Responsibilities of the Physician
401
moral law, contains or implies a promise. If it is obeyed, blessings will
attend our steps; if it is disobeyed, the result is danger and unhappiness.
The laws of God are designed to bring His people closer to Himself.
He will save them from the evil and lead them to the good if they will
be led, but force them He never will. We cannot discern God’s plans,
but we must trust Him and show our faith by our works.
Physicians who love and fear God are few compared with those
who are infidels or openly irreligious, and these should be patronized
in preference to the latter class. We may well distrust the ungodly
physician. A door of temptation is open to him, a wily devil will
suggest base thoughts and actions, and it is only the power of divine
grace that can quell tumultuous passion and fortify against sin. To
those who are morally corrupt, opportunities to corrupt pure minds are
not wanting. But how will the licentious physician appear in the day
of God? While professing to care for the sick, he has betrayed sacred
trusts. He has degraded both the soul and the body of God’s creatures,
and has set their feet in the path that leads to perdition. How terrible to
trust our loved ones in the hands of an impure man, who may poison
the morals and ruin the soul! How out of place is the godless physician
at the bedside of the dying!
The physician is almost daily brought face to face with death. He
is, as it were, treading upon the verge of the grave. In many instances
familiarity with scenes of suffering and death results in carelessness
and indifference to human woe, and recklessness in the treatment of
the sick. Such physicians seem to have no tender sympathy. They
are harsh and abrupt, and the sick dread their approach. Such men,
[446]
however great their knowledge and skill, can do the suffering little
good; but if the love and sympathy that Jesus manifested for the sick
is combined with the physician’s knowledge, his very presence will be
a blessing. He will not look upon his patient as a mere piece of human
mechanism, but as a soul to be saved or lost.
The duties of the physician are arduous. Few realize the mental
and physical strain to which he is subjected. Every energy and capa-
bility must be enlisted with the most intense anxiety in the battle with
disease and death. Often he knows that one unskillful movement of
the hand, even but a hairbreadth in the wrong direction, may send a
soul unprepared into eternity. How much the faithful physician needs
the sympathy and prayers of the people of God. His claims in this