HEALING A CHRISTIAN DUTY

One of our contemporaries—an organ of one of the oldest religious bodies—recently said, in a discussion of the works of spiritual healing which are being done outside the pale of such religious organizations as the one it represents: "None of these cults have any ecclesiastical sanction, and yet they are undertaking to do what the church in the earlier days carried forward as a part of the gospel mission, bringing healing to the body as well as peace to the mind, and salvation to the soul, and so promoting a 'wholeness without which no man shall see the Lord.'"

As to the success which attends this healing work, although it is carried on without "ecclesiastical sanction," our contemporary says: "With due allowance for enthusiasm and unscientific methods of reporting cures, many have received lasting benefit by resorting to purely mental and spiritual forces. Almost, if not all, of our parishes can tell their story of those who have not been aroused to enthusiastic support of the church with its blessed message of peace and joy for the soul, and who, seeking for some physical benefit, have drifted into these new forms of religious activity, have claimed benefits, and have become enthusiastic propagandists of their cults."

The implication of this argument seems to be that the healing work which Christ Jesus, the apostles, and the early Christians did, was not inseparably linked with Christianity, and for that reason may be done or left undone as the churches of today and their members may elect. This was not the way in which our Master regarded the healing work he accomplished, else why should he have answered John's inquiry as to the validity of his claim to the Messiahship by bidding his messengers report to him what things they had seen and heard as they awaited his answer to their inquiry; how he had ministered to the blind, the lame, the lepers, and the deaf, had raised the dead, the while he preached to the poor and needy the gospel of repentance and the coming of the kingdom of God in the hearts of men.

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Editorial
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September 7, 1912
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