The Water of Life and Other Sermons | Page 6

have
wished that it should likewise form an integral part of the mission of
the Church: that the clergy should as much as possible be physicians;
the physician, as much as possible, a clergyman. The plan may be
useful in exceptional cases--in that, for instance, of the missionary
among the heathen.
But experience has decided, that in a civilized and Christian country it
had better be otherwise: that the great principle of the division of labour
should be carried out: that there should be in the land a body of men
whose whole mind and time should be devoted to one part only of our
Lord's work--the battle with disease and death. And the effect has been
not to lower but to raise the medical profession. It has saved the doctor
from one great danger--that of abusing, for the purposes of religious
proselytizing, the unlimited confidence reposed in him. It has freed him
from many a superstition which enfeebled and confused the physicians
of the Middle Ages. It has enabled him to devote his whole intellect to
physical science, till he has set his art on a sound and truly scientific
foundation. It has enabled him to attack physical evil with a
single-hearted energy and devotion which ought to command the
respect and admiration of his fellow- countrymen. If all classes did
their work half as simply, as bravely, as determinedly, as unselfishly, as
the medical men of Great Britain--and, I doubt not, of other countries in
Europe--this world would be a far fairer place than it is likely to be for
many a year to come. It is good to do one thing and to do it well. It is
good to follow Christ in one thing, and to follow Him utterly in that.
And the medical man has set his mind to do one thing,--to hate calmly,
but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against
them to the end.
The medical man is complained of at times as being too materialistic-
-as caring more for the bodies of his patients than for their souls. Do
not blame him too hastily. In his exclusive care for the body, he may be
witnessing unconsciously, yet mightily, for the soul, for God, for the
Bible, for immortality.
Is he not witnessing for God, when he shows by his acts that he

believes God to be a God of Life, not of death; of health, not of disease;
of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and
weakness?
Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of
sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil as the
natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?
Is he not witnessing for the immortality of the soul when he fights
against death as an evil to be postponed at all hazards and by all means,
even when its advent is certain? Surely it is so. How often have we seen
the doctor by the dying bed, trying to preserve life, when he knew well
that life could not be preserved. We have been tempted to say to him,
'Let the sufferer alone. He is senseless. He is going. We can do nothing
more for his soul; you can do nothing more for his body. Why torment
him needlessly for the sake of a few more moments of respiration? Let
him alone to die in peace.' How have we been tempted to say that? We
have not dared to say it; for we saw that the doctor, and not we, was in
the right; that in all those little efforts, so wise, so anxious, so tender, so
truly chivalrous, to keep the failing breath for a few moments more in
the body of one who had no earthly claim upon his care, that doctor
was bearing a testimony, unconscious yet most weighty, to that human
instinct of which the Bible approves throughout, that death in a human
being is an evil, an anomaly, a curse; against which, though he could
not rescue the man from the clutch of his foe, he was bound, in duty
and honour, to fight until the last, simply because it was death, and
death was the enemy of man.
But if the medical man bears witness for God and spiritual things when
he seems exclusively occupied with the body, so does the hospital.
Look at those noble buildings which the generosity of our
fellow-countrymen have erected in all our great cities. You may find in
them, truly, sermons in stones; sermons for rich alike and poor. They
preach to the rich, these hospitals, that the sick-bed levels all alike; that
they are the equals and brothers of the poor in the terrible liability to