"By all means," he replied; "let us have the whole of it; keep nothing back."
"Well, then, I went home, and placed the bottle of cordial on a high and obscure shelf, where nobody would be likely to see it, and proceeded with our sick folks just as before. The bottle of cordial remained unknown, except to myself, and untouched, and is probably untouched to the present hour. So you see—do you not?—how like a charm it operates."
"Just like you, doctor. Well, as long as they recovered I do not care. But I shall always have full faith in the medicine. I know what I know; and if all the world were of your opinion I could not resist a full belief in the efficacy of Mrs. Kidder's Cholera Cordial."
My friend was not offended with me, for he was, in the main, a sensible, rational man. He pitied me; but, I believe from that time forth, gave up all hopes of my conversion. I come to this conclusion because he has never uttered a syllable on the subject, in my hearing, from that day to this hour, though I have met with him probably fifty times.
There can be no doubt that were we to place full faith in the recuperative efforts of nature, three-fourths of our medicine—perhaps I may just as well say nine-tenths—would be quite as useful were it disposed of in the way I disposed of Mrs. Kidder's cordial, as when swallowed. Nay, it is possible it might be much more useful. If a sick person can recover without it just as well as with it, he certainly will get well more easily, even if it should not be more quickly, than if he had a load of foreign substance at his stomach to be disposed of. In other words, to get well in spite of medicine seems to me much less agreeable, after all that is said in its favor, than to get well in Nature's own way.
CHAPTER LXI.
ALMOST RAISING THE DEAD.
So many people regarded it, and therefore I use the phrase as a title for my chapter. I have heard of families of children so large that it was not easy to find names for them all. My chapters of confession are short, but very numerous, and I already begin to find it difficult to procure titles that are apropos.