HEALTH.
SERMON I.
THE DOCTOR: OUR DUTIES TO HIM.
EVERYBODY knows the Doctor; a very important person he is to us all. What could we do without 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 we have our small 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 him. 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 searching eye, as he examines the dear sufferer; how she wonders what he thinks,—what would she give to know what he knows! how she wearies for his visit! 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 gratitude when he brings back to her from the power of the grave her husband or darling child. The Doctor knows many of our secrets, of 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.