FAITH HEALER, The. This play in three acts, by William Vaughn Moody, was first produced in New York, at the Savoy Theatre, on 24 Jan. 1910. Henry Miller and Laura Hope Crews were in the cast. It had been previously ,presented in Saint Louis, on 15 March 1W9. The piece is not as definite in its theme nor as human in its story as 'The Great Divide.' But it was a sincere endeavor on the part of the dramatist to show the struggle that takes place between material and spiritual forces to the weakening of the latter. Moody, being a poet, here tried to write something mystical, and only partly suggested why the Faith Healer, endowed with the power of re viving the sick and raising the dead, suddenly lost that power through a lack of faith in him self. Being a dramatist, he was obliged to justify the human love of the Faith Healer for the heroine, and here he accomplished the one satisfactory stroke in the play— the establish ment of the belief that love does not weaken the exercise of the spirit, but rather enhances it.
As an acting play, 'The Faith Healer' is misty, it is unconvincing. This may be due to the fact that it is treated almost realistically, whereas it is mystic; it takes for granted a theme rarely proven in human experience. The quickening of a paralyzed woman into life, the restoring of a sick baby and then the failure as the Faith Healer's power wanes, are difficult of externalizing. But Moody's art is sincere, and one feels his sincerity above his dramatic effectiveness. As in The Great Divide' he falls into the obvious, here contrasting the spiritual exaltation of a devout man with the science of a doctor and the conventional tradi tions of a minister.