It might conduce to clearness if writers would agree to classify all such cures, the natural products of faith itself, under some such caption as mind-cures — or, if we prefer a big name, under the general designation of psychotherapy — reserving the term " faith-healing " for those cures which are ascribed not to faith itself, but to the immediate action of God sought in faith. Meanwhile this is not the universal usage. The nomenclature is far from fixed. Very fre- quently the term " faith-cure" is employed to express specifically cures wrought directly by faith itself. As often, it is used in a sense wide enough to embrace both of these very diverse species of cures. Naturally, this pro- duces confusion. The confusion shows itself, for example, in the definition given to ''Faith-Healing" at the head of the article printed under this title in Hastings's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. There at least emerges from this definition, however, an express recognition of a double sense of the term " faith-cure," a strict and a wide sense. Taking so much as gain, we shall, contrary, no doubt, to this author's own meaning, discriminate these two senses in such a manner as to assign to the strict sense of the term those cures which are supposed to be immediately wrought by God on faith, and to the broader sense those which are supposed to be wrought more or less wholly by faith itself.
Having the latter of these varieties in mind, we find ourselves more in accord with our author when he remarks that "faith-healing is the oldest form of healing in the world," antedating, or at least growing up side by side with, "medical practice in its earliest and crudest form, and
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as its predominant partner." 3 We cannot, indeed, ascribe with him the miracles of our Lord and His Apostles to this category.4 But, apart from the miraculous attestation of the special revelation of God which has been recorded for us in the inspired Scriptures, we recognize with him a con- tinuous stream of faith-healings in this sense, extending from the earliest ages quite down to our own day. The numerous "Healing- Gods" of classical antiquity, such practices as "temple-sleeping," and the endless narratives of cures sought and found through it and other means, at- test its prevalence in pre-Christian times ; the Patristic and Mediaeval Ages overflow with instances; the Reformation was far from bringing its practice to an end, and — if we may now enlarge the category to that of mind-healing in general — the history of such movements as those still going on among us under the names of Animal Magnetism, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Mental Healing, New Thought, Christian Science, evince the place its conscious practice still takes in the life of the people of to-day.
In a former lecture we have sought to give some account of the assertions which are still made that faith-healings, in the strict sense of healings made directly by God, con- tinue to occur among us. For the sake of completeness it may not be improper to proceed now to some account of at least the more prominent varieties of faith-healing in the wider sense — or, in a less confusing nomenclature, of mind-cure— prevalent in our day. No doubt, in doing so, we overstep the limits of our formal subject. Faith-healing in this sense — that is to say, mind-cure — by virtue of the very fact that some mental act or state is held to be the producing cause at work, can make no pretense to mirac- ulousness, and in point of fact, in the forms at least in which it is most commonly practised, it makes no pretense to miraculousness. Nevertheless, its relation to faith-healing in the stricter sense is so close, confusion with it is so com- mon, and the lessons to be learned from it as to the real
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nature of the alleged instances of faith-healing in the strict sense occurring among us are so instructive, that we should not be justified in passing it by altogether.