Twelve Mormon Homes : Twelve Mormon homes visited in succession on a journey through Utah to Arizona.

Twelve Mormon Homes, page 078

was appealed to, answered, "Oh! ahem? ay !" first interjection- ally, then interrogatively, and then affirmatively-which ap- peared to be entirely satisfactory; for she went on: "Yes, you laid hands on her when she was only six days old, and she seemed as if she had not an hour to live." This was not the first time I had heard the Mormons allude to the laying-on of hands. It was explained to be their revival of the early Christian custom enjoined by the Apostle James: "Is any sick among you. 7 Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." As we crossed the court on our way back to our rooms, I remarked to a lady near me, "Mrs. Lucy, the orthodox Christian churches no longer practice the custom (for the Roman Catho- lic anointing of the dying is a different one), because the days of miracles are over ." "Ah," she replied ; "the orthodox churches, as you call them, Mrs. T., only assert that, because their faith is so torpid that they cannot be blessed with miracles. As our Saviour said, they can- not do many mighty works because of their unbelief ,* and again, the word preached does not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that hear it. You Presbyterians," she continued, "reject the traditions of the Church and the authority of the early fathers, and rely upon what the Bible says. Now, James's epistle is one of the very last printed in the New Testament. Where is your authority for considering his injunction to have been abrogated subsequently? Don't you see it is a salve to your consciences which you apply, because your faith is so weak that 78