John's failure

Now granted, John was not a perfect person.  He was brash, pushy, obsessed with the Methodist movement to the detriment of his family, a lousy husband, socially awkward with anyone rich, and as he grew older he was insistent that his leadership of Methodism was the only way.  However, this is the thing that disappoints me most about John.
He records on three occasions interactions with a madwoman named Louisa, and he does not pray for her.  He appears to feel she is beyond prayer and beyond God's comfort.

"Such a sight ... I never saw before!  Pale and wan, worn with sorrow, beaten with wind and rain, having been so long exposed to all weathers, with her hair rough and frizzled, and only a blanket wrapped round her, native beauty gleamed through all.  Her features were small and finely turned; her eyes had a peculiar sweetness; her arms and fingers were delicately shaped, and her voice soft and agreeable.  But her understanding was in ruins.  She appeared partly insane, partly silly and childish.  She would answer no question concerning herself, only that her name was Louisa.  She seemed to take no notice of any person or thing, and seldom spoke above a word or two at any time.  Mr. Henderson ["the best physician for lunatics in England" and previously a Methodist preacher] has restored her health, and she loves him much.  She is in a small room by herself, and wants nothing that is proper for her."

"Sorrowing Old Man" or
"At Eternity's Gate"
Vincent van Gogh, 1890

Two years later, he visited her again while he was in town.  "I spent a few melancholy minutes ... with the lost Louisa.  She is now in a far more deplorable state than ever.  She used to be mild, though silly; but now she is quite furious.  I doubt the poor machine cannot [sic] be repaired in this life."  A year later on his last visit, "I ... saw poor disconsolate Louisa, still wrapping herself up in her blanket, and not caring to speak to anyone." (Laffey, 476.)

Perhaps it is because John believed "religion ... stands in direct opposition to madness of every kind" that he abandoned Louisa, not even praying for her.  She had become a "poor machine."  Is that what we do as Christians -- abandon the mentally ill because our religion cannot easily rationalize their situations or cure them?