O Chloroform? by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 28, 1869

“O Chloroform?”

By R. F. Cottrell

I HEARD a funeral discourse. After touching upon several things indicative of human progress in the affairs of our world, and calculated to glorify the inventive genius of humanity, and especially of the men of our own time, the speaker referred to the wonderful discovery of chloroform, a thing that cures pain by killing sensibility, upon which he grew eloquent, and broke out in an apostrophe to it in the words of our heading, in which he extolled it as a great benefactor of our race, in language beautiful, and strains, but one step from the sublime.

What suggested it upon the occasion I could not venture a guess, unless that the wonderful medicine had been used in behalf of the deceased, to smooth the way to, and hasten the progress of, death. Otherwise I could not imagine what fitness it had for the occasion, or what there was about it that could illustrate a gospel sermon. But not choosing to expose my ignorance by asking questions, I have let it rest, only as it has come up in my own mind occasionally, and I have wondered how the kingdom of Heaven, or the gospel of that kingdom, could be likened to chloroform.

Recently reflecting upon it, it was suggested to my mind that it was the preaching of the present day that bears a striking resemblance to chloroform. That as this poison, administered to the physically ill, releases from pain by taking away sensibility and life, so the preaching, or rather reading of rhetorical compositions upon themes calculated to divert the mind from the fact that men are sinners and need pardon in order to meet a coming Judgment and obtain eternal life, has the effect to destroy moral sensibility, put the conscience to sleep, and smooth the way of the sin-diseased soul down to the gates of eternal death.

R. F. COTTRELL.