SPIRITUAL HEALING

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12532, 18 April 1935, Page 3

SPIRITUAL HEALING

2000 SUFFERERS THRONG CHURCH. REMARKABLE SCENES. Hundreds of sufferers, among whom were chronic invalids, waited throughout a hailstorm, refusing to seek shelter, to attend services at Emmanuel Church, Streatham London, recently, conducted by the Rev. John Maillard, minister in charge of the first Anglican spiritual healing church at Brighton. Two ■ thousand people thronged the entrance to the church, and threequarters of an hour before the service was due to begin the doors had to he closed. A long queue of people ready to wait for three hours until the next service formed immediately. At the head of it was a woman who. had travelled by motor-car from Cornwall., There were little children on crutches, grey-haired women in bathchairs, people who bore traces of intense suffering from disease. The oueue bad been waiting an hour when drenching rain began to fall. Many in the crowds bad no umbrellas nr mackintoshes, but rather than lose their places in the queue tbev waited on. Then caine a. hailstorm and still they waited. Two young women, each carrying n hnhv wrnnped in long clothes were seen. For 10 minutes tbev stood unprotected at the height of the storm C cavs a writer in .the “Daily Mail”). Their hands and faces were blue; with cold. Eventnallv they were compelled to seek warmth in a neighbouring cafeI counted IS uniformed chauffeurs in one section of the crowd. More than 80 per cent, of the congregation consisted. of women and young children. An official at the church told me: "Everyone at- the services with whom I have snoken, speak s of deriving great benefit.” In his address. the Rev. John Maillard mid that 4000 requests had been received from sufferers asking that prayers should be offered for them. "There was a. man a fortnight ago this Mondnv who came to n service in the chapel of the House of Prayer hi Bavswnter and said to me: ‘Ever since last Fridav I have wanted to do nothing else lint, run up and down stairs. For 10 years I was suffocated w’th asthma and now I am free.” Mr Maillard conducted the services or the lnvinrr on of bands for more' than four hours with scarcely a Ivcak, "These services tn-dav are outstand:ng nmourr those that T have conducted.” Air . Mail!art told me afterward. "T have never seen such scenes 7n m*. life before. Tt was the grnvitv of the eases that impressed mn so much. “Among the sufferers who came to the ehuveil were those ncople who are I'i'inivillv shut a wav from ordinary life. There were ueonV iv'th c,nicer. consilient inn. Blight’s disease, n’nrnlvsiis. and many other diseases in the most - advanced singes.”