“How strange, how wonderful!”

“I will quote her own words, from her Key to the Scriptures:  ’The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse has a special suggestiveness in connection with this nineteenth century.’  There—­do you note that?  Think—­note it well.”

“But—­what does it mean?”

“Listen, and you will know.  I quote her inspired words again:  ’In the opening of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand years since Adam, there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to the present age.  Thus: 

“’Revelation xii.  I. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven—­a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.’

“That is our Head, our Chief, our Discoverer of Christian Science —­nothing can be plainer, nothing surer.  And note this: 

“’Revelation xii. 6.  And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God.’

“That is Boston.  I recognize it, madam.  These are sublime things, and impressive; I never understood these passages before; please go on with the—­with the—­proofs.”

“Very well.  Listen: 

“’And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.  And he held in his hand a little book.’

“A little book, merely a little book—­could words be modester?  Yet how stupendous its importance!  Do you know what book that was?”

“Was it—­”

“I hold it in my hand—­Christian Science!”

“Love, Livers, Lights, Bones, Truth, Kidneys, one of a series, alone and without equal—­it is beyond imagination for wonder!”

“Hear our Founder’s eloquent words:  ’Then will a voice from harmony cry, “Go and take the little book:  take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.”  Mortal, obey the heavenly evangel.  Take up Divine Science.  Read it from beginning to end.  Study it, ponder it.  It will be, indeed, sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter.’  You now know the history of our dear and holy Science, sir, and that its origin is not of this earth, but only its discovery.  I will leave the book with you and will go, now; but give yourself no uneasiness—­I will give you absent treatment from now till I go to bed.”

CHAPTER III

Under the powerful influence of the near treatment and the absent treatment together, my bones were gradually retreating inward and disappearing from view.  The good work took a brisk start, now, and went on swiftly.  My body was diligently straining and stretching, this way and that, to accommodate the processes of restoration, and every minute or two I heard a dull click inside and knew that the two ends