The great object of the physician should be to cure the patient. This is his vocation, and nothing should be permitted to interfere with it. And he must be on his guard, lest he give up this object too readily. For often, very often, especially in acute diseases, in cases which are apparently hopeless, recovery does occur. The physician therefore should avoid, even in desperate cases, producing the impression upon the mind of the patient, that he really believes the case to be hopeless. Nothing but the most absolute certainty would warrant his doing this. The cordial influence of hope, as I have shown in the chapter on the Influence of Hope in the Treatment of Disease, is often one of the means by which a recovery is effected, and _the absence of this one means may prove fatal_. Who then will dare to take the responsibility of withholding this cordial, often so essential a remedy, with the vain expectation (for experience shows that it is commonly vain,) that in the midst of all the turmoil and agitation of the fearful struggle of life and death for the mastery, the spirit may be led to make its peace with its God? And yet it is often claimed, that the physician should under such circumstances declare to the patient the certainty of his death; and if he decline doing so, he is blamed for what is considered to be a palpable neglect of duty. Vain expectation, I say it is, which many indulge, of producing repentance and reformation at such an hour. The mind is weakened by the disease, thought and feeling and sensation are all confused, the dim vision of the eye of flesh is the faithful index of the dim vision of the mind, and the poor soul, while it sees everything thus confusedly, is tossed about upon the billows of conflicting passions and hopes and fears. It is true that there is a power, which can pluck it from the billows, and plant its feet upon the rock of ages. It is an almighty power that cannot be limited; but we have reason to think, that seldom is this signal interposition put forth in this extremity. A true philosophy declares, that this is no time for the clearness of view, and definiteness of action, which religion demands of man, and experience affirms the truth of the declaration. Clergymen and physicians, who have had ample opportunities of observation upon this point, have but little confidence in any apparent change of character at the hour of death. It is their universal testimony, that those who have made professions of repentance and reformation, when they supposed themselves to be near dying, and yet have recovered, have commonly given no evidence afterward that those professions were well founded.