Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1893-06-02
sREV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE RROOKLYN DTvTNE'S SUM-
DAY SERMON.
Subject: ''The Healing Touch"

G0e way 70 see Him restore &c complete neaIEc
o dying person Some thought He could
affect the cure others that He could not. AT
amy rate, 1t would be an interesting expert
ment. very sick woman of twelve years
tnvalidism is in the crowd. Some say her
name was Martha ;others say was Veronica
do not know what her name was, but this
Ia certain, she had tried all styles of
cure. Every shelf Of her humble home had
medicines On it. She had employed many OF
the doctors of that time. when medical
science was more rude and rough and igno-
Rant than we can imagine in this time when
fhe word physician or surgeon stands Tor
potent and educated skill. Professor Light
foot gives a list of what he suppOses may
have been the remedies she has applied.
suppose she had been blistered from head to
foot and had tried the compress and had
used all styles OF astringent herbs, and she
had been mauled and hacked and cut and
lacerated until life to her was a plague. Be-
side that the Bible indicates her doctors bills
had run up frightfuily. and she had paid
money for medicines and for surgical attend
ance and for hygienic apparatus until her
purse was as exhausted as her body.
What, poor woman, are you doing in that
iosting crowd? Better go home and to bed and
nurse YOUR disorders. No Wan and wasted
and faint she stands there, her face distorted
with suffering, and ever and anon biting he-
IiD with some acute pain and soDbing until
her tears fell from the hollow eye upon the
faded dress, only able to stand because the
crowd is so close to her, pushing her this
way and that. Stand back! Why do you
crowd that poor body? Have you no consid
Grafton for dying woman? But just at that
time the crowd parts, and this invalid comes
almost up to Christ. But she is behind Him,
and His human eye does not take her in.
She has heard so much about His kindness to
the sick and she does feel so Wretched she
thinks if she can only just touch Him once it
will do her good. She will not touch Him
on the sacred head, for that might be 1r-
reverent She will not touch Him on the
hand, for that might seem too familiar.
She says: Il will, think, touch Him on
His coat not on the top of it, or on the bot
tom of the main fabric, but Oh the border,
the blue border, The long threads Of the
fringe of that blue border there can be no
harm IN that. don't think He will hurt me. [
have heard 80 much about Him. Besides that,
I can stand this no longer. Twelve years Of
suffering have worn me out. This Is my last
hope" And she presses through the crowd
still farther and reaches for Christ, but can
not quite touch Him. She pushes still farther
through the crowd and kneels and puts her
finger to the edge of the blue fringe OF the
border She Just touches it. Quick as an
electric fash there thrilled back into her
shattered nerves. and shrunken veins, and
exhausted arteries, and painting lungs, and
withered muscles, health, beautiful health,
rubicund health, God given and complete
health. The - years march of pain and
pang and suffering over suspension bridge OF
nerve and through tunnel Of bone instantly
halted.
Christ recognizes somehow that magnetic
and healthful influence through the medium
of the blue fringe of His garment had shot
out. He turns and looks upon that excited
crowd and startles them with the lnterroga-
tory of nv text. '!WhO touched Me?'' The
insolent crowd in substance replied: GLOW
do we know? You get in a crowd Like this
and you must expect to be jOstled. You ask
us a question you know we cannot answer.
But the rOseate and rejuvenated woman cams
\ - -, Of Whist and al Of
the touch. and told of the restoration, and
Jesus said: ''Daughter, thy faith had made
thee whole. Go in peace" SO Mark gives
us a dramatization of the gospel. Oh, what
q doctor Christ is In every one of our house
holds may He be the family physician:
Notice that there is no addition of help to
others without subtraction OF power from
ourselves The context says that as soon as
this woman was healed Jesus felt that virtue
or strength had gone out of Him. No ad-
dition of help to others without subtraction
of strength from ourselves. Did you never
get tired for others? Have you never risked
your health for others? Have you never
preached a sermon, or delivered an ex-
hortation, or offered burning. prayer, and
then felt afterward that strength had gone
out of you? Then you have never initiated
Christ?
Are you curious to know how that garment
of Christ would have wrought such cure
for this suppliant invalid? l suppose that
Christ was surcharged with vitality. You
know that diseases may be conveyed from
city to city by garments as In case OF cpl
demic, and SO | suppose that garments may
be surcharged with health. l suppose that
Christ had such physical magnetism that it
permeated all His robe down to the last
thread on the border Of the blue fringe. But
in addition to that there was a divine thrill,
there was a miraculous potency, there was an
omnipotent therapeutics, without which this
II years invalid would not have been in
stGntly restored.
Now if OmnipotCnce cannot help others
without depletion. how can we ever expect
to bless the world without self sacrifice. A
man who gives to some Christian object until
he feels it, q man who in lis occupation or
pr feSsiOn overWOrks that he may educate
his children, man who on Sunday night
goes home, all his nervous energy Wrung Out
by active service in church, or Sabbath
school, or city evangelization, has initiated
Christ and the strength has gone out of him.
A mother who robs herself Of sleep in behalf
of sick cradle. a wife who bears up cheer
fully under domestic misfortune that she may
encourage her husband in the combat against
disaster a woman who by hard saving and
earnest prayer and good counsel wisely given
and many years devoted to rearing her family
for God and usefulness and heaven, and has
nothing to show for it but premature gray
hairs and profusion of deep wrinkles, Is
like Christ, and strength has gone out Of her.
That strength or virtue may have gone out
through a garment she has made for the
home, that strength may have gone out
through the sock you knit for the barefoot
destitute, that strength may go out through
the mantle hung up in some closet after you
are dead So a crippled child sat every
morning on her fathers front step so that
when the kind Christian teacher passed by to
school she might take hold of her dress and