The Untroubled Mind | Page 3

realms of time and
space"--toward the existence of a mighty overruling spirit. If this is a
cold and inadequate conception of God, it is at least one that can be
held by any man without compromise.
The modern mind is apt to fail of religious understanding and support,
because of the arbitrary interpretations of religion which are presented
for our acceptance. It is what men say about religion, rather than
religion itself, that repels us. Let us think it out for ourselves. If we are
open to a simple, even primitive, conception of God, we may still
repudiate the creeds and doctrines, but we are likely to become more
tolerant of those who find them true and good. We shall be likely in
time to find the religion of Christ understandable and acceptable--warm

and quick with life. The man who ungrudgingly opens his heart to the
God of nature will be religious in the simplest possible sense. He may
worry because of the things he cannot altogether understand, and
because he falls so far short of the implied ideal. But he will have
enlarged his life so much that the common worries will find little
room--he will be too full of the joy of living to spend much conscious
thought in worry. Such a man will realize that he cannot afford to spend
his time and strength in regretting his past mistakes. There is too much
in the future. What he does in the future, not what he has failed to do in
the past, will determine the quality of his life. He knows this, and the
knowledge sends him into that future with courage and with strength.
Finally, in some indefinable way, character will become more
important to him than physical health even. Illness is half compensated
when a man realizes that it is not what he accomplishes in the world,
but what he is that really counts, which puts him in touch with the
creative forces of God and raises him out of the aimless and ordinary
into a life of inspiration and joy.

II
RELIGIO MEDICI
At all events, it is certain that if any medical man had come to
Middlemarch with the reputation of having definite religious views, of
being given to prayer and of otherwise showing an active piety, there
would have been a general presumption against his medical skill.
GEORGE ELIOT.
When a medically educated man talks and writes of religion and of God,
he is rightly enough questioned by his brothers--who are too busy with
the hard work of practice to be concerned with anything but material
problems. To me the word "God" is symbolic of the power which
created and which maintains the universe. The sunrise and the stars of
heaven give me some idea of his majesty, the warmth and tenderness of
human love give me some idea of his divine love. That is all I know,
but it is enough to make life glow; it is enough to inspire the most

intense devotion to any good cause; it is enough to make me bear
suffering with some degree of patience; and it is enough, finally, to
give me some confidence and courage even in the face of the great
mystery of death. Why this or another conception of God should
produce such a profound result upon any one, I do not know, except
that in some obscure way it connects the individual with the divine plan,
and does not leave him outside in despair and loneliness. However that
may be, it will be conceded that a religious conception of some kind
does much toward justifying life, toward making it strong and livable,
and so has directly to do with certain important problems of illness and
health. The most practical medical man will admit that any illness is
made lighter and more likely to recover in the presence of hope and
serenity in the mind of the patient.
Naturally the great bulk of medical practice calls for no handling other
than that of the straight medical sort. A man comes in with a crushed
finger, a girl with anæmia--the way is clear. It is only in deeper, more
intricate departments of medicine that we altogether fail. The
bacteriologist and the pathologist have no use for mental treatment, in
their departments. But when we come to the case of the nervously
broken-down school teacher, or the worn-out telegrapher, that is
another matter. Years may elapse before work can be resumed--years of
dependence and anxiety. Here, a new view of life is often more useful
than drugs, a view that accepts the situation reasonably after a while,
that does not grope blindly and impatiently for a cure, but finds in life
an inspiration that makes it good in spite of necessary suffering and
limitations.