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The Ministry of Healing
by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust. The
very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men.
Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of evil with
which men were possessed.
What is the condition in the world today? Is not faith in the Bible
as effectually destroyed by the higher criticism and speculation of
today as it was by tradition and rabbinism in the days of Christ? Have
not greed and ambition and love of pleasure as strong a hold on men’s
hearts now as they had then? In the professedly Christian world,
even in the professed churches of Christ, how few are governed by
Christian principles. In business, social, domestic, even religious
circles, how few make the teachings of Christ the rule of daily living.
Is it not true that “justice standeth afar off: ... equity cannot enter....
And he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey”?
Isaiah
59:14, 15
.
We are living in the midst of an “epidemic of crime,” at which
thoughtful, God-fearing men everywhere stand aghast. The corrup-
tion that prevails, it is beyond the power of the human pen to describe.
Every day brings fresh revelations of political strife, bribery, and
fraud. Every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence and
lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering, of brutal, fiendish
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destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the increase of in-
sanity, murder, and suicide. Who can doubt that satanic agencies are
at work among men with increasing activity to distract and corrupt
the mind, and defile and destroy the body?
And while the world is filled with these evils, the gospel is
too often presented in so indifferent a manner as to make but little
impression upon the consciences or the lives of men. Everywhere
there are hearts crying out for something which they have not. They
long for a power that will give them mastery over sin, a power that
will deliver them from the bondage of evil, a power that will give
health and life and peace. Many who once knew the power of God’s
word have dwelt where there is no recognition of God, and they long
for the divine presence.
The world needs today what it needed nineteen hundred years
ago—a revelation of Christ. A great work of reform is demanded,
and it is only through the grace of Christ that the work of restoration,
physical, mental, and spiritual, can be accomplished.