comfortable
night. At the regular hour, 3 o'clock, A.M., the stitching pains and
cough recurred, but were so much less than usual, and lasted so much
shorter a time that she was radiant with joy, and thanked Dr. Jones so
sweetly that the good man was obliged to hem and cough and wipe his nose
and eyes, and complain of a slight cold which he had contracted. As for
the nobleman himself, he declared that he was the happiest and soundest
of all the Czar's subjects.

"I cannot understand this matter, Doctor," said he. "I have absolutely
exhausted the medical science of Europe without the slightest benefit.
Here you come from the United States, a new country, and supposed to be
very much behind in all matters of science and letters, yet you have
done for me and my daughter, as if by magic, what the accumulated
science and knowledge of Europe have not been able to do at all. Is your
science a mystic or esoteric affair, and are you the only one in
possession of the secret?"

"No, indeed, Count Icanovich. So far from my system being esoteric or
exclusively my own, I have for many years taught and exemplified to the
best of my ability the law by which I am governed in the selection of
the remedy. And there are a noble few in my country who are like
children sitting in the market, crying, 'We have mourned unto you and ye
would not mourn; we have piped unto you and ye would not dance.' By
every possible means we have endeavored to induce the dominant school of
medicine to investigate our claims, but they simply deride and laugh us
to scorn."

"But surely, Doctor, they cannot deny the evidence of their own senses!
If you cure that which they cannot, they certainly must heed you.
Anything else is unthinkable," exclaimed the Count.

"My dear sir, human nature is past finding out in its capacity for
stupidity and foolishness. God gives every man the power to choose good
or evil, and no amount of evidence can dispossess him of this elective
franchise. Hence he is the arbiter of his own fate. Abraham said to
Dives concerning his brethren, 'If they believe not Moses and the
prophets, neither will they believe, though one arose from the dead.'
Jesus Christ healed the sick, raised the dead, restored the lame, the
halt, the blind, in the presence of priests, lawyers, and doctors, the
scientists of those days; and they put him to death in precisely the
same spirit that they expatriated Samuel Hahnemann for discovering and
promulgating th