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to this circumstance. There is a very good anecdote illustrating his views upon this subject:

A lady of rank consulted Radcliffe in great distress about her daughter, and the doctor began the investigation of the case by asking, "Why, what ails her?" "Alas! doctor," replied the mother, "I cannot tell; but she has lost her humor, her looks, her stomach; her strength consumes every day, and we are apprehensive that she cannot live." "Why do you not marry her?" said Radcliffe. "Alas! doctor, that we would fain do, and have offered her as good a match as ever she could expect." "Is there no other that you think she would be content to marry?" "Ah, doctor, that is what troubles us; for there is a young gentleman we doubt she loves, that her father and I can never consent to." "Why, look you, madam," replied Radcliffe gravely, "then the case is this: your daughter would marry one man, and you would have her marry another. In all my books I find no remedy for such a disease as this."

This principle has also been employed by certain priests and clergymen of every sect. A young woman, a teacher, was, as she believed and as her friends supposed, at the point of death. Her physician was not quite certain that she was as ill as she seemed, and requested the pastor to assist him in breaking up her delusion that she must die. He attempted it, but she refused to hear him, and intrusted him with messages for her friends, especially for her class in the Sunday School. When about to bid her farewell, he informed her that he would return in the afternoon; she replied that she would like him to pray with her, but that it was useless to ask for her recovery. Having in view her hearing what he had to say, he prayed in such a way as to break the spell and cause her to believe that she would recover; as he did this, the morbid symptoms of approaching death gave way, and she is still living.

Another case was still more remarkable. A woman, ill and bedridden, conceived a high regard for the