Faith-healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena/Faith-Healing

by James Monroe Buckley

FAITH-HEALING

IN 1849 I first saw performances in "animal magnetism." A "professor," of fluency, fine appearance, and marked self-possession, lectured with illustrations; feeble men after being "magnetized" became strong, and persons ordinarily reticent spoke eloquently on subjects suggested by the audience. Great excitement arose, and the attention of medical men was attracted to the curative powers of "magnetism." A dentist, who was also a physician, acquired the art, and a paralytic when under "the influence" moved an arm long useless. Persons whose teeth were extracted felt no pain during the operation.

Some years afterward, at boarding-school, a young man who was very devout occupied a room with me. A revival in town extended to the school, and the young man was brought from a meeting in a "trance" and placed upon the bed. He was unconscious for some hours; his limbs were rigid, and it was possible to lift him by the head and feet without his body yielding in the least degree; nor could the strongest man bend his arms. At length he opened his eyes, uttered pious ejaculations, and relapsed; this recurred at irregular intervals. By one o'clock in the morning he had resumed his natural state. Feeling that he had been the subject of an unusual manifestation of the favor of God, he was very happy for some days. Similar seizures occurred to him during his stay at the institution, whenever religious meetings were unusually fervent.

In 1856, while in college, I first saw the phenomena of spiritualism as displayed by a "trance medium" and "inspirational speaker." Soon afterward I visited the Perfectionist community established by John H. Noyes, where the cure of disease without medicine and the possibility of escaping death were expounded.

In 1857 I found certain "Millerites" or "Adventists" in the interior of Connecticut who claimed power to heal by prayer and without medicine, and—if they could attain sufficient faith—to raise the dead. This they attempted in the case of a young woman who had died of fever, and continued in prayer for her until decomposition compelled the civil authorities to interfere. This case has been paralleled several times recently. Trances were also common among the Millerites at their camp-meetings, as they had been among the early Methodists, Congregationalists in the time of Jonathan Edwards, and certain Presbyterians and Baptists in the early part of this century in the West and South.

In 1859 the famous Dr. Newton arrived in Boston on one of his periodical visits, causing an extraordinary sensation. The lame who visited him leaped for joy, and left their crutches when they departed; in some instances blindness was cured; several chronic cases were relieved, and astonishing results reported confounding ordinary practitioners, and puzzling one or two medical men of national reputation. I made Dr. Newton's acquaintance, and conversed with him at length and with entire freedom. His disciples became numerous; and "healing mediums" and physicians who cure by "laying on of hands" still exist, increasing rather than diminishing in number.

The circumstance of meeting a person who had been in the habit of going into trances in religious meetings, was an easy subject for "mesmerizers," had been cured by a "healer," and finally became a spiritualist and "trance medium," suggested the question whether there might not be a natural susceptibility acted upon by a general law. Nothing which could shed light upon this problem has been knowingly neglected by the writer during the past thirty years.

Two root questions arise concerning the phenomena; they are the inquiries which lie at the foundation of all knowledge: What are the facts, and how may they be explained?

THE FACTS

The career of Prince Hohenlohe, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sardica, is as well authenticated as any fact in history. Dr. Tuke, in his thoroughly scientific work on the "Influence of the Mind upon the Body," admits his cures as facts. The Prince, who was born in 1794, in Waldenburg, was of high position and broad education, having studied at several universities. When twenty-six years of age, he met a peasant who had performed several astonishing cures, "and from him caught the enthusiasm which he subsequently manifested in healing the sick." I quote two cases on the authority of Professor Onymus of the University of Würtzburg. "Captain Ruthlein, an old gentleman of Thundorf, 70 years of age, who had long been pronounced incurable of paralysis which kept his hand clinched, and who had not left his room for many years, was perfectly cured. Eight days after his cure he paid me a visit, rejoicing in the happiness of being able to walk freely.... A student of Burglauer, near Murmerstadt, had lost for two years the use of his legs; and though he was only partially relieved by the first and second prayer of the Prince, at the third he found himself perfectly well."

Father Mathew was very successful in relieving the sick; after his death multitudes visited his tomb, and of these many were helped and left their crutches there.

In all parts of Roman Catholic countries, and in the Greek churches of Russia, great stacks of crutches, canes, and splints may be seen, which have been left by those who, as Dr. Tuke says, "there is no reason to doubt, have been cured and relieved of contracted joints by the prayers offered at some shrine, or by the supposed efficacy of their relics." Similar results have been seen in Montreal, Canada, within a few years, at solemnities connected with the deaths of certain bishops, one of whom had performed many cures through a long career.

It cannot be denied that many cures occurred at Knock Chapel in Ireland; and also at Lourdes in France, whose fame "is entirely associated with the grotto of Massavielle, where the Virgin Mary is believed, in the Catholic world, to have revealed herself repeatedly to a peasant girl in 1858." This place is resorted to by multitudes of pilgrims from all parts of the world, whose gifts have rendered possible the building of a large church above the grotto, "consecrated in 1876 in the presence of thirty-five cardinals and other high ecclesiastical dignitaries." The gifts have been made by devotees, many of whom claim to have been cured of ailments that defied medical treatment; besides, a large trade is carried on in the water, which is distributed to all parts of the world. I stood by the fountain for hours observing the pilgrims drinking and filling their bottles. A flask which was filled for me has stood on my mantel for several years, and I am bound to say that no serious illness has occurred in the family during that time. Many recoveries follow its use.

Nor is there any reason to doubt that Joseph Gassner, a Catholic priest in Swabia, effected many cures.

Turning from the Roman Catholic and Greek churches to Protestantism, five or six names are conspicuous in connection with the production of cures without the use of medicine, and in answer to prayer.

Dorothea Trudel, a woman living at Manheim, long had an establishment there. Marvelous tales have been told of the cures, some of which have been thoroughly authenticated.

Another name widely known is that of the late Rev. W. E. Boardman, with whom I was acquainted for many years. He had an establishment in the north of London which is designated "Bethshan," and has created quite a sensation. There hundreds of remarkable cures are claimed of cancer, paralysis, advanced consumption, chronic rheumatism, and lameness; and the usual trophies in the shape of canes, crutches, etc., are left behind. They will not allow the place to be called a hospital, but the "Nursery of Faith." Their usual mode is to anoint the sufferer with oil and then pray; though considerable variety in method is practised apparently to stimulate faith. They profess to effect many cures by correspondence, and assert that the healing virtues claimed for French and Irish relics by Roman Catholics are not to be compared with those exercised in answer to their prayers.

Dr. Charles Cullis, of Boston, recently deceased, was long noted in connection with healing diseases by faith and prayer, and among his followers has given Old Orchard, Maine, a reputation as great as the grotto at Lourdes has among Catholics.

The Rev. Mr. Simpson, formerly a Presbyterian minister, and now an Independent in the city of New York, has also become prominent, and there can be no doubt of the improvement in health of many of the persons for whom he has prayed. His devotees have enabled him to open a house here to which various persons, among them some ministers, resort when ill.

Mrs. Mix, a colored woman living in the State of Connecticut, had great fame; having been the instrument of the cure of persons who have devoted themselves to faith-healing, attending conventions, writing books, etc. Her death was bewailed by many respectable persons, without distinction of creed, sex, age, or color, who believed that they had been cured through her prayers.

One of the elements of the notoriety of George O. Barnes, the "Mountain Evangelist," of Kentucky, was his oft-announced power to heal.

Having admitted in general that real cures of real diseases are often made, it is necessary to consider more closely the subject of testimony.

TESTIMONY TO PARTICULARS

All honest and rational persons are competent to testify whether they feel sick, and whether they seem better, or believe themselves to have entirely recovered after being prayed for and anointed by Boardman, Simpson, or Cullis; but their testimony as to what disease they had, or whether they are entirely cured, is a different matter, and to have value must be scrutinized in every case by competent judges.

In general, diseases are internal or external. It is clear that no individual can know positively the nature of any internal disease that he has. The diagnosis of the most skilful physicians may be in error. Post-mortems in celebrated cases have often shown that there had been an entire misunderstanding of the malady. Hysteria can simulate every known complaint: paralysis, heart-disease, and the worst forms of fever and ague. Hypochondria, to which intelligent and highly educated persons of sedentary habits brooding over their sensations are liable, especially if they are accustomed to read medical works and accounts of diseases and of their treatment, will do the same. Dyspepsia has various forms, and indigestion can produce symptoms of organic heart-disease, while diseases of the liver have often been mistaken by eminent physicians for pulmonary consumption. Especially in women do the troubles to which they are most subject give rise to hysteria, in which condition they may firmly believe that they are afflicted with disease of the spine, of the heart, or indeed of all the organs. I heard an intelligent woman "testify" that she had "heart-disease, irritation of the spinal cord, and Bright's disease of the kidneys, and had suffered from them all for ten years." She certainly had some symptoms of all of them. Within eight years a "regular" physician died, the cause, as he supposed on the authority of several examinations, being consumption. A post-mortem showed his lungs sound, and his death to have been caused by diseases the result of the enormous quantities of food and stimulants he had taken to "fight off consumption." The object of these observations is simply to show that testimony that a person has been cured reflects no light upon the problem as to what he or she was cured of, if it was claimed to be an internal disease. The solemn assertion of a responsible person that he was cured of heart-disease, can prove only that the symptoms of what he thought was heart-disease have disappeared.

Also, in any state not accompanied with acute pain, testimony to an immediate cure is of no value unless the disease be of an external character and actually disappears before the eye of the witness. All other cures must have the test of time; hence testimony given on the spot, at the grave of Father Mathew, or at Lourdes, or at the camp-meeting at Old Orchard, or in the Tabernacle of Mr. Simpson, can prove merely that then and there the witness was not conscious of pain or weakness, or of the symptoms of the disease which he believed he had.

The foregoing observations relate to internal diseases, but it is by no means easy to determine what an external disease is. Tumors are often mistaken for cancers, and cancers are of different species—some incurable by any means known to the medical profession, others curable. It is by these differences that quack cancer-doctors thrive. When the patient has anything resembling cancer, they promptly apply some salve, and if the patient recovers he signs a certificate saying that he was cured of a cancer of a most terrible character which would have been fatal in three months or six weeks; or when the quack himself writes the certificate for the patient to sign, which is generally the case, the time in which the cancer would have proved fatal may be reduced to a few days. There is also a difference in tumors: some under no circumstances cause death; others are liable to become as fatal as a malignant pustule.

In supposed injuries to the joints, the exact cause of the swelling is not always easily determined; and internal abscesses have sometimes been months in reaching a condition which would enable the most skilful physicians and surgeons to locate them, or decide positively their cause. The converse of this is true, that swellings have been supposed to be caused by abscesses, incisions made, and a totally different and comparatively harmless condition found. Hence it is by no means certain that an external disease is properly named. The patient and his attending physicians may be in serious error as to the exact character of what at a first glance it might be supposed easy to identify.

I have already spoken of the power of hysteria to simulate the symptoms of any internal disease. It may be new to some that it can produce very remarkable external developments. On the authority of Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, of this city, I give the following. Says Dr. Vincent: "I was told of a case at St. Luke's Hospital in this city: a woman with a swelling which was pronounced by the physicians to be an ovarian tumor, but which disappeared on the administration of ether, and was discovered to be merely the result of hysteria."

Consumption is a subject of painful interest to almost every family in the country. The peculiarity of this disease is that it advances and retreats. In the more common form there comes a time when what is commonly called softening of the tubercles takes place. The patient is then very ill; hectic fever with the succeeding chill occurs every day, and sometimes several times a day; night-sweats, profuse expectoration, and other evidences and causes of debility complicate the situation, and the end is thought to be not far off. To the surprise of the friends, in a few days he greatly improves. Night-sweats cease, the fever greatly diminishes or disappears, the cough lessens; he rejoices, perhaps resumes his business and receives congratulations. Whatever he had been taking now has the credit,—whether what his physician prescribed or hypophosphites, cod-liver oil, balsams, pectorals, expectorants, "compound oxygen," benzoic; when the fact is that the tubercles have softened. As foreign bodies they produced fever and other symptoms; they have been eliminated by coughing and other natural processes. Meanwhile others are forming which give no uneasiness except a slight increase of shortness of breath. When the second softening period comes the patient sinks lower than before; new remedies, of course, are tried, radical change of diet is made, but if death does not end the scene similar apparent recovery takes place. At either of these stages a visit to a grotto, the operations of "faith-healers," or a magnetic belt or pad, might seem to produce a great effect; but decline would occur at the periods of softening, and the patient afterward improve or sink beyond the possibility of recovery, if none of these things had been done.

A fact concerning consumption is known to medical men and stated in works on hygiene, but often disbelieved. That fact is that pulmonary consumption, genuine and unmistakable, often terminates spontaneously in recovery, and frequently yields to hygienic methods. It is the opinion of one of the most celebrated physicians of Europe that for every two cases of death from consumption there is one case that is either indefinitely prolonged, the patient living to be old, or entirely recovering and dying of old age, or of some entirely different disease. It may be asked how such a fact as this can be established. By two modes—one probable, the other conclusive. The probable is where the patient had all the external symptoms of the disease, and examination of the lungs by competent specialists gave results which agreed with each other and with the external symptoms, and the patient, by changing from a sedentary to an outdoor and active life, entirely recovers and lives for many years without return of the symptoms. Possibility of error in the diagnosis remains, but where all these conditions exist it is reduced to a minimum. Such cases are numerous. Conclusive demonstration is found in post-mortem examinations. The late Prof. Austin Flint of New York, author of the "Practice of Medicine," was also the author of a "Clinical Report on Consumption," and describes sixty-two cases in which an arrest of the disease took place; in seven cases it occurred without any special medical or hygienic treatment, and in four of the seven he declares that recovery was complete.

Prof. J. Hughes Bennett, of the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, in a lecture says: "Up to a recent period the general opinion has been that consumption almost always marches on to a fatal termination, and that the cases of those known to be restored were so few as to be merely an exception to the general rule. Morbid anatomy has now, I think, demonstrated that tubercles in an early stage degenerate and become abortive with extreme frequency, in the proportion of one third to one half of all the incurables who die over forty."

Both the Edinburgh "Journal of Medical Science" and the London "Lancet" indorse this conclusion. It is equivalent to saying that from one third to one half of all the incurables of Scotland who die over forty have had incipient consumption and got well of it. To meet those who would say that practically consumption does not mean the existence of a few isolated tubercles, but an advanced stage in which the lungs are in a state of ulceration, and the powers are so lowered that perfect recovery seldom or never takes place, Dr. Bennett proceeds to say that "Laennec, Andral, Cruveilhier, Kingston, Pressat, Boudet, and many others have published cases where all the functional symptoms of the disease, even in its most advanced state, were present, and yet the individual lived many years and ultimately died of some other disorder, and on dissection cicatrices and concretions have been found in the lungs." In that lecture Prof. Bennett exhibited the lungs of a man who died suddenly of congestion of the brain, aged fifty years. At twenty-two he had been given up to die of pulmonary consumption, recovered, lived nearly thirty years, and his lungs exhibited most indubitable marks of the progress and termination of the disease. It is easy to see that in such cases of recovery there came a time when the last tubercles softened; at such a time, any powerful mental stimulus, or pleasing change in circumstances, or physical stimulant compelling exercise in the open air, might be the element which would decide the question whether the system would rally or the process of innutrition and decay go on.

The heating of the minds of witnesses by a succession of testimonies must not be forgotten.

In one of the meetings conducted by the Rev. A. B. Simpson, I heard witnesses testify to the healing power of God, and one witness, who seemed to be a pillar and was specially called upon by Mr. Simpson, testified, stating that no one had greater reason to praise God than he, "for during the past year I have several times been miraculously and instantaneously raised from the jaws of death."

In Adelaide, Australia, at a meeting held in the Workmen's Hall, which was crowded, a Mrs. Morgan testified that for twenty years she had suffered from heart-disease, but the moment "Mr. Wood laid his curative hands upon me, I felt a quiet within and was conscious I was cured." The Rev. W. B. Shorthouse tendered some wonderful testimony; he described his own career of weakness which interfered with his ministerial duties, but now he was completely restored to health. Only two weeks previous, he said, some of his congregation told him that he looked like death. As he grew warm in his testimony, he described several marvelous cases, one of a man brought in dead who walked away without assistance. He had seen hundreds "touch the border of Mr. Wood's garment," and finally concluded by saying he was himself "a living example of miracles greater than those performed by the disciples of Christ."

After seeing this in "Galignani's Messenger" in Paris, I ascertained from high authority in Australia that these narratives were greatly exaggerated, and that many relapses had occurred.

If such dangers exist in connection with the testimony of witnesses in religious meetings to physical facts, it may be thought that accounts of cases carefully written by honest men might be taken without so many grains of allowance. Having inquired into several of the most conspicuous with whose subjects I am acquainted, I have found that the condition of the patient prior to the alleged cure has been magnified in the description. This has not always been so, but in most of the celebrated cases which I have personally investigated.

Many important facts have been omitted, sometimes because the witness did not regard them as of consequence; in other cases, it must be confessed, because the luster of the cure would be dimmed by their recital. A female evangelist, whose astonishing cure has been told to thousands, never mentions a surgical operation from which her friends know that she derived great benefit; and when asked why she did not tell of that, she replied, in substance, that she did not wish to divert attention from the great work that God had really wrought in her. Often the account of the cure has been exaggerated: relapses have not been published, peculiar sensations still felt, and resisted, have been omitted from the description, and the mode of the cure has been restricted to one act or a single moment of time, when in response to questions it appeared that it was weeks or months before the person could properly be said to be well. In all such cases it is obvious that the written testimony is of little value; indeed, it is seldom that a published account in books supporting marvels of this kind shows any signs of being written by a person who took the pains, if he possessed the capacity, to investigate the facts accurately. Frequent quotation of such accounts adds nothing to their credibility or value.

But after all deductions have been made, that most extraordinary recoveries have been produced, some of them instantaneously, from disease in some cases generally considered to be incurable by ordinary treatment, in others known to be curable in the ordinary process of medicine and in surgery only by slow degrees, must be admitted.

The object of these remarks is not to discredit all testimony, but to show the conditions upon which its value depends.

EXPLANATION OF THE FACTS

Have these facts a common cause? To solve the problem requires us to ascertain whether the effects are the same, and the limitations of the cause or causes are the same? Do recoveries under the prayers and anointings of Dr. Cullis surpass in the nature of disease, rapidity of cure, and proportion of recoveries to the whole number of persons prayed for, those attested in connection with Mrs. Mix or those of the Rev. A. B. Simpson? Is there any reason to believe that Dr. Newton was less successful in the number, character, or permanence of the cures attributed to his touch and voice than those of the persons before named? Again, is there any testimony that they have achieved greater success than "Bethshan" in London? Further, can these be proved to have done any more than Prince Hohenlohe, or the priest Gassner, or the water of Lourdes? The subjects of these cures will, of course, chant the praises of the respective schools; but does the impartial student of the testimony see any reason to distinguish between them as to the number or character of the effects? They all sometimes cure paralysis, convulsions, cancers, tumors, spinal diseases, those peculiar to women, and relieve or cure chronic cases frequently, especially rheumatism, sciatica, neuralgia, and similar maladies. They succeed in some forms of acute disease. "Schools" in religion and medicine are prone to magnify their own achievements and depreciate those of others. Nor does this always spring from dishonesty; since faith often prevents that scrutiny which would reveal reasons for discounting testimony or appearances, while suspicion would lead to a treatment of the reports of others the opposite of that accorded to their own. I have seen subjects of spiritualist healers, mesmeric and magnetic healers, Roman Catholic and Russo-Greek miracles, and of the most conspicuous "faith-healers" and "mind-curers" in this country, and find no reason to believe that one has been more or less successful than others.

A very important question is whether their limitations are the same. The limitations must have respect to what and how they heal, and the permanence of the cure. It will be noted that none of them can raise the dead, or if any profess ability to do so, or by prayer to restore to life, the rest will unite to deny the claim of the others, and so fully support our view. Nor can they give sight to one born blind, nor healing to one born deaf, where the cause of deafness is the absence of any of the organs necessary to hearing. Instances have been published where children who had lost their hearing by scarlet fever or other disease, have been made to hear by the manipulations of spiritualists or by the prayers of Catholics or Protestants; but whether true or not, no case which can be shown to be one of congenital deafness or blindness can be attested where sight or hearing has been made possible by any other than surgical treatment. Further, none of them can restore a limb that has been cut off, or an eye that has been lost.

In mental derangement it is to be admitted that all have been successful in some cases of a functional character, and in some of protracted melancholia; but no authentic account has been adduced of the cure of dementia or idiocy.

Another common limitation is the existence of many cases of the same disease in which cures are effected, which they cannot relieve in the least. Pitiful instances could be detailed of persons who have traveled long distances, or have believed in the water, or the power of the dead body of an ecclesiastic, or of prayers at his tomb, or of the mystic touch of Newton, or of Dr. Cullis, or of a coterie who have made their headquarters at a famous resort on the coast of the Atlantic, and have died bitterly disappointed. Many have died while firmly believing that God would heal them, and that they were not about to die. Neither Catholic, Spiritualist, nor Protestant has any prëeminence with regard to this limitation.

A remarkable attempt to Christianize the interior of Africa is now proceeding under the auspices of William Taylor, a missionary bishop. One of the company which he took out was an obstinate believer in the power of faith to draw from God such help as to enable him to dispense with medicine. This young man fanatically refused to take any medicine, and died a martyr to superstition which he mistook for faith. The last entry in his diary was: "I have n't the fever, but a weak feeling; but I take the promise 'He giveth power to the faint,' and I do receive the fact." The testimony of his medical adviser to his last conversation is: "Charlie, your temperature is 105, and pulse 130; normal is 98; the dividing line between life and death is 103. You are now dying. It is only a question of time; and if you do not take something to break up this fever, it will surely kill you." The reply of the misguided youth was, "Well, then, I'll die; for I won't take any medicine." Bishop Taylor himself does not hold the view which, consistently carried out, practically caused the suicide of this young man. Almost all in the party had the African fever, and by the aid of medical skill recovered.

The limitations common to all are further illustrated by the following case, an account of which I received in writing from the eminent physician who had it in charge until the fatal termination. A minister of the gospel and his wife, widely known both in Europe and America, had a daughter-in-law to whom they were greatly attached. Her health began to fail, and all that medical treatment could do was done without avail. The diagnosis was one of ovarian tumor, and little hope was offered either to the invalid or to her friends. Finally she was made a subject of prayer by the minister and his wife, who earnestly besought God to heal her. They believed that they received an evidence in answer to their prayers that she would be cured; but being about to make a long evangelizing tour throughout the world, they prayed that if she was to get well, they might receive a certain sign which they suggested in prayer; and the event was in harmony with the suggestion. Thoroughly persuaded, they made a farewell visit and had a season of prayer in which both they and she received "the assurance" that the disease was checked and that she would finally recover. Previous to their embarking on the voyage, at a meeting which was attended by thousands, her case was spoken of and prayers were offered for her recovery; and this happened on several occasions during the long tour following. But the disease progressed and ended in death, according to the prognosis given by the physician, who is himself a Christian. These facts show the deceptive character of the assurances which many claim to receive on matters of fact of this kind.

Another element of limitation has respect to relapses. In many cases those who suppose that they have been cured relapse and die of the malady of which they testified they had been cured. This is true of the results of medical practice, and is a consequence of the law of human mortality and general limitations of human knowledge; but it is specially true of quack medicines involving anodynes, alcohol, or other stimulants which disguise symptoms, develop latent energy, or divert attention.

Lord Gardenstone, himself a valetudinarian, spent a great deal of time "inquiring for those persons who had actually attested marvelous cures, and found that more than two thirds of the number died very shortly after they had been cured." That the proportion of relapses among persons who have attested cures under the Spiritualists, Magnetizers, Roman Catholics, and Protestants is as great as this, I do not affirm; but I have no doubt that it is greater than among those who have supposed themselves to be cured either by hygienic means without medicine, or under the best attainable medical treatment, which always attends to hygiene in proportion to the intellectual and moral elevation of the physician above the sphere of quackery.

Some years since a member of the Christian church in the city of Boston solemnly testified that he had been entirely cured of pulmonary consumption through the anointing and prayer of Dr. Cullis. In less than six months afterward he died of consumption. "Zion's Herald," a paper published in the same city, in an editorial upon the results of a faith-healing convention at Old Orchard, says: "We are not surprised to learn that some who esteemed themselves healed are suffering again from their old infirmities, in some instances more severely than before." Such relapses are exceedingly numerous, but they are not published; the jubilant testimonies are telegraphed throughout the land and dilated upon in books; the subsequent relapses are not spoken of in religious meetings nor published anywhere, but a little pains enabled me in a single year to collect a large number.

If we are not able to conclude a common cause from these concurrences in effects, limitations, and relapses, neither the deductive nor the inductive process is of value, and all modes of acquiring knowledge or tracing causes would seem to be useless.

But what is that common cause? Can these effects be proved to be natural by constructing a formula by which they can be produced? If there be phenomena in which the results cannot be traced to their sources, can they be shown to be similar to other effects whose causes can be thus traced?

In investigating phenomena, some of which it is claimed are connected with religion and others with occult forces, it is necessary to proceed without regard to the question of religion, in determining whether the facts can be accounted for upon natural principles, and paralleled by the application thereof.

In searching for analogies I avail myself of authentic cases found in John Hunter, in Dr. Tuke's work previously referred to, in the "Mental Physiology" of Dr. Carpenter, and in the psychological researches of Sir Benjamin Brodie and Sir Henry Holland; selecting, however, only such facts as have been paralleled under my own observation.

First. Cases where the effect is unquestionably produced by a natural mental cause.

(a) The charming away of warts is well established. Dr. Tuke says of them: "They are so apparent that there cannot be much room for mistake as to whether they have or have not disappeared, and in some instances within my own knowledge their disappearance was in such close connection with the psychical treatment adopted, that I could hardly suppose the cure was only post hoc. In one case, a relative of mine had a troublesome wart on the hand, for which I made use of the usual local remedies, but without effect. After they were discontinued, it remained in statu quo for some time, when a gentleman 'charmed' it away in a few days." He then tells of a case the particulars of which he received of a surgeon. His daughter had about a dozen warts on her hands, and they had been there eighteen months; her father had applied caustic and other remedies without success. A gentleman called, noticed her warts, and asked how many she had. She said she did not know, but thought about a dozen. "Count them, will you?" said he, and solemnly took down her counting, remarking, "You will not be troubled with your warts after next Sunday." Dr. Tuke adds, "It is a fact that by the day named the warts had disappeared and did not return." Francis Bacon had a similar experience, including the removal of a wart which had been with him from childhood, on which he says: "At the rest I did little marvel, because they came in a short time, and might go away in a short time again; but the going away of that which had stayed so long doth yet stick with me."

(b) Blood-diseases, such as scurvy, have been cured in the same way. At the siege of Breda in 1625, scurvy prevailed to such an extent that the Prince of Orange was about to capitulate. The following experiment was resorted to; "Three small phials of medicine were given to each physician, not enough for recovery of two patients. It was publicly given out that three or four drops were sufficient to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of liquor." Dr. Frederic Van der Mye, who was present and one of the physicians, says: "The effect of the delusion was really astonishing; for many quickly and perfectly recovered. Such as had not moved their limbs for a month before were seen walking the streets, sound, upright, and in perfect health." Dr. Van der Mye says that before this happy experiment was tried they were in a condition of absolute despair, and the scurvy and the despair had produced "fluxes, dropsies, and every species of distress, attended with a great mortality."

(c) Van Swieten and Smollett speak of consumptive patients recovering health from falling into cold water. Dr. Tuke says that Dr. Rush refers to these cases, and "inclines to think that fright and the consequent exertion produced a beneficial result."

(d) Abernethy gives a case of a woman who was permanently cured of dropsy by being frightened by a bull, relief coming through the kidneys.

(e) Of the famous metallic tractors of Dr. Perkins, which produced most extraordinary results, attracting the attention of the medical world, the effects of the use of the tractors being attributed to galvanism, and of the production of the same effects by two wooden tractors of nearly the same shape, and painted so as to resemble them in color, it is hardly necessary to say anything. But wooden and metallic were equally efficient, and cured cases of chronic rheumatism in the ankle, knee, wrist, and hip, where the joints were swollen and the patient had been ill for a long time; and even a case of lockjaw of three or four days' standing was cured in fifty minutes, when the physicians had lost all hope.

(f) I have frequently tested this principle. The application of a silver dollar wrapped in silk to ulcerated teeth, where the patient had been suffering for many hours, and in some instances for days, relieved the pain, the patient supposing that it was an infallible remedy. After I had explained that the effect was wholly mental, the magic power of the remedy was gone.

(g) In 1867 a well-known public singer was taken dangerously ill on the evening of his concert, having great nausea and intense headache; two applications of the silver dollar to his forehead entirely relieved him, and he performed a full program with his usual energy. Anything else would have been as effectual as the dollar, which was used merely because it was at hand.

(h) The following case is taken from a pamphlet published by me in 1875, entitled "Supposed Miracles."

In company with the Rev. J. B. Faulks I called at a place near Englewood, N. J., to procure a boat. There was a delay of half an hour, and the day being chilly, we repaired to a house near by and there saw a most pitiable spectacle. The mother of the family was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism in its worst form. She was terribly swollen, could not move, nor bear to be touched. I said to Mr. Faulks, "You shall now have an illustration of the truth of the theory you have so often heard me advance." He mildly demurred, and intimated that he did not wish to be mixed up in anything of the kind. But, after making various remarks solely to inspire confidence and expectation, I called for a pair of knitting-needles. After some delay, improved to increase confidence and surround the proceedings with mystery, operations were begun. One of the hands of the patient was so swollen that the fingers were very nearly as large as the wrist of an ordinary child three years of age. In fact, almost all the space naturally between the fingers was occupied, and the fist was clinched. It was plain that to open them voluntarily was impossible, and to move them intensely painful. The daughter informed us that the hand had not been opened for several weeks. When all was ready I held the needle about two inches from the end of the woman's fingers, just above the clinched hand, and said, "Now, Madam, do not think of your fingers, and above all do not try to move them, but fix your eyes on the ends of these needles." She did so, and to her own wonder and that of her daughter the fingers straightened out and became flexible without the least pain. I then moved the needles about, over the hand, and she declared that all pain left her hand except in one spot about half an inch in diameter.

(i) The efficacy of the touch of the king to cure scrofula is authenticated beyond question. Charles II. touched nearly 100,000 persons; James in one of his journeys touched 800 persons in Chester Cathedral. Macaulay's History shows how, when William III. refused to exercise this power, it brought upon him "an avalanche of the tears and cries of parents of the children who were suffering from scrofula. Bigots lifted up their hands and eyes in horror at his impiety." His opponents insinuated that he dared not try a power which belonged only to legitimate sovereigns; but this sarcasm was without basis, as an old author says: "The curing of the king's evil by the touch of the king does much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did cure for the most part." This reminds the student of ecclesiastical history of the consternation of the Jesuits when the extraordinary "miracle" was wrought upon the niece of the famous Blaise Pascal.

(j) The daughter of an eminent clergyman in this city had been sick for a long time, entirely unable to move and suffering intense pain. One of the most famous surgeons of New York declared, after careful examination, that she had diseases of the breast-bone and ribs which would require incisions of so severe a character as to be horrible to contemplate. Three times the surgeon came with his instruments to perform the operation, but the parents could not bring themselves to consent to it, and it was postponed. At last the late Dr. Krackowitzer was called in; he solemnly and very thoroughly examined her from head to foot, taking a long time, and at last suddenly exclaimed, "Get out of bed, put on your clothes, and go down-stairs to meet your mother in the parlor!" The young lady automatically arose and obeyed him. The next day she took a walk with her mother, and soon entirely recovered. Dr. Krackowitzer stated that he recognized in her an obstinate case of hysteria, which needed the stimulus of sudden command from a stronger will than her own. I received this narrative from the young lady's father; she has never had a relapse, and is still living in excellent health. Had she been cured by a faith-healer believed in by the family, the mistaken diagnosis of the eminent surgeon would have been heralded far and wide, and the cure considered a miracle.

(k) The cure of obstinate constipation when all medicine had lost its effect, by a medical man who required the patient to uncover the abdomen and direct his thoughts entirely to the sensations experienced in that region, is vouched for by Dr. Carpenter.

(l) The cure of a case of paralysis by Sir Humphrey Davy is a scientific fact of the first importance. He placed a thermometer under the tongue of the patient simply to ascertain the temperature; the patient at once claimed to experience relief, so the same treatment was continued for two weeks, and by that time the patient was well. In this case the imagination of the patient was not assisted by an application to the affected part.

In all the foregoing cases the cure or relief was a natural result of mental or emotional states. As long ago as the time of John Hunter, it was established by a variety of experiments and by his own experience that the concentration of attention upon any part of the human system affects first the sensations, next produces a change in the circulation, then a modification of the nutrition, and finally an alteration in structure.

Second. Cases in which the operation of occult causes is claimed. These will be treated here only so far as they reflect light upon "faith-cures."

(a) That trances and healings occurred under the performances of Mesmer is as well established as any fact depending upon testimony. French scientists who investigated the subject divided into two hostile parties upon the explanation, and in some cases as to whether they were genuine or fraudulent; but they agreed as to the genuineness of many of the cures. The Government established a commission of physicians and members of the Academy of Sciences to investigate the phenomena. Benjamin Franklin, who was at that time in Paris in the interest of the United States, and the distinguished J. S. Bailly were of that commission, with Lavoisier, Darcet, and others. They presented an elaborate report, specifically admitting many of the alleged facts, but denying the necessity of assuming "animal magnetism." Forty years afterward,—namely, on October 11, 1825,—the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris was addressed by a noted physician, Foissac, who called its attention to the importance of a new inquiry. After a long debate the Academy appointed a committee to inquire whether it would or would not become the Academy to investigate "animal magnetism." The report was favorable, and was debated at great length; it was finally decided to investigate, and the Academy, by a majority of ten in a total vote of sixty, appointed a permanent committee on the subject. This committee reaffirmed the facts, and did not divide as in the former instance, two merely declining to sign the report because not present at the experiments. The subject was reopened in 1837, and further reports and discussions of great importance resulted. These are referred to here simply to show the amount of testimony to certain facts of trance conditions, so called, and cures.

The following is given on the authority of Dr. Tuke, who says, "It is afforded by a highly respectable surgeon and attributed by him to mesmerism." It is the case of Edward Wine, aged seventy-five, who had been paralyzed two years in one arm and leg. The left arm was spasmodically fixed to the chest, the fingers drawn toward the palm of the hand and wasted, quite incapable of holding anything; walked with a crutch, drawing the left leg after him. After several mesmerizing operations the surgeon put "a nosegay in his coat and posted him off to church, and he tells me he walked like a gentleman down the aisle, carrying his stick in his lame arm."

The noted Mr. Braid in many authentic instances restored lost sight, greatly improved the condition of the paralyzed, in some instances entirely curing the patient, and had very little difficulty with most cases of rheumatism. Dr. W. B. Carpenter investigated many of these cases.

But what is mesmerism, magnetism, electro-biology, etc.? It is a subjective condition. The notion that a magnetic fluid passes from the body, or that passes are of utility in producing the state except as they act upon the mind of the candidate, was exploded long since; and both in Europe and America the discovery of the real principle was accidental and made by a number of persons. About fifty years ago an itinerant lecturer on these phenomena, who had great success in experiments, used an old-fashioned cylinder electrical machine. The "subjects" took hold of the wire. He gave them a slight electrical shock, and "concentrated his will upon them." Those that were susceptible passed into the trance state. On a certain occasion, when trying the experiment with several gentlemen in a private room, the operator was called out just as the candidates had taken hold of the wire. He remained twenty minutes, not supposing that the experiment was being tried; on his return, to his great surprise, he found three of them as much "magnetized," "mesmerized," electro-biologized," "hypnotized," or "psycodunamized" as any he had ever seen. This showed that the entire effect was caused by their own mental states. Further experiments made it clear that neither the will of the operator, nor any "magnetism" from his body, nor electricity, nor the influence of the candidates upon each other had anything to do with the result. Mesmer himself used magnets until he fell in with the Roman Catholic priest Gassner, before mentioned, when, perceiving that he used none, he renounced magnets, afterward depending solely on manipulation.

Twenty-three years ago I was present at a private meeting of twenty-five ladies and gentlemen, at the residence of Mr. Henry R. Towne, president of the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company. On two successive evenings these phenomena had been explained. It had been maintained that all the results were subjective, arising from the concentrated attention, expectancy, and reverence of the persons trying the experiment. At the close of the two lectures, after divesting the subject of mystery, and, apparently, rendering it impossible to produce reverence or confidence, I was urged to test the theory by experiment. Accordingly eight gentlemen and ladies were requested to rise, stand without personal contact with one another or myself, close their eyes, and clasp their hands. In a few minutes five passed more or less fully into the trance state, two becoming unconscious of their surroundings and the others exhibiting peculiar phenomena. One thus affected was a prominent lawyer of the city of New York, another a recent graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School, and the third the bookkeeper in a large establishment. Nothing was done by the experimenter during the interval after these persons closed their eyes and clasped their hands, save to wait in silence and require silence from spectators. Among those who witnessed and critically studied these phenomena with the writer were Professor Fuertes, Dean of the Department of Civil Engineering in Cornell University, whose letter, herewith printed,^[1] explains itself; Mr. Henry R. Towne, before mentioned; the Rev. Dr. A. S. Twombly, pastor of the Winthrop Congregational Church of Charlestown, Mass.; and J. B. Williams, Esquire, of the city of New York.

On the 14th of April, 1868, in the City Hall of Dover, New Hampshire, in the presence of a thousand persons, the same principles were set forth. At the close Dr. L. G. Hill, of that city, long President of the State Medical Society, called for the proof of the theory that the effects attributed to animal magnetism were the result of subjective mental condition. The result, as described in the "Dover Gazette" of Friday, April 17, 1868, by the editor, who refers to himself in the account, is as follows: "Ten or twelve gentlemen at his [the lecturer's] request took the platform and were requested to shut their eyes, close their hands, and remain quiet. They did so. One complete trance medium and two partial ones at once developed.

Three of the other gentlemen, among whom was the writer of this article, felt the trance force in a slight degree. The completely developed medium was in the most perfect trance; could be convinced of anything at once; was clairvoyant, ecstatic, mesmeric, somnambulic, and in fact took any form of ideomania at will. We have been at perhaps over a hundred séances of mesmeric, biologic, and so-called spiritual subjects or mediums, but have never seen so perfect a subject so soon developed and upon so pure a principle." These cases are adduced to show the effect of the mind upon the body, and of the mind upon its own faculties. The young man particularly mentioned by the "Gazette" could have had every tooth extracted, or even a limb amputated, without consciousness. After he had resumed his normal state, such was his susceptibility that a word would have sent him back to sleep.

If he had been ill of any disease which "faith-healers" or "magnetizers" could relieve, he would have received equal help. While these persons were standing and the susceptible were passing "under the influence," I was simply waiting, "only this and nothing more."

(b) As for causing the bedridden to rise, and breaking up morbid conditions that had defied medicine while being aggravated by it, these are among the simplest applications of the principle involved. The confidence of those unfamiliar with the subject would be taxed beyond endurance by the narration of illustrative facts to which there is abundant testimony and which can be paralleled easily.

(c) Intelligent missionaries and travelers in heathen lands, where they have given any investigation to the subject, unite in testifying that extraordinary cures follow the enchantments and magical rites employed by priests and physicians claiming supernatural powers.

(d) The influence of witch-doctors among the negroes of Africa, both to produce disease and cure it, is as well authenticated as any facts concerning the "Dark Continent"; nor is it necessary to go there for illustrations, which can be found in great numbers in the South. Not long since an entire community in the vicinity of Atlanta, Georgia, were greatly excited by the terrible diseases which followed threats made by a doctor of this sort. Voodooism has power to bring on diseases and also to cure; nor need this burden be placed upon the negroes and American Indians exclusively. In various parts of Austria, Germany, and Russia, among the peasantry and ignorant classes, belief in witchcraft, and the coincidences which sustain it, still exists; and on the authority of most distinguished physicians and surgeons in those countries, I state that the results both in inflicting and in removing what they never inflicted, which follow the operations of these witch-doctors, are often astonishing.

(e) There is an old proverb that "when rogues fall out, honest men get their dues." It is also true that when quacks fall to discrediting each other, principles may be discovered. In 1865 there came to Detroit, Michigan, a pupil of Dr. Newton, Bryant by name, who performed cures as successfully as Newton himself. In company with Dr. J. P. Scott, a Presbyterian minister there, I visited Dr. Bryant, and saw him operate upon a score or more of patients (one of whom had been supposed to be doomed to a speedy death with ovarian tumor; Dr. Bryant removed the tumor, after which she lived some months and died of debility). To comprehend his methods fully I was operated upon for dyspepsia. About a year later, returning from New Orleans to Memphis, Tennessee, I found on board the steamer Dr. Newton, who had just come from Havana. He told me that in one day eight hundred persons had applied to him in that city. On the same steamer was Dr. B—— of St. Louis, an aged physician who had been to Havana with a wealthy patient. I inquired of Dr. B—— and others whether such great numbers had visited Dr. Newton, and was told that such was the report, that vast crowds had surrounded him from the day he arrived till he embarked, and that marvelous tales were told of the cures he performed. For several hours a day during four days I conversed with him concerning his career and principles. My conviction is that he believed in himself, and also that he would use any means to accomplish his ends. He would glide from fanaticism into hypocrisy, then into fanaticism, and from that into common sense, with the rapidity of thought. He said that he was influeuced by spirits who told him what to say. He would use the name of Jesus Christ in what would seem a blasphemous manner; standing before an audience he would say, "I am now about to send forth shocks of vitality." He would move his arms backward and forward and exclaim, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the diseases in the persons now present to disappear!" He would go to the paralytic or lame and exclaim, "In the name of Jesus Christ, be healed of your infirmity." When I mentioned having seen "Dr." Bryant, Dr. Newton instantly denounced him as an "unmitigated fraud who had no genuine healing power." He claimed that he had cured Bryant of a malignant disease with which he found him suffering in a hospital; that Bryant had acted as his amanuensis for some time, and then left him, and had since been acting in opposition to him. Knowing that the manipulations by Bryant had been followed by some wonderful results in Detroit, I said to Dr. Newton:

"If Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for his cures?"

"Oh!" said the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds upon his operations, with the expectation of being cured. Now," said he, "none would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and they see the crutches he has, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence upon them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things they thought they could not do; their appetites and spirits revive, and if toning them up can possibly reduce the diseased tendency, many of them will get well."

Said I, "Doctor, pardon me, is not that a correct account of the manner in which you perform your wonderful works?"

"Oh, no," said he; "the difference between a genuine healer and a quack like Bryant is as wide as the poles."

To question him further upon this line would have put an end to the conversation sooner than I desired.

But testing fundamentally the same methods before and since that interview on many occasions, always under the great disadvantage of not being able to profess supernatural aid, either of spirits or of God, and thus being shut up to affecting the mind by the laws of suggestion and association, and by the manner assumed, and finding a result similar in kind, and in some cases equal in extent, to any produced by Newton or others, I know that when he was explaining to me the success of Bryant upon the assumption that he had no healing power, he gave inadvertently the whole explanation of the healing as far as it is independent of mere physical manipulation. Dr. Newton had been to Havana with his daughter, very low with consumption. He was taking her North, doubtful if she would reach home alive. On my saying, "Doctor, why could you not heal her!" he mournfully replied, "It seems as if we cannot always affect our own kindred!"

(f) In working miraculous cures, the Mormons are fully equal to Catholics or Protestants. In Europe one of their chief methods of making converts is praying with the sick, who often recover; and similar success has often aided them in making converts in this country. The Rev. Nathaniel Mead, a highly respected clergyman, to whom Dr. Baird refers in his "History of the Town of Rye," authorized me to publish the following facts, with the sanction of his name.

In the year 1839 a Mormon priest came to the neighborhood where Mr. Mead resided, and obtained access to the room of an intelligent member of a Christian church, who had long been hopelessly ill. He asked permission to pray for her. Catching at anything, she consented. He prayed with great earnestness, and she at once began to improve and recovered with surprising rapidity. Convinced by the supposed miracle that God was with the Mormon priest, she left the Christian church and identified herself with the Mormons to the extent of deserting friends and home.

In the same locality, another member of a Christian church had been severely injured by a bar of iron which fell upon his foot, mangling and crushing it. The same Mormon priest prayed with him, with a similar result; the wound healed very soon, and the man became a convert to Mormonism.

So great was the faith of certain Mormon proselytes in Europe that the priesthood could work miracles, that one who had lost a leg and could not secure another through the prayers of the Mormon missionaries, crossed the Atlantic and made a pilgrimage to Salt Lake City, where he had an interview with Brigham Young. This fox-like prophet and miracle-worker, who could cope in intellectual keenness with Horace Greeley, said to him, "It would be easy for me to give you another leg, but it is my duty to explain to you the consequences. You are now well advanced in life. If I give you another leg, you will indeed have two legs until you die, which will be a great convenience; but in the resurrection, not only will the leg which you lost rise and be united to your body, but also the one which I now give you; thus you will be encumbered with three legs throughout eternity. It is for you to decide whether you would prefer the transient inconvenience of getting along with one leg till you die, or the deformity of an extra leg forever." The pilgrim concluded to remain maimed in this life, that he might not be deformed in that which is to come. This may be a myth, but it falls in well with Brigham Young's known character, and is as worthy of respect as the reasons given by professedly Christian faith-healers for not working miracles of this kind, which are that they do not find "any special promise for such cases," and that "they find no instance where the apostles gave new limbs."

INDUCTIONS

The inductions from these cases, and from the fact that they are constantly paralleled, are:

(1) That subjective mental states, such as concentration of the attention upon a part with or without belief, can produce effects either of the nature of disease or cure.

(2) Active incredulity in persons not acquainted with these laws, but willing to be experimented upon, is often more favorable to sudden effects than mere stupid, acquiescent credulity. The first thing the incredulous, hard-headed man, who believes that "there is nothing in it," sees, that he cannot fathom, may lead him to succumb instantly to the dominant idea.

(3) That concentrated attention, with faith, can produce powerful effects; may operate efficiently in acute diseases, with instantaneous rapidity upon nervous diseases, or upon any condition capable of being modified by direct action through the nervous or circulatory system.

(4) That cures can be wrought in diseases of accumulation, such as dropsy and tumors, with surprising rapidity, where the increased action of the various excretory functions can eliminate morbid growths.

(5) That rheumatism, sciatica, gout, neuralgia, contraction of the joints, and certain inflammatory conditions, may suddenly disappear under similar mental states, so as to admit of helpful exercise; which exercise by its effect upon the circulation, and through it upon the nutrition of diseased parts, may produce a permanent cure.

(6) That the "mind-cure," apart from the absurd philosophy of the different sects into which it is already divided, and its repudiation of all medicine, has a basis in the laws of nature. The pretense of mystery, however, is either honest ignorance or consummate quackery.

(7) That all are unable to dispense with surgery, where the case is in the slightest degree complex and mechanical adjustments are necessary; also that they cannot restore a limb, or eye, or finger, or even a tooth. But in certain displacements of internal organs the consequence of nervous debility, which are sometimes aided by surgery, they all sometimes succeed by developing latent energy through mental stimulus.

THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES

We find that in comparison with the Mormons, Spiritualists, Mind-Curers, Roman Catholics, and Magnetizers, the Protestant Faith-Healers can accomplish as much, but no more; that they have the same limitations as to diseases they cannot heal, and injuries they cannot repair; as to particular cases of diseases that they can generally cure, but which occasionally defy them; and as to their liability to relapses. We also find that their phenomena can be paralleled under the operation of laws with which "experts" upon the subject, whether medical or otherwise, are acquainted, but which are not recognized by the general public, including many physicians of various schools, clergy-men, lawyers, educators, and literary persons of both sexes who might be expected to understand them.

It is necessary to examine the New Testament, to ascertain whether Christ was subject to the limitations which have marked all these. The record states that he healed "all manner of disease, and all manner of sickness." It declares that "they brought unto him all that were sick, holden of divers diseases and torments, possessed with devils, and those that were lunatic [new version, epileptic] and palsied; and he healed them." He did these things uniformly, and sent word to John, "The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up." He restored the withered hand, not by the slow process of a change in the circulation, and gradual change in the nutrition, followed by structural alteration; but it was instantly made "whole like as the other." Not only so, he restored limbs that had been cut off. See New Revision, Matthew xv. 30: "And there came unto him great multitudes having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and they cast them down at his feet; and he healed them; insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing." The last miracle that Christ wrought before his crucifixion, according to St. Luke, was one that could defy all these "faith-healers" of every species to parallel. See New Revision, Luke xxii. 50: "And a certain one of them smote the servant of the high priest and struck off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear and healed him."

Rational men familiar with the laws expounded in this paper could not believe this record if the mighty works told of Christ and the apostles were comprised simply in an account of wonderful tales. They would reason that it is much more probable that those who testified to these things were deceived or exaggerated, or that those who received the original accounts added to them, than that they should have happened. But when those who make the record convey to us ancient prophecies attested and still preserved by the Jews and fulfilled in the character and works of Christ; the account of his rejection and crucifixion by the Jews; the Sermon on the Mount; the parable of the prodigal son; the Golden Rule; the sublime and spiritual doctrines taught by Christ; and the picture of a life and of a death scene that have no parallel in human history or fiction, and declare that he who taught these things did such and such mighty works before us, we saw them and were convinced by the miracles that he did, "that he was a teacher come from God," it is no longer a question simply of believing things not included in the laws of nature. When these doctrines are applied to men's own needs and lives, they prove their divine origin by the radical and permanent changes which they make in character. Then the subjects of these changes accept the truthfulness of the record of miracles in a remote past which they cannot now test upon the authority of the spiritual truths which they are capable of subjecting to the test of practical experience.

Some allege that even the apostles could not restore limbs that had been cut off, or that had been wanting from birth. The record shows that the apostles made no distinction in cases. Ananias prayed for Paul, and "straightway there fell from his eyes as it had been scales." When Tabitha lay dead, Peter, after prayer, "turning to the body said, 'Tabitha, arise,'" and he "presented her alive." The chains fell off Peter in the prison, and "the iron gate opened for him and the angel of its own accord." As Peter had, in the first miracle after Pentecost, given strength to a man who had been lame from his mother's womb, so Paul, seeing a man at Lystra, "a cripple from his mother's womb who had never walked," said, "with a loud voice, 'Stand upright on thy feet,' and he leaped up and walked." They cast out devils wherever it was necessary, and when Eutychus fell from the third story, and "was taken up dead," Paul restored him to life again. On the island of Melita, a viper hung upon the hand of Paul, and "when the barbarians saw the beast hanging from his hand, they said one to another, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped from the sea, yet justice hath not suffered to live"; but when they remained long in expectation and beheld nothing amiss come to him, they changed their minds and said he was a "god." We are informed that after that the diseases of the entire population of the island were healed.

CLAIMS OF "CHRISTIAN FAITH-HEALERS," TECHNICALLY SO CALLED, EFFECTUALLY DISCREDITED

In examining the healing works both of Christ and the apostles, it appears that there is not a uniform law that the sick should exercise faith, and that it was not necessary that their friends should exercise it, nor that either they or their friends should do so. Sometimes the sick alone believed; at others, their friends believed and they knew nothing about it; again, both the sick and their friends believed, and on some occasions neither the sick nor the friends. No account of failure on the part of Christ, or of the apostles after his ascension, to cure any case can be found. Neither is there a syllable concerning any relapse or the danger of such a thing, nor any cautions to the cured, "not to mind sensations," or that "sensations are tests of faith," nor any other such quackery, in the New Testament.

Claims of Christian faith-healers to supernatural powers are discredited by three facts:

(1) They exhibit no supremacy over pagans, spiritualists, magnetizers, mind-curers, etc.

(2) They cannot parallel the mighty works that Christ produced, nor the works of the apostles.

(3) All that they really accomplish can be paralleled without assuming any supernatural cause, and a formula can be constructed out of the elements of the human mind which will give as high average results as their prayers or anointings.

That formula in its lowest form is "concentrated attention." If to this be added reverence, whether for the true and ever-living God, false gods, spirits, the operator, witches, magnetism, electricity, or simple unnamed mystery, the effect is increased greatly. If to that be added confident expectancy of particular results, the effect in causing sickness or relieving it maybe appalling. Passes, magnets, anointings with oil, are useful only as they produce concentration of attention, reverence, and confident expectancy. Those whose reputation or personal force of thought, manner, or speech can produce these mental states, may dispense with them all, as Mesmer finally did with the "magnets," and as many faith-healers and the Roman Catholics do with the oil.^[2]

THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF ANSWER TO PRAYER

Is there then no warrant in the New Testament for the ordinary Christian to pray for the sick, and is there no utility in such prayers? "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." The New Testament affirms that "All things work together for good to them that love God," It teaches that the highest good is the knowledge and love of God, and that the Spirit of God has constant access to the minds of men, and sets forth an all-inclusive doctrine of Providence without whom not even a sparrow falls. It does not say that prayer will always secure the recovery of the sick, for it gives the instance of Paul who had a "thorn in the flesh," and who besought the Lord thrice that this thing should depart from him, but received, "My grace is sufficient for thee."

None can demonstrate that God cannot work through second causes, bringing about results which, when they come, appear to be entirely natural, but which would not have come except through special providence, or in answer to prayer. The New Testament declares that he does so interpose "according to his will." It was not his will for Paul, and he did not remove the thorn, but gave spiritual blessings instead. Prayer for the sick is one of the most consoling privileges, and it would be a strange omission if we were not entitled to pray for comfort, for spiritual help, for such graces as will render continued chastening unnecessary, and for recovery, when that which is desired is in harmony with the will of God. Belief that when the prayer is in accordance with the mind of God, "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up," is supported by many explicit promises. But as all who die must die from disease, old age, accident, or intentional violence, every person must at some time be in a state when prayer cannot prolong his life.

When we or others are suffering from any malady, the Christian doctrine is that we are to use the best means at command, and to pray, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." The prayer may be answered by its effect upon the mind of the patient; by directing the physician, the nurse, or the friends to the use of such means as may hasten recovery; or, by a direct effect produced upon the physical system, behind the visible system of causes and effects, but reaching the patient through them; if the patient recovers, it will seem as though he recovered naturally, though it may be in an unusual manner. The Christian in his personal religious experience may believe that his prayer was the element that induced God to interfere with the course of nature and prolong life. Assuming that there is a God, who made and loves men, none can show his faith irrational or unscriptural; but such testimony can be of no value to demonstrate to others a fact in the plane of science. When the Christian comes to die, he must then rest, even while praying for life, upon the promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee."

Faith-healers represent God as interfering constantly, not by cause and effect in the order of nature, but affecting the result directly. That they do not surpass those who are not Christians, but use either false pretenses or natural laws, and that they are inferior in healing power to Christ and the apostles, condemn their pretensions. Nor does it avail them to say, "Christ would not come down from the cross when taunted by unbelievers." They might perhaps with propriety refuse a test for the test's sake;—though Elijah forced one. But a radical difference between their work and what it accomplishes, and those who, they say, have no divine help, should be manifest. Some of them affirm that the Mormons, Newton, and others do their mighty works by the aid of devils. If so, since casting out devils was miracle-working power of low grade, it is wonderful that none of these persons have been able to cast out the devils from any of the large number who are working in this way, and thus demonstrate their superiority as the apostles vindicated their claims against Simon the sorcerer and others.

Faith-cure, technically so called, as now held by many Protestants, is a pitiable superstition, dangerous in its final effects.

It may be asked, What harm can result from allowing persons to believe in "faith-healing"? Very great indeed. Its tendency is to produce an effeminate type of character which shrinks from pain and concentrates attention upon self and its sensations. It sets up false grounds for determining whether a person is or is not in the favor of God. It opens the door to every superstition, such as attaching importance to dreams; signs; opening the Bible at random, expecting the Lord so to influence their thoughts and minds that they can gather his will from the first passage they see; "impressions," "assurances," etc. Practically it gives support to other delusions which claim a supernatural element. It seriously diminishes the influence of Christianity by subjecting it to a test which it cannot endure. It diverts attention from the moral and spiritual transformation which Christianity professes to work, a transformation which wherever made manifests its divinity, so that none who behold it need any other proof that it is of God. It destroys the ascendancy of reason, and thus, like similar delusions, it is self-perpetuating; and its natural and, in some minds, irresistible tendency is to mental derangement.

Little hope exists of freeing those already entangled, but it is highly important to prevent others from falling into so plausible and luxurious a snare, and to show that Christianity is not to be held responsible for aberrations of the imagination which belong exclusively to no race, clime, age, party, or creed.

DEFENSE OF FAITH-HEALERS EXAMINED

Presentation to the public, through "The Century Magazine," of the substance of the foregoing excited much discussion, and led the most conspicuous advocates of "faith-healing" therein exposed to make such defense as they could. But confident assertions of supernatural powers, and vehement denials of the sufficiency of natural causes to account for their results, and quotations of misapplied passages of Scripture, have been the only defensive weapons of the faith-healers. They have, however, been compelled to avow that "they keep no record of failures, as they do not depend upon phenomena or cases, but upon the divine Word."

This admission is fatal. If they cannot do the works, either they have not the faith, or they misunderstand the promises they quote. Christ and the apostles depended upon the phenomena to sustain their claims; and when the apostles failed in a single instance Christ called them a faithless and perverse generation. The failure of these religious thaumaturgists to surpass other manipulators in the same line in the nature and extent of their mighty works has compelled them to say that they do not depend upon phenomena, and make no record of unsuccessful attempts and relapses.

The difficulty is that they apply promises to the ordinary Christian life which relate to the power of working miracles. That they misunderstand and misapply them is clear also from the fact that most spiritually minded Christians in the greatest emergencies have been unable to work miracles. The reformers—Calvin, Knox, Luther, etc.—could not. John Wesley, in his letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, enumerates all the miraculous gifts possessed by the apostles, and expressly denies that he lays claim to any of them. Judson, Carey, Martyn, Duff, Brainerd,^[3] and other eminent missionaries trying to preach the Gospel among Pagans, Mohammedans, and Pantheists, most of whose priests are believed by the people to be able to work miracles, were unable to prove their commission by any special power over disease, or by other mighty works. In Algiers, after its conquest by the French, the power of juggling priests was so great that it was impossible to preserve order until Robert Houdin, the magician, was sent over, whose power so far surpassed that of the priests that their ascendancy over the people was broken.

The charge that the writer is not a spiritually minded man was to be expected: this is the common cry of the superstitious when their errors are exposed. But the most extraordinary allegation was made by A. B. Simpson, founder of a sect of faith-healers in the city of New York. He states his belief that the cases "of healing and other supernatural phenomena ascribed to Spiritualism cannot be explained away either as tricks of clever performers or the mere effects of will power, but are, in very many instances, directly supernatural and superhuman"; and asserts that: "The cures to which Dr. Buckley refers among heathen nations, the Voodoos of the negroes, and the Indian medicine men, are all of the same character as Spiritualism." On the subject of Roman Catholic miracles he says:

"Where there is a simple and genuine faith in a Romanist,—and we have found it in some,—God will honor it as well as in a Protestant.... But when, on the other hand, they are corrupted by the errors of their Church, and exercising faith, not in God, but in the relics of superstition, or the image of the Virgin, we see no difference between the Romanist and the Spiritualist, and we should not wonder at all if the devil should be permitted to work his lying wonders for them, as he does for the superstitious Pagan or the possessed medium."

This means that if the Roman Catholics are devout, it is God who does the mighty works for them; if superstitious it is the devil. As many of the most remarkable phenomena connected with Roman Catholicism have occurred where the Virgin is most prominent, as at the Grotto of Lourdes, and at Knock Chapel (a girl having been cured recently by drinking water with which some of the mortar of the chapel had been mingled), it is pertinent to ask, if supernatural operations are involved in both, whether the works of God might not be expected to be superior to those of the devil?

Mr. Simpson goes so far as to say that what he calls "divine healing" is "a great practical. Scriptural, and uniform principle, which does not content itself with a few incidental cases for psychological diversion or illustration, but meets the tens of thousands of God's suffering children with a simple practical remedy which all may take and claim if they will." Such propositions as this are as wild as the weather predictions that terrify the ignorant and superstitious, but are the amusement and scorn of all rational and educated persons; as the following, from the "Congregationalist" of Boston, shows:

We have taken pains, before publishing it, to confirm, by correspondence, the singular case of a woman's death in a religious meeting at Peekskill, N. Y. Rev. Mr. Simpson, formerly a Presbyterian preacher, was holding a Holiness Convention, Major Cole, the "Michigan Evangelist," being a helper. In an "anointing service" an elderly lady, long afflicted with heart-disease, who had walked a long way after a hard day's work, presented herself for "divine healing," and was anointed by Mr. Simpson. A few minutes after she fainted and died, the finding of the jury of inquest being that her death was from heart-disease, but hastened by the excitement of the service. One would suppose that the case would be a warning against the danger of such experiments, if not a rebuke of the almost blasphemous assumption of miraculous power.

ERROR IN MENTAL PHYSIOLOGY

A radical error in mental physiology which most of these persons hold relates to the will. Referring to the theory which explains the cure of many diseases by bringing the person to exercise special will power, Mr. Simpson says:

Why is it that our physicians and philanthropists cannot get the sick to rise up and exercise this will power? Oh! that is the trouble to which we have already adverted. The will is as weak as the frame, and the power that is needed to energize both is God: and Faith is just another name for the new divine WILL which God breathes into the paralyzed mind, enabling it to call upon the enfeebled body to claim the same divine power for its healing. We are quite willing to admit the blessed effect of a quickened faith and hope and will upon the body of the sick. This is not all. There must also be a direct physical touch.

A hotel-keeper in New Hampshire, lingering at the point of death, as was supposed, for weeks with typhus, saw the flames burst from his barn. "Great God!" cried he, "there is nobody to let the cattle out!" He sprang from the bed, cared for the cattle, broke out in a profuse perspiration, and recovered. The burning barn gave him no strength, but the excitement developed latent energy and will.

Mrs. H. had long been ill, was emaciated and so weak that she could not raise a glass of water to her lips. One day the house took fire. She sprang from the bed, seized a chest full of odds and ends, and carried it out of doors. This, as a result of an effort of will, she could not have done when in health without help.

A letter recently received from the Rev. J. L. Humphrey, for many years a, missionary in India, now of Richfield Springs, N. Y., says:

The following instance came under my observation in India. An officer of the Government was compelled to send native messengers out into a district infected with cholera. As he sent them out they took the disease and died; and it came to such a pass among the Government peons under his charge that a man thought himself doomed when selected for that duty. A German doctor in that region had put forth the theory that inoculation with a preparation of quassia was a specific for cholera—a simon-pure humbug. But this gentleman seized the idea; he cut the skin of the messenger's arm with a lancet so as to draw some blood, and then rubbed in the quassia, telling them what the doctor had said about it. Not a man thus treated died.

The surprising strength and endurance exhibited by lunatics and delirious persons often show that the amount of power which can be commanded by the will under an ordinary stimulant by no means equals the latent strength. Equally true is it that mental and emotional excitement often renders the subject of it unconscious of pain, which otherwise would be unendurable. Even without such excitement, a sudden shock may cause a disease to disappear.

The following was narrated to me by an eminent physician:

I was once called to see a lady, not a regular patient of mine, who had suffered for months with rheumatism. Her situation was desperate, and everything had been done that I could think of except to give her a vapor bath. There was no suitable apparatus, and I was obliged to extemporize it. Finding some old tin pipe, I attached it to the spout of the tea-kettle and then put the other end of the pipe under the bed-clothes, and directed the servant to half fill the kettle, so as to leave room for the vapor to generate and pass through the pipe into the bed. I then sat down to read, and waited for the result. The servant girl, however, desiring to do all she could for her mistress, had filled the kettle to the very lid. Of course there was no room for steam to form, and the hot water—boiling, in fact—ran through the pipe and reached the body of the patient. The instant it struck her she gave a shriek and said, "Doctor, you have scalded me!" and as she said this she leaped out of bed. "But now," said the physician, "came the wonder. The rheumatism was all gone in that instant, nor did she have any return of it, to my knowledge."

A "MISSING LINK"

If there were no other, a fatal stumbling-block in the way of the faith-healers is their failure in surgical cases. But they seize everything that could even point at extrahuman interference with the order of nature. The following is taken from the "Provincial Medical Journal" of Leicester and London, June 1, 1886, and is au illustration of the subject:

Another "wonderful cure" at the Bethshan. T. M. N., during a voyage from Liverpool to New York on board the steamship Helvetia, sustained a compound fracture of the left humerus at about the line of junction of the middle with the lower third. The injury was treated for a few days by the mercantile surgeon. On his arrival at New York on December 29, 1883 (four days after the accident), he was transferred to a public hospital. He was at once treated, the fracture being fixed in a plaster-of-Paris dressing, and this mode of mechanical fixation was continued for three months, when the surgeon, perceiving no progress toward union, performed the operation of resetting the fractured ends. The arm and forearm were again put in plaster-of-Paris, and retained until his arrival in Liverpool, five months after the date of the injury. On June 10, 1884, he submitted his arm for my inspection, when on removal of the dressing I found there was no attempt at repair, and that the cutaneous wound pertaining to the operation had not healed. The method of treatment I pursued was the following: The forearm was first slung from the neck by its wrist; the ulcer was attended to, and an area inclusive of the fracture partially strangulated by means of india-rubber bands. This was continued for three months, but without appreciable result. I therefore, in addition to this treatment, percussed the site of fracture every three weeks. Four months passed, and yet no change. After seven months the ulceration was healed, and the limb slung as before, partially strangulated and percussed monthly, but, in addition, maintained well fixed by a splint, and carefully readjusted on the occasion when percussion was employed. At length I found evidence that repair was progressing, for at this date, December, 1885, it required some force to spring the connection. I now knew it could only be a question of a few weeks for consolidation to be complete, but thought it wise for some little time to leave the arm protected, lest rough usage should destroy the good attained. However, the patient suddenly disappeared, and on the 13th of April I received the following interesting document:

"No. 2 Woodhouse St., Walton Road,

"Monday, April 12th.

"Dear Sir: I trust after a very careful perusal of the few following words I may retain the same share of your favorable esteem as previously, and that you will not think too hardly of me because, although I have done a deed which you would not sanction, and which was against your injunctions. Still, I must write and let you know all about it, because I know you have been so kind to me from a purely disinterested motive. I dare say you remember my mentioning the 'faith-healing' some time ago, and to which you remarked that 'it would do no harm to try it, but that you thought I should require mighty faith.'

"Well, I have tried it, and I am sure that you will be glad to hear that my arm is not only in my sleeve, but in actual use, and has been for the past three weeks. The pain I bore after the last beating was something dreadful, and being in great trouble at my lodgings at the time, I was downhearted. I was thrown out of my lodgings, and being quite destitute, I reasoned in myself, and came to the conclusion that if I really asked God to make it better right away he would, and I was told that if I would do away with all means and leave it to him, it would be all right. So I just took off all your bandages and splint, and put it in my sleeve. I have now the use of my arm, and it is just the same as my right one—just as strong. Several times I called at your house when on my way to the Bethshan, George's street, but Dr. Gormley slammed me out, and therefore I did not like to come again.

"I cannot describe how thankful I am, doctor, for your past kindness and goodness to me, and that is one reason I have not seen you. I know you will be glad to see me with it in my sleeve. Yours very truly,

"Tom M. Nicholson.

"Dr. H. O. Thomas.

"P. S.—Any communication will reach me if addressed to me at the above, should you desire to write."

There is very little to add to this case.... It affords, however, a typical instance of the way a Bethshan thrives. The surgeon tells a patient all but recovered to be cautious lest the results of months of care be nullified, and "fools rush in" and tell him "to dispense with means and all will be well." In this particular instance the result was harmless, but it would be interesting to inquire how many poor deluded victims are consigned to irremediable defects by an ignorant and fanatical display which is a satire upon our civilization.

In this country the case that has been most frequently quoted is narrated by the late W.E. Boardman, who had the story from Dr. Cullis and gives it thus:

The children were jumping off from a bench, and my little son fell and broke both bones of his arm below the elbow. My brother, who is a professor of surgery in the college at Chicago, was here on a visit. I asked him to set and dress the arm. He did so; put it in splints, bandages, and in a sling. The dear child was very patient, and went about without a murmur all that day. The next morning he came to me and said, "Dear papa, please take off these things." "Oh, no, my son; you will have to wear these five or six weeks before it will be well!" "Why, papa, it is well." "Oh, no, my dear child; that is impossible!" "Why, papa, you believe in prayer, don't you?" "You know I do, my son." "Well, last night when I went to bed, it hurt me very bad, and I asked Jesus to make it well." I did not like to say a word to chill his faith. A happy thought came. I said, "My dear child, your uncle put the things on, and if they are taken off, he must do it." Away he went to his uncle, who told him he would have to go as he was six or seven weeks, and must be very patient; and when the little fellow told him that Jesus had made him well, he said, "Pooh! pooh! nonsense!" and sent him away. The next morning the poor boy came to me and pleaded with so much sincerity and confidence, that I more than half believed, and went to my brother and said, "Had you not better undo his arm and let him see for himself? Then he will be satisfied. If you do not, I fear, though he is very obedient, he may be tempted to undo it himself, and then it may be worse for him." My brother yielded, took off the bandages and the splints, and exclaimed, "It is well, absolutely well!" and hastened to the door to keep from fainting.

Afterward the Rev. Mr. Gordon introduced the above alleged occurrence into his "Mystery of Healing."

This case was thoroughly investigated by Dr. James Henry Lloyd, of the University of Pennsylvania, and in the "Medical Record" for March 27, 1886, Dr. Lloyd published a letter from the very child, who has become a physician.

Dear Sir: The case you cite, when robbed of all its sensational surroundings, is as follows: The child was a spoiled youngster who would have his own way; and when he had a green stick fracture of the forearm, and, after having had it bandaged for several days, concluded he would much prefer going without a splint, to please the spoiled child the splint was removed, and the arm carefully adjusted in a sling. As a matter of course, the bone soon united, as is customary in children, and being only partially broken, of course all the sooner. This is the miracle.

Some nurse or crank or religious enthusiast, ignorant of matters physiological and histological, evidently started the story, and unfortunately my name—for I am the party—is being circulated in circles of faith-curites, and is given the sort of notoriety I do not crave....

Very respectfully yours,

Carl H. Reed.

EVILS OF THIS SUPERSTITION

Many well-attested cases of irreparable damage to religion, individuals, and to the peace of churches and families have been placed in my hands or ascertained by investigation. From them I select the following:

A lady, a member of the Christian church, aged about fifty-five years, had been ailing for two or three years. She fell and bruised her side, and was confined to her bed for some weeks. She was better for a month perhaps, and then the disease developed into internal abscess of the stomach, and she slowly declined until her death, which occurred about five months afterward. She and her family became very anxious for her recovery, and, being very devout, their minds turned to faith-cure and faith-healers. A month before her death she was in correspondence with one of these persons. This lady appointed an hour in which to pray, and directed that friends in the place where she resided should meet and pray at that time. Her pastor went and prayed. At the close of this interview the patient told him she had received just then a great blessing, so that now she felt reconciled to die, and subsequently said nothing about healing, but much about the heavenly rest which she expected soon to enter. For a long time her nourishment had been, and then was, taken entirely in the form of injections of beef tea. On a certain day a layman who had been healed, and was himself a healer and a prime mover in faith-healing conventions, visited her about noon and stayed until near evening. He told the lady and her children that the Lord had sent him there that she might be instantly healed, read and expounded the book of James, brought out his phial of oil, anointed her forehead, knelt by her bedside, holding her hand in his, and prayed very earnestly for her immediate cure, claiming present conscious testimony by the Holy Spirit that the cure was wrought. On rising from his knees, still holding her hand, he lifted the lady in bed to a sitting posture, and pronounced her cured in the name of the Holy Trinity. A member of the family protested that it was hazardous for her to sit up in that way, as she had not been able to sit up for many weeks. Finally the patient laid down exhausted, and the visitor left, assuring the family that "in four days mother would be up and about." Shortly after this (perhaps an hour) intense pain in the stomach began and kept increasing until the agony became unendurable, so that groans and screams of distress were wrung from her. This continued for twelve hours, when exhaustion and stupor ensued, which lasted until her death, the next day. An autopsy was held by physicians who had been in attendance, and they reported a lesion of the stomach, caused, in their opinion, by the exertion of the patient in arising and sitting up in bed. When our informant met the visiting brother who had had a revelation of the Spirit that the patient was to recover, he inquired after the case, and on being told that our informant was about to go to the funeral, he expressed great surprise and said, "It sometimes happens that way."

Can anything more blasphemous be imagined than the presumptuous claim of a revelation through the Holy Spirit of a matter of fact, and the pronouncing the dying cured in the name of the Holy Trinity?

Families have been broken up by the doctrine taught in some leading "Faith-Homes" that friends who do not believe this truth are to be separated from because of the weakening effect of their disbelief upon faith. A heartrending letter has reached me from a gentleman whose mother and sister are now residing in a faith-institution of New York, refusing all intercourse with their friends, and neglecting obvious duties of life.

Certain advocates of faith-healing and faith-homes have influenced women to leave their husbands and parents and reside in the homes, and have persuaded them to give thousands of dollars for their purposes, on the ground that "the Lord had need of the money."

This system is connected with every other superstition. The Bible is used as a book of magic. Many open it at random, expecting to be guided by the first passage they see, as Peter was told to open the mouth of the first fish that came up and he would find in it a piece of money. A missionary of high standing with whom I am acquainted was cured of this form of superstition by consulting the Bible on an important matter of Christian duty, and the passage that met his gaze was, "Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at thy coming." Paganism can produce nothing more superstitious, though many Christians, instead of "searching the Scriptures," still use the Bible as though it were a divining-rod.

It feeds upon impressions, makes great use of dreams and signs, and puts forth statements untrue and pernicious in their influence. A young lady long ill was visited by a minister who prayed with her, in great joy arose from his knees, and said, "Jennie, you are sure to recover. Dismiss all fear. The Lord has revealed it to me." Soon after, physicians in consultation decided that she had cancer of the stomach, of which she subsequently died. He who had received the impression that she would recover, when met by the pastor of the family, said, "Jennie will certainly get well. The Lord will raise her up. He has revealed it to me." Said the minister, "She has not the nervous disease she had some years ago. The physicians have decided that she has cancer of the stomach." "Oh, well," was the reply, "if that is the case, she is sure to die."

A family living in the city of St. Louis had a daughter who was very ill. They were well acquainted with one of the prominent advocates of faith-healing in the East, who made her case a subject of prayer, and whose wife wrote her a letter declaring that she would certainly be cured, and the Lord had revealed it. The letter arrived in St. Louis one day after her death.

These are cases taken not from the operations of recognized fanatics, but from those of leading lights in this ignis fatuus movement.

It is a means of obtaining money under false pretenses. Some who promulgate these views are honest, but underneath their proceedings runs a subtle sophistry. They establish institutions which they call faith-homes, declaring that they are supported entirely by faith, and that they use no means to make their work known or to persuade persons to contribute. Meanwhile they advertise their work and institutions in every possible way, publishing reports in which, though in many instances wanting in business accuracy, they exhibit the most cunning wisdom of the children of this world in the conspicuous publication of letters such as the following:

Dear Brother: The Lord told me to send you fifty dollars for your glorious work. I did so, and have been a great deal happier than I ever was before; and from unexpected quarters more than three times the amount has come in.

In one of the papers devoted to this subject this letter recently appeared:

Dear Brother: Please announce through the "Crown of Glory" that I will sail for the western coast of Africa to preach a full salvation in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to heal whomsoever the Lord will by faith, as soon as the Lord sends the balance of the money to pay my fare. I have renounced all rum, wine, cider, tobacco, beer, ale, and medicines—only Jesus! Only Jesus my Savior! I will sail October 10, if the Lord sends the balance of the money to Brother Heller, 48 Orchard St., Newark, N. J. Yours, in Christ,

S. B. Myler.

A prominent English advocate of this method of raising money, who has done an extraordinary and useful work, on one of his missionary tours in this country explained his curious system with so much eloquence that the founders of certain faith-homes in the United States called upon the editors of various religious papers and endeavored to induce them to set forth that there are institutions in this country conducted on the same principle, naïvely observing that they did not wish his presence and eloquence to divert to England money that should be expended here. Yet they "do not use means"! But as in the case of the supposed faith-healings, for every successful instance there are a large number of unrecorded grievous failures; and many subjects of delusion who have established faith-homes to which the public has not responded have suffered the agonies of death. Some have starved, some have been relieved by benevolent Christian friends, and others have been taken to asylums for the insane. Similar wrecks are to be found all through the land, dazzled and deceived by the careers of the few who have succeeded in getting their enterprises under way and enjoy a monopoly of their limited method of obtaining revenue. Some who succeed are doubtless as sincere men and women as ever lived. Others oscillate between knavery and unbridled fanaticism.

The horrible mixture of superstition and blasphemy to which these views frequently lead is not known to all. I quote from a paper published in Newark, N. J., in the interest of faith-healing:

Death.—Three of the richest men in Ocean Park, N. J., have died. Faith-healing has been taught in the place, but was rejected by them, so death came.

Charleston, S. C.—A few years ago the Holy Ghost sent me to preach in that city. But they rejected the Gospel and me. A wicked man shot at me and tried to kill me, but God saved me so that I was not harmed.... But I had to leave Charleston and do as the great Head of the Church said:... "when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet." Earthquake, September 1, 1886; one-half the city in ruins. It has a population of about fifty thousand people. Ye wicked cities in the world, take warning! God lives!

SUPPOSED DIFFICULTIES

It has been suggested that if faith-healing can be demonstrated to be subjective, what is called conversion can be accounted for similarly. If by conversion is meant the cataleptic condition which occurred among Congregationalists in the time of Jonathan Edwards, certain Presbyterians and Baptists in the early part of this century in the South and West, and the early Methodists, and is still common among colored people, Second Adventists, and the Salvation Army, and not wholly unknown among others, I admit that such phenomena are of natural origin.

But if conversion is understood to mean a recognition of sinfulness, genuine repentance, and complete trust in the promises of God, accompanied by a controlling determination to live hereafter in obedience to the law of God, this is radically different. Such an experience may be sufficiently intense to produce tears of sorrow or joy, trances, or even lunacy. But neither the lunacy, the trances, nor the tears are essential parts of the conversion. They are results of emotional excitement, differing in individuals according to temperament and education. If these results are believed to have a divine origin—especially when the susceptible are exposed to the contagion of immense crowds swayed by a common impulse and acted upon by oratory—hundreds may succumb to the epidemic who do not experience any moral change, while others who are thus excited may at the same time be genuinely reformed.

The inquiry has been made why these principles do not apply to the miracles of Christ; why I do not sift the evidence in the same way, and explain the facts on the same grounds. What, then, does the New Testament say, and is it rational to believe it?

The first question relates to the issue with the faith-healers. If they performed such works as are recorded of Jesus Christ, a writer professing to believe in his divinity would be compelled to admit their claims to supernatural assistance. But the point made against them is that they do not perform works similar to his.

The credibility of the record concerning Christ's works is a question which cannot be raised by Christians, whether they hold the superstitions of the faith-healers or not.

It is conceded that probably no such sifting of the evidence was attempted as can be made of what takes place in this scientific age, that there was a predisposition to accept miracles, and that the ascendancy of religious teachers was maintained largely by the belief of the people in their power to work miracles. To affirm, however, as some do, that there was no investigation, is an exaggeration. The Jews, who did not believe Christ, had every motive to examine the evidence as thoroughly as possible. Still, we possess only the testimony of those who thought they saw. If they beheld and understood, their testimony is conclusive; but standing alone it would be insufficient.

Yet it is rational to accept the record, although we have not the opportunity of seeing the miracles or testing the evidence by scientific methods. A miracle of wisdom may be as convincing as one of physical force. The resurrection from the dead declared of Jesus Christ could not be more contrary to the laws of nature than the conception of such a life and character as his if he never existed. His discourses are as far above human wisdom as his recorded works transcend human power.

The prophecies which the Jews then held and still preserve, taken in connection with their character and history as a nation, afford a powerful presumption of the truth of the narrative. In the ordinary course of human events the death of Christ, after he had made such claims, would have destroyed the confidence of his apostles and scattered them; but their lives were transformed after his death. This is inexplicable unless he appeared again and sustained them by miraculous gifts.

Of the effect of a belief in the teachings of Christ I have had much observation. It convinces me of their truth; for what reforms human nature, developing all that is good, sustaining it in the endeavor to suppress what is evil, supporting it in the difficulties of life, and illuminating death with a loftier hope than life had ever allowed, furnishes evidence of its truth, not in the scientific method, but in a manner equally convincing. Because the record of miraculous facts concerning Christ is inseparably connected with these teachings, it is rational to believe it.

Later ages have had no experience of the ways of God in making special revelations to men; but these things were performed for such a purpose. To allege the experience of modern times against the credibility of extraordinary events then appears no less unphilosophical than to bring forward that record in favor of miracles now.

Faraday, "the father of modern experimental chemistry," began his celebrated lecture on the Education of the Judgment thus:

Before entering upon the subject, I must make one distinction, which, however it may appear to others, is to me of the utmost importance. High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears or hopes or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am about to commend in respect of the things of this life extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to enter upon this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet, even in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly soon, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; and I have never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit.

I would not shield myself behind a great name from the charge of inconsistency, but have brought forward this passage because it states, what the life of Faraday illustrated;—the compatibility of intense devotion to the scientific method in its proper sphere, with a full recognition of its limitations, of the value of moral evidence, and of the difference between grounds of belief in nature and revelation.

1. Dr. J. M. Buckley. Dear Sir: My recollection of the "séance" referred to in your letter of the 25th ult. is not as distinct in some points as in others you do not mention. The study of psychology is so important that it is necessary to be exact beyond measure in order not to mislead. An immense amount of rubbish has been piled upon slender foundations in the study of psycho-genesis, and no progress can be made so long as people assent easily to become witnesses with external aid to recollect facts which happened long ago. I am very positive as to the truth of the following facts: I belonged to a literary club, composed of the most cultivated people residing in Stamford in 1864-71. At one of our meetings, I was present when you performed some experiments upon ten or fifteen of its members by asking them to stand in a circle, with closed eyes, and holding their hands before their faces as in the conventional attitude for praying; the gas was partly turned down. Some of the members of this group laughed, and you peremptorily excluded them from the circle, as previously agreed upon. A short time afterward one of my neighbors began to breathe hard, and he was followed by several others, who gave indications, plainly visible, that something unusual was happening to them. If human testimony is to be depended upon at all, I am sure that the social position of the persons so affected, their high culture, refinement, and surroundings, entitled their actions to be believed, as representing truthfully the conditions causing their strange behavior, even if the following circumstances did not reinforce the necessity of believing their candid sincerity in this question. One of the first "subjects" was a young lady, who was made to believe that she was writing a letter to a friend, and immediately began to simulate the act of writing; but other subjects proving to be most amusingly affected, she was, unfortunately, forgotten, and allowed to go on "writing" for nearly three hours consecutively, earnestly engaged at her task, oblivious of her surroundings, neither laughing, nor apparently caring for what was going on. The effect of holding her hand in mid-air for so long a time, and moving her fingers all the time, is a feat of endurance of which she was not physically able, if conscious. Her arm and shoulder were swollen and lame for several days after this performance. [Owing to the crowded condition of the room, I did not observe this till the interview terminated. Author.] Another subject was a young lady who had recently lost a friend. The mother of her dead friend had also recently arrived from Europe and was present in the room; and after the young lady affected had expressed her ability to go to heaven and described what she saw there, she paused a moment, as if surprised and filled with terror; then, uttering a piercing scream, moved forward as if to embrace the dead friend, whose name she mentioned, in a manner so tragic and out of keeping with her usual lovely and bashful demeanor that the impression produced on the company was quite found. This behavior, both brutal and coarse, and cruel to the mother of the dead young girl, is, I am very sure, incompatible with any theory of Miss —— being in her usual senses. In fact she was made ill by this circumstance, and conceived the greatest aversion toward you. Her friend had been buried but a few days. [These facts were unknown to me, and as soon as possible her attention was diverted from them. As the whole was imaginary, this was easily done. Author.]   One of the most amusing incidents was the honest conviction with which a prominent lawyer believed himself sitting on a log looking into the muddy bottom of a stream of water. Another, that of a young man whose trembling legs were made to bend under the enormous weight of an envelope placed over his head, when told it weighed a ton. The above are a few of the things I saw about which I am positive my memory of the events is perfect. Also, that you stated that you would not and did not exercise any act of volition or influence upon your "subjects," but merely waited for them to fall into the hypnotic state giving rise to the phenomena described.

   Believe me, sincerely,

   E. A. Fuertes.

   Ithaca, New York, January 30, 1886.

2. The Roman Catholics use oil in the "sacrament of extreme unction, which is administered in view of death.
3. Brainerd, in his narrative of his work among the American Indians, confesses his great embarrassment as follows: "When I have instructed them respecting the miracles wrought by Christ in healing the sick, etc., and mentioned them as evidences of his divine mission, and of the truth of his doctrines, they have quickly referred to the wonders of that kind which [a diviner] had performed by his magic charms, whence they had a high opinion of him and of his superstitious notions, which seemed to be a fatal obstruction to some of them in the way of their receiving the Gospel." Yet, though Brainerd could do none of these mighty works, he was the means of the conversion of that very diviner by the influence of his own life and the spiritual truths which he taught.