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Good morning. The plague that swept through Europe in the middle of the 14th century may have killed some 200 million people, up to 60% of the population. Even as late as the 17th century the great plague in London was responsible for 100,000 deaths, 15% of the population at the time. Indeed for most of human history it was assumed that plague, along with pestilence war and famine was just one of the things we were stuck with. Now, however, we take it for granted that epidemics, like the Ebola outbreak, which has so far killed nearly 4000 people, can and should be controlled. With the advent of scientific medicine in the 20th century we work on the assumption that we can eventually discover the cause of a particular disease and find a cure for it, and that with proper public health measures we can in the meantime control its spread. There could be no bigger contrast between the attitude of almost every previous age and our own. We believe the responsibility is ours. The ball is in our court. It’s not predetermined, it’s not fated. It’s down to us. We can do something about it. There was a time when this line of thought seemed a threat to a religious view of life-at least to some people. They believed that the more it was our responsibility, the less it was God’s and vica versa, as though they were two actors competing for the same stage. But that is not how it is. The Bible is clear from the start that we human beings have been given real responsibility. Indeed that is what it means to be created. It is to be given a life of our own, to make something of, and a world to help shape. What is different about our time with its scientific medicine and the ability to take safeguarding measures on an international scale is our larger capacity, our greater responsibility. And some reported words of Jesus seem particularly salutatory Where someone has been given much, much will be expected of him; and the more he has entrusted to him the more will be demanded of him. (Luke 12, 47) From a Christian point of view God not only holds us in existence, he works in and through human beings at all levels, especially those trying to respond to human need. And I think especially of that woman doctor in Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh, and her small staff team at an ordinary family clinic whose quick thinking managed to stop Ebola spreading from a patient they had diagnosed, so far limiting deaths in Nigeria to only 7. Four of the dead are health workers, sadly including Dr Adadevoh herself. Those choices, at both a political and personal level, literally make all the difference.