The best preparation for the cholera : being an address to the inhabitants of London and of the kingdom at large / by a Clergyman.

  • Dow William.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The best preparation for the cholera : being an address to the inhabitants of London and of the kingdom at large / by a Clergyman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of the disease, unnerving men, and shaking them out of their natu- ral powers of resistance. And why are you afraid to die? Why more just now than at another time ? Are you less in God’s keeping now than at other times ? Those who have studied our fabric can tell us what a wonder every moment of our existence is ; how many fibres have to be kept in their places, the least of which, by being over-active or overcharged with blood, is able to fill our frame with agony; how many processes of life and nourishment and breathing and circulation, and others still more minute, beyond our consciousness and control, the stoppage or going wrong of the least of which, even for an instant, is enough to extinguish our mortal life. In the midst of these innumerable hazards, we stand continuallv on the brink of dissolution, yet by the hand of God are sustained in cheerfulness and in power of vast and varied exertion. Why, then, does cheerfulness now desert you ? Is it that the real habitual condition of your mind is made known to you by a fact which compels you to look in the face of a probable death ? Thoughts at other times half formed, easily diverted, lurking in the uncon- scious depths of your spirit, are now let loose upon your unwilling attention. You are habitually, continually, though secretly and unconsciously, living in the fear of death. Amid all your gay enjoyments, and your proud activities, and your foolish boastings, the fear of death is lurking at the bottom of your hearts. Now you are made conscious that it is. And when I say the fear of death, I do not mean to say that it is the distress and weary suffer- ings of a death-bed that you fear, nor the agonies of dissolution. It is the meeting with God, and the cutting short of your space for repentance, and the sad eternal state which your consciences, already inwardly judging, forewarn you of: these make death formidable. The fear of death is ever lurking at the bottom of your hearts. And have you then forgotten that there is One who has died for you and risen again; and that He by death has destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered them who through fear of death were subject to bondage ? Have you not known that the sting of death, and of disease, and of all human ill, is sin, and that He has taken away sin by the sacrifice of Himself? When you were baptised, was it not for remission of sins and the taking away of guilt, and that you might stand before God in the righteousness