Religion and Medicine Ca ihe the Church Prepared nate for The Joint Commission on Christian Healing For Presentation to The General Convention Including a Review of the Cooperative Work of Ministers and Medical Men in The Body and Soul Medical and | Mental Clinic, New York City | RC 605 Pew Bork 6 8 7 - The Macmillan Company . fe | RAY OF PRING << Me NIA". 2.1995 Ci ~. %, « LO agicar seure® Section RELIGION AND MEDICINE IN THE CHURCH THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK : BOSTON + CHICAGO + DALLAS ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CoO., Lmrrep LONDON +» BOMBAY + CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lt. TORONTO RAY GF FRING <<) c73 D>, NOV 12 1925 4 geuitts Religion and Medi in the Church Representing the Principle of the Work in the Scientific Cooperation of Physicians and and Clergymen in The Body and Soul Medi- cal and Mental Clinic, New York City, Point- ing to the Church’s True Ministry of Healing cA Report for the Joint Commission on Christian Healing , Edward S. Cowles, M.D. Director of the Park Avenue Hospital, New York City. Director of The Body and Soul Medical and Mental Clinic, New York City. Member of the Joint Commission to Study Christian Healing. Appointed by the General Convention HoH Hew Pork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1925 eAll rights reserved CoryricutT, 1925, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1925. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY JOINT COMMISSION TO STUDY CHRISTIAN HEALING The Right Rev. Theodore D. Bratton, D.D., Bishop of Mississippi. The Right Rev. Charles Henry Brent, D.D., . Bishop of Western New York. The Right Rev. David Sessums, D.D., Bishop of Louisiana. The Right Rev. William Alexander Guerry, D.D., Bishop of South Carolina. The Right Rev. Herman Page, D.D., Bishop of Spokane. The Right Rev. Theodore Reese, D.D., Bishop Coadjutor of Southern Ohio. The Rev. J. Wilmer Gresham, D.D., San Francisco, Cal. The Rev. George F. Weld, D.D., Santa Barbara, Cal. The Rev. Franklyn Cole Sherman, Director of the American Guild of Health. The Rev. Philemon F. Sturgis, D.D., Providence, R. I. The Rev. H. P. Lyman Abbott, D.D., Baltimore, Md. The Rev. Joseph B. Dunn, Richmond, Va. Morris Earles, Philadelphia, Pa. Col. William W. Old, Jr., Norfolk, Va. Winford H. Smith, M.D., Director of Johns Hopkins Medical School, Baltimore, Md. William Palmer Lucas, M.D., University of California Hospital, San Francisco, Cal. Edgar S. Cowles, M.D., Director of The Park Avenue Hospital, New York; Director of The Body and Soul Medical and Mental Clinic, New York Ye i > - - ne Ss 7 ate . ue ate pias Pa eae Ar: Pas RELIGION AND MEDICINE IN THE CHURCH I Aa the last General Convention in 1922 a Joint Commission was appointed to study Christian Healing and to report its findings to the next General Convention in 1925. A heavy responsi- bility rests upon every man appointed to this Commission. Concerning healing, the Church has been in a deplorable state of confusion, and harm rather than good has been the outcome. It is the duty of the Church, with her powerful influence, to stand always on the side of education and enlight- enment, as against superstition and ignorance. By taking a sound, authoritative and courageous position with respect to healing, the Church to- day will find her greatest opportunity for leader- ship in the benefit of humanity, mentally, physi- cally, socially and spiritually. Sane and wise leadership in this direction will reflect enduring 7 8 Religion and Medicine in the Church honour on the Church, and go far towards mak- ing real the kingdom of God on earth and in the hearts of men. The words Christian Healing are taken to mean any form of healing, whether medical, social, mental or spiritual, that will help to re- store health to the patient, help to put in order the temple of the body and set the spirit free. For that is the ultimate purpose of all true healing. The responsibility of the Commission is there- fore unlimited in its duty to investigate every avenue by which suffering humanity may be re- lieved of the burden of illness and restored to physical, mental and spiritual health. And it is clearly the duty of the Commission to point out the dangers of one method as compared with an- other, in order that we may give sanction to that method, medical or mental or spiritual, by which the patient escapes injury, attains physical health and the fuller spiritual life, thereby contribut- ing most fully to the educational, social and spiritual life of the community and of the na- tion. Christian Healing, however, must not be con- fused with miraculous healing, or what is more commonly known as “supernatural healing.” In correct usage, the two words are not synonymous. The error has arisen through the persistent be- lief of the Church that there was a divorce be- Religion and Medicine in the Church 9 tween God and nature, and that therefore when God healed, nature was set aside,—that God had deliberately violated His own laws. The real meaning of the word “supernatural” is not the non-natural but the very highest degree of all that is natural, and what is natural is of God. So supernatural healing really means the gath- ering together of all the laws of nature and of © God, and using God’s appointed means, His or- dered way, for the healing of the whole man, men- tally, physically, socially and spiritualy. There- fore we shall use the word miraculous to replace the word supernatural in describing any form of healing which presupposes the setting aside of the laws of nature and of God, and in this classifica- tion will be included the faith-healing movements, great and small, the so-called “divine healers,” in- spirational healers, the psychological healers, the Guild of Health and all the imitators of Christian Science, the cults of “mystical union,’ which have sought to exploit themselves within the Church. The great body of intellectual people, in and out of the Church, have come to know that no such thing exists today as miraculous healing; that the great progress of medical science is dis- sipating these mediaeval theories; that every day we are having revelations of God working through law and order; that where we had for- merly believed that disease was visited upon us 10 ©6©Religion and Medicine in the Church by the wrath of God in punishment for our of- fences against Him, we now understand that the conquest of every disease up to the present time, as demonstrated by medical science, has been the result of a better understanding of the laws of God governing the mind and body. Study the history of the early Church and two distinct trends are found in the field of healing. The first followed immediately upon the life of Christ and was a reflection of His life, a heal- ing influence which came down through the centuries. Little was known of the laws of hygiene, sanitation or medicine; but wherever Christianity went, hospitals and infirmaries sprang up. The Order of Saint John of Jeru- salem, in the time of the Crusades was a notable example. The sick and wounded were welcomed and cared for; spiritual comfort was adminis- tered. It was primitive, but beautiful in its spirit and in accordance with the laws of God and nature as they were then, known. But as the years rolled on, theology came to life out of Christianity, and with theology an ever-increasing emphasis on the importance of the literal word in the interpretation of the Bible. The literal text became of more importance than the living spirit of Christ. Splitting hairs over the letter of the law became infinitely more im- portant than the law or the truth itself. This Religion and Medicine in the Church 11 disposition was everywhere used to block the progress of science and religion. Theologians declared that physical disease was caused by the wrath of God, the malice of Satan, © or both working together. Theories were evolved of miraculous methods of cure, either by appeas- ing the wrath of God or thwarting the malice of Satan. Miracles of healing were ascribed to the “saints’ or holy men of the time, which grew into mighty legends. This miraculous power was soon extended to the bones and other relics of these ‘‘saints.”’ Shrines were set up where the sick came for healing. The waters of certain streams and pools had long been thought to have a miraculous property; the River Jordan and the Pool of Siloam, for instance, where great num- bers of the sick gathered, awaiting “the angel who should come to trouble the waters,” and give them healing. All this becamé commercialized and vast revenues poured into the Church for the privilege of access to these shrines. Plagues, pestilence and famine were believed to be the work of demons, the gods of the heathen, who had been dethroned by Christianity. The remedy for this evil was held to be exorcism by the Church or intercession of the saints, and this also increased her revenues. Thus, it came to pass that to treat disease by any medical agency, however simple and primi- 12 Religion and Medicine in the Church tive, was soon accounted not only useless but sinful. Canonical law declared the principles of medicine to be contrary to Divine knowledge, and to substitute any theory of scientific knowl- edge for Divine intervention meant to incur the wrath of the Church, now all-powerful, the mightiest agent in the affairs of the world as well as in the realm of religion. Kings and princes bowed before her voice. Nothing was done with- out her sanction, and with her sanction, anything was possible. She dominated politics, education and every branch of science. And since her power had come through ignorant adherence to superstition, she resolutely set her face against education and science. There began the great war between science and theology which forms the most shameful page in the history of the world. The Church took to persecution of science in all its branches. An astronomer, Copernicus, put forth his theory that the earth turned round the sun instead of the sun round the earth. He had kept this theory hidden for forty years, know- ing full well that to give it out to the world meant torture and death. It was finally printed, but it was equally dangerous for a publisher to put it into circulation. A preface had to be written declaring it to be a work of the imagination, and for that reason lawful. The newly printed book Religion and Medicine in the Church 13 was put into the hands of the author only on his deathbed. Then Galileo, by means of a rude tele- scope, saw the phases of Venus, and knew that the theory of Copernicus was true beyond perad- venture. He announced his discovery and long years of warfare were waged upon him by the Church. He was summoned before the Inquisi- tion, threatened with torture until he recanted. Then he was thrown into a dungeon, and died, bowed down to the earth with shame that he had given the lie to what he knew to be true. After Galileo came Bruno, one of the great minds of the age, who dared to express in the presence of the Pope his belief in the Copernican theory. He was burned alive. And all because of a Bible story that Joshua bade the sun stand still, which threw this scientific discovery into conflict with the literal word of the Bible. In every field of research, geographical, geological and anthropo- logical, the case was the same. Adherence to the letter of the Scriptures had prevented knowledge of the laws of sanitation, and through ignorance of these laws, Europe was swept by plagues. In the Black Death, about the middle of the 14th century, more than half of the population of England perished, and more than 25,000,000 people in Europe died. 67,000 peo- ple died in Paris alone in 1552. Theologians de- veloped out of these misfortunes a method of rea- 14 Religion and Medicine in the Church soning that was far more disastrous and cruel than any that had preceded it, and with results that were more far-reaching. It was that Satan had used Jews and witches in causing pestilences. It was noticed that among the Jews there was always a smaller percentage of disease than among the Christians, and this was announced to be proof of their connivance with Satan. The Jews had a remarkable system of sanitation which had been handed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Christians at that time considered filth as synonymous with holiness—hence the expression “odor of sanc- tity.’ The monks who did not wash their bodies at all were held in high honour and veneration on that very account. The Church, indeed, killed the bath. Saint Jerome tells with approval that when the holy Paula noticed that any of her nuns were too careful in this matter, she reproved them, saying that “the purity of the body and its garments means the impurity of the soul.’ And another modern monk declares: “A man-should live in dirt as in a coat of mail, so that his soul may sojourn more securely therein.” The Jews were far more careful and abstemi- ous in their diet than the Christians. Under- standing nothing of these simple matters, the public at large could not believe that the compara- tive immunity of the Jews came from so reason- Religion and Medicine in the Church 15 able a cause. They jumped to the conclusion that the Jews were under the protection of Satan, and that this protection was paid for by whole- sale poisoning of Christians, which resulted in pestilence. Attempts were therefore made throughout Europe to propitiate the Almighty, to thwart Satan, and to stop the plagues, by whole- sale murder and torture of the Jews. They were burned in appalling numbers. During the Black Death twelve thousand Jews were burned in Bavaria alone, and in the small town of Erfurt, three thousand. In the great plague of 1348 two thousand Jews were burned, accused of having poisoned the wells. One hundred and sixty Jews were burned in one day at a castle near Tours,— thrown into an immense trench filled with blaz- ing wood. And this mad persecution ran like wildfire all over continental Europe. As to witches, the reasons for believing them the cause of pestilence were manifold. Our sacred writings had been strongly influenced by Oriental thought and teaching. These influences were strengthened by the deductions of a long line of theologians and saints. Then Innocent VITi issued a Papal Bull, infallible in its influ- ence and effect, which committed the Church to the belief that witches were the cause of disease, storms, and many other calamities which af- flicted humanity. It was all based upon one 16 Religion and Medicine in the Church text: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” This idea persisted, and there followed a series of the most frightful crimes in human history. Women and children by thousands were sent to the torture, accused of being witches, of caus- ing bad weather and other calamities. They con- fessed to anything to win respite from their agony, knowing that confession meant death by burning. Roman Catholics and Protestants emulated each other in wholesale destruction. The Bishops’ palaces of South Germany were shambles, and Protestantism in North Germany was no less cruel. The reason was the same as that given by Pope Innocent VIII, the command from the Bible: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Over a hundred thousand victims were sacrificed in Germany in one century. A theory was evolved that the plagues were caused by witches who were declared to have ob- tained from Satan a magical diabolical ointment, and to have smeared with it the walls and pave- ments of the cities where pestilence was raging. Men who were seen even to touch a wall in pass- ing were executed with frightful torture. Stories of this diabolical smearing were everywhere, and everyone was alert to detect the witches. In 1630, a travelling secretary was walking through the streets of Milan, and noticed ink upon his fin- gers. Carelessly he tried to wipe them clean by Religion and Medicine in the Church 17 rubbing them against a wall. He was observed, seized by the mob, thrown into prison, tortured, not even knowing what crime he had committed and what he was expected to confess to. After his first ordeal he learned this, and on being again subjected to the torture, readily confessed his guilt, knowing that it meant death by fire. But this was not enough. He was tortured again to reveal the names of his accomplices, and in the extremity of his suffering he gave the first names which occurred to him. These men were seized and tortured in like manner, until they had named others, each group going to the stake after con- fession. The groups grew larger and larger, all suffering torture and death by fire. Barbarians, with all their lust for cruelty, placed a limit upon torture, holding that it should not be carried be- yond the point of human endurance. It remained for Christians to decree that there were “excepted cases,’ where no limit was to be placed upon the torture. This was applied especially to heretics and witches, since they were believed to be under the protection of Satan, who gave to his devotees a superhuman strength to withstand the torture. Under their suffering they often became delirious and confessed far more than could have been in- vented for them. Great numbers, hundreds and thousands, were sent to the most cruel death that could be devised, and even on their way to 18 Religion and Medicine in the Church execution subjected to tortures too horrible to record. Every step in medical science met with merci- less persecution. Before the discovery of anes- thesia, a woman in France was detected in an attempt to ease the pain of childbirth with the help of another woman. This was construed as a blasphemous attempt to thwart the curse which God had laid upon Eve, and both women were burned to death. Horrible and incredible as this may seem, it has had its parallel within the last hundred years. The use of anesthesia, even within the last century, was bitterly opposed. Anesthetics had to be smuggled. A young Scotch surgeon advocated the use of chloroform in his obstetrical work. He was met with a storm of denunciation from every pulpit in Scotland, he was thundered at as an impious blasphemer, tam- pering with the will of God that woman, be- cause of Eve’s sin, should bring forth her off- spring with suffering and travail. He wrote pam- phlet after pamphlet in defense of his practice on grounds of common humanity and common sense, not to mention science, but made no head- way. On the very brink of defeat, he decided to fight the enemy with its own weapon of igno- rance and superstition. He made use of a text in the Book of Genesis, descriptive of “the first surgical operation ever performed,’ when God Religion and Medicine in the Church 19 took a rib from Adam’s side to create Eve, and first “caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.” So it was with vaccination and inoculation, which were considered to be an encroachment upon the prerogatives of Jehovah, “whose right it is to wound and smite.”’ Another text, from the Book of Hosea, “He hath torn and He will heal us. He hath smitten, and He will bind us up,” was used as an argument against medical means of healing any form of disease. Nor must we for a moment forget that this per- secution of science does not lie wholly at the door of the Roman Catholic Church. It is easy to shrug the shoulders and sigh over the iniquities of the Inquisition, but the Protestant Church, from the beginning of its existence, was no less zealous for torture and persecution. It had not the power of the Church of Rome, but it did its best. This is evidenced by the writings and the utterances of its earlier leaders. And the guilt of the Protes- tant Church is even greater since it had free ac- cess to the books forbidden on the Papal Index, and the truths of science were available. The spirit of persecution was just as alive and burn- ing, is alive and burning today. Protestants sneer at the Papal Index. They look superior and point out that every really important book for the last three hundred years has been on that Index. But are they any better? Have not the 20 Religion and Medicine in the Church Protestant Churches from their pulpits resolutely opposed progress in thought? Have they not tried to suppress the truths taught by great minds, minds such as those of Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, Ernest Haeckel and Lecky. Modern Protes- tantism right here in America has much to an- swer for. Look at the expulsion by our Protestant authorities, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, etc., of men like Doctor Woodrow, Professor Win- chell, and others, from their respective schools,— all for holding the doctrines of modern science, and in the last years of the nineteenth century. And superstitution, as gross as any ever prac- tised by the mediaeval Church, is in the heart of our own Church today. Can you credit the fact that the theory of demon possession is still alive, and that exorcism is even now in practice? A noted clergyman, attending the last General Con- vention of the American Episcopal Church,—our Church—became nervous. He consulted an Eng- lish faith-healer, then operating in the very midst of the Convention, who told him that his nerv- ousness was caused by a devil within him. Ex- actly as described in the New Testament the healer took this clergyman by the shoulders, shook him violently, and demanded in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that the demon be cast out from him. A physician later examined this minister, and found an antrum filled with pus. Religion and. Medicine in the Church 21 The antrum was opened, the devils went, and the patient got well. Can you imagine-any body of men in this day of enlightenment giving coun- tenance to superstition, ignorance, or brazen fraud such as that practised by this healer who was introduced into our country by Bishops of the Church, and his work aided and encouraged also by Bishops and clergy here. Do you wonder that students in’ every university in the land are re- volting against such practice in the name: of re- ligion? * The struggle of the centuries has been a strug- gle between science and theology, never between science and religion. Religion is life; science is but a contribution to life. Theology persecuted science; science in return has broadened and en- . nobled the conception of religion. Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno, martyrs to science in past centuries, pointed the way for Kepler and New- ton, who were denounced in their day, to further discoveries. Yet in spite of martyrdom and per- secution, truth won the victory over superstition, giving the world a larger and nobler conception of the laws of God, and of God. The old order thought of God as a petty tyrannical maker of * A complete story of the barbarous cruelty perpe- trated by the Church in the name of Christ and in the name of religion, and of her ignorance and bigotry, will be found in Andrew D. White’s “History of the War- fare of Science with Theology in Christendom.” 22 ~=Religion and Medicine in the Church toys which were the objects of His wrath, of His whims and caprices. The new order of revealed law shows Him as a mighty force in creation. As we learn more of the truth of the laws ruling the universe, the more do we revere the power that set them in motion. And this is the conquest which science has won over theology, and her great contribution to religion. During the centuries of ignorance, superstition and persecution, the Church has lost religion. It has been throttled by theology. In its adherence to the letter of the Bible, the Church has lost the spirit of the life of Christ, His tolerance, His love of truth. Through this adherence to super- stition, through this determined opposition to the revelation of God’s laws through Science, the Church has postponed for centuries the realiza- tion of the Kingdom of God upon earth. The Church sought to defeat Science, but her effort resulted in failure. It was the Church herself which was defeated. Her superstition, her big- otry, her ignorance, her cruelty fell upon her own head. The world was all the time growing more intelligent, more educated, more enlightened, and the power of the Church was stripped from her by the very forces whereby she had sought to strengthen herself impregnably. First her world- ly power departed; then her spiritual power fell away aS men came to realize the actual nature Religion and Medicine in the Church 23 of her influence upon humanity, and she stands to- day before the world, shorn of her glory, an empty voice in the councils of men. The Church must learn her lesson. Today she is eager to recover her place in the life of the peo- ple and in the hearts of men. Let her then seek the knowledge, the truth, that will enshrine her there securely. Let her not turn back to the principles which wrought her ruin. There are those within her fold who are seeking to turn her back to superstition and miracle, her old weap- ons, to foster a revival of the practices which inspired her cruelties of old. These flagrant cruelties she has no longer power to perform. But her effort to neglect the discoveries of modern science, to retain men in her service laying claim to “special gifts of healing,” is no less cruel, no less criminal. There is little difference between destroying the child by violence and allowing him to die of neglect. Let the Church rather turn to those whose work is based on the foundation principles of the laws of God, governing the mind, body and spirit; the principles of experience, observation and study. Any man attempting to carry on a work of healing on any other’ basis, must there- fore lay claim to a “special gift of healing,” and no such gift of healing can be safely exercised without medical knowledge, without a thorough 24. Religion and Medicine in the Church understanding of the basic principles of medi- cine; and such an undertaking requires years of highly specialized education and training. Let the Church give deep consideration to her minis- try of healing. ** * *K * * 2 There could be no proper basis upon which to report on the subject of healing without investi- gation of different methods of healing to which the Church has given tacit, if not official, sanc- tion by permitting them to operate within her doors. A visit by a member of this Commission to a prominent church where a faith-healing mission was being held, led to an investigation of faith- healing. The church was packed with souls, hungry for healing, hungry for Christian life and love. It was a moving sight. A chancel packed with the blind, the deaf and the crip- pled. An occasional moan or low cry of pain was heard. The minister would touch one of those kneeling at the altar rail, then draw himself up and cry in a ringing voice: “Christ has come again to restore to perfect health and to perfect hearing the destroyed nerve cells in this boy’s ear! Christ has come again to restore use and Religion and Medicine in the Church 25 motion to this child’s paralyzed arm!’’ Then he cried aloud with equal emotion that Christ had restored these people to perfect health. The con- gregation was carried away on great waves of emotion. The miracles of old were being enacted before their eyes. Anything was possible. They accepted without question the truth of the mira- cle. But a group of physicians attending the meeting examined some of the “cures,” and found that not a single case treated by this “healer” had been benefitted. Many had entirely lost their faith. One little girl asked the “healer” how it was that Christ, the all-loving, all-understanding Saviour, had failed to touch her, too, when she had come to Him in perfect faith. She was told to come again tomorrow, that one case was more difficult than another. Can one case be more difficult than another to God?» It was evident after further observation and investigation that fraud had been deliberately practised on the peo- ple in the name of God. A case observed two years ago was that of a man who said he wished to demonstrate his per- fect faith in God; that by the practice of this faith he had attained the power to kill germs. He asked that germs be injected into his body that he might demonstrate his holy power to destroy them instantly. On examination he was found to have virulent syphilis. He could not believe 26 ~=Religion and Medicine in the Church it. He said that he had been treated by faith- healers, men operating in the Church, ministers of God. They had assured him that he was cured. Repeatedly they had told him “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” Serene in his faith he had consulted no doctor in fifteen years, and the syphilis which might easily have been cured in its early stages by proper diagnosis and treat- ment, had continued its inroads, resulting finally in brain syphilis, insanity and death. A beautiful life sacrificed on the altar of a beautiful faith. “Prayer used in such fashion when God has pro- vided the means is blasphemy. The man who breaks his arm goes to a physi- cian. The physician does not heal it. He merely puts it into splints, adjusts it, so that nature’s laws, God’s laws, may heal it. The man who depends upon faith and prayer does not go toa physician. He seeks a “healer” who does not allow the arm to be adjusted so that it may be healed. He permits the arm to dangle in the air, while he falls on his knees and prays aloud to God to set the broken bone. He does God an injustice in that he offers no wholesome co- operation with Him. He does the patient un- warranted injury. He outrages true religion, the - fundamental basis of which, as taught by Jesus, was the cooperation of one man with another in Religion and Medicine in the Church 27 making use with the fullest intelligence of all God’s laws. ~~ A faith-healer presented herself to a member of this Commission asking the opportunity to prove her ability to cure by faith any case under his care. She said it made no difference how acute or how grave the disease, she could cure it by faith. A patient was given to her who was suf- fering from an organic spinal cord trouble. He was first asked if he believed in the power of God to heal disease through prayer. He replied that he believed in God’s power, and would reverently place himself in the hands of this “‘healer.”” She was given free access to the patient, and all the conditions which she asked were fully complied with. He met her at the times she specified, and remained with her the required length of time. This continued for three months, when the patient said he felt he had given her treatment a fair trial, that he felt no better, and asked the doctor to resume his treatment. The woman was aston- ished and somewhat hurt. She claimed a cure, but said the man’s eyes were so blinded that he could not see that he was well. She asked for another patient. A man, with a very sore throat was sitting near, and volunteered to accept treat- ment. She assured him that in a few minutes his throat would be entirely well. She placed her 28 Religion and Medicine in the Church hands on his throat, massaging it as she prayed in a low and mumbling voice. At the end of half an hour, the “healer’’ said she did not specialize in sore throats, but preferred cancer or pneu- monia. None being available, she left. This in- vestigation brought to light many other “healers” of the same type who were given opportunity to prove their claims, and one and all failed. This is not to deny the holiness, righteousness and noble sacrifice which characterized men and women of the past, who at one time and another have tried to conquer plagues and pestilence with prayer and self-sacrifice. Study the history of the Middle Ages, and one is moved at the great loss of noble lives, ignorant of the laws of sani- tation and hygiene,—the laws of God—who ex- ercised a beautiful faith and whose lives were unnecessarily sacrificed in the misguided spirit of that faith. A striking instance of this occurred in modern times when in 1885 Montreal was swept by a scourge of small-pox. The Roman Catholic Fa- thers preached and taught that the disease had been sent by God to cleanse the people of their sins of the flesh committed during the Carnival of the previous year. Vaccination was forbidden by the Church. The Sisters and the Fathers went into the midst of the pestilence, ministering to the stricken, burying the dead. They contracted Religion and Medicine in the Church 29 the disease and died by hundreds. The Protes- tant people submitted themselves to vaccination, and when in the course of time it became clear that they, who had been vaccinated, were saved, while the Catholics were perishing by hundreds and thousands, the Church lifted her ban on vaccina- tion, and the plague was stopped. Vaccination was God’s agent. He had provided it for the sal- vation of man against this disease. It was His order of prayer, His answer to faith. Using it, man’s holy temple was cleansed, his spirit set free, and the Kingdom of God made real to him on earth so far as this disease was concerned. For thousands of years man has suffered and died from general paresis, a disease caused by syphilis of the brain. All the prayers of all the holy men of all the ages have not been able to save one man. However innocently the disease may have been contracted the patient has died. Only within the past year has medical science learned that by infecting these patients with ma- larial fever, and scientifically controlling the ma- larial fever with quinine, has it been possible to save the lives of these patients. God’s answer in another way to faith based on understanding. These are examples of enlightened faith. * * * *K * 30 ~=©6- Religion and Medicine in the Church 3 We come now to the investigation of another form of healing which has sought protection and recognition within the sheltering arms of the Church: the Guild of Health. This organization makes a many-sided appeal. There are meetings and Chapters in countless parishes all over the country, there is widely disseminated “literature,” and a widely circulated monthly magazine. Many in the Church have felt the need of something more than the medical profession has hitherto been able to give them, something more than they found in the Church. These people have hun- gered for a broader conception of their condi- tion, which would recognize them as something more than sick bodies, something other than sick souls; something which would recognize them as men and women with interrelated problems of mind, body and spirit. To meet the need of peo- ple ‘like these, the magazine, the official organ of the Guild of Health, speaks: “Health, in its true sense, that of making the whole man sound and harmonious, means ‘wholeness.’ To treat mind, body and spirit separately we hold to be unscientific because we think of man’s being as a whole. To seek healing along one line, or by treating Religion and Medicine in the Church 3 one part of man’s being to the neglect of the other parts must be unscientific because ac- count is not taken of all the facts. Unfor- tunately until of comparatively late years, healing by ‘scientific principles and methods’ has been popularly understood to be treat- ment of the body, and the methods employed have been material. Man has been viewed only in that part of his being which is known as body. To us in the Guild, all healing is spiritual. Physical and mental means are not thought of by us as unspiritual, nor is ‘spiritual’ opposed to ‘mental.’ All are means to the Spiritual End, viz., Health, Whole- ness—that harmonious adjustment of power with man to the ‘Life’ of which he is a part and an individualized expression.” Casually read, superficially studied, how de- lightfully “scientific” this passage appears. These people awaken to a vital interest. Here is surely what they are seeking. They do not stop to ana- lyze it, nor do they realize that they are being duped by a clever juggling of words. It distinctly states that the Guild does not profess to treat any one side of a man’s being to the neglect of the other, because such treatment would be unscien- tific. To the average man this would mean that if his trouble appeared to be physical, it would 32 ~=Religion and Medicine in the Church be treated by physical measures in conjunction with others—in short, that he would receive a physical examination, a diagnosis and proper treatment for this trouble. If his trouble appeared to be a mental one, he might even expect that a physical examination, as well as a mental one, would be made to determine whether there were any focal or general infections, or any pathology, underlying and perhaps causing his mental trou- ble. This expectation would be perfectly reason- able since the passage reads: ‘Physical and men- tal means are not thought of as unspiritual.” So the patient is beguiled and misled. Search the pages of the Guild magazine and find, if you can, one case studied from the physical side; find, if you can, a single instance where laboratory ex- aminations are made, or adequate medical treat- ment is given. The paragraph just quoted is a distortion of a sound scientific idea for the deception of the many into the belief that here was what they had been seeking. Let us now look at the method of treatment set forth in the pages of the Guild magazine: “All the Guild’s teaching is based upon the fact that there is one God, one Life, one Power, one Love, operating on different levels of reality, with different materials. Religion and Medicine in the Church 33 Nature is the Divine Life at work in mat- ter. Man is the Divine Life at work in per- sonality. When we permit God to live and work in and through us we find that matter is surprisingly plastic to spirit, and evil is impotent. It is not our task to seek health primarily, but rather to let God manifest Himself in and through us. We know by experience when we in the silence come into communion with the Father, with Absolute Reality, the transcendent-immanent God, that that contact is vitalizing and invigorat- ing to the whole personality. It means a marked increase of vital energy. When we surrender mind and body to be instruments of His purpose, our problems of health are either completely solved or we succeed in rising above them. . . . Great spiritual forces come into operation, and strange (and formerly impossible) things happen.” “TlIness does not represent God’s will for His children Who is perfect goodness. Life more abundant, not life crippled and maimed, is His gift.’ Freedom by the truth, not bondage in error, is His promise. Evil in every form is to be met and conquered, never acquiesced in nor acknowledged. It can be conquered. Its imposture has been un- veiled.” 34 Religion and Medicine in the Church Would the writer of these passages dare to come out openly and declare his belief in Chris- tian Science? Yet what is he putting forth but Christian Science in juggled words? “Divine Life’ for “Universal Divine Mind.” The method the same, but differently stated. “Evil in every form met and conquered, never acquiesced in nor acknowledged. Its imposture unveiled.” What is this but the Christian Science affirmation of Divine Mind and denial of Error? And how is the “imposture unveiled’? “The Divine Life working in and through us” brings about “a marked increase of vital energy.” ‘Matter is surprisingly plastic to spirit, and evil is impo- tent.” All of which simply means that we can get well of all our diseases and troubles, mental or physical or spiritual, by affirming good, deny- ing error, and the miracle is wrought. Does this differ in any particular from the tenets of Chris- tian Science? i Is there one among you who will not admit that Christian Science is subversive of all true science? That its ignorant and sophistical teach- ing is responsible for the suffering of countless thousands who might have been saved by scien- tific treatment? Get a book called “The Faith, The Falsity, The Failure of Christian Science,” written by Woodbridge Riley, Ph.D., Frederick W. Peabody, LL.B., and Charles E. Humiston, Religion and Medicine in the Church = 35 M.D., Sc.D. Read that book, read the “cures,” taken from the pages of “Science and Health,” under the caption “Fruitage.’’ Here are some of the diseases of which the patients were “cured”: substance of lungs restored; insanity and epilepsy healed; cancer and consumption healed; rickets, not a sound bone in the body; teeth restored ; Bright’s disease in last stages; deaf ears unstopped; spinal disease healed ;—and so on through several pages. Who made the diag- nosis? To quote from “Science and Health” again: “A physical diagnosis of disease—since mortal mind must be the cause of disease—tends to induce disease.’”’ Have the Christian Scien- tists induced all these diseases by diagnosing them, and then printing them as cures? Then look at the record of failures, written by the physician who was often called in to sign the death certificate. One woman had suffered from appendicitis for two years, with recurrent at- tacks of violent pain. Whenever they occurred she had “absent treatment” or sent for a practi- tioner. She thought she was better. One day came an attack so obstinate that it would not yield to affirmations of Divine Mind or reading of Science and Health. Its violence increased. The family was frightened and sent for a doctor, who in turn sent for a surgeon. It was too late for surgical interference, and the girl died in half 36 ~=6 Religion and Medicine in the Church an hour. If she had seen a doctor at any time during the previous two years, a simple operation would have saved her life. There are pages of similar instances. Can you not see the sources of the method of treatment? Look back, then, to the history of the healings of the Middle Ages, —the incantations to drive away the witches who were causing the illness, the reading of sacred books. Can you not see the superstition and igno- rance from which all of this was derived? But you will ask, what has Christian Science to do with our Commission? You will say that Christian Science has no place in our Church. But what of the Guild of Health, and its teachings that are parallel with those of Christian Science? It means simply that the superstition and igno- rance of Christian Science are creeping into the Church, masquerading under the name of “Guild of Health.”’ Unless the Church is on her guard, unless she recognizes where the Guild of Health is taking her, she will have at her door the same list of crimes to answer for as Christian Sci- ence. Yet there are those in the Church, ministers of God, who would foist upon the Church the same crimes. They have looked upon the real “suc- cesses” of Christian Science—the great “Churches of Christ, Scientist,’—First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc., built one after another in our Religion and Medicine in the Church 37 cities, built out of the money wrested from the people for their “cures,’”’ they have looked at the personal enrichment of the practitioner whose motto is that “the labourer is worthy of his hire,” and they have seen an opportunity too good to miss. If a healing organization can become a successful money-making institution, why not throw a little dust in the eyes of the people, coat the Christian Science pill with a little sugar for those who will not swallow it plain, and make the Church responsible for it all, make the Church more powerful in the way in which Christian Sci- ence is powerful, turn into the Church and into their own pockets the money that might other- wise find its way into Christian Science hoards? In other words, would they not make the Church a rival of Eddyism? Would they not out-Eddy Eddyism? Whatever we may think of Christian Science, Christian Science at least has the courage to denounce all medical science as “malicious ani- mal magnetism.” But the Director of the Guild of Health twists his words insidiously and leads the novice to believe that within the Guild he will find the medical and scientific means which are declared to be “not unspiritual’—and then offers him ‘‘Affirmations.” What better exem- plification could we have of John Bunyan’s alle- gorical character: “Mr. Facing-Both-Ways’’? Lest it lose any element seeking healing through 38 Religion and Medicine in the Church the Church, the Guild of Health has spread yet another net “to gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.” In one issue of its magazine there is found a discussion of a faith-healing movement in England. An admission is made that this work is more “‘successful” (remunerative ? ) than its own, and the intention is stated of devel- oping Guild work along these lines. It says: “The Guild of Health uses both the Anointing with Oil and the Laying on of Hands.” Reading this sentence the eye of the mind can see the countless small meetings, the little groups of devout sufferers,—tubercular, cancerous, syph- ilitic, and what not—lifting their hearts to God, kneeling reverently before their Director while he lays his hands upon them and anoints them with “holy oil.” No attempt has been made to find the disease from which they are suffering, no at- tempt made to use God’s appointed way for its cure through the revelation of His Laws,—and these people go out into the world, possibly to suffering and death, victims of their own igno- rance and of the dishonesty practised upon them in the name of Christ, their faith in man and God destroyed. And so the Guild of Health spreads its nets. All is fish that comes to its nets. In one respect at least its leaders have fol- Religion and Medicine in the Church 39 lowed the injunction of the Master. They have become fishers of men. The Guild of Health makes a bold showing as to its financial methods. It states: “Tt is managed on business principles by a Board of Trustees. Its accounts are au- dited by certified accountants; but it con- ducts no ‘money campaigns.’ It attempts to apply spiritual methods to the raising of money necessary for the extension and con- tinuation of its work.” It would be interesting to know exactly what is meant by “spiritual methods” of raising money? Does it mean playing upon the minds and the emotions of neurotic people exalted by the sense of a mystical union with Divine Life, exalted by the prayer of faith, the laying on of consecrated hands, the anointing with “holy oil,” until in gratitude for their supposed blessings they make larger offerings to the Guild or its Di- rector? If not, what does it mean? Presum- ably these “spiritual methods’’ constitute another point of the Guild’s resemblance to its Mother Eddy. But the Guild of Health has’ another function entirely aside from that of healing. In a folder descriptive of the scope and nature of this move- ment, the statement appears: 40 Religion and Medicine in the Church “Tt is therefore a teaching rather than a healing movement. It seeks to develop teachers, not healers—its task is distinctly that of ‘religious education.’ ” It must be remembered that the word “healer” has become odious, has become a stench in the nostrils of educated, intelligent and decent men. So the Guild seeks to get away from it by sub- stituting the word “‘teacher,’—an effort to make ignorance associate with education. What is it but fraud practised on the people? To what end? For the good of the people? Not at all; another way of “applying spiritual means to rais- ing money,” exemplified in the prostitution of the noblest of all professions. What do they teach? Look again at the magazine of the Guild, at the lessons set forth for little children: “Our aim surely is to try to help our chil- dren from the earliest age realize that God is really Love, that all His laws, physical, psychical and spiritual, are to be obeyed and reverenced, and that these three parts of our nature are essential to our well-being and development, that we can understand and obey these laws only by getting into touch with God Himself, and learning through Him what His will is. This is done through the spirit from within, from prayer and Religion and Medicine in the Church 41 quietness, and the power to listen and then to act. We want to help the children know that God is working within them, for the health and protection of their body, mind and spirit, and it is for them to learn how to get into touch with Him so that He can do the perfecting with them.” “As regards physical illness I think we ought to explain very carefully how wonder- fully the human body throws off poisons it does not require. In helping a child to over- come illness we can help it to feel conscious of God working within, helping the body to throw off the poisons, and healing and strengthening and purifying. We can ex- plain how important it is to keep our thoughts clear and calm and happy and our hearts in touch with God and His healing love so that every part of us is working with Him to make the body well and strong again, because God made it and loves it and wants to be perfectly well and healthy and beautiful to carry out His work.” “When the children see the suffering of someone they love, their little hearts desire to heal, and we can teach them how to think right thoughts for the sick person; how to pray for them, and to be the channels through which God can work. So often 42 Religion and Medicine in the Church they will stroke an aching head saying over and over again ‘Is it better now?’ and you can feel all the love in their little hearts vibrating through their finger-tips. What we want to do then is to help them to realize that this love is a great power and that they are really helping us, if we work with them and allow ourselves to respond to the power of love which is of God, and is God.” Is is not in order to ask, what is there in it all which teaches any real truth? What is there here which teaches anything of God’s way of dealing with sickness, fear and suffering? What understanding of His appointed means through the revelations either of science or of religion? What is there that is not subversive of all sci- ence and all religion? Does it teach why God reveals laws only to set them aside when people are too lazy or too ignorant to use them? What is it all but debauchery of the child’s mind through playing with words, taking the mind when it is young and plastic and so impressing it with casuistry and superstition that it can never again be open to straight and honest teach- ing, so warped with falsity that it is closed for- ever to the truth? Teaching of this character imbues the mind of the child with the convic- tion that he, too, is a healer not only of his own Religion and Medicine in the Church 43 ills but of the ills of others. And if he is taught this practice in childhood, this stroking of fore- heads and murmuring of words, what will be his trend as he grows older? Will it not be to the practice of these methods on a larger scale? Does not this teaching sow the seed for a generation of miraculous healers which shall overrun the Church? Does it not open the child’s mind to Christian Science? Does it not make the child a pawn in the hands of any charlatan, whereas teaching him the principles of true religion would steady and save him in time of trouble? With what feeling does a crippled, blind or deaf child receive the news that it will find relief and release through harmonious adjustment and assimilation with Divine Life within? What of the struggle for adjustment? What of the hope, the waiting with the trusting spirit of childhood, what of the inevitable disappointment, the loss of hope, the destruction of faith, the ultimate despair? Yet these magazines are circulating through the country into an ever-increasing number of homes, under the guise of sacred literature. The philosophy underlying the saccharine mildness of the words is really the ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages. This philosophy fits the minds of the people, young and old, for cults like Christian Science. This teaching, if allowed to permeate the Church, will undermine her very 44 Religion and Medicine in the Church foundations, and if unchecked will make of the Church an institution no longer respected for her learning, her truth-seeking, her alliance with the life spirit of God’s world. The real aim of the Guild of Health is the teaching and training of individuals and of the Churches in the daily reliance upon the spiritual as the source of all true health. This is to aban- don all hygiene, all the laws of sanitation, and all medical knowledge. For if the claims of the Guild of Health were honestly stated and sub- stantiated, and the claims of Christian Science substantiated, there would no longer be need of medical science, of surgery, of any of the scien- tific researches towards the prevention of dis- ease, and these would of necessity depart from the face of the earth. There would no longer be need of doctors or of science. The earth is too small for pseudo-science and science,—one or the other must go. It is but natural to expect ignorance from the ignorant, to expect dishonest juggling from char- latans and quacks, to expect delusions of spe- cial gifts of healing—known technically as “de- lusions of grandeur’—from diseased personal- ities. While condemning, one is forced to pity them. But when a clergyman, presumably edu- cated, pretends that he does not realize, does not know the harm that he is doing in attempting Religion and Medicine in the Church 45 such work, when an ordained priest of the Epis- copal Church sells himself to such practices, should any quarter be shown him? Should not the Church unfrock him and wash her hands clean of the contamination he has brought upon her? Christ said: “Go forth and heal the sick.” He did not say: ‘‘Go forth and destroy the sick.” He did not say: “Go forth and pillage.”’ In addition to these movements on a large scale, there are numerous smaller movements in the Church. Some of them are “psychological” in character, like the Guild of Health, but not so - well organized. Some are “inspirational.” There are individuals making a living out of freak prac- tices: ‘“‘metaphysical healers,” “psychotherapeu- tists,’ ‘“‘divine healers,’ exponents of “mystical union,” and “vibrationists.”” All have a follow- ing, however small. But their menace is none the less grave. They leave behind them death need- less and premature, and the duty of the Church with respect to them is obvious. They must be dealt with just as severely and as radically as the more conspicuous offenders. *« * * * * 4 We have taken account of the healing move- ments in the Church, which are not alone ignorant 46 = Religion and Medicine in the Church but mercenary, and have pointed out their at- tendant dangers. But there is still another class. There are men in the Church who have committed themselves to the same practices as the others but with no taint of dishonesty. Men of simple faith, devoutness and piety, who have not kept abreast of modern biblical research. They have heard much of a revival today of the Church’s apostolic ministry of healing. A noted English faith- healer went about our country proclaiming that such a revival was the only way to draw the people back into the Church again, to draw the Church close to the hearts of the people. Many of the clergy, earnest, devout and sincere, lis- tened and wondered, then turned to their Bibles and read the stories of the miracles of healing wrought by the apostles: healing the sick, and casting out devils. They had been taught by the Church that they, her ordained priests, had come down in an unbroken line from the Apostles, through the laying on of hands. They began to wonder if they had failed in a part of their min- istry, the ministry of healing, which had fallen into disuse. They began to feel that it was their plain duty, now clearly pointed out, to assist at once in what they now conceived to be a part of their holy ministry. In simple sincerity many of them set about the work. They did not take into consideration—they did not even know—that the Religion and Medicine in the Church 47 human vehicle through which the message of the) Master has reached us was inevitably affected by the then accepted scientific theory of disease, viz., that of demon possession. Their very piety, their loyalty to the historic traditions of the Church, was an added danger. They went forth, strong in what they thought was faith. They threw) aside the revelations of our own time—all the medical and scientific researches which they might have summoned to their aid—and staked every- thing on apostolic practices: anointing, prayer, and the laying on of hands. Some are personally lovable. One such has come under our observation,—an old man whose beauty of life and consecrated purpose were writ- ten in his face. To see him was to feel a sense of personal unworthiness. When he entered a room, light seemed to enter with him. He gave up his Church, his all, to follow His Lord. With no means of his own he went out, as the Scripture has it, “without scrip or staff” to fulfill that part of his ministry which he felt he had neglected. He did not hold meetings. He simply went where he, knew there was sickness, He prayed with devout faith for the healing of the sufferer. He never asked for money. He worked among the poor, who loved him and saw to it that he had enough to feed and clothe himself. He went from house to house and town to town, seldom 48 Religion and Medicine in the Church staying long enough to know whether his “cures” were lasting. One day he was called in to see a little girl who had had pain in her stomach worse on the right side, vomiting, and some fever. He knelt beside the child and prayed, and continued to do this for several days, when the pain sud- denly stopped, and he believed his prayers had been answered. He left the house, not intend- ing to return. Two or three days later he was asked to come in again, and he found the child in violent pain, with vomiting. The pain and other symptoms gradually increased, in spite of his prayers, and the family in despair finally called a doctor whose examination made plain that there had been an acute infection of the appendix, which had already burst open, accounting for the tem- porary cessation of pain and vomiting. Peri- tonitis had developed. The abdomen was opened and was found to be filled with pus. The child died. Hundreds of similar cases, indeed, have oc- curred in other systems of faith healing. This then, was the result of this good man’s love and faith. He did not, even then, seem to realize what he had done,—it was God’s will. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” And the stricken family accepted it. He went on, and no one can say how many others he left behind him dying. He was sincere and devout, but are sin- Religion and Medicine in the Church 49 cerity and devoutness enough to offset ignorance, ignorance which results in death, ignorance of the revelation of God’s ordered way of dealing with disease? Would any sane man allow his child to be operated on by a man whose only qualification was sincerity and devoutness? Then why en- trust his child to any man, however devout and sincere, who did not know or even seek to know the disease which he is attempting to heal? Igno- rance has never been held sufficient excuse for crime. And the work of these men is crime, no less so because it was done with a holy purpose. However deeply and tenderly a sincere man of this kind may appeal to our sympathies, we must appeal to wisdom. We cannot be blinded by our sympathies. We cannot state the facts and stand aloof, impartial between good and ill. We must search for the right and truth with discerning eyes. We must hate what is truly hateful. The’ Church must not compromise. She must seek out these innocent workers of crime, teach them what the true ministry of healing is: healing in accordance with the sum total of human knowl- i edge and God’s revelation, and not in violation: of it. 50 ~=Religion and Medicine in the Church 5 The Church has another important duty. We have seen an insidious propaganda of sex philoso- phy and sex literature invade the country. It en- tered under the guise of science, fostered by the principles of Freud and Jung. The fundamental principle of this philosophy was that every mind was in conflict with itself, and that the conflict was the expression of a repressed sex wish. This theory, confined to the very few highly trained specialists in psychiatry with discriminating powers of diagnosis, may be of value. But it became gradually open to the public. Books filled our libraries which were accessible to young and old. The minds of our young people became saturated with sex interpretations of beautiful and sacred things. Psychoanalytic “Healers” sprang up everywhere. The morale of the whole country has been lowered, minds have been pol- luted, tongues loosened from their decent reti- cencies, youth perverted, marriages dissolved, by this vicious theory flaunting itself under the name of science. Through all the ages there has been no philosophy which has done so much to destroy ‘the philosopy of Christ as the Freudian psycho- ‘analysis. Nietsche’s philosophy is godlike in comparison with it. The keynote of this philosophy is the theory Religion and Medicine in the Church 51 of “the all dominance of sex.”’ In referring to‘ this theory, the late Doctor Edward Cowles, Pro- fessor of Mental Diseases at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Nervous Diseases at Dart- mouth Medical School, Fellow of Johns Hopkins Medical School, for twenty-five years Superin- tendent of McLean Hospital for the Insane, said: “Tt is true that in the broadest fields of conscious experience there is always the lia- bility to some obsessive emphasis of insistent and imperative ideas, and to their becoming controlling through accident, mental shock, illness or some untoward experience. From youth up they are normally repressed and wholesomely forgotten like the “putting away of childish things” into the subcon- scious limbo of things past and gone. Some of these may be the traumata of sex experi- ence. But this does not warrant the preva- lent inquisition in every case to find a sex trauma and build upon it an ingenious con- struction which for a time deceives the pa- tient into the belief that he is cured.” The psychoanalyst interprets everything in terms of sex. A woman who suffered from diz- ziness when looking down from great heights was told that this was a repressed wish to fall from the high places of her maidenly virtue. A girl 52 Religion and Medicine in the Church with a pathological fear that she might hurt someone—a fear so acute that she would stand for hours at a street crossing waiting for every- one to cross so that she would never inadvertently push against anyone and be the cause of an acci- dent—was told that this was nothing but a re- pressed death wish, the expression of a sex jeal- ousy—and that in her real self she was a mur- deress looking for the death of others. Another girl had been suffering from disturbing thoughts which she had usually been successful in banish- ing by putting in their place something pure and beautiful like a flower or a little child. She went to a psychoanalyst, and after a few weeks left him in despair because there was nothing pure and beautiful left in her world. Everything had been besmirched and befouled with sex. Her love for her father was an incestuous wish. Her love for her mother a homosexual desire. Even a baby at its mother’s breast was deriving sexual gratifi- cation in the act of nourishment. Her dreams of innocent and everyday things were distorted into a revolting sex symbolism which plunged her into ever-deepening self-disgust. This constant con- flict so took possession of her that she could not resist the impulse to wash her hands all day and for hours into the night, to try to rid herself of the feeling that she was filthy. Many of these psychoanalysts are working in Religion and Medicine in the Church 53 the Church, and the Church is giving her coun- tenance to them. One of them has conducted what he called a “Church Mission of Healing.” An investigation has been made of his practices by a member of this Commission, and they proved to be of so unclean a character that it is impos- sible to describe them here. These psychoanalysts defile everything in life, | from the simplest act to the holiest impulse. They are responsible for the looseness of the standards of our youthful morality. Our young people, reading and studying this subject, if not attend- ing classes, are imbued with the idea that they must repress nothing. Self-expression has become their watchword. Their friendships, under this tutelage, soon become homosexual relationships. They know no restraints. Sexual wishes or thoughts soon become promiscuous sexual acts. And they go on and on until all standards are swept away in the craving for expression. It is the clear duty of the Church to scourge from her © doors these defilers of the Temple. We do not deny that certain classes of people are often helped by emotional appeals, whether the appeal be made through a faith-healer, the Guild of Health, or any similar method. There are the psychoneurotics with unsteady emotions and mental conflicts, whose eyes are often blind, ears deaf, legs and arms paralyzed. Whatever 54. Religion and Medicine in the Church catches the patient’s confidence may help him tem- porarily if not permanently. In former years physicians often played upon the confidence of these people by the use of bread pills, coloured electric lights, personal and religious appeals, etc. Patients of this character were as readily cured by the physician in his office as by any of the heal- ing cults, without danger to the patient by neglect of his infections or actual danger to his mind. The “healer” has no power to diagnose, no abil- ity to tell whether paralysis in the limbs is the result of syphilis of the spinal cord, infantile par- alysis which has an organic basis, or a psycho- neurotic paralysis. In any case the “healer,” the Guild “teacher,” treats them all alike, demanding of them blind faith or harmonious adjustment, demanding that God restate the laws of His whole ordered universe and personally heal their in- firmities. The physician, realizing that the mind is one of the most delicate organs in the body, and that its treatment calls for years of profound study and observation, determines whether a pa- tient is suffering from some borderline form of insanity, a psychoneurotic malady, or some local or general infection. When his diagnosis is made ~ he applies the proper remedy, and that proper remedy is God’s ordered way, God’s answer to faith, God’s answer to prayer. The physicians who once resorted to the use Religion and Medicine in the Church 55) of bread pills, coloured lights, and similar meas- ures, have now been replaced by men who realize the profound and complicated workings of the mind. This has been accomplished by years of patient study and research. The trained physi- cian now knows that the mind is not to be played with, without the danger of serious injury, and that this is particularly true of the sick mind. Yet the “healer,” ignorance his only armour, rushes in where angels fear to tread. He com- mands God to do his bidding. Is it not true that the exercise of such ignorance with the sanction of the Church, and clinging to the superstitions of the Middle and Dark Ages, is to make the voice of the Church an empty, hollow thing, and to place it eventually beyond the pale of the trained opinion of the world? We are pleading the cause of the Church, and not that of the medical profession. But more than all else, we plead the cause of the sick and suffering, we plead the cause of humanity. However negligent the medical profession has been in the past toward the mental, emotional and spiritual disorders of man, it has now awakened to this need. Laboratories have been established all over the world for research along these lines, and in them are medical men toiling day and night to solve the problems of the mind, body and spirit. The trained medical man today is supplying the 56 ~=6 Religion and Medicine in the Church need as rapidly as God’s truth is made clear to him. But the “healer,” the Guild “teacher,” is not seeking new knowledge. He cares nothing for education—he remains proficient in the art of playing on the emotions and the ignorance of the people, careless of the injurious theories he teaches, of the unhappiness he brings, of the lives he destroys, so long as he keeps within the law and is not interfered with. How can we refrain from believing that money-making is his real profession, however holy his avowed claim. Can we deny that many clergymen, with no belief in faith-healing, opened the doors of their Churches to the healers merely for the sake of the adver- tising value of the “miracle working,’—careless of the injury done the people, so long as public attention be drawn to the Church, if only for a season ? A large proportion of the healers have used the Church and the name of Christ to advance their own names for the purpose of material gain. For however it is covered, however holy may appear their words and their purpose, is not the desire for money underneath it all? Is the collection plate ever absent from their meetings? Is it not apt to make its appearance when the congrega- tion has been aroused to the highest pitch of emo- tional excitement? You have heard of the for- tunes made in patent medicines—have you any Religion and Medicine in the Church 57 idea. of what these healers make? One healer is reputed to have made one hundred thousand dol- lars in a single church in New York, and to have collected more than half a million dollars in his brief visit to America. The Churchman asked for an accounting. The demand was ignored, no accounting was made. Such rumors, true or false, reflect discredit on the Church. Did not this healer owe it to the bishops who backed him, to the Church which opened her doors to him, to make an accounting and let the Church know the facts of the amount of money he actually made? Where is the example of Christ? Can you not drive away the money-changers from the Temple? Religion is too vital, too holy, and too beautiful a thing to be debauched by the practice of fraud and hypocrisy. Dean Inge, that great scholar and apostle of an enlightened faith, has said: “The encouragement which is being given by certain Bishops to the craze for miracle- mongering in the treatment of sickness is _ part of a wide-spread recrudescence of su- perstition, and the persons concerned are bringing the Church into’ contempt and do- ing incalculable mischief by exploiting these partially submerged superstitions and habits of thought which civilization has not had 58 Religion and Medicine in the Church time to eradicate. Only those who have tried to sift the evidence of a miraculous cure know the shifting and prevarication with which they are usually met.” Saint Paul has said: “I will pray with the spirit ‘and I will pray with understanding also.” Prayer can be perfected in silent action based on intelli- gent cooperation with God’s laws by the use of His provided instruments. Many of these instru- ‘ments were mysteries in the past. They have been revealed to us only by generations and cen- turies of patient study, observation, and the stim- ulation of an enlightened, sustained and inspira- tional faith. Faith is a very sacred thing, but it 1s not blind credulity. Faith is the dynamic expression of the whole man. It is loyalty to the highest values of life. It has been well defined as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’’ Every day, in every simple act of life, we depend to a very slight degree upon the evidence of actual knowledge, and very largely on the “evi- dence of things not seen’? which constitutes faith. We have to depend upon faith based on previous experience, faith in the continuance of the natu- ral order, faith in those with whom we come into contact. When we act on faith we act upon im- perfect knowledge: “The substance of things Religion and Medicine in the Church 59 hoped for.” Faith and knowledge are in fact interdependent. Faith runs before knowledge : and leads to it. The scientist could not take a single step in his researches if he had no faith in his own mental processes, faith in the laws gov- erning the field of his investigation,—faith, above all, in an unknown something to which all his ef- fort is directed, faith in the ultimate understand- ing of all the laws of God. Faith must be at once subjective and objective. *« * * * * 6 We have written somewhat exhaustively of the errors of the Church with respect to healing, as shown in her history and her present-day atti- tude. But in spite of our criticism we believe that the’ Church has a very real ministry of healing where her clergy may work constructively in a scientific cooperation with medical men in ac- cordance with the revealed laws of God. Let us look for a moment into the past where five hundred years before the birth of Christ, physicians and priests worked together in the temples of Asklepios. These temples were the centre of all humanitarian service. Women came to them to be delivered of their babies. People came for the treatment of all their bodily ills, for 60 Religion and Medicine in the Church health-giving waters, for dietetic measures. They came not only for their physical disorders and troubles, but to have their doubts and fears re- moved, their mental, moral and social miseries relieved. Physicians and priests worked hand in hand. The temple was the centre of the com- munity, the heart of the life of the people. It was their religion and their life. We can over- look the so-called miracles wrought in the tem- ples, because of the then-existing lack of medical knowledge, both mental and physical, and because of the underlying principle of a cooperative search for truth. It was in one of these Temples that Hippocrates studied—Hippocrates who founded the true basis of medical research on observation, study and experience, and who said in speaking of the union of science and religion, “These things equally with the others are divine, but each par- ticular comes about by a law of nature.” Coming back to the present, let us look at and examine with care The Body and Soul Medical and Mental Clinic, at Saint Mark’s Church, New York City, where medical men and ministers of God have worked together in perfect cooperation and harmony for two years, standing upon the soundest principles of theology and medicine. The principle of its work stands out as the broad basis of a mental attitude in a cooperative search for truth. In order to make this clear, it will be Religion and Medicine in the Church 61 necessary to give a somewhat detailed picture of this constructive undertaking, for it is our belief that in work of this character the Church will find her true Ministry of Healing. This clinic has marked the first step in mod- ern times in bringing together the two great forces which have been at war throughout the ages. In it science becomes religion, and religion becomes science. It is the first clinic under medi- cal direction to recognize religion as a specialty having a vital place in the treatment of disease. It is in charge of a physician, but it recognizes the minister as a specialist in the department of religion. The physicians and clergymen who un- dertook this work met with an immediate and overwhelming response. People came in increas- ing numbers from the immediate vicinity, then from distant cities all over the country, and from foreign countries as well. They represented all classes of sufferers, all classes of life, all sorts and conditions of men. They came with every sort of disease of the body, the mind, and the spirit. Most of them had run the gamut of the doctors who had looked upon them merely as “cases.”’ They had then turned for relief to one or an- other of the healing-cults by which the country is overrun. Their coming to this Clinic was evi- dence of a still existing need. In the clinic the patient is first of all exam- 62 feligion and Medicine in the Church ined and diagnosed, mentally, physically, socially and spiritually. The examining physician reads a short introductory history which has been taken by one of the trained workers, and the patient is then given a thorough physical examination: eyes, heart, lungs, spleen, liver, brain and spinal cord, etc. Tonsils, teeth, antrums, etc., are ex- amined for focal infections. Laboratory exami- nations are made of the urine, feces and blood, also the Wasserman test. Wherever indicated X-ray examinations are made, as well as the test for basal metabolism. The internal secreting glands are examined and treated. The necessity for this searching physical examination is demon- strated by cases where an abscessed antrum, for example, causing no pain, may disturb the thyroid gland and render the patient more and more nervous and unstrung; or in early syphilitic cases whose only outward manifestation in many in- stances is a general loss of weight accompanied by nervousness; or the nervous patient suffering from incipient kidney disease which yields read- ily to proper treatment if diagnosed early enough. An examination not sufficiently searching to make accurate diagnosis of these conditions and give them proper treatment results in a neglect which may, and often does, cost the patient his life. There is then taken a careful mental history of the patient’s life in successive periods of ten Religion and Medicine in the Church 63 years, with the object of revealing any conflict of ideas, without respect to antecedent theory. These histories are taken by a worker especially trained in that field, and it may be noted here that! they bear no resemblance to the histories taken’ by psychoanalysts. This history is correlated with the physiological data, and the diagnosis made on the sum total of all the factors. A searching endeavor is made to treat the whole man, He is treated not simply as an agegrega- tion of cells, though it is recognized that physi- cally he is that, and that the cause of his dis- order is often to be found in the pathological con- dition of one or more groups of these cells. But we are also sure that there is such a thing as a diseased mind or spirit, and that proper thera- peutic agency must be applied to abnormal psychic processes no less than to disordered metabolism. There is in the Clinic a department for re-edu- cation, and in this department is a group of women in the field of social service, who work with the patients both in the Church and in their homes. Many of the patients find difficulty in adjustment. The mental histories show conflicts due to environment and conditions in the home. When these conditions are exaggerated in the mind of the patient, the social worker, by con- structive explanation and reasoning, shows the patient how the difficulty may have arisen, how 64 Feligion and Medicine in the Church it might have been avoided, how to meet it if it comes again,—all with reference to the patient’s own attitude to it. When the difficulty proves to be of such a nature that the mental attitude, mental adjustment, does not remove it, a visit is made to the home of the patient or to the person with whom the trouble is connected, and an effort made towards better adjustment from that angle as well. Broken family relations have been re- stored, for it has been a principle of the work to make always a constructive effort to keep the family together. Marriage is treated as holy where the relationship is itself holy. But there are pathological conditions to be considered: drunkenness, cruelty, perversions, syphilis, etc., which if not treated and corrected bring the in- nocent party to physical contamination and moral degradation. In cases like these, unless the pathology can be corrected, the only holy coun- sel is held to be a dissolution of the marriage, and divorce becomes a moral necessity. In this department of social service, work suited to the abilities and capacities of the patients is found for them. Those whose work is uncon- genial are helped to find more suitable employ- ment. Work of some kind is found for those who have none and need it. Places to live are found for those who come from a distance, and friendly relationships established among the pa- Religion and Medicine in the Church 65 tients where they will be mutually helpful. All is done in a spirit of love and unselfish service, giving the patient the feeling that he is coming to a pleasant place of welcome, where in God’s house he will find the friendliness and aid which he needs, as well as treatment for his sickness. He is inspired to a greater service to his fellow- man, and many instances have come to light where patients themselves have given to new- comers the spirit and friendly aid which had been of such value to themselves at the begin- ning. Some have opened their houses for tem- porary shelter to those unable at the time to work and without means to pay for lodging. Others have helped in countless ways, big and little, in the service of their fellow sufferers and to the Clinic. In the religious field, work has been done by Rectors of some of our foremost parishes, and both physicians and ministers have given their services. Many of the patients have spiritual dif- ficulties, all have spiritual needs. And while be- ing treated for his physical disease or mental conflict by the physician, the patient may be the better for spiritual converse with the trained clergyman. The detailed history which has been taken may reveal some spiritual. or theological conflict—the belief, for instance, that he has com- mitted the Unpardonable Sin, or that his natural 66 =Religion and Medicine in the Church ambitions have constituted a sin against humility and made him obnoxious to God. The physician and the clergyman confer together over these his- tories, and the latter is shown just how he can help in the work on each individual case. He is used as a specialist. His work is re-educational. He speaks to the patient with the authority of the Church, with the authority of the man of God. What he says brings conviction to the sufferer. He helps to relieve the doubt, the fear, the theo- logical conflict, the over-valued idea. He helps to balance the patient’s mind with a trained pene- tration and insight into his spiritual condition. He helps in the shaping of the patient’s charac- ter, gives him a deeper understanding of the meaning of religion, of the way to live in which to find the noblest and the happiest life. Jew and Christian alike come to him, as well as those pro- fessing no religious belief. In all his work with all the people the clergyman builds up an unself- ish spirit, and a love of God and of humanity which makes them vital forces to the Church, vital forces for good in the home and community, and noble spirits in the service of humanity. But there is something more which the min- ister can do for this great body of patients, more than a hundred each morning. They have been treated medically and mentally by the physician. Those needing individual treatment in any of the Religion and Medicine in the Church 67 departments have received it. They then come together into the Church, which is restful. There is an atmosphere of peace, quiet and beauty. The light is soft and dim. It is twilight. All sit quietly in this atmosphere in which no word is spoken, where reverence for things that are holy wells up in every heart. It is the House of God. Some minister or educator may talk for a few minutes. The patients are then asked to relax, to sit comfortably, and a simple service of medi- tation is held, which consists of words of peace and spiritual comfort spoken by the minister. Sentences like these may be used: “Be still,” saith the Lord, ‘“‘and know that IT am God.” “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” “Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Pasha I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.’ “The peace of God which passeth all un- derstanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God.” They sit for a moment, with closed eyes and bowed heads, then the silence is broken, and all 68 Religion and Medicine in the Church go out into the sunshine of a happier and freer life of body and spirit. All the work of the Clinic is essentially spirit- ual. Medical science is subservient to the spirit whether the medical man washes out an infected intestine or adjusts a broken bone, removes a blood infection,—it is all to the end of setting the spirit free. When the social worker goes into a home and readjusts the difficulties which are breaking down the health and the resistance of the patient, it is all to the end of giving spiritual freedom to that patient and that home. These two agents having cleansed the Temple and the City of the Temple, the spirit can obtain and maintain its freedom, helped by the strengthen- ing and educational influence of the man of God. The results of the work in this field of experi- mentation have more than justified the existence of The Body and Soul Medical and Mental Clinic. These results are immediate and far- reaching. The thorough physical examination, which is the first step in the work, has revealed a great deal of pathology in cases where it would not have been suspected. A large percentage of those treated for physical disease have recovered their health or are on the road to it. Associations have been formed which are open to patients whose need is such that it cannot be met by the Religion and Medicine in the Church 69 present facilities of the Clinic; special examina- tions, special therapeutic agencies, for example. Where surgical interference is needed, the pa- tients are referred to specialists in the respective fields, and are operated upon. But all such pa- tients report back to the Clinic, always feeling themselves under its protection and care. Syph- ilis is put under active treatment until the patient is completely well. The records are open to any properly accredited person who wishes to examine them. In the physical field alone, the work has been abundantly justified. There have been hundreds of cases of patho- logical fears and obsessions which have yielded to treatment and the patient restored to the normal activities of life. These fears have crippled and hampered every activity of the individual. Some could not walk in the streets alone,—their hearts would begin to beat with such violence that they feared heart disease or death. Some of these people feared that their suffering would become so acute that they would run amuck in the street and become insane. Any human contact helps them. They always walked on the inner side of the pavement for the sense of protection pro- vided by the nearness of walls behind which they felt were people who would come to their aid if need be. Others showed symptoms of opposite na- ture. They could not stay in a closed or crowded 70 ~=©Religion and Medicine in the Church place without a horrible sensation of choking and suffocation. They could not travel in the sub- way, cross a bridge, or go up in an elevator. If they attended church or went to the theatre, they always sat near the door. If they felt that they could not escape they were sure they would die of suffocation. ‘These people have been treated, their emotions stabilized, brought to an under- standing that it was their own emotions which they feared, and their fears became gradually assimilated, gradually took their normal place in the field of consciousness, instead of being split off from it, and the patients became well. It is a fact recognized by all students of the mind that there is a definite physiological psy- chology; that there is no such thing as separat- ing the mind from the body; that the physical, mental and spiritual form a unit which cannot be separated into component factors; that as the mind is spiritual, so is the body spiritual, and the two form a spiritual whole. The mind and the body are so interrelated that it is often necessary to treat the mind through special agencies ap- plied to the body; that the laws governing the mind are as definite as the laws governing the body. In fact, they are largely dependent on the degree of nerve cell energy in the central nervous system. A low threshold may mean melancholia, giving to the patient symptoms of black depres- Religion and Medicine in the Church 71 sion, ideas of imaginary sins committed, ideas of suicide, with the most intense moral suffering of which man is capable. These patients have a tendency to go from doctor to doctor, from priest to priest, with their fancied sin, for consolation and relief. They are but plunged into deeper despair, since prayer excites rather than soothes them. These cases demand expert treatment by a trained psychiatrist who holds in his hands the definite means provided by God for their relief. In the Clinic many of them have recovered, when hope had left them. Hundreds of borderline cases of insanity have been treated and corrected, which if neglected or improperly treated, would have found their way to the insane asylums of the country. Great numbers of young men and women suffering from dementia praecox have been saved from the asylums, and the State thereby saved large sums of money for their care, The Clinic has been of infinite value to the young. New ideals have been built up for them, better lives made possible. They have been taught to respect their bodies as the temples of their young spirits. They have found that the best sort of self-expression is found in unselfish serv- ice. Revelations of the heart are freely made and treated with deep and penetrating understand- ing. The needed help is easily supplied. This far 72 Religion and Medicine in the Church outreaches the influence of the confessional in that the patient does not tell his story out of penitence for sin, but in the simple narration of the story of his life, in order that the conflict may be revealed for medical treatment and com- monsense reasoning and explanation. The Clinic has demonstrated that one of our greatest needs today is a system of education which includes a trained psychiatrist as an in- tegral part of the school system of every com- munity in the country. Such a measure would provide for expert examination of every child, and constant trained observation, so that the slightest deviation from the normal would be in- stantly noted at its very beginning, the necessary props provided—educational and otherwise—to bring the child into normal adjustment with life, which means to mental, physical and spiritual health. These cases, allowed to run along tinno- ticed, unguarded, and untreated, too frequently develop into that form of insanity known as de- mentia praecox, which constitutes about seventy per cent of the insanity in our institutions today, not to mention the thousands upon thousands who never reach the asylums, but struggle along through life, ill-balanced, poorly adjusted, sus- Ppicious, with ideas of persecution by others, a torture to themselves, an anxiety to their fam- ilies, and a menace to the community. Religion and Medicine in the Church 73 The curing of disease and of evils which have already taken root is of inestimable value, but is not their prevention still more vital? The work of this Clinic stands out against all the cults which have found shelter in the Church as the only healing movement under her auspices making any effort whatsoever to prevent disease as well as to cure it. The Clinic has demonstrated that there is a real and vital place for the clergyman in the treat- ment of sickness—a question which has troubled many minds. The association of the two pro- fessions has been of benefit to both. The physi- cian has become less material, he has come to a clearer realization of the part which religion must play if the whole man is to be made sound and healthy. He has become more spiritual. The clergyman, on the other hand, has learned his definite place. He has become less haphazard in his work. He has learned a higher respect for the work of the scientist, has gained greater un- derstanding of the laws of God as revealed by science. He learns how to apply revealed truth scientifically in his own work with the patient. He becomes more scientific. He learns the value of truth as against the superstition which was his heritage in the Church. The Right Reverend E. W. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, England, says in a recent issue of The Churchman: 74 Religion and Medicine in the Church “A determination to discover truth is the very basis of the scientific method through which medical and surgical knowledge ad- vances. When we recall that all the faculties of man, bodily, mental and spiritual, form a divinely planned unity we can affirm that the progress of medical science must serve the cause of true religion. It will be asso- ciated with an enrichment and a purification of spiritual understanding, and I believe that amid all change such understanding will con- tinue to be centred on Christ. It was He who said: “Wisdom is justified of all her children.’ ” What is religion if it is not the life of the in- dividual expressed in the finest balances, main- taining the noblest ideals, and with the spirit of unlimited self-sacrifice and service to one’s fellow man? The essence of all the teaching of Christ, the one outstanding miracle of Christ, was the life He lived and the philosophy embodied in his great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” SUMMARY Having recorded an experiment in Christian Healing, based upon the cooperative work of sci- ence and religion, and reported our findings in other healing practices fostered by the Church, it becomes our duty to point our conclusions. There is no longer place in the Church or out of it for any man laying claim to “special gifts of healing’ in any guise. That is assuredly so. The Church must take no middle course. She must distinguish between the false and the true. .No compromise must be made with igno- rance, superstition or hypocrisy. She must put the seal of her sanction on the work of enlight- ened faith, faith working through God’s laws, by His appointed means, not outside them, nor in violation of them. Through the establishment in every Church in every community of clinics based upon sound scientific principles, upon sound and wholesome cooperation between the minister and the medi- cal man, the Church will find an undreamt-of service. Such clinics reveal the profound need of a better social order, better educational facilities, 75 76 Religion and Medicine in the Church better methods of dealing with crime. By making a trained psychiatrist an integral part of our edu- cational system, the diseases of childhood would be detected in their incipiency. Through proper treatment in the very beginning, and supplying the education fitted to each case, a larger per- centage of these seemingly abnormal children would be brought to normal health and life. About sixty per cent of the children who later drift into the insane asylums would be saved. Those cases not susceptible of correction— mental defectives and potential criminals—would be cared for in other ways. It is now recognized that the basic element in crime is disease, that punishment of itself is no deterrent, and that proper medical, educational and religious influences must be thrown about the child if we hope to save him. When he shows himself anti-social or a-social in spite of these influences, he must be taken out of society, be given care and the opportunity for rebuilding of character, and be permitted to return to society and social relationships only when he is clean, and balanced mentally, physically, socially and spiritually. To commit any man to punishment is only to degrade him and to make him more vicious in his human relationships. He should be per- mitted to work and to use the proceeds of his work for the needs of his family, so that by reason Religion and Medicine in the Church 77 of his unproductiveness his children need not like- wise be forced into crime against society and the State. This is not “mollycoddling.” It is for the good of the State and for the redemption of man. The Church; if we understand her aright, feels that she is static, that she is losing ground,—and she is. In the effort to retrieve her old prestige, to recover her ancient power and influence, she has looked back to the days of her mighty pomp and pride. Consciously or unconsciously she has sought to bring back those days by a reversion to her old methods and practices, but to revive these practices is to revive superstition, and supersti- tion, says Bishop Barnes, is in the nature of men- tal disease. It spreads by the power of sugges- tion until it overpowers reason, which should bar it from the mind. In so far as the Church en- courages superstition by the revival of her me- diaeval practices, and by continuing her present narrow and dogmatic teaching without respect to modern Biblical research, just so far will her in- fluence act as suggestion on the minds of her children and on the minds of Christian people. She will not only give encouragement to Christian , Science, she will become responsible for Christian Science. In the Middle Ages the Church, at the zenith of her power, was riddled with ignorance and superstition. Education and enlightenment killed the superstition of that day and measurably 78 = Religion and Medicine in the Church weakened the voice of the Church. Education » will also kill the ignorance and superstition of today. If the Church allies herself with these forces, she will die just as surely as Christian Sci- ence will die, killed by the new revelation of God’s truth through science, which is our heritage .today. In proportion as the Church accepts the revelation of truth she will live; in proportion as she rejects it, she dies. Therefore, the Church, if she wishes to live again in the hearts of the men, must make herself the very centre, the very heart, of a new and larger education. For the youth of our land is in revolt against the Church, against her dogma, her creed, her superstition. Even now it is demand- ing a new channel of expression of its religious aspiration in consonance with the totality of our educational development. The new knowledge— educational, industrial, social and spiritual,—is undermining the old Church. Shall we make our Church—the Protestant Episcopal Church of America—the vehicle for the expression of this new knowledge and fuller spiritual life, or shall we let her die? The revolt is here,—it only needs a leader. Religion, as we conceive it, is life. But what is life? May we not get some conception of it and a new idea of our service to it, by this brief description : Religion and Medicine in the Church 79 “Tt is easy to be dull, very easy to give our second best, very easy to decline accom- plishments that demand hard work, to de- cline a health and beauty which ask the price of sturdy living, to decline human service which demands an_ overflowing measure of love, health and skill; easy to call laziness patience, to call meanness prudence, to call cowardice caution, to call the commonplace practical, and mere in- ertia conservatism; but whether we squan-- der life on the trifling pursuits of the ma- jority or spend it wisely and beautifully after the manner of the minority, will all depend upon the idea we bring to the adventure. The same stone may be fashioned into a temple of the spirit or into a fortress of cruelty: it depends upon the idea of the artificer. The same grain may nourish as food or deprave as drink: it depends on the idea of the husbandman. The same metal may be worked into sword or ploughshare: it depends upon the idea of the artificer. So the same life may be squandered upon that which it is not worth while, or expended on that which is excellent: it depends upon the ~ idea of the man. This is at once the hope of all advanced movements and their despair. It is the hope because the right idea pierces 80 Religion and Medicine in the Church all obstacles, accomplishes the impossible ; the triumphant idea becomes the triumphant fact.” Is not then the Ministry of Healing made plain to us? Is not our work made clear and clean- cut for us? Is it not our duty to fashion human- ity into the temple of the spirit? The Church is deeply concerned over the fact that she is losing hundreds and thousands of her members every year to Christian Science. She is frightened. Her ministers are panic-stricken. They have not sought the true reason. But if calmly looked for, the reason is plain. With the complexities of our present day life, the people have found nothing which meets their needs. They are nervous, anxious. They go to a doc- tor’s office and are too often told that there is nothing the matter with them, that “all they need is to forget themselves.” They leave the office with a deep sense of discouragement, certainly with no feeling of spiritual uplift, or even of un- derstanding. They go away, more discouraged, if possible, than when they came. They seek help in the Church. In the majority of cases they see half the pews empty, formal and perfunctory wor- ship. The preaching amounts to little more than a stirring of the dead dust of dogma. They leave Religion and Medicine in the Church 81 the Church with profound spiritual discourage- ment. Disappointed in both medicine and religion, . knowing not just where to turn, a sudden thought may flash into their minds:—Christian Science. They suddenly recall all they have heard of the wonders Christian Science can perform,—the new religious philosophy which will give them health, will give them success by the mere har- bouring of thoughts of success, and will give them inward and spiritual peace. They remem- ber that someone has said to them: “Christian Scientists are always happy.” The picture tempts them, although they hate leaving the Church of their upbringing, and hate turning their backs on the doctor who has helped them over many a hard place in the past but does not seem to under- stand them now, They compare their own state with what they have heard of Christian Scien- tists,—and nine times out of ten, in spite of their regret, the Church is the loser. The Church is apt to lay the blame for this at the door of the medical profession who have failed to meet the needs of the people. Doctors, she says, are materialists. And the doctors, if honest, admit the charge. On the one hand their training has been at fault. Too much stress on the physical has been the characteristic of their 82 Religion and Medicine in the Church training in the medical schools, too little unaer- standing of the delicate mental and emotional balances which constitute so large a part of men- tal illness. But, on the other hand, what of the Church’s responsibility? What has she given the physician? Must she not strip her body clean of superstition and dogma and fit herself to give him the spiritual life which she demands of him? The Church stands between two great perils. The “‘healers,”’ conscious that the Church is losing to Christian Science, are rushing in to catch her in her weakness, take advantage of her fear, and by the gesture of rescue trap her into the belief that they will be able to stop the leak. The other peril is more subtle: it comes in the form of a pseudo Christian Science. The Church now is tempted to the belief that here is something which will really make good her losses, the belief that she can offer the people something which sounds like Christian Science,—which, while it lacks the trade-mark, is still “just as good.” She dallies with the question: “If Christian Science methods have taken away so many of our people, will we not be able to hold what we have, and draw to ourselves still others by the enthusiastic adoption of this pseudo Christian Science? She must real- ize, if she is to live, that she can find no solution here, and surely the sane and wise men of the Church will lead her to the solution of her prob- Religion and Medicine in the Church 83 lem in the sound and constructive work which will enable her to find her true Ministry of Heal- ing. For the immediate future, let her establish Clinics in different Churches throughout the coun- try, based upon a sound and scientific cooperation | between medicine and religion. She would find the spiritual awakening of the people which had seemed beyond her power. She would find that not only her old members would remain loyal, but that new ones would come flocking in, recogniz- ing that a need had been met,—themselves eager to share in it, and their loyalty in turn would be hers, a loyalty hard to swerve. But in establishing such clinics, there is a prin- ciple that must never be lost sight of. It is not enough to have a medical man examine and diag- nose a case and then turn it over to the minister for treatment of the mental conflicts. Mind and body are so closely interrelated, even in the milder cases, and the technique of treatment so delicate, that it would be unsafe to entrust it to the clergy- man. Mental pathology at all times must be treated by a trained physician. Not only must he be a physician, but it is not even enough that he be a neurologist; he must be a highly trained . psychiatrist. The technique of the treatment of these mental and emotional disorders is too com- plicated and technical to be given here, 84 Religion and Medicine in the Church Aside from establishing such clinics for the co- operative work of religion and medicine, the Church should enter a broader field of service. - She should build a great institution to serve as an educational clearing-house for every department of science, education, social questions and the- ology. This institution should provide for the correlation of the information which comes to it, and the dissemination of that information to the professions and the people. The working prin- ciple of this Institution should be: “Seek the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” We do not know what the truth is. We know what it is not. We know that it is not bound up in the past, that it does not lie in one direction, that it lies before us, given to us in a multiplicity of ways. It is for us to find it, to correlate it, to use it. In such an institution information would be gathered from every source, analyzed and dis- sected. The ministers should have trained men to work with them in each department, for the discovery and correlation of truth in all branches of research is the object of the institution. It should appoint and maintain boards for research in all departments of life. There should be a board to study the problems of capital and labor, and these boards should con- sist of clergymen, leaders of labour and leaders of capital. Religion and Medicine in the Church 85 There should be a board to study our legal code, which as it stands today is archaic. Its re- vision is among the greatest of our social needs. It should be brought into harmony with our con- ditions and needs as they exist at the present time, so that justice may be given the people. Such a board should be made up of jurists, sociologists, educators, physicians and clergymen. There should be a board to study crime and prison reform, made up of criminologists, jurists, physicians and clergymen. There should be a board for the study of mar- riage and divorce, made up of physicians, minis- ters, lawyers, sociologists, biologists and busi- ness men. There should be a board of education, com- posed of educators, ministers and physicians. There should be boards for the study of rural conditions; boards for the study of city and civic conditions, housing, transportation, commerce, etc., composed of sociologists, financiers, business men, and experts in the various fields, together with ministers and physicians. There should be a board of political study, to dignify politics and to maintain the high stand- ards of true democracy. There should be a board of foreign relations, a board to study peace and war. For how can pro- fessed followers of Christ, their Prince of Peace, 86 Religion and Medicine in the Church be divided on peace and war? Shall they not be of one mind and heart, and a united and driving influence for peace as against war? For is not war the most malignant of all the diseases which threaten civilization, Christianity, and even hu- manity itself? There should be a medico-religious board com- posed of ministers and medical men, for the com- plete cooperation of religion and medicine, de- voted to an absolutely unselfish search for truth in the service of humanity. There should be a theological board, composed of theologians, educators, scientists, poets and men of letters, for the study of the Bible, its tra- ditions, its development, its beauty, its applica- tion to the affairs of living and to the heart and life of mankind; to teach that as the Bible came as God’s revelation to man in previous ages, so today an effort be made to write a new chapter which shall contain the further revelations of God through natural law, through the mind, the heart and spirit of the present age. In this institution there should be a library con- taining the best literature of the world, litera- ture not alone of religion, but the literature of science, art, history, biography, poetry, drama,— the literature of every field of knowledge which brings beauty and enlightenment to man. Access to the treasures of the ages should be made easy. Religion and Medicine in the Church 87 This Institution should issue a National Maga- zine for the dissemination of the knowledge gained in the various fields of research, reporting the progress made, carrying it into the remotest parts of the country, to the homes of the people, giving them broader conceptions of life, afford- ing them opportunity to keep abreast with mod- ern research, turning them naturally to the Church which had made this education possible. The ministers of the Church, unable through dis- tance or lack of means to go to the Institution itself, would be kept in touch with all its activities through the magazine, would find lessons of vital interest to teach their people, would be sought out by the educators and mothers of their commu- nities, and would become in an unofficial way the leaders of education. They would be enabled to form correct and balanced judgments for the good of the social order. This Institution would serve to disseminate truth and service, and through it, the Church would be identified with truth and service. The- ories about God, dogma, arbitrary interpretation of the letter of the Scriptures, would sink into insignificance; superstition would die in the blinding light of the truth which would come to the world from this central source. Centuries before Christ a great religious teacher said: 88 Religion and Medicine in the Church “Do good and be good, and this will take you to whatever truth there is. Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, believe not because you have been made to believe from your childhood, but reason truth out, and after you have analyzed it, then, if you find it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it.” And if the Church will make herself the centre of education, the source from which real truth is derived, she will be the leader of just such a service. Religion is not “saving souls” for the next “ world. It is the fitting of souls for this world and trusting to God to care for them in the world to come. Religion concerns herself with the con- ~ duct of men here and. now. With this new con- ception of religion and work for the Church, men of intelligence and power will leap to her service, the youth of our land will fill her pulpits, serve on her boards, represent her at her Conventions, and stand as the balance wheel for justice and right in all our conflicts of life and in the councils of men. Empty pews will be filled with men and women eager to receive knowledge and under- standing from the lips of men trained to knowl- Religion and Medicine in the Church 89 edge of the affairs of the world, with a deep and penetrating understanding of the human heart. They will feel the gentleness, the tolerance given him by reason of his knowledge. The Church will point to a better world, and to better worlds, and her men will lead the way. This Commission comes not to plead the cause of science, nor to plead the cause of medicine, but to plead the cause of the Church, that she be the symbol of the totality of education, the revealer of true religion and the spirit of a Holy God. Despite all the mistakes the Church has made, this Commission is not unmindful of the great service she has rendered mankind in countless ways. We have not laid emphasis on her good deeds since our duty, as we conceive it, is to point out her weaknesses and give her courage to over- come them and render herself fit for a fuller and more complete service. While we have dwelt upon the dogmatic spirit of the Church’s organi- zation, we have not for an instant lost sight of those members of her clergy who have held the larger vision, protested against the reactionary life within her doors, and sought to bring to her the freer, bigger, and more forward-looking spirit, which has always been to the Fathers of the Church like a still, small voice, rarely heard and never heeded. If we did not love our Church, if we did not 90 Religion and Medicine in the Church feel her potential power for a full, complete, and noble service to humanity, we would not take the trouble to review and to criticize her weaknesses. But we do love her. If we thought the world would grow bigger and better without the Church, we would not care what she thought or what she did. But we feel that she has a mighty mission to perform. She must not rest content as an in- stitution for education, enlightenment, or even justice—she must arouse the noblest impulse of religious aspiration in the hearts of the people, give them a sense of their spiritual reality mani- festing itself in willing service of every kind. The people must learn that science is a revela- tion of God’s laws, a contribution to religion. The researches of Newton and Herschel have demonstrated that the sun and planets form but one system, that the earth and its fellow worlds are members of one family performing their revolutions in conformity to one law, that the whole stellar system is operating under one law and that the marvellous mechanism of this law extends even down to the invisible atom with its planetary system. With such a system of law we stand in the presence of a great Almighty God, the God who is in and above this great law, the God who is to be honoured and worshipped. Creed and dogma are dwarfed into insignificance by the conception of such a God, whose system of Religion and Medicine in the Church 91 law is so complete that no condition can arise to take Him by surprise or call for the setting aside of His law and performing a miracle in violation of it. This great God of Law, who is the God of Love, is with us—yesterday, today, and for- ever. Men, women and little children must fall upon their knees in adoration of Him. He brings us in tune with all science, all truth, and sends us forth as His emissaries. The Church can do no less than accept Him and His service, which is the service of law, love, truth, and beauty. RECOMMENDATIONS That the Protestant Episcopal Church of America renounce and denounce superstition, and remove it from her body, root, stem and branch. . That the Church recognize and openly declare that there is no such thing as miraculous heal- ing today. . That the Canons of the Church be so revised that any bishop, priest or layman, teaching or preaching miraculous healing in any of its guises, may be regarded and treated as one who has committed a crime against the laws of the Church, of religion, and of society. That the Church recognize a true Ministry of Healing. . That opportunity for healing work be open to the ministers of the Church, who wish to avail themselves of it, by establishing clinics where science and religion may work cooperatively together under the direction of a trained phy- sician, who is also a psychiatrist. That a great institution be established as an educational clearing-house and for the co- 92 Religion and Medicine in the Church 93 operation of religion in all departments of life, and that a National Magazine be estab- lished for the dissemination of knowledge. . 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