A Lamp to the Path / Or, The Word of God in the Heart, the Home, the Workshop and the Market-Place

by W. K. Tweedie

INSANITY.

INSANITY. Physicians, moreover, have often to deal with the insane; and, though it be one of the grossest of all libels against the Gospel of peace, to allege that it ever produces insanity, it is no less true that exaggerated, distorted, and false views of some doctrines of revelation may intensely agitate the soul. Extreme degrees of remorse for sin committed, and felt in its sinfulness against God, may convulse the whole man, till reason totter on its throne. With such cases the physician may be called to deal; and if he be ignorant of the power of religion, or prejudiced against it, not a cure, but an aggravation of the malady, may be expected to result. Religion is now among the universally accredited means of cure in well-ordered Institutions for the insane; and he who is ignorant of the soothing power of God’s pure truth in the conscience of a believer, is ill adapted to apply that remedy with effect. Hence the need of personal religion in those who watch for the diseased; hence the need of the Spirit’s teaching, that he who is a guardian of the body’s health may know how to promote the soul’s; and that no physician will know till the Saviour be a Saviour to him, and the great question, “What must I do to be saved?” be practically adjusted.

A PHYSICIAN’S POWER—

And when we think of the position in which the patient is commonly seen by the physician, the reasons why religion should reign paramount in the latter become more cogent still. The afflicted are, in some sense, at the mercy of the physician. A
PHYSICIAN’S
POWER— The skill of the medical attendant is the sheet-anchor of the sufferer. Actions, words, and looks, are carefully watched and scrutinized, as if destiny were in them. The physician has given relief from pain: he has, perhaps, brought back the patient from the verge of the grave; and hence the one feels that the other is, for the time, the very life of his life. Now, for what purpose should all that ascendency be employed? Should it be used merely to amuse the sufferer, or beguile his thoughts for a little away from the prison-house into which sickness has converted his chamber? Ah, no; but for higher, holier ends: if that physician have religion in his own soul, he will use his influence as a means of medicating the soul of the sufferer, by turning his thoughts to Him who kills and makes alive; and where that is neglected, opportunities the most precious are lost—a talent which might reproduce itself more than a thousand-fold is guiltily hid in the earth.

ITS USES.

ITS
USES. Nor should we fail to notice the influence for good which may be exerted over the relatives of the diseased in times of sickness and sorrow. When the ploughshare of trial has torn up the heart, a physician can drop in the seed which bears fruit unto holiness, if he love souls, or be wise to win them. Grief is indulged before him, which is pent up in the presence of others; fears are expressed, dark forebodings appear, which none but the physician is permitted to witness. Confessions also are sometimes made, or secrets disclosed, which throw the door for doing good more open still; and, amid all these things, only one explanation can be given, if the opportunity be not seized—that physician has no love for souls; he does not know their value; eternity is a name to him. True, there is a professional etiquette to which many defer, and which it would be wrong, in its own place, to violate. But that etiquette is worldly or morbid which stands in the way of loving men’s souls, or seeking to do them good; and such love will watch for ways for displaying itself amid a crowd of obstacles.

THE GREAT PHYSICIAN.

It has been the conviction of some Christian physicians, that none but a Christian can discharge aright the high duties of their profession. In its widest sense, we adopt the maxim; it is specially true in regard to the necessity which exists for subordinating all to the high interests of that life where “there shall be no more death.”—THE
GREAT
PHYSICIAN.It is in this way that the Saviour’s example is best copied and the Saviour’s glory best promoted. What physicians only attempt, He accomplished. They strive to prolong life; He is the life itself. They are often physicians of no value; He dispenses the balm that is in Gilead; He is the physician there. “This great Physician!” one exclaims, “this great sufferer! this vanquisher of death! this possessor and granter of an endless life, the Lord Jesus Christ, God over all, is the true Head of our profession;” and blessed is that physician who has learned, from his Head in glory, to watch for the souls, while he sheds blessings upon the bodies, of men.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Nor are we merely theorizing here. Some physicians, in all countries and ages, have been alive to this view of their profession. ILLUSTRATIONS. Boerhaave, for example, was a physician in such practice, that princes, ambassadors, and even Peter the Great, had to remain for hours in his ante-chamber before they could be admitted to an interview; and yet it was his constant habit to devote the first hour of every day to prayer and meditation on the Word of God—a practice which he recommended to others, as the source of that vigour which carried him through all his toils. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, tells us that he never dissected the body of an animal without discovering something in which he had to recognise the hand of an all-wise Creator. William Hey, a surgeon of eminence, is described as one of those who fear God in youth, who walk with him through life, and to whom the hoary head is therefore a crown of glory. Arrested by the words, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,” and affected by the love of God in the Saviour, he devoted himself, first to that which God puts first—the soul. The holy duties and holy pleasures of the Sabbath rest were zealously cultivated by Hey; in short, he escaped from the dangers of his profession, because he was afraid of them, and adopted the divine means of safety. His “support and comfort were found in believing views of the atonement made by Jesus;” and, resting there, he was blessed and made a blessing. And Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, is to be ranked in the same class—but we need not particularize. As we examine the records of the past, physician after physician rises up before us qualified to minister to the soul as well as the body; and some of them actually doing so. Driven by the perils of their profession, they sought the wisdom of “God only wise,” and were guided by his Spirit in the path whose end is glory.