02.04. The Testimony of the Church

The Ministry of Healing Or, Miracles of Cure in All Ages by A. J. Gordon 4. The Testimony of the Church

"Witnesses who are above suspicion leave no room for doubt that the miraculous powers of the apostolic age continued to operate at least into the third century." Such is the conclusion of Dr. Gerhard Uhlhorn; and one who has read the work from which this opinion is taken will not doubt his eminent fitness to judge of such a question. (Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, p.169. -- See 13. Appendix, Note A). This concession is a very important one in its bearings on this whole subject. Prove that miracles were wrought, for example, in the second century after Christ, and no reason can be thereafter be urged why they might not be wrought in the nineteenth century. The apostolic age, it must be admitted, was a peculiarly favored one. So long as the men were still living who had seen the Lord, and had companied with him during his earthly ministry, there were possible secrets of power in their possession that a later generation might not have. It is easy to see, therefore, that this period might be especially distinguished by the gifts of the Spirit. And yet the Saviour seems to be careful to teach that there would be an augmenting rather than a diminishing of supernatural energy after his departure. "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." "Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father." (Acts 1:9; John 14:12.) He made no provision for the arrest of the stream of divine manifestations which he had started, either in the next age or in a subsequent age. But, conceding certain marked advantages possessed by the immediate followers of Christ, if we find in history that there is no abrupt termination of miracles with the expiration of the apostolic age, then we must begin to raise the question why there should be any termination at all, so long as the Church remains, and the ministry of the Spirit is perpetuated?

Now, when we turn to the writings of the Christian Fathers, as they are called, we find the testimonies abundant to the continuance of the miraculous powers. We will quote only a few as specimens from a large number, which may be readily collated by any one who will take the pains. Justin Martyr says: "For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world and in your city, many of our Christian men, exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontias Pilate, have healed, and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing devils out of the men, though they could not be cured by all the other exorcists and those who used incantations and drugs." (Apologetics, Chapter 6.)

Ireaneus says: "Wherefore also those who are in truth the disciples receiving grace from him do in his name perform miracles so as to promote the welfare of others, according to the gift which each has received from him." Then after enumerating the various gifts he continues: "Others still heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole." (Adv. Haer, Book II:4.)

Tertullian says: "For the clerk of one of them who was liable to be thrown upon the ground by an evil spirit was set free from his affliction, as was also the relative of another, and the little boy of a third. And how many men of rank, to say nothing of the common people, have been delivered from devils and healed of disease." (Ad. Scap. iv:4.)

Origen says: "And some give evidence of their having received through their faith a marvelous power by the cures which they perform, invoking no other name over those who need their help than that of the God of all things and of Jesus, along with a mention of his history. For by these means we too have seen many persons freed from grievous calamities and from distractions of mind and madness, and countless other ills which could be cured neither by men or devils." (Contra Celsum B. III. Chap. 24.)

Clement says, in giving directions for visiting the sick and afflicted: "Let them, therefore, with fasting and prayer, make their intercessions, and not with the well arranged and fitly ordered words of learning, but as men who have received the gift of healing confidently, to the glory of God." (Epis. C. xii.) The weight of these and like testimonies is so generally acknowledged by Church historians that it seems little less than hardihood for scholars to go on repeating that well worn phrase "the age of miracles ended with the apostles." Mosheim, speaking of the fourth century, says: "But I cannot on the other hand assent to the opinion of those who maintain that in this century miracles had entirely ceased." (Cent. iv.)

Dr. Waterland says: "The miraculous gifts continued through the third century, at least." (See list of citations in Creation and Redemption. London, 1877. p.50.)

Dodwell declares that "though they generally ceased with the third century, there are several strongly attested cases in the fourth." Dr. Marshall, the translator of Cyprian, says "there are successive evidences of them down to the age of Constantine." ("With regard to the continuance of miracles after the apostolic age, we have testimonies, not only from Tertuilian and Origen, who tell us that many in their time were convinced, against their will, of the truths of Christianity by miraculous visions, but, also, much later from Theodore of Mopsueste (429). The latter says: Many heathen amongst us are being healed by Christians from whatever sickness they have, so abundant are miracles in our midst." Christlieb; Modern Doubt, p.321.)

"The age of Constantine" is a significant date at which to fix the termination of miracles. For almost all Church historians hold that there was a period when the simpler and purer forms of supernatural manifestation ceased to be generally recognized, or were supplanted by the gross and spurious type which characterize the Church of the middle ages. And the era of Constantine’s conversion confessedly marks a decided transition from a purer to a more degenerate and worldly Christianity. From this period on, we find the Church ceasing to depend wholly on the Lord in heaven, and to rest in the patronage and support of earthly rulers; and ceasing to look ever for the coming and Kingdom of Christ as the consummation of her hopes, and to exult in her present triumph and worldly splendor. Many of her preachers made bold to declare that the Kingdom had come, and that the prophetic word, "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth " had been fulfilled. (Eusebius L. x.3,4.)

If now, as we have indicated elsewhere, the miracles were signs of the sole kingship of the living and exalted Christ, and pledges of his coming again to subdue all things to himself, it is not strange that as the substance of these truths faded from men’s minds, their sign should have gradually disappeared also. At all events it is very significant that precisely the same period, the first three centuries, is that generally named by historians as the era in which that apostolic hope, "the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ," and that apostolic faith, "they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover," remained in general exercise. It is not altogether strange, therefore, that when the Church forgot that "her citizenship is in heaven," and began to establish herself in luxury and splendor on earth, she should cease to exhibit the supernatural gifts of heaven. And there is a grim irony in the fact, that after death and the grave had gradually become the goal of the Christian’s hope, instead of the personal coming of Christ, then we should begin to find miracles of healing alleged by means of contact with the bones of dead saints and martyrs, instead of miracles of healing through the prayer of faith offered to the living Christ. Such is the change introduced by the age of Constantine. ("Ah, Constantine, of how much ill was cause Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy Pope received of thee." -- Dante.) But now comes a most suggestive fact; that whenever we find a revival of primitive faith and apostolic simplicity there we find a profession of the chaste and evangelical miracles which characterized the apostolic age. These attend the cradle of every spiritual reformation, as they did the birth of the Church herself. Waldenses, Moravians, Huguenots, Covenanters, Friends, Baptists and Methodists all have their record of them.

Hear the following frank and simple confession of the Waldenses, that people who for so many ages kept the virgin’s lamp trimmed and burning amid the gross darkness with which the Papal harlot had overspread the people: "Therefore, concerning this anointing of the sick, we hold it as an article of faith, and profess sincerely from the heart that sick persons, when they ask it, may lawfully be anointed with the anointing oil by one who joins with them in praying that it may be efficacious to the healing of the body according to the design and end and effect mentioned by the apostles; and we profess that such an anointing performed according to the apostolic design and practice will be healing and profitable. (Johannis Lukawitz Waldensis Confessio, 1431. See also Waldensia, p.25.)

Then after condemning extreme unction, that sacrament of the Papists wherein an ordinance for life is perverted into an ordinance for death, they say further: "Albeit we confess that the anointing of the sick performed according to the design, end and purpose of the apostles, and according to their practice and power of which St. Mark and James make mention, is lawful; and if any priest possessing the grace of healings had so anointed the sick and they have recovered we would exhort all that when they are really ill they omit not to receive that ordinance at their hands, and in no way despise it, because despisers of that or of other ordinances, so far as they are ordained by Christ, are to be punished and corrected, according to the rules of the evangelical law." The Moravians, or United Brethren as they are otherwise called, have obtained a good report among all Christians for their simple piety, and especially for their fervent missionary zeal. They have not only been earnest reformers, but reformers of reformers; so that such men as Wesley, catching their light and getting kindled by it, have brought a new revival to the backslidden children of the Reformation. On principles already referred to, we might expect to find their missionary zeal signalized by supernatural tokens. And so it has been, if we may believe what seems to be trustworthy records. In what is regarded as a very faithful history of the United Brethren, that of Rev. A. Bost, the author gives his own view of the continuance of the apostolic gifts in a very clear manner, and records for us with equal clearness the sentiments of the Moravians. He says: "We are, indeed, well aware that, so far from its being possible to prove by scripture, or by experience, that visions and dreams, the gift of miracles, healings and other extraordinary gifts, have absolutely ceased in Christendom since the apostolic times, it is on the contrary proved, both by facts and by scripture, that there may always be these gifts where there is faith, and that they will never be entirely detached from it. We need only take care to discern the true from the false, and to distinguish from miracles proceeding from the Holy Ghost, lying miracles, or those which without being so decidedly of the devil do not so decidedly indicate the presence of the Lord." (Bost 1, p.17.) In this book are several statements of the Brethren concerning the character and discipline of their churches. The famous Zinzendorf writes as follows: "To believe against hope is the root of the gift of miracles; and I owe this testimony to our beloved Church, that apostolic powers are there manifested. We have had undeniable proofs thereof in the unequivocal discovery of things, persons, and circumstances, which could not humanly have been discovered, in the healing of maladies in themselves incurable, such as cancers, consumptions, when the patient was in the agonies of death, etc., all by means of prayer, or of a single word" (Idem, p.III.) Speaking of the year 1730, he says: "At this juncture various supernatural gifts were manifested in the Church, and miraculous cures were wrought. The brethren and sisters believed what the Saviour had said respecting the efficacy of prayer; and when any object strongly interested them they used to speak to him about it, and to trust in him as capable of all good; then it was done unto them according to their faith. The count [Zinzendorf] rejoiced at it with all his heart, and silently praised the Saviour who thus willingly condescended to what is poor and little. In this freedom of the brethren towards our Saviour, Jesus Christ, he recognized a fruit of the Spirit, concerning which they ought on no account to make themselves uneasy, whoever it might be, but rather to respect him. At the same time he did not wish the brethren and sisters to make too much noise about these matters, and regard them as extraordinary but when, for example, a brother was cured of disease, even of the worst kind, by a single word or by some prayer, he viewed this as a very simple matter, calling to mind ever that saying of scripture, that signs were not for those who believed, but for those who believed not." (Idem, pp. 405-6.)

Thus we have the sentiment of the Moravians on the subject of miracles very distinctly indicated. And the statements quite accord with their simple faith and filial confidence in the Lord, as indicated in other things. The following furnishes a very beautiful glimpse into the actual miraculous experiences above referred to: "Jean de Watteville had a childlike confidence in our Saviour’s promise to hear his children’s prayers. Of this he often had experience. One example we will here offer: -- A married sister became extremely ill at Hernnhut. The physician had given up all hopes, and her husband was plunged in grief. Watteville visited the patient, found her joyfully expecting her removal, and took his leave, after having encouraged her in this happy frame. It was at that time still the custom of unmarried brethren, on Sunday evening, to go about singing hymns before the brethren’s houses, with an instrumental accompaniment. Watteville made them sing some appropriate hymns under the window of the sick sister, at the same time praying in his heart to the Lord that he would be pleased, if he thought good, to restore her to health. He conceived a hope of this so full of sweetness and faith that he sang with confidence these lines: ’Sacred Cross, oh sacred Cross! Where my Saviour died for me, From my soul, redeemed from loss, Bursts a flame of love to thee. When I reach my dying hour Only let them speak thy name; By its all prevailing power Back my voice returns again.’ What was the astonishment of those who surrounded the bed of this dying sister when they saw her sit up, and join with a tone of animation in singing the last line: ’Back my voice returns again.’ To his great amazement and delight he found her, on ascending to her chamber, quite well. She recovered perfectly, and not till thirty-five years after did he attend her earthly tabernacle to its final resting place." And now we come to the testimony of that most illustrious band of Christian worthies, the Scotch Covenantors. Illustrious, we said, and yet with a light altogether ancient, apostolic and strange to our modern age. Let one read that book of thrilling religious adventure and heroic faith, The Scots Worthies and he will almost seem to be perusing the acts of the apostles reacted. Such sterling fortitude; such mighty prayers; such conquests of preaching and intercession! Howie, its author, seems to have had in mind especially, in writing it, the rebuke it would bring to a later, faithless and degenerate age, by showing, as he says in his preface, "how at the peril of their lives they brought Christ into our hands," and how quickly their offspring are gone out of the way piping and dancing after a golden calf." Nor did he think such a luxurious and unbelieving generation would be able to credit these mighty deeds of their fathers. For he continues: "Some may be ready to object that many things related in this collection smell too much of enthusiasm; and that other things are beyond all credit. But these we must suppose to be either quite ignorant of what the Lord did for our forefathers in former times, or else, in a great measure, destitute of the like gracious influences of the Spirit by which they were actuated and sustained." If we are inclined to discredit the marvels of divine interposition recorded in this book, we have to remember that the men who relate them, and of whom they are related, are the historic characters of the Scottish Kirk; Knox, Wishart, Livingston, Welch, Baillie, Peden and Craig. We never tire of repeating the great and holy things which these men did in other fields of spiritual service. Who has not heard how John Livingston preached with such extraordinary demonstration of the Spirit that five hundred souls were quickened or converted under a single sermon? And what Christian has not had his spiritual indolence rebuked by reading of John Welch, rising many times in the night to plead for his flock, and spending seven and eight hours a day in Gethsemane intercessions for the Church and for lost souls. These things we have read and repeated without incredulity. But how few have read or dared to repeat the story of the same John Welch praying over the body of a young man, who, after a long wasting sickness, "has closed his eyes and expired to the apprehension of all spectators; how, in spite of the remonstrance of friends, he "held on for three hours, twelve hours, twenty-five, thirty-six, forty-eight hours", and when at last it was insisted that the "cold dead" body should be borne out to burial, how he begged for an hour more, and how, at the end of that time, he "called upon his friends and showed them the dead young man restored to life again, to their great astonishment." All this is told with the utmost detail in the book of The Scots Worthies. If we are startled to ask in amazement -- as who will not be -- "Are such things possible in modern times?" we might better begin with the question, has such praying and resistless importunity with God ever been heard of in modern times? If we can get a miraculous faith, the miraculous works will be easy enough to credit. Yet this is a specimen of the men who compose this extraordinary group of Christian heroes. The wonders recorded of them are of every kind -- marvels of courage, marvels of faith, marvels of martyrdom, and marvels of prophetic foresight. Theirs was a faith born and nourished of the bitterest persecution. But if, according to the saying of their biographer, they were "followed by the prophet’s shadow, the hatred of wicked men," it is equally true that they were crowned with the apostle’s halo, the power of the Holy Spirit.

Here we read of the holy Robert Bruce, of whom the beautiful incident is told, that once being late in appearing in his pulpit as messenger was sent for him who reported: "I think he will not come today, for I overheard him say to another: ’I protest I will not go unless thou goest with me’. Howbeit, in a little time he came, accompanied by no man but full of the blessing of Christ; for his speech was with much evidence and demonstration of the Spirit." Of this man, mighty in pulpit prayers, it is affirmed that "persons distracted, and those who were past recovery with falling sickness, were brought to him and were, after prayer by him on their behalf, fully restored from their malady" (p.118).

Also we read of Patrick Simpson, whose insane wife, from raving and blaspheming as with demoniacal possession, was so wonderfully healed by his importunate prayers that the event was found thus gratefully recorded upon some of the books of his library: "Remember, O my soul, and never forget the 16th of August, 1601, what consolation the Lord gave thee, and how he performed what he spoke according to Zechariah, ’is not this a brand plucked out of the fire’" (p.116).

We give verbatim one incident of healing as recorded in this book, admonishing the reader that this story, as well as several others, has been somewhat softened in later editions of the work, with the avowed purpose of making it accord more exactly with modern religious sentiments. It is from the life of John Scrimgeour, minister of Kinghorn in Fife, and "an eminent wrestler with God." Mr. Scrimgeour had several friends and children taken away by death: and his only daughter who at that time survived, and whom he dearly loved, being seized with the King’s evil, by which she was reduced to the point of death, so that he was called up to see her die; and finding her in this condition he went out into the fields, (as he himself told) in the night-time in great grief and anxiety, and began to expostulate with the Lord, with such expressions as for all the world, he durst not again utter. In a fit of displeasure he said -- "Thou O Lord knowest that I have been serving thee in the uprightness of my heart according to my power and measure: nor have I stood in awe to declare thy mind even unto the greatest in the time; and thou seest that I take pleasure in this child. O that I could obtain such a thing at thy hand as to spare her!" and being in great agony of spirit at last it was said to him from the Lord -- "I have heard thee at this time, but use not the like boldness in time coming for such particular." When he came home the child was recovered, and sitting up in the bed took some meat: and when he looked on her arm it was perfectly whole." (Edinburgh Ed. 1812, p.89,90).

Now when we reflect that these things are recorded by the pen of some of the holiest men the church of God has ever seen: and recorded too as the experiences of their own ministry of faith and prayer, the fact must at least furnish food for reflection to those who continue to assert with such confident assurance that the age of miracles is past. Past it may be indeed, if the age of faith is past. For that we conceive, to be the real question. It is not geography or chronology that determines the boundary lines of the supernatural. It is apostolic men that make an apostolic age, not a certain date of Anno Domini. We are forever thinking to turn back the shadow certain degrees upon the dial, to bring again the age of miracles, forgetting that he who is "without variableness or the shadow of turning" has said, "if thou canst believe" -- not if thou wast born in Palestine and within the early limits of the first Christian century -- "all things are possible to him that believeth." When by the stress of violent persecution or by the sore discipline of reproach and rejection by the world the old faith is revived, then we catch glimpses once more of the apostolic age. And such perhaps beyond all others in modern times was the age of the Covenanters. No one can read this stirring narrative of their sufferings and triumphs, their martyrdoms and miracles without a profound spiritual quickening. There is little danger withal of the book ministering to fanaticism, for if any one should be inspired by it with an ambition to be a miracle-worker he will meet the challenge on every page -- "Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" If we come to the Huguenots, those faithful followers of the Lamb, among generations that were so greedily end wantonly following the Dragon, we get glimpses of the same wonderful things. In the story of their suffering and obedience to the faith in the mountains of Cevennes whither they had fled from their pursuers upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, we hear constant mention of the exercise of miraculous gifts. There were divine healings and extraordinary actings of the Spirit in quickening and inspiration. They who in their exile carried their mechanical arts and inventions into England to the great blessing of the nation, carried here and there the lost arts of supernatural healing to the wonder of the church of Christ. (Morning Watch, B.iv: p.383).

Among the early Friends, as is well known, the same manifestations were constantly reported. Whatever we may think of the general teaching of this sect, no one can read the Journal of George Fox without feeling that he was a devoted man of God, doing a wholesome work of quickening and rebuke in a time of great spiritual deadness and conformity to the world. His quaint prayer that he "might be baptized into a sense of all conditions" seems to have been literally fulfilled. Like a latter day apostle he went among all ranks, rebuking the gay and worldly, turning away the wrath of those at enmity, visiting the sick and ministering to the prisoner. A worthy model is he for any minister, in any age who would learn how to labor "in season out of season" for the Lord. Not only in his teaching but especially in his active service does he recognize the continuous operation of the Spirit in miraculous ministries. He records these manifestations without comment as though they were as much a matter of course as conversion or regeneration. In a record of evangelizing in Twy-cross in Lincolnshire, England, he says: -- "Now there was in that town a great man that had long lain sick and was given over by the physicians: and some friends in that town desired me to go and see him, and I went up to him in his chamber and spoke the word of life to him and was moved to pray for him, and the Lord was entreated and restored him to health." (Journal B.i: p.111). While preaching in Hertfordshire, they told him of a sick woman and requested him to go to her help. He says: -- "John Rush of Bedfordshire went along with me to visit her, and when we came in, there were many people in the house that were tender about her: and they told me she was not a woman for this world, but if I had anything to comfort her concerning the world to come I might speak to her. So I was moved of the Lord to speak to her, and the Lord raised her up again to the astonishment of the town and country." (Id. vol.I: p.281). This book abounds in such instances, told without ostentation or enlargement, but almost always alluded to as "Miracles." In the earlier days of the Baptists, days of simplicity and purity, we meet with similar illustrations of miraculous faith and manifestation. As usual it was in times of great straits, when the prison doors were shut upon the persecuted flock, that the windows of heaven were opened in miraculous blessing. Vavasor Powell,"the morning star of the Welsh Baptists" as he has been named, has left a clear affidavit to his faith and practice on the subject we are considering. He was a man of the same fiber as the Covenanters; endued with such power of the Spirit that extraordinary revivals followed his preaching wherever he went. He was also a bitter sufferer for the faith having in the course of his life lain in thirteen different prisons for his testimony for Christ. Besides the uncommon blessing which attended his preaching it is recorded that "many persons were recovered from dangerous sickness through the prayer of faith which he offered." He took the promise in James 5:1-20th literally, as shown in the story of his own recovery, and especially as declared in the following article of his creed -- "Visiting the sick and for the elders to anoint them in the name of the Lord is a gospel ordinance and not repealed" (Ivimy’s History of the Baptists, p.333 -- See 13. Appendix, Note B). That his creed was to some extent adopted by the English Baptists appears from the account given in the same book, of the ceremony of anointing and prayer as performed for a blind woman at Aldgate in London. Rev. Hansard Knollys, and Rev. Henry Jessey, eminent names in the early ministry of the body, united with others in the service, prayer being offered and the words pronounced, "the Lord Jesus restore thee thy sight" (Idem, p.332) .

Among the Methodists we find references here and there to the appearance of miraculous manifestations in the churches. There is one very striking instance which is recorded of Ann Mather, daughter of Joseph Benson the Methodist commentator, the story being given in full by the father in his journal. She had been afflicted with lameness in the feet, for some years having no use of her limbs, and not for a long time having walked a step. We give the narrative in the words of Mr. Benson’s Journal abridging in unimportant details: -- "Oct. 4th. This evening the Lord has shown us an extraordinary instance of his love and power. My dear Ann yet remained without any use of either her limbs and indeed without the least feeling of them, or ability to walk a step, or lay the least weight upon them, nor had she any use of them for upward of twelve months. I was very much afraid that the sinews would be contracted, and that she would lose the use of them forever. We prayed however, incessantly, that this might not be the case; but that it would please the Lord, for the sake of her three little children, to restore her. This day a part of my family and some of my pious friends went to take tea at her house; Mr. Mather bringing her down in his arms into the dining-room. After tea I spoke of the certainty of God’s hearing the prayer of his faithful people, and repeated many of his promises to that purpose. I also enlarged on Christ’s being the same yesterday, today, and forever, and still both able and willing to give relief to his afflicted people: that though he had doubtless done many of his miracles of healing chiefly to prove himself to be the Messiah, yet that he did not do them for that end only, but also to grant relief to human misery, out of his great compassion for suffering mankind; and that not a few of his other miracles of mercy he had wrought principally or only for this latter purpose, and that he was still full of compassion for the miserable.

"I then said, ’Ann, before we go to prayer, we will sing the Hymn which was full of consolation to your mother,’ and I gave out the words of the hymn beginning: -- ’Thy arm, Lord, is not shortened now, It wants not now the power to save; Still present with thy people, thou, etc.’ After singing, we then kneeled down to pray, and Ann took her infant child to give it the breast, that it might not disturb us with crying while we were engaged in prayer. I prayed first, and then Mr. McDonald; all the company joining fervently in our supplications. We pleaded in prayer the Lord’s promises, and especially that he has said that whatever two or three of his people should agree to ask, it should be done for them. Matthew 17:19. Immediately on our rising from our knees, Ann beckoned to the nurse to take the child, and then instantly rose up, and said, ’I can walk, I feel I can’; and proceeded half over the room: when her husband, afraid she should fall, stepped to her, saying, ’My dear Ann, what are you about?’ She put him off with her hands, saying, ’I don’t need you: I can walk alone,’ and then walked three times over the floor; after which, going to a corner, she knelt down and said, ’Oh let us give God thanks!’ We kneeled down, and gave thanks; Ann continuing on her knees all the time, at least twenty minutes; she then came to me, and with a flood of tears threw her arms about my neck, and then did the same first to one of her sisters, and to the other, and afterwards to Mrs. Dickenson; every one in the room shedding tears of gratitude and joy. She then desired her husband’s brother to come up stairs; and when he entered the room, she cried out, ’Adam, I can walk;’ and to show him that she could, immediately walked over the floor, and back again.

"It was, indeed, the most affecting scene I ever witnessed in my life. She afterward, without any help, walked up stairs into her lodging room, and with her husband kneeling down, joined in prayer and praise. In conversation with her afterward, I learned from her the following particulars: -- that when she was brought into the dining-room a little stool was put under her feet, but which she felt no more than if her feet had been dead. While we were singing the hymn, she conceived faith that the Lord would heal her; began to feel the stool, and pushed it away; then set her feet on the floor, and felt that; while we prayed she felt a persuasion she could walk, and felt inclined to rise up with the child in her arms; but thinking to do that would be thought rash, she delayed till we had done praying, and then immediately rose up, and walked as above related." Among the persons present who witnessed this remarkable scene was Rev. James McDonald, who followed Mr. Benson in prayer and was afterwards his biographer, and in making reference to this wonderful healing he says: "All believed that the power to walk, which she received in an instant, was communicated by an immediate act of omnipotence." The account was also published in the London Methodist Magazine, from which this is quoted.

We have thus set before us as a mass of evidence for the continuance of miraculous interventions which few, we imagine, would wish to condemn as utterly false. Whatever deduction or allowance any may wish to make, there remains too solid a substratum of well-proven fact to be easily set aside. Untimely -- born out of due season, is the objection which will at once be urged indeed. That is to say, put the same facts and the same witnesses back into the age of the apostles and they can be easily enough credited, but not as speaking for modern times. But some believe that the church like the tree of life "whose leaves are for the healing of the nations," not only bears twelve manner of fruits but "yields her fruit every month." "All supernatural manifestations, determined with apostolic times and apostolic men" -- so I read from a learned author, as I glanced for a moment from the page which I was writing. Then casting another glance through my window I saw a tree just before me crowned with a fresh coat of green leaves and white blossoms. Strange sight to witness in the month of October! Yet such was the season in which it came to pass. For it had happened that the canker worms had stripped the tree of all its foliage and left it bare and naked; but because there was life in its veins and the sap had not yet returned downward, it must find expression, and so even in autumn it had leaved and blossomed.

Alas that the church should ever have been shorn of her primitive beauty! But so it was: apostasy succeeding to purity, and papacy to apostasy, and corruption to papacy, and infidelity to corruption, till it was literally as the prophet has written: "That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten. (Joel 1:4). But because there is life still remaining in the church, because the sap has not utterly departed from the tree of God, fresh shoots are constantly putting out bearing the leaves and blossoms of primitive piety, and not less certainly the rich fruits of miraculous blessing. And so we are persuaded it shall be until the end. For it belongs to the Church as the body of Christ to do the works of Christ, and it belongs to believers as the habitation of the Spirit to manifest the gifts and fruits of the Spirit.