queried eagerly.

I therefore explained to him that I had been a very busy doctor; that I
used to think I took pleasure in relieving the misery of the sick, but
that it seemed a mixed matter now, as I looked back upon it,--so much
love of fame, love of power, love of love itself,--and that I did not
put forth my life's work as of importance in his scale of value.

"That would not lessen its value," replied my friend. "I myself was a
healer of the sick. Your case appeals to me. I was known as"--

He whispered a name which gave me a start of pleasure. It was a name
famous in its day, and that a day long before my own; a name immortal
in medical history. Few men in the world had done as much as this one
to lessen the sum of human suffering. It excited me greatly to meet
him.

"But you," I cried, "you were not like the rest of us or the most of
us. _You_ believed in these--invisible things. You were a man of what
is called faith. I have often thought of that. I never laid down a
biography of you without wondering that a man of your intelligence
should retain that superstitious element of character. I ought to beg
your pardon for the adjective. I speak as I have been in the habit of
speaking."

"Do you wonder now?" asked the great surgeon, smiling benignly. I
shook my head. I wondered at nothing now.

But I felt myself incapable of discussing a set of subjects upon which,
for the first time in my life, I now knew myself to be really
uninformed.

I took the pains to explain to my new friend that in matters of what he
would call spiritual import I was, for aught I knew to the contrary,
the most ignorant person in the community. I added that I supposed he
would expect me to feel humiliated by this.

"Do you?" he asked, abruptly.

"It makes me uncomfortable," I replied, candidly. "I don't know that I
can say more than that. I find it embarrassing."

"That is straightforward," said the great physician. "There is at
least no diseased casuistry about you. I do not regard the indications
as unfavourable."

He said this with something of the professional manner; it amused me,
and I smiled. "Take the case, Doctor, if you will," I humbly said. "I
could not have happened on any person to whom I would have been so
willing to intrust it."

"We will consider the question," he said gravely.

In this remarkable community, and under the guidance of this remarkable
man, I now began a difficult and to me a