Apart from the more specific methods to be dealt with faith has always been an essential factor in the practice of medicine, as illustrated by the quotations just given from Burton. Literature is full of examples of remarkable cures through the influence of the imagination, which is only an active phase of faith. The late Daniel Hack Tuke’s book, ‘The Influence of the Mind on the Body,’ is a storehouse of facts dealing with the subject. ‘While in general use for centuries, one good result of the recent development of mental healing has been to call attention to its great value as a measure to be carefully and scientifically applied in suitable cases. My experience has been that of the unconscious rather than the deliberate faith healer. Phenomenal, even what could be called miraculous, cures are not very uncommon. Like others, I have had cases any one of which, under suitable conditions, could have been worthy of a shrine or made the germ of a pilgrimage. For more than ten years a girl lay paralysed in a New Jersey town. A devoted mother and loving sisters had worn out lives in her service. She had never been out of bed unless when lifted by one of her physicians, Dr. Longstreth and Dr. Shippen. The new surroundings of a hospital, the positive assurance that she could get well with a few simple measures sufficed, and within a fortnight she walked round the hospital square. This is a type of modern miracle that makes one appreciate how readily well-meaning people may be deceived as to the true nature of the cure effected at the shrine of a saint. Who could deny the miracle? And miracle it was, but not brought about by any supernatural means.’[7] [7] _British Medical Journal_, June 18, 1910. If, then, faith is so important an adjuvant to ordinary medical treatment, we see at once that religion that stands for faith in its highest and purest form should represent a tremendous recuperative force. We have said that medicine and religion had become estranged--the one given over to a rigid materialism, and the other so busy with men’s souls that it forgot their bodies altogether. This book is a humble attempt to bridge over the gulf. There is a great movement that has its roots in history that is already written and that will go on into the far distant future, around about us. It is a movement that stands for Idealism and Optimism. It is the harmonising of all kinds of human experience into one great philosophy. Scientific medicine is coming to reconsider its position and to realise its responsibilities. This synchronises with a broadening of the basis of Christian teaching. Without abandoning any of the cardinal tenets of their faith, the churches are coming to see that Christianity is a much more wonderful truth than they had ever dreamed; and, instead of there being any conflict between Christianity and science, science, like all work for the good of humanity, must be an integral part of the Church’s service to mankind.