LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

Are we indeed growing wiser as weakness grows upon us? Perhaps the
world is in possession of much valuable knowledge concerning the
cause and cure of disease. The failure to disseminate that knowledge,
the inability of the masses to appreciate and understand it--above all,
to make use of it in a general way--may account for much of the
distress and consequent weakness in the world.
The violent outbreak of fanaticism, now and then, running mad after
some supposed supernatural or mysterious deliverance from bodily
suffering, would seem to question the oft-quoted statement as to the
growth of wisdom in a race evidently growing weaker. Were it not for
the more conservative, the evenly balanced remnant of the race, who
set out to correct the error after which the multitude has gone, before
these wise men are even aware of its presence--we might despair of the
permanency of progress among us.
The more there is of an appearance of Divine intervention, the more
stubborn the opposition. So healing by prayer becomes a belief and a
practice. Its limitations have never been established. What can be cured,
and what is not proper subject of prayer, has not been definitely stated;
but that, after all, death is final victor has never been questioned. To
prolong life and relieve pain is the most that can be claimed.
Let it be understood that here, in the affairs of the flesh and body as in
other affairs of human life, there is a ruling divine Providence; there is
law and order and system and consistency in every department of the
infinite realm of the spiritual. The spiritual and mental are superior to
the physical and the material. That the soul should find relief and
resignation in the compassionate and all-wise and infinite One is not
surprising. But to believe, to pray, and then ignore the plain and explicit
directions of the laws of our common being--is to presume upon divine
Mercy, and expect good to come, when the conditions of a righteous life
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