Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/202

164 South, thirty-two miles distant from Boston. Mr. Crafts opened an office and advertised in the local papers his readiness to deal with various mentioned diseases. He declared, however, that if patients gave him a fair trial and were not benefited he would refund their money. In three weeks he was able to print the testimonial of a woman patient who had been healed of an internal abscess. The patient tells of her own and her friends’ utter astonishment that this should have been done in an incredibly short time when she had suffered for twelve years and that it should have been done without medicines or applications, but she added that she was convinced that he was a skilful physician and that his cures were not the result of accident.

Such indorsement coming from one living in his own town, whose name and address were printed in full and could be easily seen by the villagers and country folk, had a good effect in swelling the number of his visitors, and Hiram Crafts found himself in the way of doing a great deal of good, while his livelihood, which his wife had feared would be threatened by the abandonment of cobbling, seemed secured. She made it a source of complaint, however, that Mrs. Patterson did not herself practise.

Mrs. Patterson encouraged, advised, and supported her student in all he did. During the evenings she discussed the principle of healing with him. Every cure that he made, however simple, was a further demonstration of the science. She was as deeply interested and as greatly rejoiced over each cure as was the practitioner. It was a season of