SPIRITUAL HEALING.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17880, 28 September 1923, Page 6

SPIRITUAL HEALING.

A CLERICAL VIEW.

A clerical opinion on the forthcoming mission of healing was expressed at St. Michael's Hall last night by the Rev. H. W. Smith, a fluent and erudite English clergyman, who is : now discharging the duties of chaplain at the Hospitai. Mr Smith expounded first the sac-ra-mental principle as understood by the Church, and said that every sacrament was an official act of the Church and was quite independent of the personal character or sanctity of the one ministering. Preaching, therefore, was not a.sacrament, and Jie did not think that spiritual healing by the laying on of hands, as practised in Mr Hickson's missions,- was a sacrament /because it •depended on the person giving it. Spiritual healing was a personal gift, but sacramental ministrations had nothing to do with the personality ol him giving the ministrations. There was, however, a ministration of heal-' ing which was a sacrament, by the elders of the Church praying for. a sick man and anointing him witii oil. The special gift of healing possessed by Mr Hickson was .one. not given td all, nor* was it confined to any particular class of people. It was .a personal faculty bestowed here an*} there.. AU though spiritual'healing wpsriot a sacrament, yet in a Way it was an extension of the sacramental principle. It was a splritmil blessing and in many cases a physical blessing also, conveyed through physical means. The only danger was that if received in ignorance, or without proper preparation, spiritual healing might become nothing but a superetition.