The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1895-08-15
Is Faith Omnipotent ?
New York Herald.


The incident referred 30 il not
merely remarkable but startling, for
it sets Us to thinking along unusual
lines. We very naturally ask wheth-
er Jesus meant all esaid, or wheth
er the expression used. "All things
are possible to him that believeth,"
was merely rhet orical and intended
as severe rebuke of the scepticism
which prevailed among the higher
classes and was reflected in the lower.
1t is evident that the little audience
which had gathered on the occasion
were astounded at the utterance,
and still more astounded at the com
plete cure which Immediately followed
it.
That same incredulity has pre-
vailed during the last niuetee CEN
turtles, and it is certain that if the
Lord should reappear and repeat his
words and his miracle We should be
torn by bewildering doubts and
declare that His statement was
opposed to the scientific ledge
of our time. We could no more
accept it as the revelation of law
higher than the physical laws with
which We are acquainted than did
the two or three learned Pharisees
who looked askance at each other
and said, in the language of shrug,
enthusiast, ignorant of the inexor
able forces which govern the material
universe.
Suppose we spend a moment in
asking what Jesus could have in
tended to convey TO His hearers by
the phrase "All things are possible
to him that believeth 1t. is clear
that He used no figure of speech, but
told what He regarded as literal
truth. He was either mistaken in
Judgment or we have done ourselves
an injury in not acc, pting His state
ment and making ii factor in our
lives. In the general opinion of our
day, and it is a day of brilliant
scientific achievement and wonder
fully successful research, the body
controls the mind far more than the
mind controls the body. Jesus
declared. however, that the mind is
the imperator, and that even our
physical functions, our health as well
as the measure of happiness we
y
we believe or do not believe; in other
words, that a man is what his mind
makes him rather than what his
body makes him. A good thought,
according to the revelation of the
Lord, is better than a powerful drug.
While not denying that the world is
filed with physical disorders and
arrangement, He intimates that we
must seek for, the cause of evil in the
hearts of men and allows us to infer
that if our thinking were true and
our feelings pure, or, to state the
matter in a different way, if we lived
closer to God and regarded Him as
an actual rather than theological
Father, we should have better bodies
as we'll as more wholesome souls.
Diseases are the consequence OF con-
ditions of mind, and when the mis-
takes of the mind are rectified the
ailments o! the body will be curet.
At first we turn aside from such a
theory as irrational and impractical.
Science arches its eyebrows and
wonders how long mere dreamers
will impose on the populace. Re-
ligious folk attempt to explain the
words of Jesus in come odd fashion
that is unsatisfactory to themselves
and to everybody else. But there
stands the statement-tirm, infiexi
BILE and imperative.
On second thought, we get faint
glimpse of something that makes us
tremulous. 1t is true, after all, that
SO ne maladies have been cured by
the remedial agency of faith. We
can no longer sneer, for the facts are
not to be denied. Even the family
of Thomas has examined them and
been forced to admit them. A poor
creature hobbies on his crutches to
the shrine that contains II sacred
relic and in few moments leaves
the crutches behind and goes home
whole. Was the cure effected by a
miracle; was the relic the prime
cause OF it2 Not at all. He simply
had the miracle working power with
in himself and the relic reused it into
activity. He believed, and that
unusual condition OF his mind started
the hitherto Dormant forces of his
body and he became a well man. 1t
was the thought in his mind, the
feeling in his heart that ministered
unto him, and he suddenly discov-
cred, as suddenly as though the
heavens had opened and an angel
had descended to make the an
nouncement, that Jesus did not
indulge in hyperbole, but stated the
simple, unvarnished truth call things
are possible to him that believeth."
The best parts OF a man are his
brain and his heart. If these are
wrong the whole man is wrong, and
if these are right the whole man is in
a position to acquire health or to
keep it, Diseases, many of them,
are the consequence OF mental con-
ditions, and curative medication is
to be found in nobler thoughts and
feelings rather than in opiates and
If we turn from body to soul, what
a magnificent prospect opens before
usl Faith is the food that furnishes
strength; doubt is the chronic indi.
gestiOn that makes us weak and
There is no despair
when we can see the face of God by
looking heavenward. Give us the
globe for footstool and a constel-
lation for a chariot, satisfy every
craving of physical appetite and
every mental aspiration, but deny
us any measure OF faith and the sun
shines in vain. for the cloud within