The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1900-08-01


aolbt pssssSss By soma patients aho hsfe
Issr only six months disordered or a
year Or i've years and oomestc the mat
tress of the man who had been nearly
four decades helpless and to this 3S
years'invalid said, "Wilt thou be made
Whole?'
The question asked not because the
surgeon did not understand the pro.
tractedness, the despersteness, Of the
case, but to evoke the mans pathetic
narrative wilt thou be made whole?
Would you like to get well?' "Ob,
yes" says the man THAT is what |
came to these mineral baths for. l
have tried everything. All the surgeons
have failed, and all the Prescriptions
have proved valueless. and | got worse
and worse, and l can neither move hand
nor foot DOT head Oh, if could only
be free from this pain Of 3S years!
Christ the Surgeon could not stand
that. Bending over the man on the
mattress, and in voice tender with all
sympathy. but strong with all omnipot
ence, he says, "Risel' And the in
valid 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 pros
trated While he stands looking
at the doctor, with joy too much
to hold, the doctor says: Shoulder this
mattres. for you are not only we'll
enough to walk, but well enough to
work, and start out from these mineral
baths Take up thy bed and walk
Oh, what surgeon for chronic cases
then and chronic cases now.
This is not applicable so much to
those who are only little hurt of sin
and only for short time, but to those
prostrated Of sin II years, l8 years, 50
years. Here is surgeon able to give
immortal health. 'Ob," you say, I
am so completely overthro9n and tram
pied down of sin that I cannot rise. !"
Are you fatter 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, l bid thee rise. Not cases Of
acute sin, but Of chronic sin-those
who have not prayed for 39 years, those
who have not been to church for 3S
years, those who have been gamblers,
or libertines, or thieves. or outlaws, or
blamphemers, or in6lcls. or atheists,
or all these together, for IS years, A
Christ for exigencies! A Christ for a
dead liftl \ surgeon who never loses
a case
In speaking Of Christ as surgeon l
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 I take from the fact that the most
Of his works were with the diseased op
tic nerves. | have not time to count up
the number Of bliId people mentioned
, who got his cure. Two blind men 10
one house; also one who was born blicd;
so that it was not removal of visual
obstruction, but the creation Of the
cornea and ciliary muscle and crystal
line lens and retina and optic nerve
and tear gland; also the blind man of
Bethsaida, cured by the saliva which
the Surgeon took from the tip Of his
own togue and put upon the eyelids;
also two blind men who sat by the way
side.
In our civilized lands we have blind
ness enough, the ratio fearfully increas-
ing, according to the statement of Eu.
ropean and American oculists, because
of the reading of morning and evening
newspapers on the jolting cars by the
multitudes who live out Of the city md
come in to business. But in the lands
where this divine surgeon operated the
cases of blindness were multiplied be-
yond everything by the particles of
sand floating in the air, and the night
dews falling on the eyelids Of those
who slept on the top Of their houses,
and in some of these lands it is esti-
mated that - out of 100 people are
totally blind. Amid all that crowd Of
visionless people, what work for an &C
ulist! And I do not believe that more
than one out of hundred of that sur
geon's cures were reported. He went
up and down among those people who
were feeling slowly their way by staff,
or led by the hand af man or rope Of
dog. and introd icing them to the faces
of their own household, to the sunrise
and the sunset and the evening star.
He Just ran his hand over the expires
sionless face, and the shutters Of both
windows we're swung open, and the re-
stored went home crying, 81 see! lseel
Thank God, I see!
That is the oculist We all need. Till
be touches ous' eyes we are blind. Yea,
We were born bind. By nature We see
things wrong, if we see them at all.
Our best eternal interests are. put be-
fore us, and We cannot see them. The
glories Of loving and pardouing
Christ are projected, and We do not
behold them. Oh We have defective
sight which makes the things of this
world larger than the things of the fu-
ture, time bigger than eternity. Or,
we are color blind and cannot see the
difference between the blackness of
darkness forever and the roseate morn
ing Of an everlasting day. But Christ
the Surgeon comes in, and though We
shrink back afraid to have him touch
US, yet he put his fingers on the closed
eyelids of the soul and midnight be-
comes midnoon, and We understand
something Of the joy Of the young man
of the Bible who, though ne had never
before been able to see his hand before
his face, now by the touch of Christ
had two headlights kindled under his
brow, cried out in language that con-
founded the jeerlng crowd who were
deriding the Christ that had effected
the cure and wanted to make him out