Pain and evil are not interchangeable terms, but are quite different. Evil cannot be innocent, though pain can be, and often is. When the disciples said, ‘What hath this man or his parents done that he should be born blind?’ they formulated the usually accepted idea at that time, and an idea, moreover, that dies very hard. The whole treatment of disease in the Middle Ages was based on it. If we quite briefly consider our Lord’s miracles, they were _signs_ of His Divine mission, not proofs, and in performing them, He felt limitations; for we are definitely told that in Capernaum ‘He did no more mighty works, because of their unbelief.’ These signs were sudden manifestations of His power, and as such they are preferably called Divine Healing. They showed the very highest degree of spiritual power, but there was nothing really new. Christ was the perfect manifestation of eternal things, and eternal things are obviously never new. Perhaps the fact that our Lord thought it worth while to show his power in bodily healing was intended to teach us that to keep our bodies in health is an important religious duty, and more than that, that all hygienic social work undertaken is an important part of the duties of religion. Both nursing and doctoring bring us very near to part of the work of Christ, for He went about doing good to the sick, and He symbolised this, not only by His healing words, but by the simple medicines and nursing of the Good Samaritan. But just as illness is by no means caused by evil or ill-doing, so it is equally clear that goodness does not of necessity bring health. The question of bodily health has no connexion with spiritual conceptions at all. If it were so, the persons who are the strongest physically would be the most spiritual; but we know, of course, that this is not so. Take St. Catherine of Siena, one of the greatest of saints, statesmen, and scholars that the world has ever known. She healed others, but she died herself of a lingering, painful disease, at the early age of thirty-three. Also St. Paul, who prayed the Lord thrice that the thorn in the flesh which tormented him might be removed. And the Lord’s reply has been a help and comfort, and a lesson to countless thousands ever since. ‘My grace is sufficient for thee, for My power is made perfect through weakness.’ And what we so very often see now, persons bereft of all that makes life dear, in suffering of mind or body maybe, yet rise above their weakness, and carry through such reforms and such noble acts as they never could have done had they been allowed to remain in bodily health and comfortable and happy surroundings. Indeed, St. Paul’s affliction was the means of his converting the Galatians, for his illness compelled him to stop with them for a time, and in writing to the Corinthians from them, he could truly say, ‘Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my weaknesses that the strength of