but it does not follow that the law cannot grant a
privilege to the one and refuse the same to the other, for reasons which
require it in the case of the lawyer and not in that of the Doctor.

III. Besides the rights and duties which arise for the physician from
his contracts with the state and with his patients, there are other
claims on his conscience, which proceed from his character as a man, a
Christian, and a gentleman.

1. _As a man_, he is a member of the human family, not a stranger
dwelling amid an alien race, but a brother among brothers. He cannot
say, as did the first murderer, Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But
rather he must carry out the behest of the great Father of the human
family: "God has given to each one care of his neighbor."

The maxim of Freemasons is that every member of that secret society must
come to the assistance of every brother-mason in distress. But the law
of nature and of nature's God is wider and nobler; it requires every man
to assist every fellow-man in grievous need. The rich glutton at whose
door lay Lazarus dying of want was bound, not by any human but by the
higher law, to assist him; and it was for ignoring this duty that the
soul was buried in hell, as the gentlest of teachers expresses it.

(_a_) As physicians, as men, you will have duties to the poor, who
cannot pay you for your services; they are your fellow-men. Their bill
will be paid in due time. He is their security who has said: "Whatsoever
you have done to the least of these, you have done it unto Me." He may
pay you in temporal blessings, or in still higher favors, if you do it
for His sake; but pay He will, and that most liberally: "I will repay,"
says the Lord. The rule of charity for physicians is that they should
willingly render to the poor for the love of God those professional
services which they are wont to render to the rich for pecuniary
compensation. While thus treating a poor patient they should be as
careful and diligent as they would be for temporal reward; what is done
for God should not be done in a slovenly fashion.

(_b_) In this connection of regard for the poor, allow me also to call
your attention, gentlemen, to a point which students of medicine are apt
to forget at times, and yet which both God and the world require you
ever to bear in mind: it is the respect which every man owes to the
mortal remains of a departed brother. I do not know that a people has
ever been found, even among b