174, LT1story of Gutta-Percha Withe.

 

parson’s medicines be good if he were bad—just as
well as the doctor’s ?”

“Less likely still, I think,” said Willie. “The
words might be all of the right sort, but they would
be like medicines that had lain in his drawers or
stood in his bottles till the good was all out of them.”

““You’re coming very near to the difference of
preparation I wanted to point out to you,” said Mr
Shepherd. “It is this: that the physician of men’s
selves, commonly called souls, must have taken and

_muast keep taking the medicine he carries about
with him ; while the less the doctor wants of his the
better.”

“T see, I see,” cried Willie, whom a fitting phrase,
or figure, or form of expressing a thing, pleased as
much as a clever machine—“I see! It’s all right!
I understand now.”

“ But,’ Mr Shepherd went on, “your father
carries about both sorts of medicines in his basket,
He is such a healthy man that I believe he very
seldom uses any of his own medicines; but he is
always taking some of the other sort, and that’s
what makes him fit to carry them about. He does
far more good among the sick than I can. Many
who don’t like my medicine, will yet take a little
of it when your father mixes it with his, as he has
a wonderful art in doing. I hope, when your turn
comes, yot will be able to help the very man him-
self, as your father does.”