which ought never to be forgotten-" When the administration of affairs is placed in the hands of men, proud of command, and devoted to their own private gain, depend upon it the people will soon become a miserable people." I propose that this maxim be carefully remembered, and this mischief avoided.

I have yet one thing more- "Thinkest thou this, O man that judgest, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?"-Let the judges of the people remember that God will one day bring them into judgment. O that rulers would realize this declaration to themselves-that they must give an account to God of the administration of their government! Sirs, the great God, before whom the greatest of you all is but as a worm of the dust, will demand of you" Whether you were faithful in the discharge of your office?-What you did for his kingdom in your office? Whether you did what you could that the world might be the better for you?" If would often take this awful subject into your you consideration, and O what reason have you to do so, it could not but quicken you to the performance of many actions, which would be "no grief of heart" to you another day. He was one of the best rulers in the world, who thus expressed himself" What shall I do when God riseth up; and when he shall visit, what shall I answer him?" Even Abubeker, the successor of Mahomet, when his people expostulated with him for walking on foot, when he took a view of his army, said, "I shall find my account with God for these steps." He has less Christianity than a Mahometan, who is utterly unmindful of

"the account he must give to God for the steps which he takes."

How prosperously did the affairs of Neo-Cæsaria proceed, when Basil, who lived there, could give this account of the governor- "That he was a most exact observer of justice; yet very courteous, obliging, and easy of access to the oppressed: he was equally at leisure to receive the rich and the poor; but all wicked men were afraid of him. He utterly abhorred the taking of a bribe; and, in short, his design was to raise Christianity to its primitive dig nity!" A Mahometan captain-general, whose name was Caled, once said to a Christian" It does not at all become men in eminent stations, to deal deceitfully, and descend to tricks." It is a miserable thing indeed, when Christians in eminent stations will do such things!

SECTION XVIII.

The opportunities of Physicians for doing good.

THE PHYSICIAN has also many opportunities of doing good, and of rendering himself " a beloved physician;" we shall also offer our advice to him that he may become so.

Zaccuth, the Portuguese, who, among many other works, wrote "A history of the most eminent physicians," after he was settled in Amsterdam, submitted to circumcision, and thereby evinced, that for the

esteemed.

thirty preceding years of his life, he had only dissembled Christianity at Lisbon; yet, because he was very charitable to poor patients, he was much We now apply ourselves to those whose love to Christianity, we hope, is "without dissimulation." From them there may be expected a charity and a usefulness, which may entitle them to a remembrance in a better history than that of Zacutus Lusitanus-in that "book of life," in which a name will be esteemed far more valuable than any which are recorded in the "Vitæ Illustrium Medicorum" ―The lives of illustrious physicians—where Peter Castellanus has embalmed so many of that profes

sion.

an

By serious and shining piety in your own example, you will bear a glorious testimony to the cause of God and religion. You will glorify the God of nature, and the only Saviour. Your acquaintance with nature will indeed be your condemnation, if you do it not. Nothing is so unnatural as to be irreligious. "Religio Medici" (the religion of the physician) has the least reason of any under heaven to be "irreligion." They have acted the most unreasonable part, who have afforded occasion for that complaint of Christians-" Where there are three physicians, there are three atheists." It is sad to observe, that when we read about the state of the Rephaim in the other world, the physicians are, by so many translators (they think with too much cause) carried into it. It is very sad to reflect that the Jews imagined they had reason to say-" Optimus inter medicos ad gehennam"-" The best of the

physicians go to hell." For this severe sentence, they assign the following cause-" For he is not warned by diseases; he fares sumptuously, and humbles not his heart before God; sometimes he is even accessary to the death of men, when he neglects the poor, whom he might cure."-A sad story, if it be true!

Sirs, you will never account yourselves such adepts as to be at a stand in your studies, and make no further progress in your inquiries into the nature of diseases and their remedies. "A physician arrived at his full growth"-looks dangerously and ominously. Had the world gone on with nothing but an Esculapius, furnished only with a goat whose milk was pharmacy, and a dog, whose tongue was surgery, we had been in a miserable state. You will be diligent and studious and inquisitive; and read much, think more, and pray most of all; and be solicitous to invent and dispense something very considerable for the good of mankind, which none before you had discovered. Be solicitous to make some addition to the treasures of your noble profession.

Though you may not obtain the honour of being a Sydenham, yet" to do something" is a laudable ambition.

By the benefit they expect from you, and by the charms of your polite education and proper and prudent conversation, you are sometimes introduced into the familiar acquaintance of great men. Persons of the first quality entertain you with freedom, and friendship, and familiarity. Probably you become, under the oath of Hippocrates, a kind of confessors to them, (as indeed for several ages, the confessors were usually the physicians of the people)

you

-With what an advantage for doing good does this furnish you! The poor Jews, both in the eastern and western parts of the world, have procured many advantages to their nation by means of their countrymen, who have risen to be physicians to the princes of the countries in which they resided. Sirs, your admission" to feel the pulse" of eminent persons, may enable you to promote many good interests: you are persons of that education that need not be told that: you will soon perceive excellent methods in which good may be done, if you will only deliberate upon it:-" What good proposals may I make to my patient, that he may do good in the world?" If you read what Gregory Nazianzen writes of his brother Cæsarius, a famous and respectable physician, you will doubtless find your desires excited to act in this manner. You know how ready the sick are to hear of good proposals; and how seasonable it is to urge such upon them, when the commencement of recovery from sickness calls for their gratitude to the God of their health. And for persons also who are in health, you may find "seasonable times to drop a hint."

Physicians are frequently men of universal learning: they have sufficient ability, and sometimes opportunity, to write books on a vast variety of subjects, whereby knowledge and virtue may be greatly advanced in the world. The late epic poems of a Blackmore, and Cosmologia Sacra of a Grew, are recent examples: mankind is much indebted to those learned physicians; the names of such noble men are immortalized; they need no statues, nor need