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Hospitals and Asylums

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 6, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 8.

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Hospitals and Asylums.

By J. C. Ryle

READER, where are your sins? Are they removed and taken away from off your soul? Have they been reckoned for, and accounted for, in God's presence? Oh! believe me, these questions are of the most solemn importance. A peace of conscience not built on justification by Christ, is a perilous dream. From such a peace the Lord deliver you.
Go with me in imagination to some of our great hospitals. Stand with me there by the bedside of some poor creature in the last stage of an incurable disease. He lies quiet perhaps, and makes no struggle. He does not complain of pain, perhaps, and does not appear to feel it. He sleeps, perhaps. His eyes are closed. His head reclines on his pillow. He smiles faintly, and mutters something. He is dreaming of home, and his mother, and his youth. His thoughts are far away. But is this health? Oh! no, no; it is only the effect of opiates. Nothing can be done for him. He is dying daily. The only object is to lessen his pain. His quiet is an unnatural quiet. His sleep is an unhealthy sleep. Reader, you see in that man's case a vivid likeness of peace without justification. It is a hollow, deceptive, unhealthy thing. Its end is death.
Go with me in imagination to some lunatic asylum. Let us visit some case of incurable delusion. We shall probably find some one who fancies that he is rich and noble, or a king. See how he will take the straw from off the ground, twist it round his head and call it a crown. Mark how he will pick up stones and gravel, and call them diamonds and pearls. Hear how he will laugh and sing, and appear to be happy in his delusions. But is this happiness? Oh! no. We know it is only the result of ignorant insanity. Reader, you see in that man's case another likeness of peace built on fancy, and not on justification. It is a senseless, baseless thing. It has neither root nor life.
Reader, you will never have true peace unless your sins are pardoned, and your soul justified by Christ. Rest not till you can say, “Being justified by faith, I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”—J. C. Ryle.