The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-06-02
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
We Can Not Help Others Without
Some Self-Sacriflce.
Even Christ Felt the Loss Of Power when
the Woman, by Faith. Touched HIm
and was Healed of Her
Inflrmity.

Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered
the following sermon in the Brooklyn
tabernacle on the subject of "Helping
Others" taking for his text:
Who touched Me.-Mark ", 81.
A great crowd of excited people, ell
bowling each other this way and that,
and Christ in the midst of the commo-
ton They were ON the way to see
him restore to complete health dying
person Some thought He could effect
the cure, others that He could not. At
any rate, il would be an interesting ex-
pertinent. A very sick woman of
twelve years invalidism is in the
crowd Some say her name was
Martha, others say it was Veronica.
do not know what her name was, but
this was certain. she had tried all
styles of cure. Every shelf of her
humble home had medicines on II. She
had employed many doctors of that
time, when medical science was more
rude and rough and ignorant than we
can imagine at this time, when the
words physician and surgeon stand for
potent and educated skill. Prof. Light
foot gives list of what he supposes
may have been the remedies she had
applied. / suppose she had been bis
tered 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 LAGER
ated until life was to her a plague. Be
sides 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 hy-
gienic apparatus until her purse was
as exhausted as her body.
What, poor woman, are you doing in
that jostling crowd? Better go home
and to bed and to nurse your disorders.
No! Wan and wasted and faint she
stands there, heI face distorted with
suffering, and evel and anon biting her
lip with some acute pain, and sobbing
until her tears fall 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 consideration 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 touch Him once it will do her
good. She will not touch Him on the
sacred head, for that might be irrever-
ent. She will not touch Him on the
L r.
She says: l will, / think, touch Him on
His coat, not on the top of it, or on the
bottom of the main fabric, but on the
border, the blue border, the long
threads of the fringe of that blue bor-
der; there can be no harm in that. ]
don't think He will hurt me, have
heard so much about Him. Besides
that, / 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 further and
reaches for Christ, but can not quite
touch Him. She pushes still further
through the crowd and kneels and puts
her finger on 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 mus
cles, health, beautiful health, rubi-
cund health, God-given and complete
health. The twelve years march of
pain, and pang, and suffering over sus-
pension-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 know? You get in crowd
like this, and you must expect to be
jostled. You ask us a question you
know we can not answer" But the
roseate and rejuvenated woman came
up and lxnelt in front of Christ, and
told of the touch, and told of the res
toration, and Jesus said: Daughter,
they faith hath made thee whole. Go
in peace" So Mark gives us drama
tization of the Gospel. Oh, what a
doctor Christ is! In everyone of our
households may He be the family physi-
clan.
Notice that there is no addition of
help to others without subtraction of
power from ourselves. The context
saws that as soon as this woman was
healed, Jesus felt that virtue or
strength had gone out of Him. No adj
dition of help to others without sub
traction 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 exhortation, or
offered a 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 the gar
ment of Christ should have wrought
such cure for-this suppliant invalid?
suppose that Christ was surcharged
with vitality. You know that diseases
may be conveyed from city to city by
garments in case of epidemic, and so /
suppose that garments may be sur
charged with health. suppose that
Christ had such physical magnetism
that it permeated all His robe down to
the last thread on the border of blue
fringe. But in addition to that there
was Divine thrill, there was a mi
racnlous potency, there was an omnipo-
tent therapeutics without which this
twelve years invalid would not have
been instantly restored.
Now, if Omnipotence can not help
others without depletion, how can we