Article November 27, 1902 Issue

Spiritual Healing for all Time

Ben. Haworth-Booth

London (Eng.) News.

To the Editor.

Sir:—In your issue of October 20 the Dean of Norwich is reported in his initial attack on Christian Science: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?" This question was asked by Paul, astonished at the hardness of heart of his hearers, but to-day the Dean will not admit that God will even heal the sick in this country. He says: "When the signs [of healing] had served the purpose for which they were promised, they ceased." In spite of this assertion the Dean is reported to have continued as follows: "This is not in the least inconsistent with the fact that miracles continued in the Church long after Apostolic times, but the exact period when they ceased it is not possible to say. The cessation of these miraculous powers is also not inconsistent with the idea that where the original need is felt to-day,—in, for instance, the mission field,—signs will be vouchsafed, as they were in sub-Apostolic times. They are vouchsafed, I am sure, to-day in China and in other places. An old need may be met in the old way; but where God is revealed, where Christ is owned, I should doubt—I should challenge—any miracle, because the need of it does not exist."

So the Dean thinks God will heal the sick in answer to prayer "in China and in other places," but not in England? And his reason given is "because the need of it does not exist." Have we no need for the healing Christ to-day? Is England free to-day from sickness? Are not the hospitals overflowing with so-called incurable diseases? And is not the clamor for new hospitals ever increasing? What is the Dean's authority for making this discrimination in favor of the Chinese as against God's children in this country? This is Christ's promise: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." The perfect construction of that sentence leaves no loop-hole for misrepresentation: the words can have but one meaning among those who know what were "the works" of Christ. Again. Christ said (Mark. 9: 23). "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." and when his disciples failed to heal sickness He did not say. "The need of it does not exist." but he charged them with their "unbelief" (Matthew, 17:20). "An old need may be met in the old way," says the Dean. Exactly so, and that is why God's healing is being manifested to-day, not only among the Chinese, but here in England, and in America, and elsewhere. It is not surprising that God's healing should be disowned by many to-day in the present condition of prevailing thought. This is the "night" of materialism spoken of by Luke (17:34), and unless people can place both hands in the wounded side they will not acknowledge the healing Christ, who is with us always, even to the end of the world.

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