IX
LETTERS FROM PATIENTS
North Vassalboro, May, 26th, 1850.
Dr. P. P. Quimby,
Dear Sir: I shall address you as the good Samaritan who came along and took me by the hand and opened my understanding, and took my disease from me in so remarkable a manner that I can say, Blessed be the name of the Lord for raising up such a servant as you are. It seems to me as though you took my disease, for it has never returned. But still I have many bad feelings to contend with, even to wrestling all day to the going down of the sun. I am still able to come out victorious over all bad feelings, for my health has been improving ever since you came to our house. I am now ten times as well as any living man could have supposed. I am able to walk over a mile a day without much inconvenience. [I have] only to think for a moment of the good Samaritan taking me by the hand and putting me on the road to health. . . . Only to think of my being almost four years a bed-keeper and now so well! Why, it is nothing short of a miracle. You can imagine how I am enjoying everything, sun, moon, earth, every living thing, never looked so grand, so beautiful or sublime. . . .
Your fame is still sounding as on the wings of the wind. Many questioners are asking about you. . . . I am saying it is the only true way whereby man can be healed. I am daily preaching your doctrines to the children of men. . . . I hope by strict attention to your rules to remain well. [The letter concludes with references to sick people in the neighborhood who need Quimby's treatment. The writer describes the maladies he labored under for years and the difficulties he encountered in travelling about and overworking. His statements indicate that he is a man well along in years, and that he has now taken a new start in life, with the realization that he is in possession of an intelligible principle to live by.
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