This week we received again a strikingly painful illustration of human shortsightedness and of the inadequacy of our unaided efforts to cope with Nature. Scarcely any of the inhabitants of this vastly populated land harbored a fear that medical skill would be baffled in its treatment of General Garfield. Almost every one confidently believed that it had overcome the appalling difficulties met at the outset, and that the improvement in the physical condition of the President would proceed steadily. ‘Science has grappled with a dreaded antagonist and won a signal victory.’ So it was imagined.

On Monday morning we awoke to the sad realization that we had trusted a mere fancy. He whom we considered to have safely overleaped the boundaries of Death, stood ghastly at Death’s door. The strength gathered during six weeks’ exceptional care, sunk on a sudden, because the principal organ whence the blood is nurtured refused its customary office. Then we felt that Nature will not respond to our endeavours, unless its sovereign Maker bids it further our wishes. And we should have then given a perfect assent withal to the teachings of the sages of old, that we ought to thank Providence for every beating of our heart, for our every breath, for every healthful performance of our bodily functions.

The dear patient whose life a few days ago hung on a thread, doubtless saw, that the arms of Science, unsupported by the Lord, could not carry him unscathed over the yawning grave, and in that fearful crisis he must have turned for effectual assistance to the Power that formed his being.

My mind pictured to itself that soul-trying moment, while I announced the forthcoming Elul—a month of propitiatory prayers in Sephardic congregations, — and my heart prompted me to anticipate the object of that month’s devotional gatherings by attuning our voices on this very Sabbath in a supplication to the heavenly Physician on behaif of His servant James Abram Garfield. He who can reckon every fibre of the existence He has framed can, and will in His infinite mercy, create a cure thorough and lasting for the man, to whom an entire nation looks, for guide and counsel.