Milner
Stephen described to a member of our staff with much detail the nature
of his work. It is a sufficiently marvelous story to arouse attention,
even on the part of the incredulous; and the unbelieving authorities
owe it to the public to institute a series of investigations into
their relative's claims, in order that he may either be claimed as the
master healer of his age, or summarily prosecuted as a rogue and
vagabond, who is obtaining money under false pretences. It is
monstrous that a gentleman of his rank and position should be allowed
to go at large, making such enormous claims of quasi-supernatural
powers, without having them promptly brought to the most rigorous of
scientific tests.

Mr. George Milner Stephen is a man of wide and varied culture, of
great experience in affairs, and has spent his life in public service
of the most varied kind. Brought up to the bar, he has been a trained
lawyer all his life. He has been acting-governor of South Australia;
he refused the colonial secretaryship of New Zealand; he has been
official draftsman for the colony of Victoria; he has held the balance
of power in more than one colony; and in the colony of New South
Wales, at the time when he suddenly discovered his miraculous powers,
he was leading counsel on circuit, and in receipt of one of the
largest professional incomes of any lawyer at the antipodes. Nor was
his training solely colonial. He had repeatedly visited England, and
had been called to our bar. He takes a keen interest in mineralogical
science, and in the course of his career has exhibited on more than
one occasion great personal bravery and indomitable nerve. That such a
man, so highly connected, so carefully trained, with the intellect of
a lawyer and the experience of a statesman, should be in our midst
claiming to be endowed with the gift of healing spoken of in the New
Testament as vouchsafed to the Christians of apostolic times, is a
portent indeed, and one well worthy of the attentive consideration of
the most sceptical among us.

"It was six and a half years ago," said Mr. Stephen in reply to a
question, "that I first discovered that I possessed this gift of
healing--it was by pure accident. A friend who suffered from deafness
jokingly appealed to me to give him back his hearing. I, also in joke,
made some passes over his head, when to my utter astonishment I
discovered that his deafness disappeared. One experiment of this kind
led to another, a