Brother Timotheus, graciously: "Truly should physicians be modest men, for theirs is a difficult art in that so many different diseases have similar symptoms. And yet we regard healing as an art, though imperfect as is all human art. Christ was perfect preacher as well as perfect healer, yet there be bungling preachers as there be bungling physicians."
Rogerine, positively: "Christ healed without physic and the disciples had his promise of such cures for all who asked in faith."
Brother Jabez, humbly: "Though Christ healed without physic, nevertheless he pointed to the use of natural means by the spittle on the blind man's eyes and washing in the pool of Siloam. Naaman bathed in the Jordan seven times. Is it not written we are created in his image? Doth that not mean that these wonderful bodies of ours and our surpassing marvelous minds were made to perform wonderful and marvelous things? Ye will also admit that not only did Christ heal the halt, the lame, and the blind, but that he also fed the five thousand with but a few loaves and fishes; Elijah was fed by the ravens; the widow's cruse of oil never failed. No doubt the Almighty hath power to heal us better than the physicians, who oft work in darkness, and to feed us better than the husbandmen, who are not always certain of their harvests."
Rogerine, indignantly: "Would ye ask of Him that while we sit here idle, with grain in the fields for bread, and abundance of fish in the sea for meat, we should expect him to feed us like idle, helpless children?"
Brother Jabez, smiling subtilely: "Why not? If with our God-like powers we do not search into the healing properties of the herbs of the fields and the salts of the earth, and try to heal ourselves, it seemeth to me we have just as much Scripture to sit still and let him feed us."
Rogerine, indignantly: "Brother, thy speech seemeth almost blasphemous. We hold our views from the Scriptures."
Brother Jabez, still mildly: "So do we; but it is with the Scriptures as in the law; he who sticketh to the letter loseth the true meaning. My beloved brethren, for indeed ye are so to us, he who readeth not God's holy word in the Spirit cannot understand it and findeth therein many inconsistencies and grounds for unsafe doctrines. We too believe that faith can perform miracles, but the Almighty never intended we should nourish and heal our bodies by dependence on miracles, or else would not he have given us these miraculous bodies and minds."
Rogerine, quietly: "We thank thee, brother, but are not convinced we are in error. Let us not imperil our love by useless argument."
"So be it," I replied, and thus the discussion was safely ended.
But so great was the faith of one of our Rogerine brethren, we were told, that when the smallpox raged in Boston some twenty years before, he journeyed one hundred miles to the infected city to prove his faith would save him from the terrible contagion; for it had been his custom for over forty years of his life to minister to those sick of that disease. This time, however, he caught the distemper, which developed after his return home and brought him to his grave, as well as two other members of his family; and in this connection, to show how we poor mortals are prone to carry our beliefs and doctrines to most foolish lengths it was also told me, by the Rogerine brethren themselves, and not by their enemies, that a few years prior to our visit a certain skin disorder had broken out among the congregation; but as their faith forebade the use of medicines they knew not what to do. In this predicament a church meeting was called to deliberate how they might get rid of the disorder and yet preserve a clear conscience. After a most prolonged meeting and the profoundest deliberations in which holy writ was thoroughly searched for precedent, it was solemnly resolved that this most uncomfortable disease, which we were told was the itch, was not a bodily ailment; but was a noxious animal which had burrowed into their flesh. Of course, there being in their belief nothing to prevent the destruction of wild animals the usual remedies for this particular species were accordingly applied, whereupon the "itchy beasts" were duly slain and eradicated, and the consciences of our pious brethren preserved.