Several years ago I was requested by a young Indian to treat his sister for consumption in an advanced stage. Two weeks afterwards I again visited the town of Walhalla, at the foot of the Pembina Mountains, and in these mountains the Indians lived. An Indian boy was in town with horse and buggy in the hope of taking me out to the settlement to see some others who were ill with various diseases. I told him I was going on to Winnipeg the next morning and would have to make the visit that night if I went. He assured me they would all be awaiting me at his father's cabin.
We started across the mountains after ten o'clock at night. After a five mile drive we arrived at his home,—a log structure about twenty feet square daubed with clay and roofed with sod. When I went into the dimly-lighted but cleanly apartment, I found nineteen dusky patients squatted in a circle against the walls waiting to be healed. They said Rosalie had recovered so rapidly that they knew it was the work of the Great Spirit, and so they all wanted to be healed.
I said, "And do you believe God will surely heal you?" They laughed, as at a jest, replying, "Oh, yes, yes; we know He will." Only a few could talk plainly. Nearly all understood conversation carried on in simple words. One interpreted for those who wanted treatment, bringing them up to me one by one, and giving me their names. I talked in a simple manner of God's goodness and love, and how that love destroyed evil, and of the obligations of the patients to correct their lives and obey God and love each other and be honest, etc. All this was listened to with intense interest and noddings of approval and assent.
After the guests had departed the several men belonging to Rosalie's family went out to sleep in a shanty, leaving the cabin to the women. I was given a comfortable bed and rested tranquilly between clean, pink calico sheets. The next morning I started off early for a twenty-five-mile drive to catch the train.
Two weeks later found me again at the log cabin. But what a transformation! I literally did not recognize my patients. The Sioux Indians are afflicted with consumption and bad blood, breaking out in large blotches, and causing sore, red, weak eyes. I left them a lean, weak, hollow-eyed, sore-bedotted crowd; I found them fat, strong, bright-eyed, clean-skinned, and happy. The old couple met me and I could scarce believe my eyes. The old gentleman had been thrown from a horse seven years before, breaking two ribs from his spine. An unsuccessful surgical operation had left them loose and constantly grating and sore, the continual torture making life miserable. He was healed and hearty, and told me in his broken way that the ribs were knit tightly in place. He had gained twenty pounds, and he said, "I feel twenty-five years old." All vestiges of eruption had disappeared from the married daughter and husband, and their faces were full and happy.
But I looked in vain for their little boy "Johnny," whose thin face and lean legs were sorely afflicted with the red blotches. A robust youngster with round cheeks was playing about the room, and when I asked for Johnny his mother pointed him out, exclaiming, "This is Johnny; but he is well now."
A boy of about sixteen with fleshy face and small, twinkling eyes came to the door and stood grinning at me. I looked closely, but recognized nothing familiar in the face, and asked, "Who is this?" "Why, that is Sam," they cried. Now Sam had brought me out from Walhalla on my first visit, and had left on my mind the picture of a thin-faced lad with big black eyes set into red hollows.
All consumptive symptoms prevailing among these families had disappeared. I have since thought much about this experience. We do not envy these people their lot, but their rapid physical transformation proves, by contrast, the tenacity of our educated beliefs, and their positive faith and its quick and astonishing results puts to shame our enlightened (?) doubt and protracted recovery.
I submit this for publication, not as any proof that these people are nearer the truth of Christian Science than others, but as a most convincing proof that human doctrines and doubts and false education make the way long and tiresome.
One fact I wish to emphasize is that I have not overdrawn the picture. I have often thought of sending this to the Journal and have not, because it sounds like exaggeration. Afterward another man of the Chippewa race sent for me. He had been gored by a savage animal ten or fifteen years before, and had ever since worn a leathern belt, about ten inches in width to protect the rupture. He was a very large man. He told me he could not lay it off for even half a day, and could not drive horses without it. I treated him about ten o'clock at night, and he immediately took off his belt at my request and retired for the night. The next day he drove a span of young, spirited horses through the woods and helped load logs on the sled, suffering no inconvenience from the exertion. The rupture was healed.
The profoundly wise do not declaim against superficial knowledge in others, so much as the profoundly ignorant; on the contrary, they would rather assist it with their advice than overwhelm it with their contempt; for they know that there was a period when even a Bacon or a Newton were superficial, and that he who has a little knowledge is far more likely to get more than he that has none.—
