Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-06-11

|
menterS in the healing art, however truth
| loving, ingenious and scientific, are profess
sionally damned. Any man who leaps
ont of the regular old professional frying.
pam alights in fire Of professional male
diction. 1t is all q regular physicians rep
utaticn is worth to seek for truth out of
the well.trodden, regular channels, particu-
larly if the new channels have become OBJ.
jects of professional prejudice and jealousy.
The consequence of this is, of course, to
retard the progress Of medicine as heal
ing art Medical learning has absolutely
! fought against every great medical discove-
ry, and not unfrequently against important
! discoveries 10 the constituent sciences. All
other arts have advanced within the last
century beyond calculation 1t has been
century of progress in art and discovery in
science but we look in vain for those ad-
vances in medical science and art which
place them even-footed with their thrifty
sisterhood.
Let me not be misapprehended in these
statements. / am neither talking about
nor against any system of medicine | am
simply condemning that arrogant spirit of
professionally associated learning which as
suming the monopoly of all that is traly
known Of the subject of medicine, aud the
privilege and right of making all changes
and discoveries in medical art aud science.
| condemn the spirit which refuses to see,
and hear, and consider, aud treat respect
fully, all truth, by whatever man discover
ed-from whatever source it may proceed
| condemn the spirit which makes a man
bond slave to q system devised by other
men, and whose prominent effect is to ere
ate more reverence for authority than for
truth. | condemn the spirit which sets
| learning above wisdom and common sense.
| condemn the spirit which, in effect,
binds men to blind, unreasoning routine,
and forbidS their entrance into the field of
intelligent, rational experiment. / condemn
the spirit which makes medical heterodoxy
a social crime, to be punished by social
prescription. | condemn the spirit which
is the principal hindrance to the develop
ment of the noblest, most humane, most
useful and most important of all the arts.
The law too is learned pofession, whose
only legitimate Office is to promote the ends
Of justice among men, and whose constant
practice is to pervert justice, or prevent it,
by resort to the technicalities and forms
with which it is hide-bound. There is no
| department of human interest that is so
! full of lumber-the old dead stuff-of learn
ing, as the law. A simple matter of JUS
| tice between man and man would seem to
be simple matter to adjudicate, on COM
petent representation of the facts 1t
would seem to be q matter easily to be
handled and quickly disposed of but learn
ing resorts to forms for delay, and picks
flaws in forms for escape, and hunts among
maggots for precedentS, and bewlders with
the array of authority, until that which is
simple becomes complicated, and an affair
of thirty minutes become a thing Of ten
years. | have such q respect for the law
that believe that if every law and law
book ever written were smitten from exist.
ence, the honest common-sense lawyers of
to-day could frame codes Of law aud rules
for their administration that would shorten
and cheaper the processes of justice by the
amount Of nine-tenths. believe that eve
ry lawyer believes this, yet he allows this
rotton, cumbersome conglomeration of rel
les, Of effete institutions and products of de-
funct ingenuities to warp and mould and
modify his nature, till he becomes slave of
authority and precedent in everything, with
red tape in every button hole and green
bag on his head
Religion is simple thing, so simple that
"a wayfaripg man though a fool need not
err therein" The only fountain of relig-
ious truth is the Bible. We have it in our
native tongue, and many simple soul, with
out the aid Of clergyman or schoolman, has
drawn from it the inspiration Of a new life
and all the instruction that he needed touch
ing his relations to God and men. Yet
theology human invention and human
learning-haS made religion a very compli-
Gated thing. 1t has elevated dogma and
creed and formulary into prominence, and
debased love and life into obscurity. 1t in
ssts more on faith in tenets than in God,
and denies to Christian spirit the fellow
ship which it accords to rational belief
The disgraceful wrangles of the religious
newspapers, the great disputes of the schools,
and the high controversies of the pulpit
and the pamphlet, are the quarrels and
strife for the mastery of theologians, not
Christians-of learning, not love. Theolo-
gy clings to old words and phrases after
their life has departed Theology is AFRO
giant, selfish and proud Theology excludes
from the table of the Lord those whom He
has accepted. Theology denies fellowship
and communion to those whom Love eX-
poets to meet in Heaven. Theology casts
out of the synagogue those who rise to
think, while Christ forgiVes those who stoop
to sin, and without condemnation, bids them
sin no more. Theology builds rival church
es, pits against each other rival sects, and
wastes Gods money. believe that it
would be every way better for the world
if every book of dogmatic and controver-
sial theology could be blotted out of exist
ance, and Christendom were obliged to be-
gin anew, drawing everything from the great
Book of Books, leaving Paul and Apollos,
and Princeton and New Haven and Cam
bridge behind, and learning of Him "who
spake as never man spake,"
The long and short of the matter is that
the learned world has become so deeply in
volVed in the thoughts of those who have
gone before-so accustomed to following
old channels, and of paying reverence to
the opinions and systems of schools, that
il cannot stem ont freely into the field of