Three Thousand Years of Mental HealingCutten, George Barton
History
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing
Cutten, George Barton
Mental healing
"July 24. We have gotten into a little trouble by
carelessly trying to help the dear Lord take care of his
little organ. A key was silent, and yesterday Marie
tried to remedy it. There was a good deal of taking out
of keys, and dusting--result, two keys silent now, and
one that won't be silent, but goes on in a bass wail
through every song. So much for meddling with the dear
Lord's work. We trust Him, when the lesson is learned,
to set the little machine all right again.... The dear
Lord cured the little organ this afternoon while we were
at dinner; at least it was all right, as Marie with a
happy smile informed me before she began to sing the
first song. I gave thanks for it in the opening prayer,
and then told the people all about it.
"July 27. Satan is not a little busy with me, injecting
doubts as to the right to trust for eyes. Faith still
quenches all his fiery darts, although it sorely tries
me to be thus inactive in these long summer days,
without reading my beautiful edition of Young's
Concordance, useless at the bottom of my trunk. My
Revised New Testament I can only get at through
others."[193]
Leaving now the revivalists, let us take up the cases of others not
revivalists who used anointing for healing. In her native hamlet of
Maennedorf, Switzerland, Dorothea Trudel (1813-1862), the descendant
of some generations of faith healers, cured many. Soon people began to
come to her from near and far and, finally, at the solicitation of a
"patient" of rank, she purchased a home where the afflicted could be
near her. In 1856 the health authorities interfered. She was fined; an
appeal was taken and, finally, she was permitted to carry on her work
in connection with the home under some formal restrictions. During the
course of the trial some authenticated cases of cure were produced:
"one stiff knee, pronounced incurable by the best surgeons of France,
Germany, and Switzerland; a leading physician testified to the
recovery of a hopeless patient of his own; a burned foot, which was
about to be amputated to prevent impending death, was healed without
means. The evidence was incontrovertible, and the cases numerous. The
cure was often contemporaneous with the confession of Christ by the
unbelieving patient; but duration of the sickness varied with each
case. Lunatics were commonly sent forth cured in a brief while."
Nothing miraculous was claimed and no war was waged against
physicians. It was not asserted that a cure was infallibly made, but
it was pointed out as a simpler and more direct method. The means
employed were gentleness, discipline, Bible reading, prayer, and
anointing. After the death of Dorothea the home continued under the
supervision of Mr. Samuel Zeller.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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