The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-06-11
PRAISE OF DOCTORS.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE PAYS A HIGH TRle.
UTE TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.


Could Not Cure Him-Piety and Medica
Skill.
NEW YORK, June cit is not Otter
shat men of one profession have muct
encouragement for men of another pro
fession, but this sermon prepared by
DIR. Talmage contains enthusiastic
words of clergyman to physicians. The
text is II Chronicles xvi, ~, 10, "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. -
At this season of the year, when
medical colleges Of all schools of medi-
cine are giving diplomas to young doc
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 profess
sion, feel this discourse is appropriate.
King Asa's Gout.
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 Oh an ottoman. In defiance of God,
whom he hated, he sends for certain
coniurors or quacks. They come and
give him all sorts of lotions and pana
ceas 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 a disease which, though
very painful, seldom proves fatal to
young man, and he ought to have got
well, but he fell a victim to charlatan-
ry and empiricism. "And Asa in the
thirty and ninth year of his reign was
diseased in bis feet until his disease
was exceeding great, yet in his disease
ne sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians And Asa slept with his IA
theirs. - 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: go Lord, | am sick. Bless
the fundamentally employed for my
recovery" CHOW, servant, go and get
the best doctor you can find"- would
have recovered. In other words, the
world wants divinely directed physi-
clans. There are great many SUCH
The diplomas they received from the
academies of medicine were nothing
compared with the diploma they re-
ceived from the Head Physician of the
universe on the day when they started
out and he said to them, eco 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
dispensariesa and infrmaries and asylums
and domestic circles of the earth re-
spond, "Amen."
Men of the medical profession we of
ten meet in the home of distress We
shake hands across the cradle of ago
nized infancy. We join each other in an
attempt at solace where the paroxysm
of grief demands an anodyne as we'll 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 today 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 clos
ing 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
if we can feel the tips of your
fingers along the pulse of the left wrist.
We do not meet today, as on other days,
in houses of distress, but by the pleasant
affairs of God, and propose sermon
of helpfulness and good cheer As in
the nursery children sometimes re.enact
all the scenes Of the sickroom, so today
you play that you are the patient and
that l am the physician, and take my
just once. 1t shall be a
tonic, a sedative, dietetic, disinfect-
ant, stimulus and an anodyne at the
same time. lis there not balm in Gill
cad? Is there not a physician there?"
An Honorable Calling.
In the first place, think all the med
ical profession should become Christians
because 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 it be that of the
Christian ministry, has received SO
great an honor as yours. Christ himself
was not only preacher, but physician,
surgeon, aurist, ophthalmologist, and
lnder his mighty power optic and au-
litory nerve thrilled with light and
sound, and catalepsy arose from its fit,
and the clubfoot was Strengthened, and
went out of the stiffened ten
ions, and the foaming maniac became
placid as a child, and the streets of Je-
-usalem became an extempOrized hospi-
5al crowded with convalescent victims
If casualty and invalidism. All ages 1
nave woven the garland for the DOCTORS ,
brow. Homer said:
A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
S more than armies to the public veal.
Cicero said, "There is nothing in J
which men so approach the gods as {
L IL I'll.