I then asked if she could give me a lotion to check the pain. She took a small vial and put one drop of its contents in my eye, which immediately took away all pain. She then gave me a prescription, which I had filled, and then went home.
Just as both doctors had said, the opaque matter gradually grew on my eye for three or four weeks, at the end of which time I could not distinguish my own wife standing so that her dress touched my clothes, unless she spoke. Up to this time I had not been able to work, and I was getting dissatisfied.
About that time the quarterly conference took place in Provo. On the Sunday morning I found my way to conference, still with the napkin on my eye. There were present of the general authorities, Presidents George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith and Apostle John Henry Smith. During the morning meeting I made up my mind to have them administer to me for my sight, and at the close of the services I went to the vestry where they were attending to this ordinance for many who were there before me. When I entered Brothers Joseph F. and John Henry Smith came and shook hands with me, enquiring what was the matter, and what I wanted them to do. They introduced me to Brother George Q. Cannon, whom I had never before known. I knew the Brothers Smith in the old country. I was told to take a seat, and when they had attended to the rest they would administer to me, and that I would get my sight. After they got through with the others they came to me. I cannot now call to mind who anointed, or who confirmed it, but this I do know that from that very hour the white, opaque matter that had gradually grown over my eye as gradually began to disappear, until my eyesight was completely restored and has remained to this date as perfect as it ever has been. To this fact myself and family, and others yet living in Provo can testify.
While suffering with this affliction I reasoned that as God made the eye He also knew how to repair and restore a damaged one, and I testify to all to whom this may come that He did restore sight to the blind one.
ROBERT McKINLEY.[[13]]
Let me assure the reader that these cases of healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, etc., are but as a handful of earth to a mountain. It would require volumes to contain the testimonies of the Saints to the fulfillment of the promises of the Lord made through the great modern prophet; but what is set down in this chapter will doubtless be sufficient to prove the fulfillment of his promises. The church has taken little or no pains to publish accounts of "miracles." But the fact that more than sixty years after these promises of the gifts of healing, etc., were made to the church, the chief reliance of the Saints in times of sickness is upon the anointing with oil and the laying on of hands by the Elders—and this throughout all the branches of the church—it must be evident even to the most skeptical that the promises of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith have been realized, or else long ago the faith of the firmest would have failed them.
Footnotes
[1]. Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxxiv: 62-64.
[2]. i.e. in the name of Jesus Christ.
[3]. Doc. and Cov. Sec. lxxxiv: 65-73.