Value of Outdoor Life
71
In the night season I was given a view of a sanitarium in the country.
The institution was not large, but it was complete. It was surrounded
by beautiful trees and shrubbery, beyond which were orchards and
groves. Connected with the place were gardens, in which the lady
patients, when they chose, could cultivate flowers of every description,
each patient selecting a special plot for which to care. Outdoor exercise
in these gardens was prescribed as a part of the regular treatment.
Scene after scene passed before me. In one scene a number of
suffering patients had just come to one of our country sanitariums.
In another I saw the same company; but, oh, how transformed their
appearance! Disease had gone, the skin was clear, the countenance
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joyful; body and mind seemed animated with new life.
I was also instructed that as those who have been sick are restored
to health in our country sanitariums and return to their homes, they will
be living object lessons, and many others will be favorably impressed
by the transformation that has taken place in them. Many of the
sick and suffering will turn from the cities to the country, refusing to
conform to the habits, customs, and fashions of city life; they will seek
to regain health in some one of our country sanitariums. Thus, though
we are removed from the cities twenty or thirty miles, we shall be able
to reach the people, and those who desire health will have opportunity
to regain it under conditions most favorable.
God will work wonders for us if we will in faith co-operate with
Him. Let us, then, pursue a sensible course, that our efforts may be
blessed of heaven and crowned with success.
* * * * *
Why should not the young men and the young women who are
seeking to obtain a knowledge of how to care for the sick have most
liberally the advantage of nature’s wonderful resources? Why should
they not be most diligently taught to value and to use these resources?
In the location of sanitariums our physicians have missed the mark.
They have not used the provisions of nature as they may. God desires
that the places chosen for sanitarium work be beautiful, that the patients
be surrounded with everything that delights the senses. May God help
us to do our utmost to utilize the life-giving power of sunshine and