r
instance, with regard to such provisions for the study of anatomy as are
sanctioned by the laws in this State and carried out with strict regard
to those laws, threatens the welfare, if not the existence of
institutions for medical instruction wherever it is not held in check by
enlightened intelligence. And on the other hand the profession has just
been startled by a verdict against a physician, ruinous in its
amount,--enough to drive many a hard-working young practitioner out of
house and home,--a verdict which leads to the fear that suits for
malpractice may take the place of the panel game and child-stealing as a
means of extorting money. If the profession in this State, which claims
a high standard of civilization, is to be crushed and ground beneath the
upper millstone of the dearth of educational advantages and the lower
millstone of ruinous penalties for what the ignorant ignorantly shall
decide to be ignorance, all I can say is

God save the Commonhealth of Massachusetts!

Once more, we cannot fail to see that just as astrology has given place
to astronomy, so theology, the science of Him whom by searching no man
can find out, is fast being replaced by what we may not improperly call
theonomy, or the science of the laws according to which the Creator acts.
And since these laws find their fullest manifestations for us, at least,
in rational human natures, the study of anthropology is largely replacing
that of scholastic divinity. We must contemplate our Maker indirectly in
human attributes as we talk of Him in human parts of speech. And this
gives a sacredness to the study of man in his physical, mental, moral,
social, and religious nature which elevates the faithful students of
anthropology to the dignity of a priesthood, and sheds a holy light on
the recorded results of their labors, brought together as they are in
such a collection as this which is now spread out before us.

Thus, then, our library is a temple as truly as the dome-crowned
cathedral hallowed by the breath of prayer and praise, where the dead
repose and the living worship. May it, with all its treasures, be
consecrated like that to the glory of God, through the contributions it
shall make to the advancement of sound knowledge, to the relief of human
suffering, to the promotion of harmonious relations between the members
of the two noble professions which deal with the diseases of the soul and
with those of the body, and to the common c