ing to his
generosity.

Dr. Sill was a physician, but specialized in surgery, and, while he
never developed any spectacular rapidity of technique, became known as
one of the most capable and conscientious surgeons in central New York.
He always told patients what he believed to be the exact truth, and
without the untoward results which some practitioners apprehend from
such a policy. A surgeon who prayed with patients just before resorting
to the knife was sometimes rather disconcerting to the irreligious, but
his attitude was a comfort to many in the dire distress of illness, and
in all it inspired confidence in the man himself. In many an isolated
farm house of Otsego the only religious ministrations came with Dr.
Sill's medical attendance, and there were unnumbered cases in which his
call to heal the body resulted in the regeneration of a soul.

Where patients were able to pay, Dr. Sill charged a good price for his
services, but the fees were adjusted upon a sliding scale, and the
amount of his professional service without pay is incalculable. In this
respect he was not unlike his colleagues in a profession which probably
gives more for nothing than any other, but, having independent means, he
was able to go farther in this direction than most practitioners, and he
counted it a pleasure to give away his time and skill without reward.

There was a tinge of Puritanism in Dr. Sill's Christianity which to some
minds imported an unnecessary strictness of view, but none could quarrel
with it, for he practised his austerities upon himself, not toward
others. Certain precepts of the Sermon on the Mount usually interpreted
in a figurative sense he took literally as rules of action. "Give to him
that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou
away" was one of these. His literal fidelity to this precept afforded
him the deep satisfaction of giving aid to honest neighbors in distress;
it enabled him to come to the rescue in the emergencies which sometimes
face the most industrious and deserving. But also it gave him the pain
of learning how many plausible persons are eager to make fair promises
that mean nothing, and taught him that there are human beings to whom
acts of loving-kindness are as pearls before swine. The honest man in
trouble came to Dr. Sill, the drunkard to take the pledge, the sorrowful
to be comforted, the desperate to be advised. But so came also the
rogue, and the wheedling hypocrite,