No one then has better and more various opportunities for studying human character than the physician: and he adds every day from this source to the storehouse of his experience. I need not spend time to prove, that this knowledge of character thus acquired confers upon him a means of influence which he otherwise could not have. It not only gives him a tact in influencing men generally; but in individual cases, the revelations of thought and feeling which he has witnessed at the fireside or in the sick room, made in the free and unguarded moment, under the application of faithful tests, afford him such an insight into the character, that he knows just what chord to strike, to produce the effect which he desires. He needs not to feel his way to the heart. He has already learned it. He knows just what motives will act with the most certainty, and needs not to make any random experiments. What responsibility then rests upon the physician! How careful should he be in the expression of his opinions! At what high ends should he aim in his daily example! How important that he should be right upon the great moral questions which agitate the community, and that his morality should be strictly that of the Bible! Too often is it the case, that the physician, who professes to be governed by principle, exerts no such commanding influence, as his relations to his fellow men enable him to do; but, as a matter of policy, avoids committing himself decidedly and openly upon those subjects which occasion any diversity of opinion in the community. Those who thus for selfish ends fail to meet the full responsibilities of their station, do not, indeed, like the unprincipled, undertake to please everybody (a contemptible course, and commonly a profitless one) but they at least make it a main point to displease no one. In so doing, it is true, they make no direct attack upon principle, and inflict no positive injury upon the moral interests of society; but they are guilty of a sacrifice of principle, and they neglect to do the good which it is in their power to do. Suffice it to say, that while the physician should not court opposition by any needless attacks upon the opinions and prejudices of others, for this would impair his usefulness, a dignified and firm expression of his sentiments, and a decided influence for good upon every great moral question, we have a right to expect from one who has so great a share, as the physician necessarily has, in moulding the character of society.