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/219

 *logical problems of civilised humanity and less of those of half-civilised or uncivilised peoples, such as the Galileans of our Lord's day. But if we should allow that the demon was merely the sufferer's lower ego, the marvel of the cure is not lessened. There is a great power of evil in the world; and the lower self was entirely dominated by it until Christ emancipated the man by His sovereign demand upon his spirit. Inner harmony was restored. They find the man 'sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.' The bodily and the mental well-being are combined in the cure. The sufferer's enfeebled will is braced up to respond to the Will of the Healer, that ease shall expel disease. Within the man's being, as truly as without it, 'imperavit ventis, et facta est tranquillitas magna.'

(iii) An analysis of the miracles of Christ indicates His attitude towards the material and outward means, on which the physician still so largely relies. The letter of King Abgarus to our Lord (preserved by Eusebius), genuine or not, indicates, we may believe, the feature in His treatment which most impressed the men of His day. 'The story hath reached my ears of Thee and Thy healings as wrought by Thee without drugs and simples.' Though