Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1900-08-01
SERMON
Rev. DR.. CaInlaes

Subject Tho Mission OF Christ - How
Divine Power VIII Heal the World
Jssus tho Surgeon Who Will Exit
patio the Disease Of Sin.
tCopyright IsooI
WASHINGTON, d. C.-In this discourse
DIR. 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. 5. 'The
blind receive their sight, and the lame
walk. the lepers are cleansed and the deaf
| hear"
| Doctor" / said to a distinguished sur
gcon.. do YOU not get worn out with con-
stantly seeing SO many wounds and bro
ken bones and distortions of the human
body?' "Oh. no." he answered; call 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 a doctor. Our
crippled and agonized human race called
for surgeon and family physician for many
who answered this call We're ministers of
religion namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what a grand thing if all clergymen
were also doctors, all d. DIS were NJ. d. s,
| for there are so many cases where body
and soni need treatment at the same time
|
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-
yes 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 physiological 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 operation. 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 incisons of
sacred rite, God making surgery the prede-
cessor of baptism, and we see it again in
III Kings, where Ahaziah, the monarch
stepped on some cracked latticework in
the palace and it broke, and he fell from
hurt that he sent to the village of Ekron
for aid, and Aesculapius: who wrought
such wonders of surgery that he was del
ned and temples were built for his wor-
ship at Pergamos; and Epidaurus and
POdelirius introduced FOR the relief of the
WOEu DIIcDOtOu1y. anu JJtUnOceueS cuTeu
the dislocated ankle of King Darins and
the cancer Of his queen, and Hippocrates
put successful hand on fractures and intro
duced amputation, and Praxagoras re-
moved obstructions, and Herophilus began
dissection. and Erasistratus removed tu-
mors. and CELSIUS. the Roman surgeon, re-
moved cataract from the eye and used the
Spanish fly; anu Heliodorus arrested dis
ease of the throat and Alexander of Tralles
treated the eye, and Rhazas cauterized for
the prevention of hydrophobia, and Perci-
val Pott came to combat diseases of the
had, among others, Roux and Larray
in rrance, an Ashley Cooper and an
Abernethy in Great Britain and a Valen-
tine Mott and Willard Parker and Samuel
ID. Gross in America, and a galaxy of liv-
ing surgeons as brilliant as their predeces-
sors What mighty progress in the baf-
fling Of disease since the crippled and sick
of ancient cities were laid along the
streets, that people who had ever been
hurt disordered in the same way might
suggest what had better be done for the
patients!
medical skill of the world, with what ten
acity the old diseases hang on to the hu-
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-
a child carried from the fields of Shunem,
crying, My head. my headv' 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 filled molars Of the unrolled Egyptian
mummies; the ophthalmia caused by the
juice of the newly ripe fig, leaving the peo
pie pie blind oi BY the roadside; epilepsy as in
...a- L. Ss A. l..
pochondria, as of Nebuchadnezzar, 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
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 a surgery without
pain. Drs. Parre and Hickman and Simp-
amazing genius, came forward. and with
their anaesthetics bapumbed the patient
with narcotics and ethers as the ancients
did with hasheesh and mandrake, and
auieted him for awhile, but at the return
of consciousness distress returned. The
WORTH udS n6VcT seen DuL one surgeon WHO
could straighten the crooked limb, cure
the blind eye or reconstruct the drum of
a soundless ear or reduce a dropsy without
pain, and that surgeon was Jesus Christ,
the mightiest, grandest, gentlest and most
sympathetic surgeon the world ever saw or
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 a fondness for
chronic cases. Many a surgeon, when he
has had a patient brought to him, has
years ago? You bring him to me after all
power of recuperation is gone. You have
waited until there is a complete contrac-
tion of the muscles, and false ligatures are
formed, and ossification has taken place.
II ought to have been attended to long
ago" But Christ the Surgeon seemed to
prefer inveterate cases. One was
hemorrhage of twelve years, and He stopped
it. Another was a 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 a convention of all the
surgeons of all the centuries, their com
bined 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 it is,
humbly speaking, incurable. Yet this di-
vine surgeon put both His hands on her. |
and from that doubled up posture she be-
gan to take on a healthier hue, and the |
muscles began to relax from their rigidity, |
and the spinal column began to adjust It.
self, and the cords of the neck began to |
be more supple, and the eyes, that could
see only the ground before, now looked
into the face of Christ with gratitude and
up toward heaven in transport. Straight! |
After eighteen weary and exhausting years, !
straight! The poise, the gracefulness, the |
beauty of healthy womanhOod reinstated.
The thirty eight years case was a man
who lay on q mattress near the mineral
baths at Jerusalem. There were five
apartments where lame people were
brought, so that they could get the advan-
tage of these mineral baths. The stone
basin of the bath is still visible, although
the waters have disappeared. probably
through some eonvulsion of nature. The
bath. 100 feet long. forty feet wide and
eight feet deep. All. poor man. if you
nave been lame and helpleea thirty eight