Let us, however, single out one example of a devout physician, and contemplate the ascendency of pure and undefiled religion in his life and death.
DR. JOHN CHEYNE.
DR. JOHN
CHEYNE. Dr. John Cheyne was born at Leith in the year 1777, and obtained a medical decree at Edinburgh in 1795. After various attempts to establish himself in practice, he settled in Dublin in the year 1809, and rose step by step from an income at the rate of three guineas for six months, till he was in receipt of £5000 per annum, on an average of ten years. When failing health forced him to withdraw from practice, he had received in fees for four months no less a sum than £2,230.
But while thus rising to a high point in his profession, Dr. Cheyne was not oblivious of the soul. To a friend he once wrote: “You may wish to know the condition of my mind. I am humbled to the dust by the thought that there is not one action of my busy life which will bear the eye of a holy God. But when I reflect on the invitation of the Redeemer, ‘Come unto Me,’ and that I have accepted this invitation; and, moreover, that my conscience testifies that I earnestly desire to have my will in all things conformed to the will of God, I have peace, I have the promised rest—promised by Him in whom was found no guile.”
A CHRISTIAN PHYSICIAN.
A
CHRISTIAN
PHYSICIAN. Moreover, Dr. Cheyne, with the calmness which only the truth as it is in Jesus, and good hope through him, can inspire, gave directions for his own funeral, in a spirit which evinces the great firmness of his faith. In the act of triumphing over death, he ordered a column to be erected near the spot where his body lies, on which were to be inscribed these texts, as voices from eternity: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have eternal life;” “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” And while Dr. Cheyne thus strove even from the tomb to beckon sinners to the Saviour and to glory, he was careful to conceal his own name, and withhold it from the column. He was not less careful, however, to say, as speaking to the passer-by, “The name, profession, and age of him whose body lies beneath are of little consequence; but it may be of great importance to you to know, that, by the grace of God, he was brought to look to the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour of sinners, and that this ‘looking unto Jesus’ gave peace to his soul.” Nor was this all; the appeal is yet more cogent to the reader. “Pray to God,” it says, “pray to God that you may be instructed in the Gospel; and be assured that God will give the Holy Spirit, the only teacher of true wisdom, to them that ask him.”
There, then, is the case of one physician whom no materialism could harden, and no familiarity with death blind to the glories of life and its Lord. He was careful to roll back every reproach from the pure truth of God; and whether that reproach originated with the superficial and the prejudiced in his own profession, or the ignorant in other spheres, his fine mental powers, his love of souls, his felt interest in the things of eternity and the favour of God, evermore urged Dr. Cheyne to act like one who knew the grace of God in truth.
Now, what has been may be—what has been in such a cause, ought to be; and were men not too often the willing victims of the evil heart of unbelief, we should find more of the guardians of our health walking in the steps of Luke, the beloved physician, than is now the case. A godless physician beside a dying man’s couch must exercise a torpedo-like influence on the soul, deadening or disturbing all that is heavenly. On the other hand, the man who can wisely and tenderly prescribe for the soul, or at least point to its great Physician, while caring for the aching or the wasted body, is a brother born for adversity indeed. Countless as are the opportunities which that wise and Christian physician may enjoy for warning the careless, for cheering the despairing, or pointing the dying to the Life, he is not the friend, but the heartless enemy of man, who neglects to embrace them, and tell of Him who is both our righteousness and our strength. If no words of reprobation be too strong for him who sees a fellow-creature writhing in agony without assisting him when he has the power, what shall we say of the unfeeling, the inhuman being, who lets a fellow-sinner perish in his guilt for ever, unheeded and unwarned?
RETRIBUTIONS.
One sentence more. Various solutions have been attempted for the phenomenon which has long been common—the ungodliness or the gross lives of many physicians. Without challenging any of the explanations which have been offered, there can be no doubt that that phenomenon has a moral cause. Men neglect the most solemn warnings. While tending the sick and the dying, they see sin and its effects linked together in bonds which cannot be broken; and yet they continue in sin themselves. RETRIBUTIONS. Unchecked by what should check, passion carries them forward in their downward career, and the coarseness of the lives of some physicians appears a righteous retribution for warnings slighted—for lessons not learned—for God not heard—and the divinely-appointed connection between sin and misery not recognised. Where, on earth, can a scene so appropriate for religion as a dying man’s chamber be found? And shall the physician leave it without blame, if he not merely drop no hint of the glory which awaits the ransomed, the woe of the unsaved; but, moreover, proceeds to add sin to sin in his own life? The man who does so, voluntarily and sinfully comes down from the highest vantage ground on which a mortal can stand. The patient feels as if his life were in the physician’s hand; a word from him would sink like an oracle into the soul, but that word is not spoken—not one hint is given, and in the high reckoning of eternity is not such a man guilty in the deepest sense?