o cure them."

"No; that wasn't necessary, because He was Himself the cure. But now
that He is not present with His bodily presence--now, medicine and
advice and other good things are just the packets in which He wraps up
the healing He sends; and the wisest doctor is but the messenger who
carries to the sick as much of healing and help as the Great Doctor sees
fit to send. For He is so anxious to cure thoroughly that in many cases
He will not cure all at once."

"How I _should_ like to take His healing about!" cried Willie--"just as
the doctors' boys take the medicines about in baskets: grannie tells me
they do in the big towns. I _should_ like to be the Great Doctor's boy!"

"You really think then," Mr Shepherd resumed, after a pause, "that a
doctor's is the best way of helping people?"

"Yes, I do," answered Willie, decidedly. "A doctor, you see, comes
nearest to them with his help. It's not the outside of a man's body he
helps, but his inside health--how he feels, you know."

Mr Shepherd again thought for a few moments. At length he said--

"What's the difference between your father's work and mine?"

"A great difference, of course," replied Willie.

"Tell me then what it is?"

"I must think before I can do that," said Willie. "It's not so easy to
put things in words!--You very often go to help the same people: that's
something to start with."

"But not to give them the same help."

"No, not quite. And yet"--

"At least, I cannot write prescriptions or compound medicines for them,
seeing I know nothing about such things," said Mr Shepherd. "But, on
the other hand, though I can't give them medicine out of your papa's
basket, your papa very often gives them medicine out of mine."

"That's a riddle, I suppose," said Willie.

"No, it's not. How is it your papa can come so near people to help
them?"

"He gives them things that make them well again."

"What do they do with the things he gives them?"

"They take them."

"How?"

"Put them in their mouths and swallow them."

"Couldn't they take them at their ears?"

"No," answered Willie, laughing.

"Why not?"

"Because their ears aren't meant for taking them."

"Aren't their ears meant for taking anything, then?"

"Only words."

"Well, if one were to try, mightn't words be mixed so as to be
medicine?"

"I don't see how."

"If you were to take a few strong words, a few persuasive words, and
a few tender words, mightn't you mix them so--t