stonishing life. The first
thing which happened was not calculated to soothe my personal feeling:
this was no less than the discovery that I really had nothing wherewith
to compensate the citizens who had provided for the comfort of my child
and of myself; in short, that I was no more nor less than an object of
charity at their hands. I writhed under this, as may be well imagined;
and with more impatience than humility urged that I be permitted to
perform some service which at least would bring me into relation with
the commercial system of the country. I was silenced by being gently
asked: What could I do?

"But have you no sick here?" I pleaded, "no hospitals or places of
need? I am not without experience, I may say that I am even not
without attainment, in my profession. Is there no use for it all, in
this state of being which I have come to?"

"Sick we have," replied the surgeon, "and hospitals. I myself am much
occupied in one of these. But the diseases that men bring here are not
of the body. Our patients are chiefly from among the newly arrived,
like yourself; they are those who are at odds with the spirit of the
place; hence they suffer discomfort."

"They do not harmonize with the environment, I suppose," I interrupted
eagerly. I was conscious of a wish to turn the great man's thought
from a personal to a scientific direction. It occurred to me with
dismay that I might be selected yet to become a patient under this
extraordinary system of things. That would be horrible. I could think
of nothing worse.

I proceeded to suggest that if anything could be found for me to do, in
this superior art of healing, or if, indeed, I could study and perfect
myself in it, I was more than willing to learn, or to perform.

"Canst thou heal a sick spirit?" inquired my friend, solemnly. "Canst
thou administer holiness to a sinful soul?"

I bowed my head before him; for I had naught to say. Alas, what art
had I, in that high science so far above me, that my earth-bound gaze
had never reached unto it?

I was not like my friend, who seemed to have carried on the whole range
of his great earthly attainments, by force of what I supposed would
have to be called his spiritual education. Here in this world of
spirits I was an unscientific, uninstructed fellow.

"Give me," I said brokenly, "but the lowliest chance to make an
honourable provision for the comfort of my child in your community. I
ask no more."

The