Not illimitable
In discussing these matters, any conscientious journalist must be haunted by a terrible fear of arousing false hopes. Some of his readers may be in great pain, desperately searching for consolation. Some of them may read into his words more than he intended.
Which compels me to remind you, however reluctantly, that though there are great powers in spiritual healing, and though these powers should be employed to the utmost, they are not illimitable. I once sat next to Harry Edwards, in his sanctuary. while he was treating a long procession of the halt, the maimed, and the blind . . . yes, the blind. A very old lady was brought before him. Nearly ninety, bent double with arthritis. He gave her consolation, and I think he helped her. When she tottered away, our eyes met. Very quietly he said to me, "I am not God."
No. Harry Edwards is not God. Nor are the practitioners at the de la Warr Institute. Nor are the swingers of pendulums. nor, the followers of Mesmer, nor the water-diviners, nor the experts in acupuncture, nor — dare I say it? — the Christian Scientists. I ask the question because, in my experience, the Christian Scientists, for whom I have great respect, are a very bristly congregation, who go into tantrums at the least suggestion that Mary Baker Eddy has not the final solution to all the problems of heaven and earth. Mary Baker Eddy was a splendid old lady, who got hold of a great truth. But she was human, most endearingly human, and she refused to admit it. This was at once her strength and her weakness.
Obviously it is impossible, in so brief a space, to do more than touch the fringe of this vast subject. However, one can at least make a practical suggestion, to the effect that some department of the Ministry. of Health.
however modest, should be entrusted with the task of investigating these powers and, where necessary, applying them. We spend as tronomical sums on drugs whose effects, if any, are often harmful. Might it not be worth while trying to learn some of the secrets of the mysterious forces that radiate in ourselves, and in the air around us?
But it will not be easy, as I have proved for myself. Perhaps Rossetti had the truth on him when he wrote: ... from this wave-washed mound Into the furthest flood-brim look with me; Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd: Miles and miles distant though the last line be, Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.
everley Nichols
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