While they all seemed disposed to listen to me with that kindly forbearance usually shown to a talkative old lady in a high class private sanitarium for feeble-minded, nobody was seriously impressed. There was no use trying to argue with anyone; they simply listened tolerantly as long as it amused me to talk. Indeed the harassment of my body and mind was such that I sometimes wondered if I had become an inmate instead of a patient. They said the records showed I was getting well, and that’s all there was to it. Whatever I said or however I felt seemed not to alter the purely scientific fact that my condition was normal. There are certain reactions that customarily follow certain operations; and in common practice the patient is not supposed to develop any complications not on the regular calendar. The signposts were all set indicating my lines of recovery, and all I had to do was to keep within bounds and follow directions. But some deadly microbe having intervened to upset their calculations, I was unable to eat a mouthful of food, or to adjust my mental and physical reactions to the prescribed order of things. In other words, theoretically I was getting well, but practically I was becoming a physical wreck. About this time I received a call one afternoon from the pastor of a church in the town, who having read in the local newspaper that I was from Boston probably jumped to the conclusion that I must be in need of spiritual aid. He was a soft-spoken, amiable, benevolent appearing man, and regretted to find me laid so low. Seeing that I was too sick to indulge in much general conversation he very considerately came at once to the point and asked if I were a believer. When I assured him that I was, he inquired if I felt prepared for any eventuality. “My friend,” said I, “no one has a more profound veneration for your cloth than I have, and you show the true Christian spirit in coming to see me; but I am decidedly dubious about death-bed repentance. Religion, it seems to me, is something that should be acquired and practiced in health, not in sickness. A soldier who has been a worthless slacker in health can be of little service to his general when he lies at the point of death. This last moment contrition makes salvation too easy to be genuine.” His answer was that those who came late to the vineyard received the same pay as the ones who came earlier; but my mind was too muddled to comprehend how this applied to those who remained away till they were too ill or decrepit to be of any service at all; and having delivered my little sermon I was not disposed to argue the matter any further. “My dear brother,” he said at length, “nothing is more uncertain than life. You are making a brave fight, but if by some hard decree of fate you should be called to your final accounting, do you feel that you are prepared to meet your--”