The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1885-11-25

/ FAITH CURE.
TheIe are many, if not large majority OF
the people who refuse to place any conf
dence in the idea of effecting cures of dan
gerous diseases by the exercise of faith.
During the past few years. however, this
idea has attracted some notice through the
press and by the increased number of its
disciples.
The term faith cure" is an appropriate
one since it is faith that cures and not the
object upon which the faith rests Some en-
thnsiastic believers in faith cures labor un-
der the false impression that the healing
power is in the object upon which the faith
rests. Some enthusiastic believers in faith
cures labor under the false impression that
/ the healing power is in the object upon
which the faith reposes, which is absurd in
the extreme and in some wav connected
with superstition. Faith cures are not of
recent birth, but have cropped out in some
form or other all along the line of time.
The cures affected by the Saviour and His
apostles were purely miracles and therefore
instantaneous even to the raising of the
dead. That there are marvellous cases of
healing in this our day cannot be successful
ly denied, but that they are miracles is a
failacy. God is in the one just as much as
the other; but in the one case he sets aside
what We call nature, and in the other he
works in the ordinary established way.
The design of miracles was to reveal God by
confirming the written revelations This
having been accomplished, miracles have
ceased. Mind cure is only another name
for faith cure No matter when or where
tie idea of curing by faith has been taught
or uracticed, hole. belief and imagination
have been the active principles. The mind
is capable of powerful impressions, and
MANY have died from the effects of the
imagination. 1t misdirected imagination
can destroy life, why not the opposite save
life.
Among the most noteworthy examples is
what is known as the royal touch for the
cure of scrofula, or kings evil Edward the
ii. touched 100000 persons in one year.
King Louis XIV. touched on Easter Sunday
in the year sixteen hundred and eighty six.
1,6p0 persons. The cures wrought in this
simple way were many, but the expectations
Of the candidate was at the bottom of all.
and not the virtue there was in the royal
finger. Being devout believer In Divine
Providence, yet ] believe that mind and
nothing separate from it can effect cure BY |
the exercise of faith. The spiritual agencies !
about which so much is being said and for
which so much is claimed, can be duplicat- |
ed by means and methods purely mental. |
II must be the imagination upon involun-
tary ply siological processes that causes the
disappearance of warts after a resort to
charms. Ideas can become realities without
tine cooperation of the consciousness wheth-
er they originate spontaneously or not.
Mental physiology teaches that physiologic-
al or pathological changes suggested to the
mind take place without any other agent
than the suggestion Itself.
Hope and desire are stimulants to the ner
vous system and affect the vital processes
not unfreaueptiy to the extent of curing
Otherwise hopeless cases To misunder-
stand the nature of these stimuli is a very
common fallacy. These stimuli are not al
ways limited to the nervous system; the
blood itself. as TO its vital forces, is affected