Another fact deserves to be placed by the side of this; viz., that in those countries, or portions of country, where no physicians have ever been in vogue, and very little medicine beyond a few herbs, and roots, and incantations, or charms, the health of the people is quite as good, and the longevity quite as great, all other things being equal, as in those countries and places where physicians and medicine have obtained a strong foothold. There is no evidence that the want of physicians before the flood,--if such a want or deficiency there was, which appears probable,--had any influence in shortening human life, since Methuselah, who lived at the end of the series, was the oldest of all. Nor does it appear at all probable that there were more diseases, or more fatal ones, at that early period, than since. One thought more. It is confidently expected that a better day than the present is yet to dawn upon our dark world. Not only is it predicted that the child shall die a hundred years old, by the highest authority, and that men, like the oak tree, shall live several hundred years, but profane writers no less than prophets and sacred ones, have expected and still expect it. The better time coming is, as it were, in everybody's mouth. But, is it probable that this better day will dawn on a world which, in respect to health and longevity, is going in the other direction? While nearly half our children die under ten years of age, and the mortality is increasing, are we tending towards the point when a child shall die a hundred years old? And are our physicians and our medicines likely to bring us there? If not, and if a radical change is desirable, when is it to be made? Shall we wait till we have run down a century or two longer, or shall we begin the work immediately? And if we are to begin it at once, on whom shall the work devolve? These are questions, I grant, more easily asked than answered. Nevertheless, they must soon be met; they cannot much longer be shuffled off. Would it not be the part of wisdom to meet them now, rather than postpone? Here, then, I leave the subject. Let it be pondered in the light of reason, common sense, conscience, and, above all, the truth of God. Let there be no immature or hasty decisions. Truth, in truthful hands, has nothing to fear. CHAPTER CII. A LAST CHAPTER.