SPIRITUAL HEALING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4613, 12 October 1923, Page 2

SPIRITUAL HEALING.

MISSION at HAMILTON. LOCAL CASES BENEFIT, The Spiritual Healing Mission was commenced in Hamilton on Wednesday and continued .on Thursday. Special services were held on Tuesday afternoon and evening at which intercessors and friends attended. These service® were conducted by His Lordship the Bishop ofi Auckland. On Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock the spiritual services commenced. Patients from Thames, paeroa, Waihi, Te Aroha, Morrinsville, and the King Country were the first to receive spiritual services from the missioner, Mr w. M. Hickson, It was subsequently announced that a number of patients had received benefits immediately following the service. Some impressions of the Mission of Spiritual Healing at Hamilton on Wednesday last, by one who was privileged to be an intercessor. “The most wonderful experience of my life.” “It was just the stories of the Gospels being enacted before one’s eyes.” “I felt lifted right but,of myself on to a higher plane.” These were some of -the. many comments we heard reverently uttered as we came out of St. Peter’s Church on Wednesday afternoon from that neyer-to-he-forgptten Mission Service. The whole thing was so intensely spiritual that it is difficult to put into words the exact impressions made upon one, ‘but , a few things that particularly stand out may be noted. First, the calm and quiet tone that pervaded the whole mission; np excitement, nothing approaching hysteria, one might almost say nothing in .the nature of religious fervour; just an air of quiet confidence and trust, and through it all that wonderful atmosphere of earnest prayer. Then there was the loving and kindly service given by the nurses, the attendant clergy, and the stewards, all moving so quietly and reverently about the church, and each knowing exactly what he, or she, had to do, so that the patients from the moment they entered the building till they left ’t again -could not but feel that a brother’s or a sister’s hand was ready to help them. That spirit of ready and loving help to the sick and afflicted was inexpressibly touching, and surely a thing to thank God for. But perhaps one of the most remarkable things of all was the way in which, during the progress of the mission, including the intercessory services conducted by the Bishop on Tuesday afternoon and evening, the idea of the importance of the physical! healing slipped away from one’s mind, and it was realised that the spiritual healing of the soul was the thing that really mattered. Given that, and the healing of the body would fallow naturally. That, I truly believe, was the effect produced upon the vast majority of those who were present at the Mission, whether as patients or as intercessors, and that, I also believe, is what saves from sad disappointment those who have not immediately received the physical benefit they Ipoked for. It is almost impossible to express in words the beautiful solemnity of that hour during which the actual laying on of hands and the blessing by the Bishop was taking place. Surely no heart could be untouched as gentle hands were laid on the poor ’-little children in their mother’s or. father’s arms, and upon suffering men and women lying helpless upon stretchers. The missioner had told us we had not to “wrestle with God in prayer,” but to remember that' Jesus is all compassion, and we only need ask Him to touch each one and they would be made whole. Soft strains of well-known hymn tunes from time to time suggested devotional thoughts to the intercessors, and the whole atmosphere of calm waiting for the Divine blessing was beautiful beyond expression, After each patient had been dealt with he, or she, went straight from to the rest-room in the Parish Hall, and when all had gone the clergy, nurses, intercessors, and stewards filed up to the Altar rails to receive a spiritual blessing through the laying on of handsi from the Missioner and the Bishop, and this ended what was indeed the most wonderful experience of the writer’s life. The Scripture was literally fulfilled: “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf, unstopped, then shall the lame man leap as the hart, and the tongue of ■the dumb shall sing.”