Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood by George MacDonald

Author:George MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

— Twenty-Three —

My Pupil

In the middle of the following week I was returning from a visit I had paid to Tomkins and his wife, when I met, in the only street of the village, my good and honoured friend Dr. Duncan.

“Well, Dr. Duncan,” I said, “busy as usual fighting the devil.”

“Ah, my dear Mr. Walton,” returned the doctor—and a kind word from him went a long way into my heart—“I know what you mean. You fight the devil from the inside, and I fight him from the outside. My chance is a poor one.”

“It would be, perhaps, if you were confined to outside remedies. But what an opportunity your profession gives you of attacking the enemy from the inside as well! And you have this advantage over us, that no man can say it belongs to your profession to say such things, and therefore disregard them.”

“Ah, Mr. Walton, I have too great a respect for your profession to dare to interfere with it. But I have just been to see poor Catherine Weir. I think she is not long for this world. She has a bad cough, and I fear her lungs are going.”

“I am concerned to hear that. I considered her delicate, and am not surprised. But I wish, I do wish, I had got a little hold of her before, that I might be of some use to her now. Is she in immediate danger, do you think?”

“No. I do not think so. But I have no expectation of her recovery. Very likely she will just live through the winter and die in the spring. Those patients so often go as the flowers come! All her coughing, poor woman, will not cleanse her stuffed bosom. The perilous stuff weighs on her heart.”

“Ah, dear! What is it, doctor, that weighs upon her heart? Is it shame? She is so uncommunicative that I hardly know anything at all about her yet.”

“I cannot tell. She has the faculty of silence.”

“Do not think I complain that she has not made me her confessor. I only mean that if she would talk at all, one would have a chance of knowing something of the state of her mind, and so might give her some help.”

“Perhaps she will break down all at once and open her mind to you. I have not told her she is dying. I think a medical man ought at least to be quite sure before he dares to say such a thing. I have known a long life injured, to human view at least, by the medical verdict in youth of ever imminent death.”

“Certainly one has no right to say what God is going to do with anyone till he knows it beyond a doubt. Illness has its own peculiar mission, independent of any association with coming death, and may often work better when mingled with the hope of life. I mean we must take care of presumption when we measure God’s plans by our theories. But could you not suggest something, Dr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.