The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-07-27
A MISSION OF CHRIST
DR.. Ta1mage Discourses on the
Great Surgeon.
Efficacy of the Divine Power in Heal
ing the Worlds Wounds and De-
fOrmities-ReIatiOn of Sur
gerry and Theology.
copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch.l
washington.

1
Washington,
In this discourse DR.. Talmage (who
is now travelling in Europe) 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" I said to a distinguished
| surgeon, ''do you not get worn out
with constantly seeing SO many
wounds and broken bones and distOr-
| tions of the human body?" "Oh, nc" +"
he answered; "all 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 en-
| tered 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 years be-
| fore they came. The first surgeons
who answered this call were minis
ters of rengion-namely, the Egyp-
tian priests. And what a grand thing
if all the clergymen were also doc
tors, all D. DIS were NJ. DIS, for there
are so many cases where body and
soul need treatment at the same time,
consolation and medicine, theology
and therapeutics. AS the first sur
geons of tt world were also ministers
IF ,al;or;o1 NOV ithaca +yvo nrOfaCciOnS c
| always be in full sympathy! But un-
der what disadvantages the early sur
geons worked, from the fact that the
dissection of the human body was for
hidden, 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 in
side the temple by looking at the out
side of it. If they failed in any surgi-
cal operation, they were prosecuted
and driven out of the city, as was
Archagathus because of his bold but
unsuccessful attempt to save a pa
tient.
But the world from the very begin
ming kept calling for surgeons, and
their first skill is spoken of in Genesis,
where they employed their art for the
incisions of a sacred rite, God making
surgery the predecessor of baptism,
and we see it again in Ii. Kings, where
AhaZiah, the monarch, stepped on
some cracked latticewOrk in the pal.
ace, 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 Ekron for aid, and Aesculapius,
who wrought such wonders of surgery
that he was deified and temples were
built for his worship at Pergamos;
and Epidaurus and Podelirius intro
duced for the relief of the world
phIebotomy, and Damocedes cured
the dislocated ankle of King Darius
and the cancer of his queen, and
Hippocrates put successful hand on
fractures and introduced amputa-
ton, and PraXagoras removed obstruc-
tions, and Herophilus began dissec-
ton, and Erasistratus removed tu-
mors, and CELSIUS, the Roman surgeon,
removed cataract from the eye and
used the Spanish fly; and Heliodorus
arrested disease of the throat, and AL
exander of Tralles treated the eye, and
Rhazas cauterized for the prevention
of hydrophobia, and Percival Pott
came to combat diseases of the spine,
and in our own century we have had,
among others, a Roux and a Larray
in France, an Ashley Cooper and an
Abernethy in Great Britain and
Valentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel D. Gross in America and
a galaxy of living surgeons as bril-
liant as their predecessors. What
mighty progress in the battling of dis
ease since the crippled and sick of
ancient cities were laid along the
streets, that people who had ever been
hurt or disordered in the same way
might suggest what had better be
done for the patients, and the priests
of olden time, who were constantly
suffering from colds received in walk
ing barefoot over the temple pave
ments, had to prescribe for them
selves, and fractures were considered
so far beyond all human cure that in
stead of calling in the surgeon the
people only invoked the gods!
notice this Surgeon had fondness
for chronic diseases. Many a surgeon,
when he has had a patient brought to
him, has said: ''Why was not this at
tended to five years ago? You bring
him to me after all power of recupera-
ton is gone. You have waited until
there is a complete contraction of the
muscles, and false igatures are formed,
and ossifcation has taken place. It
ought to have been attended to long
ago." But Christ the Surgeon seemed
to prefer inveterate cases. One was a
hemorrhage of IL years, and he stopped
it. Another was curvature of 1S years,
and He Strengthened it. Another was
cripple of 3S years, and he walked out
we'll. The 18-year patient was a wom-
an bet almost double. If you call a
convention of all the surgeons of the
centuries, their combined 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 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