Page:The future of Africa.djvu/212

206 And it is thus, in one view, that Christianity continues, even to our own day, a standing miracle. This miraculous power of the faith may be seen, I know, in other aspects; but I wish now to fasten attention upon this one point, and claim for our blessed Lord a power which is all and peculiarly His own. Christ is the Healer of the nations; directly, that is, in saving and sanctifying the sinful souls of wen; indirectly, in healing and curing and restoring their bodies by the agencies of physicians, medicines, and hospitals. These are His miracles of love, those the miracles of evidence. 6. And all this will appear yet more distinctly if you will notice the fact that such humane efforts as this of ours are specially Christian. It is the genius of Christianity which has produced the philanthropy of civilized countries. It is the spirit of Jesus' religion which has prompted that high art, that marvellous skill, and those humane institutions by which, in all Christian lands, disease is conquered, life is lengthened out, and pain is neutralized. It is thus that Jesus' presence is felt in the world, even in matters physical and temporal. No other religion has ever prompted such generous benevolent skill, or thus provided fur the miserable and the outcast. On the banks of the Ganges the maimed and the decrepit are cast into the river as food for crocodiles. Pagan and Mohammedan travellers through the deserts of Africa desert the sick and the diseased, and leave them to the tender mercies of the jackal or the tiger. The Indian in the western wilds of America casts out the emaciated and the helpless to the ravenous wolf