Holy Communion. There are few parish priests who cannot testify from
their own experience to the wonderful--if not miraculous--effects of
the reception of the Sacrament upon apparently dying persons, who had
been given up by medical science. There is nothing in this that need
surprise the Christian believer, nothing that is really repugnant
to the findings of modern science. The Apostle Paul, writing to the
Corinthians about the profanation of the Lord’s Supper, attributes to
this cause certain physical consequences incurred by the offenders.
‘For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few
sleep.’[81] There is a natural and proper antipathy in many minds to
the idea that the Sacramental Elements operate as a charm. Such an
idea would be irrational and superstitious, and we are not intended
to conceive of a vindication of the sanctity of the Lord’s Supper by
material and simply magical penalties. The offence of the Corinthians
was the irreverence of ‘not discerning (or discriminating) the Body,’
and Apostolic teaching plainly implies that a spiritual offence of
itself acts upon the bodily organism, by a mysterious law of the Divine
government.[82] (Here again we must not say that God sent the disease.)
Surely, then, it may be argued, per contra, that a reverent reception
of the Eucharist makes for health and life, for it brings the failing
bodily and spiritual powers of the sick into contact with the Divine
and immortal life which animates the mystical Body of Christ. This line
of argument may be illustrated by the words of the late F. W. H. Myers:
‘To keep our chemical energy at work, we live in a warm environment and
from time to time take food. By analogy, in order to keep the spiritual
energy at work, we should live in a spiritual environment, and possibly
from time to time absorb some special influx of spiritual life.’[83] It
remains only to add that the words of administration in our Communion
Office embody the truth for which we are pleading. ‘The Body of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul
unto everlasting life.’
[81] 1 Cor. xi. 30.
[82] In the _Cambridge Bible_, note _ad locum_, Dr. Lias says we can
well understand how a crime against His Body and Blood would deprive
any Christian, who committed it, of His presence, and predispose it
to sickness and even death.
[83] _Human Personality_, i. 218; quoted by Dearmer, _Body and Soul_,
p. 123.
(iv) The charisma, or gift, of healing, is named by St. Paul among the
spiritual gifts of the Apostolic Church,[84] and is associated in one
place with the working of miracles (‘powers’).[85] We have endeavoured
to show that it was not intended as a transient but a permanent
endowment of the Church. But, in the degree in which the Church
corporate falls short in spirituality, her spiritual powers wane. The
Encyclical Letter and Report of the recent Lambeth Conference mark a
step in advance, though it may not be a long step, towards the revival
of this healing agency of the Church. The Committee appointed to report
on this particular subject was of opinion ‘that the prayers for the
restoration of health, which it recommends, may be fitly accompanied by
the apostolic act of the Laying-on-of-Hands.’[86] We may be disposed
to regret that this primitive rite is not mentioned in Resolution 35,
which recommends ‘the provision for use in Pastoral Visitation of some
additional prayers for the restoration of health more hopeful and
direct than those contained in the present Office for the Visitation
of the Sick.’ Desiring, as we do, to follow ‘the example’ of our
Lord Himself and not merely of ‘His Holy Apostles,’[87] we may most
reasonably ask for authority to administer the blessing through one of
the outward signs which He employed. A ceremony, duly authorised by
the Church, would have much value, as regulating and controlling the
impulse to invoke the healing ‘charisma,’ which at present is often
bestowed and received through ‘spiritual healers’ who lack the full
official sanction of the Church.
[84] 1 Cor. xii. 9, 30.
[85] _Ibid._ 29.
[86] Report (1908), No. VII. iv. p. 137.
[87] Order of Confirmation, first Collect, Mark vi. 5.
(v) There is another Ministry of Healing, which the Divine Love has
provided for the weary body and the careworn mind, which contributes
its own part to the restoration of the sick. It is the silent ministry
of Nature. Within the ailing body she exerts her healing power; the
doctor’s best ally, on the physical side, is the _vis medicatrix
naturae_, that strange recuperative power which resides in organisms,
and offers a standing resistance to the inroads of disease and age.[88]
And then outside there are the soothing influences of the world of
Nature, which steals into the troubled spirit to bring the calm which
Wordsworth, in his poem on ‘An Evening by the Sea,’ likened to the
hush of worship:
[88] Cp. Sir James Paget’s words: ‘The power to repair itself belongs
to the subject of injury in the same sense and degree as does its
power to develop itself and grow and live.’--_Life_, p. 295.
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.
Hebrew literature shows little trace, even indirectly, of that sympathy
with Nature, which is the best contribution of what is called ‘natural
religion’ to the inheritance of the human spirit, except when Nature is
regarded in her grander and more awe-inspiring aspects, those of the
thunder-cloud, the whirlwind, the raging fire, the roaring sea. Yet it
is not altogether fanciful to find, in our Lord’s habit of retirement
to the mountain’s side for prayer, His invitation to the disciples to
come apart by themselves to rest awhile in a ‘desert place,’[89] His
choice of the evening hour, at the setting of the sun, for performing
His works of mercy, some sanction for that modern sense of the Divine
beauty and mystery of Nature in her quiet aspects.[90]
[89] Mark vi. 31.
[90] Compare also the nature-parables.
We must believe that Christ Himself was susceptible in a singular
degree to those natural influences. After the intense spiritual strain
of the Temptation, ‘angels came and ministered to Him.’ A great
modern artist, M. Tissot, pictures the scene as only the imaginative
symbolism of genius would have done. The Saviour lies at full length,
utterly exhausted, with every muscle, as it were, relaxed, and through
the twilight appear myriads of outstretched angel-hands, reviving
the Sacred Body with the touch of spirit-life. Here we have, as in a
figure, the expression of the unseen forces of Nature, ministering to
the Will of the God of Nature, on behalf of the heirs of salvation and
of Him who is the author of our salvation and the Prince of Life.
There is no rule absolute about the influence of familiar scenes and
old associations upon the weary or ailing spirit. For some people the
cure lies in surroundings as novel and unfamiliar as possible. This is
where tact and sympathy on the part of the doctor and nurse and friends
come in--questions which must not be confused with natural affection,
for in that case they would vary directly, whereas they have been known
to vary inversely, with nearness of blood relationship. The quick
intuition of sympathy can judge of the environment best adapted to the
patient’s individual need. The rigid order and routine of the hospital
ward may be torture to the sick person who comes from one sort of home
and paradise to one who comes from another. The more we can bring of
the ‘mind of Christ’ into the tender care of the sick, the more right
we shall have to expect that the power of His name will bless our
efforts.
(vi) Again, our Lord’s attention to details, i.e. the material
conditions of health, calls for notice. We have referred to His
provision of rest for His tired followers. We find Him giving
directions, after the recall of Jairus’s daughter to life, that food
should be given to her. ‘Life restored by miracle must be supported
by ordinary means.’[91] The familiar routine of healthy life is to
be resumed as soon as possible. Lazarus is to be loosed from his
cerements, when the awe of the bystanders blind them to the practical
and obvious. And quite in line with this is Christ’s readiness to
conform, in His dealings with men, to the existing social and religious
system. It was so notably in the case of the leper, who was bidden,
after his cure, to go and show himself to the priest and to make
the customary offerings.[92] At the pool of Bethesda Christ helps
the impotent man, who has no friend to help him. He leaves the rest
of the multitude to the natural operation of the waters.[93] It was
a different matter when, as in the case of the Rabbinical rule of
Sabbath observance, the conventional practice was inimical to the
freedom of the spirit. Our Lord will never allow the spiritual and
essential in things to be overlaid by the material and accidental.
Traditionalism was then broken through. The principle, that we must
render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s and to God the things that
are God’s, manifests itself in various ways, and this is one of them.
But, on the whole, Christianity knows no revolutionary breaches in the
established social order, as the history of its attitude towards the
institution of slavery shows. Men were encouraged to work out their own
salvation under existing political and social conditions.
[91] Dr. Swete on Mark v. 43.
[92] Mark i. 44.
[93] John v. 2.
This spirit of conformity to the existing order in all lawful things,
and especially our Lord’s attitude towards priestly ceremonial, in the
case of the leper, throws a good deal of light upon the relation which
should subsist between the clergyman and the doctor in the treatment
of sickness. The Christian doctor will gladly subscribe to the words
of the favourite physician of Louis XIV, Ambroise Paré, ‘I treated the
wound, God healed it.’ Reverently and thoughtfully he will acknowledge
the power of prayer and the tranquillising influences of the spirit,
and will yield to the Church, acting by her representative duly
accredited and trained, her proper part in the work of restoration. The
parish priest will freely allow that the doctor and the nurse, with
all the appliances of modern medical science, provide the largest part
of the environment and conditions indispensable to recovery; and that
it is an act of presumption to reject all these scientific aids in
favour of some process of healing by faith alone without expert medical
aid.[94]
[94] In Acts xxviii. 9, 10, there is an implication of co-operation
between St. Paul and St. Luke the physician; see _Religion and
Medicine_, pp. 365, 366; the language is technical.
Finally, it must be remembered that we cannot expect to find many
favourable notices of medical practice in an age and country in which
medical skill was at a very low ebb. ‘Medicorum optimus dignus est
Gehenna,’ said the Rabbis of the later Judaism.[95] In nothing has
human knowledge made more astonishing strides than in medical and in
surgical discovery; and, though we have been too prone in the past to
credit the medical profession with the whole of the healing work done
in Christ’s Church, the opposite extreme is to be avoided, and it is
well to acknowledge thankfully that ‘discoveries in the region of
medicine and surgery come to man through Him who is the Light and the
Life, the Divine Word.’[96]
[95] See Dr. Swete on Mark v. 26; also Luke iv. 23; contrast Ecclus.
xxxviii. sq.
[96] _Lambeth Conference Report_, 1908 (vii. iii.).
(vii) In a previous chapter we dwelt at some length on the Gospel
conception of salvation (as illustrated by the words σῴζειν ὁλοκληρία),
as a just equipoise of spiritual, mental, and physical faculties and
functions. Two remarks may find a place here. The first is, that too
much stress may be laid upon the distinction between functional and
organic complaints. There are modern critics who wish to eliminate
the miraculous from the Gospel narrative, and deal with the sacred
text accordingly. For example, Professor Bousset says, in his vivid
way, ‘The community of the faithful drew the simple human picture of
Jesus on the golden background of the marvellous. But the picture can
be detached from that background with comparative ease.’ In cases
which are not to be explained simply by psychology, ‘the historically
intelligible is still close below the surface, and appears as soon as
we remove a few additions which are due to modern tradition.’ We have
to regard certain narratives as ‘legendary accretions (_Wucherungen_).’
If we cannot accept that position, it is not open to us to explain
all the miraculous agency of our Lord and His Apostles and the later
Church as consisting in the power to deal with functional ailments by
mental or psychic treatment. Nor is it open to us to limit the efficacy
of prayer to the stimulation of function and the treatment of nervous
disorders. And as, with the progress of medical science, the sphere of
the organic is continually growing at the expense of the functional,
the ultimate effect of such a concession on the side of religion would
be to limit her action to a negligible minority of cases. How would
a place be found for the healing of Malchus’s ear, if the organic be
excluded? But the Church believes that Christ is the Saviour of the
body and that the Holy Spirit is, as an early Father says, ‘given that
He may dwell in our bodies and sanctify them, that in so doing He may
bring them to eternity and to the resurrection of immortality, while He
accustoms them in Himself to be conjoined with heavenly powers and to
be associated with the Divine eternity of the Spirit.’[97]
[97] _Novatian de Trinitate_, xxix.
A second remark is this. Whatever is allowed for the moulding force of
environment, Christ plainly teaches that man is never the mere creature
of circumstances. Christ is no fatalist philosopher. It is only the
evil that man deliberately assimilates which defiles him. ‘There is
nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him’--a
parabolic saying which has a deep meaning. As it is with sin, so it is
with disease. Wilful sin is lawlessness in the spiritual being; disease
is disorder in the material being. Much remains yet to be done, which
lies well within the range of the free human will, to combat this
lawless disorder in the life of body and soul. We believe that the
spirit can impose its own order and law and harmony upon the material
elements of our bodily frame. This creed may be an ideal, but it is
the only really inspiring ideal; for beyond it lies the hope of final
perfection. Therefore, with faith and courage, let us press forward.
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart’s desire!
Thro’ the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.[98]
[98] Tennyson, _Faith_.
THE CHURCH AND MENTAL HEALING
BY
ELLIS ROBERTS
THE CHURCH AND MENTAL HEALING
BY ELLIS ROBERTS
The object of this paper is to show and comment on the present
attitude of the Church of England, and of the Churches in communion
with her, towards psychic healing: but it may be advisable to remove
at the outset one or two misconceptions. With the theory and practice
of the Church in this country before the Reformation I am not now
concerned. It did not differ essentially from that of the Churches on
the Continent. But it should be noticed that a large number of centres
for psychic healing, spiritual hospitals, if one may use the term,
were removed by the destruction of shrines. In the medieval Church the
healer, with his specific charisma, was generally one who was reputed a
saint; and usually he healed more people after his death than before.
The curious in this matter may consult the evidence gathered in Dr.
Abbott’s ‘St. Thomas of Canterbury,’ and I think an unprejudiced reader
will gather from that book conclusions somewhat different from those
expected by the author.
After the Reformation what signs are there of psychic healing
encouraged and sanctioned by the Church? We are compelled to answer
that, in spite of great need, there is very little evidence of an
intelligent effort at mental therapeutics. ‘In spite of great need,’
I say; for this country and Scotland were affected most terribly by
the disgraceful witch mania which raged over Europe, especially in the
Protestant countries. There was ample material for the quiet, consoling
influence of psychic healing; but alas! the unfortunate ‘witches’
were left to the mercy of scared judges and malicious finders, to the
horrors of the trial by floating, or the ordeal of the secret mark. The
Church was, apparently, bigoted and powerless.
Yet the existence of an official power, inherent in the Body and acting
normally through the Ministers of the Church, was recognised officially
in the Canons of 1603–4, which, of course, are still of authority. In
the 72nd Canon we read:
‘No Minister or Ministers shall, without the Licence and direction of
the Bishop of the diocese first obtained and had under his hand and
seal, appoint or keep any solemn Fasts.... Neither shall any Minister
... presume to appoint or hold any meetings for sermons ... nor,
without such licence, to attempt upon any pretence whatsoever either of
possession or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any Devil
or Devils, under pain of the imputation of imposture or cosenage, and
deposition from the ministry.’
It is evident from this that, however little it was used, the
Episcopate was regarded as possessing the power to licence exorcisers
who might deal with diseases that we should call mental.
There is one other piece of evidence--practical this time--that the
healing power of the Church was not entirely forgotten or neglected.
Up to the time of the Hanoverian dynasty, the Kings of England touched
for scrofula, popularly known, from this method of cure, as ‘The
King’s evil.’ The most celebrated patient I can call to mind is Dr.
Johnson. It may be objected that this practice was not the work of the
Church’s ministry; but it must be remembered that most Canonists regard
the King of England as _mixta persona_ (that is, semi-clerical) by
virtue of his Coronation; and also the position given the Sovereign as
‘Supreme Governor’ of the Church would appear to invest him with an
ecclesiastical status.[99]
[99] With touching for scrofula may be compared the blessing of
‘cramp-rings.’ The Sovereign of England used, on Good Friday, to
bless rings which afterwards were distributed to sufferers from cramp
or epilepsy. The last monarch to do this was Mary Tudor.
I admit, however, as must all candid persons, that on the whole the
Church has grossly neglected all forms of psychic healing; and so
welcome the more gladly the definite stand taken in the Lambeth Report,
1908.
That Report is the unanimous act, not merely of the Church of England,
but of those numerous bodies in communion with her: on the committee
which drew up the report were bishops from America, India, Scotland,
Central Africa, New Zealand, and England--a fact that can vouch for the
significance of the Report’s admissions and contentions. This Report I
shall take as the basis of my inquiry into the official attitude of the
Church of to-day towards Medicine and Psychic Healing.
The Report opens with a statement that is refreshing in its admission
of ignorance after the ready words of many sciolists and ‘quack’
healers.
‘Your Committee, which has had under consideration “Ministries of
Healing,” has felt itself at a disadvantage in discussing phenomena
which only in recent times have been the subject of scientific
investigation. In the present stage of knowledge it would be premature
for any except experts to hazard an opinion upon such topics as
the powers of “Mental Suggestion,” and the range of “Subliminal
Consciousness,” or to attempt to forecast the possibilities of “Mental”
or “Spiritual Healing.”’
While, however, displaying this diffidence in dealing with the
scientific side of their subject, the Committee is quite definite about
the spiritual aspect of pain, sickness, and suffering.
‘The Committee believes that Christ still fulfils in Christian
experience His power to give life, and to give it more abundantly; and
that the faith, which realises His Presence, is capable of creating
a heightened vitality of spirit, which strengthens and sustains the
health of the body. The Committee believes that sickness and disease
are in one aspect a breach in the harmony of the Divine purpose, not
only analogous to, but sometimes at least caused by, want of moral
harmony with the Divine Will; and that this restoration of harmony in
mind and will often brings with it the restoration of the harmony of
the body. It believes that sickness has too often exclusively been
regarded as a cross to be borne with passive resignation, whereas it
should have been regarded rather as a weakness to be overcome by the
power of the Spirit.’
Then the Committee considers briefly the ‘Mental Healing’ movement
outside the Church, and concludes the first part of their Report with a
very necessary warning ‘against the peril of being thoughtlessly drawn
into alliance, in the desire for health, with any who, under whatever
attractive name, are in antagonism with the Christian faith upon any
such subject as the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the reality of Sin,
and the use of the Holy Sacraments.’
In the second part it discusses ‘Spiritual Healing’ in the Church, and
makes the following statement:
‘The Committee would not wish to say a word in disparagement or
discouragement of those who may be pioneers in a new branch of service,
but it believes it would for the present be unwise to depart from an
attitude of watchfulness and reserve; and it is not therefore prepared
to recommend that at the present stage any authoritative recognition
should be given to those who claim to exercise these “Gifts of
Healing.”’
In the third part is a most welcome recognition of the position in the
Church of that profession which the Evangelist of the Nativity followed.
‘The Committee believes that medical science is the handmaid of God
and His Church, and should be fully recognised as the ordinary means
appointed by Almighty God for the care and healing of the human body.
The Committee believes that discoveries in the region of medicine and
surgery come to man through Him who is the Light and the Life, the
Divine Word.’
Then we have a brief recommendation that there should be an ‘addition
to the office for the Visitation of the Sick of more hopeful and less
ambiguous petitions for the restoration of health, always subject
to the Will of God ...; and that these petitions be used in close
connection with prayer for pardon and peace.’ And these prayers ‘may be
fitly accompanied by the Apostolic act of the Laying on of Hands.’
In the final paragraph the Committee considers the suggestion ‘that
these prayers should be accompanied by the anointing of the sufferer
with oil,’ and after a brief historical _résumé_, concludes:
‘In view of this evidence and the conditions prevailing in the Church
at the present time, the Committee is not prepared to recommend the
restoration of the unction of the sick, but it does not wish to go so
far as to advise the prohibition of its use, if it be earnestly desired
by the sick person. In all such cases the parish priest should seek the
counsel of the Bishop of the diocese. Care must be taken that no return
be made to the later custom of anointing as a preparation for death.’
With unction I do not propose to deal here. The question is really
theological; and the discussion as to its revival does not come within
the scope of this book. It may be said, however, that the problem will
probably solve itself in the near future, as in many missionary and
colonial dioceses, and in not a few English ones, the oil is blessed
by the Bishop, and may always be had by any parish priest whose sick
people desire this ancient rite.
With one exception, to which I shall return later, the Report may be
commended as a courageous, if rather jejune, effort to keep abreast
of modern psychology and its more practical manifestations. Let me
indicate briefly the encouraging signs in the Report.
(1) We have the definite confession that our present visitation
service is not all that can be desired. That we should use more
definite prayers for the recovery of the sick.
(2) The Report lays emphasis on the important truth that there must be
no banishing of the doctor. Enormous harm has been done by the crude
dualism of ‘Christian Science’--a theory which, if logically applied,
would prevent persons renewing the tissues of their body by food, or
removing dirt by soap and water. A doctor’s medicine is just as much a
prayer, a spiritual thing, when it is properly used, as any formula of
consolation inculcated by folk in ‘tune with the infinite,’ or people
who indulge in ‘higher thought.’
(3) The Report guards--though perhaps not quite strongly
enough--against the modern tendency to lay too much stress on mere
bodily health. As Christians and men of sense, we can have nothing to
do with a mode of thought that, by exaggerating the value of physical
well-being, would cheerfully have condemned to some lethal chamber an
Erasmus, a Coleridge, a Stevenson, or a Beardsley.
Now in these three matters the Report does seem to represent the real
central body of opinion in the Church of England. No living man,
perhaps, better expresses the view of the ‘man in the pew’ than the
Bishop of London, and he has been one of the first to recognise the
reality of the need for a greater recognition of the place of psychic
healing. Here is what Dr. Ingram said in his sermon on St. Luke’s Day,
1909:
‘We have on the one side those who really seem to have forgotten the
message of the Gospel of the body, who practically in their teaching
and even in their own belief simply think of the Gospel as addressed to
the soul. They seem to have forgotten that, in our own Holy Communion
Service, we pray that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His
Body, and some of St. Paul’s most stirring passages are about the
body. “Glorify God in your body.” But in their teaching and in their
belief they have lost to a certain extent the idea that the Gospel
has a message to the body at all. While on the other hand--and it is
so very characteristic of the history of the Church that this should
happen--outside the Church, with great exaggeration--and with, in my
opinion, much false teaching--people are calling the attention of the
Church to a forgotten truth. Yes--but with two very grave mistakes.
First, they ignore the learning and teaching which God has given us
through medical study and investigation about His laws and about His
will, and still more they ignore those blessed means of grace which
Christ Himself has laid down as the means of our communion with His
life.’
Or again, in a diocesan letter of May last year the Bishop of
Winchester (who was Chairman of the Lambeth Committee) emphasises the
right of medical science, of healing, and of nursing, to their due
place in the Church’s spiritual life, to a part in her prayers and
thanksgivings.
‘At the recent Lambeth Conference the view was expressed that we as a
Church have failed to show sufficient sympathy with the great works of
healing, of conflict with disease, and of the alleviation of suffering
carried on by the medical and nursing profession. The Divine blessing
vouchsafed in modern times, through the progress of knowledge and the
advancement of skill, have only in too small a degree been allowed to
enter into the prayers and thanksgivings of the Christian Church. It is
right that, with greater faith and a larger intelligence, the Church of
Christ should acknowledge that the gifts of healing and the discoveries
of science come from the Spirit of God, and should seek more
systematically to include this and kindred subjects in intercession and
praise.’
Not only, however, do we find the Bishops laying stress on the Church’s
duty in the matter of healing; but we also find eminent physicians,
who are also Churchmen, welcoming the priest in the sick room. In a
remarkable article contributed to the _Guardian_, Sir Dyce Duckworth
wrote:
‘Next, I will express my opinion that our twentieth-century Christendom
is generally lax and feeble in offering earnest prayers for the sick in
all stages and for a blessing on the remedial means employed. We should
look to a higher Power than that of man to aid us at the bedside, and
as thoughtful physicians we do seek these means to aid us.
‘Mental healing has a recognised and long-acknowledged basis of truth
and fact, and may be employed by honourable and skilled doctors who
have the gift and power to use it. I do not regard it as a fitting
duty for the “priests of the soul,” but one to be employed in its
appropriate place, as it becomes better understood in the course of
time as a part of legitimate ordinary treatment. I see no objection to
the practice of unction and laying-on of hands by Christian ministers
for those who desire it, but I regard this as an additional means of
help, a solemn form of assurance and comfort, together with prayerful
ministration, in conjunction with, and as a reinforcement of, the
best skill of legitimate medicine. To replace the latter by the
former I regard as a withholding of God’s gifts to man and therefore
unjustifiable. I conceive and believe that the gifts of the Holy
Spirit are capable of development in the course of the ages and under
our present dispensation, and that they were not limited in form and
exclusiveness to the age in which they were first somewhat crudely
manifested.’
We may welcome particularly Sir Dyce Duckworth’s emphatic pronouncement
about prayer. After all the basis of psychic healing is, and always
has been, prayer--whether the means used is oil, or water, or the
relics or even the shadow of holy men, as reported in the Acts of the
Apostles. The motive power that makes any of these means availing is
simply prayer. Prayer, whether spoken, desired, or acted, is the vital
force that gives the psychic movement all its validity. In insisting
on the importance and reality of prayer we have the support of such a
psychologist as Professor James, who writes: ‘As regards prayers for
the sick, if any medical fact can be considered to stand firm, it is
that in certain environments prayer may contribute to recovery and
should be encouraged as a therapeutic measure.’
And if the doctor is willing to recognise the great value of prayer,
the divine should not be backward in welcoming the doctor; nor should
he regard the medical man and the philosopher with suspicion if
they lay stress chiefly on the ‘reflex’ value of prayer; regard its
subjective effects, rather than investigate its real or objective power.
Once more let me quote the Bishop of London:
‘If I was ill, I would send for the best doctor, and get my parish
priest to come and pray by my side, believing that the double work of
Jesus Christ is shared by two great professions. It would be bad for
either to be banished from the sick room.’[100]
[100] Answer to a questioner. Lent Mission, 1910.
That is the position on which we should lay stress. The future, I am
sure, lies with those who are willing to accept the religion of the
Incarnation and all that it signifies; the men who proclaim joyfully
and unwaveringly that Spirit has dwelt in flesh, but who also never
hesitate to assert that it is real Flesh in which the Spirit dwelt.
We must have no quarter with the damnable heresy that denies to sin
and suffering and disease a reality that it concedes to food and to
fees: and we can have no truce with the hard materialism that will
acknowledge the truth of nothing that is not revealed to the scalpel
or the test-tube. We may be thankful to-day that so many of our leading
physicians are becoming more and more willing to admit the reality
of prayer and the rights of the priest; we must take care that no
headstrong divines, in their new zeal for psychic healing, disparage or
despise the profession of St. Luke.
THE EUCHARIST AND BODILY
WELL-BEING
BY
ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D.
VICAR OF ALL HALLOWS BARKING, EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE
BISHOP OF LONDON, AND RURAL DEAN OF THE
EAST CITY OF LONDON
THE EUCHARIST AND BODILY WELL-BEING
BY ARTHUR W. ROBINSON, D.D.
The editor of this volume thinks that it should include a paper upon
the relation of the Eucharist to bodily well-being, and he has asked me
to deal with the question. I am fully aware of the difficulty of doing
so, and shall be well content if what I am able to say should lead
others to feel, as I do, that the subject is one which deserves much
reverent and careful attention. Perhaps that is all that any of us who
are taking part in the production of this book can hope to achieve. Our
desire is to be allowed to prepare the way for the clearer and stronger
action of the future. Little by little we are coming to see that the
scope of Christianity is bigger and more comprehensive than has for
some time been supposed. We can trace the steps by which religion and
its benefits had got to be looked upon as chiefly, if not exclusively,
concerned with individuals and their souls. And we can recognise that
there have been, and are, counter-movements at work whose tendency is
to raise us out of the limitations within which we had settled and to
place our feet in a larger room.
To begin with, there has been the revival of the Corporate aspect of
the faith, with an insistence upon the truth that the fullest life
is only to be realised through fellowship. Very slowly we have been
learning that we are not meant to be perfected as individuals, but
as parts of a whole of which Christ is the head and we are all of us
members. Already this sense of a corporate ideal has made a great
difference to our thoughts about the Church and the Sacraments, and has
begun to work a change in our beliefs as to the importance of unity and
the possibilities of spiritual power. And now it looks as if we are
being called to a yet farther enlargement of our conceptions and hopes.
To-day we are bidden to add to our knowledge in another direction.
This time it is the Corporal aspect of the Christian message which is
coming into view. We are to learn that our religion is not only for us
all as a whole, but that it has to do with the whole of each of us.
In other words it is good for the body as well as for the soul. In
some degree, no doubt, we have been accustomed to admit that the fact
of the Incarnation is a witness to the dignity of our bodies, and a
pledge of their ultimate glorification; but the admission has too often
lacked the full force of a living conviction. At the present moment,
however, many influences are combining in a remarkable way to send us
‘back to Christ’ with quite a new willingness to believe that He meant
His Church to stand in the forefront of all endeavours to bless men’s
bodies as well as to save their souls. Some day the world may be filled
with astonishment when it sees the fuller life of Christian fellowship
brought to bear upon the social and physical problems that are waiting
all around us for the power that can successfully deal with them.
Now, plainly such lines of thought must sooner or later converge upon
the Eucharist. We may confidently assert that if the fuller life,
corporate or corporal, is to be realised and manifested by us, it will
be through a more faithful and more intelligent use of the great means
which our Lord has provided for establishing a vital inter-communion
between Himself and His members.
Let us, then, approach the consideration of the mystery patiently, and
make a serious effort to grasp what we can of its meaning in right
perspective and due proportion. To this end it will be best to set
before our minds a clear statement of the aims and objects of the
highest of all Christian services.
* * * * *
Briefly, we may say that the Eucharist is designed to fulfil a
threefold purpose for us. In the first place, it is a SIGN OF
PROFESSION. Sacraments are ‘not only badges or tokens of Christian
men’s profession’ (Art. xxv.); but this they most certainly are. Again
and again our Lord laid stress upon the duty and necessity of an open
acknowledgment of discipleship. From the earliest times the Sacrament
of His Body and Blood has been regarded as the oath and pledge of a
Christian’s loyalty. We may be sure that Christ meant it to be this.
Perhaps it is not altogether without significance that while the
ancient allegory of the Old Testament had made the test of obedience,
‘Thou shalt not eat’; in the sacred symbolism of the New Covenant it
became, ‘Do this,’ ‘Take eat.’ Through the Eucharist we declare our
readiness to be known as members of the Christian fellowship, and our
determination to be the true followers of Christ. That is its first and
simplest and most obvious signification.
Then further the Eucharist is AN ACT OF WORSHIP. It has a Godward
aspect, as well as a bearing towards the Church and the world. The
original institution had for its background the slaying of the lambs
and the pouring out of the blood of the Passover sacrifices. This,
said our Lord, is My way of celebrating the redemption, not merely of
a nation, but of a world. ‘This is My Blood of the Covenant, which is
shed for many.’ And accordingly whenever we solemnly repeat His words
and His acts, we do it in a Consecration Prayer addressed not to man
but to God. It has been thus that from the beginning the Church has
made the ‘perpetual memory,’ setting forth the finished sacrifice of
the Cross as the one and only ground and hope of man’s salvation. It is
thus that we draw nigh by the ‘new and living way which He has prepared
for us’ until we find ourselves amid all the company of heaven, nay
more, suppliants before the very throne of God, humbly but confidently
asking for the grace to help us in our earthly need. The prayer is
freely granted. The very offerings we present are blessed and returned
for our enrichment.
And so, finally, the Eucharist is a MEANS OF GRACE. The Altar becomes
a Table, and the Sacrifice ends in a Feast. We are bidden, not only
to ‘do this,’ but to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ the Body and Blood. Here it is
that we reach the most mysterious aspect of all. Christ died and rose
again for us that we might live by Him. In this holiest fellowship
He fulfils His promise to be with us; in this highest worship we are
made partakers of His very self. How the blessing is bestowed we are
unable to explain. The explanations that have been attempted are not
really explanations, for they are not themselves intelligible. But we
can do better than explain. We can accept the fact, and look to prove
it in experience. That is the way of our English Church teaching.
‘The benefit is great,’ we are assured, ‘if with a true penitent
heart and lively faith we receive this Holy Sacrament, for then we
spiritually eat the Flesh of Christ and drink His Blood.’ ‘The Body
and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed’--not merely metaphorically
and symbolically--‘taken and received by the faithful.’ So it has been
believed since the foundation of the Church. ‘The doctrine of the
reality of the gift bestowed in the Holy Communion is universal in
the writings of the early Christians.’[101] And so it will be to the
end, when the holy feast is to be royally ‘fulfilled in the kingdom of
God.’[102]
[101] Archbishop Temple, Primary Charge.
[102] St. Luke xxii. 16.
It is in connexion with this third aspect of the Eucharist that we are
to attempt some further inquiry. Granted that ‘the benefit is great,’
of what does it consist? When we meet together in the gladness of loyal
fellowship to ‘lift up our hearts’ through the worship which unites us
to the Great High Priest within the veil; when we receive, as from His
hands, the more than tokens of our participation in His present life
and coming triumph; when after meekly kneeling for the benediction of
the heavenly peace, we rise and go our way--what thoughts may we dare
to cherish with regard to the blessing that has been granted to us?
Shall we answer that the gain must be of a spiritual character, that
what we have received is ‘the strengthening and refreshing of our
souls,’ that this is what is intended when the Eucharist is spoken of
as a ‘means of grace’? Assuredly we shall be right to answer thus. We
cannot insist upon it too strongly, or claim it too confidently. We may
not feel at the moment that we are stronger and more able for our life
and duty; but then we do not always feel the benefit of physical food
and medicine the moment they have been taken. The gain may not appear
for hours or even days, when perhaps we have ceased to think of the
source from which it came. Strangely enough, too, the immediate effect
of a medicine may be to bring out the mischief, and to make us imagine
that we are the worse for it rather than the better; and, as we know,
there have been times when it has almost seemed as if we had become
more distressingly conscious of our faults and failings as a result of
our Communion. In spite of it all, faith takes and gives humble thanks
for the blessing which has been received.
But, when we say that the blessing is of a spiritual nature, does that
mean that its effects are therefore limited to the spiritual sphere?
Can we think that they could be so limited? Is not the spiritual the
dominant factor in all our life, and must not the quickening and
gladdening of our spirits be felt, sooner or later, through every
department of our being?
Is it not true that the mind is profoundly influenced by the state of
the spirit; that, when the soul is at peace and in harmony with God’s
will, light shines as it were from within upon the hardest and most
perplexing problems around us? The good and wise Bishop Harold Browne
once declared at a Church Congress that he had never known what it
was to have intellectual doubts when present at the Holy Communion.
So, too, one of the most brilliant of our living teachers, speaking
of what he owed to the school chapel at Eton, has said, ‘There I
mercifully gained the habit of constant Communion; and this habit was
the one permanent stronghold of my faith when in after years at Oxford
the violent storms of intellectual trouble broke over my mind.’[103]
[103] Canon Scott Holland, _Commonwealth_, March 1908.
If the mind may be helped through blessing received by the spirit, why
not the body also? We are realising more and more forcibly every year
how intimate is the connexion between mental action and the physical
organism. The two are so linked that every change in the one would
seem to be accompanied by a change in the other. Moreover, we are
assured by recent psychology that there are regions within us which lie
outside--above and below--the levels of our ordinary consciousness; and
that influences exerted in these regions are determining causes, not
merely of mental, but of bodily states. The close connexion between
the spiritual and the physical is clearly insisted upon in the New
Testament teaching. Our Lord showed plainly that the problem of bodily
disease was not to be treated apart from the more baffling needs of the
soul. In unhesitating terms He traced the miseries of morbid physical
conditions to moral wrongdoing and the presence of spiritual forces of
evil. The great word ‘Salvation’ strictly interpreted meant health; and
it was applied to both body and soul. It is no small part of Christ’s
redemption to ‘quicken your mortal bodies through His Spirit that
dwelleth in you.’[104]
[104] Romans viii. 2.
The fact that the body has its appointed part and share in the Holy
Communion is in itself significant of the honour to be paid to it, and
might be taken to imply that it too is to be partaker of the benefit.
And when St. Paul declares that to receive ‘unworthily’ is to be in
danger of bodily sickness and even of death,[105] we can scarcely avoid
the inference that for the worthy recipient there might be expected
some corresponding advantage of quickened health and physical vitality.
[105] 1 Cor. xi. 30.
* * * * *
If we ask what the thoughts of early Christianity were in regard
to this matter, we need remain in no uncertainty as to the reply.
Recent discovery of documents and the critical study of the primitive
liturgies have given us a great deal of knowledge as to the religious
conceptions of those who met for Christian worship in the centuries
after the Apostles. At first it was with reluctance that they
committed their most sacred formularies to writing. Even as late as
the time of Athanasius the precise nature of the liturgy was kept as a
secret, to be revealed only to those who would be certain to regard it
with reverence and understanding. ‘It is not permitted,’ he wrote, ‘to
describe the mysteries to those who are not initiated.’[106] Not until
this discipline of secrecy was gradually abandoned, as Christianity
came to be accepted throughout the empire, were the actual forms of
service allowed to become public property. From these we are able to
gather much as to the place which the Eucharist held in the life of
the Church, and as to the hopes that were centred in it. These hopes,
without question, were primarily of a spiritual sort. Intercession was
offered with a fulness and intensity which witness to a wonderful power
of sustained devotion and a boundless range of sympathy. There were
many and various prayers for the peace and perfecting of the Church
and the enlightenment of the world, for the spread of true knowledge,
for the sanctification of all estates of believers, and above all, and
most of all, for the exaltation and glory of God in earth as in heaven.
But no one can so much as glance over these liturgies without being
strongly impressed by the fact that those who framed them and used
them had no notion of drawing any sharp line of distinction between
the spiritual and the material, between the blessing of the soul and
the good to be desired for the body. If they made intercession for the
Church that it might be ‘kept sheltered from storms’ and be ‘preserved
founded upon the rock until the consummation of the world,’ and were
careful to remember the higher needs of all classes of Christian
people, they were quick to add, ‘Let us pray for our brethren exercised
by sickness, that the Lord may deliver them from every disease and from
every infirmity, and may restore them whole to His Holy Church.’[107]
In the prayer of Consecration they would ask that the Bread and the
Wine might be made to all who received them a means of ‘faith, and
watchfulness, and healing, and sober-mindedness, and sanctification,
and renovation of soul and body and spirit.’[108] When they had
partaken of the elements they implored that these might ‘not be unto
condemnation but to salvation, for the benefit of soul and body.’[109]
[106] _Apol. contra Arianos_, ii.
[107] Clementine Liturgy.
[108] Liturgy of St. Mark.
[109] Clementine Liturgy.
Just ten years ago a very important addition was made to our store of
early liturgical documents by the publication of the Sacramentary of
Bishop Serapion, which dates from 350 A.D. The work consists of thirty
prayers such as a bishop would be likely to use.[110] Of these the
first six and the last twelve have to do with the celebration of the
Eucharist; the remainder relate to Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination,
and Burial.
[110] A translation, with notes, has been edited by the Bishop of
Salisbury in a small volume issued by the S.P.C.K. (Early Church
Classics). The Greek text will be found in an article by the Rev. F.
E. Brightman, _Journal of Theological Studies_, October 1899.
‘Life is a remarkable note of the collection,’ and it is life in
the fullest sense of the word. A few quotations will indicate this,
and will serve to strengthen the impression we have already sought
to convey as to the content of the blessing to be expected in the
Eucharist. In the opening Offertory prayer we find the words, ‘We
beseech Thee, make us living men.’ At the invocation of the Word upon
the elements, ‘Make all who communicate to receive a medicine of life
for the healing of any sickness.’ In ‘the prayer for those who have
suffered,’ ‘Grant health and soundness, and cheerfulness and all
advancement of soul and body.’ And in the final Benediction, ‘Let the
communion of the Body and Blood go with this people. Let their bodies
be living bodies, and their souls be clean souls.’ Provision is also
made for special prayer for the sick, and for the blessings of oils
and waters for their benefit, and in these connexions we find such
expressions as the following: ‘Be propitious, Master; assist and heal
all that are sick. Rebuke the sicknesses.’ ‘Grant them to be counted
worthy of health.’ ‘Make them to have perfect health of body and soul.’
‘Grant healing power upon these creatures that every power and every
evil spirit and every sickness may depart.’
It need scarcely be said that all such references to bodily wants
are set in a context which is marked by the simplest and most ardent
spiritual devotion. The physical is never allowed to usurp the first
place. But it is never forgotten. The early Christians believed that
the Life which was offered to them in fellowship with their Lord was
to extend to every part of their constitution, to ‘spirit and soul and
body.’[111]
[111] These references to the Liturgies might be supplemented by
quotations from the patristic writings, e.g. those of Irenæus,
Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nyssa. The last named
went so far as to make Baptism with faith to be the salvation of the
soul, and the partaking of the Eucharist the salvation of the body.
See Bishop Gore, _The Body of Christ_, p. 69; and Bethune Baker,
_Introduction to the History of Christian Doctrine_, pp. 399, 412.
In the light of our increasing knowledge of psychological processes,
we to-day are turning with new interest and sympathy to the old
stories of marvellous healing that have come down to us from early and
medieval times; and we are doing our best, by careful investigation and
analysis, to separate the well-authenticated cases from those for which
the evidence is not satisfactory. Already it is clear beyond reasonable
doubt that the instances in which directly religious influences wrought
extraordinary cures were far more numerous than have been generally
admitted by critical students of the history. In Mr. Percy Dearmer’s
volume entitled ‘Body and Soul’ a large number of testimonies have been
collected relating to such experiences at various times throughout the
Christian centuries. Thus the passage from St. Augustine is quoted,
in which he said that in his days miracles were still being wrought,
‘partly by the sacraments,’ and partly through other instrumentalities.
And instances of such miracles are described as they were recorded of
Bernard, and Francis, and Catherine of Siena; of Philip Neri, Fox,
Wesley, Cardinal Hohenlohe, Pastor Blumhardt, Father John of Cronstadt,
and many more. At least two cases are given in which the benefit was
definitely connected with the reception of Holy Communion.[112]
[112] pp. 370, 381. Compare also the witness of St. Thomas à Kempis
in regard to the power of this Sacrament. ‘The grace is sometimes so
great that out of the fulness of devotion here given not the mind
only but the weak body also feels great increase of strength bestowed
on it’ (vires sibi praestitas sentiat ampliores). _De Imit._ iv. 1.
* * * * *
It remains now to ask how far we English Church people have any
guidance to which we can appeal in our liturgical forms. We have to
admit that the well-being of the body does not receive the amount of
consideration in our Prayer-book that it did receive in more primitive
days. And yet the allusions are more frequent than many imagine. At
the outset of Morning and Evening Prayer we are reminded that we have
met ‘to ask those things which are requisite and necessary as well
for the body as the soul.’ Over and over we repeat the clause in the
Lord’s Prayer--‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ In the Creed we
joyfully attest our belief in the ‘resurrection of the body.’ In the
Litany we pray to be delivered from ‘plague and pestilence.’ A special
intercession is appointed for use ‘in the time of common plague or
sickness,’ as well as the more general one for all who are ‘any ways
afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate,’ with a particular
remembrance of ‘those for whom our prayers are desired.’ In the
Collects, which were intended primarily for use at the Eucharist, we
find petitions for help in ‘our infirmities,’ for defence from ‘all
adversities which may happen to the body,’ for preservation ‘both in
body and soul,’ and for readiness of ‘body’ to do the Divine will.
In the Office for Holy Communion we may be glad to note even clearer
traces of the Scriptural and primitive conception as to the place which
the physical part of our nature is entitled to hold in the religion of
the Incarnation.
When we say the prayer for the whole Church, we humbly beseech God
‘to comfort and succour all those who in this transitory life are
in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.’ In the
Prayer of Humble Access there are petitions, first to be met with in
the earliest form of the English service (1548), which sound like an
echo from the already quoted Prayer-book of Serapion, ‘that our sinful
bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through
His most precious Blood.’ Even more intentionally significant are the
words of administration appointed to be addressed to every communicant,
‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy body and soul unto
everlasting life’; ‘The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy
body and soul unto everlasting life.’ These references to the ‘body’
appear to have been deliberately introduced into our service. In the
Latin form the celebrant had said, ‘custodiat animam meam in vitam
aeternam.’[113] And as the body has its place of privilege, so also
it has a share of the corresponding responsibility. In the Prayer of
Oblation ‘we offer and present our souls and bodies to be a reasonable,
holy, and lively sacrifice.’ Finally, among the Collects suggested to
be said after the Offertory, and at other times ‘as occasion shall
serve,’ the foremost place is given to two which are closely connected
with the thought of bodily welfare. The first, ‘Assist us mercifully,
O Lord,’ was a prayer used in medieval times for persons who had gone
on a pilgrimage to seek physical as well as spiritual blessings; the
second is for the sanctification and governance of ‘both our hearts
and bodies,’ that we may be ‘preserved in body and soul, through our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’
[113] It would seem that the fuller form, ‘corpus et animum meam,’
was used by the priest at his own communion in the Mozarabic rite;
and that a similar form was prescribed in the Cologne use of the
fourteenth century for communicating the people. (Daniel, _Codex
Liturgicus_, i. pp. 105, 147.) Otherwise the rule was as stated
above. It is interesting to note, however, that the words ‘corpus
et’ were very generally employed in administering _to the sick_ in
medieval England (see the _York Manual_, Surtees, lxiii. pp. 51, 52).
So then, in our Prayer-book, as in the older service books, the benefit
of the body is closely associated with the gain which is sought for the
soul. The physical effect is regarded as dependent upon the spiritual
gift. As the Bishop of Birmingham has put it, ‘though in the Holy
Communion the body is sanctified through the sanctification of our
spirit, and transformed and endowed, in subtle and secret ways which
pass our comprehension, with capacity for the life immortal; yet it is
through the spirit and not directly.’[114] The blessing begins with the
spirit, but it certainly does not end there.
[114] _Body of Christ_, p. 64.
* * * * *
This sketch of a great subject, imperfect as it has been, may serve
to turn the thoughts of some of us to an aspect of our religious
privileges which has not been very much before our minds. A friend
who had been spending a good deal of time on ‘cures’ on the continent
as well as in this country, wrote to me lately to say that he was
beginning to think that he ought to get more assistance towards
recovery from his religion than he had been getting. That is an idea
which accords with the temper of the first Christians, and is certainly
encouraged by a careful study of our own Prayer-book. We dare not
assert that all ‘the ills that flesh is heir to’ would disappear before
a quickened vitality of soul, and the mental soundness which might
follow from this; but we can well believe that the tendency of true
religion is all in the direction of physical health. Indeed, we may
go so far as to say that there is no restorative force that we know
of to compare with the influence of spiritual peace and gladness. We
have amongst us those who are fully conscious that they have owed much
bodily strength to prayers and to sacraments. And there are medical men
who would not hesitate to give their confirmatory testimony from what
they have seen in their experiences of the sick.
Sometimes we hear of small attendance at the weekly or daily Eucharist.
If this is to be remedied it will be because truer views have come to
prevail again of the meaning of the greatest service of the Church. We
shall recover the spiritual fervour and force of primitive Christianity
when we learn once more to give the Eucharist its proper place in our
worship and our life. We might be helped to do this if, like the first
Christians, we accustomed ourselves to look to our Communions not only
for the blessing that they can bring to our souls, but for the lesser,
and yet not less real, blessing which we may find in them for the
sanctification and preservation of our bodies.
PRAYER AND MENTAL HEALING
BY
ARTHUR CHANDLER, D.D.
BISHOP OF BLOEMFONTEIN
PRAYER AND MENTAL HEALING
BY THE BISHOP OF BLOEMFONTEIN
This paper is concerned with Mental Healing; its object is to suggest,
in a tentative way, how Mental Healing may be effected by Mental
Prayer. But, in order to do this, it is necessary (at the risk of
repeating what may have been written by others) to refer to certain
premises leading up to the conclusion which I wish to draw.
(1) In the first place it is coming to be recognised that
‘consciousness’ must be understood in a far wider and more general
sense than we have been accustomed to associate with it. Alongside of
the active work of the intellect with which, e.g., we study mathematics
or pursue our profession, there is a large, dreamy, half-conscious
tract of mind, not sharpened to a single point, like the active
intellect, but consisting in a multiplicity of mind-centres (mental
ganglia, as we might call them) diffused throughout the body. We knew
before that our body was a microcosm or an epitome of the world in
which it was found, and now we are learning that the same is true of
our minds. Primitive kinds of consciousness have been carried up with
us in our ascent from lower grades of being, and survive, dormant but
real, over against the intellect which is the palmary achievement of
our race. This residual consciousness (the consciousness which exists
outside of the rational intellect) consists largely of instincts and
capacities which regulate the lives of other animals, and which were
employed by man in his primitive state, but for which he has no use in
his present-day existence; modes of receptivity and reaction, which
were natural to him in his dreamy childhood, but which are discarded by
him in the aggressive, self-assertive, wide-awake condition in which
he now lives. Mr. Myers, in his ‘Human Personality,’ gives a very
attractive and convincing account of this inheritance from our ‘lowly
ancestors.’ But probably we have to go deeper still to account for
parts of the consciousness which we thus inherit. The rooted attachment
to home, and the blind tenacity with which, in the teeth of reason,
men cling to life, exhibit a more primitive mode of consciousness than
that of animal life. Here we will quote some very suggestive words of
Professor Stewart:
‘Transcendental feeling I would explain genetically as an effect
produced within consciousness by the persistence in us of that primeval
condition from which we are sprung, when life was still as sound asleep
as death, and there was no time yet. That we should fall for a while,
now and then, from our waking, time-marking life, into the timeless
slumber of this primeval life is easy to understand; for the principle
solely operative in that primeval life is indeed the fundamental
principle of our nature, being that “vegetative part of the soul” which
made from the first, and still silently makes, the assumption on which
our rational life of conduct and science rests--the assumption that
life is worth living. When to the “vegetative” the “sensitive” soul
is first added, the Imperative (Live thy Life) is obeyed by creatures
which, experiencing only isolated feelings, and retaining no traces of
them in memory, still live a timeless life, without sense of past or
future, and consequently without sense of selfhood. Then, with memory,
there comes, in the higher animals, some dim sense of a self dating
back and prospecting forward. Time begins to be.’
This, then, is our starting point; that besides the single, supreme,
rational activity, which we call intellect, there exist in us other
forms of consciousness similar to those which accompany the growth
of the plant or the life of the animal; and that this residual
consciousness, however much we may discard or disown it, continues to
live and work, and does things which the proud intellect is unable
to do. On the other hand, we must not forget that these forms of
feeling and instinct, of perception and reaction, which we regard as
our heritage from lower grades of life, are enormously modified by
their juxtaposition with a rational intellect. The unity of nature
which comprehends both the intellect and them, makes itself felt;
this lower form of mentality is still the mentality of a rational
being; and the general position may be described by saying that there
exists a decentralised consciousness, diffused through the organism,
‘irrational, but capable of sharing in reason, and of listening to
it,’ as Aristotle would say, and manifesting itself in a power of
receiving impressions, manipulating them, and reacting upon them, which
in our present state of ignorance we describe by the convenient word
‘abnormal.’
(2) Because the residual consciousness is thus diffused throughout the
body, it can exercise control over the various parts of the body, just
as the central intellect exercises control over the body as a whole.
As the reason can set the body in motion by commands issued through
the brain and travelling down the motor nerves, so the departmental
consciousness can initiate changes and disturbances in the various
nerve centres with which it is associated. This, we take it, is what
happens in all cases of mental healing. The phenomenon is physical
as well as psychical; it consists not merely in the inhibition of
the feeling of pain, but in such a modification of the nerve tissues
as removes the cause of the pain. A real cure is effected, and it
is effected by the action of the residual consciousness upon that
particular part of the organism.
(3) This decentralised, residual consciousness can work best when
the rational intellect is quiescent--when, we may say, the central
office is closed. At such times man ceases for the time to be an
argumentative, striving creature; the placid, vegetative, ruminative
life, the life of growth and instinct, asserts itself; submerged modes
of consciousness begin to stir and act, like fairies dancing when the
sun has set.
And as sleep is the typically quiescent state, it will be specially in
sleep, natural or induced, that these lower modes of consciousness will
exhibit their activity.
(4) In order that they may act, a ‘cue’ or suggestion of some sort must
be given to them. The most marked characteristic of this residual
consciousness is its receptivity. It executes, but cannot originate.
It can retain in the memory the whole of a long poem which it has
heard, and it can solve a problem by right adjustment of its elements;
but in each case the facts must be given to it in order that it may
deal with them. In itself it is dreamy and desultory; if it is to work
efficiently, it must be stimulated and concentrated by the transmission
to it of a clear and forcible suggestion.
(5) On the other hand, although it must take its orders from the
reason, it is only natural that one residual consciousness should
be more _en rapport_, feel more at home, with another residual
consciousness. The reason is like a parent or schoolmaster, and these
consciousnesses are like children. They receive their directions from
above, but are far more at home with each other, canvassing their
instructions, and sometimes parodying and making fun of them, as
children do with the admonitions of their elders. In matter of fact
there is often something freakish and elfish about this consciousness,
it reminds one of the submerged spirit of Dionysus reasserting itself
in Denys l’Auxerrois as described by Mr. Pater.
(6) Now, if one residual consciousness can be brought into a
relationship of definite and serious purpose with another residual
consciousness, the influence thus exerted will be stronger than any
which can be exerted directly by the reason itself. To revert to our
former illustrations, a monitor whose own character is receptive of the
master’s ideals can exert on other children an influence greater than
that of the master himself.
(7) The reason of man, then, may be well able to convey clear
instructions to his own residual consciousness, and send it to
associate with, and work upon, some other residual consciousness. And
if the instructions conveyed, and the work done, concern the curing of
some ailment, a case of mental healing will be the result.
Let A be the healer and B the patient; let _a_ and _b_ represent
the residual consciousness of each of them; further, let A^1 be the
rational intellect of A, and B^2 the seat of B’s disease. In that case
the following diagram will illustrate the process:
[Illustration]
That is, A concentrates his intellect (A^1) on transmitting a message
to his own submerged consciousness (_a_); this submerged consciousness
works upon B’s submerged consciousness and stimulates it to curative
action on the seat of B’s disease. Further, the best time for _a_ to
thus work upon _b_ will be when A and B are both asleep. A will have
concentrated the reason on the idea of helping B just before going to
sleep. Mr. Hudson, in his ‘Psychic Phenomena,’ gives many illustrations
of cures thus effected.
(8) But the capacity of A to exert a strong and right influence must
depend on the strength of his will and the clearness of his insight;
and if he is a humble man, he will recognise his own weakness and
ignorance. In proportion, then, to his affection for B, he wants to
bring to bear on B a stronger force and a higher wisdom than his own. A
few exceptionally strong and wise people may bring help, of themselves,
to their friends in the manner described in the last section; but the
majority, being conscious of their own limitations, will turn elsewhere
for succour, i.e. will pray.
(9) In very many cases prayer is a definite petition to God, that
God will Himself act directly on our friend by bestowing a definite
blessing on him, e.g. recovery from a specific ailment. But that is not
quite the highest or the best kind of prayer. God loves to act through
us; Christ sends out his disciples, that through them He may continue
to do His gracious works. We can combine a humble reliance on God with
the offer of ourselves as His instruments, if our prayer conforms to
that Prayer of Quiet or Silence of which mystical writers tell us.
Then, instead of ourselves acting directly on our friend, and instead
of asking God to act directly upon him, we shall just concentrate our
attention upon God with special intention for our friend. We shall hope
that a Divine response from God will, during our sleep perhaps, enter
our own subconscious self (which we have, through the concentration of
our attention, made receptive of such responses) and through us work
upon that of our friend. In such a case the diagram will be as follows:
[Illustration]
We may add that this Prayer of Silence not only renders us receptive
of Divine influences, which may then through us be transmitted
to our friend; also it embodies the true attitude of humility in
relation to God. We know not what we should pray for as we ought.
We are not to dictate to God what blessing He is to send. We simply
bring our friend’s evil case before Him in the very act of our own
loving concentration upon Him, and offer ourselves as the agents for
the transmission of that blessing, whatever it may be, which He in
His wisdom may will to send. By a strong act of sympathy we identify
ourselves with our friend, and trust God to provide the right remedy.
‘Have mercy upon _me_,’ said the woman in the Gospel, ‘my daughter is
grievously vexed with a devil.’
If we can combine this living sympathy for our friend with a humble
trust in God’s power and wisdom, and further offer ourselves as the
instrument through which God may act, we shall be practising the
highest and purest form of intercession within our reach. And this form
of intercession may be offered in a silent act of Contemplation, in
which distracting thoughts are set aside, the favourable attitude of
receptivity is attained, and a loving and concentrated appeal is made
to the love of God. It may, perhaps, encourage us to engage in this
highest form of prayer, if we recognise that it has this intercessory
side. An objection is sometimes brought against the practice of
Contemplation as described by spiritual writers, on the ground that
it is self-centred and selfish. There is never much force in such an
objection, since the contemplative who is concentrating his soul on God
is thereby making himself a ladder down which Angels of Grace descend
on others as well as himself; he is diffusing an atmosphere of God’s
presence, with the blessings that flow from it.
When, however, Contemplation is practised with definite intercessory
intention, its beneficence is clearly and unmistakably emphasised.
(10) It is well to dwell a little more on the quality of humility which
should characterise all such prayers. We have no right to dictate to
God what His answer shall be. We have no right to assume that it must
be His will to remove all pain and suffering. Any such assumption leads
logically to conclusions which those who make it might not be prepared
to accept. If pain and suffering are contrary to God’s will, and God
is omnipotent, it follows that there can be no such thing as pain and
suffering; and as pain and suffering are located in the body, it will
further be concluded that there is no such thing as a body; and here at
once we have Christian Science in a nutshell.
We may try to escape from this conclusion by distinguishing an absolute
and a contingent will of God, and arguing that pain, as such, is
contrary, but under certain circumstances is not contrary, to the
will of God. But this really abandons the whole position, since we do
not know whether the case of our friend is covered by the ‘certain
circumstances’ or not, and therefore are unable to dogmatise as to
God’s will in the matter. No one in his senses imagines that God wills
pain for the sake of pain. Everyone would agree that, if sin had not
come into the world, there would be no occasion for pain. But then sin
has come into the world; the only condition of man with which we are
acquainted is his fallen condition; in that fallen condition sin and
suffering are mingled inextricably to a degree which utterly condemns
dictation or dogmatism on our part. Ignorant people like ourselves
must, then, be humble in our prayers. We bring our friend’s illness
before God; ‘Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick’; often God’s love may
be shown in the removal of the suffering; sometimes in the provision of
grace sufficient to enable the sufferer to rejoice in his infirmities.
(11) What has been said in this paper is liable to an easy and
obvious criticism. It will be said that the whole thing consists of
guesses; and further, that these guesses are incapable of scientific
verification. I cheerfully accept both statements, and am not
particularly affected by either. All increase of knowledge has been
made through guesses, and in the case of an intricate subject like
that before us, we must be content to go on guessing for a long time.
Further, there may be verification which would not conform to the
more rigorous methods, but which would be sufficient for practical
purposes. If we find that such prayer as I have described is followed
by relief, either physical or spiritual, to him for whom we pray; and
if this sequence occurs again and again under different conditions, the
cumulative weight of such experience will justify a humble belief that
God is indeed using us as vehicles of His grace and love.
(12) Finally, I should like to add a few words as to the general
attitude which, it seems to me, we should adopt with regard to facts
of mental healing. I have assumed that we are face to face with
certain psychical facts which for the first time are winning general
recognition of their authenticity. That is, we are witnessing the
birth and development of a special branch of psychology. The whole
inquiry into the phenomena of the subconscious, or subliminal, or
subjective, or residual consciousness (whatever we choose to call it)
is a psychological inquiry. It is for the psychologist to investigate
the relation in which such phenomena stand to the normal working of the
mind; and it is for the psychologist and physiologist together to probe
the method by which subconscious mentality affects the diseased tissue,
and in many cases effects a cure. The facts are becoming patent to all;
the causes are a subject matter for science. Where, then, does religion
come in? I answer that whilst the forces at work are psychical, and the
inquiry into their mode of operation is scientific, they can be best
put in motion by religion.
Some such demarcation of spheres seems to me to be essential. It would
be fatal to assume that all manifestation of subconscious activity is
supernatural; that all mental healing is necessarily spiritual healing.
The facts postulate neither a special spiritual gift, nor a special
theory of the universe (such as that of Christian Science) to account
for them. They are, we repeat, psychical facts, and come under the
domain of psychology.
Further, as I have suggested above, religion is not the only motive
power by which they can be roused to action. A rigorous process of
attention and concentration of the mind, which has been rendered
quiescent by the elimination of other thoughts and ideas, seems to be
the condition under which the healer acts successfully; and such a
process is not confined to the sphere of religion.
But, on the other hand, we Christians possess two great qualifications
in this matter. First, in the higher forms of prayer we have ready to
our hand a peculiarly effective method of concentration and attention;
and, secondly, through the use of this method, we can link our own
action with the action of God, correcting our ignorance by the wisdom
of God, and supplementing our weakness by the power of God.
* * * * *
NOTE.--In this article I have dealt with healing as exercised on the
ills of another, not on one’s own ills; and the prayer associated with
such healing has therefore been presented as intercessory prayer.
But of course the troubles which we have in view may be our own. In
such a case the method will be much the same as that sketched above;
relief may be effected subconsciously through the medium of prayer.
But the procedure is now much simpler. Instead of sending out our
subconsciousness (the phraseology is necessarily materialistic and
fearfully inadequate) to work on that of another, we merely commission
it to work on the seat of our own malady. The method now becomes one
of auto-suggestion, i.e. the healing suggestion is made by us to
ourselves. We know the power of this process in the moral sphere; we
know how, by fixing our minds on lofty and ennobling ideas, we can
break the power of temptation, not by a frontal attack, but by getting
round it and above it to a higher level of life and thought. This,
in fact, is the main purpose and effect of meditation as ordinarily
practised. The scope of meditations only have to be slightly extended
in order to apply to our physical as well as our moral troubles. But,
although this method of healing becomes simpler in procedure, because
applied to ourselves, yet for the same success it demands still greater
humility and purity of intention. If, when we pray for others, it is
hard for us to believe that the prayer may be really and effectually
answered in other ways than by the removal of the physical suffering,
it is still harder for us to recognise this in our own case. To meet
this difficulty, it will be well that prayer for our own relief should
be as much as possible silent prayer. We shall concentrate our
attention on God’s love and power, as revealed in Christ, just spread
out our trouble before Him, and resolve to trust Him to the uttermost.
The suggestion thus conveyed to our own subconscious life will be
charged with God’s grace; if physical healing results, the restored
health will be transformed by dedication to God’s service; if the
relief takes the form of strength to endure, it will be none the less
relief, lifting us above the level of self-pity into tranquil communion
with Christ crucified, and may be none the less an instrument in God’s
hands for the doing of His blessed will.
THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
BY
M. CARTA STURGE
THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
BY M. CARTA STURGE
In attempting to criticise the Metaphysics of Christian Science, as put
forth in the book which claims to be the authority for its doctrine,
‘Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,’ one is tempted to
quote the famous chapter on ‘Snakes in Iceland,’ which runs ‘There are
no snakes in Iceland,’ and to say at the outset that Christian Science
has no Metaphysics. Since, however, it claims to explain the Universe,
and to give a theory of such metaphysical subjects as Matter and
Spirit, as well as of Unity and Reality, it may be well to examine its
statements on these abstruse matters to see if they can justly claim
to have value as Metaphysics, to search the island, as it were, before
pronouncing that there are no snakes in it.
Undoubtedly Christian Science owes a good deal of its attractiveness
to its teaching of a sort of popular Idealism. It was put forth at
a time when a great wave of Materialism had overspread the Christian
world, not owing only to discoveries in Natural Science, which seemed
in the first flush of their triumph, before they had been adjusted with
other fields of thought, to destroy all belief in Spirit, but owing
also to the fact that Religion had been for so long established and,
apparently, firmly seated upon a secure spiritual foundation, that it
had been loosely taught as to its fundamental basis. So little had its
relation with physical things been explained that the spiritual and
physical aspects of the Universe had become, as it were, separated
in thought and shut up respectively in watertight compartments. The
result was that in the popular mind the two worlds, the spiritual and
the physical, stood in a merely artificial relation with each other,
connected, as it were, by unmeaning hooks, instead of standing in an
intimate organic relation, so close that no true statement regarding
the one could possibly stand in collision with the truth of the other.
In consequence of this merely artificial relation of the two in the
popular mind, at the first breath of the new scientific announcements
the two worlds in the minds of only too many fell apart, and the
spiritual world floated away, if one may say so, to nowhere, whilst the
physical, with all its limitations, its ruthless laws, its indifference
to the individual, its total disregard of pain, and its insurmountable
barriers, reigned alone. Materialism had triumphed with its apparently
hard-and-fast solidity; whilst the ideals of Poetry, the truths hinted
at by Art, the revelations of the prophet, the dreams of the young and
the visions of the old, and our intuitions of unseen realities which
cannot be uttered, were consigned by many, supposed to be wise, to the
region of illusions, the realm of nothingness, and Man seemed indeed to
be nothing more than a creature helplessly subject to circumstance, the
sport of every wind, and entirely beyond the region of hope wherever
physical aid failed.
It was in the midst of a state of things something like this that
Christian Science came with its contrary announcement that all is
Spirit, and this given forth with the energy and freshness which always
accompanies the discovery of a new aspect of truth, or, as in this
instance, the rediscovery of a world-old truth which had been for a
time despised or forgotten. And with it came a message of hope, the
assurance that we are not the creatures of mere circumstance, that we
are not limited to physical life, nor altogether tied down by its
limitations, that things are not as hard and fast as they seem, and
that in the power of Spirit we can throw down many a barrier and rise
above circumstances. Most welcome teaching, and yet to those of us
accustomed to singing, on the third evening of the month, ‘With the
help of my God I shall leap over the wall,’ it seems strange that it
should appear quite so new! However, as before said, Materialism had
darkened much of this old truth and somewhat blinded our eyes. Whether,
therefore, it seems new or old to us, we can only welcome a powerful
reassertion of Idealism, of the supremacy of Spirit, provided it come
with good credentials, and be so stated as to appeal to the best and
sanest part of ourselves, and with the breadth and depth of treatment
that so wonderful a truth calls for. Unfortunately, it is here that
Christian Science fails us. It is a cheap, too much ready-made Idealism
that is put before us, and one that rather appeals to our less sane
moments than to our more brilliantly illuminated ones.
Idealism, by reason of its very greatness, by its perception of things
that lie outside our senses, by its apprehension of infinities far
beyond our grasp, has many and great difficulties to encounter as
soon as, leaving the inspired region of Poetry, and of prophetic
vision, it tries to present itself as rational to our intellect, and as
conformable with our knowledge of physical things. Had the foundress
of Christian Science confined herself to the uninquiring assertions of
Seership, and left the explanation of Spiritual truths (of which no one
can deny that she caught some luminous glimpses) to minds equipped with
the necessary knowledge and training, Christian Science would have been
shorn of much of its incoherence and false teaching, and perhaps have
proved itself a real ally to Christianity.
But the foundress was not content with the rôle of giving forth such
insight as she may have had as a Seer. She tries to explain it, and
the consequence is such a tangle of incoherent, inconsistent, confused
statements, contradictory to each other, as has, perhaps, never
seriously been given to the world before. And where, occasionally, the
statements, at least as to their wording, are clear and unmistakable in
their meaning, so far from clearing away the difficulties of Idealism,
they add much to the obscurity, and leave the subject in a position
likely to act in the long run in favour of Materialism rather than in
the direction intended.
We will take an instance. Mrs. Eddy lays great stress on the Oneness of
the Universe. Here we shall few of us quarrel with her, for Unity is
the root-idea of Thought, whether scientific or philosophic, or even
that of mere common-sense, since it is only by Unity that one thing
can be seen in relation to another. The Unity is, however, difficult
of apprehension, since it is essentially an idea--although none the
less real for that--being, from the physical point of view, never seen
or apprehended as a material thing. Therefore it is non-material,
something spiritual or mental to be realised by insight other than that
of the senses. Mrs. Eddy has this insight, and has it very strongly.
Idealism, however, is no sooner arrived at than it presents us with a
very hard knot to untie, and it is here that we shall see how far Mrs.
Eddy can give us any adequate metaphysical solution.
She realises, like much greater thinkers, how hard it is to understand
how our material world can be contained in a spiritual idea, and that
Matter and Mind are of difficult reconciliation, although, if we grant
they both exist, they are so obviously related that they must be
reconcilable within a Unity somehow. This reconciliation has cost much
thought for thousands of years on the part of the deepest thinkers,
but the easy way of solving the difficulty in the case of shallow
thinkers is to do it by throwing one or other of the members in this
pair of opposites away, to deny it existence, and so to attain a cheap
conception of unity by pronouncing either matter or mind to be a mere
illusion. The Materialist tries cancelling Mind. Mrs. Eddy throws out
Matter and with it our entire physical world, not only the objects
in it, but all mental conceptions in regard to it, such as the Laws
of Nature, and all possible theories as to its being a manifestation
of Mind. All our conceptions of its laws are errors conceived by the
intellect, she teaches,[115] which is itself non-existent. In fact, the
world only _is_ because we falsely think it is. We have only to unthink
it, and it will disappear. Spirit is One, and therefore the many
objects of the world cannot be included in it; and only Spirit is real,
therefore the material world cannot be real. Such is her argument, and
she cannot allow that Matter may be a manifestation of Mind or created
by Mind, or have any relation with it of whatever sort. ‘Spirit and
Matter no more commingle,’ she says, ‘than light or darkness,’ and she
asserts that ‘Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create
Matter.’
[115] For proofs of my assertions regarding the teachings of _Science
and Health_, I must refer the reader to my book _The Truth and Error
of Christian Science_.
We have here attained, if we have attained it, Oneness at the expense
of the Many. It is One simply by means of containing nothing, and, in
place of the inspiring conception of the true thinker of the Unity as
One because it includes the Many harmoniously related within itself--a
Unity of infinite richness and fecundity--we have a dead, empty One,
misnamed Unity because there is nothing to unite. The worship of such a
Oneness, it has well been said, would be the worship of the None. Such
an One would be all-exclusive instead of all-inclusive, and be gained
by the annihilation of everything, instead of by the inclusion of all
within Itself as the vital expression of Itself.
In yet another way Mrs. Eddy’s statements concerning Unity contradict
themselves. We have seen that in her conception of Unity the whole
world, as we know it, has to be evaporated, as it were, into
nothingness, and it has been roundly denied that Spirit had anything to
do with its creation. Yet the world has to be accounted for, and in the
sequel we find that, according to ‘Science and Health,’ it _has_ been
created--but by whom or what?
It has been created by the mind of Man, by his thinking power, but not,
as we shall find if we read the book carefully, by that part of man’s
mind that is real, but by that part of it which is constantly asserted
to be unreal, to be, in fact, as much nothing as the world itself is
nothing. This part of Man, which is over and over again affirmed to be
nothing, is the Mortal Mind, and is endowed with the most tremendous
creative powers; for by its thought, its false thought, which is again
nothing, it has created for itself a world of objects, and objects
connected with each other, not in a state of chaos, as one would expect
in a world created by false thought, but objects connected with each
other in a marvellously ordered sequence, obeying exact laws with
the utmost obedience--laws so elaborate and complex in their results
that it has taken Man ages to understand them even a little (although
in Mrs. Eddy’s view his own creation), and yet, in their ordered
complexity, so simple that they are reducible to a few heads. Such is
the wonderful world created by the Mortal Mind, and with which God, as
All-in-All, has nothing to do! Thus we have two Creators, two unrelated
worlds, and we are landed in a Duality which is absolutely opposed to,
and inconsistent with, the Oneness on which Mrs. Eddy lays so much
emphasis, and which consequently disappears.
All the rest of Mrs. Eddy’s so-called metaphysical ideas, her teaching
on Reality, on the nature of Man, on what constitutes truth and what
error, and so on, are equally contradictory, and we are driven to the
conclusion that such a hopeless confusion of contradictions is scarcely
worthy of the name of Metaphysics or of serious discussion.
We welcome, as we have said, so emphatic an announcement of Idealism,
and of the truth of the supremacy of Spirit, but must deeply regret
that the Idealism is of so poor and thin a character, and the idea
of Spirit and of the Eternal Unity so deplorably impoverished. For,
indeed, thus presented, they could not long hold their own, and would
soon give place again to the darkness of Materialism.
However, rather than criticise, let us welcome the recall to Idealism,
to the recognition of Spirit as the supreme reality in which all
physical laws find their truth, and, by a careful study and meditation
upon the length and breadth and depth of these great ideas, as set
forth in Christianity and all that led up to it, endeavour to do our
little part towards a better understanding of these things, and thus in
practice we shall indeed find that many a seeming solid barrier can be
overleapt, the crooked made straight and rough places plain.
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In this work, which is mainly a _critique_ of Professor Schmeidel’s
theory that the recorded appearances of Jesus after His Crucifixion
and Death were merely subjective hallucinations on the part of the
disciples and others, the writer endeavours to show that such a view is
untenable from a psychological point of view, as well as inconsistent
with the general tenor of the Narratives themselves.
In the Appendices he gives in addition the Extra-Canonical Versions of
the Resurrection, together with a critical abstract of all the various
theories which up to the present time have been proposed to explain
that event, including the most recent form of the original mythical
theory of Strauss.
The author hopes, and believes, that the work will be of especial
use, not only to parish clergy and ministers, but also to intelligent
laymen of all classes who wish to inform themselves regarding the
developments of theological thought, and to be able to form some idea
of the value to be attached to modern critical theories dealing with
the Resurrection of Jesus.
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=KEMPIS, THOMAS À.= =The Imitation of Christ.= Revised Translation.
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