Page:Frank Packard - The Miracle Man.djvu/173

 "But how do you account for these miraculous cures?" they asked.

"You have seen them—the results," Madison replied. "You know the cures to be living, vital, irrefutable facts—don't you?"

"Yes," they agreed.

"Then," said Madison, "there can be but one answer—faith. There is no other—faith. Are we not, in view of what has happened, of what exists before our very eyes, forced to the belief that faith is the greatest thing, the most potential factor in the world?"

"And do you believe then that all who come here will be cured?"

Madison shook his head.

"Ah, no," he said; "far from it. Many will come with but the semblance of faith, and for those there can be no cure—that is evident on the face of it, is it not?"

They interviewed Thornton—and Thornton, too, talked to them, but the very presence of Mrs. Thornton was weightier far than words.

They interviewed the Holmes, and they interviewed Needley individually and collectively; and they interviewed Helena—but they did not interview the Patriarch. Here Helena barred their way—they were free to enter the cottage, to copy the names, the record of gifts inscribed in the book, already a long list for Needley had required no other incentive to give than the example that had been set—but that was all. Quietly, with demure simplicity, Helena, prompted by