“Because it will appear to you so very simple. I consulted a medical man in London, one skilled in rheumatic cases, and he gave it as his opinion that a month or two passed at one of the continental springs might restore me. I laughed at him.”
“You did not believe him?”
“I did not, indeed. Shall I confess to you that I felt vexed with him? There was I, a poor afflicted man, lying helpless, racked with pain; and to be gravely assured that a short sojourn at a pleasant foreign watering-place would, in all probability, cure me, sounded very like mockery. I knew something of the disease, its ordinary treatment, and its various phases. It was true I had left Europe for many years, and strange changes had been taking place in medical science. Still, I had no faith in what he said, as being applicable to my own case; and for a whole month, week after week, day after day, I declined to entertain his views. I considered that it would be so much time and money wasted.”
Dr. Lamb paused. Mr. Channing did not interrupt him.
“One Sunday evening, I was on my solitary sofa—lying in pain—as I can see you are lying now. The bells were ringing out for evening service. I lay thinking of my distressed condition; wishing I could be healed. By-and-by, after the bells had ceased, and the worshippers had assembled within the walls of the sanctuary, from which privilege I was excluded, I took up my Bible. It opened at the fifth chapter of the second book of Kings. I began to read, somewhat listlessly, I fear—listlessly, at any rate, compared with the strange enthusiasm which grew upon me as I read, ‘Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. And Naaman was wroth.... And his servants spake unto him and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith unto thee, Wash, and be clean?’
“Mr. Channing,” Dr. Lamb continued in a deeper tone, “the words sounded in my ear, fell upon my heart, as a very message sent direct from God. All the folly of my own obstinate disbelief came full upon me; the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I said, ‘Shall I not try that simple thing?’ A firm conviction that the chapter had been directed to me that night as a warning, seated itself within me; and, from that hour, I never entertained a shadow of doubt but that the baths would be successful.”
“And you journeyed to them?”
“Instantly. Within a week I was there. I seemed to know that I was going to my cure. You will not, probably, understand this.”
“I understand it perfectly,” was Mr. Channing’s answer. “I believe that a merciful Providence does vouchsafe, at rare times, to move us by these direct interpositions. I need not ask you if you were cured. I have heard that you were. I see you are. Can you tell me aught of the actual means?”
“I was ordered to a small place in the neighbourhood of Aix-la-Chapelle; a quiet, unpretending place, where there are ever-rising springs of boiling, sulphuric water. The precise course of treatment I will come in another day and describe to you. I had to drink a great deal of the water, warm—six or eight half-pints of it a day; I had to bathe regularly in this water; and I had to take what are called douche baths every other day.”