nature, had taken a child from a woman who sat near by, and put some sort

of a wash upon its diseased eyes. That woman went off and started the

whole nation, and it was a sight to see them swarm! The lame, the halt,

the blind, the leprous--all the distempers that are bred of indolence,

dirt, and iniquity--were represented in the Congress in ten minutes, and

still they came! Every woman that had a sick baby brought it along, and

every woman that hadn't, borrowed one. What reverent and what

worshiping

looks they bent upon that dread, mysterious power, the Doctor! They

watched him take his phials out; they watched him measure the particles

of white powder; they watched him add drops of one precious liquid, and

drops of another; they lost not the slightest movement; their eyes were

riveted upon him with a fascination that nothing could distract.

I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. When each individual

got his portion of medicine, his eyes were radiant with joy

--notwithstanding by nature they are a thankless and impassive race--and

upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth

could prevent the patient from getting well now.

Christ knew how to preach to these simple, superstitious,

disease-tortured creatures: He healed the sick. They flocked to our

poor human doctor this morning when the fame of what he had done to the

sick child went abroad in the land, and they worshiped him with their

eyes while they did not know as yet whether there was virtue in his

simples or not. The ancestors of these--people precisely like them in

color, dress, manners, customs, simplicity--flocked in vast multitudes

537

The Innocents Abroad