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CONTEMPORARY TESTIMONY
89

I have deferred publishing this statement until the present time that all might know that I am now well, and suffer from none of my former difficulties, that I have recently gone to housekeeping and have “nothing to molest me, or make me afraid” as regards to my former difficulties. I desire always to bless the Lord, who has so wonderfully dealt with me, and also to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Quimby, as the means employed to change my conditions. . . .

[A writer in the Bangor Times tells of the case of a Mrs. Hodsdon of Kenduskeag, who had been sick with a complication of diseases for two years. “Dyspepsia in its worst form, and a difficulty about the head, had utterly prostrated her, so that, for the two years, she had been unable to walk a step or to be moved in an upright position without fainting. Dr. Quimby called upon the sufferer, and in two hours the patient rose from her bed without assistance, seated herself in a chair and sat up two hours. She rested well that night, she steadily improved and in due time gained twenty pounds of flesh. All this came as the result of a single visit. The writer states that he has heard of other cases of remarkable relief, and he wonders what power there is behind Dr. Quimby's “gift.” The testimony of others is mentioned regarding the “marvellous power” following Quimby's efforts. No theory is proposed, but the writer evidently agrees with one signing himself “Exeter” in the Bangor Jeffersonian, Feb., 1858, who declares that it is “too late an hour for the cry of ‘humbug’ in Mr. Quimby's treatment of disease. . . . People are beginning to inquire, ‘Who and what is Dr. Quimby? By what strange agency does he cure disease which for years has baffled the skill of our most eminent physicians?’ ” Another newspaper writer of the period says,]

“We have been told that the ‘age of miracles’ is passed, but we have recently heard of several astonishing cures performed by a Dr. P. P. Quimby, which seem to border on the miraculous. How these cures are effected, it is impossible to say, as no visible means are employed. The most obstinate cases of disease have been made to disappear at the mere will, it would seem, of the Doctor. . . . Having heard of a remarkable recovery, we called on the patient, an intelligent young lady, who stated to us her case, and the manner of her cure, the facts of which she embodied, at our request, in the following letter.”