The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-05-07

and L can neCner move manu- VI
foot or head. Oh, if I could only
Christ the Surgeon could not stand that;
Bending over the man on the mattress and
in a voice tender with all sympathy, but
strong with all omnipotence, He says, ''Rlse!'
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 Frustrated. While he
stands looking at the Doctor with joy too
much to hold, the Doctor says: shoulder
this mattress! 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 and walkn' Oh, what Surgeon
for chronir cases then, and for chronic cases
now!
This is not applicable so much to those who
are only little hurt of sin and only for a
short time, but to those prostrated Of sin
twelve years, eighteen years, thirty-eight
years. Here is a Surgeon able to give I'M
| mortal health. '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 baths?
No. Then rise. In the name OF Jesus OF
Nazareth, the Surgeon who offers you his
right hand of help, l bid thee rise. NO 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
wears, those who have been gamblers or
libertines, or thieves, or outlaws, or BIAS
phemers or infidels, or atheists, or all these
together, for thirty-eight years. A Cnrlst
for exigencies A Christ for dead lift! a
Surgeon who never loses a easel
In speaking Of Christ as surgeon, I 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, take from the face
that the most of His works was with tne DIS.
eased optic nerves. have not time to count
up the numbsr 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 removal Of a visual obstruction,
but the creation of the cornea, and clllary
muscle, and crystalline lens, and retlna,
and optic nerve, and tear gland; also the
blind man of Bethsaida, cured by the saliva
which the Surgeon took from the tip or his
own tongue and put upon the eyehds also
two blind men who sat by the wayslde. IN
our civilized lands we have blindness enough,
the ratio fearfully increasing, according TO
Philadelphia oculists, because OF the reading
Of morning and evening newspapers on tne
jolting cars by the multitudes who live out OF
tho city and come in to business.
But in the lands where this Divine Surgeon
operated. the cases of blindness were multi.
plied beyond everything by the particles or
sand floating in the air, and the night dews
falling on the eyelids of those who slept on
the top of their houses: and in some OF these
lands 1t is estimated that twenty out of
hundred people are totally blind. Amid all
that crowd of visionless people, what work
for an oculist! And do not believe that
more than one out Of hundred OF that Sur.
geon's cures were reported. He went up and
down among those people who were feehng
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 sunset, and the evening star.
He lust ran His hand over the expresslonles5
face. and the shutters of both windows were
swung open, and the restored went home,
CRYING: t.I seel I see! Thank God, I see"
That is the oculist we all need. Till Hs
touches our ewes We are blind Yea, we were
born blind. By nature we sea things wrong
if we see them at all. Our best eternal inter-
ests are put before us, and we cannot see
them. The glories of loving and pardonlng
Christ are projected, and we do not behold
them. Or we have defective sight winch
makes the things of this world larger than
rne things OF the future, time digger than
see the difference between the blackness OF
darkness forever and the roseate morning OF
an everlasting day. But Christ the Surgeon
comes in, and though we shrink back, afraid
to have Him touch us, yet He puts
His fingers on the closed eyelids Of the soul,
and midnight becomes mid-noon; and we
understand something of the joy of the young
man of the Bible, who, though he had never
before been able to see his hand before his
face, now, by the touch Of Christ, had two
headlights kindled under his brow, cried out
in language that COMPOUNDED the Jeerlng
crowd who were deriding the Christ that
had effected the cure and wanted to make
Him out bad man: ''Whether He be sinner
or no, know not; one thing I know, that
whereas was blind, now see."
But this Surgeon was just as wonderful as
an aurist. Very few people have two good
ears. Nine out of ten people are particular
to get on this or that side Of you when they
sit or walk or ride with you, because they
have one disabled ear. Many lave both ears
damaged, and what with the constant rack.
ct of our great cities, and the catarrhal
troubles that sweep through the land, it Is
remarkable that there are any good ears at
all, Most wonderful instrument is the hu-
man ear. 1t is harp and drum and telegraph
and telephone and whispering gallery all In
one. So delicate and wondrous is its con-
struction that'the most difficult Of all things
to reconstruct is the auditory apparatus.
The mightiest of scientists have put their
skill to its returning. and sometimes they stop
the progress of its decadence, or remove
temporary distractions, but not more than
one really deaf ear out of q hundred thou
sand is ever cured. 1t took God to make
the ear, and it takes God to mendit: That
makes me curious to see how Christ the Sur
geon succeeds as an aurist.
We are told of only two cases He operated
on as an ear surgeon. His friend Peter, nat
urally high tempered, saw Christ insulted by
a man by the name Of Malchus, and Peter
let his sword fly, aiming at the mans head,
but the sword slipped and hewed Off the out
side ear, and our Surgeon touched the lacera.
ton and another ear blcomed in the place OF
the one that had been slashed away. But lt
is not the outside ear that hears. That Is
only funnel for gathering sound and pour
ing it into the hidden and more elaborate
ear. On the beach of Lake Galilee our Sur
eeon found a man deaf and dumb. The pa
tient dwelt in perpetual silence, and was
speechless. He could not hear note OF mu.
sic OF clap of thunder. He gould not cal
father or mother or wife or children by name
What power can waken that dull tympanum
or reach that chain of small bones or revive
that auditory nerve or open the gate between
the brain and the outside world? The Sur
geon put His fingers in the deaf ears and agi,
tated them, and kept on agitating them until
the vibration gave vital energy to all the
dead parts, and they responded. and when
our Surgeon withdrew His fingers from the
ears the two tunnels of sound were clear Tor
all sweet voices of music and friendship. FOR
the first time in his life be heard the dash OF
the waves of Galilee. Through the desert OF
painful silence had been built a kings high.
way of resonance and acclamation. Butyet
he was dumb. No word had ever leaped over
bis lin Snnech WAS chained under his tongue