10 ESTABLISHMENT OF A GENERAL ANNUITY FUND. 
which his family only can derive assistance when he to whom they 
are indebted for every support is no more. 
In the hour of sickness the professional man feels its burthen 
more sensibly than another, because his presence is necessary to 
carry out his intentions, to watch the effects of remedies, and to 
devise means for the relief of pain. He cannot delegate his pro- 
fessional skill to another ; and it aggravates the depressing effects 
of sickness to know that he is sought in vain. Perhaps of all 
the trials to which physical infirmities subject us, there is none so 
melancholy as when they produce the inaction of previously well- 
exercised faculties. 
But, supposing that the professional man is spared the trial of 
sickness, he must still look forward to old age, to the decay of his 
strength, and probably the decline of his faculties. He naturally 
seeks that 
“ Blest retirement, friend to life’s decline,” 
which will enable him to retire from the cares and anxieties of 
active life. The damps of Autumn sink into the leaves and prepare 
them for the necessity of their fall ; and thus are we, as years close 
around us, detached from the bustle of active life by the gentle 
pressure of imperceptible decay. 
Divinity, law, and medicine have their dictinct Annuity Funds, 
to which the annual payment of a small sum enables the members, 
should they be unavoidably reduced to require assistance, to 
trust to the realization of a provision for the evil day, without the 
humiliating feeling of subsisting entirely on the bounty of others; 
they have a just and equitable claim to seek relief, independently, 
in their adversity, having contributed in their prosperity to the 
common stock ; and I feel confident we shall adopt a system so 
wisely set us by other professions. Mutual sympathy is but an- 
other name for charity in its most exalted sense. Next to the 
ties of kindred and of country, the closest that can bind men toge- 
gether is the common pursuit of an honourable profession: it pro- 
duces a community of feeling with all those who are pursuing the 
same course; a sense of mutual dependence will engender a feeling 
of kindly sympathy ; 
“ Never elated when one man’s depressed, 
Never dejected when another’s blest.” 
This feeling of unity was one of the brightest visions of the 
Greek philosophers, when the suffering of the meanest subject was 
a calamity to the whole community. But I feel I have written 
enough. The vicissitudes of professional life, its struggles and 
its trials, must come home to the heart of every one who has ear- 
