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.
 
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