Читать книгу Medicine and the Church. Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick онлайн

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God by God flits past in thunder, till his glories turn to shades:

God to God bears wondering witness how his gospel flames and fades.

More was each of these, while yet they were, than man their servant seemed:

Dead are all of these, and man survives who made them while he dreamed.

And all this has been done by faith, and faith alone. Christendom lives on it, and countless thousands are happy in the possession of that most touching of all confessions, ‘Lord! I believe; help Thou my unbelief.’ But, with its Greek infection, the Western mind is a poor transmitter of faith, the apotheosis of which must be sought in the religions of the East. The nemesis of faith is that neither in its intensity nor in its effects does man find any warrant of the worthiness of the object on which it is lavished—the followers of Joe Smith, the Mormon, are as earnest and believing as are those of Confucius!

Again, faith is the cement which binds man to man in every relation of life. Without faith in the Editor of the Journal I would not have accepted his invitation to write this brief note, and he had confidence that I would not write rubbish. Personally I have battened on it these thirty-six years, ever since the McGill Medical Faculty gave me my first mount. I have had faith in the profession, the most unbounded confidence in it as one of the great factors in the progress of humanity; and one of the special satisfactions of my life has been that my brethren have in many practical ways shown faith in me, often much more than (as I know in my heart of hearts) I have deserved. I take this illustration of the practical value of the faith that worketh confidence, but there is not a human relationship which could not be used for the same purpose.