Peggotty, and in our weakness it
is often this dismal self-comforter we are disposed to summon to our
aid. "My soul is weary of my life," cried Job; "I will leave my
complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul."
Now, there is not a wise doctor in the world, nor any man who truly
knows himself, but will acknowledge and confess the enormous importance
to physical recovery of mental well-being. The thing has become
platitudinous, but remains as difficult as ever. If Christian Science on
its physiological side had been an easy matter it would long ago have
converted the world. The trouble is that obvious things are not always
easy. It is obvious to the victim of alcoholic or nicotine poisoning
that he would be infinitely better in health could he abjure alcohol or
tobacco; he does not need to be philosophised or theologised into this
conviction; he knows it better than his teachers. His necessity is a
superadded force to the will within his soul which has lost the power of
action. And so with the will of the sick person, who knows very well
that if he could rid himself of dejection and heaviness his health would
come back to him on swallows' wings. Obvious, palpable, more certain
than to-morrow's sun; but how difficult, how hard, nay, sometimes how
impossible! An honest man like Father Tyrrell confesses that in certain
bouts with the flesh faith may desert us, even the religious faith of a
life-time may fall in ruins round our naked soul.
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