A curious story is told, and vouched for, respecting the manner in which Dr. and Rev. Thomas Dawson obtained a rich and pious wife. This gentleman combined the two professions of preacher and doctor. If, during divine services, he was called upon to prescribe for an invalid, he wound up his sermon, requested his audience to pray for the sick, and repaired forthwith to administer to the body. I presume the congregation to whom the reasonable request was made did not take it in the same light as did an “M. D.” of whom we heard, who made a point to be called out of church every Sabbath.
Once the minister, who had a bit of humor in his manner, stopped on a certain occasion in his “thirdly,” and said, “Dr. B. is wanted to attend upon Mr. ——, and may the Lord have mercy upon him.”
The doctor was so enraged at this “insinuation” that he called upon the parson, and demanded an “apology to the congregation, before whom he felt he had been grossly slandered.”
The parson agreed to this proposal, and in the afternoon he arose and said,—
“As Dr. B. feels aggrieved at my remark of this morning, and demands an apology, I hereby offer the same; and as that was the first case, I trust it may be the last in which I am ever called upon in his behalf to supplicate divine intervention.”
But to return to Dr. Dawson. Amongst his patients was a Miss Mary Corbett, said to be one of the wealthiest and most pious of his flock, whom, on his calling upon her one day, he found bending in reverence over the Bible.
The doctor approached, and as she raised her eyes to his she held her finger upon the passage which occupied her immediate attention. The doctor bent down and read the words at which her finger pointed—“Thou art the man.”
The doctor was not slow to take the hint. Thus he obtained a pious wife, she a devout husband.—See “Book About Doctors.”
A great deal has been reported respecting the “off-hand” manner in which Abernethy “popped the question” to Miss Anne Threlfall. The fact of the case is given by Dr. Macilwain. The lady was visiting at a place where the doctor was attending a patient—of all places the best to learn the true merits of a lady. He was at once interested in her, and ere long there seemed a tacit understanding between them. “The doctor was shy and sensitive; which was the real Rubicon he felt a difficulty in passing; and this was the method he adopted: he wrote her a brief note, pleading professional occupation, etc., and requesting the lady to take a fortnight in which to consider her reply.” From these facts a great falsehood has oft been repeated how he “couldn’t afford time to make love,” etc., and that she must decide to marry him in a week, or not at all.
He was married to her January 9, 1800, and attended lectures the same day.