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Pastoral Ministry
longer able to bear the burden and heat of the day. Ministers are often
appointed to a field of labor that they know will be detrimental to their
[70]
health; but, unwilling to shun trying places, they venture, hoping to be
a help and a blessing to the people. After a time they find their health
failing. A change of climate and of work is tried, without bringing
relief; and then what are they to do?—
Gospel Workers, 426
.
Exercise
Exercise renews the body and makes more pastoral labor pos-
sible—The whole system needs the invigorating influence of exercise
in the open air. A few hours of manual labor each day would tend to
renew the bodily vigor and rest and relax the mind. In this way the
general health would be promoted and a greater amount of pastoral
labor could be performed. The incessant reading and writing of many
ministers unfit them for pastoral work.—
Counsels on Health, 193
.
Ministers should not act as though physical activity is beneath
their dignity—My dear sister, I speak plainly; for I dare not do other-
wise. I plead with you to take up life’s burdens instead of shunning
them. Help your husband by helping yourself. The ideas which you
both hold of the dignity to be maintained by the minister are not in
accordance with the example of our Lord. The minister of Christ
should possess sobriety, meekness, love, long-suffering, forbearance,
pity, and courtesy. He should be circumspect, elevated in thought and
conversation, and of blameless deportment. This is gospel dignity. But
if a minister comes to a family where he can wait on himself, he should
do so by all means; and he should by his example encourage industry
by engaging in physical labor when he has not a multiplicity of other
duties and burdens. He will not detract from his dignity, and will better
relate himself to health and life, by engaging in useful labor. The circu-
lation of the blood will be better equalized. Physical labor, a diversion
from mental, will draw the blood from the brain. It is essential for
your husband to have more physical labor in order to relieve the brain.
Digestion will be promoted by physical exercise. If he would spend a
part of every day in physical exercise, when not positively urged by
a protracted effort in a course of meetings, it would be an advantage
to him, and would not detract from ministerial dignity. The example