ild, and through that nature upon all
humanity.

Once you grasp that consciousness, you will feel your closeness to the
Creator of all things.

Indeed, there is no other being on earth so nearly Godlike in power as
the mother who realizes what her influence over her unborn child may be.

The hard and painful path for you to walk is but a short one compared to
the long roadway to eternity for your child.

Perhaps some great statesman, or some great artist, or some great
scientist or philosopher is lying under your heart, and it is in your
power to make or mar his development. Perhaps a Joan of Arc, or a Rosa
Bonheur, or a Martha Washington will crown you with pride.

Such genius and influence for good as the world has never before known,
from mortal sources, may be given to it through your unborn child. How
wonderful your privilege, how vast your power!

Only a few short months, and then the growing wonder of a child's
unfolding mind, to beautify your days.

Think of it in this way, dear little tired and nervous woman, and God
and all his angels will hover over you, I know, and all will be well
with you.

My prayers are with you.

To Mr. Alfred Duncan

_Concerning the Ministry_

And so you have changed your plan of life and, instead of becoming an
experimenter with the flesh, are going to be a healer of souls.

And what do I think about it? I am glad you are not to be an M.D. There
is an era coming when the doctor will be a prehistoric creature. Oh, it
is far, far away, but already the most progressive minds have ceased to
regard the family physician as an infallible being.

Medicine has made the least progress of any of the sciences in the last
few centuries.

Credulity has cured more people than pills.

Were you to study medicine, I should advise you to take up surgery,
osteopathy, electricity, the Kneippe Cure, milk diet, and all the
various methods of stimulating circulation; for the people who
patronize these treatments are increasing, as the powder and pill
patrons are on the decrease.

Then, too, I should urge you to make a careful study of mental and
spiritual methods of cure, that you might be wholly equipped for the
dawn of the new age. You are a young man, and you will probably live to
see a wonderful change in the treatment of disease, and to find the
physician of the old school relegated to the historian.

But just as carefully you should now survey the religious horizon,
befor