Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Newel Knight on the Healing of Philo Dibble (and the use of one hand, not two hands in a blessing being efficacious)


In November 1833, Philo Dibble was wounded in a mob attack. Recounting his role in the miraculous healing of Dibble, Newel Knight (1800-1847) wrote:

The next day I went to see brother Dibble. I found the house where he laid surrounded with the mob. I managed to get into the house when two of the mob Seated them Selves in the door. I went up to the bed wher he lay in extreme agony. As I looked upon him, not dareing to utter a word of prayer, I laid one hand upon his head while wih the other I drawed the bed curtain to hide us a little from the mob, and lifted my desires to the Lord in behalf of Brother Dibble, after which I arose and went away. As I left him I saw tears fast streaming from his eyes, yet no word passed, but I felt that I had done my errant and felt to trust the event to the Lord. As I to well knew the design of the mob who had stationed there, the I did not feel to give my self in to their power at that time.

The next day I had buisness about ten miles [dis]tant, where to my great joy I found Brother Dibble to all appearance perfectly well. He told me that at the time I laid my hand upon his head he felt the Spirit of the Lord rest upon him and pass gently through his body, and before it pass all pain and soreness so that he felt perfectly easy. In a few minutes he discharged about a gallon of putrid blood also the balls that had entered his body and peices of his clotheing. He rested that night and the nex day made his escape and was nearly out of the County when I met with him. (The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight, eds. Michael Hubbard MacKay and William G. Hartley [Salt Lake City/Provo: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2019], 56-57; spellings in original retained)

Apart from being an early example of the healing associated with priesthood blessings, what is also interesting is that Knight used a single hand, not both his hands, in administering this priesthood blessing, showing that whether one uses one or both hands in such an instance is accidental—what is essential is that at least one hand is used to administer the blessing (a technical issue, sure, but I am “into” such things).

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