The Healing Of Mary Theobald.

The following incident is related by her pastor, at Woburn, Mass., who,

for three and a half years, was well acquainted with her physical

condition, and who testified, in _The Congregationalist_, that no

medicine, or physician's aid or advice, was of any avail:



"From the first of my acquaintance to the last, she had an unswerving

confidence in her recovery. Many times has she said to me: 'I believe

that I shall be well. Jesus will raise me up. I shall hear you preach

some day.'



"But, in common with the friends who were watching her case, and with

the physicians who had exhausted their skill upon her in vain, I had

little or no hope for her. It seemed to me that her life was to be one

of suffering; that God was keeping her with us that we might have a

heroic example of what His grace could enable one to bear and to become.



"A few days ago, I received from her lips the following statement of the

origin and progress of her sickness: 'My first sickness occurred when I

was about sixteen years old. This illness lasted for a year. Indeed, I

was never well again. That sickness left me with a bad humor, which, for

two years, kept me covered with boils. When the boils disappeared, the

trouble was internal. Physicians feared a cancer. For ten years, I was

sick, more or less--sometimes able to work, sometimes utterly prostrate.



"'My second severe illness began in the Autumn of 1871. I had been

failing for two years. Then I was obliged to give up. I was on the bed

five months. From this illness I never recovered so as to labor or walk

abroad. When not confined to my bed, I have been on the lounge, as you

have known me. No one can ever know the suffering which these years have

brought me.'



"My acquaintance with her began in the Spring of 1873. Several times

since I have known her, she has been carried so low that we have thought

her release near at hand; and, indeed, the general tendency has been

downwards. I recently asked an intelligent physician, who had attended

her for a year or more, to give me the facts in her case. He replied:

'She is diseased throughout. Her system is thoroughly soured. It

responds to nothing. Almost every function is abnormal. There is no help

for her in medicine.' Other physicians had tried their skill with the

same result. It was generally admitted by doctors, friends and family,

that nothing more could be done for her. While all saw only suffering

and an early death in store for her, yet she confidently expected to be

well, and her faith never waned.



"It was her custom to spend a few weeks each year in the family of one

of the sisters in the church. At her last visit, it was evident to this

lady that Mary was not so well as in former years. One day, when

conversation turned upon this topic, she felt constrained to express her

fears. But Mary was hopeful. A proposition was made, and arrangements

were perfected to visit Doctor Cullis, to secure the benefit of his

prayers. But her feebleness was so great that the plan was abandoned.

'If,' said Mrs. F., 'faith is to cure you, why go to Doctor Cullis, or

to any one? Let us go to God ourselves; and, Mary, if you have faith

that God can and will cure you sometime, why not believe that He will

_cure you now?_'



"She felt herself cast on God alone. All hope of human help was at an

end. She had thought it, hitherto, enough patiently to wait His time.

She saw that, after all, she must not dishonor God by limiting His

power. Again her Bible opened to the familiar passages, '_the prayer of

faith shall save the sick_;' 'according to your faith be it unto you.'

She felt that the time for testing her faith had come. She would

dishonor the Lord no longer. Requesting the prayers of the family that

God would now grant healing and restoration, she tottered to her couch,

and, asking that in the morning she might be well, calmly closed her

eyes in the assurance that it would be so. _And according to her faith,

so it was. She came forth in the morning without a remnant of the pain

which had filled a decade of years with agony_. That Sabbath was to her,

indeed, 'a high day.' A week later the frequent prophecy that she should

hear me preach was fulfilled.



"_Not a vestige of suffering remained_. So far as that is concerned,

there was not a hint left that she had been an invalid for almost a

score of years.



"_She immediately took her place in the family as a well person._ Two

days after, I saw her. She came to meet me with a step light and strong,

and with a face written all over with thankfulness and joy. Since that

time all the abandoned duties of active life have been resumed. When

last I saw her, she was in bounding health and spirits, declaring that

she could not remember when she had felt so happy and well. That

night--one of the coldest of the winter, the roads at their iciest--she

walked more than half a mile to and from the prayer-meeting.



It is difficult for those who are not conversant with the case to

believe it, yet there is no illusion in it. _That she went to sleep a

suffering, feeble, shattered woman, and, awoke free from pain, and that

she has been gaining in strength ever since, are facts that cannot be

doubted_."