The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1897-06-11

E&RAA ARAsASAMH31Asa, with the govt.
~"'-A.A'VSN0- 7Y"TAlN High living and no
REV TALMAGE' exercise have viii
ated his blood, and my text presents
him with his infamed and bandaged
feet on an ottoman. In defiance of
God, whom he hated, he sends for GER
tain conjurors or quacks. They come
and give him all sorts of lotions and
panaceas They bleed him. They
sweat him. They manipulate him.
They blister him. They poultice him.
They scarify him. They drug him.
They cut him. They kill him. He
was only a young man, and had dis
ease which, though very painful, sell
dom proves fatal to young man,
and he ought to have got well but he
fell a victim to charlatanry and empiri-
cism. and Asa in the thirty and
ninth year of his reign was diseased in
his feet, until his disease was exceed
ingly great; yet in his disease he
sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians. And Asa slept with his
fathers" That is, the doctors killed
him.
In this sharp and graphic way the
Bible sets forth the truth, that you
have no right to shut God out from
the realm of pharmacy and therapeu-
ties. If Asa had said: 30 Lord, am
sick; bless the instrumentality en-
ployed for my recovery Now, serv-
ant, go and get the best doctor you
can find"-he would have recovered.
| In other words, the world wants di-
vinely-directed physicians. There are
great many such. The diplomas they
received from the academies of medi-
cine were nothing compared with the
| diploma they received from the Head
Physician of the universe, on the day
when they started out, and He said to
them: go heal the sick, and cast out
the devils of pain, and open the blind
eyes, and unstop the deaf ears" God
bless the doctors all the world over!
and let all the hospitals, and dis
pensaries. and infirmaries, and asy-
lums, and domestic circles of the earth
respond: Amen"
Men of the medical profession we
often meet in the home of distress. We
shake hands across the cradle of agon-
lied infancy. We join each other in
an attempt at sOlace where the paroX-
ysm of grief demands an anodyne as
well as prayer. We look into each
others sympathetic faces through the
dusk, as the night of death is falling
in the sick room. We do not have to
climb over any barrier to-day to greet
each other. for our professions are in
f,,l hvr
first and last earthly friend. You
stand at the gates of life when we
enter this world, and you stand at the
gates of death when we go out of it.
In the closing moments of our earthly
existence, when the hand of the wife,
or mother or sister, or daughter, shall
hold our right hand, it will give
strength to our dying moment if we
can feel the tips of your fingers along
the pulse of the left wrist. We do not
meet to-day, as on other days, in
houses of distress, but by the pleasant
affairs of God, and l propose a sermon
of helpfullness and good cheer. AS in
the nursery children sometimes re-en-
act all the scenes of the sick room, so
to-day you play that you are the pa
tent and that l am the physician, and
take my prescription just once. 1t
shall be tonic, sedative, dietetic,
a disinfectant, a stimulus, and an
anodyne at the same time. rs there
not balm in Gilead? Is there not a
physician there"
In the first place, 1 think all the
medical profession should become
Christians because of the debt of graft
tude they owe to God for the honor He
has put upon their calling. No other
calling in all the world, except it be
that of the Christian ministry, has re-
ceived so great an honor as yours.
Christ himself was not only preacher,
but physician, surgeon, aurist, ophthal-
motologist, and under His mighty
power optic and auditory nerve thrilled
with light and sound, and catalepsy
arose from its fit, and the club foot
was Strengthened, and anchylosis went
out of the stiffened tendons, and the
foaming maniac became placid as a
child, and the streets of Jerusalem be-
came an extemporized hospital crowd
ed with convalescent victims of casu-
atty and invalidism. All ages have
woven the garland for the doctors
brow. Homer said:
A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public veal
If we who are laymen in medicine
would understand what the medical
profession has accomplished for the
insane, let US look into the dungeons
where the poor creatures used to be
incarcerated. Madmen, chained naked
to the wall. A kennel of rotten straw
their only sleeping place. Room I'M
ventilated and unlighted. The worst
calamity of the race punished with the
very worst punishment. And then