The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-04-17
Joh's Comforters.

| fa1thi
 Jobs Comforters.
 l Faith cure teachings, pure ana sim l pie, are not only contrary to scriptural 1 common sense, but also antagonistie to | the commentators with which the Bible
 time and again honors human medica-
 ment and the physicians prescriptions. | The only passage in the Bible which in
 any way might be construed by the cas-
 ual reader as a slur upon doctors and | drugs Is that one so often quoted by faith 1 curists from the word found in the booS l of Job: "Ye are forgers of lies Ye are l all physicians of no value" But Job is
 not here alluding to true physicians at all
 This sentence Is a figure of speech. Job l lost patience with his three friends, Eli 1 phaz Zophar and Bildad. These three ] friends, instead of comforting him in his | time of trouble, came around with 1 enough groans and whnes to make a well | man sick or a sick man still sicker. They , asserted that Jobs boils were the results
 of his sins, and Job, in disgust, plainly
 told them If they could bring no better 1 comfort than that they had all better l clear out. Instead of grooming around | Job as they did they ought to have spok- 1 en words of true comfort to him, as did | Christ in his remarks about the blind
 man when he said. Neither hath this
 man sinned TOT his parents, but'-he was | born Dl1nd-'t that lHe NOlhS ol pOe. | should be made manifest In him.
 | If the Bible does not honor the physi- | clans medicament, why did Paul thirty
 years after the death of Jesus Christ
 write about Luke his fellow traveller, as l the "beloved physician" If Paul did
 not honor the physicians profession
 would he have written thus? In tnelr
 missionary tours Paul saw good old pr. | Luke, like sweet faced Dr. Mcclure. Of | @f,, fp1p Q | children to the beds of the old folks and | carving physical assuagement for pain ! wherever he went, and he wrote about l good old pr. Luke as we ourselves may ! have written about some beloved family l physician.
 An Honored Profession.
 If the Bible does not honor the medi- cal profession why did Christ use as illustration this sentence for one of his sermon: "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick?' Does not that divine statement mean, 'They that are sick need a physician?' When Hezebiah was sick unto death he prayed to God to give him longer lease of life. God answered that prayer. But how? Through human medicament. Isaiah the prophet, told the nurse to make a poultice out of figs and put 1t upon the kings boil and he recovered
 Hezekiah prayed. Oh yes. But in an swer to that prayer God told him to use sanctifed poultice. What did Paul
 mean when he wrote to Timothy to
 take little wine for thy stomach s sake" Paul was merely prescribing a dose of medicine for a sick colleague. ! Paul writes thus to Timothy, because the Holy Land, with but few eXceptions' 1 is noted for it's impure waters; therefore Paul, as a common sense Christian, pre-
 1tl,s., r1a.a hn
 Drink no water. but use little wlne for thy stomachs sake" All through the
 Bible we find commendatory passages like these in reference to doctors In no ease do we find the medical profes- sion mathematical and ridiculed in the | Bible Tyndall, the noted synthetic phil | osopher, once hurled at the Christian | church his famous prayer challenge. Said he: Let us set apart two wards in a hospital-one to be filled with men who do not take any human medicine | hut prayer, the other to be filled by SICK patients under the care of competent physicians. Then let us compare results | and see which is the more efficacious- a physicians prescription or clergy mans prayer." My brother, that chal- 1 lenge of Tyndalrs was about as foolish i and unscriptural as any challenge that | could possibly be Issued. No man has a right to bar the Christian physicians
 out of the hospital ward. God honors
 the physicians work all through the
 Bible. Faith should go hand in hand
 with works Work in the hospital should
 go hand in hand with faith.
 Scriptural Common Sense.
 Again, faith cure, pure and simple, II accepted in its entirety of belief would
 call halt to the laboratory investiga-
 tions made for the prevention of disease
 as well as the physician's cures of those diseases after they have come. It would say to Edward Jenner: Your discovery | of vaccination is useless. Disease is a
 condition of the mind. not of the body. Let merciless smallpox start again if it | will. The s50,OOO voted to you by the
 British house of parliament as the great 1 est benefactor of your generation was