It would seem to be a work of supererogation to cite particular passages of the Scriptures or to employ argument to prove the correctness of the proposition that Jesus considered faith in the patient a necessary condition of his recovery. The proposition is plainly true, and it has been so understood by all intelligent readers of the New Testament until very recent times. There are those, however, who now seem to fear that Jesus will be robbed of his glory, and reduced to the common level of mankind, if it is shown that the conditions necessary to the success of the mental healer of to-day are the same as they were nineteen hundred years ago. In other words, they endeavor to show that Jesus did not operate in harmony with the laws which he proclaimed, but independently and in defiance of the very principles of nature which it was his mission to illustrate and expound. He did not pretend to establish any new law of nature, but to teach mankind that which had been in existence from the beginning, to illustrate it in his life, and to sanction it by his death. He did not teach his disciples the principles and laws involved in healing the sick, and at the same time violate himself. He taught them his methods of healing, and sent them into the world to imitate his example. When they failed, as they occasionally did fail, he reproved them for neglecting his teachings, and upbraided them for their want of faith. When the lunatic was brought to him, and he was told that his disciples had failed to cast out the devil which afflicted the patient, Jesus exclaimed: "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" After he had cast out the devil, the disciples asked him why they could not cast him out. "And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."[43] His expression concerning their power to remove mountains doubtless had reference to the fact that ponderable bodies can be moved by subjective power, under proper conditions, as has been frequently demonstrated in later times.