THE question of healing the sick by prayer, which came up for consideration and. discussion in the convention of the Protestant Episcopal church recently held at Cincinnati, aroused great interest, and The Cincinnati Enquirer sums up the action of the convention at the session wherein this question was argued, as follows:—
The question of healing by prayer was put directly lie fore the Episcopal convention at yesterday morning's session of the House of Deputies. Miracles, it was granted on all hands, are possible and being daily performed.
The failure of the Episcopal church to perform more healings was declared to be its own fault—that it had thrown away the gift and must recover it to compete with Christian Science. The single mode of healing, however, which was proposed, an office for the unction of the sick, was rejected. The clergymen by a great majority favored it as affording some step toward a fuller healing ministry. The laity opposed, because they felt an office of unction would repel many who already find it hard to believe in the gospel, but chiefly because the office seemed too mechanical and without the efficacy claimed for it. By far the majority of the members of the House favored the office, and had it been put to a viva vocc vote, it would have been carried. Defeat came at the opening of the roll-call, when the Minnesota delegation called for the vote by clerical and lay deputations.
