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Counsels on Health
gracious promises, from which those who are suffering, whether in
body or in mind, may receive comfort and hope and encouragement.
The plan to provide institutions for the proper care of the sick
originated with the Lord. He has instructed His people that these
institutions should be established. With them are to be connected intel-
ligent, God-fearing physicians, who know how to treat the sick from
the standpoint of the skillful Christian physician. These physicians are
to be earnest and active, serving the Lord in their activity. They are to
remember that they are working in the place and under the oversight of
the Great Physician. They stand as guardians of the beings that Christ
has purchased with His own blood, and it is therefore essential that
they be governed by high, noble principles, carrying out the will of
the divine Medical Missionary, who is ever watching over the sick and
suffering.
He who is set as a guardian of the health of the sick should un-
derstand by experience the soothing power of the grace of Christ, so
that to those who come to him for treatment he can impart in words
the uplifting, health-giving power of God’s own truth. A physician is
not fit for medical missionary work until he has gained a knowledge
of Him who came to save perishing, sin-sick souls. If Christ is his
teacher, if he has an experimental knowledge of the truth, he can hold
up the Saviour before the sick and dying.
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The sick note carefully the looks and words and acts of their physi-
cian, and as the Christian physician kneels beside the bedside of the
sufferer, asking the Great Physician to take the case into His own
hands, an impression is made upon the mind of the sick one that may
result in the saving of his soul.