nature is the same with all; in modern times with the Jansenists, the miracle-workers of Lourdes, the "faith-healers," and the Salvation Army, and in ancient times with the priests of Æsculapius. Cures can be effected by a strong emotional shock, sometimes of a gross kind such as mere terror or violent excitement, sometimes of a much purer kind, an ecstatic hope and trust. A marked distinction must of course be made between those cures which can, and those which cannot, be effected by appeal to the emotions. Paralysis (called in the New Testament "palsy"), mental disease (often called in the New Testament "possession"), and various kinds of nervous disorder, are all susceptible of emotional cure: but the loss of a limb cannot be so cured. The cure of a man sick of the palsy by the emotional method would be a miracle for spectators of the first century, but it would not be a miracle for us now; that is to say, it would be explicable by us, but not by them, in accordance with known natural laws: but the restoration of a lost limb by faith would be a miracle for them and for us alike: we know nothing of any natural law in accordance with which such an act could be performed by any degree of faith.
Now it will be admitted by all that the great majority of Christ's "mighty works" were acts of healing, and that many of these were expressly attributed by Him to faith. "Seeing their faith" is the preface, in each of the three Synoptic Gospels, to the account of the cure of the paralytic man, and it is a very curious preface; for it seems to shew that Jesus recognized a kind of sponsorial and contagious efficacy of faith in that instance (as also in the case of the father of the epileptic boy); and we know by modern experience of "faith-healing" how great is the influence of a sympathetic and trustful audience. Elsewhere, "Thy faith hath made thee whole," "According to your faith be it unto you," "Great is thy faith, be
