(From the Pall Mall Gazette, London, Jan. 12.)

A Modern Miracle Worker.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MR. GEORGE MILNER STEPHEN.

Every one knows Sir James Fitzjames Stephen; most people have heard of Mr. Leslie Stephen—the two most distinguished members of the Stephen family resident in this country. The Stephen clan, however, is widespread, and there are eminent Stephens scattered all over the world. “Any Stephen,” said Mr. Froude in his “Oceanea,” “could not fail to be interesting.” Sir Alfred Stephen, the deputy governor of New South Wales, is declared by Mr. Froude to be regarded as the greatest Australian, by nine out of every ten of the people of Sydney. But the judicial renown of Fitzjames, the literary fame of Leslie, and the colonial reputation of Sir Alfred, all pale their ineffectual fires before the marvellous claims of George Milner Stephen, across whom Mr. Froude stumbled in New Zealand, and who has now turned up unexpectedly in London. He is, as Mr. Froude said, a very noticeable person. In fact, he is a thaumaturgist of the first order. While his relatives in the old country have devoted all the energy of their intellect to demonstrate the absurdity of all the superstitions built upon any arbitrary interference with the invariable laws of nature, their kinsman George Milner suddenly displays at the antipodes a gift of healing which, if the veracious records of colonial and American newspapers can be relied upon, rivals the most famous exploits of apostolic times. Not, indeed, that George Milner has yet raised the dead to life. That is beyond his powers. But all the minor marvels, such as making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk, are accomplished by him in the ordinary course of his daily practice. Although this miracle-working Stephen is a physician whose patients are healed by the touch, he is nevertheless a physician practising the healing art like other eminent authorities—for the prescribed fee of the ordinary medical practitioners. The only difference is that whereas the ordinary physician attends his patient daily for weeks and sometimes months, Mr. Stephen’s course, if a course at all, ends at the latest in three visits, and the charges, therefore, are correspondingly low. Two guineas for consultation fee, one guinea each subsequent visit, or four guineas at the outside, are to be regarded as his retaining fee; but in those cases—and they are said to constitute a large proportion of those submitted to him—in which he effects a complete cure he naturally expects to be remembered by the grateful patient whom he has restored to health. This, however, by the way. In response to an invitation to the Pall Mall Gazette office, Mr. George 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, and in a short time I found myself overwhelmed with patients of high and low degree, begging me to heal them of their diseases. For three months after the discovery of my gift the sudden influx of patients who would not be denied left me no time to attend to my practice; and, willy nilly, I was compelled to give up the law and take to medicine—if you may call by the name of medicine a profession in which no medicine is given.”

“Then do you use no medicine at all?”

“None whatever. The nearest approach to medicine that I ever gave to a patient is a little magnetized ointment—that is, camphorated lard, and a little magnetized oil. But it is only occasionally that I use these. Neither do I use passes, although it was by the use of passes that I first discovered that I possessed this gift.”

“But how do you proceed?”

“Variously. Sometimes I lay my hand upon the part affected; at other times I breathe into the eye, ear, or mouth of the patient. Then, again, on other occasions I am able to banish the disease by a mere word or gesture.”

“Are you a mesmerist or a magnetic healer?”

“Mesmerist I am not; for mesmerism implies the throwing of the patient into a mesmeric sleep. Neither am I a magnetist, properly so called, for there is no outgoing of magnetism from my body when I am healing. The ordinary magnetist admits that he cannot cure more than four persons per diem; I have cured as many as thirty, and beyond the weariness caused by standing, I have been no worse at the end than at beginning.”

“How do you explain these miracles?”

“I don’t call them miracles. They are marvels, and I cannot explain them. All that I know is that I have gone through the Australian colonies, New Zealand, and many of the States in America, and that wherever I have gone the same effect followed. At my touch, diseases and defects declared incurable by the first physicians of the faculty, disappear. I remember well healing Sir James Martin, the chief justice of New South Wales. Six years ago he was given up by the doctors and declared to be dying, breathing with great difficulty, and hardly able to speak without pain. I laid my hand upon his chest, and in a few minutes all difficulty of breathing disappeared, he was able to speak freely, and in a short time he had completely recovered. He resumed his seat upon the bench, and