"Yes, I do. In one place He said: ’He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do because I go unto my father.’ And at another time He said: ’Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received. Freely give.’ Now when did the time limit to those commands end?" "Oh, nonsense, Carolina!" said Mrs. Howard, with the amused toleration of the already saved. "How can you bring up such absurd speculations? All those questions have been settled for us by the heads of the Churches years and years before we were born." "They were settled, dear Mrs. Howard, for all who choose to accept such decisions, but how about those of us who have questioned all our lives and never found an answer which satisfied? I can remember, as a little girl in Paris, I used to come home from the convent and ply my father with this very question: ’Why can’t priests and preachers heal in these days the way Jesus commanded?’" "Well, does Mrs. Eddy have the nerve to assert that she rediscovered the way to perform Christ’s miracles?" asked Doctor Colfax. "Mrs. Eddy asserts that in 1866 she discovered the Christ Science, or the power of healing disease as Jesus healed it, by a mental process which is so simple that to all Christian Scientists Christ’s so-called miracles are not miracles at all, but as simple and natural as any other mental phenomenon which has become common by reason of its frequency." "That sounds like sacrilege," said St. Quentin. "It sounds like tommy-rot!" said Kate. "And yet," put in Mr. Howard, "we must all admit that Carolina has been miraculously healed. Do you not admit that, doctor?" Doctor Colfax’s face became suffused. He bit his lip, then said, with quiet distinctness: "If I had cut off a man’s leg with my own hands, and Mrs. Eddy, under my very eyes, caused a new leg to grow in the place of the old one, I would not believe in her or in anything she taught!" Expressions of varying emotions swept over the faces of his listeners at this sincere statement of unbelief,--some were triumphant, some incredulous, some surprised, and one contemptuous. "But, doctor, when you see Christian Science enrolling the names of the most brilliant minds; when you see the loveliest women forsaking a life of ease and pleasure and becoming practitioners,--Christian Science doctors just as selfless and single-minded as you--" "If you are referring to that depraved woman who claims to have cured you, Miss Lee, that morphine fiend, that drunkard, that reformed character, I beg that you will not name her as a physician in any sense of the word. The medical profession is too noble to be degraded in such a manner!" "Oh, doctor," cried Carolina, reproachfully, "if you could only hear the beautiful way in which she speaks of you!" "Oh, doctor, aren’t you a little severe?" asked Mrs. Winchester. Noel St. Quentin smothered an amused laugh.