SN SS . . Se ‘ SS Ss a SS NS es S SY SN ROW LY . ns SS \ . SS ‘ SN SS SA AN SVE LENT << ~ Th Sctio Of PRIOR QD fre a) we MAR 4 ” 1932 7 KC603 .B2ie eo 3 i ger A eh Cerne Paty x) Tees BAY yeh ha Bey Poe eit taney er. they ih iy he aaa a , ALIA AYE RE THE HEALING EVANGEL afi ¥ ey! pd tiga? My “ ea Hi a t at hie > ene al r faigpae y ah ile Peet oh fen. yer a on J Pet as f is . eo) fee 4 SHAN ptiis — Aye if | ‘Sy ' i iG v 1] ' pe (Wy, ifs hy | THE HEALING EVANGEL BY THE REVEREND A. J. GAYNER BANKS, M.A. DIRECTOR OF THE SOCIETY OF THE NAZARENE MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. A. R. MOWBRAY & CO., Ltd. LONDON COPYRIGHT BY MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. 1925 To My Wire WHO PROCLAIMS “THE HEALING EVANGEL” BY STRENGTH AND SWEETNESS, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED CONTENTS INTRODUCTION : Cuaptrrer I.—Health, Wealth, and Hotness The Etymology of Healing « : Cuaptrer Il.—Healing in the Holy Gomi, TIO, Cres CHapter ITT. Miike Tru ue Nature Of Py Aven Cuaprrr I1V.—The Relation Between Sin and Disease—Healing of the Paralytic. . . Cuapter V.—The Healing of the Deaf Mute . CHAPTER VI.—The Impotent Man at the Beautiful Gate—A Study in Pe ai Methods of Healing . ‘ate Cuaprer VII.—Christian Boldness . Cuaprer VIII.—The Pragmatic Test : Cuapter IX.—The Virtue of Importunity— The Syro-Phenician Woman . Cuaprmr X.—The Penalty of Sin—The ‘Im. potent Man at Bethesda . ; CuapterR XI.—The Healing Touch of een The Woman with the Issue of Blood . CuHaptrer XIJ.—The Importance of Spiritual Contacts os) ' CHapter XIII.—The Word of Healing—The Centurion’s Servant . . Cuapter XI1V.—The Threefold Fact of Salva- tion : ; CHAPTER XV. _The Mission of ‘the Church PAGE 98 106 114 Vill THE HEALING EVANGEL Cuaprmr XVI.—Co-operation of Patient and Healer—The Man with the Withered Hand Cuaprer XVII.—Healing and Thanksgiving —The Ten Lepers. . CuaptEeR XVIII.—The Romances of the Gospel Cuaprer XIX.—Our Deeper Selves . : Cuaprer XX.—Should We Believe in Mir- acles? Cuaprer XXI. apne Method of J esus in Heal- ing CHAPTER XXII. SB dy. Soul, and Sorine Cuaprer XXI1I.—Healing Evangelism ; Cuapter XXIV.—The Verdict of the Bishops —A Recent Questionnaire . Cuapter XXV.—Healing and Its Critics — By the Archbishop of Melbourne : Cuaptmer XXVI.—A Pastoral Letter on Heal- TD io had Bo URLS ep eens hee aa Cuapter XXVII.—Metaphysics As An Agency In Healing—By the Rev. Elbert B. Holmes, B.A... . CHAPTER XXVIII. eas inital Healing and the Medical Profession—By the Archbishop of York : CuapTer XXIX. —Rxorcism—By Ww. H. ‘Jef- ferys, M.A., M.D. ; CHAPTER XXX. ~_-Sipirithal Healing —By the Bishop of Aberdeen . . Cuaptmer XXXI.—The Goal Bf, the Healing Movement—By the Rev. Elbert B. aaah B.A. ; ; General Bibliography RRA S A Note on The Sacrament of Unction PAGE 124 131 137 148 153 164 171 180 189 201 211 220 233 238 249 257 267 271 INTRODUCTION HE object of this book is to establish the identity of Christian Healing with the whole Gospel of the Church. Incidentally it undertakes to show the reasonable- ness of Healing Evangelism. By this term I mean the presentation of the Power to Heal as a part of the Saviour’s work for mankind. Most of the chapters in this book have been given in the form of addresses or instructions by the au- thor in Parochial Missions of Healing, and their ac- ceptance on these occasions is the only excuse for their appearance in book form. This volume makes no literary pretensions. Never- theless it has a very distinct purpose. This purpose is to give to the reader, as far as any vital message can be delivered through the medium of a book, the stimulus which is ordinarily provided by a Mission of Healing. I can hardly expect to accomplish this object perfectly, since a Mission depends so much upon the human voice and the uplifting atmosphere of Praise and Prayer. Nevertheless, the sincere seeker will find in these chapters the basic material which he would receive from a Mission of Instruc- tion and Healing. This book does not claim any Churchmanship ex- cept that of the Bible and the Prayer Book. The au- x THE HEALING EVANGEL thor is an Evangelical Catholic, and finds the mes- sage which he is privileged to deliver equally accept- able in both Evangelical and Catholic parishes. He regards the Church’s message of Healing as dis- tinctly Sacramental, and this does not mean that it is any the less truly Evangelistic. Indeed the author humbly regards it as a part of his ministry more perfectly to reconcile or synthe- size these great Truths for which the Evangelical and Catholic parties respectively stand. During the summer of 1925, a Mission was held in California in a parish which is regarded as a stronghold of Anglo-Catholicism. The clergy fully appreciated the objects for which the missioner came. He was given perfect liberty in delivering his message. There was a daily Celebration of the Holy Communion. The Reserved Sacrament was on the al- tar. Confessions were heard daily. The atmosphere was charged with prayer, and the Presence of the Holy Spirit was consciously felt. The missioner de- livered his message in the simplest possible lan- guage; men and women were convicted of sin; many professing Christians were moved to true repentance and real conversion and made their public profes- sion of faith in Christ then and there. There was | deep emotion, but absolutely no sensationalism. Many renewed their Baptismal vows and came to a definite “decision.” More actually experienced con- version than those who prayed for healing. This very condensed description of a recent Mis- sion is given here in order to show the reader that it is possible, in actual practice, to combine the best elements of Evangelical religion with the full Sacra- mental teaching of the Church. It also demonstrates INTRODUCTION x1 that conversion comes before healing in the normal order of experience. The references to psychology are not accidental. With psychological healing as a _ substitute for Christian faith, we have little patience. The develop- ment of modern cults has been largely the result of an exaggerated and excessive use of psychological phrases in the field of therapeutics. Popular psy- chology has enjoyed an extraordinary vogue, and it is much to be regretted that this has given rise to much superficial thinking and empirical practice. Psychology is a descriptive science, and its value to the student of Christian Healing is simply equiva- lent to the value which would be derived from the study of botany or biology to those who are culti- vating trees or flowers or crops. Biology will not produce a crop, but it will acquaint the agricultur- ist with some of the basic laws which underlie his task and will increase his chances of success, other things being equal. So it is with religous psy- chology. Many people get wonderful results without any knowledge whatsoever of this science, because they have an intuitive grasp of fundamentals. Let them not treat with contempt those who earnestly seek for the great principles which underlie all re- ligious experience, and let them never suppose that psychology is the foe of a free and spontaneous re- ligious life. If some of the chapters sound a trifle homiletical, the reader will pardon this, as these chapters are very largely an attempt to commit to paper the spoken message. A word of explanation is due in regard to chap- ters 25 to 31 inclusive. These chapters were origin- xi THE HEALING EVANGEL ally intended to appear as an appendix to this book, but the message they contained is so vital to the whole plan that it was felt they should appear as chapters standing on their own merits. Each of these added chapters represents some important phase of the Church’s Healing Evangel not covered by the author’s own words, and their inclusion in this book is for the purpose of making the argument for Healing Evangelism more complete. The author wishes to express here his sense of obligation to these writers for their contribution to the book. One other word is needed. It is in regard to Meta- physical Healing. The reader will notice that the au- thor has not attempted to deal with this subject. Yet he feels it is a vital subject. Many orthodox writers carefully avoid this entire subject because it is so hedged about with difficulties and because the metaphysical point of view is so at variance with the orthodox position of the Church. Yet the bit- terest critics of the metaphysical movement will readily admit that it is producing some wonderful cures and some very beneficial results in the lives of its followers. The obvious problem is to separate the wheat from the chaff; to recognize what is true and to repudiate what is false. I did not feel competent to attempt this task, yet I regard it as an important element in the presentation of the Healing Evangel. I therefore requested my friend, the Rev. Elbert B. Holmes, B.A., of Natick, Massachusetts, to under- take this task for me. This has been done in chap- ters 27 and 31. Mr. Holmes has made a very careful study of this movement and the reader may judge for himself how valuable is this contribution. The aim of each chapter is stated for the benefit INTRODUCTION xiii of Study Circles and is followed by a list of ques- tions and a bibliography. Experience shows that this is a most valuable method of developing a construc- tive interest in the subject of Healing. It is true that nothing can take the place of prayer, but it is equally true that nothing can take the place of earnest study under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The author will be glad to hear from individual stu- dents or groups who have found this method useful, and he will always welcome words of criticism which will make a subsequent treatment of this sub- ject more profitable. This is a textbook for students, but it is sent out with the earnest desire and prayer that it may prove also to be a real stimulus to faith and prayer. Since the completion of this book the author has become more and more convinced that the secret of the suc- cess of the Early Church in the practice of the Heal- ing Ministry is to be found in their attitude of prayer and absolute dependence upon the Power and Guidance of the Holy Spirit. No amount of study or intellectual activity or professional skill can take the place of the Power of the Holy Ghost, and if we are to heal the sick, as Christ healed them, we must prayerfully wait for that “Power from on High” which He promised to those who tarried for this blessing. May I suggest that Study Circles using this book would pray for this “Baptism of the Spirit,” and that they will open and close their meet- ings with prayer and silence? It will be found that the spirit of devotion will greatly strengthen the spirit of enquiry, and that the Spirit of Truth is still available through prayer to guide us into all Truth. xiv THE HEALING EVANGEL O Holy Ghost, who givest life to me; O Holy Ghost, who givest strength to me; O Holy Ghost, who givest gifts to me; Who willest all Thy gifts to give to me; Who willest I should correspond with Thee; O Holy Ghost vouchsafe, to live in me, That this my heart may be a home for Thee. Spirit of Wisdom, let me learn from Thee The falsehoods of the world to leave for Thee; Spirit of Understanding, I would be Enlightened with the fire that burns in Thee: Spirit of Counsel, do Thou set me free From tangled judgments that are not of Thee, And guide me in the way of liberty. From “A Canticle to The Holy Ghost,” published by The Or- der of The Holy Cross, West Park, New York. A. J. GAYNER BANKS. House or THE NAZARENE, MouUNTAIN LAKES, NEW JERSEY. Feast or THE TRANSFIGURATION, 1925. CHAPTER I HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HOLINESS The Etymology of Healing “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest pros- per and be in health even as thy soul prospereth.” Il John: 2. HIS salutation of St. John gives us an excel- lent approach to our subject. The verse, as it stands in the King James version, presents a ratio or equation between the inner source and the out- ward expression of spiritual life. Prosperity and health are what we all desire and for which we are willing to pay any reasonable price. The phrase here given, “even as thy soul prospers” (III John, verse 2), shows us the conditions upon which prosperity and health may be secured on the most satisfactory basis. Some knowledge of etymology is needed in order to grasp the proper relation which exists between holiness and health; i.e., between spiritual well be- ing and its outward visible and conscious manifes- tation. The command, “Be ye holy even as I am holy,” is still binding upon us, and we are just beginning to learn that God is not setting before us an inac- 2 THE HEALING EVANGEL cessible ideal, but something which we all may reach through the power which Christ has given us. “Holiness unto the Lord” is a watchword which carries new significance when we realize how closely holiness is identified with health. Mental and physi- cal science are given new meaning and endorsement to the scriptural injunction, “Be ye holy,’ and we are coming rapidly to the practical grasp of the fact that health of body, sanity of mind, and spirit- ual integrity, all combine to make the perfect or well-balanced man—the man who has attained unto the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” It is most extraordinary that in our study of the Bible, whether that study be critical or devotional, we have not more strongly emphasized the fact that God is the Author and Source of all life and health, no matter by what channel that life may be ex- pressed. ‘ The ministry of healing, therefore, must be a com- plete ministry. It must not merely aim at bodily health, but must strive to redeem the whole man— Body, Soul, and Spirit. This idea that God is the Source, Author, and Giver of health is not peculiar to the New Testa- ment. In Exodus we read: “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15: 26); and in Ecclesi- asticus 38 we are told that “from the Lord cometh healing.” In Psalm 103 David exclaims, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, who forgiveth all thy iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, and who saveth thy life from destruction.” Our English word “heal,” with its cognate forms, may easily be traced to the Anglo Saxon “halig” and “haelth” and the Greek “6é,os,”’ and so we HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HOLINESS 3 have a variety of words all closely identified, as, for example, heal, whole, hale, wholly, holy, healthy, ete. The English word “well” has a similar etymology. Thus we have weal, well, wealth, wealthy, ete., and of course the word wealthy strictly signifies well- being and not the mere possession of material goods. From the Latin derivations we can learn equally valuable lessons in regard to health. The two key words are “salus”’ and “sanus.” From these derivations we have a large stock of English words all connected with the health idea; for example: salutary, salve, save, and salubrious, all of which express shades of the meaning of health. The word “salvation” itself bears strongly this meaning, and a “saviour” is a bringer of health or wholeness. The word “sanus” gives us the English equiva- lents: sane, insane, sanitation, sanitary, etc., and its use is well illustrated in the familiar quotation: “Mens sana in corpore sano” (A healthy mind in a healthy body). It would be an excellent and instructive Bible study to seek, with the help of a concordance, all the places in the Scriptures in which the above words are employed. Such a study would soon convince us that Religion and Health have always been very closely identified. For those who have not time to do this, it is suggested that the single word “salvation” be selected and that its true meaning (i.e. whole- ness) be remembered. Thus, for example, “The Lord is my life and my salvation,’ or “Who healeth all thy diseases and saveth thy life from destruction.” The idea of health or healing is implied in all Scrip- 4 THE HEALING EVANGEL ture texts where the words save, saviour, or salva- tion are used. As we seek true salvation, let us remember the therapeutic side of the word. Holiness and healthi- ness go hand in hand. There can be no permanent health except that which embraces the entire nature of man. Even the word “sanctity,” with its more English form, “saintliness,’ suggests the same domi- nant idea; for a saint is a holy person and a holy person should be a healthy person. Jesus said: “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” To Zacchaeus He said: “This day is salvation come to thine house,” and “The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.” HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HOLINESS 5 AIM: To understand the close identity which exists between spiritual health and physical well-being. Also to grasp the significance of the words used in this connection—in other words, the “Ety- mology” of Healing. QUESTIONS: 4 ie 2. What is the equation stated in our text? What determines the health of each man or woman? Can we expect reasonably to obey the injunction, “Be ye holy?” Would such obedience make us ascetic or unbal- anced? Name one person in contemporary or Bible history whom you could regard as “holy” in the best sense. . Does “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (See Ephes. 4:18) refer only to spiritual growth? . What should be the aim in the Ministry of Healing? . What is the authority in the Old Testament Scrip- tures for Divine Healing? . Give (in one sentence if possible) brief definitions of the following words :— Heal, Whole, Hale, Wholly, Holy, Weal, Wealth, Saint, Sanctity, Salutary, Sane, Salve, Salubrious, Salva- tion. What is the common idea running through all of them? . What do you understand by the following verses :— (a) “Who healeth all thy diseases” (Psalm 103: 3) (Strictly speaking, can a disease be healed?) (b) “Who saveth thy life from destruction” (Ps. 103: 4). (c) “This day has salvation come to thy house.” (d) “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” (e) “Thy faith hath saved thee.’ (f) “From the Most High cometh healing.” (Read Ecclesiasticus 38: 1-15 from the Apoc- rypha.) 6 THE HEALING EVANGEL BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Percy Dearmer, chapters 32-33. Health and Religion, Claude O’Flaherty, chapter 3. The Mount of Vision, Bishop Brent, chapter 7. The Christian Doctrine of Health, Lily Dougall. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 3. CHAPTER II HEALING IN THE Hoty COMMUNION HE identity established in Chapter I, between Health and Holiness will be quickly recognized. But it is so general in character that the earnest seeker after health and healing may well enquire, “But how can I so cultivate holiness in this larger sense as to ‘prosper and be in health’ in accordance with the ratio indicated in Chapter [?” Many answers might be given in reply to this per- fectly valid question, and it suggests a problem the solution of which is very vital to the well-being of Christian people. It is proposed, however, in this section to offer a single suggestion as to how we may establish in practice what has already been established in theory as to the identity between spiritual health and physi- cal well-being; and we find this suggestion already worked out for us in the service of Holy Communion as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. As the final appeal here is to the words of our Lord as given in Holy Scripture, and as He Himself is the real Health-Bringer, we respectfully ask the careful at- tention of non-Anglican readers as well as Angli- cans in this little study of the Ways and Means of Spiritual Health. 8 THE HEALING EVANGEL We shall use the phraseology of the American Prayer Book, but the principle to be established is just as definitely stated in the English and Scottish liturgies and readers are urged to seek out the refer- ences given in their own prayer books. Let us first ask, What is a Sacrament? And we find the simplest answer in the Church Catechism in the familiar words: “. .. . an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us; ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we recewe the same.” A careful reading of this definition will convince us that the true nature of a Sacrament may be expressed in the old phrase, “a means of grace,” and the uninitiated reader will then enquire for a definition of this term. This we will give in the words of Archdeacon Basil Wilber- force, who writes: “Means of grace, accessible chan- nels of spiritual power, outward signs imparting in- ward life, what are they? In a universe, which, could we but read all its secrets, we should recognize as one vast Sacrament of God, how can we particular- Side Seale Obviously, therefore, when the question is asked, What are Means of Grace, as the expression is used in the Liturgy of the Church, it is necessary — to descend from the transcendentalism of vision- seeing poets and fix our attention on the recognized Sacraments of the Gospel, instituted by Christ Him- self, as a means whereby we receive His grace, and a pledge to assure us thereof, and especially to the Central Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.” (cf. The Power That Workest in Us, pp. 80-82.) It will be possible here only to indicate this golden thread of Health which runs all through the Eucha- HEALING IN THE HOLY COMMUNION 9 ristic Office and we must leave each interested reader to work out the theme for himself. Much will depend upon the attitude in which the worshipper approaches this life-giving Sacrament. Just as the faith which heals has been elsewhere described as an “attitude of eager expectancy,” so if the worshipper comes to Communion with “spe- cial intention” for healing, a similar attitude must be present in his heart. The appeal of the service will come to the sick soul as well as to the sick body, very much as it was expressed a century ago in the beautiful hymn of Thomas Moore: “Come ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish ; Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel; Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. “Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing Forth from the throne of God, pure from above; Come to the Feast of Love; come, ever knowing Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.” Our original text found in Section I. is from St. John’s third epistle, verse 2, where we discover that legitimate prosperity and health are in direct ratio to the condition of the spiritual and psychic facul- ties. It is natural then that we should find in the preliminary prayer in the Communion office a peti- tion for inward cleansing: “Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.” And since sickness is the by-product of sin, and sin itself is the transgression (or neglect) of God’s law, it is reasonable that we should review God’s moral law as set forth in the decalogue and seek forgiveness for our infractions thereof. Therefore we 10 THE HEALING EVANGEL pray, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” Having thus brought our lives before the searching test of the moral law, we further recognize the salutary value of the Law of the Lord as the quickening principle in our lives by asking further that our entire selves be brought into alignment with God’s beneficent will for us. And so we pray further as follows: “QO Almighty Lord and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech Thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of Thy commandments; that through Thy most mighty pro- tection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.” This expresses in advance the ultimate goal to be attained, which will be finally declared in the solemn words of administration, “Preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” The etymology of this word preserve is very in- teresting. It is a very old word and originally meant, “To keep safe, sound, or whole.” The reader wiil quickly recognize the therapeutic value of these beautiful words as used in the Liturgy. 2. Having thus discovered the purpose of this Sacrament, namely to preserve us in body and soul, let us proceed to enquire as to its Nature. Briefly we may describe this Sacrament as preéminently bio- logical. The old school of thought interpreted religion theologically ; the modernist interprets it psychologi- cally, and neither of them has sufficiently stressed _ the biological significance of religion. The grace of God, whether sacramentally con- \\ HEALING IN THE HOLY COMMUNION 11 veyed or mystically received, is a potential of life; it is supremely biological. And so in the Nicene Creed we solemnly affirm this fact when we say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.” We are invoking a Divine Energy when we seek for healing in the Holy Communion, and the modus operandi whereby Christ fulfils His promises to His followers is by sending to them the Holy Ghost, the Comforter (or Energiser); see St. John 14:16, 25-26; St. John 16:14; Acts 2: 4. As time goes on and the results of various branches of research are correlated we shall probably dis- cover that what the Scientist and Philosopher call Cosmic Energy—that creative and healing force in Nature—is precisely identical with what in the more reverent terminology of Religion we call the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, to whom we refer when we say, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.” 3. AS we pray for the “Church Militant” we es- pecially desire that men may hear and receive God’s Holy Word. Christ Himself is God’s Holy Word, and this is of the very essence of the Incarnation; but we remember, too, that in the days of His flesh Jesus spoke directly and positively the “Word”’ which released men from their sins and made them whole in their bodies. “Speak the word only and My servant shall be made whole.” 4. But only the penitent soul can hear this word. Before the Centurion can say “Speak the word only,” he first says: “Lord, I am not worthy ... .” So we —— find that the prerequisite for healing is a full and thorough confession of our sins, and therefore the 12 THE HEALING EVANGEL Church exhorts us to a definite act of penitence in the words of the Shorter Exhortation: “Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins..... and intend to lead a new life.... walking from henceforth in His holy ways ..... draw near with faith, and .... make your humble confession to Almighty God.” This act of confession, honestly and deliberately made, will prove to be one of the most salutary things in our whole experience of spiritual healing. In the public and private practice of the Ministry of Healing the author has found the act of confession with the subsequent Sacrament of Ab- solution to be of inestimable benefit to many souls seeking relief from their sufferings, whether physi- cal, mental, or spiritual, Even now we are only be- ginning to realize the subtle connection between our Lord’s words, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” and the subsequent exhortation, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” See notes on this miracle in Chap- ter ITI. Many a heart has been flooded with peace, many a burden carried for half a lifetime has fallen mi- raculously from the tired shoulders, as for the first time the penitent seeker has listened to the words of Absolution, “Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of His great mercy hath promised forgiveness of sins to all those who with hearty repentance and true faith turn unto Him, have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins; confirm and strengthen you in all goodness; and bring you to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 5. The Healing of Christ’s Body. The Prayer of Humble Access, however, brings us almost to the innermost secret of sacramental heal- HEALING IN THE HOLY COMMUNION 13 ing. We have learned how sin leaves its ugly marks upon our bodies and how disease is the outward and. visible sign of an inward and spiritual corruption. Here we find the nature of the Divine Remedy clearly stated. Our bodies are to be cleansed and healed by contact with His Body. “Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that Wwe may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us.” Read slowly and prayerfully through this simple and impressive invitation and you will see (as Miss Tulloch has pointed out for-us in her excellent book- let, Come unto Me) that this Exhortation brings to our memory the Syro-Phenician woman who, feeling her unworthiness to ask for the greater gift desired, begged for the crumbs that fell from the master’s table—the portion of a dog. And how gloriously her prayer was answered! After her faith had been stimulated by apparent rebuffs and opposition, it was then wonderfully honored and rewarded by the Saviour, who granted her request in the words: “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” “And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” So shall we come as humble suppliants for heal- ing as we approach the Christian Altar of Christ’s sacramental Presence. Whether you regard the Prayer of Consecration as a piece of beautiful and instructive symbolism, or whether you accept the full Catholic teaching and regard this prayer (offered as prescribed in the Prayer Book) as investing the sacred elements with 14 THE HEALING EVANGEL a sacramental presence not previously possessed, the inference is the same, and we all exclaim with Hooker: “Whate’er Thy word doth make it, That I believe and take it.” And what does His word make it? The words of the Prayer of Consecration give us the answer: “That we, receiving them (ie. “Thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine’) according to Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s holy institution, in remembrance of His death and passion, may be partakers of His most blessed Body And Blood eG eae Fy es Grant that by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His Blood, we, and all Thy whole Church, may obtain remis- sion of our sins, and all other benefits of His passion.” “All other benefits’! Surely and logically this in- cludes healing, as is elsewhere apparent both from the Scriptures and from the language used in the Communion service itself. “By His stripes we are healed.” (I. Peter 2: 24.) Not, of course, by the literal stripes on His physi- cal body, but by the whole self-offering of Himself on our behalf of which His sufferings and death formed a vital and necessary part. Here we reach the climax. The great drama of the Atonement is accomplished. It is a finished act, and yet it is being constantly reénacted in the life and consciousness of each individual believer. It is a progressive and perpetual Sacrifice which must be apprehended for each individual in the present tense and in the first person, for only so can we realize our Lord as the Personal Saviour who loved us and gave Himself for us—as though there were no others HEALING IN THE HOLY COMMUNION 15 on earth. The missionary who most convincingly presents Christ to others and so leads them to Life Eternal is precisely the one who has first realized the saving power of Christ in his own life. When once this has become a reality in our own lives, we may go on with the utter abandon of self- surrender and exclaim in the subsequent words of the Liturgy: “And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, our selves, owr souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee...” By an acceptance of Christ as thus set forth, we immediately enter into a new phase of Christian liv- ing; and so the words which follow become experi- mentally true for each one of us: “filled with Thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him.” This represents that stage in Christian develop- ment to which St. Paul refers when he says: “TI live, yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.” All this will be consciously or sub-consciously realized if we have entered thus into the fuller reali- zation of what we are doing as we come to the Altar for Holy Communion. And so the oft-repeated words will ring with a new note of reality as the Priest ministers to us the Sacred Elements and says: “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ............ pre- serve thy body and soul unto everlasting life........ feed on Him in thy heart by faith.” “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.......... preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life............ and be thankful.” No printed words can possibly express what the soul experiences in this sacred act of Holy Commu- nion. 16 THE HEALING EVANGEL The prayer of Thanksgiving which follows the ad- ministration gives us a glimpse of the possibilities which lie ahead for the devout soul who has actually achieved the joy of a real and conscious contact with His Lord through this sacramental approach: “Almighty and everlasting God, we most heartily thank Thee, for that Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and dost assure us thereby of Thy favor and goodness towards us, and that we are very mem- bers incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son.” How can we entertain the thought of disease and corruption when we contemplate our bodies as temple shrines of Christ’s own Body? We are to be living sacrifices’”—“living epistles, known and read of all men”; we are to be incorporated members of the Church “which is His Body.” If Christ so dwell in us, and if our life in Him is constantly renewed by faith and prayer and by sacramental food, then our very bodies must become Spiritualized and changed, and the ultimate identity between holiness and health with which we started out will become a practical and glorious reality for each one of us. This little study on Sacramental healing is in no sense intended to belittle or question other methods of spiritual or mental healing, nor is it intended to express doubt concerning the power of God to heal in direct answer to prayer, whether premeditated, ejaculatory, or vicarious. As Wilberforce wisely puts it: “Direct Divine action as an argument against Sacramen- tal grace, is a mere Shibboleth of a misunderstood Pan- HEALING IN THE HOLY COMMUNION 17 theism. Direct Divine action was the immanent life and substance of every bush and tree in the days of Moses, but he knew it not, till it glowed forth into manifestation in one bush. That bush was a temporarily provided Sacrament to Moses of the immanence of God in all nature. Direct Divine action is the omnipresence of God in whom we live and move and have our being, but this presence of God was unthinkable as a personal, moral force, till it was manifest in the flesh, till it assumed an outward visible sign. “Vague talk about ‘direct Divine action,’ as an argument against Sacramental grace, is misleading; it annihilates the Incarnation, and sublimates the Christ away into the Absolute, and leaves you to adore an Omnipotent Abstrac- tion, a diffused, impersonal Principle, as vague as electric- ity, as undefinable as steam, as unknowable as the Réntgen CA recs PW ale ee os Jesus, therefore, is the Sacrament of the Absolute, and He appointed the Holy Eucharist to be the Sacrament of Himself, to be the revealed touch-point of His real Presence, to be the manifested means of grace through which the spirit of man is reinvigorated, recharged by His very life. “The whole Universe is the Word of the Father in dif- fusion ; “The man Christ Jesus is the Word of the Father in Incarnation ; “The Blessed Sacrament is the Word of the Father in concentration.” 18 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To emphasize the note of health which runs through the service of Holy Communion. QUESTIONS : 1. to Have you ever thought of health (or specially de- sired it) when attending Holy Communion or re- ceiving the Sacrament? Is the idea of health inherent in the Eucharistic office, or are we trying to read something into it which is not actually there? Chapter 2 must be read through before answering this. . Mention four sentences (at least) in the Communion office which you think would help a seeker after health who believes that our Lord is actually pres- ent in this Sacrament to heal the sick. . What would be the effect on the seeker (mentioned in Question 3) if he came to Holy Communion for healing, but ignored the Confession and Absolution? . Since thoughts are potent to produce health or. di- sease, how may we expect cleansing from wrong thoughts? . How do you understand (and apply) the words, “Preserve thy body and soul unto Everlasting Life”? . What actual physical benefit do we pray for in the Prayer of Humble Access? . What are we to do with our souls and bodies after they have been healed? (This question may be answered in the words of the Liturgy). BIBLIOGRAPHY Health and Religion, O’Flaherty, chapter 10. “Come Unto Me,’ Ethel E. Tulloch. The Sacrament of Healing, John Maillard, chapter 8. The Divine Antidote, F. N. Riale, chapter 7. The Power That Worketh In Us, Basil Wilberforce, page 79. Spiritual Healing and The Holy Communion, G. W. Douglas. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 18. Concerning Prayer, Canon B. H. Streeter, chapter 9. The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin, page 6-14. Body and Soul, Dearmer, pages 250, 369, 384, 385-7, 399-400. CHAPTER HI THE TRUE NATURE OF PRAYER “And when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.” St. Matt. 6:6. ANALYSIS OF PRAYER (Five Component Parts) : MEDITATION DESIRE PETITION FaiTH THANKSGIVING HE subject of Prayer is so profound that it seems little more than presumption to attempt in one chapter to give this subject any adequate treat- ment. However, the following thoughts, which have been frequently presented in the form of an address, have been received so kindly by those who have heard them, that it seems expedient to print them here. Readers are asked to bear in mind that while we are really thinking of Prayer in regard to Spiritual Healing, nevertheless this does not differ from other kinds of successful prayer. We do not use one kind of prayer for temporal blessings, and another for the healing of our infirmities. To pray at all we must grasp the fundamental principles of prayer, 20 THE HEALING EVANGEL and, when once this has been done, we shall be able to use our knowledge in any direction that may be necessary. In his book, The Open Secret, Dr. Robert F. Hor- ton tells us that a complete prayer has five parts, though we may be quite unconscious of this fact when we pray. These five parts are given above and form the component elements of every complete prayer. If we feel that our prayers are futile, inade- quate, dead, uninspiring, or beside the mark, it is probable that one or more of these five parts is ab- sent from our devotions. It is my conviction that meditation is by far the most important and the most neglected of these five elements, and that is why this chapter is devoted mainly to that side of prayer which deals with meditation. When once this is mastered and we can control our meditation, the desires which are born of such contemplative periods will be true desires and in harmony with the Will of God. It will then be the most natural thing to convert this desire into petition, and the conviction that we are asking “according to His will” will in- spire in us that faith which is of the essence of sue. cessful prayer. And, since true faith always brings about the answer to our prayers, the complete act of devotion will most properly conclude with an act of thanksgiving. Indeed, some consider that thanksgiving is another word for realization, and that we should begin to give thanks immediately af- ter the prayer is completed and before the results are visibly apparent. M. Auguste Sabatier thinks the whole of religion consists in prayer. This may be an exaggeration, but prayer certainly is the greatest part of religion. THE TRUE NATURE OF PRAYER 21 The more practical side of religion, as, for example, Christian Social Service, Christian Healing, Rescue Work, and Religious Education, all of which have to do with our duty towards our neighbor, becomes more clear in the light of prayer, and through prayer we receive the stimulus and power to do what other- wise we could not do. Clement of Alexandria says: “The prayers God hears are the thoughts within our minds”; and T. H. Green describes prayer as “a wish referred to God.” It would be easy to multiply definitions of prayer taken from the writings of the Fathers and more modern Saints, and to show how rich is the litera- ture of prayer, but the distressing fact still con- fronts us that the mere reading of books about prayer does not necessarily give us a practical grasp of the subject for ourselves to be used experimen- tally. Unfortunately, prayer is regarded by many Christians as a conventional act of worship, and many of our formularies rather encourage this con- ventional regard for prayer. Just for example, we read in The Shorter Catechism, “Prayer is the of: fering up of our desires unto God for things agree- able to His will, in the name of Christ, with confes- sion of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.” Nothing could be more correct than this statement, and yet, who among us would be greatly inspired to pray by this definition ? Much nearer to the heart of mankind and much more stimulating to the devotional life is such a phrase as the following, taken from the opening sec- tion of the Confessions of St. Augustine, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and we are ever restless until we find our rest in Thee.” Or that other exalted gem 22 THE HEALING EVANGEL of devotion, taken from the writings of St. Anselm in the Eleventh Century: “Q Lord our God, grant us grace to desire Thee with our whole heart, that so desiring we may seek and find Thee; and so finding Thee may love Thee, and loving Thee may hate those sins from which Thou hast redeemed us. Amen.” William James has some most valuable things to say about prayer in his book, The Varieties of Relig- ious Haperience, especially in Lecture XIX. Among other things he says: “The reason why we pray is simply that we cannot help praying’; and he also quotes Sabatier, who declares: “Prayer is religion in action, that is real religion.” So we learn that prayer is a natural instinct; but, like all other instincts, it needs training and develop- ing. Prof. Ward says experience is “growing expert by experiment,” and it is certainly true that con- stant practice or experiment is the method by which we are to become expert in prayer. Meditation is the mental part of prayer. One author (R. F. Horton) gives a very helpful illustra- tion of this, taken from astronomical photography. A prepared sensitized plate is placed in the base of the lens of a huge telescope; the telescope is then focused upon the distant star which is to be photo- graphed. The telescope is mounted on a metal base, which revolves by clockwork, and which can be. adjusted to move synchronously with the celestial body which is to be photographed. The photograph is actually made by the light of the star itself, though the exposure takes many hours. So it is with the soul of man which is consciously directed toward God in meditation. During the hour of medi- tation, the purpose of God will be impressed upon THE TRUE NATURE OF PRAYER 23 the sensitive mind and heart of the true believer and His will becomes clear, through the light which is found alone in His presence. An astronomical photograph could not be made in a few minutes. It takes hours! Recall the great souls at prayer, and remember how much time they devoted to the culti- vation of God’s presence. Read Brother Lawrence’s little classic, The Practice of the Presence of God, and try to realize how these men became Saints and experts in prayer because they were able to forget all earthly things in the contemplation of the Eter- nal. Prayer may become a- habit, and an excellent habit, but the earlier stages are difficult because of the contrary attractions of earthly things. We must learn to set our affection on things above. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Right- eousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” So said the Master Himself, who was an adept in prayer; and St. Paul shows us the practical value of meditation when he exclaims: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phil. 4:8.) When you have thus meditated, your mind will become filled with those things that God has pre- pared for you, and which He has fitted you to en- joy. These desires will crystallize into simple but effective petitions. The reality of God will fill your soul with a wonderful faith (“the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’’), and the consummation of your desires will be real- 24 THE HEALING EVANGEL ized in such manner that you will spontaneously lift your soul again to God in a song of glad thanks- giving for His marvellous dealings with you, and you will go back to your family, your work, your earthly problems, day by day, with a song in your heart and a happiness in your soul that shall make God a living reality to you. The writer still remembers a verse committed to memory as a child, and which was inscribed on an illuminated card and hung over his bed. It aimed at securing reality in prayer and read as follows: “Lord Jesus make Thyself to me A living, bright reality; More present to faith’s vision keen Than any outward object seen; More dear, more intimately nigh, Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie!” When you have made your meditation and offered your prayer, then wait—wait for God to answer, and do not be in a hurry. The answer may not be what you desire, but in this case the Spirit of Truth will show you why it was not expedient for your prayer to be answered; and it may be that you will then be able to offer a better and truer prayer, which shall be abundantly fulfilled. Let us realize what a wonderful resource we have in the practice of prayer, and let us learn how to pray by simply exercising this faculty which God has given to us. “Lord, what a change within us one short hour Spent in Thy presence will avail to make! What heavy burdens from our bosoms take; What parched grounds refresh as with a shower! THE TRUE NATURE OF PRAYER 25 We kneel, and all around us seems to lower; We rise, and all the distant and the near Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear! We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power! Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others, that we are not always strong; That we are ever overborne with care, That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?’ (ARCHBISHOP TRENCH ) 26 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To try to analyze Prayer in order to grasp more successfully its meaning and method. Also to discover how to make Prayer a practical force in one’s life, whether for healing or for spiritual growth. QUESTIONS: 1. In giving the five component parts of Prayer, what explanation is given of this particular order? 2. Which do you consider the first in order of importance and which would you place second? 3. Is petition alone really Prayer? 4. What is the essence of successful Prayer? 5. What should distinguish the “Church worker’ from other humanitarian workers? 6. How may we become more expert in Prayer? 7. Why is Meditation necessary to real Prayer? 8. Does Prayer for healing differ from other kinds of successful Prayer? 9. Do you believe that Prayer is always answered? BIBLIOGRAPHY Health and Religion, O'Flaherty, chapter 13. Handbook of Divine Healing, J. T. Butlin, chapters 5, 6, 15. The Power to Heal, H. B. Wilson, chapters 3 and 4. The Meaning of Christian ‘Healing, G. F. Weld, page 33. The Christian Doctrine of Health, Lily Dougall, chapters 16, 17 and 20. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 27. Back to Christ, Sir William Willcocks. Hope, A. W. Hopkinson, chapter 11 and Appendix (Intercession). The Soul’s Sincere Desire, Glen Clark. Spirit Power, May T.. Churchill. Concerning Prayer, B. H. Streeter, chapters 3 and 11. Christianity and Psychology, F. R. Barry, chapter 5. Washington Conference Reports, page 26 (Soc. of the Nazarene.) The Meaning of Prayer, H. HE. Fosdick. The Ministry of Intercession, Andrew Murray. A Study of Intercession, David Jenks. Creative Prayer, EH. Herman. Prayer As a Force, A. Maude Royden. With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray. CHAPTER IV THE RELATION BETWEEN SIN AND DIsEASE. A STUDY IN VICARIOUS FAITH. The Healing of the Paralytic St. Matt 9:1-8 - St. Mark 2: 3-12 St. Luke 5: 18-26. “Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?” St. Mark 2:9. THE FACTS: 1. Unable to walk, the man is brought on a bed by his friends. 2. Responding to “their faith,” Jesus at once begins the cure. 3. The sick of the palsy is cured by declaring to him his release or absolution from his sins. 4, The Scribes accuse Jesus of blasphemy. 5. Jesus virtually asserts that forgiveness of sins and healing of diseases are identical. 6. Jesus says their criticism is due to their negative thinking; Why think ye evil in your hearts? 7. The man is urged to po something to prove the valid- ity of his cure. “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.” 8. The man obeys the command of Jesus and goes home cured. 9. The multitudes marvel and praise God for His mani- fested power. 28 THE HEALING EVANGEL [cae from this story that sin and disease are. inextricably bound up together. Sin produces disease, and disease produces suffering and discom- fort and all the processes of decay and disintegra- tion and corruption—and these finally culminate in death. In studying this story, our best definition for sin is taken directly from the Bible—“Sin is the transgression of the law.” So that sin, according to this definition, is not always a matter of conscious moral delinquency. Many of our sins are due to igno- rance, and the law, being inexorable in its working, causes us to suffer for these sins of omission and ignorance as well as for the more flagrant infrac- tions of the moral law. We should remember that the laws of hygiene and physical health are indeed divine laws, and we should not treat them as if they were entirely out- side the scope of the Divine Economy. If sin is thus found to be the super-inducing cause of disease, it logically follows that repentance has a definitely therapeutic value. The first step towards healing or the return to normal conditions is by re- pentance, ie., the conscious turning away from self and sin, and a deliberate turning towards God. In the story before us, we do not know the diagno- sis of this case of paralysis, but it is obvious that the palsy had its origin in some sin, and our Lord proceeds, without any explanations, to strike at the cause of the whole trouble. With wonderful di- rectness, and employing that word of power which is one of the proofs of His Divinity, He says to the sick man, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” Those who still argue that disease is sent by God will have great difficulty in proving their thesis RELATION BETWEEN SIN AND DISEASE 29 from the New Testament narrative. Wherever He goes, Jesus strikes at the root of disease just as surely and just as incisively as He strikes at the roots of sin. Both are the results of disobedience to His Father’s law, both must be corrected and cured; and the work of curing disease is not relegated to some subordinate place in His Ministry, but is one of the most striking parts of His entire work on earth. Thus St. Luke admirably sums up His work in the words, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Pain and suffering may have their legitimate and divinely appointed uses, but disease is never sent by God. If we want to make any progress in spiri- tual healing we must get this fact deep into our subconscious thinking, in other words, deep into our hearts. Pain and discomfort may indeed prove beneficent finger-posts, warning us that something is wrong, and urging us to make the needful adjust- ments. Incidentally they may also invoke some of the more heroic qualities of human nature, but this does not lend any support to the heresy that disease is sent by God. In many cases confession of sin, acknowledgment of our infraction of Nature’s (God’s) laws, will suffice to bring us back into har- mony and agreement. Calvinism rightly taught the grand doctrine of the sovereignty of God, but it also developed a the- ology of fatalism contrary to the teaching of Christ, and depending upon a too literal presentation of the earlier chapters of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ro- mans. It taught (and still teaches) that disease is 30 THE HEALING EVANGEL to be regarded as the will of God, and to be humbly and unquestioningly borne and endured as such. So long as you believe that God sent your disease, and that it is inevitable, so long you cannot be cured. Let us not regard disease as discipline merely. God does send discipline and requires us to endure hard- ship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ—but not in the form of disease. We do not find a single passage in which our Lord refers to disease aS something sent by God for our good; on the contrary He rebukes it and cures it wherever He finds it. Most of the practi- cal opposition to Christian healing arises from: 1. Adding something to the simple teaching of Jesus; or 2. Subtracting something from His teaching. Early liturgies do not ask for healing “if it be Thy will,’ and Jesus never used such a formula. Whenever He refers to the Will of God, it is for the purpose of bringing Himself or others into perfect harmony with the divine law, but He never uses it to suggest blind submission to the forces of evil. There is no objection to the use of the phrase, “If it be Thy will,” provided we fully recognize that God’s will is always and unequivocally a will that leads to ultimate health and harmony and righteous- ness. God revealed His will for all time fhrouey the life of His blessed Son, and that incarnate expression of His will is surely far more binding upon our con- sciences than any Calvinistic injunction to accept disease and physical distress as sent by the hand of God. This latter interpretation instantly injects an element of doubt into the mind of the patient. Contrast these pessimistic admissions with the RELATION BETWEEN SIN AND DISEASE 31 simple command of Jesus, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.” We may note here in passing the significance of the criticism which the Scribes and Pharisees passed upon this miracle. They did not object to the Min- istry of Healing as exercised by Jesus, but they very much objected to the Ministry of Absolution—that is, the declaration of the forgiveness of sins. Today the position is exactly reversed. The religious critic today concedes the right of the Church to administer Absolution, but seriously questions the right to ad- minister Healing. Perhaps our best answer to our contemporary critics is that_of Jesus to the Phari- sees, “Why think ye evil in your hearts?” or, in more modern speech, “Why do ye think negatively ?” If the Church is the extension of the Incarnation, then its business is to do today for its contempora- ries what Jesus did for His. Now let us sum up the lessons of this story: 1. It teaches unselfish service. It encourages the Ministry of Intercession. Humanly speaking, the man owed his recovery to the practical sympathy and solicitude of his four friends. Apparently it was their faith which stimulated his, for St. Mark tells us that “Seeing their faith Jesus said to the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” Incidentally we learn here, too, that Jesus is in- fluenced by the presence of satisfactory conditions, and that His work is limited when these conditions are absent. Thus we read elsewhere, “He could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief.” | This teaches us the wholesome doctrine of the soli- darity of the human race. “Ye that are strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak and not to please 32 THE HEALING EVANGEL yourselves.” This story is the New Testament answer to the old question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Jesus says “Yes, you are.” 2. We learn also the close identity between sin and disease, and the value of the sacrament of Ab- solution. Forgiveness of sins as Jesus taught it means the removal of the cause, as well as a cure of the effects within all reasonable limits. “If we con- fess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” All this is implicit in the Prayer Book. Each bishop at his consecration is told to “Hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken,” and every priest is exhorted to be “a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments.” Now a Dispenser does not write prescriptions, but merely fills them, taking his instructions from the physician. In the same manner the practitioner of Christian Healing is not, strictly speaking, a Healer, but a Dispenser of the healing virtues of Christ Himself, who is the “Word of God”; and when we realize that healing has always been regarded as a sacrament, and that the Seventh Sacrament—Holy Unction— according to the best authorities is a Sacrament of Healing, and not merely a consolation for those who are departing this life, it becomes still more clear that every priest is by implication a Minister of Absolution and Healing, as well as of Baptism and Holy Communion. It is also significant that our Lord gave direct authority to His Apostles to forgive sin at the same time that He gave them the command to heal the sick. Those who object on scriptural or evangelical grounds to the practice of auricular confession have RELATION BETWEEN SIN AND DISEASE 33 still to find a satisfactory explanation of the words of our Lord, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost; Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” Unrighteousness means literally and etymologically maladjustment—that state which is out of align- ment with the perfect will of God. God forgives us when we face toward Him and get into right relationship again. Absolution has often been described as the medicine of the soul, and since the state of the soul largely determines the health of the body, we see how great may be the re- sults when this sacrament_is properly used. The priest is the real doctor of the soul. The Collect for St. Luke’s Day is very pertinent: “Almighty God, Who didst call Luke the physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul; May it please Thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the di- seases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Psychoanalysis scientifically. vindicates the sacra- ment of Absolution, just as other recent scientific research vindicates the supremacy of the spiritual life of man. But psychoanalysis does not go far enough; it does not reach those moral and spiritual conditions which can be reached by the Grace of Christ alone. We fully recognize the great value of psychoanalysis, especially in mental diagnosis, but it will never serve as a substitute for repentance and confession and absolution. 3. The man is urged to do something to prove the validity of his cure—“Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.” We must never allow a religious tg 34 THE HEALING EVANGEL privilege or the receiving of a Sacrament to become commonplace. It must leave us better than we were before. As a result of receiving the absolving or healing grace, we should be able to do that which was impossible before. “Draw nigh unto God and He will draw nigh unto you.” “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn to the Lord, for He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” RELATION BETWEEN SIN AND DISEASE 35 AIM: To illustrate the close relation which exists between Sin and Disease; to demonstrate the therapeutic value of Absolution; and to show the necessity of DOING something to prove our faith after absolution and healing. QUESTIONS: 1. Where and how does Jesus assert the identity be- tween sin and disease? 2. What are the two different views of sin? 3. In the present story, what outstanding merits on the part of the intercessors helped to bring about the man’s healing? 4. In bringing this story up-to date, how would a study and practice of the laws of hygiene affect the situ- ation? 5. What is the first step towards healing? 6. What proof can be found in the New Testament that disease is sent by God? 7. Are Suffering and Disease synonymous? 8. What part has Intercession in Healing? 9. Was Jesus ever limited in His power to heal by un- belief ? 10. What was the original use of the Sacrament of Unc- tion? 11. What follows from our Lord’s command to the Apos- tles to forgive sin and to heal the sick? 12. How does Psychonalysis fall short (usually) in its result upon the future condition of the patient? (Note: this question is not intended to belittle the value of psychoanalysis but to indicate its limi- tations. ) 13. How must we show our faith after receiving absolu- tion or forgiveness? BIBLIOGRAPHY Health and Religion, O’Flaherty, chapter 11. On Miracles, Archbishop Trench, No. 9. “Heal the Sick,’ Hickson, chapter 10. The Sacrament of Healing, John Maillard, chapter 9. Healing in the Churches, F. M. Wetherill, chapter 3. 36 THE HEALING EVANGEL The Divine Antidote, KF. N. Riale, chapter 14. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 8. The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, page 121. Hope, A. W. Hopkinson, chapters 4 and 5. Life in Fellowship, Bishop John P. Maud, chapter 3. Thought, Faith, and Healing, Mrs. Horace Porter, chapters 1 and 2. Does Christ Still Heal? H. B. Wilson, chapter 8. God’s Will for the World, H. B. Wilson, chapter 6. Christianity and Psychology, F. R. Barry, chapter 4. The Faith That Overcomes the World, V. R. Gibson, chapters 5 and 6. Spiritual Gifts (The Charismata), J. R. Pridie, chapter 9. CHAPTER V THE HEALING OF THE DEAF MUTE St. Mark 7: 32-37 St. Matt. 9:32 St. Luke 11:14 THE FACTS: . The deaf mute is brought to Jesus. . Jesus takes him aside from the multitude, Puts His fingers into his ears, . And touches his tongue. . Jesus offers prayer to His Father, And utters the word of healing. The man’s ears are opened and his tongue loosed. . People exclaim, “He doeth all things well.” DAA P WD HIS story is told by all three Synoptic writers, and to get the perspective, we need to read all three stories and synthesize them. There are four Greek words which are translated by the English word, dumb. Thus we have alalos, which means speechless; then aphonos, which means voiceless; then siopao, meaning silent, and lastly the word used in this miracle, kophos, which really means blunted. From the perusal of the best commentators, one gets the idea that an alien power has laid its intruding hand upon the mechanism of speech, blunting the man’s faculties and rendering him incoherent, if 38 THE HEALING EVANGEL not altogether inarticulate. It is a peculiar word, and admirably expresses the idea which St. Luke con- veys when he says that the man had a “dumb devil.” The friends of the afflicted man besought Jesus to put His hand upon him, and we see here another example of the practical value of intercession. The method employed by Jesus in this miracle is quite unusual, for this was a combination of heal- ing and exorcism. Jesus does not depend here upou any magic formula; nothing could be more practical and straightforward than the method used, and we might say without exaggeration that He was truly scientific. Students of metaphysical healing are wont to de- spise such simple expedients as those employed in this case. With them mind is paramount, and physi- cal contact and material aids are eliminated as far as possible. Not so with the Master Himself. He seems to have been glad to use any method—even the simplest—which would assist the weak faith of the patient. Let us examine the detail of His method as employed in this case. 1. Jesus took him aside from the multitude. This removed him from disturbing elements and from the inhibitions of unbelief. Every minister en- gaged in healing the sick knows how important this is, and it is interesting to observe that our Lord rec- ognizes the value of this. 2. He “puts His fingers into his ears.” This is a familiar part of the technique of Jesus in such cases; it helped the man’s faith, and may even have been a necessary factor in his cure. 3. The use of the spittle. This is very repellent to us, but was doubtless a THE HEALING OF THE DEAF MUTE 39 familiar device in those early days, and would occa- sion no surprise among Oriental people. The chief value of this act was once again to increase the faith of the patient. Let us note here that these details are a strong rebuke to those who imagine that no “means” should be employed in Healing. Our Lord Jesus, who was so much greater than we, did not disdain the use of any means which might help to hasten or promote the desired end. 4, “And touched his tongue.” The touch is still the vital thing, it is the sine qua non of Christ’s human ministry. There is something more than mere sentiment in the beautiful words of that familiar hymn in which we sing: “Thy touch hath still its ancient power.” Do not disdain the use of some human or physical means because it may not help you individually. It may be potent in the treatment of some other per- son, and if we are susceptible to the influence of the Spirit, we shall be shown what is the best method to employ in each individual case. The “touch” undoubtedly did two things in these instances of Healing. It conveyed spiritual power from Christ to the patient, and it aroused the heal- ing properties lying latent in the mind and body of the patient. 5. The indispensable factor of prayer. “Looking up to heaven.” This graphic gesture rep- resents our Lord as appealing to the Source of all power and healing—His Father in heaven. It shows us that not only did Jesus spend whole nights in prayer, replenishing His spiritual resources, but 40 THE HEALING EVANGEL He was accustomed to the use of ejaculatory prayer, that is, sudden emergency appeals to the Heavenly Father for some spiritual help to meet some special contingency. We must remember that this Master Healer did not claim to heal in His own name, but in the name of His Father. He frankly said, “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” How much we need to remember this in our own work, and to become ready channels through whica the Father may pour His healing blessings upon those in need! Whatever other methods you may employ, do not try to work without prayer. Make it a part of every system of therapy you may use. Hundreds of our physicians and surgeons testify to the value of prayer in their work, and admit its potency. 6. The audible word, Ephphatha. If the touch of power, which was the touch of healing, is a characteristic of the ministry of Jesus, no less is it true that the word of healing occupies an important place in our Lord’s Ministry. Unlike the eastern Magicians and their representatives in modern western culture, Jesus does not employ magic, nor does He appeal very largely to the spec- tacular or dramatic instinct in His audience. When He uses a word or a formula, it is simply for the conveying of some dynamic thought to the patient, or for creating that atmosphere of expectancy which is necessary to the best results. In speaking the word of power, Jesus was appealing to spiritual forces and employing spiritual laws. We follow very closely His example in the use of the law of suggestion and our recognition that the subconscious mind of man will obey any rea- THE HEALING OF THE DEAF MUTE 4] sonable demand made upon it by the conscious volition. We find in the books of Moses very fre- quently the expression, “And Moses did according to the word of the Lord.” This represented a growing familiarity on the part of Moses with the laws of God and the will of God, and then in one place we find the corollary of this: “And the Lord did accord- ing to the word of Moses.” When we have made our- selves practically familiar with the laws of God and the will of God, we will speak the word of power, which is also the word of faith, and the re- sult shall follow exactly according to our command. Only when we have listened to the Word, reverently and persistently, can we learn, ourselves, to speak the word of command and healing and life. 7. The result: St. Mark 7:35: “And straightway his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.” In other words, we have here com- plete, successful healing. We could not wish for a more perfect example of Christian Healing than is given here. Let us never aim at less than perfect healing; and while we give thanks for even relief or partial cure, we should always aim at a perfect result such as was achieved by our Lord in His treatment of the sick. 8. The reaction of the crowd: “And they were beyond measure astonished, say- ing, He hath done all things well; He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak!” It is the testimony of those who conduct Healing Missions that the unsophisticated public quite naturally ex- pect to see this healing work accomplished. They are quite ready to believe that Christ is still present to 42 THE HEALING EVANGEL heal the sick, and the chief obstacle to the revival of the practical Ministry of Healing is not in the apathy or skepticism of the crowd, so much as the lack of courage and faith and spiritual enterprise on the part of religious leaders. In conclusion let us remember that many a per- son has a dumb spirit, though he may not be liter- ally and physically deprived of speech. The dumb spirit stands for a whole legion of inhibitions, of repressed powers and impulses, and will not be re- leased until the word of power is spoken boldly in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. THE HEALING OF THE DEAF MUTE 43 AIM: To study one miracle which illustrates the technique of Jesus in healing; also to observe the value which He attached to the use of means and the importance of verbal and manual con- tacts. QUESTIONS: 1. Did our Lord use any one special method in healing the sick? 2. What was the first requirement made of the patient? 3. What other means did our Lord use, and why? 4. Did Jesus claim to heal in His Own Name? 5. Do you think our Lord had any special reason for the use of a formula? - 6. What should be our aim in healing? 7. What is the chief obstacle in the revival of healing? BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Miracles, Archbishop Trench, No. 24. The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, page 94. Refer to St. Mark 7:32-37 in any good commentary. Also St. Matthew 9:32 and St. Luke 11:14. CHAPTER VI THE IMPOTENT MAN AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE OF THE TEMPLE. A Stupy IN APosTOLIC METHODS “Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have that give I thee. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” Acts 3:6. . “The faith which is by him hath given this man perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” Acts 3:6 and 3:16. THE FACTS: iL; SS. Peter and John go up to the temple at the hour of prayer. 2. The impotent cripple is laid at the gate of the temple. 3. 4, St. Peter fastens his eyes upon him and says “Look The cripple asks alms of the Apostles. on us.” . The cripple looks up expecting to receive money. . St. Peter says: “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto thee. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” . St. Peter takes him by the right hand and lifts him up, and the man receives strength in his feet and ankles. . The man leaps, stands, and walks, and then enters into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. . The people are filled with wonder and amazement. . St. Peter declares that this man receives perfect soundness through faith in the Name of Jesus. THE IMPOTENT MAN 45 HE story is so graphically told in the third and fourth chapters of the Book of the Acts that it would appear superfiuous to repeat it here. Let us therefore ascertain what inferences we may draw from this story. 1. Is this power and authority used by SS. Peter and John still available? Yes, it is possessed by those who speak today in the Name of Jesus Christ, and by those also who have experienced His power and wish to speak to others that “Word” which has always proved so efficacious. i : 2. The lame man immediately leaps, stands, and walks. His inhibitions were destroyed; he could do the things that he was previously unable to do. Does the work of Christ cause us to do the things which formerly we were unable to do? This is the difference between doctrine and dynamic. Religion consists not merely in accepting true doctrine, but in developing the power for its translation into energy. God will not do anything for us which we can easily do for ourselves. Peter stretches out his hand and bids the man rise up and walk, but the man must/make an effort, and he must believe that he can make the effort. We should not allow our- selvesto attend a Healing Service or receive a Sac- rament and go away the same as we were before. The inspiration of a great preacher, the psychic im- pressions of a Healing Service, or the ecstasy of sacramental contact, are marvellous opportunities. They are what Wilberforce calls “contact points with the Divine”; but it will depend upon us how far these sacred influences produce radical and per- manent changes in our lives. 46 THE HEALING EVANGEL 3. Perfect soundness. This perfect soundness should be the goal of all healing work. The scientific practitioner does not treat disease; he aims to heal the man (Weir Mitchell). Ultimately all healing is from within, and perfect soundness means that the life within is finding perfect avenues of expression. Perfect sound- ness is the birthright of God’s children, and we should not hesitate to seek it to the extent of our ability. It implies a balanced and reciprocal working of body, mind, and spirit. This perfect soundness is not a thing which stands by itself. Listen to St. Peter: “And His Name through faith in His Name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” 4. The power is still available. This brings us to the whole crux of the weighty problem involved in the Healing Miracles. We were told twenty or thirty years ago that the Healing Miracles of Jesus were performed to prove that He was the Son of God, and that when this end was accomplished, the power to heal was withdrawn. Then when the problem of the miracles of the Apos- tles was raised, the same argument was used and it was taught that the power to heal was given to the earliest Apostles to validate their ministry, and withdrawn when this end was accomplished. These ideas are no longer held by the intelligent student of Christian Healing. The Church is now acknowl- edged to be the extension of the Incarnation, and therefore the power that manifested itself through Christ is found to be resident in and efficacious THE IMPOTENT MAN 47 through the Church, which is the Body of Christ. This power was given by Christ to the Church, and has never been withdrawn. The story is told of Pope Gregory, who was sit- ting in the Vatican talking to his young secretary, Thomas Aquinas. While they talked, the servants brought in sacks of gold, representing tribute paid to the Pope. Gregory smiled, and, turning to his secretary, said: “No longer must I say like my illustrious predecessor, ‘Silver and gold have I none!’ “No,” said his secretary, “nor can you say to the lame man, “In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!’ The answer of the young theologian is not without its modern signifi- cance. This question of authority has greatly vexed the minds of many of the clergy in our Churches. They have felt ity to ‘be presumptuous to attempt to heal the sick, and t ey have shirked the responsibility which such a Ministry carries with it. And yet it might truly be said that it is more presumptuous to ignore the definite command of Christ to heal the sick than it is obediently to accept His commission. The story is told of Dr. Elwood Worcester of Bos- ton that when he launched the movement known as the Emmanuel Movement in his parish, he received a letter from an eastern bishop asking by what au- thority he presumed to heal the sick. He sent back a courteous reply in which he asked the Bishop to refer to the Prayer Book in the office for the Conse- eration of Bishops. There, he said, you will find the command given to each bishop, “Raise the fallen and heal the sick” (page 529—Book of Common Prayer). “If you will tell me,” he said, “by what 48 THE HEALING EVANGEL authority you ignore this direct command, then I will tell you by what authority I am trying to carry it into effect.”” We might add to this the fact that every priest in the Anglican Communion is told to be a faithful Dispenser of God’s Holy Sacraments, and that Healing is one of the Sacraments, and that the duty of a Dispenser is not to prescribe for the patient, but to administer the healing remedies al- ready prescribed by the physician. If we take our Lord to be the Great Physician, then we may truly say that His command to the Apostles of the Church to heal the sick, together with His promise of power in the carrying out of this commission, constitute the prescription which the clergy are to dispense to those who need the benefits of Christian Healing. The Society of the Nazarene recently sent out a ques- tionnaire to all the Anglican Bishops asking them for an expression of opinion in regard to the practice of Healing in the Churches. About two hundred Bishops replied to this questionnaire, and upwards of ninety per cent of these expressed their full ap- proval of the practice in the Church today. This should serve as a powerful refutation of the argu- ment that the clergy are restricted in the exercise of this Ministry today. Nor is this practice of Christian Healing incom- patible with the practice of scientific medicine. Let us remember that this story and the book in which it appears, together with other similar stories, was written by a physician. But the supremacy of the spiritual must be asserted. God’s laws must be obeyed, and to obey we must have an intelligent grasp of their nature and working. The clergy must be more scientific; the medical profession must be THE IMPOTENT MAN 49 more spiritual. Only thus can there be successful co- operation. Finally, let us observe that Spiritual Healing comes “through the faith which is by Him.” That is, Christ is the Great Healer, and the’ Holy Spirit is “the Lord and Giver of Life.’”’ Not until we con- sider the true Source from which ‘all life and heal- ing come, can we pray intelligently for the full res- toration of this Ministry. Not until we realize that the Christ Nature, which is imparted to us, is the true source of all increase of life, can we interpret as we ought the simple but powerful formula, “Pre- serve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” Let us close this chapter by quoting from a sermon preached by Bishop Manning of New York in De- cember 1923. His sermon concluded with these words: “Our faith is in One who does not change, *, One whose love and power are still able to cleanse < the sinner and heal the sick, and give life from above ° to all who will follow Him: One in whom we can wholly trust for this life and for all eternity. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” § : 50 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To show that True Religion tends to produce perfect soundness and that the power for healing given by Christ to the Church has never been withdrawn. QUESTIONS : . What is the test of Religion? . Upon what does the result of a healing service largely depend? . What is “perfect soundness?’ . How do we know that the power to heal which was given to the early Church was not subsequently withdrawn? . To what extent are the clergy restricted in the ex- ercise of the ministry of healing today? . Is the practice of Christian Healing compatible with the practice of scientific medicine? . How can there be successful codperation between the Clergy and the Medical Profession? . How can we rightly interpret the formula, “Preserve thy body and soul unto Everlasting Life’’? BIBLIOGRAPHY The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 19. Back to Christ, Sir William Willcocks. The Revival of the Gift of 'Healing, H. B. Wilson, chapter 1. Refer to Acts III and IV in any good commentary. oe CHAPTER VII CHRISTIAN BOLDNESS “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:18. HIS is a familiar verse to most of us, yet I doubt if we put the proper accent upon it when we read it. So let us supplement the wonderful story contained in the last chapter, by looking at these words, and studying them in relation to the miracle which has just occurred. It is not improper to take certain favorite verses of Holy Scripture and repeat them or memorize them, if they convey to us some special truth or some particular consolation; but in so doing I think we should first assure ourselves that the construction we put upon the words is the correct construction, and not merely the one we want to use. This verse is rarely understood as it should be. We pray for many things that are good and right, and I have often heard men pray that the world when it takes knowledge of us may perceive that we have been with Jesus—that is, that some of the glory of the face of Jesus may be reflected in our lives and conduct. This is a beautiful prayer, and as an independent 52 THE HEALING EVANGEL petition, quite appropriate to our needs, but it is not the prayer which our text suggests. This passage reads: “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John .... they marvelled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” So you see it was the boldness that drew their attention, and the influence exerted by the Apostles was quite uncon- scious; it was due to no feat of the intellect, but to their nearness to the type of spiritual life and bold- ness manifested by Christ Himself. The whole chap- ter is very wonderful and makes a most thrilling narrative, forming, as we observe, the sequel of the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. These events happened in the very early days of the Church, shortly after that memorable outpour- ing of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost. SS. Peter and John were at the temple, and had just healed a lame man in a miraculous manner. This had caused quite a commotion, and St. Peter took the opportunity to preach to the assembled multitude, with the immediate result that five thou- sand men were added to the Church. This naturally aroused the antagonism of the Chief Priests and the Sadducees who believed neither Christianity nor the Resurrection. They arraigned the Apostles and demanded of them publicly concerning the miracle, “by what power or by what name” they performed it. Then St. Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, made his reply: “Be it known unto you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye cruci- fied, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone that was set at naught by you builders, which is become the CHRISTIAN BOLDNESS 53 head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” This was the typical spirit of these early witness- bearers of the Christian religion. As we read their words we can easily imagine the impression they produced. No apologies; no secrecy about their faith or allegiance; no hesitancy about explaining the source of their power; just a plain, bold, courageous statement of their commission and the sources of their power. SS. Peter and John were exemplifying not merely the teaching, but_the very acts and works of Jesus Himself, and anyone who had watched Him in His wonderful Healing Ministry would be struck by the resemblance between His works and the works of these, His earliest disciples and followers. It was ridiculous to suggest that SS. Peter and John de- rived their power from books or learning. Everyone knew they were only fishermen and quite unlearned and unskillful men. Only one logical deduction was possible and that was the right one: They had been with Jesus, and from Him they had received both the inspiration and the power to perform these won- drous works. “When they saw their boldness,”—whose_ bold- ness? The boldness of SS. Peter and John. Now if you know the natural characteristics of these two Apostles you will perhaps be a little surprised at this statement. Before the resurrection of Jesus St. Peter was just as impetuous and impulsive as you see him on this occasion. But he was not truly courageous. If he had been truly bold he would not have fled when the hour of his Lord’s passion drew nigh. If he had been truly bold he would not have 54 THE HEALING EVANGEL stood “afar off” in the servants’ hall of the High Priest’s palace. If he had been truly bold he would not have denied his Lord three times with oaths and curses. Jesus did not call Peter to be His Apostle for what he was originally, but for what he might become. When He first met him you remember the words Jesus used: “Thou art Simon the son of Jonas, thou shalt be called Cephas, which being interpreted means a rock!” And now that prophetic word is be- coming true. Our hardest rocks, the igneous rocks, are just transformed mud, mud\that has passed through the ministry of terrific fire. And here is Simon Peter, once as yielding as mud, but now, hav- ing passed through the discipline of flame, the fire of an intense affection, he is firm and irresistible as rock. A few weeks previous to this incident he had said in public: “I know not the man!” That was the yielding mud. And it is this man, transformed in the very fibres of his being, who now arrests the thoughtless indifference of the world, and by the spectacle of a magnificent boldness startles it into a great surprise. ‘‘When they beheld the boldness of Peter they marvelled !” But it says Peter and John. How unjust some of our religious artists are in depicting St. John on the canvas. They think of him always as the Apos- tle of love; they picture him lying on the bosom of Jesus; and so they forget that he was also surnamed tures him as of mild and gentle countenance, with far-away, dreamy eyes and of most effeminate de- meanour. Now this is not totally wrong. Any true protraiture of St. John must include some of these things, for mysticism is part of the genuine Chris- CHRISTIAN BOLDNESS 55 tian experience. In his face there must be a large and winsome gentleness to which we feel we could unbur- den our broken hearts; but the gentleness must not be effeminate; it must be strong and masculine; and in the face there must be delineated elements with which the flippant could no more trifle than he could play with fire. John leaned on his Master’s breast, but that same faith took him before magistrates and councils for a bold testimony, and finally landed him in lonely exile on the rocky island of Patmos. “When they beheld the boldness of . . . . John they marvelled.” : | What was the explanation of this character—this bold and rugged Christian character which so per- plexed the world? You must turn to the eighth verse and you will find the secret: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost.” This boldness was a phenomenon. They could not fit it into any of the current expla- nations. It was not the product of the schools; it was not the fruit of culture; we read, “they per- ceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men.” They could not fit these men into the hierarchy of official teachers, and so they relegated them to the ranks of the unrecognized, the mere quacks, and labelled them “unlearned and ignorant men.” We can read this story with Christian intelligence and experience. We know something of the unseen power or force behind SS. Peter and John which explains their boldness. Jt is St. Peter plus the Infinite! It is St. John fortified by Deity! There is a great and growing need for this apos- tolic boldness today. The times in which we live im- peratively demand aggressiveness of soul. The Chris- tian character must be conspicuous for strength, 56 THE HEALING EVANGEL intelligence, decisiveness, and attack. Whatever may be allowed to lie hidden in obscurity or stored away in secret and mystical depths, the masculine quality of Christian discipleship must stand out in bold and flaming relief. For the full understanding of our text you must read the whole chapter, and you will see that this holy boldness was no mere sudden impulse, but a consistent, reasonable confidence. We get the same spirit of boldness in the words which the Apostles give in reply to their critics—“We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” How magnificent that response! They felt their wills to be caught in the sweeping current of the Infinite. They were impelled by a mighty imperative, con- strained by an all-encompassing and irresistible in- terest. It becomes then a most important question for us how we are to get this most desirable state of mind and heart, how we can develop this holy boldness so that we may feel, like those early Apos- tles, that we cannot but declare what we have seen and experienced. Many of the clergy today hesitate to practise the Ministry of Healing simply because they lack this holy boldness. They excuse themselves by saying that General Convention has not authorized the practice of this Ministry or that this or that bishop is critical towards the movement, instead of realiz- ing that they are Ministers of Jesus Christ, and that the Ministry of Healing is an integral and indispensable part of His commission to His fol- lowers. There is only one method by which this boldness may be cultivated, and that is to be filled with the CHRISTIAN BOLDNESS “Vi same Holy Spirit which was the Divine Energy be- hind the work of the Apostles. In conclusion, we may pray for this boldness in the very words which were used by the Apostles, as follows: “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto Thy servants that with all boldness they may speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thy hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of Thy Holy Child, Jesus.” This was the prayer (Acts 4: 29, 30). The answer to the prayer is found in the following verse: “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with bold- ness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the Apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.” Acts 4: 31-33. 58 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To realize the true meaning of Christian Boldness as one of the criteria of Spirit-filled Christians. Also to stress the need for this quality in the life of the Church today. QUESTIONS: 1. To what was the boldness of the Apostles due? 2. In quoting detached verses of Scripture what special caution must be exercised? 3. In what way has Art been unjust in depicting St. John? 4. Why would the Christian preacher of the twentieth century need courage in presenting the message of Christ? 5. What mistake is made by many of the clergy in regard to the Ministry of Healing? 6. What is the special value of personal experience in preaching and healing? 7. What spiritual factor or quality is implied in the doctrine of Apostolic Succession? 8 . What is the strongest evidence for Apostolic Succes- sion ? BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 19. The Ministry of Healing, A. J. Gordon, chapters 4, 8, and 12. The Whole Man, Geoffrey Rhodes, pages 45 and 77. The Meaning of Christian Healing, G. F. Weld, page 16. Healing in the Churches, ¥. M. Wetherill, chapter 1. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapters 19 and 21. Back to Christ, Sir William Willcocks. CHAPTER VIII THE PRAGMATIC TEST THE QvuESTION: “Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?” THE ANSWER: “Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed is he who shail find no occasion of stumbling in Me.” St. Matt. 11: 3-6. HO shall determine what is the true Gospel? Who is qualified to state precisely what is in- cluded in the scope of the Christian Message? Who shall decide what is orthodox and what is heterodox in the presenting of the Christian Evangel? There is but one answer, Christ Himself. And fortunately we have the definition of the Gospel Message in the words of our Lord Himself, given as the fulfillment of prophecy and again in answer to the question of St. John the Baptist. The first statement on this subject was given at the beginning of the public ministry of our Lord, and is recorded in St. Luke, 4: 18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 60 THE HEALING EVANGEL captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” There is a very noticeable consistency between these words, which form the conscious fulfillment of prophecy on the part of our Lord, and the answer which is sent to John by his Disciples, as recorded by St. Matthew. If the Church is indeed, as we are assured that it is by the best authorities, the “extension of the In- carnation,” it will readily be conceded that her busi- ness is to proclaim the same Message which was pro- claimed by our Lord, and it is equally reasonable to suppose that it should be done in the same manner and with the same practical demonstration. Our Lord did not come merely as a Healer, but as an Evangelist: “He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel.” The healing work is a part of that Gospel, not to be exploited by itself, but to form the com- plement of the Divine Revelation. And when the commission was handed on to the Disciples, it was merely expressed under the head- ings: 1. Preach, 2. Teach, 3. Heal. These are still the main factors in the Mission of the Church. The Church has erred, and lost power whenever she has added something to Christ’s category of the scope of the Gospel, and when she has substracted something from that category. Let us pause for a moment, and examine this self- confessed mission of Jesus. Let us reverently analyse it with the purpose of discovering how far the Church is living up to it, and why in some cases she has fallen short of the Divine Commission. We have these five definitely expressed factors: THE PRAGMATIC TEST 6] . Good news to the poor. . Healing for the broken-hearted. . Deliverance to the captives. . Recovery of sight to the blind. . Liberty for the bruised (the victims of tyranny). Under these five headings all human emergencies are included. This is a masterpiece of condensation. It is a fair question to ask: Is this the program of the Church today? Suppose the representatives of some other great religion, or some earnest inquirer after truth, should come into one of our churches, attend the service, listen to the address, witness the administration of the Sacraments, and then audibly inquire, “Is this the true Church of Christ, or do we look for another?” Could we respond to this test in the pragmatic style of Jesus Himself? Could we say to such an inquirer: “Behold what things ye hear and see; how the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have good tidings preached to them?” We need not be unduly literal in the interpretation of these words or the application of this test. There are many churches and parishes where for all practical purposes this test may be successfully applied in general practice, and always in spirit these things are done in the Name of the Master. But it is only too true that in the majority of organized Christian bodies this pragmatic test would reveal a deplorable weakness and deficiency. Study this definite statement of the Mission of Jesus, and you will find it instantly answers the main objections to Christian Healing. How dare we OT HR G be 62 THE HEALING EVANGEL say it is the will of God for men to be diseased, when Christ says He was divinely anointed to heal disease, which He referred to as an “oppression of the devil?” How dare we say that it is God’s will for men to be blind, when He declared that He was sent to give “recovery of sight to the blind?” How dare we say that this was a local and temporary function of the Church, limited to Christ and His twelve Apos- tles, when He definitely commissioned His followers to do all He Himself did, and more, and clinched this command with the promise that He would be with them always, to validate this Ministry”? We too often forget that the Christian Commission, which all accept as binding on the Christian Church, was followed by the promise, “And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.“ Our Lord constantly sought to overthrow the then domi- nant Hebrew attitude of a vengeful, punishing God. The Hebrew mind was limited to the idea that sick- ness was the result of sin and an evidence of God’s displeasure. Of the man born blind they asked our Lord, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus replied, ‘‘Neither.” Thus He exploded the current contemporary theological fallacy which kept earnest souls from receiving the full Gospel, and which tended to inhibit true faith. The sincere critic might reasonably ask today whether such signs are witnessed in the Twentieth Century when the Gospel is fearlessly presented in accordance with the teachings and precedent of Christ Himself. After eliminating the spectacular and questionable results which follow modern re- vival methods, the stern fact still remains that in hundreds of churches and parishes where this Gospel THE PRAGMATIC TEST 63 has been presented in the recent past, the “signs following” have occurred, and the criteria of Chris- tian Evangelism have been manifested. Let us quote only one example, and it is taken from a letter ad- dressed from the Archbishop of Melbourne to the people of his diocese, following a Healing Mission in the city of Melbourne, conducted by James Moore Hickson. It is worthy of mention that this letter was written six weeks after the Mission, and therefore was not indited in the heat of enthusiasm. The Arch- bishop thus tabulates the results of this single evan- gelistic effort: “TI desire to say a few words on the subject of the Mis- sions of Healing which have just been concluded in this Province and appear to have been marked everywhere by the same features: “1. Realization of the Presence of Christ. “2. Definite revival of spiritual life. “3. Substantial number of complete cures. “4, Large proportion of well-marked improvements, to be persevered with in believing prayer. “5. A wonderful patience and refreshing in the spiri- tual lives of those who quite simply record no bodily change. “6. A marked absence of fanaticism. “7, No antagonizing of the medical profession. “8. A certain wonderment as to what we should do next.” To which question the Archbishop replies: “Let it pass naturally into the ordinary undisturbed faith and practice of Church life.” At the time of writing, the author has just re- turned from a long series of Healing Missions, which have been marked by precisely the same general re- sults, as unsolicited testimonials filed with the So- _ciety of the Nazarene, by clergy and laity alike, bear witness. 64 THE HEALING EVANGEL A recent book on Spiritual Healing questions, in all sincerity, the actual validity of the healings which take place in these Missions, and many other students of this subject express a similar doubt as to the reality of these healings. This attitude is not at all cynical, but is due simply to the fact that those who take it have not themselves had similar experi- ence. Doubtless their experience has been more with private healing. However, we may again refer to the Archbishop in order to assure ourselves that these results are not fictitious or imaginary. He had one Mission investigated with regard to the results claimed, and the investigation is described fully in chapter XXV page 203. The lesson of all this is pretty obvious to the true seeker. Only when we undertake the whole program of Jesus Christ are we entitled to expect the full results which He promised. Not only prayer and faith, but also patience, is needed, and those who pause long enough to satisfy themselves that their conduct is absolutely proof against criticism, will never experience the thrill and ecstasy of the Apos- tles, who returned to our Lord with joy, reporting their successful Missions, and adding, “Even the devils are subject unto us through Thy Name.” THE PRAGMATIC TEST 65 AIM: To apply our Lord’s definition of the Gospel message as a standard for contemporary Chris- tian life and to see how far we are attaining to this standard. QUESTIONS: 1. Accepting the definition that the Church is the ex- tension of the Incarnation, what then is her spe- cial business or function? 2. What are the three main factors in the Mission of the Church? 3. How may we reasonably apply to the Church of today the test which Jesus gave to John in St. Matt. 11: 3-6? 4. What specific promise follows the Great Commission (Go ye into all the world, ete.) ? 5. How shall we answer the criticism that if healing work be genuine it will be universally successful? Why are so many devout people not healed (e.g.) at a well-conducted healing mission? 6. What will happen when we undertake the whole pro- gram which Christ outlined for His followers? 7. What is the danger in seeking to judge Christian work entirely by results? BIBLIOGRAPHY Does Christ Still Heal, H. B. Wilson, chapter 7. Refer to St. Matthew 11:3-6 in any good commentary. Pictures of the Apostolic Church, Sir William Ramsay, page 312. Luke the Physician, Sir William Ramsay, pages 15, 16. CHAPTER. IX THE VIRTUE OF IMPORTUNITY Perseverance as an Aid to Faith Jesus and the Syro-Phenician Woman. St. Matt. 15; 21-31. THE SCRIPTURAL FACTS: 1 2. 3. 4, = ov. “Have mercy on me O Lord, Thou Son of David, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil! “And He answered her not a word. “His disciples besought Him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us. “But He answered, I am not sent but unto the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. “Then she came and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me, . “But He answered, It is not meet to take the chil- dren’s bread and cast it to dogs. . “She answered, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their Master’s table. . “Then Jesus answered and said, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. . “And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” ONTRARY to the belief of many people, Jesus did not go out of His way to heal the sick, nor did He cultivate the reputation of a great Healer. Let us listen to Giovanni Papini :* *See Life of Christ, page 132. THE VIRTUE OF IMPORTUNITY 67 “Jesus never held that miracles were His exclusive privi- lege. When they came to tell Him that some man was driv- ing out demons in His name, He answered, ‘Forbid him not.’ This power was not denied to the disciples. ‘Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.’ “Bven charlatanical wizards could perform prodigies which seemed miracles. In His time a certain Simon was doing miracles in Samaria; even the disciples of the Phari- sees performed miracles. But miracles are not enough to enter into the Kingdom. ‘Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Thy Name, and in Thy Name cast out devils, and in Thy Name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity.’ It is not enough to cast out devils, if thou hast not cast out the devil in thee, the devil of pride and cupidity. “Even after His death, men will see others perform miracles. ‘For there shall arise false Christs, and false proph- ets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect!’ I have put you on your guard: do not believe in these signs and these wonders until thou shalt see the Son of Man. The miracles of false prophets do not prove the truth of what they say. ‘For all these reasons, Jesus abstained, as often as pos- sible, from working miracles, but He could not always re- sist the pleadings of the sorrowful, and often His pity did not wait for the request. For a miracle is an attribute of faith, and His faith is infinite, and that of the believers very great. But often, as soon as the healing was complete, He asked the ones He had healed to keep it secret. ‘See thou tell no man; go thy way.’ Those who do not listen to the truth of Christ, because they are troubled by the mir- acles, should remember the profound saying which was ad- dressed to Thomas, ‘Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.’ ” No doubt Papini is right in this statement, and it would seem, in some cases, as though Jesus actually discouraged those who came seeking for the heal- 68 THE HEALING EVANGEL ing touch. It is important to distinguish, however, between two classes who come under this category. The first is discouraged because it seeks only the signs and wonders. The second is discouraged be- cause it lacks the requisite faith, and Jesus would arouse the latent capacity to a fuller measure of ex- pression. It is to this second class that the Syro-Phenician woman evidently belonged. There was in her atti- tude eagerness and desire, and eventually a wonder- ful faith developed from these elementary begin- nings. A casual reading of this story is baffling to our intelligence. It seems unthinkable to us that our Lord should show such apparent apathy towards this woman whose request is unselfish, and whose only desire is that her daughter might be healed. Yet when she comes to our Lord with the simple prayer, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou son of David,” St. Matthew tells us that “He answered her not a word.” She is further discouraged by the opposition of the disciples, the very men whom she might have expected would help her. We read: “His disciples be- sought Him saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us!” The reply of Jesus to this is still more discouraging from the woman’s standpoint. She is a Gentile, a native of Syro-Phenicia, and Jesus says, “T am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” Nothing daunted, the woman comes right back with the simple plea, “Lord help me.” But for some inscrutable reason even this simple prayer is not immediately answered. Jesus replies: “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs.” In modern parlance this is what would be THE VIRTUE OF IMPORTUNITY 69 called adding insult to injury. The term “dogs” was an epithet used by the Jews to express their con- tempt towards their Gentile neighbors, and it is indeed difficult to reconcile these words with what we know of the character of Jesus. It may well be that this dialogue was intended partly for the in- struction of His disciples. However, the woman seizes this final rebuff and converts it into a power- ful argument for the granting of her request. Her words are a triumph of feminine logic. She says, “Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” This argument, together with the magnificent development of faith which it betokened, overcame every other consideration with Jesus, and with great enthusiasm He exclaimed: “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” St. Matthew is eloquently brief in report- ing the result of these words: “And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” Here we have a wonderful object lesson in the overcoming of difficulties, in the importunity of true faith, in its power actually to profit by opposition and to convert an adverse argument into the trium- phant logic of faith. We should remember when we speak about disappointments and discouragements in regard to our prayers, that we rarely exercise the measure of faith which was exhibited by these Chris- tians with whom we are familiar in Bible history. This is no isolated example. We have a similar one in the story of Zacchaeus, who triumphed over his smallness of stature; in Bartimaeus, who had the handicap of blindness; in the woman with the issue of blood, where the combined effects of fear, modesty, timidity, and twelve years’ unsuccessful 70 THE HEALING EVANGEL experience of medical practice had to be overcome before she could receive Christ’s healing touch. In the Old Testament there is the story of Naaman, the leper, whose pride of military rank proved a serious obstacle, and yet was overcome by his desire to be healed. Today our importunity is no less necessary if we would be healed, and perseverance and faith must still go hand in hand if we are to demonstrate the power of Christ to heal our sicknesses—mental, spiritual, and physical. What are some of these modern obstacles? Fear of failure; fear of public opinion; fear of one’s own family; materialism; “science, falsely so-called” ; secret sin; medical prejudice; and the besetting sin of unbelief. All these things may and do constitute obstacles to faith, and it takes importunity of a high order to enable us, like the woman in this story, to triumph over adverse conditions. Let us take courage from the successful ending of the story. Let us remember that what appear to be insuperable obstacles will yield to persistent prayer and prevailing faith, and that sometimes what ap- pear to be hopeless handicaps are blessings in dis- guise by reason of the stimulus which they give to our faith. God will not encourage us to place our faith and trust in Him only to involve us in a bitter disappointment, but we must remember that in many cases our diseases are the result of a long period of ignorance or disobedience, and it is not reasonable to expect that all these accumulated obstacles will vanish in a moment of time. “Be not weary in well- doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” If we would hear our Lord say, “Be it unto THE VIRTUE OF IMPORTUNITY 7| thee even as thou wilt,” then we must qualify for this wondrous promise by that greatness of faith which was the prerequisite in the case of the Syro- Phenician woman. 72 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To show how adverse conditions may be suc- cessfully negotiated and the importance of im- portunity in the quest of healing. Also to recog- nize how Faith sometimes thrives under the stimulus of outward discouragements. QUESTIONS: 1. Is there good reason to believe that Jesus expected others to perform miracles similar to those which He performed? 2. Why did Jesus frequently refrain from working mir- acles? 3. What two classes did Jesus discourage from coming to Him for the healing touch? 4. If we are disappointed in regard to our prayers, what is probably the reason? 5. What quality, in addition to faith, is necessary in order to be healed? 6. What are some of the modern obstacles to faith? 7. Why does considerable time often elapse before the full answer to a healing prayer is manifested? BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Miracles, Archbishop Trench. No. 23. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 11. The Wonders of the Kingdom, page 68, G. R. H. Shafto. CHAPTER X THE PENALTY OF SIN “Behold thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” St. John 5:14. THE FACTS 1. Jesus goes up to Jerusalem to the Feast. 2. Bethesda is described as a pool by the sheep market. 3. The infirm crowd at the pool is graphically depicted. 4. Angelic ministration given as the cause of healing power. 5. Jesus sees a man there who has been impotent for thirty-eight years. 6. Jesus asks him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” 7. The man explains his inability to get into the pool. 8. Jesus commands him to take up his bed and walk. 9. The man obeys and is completely cured. 0. The Jews rebuke the man for carrying his bed on the Sabbath. 11. The man refers them to his Healer. 12. Jesus warns the man to sin no more lest a worse trouble come. 13. The Jews seek to kill Jesus because He did these things on the Sabbath, and because He said God was His Father. HE verse above quoted is one of several which emphasize that close relation between sin and disease which we believe to be fundamental to Christ’s method of healing. This story is related only by St. John, and as he tells us very few stories, we know it must be here for a definite purpose. It is 74 THE HEALING EVANGEL generally understood that he related these stories to demonstrate the Divine nature and power of Jesus. This may well be so, and yet the story has much in- trinsic import which deserves our study. Jesus is going up to Jerusalem as a good Jew to attend the Feast, probably the Feast of Purim, which commemorated the deliverance of the Jews by Queen Esther. The pool has actually been identified by agents of the Palestine Exploration Society, and is about fifty-five feet long. It was first discovered by the Crusaders, who built a chapel over it. Like the famous shrine of Lourdes in France, this pool had a tremendous reputation as a place of re- sort for sick people, who firmly believed the wa- ters possessed healing properties. It was probably what is now known as a chalybeate spring, and the bubbles which appeared on the surface and which were ascribed to the action of an angel were per- fectly natural phenomena. Many scholars question the authenticity of this part of the story, and it is omitted in the Revised Version. However, while from a literary standpoint the omission may be justified, there is no reason to question the Ministry of Angels in this or in any other narrative in Holy Scripture. On the contrary, our Lord Himself seems to have fully recognized the Angelic Ministry, as we may find from a number of references during the days of His flesh, and with reference to such Angelic Minis- try we may well be contented with the words writ- ten in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1:14): “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” The pool was crowded with sick people, but the story tells us of one only. This detail is not without THE PENALTY OF SIN 75 its instructiveness. Some people rather unwarrant- ably assume that Jesus cured all the sick folk that He met; this is highly improbable. He doubtless healed many multitudes of sick ones, yet their heal- ing was scarcely the result of a mere crowd sugges- tion. Faith is infectious, and the healing of a chronic case of disease would doubtless inspire faith of a similar character in the spectators. Yet the condi- tions required for healing were no doubt fulfilled in each case. We can searcely agree with the comment of Arch- bishop Trench on this passage, when he says: “From among this suffering, expectant multitude, Christ singles out one on whom He will display His power ;—one only, for He came not now to be the healer of men’s bodies, save only as He could annex to this healing the truer heal- ing of their souls and spirits.” This represents the older view, and makes the healing miracles merely criteria of Christ’s Divine power, and represents them as being merely outward and visible signs of the spiritual healing which formed His real purpose. Today we still give first place to spiritual heal- ing, and we would never countenance the exploit- ing of religion merely or solely to bring about the alleviation of physical distress; but we do claim that spiritual healing is most positively to be used for the healing of the whole man, and this would naturally include his body. This man in the story had been afflicted for thirty- eight years and presents an abject picture of that “Hope long deferred” which “maketh the heart sick.” Like the woman described elsewhere who had spent all her substance on physicians and had sought 76 THE HEALING EVANGEL twelve years in vain for health, so this man shows a remarkable tenacity of purpose and an indestruc- tible hope, in lingering on here on the chance that somebody will take pity on him or that in some way he may reap the healing properties of the place. The question which Jesus asks the man, “Wilt thou be made whole?’ may have been put for one of two reasons: (a) To stimulate his faith and eagerness, or (b) To test the quality of his faith. Archbishop Trench comments as follows on this verse: “A superfluous question, it might seem; for who would not be made whole if he might?—and his very presence at the place of healing attested his desire. But the question has its purpose. The impotent man had probably waited so long, and so long waited in vain, that hope was dead or well nigh dead within him, and the question is asked to awaken in him anew a yearning after the benefit which the Saviour, pitying his hopeless case, was about to impart. His heart may have been as “withered” as his limbs through his long sufferings and the long neglects of his fellowmen.” The man responded promptly in spite of his pro- tracted vigil. He does not give any verbal evidence of faith, but tries to explain why he had not here- tofore been cured. Without further preliminaries, Jesus gives him the healing command: “Rise, take up thy bed and walk”; What an astounding thing to say to a life- long cripple! When, however, our Lord gave these healing commands, the command carried with it a mysterious power which galvanized the diseased will into new activity. The result was instantaneous: “And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked.” The sequel to this story is quite as interesting as the story itself. Later on, Jesus finds the man in THE PENALTY OF SIN 77 the temple, and says, in the words we have quoted, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” We can well afford to ignore the criticism of the Jews. They were so prej- udiced against the man, and so eager to discredit Him, that they entirely ignored the healing work and looked only at the nominal infraction of the law which had been committed by the act of carry- ing a bed on the Sabbath Day. When these Jews addressed the erstwhile cripple, and admonished him, “It is not lawful for thee to carry thy- bed,” they were deliberately ignoring the real point of the episode, and were characteristically elevating de- tails of ritual above the true purposes of God. They do not ask the man, “Who healed thee?” in order to establish the identity of Jesus, but they say “What man is that which said unto thee, ‘Take up thy bed and walk?” But this is not all. They have a still more serious charge against Jesus. When charged with healing on the Sabbath Day, Jesus answered them, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” and St. John tells us that they sought the more to kill Him, because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but also claimed that God was His Father, so making Himself equal with God. This gives us a very valuable sidelight on the method of our Lord in healing. He frankly tells us that the power comes from His Father, and that He is but the channel or instrument. He assures us: “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise .... And He shall show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.” But that these words may not be 78 THE HEALING EVANGEL misunderstood, He says further, in verse 21: “For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” And in the 26th verse He says: “For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself, and hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man.” The lesson for us to learn from this story is the old lesson of faith, which comes out in all these heal- ing miracles; and the less obvious lesson, often im- plied, but rarely stated, of the subtle identity be- tween sin and disease. The warning which Jesus gave to the man after he was healed is well worthy of attention, especially by those who have thus experienced spiritual heal- ing. The Divine power that heals is able to keep us whole. Absolution is the medicine of the soul, and if absolution cures the disease, it should also strengthen us that we may resist further tempta- tions. How few of us, after receiving some great spiritual blessing or recovering from some dread disease, realize the extent of our blessings. We at- tend the most solemn services, and return to the common round of daily life without a sufficient sense of preparedness. We leave God’s Holy Altar as we would leave some grand sight or pleasant spectacle, and we are prone to forget that if the service is what we claim it is, we carry Christ away with us—in us. The Christ who comes to us in Holy Communion or in Healing will stay with us if we will let Him, and only as we keep His presence constantly before us can we really obey the mandate: “Go, and sin no more.” THE PENALTY OF SIN 79 AIM: To illustrate the transitoriness of physical healing when not the result of moral and spiritual quickening. Also to show how Faith acts as a dynamic, enabling the sick person to do what previously he had been unable to do. QUESTIONS : 1. Is there good reason why we should question the Ministry of Angels? Does the objection urged in this particular miracle apply equally in all angelic ministries? 2. Were the healing miracles simply criteria of Christ’s divine power? . What is the valid claim made for spiritual healing? . To what does our Lord ascribe His power to heal? . What is the command of Christ to those who have been healed? 6. What do we learn here of the identity between sin and disease? Ot He OO BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Miracles, Archbishop Trench, No. 15. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 12. The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, page 112. CHAPTER XI THE HEALING ToUCH OF JESUS “Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me, for I perceive that virtue has gone out of Me.” St. Luke 8: 46. THE FACTS: 1. A woman ill twelve years seeks healing from Jesus. 2. Her case is desperate; she has spent all she had with- out conscious benefit. 3. Overcoming her fears and timidity, she touches the hem of Christ’s garment. 4. Immediately she is cured. 5. Jesus inquires, “Who touched Me?” 6. The distinction between thronging and touching. 7. “Virtue has gone out of Me’—an example of sacra- mental healing. 8. Jesus dismisses her with the blessing, ‘“Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” F there is one thing about the Healing Ministry of Jesus Christ which is more characteristic than anything else, it is His healing touch. This has fas- tened itself upon the imagination of Christian peo- ple, and has become both symbolical and sacramen- tal of the compassionate ministry of the Christ. We might well spend some time analyzing the methods which were used by our Lord, and this is done in an- other chapter. Here let us merely remember that in THE HEALING TOUCH OF JESUS 8| more than half of the recorded miracles of healing, Jesus did touch the patient. In the Old Testament, to touch anything that was ceremonially unclean was to render oneself so. Of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden we read, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die” (Gen. 3:3). “If a soul shall touch any unclean thing, whether it be the carcass of an un- clean beast or the carcass of unclean cattle ...... he shall be unclean and guilty.” Lev. 5: 2. One could easily fill several chapters with quota- tions illustrating the healing touch of Jesus. Here let us cite only a few: “Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, say- ing, I will, be thou clean.” St. Matt. 8:3. (Leper) Peter’s mother-in-law, “He touched her hand and the fever left her.” St. Matt. 8:15. wChe woman’? (0% came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment, for she said, Jf I may but touch the hem of His garment I shall be whole.” St. Matt. 9: 20-21. “Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said Yea, Lord! Then He touched their eyes, saying, Ac- cording to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened.” (Two blind men.) St. Matt. 9: 28. “And when the people were put forth, He went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.” St. Matt. 9: 25. “And when the men of that place had knowledge of Him, they sent out into all the country round about and brought unto Him all that were diseased ; and besought Him that they might only towch the hem of His garment, and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.” 82 THE HEALING EVANGEL (Another two blind men) “What willye..... ? Lord, that our eyes may be opened. Jesus had com- passion on them and touched their eyes; and imme- diately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.” St. Matt. 20: 32-34. “They brought one deaf and dumb and besought Him to put His hand upon him. And He took him aside from the multitude and put His fingers in his ears, and... . touched his tongue ... . and saith unto him, ‘Ephphatha’ that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.” St. Matt. 7: 32-35. “And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them, and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” St. Mark 10:13. Just after the calling of the Twelve, Jesus found Himself surrounded by a great crowd from all parts of Judea, Jerusalem, and the sea coasts, “which came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases .... and they were healed. And the whole multitude sought to towch Him, for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all.” St. Luke 6: 17-19. This emphasis upon the personal touch of Jesus is by no means accidental. It is of the essence of the Incarnation. The woman in this story had been seeking health for twelve long years and had spent all that she had in the elusive pursuit. She had literally exhausted all her available resources, save the one great re- source of immortal faith. rarira! That wonder-work- THE HEALING TOUCH OF JESUS 83 ing faculty can never be exhausted. It springs ever green and fresh in the human heart. It is the eternal witness to that latent divinity which resides deep in the heart and soul of mankind. The faculty of faith may become tarnished and rusty through dis- use and neglect, it may be temporarily paralyzed through the unbelief and cruelty of the world, the snares of the flesh, and the assaults of the devil, but you cannot destroy it. And after twelve years of uniform disappointment, after having her hopes raised to the highest point of expectation and. hope only to have them dashed’ miserably to the ground again and again—still the faith latent in the heart of this woman sprang into spontaneous activity at the approach of Jesus, and the mere sound of His voice. The very proximity of Jesus evoked healing faith, in this as in many other stories. “She touched Him” (through the hem of His garment), and some subtle radiations of His personality, some wonderful emanation of power and virtue that went forth from Him, must have reached her faltering but still eager soul, for she exclaims inwardly, “If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole!” God instantly re- wards every true impulse of the human soul towards Himself, whenever and wherever the human heart vibrates in harmony with the divine will and pur- pose. At that critical moment the recovery of the patient begins, And so Jesus realizes what has taken place and turns quickly, just as the woman has reached forth her hand to touch His garment, and says: “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.” If anybody objects to this statement that it was not the woman’s faith, but the healing power of 84 THE HEALING EVANGEL Christ that effected the cure, let me remind you that on the same assumption all of us should be well and whole, for the will of God is ever for our complete mental and physical and spiritual health; but to give effect to this beneficent purpose, the codpera- tion of the human will is an imperative necessity, in order that the circuit may be established and that the current of power may flow freely from the di- vine dynamo over the wires of faith (or, better, the wireless vibrations of faith) to the waiting needs of humanity. Theophylact traces a mystical meaning in this miracle. The complaint of this woman represents the ever-flowing fountain of sin; the physicians un- der whom she was nothing bettered; the world’s prophets and sages, with all their medicines, their systems and philosophies, prevailed nothing to staunch the fountain of evil in men’s hearts. To touch Christ’s garment is to believe in His Incarna- tion, wherein He, first touching us, enabled us also to touch Him; and on this, that healing, which in all those other things was vainly sought, follows at once. There are many, today, especially those who call themselves members of the metaphysical school, who rather depreciate the value of touch, and it is worth while to remind ourselves that no matter how great is the power of thought and its independence of physical channels of communication, there are many emergencies where the visible or conscious touch becomes of great value to us. Archdeacon Wilberforce has an _ illuminating thought on this subject in his book, The Power that Worketh in Us. He says: THE HEALING TOUCH OF JESUS 85 “The hand, more than any other limb or organ, differen- tiates man, begotten in the image of his Father, from the whole species of animal creations, through which, in all probability, the external body in which we are enshrined was evolved by the Creator. No other animal has a hand. The corresponding organ in the anthropoid ape, which is the most like a hand, is not really a hand; it can fashion nothing, it is fit for nothing but to cling to a branch or con- vey food to the mouth. Only man has a hand, and as with it he stamps his impress upon nature, and founds his Sovereignty of civilization, and performs his deeds of heroism, so, when he would caress, or soothe, or comfort, or encourage, or bless, or stimulate, or welcome his fellow human being, in obedience to some secret instinct, he in- variably, automatically lays his hand upon him. “What is the lesson I propose to draw? It is not meta- physical nor physiological, it is theological. It is not a mat- ter of surprise that the laying on of hands should have been noted, accentuated, and incorporated into the official actions of the Christian Church. For what is the Christian Church? The ideal underlying the Christian Church, so far as I understand it, is the continuation on earth of the blessing of the Incarnation. What Christ was to God, the Church is to be to Christ. ‘As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.’ Jesus Christ was the manifestation, in a visible form, of the accessibility, helpfulness, and near- ness of God. God and man met in Him. He laid the hands of God in healing power upon the whole of humanity, and sanctified its entire life. The arms that opened to the little children, the hands that touched the lepers, the feet that were washed in the harlot’s tears, were God’s. Jesus was the Sacrament of God; the certificated channel through which the love of God was poured forth, the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual Omnipotence. The organization which He founded, and which was called the Church, was to be in like manner the Sacrament of Him- self: its appointed ordinances were to be outward and visible signs, thinly veiling His inward and spiritual Pres- ence ; certificated channels of His grace and love and power.” It is easy to see from the foregoing that the touch of Jesus was in the very highest and purest sense 86 THE HEALING EVANGEL sacramental, and those who question the value or importance of the Sacramental Ministry should pause and consider how important was the place of the sacramental touch in the work of our Lord Him- self. THE HEALING TOUCH OF JESUS 87 AIM: To study the sacramental importance of Touch in Healing; also to form some estimate of the present-day significance of Christ’s words, “Virtue hath gone out of Me.” QUESTIONS: fs} 2. What seems to be the characteristic method of heal- ing used by our Lord? Give a number of examples of the healing touch of Jesus taken from the four Gospels. . Does it make any difference whether Jesus touches the sick person or whether they reach out and touch Him? . How did Jesus know that the woman had touched Him? . How is our faith in God illustrated by the metaphor of an electric current? . What is the deeper or mystical meaning of this mir- acle? . What part of the human body differentiates us from the lower animals? Why? . What is the relation of the Church to Christ? . How is the importance of the Sacramental Ministry illustrated in this story? BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Miracles, Archbishop Trench, No. 7. The Healing Hand, S. A. Weltmer, chapters 1 and 28. The Power That Worketh In Us, Basil Wilberforce, page 54. The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, page 117. The Hope That Is In Me, Basil Wilberforce, page 25. CHAPTER XII THE IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL CONTACTS “And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him.” St. Matt. §: 3. UR religion depends almost entirely upon the maintaining of certain vital contacts between God and man, without which we could scarcely con- tinue our existence. Prayer is simply the establishing of a contact— a spiritual contact with God. Holy Communion is the establishing of a contact with God through the wonderful power of the Incarnation. We call this a sacramental contact. Now contact means primarily touch, and we will not properly appreciate the im- portance of all this until we appreciate the word itself. We are of course using the word “touch” here as a sense faculty of man. We have five senses—Touch, Vision, Hearing, Smelling, and Tasting. It is now pretty well established that the last four are in reality only variations of the first—the sense of touch. Almost everything that enters our conscious- ness from without finds admittance through one of these five avenues of sense—the five doorways to the mind. This is an elementary platitude of psychology. THE IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL CONTACTS — 89 We get all these sensations or impressions by our “contacts” with our environment, no matter what particular avenue of sense may be utilized. The mere use of the word “contact” here shows that they are all, fundamentally, means whereby we come into touch with the world around us and draw from it that which we need or desire. Now one of the big fallacies of our religious lives is that we imagine (sometimes unintentionally no doubt) that our chief religious contact is secured by coming to church on Sunday, and participating in the exercises of public worship. This is, undeniably, one important spiritual contact; but I would hesi- tate to say it is the most important. Observe the life of Jesus on earth, and you will see that His Incarnation consists of one long se- quence of social contacts. The entire story of the four Gospels is the story of a sequence of contacts with the life of humanity from every conceivable angle. The only occasions on which Jesus appeared deliberately to avoid these social contacts was when He felt the call to a more important and urgent contact; when He went into the desert or upon the mountain to commune in secret with His heavenly Father. Do you realize to what an enormous extent the success—the marvellous, incomparable success—of the life of Jesus was due to His tact and contacts? We speak of a tactful person when we mean a per- son who has mastered the complicated art of adroit or diplomatic dealing with men. The art of tact is the art of establishing precisely the sort of “touch” we would wish with our neighbors. It consists in establishing such a touch as will create between us 90 THE HEALING EVANGEL that sort of “rapport” which most favors the giving or receiving of those impressions which we crave. We get the same root word (Latin) tactus, in the word contagion, by which we mean a disease con- tracted through touching one who is infected with the disease. So you see the sense of touch is respon- sible for the greatest good and the direst evils which enter into our life and experience. There are hundreds of references in the Old Tes- tament to this potency of the touch, whether for good or evil. Even in the Old Testament, the touch of the righteous man, accompanied by faith and prayer, was the touch of healing and power and life. Elisha went up into the room where the widow’s son lay dead, and shut the door, and prayed unto the Lord. Then, we read: “He went up and lay upon the child and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands; and he stretched himself upon the child, and the fiesh of the child waxed warm...... and the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes... .” (II Kings 4: 33-35). This account is de- tailed and includes methods which we would hardly employ today literally, and yet it emphasizes the tremendous value and importance of actual, literal touch when any great healing work was to be ac- complished. And how shall I even begin to expound the mar- vellous efficacy of the touch of Jesus Himself? It made little difference whether it was merely the touch of His hand or the proximity of His divine personality; His presence seemed to radiate a won- drous power which stimulated the faith of all who THE IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL CONTACTS 91 sought Him and inspired new courage in those whose faith was weak. Merely to touch Jesus through the avenue of conversation seemed to evoke remarkable results. A disciple asks Jesus a mundane question and Jesus answers with a profound spiritual prin- ciple. Nicodemus enquires, “How can a man be born when he is old?” and Jesus replies by enunciating the great truth of regeneration; “Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” The disciples ask Him about the loaves and fishes, and Jesus tells them about the Bread of Life, and ends up by declaring, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life” (St. John 6: 53-54). Thomas says, “How can we know the way?” Jesus retaliates with the eternal truth contained in the words, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Philip says, “Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” Jesus satisfies him with the declaration, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” The woman at the well at Sychar, stirred to curi- osity which in turn quickly changes to a vital in- terest, asks Jesus for the water which will assuage her thirst. Jesus replies by rising at a bound from the earthly analogy to the spiritual reality, and de- clares: “He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (St. John 4: 13- 14). Nearly all the great works of Jesus were accom- 92 THE HEALING EVANGEL plished through His magic finger touch—the actual touch of His finger laid upon the suffering or di- seased person. A whole volume might be written, acceptably, upon the vital contacts of Jesus. And every time He touched anybody, it was to invoke a new flow of life, to rebuke disease and promote a renewed vitality. Of the leper who came to Him, we read, “And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean” (St. Matt. 8:3). When Simon Peter invoked Christ’s power of heal- ing for his mother-in-law, Jesus responded immedi- ately, and we read, “Jesus touched her hand and the fever left her’ (St. Matt. 8:15). His method was very much the same even in the case of Jairus’ daughter who was already reported dead when Jesus came into the room. St. Matthew tells us: “And when the people were put forth, He went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose” (St. Matt. 9:25). Sometimes there was no disease at all; just a sense of desire for the mere touch of benediction which it was felt Jesus could bestow. Thus it was when the children were brought to Jesus. And still it was through His touch that the desired blessing was given. “And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them, and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me and for- bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven .... At what point in human experience does the element of romance enter in? . What causes contribute to romance? . Is our love of Truth or Beauty enough in itself to make it a romance? . What is a test of discipleship? . Is our Lord’s command to heal the sick really an argument for medical missions? . What is Christian healing? . Why is it difficult for us to believe in the efficacy of prayer for the healing of the sick? . Is there a definite sacrament of spiritual healing taught by our Lord as distinct from other healing? . Where do you find the Romance of the Gospel today? BIBLIOGRAPHY The Romance of Eternal Life, Charles Gardner. Life in Fellowship, The Bishop of Kensington (J. P. Maud.) Adventure for God, Bishop Brent. The Power To Heal, H. B. Wilson, chapter 4. The Mount of Vision, Bishop Brent. The Inspiration of Responsibility, Bishop Brent. The Divine Friendship, Jesse Brett. CHAPTER XIX Our DEEPER SELVES “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, what- soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, what- soever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.” II Philip- pians 4:8. OU will agree that in these words the Apostle Paul is giving us some good advice, but per- haps you have not realized that here in this letter to the Philippian Church he is emphasizing one of the lessons of modern psychology. He is impressing upon them the importance of right thinking—the constructive power of thought. The principle was just as true, just as clear, just as practical then as it is now. Modern psychology does not profess to have discovered the constructive power of thought; it merely attempts to explain it, and by explaning it, to assist us in increasing the efficiency of our own faculties. The day has gone by (for thinking people) when science is conceived of as the foe of religion. For the last thirty or forty years, science has made such valuable contributions to religious thought and re- ligious life, and shown itself to be, beyond question, 144 THE HEALING EVANGEL the friend, rather than the enemy of religion, that none but the narrow-minded will hesitate to welcome science as the ally of true religious life. As each new department of science has opened up its field, there has followed a reaction in philos- ophy and religion. Men have had to modify their ways of thinking; not necessarily to deny what they had previously believed, but rather to adjust their old faith to the new facts which have from time to time come to light. What geography and astronomy and chemistry and biology have done at other times, psychology is doing today; causing men and women to think more deeply about themselves and the uni- verse in which they are placed. If any apology were needed for this alliance be- tween religion and science, I think we might perhaps find it in the very presence of our mental faculties in the human organism. The God who has given us the capacity for knowlege and the desire to acquire it, is also the God who will satisfy our desires if we are humble and reverent students. Until Coperni- cus, men had conceived of a circle of lands cluster- ing around the Mediterranean Sea, with the vault of heaven above, containing God just a little way out of sight, and a pit below (a bottomless pit) from which the Devil might easily emerge, with sun as well as moon, a satellite for purposes of human con- venience. Thus this little “circle of lands” gradu- ally acquired a larger circumference, the “round world” was a flat circle fairly easily imagined, not a sphere whirling through space around the sun. Then came the Copernican discoveries, and the earth seemed lost in the infinity of space. Men had to change their conceptions of the earth so as to think OUR DEEPER SELVES 145 in terms of the universe, and the rulers of the Church strenuously opposed new discoveries as being con- tradicted by the letter of Scripture. How could men, without defying God’s revelation, say that the earth moved around the sun, when the Bible says that “He hath made the round world so fast that it can- not be moved”? And so it seemed inevitable that the early applications of science to modify human knowledge should result in an enmity between science and religion; an enmity which, unfortu- nately, continued for centuries and has only within comparatively recent years been changed into an attitude of toleration and (finally) friendliness. The same process took place when biology came along with its theories of evolution; until Prof. Henry Drummond, who was a scientist and a preacher too, showed his hearers that science, after all, was only mankind thinking God’s thoughts af- ter Him. And that is the true policy for us to fol- low. Properly conceived, the truths of science will stimulate and increase our faith in God and our reverence for His mighty works. What astronomy did in the sixteenth century, and what biology did towards the end of the nine- teenth century, psychology is doing at the beginning of the twentieth century, and with far less friction than was experienced in the former cases just cited. Psychology is taking up familiar phenomena and processes: of the mind and soul and is explaining to us their nature and methods; it is even taking up such sacred subjects as Conversion, Prayer, and other types of religious experience, and showing us that these things have their mental and human side as well as their divine and spiritual side. And thus 146 THE HEALING EVANGEL the science of psychology is appealing for a more rational and intelligent study of religious pheno- mena and a revision of some of our antiquated meth- ods of teaching and worshipping. But there are far more urgent reasons than these why you or I, as good Christian people, should read psychology and listen to its teachings. It is answer- ing many questions which spiritual men and women have been asking for years; it is solving problems which have been unsolved for centuries. Psychology is to religion what diagnosis is to the practice of medicine. It enables us to trace our spiritual troubles to their source; to know just exactly what those troubles are; and when we know this, we are well on the way to finding a cure. Prof. James thinks that the most important ad- vance made by his science in recent years is the discovery and development of what we call the “subconscious mind.” This expression has been very much abused, and yet it is a simple conception and quite easy to understand. As a preacher stands before his congregation, he sees them as a group; he sees all and yet no one in particular ; but suppose a child comes in at the door, and walks up to the front pew, and sits down, his at- tention will almost inevitably be drawn towards that child, and it will become the center of his field of vision (for the time being). While he is looking at the child, the other faces become blurred and dim and pass (as a psychologist would say) to the mar- gin of the field of consciousness. But the preacher leaves the church and goes home to dinner, and reads or walks, and for the time being he forgets all about this service and occupies his OUR DEEPER SELVES 147 mind with other matters. These new matters fill his consciousness, and everything else sinks into a sort of oblivion. It becomes what we generally call “a memory.” We say that it has been “out of mind,” but has it? That is the question of the subconscious. We are told by the best scholars that nothing—pos- itively nothing—that enters the mind is totally lost; it may be forgotten for the time, but favorable cir- cumstances will recall that forgotten incident, those forgotten words, that face formerly so familiar but not seen now for many years. This storehouse of memory, therefore, is a part of what psychology calls the Susconscious MIND, and one of the wonder- ful things about the subconscious mind is that the active or conscious mind can learn to use the ma- terials stored up in this mental treasure-house at will. Before we leave this point let me remind you of a well-known saying of an oriental poet which is based entirely upon this influence of the subcon- scious: “Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character ; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.” That is the sequence exactly. Our actions are fre- quently dictated by the subconscious mind, and then, repeated several times, they become habits; and our characters are just the synthetic result of our acts and habits. But you will observe, further, that in this little quotation, all the results mentioned spring origin- ally from THoucut. This is indeed true. If we can learn to control our thoughts, it is logically certain 148 THE HEALING EVANGEL that we shall also control our acts and habits and destinies. Perhaps this is one reason why St. Paul was so anxious that the Philippian Christians should think rightly: “Whatsoever things are true, what- soever things are honest—just—pure—lovely—of good report—think on these things.” “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Literally so is he, because in the ultimate analysis, a man is the sum total of his thinking. The just man is the man who thinks justly; the pure man is the man who thinks purely, and so. on. Our thoughts carve out for themselves little chan- nels in the brain, and the more a certain type of thought occupies our minds, the deeper will become that channel, the more permanent the tendency or habit. The subconscious realm is sometimes referred to as the “unconscious,” but its quality and char- acter are the result of what we think and do in our conscious acts and thoughts. In conclusion let me suggest one or two logical inferences from what we have already learned. Our sub-conscious minds are being fed and enlarged all the time by the thoughts we think and by the impres- sions we receive through our senses. The five senses —Touching, Smelling, Hearing, Seeing, and Tast- ing,—are avenues along which impressions come to our minds, to the subconscious as well as to the con- scious. Now these avenues need to be guarded vigi- lantly ; we need to pray, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips, that I of- fend not with my tongue”; but we need to offer similar prayers for the other channels of sense and perception also. The things we see, the things we OUR) DEEPER. SELVES 149 hear, are constantly influencing us; are making con- tributions to our minds and characters; and we have the divine power of witu by which we can con- trol these channels of approach to the mind and soul. Your mind and memory, and especially what we have been learning to call “the unconscious,” are the sum total of all the thoughts and impressions ever re- ceived. These thoughts and impressions which we imagined we had lost are liable—by means of suwg- gestion—to reappear at any time and to work good or evil (as the case may be) upon the life of the in- dividual. When you make an unkind suggestion to somebody, or an unworthy insinuation, or utter some suspicion, do you know just what you are do- ing? You are making an “appeal” to the mind of the person to whom you speak. What kind of an appeal is it? Your words exert a creative influence even as they are spoken. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” What kind of influ- ence are you exerting? Suppose the man to whom you speak is mistaken in his course; suppose even that his actions and words are evil: how are you going to change him? Are you going to tell him what a bad man he is? Are you going to remind him se- verely of the terrible results of his wrong-doing? That would be unpsychological; more than that, it would be unChristlike. It is the attention to good that inhibits evil, attention to God that inhibits sin. Yet with fatal perversity men tend to turn the attention of the sinner on the evil of his life; they speak of it, refer to it, cast it up as a reproach, thus bringing it back to memory again. They call it a weed which must be plucked up or a upas tree which must be cut down. But evil is neither a weed nor a 150 THE HEALING EVANGEL tree, but a thought, a disposition in possession of the field of consciousness, on which the attention is fixed. The method of our Lord seems to have been to fix the attention on the good, to turn the mind on God, to give hope, to assure men that all things were possible for them in the spiritual world. His un- wearying appeal to this latent good in man developed that good. It was there by the original gift of God, to be believed in, spoken to, relied on; when weak to be encouraged, when invisible to be imputed. This does not do away with the need for contrition and repentance. Frequently the presentation of God’s goodness or the love of Christ will move men to repentance and new life when nothing else has ap- pealed, and we exclaim, “The goodness of God leadeth us to repentance.” Jesus appealed to all that was manly in St. Peter when He called that impul- sive disciple a “rock.” He who could have put his finger on the defects of Nathanael called him “an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.” To the woman of Samaria, hardened by a life of self-pleasing, He spoke with such delicacy and tenderness that the true woman soul awoke within her until, forgetting her water-pot, she ran to tell others of a Saviour. The suggestion to a sinful man that there lies at his hand the power to do right, brings the morally impossible within his reach. I would like to press this point further, but space forbids; but you will see my contention. Concen- trate the mind (your mind or somebody else’s) on the thing that is good. Appeal to that, recall from the subconscious all the gradual deposits of a life- time, all the good words and good impressions and spiritual intuitions, and these things will become OUR DEEPER SELVES 151 effective for good and righteousness and God. We can treat ourselves in this way. Prayer is a sugges- tion to our minds of the ever present power of God always accessible to us; the Bible, with its beautiful and inspiring passages, is a suggestion to our minds of God’s bountiful provision for us. Anything which will cause us to concentrate our thoughts on the things that are good, is a “mental suggestion,” an intellectual stimulus, that will help us on our way. I have only touched the fringe of my subject, but at least one may find some food for thought in the subject we have been studying. I close as I began with that fine, tonic, mental suggestion of St. Paul to which we all need to listen: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, THINK on these things.” May God help us to do so. 152 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To show how St. Paul, in Phil. 4:8, em- phasizes one of the lessons of modern psychology —the importance of right thinking—and to con- sider the relation of psychology to religion. QUESTIONS : 1. What principle in modern psychology is emphasized by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippian Church? (Ch. 4:8.) What is your opinion of the relation of science to the religious life? . Is psychology of any use to religion? . What is the most important discovery of psychology? Why should we learn to control our thoughts? . What is the stuff of which our subconscious mind is is made? 7. How do our thoughts and impressions reappear? 8. What would be the right way in which to resist evil or sin? 9. How is this illustrated by our Lord? 10. How is the law of Suggestion utilized in Prayer and Bible study? bo O Ol md OO BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 5. The Force of Mind, A. T. Schofield, M.D. The Law of Psychic Phenomena, T. J. Hudson. The Law of Mental Medicine, T. J. Hudson. Our Psychic Powers, H. B. Wilson. Spiritual Consciousness, Basil Wilberforce. Steps in Spiritual Growth, Basil Wilberforce. Christianity and Auto-Suggestion, C. H. Brooks and BE. Charles. The Glory of Redemption, H. W. Workman, chapter 10. Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, G. B. Cutten. The Psychology of Power, Captain Hadfield. Spiritual Radio, Archbishop Du Vernet. CHAPTER XX SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? “Hapect ye see signs (Semeia) and wonders (Terata) ye will not believe.” St. John 4:48. (See also St. Matt. 11: 20- 24.) HE question before us is a common one. It is one which each will answer for himself and in his own way. My sole purpose in presenting it to you is to stimulate your minds to make a fit reply to the question. The New Testament word for miracle is dunameis, when used for healing and other epiphanies, a work of power, and this is the most illuminating thought by which to explain or understand the miracles of Jesus Himself. Nevertheless we must be somewhat guided in our study by the popular definition of words, and it is an undoubted fact that most people mean something supernatural or unexplainable when they employ the word “miracle.” The study of miracles as such has been compli- cated during the last thirty years by the advance of scientific research in every direction, and many peo- ple foolishly imagine that a miracle is something contrary to science; a most misleading and unwar- rantable position to assume. 154 THE HEALING EVANGEL Two other words used in the New Testament are teras—a wonder—and semeion—a sign—both of which are sometimes used of. the so-called super- natural, but neither of which need necessarily be limited to this use. To the earnest seeker after truth who is unbiassed on this question, the advance of science, so far from disproving or neutralizing our acceptance of the miracles (whether in the Bible or out of it) has only resulted in our accepting as normal and scientific many things which were formerly believed to be impossible or even untrue. As a matter of fact, science itself is hecontee more and more reverent, and is voluntarily receding from its former presumptuous position in the mat- ter of unexplained phenomena. Science has itself ceased to declare a thing to be impossible or unrea- sonable merely because it is not yet explained by some sort of inductive reasoning. And the leading scientists in the world today would be the first to assure you that there are many laws of nature at work in the world which are as yet unclassified by science. The more nature has been investigated, the more has her uniformity been brought to light. Resem- blances have been discovered even where they were least expected, as for example in the similarity of structure belonging to animals of different species which at first sight appeared to be altogether di- verse. We know today beyond a doubt that the force which causes a leaf to fall to the ground is con- cerned in the revolutions of the most distant star, and that the law which gives roundness to a tear- SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? 155 drop is the same law that moulds the planet in the same shape; we know that the light of today has exactly the same properties as the light of the pre- historic world. So certain are we of the universality of law, that we know apparent exceptions cannot be real. In fact, a seeming violation of law has not infrequently led to a fresh confirmation of its abso- lute inviolability. For example, the fact that the planet Uranus, for- merly believed to be the outermost planet in the solar system, did not move in exact accordance with astronomical calculations, suggested that there must exist somewhere a disturbing cause. The amount of divergence from the caculated path pointed to the exact spot where the disturbing cause must be looked for; and there, sure enough, Adams and Leverrier, almost simultaneously, discovered a new planet— the planet which is now called Neptune—the most remote planet in the solar system of which we have exact knowledge. Epidemics of cholera and plague, which our an- cestors attributed to the anger of heaven, we believe to be due to a violation of the laws of health; we no longer connect them with a sudden interference of Providence, but we set about tracing them to impure water, or to some other equally simple and natural cause. Examples might be multiplied with- out limit, but from all of them we learn that the universe is essentially and preéminently a universe of law and order. Now for this very reason some people object to what is called Supernatural Religion. To these crit- ics, Christianity appears a sort of chaos, where chance and disorder and irrationality reign supreme. 156 THE HEALING EVANGEL This notion of our religion is incorrect. On the con- trary, the religion of Christ is also a Kingdom of law and order, of harmony and symmetry. Of the many definitions given by great and good men in regard to miracles I will mention only one or two. Coleridge says that a miracle is an effect “pre- sented to the senses without any adequate antece- dent.” Isaac Taylor declares a miracle to be a “frag- mentary instance of the eternal order of an upper world.” Bishop Fitzgerald calls it an event “contrary to general experience so far as its mere physical cir- cumstance, visible to us, is concerned.” Dean Mansel states that a “miracle need not be necessarily a violation of the laws of Nature; God may make use of natural instruments acting after their kind.” Or, to quote Professor Jellett, a miracle is “the exertion of a force not included among the ordinary forces of nature, and therefore in a certain sense different from a course of nature, and includ- ing an element not contained therein; or with St. Augustine, “What God performs out of the usual course of nature as it is known to us”; or with Amiel, “A miracle is a perception of the soul, the vision of the Divine behind Nature”; or with Max Muller, “It is the recognition of the Divine reflected in the light of common day.” Some of these are old and outworn, but they show how many minds have honestly sought to reconcile the discrepancies or apparent inconsistencies be- tween the religious and scientific interpretation of natural phenomena. But the most serious attack made upon orthodox religion by the so-called scientific school of thinkers SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? 157 is that the Christian Religion depends for its most important and fundamental doctrines upon super- natural revelations. For example the doctrines of Prayer, the Atonement, and the hope of Immortal- ity ; how can these be stated and vindicated without resort to supernatural claims? The task is not so difficult as it would at first appear. 1. Prayer does not of necessity involve a belief in the violation of natural laws. The same experience that has taught us that these laws are unchange- able, has also taught us that they may be counter- acted. We dissipate cold by lighting a fire; we pre- vent our buildings from being destroyed by fire by using fireproof materials and by taking rational precautions; we avoid a sunstroke by retiring into the shade; and so forth. We find that the tendency of natural forces can be naturally counteracted by the judicious intro- duction of other forces. Then is it unreasonable or superstitious to believe that God may deliver us in the emergencies of trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity, without any violent rupture of law, but merely by a divinely skilful adjustment of natural forces? Remember, too, that the end and object of Prayer is not to bring God’s will into conformity with ours, but rather to bring our wills into conformity with His! “When thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou shalt seek Him with thy whole heart.” It is impossible to speculate what wonderful pos- sibilities might be realized in the case of a man (or woman) whose life and mind and faculties should be placed unreservedly at the disposal of God. 158 THE HEALING EVANGEL The Apostle does not say, “Let your requests be made known unto God, and your requests will be granted,” but “Let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God shall keep hearts and minds.” Hence the only answer to prayer here guaranteed is the answer of peace. And if there be in the universe a Mind and Heart superior to our own, the very effort that we make in prayer to realize His existence, and to submit our- selves to His will, must, naturally and inevitably, lead to peace. Now, I ask, is there anything chaotic, lawless, dis- orderly, or irrational, in such a doctrine of prayer? If. Look next at the Atonement, and then at the Resurrection. Your critic says that the sufferings of Christ on the Cross are inconsistent with the ideal conception of a loving God, and that the orthodox idea of God is that of a capricious and revengeful Deity. Also that, granted that Jesus did suffer and die on the Cross, it is inconceivable that He could have risen again from the dead. So far from the sufferings of Christ having been ar- bitrarily inflicted by a capricious and revengeful God, they are the most striking exemplifications of a universal law. When we consider the Mystery of Suffering, we see that no character can be perfected except through the instrumentality of sorrow. The painful battling with difficulties develops strength, self-reliance, and self-respect. Moreover pity, mercy, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, can only exist in beings who have been called upon to suffer. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read that this anguish of the Man of Sorrows is an exemplification of the universal law. “It be- SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? 159 came Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suf- ferings.” In other words, God Himself could only bring about the salvation of men by making Christ, their Leader and Example, perfect through that very discipline of sorrow which is necessary for the formation of a nobler character. Christ is no excep- tion to the reign of law. He is the most remarkable Example of its absolute universality.* III. Even in the doctrine of Immortality we may find an instance of the naturalness of that which is profoundly miraculous. The Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is regarded by many as the supreme miracle of all history, and doubtless it is. Yet when our eyes are opened to the real facts, we shall dis- cover that the “supernatural” would have been for Christ not to have risen. As Aristotle and Plato long ago explained, it is not our eyes that see, nor is it our ears that hear; it is WE that see and hear by means of these organs. They are but the instruments of the mind. If you take away a man’s telescope you deprive him of the kind of vision which a telescope affords. Simi- larly the destruction of the eye by death is the de- struction of common sight. But there is no more reason to suppose, in the one case than in the other, that the mind which sees is thereby destroyed. All modern scientific research as well as much research that cannot yet be designated as scientific, goes to *T realize of course, with the utmost reverence, that this ex- planation does not comprehend the problem of Sin, Atonement, and Vicarious Sacrifice. This is too big a subject to be attempted within the limits of this chapter, nor is it vitally connected with our topic which is ‘‘Miracles.”’ 160 THE HEALING EVANGEL indicate that the mind of man is something quite distinct from his body, even though for a time it dwells in the body as in a house. And so there is nothing to prevent our supposing that the mind could perceive without material or- gans, or at any rate by means of organs altogether distinct from those with which it is at present pro- vided. So we may infer that there is nothing—either in Science or in Religion—that would lead us to believe that the destruction of the soul is involved in the dissolution of the body, or in the cessation of its present experiences. AS a matter of fact we have good reason to believe that the very life of the body is derived from the life of the spirit. St. James tells us that “the body without the spirit is dead” (St. James 2: 26), and Balfour Stewart assures us in his work on The Conservation of Energy that there is no scientific ground for believing that the law of the Dissipation of Energy, which threatens in time to bring the whole material universe to a deadlock, can in any way effect the essential vitality of the soul. Most materialistic philosophy and most anti- Christian science proceeds from the fundamental error of believing only in material evidence—that which is tangible and visible—whereas even science is showing us that the invisible forces of the uni- verse are the real controlling factors. It is the presence of these invisible factors acting upon our ordinary affairs that we carelessly refer to as miracles. What we call the normal and the supernormal are really inseparable. If we look deeply into nature we shall find there is something there that is to be studied neither by telescope nor micro- SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? 161 scope, but which may nevertheless be recognized as real. When our eyes are opened, the mountains, which once appeared bare, will be seen to be full of horses and chariots of fire. In other words the nat- ural is essentially supernatural—using that word as it is generally employed. Again, if we carefully examine the fundamental doctrines of religion, we do not find, as the exact thinkers say we must find, disorder, lawlessness, and chaos. We discover, on the contrary, that these doc- trines, if properly understood, are in perfect har- mony with our common, everyday experience. With the course of nature, in the widest sense of the term, God never interferes. In other words, the super- natural is essentially natural. The God of creation is the God of redemption; and with “the Father of lights there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”* “God’s in matter everywhere: Flower, bird, beast, and man and woman, Earth and water, fire and air, All divine is all that’s human. Only matter’s dense opaqueness Checks God’s light from shining through it; And our senses (such their weakness) Cannot help our souls to view it, Till Love lends the world translucence : Then we see God clear in all things. Love’s the new sense, Love’s the true sense, Which teaches us how we should call things.” “Once men believed in Christ because they believed in miracles. Now, they believe the miracles because they be- lieve in Christ. They find miracles the natural expression *T am indebted for this treatment of a difficult subject to the volume of sermons by the Rev. A. W. Momerie, D.Sc., entitled The Origin of Hvil, especially the sermons on science and religion. 162 THE HEALING EVANGEL of an extraordinary Person, Harmonizing action in the physical world with that in the moral realm. Miracles are no longer thought of as contradictions or interruptions of natural processes from without, but rather as the working out in nature of higher and permanent laws of reasons and the moral order.” A. W. Hitchcock, Ph.D., in The Psychology of Jesus, p. 195. SHOULD WE BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? 163 AIM: To restore to the word “Miracle” its true meaning and to rescue it from superstitious uses. Also to realize that a miracle need not in- volve any violation of natural law. QUESTIONS: 1. What Greek words are used to convey the idea of miracle? 2. What do most people mean by a “miracle’’? 3. Which definition of a miracle do you most nearly ac- cept, and why? 4, What change has taken place in the attitude of Sci- ence towards Religion? 5. What is the end and object of Prayer? 6. How do the sufferings of Christ help us towards an understanding of the Atonement? 7. What is the relation between suffering and character? Should we therefore welcome the suffering which comes through disease? 9. What is the scientific view of the relation between mind and body? 10. Should the word “supernatural” be employed, and if so, in what way? 11. What advantage do we gain when we have developed an adequate view of the miraculous? BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Miracles of Our Lord, Archbishop Trench (preliminary es- say.) Miracles and the New Psychology, EB. R. Micklem. The Miraculous Hlement in the Gospels, A. B. Bruce, chapter 5. The Gospel Miracles, J. R. Illingworth. Bampton Lectures (On the Miracles), Mozley. Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 12. The Ministry of Healing, A. J. Gordon. Spiritual Healing, Harold Anson, chapter 13. Many Infallible Proofs, A. T. Pierson. Three Thousand Years of Mental Hygiene, G. B. Cutten. Lourdes, Johannes Jorgensen. The Wonder of Lourdes, John Oxenham. The Finger of God, T. H. Wright, chapters 1, 2 and 3 and Ap- pendix.) The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, pages 11 and 45. Are There Modern Miracles? Mabel Potter Daggett. The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin. CHAPTER XXI THe MEeETHop oF Jesus IN HEALING. A Stupy IN TECHNIQUE. N considering our Lord’s miracles of healing, three important questions present themselves: 1. What Jesus said about His miracles, including His healing works. 2. The way in which Jesus appeared to heal di- sease. 3. Whether we can form a satisfactory theory as to how He healed the sick. I. The only explanation which Jesus gave of His wonderful works was to refer them directly and dis- tinctly to the power of God. There are several quo- tations which go to prove this: “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” St. John 5:19. “T can of Mine own self do nothing.” St. John 5:30. “T do nothing of Myself.” St. John 8: 28. “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” St. John 14:10. There is no reason here to assume any theory of indwelling or inspiration other than those common to devout Christian experience. During His Incarnation Jesus had access to no THE METHOD OF JESUS IN HEALING 165 powers that are not available to His followers to- day as well as in the time of Jesus. We may attempt the difficult in exactly the same spirit and without any presumption if we say, “The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” Conclusions from Christ’s own words: a. Human nature unaided is not competent to originate a force commensurate to the working of a miracle. b. The force which works a miracle orignates in and proceeds from God. If. Christ’s method as shown in His various mi- racles of healing. ... Jesus performed twenty-six miracles of healing (including raising the dead). 1. Those in which the narrative gives no hint of the method employed; that is, of what He said and did. a. The healing of the dumb demoniac at Caper- naum. b. The healing of the dropsical man at Jerusa- lem. c. The healing of the blind and dumb demoniac in Galilee. 2. Those in which the person healed was not in the immediate presence of Jesus: a. Healing of the nobleman’s son at Cana. b. Healing of the Syro-Phenician woman’s daughter at Tyre. c. Healing of the Centurion’s servant at Caper- naum. 3. Those in which the narrative represents Jesus as saying nothing to the patient, but heal- ing merely by a gesture: 166 THE HEALING EVANGEL a. Healing of Peter’s mother-in-law at Beth- saida. b. The restoration of Malchus’ ear in Gethsem- ane. 4, Those in which Jesus simply assured the pa- tient that disease had departed; with no nar- rative of accompanying acts or gestures (one only): a. Healing of the woman with an issue of blood at Gennesaret. 5. Those in which, at the moment of action, Jesus did not refer to the illness or condition of the patient, but merely directed the patient to do something which implied restored health or life. (N. B. In three of these cases Jesus conversed with the patient previous to the actual performance of the miracle; and in two others He used gestures, which how- ever, seemed to have no direct bearing on the working of the miracle.) a. Healing of ten lepers at Samaria. b. Healing of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. ec. Healing of the man sick of palsy at Caper- naum. d. Healing of the man with a withered hand at Capernaum, Raising of Jairus’ daughter at Capernaum. Raising of the widow’s son at Nain. . Raising of Lazarus at Bethany. 6. Those in which Jesus combined words (not commands) with gestures or acts, these lat- ter, in certain cases, being somewhat elabor- ate: a9 th © THE METHOD OF JESUS IN HEALING 167 . Healing of two blind men at Capernaum. . Healing of a blind man at Bethsaida. ce. Healing of the woman with an infirmity at Jerusalem. d. Healing of the man born blind at Jerusalem. . Healing of the leper at Gennesaret. f. Healing of blind Bartimeus at Jericho. (The narratives of this miracle vary in the first three Gospels. St. Matthew speaks of two men and says that Jesus touched their eyes. SS. Mark and Luke note only one man, and say nothing of the gesture.) 7. Those in which Jesus uttered a direct com- mand; this, however, being invariably ad- dressed, not to the patient, but to the disease, or evil spirit. a. Healing of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum. b. Healing of the demoniac at Gadara. c. Healing of the demoniac child at Mount Ta- bor. 8. Those in which Jesus combined a direct com- mand, with gestures or acts. There is but one of this class: a. Healing of the deaf and dumb man at Decap- olis. ao #2 @>) General Observations. 1. In the diseases generally classed as “nervous” Jesus employed Method 5. 2. In every case of blindness Jesus employed Method 6. ©. In every case demoniacal possession Jesus em- ployed Method 7. 168 THE HEALING EVANGEL 4, In proportion to the obstinacy or deep seated character of a disease, the method which Jesus employed became more direct and forcible (the one striking exception to this being the raising of the dead, which is to be referred to later). These observations convince us that Jesus did not work in a haphazard fashion, deciding His method on the spur of the moment, but that, on the con- trary, He worked along the line of a method which was very well defined in His own mind, and to which He appeared to attach some significance. We may even assume that He applied some sort of a law to the healing of disease and that He exerted His power along the line indicated by the law. Eliminating all the various methods and ap- proaches which Jesus used in healing in some par- ticular case or instance, we find this common to all (according to D. B. Fitzgerald in The Law of Chris- tian Healing). He strove, somehow, to convey to the sick person the idea of health, the suggestion of recovery. This is of the essence of healing faith. III. Can we form a satisfactory theory of Christ’s Method? Here are some suggested clues: (1) To explain (even in some measure) the healing miracles, we must suppose that the verbal suggestion of a return to health was not the only thing used. (2) This something else, and not the verbal suggestion, was the real curative force. (3) The importance of the verbal suggestion lay in the fact that it codperated with THE METHOD OF JESUS IN HEALING 169 the real healing force; opening the way for it, or somehow making it more effec- tive than it otherwise would have been. (4) The healing force was of such a nature that the verbal suggestion could codper- ate with it, to the end of making it more efficient. (5) We may suppose that the healing agency employed by Jesus was an existing though unobserved energy, which He set in mo- tion and directed to the end of healing disease. ; (6) This energy or force was one which was adapted to the precise end of healing di- seased conditions of the human body. Is there any known force which complies with the above conditions? There is. A suggestion of recovery, conveyed on the spiritual plane, and directed, not to the conscious mind, but to the soul of the sick person, would, if it were of sufficient intensity, trans- form itself into a curative force commensurate to the immediate healing of any disease. This force would be one with which a corresponding ver- bal suggestion, lodged in the conscious mind of the patient, would coéperate to the end of making it more effective. This arrangement of the healing miracles of our Lord is taken from The Law of Christian Healing, by D. B. Fitzgerald (Revell); Body and Soul, by Percy Dearmer (Dutton); and The Gospel of Life, by Phillips 8S. Gilman. 170 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To show that our Lord did not intend us to believe that He had access to powers not avail- able to His followers. Also to give a resume of our Lord’s method in healing. QUESTIONS: if 2. What explanation did Jesus give of His wonderful works? Did Jesus claim to have access to powers not available to others? . Is unaided human nature competent to work miracles such as those performed by Jesus? . Mention at least six different methods used by Jesus in healing the sick. Give examples of each. . What evidence is there to show that Jesus followed definite principles in His healing work? . What is common to all His healing miracles? . Was verbal suggestion the only law employed by Jesus? If not, then upon what else did He depend? . What was the nature of the healing force employed by our Lord? . How do you explain the action of this healing power? BIBLIOGRAPHY The Law of Christian Healing, D. B. Fitzgerald. Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 16. The Gospel of Life, P. S. Gilman. The Finger of God, T. P. Boyd, chapter 5. The Law of Psychic Phenomena, T. J. Hudson, chapters 23-26. Back to Christ, Sir William Willcocks. The Psychology of Jesus, A. W. Hitchcock, chapter 10. CHAPTER XXII Bopy, SOUL, AND SPIRIT “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith with- out works is dead also.” St. James 2: 26. “T pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be pre- served blameless.” I Thess. 5: 28. AN made in the image of God is, like Him, a trinity in unity. Let us consider this relation- ship, for such knowledge is most valuable to all who are interested in healing work. 1. First, THE BODY. This is our visible frame, with its wonderful, com- plex organization, all connected with the soul and spirit by an intricate system of nerves and ganglia. The body connects us with the visible universe. It is responsive and liable to the same order which rules in the visible world. For example, the laws of gravity and of motion, conditions of growth, main- tenance, and reproduction. As possessing bodies, we are a part of the natural order; in so far as, and to whatever extent, truth can be predicated of the physical world, it applies to our bodies as such. We may here quote Francis Thompson: “The body is immersed in the soul, as a wick is dipped in oil, and its flame of active energy is increased or di- minished by the strength or weakness of the fecunding soul. 172 THE HEALING EVANGEL But this oil (the soul) is enriched one hundred fold by the infusion of the Holy Spirit; the human will is intensified by union with the divine will; and for the flame of human love or energy is substituted the intense flame of divine love or divine energy.” It is our habit to distinguish soul and body as the two elements in mankind. But the ancients con- sidered the constituent elements of human nature to be spirit, soul, and body. This view St. Paul fol- lowed, aS appears in the verse above quoted: “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.” It also appears in I Corin- thians 15:44-49: “It is sown a soul body (soma psuchukon); it is raised a spiritual body (soma pneumatikon).” He adds in explanation: “If there is a soul body, there is also a spirit body” (R.V.). According to this distribution of the human facul- ties the soul (psuche) is that center of personality in which resides the unity of consciousness. This is what we mean when we say “I.” This ego is finite and limited, but possesses in itself intelligence, af- fection, and will. The ego thinks, loves, and acts. It stands between body and spirit—the natural master of the one, the natural servant of the other. The body (soma) is the organized material form, located in time and space. By it the soul is fastened to one point of space and one moment of time. By means of body organization the soul holds commu- nication with the outward universe and with other souls. The present body is called “the soul body” (1. Cor. 15:44), because the principle of its organi- zation is the soul. The material organized is flesh (sara), which is always seeking to draw down the soul, and so to produce the carnal mind. When the BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 173 soul turns downward and minds the flesh, it is car- nal-minded (see Rom. 8:5-6); when it turns up- ward and minds the spirit, it is spiritual-minded. 2. THE sout (Greek, psuche or psyche). Behind our conscious powers and sensations we have a vital faculty which we only discover by re- flection. Our bodies are maintained not only by con- scious effort, but by unconscious, and by the latter in greater degree. We are conscious of instincts and appetites, and act upon them, and so far as our normal con- Sciousness is concerned, that is the end. We feel hungry, and eat; we feel angry, and we act accord- ingly; but the action of which we are conscious is only a part of the whole. Our psyche, without orders, carries on various intricate processes, and so, despite our ignorance, our physical life is maintained, and the necessary adjustments made. The words of Spenser are very pertinent at this point of our study: “For of the soul the body form doth take; For soul is form and doth the body make.” 3. THE SPIRIT. Body and soul we share with the organic world, and spirit is man’s distinctive prerogative; the ele- ment that reaches out from the concrete to the ab- stract, makes generalizations, moral and intellectual judgments, and first principles; strives after and at- tains to the knowledge of God. But while we can isolate these constituents of our ego in thought and, after a fashion, demarcate 174 THE HEALING EVANGEL their respective functions, in reality they unite to make up the individual. Let us emphasize this interaction. Man functions in body, Man functions in soul, and Man functions in spirit. If this unity is real, no one element in it can thrive at the expense of another; and the re- verse is equally true; if our nature, our personality, is one, no single element in it can be perfect without involving the perfection of the other elements. St. Paul makes a splendid argument out of this unity of the human body when he writes to the Cor- inthians as follows: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also "is Christ’. 0.2% For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in one body, as it hath pleased Him. But if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body.” The reader is recommended to study this entire chapter—I Corinthians, chapter 12. If psychology, which is the science of the soul, is useful and fairly well arranged, the science of spirit, or pneumatology, can hardly be said to exist. There is approximate agreement as to how soul and body should function; their health or disease is easily recognized. But with the spirit it is different. The sphere of its activities and the legitimacy of their exercise are in dispute. But whatever these may be, BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 175 let us repeat, if our nature is one, the functioning in full measure of the spirit is essential to the full development of our being. We can go further and say that if the spirit is what differentiates man from the animal world, then its activities should be the predominant fea- tures in human life. So far from being a burden its exercise will quicken our every power. Our whole nature will, in St. Paul’s words, be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Having thus glanced at the tri-partite nature of man and considered the three parts of his nature which, working in harmony, make up his unity, let us conclude this chapter by thinking of the three as one, working perfectly together. The body will never be properly reverenced and appreciated until we habitually think of it as the Temple of the Spirit. The fundamental distinction between the great artists who paint wonderful pic- tures of the human body, and a libertine, is that one appreciates the body as the very expression of the spirit and holds this image in his mind; whereas the other, whose mind is not yet liberated from the fleshly prison, sees in the body nothing but a play- ground for his animal propensities. This contrast may be rather startling and arbitrary, but it is a true contrast, and a careful reading of St. Paul, more especially the 8th chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, will show us that the only way to be de- livered from the evils of the body is to cultivate the mind of the spirit. “The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace” (Ro- mans 8:6). And again we read: “What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 176 THE HEALING EVANGEL which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: Therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (I Cor. 6: 19-20). This subject is of vital importance to those who are considering Spiritual Healing, for if the body is to be impregnated with the healing forces of spirit, it is of tremendous importance that we should be emancipated from wrong thinking concerning the body. Henry Ward Beecher says: “God made the human body, and it is by far the most exquisite and wonderful organization which has come to us from the Divine hand. It is a study for one’s whole life. If an undevout astronomer is mad, an undevout physiolo- gist is still madder.” Everything that we most admire about the body, its form, attributes, functions, etc., is the result of the spirit which indwells it; and we cannot too fre- quently reiterate the axiom of St. James: “The body without the spirit is dead.” Many beautiful hymns and devotions have been written about the Body of Christ, which is the focal ideal of Christian aspiration, as well as being the very objective sacrament of the Incarnation. If it were necesseary for our Lord, in order to ac- complish His mission, to manifest the perfect mind and the divine spirit functioning in a mortal body, it not only demonstrates the necessity for us to emulate His example, but it also shows us how the body may be perfectly employed for the highest pur- poses of the soul. If it is a fact that the human Christ was a sacrament of God, it is also a fact that man himself is a sacrament of which, as Dr. Dear- BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 177 mer reminds us, the body is the outward sign and the soul is the inward grace. He continues: “The countenance is a clear index of the spirit that is within, and the body is built up by the soul. Many people think of the soul as if it were a little ‘spark’ carried about the body and stowed away in some obscure recess, but it would be more true to say that it is the soul which carries the body about .... Man, we are learning, is not a body possessing a soul, but a soul possessing a body .... This conviction of the body’s worth and its infinite possibilities will surely never wane in Christendom; for every birth is a microcosm of the Incarnation, and every baby born a little Word of God made flesh.” Students who wish to pursue this subject further would do well to secure Bishop Brent’s little book entitled The Splendour of the Human Body, and a more recent book entitled The Romance of the Human Body, by Ronald Campbell Macfie. We will quote one sentence from Bishop Brent’s book to whet the appetite of the reader. The Bishop is writing concerning the Body of Christ Himself, and he says: “His body was the vehicle of healing power to others. Whoso touched even the hem of His garment with expecta- tion and desire felt the vivifying shock of imparted physi- eal vitality. When those about Him suffered from disease He repaired the disordered mechanism ..... The body was always and everywhere in His eyes a sacred thing, so sensitively refined that it would be defiled if its possessor harboured an unclean thought or let loose from the lips an unworthy word.” An Affirmation to be used in connection with the preceding chapter : | God, of whose life my life is a part, as my finger is a part of my hand, in whom I live and move and have my being, and who lives and moves and has 178 THE HEALING EVANGEL His Being in me, fills my body in every cell with His vital power, fills my mind in every part with His peace, and my whole being with abundant life, mak- ing me perfectly whole. Note: The author does not believe in the indis- criminate use of affirmations; but this one has proved of wide efficacy, and many have testified to its value. BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 179 AIM: To secure a more intelligent grasp of the na- ture and functions of body, soul, and spirit in man; to understand their interaction and the im- portant fact that the body is built by the soul. QUESTIONS: 1. In what manner is man a trinity? 2. How does Francis Thompson improve upon the com- mon idea of the relation between soul and body? What does St. Paul mean by “the soul’? What does the body do for the soul? How are our bodies maintained? What distinguishes man from the lower animals? How does St. Paul explain the unity of the human body? 8. What is necessary to the full development of our being? 9. How do the great artist and the libertine differ in their ideas concerning the human body? 10. In what sense is man a sacrament? 11. Is Christian healing only for the soul? 12. What argument do we find in the Gospels for re- garding the body as an evil thing in itself? oo fe SX. Se BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 5. Spiritual Healing, Harold Anson. The Source of Power, Foote, chapter 1. The Siath Sense, Bishop Brent, chapter 4. The Splendour of the Human Body, Bishop Brent. Divine Life for the Body, Kenneth Mackenzie. Our Physical Heritage in Christ, Kenneth Mackenzie, chapter 2. The Glory of Redemption, H. W. Workman, chapter 9 and Frontis- piece. The Spirit, BE. P. S. Hoyt. The Spirit, B. H. Streeter, chapter 9. The Whole Man, Geoffrey Rhodes, page 125. The Hope That Is In Me, Basil Wilberforce, page 220. CHAPTER XXIII HEALING EVANGELISM A Brief for Healing Missions PINION in the Church is still very much divided as to the wisdom and expediency of public Heal- ing Missions. Many of the clergy feel that the dan- gers which inevitably surround the holding of Heal- ing Missions are sufficiently well pronounced to justify them in holding aloof from this movement, in refraining from such an enterprise in their own parishes, and, in some cases, in openly condemning this type of Evangelism. On the other hand, many clergy equally sane and well qualified to offer an opinion have given public Healing Missions their hearty approval, support, and endorsement. It is impossible to lay down any final or dogmatic statement on this subject. Much will depend upon the personality of the Missioner; much will also de- pend upon local conditions and the degree of prepa- ration which has preceded the Mission; much will also depend upon the personality of the local Min- ister and his own background in Healing work, to- gether with his ability to influence his parishioners. Therefore we cannot hope to do more in this chap- HEALING EVANGELISM 181 ter than indicate those general principles which have been found acceptable in Healing Evangelism, and the thesis of this chapter will be the perfect reasonableness of a Healing Mission as an oppor- tunity for the practical presentation of the Church’s message. The intelligent layman, free from theological prej- udice, will argue very much like this. He will say: “The Church believes that Christ still heals the sick,” or “The Church does not_believe that Christ still heals the sick.” If the answer is in the affirmative, then the Church must live up to its belief and give to the world at its doors an opportunity to hear and receive the healing message. The author has spent several years conducting Healing Missions, and has encountered all the stock arguments against Healing Missions, and he finds that in the long run these are all sufficiently answered by the simple doing of the work rather than by a series of arguments. He also finds that the intelligent laity are much more enthusiastic about the work than the majority of the clergy. This is not intended as a reflection on the clergy as of men lacking in vision, but it is intended to show that where the subject is preached without prejudice, the tendency of the laity, as a body, is in favor of Healing Missions, whereas (at the time of writing) only a minority of the clergy are whole-heartedly in favor of this movement. It must be remembered, of course, that there is a sense of responsibility resting upon the clergy which is not felt by the laity and they (the clergy) are actuated by a sense of caution and wholesome conservatism which will not be so readily experienced by the laity. 182 THE HEALING EVANGEL For a full treatment of the subject of Healing Mis- sions, the reader is referred to the book written by Mr. James Moore Hickson entitled Heal the Sick, in which will be found a most thrilling narrative of a long series of Healing Missions held in every part of the civilized world and accompanied by an impos- ing array of testimonies from bishops, clergy, and laity in responsible positions. The reader is also referred to the Pastoral Letter of the Australian Bishops which will be found in Chapter XX VI of this book. At one of his missions the present writer was asked to answer certain objections which were of- fered to the holding of public Healing Missions, and it will throw more light on the argument, pro and con, if we print here his answers to these objections. Let us frankly face one or two very commonly expressed arguments against Healing Missions. 1. “The Missioner relies wpon emotion instead of education in securing results.” True religious emotion is a most valuable factor in mission work. It will work miracles that no amount of teaching alone will produce. However, it should be remembered that every morning service of the mission is devoted exclusively to devotion and instruction. We have no “healing service” in the morning. Even at night a large part of the address is devoted to instruction. 2. “Some of the healings which took place in Mr. Hickson’s missions ‘did not last’? Others who at- tended expecting results were disappointed.” Have we ever given a thought to the thousands who come to our parish churches every Sunday ex- pecting results that never come? And how about HEALING EVANGELISM 183 the results of Mr. Hickson’s missions that did stand the test of time? Were they not well worth while? As a matter of fact the trouble here was not with Mr. Hickson but with the parish clergy who did not give their parishes proper preparation; who did not regulate the work of the mission so as to reduce the risk of disappointment; and, above all, who did not systematically follow up the mission with con- structive effort. At our Nazarene missions, prepara- tory instructions are sent out months beforehand and committees are organized locally to create the “right conditions” which mean so much during the actual work of the mission. 3. “Public healing missions give no satisfactory answer to Christian Science. This movement grows and gets results because it supplies its followers with a working philosophy for their lives.” The Church already has a “working philosophy of life,” but it needs a more simple and direct appli- cation for the present day, and it requires a special interpretation for the sick and suffering. The So- ciety of the Nazarene is seriously grappling with this problem, and we hope shortly to be able to publish a practical text-book for our members and for en- quirers generally which will interpret and apply the latent stores of divine energy which the Church has received from her Lord. 4. It is objected that healing missions are only for the sick and hence that they are likely to create an abnormal atmosphere. You might as well say that a hospital cre- ates an abnormal atmosphere. Jesus said, “I came, not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” “They that are whole need not a physician but they 184 THE HEALING EVANGEL that are sick.” And St. Paul says that those who are strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak and not to please themselves. We find in our mis- sions not only that the sick are really healed in many cases, but that the well people are tremen- dously helped spiritually by becoming fellow-work- ers in the work of ministering to the sick. 5. They tell us that a healing mission focuses too much attention wpon the missioner, arouses faith in him rather than in God, and generally exaggerates the importance of health, which ought to be simply a by-product of the Christian Religion. This is a real danger and we constantly have to guard against it. However, when the missioner pre- pares himself by prayer, and when the local clergy have created an atmosphere of true faith in God and expectancy towards Him, this danger is reduced to the minimum. Frequently the healing work (in our missions) is done by three or four clergy all work- ing together at the altar rail. Thus the people are trained not to think that any one man has a monoply of this gift. Health is emphasized but not unduly exaggerated in our missions. Health and Salvation are (etymologically) identical. They really mean precisely one and the same thing, and it is our busi- ness in a healing mission to make it clear to the con- gregations that true salvation is always spiritual in origin and quality, but that it will embrace every department of human life—physical, moral, mental, and spiritual. 6. It is claimed that our mission work has earned the condemnation of the medical profession and the best exponents of psycho-therapy. We quite expect opposition from some of the HEALING EVANGELISM 185 medical men, especially where they have become ac- customed to view the whole work of healing as a process which belongs on the material plane. We know, too, that the itinerant healing evangelist who has no background of solid teaching or Churchly atmosphere upon which to depend has brought this kind of work into disrepute with the doctors. But shall we hold back because mistakes have been made? And have we not met medical men by the dozens who eagerly encourage our work? We can name many such and they are men who rank high in the profession. The medical man quite rightly detests quacks and charlatans and organizes all his propaganda against such. But he is usually courte- ous and even cordial to the clergy of the Church who are intelligently and systematically emphasizing the spiritual basis of all human life, and who are lead- ing humanity away from sin (the origin of disease) towards God and truth and righteousness. We can- not speak for those who are working outside the Church, but we can truthfully say that in the mis- sions conducted by the Society of the Nazarene we find it just as easy to enlist the coédperation of the physician and psychologist (if they are spiritually- minded and scientific men) as it is to enlist the sympathy and support of the parochial clergy. The final argument in favor of a healing mission will only be clear when you have one in your own community. It is the most convincing argument of all, yet it is difficult to express in words. ! We need more evangelists. The actual results which have come from missions already held is creat- ing a demand, and the clergy must rouse themselves to meet this demand if they want to retain their 186 THE HEALING EVANGEL leadership. The Society of the Nazarene is concen- trating upon this problem of Evangelism and will welcome assistance from any of the clergy who can offer constructive suggestions. The Society also in- vites correspondence from men who feel a vocation for this type of evangelism. Healing missions need no apology. Our Lord set us the example, and much of His work was done in public in the midst of the throng and press of great crowds, although He doubtless much preferred to work with individuals, as we still prefer to work un- der normal conditions. But the preaching of the Gospel in such manner as to arouse men and awaken genuine repentance, real faith, and a tremendous belief in the Presence of our Lord to heal, cannot logically stop short without an opportunity for a definite act of faith. So it is that the actual work of healing is taken into our parish churches with missions conducted on these lines—and always with the most blessed and wonderful results. We equally agree with our critics that private treatment is the normal procedure for the parish priest who has made Spiritual Healing a regular part of his pastoral duties. But just as the believer in auricular confession would not want to abolish the General Confession in church; just as the be- liever in good, constructive preaching week by week in the pulpits of our parish churches would not ob- ject to the more searching appeals of the gifted evangelist during a parochial mission or a Lenten retreat, so, in like manner, it is felt that the Healing Mission has a legitimate and helpful function to perform in the life of the Church. HEALING EVANGELISM 187 Sin is an emergency; sickness is an emergency; and in times of emergency men will do anything and go anywhere in search of relief. It has been said that people come to our missions only for physical relief or surcease from their sufferings. This may be true in some cases; but let their motive be what it will, the fact remains that they hear the truth; they learn the simple, divine, and scriptural terms upon which salvation (for body, soul, and spirit) may be obtained, and they-find in the church those who will lend them a hand and help them to find the great Physician. 188 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To discover the main arguments for and against the holding of healing missions and to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. QUESTIONS: 1. What is the best way to test the value of a healing mission ? 2. Has religious emotion a proper place in healing work? 3. When results are not forthcoming, what may be the real reason? 4. Do we need a philosophy of life other than that which the Church supplies? 5. Are healing missions only for the sick? 6. Do they necessarily create an abnormal atmosphere? 7. How can we obviate the danger of too much atten- tion being focussed upon the missioner? 8. Is health a by-product of the Christian religion? 9. Is there any good reason why Christian healing should be discountenanced by the medical profes- sion? 10. What indicates the need for healing evangelism? 11. How are healing and preaching related? BIBLIOGRAPHY “Heal the Sick,’ J. M. Hickson. The New Hvangelism, Henry Drummond. The Missioner’s Handbook, Paul B. Bull, C.R. The Evangelistic Note, W. J. Dawson. Washington Conference Reports (Nazarene) pages 70-93. CHAPTER XXIV THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS The Scope and Purpose of a Recent Questionnaire NE of the most striking things in the modern revival of Christian Healing is the fact that the movement has found such a congenial soil in the Anglican Communion, Various explanations will be forthcoming to account for this, but perhaps the simplest one is that Christian Healing naturally has a sacramental basis, is a by-product of the Incarna- tion, and can be presented most successfully with a background of simple ceremonial. These con- ditions are all readily accessible in the average Anglican parish. Nevertheless many sober-minded people have been moved to wonder that such an ultra-conservative organization should extend even tacit approval to a spontaneous movement of this kind. For while the fundamentals of Christian Healing are implicit in the teachings and practice of the Church, the fact remains that it is a new movement—or, shall we say, a new emphasis. A still more surprising phenomenon is that the movement has already earned the approval or sanc- tion of a large number of Anglican parishes. I am 190 THE HEALING EVANGEL well aware that many of these expressions of approv- al are qualified; many of them contain strong words of caution mingled with the general sanction given. But the general sanction remains, and a survey of these expressions of Episcopal sanction are highly encouraging and very gratifying to the believer in Christian Healing. The writer is cognizant of five different societies working within the Anglican Communion, and every one of these societies numbers among its officers or patrons, one or more of the Anglican bishops. This desire for Episcopal approval and endorse- ment is not a mere craving for influential recogni- tion; it is not based on any spirit of servility; it is rather a recognition, conscious or unconscious, that any movement within an Episcopal Church must earn the approval of the bishops if it is to have the endorsement of the Church as such. It may be mentioned incidentally that every Anglican bishop receives the commission to heal the sick, and this is stated very definitely in the Order of Con- secration. The reader is asked to study carefully the phrasing of this commission as it appears in the English and American Prayer Books. There is further a feeling on the part of the clergy who are actively engaged in the Ministry of Healing that their work should have the approval of the bishops under whom they labor. This is as it should be and quite in the interest of efficient good order and good discipline. In view of the foregoing remarks, it was only natural that the Society of the Nazarene, laboring chiefly among the Episcopal Churches of America, should seek a more definite expression of approval THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS 19] from the bishops of the Church. Therefore in Decem- ber 1923, a letter was sent out to all the Anglican bishops containing a Questionnaire in which it was respectfully asked that the bishops would give their reaction to this important movement. The Society sent with the letter some samples of its literature, not with the idea that this was an exhausive state- ment of the healing message, but that it was at least a fair example of what many of the faithful clergy and laity were using in their effort to present Christ to the people as the Healing Saviour. We present below a copy of the Questionnaire, and the reader is asked to glance over these ques- tions before studying the comments which are of- fered thereon. A QUESTIONNAIRE 1. Do you share the general endorsement given to the Ministry of Healing at the last Lambeth Confer- ence? 2. Do you think sufficient consideration is given to this Ministry in the Anglican Churches to-day? 38. Do you authorize Healing—either by Anointing or the Laying-on of hands—by the clergy of your Dio- cese? 4. Do you approve of Guilds or Societies working in the Church for the fuller recognition of this Minis- try of Healing; e.g., The Society of the Nazarene, or the various Guilds of Health? 5. If you do not approve of such Societies, what substi- tute would you suggest for the work they are doing in seeking to restore this Apostolic practice which has so generally lapsed? 6. How do you construe the command to “Heal the Sick” which is given in the Prayer Book office for the Con- secration of Bishops? (a) Do you regard it as fulfilled through Episcopal sanction of medical or hospital work? or 192 THE HEALING EVANGEL (b) Do you think it refers to the direct or delegated ministry through Prayer, Anointing, the Lay- ing-on of hands, etc.? 7. Do you think our Lord’s command to ‘Preach the Gospel and heal the sick” should still be interpreted as a double commission? (a) Is it fulfilled by simple coédperation between the Clergy and the Medical profession? or (b) Does it refer primarily to Spiritual Healing as one manner of giving effect to the Gospel mes- sage? 8. Have you, during your ministry or episcopate, had any direct experience in the Ministry of Healing? If so, does your experience or observation cause you to desire a fuller and more active revival of this work within the Church? 9. Would you sanction or encourage the organizing of Nazarene Guilds (or Guilds of Health) in your Diocese with the proper and needful codperation of the parochial clergy? It is difficult to express in a few words the general results of this Questionnaire. The most instructive and enlightening reactions will be found in the chap- ters following, which contain extracts from letters or questionnaires. We may therefore remark for the benefit of those interested, that some one hun- dred and sixty replies were received to the Ques- tionnaire, and that of these, one hundred and twenty-five replied in the affirmative to Question 1. The balance expressed only a partial approval, while some three or four actually disapproved of the ac- tion of the Lambeth Conference. In reply to Question 2 the overwhelming major- ity replied in the negative, six were non-committal, and six replied in the affirmative. In reply to Question 3, one hundred replied in THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS 193 the affirmative, six were non-committal, while twenty-five ignored the question. In reply to Question 4, two-thirds replied in the affirmative, with proper safe-guards, eight were non- committal, twelve expressed doubt concerning the wisdom of such organizations, and twenty ignored the question. Question 5 seemed to excite a great deal of in- terest and considerable diversity of opinion. Ap- proximately one-third of the replies indicated that instruction and private ministrations from the paro- chial clergy would furnish all that was necessary in this respect; ten felt that Societies already exis- ting for prayer and private devotion could reason- ably furnish what was necessary in the revival of the Healing Ministry; two or three thought it should be left to individuals in the Church who possessed special gifts; others were in favor of leaving the matter entirely to the discretion of the parochial clergy; some fifteen or twenty ignored the question. In reply to Question 6 the answers were exceed- ingly instructive. Forty considered that the com- mand to “Heal the Sick” was adequately fulfilled through Episcopal sanction of medical or hospital work; thirty considered that it was only paritally fulfilled in this way. More than half felt that the Divine command to Heal the Sick was not suf- ficiently discharged by any mere endorsement of medical enterprise. In answer to the second part of this question, one-half of the answers received were in the affirmative and the greater part of those re- maining considered that the command to “Heal the Sick” was fulfilled jointly through the efforts of the clergy and the medical profession, each specializing 194 THE HEALING EVANGEL in his peculiar territory and all working in codpera- tion. In reply to Question 7, fifty feel that the command to “Preach the Gospel and Heal the Sick” means something more than a working agreement between the clergy and the medical profession; twenty-five felt that this codperation was a partial obedience to our Lord’s commands; sixty-eight felt that the com- mand did refer primarily to Spiritual Healing as one manner of giving effect to the Gospel message. A majority of the replies to this question accepted the joint commission to “Preach and Heal” as a major responsibility of the Church. Question 8 elicited some very constructive replies, and it was interesting to learn how many of the bishops had, at some period in their ministry, experienced directly the power of the Ministry of Healing. Nearly two-thirds of the replies reflected a desire for fuller and more active revival of this work within the Church. Some of the personal exper- iences given in response to this question will be found in the next chapter. The author, who under- took the responsibility of sending out the Question- naire in the name of the Society of the Nazarene, wishes to declare here that the answers to Question 8 were in themselves a sufficient justification for the time, trouble, and expense involved in undertak- ing this Questionnaire. There is something wonder- fully convincing in personal experience and per- sonal testimony, and one bishop, who writes from first hand experience and can give definite instances of healing, will, in the long run, prove more con- vincing than twenty-five bishops who merely offer opinions or theories. THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS 195 In answer to Question 9, ninety responded in the affirmative; twelve in the negative; ten said they felt they did not possess any jurisdiction in the mat- ter; a dozen felt that the sanction would have to be entirely with the parish clergy, six were non- committal; eight others felt that they should wait before answering the question in order to find out how others felt; twenty-five offered no reply to this question. A very interesting commentary on this whole question will be found in the book recently published by Mr. James Moore Hickson in which he prints, in full, a large number of Episcopal endorsements given to him during his recent world tour. The many cri- tics of Mr. Hickson’s work within the Church would do well to read, with an open mind, these letters of endorsement and appreciation, and when it is re- membered, that as a body, the Anglican bishops are the most conservative people in the world, it is all the more remarkable that Mr. Hickson’s work should in so many cases have received the endorsement and approval of the bishops whose dioceses he visited. There is no question in our minds but that the bishops can, by their courageous words and attitude, very greatly expedite this movement, and the Church will accept from them, in good faith, words of warn- ing and caution on the Ministry of Healing provided always the caution is not due to cowardice. We commend to our readers chapter XXVI of this book (page 212) containing the Pastoral Letter of the Australian bishops. This letter is signed by four archbishops and sixteen bishops of the Anglican Church in Australia. It speaks for itself, and is the most courageous and progressive document on the 196 THE HEALING EVANGEL Ministry of Healing we have ever seen. This letter is the direct outcome of a series of public Healing Missions. In all sincerity we ask those who object to Healing Missions to give this document very careful consideration. | In another chapter of this book will be found several articles and addresses written by well- known Anglican bishops and expressing different angles of vision on this great subject. We especially commend to the student the article by the Arch- bishop of Melbourne on Spiritual Healing and Its Critics; also the valuable personal testimony of Bishop Linton of Persia, which came to us through the Questionnaire. Many other articles have ap- peared and are still appearing from Episcopal writers in the pages of The Nazarene magazine. THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS “WHO, BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH.” A Message from Bishop Tuttle, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U. S. A. (1903-1923) November 10, 1921. Rev. H. B. Wilson, Boonton, N. J. Rev. and Dear Brother: Thank you for yours of the 31st of October and for the leaf- lets of “The Nazarene.” Our Saviour died for the redemption of the bodies as well as for the salvation of the souls of men. In the human body He ascended and in it now is our Intercessor in Heaven. Can there be any doubt but that He ap- proves and sanctions all faithful and prayer- ful efforts made in His name for the healing and helping and saving of the bodies of men? God bless you in your good work and your prayers. Faithfully yours, (Signed) DANIEL S. TUTTLE, St. Louis, Missouri. 197 198 THE HEALING EVANGEL A Testimony From a MISSIONARY BISHOP Case No. 1. On June 27, 1923, my wife gave birth to a son. All went well for a time. Then symptoms appeared which gave cause for anxiety. Cancer (Chorion Epithelioma) was diagnosed, chiefly from the clini- cal history, and confirmed by examination and sec- tions. Operation was decided upon, and an explora- tory operation performed on July 29th. Five doc- tors were present at this, including three with a good deal of experience in operative work, and two in pathological work. On opening up it was found that the growth had spread with such rapidity that the great part of the pelvic cavity was affected, and it was decided that operation was impossible and would probably involve the death of the patient. I want to emphasize the fact here that five ex- perienced doctors looked in and saw, and gave it as their deliberate verdict that, humanly speaking, there was no hope. Then we felt that GOD was laying it on our hearts to claim healing by prayer. On August 11th the Per- sian Church had a Day of Fasting and Prayer at which complete healing was claimed in faith. Friends all over Persia, as well as in England, ete., joined in thus claiming healing on the promises of Holy Scripture. While we were in church praying, a message was sent to the leader of the service by my wife to say that her temperature was even then down to normal for the first time for several weeks. “Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear.” My wife said she felt that even then THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS 199 healing had already begun. She made rapid improve- ment, and was shortly back again at work in the hospital. I ought to mention that she is a surgeon, and M.B., B.S., of London, England. Today she is better in health than she has been for years, and is completely cured. Needless to say this striking cure of cancer has made a deep im- pression in the whole country. The doctors who at- tended her are convinced that it was only by the di- rect act of God that she was healed, and regard it as a signal miracle. CaszE No. 2. Another doctor, working in Shiraz, was suffering from such acute neuritis that she was unable to do her work. She and her fellow workers prayed for healing, but without marked result. So she felt GOD was leading her to come to Isfa- han for anointing and laying on of hands. She came, and at a service of the Holy Communion she re- ceived anointing and laying on of hands and was healed. She says that she still has occasional twinges of pain, but so slight as to be negligible. (Signed) J. H. Linton, Bishop of Persia. The Bishop’s House, Isfahan, Persia. December 31, 1923. THE ARCHBISHOP OF THE WEST INDIES REPORTS UNIQUE CASE OF HEALING IN ANTIGUA Among the many valuable replies to the question- naires sent out to all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion is an arresting and inspiring report contributed by the Archbishop of the West Indies. 200 THE HEALING EVANGEL “A valued priest of the Church had to undergo a major operation; the doctors declared that his heart was very weak; immediately before the operation he received the Holy Communion and Holy Unction. The operation was successful as to removing the obstruction but seven hours after he had a collapse. Another followed, apparently hopeless. I was with him all night. At 3: 00 in the morning he said to the doctors: ‘Now is the time for a miracle to be per- formed. But why should a miracle be performed for me?’ - “T said, ‘Remember the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit’; and he answered, ‘Yes; the Lord and Giver of Life.’ The doctor to whom the patient’s re- mark was addressed held out not the least chance of recovery or of his living through the crisis... . He said that ‘If he gets better, it will be a miracle and you will be able to quote it as one of your in- stances of modern miracles.’ He has since said to me, ‘It looks as if the miracle was coming off this time.’ “The patient has since said to me that he was con- scious, even at his worst moments, of being hedged about by spiritual forces, as the fruit of prayer, and was greatly strengthened by the Holy Communion and Holy Unction. It is true that the doctors did their part and manfully fought for his life, but both of them thought it hopeless. “T have no hesitation in saying that spiritual forces were liberated and that his life has been given back to us and the great work he is doing for God and His Church, through the direct action of the Life-Giving Power of the Holy Spirit, through the Sacraments, in answer to prayer. We need a great renewal of our faith.” THE VERDICT OF THE BISHOPS 201 AIM: To ascertain what is the dominant attitude of the Anglican Episcopate on the subject of the Ministry of Healing. QUESTIONS: uF 2. 3. Why should Christian Healing find a natural place in the Anglican Communion? What good reasons exist for seeking nati by sanc- tion for this work? > Where do we find the Bishop's commission to heal the sick? . What would be your response to Questions 1, 2, 6, and 7 of the Questionnaire? . What seems to be the most Sweeping Episcopal en- dorsement given to this work in recent times? . What effect would the Australian Letter have upon an unprejudiced person in regard to the value of healing missions? BIBLIOGRAPHY “Heal the Sick,” J. M. Hickson. “What the Bishops Say’? (Nazarene Press.) Divine Healing, Pakenham-Walsh. Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 23. CHAPTER XXV SPIRITUAL HEALING AND ITS CRITICS Letter from the Archbishop of Melbourne (following a series of healing missions in the Province of Melbourne) Y DEAR PEOPLE: I desire to say a few words further on the subject of the Missions of Healing, which have just been concluded in this Province, and appear to have been marked every- where by the same features, a realization of the Presence of Christ, a definite revival of spiritual life, a substantial number of complete cures, a large pro- portion of well-marked improvements to be _ per- severed with in believing prayer, a wonderful pa- tience and refreshing in the spiritual lives of those who quite simply record no bodily change. There is a marked absence of fanaticism. There is no antag- onizing of the medical profession. There is a cer- tain wonderment as to “what we should do next.” My counsel here is, “Let it pass naturally into the ordinary, undisturbed faith and practice of Church life.” I think special Healing Mission Committees should be dissolved after investigation and Mission organization are wound up. The normal unit for the SPIRITUAL HEALING AND ITS CRITICS 203 clergy is the Ruridecanal Conference. The Parish Prayer-Groups are the most important factor in the situation. Where these die down, the work will fail. Where these are alive, there this and all other work will succeed. The Geelong Mission preceded our own. I have had the results investigated and tabulated. The re- port shows forty-four cases personally certified by visits from clergy, nearly. five hundred cases of physical and spiritual improvement or cure reported by patients who have no interest in saying so if it is not true. It is curious that the journals and their anonymous correspondents go on demanding evi- dence, and appear to be unconscious that the last four numbers of The Messenger have all offered just what they profess to want. In some cases addresses were voluntarily furnished, but, of course, unless this is voluntarily done, we have a sacred trust to vindicate in respecting privacy. Do not make this a contentious matter. Investi- gate fearlessly and candidly. Move forward rever- ently and naturally; but do not make a battle-ery of it. Above all, guard against dividing the Church or the congregation into those who believe in the Spiritual Healing and those who do not. It is to unify and not to divide that we meet the common heritage of sickness with the common Christian weapon of prayer through Christ. I do not, as you know, indulge in newspaper con- troversy unless absolutely compelled, and then not in a controversial spirit; but it may help some of our members if I offer a few words of comment on a very thoughtful and not unfriendly leader in one of our dailies a fortnight ago. Anonymous articles, like 204 THE HEALING EVANGEL anonymous writers, especially by our own members, I ignore and strongly deprecate. They enable anyone who may not otherwise count to fire from behind the hedge of anonymity without facing the consequences of what he says. But a newspaper takes full re- sponsibility for a leader, and places the matter in quite a different category of respect. And so here, with real esteem, I comment so that our folk may know their own minds and not be discouraged or confused. | This is a domestic matter for our own household. It was suggested then that if this work were genuine, it would be indiscriminate and would at once empty the hospitals. I submit that this totally misunder- stands Christianity, and, above all, Christ. Chris- tianity is universal, but it is not uniform in its ap- plication. It is not partial in its affection, but it is selective in its effect. It sifts us for various reasons which we may not like, or even understand, but must accept. Paul has a thorn in the flesh, though he raises Eutychus from the dead. Trophimus is left at Miletus sick, but the father of Publius is healed. Above all, as Professor Sir William Ramsay has pointed out, in Acts 28: 8-9, the father of Publius is healed by the laying on of hands and prayer, but the others also who had diseases “came and received medical treatment” by St. Luke. However, Mr. Hick- son did visit a number of hospitals where invited and where particular patients desired it. Christian healing is not magic, but a mode of treatment. And as a wireless transmitter sifts out receivers and only is understood by those tuned to its key, it follows that normally belief in God will be a condition of effectiveness, though not the only one. SPIRITUAL HEALING AND ITS CRITICS 205 The second query of the leader was, “Why this. ritual?” The writer, it is safe to say, is not Anglican, and was probably not present in the Cathedral. The service was simple to the verge of childlikeness, and the critic who wishes to dispense with the laying-on of hands must question Christ who did it, and not us who follow Him. The music consisted of about five hymns which all the Christian world knows; we have yet to learn that this is either “spectacular” or “working up of atmosphere.” If healing is done here- after normally through prayer, as we hope it will be, it can be “casual” as the leader suggests. But in a Mission you must have some method, whether of grouping the patients or ordered worship. This criticism is surely trifling and making difficulties. Then comes another real difficulty. “The thou- sands come, the few are helped. The great mass are thrown back to a more bitter disappointment than they have known before.” To this I reply: Do the doctors refuse to try to heal any patient on the ground that they will be causing disappointment if the case fails? They would be rightly indignant at the suggestion. Surgery, and certainly medicine, are often experimental, but the successful cases justify the rest. And it is simply untrue to say few are helped. We find that practically atu are helped, even when not healed. And so far from bitterness being the result, the witness of friends and patients alike is that they are extraordinarily brightened and cheered. Why all are not cured we do not know. We say it reverently, but undauntedly. He knows, and we are simply His servants. Then, “Was it ever the intention that the Chris- tian Church should possess throughout the ages the 206 THE HEALING EVANGEL gift of healing?” To this there are two answers. One is a simple passage in the coolest-headed and most practical of all the Epistles—that of St. James. The other is that it is scarcely necessary to ask the ques- tion, since practically no one really doubts that some have been healed. If that is so, then the Church is right in saying that Christ is still thus working. It surely is nonsense to say that the Gospel miracles “lose awe and reverence if they are the common pos- session of all ages.” Christ foretold it (St. John 14: 12) and whatever view we take of the authorship of St. Mark 16:17, it is at least first-rate evidence of very early opinion on this point. Again, it is not wholly true that “The moment you identify religion with any material gain you destroy religion.” This is confusion of thought. If the motive of being religious is to be better off rather than to be better, of course, that is not religion. But Christ denied the name of disciple to any follower of His who did not care about the material welfare of the poor. He called it hypocrisy to shut your eyes to their troubles. This is, of course, the answer to the next objection: “If religion is pure, you must sacri- fice for it. Only those who are giving form the real heart of the Church. Going to religion for what a man can get out of it is the very weakness of all the Christian religion today.” Well, to begin with, all those objections might have been made to Christ and the Apostles, but they did not feed the poor, they did give material benefits, and the Church would never have been Christ’s witness if it had been care- less about relief as all the rest of the world was. Let the writer cast this charge up at Christ, for He started these methods. But, as a fact, if a Church is SPIRITUAL HEALING AND ITS CRITICS 207 a sacrificing Church, somebody in the world must reap the sacrifice. If the Church is a giving Church, somebody in the world must do the receiving. You cannot bless if everybody is a blesser. This is drag- ging a false scent across the trail. Lastly, what “if every time a crowd filled a church they miraculously received a meal?’ One would think that there was to be a Mission of Healing every week. There is a vast difference between a Mis- sion and normal life and method. These will always be, but if this means that the world will think less of the Church for trying by all spiritual and other means to aid in relieving the sick, it is simply not true. But how easy it is to make a case. Suppose it were the other way round, and the leader had said, “What is to be thought of a Church bearing the name of Christ which disclaims any connection with heal- ing after prayer, in spite of the work of the Good Physician? What are we to think of a Church which holds that all His practices and methods are simply those of a remote past, though claiming that He still lives? What shall we say of a Church that evades plain scriptural commands, while professing to fol- low the Bible? What of its courage when it holds back from blessing those it can, lest it incur blame for failing in other cases? What shall we say of a Church that is so occupied with Heaven and the soul that it has no concern for earth and the starving or suffering body? To which side of the throne will the Judge send them? What of a Church which, receiv- ing a call from God, thinks the cost of obedience too great?” If the leader had said all this, then I should indeed have trembled for the Church. But those things are the exact description of what we should 208 THE HEALING EVANGEL be, if we had followed that cautious mentor. We might have gained the world. We should have lost our soul. The world’s greatest reproach will not be for the cassocked clergy and white-robed nurses who toiled in carrying stretchers and tenderly helping the sufferers; it will be for the arm-chair critics who did nothing except mock the people who helped, or else sat thoughtfully back in their seats, pondered judi- cially as to whether this was absolutely secure against any criticism, and then decided not to go into the danger zone lest they should get hurt in helping someone, or, as the last line of the leader says, “purchase” the healing of these sick folk “at too great a cost.” And, after all, the cures of which people have written to us are less marvellous, though not so unobtrusive, as such spiritual transformations through Christian conversion, as Saul of Tarsus, John Newton of Olney, Francis Xavier, Augustine of Hippo, or the cases described in Broken Harthen- ware. People have almost ceased to expect the ab- normal where Christ is named. Answered prayer is a real phenomenon in the lives of many of us still. The alternative is this: Would you, if you could undo the whole Mission, as though it had never happened, give back their pains, their ulcers, their deafness, their lameness, to all those who are rejoicing today in strength given back? If the answer to that is “Yes,” then God pardon the man who makes it None of our parish clergy, or workers, or patients, nor many of our doctors, would for a moment con- sent. The gains have been too great. Let me con- clude by a quotation from the Times: “Rontgen’s discovery was one of the great crises in the © SPIRITUAL HEALING AND ITS CRITICS 209 history of science. It marked the attainment of a new peak, from the summit of which the road already pain- fully traversed seemed flat and insignificant, and it re- vealed a new horizon resplendent with shining, but dan- gerous, mountains.” And I should be unworthy to be your leader if I refused, with the New Testament in my hands, to lead you on from the fiats, if you care to call them so, of the past, to the new horizon, with its shining mountains, just because, forsooth, they are danger- ous. Dangerous? So was Calvary. So is all Chris- tianity worth the name. It gives salvation, but it is never safe. Blood marks its trail; but the Church is never so alive as when she is bleeding, or so danger- ous as when she is being pooh-poohed for audacity in obedience. I do not intend to carry on these replies, but this had to be said for your sakes. Your affectionate Father-in-God, HARRINGTON C. MELBOURNE. 210 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To answer the critics fairly and construc- tively, but without compromise. Also to secure an accurate perspective of healing evangelism. QUESTIONS: a 2. 3. What are some of the results of a healing mission? Which of these results is the most important? What is the Archbishop’s advice as to the follow-up work after a healing mission? . How do you answer the objection that if Spiritual Healing were genuine it would empty the hospitals? . How do you explain the fact that many who come to a mission do not seem to be benefited? . Is it really true to say that very few are helped? . Is the real objective of a healing mission just bodily healing or spiritual wholeness? . Is there good reason to believe that the gift of heal- ing is a permanent possession of the Church? . Do we detract from the prestige of our Lord in His earthly ministry by making Christian healing the common possession of all ages? BIBLIOGRAPHY “Heal the Sick,’ J. M. Hickson. The Ministry of Healing, A. J. Gordon, chapters 10 and 11. Are There Modern Miracles? M. P. Daggett. See also Bibliography for chapter 20. CHAPTER XXVI THE MINISTRY OF HEALING A Pastoral Letter to the People of the Church of England in Australia KE, the undersigned, bishops of the Church of England in Australia, who have had personal experience of the Christian Healing Mission in our own dioceses, desire to communicate to the whole body of the faithful our impressions of the results of that mission, and our recommendations with re- gard to the ministry of healing to which the mission seems clearly to point and lead. We desire in the first instance, to bear our thank- ful witness to facts within our own experience. Those facts are manifold. There are facts of physical heal- ing, complete or partial, immediate or incipient,— facts observed, unquestioned, which for our present purpose need no more precise definition. There are facts of spiritual healing. In a large number of cases, physical and spiritual benefits were so closely con- nected that they could not be separated but only dis- tinguished. Many sufferers, apparently uncured, in- stead of being “bitterly disappointed” and “alien- ated from a faith which had failed them,” as we were warned they would be, are conscious of a new life 212 THE HEALING EVANGEL within them and a new outlook on all life. Their spirit has been healed of its fear and anxiety. These facts, considered together, are, in our judg- ment, quite incapable of explanation on any merely physical or mental basis. We are convinced that they point to spiritual forces at work—the response of a loving Father to the prayer of His children, the heal- ing power of a present Saviour, the renewing influ- ence of the Holy Spirit upon spirit, mind, and body. We desire to see increasingly closer coéperation between the spiritual ministry of the Church and the medical profession which is consciously or uncon- sciously doing part of the healing work of God. We acknowledge gratefully the debt of humanity to the skill and devotion of physicians and surgeons. We can quite understand that some medical men find difficulty in making room in their view of life for a religious movement which claims to produce both spiritual and physical results. But we think it quite fair to ask them, as men of science and obser- vers of phenomena, to endeavor to do justice to the facts of this movement as they stand, to enlarge their view of disease in order to embrace spiritual methods of healing, as it has already been enlarged to embrace mental and psychical alongside physical methods. We are ready to learn all that science can teach us about the processes at work in body and mind. We stand by the belief that it is Christ who is the power. at work upon mind and body in this movement; but we look forward hopefully to a closer codperation between scientific skill and spiritual faith in which priest and doctor and nurse will minister together in a three- fold ministry of healing service. We desire also to bear our thankful witness to THE MINISTRY OF HEALING 213 the deep spiritual experience which was felt at the time, and which has proved to be an abiding result of these Healing Missions. We shall never forget the wonderful realization of the presence of our Lord moving amongst the sick, who were verily at home in their Father’s house, with His hands oustretched in blessing. We awoke to the living romance of the Gospel in action in our midst. “The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.” Those reverent congregations of the suffering faithful were a veritable reconsecration of our churches. Our cathedrals have been happier places ever since. We have learned afresh old truths that had been forgotten. We have seen a new vision of the love of God for His children as the dominant fact in the life of the world. We have realized the power of the prayer of faith. We have learned to pray in silence. We have felt the happiness of intercession. The New Testament is full of new meaning; the Gospels and the Acts live again as the revelation of a healing power which we have seen at work in the Church of our own day. We have realized the bearing of the spiritual life on every part and province of life. At the same time we have learned the strength of that deeper faith of self-surrender, which subordi- nates the desire for health to the desire for holiness, and which seeks only to be blessed to the glory of God, leaving the manner of the blessing to the will of God. Finally, we have realized the unity of the spiritual life of the Body of Christ. The faithful laity rose to the height of their priesthood of intercession and service. Members and ministers of other Churches 214 THE HEALING EVANGEL knelt to receive the healing benediction of the lay- ing-on of hands in Anglican cathedrals. They prayed for the mission in their own churches; they came and prayed with us. They lent a helping hand in the work of preparation and in the serving of the sick. We all felt the rich promise of the spiritual strength of a reunited Church, and the joy of tak- ing a great step towards the fulfilment of that prom- ise. In the healing work of the Body of Christ, we found a foretaste of healing for the Body itself. The Christian Healing Mission is passing now into the ministry of healing which it was the aim of the mission to revive. The mission broke through the crust of traditional Churchmanship and conven- tional Christianity, and opened the eyes of the Church at large, and in part of the world also, to something more of the Gospel and mind of Christ. Now the time has come for the more normal method of healing ministrations to individuals and to little groups in the ordinary course of parochial life. We believe that such healing benediction is part of the ministry of the Church of the living Christ, and that we are called to “make full proof of our minis- try.” There may be lay persons conscious, like Mr. Hickson, of a gift of healing influence, who may desire to have such a gift consecrated to spiritual purposes by the sanction of the Church. This ques- tion we leave to be faced in the light of growing experience. But we are convinced that it is a normal function of the ordained ministers of the Church to use the prayer of faith and the sign of blessing in their pastoral care for the sick. We have taken counsel together recently as bishops of the Church in Australia with regard to the main principles to THE MINISTRY OF HEALING 215 be observed in the revival or rather the extension of this ministry of healing, which has already been the practice of some bishops and priests, and which we desire to encourage our brothers in the ministry to exercise more generally. Recognizing that the min- istry of healing requires not authorization but regu- lation, and that the responsibility for particular regulation rests with the individual bishop, we have recommended that forms of service be provided for the laying-on of hands, and also for the anointing of the sick with oil in the name of the Lord (in ac- cordance with the precept of St. James in the fifth chapter of his epistle, verses 4-16), where such anointing is requested by or on behalf of the sick, and that instructions be issued for the guidance of the clergy in their use of such ministrations. We desire at this stage to lay stress upon the need, not only of maintaining an attitude of devout expec- tation, but also of careful preparation for the sick and their friends and for the whole body of the faithful. The faith which is needed is not merely in- dividual but corporate faith, the faith of the home, of the ministry, of the whole Church. The Body must coéperate with its Head if its sick members are to be healed. The most marked groups of thanksgiving after the mission came from parishes where the wave of intercession had been highest and swept furthest. We urge the sick and their friends to ask for the prayers of the faithful and to pray for each other; to avail themselves of every opportunity of instruc- tion and training in a true penitence, and intelligent faith, a deeper devotion to our Lord; and to make reverent use of Holy Communion both as a prepara- tion for the blessing they are seeking for themselves 216 THE HEALING EVANGEL and for others, and as a thanksgiving for blessings received. The faith and prayer of the sick and their friends depend largely for their perfect work upon the faith and prayer of the congregation. That wonderful at- mosphere which gathered round the healing mis- sion must be recovered and extended in every parish, if our Lord is to be enabled to do all that He is wait- ing to do for His people. We believe that the clergy will do their utmost to prepare their congregations to assist in the ministry of healing. Three things are needed, penitence, faith, and prayer. (1) Penitence means the desire to be healed of all that is sinful in heart and life, all disobedience to the will of God, all doubt of His love, all bitter and unloving thoughts of others. Only a penitent Church can ex- pect to be a channel of divine healing. Only a peni- tent soul can expect to be healed. (2) Faith includes a true view of sickness in the light of Christian teaching, and a right Christian practice in time of sickness. The problem of unhealed suffering remains a mystery of the will of God, but the dominant fact of life is that God is working for the redemption of soul and body. Sickness may serve the purpose of spiritual discipline and progress, but God’s primary purpose for His children is holiness and health. (8) True faith finds expression in prayer; it is not faith alone but the prayer of faith that is the human condition of divine healing. We urge our people to make frequent and earnest use of every opportunity of training in the ministry of intercession. Where the sick are remembered constantly by name at the ordinary services of the Church, where special ser- vices of intercession for the sick are held regularly, THE MINISTRY OF HEALING 217 where the news of sickness in a home awakens, at once not only the sympathy but the prayers of all Christianly minded neighbors, there the sick find comfort in this proof of the communion of saints, and there our Lord Himself can “‘work with us and confirm the word” of healing “with signs following.” This parochial ministry of intercession calls for some simple method of organization to concentrate the prayers of the faithful upon the sick from time to time. We recommend for this purpose the forma- tion of healing prayer circles on some such lines as those suggested by Mr. Hickson. Prayer should begin at home, and we plead for the revival of family prayer,—the home prayer circle in which the sick member of the family or the sick neighbor is lifted daily into the healing presence of the Lord. Yet even if every home were a prayer circle, there is still room and need for weekly prayer circles in various parts of a town or centers of a parish, in which Chris- tian faith and hope and love may find expression in some simple form of intercession or in the prayer of silence, and in which the faithful laity, men and wo- men, may be trained and encouraged to lead the prayers of their neighbors. It is desirable that the prayers of the whole parish should be focussed by the frequent reunion of such prayer circles in a paro- chial service of intercession. Such a system of prayer circles would be an untold help both to the sick and to all who are engaged in ministering to them in soul or body. Thus far we have been dealing with the sick and the faithful. But our memories go back to a scene in the Acts of the Apostles which sets us thinking of the missionary bearing of the ministry of healing. 218 THE HEALING EVANGEL The lame man healed at the Temple gate (Acts 3 stood on his feet and began to walk, and then went with the apostles into the Temple, walking and leaping and praising God. Here is a picture of the healed life. It stands firm and steady; it goes for- ward on its way; it revels in its new-found strength; it enters into thankful communion with the Giver of all life and the Source of all healing. But there is also the impression made upon the crowd. All the people saw the healed cripple walking and praising God; they knew his past; and they were filled with wonder and amazement. The world today is waiting for a fresh revelation of the presence and power of God in the work of the Church and in the life of its members. It has already seen and felt once more the wonder of divine healing. There is here a clear call to the Church so to carry on the healing work which God has begun in our midst, that the thoughts of all who witness the work may be carried upward to the real Healer, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Lord and Saviour of all life. JOHN CHARLES SyDNEY, Archbishop, N. S. W. HARRINGTON C. MELBOURNE, Archbishop, Victoria. GERALD BRISBANE, Archbishop of Queensland. C. O. L. PertH, Archbishop of Perth. CrecIL BUNBURY WENTWORTH ARMIDALE EH. A. RIVERINA M. H. BALLARAT GILBERT WILLOCHRA G. H. GIppsLAND A. NuTTER ADELAIDE R. 8S. TASMANIA G. M. BATHURST EDWARD KALGOORLIE JOHN NortTH QUEENSLAND DoNALD BENDIGO R. NEWCASTLE PuHiILtiep RoCKHAMPTON LEWIS GOULBURN JOHN WILLIAM GRAFTON Diocesan Bishops in the Australian Commonwealth. THE MINISTRY OF HEALING 219 AIM: To ensure the adoption of adequate plans for following up a series of healing missions. QUESTIONS: 1. What has been the general result of a healing mis- sion in any given parish? 2. To what ideal of codperation may we look forward? 3. How may a Healing Mission realize the unity of the spiritual life of the Body of Christ? 4, How are the clergy called to make full proof of their ministry? 5. How will the clergy get the best results (for their people) from a Healing Mission? 6. Upon what does the faith and prayer of the sick largely depend? 7. What are the three necessary requirements in pre- paring for a Healing Mission? 8. Is faith alone sufficient for healing? 9. What spiritual reality is the world eagerly waiting for today? BIBLIOGRAPHY “Heal the Sick,’ J. M. Hickson. “What the Bishops Say” (Nazarene Press.) Also see Bibliography for chapter 23. CHAPTER XXVII METAPHYysics AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING By the Rev. Elbert B. Holmes, B.A., Natick, Massachusetts STATE my conviction at the start that the hold- ing a place for healing in the life of the Church is essential to the integrity of its faith. I am simply unable to accept a kind of Christianity which de- mands belief in miracles happening thousands of years ago, whose actuality it is impossible either to prove or disprove, and at the same time bids us not look for any such phenomena in the present; or does at least appear to limit such phenomena to things like the miracle of the Eucharist which is likewise incapable of demonstration one way or the other. Healing was a definite witness to the truth of the Gospel in the early Church. We need such a witness terribly today. In the early days it was more than a witness, it was the beneficence of God. If it be true (and I can see no reason why it should be) that the healing of the early days was given for evidential purposes no longer needed, there at least exists no reason why we should expect the beneficence of God to be withdrawn. METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 221 FAITH IS FUNDAMENTAL The healing of the primitive Church depended upon faith as its principle. And faith cannot be con- fined to any one age. There is no reason why we should not have faith today, nor why (having faith) the same results should not follow. It is true that the Incarnation was a thing unparalleled. If it could be shown that Jesus worked by personal fiat as unique Son of God, and that no one else performed miracles of healing, then there would be some ground for their limitation to His day. But if Jesus Christ Himself worked in accordance with universal prin- ciple, then (finding the principle) we may (as He said) do the works also. THE PRINCIPLE OF JESUS The metaphysical movements of the modern day represent an attempt to discover and use the princi- ple upon which Jesus Christ worked. I think that I am justified in saying that they take up a work ordi- narily not attempted in the Church on any large scale and with any popular appeal—the teaching of the technique of faith. We have too generally taken the possession or non-possession of faith as a for- tuitous circumstance. The metaphysicians will take anybody who wants to have faith and will accept their discipline and create faith and healing power in him. All of the doctrines of the metaphysicians, which sound so peculiarly in our ears, are intended to serve as the scaffolding upon which faith may stand. Or, to put it in a different way, they are intended to fur- nish one with a view of the universe with which faith is compatible. They assume that faith is automati- Oma THE HEALING EVANGEL cally directed towards whatever a man believes to be real. If a man believes that God is real and that cancer is real, he has a divided faith, and the faith that he has in God is negatived by the faith that he has in cancer. Therefore, metaphysics must be called in to solve the problem. If we cannot, on the physical plane, have a faith in God which is not negatived by the contrary faith we have in something else, then we must somehow learn to get behind the outward appearances of things and think upon a plane where the cancer (or other form of evil) does not, as a mat- ter of fact, exist. THE REAL WORLD OF SPIRIT Now, if (to say nothing of Mrs. Eddy and the metaphysicians) I say with an eminent English physicist, that the resolving of matter ever further and further back into its basic elements leads to the conclusion that the spiritual world is the only real world, then I am justified in saying that as a plain matter of fact there is no evil. For I can view in the spiritual world nothing but constructive purpose; in my wildest imagination I cannot conceive anything destructive in it. It builds, but it does not destroy. Its constructive principle is summed up in the affir- mation of scripture that God is Love. It would be madness, however, if anyone were to insist that as a practical matter evil did not exist in the world. It is a gross misunderstanding of the metaphysicions to assume that they deny and ignore the practical aspect of things. But they insist that evil shall never be recognized in such fashion as to make a claim on faith. Faith must be reserved for God only, and to them the most practical way of METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 223 dealing with evil is to look away from it and see God only. There are two pictures of Daniel in the lion’s den. One represents the more ordinary way of look- ing at evil—where Daniel stands facing the lions and overcoming them by his personal power. In the other picture Daniel is not thinking of the lions at all, but stands with his back towards them and fac- ing the light. These two pictures illustrate a com- monplace in metaphysical practice in the healing of disease. If, they teach, you face the disease and rely in any way on your own power to heal it, you will fail. If, however, you look away from the disease, realizing that in the real it does not exist, and look steadfastly to God, then the healing is accomplished. THE WORK OF THE HEALER The neophyte in metaphysical healing will often fail because it is hard to get away from the feeling that it is his treatment that is to do the work. The experienced healer is able to put the self entirely aside. Did not Jesus say, “Of Mine own self I can do nothing”? Metaphysical practice is built around such sayings as this. And another saying, much dwelt upon, is this: “Whatsoever things ye ask for, believe that ye have them and ye shall receive them.” In the perfect kingdom all good things, health, wis- dom, prosperity, or any other good, are already pres- ent. The work of a healer is to be the instrument through whom these good things that already exist may become manifested on the physical plan. But we are straying a bit from the line we had chosen. My sole object in this paper is to stress the need of faith, or rather of a method for acquiring faith. And I have said that the metaphysicians aim - 224 THE HEALING EVANGEL to do things through the presentation of a view of the universe which is compatible with a faith di- rected solely towards God. I have written briefly of their proposition—now reinforced by physical science—that the spiritual world is the only real world. But we cannot round out our view of the uni- verse compatibly with faith without some satisfac- tory account of the origin of evil within what, on previous understanding, we may be ready to call the realm of appearances. For granted that, metaphysi- cally considered, evil does not and cannot exist, it is nevertheless a very practical matter in our mun- dane experience. Whence came it? Can the meta- physical system give any satisfactory answer? Well, they go back to the Fall of Man just as we do (or perhaps used to do before evolution became a part of the household of faith) and illuminate that doc- trine so much that we may even want to make it again the basis of much teaching. The emphasis, however, is shifted away from the particular trans- gression that we had had in mind to that more gen- eral and all-comprehending sin of separateness from God. The point is made to consist in the statement of the Tempter, “Ye shall be as gods.” The sin consists in the separated self. This separated self is a pro- nounced feature in metaphysical teaching. It has been overcome entirely only by Jesus Christ, who could say, “I and My Father are one.” And the power to do the works of the Father was His in perfection because of that oneness. It is ours in proportion as we are able to approximate to that oneness. And on the contrary side, sin, weakness, limitation, come to us as a result of our separateness. This is the expla- nation of the fact of evil. It does not make it real METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 225 (i.e., eternal and unchangeable) but rather a shadow that will vanish whenever we turn to our true selves as we are in God. In Jesus Christ we are ransomed from the Fall, not only for some future state but here and now. THE INNER SECRET This teaching presents the most searching truth that I know. We may be morally upright, even saints. But can we give our individual initiative back to God? Can we truly say that in all things it is His will and not ours that counts? There is a glory that comes from the power to heal, a sense of some praise, some gratitude that is due to ws. Can we arrive at the place where Jesus was, when no glory, no praise, was ever due to Him, but all glory belonged to the Father? The metaphysicians whom I know tell me that it is their constant care to keep down pride in themselves, that if they took to themselves at all the gratitude that people are so eager to show them there would be an end to their healing power. Yes, separateness is the great sin, and it alone has brought all the shadow into the world. And yet, it is shadow—light is the only positive, the only sub- stance, the only real. Thus have the metaphysicians offered us a view of the universe that is compatible with faith. HEALING ONLY ONE FUNCTION OF FAITH It will be apparent from what has been said above that the true practice of metaphysical healing is not divorced from the spirituality which must be the chief aim of the Church. Nay it demands it, requires it absolutely, for its efficient exercise. And I believe that it is to the disadvantage of the Society of the 226 THE HEALING EVANGEL Nazarene that it seems to stand for the cultivation of a particular aspect of the Christian religion—the healing side.* This can be but temporary and arising from necessity. In time to come I hope to see the So- ciety of the nature of a religious order, with a mis- sion to teach not so much the Faith as just “faith.” I hold no brief for the doctrines of the metaphysi- cians except as they may commend themselves as true and useful in the building up of faith. But I do emphasize, what I believe to be the fact, that just as the metaphysicians have concentrated on the in- culeation of a view of the universe which is com- patible with faith (and that is the only way that faith can exist) so we should likewise, and in our way, concentrate on the same high endeavor. For if in the Episcopal Church we may all learn how to have faith, we shall not only heal, but we shall then have no difficulty about spirituality, or the Faith, or Missions, or Church Unity, or any of the other questions that have been so largely forced upon us by the incompatibility of the kind of universe that we believe in with the spiritual truths that we try to believe in. Our difficulty is in trying to ride two horses at the same time. At all events, whether we want to accept what the metaphysicians offer us or not, we are sadly in need of training in faith. And since faith depends simply upon our view of the universe, we have got to adopt, and train ourselves to accept, a view of the universe that is conformable to faith. Faith can never be the acceptance of a particular matter which in our gen- *The Society does not make a cult of healing. It merely strives to restore healing to its proper place as a function of the Church. —A. J. G. B. METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 227 eral apprehension of the universe we have reason to think is not true—that isn’t faith, it is just fooling ourselves. I suggest that we might go a long way in faith by just believing what our own catechism tells us about the sacraments. If it is true that I am by baptism a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, and that we all are just that, then why not believe it and make something of it? For something like it is just what the metaphysician would tell you if you were sick and came for treatment! This is literal fact, that the very first thing they would try to make you believe about yourself is something out of your own Prayer Book! And then we are taught that we receive Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and the meta- physician would strive (as a means for our healing) to make us realize that the Christ is indeed within us, to heal us, to give us wisdom, to give us all good! In short, when we consider the sacramental system, it would appear that we are very much metaphysi- cians ourselves, and if we ever get to believing the catechism and trying to discover what kind of a uni- verse this that we live in must be, since all this is true, then we can build, I think, on the basis of it, a groundwork for faith. THE SACRAMENTAL PRINCIPLE This, I admit, is an unscholarly procedure. Every- body knows that the sacramental system is and has been under attack. If I now call upon Churchmen to accept it blindly, in all its presuppositions and all its implications, I am asking it because they are Churchmen and without entering into their reasons for being so. I am going to assume, then, that there 228 THE HEALING EVANGEL is such a thing in the universe as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual substance because the Church teaches me that this is so. That this is, in particular cases, a veritable fact, all Churchmen will admit. But I am seeking a view of the universe that fits in with these particular facts. And I think that I find it in the conception that the universe itself is one great sacrament of the eternal Spirit. It is the outward and visible sign of eternal and spiritual substance. And the spiritual substance is the only reality. We may agree, with Dr. J. S. Haldane, quoted by Dr. L. P. Jacks in his Living Universe, that the spiritual world is the only real world. It is significant to notice that such a conclu- sion is arrived at by three widely different methods of approach. There is, first, the method of metaphysi- cal philosophy; second, the method of physical science; and third, the implication of the sacramen- tal system of the Church. These three seem to con- verge in the one conclusion that matter is but an outward and visible sign of a reality that lies be- hind and is Spirit. If this be so, it follows that the mind of man in concentrating on outward appearances, living in un- awareness of the Spirit that these do but signify, is otf the track. We can err as to the universe and suffer for it just as the Corinthian Christians erred and suffered who ate “not discerning the Lord’s Body.” If it is true that the universe is a sacrament, we are justified in thinking that the evils which man suffers are due to his using it ignorantly, not discerning the inward substance. I think that Dr. Jacks says some- thing like that in the Living Universe which I men- tioned above. METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 229 Few would be found to question the statement that the spiritual world is the only real world if but a reasonable place might be given to the “outward sign.” What our own philosophy might be, seems to me to be involved in our doctrine of the Holy Com- munion. As to that Sacrament, we are far from de- nying the ordinary nutritive qualities of the bread and wine while yet we assert that the reality of the Sacrament is a spiritual substance—the Body and Blood of Christ. The bread and wine no more disap- pear when we assert that in reality they are that spiritual substance, than the universe of matter dis- appears when we say that the spiritual world is the only real world. In other words, there is no sense illusion in the appearance of the sacrament to be other than it is that is any different from the sense illusion which makes the universe of matter appear to be other than it is. The judgment of the senses re- mains as it is, but the obligation to perceive a reality that is beyond the senses is the very essence of the Catholic religion. Now, the outward and visible sign is the universe of matter, together with all the laws concerning it which the intelligence of man is able to discover. It is, relative to us, overwhelming in its immensity. Yet its relation to the Infinite, whose sign it is, is as zero to one. For if the basis of matter be Spirit, then mat- ter exists only in absolute dependence. What, then, is the practical issue? It is, I believe, that we may make full use of the laws that govern the physical world, but can never allow them to become barriers in our thought against the power of God. If God is first, then we must learn to place Him first in our practical thinking. The aim of the metaphysical sys- 230 THE HEALING EVANGEL tems has been to reverse the age-long thought of man. Man has ever looked out upon the universe of mat- ter, matter which we know to be dependent, and re- garded it as supreme. Particularly in a scientific age he has been prone to deny the possibility of the ac- tion of any powers not seen to be inherent in matter. To reverse this thought, to put God in His proper place, requires deliberate attention to a philosophy of the universe, and this the metaphysicians have worked into a system which works remarkably well for the object it has in view. A genuine Christian Scientist, whatever his errors, does put God first. No one will claim that this is not a legitimate object for the Church to pursue. We, too, must learn to put God first. But before that can come to pass on any- thing like the degree already attained among the Christian Scientists, our philosophy must become something more than merely implicit in our formu- laries. It must be dragged forth into the light of day, made a propaganda, and presented with all the zeal of a new discovery. METAPHYSICS AS AN AGENCY IN HEALING 231 AIM: To discover how far the orthodox Christian needs the metaphysical emphasis in order to form a coherent working theory of Christian Healing. QUESTIONS: 1. Do you believe that healing is an essential part of the life of the Church? 2. What do the metaphysical movements of the present day represent? 8. How can we arouse faith for healing in any given patient ? 4. What does the metaphysical healer assume? 5. What do you mean by REALITY? Can you believe in the reality of God and the reality of disease at the some time? 6. What conclusion follows from the Scriptural state- ments about God? 7. May we accept the facts of sin and disease without endangering faith? 8. Illustrate this attitude towards evil by the two pic- tures of Daniel in the lions’ den. 9. What advantage does the experienced healer pos- sess over the beginner? 10. What was the sin which caused the “fall” of man? 11. How was it overcome by Jesus? 12. In what respect is the metaphysical view compatible with faith? 18. What must always be the chief aim of the Church? 14. How will this become possible? 15. Can faith ever mean the acceptance of that which we question intellectually? 16. In what sense is the universe itself sacramental? 17. What three methods of approach show the spiritual world to be the only real world? 18. What is the very essence of the Catholic Religion? Note: The student of the foregoing chapter is recom- mended to read carefully the later chapter by the same writer (“The Goal of the Healing Movement’) before at- tempting to answer all the above questions. See Chapter XXXI. 232 THE HEALING EVANGEL BIBLIOGRAPHY Spiritual Healing, Harold Anson, chapter 11. The Real Key to Christian Science, R. L. Swain. The Truth and Error of Christian Science, M. C. Sturge. Christian Science, Dean Lefroy. Christian Healing, Charles Fillmore. The Religio-Medical Masquerade, Peabody. Faith and Works of Christian Science, Anon. Christian Science in the Light of 'Holy Scripture, I. M. Haldeman. Science and Health, Mary Baker Hddy. Primary Lessons in Healing, A. R. Militz. CHAPTER XXVIII THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ON SPIRITUAL HEALING AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION HE following report is taken from the Morning Post (London), July 23, 1924, and tells of an address delivered by the Archbishop of York at Brad- ford before the British Medical Association. The Archbishop’s message is indeed a sign of the times and we print it here because it is significant of the better understanding which is developing between the two professions and not because we agree with everything which His Grace uttered in this interest- ing discourse. APPEAL FOR INVESTIGATION A remarkable challenge to the medical profession was given this afternoon by the Archbishop of York, in the course of the official sermon delivered before the British Medical Association. | “T venture to think,” he said, ‘that your Council should inaugurate an inquiry into the relations between the mind, body and spirit. I know of no considerable sustained scientific inquiry into this subject, which is one that should be inquired into. What I plead for now is not respect for religion on the one hand and science on the other, but that science should discover the place of the spirit in the heal- ing and uplifting of the body.” The service, which was fully choral, was held in Brad- ford Cathedral, and the delegates, in robes of searlet and 234 THE HEALING EVANGEL other colors, completely filled the center of the building. As the procession of the choir and clergy entered, one felt insensibly that continuity of tradition, which, apart from brief periods of violent antagonism, has united religion and the healing art from long before the period of the famous Hippocratean Oath. THe ARCHBISHOP’S SERMON The Archbishop of York, who took as his text, “From the Most High cometh healing,” (Ecclesiasticus 38) said there were two great channels of healing, the prayer of faith and discipline and the skill of the physician, and each had its own place. These channels were not separate, for, after prayer and discipline, there might still be need of the physi- sian. He thought they were coming to a time when, through both these channels, they would be ready to reach suffer- ing mankind in an abundance seldom, if ever, known in man’s long struggle against disease and accidents of the body. There was no need to speak of the marvels of science which had resulted in an immense liberation of man from pain, disease, and death. Search for unknown causes was unwearied and constant, and it could be hoped that before long there would be few undisclosed causes of disease. In our own time surgery had accomplished results which would have been previously regarded as miraculous. God in His compassion had been mighty through His servants in heal- ing, and He regarded men such as Pasteur and Lister as servants of His whether they always acknowledge Him or not. FAITH HEALING There might soon be a great revival of healing through faith made active by self-discipline and prayer. We could look back to the Prophet of Galilee, who had laid hands on everyone and healed them. Through simple acts of faith He poured out such strength that it strengthened those around so that disease was conquered. Ever since then, through the power of great personality, of the association of hal- lowed places and of holy rites, men’s minds had been so stirred as to feel themselves set free from disease. They had been lifted above their diseases. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ON SPIRITUAL HEALING 235 In the last few months the United States and the Bri- tish Dominions had seen remarkable results of the potency of the Spirit. Whatever the explanation might be, facts could not be denied. No prejudiced mind could refer to what was occurring and to what would occur on such a scale and over such a wide field without recognizing it as one of the great powers for removing disease. In this way, as through medicine and surgery, the Lord was revealing His power to heal. DANGERS OF JEALOUSY There was one great manifestation moving along the plane of the body and another moving along the plane of the spirit. It would be disastrous if these were kept apart through jealousy and mistrust of each other, and if the streams from this same source should flow in separate channels. It might be disastrous if those who believed in the spirit regarded medicine and surgery aS moving on a lower plane. It would be cruel to deny to many sufferers treatment that might be the only means of saving life, for the gifts of science were the gifts of God. There was a peril that with certain persons the operations of the Spirit might degenerate into magic in those mysterious regions where the mind and body met. Such persons were as much in need of guidance as others. Would it not also be closing the door to the possibilities of life if the physician and surgeon ignored the chances of healing through the spirit? There were many signs that in these, as in other regions, science and religion were converging. We had come to a time when it was recognized that it was not through mat- ter, but through the spirit, that nature was to be inter- preted. In every way the spiritual was breaking through into the material. Bodily sickness and pain were the cor- ruption of God’s will. That they existed at all was one of the mysteries, but if they were removed there would still remain the mysteries of the sorrows of mankind. NEED FOR INQUIRY Might it not be admitted by science as fully as by re- ligion that in the spirit, raised to the high level of strength believed to be communion with God, there were resources 236 THE HEALING EVANGEL for their recovery of health? Were we not on the threshold of the interpretation of mind, body, and spirit? Might not Spiritual healing have a place in a deeper and wider sci- entific scheme? In all humility he ventured to suggest that the Council of the Association should inaugurate an inquiry into the relations between mind, body, and spirit. He knew of no considerable sustained scientific inquiry into the subject, which was one that should be inquired into. Prayer and Similar phenomena should be investigated with open- mindedness and freedom from prejudice. It would, he believed, be found that the spirit, quickened by faith and strengthened by discipline, had the powers of healing coming from God as the physician came from Him. What he pleaded for now was not respect from religion on the one hand and science on the other, but that science should discover the place of the spirit in the healing and uplifting of the body. He knew that there was truth be- hind this view. He concluded with a heartfelt expression of gratitude to God for the healing gift as manifested in those before him. ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ON SPIRITUAL HEALING 237 AIM: To study the implications of the Archbishop’s appeal and to draw the necessary inferences— (a) for the Church and (b) for the Medical Profession. QUESTIONS: r 1. What is the nature of the appeal made by the Arch- bishop? . What are the two great channels of Healing? . Are the prayer of faith and the skill of the physi- cian mutually compatible? 4, What danger arises from thinking of these two chan- nels as totally distinct and separate? 5. How is nature being interpreted today and how does this interpretation affect the subject of this chapter? CO to BIBLIOGRAPHY Spiritual Director and Physican, Fr. V. Raymond. Training and Rewards of a Physican, R. C. Cabot, M.D. What Men Live By, R. C. Cabot, M.D. Religion and Medicine, Worcester, McComb and Coriat. The Psychology of Faith and Fear, W. S. Sadler, M.D. The Meaning of Christian Healing, G. F. Weld. Healing, M. R, Newbolt, chapter 4. The Christian Doctrine of Health, Lily Dougall, chapter 11. Washington Conference Reports (Nazarene Press), page 37. Handbook of Divine Healing, Butlin, chapter 18. CHAPTER XXIX ExORCISM (“On Drivinc Out DEvILs’’) By W. H. Jefferys, M.A., M.D., Superintendent Philadelphia Protestant Episcopal City Mission ARGELY because of the difficulty of the field, the most neglected aspect of the pastoral work of the Christian Church is one in which our Lord seems to have taken a very special interest, and one in which He held out the assurance that His disci- ples should also succeed. We are referring to Chris- tian ministry among the insane. In all Jesus’ own work He assigns Himself the pastoral function, the Shepherd of the sheep; in His relationship to the insane He is very distinctly, also, the Good Physi- cian, which more than suggests that when the clergy get the scientific point of view and the doctors the mystical point of view and the two develop some common sense in service to the insane, results may be expected quite out of all proportion to our pres- ent feeble and divided faith. “Drive out demons!”—St. Matthew 10:8. EXORCISM 239 “With a word He expelled the demons.”—St. Mat- thew 8:17. “By making use of My Name they shall expel the demons.”—St. Mark 16:18 (New Testament in Mod- ern Speech—Weymouth). The terminology of the New Testament is subject to the age in which it was compiled, and those who have lived in China during its later thoroughly un- scientific years can readily appreciate that the in- terpretation of the New Testament must always be subject to a realizing sense of the limitations of language and thought, and, in the case of Christ’s work, there must be added to this limitation the extreme difficulty of interpreting to a thoroughly unscientific age the most subtle physical, psychologi- cal, and spiritual problems and processes. For him- self, and as a scientific man, the writer has no hesitation whatever in saying that the events in the gospels, including what we have heretofore termed miraculous, all happened; but we are quite free to confess that their manner of explanation and exposition by those who witnessed them are such as they would not have themselves made had the same events taken place today. In other words, we do not believe that Jesus ever broke a law of God or at- tempted to do so; we think His whole mental atti- tude contra-indicates any such theory. The Son is subject to the Father; the Father is greater than He. In the temptations in the wilderness He abso- lutely refuses to say that black is white, either morally or physically; and as a corollary of the above we do not think that there is any need for believing that Jesus ever did anything which would establish an age of unreason or magic; but having 240 THE HEALING EVANGEL said that much we are free to confess that we think it will take the scientific mind a long time yet to thresh out, by analysis, what Jesus knew by intui- tion. We have our Lord’s own promise that the works that He does we shall do, and greater works, and we sincerely believe it. The writer thinks we are just beginning to get a sort of glimpse through the fog into the field in which Jesus clearly worked His works, and the glimpse is the bare outline that we have of the distinctive functions of the objective and subjective minds, and the beauty of the instrument which the former is, and the extraordinary reser- voir of power which the latter certainly is; and that we shall go a long way further when we have pushed our investigations in this whole field and come to realize that what the Bible calls the soul is what we know as the subjective mind, and that Jesus has the most complete control of this extraor- dinary reservoir of power of any human being the world has ever known. In Him it functions perfectly. To any one who is interested in the above sugges- tion, we would strongly advise a careful reading and re-reading of Dr. Foote’s The Source of Power.* The subjective mind is the reservoir of complete memory. It is also the instrument of immediate awareness. The objective mind is the analytic in- strument which the subjective mind uses and by which it is related to the material world, at present through a physical organization known to us as the nervous system. In the process of creation, or evolution if you pre- fer the term, or, better yet, of evolutionary creation, the objective mind is the instrument to which the *See Bibliography, page 271. EXORCISM 241 soul commits problems for analysis and judgment, but it reserves to itself the storing of the conclu- sions. No one remembers with his objective mind; he may, by an analytic process, recollect something ; but memory is a function of the soul. It is in that soul reservoir of memory and _ self-consciousness (perhaps the spirit is the life-center of conscious- ness) that is built up the personality of the indi- vidual. The objective mind plays a very necessary part in this evolutionary process by its work done for the evolving personality, but it is not the per- sonality. Speaking very simply, an insane person is one who, through functional or organic disease (science has not very clearly differentiated these as yet), is deprived of the proper working of the objective mind; that is, its relationship to the possible ob- jects of its judgment is disordered. It cannot get its material for judgment and is not able to handle what it does get. The result is that the soul is im- prisoned. There is not, necessarily, anything what- ever the matter with the soul; the soul is intact; it is, however, subject to the suggestion of disordered mentality, and while it is unable to commit satis- factorily its intuitions to an instrument incapable of sanely analyzing them, it is always subject to sane and direct suggestions from wherever they may arise. There is a close analogy between the soul in the hypnotic state and the soul of the insane, except that in the hypnotic state the objective mind is dor- mant, while in the insane the function of the ob- jective mind is partial and that partial function is disordered. We can suggest to a hypnotic subject 242 THE HEALING EVANGEL that she is Queen Victoria; her subjective mind ac- cepts the suggestion temporarily until her objective mind is restored to working order and discards it. In the case of the insane, such a suggestion once made by the disordered mind becomes what we call a fixed idea or an hallucination and the suggestion of being Queen Victoria remains and is very difficult to dislodge. Without being dogmatic on the subject, we are inclined to think that this condition is that which was known to the early times as demon pos- Session and is so known today in China. The term “demon possession” is a perfectly nat- ural one and has a basis of truth in it. It is quite true that the possession is not by a demon person- ality, but the subject is possessed by suggestions to consciousness not in conformity with the rational universe, with the truth, or with reality. He is pos- sessed by an untruth, and that can only be driven out by a stronger and more powerful suggestion, or, better, by its substitution by an overwhelming intui- tion which is in conformity with the truth of the rational universe. This is actually what happened, so we believe, in the case of the demoniac (maniac) of Gadara. The frightening of the swine is only a coincident fact of which the import was misunder- stood by those who interpreted the events and a very natural mistake. Direct intuition, immediate awareness, is a func- tion of the subjective mind. The channel for these intuitions by which they pass from one personality to another is the subjective mind, and the mystics all know that our direct relationship to God is through this channel; our indirect relationship to Him, that in which we perceive Him in nature, is EXORCISM 243 largely through the objective mind and is circum- stantial evidence of God’s Being. It was, perhaps, in the field of the use of His subjective mind that Jesus performed the miracle of the curing of the Gadarene, though as a most reasonable Person, in making a verbal suggestion in terms which anyone and especially the Gadarene would understand, Jesus uses every available channel for reénforcing the positive, overwhelming suggestion which cured the man and established in his consciousness the truth. These instances might be multiplied. The cures which have been undoubtedly accomplished in similar fields by using various methods of suggestion by all sorts and kinds of people and which are very much in evidence today are along this general line; but there is more to it than this last sentence would indicate, and the function of the future ministry to the insane will take careful account of these facts, but especially of the possibility of side-tracking the objective mind completely and suggesting directly to the soul the source of truth. This can be done by suggestion, putting the subjective mind of the insane into direct relationship with God; this thing can be done now and can be done much more per- fectly as we study the problems involved. It is utterly useless, and so understood by our more thorough and experienced chaplains to the insane, to argue with insane persons for the existence of God; but it is very easy to suggest His existence so positively and overwhelmingly as to start the im- prisoned soul on its quest for the source of all truth and the peace that passeth understanding. The Rey. W. Fred Allen, City Mission Chaplain to 244 THE HEALING EVANGEL the Department of Mental Diseases of the Philadel- phia General Hospital, located at Byberry, writes out of a most intelligently consecrated experience as follows: “Beneath the irrationality, confusion of mind, and dis- torted ideas, the spirit of the man is intact and suffering only from alienation from God, whether wilful or other- wise, and can be reached, ministered to, and healed without the ordering of the mind itself, and the mind itself is vastly helped by the reactions of the spirit and in many eases entirely cured. What an inducement to sacramental ministrations ! Sacramentally united to God, the All, the great Reality, the Life of the Universe, a real spiritual life, devout and developing exists beneath the phobias and anguish and con- fusion of the mental life, like the calm depths of the real ocean beneath the restless and tossing surface. When bodily death releases the spirit person from the environment that should be, but is not, the instrument of communication with the sense world, it will be a soul “‘purified, made white and tried,” to enter upon the further discipline and growth of Paradise, a real purgatory. Surely this is worth while. “So the method is only for some and very few didactic; with most it is dogmatic, definite, insistent, and through the agency of the subconscious truth reaches the spirit. Direct intellectual instruction cannot be received, but there is love, deep penitence, trust, longing for God.” “Spiritual qualities survive when mental are dead. We reach the spirit through the subconscious when the mind is partly intact; through the spirit direct, by the sacra- ments, when there is no mentality, only love and desire. “Tt is manifest that the health of the spirit means al- ways help, and sometimes entire cure for the mind.’”—‘‘Do the Insane React to Religion?’—The City Missionary, Vol. 7, No. 2. The power of suggestion which lies not alone with the doctor, but chiefly with the chaplain, is almost beyond belief. The more we know about psychology EXORCISM 245 the more we realize the possibilities of suggestion. That healing of physical ill is, at times, actually ac- complished by the action of the soul of Christ is as well proved today as that quinine will cure tertian malaria if administerated properly. We saw Mr. Hickson fail to cure a good many cases, that is we did not see them cured; but we did see some cures,— one in particular which, as a medical man, the writer would have proclaimed absolutely incurable from the point of view of scientific medicine. His physicians had so proclaimed it. We saw that boy cured in three days. Mr. Hickson’s methods are well known. A chaplain on the staff of the New York City Mis- sion showed us a similar case of long standing pa- ralysis in which a woman’s power to walk was com- pletely restored after about six months’ treatment by the chaplain. The technique of the treatment was the conversion of the patient’s spirit from the power house of hate to a power house of love. The whole thing depended upon the nervous irritation produced by an unforgiving soul; the peace which produced the cure was the “peace that passeth understand- ing.” We cannot close this subject without pointing out the fact that the Church has woefully neglected the possibilities of our ministry to the insane; that it is probably in this field, a field which is almost be- yond the reach of medical assistance, that the cura- tive power of religion could be at its very best and most manifest efficiency. We have even found it dif- ficult to trace any adequate literature on the sub- ject; but the experience of City Mission chaplains in our insane asylums has called my attention to 246 THE HEALING EVANGEL the tremendous possibilities of the issue. It should be said without hesitation that it is not every man who can enter into this ministry, but only very spe- cial persons with particular qualifications, among which we should include a strong mystical sense, the greatest patience and kindliness and faith, and a good knowledge of psychology. To understand this one should read that wonderful autobiography of a homicidal maniac, called The Guest, an account written by herself of a woman’s experience and memories through twelve years of maniacal insan- ity, three of which were spent in the deepest melan- cholia, during which time she never spoke one word, and how she was lifted out of that depth of hell by the spiritual ministry of a physician and restored to her family in perfect health and with a clear memory of all that she had been through, and how, never during any of that time, was she unconscious of all that was going on around her or failed to hear every word that was said to her, though she made no manner of response. As a Christian physician the writer has in re- membrance one such experience worth more to him than almost any single gift of life; an elderly woman, who was rapidly losing her mind, and was possessed of a fixed idea that another woman had so greatly wronged her as to produce an all-con- suming hate of her. There had been no attempt upon the woman’s life, but we rather think it was only a question as to whether there happened to be oppor- tunity or not. It was our privilege to spend an hour and a half quietly suggesting to this distracted mind that there was one possible cure and only one, and that was for her to forgive and turn her heart to EXORCISM 247 love instead of hate. We made no effort whatever to prove whether a wrong had been done or not; the suggestion of love was left to work its own way. No report of this patient came to us for four years, and then quite unexpectedly we received a note from which the following is quoted: “T went to you in confusion and distress of mind; I could not forgive an injury as I hoped to be forgiven. You told me that there was only one word that could solve that problem—love. That was an unknown solution to me then, but it let a ray of light into my mind, and the light has grown Slowly ever since. I can thank God now for His love in leading me and His patience in giving me time. Very deeply I want to thank you before I go; not that I am an invalid, but at seventy-three one faces the end of things in this world at any time.” 248 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To understand our Lord’s teaching and prac- tice in the matter of Exorcism. Also to interpret the Church’s ministry to the insane in the light of modern knowledge in the field of psycho- pathology. QUESTIONS: 1. What does our Lord’s attitude towards the insane suggest in the matter of codperation between the clergy and the physicians? 2. In working miracles of healing or exorcism, did Jesus ever break the laws of nature? 3. Of what is the subconscious mind the reservoir? 4. What does the writer mean by the objective (con- scious) mind? 5. How is the subjective (or subconscious) mind re- lated to the material world? 6. Where is the personality of the individual built up? 7. What is the chief difficulty involved in the mind of an insane person? 8. How does the phenomenon of hypnosis help us to understand the problem of insanity? 9. What do you understand by the term “demon posses- sion”? 10. How can “possession” be remedied ? 11. Through what faculty or power are we directly re- lated to God? 12. How may we give spiritual healing to the insane? 13. Is it possible to make a successful spiritual appeal to the insane? 14. What special qualities are needed in work with the insane? BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapter 14. The Miracles of Our Lord, George MacDonald, chapter 7. The Source of Power, T. C. Foote. Our Psychic Powers, H. B. Wilson, chapter 4. The Healing Christ, Wigram, chapter 5. Concerning Prayer, B. H, Streeter, chapter 13. CHAPTER XXX SPIRITUAL HEALING By the Bishop of Aberdeen (Notes of an Address given just before the opening of a Healing Mission in Aberdeen, Scotland) HEN the Lambeth Conference met two years ago, the Bishops of the Anglican Communion Oe aps tay came to the conclusion, and indeed no other conclusion was possible, that Christian Science had developed doctrines which were in direct con- flict with the Christian faith; doctrines which de- nied the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atone- ment, and the reality of physical disease and spiri- tual sin. None of us then can become Christian Scientists without denying the faith and becoming apostates. ..... Along with this condemnation of Christian Science went the admission that the heresy was due to the neglect to enforce certain as- pects of the Christian faith, and the penitent ac- knowledgment of a grave deficiency in the faith and teachings of the Church. Even the most perni- cious heresies are due to the neglect of the Church in teaching truth. 250 THE HEALING EVANGEL In the second place, the Conference asserted that to the Spirit of the Incarnate Christ were due all the devoted and self-sacrificing labors in scientific research, and in the application of the results of that research in medicine, surgery, nursing, hygiene, and sanitation. It declared that all these means of healing and preventing disease and alleviating suf- fering were gifts that came from God and should be used faithfully for the welfare of mankind. I believe that with these conclusions we are all agreed. It is in absolute conformity with these con- clusions that the Mission of Spiritual Healing will be conducted. But the Lambeth Conference went further than these very obvious conclusions. It called on the clergy to study more thoroughly the many- sided enterprise of prayer, so that the corporate faith of the Church might be renewed, and the power of Christ to heal might be released. It called for a committee to report on the use of prayer with the laying-on of hands, unction of the sick, and other spiritual means of healing. It urged the recognition of the ministry and gifts of healing in the Church, and that these should be exercised under due license and authority. It urged precisely an aspect of our religion, too often lost sight of and ignored, which the forthcoming Mission of Spiritual Healing is forcing upon our notice. So much for the Lambeth Conference. Hitherto I have spoken of the mind of the Church. Let me take you now to Holy Scripture, the Holy Scripture at its highest in the example and the teach- ing of Jesus Christ. We believe, and our belief is based firmly on Holy Scripture, that God became very Man in the In- SPIRITUAL HEALING 251 carnation, in order that He might be the Saviour of our entire nature—body, soul, and spirit. Holy Scripture always and everywhere reveals Him as the Saviour of the body as well as the Saviour of the soul. ; Who of us does not remember our Lord’s utter- ance in the synagogue at Nazareth, in which He makes the prophecy of Isaiah the summary of His mission, and His message to the world: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised”; or that famous reply to the disciples of John the Baptist, in which He makes His works of healing the proof that He is the Christ: “Go and tell John what things ye have heard and seen. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear.” Who of us does not remember that His whole ministry was a perpetual warfare against sin and disease, which He regarded as due to the activity of evil and rebellious spiritual forces, and contrary to the will of God? St. Peter’s summary of His mission reflects what He thought about disease: “He healed all those who were oppressed of the devil.” Indeed, our Lord Him- self uses precisely the same language of disease. He does not say that the woman whom He healed was visited with God’s hand; on the contrary, He as- serts that she was bound of Satan. And in this record of the ministry, so full of heal- ing, that an ever-recurring refrain runs through it all: “He healed all that were sick,” “He healed them all,” “He laid His hands on every one of them, and Do ~~ S 252 THE HEALING EVANGEL healed them,” “He healed them that had need of healing”—in this ministry of healing, it is plain if we read the Gospels that He was helped or hindered by men’s faith or unbelief. We read, indeed, of Christ visiting a certain place with the desire to heal, and with persons in sore need of healing, but He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief. That is a most important point which cannot be emphasized too much. Without faith, the energizing power of Christ is hindered in its work. In the next place, we may learn from Holy Scrip- , ture that Christ founded His Church to perpetuate ) His mission, His work, His Spirit in the world, and ‘that to the Church He promised His abiding pres- ence: “Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the world’s end.” He took it for granted that His fol- lowers would carry on His work: “As ye go, preach and heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. “Into whatsoever city ye enter . . . Heal the sick that are therein. “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And these signs shall follow them that believe. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.” We know from the Acts of the Apostles that these signs were wrought. We know from the glad confi- dence of the Epistle of St. James that these signs were expected: “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick.” We know from the Epistles of St. Paul that spe- cial gifts of healing were given to special men in the communities among whom he worked: “Have SPIRITUAL HEALING 253 all the gifts of healing?” “To one is given the gifts of healing by the same spirit.” And we know to our shame and sorrow that this side of Christ’s religion has become so buried, so forgotten, so ignored in our own time, that usually the clergy are only called in as undertaker’s assis- tants to minister the last rites, when all hope of recovery is clean gone, and already the coffin is being thought about for the corpse. Can we explain it? I think we can. It is not that God’s will has changed. It is because we have re- stricted and tied up spiritual powers by our hard- ness of heart and unbelief. If I were to choose one little sentence of three words to sum up the Church worship of the first age, I should choose the words: “JESUS IS HERE’ It is that sense of the living presence, the living power of Jesus, energizing, active in their very midst, which gave all its glamour, its mystery, its awe and joy, to the religion of the primitive Church. If I were to choose a sentence to sum up the Church worship of our days, I should choose the sentence: “JHSUS IS NOT HERE” Why, people even object to the phrase “The Real Presence” in the Holy Eucharist! It is the real absence that they want. Christ is for them a clause in a creed, a name in a printed book, a dreamland figure in some imaginary heaven, a dead Syrian prophet, whose teachings are worth studying, like the teachings of Socrates or Confu- clus. NS 254 THE HEALING EVANGEL But not a living, present Christ. Sunk in a practical unbelief more deadly than atheism, having a practical belief only in what they can touch and see and apprehend by sense percep- tion, with their souls crabbed, cabined, and confined by the adamantine walls of a hard materialism, long after materialism as a system of philosophy has be- come as much exploded as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, they still repeat the Creed of Christen- dom and respect Christ’s moral teachings, and call themselves members of Christ’s Church, while they ignore the hidden forces, the spiritual realities, which are the essence of the Christian faith. Ah, we Christians! With our cold, dull, stodgy ) Churchmanship, without fire, without enthusiasm, A without inspiration, without romance, without sacri- p, fice, without the gay assurance of a living faith! We are always a problem to the unbeliever, who says to us: “If you believe what you profess to be- lieve, why are you not different from what we are?” We need arousing from our dull stolidity. We need some action which will testify to a belief that God is the one great reality, and that spiritual forces are more real than anything which we can touch and see. With all my heart and mind I support this Mis- sion of Spiritual Healing, because I am profoundly convinced of the crying need for a testimony against the sordid materialism of our time. I do not know the Missioner. But I know that throughout the world he has been God’s minister of health for body and spirit to many thousands, working with the blessing, the approval, the gratitude of the bishops of our Anglican Com- SPIRITUAL HEALING 255 munion throughout the world, working in fullest harmony with the great medical profession, work- ing in fullest loyalty to the Catholic faith. Humbly, and with a simple faith, I look forward to his min- istry for mine own self. And I pray God his work may be blessed among our people in the city. 256 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To justify a modern healing mission on scrip- tural and sacramental grounds. QUESTIONS: aa ee) What should be the logical inference which the Church may draw from the wide spread of Chris- tian Science? . What was accomplished by the Lambeth Conference at its last meeting (referred to in this chapter) ? . How does the doctrine of the Incarnation affect the problem of Christian Healing? . What is the chief function of the Church? . Why do people object to the doctrine of the Real Presence? . What is the Bishop’s final argument in favor of the Mission ? BIBLIOGRAPHY “Heal the Sick,’ James Moore Hickson. See also Bibliography for chapters 23, 24, 25, and 26. CHAPTER XXXI THE GOAL OF THE HEALING MOVEMENT IN THE CHURCH By the Rev. Elbert B. Holmes, B.A., Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Natick, Massachusetts HE healing movement in the Church cannot yet be said to have found itself. A few general prin- ciples are clear, and on these principles it bases its challenge to the Church. But there remains the much larger factor, the results that will come from critic- ism and synthesis. Much that may be said and done by the supporters of the movement may prove mis- taken, and in the long run the synthesis of opinions that honestly differ within the Church will effect a basis for a more effective program. FACTS ARE FACTS That, under the present conditions, a healing movement within the Church should be looked upon with suspicion is quite natural. We can hardly es- cape the fact that the main stream of the healing movement as it exists in the United States is ob- noxious to Church people. The healing movement began outside the Church with the advent of Chris- tian Science, and under that banner it has attained 258 THE HEALING EVANGEL to its mightiest position and influence. The very men- tion of spiritual healing in any of our parishes calls up the name “Christian Science,” and very often the feeling of repugnance persists even after the differ- ent character of our healing work in the Church has been fully explained. And there is an actual handicap in our not being able to say things that are true because Mrs. Eddy has said them first. If, for example, I have been reading Dr. L. P. Jacks’ little book, A Living Universe, and venture to quote as he does Mr. J. S. Haldane that “the spiritual world is the only real world,” then I shall have to explain things to an indignant congregation. If I read in Professor McDougal’s Outline of Psychology that there are obviously no such things as emotions, sensations, ideas, or concepts, and then venture to say that a headache is not real, I shall have again to explain that I am not a Christian Scientist. If I, following the mystics, recommend the “Silence” as a valuable method for acquiring mental poise, then, again, I learn that Mrs. Eddy has taught that in Christian Science! So it goes. A REBUKE Then, too, the healing movement in the Church came to be because some of us were stung by the exposure of our inconsistencies with the Gospel through the world-wide sweep of this same Christian Science. The cover of Science and Health blazons a text from our Gospels which we have not known what to do with. People who belonged to us have left the Church for Christian Science and never cease proclaiming that the promises of the Gospel had been demonstrated to them as veritable truth. GOAL OF HEALING MOVEMENT IN CHURCH 259 One reads this in The Physiology of Faith and Fear, by William S. Sadler, M.D.: “Tt is certainly a sad commentary on the orthodox teach- ings of most Christians, who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus, to contrast the downcast and discouraged attitude of most Church members with the good cheer and happiness which the average Christian Scientist enjoys, in spite of the confused teachings of their system. It is certainly greatly to the credit of the Christian Scientists that they have got what health and happiness they have out of the truth at their disposal, and their success certainly constitutes a stunning rebuke to the modern teachers and exponents of Christianity.” The sting of such criticisms as this is sufficient to account for the rise of a healing movement in the Church. That it is, as yet, no match for the meta- physical movements that it was intended to combat is obvious. Some may say that this is because it has not enough of daring; that it pays too much heed to current suspicions and prejudices in the Church, such as were observed in a preceding paragraph. For myself I prefer to take the ground that the winning of the confidence and codperation of the whole Church is a prime essential, and that once this is accomplished we shall be taking a mighty step towards the conversion of the whole nation to Jests Christ. Such, you will bear in mind, is the goal. PERSONAL AND CORPORATE FAITH I will mention some of the principles which (as I said at the beginning) seem clear. They are the things which we think the whole Church will ulti- mately agree with us about. In the first place, the p-omises of Christ in the Gospels are not to remain ignored. There may be a reason why the promise 260 THE HEALING EVANGEL “The works that I do shall ye do also” is not being fulfilled. We propose to begin to find out the reason now and not drop the matter for another sixteen centuries. Quite obviously it depends upon faith— “according to your faith be it unto you.” And again it seems to depend upon the general atmosphere of belief or non-belief, as when even Jesus could do no mighty works at Nazareth because of their unbelief. Thus there are two problems: (1) the problem of how to gain personal faith, and (2) the problem of how to produce corporate faith. The Churchman re- cently commented on the lack of results at a heal- ing mission held in St. Paul’s Chapel, New York. Is it not quite possible that the unbelief in New York is as great as it was in Nazareth? We must never lose sight of our Gospels. They explain the failures just as they explain the successes. And above all they emphasize the necessity of faith. THar is our problem. We stand for faith, both personal and cor- porate. Let the Church decide whether this belongs in the Gospel or not. THE WILL OF GOD IN HEALING Then, in the second place,..we-stand-for-the..will, _of God, We do not desire the healing of any person sick by the will of God. We strongly suspect that a person ill by divine decree will not recover either by medical or spiritual aid until God Himself re- moves the decree. But we do say this, that if a per- son believes that his sickness is sent of God, for his good, that he ought not to seek to be relieved from it by medical any more than by spiritual aid. And we assume that because, as a matter of fact, all Church people do seek to have their ills relieved, GOAL OF HEALING MOVEMENT IN CHURCH 261 therefore they agree with us that sickness is not the will of God, that God does not send sickness. Still, if any one is still disposed to disagree, and finds his conduct in seeking healing in medicine fully consistent with his belief that God sent the disease, I shall not dispute with him. He can still join us in the quest for faith. For there must be some- thing that faith is meant to accomplish, else why all this talk about faith in the Gospels? And as- suredly, from those same Gospels, if he have not faith, that something will not be done. We expect, then, that the Church will agree with us that there is a royal way for Christians, a way of accomplish- ment of God’s will through faith in Him. And specu- late as one will about particular applications of that will, we sorely need faith in order that what He does will may be effectively done. THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM In the third place we stand for the.sacramental | system ‘of the” Church anda ‘Sacramental conception of the universe. This is the philosophy that takes the place of the ‘metaphysical system of Christian Sci- ence. It takes the universe not as a dead thing to be exploited but as instinct with God, transfusing with His Spirit every particle of matter. As for our bodies they are the temples of the Holy Ghost and the Christ dwells in them. This is the significance of the sacraments of Baptism (with its complement of Confirmation) and Holy Communion. A due atten- tion to this philosophy will transform the life and utterly banish the downcast and discouraged atti- tude which Dr. Sadler (quoted above) felt to be the prevailing state among orthodox Christians. | 262 THE HEALING EVANGEL There is no need for the metaphysical doctrines of Christian Science, for we may (if we listen) learn from the teachings of the Church that spirit and not matter is the dominant element. Just as in the sac- rament of Holy Communion the Body and Blood of Christ must be held to be the dominant element, re- ducing to entire subordination that which we con- ceive as bread and wine, so in our thought does Spirit become dominant in a sacramental universe; and so do the sacraments bear witness to some more complete and perfect domination of Spirit in our bodies. The success of Christian Science lies in its ability to secure among its adherents the more or less complete assimilation of its philosophy. If the Church can do as well (not by producing as good a philosophy, for it has a better already) but in in- ducing its members to spend the time to think out | and meditate upon its teaching, there is no reason why the attitude of Church people towards life should not be vastly improved. I suspect that the “faith” which is the subject of our striving will be found to consist very largely in a due apprehension of sacramental truth. THE PLACE OF THE PHYSICIAN In the fourth place we gladly recognize the place of the physician. This is not for the reason that the power of God needs supplementing by material _ aid, but for the deeper reason that all wisdom of | whatsoever sort and on whatsoever plane is of God. The ministry of the physician is sacramental in its nature; it is the outward and visible sign of Mind. It fits in well with the sacramental view of things— not at all with the metaphysical view of Christian GOAL OF HEALING MOVEMENT IN CHURCH 263 Science. Thus the fact that the healing movement in the Church does not disparage the physician in- dicates a difference in principle. The Christian Sci- entist says that matter does not exist, and though that may be literally true (cf. the statement of Hal- dane quoted above), it leaves us entirely at sea as to what we are to do with very solid looking ap- pearances and very obstinately working physical laws. It has no place for such an operation as the stamping out of yellow fever in the Canal Zone, for the operations that save life, for the anti-toxins that stop the ravages of bacteria. It is true that God is not limited to such means. It is true also that God is not limited when medicine stops short, as in the cure of cancer. But in the sacramental view of is i God and belongs to » God. A WORD OF CAUTION There is due, however, a word of caution. The Church may use the medical profession, but it ought hot, I believe, to be dominated, by. the medical pro- fession. For there is no kind of guarantee that the medical profession may not become predominantly materialistic. If it be true that the ministry of medi- cine is sacramental, then we can no more tolerate a godless physician than we can tolerate a godless priest at the Altar. Medicine goes its own way. The Church merely submits. From time to time we are adjured to coéperate with the medical profession ; there is no voice raised demanding that the medical profession coéperate with us. We are almost pain- fully reminded that the Church is the under-dog, that its teachings have no scientific validity or stand- 264 THE HEALING EVANGEL ing. We are to take the medical man’s word for it that there is no cure for certain organic diseases, and the word of Christ is to count for nothing. Now there is due a fair warning that if the healing movement prevails in the Church there is to be no countenanc- ing of that sort of thing. We will gladly accept any physician who acknowledges the same Lord that we do. But equally, I think, with the Christian Scientist, we see the need of combating any materialism in the medical profession. And I think that in view of alarming prophecies now being made as to the fu- ture disposition of the medical profession, the Church as a whole should be profoundly concerned. A VISION OF THE FINAL GOAL And now I am ready to present my vision of the _ goal ofthe healing movement, the object toward — which all.the efforts now being made in the Church” are tending.. There is a great deal of truth in what we so often hear, that the healing works of the. Gospel were given for evidential purposes. They _ were signs of the Son of God. I can hardly admit the contention that the healing works were withdrawn when their evidential purpose had been accom- plished, for the reason that there never was a time when such evidence was not needed. The Church to- day is the Body of Christ, and there never was a greater need for proof of it. That nothing at all is proved by ancient records however venerated is a patent fact today, and I believe that the proof of the Gospel is always a present fact, or may be. Now I expect some day to see, as a result of the healing movement, a Church hospital in every diocese—at least one. It will not be simply a hospital erected by ~ it poe ? OE ey - So Ge GOAL OF HEALING MOVEMENT IN CHURCH 265 the Church and supported financially, but one which will be organized in every detail on Christian prin- ciples. The physicians and surgeons will be men of faith and prayer and absolute belief in Jesus Christ. The nursing will be given over to a sisterhood, of an Order that makes a life work of spiritual heal- ing. A staff of clergy, men of deep spirituality and prayer, will conduct the whole. In all that hospi- tals the word “incurable” will never be heard. An atmosphere of faith will be always there. And out from those hospitals, I expect, will issue forth the power that will convert the nation to Jesus Christ. 266 THE HEALING EVANGEL AIM: To indicate the lines along which the Min- istry of Healing may be correlated with the com- plete sacramental life and teachings of the Church. Also to state the terms upon which ef- fective co-operation may be secured between the Church and the Medical Profession. QUESTIONS: 1.What are some of the grounds of suspicion which exist toward the healing movement? . Is Dr. Sadler’s criticism justified by the facts? . What two problems must be solved in order to make Christ’s promises effective? 4. If a person believes his sickness to be sent by God, should he seek relief by medical aid? 5. What is the fundamental distinction between the philosophy of the Church and that of Christian Science? 6. Distinguish between the sacramental and the meta- physical views of the universe. 7. On what does the success of Christian Sciences de- pend? 8. In what way is the ministry of the physician sacra- mental? 9. Should the Church be dominated by the medical pro- fession? 10, Is there still an evidential value in Christian Healing? 11. What should be the ultimate goal of the healing move- ment? wb BIBLIOGRAPHY Spiritual Healing, Harold Anson. “Heal the Sick,’ J. M. Hickson, chapters 10 and 12. God’s Will for the World, H. B. Wilson, Part 1. chapter 5; Part II, chapter 4. * | I NOTE THE SACRAMENT OF UNCTION INCE completing this book a friend has pointed out that no chapter in this book is devoted to the important subject of the Anointing of the Sick. In reply the author feels that so much has already been written on this subject, that it is not necessary for him to add anything. The Anointing of the Sick depends for its efficacy upon faith and prayer. This is made very clear in the fifth chapter of the Epistle of St. James. It is to be regretted that many Catholic clergy still feel that there is a great virtue in the use of oil regard- less of the circumstances under which the oil is ap- plied. They still fall back upon the well known argu- ment that the validity of a sacrament is not destroyed by the unworthiness of the priest. It would be easy to engage in controversy on this matter. It will be much better, however, to study carefully and prayer- fully the scriptural warrant for this sacrament, and when this has been done, we shall see how essential is the atmosphere of prayer and faith if the Holy Oil is to accomplish its sacred and healing function. Among the many excellent books on this subject, the best, in my judgment, is the little book entitled Divine Healing, by Bishop Pakenham-Walsh, for- 268 THE HEALING EVANGEL merly Bishop of Assam. The chief merit of this book to me is that the Bishop used Holy Unction with conspicuous success himself before writing this little book, and therefore is entitled to more consideration than those who write upon purely theological or technical grounds. The Society of the Nazarene sup- plies several alternatives for the Anointing of the Sick, all of whch have considerable Episcopal en- dorsement. The Guild of St. Raphael in England have also published an excellent little Vade Mecum for the clergy who practise Spiritual Healing. It is called The Healing of the Sick, and is published by Mow- bray in London and the Morehouse Publishing Com- pany of Milwaukee. It includes simple forms for Anointing, the Laying on of Hands, the Anointing of the Sick, and Sacramental Confession. A list of books on Anointing is appended for the benefit of those who desire further information on this sub- ject: The Anointing of The Sick, F. W. Puller, 8.S.J.E., S.P.C.K. Divine Healing, Bishop Pakenham-Walsh, S.P.C.K., 50e. Service of Anointing, Bishop Pakenham-Walsh, S.P.C.K., 15e. Service of Anointing and Laying-on of Hands, Mow- bray, 15c. The Anointing of The Sick, Canon N. Keymer, Mow- bray, 50c. Body and Soul, Dearmer, chapters 22, 23, and Ap- pendix. Health and Religion, Claude O’Flaherty, M.B., Ch.B., $2.00; chapters 5, 6 and 12. THE SACRAMENT OF UNCTION 269 Is Any Sick Among You? P. Gavan Duffy, 7T5c. The Healing of The Sick, By the Guild of St. Raphael, Mowbray, 50c. Revival of The Gift of Healing, see chapter 5, H. B. Wilson, Morehouse, cloth 90c., paper 50c. Healing, M. R. Newbolt, S.P.C.K., 80c., see chapter 3. Handbook of Divine Healing, J. T. Butlin, Marshall Bros., London, see chapter 14. 4 sf NO? e # Tp Hi: Olsen Whe? ay M3 | GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Body and Soul, Percy Dearmer, D.D., E. P. Dutton, N. Y., $2.50. Health and Religion, Claude O’Flaherty, M.B., Ch.B., Doran, $2.00. The Christian Doctrine of Health, Lily Dougall, Macmillan, $1.75. The ‘Healing Christ, E. F. E. Wigram, Nisbet, London, $1.40. The Mount of Vision, Bishop Brent, Longmans, N. Y. $1.20. “Come Unto Me,’ Ethel E. Tulloch, Nazarene Press, 25 cts. The Sacrament of Healing, John Maillard, Morgan & Scott, London, $1.00. The Divine Antidote, F. N. Riale, Ph.D., Christian Work, N. Y. $2.50. The Power That Worketh In Us, Basil Wilberforce, D.D., R. Scott, London, $1.40. The Hope That Is In Me, Basil Wilberforce, D.D., R. Scott, Lon- don, $1.40. Spiritual Consciousness, Basil Wilberforce, D.D., R. Scott, $1.40. Steps in Spiritual Growth, Basil Wilberforce, D.D., R. Scott, $1.40. Spiritual 'Healing and the Holy Communion, G. W. Douglas, More- house, 25 cts. Concerning Prayer, Canon B. H. Streeter and others, Macmillan, $3.75. Spirit, Canon B. H. Streeter and others, Macmillan, $3.75. The Living Touch, Dorothy Kerin, Geo. Bell, London, $1.00. Handbook of Divine Healing, J. T. Butlin, Marshall Bros, London, $1.00. The Power to Heal, Henry B. Wilson, B.D., Nazarene Press, 90 cts. The Revival of the Gift of Healing, H. B. Wilson, B.D., Morehouse, cloth 90 ects., paper 50 cts. Does Christ Still Heal? Henry B. Wilson, Dutton, $1.50. God’s Will for the World, Henry B. Wilson, B.D., Dutton, $1.50. Our Psychic Powers, Henry B. Wilson, B.D., Nazarene Press, $1.00. The Meaning of Christian Healing, George F. Weld, D.D. (By the Author), 75 cts. Back to Christ, Sir Wm. Willcocks, K.C.M.G., Nazarene Press, 25 cts. Hope, A. W. Hopkinson, Small, Maynard, $2.00. The Soul’s Sincere Desire, Glenn Clark, Little & Co., Boston, $2.00. Spirit Power, May Thirza Churchill, Dutton, 75 cts. Christianity and Psychology, F. R. Barry, Doran, $1.50. Washington Conference Reports, Nazarene, 1924, Nazarene Press, cloth, 75 cts., paper 40 cts. 272 THE HEALING EVANGEL On the Miracles of Our Lord, Archbishop R. C. Trench, E. P. Dutton, $2.00. “Heal the Sick,’ James Moore Hickson, Dutton, $3.00. Healing in the Churches, Francis M. Wetherill, F. H. Revell, $1.25. The Wonders of the Kingdom, G. R. H. Shafto, Doran, $1.75. (contains a study of each of our Lord’s miracles.) Life in Fellowship, Bishop J. P. Maud of Kensington, Nisbet, Lon- don. Thought, Faith, and Healing, Mrs. Horace Porter, Allenson’s, $1.00. The Faith That Overcomes the World, Van R. Gibson, Macmillan, $1.00. Spiritual Gifts (The Charismata), J. R. Pridie, Robert Scott, Lon- don, $3.00. The Ministry of Healing, A. J. Gordon, D.D., Christian Alliance, $1.00. The Whole Man, Geoffrey Rhodes, Morehouse, $2.00. O. P. The Healing 'Hand, S. A. Weltmer, D.S.T., Weltmer Institute, Nevada, Mo., $2.00. The Sivth Sense, Bishop Brent, B. W. Huebsch, N. Y., 75 cts. The Ideal Life, Henry Drummond, Hodder and Stoughton, Lon- don, $2.40. The New Evangelism, Henry Drummond, Hodder and Stoughton, London, $1.00. A Soul in the Making, F. S. M. Bennett, Dean of Chester, Phillip- son & Golder, Chester, 75 cts. M. Coue and His Gospel of Health, same author, 75 cts. Our Physical Heritage in Christ, Kenneth Mackenzie, F. H. Revell, $1.50. Divine Life for the Body, Kenneth Mackenzie, Christian Alliance, 50 cts. Mind and Health, BE. E. Weaver, Ph.D., Macmillan, $2.00. The Romance of Eternal Life, Charles Gardner, J. M. Dent, Lon- don, $2.00. Spiritual Healing, Robert Reade, Morehouse, $1.00. Prayers for Healing, By E. B. H., Allenson’s, $1.00. The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today, Evelyn Underhill, $2.50. The Force of Mind, A. T. Schofield, M.D., Funk and Wagnalls, N. Y., $2.00. The Law of Psychic Phenomena, T. J. Hudson, McClurg, Chicago, $2.25. The Law of Mental Medicine, T. J. Hudson, McClurg, Chicago, $2.25. Christianity and Auto-Suggestion, C. Harry Brooks and Ernest Charles (Dodd, Mead), $1.25. The Glory of Redemption, H. W. Workman, M.A., Skeffington’s, London, $1.40. Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, G. B. Cutten, Ph.D., Scribner’s, $2.50. The Psychology of Power, Capt. Hadfield, Macmillan, 75 cts. Spiritual Radio, Archbishop Du Vernet, paper 25 cts., cloth 50 cts. Nazarene Press, Mountain Lakes, N. J. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 273 Miracles and the New Psychology, E. R. Micklem, Oxford Univ. Press, $2.50. The Miraculous Element in the Gospels, A. B. Bruce, Doran, N. ¥., $2.00. The Gospel Miracles, J. R. Ilingsworth (Bampton Lectures.) Mac- Millan, $2.20. Lectures on the Miracles (Bampton Lectures), J. B. Mozley. aby Healing, Harold Anson, M.A., Univ. of London Press, 1.40. Many Infallible Proofs (studies in the miracles), A. T. Pierson, DD Usa acpkks See VOL oN.) Lis) S250, Lourdes, Johannes Jorgensen, Longmans, $1.50. The Wonder of Lourdes, John Oxenham, Longmans, 90 cts. The Finger of God, T. H. Wright, Andrew Melrose, London. Are There Modern Miracles? Mabel Potter Daggett, Nazarene Press, 35 cts. The Law of Christian Healing, D. B. Fitzgerald, F. H. Revell, Work t.Cts. The Gospel of Life, Phillips Standish Gilman, pub’d. by the author. The Finger of God, Thos, Parker Boyd, San Francisco, Cal. The Splendour of the Human Body, Bishop Brent, Longmans. O. P. eprie, 0.) P. 8, He Dutton, \N.. Y., 75. cts. The Missioner’s Handbook, Paul B. Bull, C.R., Oxford, $1.20. The Hvangelistic Note, W. J. Dawson, F.. H. Revell, N. Y., $1.00. The Real Key to Christian Science, R. L. Swain, F. H. Revell, Noe es TO LCR. The Truth and Error of Christian Science, M. Carta Sturge, Murray, London, $2.40. Christian Science, Dean Lefroy, S. P. C. K., London, $1.00. Christian Healing, Charles Fillmore, Unity School, Kansas City. The Religio-Medical Masquerade, R. W. Peabody, F. H. Revell, $1.50. Faith and Works of Christian Science, Macmillan, $1.25. Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture, I. M. Haldeman, F. H. Revell, $1.75. Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, C. S. Pub. Co., Boston. Primary Lessons in Christian Healing, Annie Rix Militz. Training and Rewards of a Physician, R. C. Cabot, M.D., Lippin- cott, $1.75. Religion ‘and Medicine, Worcester, McComb and Coriat, Dodd, $2.50. Psychology of Faith and Fear, W. 8S. Sadler, M.D., McClurg, Chi- cago, $2.50. Healing, M. R. Newbolt, S. P. C. K., 80 cts. What Men Live By, Richard C. Cabot, M.D., Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, $2.50. The Source of Power, Theo. C. Foote, Ph.D., Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, $2.00. These books can be ordered through any bookseller. Books published by Mowbray, London, can be obtained through the More- house Publishing Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A 24-page Biblio- graphy on Healing is published by the Society of The Nazarene, Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, and can be had for the asking. TRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING CO. MILWAUKEE, WIS. my ‘>. 04 Ren EES het f tata. VX ee te ea yk, ve » % . Phys - Y a “a 4 a; ? 1. n Wiha’ oh PR har Fh RQ Ay SNS RR RAV S . \ a AN . AN \ AA . \.S, ‘ IK \\ SRA WS x WSN XK WS So SQ : SS SRN ON Sh SS . SS NN aN SAH RRA . ~ WN \ SOI \ SS