The Russellville Democrat., 1890-05-01

l speaking, incurable. Yet tniS JfNine
 Surgeon put both His hands on her. and
 from that doubled-up posture she began to rise, and the empurpfed face began l to take n a healthier hue, and the muscles began to relax from their rigid- 1 ity. and the spinal column began to ad- l just itself, and the cords Of the neck be- gan to be supple, and the eyes, that could only see the ground before, now looked up into the face of Christ with gratitude, and up toward Heaven in transport. Straight After eighteen weary and exhaustive years, straight The poise, the gracefulness, the beauty of healthy womanhood reinstated.
 The thirty-eight years case was a man who lay on a mattress near the mineral baths at Jerusalem. There were five apartments where lame peo- pie were brought so that they could get the advantage of the mineral baths. The stone basin of the bath is still visi- ble, although the waters have disap- peared, probably through some convul- sion of nature, the bath. one hundred and twenty feet long, forty feet wide and eight feet deep. An, poor man; if you have been lame and help bless thir- 1 ty-eight years, that mineral bath can not restore. Hut Christ, the Surgeon. walks along these baths, and have no 1 doubt passes by some patients who have been only six months disordered, or a year, or five years, and comes to the mattress of the man who had been near 1 ly four decades helpless, and to this thir- | tx-o irrk% d.. ( |. 1 be made wholef"
 The question asked. not because the Surgeon did not understand the pro tractedness, tho desperateness of the case, but to evoke the mans pathetic narrative. "Syilt thou be made whole?'' Would you like to get well?" ''Oh | yes, says the man, ''that is what l came to these mineral baths for; have tried every thing. All the surgeons have failed, and all the prescriptions have proved valueless, and 1 have got worse and worse, and can neither move hand or foot or head Oh, if 1 could only be free from pain of thirty eight yearsr' Christ, the Surgeon. could not stand that Bending over the man on the mattress, and in voice tender with all sympathy but strong with all omnipotence, He says: Riser And the invalid instantly scrambles to his knees, and then puts out his right foot, then his left foot, and then stood upright as though he had never been prostrated. While he stands looking at the Doctor with joy 1 too much to hold, the Doctor says: shoulder this mattressl for you are not only well enough to walk, but we'll enough to work, and start out from these mineral baths. Take up thy bed anl walk.' Oh, what Sugeon for chronic cases then, and for chronic cases nowl
 This is not applicable somuch to those who are only little hurt of sin, and only for a short time, but to those pros trated of sin twelve years, eighteen years, thirty-eight years. Here is a Surgeon able to give immortal health. "Oh," you say, 1T am so completely overthrown and trampled down of sin that l can not rise" Are you fiatter down than this patient at the mineral baths? No. Then rise In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Surgeon who offers His right hand of help, I bid thee rise. Not cases of acute sin, but of chronic sin--those who have not prayed for thirty-eight years, those who have not been to church for thirty eight years, those who have been gam blers, or libertines, or thieves, or out laws. or blasphemers, or infidels, or atheists, or all these together, for thirty A fsi-u A Christ for dead-lift! A Surgeon who never loses a easel
 In speaking of Christ as Surgeon, must consider Him as an oculist, or eye doctor, and an aurist or ear doctor. Was there ever such another oculist? That He was particularly sorry for the blind folks, 1 take from the fact that the most of His work was with the diseased optic nerves. have not time to count up the number of blind people mentioned who got His cure. Two blind men in one house, also one who was born blind; so that it was not re- creation of the cornea, and ciliary muscle, and crystalline lens, and retina, and optic nerve, and tear gland; and the blind man of Bethsaida, cured by the saliva which the Surgeon took from the tip of His own tongue and put upon the eyelids; also two blind men who sat by the way side. In our civilized lands we have blindness enough, the ratio fearfully in- creasing, according to the statement of Boston and New York and Philadelphia ..tt1i iufu of diy.or fsf ing and evening newspapers on the jolting cars by the null titudes who live out of the city and como in to business. But in the lands where this Divine Sur geon operated, the cases of blindness were multiplied beyond every thing by the particles of sand floating in the air, and the night dews falling on the eyelids of those who slept on tho top of their houses; and in some of these lands it is estimated that twenty out of hundred people are totally blind. Amid all that crowd of visionless peo- pie, what work for an oculistl And I do not believe that more than one out of a hundred of that Surgeons cures were reported. He went up and down among those people who where feeling slowly their way by staff, or led by the hand of man or rope of dog, and introducing them to the faces of their own household, to the sunrise and the sun set and the evening star. He just ran His hand over the expressionless face and the shutters of both windows were swung open, and the restored went home, crying: Il seei l seel Thank God, seer'
 That is the oculist we all need. Till He touches our eyes we are blind. Yea, we are born blind. By nature we see things wrong if we see them at all. Our best eternal interests are put before us and we can not see them. The glories of loving and pardoning Christ are projected, and we do not behold them. Or we have defective sight which makes the things of this world larger than the things of the future, time bigger than eternity Or we are