Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/129

Rh She had come to Quimby prepared to find him a saint who healed by virtue of his religious wisdom, and as soon as she met him she completed her mental picture, endowing him with her own faith. Thus the hypnotist had almost nothing to do. Her faith returned upon her, flooding her with radiance, healing her of her pain. The modest mesmerist was astonished at the faith he believed himself to have evoked. It covered him with confusion to have her religious emotion, engendered by years of suffering, ascribe to him a spiritual nature which he knew he did not possess.

Mrs. Patterson’s case struck Quimby as one of his most remarkable cures. He watched with interest for her return on the following day and his gratification was equal to her gratitude when he found that she was apparently in the same radiant condition of well-being as when she stood erect the day before and said she was well. However, he again administered his mesmeric treatment, stroking her head, shoulders, and back, until she declared she felt as if standing on an electric battery.

“It is not magnetism that does this work, doctor,” she declared. “You have no need to touch me, nor disorder my hair with your mesmeric passes.”

“What then do you think does the healing?” he asked.

“Your knowledge of God’s law, your understanding of the truth which Christ brought into the world and which had been lost for ages.”

Quimby sat abashed. He was not religious, worshipful, or reverent, but he caught at the wonder of