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He is not far from every one of us. For in Him we live
and move not less than in Him we have our being.
"Out of darkness comes the hand
Reaching through nature,--moulding man."
_HEALTH:_
FIVE LAY SERMONS TO WORKING-PEOPLE.
BY
JOHN BROWN, M.D.
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
_Late Ticknor and Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co._
1877.
_Affectionately inscribed to the memory of the_ REV. JAMES
TRENCH, _the heart and soul of the Canongate Mission, who, while
he preached a pure and a fervent gospel to its heathens, taught
them also and therefore to respect and save their health, and
was the Originator and Keeper of their Library and Penny Bank,
as well as their Minister._
PREFACE.
Three of these sermons were written for, and (shall I say?) preached
some years ago, in one of the earliest missionary stations in Edinburgh,
established by Broughton Place Congregation, and presided over at that
time by the Reverend James Trench; one of the best human beings it was
ever my privilege to know. He is dead; dying in and of his work,--from
typhus fever caught at the bedside of one of his poor members--but he
lives in the hearts of many a widow and fatherless child; and lives
also, I doubt not, in the immediate vision of Him to do whose will was
his meat and his drink. Given ten thousand such men, how would the
crooked places be made straight, and the rough places plain, the
wildernesses of city wickedness, the solitary places of sin and despair,
of pain and shame, be made glad! This is what is to regenerate mankind;
this is the leaven that some day is to leaven the lump.
The other two sermons were never preached, except in print; but they
were composed in the same key. I say this not in defence, but in
explanation. I have tried to speak to working men and women from my lay
pulpit, in the same words, with the same voice, with the same thoughts I
was in the habit of using when doctoring them. This is the reason of
their plain speaking. There is no other way of reaching these sturdy and
weather and work-beaten understandings; there is nothing fine about them
outside, though they are often as white in the skin under their clothes
as a duchess, and their hearts as soft and tender as Jonathan's, or as
Rachel's, or our own Grizel Baillie's; but you must speak out to them,
and must not be mealy-mouthed if you wish to reach their minds and
affections and wills. I wish the gentlefolks could hear and could use a
little more of this outspokenness; and, as old Porson said, condescend
to call a spade a spade, and not a horticultural implement; five letters
instead of twenty-two, and more to the purpose.
You see, my dear working friends, I am great upon sparing your strength
and taking things cannily. "All very well," say you; "it is easy
speaking, and saying, Take it easy; but if the pat's on the fire it maun
bile." It must, but you needn't poke up the fire forever, and you may
now and then set the kettle on the hob, and let it sing, instead of
leaving it to burn its bottom out.
I had a friend who injured himself by overwork. One day I asked the
servant if any person had called, and was told that some one had. "Who
was it?" "O, it's the little gentleman that _aye rins when he walks_!"
So I wish this age would walk more and "rin" less. A man can walk
farther and longer than he can run, and it is poor saving to get out of
breath. A man who lives to be seventy, and has ten children and (say)
five-and-twenty grandchildren, is of more worth to the state than three
men who die at thirty, it is to be hoped unmarried. However slow a coach
seventy may have been, and however energetic and go-ahead the three
thirties, I back the tortoise against the hares in the long run.
I am constantly seeing men who suffer, and indeed die, from living too
fast; from true though not consciously immoral dissipation or scattering
of their lives. Many a man is bankrupt in constitution at forty-five,
and either takes out a _cessio_ of himself to the grave, or goes on
paying ten per cent for his stock-in-trade; he spends his capital
instead of merely spending what he makes, or better still, laying up a
purse for the days of darkness and old age. A queer man, forty years
ago,--Mr. Slate, or, as he was called, _Sclate_, who was too clever and
not clever enough, and had not wisdom to use his wit, always scheming,
full of "go," but never getting on,--was stopped by his friend, Sir
Walter Scott,--that wonderful friend of us all, to whom we owe Jeanie
Deans and Rob Roy, Meg Merrilies and Dandie Dinmont, Jinglin' Geordie,
Cuddie Headrigg, and the immortal Baillie,--one day in Princess Street.
"How are ye getting on, Sclate?" "Oo, just the auld thing, Sir Walter;
_ma pennies a' gang on tippenny eerands_." And so it is with our nervous
power, with our vital capital, with the pence of life; many of them go
on "tippenny eerands." We are forever getting our bills renewed, till
down comes the poor and damaged concern with dropsy or consumption,
blazing fever, madness, or palsy. There is a Western Banking system in
living, in using our bodily organs, as well as in paper-money. But I am
running off into another sermon.
Health of mind and body, next to a good conscience, is the best blessing
our Maker can give us, and to no one is it more immediately valuable
than to the laboring man and his wife and children; and indeed a good
conscience is just moral health, the wholeness of the sense and the
organ of duty; for let us never forget that there is a religion of the
body, as well as, and greatly helpful of, the religion of the soul. We
are to glorify God in our souls and in our bodies, for the best of all
reasons, _because they are his_, and to remember that at last we must
give account, not only of our thoughts and spiritual desires and acts,
but _all the deeds done in our body_. A husband who, in the morning
before going to his work, would cut his right hand off sooner than
injure the wife of his bosom, strangles her that same night when mad
with drink; that is a deed done in his body, and truly by his body, for
his judgment is gone; and for that he must give an account when his name
is called; his judgment was gone; but then, as the child of a drunken
murderer said to me, "A' but, sir, wha goned it?" I am not a teetotaler.
I am against teetotalism as a doctrine of universal application; I think
we are meant to use these things as not abusing them,--this is one of
the disciplines of life; but I not the less am sure that drunkenness
ruins men's bodies,--it is not for me to speak of souls,--is a greater
cause of disease and misery, poverty, crime, and death among the
laboring men and women of our towns, than consumption, fever, cholera,
and all their tribe, with thieving and profligacy and improvidence
thrown into the bargain: these slay their thousands; this its tens of
thousands. Do you ever think of the full meaning of "he's the waur o'
drink?" How much the waur?--and then "dead drunk,"--"mortal." Can there
be anything more awfully significant than these expressions you hear
from children in the streets?
* * * * *
You will see in the woodcut a good illustration of the circulation of
the blood: both that through our lungs, by which we breathe and burn,
and that through the whole body, by which we live and build. That hand
grasps the heart, the central depot, with its valves opening out and in,
and, by its contraction and relaxation, makes the living fluid circulate
everywhere, carrying in strength, life, and supply to all, and carrying
off waste and harm. None of you will be the worse of thinking of that
hand as His who makes, supports, moves, and governs all things,--that
hand which, while it wheels the rolling worlds, gathers the lambs with
his arm, carries them in his bosom, and gently leads those that are with
young, and which was once nailed for "our advantage on the bitter
cross."
J. B.
23 RUTLAND STREET,
December 16, 1861.
CONTENTS.
Preface
SERMON I. THE DOCTOR: OUR DUTIES TO HIM
" II. THE DOCTOR: HIS DUTIES TO YOU
" III. CHILDREN, AND HOW TO GUIDE THEM
" IV. HEALTH
" V. MEDICAL ODDS AND ENDS
HEALTH.
SERMON I.
THE DOCTOR: OUR DUTIES TO HIM.
Everybody knows the Doctor; a very important person he is to us all.
What could we do without him? He brings us into this world, and tries to
keep us as long in it as he can, and as long as our bodies can hold
together; and he is with us at that strange and last hour which will
come to us all, when we must leave this world and go into the next.
When we are well, we perhaps think little about the Doctor, or we have
our small joke at him and his drugs; but let anything go wrong with our
body, that wonderful tabernacle in which our soul dwells, let any of its
wheels go wrong, then off we fly to him. If the mother thinks her
husband or her child dying, how she runs to him, and urges him with her
tears! how she watches his face, and follows his searching eye, as he
examines the dear sufferer; how she wonders what he thinks,--what would
she give to know what he knows! how she wearies for his visit! how a
cheerful word from him makes her heart leap with joy, and gives her
spirit and strength to watch over the bed of distress! Her whole soul
goes out to him in unspeakable gratitude when he brings back to her from
the power of the grave her husband or darling child. The Doctor knows
many of our secrets, of our sorrows, which no one else knows,--some of
our sins, perhaps, which the great God alone else knows; how many cares
and secrets, how many lives, he carries in his heart and in his hands!
So you see he is a very important person the Doctor, and we should do
our best to make the most of him, and to do our duty to him and to
ourselves.
A thinking man feels often painfully what a serious thing it is to be a
doctor, to have the charge of the lives of his fellow-mortals, to stand,
as it were, between them and death and eternity and the judgment-seat,
and to fight hand to hand with Death. One of the best men and greatest
physicians that ever lived, Dr. Sydenham, says, in reference to this,
and it would be well if all doctors, young and old, would consider his
words:--
"It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to the care of
others, seriously to consider the four following things: _First_, That
he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives
intrusted to his care. _Secondly_, That all his skill and knowledge and
energy, as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised
for his glory and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or
ambition. _Thirdly_, and not more beautifully than truly, Let him
reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean creature, for, in
order that we may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race,
the only begotten Son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it
with his divine dignity, and, far more than this, died to redeem it; and
_Fourthly_, That the Doctor, being himself a mortal man, should be
diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he
himself must one day be a like sufferer."
I shall never forget a proof I myself got twenty years ago, how serious
a thing it is to be a doctor, and how terribly in earnest people are
when they want him. It was when cholera first came here in 1832. I was
in England at Chatham, which you all know is a great place for ships and
sailors. This fell disease comes on generally in the night; as the Bible
says, "it walks in darkness," and many a morning was I roused at two
o'clock to go and see its sudden victims, for then is its hour and
power. One morning a sailor came to say I must go three miles down the
river to a village where it had broken out with great fury. Off I set.
We rowed in silence down the dark river, passing the huge hulks, and
hearing the restless convicts turning in their beds in their chains.
The men rowed with all their might: they had too many dying or dead at
home to have the heart to speak to me. We got near the place; it was
very dark, but I saw a crowd of men and women on the shore, at the
landing-place. They were all shouting for the Doctor; the shrill cries
of the women, and the deep voices of the men coming across the water to
me. We were near the shore, when I saw a big old man, his hat off, his
hair gray, his head bald; he said nothing, but turning them all off with
his arm, he plunged into the sea, and before I knew where I was, he had
me in his arms. I was helpless as an infant. He waded out with me,
carrying me high up in his left arm, and with his right levelling every
man or woman who stood in his way.
It was Big Joe carrying me to see his grandson, little Joe; and he bore
me off to the poor convulsed boy, and dared me to leave him till he was
better. He did get better, but Big Joe was dead that night. He had the
disease on him when he carried me away from the boat, but his heart was
set upon his boy. I never can forget that night, and how important a
thing it was to be able to relieve suffering, and how much Old Joe was
in earnest about having the Doctor.
Now, I want you to consider how important the Doctor is to you. Nobody
needs him so much as the poor and laboring man. He is often ill. He is
exposed to hunger and wet and cold, and to fever, and to all the
diseases of hard labor and poverty. His work is heavy, and his heart is
often heavy, too, with misery of all kinds,--his heart weary with its
burden,--his hands and limbs often meeting with accidents,--and you know
if the poor man, if one of you falls ill and takes fever, or breaks his
leg, it is a far more serious thing than with a richer man. Your health
and strength are all you have to depend on; they are your
stock-in-trade, your capital. Therefore I shall ask you to remember
_four things_ about your duty to the Doctor, so as to get the most good
out of him, and do the most good to him too.
_1st_, It is your duty to trust the Doctor;
_2dly_, It is your duty to obey the Doctor;
_3dly_, It is your duty to speak the truth to the Doctor, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth; and,
_4thly_, It is your duty to reward the Doctor.
And so now for the _first_. It is your duty to _trust_ the Doctor, that
is, to believe in him. If you were in a ship, in a wild storm, and among
dangerous rocks, and if you took a pilot on board, who knew all the
coast and all the breakers, and had a clear eye, and a firm heart, and a
practised hand, would you not let him have his own way? would you think
of giving him your poor advice, or keep his hand from its work at the
helm? You would not be such a fool, or so uncivil, or so mad. And yet
many people do this very same sort of thing, just because they don't
really trust their Doctor; and a doctor is a pilot for your bodies when
they are in a storm and in distress. He takes the helm, and does his
best to guide you through a fever; but he must have fair play; he must
be trusted even in the dark. It is wonderful what cures the very sight
of a doctor will work, if the patient believes in him; it is half the
battle. His very face is as good as a medicine, and sometimes
better,--and much pleasanter too.
One day a laboring man came to me with indigestion. He had a sour and
sore stomach, and heartburn, and the water-brash, and wind, and colic,
and wonderful misery of body and mind. I found he was eating bad food,
and too much of it; and then, when its digestion gave him pain, he took
a glass of raw whiskey. I made him promise to give up his bad food and
his worse whiskey, and live on pease-brose and sweet milk, and I wrote
him a prescription, as we call it, for some medicine, and said, "Take
_that_, and come back in a fortnight and you will be well." He did come
back, hearty and hale;--no colic, no sinking at the heart, a clean
tongue, and a cool hand, and a firm step, and a clear eye, and a happy
face. I was very proud of the wonders my prescription had done; and
having forgotten what it was, I said, "Let me see what I gave you."
"O," says he, "I took it." "Yes," said I, "but the prescription." "_I
took it_, as you bade me. I swallowed it." He had actually eaten the bit
of paper, and been all that the better of it; but it would have done him
little, at least less good had he not trusted me when I said he would be
better, and attended to my rules.
So, take my word for it, and trust your Doctor; it is his due, and it is
for your own advantage. Now, our next duty is to _obey_ the Doctor. This
you will think is simple enough. What use is there in calling him in, if
we don't do what he bids us? and yet nothing is more common--partly from
laziness and sheer stupidity, partly from conceit and suspiciousness,
and partly, in the case of children, from false kindness and
indulgence--than to disobey the Doctor's orders. Many a child have I
seen die from nothing but the mother's not liking to make her swallow a
powder, or put on a blister; and let me say, by the by, teach your
children at once to obey you, and take the medicine. Many a life is lost
from this, and remember you may make even Willie Winkie take his
castor-oil in spite of his cries and teeth, _by holding his nose_, so
that he must swallow.
_Thirdly, You should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth_, to your Doctor. He may be never so clever, and never so
anxious, but he can no more know how to treat a case of illness without
knowing all about it, than a miller can make meal without corn; and many
a life have I seen lost from the patient or his friends concealing
something that was true, or telling something that was false. The
silliness of this is only equal to its sinfulness and its peril.
I remember, in connection with that place where Big Joe lived and died,
a singular proof of the perversity of people in not telling the Doctor
the truth,--as you know people are apt to send for him in cholera when
it is too late, when it is a death rather than a disease. But there is
an early stage, called premonitory,--or warning,--when medicines can
avail. I summoned all the people of that fishing-village who were well,
and told them this, and asked them if they had any of the symptoms. They
all denied having any (this is a peculiar feature in that terrible
disease, they are afraid to _let on_ to themselves, or even the Doctor,
that they are "in for it"), though from their looks and from their going
away while I was speaking, I knew they were not telling the truth. Well,
I said, "You must, at any rate, every one of you take some of this,"
producing a bottle of medicine. I will not tell you what it was, as you
should never take drugs at your own hands, but it is simple and cheap. I
made every one take it; only one woman going away without taking any;
she was the only one of all those _who died_.
_Lastly, It is your duty to reward_ your Doctor. There are four ways of
rewarding your Doctor. The first is by giving him your money; the second
is by giving him your gratitude; the third is by your doing his bidding;
and the fourth is by speaking well of him, giving him a good name,
recommending him to others. Now, I know few if any of you can pay your
Doctor, and it is a great public blessing that in this country you will
always get a good Doctor willing to attend you for nothing, and this
_is_ a great blessing; but let me tell you,--I don't think I need tell
you,--try and pay him, be it ever so little. It does you good as well as
him; it keeps up your self-respect; it raises you in your own eye, in
your neighbor's, and, what is best, in your God's eye, because it is
doing what is right. The "man of independent mind," be he never so poor,
is "king of men for a' that"; ay, and "for twice and mair than a' that";
and to pay his way is one of the proudest things a poor man can say, and
he may say it oftener than he thinks he can. And then let me tell you,
as a bit of cool, worldly wisdom, that your Doctor will do you all the
more good, and make a better job of your cure, if he gets something,
some money for his pains; it is human nature and common sense, this. It
is wonderful how much real kindness and watching and attendance and
cleanliness you may get _for so many shillings a week_. Nursing is a
much better article at that,--much,--than at _nothing_ a week. But I
pass on to the other ways of paying or rewarding your Doctor, and, above
all, _to gratitude_.
Honey is not sweeter in your mouths, and light is not more pleasant to
your eyes, and music to your ears, and a warm, cosey bed is not more
welcome to your wearied legs and head, than is the honest, deep
gratitude of the poor to the young Doctor. It is his glory, his reward;
he fills himself with it, and wraps himself all round with it as with a
cloak, and goes on in his work, happy and hearty; and the gratitude of
the poor is worth the having, and worth the keeping, and worth the
remembering. Twenty years ago I attended old Sandie Campbell's wife in a
fever, in Big Hamilton's Close in the Grassmarket,--two worthy, kindly
souls they were and are. (Sandie is dead now.) By God's blessing, the
means I used saved "oor Kirsty's" life, and I made friends of these two
forever; Sandie would have fought for me if need be, and Kirsty would do
as good. I can count on them as my friends, and when I pass the
close-mouth in the West Port, where they now live, and are thriving,
keeping their pigs, and their hoary old cuddie and cart, I get a
courtesy from Kirsty, and see her look after me, and turn to the women
beside her, and I know exactly what she is saying to them about "Dr.
Broon." And when I meet old Sandie, with his ancient and long-lugged
friend, driving the draff from the distillery for his swine, I see his
gray eye brighten and glisten, and he looks up and gives his manly and
cordial nod, and goes on his way, and I know that he is saying to
himself, "God bless him! he saved my Kirsty's life," and he runs back in
his mind all those twenty past years, and lays out his heart on all he
remembers, and that does him good and me too, and nobody any ill.
Therefore, give your gratitude to your Doctor, and remember him, like
honest Sandie; it will not lose its reward and it costs you nothing; it
is one of those things you can give and never be a bit the poorer, but
all the richer.
One person I would earnestly warn you against, and that is the _Quack
Doctor_. If the real Doctor is a sort of God of healing, or rather our
God's cobbler for the body, the Quack is the Devil for the body, or
rather the Devil's servant against the body. And like his father, he is
a great liar and cheat. He offers you what he cannot give. Whenever you
see a medicine that cures everything, be sure it cures nothing; and
remember, it may kill. The Devil promised our Saviour all the kingdoms
of the world if he would fall down and worship him; now this was a lie,
he could not give him any such thing. Neither can the Quack give you his
kingdoms of health, even though you worship him as he best likes, by
paying him for his trash; he is dangerous and dear, and often
deadly,--have nothing to do with him.
We have our duties to one another, yours to me, and mine to you: but we
have all our duty to one else,--to Almighty God, who is beside us at
this very moment--who followed us all this day, and knew all we did and
didn't do, what we thought and didn't think,--who will watch over us all
this night,--who is continually doing us good,--who is waiting to be
gracious to us,--who is the great Physician, whose saving health will
heal all our diseases, and redeem our life from destruction, and crown
us with loving-kindness and tender mercies,--who can make death the
opening into a better life, the very gate of heaven; that same death
which is to all of us the most awful and most certain of all things, and
at whose door sits its dreadful king, with that javelin, that sting of
his, which is sin, our own sin. Death would be nothing without sin, no
more than falling asleep in the dark to awake to the happy light of the
morning. Now, I would have you think of your duty to this great God, our
Father in heaven; and I would have you to remember that it is your duty
to trust him, to believe in him. If you do not, your soul will be
shipwrecked, you will go down in terror and in darkness.
It is your duty to _obey_ him. Whom else in all this world should you
obey, if not him? and who else so easily pleased, if we only do obey?
It is your duty to speak the truth to him, not that he needs any man to
tell him anything. He knows everything about everybody; nobody can keep
a secret from him. But he hates lies; he abhors a falsehood. He is the
God of truth, and must be dealt honestly with, in sincerity and godly
fear; and, lastly, you must in a certain sense _reward_ him. You cannot
give him money, for the silver and gold, the cattle upon a thousand
hills, are all his already, but you can give him your grateful lives;
you can give him your hearts; and as old Mr. Henry says, "Thanksgiving
is good, but thanks-living is better."
One word more; you should call your Doctor early. It saves time; it
saves suffering; it saves trouble; it saves life. If you saw a fire
beginning in your house, you would put it out as fast as you could. You
might perhaps be able to blow out with your breath what in an hour the
fire-engine could make nothing of. So it is with disease and the Doctor.
A disease in the morning when beginning is like the fire beginning; a
dose of medicine, some simple thing, may put it out, when if left alone,
before night it may be raging hopelessly, like the fire if left alone,
and leaving your body dead and in the ruins in a few hours. So, call in
the Doctor soon; it saves him much trouble, and may save you your life.
And let me end by asking you to call in the Great Physician; to call him
instantly, to call him in time; there is not a moment to lose. He is
waiting to be called; he is standing at the door. But he must be
_called_,--he may be called too late.
SERMON II.
THE DOCTOR: HIS DUTIES TO YOU.
You remember our last sermon was mostly about your duties to the Doctor.
I am now going to speak about his duties to you; for you know it is a
law of our life, that there are no one-sided duties,--they are all
double. It is like shaking hands, there must be two at it; and both of
you ought to give a hearty grip and a hearty shake. You owe much to
many, and many owe much to you. The Apostle says, "Owe no man anything
but to love one another"; but if you owe that, you must be forever
paying it; it is always due, always running on; and the meanest and most
helpless, the most forlorn, can always pay and be paid in that coin, and
in paying can buy more than he thought of. Just as a farthing candle,
twinkling out of a cotter's window, and, it may be, guiding the gudeman
home to his wife and children, sends its rays out into the infinite
expanse of heaven, and thus returns, as it were, the light of the
stars, which are many of them suns. You cannot pass any one on the
street to whom you are not bound by this law. If he falls down, you help
to raise him. You do your best to relieve him, and get him home; and let
me tell you, to your great gain and honor, the poor are far more ready
and better at this sort of work than the gentlemen and ladies. You do
far more for each other than they do. You will share your last loaf; you
will sit up night after night with a neighbor you know nothing about,
just because he is your neighbor, and you know what it is to be
neighbor-like. You are more natural and less selfish than the fine
folks. I don't say you are better, neither do I say you are worse; that
would be a foolish and often mischievous way of speaking. We have all
virtues and vices and advantages peculiar to our condition. You know the
queer old couplet,--
"Them what is rich, them rides in chaises;
Them what is poor, them walks like blazes."
If you were well, and not in a hurry, and it were cold, would you not
much rather "walk like blazes" than ride listless in your chaise? But
this I know, for I have seen it, that according to their means, the poor
bear one another's burdens far more than the rich.
There are many reasons for this, outside of yourselves, and there is no
need of your being proud of it or indeed of anything else; but it is
something to be thankful for, in the midst of all your hardships, that
you in this have more of the power and of the luxury of doing immediate,
visible good. You pay this debt in ready-money, as you do your meal and
your milk; at least you have very short credit, and the shorter the
better. Now, the Doctor has his duties to you, and it is well that he
should know them, and that you should know them too; for it will be long
before you and he can do without each other. You keep each other alive.
Disease, accidents, pain, and death reign everywhere, and we call one
another _mortals_, as if our chief peculiarity was that we must die, and
you all know how death came into this world. "By one man sin entered the
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned"; and disease, disorder, and distress are the fruits of sin,
as truly as that apple grew on that forbidden tree. You have nowadays
all sorts of schemes for making bad men good, and good men better. The
world is full of such schemes, some of them wise and some foolish; but
to be wise they must all go on the principle of lessening misery by
lessening _sin_; so that the old weaver at Kilmarnock, who at a meeting
for abolishing slavery, the corn laws, and a few more things, said, "Mr.
Preses, I move that we abolish Original Sin," was at least beginning at
the right end. Only fancy what a world it would be, what a family any of
ours would be, when everybody did everything that was right, and nothing
that was wrong, say for a week! The world would not know itself. It
would be inclined to say with the "wee bit wifiekie," though reversing
the cause, "This is no me." I am not going to say more on this point. It
is not my parish. But you need none of you be long ignorant of who it is
who has abolished death, and therefore vanquished sin.
Well, then, it is the duty of the Doctor in the first place, to _cure
us_; in the second, _to be kind to us_; in the third, to be _true to
us_; in the fourth, to keep _our secrets_; in the fifth, to _warn us_,
and, best of all, to _forewarn us_; in the sixth, to _be grateful to
us_; and, in the last, to _keep his time and his temper_.
And, _first_, it is the duty of the Doctor to _cure_ you,--if he can.
That is what we call him in for; and a doctor, be he never so clever and
delightful, who doesn't cure, is like a mole-catcher who can't catch
moles, or a watchmaker who can do everything but make your watch go. Old
Dr. Pringle of Perth, when preaching in the country, found his shoes
needed mending, and he asked the brother whom he was assisting to tell
him of good cobbler, or as he called him, a _snab_. His friend mentioned
a "Tammas Rattray, a godly man, and an elder." "But," said Dr. Pringle,
in his snell way, "can he mend my shoon? that's what I want; I want a
shoemaker; I'm not wanting an elder." It turned out that Tammas was a
better elder than a shoemaker. A doctor was once attending a poor woman
in labor; it was a desperate case, requiring a cool head and a firm
will; the good man--for he _was_ good--had neither of these, and, losing
his presence of mind, gave up the poor woman as lost, and retired into
the next room to pray for her. Another doctor, who, perhaps, wanted what
the first one had, and certainly had what he wanted, brains and courage,
meanwhile arrived, and called out, "Where is Doctor ----?" "O, he has
gone into the next room to pray!" "Pray! tell him to come here this
moment, and help me; he can work and pray too"; and with his assistance
the snell doctor saved that woman's life. This, then, is the Doctor's
first duty to you,--to cure you,--and for this he must, in the first
place, be up to his business; he must know what to do, and, secondly, he
must be able to do it; he must not merely do as a pointer dog does,
stand and say, "There it is," and no more, he must point and shoot too.
And let me tell you, moreover, that unless a man likes what he is at,
and is in earnest, and sticks to it, he will no more make a good doctor
than a good anything else. Doctoring is not only a way for a man to do
good by curing disease, and to get money to himself for doing this, but
it is also a study which interests for itself alone, like geology, or
any other science; and moreover it is a way to fame and the glory of the
world; all these four things act upon the mind of the Doctor, but unless
the first one is uppermost, his patient will come off second-best with
him; he is not the man for your lives or for your money.
They tell a story, which may not be word for word true, but it has truth
and a great principle in it, as all good stories have. It is told of one
of our clever friends, the French, who are so knowing in everything. A
great French doctor was taking an English one round the wards of his
hospital; all sort of miseries going on before them, some dying, others
longing for death, all ill; the Frenchman was wonderfully eloquent about
all their diseases, you would have thought he saw through them, and knew
all their secret wheels like looking into a watch or into a glass
beehive. He told his English friend what would be seen in such a case,
_when the body was opened_! He spent some time in this sort of work, and
was coming out, full of glee, when the other doctor said: "But, Doctor
----, you haven't _prescribed_ for these cases." "O, neither I have!"
said he, with a grumph and a shrug; "I quite forgot _that_"; that being
the one thing why these poor people were there, and why he was there
too. Another story of a Frenchman, though I dare say we could tell it of
ourselves. He was a great professor, and gave a powerful poison as a
medicine for an ugly disease of the skin. He carried it very far, so as
to weaken the poor fellow, who died, just as the last vestige of the
skin disease died too. On looking at the dead body, quite smooth and
white, and also quite dead, he said, "Ah, never mind; he was _dead
cured_."
So let me advise you, as, indeed, your good sense will advise
yourselves, to test a Doctor by this: Is he in earnest? Does he speak
little and do much? Does he make your case his first care? He may, after
that, speak of the weather, or the money-market; he may gossip, and even
_haver_; or he may drop, quietly and shortly, some "good words,"--the
fewer the better; something that causes you to think and feel; and may
teach you to be more of the Publican than of the Pharisee, in that story
you know of, when they two went up to the temple to pray; but, generally
speaking, the Doctor should, like the rest of us, stick to his trade and
mind his business.
_Secondly_, It is the Doctor's duty to be _kind_ to you. I mean by this,
not only to speak kindly, but to _be_ kind, which includes this and a
great deal more, though a kind word, as well as a merry heart, does good
like a medicine. Cheerfulness, or rather cheeriness, is a great thing in
a Doctor; his very foot should have "music in't, when he comes up the
stair." The Doctor should never lose his power of pitying pain, and
letting his patient see this and feel it. Some men, and they are often
the best at their proper work, can let their hearts come out only
through their eyes; but it is not the less sincere, and to the point;
you can make your mouth say what is not true; you can't do quite so much
with your eyes. A Doctor's eye should command, as well as comfort and
cheer his patient; he should never let him think disobedience or despair
possible. Perhaps you think Doctors get hardened by seeing so much
suffering; this is not true. Pity as a motive, as well as a feeling
ending in itself, is stronger in an old Doctor than in a young, so he be
made of the right stuff. He comes to know himself what pain and sorrow
mean, what their weight is, and how grateful he was or is for relief and
sympathy.
_Thirdly_, It is his duty to be _true_ to you. True in word and in deed.
He ought to speak nothing but the truth, as to the nature, and extent,
and issues of the disease he is treating; but he is not bound, as I said
you were, to tell _the whole truth_,--that is for his own wisdom and
discretion to judge of; only, never let him tell an untruth, and let him
be honest enough, when he can't say anything definite, to say nothing.
It requires some courage to confess our ignorance, but it is worth it.
As to the question, often spoken of,--telling a man he is dying,--the
Doctor must, in the first place, be sure the patient is dying; and,
secondly, that it is for his good, bodily and mental, to tell him so: he
should almost always warn the friends, but, even here, cautiously.
_Fourthly_, It is his duty to _keep your secrets_. There are things a
Doctor comes to know and is told which no one but he and the Judge of
all should know; and he is a base man, and unworthy to be in such a
noble profession as that of healing, who can betray what he knows must
injure, and in some cases may ruin.
_Fifthly_, It is his duty to _warn_ you against what is injuring your
health. If he finds his patient has brought disease upon himself by sin,
by drink, by overwork, by over-eating, by over-anything, it is his duty
to say so plainly and firmly, and the same with regard to the treatment
of children by their parents; the family doctor should forewarn them; he
should explain, as far as he is able and they can comprehend them, the
Laws of Health, and so tell them how to _prevent disease_, as well as do
his best to _cure_ it. What a great and rich field there is here for our
profession, if they and the public could only work well together! In
this, those queer, half-daft, half-wise beings, the Chinese, take a
wiser way; they pay their Doctor for keeping them well, and they stop
his pay as long as they are ill!
_Sixthly_, It is his duty to be _grateful_ to you; 1st, for employing
him, whether you pay him in money or not, for a Doctor, worth being
one, makes capital, makes knowledge, and therefore power, out of every
case he has; 2dly, for obeying him and getting better. I am always very
much obliged to my patients for being so kind as to be better, and for
saying so; for many are ready enough to say they are worse, not so many
to say they are better, even when they are; and you know our Scotch way
of saying, "I'm no that ill," when "I" is in high health, or, "I'm no
ony waur," when "I" is much better. Don't be niggards in this; it cheers
the Doctor's heart, and it will lighten yours.
_Seventhly_, and lastly, It is the Doctor's duty _to keep his time and
his temper_ with you. Any man or woman who knows how longed for a
doctor's visit is, and counts on it to a minute, knows how wrong, how
painful, how angering it is for the Doctor not to keep his time. Many
things may occur, for his urgent cases are often sudden, to put him out
of his reckoning; but it is wonderful what method, and real
consideration, and a strong will can do in this way. I never found Dr.
Abercrombie a minute after or _before_ his time (both are bad, though
one is the worser), and yet if I wanted him in a hurry, and stopped his
carriage in the street, he could always go with me at once; he had the
knack and the principle of being true in his times, for it is often a
matter of _truth_. And the Doctor must keep his _temper_: this is often
worse to manage than even his time, there is so much unreason, and
ingratitude, and peevishness, and impertinence, and impatience, that it
is very hard to keep one's tongue and eye from being angry: and
sometimes the Doctor does not only well, but the best, when he is
downrightly angry, and astonishes some fool, or some insolent, or some
untruth doing or saying patient; but the Doctor should be patient with
his patients, he should bear with them, knowing how much they are at the
moment suffering. Let us remember Him who is full of compassion, whose
compassion never fails; whose tender mercies are new to us every
morning, as his faithfulness is every night; who healed all manner of
diseases, and was kind to the unthankful and the evil; what would become
of us, if he were as impatient with us as we often are with each other?
If you want to be impressed with the Almighty's infinite loving-kindness
and tender mercy, his forbearance, his long-suffering patience, his
slowness to anger, his Divine ingeniousness in trying to find it
possible to spare and save, think of the Israelites in the desert, and
read the chapter where Abraham intercedes with God for Sodom, and these
wonderful "peradventures."
But I am getting tedious, and keeping you and myself too long, so good
night. Let the Doctor and you be honest and grateful, and kind and
cordial, in one word, dutiful to each other, and you will each be the
better of the other.
I may by and by say a word or two to you on your _Health_, which is your
wealth, that by which you are and do well, and on your _Children_, and
how to guide it and them.
SERMON III.
CHILDREN, AND HOW TO GUIDE THEM.
Our text at this time is Children and their treatment, or as it sounds
better to our ears, Bairns, and how to guide them. You all know the
wonder and astonishment there is in a house among its small people when
a baby is born; how they stare at the new arrival with its red face.
Where does it come from? Some tell them it comes from the garden, from a
certain kind of cabbage; some from "Rob Rorison's bonnet," of which wha
hasna heard? some from that famous wig of Charlie's, in which the cat
kittled, when there was three o' them leevin', and three o' them dead;
and you know the Doctor is often said to bring the new baby in his
pocket; and many a time have my pockets been slyly examined by the
curious youngsters,--especially the girls!--in hopes of finding another
baby. But I'll tell you where all the babies come from; _they all come
from_ _God_; his hand made and fashioned them; he breathed into their
nostrils the breath of life,--of his life. He said, "Let this little
child be," and it was. A child is a true creation; its soul, certainly,
and in a true sense, its body too. And as our children came from him, so
they are going back to him, and he lends them to us as keepsakes; we are
to keep and care for them for his sake. What a strange and sacred
thought this is! Children are God's gifts to us, and it depends on our
guiding of them, not only whether they are happy here, but whether they
are happy hereafter in that great unchangeable eternity, into which you
and I and all of us are fast going. I once asked a little girl, "Who
made you?" and she said, holding up her apron as a measure, "God make me
that length, and I growed the rest myself." Now this, as you know, was
not quite true, for she could not grow one half-inch by herself. God
makes us grow as well as makes us at first. But what I want you to fix
in your minds is, that children come from God, and are returning to him,
and that you and I, who are parents, have to answer to him for the way
we behave to our dear children,--the kind of care we take of them.
Now, a child consists, like ourselves, of a body and a soul. I am not
going to say much about the guiding of the souls of children,--that is a
little out of my line,--but I may tell you that the soul, especially in
children, depends much, for its good and for its evil, for its happiness
or its misery, upon the kind of body it lives in: for the body is just
the house that the soul dwells in; and you know that, if a house be
uncomfortable, the tenant of it will be uncomfortable and out of sorts;
if its windows let the rain and wind in, if the chimney smoke, if the
house be damp, and if there be a want of good air, then the people who
live in it will be miserable enough; and if they have no coals, and no
water, and no meat, and no beds, then you may be sure it will soon be
left by its inhabitants. And so, if you don't do all you can to make
your children's bodies healthy and happy, their souls will get miserable
and cankered and useless, their tempers peevish; and if you don't feed
and clothe them right, then their poor little souls will leave their
ill-used bodies,--will be starved out of them; and many a man and woman
have had their tempers, and their minds and hearts, made miseries to
themselves, and all about them, just from a want of care of their bodies
when children.
There is something very sad, and, in a true sense, very unnatural, in an
unhappy child. You and I, grown-up people, who have cares, and have had
sorrows and difficulties and sins, may well be dull and sad sometimes;
it would be still sadder, if we were not often so; but children should
be always either laughing and playing, or eating and sleeping. Play is
their business. You cannot think how much useful knowledge, and how much
valuable bodily exercise, a child teaches itself in its play; and look
how merry the young of other animals are: the kitten making fun of
everything, even of its sedate mother's tail and whiskers; the lambs,
running races in their mirth; even the young asses,--the
baby-cuddie,--how pawky and droll and happy he looks with his fuzzy
head, and his laughing eyes, and his long legs, stot, stotting after
that venerable and _sair nauden-doun lady_, with the long ears, his
mother. One thing I like to see, is a child clean in the morning. I like
to see its plump little body well washed, and sweet and _caller_ from
top to bottom. But there is another thing I like to see, and that is a
child dirty at night. I like a _steerin' bairn_,--goo-gooin', crowing
and kicking, keeping everybody alive. Do you remember William Miller's
song of "Wee Willie Winkie?" Here it is. I think you will allow,
especially you who are mothers, that it is capital.
"Wee Willie Winkie
Rins through the toun,
Up stairs an' doon stairs
In his nicht-goun,
Tirlin' at the window,
Crying at the lock,
'Are the weans in their bed,
For it's noo ten o'clock?'
"'Hey Willie Winkie,
Are ye comin' ben!
The cat's singin' gray thrums
To the sleepin' hen,
The dog's speldert on the floor,
And disna gi'e a cheep,
But here's a waakrife laddie!
That winna fa' asleep.'
"'Onything but sleep, you rogue!
Glow'rin' like the moon!
Rattlin' in an airn jug
Wi' an airn spoon,
Rumblin', tumblin' roun' about,
Crawin' like a cock,
Skirlin' like a kenna-what,
Wauk'nin' sleepin' folk.
"'Hey, Willie Winkie,
The wean's in a creel!
Wamblin' aff a bodie's knee
Like a verra eel,
Ruggin' at the cat's lug,
And ravelin' a' her thrums,--
Hey, Willie Winkie,--
See, there he comes!'
"Wearied is the mither
That has a stoorie wean,
A wee stumpie stousie,
Wha canna rin his lane,
That has a battle aye wi' sleep
Afore he'll close an e'e,--
But ae kiss frae aff his rosy lips
Gi'es strength anew to me."
Is not this good? first-rate! The cat singin' gray thrums, and the wee
stumpie stousie, ruggin' at her lug, and ravlin' a' her thrums; and
then what a din he is making!--rattlit' in an airn jug wi' an airn
spoon, skirlin' like a kenna-what, and ha'in' a battle aye wi' sleep.
What a picture of a healthy and happy child!
Now, I know how hard it is for many of you to get meat for your
children, and clothes for them, and bed and bedding for them at night,
and I know how you have to struggle for yourselves and them, and how
difficult it often is for you to take all the care you would like to do
of them, and you will believe me when I say, that it is a far greater
thing, because a far harder thing, for a poor, struggling, and it may be
weakly woman in your station, to bring up her children comfortably, than
for those who are richer; but still you may do a great deal of good at
little cost either of money or time or trouble. And it is well-wared
pains; it will bring you in two hundred percent in real comfort, and
profit, and credit; and so you will, I am sure, listen good-naturedly to
me, when I go over some plain and simple things about the health of your
children.