Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/326

 312 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

where he established a large independent church and built a tabernacle. But in the meantime a vital change had taken place in the character of his ministry. As a lad of sixteen he says of himself:

I was a poor, weak stripling. You could almost count every bone in my body, for I was nothing but skin and bone, as they say. I had been taking medicine all my life. One night I said : That is not the way to get healing ; if my watch went wrong I should not take it to a blacksmith, but I would take it to a watchmaker ; my body has gone wrong, and the Lord knoweth my frame. He remembereth that I am dust, and I will go to him, and I will never take another drop of medicine while I live. I have never taken a drop of medicine ; I am a stronger man today than ever I was.

He was almost at the gates of death when he made this vow. From that day the whole physical and mental man began to undergo a change. From a puny stripling he grew into a vigorous man ; an emaciated frame gave place to one of rounded outlines ; sleepless nights from dyspepsia were banished by nights of sound and refreshing slumber, which have always continued to this day. A serenity of mind and of spirit came with the physical change, and with new habits of thought and new purposes old temptations ceased to find any holding ground.

Out of this personal experience and personal practice the "ministry of healing" evolved slowly and after many years. The revelation of it came to him in 1876, while still in the pastorate of the Newtown church. The community was being devastated by the plague. A fever-stricken young girl of his congregation lay dying, given up by physicians. In his parson- age room he sat with heavy heart, for forty of his people had already died in a few weeks.

And then the words of the Holy Ghost inspired in Acts 10:38 stood before me all radiant with light, revealing Satan as the denier and Christ as the healer. My tears were wiped away. My heart was strong. I saw the way of healing, and the door thereto was opened wide.

In the twelve years of his ministry in Australia that followed he testifies that he lost only five of his flock. Yet not till six years after the revelation was made did he enter fully upon "the ministry of healing as part of the ministry of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ." This was done in 1882, when he removed