world, to your country; to society; to your family; and even to your God, if you are a servant of His. If you are laid upon a bed of sickness and care by such a person as here described, how grievous is it to be borne? Your son or your daughter, on whom you placed much cofidence to be the comfort of your declining years, may be carried to the solitary bed of the grave, just when the opening bud begins to bloom theiryouthful cheek. But above all, the bosom partner of your joys and sorrows, the nurse in your sickness, the choice of your early love, and the sweetner of life, may be laid, for years, on a bed of languishing and pain; and, at last, in the rosy time of her youth, and in the midst of her contemplated pleasures, the rose gives place to the lily, the carmine lips are exchanged for the ermine, and she is carried out amidst the sighs and sobbings of a helpless and tender offspring, to that clay-cold house which is appointed for all living. These miseries are but the shadows of those which often fall to the lot of those unsuspecting persons who depend upon the skill of such an imposter; and facts but too often realized in the simple cottage of the poor peasant. The third and last of these classes, the most dangerous of them all, a Heterodox Preacher. A pettyfogging lawyer may render you miserable by depriving you of all the necessary comforts of life, health and hope excepted. A quack doctor may rob you of health and all its enjoyments; but what are all these to the loss of an immortal soul, which a heterodox preacher may be the cause of your doing? He preaches doctrine inimical to the word of God, and endeavours to make you believe he is leading you in the right way. On a death bed he persuades you that your sins are forgiven, and thus leads you unthinkingly to the verge of destruction, if you give ear to his flattering tale. But as you know there will be false teachers on the earth, as said by St.Matthew and others, who will even, if such were possible,deceive the very elect themselves. Therefore, believe not every preacher who harangues you fair, who pretends to more righteousness than any of his fellows, who says Lord, Lord, but try his spirit whether he is of God, which is of the utmost importance for you to know before you attend to his ministry. For all enthusiasts when the fit is strong, I have now, my dear Charles, given you an outline of those characters, and the evils that they daily commit on the unwary, that I wish you to guard against. I shall next show you that it is not the professions of LAW, MEDICINE, and DIVINITY, that you are to despise, but the bad characters who make bad use of them, when contrasted with those that follow. Law, Medicine, and Divinity, in the hands of good and virtuous men, give us permanent happiness while here, and endless felicity hereafter. In the first place, Law, in the hands of a just man, is like a wall of fire around us.-) -It protects the weak from the attacks of the strong-secures the property of the unarmed from the hands of the armed ruffian-affords protection to innocence, and secures and punishes the guilty. The feeble and weakminded is prevented from becoming a prey to the wiles and deceit of the crafty-sets the innocent prisoner free from his tyrannical and unjust oppressor, and from the galling shackles that chain him to the adamantine rock in the dreary dungeon of despair, and enables him to lie down in safety, and enjoy the sweet repose of contented ambition. These are a few of the advantages that accrue to mankind from a right use of law. The law is honourable, when it is enforced by an honourable person, and such a person I am proud to boast I have for a friend; and whose portrait you will find thus delineated by the prophet Ezekiel xvIII. 7 & 8, And hath not appressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; He that hath not given forth upon usuary, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man. How different are all the actions of this just man, when compared with those of a jackall-pettyfogger? The one is actuated by the principles of honour, of the gentleman, and the man of feeling. The other is hurried on by sordid avarice, deceit and cruelty, and every thing that is mean, base, degrading to law, and contemptible to man; seeking where he hath not strewed, and reaping where he hath not sown. When you meet with, my dear Charles, such a gentleman as I have here said is the just man, (and such an one you wil ་ most probably find in your pilgrimage through life,) place him in your heart's core; for, by the ties of gratitude, you are bound to respect and esteem him; but away with the beggerly pettyfogger!!! In the second place, Medicine, or rather a Doctor of Medicine, also claims your particular attention; and it is the duty of humanity to esteem as much, as it is to despise the other ignorant pretender, whom I have designated as quack doctor. As both pretend to have their authority from the same source, which possibly may be; and both may have studied the works of Galen, Hippocrates, Paracelsus, &c.-made themselves acquainted with their celebrated nostrums, infallible antidotes and special catholicons for all the infirmities of the human body; but I shall endeavour to point out to you the mighty difference in their dispositions, and conduct towards the sick under their charge. I do not pretend to say that every M.D. acts as it becomes the honourable title; nor that every one who passes at Surgeon's Hall, and receives a diploma of their being a member of the Royal College of Physicians, should be entrusted with your life, but that those only who act from a conscience of doing their duty towards God, and towards man. Nor do I say that the additional consonants of M. D. are absolutely necessary to the man of genius to constitute him a proficient in the art of physic. I only mean that, that man who watches with the assiduous care and attention of the good Samaratin, the healing of an ulcer, of a fractured leg or arm, for nights, and even weeks together, and restores the same to health and strength, is more entitled to our respect and esteem, than he who had given it up as incurable, or deprived the sufferer, by amputation of his precious limb, all the means he had in his power of making himself and his family happy for perhaps forty or fifty years yet to come, to save himself from the fatigue of a few nights' sleep, or days' pleasure-Even Esculapius himself would not blush to be counted the good one. Again, if we visit the house of mourning, the chamber of death, the groaning bed of a tender father and affectionate husband, we will find the worthy physician no less active in his duty here, than when he was surgeon in the former case. Behold him sharing the misery of the disconsolate family; attending with filial affection the convulsied movements, and every despairing throe of a frame, which, to all appearance, would soon become a tenant of that house wherein the weary rest from their labours, and where the sorrows of the troubled cease. Even when hope has been buried in the bosom of affliction, the faithful physician perseveres in the work of beneficence and love: he gives that cordial cup to a dying man that soothes his sorrows in the midst of his troubles, and consoles his weeping relations. Were we, but for a moment, to visit this scene of distress, it would teach us what respect is due to such a man. Suppose yourself for a moment in the company of one who has been given up by his former physician, -see him stretched on a bed of pain. While in the agony of despair he rolls his head on the agonizing pillow of affliction; unable to speak, he lifts the chilly hand, expiring in death, and beckons silence from the friendly group, who weeps their departing friend. But Oh! the cries, the tears, the unfeigned tears, that run in torrents down the spotless cheek of innocence, the heart-rending scene of misery, the unparalleled spectacle of woe, that presents itself in the little urchins that fondly cling to the heart-broken mother, unconscious of what is done or said. Here the physician, the friend of man, displays his healing art to an astonished and hopeless family.He dries the tears of the witless babe. and makes the heart of the sorrowful mother rebound with joy.-He restores to health the dying father, and presents him a living sacrifice to the bosom of a grateful and numerous offspring. The blessings that daily arise to our country, to society, and to private individuals in particular, from this highly useful profession, are obvious to every one; but the best of things may be abused. How different is the conduct, and how commendable the physician, and how much more dear to us is he who makes himself one of the family, partakes of its sorrows, feels for its afflictions, and spends many weary days and midnight oil in pursuit of remedies to alleviate its burden of woe, than he, whose only desire is gain, who laughs at his suffering patient, while, in the bitterness of his soul, he exclaims against all sublunary things, and death wringing his heart in two, and giving the last stroke to his shattered frame! The third and last, an Orthodox Preacher of the Gospel,a Doctor of Divinity. (As the word doctor signifies teacher, I apply it in a general sense, that is to say, to all ministers of the gospel without discrimination.) Among all men, a preacher of the gospel is most entitled to your reverence and respect. The lawyer secures your property to you, the physician your health, but the minister, (with your own assistance,) your soul. The lawyer and physician claim your respect upon their own account; but the minister claims it from the relation he stands to those on high. A preacher of the gospel is also a minister of the gospel. But while he administers unto the flock under his pastoral care, the glad tidings of salvation, he must not himself be a cast-away, but endeavour, like young Timothy, to imitate the life of his blessed Master in all those actions which can be accomplished by human nature, that he may be come a burning and a shining light to all those who are travelling Zion-wards; and also, that his example before men may be such as becometh one in alliance with the Most High: for example is more followed than precept, and leaves a more lasting impression upon the mind. A minister of the gospel is one of peace to a troubled mind -He makes your case his own, and weeps and prays with you in the evil day of your calamity and trouble-He visits the widows and fatherless in their affliction, and keeps himself unspotted from the world. He is the pilot of your immortal soul-He wrestles with God in prayer f for your salvationHe comforts the broken-hearted, and cures the bleeding soul. To him who sits in the valley of the shadow of death, under the bond of iniquity, and in the gall of bitterness, he is as a light to his feet, and as a lamp to his path. He dispels the dark clouds of ignorance from the burdened mind, and cheerishes the downcast and desponding sinner. He encourages the feeble hand, and builds up and strengthens those that are already begun in the works of faith and love. These are a few of the offices and duties of a minister of the everlasting gospel; and as such, whatever may be your station or situation in life, he claims your regard. His appearance may be mean, the family from whom he has descended obscure, and his relations poor and despised; nevertheless he is entitled to respect. A cock, insignificant as he is, proved a preacher 1 |