As every kind of domestic concern and family business is properly a
woman’s province, to enable her to discharge her duty she should study
the different branches of it. Nothing is more useful in a family than a
little knowledge of physic, sufficient to make the mistress of it a
judicious nurse. Many a person, who has had a sensible physician to
attend them, have been lost for want of the other; for tenderness,
without judgment, sometimes does more harm than good.
The ignorant imagine there is something very mysterious in the practice
of physic. They expect a medicine to work like a charm, and know nothing
of the progress and crisis of disorders. The keeping of the patient low
appears cruel, all kind of regimen is disregarded, and though the fever
rages, they cannot be persuaded not to give them inflammatory food. “How
(say they) can a person get well without nourishment?”
The mind, too, should be soothed at the same time; and indeed, whenever
it sinks, soothing is, at first, better than reasoning. The slackened
nerves are not to be braced by words. When a mind is worried by care, or
oppressed by sorrow, it cannot in a moment grow tranquil, and attend to
the voice of reason.
St. Paul says, “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous; but
grievous: nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” It is plain, from
these words of the Apostle, and from many other parts of Scripture, that
afflictions are necessary to teach us true wisdom, and that in spite of
this conviction, men would fain avoid the bitter draught, though certain
that the drinking of it would be conducive to the purifying of their
hearts. He who made us must know what will tend to our ultimate good;
yet still all this is grievous, and the heart will throb with anguish
when deprived of what it loves, and the tongue can scarcely faulter out
an acquiescence to the Divine Will, when it is so contrary to our own.
Due allowance ought then to be made for human infirmities, and the
unhappy should be considered as objects of compassion, rather than
blame. But in a very different stile does consolatory advice generally
run; for instead of pouring oil or wine into the wound, it tends to
convince the unfortunate persons that they are weak as well as unhappy.
I am apt to imagine, that sorrow and resignation are not incompatible;
and that though religion cannot make some disappointments pleasant, it
prevents our repining, even while we smart under them. Did our feelings
and reason always coincide, our passage through this world could not
justly be termed a warfare, and faith would no longer be a virtue. It is
our preferring the things that are not seen, to those which are, that
proves us to be the heirs of promise.
On the sacred word of the Most High, we rely with firm assurance, that
the sufferings of the present life will work out a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory; yet still they are allowed to be
afflictions, which, though temporary, must still be grievous.
The difference between those who sorrow without hope, and those who look
up to Heaven, is not that the one feel more than the other, for they may
be both equally depressed; but the latter think of the peaceable fruits
which are to result from the discipline, and therefore patiently submit.