y."

"How many?"

"I think I have been the means of healing about 30,000 patients in the
six and a half years during which I have devoted my time to the work.
Of course many of those patients were suffering from diseases which
might have been cured by ordinary means. Others were declared to be
incurable."

"Declared to be incurable by whom?"

"By the chief physicians in the colonies. I have in my
pocket"--producing the papers as he spoke--"certificates signed by the
witnesses, attested sometimes by magistrates, and at other times by
ministers of religion and colonial ministers, that the person named in
the certificate has received instantaneous relief by my touch. Here is
one in which a person stone-blind from birth received sight when I
blew into his eyes."

"Then do you cure all diseases?"

"Certainly not. There are many things which I cannot do. I cannot
raise the dead, nor can I restore an arm which has been cut off, a
joint which has been excised, or an eye which has been destroyed. When
there has been complete destruction of any important organ I cannot
effect a cure; but when destruction of the organ has not been
complete, I am frequently able to effect a cure in cases which the
regular faculty have given up as utterly hopeless."

"Take cancer, for instance: can you cure that?"

"I have treated some cases with remarkable success; but of course I
can do so only when the cancer has not eaten too far into the vital
organism of the sufferer. I have treated some thirty cancer cases, the
cure in all being complete. The treatment was that of laying my hands
over the part affected, anointing with a little magnetized ointment,
and sometimes the injection of magnetized oil. Beyond that I do
nothing. I have here records of ten cures of cancer in all parts of
the body. If you will glance over the accounts, described by the
newspapers at the time when they occurred, or copies of the
certificates which I leave with you, you will see that there is almost
no limit to the variety of the cures which I have been able to
effect."

"That is all very well, Mr. Stephen, but you will not make converts by
newspaper extracts. The point is this: Will you consent to submit your
gift to a practical test?"

"Certainly," said he; "I have already written to Sir Baldwin Leighton,
asking him if he can place me in communication with the governors of
deaf, dumb, and blind asylums, in order that I may be able to try my
powers upon the