should not be more quickly, than
if he had a load of foreign substance at his stomach to be disposed of.
In other words, to get well in spite of medicine seems to me much less
agreeable, after all that is said in its favor, than to get well in
Nature's own way.

CHAPTER LXI.

ALMOST RAISING THE DEAD.

So many people regarded it, and therefore I use the phrase as a title
for my chapter. I have heard of families of children so large that it
was not easy to find names for them all. My chapters of confession are
short, but very numerous, and I already begin to find it difficult to
procure titles that are _apropos_.

Mary Benham was the second daughter, in an obscure and indigent family
that resided only a little distance from my house, just beyond the
limits of what might properly be called the village. I do not know much
of her early history, except that she was precocious in mind, and
scrofulous and feeble in body.

The first time I ever heard any thing about her, was one night at a
prayer-meeting. Mr. Brown, the minister, took occasion to observe, at
the close of the meeting, in my hearing, that he must go to Mr. Benham's
and see Mary, for she was very ill, and it was thought would not live
through the night.

She survived, however, as she had done many times before, and as she did
many times afterward, in similar circumstances. More than once Mr. Brown
had been sent for--though sometimes other friends were called, as Mr.
Brown lived more than a mile distant--to be with her and pray with her,
in what were supposed to be her last moments. But there was still a good
deal of tenacity of life; and she continued to live, notwithstanding all
her expectations and those of her friends.

It appeared, on inquiry, that her nervous system was very much
disordered, and also her digestive machinery. She was also taking, from
day to day, a large amount of active medicine. Still no one appeared to
doubt the propriety of such a course of treatment, in the case of a
person so very sick as she was; for how, it was asked, could she live
without it?

In one or two instances I was sent for; not, indeed, as her physician,
but as a substitute for the more distant or the absent minister. At
these visits I learned something, incidentally, of her true physical
condition. I found her case a very bad one, and yet, as I believed, made
much worse by an injudicious use of medicine.

Yet what could I do in the premises? I had not be