The House of Defence v. 1Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Science
The House of Defence v. 1
Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Christian Science -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Spiritual healing -- Fiction
"How can you be ill if you only realise that there is nothing real in
the world except God's Infinite Love? Fix yourself on that. It's only
sin that makes us able to be afraid, or sick, or in pain. But that isn't
God's will for you, Sandie, and He won't have it. It's that old cheat,
the devil, who makes us sin, and who makes us think we are sick. He
tells you, too, that you are a poor sinful body. So you are, but you've
forgotten a big thing about that. God has wiped it all away. Jesus took
it, the dear Master took all that, and all sickness, too, on His
shoulders. It nearly staggered even Him for a moment."
He paused again, and for some minutes more was silent, absorbed in the
realisation of that which he believed. All the time he seemed
absolutely unconscious of Maud's presence, and in the silence she looked
back from him to that which had been but a death's-head on the pillow,
and saw, not exactly to her amazement, but to her intense awe, that a
certain change had come over it. It was possible, of course, that her
first terrified glance at it had exaggerated the deathliness of it, and
that she might in a way have now got used to it. But, in any case, it
seemed different. Or, again, the intensity of Mr. Cochrane's belief in
the power to heal those on whom the very shadow of death lay might have
infected her, and made her see through the medium of his conviction. Yet
it seemed to her that a change was there. She faintly recognised Sandie
again--the living Sandie whom she knew, not the dead Sandie whom she had
seen when she first entered the room. That gaping, mirthless grin had
vanished; his lips were no longer drawn back to the base of the teeth.
And surely, half an hour ago, his lips had been nearly blue; now a
blood-tinge invaded them again. Also, those poor hands, which had picked
and plucked at the blanket, were still. They lay there weak and
nerveless, but they no longer picked and clawed. His eyes sought comfort
still, but it seemed that they had begun to find it. And was the
eclipse, the shadow of death, beginning to pass away from his face? Was
the power of Infinite Love, which must be so much stronger than sickness
and death, being here and now openly manifested? Or was she but
imagining these things in obedience to the suggestion made by that
strong, virile mind of the man who sat by the bedside?
From Sandie she looked back to Mr. Cochrane. Soon he raised his eyes
again, for through this long silence he had sat with his face buried in
his hands; and again he looked at Sandie, and there shone from him a
beam so tender and triumphant that his face was transfigured.
"You are better already, my dear man," he said, "and you are coming
back so quickly, retracing your way along the road of error and untruth
and unreality. Don't you feel it? Don't you know it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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