The next evening at the appointed hour Mrs. White made her appearance, and after a few casual remarks, requested to be taken to Mrs. Williams. The pastor introduced her to his wife.

The practitioner, after explaining her purpose in calling, kindly requested the pastor to leave the room as she wished to be alone with her patient.

As soon as the pastor had left the room, Mrs. White turned to her
patient and said in a voice full of affection and love: "Be not afraid,
Mrs. Williams, God is an ever-present help in time of trouble, therefore
I bid you hope."

Some of the languid and discouraged look that had been on Mrs. Williams's face seemed to fade away as she said, "You bid me hope, when all the rest of the world and my physicians have told me my case is hopeless? Surely you do not believe I can be healed."

"Mrs. Williams, I not only believe, but I know you can be healed, for
nothing is impossible to God, and from now on He is your physician.
Do not think it is I that is going to heal you, but our heavenly Father.
'He doeth the work.'"

"If I could only believe," said the sick woman, with eyes full of tears.

"Mrs. Williams, you can at least say the same as the man in the Bible said when Jesus asked him if he believed He could heal him; he said: 'Oh, God, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.' And this is what I am going to do, I am going to help thine unbelief, that is, cast it out, and let Truth reign in your consciousness. To accomplish this you must be obedient; if you have any prejudice, cast it aside. The word prejudice means to prejudge, and very few people are wise enough to prejudge even the most simple things of life, and those who do, are wrong more times than they are right."

"What you say is true, and I don't want to be prejudiced about anything, but there has been so much said against Christian Science and it has been ridiculed so severely that I find it hard to have any faith in it, yet I am very willing to give it a trial."

"Mrs. Williams, what would you think of a judge or a jury that would convict a person solely on the evidence of witnesses who were opposed to the person on trial, and probably all of the testimony was of this type: ('I heard Mr. Smith say he heard the prisoner had done it')? in other words mere gossip; would you consider this justice? Yet that is just the kind of trial that all prejudiced people give Christian Science. If Christian Scientists point to the great mass of evidence in favor of this science, this evidence is ridiculed and denied, no matter how honest the person may be who gave the testimony."

"Your contention is true, Mrs. White, I did prejudge or sentence
Christian Science on the testimony of its enemies."

"I am glad to hear you admit this, as it shows me that one obstacle to your recovery has been removed, and you will now give Christian Science an impartial hearing and a fair trial. And now before I give you a silent treatment, I wish to set your thoughts aright about God. You may have said that it is God's will that you are suffering, or that He had put this thing upon you as a punishment, either for something you, or some one else, had done. This is a terrible thing to do, to accuse your Maker, a God who is all good, all love, of such a contemptible act as this. No, Mrs. Williams, rest assured God never did such a thing. Let us see what the Bible says on this question. In the first place, it says God made everything good; do you believe that?"

The sick woman nodded her head.

"Next, it says, 'And God saw everything He had made and pronounced it very good'; it further states that God made everything that was made; do you believe this also?"

"Yes."

"You have heard it said that Christian Science claims that sin, disease, and death are not real, haven't you?" asked the practitioner.

"Yes."

"Now let us see if their claims are true. You agreed that God made everything that was made and that it was good. Now then, can you in any possible way show me wherein this claim of sickness of yours is good? if not, then God did not make it, it cannot be real, and it does not exist."

"But, Mrs. White, I have suffered with it for years, and it certainly is real to me," said Mrs. Williams.

"Let me show you how real it is, and what is necessary to make it unreal to you. Suppose I lie down on that couch over there," she said, pointing to a couch at the further side of the room. "As I fall asleep, the things in the room gradually fade from my sight and consciousness, that is, they become unreal to me, in fact they have no existence for me for the time being, yet they are all there. After a little I begin to dream that I am getting ready to take a trip to Europe. I pack my trunk, telephone for the expressman to take it to the depot, I dress myself in my traveling suit, get into my carriage, and am driven to the depot. On the way down I see some of my friends. I bow to them, and as I get out of the carriage at the depot I find my husband and sister there, to bid me God speed on my journey. I realize that my husband came from his place of business, and my sister from a distant part of the city. We enter the depot chatting gaily. My husband goes to inquire about the train. He comes back and tells us it is ready, and we walk down a pair of stairs and out into the train shed. As we approach the train, my husband gets out my ticket, shows it to the porter, and he says, 'Second car to the rear.' As we reach the place indicated, my husband shows the ticket to another porter who is standing there. He examines it and says with a wave of his hand, 'Right in this car.' We enter, and find the number of my berth. My husband puts my traveling bag under the seat, and we all sit there talking for some time. We then hear the conductor's warning, 'All aboard.' My husband and sister both kiss me and hurriedly leave the car. A moment later I see them on the platform. I hear the bell on the engine ring, I feel the car move, and wave a last farewell to those on the platform as they pass from my sight. A little later I am out in the country. Then we dash through a village without stopping, and at length we arrive at New York. I take a carriage to be driven to the dock. On the way there the horse becomes frightened, runs away, tips the carriage over, throws me under a rapidly moving street car, which runs over both my feet. The ambulance is called. I am taken to the hospital. The pain is almost unbearable. The physician examines my injuries and says he will be compelled to amputate both my feet. This seems so terrible to me that the shock wakes me up. For a few moments after I awake, I still feel the pain and lie there trembling with fright, for the dream has been so real. Yet in reality I never left the couch, and everything in the room is there just as I left it when I went to sleep. It was all an illusion, and the only thing necessary to prove it to me was something or somebody to awaken me. So it is with man. God made him perfect and everything good, and all man needs to prove it to himself is to be awakened, that is, made acquainted with the true facts pertaining to life. This means man must understand the science of being; then his delusion regarding sin, disease, and death will be no more real than my trip to Europe with its accompanying pain and disasters."

"I see the force of your illustration, Mrs. White, but I am sure I am not dreaming." "But you are suffering from a delusion, and a delusion is a dream, and is no more real. If it had been possible for some one to tell me while I was on my dream trip, that it was a dream, I would have denied it, because it seemed real to me. So with you, this delusion seems so real you believe it to be a reality. Nevertheless the facts were that I was suffering from a delusion, and so are you. So let us deny that evil is real, and we will wake up to the truth, or understanding, that it is not real. Now I will give you your treatment."