"MIRACLES" IN VILLAGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18380, 21 April 1923, Page 12

"MIRACLES" IN VILLAGE

FAITH - HEALING CURES. A SUFFOLK MISSIONER. .YOUNG MEN SEE .VISIONS. Wonderful stories of cases of, faith-heal-ing, which are stated to have occurred during the week as the result of a great revivalist movement begun in this oldworld village by the Rev. F. J. Chaplin, formerly the Congregational minister here, have set the whole countryside talking, wrote the Lavenham (Suffolk) correspondent of a London paper recently. Lavenham people— there are sceptics among them—are agreed that they cannot get over the evidence of their senses. Yet in spite of it all there are unbelievers still, and these, I was told, include some who themselves are preachers of the Gospel by virtue of which Mr. Chaplin claims that the cures have been effected. v . -T.; Of genial presence and manner, a bright and ready talker, Mr. Chaplin was frankness itself when I asked him to talk oi the cures that have suddenly brought Lavenham— edge of the < Borrow and Fitzgerald country— prominence. Until the end of last autumn pastor of the Congregational Church, Mr. Chaplin, on tho expiration of his term, was not asked to continue as minister, and consequently commenced a mission in the local Cinema Hall. He has been a Congregational pastor at Caterham, Clavering, Southend, and Woodbridge, but was formerly a Primitive Methodist minister at Whitby. He was born at Leamington. The most remarkable statements or faith-healing were in relation to the following : — Mr. C. Mills, 53 years of age, who was suffering so badly from chest 'disease that he was confined to bed and was hardly expected to get up again. Mr. Walker, the town crier, who had to be wheeled about in a bath chair, owing to heart trouble, and can now "jump about like anything." Mrs. Walker, deaf for six years, who can now hear a pin drop, or very nearly. Picture Show Ousted. "I started the services at the Cinema on November 5, a Sunday," said Mr Chaplin. "The hall was crowded to the doors, and it was a memorable night indeed. " 'A Romance of Religion,' ** he said, "would be what I should call it if I were a journalist. The enthusiasm shown on that opening night was kept up at every meeting after, so that in less than four months we have the Cinema Hall to ourselves, and the picture people have gone. "The Sunday afternoon service is of a special kind—marked by a real first-rate musical outpouring of religious fervour, and at all tho services, which run pretty much on Congregational lines, I give an address. ' ■»■ ■. "

"The great dramatic scenes in the Bible —such, for instance, as Belshazza'g Feast —have always attracted me, and these I use to show the vivid realism of the Old Testament ' stories. \ •>. "Our method," .Chaplin did not make much use of the "I""is just this: We go to the sick or suffering, when they cannot attend the service, and anoint them with oil, laying hands on them at the same time, as we are told to do in the Scriptures, making it clear always -that > the healing power is Divine, and that our part is simply to fulfil the Scriptural conditions." ■ *:. ';'

/ He disclaimed any special or supernatural gifts. "Anybody could do the same," he added, "on the same lines." The "We," it should be explained, stands for Mr. Chaplin and his "Band of Friends"— and women, -who pray and sing with him. . . ..", ."■■■;■■:; Complete Belief Essential. ; "Here is the point" he spoke with extra stress on it—"the sufferer must believe that God is able to heal and that He will, heal, and if., the Prayer Circle is at the --.moment complete, then anything may happen. That is the secret. -: , "But l must qualify that to this exof the; same mind in possessing absolute tent—everybody who is present must be faith;-;- ■ '.-. "There is no suggestion of spiritualism in thisl don't believe in spiritualism. As regards the '. oil used, any vegetable oil will do. I use olive oil." Mr. Chaplin, rejecting any pretence to work miracles, confessed, nevertheless., that he saw no limit to what might be. "I would go so far as to say," he declared, "that sight might be restored to the blind, or that the deaf might be made to hear, as, indeed, has already been proved.".'. ' ':'. \ - * '- . : ;; He told how the Band of Friends and himself prayed with Mr. Mills in his bedroom, i how he , laid hands on him, and how he, along with Mr. Mills' sisterMrs. Bradbrook, who lives in London—both anointed him a week ago, and how by Sunday he had made such astonishing progress that he was able to get up and move freely about the house. r - Making the Deaf Hear. "As for Mrs. Walker, '{ he said, / "who was cured of deafness, her case is perhaps the most startling of all. - .- "Only this afternoon I went to the front door of her house and tapped gently. She was at the far end :of the kitchen, yet instantly ? she called out, 'I'm coming: I can hear you knocking,* and / that, after she had been deaf for six years, and had been told by a doctor that she was not likely to be cured." I ought to add that among the marvels ; of the revival spirit at its most extraordinary height, Mr.' Chaplin said he thought it astounamg that it should have revealed the gift of tongues.-'--; ' .;/ . , ; Like the earliest converts to Christianity in apostolic days, he said, men and women suddenly began, as is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles of the first Christians, to speak in strange languages. He was unable to say what language it was that the converts spoke, but was inclined to think it was Aramaic. Aramaic is said to have been the particular variety of Hebrew current in Palestine in the time of Christ, and to have been spoken by Christ and the apostles. Men Faint During Service. . There were also, he said, instances of esctasy— people being "caught up" as St. Paul was—in fact, of young men seeing visions as the Scripture foretold ' "At Monday night's meeting,": he said, two young men fell down in an absolute swoon, .carried away by their deep emotion. ';' ! r " "One of , them told me afterwards that he.had had a wonderful vision, such as no man could v describe, r ~ . \ "Of what was said to him by strange voices, or of. the marvels he had seen he was unable to say a word beyond the passionate assurance that he had witnessed wonders." ;;