The Doctor thought he had read it, but did not remember much about it.
“It 's worth reading, Doctor,—it's worth remembering; and, old as it is, it is just as good to-day as it was when it was laid down as a rule of conduct four hundred years before the Sermon on the Mount was delivered. Let me read it to you, Dr. Hurlbut.”
There was something in Master Gridley's look that made the Doctor feel a little nervous; he did not know just what was coming.
Master Gridley took out his great Hippocrates, the edition of Foesius, and opened to the place. He turned so as to face the Doctor, and read the famous Oath aloud, Englishing it as he went along. When he came to these words which follow, he pronounced them very slowly and with special emphasis.
“My life shall be pure and holy.”
“Into whatever house I enter, I will go for the good of the patient:
“I will abstain from inflicting any voluntary injury, and from leading away any, whether man or woman, bond or free.”
The Doctor changed color as he listened, and the moisture broke out on his forehead.
Master Gridley saw it, and followed up his advantage. “Dr. Fordyce Hurlbut, are you not in danger of violating the sanctities of your honorable calling, and leading astray a young person committed to your sacred keeping?”
While saying these words, Master Gridley looked full upon him, with a face so charged with grave meaning, so impressed with the gravity of his warning accents, that the Doctor felt as if he were before some dread tribunal, and remained silent. He was a member of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's church, and the words he had just listened to were those of a sinful old heathen who had never heard a sermon in his life; but they stung him, for all that, as the parable of the prophet stung the royal transgressor.