The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1890-05-01
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Weekly Discourse Of the Great
Brooklyn Preacher.


bones and distortions OF tae human body@
'Oh, ro,' he answered; 'all that is over
come by my Joy in curing them y A sublimer
or more mercitul art never came down from
heaven than the art of surgery. Catastrophe
and disease entered the earth 81 early taas
one of the first wants Of ths world was a doe
tor. Our crippled and agonizsl human race
called for surgeon and family physician for
many years before they came. The first
surgeons who answered this call were minis
tiers OF religion, namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what a grand tning il all c,ergymen
were also doctors, all ID. DIS were NJ. DIS,
for there are so many cases wners body and
soul need treatment at the same time conso-
lation and medicine, theology and tlerapeu-
tics.
AS the first surgeons OF the world were also
ministers OF religion, may these two profess
sions always be in full sympathy But un-
der what disadvantages tae early surgeons
worked, from the fact that the dissection of
the human body was forbidden, first by the
pagans and then by the early Christiansl
Apes, being the brutes most like the human
race, were dissecsei, but no human body
might be unfo!ded foc physiological and ana
ton.ical exploration and the surgeons had 10
guess what was inside the temple by looking
at the outside Of it. II they failed in any
surgical operation they were prosecuted and
driven out OF the city, as was ATchagathus
because Of his bold but unsuccessful attempt
to save a patient.
But the world from the very beginning
kept calling for surgeons, and their first skill
sspolen of in Genesis, where they employed
their arr for the incisions OF a sacred rite
God making surgery tbs predecessor of bap-
tisn; and we see IT again in IL Kings where
Ahaz'ah, tho monarch, stepped Oh soma
cracked lattice work in the palacs and it
broke, and he fell from the upper to the low
er hoor aud he was so hurt that he sent to
the village of ESron TO-. aid; and Esculapius,
who wrought such wonders OF sur gerry that
he was deified, and temples we're built
for his worship at Pergamos; and Epi.
daurus and Podelirius introduced for
the relief of the world phlebot-
omy; AMI Damoceies cured ths dislocatei
ankle of King Darius and the cancer OF his
queen. and Hippocrates put successful hand
on fractures and introduced amputation, and
Praxagoray removed distractions: and He
rophilus began dissection; and Erasistratus
removed tumors; and Celsius, the Roman
surgeon, removed cataract from the eye and
used the Spanish fly; and Heliodorus arrested
disease OF the throat; and Alexander, of
Iralles. treated the eye; and Rhazas cauter
lied for the prevention o. hydrophobia, and
Perclval Pott came to combat diseases of the
spine and III our own century we have had
Roux anda Larray in France an Ashley
Cooper and an Abernethy in Great Britain,
and Nalentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel u Grcss in Ar,ar;ca sd a gal
axy Oh living sur yeons as brilliant as their
predecessors. What mighty progress in ths
battling of disease sine, tle crippled and
| sick of ancient cities wera laid along the
streets, that people VINO had ever been hurt
or disordered III the sama way might sugy est
what had better be done for the patients; and
the priests of olden time, who were cou-
stantly suffering from colds received in
| H.. 10, 60 y
had to prescribe for themselves and frac-
lures were considered 50 far beyond all
human cure that instead OF calling in the
| surgeons the people Only invoked the gods!
| But notwithstanding all the surgical and
| medical skill OF the world. with what tenacity
the old diseases hang on to the human race,
and most OF them are thousands OF years old,
and in our Bibles we read OF them: the car
buncles Of Job and Hezasiah; the palpitation'
of the heart spoken Of in Deuteronomy, the
sunstroke of a child carried from the fields of
| Shunem, crying: my head. my headw
King Asa's disease of tina feet. which was
nothing but govt; detection OF teeth, that
called for dental surgery, the skill of which,
| quite equal to anything modern, is still seen
in the filled molars OF the unrollej Egyptian
mummies; the ophthalmia caused by the
juice OF the newly ripe fig, leaving the people
blind at the roadside; epilepsy, as in
the case o. the young man often falling into
the fire, and oft into the water; hypocaon-
| dria, as OF Nebucha inezzav, who ina gnsl
himself an OK, and going out to the fields &,
pasture; the withered hand, watch in Bible
| times, as now, came from the destruction of
the main artery, or from paralysis OF the
chief nerve the wounds o. the man whom
the thieves left for dead on the road to
Jericho, and whom the good Samaritan
| nursed, pouring in oil and wine--wine to
clease the wound aud oil to soothe it. Thank
God for what surgery has done for the ale
Walton and cure OF human suffering.
/ hut the world wanted a surgery without
| pain. Drs PARE and Hickman aud Sim,-
son and Warner and Jackson, with their
| amazing genius cana Oil, and vita their
anesthetics benumoed the patient with mar
cotics and others as the ancients did with
| hasheesh and mandrake. and quoted him for
| While but at the return of consciousness
distress returned The world has never seen
| but one surgeon who could straighten the
| crooked limb, cure the bind eye or recon-
| struct the drum of soundless ear or reduce
a drors.., without any pain at the time, or
any pain after, and that surgeon was Jesus
| Christ, the mightiest, grandeSt, gentlest and
NEST sympathetic surgeon the world ever saw
or ever will see; and He deserves the conf
dence and love and worship and hosanna of
| all the earth and halielujahs of all heaven
THE blind receive their sight and the lame
walk: the leperS are cleansed and the deaf
hear
notice this Surgeon had fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon, when he has
had pat ent brought to him, has said:
"Why was not this attended to five years
ago? You bring him to me after all power
| Of recuperation is gone. You have waited
until there is a complete contraction OF the
muscles, and false ligatures are formed, and
oSsidcaton has taken place. 1t ought to have
been attended to long ago" But Christ thu
Surgeon seemed to prefer inve5erats cases.
One was hemorrhage of twelve years, and
He stopped it. Another was curvature OF
eighteen years, and He Strengthened it, An
other was cripple of thirty-eight years and
he walked out well. The eighteen-year pa
tient was woman bent almost double. Ii
| you could call a convention of all the sur
geons OF all the centuries, their combined
skill could not cure that body SO drawn out
of shape.
Perhaps they might stop it from gettins
any worse, perhaps they might contrive
braces by which she might be made more
comfortable, but it is, humanity speaking, in.
durable. Yet this divine Surgeon put both
His hands on her. and from that doubled ny
posture she began to rise, and the empurpled
face began to take on a healthier hue, and
the muscles began to relax from their rigid.
ity, and the spinal column began to adjust IL
self and the cords or the neck began TO De
more supple, and the eyes, that could see only
the ground before. now looked into the fact
of Christ with gratitude, I'd ~ tcD-r'
heaven III transport Straight After eight
cen weary and exhaustive years, straight
The poise, the gracefulness the beauty o
healthy womanhood reinstated.
The thirty eight years case was mar
who lay on mattress near the mineral bath,
att Jerusalem. There were five apartment
xhsre lame people were brought, so tina
they could get the advantage of these min
erai baths. The stone basin of the hath i
still visible, although the waters have dis
appeared, probably throl yh some convulsiol
OF nature, the bath, one hundred and twent.
feet long, forty feet wide and eight fee
deep. All, poor man, If you have been lam
and helpless thirty-eight years, that minera
bath cannot restore you. Why, thirty leigh
years is more than tie average o
human life. Nothing but the grav
will cure you But Christ the Surgeon
walks slong these baths, and l hav
no doubt passes by some patients who hav
been only six months disordered, or year
or five years, and comes to the mattress o
the man who had been nearly four decade
helpless. and to this thirty-eight years in
valid said: "Wilt thou bs made wloles
The question asked. not because the Surgeon
| r.,f. tadn