After his audible prayer was over, Henderson laid his hands upon Frank, and an intense stillness fell upon the room whilst the man lifted up his soul to Heaven in silent petition for the dying boy, and as he prayed the stiffened muscles relaxed, the harsh breathing grew easy, and Frank gradually fell into a peaceful slumber.
As soon as he saw that the boy slept, Henderson made the sign of the Cross upon Frank's brow and rose from his knees.
"The boy will live," he said; "Christ has healed him."
The doctor was amazed. He examined Frank, and admitted that the tetanus had lost its hold, and that, provided there was no relapse, the danger was over.
The two things that struck me most in the whole happening were first its unspeakable wonder, and secondly its absolute naturalness. But that is the way with all real miracles: beforehand they appear impossible, and afterwards inevitable. Thus it is with the two great miracles of marriage and parenthood. An imaginary wife and imaginary children are amongst the most impossible creations of our dreams; yet when they come, they seem to have been always there, and we cannot picture a world without them. And so I think it will be with the other great miracle of death. At present the heart of man fails to conceive what good things are prepared for us in the land beyond the grave; but when we are really there, I believe it will seem one of the most natural things we have ever known; as natural as that earthly home where the dream-wife and the dream-children came true, and made the life before their coming sink into the realms of vain and half-forgotten things.
When we had left Frank's room, and were waiting downstairs for Mr. Henderson's motor, which was to take him back to London, I asked him—
"How do you explain your gift of healing?"
"I have but one explanation," he answered: "as many as touched the hem of His garment were made perfectly whole."
"Then do you not put it down to the influence of mind over matter—which is an influence we are only just beginning to realise?" I urged.
"I put it down to nothing but the power of Christ," replied Henderson. "I find that as long as people talk about mentality, or suggestion, or will-power, or the influence of mind over matter, or the particle of Godhead inherent in ourselves, the world will listen to them, and follow after them, and believe in their cures; but the minute we put all these things on one side and teach that there is no power in anything save in Christ Jesus and Him crucified, the world becomes shy of us at once and looks the other way. Yet there is no help for any of us but in His Name, neither in this world nor in the world to come."