Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-05-22
OUR ABUSED LINERS.
REV. DR.. TALMAGe ON THE HEALTH
OF THE BODY.

OF THE BODY.
a Sermon That Mostly Concerns This
Life, Yet Spiritual and Physical Condi-
lions Arc Largely Dependent Upon Each
Other.
WASHINGTON, May 1G.-Dr. Tai
mnge's sermon of today has more to do
with this life than the life to como and
will be warning against all forms of
dissipation. Text, Proverbs vii, 30,
'Till dart strike through his liver.
Solomon's anatomical and physiolog-
ioal discoveries were so very great that
no was nearly 5000 years ahead Of the
scientists of his day. He, more than
1000 years before Christ, seemed to
know about the circulation of the blood,
which Harvey discovered l,619 years
after Christ, for when Solomon i'll Ec-
clesiastes, describing the human body,
speaks of the pitcher at the fountain he
evidently means the three canals lead
ing from the heart that receive the
blood like pitchers. When he speaks i'll
Ecclesiastes of tho silver cord of life, he
evidently means the spinal marrow,
about which in our day Drs Mayo and
Carpenter and Dalton and Flint and
Brown-Sequard hnve Experimental.
And Solomon recorded in the Bible,
thousands of years before scientists dis
covered it, that in his time the spinal
cord relaxed III old age, producing the
tremors of hand and head, "or the sill
yer cord be- loosed. u
In tho text he reveals thofact that ho
had studied that largest gland of the
human system, tho liver, not by the
electric light of tho modern dissecting
room, but by the dim light of COM
ppratiyely dark age, and yet had seen its
Important functions in the God built
castle of the human body, its selecting
and secrctfng power, its curious cells,
its elongated branching tubes, divine
workmanship in central and right and
lett lobe ard the hepatic artery through
which flow the crimson tides. Oh, this
vital organ is like tho eye of God III
that it never sleeps!
Solomon knew of it and had noticed
either in yivisection or post mortcm
what awful attacks sin and dissipation
make upon it, until tho fiat of Almighty
God bids tho body and soul separate,
and the one it commends to the grave
and the other it sends to Judgment. a
javelin of retribation, not glancing of
or making u slight wound, but piercing
it from side to side "till a dart strike
through his liver. y
Galen and Hippocrates ascribe to the
liver the most of the worlds moral de-
preston, and tho word melancholy
means black bile.
preach to you the gospel of health.
In taking diagnosis of diseases of the
soul you must also take diagnosis of
diseases of tho body. As if to recognize
this, one whole book of the New TesTa-
ment was written by Il physician. Luke
was medical doctor, and he discourses
much of tho physical conditions, and
he,tells of the good Samaritan's med
ication of tho wounds by pouring IN oil
and wine and recognizes hunger as a
hindrance to hearing the gospel, so that
the 1000 were fed. He also records the
sparse dietof the prodigal away from
homo and the cxtinguished eyesight OF
the beegar by the waysidc, and lets US
know of the hemorrhage of the wounds
of the dying Christ and the miraculous
post mortem rcsuscitation. Any esti-
mate of the spiritual condition that does
not include also the physical condition
is incomplete.
Heart and Liver.
When the door keeper of congress fell
dead from excessive joy because Bur-
goyno had surrendered at Saratoga, and
Philip V of Spain dropped dead at the
news of his country's defeat in battle,
and Cardinal Wolsey faded away as the
result of Henry Wits anathema it was
demonstrated that the body and soul
are Siamese twins, and when you thrill
the one with joy or sorrow you thrill
the other. We may as we'll recognize the
tremendous fact that there arc two
mighty fortresses in the human body, the
heart and the liver, the heart the for
tress of the graces, the liver the fortress
of fhe furies. You may have the head
filed with all intellectualities, and the
ear with all musical appreciation, and
the ear with all musical appreciation,
and the mouth with all cloquence, and
the hand with all industries, and the
heart with all generosities, and yet "a
dart strike through the liver.
First, let Christian people avoid the
mistake that they are all wrong with
God because they suffer from depres-
sion of spirits. Many a consecrated man
has found his spiritual sky befogged
and his hope of heaven blotted out and
himself plunged chin deep in the slough
of despond and has said: MY heart is
not right with God and think must
have made a mistake and instead of be-
ing a child of light I am child of
darkness. No one can feel as gloomy as
I feel and be a Christian. And he has
gone to his minister for consolation, and
he has collected Flavels books and &C.
ellis books and BaXter's books and read
and read and read and prayed and pray
ed and prayed and wept and wept and
wept and groaned and groaned and
groaned My brother, your trouble Is
not with the heart; it is a gastric dlsor-
der or rebellion of the liver. You
need physician more than you do a
clergyman. 1t is not sin that blots out
your hope Of heaven, but bile. 1t not
only yellows your eyeballs, and furs
your tongue, and makes your head ache,
but swoops upon your soul in OBJECTIONS
and forebodings The devil is after you.
He has failed to despoil your character,
and he does the next best thing for him