A LETTER OF HOPE WITH A PREFACE BY Rev. ELWOOD WORCESTER, D.D. Emmanuel Church, Boston LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY MRS. R. C. DUGAN UCSB LIRARY rm A LETTER OF HOPE Hope From Sir Joshua Reynold's Win- dow, in New College Chapel, Oxford. A LETTER OF HOPE WITH A PREFACE BY Rev. ELWOOD WORCESTER, D.D. Emmanuel Church, Boston NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1908 Copyright, 1908, by MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY NEW YORK Published, September, 1908 Second printing, October, 1908 The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER PREFACE This little book contains a truthful account of a moral victory over physical woes which might daunt the stoutest heart. It is the simple and modest story of an heroic struggle maintained for years against fearful odds and innumerable discouragements. At a time when so many voices are raised to teach others, this quiet recital of what one woman has done to help herself is, in my judgment, of great practical value. This woman has come out of great tribulation sustained by a faith which we may all find, if we will seek for it. I am acquainted with the events recorded in this book and I know the history to be true. The writer's attitude toward her malady is one which strongly appeals to me ardent faith in God, and an intelligent willingness to accept whatever help may come from man. ELWOOD WORCESTER. August, 1908. FOREWORD The following letter was written (without the slightest idea of its ever being printed), by an invalid to her pastor, after her recovery from many years of suffering, the writer consenting to its being printed only after being repeatedly urged by several well-known clergymen. " This learned I from the shadow of a tree Which to and fro did play upon the wall : Our shadow selves, our influence, may fall Where we can never be." So, through the sunshine of God's love, may this book my shadow prove. HOPE LAWRENCE. A LETTER OF HOPE My dear Dr. You asked me the other day to write you a letter telling some of the experiences of my life and noting down also the means which have helped me most in recovering my health, so that, now I can say, "I am almost well," after many years of both nervous and organic disease. If this were only an account of myself or anything I personally had done, I could not comply with your request; but as it is chiefly a record of what an Infinite Power, entirely outside myself, has enabled me to do, I must acknowledge it. I resolved when I was ill that I would only speak of myself and experiences if I felt it would help others; and perhaps, when you have read my letter and see the lines of thought I have already worked over, you will kindly tell me where I have been wrong or made mistakes and also suggest new efforts. I have been told it was 9 10 A LETTER OF HOPE not the greatest general who made the fewest mistakes, but the one, who in spite of the greatest handicaps, wins the victory, so perhaps I may humbly apply to myself what Solomon says: "He who rules his own spirit is greater than he who taketh a city." Although I do not believe in heredity as com- monly taught, still I came into the world with certain tendencies which I have had to fight against and to develop if possible opposite traits of character and physical strength. In my mother's family there was nervous or mental disease and on my father's side a tendency to consumption. My mother was an incurable nervous invalid and my father had hemorrhages, though no disease. From both my father and mother, however, I received in early childhood a childlike faith and trust in God which fact outweighs all inherited tendencies to bodily disease. I remember a happy, uneventful childhood, with the exception of one severe illness and a bad fall over the banisters, from which I was picked up unconscious, and when I came to my- self I finished the sentence I was saying as I fell, A LETTER OF HOPE 11 and apparently was, then, as well as ever. At fifteen I realized where my mother's nervousness was leading and, besides my school work, threw myself heart and soul into the effort to save her, undertaking the housekeeping and many other duties. At seventeen I was ready for college, but took a severe cold to which I paid no atten- tion; and just as I was going to pass my examina- tions, hemorrhages set in. Even now, I can hardly speak of it, so keen was my disappoint- ment, for I was rather a book worm. My physi- cian was far in advance of the times, as that was twenty odd years ago. He made me live out in a tent and gave me other rules for my health which are now used in curing tuberculosis. K Then it was that I began to practise, or rather I formed, two habits of thought, which I would specially emphasize as helping me. 1st. Prayer and Intercessory Prayer, or, as Bishop Brent calls it, "loving one's neighbor on one's knees." This, however, is too sacred. I cannot go into it even to you further, than to say it certainly is the best method to keep one from becoming self-centered; for one must learn to love and to do for those for whom we pray; 12 A LETTER OF HOPE and, even if one has only strength to do little things, such doing takes one out of one's self. 2d. I formed the habit of trying to have the sense of praise the first thought on waking. I do not mean thanksgiving, but simple praise to God for what He is. Giving of thanks depends somewhat, to be honest with one's self, on feel- ing or mood; but praise is outside one's self, and, if the habit is persisted in, becomes natural, almost unconscious, and comes nearly before one is really awake. I can liken these thoughts of praise only to the soft twittering song of the birds in the early morning, a music of the heart which colors the whole day. Praise I found often kindles the responsive feeling of love, even when our hearts feel cold and dull, and leads us away from self more even than prayer. Then, before thinking of the day's duties or plans, I relaxed my body completely, and before rising devoted a few moments to thinking of the force, the power, the strength stored up ready for use, as in a great, never failing reservoir outside myself; and that whatever was given me to do that day I had only to draw on it, and to act as a transmitter of that force and strength to others. A LETTER OF HOPE 13 A few quiet minutes of resting in, I might say bathing, the mind and soul in that Divine strength will make that strength come to you in waves, or as a quiet flowing river, or even in unconscious ways. Some persons may say this is fanciful; but it is as true as wireless teleg- raphy or sending photographs by electricity and many other recently discovered forces. Per- sonally, of course, I cannot separate this strength from the thought of God, a Heavenly Father, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect mani- festation of that strength. I found added help by thinking of other exemplifiers of great power and by recalling their lives; that is, if I woke early enough. At night on retiring, also, I re- laxed the body, and with the thought of that Infinite Power under me fell asleep like a tired child in its mother's arms. I like the revised reading of the verse " And so He blesseth His beloved while they sleep," or the German, "He givetb His beloved Sleeping" I think if nurses and all others who care for the sick, the blind, and the helpless felt more that they were only transmitters of strength and not creators, they would be able to bear prolonged strains better. 14 A LETTER OF HOPE I know for myself that in taking care of my mother for many years, as she grew slowly worse, I could never have endured the strain without this thought. But to return, once more, to the wireless tele- graph as an example of this force. Just as it is necessary with this invention, that the receiver be in tune with the transmitter, so it is with us, our receivers must be in tune with the Infinite and free from the corroding rust of self. My disease was cured by living an out-door life, and I was again able for some years to devote myself to my mother and to church work. As a clergyman's daughter I had many calls on my strength, so that the doctor often said, " How do you stand it?" I could only answer, " It is not I." However, after much sickness in the family lasting for years, with many other things, I broke down again ; this time nervously as well as with renewed symptoms of consump- tion. My wise doctor sent me to the mountains, where on a cot bed I simply existed. Each pleasant day for weeks my cot was carried out into a grove near the house, and on rainy .days to a tent, and conscious or unconscious, I lay A LETTER OF HOPE 15 there. One incident I must tell you. I heard through my stupor of exhaustion the doctor ask the nurse, " Do you not see any change in her all these weeks? " " None," she replied, " the hemorrhages are as severe, she can seldom take more nourishment than the white of eggs and malted milk, and she lies most of the time in this exhausted semi-conscious state." Their voices sounded far away, but the doctor, stooping suddenly down to feel in the grass as if he had lost something, roused me slightly. He handed the nurse the broadest, strongest blade of grass to be found ; she looked at him surprised. " A nice blade of grass? " the doctor said; " you have been here all summer sitting by the side of Miss - - didn't you see this grass grow? " " No," she replied. " But it grew? " said he. After a silence, he merely added, "Keep on with the same medicine and treatment," and was gone. The nurse stood holding the blade of grass some minutes ; then dropped it and went about her duties. You may not believe it, but that nurse was a different and more hopeful and helpful nurse from that time, and for myself I know that from that moment I began to get well. 16 A LETTER OF HOPE Over and over in my mind that day went the words, " but it grew." Then slowly, I asked myself, " how? " Why, it simply drank in the sunshine and rain ; it did not mind being beaten down to the ground by the storm yesterday, and slowly " I will " was born again in my mind. " I too will grow strong and well." You per- haps will say this was treatment by suggestion. It was, but may I add also the thought that sometimes the vital strength of the patient is so low that she must be treated through those around her. I think it is too little realized how much the sick absorb, unconsciously, or I should say sub-consciously, of the state of mind of those around them. Often those caring for the sick do not realize themselves the doubts of recovery in their own mind, and think they present a hopeful and cheerful countenance to the patient, which is in reality only a forced one and the patient feels that it is unnatural. While speaking of " suggestion," I wish -all physicians had the methods of suggestion which my doctor uses ; that is, when visiting a patient not to ask the first minute, " How are you? " but to mention some topic outside the patient's A LETTER OF HOPE 17 health. I did not realize this potency until my doctor went away on a vacation and left me in another physician's care ; one who never talked of anything but my aches and pains from the minute he entered until he left the room. At the end of the week I puzzled why I gave him so much worse account than to my own doctor. Then I decided on this plan ; you may laugh at me, but, as I could not make the doctor talk of anything else, I tried to put my own mind on something that was outside myself. While I talked to him I thought of his necktie, tried to notice any change, whether he wore a different one from one day to another. Entirely without meaning to be rude, at the end of a few days I had him fingering and pulling quite unconsciously the ends of his necktie and I had to put my mind on something else. My suggestion, however, did not reach so far as to lead him to make any change, for he wore the same suit and necktie every day the four weeks he visited me. When my doctor returned I spoke to him about his own method; and he said he put nearly as much thought into the process of suggestion as he did into his diagnosis and prescriptions, and judged 18 A LETTER OF HOPE my condition far more often by the way I re- sponded to his first remarks than from what I told him of myself, and therein I think lies half his success. I told him jokingly that years ago I had read a very interesting series of letters aloud to my father called " Suggestions to the Pulpit from the Pew," and that when I recovered I was going to turn the table on all my doctors and write an article " Simple Suggestions to the Medical Profession from a Patient." To sum up what I mean, I wish doctors and also visitors realized what a mental atmosphere they bring to the sick and leave with them. It seems to me surgeons are the gravest men I ever knew, and I think if they were a little less so, some of their operations would be more successful. Of course they take such great responsibilities in questions of life and death it makes them grave. And now that I am speaking of mental atmos- phere I must tell you of one of my failures. After a severe attack of grippe I was sent to a health resort where every one was more or less sick. It was not a sanatorium, but in the hotel was a sun parlor where those too ill to exercise spent most of their days. Never in my life did A LETTER OF HOPE 19 I hear so much about sickness. It was nearly the only topic talked about, and as you say " Health is contagious," so I believe that much talking about sickness is decidedly injurious. I wish doctors realized how much patients often talk in their waiting rooms, and especially at health resorts, telling one another all about their symptoms and pains. I amused myself by tracing different symptoms from one person to another in a certain class of nervous patients during the first two weeks. Then one morning I tried to stem and change the current of thought in the few patients near me by suggesting that each one of us tell the best and most amusing story he or she could think of, not about sickness. This idea with several others I suggested took for a few days, but I found I could not change the tone of the place, and after some weeks I fled from my Nineveh, so to speak, to my home and then had to wait for my gourd to grow and to learn my lesson. I should have created my own mental atmosphere and kept it clear and pure and I could only have done this by being more by myself. Often when we try to help others we undertake too much, and we do not 20 A LETTER OF HOPE give ourselves time to go to the source of all strength to fill our reservoirs. As Christ said to His disciples when they asked why they could not cast out the evil spirit, " This kind cometh forth but by prayer and fasting." I suppose fasting means self-denial. How difficult this is for us ! I think to this is due many of our failures, and also our lack of power to help others. I know a young woman who worked eighteen years in an office where the surroundings were intensely unpleasant to her, but she created her own atmosphere and raised the tone and influenced all around her so that when she left the change was most marked. I like these lines of Brown- ing: "The common problem, yours, mine, every one's Is not to fancy what were fair in life Provided it could be, but, finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means, a very different thing. My business is not to remake myself, But make the absolute best of what God made." One question I puzzled over much during my A LETTER OF HOPE 21 very long illness : why the minister, the doctor and the patient did not usually work more to- gether and in harmony. Perhaps, if I cite one case which came to my knowledge, it may explain more vividly what I mean. A friend was suddenly taken critically ill : her family were most of them so far away that they could not reach her in less than a week, even when cabled to come immediately. My friend had the greatest desire to live until they arrived and the doctor certainly used every means of science to prolong life except this most important one of letting her see her pastor. My friend ex- pressed very, very often her desire to see her clergyman, who was a personal, dear friend and a cheerful, true-hearted man. The nurse told me afterwards that it was pitiful to see with what wistfulness the door was watched and how often the clergyman's name was on her lips. Yet the doctor, although a nominal Christian, refused, always making some excuse to the patient, but to the nurses and servants saying : "She will think herself dying if she sees the minister and she must not have the faintest idea she is so ill do not let her see him." Her 22 A LETTER OF HOPE rector called daily, but was always met with some excuse and put off. She died without seeing him without seeing her family, with only faithful servants around her. Why do doctors so often have this attitude towards the church and her ministers? This is not an extreme case. I cannot tell how often, when I was in the hospital, if I asked to see my Rector or have the Communion, I would be answered by the doctors or by nurse : " Why, you are not so very sick." ' You are not dying." I learned the only way to disarm their fears was to smile or even laugh and say : "It is not be- cause I have the faintest idea of dying, but simply because I wish to get well and also feel that I am getting well that I wish the Com- munion. I believe it helps one to live, not to die, and I wish to see Dr. A because I think he will help me as much as medicine." It does not seem to me it is the minister's fault, and yet something should unite the minister and doctor in their efforts for the welfare of the patient. I hope the day will soon come when this need is more realized, and that there will be unity and harmony, not jealousy and misunderstand- A LETTER OF HOPE 23 ing. I myself have been greatly blessed by the united help of my doctor and my minister. Every case of nervous disease is different and each doctor and patient must work out the ques- tion together, but you ask me what helped me the most. I found on the mental side, first, my power of control was at fault. I set about remedying it by inventing a game, in which, as I was intensely restless, I pitted my body and my mind against each other as two personalities. Part of the hours during which I had to rest I relaxed my body and made myself keep per- fectly still, at first a minute by the watch; then I resolutely made up my mind to think of nothing that length of time and if I failed in either effort I gave a black mark. Gradually I increased each period and then combined the two exer- cises. I found this game quietly persisted in two or three times or more during the day helped me much in curing my inability to sleep at night. The often repeated expression of my physician, "Think of nothing," was a contradiction and an enigma to me at first, until I tried this little play and learned to hold my mind still as well as my body, and not to use much will power even in 24 A LETTER OF HOPE holding either mind or body still, regarding it as play. Often the will is even weaker than the body and needs rest, and when recovering from an illness needs to be used sparingly and with light effort, this effort should afterwards be gradually increased. A resting of the will and even mind makes the force accumulate and strengthens the nerve forces. We lose much strength by useless and wandering thoughts and by worry more than all. I think every one will acknowledge that it is more often our thoughts and fears which keep us awake than the in- tensity of pain alone. We suffer unnecessarily much more from the fear of long duration of pain than from the actual pain of the moment. We continually cry, "How long is this to last?" while if we only bore the pain of the moment we would bear it better, separating and taking each moment by itself. In nervous prostration one's sense of the rela- tive values of large and small things is not correct. We magnify some small things and at times ignore the large ones. I tried not to think whether things were large or small to me. I found much help from doing little things, A LETTER OF HOPE 25 even if I worked only for a few minutes at a time. Once a nerve specialist asked me what I did for exercise. I hesitated and replied, "Why, on pleasant days I work in my garden and window boxes and take as long walks as strength permits, and on rainy days I do some housework for exercise, just little things." "Good," he said, " there is no truer story of human nature than that of Naaman in the Bible. If one could substitute the word 'nervous pros- tration' for leprosy, it would read the same as hundreds of cases which come to me every day. I ought really to be honest with these persons and to say : ' Give up your carriage, send away half your servants and do some real work. Sweeping and making beds bring into play as many muscles as gymnastic exercise*; instead I have to make up long prescriptions in which there is as little medicine as possible and long sets of gymnasium rules, otherwise these said well-to-do patients would never darken my door again." The most exquisite Roman and Florentine mosaics are those in which there are the greatest number of infinitesimal pieces combined with 26 A LETTER OF HOPE the larger and rarer stones ; so in the mosaic of life may it not be the doing of the little things faithfully which makes it most beautiful ; and to invalids may it not be the special gift of God, the power to see these little things which in the rush and turmoil of life busy people do not see or have time to do ? Would it not be well to remember the verse of our childhood : " Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean And the pleasant land ? '* Certainly the pleasant land of health is made by the little things we do or leave undone. Again, I believe the imagination is often at fault, and I found it could only be kept from drifting into worse channels of thought by giving it good solid food. I memorized hymns and poetry, not only some of the great works but bright, invigorating pieces and also funny, amus- ing rhymes and even jokes. I translated from German, French, and Latin into English and vice versa. I wrote children's stories for my own amusement and rewrote novels I had read, A LETTER OF HOPE 27 making the heroes or heroines act differently under different circumstances. These may seem little things to write of, but they helped me, and I will mention later how they specially helped me through two crises of my life. It is difficult to keep the mind from dwelling on sad or morbid memories when one is shut in much of the time. To keep bright pictures before the mind's eye while I was resting I had a frame placed near my bed, in which I put photographs, mounted on cardboard, of many of the most celebrated pictures cut to fit the pretty frame. These I changed from day to day, memorizing them. It is singular how we think we know a picture, but if we were asked to take the posture we could not do it. I have tried this with a number of persons and not one of them could take the position of the figures in some of the best known works of art. I memo- rized also past scenes, and the places which I saw, when I was able to go out to drive. I was once told by an English clergyman that this was a habit of Dean Farrar and that the power of his " Life of Christ " came largely from the vividness with which he described the scenery 28 A LETTER OF HOPE of the Holy Land, from his memorizing it and revisualizing it. I feel I have mentioned little things, but I said I would tell you how they helped me when two crises came. Often before, while practising these methods daily, I asked myself the good of them. When I was recovering from my second break- down my eyes gave out. I went to the oculist to hear : " For one whole year you must not write anything, nor read any written or printed matter; wear these glasses and come again at the end of the year. Don't think much of your eyes." I said, " I never can bear that : I live in books." He replied, " I thought so; see if you cannot find two larger books than any that are printed." I thought, now surely all these fears and dreads and horrid thoughts against which I have been fighting will come in and control my mind. I can never get on without books. Now, however, looking back, I can see that I gained more during that year than in any other. First, I found two books, the Book of Nature and the Book of Human Nature, still open to me. Second, I learned really to go to walk, body, mind, and soul. Before, I had A LETTER OF HOPE 29 often left my mind at home or carried a book with me. It was a very humbling year. I found out how little I really owned; for we really never own a book until it is so much a part of us that we can go without the printed page. It came to me that very little of what I had been reading I would take with me after this life, and this experience gave me time to sort out and pigeon-hole much I had read. What I had memorized of poetry and pictures were also a great help to me, and at the end of the year my health and all nervous symptoms were much better. The second time that these past habits of thought helped me was in a great crisis, when I had to undergo a very severe operation, so severe indeed that nearly every doctor said it would be useless and I might not live through it. As I would die if not operated on, I took the " ghost of a chance." I pass over the first long weeks of suffering. When the surgeon came to take out the stitches, much to my surprise he turned to me and said : " Pardon my asking a personal question, but, as the nurses and I watched you during the first days after the 30 A LETTER OF HOPE operation and often since, even when your face was twisted by pain, a smile passed over it and you looked so happy. We do not often see persons smile like that here. Would you mind telling us what you were thinking about then? " I blushed and at first felt that I could not answer. Then I said to myself, there is nothing to be ashamed of, and hesitatingly replied : " I think my mind has been like a phonograph. During the past five weeks there were impressions and plates passing through it which I could not turn off. You know what my life has been for years before the operation, from lounge to bed and from bed to lounge, and only occasionally getting out of doors. To keep my mind from being affected by my nerves and my sickness I have memorized much poetry, and have also written verses both comical and serious. Then I mem- orized photographs and places in such a way that they were all so deeply impressed I literally could not turn them off. These things kept me from feeling the pain as much as I otherwise would. It was like floating on ever moving streams and seeing beautiful pictures. Then, besides your skill, I felt little fear for I know A LETTER OF HOPE 31 that underneath me are the Everlasting Arms." This last was very hard for me to say as I knew the surgeon had no religious belief. It is hard for me also to repeat his answer to you, but I do so that you may not think this was at all my imagination. He turned to the assisting nurse, saying : " When I see cases like this, I almost believe in a Divine Power, when I see how delicate, nervous women go through such severe operations. I thought when I first saw Miss Hope she had only a ' ghost of a chance,* but it is only another lesson of the power of mind over matter. She will break the record and go home days earlier than most patients " ; and I did. Doctors came to see me who had prophesied that I could not live through the operation and said it was a miracle. It was no miracle. First and foremost it was God's blessing, to which was added the skill of the doctors and surgeons and the simple unconscious habits of mind which I had been forming for years. " It is the same God which worketh all in all." One experience of my life before I was sick helped me much in hours of depression, for I have had hours when I was intensely depressed ; 32 A LETTER OF HOPE only I could always feel the sun shining behind the cloud, and the thoughts and impulses never came into the "real ego." I suppose few women ever went down into a mine. I did once, and into a shaft where you had to descend and as- cend by ladders. As we were returning to the surface my companion said : " Wait a minute on this round, stand firm and twist your arms about this round so and hold fast, and then throw your head back a little, think of nothing else but look up. I am going to put out the lantern"; which he did before I could remonstrate, and such a blackness I never imagined. I looked up and there was the evening star shining with such brilliancy and power straight down the mouth of the shaft that I could not utter a word or think of anything else. He lighted the lantern at last and we climbed to the surface in silence. Was he not wise not to say or suggest anything to my mind about the abyss that yawned below me? That evening star has always had new power and meaning to me ever since I saw it from the depth. And so, after our sickness and periods of depression, the stars of faith and hope that shine through our darkness have new A LETTER OF HOPE 33 power for us. Sometimes, after trying every round of the ladder of effort to pull myself out of a feeling of depression, I have had to wait on some round and hold fast. A doctor once said to me, "Don't be afraid of those hours of waiting after you have tried every means to change the current of your thoughts; fear only makes them worse. Bear them as you would severe pains, after you have tried every remedy, with patience offering the thoughts themselves even, up to God, in some such way. " I cannot stop these thoughts or feelings. Take them from me if it be Thy Will." And when I stopped worrying about them they stopped after a very short time. Doctors say, " While there is life there is hope." I propose turning this saying round, While there is hope there is life. Hope cures more diseases than medicines. " Even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope, for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for. But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it, and every man who hath this hope in himself purifieth himself." 34 A LETTER OF HOPE I have often kicked against the pricks, but to be frank with you, some of the kickings were the growing pains of my soul goading me on to fresh endeavor. Speaking of growing pains of one's soul leads me back to my opening words about receiving from my parents something of their strong child- like faith in God. The way my father answered our childish questions and trained us, has been a great help in understanding my Heavenly Father's teachings during many years of my life. I remember once going to my father when study- ing the catechism and asking him about a ques- tion of doctrine, concerning which my mother's and father's churches were at variance. He explained the meaning of the words to me, then when I turned and said, "Which shall I believe?" he replied, laying one hand gently on my head : " I shall never tell you which to believe." Then with his other hand he took up a sponge and explained to me how it had been made, then added, " Your brain resembles very much this sponge : these are the years when you are building cells. Learn all these things now by heart, and then absorb and think them over as A LETTER OF HOPE 35 the sponge absorbs water ; later you will decide what to believe and perhaps even," he added jestingly, " when you are pressed you will give out in another form what you have absorbed." My father seldom fully answered our questions at the time when we asked them, or, if he did, he told us some story. Usually he allowed some incident or experience of our own lives to show us the lesson or answer the question. His habit was to take us each week, generally on Saturdays, on a walk out into the country and there answer our questions. The week following my ques- tions he took us up to a high hill where we knew well all the surrounding country. After we were tired of playing he called us to him and asked us to point out the land belonging to different men whom we knew, and to find the boundaries to their properties, and when we exclaimed, "Why, we are so high up we can hardly see the fences and stone walls," he answered, " That is just what I wanted : you asked me the difference between your mother's belief and my belief, and which was right. Remember the higher up you live and the nearer you are to heaven, the less the stones and fences, or the differences in the 36 A LETTER OF HOPE faith will be seen. Your mother's church is more like Mr. S.'s estate where all his flowers and fruit are raised under glass. Mine is like a garden of cabbages, turnips, and onions; for the working man. Both have their part in God's vineyard and kingdom. When you go back to your work, don't forget how little the difference counts and remember the visions you received when you were high up. Live much on the height. Be often alone with God." So I think it is that our Father who is in heaven teaches us our lessons by incidents and experiences of health and sick- ness if only we wait and watch for his answers to our questions. Now that I am coming back to health and to work I wish to recall some of the things and give them to others as far as I can. This is a poor account of a very uneventful life and of the means I used to get well. You know Ruskin says, "The best of a book is the thoughts it suggests," and this letter of mine may suggest something to you. I have put it into every-day language and expressed myself in- adequately, but it is a record of an Infinite Power beyond and outside me. I feel very humble. I might have done so much better. A LETTER OF HOPE 37 Now I will close and once more lock the doors of the past ; I have given you some of the keys. For myself I will live in the spirit of the words which I chose after that operation: " Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Yours sincerely, HOPE LAWRENCE. January, 1907. A 000658 ' 11 o