The woman healer

Prologue

It was in the pine woods at Wisconsin. The song of life and health was everywhere. The soft, warm air vibrated with it. Myriads of insects buzzed their thoughts of it. The healthy grass in the sunburnt fields swayed with the joy of it. Butterflies, on golden, white and auburn wings, intoxicated themselves in its beauty. The incense of a thousand prayers of thankfulness rose to the Creator in the breath of newly opened flowers; in the rapturous songs of birds, in the whizz of the black locust and the shriek of the blue jay, in the air fragrant with the whiff of pines, fields of clover and meadows of swaying wheat. All creation sang together, and the woman at the foot of the maple tree listened to the song, but her heart was irresponsive to its beauty. The sunshine of the scene was blurred to her. The sweet sounds of the world around were drowned in the uglier sounds of those whose life was tragedy, not song.

“Oh, God!” she cried, bitterly, stretching out her arms towards the soft blue smiling skies; “why do you keep so silent in the Heavens? Why have you made this lovely earth in mockery to all our pain? God of love, does nothing reach you? The sobs of broken-hearted women, the groans of toil-worn men, the cry of hungry little children. God, I would lay my all upon the altar, I would give my life into Thy hands, take every burden laid upon my shoulders, without murmuring; I would be weary, spent, and heavyladen, if I could lift this crushing load from the tired shoulders of a suffering world. God, use me, speak to me, show me the way.”

No response came. She had opened her eyes for the vision, but only the same sweet scene of life ; the same blue Heavens in which the sunlight smiled, looked down upon her.

The very peace and beauty was a mockery. She had asked for bread and she had got a stone. She rose to her feet suddenly and flung back her hair from her heated face.

What was the good of it all, this praying into silence? This crying to an invisible God in a metallic Heaven? She had been like a child calling on a deaf parent for g^uidance; a crushed insect in the sand looking up into the face of man for help.

But still, as if unwilling to resign, once more she fell upon her knees. She could not yet give up that warm and throbbing hope within her heart that God would throw His light upon the way.

“My God,” she cried again, “you have given me a strong body; you have given me health, vitality, and power, a soul that cries out for expression, a heart that beats in sympathy with all the world. Then with your own voice you have called me like you did Samuel of old, but why have you barred my way against the work I want to do?”

“Why?” repeated a voice so close beside her that she started.

The speaker was a man of strong and powerful build, with a head well poised upon gigantic shoulders, and limbs suggesting in their supple strength the power of a Hercules. The flash of brilliant sunlight through the trees which had parted, struck on her eyes like lightning and made it for the time impossible to see his face.

“Why?” he repeated, “that one small word, round the axis of which this little planet whirrs. Why? we ask nature; why? we call to the winds; why? we cry to God, while the still small voice within is waiting with the answer. If out of the silence of the night that voice has spoken, and in response you have laid your greatest wish upon the altar, then be satisfied that the fire will descend. God did not call you through an open door to slam it in your face. Stand and await no outward vision. Know that your wish is accepted by Him, and then, led by the Spirit, go forth to do your work.”

“My work,” she answered; “how gladly would I do whatever work God gave into my hands. I look around the suffering world; I am so impotent to help. My work? Where shall I find it? Where shall I begin? The cry of humanity calls from every side. Everything beneath the sun, carrying the mark of suffering, stabs my heart.”

He looked at her for a moment with something of the same light in his eyes that the Christ might have had when he gazed on the young man who, from his youth up, had kept the commandments.

“What is this force which sways you thus?” he asked; “this power which pushes you forward with unseen hands? this subtle something which you cannot hold, and cannot master, which strikes you in the back when you stand still, and drags you on, you know not whither? What was it drew the Saviour of the world to earth? What was it shook the silent Heavens? It was the electrical force going up in the cry of a darkened world for a leader, for a

Gospel more tender than that thundered from Sinai. The great unconscious prayer of a million hearts. The King feasting at his banqueting table. The Empress pulling aside her heavy ruby curtains, and pondering on the silence of the stars. The sufferer on her couch of pain, the savage gazing with unlightened eyes upon the grandeur of a storm. It was this same power of attraction which pushes the leaders of the world out to their work, which cracked the Heavens asunder and let the Divine descend into our midst.

Then did He ask, where is my work? How can I help this great, vast world of suffering humanity? Why Kave you placed me in this narrow compass when millions of souls beyond my reach are crying to me in the darkness? No, He gave His message to the little world around Him, awaiting no results and never looking forward to the glory of a wider sphere. He knew that God would bear the message where it was most needed. That not a hungry soul would close their hands unsatisfied for what He gave. Why, then, knowing this, need we cry and cry to God to send us forth to help humanity? If we have heard His voice, even though our limbs are crippled and our faith is weak, we need no earthly props. Like the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple, we can arise, we can go forth.”

The girl was leaning forward eagerly. Her chin was resting on her hands, her eyes were riveted upon his face.

“But how can I begin my work where God has placed me?” she asked, gently, “in this little town where my parents and my grandparents are living? Where every person whom I meet has known me since childhood, known all my faults and limitations, all my follies, where criticism would meet me on all sides?”

And did not Christ begin His work amongst the people He had lived amongst since childhood? Did He pause to fear criticism and scorn? If you are looking to yourself for help alone, then your prop will fall beneath you. But if you are looking into the eyes of Him who healed, and drawing from His purity like refreshing draughts of water from a well, then you will feel no criticism, no scorn; you will go forth with the vibration He carried that even the hem of His garment made whole. Remember it was after He had spent the night in prayer upon the mountains with His Father, that He was able to walk upon the waters, thrilling with that same magnetic force which commanded the elements and silenced the voice of the storm.

What is the power of the human mind before the unconquerable spirit which infinite love is guiding and directing? God has called you. Begin your work this day; let the stones of criticism fly around you; keep your eyes ever on the vision; on one voice alone — the voice of the guiding spirit, and you shall go forth “conquering and to conquer.”

The sudden conviction came with a sweet peace to the girl, a peace which ran like electricity through every limb. The stranger arose and, coming forward, spread out his hands as if in benediction over her. He had parted the boughs of the trees again, and was standing with the rays of the noonday sun full upon him. For a moment her eyes grew dazzled by the brightness — the infinite beauty of his face. A sudden wind swayed the flowers and grasses backwards and forwards. The parted boughs fell on each side, forming, for a moment, in the sunlight, the vision of a conquered cross.

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The breath of morning was soft and even as a sleeping child’s. Dawn was slowly breaking over the mist-drenched hills, and falling in shafts of grey and silver through the dark green of the pines. Out of the silmce a bird called. Slowly the sun ascended in the Heavens, blushing like a bride beneath her silvery veil. A wind blew softly from the West, tossing the branches of the trees, shaking the dew from the sprinkled flowers. Then the figure sleeping at the foot of the cottonwood tree opened her eyes and smiled at the birth of a new day, as gladly as a young mother would smile on her first-born child.

The soft breeze kissed her gently on both cheeks. The juice from the pines fell on her face like a baptism to life. The darkness of the night had passed, and in every tree, in every flower, in every blade of grass she saw a resurrection.

The frogs croaked in an off-lying field. The crickets and the katydids made the most of their song of pleasure. A robin burst into a rapturous carol of praise.

She stretched out her young arms to the Heavens. She felt the glow of health pulsating through her. She felt the strength of her unused powers. The light of Him who walked upon the water was in her eyes. Her life work stretched before her in one bright vision, and, led by the Spirit, she went forth to meet it.

Chapter 1

T hey call her ‘The Woman Healer,’ ” said the hostess of the garden party, in response to the question asked by one of her guests, “She comes from that out-spoken land of freedom — America. She has only been in the village two weeks, but already she has turned the heads of a bevy of sensible English women.”

The eyes of Leval Irving, the artist, followed in the direction of the figure. He was interested in everyone who dared to be original, and the fact that a woman would leave the convention of the table to romp with a bunch of happy children on the grass pleased him immensely.

“So that is the Woman Healer,” he said. “I have heard of her doctrine. I like the idea of a land where there is no pain, sickness, nor sorrow; that’s what I’ve been searching for ever since I came to this planet.”

“Long will you be in search, I fear,” said the soft, mellow voice of Penelope Hershall.

Leval turned to her, smiling. Her voice seemed too womanly and sweet to contain the ring of bitter sarcasm.

“You don’t believe it would be possible, do you?” he asked.

“I?” she responded, “No; I think I have lived too long and seen too much to believe in the children’s angels. Such doctrine is all right for one who has always walked on stars and flowers, but for those who have faced the rough edges of a commercial world, for those who have seen life with a clear eyesight, a more practical doctrine has to be written.”

“But the strange part of it is that Mrs. Thorpe has weathered the gale as much as any of us,” said one of her friends. “She has sailed out of deep water like a beautiful ship with sails unripped by the storm. She seems to have only one object in life, and that is to make everyone happy and glad.”

“She is coming this way,” said Leval suddenly. “If there’s all this power in thought that she claims, we must have sent out a ‘forceful attraction.’ ”

The figure was striking enough in its personality to draw everyone’s attention. Tall and of beautiful physique, she walked with the easy dignity and self-confidence of a conqueror. Her clear eyes looked from right to left. They were inviting eyes. Eyes which made the children rush towards her, the sick hold out their hands, and even those who denied their beauty, smile.

“I should think you must feel very hot,” said the hostess in the tone of pity we are always using to each other when the generous sun gives us more warmth than usual. “You’ve been racing with those children all afternoon; did not it make you awfully tired?”

“No,” she replied, “why should it do so? Why should I be more tired than those happy little children? Those little ones saw nothing but the brightness of the sunshine on the flowers and on their pretty frocks. They realized nothing but that it was to be a day of perfect pleasure and of games, of strawberries, of frolic and ice cream, and they gave themselves right up to it, and so did I.”

Her merry laugh incited laughter. The guests began to feel that there was something they had missed.

“Oh, Mrs. Thorpe is never tired,” said the hostess; “she is never even ill. The good things all come knocking at her door. She is indeed a woman to be envied.”

“The good things never crowded to my door until I opened it for them,” she answered, “until I flung back the screens and stretched out my hands to grasp them; they all passed me by. There was a time when I did not even wish to have them. My house was too chock full of ugly thought, I had been wronged in this way, I had been wronged in that. All the disagreeable things of life were given to me. All the bad luck came my way. My messages of sick and ugly thought went out each hour and they brought me back a harvest in return. For twenty years I suffered so, and then the light dawned on me and I let it in. I let the purifying wind blow down my gardenful of weeds, and in their place the roses grew.”

“So you believe we are responsible ourselves for sorrow and ill luck?” Leval asked. “Surely that is hard lines, is not it?”

“Not if there is the antidote,” she answered. “Do we sit and grumble at the swarms of flies in our house while we are keeping decayed fruit there to breed and attract them?' We must get rid of the bad fruit first if we would cast out the flies. We must get rid of every ugly thought in our hearts if we are to make it a room for beautiful spirits.”

The guests looked at her wonderingly. They had never any of them been so plainly spoken to, but they did not resent it.

“You can all of you rule your own houses to perfection,” she continued; “you are all of you queens there, but which of you can rule that inward house, that inward kingdom, the most important house of all? You who boast your freedom, are, all of you, more or less slaves to something. You are all of you really in harness, although you would deny it if it were put to you.”

She paused, but as none spoke, she continued. “Into everyone’s hands is given the power of government, but whether man grasps that power or lets it run like sand through his fingers, remains with himself. Every man has his kingdom; it is his inheritance at birth, and he may use or abuse it, be king of it, servant, slave to it, be yoked like a horse and driven by his subjects or have every subject at his command, just as he makes his own choice. So long as he lives he can not shake off the responsibility of government nor the knowledge that his kingdom is a separate island, a solitary star in a studded firmament, and from that kingdom must go forth the exports which will affect the world like a storm or sunshine affects the face of nature.

“Who are the Kings and Emperors of the world? Not those who look from their castle windows upon their farreaching lands; not those whose kingdom is a kingdom in name only; not those whose presence is bowed down to and the sight of whose carriage is watched for by a thousand expectant eyes. The greatest kings are those who have lived upon the smallest island; those whose subjects in full control have enabled them to think calmly and act wisely; those whose names have never blazed among the number who are supposed to have given the world her firm foundation; those whose thoughts, cast like seeds on the air, have been carried by the birds and borne by the winds across the country and taken root in flowers which gladdened the eyes, and in trees the fruit of which has fed mankind.”

“Then you believe,” asked Penelope, “that if we had once directed our thought force aright, all things would be possible?”

“Why not?” asked Mrs. Thorpe, and there was such conviction in her tone that everyone listening found themselves repeating the question: “Why not?”

“Just imagine you see the great force by which the world is swayed,” she continued; “myriads of telegraphic wires, fine and sensitive as a spider’s web, shooting off in a million different directions. The world revolves on its axis, but the wires tremble and the earth trembles like with an earthquake. Such is the unmastered force which man has yet to master, the armed giant we are yet to make use of, the giant whose powerful hand rests on that axis, turning it from day to day. Steam, electricity, radium were all giants we were afraid of until we had got them into harness, and then they helped the world. But the greatest giant of all is yet as uncontrolled, and while he is, the world will be a world of unrest. Our earth is ruled by law. God let nature develop herself into a paradise, but man made her into a mass of quivering nerves. With man, the last and greatest of God’s creations, came the strongest power of all: the power of thought. Man took this power lightly; he was pleased for it to be his master; he calmly handed over the reins of government and allowed himself to be driven in whatever direction thought might choose to go. And when the woman came, thought exercised the same power on her and on her children, until soon complete mastery was his and he became the ruling force of the world, a force which nature trembled with like a sensitive child, a power so hypnotic that man unarmed became like a baby in its grasp.

Nature affects human nature, just as much as human nature affects nature; it is a giving and returning, from day to day, and as we give, so we receive. Fear, one of the most forceful of thought subjects, is allowed to walk at large like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He comes like a cyclone, a telegraphic force from a thousand minds, the very earth trembles with his footsteps and the walkers are thrilled and afraid of they know not what. The weak ones put the feeling down to nerves, the strong to coming illness or depression, but few can analyze it as an unmastered force.

What is the first thing that a baby feels when entering into life? Joy, contentment, happiness, a sense of mother’s love and comfort? No; it feels the quiver of the earth’s vibration, and the first movement is one of nerves, a start of fear. The sensitive little body is full of magnetic force, and as the needles fly to the magnet, so the forces ruling most strongly envelop that little new-born child whose unformed mind is solely dependent on those surrounding it.

Thought is ruled by the law of gravitation, Man calls it fate or destiny, but fate revolves on the axis turned by the hand of man alone. Man is the master of his own body, the master of his own destiny, the king of his own kingdom, and so long as he controls his emotions, appetites, desires, so long as he acknowledges nothing but good, and closes his doors on every appearance of evil, so he controls his fate, for in return he gets nothing but what he sent out. The magnet is only the magnet, for steel — wood, paper, china, may be placed by it without the slightest effect.

It is only when we have put this great force into control that we shall tread the earth as gods. Peter saw his Master walk on the sea and he realized that he could do the same, but at the sight of the black waves heaving on every side of him, his steps failed and the waves vibrated with his fear, and the electric force of the moment’s faith was shattered, and but for the upholding faith of his Master he would have sunk.

Newton discovered the law of gravitation, but only one side to that law; much remains to be learned on the gravitation of thought. We gravitate towards the altar on which our whole life has been placed. Man is taught that death is in store for him one day, his eyes are fixed upon it as an inevitable end to life on earth, which may come sooner, may come later, but anyway is positive to come. The child is taught to believe this as soon as it begins to realize the joy of living. We must not look to this world, but to the one to come. This is the shadow, the other the reality. We must live outside this world, select our friends with care. We must teach people how to die, rather than how to live, and preach the gospel of eternity rather than that of time.

Age is inevitable, they tell us. The lot of man is threescore years and ten, and mighty grateful he has to be if he can stretch those years out to fourscore. In his prime he realizes that the winter of his life is close at hand and, sighing over the vision of old age, he daily gravitates towards it. He works with less inspiration, and those around him, counting his years, declare: “He is getting on.” And so old age comes pell-mell on the top of him and he resigns himself to what must be, while the eagle, with greater scientific knowledge, soars aloft, renews his youth and teaches him a lesson which he will not learn.

Sickness is positive, we have been told. The mother realizes it as she holds her baby in her arms. The baby draws it in with the milk from the mother’s breast. Disease must be warded olf by every kind of physic, must be kept like an enemy at bay, but it is the birthright of all who live. The little child is protected on every side against it, yet the whole of mankind is fretted into it by the quivering nerves of anxious people acting like a giant force on every frame.

The woman feels sickness in every breath when the cutting wind pierces through her furs. She feels it when drenched by unexpected rain, when she takes off her damp shoes in front of the fire, and sickness feels its own power, and along the electric lines fly the microbes of cold, and in direct response, settle upon the waiting lungs.

Who are the successful men of the world? The men who have no eye for failure, who recognized success in every breath they drew, who through giving no backward glance magnetized success towards them. Who thought success when they opened their eyes to the daylight, who thought it as they lay down in the dark. Men who held aloft the lamp of health so that its brightness cast a ruddy glow on their faces and a sparkle into their eyes.

Where your heart is, there is your treasure also. Without vision the nations perish. If man once learned to govern this power of thought, there would be no shameful waste of it, but every good dream would become a reality. If love to mankind were the ruling keynote, there would be no battlefields, no starving crowds, no pitiful cry for work, no hungry children. If the world were swayed by the highest ideals, there would be no need of conversions. We should have no sickness of body, no sickness of soul.

Men play at ruling; they set up their kings and emperors as a child sets up his tin soldiers, but theirs is not the power to sway the world. Until each man has realized that he is a king himself, and possesses a kingdom of his own, our world will vacillate and sway. The coming of all good things is without ourselves. When we are able to govern our own kingdom, then we shall get the kingdom of peace, where the lion shall lie down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them, because then we shall all be simple-hearted as children. There will be no serpent in our Eden, no sickness, no death. We shall let in the light and the darkness will go like a dream.”

She ceased speaking. A child’s voice had called her, and in another moment she had joined the little ones among their daisy chains.

Chapter II

Mrs. Thorpe walked along the rose-scented lanes, her heart in tune with the singing birds.

Oh, the lovely, lovely weather, the skies the gentle blue, the great silvery clouds, the soft, caressing sunshine, the air alive with Summer’s music.

She stopped at the gate of one of the little white-washed cottages and kissed both hands to a group of happy children on the grass.

“That’s her as came to live in Mat Tregowan’s house,” said Dolly Linden, a big-eyed, flaxen-haired child, in a mysterious whisper. “No one’s lived in Mat’s house since he died, for they said his ghost walked ’round and ’round the garden, groaning all night long. But when that lady came she said she weren’t afreard of nothing, but if Mat’s ghost walked the garden she’s teach him that he ought to do something better; and she’s made the house just fine inside and got lace curtains tied with blue up at the window, and you never saw the like of how she’s made that garden grow.”

“She gave me a big bunch of her flowers,” said curlyheaded Mary, the innkeeper’s child, “and she said that flowers grew for people that loved ’em, and I said my ma didn’t like flowers, and then she spoke kind of cross like, but her face was smiling. ‘Don’t you say that,’ she says; ‘you carry those flowers home and put ’em right in water and they’ll bring a message of love to your mother. Drop a little kind thought into every rose bud and the sweetness is sure to reach her.’ Well, I took those flowers and put ’em in my mug and, sure enough, my ma didn’t throw ’em out, but I saw her sniff ’em more’n once.”

“She ain’t a good lady, anyway,” spoke a boy’s voice from the distance; “the minister don’t like her, and my pa don’t like her neither, and we’re never to go near her garden nor touch any of her flowers.”

“Much you know about it,” answered Mary; “take no notice of him, girls; he’s only Olaf Guthra’s kid.”

The boy’s face flushed angrily, his small and dirty hand tightened on that of his little sister.

“Only Olaf Guthra’s kid.” How bitterly those words had struck into his heart before today.

He picked up a stone as if to throw it, but he was a manly little fellow in spite of the “only,” and he decided in a moment that fists were a fairer form of fight. He thrust his little sister aside and fearlessly advanced towards the girls.

“Look ye here,” he said, intensely, “you may think yourself lots better than me, Mary Hawthorne, ’cause your father can afford to keep a swell house with a sign over the door and make folks drunk five times a day; you may think ’cause you’ve got big pots of geraniums outside your window that your mother’s a somebody — but I’ll let you know one thing, that if I am only Olaf Guthra’s kid, I know how to fight.”

The girls, who were quite unprepared for this onslaught and a little afraid of the boy, took refuge in laughing and went walking away with their arms around each other, whispering together, and now and again casting glances behind.

“What did they say to ye, Eric?” asked his father, as he came ’round the corner and found the boy muttering and frowning heavily after the retreating figures.

“They said I was only Olaf Guthra’s kid,” he answered, with a catch in his voice.

Olaf lifted his little girl into his arms. “Why didn’t you fight ’em for it?” he asked.

“ ’Cause they were only girls,” he replied, “and if I’d ha’ licked, I’d ha’ .killed ’em, that’s all.”