Chapter V: Two Appreciations (6)

_To his brother, a doctor in South Africa._

Alassio, Italy: January 7, 1904.

At last I am beginning to get tired of doing nothing. I hope that eventually I shall be stronger than I have been for some years past. At any rate I hope a little first-hand experience of pain will make me more sympathetic. Pain seems to me now a greater mystery than ever before. But I comforted myself with the thought that in the highest Life ever seen on earth, there was a full measure of spiritual, mental, and physical pain. Also it was a comfort to feel that when one accepted, not simply with resignation but with faith, certain suffering, one was in sympathy with the will of the universe, 'working together with God' in some mysterious way. What a strange place a hospital is! How wonderful the Gospels are, with their hope and comfort on every page--hope for the physical as well as the mental side of man's life! I like more than ever now to read how Jesus went about healing all manner of diseases and all manner of sickness and bringing life and strength wherever He came, showing us that Heaven is on our side in our wrestle with all that deforms and degrades human nature.

I certainly don't regret my illness. Besides showing me the marvellous kindness of friends, it has, I hope, taught me much.

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