length, uncovering her fair neck, she lays it on the block-the headsman's work is done-and all is over. "And now," as a recent eloquent writer says, "her last act was done with such nobility, with such solemnity, as has all but awed the world out of recollection of the stormy scenes before. For our own part, we offer no plea for Mary Stewart, nor attempt to veil the crimes of her career; but, as she stands, we know of no more wonderful figure in all the long panorama of history."

M

178

MEDICINE AND MERCHANDISE.

(The Summing up of a Newspaper Correspondence.)

SIR,-I am neither a medical nor a commercial man; nevertheless, I hope I am not the less qualified to form and express an opinion on the controversy between Dr. G. and Mr. E., which is a very pretty quarrel as it stands. While I think it is wrong, in a world where all are so mutually dependent, and where all should be mutually helpful, to exalt one profession or pursuit at the expense of another, there can be no doubt that some are inherently more noble than others. To cure disease, to save life, to mitigate the pangs of death, is surely in itself a nobler occupation than to deal in potatoes, or even to print calicoes. And in speaking to a number of young men whose professional duties will shortly call them into the most delicate, important, and solemn relations with numbers of their fellow-creatures, I cannot think the Professor was far wrong in insisting that their

conduct must be influenced by something higher than mere money motives. This feeling, while it may be, and ought to be, blended with the skill and knowledge which go to form the able medical practitioner, and which, strictly speaking, are his capital, gives that knowledge and skill a double efficacy in all his professional intercourse, for it is something akin to an ever-present sense of responsibility connected with the discharge of all his duties. The doctor who does not practise his profession in this spirit has yet much to learn ; and young and generous minds have need of the warning; for the spirit of worldliness, money-getting, and self-seeking will assert itself time enough, as it does with the most of us; which is no reason, however, why we should not be told there is a "more excellent way."

But, leaving the doctor and the merchant to settle that point to their own satisfaction, there is one principle Mr. E. lays down with a dogmatism proportioned to its absurdity. He says "The commercial man and the professional man stand exactly in the same position, adopting different means to attain the same end (¿.e., the attainment of a livelihood and a competence); and I hold that the test of ability is exactly the same, viz., success. Now, I hold such a dictum to be equally erroneous, vulgar, and degrading, and were it the deep and practical belief of our best commercial men, Professor

G.'s remarks on them, as a class, would be more than merited. Success! The making of money the test of ability! The whole moral value of our social life summed up in the sublime axiom-"Success is virtue and misfortune crime !” Well, I think illustrations are neither few nor far to seek to show that money-making is a pursuit level to the meanest capacity, both moral and intellectual; and that, taken per se as the test of ability, it is a superiority that poorer men-professional or commercial-with better hearts and brains, may well afford to despise. And I think I could run over the names of a few men in this old world's past history who would fail ignominiously if subjected to Mr. E.'s lofty test, but who nevertheless have been mankind's highest benefactors-who have been successful in the noblest sense, and who have left a track of light across the centuries, in lives, or deeds, or books of priceless worth, when the mighty merchants of Tyre and Sidon are remembered no more for ever.

"Have we not known a man full of himself,

His business, money, preparations, schemes,
Without whose aid the world could not go round,
Die, and be no more missed from out the crowd
Than the sere leaf from off the forest tree?"

For what is success? To amass money? or to try to live a noble and unworldly life? To convert yourself,

by many years of strenuous labour, into a machine? or to strive to develop yourself into a man, which I think, upon the whole, was God's intention? When that is not achieved, but frustrated, any amount of money success will be but barren compensation. An eminent French philosopher was invited to accept a distinguished chair in the university of another country, and while it was intimated that his emoluments would be doubled, it was also stated that his time would be much more occupied than before in the discharge of his duties. The philosopher, grateful for the intended honour, replied that, in his present position, he had already sufficient for his wants, and that he could not afford to waste his time in making money. Possibly the philosopher's bank-book might have furnished only poor evidence of his ability, and his "success," according to the modern gospel, might have been pronounced a failure.

Mr. E. must know that he is talking "bunkum" when he says, "I look upon them (my class) as the pioneers of civilisation, and the backbone of every great work and enterprise throughout the world." Professor G., in his address, was speaking of the motives which ought to animate the medical practitioner, and this magniloquent self-laudation on the part of Mr. E. means nothing if it does not mean that his class are "pioneers and backbones," &c., from the loftiest motives of commercial