News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-05-25
News and Citizen.
WORTHWHILE and HYDE PARK,
Thursday, May IS. 1898.
CURED BY HER FAITH
Or. TALMAGE DISCOURSES ON ONE
OF CHRlST's MIRACLES.

He Explains the Deep Significance of the
Text. Mark v. S1-The Omnipotent sa-
viour Was Never Too Busy to Do Good.
BROOKLYN, May 21.-Rev. DIR. Tai
mage today chose for the subject of his
discourse the inquiry addressed by the
EaviouS to those who surrounded him
when, the invalid woman having touched
his garment, he asked, "Who touched
me" Mark V, 81?
A great crowd of excited people elbow
Ing 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 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 12 years invalidism is in
the crowd. Some say her name was
Martha; others say it was Veronica. l
do not know what her name was, but
this is certain, she had tried all styles of
rure 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 ignorant than we can imagine in
this time when the word physician or
surgeon stands for potent and educated
skill. Professor Lightfoot gives a list of
what he supposes may have been the
remedies she had 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
1al
lacerated until life to her was 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 ap-
paratus 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 nurse your disorders.
No! Wan and wasted and faint, she
stands there, her face distorted with suf-
fering, and ever 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 be-
cause the crowd is so close to her, push
ing 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 just touch
him once it will 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 familiar.
She says: Il 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 border;
there can be no harm in that. 1 don't
think he will hurt me, have heard so
much about him. Besides that, l can
stand this no longer. Twelve years of
have worn me out. This is my
last hope" And she presses through the
crowd still farther and reaches for
Christ. but cannot 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
shock there thrilled back into her shat
tered norve:, and shrunken veins, and ex-
hausted arteries, and painting lungs, and
withered muscles, health, beautiful
health. rubicund health, God given and
complete health. The IL years march
of pain and pang and suffering over sus-
pension bridge of nerve and through tun-
mel of bone instantly halted.
THE HEALING TOUCH.
Christ recognizes somehow that mag
netic and healthful influence through
the medium of the blue fringe of his gar
ment had shot out. He turns and looks
upon that excited crowd and startles
them with the interrogatory of my text.
who touched diner" The insolent crowd |
IN substance replied: "How 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
cameup, and knelt in front of Christ, and
told of the touch, and told of the restora-
ton. and Jesus said: Daughter, thy
faith hath made thee whole Go in
peace" So Mark gives us dramatiza-
ton of the gospel. Oh, what doctor
Christ is. In every one of our households
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 addition of help to others with
out subtraction of strength from our
selves. Did you never get tired for 9TH
ers? Have you never risked your health
for others? Have you never preached a
sermon, or delivered an exhortation, or
offered burning prayer, and then felt
that strength had gone out of
gou? Then you have never initiated
Christ.
Are you curious to know how that gar
nent of Christ should have wrought
Iuch a cure for this suppliant invalid? /
} oppose that Christ was surcharged with
vitality. You know that diseases NAV
be conveyed from city to city by gar
ments as in case of epidemic, and so
suppose that garments may be sur
charged with health. l suppose that
Christ had such physical magnetism that
Il permeated all his robe down to the last
thread on the border of the blue fringe.
But in addition to that there was di-
vine thrill, there was a miraculous po-
tency. there was an omnipotent thera-
peutics, without which this 10 years in
valid would not have been instantly re-
stored.
Now, if omnipotence 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, man |
who in his occupation or profession over
works that he may educate his children,
a man who on Sunday night goes home,
all his nervous energy wrung out by ac-
tive service in church, or Sabbath school,
Or city evangelization, has imitatedC Christ,
and the strength has gone out of him.
A mother who robs herself of sleep in
behalf of a sick cradle, wife who bears
up cheerfully under domestic misfortune
that she may encourage her husband in
the combat against disaster, woman
who by hard saving and earnest prayer
and good counsel wisely given and
many years devoted torearing her family
for God and usefulness and heaven, and
who 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 garment she has made for
the home, that strength may have gone
out THROUGH the sock you knit for the !
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