The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-01-02

you. God said he must die. and then, in
answer to prayer. the cure is given. The
bunch OF figs merely the human and the
God directed instrumentalitv. But,
says some man in the audience. Il don't
believe the bible, anyhow" Well, then,
my brother. we will have to part company
for four or i've minutes, for you cannot
argue with man with whom you cannot
stand on common ground somewhere.
You cannot in any political matter or any
subject at all agree with a man if there
are no common data from which you can
start. II would be absurd for me TO try to
prove to a man that twice three are Elk II
he does not believe the multiplication
table, or that two and two are four II he
does not admit the addition table. So
come with this story OF the text first of all
to you who do believe the bible, and | am
first of all impressed in the subject am
presenting with the idea that the might
lest remedy in the universe is prayer, and
the allopathic and the homeopathic and
the eclectic and the hydropathic and all
styles of schools will yet admit 1t. Here
are two people sick with the same disease.
Their disorders are just alike. The same
kinds OF medicines are given 70 them and
given to them in the same quantities. The
dies. What is the difference? God
blessed the remedy in one case. He does
not bless the remedy in the other case.
There is such thing as gospel hygiene, as
Christian pharmacy, as divine materia
medica. What foolish people we are,
when there is sickness in the house, to
depend upon human resources alone when
the Lord Almighty has wrought such
wonders in the sick room. They are all
right the pills, the plasters, the nostrums,
the catholicons. / believe in them. Let
the apothecary send the poultice but it is
God that makes it draw. God sends sal
walton to all the doctors. The most OF
those whom happen to know are Christ
ian men, and time will come when they
will all be Christian men. Sickness would
often be given back and death would be
hurled from the dOorsill il all physicians
would come. like Isaiah in my text, with
prescription in their hands, the word Of
God in their mouths John Abercrombie,
the greatest physician OF Scotland in his
day, used always to pray when he went to
see patient, prayed while be was there
and prayed when he went away, and his
book on Diseases of tine Brain" is no
more remarkable than his book on THE
Philosophy of the Moral Feelings" How
much OF medical success came to Svden-
ham and Cooper and Rush and Harvey
through the fact that they could pray as
well as prescribe | cannot say. If God
made us land | think He did and if the
bible be true land | rather think it Isl,
then it Is not at all strange that prayer
should traverse natural causes or that in
answer to prayer a new cause should be
instituted. Ii the furnace in my cellar
gets out of order the best man to repair
the furnace is the man who manufactured
1t. If my watch stops the best man to
start it is the matchmaker who made it.
If my body gets broken with disease, the
best one to cure IL is the Maker. God
does not make law so strong He cannot
break it. God does not make a law and
then run away from it. Physicists may
tell us it all depends upon ventilation. or
poisoned air, upon good food or bad diet.
| do not believe that at all. / have known
invalids to get well in a room where the
windows were sealed down tight and for
six months there had not been breath of
fresh air, and l have known people who
were sick and died right under patent
ventilators. What is natural law? Peo-
pie talk about natural law. What is ma
tural law? 1t is Gods usual way of doing
things III He should choose to do
it any other way, He can, l suppose. If
| go thousand times to New York and
900 times l go by the bridge, but one time
out OF THE thousand | choose to go by Wall
St ferry, l suppose l can. If God in most
cases, in the vast majority of cases. does
certain things according to what we call
natural law, suppose he could in certain
cases do something different from natural
law.
But my subject also nightly impresses
me in this same connection with the fact
that prayer must be accompanied by
means. You and l simply insult God
when we ask i'm to do something for us
and we sit idle. PRAYER must be made
not only with the heart, but with the
hands; devotion and activity accompany
il 2 each other. A man may pray every
day, ''Give me this day my daily bread"
and if he does not work he will starve to
death, or ought to. Pray, OF course,
King Hezekiah. but do not forget the zig
poultice.