Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/105

 recognised three systems of healing—physical, mental, and spiritual—though there was not necessarily any opposition between them. They felt, however, that Spiritual Healing was the only system which concerned the Church. They were quite alive to the dangers of over-estimating the value of bodily health, and only desired to further it so far as it ministered to the perfection of the whole nature of man. After some further discussion, a resolution was passed that, 'In the opinion of this Conference, the time has come to form a Central Church Council in the diocese of London, for the consideration of questions connected with Healing by Spiritual means.'

At the outset, we must take exception to Mr. Boyd's three systems. I very much question whether there is more than one system, and I am convinced that physical and mental are one and the same. And I would go so far as to say, that the disastrous mistakes that have been made in the past, and which are still in operation to-day in the treatment of one large section of sick people, viz. the insane, largely owe their origin to this arbitrary division. And, by a curious irony, the branch of medical science where there is the most marked predominance of materialism