Alcoholics -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Alcoholism -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
The good woman at her side kissed her tenderly. "Do not grieve," she
said. "Listen. I told you just now that so many of the great Temperance
organisations err in their rejection of scientific advice and
scientific means to a great end. They place their trust in God,
forgetting that science only exists by God's will and that every
discovery made by men is only God choosing to reveal Himself to those
who search for Him. But the Scientists are wrong, too, in their
rejection--in so many cases--of God. They do not see that Religion and
Science are not only non-antagonistic, but really complement each
other. It is beginning to be seen, though. In time it will be generally
recognised. I read the admission of a famous scientist the other day,
to this effect. He said, 'It is generally recognised that any form of
treatment in which the "occult," the "supernatural," or anything secret
or mysterious is allowed to play a dominant part in so neurotic an
affection as inebriety, often succeeds.' And he closed a most helpful
and able essay on the arrest of alcohol with something like these words:
"'The reference to agencies for the uplifting of the drink-victim
would be sadly incomplete without a very definite acknowledgment of
the incalculable assistance which the wise worker and unprejudiced
physician may obtain by bringing to bear upon the whole life of the
patient that Power, the majesty and mystery, the consolation and
inspiration of which it is the mission of religion to reveal.'"
"Then even the doctors are coming round?" Mary said. "And it means
exactly, you would say--?"
"I would tell you what has been proved without possibility of dispute a
thousand times. I would tell you that when all therapeutic agencies
have failed, the Holy Spirit has succeeded. The Power which is above
every other power can do this. No loving heart need despair. However
black the night _that_ influence can enlighten it. Ask those who
work among the desolate and oppressed; the outcast and forlorn, the
drink-victims and criminals. Ask, here in England, old General Booth or
Prebendary Carlile. Ask the clergy of the Church in the London Docks,
ask the Nonconformist ministers, ask the Priests of the Italian Mission
who work in the slums.
"They will tell you of daily miracles of conversion and transformations
as marvellous and mystical as ever Jesus wrought when He was visible on
earth. Mary! It goes on to-day, it _does_ go on. There is the only
cure, the only salvation. Jesus."
There was a passionate fervour in her voice, a divine light upon her
face. She also prophesied, and the Spirit of God was upon her as upon
the holy women of old.
And Mary caught that holy fire also. Her lips were parted, her eyes
shone. She re-echoed the sacred Name.
"I would give my life to save Gilbert," she said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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