FAITH

the a ent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting on his authority and veracity, either without other evidence or on probable evidence of any kind. In a special sense the term faith is used for the a ent of the mind to what is given forth as a revelation of man’s relation to God and the infinite, i.e. a religious faith. In Christian theolon se we have: first, Atstorical or speculative faith, or belief in the historic truthfulne of the Seripture narrative and the claims of Seripture to an inspired and supernatural origin; second, evangelical or saving faith, that emotion of the inind (as Dwight defines it) which is called trust, or confidence exercised towards the moral character of God, and particularly of the Saviour.—Cf. W. R Inge, Faith and tts Psychology. FAITH-HEALING. The tenets of the Peculiar People and of other believers in healing by faith differ from the views of Christian Scientists in this respect: that, while the latter hold pain and disease to be illusions of the imagination, the faith-healer admits their existence, but affirms the po ibility of their removal by non-scientific means. Some make use of anointing with oil, while others hold prayer and the laying-on of hands to be the only requisites. Faith-healing traces its cource to the raising of the apparently dead, the curing of the sick,the restoration of sight to the blind, and other recorded miracles of Christ; thence through the miracles of the disciples and their succe ors, down to the performances of Dorothy ‘Trudel in Switzerland, and the displays of Dowie in London (1904). Faith-healers flourish extensively in Sweden and America, while even in England ‘Beth shans’ (houses of cure) have been established. Faith, or some may say credulity, attributes the alleged cures to supernatural agency; science sees in them the action of ‘suggestion,’ with an exalted and emotional state of mind in the patient, more especially when surrounded and encouraged by a crowd of expectant and credulous lookers on. Exce ive reliance on his or her own powers has not seldom brought faith-healer within the menace of law, owing to neglect to employ a qualifieéd medical man, and the consequent death of the sufferer. In a broad sénse of the term the belief in healing by faith has been at the root of ‘touching’ for the King’s Evil, a practice followed by several English and French sovereigns (see Macbcth iv, 3, 141); of the value placed on relies; of alleged cures effected at such ‘holy places’ as St. Winifred’s Well in Wales, and at Lourdes; and of the firm belief, not yet entirely extinct, in many rustic remedies, such as the removal of children’s ailments by immiuring a live shrew in a cleft ash tree.— BIBLIOGRAPHY: HF. Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science; G. B. Cutten, Three You sand Years of Mental Fiealing. FAIYUM. Sce Fayouni.