The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-24
A BOIL CURED BY FIGS.
HOW KING HFZTKIAH WAS CURED
BY FAITH IN PRAYER

Most Men Too Confident OF Their
own Wisdom to Put Much Faith in
PRAYER Nowadays.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 2S.--At the Tabernacle
to-day the Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, D. D.,
read and expounded chapter about the
multiplication of loaves aud fishes. The
opening hymn was:
1.-THE morning light is breaking.
The darkness disappears"
DIR. Talmage took as the subject Of his
sermon, "a Bad Boil Cured" The tsxb
was: Il have heard thy prayer; behold. 7
will heal thee And Isaiah said; Take a
lump of figs And they took aud laid it on
| the boil, and he recovered."-2 Kings, xx,
81.
Luxurious living is not healthy The
second generation Of kings and queens and
lords and princes is apt to b. brainless and
n,vs INVALID, The The second crop of grass is al
surprised, then. to hear that King
| Hezekah had disorders which broke
out in carbuncle, virulent and death
| ful. The Lord told him he must die ha
| did not want to die He turned his face to
| the wall, so that his prayer would no be
interrupted, and cried to God for his life.
| ing: Behold, will heal thee" But there
was human instrumentality TO be employed.
| This carbuncle needed "cataplasm.n That
Is a tough word we use to snow how IN lch
we know. II in the pulpit we always used
words the people understood, we never
should have any reputation for learning.
| Well, this carb lncle needed a cataplastn.
which is a poultice Your old mother who
| doctored her own children In the time
when physicians were not as plenty as they
| are now, Will tell you that the very best
| poultice III fig, and that was what was
used upon the carburcle Of King Hezekiah.
| The power Of G d, accompanied by this
human instrumentality, cured the king.
In this age of discovery, when men know
so much IL almost kills them, and write so
wisely 1t almost kills us, it has been ound
out that prayer to God Is dead failure. All
| things are arranged according to inexorable
law. There is no use in praying to God for
rain IN time Of drought. he weather
| probabilities" in the morning papers will
| decide the question, rain or no rain, and the
| whole nation in prayer before God would
| not bring down a single drop. / am not
now speaking of an imaginary theory, but
| # that which is believed by ten thou, and
| umes ton thousand men.
IL sickness comes to your household, it
| will depend entirely upon ventilation, good
| diet and the skill of the doctors as to
/ WhtNbci Jcui tAha bchb 0OAis nt ldttttI
night pray all day, and the mother might
| pray all night-it would not have any
| effect upon the case. If squills, belladona,
| pa egoric a d Cruel do the work, your child
| will get well; ii not, not. There Is a cast
iron God seated at the head of the universe,
| holding in the cold grasp of his metal fiug-
ers band Of law from which nothing can
break away.
Men aad women of God, at this D int the
| great battle Of Christianity is to be foug {.
| The great foe Of Christianity to-day is
| ration llism, that comes out from our
| schools aud universities, and magazin, and
| newspapers, to scoff at Bible truth and
| sarica ure the old religion of Jes g. IL
| says Jesus Is not God, for 1t In impossible to
| explain now he can be divine and human
at tho same time. The Bible is not in
| spired, for there are things in 1t that they
| don't like. X generation Is a farce; there
| is good enough in us, and the only thiag Ia
to bring it out Deyelopme It is the word
| --development The Garden of Eden is a
fairy story, and no moro to be believed
/ than the Arabian nights, or Gulliver'a
| Travels. or Robinson @ usoe. We all
started as balloons, aud are blood relations
| TO that monkey squirming about on the top
of that hand-organ. Llzaru- was not dead
| when Christ pretended to raise him; he was
only playi & dead. The water was not
changed into wine at the wedding, but
|
| found elsewhere to make up the deficiency.
Christ did not walk ON the sea, bat on the
shore, 30 near that it seemed as If be really
| were o the water.
What is still more alarming is that
christian mon dare not meet this ridicule.
| There is not one chri tian man in five t1at
can, unblanched, stand in the presence Of
all this raillery, saying: II believe in the
whole Bi le, a d IN every single statements
that it makes. Christian men try TO soften
the Bible down to suit the skeptics. The
skeptics sneer at the dividing OF the Red
sea, and the christian goes TO explaining
that the wind blew hurricane from ono
direction a good while, until all the water
| piled up, and, besides, that 10 was low water
anyhow. and so the Israel tes went through
without any trouble. Why not be frank
and say: al believe that the Lord G Il Al
| mighty came to the brink of tho Rcd sea,
aud with his right arm swung back the bill
lows on the right side, and with
his left arm swung back the bill
| stood up hundreds Of feet higa, wniie
through their CLASSY wall the sea monsters
gaze1 with affrighted eyes on the passing
| Israelitesp The nationalist comes to you,
| saying: How ABOUT Jonah and
the whale! Do you really believe
that fish storyP There were never
so many Nantucket fishermen after one
| WAAttlo h5 biAoio hhfo DCDH ihtAOhhiloso lAuk~
ing harpoon5 at the Mediterr anetn sea-
| monster, and from that one whale they
nave got enough oil TO light ten thousand
| souls 10 perditlJn. A skeptic tells you that
| Jon ih would have been killed Ia the pro-
cess OF swallowing. and that he could not,
anyhow, have lived three days In such close
| quarters, brt would have b el smothered
| by the poor ventilation. How the good
christia 3 Immediately go to work. and try
| TO explain the whole thing By natural laws,
so as TO please the rationa lists. aud say that
"a whale is ap air-breathing fish; that every
| little while ii comes to the sur ace, and that
| the whale that swallowed Jonah did the
same thing, and thus got supply for itself
and for the prophet Why not rather say
that God can do anything; AID be could
take Jonah through the whales throat,
although the throat would not have been
half large o ough ordi .arily to let him
pass, and could have kept him alive in the
| wnale five years without any air, II he had
| chosen tol Who made the whalei q ID
| Who made Jonahl God Then he could
do anything he pleased with either Of them.
| The moment you begin to expla u away
the miraculous and supernatural, YOU sur
render the Bible Take the superAa sufal
out Of the Biole, and you m Ike 1t collee-
tion Of lies aud humbugs. Ia preference To
which | choose E,op's Fables. Tney are
| what they pretend 10 be--fables But IL.
after ali that the Bible declar 5, Jesus is not
| God, and Lazarus was not raised from the
| dead. and the water WAS not turned info