Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1890-04-24
DIR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
CHRIST THE ALL POWERFUL SUR
GEoN OF THE WORLD.
An Eloquent Discourse Preached in Brook
Iyn Sunday Evening, April 20-No Ply
sician but Jesus Can Heal the Human
Soul That Is Sick of Sin.


lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the
deaf hear-Matt. H, s.
Doctor" I said to q distinguished
surgeon, do you not get worn out with
constantly seeing so mahy wounds and
broken bones and distortions of the
human body2" "0h, no, he answered,
-all that is overcome by my Joy in cur
ing them" A sublimer or more merci-
full art never came down from Heaven
than the art of surgery. Catastrophe
and disease entered the earth so early
that one of the first wants of the world
was doctor. Our crippled and agon-
lied human race called for surgeon and
family physician for many years before
they came. The first surgeons who an
swered this call were ministers of re-
ligion, namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing il all clergy
men were also doctors, all d. d. were
NJ. DIS, for there are so many cases
where body and soul need treatment at
the same time, consolation and medi-
cine, theology and therapeutics. AS the
first surgeons of the world were also
ministers of religion, may these two
professions always be in full sympathy!
But under what disadvantages the
early surgeons worked from the
fact that the dissection of the
human body was forbidden, first by
the pagans and then by the early
Christians! Apes, being the brutes
most like the human race, were dis
sected, but no human body might be un-
folded for physiological and anatomical
exploration, and the surgeons had to
guess what was inside the temple by
looking at the outside of it. If they
failed in any surgical operation they
were prosecuted and driven out of the
city, as was Archagathus because of his
bold and unsuccessful attempt to save a
patient.
But the world from the very begin
ming kept calling for surgeons, and their
first skill is spoken of in Genesis, where
they employed their art for the incisions
of sacred rite, God making surgery
the predecessor of baptism; and we see
it again II Kings. where Ahaziah, the
monarch, stepped on some cracked lat
tiee work in the palace, and it broke.
and he fell from the upper to the lower
floor, and he was SO hurt that he sent to
the village of Ekron for aid; and
Esculapius, who wrought such wonders
of surgery that he was deified. and tenn
gamos; and Epidaurus and Podelirius
introduced for the relief of the world
phlebotomy; and Damocedes cured the
the cancer of his queen; and Hippocrates
put successful hand on fractures, and
introduced amputation; and Praxagoras
removed distractions; and Herophilus
began dissection; and Erasistratus re-
krp NnIc
eurgeon, removed cataract from the
eye, and used the Spanish fly; and He
liodorus arrested disease of the throat;
and Alexander, of Tralles, treated the
eye; and Rhazas cauterized for the pre-
vention of hydrophobia; and Percival
Pott came to combat diseases of the
spine; and in our own century we have
had Roux and Lauray in France, an
Ashley Cooper and an Abernethy in
Great Britain, and Valentine Mott and
Willard Parker, ana Samuel d. Gross in
America, and galaxy of living sur
geons as brilliant as their predecessors.
What mighty progress in the battling of
disease since the crippled and sick of
ancient cities were laid along the streets,
that people who had ever been hurt or
disordered in the same way might sug-
gest what had better be done for the
patients; and the priests Of olden time,
who wers constantly suffering from colds
received in walking barefoot over the
temple pavements, had to prescribe for
themselves, and fractures were consid-
cred 80 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 Che 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 carbuncles
of Job and Hezekiah; the palpitation of
the heart spoken of in Deuteronomy;
the sunstroke of d child carried from
the fields of Shunem, crying, My. headi
my head!" King Asa's disease of the
feet, which was nothing but gout; de-
fection of teeth, that called for dental
surgery, the skill of which, quite equal
to anything modern, is still seen in the
unrolled Egyptian mummies; the oph-
thalmia caused by the juice Of the newly
ripe fig, leaving the people blind at the
roadside; epilepsy; as in the case of the
young man often falling into the fire,
and oft into the water; hypochondria,
as OF Nebuchadnezzar, who imagined
himself an OK, and going ont to the
fields to pasture; the withered hand,
which in Bible times, as now, came from
the destruction of the main artery, or
from paralysis of the chief nerve; the
wounds of the man whom the thieves
left for dead on the road to Jericho, and
whom the good Samaritan nursed, pour
ing in oil and wine-wine to cleanse the
wound, and oil to sooth it. Thank God
for what surgery has done for the
alleviation and cure of human suffering.
But the world wanted a surgery with
out pain. Drs. Parre and Hickman and
Simpson and Warner and jackson, with
their amazing genius, came on, and with
their an@sthetics benumbed the patient
with narcotics and ethers as the ancients
did with hasheesh and mandrake, and
quieted him for while, but at the re-
turn of consciousness distress returned.
The world has never seen but one sur
geon who could straighten the crooked
limb, cure the blind eye, or reconstruct
drum of soundless ear, or reduceEa
dropsy, without any pain at the time, or
any pain after, and that surgeon was
Jesus Christ, the mightiest, grandest,
gentlest, and most sympathetic surgeon
the world eversa or ever will see; and
He deserves the confidence 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.
notice this Surgeon had fondness
for chronic cases. Many surgeon,
when he has had Q patient brought to
him, has said: why was not this at