Again, he characterises the profession of medicine in noble terms. “The profession of medicine having for its end the common good of mankind, knows nothing of national enmities, of political strife, of sectarian divisions. Disease and pain the sole conditions of its ministry, it is disquieted by no misgivings about the justice or the honesty of its client’s cause; but dispenses its peculiar benefits, without stint or scruple, to men of every country or party, and rank and religion, and to men of no religion at all. And like the quality of mercy, of which it is the favourite handmaid, it “blesses him that gives and him that takes,” reading continually to our own hearts and understandings the most impressive lessons, the most solemn warnings. It is ours to know in how many instances, forming indeed a vast majority of the whole, bodily suffering and sickness are the natural fruits of evil courses—of the sins of our fathers, of our own unbridled passions, of the malevolent spirit of others. We see, too, the uses of these judgments, which are mercifully designed to recall men from the strong allurements of sense, and the slumber of temporal prosperity, teaching that it is good for us to be sometimes afflicted. Familiar with death in its manifold shapes, witnessing from day to day its sudden stroke, its slow but open siege, its secret and insidious approaches, we are not permitted to be unmindful that our own stay also is brief and uncertain, our opportunities fleeting, and our time, even when longest, very short, if measured by our moral wants and intellectual cravings.”