The Praise Cure

Lilian B. Yeomans, ,

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The Praise Cure.

PSALM 103: 1-7.

LILIAN B. YEOMANS, M.D.

Good News, July 1924, vol 15, no.7.

I have administered a good many cures, seen a good many administered, and heard about a good

many more. I remember a friend telling me of one she took, but the results were certainly not

lasting, as she repeated it every year.

"It was horribly expensive," she said, "but, as I had plenty of money in those days that didn't

matter so much; but the unpleasantness of it I shall never forget."

"What was there so unpleasant about it?" I inquired.

mineral water, which my doctor says my constitution needs. It is horribly nasty, tastes as sulphur

matches and rotten eggs would taste, to judge by the smell. When I got there I was put into a

little attic room, and had to be thankful to get it, the place was so crowded. It was a room such

that I would not dare to ask anyone to sleep in, even a tramp. Then we were wakened in the

morning at five o'clock by a sort of clapper, which made a very loud and grating noise. At the

very first stroke we had to leap up."

"Why such haste?"

"Because if we didn't get up immediately we should be late, and that meant no breakfast. That

was part of the cure!"

"Oh, I understand. I suppose, then, you hastily took your bath and ran down to a well-prepared

meal?"

"That's all you know about it. There was no bathroom, and, already blue with cold, I had to wash

in a hand basin in ice water. Honestly, I have sometimes found a thin film of ice on the water in

the jug. Then I had to dress as quickly as ever I could in outdoor things, including heavy walking
boots, and, putting on a warm wrap, I dashed downstairs to join the procession on the way to

breakfast."

"Why, where was breakfast?"

"Oh, miles and miles away. That was part of the cure. The road was very rough; I think that was

to shake up your liver."

"Well, I suppose you arrived at last, and went into a building where they had a huge, open

fireplace with great logs burning in it, and sat down in front of its grateful warmth to a

substantial German breakfast, all steaming hot.'

"No, when we reached our destination we were at a sort of fountain, surrounded by a platform

which was always slippery and damp, where we formed in line and at last reached the man who

dispensed the water. When you gave your name he turned to a sort of file he had, to see how

many glasses you had to drink, and handed them to you one by one, watching to see that you

consumed the last drop of each. Then, and not till then, he handed you a ticket that entitled you

to breakfast, and you made a mad rush with the rest of the patients for a sort of garden (only it

had no flowers in it—nothing but some discouraged shrubs), where there were some small tables

(for we always took our meals in the open air if possible—that was part of the cure), on which
were some rolls of black bread. But, I tell you, it tasted good, and the only trouble was—the rolls

were so small."

"But you could eat plenty of them, I suppose," I interjected.

"Maybe you're a doctor, but it's plain to me that you know nothing about 'cures,' " my friend said,

almost contemptuously. "No, we were allowed only two rolls at the outside; some patients got

only one all the time they were there. Once in a great while some of us got an egg each, or a very

thin slice of cold meat with our roll; but that was only by the doctor's special orders. Then we

had a cup of very weak coffee made with milk. It was hot, and was the only warm thing we

encountered from the time we got up until dinner time. They usually had some very thin soup tor

dinner, and two kinds of vegetables (very small helpings) and some days a tiny bit of meat or

fish. No dessert excepting, on gala days, an apple. Supper wasn't worth mentioning, and often I

was deprived of it all together. It was considered a great cure, and you had to apply months

beforehand to be sure of getting in.

That's one kind of a cure; and there have been, and are, many others, such as the grape cure,

where patients are allowed to eat all the ripe grapes they can but nothing else of any kind; the

barefoot cure, where they go barefoot; the hot-mud cure—no, they didn't have to eat it, only

wallow in it, etc., etc. I am far from saying that nothing is accomplished by these a other kindred

methods; but I do say that the cure which I am going to speak to-night is the only sure cure. It is

the most expensive cure ever known, but the price was paid by another, for it was purchased "not
with corruptible things, such as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a

lamb without blemish and without spot." (1 Peter 1: 19.) So the poorest may enjoy its fullest

benefits. I call it the Praise Cure, because it is most readily applied by simply singing yourself

into it. "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto

Him, and bless His name." (Psalm 100: 4.)

You can sing yourself and shout yourself into and through things that you can't get into or

through by any other way.

There was an old man, a Presbyterian elder, who was terribly opposed to anybody making a

noise over religion. He thought religion should be like the newest style of typewriters, absolutely

noiseless, and with a guarantee to that effect. He had one daughter, however, a most saintly girl,

who had so much glory in her soul that she occasionally boiled over. He labored over her to no

effect, for it seemed as though she could not help it, though she hated to grieve her old daddy. At

last one day the old man came to the end of his well-spent life and, as he felt himself entering the

valley of the shadow of death, he had a glimpse of the glory that is to be revealed and, to the

amazement of all his family, he gave one shout of great joy and cried Cor his shouting girl,

"Come along, Susan, and help me to shout my way through, clear home to glory." And that is

exactly what she did, though the tears were streaming down her face in the meanwhile.

We can stand on God's Word for salvation and healing after we have met God's conditions and

have grounded every weapon of rebellion, and can praise our way through to perfect, manifested
victory. This I call the Praise Cure; and it never fails when the praise is the outflow of a heart

resting on God's unchanging

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love. Years ago a missionary from China was at Beulah Heights, who had a most wonderful

healing from smallpox, while on the field by the application of the Praise Cure.

Though she had not been vaccinated, she fearlessly helped a sister missionary, who had the

disease, standing on God's promise that no plague should come nigh her dwelling, when a very

bad case of confluent small-px (that was what it looked like to the doctors) came on her. She did

not know what to do, so she asked the Lord, and He told her to sing and praise Him for His

faithfulness to His Word. Others took her and shut her up and told her to he quiet, but she said if

she didn't praise God the very stones would cry out. So she sang and sang, and praised and

praised. The doctor said he feared for her life--that the case was infectious, and awful

complications were tlneatening; but she praised and praised, and sang and sang. He said she was

evidently delirious but they had so little help that he couldn't restrain her, and she sang and sang,

and praised and praised. They told her that if by any chance she recovered she would be

disfigured for life; and she sang and praised louder than ever. They asked: 'Why do you praise so

much?" And she answered, "because I have so many pocks on me, God shows me I must praise

Him for each one separately." And she kept right at it. "The Lord had shown her a vision of two

baskets, one containing her praising, half full, and the other one, in which was her testing. He
told her that the praise basket must be filled so that it would out- balance the others, so she kept

at it. Her songs and shouts were so Spirit-filled that they were contagious, and the nurses, who

were Christians, couldn't resist joining in them; so they kept the place ringing. At last the Lord

showed her that the Praise basket was full and overflowing. She saw it sink, and the testing

basket rise in the air; and in a moment, as it seemed, the eruption and all attending symptoms

vanished, leaving no trace in the way of so much as a single scar.

Perhaps, to some, that may seem almost too much to believe; but I, from my personal experience,

can furnish a case where the smallpox eruption disappeared instantaneously in answer to

believing prayer and the application of the Praise Cure.

One evening, we were about to open the meeting at the mission where I was then working, when

a man ran hastily into the hall and asked to have a few moments' private conversation with me. I

led the way to the prayer room and, coming up quite close to me

(I saw that he believed that I really believed in Divine Healing), he said:

"Dr. Yeomans, my wife has just come out all over with smallpox!"

"How do you know that it is smallpox?" I inquired.

to get the health doctor and have the place placarded 'SMALLPOX' without a moment's delay.

But as soon as he had left the house, my wife said, 'Run down to the Mission—they will just be

beginning the meeting-—-and get Dr. Yeomans to pray, and I am sure God will clear this plague

off my skin and out of my blood.'"

So right on the spot we applied the Praise Cure by "absent treatment," as the Christian Scientists

say, and the brother ran home to find his wife without a single trace of the disease. A little later

the doctor returned with the health doctor, and was unmercifully joshed by the latter for reporting

a, case of smallpox when there wasn't a pock in sight, nor any symptom

"Where is your smallpox?" the health official inquired.

"It was here when I left."

"Well, where is it now?" inquired the health doctor, and with some jokes as to the probable

character of the beverages which his colleague had been indulging in, he left the place without

further comment.
Yes, the Praise Cure works every time. It is not unpleasant; rather, it is delightful. The cost of it

has been met for us by another, and it is available this moment to each and every one of us.

Are you ready to begin it? The last clause of the 8th verse of the 1st chapter of the 1st epistle of

Peter tells us exactly how to begin. Listen, "BELIEVING, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and

full of glory."

Just believe what God says about what Jesus has done for you, body, soul and spirit; think about

it, talk about it, sing about it, shout about it, and the Praise Cure has begun. You are not to take it

once a year, but all the time. "I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in

my mouth." (Ps. 31: 1.) The Psalms—the Book of Praise inspired by the Holy Ghost, which has

been used by the people of God in all ages, which Jesus Himself used—are full of this Praise

Cure. Just observe the first verses of the 103rd Psalm:—

"Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth Ihee with

loving-kindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things so that thy youth

is renewed like the eagle's."

that third verse, praised himself into perfect, rugged health that lasted a lifetime. Begin now. You

can't afford to postpone it by so much as a moment. Tread the young lions under your feet by the

praise of faith. It has never failed, and never will.

© Southern Cross College, 2003.