The Doctor by Ralph Connor — Read

For three days Dick made steady progress toward health, but his progress was slow. Any mental effort produced severe pain in his head and sufficed to raise his temperature several points. As he gained in strength and became more and more clear in his thinking his anxiety in regard to his work began to increase. His congregations would be waiting him on Sunday, and he could not bear to think of their being disappointed. With no small effort had he gathered them together, and a single failure on his part he knew would have disastrous effect upon the attendance. He was especially concerned about the service at Bull Crossing, which was at once the point where the work was the most difficult, and, at the present juncture, most encouraging. Under his instructions Barney sought to secure a substitute for the service at Bull Crossing, but without result. Preachers were scarce in that country and every preacher had more work in sight than he could overtake. And so Dick fretted and wrought himself into a fever, until the doctor took him sternly to task.

"I don't see that it's your business to worry, Dick," he said. "I suppose you consider yourself as working under orders, and it is your belief, isn't it, that the One who gives the orders is the One who has laid you down here?"