Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/195

 OUR LORD'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS SICKNESS

, M.A.

(1) Men are commonly influenced by actions and personal example much more powerfully than by abstract teaching; and the Christian tradition conforms to this principle in placing the three Synoptic Gospels in the forefront of the New Testament. For they set before us the mind of Christ in the words and acts of Jesus. Thus when the thoughtful Christian is asked, 'What is the Gospel view of disease?' he will be inclined to reply, 'The question is a difficult one, but we may say with some confidence that our Lord answered it by His miracles of healing.' A study of these and of their underlying principles may help us towards the definition we seek.

The records are fragmentary. Yet they are warm with living realism. The great facts of our Faith stand out before us in the moving drama of the Synoptic Gospels, just as truly as