The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1900-08-01
4 GREAT 81 RECON.
Rev. Dr. 7altnage on one Of tha
Missions Of Christ.
THE EFFICACY OF THE
oivins Pvwer in Healing the
Worlds Wounds and Dsforn1i-
ties, Relations of Surgery
and Theology.
and Theology.

In this discourse DR.. Talmage (who
is now travelling in Elrope) pats iu an
uLusal light the mission Of Christ and
shows divine power will yet make the
illness Of tie 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" l said to distinguished
surgeon, dc you not get worn out with
constantly seeing so many wounds and
broken bones and distortions of the hu-
man body?' "Oa, no" he answered;
all that is overcom, by my Joy in cur
ing them" A sublimer and more mer-
ciful art never came down from heaven
than that Of surgery. Catastrophe and
disease entered the earth so early that
one Of the first wants of the world was a
doctor. Our crippled and agoDized hu-
man 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 clergymen were
also doctors, all D. D s we're NJ. D :,
for there are so many cases where body
and soul need treatment st the same
time, consolation and medicine, the
olosy and therapeutics. AS the first
surgeons Of the world were also minis.
ters Of religion, may these two profes.
sions always be in full sympathy! But
under what disadvantages the early sur
geons worked, from the fact that the
dissection Of the human body was for
bidden, 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 anatom-
ical exploration, and the surgeons had
guess what was inside the temple by
- kiog at the outside Of it. If they
failed in any surgical operation, they
gere prosecuted and driven out Of the
;.ty, as was Archagathus because of
MS bold bnt unsuccessful attempt to
I'VE patient.
But the world from the very begin
ing kept calling for surgeons, and
their first skill is spoken OF in Genesis,
where they employed their art for the
incisions of sacred rite, God making
urgery the predecessor Of baptism, and
Sc sec it again in II Kings, where
lhsziah, 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 E<ron for aid,
and f culspirs, who wrought such
wonders of surgery that he was dei6ed
and temples were built for his worship
at Pergam IS; and Epidaurus and Pede-
lirius introduced for the relief Of the
world phle5atomy, and Damocndss
cured the dislocated ankle of King
Darius and the cancer of his queen: and
H!ppocrates put successful hand on
fractures and introduced auputation,
aud praxsgoras removed distractions,
and HerophiIus began dissection, and
Erasistratus removed tumors, aud
CELSIUS, the Roman surgeon, removed
cataract from the eye and used the
Spanish fly; and Heliodorus arrested
disease of the throat, and Alexander of
Trallvs treated the eye, and Rhazas
caute1ized for the prevention of hydro
phobia, and Percival Pott came to com
bat diseases Of the spine.
But the world wanted a surgery with
out pain. Drs. Pare and Hickman
and Simpson and Warner and Jackson,
With their amazing geDius, came for.
ward and with their aDa 'thetics be.
numbed the patient with narcotics aud
ethers as the ancients did with hasheesh
and mandrake and quieted him for
awhile, but at the return Of conscioun
ness distress returned. The world has
never seen but one surgeon who could
s.raighten the crooked limb, cure the
blind eye or reconstruct the drum of a
soundless ear or reduce dropsy with
out any pain at the time or any pain
after, and that surgeon was Jesus
Christ, the mightiest, grandest, gent
lest and most sympathetic surgeon the
world ever saw or ever will see, and he
deserves the confidence and love and
worship and hosanna Of all the earth
and ha!leluiahs of all heaven The
blind received their sight and the lame
walk; the lepers are cleaased, and the
deaf hear. "
I notice this surgeon had fondness
for chronic csses Many q surgeon,
when he has had patient broug bt 10
hin, has said: why WAS not this at
tended to FIVE years ago? You bring
him TO me after all power Of recupera.
uun is gone. You have waited until
there IS complete contraction of the
muse es, aud lei ligatures are formed
and ossiication 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 y years, and he stopped
it. Another was curvature of Is
years, and he straightenedit Another
vas cripple Of 39 years, and he walked
out we'll. The Is year patient was
woman bent aim ,st double. If you
could call convention Of all the sur
geons of all the centuries, their COM
bined skill could not cure that body so
drawn cut of shape. Perhaps they
might stop it from getting any worse,
perhaps they might contrive braces by
which she might be made more com
Portable, but it is, huubly speaking, in
curable. Yet this divine surgeon put
both his hands on her, and from that
doubled up posture she began to rise,
and the empurpled face began to take
on healthier hue, and the muscles be-
gan to relax from their rigidity, and the
spinal column began to adjust itself,
and the cords Of the neck began to be
more supple, and the eyes, that cou'd