‘Suspect everything,’ says St. Teresa, as quoted by Sir Clifford Allbutt, ‘which weakens the use of our reason; for by such a way, we shall never attain to the liberty of the Spirit.’ ‘Prayer,’ says the British Medical Journal, in the article quoted above, ‘inspired by a living faith, is a force acting within the patient, which places him in the most favourable condition for the stirring of the pool of hope that lies, still and hidden it may be, in the depths of human nature.’ Truly, it is a tribute to the intellectual temper of our day that two such quotations, the one from a medieval saint, the other from a leading article in our modern medical journal, can appropriately be adduced in illustration of the spirit in which you have edited your volume. I trust it will have many readers. That it may promote the wise and temperate study of spiritual and mental, as well as of physical, forces and disorders, is my earnest hope and desire. That it may also tend to correct shallow and superficial delusions on the part of ignorant persons who imagine that they can dispense with scientific knowledge, and ignore the facts of mortality in suffering, disease, and death, is an expectation which I pray may be fulfilled.
Wishing, therefore, your volume all success,
I am, dear Mr. Geoffrey Rhodes,
Yours very sincerely,
Herbert E. Winton.
EDITOR’S PREFACE
I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to a host of kind people for help in compiling this book. First of all to the many clergymen and doctors who assisted me in finding suitable contributors for the different chapters, and then no less to the contributors themselves who, in spite of the exigencies of professional duties, managed not only to write for these pages but to take part in many editorial discussions often entailing lengthy interviews and correspondence.
The Bishop of Winchester’s work in connexion with this book has not been confined to the Foreword which appears under his name. I have had the benefit of his Lordship’s advice and help throughout, and he has spared the time to read all the essays in manuscript.
My thanks are also due to Sir Thomas Barlow and Sir Clifford Allbutt for assistance in reading the proofs of the medical chapters.
Messrs. Macmillan and the Editors of the Hibbert Journal and the British Medical Journal have kindly allowed me to make extracts.
G. R.