MINISTRY OF HEALING.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1924, Page 11

MINISTRY OF HEALING.

ARCHBISHOP’S SUGGESTION. APPEAL FOR INVESTDG’ATIOiN. B.M.A. DECLINES TO ACCEDE. (London, July 30. Something in the nature of a challenge to the medical profession was given by the Archbishop of York in an official sermon delivered before the British Medical Association. “I venture to think,” he said, “that your council should inaugurate an enquiry into the relations between the mind, body, and spirit. I know of no considerable sustained scientific this subject, which is one that, should be enquired into. What 1 plead for now is not respect for religion on the one hand and science on the other, but that science should discover the place of the spirit in the healing and uplifting of the body. “We have come to a time,’’ continued the Archbishop, “when the two channels of healing—the prayer of faith and the skill of the physician —should be brought together. There has been, or may be, soon, a great revival of healing through the spirit of faith made active in self-discipline and prayer. At every stage in history there has always been this strangely potent power, and within the last few months Canada and the United States have seen on a truly remarkable scale revelations of this potency. Explanations may be given of the phenomenon, but the facts cannot be denied. I venture to say that they have occurred, are occurring, and in the near future will occur on such a scale and over such a wide field that they must be accepted as proving the reliability of at least one great and enduring power among men to relieve or remove disease.

“Men of religion would not hesitate for one moment to believe that here, also, as through medicine and surgery, the Lord, from wham the power of healing comes, reveals as well the power to heal. It would be a great misfortune if the two lines of healing were to be jealously kept apart and one were to look with suspicion on the other. Such separations must in the long run prove dangerous if not disastrous.” The council of the association met on the following day in private to discuss the Archbishop’® suggestion. Afterwards the following official statement was issued: “The council of the British Medical Association has had before it the report of the preliminary investigations of a committee recently appointed to enquire in what way, if any, the association might be of assistance in the elucidation of what has K.een described as spiritual healing or 1 the ‘ministry of healing. The council believes that the difficulties with which the matter is at present fiuranmded are likely to lead the inveatigation. outside the sphere of the recognised activities of the association, and after deliberation has decided not to proceed with the re-appointment of this committee.”