--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Richards, George F. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 19 number: 1 published: 1915-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Richards, George F., "The Lesson Taught by a Healing," *Improvement Era* 19, no. 1 (November 1915): 61.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1901unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1901unse start_page: 61 end_page: 61 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1901unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Lesson Taught by a Healing The Lesson Taught by a Healing BY GEORGE F. RICHARDS, OF THE QUORUM OF TWELVE APOSTLES "But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteous- ness, is accepted with him." — Acts 10:35. I relate the following experience to show that want of age is no bar to the obtaining of favor with the Lord and the exercise of the powers of the priesthood. When I was fifteen years of age I was permitted to receive the ordination of an elder and my endowments in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City. When I was seventeen, my mother had a very serious and extended sickness. One Sunday when she was groaning with pain, we invited the bishop and several other brethren to come to our home after the ward meeting, and they and members of our family present kneeled, prayer was offered, and then the ordinance was performed of anointing with oil and sealing the anointning and praying for my mother. She had frequently been administered to before, and had re- ceived blessing therefrom, but on this occasion she seemed to get no relief, and in the midst of her distress and suffering, soon after the brethren had left us, she asked me to lay on hands and pray for her. In the midst of my tears for my mother's sufferings and the task of performing an administration such as I had never yet done, I retired to another room, and wept and prayed. When I had become composed, I returned to the sick room, and in a few humble, simple words I performed that sacred ordinance as best I knew how. I had the saitsfaction of witnessing the power of the Lord therein, for my mother ceased her groaning, and received relief from her suffering while my hands were yet on her head. I make humble acknowledgment of the mercy and goodness of the Lord, as shown forth on that occasion. I have always since felt that the fact that my mother did not get the relief we hoped for, from the administration of the bishop and other brethren, was not because there was anything wrong with any one of them, or that the Lord did not want to honor the priesthood in them ; but the blessing was reserved to be given in answer to the prayer and administration of a boy, who had been honored to bear the priesthood, to teach that boy the lesson that that priest- hood in the boy is just as sacred and potent as in the man, when that bov lives as he should, and exercises it in righteousness.