Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1900-07-26

| the confidence and love and worship
and hosanna of all the earth and hal
| leluiahs of all heaven. THE blind re-
ceiye their sight and the lame walk;
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
| hear"
notice this surgeon had a fondness
for chronic cases. Many surgeon,
when he he's 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 recupera-
ton is gone. You have waited until
there is complete contraction of the
muscles, and false ligatures are form
| ed, and Justification has taken place. II
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 1t. Another was curvature
of eighteen years, and he Strengthened
it. Another was cripple of thirty
eight years and he walked out well.
| The eighteen-year patient was wo-
man bent almost double. II you could
| call a convention of all the surgeons OF
all the centuries, their combined skill
could not cure that body SO drawn out
Of shape. Perhaps they might stop 1t
from getting worse, perhaps they
might contrive braces by which she
| might be made more comfortable, but
it is, humbly speaking, incurable. Yet
this divine surgeon put both his hands
| on her, and from that doubled up pos
ture she began to rise and the en-
purpled face began to take on a heal
| thier hue, and the muscles began to
relax from their rigidity, and the spin
al column began to adjust itself, and
the cords of the neck began to be the
more. supple, and the eyes that could
see only the ground before, now look
ed into the face of Christ with graft
tude and up toward heaven in trans
port. Straight! After eighteen weary
and exhausting years, straight! The
| poise and gracefulness. the beauty OF
healthy womanhood reinstated. The
thirty-eight years case was man who
/ lay on a mattress near the mineral
baths at Jerusalem. There were five
apartments where lame people were
| brought, so that they could get the
advantage of these mineral baths. The
stone basin of the bath Is still visible,
although the waters have disappeared,
probably through some CONFUSION OF
nature. The bath, 100 feet long, forty
feet wide and eight feet deep. All,
poor man, IL you have been lame and
helpless thirty-eight years, that min
eral bath cannot restore you. Why.
thirty-eight years is more than the av-
erage human life. Nothing but the
grave will cure you. But Christ the
Surgeon, walks along these baths and
l have no doubt passes by some pa
tients who have been only six months
disordered or year or five years, and
comes to the mattress of the man who
had been nearly four decades helpless
and to this thirty-eight years invalid
said, wilt thou be made whole?
Christ the Chief Surgeon.
The question asked not because the
surgeon did not understand the pro-
tractedness, the desperateness of the
case, but to evoke the mans pathetic
narrative. wilt thou be made whole?"
Would you like to get well?" 'oh,
yes" says the man. That is what
came to these mineral baths for.
have tried everything. All the sur
geons have failed, and all the pre-
scriptions have proved valueless, and
got worse and worse, and can neither
move hand nor foot nor head Oh, II
| could only be free from this pain of
thirty-eight years." Christ the Sur
geon could not stand that. Bending
over the man on the mattress, and in a
voice tender with all sympathy, but
strong with all omnipotence, he says,
"Rise!" and the invalid instantly
scrambles to his knees and then puts
out his right foot, then his left foot.
and then stood upright, as though he
had never been Frustrated. While he
| stands looking at the doctor, with a
| Joy too much to hold, the doctor says:
Shoulder this mattress, for you are
not only well enough to walk, but well
enough to work, and start out from
these mineral baths. Take up thy bed
and walk" Oh. what a surgeon for
chronic cases then and for chronic
cases now!
This is not applicable so much to
those who are only a little hurt of sin
and only for short time, but to those
Frustrated of sin twelve years, eight
cen years, thirty-eight years. Here is
a surgeon able to give immortal health.
oh" you say, II am so completely
overthrow and trampled down Of sin
that ! cannot rise" Are you fiatter
down than this patient at the mineral
baths? No. Then rise. In the name
OF Jesus Of Nazareth, the surgeon who
offers you his right hand of help, bid
thee rise. Not cases of acute sin, but
OF chronic sin-those who have not
prayed for thirty-eight years, those
who have not been to church for thir-
ty-eight years, those who have been
gamblers, or libertines, or thieves. or
outlaws. or blasphemers, or infidels,
or aetheists, or all these together, for
thirty-eight years. A Christ for ext
gencies! A Christ for dead lift! A
surgeon who never loses a case!
In speaking Of Christ as a surgeon I
must consider him as an oculist or eye
doctor. and an aurist or ear doctor.
Was there ever such another oculist?
That he was particularly sorry for the
blind folks l take from the fact that
the most OF his works were with the
diseased optic nerves. | have not time
to count up the number Of blind peo-
pie mentioned who got his cure. Two
blind men in one house; also one who
was born blind; SO that 1t was not re-
moval Of a visual obstruction, but the