“I should say,” answered Mr Oliphant, “in the first place, that the two cases are essentially different. My statements are drawn from an inspired volume, from an express revelation; the opinions of medical men are simply the deductions of human reason and observation, and are therefore opinions which may be altered or modified. But, further, I should say that I never require my people to receive my statements from the pulpit without question or inquiry. I refer them always to the revelation, the inspired record, and bid them search that record for themselves. Now, if the doctor can point me to any inspired medical record which lays down a particular system, and declares directly or by fair inference against total abstinence, I will at once surrender my present position; but as he will not pretend to possess any such inspired medical volume, I must still feel myself at liberty to hold different views from himself on the medical question.”
“I am well aware, my dear sir,” said Dr Portman, “that you and I shall not agree on this subject, and, of course, I must allow you to be at liberty to hold your own opinions; but it does seem to me, I must confess, very strange that you should look upon total abstinence as universally or generally desirable, when you must be aware that these views are held by so very few of the medical profession, and have only recently been adopted even by those few.”
“I am afraid,” said the rector, smiling, “that you are only entangling yourself in further difficulties. Does the recent adoption of a new course of treatment by a few prove that it ought not to be generally adopted? What, then, do you say about the change in the treatment of fever cases? I can myself remember the time when the patient was treated on the lowering system, and when every breath of air was excluded from the sick-room, doors and windows being listed lest the slightest change should take place in the stifling atmosphere of the bed-room. And now all is altered; we have the system supported by nourishments, and abundance of fresh air let in. Indeed, it is most amusing to see the change which has taken place as regards fresh air; many of us sleep with our windows open, which would have been thought certain death a few years ago. I know at this time a medical practitioner, (who, by the way, is a total abstainer, and has never given any of his patients alcoholic stimulants for the last five-and-twenty years), who, at the age of between seventy and eighty, sleeps with his window open, and is so hearty that, writing to me a few days since, he says, ‘I sometimes think what shall I do when I get to be an old man, being now only in my seventy-fourth year.’ Now, were the medical men wrong who began this change in the treatment of fever cases? or, because they were few at first, ought they to have abandoned their views, and still kept with the majority? Of course, those who adopt any great change will at first be few, especially if that change sets very strongly against persons’ tastes or prejudices.”
“I see that we must agree to differ,” said Dr Portman, laughing, and rising to take his leave.
When he was gone, Sir Thomas, who had listened very attentively to Mr Oliphant’s remarks, said,—
“I shall certainly put no hindrance in the way of Frank’s becoming a total abstainer if you can persuade him to it, and his health does not suffer by it.”
“Nor I,” said Lady Oldfield; “only don’t let him sign any pledge. I’ve a great horror of those pledges. Surely, my dear Mr Oliphant, you would not advise his signing a pledge.”
“Indeed, I should advise it most strongly,” was the reply; “both for his own sake and also for the sake of others.”
“But surely, to sign a pledge is to put things on a totally wrong foundation,” observed Mr John Oldfield; “would not you, as a minister of the gospel, prefer that he should base his total abstinence on Christian principle rather than trust to a pledge? Does not the pledge usurp the place of divine grace?”
“Not at all,” said the rector. “I would have him abstain on Christian principles, as you say; and I would not have him trust to the pledge, but I would still have him use it as a support, though not as a foundation. Perhaps an illustration will best explain my meaning. I read some years ago of a fowler who was straying on the shore after sea-birds. He was so engrossed with his sport that he utterly failed to mark the rapid incoming of the tide, and when at last he did notice it, he found to his dismay that he was completely cut off from the land. There was but one chance of life, for he could not swim. A large fragment of rock rose above the waves a few yards behind him; on to this he clambered, and placing his gun between his feet, awaited the rising of the water. In a short time the waves had risen nearly to his feet, then they covered them; and still they rose as the tide came in higher and higher, now round his ankles, next to his knees; and so they kept gradually mounting, covering his body higher and higher. He could mark their rise or fall by the brass buttons on his waistcoat; first one button disappeared, then another, then a third, then a fourth. Would the waves rise up to his mouth and choke him? His suspense was dreadful. At last he observed that the topmost button did not disappear so rapidly as the rest; the next wave, however, seemed quite to cover it, but in a few minutes it became quite uncovered; in a little while the button next below became visible, and now he was sure that the tide was ebbing, and that he was safe if only he could hold out long enough. At last the rock itself became visible, and after many hours he was able, almost spent with fatigue, to stagger to the land. Now, what saved that man? was it his gun? Surely not; it was the rock: that was his standing-ground. But was his gun, therefore, useless? Assuredly not, for it helped to steady him on the rock, though it could not take the place of the rock. Just so with the pledge; it is not the Christian abstainer’s standing-ground. Christ alone is that standing-ground. He stands by the grace of Christ; but the pledge, like the gun, helps to keep him steady on his standing-ground, the Rock of Ages.”