Carolina only clasped her hands together, and Mrs. Goddard proceeded:
"Then Rosemary heard of Christian Science, and without saying a word to me, she looked up the names of one or two practitioners and called. The first one she did not care for and came away discouraged. But something told her to try again, and her second attempt led her to the door of the angel of healing who, under God, worked this cure, Mrs. Seixas. Rosemary had not talked with her ten minutes before she knew that she had been led aright. She wanted Mrs. Seixas to get into the brougham and come at once, but according to Science practice she insisted upon Rosemary's coming home and getting my consent.
"You can imagine that I was not slow to accept the hope it offered, and that same afternoon I had my first treatment. Carolina, inside of an hour the pain all left me! Child, you have suffered, so you know, you can fathom as many cannot, what that means! I promised when the pain returned to call her by telephone, instead of taking the morphine, but it never did come back! She gave me treatments from her office every hour for the rest of the day and came back after dinner that night and gave me another. That was three years ago. To-day I am a well woman. I eat whatever I please and not once has the old craving for stimulants attacked me. I am a free woman and a very happy one!"
"Oh, Mrs. Goddard," cried Carolina, "thank you so much for telling me. It helps me to know that I am being cured!"
"That you are cured."
"Yes, I must believe that."
"Pardon me--not so much believe it, as you must understand it and understand why it is so. Every orthodox Christian is ready to state glibly that God is All, but they never act as if they believed it and that is the chief difference between members of churches and Christian Scientists."
"Why does every one hate Christian Science so before they understand it?"
"Christian Science is like a large crystal bowl full of the pure water of life. Left alone it simply sparkles in the sunlight of God's smile. But if you bring to it the alkali of ignorance and the acid of prejudice, this clear water becomes the vehicle of a most energetic boiling and fizzing. But when it has assimilated the two foreign ingredients the residue sinks to the bottom harmlessly, the water clarifies itself by its reflected power, and the crystal bowl resumes its placid, sparkling aspect."
"I understand," said Carolina, "that I must have caused that commotion rather often, for I used to hate Christian Science so vigorously and I hated Mrs. Eddy so intensely that I used to rejoice at every adverse criticism of her or her work, and I used to go to the trouble (when I never would have bothered to make a scrap-book) of cutting things out of the papers, and mailing them to my friends. I deliberately put myself out in order to hate it more adequately!"