by Lilian Bell
CHAPTER VIII.
MAN'S EXTREMITY
Rosemary approached the bed wherein lay the wreck of the girl she hadoften, when in the grasp of mortal mind, envied. A great wave ofsympathy, not pity, swept over her, as she noted the weary eyes and thelines of dissatisfaction and despair around Carolina's mouth. With animpulse of love, she knelt at the bedside and took Carolina's littlethin hand in both of hers.
"Oh, my dear Carol," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I heard ofyour accident while I was in California. I only got back yesterday."
"Would you have come to see me if I had not sent for you?" askedCarolina, childishly.
"I was coming to-day. Mother suggested it, and I was only too happy toput off everything of less importance and come at once."
"Your mother!" said Carolina, involuntarily. Then, as she saw Rosemary'sface flush, she hastened to cover her awkward exclamation. "I did notknow your mother knew me well enough to--to care!"
"Mother is very much changed since you knew her," said Rosemary, gently."She has been healed."
Carolina did not know the nature of Mrs. Goddard's infirmity, so sheforbore to ask of what. She only knew, as all the smart world knew, thatMrs. Goddard did something dreadful, and did it to excess. It waswhispered that it was a case of drugs, but there were those, less kind,who hinted at a more vulgar excess, either of which would explain thedreadful scenes Mrs. Goddard had occasioned in public. Her intimatesasserted that a terrible malady was at the bottom of her habits,whatever they were. At any rate, a somewhat scandalous mystery hungover Mrs. Goddard's name, although she had been at the forefront ofevery mad scene of pleasure the fashionable world could invent to killtime.
"You are changed, too," said Carolina, wonderingly, more and moresurprised to see Rosemary Goddard--of all girls!--kneeling at herbedside, holding her hand in a warm grasp, pressing it now and then toemphasize an affection she felt shy of expressing, and talking in agentle, altogether unknown tone of voice. In Carolina's uncompromisingvocabulary she had privately stigmatized Rosemary as a snob, and ratherridiculed her exaggeration of aristocracy. But the coldness, the tiredexpression, the aloofness, were all gone. The weary eyes shone. Thebored eyebrows were lowered. The curved lips smiled. The withdrawnhands were reached out to help. The whole attitude was radiant ofsympathy and love.
Rosemary could not forbear to smile at Carolina's unconscious scrutiny.
"What has done it?" asked Carolina, abruptly.
"Christian Science," said Rosemary, frankly.
Carolina was disappointed that she did not rush on and explain. She hadheard that Scientists thrust their views upon you and were instant inseason, out of season. She was piqued that Rosemary did not give herthe opportunity to argue and refute. Carolina wanted to be coaxed.
"The change in you is wonderful," she said at last. "I think it isalways a little insulting to tell a woman how she has improved, so Iwill not harp on it. But I don't think I care to investigate ChristianScience. It has always bored me when people have tried to explain it tome."
"You have a perfect right to leave it alone, then," said Rosemary."Christian Science does not need you in the least."
Although her tone was perfectly sweet and kind, it was dignified, andCarolina's quickness at once comprehended the almost unbearablepriggishness of her remark.
"I did not intend to be rude," she said, hurriedly. Then she hesitatedas another thought struck her, and in a more timid voice she said:
"Did you mean that Christian Science does not need me as much as I needChristian Science?"
Rosemary pressed her hand as her only reply.
"Can it help me?" cried Carolina, with sudden fervour. "I am a wreck,physically and mentally. I have lost parents, fortune, home, health, andambition. I long to die! I have even lost my God!"
"Christian Science will give you back your God," said Rosemary.
"I hate God!" said Carolina, calmly.
"I used to hate Him, too," said Rosemary. "In the old thought there wasnothing else to do, for a just mind, than to hate Him. We had made animage of hate and vengeance and set it up to worship and called it God."
"We? Did we do it?"
"Of course! Who else?"
"Then it is all our fault?"
"It certainly is not God's fault," said Rosemary. "He has declaredHimself to be Love Incarnate. If we have been stupid enough to endow Himwith human attributes of our own distorted imagination, is He to blame?"
"He never answered a prayer of mine in all my life!" cried Carolina,passionately, looking at the ceiling as if to make sure that God heardher accusation, and as if she hoped to irritate Him into hearing futureprayers.
"Nor of mine, either, until I learned how to pray."
"Who discovered the new way? That Eddy woman?"
"Mrs. Eddy did."
"How, I should like to know? Why was all this given to her to know andnot to some man?"
"By the way," said Rosemary, as if changing the subject, "I hear thatyou speak both Japanese and Russian and that you did some importantinterpreting at a banquet on board the Kaiser's yacht at Cowes, lastspring. Did you?"
"I believe so," said Carolina, wearily.
"However did you manage to master two such awfully difficult languages?"
"I studied years to do it."
"How strange that my brother was not called upon to do thatinterpreting," said Rosemary, in a musing tone. "He was at thatbanquet, and he is a man."
Carolina opened her lips to make an incautious reply, but caught herselfjust in time. A gleam in Rosemary's eyes warned her.
"I see," she said, reddening. "But I must say you baited the hookskilfully."
"I had to, in order to catch you," said Rosemary.
Carolina turned her head on her pillow restlessly.
"Tell me about how you came to accept it," she said, pleadingly.
"Well, I was so abnormally miserable! I had everything in the world Iwanted--apparently, yet my home was full of discord. I had only a big,beautiful house. I wanted the love of a certain man. He held aloofwhile all the others were at my feet. I prayed wildly to my God forhelp, and He mocked me. Then I grew bitter and vengeful. I vowed that Iwould have all that life held without God, for it seemed to me, in myvicious interpretation of Him, that every time He saw me poke my headout of my hole, He hit it--"
"Just to show that He could!" cried Carolina, almost with a scream ofcomprehension.
"Exactly--just to show that He could. Well, then I plunged into amadness I called gaiety, and grew more and more unhappy because I sawthat each day I was putting myself further and further from the man Iloved. Then, as if to fill my already full cup to overflowing, mammagrew very much worse, so much so that I wanted her to die. I really feltthat she had exhausted all that _materia medica_ could do for her, andthat death was the only way to end it, both for her and for us. Then Iheard of a Christian Science practitioner, named Mrs. Seixas. I went tosee her, and, impossible as it may sound, in the first fifteen minutes,I had told her the whole truth, mortifying as it was. But she seemednot only to inspire confidence, but to radiate help. I felt that,although I was a perfect stranger to her, yet she wanted to helpme--that she would go out of her way to do it, and that the reason shewould do it was because she loved much. I took her to mamma that sameday, and mamma's complete healing is so great a marvel that we never canget used to it. Our happiness is almost too much to bear."
Rosemary's eyes filled with tears which rolled down her cheeks.Carolina viewed her with an astonishment that she could ill conceal.Rosemary Goddard to be talking, nay, more, feeling like that! A questionwas so unmistakably in Carolina's eyes, which her tongue could not gainpermission to utter, that Rosemary found herself answering it.
"Then, when God had made me worthy of a good man's love, the desire ofmy heart came to me, in so sweet and natural a way that it broke downthe last barrier of pride and left me humbly
at the foot of the cross,marvelling at God's goodness!"
Carolina drew Rosemary's face down to hers and laid her cheek againstit.
There was a long silence between them. Then Carolina said, fearfully:
"My hip is broken. Can that be cured?"
"God can do anything."
"So that I needn't use crutches?"
"Most certainly. You won't even limp. You will be made perfectlywhole!"
"Just as I was before?"
"Just as you were before--except these bonds."
Carolina thought a moment.
"But what do I want to get well for? I have lost Guildford!"
"Nothing can be lost in Truth!"
Rosemary felt her two hands grasped firmly, and without thinkingCarolina raised herself to a sitting posture in bed without pain.
"Do you mean to tell me that there is the--that Christian Scienceteaches that there is any remote possibility of my getting Guildfordback?"
"Guildford belongs to you, and has never been lost. It is only errorwhich makes such a law for you. Truth emancipates everybody andeverything."
"I don't believe it!" said Carolina. "I can't! It's too good to betrue! I don't understand it!"
"You do understand it!" said Rosemary.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because you are sitting up in bed, and you raised yourself withoutpain. That is because, for a moment, your soul accepted God as Love andthe source of all supply. Unconsciously your mind looked into His mind,and you saw the truth."
"I believe that I could get up!" said Carolina, in a sort of ecstasy.
"I know that you can! Give me your hand."
Rosemary helped Carolina to dress, and in half an hour Carolina wassitting, for the first time in months, in a chair by the window, withRosemary reading and marking for her the passages in "Science andHealth" which bore immediately upon her case. Carolina's mind openedunder it like a flower.
"Oh, I need so much teaching!" cried Carolina. "Who will help me?"
"Did you know that my mother is a practitioner and holds classes?" askedRosemary.
Carolina almost felt her new-found rock melting beneath her feet at thisintelligence.
"No, I did not. Will she take me? And will you help?"
"We will both do all we can for you with the greatest joy."
When Rosemary left, Kate came in and Carolina explained everything toher.
Kate called Noel St. Quentin by telephone and told him that Carolina hadgone insane.
The next morning Carolina awakened with the happy consciousness thatsomething pleasant had happened. Hitherto she had gone to sleep, gladof the respite of a few hours of unconsciousness. Simply not toknow--simply not to be awake and to realize her load of pain anddisappointment, had been her prayer. With her definite aim in lifeswept away, she felt rudderless, forlorn, despairing.
But suddenly everything was changed. Her weakness vanished as if bymagic. Instead of dreading to open her eyes and clarify her brain forthought her mind leaped to a lucid clearness without effort. The glowof happiness which pervaded her she could liken to nothing so much asthe awakening in her hated school-days to the knowledge that to-day wasSaturday!
And what had brought her healing? Only a few hours' talk from RosemaryGoddard which seemed to untangle all the knots of her existence and towipe the mists from the window-panes, out of which she had been vainlytrying to get a clear view of her life, its reason for being, and itsduties. Always the question with Carolina had been "To what end?" Andall the answers had been vague and unsatisfactory, until suddenly shehad stumbled by reason of her infirmity upon one who could answer hervehement questions clearly and lucidly.
Emerson must have been largely of the thought when he wrote: "Put fearunder thy feet!" Carolina, with her sensitive, mystic nature had been,in common with all imaginative persons, literally a slave to her fear.What could it mean, this sudden freedom, except that she had found theonly true way out of bondage?
With a little assistance, she was able to dress herself and sit in achair to wait for the promised visit of Rosemary's mother.
She had known of Mrs. Goddard for years, although she seldom appeared inpublic. No one spoke the name of her malady, but everyone knew of herintense suffering and of the days she spent unconscious from the effectsof quieting drugs. Secretly every one expected to hear at any time ofMrs. Goddard's madness or death, and Carolina had heard no news of herexcept what Rosemary had said until Mrs. Goddard was announced and foundher, dressed and sitting up to meet her guest, with outstretched handand happy, smiling face. As usual Carolina's expressive countenancebetrayed her.
"No wonder you look surprised, my dear," said Mrs. Goddard, kissing thegirl on the cheek with warmth. "Rosemary evidently did not have timeyesterday to tell you what brought us both into Science. I was cured ofcancer in its worst form. Did you never know?"
"I knew you were very, very ill and suffered horribly," said Carolina,"but--"
"I know. My friends were very kind. They never gave it a name. Butthat was it."
"Oh, how wonderful!" cried Carolina, with shining eyes.
"Not half as wonderful as what it did for me mentally," said Mrs.Goddard. "I used to feel that I had brought my malady on myself by myway of life. I was the gayest of the gay in my youth, and in middlelife I found that stimulants had such a hold on me that I was not myselfunless I was drugged. I ran the gauntlet of those until I came tomorphine. There I stayed, and whether the morphine came of the canceror the cancer of the morphine I never knew. But the horror of my life Ican readily recall. It came to a point when the best physicians andsurgeons in New York said that there must be an operation and franklyadded that no one could tell whether I would come out of it or not.Pleasant, wasn't it?"
Carolina only clasped her hands together, and Mrs. Goddard proceeded:
"Then Rosemary heard of Christian Science, and without saying a word tome, she looked up the names of one or two practitioners and called. Thefirst one she did not care for and came away discouraged. But somethingtold her to try again, and her second attempt led her to the door of theangel of healing who, under God, worked this cure, Mrs. Seixas.Rosemary had not talked with her ten minutes before she knew that shehad been led aright. She wanted Mrs. Seixas to get into the broughamand come at once, but according to Science practice she insisted uponRosemary's coming home and getting my consent.
"You can imagine that I was not slow to accept the hope it offered, andthat same afternoon I had my first treatment. Carolina, inside of anhour the pain all left me! Child, you have suffered, so you know, youcan fathom as many cannot, what that means! I promised when the painreturned to call her by telephone, instead of taking the morphine, butit never did come back! She gave me treatments from her office everyhour for the rest of the day and came back after dinner that night andgave me another. That was three years ago. To-day I am a well woman.I eat whatever I please and not once has the old craving for stimulantsattacked me. I am a free woman and a very happy one!"
"Oh, Mrs. Goddard," cried Carolina, "thank you so much for telling me.It helps me to know that I am being cured!"
"That you are cured."
"Yes, I must believe that."
"Pardon me--not so much believe it, as you must understand it andunderstand why it is so. Every orthodox Christian is ready to stateglibly that God is All, but they never act as if they believed it andthat is the chief difference between members of churches and ChristianScientists."
"Why does every one hate Christian Science so before they understandit?"
"Christian Science is like a large crystal bowl full of the pure waterof life. Left alone it simply sparkles in the sunlight of God's smile.But if you bring to it the alkali of ignorance and the acid ofprejudice, this clear water becomes the vehicle of a most energeticboiling and fizzing. But when it has assimilated the two foreigningredients the residue sinks to the bottom harmlessly, the waterclarifies itself by its reflected power,
and the crystal bowl resumesits placid, sparkling aspect."
"I understand," said Carolina, "that I must have caused that commotionrather often, for I used to hate Christian Science so vigorously and Ihated Mrs. Eddy so intensely that I used to rejoice at every adversecriticism of her or her work, and I used to go to the trouble (when Inever would have bothered to make a scrap-book) of cutting things out ofthe papers, and mailing them to my friends. I deliberately put myselfout in order to hate it more adequately!"
"I know," said Mrs. Goddard. "Isn't it strange, when you look back onit in the light of your new understanding and your healing?"
"Ye-es," said Carolina, dubiously, "but to be quite truthful, I amafraid I am not cured of all my prejudice yet!"
"Let it go," said Mrs. Goddard. "It will pass of itself. Don't fretabout it. Now tell me about yourself. You know we do not dwell uponour ailments, mental or physical, but if you state them to me, as yourphysician I can work more intelligently."
"Oh," sighed Carolina, "what is there not the matter with me! Whereshall I begin?"
"Let it console you to know in advance that there is a remedy in DivineScience for everything. 'Not a sparrow falleth'--you remember! Thetable of comfort for every woe is spread before you in the presence ofyour enemies. Fear neither them nor to partake freely of God's gifts.The more eagerly you come and the more you partake of the feast DivineLove spreads, the more generously God will pour out His blessings uponyou."
Thus encouraged Carolina told her suspicions of the fate of Guildfordand of Colonel Yancey, without, however, mentioning him by name, until,led on by Mrs. Goddard's sympathetic manner, she threw her whole soulinto the recital of her own and Mrs. Winchester's loss, and of how shehad hoped to restore Guildford.
Occasionally Mrs. Goddard interrupted her to ask a pertinent question.It gave Carolina a feeling of comfort to realize her new friend'smentality. Carolina, was so accustomed to knowing people of capacity andbrilliant intelligence that her mind reached after such naturally.
"Guildford is not lost to you," said Mrs. Goddard, just as Rosemary had.
"It will be restored to you, and you will be able to make good Mrs.Winchester's loss. You must have harmony in your life. That is yourright--your God-bestowed right. You are an heir of God's boundlessaffluence. It is a crime for one of God's little ones to be poor, orneglected, or sick, or forsaken. Not to believe this is to doubt Hispromises, which are sure, and to limit His power, which is limitless.
"We do not know the way, nor must we make laws nor dictate means. ButGod is even now preparing the broad highway which shall lead your feetstraight to the gates of Guildford. Let Him find you humble, grateful,and ready for the blessing. Don't fret. Don't worry. Don't beanxious. 'Be still, and know that I am God!'"
For her only reply Carolina bowed her face upon her hands, and burstinto an uncontrollable fit of weeping.
Mrs. Goddard made no effort to check or comfort her, except by thought.When she had finished, Mrs. Goddard nodded her head, saying:
"That did you good. Now for your physical self! Was the hip broken?"
"Yes, and set by six of the best surgeons in New York. Doctor Colfax isthe most hopeful, but even he says that if ever I grow strong enough toleave off crutches, I shall limp all my life."
Mrs. Goddard smiled.
"Doctor Colfax is one of the best men I ever knew. His left hand knowsnot what his right hand does in the way of charity, and his whole life,instead of being devoted to amassing a fortune, is given up to thehealing of mankind."
"Why, I thought Scientists did not like doctors!" cried Carolina.
"We admire their intentions. Who could fail to? Among them are some ofthe noblest characters I have ever known in any walk of life."
"But," cried Carolina, alarmed by this praise, "you don't believe thatwhat he says is true? Why, Rosemary assured me--"
"And I assure you no less than Rosemary," said Mrs. Goddard, "that Godis able and willing to heal all such as repent of their sins and come toHim with an humble and contrite heart. You are the best judge ofwhether your heart is right toward your enemies. Can you bring yourselfto love this man who has defrauded you of your inheritance? If not, youhave no right to expect God to restore it to you. Now think this overwhile I give you a treatment."
Carolina watched her in so great a surprise that she forgot to thinkover her grievance against Colonel Yancey. Mrs. Goddard leaned herelbow on the arm of her chair, and pressed the tips of her fingerslightly against her closed eyes as if in silent prayer. Her lovely faceframed in large ripples of iron-gray hair, her gown of silvery gray, herfigure still youthful in its curves, her slender, spiritual hands, herearnest voice, and tender, helpful manner, formed so beautiful an imagein Carolina's mind, and she longed so ardently to model herself upon thespirit she represented, that tears welled to her eyes when shecontrasted her own attitude with Mrs. Goddard's, and when she recalledherself with a start, to the subject of Colonel Yancey, she found to hersurprise that his importance had so diminished that he had receded intothe background of her thought, and the thing she most ardently desiredwas not Guildford, but to put herself right with God, her Father!
At the moment that this thought formulated in her mind, a flood ofdivine peace poured over her whole spirit, and for the first time thepain of her bereavement lessened, and then gently passed intonothingness.
God her Father! A God of infinite tenderness and love! One who lovedher even as her own dear father had loved! One who was not responsiblefor all the evil which had descended upon her! One who owed her onlylove and protection, and a tenderness such as she had received in itshighest earthly form from her father.
In vain Carolina struggled to deify God above her earthly father. Shehad loved him in so large and deep and broad a manner that she couldonly realize her new God by comparing Him to her father. And DivineScience had sent this new interpretation of God to her to take the placein her sore heart of the ever-present aching sense of her great loss.
When Mrs. Goddard ended her treatment and opened her eyes, she sat for amoment in silent contemplation of the transfigured face before her.Carolina's beauty, as she thus, for the first time, beheld the face ofher Father, was almost unearthly. It was as that of the angels inheaven.
A wave of generous thanksgiving and rejoicing swept over the soul of herpractitioner, for she knew that she had been permitted to be theinstrument in God's hands of healing a soul which had been sick untodeath. Carolina's bodily healing took second place in her thought, yether confidence was sound that that was even now being accomplished.
When Carolina met her eyes, she smiled. She had found peace.
"Now, dear child, I want to leave with you the ninety-first Psalm. Readit with your new thought in mind, and you will realize that you neverhave even apprehended it before. Remember, too, that you are not aloneany more. You are cradled in Divine Love, for God is both Mother andFather to His children. 'The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneathare the everlasting arms!'"
Mrs. Goddard bent and kissed the girl, and Carolina, usually soreserved, laid her flowerlike face against the older woman's cheek in asilence too deep for words.
"Remember, dear, to call on me by day or night exactly as if I wereDoctor Colfax, for I am your physician now. But deny your error as soonas it makes its appearance and you won't need to send for me. I willcome of my own accord every day and help you in your studies. Now Imust go. Rosemary and I love you already. Both Divine and human loveare pouring in upon you in such a manner that you shall not be able toreceive it. Good-bye and God bless you, my dear!"