CONCLUDING ADDRESS

TO THE

ATTENDANT.

THE more habituated you have been to the discharge of the painful duties attached to your situation, the more sensible will you be of the many omissions that are to be found in the foregoing directions, and how very inefficient, in many respects, they are for the purpose of their being drawn up; yet still, if in many points they are unprofitable to you, in others they may perhaps suggest some useful hints for the uniting the bodily and spiritual care of a sick person-and at all events may remind and excite you to the practice of what you knew before. It may be that inattention to your duty is in some cases to be complained of more than

ignorance of it; and this little manual may then act as an occasional help to your memory. But my observation has led me to believe that ignorance of many of the duties of your office, or at least so utter an heedlessness as is tantamount to ignorance, is more commonly to be found than may be supposed possible about things so obvious; and very sure I am that from the neglect of the particulars specified above, I have seen much misery ensue to the patient; and this from persons who I felt persuaded. meant to give comfort.--Nor do I confine this remark by any means to attendants in the humbler ranks of life; an excess of feeling may sometimes be as productive of distress to the sick person as a deficiency of it, and certainly, if not regulated, must incapacitate those who indulge it from being as useful as they otherwise would be. How difficult it is when the heart is full charged with grief to prevent it from overflowing, is a truth to which, alas! almost every man's experience in turn

must compel him to bear witness; and yet if your love for your sick friend operate as it should, you will not want motives to suppress your feelings in his presence, and to think of yourself only when you are absent from him, and unable to do him service.---Again, if you are an hired attendant, take with you the appropriate advice of St. Paul, and act your part "not with eye-service, as men "pleasers, but in singleness of heart, "fearing God; and whatsoever ye do, "do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not "unto men: knowing that of the Lord

66 ye

shall receive the reward of the inhe"ritance; for ye serve the Lord Christ." ---Let the consideration that the poor sufferer looks to you mainly for some alleviation of his wretched state, that the advice and medicine of the physician must be unprofitable, unless carefully complied with, and administered by you, and that even when this is done, much yet remains on your part, of compassionate forbearance---and tender

attention, to render even tolerable his sad condition; let all these considerations weigh with you to be patient, if he should be peevish---to be kind, if he should appear unthankful---to bear with his weakness of mind, and forbear from noticing any proof of it---in a word, during the stillness of the night when you may be left alone with him no less than in the day when his relations are present, to act conscientiously by him, as you value your peace of mind hereafter, and would have a well-grounded hope of being yourself treated kindly when under the same circumstances..

One piece of advice more, and I have done; whether you are a friend or a servant of the sick person, as you value the interests of your soul, let not the present scene of which you may be a witness, be lost upon you. You see the helplessness, the pains, the restlessness, perhaps the violent convulsions, the delirious ravings, the total imbecility of body, or deficiency of mind, to which human nature is subject;

and you know not how soon some or all of these miseries may be yours; you learn, moreover, from what you see, how unequal, generally speaking, a sick man must be from these circumstances, to the great work of making his peace with God, when this is to be begun, persevered in, and finished, at one and the same time; how little probable it is, that when (to use Archbishop Tillotson's apt illustration) "the candle is just burnt down into the

socket," he should be able to "let his "light so shine before men, that they may

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see his good works, and glorify their

"Father which is in Heaven." Be wise, therefore, in time---look well to your ways, and see whither they will lead you; and as the hour of the sick man's death draws on, make the salutary supposition of your being in his case, and find out what aecount you are now prepared to give to the great Searcher of hearts and Judge of all. "Consider what ye have to do”---where you have transgressed a known commandment, or omitted a known duty, lose no