8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the family, with, their guest, gathered at the table. The invalid 

 occupied a bedroom adjoining the dining-room, in order that 

 when the family were at table she might hear their conversation 

 through the open door. The clergyman was asked to say grace, 

 and began thus : 



" O Lord, we thank thee for the abundance now spread before 

 us ; we thank thee that it is all paid for — " 



Here a sudden interrujDtion came from the invalid in the next 

 room, who, on hearing her husband's pet phrase put into a prayer, 

 burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Entirely forgetting 

 her condition, she sprang out of bed, and stood holding her sides 

 and shaking all over with mirth when the family rushed in. 

 That solemn joke cured her, leaving nothing to be paid for. The 

 same author tells of a New Hampshire lady who was also cured 

 after being bedridden for a long time. In pleasant weather her 

 grown-up sons used to lift their mother tenderly into a carriage, 

 and take her for a drive. It was their opinion, however, that her 

 case demanded heroic treatment, and they resolved to make the 

 experiment. Near the house a brook crossed the road, through 

 which they often drove to let the horse drink, instead of crossing 

 by the bridge. The ford was usually safe and easy ; but one day 

 the carriage was suddenly upset by some stones previously placed 

 in the water by the boys, and the invalid was thrown into the 

 middle of the stream, from which she must scramble out or 

 drown. She fathomed the well-meant plot, and was very angry ; 

 but the remedy was effectual, and her lameness was cured on the 

 spot. A lady in California, who had suffered much from neural- 

 gia and become blind, on hearing an alarm of fire regained her 

 sight. Accidental mental excitement caused by explosions at the 

 cartridge - factory in Bridgeport, Conn., has cured many cases 

 of intermittent fever. A physician, writing to the " Medical 

 News," tells of a man being cured of a chronic rheumatism, and 

 another of nervous exhaustion, by the earthquake - shock at 

 Charleston. 



Hence we see that disease can be cured through the mind in a 

 great variety of ways. The true science of mind-cure will ex- 

 plain all of them, but Mrs. Eddy's doctrine does not satisfy this 

 condition. Moreover, hers is a complicated theory ; and experi- 

 ence has shown that in science, where the facts can be explained 

 in a simpler way, a complicated theory is likely to be false. 

 Furthermore, a theory which, like Mrs. Eddy's, contradicts scien- 

 tific laws that we see proved true every day of our lives, can not 

 itself be true also. If her " Science " were to become established, all 

 that we now know as science would have to be abandoned as incon- 

 sistent with it. Not only would the science of physiology, which 

 she directly attacks, be destroyed, but the sciences of physics. 



