THE GREATER MIRACLE

Originally published in All-Story Weekly, April 24, 1920.

INTRODUCTION, by Vella Munn

Homer Eon Flint’s children considered The Greater Miracle his finest work. To them, the story was more personal than The Lord of Death, The Queen of Life, The Revolutionist, The Emancipatrix, or even The Blind Spot (which he co-authored with Austin Hall).

Homer’s son and two daughters lost their father when they were young, so it’s no surprise that a story that explores life and death resonated with them. Perhaps they were looking in the pages for their father’s immortality.

In his column in the Boston Transcript, Edward J. O’Brien listed “The Greater Miracle” published by All-Story Weekly on April 24, 1920, among the best stories of 1920. He saw it as “an effective mystical exploration of life after death.” The same theme reemerged in The Blind Spot, which has been republished at least seven times.

As for why Homer wrote about the end of life—one might argue he had a premonition he wouldn’t live a long time, but more likely he’d been impacted by personal losses. His own mother died when he was in his early twenties. When he met the woman who became his wife, her father was slowly dying from silicosis, known as miner’s consumption. Homer’s future brother-in-law eased his father’s death by personally delivering the drug that ended his misery. Certainly Homer knew what took place.

To gain an understanding of why Homer explored the theme he did, it helps to look at what else was happening. Former President Theodore Roosevelt was being seriously looked at for the Republican nomination. Unfortunately, his health declined in 1918, and he died in January 1919. Homer was a Republican as well as a Socialist, so Roosevelt’s death made an impact.

As a child, Homer attended church with his parents in San Jose, California, and legend says he could listen to a hymn and come home and play it flawlessly on the piano. As an adult, organized religion held little interest for him. The last nine months of his life saw him living apart from his wife and children due to financial necessity. Not one of his many letters mentioned him attending church. The 1922 History of Santa Clara County, California, assembled by the Historical Record Company included a paragraph about his involvement in religion that reads:

“His church relations are with the Congregational Church, but as may be supposed, his religion is highly eclectic, insisting upon no one creed above all others.” His father and he often engaged in scientific conversations aimed at exploring the role of science in the face of religious tradition. When he was twenty-six, he wrote the following to his Pa, Charles Flindt (Homer dropped the additional “d” from his last name):

“Facts regarding Immortality. There are none. There is plenty of assumption, plenty of semi-scientific data from the Spiritualists, and still more speculation via deduction from the facts of earthly life. But we have no absolute facts whatever. A fact is a statement of truth. To be convinced of a truth is a mental process which becomes emotional only when Desire enters into the case. Sometimes conviction follows upon a desire to believe; and just as often it occurs as a result of Defiance—refusal to believe; the opposite of desire. In either case conviction occurs from being sentimentally forced to conclude that the person Desires to believe the Fact.”

In early 1918, shortly before the birth of his second child, appendicitis placed Homer in the hospital for a week. When he was about to be released, he wrote his father a letter in which he detailed the painful and sometimes frightening experience. He ended by admitting he intended to spend his recovery time writing because, “I have hundreds of ideas, and an enormous amount of enthusiasm.”

It’s highly likely that The Greater Miracle evolved from that experience.

At the story’s core is the question of whether there’s life after death. Mr. Carter, who is dying, asks his closest friends (including a minister) to meet with him and his physician, Dr. Scott. Dr. Scott’s fiancée has died recently, and the medical man has turned his back on religion. He lives for today while carefully guarding his body because he isn’t ready for everything to end. A deep, fascinating philosophical debate among the group members ends with a challenge from the dying man. If he can reach him from beyond the pale, will Dr. Scott become a believer again?

I

“Dr. Scott telephoned a few minutes ago,” volunteered the nurse, as soon as the three of us were inside, “and asked me to tell you that he would be delayed.”

“Delayed?” Avery looked annoyed. “How will that affect your patient, I wonder?”

“Mr. Carter seems to expect a delay, Mr. Avery. I heard him say that the doctor is always late.”

“And we must remain in this room until he arrives? Why can’t we go in and see Mr. Carter now?”

“Very sorry: I am under the doctor’s orders. Moreover, it was Mr. Carter’s wish that he see you all together.”

Avery settled back into his chair with what patience he could summon. Whitney, unlike the minister, had the take-things-as-they-come philosophy of the professional politician. He glanced at his watch, smiled wryly, and then calmly lit a cigar.

“Suits me all right,” he commented. “If I’m any judge of Carter, he’s got something up his sleeve that’s well worth our waiting.”

I was of the same opinion. I felt sure that a man like Carter would not ask us to waste our time; this, although I did not know him very intimately.

“Carter is one of your parishioners, isn’t he, Avery?”

“Rather, he was”—regretfully. “He stopped attending some five years ago.”

Whitney said that he could make a good guess as to the reason. “Didn’t he say to you, ‘I don’t believe in the authority of the church any longer; from now on I do all my own thinking?’” The politician smiled grimly at Avery’s discomfited look. “Carter wouldn’t mince matters!”

The minister quietly changed the subject.

“Carter doesn’t interest me as much, just this minute, as Dr. Scott does. Have you fellows any theory as to what has come over him lately?”

For my part, I shook my head. The doctor’s behavior during the past year had been entirely beyond me, and I said so. “He is an entirely different man since his fiancee died.”

“Different!” echoed Whitney, derisively. “Why, Scott isn’t half the man he used to be!

“He’s almost inhuman! There’s times when, if it were not for old times’ sake, I’d refuse to speak to him!”

“Not that he would care a particle,” Avery put in, with spirit. “Scott doesn’t seem to care whether he holds his friends or not.”

I was glad they had said it. “The only things he seems to value are money and pleasure. I have become almost disgusted with the man.”

“If that’s all you’ve noticed about him,” offered Whitney, studying the tip of his cigar, “then I guess you’ve overlooked the one thing that signifies.”

“Have you noticed”—painstakingly—“that Scott is mighty careful of his life, nowadays?”

“Careful of his life?” repeated Avery. “What do you mean?”

“Just that. Hadn’t you noticed?” Neither of us could say that we had; Whitney went on: “If anything happens to Dr. Scott, it won’t be his fault. He’s taking better care of himself than he takes with any patient.

“Ever hear of his actions during the flu epidemic?” I had heard a little, but said nothing. “Scott, as soon as Miss Harmon died—she was one of the first victims, remember—left town and wasn’t heard from for eight months. It was given out that he had undertaken some obscure research work for the government: but I happen to know,” with a quiet certainty, “that Scott spent the whole time on a yacht, cruising the South Seas!”

“You are sure of this?” inquired Avery, reluctantly.

“Yes! And when the flu finally penetrated to that part of the world—Scott came home!

“By that time the epidemic had run its course here. Scott escaped without even the slightest touch. And since that time, I’ve learned, he’s been doing surgical work almost altogether; he simply will not handle a case of any kind unless it’s absolutely safe to do so. Why, I learned that he’d even turned down a diphtheria case, a child of seven, his own cousin’s daughter!”

“Perhaps,” suggested the minister, gently, “Scott’s constitution is much weaker than we think. He may be fully aware that he couldn’t stand any disease; and you’ll have to admit, Whitney, that the world can hardly afford to lose his surgical ability.”

“He specializes on brain operations, doesn’t he?” I asked, simply to confirm my recollection.

Whitney said it was true. “And it proves, to my way of thinking, that there’s nothing the matter with his constitution. It’s the most delicate work imaginable. He wouldn’t undertake it if his system wasn’t in perfect order.

“Besides, the physical director at the Y told me that Scott keeps in the pink of condition. He takes regular, though not violent, exercise, goes in swimming every day, and—I heard this from a life insurance agent who was trying to get me to take out another policy—Scott carried ninety thousand on the endowment plan, in one company, alone!”

“You seem to have made a regular study of the man,” I remarked.

Whitney was not at all abashed. “He’s worth the trouble, certainly! What’s more, he deserves it!

“Why in thunder should he be taking such precious care of his own skin? I suppose”—glancing at me—“I suppose you’ve heard how he came to lose the little finger of his left hand?”

“I didn’t even notice that he’d lost it”—in surprise. Avery said the same.

“Well,” resumed the politician, “it won’t do any harm to let this go no further. I haven’t repeated it to anyone else, and wouldn’t tell you two if I didn’t know that you were Scott’s best friends, before he—well, changed so much.

“He was called out in the country, it seems, to attend a man who had had his foot nearly cut off by a reaper. When Scott got there he found the man suffering from lockjaw: tetanus had set in, and it looked like good-night for the farmer, for a while.

“But Scott at first flatly refused to have anything to do with it. I don’t know what excuse he made; but I do know that if the man’s wife hadn’t gone to the door and put her back against it, he’d have left the house, and sent someone else to do the work.

“So he tackled the job, you might say, under compulsion. When he got through, he discovered that there had been a tiny scratch under the nail of the little finger of his left hand.

“Well, the point is,” and Whitney’s voice became curiously strained, “instead of doping the scratch with any one of the several powerful disinfectants he had in his grip—instead of that, Scott went out into the woodshed, laid his finger on the chopping-block, and with his own right hand deliberately cut his finger off!”

Avery shuddered. “That’s going pretty far,” he admitted, “in the name of caution. Scott needs every finger in his work.”

“There is something decidedly queer about it all,” I declared. “I don’t know anything about the case you mention, Whitney; but I have noticed that Scott has become almost another ‘Mr. Hyde.’

“Not only has he deliberately cut me dead several times, but he has dropped nearly all his old ways. At one time he was almost abstemious in his habits; today, he is fast becoming notorious for his actions. He is—a libertine!”

“You don’t mean to say”—incredulously, from Avery—“that Scott has gone in for that kind of pleasure!”

“There is no doubt at all. He seems to have lost all sense of right and wrong. Hardly a week passes but that I hear his name linked up with some sort of domestic scandal.”

“All of which,” Whitney pointed out, “doesn’t seem to hold together. Why should Scott be doing all he can, apparently, to live to the very limit, and at the same time be going directly contrary to what he knows is right and wise about women?”

It was beyond me. Avery put forward the guess that the man had been so distracted by Miss Lydia Harmon’s death that he had become slightly unbalanced; and, through some monstrous freak of the mind, was actually dishonoring her memory, in his madness. “Wouldn’t that account for his actions?”

“Not all of them,” returned the politician, vigorously. “It doesn’t explain his extraordinary care for that precious hide of his. That, at least, isn’t madness.

“No; I think there’s some deliberate purpose behind it all!”

Avery considered the politician very gravely. “What is your theory?”

Whitney threw away his cigar, and leaned closer. His voice was very sober as he began: “Briefly, it’s this: Dr. Scott has—”

There was a step in the hall. Next instant the nurse passed through the room, and before Whitney could finish, Dr. Scott was striding into our group.

“How do you do, Avery?” nodding coolly to the minister.

“Hello, Whitney.” He barely nodded to me and did not offer his hand to anyone. “Sorry to keep you waiting”—perfunctorily.

“Where did you telephone from?” asked Whitney, abruptly.

“From the home of a patient on Santa Clara Avenue.”

“On Santa Clara Avenue! And it took you all this time to drive a mile and half?”

For some reason the surgeon resented neither Whitney’s question nor his impertinent manner. “I never hurry,” said he calmly, at the same time drawing off his gloves with a deliberation which proved his words. “Hurrying is bad for the nerves.”

Whitney gave me a significant glance. Scott’s remark certainly bore out the idea that he was intensely careful about his body’s welfare. And Whitney was determined to follow up the lead.

“I hear,” suddenly changing the subject, “I hear, Scott, that there has been an outbreak of some kind of plague in the southern part of the State. What does it amount to?”

“Something very serious.” But he spoke indifferently. “The disease has not yet been identified; but it is highly contagious and very deadly, like Asiatic cholera.”

“Are you going to take a hand in the work?”—like a shot.

Scott laughed, a well-bred, amused sort of a laugh. He turned and strolled toward the door to Carter’s room. “No thanks, Whitney! Any time I want to commit suicide, I shall do it with a scalpel—not that way!”

And before Whitney could retort, Scott’s professional manner came back to him in a flash. He gave us all a piercing look as he stood there, door-knob in hand; and there was something distinctly imperious in his tones as he cautioned:

“Kindly bear in mind, gentlemen, that you are not to show any gloom or sorrow in Carter’s presence. Above everything else, avoid saying anything intended to make it easier for him.

“The fact is, he wants to die!” There was a slight note of pity in Scott’s voice.

“Do you quite understand, gentlemen? He considers himself to be the luckiest man in existence, to be facing what he calls ‘the great adventure.’”

“You don’t mean to say,” protested the minister, “that he is actually cheerful about it, Scott!”

“Cheerful! Why, he is positively joyous when the pain comes—every hour or so—he fairly welcomes it as proof that the end is not far off. I never saw such a chap.” It was clear that Carter had severely tried Scott’s sense of reasonableness.

“Perhaps,” offered the politician, “perhaps we can put a different spirit into him. I’ve heard that, once you make a man really want to live, the battle’s half won.”

Scott nodded, but there has a helpless look in his eyes. “The disease has gone too far. Carter deliberately postponed calling me in, until it was too late. I tell you, he wants to die!”

The minister’s face was shot with anxiety. “That isn’t a healthy feeling, Scott. Are you sure he is sane?”

“Yes.” But there was no finality in his tone. “That is, he talks rationally enough on all other subjects.

“However”—about to turn the knob—“there is no denying that the whole matter is strictly his own business. We will please him best if we take his view-point quite for granted. I don’t mean that we should laugh and joke, but neither should we act even the least bit gloomy or down-hearted.”

“Just behave as we did the last time we five were together?”—from Whitney, carelessly.

“Precisely!” The doctor did not seem to remember that this “last time” had been almost a year before, and that it had been wholly on his account that our little affairs had come to an end. “Precisely. It will be the very best way.”

He opened the door. We started forward to enter the room, then stopped as we saw that its occupant, seated in an invalid’s chair of peculiar construction, and wheeled by his nurse, was coming out to greet us.

“Glad to see you,” said Carter, in shaky voice. “It was very good of you to come.”

II

One glance at the ghastly face of the man in the wheeled chair told me that the surgeon was right; “the great adventure” was not far off for John Carter. He did not have many days to live.

But another glance, this time at the bright, deep-set gray eyes in that face, told me Scott was also right in saying that the man was anything but sorry. There was neither fear nor regret in his gaze. There was nothing but—I almost said, enthusiasm.

“Mighty good of you fellows to come,” repeated Carter, his voice sinking almost to a whisper. The doctor did not tell us till afterward that every breath had cost his patient a pain, or we would not have let Carter talk as much as he did. But he had made Scott promise not to tell. He even smiled, a shaky, dreadful sort of a smile, as he went on: “Mighty good. In a day or two, I shan’t be strong enough to see anyone; thank God!”

What could we say to that? The minister, accustomed as he was to offering comfort and cheer, could find no words to fit this case. As for myself—I am more at home writing my thoughts than speaking them. Only the politician could manage a reply:

“Glad to come, old chap. Sort of a going-away party, eh?”

“That’s the idea!” The sick man gave a throaty chuckle. “I knew you fellows—would understand!”

The nurse had gone out. The rest of us were all seated; that is, all except Dr. Scott. He remained on his feet, occasionally shooting a sharp glance toward his patient. I remember that Whitney had located the most comfortable chair, a Morris, over one arm of which he draped his legs as though quite at home.

Avery had a rocker, in which he swayed back and forth ever so gently and ponderously, while I sat in a stiff-backed chair, tipped against the wall. Carter looked us over and smiled as though satisfied.

“I had a special reason—in asking you to come,” he began, presently, speaking with a great deal of care. He had to avoid any extra strain on his throat—his trouble was some obscure affection of the spine—and for that reason we kept as still as possible, in order to hear clearly. “A very special reason.

“Needless to say. I haven’t much money—to leave behind. So that’s not why—I’ve asked Whitney here,” smiling again as the politician, who was also a lawyer, looked up. “Neither have I any sins—to confess to Avery. What’s more, I don’t care particularly, F., whether you see fit to write this up. Use your own judgment. I asked you for another purpose.

“My idea—concerns Dr. Scott, here.”

The doctor turned with a start, and we all stared at him pretty curiously. The sick man lay back in his chair, panting, and for a minute or two kept us wondering. Shortly he felt strong enough to go on:

“I’m going to tell you fellows—something about Scott—that I don’t think you know. You’d never think it—to look at him; he seems quite—intelligent for an M.D.” Carter could still poke a little fun. The rest of us smiled despite ourselves. The politician even said:

“There’s times, Carter, when I’ve suspected that Scott is capable—mind you, all I claim is ‘capable’—capable of becoming, in the course of plenty of time, more or less intelligent. Yes; it is just barely possible. Looks are so deceiving.”

“Your judgment,” commented the surgeon, with heavy sarcasm, “would be of more value to me, Whitney, if your brain was of any consequence whatsoever.” The sick man chuckled deeply. This seemed to be just the atmosphere he had desired; he immediately came to the point:

“What I want—you fellows to know, is—Dr. Scott is an—infidel!”

“Infidel!” from the minister, in pained surprise.

“Yes! He doesn’t believe—in life hereafter! He thinks that—when his time comes to die—it will be the end of him!”

Three of us looked at each other meaningly. So this was the situation! Scott had lost faith in a future life: hence, he had been doing his utmost to prolong his stay on earth! What was more, despairing of any happiness in another world, he had deliberately resolved to get all the pleasure he could while in this!

Scott returned our stares with entire equanimity, almost with insolence. If I am not mistaken, he actually enjoyed the distinction thus thrust upon him.

“It is true,” he admitted, with mocking defiance. “There is no such thing as life after death.”

The minister looked utterly miserable. He started to rise to his feet, then remembered the invalid and thought it better to remain seated. He somehow contrived to conceal his very natural anxiety—for the doctor was a member of his church—and nearly succeeded in being nonchalant as protested:

“What on earth ever caused you to change your mind, Scott? You once took communion and repeated the creed, if I am not mistaken.”

“So I did. I also once believed that there was such a thing as a fire-and-brimstone hell. I don’t, now.” The surgeon took no pains to avoid hurting the other’s feelings. “I have merely grown up, mentally; that is all.

“The whole sum and substance of what I have learned, through science, in the past few years, is that life is absolutely dependent upon such bodily conditions as we know. I repeat, there is no such thing as life after the body has died!”

“You know, of course, that most of the world believes to the contrary. I hope you have the strongest of reasons for disputing a faith with so many adherents?”

“I have! A host of them. The chief one you have already mentioned, Avery: the proposition is purely and simply a matter of faith, instead of knowledge.”

“Oh, not entirely,” spoke up Whitney, energetically. “I look at the thing from another standpoint. So far as I’m concerned, the question of life in the next world doesn’t have to be solved at all. I’m content to consider the proposition in a practical way.

“In other words, is this faith, this belief in a future life, worthwhile? Does it pay?” He glanced around at us. “I’ll say it does, boys!”

“I do not agree,” from Scott, coldly.

“No? All you’ve got to do, doc, is think just a little. Where would you be, I’d like to know—you, with all your education and training—where’d you be, anyhow, if it weren’t for the influence of the church?”

Scott was not perturbed. “I will admit your point, Whitney. The church has had an immense influence upon civilization, especially upon education. Nevertheless, it is one thing to acknowledge this influence and quite another to maintain that the church is infallible.”

“I don’t claim that it’s infallible,” retorted Whitney. “I do claim, though, that there must be something fundamentally right about a belief which has done so much good.”

This struck me as being a pretty strong argument. It ought to appeal, I thought, to a man like Scott, whose profession was built upon far more of experience than theory. But I was wrong.

“You might say the same thing,” he countered, at once, “about the ancient belief that the world was flat. As a belief, it did a great deal of good. So long as people were convinced that the world was flat, they moved about upon it in perfect security and thereby settled half the globe. Had those ancients thought the world to be round, they would not have dared to stir from their tracks!”

We couldn’t help but grin a little. Scott had a way of catching your mind unawares. At the same time it was clear enough to me that he had the best of the argument, so far. I decided to say something.

“Scott, some day when you’re in an inquiring mood, and not feeling too infernally skeptical, I wish you’d come with me to see a certain spiritualistic medium I happen to know.

“Oh, go ahead and sneer. You’re thinking that she’s a fake. You’ve probably heard, haven’t you, that nine-tenths of these mediums are fakes? Haven’t you?”

“Of course! And it is a fact!”

“Then, if nine-tenths are fakes, the remaining tenth must be genuine!” He was silent. “And this little lady belongs to the one-tenth. She’s not a professional; she doesn’t work for money at all.

“And I tell you, Scott, that any man who investigates with an open mind and sees what I’ve seen will have to admit that there’s such a thing as life after death!” He was absolutely untouched. Instead, he came over to my chair and pinched my arm, as though estimating my blood-pressure. And he said:

“F., every bit of this spiritualistic stuff can be explained in other ways. If the phenomenon is no fraud, if it is really genuine, then it can always be traced to psychology.”

He mentioned a case or two of simple mental telepathy which had come under his professional notice. “Cases like these prove that there is such a thing as a subliminal mind, and granting this much, then spirit-rapping, messages from the supposed spirits of the departed, as the like, become as clear as day.

“You understand,” he added, not unkindly, “that I am not trying to undermine your own faith. You may believe anything you like, so far as I am concerned.

“Only, I must reserve the right to demand the same consideration from others. Not that I care, particularly,” with an open sneer, “what either of you could possibly say against the mature convictions of my mind.”

“Could nothing alter your views, Scott?” from Avery, gently.

“Nothing conceivable. I need something more than spook-work, something more than Whitney’s proposition that the belief is good policy, something more, even, than Avery’s exalted creed, to convince me that a man’s brain can go on living after the body has died. The thing is—preposterous.”

And be stopped, with a gesture of impatience, as though he had been wasting his time.

But the minister was not quite silenced. Instead, a certain look of cunning came into his eyes as he remarked: “You are inconsistent, Scott. As a physician, you are constantly showing a great amount of self-sacrifice.” Scott stood motionless. “Altruism is an everyday affair with you doctors.”

“And yet, you disavow the fundamental tenet of the faith which teaches self-sacrifice!”

Scott only laughed, somewhat bitterly I thought. “Such self-sacrifice as I practice, Avery, is merely a part of the fame.”

Whitney took him up. “You mean, you do it because it pays—in money?” He gave us an “I-told-you-so” glance, and went on:

“So does the belief in a future life, Scott; it pays, and pays big!”

“It cannot pay me anything!” retorted the surgeon, sharply. “I can stand for the idea of—well, call it ‘service’—because it appeals to me as being reasonable, within limits. But I cannot stand for your orthodoxy.”

Carter, for the first time in several minutes, put in: “Your parents were church-going people, weren’t they, Scott?”

“Yes; and devout believers. I was baptized when I was too young to know better.” The minister took this personally. “Don’t you consider that there is such a thing as ecclesiastical authority?”

“Of course not!”—sardonically. “Who on earth can be an authority about heaven?

“Oh, it is a waste of time to talk to me!”—irritably. “I am an infidel, and proud of it! If I found myself believing, for one second, that my mind could survive my body—could go on living after the gray matter of my brain, which had maintained my mind and upon which it has been utterly dependent, had rotted in the grave—if I believed that, I would have myself committed!”

Carter turned his head so as to eye the three of us in the chairs. “What did I tell you?” he cackled, grimly. “Scott is hopeless, right now.

“But I’ll bet any money—he changes his mind—within twenty-four hours!” Instantly four pairs of eyes were turned upon the invalid. Even Scott, for all his assurance, could not but be impressed with the remarkable confidence in Carter’s tones. And he listened as intently as anyone for what the man next said: “I’m going to pass on,” came his voice, now on the verge of giving out, “and see for myself—whether there is such a thing—as life hereafter. Rather—I’m going to find out—the conditions there; for I haven’t any doubt, whatever—that I shall survive.”

He paused, as though gathering strength, and then drew a sheaf of papers from beneath his coverings. He extended it, with a shaky hand, to the doctor; and then steadied his voice impressively as he concluded:

“Scott—that will change your mind—for you!”

III

The surgeon frowned hard, plainly perplexed, as he took the document and glanced over its pages. They were type-written and about five in number. Scott looked at his patient.

“Do you want me to read this later, Carter?”

“No; right now—while the others are here.”

Scott hesitated. I could see that the whole idea was extremely repugnant to him, and only a lingering sense of decency was urging him to comply with the sick man’s wishes. At length he stepped to the phone, called his office, and told his assistant that he would be delayed about an hour. Then he stepped to the middle of our little group, polished his glasses, cleared his throat, and began to read the manuscript:

“‘It occurred to me, when I first became ill, that I might never have a chance to tell the world the peculiar knowledge that has come to me.’” The invalid lay back, exhausted, in his chair; only the brightness of his eyes showed that he was listening closely to the words he had asked Scott to read. “‘So I went to the trouble of typewriting this, in order that, in any emergency—such as the loss of my voice—I might be able to put it over anyhow.

“‘The first thing I want you to do is to examine the machine which you will find standing on a pedestal, in my living room.’”

Scott paused and looked around. On the other side of the room stood the object Carter evidently meant, a pedestal, upon which was placed what looked very much like a typewriter, cover and all.

“‘Remove the cover.’” Scott stepped to the machine and did as the instructions directed, revealing, as I had expected, a typewriter of well-known make, possessing what is called a “wide carriage.” Such machines are used a great deal for writing policies and other documents, where an extremely long line is required. This one would write twice as many words to a line as the ordinary machine.

“‘Next, examine the machine very carefully to see if there is anything out of the ordinary about it.’”

Scott looked the machine over thoroughly. He also gave a glance to the inside of the black metal cover. Moreover, he lifted the typewriter bodily from the pedestal to make sure that they were not connected in any way; and before replacing the machine, he even moved the pedestal slightly to one side of the spot where it had stood.

“It seems,” he reported, sententiously, “to be a perfectly normal typewriter.” Then he took up the manuscript again:

“‘I wish that Avery, and the others, would examine it also.’”

We stepped over and gave the machine a careful examination. In the end it was I who said: “It’s just like the one I use, except for the extra wide carriage. Strictly standard in every way.”

“‘Then,’” went on the doctor, reading, “‘you will please test its keys.’”

We found them to be somewhat extraordinary. The fact is, they had about the most delicate touch imaginable. I did not know that such keys could be so very finely balanced; the slightest touch of the finger would operate them. In fact, as Scott bent closely over the things, Whitney gave a queer exclamation.

“By Jove, doc! Did you notice? One of those keys flew up when you breathed upon it!”

This was true. We found that either of us without making any extra effort, could make those keys fly by merely breathing on them.

“‘Now, kindly examine the machine once more and satisfy yourselves—especially Dr. Scott—that there is nothing out of the ordinary about it.’”

Once more we went over to the typewriter. Aside from the items of the extra wide carriage and the extraordinarily sensitive keys, it was, as I have said, just what you might find anywhere else.

“‘If you all are satisfied, kindly open the compartment of the pedestal and remove what you find there.’”

Scott seemed eager to do this. All that he found, however, beyond the thin, bare walls of the thing, was a sealed box of typewriter paper, which he handed to the rest of us to inspect. Then he read:

“‘Next, break the seal of that box and remove any one of the sheets of paper you find therein.’”

Scott was the one to do this, finding the paper to be plain white stuff. He selected one sheet from the middle of the ream, and scrutinized it very closely. So did we. We pronounced the paper entirely blank and absolutely white, except for one tiny blemish.

Scott even went to his bag and brought a small vial of some chemical, with which he tested one corner of the paper. He seemed satisfied with the lack of results.

“Take this paper and place it in the machine.’”

Scott stepped over to the pedestal. In front of it he paused, and glanced back at Carter. The invalid was facing the other way. Like a flash, Scott thrust the paper into one pocket and from another produced an old letter. This he placed, blank side uppermost between the rollers of the machine. The three of us saw him do it.

“Finally, I wish you would move the carriage as far as it will go to the right, and then replace the cover.’”

Scott elected to do this as well, leaving the machine ready to begin writing, and taking care to fit the black metal cover down closely around the device.

“And now, if it so happens that I am with you in the flesh at the time you read this, I hope you will excuse me. I wish to go back to my room.’”

‘Very well,” said Scott, laying the manuscript aside. He took the sick man’s pulse, and then called the nurse. ‘No change in his treatment,” he ordered, and stood aside to let the chair go past.

Avery got up and offered his hand to Carter. There was something very eloquent in the minister’s silence; somehow it became very clear to me that we were not going to see our friend again, in this life. We all shook hands without a word; but Carter would not let it stand that way. He summoned strength enough to say:

‘Well, see you later—boys!”

And next moment the door closed upon him. Scott immediately took up the manuscript again; and hurrying just a little, at first, as though time were pressing, he began as follows:

“First, let me remark that I am going to say things which will appeal chiefly to the doctor’s mentality, although they could be intelligible enough to any well- informed person. But Scott has declared that life after death is unreasonable; and I propose to show that it is entirely, absolutely rational. And I shall do it by stating facts with which he himself is especially familiar.

“You will readily admit this proposition: If a certain man is known to be capable of running a mile without stopping—if it is universally admitted that he can do it—then he does not need to prove that he can run half a mile. The fact that he can perform the greater feat is a guarantee that he can perform the lesser.

“You admit this? Surely you would not demand that this man proceed to run the half-mile in order to prove up? Very well; you will then also admit that, if nature can, and does, perform a certain great miracle, then she certainly can perform a lesser one of the same character. We do not need proof.

“All that remains for me to do, is to show that the proposition of life after death, to which Scott objects so strenuously, is not as great a miracle as some with which he is familiar.

“As a physician, he is well versed in biology. He knows that all living creatures are very closely related; that man is simply a different kind of animal; that the researches of the geologists and other scientists have proved that man has become what he is now through millions of centuries of slow, patient development—what we call evolution.

“Now, the doctor also knows that every human child some nine months before its birth, starts life on an exceedingly small scale within its mother’s womb, In the earliest stages this human embryo—as it is scientifically called—is almost microscopic in size.

“The peculiar thing about this ‘egg” is that it cannot be distinguished, chemically or physically, from a certain form of lower life that science calls the amxba. This amwba, in fact, is the very lowest form of life. And science has never been able to tell the difference between it and the human embryo; the doctor, and every well-informed person, knows this to be true.

“It is also true that all the so-called higher animals, as we know them now, have evolved from lower forms of creation. Science has known this for half a century. And geologists have proved this by uncovering the fossil remains of these animals’ prehistoric ancestors. And there is a practically unbroken chain of evidence to show that, the further back we go in the history of the earth, the simpler and cruder was life; until we reach a point where investigation can go no further. All forms of life, as we know them, evolved from what we now call the amwba!

“The human embryo proves this. For, as it grows and develops, it distinctly resembles the embryos of other creatures! What is more, these resemblances occur in exactly the same order in which these creatures are ranked by the biologists: first it is like the embryo of a fish, then like that of a reptile, and later like that of the higher animals.

“In a word, the human embryo is a sort of an index to the development of the human race. It actually summarizes, within the space of nine months, the whole history of mankind from its beginning, millions of centuries ago, to the present time.

“The doctor knows this, as well as a child knows its alphabet. It is an old story to him. Yet, it has never occurred to him to compare the figures in the case; to set millions of centuries against nine months, and to marvel that so much could happen in so brief a time.’”

Carter had been right. Beyond a doubt the thing that Scott had just read was appealing powerfully to him. He paused and considered the thought a while before going on:

“Do you appreciate the miracle of it all? To think that the human embryo, in less than a year, covers all the ground that the human race has covered in the last several millions of centuries! Could there be a greater marvel?

“There is! And in this case, Dr. Scott also knows every fact I shall state. It will be an old story to him; but I intend to tell it in a new way.

“All the time that the human embryo is developing within the mother it is protected with the greatest care. Its temperature is kept constant; it is steadily nourished, not with food, as we know food, but with living blood directly from the mother.

“So long as it remains within the womb it is really in another world—a world of itself. Not once during that nine months does it draw breath. Its lungs are never used. Its mouth has never opened to cry, much less to suckle; it has never swallowed a drop. Its hands have never grasped anything; not a thought has passed through its mind. In fact, it has no mind at all.

“With the single exception of its heart, none of the organs of its body have yet performed; it has never felt, never tasted, never smelled; it has never seen, never eaten; above all, it has never breathed!

“Never breathed! Not once! It has no more control over the new world it is approaching than you, Dr. Scott, have over the world to come.

“All of a sudden, at the end of the period of nine months, the child is born into this world. What happens? Immediately, and for the first time, the child begins to breathe! Breathes air—something it had never known before! Why, if we take a fish out of its natural element, water, it dies in the air; yet a baby, newly born—lives!

“Not only this—which is entirely familiar to the doctor—but this child, after an hour or two, is put to the breast, and instantly it begins to suckle! It has never done it before, but it makes good! Presently all its organs are in working order, the organs which had been dormant for nine months!

“Think what a prodigious feat this baby has performed! In nine months it has done as much, in the way of development, as the whole human race has done in millions of centuries; then, totally without warning, it is thrust into—the air! Into the air, where the conditions of life are as entirely different from the conditions in the womb as life in the spirit is different from life in the air! And the baby—makes good!

“Now, Dr Scott, if an ignorant, blind, helpless infant, with unused lungs, relying solely upon instinct, can survive such a shock—if that new-born child, I repeat, can come into this world and manage to exist side by side with a full-grown man like you—what can you do?

“Can you survive the death of your body? Can your mind get along without it? The infant was able, after nine months of total dependence upon the womb—was able to get along without the womb! Can your mind dispense with your skull?

“Think it over! Can your mind, which you have been using consciously, willfully, for years—can it survive the loss of the gray matter in which it now lives? You, as a baby, survived the loss of the womb in which you had developed. You came into a new world and contrived to get along, although the conditions were quite unknown to you in advance;just as unknown to you, in fact, as the conditions of the next world are to you now.

“And yet you, as a baby, survived this terrific change. Are you as strong now as you were then?

“There is only one answer. There can be but one. Your mind is not only strong enough to survive; but it will survive, whether you want it to or not!

“I have nothing further to say. It ought not to be necessary. Scott knows, and knows that he knows, that what I have just said is God’s own truth!

“The greater miracle—

‘On second thoughts, I will not finish that sentence now. I will do it at another time, and in another way.’ Signed, John Carter.”

For a moment nobody stirred or spoke. Scott stood in the middle of the room, holding the manuscript in nerveless hands. He was staring off into space, his eyes unseeing: there was a great wonder in his expression: his face was quite pale. He presented a picture of uncertainty and indecision.

Next instant the door to Carter’s room burst open, and the nurse rushed out. She gasped:

‘Doctor! Come quick! I’m afraid that—I mean—Mr. Carter—” The girl became incoherent.

Scott dashed into the other room. The rest of us stayed, eyeing each other questioningly. We had only a moment to wait. Scott came back directly, closing the door behind him.

‘Gentlemen, John Carter is—dead!” he announced in a strange voice. ‘He took an overdose of sedative!”

There was a stunned silence. What did it mean? Had Carter been so very anxious to go that he had taken this means to hasten the end? Suicide!

‘Perhaps,” said I softly, ‘perhaps it was for the best. Carter had no—”

‘Hush!” came a hiss from Avery. I wheeled, and followed his gaze. It was fixed upon the typewriter which stood, just as Scott had left it, upon the pedestal.

Next second I heard. From within that black metal cover came a faint clicking sound, muffled but unmistakable. The machine was in operation!

For three or four full seconds it continued, regular and deliberate. I strained my ears for the tinkle of the bell; but as abruptly as it had begun, the clicking ceased. We stood as though petrified. The room was deathly still.

At last Scott, in perfect silence, moved to the pedestal and took the cover from the machine. The apparatus stood quite as before, except that the carriage now rested at the extreme left. The paper was still in place. Scott pulled it out.

He held it to the light. Next instant his fingers twitched, and his hands shook as with the palsy. And in a voice we scarcely recognized he read haltingly, jerkily:

“The greater miracle is, not that your mind—can survive your body; but that your body—ever existed at all!’”

The paper fluttered from his grasp. He swayed, and caught the table for support. His legs moved convulsively.

“God,” he whispered, as though in dreadful pain. “God.”

He stood there, swaying a little and looking around uncertainly. For a moment his eyes rested on the typewriter, as if to make sure of its presence then they wandered aimlessly to the door of Carter’s room.

He stared, vacantly, at each of us in turn. Finally, his gaze shifted slowly back to space; and then, all of a sudden, a wonderful change came to his face. In a flash it became hopeful, assured—joyous! And his eyes lit up marvelously as another word escaped his lips:

“Lydia!”

He gave a quivering sigh and moved away from the table. The spell was breaking. Avery, who had kept his composure, through it all, leaned forward; and with the utmost gentleness he murmured:

“Is there anything we can do for you, old man?”

The words had an electric effect. Scott straightened; on the instant he became alert, determined, and once more sure of himself. He whipped out his watch.

“Yes!” biting the words off as with a knife. “You may come with me and help me to pack!”

“To pack?”

“To pack!” He snapped the watch shut. “I leave in one hour for the South, to help fight the plague!”