Mr. World and Miss Church-Member Part 30

The doctor seized him by the hand with a strange vigor not even understood by Mr. World.

"So you are under the power of 'La Grippe,'" saluted the doctor.

"Under the power of something, I am sure, for everything is wrong with me, and everything seems wrong to me," was the slow answer.

The doctor soon diagnosed his case, and gave him powders with directions.

"It did not take you very long to attend to him," said Mr. World, after the aged man left the office.

"I deal with so many of that cla.s.s that I keep the medicine ready. La Grippe is a splendid thing for my trade. It is affecting more pilgrims just now than any other disease. Some churches are more than decimated by the ravages of this plague."

The manager then conducted Mr. World into another office where the doctor was just giving medical attention to a young lady who was suffering with spiritual quinsy. It was so severe that she could not testify for Christ, and she wilfully pa.s.sed by the "Great Physician"

who could have healed her blessedly. She also pa.s.sed by all the angels of mercy who throng the King's Highway. She turned a deaf ear to all the singers who sang, "Then why will ye die?" Finally she was heavily pressed by her disease and, seeing a physician's office which she could enter without climbing a step, she went in and chose rather to be treated by a doctor of the Devil, as if dead to all the offers of mercy which she had rejected.

She accepted his treatment without question, and even felt at ease in conscience, thinking that the easy, bland method of this physician was in every way preferable to the searching methods adopted by the Healer Divine.

She regained her voice, but it lost that sweet accent of heaven which once had characterized it. It was now difficult and embarra.s.sing for her to p.r.o.nounce the name of Jesus.

All this proved painful and intolerable, so she took a by-path to the left called "Unchast.i.ty" where she found a whole vocabulary of speech more suited to her utterance.

She spent the rest of her days in the habitations of immorality along the Broad Highway, unmindful of the tears and kindly solicitude of her entreating friends.

Into the third medical wing the two went only to see the fiendish program carried on there as in the other offices. The first patient they saw was a young man who, through the misguidance of a weakling, was persuaded to enter the office.

This physician, with a smile on his face, but vile purpose in his heart, administered wilfully the very medicine that gave a transient gratification to the patient's craving for narcotics, and which would finally cause the appet.i.te to break out anew into an inward burning and gnawing, swinging a master's sash over him.

The physician told him that his taste was inherited, and it would consequently require much patience ere he could be cured. He gave him the devilish medicine, and urged him to continue using it until the bottle was drained to its dregs.

At first it gave the promised relief, but the young man, now more deeply contaminated by this concoction of h.e.l.l, raged in wilder pa.s.sion than ever, and verily ran to his utmost on the By-Path of intemperance until the flower of his youth and manhood was blasted to the blackest, and his sense of honor lost in the hovels of vice and corruption which, in great variety, stood along the Broad Highway.

The book-keepers of h.e.l.l placed an additional mark to the credit of this doctor, while the church looked on the young man's fall somewhat indifferently, having been hardened by the frequency of similar occurrences.

At the request of Mr. World the manager conducted him back to the hospital building and proceeded to show the various departments to him.

There was some commotion in one of the operating rooms just as Mr.

World entered. It proved to be the preliminary work necessary for dressing a severe scalp wound.

It happened that a certain woman, named Mrs. Criticiser, who belonged to an active church, attempted to injure a good and holy man by hurling stones at him.

She noticed that the little stones did him no harm, so she seized one of larger size and hurled it at him with great force. He, being a pure man, and standing on a rock, was not even touched by the missile. But it struck the great rock on which he was standing, rebounded with unexpected force, and struck the head of Mrs. Criticiser with stunning effect.

It was seen that the stone had made an ugly gash on her head, more severe and painful than she intended to inflict on the good Mr. Cla.s.s Leader. Her friends, being acquainted with the Devil's Hospital, naturally carried her there for necessary attention.

Mr. World saw Mrs. Criticiser brought into the room in a semi-conscious condition and watched the whole operation.

The surgeon declared that a scar would be carried on her head all through life. Indeed there is no balm in h.e.l.l to cure the wounded head or heart so as not to leave a scar. Had she gone to the "Great Physician," and asked Him aright to apply the "Balm of Gilead," her head would have been healed aright.

The manager then escorted Mr. World into one of the wards which was crowded to overflowing.

They tarried at the bedside of a man whose left arm and right leg were bandaged. There lay the poor fellow awaiting the slow processes of healing for his fractured bones.

It was on this wise that this man, a certain Mr. Treacherous, came to this sorry plight.

He was an ambitious member of the church, and aimed to be elected to an office therein. His admirers were too few, so the majority vote was given for another, named Mr. Wisdom.

This so aroused the jealousy of Mr. Treacherous that he was moved to seek amends for what he considered a stinging and crushing defeat.

"This will I do," said he, "I will dig a deep ditch across Mr. Wisdom's path of success, and will shrewdly cover it from view, and as he chances along that way, in the course of his service, he will surely fall into this ditch to his hurt. Then will I glory in his downfall, so that the stings of this, my defeat, will not p.r.i.c.k me so sharply."

So Mr. Treacherous, in the blackness of the night, digged the ditch and covered it ingeniously. Then he waited day after day to hear of Mr. Wisdom's injury or death, that he might have cause for rejoicing.

Now Mr. Treacherous, since his defeat, was so heavily weighed down with envy and a desire for revenge that he could not sleep soundly, and was wont to walk about the house in a somnambulistic manner.

One night, under the influence of one of these strange spells, he went from the house and walked over the path that led to the ditch.

To his great dismay and double disgrace he waked not until his body struck the bottom of the ditch. He was bruised and some of his bones were broken. Thus he lay there in agony and cried all night long for help.

Ere the morning broke he wished a thousand times that he had not dug the ditch so deep, or rather, had not dug it at all.

A band of searchers found him and, lifting him from his disgrace, they hurried him to this hospital, for he was not minded to humble himself still more by going to another place where Mr. Wisdom and his kind found relief in time of trouble.

It is likely that Mr. Treacherous will never be able to walk again as perfectly as he did before, for it is the reputation of surgeons and physicians of this hospital, in dealing with cases of such extreme folly, that they so manipulate an operation as to render the patient incapable of complete recovery.

Mr. World and his congenial escort moved on from patient to patient, pa.s.sing many hundreds who had met with accidents on the Broad Highway.

Many had been wounded by the "sword of the Spirit" and were now hoping to be cured by the processes here in vogue.

In pa.s.sing on through another ward their attention was called to a woman who lay on a couch and seemed to be suffering more than she was able to bear.

Mr. World inquired concerning her, and was told that she was one Miss Busy-Body, a member in good standing of a radical church. She came to her grief in this strange manner: she had a special apt.i.tude for sweeping before other people's doors, and could always find dirt, even if she could not find anything better.

She had been told repeatedly to sweep before her own door, but she did not heed this wise counsel, for she often said that there was no dirt visible about her own home.

One day she went forth as usually, broom in hand, and swept the dirt from other doors than her own, much to the annoyance and provocation of her neighbors, for she always raised the dust incontinently.

Now by her continual neglect at home the filth had acc.u.mulated to such an extent that when she returned home and attempted to enter the door, her foot slipped on the greasy step, and she fell, breaking her collar bone, two of her ribs, and otherwise injuring herself.

The manager told Mr. World that many such cases came to them for help every day--some from the King's Highway and still more from the Broad Highway.

They soon came to the bedside of one named Mr. Jealousy who occupied a private room. He was somewhat convalescent when Mr. World saw him.

Mr. Jealousy at one time was an active member of the church, but he undertook to stab Mr. Stability in the back. But Mr. Stability had a good back-bone so strong that no knife that Mr. Jealousy could handle was able to penetrate it.

One time in desperation Mr. Jealousy flung himself violently upon his imaginary foe. But his blade broke, and he himself fell upon it, cutting a terrible gash in his side. He was taken to this hospital for help.

Thus did Mr. Jealousy bring upon himself the disfavor of his church and he was forthwith expelled, for he refused to give the required promise of reformation.

Mr. World and the manager now came to a large door.