MARVELLOUS CURES.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 152, 3 September 1880, Page 3

MARVELLOUS CURES.

Mr George Milner Stephen, the wellknown barrister who has practised from time to time in South Australia,

Victoria, awl New South Wales, indeed for the last 40 years, has now appeared in quite a new character. For the last three months ho has been electrifying society by a series of almost miraculous cures on the blind, deaf, paralytic, and bedridden, and hitherto gratuitously, and with scarcely a failure. INI r Stephen is known to have strong spiritualistic leanings, and that circumstance caused bis earlier manifestations to be received with incredulity ; but a number of accredited cures treated by him lately have resulted so beneficially that even his most prejudiced opponents are compelled to recognise what they cannot attempt to explain. Clergymen have written to him demanding to be informed from what power be derives bis gift, and not a few assert boldly .that he is influenced by the Devil himself. Amongst a number of cases vouched for in writing by colonists of undoubted respectability and credit, I will select one which is certified to by the father of a young lady who has been cured -- a gentleman bolding a high position in ,Sydney commercial life, and whose statement may be relied on. He says:—“ This to certify that irv daughter about nine years ago met with an accident at Mount Victoria from a fall oil a horse, injuring the cartilage of her knee. She lias been under surgical treatment nearly the whole of this time, lor four years she never left the house, and for the last seven months suffered the most excruciating agony, so much so that on Thursday last the pain was so great that my daughter expressed her' belief that she would have to submit to have her leg taken oil, when I happily suggested to send for Mr George Milner Stephen.- lie came at once—breathed on the knee, passed bis bands several times over the injured place, when all pain from that moment ceased, and has not returned, and she can now walk without limping, having discarded a bandage six yards long which she had worn, for the first time for years, and on Wednesday she went to Dalmain and walked up the steep hill there without inconvenience.'’

Mr Stephen thus refutes the many unchristian theories levelled at him . ceal their own ignorance of facts, or to save themselves the trouble of reflection. I have remarked throughout a long life the injustice, as well as bitterness, of sectarians, whether in the pulpit, the Press, or private life. Hence I was prepared to incur the animus of the very orthodox ‘ shining lights’ in certain of the churches, who will insist that the ‘ age of miracles, as they choose to term them, ended with the Apostles ; although St. Paul takes the trouble to inform the Corinthians, in the 12th chapter of Ist Cor., Ist verse, that ‘ Concerning spiritual gifts he would not have them ignorant •’ and in the 9th verse proceeds to tell them that ‘ to another the “ gift of healing” is given by the Spirit of God.’ For my part I cannot 'conceive the use of his telling his ‘ brethren ’ about these 'gifts, which all of his day could see and judge for themselves, if future generations were to bo deprived of shell blessings. Some of these ‘ shining lights ’ are such ‘infidels ’ that they would rather discredit St. Paul than- abandon tne comforting dogma that our God of ‘ love and mercy ’ had been more compassionate towards mankind in those days than in the present ! Therefore whilst I have born for the last three months incessantly occupied (to the utter destruction of my profession as a barrister) in treating many scores of afflicted beings, pronounced by the medical faculty ‘ incurable ’ — the blind, deaf, paralytic and bedridden —Jews, Catholics, and Protestants alike—and hitherto gratuitously, 1 have been sneered at and libelled by some of the inferior journals, and insulted by written demands from some of the clergy as to the authority by which I do these tilings. “ Some, assert that I am influenced by the Devil, although I decline having any acquaintance with him, and cannot believe that sensible Christians ever expect anything good from such a quarter.

“lain very willing to answer the reasonable question often put to me, Where did I first become aware that 1 possessed this great gift ? by stating that in the early part of April last I. was induced to try, .and succeeded in restoring the hearing! to a gentleman at Wagga, hereinafter mentioned. And I know that the power was not “ born in me,’ from the fact that, scarcely a year preceding I essayed in ivain with my hand to soothe the fevered brow of a son suffering from a protracted attack of typhoid fcvoiv

“I must explain that my daily practice is to call first into my room (where a dozen are usually present), those suffering great pain, and upon their being instantaneously relieved, they take their departure, and thus [ lose.the chance of obtaining authenticated records of those cures .-.which are of course the most striking.” The Daily Telcyraph thus writes of a late healing levee held at the Tem-perance-Hall:—“As on previous occasions there was a gathering of tlie incurables of the metropolis and suburbs, including the ‘ lame, the halt, rand.the blind.’. -Many, suffering, pains .m0re,..91V less, violent,.were clamorously invoking Mr Stephen’s power to re-

Hove their agonies, He appeared to be in great force, as he literally ‘ordered ’ pains away right and left, and as the various subjects of his benevolence invoked blessings.upon bis head we may reasonably assume that they experienced relief. The afflicted reached their arms on to the platform praying him ‘ only to touch thorn,’ which he. did, and invariably received the grateful acknowledgments of the sufferers. In most of the cases Mr Stephen simply placed his hands upon the people’s heads or limbs to drive away rheumatism or rheumatic gout, or tiie other ills from which they were suffering. Dystanders of all ranks were looking on astonished as people made their way through the crowded hall to the platform, and as they left, after being treated by Mr Stephen, many eager questions were asked as to the number of years’ suffering they had endured, whether all their pains had disappeared, and the like. In all about f)0 people were thus sent away, expressing their belief that they were cured, and their astonishment at the wonderful power of the healer.”