The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-02-01

| sl1llful physician is on of the noblest | works of God, but an unprincipled physi- clan is one of the most despicable, loath-
 some and cowardly recreants who ever
 breathed the breath of life" When the
 hand benefcient in healing is devoted to undermining the purity of society, 1t Is like the soft and velvety paw of the leopard, which covers a terrible and mer- ciless claw Oh, young man about to enter the noble medical profession, I beg of you not to prove false to your trust
 l beg of you when you enter the home or a man who surrenders into your care the life and the safety of his children that you never prove untrue by advice or ac- ton to the trust repcsed in you
 No matter how brilliant an unprinci- pied doctor may be, no Christian man or
 woman can afford or has any right to
 employ him as a family physician.
 once heard of reformed drunkard who
 was supposed to be dying. The physician
 by his bedside said, "rhe only medicine which can cure him is alcohol.' Then the
 wife. who sat near and had lived through
 the horrors of being a drunkard's wife
 turned to the physician and said: Doe tor, if the only medicine which can save
 him is alcohol. then I refuse to let him | live Yes, let him die sober rather than live drunk
 The Most Honored of Men. | The best family physician Is the man who in addition to the diploma of the
 medical faculty guaranteeing his pro- | feency, bears the commendation of Christ on his private life. The Christian physician is not only among the most honored of men, but without doubt he
 can become the most beloved of men. He
 has greater opportunity for winning the Loo apd 1otra of t,aa hap ha To 1 yer. statesman the author or even the
 minister He has such opportunities of
 winning the confidence and the love of people that our foreign missionary socle- ties are more anxious to send out the
 Christian medical missionary than they
 are to send the Christian minister, pure
 and simple.
 It is the fashion now in certain circles to dlsparage the physician. Some people
 say that not only is the doctor a quack
 and a charlatan, but they have no use for physicians at all They exutantly boast that they have never taken medi- cine in their lives. They contend that
 most people would be far better off if
 they never consulted a physician; that
 the doctors kill as many people as they
 cure and that most people are hypochon-
 driacs which means that most diseases
 of the human race are purely imaginary.
 But though some of us in the past may
 have boasted that we had no use for doe
 tors, alsa, there has come a time when many of us were only too glad to change our minds.
 Some years ago, as a merchant on ac- count of worry and overworlx you became
 physically run down. A friend told you that you ought to see physician. You sneered at him, but you continued to
 grow worse. You became so weak that you had to take a carriage to business.
 One day you felt an awful pain shoot
 through your lung. Pneumonia had
 stabbed your breathing apparatus as
 with sharp knife. You uttered a cry of pain; you attempted to stagger to your
 feet; then you fell back, white as corpse and with your forehead covered with cold, clammy sweat The clerks bundled you up and took you home. Your wife at once rang the telephone and called the doctor. Then you did not order the phy- sician out of the house. You watched him. You knew, as you lay there, that
 your life was held in the palm of his hand. Oh, how faithful that doctor was! He came in the morning; he came in the evening sWhen you had that sinking spell he came at midnight. He worked and worked and worked over you. Yes, you can remember it as though 1t were yesterday when the doctor turned and said "Well, my, man. l think the crisis is past. I think you will get well. But
 we have had hard fight for your life yes.s an awful hard fight" Then in that
 crisis were you not willing to let that | family physician give to you any advice he could? If that physician at that time l had come and prayed at your bedside and as Christian doctor had told you about