RZ 
 
 4-oo 
 38 
 
Oass_ 
 
 Book. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
prater 
 
 Zhe Ibealino of Disease 
 
 i 
 
PRAYER 
 
 AND 
 
 THE HEALING OF DISEASE 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. W. S. PLU.WER BRYAN, D.D. 
 
 
 r ' s *s7 f 
 
 \l%%* 
 
 -i 
 
 3/ 
 
 Chicago: 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY. 
 
 1896 
 
 N~ 
 
~RZ 
 
 Copyrighted iSgb by 
 AY:. ir. A". Plumur Bryan, P.P. 
 
Preface. 
 
 A recent series of studies of the Christian 
 doctrine of prayer included these special 
 themes: 
 
 The Prayer-Hearer. 
 
 Unanswered Prayer. 
 
 The Praying Son and the Model Prayer. 
 
 Prayer and the Healing of Disease. 
 
 The Triumphs of Prayer. 
 
 The following pages contain the fourth of 
 these studies. It is submitted to the Christian 
 public because of the deep solicitude awak- 
 ened in many of our churches and commu- 
 nities by the loud claims to supernatural power 
 put forth by men who cast themselves athwart 
 the faith of the Church Universal. How deep 
 that solicitude is will be appreciated in every 
 circle in which one of these claimants has suc- 
 ceeded in attracting attention to himself; how 
 groundless it is, I have endeavored in these 
 pages to show. 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 Some of the most palpable omissa are dealt 
 with in the unpublished studies; but some are 
 left untouched altogether. The sacrifice of 
 completeness has been made upon the altar of 
 conciseness. The reader must judge whether 
 the altar justifies the sacrifice. 
 The Church of the Covenant, 
 
 Chicago, March, i8q6. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The Cure of Hezekiah ii 
 
 Modern Claimants of Healing Power - 20 
 
 Points of Likeness Among These Claimants 29 
 
 The Explanation of Their Cures - 36 
 
 Really Miraculous Cures 45 
 
 The Effect of False Claims - - 50 
 
In those days was Hezckiah sick unto death. And the 
 prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said 
 unto him, Thus saitJi the lord, Set thine house in order; 
 for thou sha/t die and not live. Then he turned his face 
 to the wall, and prayed unto the lord, saying: /be- 
 seech Thee, Lord, remember now how I have walked 
 before Thee in truth and with a pert ret heart, and /. 
 done that which is good in Thy sight And Ifezekiah 
 wept sore. And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone 
 out into the middle court, that the word oft 
 to him, saying: Turn again, and tell Hezckiah, the 
 captain of My people, Thus sailh the lord, the God of 
 David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I / 
 thy tears: behold I will heal thee: on the third day thou 
 shall go up into the house of the Lord. And 1 will add 
 unto thy days fifteen years; and I will del: a fid 
 
 this city out of the hand of the king oj t; and I 
 
 will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my 
 servant David's sake. And Isaiah said: Take a lump 
 of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he 
 recovered. II. Kings, xx: 1-7. 
 
prayer anb tfye pealing of 
 Disease. 
 
 Hezekiah, the king of Judah, in the times 
 of Isaiah the prophet, was a man of prayer, 
 and his prayers were not for himself alone, 
 but for the people over whom he ruled. 
 He was also a man of action with a serious 
 view of life, and it was the great desire of his 
 heart to carry out certain plans for the relief 
 of his people and for the honor of God. But 
 he was also a man subject to physical infirm- 
 ity. At the age of thirty, when he had no 
 heir to leave upon his throne and his work of 
 reform was scarcely begun, he was taken 
 sick. A carbuncle or imposthume began to 
 form and with it came a message from God 
 through Isaiah, " Set thine house in order, for 
 thou shalt die and not live." 
 
 We who live in the bright light of Christian 
 immortality would be depressed by such a warn- 
 ing coming at such a time, and we can under- 
 stand why Hezekiah turned his face to the 
 
10 PR A YER 
 
 wall and wept sore, praying that his life be 
 spared. His prayer reached the ear of God 
 and Isaiah brought him the answer: " I have 
 heard thy prayer; I have seen thy tears; be- 
 hold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years." 
 At Isaiah's command, the attendants took a 
 cake of figs and laid it upon the boil, and 
 Hezekiah recovered; and his psalm of thanks- 
 giving is recorded at length in these pro- 
 phecies of Isaiah. 
 
Cfyc Cure of Ijc-cktai}. 
 
 This is but one instance among many re- 
 ported in Scripture of the efficacy of prayer in 
 the healing of disease; and it illustrates the 
 well-nigh universal faith of Christian people 
 upon this subject. In that faith they hold: 
 
 First, that God hears prayers for healing as 
 for other blessings. One of his names is Jeho- 
 vah-Rophi — the Lord our Healer, and the heal- 
 ing is not merely spiritual but includes the body, 
 which is the temple of the Holy Ghost. The 
 Prayer-Hearer listens to every item in that long 
 catalogue of wants which His people pour con- 
 tinually into His ear. That ear catches the 
 petition for deliverance from pain as quickly as 
 the petition for deliverance from sin. When 
 the Praying Son taught us to pray " Give us 
 this day our daily bread," He must have 
 intended us to include the body into which that 
 
12 PRA YER 
 
 bread is to be received, for what good would 
 bread do to one whose physical condition was 
 such that he could not eat ? We ought there- 
 fore to pray, Give us our health day by day. 
 He who gives us the bread gives also the 
 health, each in its own measure and according 
 to His holy will. He who has power over the 
 earth that it may bring forth seed to the sower 
 and bread to the eater, has power also over the 
 body and its ailments and infirmities. Every 
 age of the Church, both before the time of 
 Hezekiah and after, both in the days of Christ 
 and up to the present day, has been full of 
 instances in which God has heard prayer and 
 has raised up His children from the verge of the 
 grave. Thousands are living to-day in answer 
 to prayer, and thousands more are full of grati- 
 tude to the prayer-hearing God who has heard 
 their prayers for the life and health of those 
 dear to them. To all such it is passing strange 
 that one can doubt this precious truth, and they 
 are filled with amazement when they are 
 themselves reproached with unbelief in it, 
 because they refuse credence to some passing 
 claimant of divine authority and supernatural 
 power. Yet for the sake of others it is need- 
 
THE CURE OF HEZEKIAH 13 
 
 ful that we confess our faith anew in this 
 fundamental truth and examine soberly in the 
 light of Scripture the claims of these who, from 
 their different standpoints, assail the faith of 
 the Church. 
 
 Second, that God's answers to prayers for 
 healing ordinarily come, as His answers for 
 other blessings ordinarily do, through the nat- 
 ural order. He is not bound down to means. 
 He could have healed Hezekiah by a word 
 without the medicinal agency of the lump of 
 figs, even as He has healed many others by the 
 naked exercise of divine power. But what 
 God can do is some times a different question 
 from what He does. In the case of Hezekiah, 
 God put His blessing upon the established 
 remedial agency of the time, a lump of figs, 
 which hastened the rising of the swelling and 
 thus brought the process of mattering to its 
 conclusion. Under God's blessing upon this 
 remedy the royal patient recovered. This 
 remedy, so effective in Hezekiah's case, was 
 recognized by medical authorities in the times 
 
14 PR A YER 
 
 of Dioscorides, Pliny and St. Jerome, and it is 
 highly esteemed by medical authorities to-day. 
 The divine method in the case of Hezekiah 
 showed not only that God works through 
 means, but also that He uses the means which 
 are at hand in the provisions of nature, and as 
 the result of human experiment. Naaman the 
 Syrian, and the man born blind in the days of 
 Christ, are both instances of God's blessing 
 upon means. Naaman was only healed of his 
 leprosy when, at the command of Elisha, he 
 washed in the river Jordan seven times. The 
 man born blind only began to see after his e\ 
 had been anointed by Jesus with clay made of 
 spittle and he had washed in the Pool of Si- 
 loam. But in neither of these cases was a rec- 
 ognized remedial agency used, so that the cure 
 of Hezekiah stands forth as reflecting the di- 
 vine blessing upon those medicinal prepara- 
 tions which experience has shown to be effective. 
 It is not disbelief, therefore, to use these prepa- 
 rations. It is rather sinful presumption to re- 
 fuse or to neglect them. One might as well re- 
 fuse to eat, expecting that God would miracu- 
 lously sustain his life ; or to study, expecting that 
 God would miraculously endow him with learn- 
 
THE CURE OF HEZEKIAH 15 
 
 ing; or to work and to save, expecting that God 
 would miraculously endow him with wealth, 
 as refuse the means appointed for the main- 
 tenance and recovery of health, expecting that 
 God will honor our daring presumption in 
 defying that order of nature which His own 
 wisdom has appointed. 
 
 Third, that Hezekiah's recovery shows that 
 health is not the highest blessing which man 
 can have. In his case, recovery was most 
 unfortunate; for the moral catastrophe of 
 his life occurred after it and largely in con- 
 sequence of it. Had he died when the sum- 
 mons was sent him first, his record as a sin- 
 cere and consistent servant of God so far 
 as we have it would have been unblem- 
 ished; but during the fifteen years which, 
 in answer to prayer, God had added to his 
 life, his heart was lifted up in pride and 
 self-glory. He entered into alliance with 
 Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, and re- 
 ceived his presents and rendered not unto God 
 for the benefits which God had done him. His 
 
10 PRAYER 
 
 sin brought its doom in the captivity of his 
 people, and there was wrath upon him and 
 upon Judah and upon Jerusalem. Though the 
 captivity was postponed until after his death, 
 yet death to him must have been bitter indeed, 
 for it was clouded with the consciousness that 
 his own pride had brought ruin upon the peo- 
 ple whom he loved and whom he sought to 
 serve. 
 
 Sickness and death in the Christian view are 
 not the greatest evils one can undergo. Out 
 of them have come some of God's richest 
 blessings. The man that was born blind, 
 through no sin of his own nor through any sin 
 of his parents, could look back, after he had 
 been healed, upon his years of darkness with 
 rejoicing, and see wherein by his darkness 
 God had been glorified. The man who had 
 an infirmity for thirty-eight years, and who year 
 after year lay at the pool of Bethesda, hoping in 
 vain that he might reach the pool, could look 
 back upon those thirty-eight weary years with- 
 out regret after he had been given sight by the 
 Lord Jesus. Lazarus, when dying, doubtless 
 felt grieved, as his sisters certainly did, that 
 his Friend and Lord had not come to save 
 
THE CURE OF HEZEKIAH 17 
 
 him from the bitterness of death. And yet 
 when after four days that Lord raised him 
 from the dead, how glad they were that 
 He and not they had ordered the issue of the 
 sickness ! They saw then that the glory of 
 God shines even through death. Paul's thorn 
 in the flesh, which probably was some physical 
 infirmity, called forth from him three earnest 
 prayers for relief, none of which were an- 
 swered; but that thorn became a blessing, 
 even while it rankled, in that it brought with 
 it the promise, " My grace is sufficient for thee, 
 for my strength is made perfect in weakness." 
 And the reverent reply of the sorely-afflicted 
 apostle separates him from the modern claim- 
 ants to supernatural power in the healing of 
 disease, for, instead of making a clamorous de- 
 mand that the thorn be removed, he patiently 
 submitted to the divine will and said, " Most 
 gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my 
 infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
 upon me." The power of Christ ! this was 
 his great desire and the thorn that brought it 
 was a blessing in disguise. 
 
 The Christian life is something more than 
 physical health. Prayer has a higher and 
 
18 PRAYER 
 
 nobler purpose than mere freedom from pain. 
 Some of the brightest lights in the kingdom of 
 God have for years been never free from pain. 
 Their prayers for health, like Paul's, have not 
 been answered; but God has given them some- 
 thing better than physical health, and they 
 have been willing patiently to submit to 1 1 is 
 will. Sickness is not a mark of the divine 
 displeasure. Death to the Christian is not a 
 bugbear. The grave has been entered by One 
 who as He lay in it spoiled its victory. He 
 has made it the entrance-way to the heavenly 
 home and the eternal glory. These comfort- 
 ing truths are in marked contrast with the 
 teachings of some who assume to speak by di- 
 vine authority, and they show how far astray 
 these teachers are. To the sick and the dying 
 and the bereaved the Scripture comes sooth- 
 ingly. The anguish and horror occasioned by 
 these claimants to divine authority prove that 
 they are not sent by Him who does not break 
 the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. 
 
 These features of the cure of Hezekiah 
 illustrate the Christian doctrine of prayer in its 
 
THE CURE OF HEZEKIAH 19 
 
 relation to health. It expresses the faith of 
 thousands of Christians who act upon it year 
 after year, without ever questioning it. These 
 are of many names and of various creeds, but 
 they are all at one in their faith in the God 
 who hears prayers for health as for all other 
 blessings 
 
Cfye Claimants to Supernatural power. 
 
 The cure of Hezekiah is very unsatisfactory 
 to different classes of men. There are those 
 who do not believe in a personal God, or in 
 the power of prayer; and for these reas 
 they reject the cure. There are others who 
 believe in prayer for some things, but not for 
 such a definite thing as health; and they also 
 reject the cure. There are others who be- 
 lieve that God can do some things, but that 
 the miraculous sign given from heaven to con- 
 firm this cure is too heavy a strain upon their 
 faith; and they also reject the cure. 
 
 Our concern is with none of these, but with 
 another class, many of whom believe in God 
 and in His power and in the Holy Scripture; 
 yet who find the cure of Hezekiah by the lump 
 of figs a fact very damaging to their favorite 
 theories. This class has very serious internal 
 differences, but it is a class nevertheless. 
 The various types all hold the belief that 
 
CLAIMS OF SUPERNATURAL POWER 21 
 
 physical health is always and everywhere 
 God's will for us and that it is to be procured 
 and maintained not by the use of reme- 
 dial agencies but by various devices. As to 
 what these devices are, they are in violent an- 
 tagonism among themselves; but they all alike 
 endeavor to perform cures by flouting the 
 natural remedies and claiming a power and au- 
 thority more or less supernatural. 
 
 This class is not confined to any one sec- 
 tion nor yet to any one religion of the woHd. 
 It appears, however, to thrive under the ample 
 folds of the name of Christianity and in 
 Christian countries its representatives claim 
 the sanction of the religion of Jesus for their 
 practices. The Mormons who call themselves 
 the Latter-Day Saints in the seventh of their 
 articles of faith claim the gift of healing, and 
 their success in gathering converts is in part 
 due to the exercise of this gift. Among the 
 Roman Catholics holy persons and holy places 
 are supposed to be able to work wonderful 
 cures. Prince Hohenlohe, bishop of Sar- 
 dica, who was born in 1794, began at the 
 
22 PR A YER 
 
 age of twenty-six years to heal the sick. 
 And Father Mathew was so successful in re- 
 lieving pain that after his death multitudes vis- 
 ited his grave, many of whom were helped and 
 left their crutches there. Every one has heard 
 of the cures which were effected at the chapel of 
 Knock, in Ireland, and at Lourdes, in France, 
 where the Virgin Mary is believed to have re- 
 vealed herself to a peasant girl in 1858, and of 
 recent years in a chapel at Montreal, Canada. 
 At all of these places the inevitable pile of 
 crutches attests the faith of the pilgrims. 
 
 
 Within the last twenty years there has been 
 another type. It is a body, or rather a series 
 of bodies, known by the name of M Christian 
 Science." These bodies do not dwell in peace 
 with one another, and it is not just to attribute 
 the views of one school to the members of an- 
 other school; but the following statement of 
 one of their teachers may be taken as substan- 
 tially true of all the schools. " God is su- 
 preme; is mind; is principle, not personal; 
 includes all, and is reflected by all that is 
 eternal; is spirit, and spirit is infinite; is the 
 
CLAIMS OF SUPERNATURAL POWER 23 
 
 only substance; is the only life; man was 
 and is the idea of God. Therefore, mind 
 can never be in man; divine science shows 
 that matter and mortal body are the illu- 
 sions of human belief, which seem to appear 
 and disappear to mortal sense alone. When 
 this belief changes, as in dreams, the ma- 
 terial body changes with it, going wherever 
 we wish and becoming whatever we may 
 decree. * * * Anatomy, physiology, 
 treatises on health, sustained by what is termed 
 1 material law,' are the husbandmen of sickness 
 and disease. * * * Because the muscles 
 of the blacksmith's arm are strongly developed, 
 it does not follow that exercise did it, or that 
 an arm less used must be fragile. * * * If 
 you believed in inflamed or weak nerves, you 
 are liable to an attack from that source. You 
 call it neuralgia; but I call it illusion. * * * 
 When treating the sick, first make your plea 
 in behalf of harmony. * * * Then realize 
 the absence of disease. * * * Use such 
 powerful language as a congressman would 
 employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman 
 law." 
 
 This statement is not true of all types of 
 
24 PRA YER 
 
 Christian Science. One holds that M it is not 
 necessary to deny either the personality or the 
 persistent individuality of the human spirit." 
 This also adds, very sensibly, but in apparent 
 violation of the doctrine of Christian Science, 
 11 It is not necessary to tell a man dying of 
 consumption that he is not sick, for that is not 
 true."* 
 
 Another type of these claimants to super- 
 natural power is for the day represented in 
 that mysterious individual, Schlatter, whose 
 cures in the state of Colorado have been so 
 widely published. A cousin of his is at this 
 time operating in an adjacent state, while, in 
 Chi' i young man named Gregoriwitsch 
 
 has been giving exhibitions of his curative 
 powers. 
 
 The last type to be mentioned is made up 
 
 * For these quotations, as well as for many instances 
 cited hereafter, I am indebted to Dr. J. M. Buckley, 
 of New York, whose careful treatise on " Faith Heal- 
 ing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena," deals 
 with these various claimants to supernatural power on 
 grounds which are at once scientific, philosophical and 
 Scriptural. 
 
CLAIMS OF SUPERNA TURAL POWER 25 
 
 of men who have begun their careers as minis- 
 ters of the Gospel, holding the evangelical 
 faith. Their views upon God and Christ and 
 the atonement do not vary greatly from those 
 held in the Church Universal, but as soon as 
 they pass beyond these fundamental themes, 
 and undertake to deal with disease, they show 
 that for practical purposes they must be 
 classed along with those I have described 
 above rather than with the great body of the 
 Christian Church; and that a wall of partition 
 divides them off from the Christian Church, 
 which is higher and broader than any of the 
 walls which divide the various branches of the 
 Church of Christ from one another. 
 
 All the great centers of English and Ameri- 
 can life have representatives of this type of 
 claimants. In London, an institution known 
 as " Bethshan " reported wonderful cures a 
 few years ago; " Old Orchard," Maine, has ac- 
 quired a reputation second only to Lourdes or 
 the chapel of Knock, by reason of the results 
 of the efforts of a Boston representative of this 
 type; in New York City, remarkable results 
 are claimed in the " Homes " of the " Chris- 
 tian Alliance "; while Chicago has three or four 
 
26 PR A YER 
 
 establishments under one control all of which 
 are called " Zion's Tabernacles." This type is 
 very careful about the title given to it, but 
 its different representatives would perhaps all 
 agree to be classed as practising M divine heal- 
 ing. " A recent issue of one of the numerous 
 publications of this type contains a statement 
 of " God's way of healing," in which it is said 
 that this is " a person and not a thing; that the 
 Lord Jesus Christ is still the healer; and that 
 4 divine healing' rests on Christ's atonement. M 
 Understood in their historic these 
 
 principles will be readily agreed to through- 
 out the Christian world. The statement, how- 
 ever, proceeds to the very dangerous position 
 that 'disease can never be God's will, that 
 the gifts of healing are permanent, and that 
 the four methods of " divine healing" are, the 
 direct prayer of faith, the intercessory prayer 
 of two or more, the anointing of elders with the 
 prayer of faith, and the laying on of hands of 
 those who believe and whom God has pre- 
 pared and called to that ministry.' 
 
 These various types are all in the most vio- 
 lent antagonism. The " divine healer" just 
 
CLAIMS OF SUPERNATURAL POWER 27 
 
 quoted concludes his statement by denouncing 
 as " diabolical " all of his rivals, viz. : " Christ- 
 ian Science, Mind-healing, Spiritualism and 
 Trance-evangelism." These retaliate in like 
 terms and " expose " the " divine healing" as 
 a fraud and a humbug. Indeed, one need not 
 go beyond this acute intestine controversy to 
 find ample evidence on which to discredit these 
 claimants one and all. They discredit one an- 
 other far more effectively than one unversed in 
 their peculiar methods could hope to do. 
 
 This is true not only of the different types, 
 but of the members of the same type. Dr. 
 Buckley reports an experience of his with a 
 somewhat famous Dr. N., who had healed a 
 Dr. B. of a malignant disease, and had em- 
 ployed him as his amanuensis for a time. 
 When, however, B. left N. and set up in oppo- 
 sition to him, N. instantly denounced him as 
 an unmitigated fraud, who had no genuine 
 healing power; and accounted for his cures on 
 the ground that they were caused by the faith 
 of the people and the concentration of their 
 minds upon his operations, with the expecta- 
 tion of being cured. When he was asked, 
 however, if it was not in this manner that he 
 
28 PR A YER 
 
 performed his works, he said, " Oh, no; the 
 difference v between a genuine healer and a 
 quack, like B., is as wide as the poles." 
 This same N. was obliged to confess with re- 
 gard to his daughter, whom he had taken to 
 Havana, hoping the climate would benefit her, 
 u It seems as if we can not always affect our 
 own kindred." 
 
points of Cikeness Ctmong tEfycsc Cypes. 
 
 In spite of all their differences, however, 
 and their dissensions, it is quite possible to 
 unify these different types into one class with 
 well-defined characteristics. This has not 
 been done to any large extent for the reason 
 that it has been felt needful to deal with each 
 type by itself. And, if the purpose in view 
 were to reclaim to sane views of health and 
 religion the believers in any one of these 
 theories, it would be necessary patiently to 
 deal with its peculiarities. Such a purpose, 
 however worthy, is secondary to the larger 
 purpose of protecting Christian people from 
 the influence of these views, one and all. With 
 this in view, the individual peculiarities may 
 be passed by and attention fixed upon those 
 points in which these various claims of super- 
 natural power are at one. Among these are: 
 
30 PR A YER 
 
 Their Rejection of Remedial Agencies. 
 They all confessedly stand together on this 
 basis. Had any one of them been charged 
 with the cure of Hezekiah, he would have 
 waved away the lump of figs and proclaimed 
 his ability to effect a cure by his own private 
 method, which might be a prayer alone, or a 
 manipulation of a handkerchief he had blessed, 
 or a solemn gaze into empty space. 
 
 In this, they all alike array themselves 
 against the divinely appointed order of the 
 world. They make the healing of disease a 
 process entirely out of harmony with other 
 processes of nature. They wrench it out of 
 relation to the ordinary methods of daily life. 
 For every other end which these healers of 
 disease may have in view, they are very ready 
 to employ the means sanctioned by experience; 
 but when suffering is to be relieved and disease 
 is to be cured, they turn from the teachings of 
 experience and from the remedial agencies 
 which God has always blessed. In their con- 
 tempt for these agencies they tear away, with 
 great dramatic effect, the bandages which med- 
 ical skill has wrapped around open wounds; 
 they take the crutches of the cripple to hang 
 
POINTS OF LIKENESS AMONG TYPES 31 
 
 them as trophies upon their walls; and they 
 excite the victim of sore disease until in his 
 imagination he thinks himself well. These 
 they point to as evidences that remedial agen- 
 cies are valueless. God's law, they assert, is 
 against human sickness, and sickness can be 
 cured by bringing the patient into harmony 
 with that law. Yet they deal in the rational 
 way with human hunger and human poverty, 
 which are as much " against " God's laws as 
 human sickness. They do not refuse to 
 eat the bread which God has graciously pro- 
 vided as the means of relieving hunger, nor 
 do they decline the warm clothing which 
 God has also provided as the means of pro- 
 tection against suffering. The use of means 
 for the cure of disease involves no more un- 
 faith in God than the use of means to pro- 
 mote the other ends of daily life, and none 
 are more quick to employ all these means 
 than these various claimants of supernatural 
 power. They use means to advertise them- 
 selves such as books, periodicals and pam- 
 phlets, which they circulate by business meth- 
 ods, and with the most persistent energy. 
 They use means to confirm themselves in their 
 
32 PR A YER 
 
 
 powers by piling up their collections of crutches 
 and bandages and splints, accumulating photo- 
 graphs of persons cured, with glowing testi- 
 monials as to the efficacy of the cure. They 
 use the means of worldly support also, 
 whether these come in the way of fixed fees, 
 or of what some of them call " free will offer- 
 ings for the Lord's work"; and these funds 
 they invest in real estate and other substantial 
 forms of security. In all of these particulars 
 they are as shrewd and worldly-wise as the 
 vendor of any patent medicine, or the mer- 
 chant in any line of business. Their distrust 
 of physicians, their contempt of nursing, and 
 
 their defiance of tin; laws of medication con- 
 stitute a solitary exo ption to their use of 
 means in the prosecution of their work. 
 
 The identity of their cures. Their cures are 
 often real. It is a waste of time and a sacri- 
 fice of sense to deny this. These cures include 
 such diseases as paralysis, convulsions, tumors, 
 spinal disease, rheumatism and neuralgia, with 
 occasional instances of lost hearing or 
 sight. Each type, of course, claims that its 
 
POINTS OF LIKEXESS AMONG TYPES 33 
 
 cures are peculiar and distinctive; but an ex- 
 amination of these will show that one type 
 possesses no advantage over any other. They 
 cover the same range of diseases, and they 
 accomplish about the same general result. 
 
 The influence which any one of these 
 methods of healing acquires arises out of its 
 success in fixing attention upon its own line of 
 results to the exclusion of the results of its 
 rivals. Each method develops in its disciples 
 a very pronounced partizanship which leads 
 them to discredit every other method, and to 
 believe that it has about it something miracu- 
 lous and hitherto unheard of. But if one will 
 pass under review in succession the line of re- 
 sults presented by each of these methods, he 
 will be struck by the likeness they sustain to 
 one another and a common origin for them all 
 will be suggested to him. 
 
 The character of their testimonials. The 
 disciples, like the healers, are in most cases 
 sincere men and women, who verily believe 
 that their cures are due to miraculous agencies. 
 Their testimonials accordingly express the 
 
34 PR A YER 
 
 deep convictions of relief and gratitude which 
 they feel that these agencies have been invoked 
 in their behalf. It would be not only a 
 waste of time, but a most ungracious task to 
 question the sincerity with which these testi- 
 monials are written. Each type, of course, 
 claims that its distinctive testimonials are in- 
 vincible, and ought to produce conviction in 
 the minds of all candid investigators. The 
 difficulty with the testimony, however, IS not 
 that it fails to prove, but that it proves entirely 
 too much. Christian scientists prove their 
 claims by their testimonials and divine healers 
 proves their claims by their testimonials, and 
 Schlatter proves his claims by his testimonials. 
 The testimony in any one case is quite as good 
 as in any other; and when we have it all before 
 us we are just as far from knowing which is 
 the true and the only method of healing as we 
 were at the beginning. Furthermore, this 
 testimony simply puts these methods of heal- 
 ing on the same level with the various patent- 
 medicines of which the world is so full. None 
 of them can produce a richer or more varied 
 or more wonderful series of testimonials than 
 some of the time-honored patent-medicines. 
 
POINTS OF LIKENESS AMONG TYPES 33 
 
 Indeed, we might substitute in any of these 
 testimonials as to healing the name of some 
 patent-medicine, and find that it would read 
 quite as well as a testimonial to the efficacy 
 of the medicine. They are couched in the 
 same extravagant language, and they recite 
 the same marvelous cures, and express the 
 same deathless gratitude to the particular 
 agency to which they attribute their cure. 
 
 These points are sufficient to show wherein 
 these different and antagonistic claimants to 
 supernatural power in the healing of disease 
 stand together, and wherein they may fairly be 
 treated as belonging to one class. 
 
(Explanation of TTljctr (Cures, 
 
 That these cures are real ought to be freely 
 conceded; that the explanations which the 
 healers give of the cures are correct must be 
 emphatically denied. It is a principle of sound 
 philosophy as well as of true religion that 
 while God is present in all His works, and His 
 personal agency is in the world, the presump- 
 tion is always that God acts in accordance with 
 the laws which He has established. This pre- 
 sumption is overthrown only when those laws 
 fail to account for the facts. It is a mark of 
 barbaric superstition to invoke the divine 
 agency at every point, and to inveigh against 
 those who seek to inquire candidly and re\ 
 ently into the truth of any claim to divine 
 power. Upon this principle, the cures wrought 
 by these healers must be carefully examined; 
 and when so examined, it will be found that 
 they are accounted for by: 
 
EXPLANA TION OF THEIR CURES 37 
 
 The healing power of nature, technically 
 called vis medicatrix naturae. All candid 
 physicians confess that they rely more upon this 
 than they do upon their own wisdom or their 
 medicines; and they administer their medicines 
 very often not to heal but to let nature heal. 
 This healing" power of nature is frequently ex- 
 hibited in that dread disease, consumption. 
 The late Prof. Austin Flint, of New York, in 
 his clinical report on consumption, describes 
 sixty-two cases in which an arrest of the dis- 
 ease took place. In seven of these cases the 
 arrest took place without any special medical 
 or hygienic treatment; and in four of the 
 seven, recovery was complete. Prof. Ben- 
 nett, of the Royal Infirmary, at Edinburgh, 
 says that morbid anatomy has demonstrated 
 that tuberculosis or consumption in the 
 early state degenerates and becomes abortive, 
 with extreme frequency, in the proportion of 
 one-third to one-half of all the incurables who 
 die over forty, and the Louden Lancet en- 
 dorses this conclusion. 
 
 Before the claim to miraculous power in the 
 cure of disease can be conceded to any or all 
 of these healers, they must be able to show 
 
38 PR A YER 
 
 
 that this healing power of nature has not 
 been at work. This is illustrated in the case 
 of a lad sadly afflicted with curvature of the 
 spine. He was placed in a plaster cast and 
 the healing process was, by the testimony of 
 his physician, practically completed. Out of 
 abundant caution the plaster cast was not re- 
 moved at once; and, the lad becoming impa- 
 tient, his friends placed him under the care of 
 one of these healers, who at once broke the 
 cast, ordered the lad to stand up and pro- 
 nounced him cured by miraculous power. And 
 the lad, with many of his friends, was firmly 
 convinced that he was cured, not by the heal- 
 ing power of nature, but by the agency of the 
 " divine healer." This healing power of nature 
 is so entirely unknown to many credulous per- 
 sons, that, if they come under the influence of 
 any one of these methods of healing, and are 
 benefited at all during that period, they are 
 almost forced to concede its claims to mira- 
 culous power. 
 
 The pozver of concentrated ' attention, whether 
 it be called faith or will power. 
 
EXPLANATION OF THEIR CURES 39 
 
 This is recognized in all medical practice. 
 At the seige of Breda, in 1625, scurvy pre- 
 vailed to such an extent that the Prince of 
 Orange was about to capitulate. Three small 
 bottles of medicine were given to each physi- 
 cian, which did not contain enough for the re- 
 covery of two patients; and it was oracularly 
 announced that three or four drops from one 
 of these vials was sufficient to impart a healing 
 virtue to a gallon of liquor. The effect was 
 astonishing. Many recovered quickly and 
 perfectly; and men who had not moved their 
 limbs for a month walked the streets in perfect 
 health. 
 
 The efficacy of the touch of a king to cure 
 scrofula is authenticated beyond question, says 
 Dr. Buckley. Charles II. touched nearly a 
 hundred thousand people. James, in one of 
 his journeys, touched eight hundred persons. 
 And when William III. refused to exercise this 
 power, it brought upon him an avalanche of 
 tears from parents of children who were suffer- 
 ing from this disease. 
 
 An eminent practitioner in this country re- 
 ported several years ago his experiments in this 
 direction. He was approached by a lady, a 
 
40 PR A YER 
 
 devout Catholic, who needed treatment and 
 desired to try the waters of Lourdes in 
 France, which has been mentioned as one of 
 the holy places at which cures were wrought. 
 The physician told her — what was true — that 
 he had a vial of that water, and that he was 
 perfectly willing to give her son>e of it. But 
 he asked her as a favor if she would try an- 
 other water which he had found efficacious for 
 various ailments, and which he called Aqua 
 Cro fonts. In New York this means common 
 hydrant water. Not being versed in medical 
 terms or in the sources of the water supply of 
 the city, the lady consented to try the famous 
 Aqua Crotonis* The practitioner tool; a bot- 
 tle, labeled it Aqua Crotouis, put into it 
 some of the water of Lourdes, and told 
 the lady to use it for a week and report 
 the results to him. She faithfully followed 
 the directions, not knowing that it was the 
 water of Lourdes she was using, and at the 
 end of the week she reported to the doctor 
 that the Aqua Crotonis had done her no 
 good. The physician then labeled a bottle 
 Water of Lourdes, put into it some com- 
 mon hydrant water and gave it to his very 
 
 
EXPLANATION OF THEIR CURES 41 
 
 devout patient. In a week she returned en- 
 tirely restored by the efficacy of this wonderful 
 water and confirmed in her faith in the healing 
 power of the virgin of Lourdes. 
 
 Dr. Dixon, of Brooklyn, relates a case, for 
 which, however, he does not vouch, in which 
 this will power or imagination produced not 
 life, but death. A criminal was under sen- 
 tence of death, and some physicians obtained 
 permission to try the effect of mind upon body. 
 They informed the criminal that they were or- 
 dered to bleed him to death in his cell, and 
 save him from the disgrace of a public execu- 
 tion. He readily consented and was blind- 
 folded. The physician pierced his arm with 
 a lance, and poured warm water over it from 
 a basin so that the prisoner could distinctly hear 
 the water drip, but could not see the nature 
 of the wound. He received the impression 
 that the dripping water was his life blood 
 pouring out. After awhile one of the physi- 
 cians said, " He will live five minutes," " four 
 minutes," " three minutes," "two minutes," 
 " one minute," " half a minute," " fifteen sec- 
 onds," and when the time expired the man was 
 dead. 
 
42 PR A YER 
 
 If physicians were only willing to speak out 
 they could tell of many prescriptions of rose 
 water and bread pills, which are administered 
 with a view not of affecting the physical con- 
 dition, but simply the faith or will power of 
 the patient. It is a perfectly legitimate 
 method of treatment. And if these various 
 types of healers were only willing to put them- 
 selves on a level with our physicians in their 
 use of these devices, they would free them- 
 selves from the charge <>f imposture, in their 
 use of powers which medical practice lias al- 
 ways recognized, and at the same time render 
 immense service to humanity. 
 
 
 Exaggerations of human testimony. There 
 is no more unreliable witness than he who 
 attempts to describe his own physical con- 
 dition. His testimony is almost irresistibly 
 
 in the line of his favorite belief. And 
 when a cold-blooded and disinterested out- 
 sider passes upon this testimony he is forced, 
 without any discredit to the sincerity of 
 the witness, to reject the larger portion of it. 
 This is even true of physicians themselves. 
 
EXPLANATION OF THEIR CURES 43 
 
 Not many years ago one died from what he 
 supposed to be consumption. But the post- 
 mortem examination showed that his lungs 
 were perfectly sound, and that his death re- 
 sulted from disease caused by the quantities of 
 1 and stimulants he had taken to ward off 
 the disease. A famous female evangelist, 
 whose cure has attracted great attention, re- 
 fused to mention a surgical operation by which 
 her friends know r she was greatly benefited, 
 because, she said, she did not wish to divert 
 attention from the great work that God had 
 really wrought in her. 
 
 When one definitely places himself under 
 the influence of any one of these methods of 
 healing, he is disposed very naturally to justify 
 himself by justifying the method. Hence, his 
 testimony is liable to error as to his condition 
 previous to his cure, which he will present as 
 most dangerous; as to the results of the cure, 
 which he will take at the highest possible 
 value; and as to his present state, which, if 
 favorable, he will attribute to the continuing 
 effects of the cure. Little credence can be 
 given to the testimony of men exposed to such 
 temptations as these. 
 
44 PR A YER 
 
 TJie Silence as to Failures. — This is one 
 of the saddest aspects of the work of these 
 healers. They verge upon heartlessness as 
 they vainly endeavor to explain away their 
 failures and the relapses of their patients, for 
 they visit the failure of their method upon the 
 unfortunate victim of that method. 
 
 Lord Gardenstone, a learned Englishman, 
 spent a great deal of time inquiring for those 
 persons who had actually attested marvelous 
 cures, and found that more than two-thirds of 
 the number died very shortly after they had 
 been cured. If the healers as frank in 
 
 their pracl 'ii" physicians are, we would 
 
 be better able timate their results; but, 
 
 with their avoidance of all n to deaths, 
 
 relapses and failures, it is impossible to give 
 any opinion favorable to their methods, while 
 the train of darkened homes and broken lives 
 points to their gross incompetency, and to the 
 baselessness of their claims. 
 
£fye Difference Betnxen Cfyese (Lures 
 anb miraculous Cures. 
 
 The fact of these cures has been admitted 
 and an adequate explanation upon natural 
 grounds has been advanced. It remains, how- 
 ever, to point out wherein the claim of special 
 supernatural power, made on the ground of 
 these cures, must be denied. 
 
 First. If these healers exercise supernatu- 
 ral power, our physicians are endowed with 
 the same. It is, of course, easy for a healer to 
 say that he does his works by the power of God, 
 and that his opponents work by the power 
 of the devil. But as each healer makes the 
 same claim for himself, we are just as far from 
 determining which is the work of God and 
 which is the work of the devil as before we 
 listened to their claims. The most effective 
 expose of spiritualism is that given by prestidigi- 
 tateurs like Hermann, who is able to duplicate 
 the curious tricks of spiritualists, by sleight-of- 
 
46 PR A YER 
 
 hand and without aid from the spirits. So 
 when our physicians, many of them irreligious 
 men, are able to parallel the cures wrought by 
 the healers, it goes to show that the healer 
 simply used the same natural forces which 
 the physican used. The difference is that 
 the physician confesses that it is but a natural 
 force, while the healer claims some marvelous 
 agency behind it. Sober-minded men who 
 reverently recognize God's supernatural power 
 in human life are not to be deterred from ex- 
 posing shams by the fear of the charge of 
 Atheism. They recall the admoniti* n of the 
 loving yet discriminating John, "Beloved, be- 
 lieve not every spirit, but try the spirits whether 
 they are of God: because many false prophets 
 are gone out into the world." 
 
 Second. These methods fail to accomplish 
 cures which would require a supernatural or 
 miraculous agency. There is not one in- 
 stance upon record in which these healers 
 gave sight to a man born blind nor one in 
 which they have restored a limb which has 
 been amputated, nor one in which they have 
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CURES 47 
 
 given an idiot his senses, or restored a lunatic 
 to sanity, nor one in which they have raised 
 the dead to life again. If they stood upon the 
 basis of our ordinary medical practice, this 
 would be no discredit to them. Every candid 
 physician is free to confess the failure of his 
 methods and the limitations which environ his 
 processes. But it is different with one who 
 claims supernatural power. There is no limit 
 to divine power. There is nothing which the 
 arm of God cannot do. And therefore if these 
 healers be invested with divine power, they 
 must accomplish results w r hich cannot be 
 explained upon natural grounds; and their fail- 
 ure to do so convicts them either of a wilful 
 ignorance or else of the deepest insincerity. 
 There is no escape from this dilemma. 
 
 TJiird. The miracles of Christ and the 
 apostles as manifestations of divine power, 
 stand out in clear contrast with the works of 
 these healers. These miracles consisted in 
 raising the dead such as Lazarus and the son 
 of the widow of Nain, in restoring sight to 
 men born blind, and hearing to the deaf. 
 
48 PR A YER 
 
 The last miracle which our Lord wrought 
 before his death was when Peter had drawn his 
 sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the 
 High Priest. The great Physician simply 
 touched the ear, and it was made whole as the 
 other. We look in vain among modern healers 
 for any parallel to these miracles. 
 
 Further, in Christ's miracles, there was no 
 purpose of display, no collection of trophies, 
 no angry denunciation of rivals, do jealousy, 
 no bitterness, no rancor. His miracles were 
 wrought for the purpose of establishing His 
 claims in connection with the spiritual ends 
 which He had in view. The gratification 
 of curiosity, or even the relief of suffering 
 were not in themselves sufficient to induce 
 Him to exert this power. And besides all the 
 miracles of Christ and His apostles were 
 free from the suspicion of money-getting. 
 When Simon Magus came to the apostles to 
 purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost, they were 
 horrified, and turned from him, saying, " Thy 
 money perish with thee." Unfortunately the 
 odor of money lingers strong around these 
 modern healings. With the exception of the 
 Colorado healer Schlatter, I know of no one 
 
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CURES 49 
 
 of them who refuses money, and none will tell 
 the amounts which pass into their treasuries as 
 so-called "freewill offerings." What a con- 
 trast to the miracles of the Master! What a 
 contrast also to the methods of the Christian 
 Church which, while it lays upon its members 
 the duty of maintaining God's ordinances, 
 accounts for every cent received and explains 
 every disbursement made! 
 
(Effect of tCfycsc Claims. 
 
 The sad results which attend these various 
 claims to healing are only too well known. 
 
 Error in itself is mischievous, and if I have 
 correctly stated the case these various methods 
 of healing are permeated with error. Neither 
 a sound philosophy nor an established science 
 nor a spiritual religion can tolerate any one of 
 them. Christian science with its doctrine that 
 that there is no such thing as disease, and the 
 divine healer with his doctrine that disease 
 can never be God's will, set themselves not 
 only against the appointed forces of the intel- 
 ligent and civilized world, but also against his- 
 toric Christianity. As far as their views spread, 
 just so far they do damage to the cause of civil- 
 ization and Christianity. Phrases and prayers 
 cannot conceal the dangerous heresies of these 
 healers. They separate themselves alike from 
 all branches of the Christian Church and from 
 all the fo/ces of our modern civilized life, 
 
EFFECT OF THESE CLAIMS 51 
 
 by a wall which can never be broken, save 
 as they come to sane and wise views of health 
 arid religion. 
 
 The sufferings caused by the belief in these 
 views are sometimes pathetic. When Bishop 
 William Taylor, of Africa, was in the midst of 
 his work, he had with him a young man who 
 fanatically refused to take any medicine, and 
 died a martyr to the superstition which he 
 mistook for faith. The last entry he made in 
 his diary was, " I haven't a fever but a weak 
 feeling; but I take the promise, ' He giveth 
 power to the faint/ and I do receive the fact." 
 The testimony of his medical adviser is: 
 " Charlie, your temperature is 105, and pulse 
 130; normal is 98; the dividing line between 
 life and death is 103. You are now dying; it 
 is only a question of time, and if you don't 
 take something to break up this fever it will 
 surely kill you." To which the poor mis- 
 guided youth replied, M Well, then, I will die, 
 for I won't take any medicine." And he died 
 convinced that his faith in his theory of dis- 
 ease was faith in God Himself. 
 
52 PR A YER 
 
 For sixty years or more there has lived not 
 far away a woman whose life was full of the 
 joy and sunshine of the Christian hope as that 
 hope is expressed in the faith of the Methodist 
 church. Jesus was her Saviour and her Lord, 
 and her hope in Him led her to a consistent 
 and useful life in her church. Within a few 
 years she became afflicted with a dropsical af- 
 fection, which medical skill found to be incur- 
 able. With that desperation which is willing 
 to try anything, she put herself under the in- 
 fluence of a " divine healer," and went to his 
 
 ablishment for treatment. The usual creed 
 was announced to her that disease can not be 
 God's will, and that God is willing to heal 
 every one who has faith enough, that ti 
 prayer leaves out " if it be possible,"* and ex- 
 pects immediate restoration, and that if she 
 was not restored it was proof that she had not 
 
 •" There has arisen of late a professed teacher of 
 "divine healing," who is said to urge his hearers 
 that true prayer leaves out the "ifs." It is difficult 
 to credit the statement concerning one who calls 
 himself, even in a general way, a Christian. To him 
 the agonies of Gethsemane must be meaningless, for 
 the Son of God offered His unanswered prayer, M Oh, 
 My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; 
 nevertheless, not My will, hut Thine be done." — From 
 the Study on Unanswered Prayer, 
 
EFFECT OF THESE CLAIMS 53 
 
 faith enough. The suffering disciple entered 
 upon this fearful test. Day by day she prayed 
 and watched, and as her disease grew 
 worse, her fears arose, not for her physical 
 health, but for her spiritual safety. She had 
 never before doubted her acceptance in the 
 Lord, but if her physical condition was an in- 
 dex to her spiritual state, what must her state 
 be ? The sunshine went out of her soul and 
 she wandered in spiritual darkness, while day 
 by day the cruel test was held over her head, 
 u You can be healed if you have faith enough." 
 Her mind began to give way and her friends 
 insisted on removing her to her home. Within 
 a few day after she was stricken with apoplexy, 
 and to-day she lingers in great pain from her 
 disease and w r ith a mind enfeebled by the 
 awful strain through which she passed. Her 
 sun is going down in darkness, yet when the 
 gracious Master whom she served for so many 
 years gathers his distressed disciple to Himself 
 He will show her that faith in Him is not 
 to be tested by one's physical condition, but 
 by the love and joy and reverence we feel for 
 Him and by our readiness to suffer His right- 
 eous will. 
 
54 PR A YER 
 
 The daily papers are full of cases in which 
 parents have refused treatment to their child- 
 ren for diphtheria and scarlet fever and broken 
 limbs, on the idea that they would be cured 
 either by Christian Science or divine healing or 
 some other miraculous method. Who can 
 tell the length and depth of the misery caused 
 by this defiance of the established laws of 
 health ? 
 
 These views make shipwreck of home, of 
 fortune and of religion. Once possessed by 
 any one of them, the claims of husband, wife, 
 children, father, mother seem as naught; and 
 the earthly tie established by God is broken 
 up. Cases are frequent in which men and 
 women literally have impoverished themselves 
 in obedience to their teachers. One of them 
 not long ago reported with great joy a collec- 
 tion taken up at a meeting in Maine, amount- 
 ing to a hundred thousand dollars, for what 
 was called foreign missions, when men and 
 women fell over one another in their eager- 
 ness to give their money and jewels and even 
 deeds conveying their real property. The 
 
EFFECT OF THESE CLAIMS 55 
 
 work of foreign missions must surely suffer 
 from such perverted claims as these. But 
 the worst shipwrecks are those which are 
 wrought in the faith and in the religious life. 
 The delusion can not last always, and the 
 awakening is sometimes perilous. God and 
 Christ have been so closely interwoven with 
 the claims of the healer that when the healer 
 is repudiated, there is imminent danger that 
 God and Christ will in like manner be lost to 
 that soul. From this catastrophe Christian 
 teachers would save the deluded. 
 
 Our attitude towards these misguided men 
 and women should be one of kindness and of 
 patience. Many of them have been great 
 sufferers, ready to lay hold of anything that 
 promised relief. More of them still are ignor- 
 ant men and women, untrained in the 
 methods of real cure. It is impossible to 
 argue with them, for the beliefs which they 
 hold are beyond an intelligent statement. 
 And it is generally impossible to break by 
 reasoning the infatuation in which they are 
 
56 PR A YER 
 
 3^9S 
 
 held. We can only wait until they wake and. 
 strive as far as we may to shield them "from 
 the force of that awakening and to save them 
 from making shipwreck of home, of fortune 
 and of religion as well as of health. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 00055=567457 
 
 ■ 
 
 * * * ** 
 
 ■ 1 
 
 '»