Faith-healing

Faith-healing, a system of belief based on James, v. 14, that sickness may be treated without any medical advice or appliances, if the prayer of Christians be accompanied in the sufferer by true faith. Dorothea Trudel, at Maunendorf in Switzerland, is said to have wrought marvellous cures by faith and prayer alone between 1850 and 1860; but the recent movement in favour of faith-healing, which is especially conspicuous in Sweden and in the United States, is mainly the outcome of the success attained by Pastor Blumhardt, who began a similar system of cure at Mötlingen, in Württemberg. He ultimately resigned his charge, and bought a property with a sulphurous mineral spring at Boll, near Göppingen, where his system was fully developed in a large and much-frequented building specially arranged for his patients. He died in 1880, aged seventy-five. See his Life by Zündel (2d ed. Zurich, 1881). There are homes for faith-healing, called Bethshan (Heb., 'house of rest'), at various places in Britain and the United States. Some diversity obtains amongst believers whether the cures are to be accounted miraculous or not, and whether, in addition to the laying on of hands, anointing with oil should be practised. See PECULIAR PEOPLE.