Part 76 (2/2)
[Page 377.]
ever such forms and hues of heaven, should move our [1]
brush or pen to paint frail fairness or to weave a web of words that glow with gladdening gleams of G.o.d, so unapproachable, and yet so near and full of radiant relief in clouds and darkness! [5]
CHAPTER X. INKLINGS HISTORIC
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About the year 1862, while the author of this work [1]
was at Dr. Vail's Hydropathic Inst.i.tute in New Hamps.h.i.+re, this occurred: A patient considered incur- able left that inst.i.tution, and in a few weeks returned apparently well, having been healed, as he informed [5]
the patients, by one Mr. P. P. Quimby of Portland, Maine.
After much consultation among ourselves, and a struggle with pride, the author, in company with several other patients, left the water-cure, _en route_ for the aforesaid [10]
doctor in Portland. He proved to be a magnetic practi- tioner. His treatment seemed at first to relieve her, but signally failed in healing her case.
Having practised h.o.m.opathy, it never occurred to the author to learn his practice, but she did ask him how [15]
manipulation could benefit the sick. He answered kindly and squarely, in substance, ”Because it conveys _electricity_ to them.” That was the sum of what he taught her of his medical profession.
The readers of my books cannot fail to see that meta- [20]
physical therapeutics, as in Christian Science, are farther removed from such thoughts than the nebulous system is from the earth.
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After treating his patients, Mr. Quimby would retire [1]
to an anteroom and write at his desk. I had a curiosity to know if he indited anything pathological relative to his patients, and asked if I could see his pennings on my case. He immediately presented them. I read the [5]
copy in his presence, and returned it to him. The com- position was commonplace, mostly descriptive of the gen- eral appearance, height, and complexion of the individual, and the nature of the case: it was not at all metaphysi- cal or scientific; and from his remarks I inferred that [10]
his writings usually ran in the vein of thought presented by these. He was neither a scholar nor a metaphysician.
I never heard him say that matter was not as real as Mind, or that electricity was not as potential or remedial, or allude to G.o.d as the divine Principle of all healing. He [15]
certainly had advanced views of his own, but they com- mingled error with truth, and were not Science. On his rare humanity and sympathy one could write a sonnet.
I had already experimented in medicine beyond the [20]
basis of _materia medica_,-up to the highest attenuation in h.o.m.oeopathy, thence to a mental standpoint not un- derstood and with phenomenally good results;(7) mean- while a.s.siduously pondering the solution of this great question: Is it matter, or is it Mind, that heals the [25]
sick?
It was after Mr. Quimby's death that I discovered, in 1866, the momentous facts relating to Mind and its superiority over matter, and named my discovery Chris- tian Science. Yet, there remained the difficulty of ad- [30]
justing in the scale of Science a metaphysical _practice_,
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and settling the question, What shall be the outward [1]
sign of such a practice: if a divine Principle alone heals, what is the human modus for demonstrating this,-in short, how can sinful mortals prove that a divine Principle heals the sick, as well as governs the universe, time, [5]
s.p.a.ce, immortality, man?
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