The Healer

To a young physician, with Dore's picture of Christ healing the sick.


So stood of old the holy Christ
Amidst the suffering throng;
With whom His lightest touch sufficed
To make the weakest strong.

That healing gift He lends to them
Who use it in His name;
The power that filled His garment's hem
Is evermore the same.

For lo! in human hearts unseen
The Healer dwelleth still,
And they who make His temples clean
The best subserve His will.

The holiest task by Heaven decreed,
An errand all divine,
The burden of our common need
To render less is thine.

The paths of pain are thine. Go forth
With patience, trust, and hope;
The sufferings of a sin-sick earth
Shall give thee ample scope.

Beside the unveiled mysteries
Of life and death go stand,
With guarded lips and reverent eyes
And pure of heart and hand.

So shalt thou be with power endued
From Him who went about
The Syrian hillsides doing good,
And casting demons out.

That Good Physician liveth yet
Thy friend and guide to be;
The Healer by Gennesaret
Shall walk the rounds with thee

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He was born on December 17, 1807, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and died on September 7, 1892, in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings as well as his association with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers whose work became notable in American literature in the 19th century.

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English

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The Healer

They come to thee, the halt, the maimed, the blind,
    The devil-torn, the sick, the sore;
Thy heart their well of life they find,
    Thine ear their open door.

Ah, who can tell the joy in Palestine--
    What smiles and tears of rescued throngs!
Their lees of life were turned to wine,
    Their prayers to shouts and songs!

The story dear our wise men fable call,
    Give paltry facts the mighty range;
To me it seems just what should fall,
    And nothing very strange.

But were I deaf and lame and blind and sore,
    I scarce would care for cure to ask;
Another prayer should haunt thy door--
    Set thee a harder task.

If thou art Christ, see here this heart of mine,
    Torn, empty, moaning, and unblest!
Had ever heart more...

George MacDonald

Overshadowed.

"Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter, passing by, might overshadow some of them."


Mid the thronged bustle of the city street,
In the hot hush of noon,
I wait, with folded hands and nerveless feet.
Surely He will come soon.
Surely the Healer will not pass me by,
But listen to my cry.

Long are the hours in which I lie and wait,
Heavy the load I bear;
But He will come ere evening. Soon or late
I shall behold Him there;
Shall hear His dear voice, all the clangor through;
"What wilt thou that I do?"

"If Thou but wilt, Lord, Thou canst make me clean."
Thus shall I answer swift.
And He will touch me, as He walks serene;
And I shall rise and lift

Susan Coolidge

The Morning Visit

A sick man's chamber, though it often boast
The grateful presence of a literal toast,
Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth,
The right unchallenged to propose a health;
Yet though its tenant is denied the feast,
Friendship must launch his sentiment at least,
As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips,
Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips.

The morning visit, - not till sickness falls
In the charmed circles of your own safe walls;
Till fever's throb and pain's relentless rack
Stretch you all helpless on your aching back;
Not till you play the patient in your turn,
The morning visit's mystery shall you learn.

'T is a small matter in your neighbor's case,
To charge your fee for showing him your face;
You skip up-stairs, inquire, inspe...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Great Physician.

    "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.

    "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

    St. John, 3:14, 15.


What means that cry of anguish,
That strikes the distant ear;
The loud and piercing wailing,
In desert wilds we hear?

From Israel's camp it cometh,
For Israel hath rebelled;
And these are cries of anguish,
By wrath of God impelled.

It is no common sorrow,
Extorts that bitter groan;
'Tis from the broken hearted,
And caused by sin alone.

Lo! in the far off desert,
Upon that tented ground,
Are many hundred thousands
Of weary travellers found.

In desert of Arabia,
Near forty years they roam;
...

Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow

For The Meeting Of The National Sanitary Association 1860

What makes the Healing Art divine?
The bitter drug we buy and sell,
The brands that scorch, the blades that shine,
The scars we leave, the "cures" we tell?

Are these thy glories, holiest Art, -
The trophies that adorn thee best, -
Or but thy triumph's meanest part, -
Where mortal weakness stands confessed?

We take the arms that Heaven supplies
For Life's long battle with Disease,
Taught by our various need to prize
Our frailest weapons, even these.

But ah! when Science drops her shield -
Its peaceful shelter proved in vain -
And bares her snow-white arm to wield
The sad, stern ministry of pain;

When shuddering o'er the fount of life,
She folds her heaven-anointed wings,
To lift unmoved the glittering knife
That searches a...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

On A Prayer-Book, With its Frontispiece, Ary Scheffers "Christus Consolator," Americanized By The Omission of The Black Man

O Ary Scheffer! when beneath thine eye,
Touched with the light that cometh from above,
Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love,
No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear
Therefrom the token of His equal care,
And make thy symbol of His truth a lie!
The poor, dumb slave whose shackles fall away
In His compassionate gaze, grubbed smoothly out,
To mar no more the exercise devout
Of sleek oppression kneeling down to pray
Where the great oriel stains the Sabbath day!
Let whoso can before such praying-books
Kneel on his velvet cushion; I, for one,
Would sooner bow, a Parsee, to the sun,
Or tend a prayer-wheel in Thibetar brooks,
Or beat a drum on Yedo's temple-floor.
No falser idol man has bowed before,
In Indian groves or islands of the sea,

John Greenleaf Whittier