Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

PERSONAL RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF A PHYSICIAN; AND AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF A NEW DISPENSATION.

We know that in various ages of the world the Lord has revealed a knowledge of Himself to man. In the Ten Commandments we have the laws of spiritual life, in accordance with which we must live if we would enjoy spiritual health, precisely as we must live in accordance with the laws of natural life and health, if we would enjoy natural health.

We are dependent upon revelation for a knowledge of the laws of spiritual health, and of the causes and methods for the cure of spiritual diseases; but the Lord gives us, if we will keep His sayings, the ability, by careful scientific study and investigation, to obtain a knowledge of the physical laws of health, and the causes and methods of curing physical diseases. And it is wonderful how the natural in all respects symbolizes or corresponds to the spiritual.

To the Jewish Church the Lord revealed so much knowledge of Himself, and how they should live if they would be prosperous and happy here and hereafter, as that Church was prepared to receive; and He also promised to manifest Himself in person. All Christians believe that He fulfilled His promise when Jesus Christ appeared on earth; but He did not come in the manner which the Jews at the time of His advent expected. He came, not as a temporal ruler or prince; consequently they took Him for an impostor and crucified Him. To His followers and disciples He promised to come again in the clouds of heaven; but the clouds of heaven may not be the clouds of the material earth, any more than the spiritual kingdom which He came to establish was a natural kingdom; and it is possible that His second coming may not be in the manner anticipated by the Christian Church at the time of His second coming. He intimated as much when He inquired if He should find faith on earth. Should Christians, then, not watch and pray, and heed the signs of the times, lest they follow the example of the Jews, and reject Him at His second coming? Should not clergymen, as well as physicians, be led in freedom according to reason, and not blindly by prominent religious professors, clergymen and writers, and creeds formulated in an age of comparative darkness? Should the traditions and creeds of men be allowed to make of none effect the Word of God? Do we not see all around us signs of a most wonderful change going on in the world? Are these changes which we behold from the Lord, or from man?

I was reared in the Baptist Church. My father was a deacon, and labored faithfully to bring his children into the Church. I was taught that I must be converted, or get religion, before being baptized or joining the Church. What was meant by being converted I never fully comprehended, but I inferred from the instruction I received that it meant a radical change in one's feelings, the result of faith in the Lord's "atoning blood;" and that when this change was effected, I should be able to tell an experience similar to what I had heard others tell before joining the Church, which sometimes seemed quite marvelous. I attended "protracted meetings" and "revival meetings." And, one evening, I remember hoping and almost feeling that I felt a little change, and I even thought of announcing my feelings in the meeting; but caution prevailed, and I concluded to wait until the next day and see if there really was any change in my feelings. When the next day came, I could see no change, and consequently I made no announcement. Thus, I grew up and continued, until I was over thirty years of age, outside of the organized Church. I always respected religion, the Bible, and religious teachers, but I never got converted.

I had many things during childhood and early youth to be thankful for. My father and grandfather before him were accustomed to gather the family, night and morning, and read, or have some member of the family read, a chapter in the Bible, and then prayer was offered. Now, when this is done regularly, and especially if the Bible is read, in course, with here and there a few kindly remarks by the father or mother, no one can tell the good impression which is made on the children; they learn to reverence the Bible, and, what is of exceeding great moment, they hear it read through and through several times before they reach manhood, and they become comparatively familiar with the good and living precepts therein contained. The Sabbath-school, once a week for an hour or two, is all very well; but, in my estimation, it is very little, compared with daily family worship and acknowledging the Lord, and asking a blessing. O, that all Christian men and women could be aroused to the importance of such religious observances?

Some years ago, I went with my wife and a friend for a summer outing to the Catskill Mountains, and spent a few days at the Mountain House. There were a large number of guests there, of the various religious denominations. Those religiously inclined had established the custom of meeting every morning around a table, in a large room, when a chapter from the Bible was read, followed by singing and prayer. There have been few, if any, incidents of my whole life that I have more frequently thought of, or with greater pleasure and delight, than of those large, non-sectarian, and, as it were, family gatherings and simple services.

My mother died, as stated in the first part of this work, when I was ten years old. After remaining a widower for three years, during which period my grandparents, who lived with us, died and my only sister was married, my father married a widow, the mother of several children, a good Christian woman and a member of the Baptist Church.

I have always been thankful that I had a step-mother. No own mother could have been more kind, or have exercised a stronger influence for good over a son than she strove to exercise over me. She entered our home when I was thirteen years of age, when I needed a mother's influence and care perhaps as much as at any period of my life after I had ceased to draw my nourishment from my mother's breasts. Tears come into my eyes as I recall the pleasant, useful, and happy evenings and Sunday afternoons which I spent with her, when we happened to be alone in the house, reading and conversing about the interesting stories in the Bible and other religious books and papers that she thought would interest me. She may have had faults, yet I was about to say I do not remember one; but, unfortunately, she had one—she was a smoker of tobacco. Years before she had been troubled with "water brash," and a physician who, without much question, was himself a smoker, advised her to smoke; so she commenced smoking. He did not tell her to stop smoking as soon as she felt relief, as any intelligent physician should have done, if he was so unwise as to make such a prescription; but it is a question whether she ever experienced any permanent relief; for she was a bright, intelligent woman, and would have been likely to stop smoking of her own accord if she had been cured. In my estimation the physician who made the prescription was much more to be blamed than she was for the habit which followed. But seventy years ago very little was known as to the fearful slavery and diseases and mortality which result from the use of tobacco, compared with what is known to-day. The sin of ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation of such habits to-day, as it could then.

As to intoxicating drinks, I remember hearing my grandfather, when he was over eighty years old, after taking a drink of cider-brandy, exclaim: "A good gift of God, if taken with faith and prayer."