"Well now, young sir, that is a question I'm not prepared to answer. I can only say like that little black girl in the story, ''spose they growed'."
"But everything must grow from something, mustn't it? Every tree and plant has its own seed. God created every living creature after its kind, and bade it be fruitful and multiply. So you see everything good was created by the Word of God. Is rheumatism good?"
"'Deed no, young gentleman! It's cruel bad."
"So is hip-disease. It's very, very 'cruel bad,' and because it is the opposite of good it was not amongst the things which God 'beheld.' Our dear Heavenly Father did not create poor suffering little children maimed with hip-disease, and sometimes blind. He created them in His own image and likeness, and God could not be suffering sometimes with one disease, sometimes with another, so that His image and likeness could have it too, could He? See, if I hold my hand up so it casts a shadow on the wall, that is an exact image or likeness of my hand, is it not? Now if I just hold something--only a slip of paper between my hand and the reflection, the reflection is deformed, isn't it? But my hand is not affected by it. So when we are bound by any cruel disease, there is something between God and His image and likeness, something that was never created by Him--was never created at all. It is only a shadowy mist--a belief: and we have to get rid of it, by knowing its unreality. We have to know that because we are God's children, His spiritual creation, we must be perfect, even as He is perfect. Jesus came to teach people this. He said, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.' But, my cousin says, the world has been slow to learn the lesson. Sin and disease will disappear from our midst just as soon as we do learn it. When she came to me, and I was very ill, she taught me that nothing was real except what God had created, and pronounced good, and He never created hip-disease. Because she understood this so clearly, and taught me to understand it, I soon began to get better. I should like to help you to understand it, so that you would lose your rheumatism. I think I have stayed as long as I had permission to-night. Would you like me to come again next Sunday?"
"'Deed, and I would, young gentleman."
"My name is Carol," the boy said simply.
"Thank 'ee, Master Carol, you've given me something to think about, I shan't forget during the week."
"I should like to teach you the Scientific Statement of Being. It is in that book I told you of, which explains the Bible. If you would learn it, and try to realize it, it would help you so much.'
"My mem'ry 's none of the best now, but I'll try," the old man said regretfully.
"Perhaps it will be better for me to write it for you in large writing, so that you can read it until you know it. I will bring it with me next week. These are the words: 'There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.' He repeated the words gravely and slowly to the end, the old man gazing at him the while with wondering eyes. The sun was setting; the crimson light streamed through the lattice window upon the boy's upturned face, so sweet, so grave, so loving, and so earnest.