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QUIET TALKS ABOUT 
 THE HEALING CHRIST 
 
S. D. GORDON’S 
 QUIET TALKS 
 
 Quiet Talks on Power 
 Quiet Talks on Prayer 
 Quiet Talks on Service 
 
 Quiet Talks About Jesus 
 Quiet Talks on Personal Problems 
 Quiet Talks with World Winners 
 
 Quiet ‘Talks About the Tempter 
 Quiet Talks on Home Ideals 
 Quiet Talks About Our Lord’s Return 
 
 Quiet Talks on Following the Christ 
 
 Quiet Talks About the Crowned Christ 
 of the Revelation 
 
 Quiet Talks on John’s Gospel 
 
 Quiet Talks on the Deeper Meaning of 
 the War 
 Quiet Talks About Life After Death 
 
 Quiet Talks About Simple Essentials 
 Quiet Talks About The Healing Christ 
 
 
 
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 QUIET TALKS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 The Healing Christ | 
 
 By 
 S. D. GORDON 
 
 Author of ‘Quiet Talks on Power,” 
 ‘Quiet Talks on Prayer’ etc. 
 
 Chicago 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
 
 
Copyright, 1924, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Frinted in the United States of America 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
Some Principles of Healing 
 
 As TAUGHT IN GopD’s WorD, DIRECTLY 
 AND INDIRECTLY 
 
 It is God’s first will that men be pure in 
 heart, clear in mind, strong in purpose, gen- 
 tle and content in spirit, poised in judgment, 
 happy in circumstances, and strong and well 
 in body. 
 God does not send disease. It comes through 
 some disobedience of the natural laws of 
 the body, conscious or unconscious, though 
 rarely traceable in full. It may come from 
 the Devil, or, because of the break of sin 
 affecting all life. But always through that 
 open door of disobedience to the laws of the 
 body. 
 Christ heals men’s bodies to-day by His own 
 direct supernatural touch, sometimes through 
 the physician and the use of means, some- 
 times without means, sometimes when means 
 are confessedly powerless, and sometimes 
 overcoming the unwise use of means. The 
 Holy Spirit’s leading is the touchstone. 
 In healing Christ is always reaching in for 
 the far greater thing, the healing of the 
 spirit, the life. 
 There is sometimes a waiting time, after the 
 conditions are met, before the full healing 
 5 
 
6 
 
 Some Principles of Healing 
 
 comes. There is a disciplinary side in bodily 
 suffering, but the healing comes as quickly 
 as the lesson is learned. 
 
 The Devil heals men’s bodies, within sharply 
 defined limits, under disguise, that he may 
 get and tighten his hold on man. He bit- 
 terly opposes healing through Christ’s su- 
 pernatural touch. This is particularly true 
 regarding those that have the gift of leader- 
 ship. 
 
 The conditions for Christ’s healing are the 
 same as for being saved. Trust Him fully as 
 your Saviour and Master. Then go to Him 
 for whatever you need, always seeking the 
 Holy Spirit’s guidance. 
 
II. 
 
 III. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE A if he : 
 
 THE CHRIST HEALING 
 Doing impossible things — Why the 
 crowds came — Twenty-four healing 
 miracles—Mostly incurable—List of dis- 
 eases treated—Extent of power—Effect 
 on crowds—W hy Christ healed—«T 
 forgot.” 
 
 Is Iv Curist’s WILL To HEAL Our 
 
 Bopigs To-Day? ; 
 The need—Medical science—Physi- 
 cians and drugs—Eden—Job at the 
 front door—Healing-teaching trail—Acts 
 the Church Book—Eight instances— 
 Ephesus center—Corinth center—Some 
 not healed—The Epistles—Twofold 
 aim—Immunity from death—** Paraly- 
 sis, heart disease.” 
 
 Dors Gop SEND SICKNESS AND 
 
 DISEASE ? 
 A religion of power—Christ” s incidental 
 by-products — Christianity’s distinctive 
 trait—Foreign mission objective—Com- 
 mon impression about origin of disease 
 —The teaching of the Book—The Job 
 story—Healing threefold—John Rus- 
 kin’s copper kettlh—An English woman 
 in Algiers. 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 15 
 
 24 
 
 43 
 
8 
 
 IV. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Contents 
 
 How Dogs Curist HEAL? THE 
 ConpDITIOoONS: THE MeErtTHOD: THE 
 Usz oF MEANS 
 
 Natural and Supernatural—Twofold 
 objective in healing—The «« How ” of 
 conditions—Act, purpose, habit, atti- 
 tude—The ‘*‘ How” of method—A 
 Christian physician—Seven ways heal- 
 ing comes—Four natural, two supernat- 
 ural—Use of Means—Pope Leo— 
 Homely touches—A poultice of figs— 
 «© Faith Street”’—'Two cancer cases— 
 Fever. 
 
 How Far May Curist’s HEALING 
 Be Expecrep? Curist’s GIVING 
 AND MAn’s TAKING 
 
 Wide range of disease—Healed but limp: 
 ing—Eye-glasses—T eeth— Dentistry — 
 Extent of Christ’s healing—And in 
 the Acts—The answer twofold—Ask 
 Christ—* Take ”—Taking three-sided 
 —How to take—Rheumatoid arthritis 
 —A club-foot. 
 
 THE HuMAN SIDE OF HEALING AND 
 HEALTH 
 
 The break in the rhythm—The remark- 
 able Hebrew health trail—Adam-in- 
 Eden model—True Christian life—Ef- 
 fect of mental attitude on body—Slavish 
 fear—Ninety per cent. of diseases above 
 the ears——The condemned murderer— 
 Poisoned milk—Graying hair stopped— 
 A surprising prescription—Obedience to 
 laws of body—Seven items—Nine com- 
 mon sins. 
 
 63 
 
 95 
 
 113 
 
VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Contents 
 
 Gonp’s SCHOOL OF SUFFERING: CAN 
 WE HaAstTEN GRADUATION Day? 
 
 Experience as teacher—Fees—Saintly 
 stubbornness—Weak strong points— 
 The Schoolmaster—The Job story—Six 
 chapters — The twofold purpose — 
 Paul’s thorn—The threefold answer— 
 The continuous healing touch on Paul 
 —Jacob’s limp—A_ threefold crisis— 
 Graduation Day—** Under the bed.” 
 
 Tue Devit’s HEALING: IMITATIONS 
 AND COUNTERFEITS 
 
 The Devil’s trail—Two sources of su- 
 pernatural power—The Devil’s miracles 
 —Egypt—Sharp limitations—The com- 
 ing crisis—The Devil’s healings to-day 
 —A double healing in Berlin—Spirit dis- 
 cernment—How gotten. 
 
 9 
 
 152 
 
 193 
 
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Preface 
 
 CHRIST will meet every need of a man’s life. 
 And He will meet it eagerly and to the full. 
 
 If we don’t have all we need the trouble isn’t 
 with the Hand that gives but the hand that 
 takes. 
 
 No man’s band has ever yet reached up to 
 take as much as the Pierced Hand is reaching 
 down to give. 
 
 But giving is a fine art, so as not to hurt in 
 trying to help. And the taking needs skill, too, 
 though the simplest may take all he needs. Skill 
 in taking is chiefly skill of the heart. 
 
 Teaching is rare. Matured rounded-out teach- 
 ing is yet more rare. And the chief need to-day, 
 in the bustle and dust of much stirring about, is 
 teaching, simple, clear, full, poised teaching. 
 
 Healing is one of the tangled subjects. Two 
 others keep it close company, so far as being 
 tangled is concerned, namely, holiness, and the 
 return of Christ. 
 
 It is easy to get warped unmatured partial 
 statements, quite honestly made, on these sub- 
 jects. 
 
 The direct preparation of this little book has 
 taken eleven years, the indirect runs further 
 back. I didn’t set out to write a book. 
 
 I felt the need of getting my own feet on a 
 
 11 
 
12 Preface 
 
 difficult bit of pavement. I read and watched 
 and prayed to understand for myself. 
 
 And now the substance of it is given to others, 
 with a prayer that it may, possibly, help them 
 a little as it has helped me. 
 
 Two books have been constantly studied, the 
 Book of God, and the Book of Life. These two 
 go together. 
 
 The Book of God is written out of life, under 
 the Holy Spirit’s touch and control. The Book 
 of Life is still being written. 
 
 It takes a simple skill of habitual reading to 
 understand the first. It takes a careful trained 
 reading habit to read understandingly the sec- 
 ond. 
 
 The Book of God is the teaching book, written 
 out of human experience, and full of illustra- 
 tions out of life. 
 
 The Book of Life is the illustration book. 
 There are countless illustrations on every hand 
 of all the teachings of the other book. 
 
 One wants to read both. They fit together. 
 And the conditions for understanding both are 
 the same, a bent will, an open mind, a prayerful 
 spirit, a keenly observing eye, and the constant 
 practised reading. 
 
 So there comes the discernment of our F'a- 
 ther’s purposes and plans, and of how things 
 are working out in actual life. 
 
 The instances of healing given here are all 
 known to me personally, with four exceptions. 
 In each case I took pains to get the exact facts 
 
Preface 13 
 
 of what actually took place. Else, of course, I 
 would not tell these incidents in this open posi- 
 tive way. The facts are clear. These are a 
 few out of the many. | 
 
 The four exceptions are, the two from my 
 personal friend, Mr. James Moore Hickson of 
 London, the one from my German deaconess 
 friend of Berlin, and the one from a Texas 
 friend. These four instances are known person- 
 ally to these friends, who told me. 
 
 And I have full confidence, not merely in their 
 sincerity, but what is more important here be- 
 cause not so common, in their trained accuracy 
 in observation of actual facts, and in their care- 
 ful detailed description of what they saw and 
 know. 
 
 And so, after these years of study, the little 
 messenger is sent out in Christ’s name. And 
 the one conscious purpose is that it may help 
 some to reach up and take all the Pierced Hand 
 is now reaching down to give. 
 
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I 
 THE CHRIST HEALING 
 
 It is God’s first will for every man, every- 
 where, that he shall be pure in heart, straight 
 in life, strong in purpose, clear and open in 
 mind, well-balanced in judgment, gentle in con- 
 tact with others, at peace within, happy in 
 circumstances, and strong and well in his body. 
 
 Humanly Impossible. 
 
 Curist did impossible things, when He was 
 down here. That is, they were impossible to 
 others. He did them. 
 
 They were things that needed to be done. Men 
 were helped by them. The tug of living was 
 eased, and more. It took power to do them. 
 
 It took a power more than the natural power 
 men were familiar with. Others didn’t do them. 
 They couldn’t. They didn’t have the power. 
 Christ had the power needed. He did them. 
 He did impossible things. 
 
 Christ taught. He is commonly accepted as 
 the race’s greatest teacher. Then there was 
 more. He lived what He taught. He lived it 
 first before He taught it. 
 
 He lived it far more than even He could teach 
 it. There was always a reserve of teaching 
 actually lived back of the teaching taught. But 
 there was more than teaching. Christ did things. 
 
 He had ideals. His ideals have clean out- 
 idealed the ideals of 2 pk But there was 
 
16 About the Healing Christ 
 
 more than ideals. He brought things to pass in 
 actual life. Men saw and felt and experienced 
 things through His touch, things they needed 
 and needed sorely, but didn’t have till He did 
 them. 
 
 The distinetive thing about Christ, of course, 
 is that He died. He died as none other did, nor 
 could, nor ean. The most outstanding thing 
 about His life is the end of it. The knot on the 
 end of the thread of His life, that gathered it all 
 up in one, is His death. 
 
 But apart from that, the outstanding thing is . 
 that Christ did impossible things. Men admire 
 and worship the man who can do outstanding 
 things, actually bring them to pass. Christ did 
 outstanding things. | 
 
 He fed the hungry thousands with a few 
 scanty loaves. How they’d like to have Him in 
 some parts of Europe just now, if His activities 
 could be restricted within desired limits. \ 
 
 He stilled that sudden Galilean storm that 
 blanched the bronzed cheeks of those hardened 
 sailors, stilled it with a word; and stilled it into 
 a great calm. 
 
 He helped Peter pay his taxes, in a very 
 unusual way. That has a very practical sound 
 to-day. He robbed the ever-yawning grave of its 
 hopeless victims. 
 
 Of all things Christ did one stands out biggest. 
 He healed men’s bodies of sickness and disease. 
 The world was sick when Christ was here. 
 There was no science of bodily healing. 
 
 There was a natural healing. The Jews have 
 
The Christ Healing 17 
 
 been famous through the centuries for their rare 
 skill in healing through simple remedies. But, 
 characteristically, dominantly, the race was sick. 
 Christ healed men’s bodies. 
 
 This was the thing that first drew the crowds 
 in notable numbers. That fact itself tells how 
 acute things were in this regard. The need was 
 so sore, and so general, that once the word went 
 out, it spread like a blessed wild-fire. 
 
 And the crowds came from everywhere, and 
 they came a-crowding so thick as to affect seri- 
 ously His movements. 
 
 Hopeless Incurables. 
 
 There are thirty-three instances given of mir- 
 acles done by Christ. And twenty-eight of them 
 have to do with the body. ‘Twenty-four of them 
 were miracles of healing (including now the 
 three cases of death). Four others have to do 
 with supplying bodily needs. 
 
 There are sixteen summaries given of His vari- 
 ous activities, including bodily healing. If one 
 run over these summaries the first-flush, rough 
 impression comes that the total of those healed 
 probably ran into some several thousands. Peo- 
 ple came in throngs. They came from all the 
 surrounding countries, as far away as Tyre and 
 the Upper Mediterranean. 
 
 There are twenty-four individual instances of 
 healing, given in the four Gospels. These become 
 of intense interest for what they tell of Christ’s 
 healing ministry. Of the twenty-four two would 
 be classed as acute cases. 
 
18 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The other twenty-two are all chronic cases, in- 
 curables, extreme hopeless incorrigibles. Six 
 (possibly eight) were demon-possessed, reckoned 
 quite incurable. Three were actually dead. The 
 thirteen others were distinctly hopeless ineur- 
 ables. 
 
 The healing power went to the last degree of 
 human need. The humanly impossible yielded to 
 Christ’s touch every time. There were no ex- 
 ceptions so far as the soreness of the need was 
 concerned. 
 
 The story told is quite explicit on this point. 
 Here is the list of diseases specifically named,— 
 epilepsy, dropsy, deaf and dumb, palsy or 
 paralysis, chronic hemorrhage, demon-possession, 
 leprosy, withered hand (2. e., paralysis), blind, 
 infirmities (possibly paralysis), restoration of 
 ear cut off, and even the dead, three times named 
 in three distinct stages. 
 
 There is one outstanding passage that touches 
 the extreme of need which Christ’s healing cov- 
 ered. Matthew says ‘‘There came unto Him 
 great multitudes, having with them the lame, 
 blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and east 
 them down at His feet; and He healed them.’’’ 
 It is a significant passage. 
 
 It was clearly an unusual crowd of helpless 
 incurables, brought by their kinsfolk and friends 
 and neighbours. What a sight! 
 
 That word ‘‘maimed’’ catches one’s eye. It 
 occurs twice. The word underneath has two 
 meanings, crooked is one, and mutilated the 
 
 * Matthew 15: 30. 
 
The Christ Healing 19 
 
 ‘other. Its use in Mark 9:43 clearly means a 
 limb quite gone. 
 
 The word under ‘‘lame’’ here is also used 
 in the Mark passage for a limb cut off. The 
 meaning intended here is quite clear. The heal- 
 ing went to the extent of restoring a lost portion 
 of the body, a limb or an arm or some other 
 part. 
 
 The extent of healing as regards the need is 
 made quite clear, and is aS sweeping as clear. 
 There were no exceptions so far as need went. 
 
 A Bubbling-over Power at Work. 
 
 The extent of Christ’s power to heal is put 
 in as sweeping language. His power always 
 covered fully the man’s need, whatever that 
 chanced to be. There was simply no limit. His 
 healing met every need, and met it fully. It 
 could not have been greater. Three words can 
 be used, Christ healed instantly, perfectly, and 
 permanently. 
 
 There is one exception frankly spoken of. 
 Once, the healing went through two stages. 
 First the man saw men ‘‘as trees walking,’’ then 
 ‘fall things clearly.’’ The interval of time in- 
 volved was plainly so brief that, I think likely, 
 the man himself would have gladly used the 
 word ‘‘instantly.’’ 
 
 Again that outstanding passage comes in. Its 
 language could not be more graphic and ade- 
 quate, and yet simple and brief. Matthew says 
 ‘““The multitudes wondered when they saw the 
 
20 About the Healing Christ 
 
 dumb speaking, the maimed whole, and the lame 
 walking, and the blind seeing.’’* 
 
 The extent of the power at work is as striking 
 as the sweep of disease covered. There’s a bub- 
 bling-over exuberance, an overflowing abun- 
 danee. The crowds came to know that if they 
 would ‘‘only touch the border of His garment”’ 
 they would know the healing power in their 
 body. 
 
 It says ‘‘power came forth from Him,”’ as 
 though it breathed out of His very presence. 
 The ease of action, the abundance of power, and 
 the frequency and extent of Christ’s healing 
 power stand in striking contrast to the Old 
 Testament miracles. 
 
 And the effect on the crowds itself revealed 
 the touch of God. ‘‘They glorified’’ God. There 
 was an exuberant singing of praise to such a 
 God. Even the curious crowds that came seek- 
 ing sensation found a sort that sent them away 
 with a hush in their hearts, and praises to God 
 on their lips. 
 
 And, it is striking to note, that Christ gave 
 this power to His disciples, unschooled and un- 
 disciplined as they were, yet devoted to Him. 
 
 Repeatedly they were sent out into the vil- 
 lages and country districts. And they returned 
 with ringing voices and shining faces, telling of 
 the power that had attended their activity. And 
 usually special emphasis is laid on healing, and 
 on the casting out of evil spirits. 
 
 * Matthew 15: 31. 
 
The Christ Healing 21 
 Why Did Christ Heal? 
 
 It becomes of intense interest to note why 
 Christ healed, so far as the Gospel record goes. 
 It is never intimated that He did it to let people 
 know that He could. He never used power sim- 
 ply to let men see He had it. 
 
 It is never suggested that He did mighty works 
 to prove His distinctive personality, who He 
 was. This simply is not referred to. Inci- 
 dentally it is made clear that He did have the 
 exceptional power, and that He was the Son of 
 God in the distinctive sense that was true of no 
 other. 
 
 Even when John, in the dark of the prison 
 eell, puzzled to know why Christ didn’t fill out 
 the official side of the Messiah’s task, as well as 
 the personal side, even to him Christ simply 
 points out what was being done as evidence that 
 the old prophetic picture was being lived out. 
 
 He comforts the lone prison vigil with word 
 that John had been true. And that there was 
 a waiting time ahead for both of them. 
 
 No, Christ healed men because He couldn’t 
 help it. Their sore need, so sore, tugged des- 
 perately at His heart. He healed men because 
 they needed healing. This stands out first and 
 foremost. There is more, a big more, but in the 
 Gospel narratives it is always incidental. 
 
 It is true, broadly, as a principle, that mir- 
 acles, the supernatural, came into action, 
 throughout Scripture, to meet some emergency. 
 But, when it comes to the immediate reason why 
 Christ healed, as the narrative runs, it was to 
 
22 About the Healing Christ 
 
 meet the personal need of suffering men and 
 women. 
 
 There is a strong, tender word constantly on 
 His lips, and spoken of Himself, ‘‘compassion.’” 
 It means to have the heart tenderly drawn out 
 by need. It really means to suffer in heart be- 
 cause of the suffering of others. 
 
 This gives the ‘‘why’’ of Christ’s healing. 
 One key-passage may be given as an index to the 
 others, ‘‘He had compassion on them, and healed 
 their sick.’’* 
 
 He healed because He couldn’t help it. He 
 could heal, and He couldn’t help healing, with 
 such suffering before His eyes. His heart must 
 answer to such needs. The healing is a window 
 into Christ’s heart. And Christ Himself is the 
 open window into the Father’s heart. 
 
 One afternoon late a gentle-faced woman came 
 at the close of the meeting and asked abruptly, 
 ‘‘Does God answer prayer?’’ She had a 
 thoughtful face, and looked like one well cared 
 for. 
 
 I didn’t say ‘‘yes.’? A mere yes seemed too 
 tame with that tense face, and those suffering 
 eyes. I merely said ‘‘Sit down a moment.”’ 
 
 And with a bit of prayer for guidance, I said, 
 ‘* Has He ever answered a prayer for you? just 
 once?’’ For, you remember, one fact establishes 
 a law of action. 
 
 Instantly a startled look came into her eye. 
 And in a low hushed voice she said, ‘‘Oh! I 
 
 *Matthew 14:14. See also 15: 32, 20:34, 9:36 with 
 10:1. Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2, Luke 7: 13-15. 
 
The Christ Healing 23 
 
 forgot.’’ Then she told in a few words of when 
 her daughter, years before, a child of ten or so 
 then, had been critically ill. And the physician 
 had said that the knife must be used. 
 
 Her mother heart drew back from having a 
 surgeon’s knife cut into that precious little body. 
 Could she have a little time to think about that, 
 she had asked. Yes, there was no immediate 
 pressure, was the reply. 
 
 That night she had retired for sleep. She 
 spent much more time than usual on her knees. 
 She didn’t ask for healing. She had not been 
 taught that she might. 
 
 She simply poured out her heart. God was a 
 father. He was so good. It troubled her so 
 sorely to have the knife used. Just a ery out of 
 her heart, a yearning cry, inarticulate as to the 
 how. 
 
 Then she slept quietly. The morning came, 
 and the physician. And after the examination 
 a puzzled look came into his eyes. 
 
 And he said quietly, ‘‘ I don’t just under- 
 stand this; but a distinct change has come in 
 your daughter’s condition. I won’t need to use 
 the knife. She will get well without it.”? And 
 she did. 
 
 And the woman said with a changed voice, 
 ‘**T forgot.’’? Her own experience answeréd her 
 tense question. 
 
 Is it not a winsome bit out of life? Christ 
 has not changed. His power is at our finger- 
 tips now. No need need go unsupplied, if He 
 may have His way. 
 
II 
 
 IS IT CHRIST’S WILL TO HEAL OUR 
 BODIES TO-DAY? 
 
 It is God’s first will that men should be pure 
 in heart, gripped by a nobly strong purpose, 
 poised in our understanding of things, hu- 
 manly gentle in our personal contacts, at sweet 
 peace within, content in circumstances, and 
 healthy and hearty in our bodies. 
 
 The World is Sick. 
 
 Is it Christ’s will to heal our bodies of sick- 
 ness and disease and weakness to-day? He can, 
 of course. He has the power. 
 
 Is He willing to do it? Does He think it wise 
 to? Is it part of His plan for us at the present 
 time? 
 
 There is need enough surely, so far as that 
 goes. And surely that must go far with God. 
 The race is sick to-day. 
 
 Oh! there is more health than disease, more 
 strength than weakness, more life than death. 
 This is true. Yet the race is sick and diseased. 
 That fact pushes its ugly self in at every turn. 
 
 And there is a science of bodily healing to- 
 day. It is quite modern. It was non-existent 
 up until recent decades. It is a real science, 
 properly so called. 
 
 It is based on actual knowledge of the human 
 body, and of substances found in nature, and of 
 their action on the body. 
 
 24 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 25 
 
 It is based upon a vast accumulation of ex- 
 perience, and of skill. It is accurately called a 
 science, really a rare combination of science and 
 of art, acquired skill in action. 
 
 Of course, there are poor preachers, and poor 
 lawyers, and poor physicians. The personal 
 equation affects things enormously here, as 
 everywhere. 
 
 There is confessedly a vast amount of guess- 
 work and of experimenting, at human expense 
 of pain and suffering, and worse. Yet there is 
 a real science of healing. 
 
 There is a not-good professional pride here, as 
 in all professional circles. And, say it very 
 gently, that certainly doesn’t help any one. And 
 there is an unhappy tendency, sharply marked 
 and growing, toward a commercialism in all the 
 noble professions. 
 
 Yet the fact stands out blessedly that there 
 is a science of bodily healing. And its gracious 
 ministrations among men, through the years, 
 in actual healing, and in relieving, is clear be- 
 yond words to deseribe or imagination to pic- 
 ture. 
 
 It’s a striking fact that some of the most 
 prominent leaders in this notable science have 
 shown certain distinct tendencies, away from 
 drugs and the knife, and toward advice about 
 the intelligent care of the body. 
 
 A long list might be given of quotations from 
 the most eminent of physicians, in highest posi- 
 tion, in England and America and the Continent, 
 against the use of drugs, and concerning the 
 
26 © About the Healing Christ 
 
 actual injuries inflicted by guesswork and ex- 
 periment. These quotations magnify the place 
 of nature in healing, through means, aside from 
 remedies, and often overcoming the drugs given. 
 
 There is an emphasis by these leaders on in- 
 telligence in selection of foods, a wise obedience 
 to bodily laws, and on the distinct bearing of the 
 mental and spirit mood and attitude on bodily 
 conditions. 
 
 And, it should be noted with strong emphasis, 
 that, quite apart from any direct action on God’s 
 part, one’s mental attitude has incalculable in- 
 fluence on the body. It affects the bodily con- 
 ditions greatly at all times, and in disease and 
 times of crisis it is pretty apt to be the decisive 
 factor. 
 
 Fear, the fear that’s afraid, opens the door to 
 disease. It actually creates poisons in one’s 
 body. <A simple heart-trust in God, and His 
 goodness, with the confident atmosphere that be- 
 longs with it, actually creates healthy conditions 
 in the body. I am not speaking now of the 
 numerous imaginary ills, but of actual physical 
 conditions. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the science of healing, 
 the fact stands out at every corner, pathetically, 
 tragically, that the world is sick, bodily ill. A 
 recent article in a prominent daily, based on 
 carefully compiled statistics, gathered through a 
 period of years, estimated that between two and 
 three millions are continually ill. If such figures 
 eould be gathered, clearly enough those actually 
 disturbed by bodily ills run into many, many 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 27 
 
 millions. And this was only for the United 
 States. 
 
 Is it God’s will to heal our bodies to-day? 
 There’s surely need enough. And He can do it. 
 Will He? Does He want to? Is it in His heart 
 and purpose to do it? 
 
 May I put the result of many years of study, 
 and of observation in many nations, and of ex- 
 perience, into a single sentence? Then we can 
 dig up and put together a few of the facts that 
 are the underpinning of that sentence. 
 
 And the simple sentence is this: 2 is God’s 
 first will for every man that he shall be pure in 
 heart, strong and noble in purpose, gentle im 
 human contact, happy in circumstances, at peace 
 in his nner spirit, and strong and well in body. 
 
 A Blessed Healing Trail. 
 
 Now, we are talking about God’s attitude in 
 this matter. And so we naturally turn to God’s 
 Book. It is striking to find out how the other 
 book, the Book of Life, tallies up with, and il- 
 lustrates, this written book, as of course it 
 would. For the Book of God is a part of the 
 Book of Life. It grew up out of human life. 
 These are our two chief books of study here. 
 
 It is striking to look, at once, at the original 
 Eden picture of life. For that was God’s own, 
 unhurt by any after touch. There man was in 
 perfect health of body and spirit, living in happy 
 unbroken contact with his God-chosen help- 
 mate, in a garden. There was fulness of life, 
 
28 About the Healing Christ 
 
 perfect health, and such a thing as weakness or 
 disease or death quite unknown. 
 
 The story of Job stands as a sentinel-teacher 
 at the opening of this old Book of God. It 
 stands at the outpost to guard and point the 
 way. 
 
 It is clearly the earliest of these books in its 
 writing. It is devoted to the sorest question of 
 human life, that is, human suffering, and God’s 
 solution. We usually miss that ‘‘ and.’’ 
 
 There are two parts to the story, Job’s suffer- 
 ing, and the outcome. We have been fed- up on 
 the first part, the suffering. The second part, 
 the outcome, has been strangely ignored. Yet 
 it is the bigger part, by all odds. 
 
 There is suffering indeed, in family, in cir- 
 cumstances, and then in body of a very grievous 
 sort. Then the healing touch comes. And all 
 is changed. Even the ash-heap becomes fragrant 
 now, for it was the gateway to a new life of the 
 spirit, and so to bodily health and vigour, and 
 all else that came. 
 
 Job’s story is put at the very gateway of 
 God’s Book, with this stirring message: it is 
 God’s will to heal the inner heart and life, and 
 the body. 
 
 Now note that this blessed trail of healing runs 
 through the older pages of the Book unbroken. 
 The teaching trail and the healing trail persist 
 throughout side by side. 
 
 It is a three-fold healing, protection from ae- 
 tual disease just at hand, the continuance of 
 health and vigour through the unseen touch of 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 29 
 
 God, and the positive healing where disease had 
 actually gotten in. 
 
 From LEve’s recognition that it was through 
 that touch on her body that weakness was over- 
 come, and she was able to go through what has 
 become the severest bodily test of life,” on 
 through Abimelech’s experience, and Sarah’s," 
 Rebekah’s* and Rachel’s,” and Moses’ leproused 
 hand,’ and Miriam’s leproused body,’ the story 
 runs. 
 
 And the remarkable experience of the Hebrew 
 ‘people, in Egyptian slavery and as they were 
 being freed, in closest touch with contagious 
 epidemics, reveals the unseen touch of God 
 plainly there, giving unusual bodily vigour under 
 sore physical stress, and protecting from disease. 
 
 There’s an outstanding bit at the beginning of 
 the training of the new messenger nation. 
 Israel was to become the world’s teacher-nation. 
 And as they enter their long session of schooling 
 special emphasis is laid on God’s eager willing- 
 ness to heal. 
 
 It comes first in the flush of the tremendous 
 Red Sea deliverance, when they were peculiarly 
 sensitive to impressions. In the tense plea that 
 they keep in full touch with their Deliverer 
 comes this: 
 
 Genesis 4:1 with 3: 16. 
 
 ? Genesis 20: 17, 18. 
 
 ® Genesis 21:1, 2, with 11:30, and 17: 16, 17. 
 *Genesis 25: 21. 
 
 ® Genesis 29: 31, 30: 22-24. 
 
 Exodus 4: 6-7. 
 
 *Numbers 12: 9-15. 
 
30 About the Healing Christ 
 
 “*T will put none of the diseases upon thee 
 which I have put upon the Egyptians; for I am 
 
 the Lord that healeth thee.’’” 
 
 There was the triple healing, protection from, 
 the touch of continuous health, the actual heal- 
 ing where disease had gotten in. 
 
 Then under the hush and awe of the lone 
 Mountain, all aflame with the presence of their 
 wondrous God, in the midst of a yearning plea to 
 them to keep in touch with Him, this word rings 
 out: 
 
 ‘*T will take sickness away from the midst of 
 thee. There shall none cast her young, nor be 
 barren in thy land: the number of thy days I 
 will fulfil.’’ ’ 
 
 So the trail persists. Solomon remembers it 
 in the great temple prayer.’ There’s Elijah and 
 the widow’s only son,* and Elisha with another 
 mother’s son,° and with Naaman,’ and Hezekiah’s 
 never-to-be-forgotten story.’ 
 
 There’s Asa’s failure to ask for needed heal- 
 ing, with the implied criticism,” and Nebuchad- 
 nezzar’s recovery from insanity by direct touch,” 
 and Jonah’s grateful experience with that shady 
 palm, and his remarkable preservation inside the 
 huge fish.” 
 
 *Exodus 15: 26. 
 
 Exodus 23: 25-206. 
 
 *r Kings 8: 37-38. 
 
 *1 Kings 17: 17-24. 
 
 52 Kings 4: 17-20, 32-37. 
 
 ®*2 Kings 5: 8-15. 
 
 "2 Kings 20: 1-11; Isaiah 38: 1-21. 
 
 *2 Chronicles 16: 12. 
 
 * Daniel 4: 24-37. * Jonah 1: 17-2: 10, 4:6, 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 31 
 
 David’s heart repeatedly rings out the same 
 music in a sweetly rhythmic monotone.’ One bit 
 in particular stands out for the fulness and 
 richness of its tone.” Let me paraphrase it to 
 make the meaning in David’s mind a bit closer 
 home. 
 
 Listen : 
 
 ‘‘Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; 
 
 Who healeth all thy diseases ; 
 
 Who keepeth thee from going down to the 
 grave before thy full span of life is run 
 out; 
 
 Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and 
 tender mercies; 
 
 Who satisfieth thy matured years (when 
 mental and spirit depression is apt to 
 come) with the renewal of vigour until 
 thou art as eager in spirit as an eagle 
 soaring through the vast aerial heights.’’ 
 
 Here are five things named. The first is 
 spiritual. The fourth refers to the outer circum- 
 stances of one’s life. The other three have dis- 
 tinetly to do with bodily health and vigour. 
 
 There’s a choice bit from the pen of the wisest 
 man before he became the stupidest of moral 
 fools.’ The revision gives this, ‘‘ a tranquil heart 
 is the life of the flesh.’’ 
 
 Literally it reads, ‘‘the life of the body? a 
 
 1Psalms 6:2, 30:2, 3, 34:20, 41:2, 3 (a touch of the 
 disciplinary side), 91: 3-7, 10-13. 
 
 Psalm 103: I-5. 
 
 ® Proverbs 14: 30. 
 
32 About the Healing Christ 
 
 quiet heart.’’? Our psychological friends would 
 find much here for their side of things. 
 
 The processes of grace are fascinating. Full 
 touch with God gives the quiet heart that passeth 
 mere mental understanding, and that in turn 
 acts directly on all the bodily functions. 
 
 And the trail runs eagerly ahead into the fu- 
 ture glories never out of the Hebrew vision. 
 The coming Messiah-King is to bring these 
 physical blessings, along with all others. 
 
 Isaiah’s exultant song of the coming day (in 
 chapter thirty-five) may be taken as an index 
 to the long list. The blind and the deaf, the 
 lame and the dumb, will know all these disa- 
 bilities completely gone.’ 
 
 Rare Ezekiel’s remarkable river, from trick- 
 ling beginnings to flood, carried exuberant phys- 
 ical life and healing everywhere. And the leaves 
 of the trees it fed would be a healing potion for 
 all.’ 
 
 The whole of these older pages makes one 
 rhythmic answer to our question. They reveal 
 plainly and graphically God’s attitude. He not 
 only can heal, but it is His eager wish to do so. 
 His love outruns His power. 
 
 And always there’s the eager reaching through 
 bodily healing to the deeper, the richer, the spirit 
 healing. The disciplinary side of suffering is 
 plain. It’s a wooing process. Through these 
 silent pleadings and teachings of suffering God 
 reaches in for the deeper. 
 
 *Tsaiah 35:5, 6. 
 ? Ezekiel 47:9, 12, 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 33 
 Teaching for Church Days. 
 
 But there’s another bit of this old Book that 
 concerns us people living now, most intimately. 
 These older pages reveal the one unchanging 
 God. He is ever the same. 
 
 But there’s a book of illustrations of this 
 same God which belongs peculiarly to us. It is 
 distinctively the Church book of the Bible. I 
 refer, of course, to the Book of Acts, with the 
 Epistles woven. in, and the Revelation knot on 
 
 the end. 
 
 - In the Gospels Christ reveals the heart of the 
 Father. He gives the meaning vividly of these 
 Old Testament pages. The Acts continues the 
 story, for all the peoples, of all the world, who 
 come into living touch of heart with Christ. 
 
 Acts is the sequel to the Gospels. The Gos- 
 pels are sample pages of the coming Kingdom 
 time, Acts sample pages of the Church time. 
 Each covers a generation of time. 
 
 In the Gospels the King is pleading for ac- 
 eceptance. His ministry is an eloquent plea. In 
 all He does, He is saying, ‘‘this is a bit of what 
 the Kingdom is like.’’ But the King is rejected, 
 and goes voluntarily to the Cross to give His 
 life out for men, and for their sins. 
 
 Then something new comes in. It is never 
 spoken of in the Old Testament. It fills in the 
 interregnum until the King shall bring in the 
 Kingdom. The messenger-nation fails. 
 
 Now, a new group is formed to be God’s new 
 messenger to the race. It is called the Church, 
 the ‘‘taken-out’’ group. It is formed of all be- 
 
34 About the Healing Christ 
 
 lievers in Christ, both Jew and non-Jew, by the 
 Holy Spirit’s presence. 
 
 There’s a natural contrast or comparison be- 
 tween the Gospels and the Acts. The Gospels 
 are Kingdom pages; the Acts the Church book. 
 Acts runs through a generation of time, roughly 
 thirty-three years. 
 
 Then it breaks abruptly off, as though each 
 generation of the Church should carry on the 
 story, until Christ comes for the next step in 
 His racial program. 
 
 In the Gospels healing has the foremost place 
 in Christ’s activity. But it does not come into 
 prominence until Christ’s rejection by the lead- 
 ers is quite clear. There’s over a year of wait- 
 ing for national acceptance. Then Christ’s of- 
 ficial herald is imprisoned. That means Christ’s 
 own rejection. 
 
 Now, Christ turns to Galilee, unofficial Galilee, 
 despised by the cultured Jerusalem leaders. He 
 begins preaching and teaching and healing the 
 crowds, and training the inner group of dis- 
 ciples. 
 
 When the national rejection of His Messiah- 
 ship is quite clear He turns to the personal side 
 of the Messiah’s work. Healing now takes the 
 prominent place. It is through healing that He 
 first gets the great thronging crowds. 
 
 In the Acts healing has a distinet place, but 
 on the whole not as prominent a place as in the 
 Gospels. It becomes one feature only of the 
 gracious ministry described, and of the power 
 experienced. It 2s one feature. It is quite dis- 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 35 
 
 tinct in itself. Yet it becomes one feature with 
 the others. 
 
 There are five summaries. These indicate that 
 vast crowds experienced healing. All sorts of 
 cases were included, great power clearly in ac- 
 tion, and a deep abiding spiritual effect on the 
 people. 
 
 There are eight individual instances of heal- 
 ing. One would be classed as acute. One was 
 the supernatural protection from a deadly viper. 
 Six are incorrigible incurables: twice lameness 
 from birth, one of forty years standing; once 
 long-standing palsy ; twice the dead are brought 
 back to life; and possibly Paul’s recovery from 
 stoning would be included with this last item. 
 
 There are two outstanding centres of healing 
 activity, Jerusalem the Jew centre, and Ephe- 
 sus the Galilean or non-Jewish centre. The 
 Jerusalem activity is at the beginning, and the 
 Ephesus activity distinctly toward the close, of 
 _ the Acts period. 
 
 At Jerusalem great crowds are healed, great 
 healing power is in evidence, and great spiritual 
 blessing is connected with the healing. 
 
 At Ephesus the activity runs through two full 
 years. The power in evidence is quite unusual, 
 to a very marked degree. And the spiritual 
 power in men’s lives is quite pronounced. 
 
 Ephesus was the strategic center of Asia 
 Minor. The message preached, and the power 
 revealed there, went out to all parts of Asia 
 Minor, and across the seas in every direction. 
 
 It is striking to mark that healing has greater 
 
36 About the Healing Christ 
 
 prominence in the record, in the space given it, 
 at the beginning of Acts. Practically it tallies 
 with the story of the Gospels. It continues a dis- 
 tinet part of the activity clear to the abrupt end- 
 ing of the Acts. 
 
 But one is conscious that it becomes one fea- 
 ture with others. The absorbing thing here is 
 the preaching of the crucified risen Christ. The 
 healing becomes one manifestation with others 
 of the power of the risen Christ. 
 
 Yet, there is no suggestion of the lessening 
 of the power in healing, nor of minimizing its 
 place. For it is toward the close of the Acts 
 period that the unusual story comes of the 
 young man who fell down dead out of the win- 
 dow at Troas, and is restored to life. And the 
 outstanding Ephesus campaign is likewise to- 
 ward the close. It is merely a shift of propor- 
 tionate emphasis. 
 
 The Epistles fit into the pages of Acts, and 
 are most intelligently read and understood as 
 they are read in that way. They run side by 
 side with Acts, with Revelation coming a bit 
 later as the knot on the end of the whole. 
 
 Corinth becomes the strategic centre of Euro- 
 pean activity, as Ephesus is the strategic centre 
 of the Asiatic. And as Ephesus had a special 
 message of healing activity, Corinth sends out a 
 special message of healing teaching. 
 
 Much space is given to the active ministry of 
 the whole group of disciples in Corinth. It was 
 clearly an active church centre, with the power 
 of the Holy Spirit distinctly marked. 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 37 
 
 Distinct prominence is given to teaching 
 about healing. Clearly healing was a blessed 
 commonplace in the experience of these 
 Corinthian Christians. And many among them 
 had marked power in this regard in ministering 
 to those in bodily suffering. 
 
 Healing is spoken of as one of the nine or 
 more special gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was 
 one of the gifts. There were other gifts. It 
 was given to some, but not to all. 
 
 Here is the same sense of proportionate em- 
 phasis as in the Book of Acts. It was a blessed 
 gift, one of several. Paul is putting special 
 emphasis on poise in teaching, keeping things 
 well balanced, in due proportion. 
 
 Toward the close of this Acts-Paul period there 
 are distinct touches of some not healed. Paul’s 
 thorn comes in here. These will come in for 
 treatment in the story of ‘‘ God’s School of 
 Suffering,’’* touching the disciplinary side of 
 suffering. 
 
 The thing to mark just now is that they in no 
 way change or affect the main teaching about 
 healing. They simply give light to keep things 
 in poise. 
 
 From of old, a common teaching has been that 
 miracles ceased long ago, and are not to be ex- 
 pected. And this is quoted regarding healing. 
 
 This Book of Acts, with the interwoven 
 Epistles, gives the clear answer. The inter- 
 woven Acts and Epistles make up the Church 
 book, indicating what is meant to be the blessed 
 
 See Chapter 7. 
 
38 About the Healing Christ 
 
 commonplace clear to the end of the Church 
 period. 
 
 F'rom the outer non-Jewish world, where these 
 letters mostly take us, there is a quick turn back 
 to things at the Jew centre. 
 
 The first Bishop of Jerusalem reveals the 
 custom and the teaching that continued in the 
 old mother Church. There was plainly no 
 lessening of the teaching there, nor of the blessed 
 experience. 
 
 Then the circle of this wondrous old twin-book 
 of God swings back to the starting point. There’s 
 a garden at both ends, Genesis and Revelation. 
 God’s ideal persists clear to the end, and becomes 
 real, actual. 
 
 The tree of life has become a grove of trees. 
 The garden has become a garden-city. All the 
 fine simplicity of the country and the garden is 
 coupled with all the fine true culture for which 
 the city characteristically stands. 
 
 And here is the same winsome touch regarding 
 our bodies. Sickness and pain, tears and death, 
 mourning and erying, these are gone, clean worn 
 out. The trees of life bear monthly harvests, 
 and their leaves, like Ezekiel’s, are for healing.’ 
 
 The Answer of the Book. 
 
 All this is simply giving us a picture of God, 
 a portrait in oil, in warm living colours. And 
 that is the one point of the question we’re talk- 
 ing about. 
 
 What sort of a God is He? What is He will- 
 
 * James 5: 13-15. ? Revelation 21: 4, 22: I-2. 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 39 
 
 ing to do? It is not a question of power, but of 
 His willingness, His purpose. Not can He? 
 But will He? . 
 
 The picture in the Old Testament is quite 
 enough to answer the question. The warmer 
 living colours of a Man actually living in touch, 
 underscores the answer in bright red colouring. 
 
 The tenderness, the sympathetic heart, the 
 eagerness of God, takes hold of one’s heart with 
 a grip as His Only-Begotten actually becomes 
 one of us. 
 
 And so we come back to that sentence put in 
 at the first. Jt is God’s first will that we should 
 be pure in heart, gripped by a nobly strong pur- 
 pose, poised in our understanding of things, hu- 
 manly gentle in our personal contacts, at sweet 
 peace within, content wm circumstances, and 
 hearty and healthy in our bodies. 
 
 But note that word ‘‘first,’’ God’s first will. 
 There will be a Quiet Talk devoted entirely to 
 the meaning of that word ‘“‘first.’’ That’s a 
 doorway into God’s schoolroom.’ 
 
 Christ does heal to-day. It is His eager will 
 to do so, and to do it now. One may reach out 
 his hand, and have what he needs of this sort, 
 now as he is reading, so far as God’s side 1s con- 
 cerned. 
 
 If there be any delay, it need not be longer 
 than it takes for a man to come into simple full 
 touch of heart and life. 
 
 In healing Christ is thinking of two things, 
 always two. The first presses in most with us, 
 
 *See Chapter 7. 
 
40 About the Healing Christ 
 
 if we’re needing it, maybe needing it sorely. 
 The second is really the thing of greater mean- 
 ing. 
 
 Christ wants to heal our bodies. He wants to 
 heal our spirits, our lives, our real selves. He 
 wants to do the first, but in such a way as to 
 inelude the greater thing, the second. 
 
 The first is delayed sometimes, oftentimes, 
 until we are willing for the second, too. But the 
 length of the delay is fixed by us. Christ ea- 
 gerly reaches out to do both for each of us now. 
 
 There is one exception to be noted in all this 
 teaching. We are never promised immunity 
 from bodily death. There are the three instances 
 in the Gospels of the dead restored, and two, 
 possibly a third, in the Acts. 
 
 Yet, the plain teaching throughout does not 
 include this. A bit of the promise definitely 
 made is, that through the touch of Christ on the 
 body, the full span of natural life will be filled 
 out.’ 
 
 So far as death itself is concerned the resur- 
 rection of our bodies at some future day is 
 plainly taught for those believers who do not 
 live until Christ’s return. The teaching does not 
 go beyond these two items. 
 
 Now a bit from the other book, the book of 
 illustrations, the Book of Life. 
 
 A friend of mine told me a bit of his experi- 
 ence of bodily healing. It’s a double story. He 
 is a business man, still living, well known in the 
 
 *Note Psalm 103:4 f. c. see paraphrase already 
 given, Exodus 23:26. Deuteronomy 4:40, 32:47. 
 
Christ’s Will to Heal To-day 41 
 
 city where he lives, and active in Christian serv- 
 ice of the more spiritual sort. He is now prob- 
 ably in his late fifties or early sixties. 
 
 In his thirties he had a stroke of paralysis, as 
 a result apparently of overwork. It affected one 
 side. His arm hung limp though not wholly dis- 
 abled. He could walk some, dragging his limb. 
 
 The side of his face was affected. Through 
 loss of self-control the spittle would ooze out of 
 his mouth. He showed me his diary which he 
 was still able to keep. But the writing on the 
 - pages at this time was a scarcely legible scrawl. 
 
 He went to a friend, a physician, who taught 
 that Christ heals by direct touch as of old. The 
 friend made a very simple brief prayer for his 
 healing. And my friend limped out of the oth- 
 er’s home as he had limped in, and started back 
 to his own home. 
 
 As he was painfully dragging his foot along 
 he felt a sense of warmth come into his body, 
 running through his affected side, down the arm, 
 and as though out at his finger-tips. And he 
 knew the healing touch had come. 
 
 He entered his home with his latch-key, and 
 his wife came running to meet him, and then 
 stopped short as she looked, startled, and said, 
 ‘Oh, Frank, you have been healed !’’ 
 
 My friend had unusually intimate relations 
 with his pastor who lived near him. The pastor 
 had suffered for years from heart trouble. He 
 had applied repeatedly for life insurance with 
 various companies. But had always been re- 
 jected because of his heart. 
 
42  ~About the Healing Christ 
 
 Now, my friend went to see his pastor, and 
 told his story of what had just occurred to him. 
 And there was a time of praise and prayer to- 
 gether. 
 
 The pastor was the more deeply impressed 
 because of his own need. Much time was spent 
 alone in his study on his knees with the open 
 Bible. And he had evidence within that led him 
 to believe the healing touch had come. 
 
 Again he applied for life insurance, was ex- 
 amined with the usual rigid care, and now was 
 accepted, and the insurance written. 
 
 _ He began to speak of healing in his preaching. 
 
 But it was not acceptable to his denominational — 
 leaders. And so it was not taught in any out- 
 standing way, and gradually slipped out of his 
 preaching. 
 
 He afterward became president of a leading 
 Methodist university, and later was made bishop, 
 and was prominent in the broader counsels and 
 activity of his communion. I had the privilege 
 of his personal acquaintance in the after years. 
 
 My friend, a quiet-spoken methodical business 
 man, told me the story quietly, with a business 
 man’s care in details. He has led a very busy 
 life since, and seems to be in perfect health. 
 
 It seems like an added page of the unfinished 
 Book of Acts. Clearly there would be many 
 more such pages added if our great Christ had 
 His way with us. 
 
IIl 
 
 DOES GOD SEND SICKNESS AND 
 DISEASE? 
 
 It is God’s first will that every man be clean 
 in heart, in the grip of a noble purpose, clear 
 in understanding of things, at peace within 
 himself, gentle in spirit, happy in circumstances, 
 and strong and vigorous in his body. 
 
 _Essentials and Incidentals. 
 
 CHRIST was a man of power, and is. This is 
 His distinctive characteristic. It was power un- 
 der the driving control of love, and is. 
 
 The religion of Christ is a religion of power. 
 This is its outstanding feature. It was through 
 this that it won its way in the beginning, in the 
 bitter competition with old entrenched religions. 
 It was this that blazed its pioneer way into every 
 nation and civilization where it has gone. 
 
 It is a power clearly above any power men 
 were accustomed to. It is distinctly more and 
 greater than men had known. It rose above 
 power working commonly through familiar 
 natural channels. 
 
 And so it is called supernatural power. It 
 was plainly claimed to be the power of Christ 
 Himself, and of God back of and through Christ, 
 at work through natural channels. 
 
 And always it came into play to help men. 
 The help was sorely needed. Men were power- 
 less to do what was needed. 
 
44, About the Healing Christ 
 
 This more-than-natural power of Christ, and 
 of the religion of Christ, met men’s sore need, 
 and met it with a strange glad fulness. It was 
 this distinctive trait that opened the doors and 
 hearts and lives where the power was felt and 
 seen. 
 
 Christianity is not a code of ethics, simply. 
 It is that, plainly. It leaves all other codes trail- 
 ing behind. Indeed there is pretty clear evi- 
 dence that all these other codes sprang out of 
 the mother roots of Christianity. 
 
 But, by comparison, this is merely a by- 
 product, a blessed by-product. The distinctive 
 thing is that Christianity is a religion of super- 
 natural power. 
 
 It is not merely a system of culture. Very 
 clearly it is that. The Holy Spirit’s sway in a 
 life brings the rarest culture of character and 
 conduct. It leads to the truest culture of mind 
 and personality and life. And this multiplied 
 in many individual lives makes a rarely cultured 
 community. 
 
 Its culture is the real thing, culture of heart 
 and motive and behaviour and outreach to oth- 
 ers. It clean out-cultures all other cultures, fa- 
 miliar to man. Its culture, at root, planted and 
 fertilized all real culture wherever and when- 
 ever found. The evidence regarding this is 
 abundant and clear. 
 
 But, in comparison with this other trait com- 
 mon to true Christianity, its culture is an inci- 
 dental, a winsome wondrous incidental. The es- 
 sential trait goes deeper in, and reaches farther 
 
Does God Send Sickness? AS 
 
 out. Its power to transform personal life stands 
 first and alone. 
 
 Christianity is not a teaching and a philosophy 
 only. It surely is a teaching. It is a tremen- 
 dous, a pervasive and satisfying philosophy. 
 
 All men, and all philosophers, and all nations, 
 that know it gladly burn their incense at the 
 altars of its teaching and its philosophy, the 
 incense of words, and the greater incense of 
 imitation. 
 
 There is the best of evidence for believing that 
 ‘the directly untraceable tendrils of all other 
 philosophies and teachings run back to the 
 Hebraic roots whence Christianity grew. 
 
 And this is still true, regardless of the strange 
 unhallowed admixtures in these other systems. 
 By common consent the teaching and philosophy 
 of Christianity clear overtops all others. 
 
 Yet, be it keenly marked, again this is not the 
 chief thing in Christianity. There is something 
 greater back of this. It is so much greater as 
 to have no second. 
 
 It’s in a class by itself. Christianity is a thing 
 of more-than-natural, more-than-human, power. 
 It reveals God’s own power in action through 
 natural human channels. 
 
 There is even a stronger word to add here. 
 Christianity is not a humanitarianism, a scheme 
 for bettering world conditions, simply. It is 
 that, clear beyond what can be told. 
 
 A simple quick run back in history to pre- 
 Christian times, and a quick run owt to non- 
 Christian civilizations to-day, makes a startling 
 
46 About the Healing Christ 
 
 contrast between nations that have come in any 
 degree under Christian influence, near or re- 
 mote, and the others. 
 
 Humanitarianism in all its blessed forms, and 
 the unselfish bettering of outer conditions, stand 
 out so big under Christian touch as to seem al- 
 most absent elsewhere. 
 
 Yet the distinct though faint traces elsewhere, 
 even though untraceable directly, bear every 
 mark of springing from the same old Eden- 
 Hebrew-Christian rootage. Christ’s human- 
 itarianism is the root actually of all this sort of 
 thing. 
 
 Yet, a moment’s clear, sharp thinking makes 
 quite plain that these blessed things that have 
 meant so much, and do beyond all calculation, 
 are still—yes, again the word comes—incidentals. 
 
 They are the sweet, refreshing fragrance of 
 the rose. The rose itself, creating fragrance, 
 and lavishingly breathing it out into the sweet- 
 ened air, this is quite another thing. The rose 
 is always immeasurably greater than the 
 fragrance it gives unselfishly out to all comers. 
 
 Power the Distinctive Trait. 
 
 Christianity itself, in its one outstanding char- 
 acteristic, is immeasurably more than the hu- 
 manitarianism it initiates and keeps going. Its 
 singular outstanding trait is its supernatural 
 power, found nowhere else. It does what no 
 other does or can do. It stands solitary and 
 alone in this. 
 
 And, and, are you listening with your inner 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 47 
 
 ears? And, if and when, it loses this, in our 
 understanding and our teaching of it, the es- 
 sence is gone. 
 
 The fragrance is here; the rose is gone. What 
 fragrance there is is what lingers from past con- 
 tact with the real thing. How long will it linger 
 with its source cut off? 
 
 If and when our Christianity becomes a code 
 of ethics merely, a culture and only that, a 
 teaching and philosophy and nothing more, a 
 blessed humanitarianism and bettering of outer 
 ‘conditions of life, and that simply, the distinc- 
 tive trait has gone. 
 
 The rose is severed from the fragrance. The 
 life has gone out of the body, even with some 
 colour in the cheek, and some muscular move- 
 ments in the limbs. 
 
 The tendrils are severed from the life-giving 
 roots. The Christian religion has been dragged 
 down to the level of mere man-made religion, so 
 far as the leaders can do that. 
 
 All these other things, so blessed in themselves, 
 are mere by-products of Christianity, incidentals. 
 One had almost said, trifling incidentals, by 
 comparison, though so invaluable in themselves. 
 
 Christianity is distinctively, idiomatically, a 
 thing of power, supernatural power, God’s own 
 direct touch through human natural channels. 
 The lustful man is made pure. The slave of evil 
 habit is set free. 
 
 The thief becomes honest. The trifler becomes 
 earnest, in the hard grip of a noble purpose. 
 The drunkard is sobered, and stays sober. The 
 
48 About the Healing Christ 
 
 demon-tortured man knows sweet peace. The 
 diseased is made perfectly whole. 
 
 Where there had been a man in the house, now 
 
 there’s a loving husband, and a thoughtful fa- 
 ther, in a home. And the shop or store, the 
 neighbourhood, the community, the nation, each 
 knows a radical difference, a new personality, 
 strong, gentle, pervasive, insistent. 
 - The religion of the solitary God-Man who 
 died, and then revealed unprecedented and un- © 
 paralleled power, uncopiable by others, in 
 emptying that new-hewn tomb of rock, itis a 
 religion of supernatural power. It is a power 
 unexplainable except by taking God into ac- 
 count. 
 
 It makes changes in man. It changes things 
 at the core. Then all becomes changed. All 
 history and all observation and all experience 
 make clear enough that those changes can’t be 
 made by any other than Christ Himself. But 
 Christ does. He only can. Christianity is dis- 
 tinetively a religion of supernatural power. 
 
 The one purpose of foreign missionary activity 
 is to carry this message of the Christ, to our 
 racial kinsmen across the sea who haven’t heard. 
 
 It is distinctively the message of a Christ who 
 died as none other did, nor could, nor ean, and 
 then lived again through supernatural power, 
 and still lives, with that same supernatural 
 power available to-day to purify the heart, 
 transform the life, and meet every common need. 
 
 This was the one burning passion and pur- 
 pose of the early missionary activity, and still 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 49 
 
 is, where the Christ spirit sways. It burns so 
 hotly and grips so strongly that all else seems 
 the merest incidental. 
 
 There is an “‘‘ else.’? There are incidentals. 
 There are humanitarian activities immeasurably 
 valuable and sorely needed. ‘There are some 
 things worked out by Western science that will 
 alleviate living conditions over yonder. And 
 that sort of thing is surely sorely needed. Yet 
 there needs to. be discrimination. And wise dis- 
 crimination sometimes seems scarce. 
 
 It is no part of the Christian missionary 
 scheme to transplant Western civilization into 
 Oriental lands. The Orient has a culture of its 
 own, that even some of us Occidentals think 
 fully equal to the best true Western culture, at 
 least, and in some things distinctly superior. 
 
 If our missionary activity become a mere 
 transplanting of certain features of the Western 
 hemisphere to lHastern and_ sub-equatorial 
 lands, it at once loses its distinetive historical 
 Christian characteristic. The essence has 
 gone. 
 
 If the door opened with such sacrifice by the 
 early heroic missionaries becomes an entrance 
 for some common features of our Western civi- 
 lization, if it become a means of spreading 
 Western skepticism and doubt under Christian 
 phraseology, it is surely the Devil using that 
 door. Such use makes the door a distinct curse, 
 so far. 
 
 The motive for such sacrifice as the true 
 Christian missionary gladly makes, though it 
 
50 ‘About the Healing Christ 
 
 takes his life’s blood slowly given out, that mo- 
 tive is quite gone. 
 
 The true Christian message lived and taught 
 on foreign-mission soil, in the supernatural 
 power of the Holy Spirit, will work out certain 
 results. 
 
 Out of it will grow naturally the true Chris- 
 tian culture. And out of that will grow the 
 mental regeneration that will affect daily life 
 and conditions. And our racial brothers yonder 
 will be distinctly better off with none other, ex- 
 cept some products of Western science already 
 alluded to. 
 
 Nowhere is the distinctively supernatural 
 power of Christ revealed more than in this, that 
 men’s bodies are healed. It was so in Christ’s 
 day on earth. It was so in the early Church 
 days. It is so to-day. Christ is still and ever 
 the same. 
 
 Of course, there is opposition to such a Christ, 
 and to such a religion. It was marked in 
 Christ’s day. It was bitter, incorrigible, ma- 
 licious, and at last murderous. 
 
 A False Common Impression. 
 
 That opposition hasn’t ceased. It has merely 
 changed its outer form. It has grown more 
 cultured on the outside, but the inside is the 
 same. 
 
 One phase of this opposition is the teaching 
 that God sends sickness and disease. The bald 
 statement gives an ugly impression of God that 
 stings and stays. It hurts and it lasts. 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 51 
 
 There comes a dread, an inner deep dread of 
 a God of resistless power who actually does such 
 a thing. This is so even among saintly Chris- 
 tians, far more than is suspected. 
 
 Its practical effect has been to act as a check 
 to the working in men’s lives of that super- 
 natural power of Christ. The hand doesn’t 
 reach out to take what the Pierced Hand is ea- 
 gerly reaching down to give. 
 
 There is a deep-seated impression that we can- 
 not ask for healing. We must settle down and 
 make the best of a bad thing. And meanwhile 
 pray to be patient and resigned. 
 
 Psychologically this becomes an unconscious 
 incalculable influence in actually tightening the 
 hold of disease on one’s body. Practically it 
 makes a hindrance in the working of God’s rare 
 supernatural power in our bodies, and in our 
 lives. 
 
 ‘Well, it was her time to go, and so God sent 
 her pneumonia.’?’ The words were spoken 
 quietly, in a matter-of-fact way, and in a tone 
 of finality. They were the answer to my sym- 
 pathetic question about an earnest Christian 
 woman in the prime of life who had died quite 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 I wondered if my startled ears heard aright. 
 But my wife verified their accuracy. The 
 woman who spoke the words was an earnest 
 Christian, of much more than average culture. 
 Several of her family circle were college-bred, 
 and the home had an unusual supply of high- 
 class modern books of various sorts. 
 
52 About the Healing Christ 
 
 In later conversation a neighbour of hers, who 
 did not share her belief in this regard, remarked 
 that such was quite a common thought in all the 
 countryside thereabouts. And in varying de- 
 gree one finds such impression deep-seated 
 everywhere. 
 
 And, there are statements in the Scriptures 
 that can be distorted, and disconnected, to give 
 such an impression. That is, I mean, with no 
 intention of distorting, the Scriptures are read 
 in a haphazard, disjointed way, and are quoted 
 without regard to connection. And so such im- 
 ‘pressions gotten by hearsay are deepened. 
 
 The Teaching of the Book. 
 
 Let us take a brief look at the Book on this 
 point. There’s a long list of passages that, taken 
 by themselves, at first-flush, do give that im- 
 pression. But as one reads them in connection 
 with the whole teaching he feels ashamed so to 
 have misunderstood God’s word, and really 
 maligned, though unintentionally, God’s char- 
 acter. 
 
 When Abraham and Sarah went into Egypt 
 it says plainly, ‘‘Jehovah plagued Pharaoh 
 and his household with great plagues because 
 of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.’’’ The word 
 ‘‘nlagues’’ here plainly means certain contagious 
 diseases common in HKeypt. 
 
 The whole story tells plainly why. God’s 
 plan for the new nation hinged on Abraham, 
 and even more on his wife, and on the family 
 
 *Genesis 12: 10-20. 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 58 
 
 stock being kept pure. It was really an 
 emergency in the human plan being worked out. 
 And the broader story tells the process which 
 reverses the whole impression. Still the impres- 
 sion is there, to the unthinking. 
 
 There’s God’s dealings with Pharaoh in de- 
 livering Israel from Egyptian slavery. One can- 
 not go here into this whole story of judgment 
 on the Egyptians for their conduct toward God, 
 and toward these Hebrews. 
 
 That’s another story, much misquoted, and 
 often not thoughtfully read, and full of fasci- 
 nating interest. It reveals in a notable way the 
 natural process God follows in visiting judgment 
 on wrong-doing. 
 
 But it plainly says that it was through ‘‘the 
 hand of the Lord’’ in direct action that the 
 Egyptian cattle were fatally diseased, and the 
 Hebrews’ cattle immune; the ulcerous boils upon 
 the Egyptians themselves, and so on, through 
 all the plagues that follow.’ 
 
 One notes, of course, that this is all a dis- 
 tinctly exceptional action, of judgment, in a 
 erisis. It is not the normal run of things. Still 
 the impression spoken of may remain if one 
 doesn’t think the thing out as plainly taught. 
 And so there is a string of similar passages.’ 
 
 There is one exception to be noted, quite dis- 
 tinct from all these others. That’s the story of 
 
 *Exodus 9: 1-7, 8-12. 
 
 *Exodus 15:25-26, 32: 35, Leviticus 10:1-2, Num- 
 bers 11:1, 33, 12:9-1I5, 14:12, 36, 37, Deuteronomy 
 28: 21, 22, 27, 35, 60, 61, and others. 
 
54 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Jacob’s hip being put out of joint.’ One notes 
 at once that it was not a disease, but a touch that 
 affected the normal action of his body, his walk- 
 ing. 
 
 It slowed him up, and became a constant re- 
 minder that he had been walking the wrong 
 way. And now, though his walking is slower, 
 it is in God’s way, the only right way, and is so 
 wholly because of that strange midnight touch. 
 There is no wasted motion now. 
 
 It stands out as an exception, at the extreme 
 point of waiting by God, after all other means 
 had failed. Jacob was an unusually stubborn 
 man. It was for service’ sake, and was in an 
 emergency in God’s world plan, of which this 
 man was the human center. It will be spoken 
 of again in the Talk on ‘‘God’s School of Suffer- 
 ing.”’ 
 
 The Protected Zone. 
 
 Now, there are two things to note sharply 
 here in order to keep the poise, to get things 
 straight and clear. And they are two common 
 things, well understood and emphasized in the 
 pages of this book. 
 
 The first, and less thing is this, that any break 
 with God takes one away from the protection of 
 His presence, and so automatically exposes him 
 to whatever conditions surround him. 
 
 The natural thing is keeping in touch with 
 God. His mere presence, in unbroken touch, is 
 a continual protection from ills that surround 
 
 *Genesis 32: 24-32. 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 55 
 
 us. His touch upon us, it is this that keeps our 
 bodies strong, and functioning naturally and 
 vigorously. 
 
 This teaching is like an ever-present under- 
 tone through the older pages of the Book. It 
 was true from Eden on before the main story 
 of the Book was lived out and written down. 
 It is true to-day. This is the continual back- 
 ground of all the Old Testament teaching about 
 bodily conditions. 
 
 One simple illustration may help. But it is 
 merely one bit from a flood of passages. It is 
 given because it is a picture, pictured teaching. 
 It is an open window into the whole house of 
 the Book. 
 
 It is the graphically told story of the un- 
 named prophet in the First Book of Kings." He 
 had been sent to*King Jeroboam, in a very crit- 
 ical time, with a message, and with detailed in- 
 structions as to his own conduct. Clearly his 
 own conduct in the particulars named was to 
 be an acted-out bit of the message. 
 
 Another prophet, clearly merely a professional 
 prophet, jealously deceived the man with God’s 
 message, who accordingly disobeyed God’s ex- 
 plicit instructions. Then the unnamed prophet 
 returning home, by the way he was distinctly 
 bidden by God not to take, is slain by a lion. 
 
 The whole story is dramatically told in much 
 detail of an intensely interesting sort. And is 
 evidently told fully for the teaching it contains. 
 For the whole nation knew the story by the 
 
 *t Kings 13. 
 
56 About the Healing Christ 
 
 universal grape-vine means of communication, 
 and discussed it from door to door. 
 
 And the bit of teaching that belongs in just 
 now is simply this: this unnamed prophet, in 
 disobeying God’s implicit directions, had gone 
 out of the protected zone. 
 
 In touch with God he was in the protected 
 zone. No evil could befall him in the simple 
 path of obedience. He was protected. When 
 he went out of that path he was exposed to the 
 dangers always there. 
 
 The true natural human life is meant to be 
 lived in simple touch of heart and life with God. 
 Anything else is abnormal, unnatural. When 
 in touch one is constantly protected and pre- 
 served and strengthened, in body and circum- 
 stance and life. 
 
 Break with God, either partial or full, ex- 
 poses one to whatever there is of evil, and to 
 the Evil One. And, it is an unhappy common- 
 place that so many Christians, confessedly, do 
 not live in that full simple intelligent touch with 
 Christ in all their affairs. 
 
 This is one bit of teaching. It is the back- 
 ground of all teaching in the Old Testament 
 especially. Unhappily it is missed so much in 
 the haphazard, unconnected, choppy reading of 
 the old Book, so common in pew and pulpit, 
 home and study. 
 
 It is a striking thing that the Bible, taken as 
 a whole, is always self-explanatory Any ques- 
 tion raised at any place in it as to the meaning 
 is always answered somewhere else in the Book. 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 57 
 
 And every thoughtful, serious question has an 
 answer here somewhere. If only we would read 
 it, and read it intelligently as a whole, one con- 
 nected book, it would flood us with its light at 
 every turn. 
 
 But the second thing stands out in plain open 
 day before all eyes. It is the bigger thing of 
 the two. It is the Book of Job. The story of 
 Job deals directly with this question of sickness 
 and disease, the source, and more the purpose. 
 
 It stands at the front door of the Bible. It 
 ’ was first of all in its writing. It is put there 
 in plain sight that we might understand at once 
 this sorest of all questions, suffering, and why 
 allowed. 
 
 It tells plainly that the troubles that came to 
 Job, including his ulcerous boils at the last, 
 came directly from Satan.’ Though Job him- 
 self didn’t so understand, and ascribed them to 
 God.’ 
 
 They came distinctly by God’s permission. 
 There were sharply defined limits to Satan’s 
 activity, beyond which he could not, dare not, 
 go. There was a purpose of God in the per- 
 mission He gave. It was distinctly a purpose of 
 love. Then the healing came.’ And the gracious 
 flood of blessing that followed made the days of 
 his earlier prosperity seem tame. 
 
 That in a word, just now, is the Job story. 
 
 *Job 1: 12-10, 2:6-7. 
 
 7Job 1: 20-21, 2: Io. 
 
 * Job 1:12, middle clause, 2: 6. 
 
 *See Job 33:15-25, see paraphrase in Chapter 7, 
 “God’s School of Suffering.” Job 42: 10-17. 
 
58 About the Healing Christ 
 
 It comes in for more in the Talk on ‘‘God’s 
 School of Suffering.’’ 
 
 But the teaching could not be clearer. It 
 answers our present question. It answers it 
 fully and plainly. And the teaching stands at 
 the front door of God’s Book, that all who will 
 simply read thoughtfully may understand. Of 
 course, it must be confessed that reading the 
 Book of God is just a bit scarce, and reading it 
 thoughtfully just a bit scarcer. 
 
 The Source of Disease. 
 
 
 
 ‘Put in plain words here is the answer of the 
 Book of God. God does not send disease and 
 sickness. There are five things to be said about 
 their source. 
 
 They come through some open door of dis- 
 obedience to the laws of the body, either a con- 
 scious or an unconscious disobedience 
 
 Or, they may come directly from Satan, but 
 always through some open door on the human 
 side. Or, they may come through God’s re- 
 straint being withdrawn. 
 
 Or, they may come through the general break 
 of sin affecting the whole fabric of life. Or, 
 there may be a blend of two or more of these. 
 
 In each case there must be an open door of 
 some sort on the human side. But, then, the 
 open doors are certainly on every hand in great 
 abundance. 
 
 So far as the disciplinary side of bodily suf- 
 fering is concerned, God has no need to send 
 disease. There are plenty of doors of disobedi- 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 59 
 
 ence standing invitingly open to disease. There 
 is no disobedience so common as disobedience of 
 the common laws of health. 
 
 This is so among the most earnest Christians, 
 the saintliest folk. There will be more said about 
 this in the Talk on ‘‘The Human Side of Health 
 and Healing.”’ 
 
 We seem not to think into the common fact 
 that breaking a law of one’s body, though not 
 against a moral law, yet takes on a distinctly 
 moral quality. The laws of health are God’s 
 laws for the body, as really as moral laws are 
 His for the life. 
 
 God’s healing, it will be remembered, is three- 
 fold. There is a protective restraint of which 
 one may be quite unaware. One’s person is pro- 
 tected. There’s a distinct restraint on the dis- 
 ease just at hand threatening. 
 
 There is the life-giving, health-giving touch 
 upon one’s body, giving vigour and full function- 
 ing. And of this touch one is usually quite un- 
 aware. The very absence of bodily ills and 
 weakness should be cause for praise. It reveals 
 Christ’s direct touch, where the body is com- 
 mitted to His care. 
 
 And, then, when sickness or disease actually 
 comes, perhaps through some door left inad- 
 vertently open, or otherwise, there may be the 
 positive supernatural healing touch. 
 
 When one is led to meet some emergency that 
 taxes or exposes the health unduly special 
 strength will be given. But one should be very 
 clear of his leading here. Once that is quite 
 
60 About the Healing Christ 
 
 clear one pushes confidently on, depending on 
 our unfailing Christ for bodily strength, as for 
 all else. | 
 
 But one should guard carefully his bodily 
 doors, as all others. There is a spirit warfare 
 on. And one needs to be constantly on guard. 
 In a wholesome, sane, thoughtful way one should 
 guard all the doorways of his life, of every sort. 
 This is especially true of those wholly in Chris- 
 tian service. 
 
 John Ruskin tells a simple incident of his 
 childhood days, that illustrates in part what we 
 are talking about. He was present one after- 
 noon when tea was being served. 
 
 The copper hot-water kettle was bright, and 
 caught the child’s eye. He wanted to touch it, 
 and reached out his hand. The nurse in at- 
 tendance on the child told him not to. The boy 
 persisted, and the nurse also persisted. 
 
 By and by the mother said quietly, ‘‘ Nurse, 
 let him touch it.’’ He did, for a very brief 
 moment. His curiosity was quickly satisfied. 
 His attention was turned from the kettle to the 
 finger. 
 
 The child’s ignorant persistence in having his 
 own way, regardless of the expressed wish of 
 those in authority, was deliberately yielded to 
 for a purpose. The restraint was withdrawn. 
 The act of touching the kettle contained its own 
 punishment in the pain that came. The child 
 had learned something. His desire to touch 
 shining copper kettles was satisfied ever after. 
 
 But some of us haven’t as much sense in 
 
Does God Send Sickness? 61 
 
 other similar things. We still want to touch the 
 shiny kettle. God’s commands and laws are 
 never arbitrary. He doesn’t simply want to be 
 obeyed because He has the right to be. Though 
 when you come to know Him, you recognize 
 that this would be quite sufficient in itself. 
 
 But there’s always a reason for our well-being 
 involved. God would keep us from touching 
 the hot kettle, because it will burn. This prin- 
 ciple underlies every law and commandment of 
 God to us. 
 
 An English friend told us of an experience 
 she had. She was engaged in missionary work 
 in Algiers, on the Mediterranean, at the time. 
 An emergency led to her nursing a typhus 
 patient for a brief time under quarantine regu- 
 lations. 
 
 Then the patient was taken to the hospital. 
 Our friend bathed, changed her garments, taking 
 every precaution known to her, and retired for 
 much needed sleep. She had a dream, unusually 
 vivid and distinct in detail. 
 
 In her dream she was out riding, and saw a 
 conflict going on between one of her missionary 
 associates and three persons. She seemed to 
 know instinctively that one of these three was 
 the Devil himself. 
 
 She hastened forward to help her associate, 
 but a dart was sent by one of the group of three. 
 And her associate fell as she came between them. 
 Almost mechanically she prayed, repeating the 
 words ‘‘the power of the blood of Jesus.’’ 
 
 At once the three fell back. Then they came 
 
62 ‘About the Healing Christ 
 
 again to the attack. Again she prayed, repeat- 
 ing that same phrase, but apparently without 
 realizing its full significance and power. And 
 again the three fell back. 
 
 The third time they pressed up in attack. 
 Then it came to her swiftly, with an intense 
 sense of reality, just what power there was in 
 that prayer, pleading ‘‘the power of the blood 
 of Jesus.’’ 
 
 Pleading it now boldly, strongly, insistently, 
 the three crouched down and back as though 
 struck. Then slowly, reluctantly, but surely, 
 they disappeared. And her associate was free 
 of their power. 
 
 That was the unusual dream. It stood out 
 with singular distinctness. She awakened, and 
 found herself in a high fever. Then the sig- 
 nificance of the dream seemed borne in upon her. 
 
 She engaged in prayer, in tense insistent 
 prayer, pleading the power of the blood of Jesus. 
 Then sleep came quiet and deep. When she 
 awakened the fever was quite gone. Her pulse 
 and temperature were normal. She was quite 
 cool and well. And with grateful heart she 
 went about her day’s task. 
 
 Let us keep in touch of heart and life with 
 Christ, guard jealously all the doors, set our- 
 selves to keep in that protected zone of obedi- 
 ence, and, when the need comes go at once to 
 Christ. 
 
 Christ is waiting now, at your side, with the 
 touch of supernatural power, to meet every need 
 of body and life. 
 
IV 
 
 HOW DOES CHRIST HEAL? THE CONDI- 
 TIONS: THE METHOD: THE 
 USE OF MEANS 
 
 It is Christs first will for His followers, 
 that they be pure in heart, strongly, steadily 
 passionate in purpose, poised in understanding 
 and judgment, characteristically gentle in per- 
 sonal touches, willing to be controlled in every- 
 thing by the emergency of sin in the world, 
 and healthful and vigorous in body, to His 
 glory. 
 
 Natural and Supernatural. 
 
 Gop is chary of the supernatural. He is lavish 
 in nature. Nature is God in action. He loves 
 nature’s roads. He made them. He prefers 
 them. 
 
 He will not hesitate for a moment to do the 
 supernatural when the need ealls for it. He 
 will do a fresh act of creation, pure direct crea- 
 tion, before a single line of His Word is allowed 
 to fail. 
 
 He will reach through and above the natural 
 channels with the added touch before He will let 
 one trusting child of His, in intelligent touch 
 of heart and will, know disappointment. The 
 flood of power, more than the usual thing, waits 
 any emergency that plainly calls for it. 
 
 But, God loves nature’s regular paths. They 
 
 63 
 
64 About the Healing Christ 
 
 are His own. Nature is God’s way of working 
 things out. 
 
 Christ avoids the sensational, the cheap, vul- 
 gar, catchy-in-the-bad-sense sensational. On 
 more than one occasion He was at pains to avoid 
 the crowd gaping for some touch of this morbid 
 sort of sensationalism. 
 
 Though nothing is so sensational, in the good 
 sense, aS God’s power in action in an unusual 
 Way in some sore emergency. Christ’s miracu- 
 lous healing created a tremendous sensation. 
 And He made use of that sensation to teach of 
 the Father’s eager love, and gentle patience, and 
 lavish power. 
 
 The supernatural has a touch of the spectacu- 
 lar to us, because we are not used to it. It is 
 unusual. It catches attention at onee. The 
 natural hardly gets any attention, we are so 
 used to it. 
 
 Nature is simple and quiet. The things that 
 mean most to us, and to our daily lives, come 
 noiselessly, softly. They work modestly. No 
 one ever heard the sun or the moon, busily at 
 work keeping the whole order of nature in 
 blessed rhythm for our sakes. 
 
 The dew does its gracious work shyly. It’s 
 the small, warm, gentle rain that the soil wel- 
 comes most, and responds to most quickly. The 
 air does its unfailing ministry so modestly we 
 searcely ever think of its presence, till some foul 
 intruder spoils its sweet odour and neutralizes its 
 life-giving power. 
 
 Truth is a Quaker. It wears a plain garb and 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 65 
 
 talks in quiet gentle speech. It never calls at- 
 tention to itself. It goes by almost unnoticed 
 in the bustle of the street. But it breathes out 
 a healthful atmosphere, and leaves a fragrant 
 trail. 
 
 Error wears flashy clothes. It talks in loud, 
 boisterous tones. It blusters, and swaggers the 
 full width of the sidewalk. And the crowd stops 
 and stares, and wists not that the air had been 
 befouled. Error steals some truth for wings, 
 
 _ else it would fall dead flat at once. 
 
 The Devil borrows truth’s clothes, without 
 asking permission. He talks in a loud, positive, 
 there’s-no-doubt-about-this voice. So men’s eyes 
 and ears may be caught and befouled. 
 
 The sheep-like quality persists in the race. 
 Watch the flock of sheep. They’ll follow the 
 bell-wether unhesitatingly, even over the side 
 of the bridge into the rushing river. Cheap, 
 noisy leadership quickly gets the crowd. 
 
 Nature is simple. That’s God’s touch. Satan 
 tangles things up. Truth is so simple as to 
 seem too easy, sometimes. One instinctively says 
 ‘fof course.’’ Sin makes life’s problems com- 
 plex. Truth is plain spoken and unpretentious. 
 One becomes wary and weary of a cloud of 
 words, many words, long, big-sounding words. 
 
 Christ is chary of the supernatural. He is 
 lavish in nature. He gives so lavishly all the 
 time that there would be no need of the other, 
 the extra, the supernatural, if it were not for 
 the terrible emergency of life. 
 
 Sin is forever setting life all askew, and mak- 
 
66 About the Healing Christ 
 
 ing emergencies. A single touch of the super- 
 natural quickly catches the eye. A flood of the 
 natural, keeping the whole swing of life a-going, 
 rarely gets a thought. 
 
 Yet, though already so lavish in His habitual 
 giving, and so thoughtful about giving outside 
 of this, Christ is on the eager run to give the 
 more-than-common touch of power, the super- 
 natural, when need be, to meet the ever present 
 emergency so common in life. 
 
 Sin’s ravages are epidemic. There’s a wilful 
 ignoring of the simple natural laws of the body. 
 There’s an ignorant disregard of nature’s benefi- 
 cent laws of action. There’s a constant need of 
 the supernatural touch. And Christ thought- 
 fully gives that touch in the way that will help 
 us best and most. 
 
 Our well-being, body and spirit, is precious to 
 Him. The integrity of His pledged Word He 
 holds sacred. He is on the heels of evil, like a 
 flash, before any trusting child of His shall be 
 disappointed, or a scratch of His Word allowed 
 to slip. 
 
 Helping So As Not to Hurt. 
 
 We’ve been talking about Christ’s power in 
 healing; what He can do. We’ve spoken of His 
 love in healing; what He will do, and do with an 
 eager gladness. 
 
 Now, we want to talk a bit together about 
 Christ’s wisdom in healing, the way in which 
 He does heal. There’s a rare wisdom in Christ’s 
 method in healing men’s bodies. 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 67 
 
 There is nowhere that wisdom is so much 
 needed, rarest wisdom, as in giving. Those en- 
 gaged in giving help to others habitually, in a 
 larger or smaller way, know well what a fine 
 art is needed here if men are not to be hurt 
 when they are needing help. 
 
 To give so as to help, and help in the best 
 way, and help only, not hurt, is a fine art in- 
 deed. Nothing is more ticklishly difficult. 
 Thoughtless giving is cheap and common, lazy 
 and hurtful. Love is always thoughtful, though 
 it cost more. But love ignores the cost even 
 when it must be counted. 
 
 In His healing, Christ is thinking always of 
 two things, the immediate need and the deeper 
 need, the body, and the man himself living in 
 the body. 
 
 Often helping the deeper need meets the 
 bodily need too, and meets it in the best way. 
 The glad, intelligent surrender to Christ as a 
 Master brings certain changes in one’s habits. 
 And this in turn radically affects the body and 
 the health, oftentimes. 
 
 Often Christ’s touch upon the life prepares 
 the way for the touch upon the body. It does 
 yet more. It leads to the intelligent thinking 
 into things. And this in turn leads to such 
 obedience to the laws of the body as to prevent a 
 recurrence of the bodily trouble. 
 
 Sometimes that obedience is very simple. 
 Sometimes it is radical. It may mean breaking 
 old habits in such common things as eating and 
 sleeping and the methodical daily round, And 
 
68 “About the Healing Christ 
 
 health and healing are very dependent on these 
 common things. 
 
 Christ is love. And nowhere is love more put 
 to it to be really helpful than in giving. The 
 tangle of sin has come in to blur men’s eyes, and 
 teeter their judgment this way or that, and espe- 
 cially to make the will twisted and abnormally 
 set in its way. 
 
 There are two things to note keenly here, as 
 to how Christ heals. There are two ‘‘hows,”’ 
 the how of conditions and the how of method. 
 
 The conditions underlie all else. This has to 
 do with one’s touch with Christ. The method 
 has to do with the healing itself, the way it’s 
 done. 
 
 The physician and the sick man must get into 
 touch. Christ and the man needing Christ’s 
 healing power must get together. 
 
 Some have supposed that saintliness is the re- 
 quirement for the healing touch. They have 
 supposed that the saintly may come and expect 
 the healing touch; but hardly others. 
 
 Well, of course, the closer the touch the bet- 
 ter. And saintliness practically means simply a 
 close touch, the habitual close touch. 
 
 But it isn’t the saintliness that heals, nor be- 
 cause there is enough of it. There must be 
 touch, of course. But it is Christ, Christ’s 
 blood, that heals. 
 
 It is never because of any merit in us such as 
 saintliness suggests. It is through the contact, 
 however saintly it may be or not, that Christ’s 
 healing power comes in. 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 69 
 
 The *‘How’’ of Conditions. 
 
 Now, the word about the conditions necessary 
 for healing. Of course, there are always con- 
 ditions. That’s a bit of the common sense of 
 life. Whether it’s having a check honoured at 
 the teller’s window, or having the right to run 
 an automobile, 
 
 Or, motoring through thick traffic in the city, 
 or cooking a good meal, or playing golf, or 
 keeping in good bodily shape, or polite social 
 intercourse, or what not in the common run of 
 life, there are always conditions. 
 
 And here the conditions are so simple as to 
 be almost laughable. And yet they are so in- 
 flexibly rigid as to be absolutely indispensable, 
 like almost all conditions of life. 
 
 Listen: come to Christ the Saviour, who died 
 for our sins, as none other did, nor could, nor 
 ean. Ask for, and accept, forgiveness of your 
 sins, and the cleansing from sin through His 
 blood. Thank Him for dying for you and tak- 
 ing your sin away. 
 
 Then, when the need comes, go at once to 
 Him. Whatever the need may be, cleansing 
 from some sin you’ve let in, power to break 
 that evil habit, guidance in some difficult situa- 
 tion, or bodily healing of whatever sort, to what- 
 ever extent, go to Him. Go first to Him. Go 
 to Him at once. 
 
 He will forgive all our iniquities. He will 
 heal all our diseases. He will prolong our days 
 till the full span of life is run out. He will put 
 His direct helpful touch on the outer circum- 
 
70 About the Healing Christ 
 
 stances, for our sake. He will renew the vigour 
 of body and mind and spirit clear up to the 
 measure it should be. This is His will for you 
 and me. 
 
 Now, it would be quite enough to stop right 
 there. That tells the whole story of the condi- 
 tions to be met. 
 
 But, because things are quite a bit foggy, it 
 will be good to talk a bit about just what this 
 means in actual habit, in the common run of 
 things, in daily life. 
 
 We haven’t been taught about healing. In- 
 deed we haven’t been taught much at all about 
 the Christian life. There are always fine ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 We need to be taught. Then there will be an 
 intelligent understanding. There will come to 
 be a matured mellowed mental judgment. There 
 will be a seasoned wisdom to know how to act in 
 emergencies. There will be a habit of action 
 formed. 
 
 We will know how to meet opposition. We'll 
 understand about ‘‘the fiery darts.’’ For our 
 enemy is cunning and practised. He’s an old 
 hand in the fine art of befooling, and filling the 
 air with foggy questions and doubts. 
 
 An old seasoned soldier holds steady under 
 fire when the new recruit takes to his heels. 
 The experienced banker or broker keeps his head 
 when panic threatens where the less-seasoned 
 takes fright and maybe loses out. 
 
 So there’s a bit more to say. It’s detail. It’s 
 
 *Psalm 103: I-5. 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 71 
 
 included in what has been said. It will really 
 grow up out of that zf one follows fully and 
 truly and simply. It can be put into four words, 
 an act, a purpose, a habit, an attitude. 
 
 The act is the surrender to Christ as a master, 
 not a Saviour simply but a master. In a 
 thoughtful intelligent seasoned way Christ is to 
 be allowed to sway all the habits, as the flame 
 sways the dry kindling in the grate with a good 
 draft. 
 
 The personal habits, the home relationships 
 and contacts, the daily work, or business or pro- 
 fession, the income and out-go, the recreations 
 and social contacts,—all these, in a wholesome 
 sane habitual way, are to be as you believe He 
 would prefer. 
 
 For He always has a preference, very decided. 
 And when in doubt hold the thing in question 
 open till the doubt quite clears. 
 
 The surrender is an act, a glad act. Then it 
 becomes a practice, a constant unwavering prac- 
 tice. And then it becomes a habit, a fixed un- 
 conscious habit of action. 
 
 It simply means fullest touch of habit and 
 motive and life with Him who died for us, out 
 of the love of His heart, when He didn’t have 
 to. This is the meaning of being in touch with 
 Christ. 
 
 The purpose is this: in everything to please 
 Him. The purpose really becomes a passion, a 
 tender, strong, tense passion, a passion of love, 
 a passion for Him. 
 
 It does not simply ask ‘‘is this wrong?’’ and 
 
72 About the Healing Christ 
 
 leave it out. ‘‘Is this right?’’ and put it in. 
 But this: ‘‘What would He prefer? What 
 would please Him ?’’ 
 
 There are many things that aren’t wrong. 
 You can prove that so far as logic goes. Though, 
 of course, logic can be used to prove anything. 
 And of course again, logic itself proves nothing. 
 
 A thing may be proven not wrong. But if 
 that quiet inner Voice tells you it is not best, 
 not what He would prefer, then that is quite 
 conclusive here for the man really im touch. 
 
 Christ’s preference, Christ Himself, the Man 
 who loved so, and loves, and cares what we do, 
 this quite settles things for the man in touch. 
 
 The habit is this: a bit of daily time off alone 
 with the Book every day. The day may be 
 crowded, but the man in touch finds that bit of 
 time planned for, and growing longer of itself 
 rather than shorter. What one really wants is 
 always included, however crowded the day and 
 the way. 
 
 It’ll be time when the mind is fresh, or the 
 nearest it comes to being fresh, whatever time 
 that may be. It will be unhurried time, the 
 spirit unhurried, even though the watch lies 
 open before you. 
 
 It will be time with the Book itself. And if 
 one has a paragraphed Bible (such as the re- 
 visions), with good clear type, a copy pleasant 
 to handle, and if he isn’t afraid to make notes 
 on the margin so things will stand out, so much 
 the better. 
 
 In that bit of time each day, multiplied by 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 73 
 
 as many days as the calendar provides, the vision 
 clears, the understanding is taught, the purpose 
 stiffens, the judgment seasons and acquires 
 poise (that rarest thing!), the spirit gentles, 
 the heart becomes purer and hotter (the normal 
 heart condition), the brain cooler, the feet 
 steadier, the up-reaching hand bolder, and the 
 out-reaching hand warmer, This is what keep- 
 ing in touch means. 
 
 The continual attitude of mind and spirit 
 “comes instinctively under the sway of all this. 
 One goes the simple daily round with an un- 
 spoken prayer and an inner song. 
 
 There’s the doing of the endless commonplace 
 things with a new spirit. They’re done for Him, 
 as He did them in that Nazareth home and ear- 
 penter shop. The commonest things are done 
 well because done under His eye. 
 
 There may be monotony in act, but never in 
 spirit. What would be drudgery becomes 
 rhythm, because of the inner spirit. The ever- 
 present One within, the song in your heart even 
 when clouds gather, these sweeten the hum- 
 drum task. | 
 
 And when the unexpected comes, when the 
 emergency suddenly looms, this quiet, steady at- 
 titude of spirit finds you ready. You are pre- 
 pared. You hear the clear, quiet inner voice. 
 You know instinctively what to do. And you 
 hold still and steady till you do know. This is 
 what keeping in touch means. 
 
 The whole thing is just that, being in touch 
 with Christ, and keeping in touch. This is the 
 
74 About the Healing Christ 
 
 simple underlying condition for healing. This 
 being in touch is the natural human thing. 
 Anything else is not human. It’s an intrusion. 
 Things are out of plumb. 
 
 This simple natural touch with Christ means 
 health, a normal bodily functioning all the time. 
 It means protection from that which threatens 
 your health. It means the direct healing touch, 
 if and when, disease actually gets in. 
 
 This is the first ‘‘how’’ of Christ’s healing, 
 the how of conditions, getting and keeping in 
 touch. Sin broke and breaks the touch with 
 Christ. We were started in touch back in 
 Eden. We are born into this world in touch, at 
 least, creatively. And that’s no small thing. 
 
 The whole fabric of modern life, as it actually 
 is, tends to the breaking of that touch. The 
 wilful doing what we want to when we instine- 
 tively know we should do something else, this 
 starts or strengthens the break. 
 
 Loss of touch means loss of strength, yes, 
 bodily strength. And disease and sickness and 
 weakness in general, in some way, come through 
 that break. 
 
 Coming to Christ, coming all the way, and 
 staying, this mends up the break. He mends it 
 up. Then the way is open for all one needs of 
 whatever sort. 
 
 And, when, some day He comes back again, 
 there will be the fulness of touch in His im- 
 mediate presence. Then the last lingering 
 vestige of sin’s break in our bodies will be gone. 
 
 The body laid away in the dust, in a believ- 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 75 
 
 ing hope, will know the fulness of life again, as 
 will ours who are still living in that day. 
 
 The ‘‘How’’ of Method. 
 
 Then, there’s the second ‘‘how’’ of healing, 
 the how of method. What about the use of 
 means? No question is more often asked in this 
 connection. And there is the utmost confusion 
 about the right answer. 
 
 When Christ was here there was no science 
 ‘of healing. There always has been a natural 
 healing practised by men. The Jews have been 
 noted for their skill in the use of herbs and 
 other simples, and in nursing. Luke was in all 
 probability such a physician. 
 
 To-day there is far more knowledge of the 
 human body, and of the effects upon it of cer- 
 tain substances found in the vegetable world. 
 There has grown up through years a fund of 
 experience and of wisdom and skill in this re- 
 gard. Properly used it is invaluable in discern- 
 ing just what the ailment is, and what is wisest 
 to do. 
 
 In spite of malpractice, wrong and faulty 
 diagnosis, guesswork and experimentation, the 
 unwise use of drugs, the commercialism, and the 
 rapid putting of people through a wholesaling 
 process in medical practice, and a not-good pro- 
 fessionalism, in spite of these there is a human 
 science of healing. 
 
 It is most striking that outstanding men in 
 that science to-day put greatest emphasis on the 
 non-use of drugs, on the sort and preparation 
 
a 
 
 76 About the Healing Christ 
 
 and quantity of food, on the general habit of 
 life, and on the mental attitude. 
 
 Above all else skill in accurate diagnosis, the 
 actual discernment of just what the trouble is, 
 is distinctly rare. It is rare in its common 
 scarcity. And it is rarer yet in its value, its 
 influence on needed action for relief. 
 
 There has grown up in recent years a new 
 group of physicians, known by various names, 
 who stress natural methods, the disuse of drugs, 
 correcting wrong adjustments in the body by 
 skilful manipulation, proper use of proper food, 
 and like measures. 
 
 Without doubt, the Christian physician, stu- 
 dious and conscientious, dispassionately abreast 
 of the latest real learning in his science, in real 
 touch habitually with Christ, and under the sway 
 of the Holy Spirit, free from the pride of mere 
 professionalism, 
 
 Concerned only and above all in having his 
 patient get well, with a simple faith in the pres- 
 ent power of a living Christ, such a physician 
 would be aided by the Holy Spirit in discover- 
 ing the real ailment, and used in ministering to 
 relief and healing. 
 
 But you say quickly, ‘‘Where is such a phys- 
 ician?’’ and I say, quite confidently, there have 
 been such physicians, and there are. Though 
 one regrets their scarcity, and prays most fer- 
 vently that their number might be increased. 
 For, be it keenly marked, this would be strictly 
 in line with God’s way of doing things. Their 
 very absence or scarcity simply makes greater 
 
How Does Christ Heal? Te, 
 
 the need of going direct to the great Physi- 
 clan. 
 
 Here is a quotation from the lips of a phy- 
 sician, than whom it is said none stands higher 
 in the profession in these two English-speaking 
 nations. The quotation is a recent one, and is 
 taken from a standard religious journal. 
 
 This famous physician said, ‘‘I believe that 
 prayer does cure disease. Healing comes to 
 some individuals directly through prayer, I am 
 -sure. I use it in my practise and rely on it to- 
 day more often than on medicine. I believe that 
 prayer is the contributing factor in the victory 
 over disease. 
 
 **If I had no material means at hand I should 
 use prayer alone, with confidence that it would 
 work the cure, if recovery were in conformity 
 with God’s will. And when prayer has thus 
 been made a factor in recovery I believe it is 
 through direct action on the part of God.”’ 
 
 The Seven Ways Healing May Come. 
 
 It will help much to remember here that there 
 are seven different ways in which healing may 
 come to the diseased body, four natural, two 
 supernatural, one a blend. 
 
 There is a natural healing without human co- 
 operation. The Creator has graciously put a 
 healing power in the human body. If you cut 
 your finger instantly nature goes to work. The 
 blood begins to coagulate and staunch the flow. 
 That power within begins to make new tissue, 
 
78 About the Healing Christ 
 
 to bring the two edges of the wound together, 
 and to heal it up completely. 
 
 This has been true, of course, since Eden days, 
 through the centuries, and everywhere, in sav- 
 age jungles and krall, and in cultured city 
 centre. 
 
 There is this same natural healing assisted by 
 human codperation. A right mental attitude ex- 
 erts enormous influence. 
 
 The term ‘‘ subjective mind ’’ is used for cer- 
 tain mental faculties and processes. The term 
 ‘‘ objective mind ’’ is used for other mental 
 faculties and processes or functions. Maybe 
 some day the thing can be put into simpler words 
 for us common folk to grasp more clearly. 
 Mental science has not yet been fully charted. 
 
 Without doubt, the subjective mind, or the 
 subjective functions of the mind, do control the 
 sensations and functions of the body. The im- 
 agination plays an incaleulable part here. 
 
 Again, without question, the objective mind or 
 processes control the subjective mind as abso- 
 lutely as the subjective mind controls the body. 
 The body is the slave of the subjective mind in 
 its instant, full, I had almost said, abject obedi- 
 ence to it. The subjective mind is the slave of 
 the objective mind as absolutely. 
 
 Our knowledge, and reasoning, and deciding, 
 and the insistent set-of-mind affect the imagina- 
 tion enormously. And this in turn actually 
 controls in large measure bodily conditions. 
 
 Incidentally, just now, here is the process of 
 faith, a simple faith in Christ, inbreathed by 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 79 
 
 His Holy Spirit, through His Word or more 
 directly, as all faith is. 
 
 The objective mind lays hold of Christ’s 
 promise, and accepts unquestioningly the 
 result as already quite assured. The subjec- 
 tive mind in obedience to that at once goes 
 to work to produce the needed changes in the 
 body. 
 
 Then, quite in addition to this, as the need 
 may be, there is a supernatural touch of Christ’s 
 ‘own direct power coming in, and working di- 
 rectly upon the body, and also working through 
 this purely natural process. 
 
 The thing to mark just now is that the whole 
 mental attitude, both conscious and unconscious, 
 affects enormously the free working of that natu- 
 ral healing correcting power within every man’s 
 body. The processes of grace are as fascinating 
 as a romance. 
 
 Then there is this natural healing power as- 
 sisted by expert knowledge and practised skill. 
 Here is where the true physician comes in. And 
 the most a physician ever can do is to assist 
 this natural healing power. 
 
 The wise physician recognizes this, and freely 
 acknowledges it. He is merely nature’s as- 
 sistant. His best work is in finding out, what 
 that natural power already knows, just what 
 the trouble really is. 
 
 Then he can be of real assistance, and only 
 then. Otherwise he is only a poor bungler hin- 
 dering. And if he be sufficiently wise, and hum- 
 ble enough, and maybe sometimes unprofessional 
 
“ 
 
 80 About the Healing Christ 
 
 enough, merely to be an assistant, so far all is 
 well. 
 
 And when healing comes what the assistant 
 has done is distinctly the smaller part. That 
 natural healing power has done the big thing, 
 under a wondrous unseen personal Physician 
 directly directing and aiding. 
 
 My eye was quickly caught with the legend 
 eut deep into the gray stone over a large hos- 
 pital building near one of our largest Eastern 
 cities. It said ‘‘Man tends; God mends.”’ 
 
 The truth got out that time. The big thing 
 is done by God, that is, as is commonly said, by 
 nature. Man’s highest place is as an attendant. 
 And surely it would be scientific and wise and 
 good common sense for the attendant physician 
 to be in closest sympathetic touch with his Chief- 
 of-staff. 
 
 What a tragic thing for the poor patient when 
 he isn’t. This is the third way in which healing 
 may come, the natural healing power within the 
 body assisted by human skill. 
 
 Then there is a fourth way. The natural 
 healing, in spite of, and overcoming unwise 
 bungling and lack of skill. The human touch 
 in this case puts a greater burden on the natu- 
 ral healing. 
 
 And oftentimes the burden proves too much. 
 The human touch is an interference. Nature is 
 outdone. And the poor patient limps slowly 
 along, or his life slips its tether. 
 
 There are two supernatural ways in which 
 healing comes. There is the direct supernatural 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 81 
 
 touch of Christ, distinctly in addition to any- 
 thing that nature or human skill or both can do. 
 And this is the one thing which this series of 
 Talks is mainly concerned with. 
 
 And there is a second supernatural healing, 
 the Devil’s. A strange thing this! That comes 
 in for separate treatment in a later Talk. 
 
 And then, of course, there may be a blend of 
 two or more of these. Four natural, two super- 
 natural, and a blend of these two. 
 
 ‘The Use of Means. 
 
 But, now, we come direct to the question: 
 what about the use of means? And the answer 
 is simple. And it is an answer that answers. 
 There need be no evasion here, smothered up in 
 foggy rhetoric. 
 
 The answer is this: ask Christ. Get in touch, 
 if not already so. And then when the need 
 comes ask Him. He will tell you. And if you 
 are in touch, and you will listen quietly, you’ll 
 hear His answer, clear and simple and positive. 
 
 The dominant law of the Christian life, do 
 you know what it is? This: obedience to the 
 Holy Spirit’s leading. This takes the first place, 
 always. When there is any conflict this law 
 displaces all others. 
 
 Perhaps you ask, but how shall one know just 
 what His leading is? And that question has al- 
 ready been answered in that bit on keeping in 
 touch. Four things were named for keeping in 
 touch with Christ, act, purpose, habit, attitude. 
 
 That’s the answer here. In that habitual 
 
82 About the Healing Christ 
 
 touch we will know clearly just what the Holy 
 Spirit would have us do. And as we do what 
 He tells us things will clear up for us yet more. 
 
 Christ heals through means and the skilled 
 human expert, sometimes. He heals without 
 these, sometimes. He heals when the physician 
 frankly confesses his inability to cure. And 
 sometimes He heals by overcoming and counter- 
 acting the physician and the means used. 
 
 Ask Him. He’s there by your side, inside. 
 He’s intensely interested. He’s eager to tell you 
 what to do. In this He is a true physician, for 
 He advises. 
 
 And, if it may be through means, remember 
 it is His touch through the needed means that 
 is effective. And His own personal direct touch 
 is more, much more, than the means or the ex- 
 pert human counsel that He may know your 
 body stands in need of. 
 
 The wise physician is an expert in the body, 
 its functions and its needs. Your body may be 
 needing something it isn’t getting, may be need- 
 ing it very badly. 
 
 Modern cookery, with some exceptions, is 
 washing out of the food chemical salts and other 
 nourishment that our bodies need for health and 
 strength. 
 
 Modern commercialism, for just one instance 
 now, is milling out of the wheat much, indeed 
 most, of what the Creator put in to meet our 
 bodily needs. 
 
 No nations are better fed than these two Eng- 
 lish-speaking nations. Yet, as a matter of mere 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 83 
 
 sober fact, with loaded tables, our bodies are 
 being hurt, crippled, starved, for lack of needed 
 nourishment. 
 
 The Creator has put into the foods what our 
 bodies need. We wash it out, or mill it out, or 
 otherwise put or leave it out. 
 
 The physician may find our bodies ailing 
 sorely for lack of some element the food we eat 
 should give, but doesn’t. It does not matter 
 - what you eall it, if it actually supplies what is 
 lacking. 
 
 It is clearly the particular kind of nourish- 
 ment the body needs and isn’t getting. The 
 physician-expert, if he be wise enough, may help 
 us live more in accord with the laws of our bodies 
 commonly called the laws of health. 
 
 A simple striking incident is told of Leo 
 Thirteenth. He was elected pope in his later 
 sixties. He was very frail in health. It is said 
 that he was finally elected after a long contest 
 because it was thought he could not live long. 
 
 And then other plans could mature, and other 
 ambitions among his electors could be achieved. 
 So it was said. He outlived the entire College 
 of Cardinals that elected him, finally dying in 
 his ninety-fourth year, and remarkable for his 
 intellectual vigour and his masterful grip on his 
 policies to the end. 
 
 And he himself explained the human side of 
 such a long life in spite of his extreme physical 
 disabilities. He said he was not an expert in 
 the knowledge of his body. He had a physician 
 to advise him about the care of his body. 
 
84 About the Healing Christ 
 
 He followed faithfully the regimen of food, 
 exercise, sleep and so on prescribed for him. 
 Clearly he must have had a really wise skilled 
 physician. And he attributed to this his remark- 
 able mental vigour clear to the end of his un- 
 usually long life. 
 
 We may be disobeying flagrantly some law of 
 our bodies. Obedience is the universal law of 
 all life. There can’t be health and vigour of 
 body without intelligent obedience to its laws. 
 
 We are all fairly ignorant, for intelligent peo- 
 ple really remarkably ignorant, in this regard. 
 In the bodily emergency that has arisen there 
 may be need of expert advice and guidance. 
 
 One at once remembers that this thoughtful 
 intelligent obedience to the laws of the body is 
 strictly in accord with God’s general line of 
 action. He loves nature’s roads. He made them. 
 They are sufficient for all common use. 
 
 We are supposed to use our thinking ap- 
 paratus. Really, regeneration means a new 
 mental birth as well as a new spirit birth. 
 
 But that’s another story. Yet, be it keenly 
 noted, in the emergency the supernatural swings 
 into action. And life is full of emergencies. 
 
 I recall a friend in one of our leading Eastern 
 cities. She was suffering severely at the time 
 from some bodily ailment. She prayed repeat- 
 edly for healing, but it didn’t come. And she 
 wondered why. She was not conscious of any 
 hindrance in her spirit life. 
 
 She had experienced healing by divine touch 
 in answer to prayer more than once. She was 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 85 
 
 in fellowship with a group of earnest saintly 
 people who taught that the use of physician and 
 means showed a lack of faith in Christ. 
 
 Puzzled, she went again to her knees in spe- 
 cial prayer. As plain as could be the impres- 
 sion came, as distinct as a voice, to consult a 
 certain physician. He was a Christian, who had 
 formerly served in her family. And my im- 
 pression is that he was sympathetic with the 
 _ teaching of healing by Christ’s direct touch. 
 
 There was a hesitancy about consulting a 
 physician because of the teaching of the group 
 of Christians with whom she was in fellowship. 
 But that impression persisted, and was quite 
 clear. She knew it was an answer, thus far, to 
 her prayer. 
 
 She consulted the physician and in response to 
 his questions told her story. He asked her what 
 she ate. She said she could eat nothing but dry 
 toast and tea. He told her these were poison to 
 her body in its present condition. 
 
 He gave her no medicine, simply directions 
 about food, and about the care of her body. 
 She followed his expert advice, continued pray- 
 ing, and she quickly was quite well again. 
 
 Clearly enough she needed advice to help her 
 obey intelligently the law of her body. Through 
 the advice, and the obedience, and Christ’s touch, 
 the healing came. Ask Him. He’ll tell you. 
 
 If one can imagine the supernatural healing 
 touch given unwisely it is clear that it would 
 confirm us in our ignorant or wilful disobedi- 
 ence to the law of our bodies. 
 
be} 
 
 86 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Then another crisis comes, and another heal- 
 ing, and so on. Could anything be more ab- 
 normal? What a childish level of action! In- 
 stead Christ would lead us up to the level of 
 intelligent mature action. 
 
 A friend, who bears an honoured name in 
 earnest Christian circles, in one of our promi- 
 nent cities, told me this simple bit out of her 
 experience. 
 
 Her daughter, when a little baby, was suffer- 
 ing much from an earache, and erying piteously. 
 The simple things she did for the child brought 
 no relief. 
 
 Distressed in heart over her child’s acute suf- 
 fering she sent up a silent, earnest prayer for 
 help. And she said to me, in her quiet, thought- 
 ful way, that as clear as could be an inner 
 voice said, ‘‘Put her feet in hot water.’’ 
 
 The child’s feet were hardly in the hot water 
 when the erying ceased, a look of relief came 
 into the dear little face, and the needed sleep 
 had already come before the feet were dried. 
 
 The hot water drew the excess of blood away 
 from the ear. Is it not a winsome bit in its 
 sheer homeliness out of the Book of Life? How 
 homely, in His sane, practical touch, is the 
 blessed Holy Spirit. 
 
 Ask Christ. He’ll be glad to tell you. But 
 you must be careful to obey, simply, intelli- 
 gently, fully. Failure to obey dulls the ears. 
 You won’t be so keen to hear next time He 
 speaks. 
 
 I recall one time my back hurt me very much. 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 87 
 
 The ache seemed always there. I knew I had 
 been a sinner in the matter of overwork. But 
 I had repented, and was trying to put my peni- 
 tence into shoes. Still the nagging pain per- 
 sisted. 
 
 I prayed for the healing touch. As clear as 
 a bell, as quiet as the falling dew, the words 
 were spoken into my inner ear, ‘‘Straighten 
 up.”’ 
 
 Years of travel, and of reading and writing - 
 on trains, had led to the habit of stooping. It 
 was abnormal. My back was protesting. The 
 vital organs within were being crowded. Pain 
 is always a danger-signal, graciously warning us. 
 At once I began straightening up, and I have 
 been straightening up ever since. The pain 
 quickly left. 
 
 The Holy Spirit is so practical. He’s a real 
 Friend. He wants to help. He helpeth our 
 infirmities, of all sorts. Ask Christ. He’ll tell 
 you. And you’ll hear if your ear is open, and 
 your inner spirit quiet enough. 
 
 Do you remember the homely bit in the story 
 of the healing of Hezekiah?* In answer to his 
 pleading prayer Isaiah is sent with a message. 
 
 And this is part of what he said, ‘‘Take a 
 eake of figs, and lay it for a plaster on the boil, 
 and he will recover.’’ 
 
 Then there was the supernatural shift back- 
 ward of the shadow on the sun dial as an in- 
 dication that God was actually at work on his 
 behalf. What an exquisite blend of the homely 
 
 *2 Kings 20:1-18. Isaiah 38: 1-8, 21. 
 
88 About the Healing Christ 
 
 and the divine, the natural and the super- 
 natural! | 
 
 There was something Hezekiah’s body needed 
 that human hands could do. There was some- 
 thing else needed in his body that only God’s 
 touch could reach. The poultice did what it 
 eould. God’s touch did what no poultice could 
 have done. Both are used. 
 
 God loves nature’s roads. But He unhesi- 
 tatingly gives the more-than-natural touch when 
 need be. Ask Him. He’ll tell you. Then be 
 sure you give Him the praise, as Hezekiah failed 
 to do when his royal guest came from a far 
 country. 
 
 One can understand that God moved the King 
 of Babylon to come when he heard of Hezekiah’s 
 remarkable healing. Hezekiah failed God, and 
 failed his visitor, too. 
 
 Sanity and Saintliness. 
 
 There’s a fellowship of saintly Christian peo- 
 ple who, among other blessed truths, teach heal- 
 ing by Christ’s direct touch. Their testimony 
 and activity have been graciously owned and 
 used by God throughout the homeland and the 
 foreign-mission world. 
 
 They insist that no means be used. It is a 
 common word among them that to consult a 
 physician and to use means reveal a lack of 
 faith. 
 
 One is reluctant to say a word that even seems 
 critical of such a saintly consecrated folk. Yet, 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 89 
 
 clearly such condemnation of means is not ac- 
 cording to the teaching of Scripture, nor the 
 Holy Spirit’s leading, nor God’s general dealing 
 with men, nor according to good sanctified com- 
 mon sense. The Holy Spirit’s leading is the one 
 touchstone of what to do. 
 
 It is striking that the most prominent false 
 system of healing to-day, distinctly non-Chris- 
 tian, though using Christian phraseology, makes 
 this same insistence on not using any material 
 help of any sort. It is the one point of contact 
 between two groups diametrically opposed at 
 every other point. 
 
 One needs to avoid extremes. The sanity of 
 the Holy Spirit awes. If one may say it with 
 utmost reverence, the Holy Spirit is always so 
 sane. There is no one so sane as the man ac- 
 tually under the control of the Holy Spirit. 
 It’s a touchstone. Saintliness and sanity natu- 
 rally go together. 
 
 Faith Street is on the top of a hill. There are 
 two roads slanting down on opposite sides, down 
 to the lowlands and swamps. 
 
 On one side is Doubt Street. The slant down 
 is scarcely noticeable at the first. It is so slight. 
 And there are unseen traffic men always trying, 
 by this means or that, to start you off that way, 
 if ever so little at first. 
 
 On the opposite side of the hill is Queer Street. 
 Its slant downward is almost none at all at the 
 first. Still it’s there. 
 
 Queer Street has a large number of one-room 
 bungalows. So many personally lovely saintly 
 
90 About the Healing Christ 
 
 people associate, all alone, each with himself, 
 down. there. 
 
 The only proper place to live is up on the top 
 of the hill on Faith Street. The air is bracing 
 there. Fogs and clouds are blown away. 
 
 Indeed some object that the air is too sharp. 
 It’s a searching air, they say. And then, they 
 say, it’s such a steep slant up to the top. It 
 pulls your strength so, and takes your breath 
 getting up. 
 
 But those who live there habitually talk much 
 of the bracing quality of the atmosphere. The 
 view is very clear, and far, and unobstructed. 
 And there’s a wondrous wind-harp on the top, 
 whose soft rhythmic chordings refresh and 
 strengthen. 
 
 Let us each one hire a moving van, if need be, 
 and move up the steep slope to the top of the 
 hill, and settle down up on Faith Street, and 
 refuse to be budged down either way by the in- 
 sistent traffic man. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that it is entirely 
 possible to be both sane and saintly. No one is 
 so sane as one actually swayed by the Holy 
 Spirit in his mental processes, as well as in the 
 habit of his life. 
 
 Keeping in touch with Christ through the 
 Book, and the knees, and the habitual recog- 
 nition of His presence, and keeping in touch 
 with other humans, this keeps one wholesomely 
 sane. It seasons both spirit and mental judg- 
 ment. 
 
 Then, when any need arises, the first thing is 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 91 
 
 to ask Him, Christ, for the healing touch, and 
 to ask Him what to do, if anything. 
 
 He guides us in the use of our common sense. 
 The man surrendered in heart and will the Holy 
 Spirit guides in thinking things through, and in 
 knowing what to do.’ 
 
 It ought to be the blessed commonplace that 
 all bodily ailments, slight or serious, be prayed 
 over the first thing. 
 
 I remember a gentle-faced young mother in 
 the West, with two or three young children. 
 She quietly said that as ailments arose with any 
 of the children she always prayed with them, 
 simply, briefly. And she knew, she said, what a 
 practical difference it made. 
 
 If it’s a serious case, perhaps a chronic case 
 already in hand, the thing is to have a bit of 
 quiet time alone with Christ over His book. 
 Have a bit of getting in touch afresh. 
 
 Ask Christ. Wait quietly for His answer. 
 Cultivate the quiet inner spirit. Ask expec- 
 tantly, remembering that it is His first will to 
 heal. He is willing to heal, and more is eager to 
 heal. Reach out your hand and take all His 
 Pierced Hand is reaching down to give. 
 
 A friend told me of having some trouble which 
 seemed quite serious. She went to consult a 
 physician in whom she had confidence, in a near- 
 by city. 
 
 After a thorough examination he was quite 
 sure she had cancer in her breast, and strongly 
 advised an operation. There was then in ses- 
 
 *Psalm 25:9. 
 
92 About the Healing Christ 
 
 sion in the city a gathering of physicians and 
 surgeons. A certain eminent surgeon was in 
 attendance. Arrangements could be made for 
 the operation by this specialist. 
 
 But there was a restraint within, my friend 
 said, a restraint in her inner spirit, quite dis- 
 tinct. She did not agree. The physician depre- 
 cated delay, and plainly said it would be foolish 
 not to do as he suggested, and at onee. It was 
 a peculiarly fortunate opportunity to have this 
 visiting surgeon so immediately available, he 
 said. 
 
 But the woman had prayed much before the 
 consultation. The inner impression was clear. 
 She returned home. And she prayed now with 
 a clear knowledge of her serious need. 
 
 She asked definitely for Christ’s healing 
 touch. And she quietly told me that the lumps, 
 and the sense of distress, gradually and com- 
 pletely left. This had been some years before. 
 There had been no return of the trouble. 
 
 It was particularly interesting that she had no 
 special contact at that time with those who 
 taught healing. Many years before there had 
 been such contact. As the trouble developed she 
 remembered what she had heard long before. 
 
 And now without any special prayer with 
 others, or conference, she simply pled the prom- 
 ise of the Book and asked for the healing, and it 
 eame. She is a thoughtful, quiet, earnest Chris- 
 tian woman, now past the prime of years, with 
 no marked gift of leadership. 
 
 Another friend had the beginning of what 
 
How Does Christ Heal? 93 
 
 looked like cancer on her lower brow, plainly 
 marked. The physician advised an operation, 
 and feared that without it one eye would al- 
 most certainly be involved, and probably its 
 sight lost. But she obeyed the inner restraint, 
 not to have the operation. 
 
 My wife and I prayed with her, and later, 
 at her request, I anointed her with oil, and again 
 we prayed. The cancer never developed beyond 
 the first stage noticed, and after the anointing it 
 gradually and completely left. There is now 
 no mark to be seen. 
 
 Recently a man whose home is in Texas told 
 me of an experience of healing in his family. 
 His six-year-old daughter had had a fever. It 
 came up to the critical stage. The temperature 
 was marked. The physician plainly revealed his 
 anxiety, and feared that her strength would not 
 be sufficient. It was doubted that she might 
 survive the night. It was a time of sorest dis- 
 tress. 
 
 They were all worn out with the watching and 
 nursing, day and night, and the concern of 
 spirit. The child’s weakness was such that the 
 usual evening family prayers were held in the 
 hallway with the child’s room-door open. 
 
 At the child’s own request a special prayer 
 was made that Christ would heal her by His 
 own direct touch. And the family were greatly 
 touched and impressed with her simple, strong 
 faith. 
 
 She said to her father in effect, ‘‘I’m going 
 to be well now. Christ will heal me.’’ She fell 
 
94 About the Healing Christ 
 
 asleep with the words on her lips, and a smile 
 on her wasted face. When the father and 
 mother retired from the sick room one said to 
 the other, ‘‘ But suppose she isn’t better in the 
 morning; it’ll be such a disappointment to her. 
 What’ll we do then?’’ 
 
 And the other replied, ‘* But that isn’t faith. 
 Faith believes it will be as we asked.’’ In the 
 morning the child awoke with her temperature 
 quite normal, and speedily recovered her 
 strength. 
 
 Let us live in simple, full touch of life with 
 our living Christ. And when any need may 
 come go to Him. It is His eager will to advise 
 with us, and above all to heal us, to His glory. 
 
 For those we touch will know what a Christ 
 Christ is. It will let them see His glory, that 
 is, see the sort of a Saviour He is, 
 
V 
 
 HOW FAR MAY CHRIST’S HEALING BE 
 EXPECTED? CHRIST’S GIVING 
 AND MAN’S TAKING 
 
 Tt is Christ’s will that we be pure in heart, 
 intelligent in understanding, well balanced in 
 judgment, in the grip of a noble purpose, 
 flamed by a strong passion, strong and well in 
 body, and in that touch of heart and under- 
 standing with Himself where we can reach out 
 and take all His Pierced Hand is now reaching 
 down to give. 
 
 Healed but Limping. 
 
 How far may Christ’s power be expected to 
 meet our bodily needs? We commonly say that 
 there is no limit to His power to meet our spir- 
 itual needs. Is there a limit in our bodily needs? 
 
 There is, of course, no limit to Christ’s power. 
 It seems to be a matter of His willingness, what 
 He thinks it is best or wisest to do for us in this 
 regard. 
 
 There’s such a wide range of bodily ailments. 
 It runs from a nervous headache to organic 
 heart trouble. It may be a crick in your back or 
 a chronic lameness, or anywhere in between. 
 
 Troubles that come from disturbed nervous 
 conditions are more quickly affected by a 
 changed mental attitude. Functional troubles 
 
 95 
 
96 About the Healing Christ 
 
 are reckoned more susceptible to treatment than 
 organic. Indeed organic troubles are usually 
 quite ruled out. 
 
 A nervous condition may bring on a serious 
 palpitation of your heart. The right touch on 
 the nerves would make the heart’s beating all 
 right again. 
 
 Some troubles are commonly classed as dis- 
 tinctly outside the range of healing, whether 
 some system of mental suggestion, or Christ’s 
 own supernatural touch of power. 
 
 I recall running across a certain man in a 
 Western city. He was well known in Christian 
 circles as a leader in city mission work in New 
 York City. 
 
 He had made the journey west to get in touch 
 with a Christian teacher of healing. And he 
 told me that he had been healed of a rather 
 serious trouble. 
 
 But he had been lame for many years. And 
 as we parted he limped away. I looked after 
 him. He was praising Christ for the healing 
 of his body. 
 
 But it had never occurred to him that this 
 serious chronic lameness might have been healed 
 too, nor apparently to the man who prayed with 
 him. Was he right? Is there a limit in this 
 regard? 
 
 There is nothing commoner than the use of 
 eye-glasses to help defective or weak eyes. It 
 is common among many who teach healing, the 
 mental sort alone, and the Christ supernatural — 
 sort of healing. 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 97 
 
 One listens to eager, joyous voices praising 
 God for the healing touch that has come, perhaps 
 to some remarkably radical extent. 
 
 But the eye-glasses are there. It seems a bit 
 puzzling. Is there a limit to the power we may 
 expect ? 
 
 There can be no question that the eyes are 
 vitally connected with one’s health and vigour. 
 Eye-strain has been responsible for serious 
 nervous troubles, and for many a nervous break- 
 down. It’s an intensely practical question so 
 far as health is concerned. 
 
 The eyes are affected much by nervous condi- 
 tions. The use of glasses adapted to certain in- 
 accuracies in the eyes, of course, tends to con- 
 firm and harden those inaccuracies. 
 
 It is being insisted upon in certain eye-spe- 
 cialist cireles that a proper nervous relaxation 
 will actually correct practically all eye inaccu- 
 racies. And this new teaching is having a wide 
 acceptance and application abroad, as well as 
 here. 
 
 Our next Talk lays much emphasis on a right 
 mental attitude. A simple childlike trust in © 
 Christ affects one’s habitual mental attitude. 
 
 And this in turn has an influence on all bodily 
 conditions quite beyond what we can take in. 
 
 Sometimes aged persons will have what is 
 spoken of as ‘‘second sight.’?’ I do not mean 
 now the psychical sense of seeing into the fu- 
 ture, and that sort of thing, which is spoken of 
 in this same way. 
 
 But there is a physical ‘‘second sight’’ re- 
 
98 About the Healing Christ 
 
 ferred to. It is not uncommon to find one in 
 the seventies or later who has laid aside eye- 
 glasses entirely, and is able to see and to read 
 easily without their aid. 
 
 Is it possible that this is simply such a re- 
 laxation of the nerves as normalizes the eyes 
 again ? 
 
 Is it possible that the habitual spirit of un- 
 questioning faith in Christ, and so the habitual 
 right attitude of mind, would so affect our 
 bodies, and our nerves as to include our eyes? 
 
 Beyond this, may we pray expectantly for the 
 healing touch on our eyes? The relation of the 
 question to one’s health is clear enough. It is a 
 matter of health, vitally. What should we ex- 
 pect? How much? 
 
 One’s teeth have a still closer relation to 
 health. The remarks about Christians undoubt- 
 edly experiencing healing, and yet having faulty 
 eyes, could be repeated about the teeth, as ex- 
 tensively, maybe more. 
 
 Modern dentistry certainly is having a large 
 field of activity, and ever increasing. That it 
 has gone through many experimental stages, and 
 isn’t out of them yet, is of course a common- 
 place. 
 
 And the experimenting is always at human 
 expense of suffering and ill health. Many of 
 the things said about the medical profession, as 
 regards commercialism, the rapid wholesaling 
 process, the blundering personal equation, and 
 the like, could be repeated here. 
 
 Without question dentistry is a science and 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 99 
 
 art combined, mechanical art and artistic art. 
 And without doubt untold numbers have been 
 distinctly helped. 
 
 Of course, food affects the teeth very much, 
 the sort of food. This is particularly true of 
 growing children, and of expectant mothers and 
 nursing mothers. 
 
 The commercialism and the ues that takes 
 out of the food certain substances needed to 
 - build up bones and teeth, make for deficient and 
 defective teeth. So does the unbalanced diet. 
 
 Such teeth easily break down and give out in 
 the grind of daily use. Of course, obedience to 
 nature’s laws here means the proper cleansing 
 and care of the teeth from childhood up. 
 
 Even with the best that the most skilled con- 
 scientious dentist can do, substitute teeth are so 
 much less than the natural that no comparison 
 can be made. 
 
 The two things are too far apart for com- 
 parison. Loss of natural teeth lessens health 
 and vigour and length of life, regardless of the 
 dentist’s utmost skill. 
 
 Does dentistry simply give a maimed man a 
 pair of crutches so he ean hobble along some- 
 how, instead of not at all? 
 
 Is it simply good for those who don’t and 
 won’t come to Christ for what He has to give? 
 Or is there more? How much may we properly, 
 sanely expect, and not be disappointed? 
 
 The Need the Measure of Power. 
 It becomes of intense interest to turn back and 
 
100 About the Healing Christ 
 
 note the extent of Christ’s healing in the Gospel 
 days. 
 
 The list of healings there has a few acute 
 cases, but most of them are the absolutely in- 
 eurable incorrigibles. A man blind from birth 
 is included, with the possibility that the eye- 
 balls were not fully matured or developed. 
 
 One summary actually says that the maimed 
 were made whole. There is only one meaning 
 when that word ‘‘maimed’’ is used, whether the 
 Greek or English word is examined. And that 
 is, that a limb or arm or foot, or some other 
 part, that had been lost was replaced by a new 
 one. 
 
 That would be distinctly creative power at 
 work. But the meaning of the language used is 
 quite beyond question. 
 
 And then the last word in extremes is said in 
 the raising of the dead, even Lazarus dead four 
 days. 
 
 And the same sort of thing is repeated in the 
 Acts. The beggar man in Jerusalem at the gate 
 of the temple had been lame from birth. Now 
 he leaps up, and walks. There’s an abundance 
 of strength, where there had been none at all. 
 
 The Lystra man had never walked. And, even 
 here, there are the two dead raised. There’s 
 Doreas near the beginning of the Acts, and 
 there is the Troas young man toward the end, 
 when some might think of the extent of power 
 as possibly waning. 
 
 There can be no question about how far heal- 
 ing was actually experienced in these early days. 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 101 
 
 The need was the measure of the power. The 
 seriousness of the case didn’t affect the power 
 available. 
 
 There were degrees of disability. But there 
 were no degrees in the power at Christ’s com- 
 mand, and in response to the disciples’ Spirit- 
 led actions. 
 
 The power was always abundant, not scanty. 
 The power was sufficient for the worst case. 
 ‘But what about now? How far may healing be 
 expected to-day? Up to the limit of real need? 
 
 It seems like a very difficult question, at first 
 flush, unless indeed it is answered at once by 
 some with a positive negative. 
 
 Yet, there’s an answer. And it is an answer 
 that really answers. It is not a piously rhetor- 
 ical evasion. 
 
 Ask Christ. 
 
 There are two parts to the answer. The first 
 is this: ask Christ. You can come into the sim- 
 ple touch with Him where you ean ask, and He 
 will answer your question, and answer it fully. 
 
 That’s an enormous advantage, to get actually 
 in touch with the Christ that has all power, and 
 has used it in this way. 
 
 Recall, if you will, what was said in our last 
 Talk about getting into touch with Christ. 
 
 Ask Christ. He has the power to. That is 
 clear. He did have the love to when He was 
 down here. That’s clear, too. 
 
 He thought it the wise thing to loosen out His 
 
102 About the Healing Christ 
 
 power through His followers in those early sam- 
 ple Church days. 
 
 Ask Christ about your own need, whatever it 
 may be. He is there at your side. He is in- 
 tensely interested. He will answer your ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Each one of us is a door. We are Christ’s 
 door, or we may be. We are His door into the 
 whole circle where we live. 
 
 He wants to get through us to them. His 
 dealings with us are an acted-out plea to them. 
 Through these He talks to them. 
 
 The freer hand He can have with us the more 
 He ean touch them through us. We should ea- 
 gerly yet patiently get into the sort of touch 
 where He can give all He wants to. That means 
 all we need. 
 
 Perhaps you’re in that school we are to talk 
 about soon. You need to learn a thing or two, 
 maybe. 
 
 The thing we’re needing may be withheld be- 
 cause there’s something we’re needing more. 
 We may not know about that other need. 
 
 It may mean a radical face-about to know 
 about that other thing, and more radical yet to 
 be willing to get it, with all it involves. 
 
 Maybe you’ve got a term in school before you 
 ean get all you’re needing. But then you can 
 make it a very short term, if you will. 
 
 And, and, the Devil may be hindering. There 
 is no bit of teaching more bitterly hated, and 
 more stubbornly fought against, than this of 
 bodily healing by Christ’s supernatural touch. 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 103 
 
 Those who are in a place of leadership, or 
 who have the personal gift of leadership, are yet 
 more bitterly opposed than those otherwise 
 placed or gifted. 
 
 One has to insist through bitter opposition 
 often. The thing is to be clear of the Holy 
 Spirit’s leading, and then insist on having all 
 He has for you. 
 
 Ask Christ your question. And remember, as 
 - you ask, about His first will for us. It includes 
 whatever is included in this: full bodily health 
 and vigour, to His glory. That’s the first half 
 of the answer. 
 
 God’s Gwing: Our Taking. 
 
 The second part goes a little deeper in. It is 
 this: Christ’s giving is dependent on our taking. 
 You can’t give into a tight shut fist. Christ 
 can’t. 
 
 There’s a striking little word on Christ’s lips 
 in that Betrayal Night Talk.’ He and the inner 
 group are walking under the full moon, past the 
 Herod temple with its beautiful brass grape- 
 vine. 
 
 Christ says, ‘‘Ye did not choose me, but I 
 chose you.’’ They did choose Him as a Saviour, 
 He chose them for the bit of service they were 
 to do. 
 
 ‘‘And appointed you,’’ He goes on, ‘‘that ye 
 should go and bear fruit.’’ The fruit was the 
 life, what they really were in themselves. All 
 service roots down in the life. 
 
 * John 15: 16. 
 
104 About the Healing Christ 
 
 ‘‘And that your fruit shall abide.’’ Not 
 green, gnarly fruit, but full-grown, luscious, 
 juicy fruit. He means us to live a life matured 
 and ripened in its spiritual experiences. 
 
 ‘That whatsoever ye shall ask.’’ Note that: 
 prayer, like service, grows out of the life. The 
 life in touch prays, and ean pray, and can pray 
 the prayer that loosens out Christ’s power to 
 the full. 
 
 ‘‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my 
 name, He may give it you.’’ The striking word 
 is that word ‘‘may.”’ 
 
 It is not shall this time, but may. Every other 
 time the word used in this connection is shall; 
 this time it is may. 
 
 ‘*Shall’’ means His willingness to do, His pur- 
 pose. ‘‘May’’ means our codperation with Him. 
 ‘*Shall’’ is His side, ‘‘may’’ is ours. 
 
 Our asking makes it possible for God to give. 
 We give Him the open channel. God needs an 
 open hand, and that means an open life. 
 
 Christ’s giving is always dependent on our 
 taking. And we are such beggarly takers. No 
 human hand has ever yet reached up to take 
 as much as Christ’s pierced hand is reaching 
 down to give. 
 
 For the taking must be on a level with the 
 giving. It means that touch where we want 
 what He wants. He leads us. We follow. 
 
 We talk much about God’s sovereignty, with- 
 out understanding much about just what it 
 means. We don’t talk so much about man’s 
 sovereignty. 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 105 
 
 Practically, God’s sovereignty means that ul- 
 timately, through the tangled-up network of hu- 
 man wills, God’s love-plan for things down here 
 will work fully out. Yet it will be without in- 
 fringing on any man’s free choice and action. 
 
 Man’s sovereignty, as planned by God, means 
 that everything we have and get and do is 
 through our own choice. 
 
 God’s sovereignty waits on man’s sovereignty, 
 
 .-His purposes on our glad codperation. And 
 some day these two will run side by side. And 
 man’s sovereignty will be deliberately merged in 
 God’s. His love will win our choice. 
 
 But, just now, the bit to emphasize is this: 
 in actual life the biggest thing is man’s taking. 
 We may have, out of Christ’s down-stretched 
 hand, all we can take, and then all we actually 
 will take, and do take. 
 
 It’s a three-sided transaction. Christ reaches 
 down to give all we need, without any limit or 
 restriction. We reach up and take out of His 
 hand. 
 
 The Devil reaches over to keep us from taking 
 out of Christ’s hand. He tries to keep our 
 hands, Christ’s hand and mine, out of touch, if 
 possible. 
 
 He befogs the air so we don’t see straight in 
 our reaching. He tries to teeter our reaching 
 hands, this way and that, or to make them not 
 reach up far enough so as to touch. 
 
 He does his best to tire us, to wear us out, so 
 we'll quit the reaching. When he slips here he 
 starts in afresh over there. 
 
106 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The Limit of Our Consent. 
 
 There’s a remarkable bit from Paul’s pen that 
 fits in here. It says that all power needed by 
 any one (in touch with Christ) is already within 
 himself. 
 
 It is a matter of letting this power that is 
 within actually meet the need. The need you 
 feel so keenly and the power to meet that need, 
 are close neighbours. You have both. It’s a 
 matter of the two getting together. 
 
 The passage is in the little letter to the Ephe- 
 sian church, where Paul had that two-years’ re- 
 markable healing ministry. It becomes the more 
 striking because the particular thing being 
 talked about in this letter is this: the power of 
 God at our disposal to meet our need. 
 
 There’s a threefold standard or measure of 
 that power, the raising of Christ when He was 
 dead,’ the making of a new man inside one dead 
 in sin,” and the changing bitterest enemies into 
 dearest friends.” Pretty high standard of power 
 that could do such things! 
 
 Paul says we may expect that power, which 
 is now within us, to meet any need for us to- 
 day up to that measure or limit. That covers 
 what we are talking about just now, and more. 
 
 The striking bit comes at the end of chapter 
 three.“ In simple language here is what Paul 
 is saying, in part. The Holy Spirit is power. 
 
 Ephesians 1: 18-22, 
 * Ephesians 2: I-10. 
 
 ® Ephesians 2: 11-22. 
 ‘Ephesians 3: 16-20. 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 107 
 
 He in Himself is all the power of God. He is 
 now inside each of us. He comes in through the 
 opened door of our faith. He reproduces 
 Christ’s own character in us, so far as we let 
 Him have sway. 
 
 The big thing He does is to fill our hearts 
 with that tender, strong passion, the love of 
 Christ. This comes to inelude every other 
 needed trait of character. 
 
 Then Paul sums up all in this: ‘‘Unto Him 
 who is able to do exceeding abundantly above 
 all we ask or think, according to the power that 
 worketh in us Wd 
 
 That is to say, He is able to do, not simply 
 what we ask, but what we are thinking about 
 that we wish He would do. 
 
 Then Paul piles things up in a rare way. He 
 is able to do above that, then abundantly above 
 that, then exceeding abundantly above that. 
 That is a tremendous climax. 
 
 And the one outstanding characteristic of this 
 power is love. It is a power of love. He can 
 and He will. Love controls the power. That 
 surely answers our question. 
 
 And then the measure or the limit or the ex- 
 tent, up to which we may expect this power is 
 put in these words, ‘‘according to the power that 
 worketh in us.’? That means up to the measure 
 of that power working in us. 
 
 Of course, the power itself is without any 
 limit. But the Holy Spirit always works with 
 our consent. He does only as much as we let 
 Him do. Everything He does is as we are will- 
 
 
 
108 About the Healing Christ 
 
 ing. So the limit of the working is the lumi 
 of our consent. He’ll do all we let Him. 
 
 As we let Him work iv us all He wants to, 
 He works for us all we need. If we let Him 
 work character in us (Christ’s character) He’s 
 free to work bodily healing for us. 
 
 We let Him work out His fruit in us, love, 
 joy, peace, yes, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
 ness, meekness, faithfulness, self-mastery. Then 
 He is free to work out for us the healing our 
 bodies need, and our circumstances, too. 
 
 Fruit-growing is a gradual thing, seed-sowing, 
 pruning, sun and rain, dew and air, spraying for 
 hurtful insects, then bud and blossom, the be- 
 ginning of the fruit, and its gradual growth 
 up to juicy, luscious, full-sized fruit. It’s a 
 gradual thing. All growth is. One must be pa- 
 tient and steady, very steady. But sometimes 
 it is surprisingly quick when it is the fruit the 
 Holy Spirit bears in the soil of our character. 
 
 Nine Things About Taking. 
 
 How far may we expect Christ’s healing? 
 The answer is this: we may have all we can take. 
 And then all we do take. 
 
 But please notice a few simple yet radical 
 things about the taking. They’ve been spoken 
 of partly before in another connection. 
 
 The taking must be in Christ’s Name, pleading 
 His blood. The Devil yields only to whom he 
 must. And he must to Christ. 
 
 The taking must be by one in actual touch of 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 109 
 
 heart with Christ. The Devil laughs at any one 
 else. 
 
 The taking must be in the utmost humility. 
 Our sins cost Christ so much suffering, and this 
 that we take has been bought for us with His 
 blood. 
 
 The taking must be definite. The Devil yields 
 only what he must. The taking must be per- 
 sistent. The Devil yields only when he must. 
 ‘And he’s a sly, deceitful, toughened fighter by 
 strategy as well as by ugly force. 
 
 The taking must be as the Holy Spirit guides. 
 The touchstone of all prayer is the Holy Spirit’s 
 guidance. He puts the prayer to be prayed into 
 one’s heart. 
 
 No mere asking for something because of 
 some one else’s experience will do. That ex- 
 perience may be blessed. But there must be 
 one’s own direct leading, over the open Book, on 
 the bent knee. 
 
 The taking must be with the life. No mere 
 church membership, and activity and giving, and 
 the like, will do. 
 
 No simple taking of the sacred bread and the 
 holy cup will answer here. These may all be 
 very blessed. 
 
 But the taking must be with the very life. 
 And it is so. One finds that it is only the life 
 actually lived for Christ, by His grace, that can 
 reach up and take to the full what His blood 
 has redeemed. 
 
 And, then, will you keenly mark, that you 
 take only as much as you can take. The power 
 
110 About the Healing Christ 
 
 to take varies with various persons, and even 
 at various times with the same person. It 
 all depends on one’s personal touch with 
 Christ. 
 
 And you take only as much as you actually do 
 take. As a rule, the conception of how much 
 you may take varies. It varies with circum- 
 stances and with one’s mood. The Spirit’s lead- 
 ing is the decisive thing. 
 
 But, but, it is Christ’s first will that we shall 
 be made strong and well in our bodies up to the 
 limit of our need. 
 
 And He is by your side now eagerly a | 
 to give. Giving won’t make Him any poorer, 
 only gladder. 
 
 I have the privilege, which I prize highly, of 
 the friendship of Mr. James Moore Hickson, the 
 consecrated, talented, Church-of-England lay- 
 man of London. 
 
 Christ has been using him in a remarkable 
 healing ministry of recent years throughout the 
 six continents. Our friendship runs back over 
 many years on both sides the Atlantic. 
 
 One day I asked him to tell me the most nota- 
 ble instances of healing of which he knew per- 
 sonally. And he told me of two that I want to 
 relate here. 
 
 Mr. Hickson had gone to visit a woman in her 
 home in the Midlands in England. She had 
 been bedridden for years with rheumatoid 
 arthritis. 
 
 That disease, it will be remembered, affects the 
 joints of the body. In this case the joints were 
 
How Far May Healing Be Expected 111 
 
 locked up or rigid. The woman had not been 
 able to move herself for several years. 
 
 Mr. Hickson prayed for her healing. That 
 evening she moved herself, the first time in 
 years. 
 
 Her husband wrote that the next morning she 
 rose from the bed, dressed herself, and went 
 about the house, as in the earlier years. 
 
 That was the first of these two experiences. 
 That disease is classed as incurable. 
 
 The second incident was of a young boy of 
 twelve years or so, with a club-foot, from his 
 birth. 
 
 He was brought to the church where a healing 
 mission was being conducted. He came up 
 to the front of the church with his attendant, 
 wearing an iron brace to help him in walk- 
 ing. 
 
 As Mr. Hickson saw the boy in front of him, 
 and with one quick glance took in the situation, 
 he said to himself involuntarily, ‘‘Oh! this is a 
 deformity !’’ 
 
 His thought was that this was not a disease, 
 but presented a much different, and much more 
 difficult, case to handle. 
 
 In telling me the story Mr. Hickson said that 
 instantly that quiet inner voice said, ‘‘ Who is 
 doing this? You or I?”’ 
 
 And he said in his heart, ‘‘ Forgive me, Lord,”’ 
 and aloud he said to the attendant, ‘‘ Take off the 
 irons. ”’ 
 
 He took the boy’s foot in his hands and made 
 a simple bit of prayer, as is his custom. 
 
112 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The next day the boy was brought again. 
 There was some improvement marked in the 
 foot. Again he prayed, and the boy’s foot 
 gradually became quite normal, and he wore an 
 ordinary shoe. 
 
 How far may Christ’s healing be expected? 
 We may have all we can take, as His Spirit 
 guides our taking. 
 
 Thou blessed Christ, thou solitary God-Man, 
 who didst live a full life of human experience, 
 and then didst die as none other did nor could 
 nor can, 
 
 And then didst live again, and still livest, and 
 some day wilt finish up the racial end of Thine 
 earth task, 
 
 Help me now to reach out and up and take 
 out of Thy Pierced Hand all Thou hast for me, 
 to Thy glory among my fellows. 
 
 I ask it on the ground of Thy blood shed for 
 me, and Thy Word pledged to me. Amen, 
 
VI 
 
 THE HUMAN SIDE OF HEALING AND 
 HEALTH 
 
 It is Christ’s will that we be pure in heart 
 and motive and life, truly human in character 
 up to the level of His humanness, fired by a 
 noble passion, in the grip of a worthy purpose, 
 in warm touch with Himself and with our fel- 
 lows, and strong and vigorous in all our 
 bodily functions. 
 
 Health? or Healing. 
 
 HEALTH is more than healing. There’s more 
 of it. It calls for more of the Creator’s power. 
 It means more to a man. And it will be the 
 means of greater spiritual blessing if things are 
 as they were meant to be. 
 
 The task of keeping men in health, even as 
 much health as they have, is immeasurably 
 greater than healing all who need healing, even 
 if they would all come for healing. 
 
 Christ is greatest in the unrecognized power 
 He is expending on men all the time. And all 
 this power has the Calvary mark upon it. It is 
 all red-tinged. 
 
 Health means rhythm, the smooth working of 
 all parts together. Disease is a break in the 
 rhythm. Rhythm is ease. <A break in the 
 rhythm means absence of ease, dis-ease, of some 
 sort, 
 
 113 
 
114 About the Healing Christ 
 
 When there’s full rhythm within your body, 
 and with your fellows, and with Christ, and with 
 nature, there’s fulness of life flowing in and 
 flooding out. 
 
 But, but, there’s a break, a bad break in the 
 rhythm of life, within and without and above. 
 Within we call it disease, without friction and 
 strife, strikes and war. Above we eall it sin. 
 
 But, in spite of the break, Christ continues 
 His touch of creative power on all life, giving 
 health and strength. This becomes less as we 
 hinder. 
 
 There is full life only as we let Him do and 
 give all He wants to. There’s the added touch, 
 giving healing, where the way is open to Him 
 for that. 
 
 The first is the natural thing, the second is 
 supernatural in addition to the natural. The 
 first is for all, the second is for those needing 
 it and who will come where He can give it. 
 
 There’s one thing better than being healed. 
 And this is being kept in health. Then healing 
 isn’t needed. It’s the higher level, higher in 
 intelligence and maturity of character. 
 
 It is higher in obedience, and in the taking 
 from Christ’s hand, day by day, all we need. 
 And it costs Christ more in the continual giving 
 out of power. 
 
 Christ’s creative power through natural 
 channels is commonplace, blessedly commonplace. 
 It is everywhere. It is in every one, without 
 exception. 
 
 His supernatural power is _ exceptional. 
 
Human Side of Healing 115 
 
 Where His natural power is allowed freest hand 
 there is less need of the supernatural. 
 
 But that break of sin is so sore, and so much 
 in evidence everywhere, that there is a constant 
 need of the supernatural. 
 
 And there would be far more of the super- 
 natural if the way were open. For Christ will 
 do anything and everything to overcome the 
 break of sin. He came that we might have life, 
 and have it in uncommon measure. 
 
 There is the divine side of health and healing, 
 and there is the human side. The two inter- 
 mingle so continually that it’s difficult to talk 
 about the one without touching on the other. 
 
 But, just now, we want to talk a little about 
 the human side. There’s so much need of sim- 
 ple, clear teaching. 
 
 Living in that touch with Christ’s natural 
 laws of life, and in the direct touch with Him- 
 self, where health is the common thing, and 
 healing is not needed, this, this, is the higher, 
 the highest level of living. 
 
 It is striking to find two distinct trails in the 
 Old Testament, a healing trail and a health trail. 
 The two run side by side. 
 
 And it is of intense interest to find the health 
 trail greater in the space it takes up, and in the 
 emphasis laid upon it. 
 
 It is the more interesting because this little 
 Hebrew nation becomes a model of life in the 
 ideals taught and insisted upon. 
 
 We traced partially, in an earlier Talk,’ the 
 
 “Ts It Christ’s Will to Heal Our Bodies To-day?” 
 
116 About the Healing Christ 
 
 healing trail in the Old Testament. It was a 
 trail of teaching and of healing. 
 
 There is the plain teaching that God would 
 heal. And it is used as a plea to pull them up to 
 the higher level. And there is the string of 
 incidents where men were actually healed in a 
 positive supernatural way. 
 
 The Jew Health Trail. 
 
 Now, side by side with that, goes this other 
 trail, longer, broader, more marked. It is a 
 teaching about health. There is a remarkable 
 course in personal hygiene here. Instruction is 
 given repeatedly, and obedience is insisted upon. 
 
 Some of these items may seem very homely and 
 commonplace. But it is careful attention and 
 obedience to detail that makes perfection in any- 
 thing. 
 
 Nothing is too common or commonplace if its 
 practice means physical vigour. And physical 
 vigour affects mental alertness and spiritual at- 
 tainment. 
 
 There is particular stress laid upon food. 
 Pains are taken to specify the things they must 
 not eat." And Moses repeats this in much detail 
 in that last series of Quiet Talks in the Plains 
 of Moab.” This would cultivate a thoughtfulness 
 about food. 
 
 Without any question there is a hygienic prin- 
 ciple underlying all these instructions and re- 
 
 * Leviticus 11: I-23. 
 * Deuteronomy 14: 3-21. 
 
Human Side of Healing 117 
 
 strictions. They were an agricultural people, 
 with small exporting facilities, and so the fruits 
 of trees and soil would naturally bulk big in 
 their daily food. 
 
 Then the item of physical exercise had a big 
 place. There was plenty of work to be done, in 
 connection with cultivation of fields, orchards, 
 vineyards, ana common gardening. 
 
 It was a common custom that every Hebrew 
 had some fixed occupation. And every one 
 shared in the daily tasks indoors and out. 
 
 The ideal communities that have sprung up 
 here and there, where all share in all tasks, have 
 their truest highest ideal actually practised 
 among these pastoral agricultural Hebrews. 
 
 And one is keen to note the other side of this. 
 There was particular attention given to rest, 
 relaxation. There is a rare poise between work 
 and rest aimed at here. 
 
 There are four distinct items in the rest or 
 relaxation program, which Moses was careful to 
 mark out for them, at God’s direction. 
 
 One day in seven was to be kept, sacred from 
 
 toil, sacred to rest of body. The emphasis upon 
 this is marked and continuous. 
 . Three times a year there were special times of 
 relaxation from their usual occupation, the Pass- 
 over, the Feast of the First-fruits, and the Har- 
 vest-home Festival. Each was for seven days. 
 
 The men were to go up to Jerusalem to these 
 feasts. Including travel it must have meant a 
 ten-days’ relaxation for most of them, with an 
 absorbing objective. 
 
118 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Every seven years the land must lie fallow. 
 Modern farmers might well note this. The land 
 enriched itself. The land rested, and of course 
 the people rested. 
 
 There would be much to attend to, but there 
 was a break in the work schedule. It meant the 
 rest and relaxation of a change. 
 
 Every fiftieth year was the time of special 
 jubilation, following the plan of the seventh year. 
 The average man would be likely to go through, 
 at least, two of these jubilee years. 
 
 Then, of course, in common with all men, every 
 day had its night. There was the daily alterna- 
 tion of rest and work. And nature itself pro- 
 vides for more sleep in winter and less in sum- 
 mer. A simple pastoral folk follows nature more 
 closely. 
 
 So, all told, there were six items in the com- 
 mon Hebrew rest or relaxation program, a day 
 of sleep for every day’s work, and a longer time 
 of nightly sleep for half the year. 
 
 Then there was one day in seven, three special 
 times each year, one year in seven, and an extra 
 year in every fifty years. 
 
 Rather a remarkable program that. Yet 
 the fact of its being provided by Moses, at God’s 
 direction, is immensely suggestive. 
 
 Physical exercise, and time for the mind to 
 store up and meditate, time for social recreation 
 and enjoyment, time for worship, all this becomes 
 of greatest interest from the health point of view. 
 
 And particular directions were given about 
 the ablutions, the frequent all-over bathing by 
 
Human Side of Healing 119 
 
 the priests. And the priests were the practical 
 rulers of the people. 
 
 The priesthood was the fixed system of na- 
 tional administration through the centuries. 
 They were the leaders. And what the leaders do 
 the people do. Like priest like people. 
 
 There were special directions for special bath- 
 ing in connection with their sanitary and quar- 
 antine codes. They were a bathing people. 
 Cleanliness of person was a fixed habit. 
 
 There were careful community sanitation 
 regulations covering the individual tents and the 
 whole encampment in the Wilderness, and after- 
 ward when settled in Canaan. 
 
 The quarantine regulations were explicit and 
 rigid, inspection by experts, isolation, and segre- 
 gation. The strictest watch was constantly kept 
 on the people’s health, on all suspicious eases, 
 and on the diseased. Quarantine is worthless 
 unless rigid, and rigidly enforeed. Their ideals 
 have never been improved upon. 
 
 And, of course, their inflexible law of circum- 
 cision was rooted down in the physical. Apart 
 from other significance it was a hygienic regula- 
 tion. It belonged in their scheme of cleanliness 
 and provision against infection. 
 
 Now, note keenly, that the Hebrews were 
 essentially an out-of-doors people. They lived 
 in God’s open air. 
 
 There were the four hundred years in Egypt. 
 Egypt was an open air country characteristically, 
 and is to this day. The absence of rain, the dry- 
 ness of the air, and its rare tonic qualities, were 
 
120 About the Healing Christ 
 
 marked features, and are. The open air habit 
 had a good start in Egypt. 
 
 The forty years in the Wilderness sands sim- 
 ply meant forty years in the open air. Quite 
 likely most of them slept out in the open. 
 
 Moses himself was habituated to this open air 
 life through his sheep-tending years in Midian, 
 as well as his earlier Egypt years, and later 
 Wilderness years. 
 
 And there’s one more item worth mentioning 
 in this health memorandum. Their land laws, 
 their scheme of inheritance, the reversion of land 
 to the original owner every fifty years which 
 entered into all sales and transfers, these, of 
 course, would tend to contentment of mind re- 
 garding the future. Fear of the future, mostly 
 groundless, makes a shorter road to the grave- 
 yard. 
 
 Here are eight items in their national health 
 program to which they were habituated through 
 the centuries. It included food, work or ex- 
 ercise, rest and relaxation and play, personal 
 cleanliness, community sanitary measures, quar- 
 antine against disease, open air living, and a 
 measure of contentment about the future, the 
 rainy day. 
 
 This is the health trail that runs all through 
 these Old Testament pages, and clearly ran all 
 through the physical life of this remarkable 
 race of people. 
 
 Without doubt it plays a large part in at- 
 tempting to explain the astonishing physical 
 vigour of the Jews even to-day. 
 
Human Side of Healing 121 
 
 Inheritance persists. They have suffered per- 
 secutions, hardships, privations, that would have 
 killed off any ordinary people. Plainly they are 
 not ordinary people. Their health program 
 certainly was not ordinary. It was rather extra- 
 ordinary. What nation to-day can come near 
 it? 
 
 This is the health trail running side by side 
 with that blessed healing trail. It persists 
 ’ through these old pages. It puts a remarkable 
 emphasis on the human side of health and heal- 
 ing. 
 
 It was planned by God. It surely becomes a 
 personal model for the thoughtful man to-day, 
 and especially the thoughtful Christian man. 
 
 The Eden Health Model. 
 
 Now, there’s another model of life in these 
 older pages. The Hebrew nation, as planned by 
 God, gives one model. Here’s another. It’s yet 
 earlier. It comes in before the break of sin had 
 set things so askew. 
 
 It’s the model of the true full human, the 
 human as yet unhurt by sin. It’s the Adam- 
 and-Eve-in-Eden model. 
 
 It is really God’s ideal of human life. And 
 it is put here at the very first where any one 
 ean quickly see it. 
 
 Of course, I am a little old-fashioned about 
 man’s start on this earth. This other teaching 
 has so befogged all the air that it’s quite re- 
 freshing to turn back to God’s own picture. I 
 am rather fond of some old-fashioned things, 
 
122 About the Healing Christ 
 
 water, open air, fresh fruit, natural wheat, the 
 Bible, and the like. 
 
 Adam was made the true full normal human, 
 by direct act of God. He stood at the highest 
 point of mature manhood, physically, mentally, 
 and in spirit understanding. 
 
 He knew civilization at its highest, in minia- 
 ture. For civilization does not consist in the 
 culture which the Greeks had, nor the highly 
 organized life of the Roman, nor the organized 
 complexity of modern times. 
 
 Civilization is a moral thing. Civilization 
 means harmonious life in contact with others. 
 And the essential thing there is moral ideals 
 and moral conduct. So far as any civilization 
 lacks these it is less than real civilization. 
 
 Look at God’s picture, His model in Eden. 
 It is simple, delightfully simple, but never crude, 
 and certainly not savage. 
 
 Here is a human, fresh from the hand of God. 
 He is on terms of intimacy with God. They talk 
 and walk and are busily occupied with their 
 work together. 
 
 This man has an intimate congenial human 
 friend at his side sharing all his life. He has a 
 daily occupation, caring for a garden. 
 
 He has before him a great inspiring task, sub- 
 duing the whole earth. There’s the immediate 
 and the distant, the near and the far, something 
 for hands and something for mind. 
 
 He lived in the open air, sleeping as well as 
 working and resting there. The second day he 
 lived was marked as a rest day. 
 
 a 
 
Human Side of Healing 1238 
 
 He had a daily task, work and exercise com- 
 bined. He had a fruit diet. His food was all 
 sun-cooked. He had pure water to drink. 
 There was running water to bathe in. 
 
 _Is it not a winsome picture? One is more 
 than ever insistent on getting away from the 
 modern phrase ‘‘the ascent of man,’’ and to- 
 ward the older phrase ‘‘the descent of man.’’ 
 
 Certainly it would be a going up to go back 
 to that old Eden standard of civilization and 
 culture and life. 
 
 And there is a plain intimation, too, that this 
 first man’s bodily vigour hinged on his keeping 
 in touch with his friendly Companion, God. 
 
 Do you remember that day they are standing 
 under that tree of opportunity? Through choos- 
 ing not to eat of it as God wished him not to 
 do, choosing to choose God’s choice, Adam would 
 be stepping into a still closer intimacy with 
 God. The highest thing can come only through 
 choice. 
 
 There is a gentle but very plain word of 
 warning about that tree. He could misuse the 
 opportunity it gave him. He could break friend- 
 ship with God if he chose. 
 
 And this is the word of warning, ‘‘ For in the 
 day that thou eatest thereof, dying, thou shalt 
 die.’’* The dying would come automatically 
 through the break. 
 
 There would be a beginning, a continued 
 process, and a final result. The moment he ate 
 was the beginning. The process went on for 
 
 Genesis 2:17, paraphrase. 
 
124 About the Healing Christ 
 
 years. The actual bodily death didn’t come till 
 long years after. 
 
 Now, that intimation naturally includes the 
 reverse, 2. €., if thou keep in touch with me, by 
 thine own voluntary choice, wing, thou shalt 
 live. 
 
 There would be the same movement in the 
 opposite direction, a beginning, a process, a 
 final result. Choosing God’s way would bring 
 him yet closer to God. 
 
 That would be the beginning of a new life 
 by his own choice. And that would grow from 
 less to more until a fulness of life would come, 
 such as one simply can’t take in. 
 
 Touch with God is the basis of full life, bodily, 
 mental, of the spirit. The other word for touch 
 is obedience. 
 
 Obedience is a music word. It means the 
 rhythm of God’s will and a man’s will. No 
 sweeter music was ever made on earth, or heard 
 in heaven. 
 
 All this, you notice, has to do simply with the 
 human side of health. This early model gives 
 God’s own thought of the true full natural 
 human man, as He planned him. 
 
 This Eden idea says, in effect, that a man 
 should have a noble passion, a human friend, a 
 daily task, and an outreaching purpose that 
 ealls for all there is in him. 
 
 His immediate bodily needs are open air, sim- 
 ple food, the exercise of a daily task, a time of 
 rest, and running water near by. 
 
 This first man’s passion was for his Friend, 
 
 
 
Human Side of Healing 125 
 
 to please Him. To carry out His plan. By his 
 side was his complemental self, his one nearest 
 human friend with whom all his life was shared. 
 
 There was a garden of trees and flowers and 
 all growing things to care for, and the cultiva- 
 tion of the whole earth entrusted to him to think 
 about and plan for. 
 
 The Christian and the True Human. 
 
 Now, will you notice keenly that the Christian 
 life means simply the true human life? Sin 
 made the break. Christ mends the break. He 
 renews and restores man. The natural thing na- 
 tive to a man’s being is this of living the true, 
 full, Christian life. 
 
 Anything that isn’t really Christian isn’t hu- 
 man. It’s lower down. It’s less, or a bad more, 
 or a distortion. Sin, selfishness, are lower down 
 than the human level. They hurt the true hu- 
 man. They hurt our health and strength. 
 
 The true Christian life is the real key to 
 health, and to healing where healing is needed. 
 The emphasis, of course, is on that word ‘‘true.’’ 
 
 We are so used to the cheapened, thinned-out 
 meanings, being ‘‘saved’’ from hell and into 
 heaven, church membership, with some attend- 
 ance, some giving of money and maybe service, 
 more or less, as happens to suit one’s ideas; this 
 seems the sum total ofttimes. 
 
 It’s a sort of insurance policy. The chief 
 thing is keeping up the premiums. It’s a sort 
 of immunity bath, a quarantine measure. Some- 
 times it is the ticket of admission into certain 
 
126 About the Healing Christ 
 
 social circles. So much Christianity has no 
 ethical quality to it. It never hurts anybody’s 
 conscience, nor changes his habits. 
 
 Of course, in the simple, true meaning the 
 Christian life is a tender passion burning deep, 
 and then deeper. It’s a purpose gripping all 
 one’s powers. 
 
 It means on the inner side spirit fellowship 
 with the Man that died, on the outer side a 
 warm upright human touch with one’s fellows. 
 
 It means the Jesus passion in control. It is 
 very simple. Some of the simplest unlettered 
 homeliest folks, as well as some of the most 
 scholarly and cultured, quite understand all this. 
 They live it. 
 
 Christ enriches everything He touches. The 
 Devil vulgarizes everything he can lay his hands 
 on. Christ makes the commonest thing hallowed. 
 The Devil makes the purest, the hallowed things, 
 vulgarly common and cheap. 
 
 The Devil puts the devilish touch into man’s 
 life, sometimes foul, sometimes cultured, always 
 devilish. Christ restores the hurt human up to 
 the true human level. Calvary neutralizes the 
 Devil’s power, and restores and enriches the 
 Eden ideal. The new Eden has the passion of 
 sacrificial love in it. 
 
 Now, it is of the simple real Christian life 
 that I am thinking when I say this: the Chris- 
 tian life is the key to health and to healing. 
 This is the human side of both. 
 
Human Side of Healing 127 
 One’s Mental Attitude. 
 
 There are two things that will grow up in 
 such a simple, true, Christian life. They are 
 simple things, but they lie at the very founda- 
 tion. 
 
 They are, a right mental attitude, and an in- 
 telligent obedience to the laws of health. And 
 these are the two things to be emphasized in this 
 - Quiet Talk. 
 
 Let us talk first about that right mental atti- 
 tude. I do not mean that you are to try to have 
 a right mental attitude, simply. That becomes 
 incidental. The emphasis is on something else. 
 That attitude comes naturally out of that some- 
 thing else. 
 
 I mean this: you think about Christ. He died 
 for you. He has won the love of your heart. 
 You trust Him. 
 
 You believe Him. You accept what He says 
 in the Book. You follow where He plainly 
 leads. All this is what faith is. It is thinking 
 about Him. 
 
 You get filled up with Him, who He is, how 
 He loved and loves, what He did, His plans for 
 you, and His promises to you. 
 
 You are full of this, that He is living to-day. 
 He is all absorbed with things down here. He’s 
 intensely interested in you, with personal solici- 
 tude for your personal need, and with a plan for 
 your life. 
 
 This is what faith means; not thinking about 
 your faith, thinking about Him. It isn’t looking 
 in; it’s looking up—to Him. 
 
128 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Now, once that gets fixed in some measure, as 
 a habit, a growing habit, it will affect your 
 mental attitude. 
 
 Your plans and problems, your difficulties and 
 perplexities, your personal habits and tempta- 
 tion, all will instinctively be affected by this 
 mental attitude. 
 
 Christ will loom up in your mind practically 
 as the biggest thing in all your life. You will 
 get into the habit of connecting everything with 
 Him. And that mental attitude will vitally and 
 radically affect your body. 
 
 The worst enemy we all have (outside of the 
 Devil himself) is fear. I mean the fear that is 
 a dread of something. 
 
 There are three kinds of fear. The fear of 
 reverence grows out of love, and is good. The 
 fear of caution grows out of the presence or 
 possibility of danger, and is only good. 
 
 The fear that is afraid of something or some 
 one, a dread, a slavish fear, is bad, only bad, 
 and is a positive injury to one’s body. 
 
 It may grow out of ignorance. Often it is a 
 result of overwrought nerves. It exerts an in- 
 calculable influence on one’s bodily condition. 
 It controls the imagination, and the imagination 
 controls the body. 
 
 All diseases and bodily ailments of whatever 
 sort fall into three groups. Those that are im- 
 aginary; they have no existence at all except in 
 imagination. 
 
 Then there are those ailments which are the 
 result of the imagination’s influence on the 
 
Human Side of Healing 129 
 
 body. And then there are ailments originating 
 otherwise. 
 
 It will seem astonishing if I say that a very 
 large proportion of all bodily ailments is above 
 the ears, or have their origin there, that is, in 
 the imagination. And the smaller proportion is 
 below the ears, 
 
 This seems astonishing. It may be honestly 
 - questioned by those not familiar with the sub- 
 ject. But inereased observation only tends to 
 confirm the truth of the statement. 
 
 Job says, ‘‘I feared a fear and it came upon 
 me.’’’ His sense of dread acted so on his im- 
 agination that it actually produced in his body 
 the thing he feared. 
 
 The Power of Fear. 
 
 Only a little thinking will remind any one 
 that fear, the slavish fear that dreads, is in- 
 bred in most people. 
 
 From the cradle up, the whip of fear is the 
 commonest thing known. This fear is instilled, 
 unconsciously, unintentionally, ignorantly, ha- 
 bitually, from earliest years on through school 
 life and long after. 
 
 It is inbred further by the very evil abnormal 
 atmosphere of our surroundings. It becomes a 
 habit of mind. And the actual bodily injury 
 done is quite beyond calculation. 
 
 An illustration that has become notable of this 
 sort of thing is the story of the man condemned 
 
 1Job 3:25—free reading. 
 
130 About the Healing Christ 
 
 to death for murder. A group of physicians 
 proposed an experiment as a matter of scientific 
 research. The civil authorities concerned 
 agreed. 
 
 They proposed to the condemned man that he 
 submit to a serious surgical operation. And if 
 he survived his sentence of death would be re- 
 mitted and he allowed to go free. He agreed. 
 
 He was stretched on the operating table, face 
 down. A thin bit of cold steel was slowly drawn 
 across his back as though a knife cutting. 
 
 At the same time it was arranged that water 
 would drip from his back, drop by drop, stead- 
 ily down, so it could easily be heard. 
 
 The physicians talked together in his hear- 
 ing, giving the impression that he was bleeding 
 from a wound, and would certainly bleed to 
 death. 
 
 The man actually expired. Yet his body had 
 not been touched except as described. I am not 
 defending the deceit used. 
 
 It is a striking illustration of the slavery of 
 the body to the imagination. He imagined he 
 was surely bleeding to death. And the imagina- 
 tion actually brought death. He feared a fear 
 and it came upon him. 
 
 I recall a mother whose baby was ill. The 
 mother’s milk didn’t agree, but seemed to nau- 
 seate. The mother had been a trained nurse. 
 She is an earnest Christian woman. 
 
 But certain very difficult circumstances that 
 touched her very closely had embittered her 
 spirit extremely. As she thought into things 
 
Human Side of Healing 131 
 
 prayerfully she was led to see just where her 
 baby’s trouble lay. 
 
 She frankly told the physician that she knew 
 why her baby was sick. Her bitter spirit was 
 poisoning the milk in her breast. And the milk 
 was poisoning the child. 
 
 She set herself by prayer to overcome that 
 bitter spirit. Her mental attitude was injuring 
 ‘her own body, and her babe’s. 
 
 The changed mental attitude was followed by 
 a change in her babe’s health. The true Chris- 
 tian spirit certainly had a healing effect on both 
 her own body and her child’s. 
 
 If one’s heart is full of a spirit of confidence 
 and love the mother’s milk is more nourishing. 
 If one is angry the spittle becomes poisonous; 
 if love dominates the spittle is healing. Love 
 heals one’s body. Its reverse hurts the body. 
 
 I know intimately the instance of a friend 
 who was under sore stress of spirit regarding 
 one tenderly loved. The thing ran along for a 
 good while. 
 
 She was an utterly consecrated Christian. 
 But unconsciously to herself her anxiety was 
 greater than her faith in the outcome. And her 
 hair began to grow gray quite perceptibly. 
 
 Some bit of the Book in a time of prayer 
 brought a change. She quit the unconscious 
 worry, and rested, actually rested mentally and 
 in spirit, on the word of Christ regarding the 
 loved one. 
 
 And again it was quite noticeable that the 
 graying of her hair stopped. It stopped quite 
 
132 About the Healing Christ 
 
 definitely from that time. Those closest to her 
 marked it and spoke of it. 
 
 It is a commonplace with the medical frater- 
 nity that the mental attitude affects, and affects 
 most seriously, bodily conditions. 
 
 It has been demonstrated that anger, fear, and 
 the like, not only check secretions and have a 
 paralyzing effect internally, but actually cause 
 the secretion of poisonous substances within the 
 body. 
 
 Fath Runs Fear Out-of-Doors. 
 
 Now, the thing to mark most keenly is this: a 
 simple childlike trust in Christ drives that spirit 
 of dread and fear clean out.’ 
 
 It changes radically one’s mental attitude. 
 The imagination is radically affected. And that 
 change at once begins to work changes in the 
 body. 
 
 It works in three ways. It will actually re- 
 move imaginary ills, and also those ills result- 
 ing from a tortured imagination. It will ae- 
 tually work toward changing bodily conditions, 
 healing where there has been weakness and dis- 
 ease. 
 
 It will tend steadily toward keeping one in 
 prime condition, in full vigour and strength. It 
 will actually ward off disease threatening by 
 contact. 
 
 That new mental attitude reacts in a marked 
 way on one’s nerves. There is a normal re- 
 laxing of tense nerves. Tense nerves are re- 
 
 *t John 4: 18. 
 
Human Side of Healing 183 
 
 sponsible for bodily ailments to an inealeulable 
 extent. A normal relaxation removes a long list 
 of bodily ills. 
 
 The latest expert word on defective eyesight 
 is that it is caused by nervous tension in the 
 eye itself, very largely. It is said that relaxa- 
 tion is the great corrective, making glasses not 
 needed. And this theory is being worked out 
 - with some most surprising results. 
 
 And, be it marked keenly, all this is simply 
 on the natural level of action. I have tried to 
 make it clear that Christ uses supernatural 
 power in healing when need be. 
 
 But this thing I am speaking of now is on the 
 purely natural level. The right touch with 
 Christ affects the mental attitude. And the 
 mental attitude controls largely the functions 
 and sensations of the body. 
 
 From a reliable source the incident comes of 
 a famous Philadelphia physician now deceased. 
 The woman who consulted him told the story. 
 
 She was of a nervous temperament, and her 
 numerous troubles had worried her to such a 
 degree as to affect her health, and even threat- 
 ened to affect her mental balance. 
 
 The eminent specialist listened, and then 
 quietly told her to read her Bible an hour a day, 
 and report again in a month. 
 
 She was indignant. He gently insisted. Re- 
 flection led her conscientiously to do as he ad- 
 vised. The change was most marked. On re- 
 porting again, she asked the physician how he 
 knew just what she needed. 
 
184 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The famous physician turned to a worn, 
 marked Bible lying open on his table, and said 
 with deep earnestness, ‘‘Madam, if I were to 
 omit my daily reading of this Book I would lose 
 my greatest source of strength and skill. 
 
 ‘‘T never go to an operation, or a distressing 
 ease, without reading my Bible. Your @ase 
 called not for medicine but for a source of peace 
 and strength outside your own mind. I gave 
 you my own prescription. I knew it would 
 cure.’’ 
 
 Turning your thought toward Christ fills you 
 with the conception of His reality, His love, His 
 power. Time daily spent over the Book, reach- 
 ing through to Christ, brooding thoughtfully 
 about Him, all this brings that attitude of heart 
 and mind commonly ealled faith. 
 
 It fills your heart with love, love for Him. 
 And love, this drawing of you out tenderly to- 
 ward Him, this casts that slavish fear out. 
 
 You don’t try to turn it out. You’re thinking 
 of Christ. He draws your heart out to Him. 
 You resist the fear. It goes. The love drives 
 it out. You find it gone. 
 
 Now note, that simple faith in Christ does two 
 things. It releases that natural creative heal- 
 ing power within your body. That power 
 swings into action. Its power is beyond ealeu- 
 lation. At least, nobody has yet calculated it 
 fully or adequately. 
 
 It does a second thing. It opens the way for 
 any direct supernatural touch needed in addi- 
 tion to that natural creative healing power. It 
 
Human Side of Healing 135 
 
 was in the days of his wisdom that Solomon 
 said, ‘‘ A tranquil heart is the life of the flesh.’’’ 
 
 Now this is the first of the two main things 
 we are talking about, the right mental attitude 
 which comes as a natural result of a simple, true 
 faith in Christ. 
 
 This is the first half of the chapter of what 
 happens. But, mark keenly, it is only half. 
 -There’s a second half. 
 
 The Body—Master or Servant? 
 
 The second thing that will mark the true 
 Christian is—what? obedience? That is only 
 part of the answer. Shall I say obedience to 
 God’s laws? 
 
 Again that doesn’t tell it out fully. It is this, 
 obedience to Christ in everything, and this in- 
 cludes the common laws of health. 
 
 Now, some saintly folk will begin to think 
 that this is rather dropping to a low level. ‘‘The 
 laws of our body!’’ you say. 
 
 The truth is it is climbing up a bit for most 
 of us. Oh, yes, I know you say you would 
 gladly sacrifice bodily comforts and strength for 
 Christ’s sake. And you mean it. 
 
 Yes, but you need to be on your guard lest you 
 are disregarding the law of your body for your 
 own sake, because of what you prefer, or don’t 
 prefer. 
 
 And, and, this may deprive Christ of the mes- 
 senger He needs. You may be giving Him a 
 poorer crippled service when you needn’t. And 
 
 *Proverbs 14: 30, 
 
1386 About the Healing Christ 
 
 it may be in an emergency when your poorer 
 service, your failure, slows up His plans. 
 
 For Christ’s sake, in the thick of the emer- 
 gency of life, the true Christian seeks to make his 
 body the strongest possible, the most disciplined 
 ehannel through which Christ’s power may flow. 
 And this is done through a thoughtful obedi- 
 ence to its laws. 
 
 This is keeping “‘the body under,’’ under the 
 control of that Christ passion. Disobeying its 
 law, carelessness, not-thinking, may be letting 
 your body get the upper hand. 
 
 It gets from under, up on top, hindering your 
 best service. Christ has been robbed of the 
 needed service of many a saintly child of His, 
 through unconscious thoughtless disregard of his 
 body, or worse. 
 
 The touchstone of the Christian life is the 
 same as the touchstone of the true human life, 
 obedience. But obedience is not a matter of do- 
 ing or not doing certain things. 
 
 It’s on a higher level than that. It’s doing 
 as a certain One wants or would prefer. Not 
 ‘*things,’’ but ‘‘a Person’’ holds your eye. It’s 
 getting or keeping in better shape for the er- 
 rand He has sent you on. 
 
 The thing that seems small or trivial in itself 
 is now thought seriously about. Because so you 
 ean be a truer Christian in your conduct, and 
 so you are better fitted for what that One 
 wants done, and more serviceable to your fel- 
 lows. 
 
 It’s astonishing the commonness of indiffer- 
 
Human Side of Healing 187 
 
 ence to, and disobedience of, the rhythmic laws 
 of health, among not only good but really saintly 
 people. 
 
 Such disobedience or indifference or careless- 
 ness in other matters would rule a man out of 
 life. It would make him a forced exile. 
 
 He couldn’t keep a bank account without care- 
 ful obedience to the laws of the bank. He 
 - eouldn’t run an automobile, nor be a student in 
 any sort of college or school, nor run a success- 
 ful business, nor move in polite society, nor be 
 member of a club. Obedience to law (a recog- 
 nized agreed-upon sequence of action) is the 
 commonplace of all intercourse. 
 
 And the thing moves up to a wholly higher 
 level when it concerns a Christian, and espe- 
 cially when it concerns his body. For the Chris- 
 tian aims to live the truly ideal life in a prac- 
 tical way, for Christ’s sake, as well as for his 
 own. 
 
 And his body is the fine tool he works with. 
 He’ll surely keep his tool in the best possible 
 shape all the time for the sake of the work it 
 does. 
 
 The true Christian takes pains to learn about 
 his body, and to think into its need, that so he 
 ean be free of his body, free to do his work. 
 
 Obedience means intelligence, bemg informed, 
 becoming skilled. So the habit of a wise obedi- 
 ence is formed, and one is strong and free. One 
 thinks about his body so he can forget it in the 
 thick of his work. 
 
 It is striking that the Book of God gives the 
 
138 About the Healing Christ 
 
 principles of everything we need. There are the 
 two models here for the bodily life. The earliest 
 is Adam in Eden before the serpent got in. 
 
 The second is the model of God’s messenger 
 nation. It is much fuller and more explicit, be- 
 cause the serpent had gotten in. And now there 
 are things to guard against. These have been 
 already spoken of. 
 
 Recalling these two models, there are some 
 six things that the thoughtful Christian will 
 think about, so he needn’t think about them 
 when absorbed in his work. 
 
 In a sane, intelligent way he will think about 
 and form certain habits. Then he is free to do 
 something worth while. 
 
 Siz or Sick? 
 
 These six things are, food, air, exercise, sleep, 
 cleansing, and posture. Just a few words about 
 these. 
 
 The body needs food. It needs enough. It is 
 hurt by too much. How much? Enough to 
 keep it strong and fit, and no more. 
 
 It has become quite a commonplace that we 
 all eat too much. Drunkards and topers are 
 supposed to be gone, but eat-ards, and food 
 topers, are still in abundant evidence. 
 
 Much of our strength is taken up in digesting 
 food that tasted good, but adds nothing to our 
 strength. Indeed it takes from strength and 
 makes us less fit. 
 
 The sense of taste shouldn’t decide what we 
 
Human Side of Healing 189 
 
 eat. It has its important place. But, knowl- 
 edge of food, the sense of taste, and keeping fit 
 for one’s work, these together should decide. 
 
 The body needs food of the sort that will 
 keep it in the best fighting shape. One natu- 
 rally believes that the Creator thought about 
 our bodily needs in the provision He made. 
 
 For instance, wheat has in it numerous sub- 
 ‘stances that our bodies need. If commercialism 
 takes most of that nourishment out, so the whit- 
 ened product can be stored without spoiling and 
 loss of money, one naturally avoids such a 
 product. 
 
 Using it is robbing his body of certain things 
 it must have for health and vigour. And this 
 same sort of thinking can be applied to all foods. 
 
 If the way the food is cooked washes much or 
 most of it away, the finer, subtler elements, 
 clearly the body isn’t getting something it needs. 
 A man may be partially starved, even with a 
 loaded table, and a full stomach. 
 
 Proportion of food figures in. Adam in Eden 
 reached up for his food. He had a fruit and 
 nut diet. It was all sun-cooked. 
 
 After the Flood Noah reached down as well 
 as up. He added the things that grew under 
 and close to the soil. And he added animal 
 food. 
 
 That would suggest that the original diet was 
 a fruit and nut diet. It would suggest that 
 flesh food was only one of three sorts. That 
 puts it in a minor place. This suggests pro- 
 portion, a balancing of one’s food. 
 
140 About the Healing Christ 
 
 But all life has greatly changed. It is not 
 normal, What is absolutely best (outside of 
 morals), is very often not best under certain 
 circumstances. And this change affects our 
 bodies and their need. 
 
 If a Christian man, that is a really human 
 man, finds that much less meat and more of the 
 succulent and leafy vegetables and the juicy 
 fruits, day by day, helps him to be less irritable, 
 and in better control of his temper, he will be 
 quick to make the change. 
 
 For the life is more than food, much more, 
 his Christian life. And in that case he will find 
 his body stronger too. 
 
 The thoughtful man comes to know that a 
 radical change takes place in his body about the 
 time an initial four gets into his age. The build- 
 ing stage is past. It required certain foods that 
 go to building the body up to its maturity. 
 
 Now, as he passes that line of bodily change, 
 food is taken simply to repair the waste of his 
 day’s work. 
 
 More than that much adds excessive weight, 
 which itself is a diseased condition, and leads to 
 other diseased conditions. Weight over normal 
 is a diseased and abnormal condition. 
 
 The great insurance companies are modifying 
 their standard tables of age and weight. The 
 standard of weights is being made less. Money 
 sharpens their wits. 
 
 The thoughtful man comes to find that after 
 a certain age a smaller quantity, the lessening 
 or omitting of the heavier foods (meats, eggs, 
 
Human Side of Healing 141 
 
 and the like), actually adds to his physical 
 and mental vigour. 
 
 And as a Christian he does this, for it affects 
 his Christian character, and his usefulness to 
 his Master. 
 
 It is notable that the common diet of many 
 nations runs so largely to the meat-potato-white- 
 bread sort of food, and so little to the succulent 
 -and green leafy vegetables and juicy fruits. 
 
 Yet the dietary experts insist on the necessity 
 of a balanced diet, and especially a lessening of 
 the heavier foods and an increase of the lighter, 
 in middle life and after. 
 
 The thoughtful Christian thinks into these 
 things in a sober, sane, sensible way because he 
 is a Christian. He adjusts his habits. So he 
 keeps his body under control. 
 
 And so he is freer and stronger for his life 
 task. And there is a fine, quaint homeliness in 
 the way the Holy Spirit guides in just such 
 things. 
 
 I recall an unusually saintly man of New 
 York City, a great Christian leader, much blessed 
 in service, a layman, of full bodily habit. 
 
 He had a serious illness. He taught healing, 
 and had experienced it. But now it didn’t come. 
 And he wondered why. There’s a special bit of 
 holding quiet in spirit, and waiting on God in 
 prayer, to know if there was anything hindering. 
 
 And, he said, in my presence, that an answer 
 came. It was in a single word. It was the 
 name of a certain kind of meat of which I 
 imagine he may have been rather fond. 
 
142 About the Healing Christ 
 
 He said that quiet inner voice uttered dis- 
 tinctly one word, ‘‘pork.’’ As he told the story 
 he said, pointing to a Bible, ‘‘It was there, but 
 I hadn’t. obeyed it.’’ I am not discussing pork 
 just now. The thing is both simpler and deeper. 
 The Holy Spirit teaches regarding the homely 
 things, if we want to know. 
 
 Man is an open air being. Our abnormal 
 modern life, called (or miscalled) civilization, 
 has made him an indoors animal. One of the 
 most prevalent disease plagues, tubereulosis of 
 the lungs, is an indoors disease. 
 
 There is no question that the common indoors 
 habit both weakens and shortens life. As things 
 actually are we can’t live a wholly outdoors life. 
 
 But the nearer we can come to it the nearer 
 we are to the true full normal human. And no 
 words are adequate to tell the physical blessed- 
 ness of sleep in the open air. There is nothing 
 that so rebuilds and cushions one’s nerves. 
 
 All out-of-doors air is good air, night and day. 
 God’s air is always good. It’s the shut-up, 
 warmed-up, used-over-and-over-again, air that 
 poisons us. 
 
 Habitual deep breathing, thorough ventila- 
 tion of every space used, and particularly all 
 the out-of-doors air it is possible to get, this is 
 native to us. And the more we ean actually 
 stay out in the open the nearer we come to nor- 
 mal conditions. 
 
 And the body needs exercise. Most of us 
 have to work with our bodily strength for a 
 living, and that gives a certain amount of exer- 
 
Human Side of Healing 148 
 
 eise. Though modern life is apt to make it 
 partial and quite onesided. 
 
 Watch your baby on the floor twisting and 
 stretching strenuously, pulling and turning. 
 That’s its exercise. That helps it digest the 
 food, and keep healthy and grow. 
 
 Walking is by far the best single exercise. 
 No one thing is so good for health as an easy 
 ' swinging walk, with easy shoes, and loose fitting 
 clothing, and head up, and chest out, and arms 
 swinging. 
 
 One can walk away any weakness or disease. 
 The exceptions are few. Graduated walking, 
 beginning with little and increasing gradually, 
 until several miles are easily done, will work 
 wonders simply in getting and keeping in bodily 
 vigour. And the mental stimulus and spirit re- 
 freshing keep pace. 
 
 And so, very soberly, one says that the true 
 Christian walks for health, for Jesus’ sake. For 
 so he is more usable. He can be of better serv- 
 ice to his fellows. And he finds the zest, the 
 sheer zest, of being alive. 
 
 If the editor of a religious paper finds that 
 an hour’s easy swinging walk to his desk or away 
 from it, clears his brain, and steadies his nerves, 
 and sharpens his sentences, and makes clearer 
 and simpler his pen-preaching and teaching, if 
 so, he’ll never miss that walk. 
 
 He is a better editor, a better religious teacher. 
 Men and women are helped more. Christ has a 
 fuller use of him. He could now write a helpful 
 article on walking as a means of grace. 
 
144 About the Healing Christ 
 
 But exercise should be on the baby system. 
 It should include everything from toes to hair, 
 and out to finger-tips. 
 
 Ten minutes given, morning and night, with 
 loose garments, in the open air or at an open 
 window, to a simple series of stretching exer- 
 cises, regardless of age, is a necessity for vigor- 
 ous health. 
 
 The advertising columns are full of sugges- 
 tion. There are plenty of books to run through. 
 One can make up his own simple series of move- 
 ments. 
 
 The point to be kept in mind is that the body 
 is stretched, thoroughly stretched from head to 
 foot. Watch the baby. He is a good teacher of 
 how to do it. Or the eat after a nap. 
 
 The item of sleep gets in without any effort. 
 Some people ought to wake up. But some ought 
 to sleep more. Sometimes sleep is a confession 
 of faith, when it’s sleep time and your body 
 needs it, but anxiety keeps you awake, or your 
 nerves. 
 
 The thoughtful Christian thinks about his 
 sleep until a good sleep-habit is fixed. These 
 nerve-racking days one must sleep. 
 
 And the earlier in the night it is started the 
 better. Sleep before midnight zs beauty sleep, 
 because it is strength sleep. 
 
 One plans for enough, sometimes foregoing 
 something else. He thinks about the details that 
 help sound, deep, refreshing sleep. Sleep re- 
 news the strength while food repairs waste. 
 
 If the mother finds that a half-hour’s lying 
 
Human Side of Healing 145 
 
 down in a quiet room in daytime, whether sleep 
 comes or not, makes her more patient and gentle 
 with the children, and with better self-control in 
 the home, she will prayerfully plan for it. 
 
 So she is a truer Christian mother, and shapes 
 better the children’s character, present and fu- 
 ture. She becomes more serviceable to her Mas- 
 
 ter. 
 
 And cleansing figures in so much bigger than 
 any of us takes in. It is of two sorts, inner 
 cleansing and outer. There are people who 
 bathe fastidiously who would be shocked at their 
 filthy condition inside. 
 
 Health, it is sometimes said, is dependent on 
 three things, food, assimilation, elimination. 
 That is, enough of the right sort of food, the 
 ability to digest and absorb it into the body, and 
 the prompt full throwing out of all the waste. 
 
 It is surprising how much waste there is to 
 be thrown out. Nature provides two ways for 
 its removal, through the skin and through cer- 
 tain inner organs. 
 
 So many diseases are dirt diseases. Often the 
 disease that comes is merely nature trying to 
 eet rid of this accumulation of filth. 
 
 A healthful body takes care of its own waste 
 products. Careful, prayerful obedience to the 
 laws of the body makes a healthful body. 
 
 Careless indifference is pretty apt to make the 
 body very dirty, inside. Bathing, and especially 
 preserving the bodily rhythm, are not beneath 
 the attention of the thoughtful Christian. 
 
 And posture figures in much bigger than one 
 
146 About the Healing Christ 
 
 suspects. We Americans are great sinners in 
 the matter of posture. Man is the one upright 
 animal of all creation. But that fact is slurred 
 over this side the salt water. 
 
 Our American habit of slumping down in the 
 chair, sitting on the small of the back, drooping 
 the shoulders and the like, is a serious thing. 
 
 The vital organs are crowded for space. The 
 whole inner machinery is badly disturbed. The 
 habit of upright posture, standing and sitting 
 and walking, affects one’s health enormously. 
 
 But proper posture is impossible without easy- 
 fitting low-heeled shoes. Nothing is more in- 
 jurious to the whole inner organism than these 
 strange high heels. 
 
 The Blood is the Life. 
 
 There’s a significant sentence in the Book, 
 ‘‘the blood is the life.’’ There is much said all 
 through the Scriptures about blood. And there 
 is the deep spiritual significance in much of it 
 referring to the sacrifice of Christ. 
 
 But quite apart from that teaching just now, 
 there is here a great truth for our bodily health. 
 The blood is indeed the life of our bodies. 
 
 The stomach makes it, the heart pumps it, the 
 lungs purify it, proper exercise keeps it in 
 proper circulation. The whole bodily rhythm is 
 concerned with the blood, its quality and quan- 
 tity and its being kept moving just as planned. 
 
 Good blood, in right quantity, kept moving 
 naturally through the body, means full vigor- 
 ous life. Poor blood, not enough blood, means a 
 
Human Side of Healing 147 
 
 poor defective quality of life. Bad blood means 
 diseased life. Congested blood, too much in one 
 part and too little somewhere else, means dis- 
 order, disease. 
 
 Enough blood, not too much, of the right 
 quality, not too rich, in normal circulation, gives 
 vigorous abundant physical life. Any slip at 
 - any point means either defective or diseased life. 
 And the sort of food decides the sort of blood. 
 
 There are two purposes in bathing. The com- 
 mon use, of course, is for cleansing. The other 
 purpose is to help circulation of the blood, and 
 so through that affect the health in a radical 
 way. 
 
 An old German priest years ago became fa- 
 mous for his so-called water cure. And water 
 cures sprang up everywhere. The dear old man 
 thought it was simply some virtue in the water. 
 And of course that part is true. 
 
 But the thing goes much deeper than that. 
 It is the application of varying temperatures to 
 the body through the medium of water. This 
 affects the disturbed congestion of blood. 
 
 Cold water drives the congested blood away. 
 Hot water draws it to where it is needed. The 
 skilful application of various temperatures rad- 
 ically changes the circulation of the blood. And 
 it is astonishing how long a list of bodily ills 
 can be quite removed in this way. 
 
 There’s a lot of natural healing and of health 
 in our bath tubs if one knew how to use them 
 in this way. 
 
 On the same principle walking in the bare feet 
 
148 About the Healing Christ 
 
 on the grass in the dew of the morning acts as a 
 stimulant. 
 
 Nature hurries warm blood to the feet to re- 
 lieve the sense of cold. The excess of blood in 
 the head or somewhere else is relieved. 
 
 There is no finer tonie for tired brain or over- 
 wrought nerves than walking in bare feet on 
 the cool dewy grass. Care should be taken not 
 to let the feet be cold afterward. 
 
 All this sort of talk may seem rather trivial 
 and homely to some good saintly folk. But, but, 
 if the tired-out preacher Sunday night finds that 
 dipping his feet in sharply cold water, repeat- 
 edly, for a few minutes, and then drying 
 thoroughly, and maybe a bit of friction on the 
 soles, 
 
 If, I say, he finds this steadies his nerves and 
 refreshes his brain, plainly he can be of more 
 service to his congregation. Their sleep can be 
 postponed until after the church service is over. 
 
 For the shortest road to a nervously tired, 
 aching head is usually through the feet. The 
 two ends may meet helpfully in that case. 
 Proper care of the feet is often the surest way 
 to help the head. And this includes easy natu- 
 ral sort of shoes. 
 
 If that same preacher finds that the habitual 
 daily scrubbing of the soles of his feet with a 
 stiff nail-brush full of lather clears the cob- 
 webs out of his weary head, 
 
 And so, makes the sermon better, the sentences 
 clearer and sharper, the words simpler, the il- 
 lustrations bite in better, and the people helped 
 
Human Side of Healing 149 
 
 for the morrow’s task, he is surely likely to wear 
 that nail-brush out at a lively rate, and then get 
 another. 
 
 He’s glad to do it for Jesus’ sake, and for the 
 sake of the crowd, too, that needs help for the 
 daily round. 
 
 . If a Christian man finds that plunging his 
 
 - head repeatedly into a deep bowl of cold water, 
 doing it cautiously till he gets somewhat used 
 to it, and being sure the hair is bone-dry after- 
 ward, if he finds that that sends the excess of 
 blood in his head elsewhere, where it is needed, 
 and there’s a sense of refreshment, isn’t he likely 
 to do it? Just because he’s a Christian? 
 
 He’s an easier man to live with now. He 
 makes a better father and husband, and worker 
 and neighbour. He becomes a better Christian 
 in his daily contacts. Surely anything that will 
 help like that, he’ll do, for Christ’s sake. 
 
 These are the six things suggested by those 
 two old models of personal life, food, air, exer- 
 cise, sleep, cleansing, and posture. They come 
 under the head of obedience, the second of the 
 two main things we are talking of just now. 
 
 Nine Bodily Sins. 
 
 Some of the commonest sins are not classed as 
 sins at all. Yet they are sins against our bodies, 
 and so against Him whose dwelling-place our 
 bodies are. 
 
 Here are the nine commonest sins against the 
 body. Too much food and an unbalanced diet, 
 
150 About the Healing Christ 
 
 lack of balanced exercise, breathing poisonous 
 indoor air, lack of inner cleanliness, taking poi- 
 sons into the body in the shape of stimulants, 
 sedatives and drugs, tense nerves, overwork, 
 wrong posture, and the use of the propagating 
 organs otherwise than as intended by nature. 
 
 These are responsible for by far the greatest 
 number of diseases. Repentance here would re- 
 sult in most physicians losing their practise. 
 But there seems little need for the physicians to 
 worry on this score. | 
 
 And obedience, intelligent, thoughtful, sensi- 
 ble obedience, to the requirements of our bodies 
 would quite remove them. The exceptions are 
 decidedly in the minority. 
 
 Of course, overwork is one of the commonest 
 sins among conscientious Christians. It may 
 come through a lack of judgment. Most times 
 it is, at root, evidence of a lack of faith in Christ, 
 practically. 
 
 There are no breakdowns in the path of obe- 
 dience. But the path of service is strewn thick 
 with saintly wrecks. 
 
 The touchstone of the true life is, not the 
 crowds and their need, not service, not suffering 
 nor sacrifice. 
 
 The touchstone is obedience, simple, clear, in- 
 telligent, full obedience to the Holy Spirit’s 
 plain leading. And when in doubt, wait. 
 
 There’s a Lord to the harvest. There’s a 
 Chief-of-staff. The ordering of strategy and 
 tactics and movements is with Him. Our part 
 is the quiet heart, the open ear, the trained dis- 
 
 * 
 
Human Side of Healing 151 
 
 eernment for His voice, His leading. And then 
 doing as He leads, and only that. 
 
 But, but, the thing to remember constantly is 
 this. It is Christ’s will to forgive the truly 
 penitent, and to heal their bodies. 
 
 And He is at your side now eagerly waiting 
 to do whatever is needed. 
 
VII 
 
 GOD’S SCHOOL OF SUFFERING: CAN WE 
 HASTEN GRADUATION DAY? 
 
 It is Christ’s first will that we should be 
 made pure in heart, intelligent in understand- 
 ing the Father's will, with a passion for doing 
 it, clean out of touch with everything that 
 doesn’t help that way, in warm touch with 
 our fellowmen, inflexibly set against every sort 
 pes and always strong and healthful in 
 ody. 
 
 Guard Your Strong Points. 
 
 I.XPERIENCE is the best teacher, and charges 
 the biggest fee. It insists on being paid, day by 
 day, as you go along. No book accounts al- 
 lowed, nor eredits. 
 
 You don’t pay in cheap stuff like gold and 
 engraved paper and checks. No, you pay in 
 blood and sweat. You pay in your own life 
 given slowly out, sometimes painfully out, un- 
 der tense pressure. 
 
 But you get something. You get much. You 
 get most. You get the one real thing, gold, real 
 gold, the gold of character; you yourself, your 
 changed self, that’s what you get. You’re never 
 the same again. 
 
 Experience means what you go through, and 
 what goes through you. Our knowledge is really 
 limited to just that. We know only what we go 
 through. 
 
 152 
 
God’s School of Suffering 158 
 
 What is woven into the fabric of actual life, 
 that we really know, and only that. The rest 
 we only know about. And there’s a whole solar 
 system of difference between the two. 
 
 Bodily pain bends the most stubborn will. 
 And that is saying a great deal. For there is 
 nothing harder to bend than a stubborn will. 
 
 The will is never broken. It can’t be. It can 
 only be bent, and that means bent from within. 
 No man’s will, however obstinate, can be bended, 
 however slightly, except from within. That is 
 to say, by his own choosing to bend it. 
 
 Every man is an absolute sovereign in his 
 will, from his mother’s breast until the breast 
 of old mother-earth enfolds him at the last. This 
 is the way God made him. 
 
 But bodily pain, cutting, eating in, and then 
 getting sharper-toothed, and persisting, tire- 
 lessly persisting, day in and day out, by night 
 and day, awake and asleep, and when you can’t 
 sleep, that is the sorest pressure that can be 
 brought to bear on a man’s will. It is the whip 
 with the ugliest lash and sting. 
 
 This explains much bodily pain, not all, but 
 much. For there is nothing more mulishly stub- 
 born, in earth or heaven or the depths below, 
 than a stubborn human will. Perhaps you know 
 that. And there is nothing so relentlessly per- 
 sistent as bodily pain can be. It is a fierce con- 
 flict, many a time. 
 
 Often it is stubborn self-will and Love in 
 fierce competition. The self-will refuses to bend 
 even when it knows it should, that it’s right to, 
 
| 
 
 154 About the Healing Christ 
 
 and best to. For stubbornness can become a 
 habit gripping a man beyond his own heart’s 
 wish. 
 
 And Love, with a breaking heart over the 
 pain being suffered by that stubborn will, yet 
 keeps the fire burning more fiercely, to save the 
 man’s life. 
 
 One can be strong enough to be stubborn, but 
 not strong enough to bend. The will is really 
 strongest when it uses its strength in bending 
 to a higher, better, wiser, will. 
 
 But Love wins out. The exceptions are rare. 
 The heart, after all, wins in competition with 
 the will. It kindles gentle fierce fires under the 
 will, and keeps them burning, tender and 
 hot, till the will yields, mellows, bends, eapitu- 
 lates. 
 
 The one thing greater than a stubborn will is 
 a true, tender, hot heart. Love wins. This is 
 the great lesson in God’s School of Suffering. 
 
 A man’s strong point is apt to become his 
 weak point, when he’s out of full touch with 
 God. A man may come to have the possible 
 weakness of his strongest qualities. Away from 
 the steadying touch of God’s presence the pendu- 
 lum swings clear to the opposite limit. Abraham 
 was called a friend of God because he believed 
 Him. His faith in God staggered not at the 
 humanly impossible. Yet he quite failed God, 
 twice, in going to Egypt and so imperilling 
 God’s world plan; and in the Hagar incident. 
 
 Moses was the meekest man, and no one ever 
 lost his temper so badly and completely. David 
 
God’s School of Suffering 155 
 
 was one of the saintliest of men, and no man 
 has given more opportunity to men to revile be- 
 eause of that ugliest moral blot in his life. 
 
 Solomon was the wisest man, at the beginning. 
 _ He became the stupidest moral fool, and so con- 
 tinued to the end. 
 
 Elijah’s boldness and daring made a record, 
 yet he ran away with cowardly swiftness from 
 a woman’s threat. 
 
 Job was esteemed the most patient of men, 
 
 . but was there ever a greater exhibition of hot, 
 
 intolerant impatience than in his replies to his 
 critics? He was the humblest of saints, and 
 quite unconsciously showed how proud a man 
 could be. 
 
 One should keep a keen eye on his strong 
 points. And the eyesight is keenest here when 
 the knees are bent. 
 
 There is simply no telling what may. happen 
 to any of us when we lose full touch with Christ. 
 The Spirit of God is man’s native air. Away 
 from that he certainly gets into bad shape, and 
 does the queerest unlikeliest things. 
 
 Man is free, utterly free, in his will. That’s 
 God’s tenderest touch. In that he is most like 
 God. He becomes a slave, a rank slave, shackled 
 and chained, fo his will. It’s a bit of the ugly 
 trail of sin, the getting out of touch with God. 
 
 It’s Christ’s first will that we should be strong 
 and well in body. But what a time of it He 
 has getting His first will done. 
 
 Some of the saintliest of people, so lovable and 
 gentle personally, have such stubborn wills. Let 
 
156 About the Healing Christ 
 
 us hope it can be said truly that it is quite wn-— 
 consciously that they won’t yield their will to 
 God’s, in some cherished particular. 
 
 We all seem to be a bit set In our own way. 
 Some saintly folk are so sure they know better 
 than God, in certain things. 
 
 One tries hard to believe it is always an un- 
 intentional stubbornness. Maybe putting it so 
 baldly will help the truth break in through that 
 same saintly stubbornness. 
 
 And so there has to be a term of school. Many 
 a dear saint supplies the scholar and the en- 
 trance conditions for the school of suffering. 
 
 And the discipline seems stiff and stern. And 
 the fees are very high. And they are payable 
 daily, and collected too. And the lessons seem 
 hard and the time long. 
 
 But then Love is always the schoolmaster, real 
 Love, tender and true, honest and courageous, 
 uncompromisingly insistent on the highest ideals. 
 
 One hand tenderly and patiently is under- 
 neath strengthening and sustaining, while the 
 other guides and steadies, limits and lessens, the 
 discipline when possible. And the Schoolmas- 
 ter’s eye watches the calendar hoping for an 
 early graduation. And His heart watches with 
 deepest concern the scholar, who alone fixes the 
 graduation date, 
 
 We learn best by stories and pictures. The 
 story is the picture for the ear. The picture is 
 the story for the eye. We learn most through 
 the eye, with the ear a close second. 
 
 There are three stories in this solitary old 
 
God’s School of Suffering 157 
 
 Book of God, pictured stories with the warm, 
 vivid colouring of real human life, that come in 
 here. 
 
 There’s Job at one end, Paul at the other, and 
 Jacob in between. Any one of them is quite 
 enough to tell the story of Love’s schooling, all 
 three together pile things up to the irresistible 
 point. 
 
 Job the Scholar. 
 
 There’s an unusual fascination about the Job 
 story. It is told so fully, and made so vivid, and 
 is so human. It is the first of all these books to 
 be written down. It is put at the gateway into 
 this old Book of God. 
 
 There is purpose in all this. For it deals with 
 the sorest question of human life through the 
 ages, the problem of suffering. Here, simply 
 told, put into men’s hands at once, is God’s own 
 answer to the problem. And it proves an an- 
 swer that answers. It is full and adequate. 
 
 It is striking that there are two parts to the 
 story. The first has caught the eye of the 
 Church; the second part has been strangely 
 slighted, indeed ignored. 
 
 Yet the story is not complete, and the answer 
 not understood, unless and until both parts are 
 taken together. It is one story. 
 
 There are six chapters in the story, all told. 
 In part one there are five chapters. In part two 
 there is just one chapter. 
 
 But what a chapter this sixth, this last chap- 
 ter, is. It fairly vibrates with bubbling-over joy. 
 
158 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Music and exuberant singing fill the air. “augh- | 
 ter and congratulation, praise to God, and 
 happy fellowship among men echo every- 
 where. 
 
 The sun is shining. The birds burst their 
 throats with song. The very air is a-thrill with 
 human gladness. And the music is now in the 
 major key. The minor chording that swept and 
 wept all through part one now becomes a blessed 
 undertone to make the joyousness of the major 
 stand out in bolder relief. 
 
 How strange that the last bit of the Job story 
 has been so ignored. The graduation day ex- 
 ercises have been strangely pigeonholed out of 
 sight. Did some one behind the scenes have a 
 hand in that? 
 
 Look a bit, briefly, at the six chapters of 
 the Job story. Chapter one is the scholar in 
 school. The picture is drawn as men saw him. 
 It tells his common reputation in the whole 
 countryside. He was perfect and upright in all’ 
 his dealings with his fellows. 
 
 There was more, he reverenced God, and ear- 
 nestly sought to please Him. He was thought- 
 fully and intelligently deliberate in this. 
 
 When there had been a time of feasting and 
 convivial enjoyment in the family he was ecare- 
 ful to have a special time of prayer afterward, 
 that if anything had been done or said displeas- | 
 ing or not-pleasing to God it might be forgiven, 
 and so no unsuspected root of wrong-doing be 
 allowed. 
 
 It was his conscientious habit to be pleasing 
 
God’s School of Suffering 159 
 
 to God in the whole habit of his life. And he 
 was careful to guard the life of his growing 
 family. 
 
 All this was commonly known. He was the 
 leading citizen in the community. And this was 
 his reputation. He was upright with others, a 
 thoughtful father in his family, and saintly in 
 his own personal life. 
 
 His very name suggests his character. Names 
 grew up in those days, up out of a man’s char- 
 acter. Here the name given has a distinctly 
 spirit significance. That would be natural with 
 such a man, for his saintliness, his spiritual habit 
 of character, was the outstanding trait. He was 
 called Job, that is, the man hated, hounded, per- 
 secuted to the utmost possible limit. 
 
 His character made him hated. He was heart- 
 ily disliked by those of the opposite ilk. Espe- 
 cially he was hated by the unseen spirit prince 
 of evil, whose personality in that early day was 
 never questioned. 
 
 This is the picture men saw, a man so con- 
 scientious, so upright, so thoughtfully method- 
 ically righteous and saintly as to arouse opposi- 
 tion in some quarters. 
 
 There’s another bit in the picture of the man 
 that comes out later in the whole story. It was 
 the side that God saw, the inside of his char- 
 acter. 
 
 He was so humble that, probably quite un- 
 consciously, he was proud of it. There was a 
 subtle unsuspected inner satisfaction with his 
 spiritual attainments. 
 
160 About the Healing Christ 
 
 What a strange bit of irony, pride in being 
 humble! But a snake may crawl noiselessly 
 through the greenest grass, and among the most 
 fragrant flowers. 
 
 He was so conscientious in planning the whole 
 habit of his life as pleasing to God that he 
 slipped a bit in the real thing. 
 
 Without being aware of it that very con- 
 scientiousness, and methodical care, and saint- 
 liness of habit, got in to his inner subconscious-~ 
 ness even more than God Himself. 
 
 He would have been the first to pull himself 
 up had he recognized the tendency. He was 
 quick as a flash on his face when God actually 
 spoke to him, and things got straightened out. 
 
 But that’s the man, the scholar in the school, 
 the two men in one, the man his neighbours saw, 
 and the man God saw. 
 
 That’s chapter one. Men saw a humble 
 godly man. God saw a bit of dross in the rare 
 fine gold of this man’s character. 
 
 Job—First Session of School. 
 
 Chapter two is the first session of school. In 
 the upper spirit realm there’s a reviewing of 
 things down on the earth. 
 
 Satan is spoken of for the first time in the 
 Seriptures, and spoken of by that name, the 
 Satan, the accuser, the hater, the hounder of 
 men, 
 
 God takes the initiative regarding Job. This 
 
 1 Job 1: 1-5. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 161 
 
 is significant. There’s a purpose at work. God 
 speaks of the well-known character of Job. 
 
 Satan maliciously slanders Job as an utterly 
 selfish man who finds it to his advantage to be 
 righteous. Satan is given permission to inter- 
 fere in Job’s affairs, but within strict limita- 
 tion.’ 
 
 Then the scene of the story shifts to the earth 
 again. Job’s opportunity has come. The door 
 up-stairs is to open at his feet. 
 
 War, marauding bands, lightning, a terrific 
 wind-storm, these come one after the other with 
 a rush, And everything is swept away, children 
 and possessions one after another in quick suc- 
 cession. 
 
 And there is a terribly dramatic piling up of 
 the calamities as the story is told, by one breath- 
 less messenger after another, to Job. 
 
 And in this sore hour of bereavement, with 
 torn and bleeding heart, Job never flinched in 
 his simple trust in God, and his unfailing per- 
 sonal devotion to Him. Things have gone aw- 
 fully bad. But there’s no reproach in Job’s 
 heart. 
 
 It is significant that the immediate origin of 
 his trouble is quite unrecognized. He supposes 
 that it is God Himself in action doing all this.’ 
 It gives emphasis to his humble, uncomplaining 
 submission to God, though he can’t understand 
 why such things should happen to him. 
 
 Again the scene shifts to the upper realm, and 
 
 Job 1:6-12. 
 ? Job 1: 21. 
 
162 About the Healing Christ 
 
 again God speaks of the righteousness of Job, 
 though so sorely tried. And again Satan slan- 
 ders and imputes selfish motives. And now the 
 restriction on Job’s person is withdrawn, within 
 a strict limit.’ 
 
 Then comes the touch on Job’s person. One 
 of the worst plagues known in that sub-tropical 
 climate, uleerous sores, known as the black 
 leprosy of Egypt, this breaks out in Job’s body. 
 God’s gracious protecting restraint is partially 
 withdrawn, for a brief time. 
 
 And poor saintly Job, sitting on an ash heap, 
 scraping his itching sores with the sharp edge 
 of a broken piece of crockery, quite takes hold 
 of one’s heart. 
 
 Then his wife loses heart, and incoherently, 
 bitterly cries out against God. And that doesn’t 
 make things any better certainly. It’s a bitter 
 draft to swallow when a man doesn’t feel his 
 wife by his side, close up, steadying and be- 
 lieving in him. 
 
 His wife’s unfailing touch and presence and 
 atmosphere strengthens a man quite beyond 
 words. Its absence is felt keenly now, even 
 though the answering voice is still quiet and 
 steady. 
 
 Then the three neighbours come. They are 
 supposed to be comforters, deeply grieved over 
 their old neighbour’s sore plight. For seven si- 
 lent days and seven yet more silent nights they 
 sit looking. 
 
 * Job 2: 1-6. * Job 2: 7-13. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 163 
 
 Peering aslant and direct, at Job and at each 
 other, with never a word spoken, but many a 
 thought thought, they sit. 
 
 That was the decisive stroke. Job broke un- 
 der that. His keen ear heard their unspoken 
 thoughts. His sensitive spirit felt the cutting 
 edge of those peering eyes. 
 
 . Loss of property, loss of children, loss of 
 health, loss of his wife’s sympathetic fellowship, 
 he stood up under these. 
 
 But, loss of his sacred privacy, and then the 
 eriticism all the keener and more cutting be- 
 cause unspoken, and all this continued unbroken 
 seven full days and seven sleepless nights, that 
 was a terrific climax. Job broke under that. 
 Little wonder! 
 
 The time test is the hardest test. The patience 
 of patient Job ran out. He was a cunning 
 strategist that planned that campaign, devilishly, 
 cruelly, heartlessly cunning. This is chapter 
 two, the first session in school. 
 
 Job—Inside. 
 
 Then comes chapter three, the unsuspected 
 man inside is revealed.” ‘‘ After this,’’ this 
 sevenfold cunningly piled-up climax of attack, 
 Job ‘‘eursed his day.’’ 
 
 That is, tacitly, quite unintentionally in all 
 probability, he cursed God who gave the creative 
 touch that day of birth. 
 
 And for bitterness of spirit, biting sarcasm, 
 persistent absorption in his own integrity and in 
 
 * Job 3: I-31: 40. 
 
164 About the Healing Christ 
 
 the unfairness of all that’s happening to him, 
 for rebellion against God and God’s dealings, it 
 would be difficult to match Job in the flood of 
 talk that is now loosened out. 
 
 How pain itself, with no touch of grace al- 
 lowed in, sharpens the tongue, makes picturesque 
 rhetoric, and puts acid in the spittle! It’s im- 
 mensely suggestive. 
 
 The three critics, called comforters, go at him 
 in turn. And the burden of their talk is this: 
 all these calamities mean that God is acting in 
 judgment on Job for his wickedness. 
 
 They insist that all his godliness is a mere 
 sham to cover up the utter selfishness and actual 
 wickedness underneath. Their talk hangs well 
 together. There’s thorough consistency. 
 
 It is full of pious phraseology, inaccuracies, 
 half truths, and positive untruths. It’s a queer 
 tangle and mixture. It has a strangely familiar 
 modern sound. 
 
 It is not difficult to understand who sent them, 
 or which side they represent in this pathetic 
 conflict going on, on the battlefield of Job’s life. 
 
 It’s the last stroke of that carefully planned 
 attack. One should be careful with quotations 
 from the Book of Job, to note whose words are 
 being quoted. 
 
 But Job out-talks them. As the debate goes 
 on their talks get shorter, his longer. He talks 
 nine times, all three of them eight times. He 
 says half as much more as they. 
 
 His bitterness increases. At last they quit. 
 They are talked out. The case is hopeless to 
 
on, eel 
 
 God’s School of Suffermg 165 
 
 them because this man Job is so set in believing 
 in his own righteousness. They give Job up as 
 a hopeless incorrigible. 
 
 This is the first session of the school. The 
 examinations show Job up in rather bad shape. 
 Job lays himself bare. He is indeed a rare saint 
 
 _ in the utter integrity of his heart and life. 
 
 But he doesn’t understand. He is in the dark. 
 And he blunders badly. That’s why the story 
 is put down here, so his spirit kinsfolk need not 
 make the same blunders. 
 
 Job questioned God’s love, which is always 
 above question or suspicion. Because he doesn’t 
 understand he questions God’s love, which means 
 he doubts it. 
 
 And in the sore experience, certain unsus- 
 pected things that were inside came out. They 
 must have been in or they couldn’t have come 
 out. As you see them coming out you know 
 that, all unsuspected, they were hidden away in- 
 side. 
 
 It’s a strange sight indeed this. Saintly Job, 
 rarest of saints in the purpose of his heart, and 
 the uprightness of his conduct, unconsciously 
 letting the seamy side stick out, 
 
 Sitting on the ash heap, talking, with the 
 sharp-edged bit of broken crockery in rhythmic 
 motion on his itching scabs, declaring his own 
 righteousness, and reviling God and God’s deal- 
 ings. Cutting sarcastic flings intermingle with 
 msistence on his faith in God. 
 
 The examinations go hard with Job. They 
 show up something inside never suspected. He 
 
166 | About the Healing Christ 
 
 doesn’t see it yet. Job’s weakness is laid bare. 
 His humility is the last thing in view now. In- 
 deed it’s clear out of view, lost sight of. 
 
 And where is the proverbial patience of pa- 
 tient Job? All this rebelliousness of spirit 
 against God, this biting, burning sarcasm, this 
 utter absence of the love spirit, this utter de- 
 pressed absorption in himself, this exaggerated 
 ego, this had all been in, quite unsuspected. 
 Else it couldn’t have gotten out. 
 
 One begins to understand now about that 
 school of suffering. The graduate, with honours, 
 of many schools is having a final post-graduate 
 course. God wants him up higher, highest, with 
 full honours, but forgetting all about the hon- 
 ours in thinking about his wondrous God. 
 
 Now comes chapter four, God’s teacher comes. 
 The second session of school opens. God takes a 
 hand in things indirectly. He sends a mes- 
 senger, Elihu. Elihu is a teacher. And what 
 poor saintly righteous Job needed above all 
 things just now was a teacher. 
 
 His heart was all right, but his understanding 
 of things was muddled. The teacher quietly, 
 patiently, gently, plainly, teaches. Then Job’s 
 eyes begin to open. New soft light begins to 
 break in. 
 
 First of all this teacher explains just why 
 all this has happened to Job. He repudiates ut- 
 terly what the three critics had been declaring 
 so positively. 
 
 God had not been acting in judgment on Job. 
 
 * Job 32: 1-37: 24. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 167 
 
 The whole thing is on a wholly higher level, a 
 love level, a wooing level. 
 
 Elhu points out that Job had been insisting 
 on his own integrity. He was rebelling bitterly 
 because of what had happened to him, and 
 against God’s dealings with him, and so against 
 
 God Himself." 
 
 - Job had been proud of his sanctity, the utter 
 uprightness of his conduct, and the sincerity of 
 his heart. He had become absorbed with him- 
 self, his saintliness. He was proud of being so 
 humble, quite unconsciously.’ 
 
 For pride is simply being taken up with your- 
 self in any degree or any way, and not getting 
 God in in His own place. 
 
 Humility is simply letting God in to one’s 
 thought and imagination and purpose as big as 
 He really is. All we have is from God, a direct 
 gift to be held in trust. 
 
 Talents, gifts, powers, possessions, everything 
 is given by Him. It is a trust in the full legal 
 meaning of that word, and then the higher love 
 meaning. 
 
 All these gifts are at their best only as God’s 
 touch is upon them in full, which means, is upon 
 you in full. 
 
 No one is true to himself, and to his powers, 
 and to his neighbours, except as all is yielded up 
 to God’s touch, full constant touch. 
 
 And when that’s so the mind, the imagination, 
 the will, are all absorbed with the thought of 
 
 * Job 33: 8-12. 
 * Job 33: 17. 
 
168 About the Healing Christ 
 
 God Himself, His love so beyond words, and all 
 that grows out of His love. 
 
 Pride is the assertion of one’s self. Humility 
 is being so taken up with some One else that 
 one thinks of himself only in relation to that 
 One. 
 
 Then in a simple, practical, wholesome way 
 all one’s powers, one’s relation to his fellows and 
 to the day’s task, fall into right place. That’s 
 the touch upon you of this One you’re so taken 
 up with. 
 
 That absorption in God, in Christ, is a very 
 practical thing. You have seen a babe watch- 
 ing intently the mother’s face, utterly absorbed, 
 conscious of nothing else. And the sight has 
 caught your heart. 
 
 And so the mother with her babe, a lover with 
 his lover, a husband with a wife. This thing of 
 being absorbed in some one else is common 
 enough to know about, blessedly so. 
 
 Job was being wooed from absorption in him- 
 self up to the higher level, forgetting himself 
 in seeing God. If ever a man really sees God 
 he loses himself at once. And yet he really gets 
 hold of his true self in losing himself in God. 
 
 Elihu gently but firmly puts his finger on the 
 sore spot. Job had been taken up with himself. 
 His whole trouble at root was pride, thinking 
 about himself." That’s the teacher’s first point, 
 tactfully, clearly made. 
 
 Then the teacher goes on. Something hap- 
 pens. Sickness comes. Elihu touches only one 
 
 * Job 33: 13-18. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 169 
 
 thing in Job’s troubles. But that is enough, 
 and makes things simpler to Job’s understand- 
 ing. 
 
 Elihu doesn’t go into the matter of the process 
 by which the disease came to Job, just now, as 
 is told in the beginning of Job’s story. There’s 
 a vivid description of a desperately sick man.’ 
 ’ That’s the teacher’s second bit. 
 
 Then comes a teacher to make things clear to 
 this sick man.” Elihu modestly speaks of him- 
 self only indirectly. A paraphrase helps make 
 the thought clearer, a translation into simple 
 English of the underneath thought. 
 
 Elihu says, ‘‘If there be with the sick man a 
 messenger, a teacher, one in the close, confidential 
 touch of personal love, to explain things to him 
 patiently and gently and clearly ;—’’ 
 
 Then comes prayer, and the healing.” Now 
 the healed man frankly says, ‘‘I have sinned.’’ 
 There’s a vast difference between being told you 
 are a sinner and actually confessing yourself 
 that you are a sinner. 
 
 Now, healed, the man goes about singing. He 
 is so absorbed with such a wondrous God as he 
 has found all anew that he goes about telling 
 his neighbours and friends about Him. 
 
 This is the heart of Elihu’s teaching. There 
 are six links in its chain, pride, disease, a teacher, 
 prayer, healing, telling others about this won- 
 drous God. 
 
 *Job 33: 19-22. 
 * Job 33: 23. 
 * Job 33: 24-28. 
 
170 About the Healing Christ 
 
 And the rest of Elihu’s talk, by far the greater 
 part, is taken up chiefly in talking about God. 
 Unconsciously he becomes a fine illustration of 
 what he is talking about. 
 
 I can imagine that already a bit of restful 
 sigh escapes Job’s lips. His thought is sharply 
 changed. What fine psychology! He turns 
 away from himself (what a relief!) to—@od,’ 
 That’s the close of the second session of school. 
 
 Job Sees God. 
 
 Then the third session opens. This is the 
 fifth chapter of the story, Job gets a sight of 
 God.’ God speaks. Job hears, and gets down 
 on his face at once. God picks up the thread 
 where Elihu had dropped it, and goes on weav- 
 ing the same fabric. 
 
 And what God does is this, simply this, but 
 all of this: He looks into Job’s face. Job never 
 forgot the sight. God talks in a very simple, 
 homely way about Himself. 
 
 Job gets a picture of God, the Creator, His in- 
 telligence that could think things out, His wis- 
 dom that could so skilfully adapt means to end, 
 His power that could actually do what He did; 
 and then above all, running through all and be- 
 tween the lines is this: His love; He did it, ac- 
 tually did what He did. 
 
 Job got a picture of God. He never got over 
 it. He’s down on his face in the dust. It’s a 
 
 *Job chapters 34-37. 
 * Job chapters 38-41. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 171 
 
 remarkable face-about. ‘‘Mine eye seeth Thee: 
 I abhor myself.’’* 
 
 And then God graciously gives Job a rare 
 opportunity. It is not a test to see if Job can 
 stand it. It is Job’s opportunity to reveal the 
 wholly new spirit now in control. It is his op- 
 portunity to be like God. 
 
 He is to pray for these poor befogged critics. 
 They certainly need it. And he gladly does it. 
 He is so taken up now with God that everything 
 is affected. The absorbing thought of such a 
 God comes swamping in. It takes possession. 
 It graciously grips him. 
 
 The bitter sarcasm toward these critics goes 
 elean out. Love, that is to say, God, fills his 
 heart. He is grateful for the outlet of this new 
 passion. He gladly prays for these men that 
 they, too, may see this wondrous God. 
 
 The real God-touch means a humaner human- 
 touch. Job is really humble now, but he doesn’t 
 know it. He’s so absorbed with God that he 
 quickly forgives and loves his bitter critics. Be- 
 eause that’s being like God. That’s the God- 
 touch. 
 
 When a man thinks he is humble he may know 
 at once that he isn’t. He’s thinking about him- 
 self. When one thinks in his heart that he 
 really is saintly, he may know for a truth that 
 he isn’t. He hasn’t the real thing; for he’s 
 taken up with himself. 
 
 The real thing of humility is being absorbed 
 with God. Then you become unconsciously like 
 
 * Job 42: I-09. 
 
172 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Him. It becomes a passion, an intensely prac- 
 tical passion, to get others in touch, too. That’s 
 the God-touch. 
 
 Humility is such a sensitive plant, when you 
 think you have it it withers up at once, and dies. 
 This is the third session of school. Job sees God, 
 and gets down on his face, and then reaches out 
 to help others. 
 
 Then comes chapter six, Graduation Day. 
 School’s out. Satan is heard of no more. He 
 has slunk away. Resisted, he fled. The healing 
 touch comes without being asked for. And it’s 
 a full healing. It includes body and family and 
 circumstances and length of life. 
 
 And the striking thing that catches you at 
 once is this: Job fixed the date for graduation 
 day. The whole decision rested with him. His 
 will had new strength now. It could bend, bend 
 to the higher will. 
 
 And it did. That was the turning point. 
 That fixed the date. All God’s power and love 
 wait on man’s consent. We control the door 
 through which God enters our lives. 
 
 How long did this school of suffering last? 
 There were three sessions, then graduation day. 
 But how much time did the whole take? 
 
 I don’t know in actual days and weeks. It 
 doesn’t tell. But the story as told gives the im- 
 pression that the whole thing could have oc- 
 curred within a few weeks, from new moon to 
 full. 
 
 How long did this school last? I do know. I 
 
 “Job 42: 10-17. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 178 
 
 know exactly. Just as long as it took Job to get 
 down on his face; then graduation day. 
 
 Job could have made it last much longer. 
 Any one can. Some are strong enough to talk 
 humbly about themselves, and submissively. 
 But they’re not strong enough to bend, bend 
 clear down. 
 
 You’ve got to get clear down to see God’s 
 face, and hear His voice. The best view of God 
 is gotten on your face in the dust. Then the 
 eyes of the spirit open. 
 
 And even the ash heap, and that broken piece 
 of crockery, become fragrant memories. For 
 they became the gateway into that blessed change 
 of spirit. And through that the healing and all 
 the rest came. 
 
 School fees were never so high. Ask Job. And 
 payment of fees was never more cheerfully as- 
 sented to, afterward, when school was out. 
 
 One is quick to note that there is a twofold 
 purpose in this old Job school-story. There was 
 a purpose for Job himself. 
 
 And there was a purpose through Job. Job 
 has been a silent eloquent preacher to men ever 
 since his story was lived in the plains and hills 
 of Uz. 
 
 There was a distinct purpose of service in 
 Job’s experience. The whole Church, and some 
 day the whole race, will be grateful to Job for 
 being a good scholar in God’s school. 
 
 Paul’s Thorn—The Man. 
 The second of these outstanding picture- 
 
174 About the Healing Christ 
 
 stories is that of Paul, Paul’s thorn. Whenever 
 one talks rather positively about prayer, or 
 about bodily healing, some one always remem- 
 bers and asks about Paul’s thorn. Well, there 
 certainly is distinct help for us all here. 
 
 First a look at the man, then a look at his 
 thorn. The best light on this troublesome thorn 
 is the man. He, his character, and the great 
 bit of work for God he was chosen to do, these 
 throw the best light on that stinging, sticking 
 thorn. 
 
 Paul is a great man from any point of view, 
 and a great saint. His Hebrew blood, his aris- 
 tocratic family and breeding, his inherited and 
 acquired culture, 
 
 His university training, his breadth of out- 
 look, his inflexible conscientiousness, his passion 
 of devotion to his Master, what a man he was 
 among men! What a saint among saints! 
 
 What a giant he was in his will. The un- 
 flinching unfaltering insistence on his task, in 
 spite of opposition and difficulties, all those ardu- 
 ous journeys in the thick of hardships of every 
 imaginable sort up to the limit of endurance, 
 these all tell what a giant he was in his will. 
 
 But, speak softly, his strong will sometimes held 
 the lines too tight. A man’s weak point is pretty 
 apt to be the swing-away of the pendulum on his 
 strong point. Paul had the possible weakness of 
 his strongest qualities. He was a bit set in his 
 way. 
 
 Say it very softly, for we are talking about 
 dear old saintly Saint Paul. Say it yet more 
 
God’s School of Suffering 175 
 
 softly, for where one speaks of one weak spot 
 in him he quickly calls to mind a half-dozen in 
 himself. Yet say it distinctly, to help. 
 
 God had a hard time getting Paul to go His 
 way. God found it difficult sometimes to get 
 Paul to fit into His plans. Paul had a plan or 
 two of his own. Perhaps just one or two of us 
 ‘may have heard of such a thing before. 
 
 From the time of that never-to-be-forgotten 
 experience on the Damascus road, with the light, 
 and the voice, and the overwhelming sense of 
 power, Paul knew that his errand was to the 
 outer non-Jewish world. 
 
 The nations of the earth, the Gentiles, this 
 was to be his field of service. The very magni- 
 tude of it must have appealed to the imagination 
 of this giant and saint. 
 
 But, from the first, he had an intense desire 
 to go to the Jerusalem Jews. He felt he could 
 get them. 
 
 It was a perfectly natural thing, for Paul had 
 been so closely associated. with them. And his 
 very sense of strategy in action suggested and 
 emphasized it. 
 
 He felt in his bones, ‘‘I know them. I trained 
 with that group. I know how to take them. Let 
 me at them. If once we can get them it will 
 mean so much. 
 
 ‘‘Tt’s the strategic thing. They crucified 
 Jesus. They stoned the Holy Spirit, in effect, in 
 stoning Stephen. But, but, let me at them.”’ 
 This was deep down in his spirit. 
 
 Indeed the thing went rather far. Early in 
 
176 About the Healing Christ 
 
 his Christian life Christ had given Paul a spe- 
 cial vision about this very matter when Paul 
 was praying in the sacred precincts of the temple 
 in Jerusalem.’ 
 
 And the Lord gave him specific directions to 
 get out of Jerusalem, out to the outer non-Jewish 
 world. The Jerusalem leaders were incorrigibly 
 set in their stubborn rejection, he was told. 
 
 Then a strange thing happened, passing 
 strange. Paul actually begins to argue with the 
 Lord why he was specially qualified for a Jewish 
 mission ! 
 
 This was surely taking things to great length, 
 the soldier under orders arguing with the chief- 
 of-staff why he should not do as he was bid, but 
 something else he preferred! Did dear saintly 
 Paul’s intensity blur his thinking? 
 
 Yet it seems to me, yes, I can recall something 
 of that sort in modern times, and among saintly 
 folk, too. And the temple interview closes with 
 a clear positive command—‘‘ Depart; for I will 
 send thee far hence (from Jerusalem) to the 
 outer non-Jewish peoples.’’ 
 
 And Paul went. With all his splendid powers 
 and devotion he went. But he never lost that 
 early inner passionate longing. He insisted 
 upon it, years after, against distinct intimations 
 of the Holy Spirit in line with that temple inter- 
 view.” 
 
 His insistence changed the whole latter part 
 of his outstanding career. That’s a little look-in 
 
 * Acts 22: 17-21. 
 * Acts 21:4, with references. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 177 
 
 at this rare saintly giant of God. It explains 
 the thorn that came, and was not taken away. 
 
 Paul’s Thorn—Healing While Not Healed. 
 
 Now, about the thorn.* There came some seri- 
 ous ailment in his body. No one knows what it 
 was. The long learned discussions are so much 
 ’ waste breath, when time is so precious and real 
 things so pressing, too. 
 
 It doesn’t matter a grot what it was. It was 
 there, and it stayed. It interfered. It hurt 
 keenly. 
 
 Paul didn’t think so much of it, at first. There 
 was Christ to go to. He would go and ask for 
 healing. And the healing touch would come, he 
 felt quite sure. 
 
 All Paul’s experience would lead him to ex- 
 pect the healing touch. He had that remark- 
 able two years’ campaign in Ephesus, where heal- 
 ings to a quite unusual degree were the out- 
 standing feature.’ 
 
 Earlier there had been the man crippled from 
 birth, never able to walk, now leaping and walk- 
 ing through Christ’s touch, at the word of Paul.’ 
 
 There is the yet more remarkable bit, toward 
 the latter part, of the young man at Troas on 
 the Afgean, actually brought back from the 
 dead. 
 
 And Paul had taught healing. It was part of 
 his group of teachings to the churches wherever 
 
 *2 Corinthians 12: 7—I0. 
 
 ? Acts 19: 10-12. 
 ® Acts 14: 8-I0. 
 
178 About the Healing Christ 
 
 he went. He himself had known the healing 
 touch. 
 
 He had the best of reason for expecting heal- 
 ing now. Indeed he seems not to have doubted 
 that the healing touch would come, But it 
 didn’t. 
 
 Again he prays specifically for healing. Still 
 there is no change. The thorn stayed. Its 
 needle-point gets sharper, and sticks persistently 
 in. Ugh! how it hurt! A third time Paul goes 
 to his knees, how earnestly and intensely some of 
 us can understand. 
 
 Now, please notice keenly, there’s an answer 
 to his prayers. There are three items in the 
 answer. First of all, the man is answered 
 though the petition is denied. Paul is not 
 ignored. His prayer is heard. Christ never 
 ignores any one, nor fails to hear any honest 
 prayer. 
 
 The second thing to note is just what Christ 
 said in His answer. I can see dear saintly old 
 Paul one night all alone with his thorn. The 
 day’s work is done, the stitching of tent-canvas, 
 and talking to the crowds, and to the two’s and 
 three’s. 
 
 He is tired. He has gone to bed. He would 
 sleep but for that thorn. He turns and twists, 
 and longs for the sleep that doesn’t come. And 
 he wonders why the healing touch hasn’t come. 
 He is just a bit perplexed, maybe a bit depressed. 
 
 Then, quietly, very quietly, a voice comes, an 
 inner voice, quiet as Hermon’s dew, clear as the 
 tone of a bell. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 179 
 
 And the voice said, ‘‘ Paul, I know about that 
 thorn, and how it hurts. It hurts me, too. It 
 hurts me because it hurts you. 
 
 ‘‘But, Paul,’’ the voice goes quietly steadily 
 on, ‘‘ it’s a bit better to let the thorn stay, be- 
 cause, only so can I have the use of you, the full 
 free use of you, in My plans for the world I 
 gave My life’s blood for.’’ 
 
 And a hush comes over the dear man’s spirit. 
 There comes with the voice a look within. In- 
 stinctively Paul begins to understand better. A 
 soft clear light breaks. 
 
 He knows, at once, yet better, how true is the 
 word being so gently spoken. He knows that 
 the diagnosis is accurate. And he lies quiet, with 
 a great deep hush in his inner spirit. That’s the 
 second bit of the answer. 
 
 Then the voice comes again. When the pause 
 has deepened the impression, more comes. The 
 voice goes on in yet quieter gentler lingering 
 tones, 
 
 ‘** Paul, I’ll be so near you, you will have such 
 a sense of My presence, that you’ll forget the 
 thorn even while you feel it cutting in.”’ 
 
 Years after I can see the blessed old service- 
 scarred saint in his own hired house in Rome. 
 It’s rather late at night. 
 
 The crowds have been thronging the house, 
 erowds from all over the world, in this great 
 world centre, Rome. An Egyptian had sat over 
 there, and a dark-skinned Ethiopian yonder. 
 
 A cultured-faced man from the Euphrates, 
 and a fair-skinned Caucasian had’ been standing 
 
180 About the Healing Christ 
 
 in the corner side by side. Keen-eyed Greeks, 
 vigorous Latins, alert courtly Spaniards, the eul- 
 tured and the scholarly, the unlettered and the 
 simple folks, gently jostled each other. 
 
 They had crowded in, listening so intently, 
 and questioning so eagerly. And the unseen 
 Presence had been so real. And Paul’s heart 
 was all aglow as with a pressure of the hand 
 they had slipped out into the night. Now, they 
 have all gone. Once again the burning Christ 
 message has gone out to the whole world. 
 
 Paul is sitting quietly, slowing down inside 
 before seeking bed and sleep. One arm is around 
 young Timothy, not quite so young now. The 
 other hand is laid caressingly upon dear faithful 
 Doctor Luke’s arm. 
 
 They’re talking in subdued tones. And as 
 you listen in you hear Paul say, ‘‘Do you know, 
 dear old friends, I wouldn’t have missed the 
 thorn for the presence ——”’ 
 
 And the sentence breaks off. A bit of hoarse- 
 ness, the hoarseness of deep emotion, thickens 
 his voice. And the look of deep reverence and 
 love mingled deepens in his companions’ faces. 
 
 Then he goes quietly on, ‘‘—the presence, the 
 wondrous glory-presence of Jesus, beyond words, 
 that has been with me through it all.’’ 
 
 And the clearer light breaks on his listeners. 
 The inner understanding deepens. <A great si- 
 lence falls on them. They know they’re at the 
 deep springs. 
 
 They are being allowed to see a bit into the 
 Lord’s passion for His world, and the place this 
 
God’s School of Suffering 181 
 
 grayed veteran is having in it. The emergency 
 of sin has gripped both, the unseen One and 
 this man so great in his suffering and in his 
 service. 
 
 Yet, yet, there’s a bit to add. I am clear, and 
 I grow yet clearer, that our Lord Jesus still 
 prefers to take the thorn away. And He will 2f 
 He may have His way, His first way. 
 
 Graduation day comes later to Paul. It came 
 one day just outside that city, with an escort 
 of imperial Roman soldiers. Yet, very softly, 
 and still very distinctly, let the words be spoken, 
 it might have come sooner. 
 
 But in the mix-up of a strong human will, not 
 unlike other wills we know, and a world in the 
 sore emergency of sin’s havoc, and the great 
 passion of the Heart that broke once, things 
 were as they were. 
 
 There’s something yet farther to note here of 
 much significance. Without any question Paul 
 was repeatedly conscious, indeed continuously 
 conscious of Christ’s healing touch on his body 
 through all this rare difficult experience. 
 
 As one reads the whole story through the fact 
 is plainly borne in that Christ’s healing touch, 
 in protection, in strengthening, and in actual 
 healing, was with Paul through all those thorn 
 years. 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to fit in chron- 
 ologically the beginning of this distressing ail- 
 ment. But one remembers that Paul had been 
 left for dead just outside Lystra in Asia Minor. 
 And the intense hatred of those Antioch Jews 
 
182 About the Healing Christ 
 
 would make them do a thorough job of stoning. 
 Their efficiency is beyond question. 
 
 Yet Paul gets up, rests over night, and pushes 
 on the next day. He carried out the itinerary 
 as planned, apparently. That would be an out- 
 standing instance of healing under most extreme 
 circumstances. 
 
 And no one can read Paul’s own long remark- 
 able list of the experiences he went through 
 without a deep impression of Christ’s direct 
 touch on his body throughout. 
 
 Listen, and think into, not merely the bodily 
 suffering involved, but the tremendous natural 
 breakdown of bodily strength. Five times he 
 had been whipped on his bare back with forty- 
 stripes-save-one, 
 
 And three times with the yet more severe 
 Roman rods save none, once stoned, three times 
 shipwrecked, a night and a day drifting ex- 
 posed out in the open sea, 
 
 The acute hardship of the crude, typical 
 traveling of that time and of the Orient, perils 
 of swollen rivers, of robbers not hesitating to 
 use violence, of hunger and thirst, cold and in- 
 sufficient clothing. 
 
 Think slowly into that list. Clearly enough 
 the experience with the thorn was the more strik- 
 ‘ing to Paul because in the midst of Christ’s con- 
 stant healing touch upon Paul’s body. 
 
 Paul experienced the threefold healing, the 
 continual protecting restraint upon disease, the 
 strengthening of bodily functions, and the di- 
 rect positive healing. Else he could never have 
 
God’s School of Suffering 183 
 
 gone through what he did. The thorn was the 
 more marked as an exception in the midst of 
 such experiences. 
 
 The thing that stands out biggest in the whole 
 story here is this: it was for service’ sake that 
 this thorn experience was allowed. 
 
 It was for the sake of a race of men, swamped 
 by the terrific emergency of sin, and in the 
 scarcity of men at hand available, that the thing 
 occurred. 
 
 It was distinctly exceptional. Had it been 
 merely Paul personally that was concerned the 
 whole trend of Christ’s dealing makes clear that 
 this ailment would have gone like the others. 
 But service controlled. The world’s emergency 
 
 gripped. 
 Jacob’s Limp. 
 
 There’s one more of these pictures in this rare 
 old gallery of honest portraits, the picture of 
 Jacob at Jabbok.’ 
 
 In that strange night struggle between the 
 sturdy Hebrew herdsman and an unrecognized 
 Assailant, Jacob fully holds his own. Then to- 
 ward dawn the strange Assailant does a strange 
 thing. 
 
 Jacob is startled to feel a slight touch on the 
 inner side of his thigh, and at once the thigh 
 bone goes out of joint. 
 
 Instantly Jacob knows that this is no mere 
 man. No man could have done that. And two 
 things at least crowd in faster than he can think. 
 
 *Genesis 32: 24-32. 
 
184 About the Healing Christ 
 
 His power as a wrestler is clean gone, at once. 
 His native shrewdness makes him think of that. 
 But, far deeper, comes the recognition of who 
 this unrecognized Stranger of the dark is. 
 
 He’s been fighting against God! And then, 
 all these years he had been fighting against God! 
 and against God’s plans for his life! Uncon- 
 sciously fighting? Half consciously fighting? 
 
 At least this much ean be said for Jacob, not 
 recognizing how much it meant that he had been 
 insistently stubbornly fighting against God, and 
 God’s plan. (But then, is that so unusual? 
 and among good people?) 
 
 It’s the one instance in Scripture of God’s 
 own direct touch on a man’s body, injuring, 
 laming him. And mark keenly that it was not 
 a disease. 
 
 It was a slowing down of the man’s gait. He 
 had been so sure of himself. Now he must go 
 through life halting, limping. 
 
 Well, there’s a purpose under this exceptional 
 act of God’s. There’s always a purpose where 
 He is concerned. And it is always a purpose of 
 love. 
 
 This man Jacob was hindering, actually hold- 
 ing back, and threatening to block completely, 
 God’s world plan. It wasn’t merely Jacob’s own 
 life that was concerned. God’s plan for the race 
 hinges on this man. 
 
 A man may hinder or break God’s plan for 
 his own life, if he will. All God’s plans wait on 
 our consent. The sovereign God waits on the 
 sovereignty of man’s choice. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 185 
 
 But no man can break God’s broad plan for 
 the world. He may slow it up. He does that so 
 much. God’s sovereignty simply means that, 
 ultimately, through the intricate network of hu- 
 man wills, His great plan will work out, and 
 always in some way through man’s choice, 
 freely given. 
 
 Even now, Jacob could have balked still fur- 
 ther. It wasn’t merely the touch of power on 
 his thigh that won. It was that, plus something 
 more, far deeper and tenderer, the touch of love 
 upon his heart. 
 
 Jacob could have fought against the power. 
 But the love, the patient waiting, and putting 
 up with his wayward conduct, all these long 
 years, the gracious wooing, in so many 
 ways ——! 
 
 He could see it all now. It was this that bent 
 his will at last, from within, to this strong, wait- 
 ing, loving will of his great God. 
 
 Note keenly, that this is a crisis. Most rever- 
 ently it can be said it was God’s crisis. God’s 
 plan was in danger. A world’s salvation hung 
 in the balance, hung on this one man’s consent 
 to be used, in God’s way, in God’s plan. 
 
 It is a threefold crisis. It was a crisis of 
 available material. Jacob was the son of Isaac, 
 the grandson of Abraham, through whom the 
 world plan must be worked out. 
 
 He was the twin son, it is true. But the other, 
 Esau, was plainly disqualified by temperament. 
 Impulsive, hot-headed, wholly unreliable, bar- 
 tering his most sacred possession for something 
 
186 About the Healing Christ 
 
 to eat, as unstable as water, he was wholly un- 
 fitted for leadership in carrying forward God’s 
 plan. God was narrowed down to Jacob. 
 
 Jacob was a cool, steady, calculating man of 
 method and habit. He was a thinker and a hard 
 worker. He was a man to do things. But he 
 had the mean moral strain in him. He was in- 
 tensely selfish. He was forever grasping, cun- 
 ningly taking advantage of the other fellow. He 
 was unscrupulous. He never hesitated at the 
 most underhanded move to gain his point. 
 Jacob was morally contemptible. 
 
 But his failings were moral. Esau’s were 
 mental. The moral could be changed by grace, 
 if once Jacob’s consent could be gotteny 
 
 It was not really that Jacob was the better 
 man, he was the less-poor of the two. It was a 
 crisis of available material. God needs the best. 
 Jacob must be used, but first he must be changed. 
 So the exceptional thing was done. 
 
 It was a crisis of tyme. Long years Abraham 
 and Sarah had been wooed, graciously wooed, 
 patiently put up with. Isaae was the child of 
 the changed Abraham and Sarah. He took on 
 their later traits. 
 
 And now, for many long years, a full quarter 
 of a century at least, God had been calling Jacob 
 up to the higher level. But Jacob’s firmness 
 and strength teetered over into stubbornness. He 
 gets more set. 
 
 And he grows more stubborn, more uglily ob- 
 stinate, more set than ever. Time pressed. It 
 grew less. The stubbornness grew more, and 
 
God’s School of Suffering 187 
 
 then yet more. In a crisis of time God did the 
 exceptional thing. 
 
 It was a world crisis. God’s plan concerned 
 a world. A Babel, a Flood, a Sodom-and-Go- 
 morrah, tremendous moral catastrophes, these 
 told plainly the moral outcome threatening. 
 
 Through Jacob and Jacob’s line was to come 
 the little messenger-nation, the Saviour-nation, 
 the Saviour Himself. All unknown, unsuspected 
 by any but God, it was the world crisis. For 
 the sake of the race, to save His great plan for 
 saving a world, God did the exceptional thing. 
 
 And, so, by the fords of the Jabbok, under 
 that gentle touch of supernatural power, at the 
 break of a new day, Jacob surrendered his proud 
 stubborn will. 
 
 The touch on Jacob’s thigh was meant for his 
 heart, like the later touch on the disciples’ feet. 
 Jacob felt it there. His heart broke. He had 
 actually been fighting God! He never really 
 meant that. 
 
 That heart-breaking touch on the thigh 
 reached into the will, the citadel. The will bent. 
 With all its disciplined strength it bent, and 
 bent clean over. 
 
 He quit wrestling. He had to. The disabled 
 thigh settled the wrestling. He took to cling- 
 ing. And he became the prince, the Israel, 
 prince with God, pleading for forgiveness and 
 blessing, and prevailing. 
 
 And God yielded to that penitent clinging 
 plea. God had saved two, the man and the 
 world-plan. So only could it be. The world- 
 
188 About the Healing Christ 
 
 plan was saved through the man. No one ever 
 knows how much hangs on his saying ‘‘yes’’ to 
 God. 
 
 Jacob learned to walk with God, by limping. 
 God tried to get him to walk without the limp. 
 He preferred that. He still does. 
 
 Jacob got along faster now because he’s been 
 slowed down. He never walked so fast in his 
 life in the true path as now when he goes slowly 
 limping, limping along in his body. 
 
 One can well understand that God did what 
 He did reluctantly. It was an emergency trans- 
 action. And all the world is in an emergency 
 just now. And God is still needing men. 
 
 These are the three pictures in this old gal- 
 lery, Job’s ulcerous boils and the ash heap 
 schoolhouse, Paul’s needle-pointed thorn, and 
 Jacob’s halting limp. 
 
 These are three scholars in God’s school of 
 suffering. Job graduated early. He learned 
 quickly. It was an intense session but a short 
 one, intensive school work. 
 
 Paul’s graduation came later, as did Jacob’s. 
 Have they had a reunion up there, these three, 
 in the Teacher’s own presence, and praised Him 
 out of full hearts? I think likely. But I am 
 quite sure it pleases the Teacher most when we 
 work for early graduation. 
 
 One notes keenly that in each ease the man 
 concerned was a leader. That makes a great 
 difference. The Devil lays special siege to the 
 leaders. Leaders need more schooling because 
 they touch the lives of so many. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 189 
 
 Yet no one lives to himself. None of us can 
 tell what plan of service of Christ’s may centre 
 in our glad consent to His personal plan for the 
 life. 
 
 In each case it was a crisis, the meeting place 
 of dismal failure and glorious victory. And the 
 -man was always the decisive factor. 
 
 One recognizes crises best backwards. We are 
 so much wiser, afterwards. If only we might be 
 quick and true to obey, for Christ’s sake, before 
 we know it may be a crisis for some one or some 
 plan. 
 
 For service’ sake, in a crisis, the leader may 
 find things happening. Because so much is 
 hinging, of which he is unaware. If, ah! yes, 7, 
 one might only obey gladly and fully and 
 quickly, what Christ asks, because He asks, re- 
 gardless of all else. 
 
 Keep Your Hand Out. 
 
 And so there may be a waiting time. Bodily 
 healing may be needed, desperately needed per- 
 haps. And we may be in real touch of heart 
 with Christ. And we may pray for the healing 
 touch. And yet, it may not come. There may 
 be a waiting time. 
 
 If so, it means simply this: we’re needing 
 some schooling. There’s some plan involved. 
 And the thing is to be good scholars. Cultivate 
 the keen inner ear and the quiet inner spirit, so 
 we can hear the Teacher’s voice. For He is 
 speaking. If we are still enough we’ll hear. 
 
 But no one expects to stay in school all his 
 
190 About the Healing Christ 
 
 days. We should look forward to a glad gradu- 
 ation day. We should plan early graduation. 
 Our hands should be stretched out, stretched ex- 
 pectantly out, till they grasp what has been 
 promised. 
 
 I ean never forget my mother’s very brief 
 paraphrase of that long verse in the Third of 
 Malachi. The verse begins, you remember, 
 ‘‘bring ye the whole tithe 7n,’’ and it ends up 
 with ‘‘I will pour’’ the blessing oué till you’ll 
 be embarrassed for space. 
 
 My mother’s brief paraphrase was this: Give 
 all He asks; take all He promises. 
 
 There is always an instinctive hesitancy to 
 speak of one’s own personal experiences. They 
 seem so sacred. The reluctance comes unbid- 
 den. 
 
 And yet, of course, nothing is so strong and 
 convincing, if rightly understood, as actual per- 
 sonal experience. And one is willing to over- 
 come that natural reluctance if only some one 
 may be helped a bit. 
 
 Within recent years I went through a critical 
 illness, happily not very prolonged. There was 
 clearly a purpose in it. That has been made 
 quite clear to my inner spirit. 
 
 And that purpose was served. That is clear. 
 And one remarkable thing was the distinet touch 
 on the body all during that illness, and in con- 
 valescence, overruling the natural course of 
 things. 
 
 I have experienced healing in serious matters 
 
 * Malachi 3: 10. 
 
God’s School of Suffering 191 
 
 through the use of means prayerfully used. 
 Again, quite distinctly, without the use of means, 
 Christ’s own healing touch has come when 
 things were serious. 
 
 And yet again, I have been quite clear that it 
 has been Christ’s own healing touch, in most 
 _ difficult circumstances, overcoming the means 
 used, that brought the healing and health. 
 
 And, I may add, that while I never have en- 
 joyed better health and vigour than at present, 
 and of late, I am being plainly led in my inner 
 spirit to expect a healing touch beyond what has 
 yet been experienced. 
 
 I am still in school, God’s school. I have 
 gotten through some of the rooms, but not all. 
 My hand is stretched out day and night. And 
 I have the sweet assurance that graduation day 
 is coming very soon now. 
 
 I heard a homely story of a New York City 
 newsboy from the slums. He was in a batch of 
 slum boys sent into the country for two weeks 
 by the Fresh Air Fund. 
 
 He found himself, at the end of the journey, 
 in a large, comfortable farmhouse. A motherly 
 woman received him cordially. When bedtime 
 came she took him to a bedroom. 
 
 And she talked to him, as she turned down 
 the bed covers. This had been her own son’s 
 room when he was a boy, she explained. She 
 hoped he would enjoy a good sleep, and be down 
 early in the morning, and so she bade him ‘‘ good- 
 night.”’ . 
 
 Morning came, and breakfast time, but the 
 
192 About the Healing Christ 
 
 boy didn’t appear. She called up the stairs but 
 there was no response. 
 
 She went up-stairs, found the room door open, 
 and looked in. But there was no boy to be seen. 
 Where was the boy? 
 
 Perplexed and wondering, her eye caught sight 
 of a ragged shoe on the floor at the edge of the 
 bed. Stooping down she saw the boy sound 
 asleep on the floor under the bed. 
 
 She called to him: ‘‘Time to get up, my boy, 
 breakfast ready.’’ He came crawling out, rub- 
 bing his eyes, ‘‘ Yes’m, yes’m.”’ 
 
 And as she turned to leave she said quietly 
 pointing to the bed, ‘‘Why didn’t you sleep in 
 the bed? ”’ 
 
 The boy turned a surprised look, following 
 the line of her pointing finger, toward the bed. 
 ‘‘Bed!’’ he said simply. ‘‘Is that a bed?’’ 
 
 He had never slept in a bed. A door-stoop, a 
 box, a barrel, or the like, had been the only bed 
 the boy had ever known. Ah! yes, there are 
 hundreds of them in the heathen slum fringe 
 of all our great cities. 
 
 Are you sleeping under the bed, taking less 
 than Christ has provided? 
 
Vill 
 
 THE DEVIL’S HEALING: IMITATIONS 
 AND COUNTERFEITS 
 
 It is Christ's first will for us that we should 
 be pure in heart, strong in purpose, quick and 
 accurate in discerning evil under any disguise, 
 poised and mature in judgment, gentle in our 
 contacts, with an inner song ringing, content 
 in circumstances, and healed of all our bodily 
 ills and ailments, according to His Word, 
 through glad surrender of habit and life to His 
 Spirit's touch. 
 
 The Devil—the Ape of God. 
 
 Gop is love. The Devil is hate. Love is good, 
 the best good there can be. Hate is bad, at the 
 worst badness. 
 
 The two are sworn enemies. The conflict is 
 utterly irreconcilable. There can be no patched- 
 up truce. It’s an advantage to get that fact 
 clear. 
 
 Neither side will yield. The Devil won’t give 
 in. He is incorrigible. God can’t give in. His 
 purity, His character, forbid. 
 
 The warfare goes on ceaselessly, but—not in- 
 terminably. There’ll be an end to it some day, 
 a blessed end, for man. 
 
 The earth is the battlefield. Man is the one 
 being fought for. Man’s choice, freely given, 
 is the one thing aimed at in the fighting. 
 
 193 
 
194 About the Healing Christ 
 
 God wants man’s love, that is, himself at his 
 true native best. He wants his love freely, vol- 
 untarily given. That’s really repetition. Love 
 isn’t love unless it’s freely given. 
 
 The Devil wants man’s worship, his submis- 
 sion, abject, absolute submission, no matter how 
 given or gotten. And he’s dead-set on getting it. 
 
 The Devil is always on the heels of God to 
 hurt man. Anything will be used that does that. 
 Everything is used that promises that. Noth- 
 ing is too base or foul, or too refined or cul- 
 tured, for His reaching hand. 
 
 The rarest scholarship and finest culture, the 
 foulest sensuality and most heartless selfishness, 
 each is used to the utmost. Anything to befool 
 and befoul, to get twists and quirks, to lead away 
 from that touch with God which is native to man 
 as God made him. 
 
 Nothing is too sacred for the Devil’s touch. 
 Christian phraseology, scholastic philosophy, 
 scientific research, are laid under tribute. The 
 sweetest relationships and purest contacts of life 
 are foully besmirched. 
 
 And nothing is too foul if it’ll help out his 
 incorrigible purpose. And no combination of 
 the sacred and the foul is left untried and un- 
 used. 
 
 But, but, God is ever on the heels of the Devil 
 to help. That’s why Christ came, and came as 
 He came, and died as He did. Nothing God 
 has is too precious to be freely given and sac- 
 rificed if only man may be saved from the foul 
 touch of the Devil. 
 
The Devil’s Healing 195 
 
 The Devil is an imitator. He’s a skilled art- 
 ful imitator. He never originates. But he has 
 great ability as an imitator. 
 
 One of the early Christian leaders called the 
 Devil ‘‘the ape of God.’’ Imitation is the out- 
 standing trait of both the ape and the Devil. 
 But that was said long ago, long before the lead- 
 ers’ visions had become so obscured. 
 
 The Devil doesn’t hesitate to deceive. He is 
 dishonest, as well as the father of all sorts of 
 lies. He even slanders God. He doesn’t play 
 fair. 
 
 God is so honest. He is always so fair, even, 
 even, be it said plainly, to His arch-enemy. And 
 He knows well the outcome. 
 
 The Devil is bold, devilishly bold, in his imi- 
 tations and deceptions. He even imitates God! 
 He steals phraseology from God’s Book. He 
 copies God’s actions, that is, as nearly as he can. 
 
 The expert instantly detects the imitation, the 
 counterfeit, when put side by side with the 
 genuine. But then the experts in this line are 
 rather few and scarce. 
 
 The one school started for teaching and train- 
 ing eyes and ears and judgment in this sort of 
 thing has been skilfully turned aside from its 
 great task. 
 
 The thing most lacking in Christian circles is 
 teaching, simple, clear, poised teaching. Char- 
 acteristically, the Christian groups are untaught 
 and untrained. 
 
 They are like shepherdless sheep, torn, dis- 
 tressed, befooled, heading this way and that, and 
 
196 About the Healing Christ 
 
 running into each other, rather violently some- 
 times. It’s a marked feature of the spirit con- 
 flict, Just now. 
 
 The great steadying factor is that the out- 
 eome is as assured as that Christ emptied that 
 new-hewn tomb of rock, when its purpose had 
 been served. 
 
 Miracles appeal to the imagination as noth- 
 ing else does. Any evidence or suggestion of 
 supernatural power in action attracts the biggest 
 crowds in the shortest. time. This has always 
 been true, and is. 
 
 It has always been popularly supposed that 
 the supernatural is God at work. A miracle is 
 commonly taken as evidence of divine power. 
 This is a universal common notion or delusion, 
 and has always been so. 
 
 Of course, intelligent, thoughtful, Christian 
 men know that this is not so. Archbishop 
 Trench, the eminent Irish scholar and saint, 
 speaks of this in his notable work on miracles. 
 
 A miracle is not necessarily evidence of God’s 
 work. It is evidence merely that some super- 
 natural power is in action. 
 
 Then the questions are: whose? what? There 
 are two sources of supernatural power, God and 
 the Devil. Of course, God’s power is absolute 
 and limitless. 
 
 The Devil is distinctly limited. His power is 
 actually much less than sometimes supposed. 
 Still there is a supernatural power there, how- 
 ever limited. And he is very skilful in using 
 and displaying it to the best advantage. 
 
The Devil’s Healing 197 
 
 And we are pretty much a very unsophisticated 
 lot. Yes, we are worse than unsophisticated. 
 We are pretty apt to think we know, and to be 
 rather set in thinking that way. We prefer to 
 think so. 
 
 What a spectacle! Jgnorant, and think we 
 ‘ know! A mixture of a little knowledge, much 
 ignorance, and more contentment with ourselves 
 just as we are. That’s the hardest kind of folk 
 to help. That unseen fighter is surely a cun- 
 ning strategist. 
 
 The Book of God gives clear light on every 
 sort of serious question. It will answer, and 
 answer fully, any thoughtful question brought 
 to it. 
 
 It gives light here. It tells about satanic 
 miracles. A miracle, you will remember, is the 
 result of some power in action greater than men 
 are familiar with. It does not mean something 
 contrary to nature, but something more than 
 the natural thing we are commonly used to. 
 
 The Devil’s Miracles in Egypt. 
 
 The Book tells distinctly about the Devil’s 
 miracles. There are two groups of passages, one 
 past, one regarding the future; Egypt in the 
 past, and the earth-wide Crisis that is yet future. 
 
 In the ease of Egypt, it is a time of partial 
 visitation of judgment on the world-empire of 
 its day. Moses performed ten miracles, by God’s 
 direction, that entered vitally into the very life 
 of the nation. 
 
198 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The Egyptian magicians, or occult experts, 
 performed three miracles in imitation of Moses, 
 attempted a fourth, but failed in it, 
 
 Then, frankly, with awe-stricken faces, they 
 admitted that there was a power at work through 
 Moses superior to them, distinctly greater than 
 the power they stood for. 
 
 The line of conflict here is quite sharply 
 drawn. Moses acted by God’s direction. The 
 Egyptian king opposed him econtemptuously, 
 then stubbornly, then incorrigibly. 
 
 The magicians were the king’s servants. They 
 were the experts of that time in the occult, in 
 dealing with unseen spirits and spirit forces. 
 They were experts in the black art. 
 
 They were loyal to Pharaoh in his resisting 
 and scoffing at God. They fought Moses and 
 God, with all the power at their command. 
 
 The line of conflict could not be more clearly 
 marked. The Devil was opposing God. God and 
 the Devil were the real spirit opponents behind 
 the human scenes. 
 
 The striking thing just now is that there were 
 three miracles done by the magicians through 
 the Devil’s power. There was a fourth at- 
 tempted but it failed, completely. 
 
 There is further the tacit inference of a limit 
 in the Devil’s power even in the three miracles 
 actually performed. 
 
 The magicians caused their rods to become 
 serpents. There was distinetly an evil super- 
 natural power at work. Perhaps serpent activ- 
 ity was more easily within the Devil’s range of 
 
The Devil’s Healing 199 
 
 action. Yet Moses’ serpent swallows up the 
 others! Moses understood that word spoken 
 long after about treading upon serpents. 
 
 The turning of water into blood, and the 
 plague of countless frogs, by the magicians, fol- 
 lowing Moses’ initiative, again reveal the Devil’s 
 supernatural power at work. It is clearly a 
 supernatural transaction in each ease. 
 
 But there is a limitation. Moses’ miracles 
 suggest an overflowing supply of power. The 
 other is less. The thing was done, yet, as 
 though there was no flush of power at command, 
 rather a scantiness. 
 
 The fourth attempt was a confessed failure. 
 The experts confessed themselves helpless in the 
 face of this display of God’s power. They’re 
 clean outdone, outclassed. And a little later the 
 magicians themselves are helpless sufferers when 
 the plague of boils came. 
 
 The purpose of these satanic miracles is four- 
 fold, to fight God, to discredit His messenger 
 Moses, to deceive the Egyptians and indeed all 
 the world (for such events would travel like 
 wildfire), and to keep God’s nation in slavery. 
 It is clearly the Devil at work, behind Pharaoh, 
 as an all too-willing tool. 
 
 The limits to the Devil’s supernatural power 
 are threefold. The miracles done are an imita- 
 tion. There is no initiative. Each is distinctly 
 less, much less in extent than the thing imitated. 
 And there is a sharp line beyond which the 
 Devil’s power cannot go. 
 
 But the thing to mark just now is this: the 
 
200 About the Healing Christ 
 
 Devil can work miracles. He has supernatural 
 power, with sharp definite limitation. 
 
 The Devil’s Healings in the Coming Crisis. 
 
 Then we swing to the other end of the Book. 
 There is a time of Crisis repeatedly spoken of, 
 world-wide, preceding a New Order of Things 
 on the earth. 
 
 It will be a time of marked satanic activity. 
 And in connection with that there will be 
 miracles of healing done by the Devil. 
 
 His purpose of course is to deceive, to drive 
 through his own plans, and to tighten his hold 
 on men’s lives. Let us look at the Scripture 
 teaching regarding this. 
 
 The common phrase in the New Testament for 
 miracles is the phrase ‘‘signs and wonders.’’ 
 Sometimes the language used is ‘‘signs,’’ some- 
 times ‘‘signs and wonders,’’ sometimes ‘‘signs 
 and wonders and powers,’’ sometimes ‘‘signs 
 and powers.’’ A few times the word ‘‘miracles”’ 
 is used. 
 
 Now, by far the greater number of the mir- 
 acles so specified are miracles of bodily healing. 
 Of the thirty-three miracles done by Christ 
 twenty-four are miracles of bodily healing. And 
 four others have to do with bodily need. 
 
 In the Book of Acts the use of this phrase for 
 miracles of healing is yet more marked. Prac- 
 tically the phrase ‘‘signs and wonders,’’ with 
 its variations, is the equivalent in the New Testa- 
 ment for miracles of bodily healing. Other 
 
The Devil’s Healing 201 
 
 usage is so exceptional as to emphasize this as 
 the common rule. 
 
 Now, the striking thing to mark is that this 
 is the phrase used for a distinctive phase of 
 satanic activity during that coming Crisis. 
 There are three outstanding passages, in the Gos- 
 pels, by Paul, and in the Revelation. 
 
 In that significant Olivet Talk with four dis- 
 ciples, within a week of the tragic end, Christ is 
 speaking of the Crisis preceding His own Com- 
 ing and the New Order of Things. 
 
 He speaks of various characteristics of that 
 tribulation-crisis. He says ‘‘There shall arise 
 false Christs (evil men pretending to be Christ), 
 and false prophets (or religious teachers), and 
 shall show great signs and wonders; ”’ 
 
 And then the specific purpose of this is di- 
 rectly stated. It is directed against Christ’s fol- 
 lowers. It is ‘‘to lead astray, if (that be) pos- 
 
 sible, even the elect,’’ 2. e., Christ’s own people.’ 
 _. Taking the phrase ‘‘signs and wonders’’ at 
 its common meaning in the New Testament, this 
 would mean, to the four disciples listening, that 
 there will be marked miracles of healing, by 
 satanie power, during that climax of evil, for the 
 express purpose of deceiving and leading astray 
 Christ’s own people. 
 
 In his second letter to the disciples at Thes- 
 salonica Paul is answering some questions that 
 have arisen about just when Christ’s return was 
 to be expected. 
 
 And he explains that there would be a great 
 
 * Matthew 24:24, Mark 13: 22. 
 
202 About the Healing Christ 
 
 evil leader in action, about whom the coming — 
 Crisis will centre. 
 
 This leader would be at the very height of 
 his blasphemous career at the time of Christ’s 
 coming. He would be destroyed by the glorious 
 appearance of Christ (the blazing forth or shin- 
 ing forth of His arrival). 
 
 Then Paul speaks of the marked traits of this 
 strange, foul, evil leader, the Antichrist, this 
 personification of the Devil. His activity will be 
 ‘faeccording to the working of Satan with all 
 power and signs and wonders of falsehood,’’ or 
 ‘lying wonders.’’ 
 
 That is, these miracles are done, in imitation 
 of Christ’s miracles, to deceive the people and 
 lead them astray.’ 
 
 Here is this same phrase again. Paul’s use of 
 it would mean only one thing to these Thes- 
 salonian disciples, and that is, miracles of heal- 
 ing, by satanic power, to deceive. 
 
 There is a parallel passage to this in one of 
 Moses’ talks in the Plains of Moab.’ He is speak- 
 ing of what is to be done in case a false prophet 
 certified his message by ‘‘a sign or a wonder,’’ 
 and the miraculous thing actually taking place, 
 so as to lead the people away from the true 
 worship. Plainly the thing was quite familiar 
 to these people. 
 
 John’s Patmos Revelation message has the 
 same thing. It is spoken of repeatedly as one 
 of the marked characteristics of the campaign 
 of deception in that brief terrific future Crisis. 
 
 *2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10, * Deuteronomy 13: I-3. 
 
The Devil’s Healing 203 
 
 There’s a description of the activity of a 
 leader of evil who will be the immediate asso- 
 ciate of that foul Antichrist.’ He is a religious 
 leader, a sort of court-preacher to the Anti- 
 christ himself who reigns as a king of kings for 
 a brief time. 
 
 Among other things in the description this 
 stands out, ‘‘and he doeth great signs that he 
 should even make fire to come down out of 
 heaven upon the earth in the sight of men. And 
 he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by 
 reason of the signs ‘it 
 
 The startling thing of fire coming down is 
 specified in speaking of the great signs. This is 
 particularized because it is something unusual, 
 in addition to the usual meaning of the phrase 
 ‘‘ereat signs.”’ 
 
 A little later John is told of happenings to- 
 ward the end of that troublous crisis period. 
 There will be sent out by the Devil himself and 
 by his two chief leaders, the Antichrist and his 
 court-preacher, ‘‘spirits of demons working 
 signs,’’ sent into all the earth.’ 
 
 And in speaking of the utter defeat and rout of 
 the Antichrist and his evil associates, this court- 
 preacher who is spoken of here as the false re- 
 ligious teacher, is identified as the one ‘‘that 
 wrought the signs . . . wherewith he de- 
 ceived them ”? Clearly these signs are an 
 outstanding feature.’ This emphasis of a five- 
 fold repetition is striking. 
 
 
 
 
 
 *xRevelation 13:13-14. * Revelation 16: 13-14, 
 ® Revelation 19:19, 20. 
 
204 About the Healing Christ 
 
 The whole New Testament use of the phrase 
 makes clear that miracles of healing by satanic 
 power will be one of the commonest, if not the 
 most common, feature of that crisis time that is 
 coming, some time. 
 
 And the whole purpose in this is to deceive 
 the people, and particularly the Church con- 
 stituency. It is to make them think that it is 
 God at work. 
 
 And, uninstructed as they so largely are, and 
 so not keen to discern, they will be easy prey to 
 these tactics. 
 
 The Devil’s Healing To-day. 
 
 But one need not go back to Egypt, nor for- 
 ward to the coming crisis time. He ean find 
 references closer at hand in the Book of Life, 
 being written daily. Our own time is witnessing 
 this sort of thing in marked measure, and in- 
 creasing extent. 
 
 The Church of Christ has not been true to 
 the full Gospel of Christ. I say that very 
 thoughtfully and sadly. I do not say it to eriti- 
 cise the Church, but only to help understand 
 things at the present time a bit better. 
 
 I love the Church. I reverence its past, and 
 its present inestimable service in the world. If 
 my words seem critical, I am simply criticising 
 myself, so far as any man is a part of the 
 Church. 
 
 With fine exceptions, the Church of Christ 
 has not told out fully in any generation, since 
 
The Devil’s Healing 205 
 
 the first few Christian centuries, the full rounded 
 Gospel of Christ. 
 
 And so it is not a surprising thing that there 
 have grown up false teachings, and false sys- 
 tems of teaching, about bodily healing. 
 
 The very need, sore need, of the crowds every- 
 where in this regard has made a rare oppor- 
 tunity to teach about bodily healing in a wrong 
 way. 
 
 The people are hungry, eager for help. And 
 the Devil has never been known to be slow in 
 using every door open to him, or that he could 
 pry open. 
 
 Just now there is a system of teaching about 
 healing, and a system of healing, that holds the 
 centre of the stage. 
 
 It has grown up within living memory, and 
 within the past ten years seems to have grown 
 more vigorous than ever. 
 
 It has spread like a cursed wildfire in our own 
 land, up and down Europe, into the African 
 edges, and the Orient, and indeed wherever the 
 Anglo-American trail leaves traces. 
 
 It uses Christ’s name quite freely. It quotes 
 or rather half-quotes, misquotes, the Bible. Its 
 teaching is a mixture of Christian phraseology, 
 devout language, psychological half-truths, and 
 positive untruths. 
 
 It makes pretense of being a Christian Church. 
 IT need not repeat its name, it is so well known. 
 And the thing to mark just now is that people 
 are healed through its ministrations, within 
 sharply marked limitations and restrictions. 
 
206 About the Healing Christ 
 
 There’s no question that people do experi- 
 ence, through its teaching, healing of a certain 
 sort, up to a certain extent. That fact is quite 
 clear. 
 
 It will be remembered what has been said in 
 a previous Talk on the seven ways in which 
 healing comes to one’s body.’ 
 
 The Creator has graciously put a healing 
 power within the human body. There is natural 
 healing without conscious cooperation on our 
 part. 
 
 There is this same natural healing assisted by 
 an intelligent understanding and codperation. 
 An enlightened instructed understanding of this 
 remarkable healing power in the body, and our 
 intelligent codperation, make an enormous dif- 
 ference. It helps greatly. 
 
 Our mental attitude is often the decisive thing 
 in illness, turning the tide in favour of healing 
 and health. This is spoken of somewhat fully 
 in the previous Talk referred to. 
 
 This is the second way in which healing comes. 
 It should be noted. It will be spoken of again 
 later. 
 
 Then there is healing through this same natu- 
 ral power assisted by human wisdom and skill, 
 both personal and professional. 
 
 Still further, there is healing sometimes 
 through this natural power in our bodies over- 
 coming what may have been done by blundering 
 unwise human touch. These are the four natural 
 ways. 
 
 *See chapter “ How Does Christ Heal?” 
 
The Devil’s Healing 207 
 
 There are two supernatural ways. There is 
 healing by Christ’s direct touch, a supernatural 
 touch, in addition to the creative natural power 
 spoken of. And, of course, this little series of 
 ‘*Quiet Talks’’ is devoted to that one thing. 
 
 Then there is a healing by the Devil’s touch, 
 a supernatural touch... And there may be a 
 blending of two or more of these. 
 
 Seven ways in which healing may come to 
 one’s body, four natural, two supernatural, and 
 one a blend or combination of two or more of 
 these. 
 
 Now, it should be keenly noted, that in this 
 false system we are talking about, this so-called 
 Christian system, the healings that do occur 
 come through two of these ways. 
 
 There is much emphasis put on the second of 
 these, the human understanding of, and co- 
 operating with, that natural healing power. 
 
 I do not mean to say that it is taught in a 
 clear, intelligent fashion. Clear teaching is con- 
 spicuously absent here. It is quite doubtful if 
 the thing is intelligently understood so as to 
 give clear teaching. 
 
 There is a strange garbled mixture of truths 
 and half-truths and positive not-truths. But 
 through all there is a continual emphasis on 
 one’s mental attitude. 
 
 And so far as this insistence actually affects 
 one’s attitude that inner power of healing swings 
 into action. And this, be it noted, is good so 
 far as it is good. 
 
 If the teaching were clear, and more, if it 
 
208 About the Healing Christ 
 
 were put in right connection with other teaching 
 that belongs with it, the results would be yet 
 better. But, of course, nothing of that good 
 sort could be gotten here. 
 
 There is no evil system of teaching all bad. 
 It would fall of its own dead weight. The Devil 
 always steals a veneering of some truth for his 
 lies. He is the first expert in the fine art of 
 camouflage. 
 
 The truth about the influence of the mind on 
 the body, so little appreciated to the full by any 
 one, was true for Adam and Eve in Eden, for - 
 Cain outside Eden, with the wickedest man that 
 ever lived as with the saintliest, in savage wilds 
 as in cultured centres. 
 
 God’s creative touch is never off any man’s 
 body. This is one of the seven ways of healing 
 emphasized partly by this false system of heal- 
 ing. 
 
 There is a second way used in this false teach- 
 ing. It brings in a strange fact, that makes one 
 stare out. The Devil heals through this so-called 
 Christian teaching. The evidence is clear, and 
 the fact indisputable. _ 
 
 ‘‘Why,’’ you instantly ery out, ‘‘the Devil 
 heal! Absurd! Ridiculous! The Devil is bad. 
 Healing is only good. Will a bad Devil do a 
 good thing? ”’ 
 
 And the answer to that is quite clear and 
 positive. A bad Devil will do a good thing for 
 a bad purpose, to get hold on a man’s life, and 
 to tighten his hold. 
 
 A mongrel cur back of your dwelling disturbs 
 
The Devil’s Healing 209 
 
 your night’s sleep, night after night. You are 
 too gentle-hearted perhaps to use a revolver. 
 
 So you get a bit of good meat and some bad 
 poison. You combine them dexterously. You 
 throw the mixture in the back alley. 
 
 The dog has no sense of discernment between 
 good meat and bad poison. He eats the good 
 ’ meat greedily. He gets the bad poison. 
 
 The city’s garbage cart has an extra job. 
 And now your night’s slumbers are undisturbed. 
 The strategy was a success. 
 
 Some dear good people, even some saintly 
 Christian folk, might claim close kinship with 
 that dog in one particular. They have no dis- 
 cernment, no spirit discernment. 
 
 They are easily caught with the Christian 
 phraseology in the false teaching, but don’t de- 
 tect the absence of the real thing, the actual 
 presence of the Devil’s own teachings. 
 
 b Christ’s Blood the Touchstone. 
 
 Spirit discernment is one of the rarest, if not 
 the rarest thing to-day. This is true even in 
 cultured Christian circles. It is strangely true 
 how strangely lacking discernment is, 
 
 The outstanding characteristic of preaching 
 to-day is the bewitching, bewildering mixture 
 and blend of half-truths, positive non-truths, 
 and utter absence of the really few essential 
 truths. 
 
 The whole is covered with a more or less 
 highly polished veneering of either religious talk 
 or Christian verbiage. And the pleasing per- 
 
210 About the Healing Christ 
 
 sonality, vigorous mentality, fine diction, 
 scholarly quotations and allusions, all this be- 
 fogs as to the real message being given. 
 
 This is true of all communions, and in all 
 parts of Christendom, and into the mission lands, 
 with fine exceptions. 
 
 But how shall we common folk know what 
 teaching to accept about bodily healing? We 
 are all busy earning bread and drink, boots and 
 income tax. We can’t all be experts. How 
 shall we know? 
 
 And the answer is simple. <A single ray of 
 clear shining of the sun will pierce clear through 
 the pretty French-gray fogs that gather. 
 
 There is a touchstone by which to test any 
 teaching whether in type or on tongue. It’s an 
 acid test, unfailing. 
 
 And this is the test: the distinctive singular 
 personality of Christ, and the distinctive solitary 
 meaning of His death on Calvary and His living 
 again afterward. 
 
 There is no blood-red tinge to the false teach- 
 ings spoken of, It is never safe to accept super- 
 natural healing except where the deity of Christ 
 is distinetly emphasized, and the sacrificial blood 
 He shed for us, as none other did nor could nor 
 can, is made blessedly prominent. 
 
 The Devil hates the blood of the solitary God- 
 Man. He fears it. He crouches terrified, and 
 flees where it is emphasized and pled in prayer. 
 It, at, the blood, spells out his stinging defeat. 
 And right well he knows it. 
 
 Under all this vague verbiage, this befogging 
 
The Devil’s Healing 211 
 
 talk about the inspiration of the Book, and the 
 virgin birth, and the tremendous event of the 
 third-morning-after, lies the distinet Devil touch 
 and trail, and hate and dread. 
 
 The healing that, without question, comes in 
 connection with this false so-called Christian 
 teaching has this twofold source. 
 
 It comes through the working of that natural 
 healing and the right mental attitude of which 
 we have commonly been taught so little. 
 
 God is always true to His truth, and to Him- 
 self, and to us men, even though the Devil him- 
 self seek to pervert things. 
 
 And further there is no question that the 
 Devil heals, so far as he can, through this 
 false so-called Christian teaching. 
 
 But two things should be keenly noted about 
 the Devil’s healing. There is a distinct line be- 
 yond which he cannot go. Over that line he is 
 powerless. 
 
 Christ healed perfectly and permanently and 
 instantly, and He still does when we allow it. 
 The Devil’s healings are never perfect nor per- 
 manent. 
 
 One remembers the Egyptian story. There 
 the Devil’s supernatural power was limited, 
 sharply limited, and indeed within narrow lim- 
 its. In comparison with God it was scanty, as 
 though with an effort, and with a small result. 
 And it was in imitation always, mere imitation. 
 
 The second thing to mark yet more sharply 
 is this. The Devil’s healing makes slaves. It is 
 a striking thing, of which the instances are 
 
212 About the Healing Christ 
 
 countless, that the healing that comes through 
 the Devil’s imitation of Christ leads to a servile 
 degrading bondage. 
 
 There is a bondage of spirit, of mental vigour, 
 and a moral bondage that has a vise-like grip. 
 One stumbles constantly over these mental, 
 moral wrecks. 
 
 That slavery can be broken only through the 
 power of the blood of Christ, and then usually 
 only through the severest mental and spirit 
 struggle. But it can be broken. Christ, Christ’s 
 blood, will set any one blessedly free. 
 
 Any one, any time, who will, may come to> 
 Christ, trusting as simply as a little child and 
 as fully as the maturest man. 
 
 With all his perplexities and burdens he may 
 come. And Christ never fails. His blood 
 eleanseth from sin. It breaks the Devil’s 
 shackles. And it heals our bodies. 
 
 Observations for fully a quarter of a century, 
 in many lands, with all sorts of persons, with 
 countless interviews, confirms by personal knowl- 
 edge what is being said. The Book of Life has 
 furnished illustrations for all these statements. 
 
 The Power of the Blood of Christ. 
 
 One winter my wife and I met a German head- 
 deaconess in Stockholm, and learned from her 
 lips an unusual incident. 
 
 She was a woman in middle life, of large 
 frame and full of physical vigour. She was en- 
 gaged, and had been for years, in mission work 
 
The Devil’s Healing 213 
 
 in Berlin, especially among girls and young 
 women who had been led astray. 
 
 We were guests together in the same home 
 for a week, and had many opportunities for fel- 
 lowship and exchange of experiences. 
 
 We came to respect her for her homely com- 
 mon sense, and cautious mature judgments, and 
 to love her for her evident saintliness and her 
 sacrificial life in the difficult field of service into 
 which she had been led. 
 
 The incident I am speaking of now was one 
 of many. I would hesitate to tell it were it not 
 for the sanity, and cautiousness, and thoughtful 
 eare in detailed observation, that marked the 
 deaconess’ speech. 
 
 But as I listened and questioned and thought 
 and prayed throughout that week, I found an 
 answer of acceptance in my inner spirit to her 
 unusual story. 
 
 The story was of a woman whom the deaconess 
 knew personally. This woman lived out in the 
 eountry not far from Berlin. Her little daugh- 
 ter accidentally fell into an open fire, and was 
 seriously burned in her face. 
 
 The woman did a thing that seems incredible. 
 And yet the more one comes in touch with actual 
 life in the old world the less incredible it seems. 
 Facts open one’s eyes. 
 
 The woman said that she went out to an old 
 tree in the forest, and there made a compact with 
 the Devil that if he would heal her daughter 
 of the burn she would serve him faithfully. 
 
 The thing seemed impossible, both in the will- 
 
214 About the Healing Christ 
 
 ingness to do such a thing, and that such a trans- 
 action could take place. 
 
 But the woman herself afterward told the 
 story to the deaconess who was telling us. And 
 it was clearly real to the woman who said she 
 made the pact. | 
 
 The woman said that at once her child’s face 
 was as if the fire had not touched it. The heal- 
 ing seemed complete. No scars remained. 
 That’s the first part of the story. 
 
 The child grew to be a young woman of fine 
 sweet beauty of face and form. Meanwhile they 
 had moved in to Berlin and settled there. 
 
 The young woman attended some meetings at 
 a mission hall and was deeply impressed. And 
 one night she accepted Christ as her personal 
 Saviour, and dedicated her life to Him. I think 
 the mother herself had become a Christian about 
 this same time. 
 
 And, at onee, the marks of the fire appeared 
 on her daughter’s face as though just fresh. 
 The deaconess was present. They were all 
 greatly distressed. The mother explained to the 
 deaconess about the earlier experience. 
 
 The deaconess knew about Christ’s healing 
 power, and so taught them. They had a time 
 of prayer together. And again, the deaconess 
 told us, the healing touch, Christ’s healing touch, 
 came. And again the young woman’s face 
 showed no marks of the fire. The deaconess her- 
 self witnessed this. 
 
 That was the deaconess’ story. The thing 
 seemed quite incredible. But we were in the 
 
The Devil’s Healing 215 
 
 home for a week with this thoughtful, matured, 
 rarely-poised, saintly woman. 
 
 And as the days passed, and I studied her, and 
 talked with her from day to day, and questioned, 
 the conviction deepened that she was reliable. 
 
 Her caution, her detail of description, her 
 habitual accuracy of observation, and her eare- 
 fulness in statement, quite convinced me of her 
 reliability as a witness of what she told us. 
 _ And so I have repeated her story here. 
 
 The story is the more striking in telling of a 
 double healing, the Devil’s and Christ’s. There 
 is the rivalry very real between the two, bitter 
 and hopeless on the Devil’s side; insistent and 
 certain of victory on Christ’s side. 
 
 And the human will, sovereign in its choice, 
 decides in that conflict. Here was a decisive de- 
 feat for the Devil, and the sweeping victory of 
 Christ, on the battlefield of one human life. 
 And the young woman’s decision, insisted on 
 under sore stress, was the decisive thing. 
 
 The Devil’s intense selfishness stands out, his 
 spite spirit. He touches only to hurt. He helps 
 only to help himself. He helps only to hurt. 
 
 The Devil is all for himself. There was the 
 ugly fling-back of a defeated foe. He would do 
 his worst when forced to go. 
 
 The Deyil is always on the heels of God to 
 hurt. God is ever quick as a flash on the heels 
 of the Devil to reach eagerly out and help and 
 heal. 
 
 Christ was God Himself coming down to the 
 battlefield. He gave the Devil the decisive blow. 
 
216 About the Healing Christ 
 
 And so man may be set quite free. And so he 
 is made strong to choose right, and only right, 
 regardless of consequences. 
 
 The School of Discernment. 
 
 The great need to-day among Christian people 
 is spirit discernment. Please note: not the erit- 
 ical spirit that hunts heresies and picks flaws. 
 
 That only hurts the hunter and helps no one. 
 Nagging criticism is like a sharp-edged knife 
 that has no hilt. It cuts the hand that uses it, 
 and cuts deep. 
 
 Discernment means the trained ear that listens 
 attentively, and discerns the main thing being 
 taught, under whatever rhetorical veneering. 
 
 It means the opened eye quick to see between 
 the lines what is really there, maybe in hiding. 
 
 It means the humble spirit, willing to see its 
 own faults and defects, only eager to be right. 
 It means the loving spirit quick to give any help 
 to any man. 
 
 The sore need to-day is for teaching, not argu- 
 ment and discussion, but teaching. Never was 
 the need sorer. Argument only hardens. Hach 
 side is more set. And the crowd cheers or jeers, 
 according to their preconceived preferences. 
 
 Teaching, the clear, positive, patient teaching 
 of God’s truth, put into the sort of language men 
 think in, with homely illustrations out of real 
 life, this is sorely needed. 
 
 One should set himself to cultivate an accur- 
 ate discernment or appraisal of all that meets 
 his eye and ear. He should do it for self- 
 
The Devil’s Healing 217 
 
 protection, and for true culture, and to help 
 others. 
 
 There’s a School of Discernment. One may 
 well take time for a special course. The re- 
 quirements for entrance are few and simple. 
 They are five in number, an act, a habit, a book, 
 - a bit of time, and a spirit. 
 
 The act? surrender to Christ as the Master. 
 The habit? doing habitually what would please 
 Him in everything. And when in doubt, don’t. 
 
 The Book? this rare, singularly, solitary Book 
 of God. The time? the daily bit of quiet time 
 off alone with the Book, with the mind alert, and 
 the spirit open. 
 
 The spirit? the spirit of prayer for under- 
 standing, discernment, seeing things as they are. 
 And with this goes the thoughtful, brooding 
 spirit. 
 
 And with all of these goes the willing spirit, 
 willingness to accept facts and conclusions that 
 you don’t like, that run crosswise to your pre- 
 conceptions and preferences and habits. 
 
 If we will only start in this school, and attend 
 faithfully it will be of the rarest value in the 
 coming days, the coming difficult days. 
 
 The outcome will be mental and spirit discern- 
 ment, a keen, a growing discernment. And with 
 it will go the brotherly spirit that will help any 
 one in personal need no matter how he differs 
 with you, or criticises you. 
 
 He that is willing to do Christ’s will for him, 
 regardless of how it may change some personal 
 things, will have in increasing degree that keen, 
 
218 About the Healing Christ 
 
 clear knowledge of truth, of the Book’s teaching, 
 of Christ Himself who embodies all truth in 
 Himself.’ 
 
 The clear vision, the discriminating ear, the 
 balanced understanding of things that differ, the 
 obedient spirit, the heart of love in all one’s 
 personal contacts, these are some results of at- 
 tendance at the Discernment School. 
 
 But whether in school or out, the outstanding 
 thing just now is this. There’s healing for our 
 bodies through the solitary God-Man who died 
 as none other did nor could nor ean, and lived 
 again, and still lives. 
 
 And through this Man’s blood there’s deliv- 
 erance from any bondage that has come, full, 
 sweet, glad, free deliverance. 
 
 And Christ waits at your side now. 
 
 * John 47 *i17. 
 
DEVOTIONAL 
 cn en ae ee I TE ane raeeromencenrpenrnenemance | 
 
 JOHN WANAMAKER 
 
 Prayers of John Wanamaker 
 
 With an Introduction by A. G. MacLennan, 
 D.D., Pastor, Bethany Central Church, Phila- 
 delphia. $1.25. 
 
 A large number of the prayers (of which the notes 
 ‘were preserved) are here brought together,—prayers 
 that reveal a singularly childlike faith and _ simplicity 
 of thought—which indicate how humbly and devoutly 
 John Wanamaker walked and talked with God. 
 
 JOHN TIMOTiY STONE, D.D. 
 
 Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Il. 
 Author of “Recruiting for Christ,” etc. 
 
 To Start the Day 
 A Thought, A Verse, A Song. $1.50. 
 
 “A sentence thought, followed by a suitable verse of 
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 A Year in John’s Gospel 
 
 Devotional Studies for Every Day. $2.00. 
 
 A selection from the Fourth Gospel, a brief medita- 
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 A Rendezvous with Life 
 Paper, Decorated. Net 25¢c. 
 
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STANDARD REFERENCE WORKS 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Nineteen Hundred and Thirty-eight Illustrations. 
 
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 A comprehensive collection of illustrative incidents, 
 
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EVANGELISTIC WORK 
 ee | 
 
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 President Chicago Theological Seminary. 
 
 Preaching the Social Gospel 
 
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 The new book by the author of “Evangelistic Preach 
 
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PRAYER, DEVOTIONAL, ETC. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Meditations on The Twenty-third Psalm. $1.25. 
 
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STRIKING ADDRESSES 
 ——————————————————— 
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 God Our Contemporary 
 
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BIBLE STUDY 
 aS OE a 
 
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 ee We Ferget"* “~~ 
 
 The Church We Forget 
 
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