Out of the Cities
75
Why deprive patients of the health-restoring blessing to be found in
outdoor life? I have been instructed that as the sick are encouraged to
leave their rooms and spend time in the open air, cultivating flowers, or
doing some other light, pleasant work, their minds will be called from
self to something more health-giving. Exercise in the open air should
be prescribed as a beneficial, life-giving necessity. The longer patients
can be kept out of doors the less care will they require. The more
cheerful their surroundings, the more hopeful will they be. Surround
them with the beautiful things of nature; place them where they can
see the flowers growing and hear the birds singing, and their hearts
will break into song in harmony with the song of the birds. Shut them
in rooms, and, be these rooms ever so elegantly furnished, they will
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grow fretful and gloomy. Give them the blessing of outdoor life; thus
their souls will be uplifted. Relief will come to body and mind.
“Out of the cities” is my message. Our physicians ought to have
been wide awake on this point long ago. I hope and pray and believe
that they will now arouse to the importance of getting out into the
country.
The time is near when the large cities will be visited by the judg-
ments of God. In a little while these cities will be terribly shaken. No
matter how large or how strong their buildings, no matter how many
safeguards against fire may have been provided, let God touch these
buildings, and in a few minutes or a few hours they are in ruins.
The ungodly cities of our world are to be swept away by the besom
of destruction. In the calamities that are now befalling immense
buildings and large portions of cities God is showing us what will
come upon the whole earth. He has told us: “Now learn a parable of
the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye
know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these
things, know that it [the coming of the Son of man] is near, even at the
doors.”
Matthew 24:32, 33
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* * * * *
Brick and stone buildings are not the most desirable for a sani-
tarium, for they are generally cold and damp. It may be said that a
brick building presents a much more attractive appearance, and that
the building should be attractive. But we need roomy buildings; and