The doctor : a lay sermon for working people / by the author of Rab and his friends.

  • Brown, John, 1810-1882.
Date:
[between 1870 and 1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The doctor : a lay sermon for working people / by the author of Rab and his friends. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    if in every conversion of a sinner He beholds a re- ward of His agony, and sees in it of the travail of bis soul and is satisfied,—if He rises from His throne to welcome every believer who has finished His course and kept the faith—what joy shall irra- diate His blessed countenance, when all the chil- dren whom the Father has given unto Him, shall be with Him where He is, beholding His glory ! Creation too, in earnest expectation, is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. It groan- eth and travaileth in pain together until now, for it was made subject to vanity. It is covered with dark night, marring its beauty and lovehness, defiled [Edited by in of sin. But the resur- nigh. The regeneration The creature itseK shall iudage of corruption, unto the children of God ; for the hath overcome darkness, and behold now a world of light ! Then shall we sing with a deeper and truer meaning, and with more joyous gratitude and praise than ever before;— with a rection of the be delivered the glor Light of “ 0 my Lord and God, thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest Thyself with Light as with a garment.” ADOLPH SAPHIK. TEEE DOCTOR A LAY SERMON FOR WORKING PEOPLE,* BY Everybody knows the Doctor ; a very important person he is to us aU. What could we do with- out him ? He brings us into this world, and tries to keep us as long in it as he can, and as long as our bodies can hold together; and he is with us at that strange and last hour which will come to us all, when we must leave this world and go into the next. When we are well, we perhaps think little about the Doctor, or perhaps we have our joke at him and his drugs ; but let anything go wrong with our body, that wonderful tabernacle in which our soul dwells, let any of its wheels go wrong, then off we fly to the doctor. If the mother thinks her husband or her child dying, how she runs to him, and urges him with her tears ! how she watches his face, and follows his search- ing eye, as he examines the dear sufferer ; how she wonders what he thinks—what she woidd give to know what he knows ! how she wearies for his visit I how a cheerful word from him makes her heart leap with joy, and gives her spirit and strength to watch over the bed of distress ! Her whole soul goes out to him in unspeakable gratis tude when he brings back to her from the power of the grave her darling child or her husband. He knows many of our secrets, our sorrows, which no one else knows—some of our sins, perhaps, which the great God alone else knows ; how many cares and secrets, how many lives, he carries in his heart and in his hands. So you see he is a very important person the Doctor, and we should do our best to make the most of him, and to do our duty to him and to ourselves. A thinking man feels often pain- fully what a seriPus thing it is to be a doctor, to have the charge of the lives of his fellow-mortals, to stand, as it were, between them and death, and eternity, and the judgment-seat, and to fight hand to hand with Death. One of the best men and greatest physicians that ever lived. Dr. Sydenham, says, in reference to this, and it would be well if all doctors, young and old, would consider his words :— “ It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to the care of others, seriously to consider the four following things :—First, That he must f Delivered many years ago at the Broughton Place Mission Schoolhouse in the Old High School Close, Canongate, Edinburgh. THE AUTHOR OP “RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.”’ one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of aU the lives intrusted to his care. Secondly, That all his skill, and knowledge, and energy, as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for His glory and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition. Thirdly, and not more beautifully than truly. Let him reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean crea- ture, for, in order that we may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten Son of God became Himself a man, and thus en- nobled it with His divine dignity, and, far more than this, died to redeem it; and, fourthly. That the Doctor, being himself a mortal man, should be dUigent and tender in reheving his suffering pa- tients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer.” I shall never forget a proof I myself got twenty years ago, how serious a thing it is to be a doctor, andliow terribly in earnest people are when they want him. It was when cholera first came here in 1832. I was in England at Chatham, which you aU know is a great place for ships and sailors. This fell disease comes on generally in the night; as the Bible says, “ it walks in darkness,” and many a morning was I roused at two o’clock to go and see its sudden victims. One morning a sailor came to say I must go three miles down the river to a vil- lage where it had broken out with great fury. Off I set. We rowed in silence down the dark river, passing the big hulks, and hearing the rest- less convicts turning in their beds in their chains. The men rowed with all their might; they had too many dying or dead at home to have the heart to speak to me. We got near the place ; it was very dark, but I saw a crowd of men and women on the shore at the landing-place. They were all shouting for the Doctor ; the shrill cries of the women, and the deep voices of the men coming across the water to me. We were near the shore, when I saw a huge old man, his hat off, his hair grey, his head bald; he said nothing, but turning them all off with his arm, he plunged into the sea, and before I knew where I was, he had me grimly in his arms. I was helpless as an infant. He waded out with me, carrying me high up in liis left arm, and with his right levelhng every man or woman who stood in his way. It was Big Joe carrying