the room and sat down, paying no attention to the patient; they began at once to speak about him or her, criticizing the patient's peculiarities, bringing every defect to the surface, and unsparingly condemning it." Mrs. Miller added that no one could endure this more than an hour. The mental and moral irritation was so great that they began to perspire and invariably recovered. The universal efficacy of this method may well be doubted, for many persons live in such an atmosphere that if that treatment would save them, they would never die; while others are so callous to all criticism that the remedy would be without effect.
In a certain lunatic asylum was a patient, a very attractive young lady, whose delusion took the form that she was specially called of God to do some great work which had not yet been indicated to her. With this were connected several pernicious practices, such as fasting, excessive prayer, and others of similar character. The asylum physicians were very much interested in her, but the months passed away and she did not improve.
At last one of the assistant physicians, especially interested in the influence of the mind upon the body, determined upon a plan to effect her cure by a powerful mental operation. Accordingly, he introduced a tube into her room, without her knowledge, and also prepared a calcium light so that, at a certain time, he could flood the room with rays of intense brilliancy.
The young woman had not walked a step for many months. At the appointed hour, with all the physicians standing in the hall, and the wife of the physician in chief—a thoroughly Christian woman, intensely sympathetic with the patient—also with them, the physician spoke through the tube in the name of the Lord,
