The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-06-23
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
" DIVINE.

Why All Doctors Should Be Christians.
"And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year OF
his reign, was diseased In his feet until his
disease was exceeding great, yet In his
disease he sought not to the Lord, but to
the physicians. And Asa slept with his
fathers."-II. Chronicles xvi, IL, Is.
At this season of the year, when medical
colleges Of all schools Of medicine are CIV
Ing diplomas to young doctors, and at the
capital and In many OF the cities medical
associations are assembling to consult
about the advancement Of the interests Of
their profession, feel this discourse Is ap-
%propriate.
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 inf1aned and bandaged feet on an otto
man. In defiance Of God, whom he hated,
he sends for certain conjurors or quacks.
They come and give him all sorts Of lotions
and panaceas. They bleed him. They
blister him. They p~oultice him. They
scarify him. They drug him. They cut
him. They kill him. He was only a young
man and had a disease which, though very
painful, seldom proves fatal to q young
man, and he ought to have got well, but he
fell a victim to charlatanry and empiricism.
"And Asa in the thirty and ninth year Of
Ills IolSu was ulSCdSOu IL ulo lCOS uhlii lio
disease wa exceeding great, yet in his dis
ease he sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians. And Asa slept with his IA
Tiers" 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. II Asa had
said: 80 Lord, I I'm sick. Bless the in
strumentality employed for my recovery"
Now, servant 60 and get the best docto:
you can flnd"-he would have recovered.
In other words, the world wants divinely
directed physicians. There are a 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 GU:
and He said to them, $50 heal the sick and
cast out the devils Of pain and open the
bless the doctors all the world over, and LEI
all the hospitals and dispensaries and in.
frmaries AMI 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 table Of agonized infancy.
We join each other In an attempt at solace
where the paroxysm Of grief demands an
~anodyne as we'll as a prayer. We look into
| tdCu OGu6E D SyHpdLuCLlC ldCCS tuIOoSh LuO
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 SYM
patty. 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 60 out Of Il.
In the closing moments OF our earthly exist
ence, when the hand Of the wife or mother,
or sister or daughter, shall hold our right
hand, 1t will give strength to our dying mo-
ments 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 I propose q sermon Of helpfulness
and good cheer. As in the nursery children
sometimes ~re-enact all the scenes OF the
sick room, 80 to-day you play that you are
the patient and that I am the physician, and
take my prescription just once. 1t shall be
q tonic, O. sedative, q d~tetetic, a disinfect-
ant, O stimulus and an anodyne at the same
time. els there not balm In Gilead3 Is
there not a physician there?"
IN the first place, I think all the medical
profession should become Christians be-
cause Of the debt Of gratitude they owe to
God for the honor He has put upon their
| calling. No other calling in all the world,
except 1t be that Of the Christian ministry,
has received 80 great an honor as yours.
Christ himself was not only preacher, but
physician, surgeon, aurist, ophthalmologist,
and under His mighty power optic and au-
ditory nerve thrilled with light and sound,
and catalepsy arose from its fit, and the
clubfoot was Strengthened, and anchylosis
went out Of the stiffened tendons, and the
foaming maniac became placid as a child,
and the streets Of Jerusalem became an eI-
temporizsd hospital crowded with con-
yalescent victims Of casualty and invalid
ism. 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.
Cicero said, aThere Is nothing in which
to give health to other men," Charles TX.
made proclamation that all the Professionals
In France should be put to death on st.
Bartholomew's day, but made one excep-
ton, and that the case Of Pare, the father
Of French surgery. The battleflelds Of the
American Revolution welcomed RS. Mercer
and Warren and Rush. When the French
arm was entirely demoralized by fear Of
the plague, the leading surgeon Of that
army inoculated himself with the plaguet to
show the soldiers there was no contag1on
in it, and their courage rose, and they went
on to the conflict. God has honored this
profession all the way through. Oh, the
advancement from the days when Hippo
crates tried to cure the great Pericles with
hellebore and fa1seed poultices down to
far later centuries when Halter announced
the theory OF respiration, and Harvey the
circulation Of the blood, and Asceli the uses
Of the Emphatic vessels, and Jenner baked
the worst disease that ever scourged Eu-
ror,a md 2udanham dQvnlnnQ1 fh6 "a
operative forces OF the physical organism,
and cinchona bark stopped the shtvering
agnes of the world, and Sir Ashley Cooper
and Abernethy, and Hosack and Romeyn,
and Griscom and Valentine Mott, Of the
generation just past, honored God n
fought back death with their keen scalpels.
II We who are laynaen in medicine, would
understand what the medical profession
has accomplished forthe insane, let US look
into the dungeons where the poor creatures
used to be Observation-Disclosures haine
naked to the wall, q kennel Of rotten straw
their only sleeping place, room unven-
tilated and unlighted, the worst calamity
of the race punished with the very worst
punishment-and then come and look at
the insane asylums Of Utica and Kirkbride
-sofaed and pictured, libraried, concerted,
until all the arts and adornments come to
coax recreant reason to assume her throne.
Look at Edward Jenner, the great hero OF
medicine. Four hundred thousand people
annually dying in Europe from the small
pox, Jenner finds that by the incubation OF
people with vaccine from a cow the great
scourge of nations may be arrested. The
ministers Of the gospel denounced vaccina-
ton, small wits c%aricatured Edward Jenner
as riding in a great procession on the back
Of a cow and grave men expressed 1t as
their opinion that all the diseases OF the
l--ko o,.aofion -oi1lI ha FRO nonlnDfaH Into
where, they said, actually horns had come
out on the foreheads Of innocent persons
and naonle had begun to chew the cud. But