An Edinburgh Medical Peer
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SIR JAMES Y.
SIMPSON, Bart., M.D., of
Edinburgh,
discoverer of chloroform as an
anæsthetic, one of the
ablest physicians who ever lived, thus wrote:
"When I was a boy at school, I saw a
sight I never can
forget--a man tied to a cart and dragged before the people's
eyes, through the streets of my native town, his back torn,
and bleeding from the lash. It was a shameful punish-
ment. For MANY offences? No, for
one offence. Did
any of the townsmen offer to divide the lashes with him?
No, he who committed the offence bore the penalty all
alone. It was the penalty of a changing human law, for
it was the last instance of its infliction.
"When I was a student at the university,
I saw another
sight I never can forget--a man brought out to die. His
arms were pinioned, his face was already as pale as death--
thousands of eager eyes were on him as he came up from
the jail in sight. Did any man ask to die in his room?
Did any friend come and loose the rope, and say, ‘Put
it
around my neck, I die instead?’ No; he underwent the
sentence of the law. For MANY offences? No;
for one
offence. He had stolen a money parcel from a stage-coach.
He broke the law at one point, and died for it. It was the
penalty of a changing human law in this case also; it was
the last instance of capital punishment being inflicted
for that offence."
I saw another sight--it matters not when--myself a
sinner standing on the brink of
ruin, deserving nought but
Hell. For ONE sin? No; for
many, many sins committed
against the unchanging laws of God. But again I looked
and saw Jesus, my Substitute, scourged in my stead, and
dying on the Cross for me. I looked, and
wept, and was
forgiven. And it seemed
to me, to be my duty to tell you
of that Saviour, to see if you will
not also "look and live."
And how simple it all becomes when God opens the eye.
A friend who lately came from Paris, told me of an English
groom there, a very careless old man, who had during a
severe illness been made to feel that he was a sinner. He
dared not die as he was. The
clergyman whom he sent for
got tired of visiting him, having told him all he then
knew himself of the way of salvation. But one Sunday
afternoon the groom's daughter waited in the vestry after
Church, saying, "YOU MUST come once
more, sir; I cannot
see my father again without you." "I can tell
him noth-
ing new," said the preacher; "but I may take the
sermon
I have been preaching, and read it to him." The dying
man lay as before in anguish, thinking of his sins, and
whither they must carry him. "My friend, I have come
to
read to you the sermon I have just preached. First, I
shall tell you the text, ‘HE WAS WOUNDED FOR
OUR
TRANSGRESSIONS[.]’ Now I
shall read." "Hold!" said the
dying man: "I HAVE IT! Read no
more; HE WAS WOUNDED
FOR MY TRANSGRESSIONS."
Soon after he died rejoicing
in Christ.
When I heard this story, I remembered Archimedes
running through the streets of Syracuse straight from the
bath where he had found out, in bathing, the secret of
testing whether the king's crown had or had not been
alloyed by the goldsmith in making it. And as he ran he
cried, "Eureka! Eureka!! I have found it! I
have found
it!!"
Poor philosopher, you have only found out a new
principle in science! Happy groom, you have found in
Jesus Christ a Saviour for your precious soul! The
clergyman himself who visited the dying groom, was
thus awakened and found Christ.
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