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/203

 religious imagination is able to stimulate the bodily forces, whatever may be the spiritual soil in which that imagination is bred? Faith, or a conscious receptivity in the mind of the patient, was a frequent factor in the healing process; although there is really nothing in the records to make us predicate it of Jairus's daughter or the centurion's slave or the nobleman's son. It is surely remarkable that our Lord held Himself aloof from all those methods of cure which might have suggested the enchanter and magician, particularly in the case of demoniacs. The Jews, like other ancient nations, resorted to the use of exorcism, incantation, and talismans, which owed their potency to their effect on the imagination. Christ does not hypnotise men or throw them into an ecstasy. Where faith is present, He gladly works through it towards the salvation of the whole man. But often there is a mere flicker of faith, a spark in the flax. In the sick room, when the vital forces are enfeebled, the brain clouded, and the spirits depressed by physical malady, it is a rare thing, surely, for the flame of faith to burn brightly and the imagination to glow with the consciousness of an unseen Presence. And the Church would have but little encouragement to invoke for her own ministries the healing Power of her