(iv) The charisma, or gift, of healing, is named by St. Paul among the spiritual gifts of the Apostolic Church,[84] and is associated in one place with the working of miracles (‘powers’).[85] We have endeavoured to show that it was not intended as a transient but a permanent endowment of the Church. But, in the degree in which the Church corporate falls short in spirituality, her spiritual powers wane. The Encyclical Letter and Report of the recent Lambeth Conference mark a step in advance, though it may not be a long step, towards the revival of this healing agency of the Church. The Committee appointed to report on this particular subject was of opinion ‘that the prayers for the restoration of health, which it recommends, may be fitly accompanied by the apostolic act of the Laying-on-of-Hands.’[86] We may be disposed to regret that this primitive rite is not mentioned in Resolution 35, which recommends ‘the provision for use in Pastoral Visitation of some additional prayers for the restoration of health more hopeful and direct than those contained in the present Office for the Visitation of the Sick.’ Desiring, as we do, to follow ‘the example’ of our Lord Himself and not merely of ‘His Holy Apostles,’[87] we may most reasonably ask for authority to administer the blessing through one of the outward signs which He employed. A ceremony, duly authorised by the Church, would have much value, as regulating and controlling the impulse to invoke the healing ‘charisma,’ which at present is often bestowed and received through ‘spiritual healers’ who lack the full official sanction of the Church. [84] 1 Cor. xii. 9, 30. [85] _Ibid._ 29. [86] Report (1908), No. VII. iv. p. 137. [87] Order of Confirmation, first Collect, Mark vi. 5. (v) There is another Ministry of Healing, which the Divine Love has provided for the weary body and the careworn mind, which contributes its own part to the restoration of the sick. It is the silent ministry of Nature. Within the ailing body she exerts her healing power; the doctor’s best ally, on the physical side, is the _vis medicatrix naturae_, that strange recuperative power which resides in organisms, and offers a standing resistance to the inroads of disease and age.[88] And then outside there are the soothing influences of the world of Nature, which steals into the troubled spirit to bring the calm which Wordsworth, in his poem on ‘An Evening by the Sea,’ likened to the hush of worship: [88] Cp. Sir James Paget’s words: ‘The power to repair itself belongs to the subject of injury in the same sense and degree as does its power to develop itself and grow and live.’--_Life_, p. 295. The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration.