The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-06-13
Dr. Bennett Talks on Healing Mission at St. Johns Church

! The Christian Healing Mission to be.
 conducted by Henry Conrad Bland
 ford at St. Johns Episcopal Church
 next week will be an unusual demon-
 stration of the revived apostolic heal 1 ing which is being practiced by at least two laymen of the church ] throughout this country and England. i In an interview pr. Edmonds Ben
 nett rector of St. Johns, said he was simply now, carrying into effect in
 tuitions conceived nearly twenty years ago when he and MT. Blandford met first in Cincinnati, in which city the
 new rector of St. Johns was at that | time associate rector of the Church of the Advent
 The clergyman was impressed with the layman's work and a very definite friendship ensued that has continued since, with frequent meetings and con ferences. The inception of what is now being undertakcn dates back to that time.
 T am asked" said the rector. "'what do you propose to do? And when refer them to what MT. Hickson, an- other layman of the American com
 mission has been doing in our cities, having begun his series of missions in the principal churches of Boston and New York several months ago, they seem to have but the haziest notion of what that has been. showing that | they do not read their church papers or other papers with much attention. ''The mission contemplates nOth- ing more nor less than accep- tance of the commission of the Master emphasized by the apostles and practiced in the church inter Iy haf fIroSp carly d1ya and now.
 ''The commission is not regarded as an exclusively apostolic or priestly function. St. James speaks of the eld- CTS of the church in connection with the onvocation of the restorative power whose source is indicated in | the sixth verse of the third chapter
 of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. | Other Scripture shows that invocation
 was accompanied with the laying on of hands.
 "The point of divergence, for there I is such point is between those who claim that the commission to so heal I has been withdrawn and those who ask, When where and how"
 "The procedure is not based on definition or personal specialization,
 but on explicit command. example and experienced, and general obligation. 1 The only limitations suggested as II 1 appears to us are what may be in- volved in the prayer of faith, always 1 associated with the name of the Lord | Jesus:' l. e., in the instrumentality. | And one sees no reason to claim su- 1 perlative power or equipment in this 1 relation any more than in other rela- | tions in which the agency is prayer, 1 and prayer is enjoined and directed. "The ultimate source of the opera | tive power is not human, but divine, 1 conditions on terms. Why the laying on of hands and the concentration of the mind as well as what may be denominated The essentially spiritual factor present. I would answer. first, that so it is ordered and so solemn precedent has led the way. And then, i that the act of prayer is a coordinate act, employing spirit mind and body: I With all thy heart, thy mind, thy soul. thy strength Nor, as far as | am able to see, can there be any limit | ing demarkation or definition imposed upon and between any one of these CO., ordinating agencies severally that be-
 long to the composite whole-they are
 l a whole.
 "The Christian laboratory so to say,
 1 adopts and employs the man entire, | enlisting the sum of hin1-undivided.