Connecticut western news., 1890-04-23


 and love and worship and hosanna of all the earth, and hallelujahs of all heaven. "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear"
 HE PREFERS CHRONIC CASES
 notice this Surgeon had fondness for chronic cases. Many a surgeon, when he has had & patient brought to him, has said: "Why was not this at tended to five years ago9 You bring him to me after all power of recupera- ton is gone. You have waited until there is a complete contraction of the muscles, and false ligatures arc formed, and justification has taken place. It ought to have been attended to long ago" But Christ the Surgeon seemed to prefer inveterate eases. One was hemorrhage of twelve years, and he stopped it. Another was a curvature of eighteen years, and he strengthened it. Another was cripple of thirty eight years, and he walked out we'll
 The eighteen year patient was wo- man bent almost double If you could call convention of all the surgeons of all the centuries, their combined skill could not cure that body so drawn out of shape.
 Perhaps they might stop it from get
 ting any worse, perhaps they might contrive braces by which she might
 be made more comfortable, but it is,
 humanly speaking, incurable. Yet this divine Surgeon put both his hands on
 her, and from that doubled up posture she began to rise, and the empurpled
 face began to take on healthier hue,
 and the muscles began to relax from
 their rigidity, and the spinal column began to adjust itself, and the cords of the neck began to be more supple, and the eyes that could see only the ground before now looked 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 re- instated. |, The thirty eight years case was man who lay OH 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 these mineral
 baths The stone basin of the bath is still visible, although the waters have disappeared, probably through some
 convulsion 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 helpless thirty-eight years, that min eral bath cannot restore you. Why, thirty-eight years IS more than the
 average of human life! Nothing but the grave will cure you. But Christ the Surgeon walks along these baths, and I have no doubt passes by some l patients who have been only six months disordered, or year, or five years, and comes to the mattress of ] the man who had been nearly four ] decades helpless, and to this thirty eight years invalid said: Wilt thou l be made whole7"
 The question asked, not because the Surgeon did not understand the pro-
 taetedness, the desperateness of the 1 case, but to evoke the mans pathetic ] narrative. Wilt thou be made whole?'
 Would you like to get well2' ''Oh yes," says the man, that is what l 1 came to these mineral baths for; 1 have 1 tried everything. All the surgeons
 have failed, and all the prescriptions have proved valueless, and have got worse and worse, and I can neither move hand or foot or head. Oh, if l
 could only be free from this pain of thirty eight years" Christ the Sur 1 Keon could not stand that. Bending 1 over the man on the mattress, and in 1 8 voice tender with all sympathy. but l strong with all omnipotence, he says,
 '.'.Rise!'' And the invalid instantly scrambles to his knees, and then puts 1 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 a l jov too much to hold, the doctor says l Shoulder this mattress! for you are not only we'll enough to walk, but
 we'll enough to work, and start out 1 from these mineral baths. Take up l thy bed and walk!' Oh what Sur geon for chronic cases then. and for
 chronic cases now!
 ABLE TO GIVE IMMORTAL HEALTH. 1 This is not applicable so much to l those who are only little hurt of sin, 1 and only for a short time, but to those prostrated of sin twelve years, eighteen l years, thirty y-eight years. Here is Surgeon able to give immortal health. 1 "Oh," you say. II am so completely overthrown and trampled down of sin
 that cannot rise." Are you fatter
 down than this patient at the mineral l baths3 No. Then rise. In the name
 of Jesus of Nazareth, the Surgeon who
 offers you his right hand of help, bid l thee rise. Not cases of acute sin, but
 of chronic sin-those who have not
 prayed for thirty-eight years, those l who have not been to chNrch for thirty eight years. those who have been
 gamblers, or libertines, or thieves, or
 outlaws, or blaspheuers, or intidels,
 or atheists, or all these together, for 1 thirty eight years. A Christ for exi- 1 gencies! A Christ for dead lift! A l Surgeon who never loses a case!
 1 In speaking of Christ as a surgeon, 1 must consider him as an oculist, or | eye doctor, and a1 aurlst, or ear doctor. 1 Was there ever such another oculist7 l That he was particularly sorry for the 1 blind folks, I take from the fact that l the most of his works was with the
 diseased optic nerves. have not time 1 to count up the number of blind peo- l pie mentioned who got his cure. Two l blind men in one house, also one who
 was born blind; so that it was not re-
 moval of a visual obstruction, but the l creation of the cornea, and ciliary
 muscle, and crystalline lens, and reti
 na, and optic nerve, and tear gland; 1 also 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 wayside. In our civil
 ized lands we have blindness enough,
 the ratio fearfully increasing, accord l ing to the statement of Boston and l New York and Philalelphia oculiStS