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/228

 sufficiently shown that you cannot isolate the individual from the society in which he moves; that were to make him an unreal abstraction. The Church has never committed that mistake in her dealing with the sick. When we pray, in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick, that God would 'preserve and continue this sick member in the unity of the Church,' the prayer breathes the very spirit of ancient piety. It is an unspeakable help, in dealing with a sick man, to be able to appeal to his own conscious and sincere membership in the Body of Christ. The Visitation Office is 'peculiarly a ministration for those who have been trained beforehand in the fulness of Church life and privileges.' Herein, as often, the Prayer-book sets up an ideal standard. But, however far our actual practice falls short of it, we must work towards it. It is said of St. Francis of Assisi that, 'in each one, with whom he had to deal, he saw a possible Christ.' A bold saying, had it not been that the Master Himself had anticipated it. In the Christian view of things, the sick and suffering, whatever their religious attainments and professions may have been, have a clear claim upon the other members of the One