And why?  Only to force upon our attention, I believe, a view even more cheering and comforting:  a view deeper and wider, because supplied not merely to the pious sufferer, but to all sufferers; not merely to the Christian, but to all mankind.  And that is, I believe, none other than this:  that God does not only bring spiritual good out of physical evil, but that He hates physical evil itself:  that He desires not only the salvation of our souls, but the health of our bodies; and that when He sent His only begotten Son into the world to do His will, part of that will was, that He should attack and conquer the physical evil of disease—­as it were instinctively, as his natural enemy, and directly, for the sake of the body of the sufferer.

Many excellent men, seeing how the healing of disease was an integral part of our Lord’s mission, and of the mission of His apostles, have wished that it should likewise form an integral part of the mission of the Church:  that the clergy should as much as possible be physicians; the physician, as much as possible, a clergyman.  The plan may be useful in exceptional cases—­in that, for instance, of the missionary among the heathen.

But experience has decided, that in a civilized and Christian country it had better be otherwise:  that the great principle of the division of labour should be carried out:  that there should be in the land a body of men whose whole mind and time should be devoted to one part only of our Lord’s work—­the battle with disease and death.  And the effect has been not to lower but to raise the medical profession.  It has saved the doctor from one great danger—­that of abusing, for the purposes of religious proselytizing, the unlimited confidence reposed in him.  It has freed him from many a superstition which enfeebled and confused the physicians of the Middle Ages.  It has enabled him to devote his whole intellect to physical science, till he has set his art on a sound and truly scientific foundation.  It has enabled him to attack physical evil with a single-hearted energy and devotion which ought to command the respect and admiration of his fellow-countrymen.  If all classes did their work half as simply, as bravely, as determinedly, as unselfishly, as the medical men of Great Britain—­and, I doubt not, of other countries in Europe—­this world would be a far fairer place than it is likely to be for many a year to come.  It is good to do one thing and to do it well.  It is good to follow Christ in one thing, and to follow Him utterly in that.  And the medical man has set his mind to do one thing,—­to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against them to the end.

The medical man is complained of at times as being too materialistic--as caring more for the bodies of his patients than for their souls.  Do not blame him too hastily.  In his exclusive care for the body, he may be witnessing unconsciously, yet mightily, for the soul, for God, for the Bible, for immortality.