Medical Evangelism
[
The Medical Missionary, November and December, 1892
.]
Melbourne, Australia,
September 16, 1892.
I am deeply interested in the subject of medical missionary work
and the education of men and women for that work. I could wish
that there were one hundred nurses in training where there is one. It
ought to be thus. Both men and women can be so much more useful
as medical missionaries than as missionaries without the medical
education. I am more and more impressed with the fact that a more
decided testimony must be borne upon this subject, that more direct
efforts must be made to interest the proper persons, setting before
them the advantages that every missionary will have in understanding
how to treat those who are diseased in body, as well as to minister to
sin-sick souls. This double ministration will give the laborer together
with God access to homes, and will enable him to reach all classes of
society.
An intelligent knowledge of how to treat disease upon hygienic
principles will gain the confidence of many who otherwise would not
be reached with the truth. In affliction, many are humbled in spirit, and
words in favor of the truth spoken to them in tenderness by one who is
seeking to alleviate physical sufferings may touch the heart. Prayer—
short, weighted with tenderest sympathy, presenting the suffering ones
in faith to the Great Physician—will inspire in them a confidence, a
rest and trust, that will tend to the health of both soul and body.
I have been surprised at being asked by physicians if I did not
think it would be more pleasing to God for them to give up their
medical practice and enter the ministry. I am prepared to answer such
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an inquirer: If you are a Christian and a competent physician, you
are qualified to do tenfold more good as a missionary for God than
if you were to go forth merely as a preacher of the word. I would
advise young men and women to give heed to this matter. Perilous
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