privately in His tabernacle from the spite of tongues; when thou wilt
discover that thou hast been learning precious lessons for thy
immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely tossing with
clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt find that
God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed to have
left thee most utterly.'

Thank God, we can say that, and more; and we will say it. But we
must bear in mind, that the Gospels, which are the very parts of
Scripture which speak most concerning disease, omit almost entirely
that cheering and comforting view of it.

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