The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1900-08-30

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 a
healthier hue, and the muscles began
to relax their rigidity, and the spinal
column began to adjust itself. and the
cords of the neck began to be more sup
pie, 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 Is weary and exhausting years,
straight! The poise, the gracefulness,
the beauty of healthy womanhood re-
instated. The 3s years. case was
man who lay on mattress near the
mineral baths at Jerusalem. There
were five apartments where lame peo-
pie 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 dis
appeared, probably through some con-
vulsion of nature. The bath, 100 feet
long, 40 feet wide and eight feet deep.
All, poor man, if you had been lame ano
helpless 3S years, the mineral bath can
not restore you. Why, 3S years is more
than the average of human life. Moth
ing but the grave will cure you. But
Christ the Surgeon walks along these
baths and have no doubt passes by
some patients who have been only six
months disordered, or a year or five
years and comes to the mattress of the
man who had been nearly four decades
helpless, and to this 3s years. invalid
said: 'Wilt thou be made whole?''
In speaking of Christ as surgeon
I must consider him as an oculist or
eye doctor, and an aurist or ear doc
tor. Was there ever such another ocu-
list? That he was particularly sorry
for the blind folks take from the fact
that the most of His works were with
the diseased optic nerves. I have not
time to count up the number of blind
people mentioned who got His cure.
Two blind men in one house; also one
who was born blind; so that it was
not removal of visual obstruction.
but the creation of the cornea and
ciliary muscle and crystalline 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 tongue and
put upon the eyelids; also two blind
men who sat by the wayside.
In our civilized lands we have blind
ness enough, the ratio fearfully in
creasing, according to the statement
of European 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 and come in to business. But in
the lands where the Divine surgeon
operated the cases of blindness were
multiplied beyond everything by the
particles of sand foatingsin the air,
and the night dews falling on the eye
lids Of those who slept on the top of
their houses, and in some of these lands
it is estimated that 20 out of 100 peo-
pie are totally blind. Amid all that
crowd of vision,ess people, what work
for an oculist! And I do not believe
that more than one out of a hundred
OF that surgeons cures were reported.
He went up and down among those
people who were feeling slowly their
way by staff, or led by the hand Of man,
or rope of dog, and introducing 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 expressionless face, and the
shutters of both windows were swung
open, and the restored went home cry
ing: 81 see! 1 see! Thank God, / see!'
That is the oculist we all need. Till
he touches our eyes we are blind.
Yea, we were born blind. By nature
we see things wrong, if we see them
at all. Our best eternal interests are
put before us, and we cannot see
them. The glories of loving and
pardoning Christ are projected, and
we do not behold them. Or we have
a defective sight which makes the
things of this world larger than the
things of the future, time bigger than
eternity. Or, we are color blind and
cannot see the difference between the
blackness of darkness forever and the
roseate morning 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 becomes mid
noon, and we understand something
of the JOY of the young man of tn.
Bible who, though he had never befor,
been able to see his hand before hi,
face, now by the toucn of Christ hal
two headlights kindled under III
brow. cried out in language that con
founded the jeering crowd who wer'
deriding the Christ that had effected
the cure and wanted TO make Him ou
a bad man, whether He be a sinnel