Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People — John Shaqi
Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-PeopleBrown, John
Science
Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People
Brown, John
Child rearing; Health; Hygiene; Physician and patient
We have our duties to one another, yours to me, and mine to you: but we
have all our duty to one else,--to Almighty God, who is beside us at
this very moment--who followed us all this day, and knew all we did and
didn't do, what we thought and didn't think,--who will watch over us all
this night,--who is continually doing us good,--who is waiting to be
gracious to us,--who is the great Physician, whose saving health will
heal all our diseases, and redeem our life from destruction, and crown
us with loving-kindness and tender mercies,--who can make death the
opening into a better life, the very gate of heaven; that same death
which is to all of us the most awful and most certain of all things, and
at whose door sits its dreadful king, with that javelin, that sting of
his, which is sin, our own sin. Death would be nothing without sin, no
more than falling asleep in the dark to awake to the happy light of the
morning. Now, I would have you think of your duty to this great God, our
Father in heaven; and I would have you to remember that it is your duty
to trust him, to believe in him. If you do not, your soul will be
shipwrecked, you will go down in terror and in darkness.
It is your duty to _obey_ him. Whom else in all this world should you
obey, if not him? and who else so easily pleased, if we only do obey?
It is your duty to speak the truth to him, not that he needs any man to
tell him anything. He knows everything about everybody; nobody can keep
a secret from him. But he hates lies; he abhors a falsehood. He is the
God of truth, and must be dealt honestly with, in sincerity and godly
fear; and, lastly, you must in a certain sense _reward_ him. You cannot
give him money, for the silver and gold, the cattle upon a thousand
hills, are all his already, but you can give him your grateful lives;
you can give him your hearts; and as old Mr. Henry says, "Thanksgiving
is good, but thanks-living is better."
One word more; you should call your Doctor early. It saves time; it
saves suffering; it saves trouble; it saves life. If you saw a fire
beginning in your house, you would put it out as fast as you could. You
might perhaps be able to blow out with your breath what in an hour the
fire-engine could make nothing of. So it is with disease and the Doctor.
A disease in the morning when beginning is like the fire beginning; a
dose of medicine, some simple thing, may put it out, when if left alone,
before night it may be raging hopelessly, like the fire if left alone,
and leaving your body dead and in the ruins in a few hours. So, call in
the Doctor soon; it saves him much trouble, and may save you your life.
And let me end by asking you to call in the Great Physician; to call him
instantly, to call him in time; there is not a moment to lose. He is
waiting to be called; he is standing at the door. But he must be
_called_,--he may be called too late.
SERMON II.
THE DOCTOR: HIS DUTIES TO YOU.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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