untold suffering.*' Sir James had come to the knowledge 

 of this t>ruth by long and careful experiments. He was 

 met by determined opposition, but he did not falter in his 

 faith, and so it is written of him: "He fought the battle 

 of chlorofoi'm as an anaesthetic and won. He thus added 

 to the world's stock of surgical knowledge. In every hos- 

 pital in the world to-day the. new knowledge is in use, and 

 by it untold pain is escaped, and untold lives are saved. 

 And surely lessening pain and saving life are among the 

 higher works of life; works, however, which prayer alone, 

 or good-will alone, is powerless to perform. Simpson was 

 a good man, but in this Christian achievement he had to 

 add to his faith the scientiiic knowledge which comes alone 

 from long and patient experiments. 



Another illustration of what modeni science has done 

 for the divine art of healing is found in its discovery of 

 pathological germs. My aequaintance with the history of 

 these disco-v'eries is not sufficient to enable me to pomt out 

 in detail even the outstanding stages of its progress. I 

 can only suggest. This I can best do by quoting a sent- 

 ence or two from one who is able to speak with authority. 

 I mean om- own Dr. Qsler. Speaking recently of the tri- 

 umph of preventive medicine as the handmaid of the 

 Christian impulse to save life, ho said: "Preventive medi- 

 cine was a blundering art till thirty or forty years ago, 

 when it was made a science by the discovery of the causes 

 of many of the serious epidemic diseases." It is princi- 

 pally in comiection with the great plagues of the world 

 that man's redemption of man may, in the future, be 

 effected. The man is only just dead (Eobcrt Koch) who 

 gave to' his fellow-man the control of cholera. And before 

 om' eyes to-day the most striking experiment ever made in 

 sanitation is in progress. The digging of the Panama canal 

 was acknowledged to bo a question of the health of the 

 workers. For four centuries the Isthmus had been a* white 

 man's grave. At one time, under French control, the mor- 

 tality reached the appalling figures of 170 per thousand, 



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