The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-22
TALMAGE IN HIS PULPIT.
Only a Touch the Subject Of His
Sermon Yesterday.


the savior's Garment AS He Passed
Her-The Beautiful Lessons De-
Quoted From the Story.
Brooklyn, May 2l.-Rev. DR. Talmage
to-day chose for the subject Of his dis
course, the inquiry addressed by the
Savior to those who surrounded him,
when, the invalid woman having touched
his garment, he asked, "Who touched
meln Mark v, 81.
A great crowd of excited people elbowing
each other this way and that, and Christ
in the midst of the commotion. They
were on the way to see him restore to
complete health a dying person. Some
thought he could effect the cure, others
that he could not. At any rate, it would
be an interesting experiment. A very
sick woman of twelve years invalidism is
in the crowd. Some say her name was
Martha, others say IL was Veronica. lido
not know what her name was
but this is certain; she had tried all
styles of cure Every shelf of her hum
BILE home had medicines on it. She had
employed many of the doctors of that
time when medical science was more rude
and rough and ignorant than we can inn
clan or surgeon stands for potent and ed-
ucated skill. Prof. Lightfoot gives a list
OF what he supposes may have been the
remedies she had applied. / suppose she
had been bistered from head TO foot, and
had tried the compress, and bad used all
styles Of astringent herbs, and she had
been mauled and hacked and cut and lac
Grated until life to her was a plague.
Beside that, the Bible indicates her doc
tors bills had run up frightfully, and she
had paid money for medicines and for
surgical attendance and for hygienic APP
paratus until her purse was as exhausted
as her body.
What, poor woman, are you doing in
that jostling crowdl Better 90 home and
to bed and nurse your disorders. Mol
Wan and wasted and faint she stands
there her face distorted with sufferings,
and ever and anon biting her lip with
some acute pain, and sobbing until her
tears fall from the hollow eye upon tho
faded dress; only able to stand because
the crowd is so close to her pushing her
this way and that. Stand backl Why
do you crowd that poor body2 Have you
no consideration for dying womanl But
just at that time the crowd parts and tho
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 docs feel 50 wretchcd, she thinks il
she can only just touch him once twill do
her good. She will not touch him on the
sacred head, for that might be
irreverent. She will not touch him
on the hand for that might seem too fa-
mliar. She says: ~ will, think, touch
him on his coat. not on the top of il, or on
the bottom Of the main fabric, but on the
border, the blue border, the long threads
of the fringe of that blue border; there
"a n 10 ~ n I HOFaft ffalr hn
will hurt me, have heard so much about
him. Besides that, Il can stand this NO
longer Twelve years of suffering have
worn me out This is my last hopen
And she presses through the crowd still
further and reaches for Christ, but can
not quite touch him. She pushes still
further 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 shock 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
twelve years march of pain and pang and
suffering over suspension bridge Of nerve
and through tunnel of bone instantly
halted.
Christ recognizes somehow that mag
netic 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 interrogatory of my text: "Who
touched me?" The insOlent crowd in
substance replied: ''How do we knowi
You get in o crowd like this and you must
expect to be jostled You ask US a ques-
tion you know we cannot answer But
the roseate and rejuvenated woman came
up and knelt in front Of Christ, and told
4 ~. a al.
and Jesus said Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole. Go in peace" !" So Mark
gives us a dramatiZatton of the gospel.
o, what doctor Christ is In every one
of our households may 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 addition Of help to others with
out subtraction of strength from ourselves.
Did you never get tired for others. Have
you never rished your health for othersl
Have you never preached sermon, or de-
livered an eXhortatiOn, or offered burn
ing prayer, and then felt afterward that
strength had gone out of your Then you
have never initiated Christ
Are you curious to know how that gar
ment of Christ should have wrought such
a cure for this suppliant invalid2 / sup
pose that Christ was surcharged with
vitality. You know that diseases may be
conveyed from city to city by garments as
In case of epidemic, and so i suppose that
garments may be surcharged with health,
/ suppose that Christ had such physical
magnetism that il permeated all his robe
down 10 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 ON
nipotent therapeutics without which this
twelve years invalid would not have been
instantly restored.
Now, if omnipotence cannot help others
without depletion, how can we ever ex-
pect TO bless the world without self
sacrificed A man who gives TO some
Christian object until he feels it, man
who In his occupation or profession over
works that he may educate his children,
q man who on Sunday night goes homo,
all his nervous energy wrungout 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 be-
half Of a sick cradle. wifo who bears up
Chebrfullv lnder domestic misfortune