This page has been validated.
CHRISTIAN HEALING
5

of Deity, and so bring out our own erring finite sense of God, and of good and evil blending. While admitting that God is omnipotent, we shall be limiting His power at every point, — shall be saying He is beaten by certain kinds of food, by changes of temperature, the neglect of a bath, and so on. Phrenology will be saying the developments of the brain bias a man's character. Physiology will besaying, if a man has taken cold by doing good to his neighbor, God will punish him now for the cold, but he must wait for the reward of his good deed hereafter. One of our leading clergymen startles us by saying that “between Christianity and spiritualism, the question chiefly is concerning the trustworthiness of the communications, and not the doubt of their reality.” Does any one think the departed are not departed, but are with us, although we have no evidence of the fact except sleight-of-hand and hallucination?

Such hypotheses ignore Biblical authority, obscure the one grand truth which is constantly covered, in one way or another, from our sight. This truth is, that we are to work out our own salvation, and to meet the responsibility of our own thoughts and acts; relying not on the person of God or the person of man to do our work for us, but on the apostle's rule, “I will show thee my faith by my works.” This spiritualism would lead our lives to higher issues; it would purify, elevate, and consecrate man; it would teach him that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” The more spiritual we become