SPIRITUAL HEALING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20332, 13 August 1929, Page 10

SPIRITUAL HEALING.

" THE TRUTH AND ERROR."

NOTE OF CAUTION SOUNDED.

FINDINGS AT LAMBETH

ADDRESS BY CANON JAMES.

[by TELEGRAM. —Ott'S COEr.ESPOKDF.NT.] WELLINGTON, Monday.

" The Truth and Error of Spiritual Healing " was the subject of a sermon delivered in St. Paul s Cathedral last evening by the vicar, Canon Percival James, formerly of Auckland. He felt constrained, he said, to utter a warning against any repetition of some of the melancholy features which marked the healing mission in New Zealand in 1923. It was well known that an attempt was being made to revive, under the auspices of the same inissioner, the teachings and some of the practices of that mission in parishes in New Zealand. Since the days of that mission the Church had received some valuable guidance. The last Lambeth Conference urged the Archbishop of Canterbury lo appoint a committee to guide the Church to a right understanding of the difficult and supremely important matter of her spiritual ministrations to tho sick. A committee composed of bishops and clergy representative of various shades of opinion, and of distinguished and authoritative medical experts, was engaged for three years in collecting and sifting evidence of alleged spiritual healings. The Appeal to Faith.

The committee's report deplored the fact that in its popular use the term "spiritual healing'' was often inaccurately confined to ono narrow significance, whereas it should properly include all healing factors, not only devotional and sacramental, hut also material and physical, which were used in conscious dependence upon God. With solemn earnestness they warned the Church that the "unintelligent and indiscriminate appeal to faith may bring some immediate relief, but is likely in the end to do more harm than good." As a result of investigations it was announced that "our committee Las so far found no evidence of any cases of healing which cannot be paralleled by similar cases wrought by psycho-therapy without religion, and by instances of spontaneous healing which often occur even in the gravest cases in medical practice." They declared themselves averse to the licensing of "spiritual healers," and they refused countenance to "services of healing to which crowds of sick folk are invited to come and receivo spiritual healing." No sick person should be led to look to the clergyman to do the duty of the physician and surgeon. " Ecclesiastical Magic."

" This sane and weighty report," said the preacher, "brought welcome relief to many thoughtful men in the Church who had listened with consternation to an extravagant language concerning ' spiritual 1 healing, which savoured strongly of ecclesiastical magic. Superstition was a frequent aftermath of wars. " Some considerable time before the mission began in Auckland I intervened to' beg that tho credit of our Church •should not be so gravely damaged as it bad been in Australia, South Africa and elsewhere by tho public announcements of hundreds of cases of alleged spiritual healings. I suggested a committee which might include ministers of religion, but which should certainly include competent medical representatives, to be charged with the duty of examining the circumstances and ascertaining the facts in particular cases, so that any cure might be properly certified before it was announced to tho public. 1 regret that this suggestion was not adopted." Canon James gave details of a medical investigation of a mission of the type under discussion in Vancouver, in which tho few cures regarded as such by medical men out of the comparatively large number claimed were confined to mental or " hysterical " cases. " Demonstrate Your Facts."

" Let us not confuse faith healing or spiritual healing with mental or psychical healing, -1 he said. " The latter is a lcgitimato and well-recognised method of treatment increasingly employed by the skilful physician. Tho former is connected by those who advocate and practise it, not. with science but with religion. Nor can they confino it to the Christian religion. Tho same features have been observed at the healing centres and shrines of other religions, ancient and modern.

" Our reply to the advocates of spiritual jealousy is this: 'First demonstrate your facts. Until you have done this it, is idlo and profitless to discuss your theories.' -We believe that Christ, tho Good Physician, the healer of body and soul, works ns truly through the physician, surgeon and nurse in their spheres as through the minister of religion in his. Wo believe that the Holy Spirit's gifts of healing arc not to be found in the magical endowments of one or two selected individuals here and there, but rather in tho patience, the selfsacrificing devotion and tho skill of those who bring the resources of science to the relief of human suffering. They are engaged, whether thev acknowledge it or not, in a sacred task, fulfilling a vocation and ministry in tho Kingdom ot God."