Editorial November 18, 1905 Issue

An Unsupported Position

Archibald McLellan

The following extract from a sermon recently preached in Brooklyn, "The City of Churches," from the text, "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk," is an example of the arguments which have been used to justify the non-healing nature of modern religion, but we think it will not bring to many a conviction that the healing which Jesus performed is duplicated in the work of the physicians of to-day, or that the Master's command to heal the sick is fulfilled in the building of hospitals.

The minister is reported to have said,—

"Our text introduces us to a lame man who lay day by day at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem, begging for sufficient money to keep him in life. This is a very common scene in the New Testament, where we are constantly meeting the lame, the halt, the blind, and the lepers, and there is no wonder, for we must bear in mind those were the days when there were no hospitals, no scientific medical schools, no homes for incurables, nor any societies of aid. Since that day Christianity, without boastfulness, has had a magnificent share in the creation of those centers of relief. We see no such spectacle on our streets as did the Syrian of old upon his. Our Christian sentiment and Christian love have provided the hospital, and our lame men are sent there, And not only the hospital, but we have to-day enlightened scientific effort, societies of charity and helpfulness on all hands; and because the modern method of dealing with sickness is not the same as that of the apostles, never think that it is not Christian, for the same Christian spirit plays about the treatment of physical ills to-day. We have to be delivered, it seems to me, from the idea that God is only in the extraordinary; that He is only in the large. It seems to be hard upon our reason to comprehend. God is as much in the ordinary as in the miracle. It is the same God, and God is as much in the hospital, in His spirit, and in the modern methods of curing sickness. God is there just as truly as He was in the days of old. So Christianity has in a large measure solved the question of the physically lame man."

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