prepared and well-disciplined soldiers to take their place in the glorious army of the cross, before whom the world itself is destined to fall, and to become "the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory, world without end. Amen!"

LECTURE V.

THE SACREDNESS OF MEDICINE AS A

PROFESSION.

BY

GEORGE WILSON, M.D., F.R.S.E.,

LECTURER ON CHEMISTRY, EDINBURGH.

LECTURE V.

THE SACREDNESS OF MEDICINE AS A PROFESSION.

THE subject on which I am to address you might better, perhaps, have been considered earlier in this course of Lectures. Some of the topics which its discussion embraces have of necessity been brought before you by the lecturers who have preceded me. I must, therefore, crave your indulgence if I refer to matters which have already been pressed upon your notice. What I have to say is addressed more to students than to practitioners of medicine, but I trust that it will prove acceptable to both. I am now connected with the profession only as a teacher of one of the sciences on which it is based, but at one period I was a witness for several years of hospital practice on a large scale, and had likewise the care of patients. In dwelling, accordingly, on the sacredness of our calling, I shall claim kin with you as myself a surgeon and physician.

It was remarked to me once, by a thoughtful

minister, speaking of his own calling, that it differed essentially from all other professions. Secular vocations, he thought, might be followed even by those whose hearts were not in their work, and their duties might be faithfully, though not, perhaps, enthusiastically or zealously fulfilled, by men whose inclinations led them to prefer occupying themselves with objects foreign to their daily duties. Each worldly vocation was like a cloak, which might be thrown off when the round of appointed labour was over, and its wearer unclothed of his professional vesture, might then indulge unrestrained in whatever his heart loved or his hand found to do.

But the minister of Christ, as this ambassador of His conceived, could not take up and lay down his profession as secular men could denude themselves of their lawful callings. It must be the "Be all and end all” of his life; engross his most active and fruitful hours, and be the great central absorbing object of his thoughts, words, and deeds. He was like a ship sent out on some high special mission, which may rest if becalmed, or stop to refit, or to renew her stores, but has no liberty to lose a moment merely to indulge her crew, far less is free to turn out of her course to take part in regattas, to run races with pleasure yachts, or to loiter with covetous merchantmen.