any desire to be
enlightened on this subject, I did not volunteer, since I felt the wiser
way would be to wait an adequate amount of evidence before making any
public announcements of presumed important discoveries in practical
hygiene.

My experiences in the rooms of the sick had convinced me, long before I
gave up my morning meal, that death from starvation was so remote as
practically to exclude it from consideration; hence with the great
improvement that was the immediate result in my own case I could from
the first speak with a "thus saith the Lord" emphasis on the safety of
going through a forenoon "on an empty stomach."

As no one could come into my office without my being able to give the
assurance of at least some relief that would be immediately realized,
that would be felt even to the finger-ends, my office became more and
more a lecture-room, a school of health culture for the education of
missionaries, for a friend-to-friend uplifting into higher life.

All I needed for my own sake was that missing link to clothe my words
with all the desired power. With so much to enliven, to encourage, it
was as if I were sitting at the very feet of Nature, so thrilled by her
wonderful stories that I was utterly unconscious of the storm of
ridicule and epithet to which I was subjected.

Once in a while Nature would favor me with a miracle in the way of an
inspiring change. A man in the early prime of life had reached a
condition in which he habitually rejected every breakfast. Two trips to
Europe and a year in the hands of a Berlin specialist for the stomach
failed to relieve; and yet he was not so disabled as to prevent him
attending to his ordinary business affairs; the stomach seemed to be
eccentric in being merely irritable without structural disease.

I asked him if he felt that the breakfasts which would not stay down
were doing him any good. To this he had to assent that they were not. I
told him if the breakfast only to result in a heave-offering were
omitted he would be better able for his duties of the forenoon. He began
at once to raise his brows.

It was not difficult for him to see that if no breakfasts were put into
his stomach none would have to be thrown up with sickening effort, and
hence he could not but be better for the forenoon services if the sick
spell were omitted. The fact was, the breakfast would soon be rejected,
and then the hours of rest would enable the stomach to handle the dinner
wi