Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1897-06-17
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Words of Advice and Encourage
ment to the Doctors.
How God Has Honored the Profession
Why Doctors should lie Christians
Their Opportunities for
Christian Usefulness.

following sermon containing words oi
encouragement to the medical profes.
sion. 1t is based ON the text:
And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his
reign, was diseased in his feet until his disease
was exceedingly great; yet in his disease he
sought not TO the Lord, but to the physicians
And Asa slept with his fathers-IL Chronicles,
xvi, ~
AT this season of the year, when
medical colleges of all schools of mcdi-
cine are giving diplomas to young doe
tors, and at the capital and in many OF
the cities medical associations are as
sembling to consult about the advance
ment of the interests of their profrs.
sion, l feel this discourse isappropriate.
In my text is King Asa, with the
govt High living and no exercise
have vitiated his blood, and my text
presents HIM with his inhamed and
bandaged feet on an ottoman. In de.
hance of God, whom he hated. he sends
for certain conjurors or quacxs. They
come aud give him all sorts of lotions
and panaceas. They bleed him. They
sweat him. They manipulate him.
They blister him. They poultice him,
They scarity him. They drug him,
They cut him. They kill him. Nc
was only young man, and had a dis
ease which, though very painful, sell
dom proves fatal to young man, and
he ought to have got well; but he fell
victim to charlatanry and enpiricism.
And Asa in the thirty and ninth year
OF his reign was diseased in his feet,
until his disease was exceedingly great;
yet in his disease he sought not 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 therapeutics.
If Asa had said: 20 Lord, am sick;
bless the instrumentality employed for
my recovery Now, servant, go and
get the best doctor you can tind"-he
would have recovered. In other wore, :,
the world wants divinel y-directea
physicians. There are great many
such. The diplomas they received
from the academies of medicine 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 un-
stop the deaf ears" God bless the
doctors all the world over! and let all
the hospitals, and diSpensaries, and in
tirmarics, and asylums, 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 solacc where the paroN-
ysln of grief demands an anodyne as
well as u 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 in order
to greet each other for our professions
are in full sympathy. You, doctor
are our 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 tip, OF your fingers along
the pulse of the left wrist We do
not meet to-day. as on other days in
holSes of distress, but by the pleasant
affairs of God, and propose sermon
of helpfulncss and good cheer. As in
the nursery children some times re-en-
act all the scenes of the sick room, SO
to-day you play that you are the pa
tient and that | am physician, and
take my prescription just once. 1t
shall be tonic, a sedative, a diptetic, a
disinfectant, a stimulus and an ano-
dyne at the same time. is there not
balm in Gilead Is there not physi-
clan there"
In the first place, | think all the
medical profession should become
Christians because of the debt of graft
tudc they owe to God for the honor He
las 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 pow
err 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 stitfened tendons, and the foam
ing maniac became placid as child,
and the streets of Jerusalem became
an extemporized hospital crowded
with convalescent victims of casualty
and inyaldism. All ages have woven
the garland for the doctors brow.
Homer said:
wise physician, skilled our wounds TO heal,
Is more than armies TO the public veal
Cicero said: There is nothing in
which men 50 approach the gods as
when they try to give health to other
men" Charles TX. made proclamation
that all the Protestants in France
should be put to death on st. Bartho-
lonews day but made once exception,
and that the case of Pare the father