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/187

 considered incurable. Consumption, cancer, blindness, deafness, cripples (sic), &c., this is within our practical experience to-day, so that it stands to reason that the art of curing by medicine will gradually disappear as the gift of healing grows and develops. Not so the scientific knowledge of the doctors, which will be used more and more where it ought to be used, and that is in the prevention of disease.'

Comment would be quite superfluous. But what follows is instructive. In the next issue of the Church Times the irrepressible Mr. Hickson and the 'Warden of the Guild of Health' rush into print with some rather vague assertions about the 'spiritual nature' of this gift. There is an extremely sensible letter from a doctor, pointing out with great moderation that, if there is any evidence for those confident assertions, he would be glad to know what it amounted to. No clergyman seems to have thought it worth his while to disclaim agreement with the wild statements of the writer of the article.

In the first place, then, I would appeal to the clergy to inform themselves as to the limitation of 'spiritual healing,' according to the immense mass of evidence which has been collected and does enable us to lay down those limitations with sufficient accuracy for the