Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1900-07-27
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
TIE EMINENT DIvINE's SUNDAY
DISCOURSE.
Subject The Mission of Christ - How
Divine Power Will Hoal the World
Jesus the Surgeon Who Will Extir.
pate the Disease OF Sin.

Jesus the Surgeon Who Will Extir'
pate the Disease OF Sin.
copyright 1901
WASHINGTON. d. Gin this discourse
Dr.. Talmage puts in an unusual light the
mission of Christ, and shows how divine
power will yet make the illnesses OF the
world fall back; text, Matthew xi, 8, The
blind receive their sight, and the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf
hear"
-, doctor" | said to distinguished sur
geon, do you not get worn out with con-
stantly seeing so many wounds and bro
body?" ooh, no." he answered; "all that
is overcome by my JOY in curing them
A sublimer and more merciful art never
came down from heaven than that OF sur
gerry. Catastrophe and disease entered
the earth so early that one Of the first
wants of the world was doctor. Our
crippled and agonized human race called
for surgeon and family physician for many
years before they came The first surgeons
who answered this call were ministers OF
religion-namely the Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing if all clergymen
were also doctors, all d. DIS were M. DIS,
for there are so many cases where body
and soul need treatment at the same time.
consolation and medicine, theology and
therapeutics. As the first surgeons OF the
world were also ministers of religion, may
these two professions always be in full
sympathy! But under what disadvanta-
ges the early surgeons worked, from the
fact that dissection of the human body
was forbidden, first by the pagans and
then by the early Christians! Apes being
the brutes most like the human race. were
dissected, but no human body might be
unfolded for Psychological and anatomical
exploration. and the surgeons had to guess
what was inside the temple by looking at
the outside of it. If they failed in any
surgical oDeration, they were prosecuted
and driven out of the city, as was Archa'
gathus because of his bold but unsuccess'
full attempt to save patient.
But the world from the very beginning
kept calling for surgeons, and their first
skill is spoken of in Genesis, where they
EMPLOYED their art for the missions OF
sacred rite God making surgery the prede'
cesscr of baptism, and we see it again N
III Kings, where Ahaziah, the monarch
stepped on some cracked latticework IN
the palace. and it broke, and he fell from
the upper to the lower floor and he was SO
hurt that he sent to the village of Ekron
for aid, and Aesculapius. who wrought
such wonders of surgery that he was del
fed and temples were built for his wor:.
shin at Pergamos; and Epidaurus and
Podelirius introduced for the relief of the
world phebotomy. and Damocedes cured
the dislocated ankle of King Darius and
the cancer of his queen, and Hippocrates
put successful hand on fractures and intro
duced amputatiOn, and PraXagoras re-
moved distractions, and Herophilus began
dissection. and Erasistratus removed tu'
mors, and CELSIUS, the Roman surgeon, re
moved cataract from the eye and used the
Spanish hy; ana Heliodorus arrested dis
ease of the throat, and Alexander of Trales
treated the eye, and Rhazas cauterized for
the prevention of hydrophobia. and Perez
val Pott came to combat diseases OF the
spine, and in our own century we have
had, among others. Roux and Larray
in france. an Ashley Cooper and an
Abernethy in Great Britain and Nalen..
tine Mott and Willard Parker and Samuel
D. Gross in America, and a galaxy of liv'
ing surgeons as brilliant as their predeces'
sors. What mighty progress in the bat
fling of disease since the crippled and sick
of ancient cities were laid along the
streets. that people who had ever been
hurt or disordered in the same way might
- suggest what had better be done for the
patients!
But notwithstanding all the surgical and
medical skill of the world, with what ten
acity the old diseases hang on to the. hui
man race, and most of them are. thou
sands of years old, and in our Bibles we
read of them-the carbuncles of Job and
Hezekiah, the palpitation OF the heart spo,,
ken of in Deuteronomy, the sunstroke OF
child carried from the fields of Shunem,
crying, MY head! my head!" King Asa's
disease OF the feet which was nothing but
gout detection of teeth, that called for
dental surgery. the skill of which, almost
equal to anything modern, is still seen IN
the filed molars of the unrolled Egyptian
mummies; the ophthalmia caused by the
Juice of the newly ripe fig leaving the peo-
pie blind by the roadside; epilepsy, as IN
the case of the young man often falling
into the fire and oft into the water; n.y.
pochondria as of Nebucbadnezzar, who
imagined himself an OK and going out to
the fields to pasture; the withered hand,
which in Bible times, as now, came from
the destruction of the main artery or from
paralysis of the chief nerve; the wounds
of the man whom the thieves left for
dead on the road to Jericho, and whom
the good Samaritan nursed, pouring in oil
and wine-wine to cleanse the wound and
oil to soothe it. Thank God for what sur
gerry has done for the alienation and cure
of human suffering
But the world wants surgery without
pain. Drs. PARE and Hickman and Simp-
son and Warner and Jackson, with their
amazing genius, came forward. and with
their anaesthetics benumbed the patient
with narcotics and others as the anclents
did with hasheesh and mandrake, and
ouieted him for awhile, but at the return
of consciousness distress returned. The
world has never seen but one surgeon who
could straighten the crooked limb, cure
the blind eye or reconstruct the drum OF
a soundless ear or reduce dropsy without
pain, and that surgeon was Jesus Christ,
the mightiest, grandest, gentlest and most
boft world
ever will see, and He deserves the conf
dence and love and worship and hosanna
of all the earth and halleluiahs of all
heaven. "The blind receive their sight
and the lame walk: the lepers are cleansed
and the deaf hear"
notice this surgeon had fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon, when he
has had a patient brought to him, has
said: "Why was not this attended to five
years ago? You bring him to me after all
power of recuperation is gone. You have
waited until there is complete contrac'
tion of the muscles, and false 1igatures are
formed, and ossihcation has taken place.
1t ought to have been attended to long
ago." But Christ the Surgeon seemed to
prefer inveterate cases One was a
hemorrhage of twelve years, and He stopped
it. Another was curvature OF eighteen
years, and He Strengthened it. Another
was a cripple of thirty-eight years, and he
walked out well. The eighteen-year pa
If you could call convention of all the
surgeons of all the centuries, their com
bjned skill could not cure that body so
drawn out of shape. Perhaps they might
\stop it from getting any worse, perhaps
they might contrive braces by which she
might be made more comfortable, but 1T IS,
bumbly speaking .incurable., Yet this d.
IL L. j.. hos