"What art Thou, who dost withstand me? I am a dead and helpless man. What wouldst Thou with me? Where gainest Thou Thy force upon me? Art Thou verily that ancient Myth which we were wont to call Almighty God?"
Simultaneously with the utterance of these words that blast of Will to which I have referred fell heavily upon me. A Power not myself overshadowed me and did environ me. Guided whithersoever I would not, I passed forth upon errands all unknown to me, rebelling and obeying as I went.
"I am become what we used to call a spirit," I thought, bitterly, "and this is what it means. Better might one become a molecule, for those, at least, obey the laws of the universe, and do not suffer."
Now, as I took my course, it being ordered on me, it led me past the door of a certain open church, whence the sound of singing issued. The finest choir in the city, famous far and near, were practising for the Sunday service, and singing like the sons of God, indeed, as I passed by. With the love of the scientific temperament for harmony alert in me, I lingered to listen to the anthem which these singers were rendering in their customary great manner. With the instinct of the musically educated, I felt pleasure in this singing, and said:—
"Magnificently done!" as I went on. It was some moments before the words which the choir sang assumed any vividness in my mind. When they did I found that they were these;—
"For God is a Spirit. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit"—
Now it fell out that my steps were directed to the hospital; and to the hospital I straightway went. I experienced some faint comfort at this improvement in my lot, and hurried up the avenue and up the steps and into the familiar wards with eagerness. All the impulses of the healer were alive in me. I felt it a mercy for my nature to be at its own again. I hastened in among my sick impetuously.
The hospital had been a favourite project of mine; from its start, unreasonably dear to me. Through the mounting difficulties which blockade such enterprises, I had hewn and hacked, I had fathered and doctored, I had trusteed and collected, I had subscribed and directed and persisted and prophesied and fulfilled, as one ardent person must in most humanitarian successes; and I had loved the success accordingly. I do not think it had ever once occurred to me to question myself as to the chemical proportions of my motives in this great and popular charity. Now, as I entered the familiar place, some query of this nature did indeed occupy my mind; it had the strangeness of all mental experiences consequent upon my new condition, and somewhat, if I remember, puzzled me.
The love of healing? The relief of suffering? Sympathy with the wretched? Chivalry for the helpless? Generosity to the poor? Friendship to the friendless? Were these the motives, all the motives, the whole motives, of him who had in my name ministered in that place so long? Even the love of science? Devotion to a therapeutic creed? Sacrifice for a surgical doctrine? Enthusiasm for an important professional cause? Did these, and only these, sources of conduct explain the great hospital? Or the surgeon who had created and sustained it?
Where did the motive deteriorate? Where did the alloy come in? How did the sensitiveness to self, the passion for fame, the joy of power, amalgamate with all that noble feeling? How much residuum was there in the solution of that absorption which (outside of my own home) I had thought the purest and highest of my interests in life?