I have no doubt, gentlemen, that some of you have been saying to
yourselves, Why does the lecturer insist so long upon a point which is
so clear? Of course, none of us doubts that we can in no case aid a
patient to commit suicide. My reason for thus insisting on this matter
is that here again we are dealing with a living issue. There are to-day
physicians and others who deny this truth, not in their secret practice
only, but, of late, to justify their conduct, they have boldly
formulated the thesis that present apparent expediency can lawfully be
preferred to any higher consideration. Here is the fact. At a
Medico-Legal Congress, held in the summer of 1895, Dr. Bach, one of its
leading lights, openly maintained it as his opinion that "Physicians
have the moral right to end life when the disease is incurable, painful,
and agonizing."

What his arguments were in support of his startling proposition, I have
not been able to learn. But I know that a cry of horror and indignation
has gone up from many a heart. Many have protested in print; but unless,
on an occasion like this, moralists raise their voice against it with
all the influence which sound principles command, the saying of
Dr. Bach may at least shake the convictions of the rising generation of
physicians. The only argument for Dr. Bach's assertion that I can
imagine--and it is one proceeding from the heart rather than the
head--is that it is cruel to let a poor man suffer when there is no
longer hope of recovery. It is not the Physician that makes him suffer;
it is God who controls the case, and God is never cruel.

He knows His own business, and forbids you to thwart His designs. If the
sufferer be virtuous, God has an eternity to reward his patient
endurance; if guilty, the Lord often punishes in this world that He may