In no respect, perhaps, is this progress more apparent than as regards the Medical Profession. In ancient times, it was proverbially true, or alleged, that wherever there were three physicians, there were two atheists;[30] that is, the majority of that profession were then deemed atheists, or atheistic. How changed now! Many are, no doubt, still living without any recognition of God. They refuse to be illumined by the light which irradiates others, and grovel amid the grossness of material things, instead of soaring, as they might do, to the spiritual, the heavenly, the eternal. But others, led by the Supreme Wisdom, do soar to these. With religion for their directress, they are skilled in the remedy of the soul as well as of the body. They can occasion the melody of spiritual joy and spiritual health, as well as promote the blessedness which originates in the well-being of the body. An accomplished physician of our day has said, and said with truth: "Every medical practitioner, whether he desires to have it or not, has a cure of souls as well as of bodies. He is literally an inheritor of some of the duties of the very apostles, and called to be an imitator of the Lord Jesus Christ."[31] Now, as no sphere could be named where Religion is confessedly more required, let us consider it for a little in connection with the Medical Profession. * * * * * DANGER-- I. Conversant daily with death, or walking from hour to hour along the verge of the grave, and in sight of eternity, there is some danger lest these great realities should lose their power--that is, lest the mind should become indifferent to all that is most solemn in the lot of man. And what is the antidote? There is none, except a constant realizing of eternal and spiritual things. The mind must be kept constantly under their influence, or the proverb as to the atheists will be at least practically realized. Deprived as Physicians often are, of the repose of the Sabbath, and all opportunities for worshipping the Father of our spirits, they need a double portion of religion in the soul.[32] If it be not possessed, then for the same reason as soldiers and seamen are profligate and abandoned, till their profligacy be proverbial, do those who tend our bodies sink into deeper spiritual darkness than others. Though familiar with death, they are not warned, as other men are, of the need of preparing for what follows the all-decisive change. Accustomed to devote their thoughts and their care--sometimes, perhaps, with feverish anxiety--to the body, they are in danger of forgetting its immortal occupant. Many do forget it, and gaze on the power of that ruthless destroyer who has baffled all their skill, with as little thought as a sexton on a coffin, or on the fragments of the dead which he dishumes with his mattock. Regarding the body as the man, and overlooking all beyond it, a gross materialism becomes