with it.

* * * * *

Honest, solemn reader, ardent food reformer, keen educationist,
clear-headed moralist, practical-minded housewife, I tell you frankly
there is no moral to this little episode. It throws no light on what
to eat, or on the purchasing power of an English shilling, or on the
ethical training of young children, or on the nature of neurasthenia.
Fairyland, of course, is a childish fiction, Apollo a solar myth, a
road is a road, grass is grass and heaven is a state of mind. I quite
agree with you. But let me whisper something in your ear. If you
should ever blunder across your Boundary, don't be surprised if things
look queer on the other side; above all, whatever you do, don't let
any strange river you may find flowing there carry you away, or it may
bring you, spite of all your protests, through one of the gates of
pearl into the City of God.

EDGAR J. SAXON.

A SCIENTIFIC BASIS FOR MENTAL HEALING.

There is a vast amount of loose talk, and innumerable assertions from
irresponsible individuals concerning the wonders that have been
achieved by Mental Healing, but naturally the scientist and physician,
when dealing with such a question as this, has to put aside, not all
enthusiasm, but certainly all emotionalism, and then, most carefully
sift the evidence laid before him. The scientist here wants hard, dry,
irrefutable facts; the responsible physician requires to know--by his
own careful diagnosis or by an array of tabulated facts--the condition
of the patient before and after treatment--that is, of the one who
claims to have been cured by mental means. Innumerable claims are
thus being made by patients and others, so that it is imperative for
the unbiased physician at all events to consider the above question;
this in order to give a reason for the faith that is in him, when he
is known to be one of those who favour the metaphysical means of
healing. Even the sciolist in the matter knows that in the case, say,
of blushing, or blanching of the face, the action of mind over
matter--of the body--is palpable; all admit that the quality of joy,
for instance, will prove a splendid tonic; that despair, on the other
hand, will pull down the bodily condition. But all this, we shall be
told, is unconscious action; true, but fortunately we are now aware
that by a forceful action of the will we can _consciously_ direct or
derivate, as the case may be, currents of nerve-fo