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/90

 turn plays into the hands of pseudo-theology. My criticism is that I want your "admissions" made the basis of a more positive claim both on the Church and on the medical profession.

'My own experience in the case of well-to-do people when sick or dying is that the medical profession is very much inclined to exclude religion in any form from sick beds till it cannot be of any use. I do most seriously want to reform (1) the Church, (2) the medical profession, in the light of what you admit.'

This wise letter says all, to my thinking, that need be said as to the duty of the doctor towards the cleric, and the duty of the cleric towards the doctor. It says not a word about the signs and wonders alleged by the Society of Emmanuel in London: and I hope that Dr. Gore, by his silence, condemns them, as not worthy of credence. I hope, also, and am sure, that in a few years we shall hear less about that Society. Meanwhile, I should like to say something about one aspect of this matter of 'spiritual healing,' which has not received so much attention as it deserves. We have heard all about the cleric, all about the doctor: and we are in danger, I think, of forgetting the patient. We have been tempted to believe that the patient, somehow, belongs to the cleric and the doctor. That we may clear our