The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-05-22

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So, my lear brother, the road you
are travelling is the same you have
been travelling a long while, but the
difference in your physical condition
makes it look different, and therefore
the two reports you have given of
yourself are as widely different as
the reports in the London Times
from the two correspondents. Ed
ward Payson, sometimes so far up
on the mount hat it seemed as if
the centripetal force of earth could no
longer hold him, sometimes through a
physical disorder was so far down that
it seemed as if the neither world would
clutch him. Poor William Cowper
wa a most excellent Christian, and
will be loved in the Christian church
as long as it sings his hymns begin
ming, There is a fountain filled with
Blood ''Oh, for Il closer walk with
God" ''What various hindrances we
meet" and ''God moves in a mysterious
way" Yet he was so overcome of
melancholy, or black bile, that it was
only through the mistake of the cab
driver who took him to a wrong place,
instead of the river bank, hat he did
not commit suicide.
Spiritual condition so nightly af-
fected by the physical state, what a
great opportunity this gives to the
Christian physician, for he can feel at
the same time both the pulse of the
body and the pulse of the soul, and he
can administer to both at once, and if
medicine is needed he can give that,
and if spiritual counsel is needed he
can give that-an earthly and a divine
prescription at the same time-and call
on not only the apothecary of earth,
but the pharmacy of Heaven! All, that
is the kind of doctor l want at my bed
side, one that can not only count out
the right number of drops, but who
can also pray. That is the kind of
doctor 1 have had in my house, when
sickness or death came. L do
not want any of your pro1igate or
atheistic doctors around my loved ones
when the balances of life are trem-
bling. A doctor who has gone through
the medical college, and in dissecting
room has traversed the wonders of
human mechanism, and found no God
in any of the labyrinths, is a fool, and
cannot doctor me or mine. But, oh,
the Christian doctors! What a comfort
they have been in many of our house
holds! And they ought to have a warm
place in u prayers, as well as praise
on our tongues.
1 bless God that the number of Chris
tian physicians is multiplying and some
of the students of the medical colleges
are here to-day, and hail you and or
dain you to the tender, healthful,
Heaven-descended work of a Christian
physician, and when you take your d.
ploma from the medical college to
look after the perishable body, be sure
also to get a diploma from the skies to
look after the imperishable soul. Let
all Christian physicians unite with
ministers of the gospel in persuading
good people that it is not because God
is against them that they sometimes
feel depressed, but because of their
diseased body. 1 suppose David, the
psalmist, was no more pious when he
called upon everything human and an
gelic, animate and inanimate, even
from snowflake to hurricane, to praise
God, than when he said: "Out of the
depths of hell have l cried unto
Thee, o Lord" or that Jeremiah was
more pious when he wrote his
prophecy than when he wrote his La
mentations;;" or Job when he said:
81 know that my Redeemer liveth,"
than when covered over with the
pustules of e~lephantiasis as he sat in
the ashes scratching the scabs off with
a broken piece of pottery; or that Alex
ander Cruden, the co~ncordist, was a
better nan when he compiled the book
that has helped 10, 200 students of the
Bible, than when under the power of
,Lr.fao1 1tcaYlar ha xBnc ffn1
or strait-waistcoated in Bethnal Green
Insane asylum. "Oh," says some
Christian man, mo one ought to allow
physical disorder to depress his soul
He ought to live so near to God as to be
always in the sunshine" Yes, that is
good advice; but l warrant that you,
the man that gives you h advice, has
a sound liver. Thank God for a
healthful hepatic condition, for, as GER
tainly as you lose it, you will some
times. like David. and like jeremiah.
and like Cowper, and like Alexander
Cruden, and like 10, 900 other invalids,
be playing a dead march on the same
organ with which now you play a STAG
cato.
My object at this point is not only to
the criticisms of those in
good health against those in poor
health, but to show Christian people
who are atrabilious what is the matter
with them. Do not charge against the
heart the crimes of another portion of
your organism. Do not conclude that
because the path TO Heaven is not ar
bored with as fine a foliage, or the
banks beautifully showed with X
quisite chrysanthemums as once, that,
therefore, vol are on the wrong road.
The road will bring you out at the same
gate whether you walk with the stride
of an athlete or come up on crqtches.
Thousands of Christians, morbid about
experiences, and morbid about
the present, and morbid about the fu-
tire, need the sermon / am now preach
ing,
Another practical use of this subject
is for the young. The theory Is abroad
that they must first sow their wild
oats, and afterward Michigan wheat.
Let mi break the delusion. Wild oats
are generally sown in the liver, and
they can never be pulled up. They so
preoccupy that organ hat there is no
room for the implantation of a right
eous crop. You see aged men about
US dJ oOp cTcCb, dBIlc, bPlCuulu, BIdnd
old men. How much wild oats did
they sow between IS years and 80?
None, absolutely none. God does not
very often honor with old age those
who have in early life sacrificed swine
on the altar of h bodily temple. Re-
member, o young man. that while in
after life, and after years of
dissipation, you may perhaps have
your heart changed, religion does
not change the liver. Trem-
bling and staggering along these
streets to-day are men, all bent and
decayed, and pr~ematurely old for the
reason that they are paying for liens
they put upon their physical estate be-
fore they were so. By early dissipas
ton they put on their body a first
mortgage, Inc a second mortgage, and
a third mortgage to the devil; and
these mortgages are now being fore
closed, and all that remains of their
earthly estate the undertaken will soon
put out of sight. Many years ago, in
fulfllment of my text, u dart struck
through their liver, and it is there yet.
God forgives, but outraged physicallaw
never, never, never. That has a Sinai,
but no Calvary. Solomon, in my text,