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/13

 as miracles by the faithful, really happen, and that they can be explained without invoking supernatural intervention.' On the other hand, we are confident the Church of Christ will never identify itself with charlatan methods which might delude the poor and the ignorant into the superstitious idea that they can be more cheaply and effectively healed by a magic or thaumaturgic ministry, than by the knowledge and skill of trained and certificated doctors and surgeons. To quote our report in the Lambeth Conference of 1908, 'Medical science is the handmaid of God and His Church' (N.B. not of His clergy, but of that Body of Christ in which all true callings unite in serving), 'and should be fully recognised as the ordinary means appointed by Almighty God for the care and healing of the human body.'

The temper of our age favours an inquiry conducted in a spirit which will neither disregard the requirements of science, nor rule miracles out of court as impossible. We need not be anxious as to the results. It looks, indeed, as if science were only just now awaking to the realisation of its possibilities through psychical treatment; and as if the Church had never yet realised to the full its responsibility and its power in ministration