Article January 10, 1920 Issue

Mr. Justice Wilbur well says, in his Sunday school reference...

Peter V. Ross

San Jose (Calif.) Mercury-Herald

Mr. Justice Wilbur well says, in his Sunday school reference to the healing which Jesus brought to Peter's mother-in-law, that "the great fact that stands out before us is that Jesus ministered to the sick and the suffering." So far and so successfully did Jesus carry this ministration, it may be added, that he asked no aid of medicine or physicians, but simply applied the spiritual truths which he taught, to the healing of supposedly incurable diseases and even to the raising of the dead.

Thus he was quite willing to test the soundness of his teachings, which have since become known as Christianity. He did not ask his hearers to accept his doctrine merely on his say-so; he was ready to prove its validity by actual demonstration. To him sickness was an opportunity for presenting an object lesson in the science which he practiced and which of course has not the remotest relation to medical practice.

That Jesus regarded the cure of disease as a vital part of Christianity is evidenced by his command to his disciples to heal the sick, and his promise to all who believed in him that they should do what he did and even greater things. The startling feature of Justice Wilbur's argument is the implication that these "greater things" would be done in the name of medicine rather than in the name of Christianity; for he says: "Jesus taught that his disciples should do greater miracles than he did. The modern conquest of smallpox, typhoid fever, diphtheria, not to mention other diseases, surpasses the healing of Jesus in scope and effect." Which is to say, is it not, that a modern medical doctor, in the presence of disease, stands superior to the master Physician. Luckily for Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll they never voiced sentiments so extreme as these. Their criticisms, it is well known, were aimed at the creeds and nonessentials of the Christian religion, while the criticism here under consideration strikes at the very heart of Christianity.

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