His position is logical, and may be held in absolute sincerity. Only, he is bound to tell us what, in his experience, does happen: and he is bound to tell us of every case of failure, or partial failure. And we are bound to examine, test, cross-examine, criticise, analyse, watch, and almost spy upon every scrap of his work; and that in a spirit of hard and well-nigh brutal indifference to his belief in himself as a channel of divine intervention. What else does he expect of us? What else are we here for? Among a pile of letters and pamphlets on my table is a tract called ‘New Eyes in answer to Prayer.’ It gives the case of Mr. Evison, of Grimsby. He had something the matter with his eyes. At last, ‘while walking out with a friend one day, I put my hand in my pocket for something, and dropped it on the ground: on stooping down to pick it up, the remaining pieces of my eyes dropped out of their sockets on to the ground. They were about the size of the kernel of a nut.’ So he went to a ‘Divine Healing Home,’ where he was anointed with oil in the name of the Lord. Ten days later, as he was praying in his bedroom, he felt two warm fingers touch his empty sockets, and they became warm. Later, at a prayer meeting, his eyes ‘came wide open,’ and he saw perfectly. Next day he testified to his recovery; and, says the tract, ‘When this testimony was given by Mr. Evison, there were fifty-seven cases of blindness restored in answer to prayer.’ I feel sure that the writer of this tract thought that he was telling the truth. And I am no less sure that a great deal of ‘spiritual healing’ is just as worthless, just as untrue, as these Grimsby miracles. Till the alleged wonders of spiritual healing, and its unpublished failures, have been all submitted to keen scrutiny, and to every severest and most searching test that can be devised in science, nobody who knows anything about pathology can take much interest in them. So I come back to the Bishop of Birmingham’s wise eirenicon. It is a great pity that the work of the cleric and the work of the doctor should ever clash; for they are ordained (the Prayer-book again) for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other. Only, if they are to be friends in ministering to the sick and the dying, they must be friends always. If, in social life, they do not get on well together, they will not work together well in the sick-room. If the doctor makes stupid jokes against religion, and the cleric doses his parishioners with quack medicines; if the doctor is dull to the wonders of faith, and the cleric is dull to the wonders of science: if neither has the grace to recognise and honour and openly praise the good works of the other--how shall they adjust themselves, in the presence of impending death, who thus waste the opportunities of daily life? THE RELATION OF PRIEST AND DOCTOR TO PATIENT BY JANE WALKER, M.D. PHYSICIAN, NEW HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN