Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/114

76 his real experiences from his public circular because of their sacredness, if it were not likely that by piety and prayer, rather than by mesmerism, he had learned the power of healing. This was a perfectly consistent speculation, for from her childhood, from the days of her studying with her brother and later with her pastor, she had been taught to look for a law of cause and effect. Now here was a man healing, she reflected, and there must be a law to govern his cases. Moreover it was natural to her to take the religious view, that this law was only understood through revelation, and to credit Quimby with having received the revelation. She was a sincere Christian and believed healing without medicine must be done by God.

Still it was the law she sought for. It was not enough for her that here and there a miracle of piety could be performed by those who gave their lives up to prayer. She had come to understand that, where the Hebrew prophets had occasionally and sporadically made God’s will prevail in a so-called miracle, Jesus of Nazareth had never failed in invoking health and sustenance. He had cured the most desperate diseases with the same readiness as the mildest; He had blessed the poor food and abundance had been found to feed the multitude. Yet here she, Mary Baker, lay on a bed of pain and in sore need of means. Did God withhold from her His bounty because she was a sinner? Like Job, she knew in her heart this was not true. Then where was the fault and what was the law?