Carter Hall used to be
gathered over the glowing ember, and Mrs. Hall has mentioned how
she combed out the ashes afterwards. Now, in this case,
Home was clearly, able to convey, a power to another person, just
as Christ, when He was levitated over the lake, was able to
convey the same power to Peter, so long as Peter's faith held
firm. The question then arises if Home concentrated all his
force upon transferring such a power how long would that power
last? The experiment was never tried, but it would have borne
very, directly upon this argument. For, granting that the power
can be transferred, then it is very clear how the Christ circle
was able to send forth seventy disciples who were endowed with
miraculous functions. It is clear also why, new disciples had to
return to Jerusalem to be "baptised of the spirit," to use their
phrase, before setting forth upon their wanderings. And when in
turn they, desired to send forth representatives would not they
lay hands upon them, make passes over them and endeavour to
magnetise them in the same way--if that word may express the
process? Have we here the meaning of the laying on of hands by
the bishop at ordination, a ceremony to which vast importance is
still attached, but which may well be the survival of
something really vital, the bestowal of the thaumaturgic power?
When, at last, through lapse of time or neglect of fresh
cultivation, the power ran out, the empty formula may have been
carried on, without either the blesser or the blessed
understanding what it was that the hands of the bishop, and the
force which streamed from them, were meant to bestow.
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