The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-07-27
SUBSCRIPTION: S1.OO Per Year

/ brow, cried out in language that con-
founded the jeering crowd who were
deriding the Christ that had effected
| the cure and wanted to- MAKE Him out
a bad man, whether He be a sinner
or not, 1 know not. One thing know,
| that whereas was blind, now | see."
| But this surgeon was just as Won
derful as an aurist. Very few people
have two good ears. Nine out of ten
people are particular to get on this
or that side of you when they sit or
walk or ride with you, because they
have one disabled ear. Many have
both ears damaged, and what with the
constant racket of our great cities and
the catarrhal troubles that sweep
through the land, it is remarkable
that there are any good ears at all.
Most wonderful instrument is the hui
man ear. 1t is harp and drum and
telegraph and telephone and whisper
| ing gallery all in one. So delicate
and wondrous is it's construction that
the most difficult of all things to re-
construct is the auditory apparatus.
| The mightiest scientists have put
their skill to it's returning, and some
times they stop the progress OF It's
decadence or remove temporary OBJ
structions, but not more than one
really deaf ear out of 100000 is ever
cured. 1t took God to make the ear,
and it takes a God to mend it. That
makes me curious to see how Christ
the Surgeon succeeds as an aurist.
We are told of only two cases He
operated on as an ear surgeon. His
friend Peter, naturally high tempered,
saw Christ insulted by a man by the
name of Malchus, and Peter let his
sword fly, aiming at the mans head,
but the sword slipped and hewed off
the outside ear, and our Surgeon
touched the laceration and another
ear bloomed in the place of the one
that had been s1ashed away. But it
is not the outside ear that hears.
That is only a funnel for gathering
sound and pouring it into the hidden
and more elaborate ear. On the
beach of Lake Galilee our Surgeon
found a man deaf and dumb. The pa
tient dwelt in perpetual silence and
was speechless. He could not hear
note of music or clap of thunder.
He could not call father or mother or
wife or children by name. What pow
er can waken that dull tympanum or
reach that chain of small bones or re-
vive that auditory nerve or open the
gate between the brain and the out
side world? The Surgeon put his i'm
gers in the deaf ears and agltated
them and kept on agitating them
until the vibration gave vital energy
to all the dead parts, and they re-
sponded, and when our surgeon
withdrew His fingers from the ears
the two tunnels of sound were clear
for all sweet voices of music and
friendship. For the first time in his
life he heard the dash of the waves of
GaliIee. Through the desert of pain
full silence had been built kings
highway of resonance and acclama-
ton. But yet he was dumb. No
word had ever leaped over his lip.
Speech was chained under his tongue.
Vocalization and accentuation were
to him an impossibility. He could ex-
press neither love nor Indignation nor
worship.
Our Surgeon, having unbarred His
ear. will now unloose the shackle of
His tongue. The Surgeon will use the
same liniment or salve that He used on
two occasions for the cure of blind peo-
ple-namely, the moisture of His own
mouth, The application is made, and
10. the rigidity of the dumb tongue is
relaxed, and between the tongue and
teeth was born whole vocabulary and
words flew into expression. Henot only
heard, but he talked. One gate of his
body swung in to let sound enter, and
the other gate swung out to let sound
depart. Why is it that, while other
surgeons used knives and forceps and
stethoscopes, this Surgeon used only
the ointment of His own lips? To show
that all the curative power we ever feel
comes straight from Christ. And f He
touches us OF we shall be deaf as rock
and dumb as a tomb. Oh, Thou great
est of all artists, compel us to hear
and help US to speak!
What a grand thing for our poor hui
man race when this Surgeon shall have
completed the treatment of the worlds
wounds! The day will come when there
will be no more hospitals, for there will
be no more sick, and no more eye and
ear infirmities, for there will be no more
blind or deaf, and no more deserts, for
the round earth shall be brought under
arboriculture, and no more bliZZards or
sunstrokes, for the atmosphere will be
expurgated of scorch and chill, and no
more war, for the swords shall come out
of the foundry bent into pruning hooks,
while in the Heavenly country we shall
see the victims of accident or malforma-
ton or hereditary ills on earth become
the athletes in Elysian fields. Who is
that man with such brilliant eyes close
before the Throne? Why, that is the
man who, near Jericho, was blind and
our Surgeon cured his ophthalmia!
Who is that erect and graceful and
uueenly woman before the Throne?
That was the one whom our Surgeon
found bent almost double and could in
nowise lift herself up, and He made her
straight. Who is that listening with
such rapture to the music of Heaven,
solo melting into chorus, cymbal re-
spending to trumpet, and then himself
Joining in the anthem? Why, that is
the man whom our Surgeon found deaf
and dumb on the beach of Galilee and
by two touches opened ear gate and
mouth gate. Who is that around whom
the crowds are gathering with admir-
ing looks and thanksgiving and cries
of: ''Oh, what He did for me! oh,
what He did for my family! Oh,
what He did for the world!" That
is the Surgeon of all the centuries, the
Oculist, the Aurist, the Emancipator,
10 frr
Come, now, let all Heaven pay Him with