flossie. We must fix up your doll. I'll wash and iron her pink dress this very afternoon; for Hazel has a beauty doll, herself. I think you'll like that little girl." That evening when uncle Dick and Hazel were at their supper, Mr. Badger questioned her as usual about her day. "I've had the most _fun_," she replied. "I've been to see Miss Fletcher, and she took me into her garden, and we smelled of all the flowers, and had the loveliest time!" Hannah was standing behind the little girl's chair, and her eyes spoke volumes as she nodded significantly at her employer. "Yes, sir, she told Miss Fletcher where she was visiting, and she gave her a bunch of mignonette and a rose to bring home." "Yes," agreed Hazel, "they're in a vase in the parlor now, and she asked me to come to-morrow to see an afflicted girl that's living with her. You know, uncle Dick," Hazel lifted her eyes to him earnestly, "you know how it says everywhere in the Bible that anybody that's afflicted goes to God and He heals them; and what do you think! Miss Fletcher and that little Flossie girl both believe God afflicted her and fixed her back so she can't walk!" Mr. Badger smiled as he met the wondering eyes. "That isn't Christian Science, is it?" he returned. "I'd rather never have a garden even like Miss Fletcher's than to think that," declared Hazel, as she went on with her supper. "I feel so sorry for them!" "So you're going over to-morrow," said Mr. Badger. "What are you going to do; treat the little invalid?" "Why, no indeed, not unless she asks me to." "Why not?" "Because it would be error; it's the worst kind of impoliteness to treat anybody that doesn't ask you to; but I've got to know every minute that her belief is a lie, and that God doesn't know anything about it." "I thought God knew everything," said Mr. Badger, regarding the child curiously. "He does, of course, everything that's going to last forever and ever: everything that's beautiful and good and strong. Whatever God thinks about has _got_ to last." The child lifted her shoulders. "I'm glad He doesn't think about mistakes,--sickness, and everything like that, aren't you?" "I don't want sickness to last forever, I'm sure" returned Mr. Badger. The following day was clear and bright, and early in the afternoon Hazel, dressed in a clean gingham frock, took her doll and walked up the street to Miss Fletcher's. The wheeled chair was already out under the elm-tree, and Flossie was watching for her guest. Miss Fletcher was sitting near her, sewing, and waiting with concealed impatience for the appearance of the bright face under the straw tam-o'-shanter. As soon as Hazel reached the corner of the fence and saw them there, she began to run, her eyes fixed eagerly on the white figure in the wheeled chair. The blue eyes that looked so tired regarded her curiously as she ran up the garden path and across the grass to the large, shady tree. Hazel had never been close to a sick person, and something in Flossie's appearance and the whiteness of her thin hands that clasped the doll in the gay pink dress brought a lump into the well child's throat and made her heart beat. "Dear Father, I want to help her!" she said under her breath, and Miss Fletcher noticed that she had no eyes for her, and saw the wondering pity in her face as she came straight up to the invalid's chair. "Flossie Wallace, this is Hazel Wright," she said, and Flossie smiled a little under the love that leaped from Hazel's eyes into hers. "I'm glad you brought your doll," said Flossie. "Ella goes everywhere I do," returned Hazel. "What's your doll's name?" "Bernice; I think Bernice is a beautiful name," said Flossie. "So do I," returned Hazel. Then the two children were silent a minute, looking at one another, uncertain how to go on. Hazel was the first to speak. "Isn't it lovely to live with this garden?" she asked. "Yes, aunt Hazel has nice flowers." "I have an aunt Hazel, too," said the little visitor. "Miss Fletcher isn't my real aunt, but I call her that," remarked Flossie. "And _you_ might do it, too," suggested Miss Fletcher, looking at Hazel, to whom her heart warmed more and more in spite of the astonishing charges of the day before. "Do you think I could call you aunt Hazel?" asked the child, rather shyly. "For the sake of being cousin to my garden, you might. Don't you think so?" "How is the quest flower to-day?" asked Hazel. "Which? Oh, you mean the garden lily. There's another bud." "Oh, may I look at it?" cried Hazel, "and wouldn't you like to come too?" turning to Flossie. "Can't I roll your chair?" "Yes, indeed," said Miss Fletcher, pleased. "It rolls very easily. Give Flossie your doll, too, and we'll all go and see the lily bud." Hazel obeyed, and carefully pushing the light chair, they moved slowly toward the spot where the white chalices of the garden lilies poured forth their incense. "Miss Fletcher," cried Hazel excitedly, dropping on her knees beside the bed, "that is going to be the most beautiful of all. When it is perfectly open the plant will be ready to take to the king." The little girl lifted her shoulders and looked up at her hostess, smiling. "What king is going to get my lily?" "The one who will send you on your quest." "What am I to go in quest of?" inquired Miss Fletcher, much entertained. "I don't know;" Hazel shook her head. "Every one's errand is different." "What is a quest?" asked Flossie. "You tell her, Hazel." "Why, mother says it's a search for some treasure." "You must tell us this story about the quest flower some day," said Miss Fletcher. "I have the story of it here," returned Hazel eagerly. "I've read it over and over again because I love it, and so mother put it in my trunk with my Christian Science books. I can bring it over and read it to you, if you want me to. You'd like it, I know, Miss Fletcher." "Aunt Hazel told me you were a Christian Scientist," said Flossie. "I never saw one before, but people have talked to mother about it." "I could bring _those_ books over, too," replied Hazel wistfully, "and we could read the lesson every day, and perhaps it would make you feel better." "I don't know what it's about," said Flossie. "It's about making sick people well and sinful people good." "I'm sinful, too, part of the time," answered Flossie. "Sometimes I don't like to live, and I wish I didn't have to, and everybody says that's sinful." Sudden tears started to Miss Fletcher's eyes, and as the little girls were looking at one another absorbedly, Hazel standing close to the wheeled chair, she stole away, unobserved, to the house. "She ought to be cured," she said to herself excitedly. "She ought to be cured. There's that one more chance, anyway. I've got to where I'm ready to let the babes and sucklings have a try!" CHAPTER IX THE QUEST FLOWER (_Continued_) The next morning was rainy, and Jewel and her grandfather visited the stable instead of taking their canter. "And what will you do this dismal day?" asked the broker of his daughter-in-law as they stood alone for a minute after breakfast, Jewel having run upstairs to get Anna Belle for the drive to the station. "This happy day," she answered, lifting to him the radiant face that he was always mentally contrasting with Madge. "The rain will give me a chance to look at the many treasures you have here, books and pictures." "H'm. You are musical, I know, for Jewel has the voice of a lark. Do you play the piano?" Julia looked wistfully at the Steinway grand. "Ah, if I only could!" she returned. Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. "Madam," he said, lowering his voice, "that child has a most amazing talent." "Jewel's voice, do you mean?" "She'll sing, I'm sure of it," he replied, "but I mean for music in general. Eloise is an accomplished pianist. She has one piece that Jewel especially enjoyed, the old Spring Song of Mendelssohn. Probably you know it." Julia shook her head. "I doubt it. I've heard very little good piano playing." "Well, madam, that child has picked out the melody of that piece by herself," the broker lowered his voice to still deeper impressiveness. "As soon as we return in the autumn, we will have her begin lessons." Julia's eyes met his gratefully. "A very remarkable talent. I am positive of it," he went on. "Jewel," for here the child entered the room, "play the Spring Song for your mother, will you?" "Now? Zeke is out there, grandpa." "Dick can stretch his legs a bit faster this morning. Play it." So Jewel set Anna Belle on a brocaded chair and going to the piano, played the melody of the Spring Song. She could perform only a few measures, but there were no false notes in the little chromatic passages, and her grandfather's eyes sought Julia's in grave triumph. "A very marvelous gift," he managed to say to her again under his breath, as Jewel at last ran ahead of him out to the porte cochère. Julia's eyes grew dreamy as she watched the brougham drive off. How different was to be the future of her little girl from anything she had planned in her rosiest moments of hopefulness. The more she saw of Mr. Evringham's absorbed attachment to the child, the more grateful she was for the manner in which he had guarded Jewel's simplicity, the self-restraint with which he had abstained from loading her with knickknacks or fine clothes. The child was not merely a pet with him. She was an individual, a character whose development he respected. "God keep her good!" prayed the mother. It was a charming place to continue the story, there in the large chintz chair by Mrs. Evringham's window. The raindrops pattered against the clear glass, the lawn grew greener, and the great trees beyond the gateway held their leaves up to the bath. "Anna Belle's pond will overflow, I think," said Jewel, looking out the window musingly. "And how good for the ferns," remarked her mother. "Yes, I'd like to be there, now," said the child. "Oh, I think it's much cosier here. I love to hear the rain, too, don't you?" "Yes, I do, and we'll have the story now, won't we, mother?" At this moment there was a knock at the door and Zeke appeared with an armful of birch wood. "Mr. Evringham said it might be a little damp up here and I was to lay a fire." "Oh, yes, yes!" exclaimed Jewel. "Mother, wouldn't you like to have a fire while we read?" Mrs. Evringham assented and Zeke laid the sticks on the andirons and let Jewel touch the lighted match to the little twigs. "I have the loveliest book, Zeke," she said, when the flames leaped up. "My mother made it for me, and you shall read it if you want to." "Yes, if Zeke wants to," put in Mrs. Evringham, smiling, "but you'd better find out first if he does. This book was written for little girls with short braids." "Oh, Zeke and I like a great many of the same things," responded Jewel earnestly. "That's so, little kid," replied the young coachman, "and as long as you're going to stay here, I'll read anything you say." "You see," explained Jewel, when he had gone out and closed the door softly, "Zeke said it made his nose tingle every time he thought of anybody else braiding Star's tail, so he's just as glad as anything that we're not going away." The birch logs snapped merrily, and Anna Belle sat in Jewel's lap watching the leaping flame, while Mrs. Evringham leaned back in her easy chair. The reading had been interrupted yesterday by the arrival of the hour when Mrs. Evringham had engaged to take a drive with her father-in-law. Jewel accompanied them, riding Star, and it was great entertainment to her mother to watch the child's good management of the pretty pony who showed by many shakes of the head and other antics that it had not been explained to his satisfaction why Essex Maid was left out of this good time. Jewel turned to her mother. "We're all ready now, aren't we? Do go on with the story. I told grandpa about it, driving to the station this morning, and what do you suppose he asked me?" The child drew in her chin. "He asked me if I thought Flossie was going to get well!" Mrs. Evringham smiled. "Well, we'll see," she replied, opening the story-book. "Where were we?" "Miss Fletcher had just gone into the house and Flossie had just said she was sinful. She wasn't to blame a bit!" "Oh, yes, here it is," said Mrs. Evringham, and she began to read:-- * * * * * As Hazel met Flossie's look, her heart swelled and she wished her mother were here to take care of this little girl who had fallen into such a sad mistake. "I wish I knew how to tell you better, Flossie, about God being Love," she said; "but He is, and He didn't send you your trouble." "Perhaps He didn't send it," returned Flossie, "but He thinks it's good for me to have it or else He'd let the doctors cure me. I've had the kindest doctors you ever heard of, and they know everything about people's backs." "But God will cure you, Himself," said Hazel earnestly. A strange smile flitted over the sick child's lips. "Oh, no, He won't. I asked Him every night for a year, and over and over all day; but I never ask Him now." "Oh, Flossie, I know what's the truth, but I don't know how to tell about it very well; but everything about you that seems not to be the image and likeness of God is a lie; and He doesn't see lies, and so He doesn't know these mistakes you're thinking; but He _does_ know the strong, well girl you really are, and He'll help _you_ to know it, too, when you begin to think right." The sincerity and earnestness in her visitor's tone brought a gleam of interest into Flossie's eyes. "Just think of being well and running around here with me, and think that God wants you to!" "Oh, do you believe He does?" returned Flossie doubtfully. "Mother says it will do my soul good for me to be sick, if I can't get well." Hazel shook her head violently. "You know when Jesus was on earth? Well, he never told anybody it was better for them to be sick. He healed everybody, _everybody_ that asked him, and he came to do the will of his Father; so God's will doesn't change, and it's just the same now." There was a faint color in Flossie's cheeks. "If I was sure God wanted me to get well, why then I'd know I would some time." "Of course He does; but you didn't know how to ask Him right." "Do _you_?" asked Flossie. Hazel nodded. "Yes; not so well as mother, but I do know a little, and if you want me to, I'll ask Him for you." "Well, of course I do," returned Flossie, regarding her visitor with grave, wondering eyes. In a minute Miss Fletcher, watching the children through a window, beheld something that puzzled her. She saw Hazel roll Flossie's chair back under the elm-tree, and saw her sit down on the grass beside it and cover her eyes with both hands. "What game are they playing?" she asked herself; and she smiled, well pleased by the friendship that had begun. "I wish health was catching," she sighed. "Little Hazel's a picture. I wonder how long it'll be before she finds out who I am. I wonder what Richard's idea is in not telling her." She moved about the house a few minutes, and then returned, curiously, to the window. To her surprise matters were exactly as she saw them last. Flossie was, holding both dolls in the wheeled chair, and Hazel was sitting under the tree, her hands over her eyes. A wave of amazement and amusement swept over Miss Fletcher, and she struck her hands together noiselessly. "I _do_ believe in my heart," she exclaimed, "that Hazel Wright is giving Flossie one of those absent treatments they tell about! Well, if I ever in all my born days!" There was no more work for Miss Fletcher after this, but a restless moving about the room until she saw Hazel bound up from the ground. Then she hurried out of the house and walked over to the tree. Hazel skipped to meet her, her face all alight. "Oh, Miss Fletcher, Flossie wants to be healed by Christian Science. If my mother was only here she could turn to all the places in the Bible where it tells about God being Love and healing sickness." Miss Fletcher noted the new expression in the invalid's usually listless face, and the new light in her eyes. "I'll take my Bible," she answered, "and a concordance. I'll bring them right now. You children go on playing and I'll find all the references I can, and Flossie and I will read them after you've gone." Miss Fletcher brought her books out under the tree, and with pencil and paper made her notes while the children played with their dolls. "Let's have them both your children, Flossie," said Hazel. "Oh, yes," replied Flossie, "and they'll both be sick, and you be the doctor and come and feel their pulses. Aunt Hazel has my doll's little medicine bottles in the house. She'll tell you where they are." Hazel paused. "Let's not play that," she returned, "because--it isn't fun to be sick and--you're going to be all done with sickness." "All right," returned Flossie; but it had been her principal play with her doll, Bernice, who had recovered from such a catalogue of ills that it reflected great credit on her medical man. "I'll be the maid," said Hazel, "and you give me the directions and I'll take the children to drive and to dancing-school and everywhere you tell me." "And when they're naughty," returned Flossie, "you bring them to me to spank, because I can't let my servants punish my children." Hazel paused again. "Let's play you're a Christian Scientist," she said, "and you have a Christian Science maid, then there won't be any spanking; because if error creeps in, you'll know how to handle it in mind." "Oh!" returned Flossie blankly. But Hazel was fertile in ideas, and the play proceeded with spirit, owing to the lightning speed with which the maid changed to a coachman, and thence to a market-man or a gardener, according to the demands of the situation. Miss Fletcher, her spectacles well down on her nose, industriously searched out her references and made record of them, her eyes roving often to the white face that was fuller of interest than she had ever seen it. When four o'clock came, she went back to the house and returned with Flossie's lap table, which she leaned against the tree trunk. This afternoon lunch for the invalid was always accomplished with much coaxing on Miss Fletcher's part, and great reluctance on Flossie's. The little girl took no notice now of what was coming. She was too much engrossed in Hazel's efforts to induce Miss Fletcher's maltese cat to allow Bernice to take a ride on his back. But when the hostess returned from the house the second time, Hazel gave an exclamation. Miss Fletcher was carrying a tray, and upon it was laid out a large doll's tea-set. It was of white china with gold bands, and when Flossie saw Hazel's admiration, she exclaimed too. "This was my tea-set when I was a little girl," said Miss Fletcher, "and I was always very choice of it. Twenty years ago I had a niece your age, Hazel, who used to think it was the best fun in the world to come to aunt Hazel's and have lunch off her doll's tea-set. I used to tell her I was going to give it to _her_ little girl if she ever had one." Both children exclaimed admiringly over the quaint shape of the bowl and pitchers, as Miss Fletcher deposited the tray on her sewing-table. "When I was a child we didn't smash up handsome toys the way children do nowadays. They weren't so easy to get." "And didn't your niece ever have a little girl?" asked Flossie, beginning to think that in such a case perhaps these dear dishes might come to be her own. "Yes, she did," replied Miss Fletcher kindly, and as she looked at the guest's interested little face her eyes were thoughtful. "I shall give them to her some day." "Has she ever seen them?" asked Hazel. "Once. I thought you children must be hungry after your games, and you'd like a little lunch." This idea was so pleasing to Hazel that Flossie caught her enthusiasm. "You'll be the mistress and pour, Flossie, and I'll be the waitress," she said. "Won't it be the most _fun_! I suppose, ma'am, you'll like to have the children come to the table?" she added, with sudden respectfulness of tone. "Yes," returned Flossie, with elegant languor. "I think it teaches them good manners." And then the waitress forgot herself so far as to hop up and down; for Miss Fletcher, who had returned to the house, now reappeared bearing a tray of eatables and drinkables. What a good time the children had, with the sewing-table for a sideboard, and the lap-table fixed firmly across Flossie's chair. "Are you sure you aren't getting too tired, dear?" asked Miss Fletcher of her invalid, doubtfully. "Wouldn't you rather the waitress poured?" But Flossie declared she was feeling well, and Hazel looked up eagerly into Miss Fletcher's eyes and said, "You know she can't get too tired unless we're doing wrong." "Oh, indeed!" returned the hostess dryly. "Then there's nothing to fear, for she's doing the rightest kind of right." When the table was set forth, two small plates heaped high with bread-and-butter sandwiches, a coffee-pot and milk-pitcher of beaten egg and milk, a tea-pot of grape juice, one dish of nuts and another of jelly, the waitress's eyes spoke so eloquently that Flossie mercifully dismissed her on the spot, and invited a lady of her acquaintance to the feast, who immediately drew up a chair with eager alacrity. Miss Fletcher seated herself again and looked on with the utmost satisfaction, while the children laughed and ate, and when the sandwich plates and coffee-pot and tea-pot and milk-pitcher were all emptied, she replenished them from the well-furnished sideboard. "My, I wish I was aunt Hazel's real little niece!" exclaimed Flossie, enchanted with pouring from the delightful china. "So do I wish I was," said Hazel, looking around at her hostess with a smile that was returned. When Hazel sat down to supper at home that evening, she had plenty to tell of the delightful afternoon, which made Mr. Badger and Hannah open their eyes to the widest, although she did not suspect how she was astonishing them. "I tell you," she added, in describing the luncheon, "we were careful not to break that little girl's dishes. Oh, I wish you could see them. They're the most be-_au_tiful you ever saw. They're so big--big enough for a child's real ones that she could use herself." "I judge you did use them," said uncle Dick. "Well, I guess we did! Miss Fletcher--she wants me to call her aunt Hazel, uncle Dick!" The child looked up to observe the effect of this. He nodded. "Do it, then. Perhaps she'll forget and give you the dishes." Hazel laughed. "Well, anyway, she said Flossie'd eaten as much as she usually did in two whole days. Isn't it beautiful that she's going to get well?" "I wouldn't talk to her too much about it," returned Mr. Badger. "It would be cruel to disappoint her." This sort of response was new to Hazel. She gazed at her uncle a minute. "That's error," she said at last. "God doesn't disappoint people. They'll get some grown-up Scientist, but until they do, I'll declare the truth for Flossie every day. She'll get well. You'll see. "I hope so," returned Mr. Badger quietly. Old Hannah gave her employer a wink over the child's head. "You might ask them to come here by your garden and have lunch some day, Hazel. I'll fix things up real nice for you, even if we haven't got any baby dishes." "I'd love to," returned Hazel, "and I expect they'd love to come. To-morrow I'm going to take the lesson over and read it with them, and I'm going to read them the 'Quest Flower,' too. It's a story that aunt Hazel will just love. I think she has one in her yard." "Well, Mr. Richard," said Hannah, after their little visitor had gone to bed, "I see the end of one family feud." Mr. Badger smiled. "When Miss Fletcher consents to take lunch in my yard, I shall see it, too," he replied. The next day was pleasant, also, and when Hazel appeared outside her aunt's fence, Flossie was sitting under the tree and waved a hand to her. The white face looked pleased and almost eager, and Miss Fletcher called:-- "Come along, Hazel. I guess Flossie got just tired enough yesterday. She slept last night the best she has since she came." "Yes," added the little invalid, smiling as her new friend drew near, "the night seemed about five minutes long." "That's the way it does to me," returned Hazel. She had her doll and some books in her arms, and Miss Fletcher took the latter from her. "H'm, h'm," she murmured, as she looked over the titles. "You have something about Christian Science here." "Yes, I thought I'd read to-day's lesson to Flossie before I treated her, and you'd let us take your Bible." "I certainly will. I can tell you, Hazel, Flossie and I were surprised at the number of good verses and promises I read to her last evening. Anybody ought to sleep well after them." Hazel looked glad, and Miss Fletcher let her run into the house to bring the Bible, for it was on the hall table in plain sight. While she was gone the hostess smoothed Flossie's hair. "I can tell you, my dear child, that reading all those verses to you last night made me feel that we don't any of us live up to our lights very well. 'Tisn't always a question of sick bodies, Flossie." Hazel came bounding back to the elm-tree, and sitting down near the wheeled chair, opened the Bible and two of the books she had brought, and proceeded to read the lesson. Had she been a few years older, she would not have attempted this without a word of explanation to two people to whom many of the terms of her religion were strange, but no doubts assailed her. The little white girl in the wheeled chair was going to get out of it and run around and be happy--that was all Hazel knew, and she proceeded in the only way she knew of to bring it about. Miss Fletcher's thin lips parted as she listened to the sentences that the child read. She understood scarcely more than Flossie of what they were hearing, excepting the Bible verses, and these did not seem to bear on the case. It was Hazel's perfectly unhesitating certainty of manner and voice which most impressed her, and when the child had finished she continued to stare at her unconsciously. "Now," said Hazel, returning her look, "I guess I'd better treat her before we begin to play." Her hostess started. "Oh!" she ejaculated, "then I suppose you'd rather be alone." "Yes, it's easier," returned the little girl. Miss Fletcher, feeling rather embarrassed, gathered up her sewing and moved off to the house. "If I ever in all my born days!" she thought again. "What would Flossie's mother say! Well, that dear little girl's prayers can't do any harm, and if she isn't a smart young one I never saw one. She's Fletcher clear through. I'd like to know what Richard Badger thinks of her. If she'd give _him_ a few absent treatments it might do him some good." Miss Fletcher's lips took their old grim line as she added this reflection, but she was not altogether comfortable. Her nephew's action in withholding from Hazel the fact that it was her aunt whom she was visiting daily could scarcely have other than a kindly motive; and that long list of Bible references which she had read to Flossie last evening had stirred her strangely. There was one, "He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love," which had followed her to bed and occupied her thoughts for some time. Now she went actively to work preparing the luncheon which she intended serving to the children later. "And I'd better fix enough for two laboring men," she thought, smiling. Later, when she went back under the tree, her little guest skipped up to her. "Oh, aunt Hazel," she said, and the address softened the hostess's eyes, "won't you and Flossie come to-morrow afternoon if it's pleasant, and have lunch beside my garden?" Miss Fletcher's face changed. This was a contingency that had not occurred to her. "Oh, do say yes," persisted the child. "I want you to see my flowers, and Flossie says she'd love to. I'll come up and wheel her down there." "Flossie can go some day, yes," replied aunt Hazel reluctantly; "but I don't visit much. I'm set in my ways." "Hannah, uncle Dick's housekeeper, suggested it herself," pursued Hazel, thinking that perhaps her own invitation was not sufficient, "and I know uncle Dick would be glad. You said," with sudden remembrance, "that you used to know him." Miss Fletcher's lips were their grimmest. "I've spanked him many a time," she replied deliberately. "Spanked him!" repeated the child, staring in still amazement. The grim lips crept into a grimmer smile. "Not very hard; not hard _enough_, I've thought a good many times since." Hazel recovered her breath. "You knew him when he was little?" "I certainly did. No, child, don't ask me to go out of my tracks. You come here all you will, and if you'll be very careful you can wheel Flossie up to your garden some day. Come, now, are you going to read us that story? I see you brought it." "Yes, I brought it," replied Hazel, in a rather subdued voice. She saw that there was some trouble between this kind, new friend and her dear uncle Dick, and the discovery astonished her. How could grown-up people not forgive one another? Miss Fletcher seated herself again with her sewing, and Hazel took the little white book and sat down close by the wheeled chair where Flossie was holding both the dolls. "Do you like stories?" she asked. "Yes, when they're not interesting," returned Flossie; "but when mother brings a book and says it's very interesting, I know I shan't like it." Hazel laughed. "Well, hear this," she said, and began to read:-- * * * * * Once there was a very rich man whose garden was his chief pride and joy. In all the country around, people knew about this wonderful garden, and many came from miles away to look at the rare trees and shrubs, and the beautiful vistas through which one could gain glimpses of blue water where idle swans floated and added their snowy beauty to the scene. But loveliest of all were the rare flowers, blossoming profusely and rejoicing every beholder. It was the ambition of the man's life to have the most beautiful garden in the world; and so many strangers as well as friends told him that it was so that he came to believe it and to be certain that no beauty could be added to his enchanting grounds. One evening, as he was strolling about the avenues, he strayed near the wall and suddenly became aware of a fragrance so sweet and strange that he started and looked about him to find its source. Becoming more and more interested each moment, as he could find only such blossoms as were familiar to him, he at last perceived that the wonderful perfume floated in from the public way which ran just without the wall. Instantly calling a servant he dispatched him to discover what might be the explanation of this delightful mystery. The servant sped and found a youth bearing a jar containing a plant crowned with a wondrous pure white flower which sent forth this sweetness. The servant endeavored to bring the bearer to his master, but the youth steadily refused; saying that, the plant being now in perfection, he was carrying it to the King, for in his possession it would never fade. The servant returning with this news, the owner of the garden hastened, himself, and overtook the young man. When his eyes beheld the wondrous plant, he demanded it at any price. "I cannot part with it to you," returned the youth, "but do you not know that at the Public Garden a bulb of this flower is free to all?" "I never heard of it," replied the man, with excitement, "but to grow it must be difficult. Promise me to return and tend it for me until I possess a plant as beautiful as yours." "That would be useless," returned the youth, "for every man must tend his own; and as for me, the King will send me on a quest when He has received this flower, and I shall not return this way." His face was radiant as he proceeded on his road, and the rich man, filled with an exceeding longing, hastened to the Public Garden and made known his desire. He was given a bulb, and was told that the King provided it, but that when the plant was in flower it must be carried to Him. The man agreed, and returning to his house, rejoicing, caused the bulb to be planted in a beautiful spot set apart for its reception. But, strangely, as time went on, his gardeners could not make this plant grow. The man sent out for experts, men with the greatest wisdom concerning the ways of flowers, but still the bulb rested passive. The man offered rewards, but in vain. His garden was still famous and praised for its beauty far and near; but it pleased him no longer. His heart ached with longing for the one perfect flower. One night he lay awake, mourning and restless, until he could bear it no more. He rose, the only waking figure in the sleeping castle, and went out upon a balcony. A flood of moonlight was turning his garden to silver, and suddenly a nightingale's sobbing song pulsed upon the air and filled his heart to bursting. Wrapping his mantle about him, he descended a winding stair and walked to where, in the centre of the garden, reposed his buried hope. No one was by to witness the breaking down of his pride. He knelt, and swift tears fell upon the earth and moistened it. What wonder was this? He brushed away the blinding drops, the better to see, for a little green shoot appeared from the brown earth, and, with a leap of the heart, he perceived that his flower had begun to grow. Every succeeding night, while all in the castle were sleeping, he descended to the garden and tended the plant. Steadily it grew, and finally the bud appeared, and one fair day it burst into blossom and filled the whole garden with its perfume. The thought of parting with this treasure tugged at the man's very heartstrings. "The King has many, how many, who can tell! Must I give up mine to Him? Not yet. Not quite yet!" So he put off carrying away the perfect flower from one day to the next, till at last it fell and was no more worthy. Ah, then what sadness possessed the man's soul! He vowed that he would never rest until he had brought another plant to perfection and given it to the King; for he realized, at last, that only by giving it, could its loveliness become perennial. Yet he mourned his perfect flower, for it seemed to him no other would ever possess such beauty. So he set forth again to the Public Garden, but there a great shock awaited him. He found that no second bulb could be vouchsafed to any one. Very sadly he retraced his steps and carefully covered the precious bulb, hoping that when the season of storm and frost was past, there might come to it renewed life. As soon as the spring began to spread green loveliness again across the landscape, the man turned, with a full heart, to the care and nurture of his hope. The winter of waiting had taught him many a lesson. He tended the plant now with his own hands, in the light of day and in the sight of all men. Long he cherished it, and steadily it grew, and the man's thought grew with it. Finally the bud appeared, increasing and beautifying daily, until, one morning, a divine fragrance spread beyond the farthest limits of that garden, for the flower had bloomed, spotless, fit for a holy gift; and the man looked upon it humbly and not as his own; but rejoiced in the day of its perfection that he might leave all else behind him, and, carrying it to the King, lay it at His feet and receive His bidding; and so go forth upon his joyous quest. * * * * * Hazel closed the book. Flossie was watching her attentively. Miss Fletcher had laid down her sewing and was wiping her spectacles. "Did you like it?" asked Hazel. "Yes," replied Flossie. "I wish I knew what that flower was." "Mother says the blossom is consecration," replied Hazel. "I forget what she said the bulb was. What do you think it was, aunt Hazel?" "Humility, perhaps," replied Miss Fletcher. "Yes, that's just what she said! I remember now. Oh, let's go and look at yours and see how the bud is to-day." Hazel sprang up from the grass and carefully pushed Flossie's chair to the flower-bed. "Oh, aunt Hazel, it's nearly out," she cried, and Miss Fletcher, who had remained behind still polishing her spectacles with hands that were not very steady, felt a little frightened leap of the heart. She wished the Quest Flower would be slower. The afternoon was as happy a one to the children as that of the day before. They greatly enjoyed the dainty lunch from the little tea-set. They had cocoa to-day instead of the beaten egg and milk; then, just before Hazel went home, Miss Fletcher let her water the garden with a fascinating sprinkler that whirled and was always just about to deluge either the one who managed it or her companions. In the child's little hands it was a dangerous weapon, but Miss Fletcher very kindly and patiently helped her to use it, for she saw the pleasure she was bestowing. That night Hazel had a still more joyous tale to tell of her happy day; and uncle Dick went out doors with her after supper and watched her water her own garden bed and listened to her chatter with much satisfaction. "So Miss Fletcher doesn't care to come and lunch in my yard," he remarked. "No," returned Hazel, pausing and regarding him. "She says she used to know you well enough to spank you, too." Mr. Badger laughed. "She certainly did." "Then error must have crept in," said the little girl, "that she doesn't know you now." "I used to think it had, when she got after me." The child observed his laughing face wistfully, "She didn't know how to handle it in mind, did she?" "Not much. A slipper was good enough for her." "Well, I don't see what's the matter," said Hazel. "'Tisn't necessary, little one. You go on having a good time. Everything will come out all right some day." As Mr. Badger spoke he little knew what activity was taking place in his aunt's thought. Her heart had been touched by the surprising arrival and sympathy of her namesake, and her conscience had been awakened by the array of golden words from the Bible which she had not studied much during late bitter years. The story of the Quest Flower, falling upon her softened heart, seemed to hold for her a special meaning. In the late twilight that evening she stood alone in her garden, and the opening chalice of the perfect lily shone up at her through the dusk. "Only a couple of days, at most," she murmured, "not more than a couple of days--and humility was the root!" When it rained the following morning, Flossie looked out the window rather disconsolately; but after dinner her face brightened, for she saw Hazel coming up the street under an umbrella. Tightly held in one arm were Ella and a bundle of books and doll's clothes. Miss Fletcher welcomed the guest gladly, and, after disposing of her umbrella, left the children together and took her sewing upstairs where she sat at work by a window, frowning and smiling by turns at her own thoughts. Occasionally she looked down furtively at her garden, where in plain view the quest flower drank in the warm rain and opened--opened! By this time Flossie and Hazel were great friends, and the expression of the former's face had changed even in three days, until one would forget to call her an afflicted child. They had the lesson and the treatment this afternoon, and then their plays, and when lunch time came the appetites of the pair did not seem to have been injured by their confinement to the house. When the time came for Hazel to go it had ceased raining, and Miss Fletcher went with her to the gate. "Oh, oh, aunt Hazel--see the quest flower!" exclaimed the child. True, a lily, larger, fairer than all the rest, reared itself in stately purity in the centre of the bed. Miss Fletcher turned and looked at it with startled eyes and pressed her hand to her heart. "Why can't the thing give a body time to make up her mind!" she murmured. "Oh, to-morrow, _to-morrow_, aunt Hazel, the sun will come out, and I know just how that lily will look. It will be fit to take to the King!" Miss Fletcher passed her arm around the child's shoulders. "I want you to stay to supper with us to-morrow night, dear. Ask your uncle if you may." "Thank you, I'd love to," returned the child, and was skipping off. "Wait a minute." Miss Fletcher stooped and with her scissors cut a moss rose so full of sweetness that as she handed it to her guest, Hazel hugged her. The following day was fresh and bright. Flossie's best pink gown and hair ribbons made her look like a rose, herself, to Hazel, as the little girl, very fine in a white frock and ribbons, came skipping up the street. Miss Fletcher stood watching them as her niece ran toward the wheeled chair. The lustre in Flossie's eyes made her heart glad; but the visitor stopped short in the midst of the garden and clasped her hands. "Oh, aunt Hazel!" she cried, "the quest flower!" Miss Fletcher nodded and slowly drew near. The stately lily looked like a queen among her subjects. "Yes, it is to-day," she said softly, "to-day." She could not settle to her sewing, but, leaving the children together for their work and play, walked up and down the garden paths. Later she went into the house and upstairs and put on her best black silk dress. An unusual color came into her cheeks while she dressed. "The bulb was humility," she murmured over and over, under her breath. The afternoon was drawing to a close when Miss Fletcher at last moved out of doors and to the elm-tree. "I didn't bring you any lunch to-day," she said to the children, "because I want you to be hungry for a good supper." "Can we have the dishes just the same?" asked Flossie. "The owner is going to have them to-night," replied Miss Fletcher, and both the little girls regarded her flushed face with eager curiosity. "Why, have you asked her?" they cried together. "Yes." "Does she know she's going to have the tea-set?" "No." "Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Flossie. "I didn't know she was in town." "Yes, she is in town." Miss Fletcher turned to Hazel and put her hand on the child's shoulder. "We must do everything we can to celebrate taking the flower to the King." Only then the children noticed that aunt Hazel had her bonnet on. "Oh," cried the child, bewildered, "are you going to _do_ it?" Miss Fletcher met her radiant eyes thoughtfully. "If I should take the flower of consecration to the King, Hazel, I know what would be the first errand He would give me to do. I am going to do it now. Go on playing. I shan't be gone long." She moved away down the garden path and out of the gate. "What do you suppose it is?" asked Flossie. "I don't know," returned Hazel simply. "Something right;" and then they took up their dolls again. Miss Fletcher did not return very soon. In fact, nearly an hour had slipped away before she came up the street, and then a man was with her. As they entered the gate Hazel looked up. "Uncle Dick, uncle Dick!" she cried gladly, jumping up and running to meet him. He and Miss Fletcher both looked very happy, as they all moved over to Flossie's chair. Mr. Badger's kind eyes looked down into hers and he carried her into the house in his strong arms. Hazel followed, rolling the chair and having many happy thoughts; but she did not understand even a little of the situation until they all went into the dining-room and Flossie was carefully seated in the place the hostess indicated. The white and gold tea-set was not in front of Flossie this time, but grouped about another place. Hazel's quick eyes noted that there were four seats, but before she had time to speak of the expected child--happy owner of the tea-set--uncle Dick spoke:-- "Where do I go, aunt Hazel?" The child's eyes widened at such familiarity. "Why, uncle Dick!" she ejaculated. He and the hostess both regarded her, smiling. "She is my aunt," he said; and then he lifted Hazel into the chair before the pretty china. "I believe these are your dishes," he added. The child leaned back in her chair and looked from one to another. Slowly, slowly, she understood. That was the aunt Hazel who gave her the silver spoon. It had been aunt Hazel all the time! She suddenly jumped down from her chair, and, running to Miss Fletcher, hugged her without a word. Aunt Hazel embraced her very tenderly. "Yes, my lamb," she whispered, "error crept in, but it has crept out again, I hope forever;" and through the wide-open windows came the perfume of the quest flower: pure, strong, beautiful,--radiantly white in the evening glow. * * * * * Before Hazel went back to Boston, Flossie's mother came to Miss Fletcher's, and the change for the better in her little daughter filled her with wonder and joy. With new hope she followed the line of treatment suggested by a little girl, and by the time another summer came around, two happy children played again in aunt Hazel's garden, both as free as the sweet air and sunshine, for Divine Love had made Flossie "every whit whole." CHAPTER X THE APPLE WOMAN'S STORY Jewel told her grandfather all about it that day while they were having their late afternoon ride. "And so the little girl got well," he commented. "Yes, and could run and play and have the most _fun_!" returned Jewel joyously. "And aunt Hazel made it up with her nephew." "Yes. Why don't people know that all they have to do is to put on more love to one another? Just supposing, grandpa, that you hadn't loved me so much when I first came." "H'm. It _is_ fortunate that I was such an affectionate old fellow!" "Mother says we all have to tend the flower and carry it to the King before we're really happy. Do you know it made us both think of the same thing when at last the man did it." "What was that?" "Our hymn:-- 'My hope I cannot measure, My path in life is free, My Father has my treasure And He will walk with me!' Don't you begin to love mother very much, grandpa?" "She is charming." "Of course she isn't your real relation, the way I am." "Oh, come now. She's my daughter." Jewel smiled at him doubtfully. "But so is aunt Madge," she returned. "Why, Jewel, I'm surprised that any one who looks so tall as you do in a riding skirt shouldn't know more than that! Mrs. Harry Evringham is _your_ mother." "I never thought of that," returned the child seriously. "Why, so she is." "That brings her very close, very close, you see," said Mr. Evringham, and his reasoning was clear as daylight to Jewel. At dinner that evening she was still further reassured. The child did not know that the maids in the house, having been scornfully informed by aunt Madge of Mrs. Harry's business, were prepared to serve her grudgingly, and regard her visit as being merely on sufferance despite Mrs. Forbes's more optimistic view. But the spirit that looked out of Mrs. Evringham's dark eyes and dwelt in the curves of her lips came and saw and conquered. Jewel had won the hearts of the household, and already its unanimous voice, after the glimpses it had had of her mother during two days, was that it was no wonder. Even the signs of labor that appeared in Julia's pricked fingers made the serenity of her happy face more charming to her father-in-law. She had Jewel's own directness and simplicity, her appreciation and enjoyment of all beauty, the child's own atmosphere of unexacting love and gratitude. Every half hour that Mr. Evringham spent with her lessened his regret at having burned his bridges behind him. "Now, you mustn't be lonely here, Julia," he said, that evening at dinner. "I have come to be known as something of a hermit by choice; but while Madge and Eloise lived with me, I fancy they had a good many callers, and they went out, to the mild degree that society smiles upon in the case of a recent widow and orphan. They were able to manage their own affairs; but you are a stranger in a strange land. If you desire society, give me a hint and I will get it for you." "Oh, no, father!" replied Julia, smiling. "There is nothing I desire less." "Mother'll get acquainted with the people at church," said Jewel, "and I know she'll love Mr. and Mrs. Reeves. They're grandpa's friends, mother." "Yes," remarked Mr. Evringham, busy with his dinner, "some of the best people in Bel-Air have gone over to this very strange religion of yours, Julia. I shan't be quite so conspicuous in harboring two followers of the faith as I should have been a few years ago." "No, it is becoming quite respectable," returned Julia, with twinkling eyes. "Three, grandpa, you have three here," put in Jewel. "You didn't count Zeke." Mrs. Evringham looked up kindly at Mrs. Forbes, who stood by, as usual, in her neat gown and apron. "Zeke is really in for it, eh, Mrs. Forbes?" Mr. Evringham asked the question without glancing up. "Yes, sir, and I have no objection. I'm too grateful for the changes for the better in the boy. If Jewel had persuaded him to be a fire worshiper I shouldn't have lifted my voice. I'd have said to myself, 'What's a little more fire here, so long as there'll be so much less hereafter.'" Mrs. Evringham laughed and the broker shook his head. "Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Forbes, I'm afraid your orthodoxy is getting rickety," he said. "How about your own, father?" asked Julia. "Oh, I'm a passenger. You see, I know that Jewel will ask at the heavenly gate if I can come in, and if they refuse, they won't get her, either. That makes me feel perfectly safe." Jewel watched the speaker seriously. Mr. Evringham met her thoughtful eyes. "Oh, they'll want you, Jewel. Don't you be afraid." "I'm not afraid. How could I be? But I was just wondering whether you didn't know that you'll have to do your own work, grandpa." He looked up quickly and met Julia's shining eyes. "Dear me," he responded, with an uncomfortable laugh. "Don't I get out of it?" The next morning when Jewel had driven back from the station, and she and her mother had studied the day's lesson, they returned to the ravine, taking the Story Book with them. Before settling themselves to read, they counted the new wild flowers that had unfolded, and Jewel sprinkled them and the ferns, from the brook. "Did you ever see anybody look so pretty as Anna Belle does, in that necklace?" exclaimed Jewel, fondly regarding her child, enthroned against the snowy trunk of a little birch-tree. "It isn't going to be your turn to choose the story this morning, dearie. Here, I'll give you a daisy to play with." "Wait, Jewel, I think Anna Belle would rather see it growing until we go, don't you?" "Would you, dearie? Yes, she says she would; but when we go, we'll take the sweet little thing and let it have the fun of seeing grandpa's house and what we're all doing." "It seems such a pity, to me, to pick them and let them wither," said Mrs. Evringham. "Why, I think they only seem to wither, mother," replied Jewel hopefully. "A daisy is an idea of God, isn't it?" "Yes, dear." "When one seems to wither and go out of sight, we only have to look around a little, and pretty soon we see the daisy idea again, standing just as white and bright as ever, because God's flowers don't fade." "That's so, Jewel," returned the mother quietly. The child drew a long breath. "I've thought a lot about it, here in the ravine. At first I thought perhaps picking a violet might be just as much error as killing a bluebird; and then I remembered that we pick the flower for love, and it doesn't hurt it nor its little ones; but nobody ever killed a bird for love." Mrs. Evringham nodded. "Now it's my turn to choose," began Jewel, in a different tone, settling herself near the seat her mother had taken. Mrs. Evringham opened the book and again read over the titles of the stories. "Let's hear 'The Apple Woman's Story,'" said Jewel, when she paused. Her mother looked up. "Do you remember good old Chloe, who used to come every Saturday to scrub for me? Well, something she told me of an experience she once had, when she was a little girl, put the idea of this tale into my head; and I'll read you THE APPLE WOMAN'S STORY Franz and Emilie and Peter Wenzel were little German children, born in America. Their father was a teacher, and his children were alone with him except for the good old German woman, Anna, who was cook and nurse too in the household. She tried to teach Franz and Emilie to be good children, and took great care of Peter, the sturdy three-year-old boy, a fat, solemn baby, whose hugs were the greatest comfort his father had in the world. Franz and Emilie had learned German along with their English by hearing it spoken in the house, and it was a convenience at times, for instance, when they wished to say something before the colored apple woman which they did not care to have her understand; but the apple woman did not think they were polite when they used an unknown tongue before her. "Go off fum here," she would say to them when they began to talk in German. "None o' that lingo round my stand. Go off and learn manners." And when Franz and Emilie found she was in earnest they would ask her to forgive them in the politest English they were acquainted with; for they were very much attached to the clean, kind apple woman, whose stand was near their father's house. They admired her bright bandana headdress and thought her the most interesting person in the world. As for the apple woman, she had had so many unpleasant experiences with teasing children that she did not take Franz and Emilie into her favor all at once, but for some time accepted their pennies and gave them their apples when they came to buy, watching them suspiciously with her sharp eyes to make sure that they were not intending to play her any trick. But even before they had become regular customers she decided under her breath that they were "nice chillen;" and when she came to know them better her kind heart overflowed to them. One morning as they smiled and nodded to her on the way to school, she called out and beckoned. "Apples for the little baskets?" "Not to-day," answered Emilie. She beckoned to them again with determination, and the children approached. "We forgot to brush our teeth last night," explained Franz, "so we haven't any penny." "I forgot it," said Emilie, "and Franz didn't remind me, so we neither of us got it. That's the way Anna makes us remember." "Never you mind, honey, here's apples for love," replied the colored woman, holding up two rosy beauties. The children looked at one another and shook their heads. "Thank you," said Emilie, "but we can't. Papa said the last time you gave them to us that if we ate your apples without paying for them we mustn't come to visit you any more." "Now think o' that!" exclaimed the apple woman when the children had gone on. She was much touched and pleased to know that Franz and Emilie would rather come and sit and talk to her and listen to her stories than to eat her apples. She was right; they were nice children; but they had their naughty times, and good old Anna was often greatly troubled by them. She felt her responsibility of the whole family very deeply, and tried to talk no more German. These children must grow up to be good Americans, and she must not hold them back. It was very hard for the poor woman to remember always to speak English, and funny broken English it was; so that little Peter, hearing it all the time, had a baby talk of his own that was very comical and different from other children. He talked about the "luckle horse" he played with, and the "boomps" he got when he fell down, and he was very brave and serious, as became a fat baby boy who had to take care of himself a great deal. Anna was so busy cooking and mending for a family of five she was very glad of the hours when Mr. Wenzel worked at home at his desk and baby Peter could stay in the same room with him and play with his toys. Mr. Wenzel was a kind father and longed as far as possible to fill the place of mother also to his children, who loved him dearly. To little Peter he was all-powerful. A kiss from papa soothed the hardest "boomp" that his many tumbles gave him; but even Peter realized that when papa was at his desk he was very busy indeed, and though any of the children might sit in the room with him, they must not speak unless it was absolutely necessary. Emilie was now eight years old, and she might have helped her father and Anna more than she did; but she never thought of this. She loved to read, especially fairy stories, and she often curled up on the sofa in her father's room and read while Peter either played about the room with his toys, or went to papa's desk and stood with his round eyes fixed on Mr. Wenzel's face until the busy man would look up from his papers and ask: "What does my Peter want?" Especially did Emilie fly to this refuge in papa's room after a quarrel with Franz, and I'm sorry to say she had a great many. The apple woman found out that the little brother and sister were not always amiable. Anna had confided in her; and then one day the children approached her stand contradicting each other, their voices growing louder and louder as they came, until at last Franz made a face at Emilie, giving her a push, and she, quick as a kitten, jumped forward and slapped him. What Franz would have done after this I don't know, if the apple woman hadn't said, "Chillen, chillen!" so loud that he stopped to look at her. "Ah, listen at that fairy Slap-back a-laughin'!" cried the apple woman. "The fairy Flapjack?" asked Franz, as he and his sister forgot their wrath and ran toward the stand. "_Flapjack!_" repeated the apple woman with scorn, as the children nestled down, one each side of her. "Yo' nice chillen pertendin' not to know yo' friends!" "What friends? What?" asked Emilie eagerly. "The fairy Slap-back. P'raps I didn't see her jest now, a-grinnin' over yo' shoulder." "Is she anybody to be afraid of?" asked Emilie, big-eyed. "To be sho' she is if you-all go makin' friends with her," returned the apple woman, with a knowing sidewise nod of her head. Then drawing back from the children with an air of greatest surprise, "You two don't mean to come here tellin' me you ain't never heerd o' the error-fairies?" she asked. "Never," they both replied together. "Shoo!" exclaimed the apple woman. "If you ain't the poor igno'antest w'ite chillen that ever lived. Why, if you ain't never heerd on 'em, yo're likely to be snapped up by 'em any day in the week as you was jest now." "Oh, tell us. Do tell us!" begged Franz and Emilie. "Co'se I will, 'case 't ain't right for them mis'able creeturs to be hangin' around you all, and you not up to their capers. Fust place they're called the error-fairies 'case they're all servants to a creetur named Error. She's a cheat and a humbug, allers pertendin' somethin' or other, and she makes it her business to fight a great and good fairy named Love. Now Love--oh, chillen, my pore tongue can't tell you of the beauty and goodness o' the fairy Love! She's the messenger of a great King, and spends her whole time a-blessin' folks. Her hair shines with the gold o' the sun; her eyes send out soft beams; her gown is w'ite, and when she moves 'tis as if forget-me-nots and violets was runnin' in little streams among its folds. Ah, chillen," the apple woman shook her head, "she's the blessin' o' the world. Her soft arms are stretched out to gather in and comfort every sorrowin' heart. "Well, 'case she was so lovely an' the great King trusted her, Error thought she'd try her hand; but she hadn't any king, Error hadn't. There wa'n't nobody to stand for her or to send her on errands. She was a low-lifed, flabby creetur," the apple woman made a scornful grimace; "jest a misty-moisty nobody; nothin' to her. Her gown was a cloud and she wa'n't no more 'n a shadder, herself, until she could git somebody to listen to her. When she did git somebody to listen to her, she'd begin to stiffen up and git some backbone and git awful sassy; so she crep' around whisperin' to folks that Love was no good, and 'lowin' that she--that mis'able creetur--was the queen o' life. "Some folks knowed better and told her so, right pine blank, an' then straight off she'd feel herself changin' back into a shadder, an' sail away as fast as she could to try it on somebody else. She was ugly to look at as a bad dream, but yet there was lots o' folks would pay 'tention to her, and after they'd listened once or twice, she kep' gittin' stronger and pearter, an' as she got stronger, they got weaker, and every day it was harder fer 'em to drive her off, even after they'd got sick of her. "Then, even if she didn't have a king, she had slaves; oh, dozens and dozens of error-fairies, to do her will. Creepin' shadders they was, too, till somebody listened to 'em and give 'em a backbone. There's--let me see"--the apple woman looked off to jog her memory--"there's Laziness, Selfishness, Backbitin', Cruelty--oh, I ain't got time to tell 'em all; an' not one mite o' harm in one of 'em, only for some silly mortal that listens and gives the creetur a backbone. They jest lop over an' melt away, the whole batch of 'em, when Love comes near. She knows what no-account humbugs they are, you see; and they jest lop over an' melt away whenever even a little chile knows enough to say 'Go off fum here, an' quit pesterin''!" Franz and Emilie stared at the apple woman and listened hard. Their cheeks matched the apples. "What happened a minute ago to you-all? An error-creetur named Slap-back whispered to you. 'Quarrel!' says she. What'd you do? Did you say 'Go off, you triflin' vilyun'? "Not a bit of it. You quarreled; an' Slap-back kep' gittin' bigger and stronger and stiffer in the backbone while you was goin' it, an' at last up comes this little hand of Emilie's. Whack! That was the time Slap-back couldn't hold in, an' she jest laughed an' laughed over yo' shoulder. Ah, the little red eyes she had, and the wiry hair! And that other one, the fairy, Love, she was pickin' up her w'ite gown with both hands an' flyin' off as if she had wings. Of course you didn't notice her. You was too taken up with yo' friend." "But Slap-back isn't our friend," declared Emilie earnestly. The apple woman shook her head. "Bless yo' heart, honey, it's mean to deny it now; but, disown her or not, she'll stick to you and pester you; and you'll find it out if ever you try to drive her off. You'll have as hard a time as little Dinah did." "What happened to Dinah?" asked Franz, picking up the apple woman's clean towel and beginning to polish apples. "Drop that, now, chile! Yo' friend might cast her eye on it. I don't want to sell pizened apples." Franz, crestfallen, obeyed, and glanced at Emilie. They had never before found their assistance refused, and they both looked very sober. "Little Dinah was a chile lived 'way off down South 'mongst the cotton fields; and that good fairy watched over Dinah,--Love, so sweet to look at she'd make yo' heart sing. "Dinah had a little brother, too, jest big enough to walk; an' a daddy that worked from mornin' till night to git hoe-cake 'nuff fer 'em all; and his ole mammy, she helped him, and made the fire, and swept the room, and dug in the garden, and milked the cow. She was a good woman, that ole mammy, an' 't was a great pity there wa'n't nobody to help 'er, an' she gittin' older every day." "Why, there was Dinah," suggested Emilie. The apple woman stared at her with both hands raised. "Dinah! Lawsy massy, honey, the only thing that chile would do was look at pictur' books an' play with the other chillen. She wouldn't even so much as pick up baby Mose when he tumbled down an' barked his shin. Oh, but she was a triflin' lazy little nigger as ever you see." "And that's why the red-eyed fairy got hold of her," said Franz, who was longing to hear something exciting. "'Twas, partly," said the apple woman. "You see there's somethin' very strange about them fairies, Love and the error-fairies. The error-fairies, they run after the folks that love themselves, and Love can only come near them that loves other people. Sounds queer, honey, but it's the truth; so, when Dinah got to be a likely, big gal, and never thought whether the ole mammy was gittin' tired out, or tried to amuse little Mose, or gave a thought o' pity to her pore daddy who was alone in the world, the fairy Love got to feelin' as bad as any fairy could. "'Do, Dinah,'" she said, with her sweet mouth close to Dinah's ear, 'do stop bein' so triflin', and stir yo'self to be some help in the house.' "'No,' says Dinah, 'I like better to lay in the buttercups and look at pictur's,' says she. "'Then,' says Love, 'show Mose the pictur's, too, and make him happy.' "'No,' says Dinah, 'he's too little, an' he bothers me an' tears my book.' "'Then,' says Love, 'yo'd rather yo' tired daddy took care o' the chile after his hard day's work.' "'Now yo're talkin',' says Dinah. 'I shorely would. My daddy's strong.' "The tears came into Love's eyes, she felt so down-hearted. 'Yo' daddy needs comfort, Dinah,' she says, 'an' yo're big enough to give it to him,' says she; 'an' look at the black smooches on my w'ite gown. They're all because o' you, Dinah, that I've been friends with so faithful. I've got to leave you now, far enough so's my gown'll come w'ite; but if you call me I'll hear, honey, an' I'll come. Good-by,' "'Good riddance!' says Dinah. 'I'm right down tired o' bein' lectured,' says she. 'Now I can roll over in the buttercups an' sing, an' be happy an' do jest as I please.' "So Dinah threw herself down in the long grass and, bing! she fell right atop of a wasp, and he was so scared at such capers he stung her in the cheek. Whew! You could hear her 'way 'cross the cotton field! "Her ole gran'mam comforted her, the good soul. 'Never you mind, honey,' she says, 'I'll swaje it fer you.' "But every day Dinah got mo' triflin'. She pintedly wouldn't wash the dishes, nor mind little Mose; an' every time the hot fire o' temper ran over her, she could hear a voice in her ear--'Give it to 'em good. That's the way to do it, Dinah!' An' it kep' gittin' easier to be selfish an' to let her temper run away, an' the cabin got to be a mighty pore place jest on account o' Dinah, who'd ought to ha' been its sunshine. "As for the fairy, Love, Dinah never heerd her voice, an' she never called to her, though there was never a minute when she didn't hate the sound o' that other voice that had come to be in her ears more 'n half the time. "One mornin' everything went wrong with Dinah. Her gran'mam was plum mis'able over her shif'less ways, an' she set her to sew a seam befo' she could step outside the do'. The needle was dull, the thread fell in knots. Dinah's brow was mo' knotted up than the thread. Her head felt hot. "'Say you won't do it,' hissed the voice. "'I'll git thrashed if I do. Gran'mam said so.' "'What do you care!' hissed the voice; and jest as the fairy Slap-back was talkin' like this, up comes little Mose to Dinah, an' laughs an' pulls her work away. "Then somethin' awful happened. Dinah couldn't 'a' done it two weeks back; but it's the way with them that listens to that mis'able, low-lifed Slap-back. Jest as quick as a wink, that big gal, goin' on nine, slapped baby Mose. He was that took back for a minute that he didn't cry; but the hateful voice laughed an' hissed an' laughed again. "Good, Dinah, good! Now you'll ketch it!' "Then over went little Mose's lip, an' he wailed out, an' Dinah clasped her naughty hands an' saw a face close to her--a bad one, with red eyes shinin'. She jumped away from it, for it made her cold to think she'd been havin' sech a playfeller all along. "'Oh, Love, y' ain't done fergit me, is yer? Come back, Love, _Love_!' she called; then she dropped on her knees side o' Mose an' called him her honey an' her lamb, an' she cried with him, an' pulled him into her lap, an' when the ole gran'mam come in from where she'd been feedin' the hens, they was both asleep." Franz took a long breath, for the way the apple woman told a story always made him listen hard. "I guess that was the last of old Slap-back with Dinah," he remarked. The apple woman shook her head. "That's the worst of that fairy," she said. "Love'll clar out when you tell 'er to, 'case she's quality, an' she's got manners; but Slap-back ain't never had no raisin'. She hangs around, an' hangs around, an' is allers puttin' in her say jest as she was a few minutes ago with you and Emilie in the road there. There's nothin' in this world tickles her like a chile actin' naughty, 'ceptin' it's two chillen scrappin'. Now pore little Dinah found she had to have all her wits about her to keep Love near, an' make that ornery Slap-back stay away. Love was as willin', as willin' to stay as violets is to open in the springtime; but when Dinah an' Slap-back was both agin her, what could she do? An' Dinah, she'd got so used to Slap-back, an' that bodacious creetur had sech a way o' gittin' around the chile, sometimes, 'fore Dinah knew it, she'd be listenin' to 'er ag'in; but Dinah'd had one good scare an' she didn't mean to give in. Jest now, too, her daddy fell sick. That good man, that lonely man, he'd had a mighty hard time of it, an' no chile to care or love 'im." "Wait," interrupted Emilie sternly. "If you are going to let Dinah's father die, I'm going home." The apple woman showed the whites of her eyes in the astonished stare she gave her. "Because"--Emilie swallowed and then finished suddenly--"because it wouldn't be nice." The apple woman looked straight out over her stand. "Well, he didn't, an' Dinah made him mighty glad he got well, too; for she stopped buryin' her head in pictur' books, an' she did errands for gran'mam without whinin', an' she minded Mose so her daddy had mo' peace when he come home tuckered out; an' when she'd got so she could smile at the boy in the next cabin, 'stead o' runnin' out her tongue at him, the fairy, Love, could stay by without smoochin' her gown, an' Slap-back had to melt away an' sail off to try her capers on some other chile." "But you needn't pretend you saw her with us," said Franz uneasily. The apple woman nodded her red bandana wisely. "Folks that lives outdoors the way I do, honey, sees mo' than you-all," she answered. Emilie ran home ahead of her brother, and softly entered her father's room. He was at his desk, as was usual at this hour. His head leaned on his hand, and he was so deep in his work that he did not notice her quiet entrance. She curled up on the sofa in her usual attitude, but instead of reading she watched little Peter on the floor building his block house. His chubby hands worked carefully until the crooked house grew tall, then in turning to find a last block he bumped his head on the corner of a chair. Emilie watched him rub the hurt place in silence. Then he got up on his fat legs and went to the desk, where he stood patiently, his round face very red and solemn, while he waited to gain his father's attention. At last the busy man became conscious of the child's presence, and, turning, looked down into the serious eyes. "I'm here wid a boomp," said Peter. Then after receiving the consolation of a hug and kiss he returned contentedly to his block house. Emilie saw her father look after the child with a smile sad and tender. Her heart beat faster as she lay in her corner. Her father was lonely and hard worked, with no one to take pity on him. A veil seemed to drop from her eyes, even while they grew wet. "I don't believe I'm too old to change, even if I am going on nine," thought Emilie. At that minute the block house fell in ruins, and Peter, self-controlled though he was, looked toward the desk and began to whimper. "Peter--Baby," cried Emilie softly, leaning forward and holding out the picture of a horse in her book. Her father had turned with an involuntary sigh, and seeing Peter trot toward the sofa and Emilie receive him with open arms, went back to his papers with a relief that his little daughter saw. Her breath came fast and she hugged the baby. Something caught in her throat. "Oh, papa, you don't know how many, _many_ times I'm going to do it," she said in the silence of her own full heart. And Emilie kept that unspoken promise. CHAPTER XI THE GOLDEN DOG "I think, after all, the ravine is the nicest place for stories," said Jewel the next day. The sun had dried the soaked grass, and not only did the leaves look freshly polished from their bath, but the swollen brook seemed to be turning joyous little somersaults over its stones when Mrs. Evringham, Jewel, and Anna Belle scrambled down to its bank. "I don't know that we ought to read a story every day," remarked Mrs. Evringham. "They won't last long at this rate." "When we finish we'll begin and read them all over again," returned Jewel promptly. "Oh, that's your plan, is it?" said Mrs. Evringham, laughing. Jewel laughed too, for sheer happiness, though she saw nothing amusing about such an obviously good plan. "Aren't we getting well acquainted, mother?" she asked, nestling close to her mother's side and forgetting Anna Belle, who at once lurched over, head downward, on the grass. "Do you remember what a little time you used to have to hold me in your lap and hug me?" "Yes, dearie. Divine Love is giving me so many blessings these days I only pray to bear them well," replied Mrs. Evringham. "Why, I think it's just as _easy_ to bear blessings, mother," began Jewel, and then she noticed her child's plight. "Darling Anna Belle, what are you doing!" she exclaimed, picking up the doll and brushing her dress. "I shouldn't think you had any more backbone than an error-fairy! Now don't look sorry, dearie, because to-day it's your turn to choose the story." Anna Belle, her eyes beaming from among her tumbled curls, at once turned happy and expectant, and when her hat had been straightened and her boa removed so that her necklace could gleam resplendently about her fair, round throat, she was seated against a tree-trunk and listened with all her ears to the titles Mrs. Evringham offered. After careful consideration, she made her choice, and Mrs. Evringham and Jewel settling themselves comfortably, the former began to read aloud the tale of-- THE GOLDEN DOG If it had not been for the birds and brooks, the rabbits and squirrels, Gabriel would have been a very lonely boy. His older brothers, William and Henry, did not care for him, because he was so much younger than they, and, moreover, they said he was stupid. His father might take some interest in him when he grew bigger and stronger and could earn money; but money was the only thing Gabriel's father cared for, and when the older brothers earned any they tried to keep it a secret from the father lest he should take it away from them. Gabriel had a stepmother, but she was a sorry woman, too full of care to be companionable. So he sought his comrades among the wild things in the woods, to get away from the quarrels at home. He was a muscular, rosy-cheeked lad, and in the sports at school he could out-run and out-jump the other boys and was always good-natured with them; but even the children at the little country school did not like him very well, because the very things they enjoyed the most did not amuse him. He tried to explain to them that the birds were his friends, and therefore he could not rob their nests; but they laughed at him almost as much as when he tried to dissuade them from mocking old Mother Lemon, as they passed her cottage door on their way to and from school. She was an old cross-patch, of course, they told him, or else she would not live alone on the edge of a forest, with nobody but a cat and owls for company. "Perhaps she would be glad to have some one better for company," Gabriel replied. "Go live with her, yourself, then, Gabriel," said one of the boys tauntingly. "That's right! Go leave your miser father, counting his gold all night while you are asleep, and too stingy to give you enough to eat, and go and be Mother Lemon's good little boy!" and then all the children laughed and hooted at Gabriel, who walked up to the speaker and knocked him over on the grass with such apparent ease and such a calm face, that all the laughers grew silent from mere surprise. "You mustn't talk about my father to me," said Gabriel, explaining. Then he started for home, and the laughing began again, softly. "It was true," he thought, as he trudged along. Things were getting worse at home, and sometimes he was hungry, for there was not too much on the table, and his big brothers fought for their share. As he neared Mother Lemon's cottage, with its thatched roof and tiny windows, he saw the old woman, in her short gown, tugging at the well-sweep. It seemed very hard for her to draw up the heavy bucket. Instantly Gabriel ran forward. "Get out of here, now," cried the old woman, in a cracked voice, for she saw it was one of the school-children, and she was weary of their worrying tricks. "Shan't I pull up the bucket for you?" asked Gabriel. "Ah, I know you. You want to splash me!" returned Mother Lemon, eying him warily; but the boy put his strong arm to the task, and the dripping bucket rose from the depths, while the little old woman withdrew to a safer distance. "Show me where to put it and I will carry it into the house for you," said Gabriel. "Now bless your rosy cheeks, you're an honest lad," said Mother Lemon gratefully; but she took the precaution to walk behind him all the way, lest he should still be intending to play her some trick. When, however, he had entered the low door and filled the kettle and the pans, according to her directions, she smiled on him, and as she thanked him, she asked him his name. "Gabriel," said the lad. "Ah," she exclaimed, "you are the miser's boy." Gabriel could not knock Mother Lemon down, so he only hung his head while his cheeks grew redder. "It isn't your fault, child, and by the time you are grown you will be rich. When that time comes, I pray you be kinder to me than your father is, for he oppresses the poor and makes me pay my last shilling for the rent of this hovel." "I would give the cottage to you if it were mine," returned Gabriel, looking straight into her eyes with his honest gray ones; "but at present I am poorer than you." "In that case," said Mother Lemon, "I wish I had something worthy to reward you for your kindness to me. As I have not, here is a penny that you must keep to remember me by." And in spite of Gabriel's protestations she took from her side-pocket a coin. "I cannot take it from you," protested the boy. "No one ever grew richer by refusing to give," returned Mother Lemon, and she tucked the penny inside Gabriel's blouse and turned him out the door with her blessing; so that, being a peaceable boy of few words, he objected no longer, but moved along the road toward home, for it was nearly dinner time. He found his stepmother setting the table, and his father busily calculating with figures on a bit of paper. "Get the water, Gabriel, and be quick now," was his welcome from the sorry-faced woman. When he had done all she directed him, there was still a little time, for William and Henry had not come in from the field. Gabriel sat down near his father and, noting a rusty, dusty little book lying on the table, he picked it up. "What is this, father?" he asked, for there were few books in that house. The man looked up from his figuring and sneered. "It is called by some the Book of Life," he said. "As a matter of fact it would not bring two shillings." So saying he returned to his pleasant calculations and Gabriel idly opened the book. His gaze widened, for the verse on which his eyes fell stood out from the others in tiny letters of flame. "_The love of money is the root of all evil_," he read. "Father, father," he exclaimed, "what wonder is this? Look!" The miser turned, impatient of a second interruption. "See the letters of fire!" "I see nothing. You grow stupider every day, Gabriel." "But the letters burn, father," and then the boy read aloud the sentence which for him stood out so vividly on the page. They had a surprising effect upon his listener. The miser grew pale and then red with anger. He rose and, standing over the boy, frowned furiously. "I'll teach you to reprove your father," he cried. "Get out of my house. No dinner for you to-day." The stepmother had heard what Gabriel read, and well she knew the truth of those words. As the astonished boy gathered himself up and moved out the door, she went after him, calling in pretended sharpness; but when he came near, she whispered, "Come to the back of the shed in five minutes," and when Gabriel obeyed, later, he found there a thick piece of bread and a lump of cheese. These he took, hungrily, and ate them in the forest before returning to school. He had never felt so kindly toward school as this afternoon. Were it not for what he learned there, he could not have read the words in the Book of Life; and although they had brought him into trouble, he would not have foregone the wonder of seeing the living, burning characters which his father could not perceive. He longed to open those dusty covers once again. On his way home that afternoon he met two boys teasing a small brown dog. Its coat was stuck full of burrs and it tried in vain to escape from its tormentors. The boys stopped to let Gabriel go by, for they had a wholesome respect for his strong right arm and they knew his love for animals. The trembling little dog looked at him in added fear. Gabriel stood still. "Will you give me that dog?" he asked. The boys backed away with their prize. "Nothing for nothing," said the taller, who had the animal under his arm. "What'll you give us?" Gabriel thought. Never lived a boy with fewer possessions. Ah! He suddenly remembered a whistle he had made yesterday. Diving his hand into his pocket he brought it out and whistled a lively strain upon it. "This," he said, approaching. "I'll give you this." "That for one of us," replied the tall boy. "What for the other?" From the moment the dog heard Gabriel's voice, its eyes had appealed to him. Now it struggled to get free, and the big boy struck it. Its cry sharpened Gabriel's wits. "The other shall have a penny," he said, and drew Mother Lemon's coin out of his blouse. The big boy dropped the dog, and he and his companion struggled for the coin, each willing the other should have the whistle. Gabriel lost no time in catching up the dog and making off with it. He did not stop running until he had reached a spot by the brookside, hidden amid sheltering trees. Here he sat down and looked over the forlorn specimen in his lap. The dog was a rough, dingy object from its long ears to its tail. First of all, Gabriel set to work to get out the burrs that stuck fast in the thick coat. This took a long time, but the little dog licked his hands gratefully now and then, showing that he understood, even if the operation was not always pleasant. "Now, comrade," said Gabriel, at last, "you'll have to stand a ducking." The dog's beautiful golden eyes looked at him trustfully, and Gabriel, placing him in the brook, scrubbed him well, long ears and all, and then raced around with him in the warm air until he was dry. What a transformation was there! Gabriel's eyes shone as he looked at his purchase. The dog's long hair, which had been a dingy brown, shone now like golden silk in the sunshine, and his eyes gleamed with the light of topazes as they fixed lovingly on Gabriel's happy face; for Gabriel _was_ happy, as every one is who sees Love work what is called a miracle, but what is really not a miracle at all, but just one of the beautiful, happy changes for the better that follow on Love, wherever she goes. The boy's lonely heart leaped at the idea that at last he had a companion. A despised little suffering dog had altered into a welcome playmate, too attractive, perhaps, to keep; for Gabriel well knew that he would never be permitted to take the dog home; and any one finding him now in the woods could carry him into town and get a good price for him. "What shall I call you, little one?" asked the boy. "My word, but you are lively," for the dog was bounding about so that his ears flew and flapped around like yellow curls. "Topaz, you shall be!" cried Gabriel, suddenly realizing how gem-like were the creature's eyes; "and now listen to me!" To his amazement, as the boy said "Listen," and raised his finger, Topaz at once sat up on his hind legs with his dainty white forepaws hung in front of him. "Whew!" and Gabriel began whistling a little tune in his amazement, and the instant the dog heard the music he began to dance. What a sight was there! Gabriel's eyes grew round as he saw Topaz advance and retreat and twirl, occasionally nodding and tossing his head until his curls bobbed. He seemed to long, in his warm little dog's heart, to show Gabriel that he had been worth saving. But the radiance died from the boy's face and he sank at last on the ground under a tree, looking very dejected. Topaz bounded to his lap and Gabriel pulled the long silky ears through his hands thoughtfully. "I thought I had found a companion," he said sadly. "Bow-wow," responded Topaz. "But you are a trick dog, worth nobody knows how much money, and I cannot keep you!" "Bow-wow," said Topaz. "To-morrow I must begin to try to find your master. Meanwhile what am I to do with you?" The boy rose as he spoke and Topaz showed plainly that there was no doubt in _his_ mind as to what should be done with him, for he meant to stick closely to Gabriel's heel. The boy suddenly had an idea and began to trudge sturdily off in the direction of Mother Lemon's cottage, Topaz following close. The memory of the latter's recent mishaps was too clear in his doggish mind to make him willing that a single bush should come between him and his protector. When they reached the little cottage, Mother Lemon sat spinning outside her low doorway. "Welcome, my man," she said when she finally saw, by squinting into the sunlight, who it was that approached, "but drive off that dog." "Look at him, Mother Lemon," said Gabriel, rather sadly. "Saw you ever one so handsome?" "Looks are deceiving," returned the old woman, "and I have a cat." "I will see that he does not hurt your cat. I have to confess that I spent your penny for him, Mother Lemon." "Then I have to confess that you are no worthy son of your father," returned the old woman, "for he would not have spent it for anything." "I know it was a keepsake," replied Gabriel, "but the dog was in danger of his life and I had no other money to give for him." "You are a good-hearted lad," said Mother Lemon, going on with her spinning. "Now take your dog away, for if my cat, Tommy, should see him it might go hard with his golden locks." "Alas, Mother Lemon, I have come to ask you to keep him for me." "La, la! I tell you I could not keep him any longer than until Tommy laid eyes on him; neither have I any liking for dogs, myself, though that one, I must say, looks as if he had taken a bath in molten gold." "Does he not!" returned Gabriel. "When first I saw him some boys were misusing him and he seemed to be but a brown cur with a dingy, matted coat; and I could wish that he had turned out to be of no account, for the look in his eyes took hold upon my heart; but I rubbed him well in the brook, and now see the full, feathery tail and silky ears. He is a dog of high degree." "Certain he is, lad," replied the old woman. "Take him to the town and sell him to some lofty dame who has nothing better to do than brush his curls." "I would never sell him," said Gabriel, regarding the dog wistfully. "He is lonely and so am I. We would stick together if we might." "What prevents? Do you fear to take him home lest your father boil him down for his gold?" and Mother Lemon laughed as she spun. "No. My father, I know, would not give him one night's lodging, and in my perplexity I bethought me to ask you the favor," and Gabriel's honest eyes looked so squarely at Mother Lemon that she stopped her wheel. "I cannot keep the dog," continued the boy, "and my heart is heavy." "Your father is a curmudgeon," declared the old woman, for the more she looked at Gabriel, the more she loved him. "What is it? Would he grudge food for your pet?" "It is not that, but I cannot keep the dog in any case." "Why not, pray?" For answer Gabriel looked down into the topaz eyes whose regard had scarcely left his face during the interview. He held up his finger, and instantly the dog sat up. "'Tis a trick dog!" exclaimed Mother Lemon. Gabriel began to whistle, and the dance commenced. The old woman pressed her side as she laughed at the comical, pretty sight of the little dancer, the fluffy golden threads of whose silky coat gleamed in the sunlight. "Your fortune is made," said Mother Lemon as Gabriel ceased. "The dog will fetch a large price in the town, and because you are a good lad I will try to keep him for you until to-morrow, when you can go and sell him. If your father saw his tricks he would, himself, dispose of him and pocket the cash. I will shut him in an outhouse until you come again, and I only hope that he will not bark and vex Tommy!" To the old woman's surprise Gabriel looked sad. "But you see, Mother Lemon," he said soberly, "the dog already belongs to somebody." "La, la!" cried the old woman. "Why, then, couldn't the somebody keep him?" "That I do not know; but to-morrow I set forth with him to find his owner." Mother Lemon nodded, and she saw the heaviness of the boy's heart because he must part with the golden dog. "'Tis well that you leave him with me then, for your father would not permit that, any more than he would abate one farthing of my rent." Gabriel went with her to the rickety shed where Topaz was to spend the night, but the dog was loath to enter. He seemed to know that it meant parting with Gabriel. The boy stooped down and talked to him, but Topaz licked his face and sprang upon him beseechingly. When, finally, they closed the door with the dog within, the little fellow howled sorrowfully. "I'm sure he's hungry, Mother Lemon," said the boy, and a lump seemed to stick in his throat. "One bone perhaps you could give him?" "Alas, I have none, Gabriel. It is not often that Tommy and I sit down to meat. He is now hunting mice in the fields or he would be lashing his tail at these strange sounds!" Gabriel opened the door and, going back into the shed, spoke sternly to Topaz, bidding him lie down. The dog obeyed, looking appealingly from the tops of his gem-like eyes, but when again the door was fastened, he kept an obedient silence. Thanking Mother Lemon and promising to come early in the morning, Gabriel sped home. His own hunger made his heart ache for the little dog, and when he entered the cottage he was glad to see that his stepmother was preparing the evening meal, while his father bent, as usual, over a shabby, ink-stained desk, absorbed in his endless calculations. Gabriel's elder brothers were there, too, talking and laughing in an undertone. No one took any notice of Gabriel, whose eye fell on the dusty, rusty book, and eagerly he picked it up, thinking to see if again he could find the wonder of the flaming words. As he opened it, several verses on the page before him gleamed into light. In mute wonder he read:-- "_And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry._' "_But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?_' "_So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God._" Gabriel scarcely dared to lift his eyes toward his father, much less would he have offered to read to him again the flaming words. All through the supper time he thought of them and kept very still, for the others were unusually talkative, his father seeming in such excellent spirits that Gabriel knew the figures on his desk had brought him satisfaction. "But if he did not oppress Mother Lemon," thought the boy, "he would be richer toward God." When the meal was over, Gabriel took a piece of paper and went quietly to the back of the house where, in a box, was the refuse of the day's cooking. He found some bones and other scraps, and, running across the fields to Mother Lemon's, tiptoed to the low shed which held Topaz, and, finding a wide crack, pushed the bones and scraps within. Then he fled home and to bed, for he had always found that the earlier he closed his eyes, the shorter was the night. This time, however, when his sleepy lids opened, it was not to the light of day. A candle flame wavered above him and showed the face of his stepmother, bending down. "Gabriel, Gabriel," she whispered; then, as he would have replied, she hushed him with her finger on her lips. "I felt that I must warn you that your father is sorely vexed by the reproof you gave him to-day. He will send you out into the world, and I cannot prevent it; but in all that lies in my poor power, I will be your friend forever, Gabriel, for you are a good boy. Good-night, I must not stay longer," and a tear fell on the boy's cheek as she kissed him lightly, and then, with a breath, extinguished the candle and hastened noiselessly away. Gabriel lay still, thinking busily for a while; but he was a fearless, innocent boy, and this threatened change in his fortunes could not keep him awake long. He soon fell asleep and slept soundly until the dawn. Jumping out of bed then, he washed and dressed and went downstairs where his father awaited him. "Gabriel," he said, "you do not grow brighter by remaining at home. I wish you to go out into the world and shift for yourself. When your fortune is made, you may return. As you go, however, I am willing to give you a small sum of money to use until you can obtain work." "I will obey you, father," returned the boy, "but as a last favor, I ask that, in place of the money, you give me the cottage where Mother Lemon lives." The man started and muttered: "He is even stupider than I believed him." "You may have it," he added aloud, after a wondering pause. "That--and this?" returned Gabriel questioningly, taking up the Book of Life. His father scowled, for he remembered yesterday. "Very well, if you like," he answered, with a bad grace. "Then thank you, father, and I will trouble you no more." Gabriel's stepmother could scarcely repress her tears as she gave the boy his breakfast and prepared him a package of bread and meat to carry on his journey. Then she gave him a few pence, all she had, and he started off with her blessing. As Gabriel went out into the fresh air, all nature was beautiful around him. There seemed no end to the blue sky, the wealth of sunshine, the generous foliage on the waving trees. The birds were singing joyously. All things breathed a blessing. Gabriel wondered, as he walked along, about the God who, some one had once told him, made all things. It seemed to him that it could be only a loving Being who created such beauty as surrounded him now. The little book was clasped in his hand. He suddenly remembered with relief that he was alone and could read it without fear. Eagerly opening it, one verse, as before, flamed into brightness, and Gabriel read:-- "_He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love._" How wonderful! Gabriel's heart swelled. God was love, then. He closed the book. For the first time God seemed real to him. The zephyrs that kissed his cheek and the sun that warmed him like a caress, seemed assuring him of the truth. The birds declared it in their songs. Gabriel went down on his knees in the dewy grass and, dropping his bundle, clasped to his breast the book. "Dear God," he said, "I am all alone and I have no one to love but Topaz. He is a little dog and I must give him up because he doesn't belong to me. I know now that I shall love you and you will help me give Topaz back, because my stepmother told me that you know everything, and she always told the truth." Then Gabriel arose and, taking the package of food, went on with a light heart until he came to Mother Lemon's cottage. Even that poor shanty looked pleasant in the morning beams. The tall sunflowers near the door flaunted their colors in the light, and their cheerful faces seemed laughing at Mother Lemon as she came to the entrance and called anxiously to the approaching boy:-- "Come quick, lad, hasten. My poor Tommy is distracted, for your dog whines and threatens to dig his way out of his prison, and I will not answer for the consequences." Indeed, the tortoise-shell cat was seated on the old woman's shoulder. The fur stood stiffly on his arched back, his tail was the size of two, and his eyes glowed. Gabriel just glanced at the cat as it opened its mouth and hissed, then he gazed at Mother Lemon. "Did you know there was a God?" he asked earnestly. "To be sure, lad," replied the old woman, surprised. "I've just learned about Him in this wonderful book; the Book of Life is its name. Saw you ever one like it?" The boy placed the rusty little volume in her hands. "Ay, lad, many times." "Does every one know it?" he asked incredulously. "Most people do." "Then why is not every one happy?" asked Gabriel. "There is a God and He is love. Do people believe it?" "Ah," returned the old woman dryly, "that is a different thing." Gabriel scarcely heard her. He opened his precious book. "There," he cried triumphantly, "see the living words:-- "'_Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord_.'" "H'm," said the old woman. "The print is too fine for my old eyes." "Yes, perhaps 'tis for that that the letters flame like threads of fire. You see them?" "Ahem!" returned Mother Lemon, for she saw no flaming letters, and she looked curiously at the boy's radiant face. Moreover, Tommy suddenly leaped from her shoulder to his. All signs of the cat's fear and anger had vanished, and as it rubbed its sleek fur against Gabriel's cheek, it purred so loudly that Mother Lemon marveled. "Had my father studied this book he might have been happy," continued the boy; "but he is offended with me and has sent me out into the world, and well I know that an unhappy heart drives him." "Go back, boy, and make your peace with him," cried Mother Lemon excitedly, "or you will get nothing." "Oh, I have received what I asked for. I asked to have this cottage, and he gave it to me, and I have come now to give it to you, Mother Lemon." "My lad!" exclaimed the amazed woman, and her eyes swam with sudden tears. "You will have no more rent to pay," said Gabriel, stroking the cat. "And what is to become of you?" asked the woman, much moved. "I cannot go home," replied the boy quietly; "and in any case I have to give Topaz, the dog, back to his owner. Why do you weep, Mother Lemon? Haven't I God to take care of me, and isn't He greater than all men?" "Yes, lad. The Good Book says He is king of heaven and earth." "Then if you believe it, why are you sad?" Mother Lemon dried her eyes, and at this moment they heard a great scratching on the door of the shed; for Topaz had wakened from a nap and heard Gabriel's voice. "Ah, that I had never given you the penny!" wailed the old woman, "for then you would not have bought the yellow dog and gone away where I shall see you no more." Gabriel's sober face smiled. "Yes, you will see me again, Mother Lemon, when my fortune is made. You have God, too, you know." "Ay, boy. I'm nearer Him to-day than for many a long year. My blessing go with you wherever you are; and now let me have Tommy, that he does not fly at your dancer, to whom I say good riddance. Good-by, lad, good-by, and God bless you for your goodness and generosity to a lonely old creature!" So saying, Mother Lemon took the cat in her arms, and, going into the house, fastened the door and pulled down the windows, while Gabriel went to the shed, and taking out the wooden staple released his prisoner. Like a living nugget of gold the little dog leaped and capered about the boy, expressing his joy by the liveliest antics, barking meanwhile in a manner to set Tommy's nerves on edge; but Gabriel ran laughing before him into the forest, not stopping until they reached the brookside, where they both slaked their thirst. Then he put the Book of Life carefully into his blouse, and opening the package gave Topaz some of the bread and meat it contained. All the time there was a pain in Gabriel's heart because Topaz, by the morning light, was gayer, prettier, more loving than ever, and his clear eyes looked so trustfully into Gabriel's that it was not easy to swallow the lump that rose in the boy's throat at the thought of parting with him. At last the package of food was again tied, and Gabriel was ready to start. Topaz stood expectantly before him, his eyes gleaming softly, the color of golden sand as it lies beneath sunlit water. The boy sat a moment watching the alert face which said as plainly as words: "Whatever you are going to do, I am eager to do it, too." Gabriel thoughtfully drew the silky ears through his hands. "God made you, too, Topaz, and He knows I love you. If it please Him, we shall not find your master this first day." Then he jumped up and searched for a good stick. He tried the temper of a couple by whipping the air, and when he found one stiff enough, ran it through the string about the bundle and looked around for Topaz. To his astonishment the dog had disappeared. He whistled, but there was no sign. Gabriel's face grew blank, then flushed as the reason of the dog's flight flashed upon him. It forced tears into his eyes to think that any one could have struck the pretty creature, and that Topaz could have suffered enough to distrust even him. He threw down stick and bundle and walked around anxiously, whistling from time to time. At last his quick eyes caught the gleam of golden color behind a bush. Even Topaz's fright could not take him far while a doubt remained; but he was crouching to the ground, and his eyes were appealing. Gabriel threw himself down beside the little fellow, and for a minute his wet eyes were pressed to the silky fur, while he stroked his playmate. Topaz licked his face, and the dog's fear fled forever. He followed Gabriel back to the place where the bundle was dropped, and the boy patted him while he took up the stick and set it across his shoulder. Topaz's ears flapped with joy as they started on their tramp. Gabriel put away all thought of the future and frolicked with his playmate as they went along, throwing a stick which Topaz would bring, and beg with short, sharp barks that the boy would throw once more, when he would race after it like a streak of sunshine, his golden curls flying. From time to time Gabriel ran races with him, and no boy at school could beat Gabriel at running, so Topaz had a lively morning. By the time the sun was high in the heavens they were both hungry and glad to rest. They found the shade of a large tree, and there Gabriel opened his package again, and when he tied it up it made a very small bundle on the end of the stick he carried over his shoulder. There was not so much running this afternoon. Gabriel and Topaz had come a long way, and toward evening they began to see the roofs of the town ahead of them. The dog no longer raced to right and left after butterfly and bird, but trotted sedately at the boy's heel, and after a time Gabriel picked him up and carried him, for the thought came that perhaps Topaz could earn them a place to sleep, and Gabriel wished to rest the little legs that could be so nimble. It was nearly dusk when they reached a cultivated field and then a farmhouse. Some children were playing in the yard, and when they saw a dusty boy turn in at the gate, they ran to the house crying that a beggar was coming. Their mother came out from the door, and the expression of her face told plainly that she meant to drive the dusty couple away. Gabriel set down the dog and took off his hat, and his clear eyes looked out of his grimy face. "I am not a beggar," he said simply. "I go to the town to return this dog to its master, but night is coming on, and we should like to sleep on the hay." "How do I know you are not a thief?" returned the woman. "It is not a very likely story that you are tramping way to town to give back a yellow dog." "He is a dog of high degree," declared Gabriel, "and if you will let us sleep in your barn he will dance for you." Upon this the children begged in chorus to see the dog dance, and the mother consented; so Topaz, when he was bade, sat up, and then, as Gabriel whistled, the dainty, dusty little white feet began to pirouette, and the children clapped their hands for joy and would have kept the dancer at his work until dark, but that Gabriel would not have it so. "We have come far," he said. "Let us rest now, and in the morning Topaz will dance for you again." So all consented and escorted the strangers to the barn, where there was a clean, sweet hay-loft. The little dog remembered the night before, and whined under his breath and wagged his tail as he looked at Gabriel, as if begging the boy not to leave him. Gabriel understood, and patted the silky coat. It took him some minutes to get rid of the children, who wished to continue to caress and play with Topaz; but at last they were gone and the two weary wanderers could lie down on the sweet hay. As Topaz nestled into his arms Gabriel felt very thankful to God for their long happy day. If the master should come to-morrow--well, the only thing to do was to give up his playfellow, and he should still be grateful for the day and night they had spent together. Bright sunlight was streaming through the chinks of the rafters when the travelers awoke. Sounds of men and horses leaving the barn died away, and then Gabriel arose and shook himself. Topaz jumped about in delight that another day had commenced. The boy looked at him wistfully. Was this to be their last morning together? He felt the little book in his blouse and taking it out, opened it. It was dark in the barn, but, as ever, this wonderful book had a light of its own, and in tiny letters of flame there appeared this verse:-- "_For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind._" Much comforted, Gabriel put the dear book back in its hiding-place, and taking his small bundle, left the barn, the dog bounding after him. No sooner had the children of the house seen them coming than they ran forth to meet them, singing and whistling and crying upon Topaz to dance, but the dog kept his golden eyes upon his master and noticed no one beside. The mother came to the door with a much pleasanter face than she had worn yesterday. "You may go to the pump yonder and wash yourself," she said; and Gabriel obeyed gladly, wiping his face upon the grass that grew long and rank about the well. The clean face was such a good one that when the woman saw it she hushed the children. "Be still until they have had some breakfast," she said, "then the dog will dance again." So Gabriel and Topaz had a comfortable meal which they enjoyed, and afterward the boy whistled and the dog danced with a good heart, and the children danced too, for very pleasure. They were all so happy that Gabriel for the moment forgot his errand. "If you will sell your dog I will buy him," said the woman, at last, for the children had given her no peace when they lay down nor when they rose up, until she had promised to make this offer. Gabriel looked at her frankly, and a shadow fell over his bright face. "Alas, madam, he is not mine to sell." "Where dwells his master, then?" "That I know not, for he had strayed and I found him and must restore him if I can." "'Tis a fool's errand," said the woman, who liked the dog herself, and, moreover, saw that there was money in his nimble feet. "I will give you as many coppers as you can carry in your cap if you will leave him here and go your way and say nothing about it to any one." Gabriel shook his head. "Alas, madam, he is not mine," was all the woman could induce him to say, and she thought his sadness was at the thought of the cap full of pence which she believed he dared not accept for fear of getting into trouble. Little she knew that if only the golden dog were Gabriel's very own, no money could buy from the boy the one heart on earth that beat warmly for him, and the graceful, gay coat of flossy silk which he loved to caress; so the farmer's wife and children were obliged to let the couple go. Gabriel had seen, the night before, a creek that wandered through the meadow, and before entering the town he ran to it and, pulling off his clothes, jumped in and took a good swim. Barking with delight, Topaz joined in this new frolic, splashing and swimming about like the jolly little water dog that he was. When, at last, they came out and were dried, and Gabriel was dressed, they were a fresh looking pair that started out for the town. Now Gabriel was not so stupid as his brothers believed, and, as he said over to himself the verse he had read that morning in the barn, and looked at Topaz, so winsomely shining after his bath, he began to see how unwise it would be to tell every one he met that he was searching for Topaz's owner. There were people in the world, he knew, who would not scruple to pretend that such a pretty creature was their own, even if they had never seen him before; so Gabriel determined to be very careful and to know that God would give him power and a sound mind, if he would not be afraid, as the Book of Life had said. Now the two entered the town; but from the moment their feet struck the pavements, Topaz's manner changed. He kept so close to Gabriel that the boy often came near to stepping on him. "What ails you, little one?" asked Gabriel, perplexed by his companion's strange actions. "Don't you know that you are going home?" But Topaz did not bark a reply. His feathery tail hung down. He looked at Gabriel only from the tops of his eyes as he clung close to his heels, and he even seemed to the boy to tremble when they crossed the busy streets. "You mustn't be afraid, Topaz," said Gabriel stoutly. "No one likes a coward." But Topaz only clung the closer, sometimes looking from left to right, fearfully. At last his actions were so strange that Gabriel took him up under his arm. "Perhaps if we meet his owner he can see him the better so," thought the boy, and he looked questioningly into the faces of men, women, and children as they passed him by. No one did more than stare at him after observing the beautiful head that looked out from under his arm. One good-natured man smiled in passing and said to Gabriel: "Going to the palace, I suppose." This remark astonished the boy very much, and he looked around after the man. Now there had been some one following Gabriel for the last five minutes, and when he looked around, this person, who was an organ-grinder, quickly turned his back and began grinding out a tune. At the first sound of it Topaz started and trembled violently and snuggled so close to Gabriel that the latter, who did not connect his action with the music, was dismayed. "Topaz, what _is_ the matter?" he asked, and hurried along, thinking to find some park where he could sit down and try to discover what ailed his little playfellow. As he began to hurry, the organ-grinder's black eyes snapped, and he stopped playing and beckoned to a big officer of the law who stood near. "My dog has been stolen," he exclaimed. "Come with me, after the thief. I will pay you." The big man obeyed and walked along, grumbling: "Is the city full of stolen dogs, I wonder?" he muttered. "It is my dancing dog!" explained the organ-grinder. "The boy yonder is carrying him in his arms and running away. He will deny it, but I will pay you a silver coin. It is a week since I lost him." "Stop, thief," roared the officer, beginning to run. The organ-grinder ran as well as he could with his heavy burden, and there began to be an excitement on the street, so that Gabriel, hugging his dog, stopped to see what was the matter. What was his surprise to be confronted by the big officer and the black-eyed Italian. "Drop that dog!" ordered the officer gruffly. "Not till I get a string around his neck," objected the organ-grinder, and produced a cord which he knotted about Topaz's fluffy throat. Then he pulled the dog away roughly. "Is he yours?" cried Gabriel, eyes and mouth open in astonishment. "No, it cannot be. He is afraid of you. Oh, see!" "Ho, this boy has stolen my whole living," said the organ-grinder, "and now he tries to claim my property." "Do not believe him!" cried Gabriel, appealing to the big officer. "It cannot be his. The dog loves me. Let me show you." "Stand off, stand off," ordered the organ-grinder, for a crowd had gathered. "Would the dog dance for me if he were not mine? See!" He drew from his coat a little whip and struck the organ with a snap, at which Topaz jumped. Then he dropped the dog and began to grind, and the crowd saw the trembling animal raise itself to its hind legs and begin to dance. Oh, the mincing little uncertain steps! No tossing of the yellow curls was here. Gabriel's heart bounded hotly. Did these people think they were seeing Topaz dance? "Oh, believe me, let me show you!" he cried, trying to come near; but the big officer pushed him away roughly. "Can you pay your debts?" he said, coming close to the organ-grinder. The man stopped turning his crank and taking a silver coin handed it to the officer, but slyly, so that no one saw. Then the big man turned to Gabriel. "Now be off from here!" he said sternly. "If you hang about a minute longer, into the lock-up you go!" Gabriel, white and sorry, clasped his hands helplessly, and watched while the organ-grinder caught Topaz up under his arm and made off with him, down a side street. The boy felt that he must pursue them. He turned his tearful gaze on the big officer. "I found that dog, sir," he said. "The more fool you, then, not to take it to the palace," returned the other. "It is gaudy enough to have perhaps pleased the princess, and the organ-grinder would have had to get another slave." So saying, the officer laughed and carelessly turned away. Gabriel stood still, choking. It must be that the princess wished to buy a pet. Ah, if he might even have parted with his little friend to her, how far better it would have been than this strange, wrong thing that had happened with such suddenness that the boy could scarcely get his breath for the way his heart beat. He pressed his hand to his streaming eyes, then, seeing that people were staring at him curiously, he stole away, walking blindly and stumbling over the rough pavement. At last he came to a place in a quiet street where a seat was built into a wall, and there he sat down and tried to think. In his despair the thought of the great King of heaven and earth came to him. "Dear God," he murmured breathlessly, "what now? What did I wrong, that you did not take care of Topaz and me?" The breeze in the treetops was his only answer; so after listening for a minute to the soothing sound, he took the Book of Life from his blouse and opened it. Oh, wonderful were the words he saw. How they glowed and seemed to live upon the gray page. "_Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, He it is that doth go with thee: He will not fail thee nor forsake thee_." Gabriel caught his trembling lip between his teeth. He knew no one in this crowded city. He had no home, no friends, no money except the few coppers in his pocket. How, then, was help to come? "Dear God," he whispered, "I have no one now in all the world but you. Topaz is gone and I am grieved sore, for he is wretched. Let me save him. I am not afraid, dear God, not afraid of anything. I trust you." Comforted by a little blind hope that crept into his heart, the boy looked up; and the first thing that his swollen eyes rested upon was a large poster affixed to the opposite wall, with letters a foot high. "REWARD!" it said. "H.R.H. the princess has lost her golden dog. A full reward for his return to the palace!" Gabriel's heart gave a great bound. What golden dog was there anywhere but Topaz? The color that had fled from his cheeks came back. But would an organ-grinder dare claim for his own a dog that belonged to a princess of the country? And yet--and yet--the little dog's joy and light-heartedness with himself showed that he had been well treated by whomever taught him his pretty tricks. The organ-grinder did not treat him well, and who that really knew Topaz would dream of taking a whip to force him to his work! Gabriel, young as he was, saw that there was some mystery here, and beside, there had been the glowing words in the Book of Life, telling him again not to be afraid, and promising him that the greatest of all kings would not fail him or forsake him. He started up from the seat, but forced himself back and opened the small bundle of dry bread and meat; for there was no knowing when he should eat again. He took all that remained, and when he had swallowed the last crumbs, arose with a determined heart and hurried up the street. He asked the first man he met if he could direct him to the palace. The man shrugged his shoulders. "Where is your yellow dog?" he asked. "I have none," returned Gabriel, "but I have business at the palace." The man laughed down at the shabby figure of the country lad. "And don't know where it is? Well, Follow your nose. You are on the right road." Gabriel sped along and he was indeed much nearer than he had supposed; for very soon he met a sorry-faced man with a yellow dog in his arm; then another; then another; and in fact he could trace his way to the palace by the procession of men, women, and children, all returning, and each one carrying a yellow dog and chattering or grumbling according to the height from which his hopes had been dashed. When Gabriel reached the palace gates he saw that there were plenty more applicants waiting inside the grounds. The boy had never realized how many varying sizes and shades of yellow dogs there were in the world. The guard had received orders to deny entrance to no person who presented a gold-colored dog for examination, but Gabriel was empty-handed and the guard frowned upon him. "I wish to see the princess," said the boy. "I dare say," replied the guard. "Be off." "But I wish to tell her about a golden dog." "Can't you see that we are half buried in golden dogs?" returned the guard crossly. "No, sir. I have seen none but yellow dogs since I drew near this place. I have a tale to tell the princess." The guard could not forbear laughing at this simplicity. "Do you suppose ragamuffins like you approach her highness?" he returned. "A dog's tail is the only sort she is interested in to-day. See the chamberlain yonder. He is red with fatigue. He is choosing such of the lot as are worthy to be looked at by the princess, and should he see you demanding audience and with no dog to show, it will go hard with you. Be off!" and the guard's gesture was one to be obeyed. Gabriel withdrew quietly; but he was not daunted. The princess would, perhaps, grow weary and drive out. At any rate there was nothing to do except watch for her. He looked at the splendid palace and gardens and wondered if Topaz had ever raced about there. Then he wondered what the dog was doing now; but this thought must be put away, because it made Gabriel's eyes misty, and he must watch, watch. At last his patient vigil was rewarded. A splendid coach drawn by milk-white horses appeared in the palace grounds. Gabriel's heart beat fast. He knew he must act quickly and before any one could catch him; so he made his way cautiously to the shelter of a large, flowering shrub by the roadside. The coach approached and the iron gates were flung wide. Gabriel plainly saw a young girl with troubled eyes sitting alone within, and on the seat opposite an older woman with her back to the horses. Suddenly, while the carriage still moved slowly outside the gates that clanged behind it, Gabriel started from his hiding-place and swiftly leaped to the step of the coach and looked straight into the young girl's eyes. "Princess," he exclaimed breathlessly, "I know of a golden dog, and they will not let me"--but by this time the lady-in-waiting was screaming, and the guard, who recognized Gabriel, rushed forth from the gate and, seizing him roughly, jerked the boy from the step. "Unhand him instantly!" exclaimed the princess, her eyes flashing, for the look Gabriel had given her had reached her heart. "Stop the horses!" Instantly the coach came to a standstill. "_I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee_," sounded in Gabriel's ears amid the roaring in his head, as he found himself free. He did not wait for further invitation, but jumped back to the coach. "Stop screaming, Lady Gertrude!" exclaimed the princess. "But the beggar's hands are on the satin, your highness!" exclaimed the lady-in-waiting, who had had a hard week and wished there was not a yellow dog in the world. "Princess, hear me and you will be glad," declared Gabriel. "I beg for nothing but to be heard. I believe I know where your dog is and that he suffers." No one could have seen and heard Gabriel as he said this, without believing him. Tears of excitement sprang to his gray eyes and a pang went through the heart of the princess. How many times she had wondered if her lost pet had found such love as she gave him! She at once ordered the door of the coach to be opened and that Gabriel should enter. "Your highness!" exclaimed Lady Gertrude, nearly fainting. "You may leave us if you please," said the princess, with a little smile; but Lady Gertrude held her smelling-salts to her nose and remained in the coach, which the princess ordered to be driven through a secluded wood-road. Gabriel, sitting beside her on the fine satin cushion, told his story, from the moment when he found the dingy, brown dog in the hands of the teasing boys, to the moment when the organ-grinder bore him away. The hands of the princess were clasped tightly as she listened. "You called him Topaz," she said, when the boy had finished. "I called him Goldilocks. Ah, if it should be the same! If it should!" "Surely there are not two dogs in the world so beautiful," said Gabriel. "That is what I say to myself," responded the princess. "Had he been less wonderful, your highness, he would be safe now, for I should have kept him. He loved me," said Gabriel simply. "You are an honest boy," replied the princess gratefully, "and I will make you glad of it whether Topaz turns out to be Goldilocks or not. But you say he danced with so much grace?" "Yes, your highness, and tossed his head for glee till his curls waved merrily." "'Tis the same!" cried the princess, in a transport. "His eyes _are_ like topazes. Your name is the best. He shall have it. Ah, he has slept in a shed and eaten cold scraps! My Goldilocks!" "Yes, your highness, and would be glad to do so still; for he fears his dark-browed master, and dances with such trembling you would not know him again." "Ah, cruel boy, cease! Take me to him at once. Show my men the spot where you left him." "Your highness must use great care, for if once the organ-grinder suspects that you are searching for him, no one will ever again see the golden dog; for the man will fear to be found with him." "You are right. I can send out men with orders to examine every hand-organ in the city." "If they were quiet enough it might be done, but I have a better plan." "You may speak," returned the princess. "When we are alone, your highness," said Gabriel; and the lady-in-waiting was so amazed at such effrontery that she forgot to use her salts. "To the palace," ordered the princess. Lady Gertrude gave the order. "Does your highness intend to take this--this person to the palace?" she inquired. "I do. He loves my dog, and therefore I would give more for his advice at this time than for that of the Lord High Chamberlain." "Then I have nothing more to say," returned the Lady Gertrude, leaning back among the cushions; and this was cheering news to her companions. What was the astonishment of the guard to see the coach return, still carrying the rustic lad, who sat so composedly beside the princess, and dismounted with her at the palace steps. Once within, nothing was too fine for Gabriel. A gentleman-in-waiting was set to serve him in an apartment, which made the boy pinch himself to make sure he was not dreaming. When he had taken a perfumed bath and obediently put on the fine clothing that was provided for him, he was summoned to a splendid room where the princess awaited him, surrounded by her ladies. She was scarcely more than a child, herself, and the boy wondered how she liked to have so many critical personages about, to watch her every action. As he entered the room, every eye was turned upon him, and the Lady Gertrude, especially, put up her glass in wonder that this handsome lad with the serious, fearless eyes, who seemed so at ease in the silks and satins he now wore, could be the peasant who had jumped on the step of the coach. The princess looked upon him with favor and smiled. "We are ready now," she said, "to hear what plan you propose for the rescue of the golden dog." "Then will your highness kindly ask these ladies to leave us?" returned Gabriel. "Ah, to be sure. I forgot your wish that the communication should be private." Then the princess gave orders that every one should leave the room, and her companions obeyed reluctantly, the Lady Gertrude above all. She remained close to the outside of the closed door, ready to fly within at the slightest cry from her mistress; for the Lady Gertrude could not quite believe that a boy who had ever worn a calico shirt was a safe person to leave alone with royalty. For a few minutes there was only a low buzz of voices behind the closed door, then a merry laugh from the princess assailed Lady Gertrude's ears. It was the first time she had laughed since the disappearance of the golden dog. Before Gabriel slipped between the sheets that night in his luxurious chamber, he took the little brown book which had been folded away with his shabby clothing. His heart glowed with gratitude to God for the help he had received that day, and when he opened the page it was as if a loving voice spoke:-- "_Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee_." "Dear God, I trust in thee!" he murmured; then he climbed into the soft bed and slept dreamlessly. The following morning, the king and queen having given consent to their daughter's request, two children drove out of the palace grounds in a plain black carriage. The coachman drove to a confectioner's near the centre of the town, where the horses stopped. A tall man in dark clothes, who was also in the carriage, stepped down first and handed out the girl, and afterward the boy jumped down. Then the carriage rolled away. "Remember," said the girl, turning to the tall man, "you are not to remain too near us." He bowed submissively, and in a minute more the girl and boy, plainly dressed, middle-class people, were looking in at the confectioner's window at a pink and white frosted castle that reared itself above a cake surrounded with bon-bons to make one's mouth water. "Saw you ever anything so grand, your highness?" exclaimed Gabriel, in awe. The princess laughed. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled. This was the first time her little feet had ever touched a city street, and she loved the adventure. "Find me Topaz, and all the contents of this window shall be yours," she returned. "I shall not care to have anything until we do find him, your highness," replied Gabriel simply. "You must not call me that. Some one might hear you." "I know it. There is danger of it," declared Gabriel; "but the gentleman who is to follow us said I should lose my head if I treated you familiarly." The princess laughed again. She was in a new world, like a bird whose cage door had been opened. "We need your head until we find Topaz," she replied, "for you have clever ideas. Nevertheless, my name is Louise, and you may remember it if necessity arises. Now where shall we go first?" "Straight down this street," said the boy, leading the way. "I am expecting God will show us where to go," he added. His companion looked at him in surprise, and Gabriel observed it. "Don't you know about God?" he asked. "Of course. Who does not?" she returned briefly. "I did not," answered Gabriel, "until I found the Book of Life. It speaks to me in words of flame. Have you such a book?" "No. I will buy it from you," said the princess. "No one can do that," declared the boy, "for it is more precious than all beside. This morning I looked into it for guidance through the day, and the glowing words were sweet:-- "'_For He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways_.'" Gabriel smiled at the princess with such gladness that she gazed at him curiously. "You cannot refuse to sell me your book," she said at last, "for I can have your head taken off if I wish. I am the king's daughter." "God is greater than all kings," returned Gabriel, "and He would not allow it. He helped me to get your attention yesterday, and to-day He is sending his angels with us to find Topaz. The Book of Life is for every one, I believe. I am sure you can have one, too." Here both the boy and girl started, for there came a metallic sound of music on the air. "Be cautious, be very cautious," warned Gabriel, and as the princess started to run, he caught her by the arm, a proceeding which horrified the tall man in dark clothes who was at some distance back, but had never taken his eyes from them. "You must not be too interested," added the boy, as excited as she. "A hand-organ is an every-day affair. We even hear them in the country at times." But they both followed the sound, veiling their eagerness as best they might. When they came in sight of the organ-grinder they both sighed, for he had no assistance from a little dog nor from any one else. The princess was for turning away impatiently. "Wait," said Gabriel, "we are interested in organ music." So he persuaded her to stand a minute, while her bright eyes roved in all directions; and the organ man saw a hope of coppers in the pair, for they were decently dressed and lingered in apparent pleasure. He kept his eyes upon them and at last held out his cap. The princess had plenty of pence in the bag at her side, placed there by the thoughtful Gabriel in place of the handful of silver with which she had intended to reward street musicians. "You are one of the common people, your highness; or else you need have no hope of Topaz," he had reminded her; so now the impatient girl tossed some coppers into the outstretched cap and hurried along as if they were wasting time. The next organ they found had, sitting upon it, a monkey dressed in red cap and jacket, and Gabriel insisted on waiting to watch him, although the sight of his antics only swelled the princess's heart as she thought that somewhere Topaz was being forced to such indignity. The little monkey did not seem to object, and gladly ran to his master with the coppers that Gabriel dropped in his cap. The next organ-grinder they found had with him a little Italian girl with a red silk handkerchief knotted about her head. She sang and played on a tambourine, and Gabriel persuaded his companion to watch and listen for a few minutes. If only they could find Topaz first, her royal highness, princess of the country, would ask nothing better than to roam freely about the streets, listening and gazing like any other young girl out for a holiday; but Topaz was on her mind, and she was not accustomed to being forced to wait. "Listen to me," murmured Gabriel, as they moved on after making the little Italian show her white teeth in pleasure at their gift. "Do not frown. You must look pleased. It is the only way." So the princess put a restraint upon herself. With the next organ they met, she saw a yellow dog who wore a cap fastened under his chin, and sat up holding a cup in his teeth for pennies, and she set her lips in the effort to control herself. The dog had long ears and white paws. Gabriel's own heart beat in his throat, but he grasped the woolen stuff of his companion's gown as the man began to play. It was not the man of yesterday, but that mattered not to Gabriel. They waited till the tune was finished, the gaze of the princess devouring the dog meanwhile. Then the little creature trotted up to them very prettily on his hind legs, offering his cup, and the children dropped into it coppers while they looked into the yellow eyes. "Hi--Oh--Hi--Oh"--and another tune broke into the one which their organ-grinder commenced. Following the sound of the call, Gabriel and the princess looked a little way off, across the street, and beheld a street musician grinding away and beckoning to them with his head, while his teeth gleamed in an attractive smile. "Pay no attention to him," said the man with the yellow dog, grinding lustily, and making a frightful discord. "'Tis Pedro and his little brown beast. He seeks to draw my listeners away as if I had not the most intelligent dog in the universe, and, moreover, of the color which the princess has made fashionable. I doubt not if her highness saw my dog she would give me for him as many gold eagles as I have fingers on my hand; but he is not for the princess, who has joys enough without depriving the children on the street of their pleasures." The girl in the brown woolen gown was clasping her hands painfully together, and her heart was beating with hope; but Gabriel shook his head at her, and she remained quiet. He had already seen that the dog was not Topaz, although astonishingly like him in size and shape. Pedro, across the street, kept drawing nearer, as he played and smiled and beckoned with his head. There trotted after him an unpromising little brown dog with limp tail and ears. The man, in his good-nature and success, looked very different from the organ-grinder of yesterday; and as he laughed aloud, the master of the yellow dog frowned and shouted something in Italian back at him, before shouldering his organ and tramping away, his dog very glad to go on all fours again. Pedro pulled off his hat, smiling at the lingering girl and boy. "He says you have given him all your coppers," he said. "I don't believe it; but in any case I will give you a tune." "You are letting him go," murmured the princess breathlessly, starting to run after the yellow dog. "Saw you not 'twas not Topaz?" asked Gabriel, under cover of the lively tune, and again seizing a fold of the woolen gown, he held the girl in her place. "Wait," he said aloud, with a show of interest, "I wish to hear the music." "Let me go, my heart is sick," returned the princess, turning her head away. Gabriel pretended to frown at her and pulled some pence from his pocket, at sight of which the organ-grinder's eyes brightened and he played harder than ever. "Can you be strong, princess?" asked the boy distinctly. "Don't look now, but Topaz has come to us." The princess started, and instead of obeying, looked closely first at the dejected little brown dog and then up and down the street and behind her, but in vain. "If those pence are for me, my boy," said the organ-grinder, stopping his music, "you and your sister shall see my dog dance. He is the wonder of the world, although he is not much to look at. We cannot all be royal and own golden dogs." Gabriel threw him the pennies, for he did not yet wish to come too near Topaz, lest the little dog might see deeper than the respectable raiment in which his own brother would not have known him. The boy clapped his hands above his head; the organ-grinder thought it was for joy, but it was a signal agreed upon. A shrill whistle sounded on the air. The organ-grinder knew the sound and knew that it was intended to summon the officers of the law. He wondered what poor wretch was getting into trouble; but it was none of his business. He took a whip from within his coat, and with it struck the organ a violent snap. At the sound the little dog jumped. The princess noticed that Gabriel's eyes were fixed on him, and wondered what he could be thinking of to confound this sorry-looking, dull-colored animal with her gay companion of the palace garden. The music began, the dog reared himself patiently upon his hind feet and stepped about so slowly that the organ-man growled at him and struck the organ again. Then the dancer moved faster; but the ears did not fly and every motion was a jerk. Nevertheless, the princess's heart had now begun to suffocate her. She recalled Gabriel's story of washing off the brown color from the dingy fur in the brook, and her eyes swam with tears at the mere possibility that this might be the object of her search. She had just sense enough to keep still and leave everything to Gabriel. Here, too, approached the tall gentleman, followed by an officer of the law. Gabriel saw at a glance that it was the same big fellow who had driven him away yesterday. The tall, dignified gentleman-in-waiting looked in disgust at the stiff little brown dancer. "This foolish peasant is but getting us into trouble," he thought, "but he will suffer for it." Indeed, Gabriel knew the law of the land; knew that if he accused the organ-grinder wrongfully he would be walked off to prison in his place; but Gabriel had seen the brown dog's eyes. There were no doubts in his heart, which bounded so that it seemed as if it could hardly stay within his bosom. "Come away, your highness," murmured the gentleman-in-waiting, in the princess's ear. "This is a farce." "Stand back and wait," she replied sternly, and he obeyed. Meanwhile the organ-grinder had observed the newcomers and was showing every tooth in his head at the prospect of a rich harvest of coppers. In a minute he ceased playing. The brown dog dropped to all fours, and his hopeless air sent a pang through the princess. The organ-grinder held out his cap. "I don't think much of your dog's dancing," said Gabriel, looking him in the eye. "I could make him do better, myself." "It doesn't do to use the whip too much," replied the organ-grinder, but Gabriel had already gone on his knees beside the dog and whispered to him. Instantly the little creature went into a transport of delight. Bounding to the boy's breast, it clung there so closely that Gabriel gave up the experiment that he had intended of trying to show the organ-man how his slave could dance. Rising, Gabriel held the panting Topaz in his arms. "I declare," he said aloud, "I declare this to be the princess's lost dog." The organ-grinder scowled and grew pale. "'Tis a lie," he cried, "hers was a golden dog." "This is a golden dog," said Gabriel. Even the gentleman-in-waiting was impressed by the certainty of the boy's voice. The organ-grinder turned to the officer and shook his fist. "'Tis that boy again!" he cried. "If this is the princess's dog, that boy stole him. As for me, I found the poor creature, friendless and lost, and I took pity on him." "Why, then, did you stain his coat?" asked Gabriel. The organ-grinder looked wildly up and down the street. For some reason he felt that a silver coin would not affect the officer of the law to-day. The gentleman-in-waiting pointed sternly at the culprit. "Take him away," he said to the officer. "Should this prove to be indeed the princess's dog, he has committed treason." And now the black carriage and spirited horses drove up. The three entered it with the dog and were whirled away. By noon it was rumored in that street that her royal highness, the princess of the land, had walked through it, dressed like one of the common people. Within the carriage the princess was weeping tears of joy above her pet. "If it is you, Goldilocks, if it is you!" she kept repeating; but the dog clung to the one who had recognized his topaz eyes in spite of everything. "He is not fit, yet, for your highness to touch," said Gabriel, "but if you will give me one hour, I will show him to you unchanged." That afternoon there was rejoicing at the palace. All had felt the influence of the princess's grief, for she was the idol of the king and queen; and now, as Topaz capered again, a living sunbeam, through corridor and garden, all had a word of praise for the peasant boy who had restored him to his home. At evening the princess received a message from Gabriel and ordered that he be sent to her. In a minute he entered, dressed in the shabby garments in which he had leaped upon the coach step. In his hand he held a little rusty book, and his clear eyes looked steadily at the princess, with the honest light which had first made her listen to him. "I come to say farewell, your highness," he said. A line showed in her forehead. "What reward have they given you?" "None, your highness." "What have you in your hand?" "The Book of Life." "Come nearer and let me see it." The ladies-in-waiting were, as usual, grouped near their mistress, and they stared curiously at the peasant boy. Only Topaz, who at his entrance had bounded from a satin cushion as golden as his flossy coat, leaped upon him with every sign of affection. Gabriel approached and handed the book to the princess. She opened it and ran her eye over the gray pages. "I see no fiery letters," she said, and handed it back. The boy opened it. As usual a flaming verse arrested his eye. He pointed with his finger at the words and read aloud:-- "'_He shall call upon me and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him and honor him_.'" "'Tis a fair promise," said the princess, "but I see no flaming letters." "I do, your highness," returned Gabriel simply, and looking into his eyes she knew that he spoke the truth. She gazed at him curiously. "Where go you now, and what do you do?" she asked, after a pause. "That I know not," replied Gabriel, "but God will show me." "By means of that book?" "Yes, your highness," and Gabriel bowed his head and moved toward the door. Topaz followed close at his heel. If Gabriel were going for a walk, why, so much the better. He was going, too. The boy smiled rather sadly, for he knew the golden dog loved him, and there was no one else anywhere who cared whether he went or came. He stooped and, picking up the little creature, carried him to the princess. "You will have to hold him from following me, your highness." The girl took the dog, but he struggled and broke from her grasp, to leap once again upon his departing friend. "Wait," said the princess, and rose. Gabriel stood, all attention, and gazed at her, where she stood, smiling kindly upon him. "I promised a full reward to whomever returned me my dog. You have not yet received even the window-full of pink and white sweetmeats which I promised you this morning." Gabriel smiled, too. "Where is your home, Gabriel, and why are you not returning there?" "I have no home. It is a long story, your highness, and would not interest you." "Ah, but it does interest me," and the princess smiled more brightly than ever; "because if you have no home you can remain in our service." A light flashed into Gabriel's sober face. "What happiness!" he exclaimed. No answer could have pleased the princess better than the pleasure in his eyes. "Topaz is not willing you should leave him, and neither am I. When you are older, his majesty, my father, will look after your fortunes. For the present you shall be a page." "Your highness!" protested the Lady Gertrude, "have you considered? The pages are of lofty birth. Will it not go hard with the peasant? Give him a purse and let him go." The princess answered but did not remove her gaze from the boy's flushed face, while Topaz's cold little nose nestled in his down-dropped hand. "Gabriel is my friend, be he prince or peasant," she said slowly, "and it will go hard with those who love him not." The young girl's eyes met Gabriel's and then she smiled as light-heartedly as on this morning when she wore the woolen gown. "And now make Topaz dance," she added, "the way he danced in the woods." The boy's happy glance dropped to the dog, and he raised his finger. With alacrity Topaz sat up, and then Gabriel began to whistle. How the court ladies murmured with soft laughter, for no one had ever seen such a pretty sight. Not for any of them, not for the princess herself, had Topaz danced as he danced to-day. "Ah," murmured the princess, "how much more powerful than the whip is love!" When music and dancing had ceased, she smiled once more upon Gabriel, whose happy heart was full. "Go now," she said, "and learn of your new duties; but the chief one you have learned already. It is to be faithful!" CHAPTER XII THE TALKING DOLL Mr. Evringham's horseback rides in these days were apt to be accompanied by the stories, which Jewel related to him with much enthusiasm while they cantered through wood-roads, and it is safe to say that the tales furnished full as much entertainment at second hand as they had at first. The golden dog had deeply impressed Jewel's fancy, and when she finished relating the story, her face all alight, Mr. Evringham shook his head. "Star is going to have his hands full, I can see," he remarked, restraining Essex Maid's longing for a gallop. "Why, grandpa?" "To hold his own against that dog." Jewel looked thoughtful. "I suppose it wouldn't be any use to try to teach Star to dance, would it?" she asked. "Oh, yes. Ponies learn to dance. We shall have to go to a circus and let you see one; but how should you like it every time Star heard a band or a hand-organ to have him get up on his hind legs and begin?" Jewel laughed and patted her pony's glossy neck. "I guess I like Star best the way he is," she replied, "but grandpa, did you ever _hear_ of such a darling dog?" "I confess I never did," admitted the broker. "I should think there was some trick Star could learn," said Jewel musingly. "Why, of course there is. Tell Zeke you wish to teach Star to shake hands. He'll help you." This idea pleased Jewel very much, and in the fullness of time the feat was accomplished; but by the time the black pony had learned that he must lift his little hoof carefully and put it in his mistress's hand, before his lump of sugar was forthcoming, he wished, like the Lady Gertrude, that there had never been a yellow dog in the world. When next Mrs. Evringham, Jewel, and Anna Belle settled in the ravine to the reading of a story, it was Jewel's turn to choose. When her mother had finished naming the remaining titles, the child hesitated and lifted her eyebrows and shoulders as she gave the reader a meaning glance. Mrs. Evringham wondered what was in her mind, and, after a minute's thought, Jewel turned to Anna Belle, sitting wide-eyed against a tree. "Just excuse me one minute, dearie," she said; then, coming close to her mother's ear, she whispered:-- "Is there anything in 'The Talking Doll' to hurt Anna Belle's feelings?" "No, I think she'd rather like it," returned Mrs. Evringham. "You see," whispered Jewel, "she doesn't know she's a doll." "Of course not," said Mrs. Evringham. Jewel sat back: "I choose," she said aloud, "I choose 'The Talking Doll.'" As Anna Belle only maintained her usual amiable look of interest, Mrs. Evringham proceeded to read aloud as follows:-- * * * * * When Gladys opened her eyes on her birthday morning, the sun was streaming across her room, all decorated in rose and white. It was the prettiest room any little girl could have, and everything about the child looked so bright, one would have expected her to laugh just for sympathy with the gay morning; but as she sat up in bed she yawned instead and her eyes gazed soberly at the dancing sunbeams. "Ellen," she called, and a young woman came into the room. "Oh, you're awake, Miss Gladys. Isn't this a fine birthday Mother Nature's fixed up for you?" The pleasant maid helped the little girl to bathe and dress, and, as the toilet went on, tried to bring a cheerful look into Gladys's face. "Now what are you hoping your mother has for you?" she asked, at last. "I don't know," returned the child, very near a pout. "There isn't anything I want. I've been trying to think what I'd like to have, and I can't think of a thing." She said this in an injured tone, as if the whole world were being unkind to her. Ellen shook her head. "You are a very unlucky child," she returned impressively. "I am not," retorted Gladys, looking at Ellen in astonishment. The idea that she, whom her father and mother watched from morning until night as their greatest treasure, could be called unlucky! She had never expressed a wish in her life that had not been gratified. "You mustn't say such things to me, Ellen," added the child, vexed that her maid did not look sorry for having made such a blunder. Ellen had taken care of her ever since she was born, and no one should know better what a happy, petted life she had led; but Ellen only shook her head now; and when Gladys was dressed she went down to the dining-room where her parents were waiting to give her a birthday greeting. They kissed her lovingly, and then her mother said:-- "Well, what does my little girl want for her gift?" "What have you for me?" asked Gladys, with only faint interest. She had closets and drawers full of toys and books and games, and she was like a person who has been feasted and feasted, and then is asked to sit down again at a loaded table. For answer her mother produced from behind a screen a beautiful doll. It was larger and finer than any that Gladys had owned, and its parted, rosy lips showed pearly little teeth within. Gladys looked at it without moving, but began to smile. Then her mother put her hand about the doll's waist and it suddenly said: "Ma-ma--Pa-pa." "Oh, if she can talk!" cried Gladys, looking quite radiant for a minute, and running forward she took the doll in her arms. "Her name is Vera," said the mother, happy at having succeeded in pleasing her child. "Here is something that your grandmother sent you, dear. Isn't it a quaint old thing?" and Gladys's mother showed her a heavy silver bowl with a cover. On the cover was engraved, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." "I don't know where your grandma found such an odd thing nor why she sent it to a little girl; but she says it will be an heirloom for you." Gladys looked at the bowl and handled it curiously. The cover fitted so well and the silver was so bright she was rather pleased at having, such a grown-up possession. "It is evidently valuable," said her mother. "I will have it put with our silver." "No," returned Gladys, and her manner was the willful one of a spoiled child. "I want it in my room. I like it." "Oh, very well," answered her mother. "Grandma will be glad that you are pleased." An excursion into the country had been planned for Gladys to-day. She had some cousins there, a girl of her own age and a boy a little older. She had not seen Faith and Ernest for five years. Their father and mother were away on a long visit now, so the children were living in the old farmhouse with an aunt of their father's to take care of them. Gladys's mother thought it would be a pleasant change for her in the June weather, and it was an attractive idea to Gladys to think of giving these country cousins a sight of her dainty self, her fine clothes, and perhaps she would take them one or two old toys that she liked the least; but the coming of Vera put the toy idea completely out of her head. What would Faith say to a doll who could talk! Gladys was in haste now for the time to come to take the train; and as Vera was well supplied with various costumes, the doll was soon arrayed, like her little mamma, in pretty summer street-dress and ready to start. Gladys's father had a guest to-day, so his wife remained at home with him, and Ellen took charge of the birthday excursion. Driving to the station and during the hour's ride on the train, Gladys was in gay spirits, chattering about her new doll and arranging its pretty clothes, and each time Vera uttered her words, the child would laugh, and Ellen laughed with her. Gladys was a girl ten years old, but to the maid she was still a baby, and although Ellen thought she saw the child's parents making mistakes with her every day, she, like them, was so relieved when Gladys was good-natured that she joined heartily in the little girl's pleasure now over her birthday present. "Won't Faith's eyes open when she sees Vera?" asked Gladys gayly. "I expect they will," returned Ellen. "What have you brought with you for her and her brother?" The child shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing. I meant to but I forgot it, because I was so pleased with Vera. Isn't her hair sweet, Ellen?" and Gladys twisted the soft, golden locks around her fingers. "Yes, but it would have been nice to bring something for those children. They don't have so much as you do." "Of course not. I don't believe they have much of anything. You know they're poor. Mother sends them money sometimes, so it's all right." And Gladys poked the point of her finger within Vera's rosy lips and touched her little white teeth. Ellen shook her head and Gladys saw it and pouted. "Why didn't _you_ think of it, then, or mother?" she asked. "You won't have somebody to think for you all your life," returned Ellen. "You'd better be beginning to think about other people yourself, Gladys. What's that it said on your grandmother's silver bowl?" "Oh, I don't know. Something about giving and receiving." "Yes. 'It is more blessed to give than to receive,' that's what it said," and Ellen looked hard at her companion, though with a very soft gaze, too; for she loved this little girl because she had spent many a wakeful night and busy day for her. "Yes, I remember," returned Gladys. "Grandma had that put on because she wanted me to know how much she would rather give me things than have people give things to her. Anyway, Ellen, if you are going to be cross on my birthday I wish mother had come with me, instead;" and a displeased cloud came over the little-girl's face, which Ellen hastened to drive away by changing the subject. She knew her master and mistress would reprove her for annoying their idol. They always said, when their daughter was unusually naughty or selfish, "Oh, Gladys will outgrow all these things. We Won't make much of them." By the time they reached the country station, Gladys's spirits were quite restored and, carrying her doll, she left the train with Ellen. Faith and Ernest were there to meet them. No wonder the children did not recognize each other, for they had been so young when last they met; and when Gladys's curious eyes fell upon the country girl, she felt like a princess who comes to honor humble subjects with a visit. Faith and Ernest had never thought about being humble subjects. Their rich relative who lived in some unknown place and sometimes sent their mother gifts of money and clothing had often roused their gratitude, and when she had written that their cousin Gladys would like to visit the farm on her birthday, they at once set their wits to work to think how they could make her have a good time. They always had a good time themselves, and now that vacation had begun, the days seemed very full of fun and sunshine. They thought it must be hard to live in a city street as their mother had described, it to them, and even though she was away now and could not advise them, they felt as if they could make Gladys enjoy herself. Faith's hair was shingled as short as her brother's, and her gingham frock was clean and fresh. She watched each person descend from the train, and when a pretty girl with brown eyes and curls appeared, carrying a large doll, Faith's bright gaze grew brighter, and she was delighted to find that it was Gladys. She took it for granted that kind-faced Ellen, so well dressed in black, was her aunt, and greeted her so, but Gladys's brown eyes widened. "My mother couldn't come, for father needed her," she explained. "This is my maid, Ellen." "Oh," said Faith, much impressed by such elegance. "We thought aunt Helen was coming. Ernest is holding the horse over here," and she led the way to a two-seated wagon where a twelve-year-old boy in striped shirt and old felt hat was waiting. Faith made the introductions and then helped Gladys and Ellen into the back seat of the wagon, all unconscious of her cousin's wonder at the absence of silver mountings and broadcloth cushions. Then Faith climbed over the wheel into the seat beside her brother, and the horse started. She turned about so as to talk more easily with her guest. "What a beautiful doll!" she said admiringly. "Yes," returned Gladys, "this is my birthday, you know." "Oh, then, is it new? I thought it was! Hasn't she the prettiest clothes? Have you named her yet?" "Her name is Vera. Mother says it means true, or truth, or something like that." Ernest turned half around to glance at the object of the girls' admiration; but he thought Gladys herself a much more attractive creature than the doll. "I suppose your cousin Gladys can't ask you to admire her doll much, Master Ernest," said Ellen. She liked these rosy children at once, and the fresh, sunlit air that had painted their cheeks. "Oh, it's pretty enough," returned Ernest, turning back and clucking to the horse. Gladys enjoyed Faith's pleasure. She would not try to show off Vera's supreme accomplishment in this rattlety-banging wagon. How it did jounce over occasional stones in the country road! [Illustration: "I HEAR A SHEEP"] Ellen smiled at her as the child took hold of her arm in fear of losing her balance. "That was a 'thank-ye-ma'am,'" she said, as the wagon suddenly bounded over a little hillock. "Didn't you see what a pretty curtsy we all made?" But Gladys thought it was rather uncomfortable and that Ernest drove too fast, considering the state of the toads. "This wagon has such nice springs," said Faith. She was eager to take Vera into her own hands, but no wonder Gladys liked to hold her when she had only had her such a short time. Aunt Martha was standing on the piazza to welcome the company when they arrived. She was an elderly woman with spectacles, and it had to be explained to her, also, that Ellen was not Gladys's mother. The maid was so well dressed in her quiet street suit that aunt Martha groaned in spirit at first at the prospect of caring for a fashionable city servant; and it was a relief when the stranger looked up and said pleasantly: "I'm just Ellen." There was an hour left before dinner, and Faith and Ernest carried Gladys off to a place they called the grove. The farmhouse was painted in light yellow and white. It was built on a grassy slope, and at the foot of a gentle hill a pretty pond lay, and out from this flowed a brook. If one kept quite still he could hear the soft babble of the little stream even from the piazza. Nearer by was a large elm-tree, so wide-spreading that the pair of Baltimore orioles who hung their swaying nest on one limb scarcely had a bowing acquaintance with the robins who lived on the other side. The air was full of pleasant scents, and Gladys followed her hosts willingly, far to the right side of the house, where a stone wall divided the grounds from a piece of woodland. Her cousins bounded over the wall, and she tried to find a safe spot for her dainty, thin shoe, the large doll impeding her movements. "Oh, let me take her!" cried Faith eagerly, seeing her cousin's predicament; and as she carefully lifted the beautiful Vera, she added: "Help Gladys over, Ernest." Ernest was very unused to girls who had to be helped, and he was rather awkward in trying to give his cousin assistance, but as Gladys tetered on the unsteady stones, she grasped his strong shoulder and jumped down. "Father and Ernest cleared this grove out for us," explained Faith. All the underbrush had been carried away and the straight, sweet-smelling pines rose from a carpet of dry needles. A hammock was swung between two trees. It was used more by the children's mother than by them, as they were too active to care for it; but Gladys immediately ran toward it, her recovered doll in her arms, and seated herself in the netting. Her cousins regarded her admiringly as she sat there pushing herself with her dainty shoe-tips. "I'll swing you," said Ernest, and running to her side began with such a will that Gladys cried out:-- "Oh, not so hard, not so hard!" and the boy dropped his hands, abashed. Now, while they were both standing before her, was a good time for Gladys to give them her great surprise; so she put her hands about Vera's waist, and at once "Ma-ma--Pa-pa" sounded in the still grove. Ernest pricked up his ears. "I hear a sheep," he said, looking about. Gladys flushed, but turning toward Faith for appreciation, she made the doll repeat her accomplishment. "It's that dear Vera!" cried Faith, falling on her knees in the pine needles before Gladys. "Oh, make her do it again, Gladys, please do!" Her visitor smiled and complied, pleased with her country cousin's delight. "Think of a doll that can talk!" cried Faith. "I think she bleats," laughed Ernest, and he mimicked Vera's staccato tones. Faith laughed, too, but Gladys gave him a flash of her brown eyes. "A boy doesn't know anything about dolls," said Faith. "I should think you'd be the happiest girl, Gladys!" "I am," returned Gladys complacently. "What sort of a doll have you, Faith?" "Rag, tag, and bobtail," laughed Ernest. "Now you keep still," said his sister. "I'll show you my dolls when we go to dinner, Gladys. I don't play with them very much because Ernest doesn't like to, and now it's vacation we're together a lot, you know; but I just love them, and if you were going to stay longer we'd have a lot of fun." Faith looked so bright as she spoke, Gladys wished she had brought something for her. She wasn't so sure about Ernest. He was a nice-looking, strong boy, but he had made fun of Vera. At present he was letting off some of his superfluous energy by climbing a tree. "Look out for the pitch, Ernest," said his sister warningly. "See, Gladys, I have a horse out here," and Faith went to where the low-growing limb of a pine sprang flexibly as she leaped upon it into an imaginary side-saddle. Gladys smiled at her languidly, as she bounded gayly up and down. "I have a pony," returned Gladys, rocking gently in her swinging cradle. "That must be splendid," said Faith. "Ernest rides our old Tom bareback around the pasture sometimes, but I can't." Very soon the children were called to dinner, and wonderfully good it tasted to Gladys, who took note of cottage cheese, apple-butter, and doughnuts, and determined to order them at home the very next day. As they were all rising from the table, a telegraph boy drove up in a buggy, and a telegram was handed to Ellen. Her face showed surprise as she read it, and she looked at aunt Martha. "Could we stay here a few days?" she asked. "What is it, Ellen?" demanded Gladys. "Your father's friend wants him and your mother to take a trip with him, and your mother thinks you might like to stay here a while. I'm to answer, and she will send some clothes and things." Aunt Martha had already learned to like good, sensible Ellen, and she replied cordially; so a telegram went back by the messenger boy, and Faith and Gladys both jumped up and down with pleasure at the prolonging of the visit. Ernest looked pleased, too. In spite of Gladys's rather languid, helpless ways, he admired her very much; so the children scampered away, being left this time on a chair in the parlor. "Do you like turtles?" asked Faith of the guest. "I don't know," returned Gladys. "Didn't you ever see any?" asked Ernest in astonishment. "I don't believe so." "Then come on!" cried the boy, with a joyous whoop. "We'll go turtle-hunting." Gladys skipped along with them until they reached the brook. "Now Ernest will walk on that side of the water," said Faith, "and you and I will go on this." "But what are we going to do?" "Watch for turtles. You'll see." Ernest jumped across the brook. Gladys walked along the soft grass behind Faith, and the bubbling little stream swirled around its stones and gently bent its grasses as it ran through the meadow. In a minute Faith's practiced eye caught sight of a dark object on a stone directly in front of them. It was a turtle sunning himself. His black shell was covered with bright golden spots, and his eyes were blinking slowly in the warm light. "Quick, Ernest!" cried Faith, for it was on his side. He sprang forward, but not quickly enough. The turtle had only to give one vigorous push of his hind feet and, plump, he fell into the water. Instantly the brook became muddy at that point, for Mr. Turtle knew that he must be a very busy fellow if he escaped from the eager children who were after him. He burrowed into the soft earth while Ernest and Faith threw themselves flat on their stomachs. Gladys opened her brown eyes wide to see her cousins, their sleeves stripped up, plunging their hands blindly about hoping to trap their reluctant playfellow. Ernest was successful, and bringing up the muddy turtle, soused him in the water until his golden spots gleamed again. "Hurrah!" cried Faith, "we have him. Let me show him to Gladys, please, Ernest," and the boy put the turtle into the hand stretched across to him. As soon as the creature found that kicking and struggling did not do any good, it had drawn head, legs, and tail into its pretty shell house. Faith put him into Gladys's hand, but the little city girl cried out and dropped him on the grass. "Oh, excuse me," laughed Faith. "I thought you wanted to see it." "I do, but I don't believe I want to touch it." "Why, they're the dearest, cleanest things," said Faith, and picking up the turtle she showed her cousin its pretty under shell of cream color and black, and the round splashes of gold on its black back. "But I saw it kicking and scratching Ernest, and putting its head way out," said Gladys doubtfully, "and I don't like to hold it because it might put out all its legs and things again." Faith laughed. "It only has four legs and a cunning little tail; and we know how to hold it so it can't scratch us, anyway; but it won't put out its head again until it thinks we've gone away, because this is an old one. See, the shell covers my hand all over. The littler ones are livelier and more willing to put out their heads. I don't believe we've had this one before, Ernest," added Faith, examining the creature. "We nearly always use the big ones for horses," she explained, "and then there's a gimlet hole through the shell." "Who would do that?" exclaimed Gladys, drawing back. "Ernest. Why!" observing her cousin's look of horror. "It doesn't hurt them. We wouldn't hurt them for anything. We just love them, and if they weren't geese they'd love us, too." "Use them for horses? What do you mean?" "Why, they draw my smallest dolls in lovely chariots." "Oh," returned Gladys. This sounded mysterious and interesting. She even took the clean, compact shell into her hands for a minute before Faith gathered up her dress skirt and dropped the turtle into it, the three proceeding along the brook side, taking up their watch again. The warm, sunny day brought the turtles out, and the next one they saw was not larger than the palm of Ernest's hand. It was swimming leisurely with the current. They all three saw it at once, but quick as Faith was, the lively little creature was quicker. As she and Ernest both darted upon it, it scrambled for her side and burrowed swiftly under the bank. This was the best stronghold for the turtle, and the children knew it. "I just can't lose him, I can't!" cried Faith, and Gladys wondered at the fearless energy with which she dived her hand into the mud, feeling around, unmindful which portion of the little animal she grasped if she only caught him; and catch him she did. With a squeal of delight she pulled out the turtle, who continued to swim vigorously, even when in mid air. "He's splendid and lively!" exclaimed Faith. "You can see him go on the grass, Gladys," and the little girl put the creature down, heading him away from the brook, and he made good time, thinking he was getting away from his captor. "You see, Ernest harnesses them to a little pasteboard box, and I put in my smallest dolls and we have more _fun_;" but by this time the turtle realized that he was traveling inland, and turned around suddenly in the opposite direction. "No, no, pet!" cried Faith gayly. "Not yet," and she picked up the lively one. "See, you hold them this way;" she held the shell between her thumb and middle finger and the sharp little claws sawed the air in vain. "There, cunning," she added, looking into the turtle's bright eyes, "go see your auntie or uncle, or whoever it is," and she put it into her dress with the other one, and they walked on. "I hope we shall find a prince," said Ernest, "Gladys ought to see one of those." "Yes, indeed," responded Faith. "They're snapping turtles, really, and they grow bigger than these common ones; but they're so handsome and hard to find we call them princes. Their shells are gray on top and smooth and polished, like satin; and then, underneath, oh, they're beautiful; sometimes plain ivory, and sometimes bright red; and they have lovely yellow and black splashes where the lower shell joins the upper. I wish you could see a baby turtle, Gladys. Once I found one no bigger than a quarter of a dollar. I don't believe it had ever been in the water." "I wish I could," returned Gladys, with enthusiasm. "I wouldn't be a bit afraid of a little, _little_ one." "Of course that one she found was just a common turtle, like these," said Ernest, "but a baby prince is the thing we want." "Yes, indeed," sighed Faith ecstatically. "If I could just once find a baby prince with a red under shell, I don't know what I'd do! I'd be too happy for anything. I've hunted for one for two whole summers. The big ones do snap so that, though they're so handsome, you can't have much fun with them." The children walked on, Gladys now quite in the spirit of the hunt. They found two more spotted turtles before they turned again to retrace their steps. Now it proved that this was to be a red-letter day in the history of their turtle hunts, for on the way home they found the much sought baby prince. He had been in this world long enough to become a polished little creature, with all his points of beauty brought out; but not long enough to be suspicious and to make a wild scramble when he saw the children coming. Faith's trained eyes fell first upon the tiny, dark object, sunning himself happily in all his baby innocence, and blinking at the lovely green world surrounding his shallow stone. Her heart beat fast and she said to herself, "Oh, I _know_ it's a common one!" She tiptoed swiftly nearer. It was not a common one. It was a prince! It _was_ a prince! She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, as, holding her skirt-bag of turtles with one hand, she lightly tiptoed forward, and, falling on her knees in front of the stone, gathered up the prince, just as he saw her and pushed with his tiny feet to slip off the rock into the brook. "Oh, oh, _oh_!" was all she could say as she sat there, swaying herself back and forth, and holding the baby to her flushed cheek. "What is it? What?" cried Ernest, jumping across the brook to her side. She smiled at him and Gladys without a word, and held up her prize, showing the pretty red under shell, while the baby, very much astonished to find himself turned over in mid air, drew himself into his house. "Oh, the cunning, _cunning_ thing!" cried Gladys, her eyes flashing radiantly. "I'm so glad we found him!" Gladys, like a good many beside herself, became fired with enthusiasm to possess whatever she saw to be precious in the sight of others. Yesterday, had she seen the baby prince in some store she would not have thought of asking her mother to buy it for her; but to-day it had been captured, a little wild creature for which Faith had been searching and hoping during two summers; and poor Gladys had been so busy all her life wondering what people were going to get for her, and wondering whether she should like it very well when she had it, that now, instead of rejoicing that Faith had such a pleasure, she began to feel a hot unrest and dissatisfaction in her breast. "He is a little beauty," she said, and then looked at her cousin and waited for her to present to her guest the baby turtle. "Why didn't I see it first?" she thought, her heart beating fast, for Faith showed no sign of giving up her treasure. "Do you suppose we could find another?" she asked aloud, making her wistfulness very apparent as they again took up the march toward home. "Well, I guess not," laughed Ernest. "Two of those in a day? I guess not. Let me carry it for you, Faith. You have to hold up your dress skirt." "Oh, thank you, Ernest, I don't mind, and he's _so_ cunning!" Ernest kept on with the girls, now, on their side of the brook. It would be an anti-climax to catch any more turtles this afternoon. "If I could find one," said Gladys, "I would carry it home for my aquarium." "Oh, have you an aquarium?" asked Faith with interest. "Yes, a fine one. It has gold and silver fish and a number of little water creatures, and a grotto with plants growing around it." "How lovely it must be," said Faith, and Gladys saw her press her lips to the baby prince's polished back. "She's an awfully selfish girl," thought Gladys. "I wouldn't treat company so for anything!" "You'll see the aquarium Faith and I have," said Ernest. "It's only a tub, but we get a good deal of fun out of it. It's our stable, too, you see. Did you notice we caught one of our old horses to-day? Let's see him, Faith," and Ernest poked among the turtles and brought out one with a little hole made carefully in the edge of his shell. "It seems very cruel to me," said Gladys, with a superior air. "Oh, it isn't," returned Faith eagerly. "We'd rather hurt each other than the turtles, wouldn't we, Ernest?" "I guess so," responded the boy, rather gruffly. He didn't wish Gladys to think him too good. "It doesn't hurt them a bit," went on Faith, "but you know turtles are lazy. They're all relations of the tortoise that raced with the hare in �sop's fable." Her eyes sparkled at Gladys, who smiled slightly. "And they aren't very fond of being horses, so we only keep them a day or two and then let them go back into the brook. I think that's about as much fun as anything, don't you, Ernest?" "Oh, I don't know," responded her brother, who was beginning to feel that all this turtle business was a rather youthful pastime for a member of a baseball team. "You see," went on Faith, "we put the turtles on the grass only a foot or two away from the brook, and wait." "And we do have to wait," added Ernest, "for they always retire within themselves and pull down the blind, as soon as we start off with them anywhere." "But we press a little on their backs," said Faith, "and then they put out their noses, and when they smell the brook they begin to travel. It's such fun to see them dive in, _ker-chug_! Then they scurry around and burrow in the mud, getting away from us, just as if we weren't willing they should. They are pretty silly, I must say," laughed Faith, "and it's the hardest thing to make them understand that you love them; but," her tone changed tenderly as she held up the baby prince, "_you'll_ know I love you, won't you, dear, when I give you tiny little pieces of meat every day!" The cloud on Gladys's face deepened. "Come on, let's hustle and put the turtles away and go for a row. Do you like to row, Gladys?" asked Ernest. "Yes, I guess so," she responded, rather coldly. They ran up the hill to the side of the house where was a shallow tub of water with a rock in the middle, its top high and dry. There was also a floating shingle; so the steeds could swim or sun themselves just as suited their fancy. The upper edge of the tub was covered with tin so that sharp little claws could not find a way to climb out. "It's fun to see them go in," said Faith, placing one on the rock and one on the shingle, where they rested at first without sign of life; but in a minute out came head and legs and, spurning the perches with their strong feet, plump the turtles went into the water and to the bottom, evidently convinced that they were outwitting their captors. "Don't you want to choose one special one for yours, Gladys? It's fun to name them," said Faith. The visitor hesitated only a moment. "I choose the baby, then," she said. "You know I'm afraid of the big ones." Ernest thought she was joking. It did not occur to him that any one who had seen Faith's happiness in finding the prince could seriously think of taking it from her. "Yes," he laughed, "I guess you and I won't get a chance at that one, Gladys." Faith's expression changed and her eyes grew thoughtful. "Hurry up, girls," continued Ernest, "come on, we won't have very much time." So the turtles, prince and all, were left disporting themselves in the tub, and the trio went down to the pond, where Ernest untied his boat. Faith jumped in, but Gladys timorously placed her little foot upon the unsteady gunwale, and the children had to help her into the boat as they had done over the wall. "I wish I'd brought Vera," she said when she was seated and Ernest was pushing the boat off. "Next time we will," replied Faith. "I don't see why Ernest couldn't go back for her now," said Gladys. "I'm not used to walking so much and I'm too tired to go myself." "You want me to run up the hill after a _doll_!" asked the boy, laughing. He began to believe his pretty cousin was very fond of joking. "Something might happen to her before you saw her," he added mischievously. The pond was a charming sheet of water. Trees lined its edges in summer, and it was a great place for sport in winter. Faith and Ernest chattered to their cousin of all the coasting and skating, and their bright faces and jolly stories only increased the uncomfortable feeling that Gladys had allowed to slip into her heart. Her cousins had more fun than she did. It wasn't fair. She had no eyes for the pretty scenery about her, as Ernest's strong arms sent the boat flying along. Faith noticed her changed looks and for the first time wondered how it was going to seem to have Gladys to take care of for--they couldn't tell how long; but she only tried the harder to bring back the bright look her cousin had worn at dinner time. In a few minutes Gladys began to rock the boat from side to side. "Don't do that, please," said Ernest. There was a tone of command in his voice, and the spoiled child only rocked the harder. "None of that, I tell you, Gladys," he said sharply. "Please don't," added Faith. But the error that Gladys had let creep in was enjoying her cousin's anxiety, and she smiled teasingly as she went on rocking. She had condescended to come out to the farm, and she would let these country children see if they could order her about. Ernest said no more, but he promptly turned the boat around and pulled for the shore. "What are you doing?" asked Gladys. "Going ashore." "I don't want to," she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing. "I want to go up there." She pointed to a spot in the distance. "I want to go around that corner and see what there is there." "Not to-day," replied Ernest, pulling sturdily. We won't look into Gladys's heart and see what went on there then, because it is too unpleasant. "You see we're the crew," said Faith, a little scared by her cousin's flashing eyes and crimson cheeks. "We have to do what Ernest says. He knows a lot about boats, Gladys, and it _is_ dangerous to rock. The pond is real deep." "I shall come out in the boat alone, then," declared Gladys. "Oh, no, you won't," remarked Ernest, smiling. "People that rock boats need a keeper." Faith's eyes besought him, "I'll take you out to-morrow if you'll promise to sit still," he went on; "but if anything happened to the boat, you see I couldn't save both of you, and I'd be likely to try to save Faith; so you'd better go ashore now and think it over." Gladys stared at him in utter amazement that any one could speak to her so. Why had she ever come to the farm! However, she quickly put on a little air of indifference and only said:-- "How silly to be so afraid!" All she cared for now was to get to Ellen and pour out her troubles, and she was quite silent while she jumped ashore, although the wavering boat made her clutch Faith's hand hard. Tender-hearted Faith felt very sorry for her cousin, so she began talking about Vera as they went up the hill saying how anxious she was to hear her speak again. "I'll never let you!" exclaimed that strong error that had taken possession of Gladys, but her lips set tight and she was glad to see Ellen come out on the piazza. As the children approached they saw that the maid had something bright in her hand, and that she was smiling. "Well, Gladys," she said, "your mother's sent a trunk, and this was with your clothes. What do you think of that? I expect your mother thought you might like to have it." Gladys recognized the silver bowl with satisfaction. She was glad to have Faith and Ernest see the sort of things she was used to. "Oh, it looks like a wishing bowl," cried Faith in admiration. "It is a solid silver bowl that my grandmother sent me for my birthday," remarked Gladys coolly, and she took it from Ellen. "Let's see what it says on it," said Faith, and she read the inscription aloud. Then she added: "It does look just like the wishing bowl in our story." "What was that?" asked Gladys. "Why, it was a bright, beautiful silver bowl with a cover, and all you had to do if you wanted something was to say:-- Pretty little silver dish, Give me, pray, my dearest wish; and then, when you took off the cover, whatever you had asked for was in the bowl!" Gladys shrugged her shoulders. Then she took hold of Ellen's hand and drew her into the house and closed the door after them. Faith and Ernest did not attempt to follow. They sat down on the steps and looked at one another. "She's hopping, isn't she?" said Ernest softly. "Oh, dear," returned Faith dejectedly, "and it all began with the baby prince." "What do you mean?" "She wants him for her aquarium." Ernest paused a minute to think over his cousin's words and actions; then he broke out indignantly; "Well, she won't get him." "I have hunted for him so long!" mourned Faith, "and his shell is so red; but, Ernest, didn't you notice what it said on that bowl?" "Yes, I did; but Gladys is a great baby and she isn't going to get everything. Tell her you'll exchange the prince for that baa-ing doll of hers, if you like it. I tell you what, Faith, I've had about enough of her after that boat business. If she's going to stay on here I shall go off with the fellows." Meanwhile Gladys had seized the beautiful Vera and drawn Ellen off upstairs to their room. The maid saw the signs of storm in her face, and her own grew troubled, for it was one thing to vex Gladys and quite another to appease her. "I'm not going to stay here," announced the little girl, as soon as the door was closed, her breath coming fast. "Faith and Ernest are the most selfish, impolite children I ever saw!" Ellen sighed, and, sitting down, drew the child into her lap. She continued excitedly: "We went turtle-hunting and found a lot of scrabbly things that I couldn't bear, but Faith and Ernest like them. Then when we found a pretty little young one that I wouldn't be a bit afraid of, Faith kept it for herself. Just think, when I was company, and she had all the others beside. I'm just crazy to have it, and they're _very_ hard to find and we can't _ever_ find another. Shouldn't you think she'd feel ashamed? Then when, we went out in the boat, just because I moved around a little and made the boat rock, Ernest brought us in when I didn't want to come a bit. I even _told_ him I didn't want to come in, because I wanted to see a part of the pond that looked pretty, but he brought us just the same. Did you ever _hear_ of such impoliteness?" Ellen had had too much experience with the little girl not to know that there was another side to this story; but she gathered Gladys down in her arms with the curly head on her shoulder, and, while a few hot tears fell from the brown eyes, she rocked her, and it comforted the little girl's sore places to feel her nurse's love. "I'm glad Ernest brought you in," said Ellen, after a minute of silent rocking. "If anything happened to you, you know that would be the last of poor Ellen. I could never go back to town." Gladys gave a sob or two. "These children haven't nearly so much as you have," went on Ellen quietly. "Perhaps Faith was as happy over the little turtle as you are over your talking doll. She hasn't any rich mother to give her things, you know." "They have _lots_ of things. They have a great deal more fun in winter than I do," returned Gladys hotly. Ellen patted her. "You have too much, Gladys," she replied kindly. "When I said this morning that you were unlucky, you couldn't understand it; but perhaps this visit to the farm will make you see differently. There's such a thing as having too much, dear, and that sentence on your silver bowl is as true as true. Now there's the supper bell. Let me wash your face." Gladys was deeply offended, but she was also hungry, and she began to wonder if there would be apple-butter and cottage cheese again. There was, and the little girl did full justice to the supper, especially to aunt Martha's good bread and butter; but when the meal was over she refused to go out and romp on the lawn with her cousins. "Gladys isn't used to so much running around," said Ellen pleasantly to the other children. "I guess she's a pretty sleepy girl and will get into bed early." So when Ellen had helped aunt Martha with the supper dishes, Gladys went upstairs with her, to go to bed. She was half undressed when some one knocked softly, and Faith came into the room. The silver bowl stood on a table near the door, and the little girl paused to look at it and examine the wreath of roses around its edge. "I never saw one so handsome," she said. Then she came forward. "I thought perhaps you'd let me see you undress Vera," she added. "She is undressed," answered Gladys shortly. "Oh, yes!" Faith went up to the bed where the doll lay in its nightdress. "May I make her speak once?" "No, I'm afraid you might hurt her," returned Gladys shortly, and Ellen gave her a reproachful look. Gladys didn't care! How could a girl expect to be so selfish as Faith, and then have everybody let her do just what she wanted to? Faith drew back from the bed. "I wish you'd let me see you wish once on your bowl before I go away," she said. "How silly," returned Gladys. "Do you suppose I believe in such things? You can wish on it yourself, if you like." "Oh, that wouldn't be any use," returned Faith eagerly, "because it only works for the one it belongs to." "Perhaps you wouldn't like to have me make a wish and get it," said Gladys, thinking of the baby prince's lovely polished tints and bewitching little tail. "Yes, I would. I'd _love_ to. Do, Gladys, do, and see what happens." Gladys curved her lips scornfully, but the strong wish sprang in her thought, and with a careless movement she pulled off the silver cover. Her mouth fell open and her eyes grew as big as possible; for she had wished for the prince, and there he was, creeping about in the bowl and lifting his little head in wonder at his surroundings. "Why, Faith!" was all she could say. "Where did it come from?" "The brook, of course," returned Faith, clapping her hands in delight at her cousin's amazement. "Take him out and let's see whether he's red or plain ivory underneath." "Will he scrabble?" asked Gladys doubtfully. "No-o," laughed Faith. So the little city girl took up the turtle and lo, he was as beautiful a red as the one of the afternoon. "Isn't he lovely!" she exclaimed, not quite liking to look her cousin in the eyes. "Where shall I put him for to-night?" "We'll put a little water in your wash-bowl, not much, for they are so smart about climbing out." Ellen, also, was gazing at the royal infant. "He is a pretty little thing," she said, "but for pity's sake, Faith, fix it so he won't get on to my bare feet!" Later, when they were alone and Ellen kissed Gladys good-night, she looked closely into her eyes "Now you're happier, I suppose," she said. "Of course. Won't he be cunning in my aquarium?" asked Gladys, returning her look triumphantly. "Yes." Vera was in bed, also, and to please the child, Ellen stooped and kissed the doll's forehead, too. "God be good," she said gently, "to the poor little girl who gets everything she wants!" A few minutes after the light was out and Ellen had gone, Gladys pulled Vera nearer to her. "Wasn't that a silly sort of thing for Ellen to say?" she asked. "I don't think so," returned Vera. Gladys drew back. "Did you answer me?" she said. "Certainly I did." "Then you really can talk!" exclaimed Gladys joyfully. "At night I can," said Vera. "Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so glad!" and Gladys hugged her. "I'm not so sure that you will be," returned Vera coolly. "Why not?" "Because I have to speak the truth. You know my name is Vera." "Well, I should hope so. Did you suppose I wouldn't want you to speak the truth?" Gladys laughed. "Yes. You don't hear it very often, and you may not like it." "Why, what a thing to say!" "Ellen tries, sometimes, but you won't listen." Gladys kept still and her companion proceeded: "She knows all the toys and books and clothes and pets that you have at home, and she sees you forgetting all of them because Faith has just one thing pretty enough for you to wish for." By this time Gladys had found her tongue. "You're just as impolite as you can be, Vera!" she exclaimed. "Of course. You always think people are impolite who tell you the truth; but I explained to you that I have to. Who was impolite when you rocked the boat, although Ernest asked you not to?" "He was as silly as he could be to think there was any danger. Don't you suppose I know enough not to rock it too far? And then think how impolite he was to say right out that he would save Faith instead of me if we fell into the water. I can tell you my father would lock him up in prison if he didn't save me." "Well, you aren't so precious to anybody else," returned Vera. "Why would people want a girl around who thinks only of herself and what she wants. I'm sure Faith and Ernest will draw a long breath when you get on the cars to go back." "Oh, I don't believe they will," returned Gladys, ready to cry. "What have you done to make them glad you came? You didn't bring them anything, although you knew they couldn't have many toys, and it was because you were so busy thinking how much lovelier your doll was than anything Faith could have. Then the minute Faith found one nice thing"-- "Don't say that again," interrupted Gladys. "You've said it once." "You behaved so disagreeably that she had to give it to you." "You have no right to talk so. The prince came up from the brook, Faith said so." "Oh, she was playing a game with you and she knew you understood. It isn't pleasant to have to say such things to you, Gladys, but I'm Vera and I have to--I shouldn't think you could lift your head up and look Faith and Ernest in the face to-morrow morning. What must Ernest think of you!" Gladys's cheeks were very hot. "Didn't you see how glad Faith was when she gave--I mean when I found the prince in the bowl? I guess you haven't read what it says on that silver cover or you wouldn't talk so." "Oh, yes, I have. That's truth, too, but you haven't found it out yet." "Well, I wish I had brought them something," said Gladys, after a little pause. "Why," with a sudden thought, "there's the wishing-bowl. I'll get something for them right now!" She jumped out of bed, and striking a match, lighted the candle. Vera followed her, and as Gladys seated herself on one side of the little table that held the silver bowl, Vera climbed into a chair on the other side. Gladys looked into her eyes thoughtfully while she considered. She would give Faith something so far finer than the baby prince that everybody would praise her for her generosity, and no one would remember that she had ever been selfish. Ah, she knew what she would ask for! "For Faith first," she said, addressing Vera, then looking at the glinting bowl she silently made her wish, then with eager hand lifted off the cover. Ah! Ah! What did she behold! A charming little bird, whose plumage changed from purple to gold in the candle light, stood on a tiny golden stand at the bottom of the bowl. Gladys lifted it out, and as soon as it stood on her hand, it began to warble wonderfully, turning its head from side to side like some she had seen in Switzerland when she was there with her mother. "Oh, Vera, isn't it _sweet_!" she cried in delight. "Beautiful!" returned Vera, smiling and clapping her little hands. When the song ceased Gladys looked thoughtful again. "I don't think it's a very appropriate present for Faith," she said, "and I've always wanted one, but we could never find one so pretty in our stores." Vera looked at her very soberly. "Now you just stop staring at me like that, Vera. I guess it's mine, and I have a right to keep it if I can think of something that would please Faith better. Now let me see. I must think of something for Ernest. I'll just give him something so lovely that he'll wish he'd bitten his tongue before he spoke so to me in the boat." Gladys set the singing bird in her lap, fixed her eyes on the bowl, and again decided on a wish. Taking off the cover, a gold watch was seen reposing on the bottom of the bowl. "That's it, that's what I wished for!" she cried gladly, and she took out the little watch, which was a wonder. On its side was a fine engraving of boys and girls skating on a frozen pond. Gladys's bright eyes caught sight of a tiny spring, which she touched, and instantly a fairy bell struck the hour and then told off the quarters and minutes. "Oh, it's a repeater like uncle Frank's!" she cried, "and so small, too! Mother said I couldn't have one until I was grown up. Won't she be surprised! I don't mean to tell her for ever so long where I got it." "I thought it was for Ernest," remarked Vera quietly. "Why, Vera," returned the child earnestly, "I should think you'd see that no boy ought to have a watch like that. If it was a different _kind_ I'd give it to him, of course." "Yes, if it wasn't pretty and had nothing about it that you liked, you'd give it to him, I suppose; and if the bird couldn't sing, and had dark, broken feathers so that no child would care about it, you'd give it to Faith, no doubt." Gladys felt her face burn. She knew this was the truth, but oh, the entrancing bird, how could she see it belong to another? How could she endure to see Ernest take from his pocket this watch and show people its wonders! "Selfishness is a cruel thing," said Vera. "It makes a person think she can have a good time being its slave until all of a sudden the person finds out that she has chains on that cannot be broken. You think you can't break that old law of selfishness that makes it misery to you to see another child have something that you haven't. Poor, unhappy Gladys!" "Oh, but this bird, Vera!" Gladys looked down at the little warbler. What did she see! A shriveled, sorry, brown creature, its feathers broken. She lifted it anxiously. No song was there. Its poor little beady eyes were dull. She dropped it in disgust and again picked up the watch. What had happened to it? The cover was brass, the picture was gone. Pushing the spring had no effect. "Oh, Faith and Ernest can have them now!" cried Gladys. Presto! in an instant bird and watch had regained every beauty they had lost, and twinkled and tinkled upon the astonished child's eyes and ears until she could have hugged them with delight; but suddenly great tears rolled from her eyes, for she had a new thought. "What does this mean, Vera? Will they only be beautiful for Faith and Ernest?" "You asked for them to enjoy the blessing of giving, you know, not to keep for yourself. Beside, they showed a great truth when they grew dull." "How?" asked Gladys tearfully. "That is the way they would look to you in a few months, after you grew tired of them; for it is the punishment of the selfish, spoiled child, that her possessions disgust her after a while. There is only one thing that lives, and remains bright, and brings us happiness,--that is thoughtful love for others. There's nothing else, Gladys, there is nothing else. I am Vera." "And I have none of it, none!" cried the unhappy child, and rising, she threw herself upon the bed, broken-hearted, and sobbed and sobbed. Ellen heard her and came in from the next room. "What is it, my lamb, what is it?" she asked, approaching the bed anxiously. "Oh, Ellen, I can't tell you. I can never tell you!" wailed the child. "Well, move over, dearie. I'll push Vera along and there'll be room for us all. There, darling, come in Ellen's arms and forget all about it." Gladys cuddled close, and after a few more catches in her breath, she slept soundly. When she wakened, the sunlight was streaming through the plain room, gilding everything as it had done in her rose and white bower yesterday at home. Ellen was moving about, all dressed. Gladys turned over and looked at Vera, pretty and innocent, her eyes closed and her lips parted over little white teeth. The child came close to the doll. The wonderful dream returned vividly. "Your name is Vera. You had to," she whispered, and closed her eyes. "How is the baby prince?" she asked, after a minute, jumping out of bed. "He's lively, but I expect he's as hungry as you are. What's he going to have?" "Meat," replied Gladys, looking admiringly at the pretty little creature. "I brought in my wash-bowl for your bath. I suppose princes can't be disturbed," said Ellen. While she buttoned Gladys's clothes, the little girl looked at the silver bowl, and the chairs where she and Vera had sat last night in her dream. She even glanced about to see some sign of watch and bird, but could not find them. How busily her thoughts were working! Sensible Ellen said nothing of bad dreams; and by the time Gladys went downstairs, her face looked interested and happy. After all, it wasn't as though there wasn't any God to help a person, and she had said a very fervent prayer, with her nose buried in Vera's golden curls, before she jumped out of bed. She had the satin shell of the baby prince in her hand. He had drawn into it because he was very uncertain what was going to happen to him; but Gladys knew. She said good-morning to her cousins so brightly that Faith was pleased; but pretty as she looked, smiling, Ernest saw the prince in her hand and was more offended with her than ever. "I want to thank you, Faith," she said, "for letting the baby stay in my room all night. I had the most fun watching him while I was dressing." She put the little turtle into her cousin's hand. "Oh, but I gave him to you," replied Faith earnestly. "After you hunted for him for two summers, I couldn't be so mean as to take him. I'm just delighted you found him, Faith," and Gladys had a very happy moment then, for she found she _was_ happy. "Let's give him some bits of meat." "She's all right," thought Ernest, with a swift revulsion of feeling, and he was as embarrassed as he was astonished when his cousin turned suddenly to him:-- "If you'll take me in the boat again," she said, "I won't rock. I'm sorry I did." "It _is_ a fool trick," blurted out Ernest, "but you're all right, Gladys. I'll take you anywhere you want to go." Ellen had heard this conversation. Later in the morning she was alone for a minute with Gladys, and the little girl said:-- "Don't you think it would be nice, Ellen, when we get home, to make up a box of pretty things and send to Faith and Ernest?" "I do, that," replied the surprised Ellen. "I'm going to ask mother if I can't send them my music-box. They haven't any piano." "Why, you couldn't get another, Gladys." "I don't care," replied the child firmly. "It would be so nice for evenings and rainy days." She swallowed, because she had not grown tired of the music box. Ellen put her hands on the little girl's brow and cheeks and remembered the sobbing in the night. "Do you feel well, Gladys?" she asked, with concern. This unnatural talk alarmed her. "I never felt any better," replied the child. "Well, I wouldn't say anything to them about the music-box, dearie." Gladys smiled. "I know. You think I'd be sorry after I let it go; but if I am I'll talk with Vera." Ellen laughed. "Do you think it will always be enough for you to hear her say 'Ma-ma, Pa-pa?'" she asked. Gladys smiled and looked affectionately at her good friend; but her lips closed tightly together. Ellen knew all that Vera did; but the nurse loved her still! The child was to have many a tussle with the hard mistress whose chains she had worn all her short life, but Truth had spoken, and she had heard; and Love was coming to help in setting her free. CHAPTER XIII A HEROIC OFFER Jewel told her grandfather the tale of The Talking Doll while they walked their horses through a favorite wood-road, Mr. Evringham keeping his eyes on the animated face of the story-teller. His own was entirely impassive, but he threw in an exclamation now and then to prove his undivided attention. "_You_ know it's more blessed to give than to receive, don't you, grandpa?" added Jewel affectionately, as she finished; "because you're giving things to people all the time, and nobody but God can give you anything." "I don't know about that," returned the broker. "Have you forgotten the yellow chicken you gave me?" "No," returned Jewel seriously; "but I've never seen anything since that I thought you would care for." Mr. Evringham nodded. "I think," he said confidentially, "that you have given me something pretty nice in your mother. Do you know, I'm very glad that she married into our family." "Yes, indeed," replied Jewel, "so am I. Just supposing I had had some other grandpa!" The two shook their heads at one another gravely. There were some situations that could not be contemplated. "Why do you suppose I can't find any turtles in my brook?" asked the child, after a short pause. "Mother says perhaps they like meadows better than shady ravines." "Perhaps they do; but," and the broker nodded knowingly, "there's another reason." "Why, grandpa, why?" asked Jewel eagerly. "Oh, Nature is such a neat housekeeper!" "Why, turtles must be lovely and clean." "Yes, I know; and if Summer would just let the brook alone you might find a baby turtle for Anna Belle." "She'd love it. Her eyes nearly popped out when mother was telling about it." "Well, there it is, you see. Now I'd be ashamed to have you see that brook in August, Jewel." Mr. Evringham slapped the pommel of his saddle to emphasize the depth of his feelings. "Why, what happens?" "Dry--as--a--bone!" "It _is_?" "Yes, indeed. We shan't have been long at the seashore when Summer will have drained off every drop of water in that brook." "What for?" "House-cleaning, of course. I suppose she scrubs out and sweeps out the bed of that brook before she'll let a bit of water come in again." "Well, she _is_ fussy," laughed Jewel. "Even Mrs. Forbes wouldn't do that." "I ask you," pursued Mr. Evringham, "what would the turtles do while the war was on?" "Why, they couldn't live there, of course. Well, we won't be here while the ravine is empty of the brook, will we, grandpa? I shouldn't like to see it." "No, we shall be where there's 'water, water everywhere.' Even Summer won't attempt to houseclean the bottom of the sea." Jewel thought a minute. "I wish she wouldn't do that," she said wistfully; "because turtles would be fun, wouldn't they, grandpa?" Mr. Evringham regarded her quizzically. "I see what you want me to do," he replied. "You want me to give up Wall Street and become the owner of a menagerie, so you can have every animal that was ever heard of." Jewel smiled and shook her head. "I don't believe I do yet. We'll have to wait till everybody loves to be good." "What has that to do with it?" "Then the lions and tigers will be pleasant." "Will they, indeed?" Mr. Evringham laughed. "All those good people won't shut them up in cages then, I fancy." "No, I don't believe they will," replied Jewel. "But about those turtles," continued her grandfather. "How would you like it next spring for me to get some for you for the brook?" Jewel's eyes sparkled. "Wouldn't that be the most _fun_?" she returned,--"but then there's summer again," she added, sobering. "What's the reason that we couldn't drive with them to the nearest river before the brook ran dry?" "Perhaps we could," replied Jewel hopefully "Doesn't mother tell the _nicest_ stories, grandpa?" "She certainly does; and some of the most wonderful you don't hear at all. She tells them to me after you have gone to bed." "Then you ought to tell them to me," answered Jewel, "just the way I tell mine to you." Mr. Evringham shook his head. "They probably wouldn't make you open your eyes as wide as I do mine; you're used to them. They're Christian Science stories. Your mother has been treating my rheumatism, Jewel. What do you think of that?" "Oh, I'm glad," replied the child heartily, "because then you've asked her to." "How do you know I have?" "Because she wouldn't treat you if you hadn't, and mother says when people are willing to ask for it, then that's the beginning of everything good for them. You know, grandpa," Jewel leaned toward him lovingly and added softly, "you know even _you_ have to meet mortal mind." "I shouldn't wonder," responded the broker dryly. "And it's so proud, and hates to give up so," said Jewel. "I'm an old dog," returned Mr. Evringham. "Teaching me new tricks is going to be no joke, but your mother undertakes it cheerfully. I'm reading that book, 'Science and Health;' and she says I may have to read it through three times before I get the hang of it." "I don't believe you will, grandpa, because it's just as _plain_," said the child. "You'll help me, Jewel?" "Yes, indeed I will;" the little girl's face was radiant. "And won't Mr. Reeves be glad to see you coming to church with us?" "I don't know whether I shall ever make Mr. Reeves glad in that way or not. I'm doing this to try to understand something of what you and your mother are so sure of, and what has made a man of your father. More than that, if there is any eternity for us, I propose to stick to you through it, and it may be more convenient to study here than off in some dim no-man's-land in the hereafter. If I remain ignorant, who can tell but the Power that Is will whisk you away from me by and by." Jewel gathered the speaker's meaning very well, and now she smiled at him with the look he loved best; all her heart in her eyes. "He wouldn't. God isn't anybody to be afraid of," she said. "Why, it tells us all through the Bible to fear God." "Yes, of course it tells us to fear to trouble the One who loves us the best of all. Just think how even you and I would fear to hurt one another, and God is keeping us _alive_ with _his_ love!" Half an hour afterward their horses cantered up the drive toward the house. Mrs. Evringham was seated on the piazza, sewing. Her husband had sent the summer wardrobe promptly, and she wore now a thin blue gown that looked charmingly comfortable. "Genuine!" thought her father-in-law, as he came up the steps and met a smiling welcome from her clear eyes. He liked the simple manner in which she dressed her hair. He liked her complexion, and carriage, and voice. "I don't know but that you have the better part here on the piazza, it is so warm," he said, "but I have been thinking of you rather remorsefully this afternoon, Julia. These excursions of Jewel's and mine are growing to seem rather selfish. Have you ever learned to ride?" "Never, and I don't wish to. Please believe how supremely content I am." "My carriages are small. It is so long since I've had a family. When we return I shall get one that will hold us all." "Oh, yes, grandpa," cried Jewel enthusiastically. "You and I on the front seat, driving, and mother and father on the back seat." "Well, we have more than two months to decide how we shall sit. I fancy it will oftener be your father and mother in the phaeton and you and I on our noble steeds, eh, Jewel?" "Yes, I think so, too," she returned seriously. Mr. Evringham smiled slightly at his daughter. "The occasions when we differ are not numerous enough to mention," he remarked. "I hope it may always be so," she replied, going on with her work. "This looks like moving," observed the broker, wiping his forehead with his pocket-handkerchief and looking about on the still, green scene. "I think we had better plan to go to the shore next week." Julia smiled and sighed. "Very well, but any change seems as if it might be for the worse," she said. "Then you've never tried summer in New Jersey," he responded. "I hear you are a great story-teller, Julia. If I should wear some large bows behind my ears, couldn't I come to some of these readings?" As no laugh from Jewel greeted this sally, he looked down at her. She was gazing off wistfully. "What is it, Jewel?" he asked. "I was wondering if it wouldn't seem a long time to Essex Maid and Star without us!" "Dear me, dear me, how little you do know those horses!" and the broker shook his head. "Why, grandpa? Will they like it?" "Do you suppose for one minute that you could make them stay at home?" "Are they going with us, grandpa?" Jewel began to hop joyfully, but her habit interfered. "Certainly. They naturally want to see what sort of bits and bridles are being worn at the seashore this year." "Do you realize what unfashionable people you are proposing to take, yourself, father?" asked Julia. She was visited by daily doubts in this regard. The broker returned her glance gravely. "Have you ever seen Jewel's silk dress?" he asked. The child beamed at him. "She _made_ it!" she announced triumphantly. "Then you must know," said Mr. Evringham, "that it would save any social situation." Julia laughed over her sewing. "My machine came to-day," she said. "I meant to make something a little fine, but if we go in a few days"-- "Don't think of it," replied the host hastily. "You are both all right. I don't want you to see a needle. I'm sorry you are at it now." "But I like it. I really do." "I'm going to take you to the coolest place on Long Island, but not to the most fashionable." "That is good news," returned Julia, "Run along, Jewel, and dress for dinner." "In one minute," put in Mr. Evringham. "She and I wish your opinion of something first." He disappeared for a moment into the house and came back with a flat package which Jewel watched with curious eyes while he untied the string. Silently he placed a photograph in his daughter's lap while the child leaned eagerly beside her. "Why, why, how good!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham, and Jewel's eyes glistened. "Isn't grandpa's nose just splendid!" she said fervently. "Why, father, this picture will be a treasure," went on Julia. Color had risen in her face. The photograph showed Jewel standing beside her grandfather seated, and her arm was about his neck. It was such a natural attitude that she had taken it while waiting for the photographer to be ready. The daisy-wreathed hat hung from her hand, and she had not known when the picture was taken. It was remarkably lifelike, and the broker regarded it with a satisfaction none the less keen because he let the others do all the talking. "And now we don't need it, grandpa," said the child. "Oh, indeed we do!" exclaimed the mother; and Jewel, catching her grandfather's eyes, lifted her shoulders. What did her mother know of their secret! Mr. Evringham smoothed his mustache. "No harm to have it, Jewel," he replied, nodding at her. "No harm; a very good plan, in fact; for I suppose, even to oblige me, you can't refrain from growing up. And next we must get Star's picture, with you on his back." "But you weren't on Essex Maid's," objected Jewel. "We'll have it taken both ways, then. It's best always to be on the safe side." From this day on there was no more chance for Jewel to hear a tale in the Story Book, until the move to the seashore was accomplished, for hot weather had evidently come to stay in Bel-Air Park. Mrs. Evringham felt loath to leave its green, still loveliness and her large shady rooms; but the New Jerseyite's heat panic had seized upon her father-in-law, and he pushed forward the preparations for flight. "I can't pity you for remaining here," Julia said to Mrs. Forbes on the morning of departure. "No, ma'am, you don't need to," returned the housekeeper. "Zeke and I are going off on trips, and we, calculate to have a pretty good time of it. I've been wanting to speak to you, Mrs. Evringham, about a business matter," continued Mrs. Forbes, her manner indicating that she had constrained herself to make an effort. "Mr. Evringham tells me you and Mr. Harry are to make your home with him. It's a good plan," emphatically, "as right as right can be; for what he would do without Jewel isn't easy to think of; but it's given me a lot to consider. I won't be necessary here any more," the housekeeper tried to conceal what the statement cost her. She endeavored to continue, but could not, and Julia saw that she did not trust her voice. "Mr. Evringham has not said that, I am sure," she returned. "No, and he never would; but that shouldn't prevent my doing right. You can take care of him and his house now, and I wanted to tell you that I see that, plainly, and am willing to go when you all come back. I shall have plenty of time this summer to turn around and make my plans. There's plenty of work in this world for willing hands to do, and I'm a long way off from being worn out yet." "I'm so glad you spoke about this before we left," replied Mrs. Evringham, smiling on the brave woman. "Father has said nothing to me about it, and I am certain he would as soon dispense with one of the supports of the house as with you. We all want to be busy at something, and I have a glimmering idea of what my work is to be; and I think it is not housekeeping. I should be glad to have our coming disturb father's habits as little as possible, and certainly neither you or I should be the first to speak of any change." Mrs. Forbes bit her lip. "Well," she returned, "you see I knew it would come hard on him to ask me to go, and I wanted you both to know that I'd see it reasonably." "It was good of you," said Julia; "and that is all we ever need to be sure of--just that we are willing to be led, and then, while we look to God, everything will come right." The housekeeper drank in the sweet expression of the speaker's eyes, and smiled, a bit unsteadily. "Of course I'd rather stay," she replied. "Transplanting folks is as hard and risky as trees. You can't ever be sure they'll flourish in the new ground; but I want to do right. I've been reading some in Zeke's book, 'Science and Health,' and there was one sentence just got hold of me:[1] 'Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error--self-will, self-justification, and self-love!' Jewel's helped me to dissolve enough so I could face handing over the keys of this house to her mother. I'm not saying I could have offered them to everybody." [Footnote 1: _S. and H._, page 242.] Mrs. Evringham smiled. "Thank you. I hope it isn't your duty to give them, nor mine to take them. We'll leave all that to father. My idea is that he would send us all back to Chicago rather than give you up--his right hand." Mrs. Forbes's face relaxed, and she breathed more freely than for many days. As she took her way out to the barn to report this conversation to Zeke, her state of mind agreed with that of her employer when he declared his pleasure that Julia had married into the family. CHAPTER XIV ROBINSON CRUSOE A long stretch of white, fine sandy beach, packed hard; an orderly procession of waves, each one breaking in seething, snowy foam that ran or crept after a child's bare feet as she skipped back and forth, playing with them; that was Long Island to Jewel. Of course there was a village and on its edge a dear, clean old farmhouse where they all lived, and in whose barn Essex Maid and Star found stables. Then there were rides every pleasant day, over cool, rolling country, and woods where one was as liable to find shells as flowers. There were wide, flat fields of grain, above which the moon sailed at night; each spot had its attraction, but the beach was the place where Jewel found the greatest joy; and while Mr. Evringham, in the course of his life, had taken part to the full in the social activities of a summer resort where men are usually scarce and proportionately prized, it can be safely said that he now set out upon the most strenuous vacation of his entire career. It was his habit in moments of excitement or especial impressiveness to address his daughter-in-law as "madam," and on the second morning after their arrival, as she was sitting on the sand, viewing the great bottle-green rollers that marched unendingly landward, she noticed her father-in-law and Jewel engaged in deep discussion, where they stood, between her and the water. Mr. Evringham had just come to the beach, and the incessant noise of the waves made eavesdropping impossible; but his gestures and Jewel's replies roused her curiosity. The child's bathing-suit was dripping, and her pink toes were submerged by the rising tide, when her grandfather seized her hand and led her back to where her mother was sitting. "Madam," he said, "this child mustn't overdo this business. She tells me she has been splashing about for some time, already." "And I'm not a bit cold, mother," declared Jewel. "H'm. Her hands are like frogs' paws, madam. I can see she is a perfect water-baby and will want to be in the waves continually. She says you are perfectly willing. Then it is because you are ignorant. She should go in once a day, madam, once a day." "Oh, grandpa!" protested Jewel, "not even wade?" "We'll speak of that later; but put on your bathing-suit once a day only." Mr. Evringham looked down at the glowing face seriously. Jewel lifted her wet shoulders and returned his look. "Put it on in the morning, then, and keep it on all day?" she suggested, smiling. "At the proper hour," he went on, "the bathing master is here. Then you will go in, and your mother, I hope." "And you, too, grandpa?" "Yes, and I'll teach you to jump the waves. I taught your father in this very place when he was your age." "Oh, goody!" Jewel jumped up and down on the warm sand. "What fun it must have been to be your little boy!" she added. Mr. Evringham refrained from looking at his daughter-in-law. He suspected that she knew better. "Look at all this white sand," he said. "This was put here for babies like you to play with. Old ocean is too big a comrade for you." "I just love the foam," returned the child wistfully, "and, oh, grandpa," eagerly, "I tasted of it and it's as _salt_!" Mr. Evringham smiled, looking at his daughter. "Yes," said Julia. "Jewel has gone into Lake Michigan once or twice, and I think she was very much surprised to find that the Atlantic did not taste the same." "Sit down here," said Mr. Evringham, "and I'll show you what your father used to like to do twenty-five years ago." Jewel sat down, with much interest, and watched the speaker scoop out a shallow place in the sand and make a ring about it. "There, do you see these little hoppers?" Julia was looking on, also. "Aren't they cunning, Jewel?" she exclaimed. "Exactly like tiny lobsters." "Only they're white instead of red," replied the child, and her grandfather smiled and caught one of the semi-transparent creatures. "Lobsters are green when they're at home," he said. "It's only in our homes that they turn red." "Really?" "Yes. There are a number of things you have to learn, Jewel. The ocean is a splendid playmate, but rough. That is one of the things for you to remember." "But I can wade, can't I? I want to build so many things that the water runs up into." "Certainly, you can take off your shoes and stockings when it's warm enough, as it is this morning, if your mother is willing you should drabble your skirts; but keep your dress on and then you won't forget yourself." Jewel leaned toward the speaker affectionately. "Grandpa, you know I'm a pretty big girl. I'll be nine the first of September." "Yes, I know that." "Beside, you're going to be with me all the time," she went on. "H'm. Well, now see these sand-fleas race." "Oh, are they sand-fleas? Just wait for Anna Belle." The child reached over to where the doll was gazing, fascinated, at the advancing, roaring breakers. Her boa and plumed hat had evidently been put away from the moths. She wore a most becoming bathing costume of blue and white, and a coquettish silk handkerchief was knotted around her head. It was evident that, in common with some other summer girls, she did not intend to wet her fetching bathing-suit, and certainly it would be a risk to go into the water wearing the necklace that now sparkled in the summer sun. "Come here, dearie, and see the baby lobsters," said Jewel, holding her child carefully away from her own glistening wetness, and seating her against Mrs. Evringham's knee. "If lobsters could hop like this," said Mr. Evringham, "they would be shooting out of the ocean like dolphins. Now you choose one, Jewel, and we'll see which wins the race. We're going to place them in the middle of the ring, and watch which hops first outside the circle." Jewel chuckled gleefully as she caught one. "Oh, mother, aren't his eyes funny! He looks as _surprised_ all the time. Now hop, dearie," she added, as she placed him beside the one Mr. Evringham had set down. "Which do you guess, Anna Belle? She guesses grandpa's will beat." "Well, I guess yours, Jewel," said her mother; but scarcely were the words spoken when Anna Belle's prophecy was proved correct by the airy bound with which one of the fleas cleared the barrier while Jewel's choice still remained transfixed. They all laughed except Anna Belle, who only smiled complacently. Jewel leaned over her staring protégée. "If I only knew _what_ you were so surprised at, dearie, I'd explain it to you," she said. Then she gently pushed the creature, and it sped, tardily, over the border. They pursued this game until the bathing-suit was dry; then Mr. Evringham yawned. "Ah, this bright air makes me sleepy. Haven't you something you can read to us, Julia?" "Yes, yes," cried Jewel, "she brought the story-book." "But I didn't realize it would be so noisy. I could never read aloud against this roaring." "Oh, we'll go back among the dunes. That's easy," returned Mr. Evringham. "You don't want to hear one of these little tales, father," said Julia, flushing. "Why, he just loves them," replied Jewel earnestly. "I've told them all to him, and he's just as _interested_." Mrs. Evringham did not doubt this, and she and the broker exchanged a look of understanding, but he smiled. "I'll be very good if you'll let me come," he said. "I forgot the ribbon bows, but perhaps you'd let me qualify by holding Anna Belle. Run and get into your clothes, Jewel, and I'll find a nice place by that dune over yonder." Fifteen minutes afterward the little party were comfortably ensconced in the shade of the sand hill whose sparse grasses grew tall about them. Jewel began pulling on them. "You'll never pull those up," remarked Mr. Evringham. "I believe their roots go down to China. I've heard so." "Anna Belle and I will dig sometime and see," replied Jewel, much interested. "There are only two stories left," said Mrs. Evringham, who was running over the pages of the book. "And let grandpa choose, won't you?" said Jewel. "Oh, yes," and the somewhat embarrassed author read the remaining titles. "I choose Robinson Crusoe, of course," announced Mr. Evringham. "This is an appropriate place to read that. I dare say by stretching our necks a little we could see his island." "Well, this story is a true one," said Julia. "It happened to the children of some friends of mine, who live about fifty miles from Chicago." Then she began to read as follows:-- ROBINSON CRUSOE "I guess I shall like Robinson Crusoe, mamma!" exclaimed Johnnie Ford, rushing into his mother's room after school one day. "You would be an odd kind of boy if you did not," replied Mrs. Ford, "and yet you didn't seem much pleased when your father gave you the book on your birthday." "Well, I didn't care much about it then, but Fred King says it is the best story that ever was, and he ought to know; he rides to school in an automobile. Say, when'll you read it to me? Do it now, won't you?" "If what?" corrected Mrs. Ford. "Oh, if you please. You know I always mean it." "No, dear, I don't think I will. A boy nine years old ought to be able to read Robinson Crusoe for himself." Johnnie looked startled, and stood on one leg while he twisted the other around it. "If you have a pleasant object to work for, it will make it so much the easier to study," continued Mrs. Ford, as she handed Johnnie the blue book with a gold picture pressed into its side. Johnnie pouted and looked very cross. "It's a regular old trap," he said. [Illustration: TRUDGING ALONG BEFORE HIM] "Yes, dear, a trap to catch a student;" and pretty Mrs. Ford's low laugh was so contagious that Johnnie marched out of the room, fearing he might smile in sympathy; but he soon found that leaving the room was not escaping from the fascinating Crusoe. Up to this time Johnnie had never taken much interest in school-books beyond scribbling on their blank margins. Was it really worth while, he wondered, "to buckle down" and learn to read? He knew just enough about the famous Crusoe to make him wish to learn more, so he finally decided that it was worth while, if only to impress Chips Wood, his next-door neighbor and playmate, a boy a year younger than himself, whom Johnnie patronized out of school hours. So he worked away until at last there came a proud day when he carried the blue and gold wonder book into Chips' yard, and, seated beside his friend on the piazza step, began to read aloud the story of Robinson Crusoe. It would be hard to tell which pair of eyes grew widest and roundest as the tale unfolded, and when Johnnie, one day, laid the book down, finished, two sighs of admiration floated away over Mrs. Wood's crocus bed. "Chips, I'd rather be Robinson Crusoe than a king!" exclaimed Johnnie. "So would I," responded Chips. "Let's play it." "But we can't both be Crusoes. Wouldn't you like to be Friday?" asked Johnnie insinuatingly, "he was so nice and black." "Ye-yes," hesitated Chips, who had great confidence in Johnnie's judgment, but whose fancy had been taken by the high cap and leggings in the golden picture. "Then I've got a plan," and Johnnie leaned toward his friend's ear and whispered something under cover of his hand, that opened the younger boy's eyes wider than ever. "Now you mustn't tell," added Johnnie aloud, "'cause that wouldn't he like men a hit. Promise not to, deed and double!" "Deed and double!" echoed Chips solemnly, for that was a very binding expression between him and Johnnie. For several days following this, Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Ford were besieged by the boys to permit them to earn money; and Mrs. Ford, especially, was astonished at the way Johnnie worked at clearing up the yard, and such other jobs as were not beyond his strength; but, inquire as she might into the motive of all this labor, she could only discover that Chips and Johnnie wished to buy a hen. "Have you asked father if you might keep hens?" she inquired of Johnnie, but he only shook his head mysteriously. Chips' mother found him equally uncommunicative. She would stand at her window which overlooked the Fords' back yard, and watch the boys throw kindling into the shed, or sweep the paths, and wonder greatly in her own mind. "Bless their little hearts, what can it all be about?" she questioned, but she could not get at the truth. Suddenly the children ceased asking for jobs, and announced that they had all the money they cared for. The day after this announcement was the first of April. When Mr. Ford came home to dinner that day, he missed Johnnie. "I suppose some of his schoolmates have persuaded him to stay and share their lunch," explained Mrs. Ford. She had scarcely finished speaking when Mrs. Wood came in, inquiring for Chips. "I have not seen him for two hours," she said, "and I cannot help feeling a little anxious, for the children have behaved so queerly lately." "I know," returned Mrs. Ford, beginning to look worried. "Why, do you know, Johnnie didn't play a trick on one of us this morning. I actually had to remind him that it was April Fools' Day." Mr. Ford laughed. "How woe-begone you both look! I think there is a very simple explanation of the boys' absence. Chips probably went to school to meet Johnnie, who has persuaded him to stay during the play hour. I will drive around there on my way to business and send Chips home." The mothers welcomed this idea warmly; and in a short time Mr. Ford set out, but upon reaching the school was met with the word that Johnnie had not been seen there at all that morning. Then it was his turn to look anxious. He drove about, questioning every one, until he finally obtained a clue at the meat market where he dealt. "Your little boy was in here this morning about half past ten, after a ham. He wouldn't have it charged; said 'twas for himself," said the market-man, laughing at the remembrance. "He didn't have quite enough money to pay for it, but I told him I guessed that would be all right, and off they went, him and the little Wood boy, luggin' that ham most as big as they was." "Then they were together. Which way did they go?" "Straight south, I know, 'cause I went to the door and watched 'em. You haven't lost 'em, have you?" "I hope not," and Mr. Ford sprang into his buggy, and drove off in the direction indicated, occasionally stopping to inquire if the children had been seen. To his great satisfaction he found it easy to trace them, thanks to the ham; and a little beyond the outskirts of the town he saw a promising speck ahead of him on the flat, white road. As he drew nearer, the speck widened and heightened into two little boys trudging along before him. His heart gave a thankful bound at sight of the dear little legs in their black stockings and knee breeches, and leaving his buggy by the side of the road, he walked rapidly forward and caught up with the boys, who turned and faced him as he approached. Displeased as he was, Mr. Ford could hardly resist a hearty laugh at the comical appearance of the runaways. Chips carried the big, heavy ham, and Johnnie was keeping firm hold of a hen, who stretched her neck and looked very uncomfortable in her quarters under his arm. "Why, father!" exclaimed Johnnie, recovering from a short tussle with the poor hen, "how funny that you should be here." "No stranger than that you should be here, I think. Where, if I have any right to ask, are you going?" "To Lake Michigan," replied Johnnie composedly. "Oh, I do wish this old hen would keep still!" "Then you have fifty miles before you," said Mr. Lord. "Yes, sir," replied Johnnie, "but it would have been a thousand miles to the ocean, you know." "Ha, ha, ha!" roared Mr. Ford, mystified, but unable to control himself any longer at sight of Johnnie and the hen, and patient-faced Chips clutching the ham. "I am glad you don't mind, father," said Johnnie. "I thought it would be so nice for you and mother and Mrs. Wood not to have Chips and me to worry about any more." "It was very thoughtful of you," replied Mr. Ford, remembering the anxious faces at home. "And what are you going to do at Lake Michigan?" "Take a boat and go away and get wrecked on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe," responded Johnnie glibly, at the same time hitching the hen up higher under his arm. "And how about Chips?" "Oh, I'm Man Friday," chirped Chips, his poor little face quite black enough for the character. "I am so sorry we had to tell you so soon," said Johnnie. "We were keeping it a secret until we got to the lake; then we were going to send you a letter." Mr. Ford looked gravely into his son's grimy face. It was an honest face, and Johnnie had always been a truthful boy, and just now seemed only troubled by the restless behavior of his hen; so the father rightly concluded that the blue and gold book had captivated him into the belief that what he and Chips were doing was admirable and heroic. "What part is the hen going to play?" asked the gentleman. "Is she going to help stock your island?" "Oh, no, but we couldn't get along without her, because she's going to lay eggs along the way." "Lay eggs?" "Yes, for our lunch. At first we weren't going to take anything but the hen, but Chips said he liked ham and eggs better'n anything, so we decided to take it." Another pause; then Mr. Ford said: "You both look tired, haven't you had enough of it? I'm going home now." "No, no," asserted the boys. "And have you thought of your mothers, whom you didn't even kiss good-by?" Johnnie stood on one leg and twisted the other foot around it, after his manner when troubled. "I thought you knew, Johnnie, that nothing ever turns out right when you undertake it without first consulting mother." "I wish now I'd kissed mine good-by," observed Friday thoughtfully. "Come, we'll go back together," said Mr. Ford quietly, moving off as he spoke, "and we will see what Mrs. Wood and mother have to say on the subject." Johnnie and Chips followed slowly. "Father," said the former emphatically, "I can't be happy without being wrecked, and I do hope mother won't object." His father made no reply to this, and three quarters of an hour afterward the children jumped out of the buggy into their mothers' arms, and as they still clung to their lunch, the ham and the hen came in for a share of the embracing, which the hen objected to seriously, never having been hugged before this eventful day. "Never mind, mother," said Johnnie patronizingly, "father'll tell you all about it while I go and put Speckle in a safe place." So the boys went, and Mr. Ford seated himself in an armchair, and related the events of the afternoon to the ladies, adding some advice as to the manner of making the boys see the folly of their undertaking. Mrs. Wood and Chips took tea at the Fords' that evening, and the boys, once delivered from the necessity of keeping their secret, rattled on incessantly of their plans; talked so much and so fast, in fact, that their parents were not obliged to say anything, which was a great convenience, as they had nothing they wished to say just then. It had been a mild first of April, and after supper the little company sat out on the piazza for a time. "As Johnnie and Chips will be obliged to spend so many nights out of doors on their way to Lake Michigan, it will be an excellent plan to begin immediately," said Mr. Ford. "You'll like to spend the night out here, of course, boys. To be sure, it will be a good deal more comfortable than the road, still you can judge by it how such a life will suit you." Johnnie looked at Chips and Chips looked at Johnnie; for the exertions of the day had served to make the thought of their white beds very inviting; but Mr. Ford and the ladies talked on different subjects, and took no notice of them. At last the evening air grew uncomfortably cool, and the grown people rose to go in. "Good-night, all," said Mrs. Wood, starting for home. Chips watched her down to the gate. "Aren't you going to kiss me good-night?" he called. "Of course, if you want me to," she answered, turning back, "but you went away this morning without kissing me, you know." Then she kissed him and went away; and in all his eight years of life little Man Friday had never felt so forlorn. Johnnie held up his lips sturdily to bid his father and mother good-night. "I think we are going to have a thunder-storm, unseasonable as it will be," remarked Mr. Ford pleasantly, standing in the doorway. "Well, I suppose you won't mind it. Good luck to you, boys!" then the heavy front door closed. Johnnie had never before realized what a clang it made when it was shut. The key turned with a squeaking noise, a bolt was pushed with a solid thud; all the windows came banging down, their locks were made fast, and Johnnie and Chips felt literally, figuratively, and every other way left out in the cold. There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute; then Chips spoke. "Your house is splendid and safe, isn't it, Johnnie?" "Yes, it is." "I wonder where we'd better lie down," pursued Chips. "I'm sleepy. Let's play we're Crusoe and Friday now." "Oh, we can't," responded Johnnie impatiently, "not with so many com--" he was going to say comforts, but changed his mind. The night was very dark, not a twinkling star peeped down at the children, and the naked branches of the climbing roses rattled against the pillars to which they were nailed, for the wind was rising. The boys sat down on the steps and Chips edged closer to his companion. "I think it was queer actions in my mother," he said, "to leave me here without any shawl or pillow or anything." A little chill crept over Johnnie's head from sleepiness and cold. "Our mothers don't care what happens to us," he replied gloomily. The stillness of the house and the growing lateness of the hour combined to make him feel that if being wrecked was more uncomfortable than this, he could, after all, be happy without it. "What do you think?" broke in the shivering Man Friday. "Mamma says ham isn't good to eat if it isn't cooked." "And that's the meanest old hen that ever lived!" returned Crusoe. "She hasn't laid an egg since I got her." A distant rumble sounded in the air. "What's that?" asked Chips. "Well, I should think you'd know that's thunder," replied Johnnie crossly. "Oh, yes," said little Chips meekly, "and we're going to get wet." They were both quiet for another minute, while the wind rose and swept by them. "I really think, Johnnie," began Chips apologetically, "that I'm not big enough to be a good Man Friday. I think to-morrow you'd better find somebody else." "No, indeed," replied Johnnie feelingly. "I'd rather give up being wrecked than go off with any one but you. If you give up, I shall." The rain began to patter down. "If you don't like to get wet, Chips, I'd just as lieves go and ring the bell as not," he added. A sudden sweep of wind nearly tipped the children over, for they had risen, undecidedly. "No," called Chips stoutly, to be heard above the blast. "I'll be Friday till to-morrow." His last word sounded like a shout, for the wind suddenly died. "What do you scream so for?" asked Johnnie impatiently; but the storm had only paused, as it were to get ready, and now approached swiftly, gathering strength as it came. It swept across the piazza, taking the children's breath away and bending the tall maple in front of the house with such sudden fury that a branch snapped off; then the wind died in the distance with a rushing sound and the breaking tree was illumined by a flash of lightning. "I think, Johnnie," said Chips unsteadily, "that God wants us to go in the house." A peal of thunder roared. "I've just thought," replied Johnnie, keeping his balance by clutching the younger boy as tightly as Chips was clinging to him, "that perhaps it wasn't right for us to run off the way we did, without getting any advice." They strove with the wind only a few seconds more, then, with one accord, struggled to the door where one rang peal after peal at the bell, while the other pounded sturdily. Johnnie didn't stop then to wonder how his father could get downstairs to open the door so quickly. Mrs. Ford, too, seemed to have been waiting for the pair of heroes, and she took them straight to Johnnie's room, where she undressed them in silence and rolled them into bed. They said their prayers and were asleep in two minutes, while the storm howled outside. Then, in some mysterious way, Mrs. Wood came into the room, and the three parents stood watching the unconscious children. "That's the last of one trial with those boys, I'm sure," said Mr. Ford, laughing, and he was right; for it was years before any one heard either Johnnie or Chips mention Robinson Crusoe or his Man Friday. CHAPTER XV ST. VALENTINE After that day when, on the lee side of the sand-dune the Evringham family read together the story of Johnnie and Chips, it was some time before the last tale in the story book was called for. The farmhouse where they boarded stood near a pond formed by the rushing in of the sea during some change in the sands of the beach, so here was still another water playmate for Jewel. "I do hope," said Mr. Evringham meditatively, on the first morning that he and Jewel stood together on its green bank, "I do hope that very particular housekeeper, Nature, will let this pond alone until we go!" Jewel looked up at his serious face with the lines between the eyes. "She wouldn't touch this great big pond, would she?" she asked. "Ho! Wouldn't she? Well, I guess so." "But," suggested Jewel, lifting her shoulders, "she's too busy in summer in the ravines and everywhere." "Oh," Mr. Evringham nodded his head knowingly. "Nature looks out for everything." "Grandpa!" Jewel's eyes were intent. "Would she ask Summer to touch this great big pond? What would she want to do it for?" "Oh, more house-cleaning, I suppose." The child chuckled as she looked out across the blue waves, rippling in the wind and white-capped here and there, "When you know it's washed all the _time_, grandpa," she responded. "The waves are just scrubbing it now. Can't you see?" "Yes," the broker nodded gravely. "No doubt that is why she has to empty it so seldom. Sometimes she lets it go a very long time; but then the day comes when she begins to think it over, and to calculate how much sediment and one thing and another there is in the bottom of that pond; and at last she says, 'Come now, out it must go!'" "But how can she get it out, how?" asked Jewel keenly interested. "The brooks are all running somewhere, but the pond doesn't. How can she dip it out? It would take Summer's hottest sun a year!" "Yes, indeed, Nature is too clever to try that. The winds are her servants, you know, and they understand their business perfectly; so when she says 'That pond needs to be cleaned out,' they merely get up a storm some night after everybody's gone to bed. The people have seen the pond fine and full when the sun went down. All that night the wind howls and the windows rattle and the trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse, instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they might see countless billows working for dear life to dig a trench through the hard sand. The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, until, after hours of this labor, the cut is made completely through from sea to pond." Mr. Evringham looked down and met the unwinking gaze fixed upon him. "Then why--why," asked Jewel, "when the big rollers keep coming, doesn't the pond get filled fuller than ever?" The broker lifted his forefinger toward his face with a long drawn "Ah-h! Nature is much too clever for _that_. She may not have gone to college, but she understands engineering, all the same. All this is accomplished just at the right moment for the outgoing tide to pull at the pond with a mighty hand. Well,"--pausing dramatically,--"you can imagine what happens when the deep cut is finished." "Does the pond have to go, grandpa?" "It just does, and in a hurry!" "Is it sorry, do you think?" asked Jewel doubtfully. "We-ell, I don't know that I ever thought of that side of it; but you can imagine the feelings of the people in the farmhouse, who went to bed beside the ripples of a smiling little lake, and woke to find themselves near a great empty bog." Jewel thought and sighed deeply. "Well," she said, at last, "I hope Nature will wait till we're gone. I love this pond." "Indeed I hope so, too. There wouldn't be any pleasant side to it." Jewel's thoughtful face brightened. "Except for the little fishes and water-creatures that would rush out to sea. It's fun for _them_. Mustn't they be surprised when that happens, grandpa?" "I should think so! Do you suppose the wind gives them any warning, or any time to pack?" Jewel laughed. "I don't know; but just think of rushing out into those great breakers, when you don't expect it, right from living so quietly in the pond!" "H'm. A good deal like going straight from Bel-Air Park to Wall Street, I should think." Jewel grew serious. "I think fish have the most _fun_," she said. "Do you know, grandpa, I've decided that if I couldn't be your little grandchild, I'd rather be a lobster than anything." The broker threw up his head, laughing. "Some children could combine the two," he replied, "but you can't." "What?" asked Jewel. "Nothing. Why not be a fish, Jewel? They're much more graceful." "But they can't creep around among the coral and peek into oyster shells at the pearls." "Imagine a lobster peeking!" Mr. Evringham strained his eyes to their widest and stared at Jewel, who shouted. "That's just the way the sand-fleas look," she exclaimed. "Well," remarked the broker, recovering his ordinary expression, "you may as well remain a little girl, so far as that goes. You can creep around among the coral and peek at pearls at Tiffany's." "What's Tiffany's?" "Something you will take more interest in when you're older." The broker shook his head. "The difference is that the lobster wouldn't care to wear the coral and pearls. An awful thought comes over me once in a while, Jewel," he added, after a pause. The child looked up at him seriously. "It can be met," she answered quickly. He smiled. He understood her peculiar expressions in these days. "Hardly, I think," he answered. "It is this: that you are going to grow up." Jewel looked off at the blue water. "Well," she replied at last hopefully, "you're grown up, you know, and perhaps you'll like me then just as much as I do you." He squeezed the little hand he held. "We'll hope so," he said. "And besides, grandpa," she went on, for she had heard him express the same dread before, "we'll be together every day, so perhaps you won't notice it. Sometimes I've tried to see a flower open. I've known it was going to do it, and I've been just _bound_ I'd see it; and I've watched and watched, but I never could see when the leaves spread, no matter how much I tried, and yet it would get to be a rose, somehow. Perhaps some day somebody'll say to you, 'Why, Jewel's a grown up lady, isn't she?' and you'll say, 'Is she, really? Why, I hadn't noticed it.'" "That's a comforting idea," returned Mr. Evringham briefly, his eyes resting on the upturned face. "So now, if the pond won't run away, we'll have the most _fun_," went on Jewel, relieved. "They _said_ we could take this boat, grandpa, and have a row." She lifted her shoulders and smiled. "H'm. A row and a swim combined," returned the broker. "I'm surprised they've nothing better this year than that ramshackle boat. You'll have to bail if we go." "What's bail?" eagerly. "Dipping out the water with a tin cup." "Oh, that'll be fun. It'll be an adventure, grandpa, won't it?" "I hope not," earnestly, was the reply; but Jewel was already sitting on the grass pulling off her shoes and stockings. She leaped nimbly into the wet boat, and Mr. Evringham stepped gingerly after her, seeking for dry spots for his canvas shoes. "I think," said the child joyfully, as they pushed off, "when the winds and waves notice us having so much fun, they'll let the pond alone, don't you?" "If they have any hearts at all," responded Mr. Evringham, bending to the oars. "Oh, grandpa, you can tell stories like any thing!" exclaimed Jewel admiringly. "It has been said before," rejoined the broker modestly. * * * * * When outdoor gayeties had to be dispensed with one day, on account of a thorough downpour of rain, the last story in Jewel's book was called for. The little circle gathered in the big living-room; there was no question now as to whether Mr. Evringham should be present. "It is Hobson's choice this time," said Mrs. Evringham, "so we'll all choose the story, won't we?" "Let Anna Belle have the turn, though," replied Jewel. "She chose the first one and she must have the last, because she doesn't have so much fun as the rest of us." She hugged the doll and kissed her cheeks comfortingly. It was too true that often of late Anna Belle did not accompany all the excursions, but she went to bed with Jewel every night, and it was seldom that the child was too sleepy to take her into full confidence concerning the events of the day; and Anna Belle, being of a sedentary turn and given to day dreams, was apparently quite as well pleased. Now Mr. Evringham settled in a big easy-chair; the reader took a small one by the window, and Jewel sat on the rug before the fire, holding Anna Belle. "Now we're off," said Mr. Evringham. "Go to sleep if you like, father," remarked the author, smiling, and then she began to read the story entitled ST. VALENTINE There was a little buzz of interest in Miss Joslyn's room in the public school, one day in February, over the arrival of a new scholar. Only a very little buzz, because the new-comer was a plain little girl as to face and dress, with big, wondering eyes, and a high-necked and long-sleeved gingham apron. "Take this seat, Alma," said Miss Joslyn; and the little girl obeyed, while Ada Singer, the scholar directly behind her, nudged her friend, Lucy Berry, and mimicked the stranger's surprised way of looking around the room. The first day in a new school is an ordeal to most children, but Alma felt no fear or strangeness, and gazed about her, well pleased with her novel surroundings, and her innocent pleasure was a source of great amusement to Ada. "Isn't she queer-looking?" she asked of Lucy, as at noon they perched on the window-sill in the dressing-room, where they always ate their lunch together. "Yes, she has such big eyes," assented Lucy. "Who is she?" "Why, her mother has just come to work in my father's factory. Her father is dead, or in prison, or something." "Oh, no!" exclaimed a voice, and looking down from their elevated seat the girls saw Alma Driscoll, a big tin dinner-pail in her hand, and her cheeks flushing. "My father went away because he was discouraged, but he is coming back." Ada shrugged her shoulders and took a bite of jelly-cake. "What a delicate appetite you must have," she said, winking at Lucy and looking at the big pail. "Oh, it isn't full; the things don't fit very well," replied Alma, taking off the cover and disclosing a little lunch at the bottom; "but it was all the pail we had." Then she sat down on the floor of the dressing-room and took out a piece of bread and butter. "Well, upon my word, if that isn't cool!" exclaimed Ada, staring at the brown gingham figure. Alma looked up mildly. She had come to the dressing-room on purpose to eat her lunch where she could look at Lucy Berry, who seemed beautiful to Alma, with her brown eyes, red cheeks, and soft cashmere dress, and it never occurred to her that she could be in the way. Ada turned to Lucy with a curling lip. "I should hate to be a third party, shouldn't you?" she asked, so significantly that even Alma couldn't help understanding her. Tears started to the big eyes as the little girl dropped her bread back into the hollow depths of the pail, replaced the cover, and went away to find a solitary corner, with a sorer spot in her heart than she had ever known. "Oh, why did you say that, Ada?" exclaimed Lucy, making a movement as if to slip down from the window-seat and follow. "Don't you go one step after her, Lucy Berry," commanded Ada. "My mother doesn't want me to associate with the children of the factory people. She'll find plenty of friends of her own kind." "But you hurt her feelings," protested Lucy. "Oh, no, I didn't," carelessly; "besides, if I did, she'll forget all about it. I had to let her know that she couldn't stay with us. Do you want a stranger like that to hear everything we're saying?" "I feel as if I ought to go and find her and see if she has somebody to eat with." "Very well, Lucy. If you go with her, I can't go with you, that's all. You can take your choice." The final tone in Ada's voice destroyed Lucy's courage. The little girls were very fond of one another, and Lucy was entirely under strong-willed Ada's influence. Ada was a most attractive little person. Her father, the owner of the factory, was the richest man in town; and to play on Ada's wonderful piano, where you had only to push with your feet to play the gayest music, or to ride with her in her automobile, were exciting joys to her friends. She always had money in her pocket, and boxes of candy for the entertainment of other children, and Lucy was proud of her own position as Ada's intimate friend. So when it came to making a choice between this brilliant companion and the gingham-clad daughter of a factory hand, Lucy Berry's courage and sympathy oozed away, and she sat back on the window-seat, while Ada began talking about something else. This first school-day was Alma Driscoll's introduction into the world outside of her mother's love. She had never felt so lonely as when surrounded by all these girls, each of whom had her intimate friend, and among whom she was not wanted. She could not help feeling that she was different from the others, and day by day the wondering eyes grew shy and lonely; and she avoided the children out of school hours, bravely hiding from her mother that the gingham apron, which always hid her faded dress, seemed to her a badge of disgrace that separated her from her daintily dressed schoolmates. Such was the state of affairs when St. Valentine's day dawned. Alma's two weeks of school had seemed a little eternity to her; but this day she could feel that there was something unusual in the air, and she could not help being affected by the pleasurable excitement afloat in the room. She knew what the big white box by the door was for, and when, after school, Miss Joslyn was appointed to uncover and distribute the valentines, Alma found herself following the crowd, until, pressed close to Lucy Berry's side, she stood in the centre of the merry group about the teacher. While the dainty envelopes were being passed around her, a shade of wistfulness crept over the child's face, and her eager fingers crumpled the checked apron as though Alma feared they might otherwise touch the beautiful valentines that shone so enticingly with red and blue, gold and silver. Suddenly Miss Joslyn spoke her name,--Alma Driscoll; only she said "Miss Alma Driscoll," and, yes, there was no mistake about it, she had read it off one of those vine-wreathed envelopes. "Did you ever see such a goose!" exclaimed Ada Singer, as she watched the mixture of shyness and eagerness with which Alma took her valentine and opened the envelope. Poor little Alma! How her heart beat as she unfolded her prize--and how it sank when she beheld the coarse, flaring picture of a sewing girl, with a disgusting rhyme printed beneath it. She dropped the valentine, a great sob of disappointment choked her, and bursting into tears, she pushed her way through the crowd and rushed from the schoolroom. "What is the meaning of that?" asked Miss Joslyn. For answer some one handed her the picture. The young lady glanced at it, then tore it in pieces as she looked sadly around on her scholars. "Whoever sent this knows that Alma's mother works in the factory," she said. "It makes me ashamed of my whole school to think there is one child in it cruel enough to do this thing;" then, amid the silent consternation of the scholars, Miss Joslyn rose, and leaving the half-emptied box, went home without another word. "What a fuss about nothing," said Ada Singer. "The idea of crying because you get a 'comic!' What else could Alma Driscoll expect?" Lucy Berry's cheeks had been growing redder all through this scene, and now she turned upon Ada. "She has a right to expect a great deal else," she returned excitedly, "but we've all been so hateful to her it's a wonder if she did. I wish I'd been kind to her before," she continued, her heart aching with the remembrance of the little lonely figure, and the big, hollow dinner-pail; "but I'm going to be her friend now, always, and you can be friends with us or not, just as you please;" and turning from the astonished Ada, Lucy Berry marched out of the schoolroom, fearing she should cry if she stayed, and sure that if there were any more beauties for her in the white box, her stanch friend, Frank Morse, would take care of them for her. Among the valentines she had already received was one addressed in his handwriting, and she looked at it as she walked along. "It's the handsomest one I ever saw," she thought, lifting a rose here, and a group of cupids there, and reading the tender messages thus disclosed. "I know what I'll do!" she exclaimed aloud. "I'll send it to Alma. Frank won't care," and covering the valentine in its box, she started to run, and turned a corner at such speed that she bumped into somebody coming at equal or greater speed, from the opposite direction. A passer-by just then would have been amused to see a boy and girl sitting flat on the sidewalk, rubbing their heads and staring at one another. "Lucy Berry!" "Frank Morse!" "What's up?" "Nothing. Something's down, and it's me." "Well, excuse me; but I guess you haven't seen any more stars than I have. I don't care anything for the Fourth now, I've seen enough fireworks to last me a year." Both children laughed. "You've got grit, Lucy," added Frank, jumping up and coming to help her. "Most girls would have boo-hooed over that." "Oh, I wouldn't," returned the little girl, springing to her feet. "I'm too excited." "Well, what _is_ up?" persisted Frank. "I skipped out of the side door to try to meet you." "Well, you did," laughed Lucy. "Oh, Frank, I don't know how I can laugh," she pursued, sobering. "I don't deserve to, ever again." "What is it? Something about that Driscoll kid? She was crying. I was back there and I didn't hear what Miss Joslyn said; but I saw her leave, and then you, and I thought _I_'d go to the fire, too, if there was one." "Oh, there is," returned Lucy, "right in here." She grasped the waist of her dress over where her heart was beating hard. Frank Morse was older than herself and Ada, and she knew that he was one of the few of their friends whose good opinion Ada cared for. To enlist him on Alma's side would mean something. "Is Ada still there?" she added. "Yes, she took charge of the valentine box after Miss Joslyn left." "Oh, Frank, do you suppose she could have sent Alma the 'comic'?" Genuine grief made Lucy's voice unsteady. "Supposing she did," returned Frank stoutly. "Is that what Big-Eyes was crying about? I hate people to be touchy and blubber over a thing like that." "You don't know. Her mother works in the factory, and this was a horrid picture making fun of it. Think of your own mother earning your living and being made fun of." "Ada wouldn't do that," replied Frank shortly. "What made you think of such a thing?" "It was error for me to say it," returned Lucy, with a meek groan. "I've been doing error things ever since Alma came to school. Oh, Frank, you're a Christian Scientist, too. You must help me to get things straight." "You don't need to be a Christian Scientist to see that it wasn't a square deal to send the kid that picture." "No, I know it; but when Alma first came, Ada said her mother didn't allow her to go with girls from the factory, and so I stopped trying to be kind to Alma, because Ada wouldn't like me if I did; and it's been such mesmerism, Frank." The boy smiled. "Do you remember the stories your mother used to tell us about the work of the error-fairies?" "Indeed I do. My head's just been full of it the last fifteen minutes. I've done nothing for two weeks but give the error-fairies backbones, and I don't care what happens to me, or how much I'm punished, if I can only do right again." "Who's going to punish you?" asked Frank, not quite seeing the reason for so much feeling. "Ada. We've always had so much fun, and now it's all over." "Oh, I guess not. Ada Singer's all right." Lucy didn't think so. She was convinced that her friend had done this last unkindness to Alma, and it was the shock of that discovery that was causing a portion of her suffering now. Frank and Lucy talked for a few minutes longer, and it was agreed that the former should return to the school and get any other valentines that should be there for Lucy and himself; then, as soon as it grew dark, they would run to the Driscoll cottage with an offering. Late that afternoon three mothers were called to interviews with three little girls. Lucy Berry surprised hers by rushing in where Mrs. Berry was seated, sewing. "Oh!" exclaimed the little girl, "I'm so sorry all over, mother!" "Then you must know why you can't be," returned Mrs. Berry, looking up at the flushed face and seeing something there that made her put aside her work. Lucy usually considered herself too large to sit in her mother's lap, but now she did so, and flinging her arms around her neck, poured out the whole story. "To think that Ada _could_ send it!" finished Lucy, with one big sob. "Be careful, be careful. You don't know that she did," replied Mrs. Berry. "'Thou shalt not bear false witness.'" "Oh, I do _hope_ she didn't," responded Lucy, "but Ada is stuck up. I've been seeing it more and more lately." "And how about the beam in my little girl's own eye?" asked Mrs. Berry gently. "Haven't I been telling you all about it? I've been just as selfish and cowardly as I could be." Lucy's voice was despairing. "I think there's a beam there still. I think you are angry with Ada." "How can I help it? If it hadn't been for her I shouldn't have been so mean." "Oh, Lucy dear!" Mrs. Berry smiled over the head on her shoulder. "There is old Adam again, blaming somebody else for his fall. Have you forgotten that there is only one person you have the right to work with and change?" "I don't care," replied Lucy hotly. "I've been calling evil good. I have. I've been calling Ada good and sticking to her and letting her run me." "Was it because of what you could get from her, or because of what you could do for her?" asked Mrs. Berry quietly. Lucy was silent a minute, then she spoke: "She wanted me. She liked me better than anybody." "Well, now you see what selfish attachments can turn into," returned Mrs. Berry. "Do you remember the teaching about the worthlessness of mortal mind love? Here are you and Ada, yesterday thinking you love one another, and to-day at enmity." "I'm going with Alma Driscoll now, and I'm going to eat my lunch with her, and everything. I should think that was unselfish." "Perhaps it will be. We'll see. Isn't it a little comfort to you to think that it will be some punishment to Ada to see you do it?" "I don't know," replied Lucy, who was so honest that she hesitated. "Well, then, think until you do know, and be very certain whether the thoughts that are stirring you so are all loving. You see, dearie, we're all so tempted, in times of excitement, to begin at the wrong end: tempted to begin with ourselves instead of with God. The all-loving Creator of you and Ada and Alma has made three dear children, one just as precious to Him as another. If the loveliness of His creation is hidden by something discordant, then we must work away at it; and one's own consciousness is the place where she has a right to work, and that helps all. It says in the Bible 'When He giveth quietness who then can make trouble?' You can rest yourself with the thought of His great quietness now, and you will reflect it." Mrs. Berry paused and her rocking-chair swayed softly back and forth during a moment of silence. "You know enough about Science," she went on, at last, "to be certain that weeks of an offended manner with Ada would have no effect except to make her long to punish you. You know that love is reflected in love, and that its opposite is just as certain to be reflected unless one knows God's truth." "But you don't say anything at all about Alma," said Lucy. "She's the chief one." Mrs. Berry smiled. "No," she returned gently. "You are the chief one. Just as soon as your thought is surely right, don't you know that your heavenly Father is going to show you how to unravel this little snarl? You remember there isn't any personality to error, whether it tries to fasten on Ada, or on you." Lucy sat upright. Her cheeks were still flushed, but her eyes had lost their excited light. "Frank Morse and I are going to take some pretty valentines to Alma's as soon as it is dark," she said. "That will be pleasant. Now let us read over the lesson for to-day again, and know what a joyous thing life is." "Well, mother, will you go and see Mrs. Driscoll some time?" "Certainly I will, Sunday. I suppose she is too busy to see me other days." In the Singer house another excited child had rushed home from school and sought and found her mother. Mrs. Singer had just reached a most interesting spot in the novel she was reading, when Ada startled her by running into the room and slamming the door behind her. "Mother, you know you don't want me to go with the factory people," she cried. "Of course not. What's the matter?" returned Mrs. Singer briefly, keeping her finger between the leaves of her half-closed book. "Why, Lucy Berry is angry with me, and I don't care. I shall never go with her again!" "Dear me, Ada. I should think you could settle these little differences without bothering me. What has the factory to do with it?" "Why, there is a new girl at school, Alma Driscoll, and her mother works there; and she tried to come with Lucy and me, and Lucy would have let her, but I told her you wouldn't like it, and, anyway, of course we didn't want her. So to-day when the valentine box was opened, Alma Driscoll got a 'comic;' and she couldn't take a joke and cried and went home. I can't bear a cry-baby, anyway. And then Miss Joslyn made a fuss about it and _she_ went home, and after that Lucy Berry flared up at me and said she was going to be friends with Alma after this, and _she_ went home. It just spoiled everybody's fun to have them act so silly. Lucy got Frank Morse to bring out all his valentines and hers. I'll never go with her again, whether she goes with Alma or not!" Angry little sparks were shining in Ada's eyes, and she evidently made great effort not to cry. "What was this comic valentine that made so much trouble?" "Oh, something about a factory girl. You know the verses are always silly on those." "Well, it wasn't very nice to send it to her before all the children, I must say. Who do you suppose did it?" "No one ever tells who sends valentines," returned Ada defiantly. "No one will ever know." "Well, if the foolish child, whoever it was, only had known, she wasn't so smart or so unkind as she thought she was. Mrs. Driscoll isn't an ordinary factory hand. She is an assistant in the bookkeeping department." "Well, they must be awfully poor, the way Alma looks, anyway," returned Ada. "I suppose they are poor. I happened to hear Mr. Knapp begging your father to let a Mrs. Driscoll have that position, and your father finally consented. I remember his telling how long the husband had been away trying for work, and what worthy people they were, old friends of his. They lived in some neighboring town; so when Mrs. Driscoll was offered this position they came here. They live"-- "Oh, I know where they live," interrupted Ada, "and I knew they were factory people anyway, and you wouldn't want me going with girls like Alma." "I'd want you to be kind to her, of course," returned Mrs. Singer. "Then she'd have stuck to us if I had been. I guess you've forgotten the way it is at school." Mrs. Singer sighed and opened her book wistfully. "You ought to be kind to everybody, Ada," she said vaguely, "but I really think I shall have to take you out of the public school. It is such a mixed crowd there. I should have done it long ago, only your father thinks there is no such education." Ada saw that in another minute her mother would be buried again in her story. "But what shall I do about Frank and Lucy?" she asked, half crying. "Why, is Frank in it, too?" "Yes. I know Lucy has been talking to him. He came back and got her valentines." "Oh, pshaw! Don't make a quarrel over it. Just be polite to Alma Driscoll. They're perfectly respectable people. You don't need to avoid her. Don't worry. Lucy will soon get over her little excitement, and you may be sure she will be glad to make up with you and be more friendly than ever." Mrs. Singer began to read, and Ada saw it was useless to pursue the subject. She left the room undecidedly, her lips pressed together. All right, let Lucy befriend Alma. She wouldn't _look_ at her, and they'd just see which would get tired of it first. This hard little determination seemed to give Ada a good deal of comfort for the present, and she longed for to-morrow, to begin to show Lucy Berry what she had lost. Meanwhile Alma Driscoll had hastened home to an empty cottage, where she threw herself on the calico-covered bed and gave way again to her hurt and sorrow, until she had cried herself to sleep. There her mother found her when she returned from work. Mrs. Driscoll had plenty of troubles of her own in these days, adjusting herself to her present situation and trying hard to fill the position which her old friend Mr. Knapp had found for her. Alma knew this, and every evening when her mother came home from the factory she met her cheerfully, and had so far bravely refrained from telling of the trials at school, which were big ones to her, and which she often longed to pour out; but the sight of her mother's face always silenced her. She knew, young as she was, that her mother was finding life in the great school of the world as hard as she was in pretty Miss Joslyn's room; and so she kept still, but her eyes grew bigger, and her mother saw it. To-day when Mrs. Driscoll came in, she was surprised to find the house dark. She lighted the lamp and saw Alma asleep on the bed. "Poor little dear," she thought. "The hours must seem long between school and my coming home." She went around quietly, getting supper, and when it was ready she came again to the bed and kissed Alma's cheek. "Doesn't my little girl want anything to eat to-night?" she asked. Alma turned and opened her eyes. "Guess which it is," went on Mrs. Driscoll, smiling. "Breakfast or supper." "Oh, have you come?" Alma sat up. She clasped her arms around her mother. "Please don't make me go to school any more," she said, the big sob with which she went to sleep rising again in her throat. "Why, what has happened, dear?" Mrs. Driscoll grew serious. "I don't want to tell you, mother, only please let me stay at home. I'll study just as hard." "You'd be lonely here all day, Alma." "I want to be lonely," returned the little girl earnestly. Mrs. Driscoll looked very sober. "Let's sit down at the table," she said, "for I have your boiled egg all ready." Alma took her place opposite her mother. Supper was usually the bright spot in the day, but this evening there seemed nothing but clouds. "I want to hear all about it, Alma, but you'd better eat first," said Mrs. Driscoll, as she poured the tea. "It isn't anything very much," replied the little girl, torn between the longing for sympathy and unwillingness to give her mother pain; "only there aren't any lonely children in that school. Everybody has some one she likes to play with." A pang of understanding went through the mother's heart, so tender that she forced a smile. "Oh, my dearie," she said, "you remind me of the old song,-- 'Every lassie has her laddie, Nane, they say, have I, But all the lads, they smile on me, When comin' thro' the rye.' If my Alma smiles on all the children, they'll all smile on her." Alma shook her head. It was too great an undertaking to explain all those daily experiences of longing and disappointment to her mother. The child's throat grew so full of the sob that she could not swallow the nice egg. "This is Valentine's Day," she said, with an effort. "They had a box in school. Everybody got pretty ones but me. They sent me a 'comic.'" She swallowed bravely between the sentences, but big tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed on the gingham apron. "Well, wasn't it meant to make you laugh, dearie?" "N-no. It was--was a hateful one. I--I can't tell you." A line came in Mrs. Driscoll's forehead. Her swift thought pictured the scene only too vividly. She swallowed, too. "Silly pictures can't hurt us, Alma," she said. "But please don't make me go back," returned the child earnestly. "I cried and ran away, and I know all the other children laughed, and, oh, mother, I _can't_ go back!" She was sobbing again, now, and trying to dry her tears with her apron. Mrs. Driscoll's lips pressed firmly together to keep from quivering. "Mother," said Alma brokenly, as soon as she could speak again, "when do you think father will come home?" For a minute the mother could not reply. The last letter she had received from her husband had sounded discouraged, and for six weeks now she had heard nothing. Her anxiety was very great; but it made her position at the factory more than ever important, while it increased the difficulty of performing her work. "I can't tell, dearie," she answered low. "We must pray and wait." As she finished speaking there came a loud knock at the door. A very unusual sound this, for no one had yet called on them, except Mr. Knapp, once on business. "I'll go," said Mrs. Driscoll. "Wipe your eyes, Alma." To her surprise, when she opened the door no one was there. Something white on the step caught her eye in the gloom. It was a box, and when she brought it to the light, she saw that it was addressed to Miss Alma Driscoll. Her heart was too sore to hand it to the child until she had made certain that its contents were not designed to hurt. One glimpse of the gold and red interior, however, made her clap on the cover again. She brought the box to the table and seated herself. "What's all this?" she asked, passing it to the child. "It seems to be for you. There was nobody there, but I found that on the step." Alma's swollen eyes looked wonderingly at the box as she took off the cover and discovered the elaborate valentine. "My! What a beauty!" exclaimed her mother. The little girl lifted the red roses and looked at the verses. The catches kept coming in her throat and she smiled faintly. "Who is this that hasn't any friend?" asked Mrs. Driscoll cheeringly. "Somebody was sorry," returned Alma. "I wish they didn't have to be sorry for me." "Oh, you can't be sure. When I was a little girl all the best part of Valentine's Day was running around to the houses with them after dark. How do you know that this wasn't meant for you all day?" "Because I remember it. Miss Joslyn handed it to Lucy Berry out of the school box. Lucy is the prettiest"-- Another loud knocking at the door interrupted. Mrs. Driscoll answered the call. A big white envelope lay on the step, and it was addressed to Alma. This time the latter's smile was a little brighter as she took out a handsome card covered with garlands and swinging cupids and inscribed "To my Valentine." "Well, I never saw any prettier ones," said Mrs. Driscoll. "But they weren't bought for me," returned Alma. When soon again a knocking sounded on the door and a third valentine appeared, blossoming with violets, above which butterflies hovered, Mrs. Driscoll leaned lovingly toward her little girl. "Alma," she said. "I think you were mistaken in saying that _all_ the children laughed when you received that 'comic.' Now," in a different tone, "let's have some fun! Some child or children are giving you the very best they have. Let's catch the next one who comes, and find out who your friends are!" "Oh, no," returned Alma, smiling, but shrinking shyly from the idea. "Yes, indeed. We all used to try when I was little. I'm going to stand by the door and hold it open a bit and you see if I don't catch somebody." Alma lifted her shoulders. She wasn't sure that she liked to have her mother try this; but Mrs. Driscoll went to the door, set it ajar in the dark, and stood beside it. She did not expect there would be any further greetings, and did this rather to amuse Alma, who sat examining her three valentines with a tearful little smile; but it was a very short time before another knock sounded on the usually neglected door, and quick as a wink it opened and Mrs. Driscoll's hand flying out caught another hand. A little scream followed, and in a second she had drawn a young lady into the tiny hall. They couldn't see one another's faces very well in the gloom. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Mrs. Driscoll, very much embarrassed. "I was trying to catch a valentine." "Well, you did," laughed the stranger. "There's one on the step now, unless my skirt switched it off when I jumped. I didn't intend to come in this time, though I meant to return after I had done an errand; but now I'm here I'll stay a minute if it isn't too early." "If you'll excuse the table," returned Mrs. Driscoll "Alma and I have a late tea." She stooped at the door and picked up a valentine from the edge of the step, and both women were smiling as they entered the room where Alma was standing, flushed and wide-eyed, scarcely able to believe that she recognized the voice. Sure enough, as the visitor came into the lamplight, the little girl saw that the valentine her mother had caught and brought in out of the dark was really Miss Joslyn. She could hardly believe her eyes as she looked at the merry, blushing face which she was wont to see so serious and watchful. All the pretty teacher's scholars admired her, but she had a dignity and strictness which gave them some awe of her, too, and it seemed wonderful to Alma that this important person should be standing here and laughing with her mother, right in their own sitting-room. Miss Joslyn's bright eyes saw signs of tears in her pupil's face, and she also saw the handsome valentines strewn upon the table. "Well, well, Alma!" she exclaimed softly, "you have quite a show there!" "And here is another," said Mrs. Driscoll, handing the latest arrival to the little girl. Alma smiled gratefully at her teacher as she opened the envelope and took out a dove in full flight, carrying a leaf in its beak. On the leaf was printed in gold letters the word _Love_. "I was caught in the act, Alma," laughed Miss Joslyn, "but I guess I am too old and slow to be running about at night with valentines." "I like it the best of all," replied the little girl. "It was bought for me," she added in her own thought, and she was right. Twenty minutes ago the white dove had been reposing at a stationer's, with every prospect of remaining there until another Valentine's Day came around. "Please sit down, Miss Joslyn," said Mrs. Driscoll. "Well, just for a minute," replied the young lady, taking the offered chair, "but I wish you would finish your supper." "We had, really," replied Mrs. Driscoll, smiling, "or I shouldn't have been playing such a game by the door. You haven't been the giver of all these valentines, I suppose?" "Oh, no, indeed. Those are from some of the school children, no doubt. I've been trying to find an evening to come here for some time, but my work isn't done when school is out." "I'm sure it isn't," replied Mrs. Driscoll, while Alma sat with her dove in her hands, watching the bright face that looked happy and at home in these unusual surroundings. It seemed so very strange to be close to Miss Joslyn, like this, where the teacher had no bell to touch and no directions to give. She looked at Alma and spoke: "The public school is a little hard for new scholars at first," she said, "where they enter in the middle of a term. You are going to like it better after a while, Alma." "I think she will, too," put in Mrs. Driscoll. "My hours are long at the factory and I have liked to think of Alma as safe in school. Does she do pretty well in her studies, Miss Joslyn?" "Yes, I have no fault to find." The visitor smiled at Alma. "You haven't become much acquainted yet," went on Miss Joslyn. "I have noticed that you eat your lunch alone. So do I. Supposing you and I have it together for a while until you are more at home with the other scholars. I have another chair in my corner, and we'll have a cosy time." Alma's heart beat fast. She had never heard that an invitation from royalty is equivalent to a command, but instantly all possibility of staying at home from school disappeared. The picture rose before her thought of Miss Joslyn as she always appeared at the long recess: her chair swung about until her profile only was visible, the white napkin on her desk, the book in her hand as she read and ate at one and the same time. Little did Alma suspect what it meant to the kind teacher to give up that precious half-hour of solitude; but Miss Joslyn saw the child's eyes grow bright at the dazzling prospect, and noted the color that covered even her forehead as she murmured thanks and looked over at her mother for sympathy. The young lady talked on for a few minutes and then said good-night, leaving an atmosphere of brightness behind her. "Oh, mother, I don't know what all the children will say," said Alma, clasping her hands together. "I'm going to eat lunch with Miss Joslyn!" "It's fine," responded Mrs. Driscoll, glad of the change in her little girl's expression, and wishing the ache at her own heart could be as easily comforted. "Do you suppose Valentine's Day is over, dearie, or had I better stand by the door again?" "Oh, they wouldn't send me any more!" replied Alma, looking fondly at her dove. "I think Lucy Berry was so kind to give me her lovely things; but I'd like to give them back." "No, indeed, that wouldn't do," replied Mrs. Driscoll. "I'm going to stand there once more. Perhaps I'll catch somebody else to prove to you that Lucy isn't the only one thinking about you." Mrs. Driscoll returned quietly to her post, and Alma could see her smiling face through the open door. Alma had very much wanted to send valentines to a few children, herself; but five cents was all the spending money she could have, and she had bought with it one valentine which had been addressed to Lucy Berry in the school box. She was glad it had not come back to her to-night. That would have been hardest of all to bear. Just as she was thinking this there did come another knock at the door. The child looked up eagerly, and swiftly again Mrs. Driscoll's hand flew out, and grasping a garment, pulled gently and firmly. "Well, well, ma'am!" exclaimed a bass voice, and this time it was the hostess's turn to give a little cry, followed by a laugh, as a stout, elderly man with chin whiskers came deliberately in. She retreated. "Oh, Mr. Knapp, please excuse me! I thought you were a valentine!" "Nobody'd have me, ma'am. Nobody'd have me. Not a mite o' use to try to stick a pair o' Cupid's wings on these shoulders. It would take an awful pair to fly me. Well, come now," he added, with a broad, approving smile at the laughing mother and child, "I'm right down glad to see you playin' a game. I've thought, the last few days, you was lookin' kind o' peaked and down in the mouth; so, seein' as we found a letter for you that was somehow overlooked this afternoon, I decided I'd bring it along. Might be fetchin' you a fortune, for all I knew." Mrs. Driscoll's smile vanished, and her eyes looked eagerly into the good-humored red face, as Mr. Knapp sought deliberately in his coat pocket and brought forth an envelope, at sight of which Alma's mother flushed and paled. "You have a valentine, too!" cried the little girl. "Yes, it is from father. Won't you sit down, Mr. Knapp?" "No, no, I'll just run along and let you read your letter in peace. I know you want to, and I hope it brings good news. If it don't, you just remember it's always darkest before day. Frank Driscoll's bound to come out right side up. He's a good feller." So saying, the kind friend to this couple took his departure, and Mrs. Driscoll's eager fingers tore open the envelope. At the first four words, "It's all right, Nettie," she crushed the paper against her happy eyes and then hugged Alma. It _was_ all right. Mr. Driscoll had a position at last, and by the time summer should come he was sure they could be together again. After the letter had been read and re-read, the two washed and put away the supper dishes with light hearts, and the next morning Mrs. Driscoll went off smiling to the factory, leaving a rather excited little girl to finish the morning work and arrange the lunch in the tin pail which was to be opened beside Miss Joslyn's desk. There were two other excited children getting ready for school that morning. They had both slept on their troubles, but were very differently prepared to meet the day. Ada Singer's mental attitude was, "I'll never give in, and Lucy Berry will find it out." Lucy felt comforted, but there remained now the great step of eating lunch with Alma and being punished by Ada in consequence. Her heart fluttered at the thought; but she was going to try not to think of herself at all, but to do right and let the consequences take care of themselves. "There isn't any other way," her mother said to her at parting. "Anything which you do in any other spirit has simply to be done over again some time." "Not one error-fairy shall cheat me to-day," thought Lucy stoutly, and then a disconcerting idea came to her: supposing Alma shouldn't come to school at all! But Alma was there. Ada Singer, too, wearing a charming new dress and with a head held up so stiffly that it couldn't turn to look at anybody. Frank Morse, from his seat at the back of the room, looked curiously from one to another of the three girls and shook his head at his book. At the first recess Ada Singer spoke to him as he was going out. "Wait a minute, Frank. It is so mild to-day, mother is coming for me after school with the auto. We're going to take a long spin. Wouldn't you like to go?" "Yes, indeed," replied Frank; "but don't you want to take Lucy in my place?" He was a little uncomfortable. "If I did I shouldn't ask you," returned Ada coolly. "All right. Thank you," said Frank, but as he joined the boys on the playground he felt still more uncomfortable. Lucy Berry, as soon as the recess bell had sounded, had gone straight to Alma. Her cheeks were very red, and the brown eyes were full of kindness. Alma looked up in shy pleasure at her, a little embarrassed because she didn't know whether to thank Lucy for the valentines or not. The latter did not give her time to speak. She said: "I came to see if you won't eat your lunch with me to-day." Alma colored. How full the world was of kind people! "I'd love to," she answered, "but I think Ada wants to have you all alone and"-- "But I'd like it if you would," said Lucy firmly, "because I want to get more acquainted. My mother is coming to see yours on Sunday afternoon, too." "I'm real glad she is," replied Alma, fairly basking in the light from Lucy's eyes. "I'd love to eat lunch with you, but Miss Joslyn invited me to have it with her to-day." "Oh!" Lucy's gaze grew larger. "Why, that's lovely!" she said, in an awed tone. They had very little more time for talk before the short recess was over. As the children took their way to their seats, Alma was amazed to see Ada Singer pass Lucy without a word, and even turn her head to avoid looking at her. The child had watched this close friendship so wistfully that she instantly saw there was trouble, and naturally thought of her invitation from Lucy as connected with it. At the long recess, thoughts of this possible quarrel mingled with her pleasure in the visit with Miss Joslyn, who was a charming hostess. Many a girl or boy came to peep into the forbidden schoolroom, when the report was circulated that Alma Driscoll was up on the platform laughing and talking with the teacher and eating lunch with her in the cosy corner. Miss Joslyn insisted on exchanging a part of her lunch for Alma's, spreading the things together on the white napkin, and chatting so eagerly and gayly that the little girl's face beamed. She soon told the teacher about the good news that came after she left the night before, and Miss Joslyn was very sympathetic. "It's a pretty nice world, isn't it?" she asked, smiling. "Yes'm, it's just a lovely world to-day, only--only there's one thing, Miss Joslyn." "What is it?" "I think Lucy Berry and Ada Singer have had a quarrel." "Oh, the inseparables? I guess not," the teacher smiled. "Yes'm. The worst is, I think it's about me. Could I go out in the dressing-room to get my handkerchief, and see if they're on their usual window-sill?" "Yes, indeed, if it will make you feel easier." So Alma went out and soon returned. Lucy and Ada were not on their window-sill. Each was sitting with a different group of girls. Miss Joslyn saw the serious discomfort this gave her little companion, and persuaded her away from the subject, returning to the congenial theme of Mr. Driscoll's new prospects. But as soon as recess was over, Alma's thoughts went back to Ada Singer, for she felt certain that whatever had happened, Ada was the one to be appeased. The child could not bear to think of being the cause of trouble coming to dear, kind Lucy. When school was dismissed, Ada Singer, her head carried high, put on her things in the dressing-room within a few feet of Lucy, but ignoring her presence. "I love her," thought Lucy, "and she does love me. Nothing can cheat either of us." Ada went out without a look, and waited at the head of the stairs for Frank Morse. Alma Driscoll hastened up to her. Ada drew away. Alma needn't think that because she had shared Miss Joslyn's luncheon she would now be as good as anybody. "Can I speak to you just one minute?" asked the little girl so eagerly, yet meekly, that Ada turned to her; but now that she had gained attention, Alma did not know how to proceed. She hesitated and clasped and unclasped her hands over the gingham apron. "Please--please"--she stammered, "don't be cross with Lucy. She felt sorry for me, but I'll never eat lunch with her,--truly." "You don't know what you're talking about," rejoined Ada coldly. "Yes, she does." It was Frank Morse's voice, and Ada, turning quickly, saw him and Lucy standing a few feet behind her. The four children were alone in the deserted hall. "Here," went on Frank bluntly, "I want you two girls to kiss and make up." Ada blushed violently as she met Lucy's questioning, wistful look. "Are you coming down to the auto, Frank?" she asked coolly. "Mother will be waiting." "Oh, come now, Ada, be a good fellow. If you and Lucy want to put on the gloves, I'll see fair play; but for pity's sake drop this icy look business. Great Scott, I'm glad I'm not a girl!" The genuine disgust in the boy's tone as he closed did disturb Ada a little, and then Lucy added at once, beseechingly: "Oh, it's like a bad dream, Ada, to have anything the matter between us!" "Whose fault is it?" asked Ada sharply. "Why did you fly at me so yesterday?" Both girls had forgotten Alma who, like a soberly dressed, big-eyed little bird, was watching the proceedings in much distress. "You just the same as accused me of sending Alma the 'comic,'" continued Ada. "Oh, _didn't_ you send it?" cried Lucy, fairly springing at her friend in her relief. "I don't care what you do to me then! I deserve anything, for I really thought you did." Her eloquent face and the love in her eyes broke down some determination in Ada's proud little heart, and raised another, perhaps quite as proud, but at least with an element of nobility. She foresaw that the dishonesty was going to be more than she could bear. "I did send it," she said suddenly, with her chin up. Then, ignoring Frank and Lucy's open-mouthed stares, she turned toward Alma. "I sent you the 'comic,'" she went on. "I thought it would be fun, but it wasn't, and I'm sorry. I should like to have you forgive me." Her tone was far from humble, but it was music to Alma's ears. The little girl clasped her hands together. "Oh, I do," she replied earnestly, "and it made everybody so kind! Please don't feel bad about it. I got the loveliest valentines in the evening, and Miss Joslyn came to see us, and we had a letter from my father and he has a splendid place to work and--and everything!" Ada breathed a little faster at the close of this breathless speech. Alma's eagerness to ascribe even her father's good fortune to the sending of the 'comic' touched her. In her embarrassment she took another determination. "If you'll excuse me, Frank," she said turning to him, "I think I'll take Alma home in the auto, instead of you." "All right," returned the boy, his face flushed. "You're a brick, Ada!" This praise from one who seldom praised gave Ada secret elation, and made her resolve to deserve it. "Good-by, Lucy," was all she said, but the girls' eyes met, and Lucy knew the trouble was over. As Ada and Alma went downstairs, Lucy ran to the hall window, and Frank followed. "Don't let them see us," she said joyfully. So, very cautiously, the two peeped and saw the handsome automobile waiting. Mrs. Singer was sitting within and they saw Ada say something to her; then Alma, her thick coat over the gingham apron, and the large dinner-pail in her hand, climbed in, Ada after her, and away they all went. Lucy turned to Frank with her face glowing. "It's all right now," she said. "When Ada takes hold she never lets go; and now she's taken hold right!" CHAPTER XVI A MORNING RIDE Mrs. Evringham's listeners thanked her, then discussed the story a few minutes. "I'd like to get acquainted with Alma," said Jewel, "and help be kind to her." "Oh, she's going to have a very good time now," replied Mr. Evringham. "One can see that with half an eye. Were there any Almas where you went to school, Jewel?" "No, there weren't. We didn't bring lunches and we went home in a 'bus." "Jewel went to a very nice private school," said Mrs. Evringham. "Her teachers were Christian Scientists and I made their dresses for them in payment." The logs were red in the fireplace now, and the roar of the wind-driven sea came from the beach. "Well, we've a good school for her," replied Mr. Evringham, "and there'll be no dresses to make either." His daughter looked at him wistfully. "I'm very happy when I think of it," she answered, "for there is other work I would rather do." "I should think so, indeed. Catering to the whims of a lot of silly women who don't know their own minds! It must be the very--yes, very unpleasant. Yes, we have a fine school in Bel-Air. Jewel, we're going to work you hard next winter. How shall you like that?" "My music lessons will be the most fun," returned Jewel. "And dancing school beside." "Oh, grandpa, I'll love that! I used to know girls who went, in Chicago." "Yes, I'm sure you will. You shall learn all the latest jigs and flings, too, that any of the children know. I think you ought to learn them quickly. You've been hopping up and down ever since I knew you." Jewel exchanged a happy glance with her mother and clapped her hands at the joyful prospect. Mrs. Evringham looked wistfully at her father-in-law. "I hope you'll be willing I should do the work I want to, father." "What's that? Writing books? Perfectly willing, I assure you. I think you've made a very good start." Mrs. Evringham smiled. "No, not writing books. Practicing Christian Science." "Well, you do that all the time, don't you?" "I mean taking patients." "What!" Mr. Evringham straightened up in his chair and frowned at her incredulously. "Anybody? Tom, Dick, and Harry? You can't mean it!" His tone was so severe that Jewel rose from her place on the rug and, climbing into his lap, rested her head on his breast. His hand closed on the soft little one unconsciously. "I suppose I don't understand you," he added, a shade more mildly. "Not in your house, father," returned Julia. She had been preparing in thought for this moment for days. "Of course it wouldn't do to have strangers coming and going there." "Nonsense, nonsense, my dear girl," brusquely, "put it out of your head at once. There is no need for you to do anything after this but bring up your child and keep your husband's shirt buttons in place." "I won't neglect either," replied Julia quietly; "but Mr. Reeves says there is great need of practitioners in Bel-Air. You know where the reading-room is? There is a little room leading out of it that I could have." "For an office, do you mean? Nonsense," exclaimed Mr. Evringham again. "Harry wouldn't think of allowing it." Julia smiled. "Will you if he does?" "What shall I say to her, Jewel?" The broker looked down into the serious face. "I suppose mother ought to do it," replied the child. "Of course every one who knows how and has time wants to. You can see that, grandpa, because isn't your rheumatism better?" "Yes. I like our resident physician very much; but we need her ourselves. I don't think I shall ever give my consent to such a thing." "Oh, yes, you will, grandpa, if it's right." The flaxen head on his breast wagged wisely. "Some morning you'll come downstairs and say: 'Julia, I think you can go and get that office whenever you like.'" Mrs. Evringham pressed her handkerchief to her lips. The couple in the armchair were so absorbed in one another that they did not observe her, and the broker's face showed such surprise. "Upon my word!" he exclaimed, after a minute. "Upon my word!" "Are you all through talking about that?" asked Jewel, after a pause. "I am, certainly," replied Mr. Evringham. "And I," added his daughter. She was content that the seed was planted, and preferred not to press the subject. "Well, then," continued Jewel, "I was wondering, grandpa, if the cracks in that boat couldn't be stuffed up a little more so I wouldn't have to bail, and then I could learn how to row." "Ho, these little hands row!" returned Mr. Evringham scoffingly. "Why, I could, grandpa. I just know I could. It was fun to bail at first, but I'm getting a little tired of it now, and I love to be on the pond--oh, almost as much as on Star!" Mr. Evringham's eyes shone with an unusually pleased expression. "Is it possible!" he returned. "It's a water-baby we have here, a regular water-baby!" "Yes, grandpa, when I know how to swim and row and sail--yes," chuckling at the expression of exaggerated surprise which her listener assumed, "and sail, too, I'll be so _happy_!" "Oh, come now, an eight-year-old baby!" "I'll be nine in five weeks, nine years old." "Well," Mr. Evringham sighed, "that's better than nineteen." "Why, grandpa," earnestly, "you forget; perhaps you'll like me when I'm grown up." "It's possible," returned the broker. How the sun shone the next morning! The foam on the great rollers that still stormed the beach showed from the farmhouse windows in ever-changing, spreading masses of white. Essex Maid and Star, after a day of ennui, were more than ready for a scamper between the rolling fields where already the goldenrod hinted that summer was passing. Star had to stretch his pretty legs at a great rate, to keep up with the Maid this morning, though her master moderated her transports. The more like birds they flew, the more Jewel enjoyed it. She knew now how to get Star's best speed, and the pony scarcely felt her weight, so lightly did she adapt herself to his every motion. With cheeks tingling in the fine salt air, the riders finally came to a walk in the quiet country road. "I've been looking up that boat business, Jewel," said Mr. Evringham. "The thing is hardly worth fixing. It would take a good while, just at the time we want the boat, too." "Well, then," returned the child, "we'll have to make it do. There are so many happinesses here, it isn't any matter if the boat isn't just right; but I was thinking, grandpa, if you wouldn't wear such nice shoes, I'd go barefooted, and then we could both sit on the same seat and let the water come in, while I use one oar and you the other; or"--her face suddenly glowing with a brilliant idea--"we could both wear our bathing-suits!" "Yes," returned the broker, "I think if you were to row we might need them." The child laughed. "No, Jewel, no; we'd better bathe when we bathe, and row when we row, and not mix them. You couldn't do anything with even one of those clumsy oars in that tub of a boat." As Mr. Evringham said this, he saw the disappointment in the little girl's face as she looked straight ahead, and noted, too, her effort to conquer it. "Well, I do have so many happinesses," she replied. "It will be a grand sight at the beach this morning, with the sunlight on the stormy waves," said Mr. Evringham. "The water-baby will have to keep out of them, though." Jewel lifted her shoulders and looked at him. "Then we ought to row over, don't you think so?" "You're not willing to be a thorough-going land lubber, are you?" returned the broker. "No," Jewel sighed. "I'd rather bail than keep off the pond. Oh, but I forgot," with a sudden thought, "mother'd get wet if she rowed over and it would be too bad to make her walk through the fields alone." There was a little silence and then Mr. Evringham turned the horses into the homeward way. "I begin to feel as if breakfast would be acceptable, Jewel. How is it with you?" "Why, I could eat"--began the child hungrily, "I could eat"-- "Eggs?" suggested the broker, as she paused to think of something sufficiently inedible. "Almost," returned the child seriously. Another pause, and then she continued. "Grandpa, wouldn't it be nice if mother had somebody to play with, too, so we could go out in the boat whenever we wanted to?" "Yes. Why doesn't your father hurry up his affairs?" Jewel looked at the broker. "He has. He thought it was error for him not to let the people there know that he was going to leave them after a while; so they began right off to try to find somebody else, and they have already." "Eh?" asked the broker. "Your father is through in Chicago, then? When did you hear that?" "Mother had the letter yesterday and she told me when I went to bed last night." "Why, then he'll be coming right on." "We'd like to have him," returned Jewel; "but mother wasn't sure how you would feel about it, to have father here so long before business commences." "Why didn't she tell me last evening?" asked Mr. Evringham. "I _think_," returned Jewel, "that she wanted father so _much_--and--and that she thought perhaps you wouldn't think it was best, and--well, I think she felt a little bashful. You know mother isn't your real relation, grandpa," the child's head fell to one side apologetically. Mr. Evringham stroked his mustache; but instantly he turned grave again. His eyes met Jewel's. "I think, as you say, it would be rather a convenience to us if your mother had some one to play with, too. Suppose we send for him, eh?" "Oh, let's," cried the child joyfully. "Done with you!" returned the broker, and he gave the rein to Essex Maid. Star had suddenly so much ado to gallop along beside her, that Jewel's laugh rang out merrily. When, a little later, the family met in the dining-room for breakfast, Mr. Evringham accosted his daughter cheerfully: "Well, this is good news I hear about Harry." Julia flushed and met his eyes wistfully. The broker had never seen any resemblance in Jewel to her until this moment; but it was precisely the child's expression that now returned his look. "It's my boy she wants, too," he thought. "By George, she shall have him." "I wasn't sure that you would think it was good news for Harry to give up his position so soon, but there wasn't any other honest way," she replied. "The sooner the break is made, the better," returned Mr. Evringham. "I shall wire him to close up everything at once and join us as soon as he can." Mother and child exchanged a happy look and Jewel clapped her hands. "Father's coming, father's coming!" she cried joyfully. The broker bent his brows upon her. "Jewel, are you strictly honorable?" he asked. "I don't know," returned the little girl. "You said a few minutes ago that it was a playfellow for your mother that you wanted. Your enthusiasm is unseemly." "Oh, father's just splendid," said Jewel. After breakfast the three repaired to a certain covered piazza where they always read the lesson for the day; then Mr. Evringham suggested that they go promptly to the beach to see the splendid show before the rollers regained their usual monotonous dignity. "Jewel and I thought we would go over in the boat instead of through the fields, but that old tub is rather uninviting for a lady's clothes." "I think I will take the solitary saunter in preference," returned Mrs. Evringham. "You and Jewel row over if you like." "No, we'd rather walk with you," said the child heroically. Julia smiled. "I don't want you. There are birds and flowers." "Well, come down and see us off, anyway," said Mr. Evringham; so the three moved over the grass toward the pond; two walking sedately and one skipping from sheer high spirits. As they drew near the little wharf the child's quick eyes perceived that there were two boats floating there, one each side of it. "See that, grandpa! There's some visitor around here," she said, running ahead of the others. A light, graceful boat rose and fell on the waves. It was golden brown within and without, and highly varnished. Its four seats were furnished with wine-colored cushions. Four slim oars lay along its bottom, and its rowlocks gleamed. Best of all, a slender mast with snowy sail furled about it lay along the edge. "Grandpa, p-_lease_ ask somebody whose it is and if we could get in just a minute!" begged Jewel, in hushed excitement. "Oh, they're all good neighbors about here. They won't mind, whoever it is," returned Mr. Evringham carelessly, and to the child's wonder and doubt he jumped aboard. "Pretty neat outfit, isn't it?" he continued, as he stood a moment looking over the lines of the craft, and then lifted the mast. "Oh, it'll sail, too, it'll sail, too!" cried Jewel, hopping up and down. "Oh, mother, did you ever _hear_ of such a pretty boat?" "Never," replied Mrs. Evringham. "It must be that some one has come over from one of those fine homes across the pond." Privately, she was a little surprised by the manner in which Mr. Evringham was making himself at home. He set the mast in its place and then, his arms akimbo, stood regarding Jewel's tense, sun-browned countenance and sparkling eyes. "How would it be for me to go up to the house and see if we could get permission to take a little sail?" he asked. "Oh, it would be splendid, grandpa," responded Jewel, "but--but he might say no, and _could_ I get in just a minute first?" "Yes, come on." The child waited for no second invitation, but sprang into the boat and examined its dry, shining floor and felt its buttoned cushions with admiring awe. "Hello, see here," said Mr. Evringham, bending over the further side. "Easy, now," for Jewel had scrambled to see. He trimmed the boat while her flaxen head leaned eagerly over. Beautifully painted in shining black letters she read the name JEWEL. The child lifted her head quickly and gazed at him, "Grandpa, that almost couldn't--_happen_" she said, in amazement, catching her breath. He nodded. "There's one thing pretty certain, Nature won't draw off the pond now that this has come to you." "Me, _me_!" cried the child. Her lips trembled and she turned a little pale under the tan as she remembered how the pony came. Then her eyes, dark with excitement, suffused, and recklessly she flung herself upon the broker's neck while the boat rocked wildly. Mr. Evringham waved one hand toward his daughter while he seized the mast. "Tell Harry we left our love," he cried. "Dear me, Jewel, what are you _doing_!" called Mrs. Evringham. "It's mine, mother, it's mine," cried the child, lifting her head to shout it, and then ducking back into the broker's silk shirt front. "What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Evringham, coming gingerly out upon the wharf, which was such an unsteady old affair that she had remained on terra firma. "Why, you see," responded Mr. Evringham, "the farmhouse boat wasn't so impossible for two old sea-dogs like Jewel and me, but when it came to inviting her lady mother to go out with us, I saw that we must have something else. Well, it seems as if Jewel approved of this." He winked at his daughter over the flaxen head on his breast. "What a fortunate, fortunate girl!" exclaimed Julia. "I can hardly wait to sit on one of those beautiful red cushions." "Jewel will invite you pretty soon, I think," said Mr. Evringham. "I hope so, for one of my feet is turned in and she is standing on it, but I wouldn't have her get off until she is entirely ready." He could feel the child swallowing hard, and though she moved her little feet, she could not lift her face. "Grandpa," she began, in an unsteady, muffled tone, "I didn't tease you too much about the old boat, did I?" "No,--no, child!" "Shall you--shall you like this one, too?" "Well, I should rather think so. I have to give all my shoes to the poor as it is. I've nothing left fit to put on but my riding-boots. How shall we go over to the beach this time, Jewel, row or sail? Your mother is waiting for you to ask her to get in." Slowly the big bows behind the child's ears came down into their normal position. She kissed her grandfather fervently and then turned her flushed face and eyes toward her mother. "Come in, so you can see the boat's name," she said, and her smile shone out like sunshine from an April sky. "Give me your hand, then, dearie. You know I'm a poor city girl and haven't a very good balance." The name was duly examined, and Mrs. Evringham's "oh's" of wonder and admiration were long-drawn. "See the darling cushions, mother. You can wear your best clothes here. It's just like a parlor!" "A very narrow parlor, Jewel. Move carefully." Mrs. Evringham had seated herself in the stern. "Perhaps I can help with the rudder," she added, taking hold of the lines. "Just as the admiral says," returned the broker. "Oh, grandpa, you'll have to be the admiral," said Jewel excitedly. "I'll be the crew and"-- "And the owner," suggested Mr. Evringham. "Yes! Oh, mother, what _will_ father say!" "He'll say that you are a very happy, fortunate little girl, and that Divine Love is always showing your grandpa how to do kind things for you." The child's expression as she looked up at the admiral made him apprehend another rush. "Steady, Jewel, steady. Remember we aren't wearing our bathing-suits. Which are we going to do, row or sail?" "Oh, _sail_," cried the child, "and it'll never be the first time again! _Could_ you wait while I get Anna Belle?" "Certainly." Like a flash Jewel sprang from the boat and fled up the wharf and lawn. Mr. Evringham smiled and shook his head at his daughter. "A creature of fire and dew," he said. "I don't know how to thank you for all your goodness to her," said Julia simply. "It would offend me to be thanked for anything I did for Jewel," he returned. "I understand. She is your own flesh and blood. But what I feel chiefly grateful for is the wisdom of your kindness. I believe you will never spoil her. I should rather we had remained poor and struggling than to have that." Mr. Evringham gave the speaker a direct look in which appeared a trace of humor. "I think I am slightly inclined," he returned, "to overlook the fact that you and Harry have any rights in Jewel which should be respected; but theoretically I do acknowledge them, and it is going to be my study not to spoil her. I have an idea that we couldn't," he added. "Oh, yes, we could," returned Julia, "very easily." "Well, there aren't quite enough of us to try," said the broker. "I believe while we're waiting for Jewel, I'll just step up to the house and get some one to send that telegram to Harry." "Oh, yes!" exclaimed Julia eagerly; and in a minute she was left alone, swaying up and down on the lapping water, in the salt, sunny breeze, while the JEWEL pulled at the mooring as if eager to try its snowy wings; and happy were the grateful, prayerful thoughts that swelled her heart. CHAPTER XVII THE BIRTHDAY One stormy evening Harry Evringham blew into the farmhouse, wet from his drive from the station, and was severally hugged, kissed, and shaken by the three who waited eagerly to receive him. The month that ensued was perhaps the happiest that had ever come into the lives of either of the quartette; certainly it was the happiest period to the married pair who had waited ten years for their wedding trip. The days were filled with rowing, sailing, swimming, riding, driving, picnics, walks, talks, and _dolce far niente_ evenings, when the wind was still and the moon silvered field and sea. The happy hours were winged, the goldenrod strewed the land with sunshine, and August slipped away. One morning when Jewel awoke it was with a sensation that the day was important. She looked over at Anna Belle and shook her gently. "Wake up, dearie," she said. "'Green pastures are before me,' it's my birthday." But Anna Belle, who certainly looked very pretty in her sleep, and perhaps suspected it, seemed unable to overcome her drowsiness until Jewel set her up against the pillow, when her eyes at once flew open and she appeared ready for sociability. "Do you remember Gladys on her birthday morning, dearie? She couldn't think of anything she wanted, and I'm almost like her. Grandpa's given me my boat, that's his birthday present; and mother says she should think it was enough for ten birthdays, and so should I. Poor grandpa! In ten birthdays I'll be nineteen, and then he says I'll have to cry on his shoulder instead of into his vest. But grandpa's such a joker! Of course grown-up ladies hardly ever cry. If father and mother have anything for me, I'll be just delighted; but I can't think what I want. I have the darlingest pony in the world, and the dearest Little Faithful watch, and the best boat that was ever built, and I rowed father quite a long way yesterday all alone, and I didn't splash much, but he caught hold of the side of the boat and pretended he was afraid"--Jewel's laughter gurgled forth at the remembrance--"he's such a joker; and I do understand the sail, too, but they won't let me do it alone yet. Father says he can see in my eye that I should love to jibe. I don't even know what jibe is, so how could I do it?" Jewel had proceeded so far in her confidences when the door of her room opened, and her father and mother came in in their bath-wrappers. "We thought we heard you improving Anna Belle's mind," said her father, taking her in his arms and kissing both her cheeks and chin, the tip of her nose and her forehead, and then carefully repeating the programme. "But that was ten!" cried Jewel. "Certainly. If you didn't have one to grow on, how would you get along?" Then her pretty mother, her brown hair hanging in long braids, took her turn and kissed Jewel's cheeks till they were pinker than ever. "Many, many happy returns, my little darling," she said. "I didn't know you weren't going riding this morning." "Yes, grandpa said he expected a man early on business, and he had to be here to see him. Father could have gone with me," said Jewel, looking at him reproachfully, where he sat on the side of the bed, "but when I asked him last night he said--I forget what he said." "Merely that I didn't believe that horses liked such early dew." "Oh, Jewel!" laughed Mrs. Evringham, "your father is a lazy, sleepy boy. It's later than you think, dearie. Hop up now and get ready for breakfast." They left her, and the little girl arose with great alacrity, for ever since she was a baby her birthday present had always been on the breakfast table. As soon as she was dressed, she put a blue cashmere wrapper on Anna Belle and carried her downstairs to the room where the Evringham family had their meals, separate from the other inmates of the farmhouse. Mr. Evringham was standing by the window, reading the newspaper as he waited, and Jewel ran to him and looked up with bright expectation. "H'm!" he said, not lifting his eyes from the print, "good-morning, Jewel. Essex Maid and Star would hardly speak to me when I was out there just now, they're so vexed at having to stay indoors this morning." The child did not reply, but continued to look up, smiling. "Well," said the broker at last, dropping the paper. "Well? What is it? I don't see anything very exciting. You haven't on your silk dress." "Grandpa! It's my _birthday_." The broker slapped his leg with very apparent annoyance. "Well, now, to think I should have to be told that!" Jewel laughed and hopped a little as she looked toward the table. "Do you see that bunch under the cloth at my place? That's my present. Isn't it the most _fun_ not to know what it is?" Mr. Evringham took her up in his arms and weighed her up and down thoughtfully. "Yes," he said, "I believe you are a little heavier than you were yesterday." The child laughed again. "Now remember, Jewel, you're to go slow on this birthday business. Once in two or three years is all very well." "Grandpa! people _have_ to have birthdays every year," she replied as he set her down, "but after they're about twenty or something like that, it's wrong to remember how old they are." "Indeed?" the broker stroked his mustache. "Ladies especially, I suppose." "Oh, no," returned Jewel seriously. "Everybody. Mother's just twenty years older than I am and that's so easy to remember, it's going to be hard to forget; but I've most forgotten how much older father is," and Jewel looked up with an expression of determination that caused the broker to smile broadly. "I can understand your mother's being too self-respecting to pass thirty," he returned, "but just why your father shouldn't, I fail to understand." "Why, it's error to be weak and wear spectacles and have things, isn't it?" asked Jewel, with such swift earnestness that Mr. Evringham endeavored to compose his countenance. "Have things?" he repeated. Jewel's head fell to one side. "Why, even you, grandpa," she said lovingly, "even you thought you had the rheumatism." "I was certainly under that impression." "But you never would have expected to have it when you were as young as father, would you?" "Hardly." "Well, then you see why it's wrong to make laws about growing old and to remember people's ages." "Ah, I see what you mean. Everybody thinking the wrong way and jumping on a fellow when he's down, as it were." At this moment Jewel's father and mother entered the room, and she instantly forgot every other consideration in her interest as to what charming surprise might be bunched up under the tablecloth. "Anna Belle can hardly wait to see my present," she said, lifting her shoulders and smiling at her mother. "She ought to know one thing that's there, certainly," replied Mrs. Evringham mysteriously. Jewel held the doll up in front of her. "Have you given me something, dearie?" she asked tenderly. "I do hope you haven't been extravagant." Then with an abrupt change of manner, she hopped up into her chair eagerly, and the others took their places. The very first package that Jewel took out was marked--"With Anna Belle's love." It proved to be a pair of handsome white hair-ribbons, and the donor looked modestly away as Jewel expressed her pleasure and kissed her blushing cheeks. Next came a box marked with her father's name. Upon opening it there was discovered a set of ermine furs for Anna Belle,--at least they were very white furs with very black tiny tails: collar and muff of a regal splendor, and any one who declined to call them ermine would prove himself a cold skeptic. Jewel jounced up and down in her chair with delight. "Winter's coming, you know, Jewel, and Bel-Air Park is a very swell place," said her father. "And perhaps I'll have a sled at Christmas and draw Anna Belle on it," said the child joyously. "Here, dearie, let's see how they fit," and on went the furs over the blue cashmere wrapper, making Anna Belle such a thing of beauty that Jewel gazed at her entranced. The doll was left with her chubby hands in the ample muff and the sumptuous collar half eclipsing her golden curls, while the little girl dived under the cloth once more for the largest package of all. This was marked with her mother's love and contained handsome plaid material for a dress, with the silk to trim it, and a pair of kid gloves. Jewel hopped down from her chair and kissed first her father and then her mother. "That'll be the loveliest dress!" she said, and she carried it to her grandfather to let him look closer and put his hand upon it. "Well, well, you are having a nice birthday, Jewel," he said. "Yes," she replied, putting her arm around his neck and pressing her cheek to his. "We couldn't put the boat under the tablecloth, but I'm thinking about it, grandpa." After breakfast they all went out to the covered piazza to read the lesson. It was a fine, still morning. The pond rippled dreamily. The roar of the surf was subdued. From Jewel's seat beside her grandfather she could see her namesake glinting in the sun and gracefully rising and falling on the waves in the gentle breeze. They had all taken comfortable positions and Mrs. Evringham was finding the places in the books. Mr. Evringham spoke quite loudly: "Well, this is a fine morning, surely, fine." "It is that," agreed Harry, stretching his long legs luxuriously. "If I felt any better I couldn't stand it." As he was speaking, a strange man in a checked suit came around the corner of the house. Jewel's eyes grew larger and she straightened up. "Oh, grandpa, look!" she said softly, and then jumped off the seat to see better. All the little company gazed with interest, for, accompanying the man, was the most superb specimen of a collie dog that they had ever seen. "It's a golden dog, grandpa," added Jewel. The collie had evidently just been washed and brushed. His coat was, indeed, of a gleaming yellow. His paws were white, the tip of his tail was white, and his breast was snowy as the thick, soft foam of the breakers. A narrow strip of white descended between his eyes,--golden, intelligent eyes, with generations of trustworthiness in them. A silver collar nestled in the long hair about his neck, and altogether he looked like a prince among dogs. Jewel clasped her hands beneath her chin and gazed at him with all her eyes. He was too splendid to be flown at in her usual manner with animals. "What a beauty!" ejaculated Harry. "It _is_ a golden dog," said Jewel's mother, looking almost as enthusiastic as the child. "What have you there?" asked Mr. Evringham of the man. "Something pretty fine, it appears to me." "Yes, sir, there's none finer," replied the man, glancing at the animal. "I called to see you on that little matter I wrote you of." "Yes, yes; well, that will wait. We're interested in that fine collie of yours. We know something about golden dogs here, eh, Jewel?" "But this dog couldn't dance, grandpa," said the child soberly, drawing nearer to the creature. "I should think not," remarked the man, smiling. "What would he be doing dancing? I've seen lions jump the rope in shows; but it never looked fitting, to me." "No," said Jewel, "this dog ought not to dance;" and as the collie's golden eyes met hers, she drew nearer still in fascination, and he touched her outstretched hand curiously, with his cold nose. "Oh, well, but we like accomplished dogs," said Mr. Evringham coldly. "Who says this dog ain't accomplished?" returned the man, in an injured tone. "Just stand back there a bit, young lady." Jewel retreated and her grandfather put his hand over her shoulder. The man spoke to the dog, and at once the handsome creature sat up, tall and dignified, on his hind legs. The man only kept him there a few seconds; and then he put him through a variety of other performances. The golden dog shook hands when he was told, rolled over, jumped over a stick, and at last sat up again, and when the man took a bit of sugar from his pocket and balanced it on the creature's nose, he tossed it in the air, and, catching it neatly, swallowed it in a trice. Jewel was giving subdued squeals of delight, and everybody was laughing with pleasure; for the decorative creature appeared to enjoy his own tricks. The man looked proudly around upon the company. "Well," said Mr. Evringham to Jewel, "he is a dog of high degree, like Gabriel's, isn't he? But he's such a big fellow I think the organ-grinder wouldn't have such an easy time with _him_." At the broker's voice, the dog walked up to him and wagged his feathery tail. Jewel's eager hands went out to touch him, but Mr. Evringham held her back. "He's a friendly fellow," he went on; then continued to the man, "Would you like to sell him?" The question set the little girl's heart to beating fast. "I would, first rate," replied the man, grinning, "but the trouble is I've sold him once. I'm taking him to his owner now." "That's a handsome collar you have on him." "Oh, yes, it's a good one all right," returned the man. "The dog is for a surprise present. The lady I'm taking him to is going to know him by his name." "Let's have a look at it, Jewel," said Mr. Evringham, and he took hold of the silver collar, a familiarity which seemed rather to please the golden dog, who began wagging his tail again, as he looked at Mr. Evringham trustingly. Jewel bent over eagerly. A single name was engraved clearly on the smooth plate. "Topaz!" she cried. "His name is Topaz! Grandpa, mother, the golden dog's name is Topaz!" Mrs. Evringham held up both hands in amazement, while Harry frowned incredulously. "Did you ever hear of anything so wonderful, grandpa? How _can_ the lady know him by his name so well as we do?" The child was quite breathless. "What? Do _you_ know the name?" asked the man. "Supposing I'd hit on the right place already. Just take a look under his throat. The owner's name is there." Jewel fell on her knees, and while Mr. Evringham kept his hand on the dog's muzzle, she pushed aside the silky white fur. "Evringham. Bel-Air Park, New Jersey," was what she read, engraved on the silver. She sat still for a minute, overcome, while a procession of ideas crowded after each other through the flaxen head. It was her birthday; grandpa couldn't get the boat under the tablecloth. This beautiful dog--this impossibly beautiful dog, was a surprise present. He was for her, to love and to play with; to see his tricks every day, to teach him to know her and to run to her when she called. If she was given the choice of the Whole world on this sweet birthday morning, it seemed to her nothing could be so desirable as this live creature, this playmate, this prince among dogs. When she looked up the man in the checked suit had disappeared. She glanced at her father and mother. They were watching her smilingly and she understood that they had known. She looked around a little further and saw Mr. Evringham seated, his hand on the collie's neck, while the wagging, feathery tail expressed great contentment in the touch of a good friend. At the time the story of the golden dog had so captivated Jewel's imagination, the broker began his search for one in real life. He had already been thinking that a dog would be a good companion for the fearless child's solitary hours in the woods. As soon as the collie was found, he directed that all the ordinary tricks should be taught it, and every day until he left New York he visited the creature, who remembered him so well that on the collie's arrival late last evening, he had feared its joyous barking out at the barn would waken Jewel. She rose to her knees now, and, putting her arms around the dog's neck, pressed her radiant face against him. Topaz pulled back, but Mr. Evringham patted him, and in an instant he was freed; for his little mistress jumped up and, climbing into her grandfather's lap, rested her head against his breast. "Grandpa," she said, slowly and fervently, "I wonder if you do know how much I love you!" Mr. Evringham patted the collie's head, then took Jewel's hand and placed it with his own on the sleek forehead. The golden eyes met his attentively. "You're to take care of her, Topaz. Do you understand?" he asked. The feathery tail waved harder. Jewel gazed at the dog. "If anything could be too good to be true, he'd be it," she said slowly. Mr. Evringham's pleasure showed in his usually impassive face. "Well, isn't it a good thing then that nothing is?" he replied, and he kissed her. CHAPTER XVIII TRUE DELIGHT When evening came and put a period to that memorable birthday, Topaz was a dog of experiences. If he was a happy discovery to Jewel, she was none the less one to him. He was delighted to romp in the fields, where his coat vied with the goldenrod; or to scamper up and down the beach, barking excitedly, while his friends jumped or swam through the cool waves. Jewel was eager that her horse and dog should become acquainted; so, when late in the afternoon Essex Maid and Star were brought out at the customary hour, saddled and bridled, she performed an elaborate introduction between the jet-black picture pony and the prince among dogs. Star arched his neck and shook his wavy mane as he gazed down at the golden dog with his full bright eyes. He had seen Topaz before; for the collie had spent the night in the barn, making sunshine in a shady place as he romped about the man in the checked suit. "Oh, grandpa!" laughed Jewel, as Star pawed the ground, "he looks at Topaz just the way Essex Maid used to look at him when he first came. Just as _scornful_!" She knelt down on the grass by the pony, in her riding skirt, and Topaz instantly came near, hopefully. He had already learned that by sticking to her closely he was liable to have good sport; but this time business awaited him. Mr. Evringham watched the pony and dog, with the flaxen-haired child between them, and wished he had a kodak. "Now, Star and Topaz, you're going to love one another," said Jewel impressively. "Shake hands, Topaz." She held out her hand and the dog sat down and offered a white paw. "Good fellow," said the child. "Now I guess you're going to be surprised," she added, looking into his yellow eyes. She turned toward the pony, who was nosing her shoulder, not at all sure that he liked this rival. "Shake hands, Star," she ordered. It took the pony some time to make up his mind to do this. It usually did. He shook his mane and tossed his head; but Jewel kept patting his slender leg and offering her hand, until, with much gentle pawing and lifting his little hoof higher and higher, he finally rested it in the child's hand, although looking away meanwhile, in mute protest. "Good Star! Darling Star!" she exclaimed, jumping up and hugging him. "There, Topaz, what do you think of that?" she asked triumphantly. For answer the golden dog yawned profoundly, and Mr. Evringham and Jewel laughed together. "Such impoliteness!" cried the child. "You must excuse him if he is a little conceited," said the broker. "He knows Star can't sit up and roll over and jump sticks." "Oh, grandpa." Jewel's face sobered, for this revived a little difference of opinion between them. "When are you going to let me jump fences?" "In a few more birthdays, Jewel, a few more," he replied. She turned back to her pets. "I suppose," she said musingly, "it wouldn't be the least use to try to make them shake hands with each other." "I suppose not," returned the broker, and his shoulders shook. "Oh, Jewel, you certainly will make me lose my waist. Here now, time is flying. Mount." He lowered his hand, Jewel stepped on it and was in her white saddle instantly. The collie barked with loud inquiry and plunged hopefully. In a minute the horses were off at a good pace. "Come, Topaz!" cried the child, and the golden dog scampered after them with a will. Harry and Julia took a sail in the "Jewel" while the riders were away, otherwise the four had spent the entire day together; and after dinner they all strolled out of doors to watch the coming of twilight. Jewel and her father began a romp on the grass with the dog, and Mr. Evringham and Julia took seats on the piazza. The broker watched the group on the lawn in silence for a minute, and then he spoke. "I was very much impressed by the talk we had last evening, Julia; more so even than by those that have gone before. Harry really seems very intelligent on this subject of Christian Science." "He is making a conscientious study of it," returned Julia. "You have met my questions and objections remarkably well," went on Mr. Evringham. "I am willing and glad to admit truth where I once was skeptical, and I hope to understand much more. One thing I must say, however, I do object to--it is this worship of Mrs. Eddy. I know you don't call it that, but what does it matter what you call it, when you all give her slavish obedience? I should like to take the truth she has presented and make it more impersonal than you do. What is the need of thinking about her at all?" Julia smiled. "Well, ordinary gratitude might come in there. Most of us feel that she has led us to the living Christ, and helped us to all we have attained of health and happiness; but one very general mistake that error makes use of to blind people is that Mrs. Eddy exacts this gratitude. How willing everybody is to admit that actions speak louder than words; and yet who of our opposers ever stop to think how Mrs. Eddy's retired, hard-working life proves the falsity of the charges brought against her. She does wish for our love and gratitude; but it is for our sakes, not hers. Think of any of the great teachers from St. Paul down to the present day. Who could benefit by the truth voiced by any of them, while he nursed either contempt or criticism of the personality of the teacher?" "Yes," returned Mr. Evringham, "there is strength in that consideration; but this blind following of any suggestion your leader makes looks to me too much like giving up your own rationality." Julia regarded him seriously. "Supposing you were one of a party who had, for long years, searched in vain for gold. You had tried mine after mine only to find you had not the ability to discriminate between the priceless and the worthless ore, or to discern the signs of promise that lead to rich discovery. Now, supposing another prospector had proved, over and over again, that he did know the places where treasure was to be found. Supposing he had demonstrated, over and over again, that his judgment and discernment never led him astray, and that reward followed his labor unfailingly. Now, what if this wise prospector was willing to help you? Supposing he stated that in certain places, and by certain ways, you could attain that for which you longed and had striven vainly. When his advice or directions came to you, from time to time, do you think you would be likely to stop to haggle or argue over them? No; I think you would hasten to follow his suggestions, as eagerly and as closely as you were able, and with a warmly grateful heart. Would that prospector be forcing you? or doing you a kindness? What are the fruits of Christian Science? What are the results of the directions of this wise, loving leader who can come so close to God that He teaches her to help us to come, too. Oh, father, this obstacle, this foolish argument, meets nearly every one in the path you are treading, and tries to turn him back. I do hope, for your sake, you will decline to give that very flabby error-fairy a backbone, or let it detain you longer. It is marvelous how, without one element of truth or reason, it seems able to hold back so many, and waste their precious time." Mr. Evringham was regarding the speaker with close attention. "You are a good special pleader," he said, when she paused. "It is easy to speak the truth," she answered. He nodded thoughtfully. "You have given me a new light on the situation. I see it now from an entirely new standpoint." Here the trio on the lawn came running up the steps, father and child laughing and panting as hard as Topaz, whose tongue and teeth were all in evidence in the gayety of his grin. Harry threw himself into the hammock, and Jewel sat on the floor beside Topaz, who gazed at her from his wistful eyes, his head on the side. Harry laughed. "Jewel, he looks at you as if he were saying, 'Really, now, you are a person after my own heart.'" "She is after his heart, too," said Jewel's mother, "and I'm sure she'll win it." "He likes me already," declared the child. "Don't you, Topaz?" she asked tenderly, laying her flaxen head with its big bows against the gold of his coat. "Oh, there ought to be one more story in my book," she added, "one for us to read right now and finish up my birthday." "Why not have 'The Golden Dog' again?" suggested Mr. Evringham, from the comfortable big wicker chair in which he sat watching Jewel and Topaz. "That would be appropriate." "Oh, yes," cried the little girl, looking at her mother. "Oh, no," returned Julia, smiling. "There ought to be a special fresh story for a birthday. We might make one now." "A new one, mother?" asked Jewel, much pleased. "Could you?" "No indeed, not alone; but if everybody helped"-- "Oh, yes," cried Jewel, with more enthusiasm than before. "Grandpa begin because he's the oldest, then father, then mother, then--well, me, if I can think of anything." "It's very wrong of you, Jewel," said the broker, "to remember that I'm the oldest, under these circumstances. What did you tell me this morning?" The child's head fell to the side and she leaned toward him. "I don't know how old you are," she replied gently; "and it doesn't make any difference." "Then let's begin with the youngest," he suggested. "No," said his daughter, "I think Jewel's plan is the best. You begin, father." She did not in the least expect that he would consent, but Jewel, her hands resting on Topaz's collar, was looking at the broker lovingly. "Grandpa can do just anything," she declared. Mr. Evringham regarded her musingly. "I know only one story," he said at last, "and not very far into that one." "You don't have to know far," returned Julia encouragingly, "for Harry has to begin whenever you say so." "Indeed!" put in her husband. "I pity you if you have to listen to me." "It's my birthday, you know, grandpa," urged Jewel. "So I've understood," returned the broker. "Well, just wait a minute till I hitch up Pegasus." "Great Scott!" exclaimed his son. "You aren't in earnest, Julia? You don't expect me to do anything like that right off the bat!" "Certainly, I do," she replied, laughing. "Oh, see here, I have an engagement. We're one, you know, and when it comes to authorship, you're the one." "Hush," returned Julia, "you're disturbing father's muse." But Mr. Evringham's ideas, whatever they were, seemed to be at hand. He settled back in his chair, his elbows on the arms and his finger-tips touching. All his audience immediately gave attention. Even Anna Belle had a chair all to herself and fixed an inspiring gaze on the broker. It was to be hoped that her pride kept her cool, for, in spite of the quiet warmth of the September evening, she was enveloped in her new furs, with her hands tucked luxuriously in the large muff. "Once upon a time," began Mr. Evringham, "there was an old man. No one had ever told him that it was error to grow old and infirm, and he sometimes felt about ninety, although he was rather younger. He lived in the Valley of Vain Regret. The climate of that region has a bad effect on the heart, and his had shriveled up until it was quite small and mean, and hard and cold, at that. "The old man wasn't poor; he lived in a splendid castle and had plenty of servants to wait on him; but he was the loneliest of creatures. He wanted to be lonely. He didn't like anybody, and all he asked of people was that they stay away from him and only speak to him when he spoke to them, which wasn't very often, I assure you. You can easily see that people were willing to stay away from a cross-grained person like that. Everybody in the neighborhood was afraid of him. They shivered when he came near, and ran off to get into the sunshine; so he was used to seeing visitors pass by the fine grounds of his castle with only a scared glance or two in that direction, and he wished it to be so. But he was very unhappy all the same. His dried-up heart gave him much discomfort, and then once he had read an old parchment that told of a far different land from Vain Regret. In that country was the Castle of True Delight, and many an hour the man spent in restless longing to know how he might find it; for--so he read--if a person could once pass within the portals of that palace, he would never again know sorrow or discontent, but one happy day would follow another in endless variety and satisfaction. "Many a time the man mounted on a spirited horse and rode forth in search of this castle, and many different paths he took; but every night he came home discouraged, for no sign could he find of any hope or cheer in the whole Valley of Vain Regret, and it seemed to him to hold him like a prisoner. "One day as he was strolling on the terrace before the castle, in bitter thought, a strange sight met his eyes. A little girl pushed open the great iron gates which he had thought were locked, and walked toward him. For a minute he was too much amazed at such daring to speak, and the little girl came forward, smiling as she caught his look. She had dark eyes and her brown hair curled in her neck. Most people would have remarked her sweet expression; but the old man turned fierce at sight of her. "'Be off,' he commanded angrily, and he pointed to the gate. "She did not cease smiling nor turn away, but came straight on. "The little dried heart in the old man's breast began to bounce about at a great rate in his anger. He turned to a servant who stood near holding in leash two great hounds. "'Set the dogs on her,' he commanded; and though the servant was loath to obey, he dared not refuse, and set free the dogs who, at the master's word, bounded swiftly toward the child. "Her loving look did not alter as she saw them coming and she held out her hands to them. When they reached her they licked the little hands with their tongues and bent their great heads to her caresses, and so she advanced to the man, walking between the hounds, a hand on the neck of each. "He stared at her dumfounded as she stood before him, her eyes smiling up into his. Her garments were white and of a strange fashion. "'From whence come you?' he asked, when he could speak. "'From the Heavenly Country,' she answered. "'And what may be your name?' "'Purity.' "'I ordered you out of my grounds!' exclaimed the old man. "'I did not hear it,' returned the child, unmoved. "'Don't you fear the dogs?' "'What is fear?' asked Purity, her eyes wondering. "'This is the land of Vain Regret,' said the man. 'Be off!' "'This is a beautiful land,' returned the child. "For a moment her fearless obstinacy held him silent, then he thought he would voice the question that was always with him. "'Have you ever heard, in your country, of the Castle of True Delight?' he asked. "'Often,' replied the child. "'I wish to go there,' he declared eagerly. "'Then why not?' returned Purity. "'I cannot find the way.' "'That is a pity,' said the child. 'It is in my country.' "'And you have seen it?' "'Oh, many times.' "'Then you shall show me the way.' "'Whenever you are ready,' returned Purity. So saying, she passed him, still accompanied by the hounds, and walked up the steps of the castle and passed within and out of sight." * * * * * The story-teller paused. Jewel had risen from her seat on the floor and come to sit on a wicker hassock at his feet, and Topaz rapped with his tail as she moved. "I wish you'd been there, grandpa, to take care of that little girl," she said earnestly, her eyes fixed on his. "What happened next?" "Ask your father," was the response. Harry Evringham rolled over in the hammock where he lay stretched, until he could see his daughter's face. She rose again and pulled her hassock close to him as he continued:-- "As Purity passed into the house, the dogs whined, and the servant calling them, they ran back to him. The old man stood still, bewildered, for a minute; then he struck his hands together. "'It is true, then. Even that child has seen it. I will go to her at once, and we will set forth.' "So the old man entered the castle, and gave orders that the child who had just come in should be found and brought to him. "The servants immediately flew to do his bidding, but no child could they find. "'Lock the gates lest she escape,' ordered the master. 'She is here. Find her, or off goes every one of your foolish heads.' "This was a terrible threat. You may be sure the servants ran hither and thither, and examined every nook and corner; but still no little girl could be found. The master scowled and fumed, but he considered that if he had his servants all beheaded, it would put him to serious inconvenience; so he only sat down and bit his thumbs, and began to try to think up some new way to search for the Castle of True Delight. "He felt sure the child had told the truth when saying she had beheld it. It was even in the country where she had her home. The man began to see that he had made a mistake not to treat the stranger more civilly. The very dogs that he kept to drive away intruders had been more hospitable than he. "All at once he had a bright thought. The roc, the oldest and wisest of all birds, lived at the top of the mountain which rose above his castle. "'She will tell me the way,' he said, 'for she knows the world from its very beginning.' "So he ordered that they should saddle and bridle his strongest steed, and up the mountain he rode for many a toilsome hour, until he came to where the roc lived among the clouds. "She listened civilly to the man's question. 'So you are weary of your life,' she said. 'Many a pilgrim comes to me on the same quest, and I tell them all the same thing. The obstacles to getting away from the Valley of Vain Regret are many, for there is but one road, and that has difficulties innumerable; but the thing that makes escape nearly impossible is the dragon that watches for travelers, and has so many eyes that two of them are always awake. There is one hope, however. If you will examine my wings and make yourself a similar pair, you can fly above the pitfalls and the dragon's nest, and so reach the palace safely.' "As she said this, the roc slowly stretched her great wings, and the man examined them eagerly, above and below. "'And in what direction do I fly?' he asked at last. "'Toward the rising sun,' replied the roc; then her wings closed, her head drooped, and she fell asleep, and no further word could the man get from her. "He rode home, and for many weeks he labored and made others labor, to build an air-ship that should carry him out of the Valley of Vain Regret. It was finished at last. It was cleverly fashioned, and had wings as broad as the roc's; but on the day when the man finally stepped within it and set it in motion, it carried him only a short distance outside the castle gates, and then sank to the boughs of a tall tree, and, try as he might, the air-ship could not be made to take a longer flight. "His poor shrunken heart fluttered with rage and disappointment. 'I will go to the wise hermit,' he said. So he went far through the woods to the hut of the wise hermit, and he told him the same gruesome things about the difficulties that beset the road out of the Valley of Vain Regret, and said that one's only hope lay in tunneling beneath them. "So the old man hired a large number of miners, and, setting their faces eastward, they burrowed down into the earth, and blasted and dug a way which the man followed, a greater and greater eagerness possessing him with each step of progress; but just when his hopes were highest, the miners broke through into an underground cavern, bottomless and black, from which they all started back, barely in time to save themselves. It was impossible to go farther, and the whole company returned by the way they had come, and the miners were very glad to breathe the air of the upper world again; but the man's disappointment was bitter. "'It is of no use,' he said, when again he stood on the terrace in front of his castle. 'It is of no use to struggle. I am imprisoned for life in the Valley of Vain Regret.'" * * * * * Jewel's father paused. She had listened attentively. Now she turned to her grandfather. "Is that the way you think the story went, grandpa?" Mr. Evringham nodded. "I think it did," he replied. "Then go on, please, father, because I like a lot of happiness in my stories, and I want that man to hurry up and know that--that error is cheating him." "Your mother to the rescue, then," replied Harry Evringham, smiling. Jewel turned to look at her mother, and, rising again, picked up her hassock and carried it to the steamer chair in which Mrs. Evringham was reclining. Her mother looked into her serious eyes and nodded reassuringly as she began:-- * * * * * "As that sorry old man stood there on the terrace, things had never looked so black to him. He was so tired, so tired of hating. He longed for a thousand things, he knew not what, but he was sure they were to be found at the Castle of True Delight; but he was shut in! There was no way out. As he was thinking these despairing thoughts and looking about on the scenes which had grown hateful to him, he saw something that made him start. The great iron gates leading out of his grounds opened as once before, and a little girl in white garments came in and moved toward him. His heart leaped at the sight,--and it swelled a bit, too! "Instead of ordering her off, he hurried toward her and, although he scowled in his eagerness, she smiled and lifted dark eyes that beamed lovingly. "'I cannot find my way to your country nor to the Castle of True Delight,' said the man, 'and I need you to show me. Since you have found your road hither twice, surely you can go back again.' "'Yes, easily,' replied Purity, 'and since you know that you need me, you are ready, and the King welcomes all.' "'He will not like me,' said the sorry man, 'because nobody does.' "'I do,' replied the child; and at her tone the man's heart swelled a little more. "'There is water in my eyes,' he said, as if to himself. 'What does that mean?' "'It will make you see better,' replied the child. 'It is the kind of water that softens the heart, and that always improves the sight.' "'Be it so, then. Perhaps I can better see the way; but the road is full of perils innumerable, child. Have you found some other path?' "'There is but one,' replied Purity. "'So the roc said,' declared the man. 'How did you pass the dragon?' "The child looked up wonderingly. 'I saw no dragon,' she answered. "The man stared at her. 'There are pitfalls and obstacles innumerable,' he repeated, 'and an ever-wakeful dragon. You passed it in the night, perhaps, and were too small to be observed.' "'I saw none,' repeated the child. "'Yet I will risk it!' exclaimed the man. 'Rather death than this life. Wait until I buckle on my sword and order our horses.' "He turned to go, but the child caught his hand. 'We need no horses,' she said, gently, 'and what would you with a sword?' "'For our defense.' "The child pressed his hand softly. 'Those who win to True Delight use only the sword of spirit,' she answered. "The man frowned at her, but even frowning he wondered. Again came the swelling sensation within his breast, which he could not understand. "The child smiled upon him and started toward the heavy gates and the man followed. He wondered at himself, but he followed. "Emerging into the woodland road, Purity took a path too narrow and devious for a horse to tread, but the man saw that it led toward the rising sun. She seemed perfectly sure of her way, and occasionally turned to look sweetly on the pilgrim whose breast was beginning to quake at thought of the difficulties to come. No defense had he but his two hands, and no guide but this gentle, white-robed child in her ignorant fearlessness. Indeed it was worse than being alone, for he must defend her as well as himself. She was so young and helpless, and she had looked love at him. With this thought the strange water stood again in his eyes and the narrow heart in his bosom swelled yet more. "The forest thickened and deepened. Sharp thorns sprang forth and at last formed a network before the travelers. "'You will hurt yourself, Purity!' cried the man. 'Let me go first,' and pushing by the little child, he tried to break the thorny branches and force a way; but his hands were torn in vain; and seeing the hopelessness, after a long struggle, he turned sadly to his guide. "'I told you!' he said. "'Yes,' she answered, and the light from her eyes shone upon the tangle. 'On this road, force will avail nothing; but there are a thousand helps for him who treads this path with me.' "As she spoke, an army of bright-eyed little squirrels came fleetly into the thicket and gnawed down thorns and briers before the pilgrims, until they emerged safely into an open field. "'A heart full of thanks, little ones,' called Purity after them as they fled. "'Why did they do that for us?' asked the astonished man. "'Because they know I love them,' replied the child, and she moved forward lightly beside her companion. "They had walked for perhaps half an hour when a sound of rushing waters came to their ears, and they soon reached a broad river. There was no bridge and the current was deep and swift. "The man gazed at the roaring torrent in dismay. 'Oh, child, behold the flood! Even if I could build a raft, we should be carried out to sea, and no swimmer could stem that tide with you in his arms. How ever came you across by yourself?' "'Love helped me,' answered Purity. "'Alas, it will not help me,' said the man. 'I know Hate better.' "'But you are becoming acquainted with Love, else you would not look on me so kindly,' returned the child. 'Have faith and come to the shore.' She put her little hand in his and he held it close, and together they walked to the edge of the rushing river. Suddenly its blackness was touched and twinkling with silver which grew each instant more compact and solid, and, without a moment's hesitation, Purity stepped upon the silver path, drawing with her the man, who marveled to see that countless large fish, with their noses toward the current and their fins working vigorously, were offering their bodies as a buoyant bridge, over which the two passed safely. "'A thousand thanks, dear ones,' said Purity, as they reached the farther bank; and instantly there was a breaking and twinkling of the silver, and the rushing water swallowed up the kindly fish. "The man, speechless with wonder, moved along beside his guide, and from time to time she sang a little song, and as she sang he could feel his heart swelling and there was a strange new happiness born in it, which seemed to answer her song though his lips were mute. "And then Purity talked to him of her King and of the rich delights which were ever poured out to him who once found the path to the Heavenly Country; and the man listened quite eagerly and humbly and clung to Purity as to his only hope. "When night fell he feared to close his eyes lest the child slip away from him; but she smiled at his fears. "'I can never leave you while you want me,' she answered; 'beside, I do not wish to, for I love you. Do you forget that?' "At this the man lay down quite peacefully. His heart was full and soft, and the strange water that filled his eyes overflowed upon his cheeks. "In the morning they ate fruits and berries, and pursued their journey, and it was not long before another of the obstacles which the roc and the hermit had foretold threatened to end their pilgrimage. It was a chasm that fell away so steeply and was so deep and wide that, looking into the depths below, the man shuddered and started back. Before he had time to utter his dismay, a large mountain deer appeared noiselessly before the travelers. The man started eagerly, but as the creature's bright, wild gaze met his, it vanished as silently and swiftly as it had come. "'Ah, why was that?' exclaimed Purity. 'Felt you an unloving thought?' "''Twas a fine deer. Had I but possessed a bow and arrow, I could have taken it!' returned the man, with excitement. "'To what end?' asked Purity, her wondering eyes sad. 'One does not gain the Heavenly Country by slaying. We must wait now, until Love drives out all else.' "The repentant man hung his head and looked at the broad chasm. 'Would that I had not willed to kill the creature,' he said, 'for I am loath to lose my own life, and it is less good than the deer's.' "Purity smiled upon him and slid her hand into his, and again the deer bounded before them, followed this time by its mate. "The child fondled them. 'Mount upon its back,' she said to the man, indicating the larger animal. He obeyed, though with trembling, while the smaller deer kneeled to the child and she took her seat. "Then the creatures planted their feet unerringly and stepped to a lower jutting point of rock, from whence with flying leaps they bridged the chasm and scrambled to firm earth on the other side. "'Our hearts' best thanks, loved ones,' said Purity, as the deer bounded away. "The man was trembling. 'I have slain many of God's creatures for my pleasure,' he faltered. 'May He forgive me!' "'If you do so no more you will forgive yourself; but only so,' returned Purity. "They moved along again and the man spoke earnestly and humbly of the wonders that had befallen them. "'To Love, all things are possible,' returned the child; 'but to Love only;' and her companion listened to all she said, with a full heart. "By noon that day, an inaccessible cliff stared the travelers in the face. Its mighty crags bathed their feet in a deep pool, and up, up, for hundreds of feet, ran a smooth wall of rock in which no one might find a foothold. "The man stared at it in silence, and it seemed to frown back inexorably. His companion watched his face and read its mute hopelessness. "'Have you still--_still_ no faith?' she asked. "'I cannot see how'--stammered the man. "'No, you cannot see how--but what does that matter?' asked the child. 'Let us eat now,' and she sat down, and the man with her, and they ate of the fruits and nuts she had gathered along the way and carried in her white gown. "While they ate, a pair of great eagles circled slowly downward out of the blue sky, nor paused until they had alighted near the travelers. "'Welcome, dear birds,' said Purity. 'You know well the Heavenly Country, and we seek your help to get there, for we have no wings to fly above those rocky steeps.' "The eagles nestled their heads within her little hands, in token of obedience, and when she took her seat upon one, the man obeyed her sign and trusted himself upon the outstretched wings of the other. "Up, up, soared the great birds, over the sullen pool, up the sheer rock. Up, and still up, with sure and steady flight, until, circling once again, the eagles alighted gently upon a land strewn with flowers. "The man and his guide stood upon the green earth, and Purity kissed her hands gratefully to the eagles as they circled away and out of sight. "'This is a beautiful country,' said the man, and he gathered a white flower. "'Yes,' returned Purity, smiling on him, 'you begin to see it now.'" * * * * * Mrs. Evringham paused. Jewel's eyes were fixed on her unwinkingly. "Go on, please, mother," she said. "I think I've told enough," replied Mrs. Evringham. "Oh, but you finish it, mother. You can tell it just beautifully." "Thank you, dear, but I think it is your turn." "Yes, Jewel," said her father, "it's up to you now." "But I don't think a little girl _can_ tell stories to grown-up people." "Oh, yes, on her birthday she can," returned her father. "Go on, we're all listening; no one asleep except Topaz." Jewel's grandfather had been watching her absorbed face all the time, between his half-closed lids. "I think they've left the hardest part of all to you, Jewel," he said,--"to tell about the dragon." "Oh, no-o," returned the child scornfully, "that part's easy." The broker raised his eyebrows. "Indeed?" he returned. In honor of her birthday, Jewel was arrayed in her silk dress. The white ribbons, Anna Belle's gift, were billowing out behind her ears. She presented the appearance, as she sat on the wicker hassock, of a person who had had little experience with dragons. "Well," she said, after a pause, smiling at her grandfather and lifting her shoulders, "shall I try, then?" "By all means," returned the broker. So Jewel folded her hands in her silken lap and began in her light, sweet voice:-- * * * * * "When the man looked around on the flowers and lovely trees and brooks, he said, 'This is a beautiful land.' "And Purity answered: 'I'm glad that you see it is. You remember I told you it was.' "'It was the Valley of Vain Regret we were talking about then,' said the man. 'If you had known more about it, you wouldn't have called _that_ beautiful.' "Then the little girl smiled because she knew something nice that the man didn't know yet; but he was going to. "So they journeyed along and journeyed along through pleasant places, and while they walked, Purity told the man about the great King--how loving He was and everything like that, and the man had hold of her hand and listened just as hard as he could, for he felt sure she was telling the truth; and it made him glad, and his heart that had been wizzled up just like a fig, had grown to be as big as--oh, as big as a watermelon, and it was full of nice feelings. "'I'm happy, Purity,' he said to the little girl. "I'm glad,' she answered, and she squeezed his hand back again, because she loved him now as much as if he was her grandpa. "Well, they went along, and along, and at last they came to some woods and a narrow path through them. The man was beginning to think they might need the squirrels again, when suddenly"--Jewel paused and looked around on her auditors whose faces she could barely see in the gathering dusk,--"suddenly the man thought he saw the dragon he had heard so much about; and he shivered and hung back, but Purity walked along and wondered what was the matter with him. "'There's the dragon!' he said, in the most _afraid_ voice, and he hung back on the girl's hand so hard that she couldn't move. "When she saw how he looked, she patted him. 'I don't see anything,' she said, 'only just lovely woods.' "'Oh, Purity, come back, come back, we can't go any farther!' said the man, and his eyes kept staring at something among the trees, close by. "'What do you see?' asked the little girl. "'A great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns!' answered the man, and he pulled on her again, to go back with him. "'Dear me,' said Purity, 'is that old make-believe thing ground here, trying to cheat you? I've heard about it.' "'It would make anybody afraid,' said the man. 'It has seven heads and it could eat us up with any one of them.' "'Yes, it could, if it was there,' said Purity, 'but there isn't any such thing, to _be_ there. The King of the country is all-powerful and He knows we're coming, and He _wants_ us to come. Hasn't He taken care of us all the way and helped us over every hard place? Shouldn't you think you'd _know_ by this time that we're being taken care of?' "'Oh, dear!' said the man, 'I shall never see the Heavenly Country, nor the castle, nor know what true delight is; for no one could get by that dragon!' "Purity felt bad because his face was the sorriest that you ever saw, and his voice sounded full of crying. So she put her arms around him. 'Now don't you feel that way;' she said, 'everything is just as happy as it was before. There isn't any dragon there. Tell me where you see him.' "So the man pointed to the foot of a great tree close by. "'All right,' said Purity, 'I'll go and stand right in front of that tree until you get 'way out of the woods, and then I'll run and catch up with you.' "The man stooped down and put his arms around the girl just as lovingly as if she was his own little grandchild. "'I can't do that,' he said; 'I'd rather the dragon would eat me up than you. You run, Purity, and I'll stay; and when he tries to catch you, I'll throw myself in front of him. But kiss me once, dear, because we've been very happy together.' "Purity kissed him over and over again because she was so happy about his goodness, and she saw the tears in his eyes, that are the kind that make people see better. She _knew_ what the man was going to see when he stood up again." The story-teller paused a moment, but no one spoke, although she looked at each one questioningly; so she continued:-- "Well, he was the most _surprised_ man when he got up and looked around. "'The dragon has gone!' he said. "'No, he hasn't,' said Purity, and she just hopped up and down, she was so glad. 'He hasn't gone, because he wasn't there!' "'He _isn't_ there!' said the man, over and over. 'He _isn't_ there!' and he looked so happy--oh, as happy as if it was his birthday or something. "So they walked along out into the sunshine again, and sweeter flowers than ever were growing all around them, and a bird that was near began singing a new song that the man had never heard. "There was a lovely green mountain ahead of them now. 'Purity,' said the man, for something suddenly came into his head, 'is this the Heavenly Country?' "'Yes,' said Purity, and she clapped her hands for joy because the man knew it was. "They walked along and the bird's notes were louder and sweeter. 'I _think_, said the man softly, 'I think he is singing the song of true delight.' "'He is,' said Purity. "So, when they had walked a little farther still, they began to see a splendid castle at the foot of the mountain. "'Oh,' said the man, just as happily as anything, 'is that home at _last_!' "'Yes,' said Purity, 'it is the Castle of True Delight.' "The man felt young and strong and he walked so fast the little girl had to skip along to keep up with him, and the bird flew around their heads and sang 'Love, love, love; _true_ delight, _true_ delight,' just as _plain_." * * * * * Jewel gave the bird-song realistically, then she unclasped her hands. "Mother," she said, turning to Mrs. Evringham, "now you finish the story. Will you?" "Yes, indeed, I know the rest," returned Mrs. Evringham quietly, and she took up the thread:-- * * * * * "As the man and Purity drew near to the great gates before the castle, these flew open of their own accord, and the travelers entered. Drawing near the velvet green of the terraces, a curious familiarity in the fair scene suddenly impressed the man. He stared, then frowned, then smiled. A great light streamed across his mind. "'Purity,' he asked slowly, 'is this my castle?' "'Yes,' she answered, watching him with eyes full of happiness. "'And will you live with me here, my precious child?' "'Always. The great King wills it so.' "'But what--where--where is the Valley of Vain Regret?' "Purity shook her head and her clear eyes smiled. 'There is no Valley of Vain Regret,' she answered. "'But I lived in it,' said the man. "'Yes, before you knew the King, our Father. There is no vain regret for the King's child.' "'Then I--I, too, am the King's child?' asked the man, his face amazed but radiant, for he began to understand a great many things. "'You, too,' returned Purity, and she nestled to him and he held her close while the bird hovered above their heads and sang with clear sweetness, 'Love, love, love; true delight, true, true, _true_ delight.'" * * * * * The story-teller ceased. Jewel saw that the tale was finished. She jumped up from the hassock and clapped her hands. Then she ran to Mr. Evringham and climbed into his lap. It was so dark now on the veranda that she could scarcely see his face. But he put his arms around her and gathered her to her customary resting place on his shoulder. "Wasn't that _lovely_, grandpa? Did you think your story was going to end that way?" He stroked her flaxen hair in silence for a few seconds before replying, then he answered, rather huskily:-- "I hoped it would, Jewel." "_The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay_" * * * * * _There Are Two Sides to Everything_-- --including the wrapper which covers every Grosset & Dunlap book. When you feel in the mood for a good romance, refer to the carefully selected list of modern fiction comprising most of the successes by prominent writers of the day which is printed on the back of every Grosset & Dunlap book wrapper. You will find more than five hundred titles to choose from--books for every mood and every taste and every pocket-book. _Don't forget the other side, but in case the wrapper is lost, write to the publishers for a complete catalog._ * * * * * _There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book for every mood and for every taste_ 
39895	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE CHURCH OF ST. BUNCO A DRASTIC TREATMENT OF A COPYRIGHTED RELIGION--UN-CHRISTIAN NON-SCIENCE BY GORDON CLARK THE Abbey Press PUBLISHERS 114 FIFTH AVENUE London NEW YORK Montreal Copyright, 1901, by THE Abbey Press CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE Preface 7 I. A Bird's-eye View of the Thing 11 II. The Origin of the "New Thought" 15 III. Dr. Quimby's most Distinguished Patient 41 IV. A Great "Metaphysical" Novel 59 V. A Soft Set of Critics 74 VI. "The Precious Volume" 78 VII. "Key" to the Eddy Scripture, Science and Health 95 VIII. "Christian Science" Organizing Forces 108 IX. The One True "Mother Church" 120 X. A Martyr to "Science" 131 XI. Metaphysics 155 XII. Further Analysis of the Universe 165 XIII. A Special Look at Space and Time 180 XIV. Creative Mind Further Probed 186 XV. The Genesis of "Transcendental" Ideas 193 XVI. The Grand Result of Dissecting Phenomena 196 XVII. Some Sequences of Absolute Idealism 206 XVIII. Various Schools of the "New Thought" 219 XIX. An Advanced Healer of To-day 232 XX. Conclusion 248 PREFACE. The purpose of this book is not to deny the power of mind over matter, or of the human mind over the human body, but to show that the foolish and pestilent thing termed "Christian Science" is a leech fastened upon these great truths, mostly, if not wholly, to batten on them. There is no use of saying this to "Christian Scientists" themselves--an obedient chain-gang in hypnotic servitude. But people who are not already "in Science" (to use the shibboleth of those who are), ought to be prompted not to get there. The best way in general, I think, is to show that even the historical and biographical claims at the base of the movement are false. If the personal veracity of the head of a church cannot be trusted, "divine revelations," "miracles" and "mental medicine," proceeding from such a source, will naturally be accepted only by the very soft, or else by the very hard for solid considerations. Is there no sincerity, then, in "Christian Science"? Of course there is. Even the "discoverer and founder" of it undoubtedly believes certain of its asseverations. Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy must be credited, for instance, with the conviction that she has some knowledge of "metaphysics"--a conviction that is nothing worse than a pitiable mistake, which is exploded here at some length. When, as a result of this mistake, she teaches that matter is nothing--not even a condition of anything--only sincerity can account for such lunacy. Yet herein "Christian Science" has its whole rational, or rather irrational, breath of life. Some "Christian Scientists" sincerely believe in an equivalent for "black magic." As, in their view, "concentration of mind" can cure disease, they think it can also throw disease upon enemies, or upon backsliders from "science." It has been suggested even to the present writer that illness might be cast upon him if he antagonized "the true faith." According to certain dissidents from "Christian Science," "black magic," though with much talk of "chastening love"--(every crime of religious hypocrisy is always committed in the name of "love")--has been persistently tried on heretical wanderers. In the natural course of time some of them are dead; but those whom I have met are not only living, they are comfortably fat. As "Christian Science" has to me no genuine basis, either in facts, science, theology, metaphysics or therapeutics, but is a mendacious, contradictory, pretentious humbug, I do not hesitate to use such weapons, whether narration, logic, or satire, as are adapted to puncture it. We hear that "Christian Science" has done good. So it has, in some instances, but only through means which it pretends to repudiate, and through the trustful ignorance of those who have been duped by it. We hear, also, that "Christian Scientists" are specially "educated and intelligent." I deny it. No one of them seems ever to have heard of the history of philosophy--a cemetery in which have long lain buried the most of "Mother" Eddy's "divine revelations," "original discoveries" and "absolute demonstrations." Her followers can doubtless _read_, or they would not be available as purchasers of her _Science and Health_; but, if they could _think_, they never would have read the book through. From beginning to end, it is simply a batch of self-contradictions and self-nullities. These are capped with the most impudent claim ever uttered on earth--the claim that the human mind in its natural state cannot comprehend the divine mind incarnate in the author. If caustic is applied to such nonsense, there is no need of apology. The only doubt is that the malefaction is worth the burning. G. C. THE CHURCH OF ST. BUNCO. CHAPTER I. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE THING. The date of this writing is the year 1901. About a quarter of a century ago, Boston, the city of modified Puritans and keen business thrift, evolved a new religion. Modern Boston, however, being nothing if not "scientific," the new religion tipped its wings with the new time, and soared aloft in the name of "Christian Science." In a world not quite converted to this "science," facts sometimes fall behind assertions. But the sect of Christian Science now claims to number in its fold a million sheep. The "mother church," of course, is in Boston; but daughter churches of every age and size are budding and blooming throughout the earth. At headquarters Christian Science has its official weekly organ, its official monthly magazine, and its official publishing house. The cult has issued innumerable books, but specially the multifarious editions of _Science and Health_, the chief work of the adored "mother" and "founder" of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. As the latest edition of this sacred book is always the best, and as the holy author carefully recommends it as such to all the faithful--whatever other editions they possess--its very high price, under copyright,[1] as compared with undivine books, has rendered it a magnificent source of income. Then, as the average fee for blessing a disciple of Christian Science with a dozen lessons in "metaphysics" and "healing" has been three hundred dollars,[2] a grateful providence through long years, has not only provided food and raiment for "Mother Eddy," but a rich abundance, too, of such worldly goods as should adorn and stimulate perfect piety, not excepting the whitest of diamonds, as symbols of purity, for herself and the elect of her household. Why not? Her devotees are strict adherents of Scripture--always as she interprets it for them--and she believes, for all the text will yield, that "the laborer is worthy of his hire." Now, apart from the name and the church of Christian Science, there are many people in Boston and its universal radiations--very intelligent and honest people, too--who utterly discard Mrs. Eddy and her teachings, yet hold the general doctrine on which she speculates--the now well-known doctrine that mind governs matter, and that the soul can cure the body of disease. The teaching of these people may simply be termed "mental healing," though they say also "mental science," sometimes "metaphysics" and comprehensively "the new thought." Of late much has been said and written against Christian Science; but adverse criticism has proceeded mostly from physicians in the interest of their schools and theologians in the interest of their creeds. These good souls have taken Christian Science seriously, like the innocent followers of Mrs. Eddy herself. But as soon as a general investigator touches the fad, especially the history of it, he sees that, whatever its effects may have been--good, bad or indifferent--it began in false pretenses,[3] has been pushed for money, and is one of the most shallow humbugs that ever tricked an epoch in the cloak of religion, or reduced "metaphysics" to lunacy. Hence our title. The Church of St. Bunco is the name for the thing. "Christian Science," properly named, is simply _Un_-Christian _Non_-Science. CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW THOUGHT.[4] "Christian Science," "Mental Healing," "Metaphysical Treatment of Disease,"--where did these things come from, and how did they get here? The facts are peculiar; they are partly unpleasant; they are sometimes amusing; but they are not far to seek. In 1836, Charles Poyan, a Frenchman, introduced into the United States the practise of Mesmerism. In 1840 it was taken up, with great earnestness, by a Maine Yankee, named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He was a watch and clock maker, an inventor, and a natural reformer. In making his mesmeric experiments, he soon found an extraordinary subject of them in the person of a young man, Lucius Burkmar, with whom he traveled several years, giving, it is said, some of the most astonishing exhibitions of mesmerism and clairvoyance that had ever been known. As the substance of mesmerism, though under the newer name of hypnotism, has now been fully substantiated by the French Academy of Medicine, the highest authority in the world on such subjects, there seems to be no longer any reasonable question of its general claims. On taking up mesmerism in New England, Mr. Quimby had been very ill and given up by his physicians to die. By inquiring into his own condition through his clairvoyant subject, Lucius, and by the young man's laying-on of hands, Mr. Quimby, as he tells the story, recovered immediately from a long-standing and dangerous malady. Partly as a result of this cure, but much more because his whole life shows him to have been a natural exemplar of "the good physician," he took to "healing the sick." He held no diploma from any college of medicine; but his work and his thousands of patients inevitably conferred upon him the title of "Doctor." At first he merely co-operated with the regular medical faculty, who sometimes called upon him to have his subject, Lucius, examine their patients. Being put into the mesmeric state, young Burkmar would describe the disease, with the pains accompanying it, and would then go on and prescribe remedies, though he knew nothing about them. As a participant and student of this process, Dr. Quimby came, in a short time, to the conclusion that the diagnosis of the clairvoyant was not necessarily the true one, but was taken from the belief of the patient, or his physician, or some other person, and was, therefore, an impression of incidental mind, rather than a statement of fact. Such results would not do for a man like Quimby; so he dismissed mesmerism--such practise of it at least as depended on anybody but himself and those on whom he directly operated. Meanwhile, according to the best of testimony, there was developed in himself a faculty much more peculiar and effective than ordinary "mind-reading" and "second-sight." Gradually, too, he formed an entirely new and original theory of disease. In 1857, in a Maine paper, the _Bangor Jeffersonian_, his faculty and his theory were described thus: "It is universally acknowledged that the mind is often the cause of disease, but it has never been supposed to have an equal power in overcoming it. Quimby's theory is that the mind gives immediate form to the animal spirit, and that the animal spirit gives form to the body.... Therefore, his first course in the treatment of a patient is to sit down beside him, and put himself _en rapport_ with him, which he does without producing the mesmeric sleep.... With the spirit form Dr. Quimby converses and endeavors to win it away from its grief; and, when he has succeeded in doing so, it disappears, and reunites with the body. Thus is commenced the first step towards recovery.... This union frequently lasts but a short time, when the spirit again appears, exhibiting some new phase of its troubles. With this he again contends until he overcomes it, when it disappears as before. Thus two shades of trouble have disappeared from the mind, and consequently from the animal spirit; and the body has already commenced its efforts to come into a state in accordance with them." In an article written by Dr. Quimby himself (in 1861), he explained his procedure in this way: "A patient comes to see Dr. Quimby. He renders himself absent to everything but the impression of the person's feelings. These are quickly daguerreotyped on him. They contain no intelligence, but shadow forth a reflection of themselves which he looks at. This contains the disease as it appears to the patient. Being confident that it is the shadow of a false idea, he (Dr. Quimby) is not afraid of it.... Then his feelings in regard to the disease, which are health and strength, are daguerreotyped on the receptive plate of the patient, which also throws forth a shadow. The patient, seeing this shadow of the disease in a new light, gains confidence. This change of feeling is daguerreotyped on the doctor again. This also throws forth a shadow, and he sees the change, and continues to treat it in the same way. So the patient's feelings sympathize with his, the shadow changes and grows dim, and finally disappears. The light takes its place, and there is nothing left of the disease." Dr. Quimby was not an educated man in the technical meaning of the term; but, through his experiments in mesmerism and his personal experiences, he was led directly to what in the history of philosophy is called "absolute idealism." Until his own conclusions were fully reached, he knew nothing, from literature, even of Berkeley; but when Berkeley's writings were unfolded to him, he at once said, in his plain, straightforward way, that they were true, and that he "agreed" with them. To him, the universe was mind, and all things were "ideas." Disease was an "idea," though he sometimes called it "matter," as being _negative mind_, or that which "_could receive impressions_" and "be changed by them." Hence he said: "The idea (disease) is matter; and it decomposes, and throws off an odor that contains all the ideas of the person affected. This is true of every idea or thought. Now my odor comes in contact with this odor, and I, being well, have found out by twenty years' experience that these odors affect me, and also that they contain the very identity of the patient whom this odor surrounds. This called my attention to it; and I found that it was as easy to tell the feelings or thoughts of a sick person as to detect the odor of spirits from that of tobacco. I at first thought I inhaled it, but at last found that my senses could be affected by it when my body was at a distance of many miles from the patient. This led to a new discovery; and I found that my senses were not in my body, but that my body was in my senses. My knowledge located my senses just according to my wisdom. If a man's knowledge is in matter, all there is of him is contained in matter. But, if his knowledge is in wisdom, then his senses and all there is of him are out of matter." In 1860 Dr. Quimby used, in Portland and vicinity, a circular addressed "to the sick," some copies of which have been preserved, and from an original copy of which the following extracts are taken: "Dr. P. P. Quimby would respectfully announce that he will attend to those wishing to consult him in regard to their health, and, as his practice is unlike all other medical practice, it is necessary to say that he gives no medicine _and makes no outward applications_, but simply sits down by the patients, tells them their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and establishes the truth, or health. _The Truth is the Cure._ This mode of treatment applies to all cases. If no explanation is given, no charge is made, for no effect is produced.... If patients feel pain they know it, and, if he describes their pain, he feels it.... After this it becomes his duty to prove to them the cause of their trouble.... This has been his mode of practice for the last seventeen years. For the past eight years he has given no medicines, nor made any outward applications.... There are many who pretend to practice as he does; but when a person, while in a trance, claims any power from the spirits of the departed, and recommends any kind of medicine to be taken internally or applied externally, beware! Believe them not, 'for by their fruits ye shall know them.'"[5] In 1887 a short account of Dr. Quimby and his work was published in a pamphlet entitled _The True History of Mental Science_, by Julius A. Dresser. Mr. Dresser had been a patient and friend of Dr. Quimby, who had looked to him to cultivate and extend the Quimby system. But the immediate accomplishment of that purpose had been prevented. In 1895 Mrs. Annetta Gertrude Dresser, the wife of Julius A. Dresser, and, like him, a patient and personal friend of Dr. Quimby, gave to the public a small but comprehensive volume, _The Philosophy of Dr. P. P. Quimby_.[6] This excellent sketch of the man and his career contains part of an article upon him written by his son, Mr. George A. Quimby, for the _New England Magazine_ of March, 1888, the article being followed, in Mrs. Dresser's book, by various newspaper notices and criticisms of Dr. Quimby, running from 1857 to 1863, then by reminiscences of him, an exposition of his theories, and by selections from his manuscripts. The newspaper articles were mostly prepared by grateful patients whom Dr. Quimby had restored from sickness to health.[7] Among these patients were two daughters of Judge Ashur Ware[8] of Portland, Maine, one of whom, Mrs. Sarah Ware Mackay, still lives to bless the good Doctor's memory. The Ware sisters became so deeply interested in Dr. Quimby's thoughts and cures that they persuaded him to write out his ideas and explain his practise. As he was exceedingly busy, his articles were rewritten by the two young ladies or by Mr. George A. Quimby, and were then submitted to the Doctor for correction. His terminology was peculiar, and sometimes inadequate to his meaning; but due attention to his writings, with those of his friends, yields a clear conception of him. One thing will never be questioned by any honest and sensible person acquainted with the facts: Dr. Quimby's biographers--his son and his trusted friends, the Dressers--have told the truth about him. The information they give fully sustains their general estimate. This estimate established, we know that Dr. Quimby himself was absolutely sincere, and could be fully trusted just so far as he understood his own nature and what he was doing. But this is not to say that he was always right. It is not even to say that he was without the strongest of prejudices, which may sometimes have misled him. He was too broad and high a soul to be _opinionated_ in any narrow, selfish sense; but he would stand for a conviction till "the crack of doom." "The old gentleman," says one who knew him familiarly for many years, "would _argue_ a sitting hen off her nest." Reference has been made to his ill-health when he began to study mesmerism. Physicians had told him that his "kidneys were partially consumed," and that he had "ulcers on his lungs." "On one occasion [he says], when I had my subject asleep, he told me that one [of my kidneys] was half consumed, and a piece three inches long had separated from it, and was only connected by a slender thread. This was what I believed to be true; for it agreed with what the doctors told me, and with what I had suffered--for I had not been free from pain for years. My common sense told me that no medicine would ever cure the trouble, and therefore I must suffer till death relieved me. But I asked [my subject] if there was no remedy. He replied, 'Yes--I can put the piece on so it will grow, and you will get well.'... He placed his hands upon me, and said he united the pieces so they would grow. The next day he said they had grown together; and from that day I never experienced the least pain from them."[9] Dr. Quimby's personal veracity being accepted by the present writer as unimpeachable, his word must be taken as perfectly good for this remarkable story, as he understood the matter. But the various inferences he drew from his case may be questioned, with no disadvantage to his character. "I concluded" [said he], "that [the subject] read my mind; and _his ideas were so absurd_ that _the disease vanished by the absurdity of the cure_." It appears that this mesmeric subject, though he could be forced, under control, to prescribe anything in the mind of the operator, always did prescribe, if left to himself, some very simple remedy. "When I mesmerized my subject," says Dr. Quimby, "he would prescribe some little simple herb that would do no harm or good of itself. In some cases this would cure the patient. I also found that any medicine would cure certain cases if he ordered it. This led me to investigate the matter, and arrive at the stand that the cure is not in the medicine, but in the confidence of the doctor or medium." In his early invalid life, Dr. Quimby had been "filled," he tells us, with "calomel" and other "strong doses of allopathic poison." As we read his description of Lucius and the "simple herbs," the thought arises that the mesmeric subject might have had some power or aid after all, that his good operator passed over too cavalierly, and that the "herbs" might have appeared more efficacious, if a reminiscence of vigorous "blue pills," in which Dr. Quimby once had confidence, had not still dwelt on his tongue. It is certain that, since his time, some very sensible persons believe they have been cured of so dire an affliction as cancer by so innocent a concoction as clover tea. Dr. Quimby, to use the language of his first biographer, Mr. Dresser, "progressed gradually out of mesmerism, into a knowledge of the hidden powers of mind; and he soon found in man a principle, or a power, that was not of man himself, but was higher than man, and of which he could only be a medium. Its character was goodness and intelligence; and its power was great. He also found that disease was nothing but an erroneous belief of mind.... On this discovery he founded a system of treating the sick, and founded a science of life.... His discovery was not made from the Bible, but from natural phenomena and searching investigation.... After the truth was discovered, he found his new views all portrayed and illustrated in Christ's teachings and works." Some of these claims were reaffirmed by Dr. Quimby himself, in a letter written in 1860.[10] "You inquire [he says] if I have ever cured any cases of chronic rheumatism. I answer, Yes; but ... you cannot be saved by pinning your faith on another's sleeve. Every one must answer for his own sins or belief. Our beliefs are the cause of our misery, and our happiness or misery is what follows our belief.... You ask if my practice belongs to any known science. My answer is, No; it belongs to a Wisdom that is above man as man.... It was taught eighteen hundred years ago, and has never had a place in the heart of man since, but is in the world, and the world knows it not." In _The Philosophy of P. P. Quimby_, we are told that "It was Dr. Quimby's chief aim to establish a science of life and happiness, which all could learn, and which should relieve humanity of sickness and misery." But after our various quotations, we can readily perceive, as his biographer maintains, that "by the word, 'science,'" he always meant "not what is commonly understood by that word, but something spiritual." By "science," in short, or what he sometimes called "Wisdom," Dr. Quimby meant simply the principle of the universe, the presence, truth and power of God, at the foundation of the human soul. Dr. Quimby said, and his disciples have said after him, that he "never went into any trance," and was "a strong disbeliever in _Spiritualism_, as understood by that name." Pursuing this statement in detail, we find that his criticism of the subject consisted mostly in his denying the accuracy of information derived from clairvoyants and spirit-mediums. But, in the words of one of his most intimate friends, he considered our two states of physical and spiritual life as "only a difference in dissolving views," and he believed that his own thought and senses existed, a part of the time, out of matter, or in "the scientific world."[11] He even affirmed, in connection with his view of disease as an impression of mind, that, transferring himself into the spiritual state of existence, he had cured his own parents, _after death_, of ailments which had not left them when they departed from their physical condition. To this strange man, Dr. Quimby, the world of matter and the world of spirit were so interblended as to be only two phases of the same thing, _both of which he constantly experienced_. "What," he asks, "is this body that we see?" It is "a tenement for man to occupy _when he pleases_. But, as a man knows not himself, he reasons as though he were one of the fixtures of his house, or body.... What is the true definition of death. Death is the name of an idea.... So the destruction of an idea is death." Man "is dying and living all the time to error, till he dies the death of all his opinions and beliefs. Therefore to be free from death is to be alive in truth." In no other way than this, would Dr. Quimby even recognize such a fact as death. When he came to die himself, he said "I am perfectly willing for the _change_.... But I know that I shall be _right here with you, just the same as I have always been_. I do not dread the change any more than if I were going on a trip to Philadelphia." Dr. Quimby, then, in his own way, certainly did believe, accept and avow what is commonly understood as Spiritualism, but he repudiated its frequently doubtful accompaniments. "I know [said he] just how much reliance can be placed on a medium; for when in the mesmeric state, they are governed by the superstition and beliefs of the person they are in communication with.... The capacity of thought-reading is the common extent of mesmerism. Clairvoyance is very rare.... This state is of very short duration. They then come into that state where they are governed by surrounding minds. All the mediums of this day reason about medicine as much as the regular physician. _They believe in disease and recommend medicine._" Here we have it, exactly. Dr. Quimby did _not_ believe in disease, except as "an error of mind," and did _not_ recommend medicine. So, while he accepted spirit-condition, to the fullest extent, he refused to accept information from it at second hand. He held that, because a man had "passed over to the other side," as the Spiritualists say, he was not necessarily any wiser than he had been in "mind reduced to a state called matter." "The invisible world [said he] opens all the avenues of matter, through which to give the inhabitants communications; but the natural man has possession of the mediums, so that the scientific man is misrepresented in nine-tenths of all he says. Now to be in the scientific world is not necessarily to be wise, but to acknowledge a wisdom above the natural man, which will enter the world where wisdom sees through matter. This is the condition of those persons who are thrown into a clairvoyant state. To them, matter is nothing but an idea, that is seen or not, just as it is called out. All their senses are in this state, but are under the control of the natural man.... The explanation of the scientific world is given by these blind guides ... who cannot understand science." From this last quotation, we can see precisely how Dr. Quimby at once accepted and rejected Spiritualism; and we can see, as well, how he reached the posture of rational idealism. As far as concerned his powers or gifts, the good man was what would now be called a "mesmerist," a "clairvoyant," and a "healing medium"--only he was of so sensitive a spiritual nature that he could exercise these faculties "in his senses," or in what, _to him_, was "a perfectly normal state." If, to his own direct vision and experience, "matter" was "nothing but an idea," to be "seen or not, just as it is called out," his conclusion could only be that "all that is seen by the natural man is mind reduced to a state called matter," and that "there is no matter independent of mind, or life." But even if granting this posture as a philosophical premise, is it a logical conclusion to insist, with Dr. Quimby, that disease is merely "a belief," and that "health is wisdom?" "I deny disease as a truth," said he, but "admit it as a deception. Disease is an evil that follows taking an opinion for a truth. Every disease is an invention of man, and has no identity in wisdom.... Disease is the misery of our belief, happiness is the health of our wisdom.... False reasoning is sickness and death.... The devil is the error of mankind.... We are made up of truth and error. Disease is an error, or belief; the Truth is the cure." It is necessary to explain, however, that Dr. Quimby found the cause of human misery "not alone in the conscious mind" and the "opinions and beliefs about disease," but in the "mental influences and thoughts by which every person is surrounded," and in the "unconscious or subconscious mind." He declared that he could tell "an idea or cause" of sickness from the sensation produced by it, "just as a person knows an orange by the odor." As he "was able to do this," says Mr. Dresser, "he always told the patient, at the first sitting, what the latter thought was his disease, and never allowed the patient to tell him anything about the case." In a later chapter of our book, the hypothesis that because, in the last analysis "all things are mind," all disease can be cured by mind _while it exists in the body_, will be carefully considered. Meanwhile it must be admitted, without reserve, that under this doctrine, which Dr. Quimby himself believed with all his might, he practised "healing," for many years, with marvelous success. He labored, too, under great difficulties. Fifty years ago, the average inhabitant of New England was not quite so bigoted and superstitious, perhaps, as the Jews in the time of Christ, but quite enough so to suggest a comparison. Dr. Quimby was not orthodox in his theology, and was still less orthodox in medicine. As Mr. Dresser records the situation, "[Those] who were then willing to try a practitioner outside of the medical schools, were persons who had exhausted every means of help within those schools, and, when finally booked for the grave, would send or go to Quimby." In the way of a "grim joke," the Doctor himself said that his patients "would send for him and the undertaker at the same time, and the one who got there first would get the case." And the worst of it all was that his power, when acknowledged, was frequently "imputed to the devil." Still, he had more work than he could do--so much that it wore him completely out, and finally ended his life at the age of sixty-four. In his busiest days, he said: "I have sat with more than three hundred individuals every year for ten years, and for the last five years I have averaged five hundred yearly--people with all sorts of diseases, and every possible state of mind, brought on by all kinds of ideas in which people believe. Religion in its various forms embraces many of these causes. Some cases have been occasioned by the idea that [the patients] had committed the unpardonable sin. When asked what it was, no two persons ever answered alike." There is no doubt that Dr. Quimby's patients were generally cured, unless he told them at once that they were past his or any other mortal aid. "He saw through them at a glance," as all who knew him agree in testifying. To deceive him was impossible. For instance: A lady who scouted his special vision, and was in good health, went to him feigning illness, and for the purpose of a test. "He received her, as he would any one, and, after a few moments, without a word having been spoken, took his chair, and, placing it before her, sat down with his back to her, saying: 'That is the way you feel toward me. I think you don't need my services, and had better go home.'" A patient and friend--an eye-witness of unquestionable veracity--says: "People were coming to Dr. Quimby from all parts of New England. Many of these came on crutches, or were assisted into the office; and it was most interesting to note their progress day by day, or the remarkable change produced by a single sitting.... I remember one lady who had used crutches for twenty years, who walked without them after a few weeks." There is now living in Boston a gentleman who happens to be personally known to the present writer. The gentleman is a college graduate of high culture, of large experience, and with the rest, is an author of distinction. When a young man he had a serious affliction of the eyes, which gradually increased until he was threatened with blindness. He was a man of means, and no expense was spared to secure the best medical treatment. It was unavailing. He heard of Dr. Quimby, and, as the usual "last resort," applied to him. "He cured me," says the gentleman, "and I have had no trouble since. But how he did it I don't know. He sat and talked with me, and sometimes touched my head and face with his hands, moistened with cold water, though declaring even this to be of no vital consequence. He cured other people of all sorts of things, as easily as he cured me. Here I am with two good eyes, and you have the facts."[12] The ultimate value of "The New Thought," or "Mental and Moral Healing," is yet a problem; but that P. P. Quimby was the spring and fountain of the whole stream, with its various branches, is beyond all reputable dispute. It rests on these grounds: _First._ He claimed it himself in the presence of all whom he met, spreading the claim broadcast even in newspaper advertisements and business circulars. _Second._ Many of the most intelligent and trustworthy of his patients became, as we have seen, correspondents of the press to express their gratitude for his cures, and scores of their articles have been preserved. With no exception, these articles substantiate Dr. Quimby's declaration that he alone, of all persons then living, treated disease through the normal action of the human mind. _Third._ Dr. Quimby had a son, Mr. George A. Quimby, who acted for years as his father's secretary. This gentleman is living, and is a well and widely known citizen of Belfast, Maine. His distinct claim for Dr. Quimby is that "up to his time, no man, since Jesus, had attempted and succeeded in curing the sick, without medicine, applications, mesmerism, hypnotism or spiritualism, simply mentally--through the mind and sense--and who further claimed that he did it in a scientific manner which could be taught to others, ... and was in a normal state of mind all the time, as also was his patient." _Fourth._ A number of Dr. Quimby's patients and close friends long survived him, and several of them still live. With a single exception, every one of these people has said, in substance, exactly what Mr. George A. Quimby states in detail. _Fifth._ The single exception is a lady who once said what all the rest say--and who _is completely on record as saying it_--but who, for reasons easy to understand and explain, has since taken a lady's high and mighty privilege of "changing her mind." We will inspect this change. CHAPTER III. DR. QUIMBY'S MOST DISTINGUISHED PATIENT. Dr. Quimby was at the height of his career during the early days of our Civil War. Among his patients at that time was one who has since become the most celebrated of them, and who now bears the name of Mary Baker Glover Eddy. Then, however, the patient was known as Mary M. Patterson--an incident which occurred through her being a very energetic and pious woman, who has attracted to herself a considerable variety of husbands.[13] It was in 1862, says Dr. Quimby's biographer, Mrs. A. G. Dresser, "that Mrs. Eddy, author of _Science and Health_, was associated with Dr. Quimby; and I well remember the very day when she was helped up the steps of his office on the occasion of her first visit. She was cured by him, and afterward became very much interested in his theory. But she put her own construction on much of his teaching, and developed a system of thought which differed radically from it." Mrs. Mary Baker G. Patterson (since Mrs. Eddy), was greatly surprised at her cure, and naturally grateful for it. She at once said so in print. It was in an issue of the Portland Evening _Courier_, of November 7th, 1862. Her account was this: "Three weeks ago I quitted my nurse and sick-room _en route_ for Portland. The belief of my recovery had died out of the hearts of those who were most anxious for it. With this mental and physical depression, I first visited P. P. Quimby, and in less than one week from that time I ascended by a stairway of one-hundred and eighty-two steps to the dome of the City Hall, and am improving _ad infinitum_.... I have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism, and for a brief period I have felt relief ... but in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments, because I had not been helped out of the error in which opinions involve us. My operator believed in disease independent of mind; hence I could not be wiser than my teacher. But now I can see, dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion to my right perception of truth is my recovery. This truth, which he opposes to the error of giving intelligence to matter and placing pain where it never placed itself, if received understandingly, changes the currents of the system to their normal action, and the mechanism of the body goes on undisturbed. That this is a science capable of demonstration becomes clear to the minds of those patients who reason upon the process of their cure. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him (although he may be wholly unconscious thereof), and the body, which is full of light, is no longer in disease." The communication of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy--then Mrs. Mary M. Patterson--which she published in the Portland _Courier_, was criticised, the next day, November 8th, 1862, by the Portland _Advertiser_. In reply to that paper she said: "P. P. Quimby stands upon the plain of wisdom with his truth. Christ healed the sick, but not by jugglery or with drugs. As the former speaks as never man before spake, and heals as never man healed since Christ, is he not identified with truth, and is not this the Christ which is in him?... P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection.... But light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not."[14] Dr. Quimby having died on the 16th of January, 1866, Mrs. M. B. G. Patterson--not to be Mrs. M. B. G. Patterson Eddy until 1867--"sent to me," says Mr. Julius Dresser in his _True History of Mental Science_, "a copy of a poem she had written to his memory." With the poem was sent the following letter: LYNN, February 15, 1866. MR. DRESSER: "_Sir_,--I enclose some lines of mine in memory of our much loved friend, which perhaps _you_ will not think overwrought in meaning: _others_ must, of course. "I am constantly wishing that _you_ would step forward into the place he has vacated. I believe you would do a vast amount of good, and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of. "Two weeks ago I fell on the sidewalk and struck my back on the ice and was taken up for dead, came to consciousness amid a storm of vapors from cologne, chloroform, ether, camphor, etc., but to find myself the helpless cripple I was before I saw Dr. Quimby. "The physician attending said I had taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed _alone_, and _will_ walk; but yet I confess I am frightened, and out of that nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of me, the terrible spinal affection from which I have suffered so long and hopelessly.... Now can't _you_ help me? I believe you can. I write this with this feeling: I think that I could help another in my condition if they had not placed their intelligence in matter. This I have not done, and yet I am slowly failing. Won't you write me if you will undertake for me if I can get to you?... "Respectfully, "MARY M. PATTERSON." The poem by the lady destined to become Mrs. Eddy, author of _Science and Health_, was published by her, with her name attached, under the caption of "LINES on the death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, _who healed with the Truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms_." "Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night, All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes, When Truth, receding from our mortal sight, Had paid to error her last sacrifice? "Can we forget the power that gave us life? Shall we forget the wisdom of its way? Then ask me not amid this mortal strife-- This keenest pang of animated clay-- "To mourn him less: to mourn him more were just, If to his memory 'twere a tribute given For every solemn, sacred, earnest trust Delivered to us ere he rose to heaven-- "Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul, Growing in stature to the throne of God. Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, Seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod." MARY M. PATTERSON. The complete identity of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson with Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy has been fully established by the highest Christian-Science authority in the world--Mrs. Eddy herself. In a letter dated March 7th, 1883, addressed to the Boston _Post_, she said: "In 1862 my name was Patterson, my husband, Dr. Patterson, a distinguished dentist. After our marriage I was confined to my bed with a severe illness, and seldom left bed or room for seven years, when I was taken to Dr. Quimby and partially restored. I returned home, hoping once more to make that home happy, but only returned to a new agony to find that my husband had eloped with a married woman from one of the wealthy families of that city, leaving no trace save his last letter to us, wherein he wrote: 'I hope some time to be worthy of so good a wife.' I have a bill of divorce from him...." In her letter to the Boston _Post_ Mrs. Eddy made some other interesting assertions. She said:[15] "We never were a student of Dr. Quimby. Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowledge. He was somewhat of a remarkable healer, and at the time we knew him he was known as a mesmerist. We were one of his patients." What an astonishing look these statements by Mrs. Eddy in 1883 have, when compared with the statements of Mrs. Mary M. Patterson from 1862 to 1866. Let us see.-- _Statement of 1883._ "At the time we knew him [Dr. Quimby], he was known as a mesmerist." _Statement of 1866._ "Dr. Quimby healed with the truth that Christ taught, in contradistinction to all Isms." "Rest should reward him who hath made us whole, _seeking, tho' tremblers, where his footsteps trod_." On March 7th, 1883, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy made, in the Boston Post. _This Statement._ "We had laid the foundation of mental healing long before we ever saw Dr. Quimby.... We made our first experiments in mental healing about 1853, when we were convinced that mind had a science which, if understood, would heal all diseases." In October, 1862, the same lady, through the Portland _Courier_, made _This Statement._ "I can see, _dimly at first and as trees walking_, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion to my right perception of truth is my recovery. This truth, which he opposes to _the error of giving intelligence to matter_, changes the currents of the system. The truth which he establishes in the patient cures him. This is a science capable of demonstration to those who reason upon the process." Then, in the Portland _Advertiser_, came Mrs. Eddy's extraordinary comparison of Dr. Quimby's words and deeds with those of Christ, and _This Statement._ "P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the sepulcher of error, and health is the resurrection." On the publication of Julius A. Dresser's _True History of Mental Science_--to which reference has been made in our previous chapter--Mrs. Eddy was greatly exercised over it. In her _Christian Science Journal_ for June, 1887, she devoted the leading article, under her own name, to the Dresser pamphlet. This little thing was a calm statement of facts, proved as they were given. From the facts, Dr. Quimby's theory was drawn, and Mr. Dresser frankly recounted what the general reader would consider Dr. Quimby's foibles and prejudices, as well as his doctrines and gifts. The pamphlet contained Mrs. Mary M. Patterson's opinion of Dr. Quimby in 1862, and her poem of 1866. It agreed with what was then the substance of her own assertions, by summarizing Dr. Quimby "as the first person of this age who penetrated the depths of truth so far as to discover and bring forth a true science of life, and openly apply it to the healing of the sick." But, in criticising Mr. Dresser's quiet monograph, the amiable "Mother of Christian Science," proclaimed that Mr. Dresser had "let loose the dogs of war."; had unleashed a "pet poodle," alternately "to bark and whine" at her "heels"; and she identified the "pet poodle" with a certain "sucking litterateur," who had renounced allegiance to her.[16] But when her preliminary high-tide had ebbed a little, her pen dropped this: "Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser's pamphlet, purporting to be mine? I might have written them, twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his death, in 1865. He was illiterate, and knew nothing then of the science of Mind-healing; and I was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she was tempted by the serpent." Those Patterson-Eddy "articles," then--no possible mendacity being adequate to their extinction--have been grudgingly and angrily admitted by their author to be genuine. But she would ignore them on the ground of "mesmerism." Her "head," she says, "was so turned by Animal Magnetism and will power" under Dr. Quimby's treatment, that she "might have written something as hopelessly incorrect" as the articles referred to. But _was_ Mrs. Mary M. Patterson under "mesmeric treatment," or _did_ Mrs. Mary Patterson Eddy ever really _believe_ she was under such treatment, when with Dr. Quimby? And was she then a truly "ignorant Eve," without a fig-leaf of knowledge pertaining to mesmerism? In 1862 she thought _not_, and we have seen that, in writing her first newspaper letter on Dr. Quimby, she turned her thought into these words: "I _have employed electro-magnetism and animal magnetism_, and for a brief period I have felt relief ... but in no instance did I get rid of a return of all my ailments, _because I had not been helped out of the error in which opinions involve us. My operator believed in disease independent of mind; hence I could not be wiser than my teacher._" Mrs. Patterson continued her letter by saying what has already been quoted in full--that Dr. Quimby cured her by "a great principle" of "science," through which he established "the truth" in "the patient"--a truth which he opposed to the error of giving intelligence to matter, and placing pain where it never placed itself. In Mrs. Eddy's magazine article of June, 1887, she went so far as to say of Dr. Quimby, "His healing was never _considered_ or _called_ anything but Mesmerism." Well, Mrs. Mary M. Patterson, from 1862 to 1866, both "considered" and "called" the Doctor's healing something wholly different from mesmerism; and, saying it was done "by the truth which Christ taught," she considered and called it something "in contradistinction to _all_ Isms." Meanwhile, for more than three years of Mrs. Eddy's close acquaintance with Dr. Quimby, all his advertisements, even, told her, what she then fluently repeated, that he cured disease by implanting _truth_ in the human mind, in place of _error_--"the truth being the cure." In other words, everything around her proclaimed that Dr. Quimby's cures were performed wholly by Mind-healing. Mrs. Eddy's reversal of herself has been so agile and exhaustive since her comparisons of Dr. Quimby with our Lord Jesus Christ, that she has latterly preferred to speak of the good old doctor, who taught and healed her, as "unlearned"--a "mesmerist" who cured a patient by "rubbing" her--an "illiterate" man who said that he was only "John" while she was "Jesus," and whose "scribblings" she, to a considerable extent, wrote herself. From all this it must be adduced that Mrs. Eddy, in her Patterson days, went to Dr. Quimby to be cured of disease, but taught him to do it. It is true, as we have noted, that Dr. Quimby was not an educated man, in the sense of the schools. It would have been impossible for him to write like Mrs. Eddy. When, for instance, she excogitated that first letter of Mrs. Patterson's to the Portland _Courier_, she opened it in this way: "When our Shakespeare decided that there were more things in this world 'than were dreamed of in your philosophy,' I cannot say of a verity that he had a foreknowledge of P. P. Quimby. And when the school Platonic anatomized the soul and divided it into halves, to be united by elementary attractions, and heathen philosophers averred that old Chaos in sullen silence brooded o'er the earth until her inimitable form was hatched from the egg of night, I would not at present decide whether the fallacy was found in their premises or conclusions, never having dated my existence before the flood." No: P. P. Quimby, even if aided by all the freshmen and sophomores that ever lived, could never have risen into the state of gorgeous, ponderous culture evinced in the foregoing power-house and epitome of all learning. Besides, when that incomparable paragraph was erected, Mrs. Eddy was young--not yet fifty years of age. At sixty, her literary _style_ had lost something of its dazzle; but, in _matter_, all her work, especially her world-renowned book, _Science and Health_, compares beautifully with her grand production of 1862. P. P. Quimby was a plain man of great natural genius. When he wrote--generally in great haste--he paid little attention to capital letters, punctuation, or _form_ of any kind; but his manuscripts were carefully revised, under his own direction, by his two faithful friends, the Ware sisters, or by his son, Mr. George A. Quimby. Mrs. Mary M. Patterson borrowed and read some occasional jotting--that was all. In the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby are eight hundred pages of his father's writings, prepared before Dr. Quimby had the honor of knowing that Mrs. Patterson (to be Eddy) was on the face of the earth. These writings contain the substance of all his thoughts. The knowledge that such writings exist has much disturbed Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. On the 21st of May, 1887, she published, through a Boston newspaper, an offer to print the Quimby manuscripts, at her own expense, _provided_ she should "first _be allowed to examine said manuscripts_," and to see that "they were his own compositions," not _hers_, which _she_ "had left with him many years ago." Now Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, author of _Science and Health_, filled with "immortal mind" and the only "divine science" ever "demonstrated," is of course an honest woman. Many delightful innocents of all sizes would take her word for anything she promised. There is not a single member of her Church-Scientist who is not sure that her little hatchet is infinitely cleaner and brighter than George Washington's. Still, the possessors of the Quimby manuscripts, not yet having teetered themselves above all "earthly wisdom," would rather not trust her with their property. A few years ago, the eldest of Dr. Quimby's two devoted friends, the Ware sisters, passed away. With the younger sister she left the following statement, in the form of an affidavit, which is here printed with permission: "I, Emma G. Ware, of Portland, Maine, in the United States of America, do hereby declare that I knew personally the late Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and that I and my sister, Mrs. Mackay (formerly Sarah E. Ware), were his patients while he resided in Portland, between the years 1859 and 1865, and that we both owe our restored health to his treatment or mode of teaching. I have learned that attempts are being made to deprive him of the credit of being the first to introduce the method of healing through the mind (or, more correctly, of applying moral philosophy to the cure of diseases), and I make this declaration out of regard to him, in order that the credit to which he is entitled may not, without protest, be assumed by others. I know that while Mr. Quimby resided in Portland he wrote out his ideas on Mental Science: he was not a scholarly man, and on that account copies of his writings were made by my sister, myself, and by Mr. Quimby's son, George A. Quimby. These copies were read over to Mr. Quimby, and such corrections made as he thought fit. They are now in the possession of Mr. George A. Quimby, who resides in Belfast, Maine, and my sister and I have also copies of a number of them. Beyond these, there are no other copies of his writings, if I except a few fugitive pieces which he gave away while he resided in Portland. The mode of reasoning pursued by Mr. Quimby is not new, but its application to disease as a remedy has not, so far as I am aware, been previously made in modern times. His teaching may be thus summarized: that all diseases, whether mental or physical, are caused by an error in reasoning, and that correcting the error will remove the cause, and restore the sufferer to health." CHAPTER IV. A GREAT "METAPHYSICAL" NOVEL. As shown by our last chapter, Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, whatever divine attributes may have perched upon her, has been endowed with some very human qualities. But in one gift she has been strangely lacking--a good memory. For, in spite of her association with Dr. P. P. Quimby, his renovation of her broken system, and all the mellifluous prose and poetry she devoted to him in his day, the fruitful "mother," "discoverer," and "founder" of "Christian Science," when she came to set up her new religion, entirely forgot that her old friend, Quimby, was the real suggestion of her whole Shekinah. She not only failed to mention the fact, but she has been so miraculously forgetful, ever since, as to repudiate her own record of it, and to attempt the obliteration of it from sacred and profane history. Mother Eddy's lack of memory, however, has had its plenary compensation. Her imagination has more than made up for it. The surcharge of this illimitable faculty has enabled her to produce one of the greatest works of fiction ever conceived on earth, or possible to any other planet. This arch-angelic romance, dimly and very distantly founded on fact, bears the esoteric title of _Retrospection and Introspection_. It is not in the usual form of a novel, but was evaporated by Mrs. Eddy as her corporal and spiritual biography, after she had dropped Dr. Quimby from her powers of research, and had built up her grand theological and financial industry, "Christian Science." From an attentive reading of this personally conducted and authorized volume, we know the light in which the hallowed lady wishes to appear, and we know a good deal more if we read between the lines. At eight years of age--if we can only credit true piety hitched up with lost memory--a heaven-selected little girl, Mary Baker, "repeatedly heard a voice," calling her "distinctly by name, three times in an ascending scale." At first she thought it was a human voice; but in due season--for the call came many times--she, her mother and her cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, learned better. Then her mother read to her the Hebrew story of little Samuel, and advised her to respond to the voice, saying, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." Finally the chosen virgin took this advice, whereupon the voice "came no more" to her "_material_ senses." Its mission had been fulfilled. Such is the opening legend told to the marines of the Church Scientist, in that juicy book, _Retrospection and Introspection_.[17] Still, in these days of "Spiritual manifestations," the numerous believers in messages from "the summer land" would account, in a quite simple way, for the voices calling little Hebrew Samuel and little New-England Mary. But not so Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. "Am I a believer in Spiritualism?" she asks. "I believe in no ism.... As I understand it Spiritualism is the antipode of Christian Science."[18] Ah, it was no voice of common, finite spirit, that came to the high and mighty founder of an "absolutely scientific religion." So there is but one conclusion she gives us to draw: _the voice was directly the voice of God_. The Infinite and Omniscient, the All-in-All, spake to the girl of nine years, as a miraculous call to her divine work. At that time, she tells us, her father thought her "brain" was "too large for her body."[19] The old gentleman was doubtless right. It looks, too, as if the brain of his blessed daughter, with the entire head containing it, has been rapidly enlarging ever since. From the metaphysical adventures of Saint Mary Baker, as told in her _Retrospection and Introspection_,[20] we find that when twelve years old she was admitted to the "Orthodox Church" of New England, though she declined to accept the doctrine of predestination--a doctrine which so troubled her that a doctor was called, who pronounced her "stricken with fever." It is told of Martin Luther that when a theological student once came to him half-crazy over the same doctrine, the doughty reformer ordered him to go and get "well drunk." In the case of Robert Ingersoll, his soul could only find relief from the tenet by such hard swearing that it brought him peace. But we are assured by our divine lady of the "Church Scientist" that she took the better as well as the usual course prescribed for such trials. She "wrestled in prayer." For she felt sure that the Creator of the Universe, who had once descended in person and spoken to her by name, could not fail to possess the faculty of hearing and the usefulness of help. Behold it was so! Instantly the fever was gone and health was restored. "The physician marveled," she says, and John Calvin "lost his power." In 1878 Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was called to preach at the Baptist Tabernacle of Boston. The congregation increased beyond the capacity of the pews, and it was no uncommon occurrence for the sick to be healed by her sermons. Cancers were cured, and "many pale cripples went into the church, leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on their shoulders." Mrs. Eddy says so.[21] By the same authority--in her _Retrospection and Introspection_--it is stated that her "Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing," otherwise "Christian Science," was "discovered" by her in 1866. The day and date are not given. But it was some time after February 15th; for at that time one Mary M. Patterson was occupied in putting on poetic mourning for Dr. P. P. Quimby, and in begging Mr. Julius A. Dresser to visit Lynn and heal an injury to her back from a fall on the ice. It is not well to wear mourning too long. In the spring of 1866 it must have occurred to Mrs. Eddy that weeds of poetry would not pay, and she hustled them off. Dr. Quimby having gone "to heaven" and slipped out of a decayed memory, his obituary poetess just then realized that she had spent "twenty years" in tracing "physical effects to a mental cause." Then came the "scientific certainty" that "all causation" is "Mind," and that "every effect is a mental phenomenon."[22] What "Christian Scientists" mean by "scientific certainty" is proof by "healing." Take the revered principle of cosmogony that "the moon is made of green cheese." If one who holds the doctrine, "heals" anybody, the proposition is "demonstrated." Mrs. Eddy's "scientific works" are all filled with this unanswerable logic. "Mortal Mind"--a thing which she utterly reprobates--may find difficulty in accepting the conclusion; but it is doubtless quite as well founded as most of the "healing" itself. Mrs. Eddy's own case is an illustration in point. A bed-ridden invalid for years, she was snatched from death, she has told us, by Dr. Quimby, and within a week of his first mental treatment she climbed to the top of a city hall. The writer has read a series of Mrs. Eddy's unpublished letters, which show that for some time she had varied nervous and spinal relapses. When not with Dr. Quimby, she wrote to him for "absent treatments," and sometimes _saw him appear to her_--or said she did--in response. Finally she was cured. Then she fell on an icy sidewalk, was nearly frightened to death, and wrote her letter beseeching Mr. Dresser to "undertake" for her. But, having been taught mind-healing by Dr. Quimby, she "demonstrated" over herself, and got up. The Doctor's original cure appears to have been so effective that her fall on the ice was mostly a jar of her imagination and a contusion on her veracity. For, in her _Retrospection and Introspection_, she solemnly affirms that her accident caused an injury far beyond the reach of "medicine" or "surgery," which she repaired by application of the Divine Spirit. This experience, says Mrs. Eddy ("scientist"), was a "falling apple of discovery" to her. Thereupon she went out into the wilderness of Boston--"withdrew," that is, from society--for three years--that she might search the Scriptures and find "Science."[23] At the end of her retirement, she had learned that "Mind reconstructs the body," and that "nothing else can." How it is done, she adds, "the Spiritual Science of Mind must reveal." Her charge for a course of ten lessons in this "divine science" was soon fixed at "only three hundred dollars."[24] Of the genuine original "Christian Science"--the sole and undivided "discovery" of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy--she says: "I named it _Christian_ because it is compassionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called _Immortal Mind_. That which sins, suffers, and dies, I named _mortal mind_. The physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called _error_ and _shadow_. Soul I denominated _Substance_, because Soul alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual entity, but his corporeality I denied. The Real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal, I described as unreal. Spirit I called the _reality_; and matter, the _unreality_."[25] On the hash and rehash of theology, here announced, we need not dwell just now, but will consider, for the moment, how much of Mrs. Eddy's individually discovered and copyrighted creed was first expounded, though _not_ copyrighted, by one P. P. Quimby. Dr. Quimby never thought of pushing his thought and work under the special name of "Christian Science," though his writings show that he used the term.[26] He was not in pursuit of money by truckling to current preconception or prejudice. We recollect, however--for our own memory has not been laid in the tomb of our piety--that after "his truth was discovered" he "found his new views all portrayed and illustrated in Christ's teachings." We recollect that he said of his practise, "It belongs to a Wisdom that is above man as man. It was taught eighteen hundred years ago, and has never had a place in the heart of man since." He said, "There is a bread which, if a man eat, he is filled; and this bread is Christ or Science." In 1865 the Portland _Advertiser_ said of Dr. Quimby: "By a method entirely novel and at first sight quite unintelligible, he has been slowly developing what he calls _the 'Science of Health'_; that is, as he defines it, a science founded on principles that can be taught and practised like that of mathematics, and not on opinion or experiments of any kind whatsoever." Prior to the issue of Mrs. Eddy's _Retrospection and Introspection_ she had, of course, written her other great and better-known work of religious fiction, called _Science and Health_. Now the title of that book--the term "Science and Health"--is quite different from Dr. Quimby's term, "The Science of Health." Still, the chief distinction between them, considering what Dr. Quimby taught, is that the latter came first and the former afterwards. It does not appear that God--who in our day has been personally known by Mrs. Eddy only--and in an interview which _He_ took the trouble to seek--was ever technically defined by Dr. Quimby as "Immortal Mind," or "characterized as individual entity," with "corporeality denied." It may have been so; for all the obligations derived by Mrs. Eddy from Dr. Quimby have not yet been published. By all competent theologians and metaphysicians, since the beginning at least of human records, God has been conceived and proclaimed as Infinite Spirit, one with "Immortal Mind," and above "corporeality," which has been accounted a temporary phase of finite things. Plato was pretty nearly made of this conception in philosophy, and St. John in religion. P. P. Quimby was neither a Plato nor a Saint John; but he "agreed" with them, in his literal, honest fashion, as he said he did with Bishop Berkeley. If Mrs. Eddy had ever read a history of philosophy before she instituted a religion, she would have found that Spinoza honored her advent, some two hundred years in advance of it, by postulating "Substance" as the "Soul" of things. Incidentally, too, he postulated "matter" as an "unreality of sense," and thus, in a way, as "error" and "shadow"--the product of "mortal mind." Dr. Quimby said, with the utmost possible distinctness, "I believe matter to be nothing but an idea belonging to the senses"; and it will be found, when his writings get published, that he said the same thing in some hundreds of different ways. But all this was known to the thought of India, even before books were written, and the original authorities for it had then been lost. But now: in one point of doctrine--and to her the most important one--Mother Mary Baker G. Eddy does stand completely "original," solitary and alone. She holds of "matter" that it is not only not what it seems, but is _nothing at all_ save "unreality." To recognize it as anything whatever, beyond "shadow" and "error," is to be buried in disease, sin, and death. Absolutely to deny the most palpable fact of daily existence is to Christian Science the one road to health and salvation. To Dr. Quimby, matter was a state of things "reduced from mind," but the state and the things were _here_. They were perfectly _actual_ as _a condition_, though not as an unrelated fixture of all time and eternity. Every "idealist," in every age, has taken this view, excepting only Mrs. Eddy. Of her own view, no human being out of a refuge for imbeciles or the Church Scientist, could possibly begrudge her the sole copyright. In due order Mrs. Eddy's theological speculation will be further considered. From the Arabian Nights tales of _Retrospection and Introspection_, we learn that, before setting up her new church, the revelator "wandered through the dim mazes of _Materia Medica_." She "found," in Jahr's two hundred and sixty-two remedies, the one pervading secret that the less matter and the more mind, the better the work. Homeopathy taught her that in the higher attenuations of its drugs, "matter is rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal mind." Her conclusion was that "mortal belief," instead of any "drug," governs the action of material medicine. "I claim," says she, "for healing scientifically," that "it does away with all material medicine, and recognizes the antidote for all sickness, as well as sin, in the Immortal Mind; and mortal mind as the source of all ills which befall mortals.... The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body."[27] Considering the high moral perch on which Mrs. Eddy has set herself, and contemplating the cerulean nest in which she has laid the eggs of "science," it is really painful here to study her case of fatty degeneration of the memory. For, apart from mere phraseology and acquaintance with Jahr, Dr. P. P. Quimby had reached the principle and practise of "healing scientifically," more than twenty years before she proclaimed it in _Science and Health_, and he had applied it to Mrs. Eddy herself, thirteen years prior to that publication, which descended from heaven in 1875. He did not mention "mortal mind"--by name, that is--for he called the fact of it "opinion of the natural man," in "the state of matter," and so far of "error." He did not use the term, "Immortal Mind"; for he designated it as "Wisdom," "Science," and the "Christ," as distinguished from "the man, Jesus." Adopting the Christ _principle_, Dr. Quimby aimed to follow, persistently but humbly, in the footsteps of Jesus. Dr. Quimby, in fact, was covering, both theoretically and practically, the whole true and essential field of "Christian Science," while avoiding its nonsense and its humbugs, at a time when Mrs. Eddy, as "Mary B. Glover," was a writer of love stories for "Peterson's Magazine."[28] CHAPTER V. A SOFT SET OF CRITICS. We have now learned a little of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy's celestial and terrestrial biography, as derived from the supramundane novel, _Retrospection and Introspection_, and some other sources. Bare allusion has been made to her _Science and Health_. But this, she says, "is my most important work, containing the complete statement of Christian Science." The book, as we have seen, came among men--or, more strictly speaking, among less busy women--in 1875; and a thousand copies, we are told, comprised the first edition. "The critics," Mrs. Eddy informs us, pronounced it "wholly original," but a thing that would "never be read." The foolish "critics"! How little they knew about "originality"! But they knew still less of Mrs. Eddy's "Spiritual _afflatus_," as she designates it, in the fervency of which "erudite systems of philosophy" had "melted"; nor did they realize her "divinely appointed mission"; for, in 1891, _Science and Health_ had reached sixty-two editions. "Then the critics said" that "Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or certain German philosophers," had originated Mrs. Eddy's sole and well-monopolized "Science."[29] Now if any "critics" ever did really shoot such soft intellectual putty as that, they ought certainly to have been condemned to the most heroic sort of mind-healing. Think of George Berkeley, the most acute, the most logical mind of his age, standing with both feet on John Locke's "Essay of the Human Understanding," and attempting to pull himself up into the Infinite by mouthing the shibboleth that there is no finite! And David Hume--the bonny skeptic, David--whose keenness brought the philosophy of his age to a logical standstill, and for the moment broke up all "metaphysics"! Poor David Hume! In the hands of what a "critic" it was, who imagined he had ever furnished a speck of meat for such a haggis as _Science and Health_! For the moment, let us pass by Mr. Emerson, the Puritan mystic of New England transcendentalism, who beamed serenely down on mere "critics," and told them he hoped he "had never said anything that needed to be proved." But Mrs. Eddy's phrase, "_certain German philosophers_," is one that can only refer to Immanuel Kant, with his school of followers, who summed up the pure thinking of the modern world, as Plato and Aristotle summed up the pure thinking of the ancient world. History tells us that Kant was a man who discovered the planet Uranus by mathematics before Herschel found it with a telescope, and who "had mastered all sciences" to date when he lived. Ripe with the knowledge of sixty years, he wrote his _Critique of Pure Reason_. This, the most profound and far-reaching treatise of any age, should have been named "The Analysis of Mind and Matter, Time and Space"; for such was really Kant's subject and achievement. This extraordinary little German professor, Immanuel Kant, was the most regular and temperate of human beings; but he had a touch of asthma, for which, before all the medicinal properties of mind-cure were known, he took daily about a thimble-full of rum. Kant has been frightfully dealt with by his "critics," the most of whose heads he completely pulverized in connection with their activity in his behalf. But suppose Herr Professor Kant could have imagined that any "critic" on earth would ever accuse him of instigating the philosophy of Mary Baker G. Eddy! In that dread event, "the sage of Königsberg," who once lost the thread of a lecture when a button he used to finger was cut from his coat, might have been so disconcerted, so sunk in amazement and despair, as to swallow his whole bottle of liquor, instead of the twentieth of a gill, and to burn his _Critique of Pure Reason_ in a fit of _delirium tremens_. It is well he was tempted into no such catastrophe; for, on getting on a bit, we shall find that every possible system of "metaphysics," to have any scientific foundation in modern thought, must refer itself to Kant's dissection of the universe. CHAPTER VI. "THE PRECIOUS VOLUME." In the world of books, Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ is the specially "precious volume"; for she herself so designates and describes it at the head of a chapter in her _Retrospection and Introspection_.[30] To her, indeed, it is a very precious volume--more precious than even a goodly pile of "the precious metals." Her devotees exchange these for it with sublime certainty that they get more than the worth of their money; and being in great need of science, to say nothing of health, their profuseness may be forgiven. But it should be said at once that "Christian Scientists" are neither a bad nor a specially crude sort of the world's queer inhabitants. They are fanatically honest; and, as a whole, they have just that "little knowledge" which has long been proverbial as "a dangerous thing." Then they are quite incapable of looking through the veil worn by their beatific "Mother." In the eyes of the unregenerate, these children of hers frequently turn to _Science and Health_, or to a picture of its author celestially touched up, when it would be well to inspect their plumbing and wash their windows. But this is no broad case against them; for almost any sort of camp-meeting, without regard to sect, is apt to bring upon the wicked some small inconveniences. As can readily be seen, Mrs. Eddy's lambs are often amusing, and thus brighten life for less spiritual beings. There is my babe-eyed friend, Mr. Tott. He never committed a cent's worth of sin in his life. He is a veritable piece of the salt of the earth, a little over-salted. But his youth has departed, and his sight is failing. He used to wear glasses; but he discarded them for "Christian Science" and a dim, economic light. He sees a little yet, though chiefly with "the eye of the mind." With this eye, however, he beholds marvels of "healing" going on all around him, which he proclaims and verifies at the weekly meetings of his church. He buys all Mrs. Eddy's books and publications, as fast as they come out. By patient effort he deciphers something of their contents. Then, as he contemplates an assertive text from _Science and Health_, or some tale of Jonah interpreted by Mother Eddy's _Key to the Scriptures_, a celestial calm descends on his soul, and folds it in a fabric softer than silk. He knows that he is better in health than ever before, that he sees better, and that the entire universe is becoming unspeakably illuminated. Disease never touches his physical frame; he has merely "a _belief_ of a cold," or "a _belief_ of a corn." In the etherialized Mr. Tott only one thing ever suggests a remnant of "wicked matter." Cast a doubt on the sainthood of Mrs. Eddy, then you behold an angel in anger. He may not indulge in personal violence, but he swiftly threatens that, if once you breathe your unholy doubt aloud, "Judge Hanna," or some other Sampson of "Science," will reduce you to a grease-spot.[31] But, among all Mrs. Eddy's followers, her "precious volume," _Science and Health_, is paramountly precious to those who have paid their three hundred dollars for imbibing the inmost knowledge of her "unfathomable" religion, and have gone forth among the gentiles to teach and to heal. To a missionary "in science," the "precious volume" cannot be too preciously bound. Let the daintiest white of the white-winged dove encase its "inspired words," printed on translated tissue of ethereal linen. Let the sheen of the gold standard furnish splendor for the edges of the leaves, and letters for the cover. Let the book be held before the eyes of a new student or patient, with abysmal solemnity and mystic silence. Hypnotism, if you _name_ it such, is bitterly disallowed; but "the precious volume" is so hallowed a thing that no danger can come from using it in the same way as the disk of a mesmerist. Impressiveness is the point--that self may depart, and "science" become boundless. Almost every religious sect in all history has had its fetich. "Christian Science" is not behind the procession. Mrs. Eddy's _Science and Health_ is the fetich thereof. In a plain garment, for the poorer saints, it may be had for three dollars and eighteen cents. In the purest, holiest, most golden robe it costs six dollars.[32] Let us look into _Science and Health_ and see what it is; though the author warns us that something more than "mortal mind" is required to understand it. This she asserts and repeats with the voice, as it were, of a fog-horn grown eternal, until a multitude of people have come to think that the sound really contains significance. In her _Retrospection and Introspection_ Our Lady of "The Precious Volume" says:[33] "_Science and Health_ is the textbook of Christian Science.... When the demand for this book increased, and people were healed by simply reading it, the copyright was infringed. I entered a suit at law, and my copyright was protected." The case of "protected copyright" to which Mrs. Eddy refers, took place in 1883. A Mr. Arens had practised some sort of "mental healing," without the consent of the papal mother of "Christian Science." In connection with such healing he had issued some pamphlets, in which, according to the court records, he certainly came very near to reproducing certain sentences from _Science and Health_, which had a commercial value in his line, though they would not have sold for a cent out of "Science." The man's defense was that Mrs. Eddy's own works were not original with her, but had been copied from writings by Dr. Quimby. Now Dr. Quimby, as we have seen, had sown the seed of the whole modern field of "mental healing," and Mrs. Eddy, as Mary M. Patterson, had told the whole truth about it. But Quimby's simple doctrine was that matter is a phase of mind; and hence that the mind of man, as an inlet of God's truth and power, can change the body and cure disease. Appropriating this thought, Mrs. Eddy had stretched it out and blown it up into the ponderous misfit labeled "Christian Science." In 1883 none of Dr. Quimby's writings had been published, and there was no convenient evidence to prove that Mrs. Eddy had ascribed his mind-healing to "the Christ that was in him," and to his establishment of "Truth" in wrong-thinking sick patients. As no such facts were presented, and as Mr. Arens had clearly plagiarized Mrs. Eddy, whatever _she_ had done, the court properly decided that her "copyright" be "protected." In other words, the merits of the case were not involved, though the decision has given Mother Eddy a chance to say, with her usual candor and logic, that the failure of Arens "to produce his proof is _conclusive evidence_ that _no such proof existed_." _Science and Health_ is a book of nearly seven hundred pages, containing somewhat less than two hundred thousand words; but this brief of Un-Christian Non-Science includes Mrs. Eddy's _Key to the Scriptures_. The eighty-second edition of "the precious volume" is the particular issue here elucidated. We shall make a few quotations from _Science and Health_, but only just enough to verify our criticism of it as a pretentious, untrue, and unhealthy book, which, in the interest of the public, needs to be exploded. For these quotations we shall give Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy full credit. It would be a crime, indeed, to accuse any one else of originating such capsules of metaphysical ipecac. As laid down in _Science and Health_, the fundamental propositions of the mumbo-jumbo termed "Christian Science" are four in number. _First_: God is All. _Second_: God is Good. Good is Mind. _Third_: God, Spirit, being All, nothing is matter. _Fourth_: Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life. Mrs. Eddy says that, _to her_, these are "_self-evident_ propositions." They are proved, too, by "the rule of inversion." They are just as harmonious backward as forward. There is a little hitch in Number Four, which declares one way that God denies death, evil, sin, and disease, and the other way that these deny God. But this one exception to "the rule of inversion" only confirms it; for, according to Scripture, God is true, and "every [mortal] man a liar." For the corner-stone, then, of Eddyism, we have self-evident propositions--self-evident to the mind of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy--and with these an appeal to Scripture. Truly enough this must be "Divine Science"; for no rational creature of modern times can suspect it of being human science, whether true or false. But, says the great teacher of it, "no human pen or tongue taught me the science," and "neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it." Well, never mind the overthrow. But, when Mrs. Eddy tells us that "no human pen or tongue" taught her "the science of mind-healing," we are obliged to infer that Dr. Quimby was more than human. How greatly would the plain but gifted Quimby have been shocked, had he foreknown that Mrs. Eddy would thus apotheosize him. Through _Science and Health_ we learn that "Christian Science" reveals, "incontrovertibly," that "Mind is All-in-all"--the only "realities" being "the divine Mind and idea." We learn, further, that this divine Mind is God, that God's idea is Man, and that by authority of Webster an "idea" is "an image in mind." It would be truly pitiable for any theologian, or indeed for any believer in a spirit-principle of the cosmos, to attempt the "overthrow" of these venerable "revelations" now protected by Mrs. Eddy's copyright, but which were hoary with age even in the days of the Greek Academy. Barring Webster's definition of an idea, these "revelations" to Mrs. Eddy appear revealed in the Bible, though not copyrighted. As logical metaphysics, in recent times, Hegel reduced them to their utmost sublimation; and Hegel is excellent authority in many of our colleges, as well as with the good Dr. Harris, our United States Commissioner of Education at Washington. Let us say once more that there is no trouble in effecting a spiritual derivation of the universe, except to our friends, "the materialists," who have themselves refined "matter" to things not much like it. The only trouble with an all-containing, all-pervading Spiritual Source of Existence, is in the funny havoc sometimes made of it by half-baked people, like "Christian Scientists." To Dr. Quimby, "Mind," or "Spirit" was the principle of all things. To him, Matter was a condition of Spirit--"an idea," he said, "reduced to a solid"--a "solid" meaning a definite and real appearance to human sense. But this conception, which the old and regular school of metaphysicians have held for thousands of years, would not do for the genuine original "Mother of Christian Science" when she came to prescribe a dogma for the cure of all possible disease from leprosy to bunions. It was necessary, she thought, to have a stronger pill. She compounded it in the form that "matter," including the "mortal body," is not only "the objective state of the mortal mind," but that mortal mind is unmixed, "error," entailing all sin, disease, and death. Yet "error" is really "nothing"; or say something only to be _denied_. The duty of life, "_in Science_," is to make this denial effective. Matter, sin, disease, are absolute illusions and delusions of "mortal mind," which itself is just "error," to be wiped out. Now say so, and they are all gone. Or if they persist in seeming to be anywhere, be more firm with them. Sing the denial, as well as say it. Keep it up. Let nothing else intervene for a second. Let every paragraph you write be made of it. Give it ten thousand different forms, and each form ten thousand variations. If you fully concentrate your whole mind on this "divine" business, and pay the full price for learning it, you will elevate yourself into "perfect harmony" with "Immortal Mind." When you accomplish this undertaking, impurity and evil, sin, disease and death, will disappear as the shadow of their original nothingness, which they always are and ever were. Here is the whole real substance of "the precious volume," _Science and Health_, including Mrs. Eddy's marvelous _Key to the Scriptures_. Still, the holy tome has some interesting particulars. On opening it, and journeying only as far as page 2, one finds that, while "Christian Science" is copyrighted property, "the Divine Spirit" was the real author of it; for Mrs. Eddy explicitly declares that through "Christian Science" the Divine Spirit testified to her, and that the testimony unfolded her one basic, forever-echoed assumption that "matter" has nothing in it but "falsity." Next comes up the Platonic conception--which, unfortunately for Plato, he neglected to copyright--that the Principle of Mind, with its reflection or "idea," constitutes the real universe. Mrs. Eddy pronounces this philosophical conception a scientific fact; but it was not "proved to the senses"--which, by the way, _never perceive anything but "error"_--until "Christian Science revealed it." Then it was proved "incontrovertibly, absolutely and divinely," by repairing Mrs. Eddy's back after a fall on ice. From time immemorial, the history of philosophy has been familiar with the thought that the human body is a reflex and product of mind; a practical reality for all earthly conditions and purposes, but resolvable, from the view of spirit, into simply an objective appearance. The thought, too, has been frequent in poetry. Three hundred years ago Spenser sang: "So every spirit, as it is more pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight. _For, of the soul, the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make._ Yet Mrs. Eddy claims this doctrine, too, as her "discovery," though, with her, it is not merely "mind," but the "mortal" or "misnamed" article, that produces the body. All such "mind" is unalloyed "error," and the body, or apparition of this error, is another error. It was this "discovery," she says, that led to her infallible proposition, the all-inclusiveness of Immortal Mind and the all-nothingness of matter, which she made the bed-rock of her all-healing "Science." Matter being Nothing, and our bodies being nothing but error, there is great use, notwithstanding, for the one genuine medicine, "Christian Science." "Physical healing," with "mental healing" thrown in, is the large wholesale business of which Mother Eddy is proprietor and director. In the last analysis, according to the preface of _Science and Health_, this medicine is "Divine Principle." Such a remedy naturally dispels the unfounded belief of matter, the unfounded imaginings of sickness and sin, which drop out of supposed reality, and so out of existence. As the term "Christian Science" is necessarily suggestive of Christian history, even Mrs. Eddy has not quite claimed the whole product of Christianity as originating in _Science and Health_. She does admit, with pious candor, that God imparted the _spirit_ of Christian Science to Jesus and the Apostles. But the _letter_ is another thing. "The absolute letter" waited for Mary Baker G. Eddy; and, were the blessed lady a living kaleidoscope, she could hardly add to the combinations and varieties in which she presents this claim to her readers. Eddyism proclaims One God, all-inclusive, whose highest title is "Immortal Mind." But, "in Science," this God, being all-inclusive, as Unity, Identity, and Goodness--so otherwise all-_ex_clusive--there is no room anywhere for a Devil, or say, rather, the _recognition_ of one. If God is not only all, but all-good, no opposite to this principle can exist. However, there is "mortal mind," or "sense," with its image and creation, "matter," and in these are sin and disease. Still, mortal mind, matter, sin, disease, have no relation or reference to God. _He_ "fills all Space."[34] _They_ subsist neither by His creation nor permission. Hence they _can not be_--they are just _naught_. But hold! Christian Science, with _Science and Health_, being present avatars to dispel sin and cure disease, such a science and such a book necessarily admit sickness and sin, both implicitly and explicitly. Now what is to be done in such a dilemma? Why, mortal mind, matter, evil, and all afflictions, while "nothing," are a kind of nothing that may be mentioned as "error" and ultimate "self-nullity." Thus, while Eddy Science, alias "Christian Science," has no real Devil, it has a very practical _seeming_ Devil, and whips him from stump to stump with logic worse than himself. Finally, as he is not "substance," but "shadow," you knock him out by calling him names. But the doctrine of the Trinity, as "demonstrated in Science," is the best abstract of the Eddy theology. This Trinity consists of one self-identical "Father-and-Mother God"; Man, "the Idea" or "Reflection"; then Christian Science, "the Holy Comforter." The position of man, as theologized by Mrs. Eddy, is, if anything, more terribly mixed than that of the Devil. Man is "the image of God"; but, as God is _All_, man has "no real individuality." He cannot have personality of his own, as God has no "separability." Still this "God's idea," named man, somehow takes on an imaginary state, named "mortal mind," and this imaginary state has a dream of error and misery named "Sense." Human individuality, mortal mind, and sense, are all, in reality, null and void. Man, however, being God's idea and reflection, can never lose his unpossessed "true self." The divine contradictions of _Science and Health_ are here insurmountable. Let no man try to rationalize them. Mrs. Eddy well remarks in her _Retrospection and Introspection_, that "Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities." O Lord, how long! Oh, bosh, how strong! The fact is that any long-continued reading of _Science and Health_, with the innocence to imagine it either true, difficult or profound, is enough to turn a weak mind idiotic. To a trained thinker, the only danger from the book is an attack of nausea or a hemorrhage from laughing. CHAPTER VII. "KEY" TO THE EDDY SCRIPTURE, SCIENCE AND HEALTH. Mrs. Eddy's Un-Christian Non-Science may be summarized as a caricature of her early "New England Orthodoxy," crazily combined with New England Transcendentalism, coated with a kind of free-thought permissible only to her own "divine Science," all overlying Dr. Quimby's "Science of Health," and carefully put under copyright. Let us now see a few moonstone gems from her "precious volume"--just enough to illustrate our criticism of it and not infringe on her monopolized territory. It may be explained, by the way, that the United States statute governing copyright precludes the reproduction and sale of books and pamphlets, _as wholes_, without permission of the authors; and protects even _parts_ of dramas, pictures, and other "works of art"--the intent being, of course, to protect, also, one of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not steal." But, if an untrue and injurious book could not be analyzed, and a dozen extracts taken from it in proof of criticism, no literary quack could be exposed, in protection of the truth and the public. In that case, the Copyright Law would be worse than the old "Fugitive Slave Bill," and it would be a sacred duty to get into jail, if necessary, for violating it. Fortunately there is no such need. The law was not drawn in the interest of charlatans and malefactors, and has never been interpreted against the decencies of justice. Following "Mother" Eddy's example in connection with our quotations from her _Science and Health_, we shall interpret them in a strictly "scientific" light, as she, with miraculous nerve, in her _Key to the Scriptures_, has done with other sacred writings. Thus we shall illumine _Science and Health_ in the same way that she has illumined _Genesis_ and _The Apocalypse_. _Science and Health_, 7.[35]--"In the year 1866 I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of a final revelation of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing." _Interpretation "in Science."_--History reveals to us, for sure, that "Mother Eddy," has always _claimed_ to have discovered and founded the only genuine and original Christian Science. Though she was once a patient of Dr. P. P. Quimby, and at that time one Mary M. Patterson said that Quimby cured disease by mental truth--"the truth that Christ taught"--this miserable episode has nothing to do with the case. Mrs. Eddy has told us that the Patterson woman was a creature "ignorant" of "Science," whom Dr. Quimby used to "mesmerize." He cured her of a seven-years' complaint in the mortal body, but so addled her head that she had no knowledge of what she talked about. Thus, Mrs. Patterson's impression that Dr. Quimby was the modern founder of mind-healing has no weight. The truth was not in her. But Mother Eddy, notwithstanding she herself was once that same Mrs. Patterson, discovered all truth and all science, without regard to any of her previous statements. _Science and Health_, 453.--"A Christian Scientist needs my work on Science and Health for his textbook, and so do all his students and patients.... It is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the whole of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind.... It was the first published book containing a statement of Christian Science.... It registered this revealed Truth, uncontaminated with human hypotheses. Other works, which have borrowed from this book without giving it credit, have adulterated the Science." _Interpretation "in Science."_--It is evident that everybody "in Science" should buy its real Bible, _Science and Health_; for the Old and the New Testament, while it is policy to use them in the Church Scientist, are in dreadful need of exegesis by Mary Baker G. Eddy. She is the one religious person, altogether scientific, that now exists in the world. She is "uncontaminated truth," and anything that interferes with her abets larceny and spreads leprosy. Moreover, it is a financial crime against her, conducive to heart-disease. Let it again be stated that "the precious volume," _Science and Health_, is cheap for cash, ranging from only $3.18 to $6. _Science and Health_, _Pref._ VIII.--"The question, What is Truth? is answered by demonstration--by healing disease and sin." _Interpretation "in Science."_--That truth can only be set on its absolute end by curing megrims and other unhealthiness, has been incontrovertibly settled by the religious experience of "Mother Eddy" herself. When she rose into the revelation that matter is nothing--not even a phenomenal condition of anything--the truth instantly spliced her broken spine. It was this "demonstration by healing" that transformed the ignorant, deluded, mesmerized Mary M. Patterson, into our holy, scientific, infallible Lady of the "Precious Volume." _Science and Health_, 2 _and_ 3, _passim._--"The divine Spirit, testifying through Christian Science, unfolded to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life.... Human experiences show the falsity of all material things.... My discovery that erring, mortal, misnamed _mind_, produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, led up to my demonstration that Mind is All, and matter is naught, as the leading factor in Mind-Science.... The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually, and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: 'Unto us a child is born ... and his name shall be Wonderful.'" _Interpretation "in Science."_--That there is absolutely nothing in anything you see, feel, hear, taste or smell, is eternally laid down as "the leading factor in Mind-Science." Though the ideas of Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy are all wonderful, this is the most surpassingly wonderful of all. But Mother Eddy herself is much more wonderful than even her ideas. As little Mary Baker she was wonderful in her likeness to little Samuel; as Mary M. Patterson, she was more wonderful as a mesmerized victim of Dr. Quimby; and, as Mary Baker G. Eddy, she is most wonderful, as the Ark of the Covenant of the only true Medicinal Religion. All Mother Eddy's writings point, all the time, to this beautiful lesson. _Science and Health_, 5.--"No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of Agnosticism, or Millenarianism, and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science." _Interpretation "in Science."_--All the ancient and modern "isms," except Eddyism, we must sit on and blot out. The most of them are unpopular, and don't bring us in anything. But he who opposes Eddyism contradicts the Divine Mind, expressed through Divine Science, which, logically, must be the production of our Divine Mother. _Science and Health_, 8.--"The phrase _mortal mind_ implies something untrue, and, therefore, unreal." _Interpretation "in Science."_--This truth is to be taken as infallible on all occasions. Still, the unreality, mortal mind, is a thing to be healed by Christian Science, and there is money in the metaphysical pills. _Science and Health_, 21.--"There is no physical science, inasmuch, as all true Science proceeds from divine Intelligence." _Interpretation "in Science."_--Shut up your arithmetic, geometry, physics, and astronomy. They amount to nothing. There is no truly scientific book except _Science and Health_. _Science and Health_, 25.--"Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches, as some insist? This Science has come already, and come through the one whom God called." _Interpretation "in Science."_--Christian Science, my beloved, is copyrighted property, and can only spread through the owner and her deputies. The "one whom God called" is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Science and Health_, 244, 245, 473, 284.--"The act of describing disease makes the disease. Warning people against disease frightens them into it. This obnoxious habit ought to cease.... The unscientific practitioner says: 'You are ill; you must rest.' Science objects to all this.... Mind controls the body and brain.... A cup of tea is not the equal of Truth.... A material body is a mortal belief.... The medicine of Science is divine Mind." _Interpretation "in Science."_--Your doctor is a fool, whether he be allopathic, homeopathic, magnetic, or even of any _unauthorized_ school of mind-healing. Dismiss him, and send for a Christian Science M. D., authorized to practise by Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. If he can't cure you, it will not be his fault; it will be simply because your mind, or the minds around you, or both, are out of tune with _Science and Health_ and _its Key to the Scriptures_. _Science and Health_, 259, 480, 475.--"Electricity, the offspring of finite mind, is unreal.... The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one.... Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit. An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is all the eye beholds." _Interpretation "in Science."_--That a force like electricity has no reference to any principle or power but finite mind, will always be hard for an unscientized person to believe. But Mother Eddy knows, and her word must go. Still, the unreality of electricity is not quite so to people "out of science." If one toys with a trolley-wire before he has read and understood _Science and Health_, he may experience a slight shock of reality, if he lives long enough. But one who has purchased Mrs. Eddy's great work, and who reads it constantly, need have no fear of electrocution, or anything else. His mortal mind has pretty nearly departed from him. His "physical universe" is hardly a picture of "conscious thoughts," and his "unconscious thoughts," whatever such things may be, will never lead him into much danger. _Science and Health_, 487.--"Science reveals material man as a dream at all times, and never as the real Being." _Interpretation "in Science."_--Mortals are nothing. The One and Only Being is the Father-and-Mother God of Christian Science. Our Mother is Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. _Science and Health_, 411.--"The Scientist knows there can be no hereditary disease, since matter cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and Mind produces no pain in matter." _Interpretation "in Science."_--On the ground that mind and matter are absolutely unconnected, there can be no doubt of there being no hereditary disease. On the same ground there can be no heredity itself, and no world for heredity to exist in. How true it is, "in Science," that all actuality has no actuality in it! _Science and Health_, 28.--"The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science." _Interpretation "in Science."_--We know, too, from Mrs. Eddy's "precious volume," that Christian Science, in addition to being the Logos, is the Holy Comforter. Thus her copyrighted religion is two-thirds of the Trinity. _Science and Health_, 411.--"The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural or necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day, and covering it with dirt, in order to make it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native element.... Water is not the natural habitat of humanity." _Interpretation "in Science."_--Don't take the trouble to wash the baby. His body is only an expression of mortal mind, and is thus so mussed up with error and nothingness that water will never get him clean. His proper habitat is "Science." Scrub his "conscious and unconscious thoughts" with Christian Science, and never mind the rest of him. We shall make but one more quotation, here, from Mrs. Eddy's "Divine comedy," _Science and Health_. There is no use of being too serious with it. History will soon take it as mostly a "grim joke" on metaphysics, theology, and medicine. But one thing must give us pause. On approaching the Lord's Prayer, one feels himself on solemn ground, if such ground there be anywhere in life, and for once, if never before, puts on the mantle of conservatism. But, to Mrs. Eddy, the words of Jesus in devotion and supplication--at once the simplest and grandest words ever uttered--require her "spiritual interpretation." What, in her index to _Science and Health_, she terms the "Spiritualized version" of the Lord's Prayer is this: "Our Father and Mother God, all-harmonized, Adorable One. Ever present and Omnipotent. Thy Supremacy appears as matter disappears. Give us grace for to-day; Thou fillest the famished affections; and Love is reflected in love. And leavest us not in temptation, but freest us from sin, disease and death; for Thou art all Substance, Life, Truth, and Love, forever.--_So be it._" The author of the _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ tells of a poet who "Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch; And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms, Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the psalms." Let any one not "in Science" ask himself if Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has not gone farther and done worse. CHAPTER VIII. "CHRISTIAN-SCIENCE" ORGANIZING FORCES. As Mrs. Eddy has been a manufacturer and vender of "Christian Science" for a comparatively short time--only a quarter of a century--many good people who knew her at the inception of that successful industry are still on earth, in an active condition of "mortal mind." They have volunteered to furnish for this brief book a variety of plain and ornamental information that is not essential to it. But, in justice to history and biography, one point must not be omitted. They all agree that "Mother Eddy," like Cæsar, the Standard Oil Company, and the Sugar Trust, has more organizing capacity than "the sons and daughters of God," to use her own phrase, generally possess. With this capacity, it is also agreed that never a Bonaparte, never a Jay Gould, never a Pierpont Morgan, could be more handy in surmounting all over-nice impediments to practical success. Thus by her rare combination of terrestrial and celestial genius, "Mother Eddy" has been able to hold her copyrighted religion, "Christian Science," strictly under her personal regnancy, and direct it to the highest financial, doctrinal, and healing ends. She permits no tinge of private judgment, no stain of unauthorized opinion, and no mere finite criticism, so far as she can silence it. She is the Church, and membership is obedience. Hence she bitterly antagonizes all independent agencies of scientific salvation, though with eyes rolled up, and with fervent proclamations of unbounded "love." In her _Science and Health_, she advises her readers not to read other "scientific works," as they are full of "materialism," and are not "Scientifically Christian." Directly or indirectly, too, there is always the point that money can be much better invested in Mrs. Eddy's own "sacred" and "positively demonstrated" writings. It would almost seem that, in her universal motherhood, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy must have borne Mohammed's great soldier who burned the Alexandrian library in devotion to the _Koran_. To a great organizer, a wholesale business is always more attractive than retail trade. It is handled quite as easily, with less detail, and thousands of small merchants contribute to the proceeds. The able founder of "Christian Science" early realized this fact--in her case drawn from on high, but sometimes reached through commercial experience. Having retired into the wilderness of her mind, far from all monitions of "sense"; having trained her memory to forget the existence of "matter," "error," and Mary M. Patterson; having taken a three-years' vacation with her only peers, "the ancient worthies" and "the Scriptures"; Mrs. Eddy came back at last, among the human species, with the metaphysics and curative formulas of "Christian Science." Then came practical transactions in "revelations" and "mental medicine," which soon rivaled the sales of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup and Lydia Pinkham's celebrated compound. Though Mrs. Eddy has gradually taken into her service various literary experts, theologico-commercial travelers and metaphysical auctioneers, she has always supervised, in person, the wholesale department of "Christian Science." On her return from the skies, she brought down a large collection of documents in which "the whole science" was condensed and canned, and all the medical prescriptions required to fulfil a millennium of holiness and health. With these documents in hand she formed classes of "loyal students," her definition of "loyalty" being "allegiance to God" (as manifested in Mary Baker); "subordination of the human" (the student) "to the divine" (the teacher); "steadfast justice" (no wobbling over the cash); and strict adherence to "divine Truth and Love" (the Mother of the Logos and the Holy Comforter forever glorified). To be more specific, it was in the year 1867 that Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Patterson, freed by divorce from the last-named culprit, and married to Asa Gilbert Eddy, began, as she records it, the teaching of "Christian Science Mind Healing" to "one student." Here was a good seed sown in fructifying ground; for, in 1881, it had grown to be "The Massachusetts Metaphysical College" of Boston.[36] This vast institution was managed by Mrs. Eddy as chief impartress of "science," her assistants being her husband, her adopted son, and a General Bates. These four "scientists" constituted the faculty. Mrs. Eddy's last husband is described, by those who knew him, as one of the most humble and obedient men that ever blest a perfect woman in immaculate matrimony. His value as a college professor may be inferred from one reminiscence of him. His supreme better-half once sued a poor young doctor who had fallen away from "science," and taken to homeopathy, that she might collect her fee for having taught him "Christian Science therapeutics." Her husband, Asa, was a witness for her, to prove the pecuniary value of her instruction, and was asked, among other questions, "What is Man?" "As near as I can make it out," replied Prof. Eddy, "Man is an image." Mrs. Eddy lost her case, as the court was too unspiritual to reduce her "metaphysics" to dollars and cents.[37] But the good Asa showed that he was an "image" of Mary; and, in her _Retrospection and Introspection_, she has gratefully embalmed his memory in a text from the Psalms. "Mark the perfect _man_, and behold the upright: for the end of _that_ man _is_ peace." The italics are not in the psalm, but are Mary's. Some further conception of "the perfect man," Prof. Eddy, and the value of Mother Eddy's estimate of him, may be gathered from an item which appeared in the Boston _Evening Herald_ of December 7, 1878, stating that "Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy were indicted to-day by the Grand Jury for soliciting James H. Sargent to kill Daniel H. Spofford." It appears that Spofford, in order to probe the matter, led on the conspiracy, and so became technically involved in it himself. Thus the affair became so mixed up that, according to the official court-record, the District Attorney concluded not to prosecute the indictment, and Arens and Eddy were "discharged _on payment of costs_." The divine "Mother Eddy" surely could not have instigated a conspiracy to murder Spofford (a troublesome backslider from "Science"), though he and many other backsliders, who know her well, have long labored under the impression that the whole enterprise was hers. The human head is a queer bulb, and often seems to be a direct evolution from the squash. This hypothesis, illustrated by the researches of Darwin and his school, accounts for the rapid growth of Mrs. Eddy's Massachusetts Metaphysical College from 1881 to 1889, when, in the latter year, she closed it. At that time, as she recollects things, her college was not only filled, but "flooded" with students from all parts of America, Europe, and the world. Three hundred applications were on the list, and the number was rapidly increasing.[38] If Mrs. Eddy were not so far above the world and the flesh that her reasons for things seldom comport with a sub-lunar search into them, it might be possible to believe that she discontinued her college because she feared that "material organization," applied to "Christian Science," would obstruct "Love's Spiritual compact." Whatever it means, this at least is what she _says_. The success of her college had shown her the danger of placing people on "earthly pinnacles"; and even "mortal mind" can see that such a setting-up might lead students away from the primal Mother and the central contribution-box. Besides, she had always had "conscientious scruples" against "giving diplomas" when she thought of those same "earthly pinnacles." It may throw some light on the sudden closing of "The Massachusetts Metaphysical College" to note that, notwithstanding "Mother" Eddy's "conscientious scruples" against granting mere "diplomas," she had issued hundreds of metaphysico-medical degrees at high prices. According to a statement of hers, she obtained her college charter from the State of Massachusetts in 1881, "with the right to grant degrees." But the act on which this grant was based was repealed in 1882. Then, in 1883, the conferring of "any diploma or degree" by any "corporation" or "association," was made a legal offense, punishable by a fine of not less than $500. Being the "president," not of any "corporation" or "association," but of a regular "college" (with a faculty of three beside herself), Mother Eddy's legal mind has held that this law, if aimed at her, failed to hit, though it knocked out all other mind-healing colleges.[39] But, in 1889, when, as persistent rumor has it, the problem was about to be solved by legal process against "Mother Eddy," the subject was practically closed by the closing of her "college," and by her retirement to New Hampshire, where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Considering Mrs. Eddy's kind of "college-faculty" and "board," together with her exhaustive copyrights and the hierarchical monopolies consequent upon them, it is quite conceivable that when time was ripe she had no difficulty in "unanimously" passing resolutions to discontinue her "flourishing school." The little joker in this pack of resolutions soon came out in one of them. It deftly touched the matter of "organization," and then propounded that "the hour" had "come" when "the great need" was for "more of the Spirit," not "the letter," and that _Science and Health_ was the spirit's nutriment. It is not directly stated by Mother Eddy in this connection, that God Himself fixed the scale of prices for her book; but she does say it was "God" who "impelled" her to "set a price" for her "instruction in Christian-Science Mind-Healing." The price was three-hundred dollars a head, for a college course of three weeks. At first she "shrank from asking it." But "a strange providence" led Mary to these terms, and "God," she asserts, "has since shown" her, in "multitudinous ways," the "wisdom" of her "decision."[40] The "strange providence" and "the multitudinous ways" are not explained by her; but the "wisdom" of gathering together fat bank-deposits is unanimously acknowledged in the Church Scientist. When our republic was a hundred years old, it had become worthy of having "The First Christian Science Association." That body was accordingly organized, on the fourth day of July, 1876, by Mrs. Eddy and six of her head-light reflectors. Three years later, the Association balloted on forming a Church, and the Eddyites won by a large plurality. Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy was of course chosen its "first pastor," and during her ministration it prospered in numbers and popularity. That is, she says so in her _Retrospection and Introspection_. But owing to tons of work, which increased upon her, she was unable to give the Church sufficient attention, and no son or daughter of "Science" was competent to take her place. Her church was "envied" and "molested" by other churches, and there was danger of "Christian warfare"--which might have led to a diminution of proselytes, and more horrible still, a loss of shekels. In such an extremity, she "recommended" the dissolution of the First Church Scientist, and again, as ever, her recommendation went through "without a dissenting voice." "This measure," she tells us, was followed by "a great revival" in the way of "mutual love," with "spiritual power" and "prosperity." Those, we may be sure, were money-making times. Mrs. Eddy's reasons for dissolving her church were doubtless infallible. Still, that same church at once resurrected itself and exalted its horn--the "Mother Church" in Boston, and then children and grandchildren galore, in hundreds of secondary "Hubs" and their suburbs. CHAPTER IX. THE ONE TRUE "MOTHER CHURCH."[41] It was in 1889, says Mrs. Eddy, that "I gave a lot of land in Boston," on which to erect "a church edifice" as "a temple for Christian Science worship."[42] The land, she is particular to say, was worth "twenty thousand dollars," and was "rising in value." As she has been careful to mention this increment of the "rise"--not hiding it under a bushel, but setting it on top of the cover--we must be sure to add it to the sum of the original benevolence. But how much labor could be saved by a meek historian if only Mrs. Eddy's word could ever be safely accepted without looking behind it! On consulting the official registry of such matters, one finds that before Mrs. Eddy gave her land to the Church of Christ Scientist, _the Church itself owned the land_, under a mortgage of nine thousand dollars, four thousand of which had been paid off. The balance was five thousand. The provident "Mother" bought this mortgage and foreclosed it. She then conveyed the property to the trustees of the First Church of Christ Scientist, reserving the right to re-enter and repossess the land, with improvements, in case a church erected on it should not be run to suit her. All this was specified in ten conditions, which the angels have not recorded in her biography. Adjoining the Eddy castle of "metaphysics" are two lots on which stand two buildings of the Christian Science Publishing Society. This real estate was set down in February, 1898, by the editor of "The Christian Science Journal," to be worth not less than twenty-two thousand dollars. On January 25th, 1898, "Mother" Eddy generously conveyed it to the First Church of Christ Scientist. _But_, three days before--on the 21st of January, 1898--the Christian Science Publishing Society, for the sum of one dollar, had _conveyed it to her_. The string tied to her _re_-conveyance was that she should "have and occupy so much room conveniently and pleasantly located" in the establishment, as might "be necessary to carry on the publication and sale" of her "books" and "literature"--a reservation of "room" which, under legal stress might easily be interpreted to mean the whole thing--it being distinctively a "publishing house." With Mother Eddy's donation of January 25th, 1898, she threw in "The Christian Science Journal" and "all the literary publications of the Society"--these having been turned over to her with other things, for one dollar, on January 21st, 1898--she saving to herself "only the right to copyright the 'Journal' in her own name--an excellent way to make it self-supporting, with no liability on her part to incur its debts, while yet she could hold it under her absolute dictation. "Let us endeavor," says the editor of "The Christian Science Journal" (February, 1898), "to lift up our hearts in thankfulness to God ... and to his servant, our Mother in Israel, for these evidences of a generosity and self-sacrifice that appeal to our deepest sense of gratitude, even while surpassing our comprehension." Now such an evidence of generosity and self-sacrifice may intelligibly "surpass" the "comprehension" of any stipendary of Mrs. Eddy' paid to write such stuff as the foregoing; but Mary Baker Eddy's real bounty, generosity, self-sacrifice and benefaction, consisted in cancelling a mortgage of five thousand dollars, by which, on land thus obtained, a church costing other people two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was soon built to her glory, she keeping a Shylock grip on the land, church and the adjacent property of her functionaries, with all its appurtenances that were good for anything. When "Mother Eddy" casts a loaf of bread upon the waters, it is always safe to look for a hundred loaves on the way back to her. "The First Church Scientist"--the edifice erected on Mrs. Eddy's donation of land--is a handsome structure of rough granite, looking something like a small armory with a big tower. This sacred castle of "metaphysics" is situated a little on the outskirts of residential fashion in the Hub-City, the district thereof being the Back Bay. It is accessible to the world, when once in Boston, by "the electrics" and a short walk. As a place of scientifico-religious assemblage, the building seats twelve hundred actual "scientists" in the flesh, and the sympathetic spirits of some twelve thousand other "members," absent throughout the country. On this account, some Eddyites who have never seen it regard its size as rivaling that of the earth. The Cathedral (scientist) has much stained glass, and on nearly every window is depicted some Mary; for all _good_ Marys, particularly the Marys of the Bible, inferentially point to Mary Baker Eddy. This Mary's _Science and Health_ is exceedingly prominent in the multi-colored glass, and so gives countenance to all the representations taken from the Scriptures. An organ is prominent--a large, harmonious present from a gentleman who thinks that somebody was cured of something by Christian Science. The church has two pretty pulpits side by side, from one of which the Bible is read, while from the other, that ancient book is kept straight by the reading of its only true meaning from _Science and Health_. Singing the praises of "Immortal Mind," as discovered by Mrs. Eddy, constitutes a part of the services, but there is no preaching--which is just as well, perhaps, but needs a word of explanation. Preaching used to be allowed "in Science"; but some of Mother Eddy's apostles, having just enough knowledge for their creed, yet great gifts of speech, sermonized, it is said, with such honest zeal that their eloquence was in danger of casting an unglorified shadow on the Mother herself. It must be stated, indeed, that sundry who have listened to St. Mary (scientist) affirm that her divine pen has always been much more potent than her divine tongue. And some go so far as to declare that her sermons, when she preached, were often dull to the non-elect, even if they cured every disease within ten miles of them. However these things may have been, Mrs. Eddy, early in 1895, issued the following ecclesiastical edict:[43] "Humbly, and as I believe divinely directed, I hereby ordain that the Bible and _Science and Health_ with _Key to the Scriptures_ shall hereafter be the only pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, throughout our land, and in other lands." This edict prevented Mrs. Eddy's theological subordinates from setting themselves up on "earthly pinnacles." Mother Eddy at the same time decreed this: "No copies of my books are allowed to be written, and read from manuscript, either in private, or in public assemblies, except by their author." She included the commandment that "The reader of _Science and Health_ with _Key to the Scriptures_, shall commence by announcing the full title of this book, with the name of the author, and afterwards repeat at each reading its abbreviated title." Directions followed regarding classes in "Christian Science"--the number of pupils each teacher might instruct, and the annual number of classes--all to be taught "from the Christian Science text-book." Thus "Mother" Eddy's edict of 1895, abolishing pulpiteers "in Science," while it redounded widely to her own glory, piously amplified, also, the proceeds of her "precious volume," _Science and Health_. But to the innocent lambkins of her church, she said: "Teaching Christian Science shall be no question of money, but of morals and uplifting the race." So that lovely bird, the ostrich, still buries her head in the sand, but leaves out much that ornaments the landscape. In a rounded corner of the First Church Scientist, but conspicuous from the main passage, is a little apartment celebrated as "The Mother's Room." There is no use of mentioning the Mother Church "in Science," without dwelling on "The Mother's Room." It is never done, especially by any "Scientist." The Church is holy, throughout; but that room is the demonstrated environment of Immortal Mind. The entrance to "The Mother's Room" is through a white-marble arch, lustrous to behold. Over the door, cut into the marble, is the inscription, "LOVE." It is not "love of money," or "love of flattery," but just "LOVE." On the floor of the entrance we read in mosaic: "Mother's Room. The children's offering"--which signifies that Mother Eddy knows how to attract the pennies of little Scientists as well as the dollars of her larger infants. As you enter the room, you tread on white-marble mosaic, sprayed with figs and fig-leaves, and you feel an emanation of pale green and old rose. If you know your business, you are struck with awe on being in this holy-of-holies. On your right is a mantel of white Italian marble and gold, with an open fireplace, wherein to throw all your mortal thoughts, that they may be consumed. Opposite the mantel on your left, is a rather large painting, set back in the wall, but well lighted by electricity and divine science. It shows the sacred chair in which Mrs. Eddy sat when she wrote _Science and Health_. The chair is empty--as typical, perhaps, of her departure from Boston when she closed her "Metaphysical College." As Mrs. Eddy has no need of a table when she writes, but can perform miracles of literature on a pad, the picture shows this phenomenon. Sheets of her manuscript are scattered on the floor, illustrating the logical chaos which fills them. A part of "The Mother's Room" is fenced off by a ribbon, to protect a rug made from the downy breasts of five hundred eider-ducks. The legend, as told by the guide, is that "no man's hand ever touched this rug." It is sacred to the Mother's immaculate foot. But it was not manufactured by the Audubon Society. A beautiful showcase, of white and gold, ornaments the room, and in it are the white and gold editions of Mrs. Eddy's works. They are samples of what you can buy at the regular price, and are very tempting to wealthy "scientists." The Mother's room has a gorgeous bay-window, or three windows in one, of stained glass. The Mother herself is there, searching the Scriptures, encircled by a halo from the star of Bethlehem. The Christian Science seal is emblazoned on the window, and a little girl is there, reading _Science and Health_ to an old man. The little girl must be Mary Baker and the old man, probably, is Moses or Abraham. An alabaster bee-hive must not be forgotten, which contains the names of the little busy bees "in Science"--those children who squeezed out the cash to construct the room. As you turn and go out, you observe, on the right, an alcove, which contains a folding bed, to be pulled out into the main room in case of use; for the alcove itself is almost as small as a mind that disagrees with Mrs. Eddy. At your left--still going out--there is a toilet-room, corresponding to the alcove, but on the other side of the arch and doorway. In practical construction, this toilet-room is very much like other small inclosures adapted to the same ends. The chief difference, here, is that all the water-pipes, faucets, and such fixtures, are plated with gold. Thus Mother Eddy's lavatory proudly reminds her of Solomon's temple at Jerusalem. It is said that "Mother Eddy" has never slept in "The Mother's Room" but once. This one occasion, however, was quite enough to sanctify it forever. CHAPTER X. A MARTYR TO "SCIENCE." "Christian Science," though its span be brief, has produced one of the most exceptional martyrs that ever lived and prospered. It is a woman, of course; for men, as a rule, have now become too "mortal-minded" for sacrificial victims. The lady referred to is a Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury. Boston is her habitat. She was long a follower of Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and was a preacher of the gospel, _Science and Health_. She talked and prayed, she wrote and traveled, all "in Science," until she became a public personage, celebrated throughout the dominions of the Eddyites. Then at last there was "War in Heaven"--which is the title of one of Mrs. Woodbury's books,[44] and she was excommunicated from the Mother Church Scientist of the Boston Back Bay. Now Mrs. Woodbury is not a lady who can be excommunicated from a church without giving that church fair returns for the outlay. Mrs. Woodbury has a pen, and there is black ink on it. She has attorneys quick to exchange legal process for bank notes redeemable in gold. The lady has turned her pen against "Mother Eddy," and cast ink-spots on the "Mother's" religion, not to say her personal character. The Woodbury lawyers have been let loose upon "the Mother" to sue for ethical redress and monetary damages.[45] Mrs. Woodbury entered "Science" very young--a fact on account of which let us excuse her, as well as we can, for ever entering it at all. She thought she was one of the "healed" in the Eddy faith, and, later, she imagined that her reading a passage or two from _Science and Health_ snatched one of her children from the jaws of death. Her _War in Heaven_ tells us this story, and it may do no harm to trust it is true. Mrs. Woodbury has the reputation of never doing things by halves, but of attending to business religiously, and of attending to religion in a business way. Having once entered "Christian Science," she pursued that vocation with great metaphysical and financial success, until suddenly, on the 4th of April, 1896, came the bolt of excommunication. It can readily be understood that conventional respectability is a necessary and profitable department of "The Eddy Church Scientist," and that so shifty an ecclesiastic as "Mother Eddy" can scent opprobrium from afar. Whereto applies certain "Christian-Science" history. Soon after the excommunication of the apostle Josephine--the latter part of the same year--she was attacked at law by a Mr. Fred D. Chamberlain, in the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, on the charge that she had alienated the affection and companionship of his wife. The case got into print, and being displayed under large heads in the Boston _Traveler_ of December 12th, 1896 and thereafter, a suit was instituted against Mr. Chamberlain and that paper for libel.[46] It appears from the files of the _Traveler_ that its industrious editor collected a large variety of statements, letters, and interviews, for the purpose of showing his readers, that, among Mrs. Woodbury's religious accomplishments--whether it were due to suggestion, elective affinity, hypnotism, or Christian Science--she possessed a mighty gift of drawing simple souls--the rich invariably preferred--into the select congregation of her fleecy followers. Then, at two hundred dollars a follower, she was depicted as converting the sinners of other sects to "Christian Science." It will be observed that Mrs. Woodbury seemingly dealt in "metaphysics" at cut prices, the "Mother's" regular rate for instruction being three hundred dollars, not two hundred. But, for value received from Mrs. Woodbury's "loyal students"--she, like "the Mother," so naming her disciples--from seven to ten lessons only, according to the _Traveler_, were imparted to them. Then the course was indefinitely repeated, in accordance with the demand that could be created for the healing staples. Here, to be sure, was something that might have greatly offended "Mother Eddy." Yet daughter Woodbury's cut prices were only colorable, not actual; for, in the frequent repetition of the same wisdom and religiosity to the same "loyal students," she must have done less work for more money than was ever done even in the Mother's college itself. Again, if we follow newspaper files and court records in the case of the Boston _Traveler_,[47] we are told that Mrs. Woodbury had a family interest in putting on the market certain stock in a hot-air engine--a kind of "Christian Science" stock in which, if her "loyal students" took a religious flyer, their secular dealings would be sure to turn up with the right end in the air. This, perhaps, was a prime investment; but, on investigation, one "loyal student"--plaintiff Chamberlain of the suit we have touched--somehow received the impression, though doubtless through "mortal mind," that the holy engine stock had a slight smell of the Keeley motor. Unetherealized man that he was, this affliction of his base common sense was the immediate cause, he declared, of all his trouble. His pious wife was unable to bear such an affront to divinity in the person of her "teacher," St. Josephine Woodbury. So the "teacher" stuck to the wife, and the husband was left out in the cold.[48] That Boston newspaper, the _Traveler_, in spreading the Chamberlain unpleasantness, was assiduously biographical. Particulars can be curtailed. It is only necessary to say that the distinguished Mrs. Woodbury was depicted as a self-made woman who had once been known to plain environments, but who, with preaching, healing, scientific religion and engine-stock, had become financially as well as spiritually beatified. Finally she had reached a shining abode on Commonwealth Avenue--that kind of mansion, in Boston, being the very next thing to "a mansion in the skies." Her "loyal students," it is true, were not represented by the _Traveler_ as having been enriched in the same way. Still, if already wealthy, as most of them were said to be, what was the use of it? Might they not better come unto St. Josephine Woodbury, and cast upon her the dross and sorrow of their material accumulations? As described in the _Traveler_ print, these "loyal students" were, for the most part, rather young people, rich in their own right, or so endeared to their parents that neither gold nor silver, if it could be given, was denied to them. Once in the woods and groves of Teacher Woodbury's "Christian Science" paradise, these charmed innocents were turned into missionaries to their families, where souls might be saved and further possessions might accrue to a blessed instructor. If the heads of these families would not turn from the wicked ways of the world and their own churches, and bring gifts to the shrine of Christian Science, then the "loyal students" were taught to shake the dust from their feet, and depart from among the unholy. Thus were the Scriptures fulfilled "in Science." But the _Traveler_ made it to appear that such doctrine set daughter against father, son against mother, and wife against husband. So, indeed, the doctrine was made to appear in a letter written by Saint Woodbury herself and published in the _Traveler_ over her full name.[49] Therein was this preachment: "The Bible says that the teachings of Jesus rightly practised, will, _must_, set at variance the members of any household, some of whom do, and some of whom do not, imbibe the faith.... God's will be done. The command is still on the elect to come out from the world, and to separate and to shake the dust from their feet, of any house which will not receive the peace bestowed." Mrs. Woodbury, having thus justified her religion and her economics by Scripture, proceeded to justify Scripture itself by the Absolute--the example of Mrs. Eddy. St. Josephine went on, in her letter, thus: "When the Discerner of this Science first apprehended the demands of this Religion and system of ethics, she was forced to withdraw from the Congregational Church.... I have been informed, also, that not one of her family ever held her faith in anything but active contempt." This latter revelation to St. Woodbury, regarding Saint Mary Baker Eddy and her relatives, is probably true. Others have received the same information. But when the chosen one was rejected of the Baker family, particularly of its affluent members, it is affirmed that the spirit of "Science" arose within Mary, like a mighty tantrum, and, recalling her early likeness to Samuel and the Hebrews, she exclaimed with "immortal mind," "I will yet roll in wealth!" These words of the prophetess-Mother are sweet to the ear of Christian Science, which admonishes its adherents to go and do likewise--assuring them that if steadfast "in Science," they will be sure to stand solid in Dunn and Bradstreet. It is well that our condition of existence, whatever may be its metaphysical bases, is not all tragedy, but is relieved by a border of comedy. According to a tale of Christian Science, as told by the Boston _Traveler_, Mrs. Woodbury, when in the prime of her healing illumination, with its full returns, felt on one occasion that piety would be advanced if a "loyal student" of hers--a lady of means--should add a promising husband to the true Church. It was done. Then, the ever-watchful "teacher" sent forth on the wedding tour a third "loyal student"--a virgin with her lamp trimmed and burning--to see that neither of the other twain should lapse from grace and the certainty of further contributions. The complaint against the _Traveler_ newspaper got into court on the 11th of January, 1897. Short work was made of it. Notwithstanding all the divine science incarnate in St. Josephine C. Woodbury, His Honor the Judge, Dewey by name, excluded her from the court-room, that she might not contribute to the examination of her witnesses any eye-beams of hypnotism. As this book is not designed to be improperly personal, but simply an exposition of the claims, doctrines, and effects, of Christian Science, all unnecessary use of individual names must be avoided. But a few are indispensable; and people who are mentioned here have already got themselves corruscatingly into print. The first witness for Mrs. Woodbury--who turned out also to be the last--was a Mr. Alfred M. Potter. He testified that he was a brother of Mrs. Fred D. Chamberlain--the lady said to be alienated from her husband--and that he and his sister boarded with the Woodburys. He was estranged from his family, he said, except that one sister, but Mrs. Woodbury was not the cause of it. As the _Traveler_ summed up one point of the court-records, Mr. Potter, in the past year, had paid the husband of Mrs. Woodbury thirteen thousand dollars outside of board and room. He had paid Mrs. Woodbury "between a thousand and eleven hundred dollars for instructions for himself." But, in the summer of 1896, there was a European trip for Mr. Potter and the Woodburys. How could a "loyal student," young and wealthy, venture abroad without his "teacher?" And why was not his money well expended for spiritual pleasures, on the way, if St. Josephine and Mr. Woodbury took good care of Mr. Potter, and brought him safe home? But the most extraordinary matter in connection with Mr. Potter's depositions was a certain quasi-confirmation of a story that came to the _Traveler_ and had been published, alleging that, on the authority of Mrs. Woodbury, the ancient and most infinitely closed of all miracles, "the immaculate conception," had been repeated under the advanced dispensation of Mother Eddy's religion. Such was declared by various "loyal students" of Mrs. Woodbury to have been the claim of their exalted "teacher," to whom a son was born, named "Prince," an abbreviation of his full title, "the Prince of Peace." Mr. Potter came short of corroborating the whole of this miracle, but gave substantially the version of it which Mrs. Woodbury presented to the public, after the trial, in the pages of her "War in Heaven." There she says: "On the morning of June 11th, 1890, there was born to me a baby boy; though, till his sharp birth-cry saluted my ears, I had not realized that prospective maternity was the interpretation of preceding months of physical discomfort.... An hour after the birth I rose. In the afternoon I was up and dressed, and at night dined with my family.... We named our boy Prince Woodbury, partly because he came into our family as a veritable harbinger of peace." Witness Potter testified that he understood, through Mrs. Woodbury, that "she had no knowledge of the birth of Prince" until she found him with her. This circumstance, he understood, "was through Christian Science." When Mr. Potter, with a straight, truthful, honest face, gave this testimony, it naturally affected the gravity of the bench, the bar, and all others present, except Christian Scientists. There was reflected from one to another the sardonic smile of "mortal mind." But the case went on until presently a paper was put before Mr. Potter, by counsel for the defense, that it might be identified. The paper never got before the court. But the contents of it were very peculiar. The paper, in fact, was a brutally blunt form of retraction on the part of Mr. Fred D. Chamberlain, of every derogatory criticism of Mrs. Woodbury he had ever made, and a meek submission to her brand of "Christian Science." In the event of his not signing the paper, he was given to understand that he must depart from the abode of his wife. The document, it appears, was in the handwriting of the "loyal student," Mrs. Chamberlain, and was dictated by Mrs. Woodbury. But when it was presented to Mr. Chamberlain for his signature, he had not only declined to attach his name to it, but had retained the document. The Woodbury counsel quickly protested against the admission of such evidence, and the protest was judicious; for was not the whole case of "alienation" substantially set down on that paper? Hence, too, what would become of the libel-suit? But the court decided that the evidence was admissible. Then, in such a shocking plight, what could an able Woodbury lawyer do but decline, with virtuous indignation, to go on further with the case? The short of it was that Judge Dewey discharged the defendants, reprimanded the prosecution, and the noisy _Traveler_ had everything its own way.[50] As for the Chamberlain suit for damages "in Science," it was not pursued to the monetary end. It was soon ascertained that the wife really had more affection for her delectable "teacher" than any "loyal student" could be expected to have for a mere husband. As a business necessity, a divorce was then procured by Mr. Chamberlain, on the ground of desertion, and the twain went separate ways. It was not proved in Mrs. Woodbury's libel suit against the _Traveler_ that St. Josephine had claimed the full import of the _Traveler's_ story about her "Prince." The proceedings, we have seen, were prematurely stopped. But, after the newspaper's legal victory, it published sworn statements from a number of people who would have been its witnesses had the trial gone on. The most important was one made by Hon. George E. Macomber, an ex-mayor of Augusta, Maine.[51] In the regular form of a legal deposition he declared that he had known Mrs. Woodbury for several years, his acquaintance with her having come through his wife, who had taken lessons of her. He said: "My wife came one day and said Mrs. Woodbury had had a child down at Ocean Point which was a 'Second Christ,' was immaculately conceived, and that it was the duty of her students to make presents to this 'Second Christ.'" Mr. Macomber declined to make presents, and, according to his statement, his wife's "eyes were opened," after a while, and she "pulled out" of "Science." The _Traveler's_ other witnesses may pass. It is only essential to say that they were numerous, and that they all agreed with Mr. Macomber. One of them testified, in an interview, that he had once gone so far in neglect of his own family as to make a will in favor of "the Prince of Peace." But our direct point here is only this.--There would seem to be no doubt that St. Josephine Woodbury's "loyal students," far and wide, were called upon to bear gifts to her celestial son. Hence, his origin had palpable use as a financial mystery, whatever may have been its precise theological bearings. In "Christian Science," the doctrine here recorded has been logically coupled with another doctrine--that of inconnubiality in wedlock. This tenet, we can see, like the former, might result in money, goods and bequests, for some attractive "teacher," which might otherwise be squandered by a "student" in raising a family. But the principle here imbedded "in Science" has not been special to Mrs. Woodbury. Mother Eddy herself is the crystal background of all good things, and this one, with the rest, must be credited to the fountain of universal originality, _Science and Health_.[52] The pure simplicity of any being who can seriously read that book to the end, inevitably fits him to maintain with Christian Scientists, that, if children be not given to parents under physical laws, the science of perfect purity will ultimately evolve "_Children of the Soul_." "My husband and I," recently exclaimed a vestal matron of Mrs. Eddy's following, "have long lived together as brother and sister: isn't it beautiful?" "Perhaps it is," replied another matron, thus addressed, "but I am told it is generally impracticable, except in Boston." When last heard from, our contemporary "Prince of Peace" was a pretty school-boy of wit beyond his years. May the world smile kindly on "Prince Woodbury," who is in nowise to blame for any new-fangled religion; but may heaven preserve him from any further involution with the sacraments of "Christian Science." Before bidding adieu to the heroine-martyr of our present chapter, one more instance must be given of her work in a careless world--a very sad instance, not to be treated lightly. Among Mrs. Josephine Woodbury's "loyal students" for some time preceding the year 1897, was a hand-maiden of "Christian Science," one Mary Nash. The story of poor little Mary was told in the Boston _Traveler_,[53] chiefly in the words of her father, when that paper was sued for libel "in Science." Mary Nash, as we summarize that story, lived at Augusta, Maine, and her father, like our witness Macomber, had been a mayor of that city. He was a busy man, but one who loved his daughter, and kept her in funds for what he regarded as harmless fads and amusements. Mary joined the "loyal students." Then, little by little, she absented herself from Augusta, making frequent pilgrimages to Boston. The pilgrimages grew in duration, until her home was seldom her habitation. "Teacher" Woodbury had not only changed her heart, but her whole tenor of mortal life, and Mary was completely born again into the most progressed fears and phases of "Christian Science." Letters followed to her father, asking for money, and demanding that he and all his house should join "the loyal students." He forwarded the money as occasion required, but his unregenerate neck stiffly declined "Science." So Mary went no more to her father for weeks and months together. He sent her mother and brother to her, with prayers that she return to the family hearth-stone, if not to the family church. But she was always sequestered from the influence of her relatives, by some "loyal student" or other in the Woodbury collection of dutiful freaks. Mary's soul was much disturbed at times, notwithstanding the religio-scientific consolations of her surrounding guardians. She began to demonstrate, in her own scattered little person, the one everlasting assumption of "Christian Science," that the human body is an illusion to be dispelled. In other words, Mary Nash was fast sinking into what ordinary doctors of medicine and divinity term illness, and it became extreme. Then, not for the first time, her father, went to Boston himself, to take, if possible, his daughter back to his care and her mother's heart, at the Augusta home. But still, still--unless by some accident of a moment--she was always under the eye and the power of a "metaphysical" keeper. Then Mary said "no"--she "could not leave the fount of Christian Science." So she stayed in Boston; for she was of age, and could select her castle and companionship while she had the ways and means to maintain them. Now what could a poor law-abiding citizen of New England, who had once been a mayor, do in such a case? Had Mary's father been a wild citizen of the West or the South, he might have taken his handy "gun" along with him, and removed his child or "cleaned out the ranch." But Maine and Massachusetts are too subdued for such stringent remedies. So Mayor Nash mourned of "hypnotism," and offered--the distracted father that he was--five hundred dollars, to release his daughter from the blessings of her religion. This mercenary offer was spurned, as suspect perchance in legal and ecclesiastic form; but the way was pointed out in which the money might be received for lessons in Christian Science, at the Woodbury cut-rates. Meanwhile, it being ascertained that Mary Nash had a modest bank-account in her name, the money was sent for, by herself nominally, but visibly through a person in the number seven shoes of a "loyal student." The bank men--who were not "in Science"--declined to pay Mary's demand, and referred the matter to her father. He agreed with the bank in holding the proceeds of his daughter's account, and his very stomach, not to say his soul, rejected the thought of exchanging cash for religious instruction from Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury. So little Mary Nash became of no further promise to "Christian Science." And there was no time to lose. Mary was plainly departing from the state of deception--certainly such to _her_--called "earthly life." Hastily, at last, she was permitted to journey home with her father, and presently the sad man laid his daughter away in what to him was death.[54] From the history of "Christian Science"--set down in these pages as the thing really is--it must be clear to anybody not quite emptied of all "mortal sense" that Mrs. Josephine C. Woodbury has been the most logical sequence, the most practical outcome, of the whole firmamental illumination. But, that the Church of St. Bunco should grow and prosper--or should even hold its own among its honest innocents--it has been necessary for Mrs. Eddy not only to preach "love" and "purity" in general, but to draw the line of practical conduct somewhere short of blackmail, larceny and homicide. St. Josephine Woodbury never committed a sin in her life. Sin has no reality "in Science." Her "loyal students" would all have testified that she was equal to any of the angels, if not better than the highest. Yet a hard world around her, not understanding "true religion," began to fancy, say in 1896, that she was not, every second, fulfilling all the ten commandments. Then, besides her _War in Heaven_, the lady has written another book, called _Christian Voices_, in which, the thought having been long imputed to her, she asked the question, "Who shall succeed Mrs. Eddy?" As _Science and Health_ declares there is no death, and as "Mother Eddy" is specially immortal, St. Josephine's carnal talk of the "Christian Science succession" was naturally regarded "in Science" as worse than blasphemy. Thus many things worked together against St. Josephine Woodbury, until at last she sat on "Mother" Eddy's burning fagots and wore the crown of martyrdom. Thereat the world did not come to an end, but went right on with the production of quacks, dupes, and "loyal students." CHAPTER XI. METAPHYSICS.[55] "Mother Eddy" and her flock "in Science" derive a considerable part of their income from a glib use of the word "Metaphysics." But what the "Church Scientist" has omitted to learn about the real import of that word would make a volume even larger than _Science and Health_. As unreservedly admitted in our present essay, there is no trouble about a spiritual derivation of the universe. In the declaratory, religious form, the New Testament is a sufficient example of this doctrine. In the philosophical form the names of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom resolved all things into the principle of "Mind," summarized the subject for the ancient world. The modern world has now given three hundred years to the same theme, and, however well or ill aware of the fact, has reached the same end, but wholly without the assistance of any pushing, dodging adventuress, with a little set of abstract ideas and much screaming of "Science." Leaving lighter themes for the moment, let us venture on a brief survey of this ground. There are just two possible ways of analyzing things. One way is to set the world with its particulars before the eye, look at it, and accept what we see. Then we may go to work on phenomena, dissecting and generalizing. This is the way of physics--a road that _never_ leads to _meta_-physics. It is the common turnpike of material science--of "positivism." In it travel all such men, say, as Dr. Ernst Hæckel: also all such men as the late Parson John Jasper, the colored preacher of Virginia, who, seeing the sun move round the earth, settled the fact in that way. The one other way of dissecting the universe is to examine the _means_ through which things are presented to us, and thus to ascertain what effect the means may have in the production and nature of the things. This method of investigation has ultimated in what has been summed up as "Scientific Idealism." Scientific idealism is the knowledge which every one may get even from his first lessons in optics, that things of matter--the objects of our five senses--are constituted such through the structure and action of these senses themselves. That is to say, material things--whatever we see or feel, hear, taste or smell--while existent and real--while practically what every one takes them to be--are _made so_ through _relativity_. Or, as Kant put it, every "phenomenon"--meaning every object or fact of sensation--is a "_re_-presentation"; that is, some lot of effects on our sensuous nature, bound together into a unity of them, the unity thus formed becoming an object of awareness, a "percept." Scientific idealism does not question the given duality of the cosmos, which appears to us as what we call "mind and matter." Here are _we_; out there, indubitably apart from us, are other things, involving another source. But scientific idealism has found that this source is itself quite other than the things we connect with it, and can properly be described in this connection only as _source of impact_. It has nothing to do with matter, in the common acceptation. It enters _into_ matter, being the ultimate non-ego, the objective background, of every phenomenon. But, in all material things, this background is _transformed_ by contact with subjective sense (in us or other organisms), and "matter" is really the fusion, the compound, the third term, of these two elemental principles. This momentous truth, though mystically reached in the old tenet of India that "matter is illusion," and though touched understandingly by Carneades in Greece, was first clearly seen, in the manner of modern science, by the remarkably solid Englishman, Thomas Hobbes. "Qualities called sensible" [said Hobbes] "are, in the object that causeth them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth our organs diversely.... Because the image in vision, consisting of color and shape, is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the object of that sense, it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion, that the same color and shape are the very qualities themselves." But, concluded Hobbes: "The subject wherein color and image are inherent is not the object or thing seen.... There is nothing without us (really) which we call an image or color.... The said image or color is but an apparition unto us of _the motion, agitation, or alteration, which the object worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head_.... As in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from the other senses, the subject of their inference is not the object, but the sentient." When John Locke began his great "Essay" on _The Human Understanding_, and posited mind in its first estate as a passive nonentity--a "blank tablet"--he had no vital conception of scientific idealism. But, in the patient thinking of twenty years, such a man could not fail to come upon the law, though he saw it only in part, and did not work it out. This work was carried a great way beyond him, by the acute and learned Bishop Berkeley, who showed from practical science, especially through his investigation of "vision," that nothing in the universe has any actual being, apart from a universal element, that, wherever it may be posited, can alone be called Mind. Since Berkeley, no philosophical thinker, perhaps, of any significance, anywhere in the world, has questioned the "ideality" of "material things." Even Reid, as the philosopher of "common sense," declared that "No man can conceive any sensation to resemble any known quality of bodies. Nor can any man show, by any good argument, that all our sensations might not have been as they are, though no body, nor quality of body, had ever existed." Hume's comprehension of Scientific idealism was complete to his day, and was completely stated. He said: "'Tis not our body we perceive when we regard our limbs and members, but certain impressions which enter by the senses; so that the ascribing a real and corporeal existence to these impressions, or to their objects, is an act of the mind difficult to explain." The idealism of recent "materialistic" philosophers, such as Herbert Spencer and the school of "Positivists," has been most carefully expressed by John Stuart Mill, in his statement that "Matter is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation." "If" [said Mr. Mill] "I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter; and so do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this I do not." For an easy, popular view of the principle of scientific idealism, perhaps nothing has been better said than by Thomas Carlyle, in his review of Novalis. "To a transcendentalist [says Carlyle] matter has an existence, but only as a phenomenon. Were _we_ not there, neither would _it_ be there: it is a mere relation, or rather the result of a relation between our living souls and the great First Cause; and depends for its apparent qualities on our bodily and mental organs; having itself no intrinsic qualities; being, in the common sense of the word, nothing. The tree is green and hard, not of its own natural virtue, but simply because my eye and my hand are fashioned so as to discern such and such appearances under such and such conditions. Nay, as an idealist might say, even on the most popular grounds, _must_ it not be so? Bring a sentient being with eyes a little different, fingers ten times harder than mine, and to him that thing which I call tree shall be yellow and soft, as truly as to me it is green and hard. Form the nervous structure in all points the reverse of mine, and this same tree shall not be combustible and heat-producing, but dissoluble and cold-producing; not high and convex, but deep and concave; shall simply have _all_ properties exactly the reverse of those attributed to it. There is no tree there; but only a manifestation of power from something which is not _I_. The same is true of material nature at large, of the whole visible universe, with all its movements, figures, accidents and qualities." Scientific idealism, as far as we have gone with it, has now become one of the "_exact_" sciences--as much so as physics. It has been simply the result of continuous and innumerable experiments in natural philosophy, for three centuries. There is no need of going into these physical particulars, after they have been put into the school-books of children and explained in popular lectures. One more quotation must suffice. Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his _Biographical History of Philosophy_, tells us that "The radical error of those who believe that we perceive things _as they are_, consists in mistaking a metaphor for a fact, and believing that the mind is a mirror in which external objects are reflected. But, as Bacon finely says, 'The human understanding is like an _unequal mirror_ to the rays of things, which, _mixing its own nature with the nature of things, distorts and perverts them_.' We attribute heat to fire, and color to the flower, heat and color being states of our consciousness, occasioned by the fire and the flower under certain conditions. Perception is nothing more than a _state of the percipient_, a state of consciousness.... Of every change in our sensation we are conscious, and in time we learn to give definite names and forms to the causes of these changes. But in the fact of consciousness there is nothing _beyond_ consciousness. In our perceptions we are conscious only of the changes which have taken place within us.... All we can do is to identify certain _external appearances_ with certain internal changes.... We conclude, therefore, that the world _per se_ in nowise resembles the world as it appears to us. Perception is an Effect; and its truth is not the truth of _resemblance_, but of _relation_.... Light, color, sound, taste, are all states of Consciousness; what they are beyond consciousness ... we cannot know, we cannot imagine, because we can only conceive them _as_ we know them. Light, with its myriad forms and colors--Sound, with its thousand-fold life--make Nature what Nature appears to us. But they do not exist, _as such_, apart from our consciousness; they are investitures with which we clothe the world. Nature, in her insentient solitude is an eternal Darkness--an eternal Silence." CHAPTER XII. FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE UNIVERSE. In a previous chapter, some special reference has been made to a little German professor named Immanuel Kant. He was born at Königsberg, in 1724. In 1781 he wrote a book which he called "The Critique of Pure Reason." This provokingly modest title, as already said, covered, in reality, _the analysis of mind and matter, time and space_. It was the most far-reaching piece of purely intellectual work that had ever been given to the world. It has split the heads of hundreds of "philosophers." Certain thinkers have fancied they have thought beyond it, and have supposed it to be laid on the shelf of "deceased philosophy." Meanwhile, we are told, the universities "are returning to the study of Kant." Better still, some of them are even beginning to understand him. Here we shall take him straight, paying no attention to any of the side issues in which he was apt to cover himself up.[56] Kant, so learned that he was said to "know everything," was completely acquainted with the whole trend of British philosophy, from John Locke to David Hume. He was saturated, too, with the physical sciences. So his first real step in his _Critique of Pure Reason_ was to found himself on the all-inclusive law of scientific idealism. Immanuel Kant did not fool with this law. He did not test it, prove it, and then let it slip out of a loose, greasy mind, as an airy nothing of no practical consequence. He grasped it, and held it, as the bed-rock of all thought and all things. It is a pity he omitted to say so at the very first touch of his work. But he said it clearly enough when he happened to get ready. Thus, for instance:[57] "In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with respect to _the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general_. We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the re-presentation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite are not in themselves the same as our re-presentations of them in intuition, nor are their relations so constituted as they appear to us; and that _if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general_, then _not only the nature and relations of objects_ in space and time, _but even space and time themselves disappear_.... What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves, and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility, is quite unknown to us." Again, in closing his dissection of space, Kant said: "Objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and _what we call outward objects_ are nothing else but mere _re-presentations of our sensibility_, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made." Once more: "The faculty of sensibility not only does not present us with any indistinct and confused cognition of objects as things in themselves, but, in fact, gives us _no knowledge of these_ at all. On the contrary, as soon as we abstract in thought _our own subjective nature_, the object re-presented, with the properties ascribed to it by sensuous intuition, _entirely disappears, because it was only this subjective nature that determined the form of the object as a phenomenon_." After awhile, under the maddening caption of "The Possibility of a Conjunction of the Manifold Representations given by Sense,"[58] our German professor virtually crowded his whole work into this one paragraph: "The manifold content in our re-presentations can be given in an intuition which is merely sensuous--in other words, is nothing but susceptibility; and the form of this intuition can exist _a priori_ in our faculty of representation, without being anything else but the mode in which the subject is affected. But the conjunction (_conjunctio_) of a manifold in intuition never can be given by the senses; it cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition, for it is a spontaneous act of the faculty of re-presentation. And as we must, to distinguish it from sensibility, entitle this faculty _understanding_, so all conjunction, whether conscious or unconscious, be it of the manifold in intuition, sensuous or non-sensuous, or of several conceptions, is an act of the understanding. To this act we shall give the general appellation of _synthesis_, thereby to indicate, at the same time, that _we cannot represent anything as conjoined in the object without having previously conjoined it ourselves_." As to comprehend this paragraph is to analyze the universe, let us grapple with it. Impatient Dr. Sam. Johnson once kicked a stone to refute Berkeley. Let us take that stone, as a clump of matter, and treat it with the head instead of the foot. "The manifold content in our re-presentations," says Kant, "can be given in an intuition which is merely sensuous." This means simply that the various properties of the "re-presentation" or "intuition" called a stone are "effects on the senses." The color, the texture, the weight, the size--every one of all such "material" attributes--exist, as they are, solely by relation to _me_, or to some other being in whom is organized the element of "sense." Matter is _made_ of impact--impact between its objective background ("the noumenon" or "noumena") and some sort or degree of subjectivity. Without these two terms, their product of interaction, their third term, matter, is _not_. So "the manifold content" of a "re-presentation"--or, what is the same thing, the properties of a material object--are "nothing but susceptibility." By "the form of intuition," Kant meant, as he has repeatedly explained, the _plural quality_ of space and time. Space is made of _spaces_; time of _times_; and the plural contents (always such) of matter can only exist under the plural contents of space and time--that is, in sections of space and sequences of time, these sections and sequences being the intrinsic character, the divisible quality, the essential "form" of space and time as total units or completed things. And the nature of space and time need not be anything more _objective_ than the nature of matter in general, but can be derived, too, from "the mode in which the subject is affected." "But," says Kant, "_all conjunction_" is "an act of the understanding," and "can not be contained in the pure form of sensuous intuition"; by which he means that time could never be a conjunct of times, space a conjunct of spaces, nor a stone the conjunct of its properties--each a "synthesis" of a "manifold content"--unless made so by the synthetical unity of _a priori_ mind. Kant attributes "_unconscious_" action to the "_understanding_"--the unconscious action of "conjunction" or "synthesis." His phrase has been a perpetual stumbling-block to his readers, but he meant exactly what he said. Unconscious mental synthesis is what he afterward designated as "the synthesis of _apprehension_." "By the term _synthesis_ of apprehension [said he], I understand the combination of the manifold in an empirical intuition, whereby perception, that is, empirical consciousness of the intuition (as phenomenon), is possible." Kant talks of "making the empirical intuition of a house into a perception, by apprehension of the manifold contained therein," and says that "the _necessary unity of space_ and of my _external sensuous intuition_ lies at the foundation of this act." The "manifold" contained in an "empirical intuition"--take the stone we have used for an example--is simply the diversity of "properties," constituting the object--the color, texture, size, weight, and the rest of them; and these properties are "effects of sense." Every one of them is a relation to subjectivity, a result of impact _on_ subjectivity, and is in the _object_ only as reflecting or _re_-presenting there the sensuous nature of a _subject_. But these various "effects on various senses," these merely subjective separates--how do they _get united_ into _one thing_? What constitutes the unity of sensuous manifolds? Every phenomenon being an essential plurality--a lot of "sense-effects"--what closes together the various effects on various human senses, called the properties of a stone, into the one phenomenal object, the stone itself. To this end there must be some common subjective ground of those subjective things, "effects on sense." There must be some subjective unity in which those subjective pluralities all merge, for only as _merged_ do they get to be an _object_. Now, a common subjective ground of various effects on various senses can only be a common _awareness of them_--a _synthetical unity of apprehension_, or just instinctive, automatic consciousness in the germ. This must be common to all the senses together, and to each sense separately. What, for example, is seeing, but the simple awareness of sight? What is touch, but the simple awareness of feeling? What is any "intuition," which means any taking-in of any phenomenon, but a common awareness, however rudimental or developed, of some conjoined diversity of effects on sense? It must be added here, as vital to the full comprehension of the genesis of matter, that not only every material object, like our example, the stone, is made of essential plurality of sense-effects, but that _every separate property_ of an object is also made of like plurality. No object, and no property of an object, is, or can be, single, unal, or, in other words, _anything_, until constructed so, in sense, by the "unconscious understanding" thereof--the synthetical unity of instinctive, automatic "apprehension." To realize this fact, it is only necessary to remember that every property of anything, say the hardness of a stone, is a compound relation between the impact of some ultimate non-ego on the sense of touch, and the peculiar nature of the sense itself: so the property of hardness must contain _essential diversity_, something from each of _two fundamental sources_. As Aristotle, from his ontological investigations, found that matter, if regarded as an absolute independence--an unrelated thing in itself--is _no thing_, but only chaotic indeterminateness--formless "potentiality"--so Kant, from his psychological inquiry--his dissection of phenomena as existent through perception--found the same truth in deeper significance. The _entire principle of unity_, Whether in a feeling, a thought, a material object, or the universe as a whole, _can only exist through the principle of mind_. Here is the very bottom of the discoveries of Kant, and the basis, also, of all things. Mind, then, in its lowest state, is what Kant, "to distinguish it from sensibility," entitled "unconscious understanding." There used to be an old saw in philosophy--still, indeed, at work--to the effect that "there is nothing in the mind that was not first in sense." Leibnitz, adding a piece to the saw, said: "Except mind itself." Leibnitz affirmed, that is, that sense always _contains_ mind--that mind is _in_ sense as a component of it, and that without mind there is no sense at all. What Leibnitz perceived and asserted, Kant _proved_ by "observation and induction"--by analyzing phenomena under the law of scientific idealism. Mind in sense--the mind of sense--is just _automatic animal awareness_, just "simple apprehension," undeveloped, and in the lowest animal life not to be developed, into "apperception," the _conscious_ stage of understanding, capable of forming a _concept_. Well, in the genesis of a stone, or any other material object, certain effects on sense are merged in the unit they compose, by reception into the "synthetical unity of apprehension." The stone is _created_ in this way. Its own objective unity--its wholeness, or "_form_" as a stone--is thus the derivation, the manufactured product, of _subjectivity as a cosmic element_, an element "_a priori_" to the existence of any possible phenomenon. The stone, however, _is_ unmistakably objective--is just the palpable thing that everybody takes it to be, out there in space. This is a given _fact of perception_--something, as Kant said, "never questioned in experience." As such _fact_, how can it be accounted for, when we know, at the same time, that the stone is nothing but a plexus of subjective states? How does the bunch of _internal impressions_ get _externalized_? What is the cause of this reflex, this "_re_-presentation"? It must be something inherent in the principle of _apprehension itself_, or the plexus of impressions would necessarily stay within us. Being wrought internally, it would remain internal. Hence, this "apprehension"--this element of instinctive synthetical awareness--must be in its nature a _double_--an entity which reproduces, or throws out before itself, whatever lot of sense-effects it receptively synthesizes, or binds together in a sheaf, known as some object. But all this, summed up, means only that mind, even in its lowest form of "unconscious understanding"--the simple automatic apprehension which shuts together certain effects on sense into a totality of them--must, _as being apprehension_, necessarily, though instinctively, apprehended its own product. Here is the full explanation of the amusing, iron-clad conception of Hobbes, that an "image," or a "color," is but an apparition unto us of "motion, agitation, or alteration" in some "internal substance of the head." The self-reflexiveness of "apprehension" is precisely the same thing, _in germ_, that the self-reflexiveness of "apperception" is, in _full self-consciousness_. The self-reflexiveness of apprehension, in the manufacture of phenomena, was named by Kant "_the transcendental synthesis of imagination_"--the word "imagination" standing on its roots, and meaning _the image-making faculty_. Phenomena, as reflex-conjuncts of sense-effects, are "produced"--put out--by this second function of apprehension; so Kant said he sometimes called it "productive imagination." It is that function of pure elemental, or _a priori_ awareness, which "_re_-presents" itself in the constitution of every object, as its _unity_, but a unity _shaped_ according to some object's filling of senses-effects. Hence Kant says: "This synthesis of the manifold of sensuous intuition, which is possible and necessary _a priori_, may be called figurative synthesis (_synthesis speciosa_)." Thus Kant found mind in sense, "unconscious understanding," the instinctive awareness of animal susceptibility, as it existed in himself, to be the literal objective basis of all phenomena--the first "material" unity of every "material thing." And he found this elemental source of all unity to be an innate self-activity--a self-seeing mirror, as it were--a double of receptiveness and reflectiveness. Here, at last, was the actual, _living thing_, of which Locke's "blank-tablet" had long been the still-born, stone figure. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his remarkable investigation of "The Principles of Psychology," posits "mind" as always implied in sentiency, and as necessary to the genesis of any phenomenon, even the "first nervous shock" of a sensitive being. Recognizing the law of scientific idealism, he has seen, too, that our objective world is made up, at the perceptional outset, of such shocks. Again, he has proved, with great detail, that the action of mind is always of one general nature, whether in the lowest animal instinct or the highest conscious reason. But back at the first nervous shock, Mr. Spencer _stops_ with mind, and says that at the next regress it becomes "unknowable." Yet nearly a hundred years before this investigation Kant showed precisely what this so-called "unknowable" _is_. He showed that mind, in all stages and states--mind in itself--is a synthetical unity of awareness. In germ, as "unconscious understanding"--as the mind of sense--its function is to be simply apprehensive of, and thus to conjoin in its instinctive cognizance, some "manifold" contained in a "nervous shock," or in various sense-effects, into some _unity_; which then, as _itself apprehended_, or _made a reflex_, becomes an impression, an image, an object. CHAPTER XIII. A SPECIAL LOOK AT SPACE AND TIME. Through scientific idealism, fully examined, Kant proved that matter is a manufacture of sense. We have not followed the order of his work, but have gone straight to the heart of it. His own beginning was the dissection of space and time. Still, he implied therein, if only in one remark, all that has here been stated. "If I take [says Kant] from our representation of a body, all that the understanding thinks as belonging to it, as substance, force, divisibility, and also whatever belongs to sensation, as impenetrability, hardness, color, there is still something left us from this empirical intuition, namely _extension and shape_. These belong to pure intuition, which exists _a priori_ in the mind, as a mere form of sensibility, and without any real object of the senses or any sensation." Students of Kant have known, in a general way, that he attributed "extension" to "bodies," as derived by them from _a priori_ mind. _Space_ is so derived; hence all things _in_ space, which is the "form," the "condition" of their existence, must partake of its nature, which is pure extension, pure "given quantity," as he designates it. But why does the _shape_ of a material body belong to "pure intuition," and _come from mind_? Simply because the shape (let it be of a stone) is merely the _objected_ "_synthesis of apprehension_," in which the properties of the stone, as impressions of sense, are _unified_, but in accordance with their special variety. The shape is their "figurative synthesis," their "_synthesis speciosa_." Now, in the meaning of Kant, and in the nature of the case, space is _made_ in precisely the same _manner_ as a stone; only the stone is full of diverse properties--special effects on sense, got from some impinging background of matter--some "noumenon"--while space has no properties at all, except additions and divisions of _itself_--spaces. In other words, the stone is a _special_ relation between mental synthesis and sensuous susceptibility, the latter being in particular impact with some noumenal non-ego, and being definitely _filled_ from it. Space, on the other hand, is a _general_ relation between the same mental synthesis and the same sensuous susceptibility, the latter holding _no contents_ from any noumenon, yet being recipient to _all_ possibility of noumenal impact. Hence, space is just "the synthesis of apprehension" itself, set in self-reflex, objected, phenomenated. The stone, in its unity, its form, its "shape," is this objected synthesis of apprehension, _filled_ with certain sensuous effects. The synthesis of apprehension, again, as the condition of any special "shape" into which it may be stuffed, is of course _a priori_ to _the_ stuffed shape; so space is _a priori_ to the stone in space. Once again, space is the outward representation, the very double to the eye, of the synthesis of apprehension; for space is just the _visible synthesis of the apprehended_--the transparent base of co-existence for all external things. It must be remembered that the synthesis of apprehension, as the "mind" of "sense," is itself a _double_, containing the pure conjunctive unity of "unconscious understanding" as an active factor, and susceptibility to impact as a passive factor. In the conjoined relation of these two factors every material phenomenon gets to exist; so there must be _some_ relation of space to _every_ external object, and to _all_ external objects--which is to say at once that space is _infinite_, both in extent and divisibility, so far as it can apply to objects _at all_. And here, too, is the reason that the contained character, the constituent quality, of space--meaning what Kant termed the "form of the intuition"--is essentially plural. This constituent quality of space is a _re_-presentation of mind, as at once active and passive, receptive and reflexive--as fundamental _a priori_ self-separateness. But _space itself_, as a _whole_, is the _synthesis_ of this self-separateness. It is self-unity of self-separateness, _materialized_. Space, made of spaces, is a thing identical in form and contents. Kant said: "Space _re_-presented as an _object_ (as geometry really requires it to be) contains more than the mere _form of the intuition_; namely, a combination of the manifold given according to the form of sensibility into a representation that can be intuited; so the _form of the intuition_ gives us merely the manifold, but the _formal intuition_ gives unity of re-presentation. In the '�sthetic,' [the first division of _The Critique of Pure Reason_], I regarded this unity as belonging entirely to sensibility, for the purpose of indicating that it antecedes all conceptions, although it presupposes a synthesis which does not belong to sense, through which, however, all our conceptions of space and time are possible.... By means of this unity alone (the understanding determining the sensibility) space and time are given as intuitions." It is easy enough to follow out the genesis of time, in the same way as the genesis of space. The constituent quality of space and time is the same in both, and is subject in both to the same act of synthesis, in order that the essential plurality of "the form of intuition" may be created into the unity of "the formal intuition" itself--the single thing, space or time. But time is the "form" of "_in_-ternal sense," as Kant put it, while space is the "form" of "_ex_-ternal sense"--sense being to Kant not its physical organs (which are matter), but mental _susceptibility_ as distinguished from mental _synthesis_. Every phenomenon in space is made of active subjective-synthesis, passive subjective-susceptibility, and noumenal impact. Space and time themselves are made of the synthesis and the susceptibility alone. But pure synthesis, which means just pure identity of awareness, can _have_ no "susceptibility," cannot be _occupied_, without _change of state_; and any change of state in a pure general awareness forms succession of states, or, as Kant said, "_generates time_." But conjunction, again, of synthesis and susceptibility must be the relating of separates, with reference to the objective as well as the subjective factor. As objective effect this relation is pure co-existence of separates in time, through outness from each other--space. All objects, impressions, "effects of sense," must take the order of time; but "objects of internal sense" (feelings, or emotions), having no direct filling from noumena, are not objects in space. Thus, while space is pure synthesis of apprehension _ex_-ternally objected, time is the same pure synthesis of apprehension _in_-ternally objected. CHAPTER XIV. CREATIVE MIND FURTHER PROBED. The inmost secret of the universe lies in Kant's four words, "the synthesis of apprehension," or what he more elaborately termed "the transcendental synthesis of the image-making faculty." "It is an operation [he says] of the understanding on sensibility, and the _first_ application of the understanding to objects of possible intuition, and at the same time _the basis for the exercise of the other functions of that faculty_." It has been intently presented to view in these pages, because it focalises and explains the whole law of scientific idealism, and is the one most important as well as abstruse fact in the genesis of things. But having duly dealt with this point, it must now be said that "the synthesis of apprehension," _alone_ and _ungrown_, is altogether inadequate to give form to an object, in the full import of that word. For an _object_ is something held distinct by itself, in connection with another object, or with various objects. "_Unconscious_ understanding" cannot form such connection and distinction, but can only blindly manufacture single intuitions, affording at most what Kant termed "a rhapsody of perceptions," in which no one would be first or last, or anything at all when past. A fish-worm, perhaps, has such a "rhapsody of perceptions" for its objective world. In the world of man the _a priori_ element of intelligence which shapes it must be objected in the phase of consciousness proper, or "apperception," as well as "simple apprehension." In noting the difference between the synthesis of apprehension and the synthesis of apperception, Kant said: "It is one and the same spontaneity which, at one time under the name of imagination, at another under that of understanding, produces conjunction in the manifold of intuition." "Apperception" is simply apprehension _apprehended_, or mind adequate to self-conception and so to conceptions in general. That there can be a stone, as known to a _human being_, there must be a synthesis of sense-effects (its properties), in which they are distinguished among themselves, and of which objects as wholes are distinguished from each other. A synthesis of this kind presupposes not merely "unconscious understanding," but understanding that recognizes _itself_ in connecting all things else. "I am conscious [said Kant] of my identical self in relation to all the variety of representations given to me in intuition, because I call all of them _my_ representations.... The thought, 'These representations, given in intuition, belong all of them to me,' is just the same as 'I unite them in one self-conscious.'... Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuition, as given _a priori_, is therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes _a priori_ all determinate thought. But the conjunction of representations into a conception is not to be found in objects themselves ... but is on the contrary, an operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining _a priori_, and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition." So, to the _existence_ of any _distinguishable object_, there must _pre-exist_ the element of mind in the phase of _self_-consciousness as well as _sub_-consciousness. Both must enter the object. Hence, when Kant talked of "_the objective unity of self-consciousness_"--another of his profoundest deductions--he meant literally that "the synthetical unity of apperception," as well as "the synthetical unity of apprehension," is _materialized_ in all _conceivable things_. To form the sense-effects of a stone into a single "intuition," they must be merged in a synthesis of apprehension; but to _set_ the intuition as thus created--to make it remain _itself_ in the midst of _others_, it must be merged with them in a higher synthesis--a common connective consciousness, which, distinguishing them in itself, re-presents them as distinguished. It was here that Kant reached his famous "_Categories_," which are merely reflexes of the pure synthetical unity of mind, as forming the unity of all things and of all connection among them. The principle of mind, beginning, as we have seen, even with the instinctive mind of sense, is a spontaneous self-activity, receptive, reflexive, and resumptive of its doubles. By being the first, it unifies any and every manifold of sense-effects; by being the second, it _re_-presents the product--throws it _out_; by being the third, it apprehends the externalisation, and a percept is born. Apperception, or full consciousness, is the same self-activity, self-reflex, self-sight, transformed into "understanding." Thus, mind is essentially a _triad_ as well as a _unit_. But, if so, it must reflect itself to conception as a "_Quantity_"--a sum of its own phases; and in these phases, it is a "Unity," a "_Plurality_," and a "_Totality_." Mind, again, as just _a-priori_ principle and basis of all things, is manifestly their universal "Quality." But, as self-reflexive, self-resumptive, it is at once a "_Reality_," a "_Negation_," and a "_Limitation_," which means it is that which, in its double, contraposes one state to another, while, as a whole, it is the limit of both states. It goes without saying that a principle of self-reflex is the "Relation" of its reflexes, and in this relation is a "_Substance_ with _Dependence_," a "_Cause_ with _Effect_," and a "_Reciprocity_" of its separates. This is a very short cut to the Kantian Categories, but sufficient, perhaps, if we bear in mind that, while _implicit_ in the mind of sense, they are reflexes of conscious, not "unconscious" understanding. The synthesis of mind through conceptions proceeds, not by the formation of sense-effects into units of intuition, but by the formation of these already-made units (objects or their properties) into species, genera, and ultimate universals--the pure unity of these groupings, without regard to the things grouped, being just the pure _a priori_ unity of self-conscious awareness. Thus, those ultimate universals, the categories, are objective reproductions of pure conceptive synthesis, without which there could be _no connection of things in thought_--which would amount precisely to no _realised objects_ and no _objective experience_. One of Kant's industrious reviewers, Sir William Hamilton, fancied that Aristotle's categories were "genera of real things," while Kant's categories were "determinations of thought," and, as mere "_entia rationis_," must "be excluded from the Aristotelic list." But there are no "genera of real things" except _as_ "determinations of thought"; and, in making an experimental classification of objects, Aristotle found some of the Kantian categories, because the synthetical unity of mind had put those categories into the objects at the creation of them. To Kant an _object_ meant something of which Sir William Hamilton had no boding. CHAPTER XV. THE GENESIS OF "TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS." It must now be easy to see that mind, in its general form, is three-in-one--a triad. It is a self-reflexive, self-related unit, of three phases. The first phase is automatic "apprehension." The second is conscious "understanding." The third, which we touch here, is "reason." In reason, mind is still the general cosmic principle of awareness, with the function of synthesis, or conjunction. As intuition, it has perceived things. As conception, it has classified them. As a last synthetical unity of awareness, it must include, or "comprehend" them--must relate them to its conjunctive unity in their full scope, which means simply in the ultimate reflexes, or forms, of its own nature and action. As process, this can only be done by referring all things to pure synthesis, or connective identity, as _final cause_. _Seeing_ things, and then _thinking_ them, we always end by asking, "_Why?_" They _are_, each and all so and so; but what is the "_reason_" for it? The pure _form_ of answer, apart from all contents, is "_because_"--on account of _cause_. Thus reason forms its synthesis of comprehension by referring the particular to the general for a cause--a process that can never stop short of including all things in ultimate unities of cause. It is evident that ultimate unities of cause must contain all subordinate causes or conditions under them. There can be just three such ultimate unities; for there are just three possible kinds of being and conditions that relate to their universals: subjective being and conditions to subjective unity of them; objective being and conditions to objective unity of them; and all being and conditions, both subjective and objective, to the universal unity of being and conditions. These final unities, again, _as_ final--as totalities of conditions with none beyond--are themselves "unconditioned." Reason, then, as an _a-priori_ synthetical unity, necessarily refers all conditions of things to their final or absolute unities, which are in reality nothing but conceptional reflexes of Reason's _own constructive_ synthetical identity. To _be_ an identity of mind, for instance, to the conditions of subjectivity, reason must receive _them_ into _its_ unity, which thus becomes _their_ totality. Now what is the objective re-presentation, the rational conception of the totality of subjective conditions? It is simply the "transcendental idea" of pure subjectiveness, or Soul. In the same way the totality of objective phenomenal conditions, is the idea of the Universe; while the totality of _all_ conditions, both subjective and objective, is the idea of that in which all mind and all matter are related as their final cause or reason--God. CHAPTER XVI. THE GRAND RESULT OF DISSECTING PHENOMENA. Since the days of Immanuel Kant, no philosophy, no rational theology, no ultimate science, not referring to the results of his work, has had any real basis in thought--the reason being that he saw through, and explained, the principle of universal relativity, the law of scientific idealism, and relaid the whole structure, from the corner-stone up. Before Kant it was known well enough that "matter," however we must all accept it with our hands and eyes, has no standing, under the analysis of thought, except as a system of effects on ourselves. Hume, we remember, saw all this so clearly that he pronounced the very organs of sense, "our limbs and members," to be "not our body," but "certain impressions" to which the mind ascribes "a corporeal existence." Our limbs and members certainly _are_ our body--the only body we have--but Hume was right in his meaning that our body is a phenomenon which has no existence but as a plexus of impressions on a principle of intelligence, possessing various modes of reception, named senses. But this _principle_ of _intelligence_ itself was, to Hume, not a fact to be grasped by "reason," not a principle to be known and described, but was to be taken as a "force and vivacity" unknowable beyond an _instinct_ of it. Hume's unknowable "force and vivacity"--an improved form of Locke's "blank-tablet"--Kant _analyzed_ in the light of its products; namely, those conjuncts of sense-effects called objects; those conjuncts of objects called species, genera, and categories; and finally those conjuncts of all things and all conditions of things, called transcendental ideas. Now, such conjuncts of various "manifolds" actually exist. They are man's percepts and concepts; they are his facts, his environment. But _as_ percepts and concepts, and always conjuncts of "the manifold," they are formed, organized, totalized, through a _principle_--the principle of perception and conception itself. This is Kant's _a-priori_ synthetical unit, common and necessary to all "things" and to all "experience." The last word of any weight, against this reduction of matter to mind, was said a few years ago by that exceptionally acute thinker, Professor Huxley, in his summary of Hume. Too able and learned, both as philosopher and scientist, to question idealism, Huxley admitted it unqualifiedly. But, not having gone beyond the British proofs of it, he defended what is commonly called "materialism" in this way: "If we analyze the proposition that all mental phenomena are the effects or products of material phenomena, all that it means amounts to this: that whenever those states of consciousness which we call sensation, or emotion, or thought, come into existence, complete investigation will show good reason for the belief that they are preceded by those other phenomena of consciousness to which we give the names of matter and motion. All material changes appear, in the long run, to be modes of motion; but our knowledge of motion is nothing but that of a change in the place and order of our sensations; just as our knowledge of matter is restricted to those feelings of which we assume it to be the cause." To this last posture of materialism, a competent understanding of Kant is the _only reply that has ever been needed_. It is simply of no consequence to the case what states of consciousness precede or follow other states of consciousness. Let it be granted (whether true or not) that "phenomena of consciousness to which we give the names of matter and motion" precede all others. What of it? Kant has proved to us that _no_ phenomenon of consciousness--no matter, no motion, no sensation--and, beyond all these, no time and no space, in which all the rest appear--has, or can have, _any existence_, except as put into unity, form, and order, by the unity, form, and order of mind. If both "the synthesis of apprehension" and "the synthesis of apperception" enter into any state of consciousness named matter, _to give it birth_, there is no possibility that the element of intelligence can be an _after-birth_ of the process. All our objects, then, from a germ cell to the horizon, are constructed such through a mental principle innate in our own structure. But here it must be re-iterated and re-emphasized that whatever we, as units of mind, may embody in objects as _form_, the _filling_ of them is not ours. It has a source apart. The filling of our objects comes from "the ultimate non-ego," the "background of matter." This ultimate non-ego was a heritage to Kant from British idealism. He took it for granted at his first step and held by it unchanged when he was old and exhausted. He called it the "noumenon," the "real correlate of matter," and pluralized it as "things in themselves." But he insisted, as firmly as Herbert Spencer has since done, that the "noumenon" is "unknown and unknowable." In a certain way--vital enough, too--"things in themselves" _are_ "unknown and unknowable." Man is a small, dependent, limited being. Let us admit at once every old proverb in the world, to the effect that "the finite cannot comprehend the infinite." Sir William Hamilton issued a tedious list of such proverbs. Let us adopt the whole of it. "The finite cannot comprehend the infinite." The very meaning of "things in themselves" is that they are withheld from us in their _specific contents_. But in their _general nature_ they are related and revealed to us; and the revelation is always asserted when we name them "source of impact," the "real correlate of matter," "things in themselves," or even "the unknown and unknowable." Is there an "unknown and unknowable?" Yes, there _is_. But whatever _is_ has _being_--_must_ have being, or not be that which "is." So much then we _know_ of "the unknown and unknowable"; it has being; it is a _fact_. But we know it negatively, as well as positively. We know what it is _not_, on precisely the same ground that we know what it _is_. Being a "noumenon," it is _not_ a phenomenon; being a "thing in _itself_," it is not what things are to _us_. Being "the real correlate of matter," it is _not_ matter, but is the objective background of matter. But _now_: Kant had analyzed matter and found it to be a _relation_--a relation between finite subjective awareness and this very noumenal background now in evidence. He had found, too, that all _matter_--every spicule of it--is _exhausted in the relation_. He had found that, out of the relation, _matter has no existence_. By these presents, then, we know that the objective background of matter, the ultimate non-ego, is _not material_. And, at this point, where are we, if we pause and think? When reduced to elements, to principles, what is there of the universe--the all of things? Just the subjective and the objective, mind and matter. Hence, that which is _not matter_ is _mind_. Nothing else is left for it. We may wriggle at this terminus as much as we like, but there is no dodging it. It may be said, for instance, that, while we _know_ and _experience_ nothing but mind and matter (including with matter its phenomenal vistas, space and time), we can _imagine something_ else than either; and, during the past fifty years, this nonsense has found lodgment in some heads. Now I can imagine _anything_, in the meaning that I can arbitrarily produce some foolish _fancy_. I can imagine a white blackbird, with his tail-feathers on his head. But I cannot imagine even this self-evident contradiction as a thing of neither mind nor matter. What is an object of "imagination" in the meaning of fancy? It may be empty of matter, and so unlike the white blackbird. But _no_ object of imagination can be empty of mind. Imagination is itself an act of mind; hence every possible product of imagination must partake of mind. If, therefore, I imagine something apart from mind and matter, it must still spring from mind, contain mind, and so _not_ be apart from mind. The "_reductio ad absurdum_" can be had cheap and sure, just where it is most needed. After Immanuel Kant had once and for good dissected the universe, it seems a pity that he declined to put his findings together, and take the last logical step of his magnificent demonstrations. As a requisite, perhaps, to his microscopic analysis of human subjectivity, he declined to generalize his own discoveries. In short, Kant's synthesis was Hegel. But Hegel we need not follow, as our short cut to him, through the solution of noumena, is worth more, as yet, than the whole German tour of "post-Kantean philosophy." Very early in his work Kant said: "There are two sources of human knowledge (which probably spring from _a common, but to us unknown root_), namely, sense and understanding. By the former, objects are _given_ to us; by the latter, _thought_." Dissecting, with Kant, the nature of "understanding," we have discovered in it the unal form of all our re-presentations--of every perceptible and conceivable objected fact. Dissecting "sense," with the same instructor, we have found it to be certain modes of mental susceptibility, its physical organs being nothing but relations between susceptible awareness and the noumenal unknown, like all the rest of "matter." Led, once more, by our Professor straight up to this noumenal unknown, where _he_ willed to stop and turn his back on it, we have only had to _look_, in order to see it collapse into the self-retention of Spirit--spirit _out_ of _us_, but still _in itself_, and thus going to make up the totality of Spiritual Being. We have thus found the "one common root" of all knowledge and all things. But we have touched, also, the apex of thought, and can now see what is meant--really and fully meant--by "_absolute idealism_." Absolute Idealism is not merely a phrase; it is a grand and glorious fact. Immersed in matter, stuck in our senses, we may insist on looking at sensuous phenomena as our friend John Jasper looked at the sun, with honest contempt for Copernicus and Newton. "De earf do _not_ move roun' de sun," exclaimed the sturdy preacher, "but de bressed sun move roun' de earf. Dere she go now: don't I see her wi' dese very eyes?" Parson Jasper did see the sun moving round the earth, and in the same way we all see the objects of our senses existing in perfect independence of ourselves. Still, as surely as astronomy has proved the delusion of taking the sun's movement from the eye, philosophy, with the aid of "practical science," has proved the delusion of taking objective re-presentations as not constructed through subjective being. The inevitable end of this proof is the dissolution of noumena as anything "material," and the inclusion of all things in Universal Spirit. Of such spirit, finite subjectivity is a function--a necessary participative reflex, through which the Universal Spirit is life, manifestation, self-evolution. CHAPTER XVII. SOME SEQUENCES OF ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. Since Kant, we have said, "no philosophy, no rational theology, no ultimate science, not referring to the results of his work, has had any real basis in thought." It must be added that since the fulfilment of Kant's _Critique_, especially by Hegel, there has not been one stone left as a foundation for "materialism." It goes right on, however, in multifarious forms, its defunct exponents still imagining they live. Surgical psychology, in special, is still as active with scalpel and microscope as if ours were the day of Coudillac and Erasmus Darwin. The knife goes into the brain, and the eye peers after it, with the funny expectation of seeing, with Dr. Cabanis, some spicule or plexus of matter, there, "which secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." The work is excellent as anatomy, and may have a plenty of important uses. But we, here, if we have had the capacity and patience to grasp the findings of Immanuel Kant, know that mind can never be derived from any physical correspondence of its nature and action. We know that every possible attempt at such derivation is merely a side-show of Parson Jasper's great astronomical comedy, which Copernicus exploded four hundred years ago. We know that every fiber, every solid or liquid, of the brain, with every movement of every atom it contains, is a ready-made physical object in a ready-made space and a ready-made time. But if we know Kant, we know, without a misgiving, that space and time, with all things in them, are not only dependencies but are literal creations and manufactures of a universal principle named _mind_. We know it is this principle which furnishes the form, the unity, and so the very existence of every phenomenon. Hence we know, finally, that the first step in the understanding of matter is the analysis of mind, through which all matter _is_ and is _constructed_. Without this first step, all other steps are simply a stumble in the dark--the blind-man's buff of children. Or we may say, with a little more dignity, perhaps, that every material law of the cosmos is subject to "The Law of Scientific Idealism." Now scientific idealism, pursued to the end, merges in absolute idealism. The source and substance of the universe is Intelligent Spirit; or, as the Bible and its Theologians say, this is the All-In-All. For fifty years--from the publication of Kant's _Critique_ in 1781, along through Fichte, and Schelling, to the death of Hegel in 1831--the vast illumination of thought that has been summed up as "German Transcendentalism" strove to unify natural theology and practical science in "Absolute Idealism." It will yet be seen that the work was done, however ill-comprehended. The good old Kant still had his whole head with him when he said, in 1787, "the danger, in this case, is not that of being refuted, but of being misunderstood." The Comtes, the Hamiltons, the Mills and Spencers--with no end, too, of their German brothers--are illustrious examples in proof of Kant's remark, however greatly they may be respected within the limits of their own work. Once and for good, the history of philosophy, when understood, and the history of science, when understood, have joined in the proof that the principle of all life--we may say God if we like--is Spirit Principle. Transcendentalism--a bulky word, but covering much more than the letter of it--was naturally too high and too deep a result to get all at once into the average human head. For thirty-odd years after the close of its epoch in Germany--or until, in 1864, Dr. James Hutchison Stirling produced his _Secret of Hegel_--not a man stood on the earth adequate to reproduce transcendentalism in basis and system. But the practical gist of it, without the full center or circumference, gradually became a part of the world's literature. In Britain, most notably through Thomas Carlyle, the new light penetrated biography, history, criticism, and even political disquisition. In America, focused in Ralph Waldo Emerson, the same light, whiter and purer if less flaming and burning, both vivified and purified all things on which it was shed. There the Infinite Oversoul and the finite undersoul seemed once again to meet in communion and evolution. Meanwhile, Theodore Parker, with his vast scholarship and overpowering courage, preached Jesus of Nazareth, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule, with little regard for any organized theology of his day, whether its Unitarianism or its Calvinistic Orthodoxy. Back of all this, as now appears, there was a plain, uncultured, but inquiring and thoughtful man, in the byways of New England, who from the mechanism of clocks turned to the workings of the human mind, and in his own way reached the depth of knowledge and the mysteries of life. From a few practical experiments, he, too, analyzed the things of matter, and found them to be re-presentations, externalizations, of elemental spirit. And then he drew the inference that spirit molds, directs, governs matter, and so that health of mind materializes health of body. But now, at once, the whole question at issue confronts us--what is the true and full position and power _of mind in therapeutics_? This question must be answered, here, not from the Quimby standpoint, and much less from that of the shallow muddle termed Christian Science, but from the standpoint of actual, accredited, established metaphysics, now substantially bearing the concensus of religion, philosophy, and the practical investigation of material phenomena. By aid of Kant, with our short-cut to the logical and necessary end of his achievement, we have grasped the elemental source and solvent of man and his universe. It is Spirit in its evolution. But, in this evolution, man--or say rather and always _the principle of sensation and consciousness in which man inheres_--is merely the general form, diversely individualized, of the One All-Inclusive Spirit in the activity of self-manifestation. The earth, the sun, moon, and stars, the human body, its house and the landscape, with every particle of all of them, are outwoven of universal Spirit through the loom of subjective being and unity. The forms of matter, with no exception, are fabricated in this way. Thus, not figuratively, but literally and with exact knowledge, we may repeat after St. John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." But the principle of animal apprehension and human apperception--or say just the conscious and the sub-conscious--is not the Ultimately Creative One, but is, in _us_, only a sub-creative power and agency. We simply individualize it in endless degrees and variations, all of us framing the same general world of objects, conceptions and feelings, but no one of us being, seeing, or feeling, in all respects, exactly like any other incarnation of our common identity. But while the _form_--the unity, and thus the individuality--of all things, is materialized from Spirit through sensation and consciousness in subjectivity--while this is the secret and genesis of all creation--we must ever hold fast to the equally basic and universal fact that the _filling_ of the form--the infinite variety of impact on subjectivity which furnishes the diversity of objects--all this comes from that ultimate spirit-background crudely called "the unknown and unknowable." Now this background of Absolute Spirit, the very withholding of which from finite creatures constitutes them such, institutes their law of progress, and gives movement of expression to the Infinite Itself, can only be absorbed and mastered by human beings through study, work, and experience. While genuine metaphysics, then, assures us of our spirit-origin and relative oneness with God--of being God's children far more directly and intimately than most of us have ever imagined--it teaches us that for practical purposes, in our condition of existence called "matter," it makes no difference _what_ we _call_ this condition. 'Tis something actual, something definite, something _fixed_, just as long as we are in our earthly relation to it. From this point of view, Dr. Johnson's kicking of the stone to refute Berkeley was a deserved kick, and even Byron's fun was justified in his tipsy lines, "When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said." All things are spirit surely enough; but the phenomena of matter, as transformed spirit, are related to each other under the laws of what we necessarily designate as material nature. Little by little, through long and hard exertion, we find out what these relations are, and how they are fitted to the human center of them. Some things are good to eat and to nourish us; others to poison and kill us. A cold or fever may be a manifestation of spirit, and an herb or drug may be another; but if the herb or drug counteracts and destroys the cold or the fever, and experience proves it ten thousand times, who cares to analyze a dose of aconite or a cup of saffron-tea into a draft of "mortal" or "immortal" mind? The process is a mere fooling with ideals--hysterics jumping at the moon. _On metaphysical grounds_--as far as anybody knows what metaphysics really means--there is no need that our physicians, if they are "good physicians," should trouble themselves much about a Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. Esculapius came into the world long before her, and his followers will stay in it long after her materialized divinity has risen into a more spiritual and a more intelligent state. The same may be said of our theologians. Their creeds have not come out of nothing, however much the spirit of them may have grown thick and muddy through crude understandings. The Christian Church, surely, can yet offer to mankind something better than the Eddy "Church Scientist"; and if it can, it is in no ultimate jeopardy from a few, or a few hundred, congregations of half-educated faddists. For a student of history--not in its moments, but in its decades and centuries--it is easy to see that "Christian Science" has the reason of the fact and _the spread of it_, in its being a protest against the depressing materialism around it--a materialism which, though rationally decapitated by Kant, has shown marvelous activity, for a corpse, ever since the execution. The medical profession, too, has partly, if indirectly, been responsible for Mrs. Eddy's crazy horse of "metaphysics," running away in the dark, and butting its own brains out. From Dr. Mesmer to Dr. Charcot, it took about a hundred and twenty years for "animal magnetism," under the softer names of "hypnotism" and "suggestion," to achieve full and final standing in the French Academy of Medicine; and the mental phenomena attending "mesmerism" have still but little "respectability" among "regular physicians." But, that curative agencies are not confined to drugs has long been settled in the public mind--such part of the public mind, at least, as permits itself any considerable reading and thinking. Has the pulpit itself--orthodox and not so orthodox--contributed to the success of Eddy "Science"? We must say it has. The practise, among the sects, of twisting the Bible out of its straight, historical, natural significance, and fitting its texts to every sort of whim, folly, and malefaction--this general practise has at last culminated in Mrs. Eddy's _Key to the Scriptures_, with pretty nearly the dissolution of them in the abomination of interpretation. But "Christian Science"--the Eddy misfit for a specious name--has had its rise, and it has probably risen about as high as it can reach, notwithstanding its rapid extension for the moment. Only its protrusion from insignificance and non-attention was needed to uncover its foundation on the sands of ignorance, its strength in the perennial weakness and credulity of mankind, and its business success in ordinary, or more than ordinary, business cupidity. Has it done no good in the world, then? Ah, that is another question. Whatever may have been the chief motive of its founder, and whatever may have been its "comedy of errors," it has forced the inception of a movement that, as a whole, may have vast results for the human mind and the human body. Whatever material medicines may be necessary to mankind while they themselves are in a material condition, psychic forces in the cure of disease can no longer be ignored. What is the extent, and what the limit, of these forces, is a problem that must be examined. As conditionally--here and now--man is _both spiritual and corporeal_--it would seem to be a self-evident conclusion that he must have both material and spiritual aids to health. That we can "jump" our condition, before we get out of it, is the most tremendous paradox ever presented to the human mind; but the sequences--even physical--of systematically opening the finite soul to the Infinite Spirit may be incalculable. The revival, or definite rediscovery, in modern times, of healing the sick by the soul and the laying-on of hands, came to pass some fifty years ago, in the United States, through the honest, single-minded, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. If the spirit of evil--of hypocrisy, selfishness and avarice--has entered into the movement of mental healing through another source, the frequent necessity of very human means to divine ends is once more illustrated. CHAPTER XVIII. VARIOUS SCHOOLS OF THE NEW THOUGHT. Just now, the general cause of metaphysical therapeutics is separating rapidly into various "schools," few of them having much consideration for the pretentious health-trust, "Christian Science." In the South, for instance--at Sea Breeze, Florida--a Mrs. Helen Wilmans has founded a settlement of houses and lands, souls and bodies, with books, pamphlets, and a weekly press, all devoted, mentally, morally and physically, to psychic dominion over all things. _Freedom_ is the name of the organ that specially spreads Mrs. Wilmans' light and curatives. She has capacity in a comparative degree, and energy, with self-confidence, in the superlative. She proclaims this: "Intellectual power in the individual comes from concentration of the mind upon an idea until the truth or falsity of the idea becomes apparent. Likewise the power of the race in the unfoldment of a race problem must come from a concentrated effort to discover a hitherto unfolded racial capacity; and this is the meaning of the movement I am inaugurating here." The Wilmans' conception of mind-healing has been illustrated as follows by a correspondent of _Freedom_, who discusses and admits the curing of disease among devout Catholics, exalted and prayerful, at the shrine of St. Anne in Illinois. It is all natural, he says: "If with equally strong belief they should pray to God, Buddha, St. Peter or Paul, Mrs. Eddy or Mrs. Wilmans, or a stump or stone--or should they stand on their heads, or drink water from a certain river, or anoint the sick parts with clay and spittle--the result would be the same. Their mind would cure their bodies. Mind is king." In some respects, the paper, _Freedom_, is almost as free from "material sense" as the book, _Science and Health_. Mrs. Wilmans has a correspondent who asserts, and probably believes, that, by the concentrated power of her finite female mind, she has "never failed once in five years to avert the fury of severe summer storms." She has "demonstrated," she says, the dominion of mind over material nature, "as clearly as any Mental Scientist has demonstrated it over disease." And here is an official announcement from Mrs. Wilmans' organ: "_Freedom_ is the only paper published whose leading and constantly avowed object is to overcome death right here in this world and right now. If you want to learn something of the newly-discovered power vested in man which fits him for this stupendous conquest, read this paper, and keep on reading it." "The new thought" has traveled West as far as South. It recently had among its organs _The Temple_, of Denver, Colorado, "a monthly magazine devoted to the fuller unfoldment of the divinity of humanity," the editor of which was Mr. Paul Tyner, who afterwards conducted the _Arena_ of Boston, consolidated with _The Journal of Practical Metaphysics_. The purpose of the latter periodical was "the unification of scientific and spiritual thought and the new philosophy of health." The editor was Horatio W. Dresser, a Harvard graduate, an excellent philosopher of the ontological trend, and a polished writer, reminding one partly of Spinoza and partly of Emerson. Mr. Dresser's books, _The Power of Silence_, _The Perfect Whole_, and others, have given him a wide reputation in his particular field of work, and have constituted him a center of the most logical and scholarly literature connected with "metaphysical healing." This literature, too extensive for specialized designation, is under the propagandism of the Boston "Metaphysical Club," an active and growing organization. The Boston "Metaphysical Club" comprises too much exact information and solid learning to accept or countenance the extreme vagaries of "Christian Science," and appears to be acting as a balance-wheel to the whole movement of "the new thought." In a recent leaflet the Club has taken special occasion to dissect and repudiate that most preposterous doctrine of Mrs. Eddy's "science," the absolute nothingness of matter. The title of the leaflet referred to is _Christian Science and the New Metaphysical Movement_, with the added phrase, _An Intelligent Discrimination Desirable_. One excerpt is this: "Christian Science proclaims the unreality of matter, and of the body. The rational and broader thought, not only admits the validity of the body, as veritable expression, but claims that it is as good, in its own place and plane, as is the soul and spirit. While susceptible to mental molding, it is neither an error nor an illusion. Moreover, it is friendly to its welfare to affirm both its validity and goodness. It is to be ruled, beautified, and utilized in its own order, and not denied an existence. Even admitting that the whole cosmos is, in the last analysis, but one Universal Mind and its manifestation; even admitting that all matter is but a lower vibration of spirit, and that the human body is essentially a mental rather than a physical organism; still, matter has its own relative reality and validity, and is not to be ignored as illusion." Of its kind, nothing better than this could be said even by a Hegel. It is exactly the correct statement of the great metaphysical truth. The leaflet agrees with the criticism of this volume, that "the spirit of Christian Science is autocratic rather than democratic," and says: "Its polity and ritual, in every detail, are shaped and directed arbitrarily by a single will. There is no room for investigation, liberty of thought, progress, or further revelation. There is no recognition of related physical science or evolutionary progress." The monograph continues thus: "The liberal movement stands for freedom of soul, and is in no way opposed to subordinate orders of truth.... It does not ignore the good in existing systems, disparage reasonable hygiene, or deny the place of certain departments of surgery. It is not insensible to the present and provisional uses of simple external therapeutic agencies, at least until individual unfoldment and the recognition of higher law become more general.... While understanding, both from experience and observation, that a systematic employment of mental potency in a rational, scientific, and idealistic manner has a wonderful and unappreciated healing energy, its exponents do not think it necessary to form a new and exclusive religious sect." The main premise, of course, of all the schools of "mind-healing" is that "the mind can and should control the body." Let us go straight from this premise to the manner of applying it, as explained, for instance, in a little book entitled _The New Philosophy of Health_, excellently well written, by a Miss Harriet B. Bradbury. "The healer [says this author] simply holds in mind with great tenacity, for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, an image of the patient as he should be. This image, by the process known as 'thought transference' is impressed upon the sick man's mind as a possibility, when his own strong desire, seizing it, is able to reproduce it as an actuality. He may be quite unconscious that he has done anything for himself, and when he finds himself well, gives all the credit to the man who, as he thinks, has 'healed' him. Yet the change is wrought by no man, but by the great life-giving force which two wills working in harmony have called into perfect action." In confirmation of "the law of mental causation," Miss Bradbury says: "The most significant of recent biological experiments are those which have been conducted at the Smithsonian Institute with a view to discovering the physical effects of different mental states. They have proved that the different emotions produce immediate chemical changes within the physical organism, and it only remains to continue the investigation to learn just how each habitual emotion is finally reflected upon the outward frame." So that "old mesmerist," Dr. Quimby--for this was exactly his view--has got along as far as the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. And here let us introduce the names and cogitations of a few authorities so "eminently respectable" that the "very best and most conservative people" need not shrink from becoming acquainted with them. In a work on _Practical Idealism_, William DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College, tells us: "There are certain classes of disease for which hypnotic treatment is highly beneficial. Mental healing in all its various forms, in so far as it is valuable, rests on the principle that body and mind are very closely inter-related through the partly conscious but chiefly unconscious control of the vital functions through the nervous system; and that the state of the mind at any given time, and consequently the state of the body, in so far as we know it at that time, is made up of a relatively small presentation of sensation, and a very large contribution of associations. Hence a very slight suggestion through the senses, by speech, or physical contact, or eradication of fixed images, anxieties, and fears, may introduce a new nucleus around which an entirely new set of associations will cluster; so that through the renewing of the mind the body may come to be transformed." Charles Van Norden, D.D., LL.D., at one time President of Elmira College, tells us in his outline of psychology, _The Psychic Factor_, that "So tremendous is this power of mind over body, that disease may often be cured and ailments caused by a new idea." "A woman [says Rev. Dr. Van Orden] once came to Surgeon-General Hammond with what he considered an incurable disorder. She sighed as she turned to go away disconsolate, saying, 'Ah, if I but had some of the water of Lourdes!'--for she was a devout Catholic. Now it so happened that a friend had brought the doctor a bottle of the genuine water of Lourdes to experiment with. He informed the patient of this, and promised her some provided she would first try a more potent remedy, Aqua Crotonis (New York City aqueduct water). The woman consented, but protesting that this latter could not reach the case. He then gave her a little vial of the real article, but labeled 'Aqua Crotonis.' When this had failed he gave her Croton water, but labeled 'Water of Lourdes.' The result was a complete cure." Prof. William James, of Harvard, in the chapter of his _Principles of Psychology_ treating "the production of movement," quotes many authorities and gives various diagrams illustrating the effects of sensations and emotions upon the pulse, the respiration, the glands, muscles, and other organs and functions of men and animals. The celebrated Prof. Bain is quoted as saying that "according as an impression is accompanied with _feeling_, the aroused currents diffuse themselves over the brain, leading to a general agitation of the moving organs, as well as affecting the viscera." The conclusion of Prof. James is that "Using sweeping terms and ignoring exceptions, we might say that every possible feeling produces a movement, and that every movement is a movement of the entire organism, and of each and all its parts." "The effect," says Prof. James, "of fear, shame and anger, upon the blood-supply of the skin, especially the skin of the face, are too well known to need remark. Sensations of the higher senses produce, according to Couty and Charpentier, the most varied effects upon the pulse-rate and blood-pressure of dogs." Now if the higher emotions of dogs produce marked effects upon their physical structure, we must naturally infer that hope, faith, joy--all, indeed, of the loftier emotions of human beings--may set up high and healthful movements in the human body, while base emotions set up low, harmful, and diseased conditions. In this claim, anyhow, we have, according to "metaphysical healing," the cause and cure of disease, capped, too, with the ethics of "the new thought." Thomas Jay Hudson, in his book, _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_, gives this compend of the facts: "The science of psycho-therapeutics is yet in its infancy. Thus far just enough has been learned to stimulate research. It has been demonstrated that there is a psychic power inherent in man which can be employed for the amelioration of his own physical condition, as well as that of his fellows. When this is said, nearly all the ground covered by present knowledge has been embraced. It is true that many wonderful cures have been effected, many marvelous phenomena developed. Nevertheless, all are groping in the dark, with only an occasional glimmering of distant light shed upon the subject; and this light serves principally to show how little is now known, compared with what there is yet to learn." In discussing the conditions necessary to psychic healing, Mr. Hudson affirms that the exemplar and healer of Nazareth, the founder of our Christian religion, always recognized these conditions in the "miracles" imputed to him. We shall end our quotations, at this point, with one from Mr. Hudson's chapter on "The Physical Manifestations and Philosophy of Christ." "I do not mean to say that Jesus could not heal in such cases where the mental environment was unfavorable; but the fact that he took infinite pains, wherever practicable, to secure the best conditions, shows that he understood the law and worked within its limitations. Certain it is that he never performed any of his wonderful works outside the laws which he proclaimed, nor did he ever intimate that he could do so. It is true that his biographers do not always relate the details of the transactions recorded; but it must be remembered that they wrote at a later day, and may not have been in possession of all the details. It is, however, a marvelous fact, and is one which constitutes indubitable evidence of the truth of his history, that in no instance do they relate a single act performed or word spoken by him, relating to the healing of the sick, which does not reveal his perfect knowledge of and compliance with the laws which pertain to mental therapeutics as they are revealed in modern times through experiment and the processes of inductive reasoning." CHAPTER XIX. AN ADVANCED HEALER OF TO-DAY. Recapitulating what we have been over, it appears that "metaphysical healing" is simply the suggestion and determination of health--the ideal photograph, as it were, of health--transferred from the well to the ill, in the conviction that Universal Spirit is the principle of all health, which we may receive from its Source by opening ourselves to it. That is to say, the health of the Infinite Spirit, so far as absorbed by a finite spirit, corrects finite errors of mind, and the mind, thus corrected, corrects, or cures, the body. Such, certainly, was the "truth-cure" of Phineas P. Quimby. With him, starting as a mesmerist, it was, really, a kind of normal and sacred hypnotism, by which he endeavored to put his patients under the close, immediate influence and operation of Supreme Life, and Sympathy, and Vigor. Such treatment should do much for the ailing--how much we must wait to know. But the effects of it must have limits, and these limits must be the general, the fixed conditions, of what we designate as mind and matter. It may be well to re-state these conditions, but with focal reference to this point--the one vital point of our whole theme. Metaphysically speaking, we are spirit, and all else is spirit. But what _is_ spirit? What are the constituents of it, to the extent that man may grasp them? First, is the universal principle of intelligent conjunctive unity, instinctive and conscious, which, individualized in men and animals, manufactures, or sub-creates, all the unities of their environment, which they take to be "the forms of matter." Second, is the equally universal principle of subjective (negative) sensibility--the receptiveness of spirit in its forms called "the senses." Transmuted through these senses, ultimate objective spirit--to us "the unknown and unknowable"--furnishes the filling, or contents, of what consciousness and sub-consciousness make up, or unify, into objects. Third, is the vast fact of Spirit-background--Infinite Spirit "in itself"--which is revealed, and can only be revealed, _to the finite_, as transformed through fixed modes of finite receptivity. A man, therefore, is simply an individualization of the process by which the Absolute--That Which Is--expresses itself and lives. Whatever may be our environment under some changed state of our receptivity--say "the future life"--our environment of spirit objected through sense, in space and time, is the environment of _matter_; and the human body is a part of it. We are not only "in matter," therefore, but we sub-create the matter, through our God-given modes of sensuous receptivity, and can only escape from it through an entire change of those modes, called "senses." The door of escape is the door of death, and no human being has ever avoided it. _Can_ any human being avoid it? We say _no_: because to be out of matter is to be out of the kind of receptiveness--our five senses--through which matter itself exists. If there be exceptional persons of clairvoyant susceptibility, who can pass sufficiently out of our average material condition to realize aught beyond them, the _bodily_ state of these persons, too, must end, as we all end. Let us not mix conditions, like the metaphysical tyros of Christian Science; but while we are in the state of spirit known and experienced as mind _and_ matter, let us acknowledge the plain fact. As a corollary of this fact, if we are out of health, let us look to remedies good for _both mind and matter_--the body and the soul. Such will probably be the ultimate equipoise between "mental medicine" and material curatives. This, at any rate, is the best conclusion for "the new thought" that the scribe at hand can reach. He may be wrong; for he is totally "uninspired," and has nothing to follow but his nose and his "mortal mind." But, the conclusion once reached, he stood on it as an _a-priori_ breathing-spot. And then it occurred to him that, peradventure, some radical, independent son of Galen might be conducting the business of therapeutics on a psycho-corporeal, double platform. If so, Boston would be the place to look for him, and the search was begun. In due time it was successful. The result may at least prove suggestive and entertaining. Let our new friend be called Prof. P.; for he has been an instructor in his kind of work, and he bears the title of "doctor" only by the courtesy of his patients, as Dr. Quimby did. Now it is certain that if Prof. P. does not cure all sorts of diseases, his patients think he does, vouch for it when questioned, and give most sincere testimonials to that effect. Even the cure of cancer is vigorously affirmed, and in connection with cases that have been given up by eminent physicians. But, as this book is doing no medical advertising, one ordinary instance of Prof. P.'s work must suffice. A large, strong woman, as the consequence of a fall, incurred violent sciatic rheumatism, and was treated at a hospital for three months, being worse at the end of that time than at first. On personally interviewing her--and she is a woman of more than average intelligence--she informed the writer that, in one treatment of twenty minutes, Prof. P. had "entirely cured" her, and that after five months--which had elapsed at the time of the conversation--there had been no recurrence of her trouble. Our search for light has led to a somewhat close acquaintance with Prof. P. and has induced him to explain his theory and practise of healing, for our use as a writer, excepting a few of his personal discoveries not immediately important to the public, which he must withhold, he says, for something like the same reason that his learned brothers, the physicians, write their prescriptions in Latin. Prof. P. requires it to be said explicitly that he is a Spiritualist. He is so pronounced in the faith that he impatiently scoffs at all denial, evasion or concealment, of what he deems his "positive knowledge" that we exist after "our mere change of condition called death," and that "the spirits of our departed friends are interested in our earthly welfare." He declares, however, that Dr. Quimby was sensible in not trusting spirit communications at the expense of his own judgment--"as, taking the long generations of mankind, there are necessarily more fools disembodied than in the flesh." According to our friend P., there are now four great remedial agencies possible to healing the sick, apart from medicines in the usual sense. The intelligent and careful use of such medicines he believes in, and he seeks to cooperate with all broad-minded physicians, rather than to antagonize them. The more occult, but often more effective agencies, than drugs or herbs, he says, are these: _First_: Animal Magnetism. _Second_: Natural Healing-Power--this power being inherent to some extent in all human beings, but greatly concentrated and developed in certain individuals. _Third_: Mental or Psychic Force--a force existing in both embodied and disembodied spirits, and as a universal principle. _Fourth_: "Sensitized" devices containing these powers and elements, with the function of imparting them to the ailing and the weary. "Magnetism," says our Professor, "as a material phenomenon, is a force so potent that it rearranges the unsystematized molecules of certain metals, and gives them harmonious direction and integral traction. The application of it--termed polarization--has been known even to produce 'clicks' within metallic bodies, loud enough to be distinctly heard. Animal magnetism, pertaining to organized beings, acts upon their corresponding but higher molecules in the same general way. The sick are disordered, locally clogged, 'out of tune.' They have lost, as it were, their polarity. Animal magnetism restores it to them. It then goes further and vitalizes them; for, if imparted to the feeble by a person strong, well, and stored full of it, an equilibrium takes place between an operator and his patient. Animal magnetism, however unconsciously utilized, doubtless takes part in all so-called 'mind-cures' that are _physical_ afflictions, not the results of bugaboos and whimsies. The absurd fulminations of Mrs. Eddy, at this late day, against animal magnetism, are only equaled by the comprehensive ignorance, in general, which Bishop Brooks is said to have considered the only possible excuse for the production of a book like _Science and Health_. "Inherent Healing Power is more occult than animal magnetism, but has become almost as well established. According to the accepted evidence of centuries, this power was fully exemplified in ancient times by the most faithful and unselfish of all the sons of God and man, Jesus, our Christ. According to recent and contemporary evidence, both widespread and exact, the Protestant world of late centuries has had no example of the same quality so marked as that of Dr. P. P. Quimby. Inherent healing power goes with close and tender sympathy for the afflicted, and grows with use, like the brawn of a stevedore, or the intellectual dexterity of a practised writer. It may eventuate in a Quimby as naturally as the poetic faculty eventuates in a Kipling. "By mental or psychic force," says the Professor, "I mean the principle of apprehending, understanding, and reasoning, with the moral elements pertaining to conscience and will. This combination of our essential being, in whatever phase of it we may exist, affects and modifies, if it does not altogether dominate, all the rest of our make-up. Its importance is very great, but may be exaggerated by forgetting that man is a microcosm, and that while he is in the externalized condition of spirit known as matter he is not at the same time _out_ of it. For the finite to put itself in harmony with the Infinite, by right thinking, right feeling, right conduct, is indispensable to the highest health; but an imaginary union with God through fictitious conceptions of our own ego is unnatural and unwholesome exaltation, inducing disease of the mind, whatever it may do to the body. "Psychic power is an absolutely universal principle, common, in degree, to men, spirits, and God. It is sometimes employed by hypnotists to such an extent that the physical sensation of a subject is rendered void, even under amputation of a bodily member. It can destroy the taste for intoxicants in a drunkard. It can supplant melancholia with hope and cheerfulness. What it can _not_ do is yet a problem. "Of course such a power is a part, and great part, of sane therapeutics. In the application of it," said the Professor, with much warmth, "I affirm--let those who have not my knowledge and experience think what their ignorance or prejudice saddles upon them--that 'departed spirits,' as we call them, combine their efforts with those of men and women, to heal the sick. The power is thus redoubled. "We have taken but a few steps in this sort of knowledge, and it is accompanied by a plenty of deception and twaddle. But the truth underlying it has now procured a hearing even before eminently timid 'societies of psychical research,' and will soon conquer them, as mesmerism has done. Certain spirit-conditions are coming to be rationalized. In this country, for instance, the spirits of Indians everywhere manifest themselves, especially in connection with the cures of disease. The reason is simple. Indians were close to the earth, near to nature, in their lives, and they enjoy the scene of their old 'hunting grounds' more than such etherealized spirits as were slightly attached to it. But spirit-aid in therapeutics is mostly co-operative. Essential physicians, whether in our state of being or the higher state, feel an interest in their pursuit, and practise it. The most intelligent guide their assistants; but robust spirits of earthly qualities and attractions sometimes furnish a basic healing force that is almost physical." Prof. P.'s system of healing is remarkable enough in all ways; but his claims for his "sensitized devices" would be too astounding for credence were it not that the things appear "to work," just as he says they will. Seemingly, they are nothing but small metallic plates; but they are charged, he affirms, with earth-magnetism as a "power-house," and then with animal magnetism, with natural human healing quality, with attractiveness to spirit-co-operation in that quality, and finally with psychic power and control--that is, direction of mind and will. In other words, Prof. P. says that, after twenty years of study and experiment he can transmit to his "sensitized devices," and store in them, all the four great healing agencies which can be employed in therapeutics apart from ordinary medicines. By such means, he affirms, "not only healing, but instantaneous healing," to the extent at least of immediate relief from pain, can always be effected in all cases adapted to his treatment. "Christian Science," he says--"mind-cure--faith-cure--oh yes, they 'demonstrate' over things, as the phrase goes. I admit it, at least in some instances. But, at their very best, they all _take time_. The patient must wait to exalt himself into some vision or condition he is told about, or to accept some theological doctrine or other, whether true or false. Suppose a man is knotted up with rheumatism, has a fit, or is insane. I don't wait for him to build up a belief, or to get into harmony with the Highest. I take him just as he is, clap my sensitizers on him, go to work myself, and, if he is not too far gone for aid on earth, I restore an equilibrium of body and brain. If I do this--if I instantly drive away the worst kind of pain--if I retrieve lost consciousness or a disordered mind--I can put faith enough into my patient for a beginning. Later, I will attend to his theology to the extent of my knowledge, if he desires my services as a priest." The operation of Prof. P.'s sensitized appliances, according to his claim for them, is correction and vitalization of both mind and body, when disarranged or "ill," and then concentration of power in accordance with location of disease or pain. "As strange as it may seem," he says, "these little pieces of metal take upon themselves the physical and mental conditions of sickness, which can even be conveyed by them from one person to another, as I have proved by various experiments. But these conditions can be discharged from the plates, or 'grounded,' like electricity, and this, too, without destroying the higher, firmer, normal charge of health and strength. "Do you look incredulous; do you smile with a tinge of pity?" asked Prof. P., as he talked. "Wait a minute. You have heard of Dr. Luys, one of the most distinguished physicians in the world, Charcot's favorite assistant, and now the head of the great Charity Hospital of Paris. Not long ago he had a patient--a young woman who had suffered nervous prostration, and was losing her mind from melancholia. She was affectionate, and greatly attached to her family. But she became aware that her love was strangely turning to aversion, which she could not control. Frightened and ashamed, she went to Dr. Luys. He tried everything he could think of to cure her, but unavailingly. At his wits' end--not knowing _what_ to do--he took up, one day, a large electro-magnet, and, as a pure experiment of impulse, fastened it to her head. He was suddenly called away for three-quarters of an hour. Returning, he found his patient weak, but her head better and clearer than usual. Dismissing her, he put the magnet on his own head, took the chair she had sat in, and remained there as long as she had done. He then went to dine with his wife and children, of whom he is very fond. But, greatly to his surprise, he found that, with no fault of their own, they were not agreeable to him. _He had taken the conditions of his patient._ "He was keen enough to recognize the fact, and announce it to his profession and the world. He drew the conclusion that the electro-magnet can absorb morbid brain-influences. Also that it can transfer such influences from the sick to the well, though two healthy persons are not affected by it. He added that the transference of conditions from the healthy to the diseased almost always benefits them. "I am not hanging on 'high authorities,'" continued the Professor, "but they are sometimes useful to me. There is Dr. Julius Althaus, of Berlin, a member, too, of the English Royal College of Physicians. As explained in a recent issue of the _Lancet_, the chief English organ of the medical fraternity, Dr. Althaus is now rejuvenating old age, and prolonging our present term of life, by certain galvano-electric appliances--which, by the way, he does not tell quite all about. Henry Irving is understood to have been held back from the infirmities of advancing years, and restored to the stage, by Dr. Althaus." Prof. P. claims to have been at work half a life-time in the general direction indicated by the experiments and achievements of Luys and Althaus, but to have been so busy that he has had no time to think about a degree of M. D. "The world," he says, "should be very grateful to these eminent gentlemen, and _I_ certainly am grateful; for though I anticipated the happenings of Dr. Luys by several years, and though almost any 'magnetic healer' would assert the _hypothesis_, at least, of Dr. Althaus, my own theories and results are so far beyond my epoch that without the steps, however short, taken by such men as Luys and Althaus, I could get no sort of hearing. I am often laughed at, of course, as a 'crank'; but I generally laugh last--for, as the phrase goes nowadays, I 'get there.'" CHAPTER XX. CONCLUSION. The moral of our story is an old one, always new. "There are more things in heaven and earth than"--anybody short of Mary Baker G. Eddy can put into a "science." From this text it would be logical to educe a cyclopedia every month or so. But one little point will do here. The practise of medicine, notwithstanding its grand achievements, is still in its infancy. When I am ill, I call a doctor--the best in the vicinity. It is the custom; and, as Montaigne said, _Que sais-je?_ I am not sure of much, and when I have "_grippe_" I am quite certain of less than ever. But the materials I have lately been at work on make me wish that "my doctor," instead of scorning all new things, would look into some of them, and add them to his acquirements. He will have no need to accept "Christian Science," which has been accurately described as "a way of getting cured of things by believing something that isn't true." I must excuse "my doctor" from accepted that inverted "science." But the general subject of occult and psychic healing is worthy of his attention. "My doctor" knows much: but, if he should enlarge his knowledge just a little, my faith in him would stand the increment. One thing I shall insist on. "My doctor" must not endeavor to supersede Torquemada, Henry the Eighth, and the learned ecclesiastical doctors of the Inquisition. He must not interfere with the right of private judgment in saving the body, as they did in saving the soul. In such a case I should count them his superiors, inasmuch as the soul is really worth more than its external machinery, which, in a few years, more or less, must wear out and go to the cemetery. The Inquisition honestly held a theory that the soul could only be saved by accepting a certain creed, and ought to be saved even at the cost of breaking the body on a wheel. The Inquisition would have been right, if its creed had really been the thing supposed. But four centuries of Protestantism have established a different theory: it is that, whatever any creed may be or do, every man has the prerogative of deciding for himself the manner of thinking which shall raise him to heaven or lower him to sheol. Still, I repeat, the soul is worth more than the body, and if Protestantism applies to the greater, it should apply to the less. Some things have been settled, I suppose, by long experience, and have become matters of law for the protection of nations. Civilization requires that a man who knows nothing of physiology shall not practise surgery; that scarlet fever shall be quarantined; that school-children shall be saved from small-pox by vaccination. Medical degrees certify that the holders have studied medicine long enough at least to know something about it in a way that the common judgment recognises. Nothing is to be said against such requirements impartially applied to a whole people. They simply must be enforced. Christian Science opposes them, dodges them when it can; for it holds that human beings have no bodies except reflections of a wretched lie called "mortal mind." In spite of its source, this dangerous form of insanity should be dealt with as gently as possible, but certainly should not go unrestrained.[59] Let it conform to laws, not special to any religion or to any humbug masquerading as a religion, but general to the citizens who compose a free and sane community. THE END FOOTNOTES: [1] From $3.18 to $6. [2] Mrs. Eddy's statement in her book, _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 61. [3] For proof in detail see Chapters III. and IV. [4] Our historical sources of information are referred to as we go along, but a good deal of it has come from access to original documents, and from living persons of the highest character who were long and intimately acquainted with the subject of our chapter. The names of some of these friends are given by permission. [5] This circular alone--furnished to the writer by Dr. Quimby's son--is complete proof as to origin of "mind-healing" in the United States. [6] The reader is advised to consult the pamphlet and the book here specified, in connection with our chapter. (Geo. H. Ellis, Publisher, Boston)--G. C. [7] These press articles and notices have been examined by the writer, and are unmistakably genuine, as are the selections. [8] U. S. Court of Admiralty. Judge Ware was sometimes spoken of as the leading citizen of Maine. [9] _The True History of Mental Science_, page 15. [10] Philosophy of P. P. Quimby, page 53-54. [11] Mrs. Sarah Ware Mackay. [12] The gentleman is Hon. Edwin Reed, of Boston, Mass. His name is given by his permission, from a feeling of gratitude to Dr. Quimby, and profound respect for his memory. [13] Mrs. Eddy's complete name, with reference to these gentlemen, would be Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. [14] The writer has had these records authenticated at Portland.--G. C. [15] The original print has been in my hands. A copy of the letter is published in full in _The True History of Mental Science_ (Appendix A).--G. C. [16] The gentleman here traduced is Dr. L. M. Marston of Boston. He is a practising physician, and a thoughtful, honest man. He is the author of a well-written book entitled, _Essentials of Mental Healing_, which is much superior to _Science and Health_, though containing some of the overdone conceptions of mind-cure in general. But Dr. Marston properly employs material as well as mental medicine.--G. C. [17] _Retrospection and Introspection_, by Mary Baker G. Eddy, 10th thousand, 1896. Pages 7, 8, 9. [18] Ibid., page 35. [19] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 10. [20] Ibid., Page 12. [21] The Great Novel, p. 17. [22] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 28 to p. 35. [23] The holy romance, page 28 and rest of chapter. [24] _Retrospection and Introspection_, page 61. [25] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 29. [26] I have seen a brief article of his, entitled "Aristocracy and Democracy," and written under date of February, 1863, in which he said: "The religion of Christ is shown in the progress of Christian Science, while the religion of society decays in proportion as liberal principles are developed."--G. C. [27] _Retrospection and Introspection_, from p. 40 to p. 43. [28] This was half a century ago; but the productions--not "scribblings," of course, like Dr. Quimby's writings--are yet in mind among Mrs. Eddy's old acquaintances. One critic of them has said: "They were stories wherein the 'feller' married the girl in the last chapter, and they lived happily ever after except when the baby was cutting teeth. The stories were not essays, were not metaphysical, and were hardly physical. Had Mrs. Eddy not written them, I never should have remembered them at all." [29] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 38 to p. 46. [30] Page 45. [31] "Judge Hanna" is Mrs. Eddy's literary factotum. Mr. Tott is an actual personage, but, being "in Science," he will probably never recognize his picture--especially as there are many like him. [32] See advertisements in all Christian Science publications. [33] Page 47. [34] This crude materialistic conception of "God" as "filling space" shows most beautifully the Kindergarten quality of Mother Eddy's "metaphysics." [35] The figures stand for the pages referred to. [36] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 51. [37] These facts are well remembered and well recorded. They were of special interest to such of Mrs. Eddy's "loyal students" as had seceded from her cult.--G. C. [38] _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 57. [39] See _Christian Science History_, by Septimus J. Hanna, p. 42. [40] For this amazing snivel see _Retrospection and Introspection_, p. 61. [41] This chapter is written mostly from personal inspection and knowledge. An elaborate description of the Church is given in The Christian Science Journal for January, 1895.--G. C. [42] _Retrospection and Introspection_, page 62. [43] Published in the _Christian Science Journal_ of April, 1895. [44] _War in Heaven: Sixteen Years' Experience in Christian Science, Mind-Healing. By Josephine Curtis Woodbury. Third Edition. Boston, Mass. Press of Samuel Usher, 1897._ [45] Several suits are pending as this book goes to press. One suit has been "thrown out of court." It should be said, perhaps, that one of Mrs. Woodbury's attorneys, F. W. Peabody, Esq., has such an abhorrence of "Christian Science" in general, that he has been willing to take the part of anybody who could enable him to expose Mrs. Eddy. In this good work may he not be discouraged. [46] The extraordinary matters of this chapter, however well or ill suppressed, were all published, with great detail, in the issues of the _Traveler_ from Dec. 12th to 22d, 1896, and from January 11th to 25th, 1897. Here they have simply been put into brief form, and relieved of all unnecessary harshness. The papers have been preserved for evidence and are in my hands.--G. C. [47] The story, with many details, in issue of Dec. 14, 1896. [48] A long story underlies the unfortunate marriage and separation of the lady and gentleman involved in this case. But the facts are not essential to the one and only subject of these pages, "Christian Science." [49] Issue of Dec. 12, 1896. [50] There were really two papers handed to Mr. Chamberlain, and he was to take his choice between them. The case, too, was withdrawn, not wholly on account of one thing, but many things which Mrs. Woodbury's lawyer found it impossible to contend against. But the most direct cause of the withdrawal is the one given. [51] Boston _Traveler_, January 21, 1897. [52] Until it is learned that generation rests on no sexual basis, let marriage continue. Spirit will ultimately claim its own, and the voices of physical sense be forever hushed.--_Science and Health_, page 274. [53] January 15, 1897. [54] I have seen what I suppose to be true copies of a series of letters written by Mary Nash and different members of her family, with one or two from some of Mrs. Woodbury's "loyal students." The letters might possibly be taken to show that inharmony existed in the Nash family, and that the daughter stayed away from father, mother and brothers on that account, instead of being, if such was the case, just where a sensible and affectionate daughter was most needed. The letters, at any rate, show the most united affection for _her_, and more than willingness to do anything she asked, if she would only return to her home. When finally she did so, two physicians, according to Mr. Nash, declared her to be under hypnotic control. Letters, under hypnotism, are suspect.--G. C. [55] The chapters of our book from XI. to XVI. inclusive, were, in substance, written at the request of Dr. William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, and published in his _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ for December, 1893, under the caption of "The Secret of Kant." These chapters, while too abstruse for light readers, really explain what "Christian Science" ignorantly chatters about as "Metaphysics."--G. C. [56] As this book, including the present chapter, is for readers who may or may not understand German, our quotations from Kant are taken from his _Critique_ as in the old familiar, accessible translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn (Bohn's Philosophical Library--edition of 1860). [57] _Critique of Pure Reason_; General Remarks on Transcendental �sthetic, p. 35. [58] _Critique_; Transcendental Logic, p. 80. [59] These words were written long before Dr. Alan McLane Hamilton testified, in the Surrogate's Court, (New York City, Feb. 18th, 1901), that sincere Christian Scientists are afflicted with a form of insane delusion. 
6310	----	THE PASTOR'S SON BY WILLIAM W. WALTER DEDICATED TO F. S. B. IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF WORK WELL DONE PREFACE My sole reason for writing this book and placing it before the public is to call the public's attention to _another book_, wherein is contained the Christ truth, the understanding of which will free you from all your troubles. If in sin, it shows the way out; if sick, it will heal you; if grief-stricken, it will mend your broken heart; if in poverty, it will give you plenty. I speak from experience, having been sick for more than seven years, at the edge of the grave, reduced to poverty, and all earthly hope gone. I was rescued from this inferno on earth, my health restored, my supply sufficient, my joy complete; surely I can say, my cup of happiness runneth over. Truly that book sayeth--"Come all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." CONTENTS CHAPTER I THANKSGIVING MORNING II THE TURKEY DINNER III WHAT WALTER FOUND IV PREPARING FOR THE LESSONS V THE FIRST LESSON VI CONFUSION VII THE SECOND LESSON VIII THE THIRD LESSON IX THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL X HUMANITY'S MISTAKE XI FALSE INVESTIGATION XII A FAIR INVESTIGATION XIII THE UNREALITY OF EVIL XIV THE DREAM XV TRUTH BEING MANIFESTED XVI THE FAREWELL SERMON A PARTING WORD CHAPTER I THANKSGIVING MORNING "What a beautiful Thanksgiving morning this is," said the Rev. James A. Williams to his son Walter, as he looked out of the dining-room window. "There isn't a cloud in the sky, and this soft, balmy breeze from the south makes one almost believe that it is a June morning instead of the 30th of November. I know there will be a large attendance at church this morning, which will please me very much, as I have prepared an excellent sermon, and feel certain that the congregation will enjoy it." He glanced at his son as he finished speaking, and some of the joy and cheerfulness that had shown in his eyes faded away, for he saw no return of his joy and happiness on his child's face; all that was written there was sorrow, pain, and feebleness. His son, who was nearly seventeen, had always been sickly and feeble since birth; the best physicians had been employed, change of climate had been tried, and everything else that promised relief, but of no avail. The best specialists had been consulted, but they gave little hope that hereditary consumption could be cured, for the minister's wife had been similarly afflicted for many years. The Rev. Williams thought silently for a few moments, then tried to regain his cheerfulness by changing the subject to something that might interest his son; so he said, "Well, wife, I suppose that turkey Deacon Phillips gave us will be done to perfection by dinner time; I am beginning to feel hungry already, just from thinking of it and it is two hours to dinner time yet." Lillian his wife, looked up from her work with a careworn expression on her face, and said, "Yes, it is a fine large turkey." His wife always looked worn-out and tired, for not being strong and still compelled to do all the housework, it fatigued her very much. It had not always been this way, for the Rev. Williams was a man of ability, his congregation large, and his salary ample under ordinary circumstances, but the constant drain of physicians' bills, and the great expense of sending mother and son to a warm climate each fall, as the rigors of the northern winters were considered too hard for the two invalids to bear, had reduced them almost to poverty; consequently the expense of a maidservant had long since been dispensed with. Rev. Williams now turned to go to his study, and as he was turning, said, "I know that I will do justice to that turkey, after delivering my long sermon, and I am very thankful to Deacon Phillips, and to God, for having given it to us." There was silence for a few moments after the father left the room; then Mrs. Williams said: "Walter, dear, you had better get ready for church; I will soon have this turkey so I can leave it, then I will get ready and we will both go to church, there to give thanks to God." Walter turned to his mother saying, "What have we to be thankful for, mother?" His mother looked up, somewhat startled, and answered, "Why for everything that God gave us." "Everything, mother?" asked Walter. "Yes dear, everything." "Oh, mother, I don't see how I am going to do that, father told me that God gave me this sickness, and I don't see how I can feel thankful to Him for making me suffer." The mother anxiously looked at her son, then said, "Remember Walter, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, also suffered." "Yes, I know, but it was not God that made Him suffer, it was the Pharisees; but father said it was God gave me this sickness and that I must bear it with love and patience, which I have tried to do, but I have never been able to understand why a good and loving God should care to see me suffer." "I am sure I cannot tell," said his mother, "but it must be for some good purpose; we will ask your father to explain some time. Now hurry and get ready." A few minutes later they both walked to the church, which was only a short distance away, and entered its wide-open doors. CHAPTER II THE TURKEY DINNER "Well wife, what did you think of my sermon?" asked the pastor as he sat down to enjoy the turkey dinner. "I think it was the best sermon you ever delivered, James," answered his wife, quietly. "I think so, too," said James, "and what's more, it ought to make every person that heard it feel very thankful to God, for all He has given them," then looking around the room he asked, "Where is Walter?" "I don't know," said his wife, "he became so nervous and tired, that he left just before the last hymn was sung. I suppose he went up to his room, you had better call him to dinner." "I will," answered the pastor, and going to the hall door, he called aloud, "Walter, dinner is ready." "All right father, I will be down in a minute," came back the answer in a rather faint voice. The pastor turned to his wife and asked, "Do you think that last medicine is doing him any more good than the others we have tried?" His wife raised her sad face to his, and replied, "No, James, I don't think it is helping him, for he seems to get weaker and more nervous all the time. I feel that he is losing ground even more rapidly than I am." Here Walter entered the room, his face more flushed than usual, and his father's watchful eye took note of it, but he spoke up cheerfully, "Just look at that turkey, Walter, isn't it a fine one? See how nice and evenly it is browned, and the oyster dressing, I'll bet it's fit for a king." Walter merely glanced at the turkey, then seated himself beside his mother. After the pastor had said grace, he picked up the carving knife and said, "Now, son, just tell me what piece you like best and I will have it carved out for you before you can say, Jack Robinson." "You are very kind, father, but I don't believe I care for any turkey, I am not feeling very well," answered Walter. "Just try a little, Walter," said the mother coaxingly, "I know it must be very tender and nice, for Deacon Phillips said it was a young turkey." "Yes, Walter," said his father, "hand me your plate, and I will give you a little of the dark and a little of the light meat, with some of this delicious dressing." The boy listlessly handed over his plate without any more ado, his father put onto it a liberal piece of each kind of meat and some dressing, then handed it back, with the remark, "Eat all you can son, for it will make you strong." Then he added, "Now wife, it's your turn, I know you like the dark meat the best," and while he was talking he carved a nice piece of the turkey and laid it on her plate, and then said, "Now father, it is your turn, and I know your failing to be the leg," and suiting the action to the word, he carved for himself the leg. Then, addressing his son once more, he asked, "How did you like the sermon, Walter?" "I thought it was very fine, father, and as I looked over the congregation, I could see many heads nodding their approval of your words telling them they ought to be thankful, and I tried, oh, so hard, to be thankful, but I couldn't, for something seemed to say, you have nothing to be thankful for, God gave you this sickness as a punishment. I tried to think what I had done to merit this punishment, but found it could not have been anything I had done, as I remembered that you had said I always had been sick even when a little child, and then--" "Tut, tut, child, now don't get excited," said the pastor. "We all know that your punishment is not for anything you may have done, but you are probably suffering for the sins of others, the same as Jesus did; why, Walter, just think, Jesus Christ died for all our sins." "For my sins, father?" asked the boy. "Yes, Walter, all our sins." "But father, I don't see how that could be. We weren't any of us living at that time, and if we sinned, it must have been since then, and Jesus could not die for sins that had not been committed." The father was so surprised at what he heard, that for a moment he just stared at his son; the idea was entirely new to him, and yet it was only common sense. He tried to find some reply that would be reasonable, but before he found it, the boy continued. "I cannot believe that God punishes any one person for the sins of another. If He would do this, He would not be a just God. Why, father, even man is more just than that. Supposing Judge Baxter had pronounced sentence like this: 'Yes, I find Mose Webster guilty of stealing Mr. Johnson's chickens, and have decided to send the Rev. James Williams to the county jail for ten months, because Mose Webster stole those chickens,' would you think that justice? and could you feel thankful to the judge for sending you to jail to suffer in the place of Mose Webster, and--" "Silence, child," said the father, more sternly than he had ever spoken to his son before. He was so confused by what the boy had said that he could not find words to speak. After a time he said, "Walter, never let me hear you say anything like that again, to think that you, a minister's son, should say such things. Why, they are almost blasphemous." "Never mind, James," said the mother; "think how hard it must be to suffer year in and year out, without any relief, and remember, dear, that even some of the apostles doubted at times. Now, let us finish our dinner." Then, turning to her son, she added, "father will explain all this to you as soon as he finds time." The father looked at the flushed face of the boy and his anger softened, then in a kind voice said: "I think it would be a very nice idea for us to set aside one or two evenings each week for Bible reading and study; in this way we would all get a better understanding of God, and His great love for mankind. What do you think of that plan, Walter?" "I should enjoy it, as there is a great deal in the Bible that I should like to have explained." "All right, Walter, now what would you say to starting our Bible class to-morrow evening?" "That would please me," said Walter. "How about you, mother?" asked the pastor. "Oh, I certainly want to be a member of the class. I know it will be very entertaining and instructive, besides it will be such a pleasant way to spend the long winter evenings." "Why mother, I thought we were going south this winter." "No, child, it will be impossible for us to go this year. You know that this last medicine which you and I are taking costs father five dollars per bottle, and we each need a bottle a week, so it has been impossible for father to save the money necessary for our going." For a moment the boy's face looked sad and grave, and the pastor swallowed a lump that had risen in his throat, for it hurt the good man severely to think that he had not the necessary funds to gratify their every wish, but had already borrowed more than he could pay back in several years. Still he was willing to make more sacrifices, had his wife agreed, but she had said on one occasion when they were discussing this subject, "No, James, I will not leave you again. I think the separation does us as much harm as the warm climate does good, and I feel that we have not many more years to be together, so I cannot bear the thought of being separated from you for another five months. I think Walter and I will be better off to be at home with you. We need not go out in the cold very much, and you and I can arrange some way to entertain and amuse Walter." The pastor had answered: "Well, Lillian, it may be the better way, for I must confess that these long separations were very unpleasant to me, yet I was more than willing to endure them, if thereby you and Walter could be benefited, still it seems that the change of climate idea did not prove as beneficial as we had hoped for, but please don't speak in that hopeless strain again, for you certainly have heard that old saying, 'while there is life there is hope,' so never give up, and remember that there are many noted physicians and chemists, working day and night to get a sure cure for tuberculosis, and who knows but that the morrow will bring it forth. You know that I am constantly on the lookout for everything that looks promising." And so the thought of a southern trip had been dismissed. CHAPTER III WHAT WALTER FOUND Dinner over, they all arose from their seats at the table, and the father asked, "Walter, what part of the Bible shall we start to study first?" "I hardly know, father," said Walter. "Well, you can take the old family Bible, look it over and then decide. As for myself I have very little choice; I have read and studied it so often that I feel very familiar with all it contains." "All right; father, may I go up to my room now?" "Yes, certainly, if you choose, but I should think you would rather be outside to-day, it is so warm, and there won't be many more days like this this year." "I believe I would rather go to my room," said the boy, starting in that direction. "Just as you please, son," said the father, as he stepped through the hall to enter the library. Walter went quickly up stairs to his room, and his mother wondered greatly at his hurry. Once in his room he closed the door and quietly locked it, then going to his trunk, he excitedly pulled forth a little book with a black leather cover which looked very much like a small Bible. He opened it and began reading in a low tone. "_Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy_." "Yes, I am sure it is the same book that lovely lady down south told me about, and asked mother to get me one, but mother had said, 'no, we will never try Christian Science; we are real Christians and believe in God.' I could not hear everything they said, but I did hear the lady say, 'I don't see how you can say that you believe that God is all Good, and at the same time think He made your lovely boy sick.' I did not hear mother's reply, but I know she was angry. Now I wonder who lost this book? I saw no one in sight when I picked it up this morning; there is no name in it, so I can't return it to the owner. I wonder if I ought to read it? I don't need to believe it if I do read it. Anyway, that lady did not look like a person that was bad, and she said she read Science and Health every day, and that it had healed her of a severe sickness." As he talked he turned a few pages and then read, "Contents, Chapter I, Prayer. I wonder if that chapter is in favor of prayer or against it. I suppose though it must be against it by the way mother acted towards that lady." He laid his head upon his hands and thought silently for some time, then raised his head and said, "Well, I am going to read it. That lady said reading 'Science and Health' cured her, and I am going to see if it will cure me if I read it. I suppose the place to start is Chapter I." Walter began to read to himself: "Science and Health. Chapter I, Prayer. "_For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things whatsoever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him. Christ Jesus_." Then he stopped and said, "Why that is just the same as I read in our Bible; there certainly can be no bad in that. But maybe they only printed that so as to ridicule it farther on in the book; anyway, I wonder what Jesus Christ meant, when he said, '_therefore I say unto you, what things whatsoever ye desire when ye pray, believe ye shall receive them and ye shall have them_.' Oh, how often and how earnestly have I prayed for health, with tears running down my cheeks, but my prayers never seem to have been answered; now I wonder why, for I know that what Jesus Christ said must be true, for He was the Son of God, and would not deceive us; why, oh why, doesn't God answer my prayers?" He stopped to consider for a moment, then turned pale as death, pressed his thin hands to his breast, as a new thought came to his consciousness, then he gasped in a whisper, "I--believe--I--know." He paused a moment, then continued, "It must be that--I see it all now; I see my mistake. I prayed to God for health, and in the next instant doubted Him, doubted that He would heal me. In fact, I never really believed that He would heal me, and Jesus said, 'Believe that ye receive.' Oh, can this really be true. I am so excited I can hardly think. Here I am again, this time doubting the word of Christ." Then he jumped up with the exclamation, "I must tell father, for his prayers are not answered, and it must be for the same reason. No, I don't mean that. My father is a minister and he could not doubt God. But why aren't his prayers answered? I don't know what to do. If I tell father or mother, they may take the book away, and then my last hope would be gone. I think I will read it first." So saying, he sat down in an easy rocker, and was soon absorbed in what he was reading, nor did he notice how the time flew until he heard his mother's anxious voice and knock at the door. He answered at once, and hastily put the book back in his trunk, then went to the door and opened it. His mother greeted him with, "Why, Walter, what is the matter? Since when have you taken to locking your door in the daytime? You look so flushed and excited, and we haven't heard a sound from you all the afternoon. We were beginning to get alarmed about you, so I came up to see what was the matter, and to tell you that supper was ready. What have you been doing? Don't you feel as well as usual? Tell me, Walter, are you worse?" "No, mother, I am not worse, I only became so absorbed in reading that I forgot all about time, and also that I had locked the door." His mother did not think to ask him what he was reading, as she had always been very careful to see that no reading matter that was at all questionable was brought into the house, so she had no idea that he had been reading anything but what she had read and deemed proper. "We had better hurry down, Walter, as father is waiting for his supper." They both started down the stairs, his mother still talking to him; but he scarcely heard a word she said, for his thoughts were still centered on what he had read. And now that his excitement had abated, there seemed to be a hopeful gleam in his eyes. As soon as they entered the room, his father noticed that his eyes were brighter, but took it as a bad sign. All through the evening meal they had to address him several times before he would answer, and his father's heart grew heavy as he noticed the thoughtful mood of his son. When they had finished their meal, Walter asked to be excused, and immediately went to his room. As soon as he was gone the pastor said, "Lillian, did you notice how Walter acted to-night? It seemed to me that he was very much more thoughtful than usual." "Yes," answered the mother, "he seemed confused, and his eyes were so bright, but he ate a very hearty supper." "I also noticed that," said the pastor, then added, "It seems there is a change, but I hardly know whether to say the change is for better or worse. I hope it is for the best; it may be that the medicine has just taken effect." "God grant that this may be so," reverently said the mother. They were both silent for some time, then the pastor said, "I never heard Walter speak as he did this noon. I wonder how he thought of such an absurd thing, as sending me to jail because some one else stole some chickens." "I know, James, that it does seem absurd at first thought, yet it seems to me to be just as sensible to punish the wrong person for stealing, as it would be to punish the innocent with sickness because some one else had sinned. I have been thinking seriously of this all the afternoon, but have not arrived at a satisfactory conclusion," said Mrs. Williams. The pastor slowly turned toward his wife and said, "Lillian I am astonished beyond measure to hear this from you; it was bad enough to hear it from my own son, but to hear it from you is worse. Don't you think that Almighty God knows what is best for us, do you dare question anything He does? Do you think the allwise Creator would have made him sick if it were not for the best?" "James, do you really believe God made our boy sick?" "It must be so," answered James, "for we read in the Bible, that God made everything that was made." "If this be true James, it would be a sin to give him medicine, for we would be trying to undo the work of God." To say the pastor was astonished would be putting it mildly. Never in his whole life had he been so shocked as on this day, and each shock was greater than the preceding one. He now stood perfectly still for a full minute, then said, "It seems high time that we begin the study of the Bible in this house, for from what I have heard to-day it is very apparent to me that my wife and son are quite ignorant of what the Bible contains." Then turning, he strode from the room. The pastor was a good and kind man. He had always been a good husband and father, always patient and sympathetic with his invalid wife and son; but this day had been a very trying one to him, first in hearing his son say things that he considered little less than blasphemous, then to notice that the mother seemed to indorse what the son had said, and to make matters worse, to actually hear his wife questioning the doings of God, as he understood them. This was the last-straw. He was really angry and out of patience, and somewhat confused, so he decided to go to his library and think it all over. As soon as he arrived there he impatiently seated himself in an easy chair and began to soliloquize after this fashion: "I wonder where Walter got that idea about sending me to jail, what can that have to do with his sickness; then to think my wife agreed with him. Let me see, what did she say? I was so outraged I can scarcely recall what was said. I believe though she said something about some of the apostles doubting at times. What has that to do with sending me to jail? I don't seem able to think clearly to-day. Then this other matter, about giving medicine being a sin. Why everybody takes medicine; the most pious and devout Christians that ever lived have taken medicine, and this has been so for thousands of years. The Bible says that the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. Then why may not the roots and the bark be used as well? Of course Jesus Christ did not heal with medicine. He was the Son of God and was endowed from on high with supernatural power. He didn't need the medicine. Well, all I can say is that I am glad we are going to have those Bible lessons, for I know that as soon as we get to studying them they will get the truth, and then I will hear no more of this nonsense. I don't think I will mention the matter again until we get to studying the lessons; then as we get to this medicine question, I will point it out to them." So the pastor, after having thought himself into a better frame of mind, dismissed the subject from his thoughts, arose, and walked over to the bookcase, selected the book he wanted, and was soon absorbed in reading. In the meantime Walter had hurried to his room and was soon busily engaged in reading "Science and Health." About nine o'clock he heard his father and mother coming upstairs to retire for the night. He hastily turned out his light and scrambled into bed, clothes and all. A few moments later when his mother looked in she found him in bed nicely covered up, and supposing him asleep, quietly left the room. As soon as Walter was sure they had retired, he arose, relit the gas, and continued reading. It was after midnight when he laid down the book and said, "I feel sure this book is true, and that God made only the good, and never made me or any one else sick. I believe I will get well when I understand how to pray aright." Then he undressed and got into bed, a happier and more hopeful boy than he had ever been. After saying his usual prayers, he added, "And now, God, I wish to thank you for all the good things you have given me. I could not thank you this morning, for then I thought you had made me sick. But now I know that you are all good and could not make evil; truly I now have something to be thankful for and shall always remember this Thanksgiving day." CHAPTER IV PREPARING FOR THE LESSONS The next morning, when Walter awoke it was broad daylight, and the hands on the clock pointed to the hour of ten, as his mother came into his room with an anxious look on her face and said, "I have just come up to wake you as your father was worried because of your sleeping so long; how do you feel this morning?" "Oh, mother, I feel better this morning, and I had the best night's rest I have had for years. I never woke up once all night, and I feel strong and hungry." "Thank God you are better, I will go down and get your breakfast ready." "All right, mother, I will be down as soon as I wash and dress." Before going down, he went over to his trunk, took out "Science and Health," and said, "I believe that you contain the truth and will free me of this disease." He then placed it in his trunk again, being careful to hide it from the view of any one who should carelessly look into it. Hastily descending to the dining-room, he ate a hearty breakfast. As he was leaving the table his mother said, "I am sorry you did not take advantage of the beautiful sunshine yesterday, for the wind has changed and is now blowing severely from the north and it is very cold and dreary out." "I don't mind it at all to-day, mother, for I feel so much better that I hadn't noticed the weather." His mother was somewhat astonished to hear him speak so cheerfully, as it had been customary for Walter to complain of feeling worse on dreary days. Then she thought, "It must be that new medicine, for he certainly is better, and I pray God he will continue to improve." As for Walter, he was glad it was a dreary day, as this would give him an excuse for staying in his room and continue his reading. He wished he was there now, but did not want to awaken the suspicion of his mother by too hurried a departure. So he walked about the room, trying to think of some excuse. Finally a happy thought occured to him, and he said, "Mother, I believe I will take the Bible and go to my room and read, so as to be prepared for our lesson this evening." "Very well, Walter, you will find it on the library table." Walter walked into the library, secured the book, then went up to his room, took out "Science and Health" and was soon absorbed in its contents. The afternoon was a repetition of the morning. At the supper table the Rev. Williams said, "I am sorry we cannot start our Bible lessons for a few evenings, as I have received a notification to be present at some meetings to be held by the local clergy." "Any matter of importance, James?" asked his wife. "Not particularly so. The Rev. Mr. Johnson said that they wished to find a way to successfully combat this new heretical idea called Christian Science, and they want to arrange so that each clergyman will give a sermon denouncing it, each on a different Sunday, and Rev. Johnson asked me if I was willing to deliver a sermon on it, and I told him yes." "Why father," said Walter, "I did not know that you had ever read or looked into Christian Science." "No son, I never did look it up or study it, and what is more I never intend to. The Bible is good enough for me." "But, father, how can you preach a sermon on it if you do not know what it is?" "I did not say that I did not know what it is. I have heard enough to know that it _is not_ Christian and that they claim to heal in the same way that Jesus Christ did. This claim alone proves that it is false, for Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that is why He could heal the sick, and for any man to consider himself equal to Jesus Christ is blasphemous." "Father did not Jesus bid His disciples heal the sick?" "Yes, certainly, He gave His disciples the power to heal the sick, but His disciples have been dead for a long time, and nobody else was given the power to heal as Christ did," said the pastor. "Was St. Paul one of Christ's disciples?" "No Walter, he was not in reality one of Christ's disciples, but he was a very good and holy man." "Did not St. Paul heal the sick?" "Yes, there are several accounts in the Bible of St. Paul's healing power." "Well father, where did St. Paul get his power to heal the sick if he was not one of the disciples that Jesus gave the power of healing to?" "Why you see it was like this--that is--I mean to say--" the pastor stopped rather confused, then finished with, "It is too long a story to tell to-night, as I must be getting ready for that meeting. I will explain this all when we start our lessons." The pastor left the room and entered the library, thinking deeply. "I wonder where that boy gets those queer ideas from. I am very much pleased that I suggested those Bible lessons, for if he was not enlightened, he would surely go astray." Shortly after, the pastor was wending his way to the meeting, still thinking of what Walter had said regarding St. Paul. Walter made an excuse to retire to his room and was soon reading in his precious "Science and Health;" and it was precious to him, for in it he saw the only hope he had ever had of getting well. He read far into the night, and every spare moment of the next few days, so that when Wednesday evening came he had finished the book. But Wednesday evening was prayer meeting, so there would be no Bible lessons until Thursday evening. He spent almost all day Thursday reading Genesis in the Bible and comparing it with the scientific interpretation as found in "Science and Health," by Mary Baker G. Eddy, under the subject of Genesis, beginning on page 501. About six o'clock his mother called him for supper, and as he laid down his books he said, "It must be true; I feel that it is the truth. I will have father start with Genesis to-night and will ask such questions as will be most apt to get father to see the Bible in its true light. How I wish I had found this book long ago, then I would be better prepared to convince father. Still I know that God is good and will help me, and with Him to help me I cannot fail." CHAPTER V THE FIRST LESSON It was just 7:30 p.m. when the pastor, his wife, and Walter entered the library to have their first Bible lesson. "Well, Walter," said the father pleasantly, "have you decided where we shall commence our studies?" "Yes, father, I should like to start at the beginning, with Genesis." The pastor looked at his son and noticed that his face was flushed with excitement. Still he made no comment about it, but answered, "very well Walter, if agreeable to mother, we will start with Genesis." "Yes, James, I am satisfied to start anywhere that pleases Walter." "As we are all in accord, I will start with chapter 1 of Genesis, and continue reading until we come to something that you do not understand. Then you may stop me and I will explain. I think this will be an excellent way, don't you, Walter?" "Yes, father, I think that will be the best way." The pastor started to read Genesis, chapter 1, and there was no interruption until he arrived at Genesis 1, 26. Several times Walter was on the point of asking some question, but did not. Now he asked, "father, what is meant by that verse? I do not understand it clearly." "I'll read it again for you," said the pastor. "Genesis, chapter 1, 26th verse. '_And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth_.' Do you understand it now?" "Not yet. God is Spirit, is He not?" "Certainly, why do you ask?" "That verse says that God made man in His image and likeness, does that mean that man is spiritual?" "Yes," answered the pastor. "Then my body must be spiritual." "Oh, no, our bodies are not spiritual, it is only the soul that is in the body that is here spoken of as the image and likeness of God." "Then God did not make our bodies, did He, father?" "Why, certainly He did. Have you never read that God made all that was made?" "It doesn't say anything in that verse about God's making a body does it father?" "No but it says 'in His image and likeness,' that means just like Him," said the pastor. "Then if I am just like Him, He in turn must be just like me, and in that case God would have a material body, and would not be wholly spirit." "Why son, what queer ideas you have. As I said before this verse is only speaking of the soul; you will see farther on where He created the body. Now let us proceed." "Father, what is meant by that part of this same verse, where it reads: '_And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air_,' etc.?" "There has been considerable differences of opinion in regard to that passage. Personally, I think it means that we will have this dominion after we die and enter the spirit world, for we certainly haven't dominion over the fish and fowl here." "James, do you think there will be fish and fowl in heaven?" meekly asked his wife. "That is a very absurd question. Everybody knows there will be no fish and fowl in heaven," said her husband. "Then how can we have dominion over them if there are none there?" asked his wife. "It seems to me that you are both very dense this evening. Let us continue and these things will clear up as we proceed," said the pastor, a little nettled at his inability to answer their questions clearly. Walter had several more questions he wanted to ask on this subject, but he thought best not to ask too many at one time. There was no more interruption until the pastor reached Genesis 1, 31st verse--"_and God saw everything He had made, and behold it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the 6th day_." Here Walter interrupted with, "Then everything that God made was good." "Yes, everything that God made was good," answered the pastor. "If that be true, God could not have made me sick, for sickness is not good," said Walter. "Walter, I believe you are right," said his mother. The pastor looked from one to the other, then slowly laid the Bible down in his lap. He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken, and he remembered that Walter had on a previous occasion said something similar. Just what would be the best answer to make he did not know, so thought he would ask Walter a few questions, and in this way find out what the boy had on his mind. So he asked, "What makes you so positive that God did not make you sick Walter?" "Because God is good and just, and I am His child, and the Bible says He made everything good and He made everything that was made, so everything must be good. Besides, I cannot conceive of a just God making me suffer for a sin some one else committed, any more than I could think of you, father, punishing me for something that our neighbor's boy had done." Like a flash the pastor saw now what the boy had meant when he spoke of sending him to jail because some one else had stolen some chickens. The boy was only trying to illustrate to him the injustice of punishing one person for the deeds of another. Then the thought came, "Shall man be more just than God?" There was something here he did not understand, and yet the Bible said God made everything that was made. If this be true, He was the author of all the sorrows and woes, as well as the joys, of the human race. Now that he had got to thinking on this subject, he did not like to admit even to himself that God was the creator of all the wickedness of the world. He decided he must have more time to think about this before he could answer the boy, so said, "We know that God is good and just, and some of the things that to us seem evil and unjust may still be for our good." He then picked up the Bible to proceed with his reading. Walter noticed that his father was ill at ease and decided not to ask any more questions at present. The pastor then read Genesis 2, 1st verse: _"Thus the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them."_ He now cast an anxious look over at Walter, expecting him to ask some question that would be as hard to answer as the previous ones, but Walter was sitting perfectly still listening attentively. The pastor then read the next verse, Genesis 2, 2nd verse: _"And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made"_ "Is that all of creation, father?" asked Walter. "Yes, God created everything in six days and on the seventh He rested; that is why we observe the Sabbath day as a day of rest." There was no interruption in the next three verses, although Walter heard several things he would like to have asked about. But when it came to Genesis 2, 6th verse, _"But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground,"_ Walter asked, "What is meant by that _mist_, father?" The pastor tried to find some reasonable answer, but could not, so he replied, "I suppose it was something like the fogs we sometimes see rising from the ground." He had come to the conclusion that these Bible lessons were not going to be quite so easy and entertaining as he had anticipated, and had determined that on the morrow he would go over the lesson by himself, and in this way be prepared for any and all questions that might be asked. Walter knew what this _mist_ meant; he had read all about it, in "Science and Health," but still he did not think it policy to say anything more on the subject just then. The pastor continued his reading, Genesis 2, 7th verse. _"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."_ "Will you please explain that verse to me, father?" "With pleasure; this is the verse I spoke of a little while back, when I told you that in Genesis 1.26, God only made the soul or spirit of man, while here is a record of the creation of the body. "You see, son, we get a better understanding as we proceed. It is like this, the soul or spirit is in the image and likeness of God, but the body is not, it being material, having been created of dust. Do you understand it better now?" Walter did not answer at once, so his mother said, "That all seems very plain to me now, although I was somewhat confused before." The pastor turned a smiling face to her and nodded his head approvingly; he was now quite at his ease again, and did not look for any further trouble. Then turning to Walter, he was a little surprised to see him looking flushed and excited, so said, "Well, Walter, what are you thinking about?" The boy looked up and said, "I was trying to think, when God started His second creation, for He had finished His first one on the sixth day and rested from His work on the seventh day, and here seems to be a record of something He created after He had finished." Had a bomb shell exploded in the room, it would not have surprised and shocked the pastor and his wife so much as that which they had just heard; and coming just at the time when the pastor thought he was making everything clear and plain, it confused him terribly, and in his ears kept ringing what Walter had said: "I was trying to think, when God started His second creation, for He had finished His first one on the sixth day and rested from His work which He had made, on the seventh day." What could this mean; where did Walter get these queer thoughts from; were they in reality queer? The idea of a second creation was absurd, yet the Bible said, Genesis 2. 1, _"thus the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them."_ There it was plain enough, it spoke both of heaven and earth, _"and on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made."_ Did God make a mistake in the first creation and so start in again to rectify His mistake? Impossible. God was, is, and always will be all-knowing; this precluded all chance of Deity making a mistake. Was the Bible wrong in this particular instance, if so, might it not all be wrong? This thought made the good man's heart stand still. No, no, it could not be; it must be some slight error in the translation or something of that kind--yes, it must be; how was it that he had never seen it before? Then he became conscious that his wife was asking him some question. "James," he heard her say, "are there really two creations, one spiritual and the other material?" What should he answer? He never was so at a loss for a reply in his whole life; there was his son and his wife, both apparently depending on him for an explanation, and he absolutely incapable of making a rational one. And then he remembered that he had said it didn't make any difference to him what part of the Bible they started with, as he was very familiar with it all. At length he said: "I don't seem capable of clear thought to-night; I think we had better stop for this time, and we will begin at this same verse to-morrow night." Walter was sorry to see his father so confused and perplexed, and tried to think of some way to help him arrive at the truth. He was afraid to say much for fear of awakening his father's suspicion, for if his father had the least idea that he had secured his information from the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health," with key to the scriptures, he would not have allowed him to ask any more questions, nor even voice any of his thoughts, on the subject. Walter decided to try to show his father a way out of his dilemma, so he said: "Father, don't you think your explanation about that _mist_ that is spoken of in Genesis, 2. 6, being a fog is wrong?" "What else could it be, Walter?" "Have you ever noticed, father, that this particular verse starts in with a '_but_'? It reads, 'But there went up a mist,' it does not say, 'God made a mist to rise from the earth.'" "I don't see that the word 'but' changes it any." "I did not mean to say that it did, I only wished to point out the fact that here was something that God did not make, for nowhere in the preceding chapters of Genesis had God made a mist." "I cannot understand what you mean, Walter. The Bible says that God made everything that was made, and as I have seen a mist many times, God must have made it as there is only one Creator," said the pastor. "On the same line of reasoning, we would have to admit God created all the evils of this world, for we see these evils every day, and then I would have to admit that God made me sick, and I can never believe that, for Genesis 1, 31st verse reads, '_And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good_.' If we believe this, we cannot possibly believe He made any evil thing." "Well Walter, we will not discuss that subject farther at the present time, for I know as we progress with our lessons you will see it in a different light; anyway I don't see what that mist has to do with the subject." "Father, might not that mist mean a mistake or a misapprehension? Then that verse would read, 'But there went up a misapprehension from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.'" "Why, Walter there would be no sense to such a speech; how could a misapprehension water the whole face of the ground?" "Is not the Bible supposed to be an inspired book, father?" "Yes, certainly." "And is there not supposed to be a spiritual meaning to all there is written there?" "Yes, Walter, why do you ask?" "Then might not the spiritual meaning of that verse be brought out by using the word 'arose' instead of 'went up,' and the word 'deceived,' instead of 'watered,' and the word 'intelligence,' in place of 'face,' and the word 'people,' instead of 'ground'; then the verse would read like this, 'But there arose a misapprehension from the earth and deceived the whole intelligence of the people.' If we add to this what is implied, that the following creation is what the people through this misapprehension believe, we get a clearer view of the real creation as narrated in the first chapter of Genesis." It was several moments after Walter finished speaking before the pastor or his wife made any reply. Many times that evening they had been surprised at what they had heard Walter say, now they were both surprised and bewildered. The mother was the first to speak and said: "What you say, Walter, seems reasonable, yet I do not think we have the right to change anything that is written in the Bible." "That is true, wife, it is from this pernicious habit of translating the Bible to suit the thought of each ignoramous that thinks he knows something of the Bible, simply because he has read it once or twice, that all the contradictory sayings about the Bible originate, and it ought to be stopped by law," said the pastor. "Why, father, that is not changing the Bible, it is simply bringing to light the hidden meaning, the same as you do when you interpret some of the sayings, or parables, of Jesus; anyway, I merely suggested that this might be the solution of the question of a second creation." "Walter do not speak of a second creation again; everybody knows there is only one creation for there is only one God and He is omniscient; that precludes the thought of a mistake and a re-creation. God made everything that was made in six days, and if He made everything in that time, there would not be anything more to make; for 'everything' includes, 'all.'" "Then which of the two narratives in the Bible is the true one, James?" asked his wife. "My dear, this second narrative is the same creation, told in a more simple way so that all may understand. It enters into the details and tells _how_ God created everything." The pastor had not intended giving such an explanation as this when he started to speak, but this thought occurred to him and it seemed reasonable, so he voiced it, and now that he said it, he felt satisfied that the first creation was the real creation, and that the second narrative was the explanation of how everything was created. Walter was somewhat confused by his father's explanation. He had never thought of it in this light, and now he was at a loss what to say. He felt sure that his father's explanation was not the correct solution, yet he could not find words to express his thoughts. Then he thought of his precious "Science and Health"; if I could only look into that for a few minutes, I know I could find the true explanation; then turning to his father he said: "Don't you think we have had enough Bible study for the first night? It is half past nine. "Why, how fast the evening has passed. I'm sure you must be tired," anxiously exclaimed his mother. "Yes, Walter," said his father, "it is time that we retire, for there are many more evenings this winter, and we must not think we can learn all the Bible contains in one evening. I hope I made that second narrative plain to you." "I am not fully convinced that we have arrived at the truth of this second creation, father. I shall spend to-morrow thinking and studying on that subject, and maybe by to-morrow evening I will be able to see it as it really is." "That's right, Walter," said the pastor, highly pleased at the thought of his son taking such an interest in the scriptures, "it is only by study and research that we can gain knowledge." The pastor had no idea that Walter had any other source of information than the family Bible, but Walter was thinking of his key to the scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, with which he proposed to unlock the treasure vaults of the Bible. "Come, Walter, you had better go to bed, I fear you have already overexerted yourself, as you are not accustomed to being up so late." Walter turned a bright and cheery face to her and said, "I do not feel tired at all mother, for the lesson has been very interesting to me, so do not worry. I am sure it did me good." Then turning to his father, he said, "Good-night, father, shall we have another lesson to-morrow night?" "Yes, certainly; now good-night and pleasant dreams." Walter bade his mother an affectionate good-night and went to his room. As soon as he was gone, father and mother looked at each other and there was hope and delight written on both their faces. "He is surely getting better," said the mother. "I never saw him so interested and cheerful in his whole life," remarked the father. "I think we have secured the right medicine at last," said the mother. "I have prayed long and faithfully to God that He spare his life and guide his footsteps into the ministry, and I believe both prayers have been heard, for he is surely gaining rapidly in health, and has taken more than an ordinary interest in the Bible; some of his questions were very absurd, but this is simply because he does not understand. I shall put a little study on to-morrow's lesson, so as to be more able to explain any and all questions he may ask," said the father. Shortly after, they ascended the stairs to retire for the night. As they passed Walter's room the mother softly opened the door, looked at her sleeping boy, silently closed the door, and said, "Dear boy, he must have been tired to fall asleep so quickly." But Walter was not sleeping, he felt he could not sleep until he had cleared up the matter of a second creation. He also knew his mother would look into the room before she retired, so he pretended to be asleep. As soon as she had closed the door he arose and turned on the light, went to his trunk, and brought forth his "Science and Health." He then seated himself and said, "I'm sure I saw this all explained in the book; I wonder what part I will find it in; I should think it would be in the explanation of Genesis." Turning to Genesis, he read until he came to page 524, line 14, then exclaimed, "Here it is, plain as day; it wasn't God, Spirit, that created the _dust_ man, and all the rest of this material universe. It was the Lord God, that is, man's material conception of God, or false God. I wonder how I am going to make this plain to father without showing him my 'Science and Health.'" Then putting away his book he was soon in bed and asleep. CHAPTER VI CONFUSION The next morning as soon as breakfast was over, the pastor went to the library, secured his Bible, and began to read. After reading for some time, a look of perplexity came over his face; he leaned back in his chair, thinking deeply, and his thoughts were as follows: It's remarkable that I never noticed this second narrative is the reverse of the first; they are clearly and distinctly two narratives. In the first there is no mention made of anything material, and all is created by the word of God--or spiritually; there is no mention of evil, but--all is pronounced good by God. He made the earth, the trees, and the animals first, and man last, in an ascending scale; while in the 2d chapter of Genesis, God is supposed to have made man first, then woman, then the animals, etc., in a descending scale. I am now quite sure my explanation to Walter about this second creation being a more detailed account of the first is not correct, yet what else could it be? It certainly cannot be a second creation. Let me see, what did Walter say about that _mist_ being a misapprehension that arose among the people as to creation? And that this second narrative was the misapprehension? It sounded reasonable and would be an easy solution to this second creation; but how about this material body of mine, and the rest of the material things? Are we laboring under a misapprehension regarding all these things? Impossible, we could not all make the same mistake; yet according to Walter's explanation this _mist_ watered the whole face of the earth; that means all the people. Where did this mist or misapprehension come from? There is no record of God having made it. What a position for a minister of the gospel to be in, unable to explain the simplest things regarding creation; preaching that man is the image and likeness of God, who is Spirit, and believing man was created out of _dust_ or materially, thereby contradicting the statement, that we are the image and likeness of God, Spirit; for matter is not spirit, but its opposite. I must admit I am very much confused, and I must be able to explain by to-night, for Walter will be disappointed if he cannot continue his lesson this evening. I think I had better read these first two chapters of Genesis over a few more times, and maybe I will be able to see through this confusion. The pastor read and studied until dinner was called, then the entire afternoon. When he laid his book down to come to supper he said, "I am fully convinced that these two narratives are not meant to be the same, nor is one the explanation of the other, for one is the direct opposite of the other. But I cannot decide which is the real, for the Bible speaks as though God was the author of both. Maybe Walter will have some idea that will shed light on the subject. I am astonished at his explanation of that mist; it is so reasonable. It is remarkable that it never occured to me, after the many times I have read it." At the supper table the pastor said, "Walter, what have you been doing all day? I haven't seen you except at dinner, and now at supper." "I have been reading and thinking preparatory to our lesson, as I suppose we will have another lesson this evening." "Yes, Walter, we will continue, although I must confess I am not as well prepared as I should like to be." "Why, James, I thought you were reading the Bible almost all day," said his wife. "So I was, dear, but could not fully satisfy myself as to that second narrative being an explanation of the first; in fact, I came to the conclusion that it was not, but that it is a separate, and distinct narrative." "Do you mean to say that there really were two creations?" asked his wife in a surprised tone. "No, dear, I do not mean that; the fact of the matter is, I cannot find any reasonable solution for there being two accounts of creation, and as this thought had never occured to me before, I have not been able to find a satisfactory explanation. Nevertheless, we will take this subject up in our lesson this evening, and see if we cannot explain it satisfactorily to all concerned. I am going to the library, and when you are ready you can both come there, and we will get an early start." The pastor then quitted the room. Mrs. Williams turned to her son and said, "Walter, I cannot understand how your father can be confused at anything he could find in the Bible, for he was credited with being one of the best Bible students in this part of the country." "I suppose, mother, that it had never occurred to father, that there were two accounts of creation in the Bible, and possibly it had never been pointed out to him. I think though, that before the evening lesson is over we will all understand just why that second account is given. Personally, I have come to a satisfactory conclusion concerning it, and maybe father will agree with me." "Now, Walter, you must not presume to teach your father anything concerning the Bible; he has put years of hard study on it." "I know that is true, mother, but it has often happened that a skilled mechanic has worked for years on some particular thing, and never attained what he was after, and some other person who knew nothing of mechanism discovered the solution without any trouble. It may be so in this case, you or I may say just the thing that will clear up this seeming mystery." "I know that such things have happened, but I would hardly presume to be able to say anything in regard to the Bible that your father has not thought of years ago." Walter did not wish to say anything more on this subject at present, but it had occured to him that if his father had been taught wrong in regard to creation, most likely he had also been mis-taught in regard to the rest of the Bible, for he reasoned that if he started to explain the Bible from the wrong standpoint, that is materially, instead of spiritually, he would necessarily be in error as to the truth of all the teachings of the Bible. CHAPTER VII THE SECOND LESSON It was not long before his mother had finished her work. She then said, "Come, Walter, I am ready now to go to the library." They both entered and found Mr. Williams waiting for them with the Bible open in his hand. He looked up at them as soon as they appeared and said, "I suppose the great question before the class to-night is to decide whether there are one or two creations chronicled in the Bible; and if there are two, which one is the real. Have you arrived at any conclusion in regard to this point, Walter?" "Yes, father, I have. It seems very plain to me now, and if you will allow me, I shall be pleased to give my views regarding these two creations." This was just what the pastor wanted. He wished Walter to speak first, to see what conclusions the boy had arrived at, before he expressed his own opinion, so he readily gave his consent and said, "Speak your mind freely, son, and if I cannot agree with you on all points, we will take up those points afterwards and discuss them." Walter now had the privilege he wanted, but he felt he must be careful not to say too much for fear of awakening his father's suspicion; so he quietly opened the Bible he had brought with him, and read aloud, Genesis 2, 7th verse, "_And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul._" As he finished reading this verse, he looked at his father and said, "You will notice, father, that the Bible says, 'the _Lord God_' formed this dust man, and this is not the same God that created man in his image and likeness. You will also notice that in the first narrative it simply speaks of God creating everything, and in the second narrative it always speaks of the _Lord God_ as having made everything and--" "Wait, Walter," said the pastor hurriedly. He had intended to let Walter say everything he had to say on the subject, but he could not think of allowing his son to bring out the theory that there were two Gods, as this would be worse than the thought of two creations. "You surely are not trying to bring forth the theory that there are two Gods, two supreme powers. I cannot possibly allow you to advance such a thought even in theory, for that would be pantheism." "Please, father, let me finish my explanation. I have no intention of bringing forth a theory upholding two supreme powers, but I desire to show that we are now believing in two supreme powers, and that only one is true and real. Will you please look at the verse I have just read? Notice that it uses the words, _Lord God_, and you will find that this form is used almost all of the way through this second narrative. Now look at the first chapter of Genesis; you will notice that it never speaks of the _Lord God_, but simply of God." The pastor had caught the meaning of what Walter had said, and was now diligently reading first a verse in chapter 1, Genesis, then a corresponding verse in chapter 2. Walter's mother had quietly risen, gone to the bookcase, secured a Bible and was also comparing one with the other. At length the pastor looked up at Walter with a surprised and confused look, and said, "What you say is true, Walter, and I must admit I never noticed this before, but I cannot see that it changes the narratives any. The author or writer simply changed the name he employed to designate Deity, that is all. Still I cannot understand what his reason could have been for making the change. It is also remarkable that the change should take place just at the time it does, at the beginning of the second narrative." "It does seem strange that such a change should be made, if it was not done for a purpose," said Mrs. Williams. "I believe I can explain why the change was made," said Walter. "Very well, Walter," said the pastor, "let us hear your explanation." "Well, father, as I understand it, the first creation is real, it being the work of God. Then the Bible speaks of that _mist_ or misapprehension that arose, and the story told in the second narrative is this misapprehension. Therefore, I should judge that _Lord God_ would mean a man-conceived God; and man, through misapprehending the real character and nature of Deity, believes the earth and man were created according to the second narrative, which would agree with all our present ideas. I mean by this that we all think and believe that God made man materially out of the dust of the earth, while the first account says man was made in the image and likeness of God; and as God is Spirit, man must be spiritual; as a dust or material man cannot be that likeness, because matter is the opposite of spirit. Then again, everything that God made was good--and this dust man is more evil than good; and as God, who is conceded as being all good, made all, and pronounced all He made good, this dust or material man, being evil, was never made, but, through a misapprehension, we think man to be material, and believe him to be the real man. To illustrate what I mean, say some one told you a falsehood and you believed it to be the truth; then the lie would seem true to you. Nevertheless, because you believe this lie to be the truth, it would not make a truth of it, as it would be a lie still, regardless of your belief. In the same way theologists have made a mistake by thinking that this second creation is the real, and have taught all mankind that they originated from dust and must return to dust, and every one believes this; and because every one believes this mistake, it seems like the truth to all of us, but no matter how many believe a lie, it does not make a truth of it; and it is because of this false interpretation that all evil has come upon us, for in the real and spiritual creation there is no mention of evil. It is only after that mist or misapprehension arose that evil is mentioned. Oh, father, if my explanation is the truth, then God did not make evil, did not make sickness; and if He didn't make sickness, it was never made, for the Bible says, God made all that was made, then sickness is also a part of the misapprehension that arose, and is not real, does not exist, only in our mistaken thoughts. In other words, we have all been taking a lie for the truth, and the whole world has been taught this error, and through this mistake we thought it possible for evil to exist when we ought to have known that God could not have made evil, for there is no mention of sin, disease, or death in the first narrative, or real creation." Walter stopped, his face all aglow with joy and happiness. He had risen to his feet while he was speaking and now he looked from father to mother, but he only saw perplexity written on their faces. "Can't you see it, father? mother, didn't I make it plain? It seems so easy for me to understand it now; don't you see what it means to me? It means that I never was sick in reality, that I never need be sick in reality, that I am sick only in belief, that all any one need do to get well is to find out this truth, that sickness is only an illusion, a lie, which the truth will correct. This must be the truth that Jesus Christ spoke of when He said, Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Yes, it has made me free, for it has lifted this cloud of sickness and feebleness from my mind, and I feel perfectly well and strong." Again he looked from one to the other of his parents, on his father's face he saw sorrow written, on his mother's fear. Walter then turned his face upward, and said, "Oh, thou, God, who is all good, who never made evil or sickness, I thank thee for this great truth which thou hast revealed to me. I also desire that thou show this same truth to my father and mother, and I believe that thou wilt, for thy Son, Jesus Christ, hath said that whatever we desire when we pray, we should believe that we receive and we would receive; and I do believe that my desire will be granted, for Jesus Christ would not have said it if it were not true." The Rev. Mr. Williams and his good wife were speechless. The words they had heard and the actions of Walter had caused the father to fear that his son's mind had given way; while the mother thought there was something supernatural about it all, and she felt half inclined to believe that what she had heard was the truth, and that this wisdom was given to her son from on high. Now the pastor advanced to where Walter stood, looked at him inquiringly, laid his hand on his arm, and said, "Sit down, Walter, don't get excited about this question; we will all understand it better after a while." Then looking at his wife, he said, "Mother, don't you think we have had enough Bible lesson for this evening?" His wife was surprised at the question, for she had not thought of Walter as being demented. She could not see why the pastor wished to discontinue the lesson, for they had only begun; but, ever ready to agree with her husband, she answered, "Just as you think, James." Walter looked at his father for a moment, wondering what could be the matter, and as he thought of all he had said, it occured to him that his father must think he had lost his reason; this struck him as so ridiculous that he burst out laughing, more heartily than he had ever done in his life, for he felt better and more free than ever before. But his laughter only made matters worse as it confirmed his father's opinion in regard to his having lost his reason; and now the good man sadly shook his head, saying, "It is worse than I thought." This only made Walter laugh the heartier. The mother looked from her laughing son to her sorrowing husband, wondering what it all meant. At last she said, "James, what is worse than you thought?" Before the pastor could answer, Walter said, "Mother, father thinks I have gone crazy, and this seemed so ridiculous to me that I could not control my laughter." "Crazy!" ejaculated the mother, "did you think that, James?" The pastor did not answer. He had supposed that no one but a demented person would say the things Walter had said, but it certainly was not the act of a demented person to guess what he had thought. "Mother," said Walter, and there was still a healthy smile on his face, "now that I come to think of it, I do not wonder that father thought I had lost my reason, as it would be impossible for him to grasp this great truth as readily as you or I. To do so, he would have to unlearn in these few minutes all that he had ever learned regarding this false creation; with you and I, mother, it would be easier; we only believed, and belief is never absolute conviction, and can more readily be changed. I read a parable to-day that I think will explain what I mean. Jesus said, '_you cannot add any more to a cask already full._' So it is with father; his mind is filled so full of the present idea of God and this material creation, that there cannot enter anything different from this teaching, until some of the old is emptied out. I believe this emptying out process is what is meant by Jesus when He said, '_unless ye become as little children, you can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven._' I take this to mean that we must put human opinion and prejudice aside, and have a free, open, and inquiring mind before this great truth can be understood by us." "Walter," said his father rather sternly, "I think you have said enough on this question. Do you think it common sense for you to put yourself up as a greater authority as to what the Bible means than all the great men who have labored all their lives on the Bible? I do not wonder that I thought for a moment you had lost your reason, as I do not think any sane person would advance such a chimerical idea, and claim it to be the truth, as you have done. I see I have made a mistake in allowing you to question the Bible. Hereafter, I shall read from the Bible and explain it as we proceed, but I will not allow any more comments to be made. In regard to this question of creation, we will consider that closed for the present, and in the near future, probably next Sunday, I will preach a sermon on creation; and as you will undoubtedly both be there, you will see this question made plain. In the meantime I think we will discontinue the lesson, so as to give you a chance to study the Bible. I was not aware that you knew so little of what it contained, for you do not seem to grasp the simplest statements when I explain them to you." Walter was very much astonished at the way his father had taken his explanation, and for a moment was sorry that he had said so much at one time; then he smiled as a happy thought struck him. If his father intended to deliver a thorough sermon on creation, he would be compelled to carefully study Genesis, and Walter believed enough had been said to make his father doubt the second narrative. He felt like saying, "I don't believe you will ever preach that sermon," but instead, he said, "Alright, father, I shall put considerable study on the Bible, as you wish and I am sorry if my explanation has offended you, yet I explained it just as it seemed to me." "Never mind, Walter," said his mother, "we cannot all of us be as well versed on the Bible as your father, who has spent most of his life in the study of it." "Would you suggest, father, that I continue to study Genesis from the place we left off?" "Yes son," said the pastor more kindly, "start from where we left off this evening, and it might be well for you to review what we have passed over, so you will be able to fully understand my sermon when I deliver it." After a few more commonplace remarks, Walter bade his father and mother good night, and ascended to his chamber, carrying his Bible with him. As soon as Walter had left the room, the pastor turned to his wife and said, "I wonder what can have taken possession of that boy, he has changed wonderfully. Whereas he was always speaking of his sickness, and complaining of being weak, he now never refers to his trouble, nor does he complain of being tired any more. And what is more wonderful, he does not walk and act as if he was tired or weak; he also looks cheerful and his explanation was full of vim and courage, even though it was nonsense." "I think, James, it is the work of that last medicine. He has begun to notice that he is getting better, and in his great enthusiasm he ascribes his healing to the goodness of God, and is very desirous of giving thanks for his recovery." "That may be it," said the pastor, "yet I don't see any reason for his talking such nonsense. Some of his assertions are simply absurd; for instance, that assertion about his never having been sick in reality, and that there is no evil; haven't we had the best physicians in the country, and didn't they say he had hereditary consumption. That certainly ought to prove its reality. Besides, he has been gradually growing weaker and weaker under our very eyes." "That is all true, James, yet I do not think all he said was nonsense. It seemed to me that when he was speaking he seemed to glow with a heavenly radiance, and while you thought he had lost his mind, I supposed he was inspired from on high." The pastor sat bolt upright in his chair, and looked at his wife. If this thing kept up much longer he would be demented himself; what was the matter with his family? How could his wife take the nonsense of a boy for inspiration? "Now, James, don't look at me that way; it does not seem so very incredible to me that God should have made everything good, and that the good alone is real, and that evil is unreal, but that we make a reality of it simply by thinking it real. I think that is what Walter was trying to make clear to us. To illustrate, if you should receive word this evening that your brother was killed in a railroad disaster, you would certainly feel sorrowful, and you would say you felt that way because your brother was killed. Now if in the morning your brother should step in the house perfectly well, your sorrow would flee. This would prove that your sorrow was not caused by the death of your brother, but simply because you believed him dead; so it was the belief that caused the sorrow, and not the deed itself." "I can agree with you in regard to your illustration, for it was the belief of my brother's death, and not his real death, as he did not die, that made me sorrowful. But the two cases are not parallel; in the one, nothing had happened, but in the other there is in reality a sick boy, and not simply the report of a sick boy." "Can you not see, James, that if God never made sickness, and He made all there was made, that sickness could not be a reality? And we could not be sick in reality. Yet if we thought ourselves sick and believed what we thought, this would make it seem true to us, though in fact, it was not true. I believe it is just as Walter put it. If we believe a falsehood to be the truth, this falsehood, then, seems like the truth to us. But no matter how often, or how many, believe a lie to be the truth, it still in fact remains a lie." "What you say about the lie, wife, is plain, but sickness is not a lie or a falsehood, it is only too real." "James, if sin, sickness, and death are real, God must have made them, for the Bible says God made everything that was made and pronounced it all very good. It might be possible to stretch the imagination so as to say that sickness, or even death, might be good under certain conditions; but no Christian would agree with you that sin was good. And if we would agree that sickness and death were made by God and were good, then Jesus Christ destroyed the works of God, and at the same time destroyed something that was good." "Oh, James, the more I think of Walter's explanation, the more reasonable it seems, and I cannot get the idea out of my mind that our boy was inspired when he made that explanation." "Lillian, I will admit that never in my whole life have I been so confused on anything as I am in regard to these two narratives of creation. If we admit that the first is the real and was all that was made, whence came all this evil, sin, and sickness into the world, and how did I acquire this material body, and where did all these other material things come from? If we admit that the second creation is of God, then God, in a sense, would be responsible for all the trials and tribulations of man, for God is all-powerful and could have made us better, even to perfection. Now that I think of it, I don't believe the Bible mentions anywhere that God made evil. It speaks of the Lord God cursing the ground, but it does not accuse Him of making evil; and yet God should have made all. Can evil only be a lie, a dream, a delusion, a mistake or misapprehension, as Walter called it? What a state for a minister to be in; why, I believe I am questioning the truth of the Bible." "No, James, I don't think you could properly call that questioning the Bible, you are simply seeking the truth, and I know that when you get into a calmer frame of mind you will readily find it; don't you think we had better retire for to-night? To-morrow you will have time to look up this entire matter." "I suppose we had, as I see no way to satisfy myself except by carefully studying the whole book of Genesis, and I am very doubtful whether I will be able to find what I want even there, for I have often noticed that when a man once begins to doubt the truth of the Bible, he usually ends up as an unbeliever. God grant that this may not happen to me." "O, I have no fear of that," said his wife; "you are too firm a believer in God to ever doubt anything in the Bible." "I hope so, wife, yet I must admit that I am beginning to doubt the genuineness of the second narrative, and for the last fifteen years I have preached the gospel from the standpoint of this second or dust creation. In fact, I could not preach otherwise, as it would be impossible for me to make my congregation believe that they were wholly spiritual, and that they have no material body, had I desired." "Why, James, of course we have a material body, don't we have to feed, clothe, and take care of it?" "That is the way I always believed, but if Walter's idea is correct in regard to that mist, or misapprehension, then the first chapter of Genesis is correct, and in that case we could not possibly have a material body, but only think we have, and because we believe what we think, it would seem so to us. Wife, I am half inclined to think this is the solution, but how can I prove to others, or even myself, that my body is spiritual when it is so very material?" "It is quite surprising to me, James, that you cannot readily explain this part of the Bible, for you have done little else all your life but study the Bible. At any rate, let it rest for to-night; you will, no doubt, get the right thought more readily after a good night's sleep." The pastor rather reluctantly followed his wife out of the room and up stairs. He would have preferred to solve this knotty problem before retiring. He lay awake a long time thinking deeply, and the more he thought the more firmly he believed that Walter was right in his conclusions that the first narrative was the true one. Then the thought came; if this is correct, it will turn the whole world into confusion, for everybody believes in the dust man; in fact, every clergyman I know of is preaching the gospel from this standpoint. It was after midnight before he finally went to sleep. Walter, also, lay awake some time, but he was not trying to solve the question of which was the true narrative; he had fully satisfied himself in regard to this. What he was trying to do was to think of some way to convince his father and mother in regard to it. CHAPTER VIII THE THIRD LESSON Nearly two months had passed since the evening of the last Bible lesson. Walter was so interested in studying the Bible and "Science and Health," that he did not notice the dreary winter days. Besides, he was gaining very rapidly in strength and flesh to the great joy of his parents. His mother had some time ago noticed that he did not take his medicine, and spoke to him about it. He answered her in a very positive, but gentle tone, "No, mother, I am not taking any medicine and never intend to take any more, for I am now depending entirely on God, and He is making me well." His mother had asked him when he had stopped taking it, and he said, "I determined never again to take medicine the night I realized the unreality of sickness, as it would be very foolish to take medicine to cure me of something which in reality did not exist." Both his father and mother tried to persuade him to continue taking his medicine, as they believed his improvement was due to this last kind he had been taking. Walter knew better, so had said, "Please allow me to leave off taking it for a short time, and if I do not continue to improve, I will start taking it again to please you." It had been left that way, although his parents were averse to his stopping at the very time he seemed to be gaining. They watched him closely, but he continued to improve so steadily and rapidly, that taking medicine had not been mentioned to him again. His mother continued taking hers, but showed no improvement. Many times Walter asked his father when he would take up their Bible lessons again; but his father never seemed ready. He noticed that his father always seemed to be in a very thoughtful mood. The boy knew what was the cause of it, and several times had tried to engage his father in conversation regarding creation or some other part of the Bible, as he desired to point out the truth to him. But his father always dropped the subject as soon as possible, nor had he preached his sermon on creation as he had promised. The pastor daily studied his Bible and was taking copious notes as he read, but did not seem to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Many times he wondered at the little things Walter would say about the Bible, and on several occasions he had made up his mind to ask him some questions, but he disliked to let the boy know of his own inability to understand the Bible. He wondered if his wife was right in regard to the boy's being inspired. How else could he account for some of the things Walter said. On several occasions he had taken the trouble to prove his assertions, and found to his surprise that the Bible easily substantiated what the boy had said. This was the state of affairs on a January afternoon when the pastor said to himself, "come what will, I am going to continue those Bible lessons this evening. What Walter said brought me into this darkness and confusion and it is possible he may say something that will show me the light." That evening at supper the pastor surprised his wife and son by saying, "If it is agreeable to you both, we will continue our Bible lessons this evening." They readily assented, and as soon as Mrs. Williams had finished her work, they repaired to the library. As soon as they were seated the pastor said, "Well, Walter, have you changed your mind in regard to which of the two narratives regarding creation is the correct one?" "No, father, I have not. I have put considerable more study on that subject since our last lesson, and I am now fully satisfied and convinced that the view expressed in regard to the first narrative being the true one is correct." "Walter, I believe you are right. I have been studying and thinking all of these two months, and have come to the same conclusion regarding creation. Yet in no way have I been able to explain away all these material things and this material body." "James, have you come to the conclusion that everything is spiritual?" asked his wife. "Yes, Lillian, for there are only two conclusions to arrive at, either God is the creator spoken of in the first narrative where everything was made by the Word, or spiritually, and is pronounced very good, or else God is the creator spoken of in the second narrative and therefore He would be the creator of all this evil, sickness, sin, and death, with all the other dire calamities we are subjected to. And since I have thought and studied on this question, I cannot conceive of our Heavenly Father being the cause of all our troubles, who are His children, any more than I would bring such a visitation on my family. So of the two, I prefer believing that God made everything good as described in the first narrative, as it is impossible to believe both, for they are direct opposites. What bothers me is this material body and everything else that is material." "Father, I believe I can throw some light on that subject if you will allow me." His father looked at him for a moment, undecided whether to ask him to explain or not, for his last explanation had caused all his confusion, yet, as he thought of it, he now agreed with that explanation. Maybe the boy was inspired and he was doing wrong in not hearing what he had to say. Anyway, his getting well without the use of doctors or drugs was little short of a miracle to him, so he decided to have him explain, and said, "I will hear what you have to say on this subject, Walter, but be careful not to say anything ridiculous." Walter smiled; he had learned a lesson the time he made his explanation regarding creation, and he did not intend that his enthusiasm should cause him to say too much this time and thereby make the same mistake he had made before. So he simply asked his father a question. "Did not everybody think the earth was flat years ago?" "Yes, Walter, but what has that to do with our material bodies?" "Did everybody believe it, father?" "Certainly, for they did not know different" "Did their thinking so make it so?" "Most assuredly not, as you well know, Walter, the earth was always round." "And even though they believed this mistake regarding the earth, it did not change the earth any, did it, father?" "No, but why these questions?" "Only this, father, that this is just what we have been long doing regarding our bodies, thinking that they were material and believing it, but our mistaken thought regarding our bodies has not in reality changed them, any more than the thought that the earth was flat changed the earth. It seemed flat to those who believed it flat, though the truth was that the earth was round in reality. So with our bodies; they are material to us who believe them so, but in truth or reality, they are spiritual." "I can readily agree with you in regard to the earth, because we know that it always was round, but we cannot prove that the body is spiritual." "That is just the point, father. We can readily admit that the earth is round after it has been proven so; still before this proof was furnished the people would not admit it, any more than we will admit that our bodies are spiritual. Nevertheless the earth was round before it was proven so, and so with the body being spiritual. The proof of its spirituality does not change it any, as it will always remain as God made it, regardless of what man thinks or believes about it, nevertheless, Jesus Christ on several occasions proved the body to be spiritual and the proof that He done so is contained in the Bible, He also said 'Blessed are they who believe and do not see.'" "I know Jesus Christ said that, but that was about something entirely different. You could hardly want me to believe something I could not see or prove, for you know, Walter, the old saying is that seeing is believing." Walter immediately thought of what "Science and Health" said on this subject, so he said, "Can we always believe what we see?" "Yes, I think so, son." "Father, if you were to look out of this window to-morrow morning you would see in the distance where the heaven and earth seemed to meet; would you believe they did?" "Certainly not, for I know better." "Still you say, seeing is believing." His father leaned back in his chair and regarded his son critically; was the boy inspired? How else could he account for his intelligence? What was he to hear next, should he ask any more questions? Yes, he would ask him something more about this material body: "Walter is there anything in the Bible that you know of wherewith to substantiate your claim of a spiritual body?" "I think there is, father. Jesus Christ must have known that his body was spiritual, and not material, for if his body had been material he could not have walked on the water, and in several places it speaks of Jesus becoming invisible to those around him." "I know, son, but Jesus Christ was the Son of God." "That is true, father, so are we, I distinctly remember reading in St. John--'now are we the sons of God.' St. Paul also speaks of us as sons of God and joint heirs with Christ." The Rev. Williams slowly closed the Bible he had been holding open on his knee and looked at his son. Where would this thing end? He must try and confine the boy to one thing at a time, so he said, "I am still in the dark concerning your idea of how the material body came to be." "Father, I will quote you again from the Bible--'as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he' This means that if you think anything, no matter what, and believe what you think, then so it is with you, and it seems true to you. For instance, take a person that is demented, who imagines he is King George, and believes it; to himself he is king George and no one can make him believe otherwise." "That may be true of one who is demented, but how about a sane person?" "This person may be sane on every topic but that one. Still I will give you another illustration of what the wrong thought on any subject will do. I read a while ago about some college students who decided to play a joke on their professor. This professor had several blocks to walk to the college, and the students decided to place themselves at frequent intervals along his path, and each one was to comment on how badly he looked, and intimate to him that he was sick. So on a certain morning as the professor was walking to the college (and he was feeling as well as usual), the first person he met was one of the students who greeted him warmly with a hearty 'good morning' and then added, 'What is the matter, professor, are you sick?' The professor said, 'No, I am feeling as well as usual; why do you ask?' The student then told him he looked very pale, and that he thought he must surely be sick. The professor then assured the student that he was feeling well and started toward the college. The next student he met also told him he looked sick; this was repeated several times, and caused the professor to imagine there must be something wrong. After meeting several more of the jokers he began to think he must be sick. Then being told the same thing a few more times, he believed he was sick, or believed what he thought, and turned back home a very sick man. So it is with us, we think we have material bodies, and because we believe what we think, it makes it seem true to us, even though it is not the truth." "A very good illustration, Walter, I think I understand what you mean. If we all thought our bodies were spiritual and believed what we thought, then our bodies would be spiritual; in other words, whichever way we thought and believed, so it would really be." "No father, that is not quite right. Simply thinking you are sick or well and believing it does not make you sick, or well, in reality; it only seems to do it to our mistaken mortal sense of things; the truth of anything remains the truth, regardless of how many falsehoods are told about it." "Am I to understand Walter, that no matter what I or others may think or believe about this body, it does not change the facts regarding it, but only seems to do so to our senses?" "That is just what I mean. God made us in His image and likeness, and as He is Spirit we must be like Him or spiritual, for matter is not the likeness of Spirit, but its opposite." "That seems quite reasonable, Walter," said his mother, "but this material body is here, I can see it and feel it." "It only seems to be material, mother, because we take our information from our five material senses; and as these five senses can only testify regarding material things because of their materiality, they do not testify to the truth, or reality, of man and the universe." "But Walter," said the pastor, "if I am not to believe the testimony of my five senses, how am I to know anything?" "The five material senses are continually deceiving us. The sense of sight I have spoken of before, but will give you a different illustration that shows up the deception of all the senses." "Father, do you believe life to be a reality?" "I certainly do." "Can you see life?" "I hardly know how to answer that, I can see that you are alive. No, I shall say we can not see life itself, but only the manifestation of life." "I agree with you, father, we cannot see life itself. Can we hear life?" "No." "Can we touch life?" "No." "Can we smell life?" "No." "Can we taste life?" "No." "Then our five material senses do not testify anything regarding a reality, for you said life was a reality." The pastor and his wife were very much surprised at Walter's ability to explain these things, and his mother was fully convinced of his being inspired, and the father was fast coming to the same conclusion. "Did you understand me, father?" "Yes, fully, you made it very plain." "Now, father, would you say that the opposite of a reality was an unreality?" The pastor hesitated, hardly daring to answer; at length he said, "Yes, it must be." "Is not death the opposite of life, father?" "Yes, Walter." "Then if life is real, its opposite, or death, must be unreal; can you agree with me, father?" He always addressed his father, for his mother was showing by the nod of her head that she fully agreed with him." "I must say, Walter, that I do agree with you, to quite an extent; but, I shall have to think it all over carefully before I will be fully convinced." Walter then continued: "We have found that the five senses do not testify regarding a reality, now let us see if they testify regarding an unreality. As we had agreed that death was the opposite of life and that life was real and death unreal, we will take death as our example. When a person dies, we say life, or the reality has flown, and the unreality, the material or dead body, remains. Do our five material senses testify anything regarding this unreality or dead body? Yes, all five of them, for we can see this unreality with the eye. If we move this unreality, we hear it move with the ear. If we reach forth our hand we can touch it. After decomposition sets in, we can smell it; and if we would put a piece of it into our mouth, as we do of the dead cow or bird, we could even taste this unreality. This ought to convince us of the unreliability of the knowledge transmitted to us by the five senses; for, as I have shown, they all say the unreal is real and that the real is unreal. St. Paul said, 'To be carnally minded is death, and to be spiritually minded is life eternal.'" "I know that St. Paul said this, but do not see as it has any bearing on the question we are discussing," said the pastor. "On the contrary, father, I think it is a verification of what I have been illustrating." "Can you explain what you mean, Walter, so your mother and I will understand?" "To me it seems plain, the carnal mind is the fleshly mind, which thinks everything is material; and this method of thinking leads to the belief in a material body and eventually in the death, or unreality, of this material body, the returning of the fleshly body to its original state, dust to dust, the real meaning of which I think is, nothing you were, to nothing you must return, for only the real is eternal." "Walter, where do you get that definition of the word dust?" "I take it from what is implied in the 2d chapter of Genesis, 7th verse, where it reads, '_And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground_'; as there is no record of any dust having been made, it is very easy to see that dust must be the name given to designate something that exists only in our imagination, a false sense of the real, an illusion, and this 'Lord God' the suppositional creator of material things, is the false or material sense of God entertained by us mortals, and only exists in our imagination. I believe our prayers are unanswered for this very reason that the God we have been praying to exists in our imagination only and is a man-made God, or, as I said before, a God conceived by man." "Not so fast, Walter; let us finish one thing at a time. Your explanation of the dust man is very reasonable, but I don't see where you get your authority for calling dust an unreality, or illusion." "Father, I thought we had agreed that there was a hidden, or spiritual, meaning to all that was written in the Bible, and I think what I have said about this dust or material man is this meaning; take for instance, the first verse of chapter 3 of Genesis, which reads, _'Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.'_ Now, father, who ever heard of a talking snake. No one. It is only a myth, and I believe this snake was used to symbolize the narrator's idea of evil, tempting the children of God, Good, to do evil. "Another illustration that this second narrative is metaphorically written is in Genesis 2, 9th verse, which reads: _'And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.'_ We can readily agree that there is no tree that bears fruit called good and evil, so this word 'tree' is used metaphorically, and stands for something quite different." Here Walter stopped and looked at his father to see what effect his speech was having on him, also because he thought he had said enough for one time. But his father was leaning slightly forward and had been drinking in every word the boy was saying, as he was fully convinced that his son did not of himself know all these things about the Bible, and, consequently, it must be that he was inspired. The mother had the same opinion, so did not care to interrupt him. Walter continued looking from one to the other not knowing what to make of their silence and the knowing look which passed between them, as he did not know that they thought him inspired. At length the father, said, "Walter, do you know what is meant by the word 'tree' in that verse?" "I think I do, father; to me it stands for the word, 'thought,' for this seems to bring out the spiritual meaning of the verse; for instance, if we would read the verse this way, 'Every thought that is pleasant to the sight, i. e., understanding, and good for food, the thought of life also in the midst of the garden and the thought or belief in good and evil'; this may not be correct, but it at least makes it plain to me. And when we remember that Adam and Eve were allowed to eat of all the trees excepting this tree of knowledge of good and evil, it seems to me that they were forbidden to believe that both good and evil were real, in other words, to believe that both spirit and matter existed; for as soon as they would eat or believed in materiality the penalty would be death, as they were believing in something that did not in reality exist. This false belief must in the end inevitably result in death or annihilation, as it is this false belief of life as existent in matter, or material body, that dies and is annihilated, for the real or spiritual man cannot die." "What do you mean by spiritual man?" "The Bible says: 'God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.' Let us define this word omniscient. In a common sense way, 'omni' means all, and 'scientia' means science, then it would be proper to say, 'God is all science, and science is perfect intelligence,' for the scientific reality concerning anything, is the perfect intelligence pertaining thereto. We can now say, 'God is all intelligence,' the word 'all' includes our intelligence, then God is the intelligence, the thinking ability, or mind, of man." "Walter, do you wish to intimate that the brain is God?" "No, father, the brain cannot think." "Walter, this is nonsense, of course the brain thinks, we certainly do not think with our hands or feet." "Just a moment, father, and we will see if the brain has the ability to think. Supposing we take it out and lay it on a platter, does it think?" "Certainly not, it is not in its proper place," said his father. "It seems to me, that if the brain had the ability in itself to think, it could do so no matter what place it occupied." "No, Walter, that would not be a fair illustration." "All right father, we will now take another example. Say a man should drop dead on the street from apoplexy; there lies his material body, his brain occupies its accustomed place, not having been disturbed at all, yet you would not say that his brain had the ability to think?" "But the man was dead, life had flown," said Mr. Williams. "Then it is Life that has in itself the ability to think, for everything else is there, in its proper place, and what is the life of a man but his consciousness, his intelligence, his mind. Now we have arrived at the same point in our reasoning where we were before, that God is Mind, intelligence, the Life of man, and that brains cannot think. You see, father, the brain is also matter, the same as the rest of our material body, that is, dust, or as I explained before, nothing; an illusion, or false conception." "Do you mean to say I have no body at all?" "No, father, what I mean is that man has taken a false view of his body by thinking it material when in reality it is spiritual, as is all the rest of the universe; for God, Spirit could not make a material world, as matter is the opposite of spirit." The Rev. Mr. Williams leaned his head on his hand and was thinking deeply. Could Walter's explanation be the truth? He could see when what we called death occurred the consciousness, intelligence, or what we called life, seemed to leave the body and thereafter the body was inanimate, and in time returned to dust. Reasoning from this standpoint, he could agree that life and intelligence were the same, and that the intelligence of man was his mind was also plain, but that Mind was God, was beyond his comprehension, because he had always conceived of mind and brain as being the same, consequently, that the brain had the power of thought. Yet Walter's explanation concerning the inability of the brain, in the corpse, to think, and that it was as material as the rest of the body was quite convincing that brain, in itself, did not contain the power of thought. Was the boy right regarding the word omniscient? If so, it would be very easy to agree with him when he said that God was the intelligence or mind of man; he, himself, believed in an all intelligent creator. Walter all this while had been waiting for his father or mother to express themselves, as they did not, he said: "If we can agree that Mind is God, then it is very easy to conceive of man as the image and likeness of God, and this image would be spiritual and not material." His father looked up at him but did not speak. His mother said: "How would that help it, Walter?" "If we reason from the standpoint that Mind is the creative force or first cause, and as we know that like produces like, it would be impossible for the creative force, or Mind, to produce matter, for matter is the opposite of mind. Now let us see what Mind does create,--why thoughts or ideas and nothing else, so we see that man is a thought, or a number of them, or idea emanating from the one Mind or creative force and the idea or thought must be the image and likeness of the mind or intelligence that conceived it. This would give us a spiritual man, who in reality would be the image and likeness of the real God." "Walter," said his father, "I cannot stand to hear any more to-night, I will not say that you are right or wrong, as I must have time to think, and the more I hear you say, the more in the dark I seem to be, besides it is getting quite late and it is time we were retiring." "I hope you are not angry for my presuming to explain the Bible as I see it, for I believe I am right; in fact, I have had proof sufficient to convince me that it cannot be otherwise." "No Walter, I am not angry, but very badly mixed up in my reasoning because of the peculiar views you entertain concerning God and man. What proof have you had that you are right?" "Through these peculiar views as you call them, I am being restored to health; in fact, I believe every symptom has gone forever, and that I am entirely well, besides I feel so happy, contented, and free that I can hardly wait for the day when mother will understand, and be free from her bondage." "If understanding will make her free I pray God that He will give her such understanding, but I cannot see what connection understanding can possibly have with sickness." "You know, father, Jesus Christ said, 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' The question is, free from what? For the men He was speaking to answered Him saying: 'We be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any man, how sayest thou then, ye shall be free?' Jesus Christ answered them, 'Verily, verily I say unto you, whosoever commiteth sin, is the servant of sin.' At another time as related in Matthew 9:5, Jesus Christ intimated that sin and sickness were one and the same. He said to the _sick_ man, 'Son, be of good cheer, thy _sins_ are forgiven thee,' and certain of the scribes said, 'This man blasphemeth.' Jesus Christ, knowing what they were thinking and saying, said, 'Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts, for whither is easier to say, thy sins are forgiven thee or to say, arise and walk.' If we can now agree that sin and sickness are the same, we could say with Jesus Christ, 'Verily, verily I say unto you, whosoever commiteth (sickness) sin, is the servant of sickness,' for we certainly are the slaves of any sickness that we claim to have, and give it the power to rule us with a rod of iron, and in doing so, we sin against the first commandment, 'Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,' as we are making a God or power of our sickness. And if we take medicine, we are giving the medicine power to heal, or making a God of it, and in doing so we break the same commandment. Now, father, good-night, and I hope by a careful perusal of the Bible on this subject you will be able to agree with me. Good-night, mother." "Good-night, Walter," said both his father and mother, as he turned to leave the room. As soon as he was gone Mrs. Williams turned to the pastor and said: "To-night you must surely agree with me that the boy is inspired." The pastor looked up at her and said, "That is the only way I can account for the wonderful things he says. I must admit he has gone far beyond me, in his understanding of the Bible. I intend to put in the next few days in verifying his explanations." "James, do you think the boy can be right in regard to sickness and sin being the same?" "There is hardly any other conclusion to arrive at, if we believe the words of Jesus Christ. Now let us go to bed, as it is quite late." CHAPTER IX THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE JOURNAL Bright and early the next morning Walter was up and reading in "Science and Health." After reading some little time, he heard his mother calling him to breakfast. He laid his book down and said: "This is the most wonderful book I ever read; no matter how many times I read it over, it seems like a new book, and sometimes I wonder if I had not skipped some of it when I read it before, as there are many things I see in it now that I did not see before. I suppose it is because I did not understand it all the first time." Shortly after breakfast, his mother asked Walter to do an errand for her down town. On the way he began to wonder if Christian Scientists had a church or meeting-place, he also wished he knew of some one who was a Scientist, as he desired very much to ask some questions, particularly in regard to his mother's illness. On his return from town, he was compelled to wait several moments at a railroad crossing near the depot, and as he stepped inside his eye caught sight of a little bracket nailed to the wall. In the bracket was a book, and on the cover in large print were the words, "Christian Science Journal." Walter hastily walked over to the wall, took the book, and began to examine it. He saw it was published monthly in Boston. Opening the book, he saw the first part was reading matter, and as he turned page after page, he came to where he saw, "List of organized churches of Christ, Scientist." Immediately he began looking if there was a church in his town. He noticed that the names of the towns and cities were arranged alphabetically. After searching for a moment he said, "Yes, here it is, 'Mapelton, Vermont. First church of Christ, Scientist, First Reader, John J. Sivad; Services 10:45 A. M., Sunday School 12 M., Wednesday 7:45 P. M., Number 52 Squirrel Ave., on Island. Reading-room same address, 2 to 4 P. M.' Why, that is only five or six blocks from my home; I wish I could go to their service. I may some day. They seem to have a great many churches; there are eight in Chicago alone; three in Cleveland, Ohio; three in Kansas City; three in London, England; six in New York City; two in New Orleans, La.; three in Portland; one in Paris, France; one in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. "Why, they seem to be in every city in the world." He continued to read and turned the pages until he came to a page where he saw printed, "Addresses of Christian Science Practitioners." "I wonder what they mean by practitioner; it must mean those who practice Christian Science, but I should think every Christian Scientist would practice what he knows. I wonder if there are any in Mapelton; let me see, they are all classified in states and cities; yes, there is Mapelton. There are three of them here. "Mrs. F. S. White, C. S., 281 N. Grant St. "Mrs. M. J. Sivad, C. S., 742 Upland Court. "Mrs. L. S. Poor, C. S., 45 Napoleon Ave. "I wonder if all practitioners are women; no, here is Mr. Sherman Bradford; here is another man; Oh, yes, there are a good many men, but there are more women than men. I know Mrs. White; her husband used to keep a shoe store, and Mrs. M. J. Sivad is that lovely lady who lives in a beautiful large mansion in Upland Court, the finest street in town; her husband is a retired merchant. And Mrs. L. S. Poor is that tall, stately looking lady that passes by our house so often. I must have a talk with them some time. Now I must hurry home or mother will think something has happened." Arriving home, he told his mother he had stopped at the depot, and that this was the reason of his delay. Walter was now so well and strong that his parents did not worry much about him, but Walter and his father were quite alarmed at Mrs. William's condition, for she had been failing rapidly for the last month and was so weak that it was almost impossible for her to do her accustomed work. Walter and his father did all they could to help her and made her work as light as possible. It was several days later when his mother felt so ill that she could not get up at all, and so Walter decided to go to one of the practitioners for advice, which he did that same afternoon. He told the practitioner of his illness and of his finding "Science and Health" and that the reading and study of the book had cured him; also that his mother was sick, that he was a minister's son, and his father was very much opposed to Christian Science. He also told her of their Bible lessons and of the confusion of his father. The practitioner told him that the word practitioner was used instead of doctor or healer and that this was her profession, healing the sick, and that she would be pleased to help him all she could, but that she had no right to treat his mother without her consent. Walter assured her that it would be impossible to get either his father or mother's consent, for they refused to have him treated at one time when a friend had suggested it. The practitioner then said, "Well, Mr. Williams, your work is before you. Truth has found you, and Truth will show you a way out of your seeming trouble. Trust God and never doubt His wisdom, for God, Good, works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; you must hold in thought that everything will come to pass as you wish it, and if you can persuade your father to have a talk with me, let me know, and I will be pleased to come." Thanking the practitioner for her advice, Walter left the house and started home. He was not fully satisfied with his visit; many of the questions he had asked the practitioner remained unanswered, as he supposed, for the practitioner always referred him to "Science and Health." In answer to one of his most important questions, she said, "'Science and Health,' page so and so, says thus--"and then she would quote something from the book, but he could see no connection between his question and the quotation. When he arrived home he decided to tell his father all and try to persuade him to have his mother treated by a Christian Science practitioner. CHAPTER X HUMANITY'S MISTAKE The same evening Walter went into the library to see his father, and found him seated at his desk with his Bible open before him. As Walter seated himself near the desk, his father looked up and asked, "What is it, Walter?" "I came to have a little talk with you, father." "I am glad you did, as there are several questions I wanted to ask you, one of which is in regard to that saying of Jesus Christ--'ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free'-you explained before but I did not catch your meaning." "Let us use an illustration to show what is meant by that saying. For instance, supposing we had been taught from childhood that two times two are five, and every person on earth believed this to be right, we would all go through life making this mistake. There would be constant trouble all over the mathematical world because of it, and when we tried to rectify this trouble we would use this same mistake in trying to arrive at a true answer. At times we would deceive ourselves and believe we were right, only to find later on that we were in deeper trouble. And when we had children of our own, we would still teach them the same as we were taught that two times two are five, and the longer the world stood, the greater would become this mistake, as no one knew the truth that two times two were only four; yet all this time the principle of mathematics existed and was correct, but man knew it not. Now father, imagine how great and widespread this mistake would become in several thousands of years, and how hard it would be to convince the people of their mistake, especially the professor of mathematics who had devoted a lifetime to proving that this mistake was the truth. You can readily see it would be much easier for the child who had never learned or believed in the mistake to grasp this truth than the professor who believed that the mistake was correct. Supposing that while these conditions existed some one should discover the truth, that two times two are four, and would bring it before the world; would not the learned professor ridicule the idea and say two times two have been five since the beginning of the world, and for any one to say different is nonsense? Could you induce him to investigate? No; why? Because he thinks he knows all about it, and that it would be a waste of time to investigate what he supposes is nonsense. So it is with man. For thousands of years he has been taught that he has a material body and that this body is intelligent, and knows when it has a toe that aches or a stomach that is out of order, or an arm that it can not move, etc., throughout all the ills that flesh is heir to. And when man gets in trouble through this mistaken teaching, we try to correct the trouble by making the same mistake again; for it was through the belief that man has a material body and that matter is intelligent that all this trouble came about, and now we try to correct the trouble by using more matter in the guise of medicine. "If we had insisted on the professor of mathematics who was using the mistake of two times two are five in his work, to give us a correct answer every time, he would be compelled to say that it was an impossibility. If you were to ask why, he would say, because the principle of mathematics isn't correct; he could not say otherwise, as he did not know that the mistake had been made in teaching him that two times two are five. So it is with man, when he gets so deeply in trouble that he cannot see any way out he lays his trouble to God and blames his perfect Principle, when the truth is that the mistake is not with the Principle, but with his own false belief, brought about by his being taught a mistake." Walter stopped and looked at his father, but he said nothing, so he continued, "And when man goes to the professor of Christianity, the minister, and asks why all this trouble and sickness has come upon him, the answer is the same as the professor of mathematics made, by saying it must be the will of God--thereby intimating that God was the author of his troubles; in other words, that the Principle of man must be wrong. Instead of showing him that God, who is all good, could not make evil, and consequently, he must be suffering through a false belief brought about by being taught a mistake. Now let us suppose that some one should discover that man was spiritual and had a spiritual body, that the entire universe was spiritual and matter did not exist only as a false belief; that God made everything good, consequently there could be no evil, and that evil existed only in belief. If the one who discovered this truth should try to convince the professor of Christianity, the minister, that God made only the good and the evil did not exist, the professor would say, thou blasphemest, God made everything--if he should advance the thought that man was wholly spiritual, the professor would ridicule him, and say you must be mistaken, my body is material. I can feel it, and every man's body has been so since the beginning of the world. If the discoverer insisted that everything was spiritual in reality, these learned professors would say the discoverer was insane, and then try to pass laws prohibiting the teaching of this truth. In olden times they did somewhat differently; the learned professors of that day crucified the demonstrator of this truth. It was Jesus Christ, and His students were called His disciples; later when they went forth to preach the Gospel, 'good spell,' (or truth), and heal the sick, they were called apostles. The rediscoverer of this Truth at the present time is Mary Baker G. Eddy, and her students are called Christian Scientists; and later, when they go forth to preach the Gospel or Truth, and heal the sick, they are called Christian Science Practitioners, and he who condemns her teachings condemns the Truth, the same as the scribes and pharisees condemned the teachings of Jesus Christ; and it is the understanding of this Truth that sets us free, as Jesus Christ said it would." For several minutes the pastor did nothing but lean back in his chair and stare at his son; then he said, "Walter do you mean to tell me that you received all this information pertaining to the Bible from a Christian Scientist?" "No, father, what I know of the Bible and the explanations I have been able to make regarding the sayings of Jesus Christ, together with what I have said about the real meaning of creation as narrated in Genesis, I have learned by careful study of the Christian Science text book, 'Science and Health,' with key to the scriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy, and by comparing the writings in this book with the Bible, I have become fully convinced that Christian Science, as explained in 'Science and Health' is the same Truth that Jesus Christ taught His disciples. Jesus Christ said, 'These signs shall follow them that believe, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover,' etc. Christian Science practitioners are doing this, and the signs spoken of by Jesus Christ follow their work. As yet I have only learned a few of the simplest things pertaining to this science, but this little helped me much." "But, Walter, how do we know that it is not the work of the evil one? or a trick of the devil to lead you astray? I am very much afraid that you did wrong in not asking me about this teaching before you filled your mind so full of it." "Father, you surely must agree that the things I have explained to you regarding the Bible are true, or at least nearer right than the way you were taught; and if you will only study 'Science and Health' you will soon agree with me." "Walter, I have had enough of this; you have heard me express my views regarding this heretical idea; now I must insist that you stop reading such nonsense at once, I will admit that some of your statements seemed very plausible, but there is no proof that they are true." "Father, I must speak more on this subject even though you accuse me of disobedience. I have ample proof that Christian Science is true, and that the signs do follow their teachings. One proof is that it was through the understanding I gained by the study of 'Science and Health' that I am well to-day." "Oh, pshaw, the idea that reading a book could have healed you of consumption! I credited you with more intelligence than that." "It was not the reading of the book that healed me, it was the understanding of the truth this book contains that showed me the way out of my troubles; for if I had not found and studied this book I would probably not be with you now." "Did you say you found this book?" "Yes, Thanksgiving day, between the church and our home. At first I was afraid to read it, and probably would not have read it if it had not been for an incident that happened on our last trip to the South." "What incident was that? I don't believe I heard anything about it." "One day as mother and I were walking along the street, a lady approached us, and among other things made the remark that she read 'Science and Health' every day, and the reading of the book had healed her of some severe disease. This lady did not look like a bad person, so I thought if the book had healed her, it might me, and the truth it contains has done so." "You have certainly gained a great deal in health since Thanksgiving day, but may not this be the work of the devil to lead you astray?" "Father do you think it a good thing that I am well?" "What a question, why certainly I do." "Did you ever hear of the devil doing a good thing?" The pastor looked surprised, but answered, "No." "Then why do you say that maybe my getting well is the work of the devil?" The pastor could not find a ready answer, after a moment he said, "As I said before, I don't want anything to do with Christian Science, be it good or bad, and it will please me if you will never mention it to me again." "Oh, father, I must speak of it to you for--" "Silence! I will hear no more of it." "But father, listen to--" "Walter, I forbid you to speak to me on the subject again." "Father, I must speak!" "Do you dare disobey me?" "Yes! for my mother's life depends upon my speaking. Let me speak this once on this subject, and I will agree never to mention Christian Science to you again unless you wish it." The pastor's anger had been rising, but when Walter said his mother's life depended on his speaking, every particle of color left his face, and the anger vanished at once. He looked at Walter and saw he was dreadfully in earnest, so he said, "Speak this once, I will hear you." "Father it was through the reading of 'Science and Health' that I was healed of the dread disease that is even now threatening the life of my mother; and as soon as I was convinced of the truth of this teaching I called upon a practitioner, asking her for advice regarding my mother's illness and asked her to give mother treatment. I did this without your consent, as I knew how prejudiced you both were regarding this subject, but the practitioner kindly told me she would not treat mother without her consent. And I knew mother would never consent to take treatment if you were opposed to it, so I felt I must gain your consent first. The practitioner would be pleased to come and talk with you on this subject at any time." "No doubt of it, but I will have nothing to do with Christian Science." "Oh, father, don't say that; you must be even more prejudiced than I thought." "Yes, I am prejudiced, against all such nonsense." "Father, will nothing change your views?" said Walter rather coldly. "No, nothing." "Then father, forever hereafter, I will ascribe the death of my mother to your unreasoning prejudice against Christian Science, for the medical profession cannot cure her, but Christian Science can." As Walter finished speaking, he arose from his chair and left the room; he immediately proceeded to his own bed-chamber, as he felt he must be alone, for he was terribly hurt by his father's prejudice against something which he admitted he had never investigated. Walter had always supposed that his father was very broad-minded, but in this instance he thought him very narrow, condemning something he knew nothing about, in fact could not be induced to investigate or try, even though his dearly beloved wife's life might be saved by a trial. It was at least a half hour before Walter could calm himself enough to think clearly. Then like a flash he remembered one of the sayings of the practitioner when he had told her that he thought he would have trouble in persuading his father to try Christian Science. She said, "Truth has found you and Truth will lead you out of your trouble." He now bowed his head and said, "Oh, God, I had forgotten that thou art an ever-present help in time of trouble." He then secured his "Science and Health" and after reading for some time he stopped and said: "Here is what I have been looking for." Then he slowly read, aloud, "God, Good, is not the creator of evil." Continuing to soliloquize he said, "Of course not, God is Good, and Good could not make evil. Then evil does not exist, for God made everything that was made. Is prejudice an evil?" "Certainly; then it does not exist in reality, but only seems to exist, because of the false report of the material senses. Then my father cannot be prejudiced. This must be what the author of 'Science and Health' called 'error,' and when the truth is declared pertaining to any error, that error ceases to exist-for an error can only exist as long as we believe the error to be the truth. When we discover the truth respecting a lie, the lie is gone, for truth has taken its place; the truth is there all the time, but we cannot see the truth because we believe the lie. "I see my error very plainly now. I believed my father was prejudiced, and this was an error; in other words I believed a lie to be the truth. The real truth is that God never made prejudice and it does not exist, so my father could not express it, but it only seemed so to me, just as my sickness seemed real to me until I discovered that God never made it, but I had to prove it to myself before I could believe, or understand it, and as rapidly as I understood the truth regarding the error of sickness, just in the same proportion did the sickness disappear and the truth or health appear. Health was there all the time, but I thought I was sick, and my believing what I thought made the unreal seem real to me. I see now what that practitioner meant when she said my work was before me. I have another demonstration to make, at least that is what I saw it called in that Christian Science Journal. It means that I must demonstrate the truth regarding the existence of prejudice. It is easy enough for me to say it does not exist or to believe God never made it, and this would be a step in the right direction; but to annul this error entirely, I must be able to prove to myself, its nonexistence; that means I must fully understand the nothingness of evil under the guise of prejudice, and realize the ever-presence of Good, for if God (Good) is ever present, prejudice, or evil, is never present; now I must get to work. "I made my first demonstration with the help of the Bible and 'Science and Health,' and with their help I will make this one." It was nearly midnight before he stopped his work. He was not afraid of his mother calling in to see him, as she had been unable to leave her bed for several days, his father had been compelled to hire a servant to do the housework, and she was coming in the morning. The Rev. Williams did not retire until long after midnight; he also had the same evil to fight, for he had admitted that he was prejudiced and so his prejudice seemed real to him. When Walter had first quitted the room, the pastor thought of calling him back and giving him a severe reprimand; but as he thought of all the misery the boy had been through in these many years of sickness, he decided not to do it. He then began to think of all that Walter had said throughout the Bible lessons and his thoughts were as follows "I cannot help admitting that a great many things he said seemed nonsense at first, but after a careful research of the Bible I found them fully substantiated and to be the real meaning; besides some of his explanations are very plain and prove his assertions. To think he got his information out of the Christian Science text book 'Science and Health,' with key to the scriptures, which nearly every clergyman and professors of all kinds have been ridiculing for the last thirty-five or forty years! Was there really something to Christian Science? Of course not; if there had been, all these learned men who had investigated it would not have denounced it. But maybe they were like me, so prejudiced that they denounced it without investigating. I even preached a sermon opposing it, simply because some one else said it was heretical, and as like as not this person never investigated it any more than I did, but denounced it because some one spoke ill of it to him. Now that I think of it, it was not a very Christian-like act to preach a sermon condemning something I have never looked into. Maybe that is what is the matter with us all; it is the same as sentencing a man without a hearing. I believe I will investigate this thing a little. I'll go over and have a talk with Parson Jones; he is considered a very well educated and broad-minded man; perhaps Walter was right when he accused me of being unreasonable; it certainly cannot do any harm to investigate. If there is nothing in it, I can tell the boy so, and if there is, it would be wrong not to try it for my wife's illness. Let me see, what did Walter say about its not being the work of the devil? He said the devil, or evil, could not or would not do good. This seems reasonable, and it surely would be doing good to heal any one of sickness. The Bible says Jesus Christ went about doing good, and this good that is spoken of was healing the sick and preaching the gospel. Yes, I'll just go over to Parson Jones to-morrow morning and have a long talk with him on this subject; now I must go to bed." CHAPTER XI FALSE INVESTIGATION The next morning about 9 o'clock the Rev. Williams put on his coat and hat and said, "Walter, I am going out calling and will probably be gone until lunch time." Ten minutes later he was seated in an easy chair in Parson Jones's study. After a few commonplace remarks he said, "Rev. Jones, I came over here to ask your advice about something I do not seem able to satisfy myself on." Rev. Jones was a short, fleshy man, with red hair and face; he was noted for being a well educated and well read man, also of being very short and sharp in his speech, always speaking directly to the point. So he said, "Well, what is it?" "I came to ask you if you know anything about this new cult called Christian Science?" "Nothing to it at all." "My boy, Walter, claims to have been healed by reading the text book, 'Science and Health.'" "A book full of rubbish, heresy, and nonsense." "The boy is well now, and you know he has always been sick since he was a child." "Reading that book didn't heal him." "Still he claims it did, he stopped taking medicine, began reading the book, and soon we saw he was improving." "Rest assured it wasn't the book." "He does not claim it was the book, but the truth the book contained that did the work." "Nonsense! there is no truth in that book." "How, then, can we account for his getting well?" "Probably the after effect of the medicine, or else he only believed himself sick." "That is just what he claims, that he was only sick in belief and not in reality." "Just as I thought," said the Rev. Jones. "What do you mean, Mr. Jones?" "He is another one of those simple-minded fellows who believed they were sick, and then claim reading that book cured them," said Rev. Jones. "But I employed the best physicians and specialists, and they all agreed that he had hereditary consumption and was incurable." "Most of these physicians are numbskulls and quacks." "Do you call Professor Chas. William Canterbury of the University of Canterbury a numbskull or quack?" "Eh, no, of course not." "He examined him thoroughly about a year ago and agreed with the diagnosis of the other physicians; furthermore he told me the boy could not live more than a year, and it was about this time that he began to fail very rapidly," said the Rev. Williams. "When did he begin to mend?" "It was just at the time when he was failing rapidly that he found a copy of 'Science and Health' on the street, and he claims that as soon as he began the reading of the book he began to get better." "This must be the work of the devil; it never was the book. You had better be careful, Rev. Williams," said the Rev. Jones, with a startled look. "So I told the boy, and he asked me a question which I would like to ask you." "What is it?" "Do you consider it good that my boy is well, Rev. Jones?" "Why certainly." "Did you ever hear of the devil doing good?" "No," said the Rev. Jones, with a shake of his head. "Then how can you say his getting well is the work of the devil who never does anything good?" Rev. Jones sat back in his chair with a jerk. "Rev. Williams, do you intend to defend this heretical cult?" "Certainly not. I merely gave you the answer my boy gave me." "A very bright answer, when you think of it," said Rev. Jones, rather stiffly. "Especially so, coming from one of those simple-minded fellows who only believed they were sick and then claimed that book healed them." It had nettled the Rev. Williams a little to hear his son called simple-minded, after the boy had shown that his knowledge of the deep things of the Bible surpassed his own, hence his reply. "Well, all I've got to say is that there is nothing in Christian Science," said Mr. Jones, with a bored look on his face. "Rev. Jones, I did not come here out of idle curiosity, for you well know my wife has been sick for years with tuberculosis, and has been gradually failing until at the present time she is confined to her bed, and our family physician doesn't think she will ever get up from it. My son claims that Christian Science has cured him and that it will cure his mother if I will consent to try it. I told him I would not, and he said forever hereafter he would blame my unreasonable prejudice for his mother's death, and knowing you to be a very well read man, I came to you for advice." "I have given you my opinion of it." "On what do you base your opinion?" "On what I have heard and read about it." "Did you ever investigate it thoroughly, Rev. Jones?" "Thoroughly enough to convince myself of the fallacy of its teachings." "Did you ever talk to one of those practitioners?" "No. They are a lot of hair-brained women and know no more than the author of 'Science and Health,'" said the Rev. Jones with a contemptuous toss of his head. "Did you ever read what they call their textbook, 'Science and Health?'" "No, my time is too valuable to waste it on reading nonsense." "How do you know it is nonsense?" "I have heard enough of what it contains." "Can you quote something, Mr. Jones?" "Yes, here are some of the things printed in that book: "There is no death. You haven't a body. Your stomach can't ache. There is no matter. Brains can't think. There is no sickness. There is no sin. There is no evil. All is good, Good is God, God is Mind, Mind is God, God is all." He stopped and looked at the Rev. Williams, then continued, "All what, I would like to know." "Are you sure the book contains these things?" "Certainly, I have it from a man who bought a book." "If the book contains such assertions, it certainly must be nonsense." "Nonsense, I should say so. No one but a demented person would write such stuff." "I am glad I came to see you about this thing, as I hardly knew what to say to Walter in reply to his accusations of being prejudiced." "Oh, it's always well to investigate a new thing of this kind before you condemn it, at least that is what I did." "But you say you never read the book yourself?" "No, I never saw the book myself, but my friend Dr. Thompson has one." "Do you know whether he has read it carefully?" "No, he never read it through, he intended to, but when he saw such assertions as I quoted to you, he could see there was nothing in it." "Why, certainly, of course. You must excuse me, Mr. Jones, for acting carefully in this matter, because of the condition of my wife." "I would do the same if I were in your place, but you can rest assured there is nothing in it." "I suppose not, yet I wish there was for my wife's sake." "You wouldn't dare use it if there was, they would cast you from your church." "But no one need know it, Rev. Jones." "Do you think one of those female practitioners could keep such a good thing? They would be pleased beyond measure to be employed by a minister, and would scatter the news to the four winds of heaven." "I hadn't thought of that; thank you, Mr. Jones, for pointing out to me the danger of employing one of those Christian Scientists. I also thank you for showing me the nonsense of thinking Christian Science could cure my wife of something that the best physicians pronounce incurable. I must be going now, as I wish to talk it all over with my son. Good day, Rev. Jones." "Good bye, Rev. Williams, call again." "I shall be pleased to." The pastor wended his way home, well satisfied with himself. Walter could not now accuse him of being prejudiced, for he had given Christian Science an impartial investigation, besides he was congratulating himself that he had been wise enough to consult with a deep-thinking man like Parson Jones, before employing a practitioner, for that practitioner would have delighted in telling it to every person in his parish, and this would have resulted in the loss of his position. The parson felt he had had a narrow escape from a great trouble. As soon as he arrived home he called Walter to the library and told him of his visit to Parson Jones, and also what Rev. Jones had said regarding Christian Science. Walter was somewhat surprised at the news, but after a moment he said, "You say you have given Christian Science an impartial investigation?" "Yes, Walter, I have; you see I was not as prejudiced as you thought. I talked for an hour with Parson Jones, and he convinced me that it was nothing but a lot of rubbish and nonsense." "What does Parson Jones know about it?" "Why, Walter, Mr. Jones is considered the best educated man in our city." "Best educated in what?" "In every thing in general." "Did Parson Jones ever study Christian Science under a qualified Christian Science teacher?" "No, I think not." "Did he ever study 'Science and Health,' the text-book of this science?" "No, he considered it a waste of time." "Did he ever read 'Science and Health'?" "No." "Did he ever see the book?" "He said not." "Then he certainly must be a very bright man to know what Christian Science is. For a man that can know all about a science of any kind without taking instructions, without studying, without reading, without seeing the text-book of that science, is certainly a remarkably wise man." "But, Walter, he got his information in a different way." "How was that, father?" "His friend Dr. Thompson bought a 'Science and Health' and told him all about it." "Was Dr. Thompson ever taught Christian Science?" "No, I guess not." "Did he ever study or read 'Science and Health'?" "He intended to read it, but when he saw such ridiculous assertions in it, he considered it folly to read it," said the pastor. "Another one of those wise men that know all about a science without instruction, study, or reading." "What do you mean, Walter?" "Father, if Dr. Thompson had told you that he knew all about medicine by simply glancing into a medical book, would you believe him?" "Certainly not!" "And if he had found therein some quotations that he did not understand, would you think it strange?" said Walter. "No." "And if he should tell you that those quotations which he did not understand were rubbish and nonsense, would you consider him a good authority?" "No, how could he be," replied the pastor. "Then, why should you believe him in regard to Christian Science, when he confesses that he never studied or read the text book of this science?" "But everybody says there is nothing to Christian Science," said the pastor. "So did everybody say the earth was flat until it was proven round," replied Walter. "That's the point exactly; none of our learned men have been able to prove that the claims of Christian Science are true," said the pastor quickly. "That is because they do not go to those who can furnish the proof." "Who can prove it, Walter?" "Many thousands of those who were healed and the practitioners in particular." "Parson Jones said they are a lot of hair-brained women." "Does that make them so?" asked the boy. "No, yet he ought to know what he is talking about." "Did Parson Jones ever have a talk with one of those hair-brained women, as he calls them?" "No, I don't think he did, but he says he has investigated this cult sufficiently to know there is nothing in it," said the pastor, rather quietly. "I suppose, father, he gave it what you call an impartial investigation, and probably went about it in the same way you did. You went to a man for advice on a subject he had never studied and who was so prejudiced he would not take the time to prove whether it was right or wrong, yet he professed to know all about it, and advised you to let it alone. Now, father, if you wanted advice pertaining to a foreign country, would you go to a man who had never been there, and hadn't even read about it, or would you go to some one who had lived there for many years?" "I should certainly go to the man who had been there," said the pastor. "Then when you want information regarding Christian Science, why don't you go to a Christian Scientist?" said his son. The pastor was silent for a moment, then said, "I see what you mean, Walter; my going to see Rev. Jones about Christian Science is like going to a blacksmith for information pertaining to surgery." "Yes, father." "I guess you are right, Walter. I believe I will go to see a practitioner, for if there is anything on this earth that can help your mother I will let nothing stand in the way of a trial of it." "Oh! thank you, father, I will go now and see if this practitioner can come to see you." "Who is this practitioner?" "Mrs. White, who lives down on Grant St.; she promised to come any time I would ask her to." When Walter said Mrs. White, the pastor recalled what Parson Jones said regarding these lady practitioners telling all his parishioners, and the possibility of his losing his position; this made him very much afraid, so he said: "Wait a minute, Walter, let us talk this matter over a little before you go. Had you thought of the position it would place me in to have a Christian Science practitioner coming to our home every day? And most likely she would be delighted to tell all her friends that the Rev. Williams of the Park Row Church had been compelled to call her in to treat his wife." "No, father, I do not think she would say a word about it." "But some of my parishioners might see her coming here every day, and then I would be in danger of losing my position." "Father, would you let your position stand in the way of saving mother's life?" The pastor did not answer at once, but was thinking deeply; at length he looked up and said, "Walter, your persistence has won the day. I will at least have a talk with this practitioner; you may tell her to come this evening if she will, and I will talk with her." "Oh, father, how happy you have made me. And I know you will change your opinion of this lady practitioner after a few minutes' talk with her, and I feel confident that through her my mother will be made well." "I pray God it will be as you say." Several minutes later Walter was on his way to the practitioner's. In due time he was back and told his father she had promised to come that evening at 7:30. CHAPTER XII A FAIR INVESTIGATION Promptly at 7:30 the door-bell rang, and Walter went to the door to welcome the practitioner; he showed her into the parlor and called his father. After a formal introduction, the Rev. Williams asked both the practitioner and Walter into the library, the pastor being afraid he might have some callers that would know the practitioner, although he did not state his reason for going to the library. After being comfortably seated, the pastor said, "Mrs. White, I think it only fair to you to state that I have always been very much prejudiced against Christian Science and would not even now have consented to have an interview with you if it had not been for the persistence of my son." "Mr. Williams," said the lady, "I don't believe you could be any more prejudiced than I was, and I only consented to try it after every other means had failed to cure me, and as I was not made well after one week's treatment I became skeptical, and wanted to stop taking treatment. But my husband said, 'Let us give it a fair trial, as there is nothing else for you.' The fact is that nearly everybody is prejudiced against Christian Science, and yet none of those who are can give you a reasonable answer why they are, and as a rule know nothing at all about it. So it does not seem strange to me to find you in this frame of mind." "I suppose my son has told you he found a 'Science and Health' and that he believes reading it has cured him." "Yes, he told me, but you make a mistake when you say he believes reading the book cured him; he doesn't believe it, he knows it." "Why do you say he knows it, Mrs. White?" "Because if he did not know or understand the truth that 'Science and Health' contains, he would not now be well, for these are the signs following, spoken of by Jesus Christ." "Excuse me, Mrs. White, but I don't seem to catch your meaning; what signs follow the reading of 'Science and Health'?" "Simply reading 'Science and Health' will not help us, although it is a step in the right direction. It is when we understand the truth contained therein that the signs follow. Jesus Christ said, 'These signs shall follow them that believe, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall be healed, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.' If we use the word 'understand', instead of 'believe', we get a clearer view of what Christ meant when he said, 'These signs shall follow them that _understand_.' And as the same truth that Jesus Christ taught is contained in this book, the understanding of it must be followed by the same signs." "But I am not willing as yet to concede that this book does contain the Christ Truth," said the pastor. "Mr. Williams, when you were attending school, suppose the teacher had given you a mathematical problem to solve, and had said, 'You will find the rule by which this example can be worked on page 105, and the correct answer is 18.' You would have looked up the rule and started to work the example. If when you were done the answer you got was 18, you would know at once that you understood the rule, and had applied it correctly. Thereafter you would not merely believe that you knew the rule, but you would know that you understood it. So it is with the sick; take your son's case, for instance; he found a 'Science and Health,' began to read and study it; in it is printed the rule of health. After a little study he understood this rule. He then applied it correctly and got the answer, _health,_ and this is sufficient proof to him that the scientific method of healing the sick as Jesus Christ did, is contained in this book, and no amount of argument to the contrary can ever convince him that it is not true, any more than it would have been possible to tell you that you did not understand the rule by which you solved your mathematical problem after you had secured the correct answer. Correct answers are the signs following, or proofs of understanding, of any science." "Then it is not God that does the healing, but the correct application of a rule," said the pastor quickly. "Oh, yes, it is God that heals the sick; for instance, when you were working the problem mentioned above, you found the rule on the page indicated by the teacher, but the rule did not do your problem, neither did the mere application of the rule do it, but it was your intelligence, or mind, that directed the correct application of the rule that solved the problem; so to Mind must be given the credit of the solution, for the rule could not do anything without Mind to direct the application. And so it is with the rule of health; it is in 'Science and Health,' but to be benefited thereby it must be correctly applied by the intelligence of man, which is his mind." "But this statement contradicts your first statement." "In what way, Mr. Williams?" "In the first instance, you said it was God that did the healing, and now you say it is the intelligence of man, or mind." "Mr. Williams, do you believe God is all intelligence?" "Yes, certainly." "Then He must be the intelligence of man, or his mind, otherwise God would not be _all_ intelligence." The pastor sat perfectly still, fully absorbed with his own thoughts. Mrs. White waited a few moments, then continued: "What I have said in regard to applying the rule is in full accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ wherein He demonstrated the necessity of us working out our own salvation." "Mrs. White, you say that God is the intelligence of man, or his mind." "Yes, for God is _all_ intelligence." "You also say that God is good only." "Yes, God is _all_ Good." "Then according to this theory that God is all intelligence, you must admit that He is also the bad or evil intelligence found in some men, and if this be true, you could hardly claim that He is all good, for one statement would contradict the other," slowly said the pastor. "You have made a mistake in your reasoning, Mr. Williams. A bad intelligence is not intelligence, but a lack of intelligence, or non-intelligence; in other words, ignorance, and ignorance has no place in the realm of intelligence, for ignorance is evil, and intelligence is good," said the practitioner. "Your explanation sounds very reasonable, but I am not yet willing to agree with you; it may be because I do not fully understand," answered the pastor. "I do not think it possible for man to fully comprehend any science in a few moments, and this science is the science of sciences." "Am I to understand that evil and ignorance have no place in the universe; in other words, are not real?" asked the pastor. "Yes, the good alone is real. It is only through ignorance of the truth that evil seems real, or has place or power." "But we see evil all about us," said the pastor. "This seems so, but it is only a misapprehension of the truth, for evil is not real, has no entity or principle, God (Good) never made it," said the practitioner. "But if it is not real, and God did not make it, where did it come from?" asked the pastor. Mrs. White's face broadened into a smile, and then she said, "Mr. Williams, I think I will tell you a little story that I wrote to one of my patients who was suffering from a claim of indigestion. She insisted that evil was real, and offered up the evidence of her indigestion as proof thereof. This little story came to me as I was thinking of her case. It may enlighten you on the origin of evil as it did her. Now for the story." CHAPTER XIII THE UNREALITY OF EVIL "Once upon a time long, long ago, there was a great and good king, who lived in a country where everything was good. He had thousands of subjects under him, and these subjects were all good. This was because the king was good and the people strove to be like him. But one day one of his people imagined she saw an evil thing or devil, and became greatly alarmed thereat. She hurried home and told her husband what she had seen, and he believed her story about this evil, or devil (that never had any existence, only in the imagination of this woman). And because of her great fear of it this woman kept thinking of this evil constantly, until at last it seemed very real to her, and after a time she imagined this evil, or devil, had entered her body and was stopping her stomach from digesting its food. She also told this to her husband, and he became afraid of this myth, and told his friends that an evil, or devil, had entered the body of his wife. His friends began to talk about this evil, or devil, wondering what it might be. At length, after discussing it for some time, they decided they didn't know what this evil was, but that it ought to be given a name, so called it indigestion, because it had stopped the woman's stomach from digesting her food. In this way this imaginary thing became real enough to have a name. After the people had given this evil, or devil, a name, they all began to make suggestions of how best to get rid of him. One suggested that a plate be made hot and applied to the stomach. This, he thought, would make it so uncomfortable for the devil that he would leave. Another suggested that the woman take a strong dose of peppermint and burn the devil; another suggested that they manipulate the stomach, i. e., pull and haul and pound it, hoping in this way to kill him; another said, let us attach an electric battery and shock the devil. Another said he believed that devils had an aversion for blue lights, and thought that if they would let a blue light shine on him, he would leave. Another said, give the woman a bath of mud, let her be covered all over with soft mud, and this will smother the devil. Still another suggested that the woman be sent away from home to another climate, he thinking the devil might not like the change, and so leave the woman. Hundreds of other suggestions were offered and tried, but none of them succeeded in driving this devil out of the woman. And now, after several thousands of years, the people are still offering advice to this woman, but with no better success. The simple reason why all these things did not succeed in driving out this evil, or devil, is that in reality there wasn't any devil to drive out, as it was only an imaginary thing and had no existence, only as an illusion in the mind of the woman. About 2,000 years ago, there lived a man who was intelligent enough to understand what the trouble was. He said that there were not any evils, or devils, and that God, or the Creative Principle, was _good only_, and that evil was a lie, or delusion, and proved His words by His works. This enraged the wise men of His time very much, for they had been teaching the people that evil was real, and that in many instances God put evil upon His children to make them good. These wise men were sore afraid that the people would believe what this good man was teaching and denounce their teaching. So they conspired together and had Him crucified, and still continued their teaching that evil was as real as good. About forty years ago, a woman, intelligent and good, became conscious of the unreality of evil, and after a careful study of the life of this man who was crucified, she discovered that all this good man had said and taught regarding the unreality of evil, was the truth. She wrote a book explaining this great fact, and said, 'If the people would study this book, they could prove for themselves that there weren't any evils, or devils.' As in the time of the good man that was crucified, so in her time, the wise men were teaching the people that evil was real, and as the teachings of this woman were contrary to their teachings, they became enraged; and if it had been customary to crucify people in her time, she would have been crucified. Since that book was written, many thousands of people who imagined they had evils or were possessed with devils, have, by reading and studying this book, discovered that all of the evils, or devils of the past and present were imaginary, and seemed real, because we feared them. This book also teaches that the _only_ way to get rid of these imaginations, or false beliefs, is to use our God-given intelligence and reason rightly, and then we would discover the nothingness of these evils, or devils, and our fear of them would depart, likewise the evils, or devils, no matter under whatever name they might be masquerading, as it was only our ignorance of the true facts, coupled with our fear, that made them seem real. So with this woman, who imagined she saw an evil, or devil; if she had not feared it, she would have investigated and consequently have discovered its unreality." As Mrs. White finished her story, she looked at Walter, and by the way he nodded his head she was sure he had grasped the truth of her story. Then, glancing at the pastor, she said, "Mr. Williams, does that answer your question, as to the unreality and origin of evil?" "Mrs. White," said the pastor nervously, "That story answers my questions so fully that I haven't any foundation to stand on, and as I have been preaching the reality of evil these many years I am at a loss to know what to say or do." "Do not worry or get excited, Mr. Williams, Every person is more or less confused as his old idols and gods are destroyed, but fear not, for out of this destruction will rise an intelligent temple with God, Good, the ruler thereof." "But I am at a loss what to do. I have discovered the fact that I was mistaught in regard to the reality of evil, and now I fear that all the rest of my teachings may be at fault and I cannot conscientiously preach what is false, as God knows I would not wilfully mislead my fellow-man. I am afraid I will be compelled to give up my position at once, and feel I am not fitted to do anything else." He then glanced at the practitioner and said, "Mrs. White, can you offer me any advice?" "Yes, first of all, remember that there is room in God's kingdom for all His children. Second, remember that your real source of supply is not your church, but God; trust in Him fully, and your every need will be supplied. Third, I would advise you not to give up your position on the spur of the moment; take time to consider, study 'Science and Health,' and see if it is what you want. If it is, you can then send in your resignation. If not, no one need be the wiser that you have been studying the book." "But I cannot conscientiously preach one thing and believe another." "Then, Mr. Williams, I would suggest that you ask for a vacation for six months, as I understand from what your son told me, that it has been a long time since you have taken one, and by the time six months have passed you will know what is best for you to do. "Mrs. White, I would be pleased to take your advice, but I haven't enough money to carry me for six months without a salary." "God is your supply, trust Him fully," said Mrs. White. "Father, have no fear, God is all good, all love, and I know He will not see us want, if we will only trust Him." "Walter, my son, I will take your advice and trust it all to God." Then, after a moment, he looked at Mrs. White and said, "Now, Mrs. White, let us talk of my dear wife's illness; I suppose Walter told you she has been suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs for many years. Do you think she can be healed?" "Mr. Williams, do you think an all-powerful God could heal her? For it is not myself that does the healing, but God." "Yes, I know that God can heal her if He will." "Have you ever asked Him to?" "Many hundreds of times have I asked, prayed, begged, and beseeched Him." "What did you expect to accomplish by your begging and beseeching?" "I do not understand what you mean, Mrs. White." "Did you think you could influence a good and just God by your begging and beseeching, to be more than good and just?" "Oh, I did not wish to influence God," said the pastor. "Then what did you expect to accomplish by begging and beseeching?" As the pastor did not answer, Mrs. White continued: "A good and just God could not be less than good and just, and if this be true, what could we expect to accomplish by begging and beseeching? Mr. Williams, the reason your prayers have not been answered, is that you don't know how to pray aright, besides you have been praying to a false god, an idol of your own making." The pastor's back stiffened up perceptibly, as he said rather cooly, "Mrs. White, don't you think your accusations are a little unjust? You must remember I am an ordained minister." "Mr. Williams, don't think I am alluding only to you; almost the whole human race has made the same mistake. I am free to confess that I did not know how to pray aright until after I had studied 'Science and Health.' If you will allow me, I will try to prove my assertions." "Please proceed." "Mr. Williams, when you pray, do you or do you not have a mental picture of your god in mind?" "Yes, most generally I do." "Will you please describe this mental picture?" asked Mrs. White. "When I close my eyes in prayer, I usually see the spirit of God as though He was appearing through the clouds," said the pastor. "Does this spirit of God, as you call it, have a human face?" "Yes, Mrs. White, a face that is radiant with goodness and love." "Mr. Williams, don't you see that this is a god of your own making, an imaginary creature of your own mind?" "I don't quite understand," said the pastor, somewhat confused. "When you close your eyes to pray, you imagine you see the face of a man, appearing through the clouds. You know this is not real, but the face appears only in your imagination, and when your congregation close their eyes, they each have an imaginary picture of some kind before them, or else a void, and if you were to compare notes, you would find no two persons to have the same picture or idol. Are there so many gods as that? If not, which one of the congregation has the right one? The fact is, most people pray to a god of their own making, a man-made god, a thing that does not exist, except in their own imagination, and then wonder why their prayers are not answered. Have I proven my assertion, Mr. Williams?" "Yes, Mrs. White, you have, but you have also robbed me of my God, and now I am entirely at a loss." "Better no god at all than a false one," said Mrs. White. "That may be true, Mrs. White, but you do not wish to intimate that there is no God?" "Most assuredly not, have I not told you that God heals the sick, that God is Good, that God is Mind? If I have robbed you of your false god, I have done a good work, for then you are ready to seek the true God. I recommend that you carefully study 'Science and Health.' In it I found who and what the true God is. If you will read this book, in connection with the Bible, you will find that it will unlock the mysteries of the Bible, and you will come into possession of that peace that passeth all understanding." "I shall certainly do as you suggest, Mrs. White; for I have determined to find the true God." "Now, Mr. Williams, do you wish me to give your wife treatment?" "Yes, I have determined to give Christian Science a fair trial." "As it is getting rather late, I will not see your wife to-night, but will treat her absently as soon as I get home. I would also suggest that you acquaint her with the fact that I will see her tomorrow evening." "But I have not asked her whether she is willing to take science treatment," said the pastor. "Father, that has all been arranged, as I have asked her; all that mother wanted was your sanction. Otherwise she would not take the treatment, and I had acquainted Mrs. White with the facts before she came." "I am pleased to hear that your mother is willing to try these treatments, as we have tried everything else, and now this is our last and only hope." "When it should have been your first; yet that is the way of mortals, they try everything else first and God last, nevertheless God is ever ready to help man when man turns to Him, no matter what has gone before," said the practitioner. "Mrs. White, your words give me great hope, yet my wife's case seems hopeless." "Mr. Williams, why should you think it strange that a good, and loving, and all-powerful Father should be ever ready to help His children?" "I know not, unless it is because He did not answer my prayers, and this may have weakened my faith," meekly said the pastor. "But you did not pray to an all-good, loving, and all-powerful God, or you would surely have been answered; you were praying to a false god, even one of your own making." "Yes, I know now that there was something wrong, and I supposed it was because God did not wish to help; but you have shown me that the fault was not with God, but with myself." "Well, Mr. Williams, I am glad that the light of understanding is coming to your consciousness, and now I must be going. I have no special directions to give you regarding your wife except that I don't want you or Walter to tell a single person that your wife is receiving Christian Science treatment, and you may rest assured that I shall not tell any one." The pastor was very much relieved to hear Mrs. White say she would tell no one, and supposing she did not wish to jeopardize his position as minister, he said, "I thank you very much, Mrs. White, for being so solicitous of my position." Mrs. White's answer rather surprised him. She said: "When I told you to tell no one, I did not have you or your position in thought, I was simply thinking of the welfare of your wife. Now good-night, and you may expect me at the same hour to-morrow evening." The pastor and his son bade her a hearty goodnight, then returned to the library. As soon as they arrived there the pastor turned to his son and said, "Walter, what other reason could Mrs. White have in bidding us say nothing of the treatments, excepting my position?" "Father, I do not fully understand why this is done, but I have heard that they request this in all cases. I think it is for the same reason that Jesus Christ told them He healed, to go and tell no man." The pastor looked at his son and said, "It may be for the same reason, although both are a mystery to me, at any rate this disproves the assertion the Rev. Jones made in regard to these lady practitioners being pleased to tell their business to everybody. Why, any one could be healed by Christian Science and no one be the wiser. I wonder if this does not account for the mysterious recovery of Mr. Anderson. You remember the paper stated that he was given up by the physicians, and that he could not live more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours; then to the surprise of everybody he began to mend rapidly, and in six week's time no one would think that he ever had a sick day in his life. And ever since he has been attending to his business, and every time I meet him he seems running over with happiness, joy, and good health." "Father, wasn't he supposed to be suffering from a very severe case of Blight's disease?" "Yes, he had a consultation of three of our best physicians, and they pronounced it Bright's disease." "If it really was Christian Science that healed him, I am sure it will heal mother." "Yes, son, I think so too, I believe I will ask Mr. Anderson what healed him, for if it was Christian Science, it will give me more confidence." "Now please bring me this science book you found, as I would like to see it." "I will get it at once, father," said the delighted boy, for he felt sure that if his father ever started to read it, he would never leave it until he had discovered the great truth the book contained. In a few moments he was back and handed the book to his father, who said, "Walter, I wish you would call in to see your mother and acquaint her with what has been done; then you had better retire, as I may spend some time with this book." "All right, father. Good-night." "Good-night, Walter," said the pastor, as he assumed an easy position in his large armchair. Walter went to his mother's room and, finding her awake, told her all about the visit of the practitioner, and also some of the things she had said, and that she was coming to see her the next evening. He then bade her a cheerful good-night and retired to his own room, a very happy and well satisfied boy. His father continued his reading until long after midnight, and as he closed the book he said aloud, "It truly is a wonderful book, but I cannot agree with all that it contains, although this may be because I do not fully understand." He then wended his way to his wife's bedchamber, and looking in, found her sleeping peacefully; then he murmured: "I must trust God fully, for no one else can help her." CHAPTER XIV THE DREAM The next evening at the appointed hour Mrs. White made her appearance, and after a few casual remarks, requested to be taken to Mrs. Williams. The pastor introduced her to his wife. The practitioner, after explaining her purpose in calling, kindly requested the pastor to leave the room as she wished to be alone with her patient. As soon as the pastor had left the room, Mrs. White turned to her patient and said in a voice full of affection and love: "Be not afraid, Mrs. Williams, God is an ever-present help in time of trouble, therefore I bid you hope." Some of the languid and discouraged look that had been on Mrs. Williams's face seemed to fade away as she said, "You bid me hope, when all the rest of the world and my physicians have told me my case is hopeless? Surely you do not believe I can be healed." "Mrs. Williams, I not only believe, but I know you can be healed, for nothing is impossible to God, and from now on He is your physician. Do not think it is I that is going to heal you, but our heavenly Father. 'He doeth the work.'" "If I could only believe," said the sick woman, with eyes full of tears. "Mrs. Williams, you can at least say the same as the man in the Bible said when Jesus asked him if he believed He could heal him; he said: 'Oh, God, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' And this is what I am going to do, I am going to help thine unbelief, that is, cast it out, and let Truth reign in your consciousness. To accomplish this you must be obedient; if you have any prejudice, cast it aside. The word prejudice means to prejudge, and very few people are wise enough to prejudge even the most simple things of life, and those who do, are wrong more times than they are right." "What you say is true, and I don't want to be prejudiced about anything, but there has been so much said against Christian Science and it has been ridiculed so severely that I find it hard to have any faith in it, yet I am very willing to give it a trial." "Mrs. Williams, what would you think of a judge or a jury that would convict a person solely on the evidence of witnesses who were opposed to the person on trial, and probably all of the testimony was of this type: ('I heard Mr. Smith say he heard the prisoner had done it')? in other words mere gossip; would you consider this justice? Yet that is just the kind of trial that all prejudiced people give Christian Science. If Christian Scientists point to the great mass of evidence in favor of this science, this evidence is ridiculed and denied, no matter how honest the person may be who gave the testimony." "Your contention is true, Mrs. White, I did prejudge or sentence Christian Science on the testimony of its enemies." "I am glad to hear you admit this, as it shows me that one obstacle to your recovery has been removed, and you will now give Christian Science an impartial hearing and a fair trial. And now before I give you a silent treatment, I wish to set your thoughts aright about God. You may have said that it is God's will that you are suffering, or that He had put this thing upon you as a punishment, either for something you, or some one else, had done. This is a terrible thing to do, to accuse your Maker, a God who is all good, all love, of such a contemptible act as this. No, Mrs. Williams, rest assured God never did such a thing. Let us see what the Bible says on this question. In the first place, it says God made everything good; do you believe that?" The sick woman nodded her head. "Next, it says, 'And God saw everything He had made and pronounced it _very good_'; it further states that God made everything that was made; do you believe this also?" "Yes." "You have heard it said that Christian Science claims that sin, disease, and death are not real, haven't you?" asked the practitioner. "Yes." "Now let us see if their claims are true. You agreed that God made everything that was made and that it was good. Now then, can you in any possible way show me wherein this claim of sickness of yours is good? if not, then God did not make it, it cannot be real, and it does not exist." "But, Mrs. White, I have suffered with it for years, and it certainly is real to me," said Mrs. Williams. "Let me show you how real it is, and what is necessary to make it unreal to you. Suppose I lie down on that couch over there," she said, pointing to a couch at the further side of the room. "As I fall asleep, the things in the room gradually fade from my sight and consciousness, that is, they become unreal to me, in fact they have no existence for me for the time being, yet they are all there. After a little I begin to dream that I am getting ready to take a trip to Europe. I pack my trunk, telephone for the expressman to take it to the depot, I dress myself in my traveling suit, get into my carriage, and am driven to the depot. On the way down I see some of my friends. I bow to them, and as I get out of the carriage at the depot I find my husband and sister there, to bid me God speed on my journey. I realize that my husband came from his place of business, and my sister from a distant part of the city. We enter the depot chatting gaily. My husband goes to inquire about the train. He comes back and tells us it is ready, and we walk down a pair of stairs and out into the train shed. As we approach the train, my husband gets out my ticket, shows it to the porter, and he says, 'Second car to the rear.' As we reach the place indicated, my husband shows the ticket to another porter who is standing there. He examines it and says with a wave of his hand, 'Right in this car.' We enter, and find the number of my berth. My husband puts my traveling bag under the seat, and we all sit there talking for some time. We then hear the conductor's warning, 'All aboard.' My husband and sister both kiss me and hurriedly leave the car. A moment later I see them on the platform. I hear the bell on the engine ring, I feel the car move, and wave a last farewell to those on the platform as they pass from my sight. A little later I am out in the country. Then we dash through a village without stopping, and at length we arrive at New York. I take a carriage to be driven to the dock. On the way there the horse becomes frightened, runs away, tips the carriage over, throws me under a rapidly moving street car, which runs over both my feet. The ambulance is called. I am taken to the hospital. The pain is almost unbearable. The physician examines my injuries and says he will be compelled to amputate both my feet. This seems so terrible to me that the shock wakes me up. For a few moments after I awake, I still feel the pain and lie there trembling with fright, for the dream has been so real. Yet in reality I never left the couch, and everything in the room is there just as I left it when I went to sleep. It was all an illusion, and the only thing necessary to prove it to me was something or somebody to awaken me. So it is with man. God made him perfect and everything good, and all man needs to prove it to himself is to be awakened, that is, made acquainted with the true facts pertaining to life. This means man must understand the science of being; then his delusion regarding sin, disease, and death will be no more real than my trip to Europe with its accompanying pain and disasters." "I see the force of your illustration, Mrs. White, but I am sure I am not dreaming." "But you are suffering from a delusion, and a delusion is a dream, and is no more real. If it had been possible for some one to tell me while I was on my dream trip, that it was a dream, I would have denied it, because it seemed real to me. So with you, this delusion seems so real you believe it to be a reality. Nevertheless the facts were that I was suffering from a delusion, and so are you. So let us deny that evil is real, and we will wake up to the truth, or understanding, that it is not real. Now I will give you your treatment." CHAPTER XV TRUTH BEING MANIFESTED The treatment over, Mrs. White said a few more cheerful words to her patient and then called the pastor into the room, saying to him, it would be well if he would read from "Science and Health" to his wife whenever he found time, which he promised to do. A few minutes later, Mrs. White was on her way home, and the pastor and his family were more hopeful than they had been for some time. Walter and his father discussed with Mrs. Williams the happenings of the evening, and it was quite late before they all retired for the night. Mrs. White came regularly every evening for about a week, and as her patient began slowly to mend she came only every other evening. The Rev. Williams and also Walter read to the sick woman every day, and by the end of the month Mrs. Williams began to stay up several hours each day. She also was an eager reader and student of "Science and Health." Many were the pleasant evenings spent by them in explanation and discussion of what they were reading. True to his word, the pastor decided to trust in God for his supply, and had asked for a vacation, which was granted him. Near the end of the second week a letter came; in it was a check from a man whom he had loaned some money to, a long time before. It also contained a note explaining that he had always intended to pay the debt, but not until recently had his financial circumstances permitted it. When the pastor saw it, he said, "Surely this is in return for my trust in God, for I long ago reckoned this money as lost." At the end of three months, Mrs. Williams was so far recovered that she was able to take care of her household duties and the pastor's understanding of "Science and Health" had increased to such an extent that he felt sure it contained the Christ Truth, but he was not yet ready to say he would give up his position as pastor. Walter grasped the truth more rapidly than his father, and whenever he found him perplexed or doubtful he was ever ready to point the way. His mother was constantly gaining both in health and understanding, and when Spring came and the end of the pastor's six months' vacation drew nigh, she was entirely healed. It was at this time the pastor told his wife and son that he had determined to hand in his resignation and leave the ministry. They agreed with him that he could not consistently preach the old belief after understanding the truth; and as his congregation was very well satisfied with the minister who was filling his place, they would not miss him much. A few days later he handed in his resignation. It was somewhat of a surprise to the directors, and they asked him to reconsider; but when he assured them it was final, they in due time accepted it and requested that he preach a farewell sermon. At first the pastor thought of declining, but did not; instead, he told them he would consider for a few days. That evening, as they were all sitting in the library, he told his wife and son of their request, and said he had not fully made up his mind what was best to do. At this point Walter spoke up and said, with a smile on his face: "Father, do you remember one evening when we were having our Bible lessons you promised to preach a sermon on creation?" "Yes, son, I remember." "Why not preach that sermon as a farewell, for I know you can do so now with understanding." The father looked at his son, smiled, and said: "Not a bad idea; what do you think of it, wife?" "I think it would be grand and might be the means of showing some poor sufferer the truth. How thankful I am for this truth, and how I wish the whole world would know the Christ Truth." "Then it is settled, I will tell the directors of my decision in the morning;" which he did, also telling them on what subject he would preach. CHAPTER XVI THE FAREWELL SERMON The appointed Sunday dawned clear and balmy, and by the time the services commenced, the church was filled to its full capacity, the new minister officiating; and when it came time for the sermon, he announced that the Rev. Williams would preach his farewell sermon, and that the subject would be "Creation." The pastor slowly arose from the seat he had been occupying and leisurely walked up to and into the pulpit. He slowly allowed his gaze to roam over the crowded church, then began his sermon in a clear, full voice: "My dearly beloved brethren, once again, after more than six months' vacation, I stand before you for the last time as pastor. I have been in your midst for more than fifteen years, trying to point out to you, to the best of my ability, the way to salvation. In that time I have made many staunch friends--friends to be proud of, friends that were true, friends that were friends in time of storm as well as sunshine, friends that have stood the test of time, and I hope will stand the test to the end of time, for a severe test of their love and friendship for me and mine is coming." By this time every eye was fastened on him, and each individual ear was strained to catch his every word. The Rev. Williams now opened the Bible he had carried to the pulpit with him, and said: "As has been announced by your pastor, the subject of my sermon is 'The Creation.' In explanation I might say that just before, and during the time of my vacation, I was carefully studying the Bible relative to this subject, and I discovered the fact that during all the time I was studying for the ministry, and these many years that I have been an ordained minister, I had not become acquainted with the true facts regarding the creation of man. It was the discovery of this, with many others I have since made, that compelled me to send in my resignation, and in my sermon to-day I shall endeavor to make plain my discovery. I say my discovery, although it was not mine originally, but another's whose illumined spiritual sense is as far above mine as the blue vaults of heaven are above the earth. I will now read to you verses from the first and second chapters of Genesis. No doubt, you are all more or less familiar with them. Genesis, Chapter I, 26th verse, reads: _'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.'_ Chapter 1, 27th verse, reads: _'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.'_ Chapter 1, 31st verse, reads: _'And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the 6th day.'_ Chapter 2, 1st verse, reads: _'Thus the heavens and earth were finished, and all the hosts of them.'_ Chapter 2, 6th verse, reads: _'But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.'_ Chapter 2, 7th verse, reads: _'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.'"_ As he finished reading this verse, he laid the Bible down and said, "I now wish to call your attention to chapter I, 26th verse. Therein is stated that God made man in His image and likeness. Chapter I, 27th verse, reiterates this statement so as to more fully emphasize this great truth. We now come to the question of what is God. We all agree that God is Spirit. If this be true, then man must be spiritual and not material, else he would not be the image and likeness of God, Spirit. In chapter I, 31st verse, we read that _God saw everything He had made, and behold, it was very good._ Now I want to ask, is sin, disease, trouble, affliction, or death good? It has been said that under certain conditions sickness might be good. I also thought this at one time, but in no way can we conceive of sin as being good. Then God never made sin, neither did He make disease and death; then whence came they? Is there an evil power that creates these dreaded things? If we believe this, we will have two creators, or gods, which cannot be true. Let us see if the Bible will not throw some light on this seeming mystery. Chapter 2, 1st verse, reads: _'Thus the heavens and earth were finished and all the hosts of them.'_ Now this is all of creation, God has finished His work, yet in the same chapter a little further along we read: _'But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.'_ In the next verse we read: _'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.'_ But God had finished His work some time before, at least so it was stated in some of the preceding verses. Is there a second creation, or is this simply one of the contradictions spoken of by some of our Bible critics? We can not conceive of an all-knowing God having made a mistake when He created man spiritually in His image and likeness and then later making another man materially from dust. "I wish to call your attention to the fact that the Bible does not state that this _dust man_ is made in the image and likeness of God, in fact it does not state that he was made at all, it simply says: 'And the Lord God _formed_ man of the dust of the ground.' Then this dust man at best was only _formed_ and never made. Neither does it state that God had anything to do with the forming of this dust man, as it does of the spiritual man made in His image and likeness, but states the _Lord_ God formed him. "Nowhere in the first chapter of Genesis, which is the true or spiritual creation, does the Lord God create anything; it is only after that _mist_ (spoken of in the 6th verse of chapter two) arose from the earth that the _Lord_ God _formed_ the dust or material man, or anything else. Then the mystery of this seeming second creator, the Lord God, and his creation or forming of this dust or material man and material world must lie within this _mist_, and it does; this mist that arose was simply a misapprehension that arose amongst the people, wherein they believed themselves to be _formed_ of dust or materially, whereas in truth they were created spiritually. And this _Lord_ God spoken of that formed the dust man is not the real creator, the true God, but is man himself, who, through his own false idea or belief, formed man of dust, in other words, by his misapprehension of his true nature, man thinks himself material, when, in reality, he is spiritual, and it is through this mistake that all this evil or materiality seems to exist. But it is no more real than the dust man, and gets its seeming reality in the same way through a delusion or misapprehension of the truth. The proof that evil is not real, does not exist, and was never made, is contained in the Bible. Genesis 1, 31st verse, is this proof; it reads: 'And God saw _everything_ that He had made, and behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the 6th day.' I wish you to note that this verse says _everything_; this includes _all_. Then everything that really exists is good, it cannot be otherwise. Our God, our Creator, could not make both good and evil, else He would not be perfect, for evil is an imperfection and an imperfection can have no principle, hence no reality. Evil has the same reality that a lie has. What becomes of a lie when the truth is declared? It ceases to exist; so with evil; it being unreal, it ceases to exist, when Good is declared. "Now, Beloved, I will quote you the greatest command given to man by Jesus Christ: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' I will now give you my interpretation of this great commandment: Thou shalt love the _Good_, thy God, with all thy love, and with all thy intelligence, and with all thy thoughts. Oh, if we could only do this, there surely would be no evil. Do we obey this greatest command of our Master? No. For instead of loving God, we fear Him, and lay every evil that befalls us at His door. If there be a cyclone, a flood, a cloudburst, a railroad disaster, a conflagration, an earthquake, an epidemic, we say it is the will of God. Oftentimes we labor long and faithfully to accomplish a desired result, and just as we think we have success in our hands, we fail, and all our hopes and desires are destroyed; again we say, it is the will of God. If we see any of our brethren sick, we claim it to be the will of God. If we see the father of a family taken away, we bow our heads and say God's will be done. If we see a family of children left motherless, again we bow our heads and say God's will be done. If we see a beautiful infant snatched by death from the breast of it's heart-broken mother, we meekly bow again, and, with heart full of sorrow, say, it's the will of God. I tell you it is not the will of God, the will of Good. There is no good in it, hence not of God's making, but is the work of evil, or devil, in other words, the work of a delusion, the believing of a lie. And when we stand meekly by and see evil destroy our health, our hopes, our happiness, our homes, without a protest, we are abetting the devil in his work. The Bible says God gave man dominion over _all_ the earth, so rise in the might of your intelligence, your Mind, and destroy this evil, this illusion, this lie, with the sword of truth, in Christ's name. God, Good, is with you in this work, and with Him for you, who can stand against you? Too long has man been robbed by evil in the name of good. Jesus Christ said: 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' This truth has been revealed and is in our midst; 'seek and ye shall find.' St. John, the most beloved disciple, said: 'God is Love.' Can you believe a father who is Love would destroy the hopes of His children, make them suffer through accident, sickness, and poverty, and after three score and ten years let them die, in other words, kill them? Even the lowest of earthly fathers would not do this. Jesus Christ said: The last enemy to overcome is death.' This surely does not mean that we must submit to death, but the opposite, or overcome death. Christ's bidding us to overcome death shows that death is an evil. Then all things that are allies of death, such as sickness, poverty, accidents and the like, must be overcome, and when we have overcome all these things there will be no death to overcome; therefore I bid you awake from this delusion, this dream of life in matter, to the truth of life in Mind, in God. Simply believing in God is not enough, you must know God. Again I say, awake and work out your own salvation, as St. Paul said you must; salvation, is not believing, but knowing. In the words of one of the prophets, _acquaint_ thyself with God and be at peace. Search the Scriptures, they contain the truth of life. Use your reasoning power, and do your own thinking-for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Christ is risen and is knocking at your door, let Him in, and He will show you the way out of trouble, sin, disease, and how to conquer death. "Now, Beloved, in conclusion, I would like to call your attention to my family, as you all know my son Walter was a sufferer for years from a disease that materia medica says is incurable; you now see him in your midst, a well and strong young man. I had long ago come to the conclusion that it was the will of God that he was sick, but through his own realization of the great truth that God made only the good, he was healed--in a like manner his mother, my wife, was healed of the same dread disease by _one_ who _knew_ that the good only was real, and proved it by destroying this seeming evil, which to us is known as tuberculosis. My wife is also in your midst, hale and hearty, as proof of my statement. And as I have also acquired this understanding of God, I cannot consistently preach the gospel in the old way, hence my resignation from this church and the ministry, and now I must echo the words of that great man, Martin Luther: 'Here I stand, I can do no otherwise, so help me God.' Amen." A PARTING WORD Nearly, all my life I was an inveterate reader of fiction, trying in this way to forget my troubles and pain, as many thousands of others are doing to-day. During all this time there was a book in existence the study of which would have banished all my misery, but I knew it not. It is with the hope that in this way I may reach a few of these thousands and get them interested enough so they will seek the truth in the way pointed out herein, that this work of fiction is put upon the market. "Seek and ye shall find," and when found, hold fast that which is true and you will come into that peace that passeth all understanding. THE AUTHOR. 
45801	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) EACH VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 3971. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. BY E. F. BENSON. IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. 2. LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ. PARIS: LIBRAIRIE CH. GAULON & FILS, 39, RUE MADAME. PARIS: THE GALIGNANI LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI, AND AT NICE, 8, AVENUE MASSÉNA. _The Copyright of this Collection is purchased for Continental Circulation only, and the volumes may therefore not be introduced into Great Britain or her Colonies. (See also pp. 3-6 of Large Catalogue.)_ * * * * * =Latest Volumes.--June 1907=. =In the Days of the Comet.= By H. G. WELLS. 1 vol.--3927. This work is a new study of the future and of "things as they should be," in the style of Jules Verne, by which most of Mr. Wells's popular books are characterised. =Sophy of Kravonia.= By ANTHONY HOPE. 2 v.--3928/29. Though the State of Kravonia be not found on any map, the lovers of Mr. Hope's romances will find very real the characters in this new tale of love, intrigue, and high politics. =The Youngest Miss Mowbray.= By B. M. CROKER. 1 vol.--3930. In this new novel of modern English life Mrs. Croker gives us another version of the old and much-loved story of Cinderella. The fairy godmother steps in at the right moment, and all ends happily. =Chippinge.= By STANLEY J. WEYMAN. 2 vols.--3931/32. A trenchant and realistic description of the state of England during the passing of the Reform Bill, into which an exceedingly pretty romance is interwoven. =Rezánov.= By GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON. 1 vol.--3933. A story of old Californian days, a theme of which this popular authoress has a right to speak. High politics and history here also play their part. =The Matrimonial Lottery.= By CHARLOTTE O'CONOR ECCLES. 1 vol.--3934. A journalistic comedy in which all ends well and happily. Miss Eccles is already the authoress of one delightful humorous book in the Tauchnitz Edition. =Sir Nigel.= By A. CONAN DOYLE. 2 vols.--3935/36. The author of "Sherlock Holmes" has here given us a book of another genre. It is a romance of the days of chivalry with a setting of many historical incidents, showing how a brave young squire won his golden spurs. =A Lady of Rome.= By F. MARION CRAWFORD. 2 vols.--3937/38. This is the story of a Roman family tragedy, and a psychological study of the lengths to which unselfish love and expiatory renunciation may go in poor human nature. =Whom God hath joined.= By ARNOLD BENNETT. 1 vol.--3939. A drama of real life dealing with the still unsolved marriage problem and the working of the English divorce laws. =The Lady Evelyn.= By MAX PEMBERTON. 1 vol.--3940. A stirring romance of England and Roumania, in which the gypsies of the latter country play an important part. The heroine herself has gypsy blood, and her dual temperament leads to exciting complications. =A Barrister's Courtship.= By F. C. PHILIPS. 1 vol.--3941. A collection of short sketches by a well-known humourist, and a longer comedy written in collaboration with Percy Fendall. =The Future in America.= By H. G. WELLS. 1 vol.--3942. Mr. Wells, who has already written so many works on the future of the world's civilisation, paid a visit to America on purpose to judge on the spot of the future of that country. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 3971. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. BY E. F. BENSON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE BY E. F. BENSON AUTHOR OF "DODO," "THE CHALLONERS," "THE IMAGE IN THE SAND," "THE ANGEL OF PAIN," "PAUL," ETC. _COPYRIGHT EDITION_ IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1907. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. CHAPTER I. Maud was lying in a long chair on the lawn after lunch the following afternoon, defending Christian Science from the gibes (which were keen) of the mockers, who were many. She had an ally, it is true, in the person of Alice Yardly, who, in her big hat and white dress, with a blue sash, looked like a doubtful Romney, and was smiling, literally with all her might. The more the mockers mocked, the kinder grew her smile, and the more voluble her explanations. Maud, for her part, would sooner have done battle alone, for all that Alice as an ally did was, with great precision and copious directions, to reveal to the enemy all the weak points in the fortifications (of which, it seemed to Maud, there were hundreds) and all the angles where an assault would probably meet with success. Wherever, so it seemed, there was any possible difficulty in "the scheme of things entire," as understood by Christian scientists, there was poor dear Alice, waving a large and cheerful flag to call attention to it. "No, I am not a Christian Scientist, Thurso," Maud was saying, "because I think a lot of it is too silly--oh, well, never mind. But what I told you at lunch I actually saw with my own eyes. I will say it again. Nurse Miles, who is optimistic, told me that Sandie was dying, and though it was really no use, she wanted Dr. Symes to be sent for. Well, I didn't send for him, but I went upstairs with Mr. Cochrane, and I saw Mr. Cochrane--by means of Christian Science, I must suppose--pull Sandie out of the jaws of death." "Be fair, Maud," said Thurso. "Tell them what Dr. Symes said when he came next morning." "I was going to. He said he had known cases where the temperature went suddenly down from high fever to below normal, and it had not meant perforation. It meant simply what it was--the sudden cessation of fever. Of course, such a thing is very rare, and it would be an odd coincidence if----" Alice Yardly leaned forward, smiled, and interrupted violently and volubly. "Mortal mind had caused the fever originally," she said, "and it was this that Mr. Cochrane demonstrated over, thus enabling Sandie to throw off the false claim of fever and temperature, for he couldn't really have fever, since fever is evil." "Is temperature evil, too?" asked Thurso. "And why is a temperature of 104 degrees more evil than a normal temperature?" Alice did not even shut her mouth, but held it open during Thurso's explanation, so as to go on again the moment he stopped. "Neither heat nor cold really exist," she said, "any more than fever, since, as I was saying, fever is evil, and Infinite Love cannot send evil to anybody, because it is All-Good. It was the demonstration of this that made his temperature go down and let him get well. It was only with his mortal mind, too, that he could think he had fever, since there is no real sensation in matter, just as it was through mortal mind, and not through All-Love, that he thought he had caught it. But Immortal Mind knows that there is no sensation in matter, and so no disease. As David said, 'Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day;' and when Sandie, by Mr. Cochrane's demonstration over mortal mind, perceived that--though he need not have been conscious that he perceived it--the false claim of fever left him, so, of course, his temperature went down." Maud gave a sigh, not of impatience, but of very conscious patience, which is very near akin to it. "Darling Alice," she said, "you haven't understood a single word from the beginning. Mr. Cochrane didn't make Sandie's temperature go down." Alice's mouth was still open. She interrupted like lightning. "No, of course not," she said. "It was not Mr. Cochrane: it was the belief and trust in Immortal Mind that had reached Sandie. It is not the healer who does it: it is Divine Love shining through the healer that disperses false claims. God is good and is All, and matter is nothing, because Life, God, Immortal Mind----" Maud sat up in her long chair and clapped her hands close to Alice's face, so that she absolutely could not go on, in spite of the omnipotence of Immortal Mind. "I will finish one sentence--just one," she said, "whatever you say. You don't understand a single thing. It was the subsidence of high temperature that was the dangerous symptom. Mr. Cochrane came in after Sandie's temperature had suddenly gone down. He had nothing to do with bringing it down. I took him up to Sandie, because Sandie's temperature had gone down. I am sure it is very difficult to understand, especially if you don't believe in temperature; but do draw a long breath and try to grasp that. It wasn't Immortal Good, God, Mind, that brought Sandie's temperature below normal: it was all, as you would say, a frightfully false claim. It was a symptom of dangerous illness, not a symptom of health. I wish you would attend more. You make me feel feverish in explaining like this, darling." Alice's smile suffered no diminution. She was still quite ready to explain anything. "As I said, fever cannot be sent by Divine Love," she remarked, "and therefore, since there is nothing really existent in the world except Divine Love, it follows that fever cannot be real, and that the belief in it is a function of mortal mind. No evil or pain or disease can happen to anybody who has uprooted the false claim of mortal mind, and no drug can have any effect, either harmful or beneficial, on anyone who knows the truth. The drug only acts on mortal mind, which is----" Thurso entered the arena. "I want to understand, Alice," he said. "Supposing I choose to drink large quantities of prussic acid for breakfast, under the conviction that no poison exists for Immortal Mind, shall I live to take pints more of it at lunch? Doesn't poison exist for mortal body?" "'If you drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt you,'" quoted Alice. "Soufflé of nightshade for Alice this evening," said Maud cheerfully. Theodosia had been keeping up a general chattering noise, to which no one listened. Now she had her chance. "My!" she said. "You'd better become a Christian Scientist at once, Silas. Silas adores--he just adores--English beer, but he has a false claim that it disagrees with him. Now Mrs. Yardly tells us that there's no such thing as poison. So, Silas, just take tight hold of that, and get a barrel. I may be left a widow, but try--just swill it." "Theodosia," began Silas; but he was not permitted to get further. "But intoxicant drinks are in themselves evil things," said Alice, "just as tobacco, which is only fed upon by a loathsome worm, is evil, as you will find in Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous writings. She has pronounced against them." "But I thought there was no evil except in the false belief of mortal mind?" said Maud. "That is just what I have been saying," said Alice profusely. "The only real existence is God, who is cause, source, origin, overlies and underlies and encompasses." Rudolf Villars joined in. "And if Mrs. Eddy said that cream-cheese was evil, would that make it so?" he asked politely. "Cannot she have attacks of error and mortal mind? Is it not just possible, as Oliver Cromwell said, that she is occasionally? I should have thought that instances might be found where intoxicants had even saved life in cases of exhaustion or exposure." Maud broke in again. "You are all very flippant," she said. "It really does not matter what Mrs. Eddy thinks about tobacco, or whether darling Alice will not answer our questions. But I did see--and I stick to it--a man who was past human power pulled back into life by Mr. Cochrane. How it was done I don't know, but his own explanation was a perfectly simple one. He said it was the direct healing power of God. After all, if we and doctors say that there are healing powers in certain herbs which God made, why shouldn't He heal direct?" The throb of a motor and the sound of its wheels crunching the gravel was heard, and Thurso got up. "Well, we must settle something else just now," he said. "Who wants to drive over to Windsor, and who wants to go on the river, and who wants to do nothing?" This broke up the conference, as it was designed to do, for Thurso felt literally unable to stand much more: he was nervous, irritable, scarcely in his own control. He had slept badly--indeed, he had hardly slept at all--and this stream of balderdash that spouted from Alice was quite intolerable. She, however, with undiminished cheerfulness, expressed a preference for the river, and made it impossible for Villars not to offer his companionship. Ruby and Jim had not been seen since lunch. Theodosia and her husband went with Thurso to Windsor, and Mr. Yardly murmured something about letters, which, rightly interpreted, meant slumber, and hastily betook himself to the house. In consequence, Maud and her sister-in-law, both of whom announced their intention of doing nothing of any description, were before long left in possession of the garden. There had been a certain design about this, though successfully veiled, on Catherine's part. She wanted to have a talk with Maud, and the gentlest promptings had been sufficient to make other people choose other things. The rest of the party dispersed in their various directions, and it was not till the motor had hooted at the entrance to the main road and the steam launch puffed its way past the opening in the yew-hedge that Catherine spoke again. "Tell me more about this Mr. Cochrane," she said. Maud was already half immersed in her book, and had been quite unconscious of Catherine's diplomacy. She started a little when the question was put to her, and closed her book. "There is really no more to tell," she said. "I think I have told you all. Ah! no; there was one more thing, but they would all have howled so if I had said it. It was this: he told me that he was demonstrating over the whole outbreak of typhoid. Well, it stopped quite suddenly. The cases had been coming in hour after hour till it ceased like a tap being turned off. And after that there were no more deaths. Of course, it sounds incredible, and if you ask me whether I really believe that it was through him that it came to an end like that, I shouldn't say 'Yes.' I don't know." "I should like to see Mr. Cochrane," remarked Catherine. "You can if you like. He is coming to town, he told me, some day this month. Oh, Catherine, it is interesting, anyhow! He did cure Sandie; also, he cured Duncan Fraser's wife. I am convinced of that. And then the other fact of the typhoid ceasing like that! Of course, you may say it was a pure coincidence; you may say that those other cures were coincidences too. But when you get a set of coincidences all together like that, you wonder if there is not--well, some law which lies behind them, and accounts for them all." She paused a moment. "A lot of apples and other things fell to the ground," she said, "and Newton deduced the law of gravity. It accounted for them all." Catherine lit a cigarette, and threw the match away with great vigour. "_What_ a fool darling Alice is!" she observed. "I love Alice just as you do--you can't help loving her--but, oh, what a fool! Somehow, if a person talks such abject nonsense as that about anything, one concludes that the subject is nonsense too. But it doesn't really follow. And Mr. Cochrane doesn't talk nonsense?" she asked. "No; he isn't the least nonsensical. As I have told you, he goes and cures people when they are ill, instead of gassing about it. He's a very good fisherman, too." Catherine could not help laughing. Maud mentioned this in a voice of such high approval. "But isn't that inconsistent?" she said. "I don't think a man whose whole belief was in health and life should go and kill things." "Oh yes; I think it's inconsistent," said Maud, "and so does he. But did you ever see anybody who wasn't inconsistent? I never did, and I never want to. He would be so extremely dull: you would know all about him at once." "And you don't know all about Mr. Cochrane?" she asked. "No; I should like to know more. I think I never met anyone so arresting. You are forced to attend, whether you like it or not." "And I gather you like it?" asked Catherine. "Yes, certainly. I like vigour and certainty, and--oh, well, that sort of cleanness. He is like a nice boy at Cambridge, with all this extraordinary strength behind." Catherine could not help making mental comments on this. "Ah, that attracts you?" she said. "It attracts me also. I like people to be strong and efficient; but, oh, Maud, how one's heart goes out to them when they are helpless and enmeshed in what is stronger than they!" This was a clear change of subject. Mr. Cochrane was put aside for a little, and Catherine could not help noticing that Maud seemed relieved. "Ah, you mean Thurso?" she said quickly, letting her book slide to the ground. "Yes; and I want to talk to you about him, for I believe you are wise, and I feel helpless. I don't know what to do. Last night, I must tell you, I went straight to his room after leaving you dressing. He had just taken laudanum, not because he had any headache, but because he longed for it." Maud clasped her hands together and gave a little pitiful sound, half sigh, half moan. "Ah, the poor fellow!" she said. "Yes?" "And--and he lied to me," said Catherine, "and said he had not been taking it, and there was the glass smelling of it by his side. Then he was very angry with me for a little, and said I had spoiled everything, but eventually he gave me the bottle and let me pour it away. I did, and I threw the bottle into the shrubbery." Maud's eye brightened. "Ah! that's better," she said. "He can still fight it." Catherine shook her head. "That's not all," she said, "and the rest is so dreadful, and so pathetic. I couldn't sleep last night, and it must have been about two in the morning when I got out of bed and went to the window and sat there a little. And I saw Thurso come along the path, and he lit a match and found the bottle. Then he took it--it was bright moonlight; I could see quite clearly--and literally sucked it, to see if there was not a drop or two left." Maud had no reply to this. If it was despicable, it was, as Catherine had said, dreadfully pathetic. "Advise me, dear Maud," she said at length. "I am horribly troubled about it. The sight of him turning that damned little bottle--no, I'm not sorry: I meant it--upside down in his mouth showed me how awfully he wanted it. I feel one shouldn't lose a day or a minute. The desire grows like an aloe-flower. But if he won't see a doctor, what is to be done? I shall send for Sir James as soon as I get back to town, and tell him all about it; but I can't force Thurso to see him. Besides----" and she stopped. "Yes?" "There is nothing in the world so hard to cure," she said. "It is deadlier than a cancer." "But he still wants to free himself," said Maud. "Yes; so does a prisoner." There was a pause. "Or do you think I am taking too pessimistic a view?" asked Catherine. Maud could not help seeing the bright side of things. Sunshine appealed to her more strongly than shadow. It was more real to her. "Yes; I think you are," she said. "He let you pour the--well, the damned stuff away. You influenced him more strongly than his desire." "Yes, than his satisfied desire," said Catherine with terrible commonsense. "He had just taken it. Do you suppose he would have let me pour it away if he was just going to take it?" "I don't know. You are stronger than he, I think." Maud gave a great sigh, picking up her book. "I remember Mr. Cochrane practically offered to cure his neuralgia," she said, "but I knew it was perfectly useless to suggest it to Thurso; nor at the time did I believe in Mr. Cochrane. But since then----" Catherine looked up, and saw in Maud's face what she had suspected. "Oh, Maud!" she said. "Are you in love with him?" Maud leaned forward, and her book again dropped face downwards on the gravel. She did not notice it. "Oh, I haven't the slightest idea," she said. "Catherine, I do like him awfully--I like him most awfully. No one has ever attracted me like that. Good gracious! how indelicate I am! But I don't care one straw. I should like to put all my affairs and all poor Thurso's into his hands. I should do it with the utmost confidence, and I should then just curl round as one does in bed, and feel everything is all right. Is that being in love? I don't know or care. He is so strong, and so windy and so sunny. He is surrounded by sun, and--and it is as if he had just had a cold bath and stepped into the sun. I love that strength and wind. Don't you like it? I want somebody who would go on playing undoubled spades at bridge in the middle of an earthquake. He would--for a shilling a hundred. Am I in love with him? I tell you I don't know. Certainly this sort of thing has never happened to me before, and, again, I certainly have never been in love. So perhaps 'these are the ones.' Oh, do tell me! When Thurso proposed to you, was it like that? Did you feel there wasn't anybody else who _really_ mattered? Oh dear! poor Mr. Cochrane, to have all this put upon him! He hasn't shown the slightest sign of doing more than admire my fishing. Lots of people have done that. But about you and Thurso, did you feel that? Is that the one?" There was a fine irony about this, and Catherine, in spite of the previous discussion on Christian Science, which laid down that all that had any real existence was good, felt disposed to believe in the malice that lurked in chance questions. She evaded the direct answer. "Oh, there are as many ways of love as there are people in the world," she said. "But, dear, I regard you with suspicion. There are certain symptoms----" "Oh, don't," said Maud. "Very well. But I feel with you about strength. It is an adorable quality to women. And it is that which so troubles me about Thurso. I know--the throwing away of the bottle proves it--that he is fighting; but is he strong enough? He was weak when he allowed himself to form a habit that he knew was harmful." She threw her hands wide. "Oh, it is so awful!" she said. "One begins by saying, 'I shall do this when I choose,' and so soon. This says, 'You shall do it when I choose.' Personally, I always make it a rule to give anything up before I begin to want it very badly." There was an irony in this, too. The remembrance of what chiefly kept her awake last night made her know that her rule was not always quite easy to follow. But this was secret from Maud. "You, who get all you want!" she said, speaking from outside. Catherine got up, and began walking up and down the small angle of lawn where they sat, bordering the deep flower-bed. All June was in flower there, just as in herself, to the outside view, all June seemed to be flowering. It was no wonder that Maud thought that. But all the emotional baggage which she had consistently thrown away all her life seemed to her to be coming back now in bales, returned to her by some dreadful dead-letter office--at least, she had hoped it was dead--and a sudden bitterness, born of perplexity, invaded her. "Oh yes; everybody always thinks one is happy," she said, "if one has good digestion and a passable appearance, and heaps of things to do, and the enjoyment in doing them which I have, and as much money as one wants. But all these things only give one pleasure. Do you think I am happy? Do you really think so?" Maud dropped her eyes. When talk deepens it is well to talk in the dark, or to talk without the distraction of sight. "No, I don't think you are," she said, "if I look deep down." "Then you are two people," said Catherine rather fiercely--"the superficial Maud who just now said I had all I wanted, implying happiness, and another Maud, who has to be fished for." That was less personal, less intricate, and Maud looked up again, smiling. "Quite true," she said. "But so are you two Catherines; so is everybody who is worth anything. I used to think you an ideally happy person, because, as far as one could see, you got all you wanted. I imagine it was what you call the superficial Maud who thought that; I don't think the deep-down 'you' is happy." Maud paused a moment, feeling that her sister-in-law was hanging on her words. It did not seem to her that in this claim for unhappiness, so to speak, that Catherine had made she had in her mind the drug-taking: it was something different to that. Only lately, too, had she herself been conscious of this "deeper Maud," which yet did not in the least affect the workings of the more superficial self. The joy of morning and evening, the depression and irritation of east wind, the rapture of catching sea-trout, went on, on the surface, just as keenly as ever, but an interior life had awoke. "I used to envy you so, Cathy," she said--"at least, I used to envy lots of things about you, when I thought that the 'you' which all the world knew and admired so was all there was. But now I believe that there is a greater 'you' than that, and that a realer 'me' than the ordinary thing perceives it. And since you ask me, I don't think that essential part of you is happy, any more than Thurso is happy." Catherine sat down again, and thought over this before she answered. "I would give, or give up, a great deal to make Thurso happy," she said with absolute sincerity. "But I get on his nerves." Maud looked up, waiting for more--waiting for the completion of the sentence which she had heard not so long ago on Thurso's lips. It came. "And he bores me," said Catherine. There was a long silence. Bees buzzed in the flowers, making them bend and sway and nod to their weight; a grasshopper clicked and whirred on the lawn; swifts swooped and chided together in sliding companies; while the splash of oars or churn of a steamer sounded from the river. Then--such is the habit of the world--it struck them both how unlike themselves, unlike the ordinary presentment of themselves, that is to say, they were being, and simultaneously they swam out of the depths that were in reality the much more essential abode of them both. But the return to normal levels was short; they soon went down again; since those who have met or seen each other below always go back there. It is only those who have talked insincerely on deep matters who prefer to splash about on the surface. But a few surface remarks followed. "Yet it is almost certainly one's own fault if one is bored," said Catherine. "To be bored only shows that a bore is present--probably oneself. Yet, Maud ... if I tell him about the bazaars, and sales, and speeches, and so on, _he_ is bored; and they do make up a big part of my life." "On the surface," said she, "since we are being frank." "No, not on the surface, since we are contradicting each other. The deepest and most real part of me that I know is sorry for poor devils, and it expresses itself in these ways. And it is exactly that which gets on his nerves. If I get up from lunch because I have got to go somewhere, he is irritated. He thinks I am restless. Well, so I am. I want to be doing things, not eating stupid cutlets. What do you want me to do? What does he want me to do? Eat opium instead?" Maud gave a long sigh. "Oh, Cathy, that was a pity!" she said. Catherine gave a little hopeless gesture. "Oh yes; it was a pity. Lots of things are. Our attitude towards each other is a pity. But I'm sorry I said that. Oh, do help me! Let's be practical. Remember, I am at home when I am doing things. And I want to know what to do about a hundred things." Catherine got up again. She was, as she said, always practical, and she was always restless. This afternoon in particular, after the inconclusive wakefulness of the night before, she longed to map out plans, rules of conduct, a line to take about all these complications. Yet, since all her life she had been chary of emotion, apt to regard it as useless, if not dangerous, stuff to have on board; now, when it was certainly there, either through her will or in opposition to it, she found herself--she, the ready speaker--destitute of words to deal with it to Maud. And in her silent search for expression again she paced up and down the busy bee-travelled flower-beds. Then there came a crisper note--the sound of crunched gravel--and a dog-cart drew up at the front-door, some fifty yards only from where they sat. There was only one person in it, a young man, who dismounted and rang the bell, and stood at the pony's head waiting for it to be answered. But apparently the servants were drowsy too, as befitted Sunday afternoon, and after a pause he rang again. No definite process of reasoning went on through Catherine's mind, but somehow her heart sank. This was no caller, no one who would need entertainment; but there was something dimly familiar in that cart, and in the tradesman-like young man, that reminded her of medicines, of the time when the children had the measles. Yes; it was a man from the chemist's ... and next moment she knew why her heart sank. "I will see who it is," she said to Maud. "The servants seem to be asleep;" and she went across the grass to the front-door. She had a word with the man, who gave her a small package, neatly sealed. Then he touched his hat, mounted, and turned his horse. Catherine came back to where Maud was sitting. "It is directed to Thurso," she said, "and it is from the chemist in Windsor. Maud----" Maud understood; but she shook her head. "Oh, you can't open other people's things," she said--"you can't. Oh, Catherine, what are we to do?" Catherine sat down again, with the bottle--the shape of it was plain--in her hand. Then Maud spoke again. "But we must," she said. "Open it carefully, so that if it isn't what we think we can do it up again. Oh, I hate it all; it seems mean, but I don't care. I'll open it if you would rather not." Catherine seemed to think this unnecessary, and carefully broke the seals. There was a bottle of dark blue glass inside, with a red label of "Poison" on it. It was closed with a glass stopper, which she withdrew, and she smelled it. Then, paper and all, she passed it to Maud. Maud put the stopper back into the bottle, squeezed up the paper and string in which it had been wrapped into a tight ball, and threw it deep into the flower-bed. Then she went to the opening in the yew-hedge and flung the bottle itself into mid-stream. "So we've both had a hand in it," she said when she returned. "Oh, Cathy, last night only he let you throw the wretched stuff out of the window, and the very next day has to go and order some more. Poor dear old boy! He must have ordered it when he went in with Theodosia after lunch. He must have told them he wanted it quickly. It's death and hell, you know. I didn't stop to think. I had to throw it into the river. What next? Are we to know anything about it or not?" "Yes; he would find out in any case. The chemist's man would say he gave it to me. But there is no reason why you should come into it." "Oh, give me my share," said Maud quickly. "I want to help." "Of course you can help; but I am quite willing to take the whole responsibility for what we have done," said Catherine. "No; I want it to come from both of us," said Maud, "if that is of any use." Catherine considered this. "It is," she said. "You have more weight with him than I have, you know." There was no trace of any bitterness in her tone. It was plain unemotional speech, but it struck Maud as one of the saddest things she had ever heard said. She had long known, of course, that the married life of her brother and Catherine was not very happy, but this afternoon the tragedy of it was becoming, by these little trivial words, infinitely more real. And the materials for tragedy were being dreadfully augmented. This little bottle she had just thrown into the Thames was like one of those little incidents in the first act of a play, from which disaster will certainly be evolved later. What hideous scene in the last act did the great Playwright of life mean to make out of this? Then suddenly some memory of things Mr. Cochrane had said to her up in Scotland, some sentences from a book concerning Christian Science which he had lent her, came back to her mind. He had warned her that she would find in it certain things which would seem to her ridiculous, and he had asked her to pass over those. But he had told her that she would also find there certain things which were indisputably true, and, remembering one of them, she told herself now that she was thinking wrongly in anticipating evil like this. If she was to be of any use in the world, or produce any happiness in herself or others, she must turn away from evil, must deny it, and look at and affirm this great reality of Love and Good. To dwell on sin and error and on their consequences was to invite them, to make them her guests. It was another Guest--a very willing One--that was to be made welcome, but He was autocratic: you had to do His bidding all the time, even in details. "Yes, let me help," she said. "And we must tell him at once what we have done. Don't let us deceive him, even if we could." "He will be furious," said Catherine. "We can't help that. We have certainly got to tell him. Besides, we don't want to conceal what we have done; we don't want to think of some plan for preventing it coming to his knowledge. We are not ashamed of it. Wouldn't you do it again? I would. I would throw all the laudanum bottles in the world into the Thames if I could prevent the stuff reaching him." * * * * * People began to gather again after this. Rudolf Villars and his companion came back from the river, he looking fatigued, while Alice was fresher than paint. Her husband came out from the house with considerable alertness, as if letter-writing had been an unconscious recuperative process. A few people from neighbouring houses came, by road or river, to look in at tea-time; and when Thurso, with the two Americans, returned from Windsor, there was a rather numerous company on the lawn. He went into the house before joining the others, and was there some minutes, during which time they heard a bell ring furiously within. Catherine's eyes and Maud's met over this; and when he came out, another piece of silent telegraphy went on between them, and Maud got up and went straight to him before he joined the tea-table group. Catherine could not go with her, being busy with her entertaining, but between sentences she watched them. They were not far distant when they met, and Thurso's face was towards her. She saw it get suddenly white, and he gave one furious gesticulation, then turned and went back towards the house again, without joining them. He did not go in, but walked down the shrub-set road that led to the stables. Maud came back to the tea-table, spoke to friends, and gradually got close to Catherine. "He is going back to Windsor to get more," she said quietly. "Yes, no sugar, thanks. He would not listen to me. I have never seen him so angry." Catherine just nodded, and then, since, whatever private tragedy was being played, the public comedy had to go on, she was, with the surface-Catherine, no more than an admirable hostess, charmed to see her guests, eager to interest them. But below, courageous though she was, and little as she regretted what Maud and she had done, though it turned out to be futile, she feared what was coming, for she hated anger, and she hated, also, to think that just now, when, for reasons of which Maud knew nothing, she wanted Thurso's friendship and companionship so much, there should open this fresh breach between them. But it was no good thinking of that: here was Villars at her elbow, and here was Thurso already on his way back to Windsor, for she had heard the motor start by the back way from the stables. And only last night he had let her pour the foul stuff away, and had thanked her for doing it! Meantime the tinkle of drawing-room philosophy went on round her, and it was a relief, in its way, to join in it. It was so perfectly easy. "Yes, it is necessary for all of us to have some fad which for the time being is quite the most serious thing in the world," she said to Lady Swindon, who had come down the river from Cookham. "We do the serious things lightly, but we take our fads in deadly earnest. Two years ago, do you remember, we never wore hats in the country. I didn't get as far as wearing none in town, though I remember you did; but in the country I felt that golden hours were wasted if I had a hat on. Then last year there was the simple life. I retain pieces of that still." Lady Swindon laughed. "I know you do, darling Catherine, but you are so busy that you find time for everything. I gave it up because it was so very complicated. One had to provide two sorts of lunches and two sorts of dinners every day--one for the simple-life people who ate curried lentils and all the most expensive fruits, and one for the people who ate beef. Swindon always ate both, to show he wasn't bigoted, and so, of course, he had two months at Carlsbad instead of one. The simple life, anyhow, is finished with: it was too difficult. Do tell me what the next fad is going to be. You always are a full fad ahead of the rest of us." "I wish I knew. I thought it would be spiritualism at one time, but I don't believe now that it will come off. Such confusing things happen. I went to a _séance_ the other day, and the most wonderful materialisation occurred, and I recognised the figure at once, and for certain, as being my grandmother. But in the same breath Major Twickenham over there recognised it as being his great-aunt, who was Austrian, and is no more a relation of mine than I am of the Shah's. The medium subsequently explained it as being a spiritual coalition, but personally I felt rather inclined to explain it as being the medium." Lady Swindon looked thoroughly disappointed. "Oh, I did hope it was going to be spiritualism," she said. "I do automatic writing every evening, unless I am really tired--because it's no use then, is it?--and sometimes it says _the_ most extraordinary things. Haven't you ever tried it? It is quite fascinating, especially if you use a stylograph pen, which seems to go easier. And Swindon and I have heard the most awful raps--like the postman. But if it is not going to be the craze I shall give it up. One has no time for a private hobby: one has to ride the public hobby all the time. Are you sure you are right? Think of the Zigzags. I never can remember their name. And what about Christian Science? I hear it is spreading tremendously. Or deep breathing?" The smile on Alice Yardly's face widened and deepened as she heard the sacred word. But at this moment she was being talked to, and could not join in with her long and lucid explanations, though the scientific statement of Being--cause, source, origin--was trembling on her lips. "I have tried deep breathing," said Catherine, "but there really isn't time. You can't do anything else while you are doing it; you can't talk even, because your mouth is closed, and you breathe in through one nostril and breathe out through the other. Perhaps it will be Christian Science, though, do you know, I think some of it is too serious and sensible to be a fad, whereas the other half is too silly. On that side talk to Alice, or read what Mark Twain says. But on the serious side--the side that is sensible--get Maud to tell you about the typhoid up at Achnaleesh and her Mr. Cochrane." "Her Mr. Cochrane?" asked Lady Swindon, with the alertness of the world. But the unconsciousness of the world, no less important an equipment, answered her. "Oh, only 'hers' because she told me about him; no other reason. Thurso and she were up there together." "And Thurso--isn't he here?" "Oh yes," said Catherine, "but tea-time isn't his hour. Tea-time is women's hour; it corresponds to men's after-dinner talk when we have gone upstairs." "But we have women's hour then, too," said Lady Swindon. "I suppose we have got more to say?" Lady Thurso laughed. "Oh, I don't think that," she said. "I think we only take longer to say it. Tea, Theodosia?" Theodosia had truly American ideas about being introduced. It was her custom--and a genial one--to make all her guests formally known to each other by name, and she expected the same formality. "Kindly introduce me, Catherine," she said. "Lady Swindon--my cousin, Mrs. Morton." "Very happy to make your acquaintance, Lady Swindon," said Theodosia; "and don't you think that Catherine's place down here is just the cunningest spot you ever saw? Why, look at that yew-hedge! I guess--expect, I mean--that Noah planted it before the Flood, or, anyhow, soon after, to have made it that height. But, then, all Catherine has is perfect, is it not? I adore her things and her. My! I never saw such a wonderful black pearl as that you've got around your neck. It looks as if it came straight from the Marquis of Anglesea's tie-pin." "I think not; I inherited it," said Lady Swindon rather icily. "Well, there you are," said the prompt Theodosia. "That's what comes of being an Englishwoman of the upper classes. You inherit things, and we've got to buy them. Why, this afternoon Lord Thurso and my husband and I drove over to Windsor, and I never saw a spot that looked so inherited as that. You can't buy that look: it's just inheritance. Do you know my husband? Ah! he's talking to Count Villars over there; and what a lovely man he is! And we had the loveliest time to-day! I never saw Windsor before; and fancy inheriting that! But I'm afraid Lord Thurso is sick. He called at a chemist's, and told them to send some medicine out here right away. I guess he pined for that medicine. And he's not here, is he? I shouldn't wonder if he went straight in to take it. I guess he's taking it now. Catherine, I think your husband is the loveliest man! I hope he's not real sick. But he just pined for that medicine." Tea was no longer in demand, and Catherine got up. The whole situation was beginning to get on her nerves. Theodosia, with her awful American manner, was on her nerves; this dreadful information about the call at the chemist's was there also, and she felt sure that Lady Swindon, for all her "darling Catherines," was that sort of friend who likes knowing the weak points of others, not necessarily with the object of their malicious use, but as useful things to have in your pocket. Theodosia, as she was aware, when she got up now to get out of immediate range of that rasping voice, was one of her weak points: the mention of Thurso's medicine and his anxiety to get it were others. Theodosia touched them with the unerring instinct of the true and tactless bungler. So Catherine, with the higher courage that wants not to know the worst, if Theodosia was going to throw more sidelights on the subject of this medicine, moved out of earshot. Lady Swindon justified her position of a true friend to Catherine, and became markedly more cordial to Theodosia. She wanted to know more about this, and proceeded in the spirit of earnest inquiry. "What a charming afternoon you must have had!" she said. "To see Windsor for the first time is delightful, is it not? and to have Lord Thurso as a companion is delightful at any time. But he is not ill, is he?" "He seemed just crazy to get to that chemist's," said Theodosia, "and he seemed just crazy to get back home again. They tell me you have a speed-limit for motors over here, but if we didn't exceed it, I don't see that it can be of much service." Now, Lady Swindon was not really more malicious than most people, in spite of her weakness for her friends' weaknesses, and it was in the main her truly London desire to be always well up in current scandals, and know the details of all that may perhaps soon be beginning to be whispered, that led her to "pump" (if a word that implies effort may be used about so easy a process) Theodosia on this subject. Thurso's long absence in Scotland, to begin with, had seemed to her queer, and to require explanation. It did not seem likely, somehow, that he had gone there after a woman, but, on the other hand, she personally thought it improbable that he had really gone to look after fever-stricken tenants. As a matter of fact, of course he had done so, but the truth usually escapes these earnest inquirers, especially if it is quite simple and straightforward. But here was a fresh fact: he had been crazy to get to the chemist's and had raced home. She felt she had guessed. "He used to have dreadful headaches," she observed. "Perhaps he had one this afternoon." "He didn't seem that way," said Theodosia, "and I know about headaches, because Silas used to have them, arising from faulty digestion, to which he is a martyr. He took opium for them." "Yes?" said Lady Swindon. "That always cured him. Why, here's Count Villars. Count Villars, I haven't set eyes on you since lunch, and I feel bad because you are neglecting me. Let me present you to Lady Swindon." Villars bowed. "I think we were introduced about twelve years ago," he observed. "How are you, Lady Swindon? You have come down the river from your charming Cookham?" Lady Swindon got up, turning her back on Theodosia, for whom she had no further use. "Yes, and I am just going back there. How clever of you to remember where we live! Will you take me to my boat? Let us walk round the garden first. It is charming to see you again." They strolled a few yards down the path between the two tall herbaceous borders, while she rapidly ran over in her mind what information she wanted from him. It was very quickly done. "And you are staying here?" she asked. "How do you find Catherine? I am sure you walked together last night after dinner, and joined old memories onto the present." Lady Swindon was colossal in her impertinence. It struck Villars afresh after his long absence from England how very ill-bred a well-bred Englishwoman can be. But he was more than a match for her. "Ah, my dear lady," he said, "we found that the two needed no link. We neither of us have that faculty, which, no doubt, is often convenient, of forgetting old friends. As always, I adore her; as always, she receives my adoration from her infinite height. The Madonna still smiles on her worshipper. He asks no more." It was admirably done, for it told her nothing. She tried again. "Indeed? I thought you had once asked more," she said. "We all supposed so." "There is no limit to what people of brilliant and vivid imagination may not suppose," said he. She could not help smiling at her own defeat. His refusals to give direct answers were so very silken. "And the truth always exceeds one's imagination, does it not?" she said. "It is usually different from it," observed he. This would not do. She tried something else. "And Thurso?" she said. "How do you think he is?" Villars looked at her in bland surprise. "Very well, surely, is he not?" he said. "Why should you think otherwise?" "Only something I heard about his calling at a chemist's and racing home afterwards." "Indeed!" said Villars. Lady Swindon was afraid there was no more to be got there, and he handed her into her launch. "But I am so glad, so very glad you think he is well," she said. "Do come and spend a Sunday with us some week. I will try to get Catherine to come and meet you." He murmured gratitude of the non-committal sort, and stood a little while looking after her launch, which sped like an arrow up-stream, raising a two-foot wave in its wake, and nearly upset half a dozen boats in its passage. Then he strolled back to the lawn again. He had not the faintest intention of staying with Lady Swindon, but, on the other hand, he did not at all desire to be on bad terms with her, for, little as he respected her, he had a profound respect for her supreme mischief-making capabilities. She had got hold of something about Thurso, too, and perhaps it was as well she had not seen him. In that case, his own bland assertion that he considered him very well would not have been of much use. Lady Swindon's departure had acted as a signal for a general move, and when Villars got back, Lady Thurso was just saying good-bye to the last of her guests. On the moment, the butler came out of the house and spoke to her. "His lordship begs that you and Lady Maud will go to his room for a moment as soon as you are disengaged, my lady," he said. "Tell his lordship we will come immediately. Ah, Count Villars, we were going on the river, were we not? Could you wait a few minutes? Thurso wants to see me about something." Maud joined her, and they went together to Thurso's sitting-room at the end of the house. He was sitting at his table in the window, and, with his usual courtesy, got up as they entered. On the table in front of him stood a bottle of dark blue glass. He had just finished unpacking this as they entered, and threw the corrugated paper in which it had been wrapped into the waste-paper basket. "A cigarette, Catherine?" he said, offering her one. "I want a few minutes' talk with you both." She took one, and he waited till she had lit it, and sat down. "Maud tells me," he said, "that you and she undid a package that arrived here this afternoon addressed to me, and threw it away. That is so, I believe?" She did not answer--it seemed unnecessary--and he raised his voice a little. "Will you kindly say whether that is so?" he said. "Yes; quite right," she said. Again he raised his voice, that shook with suppressed rage. "And do you make a habit of doing such things, both of you? Do you open my letters, other people's letters?" "Oh, Thurso, don't be a fool!" said Maud quietly. His face went very white. "Maud, I am trying to be courteous," he said, "under a good deal of provocation. You might make an effort to follow my example." "Is it courteous to ask Catherine and me whether we are in the habit of opening other people's letters?" she asked. "Your behaviour this afternoon seems to me to warrant my question," he said. "No, Thurso, it does not," said his wife. "I think you know it, too." He looked first at the one, then at the other, and his hand moved as if instinctively towards the bottle on the table. "I don't want to make a scene with either of you," he said, "and I don't want to detain you. I wish to say, however, that I think you behaved quite outrageously. And I require you both to promise never again to act in such a way. You are absolutely unjustified in touching or interfering with my things in this way from whatever motive." He took up the bottle. "You see how little good your interference has done in this instance," he said, "and it will do as little in any other. You will merely oblige me to adopt methods as underhand as your own." "There was nothing underhand," said Catherine. "We were going to tell you what we had done. Indeed, Maud did tell you." "I should have said that stealing was underhand," said he very evilly, "though perhaps you think differently. As to your telling me, you knew it was inevitable that I should find out." "That has nothing to do with it," said Maud quickly. "Even if you could never have found out otherwise, we should have told you." "Ah!" said he. Maud looked at him in amazement. She had been told by Catherine this afternoon that there were two Mauds, and here indeed was a Thurso whom she would scarcely have known for her brother. His manner was quite quiet and courteous again now, but it seemed as if he was possessed. There was a world of sneering incredulity in that one word. "You don't believe what I say?" she asked. He was silent; he smiled a little, and raised his eyebrows. There was no need for him to speak; he could not have shouted his meaning nearly so clearly. "Then where is the use of our giving you any promise for the future, if you don't believe what we say?" she asked. "I ask for your promise, however," he said. "And if we don't give it you?" said Catherine. He looked at her closely, and she felt that he hated her at that moment. "I shall merely have to find some other way of getting things delivered," he said, "so that you shall not st--intercept them." There was silence. "I ask for your promise," he repeated. Maud threw back her head. "I promise," she said. "It is no use refusing." "And I," said Catherine, getting up. "Is that all, Thurso?" Thurso put his hand to his head suddenly, with a wince of pain he could not control. "Yes, on that point that is all," he said. "Let us agree to say nothing more about a most unpleasant subject. But I want to tell you this: I am suffering so hideously at the present moment that I hardly know what I am saying. Agitation and anger, for which you two are responsible, have brought on about the worst attack I ever had. Very likely I should not have taken laudanum from that bottle you threw away; in any case, I should have struggled hard not to. I struggled yesterday, with the result that I allowed Catherine to pour away all I had in the house. But I am not going to struggle now, thank you. The pain is intolerable, and I believe it to have been brought on by what you did. Your interference has not done the slightest good; it has only given me an hour of hell." Then, quite suddenly, his mood changed. "I have said abominable things to you both," he said. "My only excuse is that I am in torments. I beg the forgiveness of both of you." Here was the real Thurso again, looking out like a soul in prison, trying to burst through the bars, and there was a dreadful, hopeless pathos about him. Catherine laid her hand on his shoulder. "Ah, Thurso, of course we forgive you," she said. "But for God's sake don't give up. I suppose you must take this now because of your pain, but say you will go on fighting it again. It's--it's damnation, you know." He looked at her with agonised eyes. "I will do my best," he said. "Now go, please. Make my excuses to the others if I don't appear at dinner. But I expect I shall; I have two hours yet." The women went out together, but before the door was closed they heard the clink of glass. CHAPTER II. It was a chill November afternoon in the autumn of the same year, and Catherine was seated at the table in her sitting-room at Thurso House, surrounded by a plentiful litter of letters and telegrams, writing busily, fiercely almost, as if to absorb herself in what she was doing to the exclusion of other thoughts. Her secretary, to whom she had just finished dictating a pile of business correspondence and letters less private than those she was occupying herself with, had just left her, and Catherine had begun to tackle this great heap of letters which she felt she had better answer herself--inquiries, mainly, from personal friends. She knew she had given herself more to do than it was really needful that she should, but what to her mind was needful was that she should be occupied in writing, and leave herself no leisure to think. At present there was nothing to be gained by thinking; she could take no step. Outside the day was utterly dispiriting; there had been a dense yellow fog all morning, and though it had cleared a little about midday, so that from her window she could see the lilac-bushes of the garden that bordered the Green Park, it hovered still overhead, and though the hour was still not yet three in the afternoon, and her table was in the window, she had to light the shaded electric candle that stood on it to enable her to write. A big fire burned in the open hearth, compounded of logs and coal, that hissed and whistled cheerfully as they blazed, and the room was warm and fragrant. But so dense had been the fog this morning that it had penetrated a little through the joinings of the windows, and a haze, visible now that the electric lights were burning, hung in the atmosphere. The room where she sat was one of her own private suite, which she had fitted up not long ago for occupation in those numerous flying visits she had to pay to town, when she intended to stop only a day or two and do some necessary business. On these occasions it was not worth while to open the whole house, and so she had established herself here on the third-floor, with just the one sitting-room, and a bedroom and bathroom adjoining. Until half-way through November she had been paying a series of visits at different country houses ever since she came down from Scotland, while Thurso, so she then believed, had been doing the same at other houses. This week they were to have had the first big shoot at their place in Norfolk, but all that had been put off. Ten days ago now she had arrived here for a couple of days' stay before going down to Norfolk, and had found her husband was in the house. He had been there ever since they came down from Scotland, alone with his valet and a couple of maidservants, one to cook and one to clean, having excused himself from the various houses where he had told her he should be staying, in order to live here in the hell-paradise of opium. Catherine had at once telegraphed for Maud, who was of more use than anybody with her brother, and the two had been here now for ten days. It was just better that they should be with him than that he should be alone; he still occasionally felt ashamed of himself if they were there. Since last June the habit had gained on him with appalling rapidity, though for a few months he had, as she knew, made frantic, agonising efforts to throw it off. He had seen doctors, he had done apparently all that lay in his power to do. But now it seemed that a sort of atrophy of his will had set in; he no longer actively desired to be a free man again, though sometimes a sort of shame and remorse seemed to visit him; and though his will had been so completely dominated and destroyed by the drug, it had left the calculating, scheming part of his brain untouched, and he had a thousand devices for obtaining it after the chemists with whom he habitually dealt had been warned not to give it him. Indeed, it was ten days now since he made what appeared to be the very last effort of will, when, on Catherine's appearance here, he had burned the prescription which enabled him to obtain it. But within twenty-four hours he had himself forged it again, and Lord Thurso, calling suddenly at some big pharmacy with a prescription bearing an eminent doctor's name, was naturally not refused the blue bottle with its red poison label. Yet busily as Catherine occupied herself with her correspondence, striving, since at the moment she could do nothing for her husband, to engage her mind rather than let it dwell on the hideous realities that were going on, and so vitally concerning her, she was alert for the interruption she expected. For yesterday afternoon Thurso, undermined and weakened as he was by this habit, had had an attack of syncope, and for an hour or two they thought he could not live. But the doctor had pulled him round out of immediate danger, and he had regained a little strength during the last twenty-four hours. Sir James Sanderson had, in fact, just come back for his afternoon visit, and was with him now. He had promised to make his report to Lady Thurso before he left the house. The news of Thurso's sudden illness had been in the evening papers last night, and had appeared again this morning. She was answering the inquiries of her huge circle of friends. Her pen went rapidly from the top to the bottom of her sheets, and envelope after envelope was directed and thrown on her pile. Awful as the present moment was, yet, in a sense, now that a crisis like this had come, it was almost more bearable than the hideous growth of the anxieties and torments she had suffered before. For as the habit gained on him, his moral perception, like his will, seemed to wither and vanish. He had conceived wholly baseless suspicions against his wife; he had uttered them to her; he had told her in what relation he believed her to stand towards Villars. Worse even than that, he did not seem to mind it. He had spied on her; he had opened her letters, both those which she received and those which she wrote--in a word, he seemed to hate her, and to delight in his hate. He made long absences, when he was not at his club or in the house, and gave elaborate, palpably false accounts of his movements when he returned. Finally, all sense of decency seemed to have left him, and he had brought to Thurso House, while his wife was in it, a common woman off the street. How it would all end she dared not think. If he lived, it seemed impossible to her that she should go on living with him. What would happen to the children? what would happen to Maud? And the shame, the atrocious shame and publicity that must follow! * * * * * But the crisis which had occurred yesterday afternoon, the crisis that concerned life and death, had somewhat mitigated the horror of these things. It had also blunted the acuteness of another question that did not concern her less. Since June last she had known that Villars loved her now just as he had always loved her, and though, since he was a gentleman, to put the matter broadly, he had not traded on her growing disgust at the man who was her husband, it was impossible for her not to know that her lover had moved closer. She had no moral House of Defence to take refuge in--nothing of that nature prevented her letting the man who loved her, the lover whom she was sure now she loved, become in deed what both he and she knew that he was in all else but that. Nothing, except a blind determination, which she often told herself was irrational, that this should not be so, stood in her way. Again and again Thurso had taunted her with a lie; he could not taunt her more if it had been a truth. Indeed, to taunt her, as he had done, with what was not true was more unbearable to her than if it had been. Had Villars been her lover, she almost felt as if she would have hurled that fact in his face. For her actions never ran away with her; she was not in the habit of doing what she was ashamed of afterwards; and certainly if she had taken a step so momentous, so vitally affecting her life, as that of having a lover, she was sure she would not have done so blindly or in any sudden flash of passion. Had she meant to live the double life she would have done so deliberately, and for reasons which seemed to her excellent--namely, that her husband was opium-drenched, and had vilely insulted her; secondly, that she loved Villars; and, thirdly, that she did not think it wicked for her in this position to do so. And yet, though in judging others she had no moral code, she judged herself and made her decision in obedience to some stricter law, though all-unformulated, than she applied to others. She knew she was irrational and inconsistent, but she knew she could not be otherwise. It is probably difficult for those of high and complex moral organisation to appreciate the workings of a nature which, on analysis, seems so rudimentary as hers, and the most rigid sort of moralist may easily say that after all there was extremely little difference between her and people of no morals whatever. But that is where the higher moralist would go astoundingly astray. There are plants so sensitive that they seem to have organic life; there are amoebæ so apparently immobile and unsensitive that to a creature so immensely distant from them in point of organisation as man they may seem to be much lower in the scale of life than the highly sensitive plant. But to the trained biologist the amoebæ are so transcendently higher than the other that he despairs of finding a bridge that can ever link up the two. And in the same way, though Catherine could formulate no moral code at all, and would unhesitatingly let any friend of hers lead any life he pleased, and yet not abate one jot of her friendship, provided only he did not do things which were mean; the fact that when "it came to" in her own case she utterly refused to contemplate doing this, made the classification of her with the moral inorganic an abysmal error. She was far stricter with herself than with others, which shows a moral generosity, and she blindly followed the more difficult way, which shows a faith that is perhaps the finer since it is conscious of no leading. And, poor soul, she knew but too well that her trials in this respect had not really begun; she had only been told to look at the rack where she was soon to be placed. For Rudolf Villars was her real stand-by in these dark passages in her life. Maud was splendid, too: she felt she could not have got through the days without her; but Maud was a woman, and she was a woman, and Villars was a man. Therefore he could help her in a way that Maud could not. For humankind is created male and female, and those of different sex can and must help each other in a manner impossible for those of the same sex. That is the glory of the world and its shame. Villars had known about this drug habit on the Sunday he had spent with them in June, for he had seen Thurso by chance when the ecstasy of the dose was on him; and since then, day by day, she owed more to him, till the debt was mounting up into huge figures. And though she knew well that to him the debt was non-existent--he never would add it up, that is to say, and present the bill--it was fearfully existent to her. In payment of it she could only give him one thing--herself; and that she would not. True, he had made no absolutely direct declaration of his love, but in a hundred ways he showed it, and day by day, as she saw, it was getting harder for him to be silent. And what would happen then? She had made her determination. She would have to declare it. That was all ... oh yes, that was all. For the time, however, the acuteness of these perplexities had lost its sharpness, since Thurso's attack yesterday, and such thoughts, the summary of her inner life for the last two or three months, did not get between her pen and her paper. She had to answer these letters and telegrams inquiring about him, and to regret her unavoidable absence from the various engagements of the next few weeks. She knew, too, that it had become a matter of common knowledge what was the matter with him; she had even talked to certain friends about it, and she had to word her answers carefully. But it was no use any longer to pretend that nothing was wrong; the whole world knew that something was wrong. But the interruption for which she had been waiting soon came, and Sir James Sanderson was shown in. He looked extraordinarily unlike an eminent doctor, and resembled nothing so much as a captain on some respectable line of steamers. He had a toothbrush of a moustache, a plump, bronzed, and ruddy face, and wore a black frockcoat, with yellow boots and a red tie. He was awkward, cheerful, embarrassed, and nautical, and played golf whenever possible, which was not often, with boyish enthusiasm and remarkable inability. But, incidentally, he had saved more lives and restored more health, which he personally considered of greater importance, than any other two doctors put together. He shook hands with Catherine, and sat down on a small chair, which broke into fragments beneath his extremely ponderous frame, leaving him couched in splinters on the floor. He said "Damn!" quite distinctly, and struggled to his feet. "Oh, I am so sorry," said Catherine. "I hope you are not hurt?" "Not in the least, but the chair is," he said. "Yes, I have been with your husband for the last hour." He found a more reliable seat. "Now, be brave," he said. Then his wonderful skill in dealing with people, whether the sick or the whole, showed itself. There was dreadful news he had to tell to this beautiful woman, but in spite of the obsoleteness of the phrase "breaking the news," news could still be prepared for. It was wise to start like that, to say "Be brave," and then, since he knew he was dealing with a brave woman, to wait for her bracing herself up to it. "I know I am allowed to smoke a cigarette," he said, thus securing his moment's pause, "though it is most unprofessional." Catherine's courage had sunk for a moment, like the mercury in a thermometer exposed to zero, but in that pause she recalled it again. It was that he had been waiting for. "Lord Thurso has lived through twenty-four hours," he said, "and immediate danger is really over. The attack he had was enough to kill most people. It has not killed him, and he will not now die of this attack. He may have others, but I don't see why he should, unless he provokes them himself." He flicked the charred end of his cigarette. "That is the bright side," he said. "Now we must talk about the other. He came to me in July, you know, and told me about it. Probably he did not tell me all. You must do that, my dear lady. I guess a good deal from what I have seen to-day. I want to know all. Has he lost the power of will, do you think? There is nothing, I may say, that you can tell me which will be worse than what I conjecture." Catherine required no further stimulus to enable her to brace herself to this hideous recital, and she began at once, telling Sir James the whole history of the case as far as she knew it. Once only did he interrupt her, and that early in the tale, when she told him that the original cause of Thurso's taking opium was those frightful attacks of neuralgia to which he was subject. To that Sir James said: "Quite so. I gave him the authorisation myself." Then, month by month, she went through the tragic history; she spoke of that week up in Scotland when he began to take it more frequently, when, too, Maud began to suspect that he was taking it not only for relief of pain, but for the effects of it on his nerves and brain. Then came the stealthy dose in the train, then the scenes at Bray. But as she spoke, though he attended very carefully to all she said, he watched her not for that reason alone. It was not so unlikely, he saw, that he might have another patient on his hands, for it was as much as she could do to get through with what she was saying. Then the tale became harder of telling: from that day he had seemed to have begun to hate her, and with hate there grew and flourished in his mind ignoble suspicions. He had taken to spying on her, to opening her letters; then came the infamous taunts he had levelled at her, and the final insult. And when she had finished there was silence. * * * * * She had spoken quite calmly, arranging and reviewing the events of those hideous months in orderly manner, and stopping only when she could not quite command her voice. And without any long pause after she had done, Sir James went on with what had to be told her. "The opium habit," he said, "even when one begins to treat it quite early, is the most difficult thing in the world to cure. Give me ten drunkards who want to get over the habit, and I will very likely cure eight, but give me ten opium-eaters or laudanum-drinkers--for the two, of course, are exactly the same--who are equally desirous to amend, and I may cure one of them. God knows why it is so, Lady Thurso, but this particular drug, this poppy of the fields, binds body and soul in a way that no other habit binds, not alcohol, nor sensualism, nor anything. And your husband's case has not been taken early. He is completely undermined by it. It is impossible to imagine a more serious case." Catherine shifted her chair a little; she was so overwhelmingly tired, now that she had ceased writing, that it was something of an effort to meet the doctor's eye. "And now you need your bravery again," he said. "He might have died any minute during those first six hours after his attack. And, dear lady, it might have been better if he had. It might have saved God knows what suffering and misery to himself and others. Sometimes I think that we doctors do a cruel kindness in snatching poor folk out of death's jaws. Of course, one cannot, and I do not, say that any case is incurable, because, thank God, miracles still happen. But I cannot see how he can be cured. As he gets stronger from this attack, his craving for the drug will get stronger also; he has already asked for it. Unless you absolutely shut him up he will find means of getting hold of it. He will probably begin with smaller doses, for the poison will have more effect when he is still weak, and he will increase them and increase them until this or something like it happens again. His digestion, too, is in the most feeble condition. I do not suppose he has eaten a pound of nourishing food in the last week. "No; he has hardly touched it," said she. "He says it gets in the way. But if we could succeed in keeping him away from the drug by--by any means, would there not be hope?" The kind old doctor gave a long sigh. He hated this part of his business, and the braver people were, the more cruel he seemed to himself. "No," he said; "I think he would probably go off his head without it. One can't tell, but I should fear that. You see, it is not the time for me to keep anything from you. And you are bearing it splendidly: you are bearing it in the way we are meant to bear these terrors of life. We may get white with pain, as you did just now, we may feel sick with the anguish of it all, but we ought still to be able to clench our teeth and not cry out. And, do you know, that is such a sound policy. Being brave carries its dividends quicker than any investment I know. For every effort of the sort that we make strengthens us, exactly as gymnastics strengthen our muscles." Something in this arrested her attention very strongly; for the moment she was led away from the thought of Thurso to another matter that concerned her quite as vitally. She turned round to him again. "Do you mean that if--if we resist anything our powers of resistance are increased?" she asked. "Resistance seems to tire me, to make me less able to make an effort." Sir James took this in also; his eye, trained to observe obscurities, saw that for the moment she was not thinking of her husband. "Temporarily it tires you," he said, "just as exercise does. But you are really the stronger for it. The opposite holds, too, as you and I and poor Lord Thurso know very well; not to resist, to yield, weakens our power of resistance. The body is built up and made strong by effort, and so, I am sure, is the soul." She thought over that for a space of silence, noting down in her mind how it concerned that of which the doctor knew nothing. "Tell me all you fear about Thurso," she said. "I want to know what you think the end will be, and when, since I gather that, as far as you know, you regard him as incurable. I want to hear from you, quietly and fully, what I must bring myself to expect, the thoughts which I have got to get used to." "I have told you the worst," he said, "and I think you understand it. But, more in detail, it will be this: He will be very weak for a few days, and will, of course, be in bed. But I fully expect that his recovery from this attack will be rapid, because he will be properly fed, and not allowed to make the smallest exertion, but chiefly because opium, which was the direct cause of it, will be cut off. As he gets stronger the craving will get stronger." "Then, you advise----" "I advise nothing till I see how he pulls round. What I most fear is that his whole will-power, his very capability to form a resolution, has been atrophied, made ineffective, by this drug. He--I am telling you all my worst fears, of course, because this is not a time to buoy you up with false hopes--he is, I fear, from what you tell me, incapable of resistance. That is the real and fatal danger. Now, is there any motive, any thought, or aim, or desire that was his, which we can make use of, on which, so to speak, we can prop up and train the will-power, which is lying like a creeper that has been torn from its supports? His devotion to you, for example? His love for his children?" Catherine turned on him a perfectly hopeless look, and shook her head. The waters of Marah were in that gesture. The doctor spoke again, gently, tenderly. "Then, who has the most influence over him?" he asked. "Oh, Maud," said she--"his sister, you know I have no doubt whatever about that. I think," she added quietly--"I think he hates me." She spoke quite quietly, as if stating the most commonplace of facts, and the very simplicity of the words were intensely pathetic to the kind man. But they were best passed over without comment. "Then, may I consult with her before I go," he said, "as to anything she can suggest which can appeal to him, support him? He is drowning, he must drown as far as purely medical skill can help him, and we want--do we not?--to throw any sort of life-buoy to him which may keep him afloat." "Hypnotism? That sort of thing?" she asked. "I do not think it possible that hypnotism or suggestion can help him," he said. "There must be something to hypnotise, something to suggest to, and that something is will-power. One cannot say it is wholly destroyed, because I suppose that would mean death, but it is in so feeble and impotent a state that I know of nothing which can touch it." Though Catherine had taken all this very quietly, her quietude was partly that of someone who is stunned, and now her mind recurred, as she recovered herself, to one of those sentences which, so to speak, had dealt the blow. "You mean that only a miracle can restore him?" she said. "Yes, but I believe in miracles," said he, "though, unfortunately, you cannot produce a miracle as you can produce a bottle of medicine." Catherine got up. "How strange that you should say that!" she said. "Because Maud believes in them, as you do, but she thinks them most accessible. Only she no longer calls them miracles--she calls them Christian Science!" Sir James could not have looked cynical or sneering if he had tried, and he certainly did not try. But there was an uncommon dryness in his tone. "The lady in Boston?" he inquired. "No; a man in Caithness," said Catherine. "I will ring; she shall come and tell you if she is in." He put up his hand to stop her. "Ah, one moment, please," he said. "I want to have two words with you about yourself. My dear lady, you are not well: you are very much overwrought. You have had, you know, a terrible and trying time, and if you had finished with it, I should tell you to go to bed for a week. But you can't do that. Now, it has told on you more than you guess. Do not give yourself more tasks than you need; for instance, are you not over-taxing yourself unnecessarily here?" He pointed to the crowded writing-table and the pile of answered letters, which she had been working at when he came in. "You mean I had better sit down and think over all this terrible tragedy," she said, her voice beginning to break a little, "rather than find relief and rest in employment?" "No; I do not actually say that you must not answer your letters, especially if you find it more bearable to work than to do nothing, but I strongly advise you to rest yourself as much as you can, and to avoid anything agitating beyond that which you must bear. There is plenty that, as your husband's wife, you have got to bear. But if there are other things that worry you, I entreat you to shut the door in their faces. Exercise your will-power over that, and make it strong by resistance. Save yourself from anything harassing or troubling. I speak, of course, quite at random, but I feel sure that there are other things which are trying you most acutely." Then, without warning, the breaking-point came for her. All these months of ceaseless anxiety about Thurso had been a greater drain on her nerve force than she had known, and of set purpose she had not abated one jot of the numerous activities of her life, and had not allowed herself to consider how tired and drained she was. And simultaneously with that had come this storm and tempest into the secret life of her soul. She gave a sudden shriek of laughter that did not sound like mirth. "Oh, you conjurers!" she cried. "You doctors are like X rays! They see right into one's inside. Good heavens! I should think I had enough to try me, and you don't guess the half. If it was only Thurso it would be quite a holiday. Oh, how very funny----" Sir James got up quickly, placed himself directly in front of her, and clapped his hands violently close to her face. "Now, none of that!" he cried. "I haven't come here to listen to hysterical ravings. Make an effort; pull yourself together. I'm ashamed of you." Catherine checked suddenly in the middle of her sentence; two or three tears, the precursors of the hysterical storm that had been on the point of bursting forth, had found their way onto her cheeks, and she wiped them off. The attack was arrested as suddenly as it had begun, and she stood silent a moment, still hearing the reverberation of his clapped hands. "Yes, quite right," she said. "Thank you very much." Sir James waited till he felt certain of her. Then he took up one of her hands and kissed it. "You dear, brave woman!" he said. "But that shows you the truth of what I said. Be kind to your fine nerves and senses. Treat them well." She was quite quiet again now, and sat down in the chair from which she had jumped up. "Never mind me," she said. "I can manage my own affairs, and I promise you I will be as sensible as I find it possible. Oh yes, there are other worries. You are perfectly right." He paused a moment. "Now about this man in Caithness," he said. "He was there, I suppose, when Lord Thurso and Lady Maud were up during the typhoid. Now, I am not bigoted on the subject; I know quite well that these Christian Scientists have got hold of a big truth, but many of them mix such floods of nonsense up with it that it is quite dissolved. They tell me that if you have a compound fracture, and only say to yourself that compound fractures don't exist, the bones will join. That, of course, is silly. But where you deal with the will, or the nerves, or the imagination, it is a different sort of thing altogether." Lady Thurso got up again, quietly this time. "I will see if Maud is in," she said. "There was very virulent typhoid up there, you know, in the summer, and Mr. Cochrane is believed by her to have cured one or two extremely grave cases--in fact, she believes more than that." She rang the bell, and in the interval, before it was answered, only a couple of words passed. "And you will spare yourself?" said Sir James. Maud had come in half an hour ago, but hearing that her sister-in-law was with the doctor, she had not interrupted them. As she entered now, Catherine shook hands with Sir James. "Maud, this is Sir James Sanderson," she said. "He wants to talk to you. Good-bye, Sir James. I shall see you, of course, to-morrow morning." She left the room, and Maud was alone with the doctor. She had no idea what he wanted to talk to her about, and waited, wondering why Catherine had left them. But he instantly approached the subject. "Lady Maud," he said, "I want to hear about Caithness and the typhoid and Mr. Cochrane." Maud was taking off her gloves, but stopped in sheer surprise. There was nothing that she expected less than this. "What for?" she said. "For your brother," said he. He asked but few questions in her story, for it was a plain and simple narrative. She described just what had passed in connection with Duncan's wife; she described all that she had seen with regard to Sandie Mackenzie; she mentioned the curious and complete cessation of the epidemic itself. "And I think I believe exactly what Mr. Cochrane told me," she said. "Indeed, it seems the simplest explanation to suppose that it was the direct power of God, in whose presence neither sickness, nor disease, nor pain can exist." "You say you think so only," said he. "You are not sure?" "No, not quite." "But Mr. Cochrane is?" She smiled. "I should say it was the only thing he was absolutely sure of," she said. He thought in silence over this for some time, and then spoke as if he had suddenly made his mind up. "Medical science, as far as I am acquainted with it," he said, "can do nothing for Lord Thurso--at least, I fear not. Therefore, if there was a man outside in the Park there with a barrel-organ and a monkey who said he could cure the opium habit, I should welcome him in. Personally, I don't believe in Christian Science for cases of compound fracture, but it doesn't matter what I believe. It is my duty to try everything I can. Now, you must let me have a consultation with you about it all." Again he paused. He wanted to put his thoughts clearly, not only to her, but to himself. "We are situated like this," he said. "I have no notion how to cure your brother, and all that I feel myself able to do is to palliate his sufferings. But the moment--assuming, that is, which I feel justified in doing, that he gets over this attack--that I begin to make his days painless, I aggravate his disease. You, Lady Maud, I know, believe that there is a chance for him: I do not; but since I cannot professionally suggest any other chance, all I can say is, 'Do what you can, and God be with you.' Now, as regards practical details, what are we to do? Where is this Mr. Cochrane? But I suppose there are plenty of these healers, are there not? If he is not handy, we can get another." Maud strove for a moment to separate the strands of her two desires, that seemed inextricably intermingled. The one was to see Thurso delivered from this drug-possession, the other to put him in the hands of Mr. Cochrane--him only. "I have knowledge of only one Christian Scientist whom I really believe in," she said, "and that is Mr. Cochrane. You see, I saw him with my own eyes restore to life a man who was dying. I know there are plenty of others. I could ask Mrs. Yardly." Sir James laughed suddenly. "Why that?" asked Maud. "She came to me a few months ago for a tonic," he said. "She had been suffering from general catarrh. She explained to me why this was not inconsistent, but I failed to follow her." Maud laughed too. "Oh, Alice!" she said to herself. "But Mr. Cochrane, you think, is not like her," said Sir James. "You can't imagine a more totally different personality," she said. "He gives confidence, anyhow, and he is not silly. I think there is a great deal of what is silly about the whole thing, but I believe that the direct power of God can come and heal people. That is about the biggest thing possible, isn't it?" Sir James nodded quietly. "Yes, my dear young lady," he said. "I believe in that possibility, too, and that is why I am consulting you. Oh, but compound fracture," he said suddenly--"what ridiculous nonsense!" He was silent for a moment after this irrepressible burst of professional indignation. "And this Mr. Cochrane," he asked--"where is he?" "In America," said Maud. "I heard from him two days ago. He is in New York." "I have read some of their literature," said Sir James, "and I have heard about some of their cures. Now, as a doctor, I can't recommend your employing Mr. Cochrane, but you can, if you choose, send him a telegram acquainting him with the state of affairs. You see, I don't think he can hurt your brother, and we doctors can't benefit him." "Am I to get Mr. Cochrane to come here, then?" asked Maud. "No; in the first place it is a good deal to ask, and in the second, if only you or Lady Thurso could persuade Lord Thurso to go, I am convinced that a sea-voyage, though it will not in the smallest degree cure him, will be generally beneficial. Now, do you think it is in your power to persuade him to go? You needn't say anything about a Christian Science healer waiting for him at the other end; there will be plenty of time for that when you get him on board ship." Maud thought over this. There was a suggestion that she felt she had better make, which was rather difficult for her to put to him. "Yes; I think I might be able to persuade him," she said, "because certainly he used often to listen to me when he would listen to no one else. And would you think it odd if I suggested that he and I went alone, without Lady Thurso?" "I should have suggested it if you had not," said the doctor. "But tell me why you did." "Ah! poor Thurso is mad," said she. "He is not in the least himself. But ever since the summer he has been behaving to Catherine as if he hated her." The doctor nodded. "I know; she feels that, too. Now, you cannot see your brother to-day, but to-morrow, if he goes on well, I think you might. We shall see. I shall be back early to-morrow to look at him." For a man who had passed through so dangerous an attack, weakened, too, as he was, by months of the opium habit, Thurso showed extraordinary recuperative power, and next day he asked of his own accord whether Maud might come and see him. This Sir James at once allowed. "I will let her know when I go," he said. "It will do you good." He waited for a moment, but Thurso said nothing about wishing to see Catherine, and shortly after the doctor left him, and told Maud she might pay him a short visit. The nurse was with him when Maud entered, but went to her room next door, leaving brother and sister alone. He was still lying flat, without pillows, but he smiled a welcome at Maud when she came in. "Come close, Maud," he said in a minute. "I want to talk to you." His voice was still no more than a whisper from weakness, but his words were quite audible. "I don't want to see Catherine," he said, "and you must keep her away from me. I think the sight of her would send me off my head. It's she who has brought me to this. It was she who ruined my nerves by always rushing and flying about in every direction----" Maud interrupted him gently. "Ah! never mind that," she said. "At present all you have to do is to lie quiet, and not worry about anything, and get well." But Thurso broke in again. "Oh, don't imagine I don't know how atrociously I have behaved to her," he said; "but she drove me mad. She despised me; I saw that. Well, I gave her something to despise me for." "Oh, dear Thurso, don't talk like that," she said. "If you don't want to see Catherine, of course you shall not. But your saying that reminds me of a plan you and I might think of when you get better." "What's that?" "I've already spoken to Sir James about it, and he approves. You will have to go somewhere to pick up again, so how about you and me going on a voyage together? We both like the sea, so why not go to America on one of those big liners that are so comfortable? We could stay at that house of Catherine's on Long Island for a week or two, if you liked." "Without Catherine, you mean?" he asked. "She loathes the sea, you remember. You couldn't expect her to come." His eye brightened. "Yes; I should like that," he said. "You and I have had jolly times together by ourselves. But I won't go if she goes." His voice had risen sharply over this, and he was silent afterwards, breathing rather quickly. Then he looked at Maud as she sat beside the bed, and something in her youth and beauty stirred some chord of vibrating memory in him, and his mind, which, for all the deadly weakness of his body, was quite clear, went back to early days when he and she had been together so much, bound in an intimacy and affection that seldom exists between brother and sister. She had always been such a good friend to him, such a capital quick-sympathising comrade, and now, he felt, there must for ever stand between them the horror of these last months. For the moment he got outside himself and judged himself, and saw how hideous he had been. "I've made a pretty good mess of it all," he said. She laid her hand on his. It was no time to preach: she could only console. "Yes, dear Thurso," she said. "We've all made mistakes. But, thank God! it is never too late." Then that moment of regret, that nearly amounted to contrition, passed from him. It had been brief as a sudden ray of sun piercing through some unconjectured rent in blinding storm-clouds. "But it's Catherine's fault," he said. * * * * * But the ray had been there. His soul, though sick to death, still lived. And that was the only piece of consolation that Maud could carry away with her. CHAPTER III. Thurso's recovery, though he had had no relapse of any kind, and no hint of a second attack, had been slow, and it was more than three weeks from the time of his collapse when he and Maud were sitting together on the deck of the _Celtic_, Westward-bound, watching the shores of Ireland fade into blurred outlines of grey, as they were fused with the horizon. They had embarked the day before at Liverpool, and though they had been at sea only twenty-four hours, there was already some semblance of colour beginning to come back to his face. But if Maud had met him now after a year's absence, she felt that she would scarcely have known who he was. Those months of indulgence in the drug had altered the whole character of his face: it was not of the same man. It had made him look strangely wan and old, too. The heavy dint of crows' feet was planted on the outer corners of his eyes, and the lids were slack, baggy, and pendulous. His eyes had changed; they looked stale and dead, but it was his mouth, perhaps, that had deteriorated most: all power and force were gone from it; it drooped feebly and weakly at its corners, and the lower lip hung flabby and loose. It was the mouth of a man ruined by self-indulgence. His hair, too, had become very thin, and streaks of grey had appeared in it. And all this was but the shadow of the real wreck within. Sometimes, when during these last three weeks she had seen him thus, she had felt her courage and hope for the future dwindle almost to the vanishing-point. It was not only his body which had so aged and fallen away: it was his soul that had grown decrepit. He had fits of black despair and depression, when he could bear to see nobody, not even her, and would lock himself up in his room, giving orders that his meals were to be left outside, and that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. Then, when he emerged from one of these, remorse--but no more than a maudlin, querulous remorse--for the wreck he had made overtook him, and he would ask her to sit with him while he unloaded himself of tons of a washy despair. Half a dozen times he had said that he would not go to America at all. What could a week or two of sea air do for a man in his case? Yet there was no decision or determination in these refusals; next moment he would be talking of the books he would take with him. Then the pendulum would swing further, and that about which alone he seemed to have retained any force would come into his mind: namely, his bitterness against Catherine, his belief--almost strong enough to be called conviction--that it was she who was morally responsible for his wreck. It was that, indeed, that was the real cause of his having consented to leave England. The day before they sailed he had a fit of the darkest despair, and had altogether refused to think of going. But as that drew off, his own desire was to get away from his wife, to leave her neighbourhood, to be geographically widely separated from her. She was in England, therefore any place was more tolerable to him. And just before they left the house he had asked to see her, for the first time in all these weeks, to say: "You are responsible for all this." It was all black enough, and there had been at present but one smoky ray of comfort. He had not taken laudanum again, nor, as far as could be ascertained, had he tried to procure any. But Sir James cautioned Maud against thinking that this ray was the promise of a coming dawn. "He is still extremely weak," he had said, "and it will not be till his strength really begins to come back that he will crave for the drug. At present he is not strong enough to want anything at all keenly." Sir James had come down with the brother and sister to Liverpool, to see his safe bestowal on board, for even now he was not allowed to walk upstairs, and their cabin was on the top deck. In ten minutes the shore-going passengers would have to leave the ship, but the doctor had still a few words more to say. Thurso had not yet been told what the ulterior object of his going to America was, for it was thought that if he knew that he might refuse to stir. "There is a psychological moment for telling him that," he said to Maud, "which has not yet arrived. But it will arrive, I think, and I feel no doubt that you will recognise it when it does. At present your brother shows no desire for anything, neither for the drug--at least, he has taken us all in if he has--nor for the return to health. He does not even, I think, want to die; he does not want anything. But as he begins to get back his strength he will begin to desire also. He will want the drug; he will want to get well. That is the moment for telling him." Three days later Maud and he were seated again in the sheltered nook behind the smoking-room on the top deck where they had sat two days before watching the fading of the Irish shores. There was a bright winter's sun overhead and a tumbling sea around them, for all yesterday there had been half a gale from the west, which had stirred the hoary giants of the Atlantic. But the enormous ship was but little conscious of them, and glided without inconvenient movement across this wonderful grey sea, that broke into dazzling white against her burrowing bows. Something of the pale, crystalline blue above was reflected in the great joyous hills and valleys of water that rose and fell round them, and the greyness of the wintry waters was shot with delicate azure and aqueous green, as if, though it was yet barely mid-winter, there was the promise of spring in the air, and a hint of the summer days when these hills and valleys should be level, a shining desert of astounding blue. Above their heads the wind thrummed and whistled in the rigging, and the clean, unbreathed odour of the sea was salt and bracing. In spite of the sun, however, it was chilly to the unprotected, and both Thurso, lying on his long deck-chair, and Maud, seated beside him, wore thick fur-coats, and were tucked in with rugs. They had sat some little time in silence, for speech easily tired him still, and then he turned to her. "I feel better," he said, "and it is so long since I felt better." "Oh yes, dear, you are much better," she said. "You have been picking up every day on the sea. Wasn't it a good plan?" "But there is a difference between being better and feeling better," he said, "and the second means the most to the man who is ill. Now, I suppose we shall have to talk things out some time, so why not now? I do feel better. I feel as if I could nearly wish to be well again." Maud felt that the moment of which Sir James had spoken to her, when it would be right to tell Thurso of the real object of their voyage, was very near, but not quite arrived yet. He would give her a better opportunity for what she had to say than that, and she wanted the very best possible. "But I daresay I am beginning to wish that too late," he said. "How bad have I been exactly? How bad am I?" "Do you mean your heart attack?" she asked. "No; the other thing. I may tell you that for weeks before the attack itself I felt perfectly incapable of resistance. I could no more resist than I could resist breathing. Now, what does that mean medically? What chance have I?" "You were as bad as you could be," she said. "In a way, Sir James told me, that heart attack saved your life. It prevented you wanting the stuff for awhile. It made a break." "But does Sir James really think that a week or two at sea will cure me?" "No; but he thinks that it will do your general condition good." Thurso threw back his head, and drew in a long breath of this cold, pure air. It was extraordinarily invigorating. And at the same moment he suddenly felt his mouth water at a thought that had come into his mind. He was beginning to want again. "But he has no idea that it will cure me?" he asked, with a certain suspicious persistence. Then Maud knew her time had come. "No; he never thought it would cure you, and he doesn't profess to be able to cure you himself. But, Thurso, there is another chance, perhaps. He sanctioned our trying it." "What chance? Some American doctor? I'll go to anybody--doctor, quack, hypnotist--what you please." "It isn't a quack I want you to go to. I want you to see if a Christian Science healer cannot do anything for you." Thurso was silent a moment. "It has been a plot, then?" he asked, in that dreadful cold tone in which he spoke of his wife. "Yes, dear; but don't speak like that," said Maud. "You speak as if it was a plot against you instead of a plot for you. I didn't tell you in England, because I was afraid you might refuse to come. That is frank, is it not? I have been responsible for it all." Suspicion and hate were awaking in Thurso's brain. He felt so much better and stronger to-day, and his brain was working again after weeks of torpidity. He told himself he was becoming wonderfully acute and far-sighted. "I don't think I quite believe that," he said. "I believe Catherine had a hand in it. Surely it is clear. She wanted to be left alone with Villars." Maud made a gesture of despair. "Oh, you are mad," she said. "It isn't you who speak when you say dreadful false things like that: it's the demon that possesses you, Thurso--that horrible drug. It has poisoned your body, and it has poisoned your soul." Then, with that bewildering rapidity that she knew and dreaded, his mood changed again. But the change, though he was still in the darkness of abysmal despair, was for the better. Anything was better than that vile hate, those incredible suspicions. "Yes, I am poisoned--I am altogether poisoned," he said quietly. Maud turned an imploring face to him. "No, dear, you are not altogether poisoned," she said; "and the fact of your saying that you are shows there is some little sound piece left. If you were altogether poisoned, you wouldn't know it; there would be nothing left to tell you that you were poisoned. But there is: you feel regret still. I saw it in your eyes just now, and though it cuts me to the heart, I love and rejoice to see it there. It is just your regret, your desire to do better, which is the precious soil out of which your salvation must spring." Her voice died on the last words, and she spoke in a whisper barely audible. "Oh, Thurso, if you only knew how I cared!" she said. For that moment he was touched. He looked at her with pity. "Poor Maud!" he said. "Ah! but it is not going to be 'poor Maud!'" she said. "You are going to get the poison out of your soul and body. Oh, Thurso, there are going to be many happy days yet." Once again the genial thrill of convalescence, that inflowing tide of strength and recovery, broke like a ripple a little further up the long dry beach, and once again desire stirred within him. But by an effort he detached himself from that, and turned his mind to her and to his own rescue. "And do you really believe I _can_ be cured?" he said. "Is an appalling young person to come and sit by me and sing doggerel hymns? I read something of the sort in a book I found at home the other day. It was yours, I suppose, or Alice's?" "Alice's, I expect," said she. "No; we shall have no appalling young person sitting by you. You know the healer I want you to go to, and you like him." Thurso frowned. He seemed to be able to remember nothing. His memory, he felt, was there, but all that it contained was locked up, and he could not find the key. "That--that fellow in Scotland?" he asked. Then for a moment he got a glimpse, a flash, vivid but brief, connected with him. "I met him in the village street one day," he said, "in Achnaleesh, and he made me feel better. I had an awful headache at the time. I say, that is something gained, you know, because I never have headaches now. What was his name, by the way?" "Mr. Cochrane," said the girl. "Of course, yes. And he dined one night, and played hokey-pokey among the typhoid patients. So he and I are going to sing hymns, are we?" But Maud did not smile now. Thurso was himself in a way that he had not been for weeks. There might only be a minute or two of this, for his mood changed so quickly: it was as if he was not strong enough to remain steady in one attitude for more than a few seconds. And since any moment might see him back again in the hells of despair and hate, she wanted to make the most of this first forward outlook which he had shown. The creeper--his will--was in her hand for a second. She must make some beginning at training it up. "Ah, Thurso, that is right," she said; "look forward, and make an effort to realise where you stand to-day. Sir James says he is helpless; he says you have no will left which he can touch or strengthen. That may be so medically, but I am sure it is there still, and you are going to get God--not any mortal physician--to lay His hand on you. Try to believe, if only for a moment, that all power is His, and that He is all love, all health, all life; that evil and illness and everything of that kind cannot exist in His presence. Don't hang back; don't reserve any part of yourself, for you can help or hinder your cure. We have been hindering it, so I believe, by trusting to the power of man to cure you, because we have kept on wondering if man can cure you. But about God there is no doubt whatever. It is quite beyond question." For one moment, as she spoke, he sat straight up in his chair, looking suddenly awake and revivified. But with that revivification there came far more strongly than before the revivification of desire of another kind. All day a certain power and vitality, born of the huge sea, the golden sun, and the singing breezes, had been throbbing back into him; but, as must always happen, until the will is set and centred on the higher and Immortal Mind, and does not, as through some sieve, strain off all that is of mortal and corruptible thought, this returning tide of vitality made more real and more coveted that on which his mind and his degraded desire had dwelt all these months. And this time it took more definite shape. How clever he had been, too, about it! He almost giggled aloud to think of it. Little did they suppose that a couple of days before he left England he had got one of the footmen--not his valet, who had probably been warned--to go out with the prescription he had forged, just before his attack, and get a bottle of his drug. He had not wanted it, but he felt the time might come when he should, and there it lay, the bottle of dark-blue glass, with its red poison label, in the private despatch-box in his cabin, of which he alone had the key. But he had determined that that should be his last supply, and having got it, he again threw away the prescription. How wise, too, to have brought that one bottle, for to-day he was beginning to want it again; and though he wanted also to get well, to break this infernal chain that was wound so closely about him, yet that which had been the only real desire of his life for all these months pounced, tiger-like, to-day on the little morsel of added strength that had been thrown within reach. The higher side of him, feebler and all but paralysed, had no chance to reach that morsel before the other seized it. Cunning began to return, too. There was something to scheme and plan about again. Already he thought over the coming hours of the day and their usual occupations, so as to devise when he should be able with safety from detection to satisfy this growing desire. And even as he turned his mind to this, the desire itself swelled, nightmare-like. It must be soon, it must almost be now. Just a taste was all he wanted--a quarter-dose to satisfy himself that opium still existed, that there was something worth living for, worth getting better for--that warm thrill and vibration spreading from the head down through his neck, and invading every limb with its quivering, serene harmonies! Or ... should he tantalise himself, let himself get thirstier for it, before indulging in it? He wanted it dreadfully, but he was capable of keener want than this, and the more he wanted it, the more ecstatic was the quenching of that infernal thirst. Even the want of it was pleasurable, when he knew that he could satisfy that want when he chose. He felt sure, too, that in moderation it could do him no harm. One had to break with a habit of this kind by degrees. And then he remembered when he had last said that to himself--the day on which Catherine and Maud had thrown his bottle away down at Bray. That had been an unwise thing to do; they had defied him, and he had resented that. Very likely he would not have taken the drug at all that day had they not unwarrantably tried to put it out of his power to do so. You could drive some people: others had to be led. And all this seemed such logical, reasonable stuff to his poor brain! But now he had been without it for three weeks, and he had not even desired it. That was an immense gain; it showed any sensible man that he had made great steps towards the breaking himself of the habit and the extinction of the desire. But he wanted it now. That instinctive swallowing movement of the throat and tongue had begun, and that was the signal he always waited for. But he must still be cunning. He must make some reasonable pretext for going to his cabin, and prevent the possibility of suspicion conveying itself to Maud. That, however, was not difficult. It was as easy as lying--just as easy, in fact. There was no difference at all between them. But it was as well to do the thing handsomely, and he looked at her, at her big violet eyes, just moist with tears, at her mouth just trembling a little with the emotion that had inspired her words, and spoke without hesitation or bungling. "Yes, I believe that," he said. "I am going to God direct, as you say. I am not a Christian Scientist, but I do believe in the omnipotent power of God, and that nothing evil can exist in His presence. You are quite right, too. I should probably have refused to leave England if I had known why I was being brought here. But I thank you, dear, for bringing me." He paused a moment, wondering, as a bystander who knew his heart might wonder, at the profanity and wickedness of what he was saying, since all the time he attached no meaning to these solemn things, and wanted only to kill any possible suspicions in her mind which might lead to his being interrupted when he went to his cabin to get at the despatch-box. It really was terrible, deplorable, that he should have to be so deep a hypocrite, but nothing mattered compared to the accomplishment of his craving. But he had said dreadful things, and a quarter of a dose, such as he had planned to take, would not be enough to banish them from his mind ... it was no good taking opium at all if anything scratched and whined at the closed door of conscience. Half a dose, surely, would not hurt him--a liberal half of those very liberal doses which he had prescribed for himself. But he had better say a few words more yet. Incomplete lying was a tactical error of which he must not be guilty. "Sir James is a very clever doctor, no doubt," he said, "but he certainly made a mistake when he thought my will-power to resist was dead, or something to that effect. I am glad he said that, and I am glad you told me, because that sort of opinion acts as a tonic--an irritant, shall we call it? I will show him if my will-power is dead!" Then an extraordinarily ingenious perversion occurred to him. "Did Sir James really suppose I should consent to go to sea for a week without opium, if I did not mean to be cured in spite of him?" he asked. Thurso almost laughed over the irony of this; he was getting supernaturally cunning. Yet he detected a possible error in those last words; he had protested a little too much. But that was easily rectified. "I don't quite mean 'in spite of him,'" he said, "because that makes it appear as if I thought that, having given me up, he did not wish me to get well. But, my goodness, how his prescription of sea air is acting already! I was a flabby log, if you imagine such a thing, when I started, and now am I not totally different? And yet I am impatient to get to America to begin the treatment. My recovery, if I am to recover, is in other hands--the best, the only ones. With all the power of will that is in me I elect to leave myself there. And if that is not to be, I want you to know that, though it was too late, I was willing." Again he wondered at his wickedness, but without regretting it. He hugged it to him, feeling that the mere prospect of opium had so quickened his intelligence, his power of planning. And nothing else was of any importance compared to the one necessity that he must get to his cabin without any further delay, and leave Maud unsuspicious, and giving thanks in her fool's heart. He only wanted to dream dreams and see visions; he wanted to see the sky, as he had seen it one evening up at Achnaleesh, covered with blue acanthus-leaves, with the dewdrops of stars upon them, and the big sun a golden centre of the blue flower. Nor did Maud's words shake his desire, solemn though they were. They just went by him, like a light summer breeze wandering by some square-built house. "Oh, thank God, thank God, dear Thurso!" she said. "You will get well, I know it, if you feel like that. And now let us dismiss altogether all that lies in the past. It was not you who have done these things: it was an evil possession. But that is driven out now; your words assure me of it." * * * * * Bells for times of refreshment were very frequent on this ship, and Maud was thoroughly pleased with their frequency, for she had, when at sea, that huge sense of bodily health that requires much to eat and many hours for sleep. The desire for sleep was shared by Thurso, and when, just as she finished speaking, the bell for tea tinkled up and down the decks, she went down to the saloon, and he to his cabin, with the expressed intention of reposing till dinner, and not pledging himself to appear even then unless he felt inclined. This desire for sleep, Sir James had said, was one that he should gratify to the full; and when they parted in the vestibule, that led in one direction to his cabin, and downstairs to the saloon in another, it was a possible good night that Maud wished him. His valet would bring his dinner to his cabin if he decided not to move again that evening. Till that afternoon, when at length Thurso had shown that his will was not dead yet, that his face was still set forwards and upwards, that something of spring, of the power to resist, was in him yet, Maud had not known how near despair she had been, nor how forlorn did she in her inmost self feel that this hope was for which she was bringing him over the sea. Slender and dim as it had been, she had just still clung to it; but now that Thurso responded to it too, and acknowledged its validity, it suddenly became firm and strong. He was willing, eager (he who had felt eagerness for only one thing for so many months), to put himself into the hands of Infinite, Omnipotent Love, which would work for him the miracle which the utmost skill of finite and mortal treatment despaired of accomplishing. In that great upspringing of hope and courage which had come to her that afternoon at Thurso's words the confined walls of the dining-saloon could not hold her long; her instinct urged her to be up on deck again with the huge sea and the huge sky to be her only companions, so as to let her soul go forth, without the distraction of near objects and the proximity of other human beings, that seemed to impede and clog the immortal sense, into the limitless presence of Divine Love. All this autumn she had been realising slowly and haltingly--for when evil and ruin were so close about her it was hard not to believe in the reality of them--that only one power, that of God, had any true existence, and that all else was false. But now that realisation was being poured into her like a flood, the dawn was growing dazzlingly bright, for already the miracle had begun, and hope and the will-power had begun to spring from what the doctors had declared was soil utterly barren, incapable of bearing fruit. The top deck was quite empty when she came up again, the sun had already set, and in the darkening skies the stars had begun to blossom like flowers of gold, and she walked forward to the bows of the ship in order to be quite alone. The very rush of air round her, as the great ship hissed forward into the west, where light still lingered, seemed to her typical of what was happening spiritually to her. All round her lay the tossed darkness and evanescent foam of these unquiet seas, but just as this mighty ship went smoothly and evenly through them, so through the waves and fretful tumults of human trouble her soul went tranquilly towards the brightness in the west. She had doubted before, and often and often she had vainly striven to realise what her inmost soul believed, but she had tossed and been buffeted instead of going on tranquilly without fear. Though she had believed, her unbelief still wailed. But now the wailing was hushed. "Yes, it is so; it cannot be otherwise," she said to herself. "There can be nothing but the real, the infinite." She stayed there long between the sea and the stars, and at the end walked back along the decks that were beginning to shimmer with dew, unconscious of all else in the wonder and glory of the truth that rained like the filtering starlight round her. Thurso, she expected, was asleep, and she paused outside his cabin window for a moment, as if linking him into the golden chain of her thoughts. And so few feet away he was indeed lying on his berth, not asleep, but very vividly awake, in the full blaze of his hell-paradise. He looked no longer on the bare white walls of his cabin, for though it was dark a heaven of blue acanthus-leaves covered them, and the stars shone like dewdrops there, and the sun was the golden heart of the marvellous blue flower. No quarter-dose, nor half-dose, had sufficed to enable his brain to paint there that celestial imagery, but it was there now blazing in unearthly glory. One thing only troubled him, and that not very much, for it was only like a very distant echo and no authentic voice; he wished vaguely that it had not been necessary to say so much to Maud in order to purchase security. He could not remember exactly what his words had been, but they had had a sort of gravity and seriousness about them. That was necessary, however; she might not have thoroughly trusted him otherwise. But the memory of them just detracted from the bliss of his vision; they came between him and it like a little film of grey. * * * * * As a rule he slept very well, especially after he had taken the drug. But to-night, when, soon after he had eaten the dinner which his valet brought him, he undressed and went to bed, he felt very wide-awake--not staringly so, but thoroughly so. It was now about eleven, and since the effects of the opium usually wore off after five or six hours, leaving him, as the vividness of its sensation began to fade, very drowsy and languid, he could not account for his inability to sleep. Then his disquiet began to take more definite form; he felt as if Maud was in the cabin looking at him with that bright face of joy which she had turned on him at the end of their interview on deck. Gradually this conviction became so vivid that he spoke to her, calling her by name. There was no answer, and he fumbled for the electric switch, and turned on his light in order to convince himself that she was not there. He put the light out, and lay down again, but no sooner had he closed his eyes and tried to compose himself to sleep than the same certainty of her presence, definite and conclusive as actual ocular vision, again visited him. She was close to him, and as if actual words had been spoken by her in bodily presence, he knew what filled her brain, what she wanted. It was all about him; she was saying to him again and again: "You are not only feeling better and stronger, but you are better. God is making you better. You are in His presence now, and no evil, drug, or suspicion, or hate can exist there." And together with this came the revivified memory of his own words to her--words which were utterly false, and which he had spoken to make his own private proceedings secure. Now he remembered what he had said; he had used the strongest and most solemn phrases that he could think of in order that he might go to his cabin without fear of interruption, and--do what he had done. This great travelling hotel of a ship had grown quite quiet during this last hour or two. When he went to bed there had been the sound of music still going on in the saloon, and to that there had succeeded the voices and steps of those going to their cabins; but now there was no sound, except the external hiss and gurgle of the divided waters, and the little chucklings and tappings which at sea are never silent. But in the darkness and quiet he was more than ever conscious of Maud's presence, and of what was going on in her brain, and he began to wonder whether this was not some drug-born hallucination. Whatever it was, its vividness still grew, so also did the memory of what he had said to her, till he could all but hear himself saying those blasphemous things again. Often and often he had said dreadful and intolerable things to Catherine, but never, so far as he knew, had he been quite so mean a liar as he had been this afternoon to Maud. He had lied sacredly to-day in order to secure uninterruption for the enjoyment of that which he had renounced. Now in the darkness and quietude his words came back to him. And all the time Maud was here; her whole soul was filled with thankfulness to hear him speak these despicable falsehoods. This lying here became intolerable; he was growing more acutely awake every moment, and every moment grew more aware of the reality of Maud's presence. Was it some warning, did some occult sense whisper to him that she was in imminent danger of some kind, and that, as at the hour of death, her soul sought his so vehemently that it produced this confirmed belief in her actual presence? And next moment he had jumped out of bed, and put on a few hasty clothes, in order to go to her cabin and see that she was all right. Yet at the door he hesitated, feeling he could not face her. He would betray himself, his eyes would betray him, so that he could not meet hers; or his mouth would betray him, so that he could give but stuttered answers, and she would guess what he had been doing. But anxiety for her overmastered this, and he went and tapped at her door. She answered at once, and he went in. Though it was so late, she was still fully dressed, and seated on a chair by her berth, her face radiant with happiness. "Not in bed yet?" he said. "No; I was too happy to go to bed." Then, as she looked at him, she paused. "What is the matter, Thurso?" she said. "What have you come to me for?" He could not meet her eye, just as he had feared, but looked away. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "I kept thinking you were in the room. I came to see if you were all right." She gave a long sigh, and shook her head. "Oh, Thurso, you've been taking laudanum again," she said. "But, anyhow, anyhow, you came to tell me, did you not?" He looked back fiercely at her, knowing that he was going to stammer, and furious at himself. "I--I haven't," he said. "Wh--what do you mean? I----" And then his voice failed him; his lips stuttered, trying to say something, but no sound came. She seemed not to have heard his denial. "No wonder you thought I was in your cabin," she said. "All my soul was there. Oh, Thurso, don't despair, there's a good fellow!" Then something seemed to break within him. He could not go on telling lies to her. Perhaps it was because he was tired, and could not summon up the energy to protest; perhaps it was that for very shame he could not. It was simpler, too, to tell the truth. He cared so little. "No, it is hopeless," he said. "I am tired of trying and failing. As soon as my strength came back to me a little to-day the craving came back. I brought a bottle of the stuff with me. Oh yes, I told you I hadn't; I lied--I lied gorgeously; you never suspected it. All the time we were talking this afternoon I wanted only one thing--to get away to my cabin. I didn't care what I said to you in order to secure that. Now I suppose you'll want me to give up the rest of the stuff. Well, I can't. I don't want anything in the world except it. And it's no use your thinking that I can ever get better. I have given up all hope. You had better do the same." For one moment Maud felt that he spoke the truth, that he was beyond power of recall. But the next her whole soul and strength was up in arms, fighting, denying that thought, passionately reversing it. There was nothing in the world that could be compared with the reality of Infinite Love; she had known that so well to-day, and already she was letting error obscure it. Vehemently, vigorously, she fought that error, and then suddenly she wondered what she had been fighting. For there was nothing there; her blows were rained upon emptiness. It was as if she had dreamed she was fighting. And she spoke to Thurso as she might have spoken to a child who was afraid of the dark, while in her hands she carried the Great Light. "You silly boy!" she said. "What can you mean by such nonsense? How can I give you up? How is it possible for me to give up one whom I love? You can't give up love. You are frightened, you know, and there's nothing in the world to frighten you. You said this afternoon things that made me unutterably happy, and now you come and tell me they were lies, that you didn't mean them. I'm sorry you didn't mean them, but they weren't lies. They were all perfectly true." That sombre smouldering of despair in his eyes faded. "Do you mean you can possibly ever trust me again?" he asked. Then he added quickly: "But I can't give you the bottle--I can't." Maud almost laughed. "Well, if you can't, you can't," she said. "And now I'm going to see you back to your cabin, and you are going to bed. You've had a dreadful evening, dear, over these nightmare errors. I am so sorry. And if you feel I am in the room with you again, you mustn't be frightened or think there is anything wrong. I can't help being with you." He said nothing to this, and they went down the creaking white passage to his cabin in silence. "And you've had dinner?" she asked. "You won't be hungry before morning? It's only a little after one, you know. I could get you something." "No; nothing, thanks," he said. He stood irresolute in the middle of his cabin, and Maud watched him with shining eyes, knowing and telling herself that she knew that her desire was going to be given her. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket, detached one, and flung it on the ground. "That's the key," he said. "You will find the bottle in my despatch-box. You may take it if you like." But Maud made no movement to pick up the key. "My dear Thurso," she said, "where are your manners? That really is not the proper way to give me a key." "I won't give it you in any other way," he said. She longed so to pick it up herself that she could scarcely restrain herself from doing it, but she longed also that, strengthened by this first effort, he should make another, give her the key voluntarily. But what if he picked it up himself, and refused to give it her? No; that could not happen. "Then, I'm afraid it must stop where it is," she said. "Good night." He turned with a frown to her. "Oh, Maud, you fool!" he said. "Why don't you take it while I can just manage to allow you to?" "Because you must give it me like a pretty gentleman, of course," she said. Ah! how pleasant and human were the dealings of love! Half an hour ago tragedy, sordid, bitter, and heart-breaking, had been hers, and now not only was comedy here, but sheer farce, mirthful and ridiculous, productive of childish laughter. Thurso laughed, too, as he bent down and picked up the key. "You are an obstinate woman," he said. "I know. Thank you, darling. Oh, Thurso, how much better it is than the time I threw the bottle away without your knowing! Now you give it me." She unlocked the despatch-box. "Thurso, what a big bottle!" she said; "and half empty. How greedy!" But the sight of it kindled his desire again, and it flamed up. "Ah! give it me back!" he cried. "I can't let you have it. I told you I couldn't." Maud did not feel bound to demonstrate over this, and she simply ran out of the cabin with the bottle. She made not half a dozen steps of it across the deck, and before ten seconds were over a large, half-empty bottle of laudanum was sinking forlornly into the abysmal depths of the Atlantic Ocean. "That's the end of you," she observed viciously. * * * * * But in spite of this piece of gained ground, she knew well that there must be many uphill battles to fight before recovery could be assured. Cochrane had told her that in the letter she had received from him just before she left England. He had answered at once to her cable, merely saying that "he would cure Thurso," and had written fully afterwards. The letter ended thus: "I know that you believe in the Infinite and Omnipotent Mind, which is the sole and only cause and origin of all the world; and though you are not a member of our Church at present, yet, since you believe the Gospel on which every cure that Christian Science has ever made is based, begin treating him at once yourself. Combat in your mind every sign of error that you see in him, and never allow yourself to be discouraged, because to be discouraged means that for the moment you doubt. Of course, good must triumph, but when error is so firmly rooted in a man it wants some pulling up. It won't come away as a mere shallow-rooted weed will. You may have to face apparent failure again and again, but it is a comfort to know that one is on the winning side." The days that followed amply illustrated the truth of this, and many were the hours in which Maud was tempted to despair. Every evil, erring mood that had made up Thurso's record for the last six months was condensed into the few days of that voyage. Sometimes his will would flicker in a little dim flame, so that she knew it was not quite quenched; but the flame was so feeble, and so dense was the blackness that surrounded it. One day he secretly went to the ship's doctor, taking with him the prescription that was so familiar, which he had himself written out and signed with Sir James Sanderson's name, asking him to have it made up. The doctor looked at it. It was all in order. "Certainly, Lord Thurso," he said. "I will have it sent to your cabin. It is rather a strong solution, you know. You must be careful not to exceed the dose." Thurso almost smiled at this. "Oh, I am very careful," he said. "I suffer from terrible neuralgic headaches. Thank you very much." He left the surgery, his heart beating with exhilarated anticipation, when suddenly the doctor, who was looking at the prescription again, gave a little whistle, and then called him. Thurso had hardly left the room, and came back at once. "Lord Thurso," he said, "this is rather odd. Sir James Sanderson is not on board, for I saw him leave the ship at Liverpool. Yet the prescription is written on the ship's paper." Thurso made a furious gesture of impatience. "Oh, for God's sake give it me!" he said. "I shall go mad without it. It was Sir James's prescription. I--I copied it out. I have taken it many times." Then a sudden thought struck him, and he could have screamed at his own stupidity in not having thought of it a second sooner. "I don't know what I am saying," he said. "I didn't copy it out at all. Sir James wrote it for me before he left the ship." The doctor looked at him in silence. It was sufficiently plain to him what the case was. "I am very sorry," he said, "but it is quite impossible for me to give you this. I will with pleasure give you a bromide mixture or phenacetin if your head is bad. Of course, the matter shall go no farther." Thurso merely walked away. There was nothing more to be said. And then suddenly the little flicker of will and of outraged self-respect shot up again, and he saw how mean it all was. He, Thurso, had not only forged this, but his forgery had been detected: that was bitter. He must not do this kind of thing. This powerlessness against his desire was intolerable, degrading; his pride rebelled against the hideous strength of his weakness. He leaned against the bulwarks of the ship, looking at the hissing wreaths of foam that bubbled forty feet below, in despair at himself; yet, since for the moment he was ashamed, since he wished he was not such a despicable fellow, the despair was not total. Yet would it not be better if he ceased to struggle, ceased to be at all? One moment of bravery, one leap into those huge grey monsters of waves that were making even this leviathan of the seas rock and roll, and it would be all over. But even at the moment of thinking this he knew he had not the courage to do it. No moral quality seemed to be left to him. They had all been eaten up and transformed into one hideous desire, even as a cancer turns the wholesome blood and living tissues of the body into its own putrefying growth. And what if that doctor told somebody? He had said that it should go no further, but there was small blame to him if he could not resist so savoury a bit of scandal. "The Earl of Thurso forges Sir James Sanderson's name in order to get laudanum, to which he is a slave!" That would make an alluring headline, if tastefully arranged, for some New York paper. * * * * * Or, again, he would rail at Maud, laying tongue to any bitter falsehood he could invent, telling her, for instance, that she had stolen his bottle of laudanum, and that he was tortured with neuralgia. Or, which hurt her more, he would tell her the truth, and say that he had tried forgery on the ship's doctor, and had been caught, asking her how she liked to have a forger for a brother. Or, hardest of all, he would sit for hours in idle despair, so deep, so abandoned, that it was all she could do not to despair also. She knew it was all error. It was the unreal, the mortal part of him that suffered, but it was very hard to cling to the truth of what she believed, and not let these seas sweep her away. But after this not very brilliant attempt to get laudanum from the ship's doctor, Thurso made no further efforts in that direction, and now and then there were little rifts in those clouds and storms that were so dark and grey above him. More than once, when for an hour, perhaps, he had sat and been voluble with bitter things in order to wound her, he would cease suddenly and sit in despairing, sorry silence. "I'm an utter, utter brute!" he would say; "but try to cling to your belief that it isn't me." Then she would look at him with lips that quivered and eyes that were brimming with unshed tears. "Oh, Thurso, I know that," she said. "And if I forget it now and then, and feel hurt and wounded, thinking that it is you who have been saying bitter things to me, I know it is not so really." Throughout the voyage his bodily health and strength were steadily, though slowly, on the mend. He put on a little flesh; there was a little more brightness in his eye and more clearness of skin than when he left England, and this, too, seemed to her a visible sign of the truth of what she believed. With all her heart, too, she set herself to reverse and forget the warning that Sir James had given her, that as his strength began to return so the strength of his craving would grow also. It had, indeed, seemed that this was true on that first evening when he had taken the drug again--or, at least, he had felt and said that it was so--but she set herself to fight that. With heart lifted high in faith and hope, she denied it, affirming that, his health being a good thing, it could not let itself give aid and be a slave to an evil thing, for thus evil would be mastering good--a thing unthinkable. No; the strength that was coming back to him, slowly indeed, represented the efforts against, and the repulses of, that deadly habit which had become so intimate a guest of his soul. Into the house of his soul he had admitted it, a hideous, dwarfish shape, but of terrible strength, blear-eyed, and with trembling hands, clothed in the shroud and cerements of sensuality. But now he was pushing it away again, dragging it out of the home of his spirit. It was hard work--none knew that better than she--for the thing clung as tenaciously as a limpet; but failure was impossible, and well she knew that, when at last they got it to the door of his soul, and got that door open so that the sunshine of Infinite Love poured in, with what cry of joyful amazement would he see that the dreadful figure that in the dark seemed so real was nothing, had no existence apart from his belief in it. It was cheating him all the time. It was only in the twilight of his soul that what was a shadow seemed to be real. Now and then, too, the real Thurso--the kindly, courteous gentleman who had been to her so well-loved a brother--came back, and he and Maud would talk about old days before ever this shadow blackened his path. And then in the serene light of memory, which often lends a vividness to that which is remembered that it did not have in life, they would live over again some windy, notable day on the hill when Thurso shot three stags, or some memorable morning by the river when Maud killed four salmon before lunch. "Oh, Thurso, and I should have killed the fifth, do you remember? but I let the line get round that rock in the Roaring Pool, and he broke me." "By gad! yes," he said. "And you very nearly cried. Lord, what good days they were! I was awfully happy all that summer. Funny--I had hideous neuralgia, and it spoiled my pleasure a good deal, but it didn't spoil my happiness. What do you make of that?" "Why, nothing can spoil one's happiness," she said, "if one thinks right. All happiness----" But he got up suddenly. "I get the heartache to think of it all," he said. She rose, too, laying her hand on his shoulder. "Ah, Thurso, it will come back," she said--"it will come back and be better than it ever was." He looked at her with a sudden face of gloom. "And you?" he asked. "And Catherine? How can she forget? It is absurd to say that things can be the same as before. Not God can put the clock back and say it is yesterday." "No, dear; but the sun will rise on a to-morrow that will be ever so bright. Joy comes in the morning." The bitter mood was coming over him again. "Ah! a phrase," he said. "Yes; but a true one," she answered. * * * * * But these hours were short and rare, and it was but seldom that he was able to think even regretfully or longingly of the past. For the most part he was suspicious and bitter, full only of the one deadly desire and the longing for its gratification. Yet as the days went by, and the remainder of their voyage began to be reckoned by the smaller scale of hours, his despair and dispiritedness were sensibly lessened. Maud noticed that, but when--as sometimes he did--he spoke hopefully of the new cure that was going to be tried, his voice rang as false as a cracked bell, and she knew that it was not to the treatment and hope of salvation that he looked forward, but to the escape from this prison of a ship, where his desire was denied him, to the freedom of land, of the towns, where there were chemists, drug-stores. It was that really, so she felt, that animated him. Yet with his returning strength his craving did not seem to grow proportionately. At times she thought there was some check on it, unanticipated by Sir James. He wanted the drug: his brain, she made no doubt, was often full of the schemes that could be effected on shore. But no madness and raving of desire had appeared, and already they were within Sandy Hook, steaming slowly up to the relentless city. * * * * * Thurso and she were standing on the top deck together when they were arriving, on a morning of crystalline brightness. The land was white with snow, but the air was windless, and she felt that even the town which has the credit or discredit of possessing the vilest climate yet discovered in the world had its beautiful days. Higher and higher, as they drew near, rose the abominable, many-storied buildings, and from the pale blue of the winter sky they passed into the region of grey smoke which overhung the town. From the lonely and splendid places of the untenanted seas they slid into more populous waters. Stately liners were leaving for Eastern ports, and from the beautiful desert of the ocean they passed into the jostling waterways, full of broad-beamed ferry-steamers, and the hootings of innumerable syrens. Yet, somehow, her heart welcomed it all. She felt the stimulus of keen air and the intense throbbing activity which the town exhaled, that atmosphere of continuous, unremitting effort which makes all other places seem dronish and lazy. But it did not strike Thurso thus. "It is damnable! it is hell!" he said. Maud scarcely attended to him. "Oh, I rather like it," she said. The huge bulk of their ship, helpless in these narrow waters as some spent whale, sidled up to her berth, towed, as if by microscopical harpooners' boats, by two or three tiny, bustling tugs; and on the quay Maud saw a figure she knew, tall and serene and smiling, with no greatcoat on in spite of the chilliness of the morning, and for that moment she forgot Thurso and his troubles, and her heart leaped lightly to him across the narrowing space of water that separated them. That was unconscious, unpremeditated, and on the moment conscious thought came back, and she thought, not of herself and him, but only of him and Thurso. He was there, the man who had flicked across the ocean the message that he "would cure him." And she turned to her brother. "Look! there is Mr. Cochrane," she said, "and he sees us. How kind of him to have come down to meet the ship." * * * * * It was yet a long time before they were berthed, and the landing-bridges put in place, and Maud did not know how his heart, too, had leaped when he saw them standing on the deck. To him, also, had come, as to her, that first unpremeditated leap, when it was to her that he leaped. Then with his conscious self he saw her brother, him whom he longed to save from mortal error. But the flame of human love, in spite of himself, had been the first to blaze. Then they met, all three. CHAPTER IV. Bertie Cochrane had taken them straight across by ferry to their house in Long Island, near Port Washington, had seen them comfortably installed, and returned in the evening to his flat in town. As regards Thurso, the spiritual conflict of the Divine and Infinite against all that was mortal and mistaken had begun, and of the ultimate issue of that he had no doubts whatever. But there was another conflict before him, more difficult than that--a conflict of things that were all good, but yet seemed to be unreconcilable; and as he sat now, after eating the one dish of vegetables which was his dinner, he felt torn by these fine conflicting forces. For to-morrow, at the joint request of Thurso and his sister, he was going down to stay with them. That arrangement he could not refuse. Since they were so kind as to ask him, it was better in every way, as regards the cure he was undertaking, to do so. Thus, all day and every day he would see and be with the girl whom he loved with all the intensity of his jubilant and vital soul. Yet, since he would be there only as a healer, and since, except as a healer, he would never have been there, he knew that he must entirely swamp and drown all his private concerns. He must say no word, make no sign. Even that was not enough, he feared. He must school himself to feel no longing. His love itself must be drowned--that strong and beautiful thing--while he was there; for he would be there _only_ as one who could bring, and had promised to bring, light to this man who was obscured by error. That would be the sole reason for his presence there, and it was worth not a moment of further debate or argument. And as he sat here now, he wondered if he was strong enough to do what he knew he must do, or whether, even at the eleventh hour, it was better to refuse to go to Long Island at all, but send someone else. On the other hand, he had himself promised to cure Thurso. He and his sister had come from England on that express understanding and under promise. But would it not be better to break that rather than lead himself into the temptation of using for his own ends the opportunity that had been given to him, and accepted by him, of demonstrating the eternal truth which was more real than any human love? He knew, too, the hourly difficulties that his position would entail. Lady Maud thirsted for more knowledge about the truth which she already believed, and it would be he, naturally, who would talk to her about it, sitting opposite her, and seeing the glowing light of the knowledge that was being unveiled in her eyes. And yet all the time he must keep his thoughts away from her--see nothing, know nothing, except what he taught her. Not a thought could be spared to anything else; he would be there to heal, and while he healed all that was his belonged to two persons only--his Master and his patient. He fixed his mind on this till it all acquiesced, and not only all open revolt, but all covert rebellion and dissent ceased. And the moment that was done, even as, without apparent reason, a sudden surge of water in a calm sea sets the weeds waving and submerges rocks, so from the unplumbed abyss of Love a wave swept softly and hugely over his doubts and drynesses, covering them with the message from the infinite sea. What had all his doubt and rebellion been about? He did not know. The cold outside was intense; it had come on to freeze more sharply than ever at sunset, but he got up and set his window open. The aid that gave him in the work that lay before him now was adventitious only, but he found it easier to detach himself from the myriad distractions of mortal mind if, instead of breathing the close atmosphere of a room that was full of human associations, the taintless air of out of doors, of night and of cold, came in upon him. Very possibly that feeling itself was a claim of mortal mind, but it was better to yield to such a claim when it was clearly innocent, if it told him that the realisation of truth was thereby made more complete to his sense, than to waste energy in fighting it. And then, as he had done before when he went to the bedside of Sandie Mackenzie, he called his thoughts home. Thoughts of the day and the sea, of the sunshine, and the windless frost and the virgin snow, came flocking back, and went to sleep. Other thoughts, a little more laggard, a little less willing to rest, had to obey also: he had to forget the book he had been reading during his dinner, the swift hour of skating he had enjoyed after he came back to town, the friend he had met and talked with in the street. And another thought more wide-awake yet had to be put to sleep (and, if possible, be strangled as it was sleeping)--namely, his strong physical disgust for a man who, through sheer weakness and self-indulgence, had allowed himself to get into the state in which he had found his patient: that slack lip, that sallow face, that dull, stale eye, the thinning, whitening hair, were like some voluntary and ghastly disfigurement, as if Thurso had striven with his own hands to deface and render hideous his own body, and had succeeded so well that to Cochrane this morning he had been scarcely recognisable. But all this had to sleep; all his disgust had to be done away with. You could not heal a leper by shuddering at his sores. Slowly and with conscious effort that was done, but there was still one soaring thought abroad, stronger of wing, harder to recall than any. Maud, too, had to be called home (and the irony of the phrase struck him). Her beauty, her incomparable charm, her serene, splendid bravery with her brother, and his love for her, must now be all non-existent for him. She must cease--all thought of her must cease. * * * * * Then, like the force that turns the driving-wheel of some great engine that is just beginning to haul its ponderous freight out of the station, the power of the Divine Mind began to press within him. Once and again the wheel spun round, not biting the rail, for the load was very heavy; but soon the driving power began to move him, the engine, and the dead and heavy weight of the trucks weighted with the error and sickness he was to cure. Under the roof of the station it was dark and gloomy, but outside, he knew, was sunshine. There was only one force in the world that could bring him and his trucks out there, but that it should do that his mind had to strain and strive and grip the rail. Sometimes it seemed that the weight behind was immeasurable, sometimes that the force which drove him was so vast that he must burst and be broken under its pressure. But he knew, that little atom of agonised yet rapturous consciousness, which was all that he could refer to as himself, knew that he and his freight were in control of the one Power that cannot go wrong, that never yet made a mistake. The hands that held him were infinitely tender, even as they were infinitely strong. * * * * * It was some four hours later when he got up from his chair. The fire had gone out, and the bitterness of the frost had frozen the surface of the glass of water he had poured out, and he broke the crust of ice on it and drank. Two minutes later he was undressed and asleep, having plunged into bed with a smile that had broadened into the sheer laughter of joy. Thurso awoke next morning, feeling, so he told himself, the stimulus and exhilaration of this new climate and the bracing effect of this dry, sunny morning of frost. After the narrow berth of his cabin it was a luxury to sleep in a proper bed again, and a luxury when awake to lie at ease in it. What an excellent night he had had, too! He had slept from about half-past eleven the night before till he was called at half-past eight--slept uninterruptedly and dreamlessly, without those incessant wakings from agonised dreams of desire which had so obsessed him during the last week. No doubt this change from the sedentary and cramped life of the ship to the wider activities of the land accounted for that, and he felt that the place and the air both suited him. Yesterday had passed pleasantly, too. He, Maud, and Cochrane had been for a long sleigh-drive in the afternoon, and--there was no use in denying it, though he felt some curious latent hostility to him--Cochrane was a very attractive fellow. He had the tact, the experience, the manner of a cultured and agreeable man, and these gifts were somehow steeped in the effervescence and glow of youth. Never had Thurso seen the two so wonderfully combined. Youth's enchantment was his still, the eager vitality of a boy. When they returned he had had an hour's talk with him alone, and at Cochrane's request had told him the whole history of his slavery. And, somehow, that recital had been in no way difficult. Once again, as on the occasion of Maud's poaching, Cochrane had made it easy not to be ashamed. Thurso felt as if he was telling it all to a man who understood him better than he understood himself, who did not in the least condone or seek to find excuses for this wretched story, but to whom these hideous happenings appeared only in the light of a nightmare, as if Thurso had had a terrible dream, and was speaking only of empty imaginings. At the end--the tale was a long one--Cochrane had still been genial. "Well, now, that is a good start," he said, "for I guess you haven't kept anything back. Sometimes people have a sort of false shame, and won't tell one what is, perhaps, the very worst of all. That must hinder the healer. It must help him, on the other hand, to know just exactly what the trouble is." "Quite so; that is only reasonable," said Thurso. But to himself he thought how odd it was that so straightforward and simple a fellow should be such a crank. Not that he was not perfectly willing to let the crank do what he could for him. He would have worn any amulet or charm if anyone seriously thought it could help him. But, again, he was conscious of his latent hostility, and this time he fancied he perceived the cause of it. For Cochrane was here to rob him of the most ecstatic moments of his life. It was the memory of them which made him feel that he was in the presence of a thief, an enemy. "Well, now, before I go back to town for the night," continued Cochrane, "I want to start you right away with one or two thoughts to keep in your mind. Remember, first of all, that all that you have been suffering from is unreal. It has no true existence, in the sense in which life and joy are true. Try to realise that, for thus you yourself will help in the accomplishment of your healing. A patient can help his medical man by determining to get well, can't he? In the same way you can help me by trying to realise that you have never been ill. Real illness is a contradiction in terms." "Do you mean that not only are the effects of the drug unreal, but the cravings for it are unreal?" asked Thurso. "Surely one can only judge of the truth of a thing by one's feelings. One's feelings are the ultimate appeal, and I assure you I know of nothing so real as my craving. If it had been less real I should not have come to America." "Ah! that's where you make a mistake," said Cochrane. "There may not be an atom of truth in the thing which is the cause of your feeling most strongly. Suppose, for instance, a lot of your friends entered into a conspiracy to play a practical joke on you, had you arrested, got you convicted of murder, and condemned to be hung, with such realism and completeness that you actually believed it was going to happen. You would be terrified, agonised, and your terror and agony would be the realest thing in the world to you. But it would be all founded on a lie--on a thing that didn't exist. And your craving is founded on a lie--such a stupid lie, too, believe me. As if evil has any power compared with good!" Thurso thought this illustration rather well-chosen, but he was a little tired, a little impatient. Also, the mention of his craving seemed to have stirred it into activity again. He began to wonder if there was any chemist's shop near. They had passed one on their drive--"ride" Cochrane called it--but that was a couple of miles off.... And the thought made him the more impatient. "Excuse me," he said, "but I am not a Christian Scientist, and the method you employ doesn't interest me, since I do not believe in it. It is right for me to tell you that; I only came here because I felt I owed it to--to others to do anything that was suggested." Cochrane laughed with serene good-humour, though Thurso's tone had not been very courteous. "Oh, we'll soon alter all that," he said, "and I am telling you a little about the treatment, in order that you may work with me, give me the help the ordinary patient gives his doctor." "I suppose I'm pretty bad," he observed. "I should just think you were. Why, you are all wrapped up in error! Have you ever unwound a rubber-covered golf ball? There are yards and yards of india-rubber string, and you think it's going on for ever. But at the centre there is a core. And there is a core in you too. But we've got to unwind the error in order to get at it." Thurso got up; he was feeling every moment more fidgety and impatient. He was beginning to want the drug most terribly; his craving was growing with mushroom-like rapidity. Yet while Cochrane was there he felt that his will to get well, his desire to be free, was keen also. And that gave him an impulse of honesty. "I tell you this, too," he said: "I'm longing for the drug most frightfully now. Ah, help me!" he cried in a sudden wail of appeal, "for I know what I shall do when you are gone." "Yes, tell me that," said Cochrane; and the wail of the voice told him that true impulse still existed, whatever Thurso's own forecast was. "Well, I shall go and see where Maud is," he said, "and if she is downstairs I shall tell her that I am going to my room to sleep till it is time to dress, so that I can get away by myself. She trusts me, I think, even after all that has happened. Good heavens! why am I telling you this?" he said suddenly. "You will tell her now, damn you! and spoil it all." Cochrane interrupted quietly. "Your damning me doesn't hurt," he said, "and I solemnly promise you not to give your plan away. There's no chemist very near, I'm afraid, but there's one in Port Washington; we passed the place this afternoon." "Ah, you've warned him," said Thurso. "I have done nothing of the kind, nor shall I. Pray get on." The pleasure that the diseased imagination took in the projection of its plans was suggestive of the joy of their realisation. Thurso gulped as he spoke. "I take it, then, that you won't interfere," he said. "Well, I shall go to my room and forge--yes, forge a prescription. I'm getting a rare hand at that." He gave a little cackle of delight; the impulse that a couple of minutes ago had prompted the cry for help was half smothered, and he was conscious of one need only. He pointed a warning finger at Cochrane. "It's understood that you do nothing to hinder me," he said, "nothing tangible, practical, though you can treat me--don't you call it?--till all's blue. Then I shall send to the stable, and tell a man and horse to go down to the chemist's, wait for the prescription to be made up, and bring it back. Lord Thurso, you know! Republicans think a lot of a lord, and they'll hurry, because they've got a fine specimen of one now. And I shall sit gnawing my nails till that bottle comes back. Then--two hours' Paradise before dinner. God! I wonder the whole world doesn't take to laudanum. Paradise made up while you wait. Cheap, too." "Remarkably cheap," said Cochrane. "Ah, you are laughing at me. But you don't know, you can't guess----" Thurso came close up to him and pressed his arm. The latent hostility was all gone; here was a friend who should be told what he was missing. So easy was it to get out of hell into purgatory, and through purgatory past the unbarred gates of a Paradise of rose and gold. No flaming-sworded angel was there; a glass and a bottle were the pass-word for admittance. You had but to draw a stopper, chink a glass, and drink, and the whole world was changed. The thought invaded and encompassed him. He could think of nothing but that. "Suppose you try it one night," he said to Cochrane, "when you are staying down here, as you will be to-morrow? You just see; there's no need for any healing any more--the thing is health and life. I say, wouldn't it be funny if, after I had come over here to be cured by you, I succeeded in pulling you after me. Just try some night." Bertie Cochrane nodded at him. "Well, it may come to that," he said; "there's nothing which you can say is impossible." Thurso laughed again. "Maud too, perhaps," he said. "What a good time we might have: 'up to heaven all three,' as it says in that poem by--by--I never can remember names now!" Cochrane could barely restrain a little shudder of disgust at this, but he checked it. "Well, you're making an excellent start," he said, "because you're telling me all your plans for the future, just as you have told me all the history of the past. And as for the present, I can figure that up pretty correctly now. Now, do you know what you've been doing for this last ten minutes? You've been almost forcing yourself to do what you say you are going to do by imagining it. Every action begins in the brain. But just before that another action began. You said, 'Ah, help me!' Do you remember that?" "Yes, but it's useless," said Thurso. "You see for yourself." "It isn't useless. I never spend my time over useless things. When you said that your will was on the right side. And even now when you are half-crazy for that drink, aren't you ashamed to think of what you have just suggested--that Lady Maud, your sister, should be dragged down with you? Aren't you ashamed? You have been very candid; I want your candid opinion on that." Thurso frowned. "I didn't say that; I'm sure I didn't say that." "But indeed you did. Now come back on the right side again. You've been suggesting things to yourself, and imagining them with remarkable vividness. So now, to make it fair, plan another evening for yourself. Come, what would be pleasant? Don't make a long evening of it; I want you to go to bed before eleven." "Why?" asked Thurso. "Just because it's a sensible hour. I shall be treating you by then." "But Maud tried to treat me once on the steamer," said he, "and the effect was that I couldn't get to sleep at all. I thought she was in the room." For the moment, anyhow, the edge of his desire was dulled. There was something that compelled attention in this big, strong young man, who was so cheerful and quiet, who looked so superlatively well, and seemed to diffuse sanity and health. "Why, that was real good of Lady Maud, wasn't it?" he said, "and that feeling of yours that she was in the room was very likely to happen. I'll tell you why: like everything else in science, it is so simple. The healer ought quite to sink himself; he shouldn't be conscious of himself at all. He mustn't think that he is controlling the working of the power of Divine Love. But that unconsciousness of self only comes with practice. At first the healer finds that his personality obtrudes itself." Quite unconsciously Thurso began to be more interested; consciously he knew that he did not want the drug just this moment as devouringly as he had thought. The simplicity of what Cochrane was saying struck him also; it was so exceedingly unlike the torrential inconsequence of Alice Yardly. "Then why can't you heal me instantly?" he said. "If error cannot exist in the presence of Divine Love, how is it that time is required for its destruction?" Cochrane laughed. "I haven't the slightest idea," he said; "but, then, I do not profess to be able to explain everything. Sometimes healing is really instantaneous, sometimes it takes time. But if you ask me why, I confess I can't tell you. It is so, though." He got up. "Now I must go," he said, "for though there's no such thing as time really, it is still possible to miss a train. Now keep on making other pictures of this evening to yourself, and say you will go to bed at eleven." Thurso lay back in his big chair after Cochrane had gone, conscious that something else besides laudanum had begun to interest him a little. He felt no leaning or tendency whatever towards Christian Science, and he wanted to find some weak spot in the central theory, some fatal inconsistency, which must invalidate it altogether. There must be one even in the little he had heard about it. At this moment Maud came in. "I've had a long talk to Cochrane," he said, "and he left only ten minutes ago. Maud, give me a Christian Science book; I'm going to prove that it's all wrong." She laughed. "Do, dear; it is the business of everybody to expose error. Shall I read it to you?" "Yes, if you will." Then suddenly his craving began to return, sharpening itself instantaneously to hideous acuteness. His mind was like some light vehicle, from which the driver had been spilled, being galloped away with by the bolting, furious horses of habit. Never before had the stroke fallen upon him with such suddenness. "A fine first-fruit of the value of Christian Science," he said to himself. Yet though its onslaught made him almost dizzy, he retained his presence of mind and the cunning which seemed to have been developed in him since he took to the drug. He mastered his voice completely; he mastered also that watering of the mouth and the automatic swallowing movement of his throat. "Or shall we read after dinner?" he said. "That sleigh-drive made me so sleepy. I think I should drop asleep at once if you began to read." Maud looked at him for a moment with a pity that was instinctive; she could not help it. Then she laughed again. "Oh, Thurso, how transparent!" she said. "You want to go to your bedroom and forge--yes, forge the prescription which you forged with such brilliant success on the steamer, and send it down to the village to get your horrid bottle. It's all very well to forge once or twice, but you really mustn't get in the habit of it; it grows on one dreadfully, I am told." He came towards her white and shaking. "That quack Cochrane has been talking to you, has he," he said. "He promised not to interfere." "He hasn't interfered. You are perfectly free to do what you like. And he is not proved to be a quack yet." He laid his hand on her arm. "Maud, just this once," he said--"do let me have it this once. It shall be the last time. You see, the treatment will soon put me right now." "Why do you want my leave?" said she. "I don't know. It would make me more comfortable; I should enjoy it more." "Well, I propose a slightly different plan," she said. "I promise you that I will go and get it for you myself at twelve o'clock to-night if you still really want it. Hold on for six hours--five hours--and then, if you ask me, I will take down the forged prescription myself. Only in the interval you must do your best--your best, mind, not to think about it. And you must go to bed at eleven. That's not much to ask, is it?" He weighed this in his mind, and soon decided, for there was something rapturous in the waiting, provided he knew he would soon get it. "Yes, of course I'll wait," he said, "though I can't guess what your point is. You really promise it me at twelve? And you won't tell Cochrane?" he added, with a little spurt of glee, thinking that for some inexplicable reason Maud was going to help him. "Oh no, I won't tell him; you probably will. Now, if the sleepiness of the sleigh-drive has gone off, I will read to you. It will help to pass the hours till twelve." It had required all Maud's faith to get through with this, but she had understood and agreed with what Mr. Cochrane had said before he left. He wanted, above all things, that Thurso should make an effort of abstention, though it was only for a few hours, of his own accord, and believed that at present he could hardly do so unless he was bribed, so to speak. He had, in fact, suggested this plan. "And if he wants it at twelve?" she asked. "Keep your promise. But he won't. He can't." * * * * * All this Thurso thought over as he lay in bed next morning watching his valet put out his clothes. He had gone to bed, as he had promised, before eleven, hugging to himself the thought that midnight was coming closer every minute. And then he had simply fallen asleep, and when he woke the pale winter sunlight was flooding the room. Yet, mixed with the exhilaration of this cold, bracing air, the memory of the pleasant day before, the sense of recuperation after his excellent night, there came the feeling as he got up and dressed, turning over these events in his head, that he had been tricked. He had no idea how the trick was done, or how it was that he could have gone to sleep when, if he had but kept awake so short a time, he would have enjoyed, and that with no sense of concealment or surreptitious dealing, the one sensation that turned life into paradise. Certainly it had been extremely neatly done. As a conjurer, Cochrane's sleight of mind, so to speak, was of the most finished sort, for, as has been said, Thurso had had no sense of his presence or intimation of his influence. Cochrane, however, would be here to-day, and perhaps he would explain. But the feeling of having been tricked somehow piqued him, and the pique was not lessened by the fact that he could not guess how the trick was done. Of course, it must have been suggestion or hypnotism in some form; but the odd thing was that neither Maud nor Cochrane had suggested to him at all that he should go to sleep. He had gone to sleep by accident without intending to do anything of the sort, and without any feeling that others were intending it for him. While he was dressing he heard the sound of sleigh-bells, which probably betokened Cochrane's arrival, and when he got downstairs he found him and Maud already breakfasting. Cochrane nodded to him. "Good morning," he said. "Now Lady Maud will tell you that neither she nor I have spoken a word about you this morning. I know nothing of what has happened here since I left last night. I told her, by the way, just before I left, to promise to get your drink for you, if you wanted it, at twelve o'clock midnight. Now let's hear what happened." "I went to Thurso's room at twelve and knocked," said Maud. "There was no answer, so I went in. I called him several times, I even touched him, but he didn't wake." Cochrane laughed. "I call that pretty good," he said. "Oh, this is childish!" broke in Thurso. "Maud, do you swear that that is true?" "Of course." "Well, you or Mr. Cochrane must have hypnotised me or drugged me," he said. "I know less about hypnotism than I know of the inhabitants of Mars," said Cochrane. "Or what do you think we drugged you with?" "Well, how did you do it, then?" he asked. "I congratulate you, anyhow. It was very neat." "I didn't do it. I had no idea, at least, whether you were asleep or awake at midnight. I only knew that Divine Love was looking after you." Something rather like a sneer came into Thurso's voice. "Did--ah! did Divine Love tell you so?" he asked. "Yes, most emphatically. He has promised to look after us all, you know, and do everything that is good for us. My word! you've never seen such a beauty of a morning outside. Cold, though." Thurso was undeniably in a very bad humour by this time. He felt convinced in his own mind that there had been some hypnotic force or suggestive influence used on him last night; but when a man denies it, and simply attributes all that has happened to the working of Divine Love, you cannot contradict him. Maud, however, had read to him last night out of some Christian Science book, and he had found, he thought, a hundred inconsistencies in it. Cochrane's last words, too, were utterly inconsistent, simple as they sounded. "How can you say it is cold," he asked, "when your whole Gospel is rooted, so I understand, in the unreality of all such things--cold, heat, pain, and so on? Or did I misunderstand, do you think, what Maud read to me last night? I certainly gathered that neither cold nor heat had any real existence." "No; but we think it has," said Cochrane, with his mouth full. "Then, is it not what the Reverend Mrs. Eddy calls 'voicing error' to allude to the temperature of the morning?" Cochrane laughed, a great big genial laugh. "Oh, we don't--at least, I don't--make any claim to be beyond feeling cold or heat when there is no reason for not feeling it." "I beg your pardon." Cochrane still looked amused and quite patient. "Well, if for any cause it was necessary that I, in healing you, should have to stand in a tub of ice-cold water, I don't imagine it would affect me much. There would be a reason for my doing it. But in the ordinary way we say, 'This is cold, this is hot.' They don't hurt. My time is taken up in denying things that do hurt." "Though nothing hurts." "False belief hurts, and its consequences." Maud joined in. Thurso was being tiresome and irritable. "Dear Thurso, pass the marmalade, please. I have a false claim of wanting some, so don't tell me there isn't any. I propose to indulge my false claim. Oh, don't be severe with us; it is such a pity, and spoils my pleasure." "I was merely inquiring into these matters," said Thurso rather acidly, for his mind still chafed at the trick, or so he called it, that had made him go to sleep last night. Maud's false claim of wanting marmalade was soon satisfied, and she got up. "Now, Mr. Cochrane has promised to give me instruction for half an hour, Thurso," she said, "and after that I vote we go out. There's a lake, he says, not far off. We might skate." "And what is to happen to me?" he asked. "Am I to have treatment or laudanum, or to be put to sleep again?" Bertie Cochrane looked up at him suddenly. For half a second he allowed himself to be stung, affronted, by Thurso's tone. But he recovered immediately. "Now, honestly, which would you like best?" he asked. Then, though the moment was, as measured by time, an infinitesimal one, in eternity his soul had thrown itself at the foot of Infinite Love, reminding Him of His promise, like a child, calling Him to help. The acidity and sneering criticism suddenly died out of Thurso's mind. His moods altered quickly enough and violently; it may have been that only. "You know I want to be cured," he said. Cochrane made a little sign to Maud, who left the room, leaving the two men alone. "Yes, I know you do," he said gently, "and you're going to be cured. But you can help or hinder. All breakfast, you know, you've been hindering. 'Tis such a pity. You've been asking questions, which I love to be asked, and love answering too, when I can answer them, not because you wanted to know, but because you wanted to catch me out. Why, of course, you can catch me out, because often and often I am bound by error and claims of mortal mind. Also, I don't know absolutely everything--I don't indeed. But when you want to catch me out like that, it means you are adopting a hostile attitude to me and to that which I hope to bring you. That hinders me. It isn't fair." Cochrane shook his head at him, like some nice boy remonstrating kindly with a friend whom he likes for not "playing the game." Then he went on more seriously. "Now, what's the trouble?" he said. "Why are you hostile? Is it just because Infinite Love came to your help last night, and sent you to sleep, instead of letting you drink that poisonous stuff? I guess it's that. But to think or suggest that I hypnotised you or drugged you is childish. To doubt that it all happened in any other way than the way it did is error on your part. Why not accept a perfectly simple explanation. Can you seriously offer any other? How often before, when you've been wanting the stuff badly, and have known you would get it in an hour, have you dropped off to sleep instead? Why, never. And what is the first occasion of it happening? When I was treating you, bringing you into the presence of Divine Love--not suggesting things either to Him or you, but just leaving you together. I treated you for some four hours last night, beginning soon after dinner." "But it's all impos----" began Thurso. "I don't understand it, anyhow." "That's a different matter," said Cochrane. "But explain. If you've brought me there, is it all over? Am I cured?" "No; because you have made a habit of error, and that habit has to be broken. You've got to form a new habit of non-error. You will have to put yourself in the hands of Love often and often before you get rid of this. At least, I expect that, though we can't tell in what manner He will choose to heal you. But I expect that: from what we know a habit takes longer to cure than an occasional lapse. It is hard to forget a thing we have got by heart. And we've got to ask, to keep on asking." Again the hostile attitude was smothered, and interest took its place. "But why?" asked Thurso. "Why, if error is all a mistake, without real existence, does it bind us? How can it?" "Gracious! I can't tell you," said Cochrane. "But there's no doubt it is so." "And you can heal people who don't believe?" he asked. "Why not? But a man who didn't believe couldn't heal. And by the time the cure is complete, as far as I know, the patient nearly always believes." Thurso was asking questions now in a different spirit to that which had prompted them before. He knew the difference himself. "You spoke of laudanum as poisonous stuff just now," he said. "But if God made everything, including poppies, how can it be poisonous?" Cochrane laughed. "Well, we had better ask Lady Maud to come back," he said. "It was about that very point that I was going to talk to her to-day. Now, if you care to listen to that, since you have asked the question, pray do. But if it bores you, why, if you'll read the paper or occupy yourself for half an hour, we can then all start out skating, or what you please." "But aren't you going to treat me?" asked Thurso. "Oh, I was at it this morning for some time," he said. "I've paid you the morning visit, so to speak." Then again some spirit of antagonism entered into Thurso, and when Maud came back he crossed over to the fire with the paper. But the news was of no importance or interest, since it chiefly concerned American affairs, which meant nothing to him, and by degrees he found himself attending less to the printed page and more to the voice that sounded so cheerful and serene. Sometimes he found himself mentally ridiculing what was said, but yet he listened. It was arresting, somehow, and whether it was only the personality of the speaker that arrested him, or what he said, he found himself, whether approving or disapproving, more and more absorbed in it. Cochrane spoke first, as he said he was going to do, about the apparently poisonous or sanative effects of drugs. These effects, he maintained, were not inherent in the drugs themselves, but in the belief of those who used them. It was quite certain, for instance, from the purely medical point of view, that an injection of plain water could be made, and that the patient, believing it to be morphia, would sleep under the influence of what had no influence at all. He slept because he believed he had been given something which would make him sleep. But, from the Christian Science point of view, to use drugs for curative purposes was merely to encourage the false belief that they could in themselves cure, while, on the other hand, anyone who knew and fully believed that they could neither be health-giving nor destructive of health might, if he chose, eat deadly poison, and be none the worse for it. But no one who held this belief would do so merely as a demonstration to satisfy the idle curiosity of those who did not believe. Up till now he had been speaking quietly, as if all that was mere commonplace and superficial. But now intenser conviction vibrated in his voice. "All this," he said, "though, of course, it is perfectly true, is only a detail, a little inference that follows from the real and vital proposition. How error originally came in I don't pretend to say. What we have got to deal with to-day is that error is here in embarrassing quantities, and that one of the commonest forms of it is to attribute real existence--real, that is to say, in comparison with the reality of Love--to material things. What is truly worth our concern is not to know what does not exist, but to know what does. And one thing only exists, and that is God, in all His manifestations. Originally, as we all know, He made the world, and pronounced what He made to be good; but that seems to have been before error entered. But the Infinite Mind, which is Divine Love, is all that has any real being. And as light, pure white light, can be split up, so that different beams of it appear as of all the colours of the rainbow, so that when you say, "This is blue, this is red," you are only speaking of aspects of light, so when you say, "This is unselfish, this is courageous, this is pure," you are only speaking of one of the colours of God. It is good that we should contemplate any one of these, for each of them is lovely; but we must continually be fusing them all together in our thought, so that they are mingled and made one again. And when that is done, when by the power of the little we know of the Infinite Mind we bring together all we can conceive of love and purity and unselfishness, then it is God we are contemplating. And whenever we contemplate Him like that, there is no existence possible for sin or error or imperfection. They pass into nothingness, not because we will them to do so, or make any longer an assertion of their nothingness, but because their existence is inconceivable." Thurso had dropped his paper, and was listening, still with occasional antagonism and mental ridicule, but with interest; it was not so dull as the paper. Besides, what if it was true? Then, indeed, his antagonism would be that of some feeble soft-bodied moth fluttering against an express train, and thinking to stop it. And there was something serenely authoritative about these words. It was not as when scribes and Pharisees spoke. Somehow, also--it was impossible not to feel this--there was the same authority not only in Cochrane's words, but in his life. The things which he said were borne out by what he did, and it seemed as if it was not his temperament that inspired his words, but the belief on which his words were based that produced a completely happy temperament. Big troubles, big anxieties, he had said, never came near him, but, what to Maud was as remarkable, it appeared that the little frets and inconveniences which she would have said were inseparable from the ordinary life of every day were unable to touch or settle on him. Round him there seemed to be some atmosphere, as of high mountain places, in which the bacilli of worry and anxiety could not live; nothing could fleck or dim the happiness of those childlike eyes. A child's faith, as she had recognised last summer, shone there, and it was supported and proved by the knowledge and experience of a man. Like all faith, it was instinctive, but every hour of his life endorsed the truth of his instinct. And if either Thurso or Maud could have guessed how passionate and furious was the struggle going on within him, during this first day or two, between the desire of his human love and the absolutely convinced knowledge that he had no right to use this intimacy into which he was thrown with Maud by the call to cure her brother for his own ends, they would have said that a miracle was going on before their eyes. The tempest of desire, the storm of his longing for her, and, more potent than either, the knowledge that he loved her with all the best that was in him, continually beat upon him; but the abiding-place of his soul was absolutely unmoved by the surrounding tumult, and not for a moment was his essential serenity troubled. It was the third day after his arrival at the house in Long Island, and he and Maud were sitting together by the fire before evening closed in. The weather this morning had suddenly broken, and instead of the windless, sunny frost a south-easterly gale from the sea had set chimneys smoking and ice melting, and drove torrents of volleying rain against the windows of the shuddering house. Maud at this moment was wiping her eyes, which the pungency of the wood-smoke had caused to overflow. "You were quite right," she said, "when you warned me not to have the fire lit in this easterly room. And what makes it more annoying is that you don't weep also. Is that Christian Science or strong eyes? Perhaps they are the same thing. But I think we had better move into the other room. I can't stand it." The other room was the billiard-room, in which they did not often sit. It was free from smoke, however, and the fire prospered. Thurso had gone upstairs half an hour ago to write letters, and had not yet come back. "He is so much better," she said, as she settled herself into a comfortable chair. "His recovery has been quite steady, too. Do you any longer fear a relapse?" "Oh, I never feared it," he said, "in the sense that I ever imagined it would baffle me. How could it? Nothing can possibly interfere with truth. But sometimes--sometimes when error has gone very deep, and has been allowed to rest there, you tap a sort of fresh reservoir of it just when you think you are getting to the end of it. In one sense, I suppose, I have feared that. It may not happen, I have no reason to believe that it will, but I have seen very sudden attacks and onslaughts of the most violent kind, even when one thought the cure was practically complete." "But surely he has made marvellous progress," said Maud. "Think; it is only four days since you began to treat him." "Yes; no one progress is more marvellous than any other, since all progress is right, but it has been very smooth sailing so far. And--I don't care whether I am being heretical or not, but I think I am--conditions have been very favourable. Weather, climate, all external influences, have a great effect. They have no real power to help or hinder, but when a soul is bound by a material habit material conditions do come in. It is no use to say otherwise. The depression caused by a wet, windy day, such as to-day, is certainly a false claim, but it goes and hobnobs with other false claims, and they sit round the fire and talk.... But, take it as a whole, those who believe are less affected by such things than those who do not. Mental worry is less felt by the Scientist, because he knows it does not really exist. So he will discount the depressing influences of weather; he won't so much mind a windy or an oppressive day." "And doesn't weather ever upset you?" asked Maud. He laughed. "Oh dear, yes," he said. "I've been having false claims all over me all day, like--like a shower-bath, and all day I've been reversing them till I'm dizzy." "You have looked serene enough," she said. "I shouldn't have guessed it." "Well, I hope not, since it is by the serenity that comes from complete conviction of the one Omnipotence that you fight them. If you abandon that, what are you to fight them with?" He looked at her, smiling; but then his smile faded, for he felt for a moment that, in spite of himself, his love must betray itself by word or gesture. And surely there was some answering struggle going on in her, or was it only sympathy, only gratitude for what he had done, that made that beacon in her eyes? Whatever it was she had it in control also. "Won't you tell me of them?" she asked. "Sometimes telling a thing, the very putting of it into definite words, shows us how shadowy and indefinite it really is. I--I don't ask from inquisitiveness." "I am sure of that," he said, "but the thing that has been worrying me most to-day is--at present--absolutely a private affair. Then there is another--I have been letting myself be anxious about your brother, and that is very bad for him as well as me. When I was treating him this morning all sorts of doubts kept coming into my mind. Half the time I was fighting them, instead of giving myself entirely to him." "Ah, but you never really doubted," she said. "I am sure that you denied them." "Yes, but I was feeble. I was a muddy, choked channel for the flowing of Divine Love. And I am now. I have to be continually dusting and cleansing myself. I have been having fears." "Specific ones? Fear of some definite event?" "Yes; I'm afraid I have gone as far as that. I have had fears of some violent access of error coming upon him, and I have no reason for fearing. Because if it did occur I should know quite well what to do. There couldn't be anything to fear really. I guess he's been getting well so quickly and smoothly that I have allowed myself to wonder whether it could be true, though, of course, I knew it was. But that's so like feeble mortal mind! The very fact that our needs are answered so abundantly and immediately makes us wonder if it is real!" Maud got up. "What would you do if he had a relapse?" she asked. "I couldn't say now, and I certainly mustn't allow myself to contemplate it. But if it came, it would surely be made quite clear to me how to demonstrate over it. We are never left in the lurch like that; it's only the devil who plays his disciples false, and lets them have fits of remorse just when they want to amuse themselves." The flames on the hearth leaped up or died down in response to the great blasts outside which squalled and trumpeted over the house, or paused as if to listen in glee to the riot that they caused. The wind was like a wild creature that, with frightened hands, rattled at the fastenings of the windows as if seeking admittance, till a tattoo of sleet silenced it or drove it away. Then a low, long-drawn whistle of alto note would sound in the chimney, and suddenly rise siren-like to a screech of demoniacal fury, or, like a passage for drums, the rattle of the leafless branches of the tortured trees mixed with the sound of the surf a mile away seemed to portend some deadly disaster. All hell seemed loose in this infernal din of the elements. Bertie Cochrane drew his chair close to the fire with a little shudder of goose-flesh. "I was awfully frightened by a storm once when I was a little chap," he said, "and it has left a sort of scar on my mind which is still tender. I always have to demonstrate to myself when there's a gale like this; I don't seem to be able to get used to them. My father died in the middle of that awful storm ten years ago, too. What a confession of feebleness, isn't it? But I don't think you would have guessed how I hated storms if I hadn't told you." "No, I don't think I should," she said. "But I am so sorry. I am just the opposite. There is nothing I love so much as a gale like this--a maniac. There, listen to that!" An appalling blast swept by the house, full of shrieks and cries, as if the souls of the lost were being driven along in the pitiless storm, and it seemed as if some window must have burst open, or some door communicating with the night and the tempest have come unlatched, for the thick double curtain which served instead of door between the billiard-room where they sat and the hall outside was lifted a clear foot from the ground, and a flood of cold air, strong as a wind, poured in, making the candles flicker and stream, and stirring the carpet as if a ground swell had passed beneath it. Cochrane jumped up. "Something must be open," he said. "The wind has come right into the house." Maud got up with him, but before he had pulled the curtain aside for her to pass, the strange wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the heavy folds fell to the ground again. But by the front-door, with the latch still in his hand, stood Thurso. The rain dripped from his coat; he was deluged, a waterspout. And Maud's heart sank when she saw him. "Why, Thurso," she said, "what have you been doing? Have you been out in this gale? I thought you were upstairs writing letters." He looked from one to the other as he took off his dripping overcoat, and spoke in a voice that both knew, a stammering, stuttering voice. "I--I finished my letters," he said, "and then I went out to--to post them--yes, post them. You couldn't expect a servant to go out in this. Not--not reasonable. And besides, I--I had not been out all day. I--I wanted a breath of fresh air. Sir James told me to be out as much as I could. How did you hear me come in? I thought you were in the drawing-room." Maud's heart sank--sank. "We were in the billiard-room," she said. She looked at Cochrane. All thought of the gale, all trouble of nerves, and whatever else it was that had been obsessing him all day, had passed from him. His eyes were vivid and alight; his face alert again, and full of that huge vitality that was so characteristic of it. "Why, that was thoughtful of you," he said. "And perhaps a little errand on your own account? Why, man, there's a packet in your coat--no, your breast-pocket. It's bulging. I can see it from here." Thurso's hand tightened on it. "Yes; I can't help it," he said. "Besides, I am much better, am I not? I must break myself of it by degrees, you know." Outside the gale yelled defiance; here inside there was tense silence, but it seemed to Maud as if some conflict mightier than that of the elements was going on. "Ah, do let me have it just this once!" cried Thurso. "I've been without it for a week, and I swear to you by all I hold sacred----" "By laudanum?" said Cochrane. "Yes, by laudanum, that it shall be a fort-night before I take it again. And don't send me to sleep this time. I--I think I should die if I didn't have it." "Let's have a look at the bottle," said Cochrane. A look of futile, childish cunning came into Thurso's face. "Oh, I think not," he said. "You--you might forget to give it me back; one always may forget things. Look here, I--I'm going to take it. That's all about it. I'm awfully grateful to you for all you have done, and to-morrow I will beg your forgiveness, and ask you to go on curing me. But this once you sha'n't stop me. Besides, there's no power either for evil or good in drugs." "That is blasphemous on your lips," said Cochrane quickly. "I beg your pardon; I shouldn't have said that." For that moment the light of anger had sprung into his eyes, but it only dulled them, and he stood there in silence a space, while they brightened again with that brilliant serenity and confidence which had been there before. Then he looked at Maud, smiled encouragement to her, and spoke. "I never stopped you before," he said. "And I'm not going to stop you now. But you laudanum-drinkers are such selfish fellows. You get away by yourselves, and drink by yourselves, and never treat anybody else. I want some of that too. Do you remember saying that perhaps it would end in your converting me? Well, let's make a beginning to-night. Let's have a jolly good drink together. You've got enough for us both, I expect, in that big bottle." Thurso still looked suspicious, and he kept his hand on his package. But Cochrane's manner was perfectly sincere, and soon he gave a little cackle of delight. His eyes, too, like Cochrane's, were very bright, but they were bright with thirst and desire. His mouth, too, so watered that he could hardly swallow quick enough to keep the saliva down. "I don't know what you mean," he said, "but I'll do anything if you'll let me take it, and not stop me. There's enough for me for to-night and for you for a week. And may I get some more to-morrow?" "You may do what you choose to-morrow," said Cochrane, "if you will give me some to-night. I've often wanted an opportunity, a proper opportunity, to take it. Why, you might say I had quite a craving for it." Maud was looking from one to the other, utterly puzzled. She came close to Cochrane. "Mr. Cochrane, what are you going to do?" she said. "What are you about? I am frightened." He looked at her quickly and radiantly. "Ah, don't be frightened," he said. "You must help and not hinder. I know I am right. Don't be afraid, and don't doubt." CHAPTER V. They went back into the billiard-room again; outside the wild hurly-burly of the storm still screamed and wailed round the house, but Cochrane now was utterly unconscious of it. A clear command, louder than the wind and the tattoo of rain, the "still small voice" which made all else inaudible, had come to his soul. He knew that what he was going to do was right, and had no fear at all of the consequences. Consequences? He gloried in them, and embraced them, for they would be nothing else than a demonstration, convincing and conclusive, as to the truth of all he taught and worked and believed. He had said to Maud half an hour ago that he did not then know what he should do if Thurso had a relapse, but now that the relapse had come he knew. He was perfectly certain that he was doing right. He rang the bell as soon as he got to the fireplace. "We want some glasses, I suppose, don't we?" he said. "I beg your pardon, may I ring? Because I have rung." Thurso looked at him secretly. "Better for the servants not to know," he said. "Why not? We're doing nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "I should like everybody to know. Ah! Would you bring a couple of glasses, please?" he said to the man. Thurso came close to him, and whispered: "I take a little water and sugar with mine," he said. "Perhaps hot water would be nice; I got so wet." "Yes, very wise," said Cochrane. "And some hot water and sugar, please," he added. Then a sudden distrust came into Thurso's mind. "You are not going to cheat me?" he asked. Cochrane felt one moment of vast pity for him. Ever since he and Maud had gone out into the hall, and found him stealthily closing the door so that his return should be unheard, he had felt it was a different personality from the Thurso of the last three days whom they had discovered there dripping from his secret errand. It was as if he was possessed; he was furtive and suspicious and bubbling with this one desire; nothing remained of him but Thirst, and the jealous fear that it was not going to be quenched--Thirst for that drug which had already dragged him so near to the precipitous edge of ruin and death, and that expunged from his mind all sense of honour, all the rudimentary moral code by which men are bound, all sense that anything in the world existed except Thirst and the quenching of it. "You shouldn't have said that," he said quietly, "because I never have cheated you or anybody, and you have no right to suppose that I ever should. Dear me! how long they are bringing our glasses! Did you forge the prescription again?" Again Thurso gave that dreadful little cackle of cunning laughter. He took such pleasure in his success, such pride as some foolish-natured dog takes in doing its "trick." "Well, yes, I suppose I did," he said, "and I forged Sir James's name quite beautifully. The one I did on the steamer was a clumsy affair. And I wrote it on a rather crumpled piece of paper, so that it looked to be an old prescription." "Why, that was real smart of you!" said Cochrane. The man had brought the sugar and water and glasses, and as soon as he had left the room Thurso produced his package, and tore its coverings off. What was going to happen Maud did not know, but she trusted Cochrane, and she trusted the Power in obedience to which she felt sure he was acting. Thurso trusted him too, it appeared, for after he had poured some half of the bottle into his own glass, he passed it across to Cochrane. Then he dropped a lump of sugar into his glass, and poured in a little hot water, stirring it up, and stabbing with his spoon at the lump. "I wouldn't take much if I were you," he said. "Ah, to leave more for you to-morrow morning," said Cochrane. "Greedy fellow! And look at your ration! Why, you've taken half the bottle!" Thurso gave that dreadful giggle again. "I know," he said. "It's a regular bumper this time, isn't it? I'm going to drink to our first merry meeting. Damn the sugar! it melts so slowly." A moment's doubt and fear swept over Maud like some huge combing breaker. "Thurso, Thurso!" she cried. "Mr. Cochrane!" He still held the bottle in his hand. "Ah, reverse your fear quickly," he said. But Thurso seemed not to hear her. The sugar was nearly dissolved now, and he was stabbing at the few remaining crystals. "What a nice fire!" he said. "I shall sit by it all the evening, and not come to dinner, and enjoy four or five hours of Paradise. Time goes so slowly, too, in Paradise; it seems an eternity. I shouldn't take more than a tea-spoonful if I were you," he said to Cochrane, who was just tilting the bottle. "That's what I began with." "Ah, was it?" said Cochrane. "Then, see here." He poured the whole of the rest of the bottle into the glass. Then, without troubling about hot water or sugar, he put it to his mouth and drank it off. "Can't say I like your brand," he said, putting the glass down. The sugar was melted in Thurso's glass, and he had withdrawn the spoon. The first sip was imminent now, that first sip of so many. Then the struggle began; he longed for that first sip, but as he saw what Cochrane had done his hands trembled; they would not raise the glass to his mouth. But the stammering had gone, and the giggling laugh was dumb. "Why, it will kill you! it will kill you!" he screamed. "You don't know what you have done! It's nearly pure laudanum. You must take an emetic at once. Here, this hot water. Ah, it's too hot! But go quick. You'll be dead in a couple of hours. Maud, don't sit there!" he cried. "Send for a doctor! Send for somebody quick!" He put his own glass down, and sprang up from his chair with the helpless agitation of a man who has no control of himself. But Maud did not move. Cochrane looked at her once, and she smiled at him, and he seemed satisfied, as if he had been waiting for that, waiting for the assurance of her confidence that the smile gave. Then he turned to Thurso. "Now, I haven't cheated you, have I?" he said. "There's your glass; drink it. I told you I would not interfere with you, and I am not doing so. I have finished the bottle, I am afraid, but you can get some more to-morrow. And while you are drinking--why don't you drink?--just listen to me a minute. I'm going to talk straight to you now. "What I have drunk will have no effect at all on me," he said. "You may sit here, and not have dinner, but I shall have dinner just the same, please. I drank that in order to show you how you have been a slave to a thing that has no real power or effect of any kind. What you have been a slave to is your intention, your false belief, your self-indulgence. And now at last you will see how unreal is the power of that stuff which you love so much compared to the Power which I love so much. It is through error that you have made an unreal thing real to you. It is through truth that I show you how unreal it is. And look what error has made of you! Think for a moment of what you were a year ago, and what you are to-day. There's a glass: look. You know without it." Thurso had risen, and was walking up and down the room, waving his hands in the impotent gesticulations of despair. Once or twice he paused by the table where his steaming glass still stood brimming, but he only shuddered at it. Once he tried to go to the curtain that led to the hall, but Cochrane stood in front of it, big, cheerful, but rather determined, blocking his way. "Aren't you going to drink that?" he asked, pointing to Thurso's untasted glass. "Aren't you going to have four hours of Paradise?" Thurso shrank from the table where the glass stood. "Oh, I implore you, I implore you!" he cried, "run to a doctor, take an emetic, and be quick. You have taken a fatal dose: you will be dead in a couple of hours. You are such a good chap: you've been so good to me, so patient, and have helped me so much. And this damnable habit of mine will have killed you. You don't know what you have done: you think drugs have no power. And you've done it to convince me. Oh, if you'll only go before it is too late, I will swear to you never to touch the stuff again. As for that----" He took his own glass, and flung it, contents and all, into the heart of the fire. There, with a huge puff of steam, a hissing and blackening of the wood logs, and crack of glass, it passed away up the chimney. "There, will that show you that I am in earnest?" he cried. "Just when I was worked up for it, just when I wanted it as I never wanted it before, you have caused me to do that! Oh, I implore you to go and make yourself sick. Maud! Maud! tell him to do something. If he doesn't I shall have killed him, and he has helped me so, has helped me--damned beast that I am!" He flung himself down on a sofa in a paroxysm of despair, writhing and sobbing and shuddering. As for Maud, though she dared not speak for fear of giving way to some uncontrollable outburst of emotion, she thanked God for it, telling herself she was not afraid, and would not be afraid. Here in this room life and death, not the mere life or death of a man, even the man she loved, were fighting their battle: the eternal principle of life, love, health, was asserting its serene supremacy over sin and death and disease. As ever, its work was kind and compassionate, bringing healing with it, and deliverance from error, and nothing could prevail against it. She believed now, in spite of her moment's panic terror when she saw Cochrane toss off that deadly draught, that he had done right. God could not play him false without playing Himself false, while, as for Thurso, poor, trembling, sobbing Thurso, at last he was broken. A thousand times had he fallen and been sorry, and vowed to amend, but it had never been like this. This was the complete abandonment, the absolute break-up, without which there is no real repentance. If, as Cochrane had said, there had still been a reservoir of error, so to speak, within him, she could not doubt now but that its banks were broken; it was coming out from him in torrents. For a minute or two Cochrane looked with those kind, sorry eyes on Thurso's agony; then, still smiling, still serene, he sat down by him as he writhed on the sofa, and laid his hand on his shoulder. "I'm awfully sorry for all the anguish you are feeling," he said, "but I had to do it. There was really no other way, as far as I could see, of convincing you. You are not convinced yet, but you will soon see that your fears for me now are just as false, just as mistaken, as was your desire for that stuff that tasted so abominable. But, apart from that, I can't tell you how glad I am to have had this opportunity, for I feel sure you will see now. You've thrown it off for good, I believe. You've been getting better all these days, you know, but somehow I was unable to get deep enough into you. But it's all right now." "Oh, it's not too late yet!" cried Thurso; "but go at once, before you begin to feel the effects. Go! go!" "And show you I don't really believe a word of all that I have ever said to you and Lady Maud?" he asked. "You can't seriously invite me to show myself such a hypocrite as that. Why, anyone of the least spirit would sooner really die, as you still fancy I am going to do, than do that." Thurso laid an agonised hand on his shoulder. "Oh, your work is done," he cried, "as regards me. And--and I know you believe you are safe. But make it really safe. Or have you ever done anything of the sort before? For pity's sake tell me that you have, and that it had no result. The minutes are passing, too." Cochrane laughed. "Well, no, I haven't," he said, "and this is the opportunity I have long hoped would come my way. Now, when is this bad-tasting stuff supposed to take effect?" Again Thurso beat the air with his hands. "Oh, it's my fault, it's all my fault!" he cried. "Maud, can't you persuade him? You are friends." "No, dear Thurso," she said quietly. "I can't persuade him, and I don't want to." Thurso sat quivering there a moment longer, then he suddenly got up, dashed through the curtained doorway, and a moment afterwards the curtain again bellied inwards, rising free of the ground, and showing that the gale had got into the house again. Then the front-door banged to, and the wind subsided. "He has gone out again," said Maud. "Is it safe to leave him?" "Oh yes. I think he has gone for a doctor, or he may have gone just to despair by himself. Then he will come back and see. He will not harm himself; he won't even catch cold," he added, smiling. "You are sure?" she asked. "Yes; so are you. Why, Divine Love is pouring into him on all sides. It has got to break him first, then it builds so tenderly, so gloriously." He looked at her for a long moment. "He is cured, you know," he said. "It's over." Then in flood there came over him all that he had so resolutely banished all these days. He felt that his visit as healer must come to an end at once. But he would see them again, see her again. "There is no longer any reason for me to stop here," he said. "It's rather a rough night, but if you don't think it is very rude and abrupt of me, I think I'll go back to town at once." Then Maud's lip quivered, and her eyes brimmed over. "Without letting me say 'God bless you?'" she asked. "No; thank you for that," he said gravely. She took both his hands in hers for a moment, silently thanking him. Then she looked at him once more. "You mustn't think of going up to-night, or to-morrow, or, I hope, for a long time," she said. "You say your work is over, and so I believe. But won't you stay a little while with your friends when they ask you?" "As your friend?" he said. "Yes, mine and Thurso's." They looked at each other, still gravely. "Thanks, yes," he said. "It is kind of you." But his hour had come. "Maud, Maud," he cried, "don't you know what I have kept back so long? Why, I love you, I love you!" * * * * * Bertie Cochrane's conjecture had been right, and half an hour later Thurso came back, drenched with storm, for he had put on neither hat nor coat, with the doctor from Port Washington. A minute later a highly affronted physician left again, wondering if it was some form of aristocratic English humour to drag a man out on a night like this, because a friend in the house had inadvertently taken a huge dose of laudanum, only to find on arrival that the friend in the house, who, if he had really done so, would certainly by now have lost consciousness, looked rather annoyed at the interruption, but otherwise perfectly well. But a glance at his companion seemed to the doctor to account for his annoyance. CHAPTER VI. Catherine was returning home to Thurso House the next afternoon about four o'clock. She had been lunching out, and a number of people, she was glad to think, were coming to dinner; but she had a good deal to do before that, and she hardly liked to estimate how much to think about. Also, a telegram from Maud, who cabled to her every day, would probably have arrived by the time she got home. That might add considerably to the number of things to be thought about. Ever since the departure of her husband and sister-in-law to America her hands had been very full, and she had devoted more time than usual to purely social duties. For she knew perfectly well that London had talked a good deal about Thurso's "illness," in that particular tone which means that in public and to her it was referred to as an "illness" in the abstract, but that when two or three only were gathered together it was discussed with far more detail and circumstance. To one of her tact, therefore, and knowledge of life it was clear that the more she was seen about, the more she entertained and was entertained, the less disagreeable and loud would all the talk and scandal about him be. With all its faults and general lack of respect, the world immensely respects pluck and the power of facing things, and certainly Catherine had faced things magnificently. The result already was that the world had begun to think that it was rather a "shame" to talk about Thurso even among intimates when Catherine was so plucky. It would very much have liked to know why she had not gone with him, for the reason that she gave--namely, that she abhorred the sea, and Maud delighted in it--was too straightforward and true to be accepted at all generally. Still, on the whole, it was a "shame" to talk. And since the memory of the world resides in its tongue, it follows that it soon forgets when it ceases to talk. It was understood, however, that Thurso's case was hopeless, though Catherine--brave woman--always said that she hoped the voyage would quite restore him after his nervous breakdown. Catherine, in herself, believed his case to be hopeless. He had refused to see her on the morning he left, or to say good-bye, but from her window she had seen his face as he got into the carriage which took him and Maud to the station, and it seemed to her that Death had already set his seal upon it, and, as a matter of fact, she had scarcely expected that he would reach America alive. But in spite of the news which might reach her any day, she had, consistently with her declaration that the voyage would probably restore him, acted as if she really thought so, and had been indefatigable in her activities. If he ever was to come back (and as long as he lived that possibility was still there), her part was to minimise the gossip and discussion about him which at the present moment was inevitable. During that week when he was at sea she had thought about the whole situation more deeply and earnestly than in all probability she had thought of anything before in her very busy but very unemotional life, and with her whole heart she had forgiven him--not by intention only, but in fact, so that she dismissed the matter from her mind--for the suffering and indignities he had brought on her during these last six months. Whether he would ever read her letter or not, she did not know, but some three days after their departure she had written to him, quite shortly, but quite sincerely, telling him never to reproach himself as regards her for what happened in the past, but to dismiss it as absolutely as she had dismissed it, and devote himself to getting well. The letter was not an easy one to write, or rather the attitude of mind which had made it possible to write it had not been attained without effort; for just as she was very slow to take offence, so she was naturally slow to forgive, and the events of the last six months, with their crowning indignity, had bitten very deeply into her. But the effort had been made and the letter written, and she had pledged herself to oblivion and whole-hearted forgiveness. Should he get well, she had given him to understand that the past was blotted out, and that she was willing and eager to join with him in making the best possible out of the future. But she knew quite well, with that ruthless honesty with which she judged herself, and which was so fine a trait in her character, that she did not expect him to live, and this, she knew, made the letter an easier one to write, and her complete forgiveness less difficult to arrive at, than it would otherwise have been. She thought that it was unlikely that she would ever see him again. But she was absolutely willing, whether he lived or died, to abide by what she had said. There had been a grim business of telegraphic codes arranged between her and Maud. It was clearly undesirable to telegraph in full such messages as Maud might feel it necessary to send her, and half a dozen cryptic words sent from New York on their arrival had told her that he had broken down once on the voyage, but had subsequently allowed her to throw the rest of the bottle away. His general health, Maud said, was certainly better. Three more telegrams, reporting the events of three more days, had come since then, each recording improvement, and it was news of their fourth day which she was expecting to find now on her return. But as she drove through the streets, where the shops were gay for Christmas purchasers, her mind was busy over an emotional conflict more intimate than even these things. As was inevitable, matters had come to a crisis between her and Rudolf Villars, and two days ago he had declared to her his steadfast and passionate devotion. But he had refused to continue any longer on this present unbearable footing of friendship. Should she now definitely reject him, he would not see her any more, except as was necessary in the casual meetings when the world brought them together. And she had promised to give him his answer this evening. She had really no idea at this moment what that answer would be. Months ago she had determined that she would not herself break that moral law, though, as a matter of fact, it meant little to her. But since then much had happened: ruin and degradation had come to her husband; he had offered her the greatest insult that, from the point of view of this moral law, a wife can be offered, and, what was a far more vital and determining factor in her choice, she knew now that she loved this man with an intensity that she believed equalled his. Could the moral law which tied her to an opium-drenched wreck have any significance compared to the significance of her love? Then suddenly, and for the first time, she remembered, in connection with her choice, the letter she had written to Thurso. She had told him that the past was utterly blotted out, and she saw how insincere that letter would become if the blotting out of the past meant for her that she was to console herself in the future. Already she knew that the fact that she did not expect him to live had made the writing of it easier. Between the two her letter did not now seem to be worth much. Yet she had meant that letter: the best part of her meant it. But just now that best part seemed to have dwindled to a mere pin's head in her consciousness. Love and life and desire were trumpets and decorations to her, and the little grey battered flag of honour was scarcely visible among the miles of bunting, and the little voice scarcely audible in the blare of the welcome that would be hers if she said but one word to her lover. Her victoria had already stopped at her door, and the footman had turned back the fur rug that covered her knees to let her get out; but she sat for a moment quite still, for the significance of her letter (or its insignificance) had struck her like a blow. Till she saw it in connection with her decision she had not known how nearly she had decided. She had told her husband, and that with sincerity, that the past was wiped out; all that he had said or done which had been unjust or insulting to her she had cancelled, annihilated, as far as it concerned her. Was she, then, going to make a fresh past, so to speak, on her own account, to give him an opportunity to be as generous as she had been? There was a dreadful ironical fitness about it: the conjunction of these things was brutally apt. Yet she had forgiven him, and that forgiveness was far more real to her than that which was labelled sin. That did not signify anything very particular to her, but to do this thing behind the screen of her forgiveness seemed mean, and meanness was an impossible quality. She had forgiven Thurso on the big scale, and the very bigness of her nature, which enabled her to do that, made her hatred of meanness strong also. And as she got out, she asked herself whether, if the letter which she had written to Thurso was still unposted, she would let it go or tear it up. And she knew that, though she might stand with it in her hand for a little, she would still send it. She meant what she had said in it. * * * * * There were some half-dozen of letters for her on the table in the hall, and a telegram lay a little apart. As she picked these up, she spoke to the footman. "I shall be in to anybody till six," she said; "but to nobody after that except Count Villars." She had half opened the telegram when her eye fell on two little hats and coats hung up on a rack at the end of the hall. She looked at them a moment, feeling that they ought to convey something to her, but she did not know what. Then she remembered that the two eldest boys were home from school to-day for the holidays. "Lord Raynham and Master Henry have come?" she asked. "Yes, my lady: they arrived an hour ago." Again she paused. Whatever she said or did to-day seemed to be laden with significance, trivial though it appeared. "Let them know I have come in," she said. "They will come and have tea with me in the drawing-room in ten minutes." (What was it children liked with their tea?) "And a boiled egg for them both," she added. * * * * * She went slowly up the staircase which last June had been a country lane of wild-flowers at her ball, and looking back to that night she wondered whether, if among her guests then had come the prescience of what the next six months were to hold for her, she would not have chosen to die then and there, so deeply had the iron entered. But the past was dead: she must not forget that; and even to think of the bitterness of it was to allow it to writhe and struggle again. But there were things in the past--these children, for instance, though she had never found them particularly interesting--whom the death of the past, in the sense that she had promised it to her husband, made more alive. It was the wretchedness and alienation of the whole past, as well as these tragic six months, that she had meant should be dead, and she willed it more surely in caring for all that was truly vital in it, in neglecting no longer those whom she had neglected too much. She did not reproach herself now for the small part that her children had had in her life; but if Thurso lived, the letter she had written to him must be fulfilled here also. She had forgiven him, and she must amend herself so that he should forgive her. Even now she recognised that the children could help in stabbing the estrangement of the past to death. She was their mother, and though for all these years she had overlooked the joy, just as she had forgotten the pains, of maternity, it was potential still. So ... would it not be better if she did not even see Villars? He would understand that as clearly as any words could make him. Yet she rejected that, and knew the cause of her rejection--that, though she told herself her mind was made up, she was still debating what she should say to him. All this passed like a series of pictures rapidly presented to her as she went up the stairs. Then she paused underneath the electric light at the top, and took out the telegram from the envelope. She looked first at the end of it, as was natural, to see from whom it came, expecting to find it was from Maud. But it was signed "Thurso." Then she read it. "I am cured, and I humbly entreat your pardon, though your letter so generously has given it me. Shall I come back, or would you possibly come out here? I will return immediately if you wish.--THURSO." She read it once, and read it again, in order to be sure of the sense of this incredible thing. Could it be a hoax? If so, who could have played so grim a joke? But she hardly grasped it. Yet it was clear and in order; the hour at which it was sent off was there, and the hour of English time when it had been received. "But it is incredible," she said to herself. "It means a miracle." She passed into the drawing-room, looking round consciously and narrowly at the pictures and the furniture, warming her hands at the fire, and feeling the cold of the marble chimney-piece to convince herself of the reality and normalness of her sensations. She opened a letter or two, and they also were quite ordinary and commonplace; there was an invitation to dinner, a few replies to invitations of her own, all signed with familiar names. A footman was bringing in tea: he had drawn two high chairs up to the table, and had put a plate and an egg-cup opposite each. Everything except this telegram indicated that the world was going on in its normal manner. She had ordered a boiled egg, as a treat, for the two boys. There were the egg-cups. The boys? Whose? Hers and Thurso's. Then a sudden wave of cynical amusement, coming in from the ocean of the world in which her life was passed, went over her head for a moment. She felt that she was being unreal, melodramatic, in that she suddenly thought of her children like this, of her husband, of forgiveness, of all the stale old properties and stock solutions of difficulties. It was like some preposterous Adelphi piece, and she was the burglar who was suddenly filled with repentance and remorse because he heard the clock strike twelve, as he remembered to have heard it strike on New Year's night in young and innocent days. As if burglars thought of their childhood when they were engaged in the plate-closet! Or as if people like herself thought of maternal obligations and marriage vows when at last love had really come into their lives! Of course, they forgot everything except that, instead of suddenly remembering all sorts of other things which they had, spontaneously and habitually, forgotten for so long. If all this had been described in a book she read, or acted in a play, she would have thrown the book aside, or have got up from her seat at the play whispering, "How perfectly ridiculous! How absolutely unlike life! I think we won't stop for the end, as I am sure there is going to be an impossible reconciliation." Yet what would have seemed to her so unreal in fiction or drama was now extraordinarily real when it actually happened to occur. She wondered whether the life she had led all these years was as unreal as fiction of this sort or drama of this sort would have seemed to her. Thurso was cured, so he said. He besought her forgiveness. The children were coming down to tea with her. She expected Villars. There was enough there to occupy her mind for the few minutes that would elapse before the children came. Poor old Mumbo-Jumbo, that fetish called Morality or Duty, which had been to her but a doll with a veil over its face, was showing signs of life, giving sudden, spasmodic movements, twitching at the veil. What its face was like she had really no idea, for in so many things she had practically been untempted. But all these years she had been kind, she had been generous, she had had the instinct for helping those who suffered. Perhaps the face would not be so very ugly. * * * * * The message that the two boys were to come down to tea had not been productive, up above, of any notable rapture. Raynham, aged eleven, had said, "Oh, bother!" and Henry had asked if they would have to stop long. Their mother was a radiant but rather terrifying vision to them. She was usually doing something else, and must not be interrupted. That summed up their knowledge of her. Catherine remembered a pack of ridiculous cards which had once produced shouts of laughter when the children were playing with their father. They concerned Mr. Bones the butcher, and the families of other portentous and legendary personages. She remembered the day, too, a wet afternoon in July, when they had played with them, and went to a cupboard in the drawing-room where cards were kept, and among other packs discovered these joyous presentments. The children were going to have eggs also with their tea. That was a treat, too. They came in immediately afterwards, rather shy, and very anxious to "behave." But insensibly, with the instinct of children, they soon saw that "behaviour" was not required. The radiant vision begged a spoonful of Henry's egg, and asked Raynham to spare her one corner of the delicious toast he had buttered for himself. He gave her the butteriest corner of all, and Henry parted with precious yolk. There was news also. Father was away--and some nameless dagger stabbed her as she realised that this was the first they had heard of it--and had been ill. Then there was good news: he was ever so much better, and soon he was coming home, or perhaps mamma was going out to see him--yes, America. Millions of miles off. What ocean? Atlantic, of course. Even Henry knew that. Soon there was no thought in the minds of the children as to how long it was necessary to stop. The wonderful cards were produced, and they all sat on the hearth-rug, and mamma was too stupid for anything. For she had the whole flesh-eating family of Mr. Bones the butcher in her hand and never declared it; so Henry, having, to his amazement, been passed Mr. Bones himself, bottled Mr. Bones up, although he wasn't collecting him. This was a plan of devilish ingenuity, for had he passed Mr. Bones to Raynham, Raynham might have given him back to mamma, who, perhaps, then would have seen her foolishness. The game was growing deliriously exciting when an interruption came, and Raynham again said, "Oh, bother!" But mamma did not get up from the hearth-rug, though the children were told to do so. "Get up, boys," she said, "and shake hands with Count Villars. But don't let me see your cards. I am going to win. How are you, Count Villars? The boys are just home from school. This is Raynham, this is Henry. Do give yourself some tea, and be kind, and let us finish our game." Catherine again proved herself perfectly idiotic, and Henry threw down his cards with a shriek. "All the Snips, the tailors!" he cried. "Oh, bother!" shouted Raynham; "and I have all the Buns but one." "And I have all the Bones but one!" said their mother. "Now go upstairs, darlings, and take the cards with you, if you like." "And is father coming home?" asked Raynham. "Perhaps I am going to him. I don't know yet. Off you go!" "And are we to shake hands again with him?" asked Henry in a whisper. "Yes, of course. Always shake hands when you you leave the room." There was silence for a moment after the boys had gone. Catherine broke it. "I have just had a telegram from America," she said, "from Thurso himself. He is better. He says he is cured. He asks me if I will go there, or if he shall come back." She was still sitting on the hearth-rug, where she had been playing with her sons. But here she got up. "I think I shall go to him," she said quietly. "That will be the best plan for--several reasons." And then the situation, which she had thought of as being of the nature of Adelphi melodrama, broke down from the melodramatic point of view, and began to play itself on more natural lines. He should have been the villain of the piece, she the gutteral heroine. But he was not a villain any more than she was a heroine. "I think I have always loved you," she said. "But I can't be mean. He says he is cured. And--he asks my forgiveness, though he had it already. He asks it, you see. That makes a difference. If I stopped here, if I---- In that case I should be refusing it him. It would amount to that." Villars put down his cup, and looked at her, but without moving, without speaking. "Say something," she said. He got up too, and stood by her. "I say 'Yes,'" he said. * * * * * Two days afterwards Catherine came up towards evening onto the deck of the White Star liner on which she was travelling. The sun had just sunk, but in the east the crescent moon had risen, while in the west, whither she was journeying, there was still the after-glow of sunset. She was leaving the east, where the moon was, but she was moving towards that other light. And she was content that it should be so. She would not have had anything different. The west, too, where she was going, had meant so much to Thurso; it had meant all to him. It was easier to weigh the moon than to weigh the veiled light of the sunken sun. She had renounced, blindly, it might be; but if for her, too, in the west, in the after-glow.... THE END. PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. * * * * * Latest Volumes.--June 1907. =The Far Horizon.= By LUCAS MALET (MRS. MARY ST. LEGER HARRISON). 2 vols.--3943/44. "The Far Horizon" treats of those things that do not lie on the surface. Without being in any sense a religious problem, it is essentially religious in its nature. Human nature--both male and female--is closely studied and depicted with consummate art; the pathos of the _dénouement_ is very telling. =The Modern Way.= By MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD, 1 vol.--3945. A collection of eight clever short stories alternately gay and pathetic. Mrs. Clifford's pathos, especially, is of a quite exceptionally fine order, and these tales will appeal to every reader. =The Eight Guests.= By PERCY WHITE. 2 vols.--3946/47. An ironical skit on the mammon-worshipping proclivities of modern society, in which several fair representatives of the smart set receive a wholesome lesson. =Harry and Ursula.= By W. E. NORRIS. 1 vol.--3948. A fine study in human nature, in which the struggle between love and duty leads to a touching ending and original situations. =The Motormaniacs.= By LLOYD OSBOURNE. 1 v.--3949. Four delightfully humorous stories of motoring and motorists. A thoroughly breezy and original volume of high spirits. =Benita.= By H. RIDER HAGGARD, 1 vol.--3950. A new African story of buried treasure, fighting, and the supernatural, by the author of "She" and "King Solomon's Mines." =The Seven Lamps of Architecture.= By JOHN RUSKIN. (With Illustr.) 1 vol.--3951. This is now the fourth of Ruskin's famous works to appear in the Tauchnitz Edition and perhaps the best known of them all out of England. The present volume is reprinted from the 1880 revised copyright edition, which alone gives the text as finally desired by the author himself. =The Pointing Finger.= By "RITA." 1 vol.--3952. Which was the real Lord Edensore will remain a puzzle to the reader almost to the end. This whole romance of high life abounds in remarkable situations. =The Sinews of War.= By EDEN PHILLPOTTS & ARNOLD BENNETT, 1 vol.--3953. The hero is an unofficial detective of a novel kind, who unravels a tangled skein of curious events in his character of "special" on the staff of a great daily. =The Diamond Ship.= By MAX PEMBERTON. 1 vol.--3954. A tale of adventure by land and sea, in which the clever hero breaks up a gang of international criminals, and finds and wins his mortal affinity. =The Whirlwind.= By EDEN PHILLPOTTS. 2 vols.--3955/56. This is a new novel by an author who has made a great name for himself by his descriptions of Dartmoor and its people. The ways of the inhabitants are admirably reproduced, while the story itself is most stirring. =Kokoro.= Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life. By LAFCADIO HEARN. 1 vol.--3957. The inner life of the Japanese is admirably shown in this series of tales and articles, and the chief points in their religion are perhaps for the first time thoroughly brought home to European readers. =Running Water.= By A. E. W. MASON. 1 vol.--3958. Chamonix and the neighbouring peaks of the Mont Blanc group form the background to this new dramatic story of Alpine climbing and of human scheming on lower levels. The $30,000 Bequest. By MARK TWAIN. 1 vol.--3959. A new volume by the greatest of living humourists, containing twenty-seven sketches, articles, and tales in his own inimitable style. =Temptation.= By RICHARD BAGOT. 2 vols.--3960/61. This is a drama and romance of Italian high life, by an author who is well known by a number of novels dealing with the Roman aristocracy. =Representative Men.= Seven Lectures on the Uses of Great Men, Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe. By RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 1 v.--3962. This volume appears in the Tauchnitz Edition, with the special consent of Emerson's son, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the great American essayist's death. =Susan.= By ERNEST OLDMEADOW. 1 vol.--3963. This is the first book by Ernest Oldmeadow in the Tauchnitz Edition and is a romance of an exceptionally high order of humour. The chief incidents of the comedy take place in a picturesque French village. =New Chronicles of Rebecca.= By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. 1 vol.--3964. A series of charming pictures from the life of a young American child who is already well known to, and a favourite with, many readers of the Tauchnitz Edition. =Her Son.= By HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. 1 vol.--3965. Mr. Vachell's new story is a touching idyll, in which love and love's capacity for self-sacrifice form the leading theme. =Merry-Garden, and Other Stories.= By "Q" (A. T. QUILLER-COUCH). 1 v.--3966. This volume contains seven tales, full of the wholesome humour for which so many of Q's works are celebrated and all written in his best and inimitable style. =The Getting Well of Dorothy.= By MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD. 1 vol.--3967. A pretty children's story, which forms interesting, moral, and easy reading for the little ones, especially those of the softer sex. The story takes place chiefly in Montreux and its beautiful environs. =Dead Love has Chains.= By M. E. BRADDON. 1 vol.--3968. A stirring modern drama in which the evil effects of a _faux pas_ on the part of the heroine lead to dramatic developments. =Itinerant Daughters.= By DOROTHEA GERARD. 1 vol.--3969. This new story of modern English daughters--by an authoress already well known for her versatility in both plot and matter--is once more built on a highly original and happy idea. _The Tauchnitz Edition is to be had of all Booksellers and Railway Libraries on the Continent, price M 1,60. or 2 francs per volume. A complete Catalogue of the Tauchnitz Edition is attached to this work._ 
45800	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) EACH VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 3970. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. BY E. F. BENSON. IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I. LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ. PARIS: LIBRAIRIE CH. GAULON & FILS, 39, RUE MADAME. PARIS: THE GALIGNANI LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI, AND AT NICE, 8, AVENUE MASSÉNA. _The Copyright of this Collection is purchased for Continental Circulation only, and the volumes may therefore not be introduced into Great Britain or her Colonies._ (_See also pp. 3-6 of Large Catalogue._) Latest Volumes.--June 1907. =The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight.= By the author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." 1 vol.--3880. The tale of a German Princess who runs away to England to live the simple life accompanied by her aged teacher. The story is a delightful mixture of smiles and tears. =The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen.= By the author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." 1 vol.--3881. An account of a holiday spent in one of the pleasantest of German island resorts, so plentifully sprinkled with humorous incident as to make the book fascinating even to those unable to travel there except in imagination. =A Dazzling Reprobate.= By W. R. H. TROWBRIDGE. 1 v.--3882. A very original study of high life and society in England, in which it is shown how hard regeneration is made for a fallen member. =The Way of the Spirit.= By H. RIDER HAGGARD. 2 vols.--3883/84. A psychological romance and at the same time a tale of modern Egypt, in which a daughter of the ancient kings plays an important and novel _rôle_. "=If Youth but knew!=" By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE. 1 vol.--3885. An idyl of Westphalia in the days of Jerome Bonaparte's pinchbeck court and reign. A delicate and pretty love-story. =Mr. John Strood.= By PERCY WHITE. 1 vol.--3886. A story, written somewhat on the lines of "Mr. Bailey-Martin," of the career of a public man. The snobbishness of the quondam friend who is here supposed to write the biography is cunningly revealed throughout. =The Artful Miss Dill.= By F. FRANKFORT MOORE. 1 vol.--3887. A modern English romance, the opening scene of which, however, is laid in Caracas, and is of a most stirring nature. =Genius Loci=, and =The Enchanted Woods.= By VERNON LEE. 1 vol.--3888. A collection of essays and articles on towns and villages in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, in which the authoress paints her impressions of their romanticism or interest. =The House of Mirth.= By EDITH WHARTON. 2 vols.--3889/90. An American society novel in which the hollow life of a certain moneyed clique of New York is admirably described. =Ring in the New.= By RICHARD WHITEING. 1 vol.--3891. This book might almost be described as socialistic. It is a description of the difficulty experienced at the present day by man or woman of earning their daily bread. =Beyond the Rocks.= By ELINOR GLYN. 1 vol.--3892. A love-story, treating of modern English life, by the favourite and well-known authoress of "The Visits of Elizabeth." =Fenwick's Career.= By MRS. HUMPHRY WARD. 2 vols.--3893/94. Mrs. Ward's new book describes the life of an artist in England, the vicissitudes through which he passes, and his ultimate reconciliation with the wife who had abandoned him. COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION. VOL. 3970. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. BY E. F. BENSON. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. TAUCHNITZ EDITION. By the same Author, DODO 1 vol. THE RUBICON 1 vol. SCARLET AND HYSSOP 1 vol. THE BOOK OF MONTHS 1 vol. THE RELENTLESS CITY 1 vol. MAMMON & CO. 2 vols. THE CHALLONERS 1 vol. AN ACT IN A BACKWATER 1 vol. THE IMAGE IN THE SAND 2 vols. THE ANGEL OF PAIN 2 vols. PAUL 2 vols. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE BY E. F. BENSON AUTHOR OF "DODO," "THE CHALLONERS," "THE IMAGE IN THE SAND," "THE ANGEL OF PAIN," "PAUL," ETC. _COPYRIGHT EDITION_ IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1907. DEDICATION TO C. E. M. MY DEAR FRIEND, It is with your permission that I dedicate this book to you, and with your permission and by your desire that I explain the circumstances of its dedication. You were cured, as both you and I know, of a disease that medical science had pronounced incurable by a certain Christian Science healer, who used neither knife nor drugs upon you. I, a layman in medical affairs, think, as you know, that your disease was nervous in origin, and you will readily admit that the wise and skilful man who figures here as Sir James thought the same. But it was already organic when you went to him, and, after consultation with others, he pronounced it incurable. At the same time, he acknowledged its nervous origin, and you will acknowledge that with the utmost frankness he confessed entire inability to say _how_ a nervous affection entered the more obviously material world of organic trouble. He had instances in plenty: fear, anxiety, he said, affected circulation and digestion, and that, of course, is patent to everybody. So, too, is the cure: remove the anxiety or fear, and you will get gastric affairs to go smoothly again, _unless_ organic trouble has begun. I suppose it is because we are all so used to that sort of mental healing (do not contradict me yet) that we no longer see any mystery attaching to it. But in such a cure there is no doubt whatever that the mind acts on the body, even as it acted before, when fear produced the imperfect action of the digestion, and heals just as it hurt. To go a step farther, I see no reason why the mind should not heal the disease of drinking or drug-taking, for in these, too, it is the brain that is the seat of the trouble, and its disease and desire is the real cause of the damage done to bodily tissue. But when--still logically, though in a scale that swiftly ascends--you tell me that some power not surgical can heal a compound fracture, then I must part company. At least, I do not believe that any man living upon this earth can make it happen that bones that are broken should join together (especially when the fracture is compound and they stick out of the skin) without assisting Nature by what you call "mere manipulation," but by what I call, "setting the bone." It is here we join issue. We have often discussed these points before, and the discussion has ever ended in laughter. But the discussion ends this time in the book which I have written. You have read these pages, and you know that in some points you seem to me to be very like Alice Yardly, but those are the points on which we agree to differ. I think Alice Yardly and you are often too silly for words. But you are much more essentially like Bertie Cochrane, and it is to you, in the character of him, that I dedicate this book. You, sick with a mortal disease, found healing in Christian Science, and in it found happiness. And now you yourself heal by the power that healed you. For I hope I shall never forget that which I with my own eyes saw you do--that which is the foundation of the last scene of the healing in "The House of Defence." To save that drug-logged wreck, who was our friend, when you saw no other way of convincing him of the beastliness of his habit, you drank that which by all that is known of the drug should have killed you, and you drank it with complete and absolute confidence that it could not possibly hurt you. It is true--at least, Sir James tells me so--that it is not quite easy to poison oneself with laudanum, because the amateur will usually take too much, and be sick, or too little, and thus not imbibe a fatal dose. But you drank a good deal--I can see now the brown stuff falling in your glass--and it appeared to have no effect whatever on you. I will go further: it had no effect whatever on you. But it had the effect you foresaw on your patient: it cured him. Now, again and again I ask myself, how did it cure him? He was very fond of you; he saw you, in the desire to save him, apparently lay down your life for him. I believe that his brain, his will-power, received then so tremendous and bracing a shock that laudanum for that moment became to him a thing abhorrent and devilish, as no doubt it is. The sight of you swallowing the deadly thing gave a huge stimulus to his will. That seems to me not only possible, but natural. Only, if this is the case, it was again his own mind, on which your action acted, that healed him. That, however, does not explain why the drug had no effect on you. There again we part company. I believe it to have been your absolute confidence that it could not hurt you that left you unharmed and unaffected. You said, with a faith that to me is transcendent, "This thing shall not hurt me, because it is necessary for me to drink it." And your body obeyed the orders of your mind, and was not harmed. But you will have none of that explanation. You say it could not harm you, because there is neither healing nor hurt in material things.... And here we are again! Let me cease to argue with you. Let me only say that to me that evening was an epoch. I have seen and heard of cheerful and serene heroism before, but it never before came so close to me as then, when the storm bugled outside, and the fire spluttered, and you drank your deadly glass. Affectionately yours, E. F. BENSON. THE HOUSE OF DEFENCE. CHAPTER I. The little travelling-clock that stood on the broad marble chimney-piece, looking strangely minute and insignificant on the slab supported by two huge Caryatides, had some minutes ago rapped out the hour of eight in its jingling voice, but here, in these high latitudes of Caithness, since the time of the year was close on midsummer, the sun still swung some way above the high hills to the north-west. It shone full, with the cool brightness of the light of Northern evenings, into the deep-seated window where Maud Raynham was sitting, waiting, without impatience, for impatience was alien to her serene habit of mind, but with a little touch of anxiety, for her brother's return. The anxiety, the wish that he would come, could not be absent, since affection and all its kindred cares were the hearth-side inhabitants of her heart. Also, it must be confessed, she was extremely hungry, and wanted dinner quite enormously. The window in which she sat was one of six, for the room was of great extent, and looked, perhaps, even larger than it really was owing to its half-dismantled condition, while the shining parquetted floor, almost bare of carpets, was like a surface of dim looking-glass, multiplying the area. In one corner was a small table, laid for two, where they would belatedly dine when he came in; near it was a man's table, littered with correspondence and the apparatus of tobacco, while close by the fireplace was a low easy-chair, with a basket disgorging needlework beside it, which indicated where she herself had been making her nest until she had strolled across to the window, when the clock struck eight, to enjoy the last half-hour of sunlight, and also to catch sight of her brother when his figure should appear coming up the straight riband of the road towards the house, from the village below, where he had been all day. Though the month was mid-June, a gay sparkle of fire, born of the delectable mixture of peat and coal, burned on the hearth between the two marble Caryatides, making an agreeable brightness for the eye, and destined after sunset to make a warmth not less agreeable; for nights even now were not often without the chill that turned to frost before morning, and this evening, in spite of the clear shining of the low sun, there was in the air that crystalline brightness that portended cold when the direct rays were withdrawn. For the house stood high and exposed on these grey and purple-heathered hills of Caithness, without protection from neighbouring tops or screen of wind-swept trees, and the full vigour of the temperatures both of noon and midnight was felt there without abatement. This table laid for dinner in one corner, the man's littered desk, and the woman's nook near the fireplace, all planted together in one big room out of the many big rooms that this great grey house contained, gave the note as of gipsy and unpremeditated encampment, and this was borne out also by the holland sheetings that had not been removed from the two big glass chandeliers which hung from the ceiling, and which loosely enveloped certain large articles of furniture, and made a pall in front of a bookcase. All this pointed to a sudden and temporary occupation, as if those who had taken possession of the house were content with the mere necessities of life, and gave no thought to its adornments and decorations. Such was indeed the case, for Lord Thurso and his sister, Lady Maud Raynham, had arrived here a few days ago only, preceded by a telegram to the caretaker to make habitable a bedroom for each of them, and a living-room for them together. They had come, in fact, suddenly and in mid-season, for in the village of Achnaleesh, over which Maud's eyes now looked, a mile below the house, there had broken out, virulent and appalling, an epidemic of typhoid fever; and since Achnaleesh, like everything else within those wide horizons, was part of Lord Thurso's immense Scotch property, it had been clear to him, without debate or question on the subject, that it was his business to leave town at once and come up here to see how far human efforts could avail to check this pestilence, and relieve the sufferings of those homes already stricken with it. His wife, however, though not her heart only, but her efforts and active support, were ever at the service of charitable schemes, had not in the least seen her way to accompanying him. If Thurso thought he had better go, by all means let him do so, but she failed to see what object there could be in her accompanying him which would compensate for the inconvenience of leaving town just now. For herself, she could see nothing gained by the journey of either of them, since he was in hourly communication with his agent, a reliable and careful man, who would see that everything medically desirable was carried out. But she was not aware how either his presence or hers would be conducive to the effectiveness of sanitary measures; yet, since she knew that her husband looked on many questions with a different eye from hers, she had no more attempted to dissuade him from going than he had tried to persuade her to come up with him. But it had seemed quite obvious to Maud that Thurso must not go by himself, and without either publicly or privately criticising his wife's refusal to go, she had simply taken her place. Indeed, she had not even felt the inclination to criticise; the things that kept Catherine in London were such as could ill be cancelled. Maud had hardly offered her brother her companionship; she had just joined him at an early dinner, and driven to King's Cross with him. Perhaps it seemed almost equally natural to him that she should come. * * * * * In any case, the state of things which they found on their arrival seemed to them both to have rendered his coming imperative. Even in the last twenty-four hours there had been a portentous increase of cases, and a panic terror, such as is only possible among folks ignorant for the most part of all illness except such as shadows old age, and naturally of rude health, had seized the village at this sudden smiting down of the strongest and healthiest among them. Mixed with this panic, too, was the fear and distrust of doctors, and the inability to believe that it could be right, when a man was prostrate with the exhaustion of long-continued fever, to deny him a morsel of meat or a crust of solid food. Doctors were there and nurses, as Thurso had ordered, but it was the obedience to their orders which, till he came, had been so hard to enforce. For this alone he knew he had been right in coming himself, apart from the reason of sentiment which forbade him to be absent, since a word from him, his expressed wish, was more potent than all the orders that doctors might give. For feudal obedience to that long and kindly race of landlords was far more paramount than medical advice; and since the laird ranged himself on the side of the doctors, who ordered windows to be opened when all other folk of commonsense would be inclined to shut every chink and cranny by which air might enter and give cold to the patient, and forbade solid food even to those "puir bodies who had been crying out half the nicht for a bit of bread," it was necessary to follow these inscrutable decrees, though wise heads were shaken over such unreasonable treatment. Lady Maud, too, had had the fever, and with her own mouth testified that even she, when all delicacies were within the reach of her purse, had been content with nothing but milk, and no bite of solid food. That, too, carried weight. * * * * * Thurso had brought his valet up with him, but Maud's maid had so clearly shown that she regarded the journey to the plague-stricken spot as equivalent to a sentence of death that she had left her behind in town, and the caretaker and his wife were the only other servants in the huge house that in autumn buzzed with attendance. Upstairs there was a bedroom for each of them, and below just this one half-shrouded room, in a corner of which they encamped, leaving the rest to holland sheeting. Otherwise the great house was at siesta, and to Maud, who only knew it hitherto when it was a kaleidoscope of guests, there was something attractive in its repose. She had come straight from the whirl of mid-season in London, at the time of the year when every day consists of forty-eight hours, and each hour of that day of a hundred and twenty minutes, all immensely occupied; and the contrast between the hour now, while she sat in the late evening sun in the window-seat waiting for Thurso to return, and the corresponding hour which was going on in London, when she would have been hurrying out to dinner, with a busy day behind her, and the opera and a ball to make short work of the night, gave her food for a certain quiet contentment. The contrast was so pleasantly violent; it was like that moment when one steps suddenly, out of the blare and brilliance of a ball-room, where one has enjoyed the waltz quite immensely, onto some quiet, tented balcony, with the trees of the park in front, and above the serenity of starlight. On a slightly larger scale that contrast was hers now. She had stepped out from London into the tranquillity of these Caithness moors. To say that she had not regretted leaving town would be untrue; she had, at any rate, regretted the clear necessity of leaving it, and coming up here with her brother. But it had been necessary for her to go; she could not possibly have done otherwise, and though she was sorry (if she allowed her mind to dwell on that) to have cut herself off from all the delightful things that were going on in town, from the ceaseless stream of friends whom one met all day and all night, and who were amusing themselves so diligently, even as she had been amusing herself, it was still quite clear that somebody must come up here with Thurso, and that, since Catherine did not propose to come, she was the obvious person to do so. But she no more wasted sighs over what she was missing in town than she wasted sighs when she lost a fish. That particular fish was off; she would angle for another fish instead. There were fish everywhere; there was no situation, as far as she knew, out of which nothing was to be captured. Here, indeed, she had her fish already hooked for her; she had come to keep house for Thurso, to make things cheerful for him as far as she could, to prevent his being a prey to boredom and depression when he came home in the evening after a long day spent in the fever-stricken village. She had already found that there was room for her skill. * * * * * Nature had for many generations adopted a very reasonable plan with regard to the gifts she devoted to the Raynhams. As a family they were extremely prolific, so with regard to them she had certainly said to herself, "There is not enough beauty at my disposal to go round. What shall I do about them? Shall I divide all the beauty which I feel justified in investing in each generation, among all the children, or shall I endow one of them with it all, and leave the rest to look after themselves?" She had adopted the latter and most sensible alternative, and now for six or seven generations of Raynhams one of the many children had always been endowed with extraordinary beauty, while the others had to be content with a certain air of distinction and pleasantness which, after all, made their plainness of feature a matter of small account. Sometimes Nature had made an error of judgment, as anyone seeing the family portraits must feel, in investing the beauty of a generation in a boy instead of a girl; but in this instance she had made no such mistake, and here in the window, waiting for her brother, was the bank in which the physical fortunes of the family were, for this generation, invested. Like them all, Maud was tall, and charm in her had not been sacrificed to perfection of feature. For violet eyes, rare in themselves, are so often no more than violet eyes, just pieces of exquisite colour. But here the myriad moods of the girl's mind that chased each other like cloud and shadow on some windy day of spring across dark seas, lit wonderful lights in those violet pools, or made them dark as sapphires at night, and through these beautiful windows of her soul a beautiful soul looked forth. Humour and an alert sense of the ludicrous, so valuable as weapons in that arsenal of the mind from the stores of which we have ever to be arming ourselves against the assaults of tiresome and aggressive circumstance, gleamed there, ready to set the mouth smiling; eager and kindly interest in the spectacle of life was there, like a friendly face in the theatre; and deep down in those eyes you would say that something not yet awake or aware of itself slept and perhaps dreamed in its slumber of twenty years. And a man might find his breath catch in his throat at the thought of awakening it. Being a Raynham, she was very fair of complexion, but her hair was not of that vague straw colour which loosely passes for gold, provided only that the skin is white and pink, but of that tint which has been touched and proved by assay to be of the veritable metal. It grew low on her forehead and abundantly, but not in those excessive quantities that instantly call to the mind of the observer those ladies who stand all day with their backs to the windows of populous thoroughfares in order to display the riotous excess of capillary covering which the use of some advertised unguent results in. Nor did her mouth ever so faintly resemble the "Cupid's bow" which is so dear to the fashion-plates of feminine loveliness. It was not like a bow at all; it was rather large, rather full-lipped, but, like her eyes, or like aspen-leaves in spring, it was ever a-quiver to the breeze of the moment, instinctively obeying the kindly mind that prompted it. Nor were her lips vermilion--a hue that Nature happily does not employ in the colouring of the human mouth, leaving its employment to art--but they were of that veiled blood-tint, blood below something like oiled silk, that speaks of youth and vitality as surely as vermilion speaks of the desire to be vital and young. The window faced north-west, and the rays of the sun, near its setting, poured full onto her, so that she half closed her eyes as she looked out across the golden haze of its level beams, while the breeze from the open sash just stirred her hair. The lawn, so pleasant to walk on, that carpet of grass woven with moss, and so impossible to use for the desecrating games which in England demand that a lawn be hard and flat, lay below the windows, enclosed in a riband of flower-bed, brilliant with the strong colours that distinguish the North and the South from the more temperate zone. Beyond ran a wall of grey stone, some four feet high, where tropæolum was rampant, but outside the untamed moor broke against it, as against a sea-wall, so that, going out from the garden-gate, set in the middle of it, one foot might still be on the soft tameness of the lawn, while the other was on the primeval heather. Just these few acres of garden and land for the house had been captured and tamed out of the moorland, while outside and all round, ragged and prehistoric as the ocean, there flowed, like the sea round some sand castle erected by children playing on the shore, the hills and heather of Caithness, tossing and tumbling there, as they had tumbled and tossed before ever the foot of man had set his tread on this waste land. Stone Age and what-not had gone to their making, and in so short time again--reckoning as the stones and the vegetable life of these transitory things number the years--these little puny efforts of man, the lawns and the terraces, would be swallowed up again, and smothered in the effervescence and fever of the world. Even now, how the infinitesimal microbe of disease was prevailing against the fragile life of the poor bewildered peasants in the village set down there in a wrinkle of the hill, invisible itself, but over which hung the blue smoke of the fires kindled at sunset! These thoughts were of sombre texture, and Maud, through whose head they were passing unbidden, like scenes involuntarily presented, never consciously allowed herself indulgence in sombre thought, unless from the shadows she expected the birth of something bright. Yet even after she had acknowledged the sombreness and inutility of it, she let her mind dwell on it all a little longer, searching, though vaguely, for some bracing counterblast. Of course, God was over all: she knew that quite well, and actively believed it. But when a plague like this, caused, no doubt, by the carelessness and uncleanliness of man, was snapping off lives like dried stalks, she would have liked to be able to think of some image that reconciled the beneficence of God with these hideous phenomena. It was impossible to see what ultimate good could come of letting people die like this. If from it all came some sign, some signal evidence of Divine power, it would be intelligible, or at least salutary. As it was, they died; the place was stricken. Then the instinct of youth, of health, of exuberant vitality, came to her aid, and she dismissed these questionings altogether. For her instinct told her, though the thought did not quite reach the coherence of definite words, how paralysing to oneself, and how infectious as regards others, is the indulgence of all dispiriting and depressing thought. Its microbes were as truly existent in the emotional and spiritual world as were the fever bacilli in Achnaleesh. But equally existent and even more potent and infectious were the sun-loving germs of confidence and the cheerful outlook. Already had she proved the truth of that in connection with Thurso, who had come home about this hour last night in a state of the blackest gloom and despair over the plight of this village of fever-stricken homes, but whose deadly depression had been quickly dispersed by her steady optimism. Thurso was naturally of extremely impressionable and imaginative mind, and the day, spent, as it had been, in going from house to house, finding everywhere the apparatus of illness, or the simpler and grimmer apparatus of death, had been like some hideous and real nightmare to him. Then, too, he tortured himself with a hundred unfounded suppositions. The epidemic seemed to him, though how he knew not, to be primarily his fault. Clearly, if everything--drains, water-supply, sanitary arrangements--had all been in perfect order, typhoid could not have come. The people were his tenants; it was his business to make sure that the conditions under which they lived were absolutely healthy. * * * * * Now Thurso, as a matter of fact, was the most conscientious and careful of landlords, and these suppositions, though they had seemed hideously real to him yesterday evening, were but morbid creations of his brain, and on them Maud, with her cheerfulness and serenity of spirit, had acted like a charm. She knew well that he had in no detail been neglectful or culpable, and that being certain, she had set herself, not directly to combat his doubts and questionings, but to turn his attention resolutely away from them, just as a wise nurse will direct a patient's attention to some interest alien to his pain, and not, by attempting to prove that pain is only an impression conceived by the brain, let his mind dwell on it. She had said to herself, "Darling old Thurso is terribly depressed. So I must distract his mind by being foolish." So foolish she had been, but yet with art, so that it did not occur to him that she was playing the part of a nurse. And as when David played before Saul to exorcise the evil spirit, so she had played till for the time he forgot his troubles, both real and imaginary, in the charm and gaiety which, though she made deliberate use of them, were yet natural to her. * * * * * To-night, however, the obsession of his fears and despondency seemed to have descended on and infected her, and it needed a long and conscious effort to rid herself of them. For--this might be unreasonable too--she knew at the back of her mind she was very anxious about him. Terrible as the epidemic was, it was producing a disproportionate effect on him; he was taking it too hard and far too self-consciously. From her intimate knowledge of him, and from that instinct which common blood possesses, which can enable a sister to know precisely what a brother is feeling, though to a wife even the knowledge would be vague, she felt that he was strung up almost to breaking-point. But she knew also, with a glow of secret pride in his courage, that nobody but she would have guessed that, unless, perhaps, some skilled observer of nervous symptoms. That from childhood had been the danger of his constitution: he was balanced on so fine an edge, ready to topple over into the gulfs of black despondency; but, with the courage of high breeding, he ever concealed his private hell from the world, turning a brave and tranquil aspect to it, even though he must wear a mask. But for her he wore none, and she often saw his inward torture, when others knew only of a pleasant, courteous man--not gay, but of a manner that denoted quiet enjoyment of the world and habitual serenity. Maud got up from her seat in the window and closed the sash--for the air grew instantaneously chilly, and the sun had dropped behind the hills to the north-west, leaving her in shadow--still looking down the grey riband of road that led to the lodge and crossed the moor to the village beyond. Her mind was decidedly not at ease about her brother. How inextricably soul and body were mixed and mingled! how instantaneously they acted and reacted on each other! For Thurso's anxiety about his people, a purely mental or spiritual condition, had kept him awake last night, and he had come down this morning with one of those excruciating neuralgic headaches to which he had been liable all his life. His suffering mind had called in his body to suffer with it, and the bodily pain had reacted back on his mind, making the poor fellow--not to put too fine a point upon it--most abominably cross to Maud at breakfast. Then, since there was the day's work in front of him, for the sake of which he had come up here--and in his racking pain he was really incapable of doing it--he had taken the remedy which he had always by him, but which, in theory, he disliked having recourse to, as much as Maud disliked his taking it. But when after breakfast he had said to her, "Maud, I simply can't go down there, and if I did, I couldn't help in any way, unless I get rid of this agony," she had agreed that it was an occasion for laudanum. She strolled across to the fire, and held out her hands to the blaze, which shone through her fingers, making them look as if they were redly luminous in themselves and lit from within. Then suddenly, with a little dramatic gesture, as if she carried her trouble, a palpable burden, in her hands, she threw it into the fire, and, having consigned it to destruction, walked back to the window again. Yet she knew in herself that it was not thus easily got rid of, for it went very deep. There must be some explanation of all this undeserved suffering, but what was it? How could it be just that a child should be cursed with inherited disease? How could it be just that Thurso's very kindness and concern for his tenants should give him hours of blinding torture?... But there at last was a figure on the road, and, without putting on her hat, she went out to meet him. * * * * * She saw at once, before she could clearly see his face, by a limpness and dejection in his walk, that he was horribly tired and in pain. But that, since now there was something for her to do, enabled her to get rid of her own dejection, since her cheerfulness, her serenity, must be brought into action. So, before they actually met, she called to him. "Oh, Thurso, how late!" she said. "Have you any idea that it is after half-past eight, and I've got such a sinking inside as is probably quite unparalleled? Don't let us dress; then we can dine at once. I'm sure dinner is ready, because I distinctly smelled soup, and something roast, and baked apples, all rolling richly out of the kitchen windows. I nearly burst into tears because I wanted them so much. Well, how has the day gone?" He looked at her in a sort of despair. "Oh, Maud, it is too awful," he said. "Twelve fresh cases to-day; I don't know what to do. And when my head is like this I'm worse than useless. I can't think; I can't face things." Maud took his arm. "Poor dear old boy!" she said. "Has it been bad all day?" "No; it was all right in the morning after the laudanum, but it came on worse than ever after lunch. Well, not exactly after lunch, because I didn't have any." Maud gave a little exclamation of impatience. "Thurso, you are too bad!" she said. "You know perfectly well that if you go without food too long, you always get one of these headaches. And it isn't the slightest use your saying that there wasn't any time for lunch, because the biggest lunch that ever happened can be eaten in ten minutes, whereas a headache takes hours. I hate you to be in pain; but what a fool you are, dear! You are wicked also, knave and fool, because you make yourself of absolutely no use to anybody when you are like this." He smiled at her; the infection of her energy put a little life into him. "Well, I forgot about lunch till the pain came on," he said; "and it was turned full on at once. After that I simply couldn't eat; it was no use trying." "If that is meant to imply that you are not going to have any dinner either," she said, "you make a grave error. You are going to have soup and meat and roast apples. And if you attempt to deny it, I shall instantly add toasted cheese. In fact, I think I will in any case." Thurso was silent a moment. "Ah, these poor wretched people----" he began. But Maud rudely and decisively interrupted. "I am not going to hear one word about them till you have finished dinner," she said. "Afterwards, because you will be better then, we will talk. Don't you remember how, if we weren't quite well, nurse always said that we would be better after dinner? And we always were, unless we ate too much. I wonder whether it was dinner that did it, or mere suggestion--don't they call it--from the omnipotent and infallible nurse." "Dinner," said he. "Oh, damn my head!" he added in a sudden burst of tired irritability and pain, which was rare with him, even to Maud. "Yes, with pleasure, if that will make it better. But I wonder if it was entirely dinner. You know, there is something in suggestion, though I prefer supplementing suggestion with some practical measure. Who are those people who are always quite well because they think they are?" "I should think they are fools," said he. "Yes, but that is not their official title." "I can't think of a better one," said he. "By the way----" "Well?" "No, nothing," he said. Maud withdrew her arm from his with dignity. "That is extremely ill-bred," she said. "Mind, I don't in the least want to know what you were going to say--in fact, I would much sooner you did not tell me--but having begun, you would, if you had decent manners, go on." Thurso laughed; sharp though his neuralgia still was, he was already beginning to think of things apart from himself. "How can you say that?" he asked. "You are bursting to know." "Well, yes, I am. Do tell me." "I sha'n't Maud, I think I will change, though it is so late, as I have been in and out of those houses all day. But you needn't; you can begin without me, if you like." Maud put her nose in the air. "Did you _really_ imagine I was going to wait for you?" she asked. * * * * * Thurso went upstairs, still smiling at Maud's unbridled curiosity, especially since there was no mystery or reason for secrecy about that which he had stopped himself telling her. He merely was not quite sure whether or no he wanted to do that which he had been on the point of proposing, and which in itself was of a perfectly unexciting nature. The bare, dull facts of the matter were these. He had let the salmon-fishing of the river here until the end of July to an American, whose name at the moment he could not remember, and this afternoon, as he came out of one of the cottages, he had passed one of his gillies carrying rod and gaff, and walking with a young man of clearly transatlantic origin, whom he felt sure must be the American in question; and the remark he had refrained from making to Maud was that it might be neighbourly to ask him to dinner. But as he made his hurried toilet, he found himself debating the reasons for and against doing this with a perfectly unaccountable earnestness, as if the decision this way or that was one that could conceivably be of importance. On the one side, the reasons against asking him were that the hospitality they could offer him was of the plainest and most baked-apple kind, served in a shrouded room, and that he would probably get a much better dinner at the inn where he was quartered. Also, he himself felt that if he had come up to Caithness to fish, he would much sooner that his landlord did not ask him to dinner, since his hospitality, if accepted, would mean the curtailment of the cream of the evening rise. So perhaps the truer hospitality would be shown in not burdening his tenant with the necessity of inventing an excuse or of accepting a tiresome invitation. Then suddenly the man's name, Bertie Cochrane, flashed into his mind. Thurso had thought it so odd to sign a lease by an abbreviated name. In any case, it would be kinder not to ask Mr. Bertie Cochrane to come three miles in order to eat Scotch broth with a tired landlord, who would probably be suffering from severe neuralgia. But, on the other hand, Thurso felt a perfectly unaccountable desire to see him. He had just met and passed him in the village street, after coming out from one of those fever-stricken cottages where a young stalker of his was lying desperately ill. At the moment he, too, was screwed down to the rack with this hideous unnerving pain, and feeling utterly dispirited and beaten and hopeless. But for half a second his eyes had met Cochrane's, and just for that half-second--by chance, perhaps, or perhaps by reason of that subtle animal magnetism which some people possess--Thurso had suddenly felt both soothed and encouraged. Maud, he knew, had something of this magnetic quality, and to be with her always braced him to a livelier optimism; but in this case the effect had been magical. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the man: he was rather tall, young, clean-shaven, with a pleasant boyish face that suggested plenty of cold water and open air. That was all, but at the moment Thurso had felt almost inevitably inclined to speak to him and thank him; to tell him how bitterly his head ached and how miserably dispirited he felt; to tell him also that he had made him feel better. The impulse had been quite absurdly strong, but in another moment they had passed, going their respective ways. But all the afternoon, subsequent to that chance encounter, the remembrance of Mr. Cochrane strolling down to the river, and talking in so pleasant and friendly a manner to the gillie, had never been wholly out of his mind. Cochrane had seemed an incarnation of health and contentment, and the other all day had found it scarcely possible to believe in the existence of such qualities, so remote were they from him. Then antagonism to Mr. Cochrane had begun to take root in him: he seemed a millionaire in happiness, leaving pauperism all round him. Well, it was unlikely they would meet again; reasons of hospitality were sufficient for not asking him to accept it. He finished dressing without any severe return of pain, but just as he was ready to go downstairs it came suddenly back again in such stabs and spasms of anguish that for a moment he held on to his dressing-table with clenched hands, bitten lips, and a dripping forehead. Then his eye fell on the bottle of laudanum which stood by his looking-glass, and though never before had he taken two doses on the same day, yet never before after one dose had he suffered pain so agonising and excruciating as this. But to-day the impulse was incontrollable: he could no longer reason about the expediency of it, and next moment, with shaking hand, he poured a full dose into the graduated glass, and drank it. Those few moments had made him feel faint and sick with pain, and after drinking he sat down to wait for the divine relief that would come so quickly. On his very sensitive and excitable nerves the drug exercised an almost instantaneous effect--not soporific at all, but tranquillising and at the same time immensely stimulating. The pain would fade like the melting away of the vapour of breath on a frosty morning, till it became an incredible memory, while even as it faded a warm tingling glow began to invade him. It was as if after some frost-bitten Arctic night the sun of the South would pour its beams upon his brain; happiness and content would unfold, and, like some magic rose miraculously opening its rosy petals in the luminous peace of a summer morning, a sense of unspeakable well-being would sprawl and blossom over his consciousness. He had not to wait long: before the seconds on the watch which he had just taken up when the agony seized him had ticked themselves into a minute, the divine remission of pain began, and, increasing as it increased, there came that extraordinary glow of content, so that a couple of minutes afterwards it was not so much in the utter relief of pain that his body revelled as in the ecstasy of this supreme, harmonious sense of health. And then, as always, this spread like some tide of warm incoming waters to his mind. The horror and suffering he had seen that day in the fevered village ceased to weigh upon him and darken him with the sense of his possible responsibility and certain helplessness. Instinctively, his mind ceased to dwell on the thought of the stalker whose life was nearly despaired of, but went to another bedside where a life that had been almost despaired of yesterday had seemed to pause at the very entrance of the valley of the shadow, and had crawled back a little way into life again. The shadow from the valley still lay over it, but its face was set towards the living. Already this divine drug had done that for him: it stopped pain of the mind, it seemed, even as it stopped the torture of an anguished nerve. He had sat down for a moment to recover from the physical faintness which had seized him at that savage assault of pain, but he had sat down also in order to abandon himself with greater receptiveness to the rapture of the effect that he knew would come with that remission. Then, after a few minutes more, he got up, remembering two things--the first that Maud was probably waiting for him, though she had scorned the notion; the second that this evening for the first time he was consciously revelling and delighting in the bodily and mental sensations that the opium produced, apart from its anodynic qualities. Hitherto he had taken it purely medicinally, sparingly also, in order to relieve pain, when the pain was frankly intolerable, or when it paralysed his power of making exertions that he was clearly called upon to make; and, having taken it like a medicine, he had in intention done no more than profit by the medicinal advantage of its restorative qualities. But to-night he knew, if he honestly looked at the spring of motive, that he had done something different--had drunk with a different desire. True, the pain had been in itself almost demoralising in its intensity, but when he drank he had waited for and desired, not only the remission of that, but the glow of exquisite well-being and that harmony of sensation which the drug gave him. That was even more heavenly than the cessation of the acutest pain. But after a minute or so he got up, thereby interrupting the blissfulness of sensation, for Maud would wonder why he tarried. And as he went downstairs a third thought, suggested by that secret friend in the brown bottle, occurred to him. He must not let his sister know that he had taken a second dose to-day, and, arising from that, he must conceal from her how suddenly and completely the pain had gone, lest she should guess or suspect. Already he felt half ashamed of the mixed motive which had led to his taking it, yet ... yet the supreme sense of physical well-being that was his just now prevented him from feeling acutely anything but that. And if Maud suspected up to the point of asking him if he had dosed himself again? Well, in that case it would be wise to follow the example of Sir Walter Scott. She had no business to ask such a question; his answer, whatever it might be, was her responsibility, not his. Perhaps it would be better to minimise the possibility of her asking; he had better appear silent and suffering till dinner was nearly over, and then confess that dinner had done him good. She had told him that it would; she would be delighted to see the efficacy of her prescription. And that the pain left him suddenly would be no surprise to her. Often it left him as suddenly as it came on--as if it was the turning of a tap. All this flashed instantaneously into his mind, just as a man takes in a landscape at a glance, though it may take him many words to describe what a moment's vision has conveyed to him. Another thought flashed there too. There was authentic Paradise in that little bottle; whether one had been in pain or not, there was the Garden of Eden. He felt that he would willingly endure tortures if at the end he could push open those golden gates again, and walk past the flaming sword of its guardian. Pain weighed light compared to those pleasures, and surely half an hour of Paradise now and then could not hurt him, a drop of water on the lips of Dives. He felt perfectly willing, weighing the two in the balance of his mind, to pass through hells of torture for that compensation. Then faintly and far away came the suggestion that even without the hours in hell there was Paradise still open. * * * * * Maud had been very hungry, and had already finished soup when he came downstairs, and, according to his plan, he said little or nothing till he had caught her up on the "something roast." Indeed, his first question had been the demand for a second supply of that, and Maud gave him an approving nod. He had eaten no lunch, and now, as soon as he began to eat, he was conscious of being extremely hungry, and the second supply vanished with the same briskness as the first. Then he leaned back in his chair as plates were changed. "I don't like telling you that you are right," he said, "because it will only confirm your belief in your own wisdom. But I am nothing if not honest. Dinner or suggestion or both have certainly done the trick. The Lady Neuralgia has turned off the tap--turned it off with the same firm hand as she turned it on. It doesn't even drip. I will allow, even, that it was your suggestion that made her do it. Who cares how it happened? I will allow anything. Yes, two roast apples, please, and I think we will have toasted cheese. I had no lunch, you must remember." "Oh, Thurso, I am so glad," she said. "And I so often wish I could take some of it--no, not toasted cheese, you silly--for you." "I don't think you would wish it so much when you had got it," he remarked. "Oh, I don't say I should like it. But I know I could bear lots of pain if I knew that otherwise it would be somebody else's. The difficulty would be if it was only your own. And, I tell you frankly, you bear it most awfully well. You are cross with me because you know I don't mind----" "At breakfast, do you mean?" he asked. "I know I was. I am sorry, but I was mad with it. You don't think I show it to other people, do you?" "No, dear, only to me, or I shouldn't have mentioned it." He looked at her a moment in silence, then he laughed, but grew grave again before he spoke. "No; you understand," he said, and then the poisonous fumes of the drug stirred and recommended caution in his brain. "I think you would always understand," he said. "I think I would always tell you everything." "About to-day, then," said she. "You may tell me about it now. Oh, how wise I was not letting you talk before dinner! I'm sure you were taking a neuralgic view." "I was. I was thinking only of poor Sandie, who, they are afraid, is dying, instead of thinking about Donald Fraser's wife, who seems to be a little better, though yesterday they thought she could not live. It was the Lady Neuralgia who made me remember the one and forget the other. There was something else, too, I wanted to talk about with you. It's this, Maud. I made the plan only this morning: I couldn't have told you before." He paused a moment. That last sentence, again, was, though absolutely true, an effort of self-justification. He had acquiesced in deceiving Maud on one point, should that point come forward; he felt as if he had to tell not only her, but himself, that he was showing the whole truth about this. "I know you will feel with me," he said, "though no doubt Catherine will make a fuss when she knows, if she ever does, and will probably paint everything with carbolic. But I must turn this house into a hospital for all those poor folk--for all, at least, who can be moved here. Think of it! A case appears in one of those tiny houses, and what happens? There are three, or perhaps four, rooms in them, and the whole of the family has to live in two rooms, or at the most three. The sick-room, too, where it is most important that there should be plenty of air--it is ten feet by twelve, and one small window! Dr. Symes agrees with me. He thinks, at any rate, that any case would have a much better chance up here. The moving is easy. They have one ambulance bed, and I have ordered more to-day from Inverness." He lit a cigarette, and saw Maud looking at him with shining eyes. This was the Thurso whom she knew and loved. Then he went on: "There's the big dining-room here," he said: "it will hold a dozen beds. There is the hall: it will hold eighteen, I should think. There are all the bedrooms; there is the billiard-room. Also, up here every nurse can look after twice the number of patients that she can attend to in scattered cottages, and look after them all much better. So I have given orders. Dr. Symes will move up here to-morrow all those whom he thinks can be moved without undue risk. All fresh cases will come up here at once. Of course, you will go back to town. I--I appreciate tremendously your coming here at all, but now it will be impossible for you to stop in the house." Maud laughed. "And you, dear?" she asked. "Me? Oh, I shall stop here, of course. I can't leave." Maud left her place, and dragged a chair up beside him. "Thurso, you are admirable," she said. "It's an excellent idea moving them up here, so excellent that I wonder I did not think of it first. But as for my going back to town----" "But how on earth can you stop here with the house crammed full of typhoid patients?" "Same way as you can. I leave here when you leave." "But, Maud----" "There isn't any 'but, Maud.' I don't go unless you turn me out into the cold bleak night--oh, let's poke up the fire, I am sure there is a frost!--in which case I shall die of exposure on the lawn. To begin with, there is no risk of infection, and, to go on with, I shouldn't catch it if there was." "Oh! Why not?" "Because one is mercifully allowed to get through the day's work. I came up here as your 'pal.' And if I went to bed with typhoid I couldn't be anybody's 'pal.' Besides, I've had typhoid already. At the present moment I am going to play you at picquet, and you owe me nine shillings from last night." CHAPTER II. Maud had happened to come across in a book she was reading on the way up to Scotland an account of an epidemic of typhoid, in which the charitable lady (vicar's wife) of the place sat by the bedsides of the patients, held their hands, and fed them with "cooling fruits." It occurred to her as possible, though not very likely, that the treatment of typhoid had undergone alterations even as radical as this indicated, since she had had the disease herself, and on arrival she had asked the doctor, quoting this remarkable passage, if she should telegraph for a supply of cooling fruits. The excellent Dr. Symes, though not given either to joking or quick in the perception of a joke, had laughed immoderately. "Cooling fruits!" he said. "Feed them with cooling fruits, Lady Maud, and you will soon stop the epidemic, because everybody will be dead." Then he checked his laughter. "It was good of you to come," he said, "but you have your work up at the house. Just keep Lord Thurso--because I know him--from moping and being miserable. I am glad you came with him. But when he is away, down in the village, do what you please apart from the cooling fruits. I suggest your being out of doors all you can. You will have your work in the evening, and the sun and the wind and the rain, which pray God we get, will fit you best for it." * * * * * This advice came into her head the next morning after she had seen Thurso off to the village, and it was counsel which jumped with her inclinations, since, according to her view, the world (especially the world of out-of-doors) was a swarm of delightful and congenial occupations, and of them all none was so entrancing as catching sea-trout on a light rod and with light tackle. And since the river, which should be full of these inimitable fish, ran within some half-mile of the house, there was no great difficulty in the way of putting the doctor's recommendation into practice. She knew, of course, nothing of the fact that Thurso had let the fishing to the American whom he had met yesterday in the street, and had decided not to ask to dinner. Thurso was not to come home to lunch that day, and as the house would be full of workmen busy shifting furniture, and making the rooms ready, under the superintendence of one of the doctors, for the reception of the typhoid patients, Maud went off to the river, without a word to anyone, except an order for a sandwich lunch, with a heart that was high and exultant in spite of the surrounding calamitous conditions. This turning of the house into a hospital was entirely characteristic of Thurso; she rejoiced to think that their comfort, not money alone, was being sacrificed to sufferers. It was a cheap charity to give money, to spend merely unless expense pinched one, but it was a far more real effort of sympathy to turn the house into a feverward. It was that which brought people into touch, the knowledge that somebody's relief implied somebody else's trouble. Thurso was rich, the cost of what he did was of no account, but this was a more active sympathy. Sandie, poor fellow, her special fishing gillie, was down with typhoid, and his case, as she knew, was very serious; so she set off alone, with a sandwich in her creel, and a light rod and a landing-net, feeling rather heartless, for she so much expected an enchanting day. She had to a huge degree that sensible gift which enabled her, when she had done her best in one direction, to enjoy the pleasure that lay before her in another; and being satisfied that she could not be of the slightest use during these next hours, either at home or in the village with the "cooling fruits," she let herself go with regard to the excitement of the river-side. Her natural _joie de vivre_ gilded all employments for her, but this angling for sea-trout had no need of gilding, since it was gold already. Nothing could be more entrancing--for hours one might cast an unclaimed fly upon the waters, yet never lose the confident anticipation that at any moment the swirl of submerged strength and activity would bend the rod to that glorious curve that the fisherman knows to be the true attack of what he has never seen. Like everything else that anybody really feels it to be worth while doing (keeping accounts alone being excepted), mystery and romance illuminated the pursuit, and as she walked down to the river, all else--Thurso's trouble, the fever-stricken village and its tragedies--were all sponged off her mind. Her heart was no less tender and solicitous than it had been, but her attention was engaged. Instead, mixed with the excitement of her anticipations, the dreadful things that might be in store for her by the river were in her mind, for to fish with a big sea-trout fly might easily attract the notice of the sea-trout's mightier cousins, in which case good-bye, probably, to the light tackle. But as it was no sport to catch sea-trout on a salmon-rod, Maud took this chance with a light heart. * * * * * The day was one of those grey days (rare in the North, where a grey day implies for the most part an east wind, which sucks the colour out of land and sky), with soft breezes from the south-west, which made heather and hillside and golden gorse and river more brilliant and full of colour than even the direct sunbeams, and, preoccupied though Maud was with the prospects of her fishing, her mind kept paying little flying visits to the beauty of the morning. Five minutes after she had left the house she was absolutely alone, and no sight either of human form or human habitation broke the intense solitude of eye and ear which to such as her makes so dear and intimate a companionship. For she loved the pleasant things of the earth--the honey-scented heather and the sunshine of the gorse, and the close, silent friendship of Nature, unvexed and undistracted by human presences. To her, as to St. Francis, the trees were her dear brothers, and the sky and river her dear sisters, and somehow also the very sea-trout, in the slaughter of which she hoped to spend a delightful day, were blood relations and beloved by her. She could not have explained that attitude at all: she would frankly have admitted that it implied an inconsistency. But there the fact was. And here at last was the rushing, jubilant river, which a rainy May had filled from bank to bank. She struck it at the Bridge Pool, at the head of which the stream was spanned by a swaying, airy suspension bridge, from which the pool took its name. Deep water lay on the near side, and a considerable piece of shallow water on the other; but just beyond the shallows, could she but cast over it, ran a little channel she knew well, since it was a favourite place for the sea-trout. So she crossed the swaying, dancing bridge, debating within herself the choice of a fly. The river was high, the sky grey, and sea-trout would probably prefer a rather large fly, but so, unfortunately, would salmon. However, she must chance that--the big fly was certainly the correct game. Five minutes was enough for the soaking of a cast and the adjustment of her rod, and already, with an attack of "fisherman's heart," which makes that organ apparently shift from its normal position into the throat, she began casting from just below the bridge. But with the longest line of which she was capable she could not reach that channel of deep water, and if she did not do that she might as usefully go a-fishing in a pail, like Simple Simon. But ... there was nobody within sight, and next minute she had kilted her skirts till she could wade out over that barren shoal-water, and stand where, with the cool bright water flowing nearly up to her knees, yet leaving her skirt unwetted, she could reach the deeper water beyond. Well she knew what a wet skirt meant to one who proposed to walk and fish all day; the heavy clinging blanket made all activity, all lightness of going, out of the question, and as she waded out she hitched it an inch or two higher. Then for a moment she had to pause to laugh at the figure she must inevitably be presenting were there anyone to see her. There was a knitted jersey for her upper half, a tweed cap for her head, a much kilted skirt and stockings for the rest. Her beauty and the vigour and grace of her limbs she forgot to consider, just as a beholder, had there been one, might have paid but scanty attention to the cap and jersey and skirt. But from where she stood she could cast over the coveted channel. Half a dozen times her fly went on its quiet, unerring circuit, then suddenly a gulp and a fin broke the surface just below it, and with another gulp her heart jumped upwards from her throat into her very mouth. The owner of that fin had not touched her fly, but--oh, the rapture and danger of it!--he was no sea-trout, but a fresh-run salmon. At that the pure sporting instinct usurped all other feeling. Light though her rod was and light her tackle, since there was a salmon in the river that felt an interest in her Jock Scott, she must try to catch him. He might (probably would) break her: then she would be broken. She had no gaff; very well, she must do without. He was a heavy fish too; she had seen enough of him for that. What a desperate and heavenly adventure! * * * * * She waded ashore, being far too wise in the science to cast over him again at once, preferring to wait a minute or two before she tempted him again, and as she gained dry land she saw that there was a man half-way across the bridge just above the pool. He carried a salmon-rod over his shoulder, and a fishing-bag slung by a strap. He could not, of course, be fishing here on Thurso's water, and she guessed he must be going over to Scarsdale, where she knew that some new tenants had taken the lodge. But she gave him only the slightest and most fleeting attention, being far more interested that moment in one particular fish than in any particular man, and took no further notice of him, except that she unkilted her skirt an inch or two, for it showed really too much of what was called "leg." Then, without giving a further glance at the figure on the bridge, who had paused there watching her, she walked back again through the shallows to a point some ten yards above that where she had raised the fish, in order to make sure of casting over him again. The unkilted skirt dragged a little in the water, but she would have waded neck-deep after that fish. Also--this popped in and out of her mind--there was a man watching, and she had no objection to a gallery when she was fishing. She would show him how to--well, probably lose, a salmon on trout-tackle with a trout-rod. Yard by yard she moved down to where the dear monster had risen before. There he was again, but this time no fin broke the surface, only a submerged boil came at her fly. But this was the true attack--the suddenly bent rod, the sudden message on the line. At the same moment, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the man had moved from his place on the bridge, and was coming up behind her on the bank. But that occupied her infinitesimally; all that she really knew was that she was the possessor of a light trout-rod, fitted with light tackle, at the far end of which at the present moment there happened to be a salmon. Her landing-net was somewhere on the bank, but, as far as that went, it would be just as useful to her if it had been at Jericho instead. But immediately the fish bolted down-stream, and her reel sang shrilly. Then, like an express train, he came back, and with the calmness of despair she reeled in, thinking for the moment he meant to go up under the bridge, in which case there would be need to soak another cast and look out another fly. But he changed his mind, and once more, after two or three rushes, he was opposite to her just where she had hooked him originally, shaking his head, so it seemed, for the rod jerked and jumped, yet no line ran out. Maud had moved back across the shoal-water during these manoeuvres so as to gain the shore again, for she knew she must get somewhere where she could run, when from close behind her came a level, pleasant voice. "He is well hooked," he said; "I saw him take it. But he'll be off down-stream in a minute, and there are a hundred yards of rapid before the next pool. I should get to shore quick if I were you, and be ready to run." Maud still thought of nothing but her fish, which had already begun to bore slowly away into the deep water on the far side of the river, and she knew well what that would lead to. And she replied to the voice as if it had been only her own thoughts, which were identical, with which she was communing. "Yes, I know," she said; "he's making for the deep water now. There!" She splashed her way through the margin of the shoal-water, nearly tripping up over a submerged stone, just as the fish felt the full current of the river, and was off, full-finned, down-stream. Her reel screamed out, and in a couple of seconds there was a dreadful length of line between her and the fly. But she gained the smooth turf of the bank, and was off like an arrow after him, when, just before matters were desperate, a bend in the rapids brought her nearer to him, and, still running, she reeled hurriedly in. Then--oh, blessed haven!--he reached the deep water at the head of the pool below, and, swimming there in small circles, allowed her to recapture more of her line. Then, still without taking her eyes off the water (for she felt sure that the owner of the voice had run down behind her), she spoke to him again. "The humour of the situation is that I have only the very lightest tackle," she said; "for I came out after sea-trout. But luckily my fish doesn't know that. And would you be so kind as to get my landing-net? I left it on the bank just below the bridge." "I saw it and brought it," said the voice. "But I don't know what you want it for. He's a twenty-pounder." The voice was a very pleasant and friendly one, and Maud probably noticed that instinctively, for she spoke to this man whom she had never seen as if he was of her own class, anyhow. And here she laughed suddenly. "I wonder what is going to happen next," she said. "That's half the joy of fishing, isn't it? Oh, look!" For the first time the fish jumped, showing himself from head to tail, and splashed soundingly back into the pool again. "Far side of twenty pounds," remarked the voice. "I told my gillie, I'm glad to say, to be down here by eleven, and he will bring a gaff. He should be here every minute. But there'll be no gaffing going on just yet." This turned out to be perfectly true, and a dozen times in the next quarter of an hour Maud knew that she was within an ace of losing her fish. He behaved like the lusty fresh-run monster that he was, making disconcerting rushes down to the very tail of the pool, and running out her line almost to its last yard before she had time to follow him down the steep stony bank. Then he would seek the very deepest holes, and lie there sulking or jiggering, and putting the most dangerous snapping strains on her light tackle. Then with a rush he would come straight back towards her, so that, do what she would, there were long perilous moments, though she reeled in with a lightning hand when he was on a slack line. But at length he began to tire a little, and instead of hurling himself about the pool, allowed himself to drift every now and then with the stream. That, too, was dangerous, and she had to treat him with the utmost gentleness, since both his dead weight and the press of the water were against her. Then again a spark of his savage pride would flare up, and he would protest against this mysterious compelling force; but he was weakening. "Ah, poor darling!" said Maud once, as his struggles grew less. And the voice answered her. "Yes, that's just how I often feel," it said. A minute or two more passed. "Isn't your gillie here yet?" she asked. "Yes, he came ten minutes ago. Shall I gaff him for you, or shall he?" "Who is he?" asked Maud. "It's Duncan Fraser, my lady," said another voice. "Oh, then, Duncan, please," she said. "Is that rude of me? I am so sorry. But, you see, I know Duncan: he has often gaffed fish for me. Get further down, Duncan, and lie down--get below him; don't let him see you." But there were several agitating moments yet. Each time the fish drifted with the stream she towed him a little nearer to the bank; but though he was very weak now and his protests feeble, he was still capable of momentary violences. But at last he was a mere log, floating with fin out of the water and broad silvery side shining. With a swift, crafty movement, Duncan had him on the bank. Maud laid down her rod and turned away. "Kill him quick, Duncan," she said. "Is it done?" Then, with fine inconsistence: "Oh, what a darling!" she cried. "Quite fresh from the sea, too!" Then for the first time Maud turned to look at the owner of the voice, and found a tall, pleasant-looking young man smiling at her. "I am really extremely obliged to you," she said. "I don't see how I could have landed him without your gaff. There is nowhere in the pool where you can tail a fish." He laughed at this. "Why, I think that is so," he said. "But I am much more your debtor. I've never seen a fish so beautifully handled. Look at your tackle, too! Well, I never!" "Oh, I know the water," she said, "and that makes so much difference, though I couldn't explain how." Then suddenly the conjunction of a total stranger--American, too, so she could hear--with a rod on her brother's river, in company with one of her brother's gillies, struck her as odd. "I am afraid my fish and I have detained you very long," she said. "You are fishing at Scarsdale, I suppose." "No, I am fishing here," he said. "At least, I shall walk down a mile or two, and try the lower pools." This was more solidly incomprehensible. Yet the man did not look in the least like a poacher or trespasser. And how did it come about that Duncan was with him? Maud grew just a shade dignified, though she was still quite cordial. "I'm sure you will excuse me," she said; "but, you know, this is my brother's river, Lord Thurso's." Again the stranger laughed with sincere and quiet merriment. "Oh yes, I know," he said. "But, you see, he has been kind enough to let the fishing to me until the end of July." Maud stood quite silent a moment. A situation so horrible was dawning on her that she was unable to speak. What had he said? That Thurso had let him the fishing? Then, what was she? A poacher, caught red-handed by the tenant himself. "What?" she said. "Say it again." The stranger took off his hat. "May I introduce myself?" he said. "I am Mr. Bertie Cochrane. Excuse me; I really can't help laughing. Why, it's just killing!" Maud, already flushed with excitement and exercise, grew perfectly crimson. "Oh, what am I to do?" she said. "It is too awful! How can you laugh? I can never forgive myself." She raised her eyes to his again, and saw there such genuine, kindly amusement that, in spite of her horror, she laughed too. "Oh, don't make me laugh," she said. "It is too dreadful. Poaching! I thought it was you who were going to poach, and it's been me!" "Yes, it's serious," he said; "and it's for me to make conditions." Maud had one moment's fleeting terror that he was going to make an ass of himself, as she phrased it: ask to kiss her hand or do something dreadful. But he did not look that kind of donkey. "Oh, my conditions are not difficult," he said. "I only insist on your not cutting short your day's fishing." "Don't," she said. "I couldn't fish any more. Thank you very much, but I really think I couldn't." "I think you should make an effort. You must consider me as insisting. You won't get in my way, nor I in yours. I meant to go a couple of miles down--I did indeed." The situation which five minutes ago was so appalling had quite lost its horror; it was no longer unfaceable. Had Maud been told that morning that in the inscrutable decrees of Fate she was going to be caught poaching before lunch, she would have wished the earth to open and swallow her sooner than that anything so unspeakable should happen to her, while even two minutes ago there was nothing in life so impossible as that she should continue her career of poaching. But her captor was so unaffectedly friendly, his amusement, also, at her horror and the cause of it so sincerely kind, that she was no longer horrified. "Really, Mr. Cochrane, it is too good of you," she said. "But you must first put me at my ease about one thing. You do know--don't you?--how dreadfully sorry I am, and that I hadn't the very slightest idea that Thurso had let the fishing. Oh, by the way, I really _am_ Lady Maud Raynham." "Why, yes," he said, and paused. "Then it's all settled." The whole situation had gone, vanished, before his perfect simplicity and kindliness, and she smiled back at him. "Thank you very much," she said. "I shall love to have this day on the river." "And Duncan?" he said. "Pray keep him if you wish; otherwise I shall send him home. His wife is ill of this--this typhoid." "Oh no; please let him go home, then," said Maud. Then Cochrane turned to the gillie. "Get along home with you, Duncan," he said, "and be sure--tell yourself--that you will find the wife still improving. I think you'll find she's been getting better all morning. But if you give her any of that medicine you will be just helping her--helping her, mind--to get worse again. You understand? If you find when you get home she is worse, give it her by all means. But you won't find that: you will find she is better. Yes, gaff, landing-net, lunch--I've got them all, thanks. So off with you, and let your heart go singing. God's looking after her this morning, as He always did. She's going to get quite well. Don't lose sight of that, and don't let her lose sight of it either." He had apparently quite forgotten about Maud as he spoke, and had turned a side face to her as he talked to the gillie. And though, during this little speech, all the kindliness and merriment that had twinkled in his eyes and twitched in his mouth when "the situation" had been unfolded between Maud and himself was still there, yet there shone through it now some vital and intense seriousness. He had laid his hand on the rough homespun of Duncan's shoulder, and spoke with a quiet and convinced air of authority. Then he nodded dismissal to him, and turned to Maud again, while Duncan trudged off down the riverbank. "I'm so sorry for you and Lord Thurso," he said, "and I think it's downright good of you to have come up here, right in the middle of the season, just because your folk were ill. It's real kind of you." Then suddenly his eye fell on the silver-mailed fish that still lay on the bank. "Hi, Duncan!" he called out after the retreating figure, "take her ladyship's fish up to the house." Duncan came back, and with difficulty folded the big fish into his bag, and shouldered it. But he paused a moment before he went again, looking at Cochrane with doglike eyes that, though they trust, yet beseech. "But the wife is better, sir?" he asked. "Ever so much. You are beginning to know that as well as I do. Now, off with you, for you've got to look after the baby, as she thinks she can't. Make it happy. Give it a real good time, and let it pull that great beard of yours." He watched Duncan tramp away again with his heavy, peasant-footed tread down the bank. "Dear blind soul," he said, half to himself. "But it's getting near dawn with his night." * * * * * Maud was already "arrested" with regard to her companion--she paid, that is to say, a good deal more attention to him than she paid to nine-tenths of casual strangers with whom she was, as now, accidentally brought into somewhat intimate contact. He had the arresting quality, whatever that is, which compels attention. It may be called animal magnetism, or vitality of a superior kind, but it has nothing to do with love or hate, like or dislike, though it may coexist, and often does, with any of these. It had not, for instance, even occurred to her to wonder whether she liked or disliked him, or was utterly indifferent to him; she only knew that he had the arresting quality. In manner he was very quiet, rather boyish, quite well-bred, and rather good-looking, and in none of these respects was he different from the casual crowd. But there was, and she knew it, something that distinguished him from all men and women that she had ever seen, and this pause of a second or two, as Duncan took up the fish, was sufficient for her to determine in what the distinction lay. And it was this: he was so happy. Happiness of a sort she had never yet seen surrounded him like an atmosphere of his own, which it was given to others to breathe. She herself had breathed it--it radiated from him. Hundreds of people were happy--thank God, that is a very common gift--but the happiness that she now encountered was on a different plane. It was happiness distilled, sublimated. He seemed normally to dwell on the heights to which others in fine moments can attain. He seemed happy in the way that some extraordinary good news makes others happy for a moment or two, or an hour or two. Yet this was no retrospective happiness, the happiness of vivid memory: it was his normally; it gushed from him as from some unquenchable spring. This impression was made, as all strong impressions are made, in a moment, and there was no pause between his parting speech to Duncan, the fish-laden, and her taking up again the casual thread of talk. Yet was the thread a casual one? For his last words to Duncan seemed to come from the very heart and soul of the man, from the spring of his happiness. "Do tell me," she said, "why did you say to Duncan that his wife only thought she was ill?" The convinced happiness of his brown eyes looked at her a moment before he answered. "Doesn't it come somewhere in Shakespeare?" he said. "'There's nothing but thinking makes it so?' Or words to the same purpose?" "Yes, but if we take that literally," said Maud, "we must conclude that if she could only think she was well, poor soul, she would be. It is hard to think that when you happen to have typhoid." The brown eyes grew graver, but their happiness, as well as their gravity, seemed to deepen. "Certainly, it is hard," he said. "Indeed, it is impossible, unless you can think right. But when you can do that, all the rest follows." * * * * * Maud suddenly felt slightly antagonistic to him. She remembered the few words she had had with Thurso last night about people who say they are always well, because they think they are, and his conclusion that they must be fools. She had tacitly agreed with him then, and was a little vexed with Mr. Cochrane because, honestly, he did not seem to be a fool. "Have you ever had toothache?" she asked briskly. "Never. And if I had, I shouldn't. Sounds nonsense, doesn't it? But it just expresses the truth." Then the name she had been unable to remember last night came back to her. "Ah, you are a Christian Scientist!" she said. "You think all pain and illness is unreal." He laughed. "I know it," he said. "Now, I am sure you want to get on with your fishing. So there's your rod, and please keep this gaff. You are far more likely to hook another salmon in these upper pools than I am down below." He had changed the subject with such undisguised abruptness that she could not help remarking on it. Yet, sudden as it had been, there was no hint of ill-breeding or rudeness about it. He merely spoke quite courteously of something else. "Do you always change the subject as quickly as that?" she asked, smiling. "Always, if I think I may be led into a discussion about Christian Science with strangers, who---- Pray don't think me rude, Lady Maud, but one can't talk about the subject which means more to one than the whole world with people who ask questions about it out of a sort of--well, derisive curiosity. Also, I don't proselytise. I think there are better ways of making the truth known." The words were extremely direct, but again no hint of rudeness or want of courtesy was ever so faintly suggested, and though Maud still felt antagonistic, she knew that the most sensitive person in the world could not have found offence in them, so perfectly friendly and good-natured was his tone. He made this very plain statement without the least touch of resentment himself or fear of arousing it. And she, generous and fair-minded herself, gave in at once. "I beg your pardon," she said. "You are quite right. There was a touch, though really not more, of what you so justly call derisive curiosity in my mind. I had no business either to feel or show it. But may I ask you a question with that touch left out--honestly left out?" "Why, of course--a hundred," said he. "Then, why don't you proselytise?" she asked. "As you are convinced of the truth of your doctrine, isn't it your duty to spread it?" Cochrane let his eyes wander from her face over the hillside, fragrant with heather and murmurous with bees. Then they looked at her again, and for the first time she saw that they were different from any eyes she had ever seen in the face of man or woman, for they were unmistakably a child's eyes, full of a child's disarming frankness, and almost terrible honesty. "You can spread a thing in many ways," he said. "But preaching was not the primary way He chose. 'He went about doing good.'" * * * * * Maud felt herself suddenly seized with that shyness which is instinctive to most Anglo-Saxons when "religion" puts in its appearance in conversation, and she was suddenly tongue-tied. With many people, no doubt, reticence on religious subjects is due to the fact that, since they have no religion, there is nothing for them to talk about. But it was not so with her. Religion formed a very vital and essential part of her life, but it was not a thing to be publicly trotted out like this. So, since the subject had so unexpectedly and profoundly deepened with this last remark, it was she who rather precipitately changed it now. "I see," she said. "But please don't leave me the gaff. I should immensely like, since you are so kind, to try for another sea-trout or two, but having poached one salmon without your leave, I couldn't contemplate poaching another, even with it. So if I hook another he shall break me, and so I shall present your river with a fly and a cast by way of _amende_." Maud felt vexed and annoyed with herself. She was not managing well; she thought she must be giving a quite false impression by chattering this stupid nonsense in order to get away from the subject of religion. But then a rather more natural topic suggested itself--namely, the idea of offering him hospitality, which had occurred to and been rejected by Thurso. "And do come and dine with us to-morrow," she said, "and eat some of your own fish. Thurso and I would be delighted. We are just squatting in the house, you know, and eat and live in one room, and the caretaker's wife cooks. Ah, how stupid of me! I forgot. Thurso is turning the rest of the house into a typhoid hospital, and by evening the place will be full of patients. So please say 'No' point-blank if you don't like the thought. I shall quite understand." Those childlike eyes looked at her in frank, unveiled admiration. "Why, that's just splendid of you both," he said; "and as for coming to dinner, I shall be delighted. We Scientists are often told we are inconsistent, but we are not quite so bad as to mind coming to a house where a few poor souls think they are ill. So, _au revoir_, Lady Maud, and many thanks." * * * * * Maud was a girl of great singleness of purpose, and generally, when she was out for a day's fishing, the number of moments in which she thought about things unconnected in any way with fishing scarcely made any total at all, while any other subject that was present in her mind was there only in a very dim and distant fashion. But to-day, during the hour's fishing which she indulged in between Mr. Cochrane's departure and lunch, her thoughts persistently strayed from fishing, and when eventually she made herself a windless seat in the heather, overlooking the pool which she had just fished, even the brace of silvery sea-trout she had already caught, and the prospective brace or two that she promised herself before evening, occupied but a very small part of her meditations. Christian Science! She had indeed a "touch of derision" for that philosophy and its philosophers, though it was not worth while even to deride it. Nor was her derision founded on ignorance only, for last year Alice Yardly, a friend of hers, had joined the Church, and that had seemed to Maud a most suitable thing. For she had always thought that Alice, though a dear, was a fool, and now she knew it. Certainly, however, Mrs. Yardly did not in the least resemble Mr. Cochrane either in the matter of folly, because it was clearly impossible to think of him as a fool, or in the matter of proselytising, for Mrs. Yardly used to proselytise (with almost touching ill-success) by the hour, pouring out a perfect torrent of optimistic gabble about the nonexistence of pain and sickness, and be prostrated the moment afterwards by one of those nervous headaches to which she was subject. She would boldly, trying to nail a smile to her face, label this a "false claim" (though it was a pedantically accurate imitation of the real thing), and "demonstrate" over it, which, being interpreted, meant that she assured herself two or three million times that she could not have a nervous headache, since there was no nervous headache in Divine Love, and nothing existed except Divine Love. After that she would go to bed, and wake up next morning without any headache, and be delighted with the success of the demonstration that had banished it. And then, her dreadful delirium of words appalled and confused the hearer. Texts were torn up from their roots by that inconsequent hurricane, and sent hurtling at your head, and paragraphs from Mrs. Eddy's "Key to the Scriptures" squirted at you as from some hydrant, all to convince Maud, as far as she could see, of what she put rather differently to herself, when she said that mind had a great influence over matter, and that Mrs. Eddy had not been the first to discover that. But this view of the question proved to be an utter mistake, and would not do for Mrs. Yardly at all, who insisted that there was no such thing as matter, and never had been, since it existed only in the error of mortal mind, of which there wasn't any really. Last winter, too, Alice had had a false claim of influenza, and after a week of demonstrating over it, and not taking ordinary precautions, it had developed into a further false claim (though a pretty imitation) of congestion of the lungs. Three weeks' further demonstration over congestion of the lungs, combined this time with stopping in bed (though that had really nothing to do with it, as could easily be explained in another hour or two), had led to her complete recovery, and the subsequent recital of this wonderful cure at a Wednesday testimony meeting, to the great edification of the faithful. But when Maud asked her why, if she was going to condescend to stop in bed at all (especially since stopping in bed had, like the flowers of spring, "nothing to do with the case") she should not have done so when she had the false claim of influenza, instead of waiting for the further false claim of congestion, this led only to the kind Christian Science smile, and a voluble explanation, with torrents of Psalms and Mrs. Eddy, to point out once again from the very beginning that she did not have influenza at all. No further progress, in fact, could be made in such discussions, for though Mrs. Yardly was far from refusing to answer questions, she poured forth in answer so turbid a flow of pure twaddle, with so stern a determination never to be brought up to the point at issue, that it was impossible for the inquirer to proceed. All sickness and illness was inconceivable, said Mrs. Yardly, because everything was Infinite Mind (mortal mind had no more real existence than had matter); and whether Maud asked how it was that the impression of there being such things as headaches and broken legs had come in, or whether she wanted to know why Mrs. Eddy said that tobacco was disgusting, if there was no such thing, it appeared to Alice that to state over and over again in a variety of ways this fact about Infinite Mind was a satisfactory answer to any question of whatever kind. Of course, Alice was silly--she seemed sometimes to have no mind, mortal or otherwise, though she was a dear, all the same--and Maud, as she sat here now eating her sandwich in this sheltered nest of heather, with the wild bees buzzing about her, and all the infinite and beneficent powers of Nature pursuing their functions heedless of any interpretations that the meddlesome mind of man might choose to put upon them, felt that she had done an injustice to the subject about which she inquired when she derided it just because a woman who was very silly gave absurd answers to questions which, though quite simple, were of the utmost profundity in that they concerned the origin of evil and sickness. Mrs. Yardly had not been a Christian Scientist long, and Maud now told herself that it was absurd to expect her all at once (for she understood so little before) to understand everything now. But what nettled her, though, indeed, she was not easily nettled, was to find that this same dear, stupid person did profess to be able to explain everything--mind, matter, and God alike. She claimed to have recaptured the faith of a child, and at once to be able to argue like a theologian about it. Maud herself was a professed and believing Christian, but had a brilliant Atheist subtly questioned her on the doctrine of the Incarnation, she knew quite well that many of his questions would be completely unanswerable. But because she was a Christian it did not follow she was a theologian, and she hoped that she would not try, by turning a blinding squirt of texts upon her questioner, to make him believe that she could explain the mystery of the material and spiritual world. She could not--many things were mysterious. But why not say so? That these things were mysterious did not prevent her being a Christian. She believed, too, the root doctrine of Christian Science--namely, that God was the Author of the world, and was immanent there. But surely it was wiser and truer to confess that one did not understand the whole working of the world in all its details; for if one did, one could manage it all oneself. Alice Yardly, Maud felt sure, would undertake the post with the greatest pleasure. And a pretty mess she would make of it, thought she. For Alice could never even contrive that the carriage should call for anybody at the right time or place, and constantly went out to dinner on the wrong night, for the confusion of hostesses. * * * * * Yet ... the law of gravity, so Maud believed, was in sound working order; but if one asked some mere child to explain it, and he explained it imperfectly or incorrectly, that proved nothing against the validity of the law, but only proved the inability of the exponent. So, too, in Christian Science, one person surely knew more about it than another, and Mrs. Yardly, in all probability, less than any; and Maud confessed to herself that her present derision had been founded on the explanations (or want of them) given by a Scientist whom she had always thought silly. No doubt there were others who were not silly, but what a pity it was that the silly ones were allowed to gabble like this! Alice had tried to proselytise her, with the effect only that Maud had been almost fanatically convinced of the absurdity of her faith. But Mr. Cochrane had pointedly refused to proselytise, and, perversely enough, she felt she would like to hear what he had to say about it. He, too, had that childlike faith and those childlike eyes. Alice's eyes were not childlike: they resembled the shining buttons in railway-carriages. A great fish jumped clear out of the water in the pool at her feet--a noble silver-sided salmon, which for the moment made her fisherman's heart leap in her throat. But it was no use trying for him; a fish that jumped like that never took the fly. Besides, she had no gaff. Then she smiled at herself, for she knew that, though that reason was sound enough, it was not the real cause why she still sat in her sheltered place. She was interested in something else: she wanted to think about that. Mr. Cochrane did not seem silly; in fact, she would have bet on the verdict of an intelligent and impartial jury with regard to the point. What if she asked him, when he came to dine to-morrow night, a few of the questions onto which Alice had turned the squirt of irrelevant texts? There would be no derision on her side now, for in this half-hour of self-communing she had convinced herself that she wanted to know. There was no such thing as illness--he had said that; he had practically told Duncan that. What, then, if she made an appeal to him--told him how many of these poor folk had died from typhoid, and were suffering now, and asked him to stop it all? Yet that was too much to ask; it seemed profane, as if she asked him to invest himself in the insignia of Divinity. But might he not--for she could ask him now without derision, without, so far as she could manage it, unbelief in the huge power which Christian Scientists (healers, at any rate) distinctly professed to wield--might he not relieve one sufferer, make well one of those forty who would be lying sick in the house to-morrow? But then there occurred to her the parrot-like answer of Alice Yardly when she had asked her the same question. It was parrot-like, it was glib and without conviction and sense of the true meaning of the words, when she said it was wrong to make a "cure" for a sign. Lots of texts from the Gospels, of course, came up as reinforcements. But how hopelessly she misunderstood! Maud did not want a sign: she wanted that suffering should be relieved. It was not human to withhold that power merely because she would be interested in seeing it manifested. It was inhuman to withhold it, if the possessor really believed it was his. Besides, for what, except its exercise, had it been given? * * * * * But there was Thurso. It was better that he should not know that she intended to ask Mr. Cochrane to do this, and, indeed, that he should not know that she had asked it. There Alice Yardly's contention, again with texts, seemed to her to be possibly true. It was reasonable, anyhow, to suppose that unbelief might hamper the power of faith, just as dampness hindered the functions of frictional electricity. But if Thurso was not told, there would be none of this impeding counteraction. She herself did not disbelieve, and honestly she wanted to believe. She derided no longer: she was at the bar of conscience able to say that she had an open mind on the subject. She believed in the miraculous cures of ancient days; there was no known reason why modern days should not witness them again. Yet why had her mind changed? Why had the derision vanished? Again she was truthful with herself, and acknowledged that it was probably owing to Mr. Cochrane's personality. He seemed wise and gentle and self-reliant because he relied on an Infinite Power. He himself entirely trusted in that Power, and it was exactly that which made Maud trust him. Yes, that was all. She had gone over the ground she wished to traverse. Thereafter she was absorbed in watching her fly traverse another element. CHAPTER III. The shifting and removal of furniture and the banishment of carpets preparatory to the reception of patients next day, together with the installation of the necessaries for sick-rooms, were complete when Maud got home that evening, and she found Dr. Symes, who had come up to superintend this, just on the point of leaving. He had no very cheering account to give concerning several of the patients whom Maud asked after, but there was one cause, at least, for thankfulness, since no fresh case had appeared during the day. "And that is rather strange," he said, "for we have not yet been able to discover what the cause of the epidemic was, and so have not intentionally cut off any source of infection. But, God knows, I am quite content not to know what it is, provided it is cut off." "Yes, indeed," said she. "And to-morrow you will fill up all the beds here?" "Yes, all, I am sorry to say. Of course, we are taking certain risks, but, for the sake of the fresher air and better attention they will be able to receive up here, we shall move some very serious cases. Ah, my dear lady, we doctors get sick at heart sometimes! Doctor though I am, and prescriber of drugs, I wonder how much good we really do with our powders and potions. I wonder if all the contents of all the chemists' shops, and our cabalistic prescriptions, are measurable by the side of fresh air and quiet, and the conviction on the part of the patient that he is going to get well." "But if he believes that the drugs are going to make him well, surely they are a spring of faith," said she. He laughed. "Well, well, they may get better how they choose, and I won't quarrel with it," he said. "By the way, I should like to say just once how splendid it is of you and Lord Thurso to give up the house like this." "It was absolutely Thurso's idea," said she, "though, of course, it seemed obvious when he suggested it. And he wanted to send me back to town! Has he come in yet, do you know?" "Yes, he came in half an hour ago, in great pain, I fear, with one of those neuralgic headaches. He is rather overdone; he wants rest." Maud made a little quick movement towards him. "Not seriously so?" she asked. "You don't mean that there is anything to be anxious about?" "I don't, anyhow, want you to be anxious," said he, "but as long as he is continually anxious himself, and gets constantly tired, those headaches will probably be rather frequent. He has had attacks during these last three days, and pain like that is good for nobody. I certainly hope he will get rest soon. We do not want it to become chronic." "Chronic?" "Yes; your nerves, you know, form habits, like everything else." Maud was silent a moment; an anxiety she had felt while she was waiting for Thurso to come in last night reminded her again of its presence. She did not much want to speak of it, but, after all, she was speaking to the old doctor whom she had known since she was a child. Also, she very much wanted to be reassured. "He takes laudanum when he is in great pain," she said. "Is that wise?" "It would be unwise of him to do so frequently, or continue doing so for long. There, again, is a reason why we do not want his nerves to form the habit of pain. I did not know, by the way, that he took it. It was prescribed for him, of course." "Oh yes; I know it was." Dr. Symes seemed to dismiss that from his mind. "Then it is no business of mine," he said. "Now I hope--and to-day there is cause for hoping--that we have seen the worst of this epidemic. There has been no fresh case to-day, so before many days are over I think Lord Thurso can get away. I tell you frankly that I shall be glad when he can." "Ought he to go now, do you think?" asked Maud. Dr. Symes considered this before he replied. "No, I think he ought to stop here," he said at length. "It is true he is running a certain danger of producing a chronic irritation and--how shall I say it?--exasperation of nerves. Also, there is a certain risk in continuing to take laudanum. But, after all, he is sensible, and he is certainly brave, and I think for the present his sense of duty is right in keeping him here. Our orders and the nurses' orders are obeyed when they know he is here and is backing us up. You have no idea of the difficulties we had before you and he came. Well, I must get back to the village again. And, Lady Maud, I like plucky people like you and your brother. Good night. The patients will begin to arrive early to-morrow." * * * * * Dr. Symes, brisk and active for all his sixty years and grey head, hopped nimbly onto his bicycle, and rode off, feeling that Maud had done him good. Apart from the Raynhams, his notions of the British aristocracy were founded on those curious volumes known as society novels, books which his wife read aloud to him in the evening with horrified gusto. These works presented this class in a more lurid but less pleasant light. But Lord Thurso and his sister were both so simple and so good, to use that ordinary word in its most ordinary sense. They made no more fuss over the reception of forty patients suffering from typhoid into the house than they would have made over a few friends dropping in to tea. No thought of risk or inconvenience seemed to have occurred to either of them; it appeared to them the most natural thing in the world that the house should be turned into a hospital, and though professionally he believed that there was no risk, still he felt that the wicked countesses and marchionesses in "Lepers" or "Lady Babylon" would not have behaved quite like this. Indeed, for one half moment he let himself wonder what even Mrs. Symes would have said if he had suggested taking cases into their house. But it had seemed to that beautiful girl whom he had left on the doorstep with her fishing-rod in one hand and a landing-net weighed down with half a dozen sea-trout in the other a perfectly natural thing to do. It was this courageous acceptation of events that did him good. * * * * * Thurso, to his sister's great relief, came down to dinner in the most equable and cheerful spirits. All trace of his headache had vanished, and Maud thought that Dr. Symes must have been mistaken about it, for, as he had said, he had only guessed that Thurso must be in great pain. In any case, it was her part to try to take his thoughts away from fever and neuralgia, and all the darker side of things, and she instantly began on her own poaching comedy by the river. "Thurso, I have broken the record to-day," she said. "I have done the most awful thing that has ever been done. After you went out this morning, I took a rod down to the river to look about for sea-trout, and was firm in a salmon--oh no, he saw me hook it--when Mr. Bertie Cochrane appeared. How could you forget to tell me you had let the fishing? There I was, tied to it--to his fish. He watched me play it. And, of course, I didn't know him from Adam." For the moment Thurso was almost as horrified as Maud had been. "Good Lord!" he said; "I hope you lost the fish." "Not at all. It was entirely owing to Mr. Cochrane that I landed it, for in the nick of time down came Duncan--his gillie, not ours at all--with a gaff. Mr. Cochrane looked on with interest and sympathy." Thurso had laid down his knife and fork, and a huge grin was beginning to take the place of his horror. "Go on, quick," he said. "I will. Mr. Cochrane had a rod, and I said I supposed he was going over to Scarsdale. No, he was not. So, with a slight addition of stiffness, I thanked him for his help, but said that this was your river. He explained. Oh, Thurso, did you ever? And I asked him to come and dine to-morrow, and eat some of his own fish. He is coming." Thurso shouted with laughter. "Oh, what would I not give to have been there when the light broke on you!" he said. "And to ask him to dinner--add insult to injury! You were caught poaching--poaching, you know--and then you ask the rightful owner to have some. Did you tell him, by the way, that we were a typhoid hospital?" "Yes; he didn't mind." "Oh, Maud--oh, Maud! An American, too! He will probably telegraph an account of it to the New York press, and it will come out all over the States with enormous headlines!" "Oh, I think not," said she. "I'm sure he wouldn't do it." Thurso recollected his own meeting with Cochrane. "No, I don't think he would," he said. "Because I met him in the village yesterday evening, and I agree he doesn't look like that. Go on." "Isn't that enough?" she asked. "Afterwards we sat and talked as if I hadn't been caught poaching at all. He begged me to go on fishing, too, and he did it, somehow, so simply and naturally that I thanked him and did go on. I caught six sea-trout, too, and we're just going to have some of them. He really made it easy for me to say 'Yes.' In fact, it would have been absurd to say 'No.'" Thurso laughed again. "That almost beats everything," he said. "You are absolutely brazen." "Not in the least. When you see Mr. Cochrane you will understand how simple it was." "I have seen him, as I told you. It occurred to me then that we might ask him to dinner. It was that I began to suggest last night, but you were so curious to know what I was going to say that I stopped." Maud looked at him reproachfully. "Oh, Thurso, if you had gone on you would have saved me from all this!" she said. "But don't you understand how it was possible for me to accept?" Thurso considered. "Yes, even though I did not speak to him, I think perhaps I do. He did look to be the sort of man whose sea-trout you might catch after he had caught you poaching his salmon. That is rather a high compliment. It is a great gift to be able to make people not ashamed of themselves. I should have absolutely sunk into the earth." "And Mr. Cochrane would very kindly have pulled you out," said Maud. "At least, he pulled me out." There was a short pause, during which Maud occupied her mouth with sea-trout and her mind with the question as to whether she should tell Thurso that Mr. Cochrane was a Christian Scientist. But his remark that it was not his plan to proselytise decided her against doing so. Then Thurso spoke again. "Do you know, to-day is the first on which I haven't felt absolutely swamped and water-logged with depression and anxiety?" he said. "There has been no fresh case since morning, and Duncan's wife, who, like Sandie, was almost despaired of, has taken a sudden inexplicable turn for the better. She was dying of sheer exhaustion from fever, and now all day she has been gaining strength--gaining it quickly, too, though you would have said there was no strength left. I saw Duncan this evening. He--really, I wondered whether he had been drinking." "Drinking?" asked Maud. "Why, he is a tee-totaller!" "The worst sort of drunkard," remarked Thurso rather cynically. "Oh, don't be cheap!" Thurso looked up at her, and then nodded. "Quite right," he said; "it's a pity. Sorry." "You old darling! But Duncan's as sober as I am. Soberer. Go on. It interests me." "Well, it all leads back to Mr. Cochrane again," he said. "Don't interrupt. I looked in to-night, as I told you, and there was Duncan sitting by his wife's bedside, nursing the baby, who was, with extraordinary gurgles, trying to swarm up his beard. And his wife lay there, different, changed, with life instead of death in her face. But fancy bringing a baby into a room where there is typhoid! So I got Duncan and the child out, and cursed him, and told him that his wife was really on the mend, as the nurse had just told me. I thought he would like to know that, but apparently he had known it all day. Our Mr. Cochrane had told him this morning that his wife was getting better all the time." "Yes, I heard him tell him," said Maud. "Well, but how did he know?" asked Thurso. "Twelve hours ago they thought she couldn't live through the day. And what the deuce has our Mr. Cochrane got to do with it? Who is he? What is he? How did he know?" Maud had no reply to this at once; "our Mr. Cochrane" had repudiated preaching on his own account--clearly, then, it was not her business to state his views. "Well, he hasn't done any harm, anyhow," she said. "Of course not; but it's an odd coincidence. Mr. Cochrane tells Duncan that his wife is getting better, and Duncan has only got to walk home, and finds it is so. Oh, and another thing: Dr. Symes called there this afternoon, and Duncan kindly but quite firmly refused to let him in at all unless he promised not to give her any more medicine. So he promised, because when he saw her last she was absolutely past all hope; also, he doesn't much believe in medicines, though you needn't mention it. He saw, of course, the enormous improvement, and wanted to take her temperature, but Duncan again firmly, and with beaming smiles, would not allow it. I suppose he considered a thermometer a sort of modified medicine." "Well?" "Dr. Symes insisted, and eventually Duncan, with great respect, threw the thermometer out of the window. That is why I supposed he was drunk." "No, I'm sure he wasn't drunk," said Maud. "Go on, dear." They had finished dinner, and Thurso rose to get a cigarette. "That's the end," he said. "Dr. Symes tells me he has seen that sort of recovery before, but what is odd is that our Mr. Cochrane should have foreseen it. Is he a crank, do you think, or a spiritualist, or some sort of innocent lunatic?" Again Maud mentally reviewed her decision not to do Mr. Cochrane's preaching (which he would not do for himself) for him, and again endorsed her policy. "How do you expect me to know?" she asked. "I talked to him for ten minutes. But he's coming to dine to-morrow, and you can judge for yourself. And how have you been? No headache?" He glanced at her sharply and sideways a moment, with a movement of vague suspicion. "Headache?" he said; "I haven't seemed much like headache this evening, have I? Why?" "Only Dr. Symes told me he was afraid you were in pain. I am delighted he was mistaken." Thurso shrugged his shoulders. "Lord, what bad guesses a skilful doctor makes!" he said. "He half wants people to be ill, so that he may have the pleasure of curing them." * * * * * Maud naturally asked no further question, and told herself that Dr. Symes had simply made what Thurso called a "bad guess." But, knowing them both, it seemed to her odd that he should have thought that Thurso had been suffering if he had not. For it was only when he was in the extremes of pain that anyone could guess that he was on the rack, for it had to be strongly screwed before he visibly winced. For one moment it flashed through her mind that he had been in pain, had perhaps taken laudanum to stop it, and had--well, not chosen to tell her so. Yet his answer, though as a matter of fact it was slightly evasive in form, clearly bore the construction that he had been free from pain all day. So she dismissed that at once, telling herself that it was scandalous of her, though involuntarily only and momentarily, to suspect Thurso of insincerity. Thus, the pause only lasted a moment before she spoke of something else. But in that moment he had said to himself, "Shall I tell her?" * * * * * The two sat up rather late that night, for Maud disliked going to bed nearly as much as she disliked getting up, and it was usually Thurso who moved the adjournment. But to-night he was extraordinarily alert; as he had said, to-day had been the first on which there had been any break in the tempest of illness which was devastating the village, and his spirits seemed to have risen in sympathy, enabling him to think and speak of other things than the immediate preoccupations which surrounded them. And chief among these was London and the reopening of Thurso House. His father, the late Earl, had died just a year ago, and next week the house was to celebrate its re-entry into London life with an adequately magnificent ball. His wife, who had stopped in town, was seeing to all arrangements, and when Catherine undertook to see to a thing, it was unnecessary for anyone else, however closely concerned, to feel any anxiety as to the completeness with which it would be seen to. "I heard from Catherine this morning," he said--"at least, I heard from her typewriter. She did not even sign it. She is up to the eyes in a million affairs, and hopes I am well. Really it seems to me that most of the festivities, as well as all the charities of London would collapse unless she saw to them. And there's the ball next week. I shall go up for the night, though whether I stop depends on how things go on here. Of course, you'll come." Maud looked at him in mild surprise; it was as if he had said, "Of course, you'll have breakfast to-morrow." "It is _not_ improbable," she said. "Or did you really suppose that your house was going to make its debut again, and me not there?" "Oh, well, I didn't know," he said. "You do now. What fun it will be! It will be crammed with kings and queens like 'Alice in Wonderland.' Thurso, what a good thing Catherine is so smart! I hate the word, but she is: she is magnificent. She said the other day that there are only two sorts of entertaining possible--the one where you have a great party, with kings and queens, and everybody in orders and tiaras; and the other where it is just tea-gowns and two or three real friends. I don't believe she has ever had a party at which there were more than eight people and less than forty." "It's usually not less than forty," remarked Thurso. "Oh no; it's often less than eight. Of course I shall come. Do have a special all the way to town; it will be so expensive! Catherine--I must quote her again--says, 'Either have a special or go third.'" "With a preference for specials?" "Not at all. She doesn't care which it is. She often goes third, and talks to the people. And on the tops of omnibuses. But she doesn't go in cabs: she says they are middling, like parties of twenty to meet a Serene Transparency. If she can't have the twenty-five million horse-power motor, up she gets on the omnibus. She never stops it, either, because of the horses. She runs after it, and jumps quite beautifully. I do admire her so." Thurso laughed. "So do I. And it's something to admire your wife when you have been married twelve years!" Maud made a little sideways movement in her chair, as if her position had become suddenly uncomfortable. Her brother continued. "I don't believe a woman ever existed who was so obviously admirable," he said. "We went to the opera together the night before I came up here, and as she was going on to some large ball afterwards, she was--well, suitably dressed." Maud felt, as she always felt when Thurso talked like this, as if a file had been drawn across her teeth. She tried to turn, not the conversation, but its tone. "Oh, how?" she asked, with deep and genuine interest; for, like all sensible girls, she loved beautiful clothes, especially when beautiful people wore them. "She always makes everybody else look dowdy or overdressed. That must be such fun." "Well, she had the diamond palisade, as she calls it, in her hair, and what she calls the ruby plaster all, all down her." "Yes, but her dress?" said Maud. "I know the plaster." "Her dress? Goodness knows what it was made of, but it looked--you know what whipped cream looks like compared to cream--it looked like whipped gold. Sort of froth of gold: not yellow, but gold. Melba was in the middle of the jewel-song when we came in, but at the end of it nobody was paying the slightest attention to her. Every glass in the house was turned on Catherine." He got up and threw his cigarette-end away. "And she's my wife," he added; and the four words carried tons of irony. Maud got up also. She hated this: it was the process of the file again. She knew that Thurso talked to no one but her like that, but she deplored that he felt like that. "Oh, it is such a pity, dear," she said. "That she's my wife?" "Oh, Thurso, don't! All the worst of you spoke then. No, a pity that you feel like that. You are both such splendid people, really. And----" "And I bore her, and she gets on my nerves," he remarked. Maud gave a little frown and gesture of disapproval. "You should never say such things," she said. "It is a mistake to say them just because they are--well, partly true. If they were untrue it would not matter. But to let yourself say a true thing, when that thing is a pity, only makes it more real. Speech confirms everything. Good gracious! if people would only hold their tongues on unpleasant topics, how the things themselves would improve! Oh, I am a philosopher." He looked at her with great tenderness and affection. "Are you?" he said. "I like you, anyhow. Go on." Maud gave a long sigh. "You don't do her justice," she said, "any more than she does you justice. You don't allow for each other. And--Thurso, I don't believe she is happy any more than you are." "Why do you think that? She carves forty-eight hours out of every day, and fills them all, while the world looks on in envious admiration. That is her ideal, and she always attains it. And even her husband claps his hands." Maud took him by the shoulders and shook him gently. "Idiot!" she said--"dreadful idiot! Shut up! I am going to bed. Thank me for catching so many beautiful fish." "I am not sure that I thank you for asking Mr. Cochrane to dinner to-morrow," he said. "I love these quiet evenings with you." "Thanks, dear. I get on tolerably, too. Good night. What a nice day it has been, and what nice things we've got to think about to send us to sleep! No fresh case of typhoid to-day for the people, and no headache for you, and a salmon for me. I am so sleepy that I don't mind going to bed." "Maud," he began, then stopped. No, he could not tell her. In himself he was ashamed of having taken laudanum, and was ashamed, also, of having deceived her, for he saw he had done that. Since, then, he was ashamed of it, there was no need that she should know. "Well?" "No, it's nothing." "Thurso, your manners are atrocious!" she said. "Both yesterday and to-day you have begun to say something, and then stopped. I shall keep doing that all to-morrow, and you will see how maddening it is." He laughed again. "Good night, dear old boy," said she. * * * * * The next day was wholly given up to the installation of the typhoid patients. Carpets, rugs, and curtains had been rolled up, unnecessary furniture removed, and beds brought up and down from the basement and the higher floors, so that the utmost accommodation might be provided in the big rooms on the first-floor. Dr. Symes, in consultation with the other doctors, had settled that it was better to run a little risk, and move even bad cases up here, since the day was dry and warm, for the sake of the more immediate attention and greater abundance of fresh air than was possible when patients were scattered about in tiny cottage-rooms, and the ambulance, going backwards and forwards all day, brought grave burdens. But by five in the afternoon the work of transportation was done, and the house was full. Afterwards the doctors went the round of the whole house, and found the results satisfactory. Not one, apparently, had suffered from the move, and now, instead of the patients being in small, ill-ventilated rooms, they were airily housed, with every facility for constant supervision from the nurses. Most, too, were going on well; but there was one case, that of Sandie the gillie, which was as serious as it could be. As often when the strong are ill, it seemed as if the fever, vampire-like, sucked out his strength and itself thrived and grew strong on it; and Dr. Symes, before he left, had given orders that he should be sent for at once if any further unfavourable symptoms occurred. Duncan's wife, it is true, had been through a passage no less perilous that very morning, but, with every wish to be hopeful, it was unlikely that two should be snatched from the very snap of the jaws of death. Thurso had been in the house all day, and when the move was finished he went down into the room where he and Maud lived, feeling desperately tired, and intending to get an hour's sleep before dinner. But to have an intention, however strong, laudable, and innocent, does not imply that the very best efforts are able to put it into effect; and instead, in this instance, he had no sooner composed himself to sleep than he felt that, though the surface of his brain was drowsy and tired beyond all words, something below was broadly and staringly awake. He had lain down on the sofa with his face averted from the light and his eyes shut, so as to give the utmost welcome to sleep, but it was not sleep that came, but a series of vivid though unreal images, born of memory. First an interminable series of stretchers, each with its swathed, fever-stricken burden, came up the stairs, and just when he was beginning to feel that this monotonous procession was the precursor of sleep, another image twitched him and claimed his attention. Maud had gone fishing, poaching, yesterday, and had enjoyed good sport; thus the procession of stretchers gave way to the vision of her landing fish after fish, all dead-beat, all silver-sided, till it seemed that this iteration, too, must end in unconsciousness. But something jarred it, and, instead, Catherine stood at the head of the stairs in Thurso House, dressed in rubies, with a sort of "love-in-the-mist" of gold round her, receiving kings and queens, and queens and kings, all in crowns. But that, again, ended, not in slumber, but in something very antagonistic to it. There was just a little stab--it was hardly pain--inside his head, as remote as the sound of an electric bell in the basement. Then it was repeated, but this time louder and more insistently, as if the ringer, on the one hand, was impatient, and as if the bell was beginning to come up the back-stairs. Then--it was right to call it pain now--the sound grew louder, and the finger pressed the bell more firmly, while the bell itself came closer. He was quite wide awake now, surface of brain and secret cells alike, and he opened his eyes. Then he said out loud: "I am in for another." That seemed to be the case, for the prediction began to be instantly fulfilled. The half-drowsy similitude of the electric bell vanished, and instead there was pain--clear, clean pain. It stabbed half a dozen times with a firm, practised touch, as a pianist strikes a chord or two before he begins his piece. Then it paused for a moment. Immediately afterwards it began again, but differently. Instead of stabbing at the nerve, it laid a cold, steady finger on it, and that finger grew quietly steadier and colder, till something inside his head seemed to ring with it, as a musical glass rings when it is adroitly stroked. Then came a brilliant passage of all sorts of pain, as if the orchestra had begun to accompany that masterly solo. Then, as the horn holds a long, lazy, piercing note, pain pierced and dwelt in him, while wonderful arpeggios of torture from neighbouring nerves crossed it. That was the prelude. * * * * * In his room upstairs, which he could reach in ten seconds, there stood on his dressing-table a bottle, not very large, which contained not only the antidote and instant cure of his suffering, but also blissful content and the gift of ecstatic well-being. But the very fact that yesterday he had so lightly (or so it seemed now) had recourse to that, deceiving Maud, and had uncorked Paradise, made him at this moment brace himself against the temptation of resorting to it again. If he had got to bear pain--and it really appeared just now that he had--then he would set his teeth and bear it, sooner than, at the cost of another step in the formation of a damnable habit, drug himself into remission from his pain, or, what even now, when he was suffering hell, tempted him more closely, into that sense of divine harmony of being that the drug gave him. He longed that the pain should cease; he longed even more for that seventh heaven of content. It was all in that small bottle, with its brown elixir. Then his desire disguised itself, and made a more insidious approach. There was a guest coming to dinner to-night. He could not simply retire to bed, leaving Maud to entertain Mr. Cochrane alone, nor, on the other hand, did it seem to him to be physically possible that he should be able to sit through dinner if in this state, for already the beads of anguish were thick upon him. And he knew well that this was but the prelude; it was only an orchestral performance. Soon the curtain would go up; the singers would be there too. It was intolerable enough now; he had never known so full an orchestra. Yet he could stifle them, he could extinguish the singers, by a little draught, a swallowing in the throat. But his will, his intention, remained firm. He was not going to silence them like that. For now he knew quite well that his desire for the drug was acute, not only because of the blessed relief from pain that it would give him, but because of the intense physical enjoyment that it brought. Then, with head splitting and buzzing with pain, he went upstairs to dress and make ready to entertain his guest. There were forty other guests, too, in the house, but those were well looked after. Also they were in bed, lucky devils! * * * * * Breeding, and what is implied by that much-abused word, includes courage of a quiet but rather heroic kind, since it has no stirring aids to help it, no moral trumpets and drums to stimulate it to its shining deeds. Yet it demands a greater command of self, a greater obedience to the courtesies of life, to be courageous in hum-drum and unexciting circumstances than in those to which romance and adventure are auxiliary; and certainly to-night Thurso's perfectly natural and even gravely convivial manner towards his guest and his sister, while he himself was suffering pain of the most excruciating kind, was courage that in its small and difficult sphere deserved some sort of domestic Victoria Cross. Though most people have more manliness than they themselves or anybody else would have credited them with when pain has got to be borne, or a heart-rending situation faced, yet to have the ready smile, the attentive ear, the genial manner, under such circumstances is a fine exhibition of the courage of good breeding. More than this, too, Thurso had faced before dinner, when the little bottle on his dressing-table reminded him that pain need not be borne a moment longer than he chose. But all through dinner Thurso achieved the outward signs of inward well-being, and it was through no remissness or failure on his part, but by instinct born of intimate knowledge on Maud's, that she knew he was going through hells of physical torture. Sometimes he just bit his lip or suddenly stroked his long moustache; sometimes in the middle of a sentence he would make a pause that was scarcely noticeable, as if he but considered for a word; sometimes he gripped knife and fork so that the skin over his knuckles showed white; but that was all. He talked quite easily and naturally, made reference to Maud's poaching expedition, and its satisfactory results as far as dinner was concerned, for the salmon was excellent, and went on to speak of the epidemic which had brought them both up North. "But at last it shows some sign of abating," he said, "though we are still ignorant of the source of it. In fact, there has been no fresh case either to-day or yesterday." Maud looked up at Mr. Cochrane, wishing rather intently that he would preach his gospel. She felt that it might do Thurso good, or, at any rate, take his mind off the pain that flickered round him like a shower of daggers. But the gospel was veiled, at any rate. "I think it is so good of you to bring the cases up here," he said. "Lady Maud told me yesterday that you were doing so. I am sure it must help towards recovery to remove people from surroundings which they associate with illness to fresh, bright places." He paused a moment. "One sees that every day," he said. "If you associate a place with pleasure, you are pleased to go there again. The mind, left to itself, clings so strongly to material things. If one has been happy in a certain room, one thinks that those surroundings will tend to produce happiness again. It is one of the illusions we get rid of last." Thurso began to speak. "You mean," he said, and then stopped, for an access of pain so sharp seized him that he could not get on. Maud saw, and gave him a sudden quick look of sympathy, which annoyed him, and, for the first time, Cochrane saw too. But after a moment he recovered himself, and went on. "You mean I shall always associate this house with typhoid and sick, suffering people?" he asked. "That is not very cheering." Bertie Cochrane smiled, looking with those happy, childlike eyes first at Maud, then at his host. "No, I mean just the opposite," he said. "You will always associate this house with recovery, with the sweeping away of illness and pain." * * * * * Dinner was at an end, and the pause of cigarette-lighting followed. Bertie Cochrane had taken one as he spoke, but he did not light it, and laid it down again on the cloth. Then he got up. "Lord Thurso, you are wonderfully brave," he said. "I am sure you feel in horrible pain. Let me go right away now. I have enjoyed coming up to dine with Lady Maud and you ever so much." For the last minute or two the pain had become so much more acute that Thurso's forehead dripped with perspiration. All dinner, too, the longing, the drunkard's desire, to get to his room and take a dose from that healing bottle had been growing like some nightmare figure. And now, when his pain, in spite of all his gallant efforts to conceal it, was discovered, the desire became overwhelming--he could no longer master it. "Pray don't think of going away," he said, "but if you will excuse me for a few minutes, I think I will go upstairs. I have some medicine there that never fails to set me right, and I shall be down again quite shortly. Yes, I may as well confess it, the pain has been pretty bad." For one moment it appeared that Cochrane had something on the tip of his tongue, for he turned eagerly to Thurso, who had risen, and was wiping his face. But it was clear to Maud, when he did speak, that he was not giving expression to the original impulse. "I shall be delighted to stop," he said, "if Lady Maud does not mind my being on her hands. I wanted so much to ask about one or two of the pools on the river." Thurso left the room, and Cochrane turned to her with the same eagerness as he had shown a minute ago. "I am so willing, so eager to treat your brother," he said, "but I didn't like suggesting it to him. I did not know if he would not think me some very special kind of lunatic." Maud shook her head. She knew quite well it would be perfectly idle to suggest such a thing to Thurso, and, indeed, to her sense, too, there was something unthinkable about calling into play the power that rules the world in order to cure neuralgia. Besides, the poppy-juice, though she did not wholly like his taking it, would do that. The other was like cracking your egg for breakfast with a steam-hammer. "Oh, thank you very much," she said, "but his medicine always puts him right." And she instantly turned the conversation to the subject he had suggested, and spoke of certain pools in the river which he had found difficulty in fishing satisfactorily. Thurso, meantime, half blind with pain, had almost run to his room, for he longed for the relief which awaited him there as the desert-parched traveller longs for water. And keenly as he desired the cessation of pain, much more keenly did he thirst for the ecstatic sense of well-being that the drug produced. All day, even before this racking neuralgia came on, he had been almost unable to think of anything but that. He had thirsted all day for that stimulated consciousness, that huge, vivid sense of happiness, which already seemed to him the proper, normal level of life. Already, too, he was beginning to be dishonest with himself, just as yesterday he had been dishonest with Maud; and even as he poured it out he told himself, knowing it was untrue, that he would not be taking it if Mr. Cochrane had not been dining with them. It was inhospitable and impossible to send him away five minutes after dinner; it was equally impossible that he should spend the evening alone with Maud. And though that, so far as it went, was true, it was not the essential truth. He took the glass in his hand, torturing himself, now that relief was near and assured, with voluntary delay, even as the caged beast which has been roaring for its meat sits fierce and snarling when it has been given it before it begins to assuage the hunger-pangs which it now knows it can satisfy, and deliberately prolonged for a moment more this stabbing pain. He sat down in an easy-chair, and put his feet up on another, in order to make himself quite comfortable before he drank it. His room looked north-west, and they had dined early, so that the sun still shone in at his window, flooding the room in cool crystal light. Then he drank. Inside his head during this last hour he felt as if a sort of piston-rod from a cylinder had been making firm strokes onto some bleeding, mangled nerve. The end of the piston-rod was fitted sometimes with a blunt hammer, so that it crushed the nerve, sometimes with a sharp needle-point which went deeper, and seemed to penetrate the very home and heart of pain. Then perhaps the piston-rod would cease for a few seconds, while an iron-toothed, rusty rake collected the smashed fragments of nerve together again, so that the hammer should not fail to hit them squarely, and made a neat little pyramid of the pieces on the place where it would descend. This raking together (the image was so vivid to him that he almost believed that it actually took place) was about the worst part. He knew that in a minute the hammer would begin again. But now, a few moments only after he had taken his dose, the change began. Though the hammer did not cease to fall, its blows no longer produced pain. They produced instead a warm, tingling sensation, like that which the hand feels when it spreads out icy fingers to a friendly blaze. And that tingling warmth felt its way gradually through his head, passed down his neck, and slowly flooded body and limbs to toe and finger tip. He forgot what pain meant; he was unable to realise even before the piston-rod ceased to beat what it connoted, knowing only what the oncoming of this tide of physical bliss was like. Every sense, too, was quickened and stimulated. The sun that still shone in at his windows burned with a ruddier and more mellow light. The glory of it was soft but incredibly brilliant, and to his quickened sense of smell the air that came in through the open sash was redolent with the honey-scent of warm heather. The blind had been a little drawn down over the top of the window, but whereas, when he was dressing for dinner an hour ago, the sound of it flapping against the frame was a fretting and irritating thing, it now seemed to him to give out flute-like and vibrating notes, while the taste of the cigarette which he had lit five minutes ago, and brought up with him, had a flavour new and exquisite. The present moment, and the sensations of it, were all quickened into the vividness of dream-life, while it was but vaguely that he remembered that downstairs Maud was sitting with a very pleasant American fellow who had come to dinner. At dinner he remembered, but again vaguely, that he was not sure if he liked him; now he appeared to be the most charming of companions. But with the gates of Paradise here upstairs flung wide for his reception, he could not fix his mind very clearly on him. No doubt, if he made an effort, he could recall more about him, and remember his name, which just now eluded him; but an effort was the one thing he certainly would not make, since it might disturb or destroy this perfect equilibrium on which he was balanced. And there was really no reason, so it now appeared, why he should go downstairs again. Maud and her poaching friend would talk about fishing for awhile, and then he--ah, yes! Bertie Cochrane--would go away. They would both easily understand his own non-appearance. He had suffered tortures; no inquisitor or master of the rack would refuse to grant him this little rest and compensation. Then for a moment his breeding and the habit of his whole life jerked him to his feet, with the intention of rejoining them, as courtesy and decorum demanded. But the drug he had taken was already more powerful than they. It told him with authority that this ecstasy of consciousness would be trespassed on and interfered with by the presence of others. It would, if he went downstairs, be necessary for him to some extent to give attention to them instead of letting himself be absorbed in the exquisiteness of his own sensations. And those sensations had nothing in common with the dulled perceptions of sleep or intoxication. He was lifted onto a plane more vivified than the normal; he basked in super-solar sunlight. Then, still without any suggestion of sleepiness or intoxicated consciousness, the most wonderful visions, or, rather, the intentional visualisation of scenes and moods magic in their beauty, passed in front of him. He, turned into Keats himself, was listening to the nightingale, and losing himself in "embalmed darkness" to the charmed music of the immortal song. "The weariness, the fever and the fret," were remembered only as the traveller arrived at his long-desired home remembers the weariness of the way. His spirit seemed to draw away from life, though still intensely living, and he was in love with death, that but loosed it from the impediment of the body. Then a curve was suddenly turned, and next moment he was mounting higher than the blithe spirit of the lark could carry it, and hung in some clear interstellar ether so remote that the sun above him and the earth below seemed about equal in size, and the shape of England and the coasts of Europe were visible as in a map, set in dim blue sea. Then, still mounting, he turned his eye upward, and looked undazzled into the high noon of the heavens, and yet, though it was noon, the infinite velvet vault was sown with the sparkle of stars. Sun and stars shone there together, and a slip of crescent moon made the company of heaven complete. Again, still vividly awake, and without the least hint of drowsiness, the aspect of the firmament was changed, and the stars became globules of sparkling dew, and the empty spaces of ether took shape, until above him that which had been the heavens was transformed into a huge bed of blue acanthus-leaves, on which the dew of the stars lay sparkling. The sun was still there in the centre of all, and round it the sky took the shape of the petals of a flower. It was the "centre spike of gold" in an immense blue blossom, which was thick with petals as a rose, and pure of shape as a daffodil. All this, too--this vision to which the hosts of heaven contributed--was his own, born of his own brain, which so short a time ago was bound on the rack of torture and sordid suffering. But now that was nothing. He remembered he had been in pain, but no more, and how cheaply had he purchased, at the price of but copper coin, these jewels of consciousness. That little draught which relieved him of physical pain had brought him these astounding joys; it had made the whole machinery of the universe to serve his vision. The stars were drops of dew on the acanthus-leaves of infinite space, and the sun burned in the centre of this unique flower. A few minutes ago he had half started to go downstairs; now the ravings of any lunatic in Bedlam were not more distant from his mind than such a thought. He was absorbed in that contemplation of things which the brain, with the aid he had given it, can re-create out of the objects it is used to see without wonder. But this was the real world, easy of entry to those who had the sense to turn the key; while the material world was a dream, vague and pale, compared to this reality. * * * * * Meantime, below, Bertie Cochrane and Maud had for some ten minutes talked unmitigated fishing; but Maud, though in general to talk fishing was to her one of the most entrancing forms of conversation, provided she talked to a real fisherman, as she was now doing, was giving lip-service only to the subject, for inwardly she regretted the finality of those few little frozen words about Thurso with which she had so successfully dismissed the subject of Christian Science and all the matter of Duncan's wife, of which she wanted to know more. For very shame or pride--the two, so verbally opposed, are often really identical--she could not go back to the subject she had so unmistakably snuffed out, while he, in his confessed and genuine dislike of preaching, was equally unlikely to approach it again. But he had said that, though he disliked preaching, he loved practice, and she had just leaned forward over the dinner-table where they still sat, her pride in her pocket, to ask a question about this, when an interruption came. One of the nurses entered. "I beg your pardon, my lady," she said; "I thought Lord Thurso was here." "He will be back soon," said Maud. "Can I do anything?" "I think Dr. Symes ought to be sent for at once, my lady," she said. "Sandie Mackenzie had very high fever an hour ago, but I didn't like his looks, and I have just taken his temperature again. It is below normal, and that is the worst that can happen, suddenly like this. Dr. Symes told me to send for him if there was a change for the worse, and I thought I had better come and tell his lordship." Maud got up. "You did quite right to come and tell us, nurse," she said. "I will have him sent for at once. Is it very serious?" "Yes, my lady; it means perforation," she said. "I don't know that it is any good to send for the doctor, but one must do what one can." Maud nodded. "Thank you," she said; "I will see to it." * * * * * The nurse left the room, going back to her patients; but Maud stood there for a moment without moving, for all she had mused about by the river yesterday came back to her mind in spate, vividly, instantaneously. Only yesterday she had heard Mr. Cochrane tell Duncan that his wife was better, and though that morning she had been ill almost beyond hope of recovery, yet all that day, and all to-day, she had been mending swiftly and steadily. Thurso was upstairs, too; the opportunity she had desired was completely given her. She had started to go to ring the bell, and order someone to go down to Dr. Symes's house and summon him, but half-way she stopped. It seemed almost as if Mr. Cochrane had expected this, for he had wheeled round in his chair, and when she stopped he was facing her, quiet, cheerful, looking at her with those strong, childlike eyes. "Mr. Cochrane," she began. Their eyes met, and again she felt antagonistic to him. He had the element of certainty about him, which, it seemed to her, no one had the right to carry. But then, his simplicity made it easier to be simple with him. She moved a step nearer him, a step further from the bell. "I don't know whether I am right to ask you this," she said; "but, to begin with, if what the nurse thinks has happened, it is quite useless, as she said, to send for the doctor. I don't ask it either in a spirit of derision or curiosity." "Ask, then," said he quietly. "Yes; a life is at stake. Can you go to poor Sandie, and make him live? And, if so, will you? I have known him all my life. He has landed a hundred fish for me. But if you say "No," I shall quite understand that you feel--honestly, I am quite sure--that it is not right for you to do so. I shall be sorry, but I shall in no way question your decision. So I ask you: Will you go to Sandie?" Maud did not know that the human face could hold such happiness as she saw there. He answered at once. "Why, certainly I will," he said. "But if I am to make him better, you mustn't, while I am treating him, whether you think he is improving or not, send for the doctor. There must be none of that. I will go to him if you wish, but if I go the case is in my hands--no, not that, but under the direct care of Divine Love. I cannot tell how long it may take to cure him. You know some patients are healed sooner than others, and respond more quickly than others to the healing power. But if you ask me to make him well, believing that I can, I will do so. But you must trust me completely, otherwise you hinder. And you must be sure you are not asking it only to see if I can." Maud went through a long moment of dreadful indecision. She knew she was taking a tremendous responsibility, for though, if the nurse was right, Sandie was beyond human power, yet it was a serious thing to refuse to send for the doctor. But it was impossible not to trust this strong, happy confidence. And as she hesitated he spoke again, still quite quietly, quite cheerfully. "Why hesitate?" he said. "Your choice is very simple. You choose the direct power of God to make Sandie well, or you reject it. Don't think for a moment it is I who make him well. I can do no more than the doctor. Look on me only as the window through which the sun shines. So choose, Lady Maud." She hesitated no longer. "Please go to him," she said; "and oh, be quick!" The human cry sounded there. She was terrified at her choice. What if Sandie died, and she had not sent for the doctor, not done all that could have been done? Yet she did not revoke her decision. But she was frightened, and this stranger whom she had seen yesterday for the first time soothed her like a child. "There is nothing to be frightened at," he said. "You have chosen right, and your faith knows that, but the flesh is weak. Or, rather, our faith is weak, while our flesh is strong. It binds and controls us sometimes, so that our true will is almost powerless. Let me be silent a minute." He moved his chair round again to the table where they had dined, made a backward sweep of his hand, overturning and breaking a glass, so as to clear a little space, and leaned his head on his hands, clasping his fingers over his eyes to shut out the sight of all material things, and brought his whole mind home to the one great fact from which sprang his own life, his health, his happiness--namely, his belief in the presence, omnipotence, and love of God. From fishing, from all the preoccupations of life, from Thurso, from Maud, from false beliefs in illness and pain, he called his winged thoughts home, and they settled in his soul like homing doves. With all his power of soul and mind he had to realise the central fact, this root from which the whole world sprang. Every nerve and fibre, material though they were, had to be instinct with it. As he had said to Maud, he was but the window through which the sun shone. This window, then, had to be polished and cleaned, to be made speckless of dust, or of anything which could cast a shadow and hinder the rays from penetrating. For a minute or two he remained motionless, and then got up from his chair. "Come up with me, Lady Maud," he said, "since you have asked this in sincerity. I should like you to see it, since you are ready to believe, for, like the Israelites, you shall stand still and see the salvation of God." Maud did not hesitate now. Something of that which he had realised reached her; the sun streamed in through the window. "Yes, I will come," she said. Nurse Miles, who had come down to tell Maud, was busy with patients in another room, and the two, having gone upstairs to the first-floor, inquired of another nurse where Sandie was. She knew Maud, of course, by sight, and supposing that Cochrane was the new doctor expected to-day from Inverness, asked no questions, but merely took them through the billiard-room, where were some twenty beds, into a smaller room beyond, where Sandie had been placed alone. At the door Mr. Cochrane turned to her. "Thanks," he said; "I shall not need you." Then the two entered, and Cochrane closed the door gently behind them. * * * * * Maud had never yet in her life seen any to whom the great White Presence has drawn near, but now, when she looked at the bed and the face of the man who lay there, she knew that the supreme moment must nearly have come, so unlike life was what she saw. Sandie, the gillie whom she had known so well, with whom year after year she had passed so many pleasant and windy days on the moor or by the brown sparkling river, was barely recognisable. The grey, pallid mask, with skin drawn tight over the protruding bones of the face, was scarcely human. Both upper and lower lips, already growing bluish in tinge, were drawn back, so that in both jaws the teeth were exposed even to the gums, and his eyes, wide open and bright and dry, looked piteously this way and that, with pupils dilated with terror, and the soul, frightened at this dark and lonely journey on which none could be its companion, sought for comfort and reassurement, but sought in vain. It was no delirium of fever that caused that active scrutiny: it was fear and dumb appeal. His hands, thin and white, lay outside the blanket, and they, too, were active, picking at it. Cochrane had seen that before, and knew what it meant, and he quickly pulled a chair to the bedside, leaving Maud standing. "Sandie," he said, "just listen here a minute. You think you are ill, maybe you think you are dying--at least, your mortal mind tells you that--and you've let yourself believe it. Now, there's not an atom of truth in it. Why, man, God is looking after you, and He has sent me here this evening to remind you of that. Your forgetting that has made your poor body sick. That's all the trouble." Maud looked from that mask on the pillow to the man who sat by the bed, and if the one face was dark with the shadow of death that lay over it, the other was so lit and illumined with life that it seemed possible even now that death, for all his grimness and nearness, might have to retreat. Some force, irresistible and radiant, seemed to be challenging him. But as yet she did not dare hope. She could only wait and watch. Then there was silence. Cochrane took his mind off all else, off poor Sandie even, to abandon himself to the knowledge, the belief in the only Power that healed and lived. Though the evening was cool, the beads of perspiration stood thick on his forehead as he concentrated all his strength, all his power of belief, into the realisation of this. Then, again, after some quarter of an hour, he raised his head, and looked on the glassy, dying face on the pillow, and spoke more eagerly, more insistently than ever. "How can you be ill if you only realise that there is nothing real in the world except God's Infinite Love? Fix yourself on that. It's only sin that makes us able to be afraid, or sick, or in pain. But that isn't God's will for you, Sandie, and He won't have it. It's that old cheat, the devil, who makes us sin, and who makes us think we are sick. He tells you, too, that you are a poor sinful body. So you are, but you've forgotten a big thing about that. God has wiped it all away. Jesus took it, the dear Master took all that, and all sickness, too, on His shoulders. It nearly staggered even Him for a moment." He paused again, and for some minutes more was silent, absorbed in the realisation of that which he believed. All the time he seemed absolutely unconscious of Maud's presence, and in the silence she looked back from him to that which had been but a death's-head on the pillow, and saw, not exactly to her amazement, but to her intense awe, that a certain change had come over it. It was possible, of course, that her first terrified glance at it had exaggerated the deathliness of it, and that she might in a way have now got used to it. But, in any case, it seemed different. Or, again, the intensity of Mr. Cochrane's belief in the power to heal those on whom the very shadow of death lay might have infected her, and made her see through the medium of his conviction. Yet it seemed to her that a change was there. She faintly recognised Sandie again--the living Sandie whom she knew, not the dead Sandie whom she had seen when she first entered the room. That gaping, mirthless grin had vanished; his lips were no longer drawn back to the base of the teeth. And surely, half an hour ago, his lips had been nearly blue; now a blood-tinge invaded them again. Also, those poor hands, which had picked and plucked at the blanket, were still. They lay there weak and nerveless, but they no longer picked and clawed. His eyes sought comfort still, but it seemed that they had begun to find it. And was the eclipse, the shadow of death, beginning to pass away from his face? Was the power of Infinite Love, which must be so much stronger than sickness and death, being here and now openly manifested? Or was she but imagining these things in obedience to the suggestion made by that strong, virile mind of the man who sat by the bedside? From Sandie she looked back to Mr. Cochrane. Soon he raised his eyes again, for through this long silence he had sat with his face buried in his hands; and again he looked at Sandie, and there shone from him a beam so tender and triumphant that his face was transfigured. "You are better already, my dear man," he said, "and you are coming back so quickly, retracing your way along the road of error and untruth and unreality. Don't you feel it? Don't you know it?" There could be no mistake now: Sandie's face had changed. Life, feeble and fluttering, made its impress there; death but flickered where it had dwelt so firmly. A tide had turned. It was low-water still, but the water no longer ebbed; it had begun to flow. And, after a moment, Sandie smiled at those brown, childlike eyes, and the smile was not that fixed and terrified grin which Maud had seen there before. Cochrane caught, so to speak, and held that look, the first conscious effort of the man who had been dying. "That's right," he went on; "all that false belief which has made you ill is coming out of your mind. It must come out, all of it. You can't do it of yourself, and I can't do it for you, but Divine Love can. The door of your heart is opening. Oh, let it swing wide, and let the great sun shine in and chase the shadows away. There, wider yet! Sin is gone, illness is gone; all is gone except the great light. If anyone has told you you were sick, forget it. He was mistaken; he didn't stop to think that there can't be any sickness where God is, and He is everywhere, wherever He is asked to be. We have asked Him to come here, and here He is. Put your hand in His, and let Divine Love lead you, and your sin and your fear and your sickness will just roll away as the mists roll away from the moor, as you have so often seen, when the sun rises. You feel that, Sandie--you know it. Your fear has ceased, for there is nothing to be afraid of. Your sickness and weakness are leaving you, because they were born only from night mists which the sun has scattered. You are tired and weak still--yes, yes--because you have been wading through the slime and choking mud of fear and false belief; but you are coming out of that, and already God is setting your feet on the rock. You will not be afraid for any terror by night, nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness, and all day you are safe, for the arrow that flieth by day cannot touch you, nor the sickness that destroys in the noonday of ignorance and unbelief. God and His salvation are come to you, and you will dwell in His house of defence, set very high. So tell me with your own voice, are you not getting well? Do you not know you are better? Are not the false things vanishing?" * * * * * What was happening? Maud asked herself that with thrilled and bewildered wonder. She had to believe the evidence of her own ears, when she heard Sandie saying--faintly, indeed, but audibly, and in his natural voice--that he was better. She had to believe the evidence of her own eyes, which showed her the pallid mask exchanged for the face of a living being. He had been pulled back from the gate of death, even as the door was being opened for him to pass through. The colour was coming back to that ghastly clay-hued face; terror and suffering were being expunged from his eyes; the short, panting breath, whistling from between clenched teeth and backdrawn lips, became natural respiration. And from under the bed-clothes there came no longer jumping movements; the limbs lay still. Yet it was impossible; she could not yet believe the evidence of her own senses. It must be some trick, some illusion. And even as the thought entered her mind, Cochrane, for the first time, turned to her. "You mustn't doubt either, dear lady," he said, "for you know that all I have been saying is quite true; it is the only thing that is completely true. Come, take all other thought out of your mind. If you have been questioning the truth of what you see here, reverse that doubt. Tell Sandie that you know God is making him well, just because he is beginning to know that neither illness nor sin nor fear can exist in the presence of Infinite Love. Tell him that." Maud took a step forward, and stood at the foot of the bed. She had to believe what her eyes showed her, and they showed her no longer that unrecognisable death-mask, but the face of Sandie--thin and pale and tired, it is true, but his living face. "It is quite true, Sandie," she said. "You are getting well. It is your faith in the Infinite Love that makes you well." Cochrane turned to the bed again, and spoke in a voice so tender and strong that Maud felt a sudden lump rise in her throat. "Why, Sandie," he said, "your faith is spreading round you like calm waters, and Infinite Love shines through it like the sun at noonday. Faith is streaming from you, and the same knowledge streams from us all--Lady Maud and me. And the streams are joining, and rushing in spate together over what was a dry and barren hillside. Listen to the voice of them, shouting their praise to the Lord. By Jove! He is being good to you, isn't He?" Again he paused a moment. "And now, since that old cheat, the devil, has been tiring your poor body out, poking it and pinching it and roasting it, you will have a good sleep. Sleep the clock round, Sandie; but before you drop off just be sure you've got tight hold of God's hand, and, like Jacob, say you won't let Him go before He blesses you. And don't let Him go afterwards, either. And when you wake to-morrow squeeze His hand again, and say, 'Divine Love, you're going to lead me now and always.' He will, too. He never said 'No' to anybody, and the biggest trouble He has is that we won't keep on asking Him for what we want. And now get to sleep, my dear man. Just say to yourself, 'Thou, Lord, art my hope; Thou hast set Thy house of defence very high. There shall no evil happen unto thee....'" * * * * * And then, gently as a child's, Sandie's eyelids flickered once and shut down. Cochrane got up without another word, and in silence he and Maud left the room. At the door Maud looked back. Sandie was lying quite still, drawing in the long, full respirations of natural sleep. Nurse Miles had returned during the last hour to the billiard-room, where she was settling her patients for the night, and as they went through Maud stopped to speak to her. "Sandie is ever so much better, nurse," she said, "and he has gone to sleep, I think. You won't disturb him again to-night, will you?" Nurse Miles shook her head. "It's exhaustion, I'm afraid," she said, "not sleep. He will not be disturbed till Dr. Symes comes. And I daresay not even then, poor fellow!" Cochrane was standing by, and it seemed to Maud as if it was her duty to bear witness here and now to what she had seen, to what she incredulously believed. "There is no need for Dr. Symes to come at all," she said. "I have not sent for him, and shall not. Go and look for yourself, so that I may know you are satisfied." * * * * * The nurse stared at her a moment, then went swiftly to the door of the room where Sandie lay, opened it, and passed through. In some half-minute she came out again, closing it softly behind her. "Why, he's getting some natural sleep," she said, "and he hasn't closed his eyes the last three nights. And his breathing is quiet, and there is no more rigor. Yet his temperature came down to below normal from high fever an hour ago. Or could I have made a mistake?" Cochrane smiled at her. "Yes, nurse; I think there has been a mistake," he said. "But he's all right now, and you are satisfied, are you? Good night. Sandie won't wake for the next twelve hours, I think." * * * * * The two went downstairs again. Thurso was still up in his bedroom, and, but that the table had been cleared, the room was just as they had left it an hour ago. But it seemed to Maud as if some huge change had taken place. What it was she could hardly formulate yet; she only knew that the whole aspect and nature of things was different. Then she turned to Cochrane. "I don't understand," she said; "I am bewildered." "You understood just now," said he, "when you told Sandie his faith was making him well. That is all. It's just the truest and simplest and only thing in this world. But I'll get home now, Lady Maud. I've--I've got more to do." Maud felt fearfully excited. All her emotions, all her beliefs and aspirations, were strung up to their highest by what she had seen. She had seen what she had seen; Nurse Miles had seen too. It was all incredible, but it had happened. She could not call it impossible. And if this had taken place, why should not more? "Ah, make them all well!" she cried. "Stop this dreadful false belief of suffering and illness, since you say it is false." "But is it not false?" he asked. "Did it not vanish before the truth?" "Yes, yes; it must be so!" cried she excitedly. "But can't you get God to make them all know what Sandie knows now?" He put out his hand to her. "Don't you think He is doing that?" said he. "You see, there have been no fresh cases now for two days, and all the cases are doing well, I believe--now." "Then, is it stopping?" she asked. Those serene childlike eyes smiled at her. "Why, yes," he said. "Good night, Lady Maud." CHAPTER IV. It was mid-June, but no Londoner of any intelligence could possibly have guessed it, because, instead of the temperature being absolutely Arctic, it was extremely warm--a condition of things which in England we are not accustomed to associate with the midsummer months. Middlesex, we must suppose, had somehow come into conjunction with the Dog-star, who had bent his beneficent rays onto the county, and given birth to a whole week-long litter of delicious dog-days. It was really hot; there was really a sun, a big, blazing, golden sun, instead of the lemon-coloured plate which in general shines so very feebly and remotely through the fog and dark mists of Thames-side, and this was not only delightful in itself, but it actually made the shade a delightful thing to get into. The tops of omnibuses were thick with folk, and the Londoner of even the parks and palaces left the black silk tube, with which he is accustomed to roast and destroy his few remaining hairs, at home, and wore a straw hat instead, even when he went out, as he usually did, to lunch--and didn't care. Indeed, there was no reason why he should, since only the obviously insane wore top-hats in such weather, and insanity was surely a more serious defect to have on the head than straw. A thin blue haze hung over distances. Piccadilly, a hundred yards away, had a bloom upon it like the dust on a ripe plum, and horses (those intelligent animals) had followed the lead of their masters, and wore straw hats too, with rims coquettishly raised at the sides to allow plenty of ear-play. Sarsaparilla was on tap out of large yellow barrels, and the irresponsible happiness which only fine weather or a consciousness of virtue so pronounced as to be priggish can give, flooded the town like the sunshine itself. It may still be a question whether it is happiness that makes people good, or virtue that makes people happy, but there can be no doubt at all that beautiful weather makes us all somewhat kinder and more charitably disposed than we are wont to be in March, and also immensely happy, so that the Zadkiel of spiritual almanacs will probably be right in prophesying the coincidence of the millennium with real midsummer weather. * * * * * The haze of heat which made a plum of Piccadilly, which the progressive London County Council, after their affectionate visit to the broad boulevards of Paris, had, at enormous expense, widened by at least six inches, dealt still more magically, having more suitable material to work upon, with the Green Park, as seen from the windows of Thurso House, and with Thurso House as seen from the Green Park. For it was a great square Italian palace, which looked as if it had been taken straight from the Grand Canal at Venice, and its stately white walls of Portland stone, with its long rows of tall windows, wore an air of extraordinary distinction among its squat or gawky neighbours. The entrance to it, faced by a deep covered porch, supported on Roman-Corinthian pillars, was in Arlington Street, while towards the Park it was faced by a broad stone terrace, from which two curved staircases went down into the small formal Italian garden, screened from the Park itself by a hedge of tall lilacs. Thus, though it stood in the very centre of the beating heart of London, it was admirably quiet, and the bustle and hum of the streets came muffled to it, not causing disturbance and distraction, but rather stimulating to activity by its persistent though gentle reminder that the world was very busy indeed. The dining-room was at the back of the house, and opened onto the broad terrace that ran the whole length of the building, and to-day the row of its eight huge windows was thrown wide, so that the lace curtains that prevented the Park lounger from looking in, but allowed the diner to look out, swayed and bulged and were withdrawn in the hot summer breeze that came like breaking waves against them, while the bourdon note of the busy town came in like the hum of great bees burrowing into golden flowers. Listening, you could divide the noise up into its component parts. The sound of human voices was there, and the tread of feet, the clip-clop of single horses, the tattoo of the hoofs of pairs, and the throb and rattle of machine-driven vehicles; but the ear receiving it without poised attention knew only that many busy lives were active, and many wheels rolling. The room itself was parquetted with oak and walnut, and the floor, as befitted the heat and the season, was left bare, except for some half-dozen of silk Persian rugs that made shimmering islands on the sea of its shining surface. The wall which faced the Park was, indeed, rather window than wall, and was unadorned but for the brocaded curtains which were looped back from the windows; but the other three walls glowed with the presentments of bygone Raynhams. The first Lord Thurso was there, and his son, the first Earl, a portrait in peer's robes by Reynolds, who had also painted the superb picture of his wife, and the great family group of them, with their two sons and a daughter, which hung over the Italian chimney-piece. The second Earl was there, too, the eldest boy in the family group, grown to man's estate, and painted by Gainsborough. The picture of his wife was a Romney, with the red jewelled shadows of that master, while Lawrence was the artist for the next generation. Then, after a gap, bridged over in part by the elder Richmond, came the present Thurso and his wife, two brilliant and startling canvases, claiming kinship by right of their exquisite art with the earlier masters. In other respects--for nothing could spoil these glorious decorations or the more smouldering brilliance of the painted ceiling--the room did not at this moment appear at the level of its best possibilities, for the floor was "star-scattered" with a multitude of small round tables in preparation for the supper of the ball that was to take place that night; while at the end, in front of the chimney-piece, was a long, narrow table, laid on one side only, for the very elect. Though numerous, they were to be very elect indeed, and whole constellations of stars and yards of garters would not find a place there to-night, but shine at the small round tables. In any case, however, so Catherine Thurso had arranged, everybody was going to have proper things to eat and drink, which should be presented to her guests' notice in decent fashion. There was to be no buffet-supper for the mere rank and file, where, as at the refreshment-room of a railway-station, her friends would scramble for sandwiches and pale yellow drinks, with mint and anise and cummin floating about in them, among footmen who jogged their elbows with plates of strawberries, while the elect, Olympian-wise, refreshed themselves behind closed doors. To-night, in fact, Thurso House was to be reopened with a due regard for its stateliness and the huge hospitality that it ought to exercise after a period of ten lean years, so to speak, in which the late lord had lived alone here, with half the rooms closed, a secret and eccentric life. He had not even been wicked and held infamous revel, which would have been picturesque and full of colour; but he had only been morose, and shut himself up; miserly, and had not entertained anybody; gouty, and devoted to port. He had died just a year ago, and to-night the house was going to be launched again, after its period of dry-dock. Lady Thurso would almost have liked to rechristen it too. It was associated in her mind and in the mind of everybody else with such a very disagreeable old gentleman. * * * * * Lady Thurso, during these ten lean years, in which she and her husband had "pigged it," as she expressed it, in a poky little house in Grosvenor Square, owing to the tightness of the purse-strings, had laid very solid foundations for the position she meant to occupy when she should be installed here. She fully intended to be magnificent, and to fill the place of mistress of this house in a manner worthy of it. But no one had a greater contempt than she for the modern hostess, who makes use of her time and money and position only to give enormous caravanserai entertainments, and to spend the rest of her days in going to similar functions provided by her friends. Such methods were futile: they never led to anything worth doing, while those who thought that by lavish entertainment they could get, socially speaking, anywhere that was worth getting to, made an even greater error. She had seen during these last ten years the incessant invasion of London by those whose sole invasive power was money and the willingness to spend it to any extent in order to be considered what is called "smart." And she entirely disagreed with those ignorant and old-fashioned moralists who shook their heads and lifted up their voices in lamentations over the capitulation of London to the almighty dollar. London--all London that was worth anything, that is to say--had not, with all due deference to the loud crowings from Farm Street, capitulated in the very least to the almighty dollar, and those--there were many of them--who imagined that they were making a great splash in the world, and were becoming of social importance, merely because they were rich and willing to spend their money on bands and prima-donnas and ortolans, made a mistake almost pathetic in its ineptitude. Such folk never got anywhere really. They never became _intime_ with the society they coveted, however many weird parties they gave, where one met the latest African explorer, or looked at magic-lantern slides of the bacillus of cholera, or turned out all the lights and observed the antics of radium, or listened (this was rather popular this year, for everybody was bent on improving his mind) to short lectures on the ideals of England or the remoteness of the stars. The poor dears thought they were laying the foundation of what they considered "smartness," whereas they were only turning their houses into free restaurants, where the world, with the merest commonsense, went to be fed, if it had nothing better to do. There were, of course, others who had some further capacity than that of mere spending--people who were witty, agreeable, and with the power to charm. Certainly, their wealth helped such of them as desired, for some inexplicable reason, to have the details of their parties in the _Morning Post_; but it was not their wealth that gave them success, but their wit. As if anybody of sense cared whether the latest sensation of the music-halls came and did conjuring tricks or not, or whether they ate cold beef or picked and pecked through a two-hour dinner! What made going out to dinner pleasant was the intercourse with pleasant people, not the screeching of an operatic tenor or performing dogs. Of course, many people would go anywhere in order to be fed, if the food was decent; but then they "wiped their mouths and went their journey," leaving the poor self-deceived hostess to think that she was going hand over hand up the social ladder. Catherine Thurso, being half American by birth, was a compatriot of many of these, and her short, perfectly modelled nose went instinctively into the air when she thought of them. In London, she was sure, you could not become of any importance merely by spending money, though many people thought you could, and, indeed, thought they had. In New York, it is true, such a thing was not only possible, but easy, for there, so it seemed to her, the standard of social success was the preposterous character of your extravagance. But those who thought that the same recipe was good in London were wanting in the sense of moral geography. Wealth in London brought to your house shoals of the Hon. Mrs. Not-quite-in-it, second-rate pianists, and the crowd of everybody else who wanted to get on. Or if you flew a little higher in the way of intelligence, you could get harmless little connoisseurs who were full of second-rate information about the world in general and their own branch of art, who picked up mouldy Correggios and doubtful Stradivariuses. The cream of the second-rate could be skimmed by the wealthy, but unless they were something more, they got no higher than that. Your wealth could give you that and publicity, and the fatal error these pathetic climbers fell into lay in thinking that publicity meant celebrity, and that the fact that you had "been seen in the Park, looking charming," meant anything at all. Her "ten lean years" had certainly not been spent in these futile strivings. At this moment she was sitting with Jim Raynham, her husband's younger brother, and Ruby Majendie--who, she hoped, would soon persuade Jim to marry her, for the sake of the happiness of them both--having lunch at one of those little round tables in the dining-room, in order to direct the decoration of the room for the supper this evening. Time, as usual, was precious with her to-day, and the minutes in which it was necessary to sit at a table and eat could thus be used. She had just given orders that all the hydrangeas, pale pink and pale blue, of which a perfect copse had been made at the far end of the room, should be taken away again, for really the Italian fireplace was much more decorative. "Besides, hydrangeas always remind me of Mr. James Turner," she said in parenthesis. "And who is he?" asked Jim. "He isn't he--he's it. It's a little art gentleman, plump, like a bullfinch, with a little grey moustache. You must know him, because, when one lunches or dines out, he is invariably there, and he is invariably the one person whom one can't remember. Hydrangeas remind me of him, because he looks as if he had been grown in a pot in a moderately warm greenhouse. He is like a hydrangea beginning to get stout, just as those dreadful shrubs are. He always opens conversation by saying that I cut him the other day in Bond Street. I explain that I didn't see him, which is quite true. I never can see him." The florist had removed all the hydrangeas except a small group that screened the centre of the grate. These were the "choicest," and he waited for further orders. "No, take them all away," called out Lady Thurso. "All, every one. Isn't it so, Ruby?" Ruby put her head on one side and looked. "Yes, quite right," she said. "I wish you wouldn't always be right. Nobody else would have thought of having nothing there." "Because people don't see the value of empty places," said she. "They want to fill everything up--the walls, the fireplaces, the hours, everything. Oh, think of the unemployed! How nice it sounds! One works and subscribes and does all kinds of things for them, but if only they would be as kind, and work for the employed, so that they might be unemployed! Fancy having time to do nothing at all! That is the condition which I envy, though, of course, if it were offered me, like so many things I envy, I would not accept it, because it would mean parting with my individuality. But I would really give any sum to be able to buy a couple of hours this afternoon." "What for?" "Why, to be unemployed. I want to sit in a chair and doze if I like. No, I think that would be waste; but for two hours to feel that I had nothing whatever to do. Who was it--Queen Elizabeth, I think--who said she wanted to be a milkmaid? Don't you understand? I understand that enormously. I would even be a hydrangea, and stand in a pot, or be Mr. James Turner in his curator's room, with nothing to do until it is closing time. Instead, I am supposed to belong to the leisured classes, and never have a moment. No ferns, either," she called to the florist--"nothing at all." A footman was markedly waiting at her elbow to get in a word edgeways. "The carriage is round, my lady," he said. Lady Thurso hastily finished an egg in aspic, with which she had begun lunch. "For me?" she said. "Yes, my lady. It was ordered for a quarter-past two." Lady Thurso pressed her fingers against her eyelids for a moment. "I can't remember," she said. "Go to my room quickly, and bring me a large blue engagement-book--the one with 'Where am I?' written on it. And bring me anything--cold mutton or bread and cheese." She turned to Ruby. "And I am so hungry!" she cried. "And it is exceedingly likely I shall have to fly off without any lunch. Oh, if I were only unemployed for two hours, I should spend one in eating! Besides, I had no breakfast, and is one egg in aspic sufficient for an active female until tea-time?" Ruby laughed. "It wouldn't be for this one," she said. "But why no breakfast? Is that a new plan?" "New? No; it's as old as the hills, for that delightful old Professor, the one like a pink bear at the British Museum, told me the other day----" "Is he a hydrangea, too?" asked Jim. "Not at all. When one goes out to lunch, he is the one person in the room whom everybody knows. Don't interrupt. He told me that the ancient Egyptians never had any breakfast, because the word for breakfast is the same as afternoon, or something of the sort--and think how marvellous they were! I've been an ancient Egyptian for nearly a fortnight." "But they never had motor-cars," said Jim. "It may have been that." "Oh, how flippant! How could we ever get anywhere without them, considering how frequently we don't, even with them? Ah, now for the book!" Catherine turned hurriedly over the pages of "Where am I?" and found where she was. She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed it again. "Thank Heaven!" she said, "because otherwise I really shouldn't have tasted food since yesterday until tea-time. Send the carriage back, please. It's only the bazaar at St. Ursula's, and I told them I almost certainly couldn't go. Besides, the Princess is opening it, so I needn't. I should only have to stand up and curtsey, and agree that the day is vile." "It isn't," said Jim. "I know; but one can't argue. Oh, the carriage must come back in twenty minutes," she added to the footman. Jim helped himself largely to the next course. "Catherine, that is the first time you have ever disappointed me," he said. "I thought you would always rather go somewhere and do something than sit down and be comfortable. I thought you never even wanted to be unemployed." "I don't really," said she. "I only think I do." "But, anyhow, you prefer to have lunch than go to St Ursula's." "Ah, you don't understand! I have got to be at the Industrial Sale at three, in order to open it myself, and I literally haven't enough minutes to get down to St Ursula's, and stand and grin, and get back to Portland Place by three. It couldn't happen. My anxiety was that the quarter-past two engagement might leave me time, if I had no lunch, to get to Portland Place at three. It won't. Hurrah!" Lady Thurso poured herself out a glass of very hot water from a blanketed jug that stood at her elbow, and drank it in rapid sips. She never took alcohol in any form, except on those rare occasions when she was really dead beat, and had to do something energetic the next moment. But since every fad appealed to her, she, Athenian-wise, in her desire for some new thing, tried them all. She had just abandoned, in fact, the plan of drinking nothing whatever at meals, but sipping distilled water at eleven in the morning and half-past three in the afternoon. It seemed to suit her quite well, but as she was, and had always been, in perfect health already, there was nothing particular to be gained by it, whereas for other reasons the _régime_ was inconvenient, since at those hours when she ought to be sipping distilled water she was usually very busy, and either forgot, or, as at a bazaar, was so placed that distilled water was practically unattainable. So, just for the moment, she drank hot water at meals, and found it suited her as well as everything else. "Good gracious, what nonsense people talk," she said, "when they speak of the idle and luxurious upper classes! Look at us all. From the King downwards, we are worked to death for the sake of the classes who revile us. I stopped in the Park the other day to listen to one of those unwashed orators of the Marble Arch. He read out from a grimy newspaper that the King had been shooting somewhere, and was to return next day 'in a motor-car,' said the speaker, with unspeakable irony, and there were groans. Oh, how I longed to speak, too--but I hadn't time--and remind them that he did a far longer day's work than any two of them put together, and would come up in a motor-car because otherwise he couldn't open the new wing of the Ophthalmic Hospital next morning. But that is just the weak point about Socialism. I am a Socialist until I hear them talk. Good gracious, how I should welcome an Eight-Hours Bill! It would be a holiday! Eight hours! Lazy brutes!" Lady Thurso paused for a moment to eat the slice of cold mutton which she had ordered. Having been a disciple of Dr. Haig for several months in the past year, she had veered round, and now ate hardly anything but meat and pulses. She felt magnificently well. "Not long ago, too, I saw an article in some Socialistic paper," she said, "which struck me as exceedingly forcible, and I wrote to the author, asking him to come and see me at ten one morning, and booked the engagement when I heard from him. I was interested in what he said; I wanted to know what he went on. He came on the morning in question, but at half-past ten, and what was the reason, do you think? Because he had only just got up! He told me so himself. But I was anxious to do him justice, and said I supposed he had gone to bed very late the night before. Not at all; he had been in bed by twelve. And there was I, who had not gone to bed till four, expecting and waiting for this bedridden creature! And he had written about the indolence of me! Ah, that week I had felt strong Socialistic leanings, but he cured me at once. Thurso was so funny, too. He shuffled--you know Thurso's shuffle of disapproval--when I told him about it. Why shouldn't I have seen the man? I was interested, until I saw him, anyhow." Jim considered this. He was not a person of action, but liked inquiring into motive. It was this that made Catherine almost despair of getting him to marry Ruby; he could easily spend so many years in theoretical study of the advantages and drawbacks of matrimony. "Is that sufficient?" he asked. "May one do anything that one finds interesting?" "Certainly, if it doesn't injure anybody. The first rule of life is to give other people a good time if you can; the second is not to hurt them under any pretext; and the third to enjoy yourself in every other way. That is why I adore what Thurso calls "quackery" of all kinds. I love discovering the secret of life which solves everything for about ten minutes. I have--what did the pink bear say?--oh yes: the most insatiable appetite for novelties. Wasn't it darling of him? It keeps one busy, and that, after all, is the true elixir of life. I should be miserable if I hadn't got more to do than I can possibly manage." "But just now you said you would give anything for a couple of unemployed hours this afternoon," said Ruby. "I know, because the flesh was weak, and I was very hungry and dog-tired. I feel better now--nearly ready to begin again." Ruby turned her pale Botticelli face towards her. "How you can go on, I don't know," she said. "You play all the time we play, and work all the time we rest. You make me feel lazy too, which I resent." "Darling, I will make you feel industrious this afternoon," said Catherine, "because I want you and Jim to stop here, and criticise and alter and direct till the ballroom and this room and the staircase are all absolutely perfect. You know what I want done: I want you to see that it is done. Don't judge by daylight only. Have the blinds and curtains drawn, and see that it looks right by electric light. I shall not be able to get home till just before dinner, and then it will be too late. English decorators are hopeless; they know as much about decoration as I know about the lunar theory. I wonder they haven't sent some plush monkeys climbing up into spiders' webs to hang in the windows." "They sent hundreds of yellow calceolarias," said Ruby, "which is about as bad. I sent them all back. And poor Mr. Hopkinson didn't seem to know what wild-flowers were, when I told him you wanted wild-flowers all up the staircase." "He knows now," remarked Lady Thurso. * * * * * It was probable that poor Mr. Hopkinson did "know now," for ever since morning tall flowering grasses, meadow-sweet, cornflowers, cistus, ox-eye daisies, tendrils of wild-rose, clumps of buttercups, and all the myriad herbage of rural June, had been poured into the house, and the staircase, with great boughs of hawthorn and rose overhanging the lowlier growths, was like an apotheosised lane lying between ribands of shaded hayfield. Lady Thurso, inheriting the American love of doing something which has never been done before, a thing which leads to failure in a dozen cases, and hits the bull's-eye on the lucky thirteenth, had never been better inspired, and the staircase, a rather heavy and not very admirable feature in the house, had been gloriously transformed by the lightness and spring of this feathery decoration. But poor Mr. Hopkinson's ignorance of what wild-flowers were had been capped by his ignorance of how wild-flowers grew, and the original order to decorate the stairs with only wild-flowers had led to his placing the poor dears in neat and orderly rows, as in a riband bed. Consequently, he and his assistant florists had, about twelve-thirty that morning, to demolish and begin all over again, having first, under Lady Thurso's supervision, "made a salad" of all these fragrant hampers of flowers and grasses, and then stuck them "properly"--that is to say, absolutely at random--into the trays of moist clay and troughs of water that lined each side of the staircase, which would keep them alive and bright-eyed till morning. There was still five minutes before the carriage came, and Lady Thurso, "while the bread was yet in her mouth," hurried out to see if Mr. Hopkinson had at length grasped the nature of her scheme. It appeared that he had. The staircase was a country lane, just as she had visualised it. And, somehow, with the adaptability that was as natural to her as is the sympathetic change of colour in a chameleon, as she stood below a clump of flowering hawthorn, she looked, for all her air of the world and patrician aspect, like some exquisite milkmaid, the embodiment of Queen Elizabeth's ideal. But the milkmaid had the critical eye, and she looked very slowly and carefully up and down this vista of the hayfields. She examined and re-examined. "More buttercups in that corner," she said--"all in a clump like sunlight--and another big bough of hawthorn--two boughs. Not twigs like that, just buttonholes, but boughs." She waited, sitting on the top step with Ruby, till this was done; then eagerly, but carefully, she looked at it again with her eyes half shut. "I _think_ it will do," she said, "but please have all the curtains drawn, dear Ruby, and look at it by electric light. I'm not sure there is enough yellow even yet. I hope it won't give Thurso hay-fever, for he and I will be planted here till the royal quadrille begins. He and Maud get here this afternoon." "And the typhoid?" asked Ruby. "For the last week there has been no further case," she said, "and everybody is getting better. No deaths for the last week, either. It looks as if it is all over. I was quite wrong, it seems, about the need of Thurso's going there. It seems that he was of the utmost use in making the people obey doctors' orders. I had not thought of that; it was stupid of me." This was completely characteristic of her. If she were wrong, she owned up at once. It spared one the degradation of arguing against one's convictions. "But I hope he will stop in town for the rest of the season," she went on. "People already think it is odd of him to be in Scotland now; and though it matters very little what people think, it is much better that they should not think at all." "And Maud?" asked Ruby. "It is from her I had all this news, though I have been writing--type-writing, I should say--to Thurso. Maud was interesting. She told me about a Mr. Cochrane, to whom Thurso let the fishing. He is a Christian Scientist, which sounds silly, but Maud says she saw him cure a bad case. She writes quite gravely, too, as if she really believed it, and she is not fanciful. I think I shall study Christian Science next August." "Why August?" "Because I sha'n't have any time in July. Oh yes, and Maud did not know that the fishing was let--so like Thurso not to tell her--and was caught by Mr. Cochrane poaching in his river. He wasn't annoyed, it appears, though it certainly ought to have been annoying. Do you think I shall never be annoyed any more if I study Christian Science all August?" "Oh, conceal your want of annoyance, then," said Ruby, "and in any case don't get the Christian Science smile. It wouldn't suit you, and it is particularly fatiguing for others. Alice Yardly has it. That is why I can't look at her any more." Lady Thurso was still not quite satisfied with her staircase, or, at any rate, she wanted to be sure that she was. "Still more buttercups," she proclaimed. "A hundred--two hands full of them." Then she detached herself again completely, and turned to Ruby. "Oh, you must be just, Ruby," she said. "Alice was always fatiguing, whether she smiled or not, and she is not really more fatiguing now than she used to be. Maud loves her, and so do I, and we both yawn our heads off when she is with us. It is true that she now seems to smile with a purpose, but if we didn't know she was a Christian what's-his-name, we shouldn't notice the change. Her plan is to be helpful now, but she is just as helpless as ever, so it doesn't matter. Of course, nobody can really help anybody else. We all have to help ourselves." "Then, why do you spend your life----" began Ruby. "In bazaars and industries, you mean. I hardly know. I daresay you think it is insincere--that I ought to sell the diamond palisade and the ruby plaster, or induce Thurso to do so. But I am sincere. I want to live a gorgeous life, and I will. At the same time, I am delighted to work while you rest, as you said, if my work will make some poor wretches in Caithness a little less uncomfortable. If I didn't, I should lie awake at night, thinking about them. That would be uncomfortable for me, too, so you are quite at liberty to suppose that it is all selfishness--refined selfishness, if you like, which is the worst sort. Certainly, if I wasn't a very hard-working woman, which I am, I should have bad dreams by day, as well as no sleep at night." Again she paused. "And I've been talking about myself," she said, "which you will allow is unusual. And the carriage is here, and I must go. Ruby, you see the idea of the corner, don't you? It must be sunlight--sunlight of buttercups, bless them! Oh, to be a milkmaid, now that June is here! But otherwise don't let them touch the staircase any more. It is so nearly what I meant it to be that it is safer not to run any risks. It is darling of you to stop and superintend these stupid people. And please, if they bring any gardenia or tuberose, make them take it away, like the calceolarias. Gardenias are so 'powerful.' What a heavenly expression! I am sure it was invented at Clapham. The same people say 'carriage sweep' and 'soiled handkerchiefs.' I hate the middle classes!" * * * * * Lady Thurso would probably have been much surprised if she had been told that she was a genius, because she had a dim idea that, in order to be, or, rather, have been, a genius, it was necessary to live a sordid and unsuccessful life, and to die prematurely and unnoticed in a garret. But if the stock definition of genius was at all correct, she had a very reasonable claim to the title, for her power of taking pains bordered on the infinite. It made no matter to her on what she was engaged. Whatever she did, she approached her task with the transcendent aim for perfection, and whether it was the decoration of her staircase, or the speech that she had to make at the Industrial Sale, she bestowed on it the utmost effort of which she was capable. Another gift crowned this, which, though almost as rare, is not less remunerative; for when her utmost pains had been bestowed, she could dismiss the subject from her mind, and not worry about it any more. Thus now, the moment she had left her door, the staircase decoration ceased to exist for her. She had done her best, and her connection with it was severed. The speech, too, that she would have to make in a quarter of an hour was non-existent also, since this morning she had thought it over till she knew no more to think, had written it down, and had said it aloud to herself until she was perfectly satisfied that she knew what she wanted to say, and could say it. This being so, she abandoned herself to the joy of looking about her--a fascinating pursuit, if one looks with intelligence. It was she, in fact, who was the author of a word that had gone round London--namely, that by driving for an hour at the right time and through the right streets you could, without exchanging a word with anybody, know all that the morning papers had contained of importance, and predict all that would be in the evening sheets. In the course of such a drive you could see the leader of what had been the Opposition and was now the Government stepping into a hansom, with a face elate but anxious, at his door in Grosvenor Square. The hansom argued a sudden emergency. There was no luggage, and the probable goal was Buckingham Palace. Who, then, was the new Prime Minister? Again, in Chesham Place you could see the Russian Ambassador getting into his motor, with luggage piled on the top. Clearly, then, he was going out of town, and an amelioration in Russian affairs might reasonably be argued, since it was impossible that he should leave if the crisis were as critical as it had been yesterday. Or, again, the blinds were down where A was very ill, the blinds were still up where B was yesterday supposed to be critically ill after an operation. Therefore, A had thought worse of it, and died; B had thought better of it, and still lived. Then there was a block at Hyde Park Corner, and the royal liveries flashed by. The new Prime Minister would only just get to Buckingham Palace first. But much as she observed, it was probable that, as far as observation went, she was more the victim than the priest, for in all the little London world which is called the great there was no one at this moment quite so important as she. She "mattered"--a thing of rare occurrence in so republican a place--and she mattered publicly, openly, superbly. In the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of London life, in which nothing, neither beauty nor blood nor wit, nor any pre-eminence, carries with it any certain distinction, she was just now the centre of the whole astounding mixture of sordidness and brilliance, of intelligence and stupidity. To-morrow or next year, as she knew quite well, it might be a music-hall artist, or a foreign king, or a twopenny philosopher, or an infant prince, or somebody who played tunes on his front teeth, who would absorb general attention, but just now it was she. She rated "general attention" at about its proper value, knowing quite well that the affection of one friend was worth all the general attention of a century; but she found that it was, as she expressed it, "rather fun." The movements and conjunction of these stars and planets of London life are far more inscrutable than the vagaries of the simpler constellations of the heaven, but just at this moment Catherine Thurso was the central sun round which all else revolved. There were twenty other people who had wealth, beauty, and charm in no less degree than she, though in the matter of beauty forty-nine Parises out of fifty would have awarded the golden apple to this Juno among women, and the world, for that reason or another, had chosen her to be their temporary idol. She was the person who mattered, and this was her hour. And her hour, no less than her own enjoyment of it, she used, as Thurso had said, magnificently, for it really seemed as if charity, no less than social entertainment, would collapse without her support. She made herself a slave to any scheme that helped the helpless, or encouraged the would-be worker to work, and yet all the time she lived, and intended to live, gorgeously. So, like the driver of a pair of horses, she did not suffer the social horse to be lazy or shirk its work, for she knew (and acted on the knowledge) that her social distinction brought buyers to her bazaars. She played, therefore, the brilliant woman of the world for all it was worth, in order to assist deserving objects, though she enjoyed the _rôle_ enormously for its own sake. Both horses, charitable and social, felt her indefatigable lash, and she spurred herself on, just as she spurred on all those who surrounded her, inducing activity in them by the spectacle of her own glorious vitality. Anyone as radically efficient as Catherine Thurso undoubtedly was has to march through life with as few impedimenta as possible, and all emotional baggage which is not likely to be needed must be firmly left behind. She had long ago realised this, and had always acted on it, so that now it was more from force of habit than by any conscious effort that she eliminated from her mind any emotion on its first appearance if it was likely to clog or hinder her energies. Worry, sorrow, regret for all that was past or irremediable, she simply threw away as one throws the envelopes of opened letters into the wastepaper basket. They were of no earthly use; they but made an unprofitable litter if they were allowed to lie about, nor did you want the drawers and compartments in your brain crammed with rubbish like this. Thus, it was but very seldom that she let her thoughts dwell on the one great thing that she had missed all her life. She had never loved. Her marriage with Thurso had, as the Press most truly announced, "been arranged," and she had fallen in with this arrangement. Even as a girl she had wanted the sort of position and opportunity that such a marriage gave her, and she had made, certainly outwardly, and to a very considerable extent inwardly, the most splendid success of it. She had done her duty, too, as a wife in giving him three sons, and had filled her place superbly. But love had never really come to her. That, by no fault of hers, had apparently been left out of her emotional equipment, and since she was convinced that this omission was not her fault, and that it was out of her power to remedy it, she did not worry about it. But to-day, though she did not worry, she could not help wondering about a certain time now long past in her life, since it was conceivable that certain things which as yet belonged only to time long past would begin to be factors in her life in the immediate future. So now that the question of the staircase and the coming speech at the Industrial Sale were off her mind, these things occupied her somewhat insistently. There was no mystery about it all, and nothing whatever to fear either in the past or the future; but certain possibilities interested her. Count Villars had just arrived in England, having at an extraordinarily early age--for he could be scarcely forty yet--been appointed Hungarian Ambassador to the Court of St. James; and there were quite a number of people resident in that parish who remembered very distinctly how desperately he had fallen in love with Catherine Thurso twelve years ago, when she had first come out, and, as her mother expressed it, taken "the shine" out of the rest of the girls of the year. Then, so the world still remembered, rather perplexing events had happened in rapid succession. Her engagement to young Villars had been actually supposed to have taken place, but hardly had that become news when it was contradicted, and Villars, then a junior secretary in the Embassy of which he was now the head, had been transferred elsewhere; while before the season was over Catherine Etheridge's engagement to her present husband was formally announced, and was followed before the end of the year by her marriage. For Mrs. Etheridge had always meant that her daughter should marry Lord Raynham, as he then was; and if anybody thought that her plans were going to be interfered with by any volcanic young Austrian, however brilliant and handsome, without a penny of his own, and removed by half a dozen lives from the succession to the huge estates of Villars (those lives certainly made a lot of difference), she would show him his mistake. There were, in fact, many who thought that Mrs. Etheridge's plans were going to be interfered with; but their mistake had been duly demonstrated to them when Catherine Etheridge so soon after became Catherine Raynham. * * * * * Rudolf Villars, in this long interval of twelve years between his abrupt departure and his return to England, had done everything except marry, and in all that he did Fortune had declared herself to be his parent. His really brilliant gifts had reaped their reward before he was too old to care about success, relations neither near nor dear had died, and he was now next in succession to the estates of Villars--with only a decrepit old great-uncle between him and them--and Ambassador to the English Court. To the world at large this situation, which just now was being rather largely discussed, had elements of interest. It was known that Catherine Thurso and her husband were not romantically attached to each other; it was conjectured that, since Rudolf Villars had remained single, he was still romantically attached to her, and it was impossible to help wondering whether at last she would show signs of being attached to anybody. To the world she was, in spite of her beauty, her charm, her brilliance, a somewhat irritating enigma. All the glory of her belonged to nobody. She did not care for her husband, which was a pity, but what made it worse was that she did not care for anybody else. And so many men had been wildly devoted to her, and of them all not one had met with a single particle of success, or, to do her justice, of encouragement, for she had nothing in common with the flirt. She was not in the least shocked, either, at their protestations. If she had been, her attitude would, at any rate, have been a moral and an intelligible one. But she merely laughed at them, and told them not to be absurd. If they persisted, she yawned. She forgot all about it, too, a week afterwards, even if she had been made to yawn very much, asked them to the house as usual, and was specially friendly. * * * * * Catherine Thurso, as will have been gathered, did her duty with exemplary fullness in the state of life to which her mother, in the main, had called her. As soon as she married she grasped the idea of life that her position entailed, if she was to fill it adequately and with any credit to herself; welcomed the prospect almost with rapture; and, with all the splendid energies of her mind and body, lived up to a really high ideal of it. Her time, her talents, and her money were always at the service of any scheme which she believed to be one that merited support, and she brought to her task not the sense of duty only, but a most warm-hearted kindliness. An unsupported sense of duty alone is a barren road to tread, but her genuine kindliness, her real interest in those who were in need, made it break out for her into flowers. She truly cared for the causes at which she so slaved; she wanted everybody to enjoy himself. But this warmth, this amiability, which pervaded her nature was both the strongest and the highest motive she knew. She did everything warmly, but nothing passionately, because it seemed as if passion had been left out of her nature. Yet sometimes, as on this afternoon, when the factors for years long past were coming up above the horizon again, she wondered whether that was quite strictly the case. It was years, certainly, since any hint or suggestion of it had come near her, but she remembered now that unquiet and perplexity, half bliss, half unhappiness, which she had known in those few weeks, and which had culminated in her half promise (it had not been more than that) to marry Rudolf Villars. Whatever that feeling was, it had been a bud only, something unopened, and had never expanded into a flower, for swift maternal hands had, without any figure of speech, nipped it off. She had been called a sentimental schoolgirl with such extraordinary assurance and acidity that she had felt that it must be the case. But to-day, when she knew that this evening the man who had roused in her the sentimentality at any rate of a schoolgirl would, after this long lapse of years, come to her house again, she wondered (though this was useless emotional baggage) if she would feel anything that would show her that he had once been different to all others. She had not seen him since. Probably he was rather bald, rather stout, rather of the diplomatist type, which seemed to her often to be slightly tinged with pomposity. Very likely, when his name was announced, she would see a total stranger, shake hands with a stranger. She almost hoped that this would prove to be so. Yes; she did not want to feel again anything which resembled the memory of that bewildering unrest, which, considering how long ago it all was, was so strangely vivid still. Her life was very full, she enjoyed it enormously; she was happy, she was nearly content, and she did not, as far as she knew herself, wish to risk agitation and upheaval in order to experience a new emotion. She had seen love, at the most, like distant lightning winking on the horizon; she did not want the thunderstorm to come any nearer. She wished it would go away. * * * * * Yet, yet ... even now, in the midsummer and zenith of her life, she sometimes asked herself, "Is this all?" And then, if she allowed herself to think further, it seemed to her a sorry comedy never to feel more acutely than she felt, never to be more absorbed, more eager, than this. Frankly, she did not believe in God, in any huge central force that was utterly good; and, that being denied her, she felt sometimes that it would have been something to believe in the devil. But she had never seen any reason to believe in him either. She had never been tempted to be wicked, as those moralists would say who believed in the devil. She was a woman healthy both in mind and body, with countless opportunities for doing good, of which she availed herself nobly, not because she believed in God, but because she was of a most kindly nature; and she was not what is called wicked, because she did not care sufficiently. Morality, perhaps it would be right to say, had no existence for her, and she was absolutely moral in thought and action because she had no real temptation to be otherwise. To her, as a married woman, it seemed also rather bad form to have a lover; it was not dignified. You had to play a mean part. But she realised that if only she had ever really cared for any of those men who certainly had "cared" for her, no moral code would have stood in her way for a moment. Simply she did not want, and she wondered whether the failure to want was strength or weakness. * * * * * The Industrial Sale went off with the success that always attended any scheme that she took up, and an hour after she had opened it most of the stalls were nearly empty, though the prices charged and paid for the objects sold were of the most fancy order. She herself had sold stockings, nothing but stockings, and all male London, it appeared, had been in dire want of stockings. They had been frightfully expensive, but the sense of her own cheapness in charging so much was counteracted by the knowledge of the good cause. Irish peasants had made them, and she willingly lent her place and position in order that Irish peasants might reap the benefits of what was adventitiously hers. She was sorry for people who had to live like that; she willingly gave her time, her energy, even her sense of "cheapness," to help them. But even before her stall was empty she had seen somebody in the crowd whom, though she had not seen him for so long, she recognised instantaneously. He was neither bald nor stout, nor did he look pompous. He was as she remembered him. And, again, though it had not come any nearer yet, the distant lightning flickered on the horizon. Apparently, though he had only arrived in England two or three days ago, he had still more than two or three friends here, and for half an hour after she had seen him first he was occupied with hand-shakes and recognitions. Then, after her stall, which had been so besieged by purchasers, was bare, he passed and caught her eye. "Ah, Lady Thurso," he said, in that accurate foreign accent which she found now that she remembered so well, "a thousand greetings! I tried to get near your stall, but it was impossible. And I never waste time over the impossible. But now you have nothing that I can buy, so I, as a purchaser, am impossible too." "Yes, I have sold everything," she said. "You are too late." She, who was generally so apt of speech, so quick to take up a point, or drop it for another, felt suddenly tongue-tied. She could think of nothing more to say, though, indeed, as she thought impatiently to herself, it was his turn. She had spoken last. For, as she stood there looking at him, finding him so utterly unchanged, in one moment twelve years had been softly sponged off her life, and some thrill, some nameless bitter-sweet agitation, flickered through her. She was no stranger to that feeling; she had felt it before. But for the moment, infinitesimal in duration, it tied her tongue. It was like some tune that we have heard in childhood, and suddenly hear again, so that we must pause and say to ourselves, "What is that?" Then she partly recovered herself. If he would not speak, she must. "Being late is almost a crime in a diplomatist," she said. "You should always be a little earlier than other people." Then she pulled herself together, determining on her attitude towards him, and smiled. "And your Excellency is going to honour my little dance this evening, are you not?" she said. A faint smile answered hers, quivering for a moment on his clean-shaven mouth and being reflected in his dark eyes. "Your Excellency" was a delicious phrase, considering the last phrase before to-day that he had heard from that mouth. She--a woman's privilege--had made a map, so to speak, of their future relations, colouring its boundaries as suited her. It amused him to pretend that he recognised the validity of them. "I have already accepted your ladyship's very kind invitation," he said. CHAPTER V. The epidemic of typhoid up at Achnaleesh, which had begun so suddenly and violently, had ceased with the same suddenness, and from the first day that no fresh case was reported no fresh case occurred at all. There was every reason to be satisfied with this vanishing trick of the germ, though the manner of its vanishing was as inexplicable as its appearance. Typhoid, in other words, had appeared without the source of infection being traced, and had disappeared again with the same mysteriousness. It had gone like one of Thurso's headaches, as if the tap had been turned off, and after the ball he had shown no sign that he thought he ought to go back North again. This quite fell in with his wife's wishes, which she had not thought good to express to him, for she desired for many reasons that he should be here in London with her for awhile, and the principal of these had been that she was aware that people were "wondering" about herself and Villars. Though there was nothing to wonder about, she still preferred that people should not do so, and Thurso's presence would act as a sort of extinguisher to these guttering flames. The memory of the world, she knew, was in general very short. The events of one week are quite sufficient to put out of its head anything that may or may not have occurred the week before; but when it does happen really to have got tight hold of something, whether true or imaginary, its memory has the tiresome tenaciousness of a child's. You may change the subject, point out of the window, rattle with toys, or expose bright objects to view, but the world, like a child, though it may give a distracted attention to these lures for a moment or two, soon gets a glassy eye again, and repeats, "But what about----" The world was doing just that now, and she felt that Thurso's presence gave a better chance of solid distraction than any bright objects that she could dangle before it. The ball, for instance, had been an object positively dazzling in its brightness, and though it differed in kind even from other functions which the outside observer might think to be similar, she wanted more than that, though the hugeness of its success could not fail to gratify even one who was so accustomed to succeed. Other functions might have all London assembled in no less beautiful a house, dancing to the identical band, with everybody in tiaras and garters; but it was quite obvious to those who knew that Lady Thurso had hit the very top note that time, the note that is only struck once in a season. What the top note was it was impossible to say, just as it is impossible to say why the same ingredients can make two perfectly different puddings, except that in both cases it depends on the cook. The same people probably had been to twenty other balls, and danced to the same music, and said the same things, but inscrutably, though certainly, it was _the_ ball of the year, and competition was futile. That new feature--the staircase of wild-flowers--might have had something infinitesimal to do with it; that glorious dining-room, not turned upside down and smothered in flowers, might have helped, for the chic of not decorating a room at all, but letting it remain as it appeared when nothing was going on, so that apparently you could have this kind of entertainment without fuss or preparation of any kind, was undeniable. Yet, again, nobody could turn her staircase into a country lane without thought. So the upshot was that Lady Thurso alone knew exactly how to do it: what to keep unadorned, as if she was going to dine alone; what to decorate, and how to decorate it; what to say, how to look, what to wear. She looked, it may be remarked, magnificent, and wore no jewels at all. Nobody hitherto had thought of that. All her guests outshone her, and she outshone them all. That, perhaps, was a vibration in the top note, which in any case was as clear as a musical glass. But much as the ball was talked about, she knew that Rudolf Villars and she were talked about more. Wherever people met together during the subsequent week--and just at this time of the year there was nowhere that they did not meet--the ball had to be mentioned, but like a corollary came the question, "Is he still devoted to her?" And the number of comments on that, the interpretations, the conjectures, the inferences, would have made any of those myriad women whose ideal is to be talked about in that kind of way satisfied to live or die happily ever afterwards. Unfortunately, Catherine Thurso did not claim kinship with such. It gave her not the smallest pleasure to know that a situation (or want of it) that concerned her should be the one thing that everybody else discussed as if it concerned them. Had she, when she met Villars again at the bazaar, only felt, "Can it be he? I should never have known him," she would not have troubled her head about what anybody else might be saying. But she had not enjoyed that dispassionate attitude. Instead, something within her, independent of her own control, had said "Rudolf," just as she had said it twelve years ago. Twelve years ago the volume of her emotional chronicles had been closed with a snap. Now that ambiguous book was reopened again on the very page at which it had been cut short. The vague girlish excitement, trouble and joy was presented to her notice again; but now it was presented, not in that dim light, but in the blaze and illumination of her womanhood. Passion had not been awake in her then, the potential fire still smouldered under the damped coals of immaturity; but now those had passed away, a fire was ready to spring up, a fire of retarded dawn, with the splendour of noonday waiting on it. Was it really so? Already she feared to ask herself that question, for fear of the answer to it. The pretence of playing at being strangers, when at the bazaar she had called him "Your Excellency," had broken down with singular completeness. That very night at her house he had established a footing of old friendship, to which, in bare justice, he was perfectly entitled. She could not defend herself against that, she could not resent it, even if she had wished to do so. Years ago he had loved her, and had asked her to marry him, and if that does not entitle a man to take the attitude of an old friend, when next relations of any sort are resumed, there is nothing in the world that does. Also--and this was no minor point--she had half accepted him, and then thrown him over. Neither by look nor word did he appear to cast that up against her now, and she could not, in response to his generosity, deny him the standing of a friend. Yet though he had but claimed, tacitly, but by a right that she could not dispute, the privilege of friendship, she knew that he implied much more. She knew quite well that he still loved her. There was no question about it in her mind, and it disquieted her. But the love of other men had not disturbed the serenity of her own _insouciance_, and the fact that this man did told her that he was not as others. It was characteristic of her and of the worldly wisdom with which she always ordered her life that she crammed into the week that followed her ball engagements which would ordinarily have taken even her ten days to get through. She had seen at once that a question of some importance would some time have to be answered, and having made up her mind what her answer would be, she also made it impossible for herself, as far as was in her power, to leave herself leisure for reconsidering it. She had, as has been said, no real moral code to refer it to. She had been born, as we must suppose many people are, without a moral sense, and her upbringing and environment had not generated it. She did not, for instance, refrain from stealing owing to the wickedness of so doing, but merely because it was mean and nasty, like going about with dirty gloves. And as regards other points, no sense of morality dictated her decision now. To put it baldly and blankly, as she did to herself, here was a man who had loved her twelve years ago, and, she felt certain, still loved her; while she, on her side, was stirred again as she was stirred twelve years ago. Only now she was Thurso's wife. Worldly wisdom, however, said much more than this to her. Her first impulse to treat him with formality was clearly mistaken. If she did not treat him with the friendliness that was so undoubtedly his due, the world would certainly say that she was cold to him in public only to be warm in private; and from the point of view of the world, the conclusion, though actually false, would surely be accredited. Obviously, the proper attitude, since he desired to be treated as a friend, was to do so. It was here that Thurso's presence in London was desirable. The whole affair was delicate, and if he was somewhere in Caithness, where there might be typhoid or there might not, it gave the gossips far more excuse for raging furiously together. There was no doubt that she would see a good deal of Rudolf Villars during this month or two of London; her husband should, therefore, see a good deal of him too. * * * * * She had a charming place on the Thames, just below Maidenhead, left her by her mother, a low, rambling, creeper-covered house, with one foot in the river, one in the garden. Here she often entertained from Saturday till Monday, not with any mistaken notion that it was a rest, after the bustle and fatigue of London, to get into the tranquillity of Thames-side, but in order to bustle more than ever. London, it was true, was sufficiently busy, but in London one was not in evidence, anyhow, until eleven or so in the morning; and while in London, also, even if there were people in the house, they looked after themselves, and need only be given their beds and their food. But at Bray the bustle began earlier, since, as this was the country, everyone thought it necessary to play a round of golf, or row wildly on the Thames, before the day began at all; while nobody ever went to bed till nearly morning, since in the country nobody need get up. Thurso and Maud were going to motor down with her on Saturday afternoon, but as Maud had not appeared at the time appointed, it was to be taken for granted that she was doing other things, and would find her way down on her own account. Catherine, on the other hand, like most busy people, was punctual to the minute. "Well, she's not here," she said, as she stepped into the car, "and, really, we can't wait, Thurso. Unless we start now, people will get there before we do, and that is never considered quite polite." "No, it's as well to be in one's house if one has asked people to stay in it," he remarked, "though they probably get on beautifully without one." He got in after her, but stood for a moment with his hand on the door, as if wanting to give Maud another minute. Her eye happened to fall on it, and she saw it was trembling. The next moment he sat down, caught her eye, and looked away again, flushing a little. There was something aimlessly furtive about all this which was unlike him. But all this week she had been a little uneasy about him; he had seemed nervous, easily startled, uncertain of himself. And as they started, though caresses were not frequent between them, she laid her ungloved hand on his. "Thurso, old boy," she said, "are you well? There is nothing the matter with you?" He started at her touch, and withdrew his hand. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but your rings are so cold. Yes, I am perfectly well. I don't know why you ask." "Because you don't look very well," she said. "Maud told me you had had several very bad headaches up in the North." "I had; but this is rather ancient history, is it not? It has not occurred to you to inquire about them during the last ten days." "Maud only told me this morning," she said. "I have had no return of them since I came to town." The footman had got up by the chauffeur, and the big Napier car bubbled and whirred to itself a moment, and then slid noiselessly off, with rapid but smooth acceleration of its pace, over the dry street. It was checked for a moment at the corner into Piccadilly, poised like a hovering hawk, and then glided into the street. The road-way was very full, but, dancing elastically on its springs, it flicked in and out of the congested traffic with the precision of a fish steering its way between clumps of waving water-weed. It seemed, indeed, more like a sentient animal, a fine-mouthed horse, or some trained setter, than a machine, or as if intelligence and discernment, a brain that thought and calculated and obeyed, lived in that long painted bonnet, rather than merely pistons and cylinders and all the crack-named apparatus of its mechanism. It slackened its speed before one would have thought that any block in the traffic ahead was discernible, as if scenting the need from far off; it cut in and out of moving cabs and omnibuses, as if possessed of occult knowledge with regard to the pace they were going, and what lay invisible ahead of them; it foresaw impediments to its free movement that seemed as if they could not be foreseen, and conjectured openings that appeared inconjecturable. But all down Piccadilly, all down Knightsbridge, Thurso seemed unaccountably nervous. He could hardly sit still, but kept shifting and fidgeting in his seat, frowning and starting and grasping the side of the car, and once even calling out to the chauffeur, who, in fact, was one in a thousand for combined carefulness and speed, bidding him go more quietly through the jostle of traffic. This, again, was quite unlike him, though like what he had been for the last ten days, and his wife, seeming not to watch, watched him narrowly, but without comment. But when it came to his calling a warning to the inimitable Marcel, who would sooner have flayed all the skin off his own hands than let another vehicle scrape one grain of paint off the splash-board of his beloved car, she could not help protesting. Besides, it looked so silly to jump about like that. "Dear Thurso," she said, "what is the matter? He is driving perfectly carefully." Thurso frowned, still looking anxiously at the road in front, and spoke with unveiled irritation. "He is driving recklessly, it seems to me," he said. "As if it mattered whether we saved five minutes on the road. But women are never content till they've had some smash. That was simply the result of wanting to get in front of a cab now, instead of waiting two seconds." This, again, was quite unlike him. His tone and his words distinctly lacked courtesy, and "Hamlet" without the Prince was not less like the play than was Thurso when he forgot his manners like her husband. She was always ready to account for any failing, whether of omission or commission, by physical causes, and Thurso's rudeness she unhesitatingly put down to his not feeling well. But in that case it would surely be better both for him and her if he did not continue a mode of progression that made him jumpy. "If you are nervous," she said, "let us cross the Park, and put you down at Paddington. You can take the train." "That is absurd," he said shortly. They went on in silence for a little, and Thurso made an immense effort to pull himself together, or, at any rate, the effort seemed to him to be immense. But he knew that lately the effort to do anything he did not feel inclined to do had been enormously increased. Those moments of quickened consciousness which were his seemed to make his brain in the intervals more lethargic, less able to give orders. He knew quite well that his nerves were out of order, and though it was true that, since coming to town, as he had just told his wife, he had had no return of his neuralgia, he had for the last ten days always silenced its threatenings, sometimes even before such threatening was really perceptible, by a liberal use of that divine drug which never failed. He believed, too, if he thought about it, that he was taking larger doses than those prescribed, and knew that he was intentionally absent-minded when he poured out his draught. Nor had he taken it only for anodynic purposes; more than once or twice--he could not say how many times, but certainly less than fifty--he had taken it for the pure pleasure of its effects. He knew he had begun to be dragged into the habit, as a man whose clothes are caught between revolving cogwheels is dragged in, unless by a superhuman effort he can break loose. It was not that he did not struggle against it, but he struggled with mental reservations. Two days ago, for instance, he had resolved not to touch it for forty-eight hours, promising himself, as a reward for his abstinence, a pleasant hour or two when he got down to Bray. After that, so he had planned, he would continue to break free from it by a carefully graduated course. His next treat should be three days afterwards; after that there should be abstention for four days. For he was rather frightened already at his previous indulgence, and at the greed with which he longed for it. During the last week in Scotland he had taken it every day, and sometimes twice. Sometimes he said to himself that it suited him. Perhaps he was abnormal, but it made him feel so well, so alive. Then, again, he would recognise the danger that lay in front of him, and vowed to set about the task of breaking from the habit. But it must be done by degrees; he already could make no larger resolve than that. But that he did resolve. The interval between his treats should become longer and longer, until he craved no more. Craved! How he craved now! It was that which made him so nervous and irritable. But he must have that one full dose when he got down to Bray. He had promised himself that, and he felt as if it were almost a duty to perform that promise. Meantime, whatever in his brain was lethargic and inert, some sense of cunning and precaution was always strong, and he knew that it was most important that Catherine should not think that there was anything wrong. So before the pause after his last rather snappish reply had made it impossible to refer back, he spoke again in a different tone. "You must forgive me for speaking rudely just now," he said, "and I am sure that Marcel is really careful. But I had the most dreadfully trying time up in Scotland, and those horrible headaches did not make things easier. As a matter of fact, I saw Dr. Symes when I was there, and he told me I was on edge. But he did not attach the least importance to it. He said the best thing I could do was to come down here and amuse myself, and forget all about the typhoid." That, again, was true as far as it went, but no further. Dr. Symes had said these things with regard to his neuralgia: he had not pronounced on the cure for it. "But there's no harm in seeing a doctor," she said, "and telling him all you feel and all you do. Then he tells you to avoid curried prawns, and you pay only two guineas." He laughed. "I have better uses for even so small a sum," he said, while his mind said to itself: "Two guineas' worth of laudanum! Two guineas' worth of laudanum!" "But it's so much better to be told if there's anything wrong," she said, "and so nice to be told that there isn't." "But I am sure of that, without being told," said he. The house at Bray was long and low and rambling, straggling down at one point to the very edge of the river, but for the most part standing in the middle of flower-beds and short-turfed lawn and stiff yew-hedges cut into fantastic shapes, which screened the customs of its inhabitants from the population in boats, so that the Sunday afternoon crowd could not, as in most of the river-side houses, see exactly who was there, what they had for tea, who smoked and slept, who read, and who played croquet. Indeed, had it not been for this impenetrable barrier of thick-set foliage, what they had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner would have been equally public property; for Lady Thurso had built a big open pavilion on the terrace just above the river, where, when the day was hot, her party took all their meals. Another pavilion nearer the house served as a drawing-room, card-room, or smoking-room, and on a fine Sunday nobody more than set foot in the house itself from breakfast till bed-time. A dozen guests or so were all that the house would hold, but if, as often happened, people proposed themselves when the sleeping accommodation was already commanded, it was possible to get beds for them at a neighbouring hotel. To-day, however, there was to be no sleeping out; it was doubtful, indeed, whether the house itself would be full. Maud was certainly coming; Count Villars, Alice Yardly, and her husband, were also certainties, as were Jim Raynham and Ruby Majendie, who had proposed to each other--Lady Thurso never could find out who "began"--on the night of her ball; and a couple of American cousins brought their number up to ten. Catherine hardly knew whether or no she was glad that she had so small a party. For once, it is true, she would have a fairly quiet Sunday; but, worried as she was, not only about this private emotional history of her own, but also (though she told herself this was causeless) about her husband, she was not sure whether it would not have been a greater rest to have plenty of superficial arrangements to make, and plenty of people who did not touch her inner life to amuse. She did not at all believe in thinking about things unless some practical step was to be the outcome of thought, in which case you got an instant dividend for your investment; but if thought was to end in nothing, your dividend was composed of worry only. However, even with these few people in the house, she could manage to keep herself fairly well occupied. The American cousins, too, a plain and elderly millionaire, very dyspeptic and intensely mournful, with his wife, who was young, voluble, and carried about with her pails, as it were, of gross and fulsome flattery, with which she industriously daubed everybody who was in the least worth daubing, would certainly want--especially in view of Thurso's irritability--a little careful management. She almost wished she had not invited them, but she inherited from her mother that idea of American hospitality which makes all other hospitality appear niggardly in comparison, and did not consider she had done her duty by even the most undesirable cousins if she only asked them to dinner. "Cousins must be asked to stay, even if crossing-sweepers," was the line on which she went. These particular cousins, she acknowledged to herself, were rather trying, but she acknowledged it to nobody else. In spite of the desirability of arriving before your guests, Silas P. Morton and Theodosia, whom her husband always addressed in full as "Theodosia," giving each syllable its due value, had arrived before them, and met them hospitably at the front-door. "Why, if this doesn't tickle me to death!" exclaimed Theodosia, "to receive you at your own house, Catherine! And how are you, Lord Thurso?" Thurso stifled a wish that something would tickle Theodosia to death, and she proceeded. "My! what a beautiful motor! Why, if it isn't cunning! Silas and I got here just half an hour ago, and your servants brought us tea right away out on the lawn, and made us ever so much at home. But, as I'm for ever saying to everybody, 'Catherine is just perfect, and everything she has is just perfect--her husband, her servants, her motor-car, and her crackers.' You should have seen Silas tackle the crackers! Don't I tell everybody so, Silas?" When Theodosia was present there was never any fear of awkward silences--awkward speeches were the only possibilities; but she covered up every awkward speech so quickly with another that none of them mattered much. She was usually talking when somebody else was talking, and always when nobody else was. "Don't you tell everybody what, Theodosia?" inquired her husband. "Why, that Catherine is just perfect. But Englishmen are so perfect, too, that I guess it's right for perfect American girls to marry them. Why, your ball the other night! I thought I knew something about balls, but Catherine's ahead of me there, though we've had some bright evenings in New York. I guess you're proud of your wife, Lord Thurso, and I guess she's proud of you." This was all very pleasant, and it was not only a salute-explosion of geniality on the part of Theodosia; she exploded all the time like a quick-firing gun. She was never sick or sorry, or tired or silent; she was always bright, and a contemplative mind might seriously wonder whether anything known to occur in this uncertain world would make her stop talking. She talked all the time that she was in a dentist's chair, even though her speech was impeded by pads and gags and creosote; and she had once talked without intermission through a railway accident, not even stopping to scream. At intervals the voice of her husband said "Theodosia!" like a clock striking, but the ticking went on all the same. "And if that isn't the cunningest yew-hedge I ever saw," she said, "with a door cut right through the middle of it as if it was a wall; and there's the river just beyond with the boats, like people on the side-walk. Lord Thurso, can you see the river from where you are sitting? Silas, change places with Lord Thurso, because I want him to see the river through the door in the yew-hedge. My! look at that bug--what do you call it? Oh yes, butterfly--sitting right here on the arm of my chair! Isn't it tame! The bugs in America aren't half so tame as that: they hustle more; but I think it's English not to hustle so much. You eat your tea without hustling, too, Lord Thurso. I call that the true British tranquillity, and I just adore it. Don't I, Silas?" Catherine, however, distinctly hustled over her tea, and got up. It was she who had asked Theodosia here, and she did not for a moment repent having done so; but she began to foresee that it would be necessary to provide Theodosia with relays of companions who should take her for a series of walks, and "rides" in the punt (as Theodosia would say), and other rides in motors, if she wanted to save her Saturday to Monday from utter shipwreck. She thanked Heaven Maud was coming, who handled loquacious people so serenely, and listened, or appeared to, to their impossible conversation with an interest that was quite marvellous. Clearly, also, it was by a direct dispensation of Providence that Alice Yardly was to be of this party, for Alice also asked for nothing more than to be allowed to talk without intermission. Theodosia talked of things she saw--the river, the road, the bug, the yew-hedge; her eyes supplied unfailing topics of conversation to her tongue. While Alice talked with the same incessantness of things you could not see--faith and healing, and false claims of mortal mind. Between them they would cover the whole ground. And both of them were perfectly happy sitting opposite anybody else who might talk simultaneously, as long as he asked no question which interrupted the flow of their volubility. Clearly, then, Providence intended that Alice and Theodosia should be paired, like blessed sirens, and keep up a perpetual flow of conversation to which nobody else need listen. But at present Maud had not arrived, so she took Theodosia down to the river, and "punted her around," as that lady's phrase went. Catherine punted around, so she felt, as she had never punted before; she would have punted to Oxford, if necessary, to keep this appreciative lady away from the house till Maud or Alice Yardly arrived, either of whom were capable of tackling her. Protective instincts governed those unusual physical activities. She was responsible for the advent of Theodosia; she was therefore responsible for keeping Theodosia away from Thurso. So it was not till seven had clanged from the church tower at Maidenhead that she turned the punt homewards, and found on arrival that everybody had come, and that everybody had gone to dress. She herself was a dresser of abnormal quickness, and found she had still nearly half an hour to spare after she had seen Theodosia safely to her room. So, instead of wasting it alone, she went to talk to Maud. The latter was betwixt and between, with a hovering maid, and a river of hair making Pactolus down her back. The highest geniality flowed on the other side. "Dearest Catherine," she said, "I know it was too awful of me, but, of course, you didn't wait. Everything has been late to-day--at least, I have--and I was late for lunch, and things were amusing, and as I had told my maid to take my traps, and other people were going down to Taplow, I came down with them, and was dropped here. Isn't the country looking too divine! Of course, Thurso came with you. We broke down--you never heard such a bang--and serve me right. Do stop and talk to me for five minutes, because I know you dress like summer lightning. How many maids surround you? Three, is it? What fun it was all last week! You do give your relations and connections a good time. Please wear your smartest to-night--jewels and all. It is so chic to be smart in the country and shabby in London. And it's an old-established custom for you to smoke a cigarette while I am dressing, before it's time for you to dress. There's half an hour yet." Catherine lit a cigarette, and, catching Maud's eye, nodded in the direction of her maid and spoke in French. "Send her away for a few minutes," she said. Maud gave a giggle of laughter. "What a bad language to choose," she said, "because Hortense is French--aren't you, Hortense? Will you go away, please, and come back when her ladyship goes away?" Then Maud turned to her sister-in-law. "Now, Catherine, what is it?" she asked. "Well, first, do be very kind to me, Maud, and take Theodosia away on all possible occasions, so that she gets on Thurso's nerves as little as may be." Maud brought a long plait of hair round her shoulder and held it in her mouth for a moment. "Then I know what you want to talk about," she said. "Theodosia first: I'm on; and afterwards?" "Of course you know. Thurso's nerves. He was fearfully jumpy all the way down. He made efforts, but you don't have to make efforts if you are well, do you? He was rather rude, too, which is so unlike him. He is not rude when he is well. You told me he had bad attacks of neuralgia up in Scotland." "Yes, day after day," said Maud. She paused a moment, wondering whether she had better say that which was on the tip of her tongue. Then she decided to do so. After all, it was her brother's wife to whom she was talking, and the matter was one that clearly concerned her. Even more than that, she was talking to Catherine, to whose wisdom, above that of, perhaps, all others, she felt it natural to confide perplexity or trouble. "He had got to get through the day's work," she said, "and to enable him to do so, to get relief from this horrible pain, he took laudanum, which had been prescribed for him, rather freely. I allow that before the end I was more anxious about that than about his neuralgia. I think he ought to get the limits laid down by a doctor. It can't be right for anybody to take that sort of drug absolutely at his own discretion." "Ah! but his headaches have ceased," said Catherine. "He told me there had been no return of them since he came to town." "I am very glad," said Maud, "because--well, it can't be a good thing to get in the habit of taking that stuff, though while he was up in Scotland and the neuralgia was so bad he had to get relief somehow. But if his headaches have ceased, I suppose one need not be anxious any more." Catherine heard a certain hesitation in her voice, and saw the same in her face. "You are not telling me quite all," she said. "I think you had better. You are afraid of something more. If your fears are groundless, there is no harm done; if they have foundation, it is best for me to know. Of course I guess what it is." Maud put down her brush, and turned to her sister-in-law. "Yes; I expect you guess quite correctly. It is this: He has begun to take it for its own sake--for the sake of its effects. Coming up in the train he thought I was asleep, and I saw him--yes, I spied on him if you like--I saw him go to his bag, take out the bottle, and have a dose. He had no headache; he was never better. He wanted the effects of it. It was a big dose, too--double the ordinary one, I should say. He did not measure it. I think he did the same thing up in Scotland." Catherine got up, and looked out of the window in silence for awhile. "You did perfectly right to tell me, Maud. Thank you," she said. "But it is hell--damnation, you know. What do you advise?" "Get him to see a doctor." "He won't. I suggested it to-day. And one doesn't want to lose any time; the pace accelerates so quickly on that awful road. Poor Thurso! Of course it is desirable that I should appear to find out what you have told me for myself--find out, that is to say, that he is taking this drug." "You may say I told you, if necessary," said Maud. "What are you going to do?" "I can't make any plan yet. I must see." Catherine left the room, and went down the passage to her own. Outside her husband's dressing-room, next hers, was standing his valet, and a sudden thought occurred to her. "Is his lordship dressed, do you know?" she asked. "No, my lady. His lordship told me he would call me when he began," said the man. She went to the door, tapped, and entered. "Flynn told me you were not dressing yet," she said, "though both you and I will be late if we don't begin." "I waited till I heard you come to your room," he said. "What is it?" "Only I am afraid you must take in Alice Yardly and have Theodosia next you. I am sorry: it is the upper and nether millstones. But we'll change about to-morrow." Thurso was lying on his sofa, doing nothing, and with no book or paper near him; nor did he look as if he had been sleeping. His eyes were bright and alert. He looked radiantly happy and cheerful; it was not the same man who had frowned and started all the way down in the car. "Why should we change about to-morrow?" he said. "I delight in Theodosia and I adore Alice. Her extraordinary silliness makes me feel wise in my own conceit, and conceited in my own wisdom. Is it really dressing-time? How tiresome! Don't let us dine till nine to-morrow. It is absurd dining before in the summer. One oughtn't to lose a minute of this heavenly twilight hour by doing anything in it." Catherine had walked to the open window by which his sofa was drawn up; and was observing him closely. He stretched himself with the luxuriousness of some basking animal as he spoke, and she saw he had a cigarette in each hand, both of which were burning. "Is that a new plan?" she said, "smoking two cigarettes at once?" "Yes, so far as I am concerned; but it's not original. Don't you remember the Pirate King in 'Peter Pan' smokes two--or was it three?--cigars together, because he is such an astounding swell? My God! what a play! It put the clock back thirty years. The moral is that you can't have too much of a good thing. You should lay your pleasures on thick, not thin; butter your cake on both sides, and put jam on the top. I am awfully happy to-night. It was an excellent idea of yours to come down here. How wonderful the light is! how good everything smells!" He was speaking with a sort of purr of sensuous enjoyment, though the words were clear and unblurred. She had seen him like this once before, when in the spring he had sought relief from an attack of pain with laudanum. She thought then that it was the mere cessation of it which caused that ecstasy; now she knew what it was, and her heart sank. His long, lazy stretch turned him a little on the sofa, so that he faced her as she stood by the window, with the rosy evening light flooding her face. "And, my God! how beautiful you are, Catherine!" he said. "You are made for worship and immortality. There never was a woman so wonderful as you." Catherine pulled herself together, called up her courage. Something must be done. "Thurso, let us leave my charms for a moment," she said. "Tell me, have you had any headache to-day? I hope not." "Headache! No. I've forgotten what headaches are like." "Then, why have you been taking that stuff--laudanum, opium, whatever it is? Oh, it's so dangerous!" "I--I haven't. What do you mean?" he said, stumbling over the words. She caught sight of a small medicine-glass on his washing-stand, and took it up and smelled it. "Where is the use of saying that?" she asked, holding it out to him. He got up quickly, ashamed for a moment of having lied to her, but more ashamed of his stupidity in not being more careful; but when she came in he was so uplifted and vivified by the drug that he had been off his guard. But his shame was infinitesimal compared to his anger with her. She had spoiled, smashed up all his happiness by her interference. Instead of that wonderful sense of well-being and complete physical and mental contentment, he felt now only furiously angry with her. What right had she to break in upon him like this, making him lie to her, which he hated, and making his lie instantly detected? "And where is the use of your interfering like this?" he cried. "You have spoiled it all now: you have robbed me of it, and it was mine! It would serve you right if I took another dose now, straight away, and did not come down. You know nothing at all about it. I was an absolute martyr to that neuralgia up in Scotland, and I began--yes, I did begin--to get into the habit of taking this. But I am breaking myself of it; you didn't know that. Till this evening I had not taken any for two days, and after that I was not going to take any more for three days, and after that not for four. You seem to think.... I don't know what you think." She felt at that moment more tenderly towards him than she had felt for years. His weakness--his voluble, incoherent weakness--his childish excuses, touched her. There was something almost woundingly pathetic, too, in his graduated resolves, as if a habit could be cured that way. His anger roused no resentment in her, and she spoke appealingly, full of pity. "Oh, Thurso, you don't know what a dangerous thing you are doing," she said--"indeed, you don't. The very fact that you do it makes you unable to see what you do. Be a man, and don't think about two days, or three days, or four days, but stop it now at once. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be to break it. Give me the bottle, or whatever it is, like a good fellow, and let me throw it away. You will be glad you have done so every day of your life afterwards. Please, I entreat you." His anger died out as she spoke, for the effect of the drug was still on him, enhancing his enjoyment of the light and the country fragrance, and enhancing the glory of her superb beauty as she pleaded with him. She had not resented the angry things he had said to her: that was fine of her, and fine she always was, and she was not contemptuous of the lie he had babbled and stuttered over. She seemed not to remember it, and that was generous. Above all, his craving for the drug was satisfied for the moment, and, so he added somewhere very secretly, he could always get some more. Nor was his will yet entirely enslaved, and all his best self told him that she was right beyond any question or possibility of argument. He hesitated only a moment, then unlocked his despatch-box and took out a half-empty bottle. The sight of it made his desire flicker into flame again; but, after all, he had fully intended to take no more for three days. Then he swept that away also. His will for the time was set on breaking the habit now and at once. He held it out to her. "Yes; you are right," he said. "Here it is. Don't despise me if you can help it, Cathy." The use of the shortened name touched her, too. "Oh, my dear, don't talk of that," she said; "and thank you most awfully, Thurso. You will never regret this." She went to the window and poured the brown fluid out among the leaves of the creepers, with a little shudder at the stale, sickly smell of it. Then she flung the bottle into the shrubbery. "I ought to thank you," he said; "and I do." * * * * * The evening was extraordinarily warm and windless, and though they had dinner in the open pavilion in the garden, Mr. Silas P. Morton only sent for the second thickest of his black-and-white plaids to put round his venerable shoulders as a precaution against chills, and after dinner a bridge-table was started for the occupation of the Americans and Jim and Ruby, while the others preferred for the present to wander about in the deepening dusk. The light still lingered in the west and beneath it the steely grey of the river smouldered with the reflected sunshine that the sky still retained. Moths hovered over the huddled fragrance of the dim garden-beds, emerging every now and then from the darkness into the bright light cast by the lamps in the pavilion where the little party had dined, and the veiled odours of night began to steal onto the air--the odours of tobacco-plant and night-stocks, of dewy foliage, ripe hayfields, and damp earth, which are so far more delicate and suggestive than the trumpet-blown fragrance of the day. Though crimson still lingered in the west, overhead the steel-blue of night was darkening fast, and minute stars were beginning to be lit. From the rest of the world the colour had already faded: it was an etching, a marvellous mezzotint of black-and-white. Catherine, when they rose from the table, found Villars by her side, in a manner that irresistibly implied that he meant to have a stroll with her, and leaving the others--Maud had already towed Alice Yardly out of Thurso's immediate neighbourhood, and was listening to a fearfully interminable account of Mrs. Eddy's relation to Phineas P. Quimby--they went down through the door cut in the yew-hedge, which had so roused Theodosia's enthusiasm, to stroll along the river-front and catch the last of the evening light. Opposite, on the other bank of the river, a tent was pitched, and outside it three or four young men were seated, having supper at a tablecloth spread on the grass, and lit by a couple of Chinese lanterns. Their fire for cooking burned bravely on the river edge, and the smell of aromatic wood-smoke was wafted across to them. It all looked exquisitely simple and uncomplicated. Catherine rather envied that, for her own life just now seemed involved and ravelled; she did not feel confidence in the future. Indeed, she was not sure whether even the next ten minutes would be quite easy, for woman of the world though she was, and conversational engineer, skilled at directing the flow of talk into the channels in which she wished it to run, she felt vaguely nervous with her companion. At dinner he had been the polished, suggestive talker, but it had seemed to her all the time as if he was talking from the surface only, saying the quick, glib things that came so easily to him. And now, when they had separated themselves from the others, she found her impression had been correct. "It was so good of you to ask me here," he said, "quietly, like this; for it means that you admit me again to friendship and intimacy with you--at least, so I take it." He struck a match to light his cigarette, holding it in the screen of his hollowed hands, so that the flame illuminated his face very vividly. He had changed extraordinarily little: his dark eyes still had the sparkle of fire and youth in them, and their corners were still unseamed and unwrinkled. His face had grown neither stout nor attenuated; his hair was still untouched by grey, and a plume of it hung, as she had always remembered it, a little apart and over his forehead. He wore neither moustache nor beard, and a very short upper lip separated his large and essentially masculine mouth from a thin, aquiline nose. Then, as he flicked his match away, he threw back his head with the gesture she knew so well. "Or is that presumptuous of me?" he asked. "I charge you to tell me that, and not let me go on being presumptuous unwittingly." She laughed. "It is not in the least presumptuous," she said. "I ask the whole world to a ball or a big party, since it does not matter who is there, owing to the crowd. But here in the country I ask only the people I want to see, or for some reason have got to see--you are not among the latter--and the more one wants to see of them, the smaller is the party." "You encourage me," he said. "It is kind of you. Now, my dear lady, we have not seen each other for some time, and though old history is tiresome, I do want to know one thing. Never mind the history, the events, but sum it up for me. Are you happy? Have you been happy?" She paused a moment. He had a right to know that too. "Yes, immensely happy," she said with all honestness--"at least, my life suits me, which, I suppose, implies happiness. I am--what is the cant phrase?--in harmony with my environment. And--and you?" The moment she had asked it she questioned her wisdom in doing so. It gave him, if he chose, a sort of opportunity. "Ah, well, I have been hard-working and ambitious," he said, "and I have got what I wanted. I suppose one should be content with that. Diplomacy suits me; London suits me; a third thing, indeed, suits me." "And that?" she asked. "What you have just so kindly promised me--your friendship. I place it first, I think, not third." She laughed again, still a little nervously, and conscious of a determination not to let the conversation get more intimate than this. But for the moment it was out of her hands, for he went on in that cool, quiet voice, separating each word from its neighbours, giving to each its individual value. "People who have once been friends," he said, "and after an interval come together again, often make a great mistake in wondering and worrying about the past. Please do not suspect me of such a stupidity; I am more than content to take up the present, just as it is, fragrant with the promise of your friendship, and fragrant with the knowledge that you have been, and are, happy. I would have given my whole life, as you know, to make you that, and now that it has come to you without any effort on my part, why, let us rejoice over the economy of my energy." They had come to the end of the path by the river, where an ironwork gate gave onto the highroad outside, and paused a moment before retracing their steps. A big yellow moon had risen over the trees to the east, so that while the western part of the sky still glowed with sunset, the east was flooded with that cold white flame that turns every colour into ivory or ebony. And this strange effect was reproduced on his face, for the warmth of the west shone on one cheek, while on the other was the white coldness of the moon. And fantastically enough she felt herself for the moment reading his words in this double light. They seemed capable of two interpretations. But instantly she told herself that she was utterly unjustified in such a conjecture. His words had been absolutely guileless, nor had she the smallest cause for interpreting them otherwise. What she had done was to read into them the knowledge that twelve years ago she had treated him shabbily, and now credited him with an impulse of revenge. Yet she feared him a little. Beneath his quiet, kind words there was something white-hot and keen-edged. As he had said, he wanted things and got them. What, then, did he want of her? He had told her--her friendship. It was like him, too, like his consummate cleverness, which it required cleverness to perceive at all, so subtle and natural was it, to say these strong and serious things about her happiness and her friendship--things which he must know would remain in her mind--and then round off the sentence with a pure triviality about the economy of energy. It gave her, however--as, no doubt, he meant it to do, since he had said his say--an opportunity for altering the direction of the conversation without abrupt transition. "I really don't know if one ought to rejoice in economy of energy," she said, as they turned to walk back. "There is such an enormous lot of energy in the world, and I think there would be less trouble if it was scarcer. I know I have quite as much as I have any use for. I should find more of it embarrassing." "You are admirable," he said. "I believe there is never a scheme to help and relieve distress brought before you to which you do not give real support--not the mere buttress of your name, but your time, your pains, your energy. But, you see, you economise energy in other directions." "What directions?" she asked. "Emotional. You never worry, do you? You never regret, you never allow passion of any sort to master and exhaust you." This, again, was rather more intimate than she liked, yet, somehow, she did not resent it. Perhaps it would be truer to say that she could not resent it, for in his very gentleness there was inherent a strength that made resentment futile. You might as well resent the slow, grinding movement of a glacier. In any case, it would do no good to resent it, and Catherine always set her face against purposeless attitudes. "No; I don't think I worry much," she said. "But, then, I am very happy. I have little to worry about." Then suddenly she told herself that she was being afraid of this man, and to her next words she summoned her courage, asserting herself against him, announcing her independence. "And certainly I do not often regret," she said. "People talk of destiny as if it was a force outside themselves. If I thought that, no doubt I should often regret the dealings of destiny with me. But I don't, for in almost all important decisions--the things that really make one's life--destiny is nothing more nor less than one's own will. And my will isn't weak, I think." "I am sure it is not," said he. "But what if the destiny or will of another comes into conflict with yours?" "Oh, then one has to fight," said she. "In all your battles, then," said he, "may success ever attend the most deserving!" She laughed. "That is ambiguous. That may be a curse, not a blessing, on my arms." "You think, then, that I am so disloyal as to be able to imagine even that anyone is more deserving than you?" he asked. Again he was a little flowery. Her effort had done her good, and she could tell herself that he was even a little fruity. "You still delight in phrases, I see," she observed. "In sincere ones," he answered. * * * * * They joined the others after this, finding that the millionaire cousin, to his infinite chagrin, had lost seven-and-sixpence, and not long after Catherine suggested adjournment to the women of the party. She herself, for some reason, felt really rather tired, though she had been fresh enough at dinner, and went upstairs immediately and to bed. But sleep, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of her tiredness, did not soon come to her, and first one thing, then another, held her back from crossing the drowsy borderland. Now it would be the thought of Thurso that pulled her back into waking consciousness, and the perplexed wonder as to what was the wise step to take about him. You could not play with drugs like that; it was safer to play with loaded guns. Yet he had allowed her to throw that bottle away: his will was his own still.... Then her mind took a swift excursion forward into the events of next week. It was crammed from end to end, and she must go up to town quite early on Monday. She was glad it was full; she would have no time for thought. She did not want to think.... Then she turned on her side and proceeded to do so. Why had Rudolf Villars come back to trouble the busy tranquillity of her life? He had said that he had come back--it amounted to that--to resume his friendship with her. But what if she could not give it him--what if friendship was not the word for her with regard to him? She felt quite sure he still loved her--had never ceased to love her. And for herself? No one else had ever affected her as he did. She felt all she had felt twelve years ago. She resented that; she rebelled against it. Her will, she had asserted, was her destiny; but what if it came into conflict, as he had said, with another will? She was afraid of him, too, or was it of herself that she was afraid? And he had changed so little! Youthful violence, perhaps, had gone, but the strength of a man had taken its place. If only he had aged in body even! Round and round in her head went the incessant wheel of thought. She thought of Thurso again, and of the danger in which he stood; she thought of a hundred things, and then she thought of Rudolf Villars again. She could almost hear his voice in her ears. She had drawn back her curtains, leaving only the blind to cover the wide-open windows, and the moon outside shone full on it, making the furniture and details of her room vividly visible. The walls were white, the sofas and chairs were white also, and on her dressing-table glimmered the silver of the mirror-frame and the silver handles of brushes and toilet articles. How much or how little, she thought, these common-place, familiar things might mean! How external sights and sounds and objects could be soaked with emotion, and how, again, they could be just like dry sponges, hard and gritty almost to the touch, dead and fossilised! And all she saw here, in this her bedchamber, was no more than dry sponge; no wine or liquor of love had soaked into those things. All her life, but once for a few short weeks, she had been without it, and how much she had missed she was now unwillingly and rebelliously beginning to guess. 'Arry and 'Arriet in the street, who shouted songs and changed hats, were so infinitely richer than she, in spite of all that was hers--her position, her gifts, her beauty. All these should have been just the trappings and embellishment of the chariot in which Love rode. Without Love they were nothing--odds and ends, fit for a jumble sale. Once, it is true, she had seen the chariot of Love ready for her, but she had turned back from it, though her foot was on the step. She had been very young; she could not guess how all-important was her choice, and at that age her mother's will rather than her own had been her destiny. But now again she felt sure the chariot was coming to her. What she had rejected before was to be offered her again. Yet still her will was her destiny, and sooner than play with these thoughts or admit argument about them, she got up, meaning to read a book till sleep came to her. The book she wanted was on the table in the window, and before she lit a candle she crossed the room to get it. The clock on her mantelpiece had just chimed two, and a light shone from under the chink of the door on the left that led to Thurso's dressing-room, so that she knew he was awake still. Also, from outside she heard the subdued crunch of gravel under the heel of someone who still loitered in the air of this still summer night. And then below his breath someone outside--the loiterer, no doubt--began whistling a plaintive Hungarian folk-tune that she had not heard for years. But that--that untutored little melody was soaked and dripping with emotion for her. * * * * * The step passed on round to the door that opened into the garden, and she heard it no more. But she did not, even though she had found her book, care to read, but, gently drawing up the blind, she sat at the open window. The moon had swung to its zenith, and a huge flood of white light was poured on the shrubbery where she had thrown the bottle, and on the lawn and flower-beds; and she sat there long, drinking in the serenity of the cloudless night. Then the sound of another step, quick but stealthy, came to her ears, and next moment she saw Thurso crossing the path to the shrubbery. He struck a match, and seemed by its light to be searching eagerly for something. Eventually he found it, and, emerging again, held it up in the moonlight. There was a drop or two still remaining in the bottle, and, turning it upside down, he let them trickle into his mouth. END OF VOL. I. * * * * * PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. * * * * * Latest Volumes.--June 1907. =The Face of Clay.= By HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL. 1 v.-3895. A story of Brittany, in which the ways of artists are made a principal theme. Like the author's great book, "Brothers," this work has already become a prime favourite. =Martha Rose, Teacher.= By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS. 1 vol.-3896. This is a new story of Suffolk country life by an author who has made the peasant habits and dialect of the county her especial study. =Salted Almonds.= By F. ANSTEY. 1 vol.-3897. A collection of short stories and sketches of English life by one of the foremost humourists of the day. =Whispers about Women.= By LEONARD MERRICK. 1 vol.-3898. The unexpected is always welcome in fiction, and these new stories and sketches of Mr. Merrick's are nearly all characterised by originality of _dénouement_. =The Compromise.= By DOROTHEA GERARD. 2 v.-3899/900. A love-story containing many dramatic situations, and trenchantly describing the life of a colony of Irish slate-quarrymen. =The Mayor of Troy.= By "Q" (A. T. QUILLER-COUCH). 1 vol.-3901. Mr. Quiller-Couch is always at his best when describing his native county of Cornwall. The present volume it a tragi-comedy, in which the "Mayor" alternately evokes our smiles and pity. =In Subjection.= By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER. 2 v.-3902/3. The theme of this, Miss Fowler's latest and newest novel, is one of perennial interest to both sexes--namely, the apostle's preaching "Ye wives, be ye in subjection to your husbands." =Wild Justice.= By LLOYD OSBOURNE. 1 vol.-3904. A collection of short tales dealing with, and typical of, Samoa and other islands in the Southern Pacific. =The Treasure of Heaven.= By MARIE CORELLI. 2 v.-3905/6. Miss Corelli, in her new novel, graphically describes the loneliness and unhappiness which may well go hand in hand with the possession of enormous and even incalculable wealth. =A Nine Days' Wonder.= By B. M. CROKER. 1 vol.-3907. An Irish love-story in which a peasant of the country develops into one of the _noblesse_ of England. =Tally Ho!= By HELEN MATHERS. 2 vols.-3908/9. A novel of sporting life in Somersetshire, containing a clever study of male character, under the stress of unusual temptation. =Unto this Last and Munera Pulveris.= By JOHN RUSKIN. 1 vol.-3910. The two books contained in this volume were published separately in England and are the two most popular works written by M. Ruskin on the great subject of national and political economy. =The Woman's Victory, and Other Stories.= By MAARTEN MAARTENS. 2 vols.--3911/12. From these short sketches of life we may well believe the author, when he tells us in his preface that for many of his clever studies of female character he is indebted to the confidences of the heroines themselves. =The Dream and the Business.= By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. 2 vols.--3913/14. Mrs. Craigie, whose recent death will be felt by all lovers of good literature, has herewith given us a romance of modern times in which politics and types of living politicians are not wanting. =Set in Authority.= By MRS. EVERARD COTES. 1 vol.--3915. This is an Indian story which will appeal to all politicians who have the problem of Indian government at heart. Mrs. Cotes' knowledge of human nature under trying circumstances is as apparent as ever. =The Guarded Flame.= By W. B. MAXWELL. 2 vols.--3916/17. 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19051	----	Modern Religious Cults and Movements Works by Gaius Glenn Atkins _Modern Religious Cults and Movements_ Dr. Atkins has written a noteworthy and valuable book dealing with the new cults some of which have been much to the fore for a couple of decades past, such as: Faith Healing; Christian Science; New Thought; Theosophy and Spiritualism, etc. $2.50 _The Undiscovered Country_ Dr. Atkins' work, throughout, is marked by clarity of presentation, polished diction and forceful phrasing. A firm grasp of the elemental truths of Christian belief together with an unusual ability to interpret mundane experiences in terms of spiritual reality. $1.50 _Jerusalem: Past and Present_ "One of the books that will help to relieve us of the restless craving for excitement, and to make clear that we can read history truly only as we read it as 'His Story'--and that we attain our best only as the hope of the soul is realized by citizenship in 'the City of God.'"--_Baptist World._ $1.25 _Pilgrims of the Lonely Road_ "A very unusual group of studies of the great mystics, and shows real insight into the deeper experience of the religious life."--_Christian Work._ $2.00 _A Rendezvous with Life_ "Life is represented as a journey, with various 'inns' along the way such as Day's End, Week's End, Month's End, Year's End--all suggestive of certain experiences and duties." Paper, 25 cts. Modern Religious Cults and Movements By GAIUS GLENN ATKINS, D.D., L.H.D. _Minister of the First Congregational Church, Detroit, Mich. Author of "Pilgrims of the Lonely Road," "The Undiscovered Country," etc._ New York Chicago Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1923, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street _To E.M.C._ _Whose constant friendship through changing years has been like the fire upon his hearthstone, a glowing gift and a grateful memory_ Introduction The last thirty years, though as dates go this is only an approximation, have witnessed a marked development of religious cults and movements largely outside the lines of historic Catholicism and Protestantism. One of these cults is strongly organized and has for twenty years grown more rapidly in proportion than most of the Christian communions. The influence of others, more loosely organized, is far reaching. Some of them attempt to give a religious content to the present trend of science and philosophy, and, generally, they represent the free movement of what one may call the creative religious consciousness of our time. There is, of course, a great and constantly growing literature dealing with particular cults, but there has been as yet apparently no attempt to inquire whether there may not be a few unexpectedly simple centers around which, in spite of their superficial differences, they really organize themselves. What follows is an endeavour in these directions. It is really a very great task and can at the best be only tentatively done. Whoever undertakes it may well begin by confessing his own limitations. Contemporaneous appraisals of movements upon whose tides we ourselves are borne are subject to constant revision. One's own prejudices, no matter how strongly one may deal with them, colour one's conclusions, particularly in the region of religion. The really vast subject matter also imposes its own limitations upon even the most sincere student unless he has specialized for a lifetime in his theme; even then he would need to ask the charity of his readers. Ground has been broken for such an endeavour in many different directions. Broadly considered, William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" was perhaps the pioneer work. Professor James' suggestive analyses recognize the greatly divergent forms religious experience may take and establish their right to be taken seriously as valid facts for the investigator. The whole tendency of organized Christianity--and Protestantism more largely than Catholicism--has been to narrow religious experience to accepted forms, but religion itself is impatient of forms. It has its border-lands, shadowy regions which lie between the acceptance of what Sabatier calls "the religions of authority" on the one hand and the conventional types of piety or practical goodness on the other. Those who find their religion in such regions--one might perhaps call them the border-land people--discover the authority for their faith in philosophies which, for the most part, have not the sanction of the schools and the demonstration of the reality of their faith in personal experience for which there is very little proof except their own testimony--and their testimony itself is often confused enough. But James made no attempt to relate his governing conceptions to particular organizations and movements save in the most general way. His fundamentals, the distinction he draws between the "once-born" and the "twice-born," between the religion of healthy-mindedness and the need of the sick soul, the psychological bases which he supplies for conversation and the rarer religious experiences are immensely illuminating, but all this is only the nebulæ out of which religions are organized into systems; the systems still remain to be considered. There has been of late a new interest in Mysticism, itself a border-land word, strangely difficult of definition yet meaning generally the persuasion that through certain spiritual disciplines--commonly called the mystic way--we may come into a first-hand knowledge of God and the spiritual order, in no sense dependent upon reason or sense testimony. Some modern movements are akin to mysticism but they cannot all be fairly included in any history of mysticism. Neither can they be included in any history of Christianity; some of them completely ignore the Christian religion; some of them press less central aspects of it out of all proportion; one of them undertakes to recast Christianity in its own moulds but certainly gives it a quality in so dealing with it which cannot be supported by any critical examination of the Gospels or considered as the logical development of Christian dogma. Here are really new adventures in religion with new gospels, new prophets and new creeds. They need to be twice approached, once through an examination of those things which are fundamental in religion itself, for they have behind them the power of what one may call the religious urge, and they will ultimately stand as they meet, with a measure of finality, those needs of the soul of which religion has always been the expression, or fall as they fail to meet them. But since some limitation or other in the types of Christianity which are dominant amongst us has given them their opportunity they must also be approached through some consideration of the Christianity against which they have reacted. Unsatisfied needs of the inner life have unlocked the doors through which they have made their abundant entry. Since they also reflect, as religion always reflects, contemporaneous movements in Philosophy, Science, Ethics and Social Relationship, they cannot be understood without some consideration of the forces under whose strong impact inherited faiths have, during the last half century, been slowly breaking down, and in answer to whose suggestions faith has been taking a new form. A rewarding approach, then, to Modern Religious Cults and Movements must necessarily move along a wide front, and a certain amount of patience and faith is asked of the reader in the opening chapters of this book: patience enough to follow through the discussion of general principles, and faith enough to believe that such a discussion will in the end contribute to the practical understanding of movements with which we are all more or less familiar, and by which we are all more or less affected. G.G.A. _Detroit, Michigan._ Contents I. FORMS AND BACKGROUNDS OF INHERITED CHRISTIANITY 13 Certain Qualities Common to All Religions--Christianity Historically Organized Around a Transcendent God and a Fallen Humanity--The Incarnation; the Cross the Supreme Symbol of Western Theology--The Catholic Belief in the Authority of an Inerrant Church--The Protestant Church Made Faith the Key to Salvation--Protestantism and an Infallibly Inspired Bible--The Strength and Weakness of This Position--Evangelical Protestantism the Outcome--Individual Experience of the Believer the Keystone of Evangelical Protestantism--Readjustment of Both Catholic and Protestant Systems Inevitable. II. NEW FORCES AND OLD FAITHS 46 The Far-reaching Readjustments of Christian Faith in the Last Fifty Years--The Reaction of Evolution Upon Religion--The Reaction of Biblical Criticism Upon Faith--The Average Man Loses His Bearings--The New Psychology--The Influence of Philosophy and the Social Situation--An Age of Confusion--The Lure of the Short Cut--Popular Education--The Churches Lose Authority--Efforts at Reconstruction--An Age of Doubt and a Twilight-Zone in History--The Hunger of the Soul and the Need for Faith--Modern Religious Cults and Movements: Their Three Centers About Which They Have Organized Themselves. III. FAITH HEALING IN GENERAL 82 The Bases of Faith and Mental Healing--Cannon's Study of Emotional Reactions--The Two Doors--The Challenge of Hypnotism--Changed Attention Affects Physical States--The Power of Faith to Change Mental Attitudes--Demon Possession--The Beginnings of Scientific Medicine--The Attitude of the Early and Medieval Church--Saints and Shrines--Magic, Charms, and the King's Touch: The Rise of the Faith Healer. IV. THE APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MARY BAKER EDDY 108 Mesmerism--The Scientific Investigation of Mesmerism--Mesmerism in America; Phineas Quimby an Important Link in a Long Chain--Quimby is Led to Define Sickness as Wrong Belief--Quimby Develops His Theories--Mary Baker Eddy Comes Under His Influence--Outstanding Events of Her Life: Her Early Girlhood--Her Education: Shaping Influences--Her Unhappy Fortunes. She is Cured by Quimby--An Unacknowledged Debt--She Develops Quimby's Teachings--Begins to Teach and to Heal--Early Phases of Christian Science--She Writes "Science and Health" and Completes the Organization of Her Church. V. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A PHILOSOPHY 136 Christian Science a Philosophy, a Theology, a Religion and a System of Healing--The Philosophic Bases of Christian Science--It Undertakes to Solve the Problem of Evil--Contrasted Solutions--The Divine Mind and Mortal Mind--The Essential Limitations of Mrs. Eddy's System--Experience and Life--Sense-Testimony--The Inescapable Reality of Shadowed Experience. VI. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A THEOLOGY 163 Science and Health Offered as a Key to the Scriptures--It Ignores All Recognized Canons of Biblical Interpretation--Its Conception of God--Mrs. Eddy's Interpretation of Jesus Christ--Christian Science His Second Coming--Christian Science, the Incarnation and the Atonement--Sin an Error of Mortal Mind--The Sacraments Disappear--The Real Power of Christian Science. VII. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM OF HEALING AND A RELIGION 185 Christian Science the Application of Philosophy and Theology to Bodily Healing--Looseness of Christian Science Diagnosis--The Power of Mental Environment--Christian Science Definition of Disease--Has a Rich Field to Work--A Strongly-Drawn System of Psycho-therapy--A System of Suggestion--Affected by Our Growing Understanding of the Range of Suggestion--Strongest in Teaching That God Has Meaning for the Whole of Life--Exalts the Power of Mind; the Processes--Is Not Big Enough for the Whole of Experience. VIII. NEW THOUGHT 210 New Thought Difficult to Define--"The Rediscovery of the Inner Life"--Spinoza's Quest--Kant Reaffirms the Creative Power of Mind--Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism--The Reactions Against Them--New England Transcendentalism--New Thought Takes Form--Its Creeds--The Range of the Movement--The Key-Words of New Thought--Its Field of Real Usefulness--Its Gospel of Getting On--The Limitations and Dangers of Its Positions--Tends to Become a Universal and Loosely-Defined Religion. IX. THE RETURN OF THE EAST UPON WEST. THEOSOPHY AND KINDRED CULTS 245 Historic Forces Carried Early Christianity West and Not East--The West Rediscovers the East; the East Returns Upon the West--Chesterton's Two Saints--Why the West Questions the East--Pantheism and Its Problems--How the One Becomes the Many--Evolution and Involution--Theosophy Undertakes to Offer Deliverance--But Becomes Deeply Entangled Itself--The West Looks to Personal Immortality--The East Balances the Accounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations--Theosophy Produces a Distinct Type of Character--A "Tour de Force" of the Imagination--A Bridge of Clouds--The Difficulties of Reincarnation--Immortality Nobler, Juster and Simpler--Pantheism at Its Best--and Its Worst. X. SPIRITUALISM 284 The Genesis of Modern Spiritualism--It Crosses to Europe--The Beginnings of Trance-Mediumship--The Society for Psychical Research Begins Its Work--Confronts Difficulties--William James Enters the Field--The Limitations of Psychical Investigation--The Society for Psychical Research Gives Intellectual Standing to Spiritism--The Very Small Number of Dependable Mediums--Spiritism a Question of Testimony and Interpretation--Possible Explanations of Spiritistic Phenomena--Myers' Theory of Mediumship--Telepathy--Controls--The Dilemma of Spiritism--The Influence of Spiritism--The Real Alternative to Spiritism--The Investigations of Émile Boirac--Geley's Conclusions--The Meaning of Spiritism for Faith. XI. MINOR CULTS: THE MEANING OF THE CULTS FOR THE CHURCH 326 Border-land Cults--Bahaism--The Bab and His Successors--The Temple of Unity--General Conclusions--The Cults Are Aspects of the Creative Religious Consciousness of the Age--Their Parallels in the Past--The Healing Cults Likely to be Adversely Influenced by the Scientific Organization of Psycho-therapy--New Thought Will Become Old Thought--Possible Absorption of the Cults by a Widening Historic Christianity--Christianity Influenced by the Cults--Medical Science and the Healing Cults--A Neglected Force--Time and the Corrections of Truth. I THE FORMS AND BACKGROUNDS OF INHERITED CHRISTIANITY Chronologically the point of departure for such a study as this is the decade from 1880 to 1890. This is only an approximation but it will do. It was a particularly decorous decade. There was no fighting save on the outposts of colonial empires, the little wars of Soldiers Three and Barrack Room Ballads--too far away for their guns to be heard in the streets of capital cities, but lending a touch of colour to newspaper head-lines and supplying new material for rising young writers. It was the decade of triumphant Democracy and triumphant Science and triumphant Industrialism and, among the more open-minded, of triumphant Evolution. Western Civilization was sure of its forces, sure of its formulæ, sure of its future; there were here and there clouds no bigger than a man's hand against particularly luminous horizons, but there was everywhere a general agreement that they would be dissolved by the force of benign development. The world seemed particularly well in hand. The churches generally shared this confidence. Catholicism and Protestantism had reached a tacit working agreement as to their spheres of influence and were even beginning to fraternize a little. The divisive force of Protestantism seemed to have spent itself. Since Alexander Campbell--dead now for a decade and a half--no Protestant sect of any importance had been established. The older denominations had achieved a distinctive finality in organization and doctrine. Evolution and Biblical criticism were generally the storm centers of controversy and though these controversies were severe enough they produced no schisms in the churches themselves. A few religious leaders were urging a more thoroughgoing social interpretation and application of the teachings of Jesus; such as these were really looked upon with more suspicion than the propagandists of a liberal theology. We see now with almost tragic clearness that, beneath the surface of the whole interrelated order of that tranquil afternoon of the Victorian epoch, there were forces in action working toward such a challenge of the accepted and inherited as cultures and civilizations are asked to meet only in the great crises of history and bound to issue, as they have issued in far-flung battle lines, in the overthrow of ancient orders and new alignments along every front of human interest. It will be the task of the historians of the future who will have the necessary material in hand to follow these immense reactions in their various fields and they will find their real point of departure not in dates but in the human attitudes and outlooks which then made a specious show of being final--and were not final at all. Just there also is the real point of departure for a study like this. We may date the rise of modern religious cults and movements from the last decades of the nineteenth century, but they are really reactions not against a time but a temper, an understanding of religion and a group of religious validations which had been built up through an immense labour of travailing generations and which toward the end of the last century were in the way of being more seriously challenged than for a thousand years (and if this seems too strong a statement the reader is asked to wait for at least the attempted proof of it). We shall have to begin, then, with a state of mind which for want of a better name I venture to call the representative orthodox religious consciousness of the end of the nineteenth century. That this consciousness is Christian is of course assumed. It is Protestant rather than Catholic, for Protestantism has supplied the larger number of followers to the newer religious movements. To begin with, this representative religious consciousness was by no means simple. Professor James Harvey Robinson tells us that the modern mind is really a complex, that it contains and continues the whole of our inheritances and can be understood only through the analysis of all the contributive elements which have combined to make it what it is and that the inherited elements in it far outweigh more recent contributions. The religious mind is an equally complex and deep-rooted inheritance and can best be approached by a consideration of the bases of religion. _Certain Qualities Common to All Religions_ We are but pilgrims down roads which space and time supply; we cannot account for ourselves in terms of what we know to be less than ourselves, nor can we face the shadow which falls deeply across the end of our way without dreaming, at least, of that which lies beyond. Whence? Whither? and Why? are insurgent questions; they are voices out of the depths. A very great development of intelligence was demanded before such questions really took definite shape, but they are implicit in even the most rudimentary forms of religion, nor do we outgrow them through any achievement of Science or development of Philosophy. They become thereby, if anything, more insistent. Our widening horizons of knowledge are always swept by a vaster circumference of mystery into which faith must write a meaning and beyond which faith must discern a destiny. Religion begins, therefore, in our need so to interpret the power manifest in the universe[1] as to come into some satisfying relationship therewith. It goes on to supply an answer to the dominant questions--Whence? Whither? Why? It fulfills itself in worship and communion with what is worshipped. Such worship has addressed itself to vast ranges of objects, fulfilled itself in an almost unbelievable variety of rites. And yet in every kind of worship there has been some aspiration toward an ideal excellence and some endeavour, moreover, of those who worship to come into a real relation with what is worshipped. It would need a detailed treatment, here impossible, to back up so general a statement with the facts which prove it, but the facts are beyond dispute. It would be equally difficult to analyze the elements in human nature which lead us to seek such communion. The essential loneliness of the soul, our sense of divided and warring powers and the general emotional instability of personality without fitting objects of faith and devotion, all contribute to the incurable religiosity of human nature. [Footnote 1: I have taken as a working definition of Religion a phrase quoted by Ward Fowler in the introduction to his Gifford Lectures on "The Religious Experience of the Roman People." "Religion is the effective desire to be in right relationship to the power manifesting itself in the Universe." This is only a formula but it lends itself to vital interpretations and is a better approach to modern cults, many of which are just that endeavour, than those definitions of religion just now current which define it as a system of values or a process of evaluation.] The value which religion has for those who hold it is perhaps as largely tested by its power to give them a real sense of communion with God as by any other single thing, but this by no means exhausts the value of religion for life. All religions must, in one way or another, meet the need of the will for guidance and the need of the ethical sense for right standards. Religion has always had an ethical content, simple enough to begin with as religion itself was simple. Certain things were permitted, certain things prohibited as part of a cult. These permissions and prohibitions are often strangely capricious, but we may trace behind taboo and caste and the ceremonially clean and unclean an always emerging standard of right and wrong and a fundamental relationship between religion and ethics. Religion from the very first felt itself to be the more august force and through its superior authority gave direction and quality to the conduct of its devotees. It was long enough before all this grew into Decalogues and the Sermon on the Mount and the latter chapters of Paul's great letters to his churches and our present system of Christian ethics, but we discover the beginning of the lordship of religion over conduct even in the most primitive cults. We shall find as we go on that this particular aspect of religion is less marked in modern religious cults and movements than either the quest for a new understanding of God or new answers to the three great questions, or the longing for a more satisfying communion with God. They accept, for the most part, the generally held standards of Christian conduct, but even so, they are beginning to develop their own ethical standards and to react upon the conduct of those who hold them. As has been intimated, however, the appeal of religion goes far deeper than all this. If it did no more than seek to define for us the "power not ourselves" everywhere made manifest, if it did no more than answer the haunting questions: Whence? and Whither? and Why?, if it did no more than offer the emotional life a satisfying object of worship and communion with the Divine, supplying at the same time ethical standards and guiding and strengthening the will in its endeavour after goodness, it would have done us an immense service. But one may well wonder whether if religion did no more than this it would have maintained itself as it has and renew through the changing generations its compelling appeal. More strong than any purely intellectual curiosity as to a first cause or controlling power, more haunting than any wonder as to the source and destiny of life, more persistent than any loneliness of the questing soul is our dissatisfaction with ourselves, our consciousness of tragic moral fault, our need of forgiveness and deliverance. This longing for deliverance has taken many forms. Henry Osborn Taylor in a fine passage has shown us how manifold are the roads men have travelled in their quest for salvation.[2] "For one man shall find his peace in action, another in the rejection of action, even in the seeming destruction of desire; another shall have peace and freedom through intellectual inquiry, while another must obey his God or love his God and may stand in very conscious need of divine salvation. The adjustment sought by Confucius was very different from that which drew the mind of Plato or led Augustine to the City of God. Often quite different motives may inspire the reasonings which incidentally bring men to like conclusions.... The life adjustment of the early Greek philosophers had to do with scientific curiosity.... They were not like Gotama seeking relief from the tedious impermanence of personal experience any more than they were seeking to insure their own eternal welfare in and through the love of God, the motive around which surged the Christian yearning for salvation. Evidently every religion is a means of adjustment or deliverance." [Footnote 2: "Deliverance," pp. 4 and 5.] Professor James in his chapter on The Sick Souls deals most suggestively with these driving longings and all the later analyses of the psychology of conversion begin with the stress of the divided self. The deeper teaching of the New Testament roots itself in this soil. The literature of confession is rich in classic illustrations of all this, told as only St. Augustine more than a thousand years ago or Tolstoy yesterday can tell it. No need to quote them here; they are easily accessible for those who would find for their own longings immortal voices and be taught with what searching self-analysis those who have come out of darkness into light have dealt with their own sick souls. Every religion has in some fashion or other offered deliverance to its devotees through sacrifice or spiritual discipline, or the assurance that their sins were atoned for and their deliverance assured through the sufferings of others. All this, needless to say, involves not only the sense of sin but the whole reach of life's shadowed experiences. We have great need to be delivered not only from our divided selves but from the burdens and perplexities of life. Religion must offer some explanation of the general problem of sorrow and evil; it must, above all, justify the ways of God with men. Generally speaking, religion is very greatly dependent upon its power so to interpret the hard things of life to those who bear them that they may still believe in the Divine love and justice. The generality of doubt is not philosophical but practical. We break with God more often than for any other reason because we believe that He has not kept faith with us. Some of the more strongly held modern cults have found their opportunity in the evident deficiency of the traditional explanation of pain and sorrow. Religion has really a strong hold on the average life only as it meets the more shadowed side of experience with the affirmation of an all-conquering love and justice in which we may rest. Broadly considered, then, the elements common to all religions are such as these: a satisfying interpretation of the power manifest in the universe, the need of the mind for an answer to the questions Whence? and Whither? and Why?, the need of the emotional life for such peace as may come from the consciousness of being in right relationship and satisfying communion with God, the need of the will and ethical sense for guidance, and a need including all this and something beside for spiritual deliverance. The representative religious consciousness of the end of the nineteenth century in which we find our point of departure for the religious reactions of the last generation naturally included all this, but implicitly rather than explicitly. The intellectually curious were more concerned with science and political economies than the nature or genesis of religion, while the truly devout, who are not generally given to the critical analysis of their faith, accepted it as a Divine revelation needing no accounting for outside their Bible. Moreover such things as these were not then and never can be held abstractly. They were articulate in creeds and organized in churches and invested with the august sanction of authority, and mediated through old, old processes of religious development. _Christianity Historically Organized Around the Conception of a Transcendent God and a Fallen Humanity_ For in its historic development religion has naturally taken distinctly divergent forms, conditioned by race, environment, the action and reaction of massed experience and by the temper and insight of a few supremely great religious leaders. But centrally, the whole development of any religion has been controlled by its conception of God and, in the main, three different conceptions of God give colour and character to the outstanding historic religions. Pantheistic religions have thought of God as just the whole of all that is; they widen the universe to the measure of the Divine, or narrow the Divine to the operations of the universe. Pantheism saturates its whole vague content with a mystical quality of thought, and colours what it sees with its own emotions. The religions of the Divine Immanence conceive God as pervading and sustaining all that is and revealing Himself thereby, though not necessarily confined therein. The religions of the Divine Transcendence have believed in a God who is apart from all that is, who neither begins nor ends in His universe, and from whom we are profoundly separated not only by our littlenesses but by our sin. All this is a bare statement of what is almost infinitely richer as it has been felt and proclaimed by the devout and we shall see as we go on how the newer religious movements take also their colour and character from a new emphasis upon the nature of God, or else a return to understandings of Him and feelings about Him which have been lost out in the development of Christianity. Historically Christian theology, particularly in the West, has centered around the conception of a Transcendent God. As far as doctrine goes Christianity took over a great inheritance from the Jew, for arrestingly enough the Jew, though he belongs to the East, had never anything in common with Eastern Pantheism. On the contrary we find his prophets and lawgivers battling with all their force against such aspects of Pantheism as they found about them. The God of the Old Testament is always immeasurably above those who worshipped Him in righteousness and power; He is their God and they are His chosen people, but there is never any identification of their will with His except in the rare moments of their perfect obedience. True enough, through the insight of the prophets and particularly the experience of psalmists, this conception of the Apart-God became increasingly rich in the persuasion of His unfailing care for His children. None the less, the Hebrew God is a Transcendent God and Christianity inherits from that. Christianity took over what Judaism refused--Jesus Christ and His Gospel. But out of the immeasurable wealth of His teaching apostolic thinking naturally appropriated and made most of what was nearest in line with the prophets and the lawgivers of their race. Judaism refused Christ but the Twelve Apostles were Jews and the greatest of the group--St. Paul--was a Jewish Rabbi before he became a Christian teacher. He had been nurtured and matured in the schools of his people and though he was reborn, in renunciations and obediences distinctly Christian, there were in his very soul inherited rigidities of form in conformity to which he recast his faith. More distinctly than he himself could ever have known, he particularized the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Doubtless his own experience was the deeper directing force in all this. Theologies always, to begin with, are the molten outpouring of some transforming experience and they are always, to begin with, fluid and glowing. Such glowing experiences as these are hard to communicate; they, too, soon harden down and we inherit, as cold and rigid form, what was to begin with the flaming outcome of experience. St. Paul's own struggle and the bitterness of a divided self which issued in his conversion naturally gave content to all his after teaching. He worked out his system strangely apart from the other group of disciples; he had probably never heard a word of Christ's teaching directly from Christ's lips; he naturally fell back, therefore, upon his Jewish inheritance and widened that system of sacrifices and atonements until he found therein not only a place for the Cross but the necessity for it. He made much, therefore, of the sense of alienation from God, of sin and human helplessness, of the need and possibility of redemption. _The Incarnation as the Bridge Between God and Man; the Cross as the Instrument of Man's Redemption. The Cross the Supreme Symbol of Western Theology_ Here, then, are the two speculative backgrounds of historic Christianity,--God's apartness from man in an inconceivable immensity of lonely goodness, man's alienation from God in a helpless fallen estate. For the bridging of the gulf between God and His world Christianity offers the incarnation; for the saving of man from his lost estate Christianity offers the Cross. The incarnation is the reëntry of God into a world from which, indeed, according to the Christian way of thinking, He has never been entirely separate, but from which He has, none the less, been so remote that if ever it were to be rescued from its ruined condition there was needed a new revelation of God in humanity; and the Atonement is just the saving operation of God thus incarnated. Eastern Christianity has made most of the incarnation. The great Greek theologies were built around that. They exhausted the resources of a language particularly fitted for subtle definition in their endeavour to explain the mystery of it, and, after more than a century of bitter debate about the nature and person of Christ, contented themselves with affirming the reality both of the human and divine in His nature, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, nor indeed making clear in any truly comprehensible way the truth which they so sought to define, or the faith to which they so passionately held. But though their keen dialectic broke down under the burden they laid upon it, they did, nevertheless, keep alive just that confidence in God as one come into human life and sharing it and using it, without which there would have been in all the faith and thinking of the West for more than a thousand years an unbridged and unbridgeable gulf between God and man. Indeed, when we turn back again to the great Greek symbols with that conception of the immanence of God which the truer insights of our own time have done so much to supply, we find these old forms and phrases unexpectedly hospitable to our own interpretations. If the Western Church had been more strongly influenced by the philosophical insight of the early Eastern Church, Western Christendom might have been saved from a good deal of that theological hardness from which great numbers are just now reacting. But Western Christendom took the Cross for the central symbol of its faith. What would have happened to Western Christendom without Augustine we do not know, and it is idle to try to guess, but Europe in its religious thinking followed for a thousand years the direction he gave it. His theology is only the travail of his soul, glowing and molten. His Confessions reveal to us more clearly than any other record we have Paganism becoming Christian. In the travail of his spirit we see something vaster than his own conversion, we see the formulation of new spiritual experiences, the birth of new spiritual relationships, the growth of new moral orders and consecrations. He bridges for us the passages between Paganism and Christianity. He reveals what rebirth meant for men to whom it was no convention but an agonizing recasting of both the inner and outer life. He shows us what it meant to put aside the inheritances and relationships of an immemorial order and to stand as a little child untaught, undisciplined and unperfect in the presence of the new. The spiritual attitude which Augustine attained was to be for long the dominant spiritual attitude of Europe, was to govern medieval conceptions, inspire medieval actions, colour with its flame the mystic brooding of the medieval mind. In the end the sovereignty of God became for Augustine supreme and over against this he set with strong finality man's hopeless fallen state. He was doubtless in debt to St. Paul for these governing conceptions but they took new character as they passed through the alembic of his own experience. "The one pervading thought of the Greek fathers concerning the redemptive work of Christ is that men are thereby brought into unity with God. They do not hesitate to designate this unity to be as a deification ... they dwell on the idea that we become partakers of the Divine nature."[3] The emphasis here is not so much upon sin to be atoned for or punishment to be avoided, as reconciliation to be achieved. [Footnote 3: Fisher, "History of Christian Doctrine," p. 162.] After Augustine the interpretations of the Cross take a new direction. Now men are thereby not so much to be made partakers of the divine nature as to be saved from hell. The explanations of the way in which this salvation is really achieved change with the changing centuries but through shifting theologies there is one constant. All men are lost and foredoomed to an eternal punishment from which they are saved only in that Christ suffered for them and they, through their faith and obedience, have availed themselves of His vicarious death. The varying theological interpretations are themselves greatly significant as if here were something whose meanings no single explanation could exalt, something to be felt rather than understood. The Cross so seen is the symbol at once of love and need, of moral defeat and moral discipline, of suffering helplessness and overcoming goodness. We cannot overstate the influence of this faith upon the better part of Western civilization. It has kept us greatly humble, purged us of our pride and thrown us back in a helplessness which is, after all, the true secret of our strength, upon the saving mercy of God. The story of it, simply told, has moved the hard or bitter or the careless as nothing else can do. Its assurances of deliverance have given new hope to the hopeless and a power not their own to the powerless. It has exalted as the very message of God the patient enduring of unmerited suffering; it has taught us how there is no deliverance save as the good suffer for the bad and the strong put their strength at the service of the weak; it has taught us that the greatest sin is the sin against love and the really enduring victories for any better cause are won only as through the appeal of a much enduring unselfishness new tempers are created and new forces are released. Nor is there any sign yet that its empire has begun to come to an end. _The Catholic Church Offered Deliverance in Obedience to the Authority of an Inerrant Church_ Nevertheless the preaching of the Cross has not commonly taken such forms as these; it has been rather the appeal of the Church to the individual to escape his sinful and hopeless estate either through an obedient self-identification with the Church's discipline and an unquestioning acceptance of the Church's authority, or else through an intellectual acceptance of the scheme of redemption and a moral surrender to it. Here are really the two lines of approach through the one or the other of which Christianity has been made real to the individual from the time of St. Paul till our own time. During the early formative period of the Church it was a matter between the individual and his God. So much we read in and between the lines of the Pauline Epistles. As far as any later time can accurately recast the thought and method of a far earlier time evangelical Protestant theology fairly interprets St. Paul. Faith--a big enough word, standing for both intellectual acceptance and a kind of mystic receptivity to the love and goodness and justice of God revealed in the Cross of Christ--is the key to salvation and the condition of Christian character. It is also that through which religion becomes real to the individual. But since all this lays upon the individual a burden hard enough to be borne (as we shall see when we come back to Protestantism itself) the Church, as her organization became more definite and her authority more strongly established, took the responsibility of the whole matter upon herself. She herself would become responsible for the outcome if only they were teachable and obedient. The Catholic Church offered to its communicants an assured security, the proof of which was not in the fluctuating states of their own souls but in the august authority of the Church to which they belonged. As long, therefore, as they remained in obedient communion with their Church their souls were secure. The Church offered them its confessional for their unburdening and its absolutions for their assurance, its sacraments for their strengthening and its penances for their discipline and restoration. It took from them in spiritual regions and maybe in other regions too, the responsibility for the conduct of their own lives and asked of the faithful only that they believe and obey. The Church, as it were, "stepped down" religion to humanity. It did all this with a marvellous understanding of human nature and in answer to necessities which were, to begin with, essential to the discipline of childlike peoples who would otherwise have been brought face to face with truths too great for them, or dismissed to a freedom for which they were not ready. It was and is a marvellous system; there has never been anything like it and if it should wholly fail from amongst us there will never be anything like it again. And yet we see that all this vast spiritual edifice, like the arches of its own great cathedrals, locks up upon a single keystone. The keystone of the arch of Catholic certainty is the acceptance of the authority of the Church conditioned by belief in the divine character of that authority. If anything should shake the Catholic's belief in the authority of his Church and the efficacy of her sacraments then he is left strangely unsheltered. Strongly articulated as this system is, it has not been untouched by time and change. To continue our figure, one great wing of the medieval structure fell away in the Protestant Reformation and what was left, though extensive and solid enough, is still like its great cathedrals--yielding to time and change. The impressive force and unity of contemporaneous Catholicism may lead us perhaps to underestimate the number of those in the Catholic line who, having for one reason or another lost faith in their Church, are now open to the appeal of the newer movements. For example, the largest non-Catholic religious group of Poles in Detroit are Russellites. There are on good authority between three and four thousand of them. _The Protestant Church Made Faith the Key to Salvation with Conversion the Test for the Individual of the Reality of His Religious Experience_ If religion has been made real to the Catholic through the mediation of his Church, Protestantism, seeking to recreate the apostolic Church, has made the reality of religion a matter between the individual and his God. And yet Protestantism has never dared commit itself to so simple a phrasing of religion as this, nor to go on without authorities of its own. Protestantism generally has substituted for the inclusive authority of the Catholic Church the authority of its own creeds and fundamentally the authority of the Bible. As far as creeds go Protestantism carried over the content of Latin Christianity more largely than we have generally recognized. Luther was in direct line with Augustine as Augustine was in direct line with St. Paul, and Luther's fundamental doctrine--justification by faith--was not so much a rewriting of ancient creeds as a new way of validating their meaning for the individual. Faith, in our common use of the term, has hardened down into an intellectual acceptance of Protestant theologies, but certainly for St. Paul and probably for Luther it was far more vital than this and far more simple. It was rather a resting upon a delivering power, the assurance of whose desire and willingness to deliver was found in the New Testament. It was an end to struggle, a spiritual victory won through surrender. The Latin Catholic system had come to impose upon such tempers as Luther's an unendurable amount of strain; it was too complex, too demanding, and it failed to carry with it necessary elements of mental and spiritual consent. (St. Paul had the same experience with his own Judaism.) What Luther sought was a peace-bringing rightness with God. He was typically and creatively one of William James' "divided souls" and he found the solution for his fears, his struggles and his doubts in simply taking for granted that a fight which he was not able to win for himself had been won for him in the transaction on the Cross. He had nothing, therefore, to do but to accept the peace thus made possible and thereafter to be spiritually at rest. Now since the whole of the meaning of the Cross for Christianity from St. Paul until our own time is involved in this bare statement and since our theologies have never been able to explain this whole great matter in any doctrinal form which has secured universal consent, we must simply fall back upon the statement of the fact and recognize that here is something to be defined in terms of experience and not of doctrine. The validating experience has come generally to be known as conversion, and conversion has played a great part in evangelical Protestantism ever since the Reformation. It has become, indeed, the one way in which religion has been made real to most members of evangelical churches. So sweeping a statement must be somewhat qualified, for conversion is far older than Luther;[4] it is not confined to Protestantism and the Protestant churches themselves have not agreed in their emphasis upon it. Yet we are probably on safe ground in saying that religion has become real to the average member of the average Protestant Church more distinctly through conversion than anything else. [Footnote 4: But rather in the discipline of the Mystic as an enrichment of the spiritual life than as a door to the Communion of the Church.] Conversion has of late come up for a pretty thoroughgoing examination by the psychologists, and their conclusions are so generally familiar as to need no restatement here. William James, in a rather informal paragraph quoted from one of his letters, states the psychologist's point of view more simply and vividly than either he or his disciples have defined their position in their more formal works. "In the case of conversion I am quite willing to believe that a new truth may be supernaturally revealed to a subject when he really asks, but I am sure that in many cases of conversion it is less a new truth than a new power gained over life by a truth always known. It is a case of the conflict of two self-systems in a personality up to that time heterogeneously divided, but in which, after the conversion crisis, the higher loves and powers come definitely to gain the upper hand and expel the forces which up to that time had kept them down to the position of mere grumblers and protesters and agents of remorse and discontent. This broader view will cover an enormous number of cases psychologically and leaves all the religious importance to the result which it has on any other theory."[5] [Footnote 5: Letters of William James, Vol. II, p. 57.] In Luther, Augustine and St. Paul, and a great fellowship beside, this stress of the divided self was both immediate and intense. Such as these through the consciousness of very real fault--and this is true of Augustine and St. Paul--or through a rare spiritual sensitiveness and an unusual force of aspiration--and this is true of many others--did not need any conviction of sin urged upon them from the outside. They had conviction enough of their own. But all these have been men and women apart, intensely devout by nature, committed by temperament to great travail of soul and concerned, above all, for their own spiritual deliverance. But their spiritual sensitiveness is by no means universal, their sense of struggle not a normal experience for another type of personality. The demand, therefore, that all religious experience be cast in their particular mould, and that religion be made real to every one through the same travail of soul in which it was made real to them, carries with it two very great dangers: first, that some semblance of struggle should be created which does not come vitally out of experience; and second, that the resultant peace should be artificial rather than true, and therefore, should not only quickly lose its force but really result in reactions which would leave the soul of the one so misled, or better perhaps, so mishandled, emptier of any real sense of the reality of religion than to begin with. _Protestantism Found Its Authority in an Infallibly Inspired Bible_ Now this is too largely what has happened in evangelical Protestantism. The "twice-born" have been set up as the standard for us all; they have demanded of their disciples the same experience as those through which they themselves have passed. Since this type of religious experience has always been the more ardent and vivid, since the churches in which least has been made of it have generally tended to fall away into routine and some want of real power, we have had, particularly since Jonathan Edwards in America and the Wesleys in England, a recurrent insistence upon it as the orthodox type of religious experience. Partly through inheritance and partly in answer to its own genius Protestantism has built up a system of theology tending to reproduce the sequence of conviction of sin, aspiration, repentance, and conversion by doctrinal pressure from the outside. The foundations of it all are in the New Testament and somewhat in the Old, but what has been built upon these foundations has been either too extended or too one-sided. In order to include in one general sense of condemnation strong enough to create an adequate desire for salvation, all sorts and conditions of people, theology has not only charged us up with our own sins which are always a sad enough account, but it has charged us up with ancestral and imputed sins. This line of theology has been far too rigid, far too insistent upon what one may call the facts of theology, and far too blind to the facts of life. It has made much of sin in the abstract and sometimes far too little of concrete sin; it has made more of human depravity than social justice; it has failed to make allowance for varieties of temper and condition; it is partly responsible for the widespread reaction of the cults and movements of our own time. Since so strongly an articulate system as this needed something to sustain it, Protestantism has constantly supported itself in the authority of the Old and New Testaments. It displaced one authority by another, the authority of the Church by the authority of the Book, and in order to secure for this authority an ultimate and unquestioned power it affirmed as the beginning and the end of its use of the Scriptures their infallibility. The growth of Protestant teaching about the Bible has necessarily been complicated but we must recognize that Protestant theology and Protestant tradition have given the Bible what one may call read-in values. At any rate after affirming the infallibility of the text Protestantism has turned back to the text for the proof of its teaching and so built up its really very great interrelated system in which, as has already been said, the power of religion over the life of its followers and the reality of religion in the experiences of its followers locked up on just such things as these: First, the experiences of conversions; second, conversion secured through the processes of Protestant indoctrination, backed up by the fervent appeal of the Protestant ministry and the pressure of Protestant Church life; and third, all this supported by an appeal to the authority of the Bible with a proof-text for every statement. All this is, of course, to deal coldly and analytically with something which, as it has worked out in religious life, has been neither cold nor analytical. Underneath it all have been great necessities of the soul and issuing out of it all have been aspirations and devoutnesses and spiritual victories and new understandings of God and a wealth of love and goodness which are a part of the imperishable treasures of humanity for three centuries. This faith and experience have voiced themselves in moving hymns, built themselves into rare and continuing fellowships, gone abroad in missionary passion, spent themselves for a better world and looked unafraid even into the face of death, sure of life and peace beyond. But behind the great realities of our inherited religious life one may discover assumptions and processes less sure. _The Strength and Weakness of This Position_ Once more, this inherited faith in the Bible and the systems which have grown out of it have been conditioned by scientific and philosophic understandings. The Protestant doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible assumed its authority not only in the region of religion but in science and history as well. The inherited theologies really went out of their way to give the incidental the same value as the essential. There was no place in them for growth, correction, further revelation. This statement may be challenged, it certainly needs to be qualified, for when the time for adjustment and the need of adjustment really did come the process of adjustment began to be carried through, but only at very great cost and only really by slowly building new foundations under the old. In fact the new is not in many ways the old at all, though this is to anticipate. It is directly to the point here that the whole scheme of religion as it has come down to us on the Protestant side till within the last fifty years was at once compactly interwrought, strongly supported and unexpectedly vulnerable. The integrity of any one part of its line depended upon the integrity of every other part; its gospel went back to the Fall of Man and depended, therefore, upon the Biblical theory of the Creation and subsequent human history. If anything should challenge the scientific or historical accuracy of the book of Genesis, the doctrine of original sin would have either to be discarded or recast. If the doctrine of original sin were discarded or recast, the accepted interpretations of the Atonement went with it. With these changed or weakened the evangelical appeal must either be given new character or lose force. A system which began with the Fall on one side went on to heaven and hell on the other and even heaven and hell were more dependent upon ancient conceptions of the physical structure of the world and the skies above it than the Church was willing to recognize. The doctrine of eternal punishment particularly was open to ethical challenge. _Evangelical Protestantism the Outcome of the Whole Process_ Of course all this is rather an extreme statement of the situation fifty years ago. The churches did not all agree in insisting upon a conversion; some evangelic churches were beginning to place their emphasis upon Christian nurture; they sought what is secured for the emotionally twice-born through guided growth and a larger dependence upon normal spiritual conditions, though they were at least one with their brethren in believing that those who come into Christian discipleship must in the end be greatly changed and conscious of the change; they too must possess as an assurance of the reality of their religious life a sense of peace and spiritual well-being. The high Anglican Church approached the Latin Catholic Church in its insistence upon sacramental regeneration. This wing of the Church believed and believes still that baptism truly administered and the Holy Communion also administered in proper form and accepted in due obedience by priests belonging to some true succession, possess a mystic saving power. Just why all this should be so they are perhaps not able to explain to the satisfaction of any one save those who, for one reason or another, believe it already. But those who cannot understand sacramentarianism may dismiss it far too easily, for though there be here danger of a mechanical formulism, the sacraments themselves may become part of a spiritual discipline through which the lives of men and women are so profoundly changed as in the most clear case of conversion, manifesting often a spiritual beauty not to be found in any other conception of Christian discipleship. Our differences here are not so great as we suppose them. There have always been liberal reactions within the Church herself, tending either toward relaxation of discipline or the more rational and simple statements of doctrine. What has been so far said would not be true of Unitarianism and Universalism in the last century. But these movements have been somehow wanting in driving power, and so, when all these qualifications are made, evangelical Protestantism has resulted in a pretty clearly recognizable type. The representative members of the representative evangelical churches all had a religious experience; some of them had been converted after much waiting at the anxious seat, or long kneeling at the altar rail; others of them had been brought through Christian teaching to the confession of their faith, but all of them were thereby reborn. They were the product of a theology which taught them their lost estate, offered them for their acceptance a mediatorial and atoning Christ, assured them that through their faith their salvation would be assured, and counselled them to look to their own inner lives for the issue of all this in a distinct sense of spiritual peace and well-being. If they doubted or questioned they were answered with proof-texts; for their spiritual sustenance they were given the services of their churches where preaching was generally central, and exhorted to grow in grace and knowledge through prayer and much reading of their Bible. _The Individual Experience of the Believer the Keystone of Evangelical Protestantism. Its Openness to Disturbing Forces_ Now fine and good as all this was it was, as the event proved, not big enough to answer all the needs of the soul, nor strong enough to meet the challenge of forces which were a half century ago shaping themselves toward the almost entire recasting of great regions of human thought. It was, to begin with, unexpectedly weak in itself. Evangelical Protestantism, as has been noted, throws upon the members of Protestant churches a larger burden of individual responsibility than does the Catholic Church. The typical evangelical Protestant has had little to sustain him in his religious life save his sense of reconciliation with God, from whom possibly he never vitally thought himself to have been estranged, and a consequent spiritual peace. His church promises him nothing except teaching, inspiration, comradeship, an occasion for the confession of his faith and some opportunity for service. His ministers are only such as he; they may exhort but they dare not absolve. He is greatly dependent, then, for his sense of the reality of religion upon his own spiritual states. If he is spiritually sensitive and not too much troubled by doubt, if he possesses a considerable capacity for religious understanding, if his Bible is still for him the authoritative word of God, if his church meets his normal religious needs with a reasonable degree of adequacy, if he is resolute in purpose and if he has no excessively trying experiences in the face of which his faith breaks down, and if the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, or the strain of poverty do not too much distract him (and this is a long and formidable list of ifs) then he is faithful in his church relationships and personally devout. He grows in grace and knowledge and the outcome of it all is a religious character admirable in manifold ways, steadfast and truthful in good works. * * * * * The fact that in spite of all hindrances the Protestant churches do go on, registering from decade to decade a varying statistical growth with a strongly organized life and a great body of communicants who find in the religious life thus secured to them the true secret of interior peace and their true source of power, is itself a testimony to the massive reality of the whole system. And yet the keystone of the great structure is just the individual experience of the individual believer, conditioned upon his longing for deliverance and his personal assurance that he has found, through his faith in his church's gospel, what he seeks. If anything should shake the Protestant's confidence in his creed or his Bible, or if his own inner experiences should somehow fail in their sense of sustaining reality, then all the structure of his religion begins to weaken. If one may use and press a suggestive figure, here is a religious structure very much like Gothic architecture; its converging arches of faith and knowledge lock up upon their keystones and the thrust of the whole great structure has been met and conquered by flying buttresses. In other words, sustaining forces of accredited beliefs about science, history and human nature have been a necessary part of the entire system and the temple of faith thus sustained may be weakened either through some failure in the keystone of it which is inner experience, or the flying buttresses of it which are these accepted systems of science, history, philosophy and psychology. _Readjustment of Both Catholic and Protestant Systems Inevitable_ Out of such elements as these, then, through such inheritances and disciplines the representative religious consciousness of American Protestantism of the end of the nineteenth century had been created. It rooted itself in elements common to all religion, it inherited practically the whole content of the Old Testament, it invested Hebraic systems of sacrifice with typical meanings and Jewish prophecy with a mystic authority. It was in debt to St. Paul and Augustine for its theology. Its cosmogony was 4,000 years old and practically uninfluenced by modern science, or else at odds with it. It was uncritical in its acceptance of the supernatural and trained on the whole to find its main line of evidence for the reality of religion in the supernatural. It made more of the scheme of deliverance which St. Paul found in the Crucifixion of Jesus than the ethics of the Gospels. It was mystic in its emphasis upon an inner testimony to the realities it offered. For the Protestant it locked up unexpectedly upon the infallible authority of the Bible and for the Catholic upon the inerrancy of the Church. It was out of the current of the modern temper in science and philosophy generally. Its conceptions of the probable fate of the world were Jewish and of the future life were medieval, and perhaps the strangest thing in it all was the general unconsciousness of its dependence upon assumptions open to challenge at almost every point and the process of profound readjustment upon the threshold of which it stood. It is almost impossible to disentangle the action of the two sets of strain which have within the last half century been brought to bear upon it. Each has reacted upon the other. Perhaps the best thing to do is to consider the forces which for the last two generations have been challenging and reshaping inherited faiths, and then to consider the outcome of it all in the outstanding religious attitudes of our own time. II NEW FORCES AND OLD FAITHS Within the last fifty years particularly the fundamentals of the Christian faith have not only come up for reëxamination but have been compelled to adapt themselves to facts and forces which have gone farther toward recasting them than anything for a millennium and a half before. The Reformation went deep but it did not go to the bottom. There are differences enough in all reason between Protestantism and Catholicism, but their identities are deeper still. The world of Martin Luther and John Calvin was not essentially different in its outlook upon life from the world of Augustine and Athanasius. The world of Jonathan Edwards was much the same as the world of John Calvin and the world of 1850 apparently much the same as the world of Jonathan Edwards. There was, of course, an immense difference in the mechanism with which men were working but an unexpectedly small difference in their ruling ideas. _The Readjustments of Christian Faith More Far-reaching in the Last Fifty Years Than for a Thousand Years Before; Science Releases the Challenging Forces_ We should not, of course, underestimate the contribution of the Reformation to the breaking up of the old order. It left the theologies more substantially unchanged than Protestantism has usually supposed, but it did mark the rise of changed attitudes toward authority. The reformers themselves did not accept without protest the spirit they released. They imposed new authorities and obediences upon their churches; they distrusted individual initiative in spiritual things and the more democratic forms of church organization. John Calvin sought in his Institutes to vindicate the law-abiding character of his new gospel; Luther turned bitterly against the German peasants in their demand for a most moderate measure of social justice; the Anglican leaders exiled the Pilgrims; the Puritan drove the Quaker out of Boston through an instinctive distrust of inward illumination as a safe guide for faith and religious enthusiasm as a sound basis for a new commonwealth. But the spirit was out of the bottle and could not be put back. The right of the individual to make his own religious inquiries and reach his own religious conclusions was little in evidence for almost two hundred years after the Reformation, partly because the reactions of the post-Reformation period made the faithful generally content to rest in what had already been secured, partly because traditional authority was still strong, and very greatly because there was neither in history, philosophy nor science new material upon which the mind might exercise itself. We may take 1859, almost exactly two hundred years after the final readjustments of the Reformation period, as the point of departure for the forces which have so greatly modified our outlook upon our world and our understanding of ourselves; not that the date is clean-cut, for we see now how many things had already begun to change before Darwin and the Origin of Species. Darwin's great achievement is to have suggested the formula in which science and history have alike been restated. He had no thought at all that what he was doing would reach so far or change so much. He simply supposed himself, through patient and exhaustive study, to have accounted for the rich variety of life without the supposition of a special creation for each form. But the time was ripe and longing for what he supplied and his hypothesis was quickly taken and applied in almost every field of thought. Nor does it greatly matter that Darwinism has been and may be still greatly modified. We have come under the spell of evolution. Our universe is no longer a static thing; it is growing and changing. Our imaginations are impressed by long sequences of change, each one of them minute in itself but in the mass capable of accounting for immense transformations. Darwin's initiative released the scientific temper which has been the outstanding characteristic of our own age. The physicist, the chemist and the biologist re-related their discoveries in the light of his governing principle and supplied an immense body of fact for further consideration. Geology was reborn, the records of the rocks came to have a new meaning, every broken fossil form became a word, maybe a paragraph, for the retelling of the past of the earth. Astronomy supplied cosmic backgrounds for terrestrial evolution and Physics became a kind of court of appeal for both. The physicist proclaimed the conservation of energy, reduced seeming solidities to underlying force and resolved force itself into ultimate and tenuous unities. The processes thus discovered and related seemed to be self-sufficient. No need to bring in anything from the outside; unbroken law, unfailing sequence were everywhere in evidence. Where knowledge failed speculation bridged the gap. One might begin with a nebula and go on in unbroken sequence to Plato or Shakespeare without asking for either material, law or force which was not in the nebula to begin with. Man himself took his own place in the majestic procession; he, too, was simply the culmination of a long ascent, with the roots of his being more deeply in the dust than he had ever dreamed and compelled to confess himself akin to what he had aforetime scorned. _The Reaction of Evolution Upon Religion_ All our old chronologies became incidental in a range of time before which even imagination grew dizzy. We found fragments of the skulls of our ancestors in ancient glacial drifts and the traditional 6,000 years since creation hardly showed on the dial upon which Geology recorded its conclusions. There is no need to follow in detail how all this reacted upon religion. The accepted religious scheme of things was an intricately interlocking system irresistible in its logic as long as the system remained unchallenged in its crucial points. If these should begin to be doubted then the Christian appeal would have lost, for the time at least, a most considerable measure of its force. The inner peace which we have already seen to be the keystone of the Protestant arch grew in part out of the sense of a universal condemnation from which the believer was happily saved; this in turn was conditioned by the unquestioned acceptance of the Genesis narrative. We can see clearly enough now that Christianity, and Protestant Christianity especially, really depended upon something deeper than all this. Still for the time being all these things were locked up together and once the accepted foundations of theology began to be questioned far-reaching adjustments were inevitable and the time of readjustment was bound to be marked by great restlessness and confusion. The evolutionary hypothesis profoundly affected man's thought about himself. It challenged even more sharply his thought about God. Atheism, materialism and agnosticism are an old, old trinity, but they had up to our own time been at the mercy of more positive attitudes through their inability to really answer those insurgent questions: Whence? Whither? and Why? Creation had plainly enough demanded a creator. When Napoleon stilled a group of debating officers in Egypt by pointing with a Napoleonic gesture to the stars and saying, "Gentlemen, who made all these?" his answer had been final. Paley's old-fashioned turnip-faced watch with its analogies in the mechanism of creation had supplied an irresistible argument for a creation according to design and a designing creator. But now all this was changed. If Napoleon could have ridden out from his august tomb, reassembled his officers from the dust of their battlefields and resumed the old debate, the officers would have been apparently in the position to answer--"Sire, they made themselves." Our universe seemed to be sufficient unto itself. We have reacted against all this and rediscovered God, if indeed we had ever lost Him, but this ought not to blind those who have accomplished the great transition to the confusion of faith which followed the popularization of the great scientific generalizations, nor ought it to blind us to the fact that much of this confusion still persists. Christian theism was more sharply challenged by materialism and agnosticism than by a frankly confessed atheism. Materialism was the more aggressive; it built up its own great system, posited matter and force as the ultimate realities, and then showed to its own satisfaction how everything that is is just the result of their action and interaction. Nor did materialism pause upon the threshold of the soul itself. Consciousness, so conceived, was a by-product of the higher organization of matter, and we ourselves a spray flung up out of the infinite ocean of being to sparkle for a moment in the light and then fall back again into the depths out of which we had been borne. Those who so defined us made us bond-servants of matter and force from birth to death though they drew back a little from the consequences of their own creeds and sought to save a place for moral freedom and responsibility and a defensible altruism. It is doubtful if they succeeded. Materialism affected greatly the practical conduct of life. It offered its own characteristic values; possession and pleasure became inevitably enough the end of action, and action itself, directed toward such ends, became the main business of life. Science offered so fascinating a field for thought as to absorb the general intellectual energy of the generation under the spell of it; the practical application of science to mechanism and industry with the consequent increase in luxury and convenience, absorbed the force of practical men. It naturally went hard with religion in a world so preoccupied. Its foundations were assailed, its premises questioned, its conclusions denied, its interests challenged. The fact that religion came through it at all is a testimony both to the unconquerable force of faith and the unquenchable need of the soul for something greater than the scientific gospel revealed or the achievements of science supplied. _The Reaction of Biblical Criticism Upon Faith_ The first front along which the older faith met the impact of new forces was scientific; the second drive was at a more narrow but, as far as religion goes, an even more strategic front. The Bible had to submit to those processes of inquiry and criticism which had so greatly altered the scientific outlook. The Old and New Testaments, as has been said, supplied really the basal authority for the whole Protestant order, and speaking merely as a historian one is well within the facts when one says that even before the enlightenment of the last two generations the traditional way of thinking about the Bible had not proved satisfactory. The more free-minded were conscious of its contradictions; they could not reconcile its earlier and later moral idealisms; they found in it as much to perplex as to help them. Some of them, therefore, disowned it altogether and because it was tied up in one bundle with religion, as they knew religion, they disowned religion at the same time. Others who accepted its authority but were unsatisfied with current interpretations of it sought escape in allegorical uses of it. (We shall find this to be one of the distinct elements in Christian Science.) But after all it did answer the insistent questions, Whence? and Whither? and Why? as nothing else answered them. Therefore, in spite of challenge and derelict faith and capricious interpretations and forced harmonies it still held its own. Directly science began to offer its own answers to Whence? and Whither? and Why? curiosity found an alternative. Science had its own book of genesis, its own hypothesis as to the creation of man, its own conclusions as to his ascent. These had a marvellously emancipating and stimulating power; they opened, as has been said, vast horizons; they affected philosophy; they gave a new content to poetry, for the poet heard in the silences of the night: "Æonian music measuring out The steps of Time--the shocks of Chance-- The blows of Death." The challenge of science to the book of Genesis specifically and to the miraculous narratives with which both the Old and the New Testaments are veined more generally, doubtless stimulated Biblical criticism, but the time was ripe for that also. The beginnings of it antedate the scientific Renaissance, but the freer spirit of the period offered criticism its opportunity, the scientific temper supplied the method and the work began. Inherited faith has been more directly affected by Biblical criticism than by the result of scientific investigation and the generalizations based thereon. The Bible had been the average man's authority in science and history as well as faith. That statement naturally needs some qualification, for before evolution took the field it was possible not only to reconcile a fair knowledge of the natural sciences with the Bible, but even, as in the argument for design, to make them contributory to Bible teaching. But evolution changed all that and it was really through the impact of the more sweeping scientific conclusions upon his Bible that the average man felt their shock upon his faith. If he had been asked merely to harmonize the genesis of the new science with the genesis of the Old Testament he would have had enough to occupy his attention, though perhaps he might have managed it. The massive mind of Gladstone accomplished just that to its own entire satisfaction. But the matter went deeper. A wealth of slowly accumulated knowledge was brought to bear upon the Scriptures and a critical acumen began to follow these old narratives to their sources. There is no need here to follow through the results in detail. They[6] were seen to have been drawn from many sources, in some cases so put together that the joints and seams were plainly discernible. One wonders how they had so long escaped observation. The Bible was seen to contain contributory elements from general ancient cultures; its cosmogony the generally accepted cosmogony of the time and the region; its codes akin to other and older codes. It contained fragments of old songs and the old lore of the common folk. It was seen to record indisputably long processes of moral growth and spiritual insight. Its prophets spoke out of their time and for their time. It was plainly enough no longer an infallible dictation to writers who were only the automatic pens of God, it was a growth rooted deep in the soil out of which it grew and the souls of those who created it. The fibres of its main roots went off into the darkness of a culture too long lost ever to be quite completely understood. It was no longer ultimate science or unchallenged history. [Footnote 6: The Old Testament narratives particularly. The results of New Testament criticism have not yet fully reached the popular mind.] We have come far enough now to see that nothing really worth while has been lost in this process of re-interpretation, and much has been gained. If, as the French say in one of their luminous proverbs, to understand is to pardon, to understand is also to be delivered from doubts and forced apologies and misleading harmonies and the necessity of defending the indefensible. In our use of the Bible, as in every other region of life, the truth has made us free. It possesses still--the Bible--the truth and revelation and meaning for life it always possessed. We are gradually realizing this and gaining in the realization. But the Bible has been compelled to meet the challenge of an immensely expanded scientific and historical knowledge. We have had to test its supposed authority as to beginnings by Astronomy, Geology and Biology; we have had to test its history by the methods and conclusions of modern historical investigation. The element of the supernatural running through both the Old and New Testaments has been compelled to take into account that emphasis upon law and ordered process which is, perhaps more than any other single thing, the contribution of science to the discipline of contemporaneous thought. _The Average Man Loses His Bearings_ The whole process has been difficult and unsettling. There was and is still a want of finality in the conclusions of Biblical scholars. It needed and needs still more study than the average man is able to give to understand their conclusions; it needed and it needs still a deal of patient, hard, clear-visioned thinking to win from the newer interpretations of the Bible that understanding and acceptance of its value which went with the inherited faith. The more liberal-minded religious teachers doubtless very greatly overestimate the penetration of popular thought already accomplished, by what seems to them a familiar commonplace. The New Testament is still, even for the scholar, a challenging problem. Conclusions are being bitterly contested and where the specialist is himself in doubt the average man is naturally in utter confusion. The more conservative communions neither accept nor teach the results of the higher criticism, and so it reaches the body of their communicants only as rumour and a half-understood menace to the truth. Religion is naturally the most conservative thing in the world and even when we think ourselves to have utterly changed our point of view something deeper than mere intellectual acceptance protests and will not be dismissed. We pathetically cling to that to which we, at the same time, say good-bye. The average man somewhat affected by the modern scientific spirit is greatly perplexed by the miraculous elements in the Bible and yet he still believes the Bible the word of God with an authority nothing else possesses. In fact, by a contradiction easy enough to understand, what puzzles him most seems to him the clearest evidence of the supernatural character of the narrative itself. His religion is not so much the interpretation of what he does understand as the explanation of what he does not understand. If he gives up the supernatural his faith goes with it, and yet the other side of him--the scientifically tempered side--balks at the supernatural. It is hard to know what to do with such a temper. Indeed, just this confused temper of believing and doubting, with miracles for the storm center, has offered a rich field for those interpretations of the miraculous, particularly in the New Testament, in terms of faith and mental healing, to which Christian Science and New Thought are so much given. We may conclude in a sentence by saying that since the infallibility of the Bible was one of the flying buttresses which upheld the inherited structure of religion, those changes and confusions which have grown out of two generations of Biblical criticism have greatly affected the popular faith. _The New Psychology Both a Constructive and Disturbing Influence_ A third influence tending to break up the stability of the old order has been the new psychology. So general a statement as this needs also to be qualified, for, suggestively enough, the new psychology has not so much preceded as followed the modern multiplication of what, using James' phrase, we may call the "Varieties of Religious Experience." It has been, in part, a widening of our conclusions as to the mind and its processes to make room for the puzzling play of personality which has revealed itself in many of these experiences. Hypnotism necessarily antedated the interest of psychology in the hypnotic state; it compelled psychology to take account of it and for the explaining of hypnotism psychology has been compelled to make a new study of personality and its more obscure states. The psychologists have been far more hospitable to the phenomena of mental healing than have the faculties of medicine. They took them seriously before the average doctor would even admit that they existed. Their study led them to a pretty thoroughgoing consideration of the power of suggestion upon bodily states, and eventually to formulate, as they have been able, both the laws of suggestion and the secret of its power. Telepathy and psychic phenomena generally have also offered a rich field to the student of the abnormal and psychology has broadened its investigations to include all these conditions. That is to say, the border-land phenomena of consciousness as stressed and manifested in the more bizarre cults have really supplied the material upon which the new psychology has been working, and the psychologist to-day is seriously trying to explain a good many things which his predecessors, with their hard and fast analyses of the mind and its laws, refused to take seriously. They concede that a complete psychology must have a place in it for the abnormal as well as the normal, and for the exceptional as well as for the staid and universally accepted. Those who have been fathering new religions and seeking to make the abnormal normal have been quick to avail themselves of the suggestions and permissions in the new psychology. Once we have crossed the old and clearly defined frontiers, almost anything seems possible. Personality, we are now taught, is complex, far-reaching, and is really, like a floating iceberg, more largely below the sea level of consciousness than above it. How far it extends and what connections it makes in these its hidden depths, no one of us may know. Normal consciousness, to change the figure, is just one brilliantly illuminated center in a world of shadow deepening into darkness. The light grows more murky, the shadows more insistent, as we pass down, or out, or back from that illumined center. We cannot tell how much of the shadow is really a part of us, nor do we dare to be dogmatic about what may, or may not, there be taking place. Indeed, we may fill the shadows with almost anything which caprice or desire may suggest. Our curiously inventive minds have always loved to fill in our ignorances with their creations. We formerly had the shadowed backgrounds of the universe to populate with the creatures of our fear or fancy, but now, strangely enough, since science has let in its light upon the universe psychology has given us the subconscious as a region not yet subdued to law or shot through with light. And the prophets of new cults and border-land movements have taken advantage of this. "Since there is," they say in substance, "so much in life of which we are not really conscious, and since there are hints within us of strange powers, how can we set limits to what we may either be or do, and may not one man's caprice be as reasonable as another man's reason?" The popularization of the new psychology has thus created a soil finely receptive to the unusual. Without understanding what has been accomplished in the way of investigation, and with little accurate knowledge of what has actually been tested out, there is amongst us a widespread feeling that almost anything is possible. Here also we may end in a sentence by saying that present-day psychology with its wide sweep of law, its recognition of the abnormal, its acceptance of and insistence upon the power of suggestion, its recognition of the subconscious and its tendency to assign thereto a great force of personal action, has broken down old certainties and given a free field to imagination. It has, more positively, taught us how to apply the laws of mental action to the more fruitful conduct of life, and so supplied the basis for the cults which make much of efficiency and self-development. It has also lent new meaning to religion all along the line. _The Influence of Philosophy and the Social Situation_ How far contemporaneous philosophy has affected inherited faith or supplied a basis for new religious development, is more difficult to say. Beyond debate philosophic materialism has greatly influenced the religious attitude of multitudes of people just as the reactions against it have supplied the basis for new religious movements. Pragmatism, affirming that whatever works is true, has tended to supply a philosophic justification for whatever seems to work, whether it be true or not, and it has beside tended to give us a world where little islands of understandings have taken, as it were, the place of a continuous continent of truth. The tendencies of the leaders of new cults have been to take the material which science and psychology have supplied and build them into philosophies of their own; they have not generally been able or willing to test themselves by the conclusions of more disciplined thinkers. New Thought has undoubtedly been affected by the older idealisms--Berkeley's for example--while James and Royce have supplied congenial material. The movements are generally selective. New Thought uses James' applied psychology and possibly Royce's Absolute, but does not consistently confine itself to any one system. Philosophy also has been itself of late working in a pretty rarified region. Its problems have not been the problems of the common mind. It has been trying to find out how we know, to relate the inner and the outer world, and in general to account for things which the average man takes for granted, and in the understanding of which he is more hindered than helped by the current philosophy of the schools. It takes philosophy a good while to reach the man in the street, and even then its conclusions have to be much popularized and made specific before they mean much for him. We shall know better fifty years from now what philosophy is doing for religion and life than we know to-day. There are, however, as has been said, aspects of philosophy which religion generally is beginning to take into account. The failure of Christianity to create for itself a distinctly Christian environment has also had much to do with dissolving old religious stabilities. Strongly felt social injustices are releasing forces of discontent and creating a fertile soil for revolutionary experiment, though it must be said that modern religious cults and movements have not gained so much from this particular form of discontent as have those movements which look toward radical social readjustment. But the whole situation has created a shaken state of public opinion. The fierceness of modern competition, industrially and economically, finally carried through to the tragic competition of a world war, has put our tempers on edge. The extremes of wealth and poverty and the baffling fluctuations in modern industry have brought the existing order into disrepute. The very great number of the socially unfit and the grievous number of social misfits, along with crime and poverty and the deposit of human sediment in our cities, not only trouble men of good will but create a human element easily misled. Such conditions as these are in such painful contrast with the ideals of the Gospel, the spirit of Christianity and even the potential productive force of modern society as to lead many to believe that something is radically wrong. Many are persuaded that Christianity as now organized and led is socially sterile; they have withdrawn themselves from the church; many of them have become its mordant critics; the more extreme of them have disowned religion as well as its organized form, and the violently radical would dethrone any conception of the Divine and take the word God out of our vocabulary. This extreme group has not for the most part associated itself with the new religious movement, but here at least has been a disintegrating force. _An Age of Confusion_ In such ways as these, then, the accepted religious order identified with historic Catholicism and Protestantism has in the last fifty years been greatly altered. Science, Biblical criticism, psychology and philosophy, and social unrest have all had their share in making people impatient of the inherited order, or doubtful or defiant of it. We have been asked to relate our old creeds and confidences to new insights and understandings. The old answers to the questions Whence? and Whither? and Why? have been challenged by new answers; our horizons have been pushed back in every direction and a strange sense of mystery both in personality and the external order has perplexed and stimulated us. Along with all this and in no little way growing out of it, has gone impatience of discipline and an undue haste to gain the various goods of life. Evolution misled us, to begin with. If the longing for deliverance be one of the driving forces in religious life, then the vaster scientific conclusions of the latter part of the nineteenth century offered a new definition of deliverance. It was not, after all, so much in the travail of the soul as in a serene and effortless self-commitment to a power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness, that we were to be saved. We had only to push out upon tides which asked of us neither rudder nor oar, to be brought to our appointed havens. How greatly we have been disillusioned in all this and how bitterly we have been taught that life is not so much a drifting with the tide as making brave headway against it, we all know well enough to-day. Somewhere back of a vast deal in these modern religious cults and movements, is the smug optimism, now taking one form and now another, which was the misleading bequest of the nineteenth century to the twentieth. The great scientific discoveries and their application to the mechanism of life led the nineteenth century to believe that nothing was impossible. Everything we touched became plastic beneath our touch save possibly ourselves; there seemed to be no limit to what man might do and he consequently assumed that there was no limit to what he might become. He disassociated his hopes from both his disciplines and experiences; everything seemed not only possible but easily possible. A general restlessness of temper, due in part to the breaking up of the inherited order, in part to the ferment of new ideas and in part to a general relaxing of discipline, began to manifest itself. The demoralizing influence of migratory populations ought not to be overlooked in this connection. In all the Western nations there has been an outstanding growth of industrial city populations due to changing economic conditions. The steadying influences of old environments have been lost, the influence of the new environment is too stimulating at its best and demoralizing at its worst. Our cities are not kind to home life; too often they do not supply a proper physical setting for it. The specialization of hard driven industries takes the creative joy out of work and leads to an excess of highly commercialized pleasure. The result is the modern city worker, never living long enough in one place to create for himself a normal social environment, always anxious about his economic future, restless, too largely alternating between strenuous work and highly coloured pleasure and much open, through temperament and circumstance, to the appeal of whatever promises him a new experience or a new freedom. _The Lure of the Short Cut_ Dean Inge in a recent study of the contribution of the Greek temper to religion has drawn a strong, though deeply shadowed picture of the disorganization of modern life through such influences as these. "The industrial revolution has generated a new type of barbarism, with no roots in the past. For the second time in the history of Western Europe, continuity is in danger of being lost. A generation is growing up, not uneducated, but educated in a system which has little connection with European culture in its historical development. The Classics are not taught; the Bible is not taught; history is not taught to any effect. What is even more serious, there are no social traditions. The modern townsman is _déraciné_: he has forgotten the habits and sentiments of the village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy mode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanizing influences of nature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthy mentality, to which we shall find no parallels in the past. Its chief characteristic is profound secularity or materialism. The typical town artisan has no religion and no superstitions; he has no ideals beyond the visible and tangible world of senses."[7] [Footnote 7: "The Legacy of Greece," p. 38.] Writing as an Englishman Dean Inge did not note the equally unsettling influence of migratory races. The European peasant in Detroit or Chicago or New York is still more _déraciné_. He has not only left the soil in whose culture his ancestors had been established for generations, he has left the tradition and the discipline which have made him what he is. The necessary readjustments are immensely difficult. For the first generation they are largely a dumb puzzle, or a dull, aching homesickness or a gray laborious life whose outcome must be often strangely different from their dreams, but for the second generation the whole experience is a heady adventure in freedom not easy to analyze though social workers generally are agreed that the children of the immigrant, belonging neither to the old nor the new, are a disturbing element in American life. A city like Detroit, in which this is being written, where both movements combine, the American country and village dweller coming to a highly specialized industrial center and the European immigrant to an entirely new environment, illustrates the complex issue of the whole process. It is just to note that the Catholic immigrant, finding in his Church the one homelike thing, is often a better Catholic in America than he was at home. A Protestant writer without accurate information would not dare to generalize on the religious dislocation of the second Catholic generation. But there must be a very great loss. The large non-churched elements in our population must be in part due to Catholic disintegration as they are certainly due to Protestant disintegration. And new movements find their opportunity in this whole group. In general, society, through such influences, has grown impatient of discipline, scornful of old methods, contemptuous of experience and strangely unwilling to pay the price of the best. The more unstable have surrendered themselves to the lure of the short cut; they are persuaded that there are quick and easy roads to regions of well-being which had before been reached only through labour and discipline and much travail of body, mind and soul. _Popular Education Has Done Little to Correct Current Confusions_ Nor has the very great extension of popular education really done much to correct this; it seems rather to intensify it, for education shared and shares still the temper of the time. Our education has been more successful generally in opening vistas than in creating an understanding of the laws of life and the meaning of experience; it has given us a love of speculation without properly trained minds; it has furnished us with the catch words of science and philosophy but has not supplied, in the region of philosophy particularly, the corresponding philosophic temper. It has, above all, been fruitful in unjustified self-confidence, particularly here in America. We have confused a great devotion to higher education and the widespread taking of its courses with the solid fruition of it in mental discipline. America particularly has furnished for a long time now an unusual opportunity for bizarre and capricious movements. Nothing overtaxes the credulity of considerable elements in our population. Whatever makes a spacious show of philosophy is sure to find followers and almost any self-confident prophet has been able to win disciples, no matter to what extremes he goes. This has not been equally true of older civilizations with a more clearly defined culture or a more searching social discipline. Something must be lacking in the education of a people in which all this is so markedly possible. The play of mass psychology (one does not quite dare to call it mob psychology) also enters into the situation. Democracy naturally makes much of the verdict of majorities. Any movement which gains a considerable number of adherents is pretty sure to win the respect of the people who have been taught to judge a cause by the number of those who can be persuaded to adopt it. This generally unstable temper, superficial, restless, unduly optimistic, open to suggestion and wanting in the solid force of great tradition has joined with the recasting of Science, Theology, Psychology and Philosophy, to open the door for the entrance of new religions, and in general, to so unsettle the popular mind as to make almost anything possible. _The Churches Lose Authority_ In the field of religion certain well-defined consequences have either followed or accompanied the whole process. There has been, to begin with, a loosening of church ties. The extent of all this has been somewhat covered up by the reasonable growth of the historic churches. In spite of all the difficulties which they have been called upon to face, the statistics generally have been reassuring. The churches are attended in the aggregate by great numbers of people who are untroubled by doubts. Such as these have little sympathy with the more restless or troubled, and little patience with those who try to understand the restless and troubled; they do not share the forebodings of those who look with a measure of apprehension upon the future of Christianity. As far as they recognize disturbing facts at all they are very much like Carlyle who, when told that Christianity was upon its last legs, said, "What of that? Christianity has always been upon its last legs." And perhaps their simple faith and hope are more to the point than many opposing attitudes. The churches have grown faster than the population, or at least they had at the last census. More than that, there has been a marked increase in church activity. The churches are better organized; they are learning the secret of coöperation; they are reaching out in more directions and all of them, even the more democratic, are more hard driven from the top. The result of all this has been a great show of action, though it is difficult now to say whether the real results of this multiplied activity have been commensurate in spiritual force and ethical fruitage with the intensity of their organized life. (The writer thinks not.) But through all this we discern, nevertheless, a marked weakening of authority as far as the Church goes and a general loosening of ties; though the churches in the regions of finance and organization drive harder than they used to drive, in the matter of creed and conduct they are driving with an easy rein. Denominational loyalties are relaxed; there is much changing from one denomination to another and within the denominations and individual churches there is, of course, a substantial proportion of membership which is only nominal. _Efforts at Reconstruction Within the Church_ There are those who view with apprehension the whole future of religion. They believe that the foundations of the great deep are breaking beneath us, that Christianity must be profoundly recast before it can go on prevailingly, and they are reaching in one direction and another for constructive changes, but all this within the frontiers of historic Christianity and the Church. They want church unity but they still want a church; they want a new theology but still a theology; they want new applications of religion but still substantially the old religion. There was more of this during the war than just now. Such a book as Orchard's "Future of Religion," perhaps the most thoughtful analysis of conditions given us for a long time, was born of the war itself and already many of its anticipations seem to miss the point. Such expectations of wholesale religious reconstruction leave out of account the essential conservatism of human nature, a conservatism more marked in religion than anywhere else. There is also a strong and telling group which is seeking so to recast and interpret inherited faiths as to make them more consonant to modern needs and more hospitable to new understandings. Such as these have accepted gladly the tested conclusions of science, the results of Biblical criticism and the revealing suggestion of both psychology and philosophy; they have sought to disentangle the essential from the unessential, the enduring from the transient. They have found in science not the foe but the friend of religion. Those intimations of unfailing force, those resolutions of the manifold phases of action and reality toward which science is reaching have seemed to them a discovery of the very presence and method of God, and they have found in just such regions as these new material for their faith. They have dealt reverently with the old creeds, for they have seen that the forms which Christianity has taken through the centuries have grown out of enduring experiences and needs never to be outgrown, and that their finality is the finality of the deep things of the soul itself. They have been able, therefore, to make new truth tributary to old faith and to interpret the central affirmations of Christianity in terms of present-day facts. They have sought to share their conclusions with others and they have really been able to carry Christianity through the transitional period of the last fifty years and continue it open-minded, strongly established, reverent and enriched rather than impoverished. What they have done has been doubly hard, once through the sheer difficulty of the task itself, and once through the hostile and too often abusive temper with which they and their endeavours have been opposed. None the less, they have saved for Christendom a reasonable faith. Science has of late gone half-way to meet them. It is rather painfully revising a good many of its earlier conclusions and on the whole walking rather humbly just now before its God, recognizing that the last word has not yet really been said about much of anything. _An Age of Doubt and a Twilight-Zone in History_ But the apparently unchanged traditions of the older forms of faith and the relatively strong position of the Church must not blind us to the generally disorganized condition of religion to-day. There is much in evidence a body of doubt which clouds the outlook of multitudes upon religion generally. Beyond debate a kind of eclipse of faith began to draw across the Western world so early as the middle of the last century. The militant skepticism of the brilliant group of younger poets who sang their defiances in the first two decades of the nineteenth century to a world which professed itself duly shocked, is wholly different from the sadness with which the more mature singers of two generations later announce their questioning and their disillusionment. The difference is just the difference between Shelley and Matthew Arnold. There is a philosophic depth in this later music which the former wholly lacked. Arnold speaks for his time when he announces himself as standing between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born. A profound disillusionment expressed itself in great ranges of later nineteenth century literature and confirmed the more sensitive and despairing in a positive pessimism, strangely contrasted to the self-assertive temper of the science and industry of the period. It would need a pretty careful analysis to follow all this to its roots. Something of it no doubt was due to the inability of poet and philosopher to reconcile their new understanding of life and the universe with the old religious forms but more of it was likely due to some deep exhaustion of spiritual force, an exhaustion which has from time to time marked transitional periods in the development of cultures and civilizations. There have always been twilight zones in history, times in which the force of the old had spent itself and nothing new had come to take its place. We are beginning to see now that we too have been passing through a twilight zone whose contrasts are all the more dramatic through the more than tropic swiftness with which the high lights of the Victorian period darkened into the distractions and disillusionments of our own time. The best one can say is that there was on the part of the more sensitive a widespread anticipation of all this, as if the chill of a coming shadow had fallen first of all upon them, and beyond debate, not a little of the doubt which has been so marked a feature of the last two generations in literature generally, and in the attitude of a great number of people toward religion, has been due to just this. _The Hunger of the Soul and the Need for Faith Persist_ And yet, since religion is so inextinguishable a thing, changing forces and attitudes have still left untouched the hunger of the soul and the need of men for faith. Indeed the very restlessness of the time, the breaking up of the old orders, the failure of the old certainties, has, if anything, deepened the demand for religious reality and there has been in all directions a marked turning to whatever offered itself as a plausible substitute for the old, and above all a turning to those religions which in quite clearly defined ways promise to demonstrate the reality of religion through some sensible or tangible experience. If religion will only work miracles and attest itself by some sign or other which he who runs may read there is waiting for it an eager constituency. We shall find as we go on how true this really is, for the modern religious cult which has gained the largest number of followers offers the most clearly defined signs and wonders. If religion cures your disease and you are twice persuaded, once that you really are cured and once that religion has done it, then you have something concrete enough to satisfy anybody. Or if, perplexed by death and with no faith strong enough to pierce that veil through a persuasion of the necessity of immortality established in the very nature of things, you are offered a demonstration of immortality through the voices and presences of the discarnate, then, once more, you have something concrete enough, if only you were sure of it, to settle every doubt. And finally, if the accepted religions are too concrete for you and if you desire a rather vague and poetic approach to religion made venerable by the centuries and appealingly picturesque through the personalities of those who present it, you have in some adaptation of oriental faith to occidental needs a novel and interesting approach to the nebulous reality which passes in the Eastern mind for God, an approach which demands no very great discipline and leaves a wide margin for the play of caprice or imagination. _Modern Religious Cults and Movements Find Their Opportunity in the Whole Situation. The Three Centers About Which They Have Organized Themselves_ There has been, then, as the outcome of the complex of forces which we have been considering, a new approach to religion distinctive in our own time and in general taking three directions determined by that against which it has reacted, or perhaps more positively by the varying character of what it seeks. A pretty careful analysis of modern religious cults and movements shows that they have organized themselves, in action and reaction, around three centers definitely related to three outstanding deficiencies of inherited faith. I say deficiencies, though that is of course to beg the question. We saw earlier in this study how religion everywhere and always grows out of some of the few central and unexpectedly simple, though always supremely great, needs and how the force of any religion waxes or wanes as it meets these needs. Religion is real to the generality of us as it justifies the ways of God to man and reveals the love and justice of God in the whole of personal experience. Religion is always, therefore, greatly dependent upon its power to reconcile the more shadowed side of experience with the Divine love and power and goodness. It is hard to believe in a Providence whose dealings with us seem neither just nor loving. Faith breaks down more often in the region of trying personal experience than anywhere else. All this is as old as the book of Job but it is none the less true because it is old. The accepted theology which explained sin and sorrow in terms of the fall of man and covered each individual case with a blanket indictment justified by the condemnation of the whole of humanity has lost its force. It depended, to begin with, on a tradition of human beginnings which has not borne examination, and it was beside, in spite of all the efforts to defend it, profoundly unethical. Calvinistic theology, moreover, made a difficult matter worse by assuming for every individual a predestined fate reaching beyond death itself which a man was powerless to escape. Those chapters in the long story of theology which record the turning and groping of minds--and souls--enmeshed in this web of their own weaving and more deeply entangled still in the challenging experiences of life itself are among the most pathetic and arresting in the whole story of human thought. We ought to recognize more clearly than we have generally done and confess more frankly that our inherited explanations of the problems of pain and sorrow have been markedly unsatisfactory and have greatly contributed to the justifiable reaction against them. One group of modern religious cults and movements, then, has found its opportunity just here. Christian Science and kindred cults are just an attempt to reconcile the love and goodness of God with pain, sickness, sorrow, and to a lesser degree with sin. How they do this remains to be seen, but the force of their appeal depends upon the fact that a very considerable and constantly growing number of people believe that they have really done it. Such cults as these have also found a place for the New Testament tradition of healing; they have also appealed strongly to those who seek a natural or a pseudo-natural explanation for the miraculous elements in religion generally. They have been expectedly reinforced by the feeling for the Bible which strongly persists among those who are not able to find in the inherited Protestant position that real help in the Bible which they had been taught they should there find, and who are not, on the other hand, sufficiently acquainted with the newer interpretations of it to find therein a resolution for their doubts and a vital support for their faith. Finally, Christian Science and kindred cults offer a demonstration of the reality of religion in health and happiness, and generally, in a very tangible way of living. Here, then, is the first region in which we find a point of departure for modern religious cults and movements. Spiritualism organizes itself around another center. Religion generally demands and offers a faith in immortality. We are not concerned here with the grounds which various religions have supplied for this faith or the arguments by which they have supported it. Generally speaking, any religion loses ground as it fails to convince its adherents of immortality, or justify their longings therefor. Any religion supplying clear and indisputable proof of immortality will command a strong following and any seeming demonstration of immortality not particularly associated with this or that religious form will organize about itself a group of followers who will naturally give up pretty much everything else and center their entire interests upon the methods by which immortality is thus supposed to be demonstrated. Now modern Spiritualism comes in just here. It professes to offer a sure proof of immortality to an age which is just scientific enough to demand something corresponding to scientific proof for the support of its faith and not scientific enough to accept all the implications of science, or to submit to its discipline. Theosophy and kindred cults are generally a quest for deliverance along other than accepted Christian lines; they substitute self-redemption for Christian atonement, and deliverance through mystical disciplines for that forgiveness of sin and assurance of salvation in which Christianity has found its peace. There is, of course, a vast deal of action and reaction between the newer movements themselves and between the new faith and the old. There are elements common to all religions; there are frontiers where all religions meet and somewhat merge; at some point or other almost every faith touches its contrary or becomes uncertain and shifts its emphasis. Religion is always dependent upon changing tempers and very greatly upon varying personalities; it is always in flux, impatient of definitions and refusing the rigid boundary lines within which we attempt to confine it. Though it be clearly possible, therefore, to find three distinct points of departure for the whole of the border-land cults and religions, there is running through them all a certain unity of driving force. They are in general a quest for a new type of religious reality; they are largely due to certain marked inadequacies of the more accepted religious teachings and to the want of the more accepted religious experiences to satisfy certain types. They have come to light in our own time through the failure of authority in both Catholicism and Protestantism, through the failure of the accepted understandings of the Bible to satisfy those who are still persuaded that it has a real message and through the reaction of the modern spirit upon religious attitudes. They owe much to the deficiency of the traditional explanation of sin, sorrow and suffering; they owe something to the failure of Christianity to create a Christian environment; and they owe not a little to the natural longing for some positive assurance of life after death, as well as to the quest of the soul for deliverance and its longing for a satisfying communion with God. And they are reinforced in every direction by the restless and unsettled temper of a time subject to great changes of habit and outlook through the breaking up of old industrial and social orders and the impact of new forces driving in from every direction. We shall need to relate these conditioning causes more definitely to the various cults and movements as we go on to study them, but here at least are the backgrounds against which they must be studied and the lines of testing down which they must be followed. We shall begin in our more detailed study of these movements with the modern religious quest for health and healing. But even here we shall find it worth while to trace broadly the history of faith and mental healing. III FAITH HEALING IN GENERAL Those cults which are either founded upon faith healing or involve it have a long ancestry. George Barton Cutten's very suggestive book[8] makes that clear enough and supplies an informing mass of detail. Medical Science and Psychology have been slow to take into account the facts thus submitted, but they have of late made amends for their somewhat unaccountable delay, and we have now reached certain conclusions about which there is little controversy except, indeed, as to the range of their application. Beneath all faith healing and kindred phenomena there are three pretty clearly defined bases. First, the action or reaction of mind upon body; second, the control of mental attitudes by the complex of faith; and, as an interrelated third, the control of the lower nerve centers by suggestion. [Footnote 8: "Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing."] _The Bases of Faith and Mental Healing_ There is an almost baffling interplay of what one may call these three controlling principles, and the exhaustive discussion of the whole subject demands the knowledge of the specialist. But we do know, to begin with, that just as there are demonstrated bodily approaches to both the mental and spiritual aspects of life, so there are equally undeniable mental and even spiritual approaches to physical conditions. We have here to fall back upon facts rather than upon a definite knowledge of what happens in the shadowy border-land across which the mind takes over and organizes and acts upon what is presented to it by the afferent nervous system. Nothing, for example, could be really more profound than the difference between waves of compression and rarefaction transmitted through the luminiferous ether and the translation of their impact into light. Somewhere between the retina of the eye, with its magic web of sensitive nerve ends, and the proper registering and transforming regions of the brain something happens about which Science can say no final word. What happens in the case of light is equally true of sound and tactual sensation. That vivid and happy consciousness of well-being which we call health is just the translation of normal balances, pressures and functionings in the mechanism of the body into an entirely different order of phenomena. Health is a word of manifold meaning and if its foundations are established in the harmonious coöperation of physical processes, its superstructure rises through mental attitudes into what, for want of a more clearly defined word, we call spiritual states. Two orders meet and merge within us. Above a world of idea, insight, desire and subordination of means to ends, the whole driven by the will and saturated with emotion, a world which has its contacts with the unseen and eternal and derives its strength from the truly immaterial; below a world of material and forces in subjection to the laws of physics and chemistry and involved in the processes of the conservation and transformation of physical energy, and consciousness the clearing-house for the whole. _Cannon's Study of Emotional Reactions Upon Physical States_ This interplay of body and mind has of late been made the subject of careful and long continued experimentation with a special reference to the reactions of strong emotion upon bodily states, particularly as registered in chemical changes. These experiments have been carried on with an almost incredible patience and attention to detail under the most difficult circumstances, and their conclusions seem final. Professor Walter B. Cannon of Harvard University has recently put the result of such investigation at our service in a most interesting way.[9] (It ought to be said, however, that a similar series of experiments repeated at the laboratories of the University of Chicago failed to produce the same results.) [Footnote 9: "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage," quoted without page references.] Strong emotion affects almost every physical region, modifies almost every physical function. The normal secretion of digestive fluids is greatly increased by hunger (though here, of course, hunger itself may have a physical basis) and also by what the investigator calls sham feeding--food, that is, taken by an animal and so deflected as not to pass into the digestive tract at all stimulates the gastric flow quite as much as if it were actually received into the stomach. On the other hand unhappy emotional disturbance greatly retards the digestive processes. Pain, for example, results in pronounced inhibitions of the secretion of gastric juice while happy emotional states produce naturally the opposite effect. Pain is often accompanied by nausea, indeed the nausea of a sick headache may be only secondary, induced by a pain springing from quite another source than retarded digestion. Professor Cannon's experiments are most interesting as he traces the variations of the flow of adrenal secretion induced by emotion and then retraces the effect of the chemical changes so produced upon bodily and mental states. The secretion of adrenin[10] is greatly increased by pain or excitement. The percentage of blood sugar is also greatly increased by the same causes. The heaviness of fatigue is due, as we know, to poisonous uneliminated by-products resulting from long continued or over-taxing exertion of any sort. Under the influence of fatigue the power of the muscles to respond to any kind of stimulus is greatly reduced. (It is interesting to note, however, that muscular fibre detached from the living organism and mechanically stretched and relaxed shows after a period the same decrease in contractability under stimulation.) On the other hand any increase in adrenal secretion results in renewed sensitiveness to stimulation, that is by an increased power of the muscle to respond. Falling blood pressures diminish proportionately the power of muscular response. Rising blood pressure is effective "in largely restoring in fatigued structures their normal irritability" and an increase of adrenin seems to raise blood pressure by driving the blood from the interior regions of the body "into the skeleton muscles which have to meet, by extra action, the urgent demands of struggle or escape." [Footnote 10: I follow Cannon in the form of this word.] Adrenin is of real use in counteracting the effects of fatigue or in enabling the body to respond to some unusual call for effort. The coagulation of the blood is also affected by the same agent, that is, it coagulates very much more rapidly.[11] Coagulation is also hastened by heightened emotion; a wound does not bleed so freely when the wounded one is angry or excited. A soldier, then, in the stress of combat is not only rendered insensible to fatigue and capable of abnormal activity, but his wounds are really not so dangerous as they would otherwise be. There are here suggestions of elemental conditions having to do with struggle and survival, conditions which play their very great part in the contests of life. [Footnote 11: Cannon thinks, however, that this effect is produced indirectly.] Emotions set free, as has been said, larger percentages of sugar which are immediately utilized by the muscles in heightened or fatiguing effort. All these experiments point very clearly to reservoirs of power, both physical and mental, upon which we may draw in times of stress and under emotional excitement.[12] Such emotionally induced chemical actions and reactions as have been indicated release these stored energies, render us for the time being unconscious of fatigue and even guard us against the too rapid exhaustion of vital power. Whatever heightens emotion, therefore, modifies the very chemical structure of the body. [Footnote 12: Excessive emotional reactions upon bodily states may explain, as Cannon suggests, the more obscure phenomena of religious frenzy such as the ceremonial dances of savages, the "Danse Macabre" of the Middle Ages, the feats of the whirling dervishes, the jumping and shouting of revivalism; also, maybe, the modern jazz.] _The Two Doors_ There are other changes as well. The breath is quickened, the lungs are expanded, waste products are very much more rapidly eliminated and so in answer to summoning states of the soul the body as a whole readjusts itself in marvellous subtle forms, mobilizing all its forces for the contests which the emotion anticipates, or indeed which the emotion itself calls out. And if all this seems unduly technical it is only to bear out with something like a scientific accuracy the statements made a little earlier that two orders meet and merge within us and that the reactions of our loves, our fears, or our longings upon our bodily processes may be stated in terms of the test tube and the chemist's scale. Such changes as are thus registered react in turn upon mental attitudes. Fatigue produces mental depression. An accumulation of uneliminated waste darkens all our horizons; irritability of mind and soul attend physical irritability; any unhappy modification in the balance of the physical registers automatically an equally unhappy modification in the balance of the psychic. Most of us, as we come to know ourselves better, recognize marked alterations even in spiritual states which we are taught to refer to physical condition, but just as truly altered spiritual conditions produce altered physical states. There is an endless give and take and there are, therefore, two doors of approach to our pains, wearinesses and sicknesses. _The Challenge of Hypnotism_ Medicine, surgery and hygiene as at present organized largely approach personal well-being from the physical side. They have for their support a body of fact and a record of accomplishment which cannot be put out of court without sheer intellectual stultification. Modern medicine has been so massively successful in dealing with disease on the basis of a philosophy which makes everything, or nearly everything, of the body and nothing or next to nothing of the mind, that medicine was in danger of becoming more sheerly materialistic than almost any other of our sciences; Physics and Chemistry had their backgrounds in which they recognized the interplay of realities too great for their formulæ and forces too subtle for their most sensitive instruments. But medicine was almost in the way of forgetting all this when it was compelled--and that for its own good--to take account of an entirely different set of forces. This was, to begin with, as far as the modern scientific approach is concerned, first made clearly apparent in Hypnotism. Hypnotism seems to be such a modification of normal mental conditions under the power of commanding suggestion as really for the time being to focus consciousness and mental action generally in one suggested line. A new set of inhibitions and permissions are thus imposed upon normal consciousness. Attention is withdrawn from the usual frontiers (if one may use the word) to which, consciously or subconsciously, it has always been directed and centered upon one single thing.[13] [Footnote 13: Sidis defines Hypnosis as the disassociation of the superior and inferior nerve centers. They commonly work in perfect harmony, their blended unity forming one conscious personality. "In hypnosis the two systems or nervous centers are disassociated, the superior centers and the upper consciousness are inhibited or better cut off, split off from the rest of the nervous system with its organic consciousness, which is thus laid bare, open to the influence of external stimuli or suggestions.... In hypnotic trance ... we have direct access to man's organic consciousness and through it to organic life itself."... If we broaden this last sentence to include not only organic consciousness but the deeper strata of personality in which not only individual but perhaps racial experience is bedded, we have the key to a vast range of obscure phenomena. Sidis believes that "strong permanent impressions or suggestions made on the reflex organic consciousness of the inferior centers may modify their functional disposition, induce trophic changes, and even change organic structure" and this in a sentence is probably what lies behind all faith and mental healing.--"The Psychology of Suggestion," pp. 69 and 70.] The hypnotized person becomes, therefore, unconscious of any reporting agencies outside the field of his abnormally focused attention. Normal conditions of pain or pleasure cease for the time to become real. Attention has been forced entirely out of normal channels and given a new direction. Then we discover, strangely enough, that though those messages of the afferent nerves cease to have any effect upon the subject, the imaginings of the subject carried back along outgoing lines produce the most unexpected results in physical states. If a postage stamp be placed upon the hand of the hypnotized subject and he be told that the stamp is a mustard plaster, the stamp reddens the skin and presently raises a blister. In other words, heightened and intensified expectant attention is able to produce the same results as an irritating agency.[14] [Footnote 14: Experiments by Krafft-Ebing and Forel. To be taken with caution. See Jacoby, "Suggestion and Psycho-Therapy," p. 153.] _Changed Attention Affects Physical States_ We are concerned here chiefly with the fact and it is a fact capable of far-reaching application. Of course the nature and extent of the changes thus produced are the battlegrounds of the two schools. Medical Science is quite willing to admit that while functional action may thus be modified no real organic changes can be produced. There is a border-land so much still in shadow that no final word can be said about the whole matter, but it is incontestably true that modifications of attention have a reflex in the modification of physical states. A pain which is not registered does not, for the time being at least, exist, and if the attention can either through hypnotism or by a persistent mental discipline be withdrawn from disturbing physical reports, then the conditions which produce them will at least be left to correct themselves without interference from consciousness and since the whole tendency of disturbed physical organism is to correct itself, the whole process probably goes on more quickly as it certainly goes on with less discomfort if attention is withdrawn.[15] The assumption of health is a tremendous health-giving force and if the condition to be remedied is really due to a mental complex which needs only some strong exertion of the will or readjustment of attitude to change, then marvellous results may follow changed mental and spiritual states. The apparently dumb may speak, the apparently paralyzed rise from their beds, the shell-shocked pull themselves together and those under the bondage of their fears and their pains be set free. There are so many illustrations of all this that the fact itself is not in debate. [Footnote 15: Organic changes (the storm center of the controversy) may possibly be induced through a better general physical tone. Such changes would not be directly due to suggestion but to processes released by suggestion. Organic change may certainly be checked and the effect of it overcome by increased resistance. So much conservative physicians admit. How far reconstruction thus induced may go is a question for the specialist.] _The Power of Faith to Change Mental Attitudes_ Now since mental attitudes so react upon bodily states, whatever strongly controls mental attitudes becomes a very great factor in mental healing. There is a long line of testimony that what may be called the complex of faith does just this with unique power, for faith implies supernatural intervention. If there be anywhere an all-prevailing power whose word is law and we could really be persuaded that such a power had really intervened--even if it actually had not--on our behalf and brought its supernatural resource to bear upon our troubled case, then we should have a confidence more potent in the immediate transformation of mental attitudes than anything else we could possibly conceive. If we really believed such a power were ready to help us, if we as vividly expected its immediate help, then we might anticipate the utmost possible therapeutic reaction of mind upon body. A faith so called into action should produce arresting results, and this as a matter of investigation is true. In following through the theories of faith healing we may take here either of two lines. The devout may assert a direct divine interposition. God is. He has the power and the will; all things are plastic to His touch; He asks only faith and, given faith enough, the thing is done and there is no explaining it. Those who believe this are not inclined to reason about it; in fact it is beyond reason save as reason posits a God who is equal to such a process and an order in which such results can be secured. This is rather an achievement of faith than reason but the Christian Church generally has held such a faith--a faith sustained by the testimony which favours it and unaffected by the testimony which challenges it. The scientific temper which seeks economy in all its explanations and asks only for a cause sufficient for the effect and which is, moreover, constantly trying to relate the unknown to the known, takes another line and finds in faith healing just one more illustration of the power of mind over body. This does not exclude God but it discovers Him in resident forces and finds in law the revelation of His method. The conclusions, then, to which we are generally coming may not only be reconciled with a devout faith, they may, when followed through, enrich faith; but they do subdue the whole great matter to a sequence of cause and effect and they are gradually finding a satisfactory explanation for what has heretofore been deeply involved in mystery. Just as Hypnotism, through the very dramatic abnormality of it, in altering the sensitiveness of those physical tracts from which attention is withdrawn or in producing physical effects through suggestive focusing, has helped us to understand the part which attention plays in the flux of physical states, so our later studies of the subconscious help us here. We do know that a great deal may really take place in personality of which consciousness takes no account. Consciousness in its most active phases is alert, purposeful and preoccupied with the immediate concern of the moment. Consciousness heeds commands and takes account of such conditions as strongly assert themselves, but does not in its full drive take much account of suggestion unless the suggestion possesses unusual force. Suggestions usually need leisurely turning over in the mind and the mind commonly refers them--often without knowing it--to those regions of mental action which lie beneath the threshold of strongly focused consciousness. But suggestion does not thereby cease to work. It starts processes all its own which go on till they are worked through. After a longer or shorter period of incubation the outcome of suggestion is lifted into the light of consciousness, often to produce results all the more striking because we cannot explain them to ourselves or any one else. All this does not withdraw such phenomena from the realm of law; it only clothes them with the mystery of the unknown and extends the fields in which they may operate. Proper suggestion let fall into these unknown depths or improper suggestion as well, becomes an incalculable force in shaping the ends of life. We have here, then, well attested truths or laws--it is difficult to know what to call them--which help us to understand the bases of faith healing or mental healing by suggestion. Now directly we turn to such records as remain to us we find that such forces as these have been in action from the very beginning. All disease was in early times referred generally to spirit possession. If only the evil spirit could be exorcised the patient would get well and the priest was, of course, the proper person to undertake this. Religion and medicine were, therefore, most intimately united to begin with and healing most intimately associated with magic. The first priests were doctors and the first doctors were priests and what they did as priests and what they did as doctors were alike unreasonable and capricious. The priest and his church have very unwillingly surrendered the very great hold over the faithful which this early association of medicine and religion made possible. Any order or institution which can approach or control humanity through the longing of the sick for health, has an immense and unfailing empire. _Demon Possession the Earliest Explanation of Disease_ There are, says Cutten, three fairly well defined periods in the history of Medicine. The first, beginning as far back as anything human begins and coming down to the end of the second century; the second, ending with the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries; and the third from perhaps the sixteenth century on. The second period, he adds, was by far the most sterile and stationary of the three "largely due to the prohibitive attitude of the Church. The science of Medicine, then, is almost wholly the result of the investigations and study of the last period. This means that medicine is one of the youngest of the sciences, while from the very nature of the case it is one of the oldest of the arts." Demon possession was, as has been said, the earliest explanation of disease. This would naturally be true of a time almost wholly wanting in any conception either of law or any relation of cause and effect beyond the most limited regions of experience. Since the only cause of which man had any real knowledge was his own effort he peopled his world with forces more or less like himself, except that they were invisible, who operated practically the whole of natural phenomena. There was a spirit for every place and every happening; spirits for fields and hearths, thresholds and springs. Some of them were friendly, some of them naturally unfriendly, but they were everywhere in existence, everywhere in action and naturally if they were unfriendly they would from time to time and in various most curious ways get into the body itself and there do any amount of mischief. The priest-doctor's task, therefore, was to get them out. He might scare them out, or scold them out, or pray them out, or trick them out. He would use his medicine as much to make the place of their temporary abode uncomfortable for the demon as remedial for the patient and, indeed, the curious and loathsome things which have been used for medicines might well disgust even a malevolent demon. One thing stands out very clearly and that is that whatever the medicine did or left undone, it worked through its influence upon the mind of the patient and not through any real medicinal value. _The Beginnings of Scientific Medicine_ Of course along with all this would go a kind of esoteric wisdom which was part of the stock in trade of the healer. There were charms, incantations and magic of every conceivable sort. The medicine man of uncivilized or even half-civilized peoples really makes medicine for the mind rather than the body. There were, however, gleams of scientific light through all this murky region. The Egyptians knew something of anatomy though they made a most capricious use of it and there must have been some knowledge of hygienic methods; the prohibitions of Leviticus, for example, and of the Jewish law generally for which the Jew must have been, as far as medical science is concerned, somewhat in debt to the Egyptian and the Chaldean, really have sound hygienic reasons behind them. The Greeks began with demons but they ended with something which approached true science. The real contribution of Greece, however, seems to have been on the positive rather than the negative side. They made much of health as an end in itself, had gods and goddesses of physical well-being. The Greek had constantly held before him such an ideal of physical excellence as had never before been approached and has never since been equalled. He seems to have been abstemious in eating; he practiced the most strenuous physical exercises; he lived a wholesome outdoor life, and so created a civilization in which health very largely took care of itself. An examination of what records remain to us hardly sustains the accepted opinion that the Greeks had made substantial advances along purely scientific lines,[16] but at any rate as far as medicine goes, there is little to choose between the Greece of the fourth century before Christ and the Europe of the sixteenth century after, save that the life of the Greek was far more normal, temperate and hygienic and the mind of the Greek more open, sane and balanced. [Footnote 16: Probably too strong a statement. For an opposite view strongly supported by a scholar's research see Singer's article in "The Legacy of Greece" (Oxford Press), p. 201.] Plato anticipated conclusions which we are just beginning to reach when he said, "the office of the physician extends equally to the purification of mind and body. To neglect the one is to expose the other to evident peril. It is not only the body which, by sound constitution, strengthens the soul, but the well regulated soul, by its authoritative power, maintains the body in perfect health." Whether the best classic civilization made, consciously, its own this very noble insight of Plato, the best classic civilization did secure the sound mind and the sound body to an extent which puts a far later and far more complex civilization to shame. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Greek to this whole great subject was his passion for bodily well-being and his marvellous adaptation of his habits and type of life to that end. He did, moreover, separate religion, magic and medicine to some appreciable extent and he gave us at least the beginnings of a medical profession, approaching medicine from the scientific rather than the religious or traditional point of view. Even though his science was a poor enough thing, his doctors were none the less doctors and the medical profession to-day is entirely within its right when it goes back to Hippocrates for the fathering of it. _The Attitude of the Early and Medieval Church_ Christianity changed all this and on the whole for the worse. And yet that statement ought to be immediately qualified, for Christianity did bring with it a very great compassion for suffering, a very great willingness to help the sick and the needy. The Gospels are inextricably interwoven with accounts of the healing power of the founder of Christianity. All the later attitude of Christianity toward disease must be considered in the light of this fact. We owe to Christianity the first real hospitals, the first really compassionate and unselfish care for the sick and impulses which, as they have finally worked out, have had more to do with giving quality and direction to medicine and particularly in investing the whole practice of medicine with its true atmosphere than any other single force. And yet all this has been a long, long time coming true and for almost 1,500 years the Church and its authorities were a hindrance rather than a help and that for two or three outstanding reasons. Christianity, to begin with, sadly underestimated physical values in its overinsistence upon spiritual values. The body was at best but the tabernacle of the soul and the soul being the chief concern, whatever happened to the body was of little importance. The body was not only underestimated, it was scorned and abused, starved and scourged; it was the seat of unholy influences and impulses; its natural longings were at the best under suspicion, at the worst under absolute condemnation. Christianity, speaking through the Church, took immense care for its spiritual hygiene, though even here it went wrong because it forgot Plato's noble word, but it failed utterly in physical hygiene. Then again sickness and suffering were for the Church but the manifest punishment of some sin known or concealed. To interfere, therefore, was in some way to defeat the justice of God. Pestilences were inscrutable providences; they were the wrath of God made manifest. In the face of so stupendous a calamity anything man might do was not only futile but impertinent. By a strange contradiction early and medieval Christianity, while making little of the body, nevertheless strongly opposed any study of anatomy which depended upon post-mortems or dissection. This probably because of their belief in the resurrection of the body. Any mutilation of the body after death would be a real handicap in the day of resurrection. But behind all this, equally real though intangible, was the desire of the Church to have the whole of life under its own direct control. It instinctively feared methods of thought or processes of investigation not directly a part of its own imperial administration of life. Some subtle distrust of the human reason went along with all this. As a result the Church, in the main, threw herself against the more independent processes of scientific thought, sought to subdue all the facts of life to her creeds and understandings and so became a real hindrance to any pursuit of truth or any investigation of fact which lay outside the region of theological control. How largely all this retarded growth and knowledge and the extension of human well-being it is difficult to say, but the fact itself is well established. _Saints and Shrines_ For one thing early Christianity continued the belief in demoniac possession. By one of those accidents which greatly influence history the belief in demon possession was strongly held in Palestine in the time of Christ and the Gospel narratives reflect all this in ways upon which it is not necessary to enlarge. The Gospels themselves lent their mighty sanction to this persuasion and there was nothing in the temper of the Church for more than a thousand years afterward to greatly modify it. Indeed the temper of the Church rather strengthened it. Origen believed that demons produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions of the air and pestilences. They hover concealed in clouds in the lower atmosphere and are attracted by the blood and incense which the heathen offered them as gods. According to St. Augustine all diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to these demons and the church fathers generally agreed with these two, the greatest of them all. It was, therefore, sinful to do anything but trust to the intercession of the saints. The objection of the Church to dissection which is, of course, the indispensable basis for any real knowledge of anatomy was very slowly worn down. The story of Andreas Vesalius whom Andrew White calls the founder of the modern science of anatomy is at once fascinating and illuminating. He pursued his studies under incredible difficulties and perhaps could never have carried them through without the protection of Charles V whose physician he was. He was finally driven out, a wanderer in quest of truth, was shipwrecked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and in the prime of his life and strength "he was lost to the world." But he had, none the less, won his fight and the opposition of the Church to the scientific study of anatomy was gradually withdrawn. But every marked advance in medical science had really to fight the battle over again. The Sorbonne condemned inoculation, vaccination had slowly to fight its way and even the discovery of anesthetic, perhaps the greatest single blessing ever given surgery, met with no little theological obstruction. It is only fair to say in this connection that so stupid a conservatism has been by no means the sole possession of the Church and the clergy. Medicine has been upon occasion almost as conservative and the difficulties which Sir Joseph Lister encountered in his endeavour to win the London hospitals for asepsis and anti-sepsis were quite as bitter. The difficulties were of a piece with the opposition of the Church to scientific advancement. After all a conservatism of this sort is a matter of temperament rather than creed or class. But if the Church was strangely slow to give place to medicine and surgery, the Church sought, through agencies and methods of its own, to cure disease. It is impossible to follow through in detail the long story though it all bears upon the line we are following through its massive testimony to the power of mind over body. Since the Church believed in demon possession it sought to cure by exorcism and there are in the ritual of the Church, as the ritual has finally taken form, offices growing out of this long, long battle against evil spirits which have now little suggestion of their original purpose. The sign of the Cross was supposed to have commanding power, the invocation of the triune deity had its own virtue, the very breathing of the priest was supposed to influence the evil spirit and he fled defeated from the touch of holy water. The Church possessed, as was everywhere then believed, not only a prevailing power over demons, but a supernatural power all her own for the healing of disease. This power was associated with saints and relics and shrines. During the lifetime of the saint this power was exercised through direct saintly interposition. After the death of the saint it was continued in some relic which he left behind him, or some shrine with which he had been particularly associated. There grew up gradually a kind of "division of labour among the saints in the Middle Ages." Each saint had its own peculiar power over some bodily region or over some particular disease. And so the faithful were guarded by a legion of protecting influences against everything from coughs to sudden death. There is almost an unimaginable range of relics. Parts of the true Cross possessed supreme value. St. Louis of France was brought back almost from death to life by the touch of the sacred wood. The bones and hairs of saints, rings which they had worn and all such things as these had value and to prove that the value was not resident in the relic but in the faith with which the relic was approached we have reported bones of saints possessing well authenticated healing value, later proved to have been the bones not of men but of animals. There have been sacred springs and consecrated waters almost without number. They will still show you in Canterbury Cathedral stones worn by the feet of countless pilgrims seeking at the shrine of Thomas à Becket a healing to the reality of which those who wore away those stones bore testimony in a variety of gifts which made the shrine of à Becket at one time one of the treasure houses of Christendom. "The two shrines at present best known are those of Lourdes in France and Ste. Anne de Beaupré in the Province of Quebec. Lourdes owes its reputed healing power to a belief in a vision of the Virgin received there during the last century. Over 300,000 persons visit there each year." Charcot, it is worth noting, had confidence enough not in the shrine but in the healing power of faith to send fifty or sixty patients to Lourdes every year. His patients were, of course, the mentally and nervously unbalanced. The French government supervises the sanitary conditions at Lourdes and a committee of doctors have undertaken some examination of the diseased who visit the shrine for the guidance of their profession. Ste. Anne de Beaupré owes its fame to certain wrist bones of the mother of Christ. _Magic, Charms, and the King's Touch: The Rise of the Faith Healer_ Religious faith is not always necessary--any faith will do. Charms, amulets, talismans have all played their part in this long compelling story. The various metals, gems, stones and curious and capricious combinations of pretty much every imaginable thing have all been so used. Birth girdles worn by women in childbirth eased their pain. A circular piece of copper guarded against cholera. A coral was a good guard against the evil eye and sail-cloth from a shipwrecked vessel tied to the right arm was a preventive as well as a cure for epilepsy. There is almost no end to such instances. The list of charms and incantations is quite as curious. There are forms of words which will cure insomnia and indeed, if one may trust current observation, forms of words not primarily so intended may still induce sleepfulness. The history of the king's touch as particularly helpful in epilepsy and scrofula, though useful also for the healing of various diseases, is especially interesting. This practice apparently began with Edward the Confessor in England and St. Louis in France and was due to the faith of those who came to be touched and healed in the divine right and lonely power of the king. It is significant that the practice began with these two for they, more than any kings of their time or most kings since, were really men of rare and saintly character. Curiously but naturally enough the English have denied any real power in this region to French kings and the French have claimed a monopoly for their own sovereigns. The belief in the king's touch persisted long and seems toward the end to have had no connection with the character of the monarch, for Charles II did more in this line than any one who ever sat on an English throne. During the whole of his reign he touched upward of 100,000 people. Andrew White adds that "it is instructive to note, however, that while in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofula and so many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of the disease." Along with the king's touch went the king's gift--a piece of gold--and the drain upon the royal treasury was so considerable that after the reign of Elizabeth the size of the coin was reduced. Special coins were minted for the king's use in that office and these touching pieces are still in existence. William III refused to take this particular power seriously. "God give you better health and more sense," he said as he once touched a patient. In this particular instance the honest skepticism of the king was outweighed by the faith of the suppliant. We are assured that the person was cured. The royal touch was discontinued after the death of Queen Anne. The list of healers began early and is by no means ended now. The power of the healer was sometimes associated with his official station in the Church, sometimes due to his saintly character and often enough only to a personal influence, the fact of which is well enough established, though there can be in the nature of things no finality in the estimate of his real efficacy. George Fox performed some cures; John Wesley also. In the seventeenth century one Valentine Greatrakes seems to have been the center of such excitements and reported healings as Alexander Dowie and others in our own time and it is finally through the healer rather than the saint or the king or shrine or relic that we approach the renaissance of mental and faith healing in our own time. IV THE APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MARY BAKER EDDY There is, however, another stage in this long line of development which needs to be considered since it supplies a double point of departure; once for the most outstanding healing cult in our time--Christian Science--and once for the greatly enlarged use of suggestion in modern medical practice, and that is mesmerism and "animal magnetism." _Mesmerism a Point of Departure for Modern Healing Cults_ Paracelsus[17] may be taken as a starting point just here. He is known in the history of medicine "for the impetus he gave to the development of pharmaceutical chemistry, but he was also the author of a visionary and theosophic system of philosophy." He believed in the influence of the stars upon men, but he enlarged upon the old astrologic faiths. "He believed the human body was endowed with a double magnetism, one portion attracted to itself the planets and was nourished by them, the result of which was the mental powers, the other portion attracted and disintegrated the elements, from which process resulted the body." His world, therefore, was a world of competitive attractions. He believed the well had an influence over the sick through magnetism and used the magnet in his practice. [Footnote 17: A German-Swiss physician and alchemist, b. 1493, d. 1541. These quotations, partly from authorities on faith healing and partly from the history of Spiritualism, illustrate the underground connection in this whole region.] "This dual theory of magnetic cures, that of the magnetic influence of men on men and of the magnet on man, was prevalent for over a century." "It is, then, upon these ideas--the radiation from all things, but especially the stars, magnets and human bodies, of a force which would act in all things else, and which was in each case directed by the indwelling spirit, together with the conception of a perpetual contact between reciprocal and opposing forces--that the mysticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly depends."[18] [Footnote 18: Podmore, "Modern Spiritualism," Vol. I, p. 45. I am in debt also to Cutten for general information and some quoted paragraphs.] These ideas were adopted by a group of men who are now only names for us. The phenomena of magnetism fascinated them and supplied them analogies. There is, they thought, an all-prevailing magnetic influence which binds together not only celestial and terrestrial bodies, but all living things. Life and death were for them simply the registry of the ebbing and flowing of these immaterial tides and they ended by conceiving a vital fluid which could be communicated from person to person and in the communication of which the sick could be healed--the driftwood of their lore has come down to us on the tides of time; we still speak of magnetic personalities--and they sought in various ways to control and communicate these mysterious forces. One of them invented steel plates which he applied to the body as a cure for disease. He taught his system to Mesmer who made, however, one marked advance upon the technique of his predecessors and gave his name to his methods; he produced his results through physical contacts and passes. But he shared with his predecessors and stated with that compact clearness of which the French language is so capable even when dealing with obscure matters, that there is a "fluid so universally diffused and connected as to leave nowhere any void, whose subtlety is beyond any comparison and which by its nature is capable of receiving, propagating and communicating all impressions of movement.... This reciprocal action is subject to mechanical laws at present unknown."[19] This fluid in its action governs the earth and stars and human action. [Footnote 19: Price's "Historique de facts relatifs du Magnétisme Animal," quoted by Podmore.] He originated the phrase "Animal Magnetism" and was, though he did not know it, the originator of hypnotism; until well within our own time mesmerism was the accepted name for this whole complex group of phenomena. The medical faculties examined his claims but were not willing to approve them, but this made no difference in Mesmer's popularity. He had so great a following as to be unable to deal with them personally. He deputed his powers to assistants, arranged a most elaborate apparatus and surrounded his whole procedure with a dramatic setting of stained glass, mirrored and scented rooms and mysterious music. The result of it all naturally, as far as his patients were concerned, was marked excitements and hysterias. They had often to be put into padded rooms. And yet the result of all this murky confusion was said to be numbers of marked cures. He was investigated by the French government and two commissions presented their reports, neither of which was favourable. Imagination, not magnetism, they said, accounted for the results. His popularity wore away markedly when he undertook to explain his method and reveal his secrets. He left Paris in 1815 and lapsed into obscurity. _The Scientific Investigation of Mesmerism in France_ As has been said, there are two lines of development growing out of Mesmer and his methods. Ten years after Mesmer left Paris Alexandre Bertrand pointed out that after the elimination of errors due to fraud or mal-observation, the results which Mesmer and his associates had produced were due not to animal magnetism, but to expectation induced by suggestion and intensified by the peculiar setting which Mesmer had contrived for his so-called treatments. The schools of medicine were slow to follow out Bertrand's discovery and it was not until something like twenty years later, through the studies of Braid, that hypnotism began to be taken seriously. But once the matter was brought broadly before them, the doctors began to follow it through. Charcot, in the Salpêtriére, used hypnotic suggestion for the correction of abnormal mental and nervous states. The psychologists took up the matter and hypnotic suggestion has come to be not only a legitimate subject for the investigation of the student and an accepted method in correction of abnormal mental states, but as it were a window through which we are beginning to see deeply into unsuspected depths and intricacies of personality. Modern faith healing cults, however, have not come to us down this line, though the studies of Bertrand, Braid, Charcot, Du Bois and their associates supply the interpretative principles for any real understanding of them. Mesmerism naturally appealed to the type of mind most easily attracted by the bizarre and the mysterious. There are always amongst us the credulous and curious who find little enough either to awe or inspire them in the broad sweep of law, or in such facts as lie open to the light of reason. Such as these are impatient of discipline, eager to free themselves from the sequence of cause and effect; they are impressed by the occult powers and seek short cuts to health, or goodness, or wisdom. They delight to build up, out of their own inner consciousness, systems which have little contact with reality and which, through their very tenuousness, are as incapable of disproof as through their disengagement from normal experience they are capable of verification. They are the people of what the alienist calls the "idée fixe." Everything for them centers about one idea; they have one key and one only to the marvellous complexity of life. Such a temper as this naturally disassociates them from reality and makes them contemptuous of contradictory experiences. _Mesmerism is Carried to America; Phineas Quimby an Important Link in a Long Chain_ America has been far too rich in such a temper as this and it was never more so than in the forties and the fifties of the last century. Mesmerism crossed the ocean and while Braid and later Bernheim and Charcot were following it through on sound, psychological lines and bringing to bear upon it great insight and scientific discipline, it fell here into the hands of charlatans and adventurers. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, best known for his connection with Mary Baker Eddy, hardly deserves the name of charlatan, though he was dangerously near being just that. He belonged to the border-land regions in thought and propaganda and he did give to the whole complex movement which we have been considering a direction which has played a relatively great part in its later development. He had a shrewd mind which ranged over wide regions; he is a pretty typical example of the half-disciplined, forceful and original personality which has played so large a part in American life. The New England of his time--Quimby was born in New Hampshire and spent his life in Maine--was giving itself whole-heartedly to a mysticism bounded on the one side (its higher and more representative side) by Emerson and the transcendentalists and on the other by healers, prophets of strange creeds and dreamers of Utopias. Phrenology, mind reading, animal magnetism, clairvoyance, all had their prophets. Quimby belongs to this succession. His education was meagre, he did not even know how to spell according to the dictionary or punctuate according to the grammar.[20] He had his own peculiar use of words--a use by which Mary Baker Eddy was doubtless greatly influenced. He had marked mechanical ability and a real passion for facts. He was an original thinker, little in debt to books for his ideas though he was undoubtedly influenced by the temper of his environment to which reference has already been made. He had a speculative, but not a trained interest in religion and dealt freely with the orthodoxy of his time constrained by no loyalty to the accepted faith and no critical knowledge of its content. "Truth" and "Science" were characteristic words for him and he shared his speculations and conclusions freely with his disciples. [Footnote 20: What is here said of Quimby is condensed from Dresser's "The Quimby Manuscripts."] _Quimby is Led to Define Sickness as Wrong Belief_ In his early thirties he was supposed to be dying of consumption and suffered much from excessive medication. He recovered through an emotional crisis but does not seem to have followed out the possible suggestion of his recovery. He turned instead to mesmerism and travelled about with one Lucius Burkmer over whom he had strong hypnotic influence. When hypnotized Burkmer (or Burkman) claimed the power to look as through a window into the bodies of Quimby's patients and discover, often with illuminating detail, their condition; a good many reputed cures followed. The testimonials to these cures and to the strange powers of Burkmer are themselves an arresting testimony to the lengths people go in the face of what they do not understand. "I have good reason to believe that he can discern the internal structure of an animal body and if there be anything morbid or defective therein detect and explain it.... He can go from point to point without passing through intermediate space. He passes from Belfast [Maine] to Washington or from the earth to the moon ... swifter than light, by a single act of volition."[21] [Footnote 21: "The Quimby Manuscripts," p. 38.] Quimby had too alert an intelligence to rest content with the merely occult. He came to believe that Burkmer only saw what the patient thought, could do no more than describe the patient's idea of his own state, or else report the "common allopathic belief about the disease in question," and the cure, he was persuaded, was not in the medicine prescribed but in "the confidence of the doctor or medium." (Note that Quimby here associates the cures produced by the medical faculty and his own cures in one sweeping generalization.) What he was really dealing with then was "belief." It might be the belief of the doctor or the patient or the belief of his friends--but sickness was only "belief." This also was a sweeping generalization but it becomes intelligible as we follow the process by which Quimby reached his conclusions and it helps us to understand the significance of Belief as one of the key words of Christian Science. Quimby was led to identify sickness and wrong beliefs through this analysis of mesmeric diagnosis and health and right belief through his own experiences as a healer. He had no training to help him to an understanding of the real facts which lay behind the belief in sickness. He became a skillful diagnostician of states of mind and a healer of such diseases as could be so treated. But he knew, scientifically, no more of what lay behind it all than a ploughman may know of what lies beneath the furrows he turns. _Quimby Develops His Theories_ Mrs. Eddy took over the catch-words of his system and its loose assumptions, and a reasonably careful comparison of the Quimby manuscripts and "Science and Health" shows not only Mrs. Eddy's fundamental and never honestly acknowledged and finally categorically denied indebtedness to Quimby, but the confusion which Quimby's rather striking and original philosophy suffered at her hands. Beginning with his persuasion that health and sickness are phases of belief Quimby discarded mesmerism altogether and addressed himself to the minds of his patients. He had doubtless a keen intuitive knowledge of human nature and its morbid fancies and he was dealing generally with neurotic temperaments over which he exercised a strong and helpful power of suggestion. His explanation of disease--that it is a wrong belief--becomes grotesque enough when he comes down to detail. This, for example, is his diagnosis of Bronchitis--"You listen or eat this belief or wisdom [evidently that Bronchitis is real] as you would eat your meals. It sets rather hard upon your stomach; this disturbs the error of your body and a cloud appears in the sky.... The elements of the body of your belief are shaken, earth is lit up by the fire of your error, the heat rises, the heaven or mind grows dark ... the lightning of hot flashes shoot to all parts of the solar system of your belief. At last the winds or chills strike the earth or surface of the body, a cold clammy sensation passes over you. This changes the heat into a sort of watery substance which works its way into the channels and pores to the head and stomach."[22] [Footnote 22: "Quimby Manuscripts," p. 118.] This is Quimby at his worst but beneath it is the germ of the method and philosophy which have attained so luxurious a growth--the explaining, that is, of disease in terms of wrong belief. Inevitably in the elaboration of all this Quimby reached out to include religion and theology and even created his own distinctive metaphysics. He distinguished between the mind and spirit; he must of course discover in personality a power superior to fluctuating mental attitudes. He called his system a science since he was trying to reduce it to a system and discover its laws. He found a parallel to what he was doing in the narratives of healing in the Christian Gospels and claimed Christ as the founder of his science.[23] [Footnote 23: _Ibid._, p. 185.] All belief opposed to his was "error"; "Truth" was naturally opposed to error. He subordinates the testimony of the senses to the necessities of his system; he defines God variously as Wisdom, as Truth, possibly as Principle though his use of the word Principle is far more intelligible than Mrs. Eddy's.[24] He increasingly identifies his system and the teachings of Jesus and ends by calling it "Christian Science."[25] [Footnote 24: "The Quimby Manuscripts," p. 309.] [Footnote 25: _Ibid._, p. 388.] In substance in the more than 400 closely printed pages of the Quimby manuscripts as now edited we discover either the substance or the suggestion of all that Mrs. Eddy later elaborated. Now all this, confused as it is, brings us to the threshold of a distinct advance in mental and faith healing. _Mary Baker Eddy Comes Under Quimby's Influence_ Practically faith and mental healing had depended, till Quimby took it up, upon persons or objects. The saint or the healer worked through personal contact; the shrine must be visited, the relic be touched. Such a system was naturally dependent upon accidents of person or place; it would not be widely extended nor continued nor made the basis of self-treatment. But if what lay behind the whole complex group of phenomena could be systematized and given real power of popular appeal through its association with religion it would possess a kind of continuing independence, conditioned only by the willingness of people to be persuaded of the truth of its philosophy or to answer to its religious appeal. It would then become a mental and spiritual discipline to be written into books and taught by the initiated. As far as it could be associated with religion it would become the basis of a cult and it would have an immense field. All difficult or chronic or obscure illnesses would offer an opportunity to its propagandists, and the necessary obscurities and irrationalities of such a system would simply be, for the minds to which it would naturally appeal, added elements of power. Any system which has sickness for its field and credulity for its reinforcement and a specious show of half truth for its philosophic form and religion to give its sanction and authority is assured, to begin with, of a really great following. Its very weaknesses will be its strength. It will work best as it is neither clear nor simple--though it must make a show of being both. And if, in addition, there is somewhere at the heart of it force and truth enough to produce a certain number of cures it will go on. What it fails to do will be forgotten or ignored in the face of what it really does do. Now Quimby, through his own native force and such a combination of circumstances as occurs only once in long periods of time, stood upon the threshold of just such a revolution in the history of faith and mental healing as this. He anticipated the method and supplied the material, but he either did not or could not popularize it. He was not selfish enough to monopolize it, not shrewd enough to commercialize it, and, maybe, not fanatic enough to make it a cult. He was more interested in his own speculations than in making converts and without one of those accidents which become turning points in a movement nothing would have probably come of his work save its somewhat vague and loose continuance in the thought and teaching of a small group. (It is doubtful if New Thought, which as we shall see grew out of his work through his association with the Dressers, would have come to much without the stimulus of Christian Science against which it reacted.) Some one was needed to give the whole nebulous system organization and driving force and above all to make a cult of it. _Outstanding Events of Her Life: Her Early Girlhood_ Mary Baker Eddy did just this and Christian Science is the result. It is idle to calculate the vanished alternatives of life but in all probability she never would have done it without Quimby. She and her followers would do far better to honestly recognize this indebtedness. It would now make little difference with either the position of their leader or the force of their system but it would take a pretty keen weapon out of the hands of their critics and give them the added strength which thoroughgoing honesty always gives to any cause. There is, on the other hand, little likelihood that Quimby's persuasions would ever have carried beyond the man himself if he had not found in Mrs. Eddy so creative a disciple. The outstanding facts of Mary Baker Eddy's life are too well known to need much retelling here. The story of her life and the history of Christian Science as told by Georgine Milmine in _McClure's Magazine_ during the years of 1907-8 is final. It is based upon thorough investigation, original documents and an exhaustive analysis of facts. The facts brought out in the various litigations in which Mrs. Eddy and the church have been involved confirm both the statements and conclusions of this really distinctive work. The official life by Sibyl Wilbur (whose real name seems to be O'Brien) is so coloured as to be substantially undependable. It touches lightly or omits altogether those passages in Mrs. Eddy's life which do not fit in with the picture which Mrs. Eddy herself and the church desire to be perpetuated. Mrs. Eddy was descended from a shrewd, industrious and strongly characterized New England stock. Her father was strongly set in his ways, narrow and intense in his religious faith. Mary Baker was a nervous, high-strung girl, unusually attractive in personal appearance, proud, precocious, self-conscious, masterful. She was subject to hysterical attacks which issued in states of almost suspended animation. Her family feared these attacks and to prevent them humoured her in every way. In due time she joined the Tilton Congregational Church. She says herself that she was twelve years old at the time, but the records of the church make her seventeen. The range of her education is debated. Mrs. Eddy herself claims a rather ambitious curriculum. "My father," she says, "was taught to believe that my brain was too large for my body and so kept me out of school, but I gained book knowledge with far less labour than is usually requisite. At ten years of age I was familiar with Lindley Murray's Grammar, as with the Westminster Catechism and the latter I had to repeat every Sunday. My favourite studies were Natural Philosophy, logic and moral science. From my brother Albert I received lessons in the ancient tongues, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. After my discovery of Christian Science most of the knowledge I gleaned from school books vanished like a dream. Learning was so illumined that grammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God in man's origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual order and unity. Prosody the song of angels and no earthly or inglorious theme."[26] [Footnote 26: "Retrospection and Introspection," 1909.] _Her Education: Shaping Influences_ It is not fair to apply critical methods to one who confesses that most of the knowledge she had gleaned from school books vanished like a dream, but there is much in Mrs. Eddy's writing to bear out her statement. Those who knew her as a girl report her as irregular in attendance upon school, inattentive during its sessions and far from knowing either Greek or Latin or Hebrew. "According to these schoolmates Mary Baker completed her education when she had finished Smith's Grammar and reached Long Division in Arithmetic." The official biography makes much of an intellectual friendship between the Rev. Enoch Corser, then pastor of the Tilton Congregational Church, and Mary Baker. "They discussed subjects too deep to be attractive to other members of the family. Walking up and down in the garden, this fine old-school clergyman and the young poetess as she was coming to be called, threshed out the old philosophic speculations without rancour or irritation."[27] [Footnote 27: "The Life of Mary Baker Eddy," Sibyl Wilbur, 4th edition. Christian Science Publishing Company.] There is little reason to doubt her real interest in the pretty rigid Calvinistic theology of her time. Indeed, we could not understand her final line of religious development without taking that into consideration. Milmine suggests other forces which would naturally have influenced a sensitive and curious girl; for example, the current interest in animal magnetism, a subject which dominated certain aspects of her thinking to the end. Milmine suggests also that she may have been considerably influenced by the peculiar beliefs of the Shakers who had a colony near Tilton. The Shakers regarded Ann Lee, their founder, as the female principle of God and greater than Christ. They prayed always to "Our Father and Mother which art in heaven." They called Ann Lee the woman of the Apocalypse, the God-anointed woman. For her followers she was Mother Ann, as Mary Baker was later Mother Eddy. Ann Lee declared that she had the gift of healing. The Shakers also made much of a spiritual illumination which had the right of way over the testimony of the senses. The Shakers called their establishment the Church of Christ and the original foundation the Mother Church. The Shakers forbade audible prayer and enjoined celibacy. There are parallels enough here to sustain Milmine's contention that Mary Baker was at least largely influenced by suggestions from her peculiar group of neighbours. _Her Unhappy Fortunes. She is Cured by Quimby. An Unacknowledged Debt_ Mary Baker married George Washington Glover at the age of twenty-two. She was soon left a widow and her only son was born after his father's death. The story of the years which follow is unhappy. She was poor, dependent upon relatives whose patience she tried and whose hospitality was from time to time exhausted. Her attacks of hysteria continued and grew more violent. Her father sometimes rocked her to sleep like a child. The Tiltons built a cradle for her which is one of the traditions of this unhappy period of her life. She tried mesmerism and clairvoyance and heard rappings at night. She married again, this time a Dr. Daniel Patterson, a travelling dentist. He never made a success of anything. They were miserably poor and his marriage was no more successful than most of his other enterprises. He was captured, though as a civilian, during the Civil War and spent one or two years in a southern prison. Futile efforts were made at a reconciliation and in 1873 Mrs. Patterson obtained a divorce on the grounds of desertion. Meanwhile she had been separated from her son, of whom she afterward saw so little that he grew up, married and made his own way entirely apart from his mother. In 1861 Mrs. Patterson's physical condition was so desperate that she appealed to Quimby. Her husband had had some interest in homeopathy and she was doubtless influenced by the then peculiar theories of the homeopathic school. (Indeed she claimed to be a homeopathic practitioner without a diploma.) She had had experience enough with drugs to make her impatient and suspicious of current methods of orthodox medication. Under Quimby's treatment she was physically reborn and apparently spiritually as well. It is necessary to dwell upon all these well-known details to understand what follows and the directions which her mind now took. Milmine's analysis is here penetrating and conclusive. She had always been in revolt against her environment. Her marriages had been unhappy; motherhood had brought her nothing; she had been poor and dependent; her strong will and self-assertive personality had been turned back upon herself. She had found no satisfaction in the rigid theologies of the time. She had sought help from accepted religion and religion had had nothing to give her. We have to read between the lines and especially to evaluate all this period in the light of "Science and Health" itself to reconstruct the movement of her inner life, but beyond a doubt her thought had played about the almost tragic discrepancy between her own experiences and the love and goodness of God. She had known pain and unhappiness in acute forms and had found nothing in what she had been taught ample enough to resolve her doubts or establish her faith. She found in Quimby's philosophy a leading which she eagerly followed. Now for the first time she is really set free from herself. A truer sense of dramatic values would have led Mrs. Eddy herself to have made more of the unhappy period which began to come to an end with her visit to Quimby and would lead her disciples now to acknowledge it more honestly. It is a strong background against which to set what follows and give colour by contrast to her later life. The twice-born from Saul of Tarsus to John Bunyan have dwelt much upon their sins and sorrows, seeking thereby more greatly to exalt the grace of God by which they had been saved. Mary Baker Eddy came strongly to be persuaded that she had saved herself and consequently not only greatly underestimated her debt to Quimby, but emptied her own experiences of dramatic contrasts to make them, as she supposed, more consistent, and her disciples have followed her. As a matter of fact, though her life as a whole is not an outstanding asset for Christian Science and is likely to grow less so, one must recognize the force of a conviction which changed the neurotic Mrs. Patterson of the fifties and sixties into the masterful and successful woman of the eighties and nineties. She belongs also to the fellowship of the twice-born and instead of minimizing the change those who seek to understand her, as well as those who seek to exalt her, would do well to make more of it. She did that herself to begin with. No master ever had for a time a more grateful disciple. She haunted Quimby's house, read his manuscripts, wrote letters for the paper, "dropped into verse" and through her extravagance "brought ridicule upon Quimby and herself." Quimby died in 1866, accompanied to his last resting place by a tribute in verse from his grateful pupil. Mrs. Eddy had at the time apparently no thought of continuing his work except in a most modest way. She wrote Julius Dresser who had come under Quimby's influence, suggesting that he would step forward into the place vacated. "I believe you would do a vast amount of good and are more capable of occupying his place than any other I know of."[28] She asked Dresser's help in recovering from a fall which she had just had on the ice and which had so injured her, as she supposed, to make her the helpless cripple that she was before she met Quimby. This fall is worth dwelling upon for a bit, for it really marks a turning place in Mrs. Eddy's life. In her letter to Dresser she says that the physician attending "said I have taken the last step I ever should, but in two days I got out of my bed alone and will walk."[29] Sometime later in a letter to the _Boston Post_ Mrs. Eddy said, "We recovered in a moment of time from a severe accident considered fatal by the regular physicians." There is a considerable difference between two days and a moment of time and the expression of a determination to walk in the Dresser letter and the testimony to an instantaneous cure in the _Boston Post_ letter. Dr. Cushing, the physician who attended Mrs. Eddy at the time, gives still a third account. He treated her, he says, over a period of almost two weeks and left her practically recovered. He also attended her in a professional capacity still later and offers all this in a sworn statement on the basis of his record books. There is a very considerable advantage in a philosophy which makes thought the only reality, for, given changing thought and a complacent recollection, facts may easily become either plastic or wholly negligible. [Footnote 28: "A History of the New Thought Movement," Dresser, p. 110.] [Footnote 29: _Ibid._] _She Develops Quimby's Teachings Along Lines of Her Own_ The real significance of this much debated but otherwise unimportant episode is that it seems to have thrown Mrs. Eddy upon her own resources, for now that Quimby was dead she begins to develop what she had received from him through both experience and teaching along lines of her own. She had found a formula for the resolution of problems, both physical and mental, which had hag-ridden her for years. She had a natural mental keenness, a speculative mind, a practical shrewdness (the gift of her New England ancestors) and an ample field. The theology, the medical science and indeed the philosophy or psychology of the New England of the sixties contributed strongly, through their limitations, to the growth of bizarre systems which had in them elements of truth. We shall need to come back to this again in any evaluation of Christian Science as a whole, but we cannot understand the rapid development of the movement of which Christian Science was just one aspect without taking all this into consideration. Medicine itself has been greatly revolutionized within the last fifty years. While Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy was finding her unhappy way through border-land regions into a cloudy light, Louis Pasteur, sitting, in the phrase of Huxley, "as humbly as a little child before the facts of life," was making those investigations in bacteriology which were to be, in some ways, the greatest contribution of the nineteenth century to the well-being of humanity. He was following patiently the action of microscopic organisms, especially in their relation to health, discovering the secret of contagion and infection, outlining methods of defense against the attacks of these invisible armies, finding the true basis for inoculation, extending its operation, robbing hospitals of their terrors and surrounding surgery with safeguards heretofore undreamt of, literally performing miracles (in his control of swine plague and the like), and for the want of another subject preparing to experiment upon himself for the prevention of hydrophobia, and in doing it all in the most simple and humble way, naively unconscious of his own fame and living from first to last in a noble and comparative poverty which contrasts dramatically with the material well-being for which Mrs. Eddy was so eager. Nothing of this had ever come into Mrs. Eddy's field or those whom she addressed. With all the aid which the modern physician has at his control, diagnosis is still a difficult matter, physicians confess it themselves. There is still, with all the resource of modern medical science, a residuum of hopeless and obscure cases which baffle the physician. That residuum was very much larger fifty years ago than it is now. _She Begins to Teach and to Heal_ The typical Protestant religious experience, as we have seen, was not great enough to contain all the facts of life. The molten passion of an earlier Calvinism had hardened down into rigidities which exalted the power of God at the cost of human helplessness. There was no adequate recognition among the devout of the sweep of law. Everything that happened was a special Providence and it was hard enough to fit the trying facts of life into an understanding of Divine Love when there was apparently so much in life in opposition to Divine Love. A very great deal of the ferment of the time was just the endeavour to find some way out of all this and the group of which Mrs. Eddy was a part were really the first to try to find their way out except as roads of escape which were, on the whole, not ample enough had been sought by the theological liberalism of the time of which Unitarianism was the most respectable and accepted form. There are, as has been said, curious underground connections through all this region. We find homeopathy, spiritualism, transcendentalism, theological liberalism and faith healing all tied up in one bundle. The line which Mrs. Eddy now came to follow is, on the whole, clear enough. She becomes in her turn teacher and healer, giving her own impress and colour to what she called the science she taught, claiming it more and more as her own and not only forgetting, but denying as she went on, her indebtedness to any one else. The whole thing gradually became in her mind a distinct revelation for which the ages had been waiting and this revelation theory is really the key to the contradictions and positive dishonesties which underlie the authorized account of the genesis of Christian Science. She associated herself with one of the more promising of her pupils who announced himself as Dr. Kennedy, with Mrs. Eddy somewhat in the background. Kennedy was the agent, Mrs. Eddy supplied him with the material of what was a mixed method of teaching and healing. She had always been desperately poor; now for the first time she had a respectable bank account. There were corresponding changes in her personality and even her physique. She began to give lessons, safeguarding her instructions from the very first in such ways as to make them uncommonly profitable. Her pupils paid $100 for the course and agreed also to give her a percentage of the income from their practice. In the course of litigation which afterward follows, the courts pronounced that they did not find in her course of instruction anything which could be "in any way of value in fitting the defendant as a competent and successful practitioner of any intelligible art or method of healing the sick." The court, therefore, was of the opinion that "consideration for the agreement had wholly failed." In a sense the court was mistaken. Mrs. Eddy was giving her disciples something which, whether it fitted them to be competent and successful practitioners of any intelligible art or method of healing the sick, or no, was of great financial advantage both to them and to their teacher. She afterward raised her tuition fee to $300 and stated that God had shown her in multitudinous ways the wisdom of this decision. _Early Phases of Christian Science_ Everything was, to begin with, a matter of personal relationship between Mrs. Eddy and her students. They constitute a closely related group, the pupils themselves extravagant in their gratitude to their teacher. There were, of course, schisms, jealousies, recriminations, litigation, but none the less, the movement went on. The first attempt at organization was made at Lynn in 1875. A hall was rented, meetings were held in the evening, the society was known as the "Christian Scientists" and as an organization Christian Science came into the world. The first edition of "Science and Health" was also published in 1875. There was difficulty in finding a publisher; those who assisted Mrs. Eddy financially were losers in the enterprise. They were never reimbursed, though "Science and Health" afterward became the most remunerative single publication in the world. Two years later Mrs. Glover (for after her divorce from Patterson she had taken her earlier married name) married Gilbert Eddy and so took the name by which she is best known to the world. There is much in this period of Mrs. Eddy's life to indicate that she had not yet reached an inner serenity of faith. She was never able to free herself from a perverted belief in animal magnetism or mesmerism which showed itself in fear rather than faith. She believed herself persecuted and if she did not believe in witchcraft she believed in something curiously like it. Indeed, to Mrs. Eddy belonged the rather curious distinction of having instigated the last trial for witchcraft in the United States and with a fitting sense of historic propriety she staged it at Salem. The judge dismissed the case, saying that it was not within the power of the Court to control the defendant's mind. The case was appealed, the appeal waived and the whole matter rests as a curious instance in the records of the Salem court. Mrs. Eddy does not appear as the plaintiff in the case. The complainant is one of her students, but Mrs. Eddy was behind the complaint, the real reason for which is apparently that the defendant had refused to pay tuition and royalty on his practice and was interfering with the work of the group of which Mrs. Eddy was leader. The incident has value only as showing the lengths to which the mind may be led once it has detached itself from the steadying influences of experience-tested reality. It is interesting also to note that in one way and another Mrs. Eddy and her church have been involved in more litigation than any other religious teacher or religious movement of the time. _She Writes "Science and Health" and Completes the Organization of Her Church_ Nothing apparently came of the first tentative organization in 1875. The first incorporated Church of Christ Scientist was chartered in 1879 with twenty-six charter members and Boston as its seat. Meetings of this church were held, to begin with, in Lynn and Boston, but Lynn was not friendly to the new enterprise and the Boston group became the center of further growth. Mrs. Eddy left Lynn finally in 1882 and during all the next period the history of Christian Science is the history of the Mother Church in Boston and of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Mrs. Eddy suffered no dissent, her pupils either followed or left her. She was the controlling force in the whole movement. She began to surround herself with a certain mystery and delighted in theatrical effects. She had written and rewritten "Science and Health" until it began to take final form. The _Journal of Christian Science_ became the official organ of Mrs. Eddy's movement as "Science and Health" was its gospel. The movement reached beyond Boston and New England and invaded the West. It was now so outstanding as to create general public interest. The churches began to take notice of it and indeed, whatever has been for the last twenty years characteristic of Christian Science was then actively in action. What follows is the familiar story of Mrs. Eddy's own personal movements, her withdrawal to Concord, her growing detachment from the movement which she nevertheless ruled with an iron hand, the final organization of the church itself along lines wholly dictated by its leader, the deepening of public interest in the movement itself, Mrs. Eddy's removal from Concord to Newton and her death. She left behind her the strongest and most driving organization built up by any religious leader of her time. Of all those, who since the Wesleys have inaugurated and carried through a distinct religious movement, only Alexander Campbell is in the same class with Mrs. Eddy and Campbell had behind him the traditional force of the Protestantism to which he gave only a slightly new direction and colouring. Mrs. Eddy's contributions are far more distinct and radical. We need, then, to turn from her life, upon whose lights and shadows, inconsistencies and intricacies, we have touched all too lightly, to seek in "Science and Health" and the later development of Christian Science at once the secret of the power of the movement and its significance for our time. V CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A PHILOSOPHY Christian science has a considerable group of authorized publications and a well-conducted department of publicity. Its public propaganda is carried on by means of occasional lectures, always extremely well advertised and through its reading rooms and periodicals. Its unadvertised propaganda is carried on, naturally, by its adherents. Every instance of obscure or protracted illness offers it an opportunity and such opportunities are by no means neglected. But the supreme authority in Christian Science is Mary Baker Eddy's work "Science and Health." This is read at every Sunday service and is the basis of all lectures and explanatory advertisements. In general its exponents do not substantially depart from the teachings of its book, nor, such is the discipline of the cult, do they dare to. There are doubtless such modifications of its more extreme and impossible contentions as every religion of authority experiences. Christian Science cannot remain unaffected by discussion and the larger movements of thought. But it has not as yet markedly departed from the doctrines of its founder and must thereby be judged. The book in its final form represents a considerable evolution. The comparison of successive editions reveals an astonishing amount of matter which has been discarded, although there has been no real modification of its fundamental principles. References to malicious animal magnetism which fill a large place in the earlier editions, are almost wholly wanting in the last, and there has been a decided progress toward a relative simplicity of statements. The book is doubtless much in debt to Mrs. Eddy's literary adviser, Mr. Wiggins, who brought to the revision of Mrs. Eddy's writings a conscientious fidelity. One needs to stand a good ways back from the book itself in order at all to get any balanced view of its philosophy but, so seen, its fundamentals are almost unexpectedly simple. _Christian Science a Philosophy, a Theology, a Religion and a System of Healing; General Conditions Which Have Lent it Power_ Christian Science is offered as a philosophy, a theology, a religion and a method for the practical conduct of life and it needs to be considered under each of these four heads. It demands also for any proper understanding of it the backgrounds of Mrs. Eddy's peculiar temperament and checkered history. It is a growth. For her fundamentals Mrs. Eddy is, beyond reasonable debate, in debt to Quimby and in some ways Quimby's original insights have suffered at her hands. None the less, in its final form "Science and Health" is what Mrs. Eddy has made it and it is what it is because she was what she was. She shared with her own generation an absorbing interest in fundamental theological problems. She inherited a religion which has reduced the whole of life to rigid and on the whole too narrow theological formulæ. She was not able to fit her experience into the formula which her faith supplied and yet, on the other hand, her faith exercised a controlling influence over her life. She was in a small and pathetic way a kind of nineteenth century Job grappling with the old, old question given sin and, above all, pain and suffering to find God. She could not adjust either Divine love or a just Divine sovereignty to what she herself had been called upon to bear. A natural tendency toward the occult and the desperate willingness of the hopelessly sick to try anything which promises a cure, led her in many directions. So much her biography explains. Quimby was the first teacher she found whose system seemed to offer any key at all to the intellectual and spiritual puzzle in which she found herself and when his system seemed to be proved for her by her recovery from a chronic abnormal state, she thereafter followed and elaborated what he suggested. Here a certain natural shrewdness and ingenuity of mind stood her in good stead. She was helped by her own ignorances and limitations. If she had been a trained thinker, familiar with a wide range of philosophic speculation, she would never have dared write so dogmatically; if she had been a great philosopher with the philosopher's inclusive vision, she would never have dared build so much on foundations so narrow. Mrs. Eddy was, unconsciously to herself, a type. She thought and felt for multitudes of perplexed people unable to reconcile the more trying experiences of life with what faith they had in the love and goodness of God, unable on the other side to find the love and goodness of God in the wide sweep of law and the orderly sequence of cause and effect, and incapable under any circumstances of the patient analysis needed to trace to all their sources the threads of their strangely mingled webs of life; impressionable folk under the spell of words; speculative; at once credulous and skeptical; intellectually alert enough to want to do their own thinking and not intellectually disciplined enough to do it well; persuaded that the Bible has both a message and authority and unable to find in their traditional interpretation of it either a satisfying message or an adequately directing authority; impatient of discipline and pathetically eager for some short cut to happiness and well-being. In a very signal way Mrs. Eddy has spoken and written for this type particularly in American life. Her very style a liability as it is, when tested by either logic or the accepted standards of good writing, has, nevertheless, been an asset with those who have made her their prophetess. The secret of Mrs. Eddy's power and the power of her system after her is most largely in her essential intellectual and spiritual kinship with such a temper and intellectual status as this, but she possessed also a real measure of creative capacity, a marked reach of speculative power, rare shrewdness and a masterful temper. Mrs. Eddy believed herself to have found her system in the Old and New Testaments--but she did not. She gradually built it up out of the suggestions which had been given her to begin with; she gave it colour and direction from her own experiences; she proved it to her own satisfaction in the healings which seemed to result from it, then fitted it all as best she could into the framework of her inherited Christian faith and read its meanings back into the Scriptures. It is a pseudo-philosophy pseudo-Christianized (if one may use the word) by a curious combination of ingenuity, devotion, main strength and even awkwardness. And though Christian Science is carrying on to-day as a religion rather than as either a philosophy or a system of healing, it will stand or fall on the intellectual side as a philosophy and not as a religion. _The Philosophic Bases of Christian Science_ It is professedly an idealistic monism based on carefully selected facts and depending for its proof upon certain results in the experience of those who accept it. An idealism because there is for Mrs. Eddy no reality save in mind, a monism because there is for Mrs. Eddy only one reality and that is God. For a definition of God she offers only synonyms and affirmations though here perhaps she follows only the usual procedure of theology. God is divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind--and all these capitalized, for it makes a vast difference in the philosophy of Christian Science whether such familiar words as these are spelled with a capital letter or not. It would be possible from Mrs. Eddy's own words to pretty effectually prove what has been more than once claimed: that Christian Science does not offer a personal God, but all our terminology in this region is necessarily somewhat loose, though hers is excessively so. Some of her definitions of God are as personal as the Westminster Catechism or the Thirty-nine Articles. The writer believes, however, after such dispassionate consideration of the philosophy of Christian Science as he is able to give, that it would make absolutely no difference in its philosophic basis whether God were conceived as a person or not. If the God of Christian Science be taken merely as the exaltation of an abstract idealism or a philosophic Absolute everything would be secured which is otherwise secured. Up to a certain point Christian Science marches with other idealistic systems. From Plato down we have had philosophers a plenty, who have sought to build for us a universe whose only realities are mind and its attributes, or perhaps more technically, consciousness and its content. It is truly a difficult enough matter to relate the world without and the world within, once we begin thinking about it (though happily and in the practical conduct of life this is not so hard as the philosophers make out, otherwise we should be in a hopeless state), and it is natural enough for one type of mind to simplify the problem by making the world within the only world. Nor have there been wanting those who have sought to reduce everything to a single reality whether matter or mind, and ever since we have had theology at all a perplexed humanity has been seeking to reconcile the goodness and the power of God with the sin and sorrow of our troubled world. But Christian Science parts company soon enough with this great fellowship of dreamers and philosophers and takes its own line. It affirms consciousness and its content to be the only reality; it affirms the divine Mind to be the ultimate and all-conditioning reality; it affirms love and goodness to be the ultimate qualities of the divine Mind, but it meets the problem of sin and evil by denying them any reality at all. (Here it is in more or less accord with certain forms of mysticism.) But even as Christian Science cuts this Gordian knot it creates for itself another set of difficulties and involves itself in those contradictions which will eventually be the undoing of it as a philosophy. _It Undertakes to Solve the Problem of Evil. Contrasted Solutions_ What Christian Science is seeking is an ideal order with a content of unqualified good and it secures this by denying the reality of every aspect of experience which either challenges or contradicts its own idealism. What is distinctive, then, in Christian Science is not its affirmations but its denials. All systems of philosophic idealism face practically the same problem and offer various solutions. They most commonly resolve evil of every sort--and evil is here used in so wide a way as to include sin and pain and sorrow--into an ultimate good. Evil is thus an "unripe good," one stage in a process of evolution which, when it has had its perfect and all-transforming way, will reveal both moral and physical evil to have been no evil at all but simply aspects of life, trying enough at the time and puzzling enough when taken by themselves, but having their own distinct and contributory value when considered in their relation to the final whole. Such an approach as this does not in any wise diminish for the individual either the reality of pain or the unhappy consequences of sin, but it does ask him to judge the wisdom and love of God not by their passing phases but by their outcome in the wealth and worth of character. Robert Browning sang this sturdily through a long generation riding down its difficulties by the sheer force of an unconquerable optimism and subduing argument to lyric passion. "The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round. "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?" Others affirm the self-limitation of God.[30] In His respect for that human freedom which is the basis of self-regulated personal action and therefore an essential condition of character, He arrests Himself, as it were, upon the threshold of human personality and commits His children to a moral struggle justifying the inevitable incidents of moral defeat by the greatness of the ends to be attained. A vast deal of what we call evil--broadening evil to include not only moral defeat but also pain--is either a consequence or a by-product of what Henry Churchill King calls the fight for character. Such a solution as this is consistent with the love of God and the moral order; whether it is consistent with a thoroughgoing monism or not is another question. William James doubted it and so frankly adopted Pluralism--which is perhaps just a way of saying that we cannot reconcile the contending forces in our world order with one over-all-controlling power--as his solution of the problem. [Footnote 30: Walker, for example, in his extremely suggestive Spiritual Monism and Christian Theism.] Josiah Royce has valiantly maintained, through long and subtle argument, the goodness of the whole despite the evil of the incidental. "All finite life is a struggle with evil. Yet from the final point of view the Whole is good. The Temporal Order contains at no one moment anything that can satisfy. Yet the Eternal Order is perfect. We have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Yet in just our life, viewed in its entirety, the glory of God is completely manifest. These hard sayings are the deepest expressions of the essence of true religion."[31] He finds the root of evil in the dissatisfaction of the finite will--a dissatisfaction which on the other hand is the secret of the eventual triumph of good. [Footnote 31: "The World and the Individual," Royce, Vol. II, Chap. 9--passim.] We suffer also through our involution with "the interests and ideals of vast realms of other conscious and finite lives whose dissatisfactions become part of each individual man's life when the man concerned cannot at present see how or why his own ideals are such as to make these dissatisfactions his fate." We suffer also through our associations with nature, none the less "this very presence of evil in the temporal order is the condition of the perfection of the eternal order." He dismisses definitely, in an argument still to be quoted, the conclusion of the mystic that an "experience of evil is an experience of unreality ... an illusion, a dream, a deceit" and concludes: "In brief, then, nowhere in Time is perfection to be found. Our comfort lies in the knowledge of the Eternal. Strengthened by that knowledge, we can win the most enduring of temporal joys, the consciousness that makes us delight to share the world's grave glories and to take part in its divine sorrows,--sure that these sorrows are the means of the eternal triumph, and that these glories are the treasures of the house of God. When once this comfort comes home to us, we can run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. For our temporal life is the very expression of the eternal triumph." One may gravely question whether philosophy has ever so completely made out its case as Professor Royce thinks. He is affirming as the reasoned conclusion of philosophy what is rather a faith than a demonstration, but none the less, all honest thinking has hitherto been brave enough to recognize the reality of evil and to test the power of God and His love and goodness not by the actuality of present pain, or the confusion of present sin, but rather by the power which He offers us of growing through pain to health or else so bearing pain as to make it a real contribution to character and of so rising above sin as to make penitence and confession and the struggle for good and the achievement of it also a contribution to character. So St. Paul assures us that all things work together for good for those that love God. "The willingness," says Hocking, "to confront every evil, in ourselves and outside ourselves, with the blunt, factual conscience of Science; willingness to pay the full causal price for the removal of the blemish; this kind of integrity can never be dispensed with in any optimistic program."[32] [Footnote 32: "The Meaning of God in Human Experience," p. 175.] Sir Henry Jones takes the same line. "The first requisite for the solution of the contradiction between the demand of religion for the perfection of God, and therefore the final and complete victory of the good in the other, is the honest admission that the contradiction is there, and inevitable; though possibly, like other contradictions, it is there only to be solved."[33] [Footnote 33: "A Faith that Enquires," p. 45.] _The Divine Mind and Mortal Mind_ Christian Science solves this problem, as has been said, by denying the reality of evil, but since we have an abundance of testimony to pain and sickness, Mrs. Eddy goes a step farther. She denies the reality of the testimony of the senses wherever pain and sickness are concerned.[34] (Mrs. Eddy's denial of the reality of sin is hardly parallel to her denial of the reality of physical ills.) And here the word comes in which is made to carry a heavier load than any one poor word was ever burdened with before. All that is involved in the recognition of physical ills and indeed all that is involved in the recognition of the material side of existence is error. (Once fairly on her road Mrs. Eddy makes a clean sweep of whatever stands in her way.) What one may call the whole shadowed side of experience is not only ignored, it is denied and yet before it can be explained away it has to be explained. It is, in brief, for Mrs. Eddy and her followers the creation of mortal mind. Mortal mind, she says, "is nothing claiming to be something; mythology; error creating other errors; a suppositional material sense; ... that which neither exists in science nor can be recognized by the spiritual sense; sin; sickness; death."[35] [Footnote 34: "Science and Health," last edition, pp. 108, 120, 293, 488.] [Footnote 35: _Ibid._, p. 591.] Mortal mind is that side of us which accepts our entanglement in the facts and forces of the world order and upon mortal mind so vaguely conceived Mrs. Eddy throws the whole burden of responsibility for all the unhappy aspects of experience and conditioning circumstances. She gives it a surprising range of creative power. It has created everything Mrs. Eddy does not like or believe in. In other words, there is not one reality but two, one the reality of well-being, the other the reality of unhappiness and suffering, but according to Mrs. Eddy the first reality is the only real reality, the second is an unreal reality which we ourselves create through false beliefs and which we may escape at any moment by simply shifting the center of our creative idealism. Mrs. Eddy makes what she means by mortal mind reasonably clear through endless repetition and some analysis, but she never for a moment accounts for its existence. It is no creation of what she calls the divine Mind; indeed she says in substance that God is not conscious of it at all; it lies entirely outside the range of His knowledge. (Page 243.) God is Good. Since He is good He cannot have created nor be responsible for, nor even recognize pain, sorrow or suffering. "The Divine Mind cannot suffer" (page 108, also page 335), "is not responsible for physical and moral disasters" (page 119). God did not create matter (the Father mind is not the father of matter) (page 257), for matter means pain and death, nor do such things as these belong in any way to the order of the Divine Mind. They have no admitted reality in Mrs. Eddy's scheme of a true idealism. Man is "God's spiritual idea" and since he belongs by right to an order in which there is neither sin nor sorrow nor death, such things as these have no reality for him save as he admits them. What really admits them is mortal mind, the agent of another system of Belief in which humanity has in some way, which is never really explained, become entangled, and we may apparently escape from the one order to the other simply by a change in our beliefs. For all the shadowed side of life has reality only as we accept or believe in it; directly we cease to believe in it or deny it it ceases to be. It is, as near as one can make out, a myth, an illusion, whose beginnings are lost in obscurity and which, for the want of the revelation vouchsafed through her, has been continued from age to age by the untaught or the misled. For example, Arsenic is not a poison, so we are told again and again. It is only a poison because people think it is;[36] it began to be a poison only because people thought it was, it continues to be a poison only because the majority of people think it is now and, such is the subtle and far-reaching influence of mind upon mind, it will continue to be a poison as long as any one continues to believe it to be. Directly we all believe that Arsenic is not a poison it will be no poison. Poisons, that is, are the creation of mortal mind. Pain is pain only through the same mistaken belief in the reality of it. "By universal consent mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin and death." And so on at great length and almost endless repetition. [Footnote 36: Page 178.] _The Essential Limitations of Mrs. Eddy's System_ Since matter conditions us who were born to be unconditioned and since matter is apparently the root of so many ills, the seat of so many pains, matter goes with the rest. Mrs. Eddy is not always consistent in her consideration of matter; sometimes she confines herself to saying that there is neither sensation nor life in matter--which may be true enough save as matter both affords the material for sensation and conditions its forms, which is an immense qualification,--but again and again she calls matter an illusion. Consistently the laws of physics and chemistry should disappear with the laws of hygiene and medicine, but Mrs. Eddy does not go so far as that though it would be difficult to find a logical stopping place once you have taken this line. Mortal mind is apparently the source of all these illusions. Mrs. Eddy's disposal of matter, along with her constant return to its misleading mastery in experience is an outstanding aspect of her book. The writer is inclined to believe that Mrs. Eddy's formula: "There is ... no matter in life and no life in matter," is an echo of Tyndall's famous utterance--made about the time she was working with her system--that he found "in matter the promise and potency of all life." There is surprisingly little reference in "Science and Health" to philosophic or scientific sources. Cutter's physiology is quoted in some editions--an old textbook which the writer remembers to have found among his mother's school books. There are a few references to popular astronomy, but in general for Mrs. Eddy modern science does not exist except in the most general way as the erroneous expression of error and always with a small "s" as against the capital "S" of her own system. Nor does she show any knowledge of other philosophic idealisms nor any acquaintance with any solution of the problems she was facing save the commonplaces of evangelical orthodoxy. "Science and Health" knows nothing also of any medical science save the empirical methods of the medical science of 1860 and 1870. But she cannot have been wholly uninfluenced--being a woman of an alert mind--by the controversy which, in the seventies and eighties, was raging about a pretty crass and literal materialism, and her writings probably reflect--with a good deal of indirection--that controversy. Here is a possible key to a good many things which are otherwise puzzling enough. She is, in her own fashion, the defender of an idealistic interpretation of reality and experience. Now all idealistic systems have had to dispose of matter in some way. In general idealists find in matter only the reflection in consciousness of the material which sense experience supplies, and since the raw material is in every way so different from the mental reflection, the idealist may defend his position plausibly in assuming matter to be, in its phenomenal aspects, really the creation of thought. But he must account for the persistency of it and the consistency of experience so conditioned. He does this by assuming the whole interrelated order to be held, as it were, in solution, in some larger system of thought which really supplies for us our environment and if he be both devout and consistent he calls this the thought God.[37] In this way he solves his problem--at least to his own satisfaction--and even supplies a basis for Theistic faith. But he does not deny the working reality of his so-called material experiences nor does he, like Mrs. Eddy, accept one aspect of this experience and deny the other. This is philosophically impossible. [Footnote 37: So Royce in "The World and the Individual."] A thoroughgoing theistic monism must find in matter some aspect or other of the self-revelation of God. It may be hard pressed to discover just how the psychical is "stepped down" to the physical. (That is the essential difficulty in all Creationism.) But something must be assumed to get a going concern in any department of thought and there is much in that resolution of matter into force and force into always more tenuous and imponderable forms--which is the tendency of modern science--to render this assumption less difficult to the rational imagination than perhaps any other we are asked to make. When the final elements in matter have become electrons and the electron is conceived as a strain in a magnetic field and thus the "Cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which is inherent," become the projection into sensibly apprehended form of the flux of an infinite and eternal energy, it is not hard to define that energy in terms of a divine will. Indeed it is hard not to do just that. But there is no place in such a resolution as this for the conclusions of "Science and Health." Or we may accept in one form or another a dualism in which the practical mind is generally content to rest. According to this point of view we have to do with a reality which may be known under two aspects. It is the chemical action and interaction of elements--and the mind which measures and combines them; it is the physical action and interaction of force--and the mind which directs the process. Biologically "the living creature gives an account of itself in two ways. It can know itself as something extended and intricately built up, burning away, moving, throbbing; it can also know itself as the seat of sensation, perceptions, feelings, wishes, thoughts. But there is not one process, thinking, and another process, cerebral metabolism (vital processes in nerve-cells); there is a psycho-physical life--a reality which we know under two aspects. Cerebral control and mental activity are, on this view, different aspects of one natural occurrence. What we have to do with is the unified life of a psycho-physical being, a body-mind or mind-body."[38] In short there is no philosophy or science outside the covers of her own book to which Mrs. Eddy may turn for support and though this does not prove the case against her--she might be right and the whole disciplined thought of her time be wrong--this latter supposition is so improbable as to rule it out of court. [Footnote 38: J.A. Thomson, "The Outline of Science," p. 548.] The materialism against which she contends has ceased to exist. The matter which she denies does not exist in the sense of her denial. There was, even when she was writing, a line of which she was apparently wholly ignorant which has since been immensely developed, and of all this there is naturally no reflection at all in her work. It is more hopelessly out of touch with the laborious and strongly established conclusions of modern thought in every field than the first chapters of Genesis for there one may, at least, substitute the science of to-day for the science of 3,000 years ago and still retain the enduring insights of the faith then voiced, but there is no possible accommodation of "Science and Health" to either the science or the philosophy of the twentieth century. It must be left to a consistent Christian Scientist to reconcile his gospel with the freer movements of the world of which he is still a citizen--though perhaps this also might be urged against a deal of contemporaneous Christian faith--but it is all an arresting testimony to the power of the human mind to organize itself in compartments between which there is no communication. _Experience and Life_ Beyond all this is the fact of which "Science and Health" takes no account--the conditioning of conscious life and working experience by its material environment however conceived. This is true of every phase of life and all our later emphasis upon the power of the mind in one direction and another to escape this conditioning scarcely affects the massive reality of it. Christian Science makes no attempt at all to escape this--save in the region of physical health--or else it provides an alibi in the phrase, "I have not demonstrated in that region yet." But it does not thus escape the limitation imposed upon us all and if we may dare for a moment to be dogmatic, it never will. At the best we live in a give and take and if, through discipline and widening knowledge, we may push back a little the frontiers which limit us, and assert the supremacy of soul over the material with which it is so intimately associated, we do even this slowly and at great cost and always in conformity with the laws of the matter we master. There is a body of evidence here which can no more be ignored than gravitation, and we best dispose of association of personality with the material fabric of the body and the world of which it is a part, not by denying their mutual interdependence but by discovering therein the laws and methods of an infinite wisdom. Here are ministries through which we come to consciousness of ourselves, here are materials upon which we exercise our power, here are realities which hold us fast to normal and intelligible lives, here are masters whose rule is kind and servants whose obediences empower us. They condition our happinesses as well as our unhappinesses and supply for us the strings of that harp of the senses upon which the music of life is played. Life really gains its spiritual content through the action and interaction of the aspiring self upon its environment--whether that environment be intimate as the protest of a disturbed bodily cell or remote as Orion and the Pleiades.[39] The very words which Mrs. Eddy uses would be idle if this were not so and though a thoroughgoing defender of her system may read into its lines a permission for all this, the fundamentals of her system deny it. [Footnote 39: "And I am inclined to think that the error of forgetting that spirit in order to be real or that principles, whether of morality, religion or knowledge, must be exemplified in temporal facts, is a no less disastrous error than that of the sciences which have not learned that the natural, when all the meaning of it is set free, blossoms into the spiritual like the tree into flower. Religion and philosophy and science also have yet to learn more fully that all which can possibly concern man, occupy his intelligence or engage his will, lies at the point of intersection of the natural and spiritual."--"A Faith that Enquires," p. 27.] Christian Science breaks down both philosophically and practically just here. It is none the less a dualism because it denies that it is. It confronts not one but two ranges of reality; it gains nothing by making mortal mind the villain in the play. It is compelled to admit the existence of the reality which it denies, even in the fact of denying it. What we deny exists for us--we could not otherwise deny it. Royce has put all this clearly, strongly, finally. "The mystic first denies that evil is real. He is asked why, then, evil seems to exist. He replies that this is our finite error. The finite error itself hereupon becomes, as the source of all our woes, an evil. But no evil is real, hence no error can be real, hence we do not really err even if we suppose that evil is real. Here we return to our starting point and could only hope to escape by asserting that it is an error to assert that we really err or that we really believe error to be real, and with a process thus begun there is indeed no end, nor at any stage in this process is there consistency."[40] All this is subtle enough, but if we are to make our world by thinking and unthinking it, all this is unescapably true. [Footnote 40: "The World and the Individual," Vol. II, p. 394.] When, moreover, you have reduced one range of experience to illusion there is absolutely nothing to save the rest. If evil is error and error evil and the belief that evil is an illusion is itself an illusion what is there to guarantee the reality of good? The sword with which Mrs. Eddy cut the knot of the problem of evil is two-edged. If the optimist denies evil for the sake of good and points for proof to the solid coherency of the happier side of life, the pessimist may as justly deny good for the sake of evil and point for proof to the solid coherency of the sadder side of life; he will have no trouble in finding his facts. If sickness is a dream then health is a dream as well. Once we have taken illusion for a guide there is no stopping until everything is illusion. The Eastern mystic who went this road long before Mrs. Eddy and who thought it through with a searching subtleness of which she was incapable, reached the only logical conclusion. All experience is illusion, entire detachment from action is the only wisdom, and absorption in an unconscious something which only escapes being nothing is our appointed destiny: "We are such stuff As dreams are made of, And our little life Is rounded with a sleep." _Sense-Testimony Cannot Be Accepted for Health and Denied for Sickness_ Christian Science, then, is not monism, it is rather a dualism; it confronts not one but two ranges of reality and it is compelled to admit the existence of the reality which it denies, even the fact of denying it, for it is a philosophical axiom that what we deny exists for us--we could not otherwise deny it. Denial is the recognition of reality just as much as affirmation. To repeat, it is this continuous interwoven process of trying to reconcile the one-sided idealism of Christian Science with the necessity of its argument and the facts of life which gives to "Science and Health" what one may call its strangely bifocal character, though indeed this is a somewhat misleading figure. One has the same experience in reading the book that one has in trying to read through glasses which are out of focus; you are always just seeing and just missing because Mrs. Eddy herself is always just seeing and just missing a really great truth. This fundamental inconsistency penetrates the whole system even down to its practical applications. Christian Science denies the testimony of the senses as to sickness and yet accepts them as to health. It goes further than this, it accepts the testimony of the senses of other people--physicians, for example, in accepting their diagnosis. The edition of "Science and Health" published in 1918 offers in chapter eighteen a hundred pages of testimonials sent in by those who have in various ways been helped by their faith. These letters are shot through and through with a recognition of the testimony of the senses which no explanation can possibly explain away. "I was afflicted with a fibroid tumour which weighed not less than fifty pounds, attended by a continuous hemorrhage for eleven years." If the senses have any language at all, this is their language. A growth cannot be known as a fibroid tumour without sense testimony, nor its weight estimated without sense testimony, nor a continuous hemorrhage be recorded, or its cessation known without sense testimony, nor can epilepsy be diagnosed, nor bilious attacks recognized without sense testimony. On page 606 a grateful disciple bears witness to the healing of a broken arm, testimony to said healing being demonstrated by a visit to a physician's office "where they were experimenting with an X-ray machine. The doctor pointed out the place as being slightly thicker at that part, like a piece of steel that had been welded." In other words, Christian Science cannot make out its case without the recognition of the veracity of a sense testimony, whose truth its philosophy denies. Mrs. Eddy seems to dismiss all this in one brief paragraph. "Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No, for matter can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science, in which health is normal and disease is abnormal."[41] If Mrs. Eddy and her followers believe so specious a statement as that, to set them free from an inconsistency which is central in their whole contention, they are welcome to their belief, but the inconsistency still remains. You can go far by using words in a Pickwickian sense but there is a limit. A consistent idealism is philosophically possible, but it must be a far more inclusive and deeply reasoned idealism than Christian Science. The most thoroughgoing idealisms have accepted the testimony of the senses as a part of the necessary conduct of life as now conditioned. Anything else would reduce us to unspeakable confusion, empty experience of its content, dissolve all the contacts of life and halt us in our tracks for we cannot take a step safely without the testimony of the senses and any scheme of things which seeks to distinguish between the varying validities of sense testimony, accepting only the evidence of the senses for health and well-being and denying the dependability of whatever else they register, is simply an immense caprice which breaks down under any examination. [Footnote 41: Page 120. It is only fair to say that Mrs. Eddy is hampered by her own want of clear statement. The phrase (so often used in "Science and Health") "in Science" is probably in her mind equivalent to "in the ideal order" and if Mrs. Eddy had clearly seen and clearly stated what she is groping for: that the whole shadowed side of life belongs to our present world of divided powers and warring forces and unfinished enterprises, that God has something better for His children toward which we are being led through the discipline of experience and that we may therefore seek to conceive and affirm this ideal order and become its citizens in body, mind and soul, she would have escaped a perfect web of contradiction and been in line not only with the great philosophies but with historic Christian faith. But then Christian Science would not be Christian Science.] _The Inescapable Reality of Shadowed Experience_ Evil does not cease to be because it is denied. The acceptance of sense testimony is just as necessary in the region of pain and sickness as in driving a motorcar down a crowded street and the hypothesis of a misleading mortal mind, instead of explaining everything, demands itself an explanation. What Mrs. Eddy calls mortal mind is only the registry of the dearly bought experience of the race. We began only with the power to feel, to struggle, to will and to think. We have been blind enough and stupid enough but we are, after all, not unteachable and out of our experience and our reflections we have created the whole splendid and dependable body of human knowledge. What we know about pain is itself the outcome of all the suffering of our kind. We began with no developed philosophy nor any presuppositions about anything. Experience reflects encompassing realities which we are able to escape only as we make their laws our ministers. We did not give fire the power to burn, we discovered that only in the school of the touch of flame. We did not give edged steel the power to cut, we found that out through death and bleeding wounds. We did not give to poisons their deadly power, our attitude toward them is simply the outcome of our experience with them. Conditioned as we are by those laws and forces with which this present existence of ours is in innumerable ways inextricably interwoven, our tested and sifted beliefs are only the outcome of an action and interaction of recipient or creative personality upon its environment old as human consciousness, and if in all this we have become persuaded of pain and suffering and shadowed experience, it is only because these are as real as any elements in experience can possibly be. To attempt to write them out or deny them out or juggle them out in any kind of way save in bravely meeting them and humbly being taught by them and in the full resource of disciplined power getting free from them by removing the causes which create them, is to cheat ourselves with words, lose ourselves in shadows which we mistake for light and even if in some regions we seem to succeed it is only at the cost of what is more bitter than pain and more deadly than wounds--the loss of mental and spiritual integrity. This is a price too great to pay for any mere healing. VI CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A THEOLOGY "Science and Health" is offered, among other things, as a key to the Scriptures, and along with her interpretation of both the Old and the New Testaments in terms of her peculiar philosophy Mrs. Eddy rewrites the great articles of the Christian creeds. A careful student of Mrs. Eddy's mental processes is able in this region to understand them better than she understood them herself. She had, to begin with, an inherited reverence for the Bible as an authority for life and she shared with multitudes of others a difficulty to which reference has already been more than once made. For what one may call the typical Protestant consciousness the Bible is the final revelation of God, governing, if only we can come to understand it, both our faith and our conduct of life, but the want of a true understanding of it and, above all, the burdening of it with an inherited tradition has clouded its light for multitudes of devout souls. _Science and Health Offered as a Key to the Scriptures_ Such as these have been almost pathetically eager to accept any interpretation, no matter how capricious, which seemed to read an intelligible meaning into its difficult passages, or reconcile its contradictions, or make it a more practical guide in the conduct of life. Any cult or theory, therefore, which can seem to secure for itself the authority of the Bible has obtained directly an immense reinforcement in its appeal to the devout and the perplexed, and Mrs. Eddy has taken full advantage of this. Her book is veined with Scripture references; two of her chapters are expositions of Biblical books (Genesis and Revelation); and other chapters deal with great doctrines of the Church. _It Ignores All Recognized Canons of Biblical Interpretation. Illustrations_ Mrs. Eddy naturally sought the authority for her philosophy between the covers of the Scriptures. Beyond debate her teachings have carried much farther than they otherwise would, in that she claims for them a Scriptural basis, and they must be examined in that light. Now there are certain sound and universally recognized rules governing the scholarly approach to the Old and New Testaments. Words must be taken in their plain sense; they must be understood in their relation to their context. A book is to be studied also in the light of its history; the time and place and purpose of its composition, as far as these are known, must be considered; no changes made in the text save through critical emendation, nor any translations offered not supported by accepted texts, nor any liberties be taken with grammatical constructions. By such plain tests as these Mrs. Eddy's use of the Scriptures will not bear examination. She violates all recognized canons of Biblical interpretation on almost every page.[42] [Footnote 42: This is a brief--and a Christian Scientist may protest--a summary dismissal of the claim of "Science and Health" to be a "key to the Scriptures." But nothing is gained--save of the unnecessary lengthening of this chapter--in going into a detailed examination of her method and conclusions. She has insight, imagination, boundless allegorical resource, but the whole Bible beneath her touch becomes a plastic material to be subdued to her peculiar purpose by omissions, read-in meanings and the substantial and constant disregard of plain meanings. To the student the whole matter is important only as revealing the confusion of the popular mind which receives such a method as authoritative.] Her method is wholly allegorical and the results achieved are conditioned only by the ingenuity of the commentator. It would require a body of citation from the pages of "Science and Health," not possible here, to follow through Mrs. Eddy's peculiar exegesis. One needs only to open the book at random for outstanding illustrations. For example, Genesis 1:6, "And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters." The word "firmament" has its own well established connotation gathered from a careful study of all its uses. We can no more understand the earlier chapters of Genesis without an understanding of Hebrew cosmogony than we can understand Dante without a knowledge of medieval cosmogony. But, given this knowledge which is the common possession of all sound scholarship, we can at least understand what the passage means, even though we have long left behind us the naïve conception of the vaulted skies to which it refers. All this is a commonplace not worth repeating at the cost of the white paper upon which it is printed, save as the ignoring of it leads to such an interpretation of the passage as that which Mrs. Eddy offers: "spiritual understanding by which human conception material mind is separated from Truth is the firmament. The Divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called material senses" (page 505). Comment is not only difficult but impossible in the face of a method like this. If such an interpretation were an exception it might seem the unfair use of a hypercritical temper to quote this particular expression of Mrs. Eddy's mind. But her whole treatment of Scripture suffers from the same method. Everything means something else. The Ark is "the idea, or reflection of truth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle." Babel is "self-destroying error"; baptism is "submergence in Spirit"; Canaan is "a sensuous belief"; Dan (Jacob's son) is "animal magnetism"; the dove is "a symbol of divine Science"; the earth is "a type of eternity and immortality"; the river Euphrates is "divine Science encompassing the universe and man"; evening "the mistiness of mortal thought"; flesh "an error, a physical belief"; Ham (Noah's son) is "corporeal belief"; Jerusalem "mortal belief and knowledge obtained from the five corporeal senses"; night, "darkness; doubt; fear"; a Pharisee, "corporeal and sensuous belief"; river is "a channel of thought"; a rock is "a spiritual foundation"; sheep are "innocence"; a sword "the idea of Truth."[43] [Footnote 43: Glossary, p. 579--passim.] Mrs. Eddy does not hesitate to make such textual modifications of passages as suit her purpose and even when she is not dealing with her texts in such ways as these, she is constantly citing for her proofs passages which cannot by any recognized canon of interpretation possibly be made to mean what she says they mean. Beneath her touch simple things become vague, the Psalms lose their haunting beauty, even the Lord's Prayer takes a form which we may reverently believe the author of it would not recognize. "Our Father: Mother God, all harmonious, Adorable One, Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever present. Enable us to know--as in heaven, so on earth--God is omnipotent, supreme. Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections; and love is reflected in love; and God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease and death. For God is Infinite, all Power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all and All." _Its Conception of God_ It was quite as inevitable that she should undertake to fit her speculations into the fabric of the theology in which she and most of her followers had been trained, as that she should try to secure for her speculation the weight of the authority of the Bible. She would have to take for her point of departure the centrality of Christ, the outstanding Christian doctrines, markedly the Incarnation and the Atonement and she would need somehow to dispose of the Sacraments. All this is inevitably implied in the persistent designation of her whole system as a Christian system. The chapter headings in "Science and Health" and the sequence of chapters are the key to the movement of her mind; they are determined by her association of interests. Marriage is on the same level with Prayer, Atonement and the Eucharist, and Animal Magnetism with Science, Theology and Medicine. It is hard to know where to begin in so confused a region. She is handicapped, to begin with, by the rigidity of her idealism and actually by her limitation both of the power and personality of God. This statement would probably be as sharply contradicted by Mrs. Eddy's apologists as anything in this study, but it is not hastily made. Philosophically He is for Mrs. Eddy only an exalted ideality into relation with which we may think ourselves by a change in our system of belief. Actually, as we shall see, this conception yields to emotional and devotional needs--it is bound to--but in theory it is unyielding. Now the accepted Christian conception of God is entirely different. Both the Old and New Testaments conceive a God who is lovingly and justly conscious of all our need, who is constantly drawing near to us in manifold appeals and approaches and who has, above all, in the Incarnation made a supreme and saving approach to humanity. He is no more rigid than love is rigid; His attitude toward us, His children, changes as the attitude of a father toward the changing tempers of a child. Now all this may be true or it may be only the dream of our strangely sensitive personalities, but whether it be true or not, it is the Christian conception and any denial of this or any radically different substitution for it cannot call itself Christian save as it writes into the word Christian connotations to which it has heretofore been utterly strange. _Mrs. Eddy's Interpretation of Jesus Christ_ Mrs. Eddy begins, therefore, with the handicap of a philosophy which can be adjusted to Christian theology only through fundamental modifications of that theology. It is hard to systematize the result. Mrs. Eddy distinguishes between Jesus and Christ. Her conception of Jesus is reasonably clear whether it be historically true or not, but her conception of the Christ is vague and fluctuating. Jesus was apparently the first Christian Scientist, anticipating, though not completely, its philosophy and demonstrating its practices. His teachings are so interpreted as to be made to yield a Christian Science content. When He urged the commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" what He really meant was, "Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life."[44] "He proved by His deeds that Christian Science destroys sickness, sin and death. Our Master taught no mere theory, doctrine or belief; it was the divine Principle of all real being which He taught and practiced."[45] "He taught His followers the healing power of Truth and Love"[46] and "the proofs of Truth, Life and Love which Jesus gave by casting out error and healing the sick, completed His earthly mission."[47] "The truth taught by Jesus the elders scoffed at because it demanded more than they were willing to practice."[48] They, therefore, crucified Him and He seemed to die, but He did not. Apparently He was not dead when He was entombed and His three days in the tomb gave Him "a refuge from His foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being." In other words He demonstrated His own healing in the tomb. "He met and mastered, on the basis of Christian Science, the power of mind over matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery and hygiene. He took no drugs to allay inflammation; He did not depend upon food or pure air to resuscitate wasted energies; He did not require the skill of a surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and lacerated feet, that He might use those hands to remove the napkin and winding sheet and that He might employ His feet as before."[49] [Footnote 44: Page 19. All citations from last edition.] [Footnote 45: Page 26.] [Footnote 46: Page 31.] [Footnote 47: Page 41.] [Footnote 48: Page 41.] [Footnote 49: Page 44.] "His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while He was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas He was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb the power of the spirit to overrule mortal, material sense." His ascension was a final demonstration in which He "rose above the physical knowledge of His disciples and the material senses saw Him no more." He attained this perfection of demonstration only gradually and He left behind Him an incomplete revelation which was to wait for its full illumination for the coming of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science. Perhaps more justly He left behind Him, according to Mrs. Eddy and her followers, a body of teaching which could not be clearly understood until she came to complete the revelation. At any rate, Christian Science is really His second coming. _Christian Science His Second Coming_ In an advertisement printed in the New York _Tribune_ on January 23, 1921, Augusta E. Stetson says: "Christ in Christian Science is come to the understanding of those who looked for His reappearing." And if certain sentences which follow mean anything, they mean that, in the thought of Mrs. Eddy's followers, she completes what Jesus began and fulfills the prophecy of His reappearing. "Her earthly experience runs parallel with that of her Master; understood in a small degree only by the few who faintly see and accept the truth, she stood during her earthly mission and now stands on the mount of spiritual illumination toward whose heights no feet but those of the blessed Master have so directly toiled, first in agony and finally, like Jesus Christ the masculine representative of the Fatherhood of God, she as the feminine representative of the motherhood of God, will appear in triumphant demonstration of divine power and glory as the combined ideal man in God's image and likeness." And, indeed, there are not wanting intimations in "Science and Health" which give to Mrs. Eddy a certainty in this region which Jesus Himself did not possess. He falters where she firmly trod. No need to dwell upon the significant omissions which such an interpretation of the historic Jesus as this demands. The immensely laborious and painstaking scholarship which has sought, perplexedly enough it must be confessed, to discover behind the Gospel narratives the fundamental facts and realities of His life, is entirely ignored. Mrs. Eddy has no place for the social aspects of the teachings of Christ, indeed His whole system of ethic could be "blacked out"; as far as her teaching is concerned it would make absolutely no difference. Mrs. Eddy distinguishes, in theory at least though there is no consistency in her use of terms, between Jesus and the Christ. "Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus, the Christ" (page 473). "Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and the sinning and destroying the power of death" (page 473). "In an age of ecclesiastical despotism, Jesus introduced the teaching and practice of Christianity ... but to reach His example and test its unerring Science according to His rule, ... a better understanding of God as divine Principle, Love, rather than personality or the man Jesus, is required" (page 473). It is difficult enough to know just what this means, but as one stands far enough back from it all it seems to reduce Jesus historically to the first outstanding Christian Science teacher and healer. "Jesus established what He said by demonstration, thus making His acts of higher importance than His words. He proved what He taught. This is the Science of Christianity. Jesus _proved_ the Principle, which heals the sick and casts out error, to be divine" (page 473). He is, therefore, historically of chiefest value as the demonstrator of Christian Science, the full philosophy of which apparently awaited a later revelation. "Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God" (page 473). "He unveiled the Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love" (page 38). The Christ of Christian Science, then, is an ideal Truth, a spiritual idea, apparently an abstraction. But Mrs. Eddy is not consistent in her use of these two names. On one page Christ is "the spiritual idea of divine Love"; on the next page "we need Christ and Him crucified" (page 39), though how an ideal truth or a spiritual idea could possibly be crucified we are not told. In many of her passages Mrs. Eddy uses the familiar phrase, Jesus Christ, in apparently its ordinary connotations. _The Incarnation: Christian Theology and Christian Science Belong Really to Different Regions_ The Incarnation is disposed of in the same vague way. "Those instructed in Christian Science have reached the glorious perception that God is the only author of man. The virgin mother conceived this idea of God and gave to her ideal the name of Jesus."[50] "The illumination of Mary's spiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation, and brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth. The Holy Ghost, or divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure sense of the Virgin-mother with the full recognition that being is Spirit."[51] "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God."[52] Now all this is neither honest supernaturalism nor the honest acceptance of the normal methods of birth. It is certainly not the equivalent of the Gospel account whether the Gospel account be accepted or rejected. To use a phrase which has come into use since "Science and Health" was written, this is a "smoke screen" under cover of which Mrs. Eddy escapes the necessity of either accepting or denying the testimony of the Gospels. [Footnote 50: Page 29.] [Footnote 51: Page 29.] [Footnote 52: Page 30.] Something of this, one must confess, one may find in not a little religious teaching old and new, but it is doubtful if there is anywhere so outstanding an instance of what one may call the smoke screen method in the consideration of the Incarnation, as in the passages just quoted. As a matter of fact all this is simply the attempt to fit the idealistic dualism, which is the real philosophic basis of Christian Science and which, in so far as it is capable of explanation at all, can be as easily explained in two pages as two hundred, into the theology in which Mrs. Eddy was nurtured and which was a background common to both herself and her disciples. Christian Science would carry far less weight in the race it is running if it frankly cut itself clear of a theology with which it has fundamentally no affinity. This indoctrination of an idealistic dualism with a content of Christian theology probably heightens the appeal of the system to those who are most at home in a new faith as they discover there the familiar phrases of their older faith, but it weakens the fundamental Christian Science apologetic. I think, however, we ought justly to recognize this as simply an inevitable aspect in the transition of Christian Science from the orthodox faith and experience of historic Christianity to a faith and experience of its own. Seen as a curious half-truth development made possible by a whole group of forces in action at the end of the nineteenth century, Christian Science is reasonably intelligible, but as a system of doctrine built upon the hitherto accepted bases of Christian fact and teaching, it is not intelligible at all and the long controversy between the Christian theologian and the Christian Science lecturer would best be ended by recognizing that they have so little in common as to make attack and counter-attack a movement in two different dimensions. The one thing which they have in common is a certain set of words and phrases, but these words and phrases have such entirely different meanings on the one side and the other as to make the use of them hopelessly misleading. _The Atonement. The Cross of Christian Science and the Cross of Theology_ There are passing references to the Cross in "Science and Health," but the word is used generally in a figurative and sentimental way. Mrs. Eddy's cross is simply the pain of being misunderstood and criticised in the preaching and practice of Christian Science, though indeed the Cross of Jesus was also the outcome of hostilities and misunderstandings and a final and terribly fierce method of criticism. One feels that mainly she is thinking of her own cross as a misunderstood and abused woman and for such suggestion she prefers the Cup as a figure to the Cross. As for the Atonement "every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort for reform, every good thought and deed will help us to understand Jesus' Atonement for sin and aid its efficacy."[53] "Wisdom and Love require many sacrifices of self to save us from sin." All this seems to be in line with the moral theory of the atonement until we see that in such a line as this there is no recognition of the fact that again and again we suffer and that largely for others, and when she adds that "Its [the atonement] scientific explanation is that suffering is an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting love" (page 23), those passages cancel one another, for if suffering be "an error of sinful sense" it is hard to see how any pang of it can help us to understand Jesus' atonement unless His suffering be also "an error of sinful sense," and this is to reduce the atonement to a like error. [Footnote 53: Page 19.] In another connection Mrs. Eddy finds the efficacy of the Crucifixion "in the practical affection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind." But this turns out to be nothing more than that the Crucifixion offers Christ a needed opportunity for the instruction of His disciples to triumph over the grave. But since in another connection we are told He never died at all (chapter Atonement and Eucharist, paragraph "Jesus in the tomb") even this dissolves into unreality. Moreover the "eternal Christ in His spiritual selfhood never suffered."[54] Whichever road she takes here Mrs. Eddy reaches an impasse. It ought to be said, in justice to Mrs. Eddy, that her treatment of the atonement reflects the difficulty she found in the theology in which she had been trained as a girl and that there are many true insights in her contentions. She was at least seeking a vital and constructive interpretation and doubtless her observations, confused as they are, have been for her followers a real way out of a real difficulty. Here, as in so many other regions, "Science and Health" is best understood by its backgrounds. [Footnote 54: A curious and far-off echo of early Docetism which also in its own way reduced Christ's suffering to a simple seeming to suffer.] As a matter of fact there is in Christian Science absolutely no soil in which to plant the Cross as the Cross is understood in Christian theology. There is no place in Christian Science for vicarious atonement, whether by God or man; there is little place in Christian Science for redemptive suffering; there is a rather narrow region in which suffering may be considered as instructive, a guide, perhaps, to lead us out of unhappy or shadowed regions into the regions of physical and, maybe, spiritual and moral well-being, and to quench the love of sin.[55] Mrs. Eddy sometimes speaks of Christ as the Saviour but if her system be pressed to a logical conclusion she must empty the word of all the associations which it has hitherto had and make it simply the equivalent of a teacher or demonstrator. [Footnote 55: Page 36. But this is to recognize the reality of suffering. Mrs. Eddy is here on the threshold of a great truth--that suffering is an aspect of education--but she goes no further.] _Sin an Error of Mortal Mind_ Sin along with sickness and death are the projections of mortal error, the creations of mortal mind; sin, sickness and death are to be classified as effects of error. Christ came "to destroy the belief of sin." All this is to root sin simply in the mind. No intimation at all here of the part which a perverted will may play in the entanglements of life; no intimation of the immense force of the emotional side of life; no intimation here of the immense part which sheer selfishness plays. Mrs. Eddy's sin is far too simple. There is, once more, a sound reason for that. Mrs. Eddy is twice-born, if you will, but the struggle from which she finally emerged with whatever measure of victory she attained was not fought out with conscience as the field of battle, or in the final reconciliation of a divided self finding unity and peace on some high level. If Mrs. Eddy's true struggle was of the soul and not of complaining nerves she has left no record of it anywhere. It was rather the reaction of a speculative mind against the New England theology. Her experience is strangely remote from the experience of Saul of Tarsus, or Augustine, or John Bunyan. This is not to deny that in the practical outcome of Christian Science as evidenced in the life of its adherents there is not a very real power of helpful moral adjustment, but the secret of that must be sought in something else than either its philosophy or its theology. Christian theologians themselves have been by no means agreed as to what sin really is. Under their touch it became too often a theological abstraction rather than entanglement of personality caught in manifold urgencies and pulled this way and that by competing forces battling in the will and flaming in passion and desire. But a sin which has no reality save through a mistaken belief in its existence is certainly as far from the fact of a world like ours as is a sin which is only one factor in a scheme of redemption. But at any rate, if sin have no reality except our mistaken persuasion that it be true and if we are delivered from it directly we cease to believe in it and affirm in the stead of it the reality of love and goodness, then while there may be in such a faith as this both the need and possibility of the recasting of our personal lives, there is in it neither need nor possibility of the Christian doctrine of the atonement. Naturally since man is incapable of sin, sickness and death, he is unfallen, nor is "his capacity or freedom to sin any part of the divine plan." "A mortal sinner is not God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals; they are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo" (page 475). Here also is an echo from an early time and a far-off land. It is not likely that Mrs. Eddy ever heard of Mani or Manicheeism, or knew to what a travail of soul St. Augustine was reduced when he fought his way through just a kindred line of teaching which, to save God from any contact with or responsibility for evil, affirmed our dual genesis and made us on one side children of darkness and on the other the children of light, without ever really trying to achieve in a single personality any reconciliation of two natures drawn from two entirely different sources. Nor does Mrs. Eddy know that one Eusebius, finding much evidence of this faith in the Christianity of the fourth century, dismissed it briefly enough as "an insane heresy." Heresy it certainly was for all those who were fighting their way out of their paganism into an ordered Christian faith and whether it be insane or no, it is of all the explanations which have been offered for the presence of evil in a world supposedly ruled by the love and goodness of God, the one which will least bear examination. It has been dead and buried these thousand years. We may deny, if we are so minded, any freedom of the will at all, so involving ourselves in an inevitable sequence of cause and effect as to make us also simply weather-vanes driven east or west by winds of inheritance and environment which we have no power to deflect and to which we can only choose to respond. But to deny us the freedom to sin and so to shut us up to a determinism of goodness is no more in accord with the facts than to deny us the power to be good and shut us up to a determinism of sin. If we are free at all we are free in all directions. _The Sacraments Disappear. Mrs. Eddy's Theology a Reaction from the Rigid Evangelicism of Her Youth_ "Science and Health" deals in the same radical way with the sacraments. Nothing at all, apparently, is made of baptism save that Mrs. Eddy says our baptism is a purification from all error. In her account of the Last Supper the cup is mostly dwelt upon and that only as showing forth the bitter experience of Jesus. The bread "is the great truth of spiritual being, healing the sick" and the breaking of it the "explaining" it to others. More is made of what is called the last spiritual breakfast with the Disciples by Lake Galilee than of the Last Supper in the upper room. "This spiritual meeting with our Lord in the dawn of a new light is the morning meal which Christian Scientists commemorate" (page 35). "Our bread," she says, "which cometh down from heaven, is Truth; our wine, the inspiration of Love" (page 35). All this is of a piece with the general allegorical use of the Old and New Testaments in "Science and Health," but it is a marked departure from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper even in the simple memorial way in which it is kept by non-liturgical churches. Mrs. Eddy's theology, then, is in part a reaction from the hard phrasing of the evangelical doctrines in which she was trained and it is indeed in part a reaching out toward the interpretation of these doctrines in terms of life and experience, but as a theology it is extraordinarily loose and even though the familiar phrases of Protestant and Catholic faiths are employed, what is left is wholly out of the current of the main movement of Christian theology heretofore. The central articles of the historic creeds practically disappear under Mrs. Eddy's treatment. Here, then, is a philosophy which will not bear examination, a use of Scripture which can possibly have no standing in any scholarly fellowship, and a theology which empties the central Christian doctrines of the great meanings which have heretofore been associated with them. And yet in spite of all this, Christian Science gets on and commends itself to so considerable a number of really sincere people as to make it evident enough that it must have some kind of appealing and sustaining power. Where, then, is the hiding of its power? Partly, of course, in its spaciousness. There are times when a half-truth has a power which the whole truth does not seem to possess. Half truths can be accepted unqualifiedly; they are capable of a more direct appeal and if they be skillfully directed toward needs and perplexities they are always sure of an acceptance; they make things too simple, that is one secret of their hold upon us. This, of course, is more largely true among the spiritually undisciplined and the mentally untrained, but even the wisest folk find it easier upon occasion to accept a half truth which promises an easy satisfaction or deliverance than a whole truth which needs to be wrestled with and may be agonized over before it brings us into some better estate. _The Real Power of Christian Science is in Neither Its Philosophy Nor Its Theology_ We have already seen what predisposing influences there were in the breaking down of what we have called the accepted validations of historic Christianity--due, as we have seen also, to many contributing causes--to offer unusual opportunity to any new movement which promised deliverance. But one must seek the conditions which have made possible so many strange cults and movements in America, not only in the breakdown of the historic faiths, but also in the state of popular education. Democracy tends, among other things, to lead us to value a movement by the number of people whom it is able to attract. We are, somehow, persuaded that once a majority has accepted anything, what they have accepted must be true and right. Even a strong minority always commands respect. Any movement, therefore, which succeeds in attracting a considerable number of followers is bound to attract others also, just because it has already attracted so many. One has only to listen to the current comment on Christian Science to feel that this is a real factor in its growth. Democracy believes in education, but has not commonly the patience to make education thoroughgoing. Its education is very much more likely to be a practical or propaganda education than such training as creates the analytical temper and supplies those massive backgrounds by which the departures of a day are always to be tested. In America particularly there is an outstanding want of background. It needs history, philosophy, economic understanding and a wealth of racial experience to give to any people either the power to quickly discriminate between the truth and the half-truth, or to carry itself with poise through a transitional period. But one may not dispose of the distinct hold of Christian Science upon its followers by such generalizations. The real inwardness of no religion can ever be known from its theology. A sincere devotion may attend a most deficient theology and we need to be charitable in judging the forms which other people's faith takes. What seems unreasonable to one may seem quite right to another and whatever carries a sincere faith deepening into a positive spiritual experience accomplishes for the moment its purpose. These studies of Christian Science are severe--for one must deal with it as honestly as he knows how--but the writer does not mean that they should fail in a due recognition of the spiritual sincerity of Christian Scientists. We must therefore go in to what is most nearly vitally central in the system to find the real secret of its powers. It continues and grows as a system of healing and a religion. VII CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM OF HEALING AND A RELIGION Christian Science practice is the application of its philosophy and theology to bodily healing. This is really the end toward which the whole system is directed. "Science and Health" is an exposition of Mrs. Eddy's system as a healing force. Her philosophy and theology are incidental, or--if that is not a fair statement--they both condition and are conditioned by her system of healing. There is hardly a page in her book without its reference to sickness and health. Her statements are consequently always involved and one needs to stand quite back from them to follow their outline. Here, as elsewhere, one may read deeply and indirectly between the lines attitudes and beliefs against which she is reacting. Her reactions against the environment of her girlhood and early womanhood affect her point of view so distinctly that without the recognition of this a good deal of what she says is a puzzle without a key. _Christian Science the Application of Philosophy and Theology to Bodily Healing_ She had been taught, among other things, that sickness is a punishment for sin. One may safely assume this for the theology of her formative period fell back upon this general statement in its attempt to reconcile individual suffering and special providence. One ought not justly to say that Mrs. Eddy ever categorically affirms that she had been taught this, or as categorically denies the truth of it, but there are statements--as for example page 366--which seem to imply that she is arguing against this and directing her practitioners how to meet and overcome it. This perhaps accounts for the rather difficult and wavering treatment of sin and sickness in a connection where logically sickness alone should be considered. Mrs. Eddy would not naturally have thus associated sin and sickness had they not been associated for her in earlier teaching and yet, as has been said, all this is implicit rather than explicit. The key to a great deal in "Science and Health" is not in what the author says, but in the reader's power to discover behind her statements what she is "writing down." Her system is both denial and affirmation. In the popular interpretation of it quite as much is made of denial and the recognition of error as of its more positive aspects, but in the book there is a pretty constant interweaving of both the denial of evil and the affirmation of well-being. There is a sound element of wisdom in many of her injunctions, but more needed perhaps fifty years ago than now. We must remember constantly that Mrs. Eddy is writing against the backgrounds of a somber theology, a medical practice which relied very greatly on the use of drugs which was at the same time limited in its materia medica and too largely experimental in its practice. She was writing before the day of the trained nurse with her efficient poise. The atmosphere of a sick room is not naturally cheerful and generally both the medical procedure and the spiritual comfort of the sick room of the fifties and sixties did very little to lighten depression. When, therefore, Mrs. Eddy urges, as she does, an atmosphere of confidence and sympathy she is directly in the right direction. _Looseness of Christian Science Diagnosis_ As we pass beyond these things which are now commonplace, what she says is not so simple. It is difficult to say how far the healing which attends upon Christian Science is in her thought the result of Divine Power immediately in exercise, and how far it is the outcome of disciplines due to the acceptance of her theology and philosophy. It is hard also to distinguish between the part the healer plays and the contribution of the subject. There is no logical place in Christian Science practice for physical diagnosis. "Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to discover the condition of matter, when in fact all is Mind. The body is the substratum of mortal mind, and this so-called mind must finally yield to the mandate of immortal Mind" (page 370). The result of this in practice is that the Christian Science healer accepts either the diagnosis of the medical schools, reported second-hand or else the patient's own statement of his condition. Needless to say there is room for very great looseness of diagnosis in such a practice as this. The actuality of sickness must be recognized neither directly nor indirectly. The sickness must not be thought or talked. Here also, as far as the patient is concerned, is a procedure of undebated value. It all comes back, as we shall see presently, to suggestion, but any procedure which frees the patient from depressing suggestion and substitutes therefor an encouraging suggestion is in the right direction. At the same time those who are not Christian Scientists would rather stubbornly believe that somebody must recognize the fact of sickness or else we cannot begin to set in action the machinery for curing it, even if that machinery be Christian Science itself, and we do not change this rather stubborn fact by covering sickness with the blank designation Error. Even the error is real for the time being.[56] [Footnote 56: The writer once received an unexpected sidelight on the practice of the Christian Science healer in this connection. He once enjoyed the friendship of a Christian Science healer with whom he often played golf. He called this healer up one morning to make an appointment. His voice was not recognized over the telephone and he was mistaken for a patient. The reply came back in professional tones--"And what error are you suffering from this morning?" When he answered that his own particular error was his persuasion that he could play golf the telephone atmosphere was immediately changed.] The results of fear are constantly dwelt upon and this too is in the right direction. Much is made of the creative power of mind in that it imparts purity, health and beauty (page 371). When Mrs. Eddy says on page 373 that disease is expressed not so much by the lips as in the functions of the body she is making one of those concessions to common sense which she makes over and over again, but when she attempts to explain how erroneous or--as one may venture to call it--diseased belief expresses itself in bodily function one is reminded of Quimby. Temperature, for example, is wholly mental. Mrs. Eddy's reason for believing this is apparently because "the body when bereft of mortal mind at first cools and afterward it is resolved into its primitive mortal elements." "Mortal Mind produces animal heat and then expels it through the abandonment of a belief or increases it to the point of self-destruction" (page 374). Fever is a mental state. Destroy fear and you end fever. In all this there is a profound ignorance of the real causes of fever which helps us to understand the marked deficiencies of the whole system. There is nowhere any recognition of the body as an instrument for the transformation and conservation and release of energy real as a dynamo. There is nowhere any recognition of the commonplaces of modern medical science in the tracing of germ infections. True enough, medical science had hardly more than begun when "Science and Health" was first written to redefine fevers in terms of germ infection and the consequent disorganization of the balance of physical functionings, and the oxidation of waste materials real as fire on a hearth, but that is no reason why such ignorance should be continued from generation to generation. _The Power of Mental Environment_ In general, Christian Science practice as indicated in "Science and Health" is a strange mingling of the true, the assumed and the false; its assumptions are backed up by selected illustrations and all that challenges it is ignored. Disease is unreal because Mind is not sick and matter cannot be (page 393). But Mind is "the only I, or Us, divine Principle, ... Life, Truth, Love; Deity, which outlines but is not outlined" (page 591). In other words Mind is an ideal affirmation which Mrs. Eddy assumes to underlie human experience and possibly to reveal itself through human experience, and it certainly does not follow that while an ideal affirmation is not sick, a human being involved in the necessary relationships of our present material existence may not be. Mrs. Eddy never clearly distinguishes between what a speculative mind may affirm and actual experience report. Her dialectic is a constant wrestling with reality in a range of statement which involves her in many contradictions. She recognizes what she denies and denies what she recognizes and, in a lawyer's phrase, constantly changes the venue. But through and behind it all is an intelligible method. Confidence is to be reëstablished, fear is allayed, the sufferer from error led to commit himself to healing forces. These healing forces are not consistently defined. Sometimes they are the "power of the mind to sustain the body" (page 417); sometimes "the power of Christian Science" (page 412), or "the power of Truth" (page 420) or divine Spirit, or her book itself. "Continue to read and the book will become the physician, allaying the tremor which Truth often brings to error when destroying it" (page 422). Mrs. Eddy sometimes anticipates in a vague way the reaction of thought and emotion upon physiological function to which Cannon has given such careful attention, but her definite statements are strangely inadequate. "What I term _chemicalization_ is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a fermenting fluid" (page 401).[57] She recognizes the limits of Christian Science practice when she advises her followers to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of mind (page 401). [Footnote 57: Compare "The Quimby Manuscripts," p. 118.] Great care is to be taken as to the patient's mental environment. Mrs. Eddy's constant emphasis upon this explains the excessive separatist nature of Christian Science. More than almost any other of its cults it separates its followers from those who do not belong to the cult. They cannot, naturally, attend churches in which the reality of disease is recognized; they must have their own nurses as well as their own healers; in certain regions they must confine their reading to their own literature; their children must be educated, on their religious side, in their own cult schools and they cannot consistently associate themselves with remedial movements which assume another philosophy as their basis. It is difficult for a detached observer to see how a consistent Christian Scientist reconciles the general conclusions of a modern scientific education with the presuppositions of his cult. That he does this is one more testimony to a power which indeed is exercised in many other fields than the field of Christian Science to keep in the practical conduct of life many of our governing conceptions in different and apparently water-tight compartments. _Christian Science Defines Disease as a Belief Which if Treated as an Error Will Disappear_ The answer to such a line of criticism is, of course, in the familiar Christian Science phrase that perfect demonstration has not yet been achieved in the regions in which the Christian Scientist appears to be inconsistent. But beyond this is the rather stubborn fact that in some of these regions demonstration never will be realized; Christian Science is confined to the field in which suggestion may operate. Mrs. Eddy is most specific about diseases, concerning which the medical practice of her time was most concerned and in the light of later medical science most ignorant--fever, inflammation, indigestion, scrofula, consumption and the like. These are all beliefs and if treated as error they will disappear. Even death is a dream which mind can master, though this doubtless is only Mrs. Eddy's way of affirming immortality. She hardly means to say that death is not a fact which practically has to be reckoned with in ways more final and unescapable than any other fact in life. As Dr. Campbell Morgan once said: "If you have the misfortune to imagine that you are dead, they will bury you." Mrs. Eddy concludes her chapter on Christian Science Practice with an allegory which she calls a mental court case, the suggestion of which is to be found in one of the Quimby manuscripts.[58] Since this manuscript is dated 1862 it anticipates Mrs. Eddy by almost thirteen years. The setting is like the trial of Faithful and Christian in the town of Vanity Fair as recorded in Bunyan's "Pilgrim Progress." Doubtless memories of Mrs. Eddy's reading of that deathless allegory are reproduced in this particular passage which the author is inclined to believe she wrote with more pleasure than anything else ever turned out by her too facile pen. Personal Sense is the plaintiff, Mortal Man the defendant, False Belief the attorney for Personal Sense, Mortal Minds, Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Hypnotism, Envy, Greed and Ingratitude constitute the Jury. The court room is filled with interested spectators and Judge Medicine is on the bench. The case is going strongly against the prisoner and he is likely to expire on the spot when Christian Science is allowed to speak as counsel for the defense. He appeals in the name of the plaintiff to the Supreme Court of Spirit, secures from the jury of the spiritual senses a verdict of "Not Guilty" and with the dismissal of the case the chapter on Christian Science Practice ends. [Footnote 58: "The Quimby Manuscripts," p. 172.] _Christian Science Has a Rich Field to Work_ Now what can finally be said of the whole matter? In general, two things. Recognizing the force and reality of psycho-therapy Christian Science gets its power as a healing system from the great number of people who are open to its appeal and the shrewd combination of elements in the appeal itself. In spite of our great advance in medical knowledge and practice and in spite of the results of an improved hygiene there remains in society at large a very great deposit of physical ill-being sometimes acute, sometimes chronic, sometimes clearly defined, sometimes vague, badly treated cases, hopeless cases and a great reach of cases which are due rather to disturbed mental and moral states than to ascertainable physical causes. Illness has its border-land region as well as thought and the border-land faiths make their foremost appeal to those who, for one reason or another, live in border-land physical states. And, to repeat, the number of those who belong to this group is unexpectedly large. Naturally such as these grasp at anything which offers help; they supply to the manufacturer of cure-all drugs their clientele; they fill printed pages with testimonials of marvellous cures achieved where the regular medical faculty had been helpless; they crowd about every faith healer; they are the comrades of the pilgrims to Lourdes and Ste. Anne de Beaupré; they belong to the fellowship of those who, in the Middle Ages, haunted shrines and sought out relics and asked to be touched by kings. We discover their forebears in the pages of the Gospels and as far back as any records go we see this long, pathetic procession of the hopeless or the handicapped seeking help. And again and again they get it, for we have also seen that, given faith enough either in a saint or a shrine or a system, psycho-therapy with certain subjects and in certain cases does heal. But this type of healing depends upon no one philosophy or no single force except indeed those obscure forces which are released by suggestion. While this was being written certain evangelistic faith healers in the city of Detroit were sending out broadsides of testimonials to their healings, as definite in detail as the testimonials in "Science and Health," or the _Christian Science Journal_, and yet the basal principles by which these men have claimed to work are as different from the basal principles of Christian Science as east is from west. While this is being revised Coué, the apostle of suggestion according to the Nancy school, is besieged in New York by those who have been led to hope for healing through the success of his method. Whether the relic be true or false does not matter if only the relic be believed in. _One of the Most Strongly-Drawn Systems of Psycho-therapy Ever Offered_ Now Christian Science is one of the most strongly drawn psycho-therapeutic agencies ever offered. Most faith healing systems heretofore have depended upon some place, some thing, some healer. Here is a system capable of the widest dissemination and dependent only upon a book and its interpreters. It universalizes what has heretofore, for one reason or another, been localized. It is shrewdly organized, as far as propaganda goes, and effectively directed. It is widely advertised by its friends--and its critics. Its temples, for beauty and dignity, put to shame most Protestant churches. Its rituals combine in an unusual way the simple and the dramatic. It is so fortunately situated as to be able to keep finance--which is a trying element in Protestant Church life--in the background. Its followers have that apostolic fervour which attaches to movements sure of their divine commission and not yet much worn by time. It possesses distinctly one of Sir Henry Jones' hall-marks of religion. "It impassions the spirit of its disciples and adds consequence to the things it sanctions or condemns." It draws upon deeply established Christian reverences and faiths. It secures for its authority the persistent but perplexed faith in the Bible which the average Protestant inherits and for those who believe in it the force of this authority is no wise weakened by the fact that by every sound canon of Biblical interpretation it is illicit. Its very dogmatism is an asset. It could not do its work if it were less sure. The confusions of the systems which try the critically minded are a contribution to the devout who find in them an added opportunity for faith. Its experience meetings create enthusiasm and confidence. It is, in short, more than any one of the movements we are here considering, a clearly defined cult whose intensities, limitations and mystic assurances all combine to produce among its disciples the temper most favourable to suggestion and it locks up on its force as a system of healing. An accurate analysis of what it actually accomplishes would require an immense and probably impossible labour--a knowledge of each case, an accurate diagnosis when even for the trained diagnostician the thing is difficult enough, and the following up of all reported cases. The medical faculty would probably have done better to have taken such movements as these more seriously and to have brought to them a trained investigation which, except in the case of Lourdes, has never even been attempted. Doubtless there is looseness and inconsistency in the whole system. Almost any one who has had a practical observation of the working of Christian Science has knowledge enough not only of looseness and inconsistency but of what seems to the non-Christian Science mind positive untruth. Something, however, must always be allowed here for the way in which the mind acts under excitement and for the way in which delusion deludes. All this combines to make any final judgment in this region difficult, but there still remains, after all qualification, an arresting solidity of achievement. Christian Science does work, especially with the self-absorbed, the neurotic and those who have needed, above all, for their physical deliverance, a new access to faith and courage. Christian Science practitioners have also an unusual opportunity in what may be called moral rehabilitation with physical consequences. The physician has a better chance with the bodies of his patients than with their souls; the minister a better chance with the spiritual needs of his parishioners than with their bodies and habits; the Christian Science practitioner to an unusual extent has the whole of life under his control and it ought in all fairness to be conceded that this power is helpfully employed. The very discipline of Christian Science is itself a therapeutic. There are really a good many things which become non-existent directly you begin to act as if they did not exist. An atmosphere in which no one refers to his ailment and every one to his well-being is a therapeutic atmosphere. Psychologists have taught us that if we go through the motions of being happy we are likely to have an access of happiness; if we go through the motions of being unhappy we have an access of misery. If we go through the motions of being well, very often we achieve a sound measure of health. _But it is Fundamentally a System of Suggestion_ All this has been so strongly dwelt upon of late as to make any extended consideration of it unnecessary here, as indeed any extended consideration is impossible for any one save a specialist. What we are more concerned with is the way in which the discipline and philosophy of Christian Science produce their results. The answer to this question is as plain as anything can be in our present state of knowledge, for essentially, as a healing force, Christian Science stands or falls with the therapeutic power of suggestion. It is a strongly drawn system of psycho-therapy because it is a strongly drawn system of suggestion. Its suggestion involves assumptions which are sometimes philosophy, sometimes theology, and more commonly a baffling interplay of the two. But the outcome of it all is the practical persuasion on the part of the patient that he is not sick and does not need so much to get well as to demonstrate that he is well, and that in this demonstration he has an absolute force on his side. To this end the whole body of affirmation, persuasion, assumption, suggestion and technique of Christian Science is directed. As one tries to analyze these separate elements they are, taken singly, inconsistent, often unverifiable and often enough, by any tests at all save the tests of Christian Science, positively untrue. But as Mrs. Eddy has combined them and as they are applied in practice they do possess an undeniable power. They are not dependent, as has been said, fundamentally upon persons or things or places. Here is a coherent system, the force of which may be felt when it is not understood and it bears upon the perplexed or the impressionable with very great power. It would be appreciably weakened if any one of its constituent elements were taken out of it. But fundamentally it can do no more than any other system of suggestion, unquestionably accepted, can do. _It is Bound to be Affected by Our Growing Understanding of the Ranges of Suggestion_ A deal of water has gone under the bridge since Mary Baker Eddy began her work. What was then almost wholly involved in mystery is now beginning to be reduced to law. The psychology of suggestion is by no means clear as yet, nor are the students of it agreed in their conclusions, but we do know enough about the complex character of consciousness, the actuality of the subconscious and the reaction of strongly held attitudes upon bodily states to be in the way, generally, of freeing this whole great matter from the priest, the healer, the charlatan or the prophet of strange cults and referring it hereafter for direction and employment to its proper agents--the physician, the expert in disordered mental conditions and the instructed spiritual adviser. It is now generally agreed that suggestion, however induced, may positively affect bodily function. If it is a wrong suggestion its effects are hurtful, right suggestion its effects are helpful. Now since a vast range of physical maladjustments--and this may be broadened to include nervous maladjustments as well--is functional, suggestive therapeutics have a far-reaching and distinct field. When Christian Science or any other healing cult reports cures in this field, those cures, if verified by sufficient testimony, may be accepted as accomplished. Those who have accomplished them may take what credit they will for their own agency in the matter, but for all that the cure is no testimony at all to the truth or falsity of their system. It proves only that those helped have believed it. The matter of organic healing is more difficult. Medical Science does not generally admit the possibility of organic change through suggestion. There may be, however, a real difference of opinion as to whether a particular trouble is functional or organic. Here is a border-land not so much of fact as of diagnosis. A cure may be reported as of an organic trouble when the basal diagnosis was wrong and it was only functional, but the body possesses undoubtedly the power of correcting or at least of limiting organic disease. Tuberculosis is an organic disease but it is again and again limited and finally overcome without the knowledge of the subject. Post-mortem examinations may reveal scars in the lungs and so reflect processes only thus brought to light. Whatever serves general physical well-being may greatly help the body in eliminating disease and securing a going measure of physical health. In such indirect ways as these suggestion may, therefore, while not acting directly upon diseased organism, contribute most distinctly to arrest organic disease. Thoughtful physicians are ready to concede this and thus open a door for a measure of organic healing which technically their science denies. A very revealing light has been let in upon this whole region by hypnotism. Some of the students of hypnotism are inclined to go as far as to admit organic change under hypnotic suggestion. "Strong, persistent impressions or suggestions made on the reflex organic consciousness of the inferior centers may modify their functional disposition, induce trophic changes, and even change organic structures."[59] [Footnote 59: Sidis, "The Psychology of Suggestion," p. 70.] Christian Science, then, as a healing agency has a great field for there are always folk enough to heal. It has a method, a discipline highly effective in producing changed mental and spiritual states and, strangely enough, it is all the more effective because it is so narrowly true. Those to whom it makes its appeal are, for the most part, not capable of analyzing through to their sources its fundamental inveracities, nor would they be inclined to do that if they were able. Its vagueness and its spacious rhetoric really give it power. It does produce results and probably one case of physical betterment has a prevailing power which a chapter of criticisms cannot overcome and, more than that, one case of physical betterment may screen a dozen in which nothing happened at all. For Christian Science has in this region two alibis which can always be brought into action, the most perfect ever devised. If it fails to cure it is either because the one who was not cured lacked faith, or because of the erroneous belief of some one else. A system which believes that the toxic effect of poisons depends upon the vote of the majority in that arsenic will cease to be a poison when everybody ceases to think of it as a poison and will be a poison as long as anybody believes it is, is perfectly safe even if it should fail to cure a case of arsenical poison, for until facts and experience cease to weigh at all there will always be some one somewhere believing that arsenic is a poison and that one will be the scapegoat for the system. _As a Religion it is Strongest in Teaching That God Has Meaning for the Whole of Life_ Christian Science is, however, more than a system of mental therapeutics, it is also a religion and due allowance must be made in any just appraisal of it for the way in which it has made religion real to many for whom religion had ceased to have a working reality. It needs to be said on one side that a good deal of Christian Science religion is really taking the Ark of God to battle, using religion, that is, for comfort, material prosperity, health and just such tangible things. But Christian Science meets a demand of the time also just here. Our own age, deeply entangled in material satisfactions, has no mind to postpone the satisfactions of religion to a future life. The monk and, indeed, the generality of the devout in the medieval Church sought in self-limited earthly joy a proper discipline for the soul and a state in contrast to which the felicities for which they paid so great a price should be the more welcome. The devout of Mary Baker Eddy's time, though inclined to find in material well-being a plain mark of divine favour, none the less accepted sickness and sorrow as from the hand of God and prayed that with a meek and lowly heart they might endure this fatherly correction and, having learned obedience by the things they suffered, have a place amongst those who, through faith and patience, inherit His presence. But our own time is not so eager to inherit promises as to enter into possession. A religion which does not demonstrate itself in actual well-being is under suspicion. The social passion now much in evidence among the churches grows out of this as well as the many cults which seek the proof of the love of God in health, happiness and prosperity. And indeed all this is natural and right enough. If religion be real the fruits of it should be manifest, though whether these are the more significant and enduring fruits of the spirit may be questioned. A religion which demonstrates itself in motor-cars and generous incomes and more than comfortable raiment may be real enough to those who profess it, but its reality is not quite the reality of the religion of the Sermon on the Mount. Christian Science is in line with a distinct contemporaneous demand to demonstrate God's love in about the terms of Jacob's famous vow at Bethel--"If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." This is a far cry from the noble protestation of Job which sounds still across the years: "Though he slay me, still will I trust in him." And yet the more sensitive and richly endowed among the followers of Mary Baker Eddy have found in Christian Science other values than these. They have passed, by a sort of saving instinct, beyond its contradictions and half-truths to what is centrally best in the whole system. God, that is, has a meaning for life not hereafter but now, not in creeds but in experience, not alone in hard disciplinary ways, but in loving and intimate and helpful ways. True enough, this is no monopoly of Christian Science; Christianity holds this truth in fee simple. But unfortunately, in ways which it is perfectly possible to trace, the great emphases of Christianity have in the past been too largely shifted from this. There has been and still is in most Protestant churches too much reticence about the meaning of God for the individual life and maybe too great hesitation in really using to the full the proffer of divine power. The accepted understandings of the place of pain and suffering in life have been, as it were, a barrier between the perplexed and their God; His love has not, somehow, seemed sufficiently at the service of men, and though Christian Science secures the unchallenged supremacy of the love of God by emptying it of great ranges of moral meaning and shutting away therefrom all the shadowed side of life, it has probably justified the love of God to multitudes who have, for one reason and another, heretofore questioned it and they have discovered in this new-found sense of God's love and presence, a reality and wealth of religious experience which they had never known before. _It Exalts the Power of Mind But Ignores Too Largely the Processes by Which Mind Realizes Its Ideals_ There is also in Christian Science practice and philosophy the apprehension of a real truth which New Thought formulates much more clearly. Mind is creative. (Not alone mind with a capital "M" but our own every-day, human, small "m" mind.) The trouble is that Christian Science hopelessly short-circuits the creative process. Our human world is finally what we make it through our insight, our understanding and above all by our sense of values, but the actual achievement of changed purposes in a changed world is a process whose immensity is not even so much as hinted at in "Science and Health." Christian Science too largely ignores and seems commonly to deny the whole disciplinary side of life with its inevitable accompaniment of failure, fault and pain. Pain is no delusion; pain is the sign of something gone wrong in the great business of normal physical life. Nor is sin only an unreality which "seems real to human erring belief"; sin is a sign that something has gone wrong in the struggle for a normal, disciplined, moral life. Nor is the whole body of evil simply a shadow to be dismissed as easily as one turns one's back upon some darkness and faces toward the light; evil is the sign of something gone wrong, or something not yet attained in the massive progress of a humanity which combines in itself so many discordant elements, which has so long a way to go and so much to learn and so many things to conquer as it struggles upward toward a happier state. Christian Science cannot in the end be true to the great facts of experience, which have a power beyond the force of any assertion to countervail, unless it is false to Mary Baker Eddy's philosophy, nor can it be true to its philosophy without impoverishing moral and spiritual endeavour. It is hard to find a place in the system--taken rigidly--for sympathy or tenderness or the richest of human qualities, or for those elements of wealth in character contributed by pain bravely borne or sorrow uncomplainingly accepted. There is little place in Christian Science for the Beatitudes and less still for that fine courage which is itself the one assured victory which the hard beset may win on any field of battle. The writer believes that while this severe judgment is justified by "Science and Health," it is not justified by the practical outcome of the cult in the lives of many of its disciples. They are in devotion and kindness the equal of many in the Church and superior to some. Their loyalty to their Church rebukes a good deal of orthodox easy-going. All of which proves at least that life is bigger than our theories about it and in the end subdues those who would make the best of it, to communities of experience and understanding in which we are all strangely kin. For, after all, unpleasant things cannot be thought out; they must be fought out and dug out and lived out. The whole redemptive force of society in thoroughgoing and far-reaching ways must be brought to bear upon the very sources of all the evil side of life, and the bare philosophy of Christian Science is not equal to this task. _Is Not Big Enough for the Whole of Experience_ It is doubtful if Christian Science has ever made an appreciable change in the mortality statistics of any city and yet if the Public Health Department were to permit for forty-eight hours the milk or water supply of a city to be polluted, statistics would disclose that within ten days. This is only an illustration but it does illustrate. We must work if we are to dig up the roots of evil things and get a better growth in their stead and anything which attempts to substitute for this a denial of the reality of the evil, a mystical religious attitude and a mere formula of faith, no matter how oft repeated or how sincerely accepted, or indeed no matter how efficacious in certain selected regions among certain selected groups, is on the whole not a contribution to human well-being. Very likely Mrs. Eddy's followers in the practical conduct of their lives are already recognizing this and gradually, and maybe unconsciously, adapting themselves to it. There are already signs of certain processes of conformity to the necessities of experience; these are likely to go farther. If Christian Science follows the history of such movements in the past, it will, after having made its own distinct assertion of whatever measure of truth it contains, be gradually swept back into the main current of religion and practice. It will maintain a nominal distinctness, but in the general conduct of life it will lose its more outstanding characteristics and become largely a distinction without a difference. Milmine, in her thoughtful criticism of Christian Science at the end of her history says that the future of Christian Science stands or falls with psycho-therapy. That is true only on the one side. As far as Christian Science has true religious insights and approaches it will go on in spite of what happens to psycho-therapy, though there is enough in psycho-therapy to assure its future within well-defined regions if that were all. Something bigger than psycho-therapy will finally judge and dismiss Christian Science to its own place--life and experience will do that--and it is safe to say that in the end Christian Science will have to come to terms with a truth bigger than its own, with a body of experience which cannot be dealt with on the selective process of taking what you want and denying the rest, and more than that, it will have to come to terms with the whole great matter of an intellectual, moral and spiritual struggle governed by law and conditioned by the vaster world of which we are a part. This is not to deny that Christian Science and allied teachings have made contributions of real value to our common problem. It is only to affirm that here is something not big enough for the whole either of truth or experience. VIII NEW THOUGHT New Thought has been defined as "an attitude of mind, not a cult." It is really both. It is necessary to include it in this study because it is a cult; it is hard justly to appraise it because it is an attitude of mind. Attitudes of mind are as elusive as the play of light on running water. We can estimate their force and direction only as we have an understanding of the main currents of thought by which they are carried along and as far as New Thought goes these main currents are far older than the cult itself. _New Thought Difficult to Define; "An Attitude of Mind, Not a Cult"_ New Thought has never had an apostolic succession or a rigid discipline or a centralized organic form. This has given to it a baffling looseness in every direction, but has, on the other hand, given it a pervasive quality which Christian Science does not possess. It has a vast and diffuse literature and so merges into the general movement of contemporaneous thought as to make it difficult to find anywhere a distinct demarcation of channels. New Thought is either a theology with a philosophic basis or a philosophy with a theological bias. It is centrally and quite distinctly an attempt to give a religious content to the present trend of science and philosophy, a reaction against old theologies and perhaps a kind of nebula out of which future theologies will be organized. For a great theology is always the systematic organization of a complex of forces, a massive structure wrought through the years by manifold builders subduing a rich variety of material to their purposes. The teaching of the Scriptures, old traditions, the needs of worship and organization, political and social circumstances, changing moral ideals, the trend of philosophies and sciences, the challenge of schisms and heresies, the sanctifying power of blind custom and the mystical authority of the Church itself all combine to make a theology. Once a great theology is so constituted it possesses an immense power over life. It shapes character and ideals and gives direction to faith, orders effort and so becomes, as it were, a mould into which souls and societies are cast. Theologies may be changed, in fact they are always in the way of being changed, but they yield slowly to transforming forces. Nothing is so persistent as organized faith and yet the very strength of a great theology is always its weakness. It is never really anything else than a crystallization of past forces. The experiences which voice themselves in theology have cooled and hardened down; the philosophy which is implicit in theology is past philosophy; the science implicit in theology is senescent science. There is always in evidence, then, in the regions of theology a disturbing pressure occasioned by the reaction of contemporaneous movements in science and philosophy and understandings of life generally upon these old and solidly established inherited forms. Currents of thought are always, as it were, running past the great formulæ since thought is free and formulæ are rigid, and then returning upon them. From time to time this movement gathers great force. The old has been rigid so long, the new is so insistent that the conflict between them fills an age with its clamour, stresses souls to its travail, breaks down ancient forms without immediately building up their equivalent, and contributes uncertainties and restlessnesses everywhere in evidence. Now this is exactly what has been happening in the region of religion in the last thirty years. An inherited order, strongly fashioned and organized and long essentially unchanged, has been compelled to take account of the forces about it. Certainly theology is not so static as an earlier paragraph would seem to indicate, none the less the great theological centralities do possess an immense power of resistance. We have already seen how little Protestantism had changed since the Reformation until it met the full impact of modern science and philosophy. We have had really until our own time and still largely continue a theology with the Creation story of the ancient Hebrews, the outlook upon life of the age of the Apostles, the philosophy of the Greek fathers, St. Augustine's conception of human nature and the expectation of the end of the world and the issues of history of the Jewish apocalypse given a Christian interpretation. True enough, there are in all this precious and timeless qualities but there is also through all the fabric of our formulated faith the interweaving of such understandings as those who shaped our creeds had, of law and history and truth. Any far-reaching change, then, in philosophy or science was bound to profoundly affect religion and even forty years ago far-reaching modifications of the old order were overdue. New Thought is just one outcome of the tremendous impact of contemporaneous thought upon our inherited theology; a detached fragment or rather group of fragments, for even as a cult New Thought, as has been said, is loosely organized and its varying parts have in common only a common drift. Yet that drift is significant for it has beneath it the immense force of a philosophy which has been gathering head for more than a century. It is to this, therefore, that we ought to address ourselves for any understanding of the changed outlook upon life which is carried, as it were, from the surface of profounder tides. _"The Rediscovery of the Inner Life"_ Josiah Royce dismisses the whole of philosophy from Spinoza to Kant in one single pregnant phrase. He calls it "the rediscovery of the inner life." It is along this line that modern philosophy and religion approach each other. Religion has always been the setting forth of the inner life in terms of its relationship to God and the proofs of the reality of religion have always been found in the experiences of the soul. The mystic particularly made everything of the inner life; he lived only in its realities. For the sake of its enrichment and its empowerment he subjected himself to rigorous disciplines. Its revelations were to him all sufficient, for having found God therein he asked for nothing beside. Wherein, then, is this new mysticism, or better, this new cult of the inner life different from the old? It is not easy to answer that question in a paragraph, though it is easy to feel the answer in any comparison of the great classics of mysticism--which are mostly spiritual autobiographies--and New Thought literature. To turn from St. Augustine to Dresser, or from St. Theresa to Trine is to change spiritual and intellectual climates. There is in the modern literature little reflection of such spiritual struggle as fills the great Confessions with the agony of embattled souls, nor any resolution of such struggle into the peace of a soul "fully awake as regards God but wholly asleep as regards things of this world and in respect of herself." This testimony of St. Theresa is illuminating as a contrasting background for New Thought. There the soul is very much awake, both as regards things of this world and in respect of herself. These new cults of the inner life are far more self-conscious than the old and far more self-analytical. They seek to discern the laws in answer to which they act and utilize those laws in the practical conduct of life. They are always either appealing to underlying philosophies or else trying to make a philosophy of their own. Mysticism made everything of God and nothing of itself. It plotted its mystic way but knew nothing of psychology. New Thought seeks to discover in psychology a road to God. The centers of mysticism were emotional; the centers of New Thought are intellectual. All these cults are far more akin to Gnosticism than mysticism, though they are saved, yet not wholly, from the lawlessness of Gnosticism by a pretty constant return to the outstanding conclusions of science and philosophy. _Spinoza's Quest_ Now if we seek to discover the real genesis of the movement and trace its development we would better begin, so deep are the roots of things, with Spinoza rather than Quimby. Here the deeper currents, upon the surface of which New Thought moves, take their rise and here also we return to Royce's phrase--"the rediscovery of the inner life"--and the philosopher who inaugurated the philosophic quest for just this discovery. Spinoza was one of the last of the mystics and the first of the modern philosophers. He shared with the mystics of an earlier time a consuming sense of the futility of life save as life perfected itself in contemplations of an eternal excellency and communion with something far greater than itself. "After experience had taught me," he says (and this is quoted from Royce's "Spirit of Modern Philosophy"), "that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile, seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else, whether there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme and unending happiness." Now there is in all this a strangely modern note--dissatisfaction with what is offered by the commonplace and the accepted, a great emphasis upon the mind as the key to the readjustments of life, a quest for some single formula which would offer "continuous, supreme and unending happiness." This is exactly what Mary Baker Eddy and all the other perplexed and bodily broken "seekers" who gathered about Quimby were really wanting and this is what, for one reason or another, the proffered religious experiences of their time failed to secure them. "This was, then," to quote Royce, "the beginning of Spinoza's Pilgrim's Progress." (As indeed it is the beginning of every Pilgrim's Progress.) "But now, for what distinguishes him from other mystics and makes him a philosopher and not a mere exhorter, he has his religious passion, he must reflect upon it ... the philosopher must justify his faith." We have no need here to follow Spinoza along all the way, difficult and misty enough, by which he sought to justify his faith. The outstanding fact is enough. He is a mystic who reasons his way through where the elder mystic has felt his way through, and the goal which he finally reaches, though it be the goal which the earlier mystics had found by other roads,--the loss of self in God--is none the less such an achievement of reason as Spinoza was able to compass. _Kant Reaffirms the Creative Power of Mind_ So this polisher of lenses bequeathed to the century which followed him its greatest inheritance and set for it its greatest task: the inner life as the supreme concern of the philosopher and the discovery of its laws and the interpretations of its realities the supreme task of philosophy. Those who continued his work began far enough, apparently, from the point where he left off and went a road strangely remote from his. Having taken the inner life for their study they sought to lay bare its very foundations. Nowadays, if we are so minded, we dictate to machines which write our words curiously enough in shallow lines upon wax cylinders and when the cylinders are full shave off the fragile record and begin again. This is what the eighteenth century did for the mind. It reduced it to a virgin surface, it affirmed the reality of nothing except the impressions thereupon registered by what sense supplied. We owe to experience and to experience only "all that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it [the white paper of the mind] with an almost endless variety." We have nothing with which to begin but sensation; we have nothing to go on with but reflection. "These two, namely external, material things as the objects of sensation, and the operations of our own minds within as the objects of reflection, are the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings."[60] Such things as these are perhaps enough to begin with, but they are not enough to go on with as our thinkers soon enough discover. Some way must be found to relate the material thus supplied and to build it up into a glowing, continuous, reasonable and conscious inner life. [Footnote 60: Locke, "Essay Concerning the Human Understanding."] So in turn the philosophers laboured at their problem. They made much not only of reflection but of association; they found a place for memory and imagination; they discovered that we may as truly define experience in terms of ideas as of sensation; they discovered finally that by no possible process even of the most ingenious reasoning can you get the full wealth of life out of a mind which was nothing more to begin with than a piece of white paper, any more than you can get Hamlet (if we may suppose Shakespeare to have used a dictaphone) out of a wax cylinder, a needle and a diaphragm. So Kant ended what Spinoza began, by reaffirming the creative power of the mind itself. It does far more than passively receive, it interprets, organizes, contributes, creates. True enough, it is not an unconditioned creator, it has laws of its own in obedience to which it finds both its freedom and its power. It must take the material which experience supplies and yet, in its higher ranges, in the regions of conduct and faith, that is, where conscience has become the guide and the necessities of the soul the law, we do possess the power in enfranchising obediences and splendid adventures of faith to make a world rich in goodness, power and peace. And here, once more, there is a strangely modern note. Life is a pilgrim's progress. We are set out to discover "whether there might be some real good, the discovery and attainment of which would enable us to enjoy continuous, supreme and unending happiness." And we do possess the power within ourselves, if only we may discover the controlling laws and release effective forces, to come at least a stage nearer our goal. All this makes for that exaltation of the creative self which is so marked a characteristic of present-day attitudes and which is perhaps the distinctive affirmation of New Thought. _Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism the Practical Outcome of a Great Movement_ But it needed time for all this to work itself out. The philosophic basis for it had been supplied but it is a far cry from philosophy to the practical conduct of life. Kant's transcendental philosophy needed a deal of working over before it became practicable for the man in the street. And to begin with what was deepest in the philosophy of the Enlightenment led in unexpected directions. "While the practical tendencies of all speculative thought inevitably appear in the opinions and customs of a general public far removed from their sources, it is particularly true of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, that its influences had no small part in shaping the popular point of view concerning the moral, religious and political convictions of that age."[61] Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism were, says Hibben, the popular and practical outcome of the whole movement,--Utilitarianism in Ethics, Deism in Religion, Individualism in Politics. These three growths--and they have borne a deal of bitter fruit in the last one hundred years--grow out of one soil. In general they are due to Locke's sensationalism, Hume's skepticism, a new emphasis upon reason as opposed to revelation and the self-sufficiency of the individual. If conscious life is nothing but sensation worked over and built up, then pleasurable sensations are the best we can aspire to, happiness is the end of the quest. So Utilitarianism defined goodness in terms of happiness and gave to conduct generally a grasping, greedy quality for which we have paid over and over again in the disappointments and disillusionments of an age, which, supposing itself to have discovered the true secret of well-being, found too much of its seeming happiness only Dead Sea fruit. [Footnote 61: Hibben, "The Philosophy of the Enlightenment," p. 253.] _They Bear a Bitter Fruit: the Reactions Against Them_ Deism in its reaction against Religion as merely revelation and in its endeavour to find a rational basis for faith set God apart from His world, detached, unheeding and offering no real recourse to a travailing humanity between whom and Himself it built a rigid fabric of impersonal law. The Individualism of the eighteenth century was partly a reaction against old despotisms of Church and State--and a Declaration of Independence. It was in part a pride of accomplishment and a new affirmation of the self-sufficiency of the questing reason. There was in it also a sound recognition of the worth of personality of which the world then stood in need and which has since supplied a foundation for a saving passion for education and human well-being. But Individualism as practically applied by the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century--unexpectedly reinforced as it was by aspects of Darwinism--stressed the right of the strong and the doom of the weak. It made competition the law of economic development, the survival of the fittest the goal of a life of struggle. Consciously or unconsciously the politics, industry and religion of the nineteenth century were greatly influenced by these outstanding conceptions. No need to say how utterly they have broken down. They have made for the deepening strife of classes and of nations, they have essentially defeated the bright promise of a time which seemed to have more to hope for than almost any other great period of history. And yet they were never unchallenged. They were challenged by the essential spirit of Christianity; they were challenged by the poets who found that they could shape no songs out of such stuff as this; they were challenged by philosophers who sought to build for themselves and for us a world more free and true; they were challenged by a group of great novelists who created out of the wealth of their imagination characters and situations in which love and human worth had their way in spite of a thousand obstacles. They were challenged by prophets of a better world, the Ruskins and Carlyles who soundly rated the ethics of selfishness and the political economies of competition and the politics of self-assertion and who stirred deeply the more sensitive of their time. And finally they were challenged, and here we begin to approach again the genesis of New Thought, by a philosophic movement which found its point of departure in certain great aspects of earlier thinking which had been much obscured by the difficult forms in which it had been stated: the supremacy, that is, of the soul over all its surroundings. Now this return to what we may call the creative and controlling power of spiritual forces is the key to the modern approach to life. We do not understand, it may be, the meaning of our own terms. Spirit is a vague enough word but we do know that the initiative is with desire and purpose and understanding. These are positive and masterful; they are by no means free; they are conditioned by the vaster order of which they are a part, none the less our human world is plastic to their touch and our material world as well. Carlyle has chanted all this gustily enough but there is kindling truth in his stormy music. "Thus, like some wild flaming, wild thundering train of heaven's artillery does this mysterious mankind thunder and flame in long-drawn, quick succeeding grandeur through the unknown deep. Earth's mountains are levelled and her seas filled up in our passage. Can the earth which is but dead in a vision resist spirits which have reality and are alive?" _New England Transcendentalism. Quimby Again and the Dressers_ Curiously enough this quotation from a book which nowadays nobody likely reads save perhaps in some college course on early Victorian literature, brings us within sight of the beginnings of New Thought. A little group of English and American thinkers, part philosophers, part poets, part rebels against the established order, anticipated trained students in their return upon the higher and more positive side of an older philosophy. They made much of the inner life, its powers and its possibilities; they affirmed the creative power of the soul; they conceived life to lie plastic to the touch of vision and desire; they thought themselves to be standing upon the threshold of a new world. They were impatient of discipline; they dreamed impossible things and gave their dreams the authority of reality. They were hard enough to understand and they sorely tried practical plodding folk, but they kindled their time and released forces which are yet in action. New England, through a group of adventurous thinkers of whom Emerson was the most distinguished, responded strongly to Transcendentalism. Another group, as has been said, responded strongly to mesmerism and spiritism, which were also a part of the ferment of the time in which Christian Science and New Thought (I use New Thought here in the technical sense) find their source. And finally, Quimby, who is a rather unexpectedly important link in a long chain,--important, that is, to the student of modern cults--reacted against mesmerism, felt and thought his way toward some understanding of the force of suggestion in abnormal states, applied his conclusion to faith and mental healing and gathered about him--as has been said before--a little group of disciples who have between them released far-reaching movements. Mrs. Eddy and the Dressers were the outstanding members of this little group of disciples. Mrs. Eddy soon dissociated herself from the others and she supplied in "Science and Health" a distinctive philosophy to her movement. She organized it into a church; she imposed upon it a distinctive discipline. No little of the power of Christian Science is due to this narrow rigidity which is itself the projection of the personality of Mary Baker Eddy. But Christian Science did not carry with it the whole of the group which had come under Quimby's influence, nor indeed all of those who came under Mary Baker Eddy's influence. There was during all the formative period of these modern cults a perpetual process of schism. We have as a result, then, two divergent movements related in underground ways, though as marked in difference as in resemblance, both of them beginning about the same time, both of them reactions against accepted religious forces and validations, both of them with a marked therapeutic content, both of them adventures in the conduct of life. In the summary which follows I am in debt to Dresser's recent "History of the New Thought Movement." The name New Thought was chosen as the title of a little magazine devoted to mental healing, published in 1894 in Melrose, Mass. "The term became current in Boston through the organization of the Metaphysical Club in 1895. About the same time it was used by Mr. C.P. Patterson in his magazine _Mind_ and in the title of two of his books." Other names were suggested--in England, Higher Thought; in Boston, Higher Life; in New York the little group was for a time known as the Circle of Divine Ministry; in the west the movement was known as Divine Science or Practical Christianity. There were groups also which called themselves the Home of Truth or the Society of Silent Unity. _New Thought Takes Form_ New Thought, as has been said, lacks the definite direction which Christian Science has always had. Its organizations have grown up quietly, more or less irregularly and have had always a shifting character. "The first New Thought Society with a regular leader and organization in Boston was the Church of the Higher Life established in 1894."[62] The Metaphysical Club was an outgrowth of the New Thought group in Boston. Dresser gives a list of the original members, chiefly significant through the presence among them of some of Quimby's disciples and others whose books have since held a high place in New Thought literature. There were manifest connections between the movement and liberal (particularly Unitarian) theology. [Footnote 62: All citations in this section are from Dresser's "History of New Thought," unless otherwise indicated.] The first New Thought convention was held in Boston in 1899 (there had been earlier conventions of the Disciples of Divine Science--a related movement--in western cities) and the second in New York City in 1900. The New York convention was the first to make any general statement of the "purposes" of the League. We find on the New York program one Swami Abhedananda, lecturer on the Vedanta philosophy. Here is an early indication of the return of Eastern religions upon the West which is also one of the marked characteristics of the religious development of our time. We do not need to follow through in detail the list of successive conventions with their topics and their speakers. The group is not so large but that the same names reappear. There are marked attempts in the earlier conventions to associate leaders in recognized schools of philosophy and theology with the movement. One does not discover this tendency in the later convention lists. The local groups throughout the country have had varying fortunes. They have from time to time changed their names and naturally their leaders. The west has responded perhaps more strongly than the Atlantic seaboard. The movement is particularly strong on the Pacific Coast. There are no available statistics and generalizations are of doubtful value. The Cincinnati and Kansas City groups are offered by Dresser as typical organizations, but they seem on the whole to be exceptional rather than typical. The strength of the New Thought movement is not in its organization but in its influence. "In England as in America interest was aroused by Christian Science, then came a gradual reaction and the establishment of independent branches of the movement." "It is difficult," says Dresser, "to obtain information pertaining to the influence of New Thought literature in foreign languages." The more significant New Thought books, however, have been variously translated and widely sold. New Thought leaders sometimes advise their disciples to retain their old church associations and the movement has naturally tended to merge in religious liberalism generally and to become only an aspect of the manifold religious gropings of a troubled time. In the Constitution and By-Laws of the New Thought Alliance, published in 1916, the purposes of the society are "to teach the infinitude of the Supreme One, Divinity of Man and his Infinite possibilities through the creative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of the Indwelling Presence which is our source of Inspiration, Power, Health and Prosperity." We discover here the same tendency toward the deification of capital letters which we have already noted in Christian Science. _Its Creeds_ In 1917 the International New Thought Alliance went further than at any other time before in the direction of a creed and set forth the following series of affirmations: "We affirm the freedom of each soul as to choice and as to belief, and would not, by the adoption of any declaration of principles, limit such freedom. The essence of the New Thought is Truth, and each individual must be loyal to the Truth he sees. The windows of his soul must be kept open at each moment for the higher light, and his mind must be always hospitable to each new inspiration. "We affirm the Good. This is supreme, universal and everlasting. Man is made in the image of the Good, and evil and pain are but the tests and correctives that appear when his thought does not reflect the full glory of this image. "We affirm health, which is man's divine inheritance. Man's body is his holy temple. Every function of it, every cell of it, is intelligent, and is shaped, ruled, repaired, and controlled by mind. He whose body is full of light is full of health. Spiritual healing has existed among all races in all times. It has now become a part of the higher science and art of living the life more abundant. "We affirm the divine supply. He who serves God and man in the full understanding of the law of compensation shall not lack. Within us are unused resources of energy and power. He who lives with his whole being, and thus expresses fullness, shall reap fullness in return. He who gives himself, he who knows, and acts in his highest knowledge, he who trusts in the divine return, has learned the law of success. "We affirm the teaching of Christ that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we are one with the Father, that we should judge not, that we should love one another, that we should heal the sick, that we should return good for evil, that we should minister to others, and that we should be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. These are not only ideals, but practical, every-day working principles. "We affirm the new thought of God as Universal Love, Life, Truth, and Joy, in whom we live, move and have our being, and by whom we are held together; that His mind is our mind now, that realizing our oneness with Him means love, truth, peace, health and plenty, not only in our own lives but in the giving out of these fruits of the Spirit to others. "We affirm these things, not as a profession, but practice, not in one day of the week, but in every hour and minute of every day, sleeping and waking, not in the ministry of the few, but in a service that includes the democracy of all, not in words alone, but in the innermost thoughts of the heart expressed in living the life. 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' "We affirm Heaven here and now, the life everlasting that becomes conscious immortality, the communion of mind with mind throughout the universe of thought, the nothingness of all error and negation, including death, the variety of unity that produces the individual expressions of the One-Life, and the quickened realization of the indwelling God in each soul that is making a new heaven and a new earth." We discover in this creed a more distinct recognition of ideals and truths which inherited Christianity supplied than in the earlier statements of purpose. In the annual address of the President there is distinct reference to the relation of the New Thought gospel to the churches. "I am asked often: What is the relation of this movement to the Church? This is not a new religion. It is not an institution seeking to build itself up for the mere sake of the institution. We do not ask anybody to leave the church. We ask them to become better members of their churches than before. New Thought is designed to make people better and more efficient in whatever relation of life they may find themselves. In other words: 'New Thought teaches men and women only the old common-sense doctrine of self-reliance and belief in the integrity of the universe and of one's own soul. It dignifies and ennobles manhood and womanhood.' The main idea on which Christianity is founded is that of communion with God, that of worshipping God in spirit and in truth. This is the very corner-stone of those modern movements that recognize men and women as the living temples of the God within.... I predict that this new interpretation and new understanding will become universal in the new age which is now dawning." A further paragraph, however, reveals the synthetic character of the movement. "It is the realization in practical affairs of the teachings not only of the Nazarene, but of every other great religious teacher since the world began; for in their essence these teachings are fundamentally alike; and the New Thought and other new spiritual movements are but the efforts to apply, in our relations one with another, these simple and sublime truths." _The Range of the Movement_ I have quoted at length from these programs, affirmations and this one address to indicate the range of the movement as it has found official expression. We must look, however, to the literature of the movement as a whole for a full understanding of its reach and influence. The literature in general falls into three classes: (1) books concerned mostly about healing; (2) books which instruct as to character, spiritual states and fullness of life; (3) what one may call success books which apply New Thought to business and the practical conduct of life. The lines of demarcation between these three types of books is, of course, not clear and there is a material which is common to all of them, but the distinction thus suggested is real. As a principle of healing New Thought differs from Christian Science in almost the whole range of its assumptions. It does not deny the reality of matter, not the reality of suffering, nor does it distinguish, as does Christian Science, between the Divine Mind and the mortal mind. There are, according to New Thought, healing forces which may be trusted to do their remedial work in us, if only we surrender ourselves to them and let them have their way. There is nothing in New Thought which quite corresponds to the "demonstration" of Christian Science. It would seem to an impartial observer that Christian Science asks of its disciples an intensity of positive effort which New Thought does not demand. Dresser, for example, believes all suffering to be the result of struggle. Directly we cease to struggle we cease to suffer, provided, of course, that our cessation is in the direction of relaxation and a trust in a higher power. In some regions, however, Christian Science and New Thought as therapeutic agents work along the same line, but where Christian Science denies New Thought ignores. Here New Thought makes more use of psychological laws; it follows James generally in its psychology, as it follows Emerson in its thought of the over-soul, though in this region Emerson's detached serenity of faith is given body in an insistence upon the divine immanence for which New Thought is in debt to the suggestions and analogies of modern science. New Thought makes much of the shifting of attention and its disciplines are rather the disciplines of the mystic than the disciplines of the Christian Scientist. It seeks in substance to ascertain the laws of mind in action and then, through the utilization of this knowledge, to secure health, happiness and prosperity. It makes much, of course, of the centrality of mind both in well-being and pain. It hardly goes so far as to say that pain is an error in belief, but it does say that pain is a matter of consciousness and that as we are masters of consciousness we are masters of pain. It believes in thought transference and absent treatment, but it is perhaps more conservative in the cases which it is willing to undertake than Christian Science and recognizes the limitations of the healer. _The Key-Words of New Thought_ Its key-words are Harmony, Realization, Affirmation and Poise. Just here New Thought is a strangely interwoven web. It makes much of "vibration" and "friction." It is evidently under the spell of the wave theory of light and heat. It is most dependable in its analysis and application of laws of mental action, most undependable in trying to account for the relation of mind to body and in its explanation of the physical phenomena of disease. Fatigue, for example, "is evidently due to the calling of power into a new direction. It [evidently the power] comes into contact with dense matter, with an uncultivated portion of the being, physical as well as mental, and meeting with resistance friction of some sort is the natural result." One has only to compare a statement like that with Cannon's careful study of bodily changes under emotional states, to see the difference between speculation controlled by analogy and the illuminating experimental methods of modern science. When Dresser adds that "we shall eliminate disease not by fighting it, not by studying its causes, or doctoring its physical effects, but by seeing the wisdom of the better way," he is on dangerous ground, for if we are not to study the causes of disease but to take as our guide the serene generalizations of a speculative mind we are shutting in our faces one of the doors by which we enter into that knowledge of the mind of God, of which New Thought makes so much. How shall we know the mind of God except as we ask endless patient and careful questions of every revelation of the divine method, whether in sickness or health? New Thought, however, takes a far more constructive view of suffering than Christian Science. For New Thought suffering is at least disciplinary and instructive: it compels reflection: it brings us to a knowledge of the law. It is certainly, therefore, just and it may be kind. Indeed, New Thought occasionally goes so far as to say that suffering is also a revelation of love and must be so accepted and entertained. Its general conclusions in this region are far more safe than its insistence upon vibration and friction and its spacious technicalities. When Dresser says that there is a difference "between ignoring a trouble, between neglecting to take proper care of ourselves and that wise direction of thought which in no way hinders while it most surely helps to remedy our ills," he is on perfectly safe ground. When he adds that there is a strong reason for believing that "there is a simple, natural way out of every trouble, that kind nature, which is another name for an omniscient God, is ever ready to do her utmost for us" he is speaking with a wise and direct helpfulness, though here as generally New Thought errs on the side of too great a simplification. There is a way out of every trouble but it is not always simple, it is often laborious and challenging. We have accomplished marvels in the matter of tropical sanitation but the way out has been anything but simple. It has involved experimentations which cost the lives of physicians who offered themselves for humanity as nobly as any soldier on any battlefield; it involved the sweat of hard driven labour digging drainage ditches, the rebuilding of the foundations of cities and a thousand cares and safeguards. If New Thought wishes to dismiss such a process as this with the single adjective "simple" it may do as it pleases, but this is not simplicity as the dictionary defines it. _Its Field of Real Usefulness_ All that way of thinking of which New Thought is just one aspect is fatally open to criticism just here. It ignores the immense travail of humanity in its laborious pilgrimage toward better things and it is far too ready to proclaim short-cuts to great goals when there never have been and never will be any short-cuts in life. None the less, trust and quietness of mind and soul and utter openness to healing, saving forces are immense healing agents and in its emphasis thereupon New Thought has recalled us to that which in the very intensity of life's battles we are in the way of forgetting. And beyond doubt, in that obscure range of diseases which are due to the want of balanced life--to worry, fear, self-absorption and over-strain--the methods of New Thought have a distinct value. In general, as one follows the history and literature of New Thought one finds that, though it began with a group more interested in healing than anything else, healing has come to play a progressively less important part in the development of the movement and the larger part of its literature deals with what one might call perhaps the laws of mental and spiritual hygiene. The principles implicit in New Thought as a healing cult carry of their own weight into other regions. It is important enough to get well--that goes without saying--but it is more important to keep well. Good health on the whole is a kind of by-product. We suffer as distinctly from spiritual and mental maladjustments as from physical. We suffer also from the sense of inadequacy, the sense, that is, of a burdening disproportion between our own powers and the challenge of life. New Thought has addressed itself increasingly to such states and problems as this. Here it ceases to be a cult or a method of healing and has become a most considerable influence and here also it in general takes the direction of and is identified with what is truest in the Christian religion, what is sanest and most clear visioned in present-day thinking. The typical books just here are Trine's "In Tune with the Infinite" and a similar literature. _Its Gospel of Getting On_ Another application of New Thought is in the direction of personal efficiency. There is a considerable literature in this region. It does not specifically call itself New Thought but it is saturated with the New Thought fundamentals and has distinctly the New Thought outlook. Marden is the most popular and prolific writer in this connection and the titles of his books are suggestive--"Keeping Fit," "Selling Things," "The Victorious Attitude," "Training for Efficiency," "Getting On," "Self-Investment," "Be Good to Yourself," "He Can Who Thinks He Can," "Character," "Opportunity," "An Iron Will." Something like this has, of course, been done before but the modern efficiency literature moves along a wider front than earlier books and makes a fuller use of the new psychology. All this literature dwells strongly upon the driving power of a self-assertive personality strongly controlled by will, single visioned and master of its own powers. It suggests lines of approach by which other people's wills can be overcome, their interest aroused or their coöperation secured. Quotation is almost impossible--there is such an abundance of material and much of it is commonplace. It takes a deal of padding to make shelves of books out of the familiar and generally accepted truisms which are the "Sermon on the Mount" and the "Beatitudes" of this gospel of personal efficiency. Keep fit, keep at it, assert yourself, never admit the possibility of failure, study your own strength and weakness and the strength and weakness of your competitor and success is yours. Look persistently on the bright side of every situation, refuse to dwell on the dark side, recognize no realities but harmony, health, beauty and success. It is only just to say that success is generously defined and the disciples of this New Thought are asked also to live in the finer senses--the recognition of beauty and friendship and goodness, that is--but on the whole the ideal character so defined is a buoyant optimist who sells his goods, succeeds in his plans and has his own way with the world. It is the apotheosis of what James called "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness"; it all fits easily into the dominant temper of our time and seems to reconcile that serving of two masters, God and Getting On, which a lonely teacher long ago thought quite impossible. Naturally such a movement has a great following of disciples who doubtless "have their reward." So alluring a gospel is sure to have its own border-land prophets and one only has to study the advertisements in the more generally read magazines to see to what an extent all sorts of short-cuts to success of every sort are being offered, and how generally all these advertisements lock up upon two or three principles which revolve around self-assertion as a center and getting-on as a creed. It would be idle to underestimate the influence of all this or, indeed, to cry down the usefulness of it. There is doubtless a tonic quality in these applications of New Thought principles of which despondent, hesitating and wrongly self-conscious people stand greatly in need. _The Limitations and Dangers of Its Positions_ But there is very great danger in it all of minimizing the difficulties which really lie in the way of the successful conduct of life, difficulties which are not eliminated because they are denied. And there is above all the very great danger of making far too little of that patient and laborious discipline which is the only sound foundation upon which real power can possibly be established. There is everywhere here an invitation to the superficial and, above all, there is everywhere here a tendency toward the creation of a type of character by no means so admirable in the actual outcome of it as it seems to be in the glowing pages of these prophets of success. Self-assertion is after all a very debatable creed, for self-assertion is all too likely to bring us into rather violent collisions with the self-assertions of others and to give us, after all, a world of egoists whose egotism is none the less mischievous, though it wear the garment of sunny cheerfulness and proclaim an unconquerable optimism. But at any rate New Thought, in one form or another, has penetrated deeply the whole fabric of the modern outlook upon life. A just appraisal of it is not easy and requires a careful analysis and balancing of tendencies and forces. We recognize at once an immense divergence from our inherited forms of religious faith. New Thought is an interweaving of such psychological tendencies as we have already traced with the implications and analogies of modern science. The God of New Thought is an immanent God, never clearly defined; indeed it is possible to argue from many representative utterances that the God of New Thought is not personal at all but rather an all-pervading force, a driving energy which we may discover both in ourselves and in the world about us and to which conforming we are, with little effort on our own part, carried as upon some strong, compelling tide. The main business of life, therefore, is to discover the direction of these forces and the laws of their operation, and as far as possible to conform both character and conduct, through obedience to such laws, into a triumphant partnership with such a master force--a kind of conquering self-surrender to a power not ourselves and yet which we may not know apart from ourselves, which makes not supremely for righteousness (righteousness is a word not often discovered in New Thought literature) but for harmony, happiness and success. _It Greatly Modifies Orthodox Theology_ Such a general statement as this must, of course, be qualified. Even the most devout whose faith and character have alike been fashioned by an inherited religion in which the personality of God is centrally affirmed, find their own thought about God fluctuating. So great a thing as faith in God must always have its lights and shadows and its changing moods. In our moments of deeper devotion and surer insight the sense of a supreme personal reality and a vital communion therewith is most clear and strong; then there is some ebbing of our own powers of apprehension and we seem to be in the grip of impersonal law and at the mercy of forces which have no concern for our own personal values. New Thought naturally reflects all this and adds thereto uncertainties of its own. There are passages enough in New Thought literature which recognize the personality of God just as there are passages enough which seem to reduce Him to power and principle and the secret of such discrepancies is not perhaps in the creeds of New Thought, but in the varying attitudes of its priests and prophets. One may say, then, that the God of New Thought is always immanent, always force and law and sometimes intimate and personal. However this force may be defined, it carries those who commit themselves to it toward definite goals of well-being. The New Thought of to-day reflects the optimistic note of the scientific evolution of a generation ago. It is not exactly "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world," but it is the affirmation of streams of tendency whose unfailing direction is toward happiness and success. If an element of struggle be implied in the particular sort of salvation which New Thought preaches, it is not at least clearly brought out. There has been amongst us of late a new and a very dearly bought recognition of the element of struggle which seems to be implicit in all life. The optimistic evolutionary philosophy in which New Thought roots itself is on the whole justified neither by history nor the insight of those who have been most rich in spiritual understanding, nor, indeed, by the outcome of that philosophy in our own time. The happy confidence that we do not need to struggle, but rather to commit ourselves to forces which make automatically for happiness and well-being, has only involved us more deeply in a struggle where in some ways the smug happiness and well-being of representative New Thought literature seem more remote than ever. This elimination of the element of moral struggle and the need for deliverance which has so greatly coloured the older theologies gives a distinct character to New Thought theology. There is no place in it for a scheme of redemption; there is no place in it for atonement, save as atonement may be conceived as a vicarious sharing of suffering incident to all struggle for better things; there is no place in it for the old anthropologies of Christian theology. It has on the whole little to say about sin. Says Allen, in a very thoughtful short article on New Thought in Hastings' "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics," "New Thought excludes such doctrines as the duality of man and God, miracles in the accepted sense, the forgiveness of sins and priestly mediation. It seeks to interpret the world and nature as science has recorded them, but also to convey their finer and esoteric meanings to the human understanding. The fundamental purpose of religion and science is the same--namely, the discovery of truth." "New Thought does not teach the moral depravity of man. Such thoughts demoralize and weaken the individual. Miracles, in the accepted sense, New Thought does not conceive as possible in a universe of law. The only miracles are phenomena not understood, but nevertheless the result of law. It applies the pragmatic test to every religion and philosophy. Are you true? What do you give to a man to carry to his daily task?" "New Thought recognizes no authority save the voice of the soul speaking to each individual. Every soul can interpret aright the oracles of truth." _Tends to Become a Universal and Loosely-Defined Religion_ Worship becomes, therefore, contemplation rather than adoration, and a vast deal of the liturgical material which Christianity specifically has heretofore supplied becomes useless for this cult. Christian hymnology would need much editing before it would serve New Thought purposes; the whole conception of prayer would need to be altered. Naturally, then, on its more distinctly religious side New Thought is at once fluctuating and incomplete. It is the proclamation, to quote one of its spokesmen, of a robust individualism and, in the individual, mind is supreme. Right thinking is the key to right living. New Thought affirms the limitless possibilities of the individual. Here perhaps it is more loose in its thinking than in any other region. It makes free use of the word "infinite" and surrounds itself with an atmosphere of boundless hope as alluring as it is vague. The interest of New Thought is most largely in the present tenses of life; its future in an eternal progress which should, of course, imply immortality. New Thought is hospitable to truth from whatever source derived. It is particularly hospitable to the suggestions of oriental religions and, as far as it has taken form as a distinct religious movement, it is becoming more and more markedly a kind of syncretism, a putting together of religious elements drawn from widely universal sources and it patently seeks nothing less than a universal religious fellowship in which the values of all true faith are recognized and which is to be under the control of what science has to say about the world without and psychology of the world within. In a sentence New Thought is an outstanding aspect of the unconquerably religious in human nature, seeking to subdue to its own ends and inform with its own spirit the new material which science, psychology and comparative religion have put at our service in the last two generations. If New Thought diverges from the accepted Christian theology in many ways, it runs parallel in other regions with what is enduringly true in the Gospels, and it runs parallel also with not a little of that endeavour after theological reconstruction which is loosely known as the New Theology. We are generally under a compulsion to reconstruct our creeds and adapt our religious thinking to whatever is true about us in our understanding of our world and its history and its mechanism and the laws of our own lives. Theology must take account of a creative evolution and a humanity which has struggled upward from far-off beginnings along a far-flung front and the findings of Science and the intimations of Psychology. It will need a deal of pioneering to find roads through these new regions and such adventurous souls as seek new paths, with a daring disregard for ancient landmarks and a true passion to find religious meanings in new facts and forces, are really serving us all. There is the danger, however, that in the very freedom of their speculation they may be too impatient of old experiences and hallowed certainties, for these old experiences themselves are deeply rooted and testify to realities which we may be compelled to let in by the window, once we have put them out at the door. IX THE RETURN OF THE EAST UPON THE WEST THEOSOPHY AND KINDRED CULTS _Historic Forces Carried Early Christianity West and Not East. The Far-Reaching Results of This Process_ Christianity in its beginning belonged neither to the East nor the West; it was born where they met and its subsequent development was greatly governed by the direction of the dominant tides of historical development. But from the beginning of the Christian era the main currents of human action flowed West and they carried Christianity with them. It is, therefore, outstandingly an occidental development. This is not to minimize the influence of the East in the earlier phases of Christianity. There was doubtless a measure of give and take, some blowing of the winds of the spirit in changing directions across vast regions and a confused time, which carried the germinal forces from one religion to another. But in the main, Christianity, to use Gardner's fine phrase, was baptized into the forms and forces of the West. I say in the main, for Asia Minor was in the time of St. Paul the meeting place of manifold religions and his first Gentile converts brought with them into their new faith a very great deal of what their old faiths had made them. There was, generally, in the Apostolic world a very great longing for a spiritual deliverance and a mystic temper which easily took over and transformed those elements in Christianity which lent themselves to mystic interpretations. Something of this we discover in the Pauline Epistles themselves; Paul's use of the word "mystery" shows how he adapted his teaching to the understanding of those to whom he addressed himself. To quote Gardner: "In the growth and spread of popular superstition, if we may call them by so harsh a name, we may well discern a gradual preparation for Christianity.... These religions stand toward Christianity, to continue my biological comparison, as the wings of a penguin stand toward those of an eagle, and it is surely no slight on Christianity to say that it met the blind longings of a pagan nation and showed them a path toward which they had, for long generations, been trying to find their way. The religious needs which were very imperfectly met by the initiations and ceremonies and prayers of the cults of the pagan saving deities found a complete and perfect satisfaction from faith in an exalted Christ."[63] [Footnote 63: "The Growth of Christianity," Gardner, p. 136. For fuller treatment with suggestive detail see Fraser "The Golden Bough," chapter 37.] Christianity could not do this really very great thing without at the same time being affected by that which it, in a measure, took over and completed. The influence of Asia upon Christianity is, therefore, a very real influence. One can only wonder what would have happened had the course of empire been East instead of West. Christianity might then have been carried into India and China and through long centuries been given so distinctly an oriental content as to have taken on a character radically different from its Western form. But this did not happen. To follow Gardner's figure still farther, it was baptized into Greek philosophy and Roman imperialism and the power of the nascent nations of western Europe, and into the medieval spirit, and so we have become its heirs. More than that, the East took its own way, uninfluenced by the West, until two entirely different types of culture, civilization, religion and approach to reality had been developed, as far apart as the East is from the West, and each, until almost our own time, substantially uninfluenced by the other. _The West Rediscovers the East; the East Returns Upon the West_ Given the contacts of the modern world this massive isolation of cultures could not continue. The East and the West were bound to meet and religion was bound to be affected by their meeting. Western Christianity has for more than a hundred years now been sending its missionaries to the Orient and oriental religions are beginning to send their missionaries to the West. More justly the return of the East upon the West is not so much in a missionary propaganda, though there is a measure of that, as in a more subtle indoctrination of Western speculation by the fascination and mystery of the Eastern cults. It is not possible to follow this process in detail but it has gone on long enough now for us to begin to see the outcome of it and to appraise its force. It began with New Thought. One discovers oriental names on the programs of New Thought conventions; the Vedanta Philosophy was expounded by East Indian speakers at the Greenacre conference in Maine in the late nineties; B.F. Mills was lecturing on Oriental Scriptures in 1907; and a lecture on the Vedanta Philosophy appears on the program of the second convention of the International Metaphysical League held in New York City in the year 1900. The New Thought movement in England naturally reflected the same tendency to look for light to Eastern speculation even more markedly than the American movement. All this was natural enough because New Thought, once divorced from inherited Christianity and committed to pure speculation about the sources and meanings of life, was sure to find out that the Orient had been doing just this for a thousand years. Two things happened. First, New Thought welcomed Eastern teachers to its conventions in the hope of receiving thereby some measure of enlightenment, and second, many of these seekers, finding that the East had a wealth of speculation compared with which the West is poor indeed, took over the Eastern cults bodily, gave themselves up to their study and became their ardent devotees and missionaries. Generalizations are always dangerous and though the East has, until the West began to exploit it, remained practically unchanged, the West has changed so often that whatever one may say about it must immediately be qualified. But, on the whole, Eastern and Western life are organized around utterly different centers. The West in its present phase is predominantly scientific. Our laboratories are perhaps the distinguishing hall-mark of our civilization. We are always asking questions of the outside world; we are hungry for facts; we are always seeking to discover the law and direction of physical force; we have taken small account, comparatively, of our own inner states, but we have taken immense account of the universe of which we are a part and the forces which play around us. Our realities are what we touch and see. We have given to our sight an immense increase of searching power through the microscope and telescope, but we are slow to venture beyond what they reveal to us. We have increased the sensitiveness of our touch through the instruments of our laboratories. We have organs to sensibly register the vibrations of an etheric force and even to weigh light. But we are slow to recognize any range of reality not thus revealed to us. We have gained in such ways a really illuminating understanding of the physical universe; we have formulated its laws, chronicled its sequence and made it in a marvellous way the instrument of our material well-being. If we have speculated at all it has been rather in the direction of the ultimate nature of matter and force, as these have supplied us material for speculation, than in any other direction. We have been generally and soundly suspicious of conclusions which cannot be verified by the scientific method, and so have built about ourselves restraining limitations of thought which we are wholesomely unwilling to pass. We have found our real joy in action rather than meditation. Our scientific achievements have supplied material for our restless energy and our restless energy has urged us on to new achievement. True enough, there has been of late signs of a changing temper. We are beginning to discover that science has marked limitations; there are ranges of reality of which our laboratories can make no possible report which we are beginning to take into account. But in a large way the matured Western outlook upon life has been conditioned by the scientific interpretation of the universe. _Chesterton's Two Saints_ The East has taken an entirely different line; its laboratories have been the laboratories of the soul. The East has had little concern about outside things; it has had an immense concern for its own inner life. The East has made little attempt to master outer forces; it has been generally content to let them have their way with it, realizing, maybe, that after all what the outside world can do for the inner life is negligible compared with what the soul can do for itself. Race and climate and the sequence of history have all conspired to produce this temper. The history of the East is a strange combination of drive and quiescence; its more vigorous races have had their periods of conquest and fierce mastery, but sooner or later what they have conquered has conquered them and they have accepted, with a kind of inevitable fatalism, the pressure of forces which they were powerless to subdue to their own weakening purposes. They have populated their lands to the limit and accepted the poverty which a dense population without scientific resource, on a poor soil and in a trying climate, inevitably engenders. The more helpless have fallen back upon fate and accepted with a pathetic resignation their hard estate, asking only to be freed from the weariness of it. "It is better," says an Eastern proverb, "to sit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit, it is better to sleep than to lie, and death is the best of all." There is an immensity of weariness and disillusionment in such an interpretation of life, which needs no comment. But the Eastern mind is subtle and speculative, possessing a peculiar penetrating power; and, for the want of any other field in which to act, it turned in upon itself. Chesterton has both hit and missed the immense difference between the East and the West in one of his brilliant paragraphs.[64] "No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The medieval saint's body is wasted to crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards; the Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things." [Footnote 64: "Orthodoxy," p. 243.] But to follow Chesterton's own method, the saint with the open eyes may still be blind while the saint with his eyes shut may really see a vast deal, and the East has seen much. Whether what it sees be true or not, is another matter, but there is no denying the range of his conjecture. The Eastern saint has sought to answer for himself and in his own way those compelling questions which lie behind all religion--Whence? and Whither? and Why? He, too, has sought to come into right relations with the power which manifests itself in the universe and he has sought, with an intensity of effort to which the West is strange, for a real communion with the power he has discovered. And above all, he has sought deliverance. _Why the West Questions the East_ He has not been so conscious of the need of forgiveness, since forgiveness plays no great part in his understanding of the sequences of life, but he is anxious enough to be set free from pain and weariness and at his best he has traced the relation of moral cause and effect far more analytically than his Western brother. He has, indeed, introduced greatly speculative elements in his balancing of life's accounts, but the West has done that also, for the accounts of life persistently refuse to be balanced unless something beyond ordinary experience is taken into account. The longing of the East for deliverance has, on the whole, however, been less theological and more simple than the longing of the West. The West has been led to turn to the East for teaching and deliverance through a combination of forces. I have noticed already the very direct way in which New Thought, once committed to free speculation about life and God, found congenial guidance in the Eastern cults, but other elements enter. The West has begun to share something of the disillusionment of the East; so many things which promised to deliver us have seemingly failed us. Our sciences have immeasurably enlarged our knowledge and increased our power; they have added to our material well-being; they have worked their miracles for us; but they have brought us neither peace nor true happiness. They have instead added their own disturbances to our other perplexities and they have ultimately simply extended the frontiers of the mysterious and given a new and vaster quality to our problems. Our democracies and our humanitarian movements have shown us that the keys both to liberty and progress are still in human nature and not in forms of organization and government. As our civilizations have grown older and particularly as they have wasted themselves in war, some shadow of the age-old weariness of the East has begun to fall across our Western world. We have also reacted strongly against materialism in thought and life; we have begun to see, as has been said, how the need and force of personality have the right to assert themselves against the dominance of things. We are beginning to recognize the right of religion and philosophy to suggest terms to science, and all these tendencies have combined to produce a considerable group of people who, having found, for one reason or another, no real satisfaction in their inherited Christianity, have welcomed the Eastern solution of the problems of life, or else have positively turned to the East in the hope of discovering what Western Christianity has not been able to give them. One should add also that the pure love of speculation which is one of the phases of modern thought has made an opening in the West for the East. If unlimited speculation is the main business of life, the East has certainly everything to offer us, and for warning, as we shall presently see, as well as for guidance. _Pantheism and Its Problems_ The older Eastern religions are, to begin with, Pantheistic. We have seen how religion generally in its development takes form and content from its governing conception of God. We have seen also that there are three governing conceptions of God: He is conceived as Transcendent or Immanent, or else He is simply identified with the range and force of the universe. Pantheism is generally the creation of brooding wonder and uncritical thought; Pantheism feels rather than thinks; it accepts rather than seeks to explain. It may be devout enough but its devotion is passive rather than active. Pantheism is never scientific in the accepted sense of that term; it has little concern for law; it explains by personalizing the forces with which it has to deal; it is akin to the temper which finds some animating spirit in all natural phenomena. The flow of waters, the growth of things, the drift of clouds across the sky are all, for Pantheism, simply the revelation of the action of some indwelling spirit or other, without which they could neither exist nor go on. At its worst Pantheism issues in a grotesque mythology and an inconceivable multiplication of divinity; the gods in the Hindu Pantheon are numbered by the thousands. At its best Pantheism issues in a kind of mystic poetry and creates a devotee sensitive as Tagore to the fugitive gleams of beauty through the murk of things, voicing his prayers and insights in rare phrases which are, on the whole, in arresting contrast to the actuality of life about him. Western devotion has been caught by the mystic and poetical character of Pantheism and is, on the whole, strangely blind to its actual outcome in the life of its devotees. We all feel the suggestion of it in certain of our tempers. If we should take out of much of our finest poetry suggestions akin to the suggestions of Pantheism at its best, we should leave even Western poetry strangely poor, and we have beside, particularly in the contemplation of rare natural beauty, a feeling of kinship with the spirit which clothes itself in dawn and twilight, or speaks through the rhythmic beat of sea waves, or lifts itself against the skyline in far blue mountain summits, which helps us to understand this old, old faith. And if modern cults had done nothing more than appropriate the poetry of Pantheism they would have lent only a touch of oriental colour to the somberness of Western life. But Theosophy and kindred cults have gone farther, since Pantheism itself must go farther. Directly you have identified creation and the creative power so intimately as Pantheism does, then you are under bonds, if you have any curiosity at all or any speculative force, to try to explain the ways in which a God, who is just to begin with all that there is, has managed to reveal Himself in such an infinitude of minute and sometimes ungodlike ways. So Pantheism has its own scheme, not of creation, for there is no place in Pantheism for creation, but rather of emanation. Eastern thought substitutes for the cosmogony of the Old Testament which simply carries the world back to a creative God and seeks to go no farther, and for the methods of Western science which carries creation back to ultimate force and is unable to go any farther, an entirely different system. _How the One Becomes the Many_ A paragraph in Mrs. Besant's "The Ancient Wisdom" (page 41) may help us here. "Coming forth from the depths of the One Existence, from the One beyond all thought and all speech, a Logos, by imposing on Himself a limit, circumscribing voluntarily the range of His own Being, becomes the manifested God, and tracing the limiting sphere of His activity thus outlines the area of His universe. Within that sphere the universe is born, is evolved, and dies; it lives, it moves, it has its being in Him; its matter is His emanation; its forces and energies are currents of His life; He is immanent in every atom, all-pervading, all-sustaining, all-evolving; He is its source and its end, its cause and its object, its centre and circumference; it is built on Him as its sure foundation, it breathes in Him as its encircling space; He is in everything and everything in Him. Thus have the Sages of the Ancient Wisdom taught us of the beginning of the manifested worlds." It is not, of course, fair to say that here is something entirely different from the line of Western scientific and philosophic thought or wholly alien to elements in modern Christianity.[65] The real problem of modern Theism is to connect what science discovers with what faith assumes. The broader generalization of science resolves action and existence into the unities of an underlying and self-conserving force which grows more and more subtle and tenuous as we follow it from molecules to atoms, from atoms to eons and electrons, and even discern beneath these something more impalpable than themselves, and there must be some way in which a creative power conceived by faith in terms of personality has released the forces which have built themselves into the universe. The difference is, however, that Christian Theism refuses completely to identify God and His universe. [Footnote 65: Indeed this is a better commentary on the prologue to the Gospel of John and certain passages of Colossians than most of the orthodox theologies, and the self-limitation of God is the key to the moral freedom of the individual.] There is, after all, a profound distinction between creating and becoming. Theosophy undertakes to explain for us how "the One beyond all thought and all speech" has become us and our universe. It attempts also to provide a way by which we, who are entangled, to our pain and sorrow, in the web of things thus woven, may escape from it and lose ourselves again in the One. It takes the wheel for its symbol in more senses than one. Everything is a turning and returning and we ourselves are bound upon the wheel, carried down or up and finally to be set free, only by the acceptance of a certain discipline of life. Theosophy, then, is both speculative and practical. Its speculations take an immense range necessarily; it is no simple thing to follow the One from the depths of His hidden existence to our earth-born lives and the forces which flow about them. Only an expert deeply versed in Eastern literature would be able to say whether Mrs. Besant follows her Eastern masters faithfully in reporting their conclusions, but she has plainly availed herself of many of the terms and suggestions of modern science in interpreting them to us. If one could use a figure borrowed from electricity, the One is "stepped-down" through a series of planes and manifestations. Theosophy makes much of sevens--no use to ask why--and bridges the gulf between ultimate and present realities by a series of seven planes in which what is coarsest in the plane above becomes the germ of what is finest in the plane beneath. Even so, the One does not directly touch even the highest of these seven planes. (Theosophy is, first of all, a study in descents and not in ascents; ascent comes later.) There are between the One and the topmost plane three emanations (but perhaps we would better let Mrs. Besant speak to us herself): "The self-unfolding of the Logos in a threefold form: the first Logos the root of all being, from Him the second manifesting the two aspects of life and form, then the third Logos, the universal mind, that in which all archetypically exists, the source of beings, the fount of fashioning energies."[66] [Footnote 66: "The Ancient Wisdom," p. 41.] _Evolution and Involution_ It would seem to the uninitiated that all this is a kind of smoke-screen of words to conceal our real ignorance of what we can never know and really have no need to know. It is evidently just an attempt to bridge the abyss between the immaterial and the material. If Theosophy wishes to bridge this abyss with conjecture, well and good, but its conjectures really leave us more deeply perplexed than we should be if we frankly recognized and accepted the limitations of our ignorance. Once within sight of the topmost of her seven planes, Mrs. Besant goes on a little more definitely though she confesses "of what occurs on the two higher planes of the universe, the seventh and the sixth, we can form but the haziest conception." Each plane has what she calls its own "spirit matter"; this spirit matter becomes coarser as we descend; each plane is an emanation from the plane above it and the spirit matter of each plane winds one more veil around those emanations of the immaterial One in whom or which the whole process took its beginning. Theosophy does not speak of evolution as it attempts to account for our material world, it speaks of involution. Here it reverses what is most distinctive in modern Western religious thought as far as modern Western religious thought has accepted evolution. For us evolution, if we seek to give it a Theistic content, is God making manifest, in the vast ascent of form and existence, an always fuller revelation of Himself. Our familiar phrase "the self-revelation of God" posits a power which can never for a moment be contained in all that is, but which may always be more clearly known as we follow His creative record from stage to ascending stage. A grass blade is a richer revelation than a crystal, a bird than a grass blade; personality is almost infinitely richer than the lower forms, some personalities are more perfectly the instruments of the divine self-revelation than others, and Christian faith accepts in Jesus Christ the supreme self-revelation of God in terms of human experience. _Theosophy Undertakes to Offer Deliverance to the Entangled Soul_ But Theosophy reverses all this. As the One comes down from emanation to emanation and from plane to plane He is always more deeply entangled in the veil of things, until on our last and lowest plane He is seven times enwrapped and smothered. We must not, however, confuse this last and lowest plane with our little world, or even our universe; these are but sensible aspects of it and they are really the manifestation of the deeply enwrapped Divine trying to struggle up and out again and so building our realities about us and eventually bringing us, with all our conscious powers, into being. (Here the theosophist has more in common with the evolutionist than one or two of the preceding paragraphs would seem to indicate.) If we follow the figure of the wheel our present plane, the last and lowest of them all, is really the turning point of the wheel; now it begins to turn back upon that from which it descended, and according to Theosophy our practical human task is so to avail ourselves of its upward movement as to be carried back with it toward the high planes of perfect being. Theosophy undertakes to account for personality as it accounts for our sensible universe and along much the same line of speculation. Just as the whole physical plane on which our world exists has really somewhere deep wrapped up within it some emanation of the One from whom everything flows out, so our true selves, which have really come down from the One and should thence return, are wrapped up so deeply as also to be near lost and smothered with, nevertheless, the power to get themselves unwrapped. Our wrappings are our bodies, but we do not begin to understand Theosophy if we think of body in the ordinary sense; our physical body is only one and that the coarsest of the seven veils, for there are seven here also, in which the true soul is enmeshed. We have really seven bodies and we are not any one of them though each of them is useful and each one of them puts us in touch with a certain order of existence. Some of these bodies are mortal, others of them belong to the truly enduring order. Now we are lost here unless we recognize the profound difference between all our usual ways of thinking or talking and the wisdom of Theosophy. Theosophy begins at the top and comes down, at least until it reaches our present world; it also begins at the inside and works out. We think of our physical bodies as the instruments, on one side at least, through which the physical world communicates with us, but for the theosophist they are only instruments through which we communicate with the world. Not quite so, however, for Theosophy recognizes the give and take of experience. The soul may slip out of the physical body in sleep and it--our physical body--is at the best a stupid, imprisoning, misleading sort of a husk which has its practical uses but ought by no means to be taken too seriously.[67] Its coarse matter may be refined by discipline and diet and apparently the physical body of a vegetarian is a finer instrument than the physical body of one who feeds on the flesh of animals. [Footnote 67: For a striking modern phrasing of this see Edward Carpenter's Free Verse "The Stupid Old Body."] _But Becomes Deeply Entangled Itself_ The physical body has also an etheric double which duplicates in a more subtle way the constitution of the physical body. This is the vehicle of the life force, whatever that means. The physical body and its double are in a rough way the vehicles of the give and take of physical existence, but for the experiences of pain and pleasure and for the dwelling place of the passions, desires and emotions, we have an astral body. Here the theosophist makes much use of vibrations and colours, and apparently our changing play of emotion is reflected in a play of colour which puts the chameleon to shame and makes us in our most excited moment rivals of the rainbow itself. The astral body shows upon occasion browns, dark reds and greens and their combinations, lit from time to time with flashes of scarlet. Our better feelings reveal themselves in finer colours; rose indicates love, blue, religious feeling, yellow, intelligence, and violet, spirituality. The Theosophist believes that we can be trained to see all this and illustrates it in coloured plates which are, to the uninitiated, not over convincing. Beside the body of physical existence and the astral body we possess also a mental body. This is the seat of thought and mental action. In a sentence, maybe, the theosophist is trying to say that we have a body for each phase of personality through which we come into contact with the finer realities of the ascending planes of existence, and that the matter of these bodies is more subtly refined as we pass from mere sensation to higher spiritual states. So within the astral body there is the mental body which, says Mrs. Besant, is of finer material than the astral as the astral is finer than the physical. This is the body which answers by its vibrations to our changes of thought. The mental body may be refined by fitting disciplines as it is coarsened by evil thoughts. These thoughts may become "veritable diseases and maimings of the mental body incurable during its period of life." These bodies we discard in due time, the physical at death and the astral when ready to enter the heaven world. What becomes of the mental body Mrs. Besant does not say. Beyond these are bodies which belong to man's timeless existence, curiously named and obscurely defined. There is apparently a causal body which is possibly the vehicle of will and, more involved still, a super-spiritual body which is the reality of God deep within us, and the carrier and vehicle of our supreme and enduring personal values. All this is a curious enough mingling of psychology, a subtle materialism, and unbounded speculation; it is equally beyond proof and denial, though for the proof of it the theosophist offers the testimony of those whose senses are so refined by peculiar disciplines as to see in and about physical form a play of light and colour which are themselves the revelation of mental and emotional states. We literally go about, according to this testimony, "trailing clouds of glory" or of gloom. While for the denial of it there is the deep-seated protest of Western reason, that personality, complex as it is, cannot possibly be so bafflingly complex as this. _The West Accepts Suffering as a Challenge and Looks to Personal Immortality for Victory_ We are, therefore, according to the theosophist, emanations from the Divine; deeply enveiled and much enshrouded within us is a timeless and changeless self descended from the mysterious All which lies back of all things and under high compulsion to seek again, in some vast turning of the wheel of Being, that from which we sprang. Theosophy becomes more understandable in its practical reaction upon life, for this many veiled self is deeply involved in forces and states to which it is not really akin, and since it suffers greatly in being so involved the end of existence is, in discipline and ascent, to be set free from the pain and weariness of conscious existence, and to be absorbed in the changeless peace of that ultimate reality out of which we have issued and back again to which we are destined to go. We cannot be insensible to the vast scope of such a speculation as this for in one form or another there are, in all religion and in the deeper yearnings of life, elements akin to it. The order of which we are a part bears hard upon the soul. No one who meditates deeply upon the strangeness of human destiny can fail to recognize the arresting estate of sensitive personality enmeshed in laws and forces which drive on with so little apparent consideration for those who are caught in the turning of their wheels, or ridden down in their drive. Western faith has generally seen in this situation a challenge to personality to assert its own supremacy over the impersonal and subject its encompassing order to the high purposes of the soul. If we are wounded in the fight we take our wounds as good soldiers; if the forces which face us are challengingly strong we fall back upon our deeper resources and in the end assert our own vaster powers. We accept the conditions of the struggle as a part of the discipline of life and in our braver moments win from the fight itself those elements of personal steadfastness which, matured in character, give moral meaning to the endeavour, and though we anticipate an ultimate release and blessed compensation for the present travail of our souls, we find that release and those compensations in a personal immortality which attends the termination of the individual life in the present order, and continues that life conscious, free and triumphant in an immortal order, and even there we ask neither to be released from effort nor denied progress. We challenge the fortunes of the Unknown in the poet's phrase, and seek "other heights in other lives, God willing." _The East Balances the Accounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations_ But just as the East casts the glamour of its speculation over the processes by which we have come to be where and what we are, so it casts the glamour of its speculation over the process of our release. The West stakes everything on the issue of one individual life even if death ends it, or else it assumes a conscious continuity of life rich in memory and persistent in individuality in whatever progress lies beyond the grave. Those whom Dante saw ascending from terrace to terrace of the Mount of Purgation were in all stages continuously and truly themselves. They knew the faults for which they made atonement and looked back with unclouded vision along all the stages by which they had climbed. The East makes little of the continuity of individual life and everything of the sequence of individual lives. It offers for the solution of our problem of ultimate destiny and also for its solution of the problem of pain and sorrow and manifest inequality in human states, two simple and unescapable laws--the law of moral consequence and the law of reincarnation. The East and the West both believe that "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" but the West believes he gathers his harvests of pain or punishment in a continuity of conscious existence, the vaster part of which is lived beyond death, with no rebirth and with no travelling again the light or shadowed ways of earth and time. The Christian West believes also in redemption which is just that sharing of God in the process which makes faith and repentance definite and saving elements in the struggle of the soul. The East believes in a series of reincarnations, each reincarnate state taking its character from the quality of the life before. The fact that the doors of recollection are shut and locked between each incarnate existence makes no difference to the East. If a man has lived well and justly and followed his light, he will hereafter be born higher up; if he has loved darkness because his deeds are evil, he will be born into some low estate; he may descend into the beast or ascend into the saint. He will pay for present injustice with future suffering-- "Or reach a hand through time to catch The far-off interest of tears" even though he have no conscious remembrance of the faults for which he atones, or the sorrow for which he is recompensed. If he is steadfast through countless rebirths, the slow turning wheel will bear him higher and higher until he begins to ascend the successive planes, discovering in each plane for which he has fitted himself a new wealth and reality of existence, until at last he is lost in the Infinite Existence and his struggle is ended. Perhaps the word "struggle" as here used is wrong. Deliverance for the East is not so much struggle as acquiescence. For the theosophist desire is the master mischief maker. Desire leads us in wrong directions, complicates our spiritual problems and thrusts us against the turn of the wheel. We are rather, according to the theosophist, to reduce desire to its simplest terms, thereby freeing ourselves from restlessness, above all taking care not to hurt or embitter others. _Theosophy Produces a Distinct Type of Character_ There is no denying that here is a faith capable of producing a distinctive type of character. It tends at its best toward an extreme conscientiousness and an always excessive introspection; it creates also a vast and brooding patience. "In countries where reincarnation and karma [the law of Cause and Effect] are taken for granted by every peasant and labourer, the belief spreads a certain quiet acceptance of inevitable troubles that conduces much to the calm and contentment of ordinary life. A man overwhelmed by misfortunes rails neither against God nor against his neighbours, but regards his troubles as the result of his own past mistakes and ill-doings. He accepts them resignedly and makes the best of them.... He realizes that his future lives depend on his own exertions and that the law which brings him pain will bring him joy just as inevitably if he sows the seed of good. Hence a certain large patience and philosophic view of life tending directly to social stability and to general contentment."[68] [Footnote 68: "The Ancient Wisdom," Besant, p. 273.] If such a faith as this be informed with humaneness and be deeply tempered with the principle of sacrifice, it may, and does, result in a distinct type of real goodness. It is possibly a good faith for helpless and more or less despairing folk, though it likely creates many of the evils from which it desires to escape. The very reach and subtlety and even splendour of its speculation will make a strong appeal to minds of a certain type. Two elements in the whole system doubtless account for what hold it has upon the Western mind. It does offer, to begin with, a coherent explanation of the problem of pain and sorrow. As we have seen more than once in this study, Western Christianity has been deficient just here. The accepted explanations of the shadowed side of life have not been great enough to meet the facts. Practically every cult we have studied has found its opportunity just here. Christian Science solves the problem by denying the essential reality of pain and disease. New Thought believes in an underlying and loving good to which life may be so attuned as to bring us generally into the current of health and happiness. Theosophy accepts pain, sorrow and all unhappy forces and explains them as the inevitable result of wrong action either in this or a previous existence. _Theosophy a "Tour de Force" of the Imagination_ Christian Science saves the justice and affirms the love of God by making Him just a God with apparently no concern for and no participation in the shadowed side of life. New Thought saves the love and justice of God by discovering in pain and unhappiness our lack of harmony with Him. Theosophy meets the whole shadowed order along its full front and explains everything in terms of compensation. Now there is much in this to appeal to our modern temper. Directly we recognize the scales in which the consequences of our actions are weighed as being so sensitive that not even a thought can be thrown in the one balance without disturbing the equilibrium, directly we recognize ourselves as involved in a sweep of law from whose consequences there is no possible escape, we have at least a consistent scheme in which there is room for no evasion, and if we balance the manifold inequalities of one life by what has been done or left undone in some previous life, we are always able to add weight enough to the scales to make them hang level. True enough, there is nothing to guide us here but imaginative ingenuity, but it is always possible to imagine some fault in a previous existence which we pay for in pain or loss or disappointment, or some good deed done in a previous existence which accounts for our happy fortune in this. And so justice is saved if only by a tour de force of the imagination. (Mrs. Besant, for example, explains the untimely death of a child as a penalty due the parents for unkindness to a child in an earlier incarnation.) The speculative aspects of Theosophy also appeal to tempers which love to dream without accepting the laborious discipline of a truly reasoned speculation. To quote a phrase of Macaulay's quoted in turn by William James in one of his letters, there is a type of mind "utterly wanting in the faculty by which a demonstrated truth is distinguished from a plausible supposition," and there has been amongst us of late a marked increase of this type of mind. There has been up to our own time no great amount of such speculation as this in the West. It is not native to the occidental temper and it has been held in control by our scientific approach to the facts of our world and our experiences therein. We have demanded for our speculations generally the demonstration of fact and this has heretofore held us to a rather narrow range, but that widening of the frontiers of the possible which has attended the new psychology with its emphasis upon the subconscious, along with the rather baffling character of psychic phenomena, has opened the flood gates and released a tide of speculation which goes far beyond the proved fact and accepts no limits but its own ingenious audacity. We have already seen how evident deficiencies in the discipline of present-day education and the loose state of mind too much in evidence amongst us has contributed to all this. There are everywhere a great number of perplexed people who want to believe something and find it far easier to believe in dreams and guesses and cloud-built systems than in restraining facts or even the rather clearly demonstrated realities of the moral order, and such as these have found a wealth of material in Eastern speculation. _A Bridge of Clouds_ In trying to appraise the truth of Theosophy we have to disentangle the system and the needs and the seekings which lead its adherents to accept it. These needs and seekings are, after all, near and familiar; they are only our old questions Whence? and Whither? and Why? Theosophy is at least the attempt to really answer some of the questions which Western science is either content or compelled to leave unanswered. The creative point of contact between personality and matter and force is deeply enwrapped in mystery. Orthodox Christianity has been content to affirm the facts of creation without asking any questions at all as to its methods. It has affirmed the omnipotence of the Creator and has found in His omnipotence a satisfactory resting place. God is great enough to do what has been done and the detail of it is rather an affair for God than man. Scientific speculation generally has gone back as far as it can go in the resolution of its forces and laws and recognized its own limitations, leaving the rest to the theologian and the philosopher. The result has been a gap which has not been bridged over. Theosophy has undertaken to bridge that gap. But, examined more carefully, one sees that the abyss has been crossed by nothing more solid than a fabric of cloudy speculation. True enough these speculations are ingenious and touched with suggestive light, but they are strangely insubstantial. After all they do absolutely nothing more than our Western affirmation of the immanence of God in life and force and law, and our Western thought has the advantage alike in simplicity, in scientific basis and reverent self-restraint. We might as well recognize, and be done with it, that there are questions here which in all human probability are insoluble. There are elements of mystery in life and the universe beyond our present and likely our future power to definitely resolve. In the end faith can do nothing more than rest in God and accept as an aspect of life itself the necessary limits of our position. Our organized knowledge all too quickly brings us to regions where faith and faith alone completes the inquiry. But on the other hand, a faith which too far outruns either in the reach or audacity of its speculation those elements which organized knowledge supplies and reason validates, loses itself in futilities or else misleads us altogether. Eastern speculation is too far beyond either ordered knowledge or right reason to be of any practical use in the fruitful conduct of life. Believing too much does just as much harm as believing too little. Theosophy's seven planes and ascending emanations and sevenfold veils and all the rest really explain nothing. On the other hand they tempt their faithful to take conjecture for reality; they create a credulous and uncritical temper; they are hostile to that honest dealing with fact which is just one condition of getting on at all. A brave confession of ignorance is often more truly reverent than knowing too many things which are not so. As we approach more nearly the reality of things as they are we find them always unexpectedly simple. The burden of proof is always upon the murky and the complex. Those who try to escape the difficulties in which our deeper understanding of the world order and our own personalities involve us, by taking refuge in Eastern occultism are on the wrong line. _The Difficulties of Reincarnation_ The same criticism holds true of Reincarnation. It is involved in hopeless difficulties. There are apparent injustices and inequalities in life--so much is beyond debate--but we have in general, if we are honest enough to follow it through, the clue to even these. We are all parts of a struggling and, we trust, ascending order, an order which on the whole is not so greatly concerned for the individual as we are concerned for ourselves. We are hampered by our ignorance and we are deeply involved one with the other. The orthodox theology which blames everything upon sin as an abstraction is not convincing, but sin as the projection of wrong desires, through self-will, into the field of human action is a fact to be constantly reckoned with. The individual and social consequences of it are enormous, nor can they be confined either to one individual or one generation. Heredity continues weakness as well as strength. A vast deal of our bitter reaping is due to the wrong or foolish sowing of others, though fortunately we share the good as well as the bad. The laws of heredity will account for a vast deal in any one generation; the laws of social action and reaction for a great deal of the rest, and there is finally not a little for which we ourselves are responsible. A good many of our problems ought to be approached from the point of view of the well-being of humanity generally and not our own individual destiny. We may safely trust our individual destiny to brave and unselfish living. I ought not to test what I do or leave undone by its effect upon me in some future reincarnation; I ought to test it by the effect which it has now upon the world of which I am a part, upon the generation which is to follow me and upon the quality of my own present life. True enough, the theosophist and myself find ourselves here in substantial agreement as to many of the things which a man ought practically to do to secure a happier future, but I maintain that the motives just named are far more solid and worthy motives than the camouflaged selfishness of Theosophy, and they are certainly in far deeper accord with the ascertained facts of life. If we recognize that the more shadowed side of life is partly the result of social and individual development conditioned by weakness, ignorance and sin, if we recognize that the present reaps what the past has sown, if we recognize that we suffer for the faults of others and that no one of us may hope to climb far until his neighbour climbs with him, if we recognize that pain and suffering are disciplinary, illuminating, educative, and finally, if we recognize that we do possess the power to take all the more difficult elements in experience and subdue them to an increased wealth of personality, we have really all the elements in hand for the solution of the problem of pain and sorrow in terms of action and understanding, and we do not need a series of reincarnations to help us out. Reincarnation really explains, as it claims to explain, neither the exceptional individual nor the apparently unmerited sufferings of the individual, and it has beside inescapable difficulties of its own. It has to parallel the course of human existence with a range of supernal existence for which there is absolutely no proof; it has to numerically equalize birth and death--and these are not equal in an increasing terrestrial population--or else it has to assume, as it does of course, on other planes a storehouse of souls from which to draw. And more than that, it involves itself in a perfect tangle of heavenly bookkeeping. Here is the best Mrs. Besant can do to explain the difficulties of reincarnation. "We have seen that man during his passage to physical death loses, one after the other, his various bodies.... These are all disintegrated and their particles remixed with the materials of their several planes.... At this stage, then, only the man himself is left, the labourer who has brought his harvest home and has lived upon it till it is all worked up into himself. The dawn of a new life begins."[69] [Footnote 69: "The Ancient Wisdom," p. 202--passim.] To condense, he now proceeds to build up for himself a new body for his coming life on the lower mental level. "This again exactly represents his desire nature, faithfully reproducing the qualities he evolved in the past; ... thus the man stands fully equipped for his next incarnation.... Meanwhile action external to himself is being taken to provide him with a physical body suitable for the expression of his qualities.... All this is done by certain mighty spiritual Intelligences often spoken of as the lords of Karma because it is their function to superintend the working out of causes continually set going by thoughts, desires and actions. They hold the threads of destiny which each man has woven, and guide the reincarnating man to the environment determined by his past. The race, the nation, the family thus determined, what may be called the mould of the physical body ... is built within the mother's womb by the agency of an elemental, the thought of the Karmic lords being its motive power." The difficulties which this statement evades are enormous, its conjectures are even more enormous. This is the subversion of all the facts of biology and heredity to a capricious scheme, built up just to answer a few practical questions--Why do we differ? Why do we suffer? Why are we happy? Surely there are far more simple and reasonable answers to these questions than the answer of Theosophy, and the willingness of so many people to rest in such an answer as this can prove only one of two things--the capacity of the mind for credulity or the arresting failure of those whose business it is to interpret life to the perplexed, to have even begun their task. _Immortality a Nobler, Juster and Simpler Balancing of Life's Account-Book_ If there be a want of opportunity in our present existence for a true balancing of the scales of justice, and if some future existence be needed to make things right, then the Christian doctrine of immortality has an immense advantage over the reincarnations of Theosophy. We have no right to underestimate the difficulties of a reasonable faith in immortality, but they are simplicity itself as compared with the difficulties of reincarnation, for reincarnation must answer every question which the possibility of immortality raises and answer even more difficult questions of its own. It is far simpler to believe that having survived the shock of death we go on with the same essential individuality we had before death, than to believe that having survived we are sent back again through the gates of birth and are really reincarnated in another individuality. More than that, the Christian belief in immortality is more ethical. The action and reaction of life have real meaning for me only as I know and remember. No theosophic evasion can take the force out of this. If I consciously connect to-day's pain with yesterday's pain with the folly or fault of a previous existence of which I am really unconscious, the chain has been broken and no speculative question can supply the missing link. Very likely the accepted Christian doctrine of the finality of life after death has given Theosophy an opportunity in the West. Protestantism particularly has allowed absolutely no place after death for repentance, has offered no new chance to the adventuring soul; its Hell and its Heaven have been final states. Catholicism has eased the strain of this with purgatory, a belief wholly without Scriptural basis, but nevertheless evolved in answer to great necessities of life. We need neither purgatory nor reincarnation; we need only the recognition of what is so centrally a part of any conception of immortality as to make one wonder why we have so greatly missed it; the reasonable confidence, that is, that we really go on very much as we left off here. If there be in a future existence--and there must be if there be a future existence--any room for repentance born of a clearer recognition of fault and new and holier purposes born of a clearer understanding of the true values of life, then we shall go on in a truly moral process of growth, availing ourselves always of the teachings of experience and working toward the true well-being of our souls, and if the mercy and justice of God be not the figment of our imagination those who have been hardly dealt with here will be given new opportunity, the deficient and the handicapped released from what weighed them down will find a new departure, and the justices of eternity complete what time began. All this will be accomplished not in a series of existences, separated one from the other by abysms of forgetfulness, but in a remembered continuity of life deepening through endless growth. If this be only faith and speculation it is at least a far more reasonable faith and speculation than the alternative which Theosophy offers. Theosophy is a side issue in the real solution of the problems of life. _Pantheism at Its Best--and Its Worst_ Finally, though this is possibly unfair, Eastern Pantheism generally must be tested by its fruits. We ought not, if we are to deal justly with it, to ignore its better side. The East at its best has been strong in a type of life wanting in the West; the East has been rich in patience and gentleness and in consideration for every kind of life, even the ant in the dust or the beast in the jungle. The East at its best has weighed conduct in delicate balances and traced the play of cause and effect in character far, far beyond the West; it has been content with simple things and found its true wealth in the inner life. It has willingly, for the sake of truth and goodness, subjected itself to disciplines, some of which are admirable, others of which are loathsome. It has at its best ventured everything for the well-being of the soul, even when it has misconceived that well-being. It has had little of the hard driving quality of the West. Not a little of the teaching of Jesus fits in better with the temper and devotion of the Orient than the competitive materialism of the Occident. It is easily possible to pass not a little of the Gospels through the interpretation of Eastern mysticism and find therein arresting correspondences. For example, a little book called "At the Feet of the Master" by a young Indian student, has in it a wealth of insight and an understanding of the balanced conduct of life which is wanting in a good many of the Western interpretations of life, but none the less, things must be judged by their massed outcome and the massed outcome of Eastern Pantheism does not commend itself. The larger part of the religious literature of the East is upon a distinctly lower level than those parts of it which are brought to us by its devotees, and when Pantheism--and the basis of all Eastern speculation is Pantheistic--comes down from its high places and begins practically to express itself in worship and the conduct of the crowd, then it is such as to give us pause. What Kipling calls "the sculptured horrors" of the carved fronts of the temples in Benares are no accident; they are simply the logical outcome of a faith which lifts the whole to the level of the divine and has nothing beyond to correct what is by what ought or ought not to be. Almost inevitably Pantheistic religions unduly exalt those powers which make for fertility of field and the increase of life. As they do this they have on their side the elemental forces in human nature. When we begin to make gods of what after all must be sternly subordinated to higher things, and the East has done this in spite of its mystics and its dreamers, then we are not only in danger of sculpturing symbolic horrors on the fronts of our temples but of setting up therein strange altars to strange gods who are best worshipped by strange rites. All this, inevitably enough, has given to Eastern worship a more than earthly character, and has invested with the sanction of religion forces which it must always be the business of religion to subordinate and control. Along with all this has gone a grotesque mythology and an inconceivable multiplication of divinity. Since no one but an expert can hope to understand the complexities of a faith like this, the East has developed a priestly class which bears harder upon its devotees and at the same time more contemptuously separates itself from them than perhaps any priestly class in the world. If the East is to return upon the West in substituting a refined and more or less mystic Pantheism for the sterner forms of Western faith, we ought at least to understand what it is which, with all its implications, is beginning to set up its altars amongst us. No one can follow the theosophic religion of the West without recognizing how largely Western Theosophy avails itself of Western science and informs itself with what Christianity has given to the West. If these were taken out of it it would be hopeless. Since, therefore, its speculations carry us beyond reason or science, since its solution of the problems of life is far too complex, since whatever is good in it may be found more richly and simply in what we already possess and since the practical outcome of it in the East itself is an arrested civilization which has many depths but few heights, one must inevitably conclude that Theosophy has no real meaning for those who possess already the knowledge which we have so laboriously gained and the faith and insight which Christianity has brought us. X SPIRITUALISM Practically all the newer cults are quests in one general direction but down more or less specific roads. Christian Science and New Thought are endeavours after health and well-being and the endeavour also to reconcile the more shadowed experiences of life with the love and goodness of God. Theosophy and kindred cults are quests for illumination and spiritual deliverance along other than the accepted lines of Christian "redemption." Spiritualism is practically the quest for the demonstration of immortality through such physical phenomena as prove, at least to those who are persuaded by them, the survival of discarnate personality. All these movements involve in varying degrees the abnormal or the supernormal. They imply generally another environment for personality than the environment which the ordered world of science supplies, and other laws than the laws of which it takes account. They are one in affirming the mastery of the psychical over the physical. They either affirm or imply faculties which do not depend upon the senses for their material; they suggest a range of personality which, if the facts which they supply are sound, demands a very considerable recasting of our accepted beliefs about ourselves. Christian Science and New Thought confine themselves largely to the present term of life, though Christian Science affirms strongly enough that death is an error of the mortal mind. New Thought places a shifting emphasis upon immortality. Spiritualism centers wholly upon the phenomena of the discarnate life, upon the power of the discarnate to communicate with us and upon our power to receive and interpret their communications. Spiritualism, or Spiritism, the name its adherents prefer, is, however, by no means so simple as this definition of it. It may be anything from the credulity which accepts without question or analysis the trick of a medium, to the profound speculation of Meyer or Hyslop or the new adventures in psychology of Émile Boirac and his French associates. It may be a cult, a philosophy or an inquiry; it may organize itself in forms of worship and separate itself entirely from the churches. It may reinforce the faith of those who remain in their old communions. Spiritism has a long line of descent. The belief that the spirit may leave the body and maintain a continued existence is very old. Mr. Herbert Spencer finds the genesis of this belief in dreams. Since primitive men believed themselves able, in their dreams, to wander about while the body remained immobile and since in their dreams they met and spoke with their dead, they conceived an immaterial existence. The spirit of a dead man, having left the body, would still go on about its business. They, therefore, set out food and drink upon his grave and sacrificed his dogs, his horses or his wives to serve him in his disembodied state. All this is familiar enough and perhaps the whole matter began as Mr. Spencer suggested, though it by no means ends there. The animism which grew out of this belief characterizes a vast deal of early religion, penetrates a vast deal of early thinking. Primitive man lived in a world constantly under the control of either friendly or hostile spirits and the really massive result of this faith of his is registered in regions as remote as the capricious genders of French nouns and the majestic strophes of the Hebrew Psalms, for the genders are the shadowy survivals of a time when all things had their spirits, male or female, and the Psalms voice the faith for which thunder was the voice of God and the hail was stored in His armoury. It would take us far beyond the scope of our present inquiry to follow down this line in all its suggestive ramifications. Animism, medieval witchcraft and the confused phenomena of knocks, rappings and the breaking and throwing about of furniture and the like reported in all civilized countries for the past two or three centuries, supply the general background for modern Spiritualism. (The whole subject is fully treated in the first and second chapters of Podmore.) _The Genesis of Modern Spiritualism_ Modern Spiritualism does not, however, claim for itself so ancient an ancestry. In 1848 mysterious knockings were heard in the family of John D. Fox at Hydesville, N.Y. They appeared to have some purpose behind them; the daughters of the family finally worked out a code: three raps for yes, one for no, two for doubt, and lo, a going concern was established. It is interesting to note that mysterious noises had been about a century before heard in the family of the Wesleys in Epworth Rectory, England. These noises came to be accepted quite placidly as an aspect of the interesting domestic life of the Wesleys. It has usually been supposed that Hattie Wesley knew more about it than she cared to tell and, as far as the illustrious founders of Methodism were concerned, there the matter rests. But the Fox sisters became professional mediums and upon these simple beginnings a great superstructure has been built up. The modern interest in Spiritualism thus began on its physical side and in general the physical phenomena of Spiritualism have become more bizarre and complex with the growth of the cult. Raps, table tiltings, movements of articles of furniture, playing upon musical instruments, slate writing, automatic writing, of late the Ouija Board, materialization, levitation, apparent elongation of the medium's body, are all associated with Spiritism. It was natural that the voice also should become a medium of communication, though trance mediumship belongs, as we shall see, to a later stage of development. Incidentally the movement created a kind of contagious hysteria which naturally multiplied the phenomena and made detached and critical attitudes unduly difficult. For reasons already touched upon, America has been strongly predisposed to phases of public opinion which in their intensity and want of balance have the generally accepted characteristics of hysteria. Some of them have been religious, great awakenings, revivals and the like. These in their more extreme form have been marked by trances, shoutings and catalepsy and, more normally, by a popular interest, strongly emotionalized, which may possess a real religious value. Other religious movements have centered about the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. Many of these peculiar excitements have been political. The whole offers the psychologists a fascinating field and awaits its historian.[70] Yet the result is always the same. The critical faculty is for the time in abeyance; public opinion is intolerant of contradiction; imposture is made easy and charlatans and self-appointed prophets find a credulous following. Movements having this genesis and history are in themselves open to suspicion. [Footnote 70: Sidis has a résumé of Social Epidemics in part three of his work on the "Psychology of Suggestion."] _It Crosses to England and the Continent_ The American interest in Spiritualism from 1848 to 1852 belongs distinctly to this region. The Fox sisters have been generally discredited, but what they began carried on. In 1852 a Mrs. Hayden and a little later a Mrs. Roberts introduced raps and table turnings to England. There, and more particularly on the Continent, Spiritualism met and merged with a second line of development which in turn reacted upon American Spiritualism, and, in America, released movements on the surface wholly unrelated to Spiritism. In France to a degree and in Germany strongly Mesmerism lent itself to spiritistic interpretations. I quote Podmore, who is commenting upon the trance utterances of a Mrs. Lindquist: "It is to be noted that the ascription of these somnambulic utterances to spirit intelligences was in the circumstances not merely easy but almost inevitable. The entranced person was in a state obviously differing very widely from either normal sleep or normal wakefulness; in the waking state she herself retained no recollection of what happened in the trance; in the trance she habitually spoke of her waking self in the third person, as of some one else; the intelligence which manifested in the trance obviously possessed powers of expression and intellectual resources in some directions far greater than any displayed by the waking subject. Add to this that the trance intelligence habitually reflected the ideas in general and especially the religious orthodoxy of her interlocutors; that on occasion she showed knowledge of their thoughts and intentions which could not apparently have been acquired by normal means; that she was, in particular, extraordinarily skillful in diagnosing, prescribing for, and occasionally foretelling the course of diseases in herself and others--the proof must have seemed to the bystanders complete."[71] [Footnote 71: "Modern Spiritualism," Podmore, Vol. I, p. 77.] _The Beginnings of Trance-Mediumship_ We have here plainly enough the beginnings of trance mediumship. It needed only unstable personalities, capable of self-induced trance states, so to widen all this as to supply the bases of spiritistic faith and the material for the immensely laborious investigation of the Society for Psychical Research. In the main, however, French interest in Mesmerism and animal magnetism took a more scientific turn and issued in the brilliant French studies in hypnotism. Spiritualism has made little headway in Catholic countries. The authority of the Church is thrown so strongly against it as to prohibit the interest of the credulous and the penetrating minds of the southern European scientists have been more concerned with the problems of abnormal personality than the continued existence of the discarnate. The interest in Germany took another line. There was less scientific investigation of hypnotism and trance states as abnormal modifications of personality and far more interest in clairvoyance and spirit existence. Men whose names carried weight accepted the spiritistic explanation of phenomena ranging from broken flower pots to ghosts. Very likely the German tendency toward mysticism and speculation explains this. Jung followed Swedenborg and the mystics generally in affirming a psychic body, but was a pioneer in associating it with the luminiferous ether in a range of speculation which in our time supplies an hypothetical scientific basis for the environment of the discarnate. (So Sir Oliver Lodge.) Podmore concludes that the foundations of modern Spiritualism were laid by the German magnetists of the first half of the nineteenth century. The movement developed along these lines till 1875. Once broadly in action it touches at one point or another the whole region of the occult. Many spiritualists found in Theosophy, for which existence is the endless turning of a wheel, a cycle of death and rebirth, a pseudo-philosophic support for their belief. Spiritualism appealed naturally to the lovers of the mystic and the unusual and it associated itself, to a degree, with extreme liberalism in the general development of religion. (On the whole, however, as far as religion goes, Spiritualism has created a religion of its own.) Its advocates were likely to be interested in phrenology, advanced social experiments, or modification of the marriage laws. Spiritualistic phenomena themselves became more varied and complex; trance mediumship became a profession with a great increase of performers; slate writing was introduced and finally materialization was achieved. All this might mean that the spirits were growing more adept in "getting through," the mediums more adept in technique, or else, which is more likely, that latent abnormal aspects of personality were being brought to light through suggestion, imitation and exercise. But no concerted effort was made by trained and impartial observers to eliminate fraud, collect data and reach dependable conclusions. This has been finally attempted by the Society for Psychical Research and the results of their laborious investigations are now at the service of the student of the occult. _The Society for Psychical Research Begins Its Work_ The weight which attaches to the names of many English and some American members of the Society, the carefully guarded admission of some of them that there is in the whole region a possible residue of phenomena which indicate communication between the living and the discarnate and the profoundly unsettling influence of the war, really account for the renewed interest in Spiritualism in our own time. In 1875 a few Englishmen, one of them a famous medium--Stainton Moses--formed a Psychological Society for the investigation of supernormal phenomena. (In general all this account of the history of Spiritualism is greatly condensed from Podmore and Hill and the reader is referred to their works without specific reference.) This first group dissolved upon the death of one of its members--though that would seem to have been a good reason for continuing it--and in 1882 Professor (afterward Sir) William Barrett, who had already done some experimenting and had brought hypnotism and telepathy to the notice of the British association for the advancement of science, consulted Stainton Moses with the view of founding a society under better auspices and the Society for Psychical Research was organized, with Professor Henry Sidgwick as first president. The Society undertook, according to its own statement: 1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, otherwise than through the recognized sensory channels. 2. The study of hypnotism and mesmerism, and an inquiry into the alleged phenomena of clairvoyance. 3. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on testimony sufficiently strong and not too remote, of apparitions coinciding with some external event (as for instance a death) or giving information previously unknown to the percipient, or being seen by two or more persons independently of each other. 4. An inquiry into various alleged phenomena apparently inexplicable by known laws of nature, and commonly referred by Spiritualists to the agency of extra-human intelligences. 5. The collection and collation of existing materials bearing on the history of these subjects.[72] [Footnote 72: "Spiritualism," Hill, p. 100.] They sought also "to approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated." As a matter of fact the region is the most obscure which inquiry has ever been called to enter. A noble rationality pervades the whole normal material order, causes can be controlled, effects anticipated, laws formulated and above all, the hypotheses of science are, if true, always capable of a luminous and splendid verification. The disciplined intellect moves through it all with a sense of "at-homeness" which is itself a testimony to profound correspondences between the human mind and the order with which, during its long, long unfolding, it has been associated in intimacies of action and reaction too close to be adequately set forth in words. But the mind does not rest easily in the region which Spiritism claims for its own. _The Difficulties It Confronts_ Of course this is to beg the whole question. The more scientifically minded spiritualists might fairly enough answer that they are attempting to discover the laws of the occult and reduce an anarchical system to order, that our feeling of strangeness in these regions is only because of our little contact with them. There are, they claim, undeveloped aspects of personality which we have had as yet little occasion to use, but which would, once they were fully brought into action, give us the same sense of rapport with a super-sensible order that we now have in our contact with the sensible order. The crux of the whole contention is probably just here and in view of what has heretofore been accomplished in discovering and formulating the laws of the physical universe and in reducing an immense body of apparently unrelated facts to order, there is doubtless possible a very great systematization of psychical phenomena, even the most obscure. Nor may we readily set bounds to the measure of human development. But at any rate the statement with which this paragraph began is true. The region which the Society for Psychical Research set out to explore is obscure and is, as yet, so far from yielding to investigation that the investigators are not even agreed as to their facts, let alone the conclusions to be drawn from. The proceedings of the Society literally fill volumes (thirty-two); it would require a specialist to follow them through and an analysis here impossible, rightly to evaluate them. When such careful investigators as Hill and Podmore, dealing with the same body of fact, differ constantly and diametrically in their conclusions, it is evident that the facts so far collected have not cumulative force enough to establish in the generality of disciplined minds a substantial unanimity of conviction. There are far too many alternatives in the interpretation of the facts and, in general, the personal equation of the investigator colours the conclusions reached. Of course this is, in a measure, true in every field of investigation, but it is outstandingly true in psychical research. _William James Enters the Field_ For some years the Society was mainly occupied with hypnotism and thought transference, with occasional reports on "apparitions, haunted houses, premonitions, automatic writing, crystal vision and multiple personality." Professor William James' experiment with Mrs. Piper carried the Society over into the field of trance mediumship. James had a sound scientific interest in every aspect of the play of human consciousness and was earlier than any of his contemporaries awakened to the psychological value of abnormal mental states. He also loved fair play. He made his first report on Mrs. Piper in 1886. He was unable, he said, "to resist the conviction that knowledge appeared in her trances which she had never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes, ears and wits.... What the source of this knowledge may be, I know not, and have not a glimmer of explanatory suggestion to make, but from admitting the fact of such knowledge I can see no escape." In a letter to Flourney dated August 9, 1908, James says of later investigations: "It seems to me that these reports open a new chapter in the history of automatism.... Evidently automatism is a word that covers an extraordinary variety of fact." The reports of Mrs. Piper's sittings fill a large place in the Society's records. Dr. Richard Hodgson and Professor Hyslop were finally led to accept her trance utterances and writings as spiritistic revelations. Podmore, after a most careful analysis, concludes that "Mrs. Piper's trance utterances indicate the possession of some supernormal power of apprehension, at least the capacity to read the unspoken and even unconscious thoughts and emotions of other minds."[73] He is willing to admit that if any case in the whole history of Spiritualism points at communication with the spirits of the dead, hers is that case, but he adds, "to other students of the records, including the present writer, the evidence nevertheless appears at present insufficient to justify the spiritualistic view even of a working hypothesis." "I cannot point to a single instance in which a precise and unambiguous piece of information has been furnished, of a kind which could not have proceeded from the medium's own mind, working upon the materials provided in the hints let drop by the sitter."[74] [Footnote 73: "Modern Spiritualism," Podmore, Vol. II, pp. 342-343.] [Footnote 74: "Modern Spiritualism," Podmore, Vol. II, p. 345.] _The Limitations of the Scientist in Psychical Investigation_ It is impossible in this study to follow through the records of the Society. A representative group of its members, some of them men whose names carry weight in other regions, have been led by their investigations to adopt the spiritistic hypothesis. Significantly, however, it is generally the scientist and not the psychologist who commits himself most strongly to Spiritism. He is strongly impressed, as was Sir William Crookes, by phenomena of one sort or another which do not come under his laws, and he assigns to them causes which lie altogether out of his field. Indeed the temper and training of the scientist handicap him in all psychical investigations. He has only one of two alternatives: to explain what he sees in terms of what his laboratories have told him, or else in terms of forces with which he is not familiar. His training in careful experimentation may fit him to test and isolate physical phenomena, but if they cannot be explained in terms of the forces and laws with which he is familiar his conclusions are no more authoritative than the conclusions of any other reasonably intelligent man. He may, therefore, lend the weight of a great name to conclusions--or conjectures--entirely outside his own province. The element of trickery in the ordinary professional séance is notorious.[75] The ordinary physical phenomena of spiritism have almost without exception been duplicated by conjurers--many of whom have mystifying tricks of their own no medium can duplicate and even the most unusual phenomena, such as Home's apparent ability to handle fire unburnt and his levitation can be paralleled in savage rites or the performance of Indian fakirs, to which no professedly spiritistic explanation is attached. In many instances a trained conjurer would be far more apt to detect fraud than a trained scientist. He would at least know where to look for a probable explanation. [Footnote 75: Carrington, "The Psychical Phenomena of Spiritualism," pp. 6 and 7.] _The Society for Psychical Research Gives Intellectual Standing to Their Investigations_ If the explanations of the whole group of phenomena is not in the known resident forces about us it is presumably in powers or aspects of personality not yet fully known. Here the psychologist is a better witness than the scientist and it is significant that psychologists have been slower to accept the spiritistic hypothesis than the scientist. Hyslop is an exception but the extent to which Hyslop has of late gone in some of his reported utterances would seem to indicate that he has passed far beyond the bonds of the scientific. And indeed, the whole tendency of those who let themselves go strongly with the spiritistic tide is exactly in this direction. It ought, however, to be said that even these members of the S.P.R. who have become spiritistic have generally been savingly conservative in their conclusions. At any rate, the work of the Society for Psychical Research has given intellectual standing to what was before a sort of hole and corner affair under suspicion twice: first, because of the character of those involved, second, because of the character of what they revealed. It is difficult for one not predisposed toward the occult and even strongly prejudiced against it to deny in alleged spiritistic phenomena a challenging residuum which may in the end compel far-reaching modifications in the conclusions both of science and psychology. By one set of tests this residuum is unexpectedly small. One of the canons of the S.P.R. is to reject the work of any medium once convicted or strongly suspected of fraud. There is a vast literature in this region through whose outstanding parts the writer has for a good while now been trying to find his way, often enough ready to quote the Pope in the Ring and the Book. "I have worn through this sombre wintry day With winter in my soul ... Over these dismalest of documents" The reports of sittings cover weary pages of murky statement; the descriptions of the discarnate life are monotonously uniform and governed almost without exception by old, old conceptions of planes and spheres. There is always a preponderance of the trivial--though the advocates of spiritism claim, and the justice of this claim must be allowed, that this is inevitable and that only through the veridical character of the inconsequential can the consequential be established. Moreover, the impartial student working over the records should at least recognize the pathetic importance which those, believing themselves to be in touch with their own dead, naturally attach to even the most trivial instances. This sense of really being in touch, itself entirely subjective, probably carries over ninety-nine out of every hundred who finally become spiritists. It would be foolish to ignore the contributive force of this sense. In one form or another it is the last element in our recognition of our friends, and it never can be judged externally. But on the other hand a recognition of the unwarranted lengths to which--with lonely longing behind it--it may carry even the best poised minds, must give us pause in accepting any conclusion thus reached. _The Very Small Number of Dependable Mediums_ Spiritistic literature is endlessly diffuse, but on the other hand the more dispassionate students rest their case on an unexpectedly small body of undiscredited evidence. Mrs. Piper, Home and Stainton Moses are the mediums with whom the case of the S.P.R. really stands or falls. Home was never detected in fraud and was non-professional. Sir William Crookes' experiments in these physical phenomena were carried on with him as medium. His work, however, was generally done for a small group of already convinced followers and their testimony, while sincere and generally consistent, may often have been influenced in ways of which they themselves were not conscious. Podmore thinks them to have been unduly suggestible and offers hallucinations as an alternative hypothesis. Stainton Moses was respected in his private life, a teacher, a clergyman and a private tutor. His specialties were the introduction of a great variety of articles--apports as they are called--at his sittings, levitation, table-tipping and automatic writing and the direct voice. His control was known as "Imperator" and this ghostly commander fills a large place in the S.P.R. literature. "Imperator" had a strong homiletic instinct (remember that Moses was a clergyman) and communicated first and last through automatic writing, a considerable exposition of the spiritualistic creed, the larger part of which could have been preached from any liberal pulpit with no other effect on the hearers than to win their assent to blameless commonplaces--or, possibly, put them to sleep. Mrs. Piper affords the strongest evidence of what Podmore calls "Some supernormal power of apprehension" in the entire history of trance mediumship. She was for years under the constant observation of a capable group by no means unanimously sympathetic with the spiritistic hypothesis, and has never been detected in fraud. She contributed a very great amount of information to her sitters which she apparently could not and did not obtain from known sources. There are no physical phenomena in connection with her work. The records of her séances fill a large place in the proceedings of the S.P.R. and the case for spiritism could be more safely rested with her than any other medium. But the point here is that these three--Home, Moses and Mrs. Piper--supply the larger part of material which the really trained investigators of the last forty years are at all willing to take seriously. If there have been only three mediums in forty years who have commanded the general confidence--and Podmore does not feel absolutely sure of Home--of the group whose judgment the rest of us have to depend upon, we have a situation in which the average untrained seeker dealing with the average medium can have no sound confidence at all. The whole region is shot through and through with uncertainties, deceits and alternative hypotheses. _Spiritism a Question of Testimony and Interpretation_ It is all fundamentally a matter of testimony. We have, or we have not, a body of fact for which we are in debt to observation. The observation may be first hand--as in Sir Oliver Lodge's sittings where he reports what he saw and heard. It may be second hand as the cases reported in the larger part of the authoritative literature of psychic phenomena. (Second hand, that is, for the authors and those who depend upon them.) Trustworthy observation is probably more difficult here than in any region of investigation. The whole situation is unfavourable; low lights and high emotion, the instinctive tendency to read into the facts a desired content even in watching them, the possibility of hallucinations and forms of hypnosis, all combine to render human testimony unreliable and introduce errors of observation. Nowhere can we be less sure of our facts and even when the facts are admitted the interpretation of them still remains, and here the room for difference is equally great. At best we are dealing with forces not yet subdued to law, phenomena for which normal experience supplies no parallel. It is all a region of intimations and possible permissions, but never for a moment of inevitable conclusions. One must go slow enough in offering any opinion at all. The writer recognizes and accepts, to begin with, a preponderance of dependable testimony for physical phenomena not to be explained in terms of any force with which science is now familiar. In this he goes beyond Podmore who would eliminate all physical phenomena from the problem, and fully as far as Carrington. But Sir William Crookes never admitted entire error in this region,[76] and the conclusions of Geley (though he cites in part Eusapia Palladino, who is more or less discredited) point in the same direction. His studies of materialization are so vivid as to be uncanny and his photographs a series of documents which still await explanation.[77] There would seem to be a possible exercise of personal force not dependent upon muscular pull or pressure, bodily movements operating against known laws and even the building of this mysterious force into complete or fragmentary body-like forms. [Footnote 76: See Carrington, "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism," p. 377.] [Footnote 77: Geley, "From the Unconscious to the Conscious."] On the psychical side there is dependable evidence for information conveyed by supernormal means across considerable spaces--possibly long distances and the power to secure and report information not gained in any normal way. These are bare statements capable of great amplification. But they cover the ground. _Three Possible Explanations of So-Called Spiritistic Phenomena_ Admitting the facts, there are three possible explanations. First, the Daimonistic. There are, according to this theory, in the unseen world--wherever and whatever that may be--an order of beings akin to ourselves, either less or more highly developed, mischievous or benign. This is an old, old belief; it has pervaded animistic religions, fathered witchcraft, persisted in the belief of demoniac control, enriched folk lore, filled the friendly silences of the night with terror and haunted humanity. Now it has found its renaissance in the full blaze of Twentieth Century Science. "It seems not improbable," says Sir William Barrett, "that many of the _physical_ manifestations witnessed in a spiritualistic séance are the product of human-like but not really human intelligence--good or bad daimonia they may be, _elementals_ some have called them, which aggregate round the medium; drawn from that particular plane of mental and moral development in the unseen which corresponds to the mental and moral plane of the medium."[78] This is, with little enough alteration, the very point from which we set out in the remote dawn of our endeavour to interpret the mystery of the world about us. The only difference is that Sir William has his daimon for a tipping table and the savage had his for a flowing spring. Sir William may be right but primitive man was wrong. The whole trend of science heretofore has been to eliminate capricious and isolated elements from observed phenomena and include them in a sweep of law for whose operation the resident forces in the universe and human personality are seen to be sufficient. The daimonistic hypothesis has always up to this time been proved not only unnecessary but positively misleading. It belongs to a region where proof and disproof are equally impossible, but the weight of experience and especially all our truer understandings of ourselves and our world, dearly bought through the intellectual travail of our race, are against it. To accept it is really to turn back the clock and populate the unseen again with the creation of our fears or our fancies. It is at the best the too easy solution of a challenging problem, at the worst an aspect of that renaissance of superstition which is one of the strangest characteristics of our own time. [Footnote 78: "On the Threshold of the Unseen," p. 113.] The second explanation is spiritistic. There are unseen presences but they are the discarnate who seek in the more trivial phenomena to bring themselves to our attention and in the more important to assure us of their continued existence and satisfy their longing and ours in renewed personal contacts. Given a faith in immortality, this explanation is natural enough--even inevitable. If the discarnate still live they must remember and desire. Death does not end affection on our side. It should not end affection on their side. There must be, moreover, what one may call a discarnate status--an order, that is, of relationships and activities in which discarnate personality realizes and expresses itself. Our racial curiosities about the state of the dead are quenchless. Every religion has its creeds, its dreams, its assurances. From the Nirvana of the Buddhist to the ardent paradise of the Mohammedan, faith and longing have built their structure and peopled it with their dead. Great ranges of literature are coloured by such speculations. Christian hymnology is instinct with them and not a little of our noblest poetry. We have set our hells over against our heavens and opposed their terror to celestial splendours. Modern Spiritualism has to head it the whole drive of such speculations as these. For if the generality have been content to leave the solution of the very great difficulties which any faith in immortality involves, to the demonstrations of eventual experience, and rest in what is really the poetry of their faith, others either more curious or more credulous seek the testimony of the senses. Such as these naturally find what they seek in the phenomena of trance mediumship. They believe that the discarnate are constantly seeking to penetrate the veil between their order and ours and avail themselves of every opportunity to recall themselves to the memory of the incarnate. _Myers' Theory of Mediumship_ F.W.H. Myers undertakes to describe how this may be done from the point of view of the spirit. "Seeking then for some open avenue, it discerns something which corresponds to a _light_--a glimmer of translucency in the confused darkness of our material world. This 'light' indicates a _sensitive_--a human organism so constituted that a spirit can temporarily _inform_ or _control_ it, not necessarily interrupting the stream of the sensitive's ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand only, or perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well as hand, and occupying all the sensitive's channels of self-manifestation." There are, naturally, in all this unescapable elements of speculation. As a matter of fact anything which we may imagine about the discarnate life may be almost unbelievably wide of the mark. Memory more than anything else is the binding force in personality. We know ourselves to be in the morning what we were when we went to sleep the night before, simply because memory reassembles immediately the continuing elements of our individual existences. More than that, we are greatly helped by our surroundings; everything which meets us in the morning has associations by which memory is served and, therefore, by the almost automatic process of putting together what we remember and surrendering ourselves to the suggestions of what we see and meet we find our places in a waking, working world and go about our business. If we were to awake in a totally strange world where nothing was in any degree at all similar to the world in which we went to sleep, we might find ourselves so sadly puzzled as to doubt our own identity, even though memory persisted in its identifying suggestion. And if in addition to this we found ourselves without the contribution of physical sensation to which we have always been used--sightless, soundless, touchless--one can easily imagine a shock in the face of which even the most strongly centered personality would give way. And yet such changes as this probably only faintly indicate the adjustments which the discarnate are called upon to meet. It is as if we were asked to argue or to imagine from one dimension to another. These are difficulties, of course, which attend any conception of immortality, but we usually escape them by refusing to follow through what they involve and taking refuge in a free poetic imagination sustained by faith and enriched by tradition. In the face of all this Myers' supposition, ingenious as it is, can do no more than repeat the more prosaic assumption which is the basis of spiritism, and that is that the discarnate naturally desire to communicate with those whom they have left, one hardly dares say behind them for even that simple word introduces suppositions which may have no meaning at all, and would naturally avail themselves of any possible opportunity. The whole process, if it be a process, must lie in the region of suggestion. If there be a telepathy between the living it is not impossible that there should be a telepathy between the living and the discarnate. _Telepathy: Between the Living or the Living and the Discarnate?_ There might be thus a kind of eager pressing of the departed against the doors which had been shut and not quite locked behind them, taking the form of more or less obscure suggestion to which the medium would be sensitive and so recreate in ways at which we can only guess some hint of the voice or presence of the discarnate. The suggestion would come from the other side. The form in which it is given to our world would be the contribution of the medium. As far as there is any possible explanation of the facts of trance mediumship as a revelation from the dead it is somewhere here. Telepathy between the living is fairly well enough established to make this a not impossible hypothesis, and even materialization might be accounted for in the same way. Sir Oliver Lodge is inclined to discover in the luminiferous ether an environment in which discarnate personality could function. But this is pure supposition, though others have adopted it. Walker, for example, in his extremely suggestive work on Monism and Christian Theism. But he suggests the ether only as a help to the imagination in meeting the difficulties of an immortal existence--the old Heaven and Hell having been made astronomically and geologically impossible. But if Einstein should upset the hypothesis of the ether all this would go the way of the Heaven and Hell of Dante. We cannot eliminate, however, in a supposition so vague as this the contributive elements supplied by the friends themselves to whom the communication is supposed to be addressed and by whom it is certainly interpreted, for if the trance medium is open to suggestion from the discarnate side, the medium must be equally open to suggestion from the living, a suggestion likely to be very much stronger, more distinct, more compelling. The real crux of the whole problem is the disentanglement of these possible lines of suggestion and the assignment of them to their true sources. We may, the writer believes, eliminate as far as their evidential value is concerned, all physical phenomena. In doing this we need not necessarily deny the reality of some of the physical phenomena but the larger part of the residue which might possibly be left after the elimination of fraud on the part of the medium and unintentional misrepresentation on the part of the witnesses is so utterly meaningless as to have no value at all. The only physical phenomena which can have any direct bearing on spirit communication are the tappings and table tippings which can by a deal of ingenuity be made to spell out a message or answer questions yes or no. The same question as to the source of the suggestion enters here. Even if we admit the taps to spell out a message, we have still to decide from whom the message comes and the messages alleged to be contributed through the voice are so much more full and intelligible as to leave the whole question standing or falling with the credibility of voice trance mediumship. _Controls_ The usual machinery of a séance creates suspicion. Most mediums have controls. Nothing is more capricious than these controls. They may be people who really never existed at all. The genesis of Mrs. Piper's control, Dr. Phinuit, is suggestive. "It would appear that Mrs. Piper in 1884 had visited for advice a professional clairvoyant whose leading control claimed to be a Frenchman named Finné, or Finnett."[79] When Mrs. Piper was later seen by William James, a French doctor had succeeded in obtaining almost exclusive control and his name was reported to be Phinuit. Beyond debate, as far as name goes, here is a kind of transmuted suggestion. The Finnett of the French clairvoyant, who may or may not have really lived, becomes the Phinuit of Mrs. Piper, for whose existence there is apparently no testimony at all. [Footnote 79: Podmore's "Modern Spiritualism," Vol. II, p. 333.] The controls have sometimes been Indians and indeed almost any one may appear as a control--Longfellow, for example, or Mrs. Siddons, or Bach or Vanderbilt. In a region where disproof and proof are equally impossible this element of capricious control is suspicious. It is much more likely to be some obscure casting up of the medium's mind, through lines of association of which the medium is utterly unconscious, than to represent the personalities so named. In Raymond the control is one Moonstone, or a little Indian girl called Freda or Feda, who speaks of herself in the third person and who reports a great many silly things in a very silly way. It is possible, of course, to say that these thus named are spirit mediums as necessary for the transfer of suggestion from the discarnate order as mediums seem to be in the incarnate order, and that abnormal personalities are as much needed on one side as the other through the abnormality of the whole process. But this is patently to beg the question. There is room in the whole process for the trivial, even the inconsequential. As the advocates of spiritism have urged, identification very often turns on apparently trivial things but it is difficult to justify the very great element of the capricious and actually foolish which enters so largely into the records of all sittings. It would seem as if death robbed grave personalities of their gravity, the strong of their force and the wise of their wisdom, and this is so hard to believe as to make us wonder whether we are not really dealing with something which belongs to an entirely different region and is open to an entirely different line of explanation. But beyond such considerations as these, which may or may not have force, there remains the graver question still--the question of the identification of the sources from which the intelligible residue of communications is received. If we fall back upon suggestion there are always two general sources of suggestion--the incarnate and the discarnate, and among the incarnate themselves there are manifold sources of suggestion. The sitter may be unconsciously supplying the material which the medium is receiving, recasting and giving back again, or the medium may be reporting what is received from other incarnate sources than the sitter. (This, of course, when we have eliminated all that might possibly be contributed by the medium.) _The Dilemma of Spiritism_ Anything, therefore, which is known to the living may be the source of the medium's information. Only those things, therefore, which are utterly unknown to the living anywhere, which cannot possibly have been known by the medium himself or herself, can be finally and conclusively a testimony to communications from the dead. But unless the information thus received is known to the living, its truth or falsity can never be proved or disproved. This is the dilemma which spiritism is finally brought to face and from this dilemma there is absolutely no escape. It does not forbid the conclusions which may be drawn from a seeming preponderance of evidence, but it does forbid absolute certainty, for, to repeat, if the information is to be verified it must be verified by the living, which proves that some one does possess it and may have communicated it--if we assume such communication to be possible--to the medium. On the other hand, if no one at all possesses the information, then we may never be sure that it is real information, or anything else than a creation of an excited imagination. There is one test here which, if it were really made under absolutely dependable conditions, conditions, that is, in no wise open to suspicion or misunderstanding, might be final. If a message written before death and so sealed as to be unknown to any one save the one who wrote it, could be correctly reported, it would have, everything else being right, an immense force. (Though even here clairvoyance--for which, on the whole, there is a pretty dependable evidence--might afford the true explanation.) F.W.H. Myers left such a message as this. In January, 1891, he sent Sir Oliver Lodge a "sealed envelope, in the hope that after his death the communication contained in the envelope would be able to be given by means of a medium. Many different messages obtained by a well-known medium, Madame Verrall, and coming supposedly from Frederick Myers, led them to believe that they represented this communication. The envelope was opened in December, 1904, and 'it was found that there was no resemblance between its actual contents and what was alleged by the script to be contained in it.'"[80] If there is any authentic case of this final test being successfully maintained, the writer does not know it. There are instances of hidden articles discovered, but these tests by no means possess the same force of testimony. [Footnote 80: Boirac, "The Psychology of the Future," p. 278.] We may assume, then, that we have no absolute demonstration of spirit communication. We have only a very complex group of phenomena capable of varying explanations. Any fair-minded student of the whole subject must recognize that men who have had ample opportunity for first hand investigation, not hasty in their conclusions and in some instances of very great intellectual force, have taken an opposite view. They have felt the testimony to be both sound and sufficient. There is an unescapable personal equation here which probably finally determines divergent attitudes. As has been said before, those generally who have accepted the spiritistic explanation have been led to do so through communications in which they discovered some personal note or touch, to which they themselves would be hospitably susceptible and which would have far less weight with those whose affections and previous associations were not thus involved. This does not necessarily prove their conclusions to have been false. Perhaps just this personal element is necessary to give final meaning to what otherwise is so perplexing and even contradictory. The dogmatism which shuts the door squarely in the face of spiritism is as unreasonable, as unscientific, as the credulity which opens the door wide and accepts everything which comes through. _The Influence of Spiritism Upon Its Adherents_ There are other considerations which bear more or less indirectly upon this difficult matter, but which have their weight. In general, those who have whole-heartedly accepted spiritism have been unable thereafter to maintain the balanced detachment which they urge upon others. They tend to become unduly credulous; they force their explanation beyond its necessary limits; they tend to become persons of the idée fixe type; they become sponsors for extravagant stories, and, in general, lead those who are influenced by their position or name far beyond the limits which impartial investigation, even on the part of those sympathetic, has as yet justified. Those descriptions of the discarnate state, moreover, which reach us through mediums are undependable. There is a machinery of planes and spheres and emanations and reincarnations which is not at all peculiar to spiritism but belongs to the fringes of the occult in every manifestation of it, which is perpetually recurrent in modern spiritualistic literature. We are on the frontiers of a region where the reason which steadies us in the practical conduct of life and guides us in an order with which we are familiar through age-old inheritances, has no value at all. Our very terminology ceases to have any meaning. A generous creative imagination may build for itself what cities it will of habitation, furnish them as it desires and try to conceive, as it has power, the experiences and progressions of the discarnate, but to invest these imaginations with evidential accuracy is to break down all the limits between the dependable and the undependable. And finally, though this is rather a commonplace observation than an aspect of our investigation, there is little to be gained in the necessary business of solid living by such an interweaving of the two worlds as spiritism carries with it. One life at a time is plainly enough all that we are equal to. Those who surrender themselves to such conclusions and inquiries are in very great danger of being so detached from the actualities of the present order as to become themselves errant and eccentric spirits, finding their true interests in endless séances and investigations which have no practical bearing upon life as it now is. _The Real Alternative to Spiritism_ The writer's observation of the effect of much going to mediums upon those whom he has personally known leads him to distrust the whole matter and possibly to react too strongly against it. A discriminating critic has said that Spiritualism is not Spiritualism at all, but a subtle materialism, in that it is the effort to verify the reality of the spiritual in terms of the material. It is, therefore, just one more unexpected aspect of the hard skepticism of the time, which trusts nothing it cannot hear, or see, or touch. A faith which is not solidly established in reason, which does not continue and complete in its own regions what we know and understand, is a cloud-built faith, but a faith, on the other hand, which refuses to adventure beyond the limits of the senses is a faith too largely empty of any noble content. If the phenomena under examination, then, cannot be explained in terms of animism and if the spiritistic hypothesis is gravely open to question, what explanation is left? In what follows the writer has been greatly influenced by the suggestion of the students of abnormal personality generally, and partly by the work of certain Frenchmen who, with French logic and brilliancy of insight, are working toward far-reaching psychological restatements and even to recasting of the accepted scientific understandings of matter and force. Maeterlinck says somewhere in substance that our universe is as tightly sealed as a sphere of steel and that whatever happens inside must be explained in terms of its own resident forces, and, in general, the whole of science and the weight of experience are on Maeterlinck's side. Of course this assumes that a good many things have been put inside this sphere to begin with. Speaking in terms of religion, this does not shut God out of the world, but it does shut up life and experience to conformity with their own laws and forces them to explain their phenomena in terms of their own content. In a sentence, just as the resident forces of the outside world have been heretofore sufficient, in the measure that we have been able to discover them, to explain all the phenomena of the outside world, it is reasonable to believe that the content of personality is sufficient to explain all personal phenomena, whether normal or abnormal, and that it is to ourselves and not to the discarnate that we have to look for the explanation of the phenomena of alleged spiritism. _The Investigations of Émile Boirac_ The men who are working along this line, particularly Geley and Émile Boirac, by no means deny the phenomena, but they offer another solution. Boirac, particularly, finds his point of departure in hypnotism and suggestibility. Now here is a continuation of the line of approach and interpretation which cleared up the whole confused matter of mesmerism. We have already seen how the French investigators found the explanation of what Mesmer and those who followed him have been able to accomplish, not in magnetic influence or any such thing, but in the remarkable changes produced in personality by exterior or autosuggestion, and just as this was the key to the phenomena of mesmerism, it is more likely than anything else to prove the key to the explanation of the phenomena of spiritualism, for these are really nothing more than simply aspects of the trance state, however induced. It is not necessary to follow, in this connection, Boirac's analysis of the phenomena attendant upon the trance state, or to consider his theories as to hypnosis itself. He believes that there are in our personalities hidden forces which, in the normal conduct of life, are not brought into action. They are no necessary part of our adjustment to our working environment; on the whole they complicate rather than simplify the business of living and they are best--though this is not his statement but the writer's conclusion from the whole matter--they are best left unawakened. What we are normally is the outcome of the adjustment of personality to those creative and shaping forces in response to which life is most happily and usefully carried on. But when the waking self and normal self is for the moment put in abeyance and new forces are evoked from the "vasty deep" of our souls, we are capable of an entirely different set of manifestations. First of all, those usually associated with the hypnotic state which do not need to be further considered here--a great docility to suggestion, unconsciousness to pain and the like. We have also the possibility of powers which Boirac calls magnetoidal. "These appear to involve the intervention of forces still unknown, distinct from those that science has so far discovered and studied, but of a physical nature and more or less analogous to the radiating forces of physics: light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc."[81] [Footnote 81: Boirac, "The Psychology of the Future," p. 24. Some recent French investigations seem to indicate that this force--Myers' Telekinesis--operating through barriers, changes the magnetic properties of that through which it passes. Carrington, the most skeptical student in this region, is inclined to admit its existence. See "The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism," p. 359.] Under this general head he considers Animal Magnetism, what is known generally as mesmerism, the power, that is, to create hypnotic states in others; the phenomena of Telepathy "comprising numerous varieties, such as the transmission or penetration of thought, the exteriorization of the sensitiveness, psychometry, telepathy, clairvoyance or lucidity, etc.," and finally states "where physical matter appears to exert over animate beings, especially human beings, an action that does not seem to be explicable by any physical or chemical properties already known." He believes also that there is in human beings a radiating influence susceptible of being exercised at a distance over other animate beings or else upon inanimate objects. He finds in trance mediumship all the elements which enter into any hypnotic state. "The trance is produced and developed spontaneously, without the intervention of any visible operator, under the sole effect of the nervous and mental conditions in which the medium is placed, and among which the _belief in spirits_ and the expectation of their intervention would appear to play a considerable part."[82] The italicized words "a belief in spirits" are extremely significant. In the entranced personality there is the suggestion, already strongly established, that whatever is experienced during the trance will be due to spirit intervention or revelation. This introduces the element of expectant attention. We know on the physical side of what expectant attention is capable. It becomes a real factor in all faith healing; it may produce, either for the better or the worse, far-reaching changes in physical states and it is perfectly possible for such an expectant attention once fully in action in the trance--given of course, to begin with, the attitude and interests of the medium in a waking state--to create all the machinery of controls, revelation and the like, which characterize trance mediumship. [Footnote 82: Boirac, "The Psychology of the Future," p. 271.] Boirac finds, therefore, in spiritism a complex determined by certain particular nervous and mental states into which there enter, in one form or another, almost all the facts of abnormal psychology and he believes that science, faithful to the principle of economy, should consider the alleged phenomena of spiritism, until proved to the contrary, reducible to facts of the preceding orders. He does not call the spiritistic hypothesis impossible; he does believe it ought not to be called in until every other explanation has been examined and found inadequate and he is not inclined to believe that we have as yet exhausted other possible explanations. One man's authority here is by no means final. F.W.H. Myers has taken into consideration many of the facts upon which Boirac dwells and on the whole has reached a different conclusion. But, in general, the more deeply we advance into the region of abnormal personality and the phenomena of hypnotic and related states, the more reason there seems to be for believing that there are resident in human personality powers which, if at once evoked and released, are sufficient to account for all mediumistic revelations without assuming that they come from the discarnate. _Geley's Conclusions_ Geley has gone much farther in some directions here than any one else. He is more concerned with the physical phenomena. He has a striking series of photographs of materialization, the authenticity of which it is difficult to doubt. He finds an ascending series in abnormal psychology from neuropathic states to mediumship with gradations which intensify the abnormal or the supernormal, but in which the continuity of development is never broken. His analyses here are both keen and suggestive and tend to confirm the conclusions of other students that we have resident in human personality elements which are adequate to the explanation of any phenomena which have been as yet presented. As far as the physical phenomena go, he cites experiments which seem to reveal "threads of substance and rigid rods, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, proceeding from the fingers of the medium" and serving as a real mechanism for the movement of distant and sometimes quite heavy articles. He argues from this that there is a possible exteriorization of power which may itself be governed by ideas and believes also that such facts as this will eventually compel us to recast our conceptions of matter and force and profoundly affect biology and all evolutionary theories. The whole matter is necessarily obscure, but such studies do give a new direction and a larger significance to our whole subject matter. In substance the spiritistic hypothesis is inadequate; it is too simple, too easy. We are evidently only upon the threshold of the whole subject. All conclusions are necessarily inconclusive; there is no region in which one has less right to be dogmatic. The bearing of it all upon immortality seems to the writer to be not at all where the spiritists place it. If human personality has in itself such latent powers, if there are these extensions of a mysterious force which operate beyond our normal mechanism, if there are contacts of consciousness deeper than consciousness itself in which information is given and received outside normal methods of communication, we are led to conceive that what for want of a better name we call spirit has an unexpected range and force. We are by no means so shut in by the walls of the material and the sensible as we have heretofore supposed. There is a transcendence of spirit over matter and materially imposed conditions which must give us pause. If, in the murky ways which have been brought to our attention, spirit can transcend matter, we have at least one more reason for affirming its supremacy and one more suggestion of a force or a reality which may be able to survive even the dissolution of matter itself. In other words, here is a line of testimony, richly suggestive, though by no means clear, to the power of the soul to make its own conditions, and what is immortality but just this? The phenomena of so-called spiritism, while not as yet justifying Spiritualism, certainly make a dogmatic materialism increasingly different. Those of us who are as anxious for a sustaining faith in immortality as any of our comrades in the great quest may possibly be, but who are as yet unwilling to accept their conclusions, may nevertheless find in this subject matter which is common both to us and to them, the permission to believe that that which is most distinctly ourselves possesses enduring possibilities. If it may from time to time break through in curious ways the walls which now shut it in, may it not in some very real way pass through the gate which Death opens and still continue in such a richness of consciousness and identity as to organize for itself another life beyond the grave? _The Meaning of Spiritism for Faith_ Faith may find its permissions and witnesses in many regions. The writer believes that faith in immortality finds an added permission in this region also. Beyond debate, there are laws which we now but dimly discern and possible forces which only now and again touch the coasts of our present experience, as tides which sweep in from distant and mysterious seas. Beyond debate, we may not confine the interplay of mind with mind to purely physical channels, and under exceptional circumstances effects may be produced whose causes we have not yet been able to tabulate. Our conscious lives are rooted deeper than we dream. They reach out in directions which we do not ourselves know. It may well be, therefore, that they ascend to heights whose summits we do not see, and possess a permanence independent of the body which they inhabit, or the things of seeming sense which surround them, and it may be also that what is now occult and perplexing and capricious may in the future become as truly an organized science as the alchemy and the astrology of the Middle Ages have become the chemistry and astronomy of our own time. Beyond this one may assert the wholesome commonplace that the main business of living is in the region of the known and the normal. It is for our own well-being that the veil hangs dark between this world and the next. An order in which there was constant passing and repassing would be impossible. It would be either one thing or the other. It does demoralize us to be always searching after the secrets of the unseen. Might it not demoralize those who have passed through the veil to be always trying to come back? Surely the most fitting preparation for what awaits us hereafter is the brave conduct of life under those laws and conditions which are the revelation of the whole solid experience of our race. Beyond this it is difficult to go and beyond this it is not necessary to go. XI MINOR CULTS: THE MEANING OF THE CULTS FOR THE CHURCH _Border-land Cults_ The cults which we have so far considered are the outstanding forms of modern free religious movements, but they do not begin to exhaust the subject matter. Even the outstanding cults have their own border-lands. New Thought is particularly rich in variants and there are in all American cities sporadic, distantly related and always shifting movements--groups which gather about this or that leader, maintain themselves for a little and then dissolve, to be recreated around other centers with perhaps a change of personnel. The Masonic Temple in Chicago is said to be occupied on Sundays all day long by larger or smaller groups which may be societies for ethical culture or with some social program or other, or for the study of Oriental religions. One would need to attend them all and saturate himself far more deeply than is possible for any single investigator in their creeds or their contentions to appraise them justly. Their real significance is neither in their organization, for they have little organization, nor in their creed, but in their temper. They represent reaction, restlessness and the spiritual confusion of the time. They can be explained--in part at least--in terms of that social deracination to which reference has already been made. They represent also an excess of individualism in the region of religion and its border-lands. An examination of the church advertisement pages in the newspapers of New York, Detroit, Chicago or San Francisco reveals their extent, their variety and their ingenuity in finding names for themselves. On Sunday, February 25th, the Detroit papers carried advertisements of Vedanta, Spiritist and Spiritualist groups (the Spiritist group calls itself "The Spirit Temple of Light and Truth"), The Ultimate Thought Society, The First Universal Spiritual Church, The Church of Psychic Research, The Philosophical Church of Natural Law, Unity Center, The Culture of Isolan, Theosophy, Divine Science Center, and Lectures on Divine Metaphysics. Their leaders advertise such themes as: The Opulent Consciousness, The Law of Non-Attachment, Psychic Senses and Spirituality, The Continuity of Life, The Spiritualism of Shakespeare, The Voiceless Code of the Cosmos, The Godlikeness of Divine Metaphysics in Business. Their themes are not more bizarre, it must be confessed, than some of the topics announced for the orthodox churches. (Indeed the church advertisement page in cities whose churches indulge generously in display advertisements is not altogether reassuring reading.) But, in general, this list which can be duplicated in almost any large city is testimony enough to a confusion of cults and a confusion of thought. As far as they can be classified, according to the scheme of this study, they are variants of New Thought, Theosophy and Spiritualism. If they were classified according to William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" they would be seen as mystical rather than rational, speculative rather than practical. Fort Newton, who speaks of them perhaps more disrespectfully than they deserve as "bootleggers in religion," finds in these lesser movements generally a protest against the excessively external in the life of the Church to-day and a testimony to the quenchless longing of the soul for a religion which may be known and lived out in terms of an inner experience. But this certainly is not true of all of them. _Bahaism_ There is, however, one other larger and more coherent cult, difficult to classify, which deserves a more extended notice. That is Bahaism, which, as it is now taking form, is a leaven rather than a cult. It is an attempt after spiritual unity and the reduction of religion to very simple and inclusive forms and a challenge to the followers of religions widely separated on the surface to be more true to what is deepest in their faith. It has a long and stirring history and curiously enough is drawn from Mohammedan sources. Its basal literatures are Arabic and Persian, "so numerous and in some cases so voluminous that it would hardly be possible for the most industrious student to read in their entirety even those which are accessible, a half dozen of the best known collections in Europe." We find its genesis, historically, in certain expectations long held by Persian Mohammedans akin to Jewish Messianic expectations held before and at the time of Christ. There has been, we know, a tradition of disputed succession in Mohammedanism ever since the death of the prophet. Persian Mohammedans believed the true successor of Mohammed to have been unjustly deprived of his temporal supremacy and they trace a long line of true successors whose divine right would some day be recognized and reëstablished. Perhaps we might find a parallel here among those Englishmen who believe that the true succession of the English throne should be in the house of the Stuarts, or those royalists in France who champion the descendants of one or the other former reigning houses. But the Persian faithful have gone farther than that. They believe that the last true successor of Mohammed who disappeared in the tenth century never died, but is still living in a mysterious city, surrounded by a band of faithful disciples and "that at the end of time he will issue forth and 'fill the earth with justice after it has been filled with iniquity.'" A parallel here would be the old stories of Frederick Barbarossa who waits in his cave for the proper time to come forth and reassert his imperial power. This curious Persian belief has worked itself out in a time scheme much like the time schemes of other Apocalyptic beliefs, the detail of which is difficult enough. But in substance this hidden and true successor of the prophet has had from time to time those through whom he reveals himself to the faithful and makes known his will, and these are known as Babs or gates; "the gate, that is, whereby communication was reopened between the hidden one and his faithful followers." The practical outcome of this would be that any one who could convince Persian Mohammedans that he was the Bab or "gate" would possess a mystic messianic authority. Such a confidence actually established would give him an immense hold over the faithful and make him a force to be reckoned with by the Mohammedan world. _The Bab and His Successors_ As far as our own present interest is concerned, the movement dates from 1844 when a young Persian merchant announced himself as the Bab. If we are to find a parallel in Christianity he was a kind of John the Baptist, preparing the way for a greater who should come after him, but the parallel ends quickly, for since the Mohammedan Messiah did not appear, his herald was invested with no little of the authority and sanctity which belonged to the hidden one himself. The career of the first Bab was short--1844 to 1850. He was only twenty-four years old at the time of his manifestation, thirty when he suffered martyrdom and a prisoner during the greater part of his brief career. The practical outcome of his propaganda was a deal of bloody fighting between antagonistic Mohammedan factions. The movement received early that baptism of blood which gives persistent intensity to any persecuted movement. His followers came to regard him as a divine being. After his execution his body was recovered, concealed for seventeen years and finally placed in a shrine specially built for that purpose at St. Jean d'Acre. This shrine has become the holy place of Bahaism. During one period of his imprisonment he had opportunity to continue his writings, correspond with his followers and receive them. He was thus able to give the world his message and we find in his teachings the germ of the gospel of Bahaism. Before his death he named his successor--a young man who had been greatly drawn to him and who seemed by his youth, zeal and devotion to be set apart to continue his work. To this young man the Bab sent his rings and other personal possessions, authorized him to add to his writings and in general to inherit his influence and continue his work. This young man was recognized with practical unanimity by the Babis as their spiritual head. Owing to his youth and the secluded life which he adopted, the practical conduct of the affairs of the Babi community devolved chiefly on his elder half-brother Baha'u'llah. What follows is a confused story of schism, rival claimants and persecution but the sect grew through persecution and the control of it came in 1868 into the hands of Baha'u'llah. During the greater part of his life Baha'u'llah was either an exile or a prisoner. From 1868 until his death in 1892 he was confined with seventy of his followers in the penal colony of Acca on the Mediterranean coast. Meanwhile the faith which centered about him changed character; he was no longer a gate or herald, he was himself a "manifestation of God" with authority to change all earlier teaching. He really universalized the movement. Beneath his touch religion becomes practical, ethical, less mystic, more universal. He was possessed by a passion for universal peace and brotherhood. He addressed letters to the crowned heads of Europe asking them to cooperate in peace movements. It has been suggested that the Czar of Russia was influenced thereby and that we may thus trace back to Baha'u'llah the peace movement which preceded the war. Pilgrims came and went and through their enthusiasms the movement spread. After his death there was the renewal of disputes as to the proper succession and consequent schisms. The power came finally into the hands of Abdul-Baha who was kept under supervision by the Turkish government until 1908. He was freed by the declaration of the New Constitution and carried on thereafter with real power a worldwide propaganda. He had an unusual and winning personality, spoke fluently in Persian, Arabic and Turkish and more nearly than any man of his time filled the ideal rôle of an Eastern prophet. He died in November, 1921, and was buried on Mt. Carmel--with its memories of Elijah and millenniums of history--his praises literally being sung by a most catholic group of Mohammedans, Jews and Eastern Christians. _The Temple of Unity_ Bahaism as it is held in America to-day is distilled out of the writings and teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha. Naturally enough, in the popularization of it its contradictions have been reconciled and its subtleties disregarded. What is left fits into a variety of forms and is in line with a great range of idealism. The twelve basic principles of Bahaism as announced in its popular literature are: The Oneness of Mankind. Independent investigations of truth. The Foundation of all religions is one. Religion must be the cause of unity. Religion must be in accord with science and reason. Equality between men and women. Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten. Universal Peace. Universal Education. Solution of the economic problem. An international auxiliary language. An international tribunal. A program inclusive enough for any generous age. These principles are substantiated by quotations from the writings of Abdul-Baha and the teachings of Baha'u'llah. Many things combine to lend force to its appeal--the courage of its martyrs, its spaciousness and yet at the same time the attractiveness of its appeal and its suggestion of spiritual brotherhood. Since the movement has borne a kind of messianic expectation it adjusts itself easily to inherited Christian hopes. There are real correspondences between its expected millennium and the Christian millennium. How far its leaders, in their passion for peace and their doctrine of non-resistance and their exaltation of the life of the spirit, are in debt to the suggestions of Christianity itself, or how far it is a new expression of a temper with which the Orient has always been more in sympathy than the West, it would be difficult to say, but in some ways Bahaism does express--or perhaps reproduces--the essential spirit of the Gospels more faithfully than a good deal of Western Christianity as now organized. Those members of Christian communions which are attracted to Bahaism find in it a real hospitality to the inherited faith they take over. It is possible, therefore, to belong to the cult and at the same time to continue one's established religious life without any very great violence and indeed with a possible intensification of that life. It is difficult, therefore, to distinguish between Bahaism as it is held by devout groups in America, so far as ethics and ideals go, from much that is distinctive in the Christian spirit, though the influence of Bahaism as a whole would be to efface distinctions and especially to take the force out of the Christian creeds. Chicago, or rather Wilmette, is now the center of the movement in America and an ambitious temple is in the way of being constructed there, the suggestion for whose architecture is taken from a temple in Eskabad, Russia. This is to be a temple of universal religion, symbolizing in its architecture the unities of faith and humanity. "The temple with its nine doors will be set in the center of a circular garden symbolizing the all-inclusive circle of God's unity; nine pathways will lead to the nine doors and each one coming down the pathway of his own sect or religion or trend of thought will leave at the door the dogmas that separate and, under the dome of God's oneness, all will become one.... At night it will be brilliantly lighted and the light will shine forth through the tracery of the dome, a beacon of peace and unity rising high above Lake Michigan." This study has led us into many curious regions and shown to what unexpected conclusions the forces of faith or hope, once released, may come, but surely it has revealed nothing more curious than that the old, old controversy as to the true successor of Mohammed the prophet should at last have issued in a universal religion and set the faithful to building a temple of unity on the shores of Lake Michigan. If this work were to be complete it should include some investigation of the rituals of the cults. They are gradually creating hymns of their own; their public orders of service include responsive readings with meditations on the immanence of God, the supremacy of the spiritual and related themes. In general they dispense with the sacraments; they have no ecclesiastical orders and hardly anything corresponding to the Catholic priesthood or the Protestant ministry, though the Christian Science reader has a recognized official place. They meet in conferences; they depend largely upon addresses by their leaders. Spiritualistic movements organize themselves around séances. They use such halls as may be rented, hotels, their own homes; they have not generally buildings of their own save the Christian Science temples which are distinctive for dignity of architecture and beauty of appointment in almost every large city. _General Conclusions; the Limitations of the Writer's Method_ It remains only to sum up in a most general way the conclusions to which this study may lead. There has been a process of criticism and appraisal throughout the whole book, but there should be room at the end for some general statements. The writer recognizes the limitations of his method; he has studied faithfully the literature of the cults, but any religion is always a vast deal more than its literature. The history of the cults does not fully tell their story nor does any mere observation of their worship admit the observer to the inner religious life of the worshippers. Life always subdues its materials to its own ends, reproduces them in terms of its own realities; there are endless individual variations, but the outcome is massively uniform. Religion does the same thing. Its materials are faiths and obediences and persuasions of truth and expectations of happier states, but its ultimate creations are character and experience, and the results in life of widely different religions are unexpectedly similar. Both theoretically and practically the truer understanding or the finer faith and, particularly, the higher ethical standards should produce the richer life and this is actually so. But real goodness is everywhere much the same; there are calendared saints for every faith. There is an abundant testimony in the literature of the cults to rare goodnesses and abundant devotion, and observation confirms these testimonies. Something of this is doubtless due to their environment. The Western cults themselves and the Eastern cults in the West are contained in and influenced by the whole outcome of historic Christianity and they naturally share its spirit. If the churches need to remember this as they appraise the cults, the cults need also to remember it as they appraise the churches. Multitudes of Catholics and Protestants secure from a religion which the cults think themselves either to have corrected or outgrown exactly what the cults secure--and more. Such as these trust God, keep well, go happily about their businesses and prove their faith in gracious lives. There is room for mutual respect and a working measure of give and take on both sides. The writer is inclined to think the churches at present are more teachable than the more recent religious movements. For a long generation now the churches have been subject to searching criticism from almost every quarter. The scientist, the sociologist, the philosopher, the publicist, the discontented with things as they are and the protagonist of things as they ought to be, have all taken their turn and the Church generally, with some natural protest against being made the scapegoat for the sins of a society arrestingly reluctant to make the Church's gospel the law of its life, has taken account of its own shortcomings and sought to correct them. The cults are as yet less inclined to test themselves by that against which they have reacted. But this is beside the point. The movements we have been studying can only be fairly appraised as one follows through their outcome in life and that either in detail or entirety is impossible. But it is possible to gain from their literature a reasonable understanding of their principles and interrelations and this the writer has sought to do. _The Cults Are Aspects of the Creative Religious Consciousness of the Age_ Certain conclusions are thus made evident. These movements are the creation of the religious consciousness of the time. They are aspects of the present tense of religion. Since religion is, among other things, the effective desire to enter into right relationships with the power which manifests itself in the universe there are two variants in its content; first, our changing understanding of the power itself and second, our changing uses of it. The first varies with our knowledge and insight, the second with our own changing sense of personal need. Though God be the same yesterday, to-day and forever, our understandings of Him cannot and ought not to be the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Our faith is modified by, for example, our scientific discoveries. When the firmament of Hebrew cosmogony has given way to interstellar spaces and the telescope and the spectroscope plumb the depths of the universe, resolving nebulæ into star drifts, faith is bound to reflect the change. The power which manifests itself in the universe becomes thereby a vaster power, operating through a vaster sweep of law. Our changed understandings of ourselves must be reflected in our faith and our ethical insights as well. And because there is and ought to be no end to these changing understandings, religion itself, which is one outcome of them, must be plastic and changing. What we ask of God is equally subject to change. True enough, the old questions--Whence? Whither? and Why? are constant. As we know ourselves to be living in a world which is less than a speck in an immensity wherein the birth and death of suns are ephemeral, we may rightly distrust our own value for the vaster order. We shall, therefore, the more insistently ask Whence? and Whither? and Why? But, none the less, there is always a shifting emphasis of religious need. Our own time is manifestly more concerned about well-being in the life that now is than a happy issue in the life which is to come. Temperament also qualifies experience. The mystic seeks conscious communion with God as an end in itself; the practical temper asks the demonstration of the love of God in happy material conditions. In general, action and reaction govern this whole region. The Puritan was supremely concerned about his own salvation and the struggle consequent thereto; his descendants were chiefly interested in the extension of knowledge and the conquest of the physical order and we react against this in a new return upon ourselves and the possibilities of personality. Now these changing understandings of the power which manifests itself in the universe on the one side and our own changing senses of need on the other, give to religion a constantly fluctuating character and what is most distinctively religious in any period must be the outcome of the combination of these two variants. What an age asks of the God whom it knows colours the whole of its religious life. These cults and movements do not wholly represent the creative religious consciousness of our time, of course; a great deal of that same creative religious consciousness has given new quality to the organizations and orthodoxies of the churches. But within the frontiers of historic Christianity it has been rather the working over of the deposit of faith than an actual adventure in the making of religion. The cults and movements have not been thus limited. They have challenged old understandings, broken away from the older organizations and taken their own line, using such material as seems proper for their purpose. They are not wholly independent of the past; some of them have taken the immemorial speculations of the East for their point of departure though introducing therein a good many of the permissions or conclusions of modern science and something of the spirit of Christianity itself. Those taking their departure from Christianity have claimed rather to reinterpret and modernize it than to supplant it by their own creations. Yet when all this is recognized these cults and movements are particularly the creation of our own time. So accepted, they reveal strongly the persistence of religion. All these conjectures and confidences and reachings through the shadows are just a testimony that few are content to go on without some form of religion or other. All religion has, in one phase or another, gone through much the same process. There has been for every religion a time when it took new form out of older elements, a time when the accepted religions had little enough sympathy for and understanding of what was taking place about them while those committed to new quests were exultant in the consciousness of spiritual adventure and discovery and heard the morning stars sing together for joy. What is thus begun must submit always to the testimony of time. In the end a religion is permanent as it meets the great human needs and adjusts itself to their changing phases. It is imperial and universal as it meets these needs supremely. If in addition it be capable of organization, if there be within it room for expansion, and if, on the whole, it justifies itself by the outcome of it in life and society it will persist, and if it persists through a long period of time and creates for itself literatures, dogmas and authorities, it becomes as nearly fundamental as anything can be in this world. It creates cultures, shapes civilizations, colours art, establishes ideals and fills the whole horizon of its devotees. If a religion is to endure it must meet a wide range of need; it must be plastic and yet invest itself with the sanctions of History. For the conservative it must possess the note of authority and at the same time promise freedom to the liberal. It must persuade the forward-looking that it holds within itself the power to meet changing conditions. It must offer a satisfying experience to the mystic and the practically minded and deliverance to the despairing. It must be able to build into its structure new sciences and philosophies and yet it must touch the whole of life with some sense of the timeless, and above all, it must include the whole of life, nor depend upon particularized appeals or passing phases of thought. Historic Christianity has more nearly met all these tests than any other religion, for though under the stress of meeting so great a variety of needs and conditions it has organized itself into forms as different as Latin Catholicism and the Society of the Friends, so losing catholicity of organization, it has secured instead a catholicity of spirit and a vast elasticity of appeal which are the secret of its power and the assurance of its continuing and enduring supremacy. _Their Parallels in the Past_ Now by such tests as these what future may one anticipate for such cults as we have been studying? Are they likely to displace the historic forms of Christianity, will they substantially modify it, or will they wear away and be reabsorbed? Evidently one of these three things must happen. This is not the first time in the Western world that historic and authoritative Christianity has been challenged. We should have, perhaps, to go back to the fourth century to find an exact parallel and then we should find in the vast and confused movement of Gnosticism an unexpected parallel to a great deal of what is happening about us. Gnosticism was the effort of a reason excessively given to speculation, undisciplined and greatly unrestrained by any sense of reality to possess and transform the Church. Various forces combined to build its fabric of air-born speculation and though for the time it gave the patristic Church the hardest fight of its existence, the discipline of the Church was too strong for it. Its own weaknesses proved eventually its undoing and Gnosticism remains only as a fascinating field of study for the specialist, only a name if even so much as that for the generality of us and valuable chiefly in showing what speculation may do when permitted at will to range earth and sky, with a spurious rationalism for pilot and imagination for wings. There have been, beside, in the history of the Church many other movements possessing a great staying power and running in some cases for generations alongside the main current of religious development, until they finally disappeared with the changing centuries. Arguing from such historical precedents as these one might easily assume a like fate for the Gnosticism of our own time, and yet a note of caution is needed here for there are divisive religious movements which have as yet neither failed nor been absorbed in that from which they took their departure. The expectation of the Catholic Church that Protestantism will spend its force and be lost again in the majestic fabric of Latin Catholic Christianity as it is continued amongst us, is as far from realization to-day, or farther, than at any time in the last 300 years. We need to remember also that conditions change. The right of individual initiative and judgment once secured in the region of religion is not likely ever to be lost. A good many divergent movements have literally been whipped back into line or else put out in fire and blood. Nothing of that sort is likely to happen now. No student of history should be blind to the sequence of action and reaction. A period of excessive dependence upon authority may follow a period of undue self-assertion, but it is not likely that we shall ever find recreated exactly the conditions of the past or that religion can hereafter be held, as it has heretofore, in relatively well marked channels under the stress of accepted authorities. Prophecy is hazardous business but it is safe to assume that these modern religious cults and movements represent the beginnings of a freer, more diffused, less formal religious faith. The peculiar cults themselves may reach their term but the temper which produced them is likely to continue and with other groupings of forces produce something in the future which will at least be their parallel. _The Healing Cults Likely to be Adversely Influenced by the Scientific Organisation of Psycho-therapy_ As far as the fortunes of the distinctive cults themselves go, one's conclusions may be less tentative. For the most part the foundations upon which they are built are not big enough to carry an ample and secure structure. They have been made possible not only by marked limitations in historic religion itself, but also by contemporaneous tempers which, one may sincerely hope, are self-limiting, and this is said not through undue prejudice against the cults themselves, but simply because one is loath to believe that the want of critical faculty which has made some of these cults possible will not in the end yield to experience and a really sounder education. Since, moreover, some of them--and Christian Science, preëminently--depend upon faith and mental healing, whatever helps us to a clearer understanding of the nature and limits of psycho-therapy will greatly affect their future. All faith healing cults have heretofore depended very greatly upon the atmosphere of mystery with which they have been able to surround themselves. The fact that they have been able to secure results with no very clear understanding of the way in which the results have been secured has invested them with awe and wonder, so essential to every religion. But as psycho-therapy itself becomes organized, works out its laws, develops its own science and particularly as the knowledge of all this is extended and popularized, they will lose their base of support. For this reason the writer believes that the final explanation of all faith and mental healing in terms of some form of suggestion which is just now strongly in evidence will prove a distinct service to us all. The intimate association of religion and healing has, on the whole, been good neither for religion nor health. Of course, this statement will probably be sharply challenged but it is maintained in the face of possible challenge. As far as religion goes it has withdrawn the interest of the religious, thus influenced, from the normal expressions of the religious life to border-land regions; it has stressed the exceptional rather than the sweep of law, and the occult rather than the luminously reasonable. Where it has failed in individual cases, as it is bound to fail, it has left those thus disillusioned without any sound basis for their faith and generally has driven them away from religion altogether. It has tempted religious teachers to win a hearing by signs and wonders. Even the Founder of the Christian religion grew weary of this, as the records show plainly enough, in that He saw His true work to be thereby not helped but hindered, and if this be true of the Founder it is by so much the more true of His followers. On the scientific side this temper has hindered honest thinking, laborious investigation and that specialization which is absolutely necessary to the furtherance of any great division of human effort. Medicine made little progress until it got itself free of the Church. Specifically the average minister is neither by training nor temperament fitted for healing work and those laymen who have assumed that office have generally been wanting in balance and self-restraint. This is not to deny the reality of a power not ourselves making for health and well-being generally, or the power of faith, or the efficacy of prayer. Least of all is God, upon this understanding, to be shut out of life. But the power not ourselves which makes for faith and healing is best known through laborious investigation, the discovery of methods and obediences to ascertained law. When we have clearly come to see the nature of psycho-therapy, the occult authority of healing cults will in the end yield to this understanding and the cults themselves be greatly weakened or displaced. One must recognize, on the other hand, the staying power of any well-established religious system. Through nurture and those profound conservatisms which hold more tenaciously in the region of religion than anywhere else, it is possible to continue from generation to generation the unreasonable or the positively untrue, and this holds in the Church as well as outside it. None the less, the most coherent systems must reckon with their own weaknesses. Christian Science may have before it a long period of solid going or even marked growth, but its philosophy will at last yield to the vaster sweep of a truer philosophic thought. Its interpretations of historic Christianity will come up again and again for examination until their fallacies become apparent and its force as a system of psycho-therapy will be modified by simpler and more reasonable applications of the same power. _New Thought Will Become Old Thought_ New Thought is likely to take a different course but it also will have to reckon with changing sciences and philosophies. What is New Thought to-day will be old thought to-morrow; it will be challenged by new expressions of the spirit which begot it. It will endure, therefore, only as it is open, flexible and possesses a great power of accommodation. But as long as understandings and ideals are fluid, as long as religion is under bonds to take account of all the elements which must be incorporated in it in order to enlarge and continue it, as long, in short, as the human spirit outgrows fixed forms in any region there is likely to be in religion itself something corresponding to the New Thought of to-day, but this will be true only as New Thought is not a cult at all but something larger--a free and creative movement of the human spirit. Of all these cults it has made the soundest contribution to religion as a whole. It is also more easily assimilated, more easily absorbed. Its own distinct field will be limited by the increasing hospitality of Christian thought to contemporaneous truth. A wholly open-minded church will go a long way toward taking from New Thought its raison d'être. Its future depends, therefore, very largely upon the open-mindedness of the older and more strongly established forms of religion. The future of Spiritualism is greatly open to conjecture. We have already seen the alternatives which Spiritualism is called upon to face and the uncertainties which attend its conclusions. A fuller understanding of the possibilities of abnormal personality and the reach of automatism are likely to work against Spiritualism. If we find ascertainable causes for its phenomena resident within personality itself there will be no need of calling in the other world in order to explain what is happening in this. On the other hand, if there should evidence an increasing and tested body of facts which can be explained only in terms of spiritistic communications, Spiritualism will naturally make headway. But we are certainly standing only upon the threshold of a scientific interpretation of spiritistic phenomena and until the whole region has been very much more carefully worked through and far more dependable facts are in hand, one can only say that Spiritism is a hypothesis which may or may not be verified, and attend the outcome. It is hard to believe that Theosophy and kindred speculation will ever get a strong hold upon the practical Western mind. It owes what force it has either to an excessive love of the speculative on the part of a few, or else to that particular temper which always wants something else and something new, or else to wearinesses and misunderstandings of the more shadowed side of life. Theosophy is greatly at the mercy of the positive, practical temper; it will always find a prevailing competitor in the Christian doctrine of immortality. Whatever, moreover, explains the apparent inequalities of life in more simple and reasonable terms will cut the roots of it. The movement toward religious syncretism of which Bahaism is just now the expression will not be so easy to dispose of. There will always be a temper impatient of the past, eager for unity, anxious for something big and interpenetrating. Historically this temper has from time to time emerged, particularly in the latter phases of Roman paganism, and there is likely to be a larger interchange of religious faith and understanding in the future than there has been in the past. In general, this desire for a universal religion, simple and wanting in distinctive characters, follows a weakening of conviction, a loss of passion for accepted forms. If anything should deepen again amongst us in religion what corresponds just now to the passion for nationality these more general religious quests would suffer. A strong feeling for a church or a creed or one's own movement would displace them. They have, on the other hand, in their favour the general tendency of all religion toward simplicity, the reduction of faith, that is, to a few broad and generally shared elements. But there is no reason to anticipate a speedy breakdown of what one may call particularist religion and the substitution therefor of a faith built up out of many diverse elements and held in common by widely separated tempers. _There is Likely to be Some Absorption of the Cults by a Widening Historic Christianity_ If the past supplies analogy or suggestion there will be some tendency for the cults and movements to be reabsorbed by the dominant religious forms from which they have broken off. A careful analysis of this statement would involve the consideration of a finality of Christianity as now held in the Western world. That is impossible in the range of a study like this. Any general statement is of course coloured by the temper of the one who makes it and to a certain extent begs the whole great question. But a careful and dispassionate examination of present-day cults would seem to indicate that they really have nothing to offer which the dominant Christianity does not possess either explicitly or implicitly. There is a solidity of human experience behind its forms and creeds which cannot be lightly left out of account. They represent the travail of twenty centuries and have behind them far older confidences and hopes. If Christianity should widen itself to the full limit of its possibilities, it would leave little room for that which seeks to supplant it and would meet the needs which have begotten the cults in far richer and more reasonable ways. As far as the cults are mistakenly distinctive, as far as they cannot stand a careful examination, they represent what must be corrected and cannot be absorbed. Christianity can absorb New Thought far more easily than Christian Science. Theosophy in its extremer forms it cannot absorb at all. It is more hospitable to the quest for a universal religion for it seeks itself to be a universal religion and can never achieve its ideal unless it takes account of the desire for something big enough to include the whole of life, East as well as West, and to make room within itself for a very great variety of religious tempers. _But Christianity is Being Influenced by the Cults_ If Christianity is not to reabsorb the cults in their present form, it must, as has been said over and over again, take account of them and it is not likely to go on uninfluenced by them. Already it has yielded in some directions to their contentions. If it feels itself challenged by them it must meet that challenge not so much by intolerance as by the correction of conditions which have made them possible, and here its most dependable instruments are education and self-examination. There is need of a vast deal more of sheer teaching in all the churches. The necessity for congregations and the traditions of preaching conspire to make the message of the Church far less vital than it ought to be. Preaching is too much declamation and far too much a following of narrow and deeply worn paths. The cults themselves represent a craving for light, especially in the regions of pain and loss. Historic Christianity has lost out because it has made religion too self-centered, not that the cults are a corrective here, for they are even more self-centered--that is one of their great faults. The individual is not the center of the world; he is part of a larger order concerned for great ends for which his life can only be contributory. The Church and the cults together have forgotten too largely that life is sacred only as we lose it. We need in the churches generally a braver personal note and a very much larger unself-centeredness. It is interesting to note that the movement of the cults, with the possible exception of New Thought, has been away from rationalism rather than in the direction of it. This is a consideration to be taken into account. It would seem on the surface of it to indicate that what people are wanting in religion is not so much reason as mysticism and that for the generality religion is most truly conceived in terms not of the known but of the unknown. If the Christian Church is to meet the challenge of the cults with a far more clearly defined line of teaching, it is also to meet the challenge of the cults with a warmer religious life, with the affirmation of an experience not so much tested by crises and conversions as by the constant living of life in the sense of the divine--to use Jeremy Taylor's noble phrase: in the Practice of the Presence of God. The weakness of the cults is to have narrowed the practice of the presence of God to specific regions, finding the proof of His power in health and well-being. If we can substitute therefor the consciousness of God in the sweep of law, the immensity of force, the normal conduct of life, in light and understanding, in reason as well as mysticism and science as well as devotion, we shall have secured a foundation upon which to build amply enough to shelter devout and questing souls not now able to find what they seek in the churches themselves and yet never for a moment out of line with what is truest and most prophetic in Christianity itself. Sir Henry Jones has a paragraph in his "Faith that Enquires" distinctly to the point just here. "The second consideration arises from the greatness of the change that would follow were the Protestant Churches and their leaders to assume the attitude of the sciences and treat the articles of the creeds not as dogmas but as the most probable explanation, the most sane account which they can form of the relation of man to the Universe and of the final meaning of his life. The hypothesis of a God whose wisdom and power and goodness are perfect would then be tried and tested, both theoretically and practically, and, I believe, become thereby ever the more convincing. The creed would be not merely a record of an old belief to be accepted on authority, but a challenge to the skeptic and the irreligious. The Church, instead of being a place where the deliverances of ancient religious authorities are expounded, and illustrated by reference to the contents of one book and the history of one nation--as if no other books were inspired and all nations save one were God-abandoned--the Church would be the place where the validity of spiritual convictions are discussed on their merits, and the application of spiritual principles extended; where enquiring youths would repair when life brings them sorrow, disappointment or failure, and the injustice of man makes them doubt whether there be a God, or if there be, whether he is good and has power, and stands as the help of man. Recourse to their certified spiritual guides, knowing that full and sympathetic justice will be done to all their difficulties, ought to be as natural to them as their recourse to the physical laboratory or the workshop of the mechanician when an engine breaks down."[83] [Footnote 83: "A Faith that Enquires," p. 82.] _Medical Science Should Take a More Serious Account of the Healing Cults_ Not only the churches but the schools and particularly Medical Science need to take account of the cults. They constitute perhaps one of the sharpest indictments of present-day education. Many of their adherents are nominally educated above the average. They have secured for what they follow the authority which always attaches, in the American mind, to the fact that those who champion any movement are college bred, and yet the want of clear vision, the power to distinguish and analyze, along with the unexpected credulities which are thus made manifest, seem to indicate arresting deficiencies in popular education. It has left us unduly suggestible, much open to mass movement, at the mercy of the lesser prophets and wanting in those stabilities and understandings upon which a sound culture is to be built. When we consider what they are capable of believing who have had college or university training, we must conclude either that contemporaneous education is wanting in the creation of sound mental discipline, or else that we have a strange power of living in water-tight compartments and separating our faith wholly from our reason. The cults which are organized around faith and mental healing at once challenge and in a measure indict modern medical science. In many directions all these movements are reactions against an excessive materialism; they affirm the power of personality as against its environment, testify that the central problems of life may be approached from the spiritual as well as from the physical and material side. It would not for a moment be fair to say that modern Medicine is ignoring this. There has probably always been a considerable element of mental healing in any wise medical practice. But on the whole, the marvellous successes and advances in Medical Science within the last thirty years and the very great success which has attended the definition of all diseases in terms of physical disarrangement has led physicians generally unduly to underestimate or ignore the undoubted power of faith and mind over bodily states. Even as a matter of scientific investigation medicine as a whole has not taken this line of approach seriously enough. The Society for Psychical Research has something to teach the medical faculties just here. That Society, as we have seen, set out in the most rigorous and scientific way possible to find out first of all just what actual facts lay behind the confused phenomena of Spiritualism. They have given a long generation to just that. As they have finally isolated certain facts they have, with a good deal of caution, undertaken to frame hypotheses to account for them and so, with the aid of the students of abnormal personality, they are gradually bringing a measure of order into the whole region. Medical Science on the whole has not done this in the region of faith and mental healing. We are, therefore, far too uncertain of our facts. A good deal of this is open to correction. If a Society for Psycho-Therapeutic Research should be organized, which would follow up every report of healings with an accurate care, beginning with the diagnosis and ending with the actual physical state of the patient as far as it could be ascertained by the tests at their disposal, they could greatly clarify the popular mind, prevent a vast deal of needless suffering, save the sick from frustrated hope and secure for their own profession a distinct reinforcement and an increased usefulness. _A Neglected Force_ If they thus find--as is likely--that the real force of Psycho-therapy has been largely overestimated, that imagination, wrong diagnosis and mistaken report as to the actual physical condition have all combined to produce confidences unjustified by the facts, we should begin to come out into the light. And if, on the other hand, they found a body of actual fact substantiating Psycho-therapy they would do well to add courses therein to the discipline of their schools.[84] The whole thing would doubtless be a matter for specialization as almost every other department of medicine demands specialization. Every good doctor is more or less a mental healer, but every doctor cannot become a specialist in Psycho-therapy, nor would he need to. [Footnote 84: But this is already being done.] Temperamental elements enter here very largely. But we might at least take the whole matter out of the hands of charlatans and the half-informed and establish it upon a sound scientific basis. There is, beyond debate, a real place for the physician who utilizes and directs the elements of suggestion. They have gone farther, on the whole, in this direction in France and Switzerland than we have in America. Evidently we are standing only upon the threshold of marked advances along these lines. Psycho-therapy can never be a substitute for a medical science which deals with the body as a machine to be regulated in its processes, defended against hostile invasion or reinforced in its weaknesses, but there is also another line of approach to sickness. A catholic medical science will use every means in its power. _The Cults Must be Left to Time and the Corrections of Truth_ Beyond such general considerations as these there is little to be said. The Christian churches will gain nothing by an intolerant attitude toward expressions of faith and spiritual adventures beyond their own frontiers. Just as there is a constant selective process in answer to which the historic churches maintain their existences, a selective process controlled by association and temper, in that some of us are naturally Catholics and some Protestants, there are tempers which do not take kindly to inherited organization, authority or creed. Such as these are seekers, excessive perhaps in their individuality, but none the less sincere in their desire for a faith and religious contact which will have its own distinct meaning for their own lives. And if there may seem to some of us elements of misdirection or caprice or unreason in their quests, it is perhaps in just such ways as these that advances are finally made and what is right and true endures. If nothing at all is to be gained by intolerance, nothing more is to be gained by an unfair criticism and, in general, all these movements must be left to the adjustments of time and the corrections of truth. We began this study by defining religion as the effective desire to be in right relation with the power which manifests itself in the universe. How vast this power is we are just beginning to find out. How various we are in our temperaments and what unsuspected possibilities there are in the depths of personality we are also just beginning to find out. 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5008	----	KATHERINE'S SHEAVES BY MRS. GEORGE SHELDON (Mrs. George Sheldon Downs) To her, Who led my newly awakened thought Towards a higher understanding of God, And opened before me broader vistas of the Life immortal That is born of Truth and Love, My Teacher F. S. K. this story is lovingly dedicated by The Author The words Science and Health which appear as marginal reference refer to The Christian Science Text Book "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy CONTENTS I. At Hilton Seminary II. Katherine and Her Roommate III. Dorothy IV. Phillip Harris Stanley, M.D. V. Katherine's First Sabbath at Hilton VI. Materia Medica and Miracles VII. Katherine and the Junior League VIII. Transcendentalism as Elucidated for the Junior League IX. Katherine Makes a Demonstration X. Mrs. Seabrook's Problem XI. Dr. Stanley Asks Some Questions XII. Prof. Seabrook's Ultimatum--and Broken Rules XIII. The Story of a Stray Waif XIV. A Sophomore Racket XV. "Hilton Volunteers" XVI. A Junior Entertainment XVII. Dr. Stanley Has An Object Lesson XVIII. Sadie Receives an Opportune Invitation XIX. Mrs. Seabrook Takes a Stand XX. Interesting Developments XXI. The Traveler Returns XXII. Phillip Stanley's First Demonstration XXIII. Mrs. Minturn Visits Hilton XXIV. The End of School Days XXV. A Momentous Errand XXVI. Conclusion KATHERINE'S SHEAVES. CHAPTER I. AT HILTON SEMINARY. It was four o'clock in the afternoon on the opening day of the midwinter term at Hilton Seminary, a noted institution located in a beautiful old town of Western New York. A group of gay girls had just gathered in one of the pleasant and spacious recreation rooms and were chattering like the proverbial flock of magpies--exchanging merry greetings after their vacation; comparing notes on studies, classes and roommates; discussing the advent of new teachers, pupils and improvements, when a tall, gracious woman of, perhaps, thirty-five years suddenly appeared in the doorway, her fair face gleaming with humorous appreciation of the animated scene and babel before her, and enjoined silence with the uplifting of one slim white hand. There was an instantaneous hush, as the bevy of maidens turned their bright faces and affectionate glances upon their teacher, who, evidently, was a prime favorite with them all. "What is it, Miss Reynolds? What can we do for you?" eagerly queried several of the group, as they sprang forward to ascertain her wishes. "Is Miss Minturn in the room? I am looking for a new pupil who arrived this morning," the teacher responded, her genial, friendly blue eyes roving from face to face in search of the stranger to whom she had referred. A young girl, who had been sitting by herself in a remote corner of the room, arose and moved towards the speaker. "I am Katherine Minturn," she said, with quiet self-possession, yet flushing slightly beneath the many curious glances bent upon her, as her soft, brown eyes met the smiling blue ones. She was, apparently, about nineteen years of age, a little above medium height, her form slight but almost perfect in its proportions. A wealth of hair, matching the color of her eyes, crowned a small, shapely head, and contrasted beautifully with a creamy complexion, the delicacy of which was relieved chiefly by the vivid scarlet of her lips. Her features were clear-cut and very attractive--at least so thought Miss Reynolds as she studied the symmetrical brow, the large, thoughtful eyes, the tender mouth and prettily rounded chin curving so gracefully into the white, slender neck. "Ah! Miss Minturn. I have had quite a search for you," she said, reaching out a cordial hand to her; for, despite the girl's self- poise, she had caught a quiver of loneliness on the expressive face. "I am Miss Reynolds, the teacher of mathematics, and I have been commissioned by Prof. Seabrook to find and show you to his study. But first, let me present you to these chatterers." She dropped the hand that was trembling in her clasp, and, slipping a reassuring arm about the girl's waist, continued: "Young ladies, this is Miss Minturn, a new junior. I can't present each of you formally, for she is wanted immediately elsewhere; but I will see that she finds you all out later." Katherine nodded a smiling acknowledgment to the vigorous clapping of hands and the hearty "Welcome, Miss Minturn, to Hilton." Then Miss Reynolds led her away, and the interrupted chatter of the magpies was resumed with redoubled animation, but now the new junior absorbed the attention of everyone. "Say, girls, isn't she a dear?" "Came this morning, did she? where from, I wonder?" "My! but wasn't that a nobby traveling suit, and such a fit!" "Katherine Minturn--pretty name, isn't it?" "Does anybody know anything more about her?" were some of the comments and queries that slipped from those supple instruments with a tendency towards perpetual motion, which, sometimes, are described as organs that are hung in the middle and wag at both ends-- school-girls' tongues. "Hush!--sh!--sh! Oh, girls, do ring off, and perhaps I can give you a point or two," cried a high-pitched voice with an unmistakable Southern drawl, as a somewhat overdressed girl of nineteen or twenty years re-enforced her appeal by vigorous gestures to attract attention, whereupon the ever alert spirit of Curiosity silenced every loquacious chatterer, except one who solemnly announced, "Ladies, Miss Minot has the floor!" "Yes," the speaker observed, "the new junior does strike one as being downright stunning. She came from New York City, and"--with a lugubrious sigh--"though I've never set eyes on her before, I was informed this morning that she is to be my roommate for the remainder of the year." A burst of mirthful laughter rippled over a dozen pairs of rosy lips at this last mournfully conveyed information. "Aha! at last Miss Sadie Minot has got to come down to the lot of common mortals and take in a chum!" cried a merry sprite, with a saucy chuckle. "Oh, how you have spread yourself and luxuriated in your solitary magnificence, and how every mother's daughter of us has envied you your spacious quarters! Well, you know what old Sol. said about 'pride' and a 'haughty spirit,' and the 'fall' always comes, first or last. But, Sadie, my love, be comforted," she continued, with mock sympathy, "and just try to realize what splendid discipline it will be for you; one cannot have everything one wants, you know, even if one is an heiress in one's own right- -eh, dearie?" "But there's only one closet, and it is so full now," sighed Miss Minot, ruefully. "Hear! hear!" retorted the same mischievous maiden, whose name was Clara Follet. "After having had undisturbed possession of a whole room and closet for six long months she ungratefully bemoans----" "And only one chest of drawers," pursued Sadie, in the same strain, but with a comical quirk of an eye. A chorus of mocking groans and derisive laughter greeted this wail. "And all four crammed full with her superfluous finery," cried another of the merry group. "Whatever will you do with it now, Sadie?" "I'm sure I don't know, Ollie," retorted the pretty "heiress," with a quizzical uplifting of her brows, "unless you take half of it off my hands altogether, instead of coming to borrow so often." Shrieks of appreciative mirth followed this deftly shot arrow, for it was a well-known fact that Ollie Grant, the pet of the school, was an easy-going little body, very prone to allow her wardrobe to get in a sad plight and then throw herself upon the mercy of others, to patch her up, in the event of an emergency. But Miss Ollie was equal to the occasion. "Really, Sadie, that would help you out, wouldn't it? and save me a lot of trotting back and forth," she demurely responded, though the dimples played a lively game of hide-and-seek in her plump cheeks. "There's such a love of a lace jacket in her second drawer, girls; my eyes water with envy every time I get a glimpse of it; and a few of those ravishing stocks that you've been laying in of late wouldn't come amiss. There's that lavender satin waist, too, you bought at Jerome's the other day. I know I should look perfectly killing in it; and--oh! ye Hiltonites!--she has just bought six of the sweetest corset covers you ever laid eyes on; think of it!--six! She could spare three just as well as not, and I'm sure she has at least a dozen pairs of silk stockings, while"- -with a doleful sigh--"I don't own a blessed one. Then there are ribbons and laces, fans and handkerchiefs galore. Don't you think it would be an act of mercy if I would agree to take some of these superfluities off her hands, rather than have them ruthlessly crushed into half their allotted space? And--" "Ollie! Ollie!--what an incorrigible little tease you are!" laughingly interposed Miss Minot, as she playfully tweaked the girl's ear. "I wonder how long the things would last you if you had them all!" "Oh, probably two or three times wearing around, providing they didn't come to mending before that," mused the "Pet," with a speculative look in her blue eyes, but with a quiver of the dimples that evoked another paroxysm of laughter from her audience. "But I say, Sadie," she went on with the next breath, "Miss Minturn is a downright sweet-looking girl, and I'll wager a- -a darning needle against a pair of those silk stockings you'll find her O. K. Maybe she'll let you have an extra drawer and a hook or two in the closet." "I don't feel very hopeful, so I won't take you up," sighed Sadie; "for when I came in from my walk I saw a big trunk, with 'K. M.' on it, in the hall, and it looks to me as if I--I'm destined to go through a different kind of 'cramming' process this year, in addition to the usual one." This self-inflicted shot now turned the laugh again upon the speaker, for it was an open secret that the Southern heiress dearly loved her ease and took it, up to the last moment, then had to "cram for all she was worth" to get ready for "exams." While this chatter and fun were going on in the recreation room, Katherine Minturn had been conducted to the study of Prof. Seabrook, by whom she was received with his customary courtesy. The principal of Hilton Seminary was a distinguished-appearing gentleman of fifty years, possessing a strong, intellectual, yet refined face, whose chief charm was a pair of large, expressive blue-gray eyes that could be most winningly kind, or most coldly and blightingly stern, as the case might be. "Be seated, Miss Minturn," he courteously commanded, as Miss Reynolds excused herself and withdrew, and indicating a chair near the table by which he had been sitting when she entered. Katherine obeyed, feeling strongly attracted to the man by his genial manner, even though she knew that his keen but friendly eyes were intent upon reading what lay beneath her exterior. "I suppose you feel that you have had rather a hard day," he continued, glancing significantly at some closely written sheets which he had evidently been looking over when she entered, and which she instantly recognized as her examination papers. "Not at all," she quietly returned, lifting her clear eyes to him, and he marveled at the unclouded serenity in their pure depths. "Indeed!" and he could not quite conceal his surprise. "It is a rare event for a young lady to make such an admission after a rigid ordeal like what you have sustained this afternoon. However, I am happy to inform you that you are unconditionally admitted to the junior class; your papers do you great credit, Miss Minturn. I had not expected quite so much from you, as you had told me that you left school last year, a sophomore, and have been traveling abroad until recently. I feared we might have to ask you to review a little, for it is rather unusual for a pupil to enter an advanced class in the middle of the year." "But I have not been idle since leaving school," Katherine replied, a happy gleam in her eyes, for his commendation was very gratifying to her; "although we were abroad for several months, we were often located in some place for weeks at a time, and mamma, having once been a teacher at Vassar, coached me for the junior class." "Ah! that explains your proficiency. How convenient to have an ex- Vassar in the family!" Prof. Seabrook smilingly observed. "All the same, I am sure the daughter deserves some commendation for work conscientiously done." "Thank you, sir," said Katherine, a flush of pleasure tingeing her cheeks. The principal then proceeded to give her some information regarding her classes and the ground to be covered in her various studies during the coming term, after which he asked some questions as to her recent travels, whereupon they fell into a pleasant chat about points of interest which both had visited, and thus a delightful half hour slipped away. At length Prof. Seabrook referred to a book that lay on the table beside him, and observed: "I find, Miss Minturn, that you are to room with Miss Sadie Minot, a young lady from Atlanta, Georgia, and I think you will find her an agreeable companion. However"--with a humorous twinkle in his eyes--"to use a homely proverb, 'it is Hobson's choice,' for it happens to be the only vacancy in the building; we have a very full school this year. I will call some one to show you how to find it, and have your trunk sent up later." He touched a bell and presently a young girl about sixteen entered the room, with a brisk step and an alert air, suggestive of a repressed cyclone only awaiting an opportunity for mischief brewing; while, as she approached the occupants, a strong odor of peppermint made itself apparent in the atmosphere. "Miss Minturn, this is Miss Wild, one of our breezy freshmen--eh, Jennie?" and the quizzical look again leaped into the blue-gray eyes. Katherine smilingly acknowledged the introduction, while Miss Wild blushed and nodded an embarrassed greeting, then immediately turned her face away from the focus of the professor's observation and made a comical grimace which came very near proving too much for Katherine's dignity. "Jennie," the gentleman continued, "Miss Minturn is to share Miss Minot's room--number fifteen, west wing--and I have called you to show her the way, if you please." "Yes, sir, I will," said the girl, with ready compliance, which culminated in a vigorous sneeze, whereupon, with the restless energy which pervaded her every movement, she whisked her handkerchief from her pocket, and, with it, there shot out a promiscuous assortment of chocolates and cream peppermints, which went bounding and rolling about the room in every direction. Prof. Seabrook gave vent to a hearty laugh of amusement at the awkward contretemps. "I thought I detected a familiar odor, Jennie," he observed; then added, good-naturedly, "You may pick them up, if you please." "Guess I will," she returned, eagerly, and nimbly suiting the action to her words. "I really can't afford to lose all that precious sweetness. Josie Craig gave them to me just as you rang." Katherine had risen and was moving towards the door, to cover her own inclination to explode, and thus make the situation more awkward for the girl, when the principal checked her by remarking: "By the way, Miss Minturn, the juniors and seniors attend the Bible class, which it is my province to conduct. We meet at four on Sunday afternoons in the south recitation room; and the lesson for next Sabbath will be on the Creation, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. And this reminds me that I have neglected to inquire where you will attend church. As our catalogue states, each student is allowed to choose her own place of worship. Where do you propose to make your church home?" Katherine had expected this question before; nevertheless, she flushed slightly as she turned back to face her interlocutor, and replied: "I am a Christian Scientist, Prof. Seabrook, and I shall attend the church on Grove Street." The pause which followed this announcement was painfully ominous, and Katherine was amazed at the frozen look which suddenly settled over the gentleman's face, together with the expression of stern disapprobation which instantly drove all the kindness out of his hitherto genial eyes. "A Christian Scientist!--indeed!" he said, in a tone as frigid as his look. "It is a matter of regret to me that you did not state that fact when you made application for admission to Hilton." Katherine's lip quivered slightly at this caustic remark and the accompanying scorn on the high-bred face; and the flush which had risen to her cheek a moment before vanished, leaving her quite pale, although in no way disconcerted. "But I believe the catalogue states that there is no sectarianism in Hilton Seminary, that the broadest possible religious tolerance prevails here," she remarked, with a sweet gentleness which, under any other circumstances, would have instantly disarmed her companion. But, as it happened, he was a bitter opponent of the "false doctrine," and the term "Science" applied to Christianity was a rank offense to his rigid Presbyterian opinions, as was also the fact that a woman had dared to face the world with it! "I do not recognize Christian Science, so-called, as a religion," he retorted, with a sharpness in marked contrast to Katherine's sweetness. "In my opinion, it is simply a device and snare of Satan himself to deceive the very elect; and Miss Minturn"--this with frowning emphasis--"I will not, for a moment, tolerate the promulgation of its fallacious teachings in this school. I trust I make myself understood." Katherine had not once removed her clear, brown eyes from his countenance during this speech, but there was not the slightest manifestation of resentment on her own--only an expression of tender regret, as if she were sorry for him, because of the sense of discord that seemed to hold possession of him. "You mean that I am not to talk it here?" she said. "Exactly; nor flaunt it in any way." "I will not, sir," with gentle gravity; then a little smile curving her red lips, she added: "Christian Science, Prof. Seabrook, is a religion of Love, and I will simply try to live it." The principal of Hilton flushed to his brows before this unassuming girl, a circumstance unprecedented in the annals of the institution. Her look, her tone, the softly spoken words--all radiated love, and his arrogant spirit felt the gentle rebuke. "Have you that book, 'Science and Health,' with you?" he curtly demanded. Katherine's heart leaped within her. Did he mean to deprive her of her daily bread? "Yes, sir," with unfaltering glance and voice. "Then keep it out of sight," he briefly commanded, adding, in a tone of dismissal, as he took up his pen: "That is all, Miss Minturn." Katherine bowed respectfully, then quietly followed Jennie Wild from the room. CHAPTER II. KATHERINE AND HER ROOMMATE. As the two girls were passing through the main building on their way to number fifteen, west wing, Katherine turned to her companion and observed, in a friendly tone: "So this is your first year in Hilton Seminary, Miss Wild?" Jennie, who had been "just boiling"--as she told her later--over the professor's recent crankiness and severity, turned to Katherine in unfeigned surprise, for there was not the slightest trace of resentment or personal affront in either her voice or manner. Her brown eyes were as serene as a May morning; her scarlet lips were parted in a sunny smile that just disclosed her white, even teeth, and her voice was clear and sweet, without even a quiver to betray emotion of any kind. Jennie Wild was a girl of many moods. Possessing the kindest heart in the world, and ever ready to run her nimble feet off to do any one a good turn, she was at the same time a veritable little "snapdragon." Touch her ever so lightly, and off she would go into paroxysms of mirth or rage, sympathy or scorn, as the case might be. Consequently she had looked for an outburst, or at least some manifestation, of indignation on Katherine's part, over the principal's recent sharpness and ungracious treatment. "Yes, I'm a freshie," the girl replied, with a nod and one of her comical grimaces, but still curiously studying the placid face beside her, "but I'm not here as you are. I'm a working student"-- this with a rising flush and defiant toss of her pert little head. "'A working student?'" repeated Katherine, inquiringly. "That's what I said," laconically. "I can't afford to pay full tuition, so I wait on Prof. Seabrook and his wife, and do other kinds of work to make up the rest. You see"--the flush creeping higher, but with a secret determination to "sound" the new junior- -"I haven't any father or mother, and my aunt, who has always taken care of me, is poor, and there was no other way to finish my education after leaving the high school--see?" "Yes, I understand, and I think you are a dear, brave girl to do it," said Katherine, with shining eyes, and laying a friendly hand on her shoulder as they began to mount the stairs leading to the second story. "Do you--truly?" queried Jennie, with a glad ring in her tones. "My! I believe I feel two inches taller for that"--throwing back her head proudly; "you've given me a lift, Miss Minturn, that I shan't forget; nobody has ever said anything so kind to me before. I tell you"--confidentially--"it does take a lot of courage sometimes to buckle on to a hard lesson, after running up and downstairs forty times a day, besides no end of other things to do. Most of the girls are pretty good to me; though, now and then, there's one who thinks she was cut out of finer cloth. I dote on the professor, even if he does get a bit cranky sometimes, like to-day, when something ruffles his stately feathers. His wife is lovely, too, and the teachers are all nice. But don't call me Miss Wild, please. I'm 'Jennie' to everybody. 'Wild Jennie' most of the girls call me, and there really is a harum-scarum streak in me that does get the best of me sometimes," she concluded, with a mischievous flash in her dark eyes. "I shall be very glad to call you Jennie, if you wish, and my name is Katherine, with a 'K,'" said that young lady, with an inviting smile. "I'm sure there isn't any 'harum-scarum' about you," said the girl, gravely, as she searched the sweet, brown eyes. "That depends upon what you mean by the term," responded Katherine, with a ripple of mirthful laughter. "I assure you I love a good time as well as any other girl." "U-m--p'rhaps; but I guess it would have to be a--a--genteel good time. There's one thing I don't need to 'guess' about, though--you just know how to stand firm on your heels when you need to." "What do you mean by that?" questioned Katherine, with a look of perplexity. "Nobody will ever make you take a back seat--not even his highness downstairs, when you know you're right. I say, though"--she interposed, eagerly--"weren't you mad, through and through, at what he said to you just now?" "Mad?" repeated Katherine, flushing, and wondering if she had unconsciously manifested anything that had seemed like anger or temper during the recent interview. "Yes; didn't you feel as if you'd just like to go at him with 'hammer and tongs'"--doubling up her fists and striking out suggestively right and left--"for being so crusty with you about your religion? I did." Katherine laughed out merrily at the girl's strenuous espousal of her cause, and with a sense of relief to know that she had shown no feeling unworthy of a Christian Scientist. "No, dear," she gently replied, "I could not feel anger or resentment towards any one because of a mere difference of opinion." "U-m! well, you didn't show any, that's sure. You just faced him, sweet as a peach, but like a--a queen who knows she's on her own ground. I thought, though, you might be just boiling over inside; but if you say you weren't, I believe you, for I think you're 'true blue,' and I think Prof. Seabrook might have learned a lesson from you, for I never saw him quite so upset over a little thing before. I never had any use for Christian Scientists myself; don't know anything about 'em, in fact. But if they're all like you, I don't believe they'll ever do much harm in the world. Here we are, though--this is Sadie's room. She's an orphan, too, but she is very rich, and I tell you she just knows how to make her money fly--isn't a bit stingy with others, either," the voluble girl concluded, as she paused before a door at the head of the stairs in the second story of the west wing and rapped vigorously upon it for admittance. "Come in," responded a good-natured voice, whereupon Jennie opened the door and entered a sunny, inviting apartment, the sight of which instantly gave Katherine a homelike feeling. She also saw two pretty beds, on one side of the room, piled high with a motley assortment of dresses and finery that made her wonder how one person could ever make use of so many things, while an attractive girl was sitting upon the floor before the one dressing case, her face flushed and perplexed as she tried to pack another promiscuous collection into the insufficient space that would henceforth belong to her. "Miss Minot," said Jennie, advancing farther into the room and thus revealing her companion, "this is Miss Minturn, who is to room with you. Prof. Seabrook sent me to show her here and to introduce her to you." Miss Minot sprang to her feet and came forward with outstretched hand, her manner characterized by true Southern hospitality. "Come in, Miss Minturn," she said, cordially; "come right in and sit down," and releasing the hand she had grasped, she whisked two or three skirts off a rocker, tossing them upon the heap on one of the beds. "I knew you were coming, and I've been working right smart to get ready for you. I've had full swing here so long I've filled every nook and cranny of the place, and now"--with a shrug and a deprecatory smile--"I shall have to learn to be very orderly to keep from encroaching upon your territory. But there's lots of time. The things can wait while we get acquainted a little. Jennie, you'll have to take the trunk," she concluded, with a careless glance at the girl. "I haven't time to sit down, Miss Minot; I've my algebra lesson to learn for to-morrow morning," and Jennie, flushing with sudden anger at being so cursorily consigned to a trunk, turned to leave the room. Katherine put out a detaining hand. "Thank you, Jennie, for coming up with me," she said, with a friendly smile, adding: "And I hope there will be no more interruptions while you are conning the algebra lesson." "I hate mathematics," Jennie affirmed, with an impatient shrug, "but the things you most dislike are supposed to do you the most good, so I just have to bottle up when it's time for algebra and try to play 'it's an angel being entertained unawares.' Good-by, Miss Minturn. I'll see you again later." And bestowing a bright glance and nod upon her new friend, she shut the door and went whistling cheerily down the hall. "That's a queer 'pickaninny'! I didn't mean to hurt her, though," observed Miss Minot, as she curled herself up on the foot of a bed, preparatory to getting acquainted with her new roommate. "She certainly possesses originality," Katherine laughingly responded; "but I like her none the less for that." "Poor young one!" Sadie continued. "She doesn't have a very easy time of it here. She is a stray waif, and hasn't a relative in the world, to her knowledge." "She spoke of an aunt," interposed Katherine. "She calls Miss Wild 'aunt,' but she isn't, really, and the child actually does not know her own name. The way of it was this," Miss Minot went on to explain: "When she was a baby there was a terrible railway accident, in which it was supposed both her parents were killed, for nobody could be found to claim the child after it was over; and Miss Wild, an old maid with a small annuity, was on the same train, and, like an angel, cared for her, hoping some relative would be found when the dead were identified; but no clew to her identity was ever obtained, and the woman has done the best she could for her all these years." "How very lovely and noble of Miss Wild," breathed Katherine, appreciatively. Then, glancing around the disorderly room, she added: "Now, Miss Minot, I feel almost like an intruder to have you so upset on my account. Do let me help you put some of these things away." "Oh, never mind the truck," Sadie lazily returned. "I'll take care of the things presently. I'm right glad that you are a junior," she resumed, in a comfortable tone. "It is so much nicer to have a roommate who can go right along with you, and I'm sure you'll be a great help to me." Katherine smiled as her companion thus unwittingly revealed a strong phase of her character. She saw that her tendency was to lean upon the nearest prop; and, as to be "forewarned is to be forearmed," she resolved to govern herself accordingly. They chatted socially until the janitor appeared with Katherine's trunk, whereupon Sadie bestirred herself once more to bring order out of chaos. This was much easier said than done, and as she saw that she was going to be very much crowded, Katherine unpacked but very few things at that time. She generously said she would try to get along with one-third of the closet and one of the drawers in the bureau, and utilize her trunk trays for her own waists and finery, while she could stow things not often needed in the lower portion. Later she hired the janitor to put up a bracket shelf in one corner of the room, tacking a long chintz curtain to it, and, with a dozen hooks screwed into a cleat underneath, thus improvised a very convenient little closet for her individual use. While the roommates were "becoming acquainted," Jennie Wild, full of what she had seen and heard, and, for the time being, unmindful of the waiting algebra lesson, rushed down to the recreation room, where many of the students were still congregated, and reeled off her news to a bevy of curious and interested listeners. The information that the new junior was a "Christian Scientist" created quite a flutter of excitement. Some were horrified and indignant because such a pariah had been admitted to the seminary; others ridiculed and laughed to scorn the doctrines of the "new cult," while a few appeared indifferent and declared that every one had a right to her own opinion upon religious subjects. The matter was pretty thoroughly canvassed, however, the attitude of the principal having weighty influence and governing the preponderance of opinion; and by the time the supper bell rang almost every student in the house had learned the whole story and decided that, for the present at least, she would give the newcomer a wide berth. Katherine became conscious of the iciness of the atmosphere the moment she entered the dining room and came under the battery of the hundred or more pairs of curious and critical eyes that were eagerly watching for her to appear. Miss Reynolds, who had overheard some of the gossip and adverse criticisms, was also on the lookout for her, and approaching her with the graciousness which was her chief charm, observed: "Miss Minturn, I have made a place for you at my table. Until you become better acquainted and choose your permanent seat, you shall sit close under the shelter of my wings." "And a very friendly shelter, I am sure, I shall find it; you are very good," Katherine replied, with quick appreciation. The teacher led her to her place, and, while they stood waiting for the professor to give the signal to be seated, introduced her to two or three of the girls in their vicinity. Katherine keenly felt, and Miss Reynolds noted with increasing displeasure, the quickly averted eyes and cool acknowledgment of these introductions; but the principal drew out his chair, and Katherine's momentary feeling of awkwardness was covered by the confusion of getting into place. But for her teacher she would have had a very lonely and silent meal; for after one or two efforts to engage her nearest neighbor in conversation had been coldly repulsed, the tactful woman threw herself into the gap and the two chatted socially until they arose from the table. "She is a dear, sweet girl, and I am going to nip this nonsense in the bud," Miss Reynolds observed to herself on the way upstairs, where, in the main hall and parlors, the students usually spent an hour, socially, after the evening meal. But as she presented her charge, here and there, she only became more indignant in view of frigid salutations and a general stampede wherever they made their appearance, not to mention the scarlet spots that settled on Katherine's cheeks and her unnaturally brilliant eyes, although, in other respects, she appeared perfectly serene and self- possessed. "Please do not trouble yourself any further on my account, Miss Reynolds," she said, when she observed the look of dismay on her face as she glanced around the almost empty room they were in. "I understand the situation perfectly; they have all learned that I am a Christian Scientist, and, having conceived an erroneous idea of what that means, are avoiding me." "It is the most absurd, cruel and unjust treatment of a stranger I ever heard of," returned her companion, with flashing eyes, "and I shall make it my business to see that there is a radical change before another day goes by." "Please do not," Katherine pleaded, earnestly. "I would much prefer that matters be left to adjust themselves; any interference would only serve to intensify the antagonism against me; and I am sure when the girls come to know me better, they will at least realize that I am--harmless," and there was a gleam of genuine amusement in her eyes as she concluded. "You are a brave little girl," said her teacher, with a glow of tenderness at her heart and a suspicious moisture in her eyes. "But"--with a resolute straightening of her graceful figure--"I am not going to have you left to yourself on this your first evening at Hilton, so come with me to my room and we will have a nice time by ourselves." "Oh, I should like that," said Katherine, eagerly, "if it will not encroach--" "It will not," smilingly interposed her new friend, and, slipping an arm around her, she spirited her away to her pleasant room, where they spent a delightful hour together. When the eight o'clock study bell rang, Katherine returned to her own quarters, where she found her roommate already absorbed, apparently, in the preparation of to-morrow's lessons; for, as she entered, the girl merely glanced up from her book without speaking, then fastened her eyes again upon the pages before her. Katherine sat down by her own table and soon forgot everything but the work on hand, although, at first, she had experienced a sense of discord and friction in the atmosphere. The hour passed in absolute silence until the next bell rang, when Miss Minot closed her books and abruptly left the room. Katherine was not sorry to be left alone, and bringing forth from her trunk her Bible, "Science and Health," and "Quarterly," began to study her lesson for the coming Sunday. She spent half an hour or more in this way, then sat reading from her text-book until Sadie returned. Katherine greeted her with a smile as she entered and inquired: "What is the retiring hour, Miss Minot?" "Ten; and every light must be out at half-past," was the somewhat curt response. Then, after an irresolute pause, she walked over to Katharine, and picking up the book she had just laid down, asked: "What is this that you were reading? Oh! it is that dreadful book I've heard so much about." "It doesn't seem dreadful to me," returned her companion, gently. "Humph! 'At all times and under all circumstances overcome evil with good,'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 571.] she read from the page to which she had opened. "That's just another version of the 'golden rule,' isn't it?" Then, turning a leaf, she read from the next page: "'Love fulfills the law in Christian Science.' Humph!" she ejaculated again, as she put the volume down, "so you are a Christian Scientist! I heard about it downstairs." "Yes," quietly returned Katherine. "And do you really believe all they tell about the wonderful cures and--and the rest of it?" Sadie demanded, with curling lips. "Yes." "Tell me about some of them," said the girl, eagerly, her curiosity aroused. "Excuse me, Miss Minot; I cannot, for Prof. Seabrook has forbidden me to say anything about the subject here," Katherine returned. "Yes, I heard that, too," said Sadie, with a nod. "Well, the professor is dead set against it, and I'm down on it right smart myself. You see"--with a superior air--"I'm an Episcopalian; my grandfather was an Episcopalian clergyman, a rector, you know, and"--with a shrug and laugh--"I'm afraid he wouldn't rest easy in his grave if he knew I had such a rank heretic for a roommate. But"--leaning forward and smiling into her companion's eyes-- "aside from that I like you right well, Miss Minturn, and if we leave this subject alone I reckon we'll get along pretty comfortably together; what do you say?" "I am sure we will," cordially assented Katherine, "and"--with a merry twinkle in her eyes--"if you do not broach it, you may confidently rely upon my discretion." "I own up," good-naturedly returned her chum. "I did broach it this time; but"--flushing slightly--"something had to be said to get it out of the way, don't you know? And may I--would you like me to call you Katherine?" "With all my heart, Sadie." The two girls smiled into each other's eyes; the last vestige of formality was swept away, and the atmosphere was clear. CHAPTER III. DOROTHY. The midwinter term at Hilton Seminary had opened on Wednesday, and the remainder of the week passed quickly and uneventfully as Katherine fell easily into the ways of the institution and found herself getting well started in her various studies. Her relations with her roommate were most harmonious, but the majority of the students either ignored her altogether or treated her with a coldness that, had she not had her "Science" to sustain and comfort her, would have made her lot hard indeed to bear. She had not met the professor again, except in the class room, where he had seemed to be wholly absorbed in his duties as instructor and oblivious of the personality of the students. On Saturday afternoon she was introduced to Mrs. Seabrook while strolling in the grounds with Miss Reynolds, between whom and herself a growing friendliness was asserting itself. The professor's wife was walking beside a wheel-chair, which was being propelled by a nurse in cap and apron, and in which was seated-- propped up by pillows--a young girl who appeared to be about seven or eight years of age, although her serious, pain-lined face and thoughtful eyes seemed, by right, to belong to an older person. Miss Reynolds paused on meeting this trio and introduced Katherine to Mrs. Seabrook, who greeted her with a sweet cordiality that at once won the girl's heart. "I heard that we had a new student among us," she said, as she warmly clasped Katherine's hand, "and I hope you are going to be very happy with us, Miss Minturn." "Thank you; not 'going to be'--I already am happy here," she cheerily and truthfully replied, for she had become deeply interested in her work, and, as she dearly loved to study, she was content to leave her social relations to be governed by the love she was "trying to live." "This is my daughter," Mrs. Seabrook continued, as she turned a fond look upon the pale, pinched face among the pillows. "Dorothy, this is the young lady whom you have been wishing to see." Katherine bent down, took the small mittened hand that was extended to her and smiled into the grave, searching eyes that were earnestly studying her face. "And I also have been wishing to see Dorothy," she said, with a note of tenderness in her tone that caused the slender fingers inside the mitten to close more firmly over her own. "I am very fond of little people." "I should not be so 'little' if I were well," Dorothy returned, with a faint sigh. Then, glancing up at her attendant, she added: "This is my nurse, Alice, and she has to wheel me about because I cannot walk." Katherine bestowed a friendly look and nod upon Alice; then a great wave of compassion for the little cripple swept over her heart and softened her earnest brown eyes as she turned back to her and remarked, in a cheery tone: "You have a lovely chair. These rubber tires must cause it to roll very smoothly and make it easy for Alice to wheel you about." "Yes, I like my chair very much--my Uncle Phillip brought it to me from Germany--and Alice is very nice about taking me everywhere I want to go; but it would be so much nicer if I could walk and run about like other girls," and Dorothy's yearning tone smote painfully upon every listening ear. "It certainly would, dear," Katherine returned, giving the small hand that still clung to hers a loving pressure, adding, softly: "And sometime you will, I hope." The child's face glowed at the term of endearment; but her pale lips quivered slightly at the hopeful assurance. "Oh! no," she said, shaking her head slowly; "I have a double curvature of the spine, and all the doctors say I never can. I--I- -think I could bear that--not being able to walk--but the dreadful pain sometimes makes me wish I wasn't here at all." Katherine did not make any reply to this pathetic information. For a moment or two she seemed to be oblivious to everything, even to the presence of her companions, and stood looking off towards the western sky, as if communing with some unseen presence there. Then, suddenly arousing herself, she detached a beautiful pink rosebud from the lapel of her jacket, saying, brightly: "Do you love flowers, Dorothy? will you let me fasten this on your coat? It is fresh from the greenhouse and will last some time yet. There--see!" as she deftly pinned it in place. "What a pretty contrast it makes against the dark-blue cloth." "It is lovely," said the girl, bending forward to inhale its perfume. "How perfect it is! Do you ever wonder, Miss Minturn, why God makes the flowers and things that grow so perfect and beautiful, and people--so many of them--imperfect and ugly?" "My dear," Mrs. Seabrook here smilingly interposed, though a quickly repressed sigh arose to her lips, "I hope you are not going to involve Miss Minturn in a metaphysical discussion during this first meeting! Dorothy has acquired a habit of philosophizing and asking profound questions that are not always easily answered," she explained to Katherine. "Surely, dear, you do not think that God ever made anyone, or anything, imperfect or ugly?" Katherine gently inquired. The child hesitated a moment, as if pondering the question. "Well," she presently asserted, with a positive intonation and nod of her head, "there are a lot of deformed, sick and ugly people in the world, and the Bible tells us that He made everything." "The Bible tells us, in Genesis, that 'everything that God made was good'; and, in Psalms, that 'all His ways are perfect,'" quoted Katherine. "Yes, I know it; that was in the beginning, though," said Dorothy; "but if He could make things perfect in the first place I don't see why He didn't keep them so if He is God." "Come, come, dearie; I think we must go on now--we are keeping Miss Reynolds and Miss Minturn from their walk," Mrs. Seabrook again interposed, with a note of gentle reproof in her tone, as she stooped to tuck the robe more closely around the girl. A sunny smile, like a burst of sunshine from under a cloud, suddenly broke over Dorothy's face, at once dispelling its unnatural gravity and perplexity. "I didn't think how naughty that was going to sound, mamma dear," she said, as, with a deprecating air, she softly patted her mother's hand. "I'm afraid Miss Minturn will think I am not very good; but, truly, things do seem awfully mixed up sometimes when I get to thinking this way. I like you very, very much, though," she added, nodding brightly at her new acquaintance. "I wish you would come to see me in mamma's apartments when you are not too busy." "I shall be very glad to--if I may," Katherine replied, with an inquiring glance at Mrs. Seabrook. "Yes, do come, Miss Minturn, whenever you can find time; we are very glad to have the young ladies visit Dorothy, who has many lonely hours. Now come, Alice," and, with a parting smile and bow, she signaled the nurse to move on. "Good-by, Miss Minturn, and thank you for my lovely rose," cried the child, looking back over her shoulder and waving her small hand in farewell. "Poor child," sighed Miss Reynolds, as she and Katherine passed out of the grounds to the highway, "she has a continual struggle to live, yet she is a remarkable girl, in spite of her many infirmities, with a mind bright and keen far beyond her years." "How old is she?" "Thirteen, a month or two ago." "Is it possible? She does not look to be over seven or eight, although, mentally, she seems more mature." "That is true. She had a bad fall when she was six years old, and her body has never grown any since the accident," Miss Reynolds explained. "She suffers a great deal--sometimes the pain is almost unbearable; but, as a rule, she is very lovable and patient, though, now and then, a remark like what she made to you just now, shows that she thinks deeply and is perplexed--like some children of larger growth--over the knotty problems of life," she concluded, with a sigh. "How is it, Miss Minturn," she went on, after a moment of silence, "how do you Scientists account for the fact that a perfect and all-merciful God--'the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort,' as Paul puts it--has created a world of such confusion, wherein evil and suffering, instead of peace and harmony, are the predominant elements?--where, for ages, sickness and death have relentlessly mown down generation after generation, until one becomes heart-sick and weary, and even filled with despair, at times, in view of their probable continuance for ages to come?" The woman's face was flushed, her eyes somber, and there was a note of passionate protest in her voice which moved Katherine deeply; while what she had said proved to her that these problems had been pondered o'er and o'er until her mind was almost in a state of chaos regarding them. While she was debating with herself what reply she could make that would best meet her thought, her companion resumed: "I am a dear lover of children, but when I see anyone like Dorothy; when I see mothers grieving for their darlings, whom God gave them for a little while, then ruthlessly snatched from their embrace for no apparent reason, I feel sure that something is very wrong; and, of late years, my heart is filled with indignant protest whenever I hear of the birth of a dear little innocent. 'Oh!' I cry within myself, 'it is born only to repeat the struggle with sin, suffering and death.' Of what use is its life? of what use the advent of future generations if there is no way to rise above, or conquer, such adverse conditions? Is God good--if there is a God--to create only to destroy? to arbitrarily force these little innocents into the world to fight the unequal battle with evil? Millions have faced it bravely--nobly, trusting God's promises, but they have never succeeded in removing one iota of the curse, 'Thou shalt surely die.' The whole problem of life is a mystery which I am tired of trying to solve," and Katherine was sure the woman stifled a sob as she concluded. "Surely, dear Miss Reynolds, you do not doubt the existence of God?" she gently inquired. "No, child; don't think me quite an atheist," said her teacher, with a deprecatory smile and gesture. "Life, nature, the universe, with their teeming and ever-unfolding wonders tell me that there is a Force--a controlling power and intelligence behind them. We call that force 'God.' We say that God is omnipotent, all wise and good; and certainly, in the government of the universe, everything points that way, everything is exact and perfect. But how to reconcile God as good, merciful, loving, with the creation and manifestation of evil as we find it on this planet? Ah! that is beyond me." "Can evil come out of good?" briefly queried Katherine. Miss Reynolds started slightly. "No," she returned, positively; "no more than a lie can spring out of truth; those are self-evident facts." "Then dare we say that God--which is but another term for good, Supreme Good--created evil?" "Oh, do you believe in the serpent or devil? I know he comes forward from some mysterious source in the narrative and is held responsible. Then naturally follows the question, 'Who created his satanic majesty?' Well, who did? If God created everything, and evil cannot come out of good, where did evil come from? What a paradox it seems!" she went on, without waiting for a reply. "Yet evil does exist in the world--look at Dorothy! Think of the sin, misery and crime all about us! Where did they come from? There are some who contend that God did not create evil, but permits it for some wise purpose; but that, to me, seems like a weak attempt to clear the Almighty from the terrible responsibility of having made sin and its deadly results without detracting from His omnipotence." "If a person tells you a lie, where does it come from?" Katherine quietly inquired. "From his own evil desire to deceive, of course." "Exactly; it was an invention of his own evil thought, prompted by some selfish motive. You can say the same of theft, murder--in fact of all crime. But God--Good--is not the author of the lie, or crime, neither does He 'permit them for some wise purpose,' as you have quoted, any more than a just and loving human father would teach, or permit, his son to become a criminal, claiming that he needed such discipline to fit him for future happiness; or, any more than you, a teacher, would put demoralizing literature into the hands of a student as a method of discipline for higher education." "How perfectly absurd that sounds! And yet it is parallel to the doctrine that has been taught for ages," said Miss Reynolds, thoughtfully. "But I do not see how you can apply the same logic to disease and suffering." "The Scriptures tell us that sin brought death.' Sickness and disease are the seeds of death; then they are the results of sin- evil. God not being the author of sin and disease, they, like the lie, can only originate in the evil thought or mind of the sinner," Katherine explained. "Then you believe that we mortals are alone responsible for all the suffering and evil there is in the world?" "Yes; evil is a mortal concept." "Then how does God---What is God, from your standpoint, Kath--may I call you Katherine?" and Miss Reynolds laid a caressing hand upon the girl's arm as she made this request. "Do--I should so like to have you," she replied, turning to her with a luminous smile. "Now for your question. God is Spirit, and 'What the Scriptures declare Him to be--Life, Truth and Love,'" [Footnote: "'Science and Health," page 330.] she added, quoting from her text-book. "You say Spirit, instead of 'a spirit.' Now what is this Spirit?" "Infinite Mind, Intelligence, Omnipotent Good." "Ah!" Miss Reynolds began, then paused abruptly. "But intelligence, life, truth, love are characteristics, attributes which anyone may possess and cultivate." "Yes, considered in that sense they are attributes. But whence came they?" Katherine demanded, with glowing eyes. "The source of life must be Life itself, must it not? The same must also be true of truth and love. So Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Intelligence constitute, in Science, the Divine Principle, or God, the controlling and governing power of the universe and man." "Divine Principle! Mind! Intelligence! Life! Truth! Love! God!" repeated Miss Reynolds, and dwelling thoughtfully upon each word. Then, turning a wondering look upon her companion, she exclaimed, almost breathlessly: "Why, Katherine, if that is true I can understand how God can be omnipresent! That is a doctrine of my church, that has been a tantalizing mystery to me all my life. My dear girl," she went on in an eager tone, "I begin to see a ray of light--I must think more about it, though. I have always thought of Deity as a 'personal God,' and, yes"--smiling--"I used to believe in a personal devil, too; with a very vague conception that although the latter had always managed to keep the preponderance of power in his hands, God would, in some miraculous manner, win the battle in the end. But, even now"--with a look of perplexity--"I do not grasp where or how, according to your logic, God comes in as supreme, infinite, so long as evil exists." "Let us go back to the lie for an illustration," said Katherine. "You said that it originated in the person's own evil thought and desire to deceive. Well, what happens when you turn the light of truth upon a lie?" "Why, it disappears--vanishes; you learn the fact and are no longer affected by, or conscious of, the falsehood." "Then truth has destroyed, annihilated it; it has become nothing to you. As long as you believe a lie you are its victim and suffer from it; but once learn the truth you are free from that illusion and its power over you is gone. Now, you would not say that truth created the lie, permitted it, or was in any way responsible for it, or your suffering on account of it?" "N-o; so God, being good--infinite good--knows nothing of evil in any form. Is that your point, Katherine?" "Yes; so it follows He could neither create nor permit what He knows nothing about." "Why!" exclaimed Miss Reynolds, turning a glowing face to the girl, "those same arguments must hold good for everything! Then sickness and suffering must be the outcome of wrong thought on the part of mortals! What unlimited possibilities that suggests! Divine Principle! I begin to understand why you call yourselves 'Scientists'--you think and live in accord with this infinite, absolute Principle--you demonstrate it, as--as I demonstrate mathematics." "Yes," said Katherine, smiling; "so you see that Christian Science is, as some one has aptly said, 'the Science of sciences.'" "That is a very sweeping assertion," responded her teacher in a somewhat doubtful tone. "I'll have to ruminate on that. However, this little glimpse of a better way than I have hitherto known, seems like an olive leaf of hope and promise to me, for I have been tossing on a restless sea of doubt and skepticism for years, reaching out and groping after some substantial plank that would float me into a haven of peace and rest. But how is it that you, so young, argue so clearly and logically about these things that have puzzled older and wiser heads for ages?" "I have never known anything else," said Katherine, simply. "When I was a very little child my mother was healed of a disease which several physicians had pronounced incurable. She at once became an earnest student of Christian Science, and, later, a successful practitioner; consequently its principles, as far as I have gone, are as clear to me as those that govern your own dear mathematics are to you. But"--a blank look suddenly sweeping over her face--"I am afraid I have been guilty of rank disobedience in discussing these problems with you." "How so?" asked her teacher, in surprise. "Prof. Seabrook has strictly forbidden me to talk of Christian Science while I am a student at Hilton." "Of course, he meant that you must not talk it to the other students," said Miss Reynolds, "and it would be unwise, for, doubtless, the parents of many, if not of all, would object. But I, as your teacher, feel at liberty to ask you whatever questions I choose, and you are perfectly justified in answering them." "Ye-s, I believe you are right on that point," Katherine thoughtfully returned. "But I would not willfully disobey the professor in any way. I owe him perfect loyalty as long as I am a pupil in his school, and I mean to yield it to him." "That is right," her companion affirmed; "but you do not need to condemn yourself for what has occurred this afternoon, for, at my age, I am capable of judging for myself upon all moral and religious questions, and I think you may feel at liberty to give me any information that I may seek from you. I have not done with you, either," she added, with a significant smile, "for you have given me to-day a glimpse of something which I believe will change the universe for me. Ah! whom have we here?" She checked herself suddenly as a gentleman came into view around a curve in the road, a short distance ahead of them. CHAPTER IV. PHILLIP HARRIS STANLEY, M.D. Katherine glanced up as her companion called her attention to the approaching figure, and saw a finely formed man, tall, straight and stalwart, and, apparently, about thirty-five years of age. He possessed an attractive, though thoughtful, face, and bore himself with an air of refinement and self-possession that at once proclaimed him the cultured gentleman. A delicate pink instantly suffused the girl's face, and there was a peculiar thrill in her voice as she exclaimed, in great surprise: "Why! that is Dr. Stanley! Mamma and I became acquainted with him on board the Ivernia when we returned from abroad, two months ago." "So you already know Phillip Harris Stanley!" Miss Reynolds observed, and surprised in turn. "He is Mrs. Seabrook's brother-- the 'Uncle Phillip' of whom Dorothy spoke. He has been in Germany during the last two years, studying in various hospitals, but has now again opened his office in this city. Dorothy is under his care, and he is therefore a frequent visitor at the seminary." By this time the gentleman had come within speaking distance of the ladies, whom he instantly recognized, his fine eyes lighting with pleasure as they fell upon Katherine. He courteously lifted his hat. "Good-afternoon, Miss Reynolds," he said, with a genial smile, as he extended his hand in greeting. "And, Miss Minturn, this is certainly an unexpected pleasure! I suppose, however," he continued, with a mirthful quiver of his lips, "it would not be at all proper to ask if you are well, even if your blooming appearance did not speak for you and preclude the necessity of such an inquiry. But to what happy circumstance do we owe the pleasure of your advent here?" "I am a student at Hilton Seminary," Katherine replied, as she frankly gave him her hand, her color deepening as she did so. "I played truant from school for several months, as you know, and am now trying to bridge the chasm." "And your delightful mother, Miss Minturn? I trust she is also we- --Ah! excuse me--enjoying life?" "Ah! Dr. Stanley, I see you have not forgotten how to exercise your propensity for teasing," Katherine retorted, with a light laugh. "My mother is both well and happy, thank you, and will be pleased to know that I have met you again." The physician bowed his acknowledgment as he remarked: "Pray give my kind regards to Mrs. Minturn when you make up your next budget of news for her. As for my propensity to tease"--with a roguish smile--"I had no resource except to exercise it upon the daughter. Since the mother would not be teased and could never be defeated in an argument, I had to retaliate in some way. But what class have you entered, Miss Minturn?" "I am a junior, Dr. Stanley." "Ah! then we shall keep you at Hilton for some time," and there was a ring of satisfaction in the gentleman's tones which did not escape the ear of the observant teacher. "Are you aware, Miss Reynolds," he said, turning to her and resuming his bantering tone, "what a revolutionary spirit our institution has taken to her bosom in admitting Miss Minturn?" "We have found her a very peaceable individual: thus far; she certainly does not have the appearance of being a discordant element," the lady returned, as she bestowed an affectionate glance upon her companion. But the girl's face had grown suddenly grave, and she now lifted a pair of very serious eyes to the physician. "Yes, Dr. Stanley," she observed, "Miss Reynolds knows that I am a Christian Scientist; but Prof. Seabrook has forbidden me to make my religious views prominent in the school." "I understand. Yes, I know that my brother-in-law is not at all in sympathy with the movement," said Phillip Stanley; and at once dropping his banter, he added, apologetically: "I fear that I was thoughtless in referring to the subject in the way I did, and I will not annoy you again by alluding to it in the presence of a third party." "I am not 'annoyed,' I assure you," Katherine replied, flushing again under his regretful glance. "Miss Reynolds, being a teacher, does not come under the ban; but I desire to respect Prof. Seabrook's wishes under all circumstances." "All honor to so loyal a student, and I will henceforth govern myself accordingly," smilingly returned the gentleman, as he again doffed his hat to her. "But I must move on. I have to make my visit to Dorothy and get back to the city for another appointment within an hour. I am very glad to have met you, ladies," and, with a parting bow, the handsome doctor went his way, leaving Katherine and her teacher to continue their ramble. "How strange that you should know Dr. Stanley!" Miss Reynolds observed. "He is the youngest member of Mrs. Seabrook's family, and a fine fellow--a very talented man, in fact. He had begun to distinguish himself in his profession before he went abroad, and now, even though he has been home only a couple of months, he has an extensive practice. But I suppose this does not interest you, as you have no use for doctors," she concluded, archly. "Indeed, it does interest me," said Katherine, earnestly, "and I hope you do not think that Scientists hold physicians in contempt. We all know that there are many noble men among them, who are devoted to their profession and are most conscientious in the practice of medicine." "But I suppose you would not employ one under any circumstances?" "No; I could not." "You have such faith in your mother's healing power, you would trust her before the most noted practitioner of materia medica?" "I have such faith in God's healing power that I would trust Him, and Him only," Katherine corrected, gently. "Do you never take medicine of any kind?" "No; I have never used a drop or a grain--nor material remedies of any description--since I was three years of age." "Perhaps you have never been ill enough to need them?" "Yes, I have needed help at times; but it has always come through the understanding of Christian Science." "Well, it is all a sealed book to me," sighed Miss Reynolds, with a look of perplexity. Then she inquired: "How did Dr. Stanley learn that you and your mother are Scientists?" "There is a little story connected with that revelation and our acquaintance with him," said Katherine. "There was a dear little girl on board the Ivernia who became violently seasick the day we sailed for home. The ship's surgeon was appealed to, but he could do absolutely nothing for her; she grew worse every hour for three days, when she seemed to be sinking rapidly. The surgeon called a consultation with Dr. Stanley and another physician from Philadelphia; but every remedy which their united learning prescribed failed, utterly, to afford any relief. The parents were in despair and a gloom settled over the whole ship, for it was reported that the little one would not live to land unless the nausea could be conquered. Then mamma sought the parents, told them she was a Christian Scientist, and, with their consent, would try to help the child. The mother was eager to try it, but the father sneered openly. He had 'no faith in any such mummery,' he said, yet he finally yielded to his wife's almost frantic appeals and gave his consent. The dear little thing was relieved almost immediately, and at the end of two hours, after eating a wholesome meal, was wrapped in a blanket and carried on deck, weak and white as a snowflake, it is true, but entirely free from the dreadful nausea, and smiling happily as she lay in her father's arms and breathed in the fresh, pure air. The next day she was dressed and playing about the deck with other children." "Well, that was a signal triumph over materia medica, wasn't it? How did the doctors bear it?" queried Miss Reynolds, who had been deeply interested in the story. "The ship's surgeon and Dr. Fletcher, of Philadelphia, gave mamma a very wide berth; but Dr. Stanley appeared to be really interested and anxious to learn the secret of the sudden cure. He found it very difficult, however, to accept some of our views, and it was too funny for anything to hear him, day after day, trying to corner mamma upon numberless points on which he had spent years of study," and Katherine laughed out merrily over some of the memories which her account had recalled. "That was what he meant, perhaps, when he said 'Mrs. Minturn would not be teased and could not be defeated in an argument'?" "Yes; he was very good-natured over it, though, gallantly bearing his defeat, never manifesting the slightest irritation, and was always most courteous. He is very cultured, and, having traveled extensively, we found much to admire and a very delightful compagnon de voyage in him." Miss Reynolds shot a keen look at the girl's animated face. "Yes," she observed to herself, "and if I am not very much mistaken, our 'cultured gentleman' heartily reciprocates that last statement." Then she remarked to Katherine: "He is really a noble fellow and bound to make his mark in the world. It is a great pity, though, that he should be so handicapped in his career." "Why, what do you mean?" exclaimed the girl, in astonishment. "Oh! do you not know that he is partially blind?" "No, indeed! Why, he has beautiful eyes!" said Katherine, flushing. "Yes, dear, I know he has, and there are very few who even suspect his misfortune, but it is true, nevertheless. When he was a boy of nine," Miss Reynolds went on to explain, "his father was showing him, one Fourth of July, how to manage some cannon crackers. By some fatality, the first and only one fired hit a post, glanced off and struck the child in the eye. When he recovered somewhat from the fright and pain caused by the accident, no wound could be found, although there was some discoloration from the bruise; but he said he could not see with the injured eye. The best oculists were consulted, and all agreed in their verdict: 'There was a partial dislocation of the optic nerve, and his sight would never again be normal; it might possibly improve with the lapse of time, but the injury was permanent;' and so it has proved. He can detect light from darkness with that eye, but that is all." Katherine made no reply when this account was concluded, but there came into her face a look which, her teacher was beginning to observe, always appeared whenever mention was made of sickness or trouble of any kind; it was a far-away expression, as if her thoughts had been lifted above and beyond the world and worldly things. It was only for a moment, however; she presently awoke to her surroundings, and calling attention to the view before them thus changed the subject, which was not referred to again. Meantime, Dr. Stanley walked briskly towards the seminary, but with a. very thoughtful face and mien, as if he were pondering some weighty subject. "It would be regarded as the height of absurdity," he muttered to himself. "But I wonder--I really would like to put it to the test." Then suddenly straightening himself with a resolute air, he quickened his pace and was soon inside the school grounds, reaching the building just in season to assist Mrs. Seabrook and the nurse in getting Dorothy inside. "Oh! Uncle Phillip!" joyously exclaimed the girl, as soon as she espied him, for she dearly loved this gentle man, who was always as tender as a woman in his treatment of her, and spared no pains to contribute to her comfort and happiness. "I was afraid you would not come to-day!" "I know I am late, Dorrie, but I was detained at the office by a new patient, and now I have another coming in an hour," he said, as he bent to touch her forehead with his lips. "Oh then you can't stay to finish that pretty German story!" cried the child, in a tone of disappointment. "Not to-day, dearie; but I will come to-morrow, to let mamma and papa go to church together, and we will have a fine time by ourselves." Patient Dorothy expressed herself as perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, and was soon laughing merrily over some amusing incidents, of which this good comrade of hers appeared to have an exhaustless store. These visits from her "jolly M.D. uncle," as she sometimes called him, were like oases in a desert to the suffering child, for he invariably made her forget herself, and always left her bright and happy with something pleasant to think about and talk over with her mother or nurse. He rolled her to her room, where, after a few minutes' chat, he made a brief examination of her condition, with some slight change in her medicines, then left her and sought Prof. Seabrook in his study, for it was his custom to report to him after each visit. "Well?" he questioned, eagerly, as the physician entered the room, for the child was "the apple of his eye," and he watched her every symptom most jealously. "I think Dorrie is holding her own pretty well." "Oh! Phillip, that is the same old story that Dr. Abbot used to tell me before you came home and took the case," Prof. Seabrook exclaimed, in a disheartened tone. "I know, Will; it must grow monotonous to you," said his brother- in-law, as he laid a sympathetic hand on his companion's arm. "But, truly, there is nothing else to tell you; you instructed me to give you 'facts with no evasions,' and honor compels me to obey you." "True; and I know you will bring all your skill, all your experience to bear upon the case," said the yearning father, with a note of pathetic appeal in his voice that touched his listener deeply. "Most assuredly," earnestly returned the physician; but an involuntary, though quickly repressed, sigh escaped him as he said it. Prof. Seabrook's keen ear detected it and a spasm of fear clutched his heart. But he would not voice it; he shrank from having it corroborated. "There is one thing more which could be done, which might, perhaps, result in giving Dorrie relief from the troublesome pain," said Dr. Stanley, after a moment of thought, adding: "I have been waiting for her to get stronger before suggesting it." "What is it?" briefly inquired his companion. The young man explained the operation, and the father shivered involuntarily. "That means great suffering--at least for a time," he said, with dry lips. "Yes," and Phillip Stanley's eyes grew very pitiful as they met the almost hopeless ones opposite him. "I cannot bear it!" cried his brother-in-law, passionately. There followed a somber silence of several minutes, during which each heart struggled in secret rebellion under the galling burden imposed upon it. "There is an alternative which we might try before attempting such radical treatment," Dr. Stanley at length remarked, with some hesitation. "It--at least it could do no harm, if--if you are willing to try." "Anything--anything that will spare my child to me and save her suffering," burst impetuously from William Seabrook's lips. "You have heard of--Christian Science?" "What!" demanded the astonished principal of Hilton Seminary, sitting suddenly erect and bending a look of scorn upon his companion. "You suggest such an absurd alternative as that to me, and for such a case as this!" "I know it sounds absurd; but, as I said before, it could at least do no harm." "The suggestion is ridiculous; I have no patience with it," was the sharp retort. "Well, it may seem ridiculous to you, but if it can cure one disease I do not know why it could not others," the physician mildly rejoined; and then he proceeded to relate the story which Katherine had told her teacher that same hour, but without mentioning any names. "Nonsense! It was simply hypnotism, mesmerism," said the elder man when he concluded. "No, it did not work at all like hypnotism," was the positive reply. "However, if you are opposed to trying it, there is nothing more to be said." "I am opposed to it, most decidedly," said the professor, almost harshly, and his brother wondered at his unusual mood. "I believe the whole thing--root, branch and practice--to be an invention of Satan himself, and I would not give it countenance under any circumstances." "Not even to save your nearest and dearest?" queried Phillip Stanley, and wholly unable to account for the excitement and irritability of his usually dignified and high-bred relative. The professor deigned no reply, but the obstinate frown upon his brow and the stern compression of his lips were sufficient warning that it would be useless to pursue the subject. "Well, it was only a suggestion, Will," the younger man said, in a friendly tone. "Of course, I have no real faith in the efficacy of the method myself; only, as I shrink from the operation on a delicate girl like Dorrie, it occurred to me that we might at least give Christian Science a trial. But I must be off to meet another appointment. I will be up again to-morrow morning to stay with Dorothy while you and Emilie go to church." He held out his hand, which his brother-in-law grasped and wrung. "You are a faithful friend, Phil. Don't think for a moment that I do not appreciate you; but I believe I've been out of sorts for several days," said the professor, with a deprecatory smile. "It's all right, old boy; good-by," was the cheery response, as the young man went out, softly closing the door after him, but with a weary look in his eyes which the other did not see. CHAPTER V. KATHERINE'S FIRST SABBATH AT HILTON. Katherine's first Sabbath at Hilton Seminary dawned a perfect winter morning, and, starting forth in good season, she sought the little hall on Grove Street, where the few Scientists of the city met each week to enjoy the service which has become so dear to the heart of every student of God's word, as spiritually interpreted according to Christian Science. She had carefully studied the lesson during the week, and was therefore prepared to enjoy to the utmost each section as its point was clearly brought out by the readers, to teach and bless; and so, when she again turned her steps homeward, she felt calmed, refreshed and strengthened for the duties that lay before her. As she was about to enter the building she encountered Prof. and Mrs. Seabrook, who also had just returned from church. The former glanced askance at her books, lifted his hat to her with frigid politeness, and passed on to his study. Mrs. Seabrook, however, paused and greeted her most cordially, whereupon Katherine inquired for Dorothy. "She was not quite as well this morning," replied the mother, an expression of care and weariness flitting over her sweet face. "My brother, Dr. Stanley, has been with her while we were at church, and I hope to find her better, for he always does her good. Dorothy was greatly attracted to you yesterday, Miss Minturn," she added, smiling, "and I hope you will find time to drop in to see her now and then." "Indeed I will; it will be a pleasure to me, for I love children," Katherine replied, cordially, and much gratified to have yesterday's invitation repeated, while there was a feeling of deep tenderness in her heart for the long-suffering woman as she passed on to her room. After dinner she looked over the Bible lesson for the afternoon. She was dreading this ordeal somewhat, for she well knew how widely different is the old theological exposition of the first chapter of Genesis from its spiritual interpretation, as she had been taught it according to Christian Science, But she tried to feel that, if she was called upon to express an opinion, she would be led to speak wisely and yet be obedient to Prof. Seabrook's command not to "flaunt her views before the school." She hoped that he would ignore her altogether, and thus avoid an awkward situation for them both. When the class convened she was surprised to find Dorothy seated in her chair beside her father, and learned afterward that the girl was often present during the lessons, always giving the closest attention to what was said, even asking questions occasionally that puzzled wiser heads than hers. As was his custom, Prof. Seabrook opened the exercises with prayer, followed by a familiar hymn. Then he gave a short talk upon the first chapter of Genesis, as a whole, preliminary to a more general discussion of it. He showed himself to have been a critical student of the Bible, and his remarks were extremely interesting along the line of his own views. His rhetoric was flawless, his figures apt and beautiful, his points well made, and he held the undivided attention of everyone to the end. "I have given you this talk upon creation as a whole," he remarked, in conclusion, "because the subject is too intricate and vast to be discussed in detail--that would require much study and many sittings--and we will spend the remainder of the hour upon two questions: What is God? What is man and his relation to God? Miss Walton, will you tell us what God is, from your point of view?" Miss Walton instantly became confused. She had no clear ideas about God, and after nervously turning the leaves of her Bible for a moment and blushing furiously, finally said so. The principal called upon several others, with a similar result. Everyone loved to listen to him, for his graceful diction was like music in their ears, but when called upon to express their own opinions they were all, with a few exceptions, literally tongue-tied. Two or three of the more thoughtful ones made an attempt to define Deity, but their definitions, for the most part, were the hackneyed ones of old theology. The professor began to look rather weary, especially as he detected, here and there, a yawn behind an uplifted book. All at once a peculiar gleam leaped into his eyes. "Miss Minturn, what is your conception of God?" he inquired, turning abruptly to her. The question came almost as an electric shock to Katherine and brought the quick color to her cheeks. But she quelled this sense of disquiet instantly. "God is Spirit," she quietly replied. "You mean that God is a spirit," quickly corrected the professor. "That definition has already been given several times; but I am trying to ascertain your own conception of Deity. Why did you omit the article?" Katherine lifted her earnest brown eyes to him, and in them he read an expression of mingled surprise and appeal, and he knew, as well as if she had voiced her thought, that she remembered he had forbidden her to express her peculiar views and wished to obey him to the letter. But having put the question, he intended to have an answer of some kind, while he also experienced some curiosity as to whether she could give a comprehensive explanation of the term she had used. "If you purposely omitted the article," he resumed, as she was not quick to reply, "you must have had a reason for so doing; and,"-- with a more courteous inflection--"as there is supposed to be perfect freedom in the class, both in asking questions and expressing opinions, we would like you to explain your position." "The term 'a spirit' implies one of a kind, or, one of many, does it not? But I understand God to be Infinite Spirit," Katherine replied, with quiet self-possession. "Well, what do you mean by 'infinite spirit?' Define 'spirit,' if you please." Katherine was amazed that he should thus pursue the subject. She wondered if he could be utterly ignorant of the scientific definition of God. She had supposed that he must have read something on the subject of Christian Science, or he would not have been so bitterly opposed to it, or, was he only trying to drive her into a corner? However, she saw there was no escape but to follow his lead. He had now given her license to speak, and she felt that she had no right to neglect her opportunity. "Spirit is Mind, Intelligence, Life," she said, using some of the terms she had employed in talking with Miss Reynolds the previous day, and which she thought would be readily understood by the class. "Why, Prof. Seabrook," here interposed one of the seniors, her face aglow, her eyes alight, "I like that definition of God. I never heard it before, but it appeals to me." The gentleman flushed slightly and acknowledged the observation with a grave bow, then inquired of Katherine: "And are you satisfied with that concept of God, Miss Minturn?" "Yes, sir." "Don't you think it rather a vague, visionary idea of the Almighty?" queried the gentleman, with a scornful dilation of his thin nostrils. "Do you associate no thought of individuality or personality with Him?" "Do you mean as human beings are personal and individual?" Katherine respectfully inquired. "Well, I must at least have something more tangible than an unknown quantity for my God," he replied, evasively, as he hurriedly began to turn the leaves of his Bible in search of a text. "He is spoken of as a king, ruler, judge, and so forth, and those terms certainly convey the idea of personality." "But can you limit or outline Deity, sir? Would not that destroy the omnipresence of God?" Again the man changed color a trifle, while, as he continued to search the pages of his Bible, he became conscious of a sudden inward shock. The question had started a new train of thought. Certainly, infinity, omnipresence, could neither be limited nor outlined; those were self-evident facts. There was no yawning in the class now. The attention of everyone was riveted upon the speakers, while Dorothy leaned forward in her chair, her earnest eyes glancing from one face to the other, her eager ears drinking in their every word. "But what do you say to this passage from Hebrews, Miss Minturn, where Paul, speaking of Christ, calls Him the express image of His--God's--person?" [Footnote: Hebrews, 1-3.] demanded the professor--having found the text he was looking for--with a note of triumph in his tone which indicated that he had now propounded an unanswerable argument. "I have been told that the Greek word, which has been translated 'person' in the text you have read, really means character, and it is so rendered in my Bible, which is the revised version," Katherine replied, as she opened her book and found the passage. Now Prof. Seabrook, although he prided himself upon being strictly up to date in everything pertaining to his profession, had neglected to provide himself with the revised version of the New Testament. However, now that his attention was called to the fact, he remembered having heard this text and its change discussed among brother professors, but it had for the moment escaped his memory. Yet he was equal to the occasion, and no one would have suspected from his manner that he was deeply chagrined to find this young girl so well versed in the Scriptures and able to so logically sustain her position upon every point. "Ah!" he observed, after a moment of thought, and in his blandest tone, "I have a Greek Testament in my study and will look up the word later. I find we cannot take up the other question to-day, as our time has expired, and"--closing his books--"we will leave it for another lesson. The class is dismissed." He arose as he concluded, and the young ladies filed quietly out of the room; but, once beyond hearing, they gathered in groups to talk over the interesting discussion that had been so suddenly cut short. Katherine paused beside Dorothy's chair on her way out, and made some pleasant reference to their meeting of the previous day, and then would have passed on, but the girl threw out her hand and caught hers, thus detaining her. "You must have studied the Bible a great deal, Miss Minturn, to get such lovely thoughts about God," she said, in an eager tone. Katherine flushed, for she knew Prof. Seabrook was listening, and felt that she had already said enough regarding her views. "Yes, I am very fond of studying the Bible," she simply returned. "Papa," continued Dorothy, turning to him, "how could you say that Miss Minturn's idea of God is vague and visionary?" "It certainly seems so to me, dear," her father briefly returned. "Well, it doesn't to me," was the positive rejoinder; "not half so--so queer as to think of Him as a man, or three men all mixed up together in one, and able to be everywhere at once," and there was a look of thoughtfulness in the girl's large, blue eyes which betrayed a mind on the alert. "I think we will not talk any more about that now," said her father. "You must be tired from sitting here so long, and ought to rest." "You know I never get tired in the Sunday class, papa," cried Dorothy, and still clinging to Katherine, who had tried to release her hand, for she was anxious to escape further argument. "And," she added, "I want to ask Miss Minturn another question." "I think I will have to run away, dear," Katherine interposed, "for it is almost tea time, you know." "Please--please! haven't you time to tell me just one thing more?" "Yes, I have time for that, but--" and she lifted a doubtful look to her principal. "Papa, may I ask her?" pleaded the girl, intuitively realizing that her new friend feared his disapproval. The man never refused his child anything in reason, and he could not now, although he felt secretly antagonistic, and his look was almost stern as he responded: "Very well, dear, if Miss Minturn will kindly have patience with you." "Well, then," and Dorothy eagerly turned again to Katherine, "if God is Mind, Intelligence and Life, as you said, how can man be His image and likeness?" For a moment Katherine was dismayed, in view of the depths involved in this query, and at a loss how to reply in a way to clearly convey the truth to this inquiring mind, while a slightly ironical smile curved the lips of the learned professor, as he said to himself: "This is a poser for the young woman." "You do not think the account of the creation of man as God's image and likeness refers to this imperfect mortal or physical body, do you, Dorothy?" she inquired, after a moment of thought. "Why, yes; I've always supposed it did. I've thought that perhaps God made him perfect in the first place and then, somehow, He let him get all wrong. I can't see how or why, though I've heard ministers and other people say 'it was for some wise purpose.' It's a great muddle, I think," Dorothy concluded, with a sigh. "No, God never let any of His children 'get wrong.' He could not, for 'all His ways are perfect,' you know. The man of God's creating is the spiritual image and likeness of Himself," Katherine explained. "Oh-o! I begin to see. Why, papa, don't you see? That must be what that verse means--the express image of His person--His character!" and Dorothy turned to her father, her face all aglow as she grasped this new thought. "No, don't go just yet," she pleaded, as Katherine made another effort to release her hand. "Tell me this, please: if everybody became good, perfect in character, would their bodies grow perfect, too? would sick people get strong and well and happy?" "I believe God's Word teaches us so," said Katherine, softly, and wondering why Prof. Seabrook did not put a stop to a conversation which he must know was trespassing upon forbidden ground. "How could they? I wish I knew how," said the child, plaintively. "You know Paul tells us, 'Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,' and to 'put off the mortal and put on the immortal.'" "'Put off the mortal,'" repeated the girl, with a look of perplexity, "but how?" "It is a growth, dear; it is to put out of mind, one by one, every wrong thought, and think only good thoughts--God's thoughts--and in this way one grows good, pure and perfect. Let us take a simple illustration," Katherine continued, as she saw how eagerly the child was drinking in her words. "You have seen a lily bulb?" Dorothy nodded. "It is not at all pretty, and one would throw it away as of no account, if he did not know of the precious little germ and its possibilities hidden away inside. We know how, when the warm sunlight shines upon the spot where it has been put away in the earth, when the dews and soft rains fall upon it, something begins to happen down there in the dark; the ugly bulb begins to change, to soften and melt away; one by one the brown husks drop off and disappear as the tiny germ within, awakening to a new sense of life, starts upward to find more light and freedom and a purer atmosphere. Then two small leaves of living green--harbingers of better things--begin to unfold; after that a sturdy stalk, with a bud of promise, appears, and all the time reaching up, up towards the brightness beyond and above, until at last the pure, perfect and fragrant lily bursts into bloom." "That was very prettily told, Miss Minturn; but your figure is incomplete, for, after all, you have only a material flower--it is far from being spiritual or immortal," Prof. Seabrook here interposed. "Ah!" said Katherine, lifting a pair of sweetly serious eyes to him, "it is only a simple illustration--a little parable pointing to spiritual development and perfection, and the pure and flawless lily is but the type of that which mortal 'eye hath not seen.' The homely bulb corresponds to the mortal man, wrapped up in the density and husks of materiality; the tiny 'germ is the symbol of that ray or spark of immortality that is in every human consciousness and which, governed by the perfect law of Life, 'whose eternal mandate is growth,' [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 520.] and nourished by the sunlight of divine Love, puts off, one by one, the husks, or the mortal man's wrong ways of thinking and living, and, ever reaching Godward, puts on or unfolds first the tiny leaves of living green, then the stalk and bud, and, last, the white flower of purity, which is the image and likeness of God; and this image and likeness is immortal." "Oh, what a lovely--lovely story!" breathed Dorothy, with luminous eyes. "Then, if one never had any but good thoughts, perfect thoughts, one would grow to be perfect and spiritual." "That is what I think the Bible teaches." "I think it is beautiful. I never heard anybody talk like this before!" cried the child, with a joyful ring in her tones. "And now tell me how--" Katherine laughed out musically, and, stooping, kissed the small hand that she was still holding. "You dear child! do you know how long we have been talking?" she said. "I think we must stop right here, and--I hope Prof. Seabrook does not think I have said too much," she concluded, glancing at the man who stood like a statue, with an inscrutable look on his high-bred face. He made no reply, and the situation might have become awkward if Dorothy had not exclaimed: "No, indeed; you haven't said half enough; and will you tell me some more things that you believe, another time?" "If--your father gives me permission," Katherine replied, with heightened color. "Now I must go, for I am sure the bell will ring in a few minutes." "Will you--may I kiss you before you go?" begged the girl, who was used to much petting from everyone, and lifting her pale face to the bright one looking down upon her and which seemed to radiate love. "Yes, indeed," said Katherine, and heartily returned the caress. "Now, good-by," she added, and, with a respectful bow to her principal, left the room, whispering to herself as she tried to put out of thought the misshapen little figure in the chair: "God never made one of His children imperfect. He made man upright, and there is no power apart from God." CHAPTER VI. MATERIA MEDICA AND MIRACLES. The days and weeks sped swiftly by, Katherine gradually becoming mentally acclimated, so to speak, amid an adverse environment. She did not make many acquaintances, for most of the students still held aloof from her; but she was content, even happy, for, with a stanch friend in Miss Reynolds, whom she found most congenial, and with whom she spent much of her leisure time, she did not miss other companionship so much. Sadie, her roommate, was an affectionate and kind-hearted girl; but being of an indolent, ease-loving temperament, she was often a trial to Katherine, who loved order and system and believed it to be the duty of everyone to maintain them. The girl had often attempted to lean upon her in the preparation of some of her lessons, now and then asking to see her problems in mathematics and her translations in German and Latin. But this was something that Katherine would not lend herself to, except in so far as, occasionally, to remind her of some forgotten point in a rule that would suggest a way to work out the knotty problem, or to give her a cue as to case or tense, that would assist in the translation. While she shrank from wronging her, even in thought, there were times when she felt sure that she had taken advantage of her absence from the room to look over her papers and copy from them. "I cannot let you see my work," she said one day, when, after repeated but unheeded hints, Sadie had asked her outright to allow her to look at her problems, saying that she had not had time to do them for herself. "It would not be honest," she continued, determined to settle the matter once for all; "it would simply be showing Miss Reynolds my work and claiming it as your own." "Now I call that downright mean and disobliging," Sadie returned, with an injured air, but flushing uncomfortably and forgetting for the moment the many other acts of kindness Katherine had shown her. "Of course, I don't expect you to do it every day, but just this once, so that I can make a good showing in the class, could do no harm; and, honey, I'll promise to spend all my recreation time, this afternoon, going over the work for myself." "But that would be like using a key, which is forbidden, you know. No, Sadie, I can't do it," Katherine reiterated, firmly but kindly. "It may seem 'disobliging' to you, but you know that is not my motive. I feel that I should be doing you a personal wrong, besides deceiving others, to allow you to lean on me in any such way. You have just as much time to prepare your lessons as I have; you are naturally quick and bright, and, if you would spend fewer hours in shopping and visiting, there is no reason why you cannot make as good a record for yourself as anyone else. One must do one's own work, or be robbed of mental capacity and strength if one depends upon another." "Oh, shucks!" retorted Sadie, with an impatient shrug and a very red face, as she employed the Southern localism, "don't preach to me. I reckon my 'mental capacity' will hold out long enough to pull me through Hilton." And with this sharp and angry thrust she flounced out of the room, banging the door after her. This was the first time there had been an open rupture between them, although on two or three occasions, when Katherine had quietly resisted being imposed upon beyond a certain limit, the girl had manifested something of her hot Southern temper. She had always gotten over it very quickly, however, and harmony had been restored. Katherine regretted this "rift in the lute," but she knew that she was doing right, and, after a few minutes spent in silently declaring that "error is not power and is always overcome with good," she serenely resumed her study. For several days the relations between the roommates were somewhat strained, although Katherine bravely strove to ignore the fact and conduct herself as usual; but Sadie spent very little time in her room, except during study hours, when no conversation was allowed, and manifested in other ways that she had neither forgotten nor forgiven. Meantime Dorothy had been ailing more than usual, and, at Dr. Stanley's suggestion, a consultation of physicians was called, when the young man proposed and explained an operation which he had seen performed abroad, and which he had previously mentioned to his brother-in-law. The matter was discussed at length, and Dorothy was subjected to a careful examination, and, though all shrank from such a trying ordeal for the delicate girl, the five learned M.D.s agreed that it was the one thing, humanly speaking, left to try. That was all that could be said about it--it might, or might not, prove a success. It was a heart-burdened trio, composed of the father, mother and Dr. Stanley, that assembled in Prof. Seabrook's study, after the departure of the other physicians, to talk over the weighty matter. "Well, Emelie, what have you to say about it?" the elder man inquired of his wife, in a voice that was husky from suppressed feeling. "Oh, Will, pray do not put the responsibility of a decision upon me!" Mrs. Seabrook returned, with quivering lips. "What does your heart dictate, dear?" her husband pursued, in a tender tone. "Oh, my heart rebels against any further suffering," she said, with a convulsive sob. Tears started to the eyes of both men at this pathetic wail from the mother, and which found its echo in each heart. "Suppose," said Dr. Stanley, after a moment of painful silence, "we let Dorothy decide for herself. She is thoughtful beyond her years, and I think she should have a voice in the matter. Let the case be frankly stated to her, and we will abide by her decision. To be plain with you, I could not bring myself to perform this operation without her consent." This proposal met with the approval of Prof. and Mrs. Seabrook, and both appeared relieved when the young man said he would take it upon himself to broach the subject to the girl. This he did with great tact and tenderness, and, after a grave and quiet talk with her uncle, in whom she placed unbounded confidence, Dorothy said she was ready for anything that he regarded as necessary, for she knew that he had only her welfare at heart. But Dr. Stanley said there must be a time of "building-up" to get adequate strength, meantime she must try to be as happy as possible and think only pleasant thoughts. "I will try, Uncle Phillip," said the girl, with a trustful look in her eyes, "but"--a wistful expression sweeping over her thin face--"don't you think it is strange there is no such way of healing, nowadays, as when Jesus was here?" "Yes, Dorrie, I do. I have often asked myself that same question," replied her companion, gravely. "How lovely it would be if there was some one living now who could say to me, 'Take up thy bed and walk,' and I could do it," she continued, with a note of yearning in her voice that smote sharply on her listener's heart. "Don't you believe that when Jesus went away He meant to have people keep on healing, and teaching others how to heal, just as He had done?" "Perhaps He did, pet; but you know everybody thinks that those were 'days of miracles,' which were simply intended to establish the divinity of the Savior and His authority to teach the new gospel." "Yes, I know everybody says that whenever I ask anything about it," Dorothy returned, with an involuntary shrug of impatience, "but, somehow, it doesn't seem fair to me that all sick people cannot be healed in the same way. Jesus' way was certainly the best way to cure people--so much better than making them take horrid medicines and--and cutting them up with knives," and a shiver ran over her slight form as she concluded. "Let us talk of something else, Dorrie. I do not like to have you dwell upon that subject," said her uncle, with a spasmodic contraction of his lips. "Well, I will try not to," she said, with a faint sigh. "But truly, Uncle Phil, I can't help thinking that it was never intended that Jesus' way should be stopped any more than the 'new gospel,' as you call it, was meant to be forgotten, or lost, after His resurrection. I think that the healing was a part of the 'new gospel.'" "Well, Miss Thoughtful, that is certainly a good argument," returned her companion, smiling into the earnest, uplifted eyes. "But who has been talking to you to set you to reasoning so deeply on the subject?" He was wondering if Katherine Minturn might not have dropped a seed of her doctrine into the receptive mind of his niece. "Nobody--I just thought it out for myself. You see I can't do much but think, and I often get very puzzled about God and the queer things He lets happen. You know it says in the Bible that He is 'too pure to behold Iniquity,' or evil--and 'does not regard it with any degree of allowance'; and yet there seems to be more sin, sickness and dreadful accidents than anything else in the world." "It is a mystery, I confess; but what makes you think that Jesus intended that His way of healing should be continued after His ascension?" inquired her uncle, who was deeply interested in the child's reasoning. "Why, you see, just before He went away He had a talk with His disciples and gave them some last commands. He told them to go everywhere and preach to everybody--to 'heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out sin or devils.' Now, Uncle Phil, that command is all one--the first part of it says 'heal the sick, raise the dead,' then comes the rest of it--'cast out sin;' and I don't see what right people have to pick it to pieces and say He didn't mean them to obey any but the last part of it." "I see," nodded the young man, as she paused to impress her thought upon him. "Well, then He told them that everybody who believed what He preached would be able to do the same things. Don't you remember He said--'Teach them to observe'--and observe means to practice-- 'all things whatsoever I have commanded you.' Those were His very words. Now don't you think that meant to heal in His way instead of using drugs and all sorts of queer things that the Bible doesn't say anything about?" and Dorothy bent an eager, inquiring look upon her uncle. "Where do you find all that?" questioned Phillip Stanley, and thus evading a direct reply. But what she had said had set him thinking of arguments along the same line which Mrs. Minturn had used, during some of their discussions on board the Ivernia. Dorothy shot a roguish glance up at him. "I guess you don't know your Bible very well, do you, Uncle Phillip?" she said, laughing. "But when you go home please read the last six verses of the last chapter of Mark, and then the last two verses of the last chapter of Matthew, and see for yourself if what Jesus said about healing the sick isn't just as strong as what He said about preaching to sinners." "All right, I will; but, by Jove, Dorrie! what a profound little theologian you are getting to be!" laughingly returned the man as, with a caressing hand, he smoothed back the golden hair from her forehead. "What makes you bother your brain with such perplexing questions?" "I suppose one reason is because I've been sick so long and nobody does me any real good. Oh! I shouldn't have said that to you, when you try so hard," Dorrie interposed, flushing. "But I like to talk about such things, and you are very good to talk with me. Papa used to; but, lately, he doesn't seem to like to. You ought to hear Miss Minturn, though." "Miss Minturn!" repeated Phillip Stanley, with an inward start. "Yes. I don't believe you know who she is. She is a new student, and she is just lovely," said Dorothy, with animation. "Does she talk with you about these things?" inquired Dr. Stanley, and recalling what Katherine had told him regarding having been forbidden to advance her peculiar views while she was a student at Hilton. "I never heard her say anything about what we have been talking of to-day," Dorothy replied. "I'm going to ask her, though, what she thinks, sometime. But papa asked her some questions once in the Sunday class, and her ideas about God and the way people ought to live are beautiful. She has been to see me several times, and she always brings me a lovely flower of some kind--a rose or lily, and once the sweetest orchid; only one at a time, but always such a beauty. I love to look at it when she is gone, and it almost seems as if she had left part of herself behind." "That is just like her dainty ladyship," Phillip Stanley observed to himself, and Dorrie continued: "Sometimes others have been here when she has come, and other times I've felt too weak to talk; but--it is very strange!--I never have that tired feeling in my back when she is here, and she is always so bright and cheery I forget the pain and feel so happy and--and rested. Oh! must you go. Uncle Phillip?" she concluded, regretfully, as he arose and took up his hat. "Yes, dear, I've made you a long call, and now I really must get back to the office," he said, as he bent his lips to hers for his accustomed farewell. The girl twined her arms around his neck. "You are very good to me, Uncle Phillip, and I love you," she murmured, softly, "and when you go away I always count the hours 'til you come again." "Well! well! I begin to think I am a person of considerable importance," he rejoined, in a playful tone. "You 'begin to think,'" she retorted, roguishly; "haven't you ever thought it before? I'm not quite sure that you are as modest as you pretend to be. But, Uncle Phil--" "Yes?" "Will you look up those verses and tell me what you think, the next time you come?" "I promise you I will, Dorrie; and now au revoir!" He touched the bell to call the nurse, then waved her a last good- by and quietly left the room. Phillip Stanley did not, indeed, "know his Bible very well," and had spent very little time conning its pages since starting out in life for himself. Like many another who has been rigidly reared under the vague doctrines of "old theology," he had, at an early age, become both restive and skeptical. This state of mind had grown more pronounced as he had advanced in his profession and been brought in such close touch with suffering and dying humanity. Thus he had long since ceased to attend church, and, having found no comfort in the Scriptures--which seemed to him to portray a stern dictator and relentless judge rather than a merciful and loving Father--he had resolved to live his life as nearly in accord with his own highest conception of honor and rectitude as possible, become an ornament to and an authority in his profession, do what good he could along, the way, and not puzzle his brain trying to solve the perplexing problems of this life and of an unknowable future. But to-day, on his way back to the city, he found himself thinking more seriously of these things than for many years, and, upon reaching his office and finding no one awaiting him, his first act was to take from an upper shelf his long neglected Bible and read the passages which Dorothy had named to him. They appealed to him as never before. Every word bristled with a new meaning, and, becoming deeply interested after reading the last two verses of Matthew, he began the book of Mark and did not leave it until he reached the end. "H-m! I begin to see what Mrs. Minturn founded some of her arguments upon," he said, as the striking of the clock warned him of his dinner hour. "Well, I wonder, were those cases 'miracles'-- just supernatural wonders, performed merely to prove Jesus' authority to preach a new gospel? or were they 'governed by a demonstrable Principle,' as she affirms, brought to earth for suffering humanity to learn and practice, and so be redeemed from its sin-cursed bondage? "There certainly ought to have been a panacea provided for all disease," he resumed, after a moment of deep thought. "But there is none to-day--at least materia medica has never found one, and that is a mortifying fact to be obliged to admit after over four thousand years of investigation and experiment. Poor Dorrie! I'd really like to make a test of her case!" He put down his book with a sigh and then went out to his evening meal, a troubled expression on his handsome face. CHAPTER VII. KATHERINE AND THE JUNIOR LEAGUE. Soon after entering Hilton Seminary, Katherine was invited, as was customary, to become a member of the "Junior League," a secret club or society organized and sustained by the junior class. Its object was twofold. First: improvement, to keep themselves informed of and in touch with current events and literature; and, second: sociability. But it was hinted, now and then, by some of the more serious- minded members, that "a rollicking good time" had more attractions for the majority of its constituents than anything else. Their meetings were held once a fortnight, when some member was expected to read a paper on a subject previously selected by a committee appointed for that purpose, after which a short time was spent in a general discussion of the theme, then the remainder of the evening was given over to social enjoyment; or, occasionally, to "a spread," which is so dear to every boarding school girl's heart. Twice during the year the league formally entertained the faculty and the "Senior League," a similar organization, which as often returned these courtesies. Katherine accepted the invitation with thanks, and at once threw herself heartily into the methods employed to entertain the club, particularly into the literary work, always carefully preparing herself upon the subject to be discussed. But she soon found that the main object of the organization was being perverted, the topics being superficially written up and argued, except by a very few. Less and less attention was being devoted to improvement and more to a good time, together with much school gossip, until the meetings were fast becoming a farce. She deeply regretted this, and talked it over with some others as earnest as herself, but without achieving any satisfactory results. Upon one or two occasions she gave a thoughtfully prepared synopsis of the subject, but these efforts were received with shrugs, nudges and significant smiles and glances; and, while no one was openly discourteous to her, it was evident that, with a few exceptions, she was still regarded as a person to be shunned even by her own club. One evening, on making her appearance, she observed that there was an unusual flutter among the wilder members of the league, and that she at once became the object of their curious regard. The exercises progressed as usual until the discussion was over, when, as was the custom, the president called upon the chairman of the literary committee to announce the topic and the name of the member to treat it for the next meeting. The chairman arose and said, while an ominous silence fell upon the room: "Miss Minturn has been appointed to give us a paper for our next gathering, and the subject chosen is, 'Christian Science and Its Transcendental Tendency.'" An audible titter ran around the room as this announcement was made, and every eye was fastened upon Katherine, who instantly suspected the situation had been planned for the sole purpose of making her uncomfortably conspicuous and bringing her beloved Science before the club simply to be ridiculed. She was naturally quick-tempered, though years of discipline had taught her how to hold herself well in hand upon most occasions. But now, for the moment, her whole soul arose in arms and was ready to flash. forth in fiery indignation. She flushed crimson and a dangerous gleam leaped into her usually gentle eyes, while she trembled from head to foot. "See! it has hit her in a tender spot!" whispered Ollie Grant to Sadie Minot. "Look out, now, for a tempest from Miss Propriety! Won't it be fun?" But the unaccustomed emotion passed almost as quickly as it had come. It was like the flash of summer heat that is followed by no thunder. Her momentary resentment was bravely quelled, and, after a brief denial of error, she arose to her feet, the flush still hot on her cheeks, but a sunny smile parting her red lips and chasing the temper from her eyes. "Lady President and comrades," she began, bowing first to the presiding officer, then to her companions, and there was not the slightest evidence of anger in her sweetly modulated tones, "there is nothing that I love more than Christian Science, and if I thought you also were really interested in it, and I could, consistently, give you some information regarding it, it would give me great pleasure to do so. But you are not interested in it- -you do not believe in it; many of you think it absurdly transcendental, as your topic indicates. Thus you have nothing but ridicule for it. So you can understand that what is very sacred to me I could not discuss in such an antagonistic atmosphere. Besides--" "Oh, but we really do want to learn something about it," here interposed Ollie Grant, as she gave Sadie a nudge with her elbow, "and--and"--with mock demureness--"if we have wrong ideas about it, why, you can perhaps set us right." "I am sure it would be very interesting," Clara Follet observed, with a sly wink at her nearest neighbor; "it is so--mysterious and--creepy; like spiritualism, you know." Katherine had seen both nudge and wink; but neither now had power to move her to any feeling save that of compassion for the thoughtless offenders. "You are entirely mistaken, Miss Follet," she gently returned. "Christian Science and spiritualism are as far removed from each other as the Poles. But I repeat, I cannot give you a paper on the subject you have assigned me." "Do I understand, Miss Minturn, that you absolutely refuse to respond to the appointment?" gravely inquired the president, while whispered comments and an excited rustle were heard from various parts of the room. "Miss Walton, I must," said Katherine, firmly. "Do you know the penalty of such a refusal?" the presiding officer queried, while Katherine started and colored crimson as she continued: "Any member of the league refusing to comply with an appointment made by its committee is subject to expulsion." "Provided there is no good reason for such a refusal, I believe the by-law reads," here interposed a young lady who was beginning to feel sorry for Katherine, for she knew that she was simply being "made game of" by those who held her religious belief in derision. "Yes, certainly. If you can give a good and sufficient reason for the stand you have taken, Miss Minturn, you will, of course, be excused," the president supplemented, realizing there was something in the atmosphere which she did not understand, as she had no knowledge of the plot that had been concocted by the mischief-loving element of the league. "I think I have already given a good reason," Katherine observed, with quiet dignity; "Christian Science is my religion, and I have been asked to treat it as transcendentalism, and--I am inclined to think--in a perverted sense of that term. Can I be expected to hold my religion up for ridicule? I do not refuse the appointment to write a paper; it is the subject that I decline." "I claim that Miss Minturn's reason is 'good and sufficient,' and I move that she be excused," said Miss Clark, the young lady who had previously spoken in Katherine's behalf. The excitement was increasing, and the president was obliged to rap vigorously for order before she could make herself heard. "Does anyone second Miss Clark's motion?" she inquired. It was somewhat timidly seconded by a weak voice from one corner of the room; but when put to vote the hands were three to one against it. Could it be possible, Katherine asked herself in sudden dismay, that certain members of the league were taking this way to get rid of her? Why, then, had they invited her to join it in the first place? "It seems, Miss Minturn, that you cannot be excused," Miss Walton observed, with a deprecatory smile. Katherine did not mean to be driven out of the club in such an underhanded manner if she could avoid it; neither would she violate her conscience. "I shall be obliged to maintain my position, nevertheless," she responded, after a moment of thought. Then she resumed, in a tone of regret: "And since the league does not see fit to release me because of my conscientious scruples, which, it seems to me, should be an unquestionable motive, I will state that Prof. Seabrook, who also does not favor my views, has enjoined me to silence upon the subject while I am a student at Hilton." "Comrades, that settles the matter without further action or discussion," said the president, bringing her gavel down with an imperative stroke; for this last announcement had created a breezy flutter among the mischief-brewers, who had planned to have "great sport" a fortnight hence. "And now," observed Katherine, again rising and addressing the chair with charming frankness, "I stand ready to prepare an article upon any other subject which the committee may assign me." "Is the committee ready with another topic?" the president inquired. That body conferred together for several minutes, after which the chairman stated with ill-concealed mirth, which appeared to be contagious, that a paper on "Transcendentalism" would be expected from Miss Minturn a fortnight from that night. As she sat down titters and giggles were audible in various parts of the room, and Miss Walton's mallet again fell heavily upon the table, while she looked both distressed and indignant. Before she could speak, however, a tall, handsome girl sprang to her feet and turned to her with blazing eyes. "Lady President," she began, in a clear, ringing tone, "I rise to express my disapproval of the proceedings of this business meeting. While I am not at all in sympathy with the subject that has been broached here this evening, I believe in fair play, and that an insult offered to anyone because of her religious belief should not for a moment be tolerated. I shall feel justified in withdrawing from the league if such discourteous treatment is continued. And"--glancing at Katherine--"I also wish to express my admiration for Miss Minturn for so bravely standing by her colors. She might have shielded herself behind Prof. Seabrook's injunction in the first place and so settled the matter at once; but she made it a question of conscience for a cause that she loves, and was not afraid to say so. And now, I move that, if the last-named topic is distasteful to her, she be allowed to choose one for herself." A profound hush had fallen upon the room during this spirited speech, and at its close there was a vigorous applause from a few of her listeners, showing something of a reaction of feeling in favor of Katherine, who observed, however, with a pang at her heart, that her roommate, Sadie, was not among the number. "Is Miss Felton's motion seconded?" queried the president, with a smile and nod of approval at that young lady. Katherine, who had been doing some rapid thinking during the last few minutes, was on her feet again before anyone could speak. "Lady President, pray allow me to thank Miss Felton most heartily for her kind espousal of my cause," she said, bestowing a luminous smile upon her new friend, "but I would be very sorry to have any unpleasantness arise in the league, and may I ask that no further action be taken in the matter? I know that many people have a mistaken idea of what Christian Science is, and regard it and its adherents with feelings that are regretted when they become more enlightened on the subject. And now"--a mirthful gleam in her brown eyes--"let me add that I cheerfully accept the last-named subject assigned me, and will do my best to elucidate it for the benefit of the club at our next meeting." As she concluded and sat down there was another round of applause, more pronounced this time; while some of the ringleaders in the mischief looked as if they felt that the tables were being turned against themselves. The president appeared immensely relieved to have what had threatened to be a stormy scene so tactfully smoothed over, and, as there was no further business to be transacted, she gave the signal for formalities to cease and sociability to begin. Katherine at once became the center of an admiring and condoling group, whose attitude towards her had undergone a radical change since the brave championship of Miss Felton, who was a power not only in her own class but in the whole school. Katherine greeted everyone graciously, but met all expressions of sympathy and indignation with laughing protests, and as soon as she could do so without appearing unappreciative, excused herself, upon the plea that she must look over a lesson before the retiring bell rang, and slipped away to her room. It is not to be wondered at that a few bitter tears forced themselves over her hot cheeks when she found herself alone, for she had been sorely tried. The struggle with her momentary feeling of indignation and a sense of personal injury had been severe, while she had also been deeply hurt by Sadie's evident sympathy with those who were in the plot against her. But she resolutely set herself at work to conquer these emotions and then vigorously attacked the unlearned lesson, after which she retired, but not to sleep, for thought was busy with what had occurred and with plans for the next league meeting. Sadie did not put in an appearance until some time after the gas had been turned off, when she silently undressed and crept into bed, and, shortly after, Katherine fell asleep. Some hours later she was suddenly awakened by what sounded like a moan of pain. She sat up in bed and listened; but, hearing nothing more, thought she must have been mistaken, and was about to lie down again, when, from beneath the covers of the bed, in the opposite corner of the room, she was sure she heard her roommate groan. "Sadie! what is the matter?" she inquired. There was no verbal answer, but another moan smote upon her ears. Katherine sprang out of bed and went to her. "Sadie, tell me, what is the trouble?" she said, laying a gentle hand upon her shoulder. "Oh, I have a horrible toothache," she girl replied, adding: "I did not mean to wake you, but the pain is simply unbearable," and, throwing back the covers, she sat up and rocked to and fro in agony. "What can I do for you?" Katherine kindly inquired, while she mentally declared that "God never made pain, nor man to suffer pain." "Oh, I don't know," was the helpless rejoinder. "I think there is a bottle of oil of cloves somewhere in my upper drawer, if you will find it for me." Katherine lighted the candle, kept for emergencies, and searched for the desired remedy amid the heterogeneous collection in the drawer, but failed to find it. Then she looked in various other places suggested by Sadie, with the same result, greatly to the girl's disappointment. "Oh, I remember--I lent it to Carrie Hill last week! What shall I do?" wailed the sufferer in a voice of despair; for Miss Hill roomed at the top of the opposite wing, and just at that moment the clock in the tower of the building struck the hour of three. She was now wrought up to a state of excessive nervous excitement, and it looked as if there would be no more sleep for either of them that night. "Haven't you something--some camphor or salts, Katherine? I can't stand this any longer," and Sadie was now sobbing from mingled nervousness and suffering. "No, dear. I never use anything of the kind," Katherine replied. "Do you never put anything in a tooth when it aches?" "No." "Do you ever have the toothache?" "I used to when I was a child; very seldom now." "What do you do to stop it?" was the impatient query, accompanied by a prolonged groan. "Treat it mentally." "Shucks!" and Miss Minot threw herself violently back upon her pillows with an air of personal injury mingled with supreme contempt, while Katherine kept on working for harmony in her own thought. "Katherine, I simply cannot stand this until morning," the girl cried again, after a minute or two of forced endurance, as a fresh paroxysm seized her. "Shall I go to the matron and ask her for something for you?" Katherine inquired. "Oh, I don't know; it seems a shame to send you way down to her at this unearthly hour. It is bad enough to keep you awake," said Sadie, remorsefully. "Never mind me, dear. I am willing to do anything you wish, and I'm not afraid to go anywhere in the building," was the kind response. "Perhaps if I had some water to hold in my mouth it might relieve me," Sadie suggested. Katherine brought her a glass and she filled her mouth, but expelled the water almost instantly, as the bare and sensitive nerve rebelled against such radical treatment. "Can't you do something?" she gasped, clutching her companion's arm with a spasmodic grip. "I'll go to Miss Williams, or some of the girls for--" Katherine began. "No, I can't bear to make a stir--oh, heavens! oh! treat me--your way--anything--anything to stop this unbearable torture!" and Sadie buried her face in her pillow to smother the moans she could not repress. "Indeed I will," said Katherine, with a heart-throb of thankfulness for the appeal; and, dropping her face upon her hands, she went to work with all her understanding for the sufferer. Ten minutes passed; then it seemed as if the intervals between the moans grew longer. Another five minutes and she was sure that the hand upon her arm was relaxing its convulsive grasp. Not long after the restless form grew still, the hot hand on her arm slipped down upon the bed, and when the clock in the tower struck the half hour after three, the regular breathing of the girl told of quiet and restful sleep. But Katherine continued to work for several minutes longer, then stole softly to her own couch, where she also was soon locked in slumber, and neither awoke again until the rising bell rang its imperative summons to the duties of a new day. Katherine was nearly dressed before her roommate manifested any inclination to rise. She looked bright and serene, however, and there was no swelling or other evidence of the previous night's broken rest and suffering. "I believe I'm all right, honey," she thoughtfully observed, after watching Katherine's operations in silence for a while. "Of course you are," was the cheery response, with a happy heart- throb at the old familiar form of address. "That was a right smart rumpus, though," Sadie added, in her Southern phraseology. "The less said about it the better," was the brief reply. "Why?" "Because it is nothing now, and you neither need nor wish to live it over." "I reckon I don't. But, do you believe you cured me?" "I know that I did not; but I also know that God healed you." "But you did something." "Yes--what I did was--well, you may call it prayer, if you like. But I think we must not talk about it because of Prof. Seabrook's command, which I am inclined to think I may have already broken in the letter if not in the spirit," said Katherine, gravely. "Well--I don't--know. It all seems very queer to me!" Sadie observed, reflectively, as she slipped out of bed and began to dress. "I wouldn't have believed I could feel so well this morning though. I'm as fresh as a daisy, and my face isn't at all swollen. I can't understand it. I'm inclined to think that--after all, the ache just ached itself out and left of its own accord." Katherine smiled faintly but did not pursue the subject. "I'm downright obliged to you, Katherine, for being so kind and patient with me in the night," the girl resumed, after a few moments of silence; "and--honey," suddenly facing her and looking her straight in the eyes, though her cheeks were crimson, "I feel mighty mean over our tiff the other day, and--and about what happened last night in the league." "Never mind, Sadie--it is all past now--" Katherine began. "But I shall mind; I'm going to eat the whole of my humble pie," interposed Sadie, between a laugh and a sob, "for I--I was in the plot with the others. You see, I hadn't quite gotten over the other affair, and--" "But you have now, Sadie?" Katherine interrupted, "wistfully. "How could I help it when you've been so perfectly sweet? Only I want--" "Well, then I'm happy!" cried Katherine, with a joyous laugh, "and I'm not going to let you eat any more 'humble pie,' for--the North and the South are reunited, and that cancels everything." "Katherine, you are the dearest--" But Sadie's voice broke suddenly, and to cover her emotion she bounded into the closet and began a vigorous search for some needed article. There were fair winds and cloudless skies after that, and nothing more was heard from the defective tooth, which, later, was filled and preserved for future usefulness. CHAPTER VIII. TRANSCENDENTALISM AS ELUCIDATED FOR THE JUNIOR LEAGUE. The following two weeks were unmarked by anything of special interest, and Katherine found her time fully occupied in attending to her daily duties and preparing for the next league meeting. For a moment, after the second subject, "Transcendentalism," had been assigned her, she felt "old Adam" beginning to stir resentfully again, for she was impressed that, when the topic came up for discussion, certain members of the club intended to make her the target for more sharpshooting. But the struggle was short, for the monitor within had declared that "God's image and likeness could not reflect or manifest anything but love;" when, like a flash, had come the inspiration to treat the subject from a humorous point of view. She knew that the committee had used the term in its perverted sense, so she would meet them on their own ground, make an hour of fun for the league, and thus, perchance, disarm the aggressive ones and create a better feeling towards herself. As these thoughts coursed rapidly through her mind during Miss Felton's gallant defense, she became enthused over the idea, hence the mirthful gleam in her eyes when she arose and accepted the topic, and thus tactfully "poured oil upon the troubled waters." In the quiet of her own room, after retiring, her plan began to take a more definite form, and, before the week was out, she had arranged her programme for the evening. She found that she would be unable to carry it out alone, and so confided her scheme to Sadie, Miss Walton, the president, and Miss Felton, whom she now regarded as stanch friends. They were delighted with it and heartily lent her their assistance in perfecting it. It became evident, however, as the day for the meeting drew on apace, that more than usual interest was centered in the event, for, upon two or three occasions, Katherine came suddenly upon a group of the members in earnest conversation, which was instantly cut short, or abruptly changed, when her presence was observed. Jennie Wild, who was very fond of her, also gave her a hint that something unusual was going on. "Miss Minturn, what's the fun that's brewing in the Junior League?" she inquired, as she encountered Katherine in one of the halls a couple of days previous to the meeting. "Is there fun brewing?" she inquired, evasively, and wondering if, by any possibility, her own scheme had become known. "Yes, I am sure there is, for I've heard some of the juniors talking about a 'great time' that is on the tapis for the next meeting; and--and your name was mentioned, too," Jennie concluded, giving her a curious glance. Katherine flushed and looked perplexed; but she felt sure that her own secret was safe, for it had always been discussed behind locked doors, and all concerned were too interested in the success of it to betray her confidence. "I have no knowledge of anything outside of my own province," she replied. "I am to read a paper before the league on Tuesday evening." "Oh, say! what's the subject?" Jennie queried, eagerly. "Don't you know, dear, it is a rule, in both the Junior and Senior Leagues, that no information regarding what occurs in their meetings can be made public without a vote of the members?" Katherine smilingly inquired. "Yes; but I'll never tell," said the girl, in a confidential tone. "No, I am sure you will not," was the laughing retort. "Oh, you mean you won't give me a chance," said Jennie, with a good-natured grimace. "Well, whatever the subject may be, I am sure the paper will be O. K." "Thank you for your confidence in my ability, and, sometime, perhaps, you may be enlightened regarding what is at present a profound secret," returned Katherine, encouragingly. "Well, perhaps that is what those girls were talking about, but I'm pretty sure there's more than that in the wind," Jennie thoughtfully observed. "But"--all on the alert again--"I've found out that the sophs are planning to, kick up a bobbery, too--" "Oh, Jennie!" interposed her companion, with laughing reproof. "Yes, I know; that is awful slang. But what can you expect of a 'freshie'? I've got to make the most of my time, too, you know, for when I get to be a junior I'll have to begin the 'prune and prism' act," retorted the girl with a roguish wink. "Then"-- suddenly straightening herself, drawing down the corners of her mouth, crossing her eyes, and assuming the air of a would-be prude--"the prospective infraction of law and order would have to be decorously stated something like this: ahem! 'Those irrepressible, irresponsible and notorious sophomores are secretly preparing to engage in exceedingly demoralizing, mischievous and reprehensible behavior, calculated to produce an unpleasant state of perturbation in the atmosphere of our household, inoculate a spirit of anarchy in their fellows, and detract from the dignity of our honored institution.' How's that for high?" "Oh, I believe you are rightly named 'Wild Jennie'!" cried Katherine, laughing heartily, for the girl was irresistible in her drollery. "All the same," continued Miss Mischief, resuming her accustomed vivacity, "they really are up to something that will give the teachers a tremendous nightmare one of these fine nights. You just watch out, Miss Minturn--I've only got an inkling of the plot, but it's great, and I'm going to be on hand to see it, even if I can't be in it." "Look out, dear, that you do not get involved in something that you will be sorry for afterwards," cautioned Katherine. "I'll look out for number one--never you fear; but"--with a wise nod--"you just keep your eyes peeled about your own affairs. Ta- ta!" and, with a wave of her hand, the girl hurried away, merrily whistling a popular air as she went. "I wonder if those girls are planning some practical joke upon me for Tuesday evening!" Katherine said to herself, as she went on up to her room. Taking what Jennie had told her in connection with what she herself had seen and heard, she was inclined to think that there might be "something brewing"; but, as there appeared to be no way to solve the mystery, she wisely decided not to dwell upon it, although she determined that she would be on the qui vive and not caught napping. Tuesday evening came. The league convened at the usual hour, and that something of more than wonted interest was anticipated was evinced by the fact that every member of the club was promptly on hand, while curious glances were bent, and comments made, upon a curtain which had been stretched across one end of the room. After the meeting was formally opened the president stated that, before the reading and discussion of the paper, there would be a short entertainment, which had been specially prepared for the occasion. This announcement met with vigorous applause, and an air of eager interest at once pervaded the audience. Miss Walton waited patiently until quiet was restored, then resumed: "First I will read an original conundrum which is propounded by one of our members, and which you are requested to solve." Everyone was at once on the alert. "My first," read the chairman, "is a state of oblivion. "My second is what comes to all things mundane. "My third appertains to articulation, to a form of surgery, and to a profession. "My fourth is applied to certain theories and fanatical tenets. "My whole is a term employed to designate a certain form of philosophy which is also often misconstrued and misapplied." As Miss Walton was about to lay down her paper she was asked to read the conundrum again, which she did, while pencils were busy taking notes; then she observed: "Before the answer is called for we are to have a charade, which has also been prepared by a member of our club, after which you will please give your solutions before Miss Minturn reads her paper." A bell now tinkled faintly, and the mysterious curtain was raised, revealing a prettily furnished room and, conspicuous in a reclining chair, there lay a young lady apparently asleep, while two others, wearing black dominoes and lace masks, attempted to arouse her, Their efforts proved ineffectual, however, although she was pinched, shaken, commanded to awake, and even made to stand upon her feet. But nothing availed; she was seemingly oblivious of everything. "Alas! it is of no use," solemnly observed one domino to the other, who sighed heavily, and mournfully shook her head, and the curtain was rung down. A moment later it went up again. No one was now in the room, but a short piece of rope dangled from one arm of the chair. The third scene revealed an office. On a table lay a number of small instruments, a lot of loose teeth, also a couple of full sets. A lady was seated in a chair, and beside her stood a gentleman(?) holding aloft in one hand a pair of forceps, in which there gleamed a single tooth, while with the other he extended a glass of water to his patient, remarking in a suave, professional tone: "It is all over, madam--a very successful operation. Rinse your mouth, please, and then we will look at the others," whereupon the curtain fell. The fourth scene showed the same room in which the first act had been given. In a low rocker sat a spinster of uncertain age, very prim as to attitude and attire, her face partially concealed by a profusion of corkscrew curls that dangled from her temples. She appeared to be absorbed in reading, while there were piles of books on the table at her side, on chairs, and were also strewn promiscuously about the floor. Presently a colored servant entered the room. A spotless kerchief was folded about her expansive shoulders; a bright red bandanna was coiled around her woolly head, and a long, blue and white checked apron was tied about her ample waist. She was a typical, full-blooded negress, and shuffled into the room in true darky style, but with signs of distress and one black hand covering her right eye. "Well, Dinah, is anything wanted?" demanded the spinster, but without glancing up from her book. "Y'sm, honey; I'se done got sumpin' in m' eye. I has sho'." "Come here and let me look at it," said her mistress, reluctantly laying her book aside and taking a pencil from the table. Dinah knelt before the woman, who made a careful examination of the suffering member. "I see it!" she said; "don't move and I'll get it. There!"-- carefully removing something with a corner of her immaculate handkerchief--"see?" "Y'sm; thank'e, Miss Julia. Yah! yah! what a li'l spec to make such a rumpus! Looks like de Bible 'mote,' but, golly! it done feel mo' like de 'beam.' Yah! yah! yah!" laughed the negress, revealing two rows of dazzling teeth to an appreciative audience as she laboriously struggled to her feet. "Feel all right now, aunty?" queried the spinster, as she carefully refolded her handkerchief. "Y'sm, y'sm; I'm obleeg'd to 'e, Miss Julia. Lor'!" rubbing her knees and groaning, "de rumatism do work de mischief wi' dese yere po' ole bones." But Miss Julia had again become absorbed in her book and, apparently, did not hear. "Got another new book, Miss Julia?" queried Dinah, after watching her mistress in silence for a moment. "No, Dinah," replied the spinster, lifting a beatific glance and smile to the ceiling, "I am still engaged with my 'Philosophical, Psychological and Theosophical Research.'" "Lor'!" and Dinah rolled her eyes with an awe-struck look over the audience. "I 'spec' some day, honey, you's so uplifted, you'll go soarin' up inter de clouds and outer sight, straight 'ter kingdom come--" "Dinah! I think it is time you were giving your attention to your dinner," interposed Miss Julia, in a lofty tone. "Y'sm; I's gwine--I sho'ly is'm," retorted Dinah, spiritedly, as she straightened herself and turned with a resentful flirt of her skirts to obey. Then glancing back over her shoulder and showing her white teeth in a broad grin, she added: "I's gwine ter 'gage in m' soupy-logical, lamby-logical, pie-o-logical research; y'sm, sho!" and, striking a superior attitude, she cake-walked off the stage with a vigorous stride and regardless of 'ole bones' or 'rumatism'; and the curtain was rung down upon an audience convulsed with merriment, while a voice from somewhere cried out: "Well done, Sadie! yo'll take de cake, dis time, fer sho." Scene five showed the same room, the same spinster with her book clasped to her breast, her head thrown back, her eyes gazing aloft into vacancy. "Oh, ye messengers of supereminent light! Oh, ye soul-thrilling angels from realms supernal! Draw nearer--unfold your celestial wings and brood tenderly o'er the aspirations of this receptive heart--this heart already upborne on waves of ecstasy and o'er- mastering joy; fulfill its psychic dreams and lift it to thine own supersensible heights"--she breathed in an exaggerated stage whisper and continued her vague, visionary monologue, or extravaganza, until the curtain fell and brought down the house again with enthusiastic applause. "Has anyone guessed the answer to the conundrum, or charade, or both?" inquired the president with mirthful eyes when she could make herself heard. "Transcendentalism!" cried Clara Follet, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "Dinah gave it away to me with her 'is'm' and her 'rumatism,' and, of course, the charade was the key to the conundrum." From several others came the same answer, with, the various hints or points which had suggested it. "And now," continued Miss Walton, "we will have the paper on the same subject from Miss Minturn, who is also the author of both conundrum and charade." Again there was a vigorous clapping of hands, in the midst of which the curtain was raised and Katherine appeared upon the stage, in her spinster attire, but shorn of her voluminous corkscrew curls. She was smiling, and rosy, and bowed her thanks for the generous approval of her efforts. As she unfolded her manuscript an expectant hush fell upon her audience, and she observed that significant and inquiring glances were exchanged between some of the members of the league. "The paper which I have prepared," she began, "may not prove to be just what the club may have expected from me; but it will at least show that I have given the subject assigned me some thought. "Once on a time--'twas not so very long ago-- Miss Puff craved something of Philosophy to know, And, with proofs of culture armed and high position, To a Summer School of Sages sought admission. "With inspiration rare, she here absorbed her fill Of ologies galore, and conned them o'er, until Her wearied brain grew dazed beyond expression; But, of this sad fact, Miss Puff made no confessions "Ontology came first, with arguments profound, With language mystical, the wisest to confound; Physics took the platform next, to claim discussion, And Metaphysics foll'wing near caused concussion. "Cosmology! Phrenology! what charmed lore! What depths profound! how high her aspirations soar! Tidbits of sweetness for future delectation. Ah! but could she give a lucid explication? "Theosophy! Psychology! transcendent themes! Glide softly in upon her philosophic dreams: 'Till soul upborne to realms of ecstasy sublime, Earth's vanities grow dim upon the shores of time. "But, lo! now hydra-head Theology appears To shatter dreams and chill her heart with nameless fears, For Sage and Seer spare not in sharp dissection, 'Till poor Puff, alas! no longer makes connection. "But, all the same, 'twas lovely to 'philosophize!' It mattered not if she were wise, or--otherwise; Or deeply versed in themes on which the Sages dote, Could she but keep on transcendental waves afloat. "And so, at length, the Summer School drew to a close. Home went Miss Puff, well primed, to smatter and to pose; Lightly soar on clouds of blissful exaltation, And air her fads, perchance (?) in some smart publication. "Howe'er, dear friends, Miss Puff's career was very brief. Like all pretentious frauds, she shortly came to grief; She was found out, you know, and took a strange belief Which none could heal, and faded like a leaf. Then, slyly fled the town!--was never seen again, Though faithful search was made o'er mountain, moor and fen. "The claim? Ah! that begat long medical debate; But finally, as I am authorized to state-- For all things mystical must have some kind of name, And there's no better phrase to chronicle the same-- 'Twas--the learned doctors vowed--abnormal mentalism, The outgrowth of her fads and Transcendentalism!" Katherine made her bow as she concluded and slipped behind the scenes. But the applause was beyond anything she had yet received and was kept up, with cries of "come out," "come out," until there was nothing to do but reappear, which she did with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. "Comrades, I thank you all for your hearty appreciation and commendation," she said, when quiet was restored. "It occurred to me that a humorous treatment of the subject might be more enjoyable than any other, and"--with an arch look and nod--"more applicable to your conception of the term. But"--her eyes now brimming with mirth--"I will not take more of your time, as I believe there is a supplement to my programme yet to come." The president looked surprised. "I know of nothing more, Miss Minturn," she said; but even as she spoke there was a nervous rustle apparent among some of the audience. "Still I am quite sure that a ghostly surprise, not down on my pragramme, had been planned for us. Perhaps this will elucidate my meaning," Katherine explained, and, bringing to light something, which she had until then concealed behind her, she shook out and held up to view a white robe, made of a sheet, and also a white mask. Groans and laughter greeted this announcement and display. "Oh! who has given us away? Who has told you, Miss Minturn?" came breathlessly from various quarters of the room. "No one 'has given the secret away'--no one has 'told' me anything," she replied. "The discovery was an accident. I was obliged to slip up to my room for something forgotten, just before it was time to open the meeting. As I reached the end of the hall I heard voices, and, being arrayed in the dentist's garb with only a domino over it, I did not wish to be seen. I fled into the closet there, and the next moment two juniors passed, carrying something in their arms, wrapped in shawls. I heard one say, 'When I give the signal, Miss Blank will touch the button and put out the lights.' When they were beyond hearing I stole from the closet and found a small bundle at my feet. Investigation revealed this ghostly garb, and, if I am not mistaken, those shawls, in yonder corner, contain several others." The room was very still for a moment after Katherine concluded, and there were some very red faces, here and there, among the audience. Suddenly Clara Follet sprang to her feet, and, addressing the president, said: "Miss Walton, as I am the leader in this affair, may I make an explanation?" "Certainly. Comrades, Miss Follet has the floor." "There is nothing to be done but make a clean breast of everything," continued Miss Follet, with a resolute air, but with crimson cheeks as she faced the audience. "As you all know, some of us were inclined to--to guy Miss Minturn at our last meeting about a certain subject, and when she declined to write a paper on it we thought we would give her another as nearly like it as possible, and so get some fun out of it when it came up for discussion. Well"--with a suggestive shrug--"we, of course, expected she would go into it deep, and mount, and soar, and all that; so some of us put our heads together and planned a ghost walk. We were going to wait until she reached the zenith of her flight, when, at a signal from me, the electrics would be turned off, which would leave us a very dim light through the transoms opening into the hall; then eight of us were to slip into our robes, form a circle around Miss Minturn, and chant a dirge. Well- -but--ahem! don't you see, she just took all the wind out of our sails to begin with? Instead of a 'ghostly surprise' the ghosts got the surprise--that conundrum and charade made me suspect that the committee on topics were going to 'get left,' and I began to feel my courage failing. But that transcendental poem!--that capped the climax, and I saw that the only thing to be done was for the spooks to hide their diminished heads and keep dark." Miss Follet was here interrupted by vigorous clapping and bursts of irrepressible laughter, in which even the dignified president joined. But a tap of the gavel restored order, and Miss Follet was invited to proceed. "That is all there is to tell," she replied, "but I want to add, for myself, that I think Miss Minturn is 'a brick,' as the boys would put it, and I take off my hat to her"--turning to Katherine with a low, graceful bow--"if she will accept the homage from the chief transgressor, who--to make all possible atonement--proposes to give the best spread of the season in her honor, in place of the next meeting, if the league will vote me the privilege and she will signify her pardon and approval by shaking hands with me." As she concluded she extended her hand to Katherine, who grasped it cordially, amid enthusiastic clapping by the entire audience. It was some minutes before order could be restored, when the business was transacted and Miss Follet's proposal to give a spread in Miss Minturn's honor, two weeks from that night, received a most hearty and unanimous vote. When the meeting was dismissed it was evident that a decided reaction of feeling had taken place, for Katherine at once became the center of attraction and held a delightful little reception for a while; but this was cut short by the ringing of the retiring bell, and the Junior League dispersed in the happiest frame of mind, all declaring that the "Transcendental Evening" had been the finest of the year. When Katherine laid her head upon her pillow that night and fell asleep her pulses were beating in joyous rhythm with three beautiful words gleaned from her beloved "Science and Health"-- "Love is enthroned! Love is enthroned!" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 454.] CHAPTER IX. KATHERINE MAKES A DEMONSTRATION. From that time on Katherine became conscious of a very different atmosphere, at least when among her own classmates, for, instead of the cold shoulder, averted glances and a general stampede whenever she appeared, she was now cordially received and greeted upon all occasions. This was more apparent after Miss Follet's "spread," two weeks later, and which really proved to be the "finest of the season," being a "full-dress affair," when all barriers were swept away during the "jollification" and every vestige of disaffection vanished in company with the bountiful and dainty viands that were literally fit "to set before a king." Katherine, being the guest of honor, was toasted and made much of, and her companions found that she could appreciate a frolic as heartily as anyone, and was not behind, either, in making fun for others. One evening, early in May, shortly after "the spread," Katherine was diligently studying the morrow's lessons when a rap sounded on her door, and, upon giving the usual password, Jennie Wild put her curly head inside the room and observed: "Miss Minturn, Miss Reynolds has sent me to ask if you will come to her room as soon as the study hour is over." "Yes, Jennie, I will go to her the moment the bell rings," replied Katherine, who knew that her teacher had not been well for nearly a week, and, for the last two days, had been unable to attend to her duties. "And, Miss Minturn," continued the girl, lingering. "Well?" said her friend, inquiringly. "May I go with you to your service, next Sunday?" "Why, Jennie! What has possessed you to ask me that?" "Oh, I thought I'd just like to know what kind of a rigmarole--Oh, Peter Piper! what have I said?" the heedless girl interposed as Katherine flushed and looked up suddenly. "I really didn't mean that--I--er--it just slipped out before I had time to think. But, truly, I would like to go with you." "But you know it is against the rules for students to leave their own church. You would have to get permission of Prof. Seabrook," Katherine returned. "I don't want to ask him," said Jennie, with a shrug, adding: "He need never know." "No, Jennie, I cannot countenance any such disobedience," gravely replied her companion. "And if it is only a matter of idle curiosity on your part, I think you had better wait until you are actuated by a more worthy motive." Jennie looked really distressed under this reproof. "I'm afraid I've offended you," she began, plaintively. "I didn't mean to speak slightingly of your church, and I'm--sorry--" "Don't be troubled, Jennie, dear; I am not offended," said Katherine, smiling reassuringly. "Of course, you understand that, to me, our service is very beautiful and sacred. I would dearly love to have you go with me in a proper way; but if you do not like to ask permission you can wait until vacation, when you will not be hampered by school rules." "All right; perhaps--I will," returned Jennie, with a sly smile; then, with a friendly "good-night," she went away, and Katherine thought no more of the matter at that time. Half an hour later the nine o'clock bell rang and she repaired at once to Miss Reynolds' room. She found her teacher in bed, looking flushed and feverish, her throat badly swollen and swathed in flannels, while she was scarcely able to speak aloud. She smiled a welcome and held out her hand to the girl, who clasped it fondly as she sat down beside her. "I suppose you would say 'it is nothing,'" whispered the woman, a little gleam of laughter in her eyes, notwithstanding her evident suffering. "No, I should say nothing of the kind to you," said Katherine, gravely. "But I hoped that I should find you better." "No, Kathie"--a fond way she had adopted of late when addressing her--"I have been growing steadily worse since last night. This afternoon I have been very ill, and Prof. Seabrook sent me word by his wife, to-night, that if I am not better by morning he will call a physician upon his own responsibility. I don't want a doctor," she went on, after resting a moment, "for, since having those talks with you and learning something of your faith, I find myself shrinking from medical treatment." Katherine glanced involuntarily at the array of bottles on the table near her, and Miss Reynolds, observing it, smiled. "True," she said, "I have been dosing myself with every remedy that I could think of, while 'halting between two opinions'; but nothing does any good, and I have come to the end of my rope, so to speak. That is why I have sent for you, Kathie--to ask you to treat me your way." Katherine flushed, and for an instant a sense of fear held her in its grip. With it also came the query, "What would Prof. Seabrook think of having Christian Science healing deliberately practiced in Hilton Seminary?" Then she mentally declared: "There is no fear in love," and "where duty pointed the way she would boldly walk therein." "Are you afraid to take hold of it?" her teacher inquired, as she observed her hesitation. "No, I am not afraid, for I know that God is supreme and never fails those who put their trust in Him," was the confident response. "But," Katherine continued, "are you sure you really want Christian Science treatment?" "Very sure, Kathie." "How about these?" and the girl glanced at the bottles, "and this?" touching the flannel about her throat. "Oh, I know they are of no use," said the sick woman, with an impatient sigh. "You may put the medicines all away, and I will take off the flannel. I am determined not to have a doctor and be laid up for three long weeks, if I can help it." "Very well; then I will do my utmost for you," said our young Scientist, in a resolute tone. "I shall stay here with you to- night; but, first, I must go to tell Sadie and get my wrapper." "Ah! that is kind; you can sleep on the couch, and, really, dear, I do feel too sick to be left alone," was the weary reply. Without further ado Katherine sped back to her room--working mentally for her friend as she went--told Sadie her plan, and donned a loose wrapper; then, taking her Bible and "Science and Health," she hastened back to her patient. During her absence Miss Reynolds had removed the voluminous folds from her neck, and now looked relieved as Katherine reappeared, prepared to care for her during the night. Katherine noiselessly removed the various bottles, tumblers, etc., from the table, laying her books in their place, and was on the point of sitting down to begin her work when there came a rap on the door. Upon answering it she found Mrs. Seabrook standing without, a bowl of steaming gruel in her hands. "Oh, you are going to stay with Miss Reynolds tonight!" she exclaimed, her face lighting as she saw the girl in her wrapper. "I am very glad--I had intended doing so myself, for I know she should not be left alone; but Dorothy has just had a bad turn and I cannot leave her. How is she now?" she concluded, glancing towards the bed. "About the same as she has been all day." Mrs. Seabrook sighed anxiously. "I wish she would have a doctor," she said. "We shall insist upon it if she is not better in the morning. I have made her some gruel--do make her take at least a part of it, for she has had no nourishment to-day." "Thank you, I will try; and do not worry, dear Mrs. Seabrook. I will take the very best of care of her, I promise you," said Katherine, cheerily. "I know you will, you dear child; and you have removed a load from my heart already," returned the care-laden woman, tears springing to her eyes. Then she bade her good-night and left her, whereupon Katherine locked the door, and, slipping quietly into a chair, began working vigorously for her friend. For more than an hour there seemed to be no change in her patient's condition. Indeed, if anything, the symptoms appeared to be aggravated; she tossed restlessly, the fever apparently increasing, while she called for water every few moments, but refused the gruel, saying she could not swallow it. Eleven o'clock came--half-past; then the long tolling of the tower clock proclaimed midnight ere Katherine was able to detect the slightest sign of improvement. Then, as she responded to another call for water, she found that the fever had abated and there was a slight moisture in the palm of the hand, which she clasped for an instant. Another half hour spent in alternate reading and work brought quiet, restful sleep. But the faithful sentinel on guard labored on, now reading from her precious book, then seeking help from the only source whence cometh all help and comfort, and never doubting that the answer to her prayer would eventually come. At two o'clock Miss Reynolds aroused and again called for water; then, after drinking thirstily, dropped restfully back upon her pillows. At three she awoke once more and asked for the gruel. "Kathie, I am better--the fever is gone, and my throat is not so sore!" she said, smiling faintly into the earnest face looking down upon her. "That is certainly good news," Katherine returned, as she received the bowl half-emptied of its contents. "Now go to sleep again, and I will lie down upon the couch." She lay awake, working, however, until the regular breathing from the bed told her that her patient was wrapped in slumber; when, assured that her toiling and rowing were over for the present, and God at the helm, she, too, dropped off, and knew no more until aroused by the rising bell at half-past six. She started up, but her companion slept on, and, disliking to disturb her, she lay back and worked silently until the next bell, at seven-thirty, called to the morning meal. Miss Reynolds heard it also, turned over and looked at her companion, then sat up and involuntarily put her hands to her throat. An expression of astonishment swept over her face. "Katherine! why, Katherine!" she exclaimed; "where is it?" "Where is what?" inquired the girl, going to her side. "The swelling!" "There is none," said Katherine, with a happy smile as she glanced at the white, shapely neck to find it in its normal condition. "Neither is there any soreness in my throat! Child, I do not know what to think of it!" said the woman, with a note of awe in her tone. "Think that God was a very present help in time of need," returned Katherine, with sweet seriousness and a slight tremble in her own voice. Miss Reynolds fell back upon her pillow, a thoughtful look on her face. But, presently, glancing at the clock, she said: "Dear child, you must go for your breakfast, or you will be too late." "I will; but what shall I bring you afterwards?" "What may I have?" "Anything you like." "Truly?" "Certainly; don't you remember what we were talking of last week-- man's God-given dominion over all things?" "Well, it surpasses my comprehension, for I have always had to be careful what I ate after one of these attacks! But I am in your hands, Kathie--you may bring me what you choose, and I believe I am hungry," Miss Reynolds returned, in a tone of conviction. "You shall have something very soon," Katherine assured her, and, having dressed her hair while talking, she now flew away to her own room to complete her toilet, a paean of praise thrilling her heart for the recent safe and triumphant passage through the Red Sea of human fear and error, whose waves had so threatened to engulf her patient the night before. Breakfast was nearly over when she reached the dining room; but she slid quietly into her place and made a hurried meal, after which she sought the matron and gave her order for Miss Reynolds, saying she would wait and take the tray up to her. While she was waiting, Mrs. Seabrook espied her and came to inquire for her patient. "She is more comfortable this morning," Katherine replied, and, thinking it wise not to say very much regarding the conditions upstairs. Mrs. Seabrook appeared greatly relieved. "I am thankful," she said. "I was very anxious about her last night, for I have never seen her so ill before. Poor Dorrie is not as well, either, this morning," she concluded, with a weary sigh. A wave of compassion swept over Katherine's heart for this sweet, patient woman, who was so heavily burdened with her own cares, yet ever ready to do for others. "Give my love to Dorrie," she said, adding: "And I will run in to see her this afternoon, if I may." "Do, Miss Minturn," said her companion, eagerly. "You always do the child good, and she will have something pleasant to look forward to during the day." Miss Reynolds enjoyed her breakfast, which she ate with perfect ease. Then she said she would like to be left alone to rest until noon, when Katherine might bring her a light dinner--"provided her breakfast did not hurt her." Katherine pinned upon her door a slip of paper on which was written "not to be disturbed"; then went away to her own duties, which would be over at noon, it being Saturday and a half holiday. After eating her own dinner, she arranged a generous and tempting meal on a tray and took it to her teacher's room. She found her up and dressed in her wrapper and seated in a comfortable rocker, reading "Science and Health," which she had left lying on the table. Miss Reynolds looked up and nodded brightly as she laid down the book. "Isn't this perfectly lovely? Aren't you astonished to find me up?" she inquired, as she bestowed a fond pat upon the girl who had drawn a small table to her side and was arranging her dinner upon it. "Not in the least," said Katherine, bending to kiss the cheek nearest her. "Aren't you? not the least bit? Why! I am simply amazed at myself!" her teacher exclaimed. Katherine laughed out merrily. "I suppose you have heard of the woman who, on being told that 'the prayer of faith would remove mountains,' prayed that God would take away the hill behind her house?" she queried, archly. "Yes, and on looking out in the morning, said: 'It's just as I expected; I knew it would be here just the same!' I know the story, and I see your point on lack of faith," said Miss Reynolds, echoing the girl's laugh. "But that is not the way Christian Scientists pray," Katherine observed. "Jesus said, 'All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.' You are not quite like the woman who prayed for what she was sure she would not get; but you are 'amazed' because you have received that for which we asked; which shows that you did not really expect it." "But I must have had some faith, Kathie, or I would not have trusted myself to your treatment." "True; and that was your first step in Christian Science, which brought with it the proof of God's supremacy." "It certainly is a beautiful proof," Miss Reynolds earnestly returned, "for I have been subject to these attacks for many years, and have always been under the care of a physician from three to five weeks before getting back to my normal condition." She went on with her dinner, but it was evident that she was thinking deeply, while Katherine moved softly about the room putting things in order. "Katherine," the woman at length inquired, "what is this 'treatment' which you give the sick? Is it simply prayer?" "Yes, and the understanding that God is all in all." "Well, I would like to know the secret of it. I have been a prayerful woman during the greater portion of my life--at least, according to the common acceptation of the term; but I have never before known of a direct answer to prayer such has come to you or to me, through you. What constitutes a Christian Scientist's prayer and understanding?" "That question involves a great deal," said Katherine, smiling. "Briefly, it is reaching out for and appropriating that which is already ours." "'Appropriating?'" "Yes, knowing that all good belongs by right to us, as God's dear children; and acting as if we knew it, by gratefully accepting it," Katherine explained. Then observing the puzzled look on her teacher's face, she went on: "Let me illustrate. You asked for your dinner. I have brought it and set it before you. All you have to do is to reach out and partake of it to satisfy your hunger. How inconsistent it would be if you should ignore these facts and keep on saying, 'Katherine, I want my dinner; please, oh, please give me some food, for I am starving.'" "How ridiculous that sounds!" said Miss Reynolds, laughing. "I begin to comprehend what you mean and that the old way of praying is only a halfway prayer, while begging and supplicating God to keep His promises impugns His righteousness." "Exactly," Katherine assented, then added: "Prayer is really twofold--asking and taking, praying and doing; knowing that God's promises mean what they say, and confidently expecting their fulfillment." "Do you always have this confidence when you have difficulties to meet, Kathie? I should think it would not always be easy to 'know,'" thoughtfully observed Miss Reynolds. "No, it is not always easy to have perfect trust; in that case every demonstration, or answer to prayer, would be instantaneous. One needs to be patient and persistent, the same as one needs to go over a difficult mathematical problem many times before getting a correct answer, but never doubting that it will follow right effort," Katherine explained. "Of course, there is a great deal more that might be said about the subject," she added, "and if you will read the chapter on 'Prayer' in our text-book you will get a far better idea of it than I have given you." "I will read it this afternoon if you are not going to use your book," Miss Reynolds replied. "I have another copy, and you may keep this one for a while," and Katherine flushed with pleasure at the woman's manifest interest in her beloved Science. "Thank you; and now"--glancing archly at the almost empty dishes before her--"don't you think I have done ample justice to the generous repast you brought me? I only hope it won't bring on the fever again." "Oh, faithless and perverse generation!" quoted Katherine, with smiling reproof. "It will not," she added, positively; "remember your 'God-given dominion.'" "I will try, dear; I am very grateful to you, Kathie, and to God, for the wonderful transformation of the last few hours," said Miss Reynolds, with starting tears. "If it were not for this feeling of weakness I believe I could dress and go down to supper to-night." At that instant there came a tap on the door, and on going to answer it Katherine found Mrs. Seabrook and Miss Williams, another teacher, without. Both ladies exclaimed in astonishment upon seeing the supposed invalid up and dressed, while Mrs. Seabrook viewed with grave disapproval the tray before her, with its remnants of a hearty dinner. "My dear! are you crazy that you dare eat meat, potatoes and vegetables--yes, and pie!--with such a fever?" she cried, aghast. "I have no fever," said Miss Reynolds, giving her a cool, normal hand. "I am very much better, and I was hungry, so asked Miss Minturn to bring me something nice to eat." "All the same, you are very injudicious," was the severe rejoinder. But the transgressor only smiled serenely and began to talk of other things, while Katherine removed the offensive tray, taking it below, after which she sought her own room. CHAPTER X. MRS. SEABROOK'S PROBLEM. Katherine spent a while chatting with her roommate, after which she made some change in her dress, then sought Mrs. Seabrook's apartments to make her promised visit to Dorothy. The child was reclining on a couch and propped up by numerous pillows. She looked pale and worn from recent suffering, although, just then, she was comparatively comfortable. Prof. Seabrook was sitting beside her, reading from an entertaining book, to pass the time during his wife's absence on her round of visits to the sick. Katherine flushed slightly as she entered the room, for, try as she would, she had not yet quite overcome a sense of reserve whenever she met her principal. His manner to her was always marked by the most punctilious politeness; but it was such frigid courtesy and so entirely at variance with his affability during their first interview, that she also seemed to freeze when in his presence. The moment the door opened Dorothy uttered a cry of joy, extending eager hands to her, and, after saluting Prof. Seabrook, Katherine went to her side, a cheery smile upon her lips as she greeted her. "I'm so glad, Miss Minturn! Mamma said you were coming, and I've been watching the door ever since dinner. Can you stay a long time?" exclaimed the girl, in glad tones. "Perhaps I am interrupting something interesting," Katherine observed, as she glanced at the book in the professor's hands. "Well, papa has been reading to me, and it was interesting," Dorothy truthfully admitted. "But he has an engagement pretty soon, and is only staying with me till mamma comes back, for Alice is out. Mamma has gone up to see Miss Reynolds. Do you know she is awful sick?" "She is much better to-day. I came from her room only a little while ago," said Katherine, "and I can stay an hour, or more, with you if you like. I will go on with the reading, Prof. Seabrook, if it will relieve you," she added, courteously turning to him. "Oh, I'd rather talk with you," Dorothy interposed. "Mamma can finish the story by and by. Now, papa, you can go and leave me with Miss Minturn." Prof. Seabrook arose. "It is very good of you, Miss Minturn," he said, addressing her with studied politeness. "I do feel anxious to get away to an important appointment. Well, Dorrie, what shall I bring you from the city?" he questioned, as he bent over the girl, his tones softening suddenly to yearning tenderness. "Oh! papa, it's Saturday, you know," she said, with a wise look. "Sure; I almost forgot, and the inevitable cream chocolates for Sunday will have to be forthcoming, I suppose," he laughingly rejoined. "Anything else?" "No, I guess not; only tell Uncle Phil, if you see him, to be sure to come out to-morrow." "Very well," then kissing her fondly, he bowed formally to Katherine and quietly left the room. Ten minutes later Mrs. Seabrook returned, and Katherine persuaded her to go out for a walk, a privilege which the closely confined woman was glad to avail herself of, and Dorothy was soon absorbed in the description of a moonlight fete on the Grand Canal in Venice, and which Katherine had participated in during her recent tour abroad. Meantime Mrs. Seabrook was walking briskly towards the highway, but with a very thoughtful expression on her refined face. It was one of those soft, balmy days of May that almost delude one into the belief that it is June; that thrill the heart with tenderness for every living thing, and quicken responsive pulses with their unfolding beauty. She had been shut up the whole week with Dorrie, while, with Miss Reynolds alarmingly ill and several of the students threatened with as many different ailments, her time had been more than full, and her mind heavily burdened with care and anxiety. So it was with a sense of freedom and grateful appreciation that she pursued her way, breathing in the pure and refreshing air, basking in the genial sunshine and feasting her eyes upon the loveliness all around her; but thinking, thinking with a strange feeling of awe deep down in her heart. She had just passed the entrance to the grounds of the seminary, when she saw her brother, Dr. Stanley, approaching from the opposite direction. She hurried forward to greet him. "I am more than glad to see you, Phillip," she said, as she slipped her hand, girl fashion, into his, as it hung by his side. "Come and walk with me. I want to talk to you." "I am on my way to Dorrie," he replied. "I met William in a car, as I was returning to town from a visit to a patient, and he told me she had been very poorly to-day. So I took the next car back to see her." "Yes, she had a very bad night, but has grown more comfortable within the last few hours. Miss Minturn offered to sit with her and let me out for a breath of air," his sister explained. "I owe Miss Minturn my personal thanks. But perhaps I ought to go on and take a look at Dorrie," said the physician, thoughtfully. "No, Phil; come with me. I am heavy-hearted, discouraged, and I need to be comforted," said the much-tried woman, the sound of tears in her voice. "Miss Minturn is very nice with Dorothy," she continued, struggling for self-control; "the child always seems happy and to forget herself when she is with her. Perhaps, though, you haven't time," she added, with sudden thought. "Yes, I have, Emelie," the man gently replied, "and we will have one of our old tramps together. Come! Let us get as far as possible from that pile of brick and stone and its too familiar surroundings." And still holding her hand, swinging it gently back and forth, he led her along the road towards the open country. "What a strange world this is, Phil!" Mrs. Seabrook broke out, suddenly, after they had traversed quite a distance and talked of various matters. "Everything in it seems to be at cross-purposes." "Do you think so, Emelie? Look!" The man checked her steps and pointed to the view before them. They had come to the brow of a hill, and there, spread out beneath them, was a valley teeming with luxuriant beauty that was a delight to the eye and full of exhilarating charm. Thrifty farms dotted the broad expanse as far as they could see; springing fields of grain, interspersed with verdant meadows, and rich pastures dotted with their feeding kine were suggestive of prosperous homes and husbandmen; stretches of woodlands, with their sturdy trunks and vigorous branches, unfurled their banners of living green in varying shades and lent an air of dignity and strength to the attractive landscape. Here and there an apple orchard, with trees in full bloom, gave a dainty touch of color to brighten the whole, and a small river winding its glimmering way, like a rope of silver thrown at random, made a graceful trail over the scene; while above it all fleecy clouds, skimming athwart a sky of vivid blue, cast lights and shadows that could not have failed to thrill and inspire the soul of an old master painter. "I know--that is lovely! No, there are no cross-purposes in nature; it all seems in perfect harmony," murmured Mrs. Seabrook, her eyes glowing with keen appreciation of the exquisite picture before her. "It is only poor humanity that seems all out of tune," she went on, the tense lines coming back to her face. "Oh, Phillip! what is this mystery of suffering that we see all about us? If God is tender, and loving, and supreme, why--oh! why--is the world so full of it?" Dr. Stanley lifted the hand that he was still holding and laid it within his arm, drawing her closer to him with a tenderness which told her that he both knew and shared the heavy burden that weighed so heavily upon her heart. "Emelie," he said, his eyes lingering upon the scene before them, "that is a question that I have often asked myself, especially during the last two years that I spent in those hospitals abroad, and witnessed the wretchedness they contained. And I suppose everybody has been asking it over and over for ages gone by. We have been taught that sin is the root of it all," he went on, musingly; "that sin brought sickness and death. Then, as you say, if God is supreme, why doesn't He abolish the sin, or at least show humanity how to conquer it in a practical way, to overcome or lessen the results of sin? But no! The same tragedy is repeated with every generation, and seems likely to go on for ages to come." "Sin! What sin could an innocent child like Dorrie be guilty of, to bring upon her the curse of torture that she has endured for the last eight years?" cried Mrs. Seabrook, a note of intolerant anguish in her tones. "I know you will say theology teaches that it is the heredity sin of our first parents; but, Phillip, that is not fair nor just--it is not logical reasoning. I believe I am beginning to be very skeptical, for that argument hasn't a true ring to it. What human father or mother would torture their offspring simply because an ancestor, many generations ago, had committed a crime, however heinous? Oh, sometimes I am almost on the verge of declaring there is no God. That would bring chaos, I know," she added, with a deprecatory smile, as she saw her brother's brow contract; "but it really does seem as if the pros and cons are disproportionate, the cons far outnumbering the pros, as far as poor humanity is concerned." "Emelie, you need change of scene; you are becoming morbid," said Phillip Stanley, looking with fond anxiety into the somber eyes upraised to his. "Change of scene would not remove the sword that hangs over me, for you know that where I go Dorrie must also go. Oh! Phillip, do you believe that anything will ever permanently relieve that child of pain?" Mrs. Seabrook cried, a sob escaping her quivering lips. "I don't expect she is ever going to be straight, like other girls. I only ask that she may be freed from suffering. Have you any real faith in that proposed operation, or even that--that she will live through it? You have been trying to 'build her up,' but she appears to be running down instead." "I know, dear, her case does seem to be very trying, although I see no especial cause for anxiety. I hope when the season is more advanced and you go to the mountains she will improve more rapidly. But how would you like to change the treatment?" And Dr. Stanley bent a searching look upon the troubled face beside him. "Have some one else?" "Yes; try another specialist." "No, Philip; we have tried everything--every school, and countless specialists, for eight years," said Mrs. Seabrook, wearily. "I have more confidence in you than in anyone else, for I know that you are putting your whole heart into the case, and yet--" "What is it, Emelie? Do not fear to speak your mind freely," said her brother, encouragingly. "Phillip, what do you think of the Christian Scientists? Would it be too ridiculous to try their method for a while?" she faltered, and flushing crimson. Dr. Stanley smiled. "Has Dorothy been talking to you also about the miracles of nineteen hundred years ago?" he inquired, evasively. "No; what do you mean?" He related his recent conversation with his niece on the subject, and told of his promise to read the Scripture references she had given him. "I kept my word," he said, in conclusion, "and became so interested that I read the account of every miracle that Christ and His apostles performed." "Oh! Dorrie never tires of reading or of asking questions about them," returned Mrs. Seabrook; "but that has had nothing to do with my thought. Something very queer has occurred during the last twenty-four hours. You remember I spoke to you yesterday regarding Miss Reynolds' illness?" "Yes; you thought her condition rather serious, I believe." "Phillip, she really was very ill; I was thoroughly alarmed about her. Always, before this, when she has had these attacks, she has been very willing to have a physician, but this time she flatly refused to let me call anyone. Last night she was worse than I ever saw, her, and Miss Minturn took care of her." "Ah!" ejaculated Dr. Stanley, in a peculiar tone. "You know, perhaps, that Miss Minturn is a Christian Scientist?" said his sister, inquiringly. "Yes." "Well, I went to Miss Reynolds' room late last night: and, truly, I came away in fear and trembling. I could not sleep well because of anxiety on her account. This morning, however, Miss Minturn told me, in her quiet way, that she was 'more comfortable.' But you can imagine my astonishment when I went to see the woman, less than an hour ago, and found her up and dressed, having just finished a dinner of roast beef and vegetables--in fact, our regular Saturday menu--pie and all." "What! with all that fever?" exclaimed Dr. Stanley, aghast. "Well, that was the queerest thing about it," said Mrs. Seabrook, in a tone of perplexity; "there wasn't a sign of fever about her and the swelling of her throat was all gone. But for looking a trifle pale and hollow-eyed, she seemed nearly as well as ever. She would not talk of herself, though; she just evaded our questions--Miss Williams was with me--but ran on about Dorothy and school matters in general, as lively as a cricket. Now, putting this and that together, I am inclined to think that Miss Minturn had something to do with this wonderful change. What do you think?" she concluded, turning to her brother with an eager look. "I would not be at all surprised if she had," Dr. Stanley gravely observed. "You 'would not be at all surprised'! Then, Phillip, you do believe in Christian Science healing, after all!" exclaimed his sister, almost breathlessly. "No, I do not 'believe' in it, and yet I know that strange, even marvelous, things are done in its name," Phillip Stanley replied. "Has Will never told you that I suggested we try it before having Dorrie submit to an operation?" he added, after a moment of thought. "No, he has never mentioned the subject to me." "Well, I did," and then the young man proceeded to relate the incident that had occurred on the Ivernia during his return passage and his subsequent conversation with his brother-in-law. "While I have no faith in it as a 'demonstrable science,'" he continued, "and while there is much that, to me, seems absurdly inconsistent in what they teach, I am not so egotistical and obstinate as to utterly repudiate, with a supercilious wave of the hand, any method of healing that could do what I know was done for that suffering child last fall. And, my dear sister, I am sure I do not need to tell you that I would be willing to yield everything--go to any legitimate length to save our Dorrie from a trying ordeal, which, after all, might not bring the result we hope for. It is a question that remains to be proved, you know," he concluded, gently. "Do not think for a moment," he presently resumed, "that I believe Christian Science could cure her; at the same time I would not object to giving it a trial--making a test--to see if it would relieve her present suffering." "Why not test it upon yourself, Phil?" his sister abruptly demanded. The man started, then flushed. "You refer to my imperfect sight?" "Yes, of course; you need it for nothing else." "Pshaw! Emelie; there is nothing that can mend a dislocated optic nerve," returned the physician, with an impatient shrug. They walked on some distance farther, both intent upon the subject which they had been discussing. "Well, Phillip, I am going to ask Will to try what it will do for Dorothy," Mrs. Seabrook at length asserted, in a resolute tone. "Of course, if it is only mental treatment, it cannot do the child any harm, even if it does her no good." "I hope you may succeed, dear, in winning his consent," her brother returned. "He was rather short with me about it, and I could see that, for some reason, he was quite stirred up over the subject." "I think it would be unreasonable to refuse to make a trial of it, after we have spent years fruitlessly testing other things," was the somewhat sharp reply. Then she added, as she turned her face towards home: "I think I will have to go back now, Phil. I have been out nearly an hour, and I must not impose upon Miss Minturn. This walk and talk have done me good, though. I feel both cheered and refreshed." They walked briskly back to the seminary, chatting socially on various topics, and Dr. Stanley was glad to see a healthful glow upon his companion's cheeks and a brighter look in her eyes by the time they entered the building. They found Katherine reading the ninety-first psalm to Dorothy, who was lying restfully among her pillows, with a look of peace in her eyes that was like balm to the mother's aching heart. The moment Phillip Stanley caught sight of Katherine he settled his chin with a resolute air, a sudden purpose taking form in his thought. "Emelie," he said, in his sister's ear, "will you manage so that I can have a few minutes' conversation with Miss Minturn?" She nodded, giving him a bright look, then went forward to Dorothy's side, while Dr. Stanley turned to greet Katherine, who had risen upon their appearance. CHAPTER XI. DR. STANLEY ASKS SOME QUESTIONS. "We meet occasionally, Miss Minturn," Dr. Stanley observed in a genial tone, as he cordially extended his hand to her. "I hope everything is progressing satisfactorily in the junior class." "As far as I know, all is well," she returned, her scarlet lips parting in a smile that just showed the tips of her white teeth, though she flushed slightly under her companion's glance. "I can speak with authority for only one, however. I am compelled to work pretty diligently; but I rather enjoy that." "I am sure you do. I recall a fluent reading from Horace, which I inadvertently interrupted on the Ivernia, last fall, and which must have required earnest application; and I also remember that that same student could not be tempted from her task until the lesson was done," the gentleman rejoined, jocosely. Then turning to Dorothy, he inquired: "And how does my small niece find herself this afternoon?" "Miss Minturn, I have enjoyed my walk more than I can tell you," said Mrs. Seabrook, as she removed her hat and wrap, but wondering at the unaccustomed crimson in the girl's cheeks. "And now," she added, "if you have time I would like to show you a portfolio of engravings which Prof. Seabrook received last week from an old classmate who is now abroad." Katherine could never resist fine pictures, and followed her hostess into an adjoining room, where the portfolio was placed upon a table, and she was invited to inspect its contents at her leisure, Mrs. Seabrook excusing herself to prepare some nourishment for Dorothy. Katherine found many of the engravings to be copies of paintings by some of the great masters, and which she had seen, in various galleries, the previous summer. They were very finely executed, and she became so absorbed in them that she was unconscious of the presence of anyone until Dr. Stanley's smooth, cultured tones fell upon her startled ears. "That is a beautiful thing, Miss Minturn," he observed, bending nearer to look more closely at a copy of a section of the 'Creation' as painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican at Rome. "The foreshortening and perspective there is wonderful! Michael Angelo was the master of them all! Of course, you have seen many of the wonders of that great storehouse of art?" "Yes; mamma and I spent a great deal of time in the Vatican. What a treasure vault it is!" Katherine replied, and then, as she turned other pictures to view, they fell to talking of scenes familiar to them both. At length she came upon a reproduction of the healing of the lame man by Peter, at the "Gate Beautiful" of the Temple in Jerusalem. It was full of strength and life, as well as of touches of beauty and pathos, and the girl's face lighted with keen appreciation as she saw it. "That is a queer story," Dr. Stanley observed, and eagerly seizing the opportunity for which he had been waiting. "Queer?" repeated Katherine, inquiringly. "Yes; it seems so to me. Do you believe that man--Peter, I believe, was his name--performed that cure instantaneously, as related?" "No; but God did, working through him," said Katherine. "You firmly believe that such an incident really occurred?" "I certainly do." "And you just as firmly believe that such healing can be done now?" The girl lifted a quick, searching look to her companion, half expecting to see the skeptical curl, which she so well remembered, wreathing his mobile lips. But, instead, she found herself looking into a pair of grave, earnest blue eyes, and there was no sign of levity or derision in the fine face. "Yes, it has been done many times during the last thirty years," she quietly replied. "Do you speak from actual knowledge or only from hearsay?" "Both. I know of two cases, and my mother could tell you of several others." "Do you believe that Dorothy could be healed? made straight and well?" "Oh, Dr. Stanley!" Katherine breathed, with luminous eyes. "Yes, indeed! yes. Will they try the Science for her? Oh! how I have yearned to have that dear child made whole!" Her face was so radiant with hope, yet so softly tender and so beautiful, the physician was deeply moved. "I cannot say as to that," he replied. "But will you tell me, Miss Minturn, what, in your method, heals the sick?" "God--the power that created the universe and holds it in His grasp, who 'spake and it was done.'" "Ah! but that is so vague, so intangible, I cannot comprehend your meaning," said the man, with an impatient shrug of his broad shoulders. "I do not doubt the existence of God," he continued, "nor His omnipotence, for I believe that the Creator must have all power over His own creation. But how--how can suffering humanity avail itself of that power? If I could grasp that--if I were sure it could be done by a really scientific process, I would never again prescribe a drug or touch a surgical instrument." He spoke with evident emotion, almost passionately, for they could hear Dorothy sobbing, from the returning pain, in the other room, and, with all his learning and experience, the man had a heart- sickening sense of discouragement in view of his own and others' helplessness to cope with that demon of torture which was surely destroying his niece and, indirectly, wearing to a shadow his only sister. "You say you believe in God--that you do not doubt His power; but is that statement of your attitude quite true, Dr. Stanley?" Katherine gently inquired. "If you really believed it, if all who claim that they have faith in an omnipotent God really believed it, would you or they ever assume that drugs or surgical instruments were needed to assist God to do His work?" "Jove! that is an argument that has never occurred to me before!" Phillip Stanley exclaimed. "But," he went on, doubtfully, "the curse came, and man was driven to do something to mitigate it; and it has been conceded, all down the ages, that these same doctors and material remedies are agencies that were required and provided by an all-wise Providence for that purpose." "Yes, man, in his arrogance, has claimed that, and so has practically denied the omnipotence of God. But this same God has said, over and over, 'Whatsoever ye ask ye shall receive,' and 'Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.' But he has never said, 'Ask to be healed of disease and I will send you doctors, to experiment with drugs, roots and herbs, and mechanical appliances;' or, 'if ye are worn out with care and heavy-laden with suffering they shall build you costly sanitariums, wherein to rest and be treated.' But only the rich or a favored few may avail themselves of these. If these remedies or retreats were infallible and could reach all mankind, there might be some plausibility in such arguments; but such is not the case, as you must know. Where, in God's Word, which is conceded to be the guide for humanity, do you find authority for them?" Katherine inquired, in conclusion. "You have me there, Miss Minturn," rejoined her companion, with a quizzical smile; "honesty compels me to confess that I have not been much of a Bible student, at least of late years. But allow me to say that your arguments against doctors, drugs and hospitals are very quaint, not to say convincing," he added, with an amused laugh. "Well, let me assure you that you cannot find an instance, from Genesis to Revelation, where God commands man to call upon physicians, or to use material remedies for sickness any more than for sin," Katherine continued, earnestly. "But we do find many injunctions to depend upon Him alone in such extremity. In Deuteronomy we read, 'And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness.' Again, we are told what the penalty is for not calling upon Him--'Asa died because he sought the physicians and not unto God.' David tells us, 'It is God who healeth all our diseases,' and there are many more passages I could quote to prove the point." "But why, if that is the only right way, has not God made it so plain that no one could go astray?" questioned Dr. Stanley. "He has made it plain, and man would not go astray if he were obedient; but, in his arrogance and egotism, he has ignored God and 'sought out many inventions' [Footnote: Eccles., 7.29.] to rob Him of His prerogative," said Katherine. "Well, to go back still farther, why has God permitted such evils and untold misery to exist in the world?" thoughtfully inquired the gentleman. "He has not 'permitted' it," the girl positively declared. "Isn't that rather a bold assertion, if God is omnipotent?" Phillip Stanley demanded, in surprise. "No; for He asserts that He looks on evil with 'no degree of allowance.' For instance, you are supposed to be supreme in the sick room, your word law; but if your patient ignores your directions and remedies and substitutes others in place of them, you are not 'permitting' such willful disobedience. But the patient suffers for it none the less, and you are in no way responsible for his condition. So mortals, in their presumption and perverseness, have become idolaters, have set up false gods or devices to rob God of His power. Take another illustration: Truth and honesty are supreme in their realm, but there are people who prefer to lie when truth would serve them better, and who would rather steal than get an honest living. But truth and honesty do not permit--are not responsible for such perversion. Until the liar and the thief turn to truth and honesty, to reclaim them, they will suffer from the results of their sins; they cannot substitute anything else." "I see your point, Miss Minturn, and you have given me something to think of. You argue, too, like a veritable doctor of divinity," said Dr. Stanley, with a smile. "Oh! no, I do not," retorted Katherine, with a roguish gleam in her brown eyes; "for, let your doctor of divinity get sick and he will argue for material remedies every time." "That is true, and my intellect, my education and experience prompt me to reason from the same standpoint," was the grave response. "My professional pride also cries out 'Absurd! Impossible! Impractical!' But I dearly love that little girl in there," and the man's voice grew gentle as a woman's and trembled in spite of his manhood, as he glanced towards the adjoining room. "I love my sister, whose life is a mental and physical martyrdom, and I would sacrifice all I have--yea, even professional authority and pride--to bring health and happiness to them. There is one thing left to try for Dorothy, to relieve that pain--only one; but my heart shrinks, revolts from it. That is why I have sought this conversation with you, Miss Minturn, hoping to get a little insight regarding your methods; and, while I do not grasp the so- called 'science' of it at all, I am impressed that you Scientists have something that we physicians have not. But I marvel at your profound thought upon such a subject at your age." "You would not marvel at my ability to elucidate a difficult problem in trigonometry?" said Katherine, smiling. "No, for that would be a natural outgrowth of your education." "Yes, and the same argument holds good regarding what we have been talking of," was the quick response. "I have been taught it from my youth up, and although I know but very little of Christian Science, for it is infinite, yet what I have learned I know just as clearly as I know certain statements in the 'History of the United States'; yes, far more clearly," she interposed, with a little laugh, "for I am obliged to take the historian's account for granted, in part, while I can demonstrate, prove Christian Science for myself." Dr. Stanley's shapely brows were arched ever so slightly at this assertion. "Have you ever done any healing, Miss Minturn?" he inquired. "Have you ever cured anyone of a severe illness?" Katharine flushed under his glance and question. "A person cannot be said to know very much about mathematics unless he is able to demonstrate mathematical problems," she observed, after a moment of hesitation. "I see; you mean that anyone who acquires the principles of Christian Science can demonstrate it by healing the sick?" "Yes. It is the Christ-science, or the Science of Christianity, as demonstrated and taught by Jesus, who said, 'The works that I do shall ye do also if ye believe in Me.' So anyone who conscientiously investigates it, from an honest desire to know the Truth, will grow into the practice of it." "Miss Minturn, do you believe that you could help Dorothy?" earnestly inquired Phillip Stanley. "I know that she could be helped under right conditions; and I wish--I feel sure that my mother's understanding is sufficient to meet the case," she thoughtfully returned. "'Under right conditions,' what do you mean by that?" "Dorothy would have to be willing to be treated, and the consent of Prof. and Mrs. Seabrook would also be necessary." "Then nothing could be done for her by your method except under those conditions?" and Dr. Stanley's tone conveyed a sense of disappointment. "No; it would not be right--it would be interfering where one would have no authority to intrude." "But it would be doing good; that is always justifiable, is it not? even if the child could be given but one night's peaceful rest to prove its efficacy." "Some physicians believe in hypnotism; do you?" Katherine inquired, with apparent irrelevancy. "Well, under certain circumstances, it might be employed to advantage, but, as a rule, I am opposed to it." "We utterly repudiate it as a very dangerous and demoralizing practice; but, Dr. Stanley, would you think it right, under any circumstances, for a person to hypnotize you without your consent?" "Indeed I would not; it would be a dastardly act," emphatically declared the physician. "On the same principle, Christian Scientists feel that they have no right to treat, or try to influence anyone mentally, even to do good, without permission," Katherine explained, as she arose, thinking, perhaps, enough had been said on the subject. "Just one moment, please, Miss Minturn," said the gentleman, detaining her. "There is one thing more I would like to speak of. Will you kindly look me directly in the eyes?" Somewhat surprised, Katherine turned her glance upon his and looked searchingly into those fine eyes so deeply blue, but flushing as she did so. "Can you detect any difference in them?" he questioned. "No, I cannot," she said, and knowing now why he had asked it, for she remembered what Miss Reynolds had told her. "Well, there is," he affirmed, "for I am blind in my left eye, although scarcely anyone would observe it; at least I can only discern light from darkness. It was caused by an accident when I was a child. Do you believe, Miss Minturn, that normal sight could be restored to that eye?" "I know that it could," Katherine began. "Yes, of course, you know that God has power to restore it," her companion interposed; "but do you believe any practitioner would take my case and encourage me to hope for such a result?" "Assuredly," said the girl, with unwavering confidence. "Truly, your faith is unbounded," Phillip Stanley observed, with a smile in which there was a glimmer of skepticism. "I wish it could find an echo in my own heart, for I would give a great deal for so priceless a boon. But where do your practitioners go to learn their method?" "To our text-book, 'Science and Health.' It--" "That little leather-covered book I used to see you reading on shipboard?" "Yes; it contains the whole of Christian Science, and, Dr. Stanley"--with a significant nod--"he who will may read." "I understand"--with a responsive laugh--"one has to put forth individual effort in order to acquire valuable knowledge. Pray pardon me for detaining you so long, and possibly I may ask to talk with you further after I have consulted my sister and her husband. Really, Miss Minturn"--he interposed in a deprecatory tone and flushing with a sense of the incongruity of his position- -"I am afraid I am rather faithless, but something impels me to suggest that a trial be given the Science treatment before the adoption of severe measures. Good-afternoon, and thank you for your courtesy and patience." He shook hands cordially with her, then bowed himself away. CHAPTER XII. PROF. SEABROOK'S ULTIMATUM--AND BROKEN RULES. Dr. Stanley, after sitting a while with Dorothy, to watch the effect of a remedy given to relieve her suffering, went directly back to the city, wearing a very thoughtful face. Upon reaching his office, and finding no one awaiting him, he picked up a book from his desk and went out again, directing his steps towards the public library. Arriving there, he searched the catalogue and, at length, finding the title he desired, wrote the number on his card and presented his book to be exchanged. When the wished-for volume was handed to him he opened the cover and glanced at the title page, reading therefrom, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker G. Eddy." A peculiar smile, in which there may have been a trace of self- contempt, wreathed his lips as he slipped it under his arm and then made his way from the building. He stopped at a cafe near by and partook of a light meal, after which he returned to his office and read from his book as long as daylight lasted, without once laying it aside. Then, lighting a student lamp, he became absorbed again, reading on until the clock struck ten. "There is much I do not understand! much I cannot grasp!" he exclaimed, a note of impatience in his voice, and the perplexing work was tossed somewhat irreverently upon the table. "It so radically reverses preconceived ideas and opinions; it seems so abstruse, vague and intangible, it irritates me. And yet, in the light of what Mrs. Minturn and her daughter have told me, I believe I have caught a glimpse, here and there, of the meaning of some of its statements. It is like trying to march through a tangled wilderness," he continued, as he picked up the book again and slowly slipped the leaves through his fingers; "but I'll read the thing through, now that I have begun it, though I have a suspicion that I shall only get deeper into an impenetrable thicket." While Phillip Stanley was thus engaged, Mrs. Seabrook was earnestly discussing the same subject with her husband. She related to him her recent conversation with her brother, also her suspicions regarding what had so almost miraculously banished Miss Reynolds' severe malady, and repeated some things which she had overheard during her brother's interview with Katherine. Prof. Seabrook, usually so considerate and tender in all his relations with his dear ones--such a gentle man in every sense of the word--sat listening with averted face and brow heavily overcast, his finely chiseled lips compressed into an obstinate, rigid line. "William, do let us give it a trial; it certainly could do no harm, and it might give Dorrie some relief from the pain," pleaded his wife, but studying the unsympathetic face opposite her with mingled anxiety and surprise. There was an awkward silence when she concluded; but at length her companion observed, in a repressed tone: "Emelie, Phillip and I have already discussed this subject." "I know; he has told me, Will; but I thought, perhaps, after you had given the matter more consideration, in view of these recent developments, you might think more favorably of it," Mrs. Seabrook eagerly interposed. "But I do not think more favorably of it," was the cold response. "But why? What possible objection can you have to giving the method a trial?" queried Mrs. Seabrook and flushing with momentary indignation at his intolerant attitude. "You have eagerly welcomed and tried everything that numerous physicians have suggested and which, after years of patient experimenting, have done absolutely no good. I cannot understand why you should be so obstinately opposed to what anyone can see, can do no possible harm, even if no permanent relief is derived from it." "I am not so sure that 'no harm' would result from it," the professor observed, in an inflexible voice. "I wish you would explain what you mean, Will, and not hold yourself so obscurely aloof from the subject," returned his wife, with unusual spirit and an unaccustomed spark in her mild eyes. "I am not a child, to be merely told that a thing is not good for me, and consequently cannot have it. If there is a good and sufficient reason why Dorothy shall not have Christian Science treatment, I would like to know what it is. For eight years I, as well as my child, have been a martyr in a chamber of torture, and my burden is growing heavier than I can bear." Her lips quivered and her voice broke with those last words. Her husband reached out his hand and laid it caressingly against her face, drawing her head down upon his shoulder. "I know it, sweetheart," he said, with tremulous tenderness, "and my own heart rebels against it every day of my life. Perhaps I have seemed arrogant in my attitude toward what you have suggested. I feel so. I am utterly intolerant of Christian Science and will have nothing to do with it." "But why, Will? You do not state any reason. Why do you condemn it without a trial--without investigation? You know nothing about it- ---" "I know all I wish," the man interrupted, with curling lips. "I have never mentioned the fact, but I have read the Christian Science text-book and have found it to be a conglomeration of the most absurd statements, theories and contradictions it has ever been my lot to peruse. As a matter of principle, as a Christian, I abjure its teachings, for they are diametrically opposed to my religious views; and as a D.D. and a Ph.D. I feel that I should be subjecting myself to the rankest criticism and ridicule were I to give it countenance in any way whatsoever. I do not stand alone in my attitude, by any means, for the book has been discussed in our Philosophical Association, which, as you well know, is composed of some of the brightest men and most profound thinkers in the State; and it was utterly repudiated and denounced as fallacious and un- Christian in its teachings, and calculated to do inestimable harm. The idea of an obscure woman setting herself up as a reconstructor of the religious faiths of the world! It is simply the height of presumption and absurdity," he concluded, with considerable heat. "But when you think of it, how much better it would be if there was only 'one Lord, one faith and one baptism' in the world, instead of hundreds. How is anyone to know which is the right one?" said Mrs. Seabrook, thoughtfully. "We claim to be Presbyterians, but we can offer no proof that our creed is better than any other, while the Christian Scientists claim that their healing proves their religion to be the Christianity taught by the Master." "Yes, they claim a great deal; but they want to overturn altogether too much for me to accept it," dryly observed her husband. "But they maintain that it is founded on the Bible." "True; and that is wherein it is most harmful. It is the false teaching calculated to 'deceive the very elect.' Emelie, it irritates me to talk about it; let us drop it, please," and with a frowning brow the man arose and restlessly paced the floor. "Then you will not consent to try the healing for Dorothy?" and there was a plaintive note in the weary mother's voice which smote painfully upon the husband's ears. "No." That ended the conversation, and with a heavy heart Mrs. Seabrook went back to her child to take up her accustomed night vigil, but with a secret sense of injustice and rebellion such as she had seldom experienced. That same evening, after supper, when Katherine went to her room she found Sadie dressing to go out. The girl looked flushed and excited, a condition so at variance with her usual composure and languid manner that Katherine regarded her with surprise. She was also making a rather elaborate toilet, and she wondered where she could be going. "Oh! honey," she exclaimed, as her chum appeared in the doorway, "don't you want to come with me?" "Where? Is there a theater party on the tapis?" Katherine inquired, as she watched a labored effort to tie a coquettish bow at her throat. "Oh! no; I have to go down to Madam Alberti's for my new hat. I want it for church to-morrow," Sadie explained. "I have permission, but can't go alone, you know. Annie Fletcher was going with me, but her brother has just come--so that's off." "Why, yes; I'd like the walk," said Katherine, with animation. "But I supposed, from the 'fuss and feathers' you are putting on, that you were bound either for the theater or to make a fashionable call." "Well--you know it doesn't get dark very early now, and one meets so many people on the street, especially on Saturday evening, one must look passable," Sadie returned, but the flush on her cheeks grew brighter while she spoke. Katherine hastily donned her hat, and, taking a light wrap on her arm, signified her readiness to accompany her. On their way downstairs Miss Minot stopped at Miss Williams' door. "I've got to tell her that Annie can't go, and I am taking you in her place," she said, as she rapped for admittance. "Of course, Miss Minturn can go if she has no special duties," Miss Williams observed, when the matter was explained to her. "And," she added, archly, "I think the change is all for the best, for when I allow two mischief-loving girls, like you and Annie, to go off by themselves, I sometimes have rather more of a sense of responsibility than is comfortable." "Now, Miss Williams, that is rather hard on Annie and me," drawled Sadie, while the quick color flew to her face again, "though I'm sure it's a right smart compliment to Katherine. But thank you all the same for permission, and--I reckon you'll feel perfectly 'com- fortable'--you'll not be afraid there's any mischief brewing now," she concluded, demurely. "No, indeed; I know you are in excellent hands," smiled Miss Williams, and the two girls went on their way. The walk "downtown" was delightful, for the evening was balmy and fragrant with unfolding flowers and foliage. Arriving at Madam Alberti's, they found her fashionable rooms filled with customers, and were obliged to wait sometime before Miss Minot could be served. Then, when the hat was finally brought, there was something that did not quite suit her fastidious taste and had to be changed. By the time this was effected it had grown quite dark outside; but as they started out Sadie lingered by the door and looked up and down the street with an air of expectation, mingled with some anxiety, Katherine thought. "Let us go into Neal's for a soda and some candy," Sadie at length proposed, and, as candy was also one of Katherine's weaknesses, they stepped into a confectioner's, next door, and made their purchases. While waiting for their change a young man, stylishly attired, approached Sadie and, lifting his hat, saluted her with much empressement. Sadie smiled, blushed, and addressed him as "Mr. Willard," then introduced Katherine, who was beginning to understand some things that had puzzled her, and to feel quite uncomfortable. They stood chatting together until their change was handed them, when they passed out of the store, Mr. Willard taking possession of Miss Minot's bandbox with an air of proprietorship which, to say the least, was suggestive. When they reached the first corner Katherine halted. "I suppose we will take a car, Sadie, it is getting so late," she quietly remarked. "Oh, it is so fine, let us walk back," said the girl, appealingly. Katherine was dismayed, particularly as Mr. Willard supplemented, affably: "I hope you can be persuaded, Miss Minturn. It will give me great pleasure to see you safely home." Katherine knew it would never do. It would be a rank violation of the rules, which explicitly stated that no young lady could receive attention from young men without permission direct from the principal, on penalty of expulsion. "Thank you, Mr. Willard; but I think we will take a car," she courteously but decidedly replied. "Oh, come now, Katharine, don't be disobliging," Sadie here interposed; "there can be no harm in our walking quietly back to the seminary together. Ned--er--Mr. Willard has met Prof. Seabrook, and it will be all right." The slip which revealed Mr. Willard's first name, and also betrayed something of the intimacy which existed between the young couple, appalled Katherine, and confirmed her suspicions that the meeting had been previously planned, and drove her to radical measures. She turned politely to the young man and observed: "Mr. Willard, if we had Prof. Seabrook's permission, no doubt the walk would be very enjoyable; but since we have not, and the rules are explicit, I am sure you will appreciate our position and excuse us. There is our car. Will you kindly signal for us?" Of course there was nothing for the gentleman to do but obey, which he did with an icy: "Certainly, Miss Minturn, and pray pardon my intrusion." They were obliged to wait a moment for some people to alight, and during the delay Katherine heard him say in an aside to her roommate: "Next time, Sadie, don't bring a prude with you." "Next time!" Katherine repeated to herself, with a, heart-bound of astonishment. These meetings, then, were of frequent occurrence, and there was no telling what regret and disgrace her friend was storing up. For herself, for it was only a question of time when she would be found out. Of course, she could not talk the matter over with her on the car, but when they alighted and were entering the school grounds she felt she must speak a word of caution. "Sadie, did you have an appointment to meet Mr. Willard to-night?" she inquired. "Well, suppose I did!" was the defiant retort. "If you did, you certainly had no right to draw me into anything of the kind," said Katherine, indignantly. "It was not an honorable thing to do." "Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to give me away?" demanded the girl, tartly. Katherine flushed. "I have no wish to tell tales of anyone," she replied; "but, truly, I do not like what I have heard and seen to-night. Sadie, I overheard what Mr. Willard said to you just as we were getting on the car." "Lor'! Did you? Well, of course, he didn't like it; to have all our fun spoiled and---" "And it proved to me that you are in the habit of meeting him clandestinely," interposed Katherine, determined to sift the affair to the bottom. "I'm sure I don't know what business you have to meddle," spiritedly began the girl, when Katherine checked her again by saying: "You know, Sadie, that my only thought is to save you from getting into trouble," and she laid a gentle hand upon the arm of the angry girl. "I reckon I made a mistake asking you to go with me," Sadie observed, in a calmer tone after a moment of silence, "but--but-- Katherine, I might as well own up--I'm--engaged to Ned Willard." "Engaged! Sadie! Where did you meet him? How long have you known him?" exclaimed Katherine, aghast. "Oh, about three months. I met him the night Mrs. Bryant gave that theater party." "Did Mrs. Bryant introduce him to you? Was he with her party?" "N-o; but Nellie Nixon knew him and introduced us on our way out after the play." "Does your guardian know of your engagement?" "No. Ned thought it would be as well not to say anything about it at present," Sadie reluctantly admitted, but cringing visibly at the question. "Dearest," said Katherine, fondly, "I feel that I have no right to 'meddle,' as you say, in your affairs, but I do not see how you can respect or trust a man who would draw you into a secret engagement and then endanger your reputation and standing in school by insisting upon clandestine meetings. If he possessed a fine sense of honor he would go to your guardian, frankly tell him of his regard for you, and ask his permission to address you openly. What is Mr. Willard's business, Sadie?" "I--I don't know," the girl confessed, with\ embarrassment. Then bridling, added: "Well, but I don't care shucks about that. I have money enough for both--or shall have next year, when I am twenty- one." "I am afraid he is of the same opinion," Katherine said, to herself; but, thinking it might be unwise to dwell upon that point, made no reply. "You are not going to tell anyone, honey," Sadie pleaded, and pausing upon the steps before entering the building. "I think it will be downright mean if you do," she added, hotly, as she saw the troubled look on her chum's face. "Sadie, I wouldn't for the world do anything for the sake of being 'mean'; but I am sure you are doing very wrong, and will deeply regret it some day," was the grave reply. "If you give me away it will get me into an awful scrape." "I know it; and my greatest concern is to save you from anything of the kind. Will you stop meeting Mr. Willard on the sly?" "Oh, Katherine, and not see him at all!" exclaimed Sadie, in a voice of dismay. "Dear, are you so fond of him?" queried Katherine, gently. The girl flushed from neck to brow. "Indeed--indeed, I am," she confessed, with downcast eyes. "Well, then, if it has gone that far he should at least allow you to respect him!" said Katherine, a thrill of indignation vibrating in her tones. "Don't go on this way, Sadie," she pleaded; "write him that you cannot meet him again in any such way; but tell him, if he will make himself known to your guardian, and get his permission to call upon you, you will receive him here." "If I will do that, will you promise not to say anything about to- night?" demanded the girl, eagerly. "Yes," Katherine replied, after a moment of thought; at the same time she did not feel quite satisfied with the state of affairs. "All right; I will write Ned to-morrow and tell him," Sadie returned, with a sigh of relief as they entered the building and passed on to their room. Before going to rest, Katherine slipped away to see Miss Reynolds and ascertain if she could do anything for her before retiring. She found her reading, but Miss Reynolds at once laid down her book and welcomed the girl with a bright smile. "I am all right, Kathie, and I have been having a perfect feast," she said, touching the "Science and Health" in her lap. They spent a few minutes in social chat, then she sent Katherine away, saying she must make up the sleep she had lost the night before, and our faithful little Scientist was glad, after her busy day, to seek her couch, where she was soon sleeping peacefully and knew no more until she awoke the next morning to find the bright May sunshine flooding her room, and told herself, with a sigh of content, that it was the Sabbath, and a whole restful day of truth and love before her. She was made happy, on descending to breakfast, to find Miss Reynolds in her accustomed seat. They exchanged smiling glances, and, later, the teacher said, in a low tone: "Come to my room this afternoon, Kathie, if you have nothing special to do; I have more questions for you." Katherine said she would, and, as soon as the meal was over, hastened away to prepare for church. It was a beautiful day, and she decided to walk instead of taking a car, as usual. She reached the hall just in season to slip into a seat before the opening hymn was given out. When she arose with the congregation to sing, she glanced around to see if there was anyone near her whom she knew. Her astonishment may be imagined when her eye fell upon Jennie Wild, just across the aisle from her. The girl had also espied her and nodded a smiling and half-defiant recognition, which Katherine gravely returned. CHAPTER XIII. THE STORY OF A STRAY WAIF. For a moment Katherine felt as if she were being made the target for the arrows of error from every quarter; for here was another lawless girl on her hands, and another infraction of rules which threatened to involve her in disagreeable complications. But, after silently declaring that "evil could not make her its channel, either directly or indirectly," she resolutely put disturbing thoughts away, determined that her mind should not be distracted from the lesson. She did observe, however, that Jennie paid the strictest attention throughout the service, joining in the Lord's Prayer, and in the hymns with a vigor which indicated thorough enjoyment of that portion of it. The moment the benediction was pronounced she came directly to her and greeted her with a half-deprecatory air, but with a roguish gleam in her saucy eyes. Katherine lingered a little to speak to some acquaintances, and also introduced her companion; then they passed out of the hall together. "Did you have Prof. Seabrook's permission to come here this morning, Jennie?" Katherine inquired, when they were on the street, but feeling confident of receiving a negative reply. Jennie took refuge in one of her comical grimaces and shrugged her plump shoulders. "Ask me no questions and I will tell you no--stories," she laughingly rejoined. "I am answered," Katherine gravely observed. "I don't care. I wanted to come, and I knew it wouldn't do to ask the professor, after what he said to you about Christian Science," said the girl, in self-justification, but flushing consciously beneath the look of disapproval in her companion's eyes. "I think the service was just lovely," she went on, glibly. "How happy all those people seemed--as if there wasn't a thing in the world to trouble them. And that 'silent prayer'!--it just made me think of Elijah and the 'still small voice,' after the tempest and the earthquake. I was sorry when it was over." "I am glad you enjoyed the services, Jennie. They are always very restful to me, and Sunday is my day to be marked with a 'white stone' for that reason," and there was a look of peace in the soft, brown eyes that assured Jennie of the truth of her words. "Oh, I think Sunday is a bore, as a rule," she observed, with another shrug. "I'm always lonesome if I don't go to church, and, if I do, I never know 'where I am at'--as the Irishman put it-- after listening to a long sermon. That was a queer idea, though, in the lesson to-day, about there being only one Mind in the universe. Where do you get your authority for that, Miss Minturn?" "There is but one God, who is Spirit or Mind, and He is omnipresent," Katherine explained. "What are you going to do with us, then? I mean your mind and mine?" "This mortal mind is only a counterfeit--" "A counterfeit of what?" "Of the One Mind, or the divine intelligence. The same as gas and electric light are counterfeits of real light from the sun, or the one source of light; but, oh, dear! I am talking Science, Jennie, and Prof. Seabrook said I must not," said Katherine, cutting herself short. "The idea of trying to bridle anyone's tongue, in any such way, in this free country!" cried Jennie, aggressively. "But that lady read from the Bible that there is 'nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be made known'; then the man read something about it being a law of God for truth to uncover error. Do you believe that, Miss Minturn?" "Yes." "Do you Scientists really know how to find out anything that is hidden or--or secret?" eagerly inquired the girl. "I think I don't quite catch your meaning, Jennie." "I'll tell you why I asked you that," she replied, an intense look in her dark eyes, her cheeks flushing crimson. "Perhaps you have heard something about me--that--that I am a kind of waif?" "Yes, I have, dear," Katherine admitted. "Well, it is true, and I'll tell you all about it," was the confidential rejoinder. "My aunt--she taught me to call her so, though she isn't related to me in any way--was traveling from Kansas City to Chicago, about sixteen years ago, and there was a terrible accident. Auntie was in a rear car and wasn't hurt in the least, but the first and second sleepers were completely wrecked. A good many people were killed, and others so badly injured they didn't live long. As soon as auntie could pull herself together she went out to see if she could help anybody, and she found me, a little tot only a year old, screaming in the gutter beside the track. She took me back into her car and looked me over, to see if I was injured; but, aside from a few bruises and scratches, I appeared to be all right, and, after a while, she quieted and soothed me to sleep. Then she went out again to try to learn to whom I belonged; but she could not get the slightest clew, and everyone said the person or persons I was with must have been among the killed. She advertised, and the railroad officials made every effort to find my friends for a long time; but nothing ever came of it. Auntie began to grow fond of me, and said she would never let me go until she had to give me up to my own folks. Of course, they have never been found, and so I grew up with her." "But wasn't there anything about you by which you could be identified?" inquired Katherine, who had been deeply interested in the pathetic story. "Nothing but a string of amber beads with a queer gold clasp, and with the initials 'A. A. to M. A. J.' engraved on the back of it. Now, do you think that Christian Science could solve such a riddle as that?" demanded the girl, in conclusion. Katherine smiled faintly. "There is nothing of clairvoyance in Christian Science, dear, and that is a hard question to explain to you," she said. "I mean difficult to answer so that you would clearly understand me. But it is sufficient for every human need, and very wonderful things have been demonstrated through the right comprehension of it. I know of men who govern their business by it, and who have solved some very perplexing problems. But I am talking again!" she exclaimed, and breaking off suddenly once more. "Oh, if I could only find out who I am, I'd be a Christian Scientist, or--anything else!" cried Jennie, with tears in her eyes, but gritting her teeth to keep the drops from falling. "It is dreadful to feel yourself to be such an enigma! Think of it! to have your identity lost. I get awfully worked up over it sometimes. Auntie is a dear, and I love her with all my heart, for she has been an angel of goodness to me. She isn't very well off, but she wanted me to have a first-class education and be with nice girls; so, after talking with Prof. Seabrook, she said if I would be willing to work for a part of the expense she would try to make up the rest." "How perfectly lovely of Miss Wild!" said Katherine, earnestly. "And you, too, Jennie, deserve great credit for your own efforts to get a good education. But--" "But what?" "I wonder if I may say it?" mused Katherine, doubtfully. Jennie slipped her hand within Katherine's arm and gave it a fond little hug. "Miss Minturn, I've loved you ever since the day you came to Hilton. You are a dear--you have been just as kind as you could be to me, and you may say anything you like," she impulsively returned. "Thank you; that is giving me a good deal of license," was the laughing response; "but what I wanted to say was--make the getting of your education, instead of fun, your chief object, and don't spoil your record by breaking rules." "As I have to-day, for instance?" supplemented Jennie, flushing. "Yes, to-day, and--on some other occasions that I could mention." The girl gave vent to a hearty, rollicking laugh. "You manage to see considerable with those innocent eyes of yours," she said, after a moment. "But I don't get very much fun after all. With all my work and my studies there is precious little time left me for recreation, and, sometimes, I get so full I just have to kick over the traces. But--surely you don't think I could get any harm from your service to-day," she concluded, demurely. "That is not the point, Miss Mischief, and you know it. Of course, there was nothing but good in the service for you, or anyone. But you didn't find anything in it--did you?--to countenance disobedience?" "No," said Jennie, seriously; "and I suppose, too, that if any of the teachers or girls had seen me come away from the hall with you it might have given the impression that you had countenanced my going. But, Miss Minturn, I have wanted to get at the secret of-- of your dearness, ever since you came here. But I promise you, though, I will not put you in jeopardy again by running away to your church." Katherine nodded her approval at this assurance, then changed the subject, and they chatted pleasantly until they reached the seminary. After dinner Katherine repaired, as she had been requested, to Miss Reynolds' room. She found her teacher sitting at her desk, her Bible and "Science and Health" open before her. "You see, I cannot let the great subject alone," she said, welcoming the girl with a smile and glancing at her books. "Now that I have begun to get a glimpse of the truth, it is like a fountain of pure, cold water to a man perishing from thirst--I cannot get enough of it; I just want to immerse myself in it. And, see here," she added, touching a letter lying beside the books, "I have written to the publishing house in Boston for several of Mrs. Eddy's works. I want them for my very own." "You are surely making progress," Katherine returned, with shining eyes. She was very happy, for this eager, radiant woman seemed an entirely different being from the helpless sufferer to whom she had been called less than forty-eight hours previous. "Sit down, Kathie," said her teacher, indicating a chair near her. "I hope I am making progress," she added, growing suddenly grave. "I find there is need enough of it, and I have been both on the mount and into the valley to-day." "That is the experience of everyone," was the smiling reply, "but it all means progress just the same." "I see that everyone who begins to get a glimpse of the truth, in Christian Science, must also begin to live it at once, if he is honest." "Yes, we have to live it in order to prove it." "And the first thing to do is, as Jesus commanded, to have one God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That word 'love' has taken on a new meaning for me to-day, Kathie. It means an impersonal love, which, like the 'rain'--in Jesus' simile--'falls alike upon the just and the unjust.'" Katherine lifted questioning eyes to the speaker, for her voice was now accusingly serious. "And one cannot demonstrate the Love that is God," she went on, "unless he loves in that way--without regard to personality." "That is true--how quickly you grasp these things!" said her companion. "Ah! but I have grasped something, with this, that is not at all agreeable," said the woman, with a peculiar glitter in her eyes which the girl had never seen there before. "How so? Pardon me, though, I should not have asked that," corrected Katherine, flushing. "But I am going to tell you all the same," said Miss Reynolds. "Ten years ago my father died. He was supposed to be a rich man, but when his affairs were settled my mother and I were left with almost nothing. His partner represented that the firm was heavily involved, but said if we would sign our interest in the business over to him, for a certain amount, he would perhaps manage to pull through and save us the expense of having things adjusted by law. We were not at all satisfied with the state of affairs, but we were helpless, as we had no money to spend in litigation, and we were forced to accept his terms. He made over to us a small house on the outskirts of our town, together with a mere pittance, which barely served to support us until I secured a position as teacher. I have taken care of my mother and myself ever since. But that man and his family have never abated their style of living one whit, and are to-day rolling in luxury. There can be no doubt that we were robbed of a fortune, and yet there was no possible way of proving it. I have never been able to meet or even think of that man since, without smarting as under a lash, and with a feeling of resentment and a sense of personal injury that never fail to give me a sick headache, if I allow my thoughts to dwell upon him. That isn't love, Kathie." "No," gravely; but the voice was also very tender. "Everything is either 'for' or 'against' in Christian Science?" "Yes." "There is, I see, no middle ground; so, if one cannot think compassionately, even tenderly, of one's enemy one is guilty of-- hate?" said Miss Reynolds, with quivering lips and averted eyes. Again Katherine was silent; but her glance was very loving as it rested on her teacher's troubled face. "Tell me how to get rid of these feelings, Kathie," she resumed, after a moment, "for they make me wretched at times. I find myself mentally going over the same ground, again and again, holding imaginary conversations with the man who has wronged me, arguing the case and bringing up evidence, as if it were being tried before a judge and jury. How would you conquer it in Science?" "Every wrong thought we hold has to be reversed--" "Oh! do you mean I must declare that that man is not dishonest-- that he has not wronged me? That I have not been injured and do not resent that injury?" interposed the woman, looking up with flashing eyes, a scarlet spot burning on either cheek. "Child, you don't know what I have suffered. My father took that man into his business and gave him a start when he had not a dollar in the world, and it was such base ingratitude to rob his family and let them sink into poverty. Ah! the bitter tears I have shed over it!" Then she suddenly relaxed and sank back in her chair with a deprecatory smile. "Kathie, you did not suspect your teacher of having such a seething volcano concealed in her breast, did you?" she observed, sadly. "What you have told me makes me think of a verse of 'The Mother's Evening Prayer,' in 'Miscellaneous Writings,'" [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy, page 389.] said Katherine, gently; and she repeated in a low tone: "Oh! make me glad for every scalding tear, For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear No ill, since God is good, and loss is gain." "Say that again please, clear," pleaded Miss Reynolds, with a sudden catch in her breath; and Katherine went through it the second time. "Ah! that shows how she has risen to the heights she has attained," said Miss Reynolds, in a reverent tone. "We are to be 'glad' for whatever drives us closer to God, to 'wait' and 'love' through all." "And to know that every man is our brother--the perfect image and likeness of God, and we must not bind heavy burdens of sin and dishonesty upon him in resentful thought." "Yes, I see; we have to 'blot it all out,'" said Miss Reynolds, wearily. "I caught something of that in my study to-day and that was what sent me down into the valley, for it seemed such an impossible thing to do. You could see what a strong grip it had on me in rehearsing it to you." "All wrong thought brings the sting--the smart of the lash; but love--right thinking--brings the 'peace of God,'" said Katherine. "Ah! it is a case of 'as ye sow ye shall also reap,'" said Miss Reynolds, drawing a long breath. "But, Kathie, do you think it will be possible for me to so reverse my thought about that man that I can grow to love him?" "You do love him now; only error is trying to make you think that a dear brother is not worthy of your love," said the girl, softly. "Oh, Katherine! we have to come under the rod, don't we?" and her voice almost broke. "There is also the staff," was the low-voiced reply. "Truth, the rod, uncovers and smites the error; then Love, the staff, supports our faltering steps--'meets every human need.'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 494.] Silence fell between them, during which both were deeply absorbed in thought, while the fire gradually faded from the elder woman's eyes and the scarlet from her cheeks. At length she turned with an earnest look to her companion. "Kathie," she said, in a clear, resolute tone, "I have put my 'hand to the plow,' and I am not going to 'look back.'" "Then everything will come right," said the girl, with a brilliant smile, as she bent forward and kissed her on the lips. CHAPTER XIV. A SOPHOMORE RACKET. Monday evening, after study hours were over, again found Katherine in her teacher's room, for now that the woman had begun to get an understanding of the spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures her desire to know more was insatiable; while our young Scientist was only too glad to lend her what help she could along the way. They went over the Sunday lesson together, and afterward fell to talking upon certain points that had especially attracted their attention, becoming so absorbed that they took no account of time until the clock struck the half hour after eleven. "Why!" Katherine exclaimed, and starting to her feet, "if you were not a teacher I should be guilty of flagrant disobedience in being out of my room at this hour." "Dear child, I have been very thoughtless to keep you so long," said Miss Reynolds, regretfully, "but I certainly had no idea of time. And what is time, anyway? I begin to realize that it is only a mortal invention, and that we are living in eternity now. But I must not begin on this infinite subject again to-night; go! go!" She laughingly waved the girl away, and she slipped noiselessly out into the hall to seek her own room. Miss Reynolds was located on the second floor of the east wing, and Katherine roomed in the west wing, consequently she was obliged to go down a flight of stairs, cross the main or central hall, and up another flight to gain her own quarters. The lights were all out, but the moon was full, coming in through the windows with a soft radiance, and thus she had no difficulty in finding her way. She had crossed the main hall, and just entered a short passage leading to the west wing, when she came suddenly upon some one, who appeared to be trying to shrink out of sight into a corner. "Why, who is it?" she cried, in a repressed but startled tone. "Sh! sh! keep mum!" was the warning response as the figure drew near her. "Jennie!" Katherine whispered, amazed, "what are you doing here at this unearthly hour of the night?" "Hush! don't give me away for the world," said the girl, laying a nervous hand upon her arm. "There's something going on in yonder-- it's the fun I told you about a while ago. I'm not in the plot, but I'm bound to be in at the finish, for it's going to be a hot time, I can tell you." "Really, dear, you are better out of it altogether," Katherine gravely returned. "You know what we were talking of yesterday, about breaking rules and spoiling one's record." "Aren't you breaking rules, too?" retorted Jennie, aggressively. "No; I have just come from Miss Reynolds' room." "Well, I'm going to see this through, now I've started in. I've had to pinch and pound myself for the last two hours, though, to keep awake, and I'm not going to miss the 'racket' after all that bother," declared the girl, clinging tenaciously to her purpose. "Hark!" she added, a moment later, in a startled whisper, as a titter of irrepressible mirth was borne to their ears from somewhere beyond them. It seemed to proceed from the landing at the head of the stairs which led to the second story, but was quickly suppressed and all was still again. "Well," said Katharine, after listening a. moment, "I must go on to my room, and my advice to you, Jennie, is to return at once to yours. Good-night," and, leaving the willful "racket"-lover to her fate, she stole softly away. She paused at the foot of the stairs to listen again, when the swish of garments fell on her ear, then a voice, which she immediately recognized, whispered: "Be sure you tie your end tight, Carrie." Katherine moved lightly up a step or two and heard the answer: "I have; now, Rose, scud up to the next floor and give the signal, while I go for my cymbals," and a smothered laugh followed. Again there was a rustle of garments and the soft slipping of unshod feet over the upper flight of stairs, while Katherine as noiselessly sped over the lower one. On reaching the landing she looked about her to ascertain, if possible, what mischief was brewing. The hall was very dimly lighted by a window at each end, and, as the moon had not yet got around to that quarter, it was almost impossible to discern anything; but, lower down the hall, she thought she could detect two lines, stretched across from opposite doors, about three feet from the floor. Not wishing to get involved in the prospective mischief, and as her room was just at the head of the stairs, she softly turned the handle of the door and slipped inside. Scarcely a minute elapsed after she had closed and locked it, when there came a deafening crash and bang, mingled with the blowing of whistles, horns and combs, that seemed sufficient to awaken the "Seven Sleepers" in their cavern of refuge. "Oh, heavens! Whatever is the matter?" screamed Sadie, starting up in affright. "Are you there, Katharine?" "Yes." "What was that noise? Did you hear it?" "Indeed I did." They listened for a moment or two, but there was no sound. Then it seemed as if some commotion had arisen somewhere, and a medley of muffled voices was borne to their ears. Presently steps were heard on the stairs, whereupon Sadie sprang out of bed, slipped on a wrapper, and, opening her door a crack, saw the watchman with his lantern just mounting into view. Then the voice of one of the teachers--Miss Clark--rang out excitedly, while she vainly tugged at her door which had been connected with the one opposite by a piece of clothesline: "Young ladies, what is the meaning of this outrage? Release me immediately." "Ye'll just hev to wait a minute, marm," said the watchman, with an audible chuckle of amusement as he comprehended the situation, while he put down his lantern and plunged his hand into various pockets in search of his knife. Looking farther down the hall, Sadie saw that Miss Williams had been imprisoned in the same manner, while a promiscuous assortment of tin pans, covers and plates lay in a heap upon the floor, and telling their own story regarding the recent crash. There was not a person, save the watchman, in sight. But, presently, doors were cautiously opened and tousled heads appeared in the apertures, while timid voices made inquiries as to what had happened. The watchman--who had been making his rounds, as was his custom at midnight, hence his timely appearance upon the scene--soon had the indignant teachers released, and then went on to the next floor, where similar conditions prevailed. On being given their liberty, Miss Clark and Miss Williams immediately bestirred themselves to ferret out the culprits; but, of course, everybody was innocent and as eager as themselves to ascertain "who could have been guilty of so daring an escapade at that hour of the night." Poor Jennie, however, was destined to pay the penalty of her temerity. A moment or two after Katherine left her, she had also stolen cautiously up the stairs, but on moving farther down the hall had run against one of the ropes. Like a flash she comprehended something of the nature of the joke, and, hearing steps and smothered laughter above, turned back and slipped into a closet at the end of the hall, where she shrank into a corner and waited with eager ears and bated breath for the denouement. When it came, however, she heartily wished she was anywhere else in the world; but there was nothing for her to do except to wait quietly in her place of concealment until the breeze blew over, when she hoped she could steal away, unobserved, to her room. If the watchman had not appeared upon the scene so opportunely, she would have made a break immediately after the crash; but, hearing his steps, she knew that her escape was cut off in that direction. She could not even mingle with the other girls, when they began to gather in the halls to "help investigate," and so find protection in numbers; for she belonged in the other wing, and her presence in the west wing would at once warrant the worst possible construction being put upon her appearance there. So she shrank closer into her corner and stood motionless, hoping no one would think of looking there. Vain hope, however, for Miss Williams, having closely questioned various ones without gaining any satisfaction, walked straight to the closet and opened the door, when the light from her candle flared directly upon Jennie's white, frightened face and shrinking figure. "Ah! Miss Wild! so you are implicated in this disgraceful escapade!" the teacher sternly exclaimed, as she laid a forcible hand upon her arm and drew her from her hiding place. "What was your object and who were your accomplices? for, of course, you could not have carried it out alone," she concluded, sharply. Miss Clark now joined them, while many of the students gathered around and regarded Jennie with blank and wondering faces. "I---I don't know-there wasn't--er--anybody," stammered Jennie, too confused and overcome with fright to speak connectedly. "Don't tell me that! It is impossible that you could conceive such a plot and execute it without help, and I am going to sift it to the bottom," was Miss Williams' sharp retort; for she by no means relished being aroused at midnight by such a frightful bedlam, to find herself a prisoner in her room. "Truly, Miss Williams, I wasn't in it at all," Jennie affirmed, with more coherence, and lifting an appealing look to the incensed woman. "Miss Wild, don't add falsehood to your other offenses. What were you hiding here for, if you had nothing to do with it? But"-- suddenly cutting herself short--"I think we will defer further investigation until to-morrow. Go to your room at once, and remain there until I come to you in the morning. Young ladies, retire-- all of you--and those who, in any way, have participated in this affair, prepare to make open confession, for I assure you it will not be dropped until you do." She waved them imperatively away, and they immediately vanished with cheerful alacrity from her austere presence, while Jennie also sped away without one backward glance. Miss Williams then turned to the watchman and observed more calmly: "Mr. Johnson, it seems we were all more frightened than hurt. My first impression was that there had been a terrific explosion, and the sensation of being fastened in one's room at such a time isn't at all agreeable. I am glad you were at hand to help and reassure us." "Ye were in rather a ticklish box, mum; fur, by the powers! 'twur like a pan-dom-i-num let loose," replied the man, stooping to recover his lantern and to conceal a broad grin of appreciation, for it was well known he enjoyed a joke as well as anyone, even to the point of sometimes abetting the perpetrators. "But what'll we do wid all the truck?" he added, glancing at the pile of tinware on the floor. "Oh, leave it where it is until morning, and the maids will take care of it," Miss Clark suggested; and then the teachers also repaired to their rooms, the watchman went his way, his broad shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and quiet settled down once more upon Hilton's ruffled west wing. Katherine had remained in the background throughout the entire disturbance, quietly disrobing and getting ready for bed. Sadie had been so frightened by the startling noises outside, she did not observe--the room being dark--or dream that her roommate was still up and dressed. She supposed that she had come in while she was sleeping and retired without waking her; thus Katherine escaped being questioned or obliged to make any explanations. But she lay awake some time after the house had settled into stillness, trying to decide what steps she ought to take, knowing what she did about the matter. She knew it would not be right to allow Jennie to suffer for what she was in no way responsible, even though she had broken rules in being out of her room at so late an hour. But what her duty was regarding reporting the leaders in the "racket," if they obstinately refrained from confessing their offense, she could not readily determine. She finally resolved that she would do her utmost to exonerate Jennie without incriminating anyone else, if possible. She arose with the first stroke of the rising bell, performed her usual duties with what dispatch she could, and then sought Miss Williams shortly before the breakfast hour. The teacher greeted her cordially, and inquired with a significant smile: "Were you frightened nearly out of your senses, with the rest of us last night, Miss Minturn?" "Oh, no; but perhaps I might have been if I had been asleep. I know something about the affair, Miss Williams, and I have come to talk it over with you," Katherine explained. "Ah!" and the woman looked both astonished and interested. "Jennie Wild told you the truth last night," she went on. "She had nothing whatever to do with the 'racket,' even though appearances point strongly the other way." She then proceeded to tell all that she knew about the matter, but without revealing the names of the ringleaders. "Well, this certainly does put an entirely different aspect upon the affair," Miss Williams observed, when she concluded. "I am more than glad, too, because my sympathies are with Miss Wild, in spite of her tendency to bubble over now and then. Circumstantial evidence is not always true evidence, is it?" she added, with a smile. "I was highly indignant with her last night, for I felt sure she was prominent in it--and she certainly was guilty of disobedience." "Yes; her curiosity surely got the better of her judgment," Katherine assented. "Well, could you identify those girls, whom you overheard in the hall?" Miss Williams now inquired. Katherine flushed. She had been dreading this question. "I did not see anyone," she returned with a faint smile, after a moment of hesitation. "I see, my dear; you do not wish to 'tell tales,' and I appreciate your position," said her companion, with a wise nod that had nothing of disapproval in it. "Well"--after considering a moment-- "we will say no more about it until Prof. Seabrook has been consulted. Jennie, however, will have reason to be grateful to you for helping her out of what, otherwise, might have proved a very awkward situation." Miss Williams went at once to the girl and released her from the confinement she had imposed upon her the previous night. She explained how Miss Minturn had come to her rescue, and Jennie, who had for once been thoroughly frightened, vowed she would "never be caught in a scrape of any kind" during the remainder of her course. Considerable excitement prevailed during the day, and the "midnight escapade" was the one topic of conversation whenever a group of girls came together; but it was not until study hours were over in the afternoon that any active measures to "investigate" the matter were instituted. Then Katherine was summoned to the principal's study, where she found the four teachers who had the west wing in charge, and Jennie, assembled. Jennie was rigorously catechised, but had very little to tell. She had overheard something of a plot that promised considerable excitement and fun; she had also heard some one whisper, "Monday, at midnight," and her curiosity had been raised to the highest pitch, therefore she had been unable to resist being "in at the finish." She could not tell who were the leaders, for she had neither seen nor heard anyone, having slipped into the closet before the crash came. Being hard pressed, however, she admitted that she thought the sophomores were chiefly concerned in the "racket." Katherine was then requested to relate all that she knew about it, whereupon she repeated what she had already told Miss Williams. "You have corroborated what Miss Wild has stated, and have also exonerated her from any complicity in the affair," Prof. Seabrook observed, when she concluded. "I judge that it must have been confined entirely to the sophomore class. Now we must get down to individuals, if possible. Miss Minturn, did you recognize the voices of those two girls whom you overheard in the hall last night?" "Truth compels me to say that I did," Katherine replied, a hot flush mounting to her brow. "Their names, if you please," commanded the principal, briefly. "I beg that you will excuse me from naming them," she pleaded. "It is plainly your duty to expose them, Miss Minturn. The affair is of too serious a nature to allow sentiment to thwart discipline and the preservation of law and order," returned the gentleman, in an inflexible tone. "Pardon me," she said, "but I cannot feel it my duty--at least until--" "That is equivalent to saying that you will not comply with my request," interposed the professor, his eyes beginning to blaze in view of what he regarded as a defiant attitude. "No, sir; I could not be so disrespectful," Katherine gently replied. "Please allow me to say that I would have taken no action whatever in the matter but for the sake of saving Miss Wild from being unjustly accused." Jennie flashed her an adoring look as she said this. "I just wanted to hug you!" she told her afterwards. "Miss Wild is no doubt properly grateful; all the same you have no right to shield the guilty ones, and I shall hold you to your duty," inflexibly responded Prof. Seabrook. Katherine saw that he was determined to make her name the culprits, and, for a moment, she was deeply distressed. Then her face suddenly cleared. "May I suggest that it is the duty of the offenders to confess their own wrongdoing?" she questioned, in a respectful tone; adding: "It certainly is their right to have the opportunity given them, and I would prefer not to rob them of it; while it would release me from a very awkward position if they would do so." "I think Miss Minturn is right, Prof. Seabrook," Miss Williams here remarked. "I am sure we can all understand how she feels about it, and we know that it would place her under the ban of the whole school if she were to expose the ringleaders without giving them the opportunity, as she says, to volunteer a confession." Katherine shot a look of gratitude at the speaker, who nodded her sympathy in return. An uncomfortable silence followed, during which the much-tried girl felt that her principal regarded her as obstinate as well as sentimental, and was more than half inclined not to yield his point, in spite of Miss Williams' espousal of her cause. "Very well; let it rest here for the present," he at length curtly observed. "You are temporarily excused, Miss Minturn. But if the offenders do not promptly come forward, I shall expect you to tell all you know, later." Katherine bowed and slipped quietly from the room, but with a choking sensation in her throat, a feeling of injustice pressing heavily upon her heart. She paused in the hall a moment, after closing the door, trying to calm her perturbed thoughts, when these words from her dear "little book" came to her: "Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice wait on the divine." [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 542.] Then she went on her way, at peace with herself and all the world. CHAPTER XV. "HILTON VOLUNTEERS." After Katherine was dismissed, Jennie was sternly reprimanded for her infraction of rules, cautioned against future disobedience, a penalty imposed upon her, and then told she might go back to her duties. She moved slowly to the door, stood there a moment irresolute, a thoughtful look on her young face; then deliberately turned and walked straight back to her principal. "Prof. Seabrook," she began, "I have another confession to make to you, and I'm willing to take any punishment you may think I deserve. I do this because I want you to know the kind of girl Miss Minturn is, for--I think you do not half appreciate her. I've loved her from the first minute I saw her in this room with you, the day she came; she makes everybody love her, and I've often wondered if it is her Christian Science that helps her to be so-- so dear and true. I've tried to make her tell me something about it, but she wouldn't--she always says you told her not to talk about it to the students. I asked her last week to let me go with her to her service on Sunday. But she said no, unless I would get permission from you. But--I did go," Jennie continued, growing scarlet to her brows, yet looking the man unflinchingly in the eyes. "I started out early and was there when she came into the hall, and walked home with her afterwards. She didn't spare me; she told me I had done wrong and read me a lecture about spoiling my record by breaking rules. I want you to know this, because some one may have seen us come out of the Christian Science hall together and might think she took me there; but she never breaks a rule, and she isn't a bit priggish about it, either. She tried her best to make me go back to my room before the 'racket' last night, and I just want you to know that she's true blue, through and through." Jennie looked very spirited and pretty with her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes as she faced her principal, and, without flinching a hair, told her simple, straightforward story in the presence of the other teachers. Prof. Seabrook was fond of the girl, for she possessed many lovable qualities and was very faithful in the performance of her duties. If he had been inclined to be severe, because of her other offense, his heart was very tender towards her now; for he fully appreciated her honesty and the moral courage she had manifested in taking this stand for Katherine. He was uncomfortably conscious, too, that his own attitude towards Miss Minturn had not been quite considerate. He recognized her loveliness of character, her excellence in scholarship, her conscientious deportment; in fact, he had no fault whatever to find with her, except that she was a Christian Scientist, and the remembrance of this always stirred him, in the most unaccountable manner, whenever he came in contact with her. He regarded Jennie thoughtfully for a moment after she concluded, then a gleam of amusement crept into his eyes and his lips twitched with repressed mirth, as he dryly observed: "Well, Jennie, it seems that you are making quite a record for yourself by breaking rules. I hope there will be no occasion for further self-condemnation after this. You may go now." The girl was glad to go, and was "scared stiff," as she affirmed afterward, when she came to think over what she had said. But her desire to have justice done Katherine had made her forget herself, for the time, in defending her. Still, as was characteristic, her spirits quickly rebounded, and she flew away to find some of the sophs and reel off a graphic report of what had just occurred in the principal's study. Consternation at once took possession of some of their number, for it was evident that, even though Prof. Seabrook and the teachers were ignorant of the names of the guilty ones, Miss Minturn had recognized the ringleaders, and so their supposed secret was out. A private meeting of all concerned was immediately called, and the matter thoroughly discussed. "So Miss Minturn claims it would 'rob us of our moral responsibility' if she should give us away!" remarked Rose Tuttle, a buxom girl of eighteen, with a roguish face and an independent air. "That's a novel way of looking at it--isn't it, girls?--and escaping the fate of a 'telltale,'" and the ringing laugh which completed these remarks was echoed by several others. "Puts us in a tight box, though," said Carrie Archer, another merry sprite, as she gnawed the rubber on her pencil with a thoughtful air. "All the same, I think Katherine Minturn is O. K., and I'm ready to make my best courtesy to her," gravely observed a girl who was sitting beside her. "Well, I begin to think she is rather fine myself, in spite of her absurd Christian Science. But what are we going to do about this affair?" inquired Miss Tuttle, with an impatient shrug of her plump shoulders. "Oh, let's fight it out," cried a shrill voice from a corner. "That means let Miss Minturn fight it out," retorted Carrie Archer, spiritedly. "Well, she's game--she won't tell, and it will all die out of itself, after a while." "But that would leave a very uncomfortable sting behind--the sting of cowardice," said Rose Tuttle, with very red cheeks. "I tell you what, my dear fellow sophs," she went on, after an irresolute pause, "if Miss Minturn had given us away to-day every mother's daughter of us would have called her a 'spy' and a 'tattler.' But, although she knows exactly as well as you and I do"--a chuckle of mirth escaping her--"who tied those ropes to the doors, she has just faced the professor and those teachers and practically told them that she would not give us away." "Why couldn't she have held her tongue altogether, then?" grumbled a discontented voice. "Good gracious, Nell! knowing what she did she couldn't keep mum and let 'Wild Jen'--poor goosie! whose curiosity is always getting her into some scrape or other--bear the whole brunt of it," Miss Archer replied, with curling lips. "No, she has put us upon our honor, and if we don't do the square thing I think she'll have a right to call us--sneaks." "Carrie, you're hitting out pretty straight from the shoulder," cried her friend Rose, with a short laugh. "Well, maybe; but I didn't miss myself in the trial of my muscle," was the dry rejoinder. There was much more talk after the same order, the ayes and nays on the question of "open confession" being about equally divided; while all began to feel that there wasn't quite as much fun as they had anticipated to be gotten out of midnight escapades. "Well, sophies, I'll tell you what I'm going to do," finally said Miss Archer, breaking in upon the hubbub of voices, a look of determination settling over her face, "but first I'll say what I'm not going to do: I'm never going to hear it said that I forced somebody else to stand in a gap that I hadn't the courage to fill. I'm not going to sneak out of sight behind another to save myself. I started this ball rolling and planned the details of the affair, and, now, I am going straight to Prof. Seabrook and tell him so and swallow the bitter pill he gives me with what grace I can. It won't be sugar-coated, either. I won't give anyone else away, so don't be afraid," she interposed in response to terrified exclamations and frightened faces. "I'll just do the square thing myself, and you know it is always the commanding officer who is held responsible for leading his subordinates astray." Miss Archer was the daughter of an ex-colonel, which will account for her simile. There was dead silence for a full minute after she ceased speaking, and the faces in that quiet room would have been an interesting study for a physiognomist. Then Rose Tuttle sprang to her feet and held out her hand to her friend. "I wonder who is 'game' now?" she cried, in a ringing voice. Miss Archer's eyes flashed with sudden inspiration. "Here! give me a pencil, somebody; I've broken the point off mine," she said, as she moved her chair to a table and drew a blank sheet of paper towards her. Half a dozen were handed her, and, selecting one, she continued: "This is going to be a voluntary surrender. I'm not going to wait to be summoned before my superior officer and 'given an opportunity.'" She wrote rapidly for a few minutes, while her companions regarded her in curious silence. "Hear now," she finally commanded, as she threw down her pencil, and, lifting her paper with an impressive flourish, read: "TO THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AT HILTON: News of certain matters, pending at headquarters, just received by scout. Wherefore this is to certify that the undersigned planned and led the attack on West Wing on the night of May the twentieth. In view of the demands of honor, of admiration for, and the sentence menacing the valiant party at present held as hostage, I hereby make confession, and unconditional surrender, together with all munitions of war, and also herewith beg absolution for subordinates. "Signed. CAROLINE WEBSTER ARCHER, "Capt. Co. S, Hilton Volunteers, U. S. A." "How will that do, my brave company of sophomores?" she cried, with laughing eyes, as she finished reading her effusion. "I'm afraid it isn't quite up to the mark in military technicalities, but, perhaps, it will answer our purpose." "It isn't going to do at all, Carolina MIA," returned Rose Tuttle, with an emphatic nod of her head. "If you assume that you were the captain in the fracas, I certainly was first lieutenant, and I'm going to stand by the cap. until the last gun is fired. Give, me that paper." It was passed to her, and in a clear, bold hand she wrote: "The captain cannot be allowed to go to the front alone. "Signed. ROSE ASHLEY TUTTLE, First Lieutenant Co. S, H. V., U. S. A." There were grave faces all about her as she read what she had written and then pushed the paper from her. Presently a voice remarked: "Girls, good soldiers always follow their leader." Then another figure glided to the table and a third signature was appended to the document. It was the "bugle call" that fired them all, and in less time than it takes to record it, the name of every other girl in the room was signed underneath, then inclosed in a bracket and the name "Private Co. S, H. V., U. S. A." written outside of it, after which the paper was passed back to Miss Archer. "Company S, I'm proud of you!" she exclaimed, with crimson cheeks and something very like tears in her eyes. "I--I hope the professor won't think it is too--too flippant," some one suggested, in a doubtful tone. "Do you suppose he will, Carrie?" queried Rose, turning to her friend in sudden consternation. Miss Archer flushed hotly. "I--don't--know," she said, with a thoughtful pause between each word. "I am sure I did not mean it to sound so. The idea came to me to put it that way when I spoke of the 'commanding officer being held responsible.' I'll tear it up, if you say so, and go and tell him the whole story instead." And she held it up between the thumb and forefinger of both hands as if to suit the act to her words. "No! no!" "Send it as it is!" "It's all right!" "He'll understand!" cried several voices; though one weak sister murmured, with a plaintive sigh: "I'll be glad when it's all over." "This having to face a 'court-martial' was overlooked in planning the campaign, hey?" observed another, with a grimace. "I don't care! It was fun to hear those teachers tugging at their doors for dear life, and I have it from an eyewitness, when Johnson cut Miss Craigis loose she keeled over in the most undignified manner!" laughed a pert young miss, who was one of the giddiest in the class. "And, oh!" she went on, breathlessly, "did you see poor old Webb on the upper floor? It was perfectly killing! She had on that startling palm-leaf kimono--her false front had slipped down over one ear; she had her precious herbarium under one arm, her bird cage in one hand, and a huge hatbox in the other. She was frightened nearly out of her senses, and demanded, right and left, 'Young ladies, where is the fire? oh, where is the fire?'" A merry shout greeted this graphic description, and it is to be feared that some of the delinquents were not as deeply impressed with the enormity of their recent insubordination as could have been desired. "Sh! sh! do hush, girls!" cried Miss Archer, waving her paper to enjoin silence, "This will have to be nicely copied in ink, and you'll all have to sign it again. And let me warn you," she added, soberly, "you'd better keep pretty mum about last night, or we will get a bigger pill than will be comfortable to swallow." She seated herself at the table again and made a neat copy of her document, after which the signatures were carefully appended, then the meeting was dismissed, and the "captain" of the disorderly sophomores went directly to Prof. Seabrook's study. It was very nearly supper time, and she had reasoned that he would issue an order, at the table, for the class to meet him in one of the recitation rooms, in the near future, to give the guilty ones an opportunity for confession; and her plan was to forestall this summons with the paper she had prepared. When, in response to her knock, he bade her "come in," it must be confessed that she opened the door with fear and trembling; while something in her bearing and the tense lines of her face at once aroused a suspicion of the nature of her errand in the principal's mind. "Prof. Seabrook, I have been commissioned to hand you this communication," she gravely said, as she laid, it on the table before him. "Ah! by whom were you 'commissioned,' Miss Archer?" he inquired, his keen eyes searching her flushed face. "By--by the parties whose names you will find signed to it." "And what is the nature of the communication?" "I--er--it will explain itself," replied the trembling emissary, blushing furiously and averting her eyes. "Very well; I will give it my earliest attention," the professor returned, but eying the missive curiously. "Thank you, sir," and, with a nervous bow, entirely at variance with her habitual sang-froid, the girl hurried from the room, her bounding heart causing her to pant as if she had been running a race. Prof. Seabrook waited until the door closed after her, then unfolded the paper and began to read. But his face grew stern and his brow heavily overcast as his glance hastily swept the page. After reading it through and noting every signature, he began it again, perusing it more carefully, and, gradually, a gleam of amusement crept into his eyes; his stern features relaxed, and the corners of his mouth twitched suggestively. "The little mischief is game," he at length observed, "and this document is a very clever stroke of business; though at first it sounded rather pert, as if she were bound to make a joke of the affair. But there is a straightforwardness and an appreciation of Miss Minturn's position in it that rings true. Really, I begin to think that girl is a power for good in the school, in spite of her fanaticism and heresy. Hum!"--reading aloud--"'news of matters pending at headquarters'--it traveled pretty fast; who was the 'scout,' I wonder? Ah! Jennie, of course; the little gossip! Well, Miss Archer, you didn't waste any time before dispatching your flag of truce, and you have rather a fine sense of honor underneath your lawlessness, after all. So you are 'captain' of your company of sophomores! I think we will rob you of your commission and see how you will stand the discipline. 'Co. S, Hilton Volunteers!' pretty good--pretty good!" and a light laugh rippled over the man's lips. "And Miss Tuttle is 'first lieutenant,'" he continued, "and gallantly came forward to share the self-imposed mission of her friend 'to go to the front.' There's pluck there, too; but you are a precocious pair--you two-- and keep one busy guessing what you will do next. All the same, with the right check-rein, I believe you'll both make fine women, and--the school would surely lose some of its spice without you." He carefully refolded the quaint document, locking it in a drawer of his desk, and the next moment the supper bell rang. A meeting of the faculty was called for that evening, when the communication from the mischief-makers was read and discussed; and, in spite of their lawlessness, which demanded the imposition of a penalty severe enough to insure immunity from future ebullitions of the same nature, the originality and spirit pervading it were thoroughly appreciated by all. The following day, at dinner, Prof. Seabrook gravely announced that he would meet the sophomore class at four-thirty, that afternoon, in the "north recitation room," and every member was ordered to be present. There were some quaking hearts during the intervening hours, and there were not a few anxious faces among the thirty-six sophomores gathered in the appointed place, when the principal appeared upon the scene and at once proceeded to business. "Young ladies," he began, "I have summoned the entire class here in order that those who are innocent of wrong may know that they are no longer under the ban of suspicion, in connection with the disgraceful escapade of Monday night; and, also, that those who were guilty of complicity in it may acknowledge their offense in their presence. Those of you who have made confession to that effect may rise." Fourteen of the class arose and stood with downcast faces, awaiting what was to follow. "Were there any other accomplices in the affair?" inquired the principal, glancing around upon those who had remained seated. No one responded or moved, and he then proceeded to arraign the offenders in no light terms, and not one ever forgot the scathing words that fell from his lips or the shame which followed his vivid portrayal of their hoidenish behavior. "And now," he said in conclusion, "for two weeks you will forfeit your afternoon recreation hour, and pass it in this room with your books, and with a monitor to preserve order. Miss Archer and Miss Tuttle, who acknowledge having been the ringleaders, will be on probation for the remainder of the year, and any further infringement of rules will be followed by summary expulsion. I will add"--and the professor's stern face relaxed visibly--"that you all have saved yourselves much by your voluntary confession; but the 'Hilton Volunteers' are here and now disbanded for all time. Young ladies, you are dismissed." Well, it was over, and heavy hearts grew lighter, though there were some who were inclined to grumble over the severity of the penalty. Carrie Archer and Rose Tuttle made no talk whatever about the matter. Both felt that they had had a narrow escape, and were thankful, even under the sentence of "probation." Of course, the whole affair was aired and freely discussed by the entire school, and thus Katherine became somewhat conspicuous because of her forced participation in it; while it was interesting to observe how radically the attitude of almost everyone changed towards her, the sophomores, particularly, manifesting the greatest admiration for her. Miss Archer and Miss Tuttle were the first to express their appreciation of the stand she had taken in their behalf, and her sweet reception of their overtures made them her stanch friends for all time. "I'll never sneer at Christian Scientists again," Rose afterwards confided to her friend, "for if they are all as lovely and plucky as she has shown herself, we can't have too many of them in the world." CHAPTER XVI. A JUNIOR ENTERTAINMENT. The school year was fast drawing to a close, and every student was busy preparing for examinations and annual exercises, and also looking forward to the pleasurable excitement attending class-day ceremonies, entertainments, receptions, etc. The first week in June it was customary for the juniors to give a special exhibition, to be followed by a social, with dancing and a fine spread, in honor of the retiring seniors, and upon this grand occasion each student in both classes was privileged to invite some friend from outside. So much had been said in praise of Katherine's little play and paper on "Transcendentalism," it was suggested they be repeated for the benefit of those who had not heard them, and allow visitors and strangers to guess the conundrum and charade. The whole school had heard the story of that Junior League meeting, for it had been too good to keep, and it had aroused so much interest, both among teachers and students, the juniors finally persuaded Katherine to reproduce her clever effort. Besides this, the programme consisted of another original play, written by some of the class, two or three choice selections from the Glee Club, and was to wind up with some fine tableaux. The important day arrived and was attended by no end of worry, work and excitement. The final rehearsal of the play proved, as is often the case, anything but satisfactory; but when it came to the "last tug of war" in the evening, everything "went off without a hitch," only those behind the scenes being aware of the strenuous efforts put forth to achieve this result. It was accordingly pronounced "a great success." Katherine's production contributed the element of comedy, while the vocabulary of adjectives was insufficient to express appreciation of the tableaux. The last one, or "grand finale," is worthy of special mention, for various reasons. It was billed as "The Carnival of Flowers," and included all the members of the junior class. Each was in evening dress and was either profusely decorated with, or carried, an elaborate design of the flower which she had chosen to represent. Dorothy, who had been unusually comfortable during the two weeks preceding, had been deeply interested in the preparations for this great event, and, one day, when Katherine was consulting Mrs. Seabrook upon some important point, she had exclaimed, with a longdrawn sigh: "Oh! how I wish I could be in it, too." "I wish you could, dear," said Katherine, bending to kiss the wistful face. "Well--why can't she?" she added, turning suddenly to Mrs. Seabrook; "she could have a place in the Carnival of Flowers. Will you allow her to?" Mrs. Seabrook smiled, but there was a sad yearning in her soft eyes as they rested upon her helpless child. "I hardly think it would do. I am afraid it could not be arranged," she doubtfully replied. "Indeed it could, and very easily. I have a lovely idea!" said Katherine, eagerly. "Let her take the Calla Lily--no one has chosen that because the flowers are too stiff to trim a dress gracefully. But Dorothy's chair could be transformed into a chariot of lilies, and I am sure they could be so arranged about her that she would look like a fairy in the midst of them. If you are willing I will talk it over with the girls. We will manage everything, so that she will not be wearied with any of the preparations, and I will take charge of her while she is on the stage. I know that she would have a beautiful time." "Oh, mamma, if I only might!" breathed Dorothy, rapturously, and carried away by the attractive prospect. "Well, we will talk it over with papa; if he consents I will not say no, and certainly Miss Minturn's suggestion is very alluring," replied her mother, as she bestowed a grateful smile on Katherine. Prof. Seabrook could see no objection to the plan, and as everybody was always glad to contribute to the enjoyment of the sick girl, the idea was eagerly adopted, and Miss Dorothy was at once chosen to be the central figure in the tableau. It proved to be a most effective one, with the bevy of gorgeously garlanded maidens artistically grouped around their lily queen, who entered heartily into the spirit of the scene. The child's chair had indeed been transformed! No one would have recognized it, covered as it was with a wealth of pure white blossoms and dark-green leaves, for it looked more like the throne of a fairy than like anything so ordinary and unpretentious. Mrs. Seabrook, who possessed exquisite taste, had so massed the blossoms around her and daintily perched an inverted one on her head that the effect was exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. Katherine, who had chosen to be "Lady Poppea," made a brilliant foil, on one side, with her garlands and basket of vivid scarlet poppies; while another junior, bedecked with fuchsias, stood on the opposite side and held an umbrella, made of and fringed with the same flowers, protectingly over her; and with a score or more others forming a variegated background, the scene was brilliant and gorgeous beyond description. The applause was tumultuous; for, aside from the exceeding beauty of the picture, every heart in the audience was touched by the happy little face looking out at them from the midst of her devoted subjects, and the curtain was raised and lowered several times before they could be satisfied. Then the proud and happy juniors hastily divested themselves of their gay trappings and hurried away to join their friends and trip to inspiring music in the main hall below; thus Katherine was left with Dorothy alone on the stage. "Wasn't it perfectly lovely, Miss Minturn?" exclaimed the girl in a rapturous tone and with shining eyes. "I never saw you look so pretty, and I never had such a happy time in all my life. I only wish I could have seen the whole of it." "I think you will, later; or at least something very like it; for, when that flash light was thrown on, as the curtain went up the last time, somebody took a snapshot at us," Katherine replied, smiling fondly into the eager face. "Oh! who was it?" "Some one whom you know. Guess!" "Uncle Phil?" "Yes; he asked permission of the president of the class. But now I must see about getting you out of this place. I wonder where Alice can be!" said Katherine, looking out towards the deserted dressing room for the nurse, who had promised to be on hand to receive her charge as soon as everything was over. She had been disconnecting several ropes of flowers that had been attached to the chair while she was talking, and, as no one came to assist her, she now rolled the girl towards the side of the stage, thinking, perhaps, she might get her off herself, as it was not very high. But she had missed one rope, and, as it trailed along the floor, it swept over a saucer containing some still smoking Greek fire, or red light, that had been carelessly left just where it had been used. The soft paper ignited in an instant, and the next moment the lower part of the lily chariot was ablaze. "Oh! Miss Minturn!" shrieked Dorothy, "save me! save me!" For a second Katherine thought she would faint. The next she snatched a portiere that had been used in one of the tableaux and left upon the floor, and wrapped it closely around the burning paper, beating it with her hands and doing her utmost to smother the cruel flames. "Don't be afraid, dear," she said to the girl, who, after that one half-crazed appeal, seemed to be paralyzed with fear, "you are God's child--you cannot be harmed. He is Life, and there are no fatalities in His realm, 'though thou walk through the fire thou shalt not be burned.'" She did not know that she was talking aloud; she was not conscious of what she was saying; she only knew that she was reaching out, with her whole soul, to the ever-present Love wherein lay protection and safety, and all the time mechanically pulling the portiere closer about the chair. Suddenly she heard a low, startled exclamation, saw Dorothy snatched from among the smoke-blackened lilies and passed along to Alice, who at last had appeared upon the scene; then, as in a dream, she felt herself enveloped in a shawl which was drawn so tightly about her skirts that she could not move, and saw Dr. Stanley's pale, anxious face looking down into hers, while he told her, in calm, reassuring tones, that there was nothing to fear. "Can you stand so for a minute while I look after that still smoking chair?" he presently asked, and putting a corner of the shawl into her hand to hold. Fortunately it was her left hand, and she grasped it mechanically, while she tried to mentally deny the well-nigh unbearable pain that was making itself felt in her right hand and wrist. It was the work of but two or three minutes to crush out the last smoldering spark among the ruined lilies, for the flames had been effectually smothered by Katherine's presence of mind in wrapping the portiere about them and by her vigorous beating. Then the physician turned again to her and gently removed the shawl from her burned and disfigured skirts. "It is all out, thank God!" he said, after carefully looking her over. "It was a narrow escape for you and Dorrie, as well as from a serious conflagration. Now tell me, Miss Minturn, are you burned?" he concluded, searching her white face with troubled eyes. She tried to smile as she glanced down at her ruined dress. "A few dollars will make it all right, and that doesn't matter," she returned evasively, but with lips that quivered in spite of her effort at self-control. "You were badly frightened, poor child! but it is over," he gently observed, the tense lines of his face softening in a reassuring smile. Then, seeing that she was keeping her right hand out of sight, he reached down and drew it forward into the light. "Miss Minturn!" he exclaimed, as he saw the reddened flesh and three great blisters, "you did it beating out the fire to save Dorothy. Come with me and I will dress it immediately." "No," she said, setting her teeth resolutely; "go to her; I shall do very well. Go!" she repeated, almost sharply, "for I saw that she had fainted when Alice took her." His brow contracted, and for an instant he seemed on the point of insisting upon taking care of her first. Then he drew forth his handkerchief and folded it gently about her hand, saying: "Well, if I must; but go you directly to your room and I will come to you as soon as I can." Katherine could bear no more, and, turning abruptly from him, sped from the place. As she passed out of the lecture hall, she almost ran into Miss Reynolds, who was on her way downstairs. "Katherine!" she cried, aghast, as she caught sight of her pain- contracted face, the handkerchief on her hand and her smoke- blackened clothes, "what has happened?" "Oh! may I go to your room?" gasped the girl. "Of course; come," and without another word the woman turned and led the way. "Lock the door and don't let anyone in," said Katherine, as she sank into the nearest chair and covered her face with her well hand. Miss Reynolds quietly obeyed, then went to her desk and began to read aloud, in a calm, clear voice, from the open "Science and Health" that lay upon it. For half an hour she kept on without stopping; but she then began to be conscious that effectual work was being done, for, at first, the sufferer sitting behind her had been unable to keep still a moment; but gradually she became less restless, and at the end of forty-five minutes had grown perfectly quiet and lay back in her chair, her face pale but peaceful. "Dear Miss Reynolds, you must go now. I must not keep you any longer," she said, at length. "My child, I shall not leave you while you need me," her teacher returned, and, going to her side, she tenderly smoothed back the dark hair from her forehead. "I am much easier, so do not mind leaving me. You will be missed, and some one will be coming for you; just let me stay here for a while and be sure not to tell anyone where I am, or why I am among the missing," Katherine pleaded, for she did not wish Dr. Stanley to learn her whereabouts, knowing he would seek her and insist upon dressing her burns. "I will be very discreet; but I am going to keep you with me all night," her teacher replied. "Now, if you can bear it, I will help you off with your clothes. You shall have one of my night-robes and go straight to bed." With fine tact she had refrained from asking a single question; but the suffering face, the pretty dress all burned and discolored, the handkerchief wrapped about her hand, told her something of what had occurred, and she could wait until later for details. She dexterously assisted her to undress; but while doing so the handkerchief was displaced and dropped to the floor and she had to shut her lips resolutely to repress the cry of pity that almost escaped her as she saw what it had covered. The next instant she was mentally repeating the "scientific statement of being," [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 468.] while she quietly replaced the square of linen and pinned it to keep it in place. Then, with a grateful smile and a sigh of content, Katherine slipped into bed and sank upon her pillow. "Now go, please," she begged again, "and find out, if you can, how Dorothy is." "No, Kathie, I am not going just yet," was the decided reply, though there was a startled heart-bound at the girl's reference to Dorothy. She asked no questions, however, but, going back to her desk, continued her reading as before. In about fifteen minutes she glanced towards the bed and saw by her regular breathing that Katherine had fallen asleep. She bowed her head upon her book for a moment, and when she lifted it again there were tears on her cheeks, and in her eyes "a light that was ne'er on sea or land." Turning the gas low, she slipped softly out of the room and went downstairs to join the gay company who were all unconscious of what had been going on above. Five minutes later Dr. Stanley came to her, his fine face overcast and anxious. "Miss Reynolds, can you give me any information regarding Miss Minturn?" he inquired, adding: "I have been looking for her for nearly an hour, and no one seems to know where she is. I suppose you have heard about the accident?" "An accident?" repeated the lady, inquiringly. "Yes," and he proceeded to give a brief account of the narrow escape in the lecture hall. "I told Miss Minturn to go to her room," he continued, "and I would come to her as soon as I had ascertained if all was well with Dorothy. The child is all right; she was simply frightened and lost consciousness for a few moments. But Miss Minturn was badly burned, on her hand and arm, and her beautiful dress is a wreck. Mrs. Seabrook and I have been to her room; no one was there, nor can anyone give us a clew to her whereabouts," and the gentleman looked really distressed as he concluded. Miss Reynolds had been doing some practical thinking while he was talking, and now observed: "Well, Dr. Stanley, to relieve your anxiety, I will tell you that she is in my room, where she will remain all night. But I have disobeyed her injunction to tell no one where she is. Fortunately, I met her just as she was leaving the lecture hall, and she begged shelter with me. I have but just left her." "But she must have attention--her burns must be dressed," said the physician, in a tone of professional authority. "That will not be necessary, for she is asleep and resting quietly." "Asleep! impossible!" interposed the man, emphatically; "that is, unless she has taken a powerful opiate." "She has had nothing of the kind," was the quiet answer. "Then I repeat--it would be impossible for her to sleep," Dr. Stanley asserted, with a note of impatience in his tone. "Why, only an hour has elapsed since the accident, and, with those burns, it would be many hours before she could get any rest or relief without an opiate. I know," he added, flushing, "she is a Christian Scientist, but I can't quite swallow such a miracle as that." "Nevertheless, my friend, the dear girl, is sleeping peacefully-- or was, ten minutes ago," the lady smilingly returned. "Did she put anything on those burns?" "Nothing." "Do you believe she 'demonstrated,' as they express it, over the pain?" "I know," she softly replied. "Ah!"--with a start--"are you--" Again she smiled as she interposed: "I must not say too much about that just now. I will say this, however: I have seen and learned enough to make me wish to know more, for Katherine Minturn is an earnest, honest exponent of her religion. I am very fond of her--she is one of the loveliest girls I have ever known." "I can heartily agree with you on that point," replied Phillip Stanley, gravely. "But I was hoping that I could be of service to her, for we owe her much for her wonderful presence of mind and practical common sense. But for that Dorothy would have been badly burned and a great sufferer at this moment, instead of having gone to bed the happiest girl in the building and full of gratitude to Miss Minturn for giving her so much pleasure. Will you say to her, if there is any way I can serve her, I shall be only too glad of the opportunity?" "Indeed I will, and I shall slip away very soon and go back to her, although I am sure she does not really need me. I am glad for her sake, however, that tomorrow will be Saturday." "May I tell my sister what you have told me?" Dr. Stanley inquired. "I know it would greatly relieve her mind, for she is much disturbed because Miss Minturn cannot be found." "Yes; I am sure Kathie would be willing, under the circumstances. I know her only fear was that she might be found before her work was done," Miss Reynolds said, after considering a moment. "I think," she added, "she would prefer not to have Dorothy told anything, except, perhaps, that her dress was injured." "Yes; it would mar her pleasure," her companion observed; "in fact, we have said nothing about the contretemps to anyone but the faculty as yet, fearing it might spoil the evening for many. We cannot be too thankful that it was no worse; if it had occurred before that last tableau was over, there is no telling how serious it might have been, with so many thin dresses and all those paper flowers," he concluded, gravely, then bowed himself away. After making the round of the room, Miss Reynolds sought Sadie and told her that as Katherine was not feeling quite herself, she would spend the night with her; then she stole away and went back to her charge. Katherine aroused when she entered the room, but showed no signs of present suffering. "How is Dorothy?" she questioned, eagerly. "She was not harmed in the least, and 'went to bed the happiest girl in the building,' so I was told." Katherine heaved a sigh of relief. She asked for a glass of water and drank thirstily when it was brought to her. "Can I do anything more for you, Kathie?" her friend inquired. The girl's eyes wandered to the books on her desk. "Shall I read?--what?" "The twenty-third psalm, please." Miss Reynolds found and read it as given and interpreted in "Science and Health": "Divine Love is my Shepherd; I shall not want. Love maketh me to lie down in green pastures; Love leadeth me beside still waters;" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 16.] and so on to the end. Then she turned to her own marker and read for herself a while. The room was very quiet, for the revelers below were so far away they could not be heard. Only a strain of music from the orchestra was now and then wafted on a gentle breeze to them through an open window. Suddenly a deep sigh from the bed fell upon the reader's ear. She started and turned toward her charge. "'Love'--'still waters,'" murmured Katherine, then turned like a tired child on her pillow and was again locked in slumber. Softly, Miss Reynolds laid aside her festal attire, made a nest for herself on her roomy couch and, to the faintly flowing rhythm of "The Beautiful Blue Danube," soon lost herself in dreamland, never waking until the brilliant sun of a glorious June morning flooded her room and warned her that a new day had begun. CHAPTER XVII. DR. STANLEY HAS AN OBJECT LESSON. She found Katherine already awake. "What do you think of tramps who take possession of your room and drive you out of your comfortable bed?" playfully demanded the girl, and nodding brightly at her. "I like it--that is, when I have the privilege of choosing the tramp," her teacher laughingly responded, as she sat up and glanced at the clock; "besides, this couch is every bit as comfortable as the bed. Did you rest well, Kathie?" "Beautifully. The last I knew, until about ten minutes ago, you were reading the twenty-third psalm." Miss Reynolds arose and began to dress. Once or twice she found her eyes straying to Katherine's bandaged hand, and longed to inquire regarding its condition. But she wisely resisted the temptation and maintained a discreet silence. "You will not try to go down to breakfast, Kathie," she remarked, as she completed her toilet, and the bell began to ring just at that moment. "No, I think I will keep out of sight to-day. I do not wish to answer questions. Besides, I haven't anything here suitable to put on." and she bestowed a rueful look upon her pretty evening dress, all crumpled and burned, that lay over the back of a chair. "True; but I will go for one of your dresses when I come up from breakfast," said her friend; "meantime, if you care to get up, you can slip on this negligee of mine," and she threw a dainty wrapper over the foot of the bed as she spoke. As soon as Miss Reynolds left the room, Katherine arose and dressed, then sat down to read. She was glad to be alone, for, though she was entirely free from pain, she felt she still had work to do for herself. For nearly an hour she read and worked diligently, and then her teacher returned, bearing a tempting breakfast, which she soon dispatched with the appetite of a healthy, hungry girl. "I met Prof. Seabrook and his wife on my way up," Miss Reynolds observed, as she began putting away the things she had worn the previous evening, "and both inquired most kindly for you. The professor said you are excused from the class lecture this morning, if you wish, and Mrs. Seabrook will come to see you later. They both expressed themselves as deeply grateful for what you did last night." "I scarcely know what I did," Katherine returned, flushing. "Dr. Stanley came so quickly to the rescue that it was all over before I could think clearly. It seems like a dream." "Yes, he told me all about it last night, Kathie, and said but for your rare presence of mind there might have been a bad fire. He was pretty well cut up, however, when he found that you had hidden yourself away and he had lost a patient," Miss Reynolds replied with a laugh of amusement, which was merrily echoed by her guest. "He doesn't seem to take much stock in Science, dear," she presently resumed. "He was simply amazed when I told him you were sleeping--I thought it best, as long as your work was done, to relieve his anxiety--and declared that was impossible, unless you had taken a powerful opiate." "An opiate is something which mortal mind says produces repose; well, I had taken a large dose of that 'Peace, be still,' which, rightly administered, never fails to give the sufferer and the weary rest," said Katherine, with luminous eyes. "It was beautiful, Kathie, and, figuratively speaking, I 'put off my shoes from off my feet,' feeling that the 'place whereon I stood was, indeed, holy ground,'" reverently observed her companion. "But, tell me, weren't you afraid when you saw the flames?" "Yes, for an instant, then I forgot everything but the 'secret place' and 'the shadow.'" "How much those words mean to me now! And you believe that every statement of that ninety-first psalm can be proved--made practical?' gravely inquired Miss Reynolds. "Every one." "Well, I think I am beginning to know it, too; though, as yet, it is like 'seeing through a glass darkly,'" and a sweet seriousness settled over the woman's face. "But," she went on, arousing herself after a moment, "if you will tell me what to bring you I will now go to your room for some clothes." "Really, I am perfectly able to go for them myself," Katherine began. "No, indeed; you are going to remain just where you are, at least for the morning," said her teacher, authoritatively. "At this hour you would be sure to meet many of the students and become the target for innumerable questions." "Well, then, bring my linen suit and my 'Horace,' please. I have to complete an essay on that accomplished and agreeable gentleman 'as a poet and a wit,' and I can spend the morning working upon it." Miss Reynolds slipped away on her errand, but she no sooner reached the main hall than she was surrounded by a bevy of excited maidens and besieged with a volley of inquiries regarding the accident of the previous night. Dorothy's nurse, Alice, had described the scene in the lecture hall to one of the maids, when, of course, the news had spread like wildfire, and it, together with Katherine's "heroism," was the one topic of the day. Sadie had also heard it and was on her way to see her chum when she, too, met the teacher in the hall. She went back to her room with her, found the things Katherine had designated, and then, as it was nearly time for the class lecture, sent word that she would come to see her after study hours were over. When Miss Reynolds reached her own door again, she found a maid standing there with a long box in her hands. "Mrs. Seabrook told me to bring this up to you, marm," the girl observed; but on entering her room and relieving herself of her armful of clothing, she saw that the package was addressed to "Miss Katherine Minturn." "What have we here, I wonder?" she remarked, as she passed it to her companion, together with a pair of scissors. Katherine cut the string and lifted the cover, when a cry of delight broke from her. "Dear Miss Reynolds! look!" she said, holding the box towards her for inspection. It was filled with fragrant, long-stemmed Jack roses. "How lovely! Who can the donor be?" she said. "Ah! there is a card, tucked almost out of sight, under the foliage." Katherine drew it forth, and a quick flush suffused her face as she read the name, "Phillip Harris Stanley." She passed it to her friend, then bent over her box of crimson beauties, as if to inhale their perfume, but really to hide the deepening color in her cheeks. Presently a bell rang and Miss Reynolds was obliged to go to a class, thus leaving Katherine alone with her books and her flowers, and in a very happy frame of mind. It was nearly noon before Mrs. Seabrook could steal away from her duties to go to see her; and when Katherine, in response to her knock, admitted her, she took the girl into her arms and kissed her with quivering lips, her eyes brimming with tears. "My dear child, you know it is simply impossible for me to tell you all there is in my heart," she began, but her voice broke and she had to stop to maintain her self-control. "Do not try, dear Mrs. Seabrook," said Katherine, as she returned her caress. "I know it all, and you cannot be more thankful than I am that Dorothy escaped without even having her pleasure spoiled." "She talks of nothing but her 'beautiful time' and your 'bravery,'" the mother resumed. "She says that even though she cannot remember much of what happened, after you wrapped the portiere about the chair, she did hear you tell her 'not to be afraid, for she was God's child and could not be harmed.' She was not harmed in any way; she simply fainted from the shock, and seems even brighter to-day than she was yesterday. But you suffered for her," and Mrs. Seabrook's tremulous lips failed her again, as she softly touched the girl's bandaged hand. "It is almost nothing now," said Katherine, brightly. "I am fast forgetting it myself, and want everybody else to. Does Dorrie know?" "No; my brother thought it best not to tell her." "I am glad; pray keep it from her if possible." "But is it not very sore? Are you not suffering?" "Not in the least, I assure you. The pain lasted only a little while; I slept lovely and feel as good as new this morning." "But your beautiful dress was ruined, though that, of course, shall be replaced; and you lost your good time last night," and the woman heaved a regretful sigh. Katherine laughed out merrily. "You will not let me 'forget,'" she said. "But there will be plenty of other 'good times,' and all else is as nothing in the balance, compared with Dorothy's safety." Then, to change the subject, she inquired: "Now, tell me, wasn't that last tableau about as fine as anything could be?" "It was exquisite beyond description," said Mrs. Seabrook, with animation. "Mr. Seabrook was delighted with it, and so pleased to have Dorrie in it. It was lovely of the juniors to take so much pains for her and make her the central figure. The whole entertainment was a great success; your production was very bright and clever, and our guests from outside had nothing but praise for everything. Oh! by the way, Miss Minturn, my husband sends his kindest regards to you by me. He said it was all he could do until he could see you personally." After chatting a little longer she arose to go, saying she was expecting company to dine with her. Then she paused and again gently touched the spotless handkerchief bound around Katherine's hand. "My dear," she observed, searching her face with curious eyes, "I cannot reconcile your bright and happy appearance with this; to me it is a marvel, and I wish--oh! how I wish--" She checked herself suddenly, but Katherine read her thought. "I know," she said, softly, "and my heart has been full of the same yearning for a long time. It will come, dear Mrs. Seabrook, if we keep on wishing and praying." "If I only knew how to pray as--as you do!" was the wistful response. "The Lord's Prayer meets every human need, particularly the clause, 'Thy will be done on earth as in heaven;' only we need to know it was never our Father's 'will' that His children should suffer," Katherine returned. Tears rushed to the elder woman's eyes. "I wish I could understand," she began, brokenly. Then, bending forward, she left a light kiss on the girl's cheek and abruptly left the room. There were tears in Katherine's eyes also, but a tender smile on her lips. "Divine Love is preparing the soil for the seed," she murmured to herself as she went back to her essay. She kept herself aloof from the other students as much as possible until Monday, when she appeared as usual in her classes. She had to run the gantlet of some inquiries regarding the extent of her injuries, hut she made light of them, and her comrades began to think they must have been greatly exaggerated, and so gave the matter no further thought. Monday afternoon, when the duties of the day were over, she went to see Dorothy, who had sent her several pressing invitations during the last three days. "I thought you would never come, Miss Minturn," she exclaimed, the moment the door opened to admit her, "and I have so wanted to talk over that lovely--lovely time with you." "I have been pretty busy, dear, since I saw you," Katherine replied, bending to kiss the eager face. "I expect you have, getting ready for exams, and everything, and I've tried to be patient," said the child, with a sigh, as she recalled how impatient she had felt. "Everybody says that was such a beautiful tableau!" she went on, with shining eyes, "and we know it was, don't we? I shall never forget it; only, it was too bad to have such a scare afterwards and my pretty chariot spoiled. Wasn't it lucky, though, that Uncle Phillip happened to come just when he did and--" but she was obliged to pause here for breath. "Indeed, it was most fortunate, and I am sorry that the chariot was spoiled, for it would have been a pleasant reminder of our lily queen's grandeur as long as you cared to preserve it," Katherine returned. "But that was nothing compared with your dress!" was the regretful rejoinder. "Uncle Phil said the skirt was ruined; but papa says you shall have another every bit as nice--" "Indeed, you shall, Miss Minturn," here interposed Prof. Seabrook, coming from the adjoining room, where he had overheard the above conversation. He cordially extended his hand as he spoke, while his tone and manner were more affable than they had been since the day of her admission to the school. "We owe you a great deal," he continued, "both for the pleasure you were instrumental in giving our little girl last Friday night, and for your presence of mind which saved--no one can estimate how much--possibly a dangerous panic, the destruction of property and much suffering." He had been quietly inspecting the hand he held, while he was speaking, and was greatly surprised to find only a slight discoloration where he had expected to see unsightly sores or scars, and, while he did not wish to undervalue her heroism and self-abnegation, he began to think that his brother-in-law had greatly over-estimated the injuries which she had sustained. "I am afraid you are giving me far more credit than is my due," Katherine replied, releasing her hand and flushing as she read something of what was passing in his mind. "I simply did what first came to my thought and--" "And exactly the right thing it was to do," the man smilingly interposed. "And Dr. Stanley did the rest," she persisted, finishing what had been in her mind to say. "Well, 'all's well that ends well,' and we are very grateful that things are as they are," said the professor, earnestly, adding: "You must allow me to repair whatever damage has teen done, as far as money can do that. It pains me to know that you were burned, but I am thankful to see that you did not suffer as severely as I was led to infer." He glanced at her hand again as he concluded. "I suffered more on Dorothy's account, I think, than in any other way," the girl quietly replied. "Why! were you burned, Miss Minturn?" Dorothy exclaimed, catching her breath sharply. "You would hardly know it now," she said, showing her hand, for she saw she could no longer conceal the fact from her. Dorothy took it, looked it over, then touched her lips lovingly to it. "I'm very sorry," she said, "but it couldn't have been so awful bad to get well so quickly, could it?" "It is all passed now, dearie, and we are glad that no one's good time was spoiled, aren't we?" Katherine observed and hastening to change the subject. "Indeed, we are. It was such a happy time!" sighed Dorrie, in a tone of supreme content. "I've dreamed and dreamed of it. I wake in the morning thinking of it, and mamma and I talk and talk about it." "I wish to add, Miss Katherine," her principal here interposed, "that your special contribution to the programme of last Friday evening was exceedingly entertaining; and"--his eyes resting very kindly on her--"having learned the circumstances that inspired it, I heartily appreciate the spirit with which you met and mastered them. Now, Dorrie, I will not keep you from your talk with her any longer," and, with a genial smile and bow, the gentleman left the room. Katherine remained an hour with Dorothy and allowed her to expatiate upon her "good time" to her heart's content, after which she went out into the grounds for a little quiet meditation by herself. She was very happy because of what Prof. Seabrook had said to her and the marked change in his manner towards her. He had addressed her by her first name, too, for the first time, a thing which he never did in speaking to students in public; but there were a favored few whom he sometimes greeted thus when he chanced to meet them informally, and it now seemed as if she were henceforth to be numbered with them. All the same, she knew that, in his heart, he was not one whit more tolerant of her religious views, and the skeptical gleam in his eyes, while inspecting her hand, had told her that he had no faith whatever that she had made a "demonstration" over a severe burn. But it was evident there had been a radical change in his attitude towards her; he no longer entertained any personal repulsion, and thus, with the little fire of Friday night, all "barriers had been burned away" and a bond of true sympathy re- established between them. So, with a smile on her lips and a song in her heart, she made her way to a favorite spot, beneath a mammoth beech tree, where, drawing forth a pocket edition of "Unity of Good" [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy.], that tiny book, that multum in parvo which, to every earnest student of Christian Science, becomes a veritable casket of precious jewels, she was soon lost to all things material in the perusal of its pages. She had been reading fifteen minutes, perhaps, when a muffled step on the heavy greensward caused her to glance up, to find Dr. Stanley almost beside her. "All inquiries regarding a certain lady's health, I perceive, are quite unnecessary," he observed, as he searched her glowing face. "Pray pardon me if I have startled you, but I would like to know how that poor hand is getting on, if it is permissible to mention it." "It is not a 'poor hand'--it is a very good hand, indeed, thank you, Dr. Stanley; at least, for all practical purposes," she demurely returned, but keeping it persistently out of sight, among the folds of her dress, where it had fallen when she arose to greet him. "Miss Minturn, aren't you going to shake hands with an old friend?" he gravely queried, extending his hand to her, but with a roguish sparkle in his handsome eyes. Katherine laughed out musically, and reluctantly laid hers within his palm. The man's face assumed an inscrutable expression as he turned the small member over and examined it with a critical look, even pushing up her sleeve a trifle to view the arm; but the slender wrist was fair and white and no flaw anywhere, except the slight discoloration previously referred to, where the unsightly blisters had been. "Miss Minturn, it is less than three days since that accident occurred, and those burns are entirely healed! What did you do for them?" he demanded, in low, repressed tones. "Nothing, except to know that 'God is an ever-present help in time of trouble.'" "Do you mean to tell me that you applied no lotion or salve? that you did nothing but 'demonstrate mentally,' as you Scientists express it?" "That was all, Dr. Stanley. I had no lotion or salve." "How long did you suffer from the pain? I suppose you shrink from being questioned thus by a doctor," he interposed, as he observed her heightened color; "but please tell me--I want to know." "The burning sensation was all gone at the end of three-quarters of an hour, by the clock, though I confess the time seemed much longer than that," she admitted, with a faint smile. "I was conscious that my hand was sore and very tender as long as I was awake; but in the morning that also was a belief of the past." "It is beyond me!" muttered the physician, with a puzzled brow. "But," he added, frankly, "I am heartily glad you did not have to suffer many hours, as I felt sure you would, after seeing the condition of your hand that night. I went to your room with my sister, after attending to Dorothy, but, as you know, failed to find you. An hour later Miss Reynolds astounded me by telling me that you were in her room, asleep." "Yes, she kindly took me under the shelter of her wing." "Miss Minturn"--accusingly--"you ran away from me; you did not want me to find you;" but he smiled as he said it. "It was far better for me, with our conflicting opinions. It would only have prolonged my suffering if you had found me and insisted upon dressing the burns, even though your motive was most kind," Katherine gently explained. "I am almost tempted to believe that, after what I have heard and seen," he thoughtfully admitted. "I hope you do not feel that I did not appreciate your kindness," Katherine observed, a note of appeal in her voice. "I know that you would have done your best for me, in your way. And now, let me thank you again for the lovely Jacks. I have not seen such beauties for a long time. I hope you received my note of acknowledgment." "Yes, and wondered how you had managed to hold a pen, much more write your natural hand." For a moment Katherine wondered how he could know her "natural hand"; then she remembered that he had asked an exchange of cards from herself and her mother the day before they landed the previous fall. She had just given her last one away, so had been obliged to write her name and address on a blank card. "What is this little book, in which you were so absorbed as I came upon you?" he resumed, as he picked it up from the seat where she had laid it and turned to the title page. "U-m! another production by that remarkable woman! Do you understand it?" "I am growing to understand it better every time I read it. There is much that is beautiful and helpful in it." "Well, one would need to read over and over to comprehend what she teaches, and"--reflectively--"I am not sure but what it would be well worth one's while. But I must go. Dorrie will think I am very late this afternoon. An, revoir, Miss Minturn," and slipping the book into Katherine's hands, he lifted his hat and went his way, while she looked after him with shining eyes. "Mamma sowed better than she knew, there; the soil is good and the seed is taking root," she told herself as she turned with a light heart back to her book. CHAPTER XVIII. SADIE RECEIVES AN OPPORTUNE INVITATION. The last weeks of the school year just seemed to melt away until only one remained, and this was filled full with many duties, various class meetings, preparations for graduating day, class receptions, etc. For some time Katherine had observed that Sadie appeared absent- minded and depressed; in fact, wholly unlike herself, and twice of late she had surprised her in violent weeping. But the girl would give no reason, made light of it as "nervousness," and evaded all questions. One day, while looking over their personal belongings and packing away things no longer needed, preparatory to their flitting, Katherine abruptly inquired: "Sadie, where are you going to spend your summer?" The girl started violently and turned a vivid scarlet. "I--I don't know, honey. I reckon I may travel some," she said, after a moment of hesitation. "With your guardian and his family?" "N-o; they're going to Europe, but I don't care to go with them." "But you surely cannot travel by yourself," Katherine observed, in surprise, while she regarded the averted face opposite her curiously, an unaccountable feeling of uneasiness taking possession of her. "I--I suppose I can't; perhaps I shan't, after all," Sadie stammered. "I may go to some quiet place and board." "Even in that case you would need a chaperon," Katherine objected. "Well, Mr. Farnsworth wants me to go to his sister in Genesee County. She's a stiff, little old maid who lives by herself, and he says if I will not go to Europe I must stay with her. But I might as well be shut up in a convent, and--I won't," and there was a resonant note of defiance in Miss Minot's voice as she concluded. "But what is your objection to the European trip, Sadie? I should think you would like it; I am sure you could have no better opportunity than to go with the Farnsworths," argued Katherine, who was more and more perplexed by her roommate's strange caprice. "Oh! well, I'm not going, anyway, and that settles the matter!" sharply retorted the girl from the depths of her trunk, but her voice was thick with tears. Katherine suddenly sat erect, a startled expression sweeping over her face. She dropped the subject, but before an hour had passed a hastily written, special delivery missive was on its way to Mrs. Minturn. The next evening, after supper, she burst into her room, her face beaming with joy, an open letter in her hand, to find Sadie drooping over a note she had been writing and nibbling at the stem of her pen, apparently in the most disconsolate frame of mind. She hastily drew a blank sheet of paper over the written page to hide it, a circumstance which did not escape the observing eye of her chum, and, looking over her shoulder, inquired: "What is it, Katherine? You look as if you'd had good news." "I have--at least good news to me, and I hope it will be to you also," was the cheery reply. Sadie sat up and looked interested. "To me! How so?" she said, in surprise. "Well, I wrote mamma yesterday that you seemed to be in something of a quandary about your summer, and as I have the privilege of inviting some one to spend my vacation with me, I asked her if I might have you--that is, if you would like to come. Would you, dear?" Katherine pleaded, with an anxiously beating heart. "We have a cottage at Manchester-by-the-Sea, in Massachusetts, which we make our headquarters, then take little trips here and there, as the spirit moves us. Papa cannot be with us all the time, on account of business, but he comes and goes, bringing some of his friends now and then; and, Sadie, we do have very nice times. Now will you be my guest for the summer? I have a special delivery from mamma, who also wants you." The girl had remained motionless, almost breathless while Katherine was speaking, a peculiar look on her face, which grew red and white by turns. She did not at once reply when she concluded, but seemed irresolute, almost dazed, in fact, by what she had heard. Then, all at once, she started to her feet, threw her arms around Katherine, bowed her head upon her shoulder and burst into a passion of tears. "Oh! how good of you, Katharine! How good of you! It will seem like heaven to me!" she sobbed, with more feeling than she had ever manifested before during all the months they had spent together. "Ah! I have been so lonesome, so homesick, so--so wretched, and I would love to go if--if you really want me." "I certainly do, Sadie, or I would not have asked you," Katherine heartily responded, and now feeling very sure that she had done a wise thing, for she was convinced that the girl's "wretchedness" had proceeded from an entirely different cause than a choice between a European tour and a sojourn with an "old maid in Genesee County." "It is perfectly lovely of you, and I can never tell you how much it means to me!" Sadie replied, with a long breath of relief, while she wiped the hot tears from her cheeks. "Well, you need not be 'homesick' any longer," was the cheery assurance, "for mamma will make you feel that you have your own place in our dear home nest on the rocks by the sea; and papa is the jolliest of men. No one need be 'lonesome' when he is around, and we shall have other friends with us some of the time. Listen while I read you what mamma says: 'Have your friend come, by all means, if she thinks she can be happy with us. You can explain what our plans are, and if they prove attractive we will make her one with us.'" "That will be perfectly delightful! It is awfully sweet of you both," Sadie exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, her spirits quickly rebounding, as the burden of a few hours previous began to roll from her heart. "Oh! Katherine, you never can know how happy you have made me, and I am going to write to my guardian this very minute." She turned back to her desk, and presently Katherine heard her tearing paper into tiny bits, after which she wrote two letters and then went immediately out to post them. There were no more tears or doleful looks during the remainder of the week. A day or two later there came an approving letter and a generous check from Mr. Farnsworth, and Sadie was once more her serene and gracious self and looking forward eagerly to the day of their flitting to the sea. Katherine, on the other hand, was feeling an unaccountable reluctance to leaving, even with the expectation of returning in September, and in spite of her longing for both father and mother. It was very strange, she told herself, but she certainly was not elated over the prospect of a long vacation. Prof. Seabrook was going to Europe for a complete change of scene and rest. Mrs. Seabrook, Dorothy and nurse were booked for a quiet spot in the White Mountains, where, it was hoped, pure air and country life and diet would strengthen the frail girl for what was in store for her, and where Dr. Stanley would join them, for the month of August, if he could arrange to leave his patients. Miss Reynolds was to go to her home in Auburn for July, but, to Katherine's delight, had accepted an invitation from Mrs. Minturn to be her guest during the first two weeks of August. And so, when the morning of their departure came, adieus and good wishes were exchanged with their many school friends, and the two girls started upon their journey to the coast of the "good old Bay State" and lovely Manchester, that beautiful town so boldly perched on rugged crags and nestling so restfully 'mid sylvan shadows. There was a secret sense of disappointment in Katherine's heart because she had not seen Dr. Stanley during these last days. He had been unusually busy for a month, and she had not met him since the afternoon, of their brief interview under the great beech tree; but when she went to say farewell to Mrs. Seabrook she left a friendly message and good-by for him. Dorothy wept when taking leave of her, and Mrs. Seabrook clung fondly to her. "I am very loath to let you go," she said, "for there have been many peaceful hours in this room when you have been with us, and I shall count the weeks until we are all back again. Somehow, I am dreading my summer," she concluded, with a weary sigh. It was six o'clock in the evening when the young travelers reached Boston, where they were met by Mr. Minturn, an unusually prepossessing gentleman, who evidently was very fond of "my girlie," as he called Katherine when he gathered her into his strong arms. and held close for a moment. Then he greeted Sadie with a breezy cordiality which, for once, disabused her of the notion that Northerners were "stiff and cold" and Southern hospitality at a premium. They had just time to get their trunks rechecked and catch a suburban train, and about an hour later, seated behind a pair of spirited bays, they were rolling over a smooth country road and ere long drew up beneath the porte cochere of a fine residence built on a rocky bluff and overlooking a broad expanse of ocean. "So this is a 'cottage by the sea,' a 'nest on the rocks,'" Miss Minot mentally observed to herself as her glance roamed over the roomy mansion, while she was mounting the steps leading to the wide veranda, where Mrs. Minturn and another lady, both in dinner costumes, were waiting to welcome them. Katherine flew to her mother's arms, while Mr. Minturn presented Sadie to Mrs. Evarts; then, presently, Mrs. Minturn came to her, greeting her so graciously and lovingly that her heart was won at once, and she felt that she had been admitted within a charmed circle and a strangely peaceful atmosphere. "Now, my dears, I am not going to make you dress to-night," Mrs. Minturn observed, when the greetings were over. "Ellen"--glancing at a maid in spotless cap and apron--"will take you upstairs and help you get rid of some of the dust of travel, then you can come directly down, for we were only awaiting your arrival before having dinner served." The maid took possession of their hand bags and led the way indoors, up a broad stairway to two adjoining rooms, opening out upon a balcony which commanded, a fine view of both land and sea. After submitting to a vigorous brushing, bathing hands and faces and pinning into place some truant locks, they went below to a tempting repast, to which the two hungry travelers did ample justice. The weeks that followed Sadie Minot never forgot, for they marked the beginning of a new era in her life. She seemed to be living in a different world. Every day was begun with a reading from the Bible and the Christian Science text-book; this was followed by the singing of a lovely hymn, then came a minute or two of silent communion, after which the Lord's Prayer was repeated in unison. Ofttimes Mrs. Minturn and her friend would remain to discuss or go over again some passage that had awakened a new train of thought, and frequently Sadie found herself lingering also, an interested listener. After a week of rest they began to make trips to various points of interest, sometimes stopping two or three days in a place, then returning to Manchester for a little season of quiet, when they would flit away again in another direction. It was ideal. There was never any friction or jar in the home or on the wing; an atmosphere of peace and love brooded everywhere, while, at the same time, a spirit of good-fellowship and jollity pervaded the entire household, particularly when Mr. Minturn made one of their number. Katherine, who was quietly observant of her friend, was glad to see that there was no return of the absentminded moods or depression that had previously overshadowed her; but that she seemed care-free and happy, giving herself up heartily to the enjoyment of her vacation. Only now and then, when a letter addressed in a bold, free hand came to her, did she seem to cast a backward glance or recall anything to mar her pleasure. They had little visits at Newport and Narragansett Pier, a trip to the Thousand Isles, interspersed with outings at the Essex County Club at home; golf, tennis and drives, and, now and then, a run to Boston for sightseeing or shopping. One morning--the very last of July--Katherine received a letter bearing a New Hampshire postmark. "I wonder if it is from Mrs. Seabrook! I have been wishing we might hear from Dorothy," she observed, as she hastily cut the end of the envelope and drew forth a closely written sheet. "Yes, it is," she supplemented, glancing at the name appended, and then became absorbed in its contents, her face growing grave and wistful as she read. "Mamma," she remarked, when she had finished and was refolding the missive, "Mrs. Seabrook writes that Dorothy is not as well. They have had to send for Dr. Stanley, and he thinks that the mountain air does not agree with her; that she would be better near the sea. She has written to ask if we know of a cottage here that she could rent for the remainder of the season." "Why, yes; there is the Hunt cottage. Mrs. Hunt told me yesterday that they are all going on a trip through the Canadas; but she was in a quandary about her help. She does not like to let them go, neither does she feel quite like leaving them to run the house by themselves. Perhaps she would be glad to rent it," Mrs. Minturn returned. 'That would be delightful, for then we could have Mrs. Seabrook for a neighbor, and--oh! mamma--if we only could do something for that dear child," said Katherine, yearningly. "We could not interfere there, dear," her mother gravely replied. "We could do nothing, with Prof. Seabrook so opposed to the treatment of Christian Science. But I will go and talk with Mrs. Hunt and see what can be done for your friends." The result of her call was a cordial assent on the part of the Hunts to rent the cottage, if the Seabrooks, after learning the terms, desired to have it. Katherine wrote by return mail, stating the case to Mrs. Seabrook, and the second day afterward, while she and Sadie were busy with some fancy work on the veranda, Dr. Stanley suddenly appeared, mounting the steps. Katherine sprang forward to greet him, her face glowing with pleasure. "This is a delightful surprise, Dr. Stanley," she said, giving him a cordial hand. "Come and have a chair. If you have walked from the station you will be glad to get out of the sun, and I am sure you need no introduction to Miss Minot." The physician saluted Sadie with his customary courtesy, then seated himself in the comfortable rocker tendered him, and gazed, with an appreciative eye, off upon the blue expanse before him, at the same time taking in deep breaths of the cool, delicious salt air. "This is glorious!" he exclaimed. "Young ladies, I do not wonder at the roses in your cheeks, in view of these invigorating breezes wafted straight from the domain of old Neptune." Sadie, however, did marvel as she observed the unusual color in the face of her friend. "The invigorating breezes of 'Old 'Neptune' didn't have anything to do with that," she said to herself. "We have found it very warm and close up in the mountains," the gentleman resumed, "and I now regret that I did not send my sister to the sea at the beginning of the summer." Katherine inquired for Mrs. Seabrook, who had scarcely referred to herself in her letter, and expressed her regret that Dorrie had seemed to lose ground. "Yes, she has been very poorly, and her mother is simply worn out with anxiety and watching," said Phillip Stanley, with a clouded brow. "You perceive I lost no time, after the receipt of your letter, in coming to conclude the arrangements with Mrs. Hunt." "You will find her cottage very comfortable and homelike, although it is not very large," Katherine informed him. "We think it is just the place for you, because of the well-trained help, which will greatly relieve dear Mrs. Seabrook. That is the house--the second one above us on the opposite side of the street." "The location is certainly fine. It is high, has a good view of the ocean and spacious grounds. I shall feel that we are very fortunate to secure it. I wonder if I shall find Mrs. Hunt at home?" said the gentleman, and apparently eager to conclude the bargain. "I think so, and, if agreeable to you, Dr. Stanley, I will go over with and introduce you to her," returned his young hostess. "That is very good of you, Miss Minturn," he eagerly responded, with a look that caused the white lids to droop quickly over the brown eyes. "I shall certainly avail myself of your kind offer." "I am sorry that mamma is not at home," Katherine remarked, as she arose to go in and make ready for the proposed call. "She will be disappointed to have missed you. She was obliged to go to Boston this morning, with Miss Reynolds, who arrived last night, and will not be back until late this evening. Sadie, will you come with us to Mrs. Hunt's?" she concluded, turning to her friend. "No, I reckon not," the girl lazily replied. "I am too comfortable to move, unless the occasion is imperative." Katherine disappeared, but shortly returned equipped for her call, and Phillip Stanley's glance rested appreciatively on the lithe, graceful figure in its dainty robe of pale yellow chambrey, with its soft garnishings of lace and black velvet. The nut-brown head was crowned with a pretty shade hat of yellow straw, also trimmed with black velvet ribbon, and a white parasol, surmounted by a great, gleaming white satin bow, completed the effective costume, while the girl's pink cheeks and brilliant eyes told, as she walked away with her companion, that she was bound upon no unpleasant errand. "U-m!" ejaculated Sadie, with a wise nod, as she looked after the vanishing couple, "you two will make a perfectly stunning pair and--you have my unqualified blessing." The arrangements with Mrs. Hunt were soon completed, for Dr. Stanley was only too eager to secure her charming cottage upon any terms. When he spoke of references the lady cut him short by smilingly remarking that she needed no better vouchers than her friends, the Minturns. The family would leave the next morning, she said, and it would be perfectly agreeable, as far as she was concerned, to have Mrs. Seabrook take possession the following day, and it was so arranged. As they left the house Dr. Stanley glanced at his watch, then drew forth a time-table. "I have an hour or so before I need to leave for Boston," he observed, after studying it for a moment. "Oh! Dr. Stanley, do not say that!" Katherine exclaimed, in a tone of disappointment. "You surely will come and have lunch with Sadie and me, then I will order the horses and we will have a nice drive." "You tempt me sorely, Miss Minturn," the gentleman smilingly observed, as he met the appealing brown eyes, "but if I am to bring my sister and Dorrie here the day after to-morrow, I must get back to them tonight." "Yes, I can understand that you wish them to come as soon as possible," Katherine replied, and at once yielding her point; "and you all shall have plenty of drives before the summer is over. But, if you have an hour to spare, perhaps you would like to walk about a little; I can show you one or two fine views." "That will be very enjoyable," he eagerly responded, and they bent their steps towards a point which had become a favorite spot with Katherine. They had a pleasant ramble, talking of various matters, but without once referring to the subject of Christian Science, for Katherine purposely avoided it for several reasons. Finally they turned their faces towards the town, when, on rounding a curve in the road, they saw the figure of a man sauntering idly along some distance before them, although, at the time, neither bestowed more than a casual glance upon him. Presently, however, after again consulting his watch, Dr. Stanley said time was flying, and he must hasten to catch his train; so, quickening their steps, they soon overtook the stranger in front of them. He shot a curious look at them, as they were passing; then, to Katharine's amazement, doffed his hat with a courteous "How do you do, Miss Minturn? Ah! Stanley! a fine day." Without slackening his pace, the physician turned a pair of blazing eyes upon the man, as he, in duty bound, lifted his own hat; and they had passed him before Katherine could do more than bestow an astonished look upon him. Her companion turned and searched the puzzled face beside him. "Miss Minturn, do you know that young man?" he gravely inquired. She flashed a pair of startled eyes up at him, for his tone had a peculiar note in it. "I don't know. There was something familiar about him, and he seemed to recognize me," she began, doubtfully. "Why!" she went on, her face clearing, "I remember now. I was introduced to him last spring; his name is Willard, I believe. Oh! what does he want down here?" she concluded, with a sudden heartthrob of fear. "I do not know who may have introduced you," her companion remarked, "but I feel it my duty to tell you that he is a man whose acquaintance is very undesirable. It is true he belongs to a fine family, but he is their thorn in the flesh. He is a drunkard and a gambler, and his associates are among the most reprobate. Two or three times I have been called to bring him out of a state bordering upon delirium tremens. A physician is not supposed to give away the weaknesses of his patients," he interposed, in a deprecatory tone, "but under existing circumstances I feel justified in saying what I have said." "I had a suspicion that he might not be desirable," Katherine returned, and feeling deeply disturbed, for she was sure the man had followed Sadie for no good purpose. "I never met him but once, and then under rather peculiar circumstances. I thank you for telling me about him, for, although I may never see him again, it may prove a warning to some one whom I know who has seen more of him." They had almost reached the station by this time, and a warning whistle told them that the inward-bound train was near at hand. There was just time for Dr. Stanley to get his ticket, take a hurried leave of his fair companion, and then board his car, waving a last adieu. The girl stood watching the train as it rolled from the station, a soft radiance in her large brown eyes, a happy smile parting her red lips; while the physician bore away with him the mental picture of a dainty little lady in pale yellow, her beautiful face looking out at him from beneath a most becoming shade hat, one slender hand holding aloft a white ruffled parasol surmounted by a gleaming satin bow. CHAPTER XIX. MRS. SEABROOK TAKES A STAND. On her way back, after Dr. Stanley's departure, Katherine stopped at the house of a friend to make a call. She found her in a pavilion that flanked a corner of the veranda, and with her some other young people, all of whom were busily engaged with the new fad of basket making. They were just on the point of having light refreshments and heartily welcomed her to their circle, where the time slipped unheeded by until a clock, somewhere, striking the half hour after twelve, warned her that lunch at home would soon be served, and Sadie, even now, must be wondering what had become of her. But when she reached home the girl was nowhere to be found. It was after one o'clock and lunch waiting when she finally came slowly up the hill, which sloped to the beach behind the house, and Katherine was sure, from her flushed cheeks and reddened lids, that she had been crying. There was no opportunity for any confidential conversation during the meal, for the waitress was in the room, and, after making a very light repast, Sadie observed she "reckoned she'd go take a nap," and abruptly leaving the table, disappeared. Katharine was deeply thoughtful while finishing her lunch. "He has been here," she said to herself as she folded and slipped her napkin into its ring; then, with a resolute uplifting of her head, she followed Sadie upstairs and tapped upon her door. "Please excuse me for a little while, honey," came the response from within, but in unnatural tones. "But, Sadie, I am sure that something is troubling you; and, besides, I have an item of important news to tell you," her friend persisted. "Well, then, come," was the reluctant reply, and Katherine entered, to find the girl, as she had surmised, in tears. "I knew it, dear," she said, going to her side. "I was sure you were grieving about something, and I believe that Ned Willard is the cause of it. I saw him this morning when I was out with Dr. Stanley." "You did! He didn't say that he had seen you," exclaimed Sadie, in astonishment. Then, realizing how she had committed herself, she colored a vivid scarlet and fell to weeping afresh. "Ah! then he has been here!" said Katherine. "I thought so, when you came in to lunch." There was a moment of awkward silence, then she resumed: "Sadie, I do not wish to force your confidence, but I am going to tell you frankly what is on my mind, and I hope you will feel it is only my friendship for you that impels me to say it. I noticed, for a long time before school closed, that you were not yourself, that you were depressed and unhappy, and I was confident that Mr. Willard was the cause of it; that it was on his account you refused to go to Europe with your guardian. It even seemed to me that you were almost on the point of taking some step, doing something rash, from which you instinctively shrank, and when I asked you to come home with me you seized the opportunity as a loophole of escape. Of course, I have not been blind and I have suspected that certain letters which have come to you here were from Mr. Willard, and when I saw him to-day I feared he had followed you and would make you 'wretched' again. I did not know him at first, but he recognized me and spoke to me." She paused irresolute for a moment, then continued: "I am going to tell you all, Sadie, for I know it is right you should learn the truth. Dr. Stanley looked amazed when Mr. Willard spoke to me, and inquired, if I knew the man. I told him I had simply been introduced to him, and he said, 'He is a person whose acquaintance is very undesirable; he is a drunkard and a gambler; he belongs to a good family, but he is their thorn in the flesh, because of his dissolute ways.' Perhaps this sounds harsh, even unkind to you, but I am trying to do by you as I would by my own sister if I had one. I don't want you to spoil your life, Sadie." The girl had been growing more composed during Katherine's revelations, and when she concluded she sat up on the bed, threw her handkerchief away and faced her. "I am glad that you have told me this, Katherine," she said, drawing a deep breath, "and I have longed, ever since I came to this 'house of peace'--for it has been that to me--to tell you this secret that has been eating my heart out. I did continue to meet Ned on the sly, even after I promised you, last spring, that I would not. I wrote him, as I told you I would, about going to Mr. Farnsworth and doing the square thing; but he only laughed at me and still insisted upon seeing me the same as ever. I--I really am fond of him, honey," she confessed, a vivid blush suffusing her face. "Ned has good qualities, in spite of his faults. I know that he has been in the habit of drinking some, but we Southerners don't mind that as much as you Northerners do. I--I didn't know about his gambling--that seems dreadful. I know he thinks the world of me, for when my guardian said he was going to take me to Europe he was perfectly wild about it; so that is why I gave it up. Then he wanted--oh! Katherine! how can I tell you--"and the scarlet face went down upon the pillow again. "Yes, dear, I suspected it--I almost knew that he wanted you to marry him secretly, and you came very near consenting--would have taken the irrevocable step perhaps if I had not asked you to come with me," gently interposed her friend. "Katherine! What made you think that?" and the girl started up again, amazed. "Oh! several things; your fits of abstraction, your 'homesickness,' your 'wretchedness,' and the remarkable reaction that followed your acceptance of my invitation." "Well, honey, it was true, and I shall always love you for saving me from that, for I knew it was wrong. I was beginning to get my eyes open a little, though, and to feel that Ned should not have asked me to marry him in any such way; but I hardly knew which way to turn," Sadie confessed, with downcast eyes. "Of course, I am glad to have you with me; but perhaps going to Europe would have been the better plan. It would have taken you out of his way," Katherine thoughtfully observed. "I couldn't leave--I--I didn't want to," faltered her companion, and Katherine sighed as she saw that there was an even stronger attachment here than she had suspected. "He has been trying to persuade me to--to go away with him ever since I came here," Sadie resumed, and evidently determined to keep nothing back; "and to-day he came upon me suddenly while you were away, and he wasn't very kind"--her lips quivered painfully over those last words; "but," she presently went on, "since I have been here many things have begun to seem different to me, and I had made up my mind to go back to school and do my very best next year; but if Ned is going to keep on bothering me like this, I shall be wretched." "If he comes again I think we will have to let papa deal with him," said Katherine, gravely. "Oh! I wouldn't have your father or mother know anything about it for the world," cried Sadie, in distress. "I begin to feel ashamed of the whole affair myself, and I would not marry him on the sly now for anything. But he claims that I am pledged to him, and says he will make trouble for me if I try to dodge him," and the girl nervously twisted a diamond ring; which she wore on the first finger of her left hand. "There is nothing to prevent you from releasing yourself from any such rash pledge if you choose to do so," said Katharine. Then she asked: "Is that your engagement ring, dear?" "Yes; but I haven't dared to wear it on the right finger, for I didn't want anyone to know," she admitted, with a blush of shame. Katherine leaned forward and smiled fondly into her eyes. "You understand, I am sure, that I do not wish to meddle in an affair of this kind; but if you will allow me. I would advise you to return that ring at once. Tell Mr. Willard that you revoke your promise to him, and that henceforth he is to leave you unmolested. Think it over, Sadie, and I am sure your own good judgment will tell you this would be the wiser course. Now I will leave you to take your nap, for I think you need it," and, kissing her softly, she left the room. The next morning a great burden rolled from her heart when she saw Sadie hand the postman a letter and a small package on which there was a special delivery stamp, and she earnestly hoped that this step in the right direction would forever end the disagreeable affair. The following day the Seabrooks arrived, and our "brown-eyed lassie" was very happy to have so many of her school friends around her; but it was impossible not to see how pale and worn Mrs. Seabrook looked, and that Dorrie had failed not a little. After a few days, however, the child appeared to improve a trifle, and everybody else began to look refreshed and hopeful once more. Dr. Stanley devoted the greater portion of his time to her, and she was never so happy as when he wheeled her to some point where she could have an unobstructed view of the ocean and watch the foam-crested waves as they broke upon the rocks on the shore. At times, when she was sleeping or being cared for by the ever- faithful Alice, the physician and his sister might have been found at the Minturn home, where many a pleasant hour was spent on its broad verandas, and where the subject of Christian Science was often the theme of conversation, and Mrs. Minturn was plied with numerous questions by Miss Reynolds and the doctor also. Mrs. Seabrook rarely joined in these discussions, but Katherine observed that she was a very attentive listener. Miss Reynolds had become an enthusiastic student; in fact, she was having class instruction under Mrs. Minturn, and did not hesitate to avow her full acceptance of its teachings. Dr. Stanley maintained, at first, a very conservative attitude; but it was apparent that he had read more on the subject than he was ready to admit. Once he quoted a passage from "Unity of Good" [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy] and asked Mrs. Minturn to explain it, whereupon Katherine bent a look of surprise on him. He caught her glance, flushed slightly, then smiled. "Yes, Miss Minturn," he said, "after glancing at your book, that day when we met under the beech tree, I felt a curiosity to know more of what it contained, so bought a copy and--yes--read it through three times." "Have you read 'Science and Health'?" inquired Mrs. Minturn. "Yes, twice, and 'Miscellaneous Writings' [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy] once. What do you think of such a confession as that from a doubly dyed M.D.?" he concluded, with heightened color and stealing a side glance at his sister. "I should say you are getting on pretty well," replied his hostess. "No; I am not getting on at all," he asserted, with an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't understand them and I find I am at cross-purposes all the time." "Yes, I can comprehend that, if you are trying to mix materia medica and Science; you will have to drop one or the other, or still be at 'cross-purposes,'" returned the lady. The gentleman made no reply, and the subject was changed. "Well, Phillip, you electrified me this afternoon!" Mrs. Seabrook observed, when, later, they were by themselves at home. "Why? Because of the books I confessed to having read?" "Yes; when did you begin to be so interested in Christian Science?" "When that child was healed of seasickness on shipboard." "And--are you going to adopt it?" "I don't know, Emelie. I haven't reached that point yet." "I should hope not after all your years of study and practice, to say nothing about the expense involved," returned his sister, in a tone of disapproval, for she was exceedingly proud of her successful brother. "Are you becoming dissatisfied with your profession, Phillip?" she asked, after a moment. "When I encounter a case like Dorrie's I am dissatisfied with it," he admitted, with a quiver of his mobile lips. "When I am called to a case that responds quickly to treatment, I feel all the old enthusiasm tingling within me. Then, again, when I attend our medical associations and find the faculty discarding" methods and remedies which were once pronounced 'wonderful discoveries,' and substituting something new or something that had years ago been discarded, I become disgusted, and declare there is no science in materia medica; that it is but 'a bundle of speculative theories,' as Mrs. Eddy puts it in her startling chapter on 'Medicine.'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 149.] "What rank heresy, Phil!" exclaimed his sister, with a laugh. "I know it, and I have been in a very uncomfortable state of 'mental chemicalization'--which is another pat phrase coined by that same remarkable woman--over it for some time." "Dear me! what is the world coming to with its ever-changing creeds, doctrines and opinions? One begins to feel that there is no really solid foundation to anything," replied Mrs. Seabrook, with a troubled brow. "Phillip!"--with a start and a sudden blanching of her face--"are you losing faith in your treatment of Dorothy?" "I should have all faith if she were improving under it," he returned, moodily. "But she isn't! You are seeing that as well as I," and the mother's voice broke with sudden anguish. "Oh, if you are losing faith I shall know there is no hope." "Don't, Emelie," pleaded her brother; "I really am hoping much from this change--" "Ah! that is equivalent to saying that you have exhausted your methods--that our only hope now is in a salubrious atmosphere, etc. It has been the same story, over and over," she wailed. "Every physician we have had--his resources having failed--has suggested 'change of air and scene,' and 'hoped that nature would do the rest.' What do you doctors mean by that? What is 'nature'?" she concluded, almost wildly. "I see, Emelie, you feel that is a way of begging the question to secure release from a doubtful position," the man returned, sadly. "Well"--with a sigh--"I am forced to admit that none of our remedies are infallible. But, it should not be so," he went on, thoughtfully, "For years I have felt it when disease has baffled me; there should be a panacea--a universal remedy, provided by an all-wise Creator for suffering humanity; but, ah! to find it!" At those words Mrs. Seabrook started and looked up quickly. "Have you those books--that you mentioned to-day--with you?" she inquired. "Yes." "I want to read them." "Will would never forgive me for putting them into your hands." Mrs. Seabrook sat suddenly erect. "I am not a child that I must have my reading selected for me," she retorted, spiritedly. "But, I can buy them." "Dear, I wouldn't force you to that expense to gain your point," said her brother, as he tenderly laid his arm around her shoulders. "They are in my trunk, and you can have them whenever you wish. But you are tired--go to bed now, and I hope you will have a good night's rest." "I am afraid I have seemed cross and out of sorts, Phil. Perhaps I also am in a state of 'mental chemicalization,'" she said, with a faint smile that ended in a sob; "but, indeed, my heart is very sore. I shall read your books, and, if they appeal to me, I--shall have Christian Science treatment for my child," and there was a ring of something very like defiance in her voice which smote strangely on her brother's ear; for Emelie Seabrook had ever been regarded as one of the gentlest and least self-willed of women. But the reading of the books was postponed, for Dorrie began to droop again, and the faithful mother could scarcely be persuaded to leave her even for necessary food and sleep. Mrs. Minturn, Katherine and Sadie were all tireless in their efforts to do something to lighten her burdens. Many a delicacy found its way to the cottage to tempt the capricious appetite of the child; interesting incidents were treasured to relate to her, and many devices employed to shorten the weary hours. But there came a time that tried them all, for, in spite of the greatest care and watchfulness, the girl contracted a sudden and violent cold, and became so seriously ill that Dr. Stanley--though he gave no sign of his fears--felt that the end was very near. For three days he battled fiercely with the seeming destroyer, while her suffering drove them all to the verge of despair. At sunset of the third day, while attempting to change her position, hoping to make her more comfortable, she suddenly lapsed into a semi-conscious state from which they could not arouse her. When this condition had lasted for upwards of half an hour Mrs. Seabrook turned despairingly to her brother. "Can you do nothing, Phillip?" she asked. "I am afraid not, Emelie, except to continue giving the stimulants to try to keep the spark of life a little longer," he returned with white lips. His sister caught her breath sharply. "Then--will you give her up to--Mrs. Minturn?" she cried, hoarsely. He bent a look of surprised inquiry upon her. "I am going to try it," she went on, still in that unnatural tone. "I am going to try to save my child, and--I do not care who says 'no.'" Phillip Stanley went to her, took her white face between his hands and kissed her tenderly, as he said: "Very well, Emelie, I will go at once for her, and, from my soul, I am glad that you have taken this stand." He hurried from the house and went with all speed to the Minturn mansion. He found Mrs. Minturn on the veranda, Katherine and her guests having gone for a walk. "Will you come with me?" he asked. "You are needed at once." He briefly explained the situation to her, and in less than five minutes they were both at Dorothy's bedside. "Oh, can you do anything for her?" helplessly moaned the heart- broken mother as the woman entered the room. "Dear heart, God is our refuge. He is the 'strength of our life'; of whom shall we be afraid?" Mrs. Minturn quoted in calm, sweet tones, as she slipped a reassuring arm around Mrs. Seabrook's waist; and, standing thus, she repeated the ninety-first psalm through to the end; then dropping her face upon her hand, she treated silently for ten minutes or more. Meantime Dorothy's half-opened lids had gently closed, hiding the sightless eyes, and she lay almost breathless upon her pillows. Dr. Stanley, alertly observant of every change, believed it was the end; but, having relinquished his patient, knowing that he was absolutely helpless at this supreme moment, he made no sign. Presently Mrs. Minturn broke the silence. "Will you please leave me alone with her for a while?" she asked. "Oh, I cannot leave my child!" panted Mrs. Seabrook, rebelliously. "She is in our Father's care--our trust is in Him," Mrs. Minturn gently returned. "Go into the next room and lie down. I promise to call you if there is the slightest need, and, believe me, I ask only what is best." Dr. Stanley took his sister by the hand and led her unresistingly from the room. He made her go to an adjoining chamber and lie upon a couch, then seated himself beside her. To his amazement her tense form almost instantly relaxed and in twenty minutes she was asleep. He sat there with his head bowed upon his hands for nearly two hours, thinking as he had seldom thought during his whole life. At the end of that time the door of Dorothy's room was noiselessly opened and Mrs. Minturn beckoned to him. He went to her--softly closing to but not latching the door of his sister's room--to ascertain what she wanted, but with fear and trembling. "Please get me a glass of warm milk," she said to him. "There is some brandy--" he began. "No; milk, if you please," she returned, and disappeared within the room. A few minutes later he handed the glass in to her and the door was shut again. Another endless hour and a half he passed sitting upon a balcony that opened off the same floor, waiting--waiting for he knew not what. Then Mrs. Minturn came to him with the empty tumbler in her hand. "Have it filled again, please," she said. "Is it for--Dorothy?" "Yes; she has taken what you brought before and asked for more." "Asked!" and in spite of his professional self-poise the man's heart bounded into his throat. "Yes, she is awake; is perfectly conscious and free from pain, though weak, to sense; but we know that God is omnipresent strength," Mrs. Minturn replied, with an assurance that proved to him she was confidently resting upon the Rock of Ages, and which also inspired him with hope. When he returned with the milk he longed to go in and see for himself how the child was progressing, but Mrs. Minturn stood in the aperture of the half-opened door, and he instinctively knew that his presence was not desired. As she took the glass from him she inquired: "Is Mrs. Seabrook sleeping?" "I think so--she was when I left her." "Pray let her rest," said his companion; "but if she should wake tell her that Dorrie is more comfortable; that I shall remain with her all night and do not wish to be disturbed. And you, Dr. Stanley"--with gentle authority--"you must try to rest also; you may safely trust the child to God, and with me as His sentinel, for she is doing well. But first, if you will slip over to the house and ask Katherine to send my night-wrapper I can make myself more comfortable; just drop it outside the door, then go to bed and 'be not faithless but believing,' Good-night." She softly closed the door, and the man went obediently to do her bidding; while, "after the storm there was a great calm" in his heart. CHAPTER XX. INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS. Phillip Stanley sped across the street to do his errand and inquired for Katherine. She heard his voice and went directly to him when he told her what her mother had just said about Dorrie, and the light that leaped into her great brown eyes inspired him with fresh hope. "Ah! mamma is holding her in the 'secret place,' and we know she is safe," she said, in a reverent tone. She quickly brought the wrapper; then, with a brief handclasp, he bade her "good-night" and retraced his steps. Before going upstairs he sought the kitchen, where the cook was lingering, thinking something might be needed, and ordered a dainty lunch prepared; then, taking both tray and garment, he left them at Dorrie's door and passed on to the next room to find his sister just waking. "Phillip!" she cried, starting up, "I have been asleep!" "Yes, Emelie, for more than three hours, I am glad to say." "Oh, how inconsiderate of me! And--Dorrie?" she questioned, in a quavering voice. "Is more comfortable. She has been awake twice, and had two glasses of milk," replied her brother, as he laid a gentle, but restraining hand upon her shoulder, for she was on the point of rising. She regarded him wonderingly. "Phillip! I can't believe it! I must go to her," she said, almost breathless. "No; Mrs. Minturn is going to remain all night. She says she is not to be disturbed, and we must respect her wishes," said Dr. Stanley, authoritatively. "She will call you if you are needed, but says she wants us both to rest, if possible. Now lie down again, dear, and I will sit in the Morris chair in the hall, to be near if you wish to speak to me." Mrs. Seabrook sat irresolute a moment, her eyes anxious and yearning. "Emelie, you have voluntarily given Dorrie into God's hands; now prove that you trust Him," her companion gravely admonished. She looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, I will; and I believe that 'His hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear,'" she replied, and immediately lay back upon her pillow. Her brother covered her with a shawl, then left her with a thankful heart, for he knew she was sadly in need of rest. Going to his room, he secured his copy of "Science and Health," and, retracing his steps, settled himself to read by the table in the hall, which was often used as a sitting room. As he sat down he observed that Mrs. Minturn's wrapper and the tray had disappeared; then he became absorbed in his book. The next he knew a hand was laid softly on his shoulder, and, starting erect, he saw that a new day was just breaking and Mrs. Minturn standing beside him, looking as fresh and serene as if she had just come from hours of sweet repose instead of from a long night's vigil. "Dorrie is hungry," she said, "and I think it would be well if you would arouse one of the maids and have something nice prepared for her." "I will; what shall it be?" said the man, springing nimbly to his feet, but scarcely able to credit his ears. "A dropped egg and a slice of toast, with a glass of milk, will perhaps be forthcoming as quickly as any-thing--" "Wait, Phil--don't call anyone. I will get it," interposed Mrs. Seabrook's voice, just behind them. "Dorrie hungry!" she added, wonderingly. She had heard Mrs. Minturn's request, and hurried out to convince herself that she was not dreaming. "Yes, so she says," said Mrs. Minturn, smiling serenely into the questioning eyes, "and when her breakfast is ready I think she will prove the truth of her words to you." Away sped the mother, marveling at what she had heard, but with a hymn of praise thrilling her heart; and, ten minutes later, as she moved lightly over the stairs again, she heard a sweet, though weak, voice saying: "Listen, Mrs. Minturn!--just hear the birds sing!" Phillip Stanley heard it also, as he sat in the hall, his head bowed upon his hands, while great tears rolled over his cheeks and dropped unheeded on the floor; and, as the feathered choristers without sweetly chirped their tuneful matins, his grateful heart responded with reverent joy--"Glory to God in the highest." As Mrs. Seabrook entered Dorrie's room and saw the change in the loved face--still very thin and white, it is true, but with a look of peace on the brow, the eyes bright, the pale lips wreathed with smiles--her composure well-nigh forsook her. "Mamma, hear the birds!--and it isn't sunrise yet!" she said again, as her mother approached her. "Yes, dear; but I hear what is far sweeter music to me," the woman replied, making a huge effort at self-control. "So you are hungry, Dorrie!" she added, bending to kiss the lips uplifted to greet her. "Yes, really and truly hungry, and so happy; for my cold and the pain are all gone. How kind of Mrs. Minturn to stay with me! Did you sleep, mamma?" "Like a kitten, dear. I think we have a great deal to thank Mrs. Minturn for," said Mrs. Seabrook, bending a grateful look upon her friend. "That tastes good," Dorrie observed, as she partook, with evident relish, of the delicately prepared egg, "and how nicely you do toast bread! It looks almost like gold." She was silent a moment, then resumed: "Mamma, I wish you could have heard how beautifully Mrs. Minturn talked to me, last night, every time I awoke; and repeated such lovely things from the Bible. Of course, I have heard them before, but, somehow, they sound different as she says them." "And you begin to see that God never made or intended anyone to be sick or suffer; that it is your right to be well and strong. You will try to think of that often to-day, will you not, Dorothy?" said Mrs. Minturn, as she lifted the small hand near her, to find no fever but a gentle moisture in the palm, instead. "Yes, and I've a better idea now of what Miss Katherine once said about God--that He is Mind and perfect, and if we would let this perfect Mind rule us we would be well. What was that you read me from your little book about it feeding the body?" the girl earnestly inquired. "'Mind constantly feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness,'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 248.] quoted Mrs. Minturn. "Yes, that was it; if that is true, people should never be sick," said Dorothy, with a little sigh. "No, and they would not be if they only knew how to let the divine Mind control them. You are going to learn how, Dorothy, and so find yourself growing strong and well with every day," said Mrs. Minturn, with a cheery smile. "I wish I knew more about it," Dorothy wistfully observed. "Mamma, why cannot we have a book like Mrs. Minturn's?" "We will have, dear," was the prompt response. "Have you had enough?"--as the girl gently put away the half-eaten slice of toast. "Yes, when I have had the milk." She drank it all and then lay back, smiling contentedly. "It is so nice not to have any pain," she added; "it makes me love everybody. Ha! Uncle Phil"--for the man was peering in at the door, unable to keep away a moment longer--"come here and I will kiss you 'good-morning.'" Mrs. Seabrook could bear no more and stole away with her tray to hide the tears she could no longer restrain. Mrs. Minturn followed her. "I am going now," she said, "but I shall continue to work for Dorrie all day, at intervals, and will run over now and then. All is going well, so 'be not afraid, only believe.'" "How can I ever express what is in my heart?" faltered Mrs. Seabrook, tears raining over her face. "You do not need to try, for I know it all, having once been almost where Dorrie seemed to be last night," her friend returned. "But do not make a marvel of it--just know that God's ways are 'divinely natural,' and that it is unnatural for anything but health and harmony to exist in His universe. I have left my book, and you can read to her if she expresses a wish to have you do so." There were very grateful, reverent hearts in the Hunt cottage that day and during the days that followed, for Dorothy continued to improve rapidly and steadily, and there was no return of the old pain that had made life so wretched for her for years. The fourth day after her long night-watch Mrs. Minturn sent a roomy carriage--the back seat piled with down coverlids--"to take them all for a drive." Dr. Stanley, still governed largely by the "old thought," would have vetoed such a suggestion under different circumstances, and claimed that the child was still too weak to attempt anything of the kind. But he felt that he, himself, was now under orders, and meekly refrained from even expressing an opinion. So they thankfully accepted their neighbor's kindness, and when he saw Dorrie's delight in being once more out of doors, when he met her dancing eyes and noted the faint color coming into her cheeks and lips, and every day realized that she was getting stronger, something within seemed to tell him that she would yet be well; and--figuratively speaking--he reverently took off his materia medica hat to Mrs. Minturn and secretly registered the vow of Ruth to Naomi--"Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God." One evening, after Dorothy was in bed and asleep, he came upon his sister in the upper hall reading "Science and Health," and he smiled, for since the night of their great trial she had literally devoured the book every spare moment she could get. "Have you written Will anything about our recent experiences?" he inquired, as she glanced up at him. "No; and I am not going to--just yet. Of course, I have written him," she hastened to add, "but I have said nothing about Dorrie, except that she is improving. I think"--thoughtfully--"I will make 'open confession' by another week, for I had a talk with Mrs. Minturn, this afternoon, and she feels that it is hardly fair, that she is not quite justified to go on with the treatment without his consent." "Suppose he should still object?" suggested Dr. Stanley. "Oh, he will not--he cannot when he learns the truth and of the great change in her; that the old pain is gone and she sleeps the whole night through," earnestly returned Mrs. Seabrook, but flushing hotly, for she had been secretly dreading to tell her husband of the responsibility she had assumed. "Well, when you are ready to write let me know, for I also shall have something to say to him," said her brother, gravely. A week later two voluminous letters, charged with matter of serious import, went sailing over the ocean on their way to Paris, where it was expected they would find Prof. Seabrook, who, having turned his face home-ward, would spend the last week of August there. Each was characteristic of the writer; the mother's touchingly pathetic in describing the "valley of the shadow" through which they had passed, and glowing with love and gratitude to God in view of the present hopeful and peaceful conditions; closing with an earnest, even piteous, appeal for her husband's unqualified consent to continue Christian Science treatment. The young physician was no less earnest in laying the case before his brother-in-law, but rather more logical and philosophical in discussing it, as well as very positive in his deductions. In conclusion he wrote: "Perhaps you may be surprised to learn that I have been reading up on this subject during the last few months; but, as I have also been practicing medicine, at the same time, the mental conflict has been something indescribable. I told myself, in my presumption and egotism, that if there was healing power in Christian Science I would look into it and utilize it in connection with my own methods. The result has been a state of perpetual fizz--I know no better word to describe it; and now, after our recent experience, I find myself willing to sit humbly at the feet of higher authority and learn of a better and more efficacious healing art than I know of at present. For, I tell you in plain terms, Dorothy was dying--she was past all human aid when that blessed woman came, like an angel of peace, to us and in one night brought back our darling from the border of the unseen world. She, with her understanding of Christian Science, saved her. There can be no doubt on that point, and the child is better than I have ever seen her since her accident. There has been no return of pain, and you can imagine what that means to us all. She sleeps well, and has a healthy, normal appetite. But Mrs. Minturn is very conscientious-- says she cannot work in a divided household, and must have your approval, if she is to go on with the good work. Now, Will, be a man; put your prejudices away on some upper shelf--or, better still, cast them to the winds; pocket your ecclesiastical and intellectual pride, and give Dorrie a chance. I am convinced 'there is more in this philosophy than we have ever dreamed of,' and I am going to know more about it. Cable just two words--'go on'--if you are willing, and, at the rate she is going on now, I'll wager a hat against a cane that you won't know your own daughter when you arrive. Bring the cane, please! In the same spirit of good fellowship as ever. "Affectionately yours, "PHIL." There was a season of anxious, yet blessed, waiting after these letters were dispatched. Blessed for Dorothy, who was gaining every hour, and happy as the day was long; anxious for Mrs. Seabrook, who could not quite divest herself of the fear of her husband's disapproval, even though Mrs. Minturn was constantly admonishing, "Let not your heart be troubled," and working to demonstrate that there could be no opposition to Truth and that the work, so well begun, could not be hindered by bigotry, pride or self-will. At last, one morning there came a cable message--just two words, as Phillip Stanley had requested, but not what he had asked for. "'Sail to-day,'" Mrs. Seabrook read aloud from the yellow slip, and lost color as she looked anxiously into her brother's eyes and questioned: "What shall we do?" "We will ask Mrs. Minturn," he gravely replied. So the message was taken to her, and after a thoughtful silence she turned with her serene smile to the waiting mother. "We will go on," she said. "The question is ignored, and silence gives consent until we have more definite instructions." And go on they did, all working together, praying, reading, trusting, while they waited for the white-winged vessel and the traveler that were speeding towards them. Three days later, a black bordered envelope was handed Katherine. "It has no more power than you give it, dearie," observed her mother, who saw that she did not at once open it. The girl thanked her with a smile, and instantly broke the seal. "It is from Jennie Wild, mamma," she said, as she turned to the signature on the last page. Then she read aloud: "DEAR MISS MINTURN: Auntie is gone, and it was all so sudden and awful I cannot realize it even yet. She just went to sleep last Thursday, in her chair, and never woke up. She was so dear--so dear, and I loved her with all my heart, and it seems to take everything out of the world for me, for her going leaves me alone, with no one to love, or have a kindred feeling for me. I had planned to do such great things for her when I should leave school, so that she need not work every minute to support me, and now I can do nothing and have been a burden to her all these years. It is dreadful to be a 'stray waif,' your identity lost, and your only friend swept out of the world without a moment's warning. "Well, I am young and strong--I can work, and sometime, perhaps, I shall understand why I am here--what special niche I am to fill; though at present nothing but a blank wall seems to loom up before me. Of course, this means I am not going back to Hilton, for auntie's annuity ceased when she went; the quarterly remittance came the day before, so there was enough, and a little more, to take care of her. I am going, tomorrow, to Jerome's, to see if I can get a place in the store. I want to stay here because, now and then, I can see you, the Seabrooks, and some of the other girls who have been good to me. Please write to me, dear Miss Minturn. I thought of you first in my trouble, for you always have something so comforting to say when one is unhappy. Do you know anything about Prof, and Mrs. Seabrook, or how Dorothy is? "Lovingly yours, "JENNIE WILD." There was a long silence, after Katherine finished reading this epistle, during which both mother and daughter were absorbed in thought. They were alone, for Miss Reynolds had left a few days previous and Sadie had gone to Boston to do some shopping. "Mamma," said Katherine, at length, breaking the silence, "there is Grandma Minturn's legacy." Mrs. Minturn lifted a bewildered look to her. "Ah!" she said, the next moment, as she caught her meaning, "I understand; you want to use it for Jennie." "Yes; it is too bad for her education to be stopped. She is a conscientious student, in spite of her pranks, and I cannot endure the thought of her going into a dry-goods store as a clerk," Katherine replied. "But the will states that the legacy is to be used for 'a European tour, or a wedding trousseau, or--'" "I know; but, mamma, I've had my European tour with you--such a lovely one, too!" Katherine interposed; "while as for the trousseau"--this with a faint smile--"that is a possible need so far away in the dim distance as to be absolutely invisible at present. So if you will let me use the money for Jennie I shall be happy, and I am sure it will be 'bread' well 'cast upon the waters.'" "Dear heart!" replied her mother, in a voice that was not quite steady, "it is a lovely thought; but we cannot decide so important a matter without consulting your father. If he approves you have my hearty sanction."' John Minturn, big-hearted, whole-souled, and always ready to lend a helping hand to a needy brother or sister, was deeply touched by Katherine's generosity. "Well, 'my girlie,' I guess you can do about as you have a mind to with grandma's legacy," he said, when she unfolded her plan to him. "To be sure she stated what it might be used for, but I think she meant you to get what you most wanted with it. You've had the trip abroad, as you say, and"--with a twinkle in his eyes that brought the color to her cheeks--"when the wedding finery is needed--which I hope won't be for a long time yet--I imagine it will promptly be forthcoming." "Thank you, papa. I wonder if any other girl manages to get her own way as often as I do!" said the happy maiden, as she gave his ear a playful tweak and supplemented it with a kiss on his lips. "Well, Miss Philanthropy, for once I'll concede that it is an irresistible 'way,'" he retorted, then added more seriously: "And I think we will insist that Miss Wild shall return to Hilton as a regular student and have no outside duties to handicap her in the race, for the next three years." "That was my own thought, too, papa; but"--with a look of perplexity--"there are nearly three weeks before school opens, and I am wondering what she will do with herself during that time." "Oh, that is easily managed; tell her to board with some nice family, and be getting her finery in order. Judging from what is going on upstairs, she'll need a few stitches taken as well as some other people whom I know," returned the man, with a chuckle; for, unlike the majority of his kind, he took a deep interest in the apparel of his wife and daughter, especially in the "pretty nothings" which add so much to the tout ensemble. But upon confiding her plans to Mrs. Seabrook, that lady at once vetoed the boarding proposition. "Tell Jennie to go directly to the seminary and remain with the matron and maids, who will be there next Monday to begin to put the house in order," she had said. "And--as she knows where everything belongs--if she will oversee our rooms put to rights I shall feel that I need not hurry back." So, with a happy heart, Katherine wrote immediately to her protegee a loving, tender letter, which also contained sympathetic messages from all her other friends. Then, with great tact, she unfolded her own plans and wishes regarding her future, and in conclusion said: "Jennie, dear, never again say that you are a 'stray waif,' for nothing ever goes astray in God's universe. Your 'identity' is not 'lost,' for you are God's child, and that child can never be deprived of her birthright, nor of any good thing necessary to her happiness or well-being. Neither have you 'been deprived of your only friend,' nor has she been swept beyond the focus of your love, or you of hers. The bond that existed between you can never be broken, for it was, and still is, the reflection of divine Love that is omnipresent. I am looking forward to our reunion, and shall think of you often as the days slip by. "With dear love, KATHERINE MINTURN." The response which Katherine received to the above letter drew tears from her eyes, for Jennie's full heart overflowed most touchingly, showing a depth of grateful appreciation that did her much credit. While still grieving for her "dear auntie," she could not restrain her joy, in view of the great boon of going back to school, and wrote of it: "I did not think anything could make me so happy again, and I can never tell you how I love you for it. I will improve every minute. I will make you all proud of me. No one shall ever have cause to call me 'Wild Jennie' again, and when I graduate and get to teaching I shall pay you back every penny it has cost to fit me for it." One evening, after dinner, the Minturns went, with some friends who were visiting them, to Katherine's favorite outlook, and, as they were passing the Hunt cottage they saw Dr. Stanley on the porch and invited him to join them. The sun was just setting as they reached their point of observation, where the view, illuminated by the vivid crimson and gold in the western sky, was impressive and magnificent beyond description. They lingered long, as if loath to leave the enchanting prospect; but, as the softer shades of twilight began to steal gently like a veil of gauze over the scene, they turned their faces homeward once more. As she was on the point of following, Katherine found Dr. Stanley tarrying beside her. "Will you wait a moment?" he inquired, in a low voice, which impressed her as sounding not quite natural. She paused with an inquiring look, and he led her back towards the edge of the bluff. "Miss Minturn, do you see a vessel far out at sea?" he asked. "Yes, it is a--" "Pardon me, please," he interposed; "it is a five-masted schooner, with sails all set, is it not?" "Why, yes," she began, turning to him in surprise, to find him looking off at the vessel, his right eye covered with one hand. For a moment she could not speak. Then her face grew luminous with a great joy as she realized what it meant. "Oh!" she breathed, softly. "Yes, I can see," he said. "The sight has been slowly coming during the last month, and I have dimly discerned things around me. Yesterday Mrs. Minturn made a startling statement regarding sight being 'spiritual perception'--that 'it is not dependent upon the physical eye, the optic nerves, etc., but upon Mind, the all- seeing God,' and I caught a glimpse of something I had not comprehended before. To-day I found I could read my 'Science and Health' clearly, with both eyes; but I have not spoken of it to anyone until now--'twas you who first assured me that such a boon could be conferred. Miss Minturn"--he removed his hat and bowed his head reverently--"all honor to the 'Science of sciences' and to her, the inspired messenger through whom it has been given to a needy world." CHAPTER XXI. THE TRAVELER RETURNS. One evening Sadie was sitting by herself upon the veranda that overlooked the ocean, and where she was watching a glorious full moon which seemed to be rolling straight out of the glimmering sea into the cloudless vault above. It was unusual for her to be alone, but Mrs. Minturn had slipped away for a chat with Mrs. Seabrook, and Katherine, at the invitation of Dr. Stanley, had gone for a walk to the library in search of an interesting book for Dorothy. Sadie had changed much during her summer with her friends. She had grown more thoughtful, more self-poised, more orderly and systematic in her ways; while, it goes without saying, she had become deeply attached to every member of the family. Just now she was absorbed in a mental discussion with herself regarding what would be the most acceptable and appropriate gift she could offer each one, to attest her appreciation of their united kindness and unrivaled hospitality in taking her so lovingly into their household for the long vacation. Without having heard a step or a movement, without a suspicion that any living being was near, her name was suddenly pronounced in familiar tones directly behind her. "Sadie!" She sprang to her feet and faced the intruder. "Oh, Ned! Why have you come? Why cannot you let me alone?" she cried, in a startled tone. "I have come to make you take back your ring," and he held out the box to her. "And I cannot 'leave you alone,' because--you know why, Sadie." "No, I shall not take back the ring," she replied, waving it away, "and I wrote you that everything was at an end between us; that I would not be bound to you any longer." "But you are bound--you have given me your promise." "I have taken back that promise." "Why?" "Because--oh! for many reasons. I have my course to finish; I mean to put my best work into the coming year, and I will not be hampered in any such way," resolutely returned Sadie, who was fast recovering tier self-possession. "No; it is because that preaching, sanctimonious Katherine Minturn has influenced you against me," hotly retorted her companion. "Katherine Minturn is the dearest, loveliest, sweetest girl in the world, and I won't hear one word against her," said Sadie, in stout defense of her friend. "Well, what are some of your other 'many reasons'?" demanded Mr. Willard, and quickly retreating from what he saw was dangerous ground. "I--reckon I'm under no obligation to give them," slowly returned the girl, after a moment of thought. "It is sufficient that I have decided to end everything. Now please let that settle it and don't try to see me again." "Don't you care for me any more, Sadie? What have I done? What fault have you to find with me?" "Have you no fault to find with yourself, Ned Willard? Are you satisfied with the life you are living?" gravely inquired Sadie, but ignoring his queries. "But you would be the making of me, Sadie. Under your influence I could be anything--everything you could wish." "Well, now--doesn't that strike you as rather a weak argument for a man to offer for himself?" returned his companion, lapsing into her Southern drawl which, of late, had not been so prominent; "to ask a girl to bind herself irrevocably to him for life and holding out as an inducement the privilege of reforming him?" and there was a note of scorn in the lazy tones that stung the man to sudden anger. "I swear I will not be trifled with in any such way," he passionately exclaimed. "You shall rue your words, Sadie Minot--" "I reckon I'd better go in," she interrupted, and turned haughtily from him. "You won't go in yet," he said, through tightly shut teeth, as he placed himself in her path. "I'll see if--" At that instant voices were heard, and, turning, both saw Katherine, accompanied by Dr. Stanley, mounting the steps leading to the veranda. With a half audible imprecation, the baffled intruder sprang upon the railing and vaulted over. But his foot becoming entangled in the vines trailing there caused him to fall heavily to the ground, where, after one sharp cry of agony, he lay silent and motionless. In less time than it takes to record it, Sadie was kneeling beside him, while her friends followed closely after. "I will call the coachman. We must get him into the house immediately," said Katherine, who was intent only upon giving instant succor to the injured man. "No," vetoed Dr. Stanley, authoritatively, "he must not be taken in here. You may call help, however, and I will have him carried to my room, where I will ascertain how seriously he is injured, then we can decide what further disposition to make of him." The coachman and hostler were summoned, and the unconscious man was borne to the Hunt cottage and laid upon Phillip Stanley's bed. Here an examination revealed that the left leg had been broken above the knee; but, before an hour had passed, this was skillfully set and the patient made as comfortable as possible for the night. Dr. Stanley would not permit his sister to be inconvenienced in any way by this addition to their family, but took it upon himself to minister to the sufferer's requirements, which he did with all the ease and skill of a trained nurse. During the first day or two the young man preserved a sullen silence; but as his attendant manifested only good will and invariably treated him with the utmost courtesy and kindness, his reserve gradually wore away and he became more communicative. "This has proved a pretty unlucky trip for me," he observed, on the third morning after the accident, and thus introducing a subject which Dr. Stanley had studiously avoided. "Possibly; but you are coming on all right. You have had no fever, no pain," the physician replied. "No, and I don't understand that part of it at all," remarked his patient, thoughtfully. "I have always supposed it was a terrible experience to have a broken bone set." "Well, Willard, I have a confession to make to you about that," his companion returned; "you were in such a state of collapse Tuesday night I felt you were unfit to decide any question for yourself, and, as I had no anaesthetics at hand, I asked Mrs. Minturn to give you a Christian Science treatment while I performed my duties, and since then I have been trying to work, under her direction, to keep the claims of inflammation and fever from manifesting themselves." "Christian Science!" repeated the patient, with a short laugh. "Well, I've heard that it would do great things, but I never took any stock in it; it seemed like so much twaddle to me. You are sure you're not guying me, doctor?" "Indeed, I am not; you can rely on what I have told you." "All right; the method doesn't signify, so long as I was spared the pain." "Then, are you willing to keep on under the same treatment?" inquired his companion. "I'll be blamed! I believe you're turning Scientist yourself!" exclaimed Willard, with a broad grin. "But it makes no difference to me what you do, so I get results. You're a first-class doctor, and would be sure to know if anything was going wrong. But-- confound the luck!--I don't want to be laid up here for three months," he concluded, impatiently. "There will be no need of that. I think by the end of another week you can be put upon a Pullman and go home," was the encouraging response. "Home!" was the bitter retort. "You know I can't go there, Stanley." "Well, you are going to be well taken care of, anyway. I shall attend to that," said Dr. Stanley, kindly. "Doc, you're O. K. You've been mighty good to me, first and last," the patient observed, and flushing with sudden feeling. "I suppose you know what brought me down here," he added, after a moment of silence. "Yes, I know something about it. You followed Miss Minot here." "Why shouldn't I follow her?" was the hot reply. "She had promised to marry me." "I understand that promise had been revoked." "She had no right to revoke it after leading me on--" "Leading you on!" sternly interrupted Phillip Stanley. "Willard, don't add to your other sins by laying that at the girl's door, when I've known of your boasts that before the year was out you 'would have a wife and the handling of a cool three hundred thousand dollars.'" "Who told you that?" demanded the young man, with a guilty flush and a shame-faced air. "It does not matter who told me; I have it on good authority." "But, Stanley, I am fond of her. I really am." "Suppose Alfred Bent was fond of your sister, Minnie, in the same way, would you like to have him marry her?" The fellow shrank as under a lash and his eyes blazed. "By thunder--no!" he vehemently returned. "But Alfred Bent has been your inseparable crony during the last two years that you have wasted, and there is very little to choose between you. So ask yourself if you are fit to marry a girl like Miss Minot; what right you have to ruin her life and squander her money." "I say, doc, you are piling it on thick," Willard here interposed, in an injured tone. "Yes, I know it sounds harsh, Ned," said the physician, bending a grave though kindly look on him, "but, in my profession, you know we sometimes have to probe and adopt severe measures before a cure can be effected. You also know, from past experience, that kindness was the only motive that prompted me in what I have done and still prompts me in what I am doing; so, now having come to an enforced pause in your career, I want you to improve it by doing some serious thinking. You are a fellow of more than ordinary natural ability, Ned, and have it in your power to gain an enviable position in the world if you would turn your talents in the right direction." "You flatter me," was the sarcastic interruption. "I have been telling you some very plain truths, and it is only fair to give credit also where it is due," said his companion, in a friendly tone. "I am sure that underneath your seeming recklessness you have not always felt comfortable or satisfied with yourself. You are the only son of a fine father, who has given you every advantage. Your mother is one of the 'salt of the earth'; but her hair has been growing very white during the last two years, and Minnie--well, my heart has often ached for her as I have noted the sad drooping of her eyes and the grieved quiver of her lips when she has spoken to me of you." "Stanley, have you any brandy in the house?" suddenly demanded Willard, trying to speak in his ordinary tone; but his companion saw that he was white to his lips, and concluded that he had "probed" far enough for the present. "You are not to have stimulants while you are under treatment," was the quiet but decisive reply. "But, doc, I can't stand it. I really can't. Look!" and he held up a hand that shook like a leaf. "You will be better of that shortly, my boy. I'll take care of it," was the kind reply. "But"--confidentially--"while we are talking of it, wouldn't you be glad to have that habit broken--to be free?" The poor fellow drew in a quick, sharp breath; then, in a hard, metallic tone, he said: "I've thought a score of times I would be free; that I'd end it once for all--take a last drink, you know, with a dose of strychnine in it." Then, tossing back the hair from his forehead, he added, with an effort to be facetious: "I wonder how your science would work on that? I say, Stanley, are you really turning Christian Scientist?" Before his companion could reply, a maid appeared in the doorway, bearing a tray on which a tempting lunch was arranged. Dr. Stanley drew a table beside the bed and deftly placed things so that his patient could easily reach them; then, at his request, went below to join his sister and Dorothy at their repast. The subjects of their recent conversation were not resumed, but, though the physician was in some doubt regarding the impression made on the young man's mind, it was evident that he cherished no resentment. He did not ask for liquor again, either, though there were times when a certain look in his eyes warned his watchful attendant that the old craving was making itself felt and caused him to flee to his "little book" and work vigorously on this first venture, which, with Mrs. Minturn's assistance, he was making in Christian Science. One day, having made his charge comfortable and supplied him with an entertaining book to read, Dr. Stanley sought the companionship of his sister and Dorothy, on the broad piazza, where they now almost lived when the weather was fine. "See! Uncle Phil," cried his niece, the moment he appeared, and holding up some work for his inspection, "mamma is teaching me to fagot and hemstitch, and I am going to make some pretty collars like hers," and the eager tone and sparkling eyes told how deeply interested the girl was in the novel employment. The hitherto sunken cheeks were beginning to assume a graceful contour; the lips had taken on a decided tinge of scarlet, while an unaccustomed vigor in all her movements told of daily increasing strength, and the cheery ring in her voice was like music to loving hearts. The man bent down to inspect the small piece of linen and the dainty stitches, his face all aglow with inward thanksgiving as he praised her work. "We will have you turning dressmaker next and setting up an establishment for yourself," he observed, in a sportive tone. "Well, why not?" she gayly retorted. "If I took a notion to learn dressmaking, I am sure I could do it. But"--more gravely--"I am going to study like everything this winter and make up for lost time. Mamma and I have been talking it over, and she thinks I can begin the regular course if I want to. I do, and I mean to go through and graduate like any other student." "Indeed! We are making great plans, aren't we?" "Yes, I know it sounds big for me; but Mrs. Minturn says 'there is nothing we cannot do if we do not limit God,' and Miss Katherine says--" "Well, what does Miss Katherine say?" queried her uncle, in an eager tone, as Dorothy paused to count the threads she was taking on her needle. She looked up quickly into his face, his tone having attracted her. "I guess you think she is pretty nice, too," she observed, naively. "What has put that idea into your small head?" "Oh! the way you speak of her and look at her sometimes, and-- well, of course"--with an appreciative sigh--"anybody couldn't help loving her." "But you haven't told me what she said," persisted the man, but feeling the color mounting in his face as he caught the merry gleam in his sister's eyes. "Oh! she said that 'God being the only intelligence, man reflects that intelligence, and there is nothing we cannot learn if we keep that in our thought as we study'; so you see, it is all right for me to plan to go through college if I want to," and the tone indicated that the matter was settled. "'Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes,'" quoted Phillip Stanley to himself, as he stooped to recover a spool that rolled from Mrs. Seabrook's lap. At the same moment the sound of wheels fell upon their ears; the next, a carriage stopped before their door and a stalwart figure leaped to the ground. "Papa!" "William!" fell simultaneously from the lips of the mother and daughter--one with a ring of triumph in her voice, the other with a note of intense yearning in her tones. The man caught his wife to his breast. "Sweetheart, it is joy to hold you here once more," he breathed, as their lips met; and she knew there was no cloud between them. Then he turned and knelt beside his child, folding her in a long, silent embrace. One swift glance into her bright, eager, happy face had told him a story that thrilled his soul and made him, for the moment, dumb. "Papa, you can see, can't you?--and you are glad, aren't you? "Dorothy at length observed, as she lifted wet but joyful eyes to his bronzed face. "Darling, I can see, and I am more than 'glad,'" he returned, in a husky tone, as he gently released her, then arose to greet his brother-in-law. "Phillip, old boy, it is good to be home again," he said, as he clasped the outstretched hand, and the hearty grip told the younger man that there would be no controversy between them over a previously mooted question, while he was strangely touched, when he added, with a smile that was somewhat tremulous: "The cane is here, Phil, and at your disposal." "What is that about a cane, papa?" cried Dorothy, whose quick ears had caught what he had said. "I asked your father to bring me a nice cane from abroad," her uncle explained. "Well, papa," the girl pursued, "I hope it is a very handsome one, and that you will make him a present of it, for you can never know how good Uncle Phil' has been to us." Both gentlemen laughed, and were glad of the opportunity to give vent in this way to their pent-up emotions. "All right, Dorrie; and when you see it you shall be the judge whether it is fine enough," replied the professor, as he turned again to feast his eyes upon the wonderful change in her. A little later the lunch bell sounded, and the happy quartet went within to break bread together, for the first time in two long months. But one of the number could only make a pretense at eating--his heart was too full to allow him to do much but covertly watch his child, who was vigorously plying knife and fork and manifesting the appreciative appetite of a normally hungry girl. Of course, there was much to tell and talk over, and the afternoon slipped swiftly away, twilight coming upon them almost before "the half had been told." The subject of Christian Science had been mutually avoided, and was not referred to until after dinner, when Mrs. Minturn came in for her usual visit to Dorothy. Prof. Seabrook had never met her but once, and that was when she had visited Hilton to apply for Katherine's admission to the school. But he recognized her instantly, and greeted her with the utmost cordiality. When her interview with Dorothy was over and she rejoined the group in the parlor, he invited her to be seated and placed a chair for her. "But this is your first evening with your dear ones, and they should have the privilege of monopolizing you," she objected, with her charming smile. "Nay, there are some things that must be said, you know, and they, I am sure, are longing to hear them," he returned, with visible emotion. "First, I have no words adequate to express my gratitude for what you have done for my child." "Not what I have done," the lady interposed, with gentle emphasis. "I understand--and I have been trying to thank God every moment since my return," he said, "but you claim to be His messenger, or instrument, and surely we cannot ignore that fact. I left Dorrie pale and wasted to a mere shadow, scarcely able to move or help herself in any way. I find to-day a bright, animated girl, rapidly taking on flesh and strength, sitting upright in her chair-- sewing! How the wonder has been accomplished is beyond my comprehension. I had previously vetoed Christian Science treatment; to be frank, I contemptuously repudiated it. I can no longer hold it in derision, neither can I say that my attitude towards it, as a science, or a religion, has changed." "That is yet to come," said Mrs. Minturn, smiling, as he paused. "I have read your text-book," he resumed, "but with a critical frame of mind that has been termed 'ecclesiastical and intellectual pride'"--this with a quizzical glance at his brother, who nodded back a sharp assent--"and I could or would find nothing good in it. To me it seemed atheistic, fallacious, heretical. You perceive I am not sparing myself in these admissions," he interposed, "but I have been doing some serious thinking during my return voyage, and now I am going to read that book again; not to criticise, but to get at its true inwardness if I can." "That is a spirit that will surely bring its own reward," Mrs. Minturn responded, her face luminous with admiration for the frank and conscientious acknowledgment which the man had made. Mrs. Seabrook turned glad eyes upon her husband. "And, William, we will have her keep on with the treatment, will we not?" "Assuredly; one could never have the heart to stop the good work, even though one may not comprehend the method," he heartily responded, and the happy wife and mother heaved a sigh of supreme content. They talked on for a while longer, then Mrs. Minturn gracefully took her leave and went home to tell Katherine that another prodigal was on his way to his Father's house. CHAPTER XXII. PHILLIP STANLEY'S FIRST DEMONSTRATION. A week after the return of Prof. Seabrook, Dr. Stanley ventured to transfer his patient to his native city. He was desirous of getting him away before the general flitting back to Hilton, in order to prevent awkward meetings and complications. The young man had improved steadily, and his physician had found him, as a rule, very patient and tractable. He avoided talking about himself, and never again referred to the conversation that had occurred a few days after his accident. He read a great deal, conversed freely of politics, current events, etc., and evidently tried to cause as little trouble as possible. He was often seriously thoughtful, a circumstance which his observant attendant regarded as a favorable indication, while, now and then, he would drop a word that betrayed his appreciation of the rare kindness he was receiving. In arranging for his transportation Dr. Stanley neglected nothing that would contribute to his comfort, and he made the trip without the slightest inconvenience, although he betrayed a sense of restlessness as he neared his destination, for he had not even asked what was to become of him upon his arrival, and could not quite conceal his anxiety on that point. When he was lifted out upon the platform at the station, in his own city, his astonished glance fell first upon his sister, a sweet girl of seventeen, then upon his father, both of whom greeted him as if there had never been a barrier between them. He flushed a remorseful scarlet and lifted an inquiring look to Dr. Stanley. "Yes, Ned, I plead guilty," he smilingly confessed. "I did not feel justified in keeping your family in ignorance of your condition, and Mr. Willard telegraphed me that he would meet us on our arrival." "And, Ned, we have everything so nicely fixed for you at home," his sister here interposed, for she saw he was half dazed by the unexpected meeting. "Bridge--the same old girl--and I have put your room in apple-pie order; your books and pictures just as you used to have them, and"--with a ripple of musical laughter--"you are going to have cream toast with your dinner. It was your favorite dish, you know, and mamma is making it herself. She wouldn't trust anybody else, for fear there would be lumps in it. But here come the men," she concluded, cutting herself short, as two muscular fellows came forward to transfer the bamboo litter to a waiting ambulance. "And I will come around in the morning to take a look at that cast. I think we'll have it off altogether before long," observed Dr. Stanley, as he held out his hand to take leave of his patient, who could only wring it in silence. Then he was borne away. When the Seabrooks and Katherine arrived at Hilton, on the day previous to the opening of the school, they were joyfully welcomed by Jennie, who not only had everything in order for the principal and his family, but had, with loving hands, also made Katherine and Sadie's room immaculate and gorgeously decorated it with autumn leaves and golden-rod in honor of their return. Katherine could see that the girl's recent trying experience had subdued her somewhat; but, otherwise, she was the same original, irrepressible Jennie as ever. "How I love you!" she cried, when she was left alone with Katherine, while Sadie was out of the room for a few moments, and supplementing her statement with another vigorous hug. "And you look dearer than ever, if that could be possible; and what a fine time you've all been having down there by the sea! Dr. Stanley has told me all about it, and"--with a grimace--"I guess you've been busy, too, doctoring some of the materia medica out of him--eh?" "What do you mean?" Katherine inquired, but flushing under the fire of the girl's mischievous eyes. "Oh! he doesn't make any bones of it; he told me all about Dorothy--how sick she was, and what your mother did for her, though he said, of course, it must not be talked here. I suppose he made an exception of me, because he knows how I love the Seabrooks and you, and then I can see for myself how flip he is with the 'new tongue.'" "Jennie!" exclaimed Katherine, in a shocked tone. Then she added: "What do you know about the 'new tongue'?" "I'm always saying the wrong thing," said the girl, in a repentant voice; "but, truly, I didn't mean to be irreverent--I only wanted you to know how pat the doctor reels off the scientific phrases; and"--assuming an important air--"I guess I know that Christian Science is the 'new tongue' spoken of in the Bible. I've been to the service all summer; auntie went with me, too, and thought it was beautiful"--this with a sudden break in her voice--"and I've got the book," she resumed. "I bought it with my pin-money. One of the Scientists was going to get a revised pocket edition, and said she'd let me have her old one for half price. She said the Science is all in it, and so I thought it would do until I could afford to buy a new one." Katherine's eyes grew moist as she listened to this, and she told herself that the dear child should also have a new revised pocket edition when Christmas came. Looking back over the months that had elapsed since she first came to Hilton, she was almost overwhelmed, in view of the changed thought that had crept into the school. She had sown but the tiniest seed of Truth when she had told Prof. Seabrook that "Christian Science was a religion of Love and she would simply try to live it"; but its rootlets had taken firm hold beneath the surface of an unpromising soil; its germ had shot upwards and flourished, in spite of an adverse atmosphere, spreading abroad its branches with bud and blossom and fruitage, until now a goodly harvest was being gathered in. There were Miss Reynolds, Mrs. Seabrook and Dorothy, Jennie and Dr. Stanley, all ready to avow themselves as adherents of Truth, with Sadie, Prof. Seabrook and-- she was beginning to hope--Ned Willard looking towards the Light; and her heart was flooded with a great joy. "What are you thinking about, Miss Minturn?" Jennie ventured to inquire when she had borne the silence as long as she could. Katharine came to herself with a sudden start. "Excuse me, dear," she said, with a deprecatory smile. "But what you have just told me sent my thoughts wandering back over all that has happened since I came here last winter. I did not mean to be heedless, and I am very glad that you wanted the book enough to buy it. Now"--laying a fond hand on her shoulder--"you are to drop 'Miss Minturn" here and now. You and I are going to be like sisters--we are sisters in Truth already, for you are coming to us after this for all your vacations. You must have a home, you know, and I think you will be happy with us." "Happy!" cried Jennie, choking up suddenly. "Why, I--I--think it will be just h--hea--venly!" and down went the curly black head upon her hands to hide the tears she could not wipe away, for, as was frequently the case, her handkerchief was not forthcoming when most needed. Katherine slipped hers into her hand, for she heard Sadie returning, and, a few minutes later, the three girls were engaged in an animated discussion of plans for the coming year. The school opened with a full house again; indeed, it was more than full, for Prof. Seabrook was obliged to secure rooms for half a dozen new pupils with some families outside, and began to seriously consider the advisability of extending the wings of the building before the beginning of another year. We cannot follow the experiences of our friends during the ensuing ten months, in detail; and, in fact, but little out of the ordinary occurred to mark their passing. It will be of interest, perhaps, to know that Prof. Seabrook, true to his word, made a careful perusal of "Science and Health," but he did not find it easy to get out of old ruts, and there was many a hard-fought battle with preconceived opinions and long-treasured creeds and doctrines. Many a time he threw down his book with a revival of his old antagonism, but a look at Dorrie--whose general health had become almost perfect, and who was now manifesting the keenest interest in the studies which she had insisted upon taking up--was like a "peace, be still" to the tempest and oil upon the turbulent waters, and he resumed his investigations with such determination to know the Truth, that, finally, he was enabled to say with one of old, "I begin to see as through a glass darkly." Miss Reynolds became a greater power than ever in the school. She had always been attractive, and the students loved her, but now there was an added charm and sweetness that irresistibly drew everyone to her. She made no secret of the change in her views, although she never forced them upon anyone. She attended the service on Grove Street regularly, with Katherine, and Jennie also was numbered with the same congregation. Dr. Stanley found his position unique and by no means an enviable one. Before going abroad he had built up a fine practice, and most of his patients came back to him on his return, while new ones had flocked to him. Now, however, with his changed thought, he found it exceedingly difficult to decide just what course to pursue, when those who, hitherto, had placed unbounded confidence in him now called upon him to minister again to their necessities. But he had chosen his path. Having become convinced that God and God alone "forgiveth all iniquities and healeth all diseases," he had declared that he would never again diagnose a case in accord with the laws of materia medica, write another medical prescription, or deal out ineffectual drugs. Neither did he, as yet, feel that he was prepared to announce himself a Christian Science practitioner. So, when called to his former patients, he had felt it his duty to state his position and, as an "entering wedge," suggest that they give the Science a trial for their infirmities. Some had openly scoffed at him; others had acted upon his advice, and were greatly benefited; while, in a few instances, he had offered to try what he himself could do, and, to his great joy, had made his demonstration. But the majority dropped him and went over to rival practitioners. Then he began to push out into the byways and hedges. He sought out the suffering poor more than he had ever done before, and here he found a field "ready to harvest," where he could preach the "new gospel" and prove the promise, "The works that I do shall ye do also if ye believe on Me." So the growth in his own consciousness went on while he was "casting his bread upon the waters," and he also might have been seen, nearly every Sunday morning, in one of the rear seats in the hall on Grove Street, listening intently to the service. One supreme joy came to him during this time. Ned Willard's improvement had been phenomenally rapid after his return home, and, to his family, the change in himself appeared no less remarkable. He was now always considerate of and courteous to every member of the household, frequently expressing grateful appreciation of their care and kindness, while an oath, which once had been a frequent offense to their ears, was now never heard to pass his lips. One morning, while making his accustomed visit, Dr. Stanley observed that his patient was strangely silent and thoughtful, seeming disinclined to talk, although he suggested several topics to attract his attention. He was just on the point of rising to go, thinking it wiser to leave him to his mood, when he suddenly broke forth: "I say, Stanley, what have you been doing to me?" "'Doing to you!' I am not sure that I catch your meaning." "Well, when I tumbled helplessly into your hands, down there in Massachusetts, you told me you were using Christian Science treatment, and asked me if I objected. I thought it all 'bosh'; but, as you know, told you I didn't care, provided the method brought right results. I thought that if things did not go O. K. you would slip back to the old way, so I felt perfectly safe. But now I begin to feel some curiosity regarding this peculiar mode, process, or whatever it may be, for not only has my leg got well-- it is practically well--quicker than I supposed it possible for a broken bone to mend, but I feel mended in other ways," he concluded, with some embarrassment. "What do you mean, Ned?" "Well, physically, I feel like a new man--kind of clean and fresh, through and through. Then"--flushing--"I am amazed that I haven't been crazy for drink; but I do not seem to want it--I do not even care to smoke, and--" "Yes," said his companion, kindly. "Oh! hang it! Stanley, it isn't easy to tell it, but I'm going to; I feel as if an X-ray had been turned upon my mentality, showing me what a blamed fool I've made of myself during the last few years, making me wish I could blot it all out and take a sharp turn in another direction. How's that for humble pie! I declare, I don't know myself!" he concluded, apologetically. Dr. Stanley was literally stricken speechless. His heart was too full for utterance. Surely this "fruit of the Spirit" was ripening far earlier than he had dared to hope, although he had worked on the case with all the understanding he possessed, in connection with frequent correspondence with Mrs. Minturn for counsel. "What have you been doing, doc?" Willard repeated. "I've heard that Christian Science treatment is wholly mental, but you have been doing some fine talking, first and last. Some of it has cut home and some has gone over my head. Does your science reform the drunkard as well as mend broken bones? I remember you once asked me if I'd like to be freed from it. Upon my word, I believe it does, though I'm not going to boast until I get out and can prove it. Have you been treating me for that, Stanley?" "Yes, I have been trying to make you realize your birthright--your God-given dominion over all things," said his friend, in a voice that faltered in spite of himself; "have tried to make you know that you were 'free-born.'" "Hold on! Now you are soaring over my head again," interposed the young man. "Just make that clearer in your own language, please. Bible phraseology always seemed like Choctaw to me." "Well, then, Christian Science teaches that God made man the perfect image and likeness of Himself and gave him power to reflect or manifest His dominion over all beings. It follows, then, that man was never in bondage to anything--habit, appetite, disease or sin; so he was 'free-born.'" "Then how does it happen we find him so tangled up in all sorts of deviltry?" demanded Willard. "We find the mortal 'tangled up,' as you express it, because he has set himself up as an independent entity and claims this entity can be governed by evil instead of good--with lies instead of truth, with sickness instead of health." "You emphasize the word 'mortal'; so you make a distinction between a man and a mortal?" "Yes; the mortal is the counterfeit of the real man, like a bogus dollar bill, with no gold or principal to back it. He arrogantly assumes that he has a will of his own, and this will is subordinate to no other unless he chooses to make it so. But we find that he reasons falsely when we see how he becomes the slave of all sorts of evil that ultimates in sickness and death," explained Dr. Stanley. "Humph! Then, according to your logic, the Ned Willard whom you know is simply a mortal, physical manifestation of will power, catering to his own appetites and desires, and so becoming their bond servant, and there is no true image and likeness of God, or real man about him," was the young man's half-quizzical rejoinder. "Granted," he went on, more seriously, "I think I am beginning to see him as he is and has appeared to others. But now comes the question, 'How is this same Ned Willard going to get rid of the undesirable mortal and find the man?' It looks a hopeless task to me." "You are using the scalpel very freely upon yourself, my boy," said Phillip Stanley, in his friendliest tone. "But let us see if there isn't a different kind of blade that will serve us better. If you were cruelly bound with thongs, and some friend should pass you a keen-edged knife, you would not sit hopelessly looking at your bonds and still continue to bemoan your bondage; you would instantly begin to sever the thongs and so regain your liberty. In Christian Science we find the 'sword of Truth' with which we begin to cut away, one by one, the bonds of mortal falsities, habits, appetites and belief in evil until, eventually, we shall find our freedom and true manhood." "That sounds very promising, as you put it, though the how of it seems rather vague. But, by all that's honest, I would like to get at the secret of it," and the young man turned a frank, earnest face to his companion as he concluded. "This will reveal it. Will you read it if I leave it with you?" and Dr. Stanley drew forth a pocket edition of "Science and Health" and laid it upon his knee. Willard opened it and glanced at the title-page. "Thank you; I shall be glad to look it through," he replied. "You will need a Bible to go with it," said his companion, lifting his eyes to a bookcase near him. "You'll not find one there," his patient observed, with a short laugh. "Bibles and I have had nothing in common this many a year. However, there are plenty about the house." Dr. Stanley shortly after took his leave and went away to visit other hungry ones, a reverent joy in his heart and on his lips the paean of David, "Who is so great a God as our God?" A few weeks later Edwin Willard walked briskly into his office, his handsome face all aglow with health, a new hope and purpose shining in his eyes. "I'm off, Stanley!" he said, in cheery, eager tones as he laid his friend's "little book" on his desk. "I've just slipped in to return this and bid you au revoir." "Off!" repeated Phillip Stanley, in surprise. "Where to? what for?" "I'm going to Washington, as private secretary to the Hon.----, United States Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a classmate of my father's at Yale, and asked the governor, the other day, if he could suggest some one for the position," Willard explained. "It's very sudden, but it's great luck, though this"--touching the book he had just laid down--"teaches there's no such thing as luck. The salary won't permit me to keep up a spread-eagle style at present"--with a light-hearted laugh--"but I have a promise of more later on, and it may be the stepping-stone to something better; and, Stanley, I'm bent on going higher, in more ways than one," he concluded, in a confidential tone. "Ned, I am more glad than I can tell you, and my best wishes go with you," heartily returned his friend. "Wouldn't you like to take the book along as a souvenir?" he asked, pushing it towards him. "Thanks, I've just bought one for myself, and I don't need any souvenirs to remind me of you; for, Stanley, all I am and all I hope to be I owe to you, or--I suppose you would prefer me to say- -to God, through you. But if I am to catch that fast express I must skip. I'll write to you, though, when I am settled." The two men clasped hands and looked deep into each other's eyes for a moment; then the younger turned abruptly away and left the room, the elder gravely watching the manly form as it sped, with alert and vigorous steps, down the street. "God bless the boy!" he said, in a low tone; "he has 'got at the secret of it' at last, and his life henceforth will be crowned with joy and peace." CHAPTER XXIII. MRS. MINTURN VISITS HILTON. Everything moved along harmoniously with Katherine in school. Of course, there was work to be done and it required diligence, patience and perseverance to accomplish her daily tasks. But there is always satisfaction in overcoming difficulties, for such conquest never fails to strengthen and uplift. Between Sadie and herself there existed the tenderest relations. Every day seemed to draw them closer to each other, for divine Love was now the mutually acknowledged bond between them. The girl had provided herself with the necessary books and was doing more than "looking towards the Light"--she was really trying to walk in it. She was also striving to "do her best" during this, her last year at school, as she had avowed she would, and was reaping her reward by finding that she was daily gaining in mental strength and capacity. Jennie also was making good progress. She did not love fun and frolic one whit less, but she now sought it in legitimate hours and ways, and never allowed herself to "kick over the traces," or, in other words, to break rules, and so jeopardize her record, although, as she once confessed, with the old mischievous sparkle in her eyes, "the apples of Sodom did look very alluring sometimes." So the Christmas vacation found them, and Katherine and Jennie went "home" to New York City, where every day was filled with delightful experiences, Mr. and Mrs. Minturn having spared nothing to make these holidays the brightest of the year, especially for their protegee whose pleasures had been so limited. There was nothing to mar their enjoyment during the two "heavenly" weeks. They were like a pair of happy children, and not the least of their pleasure consisted in helping Mrs. Minturn distribute her yearly reminders among those of whom One said, "The poor ye always have with you." And when, on Christmas morning, at breakfast, the packages beside the various plates were inspected, there were bright faces and loving smiles, and in one case almost a rain of tears, in view of the numerous and lovely mementoes for which the recipient was wholly unprepared. But it was only a "sunshower," and when Mr. Minturn, with a quizzical look, told her to "take care, for she was losing some of her pearls," she laughingly wiped the glittering drops away and retorted: "I wish they were real pearls, and I would heap them upon you all." When it was all over and the two girls were rolling swiftly on their way back to school, Jennie, her face radiant with delightful memories, informed Katherine that she had "never had such an out and out jolly time in all her life before." "It is like a diamond to me," she said, "for it will glisten and sparkle in my mind as long as I remember anything about this life. But, best of all," she continued, earnestly, "has been the Science part of it; those lovely services and meetings! and your mother's talks! Oh! Katherine, if I could be with her all the time I know I should grow to be a good Scientist!" Katherine smiled into the yearning dark eyes. "Our growth, Jennie, depends upon our own right thinking and living, upon the faithfulness with which we study, assimilate and demonstrate Truth," she said; then added: "Right environment is very desirable, but when we lean upon that instead of on God, or Principle, we are not 'working out our own salvation,' which everyone must do. You know what happened to the five foolish virgins who leaned, or tried to lean, upon their neighbors for oil to fill their lamps." "Yes; and it's like copying some one else's problems and shirking your own daily work. When the exams come you're not 'in it'; you just have to 'go way back and sit down,'" and the roguish dimples played in her cheeks as the slang phrases slipped glibly from her tongue. "All the same," she continued, "it is a help to have others about you doing good work. Somehow it inspires you to hustle for yourself--that is, if you honestly want to be the real thing and not a sham." The latter part of February Mrs. Minturn, having been called to the western part of the State on business, stopped at Hilton on her way back, to spend the Sabbath and make "my girls" a little visit. That visit was like an oasis to Prof. Seabrook, or, as he afterwards expressed it, "it shone in his memory like a pure, lustrous pearl set in jet." Saturday afternoon was spent with Katherine and Jennie, doing a little needful shopping and visiting some places of interest in the city. Saturday evening, a party, including the Seabrooks, Sadie, Miss Reynolds and Dr. Stanley, was made up to go to hear Madam Melba, who was to sing in "Faust," and a rich treat it proved for them all. Sunday morning found them all, except the principal and his wife, at the service in the hall on Grove Street, and which was now far too small to comfortably accommodate the people who were flocking to it; while Sunday evening, at Mrs. Seabrook's invitation, saw our friends gathered in her spacious parlor to listen to a little talk on Christian Science from Mrs. Minturn. "I see you each have your book," she began, glancing around the circle, "and I think we cannot do better than to look into the tenets of our faith--you will find them on page 497. There is much more than at first appears in those few brief paragraphs, and I hope no one will let a point go by, if it seems perplexing, without trying to get at the heart of it. Don't fear to interrupt me with questions, for they will show me your trend of thought." Then, one by one, she took up the sections, which were freely and thoughtfully discussed. Prof. Seabrook, however, was the chief interlocutor of the evening and plied the patient woman with queries both practical and profound. She met him logically on every one, and by the time they had come to the end of the fifth paragraph much of the perplexity had vanished from the man's face and a look of peace was enthroned in its place, while not one in the room ever forgot that hour, which was so fraught with helpfulness and intense interest to them all. "Mrs. Minturn," he gravely observed, as she paused for a moment, "when one begins to understand something of what Christian Science really is, one finds himself suddenly shorn of his former intellectual arrogance and ecclesiastical intolerance, while he stands abashed and is amazed that he had never seen these things before." "That is because, in our previous study of the Scriptures, we were governed by human opinions, doctrines and creeds, instead of by the spiritual law of interpretation, which always brings the proof of its supremacy." "But it makes one wish one hadn't been quite so pert in flaunting one's feathers before finer birds," drawled Sadie, as she shot a peculiar glance at Katherine, "like a turkey we had at home once that had never seen a peacock's plumage until after he had done a good deal of strutting around, with his own self-sufficient appendage spread out to its widest extent. He collapsed, though, when he saw that blaze of glory." "Thank you, Sadie, for so pat an illustration of an exceedingly uncomfortable frame of mind," said Prof. Seabrook, with a merry twinkle in his fine eyes, while an appreciative laugh ran around the circle. The girl flushed scarlet in sudden dismay. "Prof. Seabrook!" she faltered, "I didn't mean--I was only thinking of what I said to Katherine about being a Christian Scientist the day she came here. I told her, very grandly, that I was an Episcopalian, that my grandfather was an Episcopalian clergyman, and I had my doubts about his resting easy in his grave if he knew what a rank heretic I had for a roommate. Well, she just unfurled a white banner of Love to me, and I've wanted to hide my diminished head every time I've thought of it since." "All right, Sadie; there's no offense," returned the principal, with a smiling glance at her still flushed cheeks, "and I think there may be some others among us who have learned a salutary lesson from our modest but stanch 'brown-eyed lassie,' for she certainly has tried, as she told me she would on that same day, 'to live her religion of Love.' But," turning again to Mrs. Minturn, "that reminds me of something else I wished to ask you." Reopening his book, he read aloud the sixth tenet, emphasizing the phrase "to love one another." "I find, in reading this book," he resumed, "that you Scientists give a higher signification to that word 'love' than is implied by the ordinary interpretation. Mere sentiment or emotion have nothing in common with your concept of its meaning?" "Our Leader says, in her book of 'Miscellaneous Writings,' [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy, page 230.] that 'no word is more misconstrued, no sentiment less understood,'" said Mrs. Minturn. "Spiritual love is governed by its principle--divine Love. Emotional or sentimental love has no principle. It is governed by mortal impulse, moods, personal attraction, and so forth. Divine Love has but one impulse--infinite impersonal good. Paul's sublime definition of charity, or the love that 'beareth all things,' 'that never faileth,' 'that thinketh no evil,' is the Christian Science idea of love, and as our text-book teaches, nothing short of this, lived and demonstrated in the daily life, is Christian Science love." "That is your lesson to me over again," whispered Miss Reynolds, who was sitting beside Katherine, "and I need it." "But you would not abolish human love?" Dr. Stanley here abruptly questioned. "I would have it governed, transformed by divine Love," returned Mrs. Minturn, gently. "There is much more of selfishness embodied in so-called human love than one can realize until one learns its spiritual signification. The mother's is the purest of all human affection, and yet, even this is not devoid of selfishness, for it is 'my boy' or 'my girl' for whom she will toil and efface herself to secure advantages, and often to their detriment. The love that is absorbed in my wife or husband, my sister or brother, my friend, is not the truest, although it is right to care tenderly for those who are dependent upon us. But the yearning that reaches out to all men, recognizing in everyone 'my mother, my sister, my brother'--for all are God's children, and there are no mine or thine in Truth--is the love of God, the reflected Love that is God." "I see, Mrs. Minturn; it is manifesting what the 'little book' says, the 'love of Love,' [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 319.] or the good of Good without regard to personality, so if we are reflecting it we cannot even think anything but good of everyone," here interposed Dorothy, who had listened intently to all that had been said. "You dear child! how much better you have said it than I with my multiplicity of words!" observed Mrs. Minturn, bending a look of affection upon her. "She has simply summarized what you have given us; but your analysis has been very helpful to me, and I now see more clearly much that I have been questioning during my recent perusal of the book," Prof. Seabrook remarked. "Our Leader has long been reflecting this impersonal Love in her wonderful devotion to the Cause she has espoused," Mrs. Minturn resumed. "Her one thought and motive is and always has been--since the Science of Christianity was revealed to her--to send forth the new gospel to all 'nations and peoples and tongues,' and gather them under its sacred banner, knowing that it is the 'pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night' that will surely guide them into the 'Promised Land.'" "Yet she is severely criticised for claiming that it was a divine revelation; for assuming 'unwarrantable authority' and demanding 'unquestioning obedience,'" said her host. "Is that a fair or an honest criticism, Prof. Seabrook?" inquired his guest. "Has she not proved that Christian Science was a divine revelation, not only by her own wonderful demonstrations, but by the marvelous results which follow the study of her book, 'Science and Health,' not to dwell upon the great work accomplished by the thousands of her students who have faithfully followed her teachings? Then, a leader must lead. Under supreme orders she became the pioneer to mark the way for others; she has scaled heights which no others have attained since the days of the Master, and so she alone is fitted to direct. You, after long experience, have organized this school; you know best what is most needed to promote the highest interests of your students and maintain the superior standard of your institution. But your word has to be law to attain these conditions, and you insist upon implicit obedience to your rules and mandates. Are you autocratically exacting or 'assuming unwarrantable authority' by so doing in order to meet the responsibilities devolving upon you? As I said before, 'a leader must lead,' and a general must direct, as he discerns the need from his vantage ground above the field of battle, or the cause would be lost." "I see your point. It is fairly and logically argued, and I am frank to admit that much of the criticism of Mrs. Eddy may be prompted by antagonism, jealousy and prejudice," the gentleman returned. "But much more it is the outgrowth of misunderstanding," said Mrs. Minturn, charitably. "Those who have most uncompromisingly denounced Christian Science and its Founder have spoken and written without a proper knowledge of their subject, without having even attempted to investigate, in order to prove the truth or error of what they had heard. They claim to have 'read the book,' but you know, from your own experience, that one casual reading is not sufficient to enable one to grasp the fundamental principles contained therein." "That is true," he assented. "And no man of good judgment," she went on, "would feel that he was prepared to write a treatise or exposition of some profound subject and give it to a critical public, until he had thoroughly mastered it; and this he would know he could not do in one, or even two, superficial readings. But these criticisms do not disturb us; they only make us love our Leader more, for her sweet patience, forbearance and forgiveness; and we know that the time will come when all will learn the Truth, 'from the least to the greatest,' and 'rise up to call her blessed.'" "I am beginning to see that, too," said the professor. "But there is one thing more. Of course, you have had to meet the question many times--one hears it everywhere, and the papers every now and then reiterate it--how about the high price of the text-book and the teaching?" "I would hardly have thought that such a question would have suggested itself to you, Prof. Seabrook, knowing, as you do, the high price demanded for some of your own text-books. Then, regarding the teaching, Hilton students pay from eight hundred to a thousand dollars a year, according to the privileges they enjoy, not counting the extras; and the course is four years, making quite a round sum in the aggregate. You force me to be personal as well as practical in my arguments," Mrs. Minturn interposed, with an arch smile. "Now for the other side of the question. Seventeen years ago I was healed of what several physicians--to whom I paid many hundreds of dollars--said was an incurable disease, by simply reading 'Science and Health,' for which I paid three dollars. A year later I studied with one of Mrs. Eddy's loyal students, to whom I paid one hundred dollars for my course of instruction. Since that time I have never employed a physician or paid out a penny for medicines. In view of these facts, do you think that the price of the book and teaching should be regarded as 'exorbitant,' 'out of all reason,' an 'imposition upon the public,' and many similar expressions, as are repeated over and over by numerous denouncers and newspapers?" Prof. Seabrook made a deprecatory gesture. "I am ashamed to have raised such a point," he said; "it seems exceedingly narrow and petty." "And besides," Mrs. Minturn continued, "this same book and teaching have enabled me to heal hundreds of people of all manner of diseases, and send them on their way rejoicing and to help others. Ah!" she cried, with eyes that shone through starting tears, "how can anyone speak slightingly of that dear woman who has been instrumental in giving such a boon to suffering humanity, or criticise any act which, in her God-given wisdom, she is led to do? But, I am sure, I have talked enough for now, although I am at your service at any time if other questions arise to perplex," she concluded, as she arose, and the little company, after a few moments spent in social converse, separated for the night. A few days later Miss Reynolds sought Katharine. The girl was in a music room, where she had been practicing for nearly an hour, and arose as her friend entered, an expectant look on her face, for she seemed to feel at once that there was something unusual in the atmosphere. The woman was evidently in a strangely serious mood. There was an expression of exaltation in her eyes, which told of some deep, new experience that had aroused profound reverence and wonder, and a drooping of her sweet lips that bespoke a spirit bowed beneath a sense of humility, and she carried a letter in her hand. "Read that, dear," she said, in a repressed tone, as she passed it to her pupil. Katherine removed the missive from its envelope and read: "MISS ADELE REYNOLDS: "DEAR MADAM: My father, as, possibly you may have heard ere this, passed away one week ago to-day. You will perhaps be surprised to learn that I have long known there existed an error at the time of the settlement of Mr. Reynolds'--your father's--affairs nearly eleven years ago, and, although I sought several times to do so, I was powerless to have the matter rectified. Now, however, my sister and I, being the only heirs to our father's property, have agreed that justice must be done, and have deposited in the First National Bank of this city the amount--with accrued interest--that is your rightful due, and it is subject to your order. Trusting that you will kindly throw the veil of charity over what has been a great wrong, I am, "Very respectfully yours, JOHN F. HOWARD." As she finished reading this letter Katherine looked into the eyes of her teacher and smiled. "Kathie, I can hardly believe it!" said Miss Reynolds, in a voice choked with tears. "'The measure that ye mete shall be measured to you again,' you know," softly returned her companion, "and love begets love. You, long since, threw the mantle of Love over your 'brother,' and Truth has uncovered and destroyed the error--in other words, the greed--that seemed to rob you of what was justly yours." "It makes me very humble," faltered her teacher. "I have tried to love because, to be loyal to Truth, I must do nothing else." "Yes, and so Love has fulfilled the law; and, as our text-book says, 'Mercy cancels the debt only when justice approves.'" [Footnote: "Science and Health," page 22] "And Katharine"--and Miss Reynolds' face glowed with happiness-- "now the way is opened for me to do what I had decided I must do by the end of this year--'go work in His vineyard.' I did not clearly see how I could do it, but I have tried to know that 'God is the source of all supply, and I left it there.'" CHAPTER XXIV. THE END OF SCHOOL DAYS. Time seemed to fly after Mrs. Minturn's visit. Winter melted into spring, spring budded and blossomed into summer, and June, with its examinations, commencement exercises and formalities, was once more close upon the students at Hilton. Mr. and Mrs. Minturn came on from New York to be present at Katherine's graduation, after which the family, Jennie included, were going directly to their summer home at Manchester. Prof. Seabrook had again been fortunate enough to secure the Hunt cottage for the season, for the owners were going abroad for a year and were only too glad to rent it to such desirable tenants. Sadie was going with her guardian and his family to Newport for the summer, but had promised Katherine a fortnight's visit during the latter half of July. The two girls had grown closer and closer to each other, and they now found themselves very loath to separate, to dismantle their pretty room and pack their trunks, for their final flitting from Hilton, their well-beloved alma mater. Their prospective departure was also generally regretted by both teachers and pupils, who were to remain, for each had won a stronghold in all hearts. There had been a great change in Sadie, but it had only served to make her more attractive, and she had kept her word to "do her best" work during her last year, for she now stood second in her class, and thus had won the respect of her principal as well as of her teachers, while her happy temperament and the almost prodigal expenditure of her ample income to give pleasure to others had made her many firm friends among the students. Katherine, as we know, had broken every barrier down before her junior year expired, and during the present one not a cloud had gathered to mar her relations with her associates; while, having lived her religion, Christian Science had grown to be respected by the whole school, especially after it became known what had produced the wonderful change in Dorothy, who did not seem like the same girl, and was now able to get about quite nimbly with the aid of crutches. The last all-important day arrived, and the retiring seniors "did themselves proud" in their "grand final parade" before the public, receiving their floral tributes and diplomas with pretty, consequential airs and smiles of supreme content, singing their last songs, but wiping away a furtive tear or two which the suggestive melodies evoked; then their reign at Hilton was over. After the class was dismissed, as Katherine was gathering up her flowers to take them to her room, she glanced at the cards attached to the various offerings. One bore "With dear love from father and mother"; another was from "Sadie," and a third from "Dorothy." She stood in thoughtful silence for a moment after reading these names, a look of perplexity on her young face, a little shadow dimming her pretty brown eyes. "I wonder," she began; then, suddenly cutting herself short, she threw back her small head with an unaccustomed air, and with a bright red spot on either cheek, went straight to her room, "Bless your heart, honey! Whatever has given you such a magnificent color?" Sadie exclaimed, as Katherine opened the door, to find her roommate trying to dispose of the wealth of flowers that had poured in upon her from all sources. "Have I more than usual?" she inquired, putting one hand over a hot cheek, which began to take on an even deeper hue. "Indeed you have, and it's mighty becoming to you. You are perfectly stunning, and I'd like a picture of you as you look now," and the girl's appreciative glance swept over the graceful figure in its trailing white dress, the brilliant flowers encircled with one fair arm and the beautiful face all aglow with its unaccustomed color. "Well," she went on, with a satisfied sigh, "it is all over, ami mia, and I'm sure we made a downright splendid show, to say nothing about the honor we heaped upon ourselves, with our essays, poems, class history, singing, etc. I was proud of it all. Now for the grand finale to-night, and that, I suppose, will end our school life. Heigh-ho! aren't you just a little bit sorry, Kathleen mavourneen?" "Yes, of course; one cannot help feeling the breaking away; er-- Sadie, was Dr. Stanley in the audience this afternoon?" Miss Minot shot a quick, comprehensive look from under her long lashes at her companion, who had turned a little from her and was now apparently gazing out of a window. "O-h! I see!" she ejaculated, reflectively, after an instant of hesitation. "What do you see?" demanded Katherine, in surprise, and facing her suddenly. "Why! Why, this beautiful Katherine--Mermet is refractory; she--it won't stand up in the vase; it has a crooked stem, lops over dejectedly and needs doctoring," Sadie observed, demurely, as she held the flower up to view. "But"--with 'a sly smile--"I reckon a little skillful surgery will straighten it out. Yes, Dr. Stanley was there--up in the north corner, almost behind that great post. How strange you didn't see him!" "I didn't try to find anybody; I didn't care to know where anybody sat, at least until after I had read my essay; and then, you know, it was almost over," explained Katherine, turning away again, but not before her friend had noticed that the color was now all gone from her face. She nodded her head wisely once or twice. "He didn't send any flowers," she mentally observed. "Those Jacks are mine; the mixed bouquet is from the Minturns, and I saw Dorrie give the usher those Daybreak pinks. Well, it is queer. I wonder what it means?" "There!" she remarked, aloud, "I've done the best I can with my avalanche of sweetness; now give me yours, honey, and I will put them in this jardiniere. But what will you save out to wear with your reception gown to-night?" she asked, as she took the flowers from Katherine. "I--don't know, Sadie; I believe I won't make any change--I'll go just as I am," was the dejected reply as the girl sank wearily into a chair. "Go just as you are! not make any change! Well, now, Miss Minturn, that really 'jars' me; with that perfectly killing pink liberty gauze, made over pink silk, all ready to slip on, and which just makes me green with envy to look at," Sadie exclaimed, in a tone of mock consternation, although, as she told her later, she was "dying to shriek with laughter." "What is the matter, honey?" she added, softly, the next moment. "Matter?" repeated Katherine, trying to look unconscious. "Yes; are you tired?" "Well--it has been a pretty busy day, you know," and a half- repressed sigh seemed to indicate weariness. "Who is that, I wonder?" remarked Miss Minot, as some one knocked for admittance. "Come in." The door opened and a maid put her head inside. "A box for Miss Minturn," she said, briefly. Katherine sprang forward to take it and a strange tremor seized her as she severed the twine, removed the wrapper and lifted the cover. Then the rich color flooded cheek and brow as she saw a small but exquisite spray bouquet of white moss rosebuds lying upon a bed of moist cotton, and, beside them, a card bearing the name, "Phillip Harris Stanley." "Sadie! Did you ever see anything so lovely?" she cried, holding it out for her friend to admire, and trying not to look too happy. "'Lovely' doesn't half express it," returned the girl, glancing from the waxen buds to the radiant face bending above them. "Ahem! Who sent 'em?" "Dr. Stanley." "U-m! just the thing to wear with that pink gauze to-night," was the laconic suggestion. "They would look pretty with it, wouldn't they?" said Katherine, innocently. "I reckon that was what they were meant for, or they would have come before and been handed in downstairs," Miss Minot observed, with an audible chuckle. "Nonsense, Sadie!" "What'll you wager on it?" "How can one make a wager on what can't be verified?" "Oh"--with an irrepressible giggle--"I'll take care of that part of it, if you'll only bet." "What a perfect torment you can be, Sadie Minot, when you take a notion," interposed Katherine, flushing, but with a laugh that rang out clearly and sweetly. "But I must go and find mamma. She will be wondering what has become of me," and she turned abruptly away to get out of range of a pair of saucy, twinkling eyes. She carefully sprinkled her buds, then covered them to keep them fresh, after which she went out to seek her parents, humming a bar of their farewell song on the way. As the sound of her footsteps died away in the distance Sadie sank upon a chair and gave vent to a ringing peal of mirthful laughter. "Moss rosebuds!" she panted. "They will look 'pretty' with her dress! Oh, innocence! thy name is Katherine." A few hours later the main building of the seminary was ablaze with light and resounding with music, happy voices and laughter, together with the tripping of many feet in the merry dance. Bright and attractive maidens, in lovely evening dresses of many hues, flitting hither and thither with their attendants in more conventional attire; parents and guardians, gathered in social groups, or from advantageous positions, watching with smiling content the brilliant scene; lavish and beautiful floral decorations lending a perfumed atmosphere and artistic effect to the whole, all made a charming and spirited picture which Prof. Seabrook dearly loved to gaze upon, and to which he always looked eagerly forward at the close of every school year; albeit his enjoyment was somewhat tempered with sadness in view of the final farewells that must be said to his senior class on the morrow. To-night, as he mingled with his guests, everywhere showing himself the thoughtful host and courteous gentleman, his glance fell, several times, upon a graceful, rose-draped figure wearing a spray of white moss rosebuds on her corsage. He also observed, as she moved in rhythmic sway to the inspiring music, that she was supported by the strong arm of his distingue- looking brother-in-law, who seemed, he thought, to be paying more homage than usual to the Terpsichorean Muse, and one particular lady. "Well, what do you think of it, Will?" whispered his wife, who happened to be near him once as the couple went circling by. "What do I think of what, Emelie?" he queried, evasively. "Why, of the way Phil is carrying on to-night! Did you ever see anybody so lost to all things mundane--save the presence of a certain very dainty little lady--as he is at this moment?" "He does seem unusually frisky, I admit--especially with his feet," said the professor, with a smile. "His feet! Will, just look at him! He doesn't know he has any feet; he is all eyes and--heart! You know what I mean, dear," his companion pursued. "I've seen you watching them with that quizzical look in your eyes. What would you think of it as a--a match?" "Emelie! a matchmaker!--thou!" ejaculated her husband, in a tone of mock dismay, though his lips twitched with amusement. She laughed out musically, a sound that he loved and heard frequently nowadays. "But what would you think?" she persisted. "I would think, sweetheart, that--with one exception I could name- -he had won a crown jewel and the sweetest wife in the world," replied the professor as he looked fondly down into the blue eyes uplifted to his. Once Sadie, leaning on the arm of a dashing cadet in uniform, swept slowly by Katherine and her companion. "How about that wager, honey?" she languidly inquired, her roguish eyes fastened upon the conspicuous rosebuds. But Katherine's only reply was a defiant toss of her brown head as she smiled serenely back at her and whirled blissfully on. Of course, it all had to come to an end, and morning found the weary, though still happy, revelers preparing, with much bustle and confusion, to disperse to their various homes; but that last delightful evening, with its music, and flowers, and charming associations, remained a brilliant spot in memory's realm during many after years. A week later found the Minturns and Seabrooks again located for the season at Manchester-by-the-sea. Prof. Seabrook, to the great joy of his family, was to remain with them throughout the vacation. He would do no roaming this year, he said. He had something of far more importance to attend to, and unfolded a plan to his dear ones, which was received with the greatest enthusiasm; more of which anon. It proved to be a summer long to be remembered by all, especially by Jennie, for various reasons; one of which was, she had never before seen the ocean, and it was a wonderful revelation to her, filling her with ever-increasing admiration and awe. "One gets something of an idea of what eternity means," she said, with a long-drawn breath of rapture, when, one day, Katherine accompanied her to a high point which commanded a limitless expanse of sea that seemed to softly melt away into the sky and so become lost to human vision. She could not content herself indoors much of the time, and almost won for. herself again the sobriquet of "Wild Jennie," for she would often disappear directly after breakfast, going off on long tramps to return hours later, laden with a promiscuous assortment of shells, stones, star-fish and other curiosities with which she lavishly adorned her own room and various other portions of the house. "Oh, it's only a 'spell,'" she retorted one day, when Katherine laughingly commented upon her conchological, geological, ichthyological "research." "It has got to have its 'run,' like some other beliefs that aren't so good; then I'll get over it, I suppose, settle down and behave like people who are already seasoned. If I could only be as successful in a genealogical way there'd be nothing left to wish for," she concluded with a wistful sigh. "Are you still brooding over that, Jennie?" gravely inquired Katherine. "Not exactly 'brooding,' dearie. I guess it's just a kind of hankering, though mortal mind does set up a howl, now and then, in spite of me, and says 'don't you wish you knew.'" Katherine laughed softly at the characteristic phraseology, but bent a very tender look upon the girl. "Well, you do know that you are God's child," she said, gently. "Yes; and I know it now, in a way that I never did before I knew you; and I'm sure no other 'stray waif' ever had quite so much to be thankful for as I have." They all loved the girl, and she was the life of the house, although she had toned down considerably during the last year; for she was always bright and cheery, keeping everybody in a ripple with her quaint sayings and contagious mirth. At the same time she made herself helpful, in many ways, was ever thoughtful for others, and, withal, so affectionate that everyone was the happier for her presence in the house. So the time drew on apace for the convening of Mrs. Minturn's "class," the date of which had been set for the twentieth of July. It was to be a full class, this year, and a convenient room had been secured in the "Back Bay district," in Boston, many of her prospective students being desirous of spending their vacation in that city to enjoy the privileges and services of "The Mother Church." Prof. Seabrook took rooms for himself and family near by--this was his "plan," that they all three have class instruction together-- for such an arrangement would be more convenient for them than to try to go back and forth, each day, and also give them more time for study. It was an earnest and intelligent company that gathered in the appointed place on Monday, July twentieth, all eager to be fed with the Bread of Life. There were two clergymen, one physician, two lawyers, several teachers, business men and women, and others from humbler walks of life. Miss Reynolds had come on to "review"; Jennie and Sadie were also among the number. Intense interest and the closest attention were manifested throughout the course, and Mrs. Minturn afterwards remarked that the class, as a whole, was one of the brightest and most receptive that she had ever taught. The sixth lesson was a particularly impressive one, during which every occupant of that sacred room became so conscious of the power and presence of Truth and Love, that the place almost seemed to them a "mount of transfiguration," as it were, where the Christ was revealed to them as never before. When the class was dismissed for the day, Mrs. Minturn asked Prof. Seabrook if he would kindly remain to assist her with some papers she had to make out; and Mrs. Seabrook and Dorothy, their "hearts still burning within them," stole quietly away to their rooms to talk over by themselves the beautiful things they had learned that morning. They passed out upon the street and had walked nearly half the distance to their boarding place, when Mrs. Seabrook stopped short and turned a startled face to her child. "Dorothy, your crutches!" was all she could say. The girl lifted a wondering look to her. "Mamma!" she said, in a voice of awe, "I forgot all about them!" "Shall we--shall I go back for them?" mechanically inquired her mother. "Go back for my crutches? Mamma! why, mamma! don't you see that I am free?--that I can walk as well as you?" she exclaimed, with a catch in her breath that was very like a sob. "You've just got to know it, for me and with me," she continued authoritatively, as she started on, "for I will never use them again. I have 'clung to the truth'--we've all clung--and 'Truth has made me free'! Oh!"-- in an indescribable tone--"'who is so great a God as our God?' Let us g-get home quick, or--I shall have to c-cry right here in--the street." "Mamma, I think I know, now, just when all the fear left me," Dorothy said later, when, after reaching their rooms, each had for a few moments sought the "secret place" to offer her hymn of praise for this new gift of Love. "You know how beautifully Mrs. Minturn talked about man's 'God-given dominion,' this morning; did you ever hear anyone say such lovely things? She seemed to take you almost into heaven, and I felt so happy--so light and free, I wanted to fly. I forgot all about my body, and I walked out of that room without realizing what I was doing; I hadn't really got back to mortal sense and things material, when you stopped and spoke of my crutches. I haven't said anything about it, for it seemed too good to be true, but for nearly two weeks I've had such a longing to walk alone, and, at times, it has almost seemed as if I could, but didn't quite dare to try. And, mamma"--Dorothy lowered her voice reverently--"have you noticed, when helping me to dress lately, that--that one of the curves is nearly gone from my back?" "Yes, dear, but I 'have not dared' to call your attention to it-- that is what has made you seem so much taller, though we have called it 'growing,'" her mother returned. "Don't you think we have been very, very faithless, mamma, dear, not to 'dare' speak of our blessings and thank God for them?" said the girl, tremulously. "Dorrie, you shame me, every day, by your implicit faith!" faltered the woman, tears raining over her face. "No--no; not 'implicit,' mamma, for that would make the other curve straight this very minute. But I know it is going to he, sometime, for God made the real me upright and nothing can deprive me of my birthright." Half an hour later Prof. Seabrook came in, looking a trifle pale and anxious. Dorothy arose and went forward, with radiant face, to meet him. He could not speak, but opened his arms to her and held her close for a minute, his trembling lips pressed against the fair head lying on his breast. Presently she gently released herself, remarking: "Papa, do you know, when you came in, you looked as if you expected to find what we have all wished for so long." "I did and--I didn't," he replied, with a faint smile. "When I had finished what Mrs. Minturn asked me to do, and started to leave the room, I saw your crutches standing in the corner where I had put them after you were seated. "While I stood blankly staring and wondering, that blessed woman came to me with such a light on her face--it fairly shone with joy and love. "'Dorrie has gone,'" she said. "'I saw her walk out with her mother.' "Involuntarily I put out my hand to take the crutches, "'No--leave them,' she said, 'she will never need them again, and you do not wish any reminders of error about you.' So I came away praying 'Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.'" CHAPTER XXV. A MOMENTOUS ERRAND. There were only three more sessions, but they were wonderful "sittings together," for every member had been deeply impressed by the signal manifestation of God's power in their midst, in connection with Dorothy; and felt that the place whereon they stood was indeed "holy ground." Then the class was dismissed with solemn, but loving, injunctions to go forth to "cheer the faint, uplift the fallen, and heal the sick." But, before letting them go, Mrs. Minturn cordially invited the students to spend the following Thursday at her home in Manchester; to enjoy a reunion and an outing before finally separating to go to their different fields of labor. As their last meeting occurred on Tuesday, there intervened but one day in which to prepare for the prospective festivities on Thursday. But willing hearts and hands--for Mr. Minturn was now at home, and Prof. Seabrook and Dr. Stanley proffered their services- -made light work of the various things to be done. Katherine, Sadie and Jennie planned elaborate decorations for the veranda; accordingly the coachman and hostler were dispatched to the woods for pine boughs, evergreens, etc., then to a florist's, for potted ferns and plants, with an order for cut-flowers to be sent on Thursday morning, and it was not long before the house began to put on quite a festive appearance. On Wednesday, just after lunch, Mr. Minturn repaired to the attic and brought forth a box supposed to contain Chinese and Japanese lanterns, with other decorations; but, alas! when it was opened it was found that the mice had made sad havoc with its contents, and they were condemned as utterly useless. "That means a trip to Boston," the gentlemen observed to his wife, as he pushed the box into a corner with other rubbish, "for it would not be safe to trust to an order, at this late hour, and yet I do not see how I can go and leave things here." "I suppose one of the maids might go," said Mrs. Minturn, rather doubtfully, "but, really, they are having such a busy day, with sweeping and cleaning, and there is so much still to be done, I hardly have the heart to ask them." Jennie, who, with Mrs. Seabrook, Dorrie, Katherine and Sadie, was twining evergreen ropes and wreaths, and, at the same time, having a lovely, social visit, overheard the above conversation, and, knowing that Mr. Minturn could ill be spared, said to herself, with a sharp pang of regret: "I'm the one who ought to go; but--I don't want to." She glanced wistfully at the happy faces about her; at the half- finished wreath in her hands; at the deep-blue ocean whence came a cool, refreshing breeze, then, with a quickly repressed sigh, laid down her work and arose. "Let me go," she said, turning to Mrs. Minturn and stealing a fond arm around her waist. "I'm sure I can do the errand all right." "Dear, they will make quite a package, for there will have to be a good many," objected her friend, but with a quick smile of appreciation for her thoughtfulness. "Besides," she added, glancing at the merry group behind them, "you are all having such a good time." "Never mind anything so we have the lanterns. We must let our light shine, you know; and just look at that for muscle!" cheerily returned the girl, as she swept up her loose sleeve and revealed a truly sturdy arm. "I can catch the next train, if I step lively, and I'll be back on the one that leaves at five. Make out your order, Mr. Minturn, and I'll be ready before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'" She bounded into the house and was halfway upstairs before Mr. Minturn could get out his notebook and pencil, and in less than ten minutes was down again equipped for her trip. "'Jack Robinson,'" solemnly repeated Mr. Minturn, but with a roguish twinkle in his eyes as he handed her the leaf which he had torn from his notebook, with his order and the address of a Boston firm written on it. "Now be off, you sprite, or you will lose your train, and you shall have your reward later," he concluded, as the trap, which he had ordered up from the stable, dashed to the door. "I'll get my reward on the way," laughed the girl, throwing him a bright glance over her shoulder as she ran nimbly down the steps and sprang into the carriage, little thinking how true her lightly-spoken words would prove. Four hours later the trap was again sent to the station to meet her, and, a five minutes' drive, behind the pair of spirited beauties, landed her at home once more. Much had been accomplished during Jennie's absence, and the broad veranda was like a sylvan bower, the last nail having just been driven, the last wreath and festoon put in place; while the Seabrooks were on the point of going home to dinner as the carriage stopped before the door. She looked pale and appeared to see no one; but, leaping to the ground, sprang up the steps, touched Katherine on the arm, saying briefly, "Come!" then fled inside the house. Everyone wondered at her strange behavior, and Katherine immediately followed her to her room. The moment she appeared Jennie caught her in her arms and swung to the door. "Katherine! Katherine!" she cried, breathlessly, "I'm found!--I'm found!--I'm not a 'stray waif'--I'm not lost any longer--I'm--I'm- -" She could say no more-her breath was spent; her emotion mastered her--and, bowing her head on her companion's shoulder, she burst into passionate weeping that shook her from head to foot. Katherine held her in a close, loving embrace for a moment, then gently forced her into a rocker and knelt beside her, still keeping her arms around her, while she worked mentally for dominion and harmony. But the flood-gates were open wide. The pent-up yearnings of years were let loose, and it was some time before the storm began to abate. Once or twice she attempted to say something, then lapsed into fresh weeping, her self-control strangely shattered; for Jennie had seldom been known to shed tears in the presence of others, even under great pressure. "Hush!" at length commanded Katherine, with gentle authority; "be still and know who has you in His care." "That's pa-part of it!--to--to think that I--I didn't 'know'; and now it has c-come when I never really had f-f-faith to be-believe it would. I--do-don't d-deserve it," sobbed the girl, with another helpless outburst. While Katherine is patiently waiting and working for the return of a more tranquil frame of mind, let us take a backward glance and follow Jennie on her eventful trip to Boston. Upon her arrival in town she went directly to the store to which she had been directed and where her order was immediately filled; then finding that she had more than an hour on her hands before her train would go, she left her package to be called for and slipped into a large department store, to look at some pictures that had been recently and extensively advertised in the papers. But before reaching the room where they were on exhibition, she was attracted another way, by seeing a crowd of people standing before an alcove that had been curtained off, and where a so- called "transformation scene" was being enacted before admiring and wondering observers. She had never seen anything of the kind and stood like one entranced, while an exquisite marble statue, representing a beautiful girl holding a basket of flowers in her hands, slowly and mysteriously took on a lifelike appearance, until at length she stood a living, breathing maiden, smiling brightly into the faces around her, while her basket of flowers had also been changed to a cradle of bulrushes, in the midst of which lay an infant reaching up eager hands to the lovely woman above him. Jennie watched this scene--supposed to represent "Pharaoh's Daughter and The Infant Moses"--change the second time, then turned abruptly away, just as the metamorphosis back to marble began, to find herself confronted by a fine-looking, middle-aged gentleman, who was gazing with strange intentness at her. She would have passed him without a second glance, but, lifting his hat to her, he courteously inquired: "Young lady, will you kindly tell me your name?" Jennie flushed with sudden embarrassment. She had often been warned never to converse with strangers who might accost her; but, in this instance, while she had no intention of telling him who she was, she felt exceedingly awkward to refuse to grant a request so politely solicited. "I hope you will pardon me," he continued as he observed her confusion. "I am aware that I appear presumptuous; but you are the counterpart of a sister whom I lost years ago, and whose daughter I have been vainly seeking during the last five years." Jennie's heart bounded into her throat at this, and her discretion instantly vanished in her eagerness to verify a startling suspicion that had popped into her head while he was speaking. "Oh, sir," she began, with a nervous catch in her breath. "I am called Jennie Wild, but that isn't really my name--I don't know what it is. My father and mother were both killed in a railroad accident when I was a baby, and a kind lady adopted me and-- perhaps--oh, do you think---" but her voice failed her utterly at this point, for her heart was panting painfully from mingled hope and fear. The stranger smiled genially down upon her, but his own voice was far from steady, as he said: "Suppose, Miss Wild, we go and sit down over yonder, where we will be by ourselves"--indicating a remote corner of the room--"and, perhaps, we can find out a little more about this double-puzzle; at least, we can ascertain whether your facts and mine will fit together." He led the way and placed a chair for her in a position to shield her from observation as they talked, and then, sitting down beside her, asked her to please tell him as much of her history as she was willing he should know. But, as we are aware, that was very little, indeed, and took only a few minutes to relate. "Well, my child," the man observed, when; she concluded, "there is not much in what you have told me that throws any light upon what I am anxious to learn; your face and form alone seem to indicate kinship, and that may be but a singular coincidence. All the same, you shall hear my story. "Years ago I had a sister whom I loved very dearly. She was much older than I and took the place of my mother when I lost her. I lived with this sister, after her marriage, until I was eighteen years of age, and grew to love the little daughter who came to her when I was a boy of ten, with a tenderness which I have no words to express. At the age of eighteen, an East India merchant, who dealt in spices, coffee, tea, etc., and who, having no children of his own, had made a kind of protege of me, proposed that I come to him and learn his business. His partner in the East had recently died; he was about to go abroad to take his place and suggested that this would give me a fine start in life. It was too good an opportunity to be slighted, and I eagerly accepted it. Years passed; my sister and her husband both died--their daughter married and settled in a thriving town, not far from San Francisco, Cal. Then, after a time, word came that there was another little girl in the daughter's home, and she wrote begging me to come back to her, if only for a visit, for I was now her only living relative and her lonely heart was hungry for me. I immediately made plans to do so; but my partner--who formerly had been my employer--was suddenly taken away and I was obliged to give up the trip. Nearly a year later my niece wrote very hurriedly, telling me that her husband had obtained a fine position in Chicago, that they had sold their home and were on the point of leaving for that city, but she would send me their address when they were settled. That was the last I ever heard from her, although I wrote numberless letters of inquiry to their former place of residence and also to Chicago. Complications in business made it impossible for me to come to the United States to institute a personal search, until about five years ago, and I have spent these years looking for the dear girl who so strangely disappeared after leaving her California home. I have been in nearly every large city in the land, and in each have advertised extensively, but all to no purpose. A month ago I came to Boston for the second time, and have liked the place so well I am loath to leave it. While looking at the transformation scene over yonder, I was attracted by your remarkable resemblance to my sister, as she was at your age, and could not refrain from speaking to you, hoping that I might hear a familiar name. Miss Wild, can you tell me just when this accident, which deprived you of your parents, occurred?" Jennie gave him the date of the month and the year, and her companion's face changed as he heard it. "That was the same month and the year that my niece left California to go to Chicago," he said. "I believe--I wonder--By the way, Miss Wild"--with a sudden start--"was there nothing about you when that woman found you, by which you could have been identified?" "Oh, yes! I never thought!" panted Jennie, as her trembling hands flew to her throat. In a trice she had unclasped the string of amber beads which she always wore inside her clothing, and laid them in his hand. The man grew very white as he saw them, turned the curious clasp over and read the initials engraven there. He did not speak for a full minute. He was evidently deeply moved, and Jennie sat watching him with bated breath and tensely clasped hands. "My dear," he finally said, "this is the 'open sesame' to everything. This and your remarkable resemblance to my sister, together with the date you have given me, prove to me beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are the daughter of my niece." "O-h!" breathed Jennie, with tremulous eagerness. "The initials 'A. A. to M. A. J.,' on the clasp, stand for 'Alfred Arnold to Mildred Arnold Jennison,'" the gentleman continued. "I am Alfred Arnold. When my niece wrote me of the birth of her little daughter, and that she had named her 'Mildred' for her mother, and 'Arnold,' for me, I bought this string of amber in Calcutta, had the initials engraved on the clasp and sent it to the tiny stranger." "Then--then I am--you are--" began Jennie, falteringly. "You are my grandniece--I am your great-uncle. My child, do you think you will care to own the relationship?" But the girl was, for the moment, beyond the power of speech. To have the harassing mystery of her life solved at last; to learn something definite regarding her family, even though no one remained to claim her save this distant relative, yet to find in him a cultured gentleman, and reaching out to her with tender yearning, as the only link with his past--was more than she could bear with composure. To have tried to speak just then would have precipitated a burst of tears and she "wouldn't cry in public." So she could only throw out an impulsive, trembling hand to him and smile faintly into the grave, kind face beside her. He folded it within his own and patted it soothingly with a fatherly air. "Little girl, little girl!" he said, huskily, but tenderly, "I can hardly believe it! I was becoming discouraged in my quest; but I begin to think now that life is worth living, even though the dear one I sought is gone and I shall never see her again in this life." "My mother! my father--have you their--" but Jennie was obliged to stop again because of the refractory lump in her throat. "Yes, I have numerous photographs of them all," Mr. Arnold replied, and instinctively comprehending her thought. "I even have one of baby Mildred," he added, with a smile, "taken when she was six months old. Your mother's maiden name was Pauline West, and I have some beautiful letters from her that you will love to read some day." "Do I look like her at all?" queried Jennie, who was beginning to forget herself and grow more composed as she drank in these interesting facts. "No; she resembled her father, and was light, with blue eyes, though you have a way of speaking that reminds me of her. But you are almost the image of my sister--her mother--who was dark, with black eyes, and hair that curled, just as yours does, about her forehead," Mr. Arnold replied, and added: "Your father I never saw, but I have some pictures of a very nice-looking gentleman whose autograph, 'Charles E. Jennison,' is written on the back." "And my name is 'Mildred Arnold Jennison,'" said Jennie, and drawing a long breath at the unfamiliar sounds. "Yes, I am sure of it. With your resemblance to Annie, my sister, the dates you have given me and this string of beads I could ask for no stronger proofs," returned the gentleman as he gave back the amber necklace. "It is a very pretty name, I think," said the girl, a happy little laugh breaking from her, "and I'm glad there is a 'Jennie' in it, for I've been called that so long I would hardly know how to answer to any other. But--oh! what time is it?" she cried, starting to her feet. "I had forgotten all about my train!" Mr. Arnold showed her his watch, whereupon she breathed more freely. "There is plenty of time," she added, more composedly, "but I think I must go now, for I have a package to get from another store. I hope, though, this hasn't been a 'transformation scene' that will turn back to marble or--blankness," she concluded, with a nervous laugh as she glanced towards the curtained alcove where they had met. "Do not fear--it is all living truth, and we are going to make it seem more real every day," cheerily responded Mr. Arnold. "I will see you to your train and we will thus have a little more time together; then, very soon, I would like to come to you and meet the friends who have been so kind to you." Jennie asked if he could make it convenient to come to Manchester on Friday, explaining why she could not make the appointment for the next day; and it was so arranged. He accompanied her to the station and put her aboard her train, making himself very entertaining on the way by recounting interesting incidents connected with his life and travels in the East. "You're sure you're a bona-fide uncle and no vanishing 'genie'?" she half jestingly, half wistfully remarked as the warning "All aboard!" sounded and she gave him her hand at parting. "I'm sure of the relationship, and I think I am of too substantial proportions to become invisible to mortal eyes at a moment's warning. Whether I shall be obliged to vanish in any other way will depend upon yourself later on," Mr. Arnold smilingly replied, as he courteously lifted his hat and bowed himself away. But during the ride home it seemed too wonderful to be true. She had dreamed of a similar revelation so many times, only to awake in the morning and find herself plain Jennie Wild, the same stray waif still hopelessly bemoaning the mystery that enshrouded her origin, that she could hardly believe she was not dreaming now. "Mildred Arnold Jennison! Mildred Arnold Jennison!" she repeated over and over. "I don't know her; I can hardly believe she really exists; it seems more like one of the many vagaries of 'Wild Jennie' who was ever fond of imagining herself some poor little princess in disguise." And thus, by the time she reached home, she had worked herself to the highest pitch of nervous excitement, which culminated in Katherine's arms, and which she was patiently trying to overcome when we left them to take our "backward glance." CHAPTER XXVI. CONCLUSION. By the time Jennie had given Katherine a brief outline of what had occurred during the afternoon, the dinner bell sounded and warned them that they must put aside romance and startling revelations for the present and come down to the more practical and prosaic affairs of life. "But, Katherine, I can't go down," Jennie exclaimed as she sprang to the mirror and saw her red and swollen eyes. "I look a perfect fright." "Well, of course, you need not; I will send you up something nice, and you can rest and try to compose yourself, for you will want to tell us all more of this wonderful story by and by," Katherine considerately returned as she arose from her kneeling posture to obey the summons from below. "But you may set the ball rolling, dearie. I want them all to know, and they must have thought I had a queer 'bee in my bonnet' when I got home." "Very well, I will formally announce the advent of our new guest, Miss Mildred Arnold Jennison, if you wish, and I know that everyone will heartily rejoice with you," was the smiling reply. Jennie threw her arms impulsively around her friend, "Oh, Katherine! how good you always are to me!" she cried. "What a blessed thing it was for me that you chose to go to Hilton! If you hadn't I wouldn't have known about Science--I never should have come to Boston, and then I would have missed to-day, an--" "Oh, Jennie! Jennie! God governs all; He has more ways than one of leading His children, and when they are ready for the Truth it is always revealed to them," chidingly interposed her friend, but dropping a fond kiss upon the flushed cheek nearest her. "Well, but it was you who made me 'ready' for it," the girl persisted. "You were so dear yourself you made me want to be dear, too, and so my heart opened to receive the Truth. And, Katherine"- -impressively--"every day since I got your letter, just after auntie went away, I have said over to myself what you wrote me, and tried to believe it. It was this: 'Your identity is not lost; you are God's child, and that child can never be deprived of her birthright, or any other good necessary to her happiness and well- being'; only I put it in the first person." "Dear, you have made it a true prayer, and to-day you have received in part the answer to it," said Katherine, softly. "Do you think so?" said Jennie, earnestly. "Indeed, I do. You know the promise, 'If ye ask anything in My name, believing'? But I suppose I must go down," and Katherine turned to leave the room. Jennie stood still, thinking deeply for a moment. Then, before her friend could reach the stairs, she called out, the old cheery ring in her tones: "You needn't send up anything, you blessing; I'll wash my face and come down. I don't care if my eyes are red; you all love me and won't mind." So, after a little, this child of impulse joined the family below, her face radiant with happiness, in spite of the evidences of recent tears, and everybody exhibited the liveliest interest in the wonderful sequel to her life of mystery, and expressed, most cordially, their joy in view of her good fortune in finding some one akin to her. "Tell me what he looks like, honey. I'm just expiring with curiosity and impatience to see this great magician who has transformed everything for you," said Sadie, with her good-natured drawl, after Jennie had given them a more detailed account of the interview with her relative. "You just wait till you see this 'magician,' as you call him," retorted the girl, with a proud little toss of her head. "Anyone can tell, with half a glance, that he's an out-and-out gentleman. And, don't you know"--with a long sigh of content--"it is such a comfortable feeling, for I've often had a very lively squirming time all by myself when I've tried to focus my mental kodak upon some imaginary shade of my ancestors to see what he was like." It was a very happy company that congregated on the verandas the next morning to complete the preparations for the reunion of the afternoon. Dr. Stanley and the Seabrooks came over again to help arrange flowers, hang the lanterns, etc., and they were no less rejoiced than her other friends when informed of Jennie's happy discoveries of the previous day. "What are we going to do without our 'Jennie Wild'?" smilingly inquired Prof. Seabrook, as he laid a friendly hand on her curly black head. "I am afraid a good many tongues will trip a good many times before they get used to 'Miss Mildred Arnold Jennison.'" "Well, professor, you'll have the same Jennie--at least for the next two years; for I'm never going to be called anything else by my old friends," returned the girl, in a positive tone. "I don't quite know how we are going to manage about the name," she added, reflectively. "I'm free to admit, though"--with an arch look--"I think my new trimmings are rather swell; but I can't give up the Jennie. I'm sure Jennie Jennison wouldn't do--too much Jennie, you know. But I'm not going to worry about that to-day; I'm too happy, and there's too much to be done. Mrs. Minturn, where is Katherine?" she suddenly inquired, with a roguish glance at a stalwart form that was restlessly pacing the veranda. "She is in the library, answering a letter for me; she will be through very shortly. Do you want her particularly, dear?" innocently questioned the lady who was absorbed in filling a jardiniere with scarlet geraniums. "N-o, not very; only I've been growing conscious during the last few minutes that there is a--er--something lacking in the atmosphere. Dr. Stanley, do have this rocker," she interposed, with a sly smile, and pushing one towards him, "it's too warm this morning for such a waste of energy." Either by chance or intention, she had swung the chair directly opposite a low window that commanded a view of the library, where Katherine, in a familiar gown of pale yellow chambrey, was oblivious to all but the work in hand. The young man shot a searching look at the mischievous elf; then, with a quiet "thank you," deliberately took the proffered seat, but, ten minutes later, he also was missing from the company. He found Katherine seated before her own private desk, and in the act of stamping the letter which he had just seen her addressing. "I hope I do not intrude?" he observed, in a tone of polite inquiry. "No, I am just through," she replied, as she carefully pressed the still moist stamp in place with a small blotter. "I have come to ask if you have a copy of that flashlight picture of the 'Flower Carnival'" he resumed. "Dorrie's is at home, but she wishes to have some more copies, and as I am going to town to- morrow I thought I would attend to it." "Yes, I have mine right here," said Katherine, as she took a small key from a drawer and proceeded to unlock a compartment in her desk, smilingly explaining as she did so: "This is where I keep my choicest treasures--things that I do not let everyone see." "Must I look away?" demanded her companion, in a mock-injured tone. "Oh! no"--with a silvery ripple--"I am not quite so secretive as that." Removing a box, she carefully placed it one side, then brought forth a package nicely wrapped in tissue paper. Unfolding this, she disclosed several photographs, and among them was the one he had asked for. "How fortunate you were to get so good a picture!" she observed, and studied it a moment before giving it to him. "How happy Dorrie looks! Although, to see her now, one would scarcely believe that this was ever taken for her." "No, indeed! What a marvelous change a year has made in that child!" said Dr. Stanley, in an animated tone. "'A year!' I am sure you do not quite mean that," and she lifted a questioning look to him. "No, I do not--thank you for correcting me," he gravely rejoined. "I know time has had nothing to do with it--that we owe it all to Christ--Truth. How watchful one needs to be of one's words, in Science." "Yes, or one is liable to give wrong impressions without meaning to. It is scientific to be exact, and"--with a soft sigh--"we all have to learn that by being continually on guard." There was a moment of silence, after she ceased speaking, during which Katherine began to be conscious that the atmosphere was becoming charged with an unaccustomed element, and she hastened to observe, as she glanced towards the veranda: "How lovely the house is looking! Have you your camera here?" "I am sorry I have not, for we ought to have some views of it. We will have," he added. "I will have a photographer from the village come up before the day is over and take some." As he concluded, by some careless handling, the picture of the Flower Carnival slipped from his grasp, and in trying to recover it his arm came in contact with the box, which Katherine had taken from her treasure closet, displacing the cover and almost upsetting it. "Oh!" cried the girl, in a startled tone, but flushing scarlet as she saved it from falling and hastily replaced the cover. She was not quick enough, however, to prevent her companion seeing, with a sudden heart bound of joy, that the box contained a spray of dried and faded moss rosebuds. He turned a radiant face to her, and her eyes drooped in confusion before the look in his, while the color burned brighter in her cheeks. "Miss Minturn--Katherine! Did you prize them enough to keep them-- here?" and he touched the door of her "treasure closet" "They are a--a souvenir of a delightful evening--my last at Hilton," she faltered. His countenance fell; yet something in the tense attitude of the figure beside him, in her quickened breathing and fluctuating color emboldened him to ask: "Did they convey no message to you? had they any special significance? Tell me--tell me, please!" "They had not--then," she confessed, almost inaudibly. "Then?" he repeated, eagerly. "I did not know--I had not looked---" "You did not know their language then; but you do now, dear?" he said, a glad ring in his tones. "And may I tell you that my heart and all its dearest hopes went with those little voiceless messengers? That was Why--" "Oh! Uncle Phillip, the carriage has come for us and we are waiting for you," cried Dorothy's voice from the low, open window on the opposite side of the room, and for the first time in his life a feeling of impatience with his niece stirred in Phillip Stanley's heart. "Why! is anything the matter?" she added, as she observed Katherine's averted eyes and unusual color and her uncle's unaccustomed intensity. "I'll be with you in a minute, Dorrie," he said. "Just one word," he pleaded, bending nearer to Katherine, "have you treasured my messengers because of their message?" But Katherine could not speak even the "one word"--the fluttering of her startled heart, the throbbing in her throat robbed her of the power to make a sound. The most she could do was to lift her eyes, for one brief instant, and smile faintly into the fond face looking down upon her. It was enough, however. Phillip Stanley stood erect and drew in a long, free breath. "Coming, Dorrie!" he called out, as the girl made a movement to step over the low sill into the room; "no, there is nothing the matter--I came to ask Miss Minturn for the Flower Carnival picture, to have it copied for you." "How nice of you, Uncle Phillip! You are always so thoughtful for me!" said unsuspicious Dorothy. The man's laugh rang out full and clear, but with a note of genuine mirth in it that made Katherine's cheeks tingle afresh, for it told her that his main object in seeking her had not been to get the picture. "Oh! if that child would but vanish!" he thought, with an adoring look at the pretty, drooping figure in its dainty robe of pale yellow; but little Miss Marplot evidently had no such intention, and he reluctantly turned away to save Katherine further embarrassment. "Good-by, Miss-Katherine; we will be with you again this afternoon," he said, with a thrill in his voice as it lingered over the name; then he stepped through the low window, slipped his arm around unconscious Dorrie and led her away to the carriage. The reunion of the afternoon was a most delightful occasion. Mr. Minturn had chartered a yacht to take the whole party out for a few hours' sail, and, the day being perfect, the sea in its bluest attire and quietest mood, there was nothing to mar their enjoyment, and the experience proved ideal for everyone. They returned just at sunset, to find numerous daintily laid tables awaiting them on one of the broad verandas and groaning beneath an abundance of the many luxuries that had been provided to tempt and regale; while spotlessly attired maids and white- jacketed men were in attendance to serve the hungry excursionists. As twilight dropped down o'er land and sea, as the numerous lanterns were lighted and flung their soft radiance and vivid spots of color upon the scene, while a fine orchestra discoursed melodiously from some green-embowered nook, the place seemed like an enchanted realm where one might almost expect to discern, flitting among the playful shadows, those weird forms that people the elf land of childhood's fancy-- "Fairies, black, gray, green and white, Those moonshine revelers and shades of night." And thus the evening was spent in a delightfully informal manner, each and all appearing to feel as if they were members of one happy family, as, indeed, they were, in Truth and Love. But the final farewells had to be said at length, for railway time-tables are absolute, and the last train for Boston would leave at ten o'clock. At half-past nine the carriages were at the door and fifteen minutes later all were gone, excepting the Seabrooks, who lingered for a few last words with the family, and to take leave of Miss Reynolds, who would go home on the morrow. They were all standing together in the brilliantly lighted reception hall, Dorothy with one arm linked within her father's, the other encircling Katherine's waist. "Hasn't it been a wonderful day, papa?" said the girl, during a little lull in the general conversation. "It certainly has, dear," he replied, giving the small arm a fond pressure. "And see!" she continued, glancing around the circle, "all of us, except Mr. and Mrs. Minturn, belong to Miss Katherine." "Well, bless my heart!" here laughingly interposed Mr. Minturn. "Miss Dorothy, I think that is very unceremoniously crowding us out of our own domain." "You'll know I didn't mean to do any crowding when I tell you my thought," she returned, and nodding brightly at him. "You see, it was she who interested everyone of us in Science, and I think we ought to be called Miss Katherine's sheaves. You know it says in the Bible 'he who goes forth bearing precious seed shall come again bringing his sheaves with him.' She sowed the seed at Hilton and has 'gathered us all in' here." "That is a very sweet thought, Dorrie, and it is true enough, too," said her mother, as she bestowed a fond look upon Katherine. "But," she added, moving towards the door, "we must go home this very minute, for it is getting late," and with general "good- nights" they also went away. Katherine followed them out upon the veranda, where she stood leaning against the balustrade and watched their forms melt away in the darkness, a thrill of loving gratitude in her heart, for, were they not indeed her "sheaves"? Presently she heard a step behind her, then a firm yet gentle hand was laid upon hers. "May I have it for always, Katherine?" questioned Phillip Stanley, in a low voice, as he lifted and inclosed it in both of his. "I could not say half I wished this morning, dear. Poor Dorrie!"--in a mirthful tone--"did not realize how exceedingly de trop she was, and, for a moment, I was half tempted to be cross with her. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Minturn after I returned from my drive and told them something of what I had tried, under such difficulties, to make you understand." "You told papa and mamma!" "I had to--I simply could not keep it. I know you had given me no verbal authority to ask for what I wanted; but, ah!--that look, that smile, as I left you, made me bold enough for anything." "And they--" "They told me that it would have to be just as Katherine said. What does my 'brown-eyed lassie' say?" Involuntarily the girl's slender fingers closed over his hand as she lifted frank, sweet eyes to him. "Yes, Phillip." Softly, shyly, the coveted answer fell on his ears. "That means that you are mine, as I am yours," he said, a great joy throbbing in his tones, "and"--reverently--"we are also to be one, in heart and purpose, in the service of our great cause." Drawing the hand he held within his arm, he led her down the steps out among the fairy shadows to a great rock that overlooked the sea. Meantime, the "news" was being whispered among the family inside and was received with general satisfaction, Sadie, particularly, expressing great delight in view of what she termed a "perfectly elegant match." Jennie, on the other hand, accepted it as a matter of course. "It didn't need to be announced, at least to me," she declared, with a wise nod of her head. "I've seen it coming this long while, for Science isn't the only absorbing subject that a certain gentleman has been investigating during the last year and a half. But just let me tell you--if my name had been Jimmy instead of Jennie that handsome M.D. wouldn't have found such clear sailing in this harbor." When Katherine finally came in, trying hard to appear unconscious, but looking rosy and starry-eyed, Sadie sprang forward and threw her arms around her, kissing her heartily. Then drawing back, but still holding her a prisoner, she mockingly exclaimed: "Moss rosebuds! Katherine, have you ever taken the trouble to ascertain what they mean when sent by a swain to a maid?" "Oh! Sadie, how you do love to tease!" cried the blushing girl as she tried in vain to release herself from the clinging arms. "Well, honey," continued her tormentor, "it was as plain as A B C to me that night, and I chuckled right smart to myself when I saw you innocently pin them, on your breast. It was simply delicious! But"--suddenly laying her hands on the pretty brown head--"bless you, my children! you have my unqualified sanction and I'll put my whole heart into my toes when I dance at your wedding." With a light laugh the gay girl bounded to the piano and vigorously began playing Mendelssohn's wedding march. But Katherine had vanished. Phillip Stanley, however, sitting on the veranda, across the way, caught the suggestive strains and laughed softly to himself, as, in imagination, he surmised something of what was going on in the Minturn mansion. The following day brought Mr. Arnold to make his promised call upon Jennie and her friends, when, as the proud and happy girl had predicted, it did not require much discernment to realize that he was every whit a "gentleman." He told them, among other things, that his life had been rather a lonely one, as he had no family. Several years after going to the East he had married the daughter of a planter, but she had been taken from him two years after their union, and he had never cared to marry again. When his partner died he became sole proprietor of their business, which he had successfully conducted until he determined to return to America, when he had sold out to some of his clerks, satisfied to retire with a moderate fortune and allow them to have their day, as he had had his. He brought with him letters, papers and numerous photographs which convinced Mr. Minturn that he was, in truth, akin to Jennie and entitled to be her future protector, as he both desired and claimed the right to be. He expressed his grateful appreciation of what the Minturns, particularly Katherine, had done for his niece, but insisted upon refunding all that they had thus far expended upon her education. "It is but just and right," he persisted, when Katherine demurred, saying it had been "a love offering, and she did not wish it back." "I am abundantly able to do it and also to give her every advantage in the future. I do feel, however, that nothing can ever repay you for the great kindness you have shown her." He afterwards had a private conversation with Jennie, during which he proposed to legally adopt her, if she had no objection to taking his name, and would be content to make her home with an "old gentleman" like himself. "Content!" she exclaimed, drawing an ecstatic breath. "Well, for a girl who has always felt that she didn't really belong anywhere, that is a prospect that would just about turn my head if I hadn't found a new chart and compass to steer by. As for the 'old gentleman,' if you don't mind"--with a roguish glance but flushing slightly--"I'd--like to tell you I think he is just dear." "I wonder what I'll have to pay for that?" said Mr. Arnold, laughing, but with a suspicious moisture in his eyes. "Well," said Jennie, cocking her head on one side and giving him an arch look, "if you'll try to think the same of me we'll call it square." "That won't be such a difficult task," he replied, gently touching a curling lock on her forehead that was so like his sister's. "As for the name," Jennie resumed, more seriously, "you say my middle one was given me for you; why not transpose it and call me Mildred Jennison Arnold? Then I can keep them all, and it will not seem out of place to still address me as 'Jennie.'" This was regarded as a happy thought, and, as soon as the necessary papers could be made out, she became Alfred Arnold's legally adopted daughter. His chief thought now appeared to be to make her life as happy as possible, and, after consulting her wishes, he purchased a lovely home very near Hilton Seminary, secured a competent and motherly woman for a housekeeper, and thus the girl was enabled to continue her course at school, as a day scholar, and enjoy her delightful home at the same time. Dr. Stanley also bought a fine residence in the same locality, and early in January Katherine was back once more to take up her life work 'mid old familiar scenes, greatly to the delight of the Seabrooks and her many other friends. Her husband still retained his office in the city, but with a new sign now hanging in his window--"Phillip Harris Stanley, M.D., Christian Scientist," and already he was becoming widely known as a successful practitioner. Soon after their return, in the fall, Prof. Seabrook and his family identified themselves with the Scientists of the city, and also with "the Mother Church" in Boston. Some of the pupils dropped out of Hilton, because of this step, but others came to fill their places, and a year later both wings of the building had been extended and a most flourishing condition of affairs prevailed. Miss Reynolds had resigned her position at Hilton, at the beginning of the year, and remained at home with her mother, and where she also had taken up her work for Truth. Sadie Minot, having attained her majority and come into possession of her fortune, decided that she would be happier to locate near her old friends, with whom she was in such close religious sympathy, and she accordingly found a pleasant home in the city and resumed the study of French, German and music. One morning, late in February, she went up on the hill to spend the day with Katherine, who often claimed her for such a visit, for their friendship was one of the dearest things of their lives. To-day, however, Sadie appeared to have some weighty subject on her mind, for she was unusually thoughtful, and Katherine was beginning to wonder if anything was troubling her, when she drew forth a letter and, passing it to her, said: "Read that, honey, and tell me what you think of it." With a dim suspicion of what was coming, Katherine drew forth the missive from its envelope and read: "DEAR SADIE: When the prodigal faced about to go back to his home, his father went forth to meet him. I have faced about; I have returned to my father and--our Father. The one has welcomed and forgiven, and Truth is teaching me what true forgiveness of sin is--the destruction of sin in the human consciousness. Now I turn to you to seek pardon--nay, I suppose I should 'know' that I am already pardoned, since you also are learning to recognize man only as his Father's 'image and likeness.' At the same time, some acknowledgment is due for wrong that I have done you. Truth compels me to confess that my motive in seeking you, two years ago, was not good, and I am now ashamed of my later persecution-- it was unworthy of any man. And now, justice to myself prompts me to say that, underneath, there was a real fondness for you, and I find--now that I am clothed and in my right mind--that it had acquired even a stronger hold upon me than I then realized. I write this because I am soon to go abroad for an indefinite period--have been appointed confidential secretary to----, who goes, in March, as United States Minister to England. All I am, together with the brighter prospects before me, I owe to Phillip Stanley, who, next to her who has given to this sin-burdened world the message of Love that has saved me, commands my deepest gratitude and respect. Send me one word, Sadie--'forgiven'--and I shall leave my country with a lighter heart than I have known for years. NED." Katherine lifted moist eyes, to her friend after reading and refolding the letter. "Phillip says the change in him is wonderful--he saw him, you know, when he was at home for Christmas," she observed. "Shall you send him the word he asks for, Sadie?" Miss Minot did not reply for a moment, and her flushed face drooped lower over the embroidery in her hands. At last she said, slowly: "Honey, I have sent him a word; but it was 'Come'!" "Sadie!" "Yes, and"--a shy smile playing around the corners of the girl's mouth--"a telegram received last night reads: 'Coming Thursday; sail March thirtieth; can you get ready?'" "You fairly take my breath away!" exclaimed Katherine, amazed. "And you are going to England with him?" "I reckon he'd hardly expect anything else, after I had said 'Come,' would he?" queried Sadie, sweeping her friend a shy look from under her lashes. "It seems to me you are not quite so averse to a European trip as you were a year and a half ago," Mrs. Stanley observed, in a significant tone. Sadie laughed out merrily. "Well"--the old Southern drawl manifesting itself--"at that time, honey, the attraction to stay was the same that it now is to go." "I am glad, Sadie--I really am," said Katherine, after a thoughtful pause. "Phillip and I have often wondered how things would eventually arrange themselves for you two. I must say, though, the way you've managed it is unique in the annals of history," and she burst into a hearty laugh. "Think so? Well, you see, I didn't have any preserved moss rosebuds to send him," retorted Miss Minot, with a chuckle. "Sadie, will you never let up on those rosebuds?" cried Katherine, still laughing. "However, as I said before, I am glad; you are practically alone in the world and will be happier to have a home of your own, and I think I would feel very sorry to have Mr. Willard go to a far country all by himself. Now, I am going to have you come right to me until you go," she went on, with animation. "You shall be married here. I will matronize you, and we will have all the old school friends on hand to give you a rousing send-off." "How perfectly lovely of you, Katherine! It will surely be a great comfort to me--give me such a homey feeling, you know, and I--" but Sadie's tremulous lips and an unmanageable lump in her throat would not permit her to go on. "I shall love to do it, dear. It will give me a fine opportunity to entertain our classmates and other friends," Katherine hastened to say. "But how perfectly funny!" she cried, gayly, "to be planning for your wedding, and you two lovers haven't yet come to a definite understanding?" "Oh! yes, we have, honey. Ned knows, as well as I, that everything was settled by that one word, 'Come.' Nothing but details remain to be arranged. But--oh! Katherine, how I shall miss you!" she concluded, yearningly, for, as we know, during their two years' friendship there had been scarcely a cloud to obscure the harmony between them. "Yes, we shall miss each other," Katherine assented, with a soft sigh. "But"--turning luminous eyes upon her--"we both have the same shepherd--Love; we shall both dwell together in the 'secret place' and be ever working for the same blessed Cause. Nothing can really separate us, dear, so long as we faithfully keep step in moving towards the Light." THE END.