Disease Traced to the Early Ages and Its Causes-Religion. [Part I]

My object in laying my ideas before the people in regard to the causes of disease is to separate myself from all others who pretend to cure disease. The world or the people in it are superstitious from ignorance, but their superstition shows itself in a variety of ways. Some who think they are free from it are in reality most affected by it. Superstition is not applied to wisdom but to some idea that has never been understood, and the explanation of the phenomena is the superstition if it is not explained on some scientific principle that puts an end to all investigation. My object in this communication is to confine myself to the prevailing superstition in regard to diseases, their causes and cures, and to show where I stand independent of all others.

To commence with the diseases of man, we must go back to the ancients. The ancients believed that disease was the consequence of sin. The Hebrews were very little versed in the study of mental philosophy and attributed all their sickness to evil spirits who, they believed, were the executioners of divine vengeance. If they could not account for their disease, they did not hesitate to say that it was a blow from the avenging hand of God, and to him the wisest and most religious had recourse for cures. King Asa was blamed for placing confidence in the physicians when he had a painful fit of gout in his feet and not applying to the Lord (2nd Chron. 16: 12). "So Asa in the 39th year of his reign was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceedingly great, yet in his disease he sought not the Lord but the physicians. So in the one and 40th year he died," having been under the medical faculty two years.

This shows that the medical faculty was of little account with the ancient Hebrews who claimed to put their trust in God. Asa was blamed for running after quacks, but the world has since been remodeled, not after the days of King Asa. Job's friends ascribed all his distempers and sicknesses to God's justice and to comfort him, they used these words (Chap. 4: 7,8). "Remember I pray thee, whoever perished being innocent? Or when were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." Here Job was accused of transgressing God's laws. Every phenomena that could not be accounted for was attributed to God or spirits from another world, and these superstitions of the Hebrews have come down to the present day.

Disease and death were the great evils to contend with, and in order to avoid them, it was necessary to do something to appease this God. So all sorts of religious theories and opinions spring up to instruct the people in a belief that will govern their lives so that they may show the evils which God has in store to afflict his children. Nearly all the diseases the people had were attributed to God. Leprosy, so common among the Jews, was treated as a disease sent by God. The priests judged of the quality of evil, confined the sick and declared that they were healed or still had the leprosy upon them; then they offered sacrifices to God for their sins or faults and so deceived the people through their craft or ignorance. In Numbers: Chap. 12, the case of Miriam's leprosy is recorded. Aaron and Miriam spake against Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman. The Lord sent for the three and after learning the story was wroth and departed. When the cloud disappeared, Miriam became white as snow. Then Moses called unto the Lord saying, Heal her now O God, I beseech thee, and the Lord said, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days. After this was done, she was cured. Here is the case of leprosy, its cause and cure, but the mode of operating is not given, but to me it is all plain. There is no doubt but disease is what follows our belief. They had such power over the masses hat they cured their evils by imposing upon them the process I have mentioned. Their belief was their religion, and the forgiving their fns was the cure, so religion was health and disease was sin. This has Christ's idea, for he said the well need no physician, so according to the Hebrews it was a disgrace to be sick.

It may seem strange, at first thought, to say that any mode of curing disease was to make it and all the cures are done by an unknown God and therefore they are miracles. A miracle is some phenomenon that cannot be explained by the world of opinions. My object to trace disease to its origin and see what it is and who is its father, and whether it can be attributed to the one living and true God, for I cannot believe that God is the author of our misery. Man is the author of his own misery and to trace disease to its author is to bring it down to man. The priest is the author of all the diseases in the Old testament and it is easy to show that the case of Miriam's disease was made by her belief and cured by the same. She was made to believe it right to object to Moses marrying an Ethiopian or colored woman; consequently she must have been disturbed at the act. She got of her system into a nervous excitement and she was ready to bring about any phenomenon that happened to come up. Moses resented her anger and of course she felt badly, and her belief being that leprosy was a punishment sent by God for sin as she thought she had not done right, and so this punishment came upon her. The priests controlled the people and were the judges of right and wrong. You see, to make a disease is to transgress some law of God, and if any person had a brother or sister married to a black person, would he of feel badly? I am looking for the origin of disease, and I know It is in the mind or belief. I shall bring the Scriptures to show that the ancient Hebrews of the religious class all attributed diseases to God as a punishment for sin, so God had to bear the blame of all heir error and hypocrisy.

PPQ To Be Continued