The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1888-12-28

try to explain the whole thing by nat
ural laws, so as to please the rational
ists and say that the whale is an air
breathing fish; that every little while
II comes to the surface, 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;
and he could take Jonah through the
whales throat although the throat
would not have been half large enough
ordinarily to let him pass, and could
have kept him alive in the whale five
years without any air, If he had chosen
too Who made the whalea God.
Who made Jonah2 God. Then he
could do anything he pleased with
either Of them.
WHAT REMAINS OF THE BIBLE WITH
OUT MYsTERY2
The moment you begin to explain
away the miraculous and supernat-
ural, you surrender the Bible. Take
the supernatural out of the Bible, and
you make it collection Of lies and
humbugs, in preference to which I
choose "Rsop's Fables" They are
what they pretend to be--fables. But
if, after all that the Bible declares, Jesus
is not God, and Lazarus was not raised
from the dead, and the water was not
turned into wine, and the Red Sea was
not divided, and in answer to prayer
Hezekiah's boil did not get well, then
the Bible is the worst fraud ever per-
petrated in Gods universe.
Il ,,,x, fu,a,,6e hox,o xr, hoa,,
taken9 Does God hear and answer
prayer, or does he not9 Hezekiah was
sick unto death; he prayed for his
life; God heard him, and added fif-
teen years to that lifetime. The prayer
saved him--the lump of figs applied
being merely the God appointed hui
man instrumentality. F'But," says
some one, II don't believe the Bible"
All! then we will have to part COM
pany for four or five minutes, for it is
useless to try to argue with any man
with whom you cannot stand upon
common ground. In any argument,
if you would be successful, there must
be some common data to start from.
1t is foolish to try to prove to man
that twice three are six, provided he
does not admit the multiplication
table, or that two and two are four, if
he does not admit the addition table.
My first address, therefore, is to
those who do believe in the Bible. I
want to tell you that prayer is the
mightiest OF all remedies, and that the
allopathic and homeopathic and the
eclectic schools will yet acknowledge
~ n, two Ooc IF cIOIyr, ncc
cisely alike: the same kind Of medi-
cine is given to both of them, and in
the same quantities. The one patient
RECEIVERS and the other does not.
Why9 God blesses the one remedy
and does not bless the other. Prayer
has helped many laundering doctor
through with case that would have
otherwise become completely unman
ageable. There is such a thing as
Gospel hygiene, as Christian phar
macy, as. divine materia medica. That
is q foohxhsman who, in case of, sick
ness, goes only to human resources
when we have these instances of
the Lords help in the sick room. Be-
fore you call the doctor, while he is
there, and after he goes away, look up
to him who cured Hezekiah. Let the
apothecary send the poultice, but God
makes it draw. Oh l am glad to have
a doctor who knows how to pray. God
send salvation to all the doctors Sick
ness would be oftener baked, death
would be oftener hurled back from
the door sill, if medical men came
into the sick room, like Isaiah of the
text, with a prescription in their hands,
and the word of the Lord in their
mouths.
SOME MEN WHO BELIEVED IN PRAYER.
John Abercrombie, the most cele-
brated physician of Scotland, prayed
when he went into the sick room, and
he wrote no more ably about dds
eases of the brain" than about "the
philosophy Of the moral feelings" ]
don't know how much of the medical
success of Sydenham, and Cooper, and
Harvey, and Rush, depended upon the
fact that they knew how to pray as
we'll as to prescribe. / don't want a
physician who sees no God in human
anatomy to doctor my broken bones.
If God made us land / think he did),
and if the Bible is true land / am
rather disposed to think it is), then it
is not strange that prayer does ira
verse natural cause; ay, that it intro
duces new cause When God made
the law, he did not make it so strong
he could not break it. If God made
our bodies, when they are broken, he
is the one to mend them; and it is rea
sonable that we should call him in
to do it. If my furnace in the
cellar breaks down, there is no one so
competent to repair it as the manu-
facturer. If my watch stops, there is
no one so competent to set it going as
the one who made it. If the body is
disordered, call in the Maker of it. 1t
is not all, as these physicists tell us, a
matter of ventilation or poisoned air,
Of cleanliness or dirt, Of nutritious
diet or poor fare. ! have known people |
toget well in rooms where the windows |
had been six weeks down, tight shut,
and I have known them to die right |
under patent ventilators. have
known children sickly who every day |
had their bath, and I have known
children robust, the washing of whose |
faces would make their features un-
recognizable.