"Well, Doctor," said Eva, "if the essence of Christianity is restoration and salvation, I don't see but your profession is essentially a Christian one. You seek and save the lost. It is your business by your toil and labor to help people who have sinned against the laws of nature, to get them back again to health; isn't it so?"
"Well, yes, it is," said the doctor, "though I find everything going against me in this direction, as much as you do."
"But you find mercy in nature," said Harry. "In the language of the Psalms: 'There is forgiveness with her that she may be feared.' The first thing, after one of her laws has been broken, comes in her effort to restore and save; it may be blind and awkward, but still it points toward life and not death, and you doctors are her ministers and priests. You bear the physical gospel; and we Christians take the same process to the spiritual realm that lies just above yours, and that has to work through yours. Our business in both realms seems to be, by our own labor, self-denial and suffering, to save those who have sinned against the laws of their being."
"Well," said the doctor; "even so, I go in for saving in my line by an instinct apart from my reason, an instinct as blind as nature's when she sets out to heal a broken bone in the right arm of a scalawag, who never used his arm for anything but thrashing his wife and children, and making himself a general nuisance; yet I have been amazed sometimes to see how kindly and patiently old Mother Nature will work for such a man. Well, I am something like her. I have the blind instinct of healing in my profession, and I confess to sitting up all night, watching to keep the breath of life in sick babies that I know ought to be dead, and had better be dead, inasmuch as there's no chance for them to be even decent and respectable, if they live; but I can't let 'em die, any more than nature can, without a struggle. The fact is, reason is one thing and the human heart another; and, as St. Paul says, 'these two are contrary one to the other, so that ye cannot do the thing ye would.' You and your husband, Mrs. Henderson, have got a good deal of this troublesome human heart in you, so that you cannot act reasonably, any more than I can."
"That's it, Doctor," said Eva, with a bright, sudden movement towards him and laying her hand on his arm, "let's not act reasonably—let's act by something higher. I know there is something higher—something we dare to do and feel able to do in our best moments. You are a Christian in heart, Doctor, if not in faith."
"Me? I'm the most terrible heretic in all the continent."
"But when you sit up all night with a sick baby from mere love of saving, you are a Christian; for, doesn't Christ say, 'inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me'? Christians are those who have Christ's spirit, as I think, and sacrifice themselves to save others."
"May the angels be of your opinion when I try the gate hereafter," said the Doctor. "But now, seriously, about this Maggie. I apprehend that you will have trouble from the fact that, having been kept on stimulants in a rambling, loose, disorderly life, she will not be able long to accommodate herself to any regular habits. I don't know how much of a craving for drink there may be in her case, but it is a usual complication of such cases. Such people may go for weeks without yielding, and then the furor comes upon them, and away they go. Perhaps she may not be one of those worst cases; but, in any event, the sudden cessation of all the tumultuous excitement she has been accustomed to, may lead to a running down of the nervous system that will make her act unreasonably. Her mother, and people of her class, may be relied on for doing the very worst thing that the case admits of, with the very best intentions. And now if these complications get you into any trouble, rely upon me so far as I can do anything to help. Don't hesitate to command me at any hour and to any extent, because I mean to see the thing through with you. When spring comes on, if you get her through the winter, we must try and find her a place in some decent, quiet farmer's family in the country, where she may feed chickens and ducks, and make butter, and live a natural, healthful, out-door life; and, in my opinion, that will be the best and safest way for her."
"Come, Doctor," said Harry, "will you walk up town with me? It's time I was off."
"Now, Harry, please remember; don't forget to match that worsted," said Eva. "Oh! and that tea must be changed. You just call in and tell Haskins that."