in which we live, the chief temptation with which young men of ability and ambition have to struggle, is that which places wealth and notoriety before them as the sufficient ends of practical life. Whether it be the natural and necessary effect of our system of government as administered, or of bad seed planted early somewhere in our political and social soil, or of circumstances and influences which have misdirected our national career, it boots not to inquire. It is enough for us to know and recognize the fact, that to live upon the common breath-the popularis aura—is every day judged more and more the worthiest life; and to put money in the purse is held, yet more and more, its highest, chief concern. The reputation of excellence has grown to be taken for as good a thing as excellence itself, and the influence and power which come from accumulated wealth are esteemed better than the virtues and the culture which would give it dignity and grace. It is not worth that makes the man, but what the man is worth. Of course, there are many patriots who will say that this is unpatriotic, and crowds of successful and rising people who will laugh at it as mere "theory," which they regard as synonymous with nonsense. But, Gentlemen, we are under no obligation—we have no right—to deny what we see, because others will not use their eyes, or are blind; nor can we accept as our standard of morals, the precepts and practice of those who have none. It is, therefore, with the most urgent entreaty that I appeal to you, for your own sakes-for the sake of the science you profess and the society you may adorn-to remember and cherish the dignity of your calling, and your own respect as its ministers, amid the seductions to which its prosecution is especially exposed.

I need not tell you what your calling signifies, nor what is tributary to it. It sweeps, in its high scope, the whole sphere of physical and moral science. It leads you into all the recesses and arcana of nature. It is a pursuit, the zest of which is forever heightened and freshened by new discovery, and which perpetually opens new vistas of curious, or delightful, or sublime speculation. It ranges from the contemplation of the mightiest elemental forces, through the most simple and the most intricate developments of primordial law, down to the study of the minutest atoms which only the microscope sees floating in the viewless air. And yet, comprehensive as it is, it has none of the coldness or the barrenness of abstraction about it. You can grasp its results as with your hand— nay, as you would grasp the hand of a friend, for they are as full of substantial sympathy as of thought. Like the Chaldean, it watches, with its guarded flocks around it, and warms the young lambs in its bosom, while its gaze is on the stars. All the fruits of its grand ventures come back with it to visit the abodes and comfort the afflictions of men. Surely its functions are a worship in themselves, and its priesthood should enter its temple with heads uncovered and uplifted hearts. Of course, its highest places are above the common reach. But all its places, when honorably filled, are places of honor, be they high or low. And even the most humble of them are a sort of mystery to the world at large. Men, for the most part, take your profession upon trust, and their very confidence puts you upon honor to deal fairly with them. At the same time it offers you the temptation to be false, if you will. You may deceive society, if you choose, and get money and reputation by cheating it, if you are clever and

dishonest. Know you ever so little, you will know more than the most of those who put faith in you; and you will generally have the advantage which he who knows anything, always has over him who knows less. You may be impostors and mountebanks, and know yourselves and be known to your brethren to be such, and yet prosper like sages, through the credulity of those who are more ignorant than you.

In the profession to which I belong there is, of course, some room for the same sort of imposture. But, for the most part, you have much the advantage of us in the opportunities for quackery. There is the sanction of an old, and therefore, I suppose we must presume, authentic story, for fearing that the earth covers up much of your evil behavior. The Roman populace gave countenance, on a memorable occasion, to this scandalous idea, for when the good Adrian VI was gathered to his fathers, you remember they adorned the house of his physician with garlands, and inscribed on it: "To the deliverer of his country!" In Spain, where the physician still carries the gold-headed cane which used to be the wand of your office, he never attends the funerals of his patients. There is a sort of popular superstition, that he would be reversing Scripture and following his works. The misdeeds of our profession, on the contrary, rest mainly on the earth's surface, and an autopsy is commonly a matter of course. We are confronted in the discharge of our most important duties by astute and zealous rivals, weighed by impartial judges and observant juries, under the challenge of public scrutiny. What we do most privately is open always to the suspicions and the questioning of adverse interests. Nobody thinks of going to the apothecary's to criticise your

prescriptions, after your patient has set out on the "iter tenebricosum;" but there is a lively solicitude, generally, concerning the last will and testament which we have prepared for him. The mourners often go about the streets which lead to the recording-offices, when they would hardly

as poor Hood sighs.

"Visit at new graves

In tender pilgrimage"

Nor does the difference end here. Your relation is necessarily personal and domestic, as well as professional, towards those whom you advise. We are often, doubtless, the private counsellors, the family advisers of our clients, but we are most generally introduced to that professional occupation through the doors of interest. Your duty, on the other hand, leads you to men's confidence through their tenderest solicitudes and their affections. They look to you for succor, hope and consolation. You see them in physical suffering, or broken by the anguish which springs from love and sympathy. You know the secrets of families, their sorrows, their troubles, their weaknesses. If not confessors, you are oftentimes confidants, constantly spectators, of what the world knows not. The trust, therefore, which is reposed in you is not only sacred, but blind, and the greater, in proportion, is the baseness of being false to it. And by this, of course, I do not mean the vulgar baseness of betraying confidence, for on that point no gentleman of any profession can need counsel. I refer to the falsehood which is involved in dealing with those who have absolute faith in you, so that you shall pass with them for what you are not; so that you shall attain the popularity

which comes from pleasing and pretending, instead of that which springs from toiling and deserving. I know very well that necessity is turbulent and lawless. I know the heart-sickness of hope deferred-the "fever of vain longing." I know how tempting is that royal road which leads to success, though it may not lead to science. I fully understand how hard it is for a poor man to go on delving in the mine, in search of the true metal, when he can gather surface-earth by handfuls, and sell it readily for gold. I am familiar with the snares which are set by the lax morals and the follies of society for self-love, for cupidity, for sloth, for weakness, and I appreciate the intellectual and moral force which it requires to keep your feet from them all. But, Gentlemen, the capacity to withstand those temptations and overcome those difficulties is the test of your ability to rise above the dead level of your calling. It is that which will determine whether you are fit for what you undertake to-day-whether your names will be heard among your fellows and remembered, or be counted, unknown, by the dozen, for oblivion.

All cannot be great men, as I have said already, in your profession or in any. The range of excellence and usefulness, however, is happily immense, upon this side of greatness. There are lesser heights, quite high enough for rational ambition-too high for anything but toil and courage to attain. Fortunate are they who can reach even these, after years of patient and conscientious struggle. Without patience and without struggle, let no man fool himself into the hope of treading them. The world, outside, has but a limited idea, and even a more limited appreciation, of what it costs, in heart and brain, to earn a well-deserved professional superiority.