Page:The Harveian oration 1888.djvu/45

37 and whose shackles he has finally to unloose. The last disease will disappear, we may believe, only when man is perfect; and as in the presence of the Saviour all disease was healed, so, before perfect virtue, sorrow and suffering shall fade away. Whether the world is ever to see such a consummation no man can say; but as ages roll on, hope does in some measure grow. In the midst of all our weaknesses, and all our many errors, we are certainly gaining knowledge, and that knowledge tells us, in no doubtful terms, that the fate of man is in his own hands." Let us hopefully strive to increase that knowledge and so help, each one, to hasten on the time, far distant though it yet appears, when the last disease will disappear and man be perfect; when "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away."