a single charitable institution.  Fearful thought—­a city of a million and a half inhabitants, the centre of human civilization:  and not a hospital there!  The Roman Dives paid his physician; the Roman Lazarus literally lay at his gate full of sores, till he died the death of the street dogs which licked those sores, and was carried forth to be thrust under ground awhile, till the same dogs came to quarrel over his bones.  The misery and helplessness of the lower classes in the great cities of the Roman empire, till the Church of Christ arose, literally with healing in its wings, cannot, I believe, be exaggerated.

Eastern piety, meanwhile, especially among the Hindoos, had founded hospitals, in the old meaning of that word—­namely, almshouses for the infirm and aged:  but I believe there is no record of hospitals, like our modern ones, for the cure of disease, till Christianity spread over the Western world.

And why?  Because then first men began to feel the mighty truth contained in the text.  If Christ were a healer, His servants must be healers likewise.  If Christ regarded physical evil as a direct evil, so must they.  If Christ fought against it with all His power, so must they, with such power as He revealed to them.  And so arose exclusively in the Christian mind, a feeling not only of the nobleness of the healing art, but of the religious duty of exercising that art on every human being who needed it; and hospitals are to be counted, as a historic fact, among the many triumphs of the Gospel.

If there be any one—­especially a working man—­in this church this day who is inclined to undervalue the Bible and Christianity, let him know that, but for the Bible and Christianity, he has not the slightest reason to believe that there would have been at this moment a hospital in London to receive him and his in the hour of sickness or disabling accident, and to lavish on him there, unpaid as the light and air of God outside, every resource of science, care, generosity, and tenderness, simply because he is a human being.  Yes; truly catholic are these hospitals,—­catholic as the bounty of our heavenly Father,—­without respect of persons, giving to all liberally and upbraiding not, like Him in whom all live, and move, and have their being; witnesses better than all our sermons for the universal bounty and tolerance of that heavenly Father who causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good, and his rain to fall upon the just and on the unjust, and is perfect in this, that He is good to the unthankful and the evil.

And, therefore, the preacher can urge his countrymen, let their opinions, creed, tastes, be what they may, to support hospitals with especial freedom, earnestness, and confidence.  Heaven forbid that I should undervalue any charitable institution whatever.  May God’s blessing be on them all.  But this I have a right to say,—­that whatever objections, suspicions, prejudices there may be concerning