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sound of some one moving in the attic and in an instant she had flung herself out of bed and hastened thither, walking noiselessly in her bare feet. He was standing by the open window fully dressed, and she could see his eyes gleaming in the brilliant moonlight. He did not, however, glance toward her, and the thought came to her that he might be walking in his sleep. As she paused aghast in the doorway, the crow of a pheasant sounded from the distant woods.

"Hark!" cried David, putting up one hand, while his teeth flashed out in a smile that was almost ecstatic.

He seemed to listen again, and Tamsine listened too, though at first the tumultuous beating of her own heart seemed to drown every other sound; but presently she was conscious of the innumerable voices of the night, the sighing of small currents of air, rustlings and stirrings among trees and hedges, the call of night birds, even the stamp of a hare on the resonant soil of the downs; then borne on a passing breeze the tossing and creaking of boughs.

"The woods are calling me," said David, and he made a quick step away from the window. Tamsine, rushing towards him, intercepted his progress to the door.

"David, you must go back to bed," she said very distinctly; "'tis the middle o' the night still-not near time to get up yet. You've been walkin' in your sleep."

"No, no; I'm wide awake, little wife," said David. "The wood woke me up; the wood called me-it's callin' now."

Once again came the pheasant's crow, unnaturally loud in the stillness. "Summat's disturbed that chap," resumed David, laughing as quietly as though it were broad day. "Him an'

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his mates 'ull be sittin' croopied on one o' the boughs o' the yew tree, wi' the moon shinin' on their feathers."

"Nay, nay," said Tamsine, tremulously; "it 'ull do ye no good to be thinkin' o' they things, David. Come back to the window a minute. Look out at the stack yonder. It do stand in the same place where the wold 'un stood the night you lay out, a hunted man. Oh, Davy, think o' that-think o' what you felt that night. Think o' me, as you so often thought, kneelin' an' prayin'-as I pray now, as I pray now."

She fell upon her knees, and he saw her tears shining in the moonlight. She extended her clasped, trembling hands towards him, and he took them in his own.

"Oh, I pray that you mayn't give way," she sobbed. "I pray God"-her voice became inarticulate.

Yet indeed she was praying less to the beneficent Power on whose help she had learned to rely than to the wayward man whose impulses she feared.

Then once again a little quiet treacherous air stole into the room, bringing with it the tempting fragrance of the night and simultaneously the scarcely perceptible sound of light, hurrying, feet. Cantering up the shoulder of the down from the cultivated field below came the agile form of a roebuck, the brilliant moonlight shining on the surface of his antlers; two little does followed. On reaching the summit they paused for a moment and then bounded towards the wood.

"I must go!" cried David.

Swiftly he put Tamsine from him, and catching up the gun, flew downstairs and out of the house, whistling to the dog as he went.

In another second the two flying figures vanished over the silvery edge of the down.

(To be concluded.)

THE RATIONALE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING.

There is, perhaps, no more striking and suggestive sign of the times than the attention which is being given both by religious and scientific men to the question of curing bodily ills by spiritual methods. To speak of our own country only; at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908 it was discussed as a matter of great and practical interest which has increased during the three years that have since elapsed, and has resulted in definite attempts to restore methods of spiritual healing among members of the Church of England. The formation of the Church and Medical Union, in which medical men and clergy are associated with the object of bringing relief and healing to sufferers from physical diseases, indicates that the medical profession and the Church at large have awakened to a sense of their duty and responsibility in this matter, a fact strongly emphasized by the devotion of nearly fifty pages of The British Medical Journal, in its issue of June 18th, 1910, to a discussion invited by the editor on "Faith Healing," in which several of the most eminent physicians and surgeons of the day took part. Finally, a conference on Spiritual Healing (the third annual meeting of the kind) was held in the same month at the Kensington Town Hall. Among the speakers were physicians, clergy and prominent laymen, and they addressed a large and interested audience. The present age is nothing if not practical, and it would be an act of folly not to recognize that all these facts, and others of a similar nature which could be adduced, -for example, the large and increasing amount of popular literature on the subject,-indicate something more important than a mere speculative interest in a passing enthusiasm. The object of the present essay is to in

quire into the significance of phenomena which no one denies, but which are still very variously interpreted.

It is obvious that spiritual healing, if, indeed, it exists, necessarily implies the recognition of man as a spiritual being. It is not the same thing as mental healing, which requires no such implication, and which may be exercised by and upon persons wholly agnostic, or even sceptical as to the existence of spirit at all. Mental therapeutics is an acknowledged branch of medical science, and though several of the eminent participants in the discussion in The British Medical Journal, already referred to, animadverted somewhat bitterly on the fact that it as yet forms no part of the recognized curriculum for students of the profession in England, they at the same time assserted that there was a growing sense of the necessity for its so doing. Several seemed to think that all cases of healing not due to physical remedies, or to the curative activity of Nature, must be classed as mental. Others, notably Sir Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge, differed, holding that when every other cause of cure had been carefully considered and for sufficient reason dismissed, spiritual power might be awarded the credit. In his dispassionate and carefully guarded statement, however, there occurs a sentence fraught with such far-reaching significance that an exhaustive consideration of it would lead us far into the rationale of spiritual healing. "Probably no limb, no viscus, is so far a vessel of dishonor as to lie wholly outside the renewals of the spirit." To recognize this is to recognize that spirit is supreme, that if it fails in its renewals, this is due not to its own impotence to affect natural

organs and natural capacities, but to the impotence of the latter to be so affected, and in such a case, the matter of first importance is to inquire why there should be this lack of natural response to spiritual methods.

It is obvious that in order even to understand the scope of the inquiry, we must needs enter into some preliminary considerations on the general relation between the spiritual and the natural, and though in the brief compass of a single article, they must necessarily be strictly limited, the writer hopes to make clear that the question of spiritual healing is only one branch of this larger and more fundamental subject.

There are many persons who seem to find a difficulty in forming a clear notion of the difference between mind and spirit. The writer has herself frequently been asked how it is possible to make any practical distinction between them. In order to do so, it is necessary to bear in mind that the planetary environment of man is not exhaustive. It comprises only some of the conditions of his existence. He holds a definite relation not only to the earth which is the scene of his life-history, but also to the universe of which the earth and the system to which it belongs are intrinsic parts, and to the creative and sustaining Principle through which that universe and all its conditions came into being. So much as this the most thorough-going agnostics would allow, as also the fact that so far as can be ascertained, man is the only being on earth aware of this vaster environment, or who is desirous of entering into more conscious relation with it. It is the possibility of attaining this desire upon which they would join issue with their fellows of all religions in all ages. These have unanimously declared not only that they desire, but that they do enter into that

definite and conscious communion with the Source and Sustenance of their and of all existence which agnostics avow to be unattainable, unless that vague sentiment which they name "cosmic emotion," and which may be awakened in the most sceptical, be regarded as such. It does, indeed, show that man can be influenced not merely by Nature, but by That of which Nature is the expression, which constitutes its true significance, and to which something in him makes deep, though it may be dumb, response. It is this something which is the spiritual or cosmic element in him, which reaches out towards an experience more fundamental than that of his ordinary life and environment, a knowledge more radical and intimate than science at her highest development can supply, because though science takes her stand upon, she does not enter into the heart of the facts with which she deals. Their essential nature, their inmost reality, are a closed book to her. The discursive reason upon which man has prided himself as a God-like faculty is just the measure of his blindness towards all save his planetary relationships and environment.

He is possessed, however, of another faculty, more far-reaching in its activity, more capable of entering into direct contact with the reality which he seeks. That faculty is intuition, which, owing to the exigencies of his intellectual development has been largely left in abeyance, and the deliverances of which, for the same reason, are looked upon by many with misgiving and uncertainty. Nevertheless it exists; its presence is felt in every work of genius, in every great leader of men, in every genuine religious faith. It lays hold on experiences which the intellect cannot grasp, but which the inner man apprehends and lives by. The discursive reason has, indeed, its own

important part to play, that of checking, defining, elaborating, constructing upon the deliverances of the intuitive perception, much as it does with regard to the deliverances of the senses. In dealing with the former, its important function is to reduce to earthly dimensions a vaster than earthly perspective, to contract the infinite horizon till it is to some degree within the compass of finite vision. Under this aspect, therefore, it is, though subordinate to intuition, equally with it the servant and organ of spirit. Together they are mind in its relation to man's essential being, that being in virtue of which he belongs to a permanent and fundamental, rather than to a temporary and accidental order.

According to this view of the constitution of man, that whole physical and mental organization whereby he is fitted for his earthlife, is yet in touch with, and fundamentally affected by a larger, other life which is equally his. Imperfect realization of this fact would result in disharmony and disorder of his complex being. Of the existence of such disorder, there is no doubt. We feel it in ourselves and we see it around us. We put it down to many causes, none of them radical, all of them indicative of some deeper and more inclusive cause than themselves. The desire for and the belief in spiritual healing is a recognition that ills of the body affect more than the body, that disorder of the mind reaches beyond the mind, and that to place and to maintain these at their highest health-level, we must bring to bear a power intrinsically greater than theirs, greater, therefore, than what is generally understood by the natural. Quite obviously, if our life has been lived solely in regard of its natural relations, intellectual and material, individual and social, if these (whatever our theoretical beliefs may be) have been practically treated as of paramount

importance, it is unlikely that we shall turn with much confidence, if at all, to spiritual methods in time of illness. Our faith will lie in drugs, change of climate, suitable diet, surgical aid, and favorable material conditions generally, and we shall not look further.

In case of any misunderstanding, let it at once be said that the writer fully believes the importance of such conditions to be great. Neglect of them is always unwise and often foolhardy, but, on the other hand, they in themselves do not touch the fundamental disorder, but only that part of it which is apparent, and their efficacy would not be less but greater than it is if its raison d'être were more clearly understood. It depends not on themselves, but on something beyond themselves, something which is symbolized in the Christian Sacraments, and in a less direct manner by every beneficial use of natural means, viz.: that Nature is a vehicle of spiritual "grace," expressive of and embodying that which would otherwise be intangible, in certain cases inoperative for lack of a conveying channel.. It would, therefore, be absurd to object to physical remedies, which may be regarded, in the wide sense above suggested, as sacramental. They stand in much the same relation to the disordered body, as do food. fresh air, and exercise to the body in health. Indeed, it is very frequently by modifications of diet and exercise that, in these enlightened days, the disordered body is treated.

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sion in The British Medical Journal of which mention has already been made. Referring to the spread of "Christian Science" in America, he says: "For generations the people of the United States have indulged in an orgy of drugging. Between polypharmacy in the profession and quack medicines, the American body has become saturated ad nauseam, and here, indeed, was a boon even greater than homœopathy.

No wonder the American spirit, unquiet in a drug-soaked body, rose with joy at a new evangel." No wonder, we may add, that in a revolt against such conditions, the physician fails of the honor due to him, and his methods are treated with contumely.

But Professor Osler is too keen an observer of the signs of the times and the needs of human nature to regard the revolt against over-drugging as the sole or the chief cause of the triumphs of Christian Science. "The real secret of its growth," he says, "does not lie in the refusal of physical measures of relief. . . but in offering to people a way of life, a new Epicureanism which promises to free the soul and body from fear, care, and unrest." Any "way of life" which is able to do that, and it is undeniable that Christian Science has done it for a large number of suffering human beings, is sure to command a considerable following. Yet, if its successes have been many, its failures have been many also, and the paradoxes of "the new Evangel" stagger the faith of numbers who, unable to swallow Mrs. Eddy and her tenets, would nevertheless gladly welcome a different and a stronger "way of life" than that which has hitherto been theirs, but who feel that a mere denial of actual facts is powerless to give them what they need. Better methods are at hand, and a wide

1"The Faith that Heals," by William Osler, M.D.. Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. "British Medical Journal," June 18th, 1910.

2 "Ibid."

spread conviction is forming that the general religious attitude towards disease must be rectified. It has been far too much that of submission to an erroneous conception of the Will of God, curiously at variance with that familiar clause of the Lord's Prayer uttered by millions of Christians every day: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

We do not conceive disease to be one of the conditions under which the Will of God is done in Heaven. Glad and untiring energy, rest in, not after, triumphant activity are the notes of heavenly occupation. They should be at any rate the ideal of earthly work.

We are being forced to recognize this by the very fact that,-even eliminating the results of self-seeking competition, vanity, and money-worship,-the conditions of modern existence are such that unless rest in activity can be ours, we shall not rest at all; and a nervous system unable to rest must inevitably break down, as we have found to our cost. But the nervous system is the organ of mind, and mind is the servant of spirit. Spiritual unrest is therefore bound to make itself felt through the whole being, and spiritual unrest is rife in our age. It would seem, therefore, that we should apply ourselves to remove this first, and rest to mind and body will follow, not the artificial and dreary inactivity of the "rest-cure," but the strong and healthful calm which conduces to strong and healthful activity.

Spiritual rest and the strength which comes of it, will not be sought by all in precisely the same manner. Human beings are not manufactured wholesale, but moulded with numberless touches after a type admitting of almost infinite delicate variations. Consequently the ways unto peace, like the ways unto God, are as many as the souls of the children of men; but they have, whether consciously or not, one

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