The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1900-07-28
A MISSION OF CHRIST
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Great Surgeon.
Emcncy of the Divine Power In Heal
Ing the WORLDS Wounds and De- .
formIties-Relation of Sur
gerry and Theology.
Copyright. 1900. by Louis Klopsch.l

Is now travelling in Europe) puts in al
unusual light the mission of Christ
and shows how Divine power will YET
make the illnesses of the world fal
back; text, Matthew xi, 5: The blinC
receive their sight, and the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed and the deai
hear"
Doctor" l said to a distinguished
surgeon, do you not get worn out
with constantly seeing so many
wounds and broken bones and distor'
tons of the human body?" "Oh, no,
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
tiers of religion-namely, the Egyp-
tian priests. And what grand thing
if all the clergymen were also doe
tors, all ID. 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 tie world were also ministers
of religion, may these two professions
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 pa
tient
But the world from the very begin
ming kept calling for surgeons, ant
their first skill is spoken of in Genesis
where they employed their art for the
missions of a sacred rite, God making
surgery the predecessor of baptism
and we see il again in III. Kings, where
AhaZiah, the monarch, stepped OF
some cracked lattcework in the pal
ace. and it broke, and he feli from tn,
upper to the lower floor. and he wa!
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
phlebotomy, 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-
tons, 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 Tor the prevention
of hydrophobia. and Percival Pott
came to combat diseases of the spine,
and in our own century we have had,
among others, Roux and a Larray
| in France, an Ashley Cooper and an
| Abernethy in Great Britain and q
Valentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel ID. Gross in America and
n 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 dsordered 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!
I notice this Surgeon had a fondness
for chronic diseases. Many 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 AL power of recupera-
ton is gone. You have waited until
there is complete contraction of the
muscles, and false ligatures are formed,
and ossification has taken place. 1t
ought to have been, attended to long
ago" But Christ the Surgeon seemed
to prefer inveterate cases. One was n
hemorrhage of IL years and he stopped
IL. Another was curvature of IS years.
and He Strengthened il. Another was a
cripple of SO years, and he walked out
well. The 1s-year patient was wom-
an bent almost double. II 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
II is, humbly speaking, incurable. Yet
a.