Crossing the ocean again, we find Johann Christolph Blumhardt (1805-1880) performing wonderful acts of healing. He assumed his first independent charge in 1838 when he became pastor of the village church at Moettlinger, Wurtemberg. He was known afterward as Pastor Blumhardt. Among his parishioners was Gottliebin Ditters, generally thought to be possessed by an evil spirit. After two years prayer and care for this woman, he saw her restored to peace of mind. This was the beginning of a life of faith in the efficacy of prayer for healing. After the restoration of Gottliebin a spontaneous and entirely unexpected revival took place in Moettlinger. Multitudes came from afar to hear this sincere man preach his simple sermons, and in many cases bodily disease left those who confessed and upon whom Blumhardt laid his hands. It became noised about that those who repented, with whom the pastor prayed and upon whom he laid his hands, would be healed. "One morning a mother rushed to his house, saying that she had by an accident scalded her child with boiling soup. The infant was found screaming with agony. He took the child in his arms, prayed over it, and it grew quiet. It had no further pain, and the effects of the scalding were quickly gone. Another child was nearly blind with disease. A neighboring pastor, when consulted, said to the parents: 'If you believe Jesus can and will heal your child, by all means go to Blumhardt, but if you have not got the faith, don't do it on any account; let an operation be performed.' 'Well, we have faith,' they said, and went to Blumhardt. Three days after it was perfectly well." These events could not fail to attract attention, and miracles or healings from his prayers were of constant occurrence. In 1852 Blumhardt moved to Boll, Wurtemberg, and until his death he continued his healing. He did not despise human means of healing, but he stoutly held that Jesus would answer the prayer of faith uttered for and by the sick.
About the middle of the century Father Mathew (1790-1856) attracted a large number of persons who were in need of healing. He was best known as the famous apostle of temperance, and was to Ireland in the nineteenth century what Wesley was to England in the eighteenth. He also travelled over England and Scotland and spent two years in America. In one period of nine months he induced two hundred thousand persons to take the temperance pledge. Among other things he cured blindness, lameness, paralysis, hysteria, headache, and lunacy. After his death the same diseases which he had cured during his lifetime were just as effectively relieved by visiting the good father's tomb, in the firm belief that a miracle would be performed. From the following cure, his first one, it will be seen that the discovery of his healing power was rather accidental.
"A young lady, of position and intelligence, was for years the victim of the most violent headaches, which assumed a chronic character. Eminent advice was had but in vain; the malady became more intense, the agony more excruciating. Starting up one day from the sofa on which she lay in a delirium of pain, she exclaimed—'I cannot endure this torture any longer; I will go and see what Father Mathew can do for me.' She immediately proceeded to Lehanagh, where Father Mathew was then sick and feeble. Flinging herself on her knees before him she besought his prayers and blessing. In fact, stung by intolerable suffering she asked him to cure her. 'My dear child, you ask me what no mortal has power to do. The power to cure rests alone with God. I have no such power.' 'Then bless me, and pray for me—place your hand on my head,' implored the afflicted lady. 'I cannot refuse to pray for you, or to bless you,' said Father Mathew, who did pray for and bless her, and place his hand upon her poor throbbing brow. Was it faith?—was it magnetism?—was it the force of imagination exerted wonderfully? I shall not venture to pronounce what it was; but that lady returned to her home perfectly cured of her distressing malady. More than that—cured completely, from that moment, forward."[198]
About the same time, Mrs. Elizabeth Mix, a negro woman living in Connecticut, achieved great fame through her healing by prayer. Many testified to the efficacy of her prayers and bewailed her death.
Francis Schlatter (1856-1909) was a native of Alsace, France. He was born a Roman Catholic and, so far as he was affiliated with any denomination, always remained one. When a year old, he was blind and deaf and was cured by his mother's prayers. He came to America in 1891, and first settled at Jamestown, Long Island. Early in 1893 he moved to Denver, Colorado, and in the following July he felt impelled by inner promptings to start out, he knew not whither. Probably mentally unbalanced, he wandered through the wilderness of the great Southwest without shoes or hat. Fasts, temptations, visions, arrests and imprisonments, and healings combined to furnish his experience during these wanderings, always, as he said, being led by the Father. In July, 1895, he arrived at Las Lunas, New Mexico, where he first attracted public attention as a healer. From here he went to Albuquerque, where he treated as many as six hundred persons in a day, many very effectively. After forty days' fast, which was broken by a hearty meal of solid food, he went to Denver and here reached the pinnacle of his fame and success. At the home of a sympathizer, daily from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., he treated those who came to him, always without any remuneration. From two thousand to five thousand people would congregate in line, reaching nearly around a city block, five or six abreast, but he was never able to treat more than two thousand in a day. Crowds came from other cities, and some few from great distances, even the New England States. He stood inside a fence, and as each one came along he held the patient's hand for a short time; lifting up his eyes, he prayed and then assured the sufferer of relief within a certain time. Through the mail and in other ways he received handkerchiefs which he blessed and returned with assurance of relief through them. Not all cases handled were restored to health or even noticeably eased, but large numbers testified to cures, some of which came immediately and others by degrees. He did not preach. Although he never claimed it, when asked, "Are you the Christ?" he always replied, "I am." He wore a beard and long hair, and dressed in the plainest clothes. In appearance he looked not unlike the pictures of the traditional Christ. Afterward he appeared in different parts of the United States, but never with the same success in healing as in Denver.[199]
The once famous Dr. Newton arrived in Boston in 1859 on one of his visits, and caused an extraordinary sensation. Astonishing results were reported in the way of cures. The lame, having no further need of crutches, left them behind; the blind were cured, and several chronic cases were relieved. He had many followers and disciples among whom was "Dr." Bryant, who settled in Detroit and healed there. Rev. J. M. Buckley, D.D., met Dr. Newton on a Mississippi steam-boat, when the latter was returning from Havana with his daughter who was very low with consumption, and the father doubted if she would reach home alive. When asked "Doctor, why could you not heal her?" he replied "It seems as if we cannot always affect our own kindred." At this time he denounced his pupil, Dr. Bryant, as an "unmitigated fraud who had no genuine healing power."
"If Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for the cures which he makes?" asked Dr. Buckley.
"Oh!" said the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds upon his operations with the expectation of being cured. Now," said he, "nobody would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and when they see the crutches he has there, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence on them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things that they thought they could not do; their appetites and spirits revive, and if toning them up can possibly reduce the diseased tendency, many of them will get well."