Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1895-11-28

The advent of the mysterious
..healer,n Francis Schlatter, wal
scarcely more wonderful than his won.
| derful disappearance. Springing sud,
| denly into notority in Denver, healing
thousands with mere touch as fast as
the rapidly moving throng could be
forced fast him, with police in front
| and in the rear of his residence he
| disappears between two suns. and no
one Can or will, give the public trace
of him.
There must have been something
more than Imagination in Schlatter's
cures. Too many skeptical persons
came to laugh and remained to pray,
too many despairing invalids rose up
and walked at his simple touch, too
many hard-headed business men bore
witness to his miraculous powers to
allow his claims or powers to be dis
missed with f1ippant jest.
The Onion Pacific railroad was SO
firmly converted by Schlatter's cures
that it provided passes for nearly 200
of its employees, who were afflicted in
various ways, to go to him and be
| cured. The business men of Omaha
sent committee of prominent citizens
to beg him to come to Omaha. And
they came home very exultant over
his promise to come.
1t has often been said that if the
Saviour were to return to earth in this
day and generation, as he came before,
he would receive the same treatment
that he got then. 1t may be that the
plutocratic rich, who are withdrawing
themselves further and further from
the society of persons who are outside
their immediate set, and who are
growing more and more to feel that
they are above and beyond the ordi-
nary rules of action, whether social,
religious or police laws, which govern
the conduct of the masses, it may be
that these misguided children of Dives
would draw their skirts aside and shun
him as of old. but certain it is that the
great masses of the people, whose
hearts throb responsiyely to all worthy
appeals to their generosity and sym
pathy. who yearn as they never did
before in the worlds history for light
would be more apt to welcome him
than to stone him. At least, the
Schlatter case seems to give color to
such belief.
AS for Schlatter, he may be a fraud,
conscious or unconscious. He may
effect his cures by working upon the
imaginations of the credulors. whose
own will power or faith power does
the rest.
In England they have what they call
the silly season. lasting from August
until November. During that period
all sorts of topics, ..from grave to gay,
from lively to severe" are discussed
in print and in private. and nothing is
too sacred or too Insignificant to escape
verbal dissection. The season ends as
abruptly as it began, and the epidemic
of Stiffness ends as it began, goes away
as other epidemics do, on the wings of
the wind.
1t is just barely possible that Sch
latter is one of the products of just
such season; he may be faith curist;
he may be hypnotist; he may be a
fraud. But the fact remains that
hundreds testify to his curative powers,
and, after all, it is by his works that
we ought to be content to know him.
IF he has saved to the world the life of
one little child his name should be
praised for all time, and if he has
brought back the blessed sunlight and
all the glorious sights of this beautiful
world to even one pair of sightless
eyes. which had been given up by
science to darkness and despair, his
name will be glorifed forever.