If the blessed Saviour should return to earth, and travel from town to city, as he did eighteen hundred years ago, healing the sick, I really think there would be a less number believing in him now than then. Less gratitude for his marvellous cures there could not be; for then some of the miserable wretches, whom he healed free of charge, did not so much as return him thanks. This may be said of some of our patients at this day.
Let a medical man of ever so great reputation travel, and he is lost. A band of angels, on a healing mission, would stand no chance with a people who only expect humbugs to visit them. The Shakspearian inquiry would at once and repeatedly be put,--
"How chance it they travel? Their _residence_, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways!"
Let us view a few travelling doctors through the _public_ eye:--
"So shall I dare to give him shape and hue, And bring his mazy-running tricks to view; From humbug's minions catch the scattered rays, That in one focus they may brightly blaze.
"I'd give our (nameless) knight, before he starts, A tireless mind, where never Conscience smarts; An oily tongue, which word should never speak To call a blush to Satan's brazen cheek; With, yet, a power of lungs the weak to move, Which lung-quiescent ... might approve; A changing face, which e'en might Homer feign, A ton of brass for every ounce of brain.
"Then launch him forth, right cunningly to rage Through the thin shams of this enlightened age; To tell the people they are lords of earth, And pick their pockets while he lauds their worth; Drug men with folly, which no clime engrosses, And sense deal out in homeopathic doses; And making goodness to his projects bend, With all right aims an ultra spirit blend.
"He leagues with those who number in their trade A falsehood told for every sixpence made; To Mammon mortgage all they have of heart, To keep their wealth, with priceless honor part. The fear of God the smallest of their fears, Rolling in wealth, but bankrupt in ideas; To save their purse, their souls contented lose, And count all right, if worldly gain accrues; Who, when they die, no memory leave behind, But in the curses of their cheated kind!
"With these Sir Humbug riches seeks to gain, And feels his way through lab'rinths of chicane; Embezzles, swindles, lies, until at last The eye of Justice on his crime is cast, When, drugged with wealth, he quits our plundered shore, And Texas boasts one fiery hero more."