as particularly helpful in epilepsy and
scrofula, though useful also for the healing of various diseases, is
especially interesting. This practice apparently began with Edward the
Confessor in England and St. Louis in France and was due to the faith of
those who came to be touched and healed in the divine right and lonely
power of the king. It is significant that the practice began with these
two for they, more than any kings of their time or most kings since,
were really men of rare and saintly character. Curiously but naturally
enough the English have denied any real power in this region to French
kings and the French have claimed a monopoly for their own sovereigns.
The belief in the king's touch persisted long and seems toward the end
to have had no connection with the character of the monarch, for
Charles II did more in this line than any one who ever sat on an English
throne. During the whole of his reign he touched upward of 100,000
people. Andrew White adds that "it is instructive to note, however, that
while in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofula and so
many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of the
disease."

Along with the king's touch went the king's gift--a piece of gold--and
the drain upon the royal treasury was so considerable that after the
reign of Elizabeth the size of the coin was reduced. Special coins were
minted for the king's use in that office and these touching pieces are
still in existence. William III refused to take this particular power
seriously. "God give you better health and more sense," he said as he
once touched a patient. In this particular instance the honest
skepticism of the king was outweighed by the faith of the suppliant. We
are assured that the person was cured. The royal touch was discontinued
after the death of Queen Anne.

The list of healers began early and is by no means ended now. The power
of the healer was sometimes associated with his official station in the
Church, sometimes due to his saintly character and often enough only to
a personal influence, the fact of which is well enough established,
though there can be in the nature of things no finality in the estimate
of his real efficacy. George Fox performed some cures; John Wesley also.
In the seventeenth century one Valentine Greatrakes seems to have been
the center of such excitements and reported healings as Alexander Dowie
and others in our own time and it is finally t