Health, Healing, and Faith

by Russell H. Conwell

A reasonable valuation of such domestic treasures makes a hideous crime of every violation of the laws and customs which make a loving home possible. Profanity of speech, theft of money, or traitorous breaking of any other contract is a light sin compared with the brutal sins of the libertine or the unchastity of the woman who sells herself, or who, with evil intent, entices a man to home-breaking crime. So important is this matter that it is the fit subject for constant prayer for those who have not chosen to be a martyr or decided to give up all on earth for a home in heaven. And, even in the latter case, the call to take up any work inconsistent with the maintenance of a home should be overwhelmingly emphatic to command obedience.

Hence, those appeals to Heaven for domestic rest of soul were all normal and all of supreme importance. When that great collection of letters were each answered the reply contained a counter-request for a report in due season which should state when and how the prayer for a home had been answered. Those reports have also been carefully tabulated. But here again the critical adherent to the theory concerning the unchangeable laws of nature tries to escape any committal to religious dogmas by claiming that the mating instinct is an inborn sentiment common to fishes, beasts, and birds, and that mankind mates by accidental acquaintanceship or by the pressure of necessity or ungoverned passion. Such arguments convince many people who deride the claim that "marriages are made in heaven." But after every such theory is suggested and analyzed, after every allowance for the outworking of "natural selection," there is left an important place for the intrusion or domination of a superhuman power. To that fact, the simple, unvarnished tale of the experience of the years at the Temple bear eloquent testimony. A book of this character requires that out of the many reports only the most representative cases should be selected, and that the mention should be as brief as is consistent with clearness. The number of marriages which every church, small or great, brings about is ever the astonishment of any preacher who goes back over the history of forty years of church life. The church in any community is a center of more or less of social life and furnishes an opportunity for the best young people to meet on a plane of safe association. The married Christian people, and especially the owners of homes, are the very best people in any town or city. As a rule, all people possessed of Christian character marry. The unmarried masses of the people, or those who are most often unhappily mated, are often the unstable classes who are not closely bound to moral principles. Religious life and home life are twin sisters. They belong to the same family and have the same likes, dislikes, and motives. They are congenial and necessary companions almost everywhere.

Let us examine the leading events wherein we seem to recognize the divine hand and which led directly to the setting up of Christian homes. One lady clerk in a department store, in her first letter asking for prayer, said that she was forty-one years of age and that she had been twenty years in the store. She said that she had hoped for a home all her adult life, but had abandoned the hope and wished only to die soon. She asked if suicide would be wrong under such sad circumstances. The following Sabbath morning, after the service, the pastor of her church incidentally introduced her to a widower of her age who had a comfortable house, but who had rented it because he had no children. The widower asked the pastor a few days later to pray for him as he had a "very important matter" on his mind. Several days later he came to the minister and said that he had dreamed three times and in each dream he had precisely the same experience. He dreamed that he was climbing a steep hill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and he had called for help to a lady standing above him near the path, and when he took her hand he recognized her as the lady to whom the minister had introduced him. He declared that he really wished to set up a home again, but his first impression of that lady was decidedly unfavorable. The minister unreservedly advised the widower never to let a mere dream influence him to overcome his calm judgment. The minister said that dreams were often contrary to fair reasoning and should not be consulted in such important matters. A few days later the lady called on the minister to ask him if there was "any truth in dreams." Then she greatly surprised the minister by saying that she dreamed several times that she was on a steep bank near a cousin's home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and as the earth began dangerously to break beneath her feet a man caught her and supported her to the safe path. The mysterious thing in her story was that she recognized the man as the gentleman to whom she had been introduced that Sunday morning, but whose name she had forgotten. She said that the repetition of the dream "set her to thinking," and she had called to inquire who the gentleman was and what trust could be placed in dreams. The minister was too surprised to declare again that no faith could be put in any dreams. The minister said nothing to her about his previous interview with the widower and let her depart with the remark that if the Lord intended she should marry that man the Lord would also speak to the man about it in some clear manner. The Lord never advises one party to enter into such a contract when he knows the other party is unwilling. In every holy marriage both parties are equally inspired with the spirit of God and are both absolutely convinced that the Lord had brought them together. The minister soon wrote to the widower, advising him to call on the lady and tell her frankly that he desired to make her acquaintance with a view to a marriage, if both should be satisfied that it would be right. Every reader of this incident recognizes or feels the impression of the universal law of nature and can prophesy safely that they would marry. The minister was not present at the wedding, but he was informed by those who did attend the ceremony that the bridegroom told the guests the history of their dreams and claimed that they were "obeying the voice of God" when they arranged for that marriage.

The doubting persons who claim that the repetition of the dreams and the accidental meetings were singular coincidences that were in no way influenced by angel spirits, do have enough support to make the angel theory one of faith and remove the claim from the class of "scientific demonstrations." The facts related cannot be questioned. But the conclusions from those facts may differ widely and still be more or less reasonable.

The mysterious attraction which leads the bird and the beast to choose their mates is of the same nature as that mating instinct which prevails universally among mankind. But man's reasoning power and his self-control make his choice of a wife a far more complicated matter. The healthiest, strongest, and most intellectual races are ever those whose laws and customs allow the greatest opportunity for unprejudiced choice in the selection of life mates. Intermarriage of family relations, or the marriages within a narrow circle of the same race, ever produce weaklings and often idiots. In the lands where the parents arrange all the marriages there is but little progress and but few real homes. Wherever the parties refuse to be guided by the higher law of affinity, or by a recognition of Divine Providence, there will seldom be found a real home. "Affinity" is an abused word, and is often used to bolster up a bad cause or to excuse a cruel crime. But the close student of anthropology ever finds that the known natural laws do not account for every case, nor can a satisfactory solution of sex attraction in human affairs be found without admitting the mysterious and potent force that is only spiritual.

Looking back over the marriage records of the Baptist Temple for thirty years, there appear some significant facts concerning home-making by prayer. Through those thirty years of the record-keeping there was an average of sixteen marriages a month, or five thousand and one hundred in thirty years. The same pastor who officiated at the marriage of the parents also, in many cases, officiated at the weddings of the children. Not one case of divorce can be discovered and only two cases of estrangement. The records of many praying churches probably show the same conditions.

But it is a sublime, soul-satisfying thing to meditate on such a great list of happy Christian homes. The searcher, when he notes the birthplaces of bride and groom, finds that they often come from the most distant places and represent nearly all the races of the world. Calcutta united with New York, Iceland with New Orleans, Philadelphia with Chicago, Quebec with Quakertown, Worcester (Massachusetts) with Camden (New Jersey), Japan with Chester (Pennsylvania), Alaska with Columbia (South Carolina), country villages with cities, obscure daughters of prairie farmers with sailors on the Atlantic, millionaires' sons with working girls, and thousands of members of the church of all adult ages uniting with other members of whom they knew nothing in childhood.

From the atheist's point of view he can see nothing in that history but a jumble of accidents or a snarl of events which cannot be untangled. But to the devout believer in the theory that God sends his angels to arrange the home-making as he did in the case of Rebecca and Isaac, that list of homes presents a sublime view of a system for the kind distribution of Heaven's chiefest blessings. Out of the seventy-two hundred who united with Grace Church and its missions in the thirty years mentioned above all but twenty-nine have been married. As a home-making agency in the history of our nation the churches must hold the leading place.

When the remarkable series of reported dreams became known and was being discussed by the people, there arose many men and women with unbalanced minds who testified to the most inconsistent miracles in connection with their dreams. Among the letters which they sent in when testimonials were called for there were nearly one hundred which related foolish and impossible experiences and which made the whole debate ridiculous. But that uprising of those who were "possessed of evil spirits" did not prove that the one case so well established was not the work of an angel of God.

There may be ten thousand dreams which are of no special value and which are caused by natural law. But God seems to use only one here and there for his special purposes. Thousands of seeds fall on the earth, but only one may be selected to grow. There were cases related where dreams were specially potent to the dreamers because of the suggestions made by the dreams to the waking minds. A dream is often very potent as a reminder, or as a caution, and is often a providential event used in God's plan, although the dreams in themselves may have nothing unusual about them. There could be no clearly remembered dream which did not have some effect on the thought and later actions of the dreamer. With that view many dreams need not have their origin in a special visit of an angel of God. But again we must believe that there are dreams in which the angel of God appears to man directly, and that such dreams are possible in any age of the human world. Each claim, therefore, to a revelation of God in a dream should stand alone and be accepted or rejected after a careful study of all the causes and effects.