SICKNESS AND SUPERSTITION.
[To THE Enrroa or zwe " Sencrixoa."] SIR,—Is it not time that a greater exactness in the use of terms should be required from those who deal in such subjects as faith-healing, auto-suggestion, &c.? I refer to the word " evil" as continually applied to everything which causes suffering to the human body. Evil is an ethical condition, and can only exist in the soul of man; he alone, of all created things, having a moral consciousness. It is no more wrong of the typhoid bacillus to multiply in the blood than for the sun to rise in the morning : it is as unswervingly right for poison to poison as for the antidote discovered by science to neutralize its effects. It may well be that the sinful or culpably negligent person has caused grievous suffering by his misuse of the laws of nature, but our prayers should surely be for his state of mind and not be directed against his innocent accom- plices, those laws. And what is the Church doing? To judge by the publications of the Guild of Health, the clergy are in the future to be the consultants on our bodies as well as on our souls. Is this a despairing bid for power? Is the Church going to stamp bodily health with its approval as a state of grace? Is the sick man out of touch with God? Does the future hold for us the exorcisms of the witch doctor? And is the path of righteousness the same as that of physical well- being? Is the course of action which is safe and salutary for the body sure to be equally healthy for the soul? If the fashionable creed that sickness partakes of the nature of " evil " gains ground we shall soon learn to look on the maimed and marred invalid (his ill-health possibly the result of some beautiful net of self-sacrifice) as being on a lower spiritual plane than the sleek and healthy egotist. If the Church encourages this view it denies the Cross, and then whom have we left to help us to a nobler conception of our life on earth and its duties? Many persons are now anxious to pose as psychic centres of healing. Is this altogether a single-minded pity for suffering? Is it not as much the wish to find an easy job, a cheap method of doing good? We have the old Word given so many year. ago : " Bear ye one another's burdens," but it is costly : comforts must be given up, time and labour, tears and sweat and blood may have to be offered. Small wonder that we are trying to evade it.—I am, Sir, ige.,
QUESTIONER.
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