THE SACREDNESS OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE AND THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, Sabbath Evening, November 19th, 1865. BY \ REV. E. R. BEADLE, Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. PHILADELPHIA: JAMES S. CLAXTON, SUCCESSOR TO WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN. 606 Chestnut Street. 1865. Jefferson Medical College, Tuesday Evening, November 21st, 1865. Rev. E. R. Beadle, £»•—The undersigned, a joint Committee appointed by the students of the Jeffer- son Medical College and the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of obtaining your sermon on "The Sacredness of the Medical Profession," delivered on Sunday evening, November 19th, 1S65, respectfully solicit a copy of the same for publication. Committee from Jefferson Medical College. FREDK H. PATTON, West Va. WM S. FOSTER, Pa. ANDREW EASLEY, Va. FRED. BARRETT, Pa. GEORGE W. BURKE, Pa. J. H. BENNETT, M. D., Mo. W. T. THACKERAY, Pa. A. Y. McCOKMICK, Md. SAMUEL C. LOUGHRIDGE, Ohio. Committee from Med. Depart. University Pa. SAMUEL S. STRYKER, Jr., N. J. JOHN F: WEIGHTMAN, Pa. HORACE B. HARE, Pa. WILLIAM H. STERLING, N.J. F. A. HASSLER, D. C. CHARLES H. BURVETT, Pa. OLOF PAGE, Chili. • J. REINMUND BECK, Ohio, J. A. TONNER, Del. To Messrs. Fredk H. Patton, Wm S. Foster, Samuel S. Stryker, Jr., John F. Weightman, and others. Gentlemen—The sermon you solicit was not prepared with any view to publication, but if you think it will at all subserve the interests of true medical science and knowledge, I shall place the manuscript at your disposal. I remain, gentlemen, Most truly yours, E. R. BEADLE, 248 south Eighth street, Nov. 22d, 18'>i. SERMON. Colossians iv. 14. "LUKE, THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN." The skilful artist fixes the face or the form upon the canvass, with a few bold strokes. A single word or a short sentence, will reveal a character, or give the index to a life. On a college programme I once saw a single word written against the name of one of the Faculty, "Vir." It was enough. More would have been superfluous. Biography is some- times elaborate, best, when succinct. The most comprehensive biography extant, is that*of Enoch, the seventh from Adam. "He walked with God." Akin to this concise record, is that before us. "Luke, the beloved physician." Name, profession, character, in as many words. Elsewhere, we find by careful research, that he was a Jewish proselyte, born at Antioch on the Orontes in Syria; was educated as a physician; travelled with Paul in his missionary tours; was a companion of that faithful 6 and heroic preacher, until his imprisonment at Rome; after which he devoted himself to the work of writing the gospel which bears his name and the history of the foundation of the Christian Church, which now bears the title of the "Acts of the Apostles." Luke was a well-informed Greek. His classic style, so much superior to that of the other Evangelists, would indicate his higher oulture. His technical and accurate description of diseases, deter- mine his character as a physician. He was a physi- cian and a missionary, a preacher and a practitioner, two things not always, perhaps not often, combined. He lived to an advanced age, and died probably in Achaia, somewhere in the neighborhood of Corinth. With his life, his labors, his writings, the time, place and manner of his death; we have at this moment no special concern. Two points only claim our attention. He was a physician, and as such com- mended of the Holy Ghost. He was the "beloved physician." As an Evangelist and preacher, he was doubtless highly honored. He could not have been so long . the companion of Paul and sharer of his hardships and perils, without holding an honored place in the affections of the saints. I seize this example and this divine commendation of the profession of medicine, as pertinent to my present purpose; and establishing this as a point of 7 contact between us, I shall proceed to present some thoughts more or less direct on the sacredness of the medical profession. The origin of the medical profession lies far back in the history of our world. Its primal, practice must have been instinctive. The suffering and sorrow, consequent upon the introduction of sin, must have induced an instant search for remedies and relief. Humanity could not have yielded to disease and succumbed to death, without an effort to ward off, or at least delay the execution of these sore penalties for sin. The physical nature of man must have been complete before the fall. It was marred by that sad disaster, and came under the law of infirmity, decay and death. In some form, therefore, the administration of remedies must have been co-eval with the fall. The Egyptian monuments are the oldest known structures in the world. On these we find unmis- takable evidence that the ancient Egyptians under- stood and practised the arts of medicine. The mummy pits reveal the skill of the physicians of those ancient times, and show that in some depart- ments of knowledge and physical science, they were far in advance of our own times. The Pentateuch contains the oldest history of our world, going back to the genesis of our race, and giving us all we 8 know of the human family, when both earth and man were young. In this inspired record, we find what might be called a medical treatise on some of the diseases common to Egypt and Syria, and no better treatise can be found to this day. Moses was a physician, skilled in all the arts of the Egyptians, and the practitioner who wishes to study the different forms of cutaneous diseases, and especially those forms which are recognized as lepra, will find the arrangement and classification of this ancient Hebrew physician, eminently scientific and just: and it will be found as medical science advances in our time, that the Mosaic prohibitions, rejecting all unclean animals as unsuitable for food, was not merely a ritual necessity, but a requirement strictly in conformity with hygienic laws, not excepting even swine, so extensively used in modern times. Later in the history of the Hebrew nation, the Levitical priesthood were the medical practitioners, and so continued long after our Saviour's time. And it was this that made the sin of the Levite so much the greater when he came and saw the wounded Samaritan, and went on his way, without affording the necessary relief. He was a physician as well as priestly servitor, and his profession should have lifted him at once above national prejudice, 9 and moved him to instant efforts for the recovery of this suffering fellow-man. But I have no purpose to present here even a synopsis of the history of medicine. Its European history, from Hippocrates down, you will learn else- where. I wish only to enter this sacred enclosure by the same way through which the mighty men of old passed; and to show you that the grandeur, and dignity, and sacredness of your profession, belong not alone to modern times. They are as old as time itself; honored in all the ages of earth's history; and to be recognized and honored, till the last work of disease is done in this world, and man passes into a new and nobler condition over which death has no power. You have passed that nervous and formative period of life in which the choice of a profession is the constant theme for agitation and anxiety. You have settled that question and set your faces man- fully to the real work of life. I greet you here, and hail you only to give you words of cheer. I respect your choice. I disparage no other profession. My presence here to-night, is evidence that there is one which I prefer before it. I wish you had done the same; but I leave that with God and you. I honor all professions and all lawful callings. The plough, the anvil, the bench, the loom, the spade, these are 10 all sacred and honorable. In the vast complication of human necessities and dependencies, no one profes- sion or calling can be separated from the rest. All are needed, and each has its place and appropriate work and reward. Next to the ministry, your profes- sion is the highest possible to man, and has enough in it to satisfy the noblest aspirations of our best nature. It is a sacred calling. And to enforce this I remark, I. It is a profession devoted exclusively to the welfare of mankind. I admit no sordid and mercenary motives. The practice of medicine, for wordly or base purposes is not to be considered for a moment. By the very choice of your profession, you have devoted vourselves to the well-being of mankind. You are to stand out as benefactors of the race; to be set apart as public servants; subject to call, ready to make sacrifices, endure fatigue and exposure: to consecrate your time, your talents and your lives to the common weal. An artizan who erects a manufactory, or builds a ship, or invents a labor- saving machine, may be a common benefactor; so he who causes two spires of grass to grow, where but one grew before, has added to the common stock of wealth and happiness; but you are to do far more. Your work as a physician has to do with man in his highest nature. You have both 11 * body and soul largely in your keeping. If you enter upon your work mechanically and in a trades- man-like way, you only give too much evidence that you have mistaken your calling. The simple exhibition of prescriptions is not your proper work; it is merely an adjunct. You are not detailed to superintend a course of treatment merely, in some individual case, but to stand as the custodians and conservators of the highest interests and most precious blessings conferred upon our race. All lawful human employment is a battling with some evil; or a hand to hand conflict with some difficulty; or a strife with some opposing force or element. In agriculture, we have soil and seed, and then in the sweat of the face, we are to wrest harvests from the dominion of the curse. All artizanship is to construct, improve, to make more effective, to lighten labor, to lessen human ills, to add comfort, to help us to forget our sorrow, to roll away the curse. Yours is to palliate, if you cannot prevent, and as far as possible remove, the evils of our world and the ills of our fallen state; to improve the physical and moral condition of our race. And the question is fairly pressed upon you at this moment, whether you cannot arrest the physical degeneracy, so apparent in our time, and restore human life to its normal conditions. Whether by 12 insisting upon a better mode of life, more nutritious food, purer social enjoyments, higher mental cul- ture; by retarding the speed and lessening the pressure of all commercial and business life, you may not again enlarge its boundary and change the whole face of human society. I know that disease is not an accident, is not referable to some indis- cretion upon the part of the patient, or chargeable to some hereditary taint; both are often and emi- nently true in specific cases; but disease is here, because sin has entered our world. The pangs of travail are the perpetual memorial of disobedience; painful disease and premature death, are parts of the curse pronounced upon sin, "The soul that sin- neth, it shall die:" physically, morally, eternally, so sin brought death and death brings woe and anguish. To lessen this woe, and lighten this curse is your work, and it rises instantly to the grandest proportions. You are therefore to go back of individual cases and specific diseases, and study a race fallen and lost. Man dismantled of his dignity and glory, a prey to suffering, disease and death. To comfort him, to help him, to alleviate his pangs, to smooth his rugged way, to support his feeble steps, to inspire him with courage, to turn his languid eye to a world of light and life, where no inhabitant shall ever say, "I am sick." Such is 13 your work; to bless your race, to elevate fallen humanity, to bring man back to a forsaken God. And in this work, you will be specially called to remember the poor. To be poor in this plethoric earth is often a sad evil; to be poor and sick, a double sorrow; and such will often come in your way. It is the glory of your profession that it has never faltered in this merciful work, and much of its honor is gained from the singular devotion to the poor and the unfortunate of our race. Our Saviour remembered the poor, and as followers of him, you are to " do likewise." They are to be sharers in your ministrations and receive a portion of the blessings you may dispense, though they cannot recompense thee; but, " thou shalt be recom- pensed at the resurrection of the just." Again, II. Your calling is sacred, because you are made the special guardians of human life. I will not simply say health; that is essential to life in good conditions; but life, and all that means, is intrusted to your care. You cannot enter upon your work as a physician, and come to the bed-side of your patient, with the thought that you have before you a mere animal existence. That material body, the seat of the disease which is to try and 14 perhaps baffle your skill, is animated with a mys- terious principle. That vascular apparatus sends, pulsating to its extremities, blood, through which vitality courses; that mass of fibre is instinct with life; these muscular exertions are put forth by the life that is intrenched within; behind all these material forces, abides that mystic, subtle element, which we call life, and which is life; a vitality, ethereal, indestructible, dauntless, deathless. With that you have to do. You stand at the gate through which this life is eventually to pass, and as a faithful sentinel you are to guard the portal with a jealous care. Charged with this delicate intrustment, you cannot but feel that your work is one of serious and sacred moment. How are you to preserve this beautiful structure which holds an immortal tenant 1 How conserve its powers, and make them wear on without jar and without decay? How will you defend this divinely constructed temple of the Holy Ghost, this "palace built for God," from the assaults of disease and the sentence of death? At the best, you will be defeated in the end, but your work is to extend the period of human life, by conserving its powers and guarding its issues; you may put off the inevitable day by carefully husbanding the resources of the present. Your guardianship of the life will 15 compel earnest labor for the preservation of the 'body, and in doing this, you will have and hold a powerful influence over the mind, by which the body is controlled. And by a careful study of the emotional and intellectual nature, you will arm yourselves with double power to control the disease which preys upon the body. Life is sometimes in the control of the will. It is at least approximately true. You are therefore to minister to the mind, and charge that to defend the imperiled life. One word of hope from you may revive the fainting courage, and bring back the ebbing life. A benig- nant smile may dispel terror and inspire hope. And thus by carefully administering to the body and holding a proper control of the mind, you may secure to your patients years of life, perhaps life with health and its consequent enjoyments; but, there is a far higher work to be done in this guardianship and defence of human life. If you have succeeded in averting the day of death, and giving years of renovated health, you have wrought a good work, but practically your success is only for the time. You have fought against disease and conquered; death still contends with you, and you will eventually be vanquished. Your patient will die, you will yourselves become patients and die. 16 You have antidotes against faintings, and fractures, and falls, none against death; and if all your skill, and all your knowledge, and all your pains, result only in a brief extension of human life, a few years more of perhaps indifferent health; complete, if you will, it would scarcely seem worth the while; but this is only a partial and very imperfect view of your work. That life which is intrusted to your care is end- less in its being. There are a thousand avenues through which it may escape from the body, not one by which it can escape from itself. To limit your work then, simply to the conditions of disease and health for a few days or a few years, is to fail in comprehending the nature and extent of your intrustment. Your work, whether you will or no, is to be projected into the future. Your patients will go before you, follow you, and they will bear with them the impress of your ministrations, and in your hearing, give an account of your guardianship. Then, the point I make here is this, you are to be physicians of the soul, as well as the body. You are to minister to the man complete; to his physical, mental, moral maladies. Your high calling holds all these trusts, for each of which you must give answer, and the work you have accomplished for all. 17 So again, III. There is a sacredness gathered around your profession, as the guardians of true science and sound knowledge. It does not fall within my province to present the claims of true medical science. Abler minds will do that, in the proper place and at the proper time, and put you on your guard against the seductions of charlatanism. And your good sense as educated and professional men, will lead you to prefer truth and right, and sound scientific knowledge, to the babblings of empiricism, though it come with both hands full of gold. It is one of the sad things of our fallen world and our fallen nature, that men love to be deceived. You can deceive them if you will, and fatten upon their follies. Do it not. God intrusts to your keeping a nobler heritage. The possession of knowledge above your fellows, is the very reason why you should not play upon their ignorance, but the rather enlighten them and lead them to better things. Hold sacred the trusts committed to you. Better by far wait years for success, than to sacrifice principle and sell your honest manhood for money. Better die poor with clean hands and a good con- science, than walk in marble halls, or sleep in granite sarcophagi. 2 18 Again, IY. Your calling has a sacredness in the relation it holds to the future of our world. The healing art is yet to be vsed as a great power in elevating man and bringing in the final glory of the Redeemer's kingdom. Much has been done by the medical profession in all ages for the amelioration of the evils of our world. Its mission was merciful from the first, but in modern times its true mission has been better understood and appreciated, and we have had noble earnests of the great work it is destined to accom- plish, and the high place to be assigned to it in the final struggle for this world's redemption. It is not the province of medical science to declare war, or to pronounce upon its justice or expediency; but if war exists, if battles are fought, it is its province to mitigate the horrors of the field; to take its place beside the wounded and dying, and use its best and swiftest appliances to lessen suffering and limit the loss of human life. In this work, military surgery has taken high rank and laid humanity under a lasting debt of grati- tude. Much was done in the war of the Revolu- tion, and if we may regard Baron. Larrey as the type of army surgeons in Europe, much has been gained in this service in all the great Continental 19 wars. And in the gigantic war which has just closed, we have seen the most splendid results of this great power working for good. I am not now' awarding honors to medical science, but for a single moment adverting to its work in modern times. I might present at length the scientific discoveries which it has made, and which go so far to lessen human toil and increase human happiness; such as bleaching by chlorine, painting by light, the dis- covery of fertilizing agents, the application of chemi- cal substitutes, the determination of the electric fluid; I might add the discoveries of Hervey and Jenner; the introduction and use of ansesthetic agents in operative surgery, but I must confine myself to its moral triumphs. What magic influ- ence has it exerted upon prisons and jails by en- forcing sanitary laws; what has it done for that numerous and unfortunate class of our fellow-beings whose reason has been impaired, drawing them from garrets and cellars and miserable sheds and out- houses, into the light of God's day, into the sympa- thies of humanity, into the love of the human heart; rearing magnificent buildings and furnishing munificent endowments; providing the comforts and even the luxuries of life; inaugurating a system of moral treatment that insures a recovery of seventy- 20 five per cent, of all cases taken in the early stages. So has it turned its attention to imbecility as well as mental aberration, and begun with gentle hand and persistent skill to rescue lives from vacuity and kindle the light of intelligent thought, where all before was dark and void; and just now is it grap- pling with the morbid appetite and fiery thirst of the inebriate, regarding these as symptoms of a dis- ease amenable to treatment; and with patient toil building anew out of the shattered wreck, and as a reward for all, giving back to the world a man! Institutions for the aged, infirm, the sick, the poor, the blind, the mute, the broken soldier; Hospitals, Homes, Infirmaries, Asylums, Retreats, these all are the fruitage which our world is gathering, and as we behold them to-day, they are only the handfuls of the first-fruits which precede the harvest, the great work is to come. But I must pass to the true mission- ary work, which it has wrought, and may go back to the foundation of the Christian religion. Chris- tianity went forth on its mission armed with healing power; miraculous, and acquired as well, to attest its mission, and far more, to express its benignant character, and to do just that work it came into the world to accomplish. " Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind 21 receive their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." These were the evidences of the Messiahs ship. Christ went about, ''healing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases among the peo- ple." Christianity came for that, will do that. In the work of modern missions the medical mission- ary has been often the pioneer, and opened the way for the introduction of the gospel; softening na- tional prejudice, overcoming religious bigotry, sub- duing hatred, conferring always personal benefits, often the highest of all blessings. I may recall to you the name of Grant, (a warm personal friend,) a man of noble instincts, and nobler faith, who left a lucrative practice in a large city of western New York and made his way to the wild mountainous regions of Central Asia; who "armed only with his needle for the removal of cataract, forced mountain passes, traversed in safety regions where inevitable death would have met the ordinary traveller;" pressed his way to the homes of ferocious warriors, winning the confidence of whole tribes and planting the seeds of truth, from which nations are yet to be born. Surrounded by the sick and diseased, beset always in his journeys for medicines, he was touch- 22 ingly appealed to on one occasion by a woman, the wife of a chief. Detecting at once the seat of her malady, he silenced her importunities by saying, " O woman, I have no medicine for a broken heart," and then turned her thoughts and blighted hopes to Him who came to " bind up the broken-hearted." It may be said that Parker opened the gates of China with a lancet, when European cannon could not heave a single bar. Dr. Kalley entered the island of Madeira with a single companion, a sick wife leaning on his arm; he left it with eight hundred men won for the truth and God. Thomas, was an early medical missionary in India. A Hindoo came to him with a dislocated shoulder. He reduced the luxation, and then told him of Christ who came into the world to save sinners. He was touched, subdued, soon broke caste, became a changed man, became a Christian. He was the first Hindoo convert, and the leader of a mighty host, who have since entered into the kingdom. It was a physician* who gave India to England. It is a physician who is winning Africa to civili- zation, and preparing a highway and a home for the African race. It was a physician well known and dear to many hearts in this community, who * Gabriel Broughton, in 1636. 23 forced his way to the north magnetic pole, and brought to the doors of Christianity those unknown and wandering tribes of the icy North. It is a physician who has followed in his steps and bids fair to complete the discoveries which he inaugur- ated, and make the frozen and inhospitable regions of our globe warm with the love of Christ. Physicians led in the van of that army which lifted the South Sea islands from cannibalism, and lighted on those distant groups a civilization which is never to go out. And these are the pledges of the work to be done in the future. Medical missionary societies are forming. Medical men are turning their attention more and more to the grand movements of our age; and God will yet put still higher honor upon that profession which has already done so much, and is yet to share so largely in all remedial efforts for man. The future travails with great things. Science is to win new triumphs; new forces are to be applied; new remedies to be discovered; nature is to be more severely chal- lenged ; all undiscovered secrets are to be yielded, and the domains of human knowledge to be ex- tended, and before scientific research darkness itself is to flee away. I rejoice in all. I cheer on the toilers in these fields and urge alway to deeper and 24 more thorough investigation; but I rejoice the more in that thorough and scriptural and noble work which medical science is yet to do in this world for Christ. It is this which makes it the sacred inheritance of the Church; this that clothes it with such dignity and gives it so high a place in the affections of all thoughtful Christian men; and this that will give to it its final glory and highest eternal reward. Let us gather up the thoughts of our theme, and converge them upon a few salient points. I. Your profession arms you with great power. Life hangs upon your word, at least upon your skill and fidelity. You know how to touch the very springs of life, and make them vibrate for weal or woe. You are admitted to the privacy of fam- ilies where no other foot dare^s venture. You hold the strange secrets of human hearts. Society has given over to you its best interests, and intrusts to you its most cherished objects of love. You are called to places of public trust, where high moral qualities and lofty purpose may be wielded with a tremendous power for good. And so you have equal power for evil. Knowledge in the hands of a good man, who loves it for its own sake, and the power it gives him to be useful to others, is a 25 precious boon; but in the hands of a bad man can only prove a woe and a curse. It is the assassin's knife only to be used with more deadly effect, because he knows where to strike. Your security and ours then, lies in the integrity of your moral character and the purity of your purpose. By all the necessities of our fallen condition; by all that is noble and dignified in our nature, you are bound to use this intrusted power for the' good of your race and the glory of your God. II. Your profession clothes you with great res- ponsibilities. Power, place, knowledge, influence, these bring their inseparable accountabilities, and as you are elevated to position, called to service, or charged with trust, so will your responsibilities be increased. And often will you ]pe obliged to bear them alone. You must act upon the instant and without the possibility of counsel. To be always self-possessed, to be always fore-armed, to be thoroughly furnished with the physician and surgeon's best equipment, resource; to see as by instinct, and act as by in- spiration, is hardly possible to human intelligence and sagacity; still you must assume the respon- sibility, even when the gravest interests are involved. It may be a friend dearer to you than your own 26 life, to whom you are swiftly summoned: it may be a life which a nation holds dear, that you are charged to preserve, interests of society, state, for- tune, family, may be at stake, and all eyes rest upon you. It was at the battle of Elchingen, on the banks of the Danube, that the Duke of Montebello was wounded, a stray ball crushing and commi- nuting his knee and thigh in a terrible manner. He was borne to Larrey's table. The Duke was his warm friend, whom he had followed in his cam- paigns and whom he had healed of his wounds. He was now lying pale and pulseless before him. Anxiety and affection unmanned him; and this intrepid operator, who could stand at his table for twenty-four consecutive hours, and with a corps of assistants go through with two hundred ampu- tations in two nights and a day, now stood petrified. But he was soon roused from the stupor, and seizing the knife, heroically swept away the mangled extremity. Your profession clothes you with the gravest responsibilities, and in the consciousness of a wise judgment, and an honest purpose, you must manfully meet them. Finally, III. The sacredness of your profession demands that you should be truly Christian men. Medicine is eminently a Christian calling. Its 27 high conditions are not always appreciated, nor is the response all that its sacredness demands, but I venture to affirm, that no practitioner can fully meet the responsibilities of his profession, and properly use the power committed to his hands, without being a truly God-fearing man. In the practice of your profession you will need religious principle to govern your conduct, chasten your judgment, inspirit your action, and sustain you amid trials and discouragement. You may know how to make judicious prescriptions; you may be able to manipulate skilfully as a surgeon; but these are only parts of your work and means to a far higher end. You will meet with discouragements. In the early part of your profession weary delays may try your courage to the utmost; and you will need a strong religious principle by which to stand fast. Farther on you will meet with base ingratitude, and perhaps injury; you will need strong faith to look through these dark clouds and hold firmly to hu- manity amid the severest shocks. You will fail of success often, and where you most coveted a tri- umph ; you will need a resource within and above. You will have constantly recurring opportunities, and of the most favourable kind, for doing good. 28 You will be present in the hour of nature's sorest need. You will be often where the solemnity of the place and the hour compel the most earnest thought; you will see the strong man bow himself, the hard heart give way, the proud spirit become like a child, and without obtrusion, without offence, you may administer such reproof or timely warning, or kindly encouragement, as may lift a soul from the wreck of falling nature, and give back a life that can never die. The chamber of disease and bed of death are the harvest-fields where you are to reap for God. And your position is far in advance of the clergy- man. He comes when your work is done. You are there while the golden bowl yet holds its pre- cious essence; you can speak without fear of ex- citing suspicion and by all the higher hopes of heaven, give assurance and comfort, when all other words shall fall powerless. To banish religion from the sick room, in order to secure composure to the patient, is a cruelty and a delusion. Nothing will so soon allay that feverish restlessness, which makes the pulse bound under your touch, as soft, hopeful words, that reach to the malady within! Say to that panting spirit, "-Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," and you have administered an anodyne that shall charm beyond all known opi- • 29 ates. Without true religion you cannot success- fully resist the tendencies of your profession to harden your own hearts. Your rude and frequent contact with the cadaver will lead you to forget that these unsightly masses are to be reconstructed by the power of a resurrection that shall make them forever superior to decay and death; your constant familiarity with suffering will beget -indifference, and your almost daily presence at the bed-side of the dying, will induce forgetfulness of " that inevitable day When a voice to you shall say, Thou must rise and come away. All thine other journies past, Gird thee and make ready fast, For thy longest, and thy last." And only in this way can you give answer to and refute the charge sometimes urged against the pro- fession, that its tendencies are to scepticism. Then, my young friends, religion is a personal concern. When I determined to address the medical students, I wrote to a venerable friend whose life has been devoted to training young men, and who has introduced many medical students to the profession, hoping that I might profit by his experience. "I am now (said he in reply) in my 30 eighty-second year, waiting the will of God. Medi- cal students have no little difficulty on the necessity of a new heart, and how to get it. Preach to them on evangelical, practical religion." I wish to do this, and in such a way, that you might each be led to find a personal interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. The honest oxygen of the atmosphere quickens our pulses and accelerates our joyous physical life. If I could throw around you an atmosphere that would quicken your spiritual sensibilities: if I could speak honest and loving words that would lead you to feel the necessity of atoning blood to wash away your sins, and the power of the Holy Ghost that you might be born again, my joy would be full. Your personal responsibility to God, is a matter of the highest concern. Your profession is to save; you yourselves are lost; to be saved, if at all, by the blood of Christ; to be redeemed and made heirs of eternal life, by his perfected righteousness and not your own. It is this Great Physician who stands at the head of your profession as the healer of all maladies and the Saviour of the soul, whom I com- mend to you. You must go to him. You must "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." You must accept his atonement in your behalf. And this you may do now. No weary preparation on your part is 31 needed, no delay for some opportune moment, or some happy conjuncture of circumstances, no wait- ing for a "more convenient season." That con- venient season has come! it is now, it is here. The Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins. "Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidd'st me come to thee, 0 Lamb of God I come."