The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-10-17


light upon this scientific investigation of
the day? There grows an herb some
where or sleeps a mineral or waits In some
laboratory a chemical which will defeat
this assailant OF our national health. The
God who made the human body and all
the plants and all the minerals alone. can
make the saving revelation. What must
be the condition of a city, all the children
dead in this house, father and mother
dead in that house, all the family dead in
another house. Patient and doctor buried
on the same day. The grave digger's
trade triumphs over all other business.
Hearse meeting hearse. The voice of one
funeral service in one house meeting the
voice of another funeral service in another
house, or no service at ALL The body
wrapped up in silence and carried
away. Passengers on railway
trains from the infected districts
shot if they attempt to disembark at GER
tain depOts. The newspapers of the past
weeks, like the scroll which the prophet
saw, have been written within and with
out with lamentaton and mourning and
woe. Were there no God to comfort and
no resurrection to bring up the dead--not
as they went down. yellow and wasted
and agonized, but radiant and immortal
then there were nothing but unmitigated
calamity for some of the cities of the South.
There are three emotions stirred at this
contemplation. First, an emotion OF sym
pathy. The contributions from all the
cities show that in times of sickness there
is no North and no South. In this awful
way God teaches us we are brothers
and if we do not learn it now,
some other disease will smite the
North and the tide of contributions
will change and southern cities will
come TO the rescue OF northern cities.
Let our hearts melt, our purses open, our
sectional prejudices perish beyond resur-
rection. God is in these provinces OF
sickness and in other ways gradually
bringing the North and the South back to
their old scene, in those days when Will
lam Preston of South Carolina Numbered
on one side of the sky and Daniel Web
ster of Massachusetts, Numbered from the
other side OF the sky, and the voice OF
Henry Clay and s. III. Prentiss from the
West rolled up in reverberatiOn all around
the heavens. | hope our northern and
southern cities, clasping hands as they do
TO-DAY over the sick and dying beds of
hundreds of yellow fever patients, will
not feel so much when their hands are
unclasped like striking each other in vitu-
peration and scorn. The second emotion
is one OF gratitude that we are at the
North untouched. The one case
in New York City was just enough
to let us know how easy God could let us
perish if he would. Thanks to our boards
of health for their caution and vigilance,
but if our time had come they could not
have stopped the pestilence. We have
enough garbage and malodors in New
York and Brooklyn to kill both cities if
yellow fever should come. Why are we
spared? Because we are better than these
southern cities? Who would be so in
famous as to say we are spared for munic-
ipal virtue? If God had dealt with our
cities as we have deserved, we would have
been Sodom and Gomorrah. 1t does not
become us to be too generous in the dis
tribution of the judgments OF God on
other people. Why have we been spared?
No human precaution could have saved
us. You may stop an infected ship at
the narrows, but you cannot quarantine a
destroying angel. Thank the doctors, by
all means, but, higher than all and
more than all, thank God, who redeem
eth our lives from destruction. The
third emotion is one OF admiration for the
herOism this fearful sickness has displayed
at the South. It's comparatively easy to
go into battle amid huzzaing comrades
and led by inspiriting fife and trumpet;
but it requires great courage TO face death
in the shape of cOntagiOn. There are no
monuments in any of the cemeteries of
our cities more worthy than those raised
over the physicians who have persisted at
their posts in time of DISCRIMINATING sick
ness. Have you noticed in the roll of the
dead at Jacksonville and other southern
cities the names of doctors? You look
puzzled when we clergymen are trying to
explain to you vicariOus suffering. 1t
means dying for others. 1t means what
again ard again has in the last few weeks
been seen in southern cities. If there
be any sublimer spectacle than
doctor, bloodshot from sleepless
watching, pouring out the medicines for
others which he ought to be taking him.
self, with no prospect OF compensation,
enduring the malodors OF infected dis
tricts, acting at the same time as nurse, as
sexton. as undertaken, as health officer,
then going home exhausted and chilly
and faint TO lie down TO die. l say If
there is anything sublimer than that, show
il TO me? That is medical martyrdom, and
the flames which flashed mp from Smith
field and Brussels market place could add
To it no luster. What do you think of
that telegraph operator standing at his
post while all the town were dead, and
making ready To fly, calmly sending off
messages OF imploration and getting back
messages of sympathetic relief? Within
the past month how MANY newly discov-
cred heroes and heroines. A little girl
that watches her father down with the
fever until he dies, and with a mother
until she dies, and then dies herself from
the exhaustion-I do not care what you
call her, / call her martyr queen. The
fourth emotion is one OF appreciation of
the fact that our life and health are
completely in the hands of God. If you
ascribe il all TO human precaution that
New York and Brooklyn have been spared,
you are an migrate. 1t is right at
such times that we should observe all
sanitary regulations, and be areful that
from our houses no garbage is thrown into
the street, and that our rooms are kept
well ventilated, and we adhere to Christ
ian diet; but let us after all feel our
dependence on God, who gives health and
takes it away, and let the story OF self
sacrifice teach Us that lie is grand only