ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
53 
dical gentlemen who were attached, not only to our embaswsy, but to all 
preceding embassies, for the charity and humanity with which they 
relieved the wants of these poor people. They not only distributed 
their medicines gratis, but they as gratuitously bestowed their skill, 
their time, and their zeal, for which, it is grievous to say, in very few 
instances did they meet with corresponding gratitude. 
We read in Scripture, that among the earliest miracles of our Saviour, 
which spread abroad his fame throughout Syria, was the healing of all 
manner of sickness; and as the state of medicine among the Jews at 
that time was perhaps not greater than it is among the Persians of the 
present day, it is left to us to admire that wisdom which at once 
adopted means in every respect so well calculated to draw the public 
attention to his doctrine. Great multitudes followed our Saviour from 
Gallilee, and fi'om Decapolis, and from Jerusalem^ and from Judea, 
and from beyond Jordan; and it is to be supposed, that as the mul¬ 
titude approached our Saviour, impressed with a conviction of his 
ability to relieve their bodily sufferings, they must have had a cor¬ 
responding temper of mind, favourable to the reception of the doctrine 
that he was about to preach. From these circumstances, we may de¬ 
duce, that where it is intended to preach Christianity, it would be done 
with greater certainty of success by men who, in the first instance, 
should spread their fame by healing the sick gratis. The woman 
afflicted by an issue of blood, for twelve years, is represented to have 
spent all that she had., having suffered many things of many phy¬ 
sicians, and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse, till at length 
she had recourse to our Saviour, where she met the reward of her 
faith. 
Our doctors owed their reputation to their gratuitous cures, as far as 
their skill and means extended. Many a time did they relieve poor 
persons, who had ruined themselves in paying all they had to the igno¬ 
rant and relentless Persian doctors, who at length left them worse than 
they were at first. When we reflect upon the effect that a restoration 
to health, free of expense, must have upon the minds of the poor, who 
