Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/91

 minds of this mistake, let us put ourselves in the patient's place. Most of us, I suppose, know that place: I have been there half a dozen times. It is the centre of a great planetary system of kind people. Home love, and the affection of my friends, and the pleasant goodwill of the servants, and the wisdom and the gentleness of doctors and of nurses, and all prayers for my recovery, wheeled round me, each in its appointed course. There I lay, and was watched, like a big baby: and these activities of the spiritual life encircled me, day and night, till I got better. The point is, that it all came naturally to everybody. It was the habit of the home, it was our usual way of doing things. My friends did not suddenly begin to care for me: the doctors and the nurses did not suddenly begin to be gentle: the maids were not stung by the splendour of a sudden thought for my comfort: the use of prayer on my behalf was nothing new. Everybody was kind to me, because everybody in the house always is kind to me. They made me comfortable, and one prayed for me, because they are always making me comfortable, and one daily prays for me. All of us, except myself, were doing what we always do: and I was being what I always am.

Illness, nine times out of ten, no more