"A few weeks ago I was called to the County Hospital in Salt Lake City by a mother. I didn’t know her. She said her boy was dying from polio and asked if I would come down and give that boy a blessing. So I picked up a young bishop whom I generally take with me, for I think his faith is greater than mine, and I always like him along. We went down there and here was this young lad in an iron lung, unconscious, his face rather a blackish color, with a tube in his throat, and they said he had one lower down in his abdomen. He had been flown in from an outlying community. The mother said to me, “This is an unusual boy, not because he’s my child, but he is an unusual boy.” I think he was eight or nine years of age.
After they put the usual coverings on us we went in and we blessed that boy. It was one of those occasions when I knew as I laid my hands upon that lad that he was an unusual boy, and that he had faith. Having faith in his faith, I blessed him to get well and promised him he would. I never heard anymore about him until last Saturday. I was on my way to Murray to conference. I dropped in at the County Hospital, and I asked if I might see the lad. The nurse said, “Certainly. Walk right down the hall.”
As I walked down the hall, out came the boy running to meet me. He ran up and asked, “Are you Brother Cowley?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “I want to thank you for that prayer.” He added, “I was unconscious then, wasn’t I?” I replied, “You certainly were.” He said, “That’s the reason I don’t recognize you.” Then he asked, “Come on in my room; I want to talk to you.” He was an unusual boy.
Well, we went in the room. He still had a tube in his throat. I said, “How long are you going to have that tube there?” He said, “Oh, two weeks. Two more weeks and then I’m all well. How about another blessing?” So I said, “Certainly.” I blessed him again, and then I was in a hurry. I wanted to get out to my conference. But he stopped me and asked, “Hey, how about my partner in the next bed?” There was a young fellow about sixteen or seventeen. I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Don’t go out without blessing him. He’s my partner.” I said, “Sure.” Then I asked the boy, “Would you like a blessing?” He said, “Yes, sir. I’m a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood in my ward.” I blessed him, and then my little friend left and brought another fellow in. Here was another partner. And I blessed him.
Now, except ye believe as a child, you can’t receive these blessings. We have to have the faith of a child in order to believe in these things, especially when you reach college age and your minds are so full of skepticism and doubt. I guess there are some things that you should doubt, but you can become as little children in these things. Miracles are commonplace, brothers and sisters."
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"I telephoned one day from Honolulu to my home. I asked the engineer there at the radio-phone place, “How can I talk confidentially to my wife? If I send this message out into the air, anybody with a ham radio can reach out and pick it up.” He said, “Yeah, that’s right, but they won’t understand it.” I said, “Well, why not?” He said, “Well, when your words go out of this transmitter we jumble them up; there is no meaning to them. But when they go into the receiver on the mainland they are all straightened out again, and your wife will understand them just as you spoke them.”
My, I’m glad of that. I’ll tell you why. I get my prayers so jumbled up sometimes that I’m glad there’s a receiving set over on the other side that will straighten out the things I’m trying to say. And I believe that. I’m just simple enough to believe that. I’m simple enough to believe that if man can talk to man across the ocean and across the world with these instruments, then man can talk to God; that God has as much power as man, as much control over the elements."...
"Remember we have great opportunities, great opportunities to bless. Sometimes I wonder if we do enough in our administration of the sick. You know when the disciples tried to cast out a dumb spirit they couldn’t do it, or they didn’t do it. The Master came along, and he immediately cast out the dumb spirit. Then the disciples said, “Why could not we cast him out?” And what did Christ say? “This kind cometh not out save by fasting and by prayer.”
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"I was called to a home in a little village in New Zealand one day. There the Relief Society sisters were preparing the body of one of our saints. They had placed his body in front of the big house, as they call it, the house where the people come to wail and weep and mourn over the dead, when in rushed the dead man’s brother. He said, “Administer to him.” And the young natives said, “Why, you shouldn’t do that. He’s dead.” “You do it!”
This same old man that I had with me when his niece was so ill was there. The younger native got down on his knees and he anointed this man. Then this great old sage got down and blessed him and commanded him to rise. You should have seen the Relief Society sisters scatter. He sat up and said, “Send for the elders; I don’t feel very well.” Of course, all of that was just psychological effect on that dead man. Wonderful, isn’t it—this psychological effect business? We told him he had just been administered to, and he said, “Oh, that was it.” He said, “I was dead. I could feel life coming back into me just like a blanket unrolling.” He outlived the brother that came in and told us to administer to him."
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"I’ve told the story about the little baby nine months old who was born blind. The father came up with him one Sunday and said, “Brother Cowley, our baby hasn’t been blessed yet, we’d like you to bless him.” I said, “Why have you waited so long?” “Oh, we just didn’t get around to it.” …
I said, “All right, what’s the name?” So he told me the name, and I was just going to start when he said, “By the way, give him his vision when you give him a name. He was born blind.” It shocked me, but then said to myself, why not? Christ said to his disciples when he left them, “Greater things than I have done shall you do.” (See John 14:12.) I had faith in that father’s faith. After I gave that child its name, I finally got around to giving it its vision. That boy is about twelve years old now. The last time I was back there I was afraid to inquire about him. I was sure he had gone blind again. That’s the way my faith works sometimes. So I asked the branch president about him. And he said, “Brother Cowley, the worst thing you ever did was to bless that child to receive his vision. He’s the meanest kid in this neighborhood; always getting into mischief.” Boy I was thrilled about that kid getting into mischief!"
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"One of the missionaries called me off to the side and said, “A few months ago my companion and I went into a hogan and that lady, that Indian sister, was lying on the ground on a sheepskin. She had been lying there for six long years. We called on her, and when we were leaving she called us back and said in broken English, ‘Isn’t there something you do for sick people?’ And we said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Please do it for me.’ ” So they got down on their knees and administered to her, by the authority of the priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they left, and they weren’t away fifty yards when she came out of the hogan after them and said, “Come back and see what you have done for me.” She walked."
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"God does have control of all of these elements. You and I can reach out, and if it’s his will we can bring those elements under our control for his purposes. I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. And if there ever was a miracle in the history of mankind, that miracle is this Church which has grown to its present greatness in the earth. And your institution here stems from the prayer of a boy who was persecuted, who was driven from pillar to post, whose life was taken, who has been branded as the greatest fraud that ever lived on the American continent. This Church from that kind of a fraud is the greatest miracle of modern history. And it’s a miracle of God our Father. May you all have an inward witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that God used him to bring about His purposes in this dispensation of the fulness of times. May we always be loyal, devoted and simple in our faith."
Elder Matthew Cowley, 'Miracles', BYU Devotional Feb. 18, 1953
You should read the rest of the talk.
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=e9d746581c79b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
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