Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

If Mrs. Jackson had said this to me a year earlier, I should probably have laughed at it as an ignorant superstition. Now, I saw no improbability in it at all. I have learnt that that is the way with many old wives' tales: behind the superstition there lies a scientific truth, but during the march of the centuries the truth has been lost, while the superstition has remained. For instance, in many country places there is a tradition that to carry a potato in one's pocket is a cure for rheumatism, and modern medical science has discovered that one of the best cures for rheumatic affections is the juice of the potato. Again, it was a superstition of our great-grandmothers that if a cat sneezed it was a premonition that colds were coming to all the household; now we know that colds are infectious, and can be caught from animals as well as from human beings. In the same way, doubtless, most of the superstitions about plants had their origin in knowledge of the medicinal properties of those plants, and the old idea that a maid could make herself beautiful by bathing her face in dew on a May morning was, after all, nothing but a testimony to the beneficial effects on the complexion of early rising and soft water.

What the "seventh son" had to do with the matter—or whether he had anything to do with it at all—I do not pretend to say; but the tradition about him is a proof that through all ages there have been certain persons endowed with a soothing and a healing touch, with a certain fulness of vitality which they could impart to their fellow creatures.

Then one is faced by a difficulty as to how much of this power is natural and how much is supernatural, which to me is no difficulty at all, as I simply decline to differentiate between the two. To me everything in life is natural because everything is supernatural: there is really no difference. The only difference I can discover—which is, after all, only a superficial one—is between the usual and the unusual.

I have waded through countless books on the workings of the subconscious mind—on the powers of the subliminal self—on the depth of that mysterious thing we call personality—until my faith has staggered before the demands made upon it. I found myself asked to believe in impossibilities which would shake the credulity of a child—to swallow camels which were too huge for the most efficient digestion. So I humbly confessed that I had not sufficient faith to accept these transcendental doctrines, and turned instead to the older and simpler and more practical explanation of natural and spiritual phenomena as set forth in the Four Gospels.

I do not aspire to the transcendental knowledge of the modern mystic, nor to the blind and childlike faith of the pure materialist. Such things are beyond me. To me, it is as inconceivable that the soul should save and satisfy itself out of its own fulness as that the body should create and form itself out of the floating atoms of a mechanical cosmos. The only satisfactory answer that I have ever found to the Riddle of the Universe is the answer of the Living Christ. St. Paul had prepared for himself a complete curriculum of necessary knowledge when he said: "I am determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

So in the question of healing; when one realises that the only Healer is Christ, it becomes a mere matter of detail whether He chooses to use as His instrument the skill of a physician, the self-conquest of the patient, or the power of a natural healer: just as in old times it was a mere matter of detail whether He anointed with clay the eyes of the blind, or laid His hand on the sick person, or spake the word only. It was not the hem of the garment that healed, it was Christ Himself. The hem was only the chosen channel of His Divine Power.

I knelt down beside Willie Jackson's sofa, and laid my hands upon him as I had laid them on Fay, at the same time lifting up my soul in prayer that the boy's pain might cease and his injury be cured. Again I felt the Blessed Presence in the room, and the wonderful Power rushing through me, and when at last I rose from my knees, Willie exclaimed that the pain had gone.

And so it had for that day, but I had to lay my hands upon him in prayer twice again before it disappeared altogether, and the doctor pronounced him perfectly cured. Why this was I cannot explain, and have never attempted to explain. It was enough for me—and quite enough for Willie—that in three days' time he was absolutely well. We left explanations to those less simple souls who worship the Law rather than the Law-Giver.

But my healing experiences did not end here. Ponty, who was a martyr to rheumatism, asked me to treat her as I had treated Willie Jackson, which I did, with marked success. Her pain disappeared, and her limbs grew much more supple. Gradually it became quite a custom in the village for any one in pain or sickness to send for me, and I helped them as far as I was able. Sometimes my ministrations were absolutely successful, sometimes only partially so; but I do not think they ever failed to bring a certain amount of relief to the sufferers. Again I do not attempt an explanation: I only know that it was so.

People often ask me whether I consider this gift of healing a natural or a spiritual gift. My answer is that there is no fundamental difference between the two, since "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." But of this I am sure, that it is not a gift bestowed upon every one alike, and those who have it not should not therefore conclude that they are farther from the Kingdom of Heaven than are those who have it. We are expressly told that there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, and it is not for us to choose which gift shall be ours.