Thus did Mr. Jealousy bring upon himself the disfavor of his church and he was forthwith expelled, for he refused to give the required promise of reformation.
Mr. World and the manager now came to a large door.
“In this room,” said the manager, “we keep all our cancer patients. We have a large number of them and, since they require special treatment, we keep them separate to facilitate the work of the physicians and nurses.”
I saw them enter the room, and heard the words of surprise that fell from the lips of Mr. World as he saw the magnitude of this department.
“These are they,” explained the chief of the division, “who came here through ‘profane and vain babblings.’”
Mr. World then passed through the leprosy ward where he saw quite a few who were once cleansed by the Divine Healer, but who, failing to give thanks for their recovery, suffered fatal relapse and were now in the last stages of this dread disease.
This place was so loathsome to him that he was hastened into the General Department where he saw all manner of patients, each in his particular dilemma.
A great number of this section were suffering from disordered livers, and of these not a few came from the church.
One such, who was a wealthy man, had so far protruded his disagreeableness upon the community that the church officials voluntarily gave him medicine for his liver. This was of no avail. He still grew more irritable and complained about the preacher, the sexton, the choir, and even his own wife. The weather never suited him, and when he gave any testimony about religion it was always a partial outline of the supposed or real sorrows and troubles of the Christian pilgrimage.
While suffering from one of his morbid spells, he listened to the voice of the tempter who persuaded him to seek help at the hands of the physicians under the control of this Hospital. These doctors dosed him until they persuaded him to submit to an operation, and the wicked surgeon knew how to render him still more liable to trouble after his imaginary restoration toward which he was looking when Mr. World saw him.