LEAVES FROM A DOCTOR'S JOURNAL.
By Editor
THERE walked into my office one morning last week a fair-faced woman of about forty. Her hair was quite gray, her face pale, with heavy shadows beneath the eyes. She seated herself languidly, with the remark: "I hardly know a well woman among my acquaintances. Girls begin to fade at twenty-one, at forty are old women—a bundle of nerves, with backache, headache, neuralgia, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, or loss of power to digest food, which is worse. Mental disorders set in, and a woman who was noted for her sunny temperament at twenty, becomes irritable, fretful, peevish, cross—call it what you like, it is all the same. Her whole nature succumbs to the torturing demands of worn-out nerves. Now, doctor, tell me truly, is there any remedy, or must I go on in this way to the end of a wretched life?—for wretched it is, indeed. I have been to nearly every physician in the city. I'm better for a little while, and then I'm worse than before. I am discouraged. I have lost faith in doctors and their drugs, and yet I long to feel well once more, to be able to go out of an evening with my husband without a headache the next morning." We have said "good-by" to our patient and sent her away with one tiny seed of courage in her heart, which may spring up and bear fruit a hundred-fold. And now, old journal, we will tell you how we talked to her. Did you notice that over and over again she said: "Everything worries me; I worry from morning till night, and from night till morning—often in my sleep being conscious, or semi-conscious, of a troubled, perplexed, worried feeling"? Did you ask what she worries over? What does not worry her would be far more easily enumerated. If the children are well, she worries lest they will be sick. She is going to put the baby in short clothes next month, and she tells me she is so fearful lest he take cold that she is unhappy whenever she thinks of it. She worries over her house, over what she has in it, and over what she has not in it; over the gas bill, the618grocer's bill, the milkman's bill, the coal bill, the rent, and the water tax. The church socials and the prayer meetings are a great anxiety to her. She worries because there has been no revival in the church for the past two or three years. "Is she a Christian?" you ask. Yes, she is, and a good one, too—her chief worry now being the church. You should think if she is a Christian, she should not worry. Very wisely and easily said, you self-righteous old journal. Didn't cost you much. Perhaps sometimes you will try to be sweet-spirited when every sound hurts you, every word causes pain, and the anticipated return of the children from school is a dread which you cannot control, even though you love them better than your own life. No; she cannot help it—at least, not all of it. She suffers constant self-reproach over her own forgetfulness. Her husband, who is a really kind man, knows little or nothing of how she feels. His look of surprise over the utterance of a cross word is misery for her the rest of the day. Her life is one unbroken coil of care, which she is forever winding and unwinding. The habit has grown, has settled upon her. The whole camel is within the tent, and yet she is sick, really sick. She began that with the worries, the reproaches, the fears she constantly heaps upon herself. "O doctor, I am all wrong, and I must have help!" "Mrs. H.," I said, "did it ever occur to you that you try to do your part and God's part, too? Why not, moment by moment, simply do the next thing? Only so much is required of humanity. Don't you think the blessed Master is equal to his part? Why, yes, you do, of course; you have always thought that. Well, suppose you begin, and, for just a minute, act upon that supposition—nay, my friend, act upon that fact, for it is no supposition. With the daylight comes trooping into your mind every burden to be carried for the day. Lay them off quietly, casting all your care upon One who careth for you. Trust him, and see him bring it to pass. Keep ever present in your mind the Master. The habit of continued thought prayer will grow upon you. Let love and trust and faith grow until they possess you. Drop absolutely out of your mind thoughts about things which trouble you. You cannot do it? You can do it; you must do it. But remember, you are to do this a minute at a time." "Let the care slide off. Do not assume the responsibilities which belong to God. You cannot keep your children. You cannot make a revival. You cannot force people to accept Christ. Let the blessed Master keep your little ones. Oh, do get the sweetness and peace which flow in like a river when 'little ones and cares' are given over to Christ! He never will fail you or your children, if you trust him. Yes, I know all about Dr. J.'s family of boys, but I don't know, and you don't know, whether the mother tried to do everything herself for those same children, or quietly trusted them to the Lord after she had done her part. Perhaps she did too much. Yes; perhaps she did too little. It is nothing to you. You are to trust. Did you know that God once said to the children of Israel, 'Your strength is to sit still'? He says the same to you. Again he says, 'He that believeth shall not make haste.' Take that word 'believeth' as it stands in the connection in that text, and think about it for twenty-four hours. You will breathe more easily in an hour; in two hours you will begin to smile; in three hours your heart will be full of heavenly melody, for Christ, the Living, will have come into his garden." A look into her eyes, her tired eyes, revealed a new light. They were full of tears; but the troubled lines had nearly vanished; the Prince of Peace had even so soon begun his reign. She rose to go home, gave me her hand at parting, did not speak, but the tender, clinging clasp moved my very heart with love and prayer and sympathy. I looked in her face with these words, "Let us go to the Lord Jesus Christ with all this just now in prayer." "Oh, may we?" she said. "Will you pray with me—and here—right here—in the office?" "And why not?" I replied. "We will make a scriptural closet of it while we talk to God." Again I looked in her face as she passed out, and said in my heart, "She has been with Jesus."—Advance.