Page:Faithhealingchri00buckiala.djvu/48

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34
FAITH-HEALING

sense, with the rapidity of thought. He said that he was influeuced by spirits who told him what to say. He would use the name of Jesus Christ in what would seem a blasphemous manner; standing before an audience he would say, "I am now about to send forth shocks of vitality." He would move his arms backward and forward and exclaim, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the diseases in the persons now present to disappear!" He would go to the paralytic or lame and exclaim, "In the name of Jesus Christ, be healed of your infirmity." When I mentioned having seen "Dr." Bryant, Dr. Newton instantly denounced him as an "unmitigated fraud who had no genuine healing power." He claimed that he had cured Bryant of a malignant disease with which he found him suffering in a hospital; that Bryant had acted as his amanuensis for some time, and then left him, and had since been acting in opposition to him. Knowing that the manipulations by Bryant had been followed by some wonderful results in Detroit, I said to Dr. Newton:

"If Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for his cures?"

"Oh!" said the doctor, "they are caused by the faith of the people and the concentration of their minds upon his operations, with the expectation of being cured. Now," said he, "none would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and they see the crutches he has, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence upon them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a good many things they thought they could not do; their appetites and spirits revive,