The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-06-19
TALMAGE's SERMON.
Words OF Advice and Encourage
ment to the Doctors.
How God Has Honored tho Profession-
Why Doctors Should be Christians
Their Opportunities for
Christian Usefulness

following sermon containing words o
encouragement to the medical profes
sion. 1t is based on the text:
And Asa. In the thirty and ninth year OF hi
reign, was diseased In his feet until his diseas'
was exceedingly great; yet In his disease h
sought not to the Lord, but TO the physicians
And Asa slept with his fathers IL Chronicles
xvL,.l2
At this season of the year. wher
medical colleges of all schools of medi
cine are giving diplomas to young doc
tors, and at the capital and in many u
the cities medical associations are as
sembling to consult about the advance
ment of the interests of their profes.
sion, I 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 infamed and
bandaged feet on an ottoman. In de.
lance 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
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 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 empiricism.
-'And Asa in the thirty and ninth year
of his reign was diseased in his feet,
until his disease was exceedingly great;
vet 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 aud 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 tho instrumentality employed for
my recovery NOW, servant, go and
get the best doctor you can fnd"-he
would have recovered. In other words,
the world wants divinely-directed
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 I'M
stop the deaf cars" God bless the
doctors all the world over! and let all
the hospitals, and dispensaries, and in
tirmaries, 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 ut solace where the parox-
ysm of grief demands an anodyne as
well as a 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
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 il 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
nouses of distress, but by the pleasant
affairs OF God, and propose a sermon
of helpfulness 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
tient and that l am physician, and
take my prescription just once. 1t
shall be tonic, n sedative, a dietetic, a
a stimulus and an ano-
dyne at the same time. us there not
balm in Gilead? Is there not a physi-
clan there"
In the first place, l 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 oil 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-
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
and anchylosis went out
of the stiffened 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 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
Cicero said: There Is nothing in
which men SO approach the gods as
when they try TO give health to other
men," Charles TX. made proclamation
that all the Professionals In France
should be put to death on st. Bartho-
lomew's day, but made once exception,
and that the case of Pare, the father
Of the French surgery. The battle
fields of the American revolution well
coined Drs Mercer and Warren and
Rush When the Eranob N ~, AZ AZ. n, ~