(1875-19656)
Saint Doctor
The story of this great man-musician, philosopher and doctor who rejected a brilliant musical career at its height, to put into practice his philosophy of life, reminds one of the story of St. Francis of Assisi, who turned his back on wealth and pleasure for a life of poverty devoted to helping others. For Albert Schweitzer was no less a saint, though he was not canonized, and in these days, when the complexity of modern life makes saintliness difficult to achieve, this man showed, probably more vividly than any other, that “No way of life makes more sense than the way taught by Jesus”.
Everybody in the little Alsatian village of Gunsbach liked the family who lived in the parsonage, from Pastor Schweitzer down to the youngest child. They were a happy family, understanding and sympathetic, to whom a plea for help never went unanswered, even if it meant that they themselves must be deprived. Into his family there had been born on 14 January, 1875, a boy who was given-the name of Albert. As he grew up, Albert attended, with his brothers and sisters, the village school from among whose pupils, the children of the villagers, they made their friends.
Long before he had taken his doctorate Schweitzer had appreciated that there were many questions about Jesus he needed to have answered, questions which his teachers did not or could not answer, so he set about trying to find the answers himself. These answers he began to set down in a book which he called The Quest of the Historical Jesus. It was a study of the different modern attempts to write a life of Jesus. When it appeared in 1911—it took several years to write-many of his colleagues thought it was a dangerous book, because it might shake people’s family in the Gospels. Schweitzer could not agree with them. “Faith which refuses to face the facts, is no faith at all,” he told them. Nevertheless, the book did give rise to much controversy.
By this time, he had become famous in another field. Widor had asked him to write an essay on J. S. Bach, the great composer for the organ, intending it for the use of church organists in Paris. The essay, in some strange way, developed into a masterly two-volume study of the great musician, a masterpiece which has never been surpassed.
Schweitzer had also become as expert an organist as the great Widor himself, an outstanding exponent of Bach’s music, and in this field, too, he had won an international reputation.
As a theologian Schweitzer had son the respect and admiration of the Strasbourg University authorities. So, when the Principal of St. Thomas’s Theological College resigned, they offered the post to Schweitzer, though he was only twenty-eight.
Untouched by the fame which he had achieved at so early an age in his two main fields of endeavor, he lived a life of happiness which few rarely achieve. No one would have been surprised if he had decided to spend the rest of his life in Strasbourg, travelling in vacations to give recitals on the organ in all the capitals of Europe, looking after his students, helping them with their problems and sharing in their jokes.
When he had been at St. Thomas’s only a year, by chance he came upon a report of the Paris Missionary Society and his eye was caught by an article headed
The Needs of the Congo Mission”. When he had read it through, he remembered the parable of Lazaru and Dives. “We here in Europe,” he told himself, “are rich, because we know how fight disease. We are Dives, but those poor native in Africa are Lazarus, full of sores. We are sinning against them.”
Of a sudden he knew what he must do. He must go to Africa to help the natives, and because they needed doctors, he would become a doctor. So he resigned from St. Thomas’s and became a student at the Strasbourg medical school. He qualified six years later. As soon as he could call himself “doctor” he pressed himself to the Missionary Society and offered his services. The Society, however, though needing medical missionaries desperately, hesitated to take him. His book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, had just been published, and they had doubts about sending out a man whose religious ideas were causing such comment. He persisted in his attempts to persuade them, and at last they gave way.
For the next year he studied in Paris a course in tropical medicine, and spent his spare time collecting money to build, equip and run his own hospital which he proposed setting up at Lambarene, on the Ogowe River, in French Equatorial Africa. He gave concerts to raise funds, approached friends, and received assistance which surprised and encouraged him.
In 1912 he married Helen Bresslau, a friend of long standing, and on Good Friday, 1913, he set out for Africa, accompanied by his wife.
The mission station at Lambarene was built on three small hills above the river, on a narrow strip of cleared land. Twenty yards from the houses the forest rose up in a thick, almost impenetrable barrier, so it seemed. The only building available for use as a hospital until the sectional building which was being sent from Paris, arrived, was a disused chicken house. Nothing daunted, he had it cleaned out and there he set out his medicines and his instruments.
Here every day, before he was up, thirty or forty natives would arrive and with infinite patience squat in silence waiting for him to come. The news of his arrival-that’s to say, the arrival of a doctor-had spread like a forest fire, and sick people came many scores of miles in hopes of receiving the magic of his medicine. To them all his great compassion poured out.
His wife looked after his simple bodily needs and helped him in the dispensary. When darkness fell, and his patients had departed, he would sit down at the piano which had been presented to him by the Paris Bach Society as a parting gift, and into the thick forest and over the river would peal out the majestic sounds of a Bach fugue.
Quickly his fame spread. The natives were most impressed by his anesthetics. “First he kills the sick people, then he cures them, and then he wakes them up.”He was the greatest of all medicine-men, “In nine months, he wrote to his friends, he had treated over two thousand men, women and children, and he had seen almost every tropical disease there was.
Because they were German citizens by birth, despite the fact that he was working for French missionary society, when the First World War broke out, the French authorities in the area placed Schweitzers under house arrest, even refusing to allow them to work in their nearby hospital. They did not complain, but obeyed quietly, and on the second morning Schweitzer sat down and began to write. For the last fourteen years a plan to writ a book about the philosophy of civilization had been forming in his mind. When he would write it he did not know. Certainly since coming to Lambarene he had no time. Now he had time. After a day or two, however, the guard over the house was relaxed. He was allowed to work again in the hospital. For three years the Schweitzers carried on as before, then the stupidity of bureaucracy bore down on them again. They were taken to internment in France. They remained prisoners-or-war until the Armistice.
By this time the first two volumes of his great work ‘The Philosophy of Civilization’ were complete and were about to be published. For the time being, returning to Lambarene did not seem possible to him; but after two years in Europe he knew he must go back. Before he could do so, however, money was needed, and for the next four years he toured Europe giving recitals and lecturing to raise the necessary funds.
In 1925 he had raised enough for his immediate needs, and the Schweitzers set out for Africa. On Sundays he preached to them in simple language the simplicity of his own faith and his philosophy of life.
Lambarene grew, permanent buildings replaced the old shacks and hutments, the work increased. The little settlement in which this great and simple man practiced, a very few other Christians practiced, the way of life which Jesus taught, and the man himself, became famous throughout the world. In 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his services to humanity, and no other recipient has been so entirely and utterly worthy of it.
His wife once asked him how long he intended to carry on with his work. “As long as I can draw breath,” he answered.
“Come home!” Pleaded his friends in Europe. “We need you here.” he returned them a simple answer. “They need me here.” And Albert Schweitzer remained at his task until his death on 4 September, 1965. He was buried at Lambarene.
