"I have sat with more than three hundred individuals every year for ten years, and for the last five years I have averaged five hundred yearly--people with all sorts of diseases, and every possible state of mind, brought on by all kinds of ideas in which people believe. Religion in its various forms embraces many of these causes. Some cases have been occasioned by the idea that [the patients] had committed the unpardonable sin. When asked what it was, no two persons ever answered alike." There is no doubt that Dr. Quimby's patients were generally cured, unless he told them at once that they were past his or any other mortal aid. "He saw through them at a glance," as all who knew him agree in testifying. To deceive him was impossible. For instance: A lady who scouted his special vision, and was in good health, went to him feigning illness, and for the purpose of a test. "He received her, as he would any one, and, after a few moments, without a word having been spoken, took his chair, and, placing it before her, sat down with his back to her, saying: 'That is the way you feel toward me. I think you don't need my services, and had better go home.'" A patient and friend--an eye-witness of unquestionable veracity--says: "People were coming to Dr. Quimby from all parts of New England. Many of these came on crutches, or were assisted into the office; and it was most interesting to note their progress day by day, or the remarkable change produced by a single sitting.... I remember one lady who had used crutches for twenty years, who walked without them after a few weeks." There is now living in Boston a gentleman who happens to be personally known to the present writer. The gentleman is a college graduate of high culture, of large experience, and with the rest, is an author of distinction. When a young man he had a serious affliction of the eyes, which gradually increased until he was threatened with blindness. He was a man of means, and no expense was spared to secure the best medical treatment. It was unavailing. He heard of Dr. Quimby, and, as the usual "last resort," applied to him. "He cured me," says the gentleman, "and I have had no trouble since. But how he did it I don't know. He sat and talked with me, and sometimes touched my head and face with his hands, moistened with cold water, though declaring even this to be of no vital consequence. He cured other people of all sorts of things, as easily as he cured me. Here I am with two good eyes, and you have the facts."[12] The ultimate value of "The New Thought," or "Mental and Moral Healing," is yet a problem; but that P. P. Quimby was the spring and fountain of the whole stream, with its various branches, is beyond all reputable dispute. It rests on these grounds: _First._ He claimed it himself in the presence of all whom he met, spreading the claim broadcast even in newspaper advertisements and business circulars.