Tenth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton : October, 1865.

  • State Lunatic Hospital (Northampton, Mass.)
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tenth annual report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton : October, 1865. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and asked him if it was correct. “ Certainly it is,” was his reply. “ You might have said a greater degree, but, perhaps it would not be best to say so.” Where so large a proportion of patients attend as are now accustomed to be present here, it is not to be expected that the occasion will always, or generally, pass without some eccentric¬ ities of action ; yet, if regard be had to the sum of action, in assembling, as well as during the service, and in withdrawing, it is believed that what was written at Bloomingdale may be written at Northampton. The very pertinent question is not unfrequently asked by strangers,—“ To what extent is the sermon understood ? ” To this it may be answered,—“ Much more extensively than would be supposed by a stranger.” We now have patients who not only comprehend the sermon, but follow the speaker with a critical acumen so keen, that, if he care for criticism, he may well be upon his guard. From this extreme there are, in the audience, all degrees of comprehension and appreciation, to the lowest opposite, where the words fall upon ears essentially deaf to the spirit of them. If the question be asked,—“ Is there any vitality of the religious sentiment or any fervor of devotional feeling?” it must be answered essentially like the former;— that here, as in the world at large, there are all degrees between the two extremes—utter indifference and the zeal of the devotee. Ministers, particularly if they have never before officiated in a hospital, are sometimes embarrassed in deciding upon the character of their discourses. As the result of long observa¬ tion, it may be said that, in reference to merely literary merits, it is here, as probably elsewhere, always wisest and best to address the most competent judges ; and, in regard to senti¬ ment, all denunciations and the weightier terrors of the law, all speculative and much controverted points, and all purely sectarian or denominational dogmas or doctrines, should be avoided. As an indication of one of “ time’s changes,” it may be men¬ tioned that the first sermon ever addressed, in America, to an audience in an institution like this, was preached on the 31st of August, 1819, by the Rev. John Sanford, at the New York Hos¬ pital. What so recently was an experiment has now become a
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