YELLOW FEVER, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.
The rapid spread and appalling mortality of the yellow-fever plague in the towns of the Lower Mississippi have profoundly moved the sympathy of the country, and very naturally raised the urgent question as to what shall be done in so fearful an emergency. Governor Bishop, of Ohio, has made a proclamation, calling upon all the Christian people of his State to assemble in their houses of worship at a given date, and offer their united prayers to Almighty God, imploring him to interfere and stop the pestilence. It seems to us an entirely proper thing to appeal to religious feelings on such an occasion as this; but it should be done in such a way as not to evade the lessons they teach, and we trust it will not be thought ungracious if we point out Governor Bishop's presentation of the case as seriously at fault. Moreover, he brings science into the case in a way that is open to objection.
There are different views in regard to the expediency of such public action as Governor Bishop has taken. Many think it does more harm than good, but that depends entirely upon the way it influences human conduct. If reliance upon Divine help, which, it is supposed, can be especially secured by conspicuous demonstrations of public prayer, has the least effect in checking human effort, such action as that of Governor Bishop is injurious. Only when prayer quickens human exertion in such instances as this is it beneficial; if substituted for it, it is ill-judged and detrimental.
This is simply the dictate of commonsense, which enlightened rulers have already acted upon. It is well known that when the Scotch Presbyterians petitioned Lord Palmerston to appoint a day of national prayer, to induce the Almighty to stretch forth his hand and stop an epidemic, his lordship declined to do it, on the rational ground that, until the people had done everything in their power to prevent it, it would be impertinent to call upon Providence to interfere; in other words, they had no warrant to ask him to protect them from the consequences of their own neglect.
The Ohio governor does not proceed upon the sensible view of the British premier. He assumes the incompetency of science and the insufficiency of human effort, both of which he declares to be "unavailing" to arrest the plague; and, these agencies having failed, he proposes, as a last resort, to utilize "the intervention of Almighty God."
But it is not true that human science and human effort have proved unavailing. They have indeed not stopped the yellow fever, but does Governor Bishop assume that they have been thoroughly tried, and accomplished every thing that is humanly possible? But they have proved availing and greatly efficient in checking the pestilence and diminishing its fatality; and to deny this is to convict the whole nation of folly in the exertions it has put forth to limit the ravages and mitigate the sufferings of the plague-smitten districts. Yellow fever may not now be wholly preventable, but nobody denies that it is partially so; and nobody knows the degree to which it may be repressed and escaped until far more vigilant, efficient, and comprehensive measures of precaution are resorted to than have yet been undertaken.
But, besides basing his action upon a wrong theory, which is to invoke miraculous intervention, to obtain that which can only be procured by natural means, Governor Bishop's view is, besides, not in the highest sense reverential and religious. He instructs the pious people of his State to ask the Almighty to stop the devastating progress of the plague, as if that progress was not in perfect accordance with providential intentions. To ask the Deity to interfere in this way is to counsel
