Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/113

 countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren; in labour and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches.' In comparison with this, the 'Don't-worry Gospel' of the Christian Scientists seems utterly beside the mark. Health is undoubtedly good, but it must sometimes be cast away in the service of others.

Of course there is a philosophical difficulty in the whole position of the relation of religion to medicine. In a manner they are, as it were, at loggerheads from the outset. The Church is bound to teach that it matters not how long or how short a man's life is, if it is rightly spent, whereas the doctor's point of view must be to keep the man alive at any price. And although we may feel that, under certain circumstances, the medical attitude might be modified, it is the only safe one in the present state of our knowledge. Euthanasia seems, on the surface, a most humane and comforting suggestion, but it is allowing us finite beings to take into our own hands things which are beyond our comprehension. We