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Counsels on Health
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!
Familiarity With Suffering
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,
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
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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 Physician’s Need of Sympathy
The duties of the physician are arduous. Few realize the mental and
physical strain to which he is subjected. Every energy and capability
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 hair’s breadth 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 direction
are not inferior to those of the most devoted minister or missionary
worker. Deprived, as he often is, of needed rest and sleep, and even
of religious privileges on the Sabbath, he needs a double portion of
grace, a fresh supply daily, or he will lose his hold on God and will
be in danger of sinking deeper in spiritual darkness than men of other
callings. And yet often he is made to bear unmerited reproaches and is
left to stand alone, the subject of Satan’s fiercest temptations, feeling
himself misunderstood, betrayed by his friends.
Many, knowing how trying are the duties of the physician, and how
few opportunities physicians have for release from care, even upon the
Sabbath, will not choose this for their lifework. But the great enemy is