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/186

 and balanced conclusions on any subjects, the details of which are within their own experience. They touch life at many points. Their calling brings them into contact with vast numbers of people, and they usually show in their dealings with others a broad-minded tolerance and shrewd common-sense which is beyond praise. I do not hesitate to say that, if I were accused of a crime which I knew I had not committed, I should feel safer if the trial were conducted before a jury of Anglican clergymen than before men drawn from any other profession; but in this matter of 'spiritual' or 'psychic' healing they have not risen to the occasion. An article in the Church Times of February 18, 1910, lies before me. A dogmatic gentleman (or lady, perhaps—the style is essentially feminine) writes the most confident nonsense on the subject of the 'Gift of Healing' that ever filled two columns. Here is an extract, not by any means the most precious gem from the entire chaplet, but a fair example of the whole:

'The gift of healing is simply a human gift like the gift of music or any other gift, and also, like music, present in some people more than in others, though probably present in some degree in nearly everybody The gift transcends all knowledge, it cures diseases